Month: January 2018

Their master whistled and they came runningby digby

Trump last night:

My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans — to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream.

Because Americans are dreamers too.

It was a creepy line. But Trump has objected in the past to using the name “dreamers” to describe these people. He thinks that it should be reserved for “real Americans.”

Think Progress notes:

The line mirrored Trump’s language last September when he announced he would rescind the DACA program that provided legal protection for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, a group known as Dreamers. “[Y]oung Americans have dreams too,” Trump said.

The argument for DACA and the Dream Act, which would give a similar group permanent legal status, is that Dreamers are Americans. They had no choice in the decision to come to the United States, they grew up here and, in many cases, they have no connection to any other country. But Trump’s turn of phrase turns this concept on its head and pits “Americans” against “Dreamers.”

It was a message that was quickly embraced by white nationalists, who paired the phrase with stock photos of white people. Prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer, for instance, posted this image on Twitter during Trump’s speech:

It was celebrated in a similar way on GAB, a social network that caters to white nationalists.

Former KKK grand wizard David Duke thanked Trump for including the line in his speech.

Thank you President Trump. Americans are "Dreamers" too.— David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) January 31, 2018

The exact turn of phrase — “Americans are dreamers too” — appears to be have been popularized by Laura Ingraham, a Fox News host and immigration hardliner. She used the phrase to defend Trump’s decision to cancel DACA on September 5, arguing that Dreamers should not be eligible for work permits and raising the specter of “crowded schools.”

But the use of the phrase pre-dates Ingraham. It was embraced at a grassroots level by anti-immigrant racists online early in the Trump presidency.

Ttump’s racist supporters heard their leader’s whistle loud and clear last night.

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“Oh, don’t worry, 100 percent”by digby

If you hear anyone saying that the White House is deliberating about whether to release the memo, they are lying:

Wray and Rosenstein went to the White House on Monday night to beg them not to release it. The next night he said this.

Maybe he’ll change his mind. But as of last night he was crystal clear about what he wants.

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The memo’s purpose is now clear. Trump wants to fire Rosenstein.by digby

As I mentioned in my Salon piece this morning, this was already rumored but now we know for sure:

The FBI said it is gravely concerned about House Republicans’ memo alleging the bureau abused its surveillance powers. The memo is expected to be released publicly soon. In a statement released Wednesday, a bureau spokesperson questioned the memo’s accuracy.

“With regard to the House Intelligence Committee’s memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,” the spokesperson said.

“The FBI takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals in the Department of Justice and the FBI,” the spokesperson continued. “We are committed to working with the appropriate oversight entities to ensure the continuing integrity of the FISA process.”

The memo reportedly alleges Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein withheld information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about the FBI’s request to renew for a warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Keep in mind that Carter Page has been on the FBI’s counter-intelligence radar since 2013, long before Trump announced for president. The suspicions about him are not based on politics. They are based upon the fact that actual Russian spies were found to have attempted to recruit him way back when. He got onto the Trump campaign in 2016 and it’s entirely possible that he’s continuing to do the work they’ve been observing him do for the past five years.

I don’t know why Rosenstein signed the FISA memo to continue the surveillance on Page last year. But he had years and years of evidence going back before Trump to back up the suspicion that something was going on with him and the Russians. Contrary to the crazed GOP staffers insistence, he didn’t need the Steele dossier to make the case and everyone who knows this process says that no judge would approve a warrant based solely on that in any case.

I have to say that this fixation on the dossier is really getting weird. Why they keep harping on something that only makes everyone think of Trump being compromised by Russian agents for cavorting with prostitutes is beyond me. Obviously, the dossier has much more than that that may be the real reason they need to discredit it, particularly the money laundering implications. But from a public relations standpoint it’s insane to keep bringing it up.

FBI director Wray has now weighed in heavily against the release of the memo. I don’t expect that will stop Trump. He was assuring everyone at the SOTU last night that he was going to release the memo. This probably means he’s going to fire Rosenstein.

And then we really do have a constitutional crisis on our hands.

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All That Frightens by tristero

I think Michelle Goldberg understands exactly which part of the SOTU is the most laden with existential peril:

According to The Washington Post, the nomination of Victor D. Cha, a hawkish veteran of the George W. Bush administration, was very close to being sent to the Senate, but was derailed when Cha privately expressed reservations about a preventive American strike on North Korea. The Financial Times reported that Cha was asked if he was “prepared to help manage the evacuation of American citizens from South Korea,” which would be necessary in the event of an American bombing. This is terrifying, because it suggests that Trump is serious about starting a war. 

Indeed, Cha himself seems frightened; just before the State of the Union started, he published an op-ed in The Washington Post arguing against a preventive attack. Apparently assuming that some readers would be indifferent to millions of potential Korean deaths, Cha emphasized that many Americans would also die in a military confrontation. “To be clear: The president would be putting at risk an American population the size of a medium-size U.S. city — Pittsburgh, say, or Cincinnati — on the assumption that a crazy and undeterrable dictator will be rationally cowed by a demonstration of U.S. kinetic power,” he wrote. 

Cha’s warning made Trump’s State of the Union bellicosity toward North Korea particularly frightening. More than an hour into an interminable speech, Trump said, “North Korea’s reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.” He added: “Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this very dangerous position.”

This is sheer insanity, on so many levels. Any attack on North Korea (even with conventional weapons initially ) would likely turn nuclear. And to get a sense of what that means, I strongly suggest reading The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg.

Trust me, you do not want nuclear war. And trust me, you do not want Donald Trump or Michael Pence starting one. You may survive if they start one, but you will envy those who didn’t.

The Trump cult in full effect at the SOTUby digby

What the transcripts won’t show
by Tom Sullivan

When President Trump was not applauding his own lines during his State of the Union speech, or suggesting that immigrants, even the children, are murderous criminals, he was taunting Democrats, gesturing like a conductor for them to stand and applaud him. That won’t show up in the transcripts.

The first half of the speech was fairly conventional boilerplate: how well the economy is faring under his administration and the president taking credit for things he did not do.

But his tone and body language stiffened once he began fear-mongering about murderous immigrant and non-immigrant foreigners. The swagger and “Mussolini chin jut” (Dennis Hartley) appeared. Phrases such as “extinguish ISIS from the face of the Earth” and promises to keep open detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay and the thought of meting out punishment drew applause from Republicans. But Trump seemed to enjoy the prospect of sending more ISIS and al-Qa’ida fighters there, going off-script to add, “and in many cases, for them it will now be Guantánamo Bay.”

My mom is an immigrant
My dad is an immigrant
I am an immigrant
My mother's 6 brothers came to America too
It is a deeply interdependent family
All successful
All tax-paying (one is an accountant!)
All proud & contributing Americans
Call it #ChainMigration
Or call it America— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) January 31, 2018

Las Vegas Shooter:
Not an immigrant
Sandy Hook Shooter:
Not an immigrant.
Charleston Church Shooter:
Not an immigrant.
Aurora Movie Theater Shooter:
Not an immigrant.
Texas Church Shooter:
Not an immigrant
Columbine Shooters:
Not immigrants.#SOTU— Michael Skolnik (@MichaelSkolnik) January 31, 2018

Trump was not limiting his list of enemies to terrorists and Latino immigrants, through. Commenting on his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capitol, he called out those countries (128 of them) who voted against the decision in the United Nations General Assembly:

In 2016, American taxpayers generously sent those same countries more than $20 billion in aid.

That is why, tonight, I am asking Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign assistance dollars always serve American interests and only go to friends of America, not enemies of America.

“Not enemies of America” does not seem to be in the as-written speech. Trump last night publicly declared most of the world — and most of NATO — America’s enemies.

Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois issued this jab in response:

Even though I disagreed with almost everything he said, for Trump, the speech was clear and well-delivered. Whoever translated it for him from Russian did a good job.

I am still hopeful, but I don’t see this Congress and this President coming to an agreement that prevents the deportation of the Dreamers. The White House agenda is to gut legal immigration in exchange for allowing some of the Dreamers to live here. For those of us who support legal immigration, and that’s most Democrats and many Republicans, it won’t fly. And the Dreamers themselves have said they do not want legal status if it comes at the expense of others who will suffer more as part of the bargain. The speech did nothing to bring the pro- and anti-immigrant sides closer together.

I was hoping for some sort of apology on Puerto Rico, but I heard nothing. Puerto Rico is a metaphor for how this President sees all Latinos and people of color: he does not see us as his equals and he does not see us as fellow human beings. If you look at how the President has treated Puerto Rico, you have to conclude that he just doesn’t care and probably thinks of Puerto Rico as just another shithole country.

I was born in 1953 in the U.S. when separate but equal was the law of the land. I am proud of the progress the United States has made as a nation on issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, and many other areas where we have advanced. I was hoping to get through my life without having to witness an outwardly, explicitly racist American President, but my luck ran out.

In the official Democratic response, Massachusetts Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy III (why not a woman?) offered a speech of values, but clearly defining the divide between Trump’s vision and Democrats’:

It would be easy to dismiss the past year as chaos. Partisanship. Politics.

But it’s far bigger than that. This administration isn’t just targeting the laws that protect us — they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection.

For them, dignity isn’t something you’re born with but something you measure.

By your net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size.

Not to mention, the gender of your spouse. The country of your birth. The color of your skin. The God of your prayers.

Their record is a rebuke of our highest American ideal: the belief that we are all worthy, we are all equal and we all count. In the eyes of our law and our leaders, our God and our government.

It was a good speech. Uplifting. A speech more Democrats ought to be able to deliver off the cuff instead of falling into policy-speak.

Kennedy’s characterization also had the virtue of being right. Trump and his enablers don’t believe in equality except as a marketing tool. And easy or not, his last year has been chaos. “Chaos is a really useful word for Trump’s first year. Dems’d be good to incorporate it,” tweeted Marcy Wheeler.

They would also be well-served by losing their nostalgia for resurrecting long-gone political dynasties. The party needs not just fresher faces, but fresher ideas.

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

Ok, a little bit of good newsby digby

A whole lot of people in this country aren’t buying the snake oil Trump and his henchmen are selling:

Trump averaged 50% or higher approval in 12 states in total, primarily in the states where he received the most votes in the 2016 election. In addition to West Virginia, the states where at least half the respondents approved of Trump included several western states (Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Alaska), several southern states (Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas) and two Midwestern states (North and South Dakota).

Trump earned between 40% and 49% approval — above his national average — in 20 states. These were predominantly in the Midwest and South, and included several of the key rustbelt states that were critical to his 2016 victory: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Fewer than 40% of respondents approved of Trump in the remaining 18 states, 14 of which are located in the East and West — his worst performing regions in the election. In addition to Vermont, his ratings were particularly low — below 30% — in Massachusetts (27%), California (29%) and Hawaii (29%). Maryland, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island round out the states where fewer than one-third of the respondents approved.

He’s got a bit problem and not just in the blue states (although he’s doing so badly that the GOP in those states should be really worried.) He’s at 39% disapproval and 54% disapproval in Texas.

This election could be our last chance. I’m not being hyperbolic. These Republicans have all decided to throw in their lot with this cretinous, authoritarian imbecile. Unless they pay a price there may be no going back.

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When do the full Nuremberg rallies start?by digby

I think we’re moving into a new phase. And it’s not good:

“You can’t overstate how important the tax bill was,” said Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax Media and a Trump friend.

It not only will accelerate growth, it gives the president a sales pitch about leadership that he has and will take on the road all year, especially because he adores flying on Air Force One. “He loves all the pomp and circumstance and the salutes,” said another friend.

But the confidence also comes from darker places: From a tighter feedback loop of loyal aides who survived the temper tantrums and firings of the first year; from the kind of self-delusion that only a master salesman is capable of (salesmen are the most gullible customers); and from a year of successfully dominating the news and changing the rules to suit his cut-throat, disruptive methods. [aka: authoritarian tyranny]

There is more of that disruption ahead.

Sources say that Trump has adopted a two-track strategy to deal with the Mueller investigation.

One is an un-Trumpian passivity and trust. He keeps telling some in his circle that Mueller — any day now — will tell him he is off the hook for any charge of collusion with the Russians or obstruction of justice.

But Trump — who trusts no one, or at least no one for long — has now decided that he must have an alternative strategy that does not involve having Justice Department officials fire Mueller.

“I think he’s been convinced that firing Mueller would not only create a firestorm, it would play right into Mueller’s hands,” said another friend, “because it would give Mueller the moral high ground.”

Instead, as is now becoming plain, the Trump strategy is to discredit the investigation and the FBI without officially removing the leadership. Trump is even talking to friends about the possibility of asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to consider prosecuting Mueller and his team.

“Here’s how it would work: ‘We’re sorry, Mr. Mueller, you won’t be able to run the federal grand jury today because he has to go testify to another federal grand jury,'” said one Trump adviser.

Sure, that’s fine. The president is talking about instructing his Attorney General to prosecute the special prosecutor who is investigating him.

And lest you think that the Republican majority will stop it before it gets to that:

Mitch McConnell 1/30/2018:

“2017 was the best year for conservatives in the 30 years that I’ve been here. The best year on all fronts.”

So … fasten your seatbelts. They’re all in.

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QOTD: Eric Swalwell

Cruel and inhuman
by digby

And people keep telling me that these assholes don’t actually want mass deportation and their malevolent racist voters aren’t looking forward to watching young Latinos having their lives destroyed. Read this and tell me they don’t get off on the prospect of seeing them suffer:

Today, Congressman Paul Gosar contacted the U.S. Capitol Police, as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asking they consider checking identification of all attending the State of the Union address and arresting any illegal aliens in attendance.

— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) January 30, 2018

I doubt they will do this. But only because it will step on Dear Leader’s speech.