Skip to content

Month: June 2017

Cray-cray on steroids

Cray-cray on steroids

by digby

He’s telling everyone to go fuck themselves

This article by Ryan Lizza about George Conway’s odd tweet the other day in response to Trump’s  statements using the words “travel ban” again looks at one of the aspects of dysfunction inside the White House:

A few hours after George’s initial tweet, after Washington went into a tizzy over his loud new voice on social media, he followed up with a burst of tweets,explaining that he still supports Trump—and Kellyanne—but that “every sensible lawyer in” the White House counsel’s office and “every political appointee at” the Department of Justice would “agree with me (as some have already told me).” He added that the point “cannot be stressed enough that tweets on legal matters seriously undermine Admin agenda and potus,” and that “those who support him, as I do, need to reinforce that pt and not be shy about it.”

George did remain somewhat shy, and did not reply to an e-mail from me. Kellyanne told me last night that she had not discussed her husband’s tweets with the President yet. But the mild-mannered Conway losing patience and resorting to a tweetstorm to get the President of the United States to take some standard legal advice raises an interesting question: What, exactly, works for people inside and outside the White House who are trying to influence this President, a stubborn seventy-year-old who is regularly described to me by the people who know him best as “crazy”?

[…]

A former campaign official told me that during the Republican Convention in Cleveland last year, rather than developing a message of the day, as a traditional campaign would, Trump’s communications team would simply spend the morning consuming the same media as Trump.

“We knew he would watch ‘Morning Joe,’ we knew he would switch his channel over to the morning show on CNN, we knew he would go to ‘Fox and Friends,’ so all of us watched all those things, read all five papers, and then we tried to decide what the message of the day was,” he said. “We were placing bets, because the message of the day would appear in his tweet at some point. We were just trying to guess.” He added, “A lot of it was trying to divine what was going to get in the President’s craw by reading exactly what he’s reading and trying to think like he thinks.”

Sam Nunberg, who has worked for Trump and advises the White House, regularly goes to the major newspapers when he needs to get Trump’s attention. “If I want to communicate to the President and I don’t want to bother him directly, then I speak to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times,” he told me. Others noted the importance of the two major New York tabloids, the Post and the Daily News, which Trump reads religiously. The opinion page of the Daily News, which was not previously considered to have large influence in Washington, is considered a highly coveted outlet for Republican P.R. professionals trying to get Trump’s attention. “The line is around the block—you can’t get in,” a G.O.P. consultant said. Slipping Trump a news story, whether real or fake, has, according to Politico, influenced his opinion on climate change, sunk nominees for prominent positions, and helped get a top staffer fired.

Some Republican advertising firms have developed a slightly more high-tech way of getting to the President and the people around him. The Republican consultant explained that clients can pay to have I.P. addresses for the White House and Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida retreat, bombarded with ads.

“The reporters that are around Trump and around the White House and everyone around the President is being targeted through geotargeting and I.P.-address targeting,” the Republican consultant told me, “by people who couldn’t get onto the big TV shows and into the big papers.”

That’s pathetic but probably right. On the other hand, Trump’s clearly buckling under the strain and he’s just gone rogue:

Last night, hours after George Conway’s barb at Trump, the President seemed to offer a response to the lawyers who are trying to save him from himself: “That’s right, we need a travel ban for certain dangerous countries, not some politically correct term that won’t help us protect our people!”

He doesn’t care what a bunch of idiot lawyers have to say. He won the electoral college in an unprecedented landslide and had a yuge inaugural crowd. He’s king!

.

“Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know”

“Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know”

by digby

That is from the last conversation James Comey had with President Trump before he fired him. Comey says he doesn’t know what “that thing” might be. 
Via Huffington Post we have the full Comey statement he plans to give before the Senate Intelligence Committee tomorrow:

Former FBI Directer James Comey will testify Thursday that President Donald Trump demanded loyalty and tried to get him to close an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Comey, who was fired by Trump last month, will tell the U.S. Senate Select Committee of Intelligence that he believed Trump was trying to “create some sort of patronage relationship” with him when Trump asked Comey if he wanted to stay on as FBI director during a one-on-one dinner at the White House on Jan. 27.

Trump told Comey he needed and expected loyalty, according to Comey. Comey said that he didn’t “move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed.”

Trump and Comey “simply looked at each other in silence,” the testimony says.

During another office meeting on Feb. 14, Trump tried to get Comey to drop the Flynn case. Flynn had resigned the day before in light of news that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about discussions with the Russian ambassador.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Trump said on Feb. 14, according to Comey. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

After that discussion, Comey said he asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions if he could prevent Trump from having any other direct communication with him.

“I told the AG that what had just happened – him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind – was inappropriate and should never happen,” Comey said. Sessions, Comey said, “did not reply.”

Read Comey’s the full statement here:

Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.

January 6 Briefing

I first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.

The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.

The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI’s leadership and I were concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct.

It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The Bureau’s goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves “turning” the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.

Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counterintelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will “open an investigation” on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.

In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.

I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months – three in person and six on the phone.

January 27 Dinner

The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others.

It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.

The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.

My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not “reliable” in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody’s side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.

A few moments later, the President said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.

At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because “problems” come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.

Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, “I need loyalty.” I replied, “You will always get honesty from me.” He paused and then said, “That’s what I want, honest loyalty.” I paused, and then said, “You will get that from me.” As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase “honest loyalty” differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further. The term – honest loyalty – had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.

During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.

As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the senior leadership team of the FBI.

February 14 Oval Office Meeting

On February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counterterrorism briefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. The Vice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National CounterTerrorism Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.

The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.

When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, “I want to talk about Mike Flynn.” Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.

The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information – a concern I shared and still share. After he had spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him. The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly. The door closed.

The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, “He is a good guy and has been through a lot.” He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” I replied only that “he is a good guy.” (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would “let this go.”

The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group of people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.

I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn’s departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI’s role as an independent investigative agency.

The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President’s request, which we did not intend to abide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General’s role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role.

After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team members – or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them – aware of the President’s request.

Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to pass along the President’s concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me. I told the AG that what had just happened – him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind – was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons discussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBI’s potential investigation of General Flynn.

March 30 Phone Call

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week – at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, “We need to get that fact out.” (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)

The President went on to say that if there were some “satellite” associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren’t investigating him.

In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, saying he hadn’t brought up “the McCabe thing” because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe’s wife) campaign money. Although I didn’t understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.

He finished by stressing “the cloud” that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn’t being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.

Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia-related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later.

April 11 Phone Call

On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I “get out” that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that “the cloud” was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel.

He said he would do that and added, “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.” I did not reply or ask him what he meant by “that thing.” I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.

That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.

He sounds like Tony Soprano. Only dumber.

Mr Popular Part XXIV

Mr Popular Part XXIV

by digby

The new Quinnipiac poll has him at 34%. And that’s the good news:

President Donald Trump did something illegal in his relationship with Russia, 31 percent of American voters say, while another 29 percent say he did something unethical, but not illegal, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. The president did nothing wrong, 32 percent of voters say.

President Trump’s campaign advisors did something illegal in dealing with Russia, 40 percent of voters say, as 25 percent say they did something unethical but not illegal and 24 percent say they did nothing wrong.

The president’s job approval rating dips to a new low, a negative 34 – 57 percent, compared to a negative 37 – 55 percent in a May 24 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University, and a negative 35 – 57 percent April 4, his lowest score so far.

Trump is too friendly to Russia, 54 percent of American voters say, while 3 percent say he is too unfriendly and 38 percent say he has the right attitude. A total of 68 percent of voters are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about Trump’s relationship with Russia.

Russia is an adversary, 45 percent of voters say, while 8 percent say it is an ally.

Voters approve 73 – 15 percent of the appointment of Robert Mueller as a special counsel to investigate possible links or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“There is zero good news for President Donald Trump in this survey, just a continual slide into a chasm of doubt about his policies and his very fitness to serve,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

“If this were a prize fight, some in his corner might be thinking about throwing in the towel. This is counter puncher Donald Trump’s pivotal moment to get up off the mat.

“With a third of the members of his own party questioning his level headedness, this is clearly the moment the president needs to steady the ship.”

American voters say 68 – 29 percent that President Trump is not level-headed, his worst grade on that quality. Republicans say 64 – 32 percent he is level-headed. Voter opinions of most other Trump qualities are negative:
59 – 36 percent that he is not honest;
58 – 39 percent that he does not have good leadership skills;
58 – 40 percent that he does not care about average Americans;
62 – 35 percent that he is a strong person;
57 – 40 percent that he is intelligent;
64 – 33 percent that he does not share their values.
Climate Change

American voters disapprove 62 – 32 percent of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord. Republicans are the only listed group to approve, 72 – 20 percent.

A total of 76 percent of voters are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about climate change and 65 percent say the U.S. needs to do more to address climate change.

America can fight climate change and protect jobs at the same time, 73 percent of American voters, including 62 percent of Republicans, say.

Voters disapprove 63 – 30 percent of Trump’s handling of the environment. His approval ratings on handling other issues are:
Disapprove 53 – 39 percent of the way he is handling the economy, a new low;

46 percent approve of the way he is handling terrorism and 48 percent disapprove;

Disapprove 60 – 37 percent of the way he is handling immigration.

He told us what he planned. But it was so cynical nobody believed it.

He told us what he planned. But it was so cynical nobody believed it.

by digby

Trump at CPAC:

Now, I’ve been watching and nobody says it, but Obamacare doesn’t work, folks. I mean, I could say, I could talk, it doesn’t work.

And now people are starting to develop a little warm heart, but the people that you’re watching, they’re not you. They’re largely — many of them are the side that lost, you know they lost the election. It’s like, how many elections do we have to have? They lost the election. But I always say, Obamacare doesn’t work. And these same people two years ago and a year ago were complaining about Obamacare. And the bottom line, we’re changing it. We’re going to make it much better, we’re going to make it less expensive. We’re going to make it much better.

Obamacare covers very few people — and remember, deduct from the number all of the people that had great health care that they loved that was taken away from them — it was taken away from them.
(APPLAUSE)
Millions of people were very happy with their health care, they had their doctor, they had their plan. Remember the lie, 28 times. You could keep your doctor, you could keep your plan. Over and over and over again, you heard it. So we’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare.
(APPLAUSE)
And I tell Paul Ryan and all of the folks that we’re working with very hard, Dr. Tom Price, very talented guy.
(APPLAUSE)
But I tell them from a purely political standpoint, the single best thing we can do is nothing. Let it implode completely, it’s already imploding. You see the carriers are all leaving. I mean, it’s a disaster. But two years, don’t do anything. The Democrats will come to us and beg for help, they’ll beg and it’s their problem.

He went on to make some perfunctory disclaimer that he couldn’t do that because it would be wrong (like he cares.) But this was his plan. He thinks it’s very clever.

Brian Beutler on the state of play today:

The American Health Care Act has managed to become the least popular aspect of the Trump government despite the fact that the ethical and legal scandals surrounding the president himself have largely obscured something remarkable: The central justification for the Republican health care bill is a lie.

Every legislative initiative is presented to the public as an attempt to solve some genuine problem or advance some credible moral cause. The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, was devised to address problems like widespread uninsurance, medical bankruptcy, the failure of the individual insurance market, and unsustainable growth of health care costs. The many bills that have been drafted over the years to price greenhouse gas emissions were meant to reduce the unacceptable risk of runaway climate change. The first Bush tax cuts were initially presented as a means of returning budget surpluses to taxpayers, then as a means of fending off a recession. Neither rationale honestly conveyed why Republicans sought permanent, regressive tax cuts, but at least the budget surpluses and the recession actually existed.

The AHCA, according to House Speaker Paul Ryan, is a “rescue mission” to save Affordable Care Act beneficiaries from the system’s inevitable collapse. That premise is so commonly held on the right—and so commonly repeated as though it were incontrovertible—that it’s seldom challenged by the press. It forms the strategic basis not just of plans to repeal the ACA, but of plans to leave it in place for now.

It is also completely false. The main public justification for the Republican Party’s top legislative priority isn’t some fact-based pretext, like the justifications for the Bush tax cuts, but a complete fabrication.

This is not to say that many ACA marketplaces don’t have challenges, some of them serious. But the AHCA isn’t what anyone credible would formulate as a solution to those problems. If Republicans intended their health care bill to be a “rescue mission” for those who live in markets with zero or one insurers, it would be a targeted bill, rather than one that would disrupt and perhaps destroy ACA marketplaces that are functioning well.

The disingenuousness of Republican efforts to pass this bill—which would render many insurance markets dysfunctional, and suck a trillion dollars out of the health care system—is now manifesting as a direct assault on expertise in government and policymaking. And the most distressing thing about it is that the stakeholders with the most influence over GOP legislators—the power to stop a bill they know is bad for the public interest, and to clarify that the ACA isn’t collapsing on its own—are largely content to let them get away with it.

Brad Wilson, the president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, is the exception that proves the rule. He’s seeking to increase premiums for ACA plans 22.9 percent—significantly more than the 8.8 percent he says he’d seek if Republicans weren’t injecting immense uncertainty into markets across the country.

In an interview with The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent last week, Wilson sourced the proposed rate increase specifically to the fact that the Trump administration won’t promise to meet the government’s cost-sharing obligations, which allow insurers to reduce out-of-pocket costs for poor and near-poor beneficiaries, and congressional Republicans won’t force Trump’s hand.

“The failure of the administration and the House to bring certainty and clarity by funding [cost-sharing reduction payments] has caused our company to file a 22.9 percent premium increase, rather than one that is materially lower,” Wilson said. “That will impact hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians.”

This isn’t just on Trump. It’s every last Republican who knows that this is an outrageous lie but is doing it anyway.

There’s more at the link. It’s so depressing I can hardly read it. They may succeed in doing this. And I will personally be in serious trouble if they manage to destroy the program. But that’s a feature not a bug. The Republican party clearly wants people like me to die if at all possible but at the very least to suffer.

Here’s Prince Eric just yesterday talking about Democrats:

I’ve never seen hatred like this, and to me they’re not even people. It’s so, so sad, I mean morality is just gone, morals have flown out the window we deserve so much better than this as a country. You know it’s so sad. You see the democratic party — they’re imploding. They’re imploding. They have no message. You see the head of the DNC who is a total whack job. There’s no leadership there. And so what do they do? They become obstructionists because they have no message of their own. They have no solid candidates of their own. They lost the election that they should have won because they spent 7 times the amount of money that my father spent. They have no message so what do they try and do? They try and obstruct a great man, they try and obstruct his family, they come after us viciously, and its truly, truly horrible.

.

Tweeting the start of WWIII

Tweeting the start of WWIII

by digby

I wrote about Trump’s dangerous foreign policy tweeting for Salon this morning:

One reason it’s important to have a president who is capable of reading foreign policy briefing books and listening to experts is not just that it increases their understanding of world affairs but also gives them a sense of caution about their own words and actions on the world stage. For the most part our presidents have taken this aspect of the job very seriously.

There are exceptions. Recall that on August 6, 2001, George W. Bush told his national security briefer, “all right, you’ve covered your ass, now” after he was told that that Osama bin Laden was “determined to strike inside the United States.” And then he went fishing. We know how that worked out.

From what he hear, Donald Trump is even less interested. Just before he took office he told Fox News’ Chris Wallace, “I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years.” We know he gets at least some briefings these days because he was able to spill the beans about some top secret Israeli intelligence to the Russian ambassador. Reuters reported that he has a very short attention span and requires all briefing memos to be single page and accompanied by visual aides. His advisers have found that if they put his name in as many paragraphs as possible they can entice him to read the whole thing.

His foreign trip made it obvious that he is way in over his head. There were lots of great visuals on the Saudi leg of the trip with everyone sword dancing and clutching glowing orbs. Conservative media swooned portraying the trip as a major breakthrough in which Trump single-handedly ended all bad blood among former rivals and brought the region together in peace and harmony. (Well, except for Iran which they all agreed to hate.) He didn’t give any press conferences but he did give some speeches which were notable for what they didn’t say rather than what they did. In Saudi Arabia he didn’t mention human rights and at NATO headquarters he purposefully refused to endorse Article 5, the mutual defense pact at the heart of the alliance.

In the middle east, he sounded like a used car salesman trying to move surplus cars off the back lot with statements such as this one to the Emir of Qatar:

“We are friends, we’ve been friends for a long time now, haven’t we? Our relationship is extremely good, we have some very serious discussions right now going on, and one of the things that we will discuss is the purchase of lots of beautiful military equipment, because nobody makes it like the United States. And for us, that means jobs, and it also means frankly great security back here, which we want.”

Imagine the surprise from the Emir to read these statements from Donald Trump yesterday:

Those were the first public statements made by the President of the United States since Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt — as well as the internationally recognized (and Saudi-backed) government in Yemen, the Emirati-backed government in Eastern Libya, and the Maldives suspended economic and diplomatic relations with Qatar. This was done on Monday ostensibly over Qatar’s alleged support for Iran and terrorist organizations.

Always eager to pat himself on the back, Trump took “credit” in his statement for this crisis but seemed not to recall that on his trip he called Qatar a crucial strategic partner, which it is since it is the regional headquarters of the US Central Command with tens of thousands of American troops on the ground there.  His implication that the US is also going to break with Qatar would create an enormous military and strategic upheaval.

As usual the President didn’t seem to have consulted with anyone before he issued his startling statements. The Pentagon praised Qatar for its “contribution to the security of the region” and for hosting the US Military and had no answer for the question of what in the world Trump was talking about.The ambassador to Qatar took to twitter to reassure the world that the US was still an ally. The Secretary of State urged the parties to sit down and try to work things out.
If he had been able to keep his attention on the topic longer than a couple of minutes Trump would have learned that the disputes among these countries are far more complicated than Qatar’s support for terrorism. (Saudi Arabia is hardly one to talk.) This article in the Washington Post  is from a few days before the announcement that these countries were cutting ties with Qatar and it explains the underlying conflict.
What is clear is that while Trump may have little understanding of the issues at stake, the players see a shift from the Obama administration’s policy of working with the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) as a coalition to a focus on just Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, apparently largely based upon Jared Kushner having formed some personal relationships among the two country’s leaders. They are taking advantage of the opening Trump has presented to change the balance of power in the region.
The twist on the story is that this crisis was predicated on an alleged statement attributed to Qatar’s Emir Tamim on May 23 in which he supposedly praised Hamas and called Iran “a big power in the stabilization of the region.” Last night, CNN reported that US investigators suspect that this is a fake news report planted by Russian hackers on Qatar’s state news agency.
President Trump is the man who said the Israel-Palestine issue is “something that I think is frankly, maybe, not as difficult as people have thought over the years” and that “nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated” so he tends to see the world is extremely simple terms. It’s too much to expect him to ever be able to understand the complexity of relationships between countries of the middle east. But it really isn’t too much to ask that he not make ignorant statements via twitter about such important issues. One of these days it could be fatal.
.

Living in Griftopia by @BloggersRUs

Living in Griftopia
by Tom Sullivan

A writer for Forbes once cautioned about charitable giving, “At the most elementary level, avoid all celebrity or athlete charities. Almost without exception, these are dodges set up to avoid paying taxes and employ deadbeat relatives while posturing to make themselves look noble.”

The man knows whereof he speaks.

The AP reported back in December that there was something amiss about Eric Trump’s charitable foundation:

The AP found that Eric Trump has exaggerated the size of his foundation and the donations it receives. At the same time, the charity’s payments for services or donations to other groups repeatedly went to one of Donald Trump’s private golf clubs and to charities linked to the Trumps by corporate, family or philanthropic relationships.

The Eric Trump Foundation has raised $7.3 million mostly for children ill with cancer, according to IRS filings since 2007. The charity has long raised money from donors willing to make large contributions to hobnob with the Trumps. For example, golf at the foundation’s chief 2015 fundraiser cost up to $50,000 per foursome. Donald Trump often attends these events, which include a gala dinner, and mixes with the guests and has his photo taken.

The best part is, Eric Trump told Forbes, “We get to use our assets 100% free of charge.” Well, not exactly.

Forbes backed up its earlier caution about such charities yesterday with more detail about the Eric Trump Foundation. As costs inexplicably escalated for the annual golf event – tripling in 2011 – Daddy Trump became irate that junior was using his golf course for free:

In the early years, they weren’t being billed [for the club]–the bills would just disappear,” says Ian Gillule, who served as membership and marketing director at Trump National Westchester during two stints from 2006 to 2015 and witnessed how Donald Trump reacted to the tournament’s economics. “Mr. Trump had a cow. He flipped. He was like, ‘We’re donating all of this stuff, and there’s no paper trail? No credit?’ And he went nuts. He said, ‘I don’t care if it’s my son or not–everybody gets billed.’ “

If Donald Trump can’t look noble and/or take a tax credit, somebody’s going to pay him. Not that Donald Trump isn’t charitable, Forbes continues:

Shortly before the spike in costs, the Donald J. Trump Foundation donated $100,000 to the Eric Trump Foundation–a gift explicitly made, according to Gillule, to offset the increased budget. Thus, the Eric Trump donors were still seeing their money go to work for kids along the same lines as previous years.

The Eric Trump Foundation declined to comment on that donation. In effect, though, this maneuver would appear to have more in common with a drug cartel’s money-laundering operation than a charity’s best-practices textbook. That $100,000 in outside donations to the Donald J. Trump Foundation (remember: Trump himself didn’t give to his own foundation at this time) passed through the Eric Trump Foundation–and wound up in the coffers of Donald Trump’s private businesses.

Trump Sr. has a documented history of self-dealing in regards to his charities. As I said recently regarding Russia, follow the money laundering.

Trump’s objective as president is to make himself look good and to boost the value of his brand. Actually accomplishing anything comes not second, but third behind making money.

Haven’t passed any substantive bills? No problem. Hold an official-looking signing ceremony. Smile for the cameras. On Monday, Trump announced his support for privatizing the federal air traffic control system.* So he held a signing ceremony.

Steve Benen explains:

It had all the trappings of a major bill-signing ceremony – Trump even surrounded himself with Republican members of Congress, who were only too pleased to accept ceremonial pens – except the president didn’t sign any legislation. There wasn’t even an executive order. Time magazine reported that a White House aide told reporters Trump had signed a “a decision memo and letter transmitting legislative principles to Congress.”

A “decision memo” doesn’t really exist in any formal sense; it’s just a document in which the president announced he’s decided to support an idea. The “letter transmitting legislative principles,” in this case, was Trump’s way of asking Congress to do something.

In other words, Trump World put on a show yesterday – part of a public-relations kickoff of the White House’s purported interest in infrastructure – which signified practically nothing.

As for boosting his brand, Trump’s grifts are stripping the gilt off his chairs. Four major law firms declined to represent him in the Russia investigations. He can’t fill ambassadorships; candidates suddenly have someplace else to be. And having Trump administration on your resume isn’t looking too good for Trump staffers’ future prospects.

Eric Trump insists in no way did the Trumps profit from the payments. Fahrenthold is waiting for clarification on what he meant by no profit.

* Privatization is code for stripping America for parts.

Right wingers have forgotten how to defend themselves

Right wingers have forgotten how to defend themselves

by digby

This is just stupid:

It’s very foolish to attack the guy who has all those memos and all that highly sensitive information. He certainly knows a lot more than these bozos do. But then it seems they’ve forgotten how to do anything but rudely attack. That’s not always the smart move.

.
.

“None of the actions stopped on election day”

“None of the actions stopped on election day”


by digby

I guess this could all be Deep State Fake News designed to undermine Donald Trumps election because the Military Industrial Complex really prefers Democratic presidents (or something) but if it’s actually true, the latest revelations are truly disturbing:

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee told USA TODAY on Tuesday that Russian attacks on election systems were broader and targeted more states than those detailed in an explosive intelligence report leaked to the website The Intercept.

“I don’t believe they got into changing actual voting outcomes,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said in an interview. “But the extent of the attacks is much broader than has been reported so far.” He said he was pushing intelligence agencies to declassify the names of those states hit to help put electoral systems on notice before the midterm voting in 2018.

“None of these actions from the Russians stopped on Election Day,” he warned.

The National Security Agency report said Russian military intelligence executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. supplier of voting software and sent deceptive emails to more than 100 local election officials in the days leading up to the election last November — a sign that Moscow’s hacking may have penetrated further into voting systems than previously known.

The fact that the executive branch is resisting looking into this issue because Trump’s ego can’t take the fact that his election wasn’t a massive endorsement of his big swinging hands is just … well, outrageous. I don’t know if he was in on it or if his minions had a hand in helping. I won’t be surprised to find that these Keystone Kops were simply too stupid to be of any use, frankly. But all this stuff with the propaganda and the hacking is a big problem regardless. And our president refusing to admit it is the biggest problem of all.

.

Politics and Reality Radio with Joshua Holland: Ian Millhiser on #Russiagate; Rebecca Leber on Ditching Paris

Politics and Reality Radio: Ian Millhiser on Mueller and #Russiagate; Rebecca Leber on the Consequences of Ditching Paris

This week, we kick things off with Ian Millhiser from the Center for American Progress — he also edits ThinkProgress Law — to talk about the mandate that former FBI head Robert Mueller has to investigate potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. He’ll also get us up to speed on a major development last week in a closely watched voting rights case.

Then we’ll be joined by Kick-Ass Reporter Rebecca Leber from Mother Jones, who says that not only is Trump clearly ignorant about how the Paris Climate Accord works, he’s also oblivious to the serious consequences that are likely to follow his decision to pull the United States out of it.

Finally, we’ll speak with Soona Amhaz, an activist who, along with her co-curator Mark Mendoza, have published Crooked, a book of compelling photographs detailing the first months of the anti-Trump #resistance. All of the proceeds from the book will go to progressive organizations fighting Trump.

Playlist:
Sublime: “D.J.S.”
Curtis Mayfield: “Superfly”
Imagine Dragons: “Believer”
Eek-a-Mouse: “Queen Elizabeth”

As always, you can also subscribe to the show on iTunes, Soundcloud or Podbean.

They’re Republicans, that’s all

They’re Republicans, that’s all

by digby

So Trump went to Facebook to declare that he will never stop tweeting, no matter what! Here’s just one comment thread from his readers which I thought revealed their attitude about this pretty well:

Most of them just really want to believe in him. Some hated that woman so much that they convinced themselves that even this miscreant would be better. Some love his juvenile style. Some think none of it matters if he can get the conservative agenda passed.

There’s nothing exotic about them, they don’ have any unusual concerns. A few of them voted for Obama back in 08 because the economy was collapsing and their party had nominated the past his prime McCain and an unqualified woman. They were scared. This time they could vote with their spleens, their hearts and their party. Some of them couldn’t be happier. Others are busy rationalizing their choice. But it’s not mysterious.

They’re Republicans that’s all. And that includes a whole lot of people like this:

.