Skip to content

Month: June 2017

Protests in the Motherland

Published by digby on June 13, 2017

Protests in the Motherland

by digby

The last time protests like this broke out, President Vladimir Putin blamed Hillary Clinton and vowed revenge, which he seems to have followed through with. Today’s were bigger:

Opposition leader Alexei Navanly was among hundreds detained in Russia Monday, as protests raged across the country in a sea of rallies that coincided with Russia Day.

Thousands turned out to voice dissatisfaction with the government on Monday, the latest in a series of demonstrations to engulf Russia this year. More than 100 cities held rallies, including the major hubs of Moscow and St. Petersburg, where crowds were especially massive. Independent political persecution monitor OVD Info said that at least 750 people were detained in the protests in Moscow, with an additional 900 detained in St. Petersburg.

While the protests have previously been marketed more as “anti-corruption” demonstrations rather than an indictment of Russia’s government, Monday’s turnout seemed to indicate that protesters have become bolder and more willing to speak out. Video footage of rallies showed Russians calling for a “Russia without Putin” and yelling “Putin is a thief!”, while also throwing in a “Happy Russia Day!” in honor of the ongoing national holiday.

Navalny, who was detained ahead of the protests while at his house, had urged Russians to participate in anti-corruption demonstrations. Originally, the protest in Moscow was set to be held at Sakharov Prospekt, but at the last minute, Navalny announced that the location had been changed, claiming that authorities had put pressure on local vendors to deny his team access to stage equipment.

A fierce critic of Putin, as well as of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the 41-year-old activist and presidential candidate has become the face of Russia’s opposition movement, accusing the government of corruption and impropriety. In March, Navalny oversaw massive protests across Russia, leading to his brief arrest, reportedly for disobeying a police officer. The charge was only the latest against Navalny, who has also been accused of embezzlement — a charge he says is a lie to keep him out of office, something the European Court of Human Rights has seconded.

Navalny’s wife wrote on Twitter half an hour before the scheduled protests: “Hello. This is Yulia Navalnaya … Alexei has been detained in the stairwell.”

Electricity in Navalny’s office was also reportedly shut off, according to Navalnaya’s spokesperson. State news agency TASS confirmed Nalvany’s arrest on Monday, but later claimed that the protests were in fact festive Russia Day celebrations.

The arrest did little to hamper protests, some of the biggest the country has seen in years. Many of those present were young people, according to reports. Some came with parents and other family members who wanted them to experience a taste of Russian reality, as well as dissent.

“We are concerned for our children’s future,” Konstantin Kozlov, a lawyer who brought his teenage children to a rally told Financial Times. “We want them to see for themselves what they won’t see on TV.”

Max Seddon, a Moscow correspondent for Financial Times, tweeted several photos of teenage girls who participated in the protest, while noting that he was surprised at the youthful turnout. “Seeing a lot of parents accompanying their teenage children to this protest,” he wrote. “A first in Russia, for me at least.”

Welp:

A Russian court on Tuesday sentenced Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to 30 days in prison for repeatedly violating the law on organizing public meetings, a Reuters journalist reported.

Navalny was earlier detained on his way to an anti-Kremlin protest in central Moscow.

I don’t know how people will find a way to blame Clinton for this but I’m sure they’ll find a way.

.

All those executive orders and not a lot to show for them

Published by digby on June 12, 2017

All those executive orders and not a lot to show for them

by digby

Dday has a piece up at the Intercept today about all the Executive Orders Trump trumpets as great accomplishments:

THE CEREMONIAL SIGNING of executive orders has become a trademark of the Trump presidency, with elaborate photo ops and presentations of the president’s bizarre signature happening at a record-breaking rate. But in so doing, he has assigned himself — or, at least, the agencies and departments he ostensibly leads — a record amount of homework.

It’s not getting done.

The vast majority of Trump’s executive orders merely direct federal agencies to issue reviews and reports on a host of issues, from education to immigration to financial services to trade. Though the media often present executive orders as actually accomplishing the elimination of regulations or rollback of statutory law, they’re mostly a form of political theater designed to give the appearance of forward motion. “Let’s just dash off a memo, everyone can say we did something today,” said Jon Michaels, an administrative law professor at UCLA.

According to a review of all executive orders and memoranda, the president has ordered 88 different actions for federal agencies in 2017 alone, most of them direct reports to him. If you include actions that spill into 2018, 2019, and 2020, there are 154 specific actions in all.

This is actually a very conservative estimate, because some orders require every agency in the federal government, of which there are over 400, to submit a report.

Since the inauguration, 27 deadlines have come and gone, including 13 reports to the president, three reports to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), three publications, three memoranda from OMB, and five miscellaneous actions like resumptions of a temporary ban or solicitation of public comment. The Intercept has only been able to determine that 13 of these 27 deadlines have been met, with at least two of those coming in late and another three under court-ordered injunction. The others are either unclear or didn’t yield a response from the federal agency under deadline, including the Departments of Defense, State, Justice, Homeland Security, Commerce, Treasury, and OMB.

Click over to see the excellent interactive graphic that goes with it, which is being updated as new information becomes available.

I guess it is good news that he’s mostly been ineffectual. But he does have some rather efficient people in charge of vital areas, like Sessions, Kelly, Pruitt and Price. They’re carrying out their extremist mandate with ruthless efficiency.

.

Blabbing exquisite intelligence

Published by digby on June 12, 2017

Blabbing exquisite intelligence

by digby

The New York Times published an article today about the ineffectiveness of US penetration of ISIS’s cyber strategy as compared to other more sophisticated programs. Apparently, it’s pretty simple but strangely hard to counter.

Anyway, Josh Marshall points to this startling passage in the piece:

One of the stand-out cyber-warfare or spying feats against ISIS was carried out by Israel. And it was that operation that President Trump blabbed to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak.

Even one of the rare successes against the Islamic State belongs at least in part to Israel, which was America’s partner in the attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Top Israeli cyberoperators penetrated a small cell of extremist bombmakers in Syria months ago, the officials said. That was how the United States learned that the terrorist group was working to make explosives that fooled airport X-ray machines and other screening by looking exactly like batteries for laptop computers.

The intelligence was so exquisite that it enabled the United States to understand how the weapons could be detonated, according to two American officials familiar with the operation. The information helped prompt a ban in March on large electronic devices in carry-on luggage on flights from 10 airports in eight Muslim-majority countries to the United States and Britain.

It was also part of the classified intelligence that President Trump is accused of revealing when he met in the Oval Office last month with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and the ambassador to the United States, Sergey I. Kislyak. His disclosure infuriated Israeli officials.

What’s not clear here is whether Trump revealed the modalities of the intelligence as opposed to just the substance. But it shows what a wild and still, in my book, entirely unexplained decision this was.

It is unexplained and weird, although we seem to have all accepted that it was just Trump being an imbecile And it probably was. But why this and why reveal it to the Russian ambassador> (Yeah, I know. Trump is an imbecile…)

.

This is some real “Dear Leader” stuff

Published by digby on June 12, 2017

This is some real “Dear Leader” stuff

 by digby

The New York Time’s reported on Trump’s latest staged photo-op:

President Trump declared on Monday that he had led a “record-setting” pace of activity and been one of the most productive presidents in American history.

He made the remarks at a highly unusual cabinet meeting in which he sought to deflect attention from his faltering agenda and the accusations leveled against him by his former F.B.I. director by basking in the adulation of senior members of the government.

Days after James B. Comey charged that Mr. Trump had lied and inappropriately sought to influence an F.B.I. investigation into his campaign’s possible ties with Russia, the president said the country was “seeing amazing results” from his leadership. He also promised to hold a news conference within two weeks on combating terrorism, including the Islamic State.

” Mr. Trump told a cabinet meeting as reporters looked on. “We’ve been about as active as you can possibly be and at a just about record-setting pace.”

Mr. Trump has yet to sign any major legislation since taking office. His effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was delayed after a failed first attempt, and his administration is months away from unveiling either a major tax cut package or the sweeping infrastructure plan he has promised.

After his introductory remarks on Monday, the president went around the table asking for a statement from each cabinet member. One by one, they said their names and paid tribute to Mr. Trump, describing how honored they were to serve in his administration as he nodded approvingly.

“Thank you for the opportunity to serve at S.B.A.,” said Linda McMahon, the head of the Small Business Administration, touting “a new optimism” for small businesses.

Ben Carson, the housing secretary, called it “a great honor” to work for Mr. Trump, while Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, offered congratulations for “the men and women you have gathered around this table.”

And amid fresh reports that his job is in danger, Reince Priebus, the chief of staff, outdid them all, telling Mr. Trump — and the assembled news cameras — that “we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing to serve your agenda.”

The loyalty pledges unfolded the day before Attorney General Jeff Sessions is due to testify before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about his involvement with Moscow and his role in the firing of Mr. Comey. Mr. Sessions has recused himself from the Russia investigation.

The tableau in the White House’s Cabinet Room struck many observers, including former White House officials familiar with the day-to-day workings of the president and the senior officials in his administration, as extraordinary.

The whole thing was creepy. Forced laughter and zombie praise.

This thing gets weirder and weirder every day. The photo-ops have been a big feature of his presidency but this is really reaching into Kim Jong Un territory:

“I will say that never has there been a president, with few exceptions — in the case of F.D.R. he had a major Depression to handle — who’s passed more legislation, who’s done more things than what we’ve done,

Is this delusional talk by a president just normal now? I guess it is.

Update:

.

It’s not just Sessions, people #GeneralKellytoo

Published by digby on June 12, 2017

It’s not just Sessions, people

by digby

I wrote about Kelly this morning for Salon:

It’s unclear as I write this whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday in an open or closed session. He has canceled his previously scheduled appearance at an open hearing before the Appropriations Committee, so the speculation is that he just doesn’t want to appear in public right now.

The ranking member of that committee, Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., had some words for him on that:

With all the suspicion swirling around Sessions it’s actually possible that he could eventually be forced to step down. Since he’s probably the most pernicious of all the domestic appointees of President Donald Trump that would be a relief. But he’s just one member of the carnage crew and there are others making worrisome progress in making America worse than ever.

Over the weekend, Politico reported that Democrats are becoming alarmed that the director of the Department of Homeland Security, retired Gen. John Kelly, isn’t the calming influence on Trump that they had hoped. For some reason they believed Kelly would rein in Trump’s draconian policies on immigration and security. They were wrong, according to Politico:

Instead, Kelly has moved to impose those policies with military rigor. He has pursued an aggressive deportation campaign; defended Trump’s effort to ban visitors from several Muslim-majority countries; and hinted that he might separate migrant parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border. Kelly has joked with Trump about using violence against reporters and defended Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, amid allegations that he tried to set up a secret back channel to the Russian government.

Today, it’s tough to find anyone on the left willing to defend Kelly. He has alienated potential allies on Capitol Hill, including Democrats who voted to confirm him, and is endangering his reputation as a nonpartisan figure in a presidential administration that has relatively few.

Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey said, “I think Secretary Kelly has drank the Kool-Aid. He’s not the person who I thought I was voting for.”

Kelly was confirmed easily, in an 88 to 11 vote, because Democrats were soothed by his promise that he wouldn’t target Dream kids for deportation. Apparently that was the only thing they bothered to ask because if they had looked a little bit more closely at this former Marine Corps general they would have seen that he was Trump’s guy all the way.

For instance, in 2014 when he was still in the Marines and the head of U.S. Central Command, Kelly claimed that the influx of child refugees from Central America presented an existential threat to American national security.

He warned that neglect of the border had created vulnerabilities that could be exploited by terrorist groups, describing a “crime-terror convergence” already seen in Lebanese Hezbollah’s alleged involvement in the region (a onetime assertion made in a congressional report a decade ago.) He said there exists an “incredibly efficient network” by which terrorists and weapons of mass destruction could travel into the United States.

The Southern Command under Kelly was intensely focused on “narcoterrorism” and he was a zealot on the subject. He told BreakingDefense.com that he believed the nation was seriously threatened by a nexus between what “known terrorist organizations and illicit smuggling and money-laundering networks.” Kelly added, “There are those in the intelligence community who take the view that it is not a major threat and argue that those groups will never find common cause. I think those who take that view are simply trying to rationalize away the problem because no one wants to raise another major threat at a time when we face so many around the world.”

In short, he has been a border-security fanatic for some time, a fact that Sen. Menendez should have known, since he was a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and heavily involved in immigration reform efforts.

Kelly’s stance on drugs is equally rabid. His view on marijuana legalization is that the U.S. won’t be able to ask other countries to cut back on their export of drugs to our country if we are making a substance legal. That’s an odd point of view to say the least, particularly since he says he has said doesn’t care if Americans smuggle pot into other countries. Marijuana legalization should lead to less smuggling, which would seem to be a good thing. Kelly also says he has “no doubt” that marijuana is a gateway to harder drugs but notes that he’s not a doctor so he doesn’t know if medical marijuana might be useful. He proves that he’s out of touch, however, by saying “every medicine is probably illegal unless you take it medicinally,” which is is somewhere between obviously not true and totally meaningless.

Since taking over the Department of Homeland Security, Kelly has reversed the Obama administration’s policy of targeting serious criminals and giving second chances to lower-level offenders. According to Politico:

In the first three months of the Trump administration, arrests of non-criminal immigrants rose by 157 percent over the same period a year earlier, according to data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Kelly’s explanation for the deportation of women and children applying for refugee status is just heartless. When he headed the Southern Command, Kelly spoke at great length about collapsing societies in Central America. (This is often affected by murderous gang violence cultivated in American prisons — something Kelly never acknowledges.) But he sees this problem only as a threat and shows no sympathy for the innocent people caught in the crossfire. As the homeland security director, he defended the deportation of a Honduran woman without a criminal record along with her child to return to certain violence in her home country; he said asylum seekers “parrot well-worn phrases to get a shot at staying in the United States.”

Kelly is a genuine Trump guy like Sessions, not one of those so-called patriots who took the job for the good of the country to try to temper Trump’s worst instincts. He is efficiently and enthusiastically carrying out the president’s extremist agenda. These “disappointed” Democrats should have looked more closely at the general’s record before they gave him a bipartisan mandate.

“I’ll wipe the floor with guys who were disloyal to me”

Published by digby on June 12, 2017

“I’ll wipe the floor with guys who were disloyal to me”

by digby

With his mentor Roy Cohn

Trump in 1992. Sounds like the guy described by Comey:

He’s a person who commonly demands loyalty from people. He has done this for years. He also talks constantly about “getting even.” In fact, he’s obsessed with it:

Trump has other qualities that many evangelicals admit they admire: wealth and success and — don’t let this surprise you — ruthlessness. Trump first addressed a Liberty University audience in September 2012, after his failed presidential bid. In his remarks, he suggested to students that they need to “get even” with adversaries in order to succeed, prompting an outcry over whether this advice was compatible with Christian values.

At the time, Trump’s special counsel, Michael Cohen — without pushback from Liberty — told ABC News that he conferred with a Liberty official, who confirmed, in Cohen’s words, that “the Bible is filled with stories of God getting even with his enemies, Jesus got even with the Pharisees and Christians believe that Jesus even got even with Satan by rising from the dead. God is portrayed as giving grace, but he is also portrayed as one tough character — just as Trump stated.”

Falwell later told a Christian radio program that he took Trump’s advice to mean that often succeeding in life requires “being tough.”

Recall this example of him getting even with a Miss Universe he felt had been disrespectful:

In 2011, Donald Trump brought a former Miss Universe onstage during a speech to embarrass her with a joke about orgasms. A video recording shows the Republican presidential candidate calling Miss Universe 2004, Australian Jennifer Hawkins, up to the podium to illustrate the concept of revenge for his audience.

“I believe in it: Get even with people,” Trump says at the event in Sydney, Australia. “If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard.” The audience cheered.

“I mean, I’ll give you an example: Jennifer Hawkins,” he continues. “Where is Jennifer? Where is she sitting? Come up here, Jennifer. First of all, how beautiful is Jennifer? Now, but this is about getting even. I was so angry at her yesterday. Seriously, because as I said, I thought that she dissed me. I thought that my Jennifer―I’m going around saying she’s my favorite Miss Universe. Well, I think I like the new one better, Jennifer.”

There is more applause from the audience as Hawkins steps onto the stage. Trump continues with a story about a perceived slight from a woman he thought owed him some kind of favor. “So I go around saying she’s the greatest, she writes books. They call me, I say, ‘Ugh, I don’t want to answer another Jennifer Hawkins question—she’s fantastic!’ And then when I came here, there was no Jennifer Hawkins to introduce me.”

Hawkins, laughing, tries to explain what she calls a “miscommunication,” and Trump interrupts her. “I was actually going to get up and tell you that Jennifer is a beautiful girl on the outside, but she’s not very bright,” he said. “But that wouldn’t have been true, but I would have said it anyway.” This is a classic Trump humiliation tactic: insulting someone by saying he’d considered insulting her, then thought better of it, as when he congratulated himself for not mentioning Bill Clinton’s infidelity during the first presidential debate.

“She’s so great, and she did so well, and she’s a big star here, and I helped her make it―I own the Miss Universe pageant. And I heard that she wouldn’t introduce me,” Trump continues in the video. “But I did,” Hawkins protests.

“No, but you didn’t,” Trump says, to laughter from the audience. “So what happens is―and you know what? She came tonight, she came, came, she came, she came.” Trump grins and motions a kind of “come here” gesture with his hands, repeating the word as the crowd cheers and whistles. “See, so they have the same filthy minds in Australia,” he says. “No, but here’s the beauty. When she found out about it, she got in that car, and she got her ass over here, and I love her.”

Hawkins ends with a quick bit of nervous laughter and apologizes for what she says was a misunderstanding with her management. Trump wraps up the exchange by making a comment about her height, wrapping his arm around Hawkins’ waist, and leaning in to kiss her. She turns her face, directing his lips to her cheek, and brings her arm between their chests. “Can I sit down now?” she asks.

The Trump in this video is the same Trump we’ve seen all campaign long, the “man you can bait with a tweet,” as Hillary Clinton has called him. It’s the hypersensitive megalomaniac who explodes whenever someone places so much as a single toe upon his paper-thin ego. Trump told a rare truth in this speech: Whether the affront is real or imagined, large or small, with him, it always ends in payback.

He demands loyalty. And if he doesn’t get it he gets even. That’s who he has always been and it’s who he is now.

.

Pants!

Published by digby on June 12, 2017

Pants!

by digby

Trump sued his biographer Tim O’Brien back in 2005 over “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald” because it said his estimated net worth was only 250 million. O’Brien deposed Trump and caught him in 30 lies.

He was on Reliable Sources on Sunday and added another detail that’s quite pertinent to current events. Via David Edwards at Raw Story:

revealed on Sunday that now-President Donald Trump lied about taping him in an effort to intimidate him.

In 2005, Trump sued O’Brien over his book, which suggested that the real estate mogul was worth only $250 million. But the author turned the tables on Trump and cornered him in a deposition for making at least 30 false statements.

“His loose association with the truth becomes problematic when he’s confronted with documents,” O’Brien explained to CNN host Brian Stelter on Sunday. “We’ve had decades now of Trump frequently lying or exaggerating about a wide range of things.”

O’Brien pointed out that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has an arsenal of tools available to assist the Trump investigation, including subpoena power, access to financial records and a law enforcement community that is “deeply disturbed” by the direction of the presidency.

The the author also threw cold water on Trump’s suggestion that he may have “tapes” of his conversation with former FBI Director James Comey.

“He’s said this over the years to reporters when they go into the Trump organization, ‘I just want to let you know that I’m taping you right now,’” O’Brien noted. “And he said it multiple times during my interviews with him. He said that into my own tape recorder when I recorded our interviews.”

“But when he sat down for the deposition, my attorney said, ‘Mr. Trump, do you have a taping system?’” he recalled. “And he said no. And [my attorney] said, ‘Why did you say this to Mr. O’Brien.’ And he essentially said, ‘I wanted to intimidate him.’”

Of course he did.

.

Campaign 101 by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 12, 2017

Campaign 101
by Tom Sullivan

Over the weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ supporters gathered in Chicago for a “People’s Summit.” The New York Times, sniffing at a growing rift, so-called, between factions within the Democratic Party, went looking for some political disaster porn:

The growing tension between the party’s ascendant militant wing and Democrats in conservative-leaning terrain, where the party must compete to win power in Congress, was on vivid, split-screen display over the weekend: in Chicago, where Senator Bernie Sanders led a revival-style meeting of his progressive devotees, and in Atlanta, where Democrats are spending colossal sums of money in hopes of seizing a traditionally Republican congressional district.

Four thousand or so activists showed up fired-up in Chicago, so as these stories go it’s bad news for the Democrats.

After reprising much of his 2016 stump speech Saturday night, Sanders told supporters:

The Democratic Party cannot continue to be a party of the East Coast and the West Coast. It must be a party of all 50 states. The working people of Mississippi and Wyoming, of South Carolina and Oklahoma, of Texas and Kansas, of Nebraska and Utah, and many other states will support a progressive agenda – if we bring that agenda to them.

But who is going to deliver it?

Everybody wants back Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy. “You cannot be a national party if you are willing to write off entire parts of our country,” Dean said back in 2008. Hillary Clinton announced in 2015 her presidential campaign would emulate it. But in the end, it was election campaign organizing, not the sustained party organizing Dean wrote about this time last year:

The plan that Clinton began to execute this week is a 20-year strategy to create a new vision for America. To fulfill it, she is dispatching staff to all 50 states and is working to identify and organize supporters in each one.

There are a lot of reasons why adopting a 50-state strategy is both the right thing and the smart thing for Clinton to do. For one, voters deserve it. When candidates write off entire states or regions for being too blue or too red, they also write off the people who call those places home.

Sanders concurs. “The current model and the current strategy of the Democratic Party is an absolute failure,” Sanders boomed to applause Saturday night. He reminded the crowd that there is more at stake nationwide than the presidential election. Yet even people who should know better don’t. A friend observed that at a 2012 election night watch party, when it was announced that Barack Obama was reelected, people went crazy clinking glasses and making toasts. Meanwhile state Democrats got clobbered in legislative races. Who noticed?

North Carolina is not unique. Democrats there speak of implementing a 100-county strategy. With large blocks of Democratic votes in the few urbanized counties, Democrats last November elected Roy Cooper as governor by the skin of their teeth. But they left him facing Republican super-majorities in both houses of the legislature. Those legislators aren’t elected statewide. They are elected by districts. The bulk of those districts lie outside the cities. Republicans dominate there, in part, because Democrats don’t show up.

In recent years Democrats have lost almost a thousand state legislative seats, Sanders reminded his supporters. Republicans control 32 legislatures and 33 governorships. Democrats now rely largely on the courts, not voting strength, to hold the line against voter suppression measures enacted systematically by Republican legislatures across the country. “Today in almost half of the states in America, the Democratic Party has almost no political presence at all,” Sanders said.

Yes, progressives want a 50-state strategy. But the left and the Democratic Party have not shown a commitment to it in the past and have yet to.

Steve Benen wrote this time last year:

That’s always been the challenge with implementing a 50-state strategy: a candidate, eager to succeed, wants to invest limited resources where they’ll produce the largest short-term gains. If you’re a Democratic presidential nominee, and your focus is on winning, do you divert money from Ohio in order to help build the party in Oklahoma? Isn’t it more important to win the race you’re in and work on future cycles in the future?

The problem with that line of thinking, of course, is that there will never be an ideal time to do the hard work in states that aren’t currently competitive. In 2016, Clinton and her team believe they can do both: win the election with staff in literally every state, while laying a stronger foundation for future cycles.

Neither happened. A year later, Bernie Sanders is telling enthusiastic supporters the same thing. Democrats need a 50-state plan. It sounds great in the abstract. But who is going to deliver it?

This is Campaign 101. At meet-and-greets and in stump speeches, candidates wrap up by looking neighbors in the eye and asking for their votes. Voters need to be asked. But….

“You cannot create a movement of the common people if you hold the common people in contempt,” author Thomas Frank told the People’s Summit on Sunday. Frank referred to the Democrats’ leaders as out of touch while ignoring sentiments widely held in the room. With the still-simmering anger at Donald Trump and his voters, fueled daily by Trump himself, again, who is going to deliver that progressive agenda to 50 states? And to states and counties where the only voices voters hear are on right-wing talk radio? Who is going to reach into those rural places where Sanders says the Democratic Party has no presence, deliver a progressive message, look people in the eye, and ask people for their votes when they are people – what did Hillary Clinton call them? – a lot of us simply refuse to talk to? If my social media feeds are any indication, that could be as much an obstacle as lack of money.

The left first has to solve its chicken-and-egg question. Are we not talking to rural voters because they don’t vote with us? Or are they not voting with us because we don’t talk to them?

Get a lawyer, kids

Published by digby on June 11, 2017

Get a lawyer, kids

by digby

This man only has one client in the White House:

Marc E. Kasowitz, a New York civil litigator who represented President Trump for 15 years in business and boasts of being called the toughest lawyer on Wall Street, has suddenly become the field marshal for a White House under siege. He is a personal lawyer for the president, not a government employee, but he has been talking about establishing an office in the White House complex where he can run his legal defense.

His visits to the White House have raised questions about the blurry line between public and private interests for a president facing legal issues. Mr. Kasowitz in recent days has advised White House aides to discuss the inquiry into Russia’s interference in last year’s election as little as possible, two people involved said. He told aides gathered in one meeting who had asked whether it was time to hire private lawyers that it was not yet necessary, according to another person with direct knowledge.

Such conversations between a private lawyer for the president and the government employees who work for his client are highly unusual, according to veterans of previous White Houses. Mr. Kasowitz bypassed the White House Counsel’s Office in having these discussions, according to one person familiar with the talks, who like others requested anonymity to discuss internal matters. And concerns about Mr. Kasowitz’s role led at least two prominent Washington lawyers to turn down offers to join the White House staff.

“The president’s private lawyer is representing only his interests, not the interests of the United States government or the individual interests of the White House staff,” said Robert F. Bauer, who was White House counsel under President Barack Obama.

Trump is literally unable to do anything by the book. The president’s lawyer should only be talking to the president. He should not have an office in the White House or any authority over anything. But this is Trump and his only interest in this life is covering his ass. This is why he requires non-disclosure agreements, loyalty oaths and only trusts his own family and even that has limits. He is always dancing as fast as he can. This lawyer being in the White House just reinforces the idea that the presidency is about Trump and Trump only.

Anyone who lies for him is a fool.

Well, actually, anyone who works for him is a fool.

.