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Month: August 2017

He had the Boy Scouts at each others throats

Published by digby on August 1, 2017

He had the Boy Scouts at each others throats

by digby

The Washington Post did a tick tock of last week’s extraordinary events with commentary from reporters and other observers. 
Here’s the passage about the Boy Scout speech:

Stokols: You didn’t realize until you walked into the amphitheater that it was like a giant campaign rally. These are probably the biggest crowds he’s seen since Inauguration Day. And knowing how Trump feeds off of crowds — you know this is now going to be a thing.

David: I know the speeches aren’t supposed to be political. I was hoping to hear how we can help our communities and embody scouting values. When he said, Who the hell wants to talk about politics? — I wish you could have seen my face cheer up.

Stokols: When he said, “Who the hell wants to speak about politics?” it was an immediate red flashing light to me that things were about to get political.

The president proceeds to deliver an address lambasting the “fake news media” and the Washington “cesspool.” He joked about firing his health and human services secretary — who was onstage with him. He told a meandering story about yachts. And he sneered at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

In a speech at the 2017 National Scout Jamboree in Glen Jean, W.Va., July 24, President Trump said Washington, D.C., is a “sewer.” (The Washington Post)

Jarren: What he did was, he said, “Did Barack Obama ever come to a jamboree?” And we all said, “Nooooo!” Because he had never came to a jamboree. A president should take the time to support Boy Scouts.

David: When he said, “Barack Obama,” I screamed “Oh my god,” and put my hands over my head. It was so unreal. I thought I was in a dream. He got the crowd to boo. It made me so sad.

Jarren: I remember when he said not to lose momentum on anything you do. It reminded me to never give up.

Kat Timpf: It’s a strange thing to use your time in front of tens of thousands of teenagers to brag about your election win and your partying days in New York.

Stokols: When you’re covering a speech like that, it’s like a microcosm of covering the whole presidency. You’re just treading water — you’ll fixate on one thing that’s kind of wild and then you’ll miss something else. I missed the “Under the Trump administration you’ll be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again when you go shopping” thing because I was so busy trying to make sense of the yacht story.

David: There were disagreements all over camp. Some people saying “F Trump,” some people saying “MAGA.” I heard there was a troop from New York that had a troop from Texas right next to them and the leaders had to keep them separate.

Here’s what Trump told the Wall Street Journal  the next morning

PRESIDENT TRUMP: But we’re up. We have now – are you going tonight? Are you going to the speech in Ohio tonight?

WSJ: We were in West Virginia yesterday.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, you did? Was that a scene, though? Huh?

WSJ: That was a scene, yes. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Biggest crowd they’ve ever had. What did you think?

WSJ: I thought it was an interesting speech in the context of the Boy Scouts.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Right.

WSJ: They seemed to get a lot of feedback from former scouts and –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Did they like it?

WSJ: It seemed mixed.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: They loved it. (Laughter.) It wasn’t – it was no mix. That was a standing –

WSJ: In the – you got a good – you got a good reaction in –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I mean, you know, he writes mostly negative stuff. But that was a standing ovation –

WSJ: You got a good reaction inside the arena, that’s right.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: – from the time I walked out on the stage – because I know. And by the way, I’d be the first to admit mixed. I’m a guy that will tell you mixed. There was no mix there. That was a standing ovation from the time I walked out to the time I left, and for five minutes after I had already gone. There was no mix.

WSJ: Yeah, there was a lot of supporters in the arena.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful. So there was – there was no mix.

He is so ill.

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Electro-torture in American jails

Published by digby on August 1, 2017

Electro-torture in American jails

by digby

This is so horrifying I don’t even know what to say:

Jordan Elias Norris, 20, of Pegram has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court accusing three Cheatham County Correction Deputies of deprivation of civil rights, citing the use of excessive force and failure to protect after he was repeatedly tased in the jail.

Norris was arrested Nov. 3, 2016 and charged with felony manufacturing/possession of marijuana for resale, possession of drug paraphernalia, theft under $500, five counts of possession of a prohibited weapon.

He was charged felony vandalism of over $1,000 and simple assault Nov. 7 while still incarcerated.

Norris was originally suspected of stealing a semi-automatic rifle and Sheriff’s deputies received information he was going to use the weapon on any law enforcement who tried to arrest him, according to Sheriff Mike Breedlove.

Several use of force reports state that Norris was failing to comply with deputies and combative during the time-frame deputies tased him.

The Ashland City Times has obtained surveillance video, use of force reports from the jail and a copy of the lawsuit. This story will be updated as details of the events are reviewed.

I feel sick.

They restrained him and tortured him with electro-shock. There can be no dispute about what we see on that video. It is a clear as day.

This is what we do in America.

Why is anyone surprised that an authoritarian thug like Donald Trump became president?

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The new sheriff in town, blah, blah, blah

Published by digby on August 1, 2017
The new sheriff in town, blah, blah, blah

by digby

I wrote about General Kelly for Salon this morning:

There’s nothing quite like the breathless excitement of Beltway pundits at the prospect of a manly father figure striding into town to whip the political system into shape. CNN’s Gloria Borger must have said “there’s a new sheriff in town” at least 467 times in the space of one afternoon after the news that the colorful White House communications adviser of just 10 days, Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci, was out on his ear at the hands of the new White House chief of staff General John Kelly.

The thrill of having a swashbuckling military man bringing the hammer down on his very first day brought mainstream media commentators to the kind of collective swoon we haven’t seen since President Trump hired Gens. H.R McMaster and James “Mad Dog” Mattis a few months back and everyone declared that the grownups were back in charge.

Ben Domenech of the Federalist explained on “Face the Nation” on Sunday that Kelly’s hire is a turning point. Normally this would lead to a prediction that Trump is finally going to “pivot,” but by now everyone seems to realize that the president is incapable of “pivoting” to anything resembling presidential behavior. Never mind that; Domenech has a new pivot theory:

It’s potentially a turning point in the early stages of this administration, a pivot away from perhaps loyalty to a GOP establishment which had been injected into this White House after a campaign in which they were very often at odds.

On CNN, GOP strategist Mark Caputo gave the official Beltway line:

I’ve known the president for quite a while now, several years. And I know that he responds very, very well to flag officers. It’s a group of people that he’s very respectful of. I think that if he and General Kelly sat down … I trust that the president is going to stand by whatever commitments he made to the general. This White House could use a Marine officer in charge. We all agree about this. I think we’re going to see some good things.

It’s true that Trump likes the idea of a granite-jawed man in uniform but in practice those relationships haven’t worked as well as people predicted. Bloomberg’s Eli Lake reported a couple of months ago that Trump was “disillusioned” with McMaster, his national security adviser, the last general everyone assumed would take command and give Trump the structure and focus he so clearly lacks.

That hasn’t worked out too well. Trump doesn’t like getting advice and reportedly complains that McMaster talks too much. He believes the general has “undermined his policy” by seeking to clarify the president’s muddled message in the hopes of averting international incidents. Just last week the president showed his great respect for his secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff by not bothering to consult with them before he tweeted out a ban on transgender military members, apparently on a whim.

On the campaign trail, Trump hailed World War II generals George Patton and Douglas MacArthur, both of whom were disciplined for insubordination, although Trump never gave the slightest indication he was aware of anything but their reputations as tough guys. Of course there was one general in his administration with whom he seem to truly bond: Michael Flynn, the unstable short-term national security adviser who is now under investigation for being in the pocket of foreign governments. Trump still loves the guy and has remained loyal to him despite pretty much betraying every other member of his administration, most recently devoted Attorney General Jeff Sessions, doglike press secretary Sean Spicer, chief of staff Reince Priebus and now Scaramucci, his designated hit man.

Perhaps Gen. Kelly will have better luck. Trump certainly admired his ruthless approach to dealing with immigration during his stint as director of Homeland Security. It is ironic that a man who is being extolled as a rigid disciplinarian made his name at DHS as a leader who allowed rank-and-file ICE officers and Border Patrol agents to run wild and do whatever they deemed necessary regardless of the law. This is not the mark of a strict and controlled leadership style.

According to Dara Lind at Vox, Kelly has also recently adopted Trump’s florid rhetorical style, ranting to an audience at George Washington University, “Make no mistake — we are a nation under attack. We are under attack from criminals who think their greed justifies raping young girls at knifepoint, dealing poison to our youth, or killing just for fun,” which apparently surprised people who have known him for a while and saw him as a more nuanced and sophisticated thinker. Trump undoubtedly appreciated such a validation of his worldview that the United States is at war with immigrants.

I wrote about Kelly’s disturbing tenure at DHS a few weeks ago, and frankly I think he’s better off working at the White House scheduling the president’s time and refereeing the dysfunctional Trump family circus than overseeing that vast police agency. In a way, Trump’s unfitness for office may serve to rein in Kelly as much as Kelly will rein in Trump.

Of course the Scaramucci firing dominated the news on Monday and overshadowed what should have been a very big story about Kelly that will shape his relationship with the president more than anything they may have in common. CNN reported that Kelly was extremely upset about the way Trump handled the firing of FBI Director James Comey back in May, and even considered resigning over it. In fact, Kelly apparently called Comey while the latter was on his way back to Washington that very day, and Comey told him not to quit.

This story didn’t get much play but you can bet Trump has heard about it. The president’s insistence on blind loyalty is well known. He probably thought he had it in Kelly, whom he sees as a “tough” leader like himself. Now he knows that Kelly went behind his back and commiserated with his hated nemesis.

Trump predicted on Monday that Kelly “will go down, in terms of the position of chief of staff, as one of the greatest ever.” But the minute things go sideways or Kelly tells him something he doesn’t want to hear or Jared and Ivanka whisper complaints in his ear, Trump will turn on him. He knows that Kelly wanted to resign in protest against his behavior. The president will never be able to get that out of his mind and will never fully trust Kelly because of it. I’d guess that the general’s not long for Trumpworld.

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Quack! Quack! by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on August 1, 2017

Quack! Quack!
by Tom Sullivan

President Donald Trump personally dictated his eldest son’s false statement to the press on the substance of his June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian attorney, the Washington Post reported last night. Jared Kushner’s legal team came across the now-infamous Trump Jr. email chain setting up the meeting while responding to an information request from Congress. The lawyers advised transparency. But on the flight home from the G20 meeting, Trump Sr. overruled them according to a Trump advisor and others who requested anonymity:

Flying home from Germany on July 8 aboard Air Force One, Trump personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said that he and the Russian lawyer had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” when they met in June 2016, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deliberations. The statement, issued to the New York Times as it prepared an article, emphasized that the subject of the meeting was “not a campaign issue at the time.”

This proved false, as later reporting and a public admission from Trump’s son proved. The real purpose of the meeting with Trump Jr. and senior campaign officials was to discuss the exchange of information damaging to the Hillary Clinton campaign as “part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy.”

What does it mean? First, “truthful hyperbole” this is not. Peter Zeidenberg, the deputy special prosecutor who investigated the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity during the George W. Bush administration, told the Post this will simply attract more scrutiny from Special Counsel Robert Mueller:

Prosecutors typically assume that any misleading statement is an effort to throw investigators off the track, Zeidenberg said.

“The thing that really strikes me about this is the stupidity of involving the president,” Zeidenberg said. “They are still treating this like a family-run business and they have a PR problem. . . . What they don’t seem to understand is this is a criminal investigation involving all of them.”

Speaking last night with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade agreed:

“It is what prosecutors call a ‘consciousness of guilt effort,’” McQuade explained. “If you are there telling a story that later is proved not true, you know people begin asking what the motives are for that. And one motive might be that you were trying to conceal the truth because you know that you are guilty of a crime.”

So many Trump administration players look like Donald, swim like Donald, and quack like Donald, it will be no surprise if Robert Mueller brings down the whole Trumpish flock of Donalds. And Donald too.

Just the cost of doing business

Published by digby on August 1, 2017

Just the cost of doing business

by digby

Even in the deep blue state of anti-Trump liberalism:

California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León has received a file full of racist and threatening letters to his Sacramento office.

A recent profile in the Sacramento Bee revealed that the latest letter is addressed to “Corrupt Mexican” and ends with the line: “hurry up and die.” It was signed “White Power.” It certainly wasn’t the first, nor will it be the last hateful letter sent to leaders of color in the state’s capitol.

Since his freshman year in the Assembly, de León has been attacked with derogatory comments and ethnic slurs. However, since the 2016 election, they’ve gotten worse and more frequent.

It isn’t just him either state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) was attacked by a stranger screaming profanities and ethnic slurs in his face. State Sen. Holly Mitchell’s Los Angeles office gets calls at least once a month calling her the N-word. It never happened before the 2016 election, a staffer said.

“We dealt with it pretty much throughout my entire tenure,” said former Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez to the Sacramento Bee. “The more high profile you are, the more of these attacks you get.”

De León received one letter in April from a person claiming to be a “decorated U.S. Marine sniper,” who bragged he left no DNA or fingerprints on the letter. It threatened to hunt down liberal legislators like dogs.

“Not today, not tomorrow, maybe in 15 years when you feel safe, I will be your worst nightmare come true,” the letter read.

Arthur Schaper, a frequent attendee at Democratic town halls ,once yelled at de León “cities are for citizens!” He did so while wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat from the Trump campaign.

“Trump has excited so many disaffected conservatives and angry citizens in general,” he told the Sacramento Bee. “More people are getting out there. They’ve seen the damage that has been done to this country by eight years of radical leftism from the Obama presidency.”

He was quick to clarify that he isn’t a racist and doesn’t know of any racist comments he has posted or sent to leaders. Instead, his affiliations are isolated to anti-immigrant groups and those that advocate nationalism like “Well the People Rising,” American Children First and The Remembrance Project.

Schaper explained to the Sacramento Bee that after years of going to town halls and harassing legislators, he finally feels like he has a president on his side.

“This is Trump territory, folks, even in de León’s office,” Schaper said in a video of him outside of the legislator’s district office. “This is our country.”

They believe this.

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