Month: November 2017

by digby

I wrote about the latest in the Mueller investigation for Salon this morning:

So we’re off to the races this week. President Trump has hit a new low, perhaps, by slurring a Native American heroine in a speech to Native American war heroes while standing under a portrait of Andrew Jackson. Meanwhile, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finds itself at war with the White House, with two different people serving as its chief and lawsuits flying in all directions.

James O’Keefe apparently tried to sting top investigative journalists of The Washington Post and failed spectacularly. Trump called CNN International fake news right after Russian President Vladimir Putin officially declared it a propaganda network. There’s also a massive tax cut bill that Trump and his wealthy buddies yearn to put in their heirs’ Christmas stockings this year, grinding its way through the Senate. And it’s only Tuesday.

But one story buzzing over the weekend may end up being a watershed moment in this crazy Trump era and that is the news that Michael Flynn’s lawyers sent notice to the White House that they were withdrawing from an agreement to share information. Such an arrangement is not uncommon between lawyers for people involved in an investigation, but when one of their clients decides to cooperate with prosecutors it is unethical to continue to share or receive information from others who may be targets of those prosecutors.

So the assumption is that Flynn is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller and may be negotiating a plea agreement. On Monday, ABC News reported that Flynn’s attorney Robert Kelner met with members of Mueller’s team, which suggests that speculation may very well be correct.

Flynn was fired as Trump’s national security adviser (a post he held for barely three weeks), ostensibly because he lied to Vice President Mike Pence, a story that never really made sense. It’s not as if the Trump White House has some kind of zero tolerance for lying. What we know happened at the time was that the FBI had already questioned Flynn about his discussions with the Russian ambassador. We also know that Acting Attorney General Sally Yates (fired shortly thereafter for her refusal to carry out the unlawful Muslim ban) told White House counsel Don McGahn that Flynn might be compromised, and that McGahn told the president — but they kept him around for another two weeks.

It’s unclear what went on during that period, but Mueller and company are surely very curious as to what Trump and others were thinking. After all, the conversation Flynn allegedly had with the Russian ambassador involved Flynn saying the Russians shouldn’t worry about the Obama administration’s sanctions over interference in the election. We just don’t know if that was payment for delivery or just a gesture of goodwill between close friends.

Flynn is exposed on a number of fronts that make him very vulnerable to prosecution. He failed to file as a foreign agent, one of the charges the special counsel’s office filed against former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort. He’s also possibly being investigated for his lobbying work on behalf of foreign countries, money laundering and lying to federal agents about his overseas contacts. And then there is that little matter that Flynn and his son may have been involved in a plot to kidnap exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, a rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and render him to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars — while Flynn was working for Trump.

On Monday, The Washington Post reported that Mueller was also looking into Flynn’s consulting deal with a company called ACU to build nuclear reactors all over the Middle East, a project that continued through the end of 2016 and that Flynn failed to reveal on his initial disclosure forms. The Post described the project this way:

The idea: to build several dozen “proliferation-proof” nuclear power plants across Persian Gulf states. The plan relied heavily on Russian interests, which would help build the plants, as well as possibly take possession of spent fuel that could be used to build a nuclear weapon, according to people familiar with the project. ACU’s managing director, Alex Copson, had been promoting variations of building nuclear facilities with Russian help for more than two decades, according to news reports.

Oddly, Flynn was warning publicly, including in testimony to Congress in 2015, that the U.S. would be at risk if Russia were to build these nuclear reactors. One imagines that the special counsel would be quite interested in knowing just what he was up to, since he was simultaneously consulting with a company that was working with the Russians to do just that.

These are just some of the possible areas of interest that are public knowledge. There could be be more. People tend to forget what Gen. Michael Flynn did before he became Trump’s closest national security adviser. He’s not like the rest of Trump’s motley entourage of family, has-beens and obscure misfits. Up until 2014, when he was finally fired by President Obama, Michael Flynn was one of the most important intelligence officers in the U.S. military.

After 9/11 Flynn held progressively higher levels of intelligence posts until he finally became director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, and then chair of the Military Intelligence Board in 2012. He lasted until 2014, when he was forced out for bad management and personality issues.

This is not your usual campaign operative or government bureaucrat. Flynn knows things. Until three years ago, he was privy to the most tightly held secrets America has, and was right back in it earlier this year as national security adviser to the president. He had a lot to offer to a foreign government if he was of a mind to share it, whether for money, revenge or something else.

Michael Flynn could be in very big trouble. The question now is whether his boss knew what he was up to or promised to protect him once he was caught. That’s what Mueller is looking to find out.

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Cult updateby digby

Dear Leader says it so it must be so:

A new poll shows that Trump’s outspoken advocacy for Roy Moore is having a big impact in the Alabama primary, despite the multiple allegations of sexual assault against the Republican Senate candidate.

The number of Trump supporters who believe the assault allegations to be true has decreased substantially, helping to prop Moore up. Ten days ago, 16 percent of Trump supporters believed the women, compared with 51 percent who didn’t. Today, just 9 percent say they believe them, while 63 percent believe the women to be lying.

The shift follows a series of strong defenses of Moore by Trump — in contrast to Senate Republicans, who seem extremely eager to distance themselves from the Alabama Senate candidate. “He totally denies it, he says it didn’t happen,” Trump told reporters last week. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had previously indicated that Trump wasn’t prepared to rescind his September endorsement when he tweeted that Moore “[s]ounds like a really great guy.” On Sunday morning — when Change Research began their two-day poll — Trump sent out two tweets which doubled-down on his decision to support Moore. “Can’t let Schumer/Pelosi win this race,” he tweeted. “Liberal Jones would be BAD!”

Moore has re-opened his 49 – 44 lead over the Democrat Doug Jones, according to progressive polling outlet Change Research. His lead is now as large as it was prior to November 9th, when the Washington Post first broke the story about a string of sexual assault allegations against Moore.

Over the last two weeks there has also been a concerted effort among right-wing groups to raise doubts in voters minds about the allegation of sexual assault against Roy Moore — who himself has called them all “fake news”. On November 15th some Alabama voters received a voicemail from “Bernie Bernstein”, who claimed to be a Washington Post reporter offering a reward of up to $7000 for damaging information on Roy Moore. Yesterday, Project Veritas, a Trump-backed conservative group, was widely ridiculed after it emerged they’d tried (and failed) to sell the Washington Post a fake news story about how Roy Moore had impregnated a woman when she 15 and she’d been forced to get an abortion.

While these attempts seem humorously incompetent, they and the wider efforts of the right-wing media seem to have been successful in raising doubts about Roy Moore’s accusers in the mind of Alabama voters — and not just Trump supporters. When the allegations against Moore broke, voters believed them by a margin of 46 to 30 percent according to Change Research, however that margin has now decreased to 42 to 38 percent. The allegations also seem to have helped solidify Moore’s Republican base — 88 percent of those who had voted for Donald Trump said they would now “definitely” vote on December 12, compared with just 82 percent in mid-November.

Among those who thought the allegations were fake, polling found that barely anything could change their mind — despite the multiple, corroborate stories from a variety of national and local media outlets. Only two percent said they’d change their mind if more accusers came out, and one percent said they’d believe the charges if Trump said he did. An astonishing 97 percent said nothing would make them believe they were true.

These people are impervious to reality. They aren’t going to change their minds. There are a lot of them in red states like Alabama. And keep in mind that Moore is a super-hero on the religious right and they all seem to love Trump unreservedly too. The cult may not be as strong in some of the red states where that faction of the cult is strong.

Nonetheless, I think it’s probably important to realize that we aren’t really dealing with a political phenomenon. This is a cult of personality and that requires some different thinking.

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Smoking guns and artificial persons
by Tom Sullivan

By court order, the American tobacco industry began at long last running television ads admitting their product kills their customers. In fact, 1,200 per day, on average. They make the admission kicking and screaming, having argued about every line in the ad.

In reviewing the ad, “All Things Considered” described them as “pretty weird.” Black text scrolling on a white background and “a disembodied voice that sounds like its [sic] computer generated or manipulated.”

Tobacco is an industry that once produced ad campaigns that became cultural icons. But having dragged out the court fight for eleven years, the ads now run on television at a time when four in ten Americans get news online instead. It is clear from the flat voiceover and lack of attention-getting detail that Big Tobacco intends these ads to get as little attention as possible.

“Cigarette companies intentionally designed cigarettes with enough nicotine to create and sustain addiction,” one ad admits.

The NPR report adds:

The cigarette companies were ordered to run the ads back in 2006 when U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler found they had conspired to cover up the risks of smoking.

In her ruling she said the cigarette industry “profits from selling a highly addictive product which causes diseases that lead to a staggering number of deaths per year, an immeasurable amount of human suffering and economic loss and a profound burden on our national health care system.”

The court found the companies had in fact conspired “for approximately fifty years” to cover up evidence that its products killed people. Why? To keep the profits flowing.

But it is not the disposition of this court case that should draw one’s attention. It is the nature of the corporate beast at the heart of it. Lack of heart, to be more precise. The “artificial persons” we as a society invented to generate profits for us we created without hearts, just as the tin smith did the Tin Man. Only he found his.

The tobacco industry may seem like an outlier, but it is not. Tens of millions of Americans and perhaps billions of others worldwide are still recovering from financial crash of 2008 and The Great Recession. The unpunished conspiracy by the financial industry to peddle mortgage-backed securities to credulous buyers has caused untold suffering. Yet even now, that industry chafes at being reined in. Customers’ suffering is not their problem. No heart is.

Unregulated, the relationship is more analogous to predator and prey. Is that an indictment of those who work for the industry or a call for a long-overdue redesign of the business model? In cases such as tobacco and finance, it is both.

Even now, our current administration is doing its damndest to hamstring the Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus established after the financial crisis to protect citizens from predation. There is a power struggle to replace the agency’s outgoing director.

The White House has named budget director Mick Mulvaney as interim director, although by statute it may not have that authority. A court will decide. Mulvaney calls the agency a “disaster” and claims “financial institutions have been devastated” by the bureau’s actions. The millions of families that industry cast into the streets to protect its bottom lines may have first dibs on devastated.

One wonders whom Mulvaney is in government to serve. Artificial persons or real ones? Show us the artificial persons’ birth certificates.

Marketplace radio reported last night:

“The CFPB in its short existence has been incredibly effective,” counters Rachel Weintraub, the legislative director and general counsel with Consumer Federation of America. “For example, it has obtained $12 billion in refunds to almost 30 million Americans who were harmed by a large financial institution.”

That is what a government of by and for the people is for. One under the sway of artificial persons will, in the name of freedom, allow them to become easy prey.

So long as these creatures have no hearts, regulating them is not only beneficial, but necessary. And so long as those seduced by gold are in control, wolves will roam free in the fold. But that’s how the predators like it.

I am a dog lover. That doesn’t mean I think they should be running loose on playgrounds. As a small child, I was bitten once in a city park at a time when pets were allowed to roam free. It didn’t put me off dogs. It simply taught me the prudence of leashes.

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

When a top military leader says he’s scared to death … by digby

I think this is a fairly sober, serious person. I don’t know his politics but what he says is scary:

Retired Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said on ABC’S “This Week” that nuclear war has become “more probable than it used to be. And it scares me to death, quite frankly.”

Mullen also said he has concerns about the fact that generals have taken such high-ranking and high-profile roles in the Trump administration, and that he was disappointed that John Kelly has shown he’ll be “supportive of the president no matter what.”

Full quotes:

On Kelly: I mean, certainly what happened very sadly a few weeks ago when he was in a position to both defend the president in terms of what happened with the gold star family and then he ends up — and John ends up politicizing the death of his own son in the wars. It is indicative of the fact that he clearly is very supportive of the president no matter what. And that, that was really a sad moment for me.

Does he recognize Flynn these days?: “No, I don’t know the Mike Flynn that I have seen since he made a decision to endorse very strongly and publicly President Trump.”

On nuclear war: “I think it’s more probable than I it used to be. And it scares me to death, quite frankly. They’re the most dangerous weapons in the world. And certainly if we have someone in North Korea that has a lethal legacy, is very, very unpredictable, and sees this as a way to solidify his future, that he could well not just attain them but potentially use them.”

On refusing an order: “Well, I think any senior military officer always approaches it from the standpoint of we’re not going to follow an illegal order. That said, the president is in a position to give a legal order to use those weapons. And the likelihood that given that order that it would be carried out I think would be pretty high.”

Good lord …

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QOTD: Roy Moore’s chief strategistby digby

I think this says it all:

Roy Moore campaign strategist Dean Young: "We believe Judge Moore. We don't believe these women. It's just that simple. And y'all can keep trotting them out if you want to, but we're not going to talk about that." https://t.co/VpmX9gxI7h pic.twitter.com/OYIkgBWIqG— CNN (@CNN) November 27, 2017

It appears that the latest polling has this race neck and neck.

I guess we haven’t hit bottom yet.

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White panic and the people who think it isn’t all that importantby digby

Kevin Drum unpacks a fascinating article by Thomas Edsall about whether white panic played a part in the last election. It’s always been obvious to me since the demagogue who was running openly campaigned on the issue, but still, it’s good to have data to back this up:

Thomas Edsall, who consistently writes some of the most thought-provoking analysis around, takes a look at some of the data that’s now starting to trickle out and presents us with this chart that compares the 2012 and 2016 elections:

In most places, even those that are heavily white, the red trendline is below zero, which means Trump won a smaller share of the vote than Romney did. The only places where he outperformed Romney were in the very whitest suburbs and small towns:

The very white municipalities that voted so strongly for Trump believe that they have reason to worry about the racial stability of their neighborhoods….It is in these locales, which are experiencing the earliest signs of minority growth, that anxiety over approaching diversity is strongest. Put another way, anger, fear and animosity toward immigrants and minorities was most politically potent in the communities most insulated from these supposed threats.

….Will Stancil, a research fellow at the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity who created the chart, explained….“To the extent Trump really resonated, it was in heavily-white areas — and that includes exurbs at the urban fringe, rural areas, and many heavily white second-ring suburbs,” Stancil wrote in his email. “It was his message resonating in those areas that gave him a fighting chance at all.”

This fits a lot of the evidence we have. As it turns out, racial anxiety among whites really isn’t widespread. But it is strong among whites in a very small number of ultra-white communities. That’s why Trump didn’t do unusually well in California, Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas, where the immigrant population is highest. People in those states have lived with Mexican immigrants for a long time and learned that the sky isn’t falling. But farther away, in the very white communities of the upper Midwest, this is still brand new stuff. Unlike Californians, who know better from experience, they buy the idea that immigrants are unusually crime prone and take away everyone’s jobs—and that makes them scared. They’re a receptive audience for Trump’s “Build a Wall” message.

All this said, we’re still left with a question: if the only place Trump did better than Romney was in the very whitest communities, was that enough to push him to victory? After all, he did worse than Romney everywhere else. Well, Edsall has a chart for that too, showing how Trump performed in the upper Midwest, but you’ll have to click the link to see it. (Spoiler alert: the answer is probably yes.)

Edsall finishes up with this:

In some respects, the data gathered by Orfield’s team is good news for Democrats. The core of Trump’s support lies in counties and municipalities like Dravosburg and Elk County, many of which are losing population. They are, in effect, the last gasp of white hegemony.

Still, immense damage has been done….As the public discourse around issues of social welfare, immigration, national security, and a whole host of other issues becomes highly racialized and explicitly hostile, the potential for open racial conflict may rise. Furthermore, as these negative attitudes toward racial outgroups become increasingly tightly tied to parties, polarization increases and gridlock and a lack of legislative compromise ensue.

When I look back at the 2016 election, what is really striking is how much influence over the course of events was exercised by the relatively small numbers of voters in super-white municipalities and counties and by the politician who ignited them — how the last gasp of a small fraction of the electorate set the nation on such a dangerous and destructive course

Ok, but there were an awful lot of other white people in other places who accepted his appalling, toxic campaign too. It’s not like he was dogwhistling and most people didn’t hear it. He was loud and clear. Maybe many of them aren’t personally upset about Mexicans, Muslims and Black Lives Matter ruining Real America but they sure were willing to overlook the fact that their presidential candidate was running on it. And let’s face it, the fact that they voted in the same numbers for Romney doesn’t mean they didn’t respond to Trump’s grotesque race baiting too.

Maybe Clinton would have won the electoral college if it weren’t for these panicked white people in the upper midwest. But it doesn’t change the fact that over 60 million people voted for that disgusting pig all over the country and they knew exactly what he was.