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Month: September 2017

Dana’s secret back channel

Published by digby on September 15, 2017

Dana’s secret back channel

by digby

Remember when Kevin “loose lips” McCarthy said back in 2016 that he thought the only two people who were in the employ of the Russian Government were Donald Trump and Dana Rohrabacher? And when Dana met with Julian Assange and then told the press he was coming back to the state to meet personally with Donald Trump and provide proof that the Russians didn’t interfere in the election?

Yeah. Well, he got to the Chief of Staff:

A U.S. congressman contacted the White House this week trying to broker a deal that would end WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s U.S. legal troubles in exchange for what he described as evidence that Russia wasn’t the source of hacked emails published by the antisecrecy website during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The proposal made by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.), in a phone call Wednesday with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, was apparently aimed at resolving the probe of WikiLeaks prompted by Mr. Assange’s publication of secret U.S. government documents in 2010 through a pardon or other act of clemency from President Donald Trump.

The possible “deal”—a term used by Mr. Rohrabacher during the Wednesday phone call—would involve a pardon of Mr. Assange or “something like that,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. In exchange, Mr. Assange would probably present a computer drive or other data-storage device that Mr. Rohrabacher said would exonerate Russia in the long-running controversy about who was the source of hacked and stolen material aimed at embarrassing the Democratic Party during the 2016 election.

“He would get nothing, obviously, if what he gave us was not proof,” Mr. Rohrabacher said.

Mr. Rohrabacher confirmed he spoke to Mr. Kelly this week but declined to discuss the content of their conversation. “I can’t confirm or deny anything about a private conversation at that level,” he said in a brief interview. He declined to elaborate further.

A Trump administration official confirmed Friday that Mr. Rohrabacher spoke to Mr. Kelly about the plan involving Mr. Assange. Mr. Kelly told the congressman that the proposal “was best directed to the intelligence community,” the official said. Mr. Kelly didn’t make the president aware of Mr. Rohrabacher’s message, and Mr. Trump doesn’t know the details of the proposed deal, the official said.

In the call with Mr. Kelly, Mr. Rohrabacher pushed for a meeting between Mr. Assange and a representative of Mr. Trump, preferably someone with direct communication with the president.

“I would be happy to go with somebody you trust whether it is somebody at the FBI; somebody on your staff,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. The California congressman said he would be pleased to talk to CIA Director Mike Pompeo, but that the agency “has its limitations” and wanted “to cover their butt by having gone along with this big lie.” The CIA was one of the intelligence agencies that helped determine in January that emails from prominent Democrats were stolen by Russian intelligence and given to WikiLeaks.

[…]

Mr. Rohrabacher, who has long been one of the most pro-Russia voices in Congress, traveled to London in August to meet with Mr. Assange, who has been living in Ecuador’s embassy since 2012 to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden on allegations of sexual assault. Mr. Rohrabacher’s travel wasn’t paid for by the U.S. House of Representatives and wasn’t an official government trip, aides said…

Mr. Rohrabacher has also publicly stated his desire to arrange some sort of meeting between Mr. Assange and Mr. Trump or his representatives in media interviews after the visit. He told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday that he had talked to “senior people at the White House” about presenting Mr. Assange’s evidence.

But his contact with the White House chief of staff and the idea of a deal between the Trump administration and Mr. Assange that would end the legal jeopardy faced by WikiLeaks hasn’t been previously reported.

Sure, why not?

Rhorabacher is nutty as a Payday bar.

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ICYMI: The Trump administration wanted a nuclear middle east

Published by digby on September 15, 2017

ICYMI: The Trump administration wanted a nuclear middle east

by digby

This piece in Buzzfeed catches you up on all the details including some new ones. And Jared’s right in the middle of this one too:

In the days leading up to Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, when his soon-to-be national security adviser Michael Flynn was reportedly pushing a multi-billion-dollar deal to build nuclear reactors in Jordan and other Middle East nations, Flynn and two other top Trump advisers held a secret meeting with the king of Jordan.

The meeting — details of which have never been reported — is the latest in a series of secret, high-stakes contacts between Trump advisers and foreign governments that have raised concerns about how, in particular, Flynn and senior adviser Jared Kushner handled their personal business interests as they entered key positions of power. And the nuclear project raised additional security concerns about expanding nuclear technology in a tinderbox region of the world. One expert compared it to providing “a nuclear weapons starter kit.”

On the morning of January 5, Flynn, Kushner, and former chief strategist Steve Bannon greeted King Abdullah II at the Four Seasons hotel in lower Manhattan, then took off in a fleet of SUVs and a sedan to a different location.

People close to the three Trump advisers say that the nuclear deal was not discussed. But a federal official with access to a document created by a law-enforcement agency about the meeting said that the nuclear proposal, known as the Marshall Plan, was one of the topics the group talked about.

The Wall Street Journal reported that while Flynn’s White House disclosure forms state that he stopped working on the deal in December 2016, he in fact continued to push it even after he entered the White House. Flynn’s lawyer declined to comment on the claims in the Journal story.

The plan, for which Flynn was reportedly paid as a consultant, initially envisioned that the reactors would be built by US companies and security would be provided by the Russian state-owned firm Rosoboron, an arms exporter currently facing US sanctions. As the plan evolved, Russian involvement reportedly lessened, and it is not known whether Russia or its companies featured in the meeting with the Jordanian king. This week, Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee said they would turn over documents about the nuclear plan to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, contending that Flynn may have violated federal law by not disclosing foreign trips and meetings.

While it is not unusual for an incoming administration to meet with foreign dignitaries during the transition, Trump surrogates have repeatedly failed to acknowledge these contacts. Attorney General Jeff Sessions at first said he did not discuss campaign matters with Russian officials, only to later acknowledge at least two conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The United Arab Emirates set up a meeting between a military contractor close to the Trump administration and a Russian close to President Vladimir Putin. And this week, CNN reported that Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, visited with Flynn, Kushner, and Bannon without alerting the American government beforehand.

The meeting with the king of Jordan had extremely high stakes: a discussion with the head of a key American ally that might have included plans about spreading nuclear power to one of the world’s least stable regions, possibly with the help of one of America’s main geopolitical enemies, Russia. The revelation of the meeting comes as King Abdullah II plans to visit the United States next week and speak with Trump.

An eyewitness who saw the trio of Trump’s advisers that morning in the bar of the Four Seasons, and had a brief exchange with Bannon, said at least half a dozen other people were with them. It is not clear who they were. BuzzFeed News reached out to attorneys and spokespeople for Flynn, Kushner, and Bannon, as well as White House special counsel Ty Cobb and Bannon himself. None of them would comment on the record.

The only known public acknowledgement that King Abdullah II had left his country is a short note on his website saying: “His Majesty King Abdullah on Saturday arrived back home after a private visit abroad.”

Officials at the Jordanian embassy did not return multiple calls seeking comment.

Kushner initially failed to disclose any meetings with foreign officials on his security clearance form. He later amended the document to include more than 100 foreign contacts, including King Abdullah II.

There’s more. Lots more. These people are so dirty it’s unbelievable.

Trumpie on the links again

Published by digby on September 15, 2017

Trumpie on the links again

by digby

This weekend Trump will spend time at his Bedminster golf course and Trump Tower. He has already spent 75 days at Trump-owned properties and 58 days at his golf courses over his presidency, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. On top of that, Trump’s trip will be burdensome for local residents – as Trump himself admitted.

Meanwhile, here’s the asshole in chief with one of his deplorables down in Florida yesterday:

Sick.

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Good people don’t walk with Nazis

Published by digby on September 15, 2017

Good people don’t walk with Nazis

by digby

I wrote about Trump’s latest racist comments for Salon today:

Word on the street says that Donald Trump is feeling his oats. He believes he has put the ugliness of Charlottesville behind him and the flurry of positive reporting around his”deals” with the Democrats, along with the fact that the government seems to have done a decent job handling the hurricanes, has clearly given him a lift. For all his loathing for the media nothing thrills Trump more than good coverage and he looks happier than we’ve seen him in ages.

But as always, he can’t help stepping on his own success. Every time mainstream pundits believe Trump is finally “pivoting” he flies out of orbit and does something really stupid. And, oops — he did it again.

Trump awoke on Thursday to a firestorm of controversy over the DACA deal he reportedly cut with the two Democratic congressional leaders, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. He subsequently went back and forth throughout the day, speaking with the press frequently as he visited the Florida disaster zone. That issue will have to be sorted out later.

But as all this was going on, the Congress had passed a resolution condemning white supremacy, which White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump would sign when it got to his desk. Then she in turn condemned an ESPN reporter for tweeting that the president is a white supremacist and called for her to be fired, a disgraceful and hypocritical comment since Donald Trump himself had tweeted numerous times that his predecessor, our first black president, was a racist.

Meanwhile, Trump held a photo op with the only African-American Republican senator, Tim Scott of South Carolina, who had requested a meeting with the president to talk about Charlottesville. Scott reportedly believed that if Trump heard his story and understood the history better he might come to understand why his remarks were so provocative and hurtful.

The White House issued a strange word-salad statement about the meeting:

President Donald J. Trump and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina met today to discuss the Administration’s relationship with the African American community, the bipartisan issue of improving race relations, and creating a more unified country. President Trump remains committed to positive race relations and looks forward to continuing the dialogue with Senator Scott, the African American community, and leaders from diverse communities across the country, all of which have a wealth of perspectives and experiences with respect to this issue.

When asked after the meeting whether the president expressed regret over his post-Charlottesville comments, Scott displayed a “pained expression,” the New York Times reported, and said that Trump “certainly tried to explain what he was trying to convey.”

In other words, no.

Scott made it clear that his motive for requesting the meeting was to explain to Trump that there was no equivalence to the two sides in Charlottesville, saying, “There’s no way to find equilibrium when you have three centuries of history versus the situation that’s happening today.”

Fast forward 24 hours and Trump is asked about the meeting on Air Force One during the trip to Florida. Apparently, he thinks he taught Scott a thing or two:

We had a great talk yesterday. I think especially in light of the advent of Antifa, if you look at what’s going on there, we have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also and essentially that’s what I said.

Now because of what’s happened since then with Antifa, you know really what’s happened since Charlottesville, a lot of people are saying, in fact a lot of people have actually written, “Gee, Trump might have a point.” I said, you’ve got some very bad people on the other side also, which is true.

Tim Scott responded to Trump’s comments on Air Force One by saying, “Antifa is bad and should be condemned, yes, but the KKK has been killing and tormenting black Americans for centuries. There is no realistic comparison. Period.”

After watching Trump closely for all these months I think it’s clear that when he’s speaking off the cuff in situations like this, he’s being real, even when he’s lying about the details. He obviously truly believes that the neo-Nazis and the KKK in Charlottesville and elsewhere have gotten a bum rap.

He’s not trying to make the Antifa protesters equivalent to white supremacists, not really. He thinks they’re worse than white supremacists. He says they’re “bad dudes” and likes to portray them as a sinister threat to society. He thinks the neo-Nazis and the KKK are more legitimate since “good people” march beside them and they are trying to maintain their “cultural heritage.” He sees their point.

The president of the United States refuses to acknowledge, or is too stupid to understand, that these are movements that killed millions of people in a quest to ensure white supremacy over racial and religious minorities. They are evil incarnate. Nobody on earth is worse than they are.

Unfortunately he’s not alone. The University of Virginia Center for Politics and Reuters/Ipsos just released a large poll of racial sentiments in the aftermath of Charlottesville. The poll found that there are “troubling levels of support for certain racially-charged ideas and attitudes frequently expressed by extremist groups,” including the fact that only 34 percent of people disagree with the statement that the country needs to protect its “White European heritage.” Strikingly, respondents were evenly split on the statement that “white people are currently under attack in this country,” with 39 percent saying they strongly agreed or somewhat agreed, while 38 percent disagreed.

A majority of Americans recognize that people of color are far more threatened and discriminated against that whites. But as the authors of the poll point out, even a small percentage represents millions of people who hold some highly disturbing views.

As David Neiwert of the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote for the Washington Post on Thursday, neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups are growing. And since the election they are organizing and marching in Donald Trump’s name. Neiwert writes:

The cold, hard fact that racist thugs shout and chant Trump’s name (something we all saw happening in Charlottesville) while threatening and intimidating minorities should give us all pause — particularly the president himself.

I think we all know how much Trump loves it when people shout and chant his name. The “bad dudes,” in his view, are the people who oppose them.

Let’s hope the congress succeeds in legalizing the DACA kids. It’s an urgent humanitarian crisis, one that was essentially created by Trump himself. But Democrats need to think long and hard about how willing they are to continue to play games with this president and get cute by saying “he likes us.”

Good people don’t march with Nazis.

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Our Looking Glass world by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 15, 2017

Our Looking Glass world
by Tom Sullivan

On any given day since the Twitterer-in-Chief took office, it is hard to tell up from down, left from right. This morning? Don’t try.

From the landing pages:

Trump Now Says He Backs Deal to Protect ‘Dreamers’ — New York Times

There Is No DACA “Deal” Yet — Slate

Did Trump and Democrats strike DACA deal or not? — Washington Post

DACA is alive. Is the GOP dead? — The Week

Trump signs resolution condemning bigotry and violence in Charlottesville — Politico

Trump Again Claims Both Sides to Blame in Charlottesville — New York Times

And dammit, there’s no Dramamine in my toiletries kit. Or bourbon.

Guess Whether These Headlines Came From Breitbart or 1920s KKK Newspapers — Slate

Go ahead. I dare you. (I did no better than average.)

After all that, the prize for clear thinking this morning goes to Jay Nordlinger for wading into the Confederate monuments debate at the National Review:

Every so often, I’m reminded how bad slavery was. Consider: For generations, Americans had the right to own other people as chattels. They could work them, rape them, torture them, and kill them with impunity. Earlier this year, I interviewed George Walker, a nonagenarian American composer. His grandmother was an ex-slave. She had had two husbands. She lost the first when he was sold at auction.

Walker knew this grandmother, very well. She never talked about slavery — ever. Except for one time, when her grandson’s curiosity got the better of him and he asked her about it. She uttered one sentence, only: “They did everything except eat us.” That is the reality that the Confederates fought to preserve.

That is the reality that they seceded from the Union to preserve. Dress it up all you want — states’ rights and all — but that is the core of it.

Nordlinger concludes, “For ages, the Republican party was known as the Party of Lincoln. It would be a shame if it became the Party of Lee.”

Which side of the looking glass Republicans and the Twitterer-in-Chief choose is at issue today, isn’t it?

* * * * * * * *

Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer, at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

We’ve all been there

Published by digby on September 15, 2017

We’ve all been there

by digby

Last night:

At one point, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross asked, “What exactly does the president get out of this deal?” As Pelosi, the only woman at the table of 11, tried to make her point — that the president gets the cooperation of the Democrats, which he will likely need on a host of issues — the men in the room began talking over her and one another.

“Do the women get to talk around here?” Pelosi interjected, according to two people familiar with the exchange.

And this:

“He likes us,” Schumer said, before realizing that Trump may not actually like Pelosi. “He likes me, anyway.”

Sigh.

Whatever.

Read this review of Clinton’s book by Michelle Goldberg. I’m going to start drinking.

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I’d rather jam chopsticks in my ears than watch this

Published by digby on September 14, 2017

I’d rather jam chopsticks in my ears than watch this


by digby

Honestly, this sounds like the 9th circle of hell to me:

Politics can be boring. Vice, which has some experience in making boring topics fun, is in the very early stages of developing a reality show that will have people of all political stripes living in a group house in Washington, D.C.

“VICE Studios is casting for an experimental unscripted series that will bring together 18-45 year-olds from all walks of life and political extremes to live in close quarters in Washington, D.C.,” according to a casting form.

“If you are passionate about your political beliefs and will go to any length (including appearing on ‘reality TV’) to get your voice heard, we want to hear from you. Whether you have dreams of becoming a politician, or you think all politicians are crooks; whether you think it’s better to be judged by twelve than carried by six, or think that Obama really should have taken everyone’s guns away; or if you quite simply want to change the world and are bold enough to put your beliefs up against your political opposite in the most public setting imaginable, then we want to hear from you.”

A Vice spokesperson cautioned that it’s still extremely early in the process, so it’s possible the concept will never become even a pilot. But, if shot, the show will be filmed next spring in D.C., according to a listing on the casting website Backstage.

The show concept sounds a bit like a politics-themed version of The Real World, and the 23rd season of The Real World, shot in D.C. in 2009, might provide something of a template. Because D.C. so infrequently serves as a setting for TV shows, The Real World taping become something of a low-key fascination around town, with cast “spottings” popping up on local blogs. (This reporter participated in the fandom.)

In the form, prospective castmembers for the Vice Studios project are asked about their political leanings, about one change they’d make to improve the American political system, and about their personality traits. They’re also asked: “Why on earth would you want to go on a reality TV show in which you know you’re going to be forced to be around and react to people who are your ideological opposite?”

Vice of course has covered politics and political culture in various forms. The millennial-targeted network recently drew plaudits for an episode of its nightly HBO show, Vice News Tonight, that delved deeply into the mid-August conflagration in Charlottesville that left one person dead. The video has been viewed nearly 6 million times on YouTube.

If I wanted to see that I’d just unblock everyone I’ve blocked on twitter and dive in.

I’ll stick to the Real Housewives, thank you very much. They only scream and up-end tables and call each other whores. But this is going to be vicious.

Still trying to lock her up

Published by digby on September 14, 2017

Still trying to lock her up

by digby

This is about discrediting Comey, of course. Nice of Huckleberry to help out with that. Remember that when he starts droning on about the rule o’ law and how he’s very, very concerned about the Russia issue.

But they also really need to keep their legions of rabid, slavering Clinton haters fed and keeping that stupid email story alive is the only thing they have:

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Thursday he would subpoena former FBI director James Comey to come in front of a Capitol Hill committee to face a variety of questions about the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the 2016 election.

“He’s coming one way or the other, if I have anything to do about it,” Graham said, adding that he would use a subpoena if he has to.

“We now know that he had made up his mind to exonerate [Clinton] before he even interviewed her, which is a bit odd.”

Graham then listed several reasons why he feels Comey’s June testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee contained information that conflicts with reports and leaks that have subsequently come out.

“He told the committee that the main reason he got involved in July is because [former Attorney General Loretta] Lynch met [former President] Bill Clinton on the tarmac and he thought that compromised Loretta Lynch’s impartiality, so he sorta took over the case,” Graham said.

“He also told some people that the real reason he jumped into the middle of the case in July is he thought the Russians had an email between the [Democratic National Committee] and the Department of Justice trying to rig the Clinton investigation. The real reason was not the tarmac meeting.

“I can’t make sense of this. I’m very suspicious of the timing. I’m very suspicious of the reason.”

Comey announced last summer that he would not recommend charges be brought against Clinton, who used a private email setup during her time as secretary of state (2009-2013). Several reports have since come out that seem to suggest there is much more to the story.

“There is so much to be determined here. Comey needs to come back,” Graham said. “What was his real reason for clearing Hillary Clinton? Had he made up his mind before he even talked to her?”

Well, it was a conspiracyf to help Clinton. Because, you know, Comey was always so helpful.

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They caught the car

Published by digby on September 14, 2017

They caught the car

by digby


… and now they don’t know what to do with it.

It’s not much fun to be a House Republican these days. President Trump has repeatedly taken potshots at their conference. Primary challenges burble on the right. Congress has been unable to pass much meaningful legislation in spite of unified control of Washington. Every trip home means an earful both from liberals furious at their support of the president and conservatives irate they’re not doing enough to support his agenda. And members who haven’t seen real competition for years face tough races due to Trump’s deep unpopularity.

That weighs heavily on Republicans who are on the fence about returning.

“The jury may be out for some folks. … Some days it feels discouraging,” said Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), who told TPM he was likely to run for reelection but admitted his final decision in March was “a long ways away.”

“I can see where people would be discouraged as members of the majority when some days it seems like they’re fighting the Senate and sweeping generalizations even made by the administration that don’t even apply to the House,” he said, pointing to the failure of Obamacare repeal. “I don’t know of anybody who thinks that anything about election 2018 is going to be an easy walk. And Republicans love intramural [fighting], so there’s every reason to think there’s going to be a robust intramural period for some time.”

Four House Republicans from swing territories already announced they’ll leave Congress this year, including three in the past week: Reps. Dave Reichert (R-WA), Charlie Dent (R-PA) and Dave Trott (R-MI). Dent’s announcement lamented the “increased polarization and ideological rigidity that leads to dysfunction, disorder and chaos” in the House. Republicans concede that the seat opened up by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s (R-FL) retirement is likely gone for their party. And while numerous strategists say this wave of retirements has already crested, they warn that the next one could be a doozy if they can’t get some big things done before the end of the year.

“There are a number of people, plenty of whom we don’t even know about yet, who are torn” about running again, said one national GOP strategist involved in House races. “Whether there’s measurable progress on tax reform the next 30 days will be determinative. If we get to November 1st and it looks like tax reform isn’t happening, I think there’ll be a mass exodus.”
[…]

“If we don’t perform, sure, you’re going to see more resignations just because they don’t want to see the wrath of the voter. It’s real. If we don’t get it done, having the majority can no longer be taken for granted,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) told TPM on Wednesday. “There’s more talk about the frustration of not getting things done than I’ve heard in a long time. … If you can’t get something done, why stay in the fight?”

The thing that makes this so interesting is how demoralized they all are when they have the majority! It makes no sense. They should, theoretically, be able to get their entire agenda passed. It’s not like Trump cares what he signs as long as he can strut around and take credit for it.

I’ve never seen anything quite like this. They’ve got it all and people are quitting in droves. Gee, could it be that Trump and the “alt-right” wingnuts and Tea Party zealots’ agenda is actually toxic and they all know it? I’ll bet at least a few of them feel that way.

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