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Month: July 2017

Friday Night Soother: Little devils

Friday Night Soother: Little devils

by digby

A record 51 Tasmanian Devil joeys were born this season at Devil Ark, a free-range breeding facility aimed at saving this iconic Australian marsupial from extinction.

This brings the total number of joeys born at Devil Ark to more than 250 since it was founded in 2010 to establish an insurance population for the now-endangered Tasmanian Devil.

More than 90% of the wild Tasmanian Devil population has disappeared in the past 20 years due to an aggressive, transmissible cancer called Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD). The Australian island state of Tasmania is the only wild home of these unique creatures.

Tasmanian Devils are marsupials, so like all marsupials, the jellybean-sized babies are born in a very underdeveloped state. About 30-50 are born, and they must crawl from the birth canal into their mother’s pouch immediately – a distance of about three inches. But female Devils have only four teats, so only the first four to attach to a teat will survive. The babies remain attached to a teat constantly for about three months. When they emerge from the pouch, they will ride on mom’s back.

The Devils at Devil Ark are one of dozens insurance populations in Australia and at zoos around the world. DFTD is a fatal condition and has spread rapidly across Tasmania, driving the need for disease-free, genetically diverse populations as possibly the only way to save Devils from extinction.

DFTD is one of only four known naturally occurring transmissible cancers. It is transmitted like a contagious disease through biting and close contact, which occurs when wild Tasmanian Devils feed in groups, battling for access to a carcass. Devils develop large facial tumors which make eating difficult. Affected animals die from starvation.

Tasmania Devils play a vital role in Tasmania’s ecosystems by scavenging on dead animals. They are listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Researchers are working to better understand DFTD, which was only identified in 1996.

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A little ray of sunshine

A little ray of sunshine

by digby

Seems we’re not all bad:

A majority of Americans thinks that transgender people should be allowed to serve in the military, according to a Reuters poll released Friday.

The poll found that 58 percent of adults think transgender people should be able to serve in the armed forces, while 27 people said they shouldn’t.

It was conducted after President Trump on Wednesday tweeted that he decided transgender people should not be allowed to serve “in any capacity in the military,” citing the “tremendous medical costs and disruptions” he believes having transgender people would cause for the armed forces.

Seventeen percent said they thought banning transgender people from the military would “improve morale,” while 32 percent said it would hurt it. Thirty-three percent believe a possible ban would have “no impact” on the morale among the officers. 

About a half of the Republicans surveyed said they think transgender people should not be able to serve in the military, with less than one-third saying they should.

And 42 percent said banning transgender people from the military would have “no impact” on military readiness, while 22 percent said it would hurt capability and 14 percent said it would help.

I am happily surprised to learn that America is this evolved. It gives me a little bit of hope for the future.

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Republican asshole of the day (besides Donald Trump)

Republican asshole of the day (besides Donald Trump)

by digby

Congressman Louis Gohmert:

“It is outrageous and I pray for Senator McCain, for his health, for his full recovery from the cancer, but it doesn’t give him the right to make people suffer more under the current ACA.”

Yeah, he went there.

John Amato has the story:

TX Congressman Louis Gohmert told Fox Business Network that Senators lied about repealing the ACA, and he singled out John McCain

“I pray for Senator McCain, for his health, his full recovery from the cancer but it doesn’t give him the right to make people suffer more under the current ACA,” Gohmert said.

Wow, just wow.

Stuart Varney, host of Varney & Co., interviewed Rep. Gohmert about the failure of the Senate to pass McConnell’s last ditch attempt to kick the can back to the HOUSE with a horrific bill just to save face.

Varney declared there’s a war between factions within the GOP on health care and until it’s resolved, all of Trump’s legislative agenda is in jeopardy.

Gohmert said, “I don’t think it is a war between two factions of the Republican Party. It is a war between people who repeatedly made a promise that they would repeal Obamacare and their own conscience pushing them to keep their word and then something else for them to lie what they want.”

Varney said, “It is a war It is a war.”

Gohmert then took aim at John McCain.

“It is outrageous and I pray for Senator McCain, for his health, for his full recovery from the cancer, but it doesn’t give him the right to make people suffer more under the current ACA,” the TX representative said.

Having cancer under Gohmert’s AHCA House bill would truly make Americans suffer, and if it was a preexisting condition, not covered at all.

Gohmert then attacked the Senate for palming off the skinny bill onto them but begging Speaker Ryan not to pass it.

Varney kept repeating his war narrative and Gohmert said, “It is a matter of people keeping their word, Stuart. It’s just pushing people at war with some of is that want to keep our word, just pushing them to keep their word.”

McCain’s vote was the right one.

The skinny repeal that Gohmert wanted to be passed would have devastated the health care markets, kicked millions off of insurance, and increased premiums by 20% or more. That’s what the American people would have suffered had McCain not voted as he did.

Brownshirts R Us

Brownshirts R Us

by digby

Remember: The Central Park Five turned out to be innocent

Today a crowd full of cops did this:

This is a huge part of Trump’s appeal. Maybe more than anything else.

Something terrible is going to happen.

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The other hero

The other hero

by digby

In case we’ve all forgotten what honor and decency in politics is like, this speech by Senator Mazie Hirono will restore a little faith:

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Will Sessions help Trump and The Mooch do their dirty work?

Will Sessions help Trump and The Mooch do their dirty work?


by digby

My Salon column today:

I’m not sure how many more days like Thursday this country can take. The most important event was the defeat of the “skinny repeal” bill in the Senate — which actually happened in the wee hours of Friday morning — with Sen. John McCain casting a dramatic “no” vote to scuttle Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare one more time. Perhaps President Trump has learned that openly insulting people you need to support you isn’t really such a great political tactic. (Nah.)

That brings us to the other big Trump administration story, revolving around new communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who imploded on CNN after having first exploded at New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza. The whole thing started with a tweet on Wednesday in which Scaramucci claimed he had gone to the FBI because someone had leaked his financial disclosure forms and strongly suggested that someone was White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. Shortly thereafter, a Department of Justice spokesperson issued a bizarre late-night statement agreeing with “Anthony” suggesting that he or someone else high in the government had requested it.

As it turned out, the financial disclosure forms were not leaked at all; they were public information. Scaramucci deleted his threatening tweet.

What happened the next morning was next-level crazy. Lizza appeared on CNN as he often does and Scaramucci called in and confirmed that he’d spoken with Lizza the night before and then launched into a 30-minute stream of consciousness rant in which he said he wanted to “kill” White House leakers and that he was talking to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and some “buddies” in the FBI.

Later in the day Lizza published a bombshell piece in the New Yorker about the conversation he’d had with Scaramucci, which the latter apparently never said was off the record. It is amazing. Scaramucci called Reince Priebus a “fucking paranoid schizophrenic” and said, “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock. I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” He claimed that Priebus had leaked his financial disclosure forms and also believed that he’d leaked his dinner plans with Sean Hannity and the president which seemed to inflame him.

According to Lizza he then said

“O.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago,” he said. “This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I’ve got digital fingerprints on everything they’ve done through the F.B.I. and the fucking Department of Justice.”

“What?” I interjected.

“Well, the felony, they’re gonna get prosecuted, probably, for the felony.” He added, “The lie detector starts—” but then he changed the subject and returned to what he thought was the illegal leak of his financial-disclosure forms.”

He sounds so ridiculous that it’s tempting to just laugh about it and move along. But according to the Daily Beast, this crusade against leakers has been ordered by the president. Trump is very angry that people are behaving in a way that he believes is disloyal and he wants them to be prosecuted. It is unclear if he and Scaramucci understand that there’s no law against telling a reporter that the president is having dinner with someone. Obviously Trump is entitled to fire a staffer for doing that (or for any other reason he wants) but only the leaking of classified information is a crime, and using law enforcement to try to ferret out which employees are talking to reporters about palace intrigue is blatantly illegal.

The Daily Beast also reported that the Justice Department confirmed that Sessions and Scaramucci spoke on Thursday morning, but the DOJ spokeswoman didn’t know what was discussed. Perhaps the timing is a coincidence, but consider that for the past couple of weeks the president has been complaining that he’s “disappointed” in Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. He’s trying to get Sessions to quit so that he can replace him and likely then fire special counsel Robert Mueller. He couldn’t be more obvious. (Here’s a good explainer from the Washington Post as to why Trump needs Sessions to quit rather than firing him.)

But Trump also has some specific complaints about the way Sessions is doing his job. He believes he should fire Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe (which is strange since Trump could fire McCabe himself if he chose) and he wants him to investigate James Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, along with Hillary Clinton’s emails (again), her alleged contacts with Ukraine and various other loony charges. Trump also believes that Sessions has failed to pursue leakers. It would not be entirely surprising if Trump tasked his man Scaramucci to talk to Sessions about that.

This wouldn’t be the first time a Trump surrogate got some “FBI buddies” to do some dirty work for him. Recall that during the campaign Rudy Giuliani was coordinating intel with the New York FBI office, which may have resulted in Comey issuing his ill-fated letter to Congress 10 days before the election. In fact, just before he was fired, Comey indicated that the FBI was looking into that matter.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson interviewed Sessions on Thursday night and he admitted that the president’s comments have been “hurtful” but says he doesn’t plan to quit. Sessions also went out of his way to flatter the president in obsequious fashion and promised he would announce some major news about leakers next week, promising that some would go to jail for their crimes. It’s not clear where he’s looking or whom he’s targeting, but it’s likely to be officials in the intelligence agencies, the FBI and the Department of Justice. Trump will no doubt be glad to hear this, but since he wants to end the Russia investigation first and foremost, it’s unlikely he’ll be appeased.

As for the president’s other demands, it appears they are moving along as well. As I predicted a while back, House Judiciary Committee Republicans on Thursday called for a new special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton, Comey and Lynch. Sessions made an earlier promise to recuse himself from any Clinton probe, but it’s unlikely he’ll make that mistake again.

Trump told Hillary Clinton during one of their campaign debates that if he were president she’d be in jail. Maybe he meant it after all. And if he has his way he’s going to start locking up other rivals and critics as well.

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That vote

That vote

by digby

This picture of a rainbow was taken by photographer Kate Wool in Fairbanks Alaska just as the vote failed last night after they had spent an hour leaning on her Senator Lisa Murkowski to get her to change her mind. McCain was the big hero of course because, well he was. But it was the two women, Murkowski and Collins who held strong through the whole process and not because they objected to McConnell’s devious procedures as McCain did. They objected on the merits of the bills.

I thought that picture perfectly illustrated the immense relief many of us felt and a nice thank you from the gods and goddesses to Senator Murkowski.

Here’s a hilarious play by play of McCain’s vote:

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Until next time by @BloggersRUs

Until next time
by Tom Sullivan

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “skinny repeal” bill targeting the Affordable Care Act failed 51-49 late last night in the U.S. Senate, or what is left of it. Reports suggest McConnell’s team wrote the 8-page bill yesterday over lunch.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut declared the process “nuclear-grade bonkers.”

The mad spectacle of Senate Republicans throwing themselves at a legislative process that resembled anything but could only have been topped last night by them dousing the place with gasoline and setting themselves alight. Forget Obamacare’s flaws. Forget prospective White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci’s Sopranos threats. Forget the melodramatic lecture Tuesday by Senator John McCain, R-Az., about restoring “regular order.” If Al Pacino had burst in and shouted the whole Congress was out of order, that would have felt more sane.

Late last night, all Republican senators but three solemnly voted for a bill they did not want passed.

At an impromptu press conference earlier, Sen Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., declared it “a disaster” and “a fraud.” Joined by fellow Republicans McCain, Johnson of Wisconsin, and Cassidy of Louisiana, Graham told reporters they had been assured that if the shell bill passed, the real bill would be written, once again in secret, in the House-Senate conference committee.

“I’d rather get out of the way and let it collapse than have a half-ass approach where it is now our problem,” Graham told the press. Before he could vote for it, Graham demanded assurances from House Speaker Paul Ryan that the House would not pass the “skinny” bill as is. Receiving none, Graham voted to pass it anyway.

The three Republican dissenters when voting closed about 1:30 a.m. EDT this morning were Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and John McCain.

Prior to the final vote, Ezra Klein wrote:

Nothing that is happening tonight makes the slightest bit of sense. All of it violates every procedural principle and policy promise Republicans put forth in the aftermath of Obamacare’s passage.

[…]

We are watching indefensible policy being pushed forward in an indefensible process in the hopes that it will eventually be signed into law and implemented by an indefensible administration. And what’s stranger is everyone involved knows it. All this comes mere days after Sen. John McCain received a standing ovation on the floor of the Senate for excoriating the way this effort, and the way his institution, was being run.

After all of it, McCain cast the deciding vote to “kill the bill” as protesters outside the Capitol demanded.

The irony is ChafeeRomneyObama market-based health insurance plans have been kicking around since Richard Nixon drafted one to keep any Democratic single-payer plans at bay. Today’s Republicans have no alternative plan because their plan is already law. Beside their attempts to sabotage it, the problems inherent in Obamacare are the failures inherent in their preferred approach. The greater problem is, of course, Republicans derisively branded the standing, Republican-inspired law after a Democratic president and, whatever the costs, that Must Not Stand.

“It’s time to move on,” a disappointed McConnell told the Senate chamber after the voting closed. Until next time. There will be a next time.

“We are not celebrating. We are relieved,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. said afterwards.

Last night was a stinging defeat for Republicans. But there is little solace after McConnell and all but three of his caucus moved to abrogate democratic norms that have guided this country for decades if not centuries. All the protocols, all the arcane procedures senators from both parties learn to navigate and manipulate in their careers create, for better or worse, a known, predictable process for democratic governance. Like them or not, they provide some small stability at a time when Americans and the world could use some. All of that Republicans were poised to jettison in blind pursuit of an immediate “win.” Not unlike the current resident of the White House, they are adrift without rudder or keel. And possessed perhaps by madness. There is little in that to find relief.

To adapt the aphorism, if you are not unnerved, you are not paying attention.

(h/t for photo: BHM)

This is fine

This is fine

by digby

Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker:

On Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn’t happy. Earlier in the night, I’d tweeted, citing a “senior White House official,” that Scaramucci was having dinner at the White House with President Trump, the First Lady, Sean Hannity, and the former Fox News executive Bill Shine. It was an interesting group, and raised some questions. Was Trump getting strategic advice from Hannity? Was he considering hiring Shine? But Scaramucci had his own question—for me.

“Who leaked that to you?” he asked. I said I couldn’t give him that information. He responded by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. “What I’m going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we’ll start over,” he said. I laughed, not sure if he really believed that such a threat would convince a journalist to reveal a source. He continued to press me and complain about the staff he’s inherited in his new job. “I ask these guys not to leak anything and they can’t help themselves,” he said. “You’re an American citizen, this is a major catastrophe for the American country. So I’m asking you as an American patriot to give me a sense of who leaked it.”

In Scaramucci’s view, the fact that word of the dinner had reached a reporter was evidence that his rivals in the West Wing, particularly Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, were plotting against him. While they have publiclymaintained that there is no bad blood between them, Scaramucci and Priebus have been feuding for months. After the election, Trump asked Scaramucci to join his Administration, and Scaramucci sold his company, SkyBridge Capital, in anticipation of taking on a senior role. But Priebus didn’t want him in the White House, and successfully blocked him for being appointed to a job until last week, when Trump offered him the communications job over Priebus’s vehement objections. In response to Scaramucci’s appointment, Sean Spicer, an ally of Priebus’s, resigned his position as press secretary. And in an additional slight to Priebus, the White House’s official announcement of Scaramucci’s hiring noted that he would report directly to the President, rather than to the chief of staff.

Scaramucci’s first public appearance as communications director was a slick and conciliatory performance at the lectern in the White House briefing room last Friday. He suggested it was time for the White House to turn a page. But since then, he has become obsessed with leaks and threatened to fire staffers if he discovers that they have given unauthorized information to reporters. Michael Short, a White House press aide considered close to Priebus, resigned on Tuesday after Scaramucci publicly spoke about firing him. Meanwhile, several damaging stories about Scaramucci have appeared in the press, and he blamed Priebus for most of them. Now, he wanted to know whom I had been talking to about his dinner with the President. Scaramucci, who initiated the call, did not ask for the conversation to be off the record or on background.

“Is it an assistant to the President?” he asked. I again told him I couldn’t say. “O.K., I’m going to fire every one of them, and then you haven’t protected anybody, so the entire place will be fired over the next two weeks.”

I asked him why it was so important for the dinner to be kept a secret. Surely, I said, it would become public at some point. “I’ve asked people not to leak things for a period of time and give me a honeymoon period,” he said. “They won’t do it.” He was getting more and more worked up, and he eventually convinced himself that Priebus was my source.

“They’ll all be fired by me,” he said. “I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus—if you want to leak something—he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.” The issue, he said, was that he believed Priebus had been worried about the dinner because he hadn’t been invited. “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: “ ‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’ ” (Priebus did not respond to a request for comment.)

Scaramucci was particularly incensed by a Politico report about his financial-disclosure form, which he viewed as an illegal act of retaliation by Priebus. The reporter said Thursday morning that the document was publicly available and she had obtained it from the Export-Import Bank. Scaramucci didn’t know this at the time, and he insisted to me that Priebus had leaked the document, and that the act was “a felony.”

“I’ve called the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice,” he told me.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“The swamp will not defeat him,” he said, breaking into the third person. “They’re trying to resist me, but it’s not going to work. I’ve done nothing wrong on my financial disclosures, so they’re going to have to go fuck themselves.”

Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” (Bannon declined to comment.)

He reiterated that Priebus would resign soon, and he noted that he told Trump that he expected Priebus to launch a campaign against him. “He didn’t get the hint that I was reporting directly to the President,” he said. “And I said to the President here are the four or five things that he will do to me.” His list of allegations included leaking the Hannity dinner and the details from his financial-disclosure form.

I got the sense that Scaramucci’s campaign against leakers flows from his intense loyalty to Trump. Unlike other Trump advisers, I’ve never heard him say a bad word about the President. “What I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President’s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people,” he told me.

He cryptically suggested that he had more information about White House aides. “O.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago,” he said. “This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I’ve got digital fingerprints on everything they’ve done through the F.B.I. and the fucking Department of Justice.”

“What?” I interjected.

“Well, the felony, they’re gonna get prosecuted, probably, for the felony.” He added, “The lie detector starts—” but then he changed the subject and returned to what he thought was the illegal leak of his financial-disclosure forms. I asked if the President knew all of this.

“Well, he doesn’t know the extent of all that, he knows about some of that, but he’ll know about the rest of it first thing tomorrow morning when I see him.”

Scaramucci said he had to get going. “Yeah, let me go, though, because I’ve gotta start tweeting some shit to make this guy crazy.”

Minutes later, he tweeted, “In light of the leak of my financial info which is a felony. I will be contacting @FBI and the @TheJusticeDept #swamp @Reince45.” With the addition of Priebus’s Twitter handle, he was making public what he had just told me: that he believed Priebus was leaking information about him. The tweet quickly went viral.

More at the link.