Month: July 2017

Trump and the troops

by digby

He truly believes he’s running a banana republic:

COL. WILKERSON on this #Trump clip: “It’s just another indication that this man is grossly inexperienced.” #AMJoy https://t.co/1ncYcVGzVb

— AM Joy w/Joy Reid (@amjoyshow) July 23, 2017

And this is a little bit scary:

In the fall of 2013, Veterans Today, a fringe American news site that also offers former service members help finding jobs and paying medical bills, struck up a new partnership. It began posting content from New Eastern Outlook, a geopolitical journal published by the government-chartered Russian Academy of Sciences, and running headlines like “Ukraine’s Ku Klux Klan — NATO’s New Ally.” As the United States confronted Russian ally Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons against Syrian children this spring, the site trumpeted, “Proof: Turkey Did 2013 Sarin Attack and Did This One Too” and “Exclusive: Trump Apologized to Russia for Syria Attack.”

In recent years, intelligence experts say, Russia has dramatically increased its “active measures” — a form of political warfare that includes disinformation, propaganda and compromising leaders with bribes and blackmail — against the United States. Thus far, congressional committees, law enforcement investigations and press scrutiny have focused on Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s successful efforts to disrupt the American political process. But a review of the available evidence and the accounts of Kremlin watchers make clear that the Russian government is using the same playbook against other pillars of American society, foremost among them the military. Experts warn that effort, which has received far less attention, has the potential to hobble the ability of the armed forces to clearly assess Putin’s intentions and effectively counter future Russian aggression.

In addition to propaganda designed to influence service members and veterans, Russian state actors are friending service members on Facebook while posing as attractive young women to gather intelligence and targeting the Twitter accounts of Defense Department employees with highly customized “phishing” attacks. The same Russian military hacking group that breached the Democratic National Committee, “Fancy Bear,” was also responsible for publicly posting stolen Army data online while posing as supporters of the Islamic State in 2015, according to the findings of one cybersecurity firm. And the hacking group’s most common target for phishing attacks in the West has been military personnel, with service members’ spouses making up another prominent target demographic, according to another cybersecurity firm.

While the military and its contractors have long been the targets of cyberattacks from hostile foreign powers, the Russian campaign is noteworthy for its heightened intensity, especially since the imposition of Western economic sanctions following the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and for the novel tactics it is employing online. All of it amounts to a new kind of low-intensity or “hybrid” warfare that Western governments are still struggling to effectively counter.

“We are focused on the azalea bushes at the edge of a redwood forest,” said retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, who stepped down last June after three years as supreme allied commander of NATO, where he witnessed a surge in Russian active measures against Baltic states and in efforts to spread negative disinformation about the alliance’s soldiers stationed in Europe.

The active measures campaign has followed Breedlove home and into retirement. In July, emails hacked from his Gmail account were published on the Russian front site DC Leaks, and Breedlove said he was recently targeted with a series of more than a dozen sophisticated phishing emails purporting to come from his bank. Breedlove declined to name his bank but said it is used by the majority of his fellow officers, leading him to conclude the motives of the phishing attack were political rather than financial. “What Russia is doing across the gamut from our internal audiences to military audiences and others,” he said, “is quite astronomical.”

***

In the 20th century, intelligence agencies looking to build ties with foreign soldiers might have gone through the trouble of sending agents out to watering holes near military bases, waiting for servicemen to show up and gaining their trust one drink at a time.

Now, social media makes it cheap and easy to target soldiers and veterans in their virtual hangouts for intelligence gathering and influence campaigns.

John Bambenek, a threat intelligence manager at Fidelis Cybersecurity, whose work has included investigating the DNC breach, said Russia is one of several foreign powers using social media lures to gather intelligence on the U.S. military. “Some are quite unsophisticated (attractive women sending friend requests), some get more complicated,” he wrote in an email. “Spies understand that a great deal can be discerned about what militaries are up to based on the unclassified behavior of soldiers.”

Forming connections on social media could help foreign states directly communicate with groups of American soldiers, a tactic employed in recent conflicts by both Russia and the U.S. During the first days of the annexation of Crimea, Ukrainian soldiers were bombarded with demoralizing text messages such as, “Soldier you are just a raw meat for your commanders.” Ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. military emailed Iraqi soldiers en masse, encouraging them to surrender, according to Richard Clarke’s 2010 book, “Cyber War.”

The Pentagon is clearly worried. Defense Department spokeswoman Linda Rojas declined to comment on specific activities, but said new technologies have made the military more vulnerable in cyberspace. “The proliferation of internet-based communications and social media applications has elevated the potential for nefarious use that could affect our personnel,” she wrote in an email. Rojas also said the military was working to address the mounting threats posed by hacking and online influence operations. “We make every effort to educate and inform DoD personnel of these threats, while bolstering our network defense capabilities to protect IT infrastructure from outside intrusions,” she wrote.

Becoming Facebook friends with American soldiers also gives foreign agents the ability to post propaganda that will show up on their news feeds.

Serena Moring, a former military contractor from a military family, said she first became concerned about pro-Russian sentiment among soldiers on social media last spring, when an unverified report purporting to relate the story of a Russian soldier who died heroically while fighting ISIS in Syria began circulating among American service members on social media.

“All of the response from the military guys was like, ‘That is awesome. That’s an epic way to die,’” recounted Moring, 39. “It was a very soldier-to-soldier bond that was created through social media.”

Moring said she has become further alarmed as friends of hers in the military, including military intelligence, have become avowed admirers of Putin, and that she now expends considerable effort arguing about Russia on Instagram and Facebook channels geared to military audiences.

In the Wild West of social media, it is difficult to sort out pro-Russian sentiment that is organic—Putin’s approval rating has surged among U.S. Republicans since 2015, and he is often the subject of positive coverage in right-leaning outlets like Fox News—from that which is manufactured. But Breedlove said much of the sentiment is being generated by a concerted Kremlin influence campaign. “People popping up on veterans’ sites and singing the praises of Putin, you can guarantee those are trolls and part of the army that’s sitting over there attacking us every day,” he said.

***

Putin has made the creation of a pro-Russian “alternative media ecosystem” to, in his words, smash “the Anglo-Saxon monopoly on the information stream” a top priority of his foreign policy. A significant prong of those operations is aimed at the American military community, and the Russian activity has ramped up in recent years as tensions have increased over sanctions, the annexation of Crimea and the expansion of NATO.

There’s more. Wherever you stand on the Russia issue, this just doesn’t strike me as a good thing.

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Good morning

by digby

A little french pastry for your Sunday morning:

Highlight of @perlmutations during #AMJoy segment on deciphering #Trump‘s speech patterns. RETWEET if you love it! https://t.co/iYXZR1BlGg

— AM Joy w/Joy Reid (@amjoyshow) July 23, 2017

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Gold braid and mirrored sunglasses
by Tom Sullivan

Still from The In-Laws (1979).

The local board of elections made me the Democratic judge in my precinct in the very first election I voted in. My father thought it would be a lesson in democracy, I guess, one I could get paid for if I applied to be an election worker. But since we have the same first name, the board mistakenly thought the application came from him and put me in charge. At age 18.

County parties here this summer, in the slow, odd-numbered years, are assembling lists of election workers for the next 2-year cycle. It is essentially a volunteer job, community service with a stipend. People don’t do this for the money. Mostly, older people volunteer in that window between retirement and no longer being able to stand the 15-hour day. Finding replacements when the stalwarts age out is tough.

In the last week, two women called worried that personal information such as social security and drivers license numbers would be given to Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state leading up President Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity. One, a Latina, was especially worried her voter registration information would be used to target her. Her name, like mine, is not uncommon. And being a Latino, she worried about being caught up in Kobach’s fraud-fishing net. I can relate. For years, I told her, I was not the only one with my name in my own neighborhood. I sometimes break the ice in meetings by explaining I am not the Fox Business guy who fills in for Rush Limbaugh. How easy it would be for us both to get netted by Kobach’s bad data matching program.

Working inside the process, it is stunning how at odds with the fantastical, Republican rhetoric reality is. Safeguarding people’s right to vote is a big deal for these volunteers. Ensuring people can vote and that the process is fair is a passion. Most (though not all) of our GOP counterparts here in this work respect the process. We who work elections know what a fraud “voter fraud” is, which makes us, I guess, both smarter than the president and/or smart enough to be president.

This morning, the New York Times again inveighs against this massive snipe hunt and national effort at voter intimidation:

It was born out of a marriage of convenience between conservative anti-voter-fraud crusaders, who refuse to accept actual data, and a president who refuses to accept that he lost the popular vote fair and square.

It is run by some of the nation’s most determined vote suppressors, the kind who try to throw out voter registrations for being printed on insufficiently thick paper or who release reports on noncitizen voting that are titled “Alien Invasion” and illustrated with images of U.F.O.s.

Its purpose is not to restore integrity to elections but to undermine the public’s confidence enough to push through policies and practices that make registration and voting harder, if not impossible, for certain groups of people who tend to vote Democratic.

The Times calls it “a far greater threat to electoral integrity than whatever wrongdoing it may claim to dig up.” It is another example of the bad faith politics endemic at the highest level of the Republican Party.

The Week‘s Damon Linker believes the Kobach nonsense is symptomatic of a deeper anti-democratic bent in his party. Republican lawmakers’ acquiescence in the face of Trump’s insistence on personal loyalty and vapid expressions of “concern’ demonstrate they are “perfectly fine with Trump acting more like a kleptocratic despot than the head of the executive branch of a democratic republic.”

But that was just a warm-up:

There is, to begin with, the bill that would make it a federal crime (a felony punishable by up to a $1 million fine and 20 years in prison) to support the international boycott against Israel for its occupation of the West Bank. That 14 Democratic senators have joined with 29 Republicans in backing this flagrant assault on the First Amendment is certainly shameful, but it does nothing to diminish the outrageousness of those who like to portray themselves as courageous defenders of free speech endorsing a bill that would drastically curtail it. (And no, I don’t support the movement to boycott Israel, just the right of others to do so, which is exactly the way liberal democracy is supposed to work.)

Even worse is the Justice Department’s announcement on Wednesday that it is reviving the practice of allowing “state and local law enforcement officials to use federal law to seize the cash, cars, or other personal property of people suspected of crimes but not charged.” This practice, known as civil asset forfeiture, has been widely abused by police departments across the country in what amounts to government-backed theft from citizens who are supposed to be constitutionally protected from having their property seized without due process of law. That’s why state and local governments, along with the Obama Justice Department, have acted to curtail the practice. But now, in a full-frontal assault on civil liberties, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has given local police departments a way to circumvent these restrictions.

Of course, Linker saves his harshest criticism for Kobach and his phony commission, calling it “a full-frontal assault on the core liberal democratic institution of free and fair elections.” The Times wonders whether it is just a callous attempt to boost Republican’s electoral clout or if “they actually believe their own paranoid fantasies.”

The least banana Republicans could do is wear more gold braid and mirrored sunglasses.

Saturday Night at the Movies

Summertime Blus: Best BD re-issues of 2017 (so far)



By Dennis Hartley

Since we’re halfway through the year, I thought it would be the perfect time to take a look at some of the best Blu-ray reissues of 2017 (so far). Any reviews based on Region “B” editions (which require a multi-region Blu-ray player) are noted as such; the good news is that quality name-brand multi-region players are now much more affordable!

Being There (Criterion Collection) – For my money, the late director Hal Ashby was the quintessential embodiment of the new American cinema movement of the 1970s. Beginning in 1970, he bracketed the decade with an astonishing seven film streak: The Landlord, Harold and Maude, The Last Detail (reviewed below), Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home, and this 1979 masterpiece. Adapted from Jerzy Kosinki’s novel by frequent Ashby collaborator Robert C. Jones (who was uncredited…a hitherto unknown tidbit revealed in an extra feature), it’s a wry political fable about how a simpleton (Peter Sellers, in one of his greatest performances) literally stumbles his way into becoming a Washington D.C. power player within an alarmingly short period of time. Only in America! Richly drawn, finely layered, at once funny and sad (but never in a broad manner). Superbly acted by all, from the leads (Sellers, Melvyn Douglas, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Warden, Richard Dysart) down to the smallest supporting roles (a special mention for the wonderful Ruth Attaway). Like Sidney Lumet’s Network, this film only seems to become more vital with age. The Trump parallels are numerous enough; but one scene where Sellers meets with the Russian ambassador (a great cameo by Richard Basehart) has now taken on a whole new (and downright spooky) relevancy. Criterion’s Blu-ray features a beautiful 4K restoration and a plethora of enlightening extra features.

Fat City (Powerhouse Films) – John Huston’s gritty, low-key character study was a surprise hit at Cannes in 1972. Adapted by Leonard Gardner from his own novel, it’s a tale of shattered dreams, desperate living and beautiful losers (Gardner seems to be the missing link between John Steinbeck and Charles Bukowski). Filmed on location in Stockton, California, the story centers on a boozy, low-rent boxer well past his prime (Stacey Keach), who becomes a mentor to a young up-and-comer (Jeff Bridges) and starts a relationship with a fellow barfly (Susan Tyrell). Like most character studies, this film chugs along at the speed of life (i.e., not a lot “happens”), but the performances are so well fleshed out you easily forget you’re witnessing “acting”. One scene in particular, in which Keach and Tyrell’s characters first hook up in a sleazy bar, is a veritable masterclass in the craft. Granted, it’s one of the most depressing films you’ll ever see (think Barfly meets The Wrestler), but still well worth your time. Masterfully directed by Huston, with “lived-in” natural light photography by DP Conrad Hall. You will be left haunted by Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make it Through the Night”, which permeates the film. The print is beautifully restored, and extras include new interviews with the cast.

The Last Detail (Powerhouse Films) – Hal Ashby’s 1973 comedy-drama set the bar pretty high for all “buddy films” to follow (and to this day, few can touch it). Jack Nicholson heads a superb cast, as “Bad-Ass” Buddusky, a career Navy man who is assigned (along with a fellow Shore Patrol officer, played by Otis Young) to escort a first-time offender (Randy Quaid) to the brig in Portsmouth. Chagrinned to learn that the hapless young swabbie has been handed an overly-harsh sentence for a relatively petty crime, Buddusky decides that they should at least show “the kid” a good time on his way to the clink (much to his fellow SP’s consternation). Episodic “road movie”
misadventures ensue. Don’t expect a Hollywood-style “wacky” comedy; as he did in all of his films, Ashby keeps it real. The suitably briny dialog was adapted by Robert Towne from Daryl Ponicsan’s novel; and affords Nicholson some of his most iconic line readings (“I AM the motherfucking shore patrol, motherfucker!”). Nicholson and Towne were teamed up again the following year via Roman Polanski’s Chinatown. This edition sports a fabulous 4K restoration (the audio is cleaned up too, crucial for a dialog-driven piece like this). Loads of extras-including a sanitized TV cut of the film, just for giggles.

The Loved One (Warner Archive Collection) – In 1965, this black comedy/social satire was billed as “The motion picture with something to offend everyone.” By today’s standards, it’s relatively tame (but still pretty sick). Robert Morse plays a befuddled Englishman struggling to process the madness of southern California, where he has come for an extended visit at the invitation of his uncle (Sir John Gielgud) who works for a Hollywood studio. Along the way, he falls in love with a beautiful but mentally unstable mortuary cosmetician (Anjanette Comer), gets a job at a pet cemetery, and basically reacts to all the various whack-jobs he encounters. The wildly eclectic cast includes Jonathan Winters (in three roles), Robert Morley, Roddy McDowell, Milton Berle, James Coburn, Libarace, Paul Williams and Rod Steiger (as Mr. Joyboy!). Tony Richardson directed; the screenplay was adapted by Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood from Evelyn Waugh’s novel. No extras on this edition, but the high-definition transfer is good.

Man Facing Southeast (Kino-Lorber) – I originally caught this 1986 sleeper from Argentina on Cinemax 30 years ago and have been longing to see it again ever since. Kino-Lorber’s Blu-ray edition signals the film’s first domestic availability in a digital format. Writer-director Eliseo Subiela’s drama is a deceptively simple tale of a mysterious mental patient (Hugo Soto) who no one on staff at the facility where he is housed can seem to remember admitting. Yet, there he is; a soft-spoken yet oddly charismatic young man who claims to be an extra-terrestrial, sent to Earth to save humanity from themselves. He develops a complex relationship with the head psychiatrist (Lorenzo Quinteros) who becomes fascinated with his case. While primarily sold as a “sci-fi” tale, this one is tough to pigeonhole; part fable, part family drama, part Christ allegory (think King of Hearts meets The Day the Earth Stood Still). Beautiful, powerful, and touching. Extras include interviews with Subiela, Soto, and DP Ricardo de Angelis.

Metropolis (Eureka; Region “B”) – Japanese director Rintaro’s visually resplendent 2001 anime is based on Osama Tezuka’s manga reimagining of Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film classic. The narrative (adapted by Akira director Katsuhiro Otomo) is framed as a detective story (not unlike Blade Runner), with a PI and his nephew attempting to unravel the mystery of Tima, a fugitive robot girl who has become a pawn in a byzantine conspiracy involving a powerful and corrupt family that rules Metropolis. Intelligent writing, imaginative production design and beautifully realized animation make this a must-see. Extras include interviews with cast and crew, and a “making of” documentary.

Multiple Maniacs (Criterion Collection) – Warning: This 1970 trash classic from czar of bad taste John Waters is definitely not for the pious, easily offended or the faint of heart. A long out-of-print VHS edition aside, it has been conspicuously absent from home video…until now. Thank (or blame) The Criterion Collection, who have meticulously restored the film back to all of its original B&W 16mm glory (well, almost…there’s grumbling from purists about the “new” music soundtrack, reportedly precipitated by the prohibitive costs of securing music rights for some of the tracks that were “borrowed” by Waters for his original cut). The one and only Divine heads the cast of “Dreamland” players who would become Waters’ faithful repertory for years (Edith Massey, Mink Stole, David Lochary, etc.) in a tale of mayhem, perversity, filth and blasphemy too shocking to discuss in mixed company (you’ll never see a Passion Play in quite the same way). Flippancy aside for a moment, watching this the other day for the first time in several decades, I was suddenly struck by the similarities with the contemporaneous films of Rainier Werner Fassbinder (Love is Colder than Death and Gods of the Plague in particular). Once you get past its inherent shock value, Multiple Maniacs is very much an American art film. Extras include a typically hilarious commentary track with Waters.

Ocean Waves (Universal Studios Home Entertainment) – This 1993 anime is one of the last remaining “stragglers” from Japan’s Studio Ghibli vaults to make a belated (and most welcome) debut on Blu-ray (it was previously only available on PAL-DVD). Adapted by Kaori Nakamura from Saeko Himruo’s novel, and directed by Tomomi Mochizuki, it concerns a young man who returns to his home town for a high school reunion, which triggers a flood of memories about all the highs and lows of his adolescent years. It’s similar in tone to another Ghibli film, Only Yesterday, which is also takes a humanistic look at the universality of growing pains. On a sliding scale, this may be one of Ghibli’s “lesser” films, but the studio has set a pretty high bar for itself, and it will certainly please Ghibli completists (who, me?). Extras are scant, but the hi-definition transfer is lovely.

Seven Days in May (Warner Archive Collection) – This 1964 “conspiracy a-go go” thriller was director John Frankenheimer’s follow-up to The Manchurian Candidate (the cold war paranoia force was strong in him!). Picture if you will: a screenplay by Rod Serling, adapted from a novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II. Kirk Douglas plays a Marine colonel who is the adjutant to a hawkish, hard right-leaning general (Burt Lancaster) who heads the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The general is at loggerheads with the dovish President (Fredric March), who is perceived by the general and some of the other joint chiefs as a “weak sister” for his strident support of nuclear disarmament. When Douglas begins to suspect that an imminent, unusually secretive military “exercise” may in fact portend more sinister intentions, he is torn between his loyalty to the general and his loyalty to the country as to whether he should raise the alarm. Or is he just being paranoid? An intelligently scripted and well-acted nail-biter, right down to the end. Also with Ava Gardner, Edmund O’Brien, and Martin Balsam. No extras, but a great transfer.

They Live By Night (Criterion Collection) – This 1949 film noir/progenitor of the “lovers on the lam” genre marked the directing debut for the great Nicholas Ray. Adapted by Ray and Charles Schnee from Edward Anderson’s Thieves Like Us (the same source novel that inspired Robert Altman’s eponymous 1974 film), this Depression-era tale concerns the unexpected and intense mutual attraction that sparks between a young escaped convict (Farley Granger) and a sheltered young woman (Cathy O’Donnell). The young lovers’ primal drive to meaningfully connect with someone who truly “gets” them clouds the illogic of expecting to play house when one of them is a wanted fugitive. In a fashion, the film presages Ray’s 1955 social drama Rebel Without a Cause more so than it does his later noirs like In a Lonely Place and On Dangerous Ground, with its shared themes of young outcasts, adolescent confusion, and doomed love. Moody, atmospheric and surprisingly sensual for its time (it doesn’t hurt that Granger and O’Donnell are both so beautiful). Criterion’s 2K restoration lends depth to the shadows and light of George E. Diskant’s cinematography. Extras include commentary by “Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller.

More reviews at Den of Cinema
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–-Dennis Hartley

They don’t care

by digby

Yup:

The revelations that Donald Trump is looking for dirt on Robert Mueller and his team to undermine the special counsel’s investigation, and that Trump is alsoconsidering using his pardon power to protect himself and his associates from any legal fallout, constitute the latest evidence that Trump is seeking to put himself beyond the reach of the law. An adviser told The Washington Post, “This is not in the context of, ‘I can’t wait to pardon myself,’” a denial that sure sounds like the president can’t wait to pardon himself. The New Republic’s Brian Beutler puts the situation most simply: “We’re on the brink of an authoritarian crisis.”

Looming over the investigation is the possibility that Trump might just fire Mueller. Congressional Republicans have responded to this rolling scandal in typical fashion: They might have some critical words for the president on background, but they have been reluctant to take a firm stand in public. Buzzfeed’s Emma Loop asked Republican senators on Thursday whether Trump firing Mueller would be a mistake. Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr said, “I don’t think the president can fire Bob Mueller.” Senator Thom Tillis said, “Whether or not it’s a mistake, I won’t—I don’t think I’ll gauge that.” Senator Richard Shelby brushed the question off because, “that’s speculation.” Only Senator Marco Rubio could muster up a “yes it would be a mistake.”

On background, however, three senators had some harsher criticisms of Trump. As CNN reports, one senator called Trump’s interview earlier this week with The New York Times, in which he essentially warned Mueller not to investigate his personal finances, “pretty disturbing,” and acknowledged that Trump “willfully disregards the fact that the attorney general and law enforcement in general—they are not his personal lawyers to defend and protect him.” Another told CNN, “Any thought of firing the special counsel is chilling. It’s chilling. That’s all you can say.” A third remarked, “You’ve got a special counsel. Let the individual do his work. Don’t comment. Don’t interfere.” Only Senator Susan Collins went on the record to say, “It would be catastrophic if the president were to fire the special counsel.”

It has been clear for a long time now that Republicans will allow Trump to do all kinds of damage as long as they can get their legislative agenda through. They clearly know this is a crisis of historical proportions—but what’s the rule of law compared to a tax cut for the rich

The G-Man vs Cotton Mather

by digby

I had assumed they would try to go after Mueller and their first attempts are truly pathetic. (He had a fee dispute at a Trump golf course? Please. He was the FBI director for 12 years. )

Anyway, Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast takes on one of the more irritating right wing hypocrisies of this whole business:

The spin we’re going to start hearing now, in the wake of Thursday night’s bombshell New York Times and Washington Post stories, is that what Trump & Co. are about to do to attempt to destroy Robert Mueller’s credibility is no different from what Bill Clinton and his team did to Ken Starr 20 years ago.

The Washington Post quotes one lawyer involved in the case calling Mueller’s probe “Ken Starr times 1,000,” while The Times draws out the comparison: “By building files on Mr. Mueller’s team, the Trump administration is following in the footsteps of the Clinton White House, which openly challenged Mr. Starr and criticized what Mr. Clinton’s aides saw as a political witch hunt.”

And if you stay on the most superficial level possible, there is one similarity: After news broke in January 1998 that Clinton had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, his people, led by James Carville, went on a public rampage against the prosecutor that spring and summer to try and win the battle of public opinion against him.

Which they did, by roughly 50 or 60 percentage points—Clinton polled in the 60s or 70s throughout the saga, while Starr’s approval numbers just cracked 10 percent.

But that’s not what this is about. What this is about is a lie machine that’s about to crank up that has to be pre-butted. So here we go. Here are three big differences between the two situations (and there are more).

1. First of all, the actual correct comparison is not between Mueller and Starr, but Mueller and Robert Fiske. Who? Fiske was the special prosecutor originally named by Janet Reno to investigate the Clintons’ investment in the Whitewater land-development deal. In January 1994, a year into Clinton’s tenure, Reno named Fiske as the special prosecutor to look into Whitewater (and the suicide of White House aide Vince Foster, which many of the same people who today defend Trump had spun into some insane conspiracy, e.g., Hillary had him snuffed out because he knew too much, etc.).

For that situation to be parallel to this one, Clinton would had to have denounced and threatened Fiske shortly after his appointment. No such thing happened. Clinton didn’t like it, but he certainly didn’t say anything inappropriate in public.

Oh and by the way: Fiske was a Republican. I mean, can you imagine if Reno had appointed a Democrat? Republicans would have howled that the fix was in. But in the current case, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein appointed a Republican (Mueller) to investigate a Republican president, and Democrats have done nothing but praise Mueller.

2. Speaking of which, in stark contrast to Mueller, Starr’s appointment was drenched in partisan controversy from the start. This is a little complicated to explain and thus wouldn’t make for a good TV sound bite, but it’s a crucial difference. Bear with me.

At the time Fiske’s probe was just getting underway, President Clinton was also under pressure to sign a new independent counsel law (a previous one had expired). He did so. Catch: Under the terms of the law, authority for appointing said counsel transferred from the attorney general to a panel of the D.C. circuit court. That three-judge panel consisted of two highly ideological movement conservatives, David Sentelle and Laurence Silberman.

In June 1994, Fiske released a report—the same day Clinton signed the new independent counsel law—finding that Foster’s suicide was just that. This wasn’t what the right wanted to hear. A few weeks later, the three-judge panel fired Fiske and replaced him with Starr. This was a highly partisan controversy from the start. But even so, Clinton himself said nothing inappropriate.

3. Starr spent three years leaking stuff to friendly reporters. Starr and his lieutenants always denied that they were the source of leaks, and maybe they built some buffer between themselves and the reporters in question so that that was technically true. But there was only one place a lot of the Whitewater stories of 1995, 1996, and 1997 could have been coming from. These leaks were likely illegal. We’ve seen no comparable leaks from Mueller.

That’s three years—three years of slanted and often untrue leaks (Hillary was about to be indicted and so on). Pre-Lewinsky, the Clinton White House pushed back a little with some leaks about Starr’s tactics, but certainly Clinton himself never went after Starr publicly until much later, in August 1998, after Starr made Clinton’s grand jury testimony from earlier that year public—itself a highly dubious thing for a prosecutor to do.

There are many more differences. Clinton’s White House never said of Fiske or Starr the outrageous thing that Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday, as quoted in the Times article: “The president’s making it clear that the special counsel should not move outside the scope of the investigation.”

What? WHAT?? When did that become for a president to say? We’ve lived through six months of assertions and arguments that make us gasp, laugh, and cry all at the same time, but asserting that the person being investigated is allowed to set the parameters of the investigation or else he’ll axe the investigator is genuinely one of the most abominable yet.

What Starr did really was a witch hunt. After three and half years, he had nothing, and then lo and behold he learned of a presidential infidelity from a group of right-wing lawyers (one of whom, George Conway, would later marry Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, now the second-biggest liar in Washington) who convinced Starr’s prosecutors they could get Clinton to lie about it under oath.

What Mueller is doing is undertaking an obviously legitimate investigation. Into something that’s a lot graver than extramarital oral sex, by the way.

Starr was a total partisan (and a total “Christian” hypocrite, as his later disgrace at Baylor reminded us). Mueller is a person who’s taken pains over his career to be above partisanship and who is respected across the spectrum. There’s no comparison between the character of the two men or the probes they’re overseeing. The only question is which Republicans will be willing to say it.

All true.

The most important part of that is spelling out the difference between the alleged underlying crimes. One was about an ancient land deal in which the president lost money and an illicit extramarital affair that was exposed by a partisan perjury trap.

The other is about possible collusion in foreign interference in the presidential campaign, blackmail by the FSB and millions of dollars in laundering of Russian mob money. Other than that though …

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Colbert on that insane NY Times interview

by digby

He rented the room where the pee-pee tape was allegedly filmed in Moscow

Even if you’ve read it, watch Colbert’s take on the NY Times interview. If you haven’t you’ll want to after this:

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Poor Spicer gets no respect

by digby

Nuttier by the day:

Sean Spicer came to the White House on Thursday completely unaware President Donald Trump was planning to meet with Anthony Scaramucci, a longtime Wall Street friend, and offer him the job of communications director. Other top aides, including Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon, also had no clue.

But in Trump’s White House, where rumors of staff shake-ups loom for months, it all happened quickly. By Friday morning, over the strenuous objections of senior aides, Trump had a new communications director. And Spicer had made a spontaneous decision to resign, offended by the whole turn of events. He had been blindsided by Trump before, but he took particular umbrage at this one.

The wham-bam events of the past 24 hours were exceptional even by Trump’s standards: the dismissal of his top lawyer and the lawyer’s spokesman, West Wing blowups between the president and his top aides, a press secretary fending off rumors about his possible demise without knowing the entire truth, all while new reports landed about Trump going on the attack against the special counsel investigating his White House.

What struck one adviser who speaks to Trump frequently is that the president seemed calm — like he had a plan in mind all along — but just hadn’t shared it with many others.

“In the president’s business, you don’t have the luxury of time,” said Vincent Pitta, a longtime Trump friend from New York. “And marketing and communications has always been very important to him.”

The outgoing press secretary — who became a national celebrity for his contentious news briefings, inspiring Melissa McCarthy’s “Saturday Night Live” impressions with a mobile podium — had tried to lower his profile, wary he was getting too close to the sun. Random passersby would honk and scream at him outside his house in Virginia while he talked on the phone.

“Just look at his great television ratings,” Trump wrote in a statement, praising him upon his departure, even though Spicer had not delivered an on-camera briefing since June 20.

Spicer thought he had succeeded in reducing his public footprint. One friend said he seemed to be returning to a more normal version of himself, with less stress and more positive things to say about other people. He had told friends he liked being away from the podium and working on longer-term issues, like tax reform, and had told others how well the White House was going to handle the issue under his stead. And he was coping relatively well with the stress of serving as both press secretary and communications director after Mike Dubke resigned in May…

Meanwhile, Trump had complained that TV coverage of his White House was getting worse and worse, aides and advisers said. He repeatedly said to friends that his communications operation was a problem, even if he didn’t always refer to Spicer by name. The briefings would make him upset every day — one reason the White House sharply cut them back. “We need new faces,” Trump told one adviser.

The president had watched Scaramucci act as a surrogate for him on TV and heaped lavish praise on him to advisers. Two people who spoke to Trump said he particularly relished that Scaramucci forced CNN to issue a retraction on a story about the businessman’s Russian ties — and considered him almost a “white knight” for it, one of these people said. When Scaramucci visited the Oval Office two weeks ago, Trump reminded others repeatedly of the retraction, one senior official said.

Trump had told others that it might make sense to bring in Scaramucci to improve his TV coverage, said a person who spoke to Trump recently. But he didn’t want to fire Spicer. He would just make Scaramucci the communications director and give him power to fix some of the problems in the shop.

By Thursday, Trump had basically made up his mind and invited Scaramucci back into the West Wing on Thursday afternoon. Trump blocked aides who might oppose the move from the meeting, keeping it largely to family, administration officials and advisers said. Spicer had no idea that Scaramucci was in talks for the job — or that he was being offered it, according to administration officials. He learned later that evening, along with senior officials including Priebus and Bannon.

Spicer was soon being bombarded Thursday evening with media reports that he was getting a new boss in title — even though he didn’t know exactly what to say. There were efforts from Priebus and Bannon to slow or block the move. Administration officials and advisers said they had various reasons for their opposition, including fears that Scaramucci lacked the political or communications experience necessary for the high-profile job, and personal tensions between Priebus and Scaramucci.

After he found out about Scaramucci’s appointment, Bannon had a very “aggressive” confrontation with Trump that some in the West Wing viewed as remarkable, people with direct knowledge of the encounter said. Another person familiar with the encounter said Bannon’s behavior was “embarrassing.”

“There were a lot of people in the White House that didn’t want this,” one senior White House official said. “It happened because the family wanted it and because Trump wanted it.”

It’s like the country is being run by The Addams Family. Except they’re idiots.  (And I’d love to know what the Bannon being “embarrassing” was all about … )

Spicer agonized Thursday night and thought Scaramucci might still be kept out. Putting Scaramucci over Spicer would diminish his standing in the West Wing and prove another humiliation.

He went into the White House on Friday morning, saying he needed to see the president — who was also talking to Scaramucci. Spicer was weighing his options and wanted to see what job Scaramucci would get before deciding whether to resign. After Scaramucci’s position as communications director was announced in a larger senior staff meeting, Spicer returned to the Oval Office separately, told the president he disagreed with the pick and quickly resigned, people briefed on the encounter said.

Trump was taken aback and told Spicer to stay on board. Scaramucci and Spicer could work together, Trump said. “It would all work out, we’ll all be on the same team,” said a person who was told of Trump’s comments. But Scaramucci was going to be in charge and report directly to the president.

Spicer saw it as a personal affront to work for Scaramucci and told the president that it couldn’t work. Spicer had expected to evolve into more of a full-time communications director role because he was essentially no longer the public-facing press secretary, having turned over the podium.

Spicer returned angrily to the press office, but put on a happy face for a brief resignation meeting, convened by Priebus. He even gave Scaramucci a half-hug.

It goes on to describe the humiliations Trump had visited on Spicer and what a thankless job it is working for an unbalanced imbecile.

But my God, Spicer is so clueless:

Saturday Morning Soother

by digby

Better late than never.  🙂

This video shows the incredible moment a dog bounded into the water to rescue a drowning young deer.

Mark Freeley had been walking his dogs, Storm and Sara, by the Long Island Sound in New York state on Sunday when the pooch suddenly leapt into the water. The English golden retriever swam out into the sound before grabbing something by the neck and pulling it back to shore.

It was a baby deer.

“Storm just plunged into the water and started swimming out to the fawn, grabbed it by the neck, and started swimming to shore,” Freeley told CBS News.

Freeley captured video of the deer’s rescue and posted it on Facebook. “What a morning … Can’t believe this,” he wrote. “Storm just saved this baby deer.”

As the Facebook video shows, Storm brought the fawn to dry land and ushered it to safety. Obviously weakened, you can see the deer down on its belly as Storm licks and nudges the animal with his nose.

“[When] he laid down next to it, and started nudging it and pawing it … that was really special,” Freeley told WCBS Newsradio 880.

Concerned about the deer’s health, Freeley said he called an animal rescue team who soon arrived on the scene. When Frank Floridia and Erica Kutzing of the Strong Island Animal Rescue League tried to get close to the deer, however, the skittish animal ran into the water again — this time, swimming even further out than before.

Floridia jumped into the water to save it.

“It was a do-or-die situation,” the rescuer told the New York Daily News. “I really didn’t have much of a choice. If I didn’t go in the water, the deer would’ve died.”

Thankfully, Floridia managed to bring the deer back to land. He and Kutzing then transported it to the Star Foundation, a Long Island nonprofit animal rescue organization.

On Monday, Freeley shared photos of Storm getting a “reward” for his heroism.

“I think we could all learn something from Storm,” rescuer Kutzing told Port Jefferson Patch this week. “If we just learn to treat each other nicely and look out for each other, despite our differences, the world would be a better place.”

Tin-pots and pans
by Tom Sullivan

Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk opens this weekend. Reading a review evoked the same dizzying sense that the world is coming apart that has been a feature of the nightly news for weeks. It is as if we are on “some barren, foam-whipped stretch of alien terrain,” “merely a handful of the countless individuals suffering this nightmare—random spokes on a wheel spinning furiously out of control.” Okay, maybe Trumpworld is not a “conceptual assault of thunderous intensity and emotion,” but still a lot of us are asking ourselves, How do we get the hell off this beach?

Dahlia Lithwick summarizes just a few of the other unresolved questions posed by Donald Trump’s asymmetrical warfare against the United States Constitution and the rule of law:

Can the president truly continue to enrich himself and his family by leveraging his office to benefit from foreigners? Can the president really fire the FBI director and admit he was thinking about the Russia probe while doing it? Can the president leak classified information to the Russians in the Oval Office? Can the president’s son take a meeting with Russians who are promising dirt on Hillary Clinton? Can he do that with multiple campaign advisers in the room? Can the president’s son-in-law attend such a meeting and still retain his security clearance?

Today, we have a new set of questions to toss on the pile: Can the president really pardon himself and all his friends, family, neighbors, and pets, plus fire Robert Mueller, plus threaten his attorney general?

Answers to those questions are in short supply, Lithwick writes. The system was not designed for a Trump.

The Framers erected an edifice of law intended to constrain power, and the president believes that framework is made of spun sugar and cobwebs. The United States is a nation built upon, as John Adams told us, “a government of laws and not of men.” The Trump administration adheres to no law, and whatever men or women keep faith with the law rather than him are discredited as biased against the president. This only goes one way: Norms are for losers, and laws are for poor people. And now Trump has his dream team of mob lawyers and mad dogs hard at work proving that the only lawyer without a disabling conflict of interest is the one pledging fealty to him.

We are in this fix precisely because — and Lithwick includes herself — Americans indulge in magical thinking about our laws and constitution, believing the system will always right itself, that the ACLU’s and other watchdogs’ lawyers will fix it. But don’t bet your retirement on it. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Especially now.

“The rule of law is precisely as robust as our willingness to fight for it, Lithwick writes. “And to fight for it is not quite the same thing as to ask, ‘Isn’t there a law?’” She doesn’t exactly call for people to take to the streets, but the suggestion that it might be necessary is perched at the end of her post like a raven.

As Digby mentioned yesterday, should Trump fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Resistance groups are laying plans for just that. It it comes to that, remember to bring pots and pans. They made an impression in Iceland.

A new study issued by the Pentagon suggests that the post-war order “is not merely fraying but may, in fact, be collapsing,” and the United States’ preeminence in world affairs with it. Alternet summarizes:

Danger comes not just from great power rivals like Russia and China, both portrayed as rapidly growing threats to American interests, but also from the increasing risk of “Arab Spring”-style events. These will erupt not just in the Middle East, but all over the world, potentially undermining trust in incumbent governments for the foreseeable future.

Probably, our own was not one of the incumbent governments the Pentagon had in mind.

Don’t forget the wooden spoons.