Month: April 2018

No wonder his wife is divorcing him

Published by digby on April 5, 2018

No wonder his wife is divorcing him

by digby

I’m not talking about Rudy Giuliani, although I’m sure she has good reasons too. This is about Donald Trump Jr who behaves like a cretin on social media and deserves to have this swill dredged up and passed around:

In January 2007, Adam Carolla broadcast his radio show, “The Adam Carolla Show,” live from the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. Among the various guests that day was none other than our country’s most aggressively online son, Donald Trump Jr., who took the opportunity to talk about his dick, his father’s dick, how the two compare, and just how much of a hardship it is to be surrounded by Playboy Playmates when you have a pregnant wife in tow.

The since-forgotten segment, which appears to have been taken offline but was preserved by the Internet Archive, lasts a little over 13 minutes and covers a number of topics.

Some highlights:

On his predicament

Trump Jr.: Can you believe the hell I’m going through? I’m at the Playboy Mansion with a pregnant wife! It doesn’t get worse than that, does it? Now, I love my wife, but that is rough. And I’m going to pay for these statements later on tonight. I’m gonna pay.

On Melania’s age

Host: Donald, your pregnant wife is chatting up Melania, your stepmother. What is the age gap between those two?

Trump Jr.: Much closer than most would ever guesstimate. Probably about five years, six years.

Host: Which one’s older?

Trump Jr.: My wife.

[crowd boos]

Trump Jr.: No, I’m just kidding.

On coal miners

Host: Question one: Did you always plan to follow in your father’s footsteps, meaning become a billionaire and bone hot chicks?

Trump Jr.: I think the answer to that is an obvious yes. [Sarcastically] No, I wanted to go to work in a coal mine.

On Miss USA

Host: Number two: Did you ever have sex with Miss USA?

Trump Jr.: Which one?

[Hosts shout]

Trump Jr.: I’m just kidding, baby!

On Melania’s hotness:

Host: Are you attracted to your stepmother?

Trump Jr.: I think she’s a very lovely lady.

On his inheritance:

Host: And the last one is: Have you ever thought about killing your dad for his money?

Trump Jr.: Well, you know…

Host: That’s a yes.

On whether he or his dad has the larger penis:

Host: I got one question, Donald Jr. When you and your pops are in the shower, who’s got the bigger package? You know what I’m saying.

Trump Jr.: You know, and I will get fired for this, but I’m never going to say that I don’t. I will get fired for that. By the way, they’re both pretty substantial I think.

Trump Jr. has most recently been in the news for “liking” a tweet that smeared Parkland massacre survivor David Hogg, and for the fact that his wife, Vanessa Trump, recently filed for divorce.

You can listen to the 2007 Carolla segment in full here.

So he hangs out at the Playboy Mansion complaining about his pregnant wife, mocks coal miners and talks about the size of his penis.

Yep, he’s a chip off the old block all right. Must make his daddy so proud.

Corrupt all the way down

Published by digby on April 5, 2018

Corrupt all the way down

by digby

This is nice:

A new rule championed by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai would limit internet and phone access for millions of low-income and elderly Americans.

Pai’s proposed changes to the Lifeline program, which currently serves 12 million Americans by providing subsidized phone and internet service, would cut service to about 70 percent, or 8 million, of them. Many of these recipients live in Puerto Rico and rely on Lifeline for assistance as they recover from Hurricane Irma.

Last week, a group of Democratic Senators including Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeff Merkley, Edward J. Markey, Ron Wyden, Richard Blumenthal, Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin and Cory Booker wrote a letter to the FCC chairman questioning his motives.

“The Lifeline program is essential for millions of Americans who rely on subsidized internet access to find jobs, schedule doctor’s appointments, complete their school assignments, interface with the government, and remain connected in a digital economy,” they wrote. “The program helps Americans—including disproportionate numbers of families with children, veterans and people of color—survive.”

The letter also questioned the economic reasoning for the program change. “It is unclear why the FCC would spend billions of dollars to expand access to broadband while at the same time make Lifeline less accessible to those who need it most,” it read.

The Lifeline program is a 33-year-old bipartisan program started under President Ronald Reagan and bolstered by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Low-income Americans are granted a monthly household subsidy of $9.25 to help pay for internet and phone service. Changes proposed by Pai would prevent telecom companies that don’t provide their own infrastructure, like AT&T or Sprint, from offering the subsidized plans. About 70 percent of users are on a plan that doesn’t use its own infrastructure. The Lifeline service is paid for through special service fees on phone bills.

Here’s another case where corrupt intent matters:

“I really struggle to figure out what Pai is trying to accomplish here,” said Blair Levin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who oversaw the development of the National Broadband Plan at the FCC. “He’s trying to figure out how to bridge the digital divide and yet he wants to undercut a program helping millions of Americans.” This isn’t about trying to make the rule fairer for service providers to bolster the free market, he said.

GOP officials have been grooming Pai for a possible gubernatorial run, according to a report from the New York Times. “Perhaps he wants to go run for office in Kansas and there are a lot of rural phone companies in Kansas,” said Levin. “He wants to take money away from larger companies and give it to phone companies in Kansas.”

Pai says the money will help rural telephone companies by encouraging providers to build networks there. But “the amount of money redistributed will be small, and how are they going to distribute it?” Levin asked. “Rural telephone companies have huge problems. There needs to be a much bigger, more systematic way of thinking about this.”

That wouldn’t help a Republican game the system to his advantage, now would it?

Government has been corrupt on some level forever. The big money involved almost makes it inevitable. But the Trump era Republicans are more blatantly self-dealing than anything we’ve seen before and it’s worth wondering whether they are taking their cues from the man at the top or they all just happen to be personally corrupt and they don’t care who knows it. The sheer number of corrupt incidents in this administration in the first year is just astonishing.

By the way, there’s also a truly malevolent consequence of this decision:

In Puerto Rico, where 550,000 people, or about 17 percent of the total population, use the Lifeline program, communities are much more isolated and poverty is much more extreme than it is in the continental United States, according to the Census Bureau. “These are rural communities two hours away from any real health care,” he said. “We’re not talking about giving these people unlimited texting. This isn’t a luxury. This is something people use to take care of their basic needs.”

Maybe he’s hoping to get those Kansas phone companies a nice fat contract the way Ryan Zinke got his pals in Montana the power contract. Disaster capitalism is one of the easy paths to riches and Puerto Rico is the gift that keeps on giving.

Good Morning America!

Published by digby on April 5, 2018

Good Morning America!

by digby

Via Mike Allen at Axios:

To White House insiders, this is the most dangerous phase of Donald Trump’s presidency so far, from the brewing trade war with China that he denies is a trade war, to the perilously spontaneous summit with North Korea.

The big picture: Checks are being ignored or have been eliminated, and critics purged as the president is filling time by watching Fox, and by eating dinner with people who feed his ego and conspiracy theories, and who drink in his rants. Both sides are getting more polarized and dug in — making the daily reality more absurd, and the potential consequences less urgent and able to grab people’s serious attention.

Be smart: Trump’s closest confidants speak with an unusual level of concern, even alarm, and admit to being confused about what the president will do next — and why.
This is different than a few months ago, when they were more bemused and supportive.

Ian Bremmer, president founder of the Eurasia Group, tells me that a key point in his forthcoming book — “Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism,” out April 24 — is that variations on these worries extend across the globe:

In places that include China and Russia, chief rival powers to the U.S., technology is “empowering top-down authoritarianism as liberal democracy weakens.”

Bremmer, in a letter to clients, also makes a smart counter-case about Trump, who has had three foreign policy wins:

His first big trade deal, with South Korea.

His success in applying pressure to North Korea, and getting China to join.

His strikes on Syria in response to chemical weapons use by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In all three cases, Bremmer points out, Trump “managed to accomplish something that previous administrations had not”:

The formula: a combination of spontaneity and unpredictability, and Trump’s willingness to accept risk “in challenging a previous status quo in policy; and his acceptance of advice on actual policy implementation from experts.”

Bremmer says that’s a more powerful combination than Trump opponents are generally willing to admit.”

But, but, but: Bremmer, after making those points, notes the greater dangers of this approach — a fear shared by many inside the White House.

Ok. But with the exception of the Syria strikes which were an anodyne foreign policy prescription that would have been taken by any president, it’s pretty early to declare those things “successes.” China and North Korea coming together may or may not be an advantage and Trump himself is threatening to undo the South Korea trade deal every other minute so it’s hard to say where that’s going to come out.

The United States being unpredictable, bullying the world and keeping other countries off balance and unsure of whether we’re going to blow up the planet may have precipitated world leaders treading carefully trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t. But it won’t last. A rogue superpower running roughshod will be undermined and eventually challenged. It’s unsustainable.

Also,the president isn’t — shall we say — cognizant of what he’s doing. In fact, he’s a fucking moron. That doesn’t mean that he can’t accidentally succeed in some respects. But let’s just say the odds are against him vaunted “instincts” being beneficial for all of us in the long run. His instincts are narrow and feral, informed only by watching TV and inborn prejudice. It will be a miracle if something terrible doesn’t happen.

What Are The Costs and Consequences of Metal Detectors in Schools? @spockosbrain

Published by Spocko on April 5, 2018

What Are The Costs and Consequences of Metal Detectors in Schools?

by Spocko

Schools districts across the country are having town hall meetings to discuss school safety. A number of solutions will be proposed. Unfortunately, sometimes the people with faulty solutions are great at selling them and getting funding for them. When people are afraid, they often write big checks to the people who claim to offer a solution.

Remember those nude X-ray scanners that were put in at airports? They didn’t work. Scientists: Body Scanners Don’t Work, Corbett Was Right Did you know that the Department of Homeland Security chief, Michael Chertoff, promoted the technology and Homeland Security placed the government’s first order, buying five Rapiscan scanners? Eventually the government bought over 300 of the machines that didn’t work.

One of the suggestions people will make in these Town Halls will be for metal detectors. Lincoln Journal Star education reporter Margaret Reist asked Jon Sundermeier, Lincoln Public School Security Coordinator this question during a podcast about security for schools.

Jon Sundermeier, Lincoln Public School
Security Coordinator

“There is a lot of talk about metal detectors. Do we need metal detectors? Why do we not have metal detectors?”

“Again, that’s another community decision. If you think about when you visit the Lancaster County courthouse, if you look at the staff there, the amount of people that have to run one entrance. You could start to think ‘Okay, expand that to every school and keep in mind that once you start using metal detectors you have to keep a school secure at all times or else people can bring things through other doors at other times. And with the amount of basketball games played after hours, the amount of CLC programing we have after hours.

Think of how the nature of schools would have to change if we want to take that step.

Again it’s a community decision. The bottom line if you go to metal detectors there is a huge amount of culture change that would happen that would have to occur at the schools as well.”

If this idea gets promoted, people who propose it should know what the costs and consequences are.

1) Cost per machine suitable for this? $3,000 to $4,000 (Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice)

2) Staffing during the day and after hours. Sundermeier pointed out the need for multiple shifts because of basketball and evening CLC events.

Who pays for the ongoing cost? If there is no new tax, will the funding come from other budgets? Will it cut into current programs?

The initial cost is almost small compared to the ongoing costs. Let’s look at an example from another state that illustrates this:

…the weapon detection program run by the New York City (NYC) Board of Education in about 50 of its inner-city high schools (exhibit 3.5). For just one of its schools with about 2,000 students, the weapon detection program requires 9 security officers for approximately 2 hours each morning.
Two officers run the two initial portal metal detectors, two officers run the baggage x-ray machines, one officer runs the secondary portal metal detector for students who fail the initial detector, two officers (a male and a female) operate the hand scanners on students who fail the secondary metal detector, and two officers keep the students flowing smoothly and quickly through the system, such that nobody is able to bypass any part of the system.

It should be noted that the only way these schools are able to avoid huge waiting lines, even with this much equipment and this many officers, and still get everybody to class on time is by a complete restructuring of their class periods. There is a significant staggering of first period start times so that the students arrive over a 90-minute period.

On average, NYC school safety officials estimate that they fund approximately 100 additional security officer hours a week for each of their schools that screen for weapons.

I’ve found when you bring up hard numbers, the support for programs that offer few advantages and bring new problems often disappear. But right now I’m seeing the gun lobby getting both Democrats and Republicans to pay for the NRA’s favorite “solution” for school security, more guns in schools.

The slaughter lobby knows that if someone else pays for a program, it’s easier to implement. They also know that if people don’t have to pay for a program they aren’t as demanding about its effectiveness.

But what about the consequences? Sundermeier notes that the nature of schools would have to change. And that there is a huge amount of culture change that would happen.

Metal detectors are part of the “hardening” of schools program. I think that people should look at the consequences of these changes.

Photo by Kevin Mazur

Here’s Alex King, a senior at North Lawndale College Prep High School in Chicago. In a Teen Vogue op-ed he explained why “hardening” schools isn’t the answer to gun violence.

Trust me, where I’m from schools are already harder than you could imagine. We get up extra early every day to allow time to wait in line for the metal detectors. We’re disproportionately affected by zero-tolerance policies that funnel us into the school-to-prison pipeline. We already see armed police officers walking the halls and if you don’t understand why that alone can cause us stress, then you haven’t learned about the treatment of Laquan McDonald or Tamir Rice or Sandra Bland or Stephon Clark. You should.

As a proposed solution to mass shootings in schools, elected leaders want us to walk into classrooms where teachers carry loaded weapons? I challenge you to sit and learn about the history of civil rights with a clear mind while there are guns in your classroom. I challenge you to focus on studying statistics when you spend half your time trying not to become one.

I’ve been listening to legislators in other states talk about various programs for school safety. (Lawmakers Determined to Get More Guns In Schools) I’ve watched them talk about other state’s experiences with programs, such as arming teachers, without knowing the details of the costs or consequences.

I’ve watched them push for armed police in schools (SROs) without looking at the true costs and history of failures. They focus on preparing for an event that may never happen and put into place systems that bring new risks to schools, like armed teachers.

Did you know that there were never any consequences for selling a system to the American public that didn’t work? In 2010 Ron Paul said this on the House floor, as shown in this video. “I mean, here’s the guy who was the head of the TSA, selling the equipment. And the equipment’s questionable. We don’t even know if it works, and it may well be dangerous to our health.”

Imagine someone pushing a solution that didn’t work, was expensive, changed the entire experience for the participants and introduced a new danger to people. A danger that didn’t exist before it was introduced to the environment.

Sundermeier points out that putting in metal detectors is, “a community decision.” But what happens when the community is basing their decisions on fear and bad information that is pushed by people with faulty solutions?

Fortunately some friends of mine in Lincoln put together a fair, evidence-based policy that places the burden of gun violence not on vulnerable children but on the adults who enable and profit from it. It might be useful for other people who support of nonviolent, non-militarized school safety. (Link to document)

Humans can’t do mind melds like I can. But I suggest you try to see the world through the eyes of someone like Alex King, who understands why “hardening” schools won’t stop violence and school shootings.

Living is easy with eyes closed by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on April 5, 2018

Living is easy with eyes closed
by Tom Sullivan

Orders, more executive orders, the sitting president has instructed aides. When in doubt, he goes for bold.

The president who once used the soaring stock market as evidence of his brilliance has grown frustrated watching it sink 5 percent since he announced plans to impose sweeping tariffs on China, the Washington Post reports. China returned the favor, announcing tariffs on U.S. products that include cars and planes, plus a host of agricultural products produced in areas that also produced many of Trump’s most fervent voters:

“Nothing is easy,” Trump said Monday at the White House, while discussing his efforts to close the trade deficit with China.

It was a notable admission given that Trump had claimed the opposite in June 2016, during a major campaign speech on trade. “This is very easy. This is so easy,” he said then about tariffs on Chinese products.

But there is little evidence that any of the resistance has caused Trump to rethink his decision to refocus his administration on the nationalist policies and priorities that electrified crowds during the campaign.

Boldness. More boldness.

Having cleared the White House of staff who know anything about governing, Trump returns to familiar ground: marketing.

The challenge for Trump of trying to deliver on rosy promises is not a new one. Until winning the White House, Trump’s greatest successes have come in arenas such as marketing, entertainment and the presidential campaign, where image is the primary product and big boasts can make the sale. Billy Bush, the former “Access Hollywood” host, who spent years interviewing Trump about his reality show, “The Apprentice,” recently recalled confronting Trump over his serial misrepresentations of that show’s ratings.

“He said, ‘Billy, look, you just tell them and they believe it. That’s it,’ ” Bush recalled on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

The unilateral power of bold assertion, regardless of facts or nuance, has been a central theme of Trump’s presidency. While politicians typically overpromise during the campaign, Trump distinguished himself with the scale and scope of his vows. “I will give you everything,” he said at a campaign event in North Dakota in May 2016. “I’m the only one.”

Trump grew quickly frustrated with the slow pace of governing. He is accustomed to barking orders and having things done. But after 14 months in office, he’s got the hang of presidenting now and feels freed to do things his way.

When the winning starts hitting his supporters in their wallets, will his way look as rosy as it did on the campaign trail?

* * * * * * * *

For The Win 2018 is ready for download. Request a copy of my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail. (If you are already on my email list, check your in-box.)

Oligarchy R Us

Published by digby on April 5, 2018

Oligarchy R Us

by digby

Ron Brownstein notes that the Chamber of Commerce and other big business types have been unusually quiet about Trump’s attacks on Amazon:

[T]he Chamber issued a statement late Tuesday afternoon in the name of Neil Bradley, its executive vice president and chief policy officer. “It’s inappropriate for government officials to use their position to attack an American company,” Bradley said. “The U.S. economy is the world’s most powerful because it embraces the free enterprise system and the rule of law, whereby policy matters are handled through recognized policy making processes.”

It’s not hard to imagine that the response from the Chamber and other business groups would have been far faster and far more furious if a Democratic president had mounted such a sustained attack on a single U.S. company. The cautious reaction to Trump’s offensive against Amazon—like the limp response to his earlier onslaughts on enterprises, from Merck & Co. to Nordstrom to the NFL—reflects the complex bargain that Trump has struck with the nation’s corporate leadership. And it’s a deal the president is using to try to bend business to his will.

On the one hand, Trump is giving the business community virtually everything it wants on many of its key policy priorities. His tax bill slashed corporate taxes. Federal agencies are systematically rolling back financial, consumer-protection, and environmental regulations. While Trump is pursuing some policies that many businesses oppose—particularly the moves to restrict immigration and raise trade barriers that are central to his insular nationalism—generally he has aligned with corporate preferences as unreservedly as any president since at least Ronald Reagan (if not Calvin Coolidge).

For business, though, the price for those wins is accepting a president committed to publicly stoning companies and individual corporate leaders who cross him. Trump’s message seems to be that businesses that play ball will be rewarded and those that don’t will be punished. That’s a political logic familiar in strong-man governments that run the spectrum from old urban machines like Richard Daley’s Chicago on one end to autocracies like Vladimir Putin’s Russia on the other.

Let’s just say they won’t be crossing Trump any time soon. And no, it’s not just because they love him so much for all the goodies he’s given them. It’s because businesses prefer to avoid controversy and nobody gets one going like Trump. So they’ll let him do whatever he wants. Being who he is, much of it will likely benefit them. But they’ll stay quiet even when it doesn’t. Who wants to be seen as being responsible for stock market losses because Trump decided to tweet some trash talk? Nobody. In fact, they’ll cozy up to him as much as possible to avoid that.

It’s true that they are all mostly shills for tax cuts and deregulation so maybe it doesn’t matter if business and industry toe Trump’s line. They would probably do it anyway. But it does get a little bit dicey when it comes to media companies. CEOs and corporate boards will have learned it’s best not to cross him and in ways subtle and not so subtle the word will go forth.

It’s not as if we haven’t seen that before. In the run up to the Iraq war they all rallied around George W. Bush and squelched dissent within their ranks. So far it hasn’t happened with Trump. But never say it can’t. It has. And then think about the agenda they will be enabling.

When morons run the world

Published by digby on April 5, 2018

When morons run the world

by digb

Every last member of this wealthy brood is a moron. Get a load of this crude bribe, offered without any understanding whatsoever of the issues at stake or the commitments of those involved.They might as well have dropped in from Mars to run the country.

In a riveting passage from Cecile Richards’ new memoir, the Planned Parenthood chief says Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were, during Donald Trump’s 2016 transition as president-elect, so eager to be recognized as shrewd political dealmakers that the soon-to-be first daughter and her husband made an offer that felt like a “bribe”: an increase in federal funding for Planned Parenthood in exchange for its agreement to stop providing abortions.

Richards, in Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead, out Tuesday, says she was leery of taking the meeting in January 2017, but, after the defeat of Planned Parenthood’s champion, Hillary Clinton, she was open to finding possible new allies in the president-elect’s more moderate-leaning daughter and son-in-law.

The organization, after all, was a favorite target of Trump and the GOP. Shortly after the election, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced his intentions to defund Planned Parenthood and get rid of Obamacare. While he hasn’t succeeded, Planned Parenthood and its services continues to be a lightning rod for the right.

“Everyone at Planned Parenthood was hoping for the best but preparing for the worst,” Richards, 60, writes about Ryan’s announcement. “We brainstormed, planned, and made lists of anyone who might be a potential ally in the administration.”

Richards — who is the daughter of feminist icon Ann Richards and passionately campaigned for Hillary Clinton — was urged by a “friendly acquaintance in the fashion industry” to reach out to President Trump’s daughter Ivanka for a meeting.

“Even if there was only a sliver of a chance of changing anyone’s mind, I owed it to Planned Parenthood patients to at least take the meeting,” Richards explains.

While she was confident about her talking points, she writes that she “begged” her husband, Kirk Adams, to join her after she learned that Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, would also be in attendance.

“If nothing else, I felt I needed a witness,” she writes.

Once in the clubhouse, the couples chatted about their families before getting down to business. According to a statement from Planned Parenthood given to Time.com, the purpose of the meeting “was to make sure that Ivanka Trump fully understood the important role Planned Parenthood plays in providing health care to millions of people and why it would be a disastrous idea to block people from accessing care at Planned Parenthood.”

After Richards explained this, she writes that Kushner told her Planned Parenthood “had made a big mistake by becoming ‘political.’ ”

“The main issue, he explained, was abortion,” Richards writes. “If Planned Parenthood wanted to keep our federal funding, we would have to stop providing abortions. He described his ideal outcome: a national headline reading ‘Planned Parenthood Discontinues Abortion Services.’”

According to Make Trouble, Kushner said that if Richards agreed to the plan then funding could increase, but he urged them to “move fast.”

Mansplaining for dummies.

They actually thought they were being clever by offering to raise funding if Cecile Richards would agree to have Planned Parenthood stop providing abortions. These are the minds of children. Children who have never read a newspaper or a book. They clearly woke up the morning after election day thinking that they were the smartest people on earth and decided to act on thir puerile instincts about everything.

I am more and more convinced that it will be a miracle if we survive these people. I thought George W. Bush was stpid but he was Stephen Hawking compared to this crew. My God.

Mueller’s report

Published by digby on April 4, 2018

Mueller’s report

by digby

There’s a lot of talk about the Washington Post story that indicates that as of last month anyway, Mueller doesn’t consider Trump a target of a criminal investigation. Marcy Wheeler points out that since most people believe a sitting president can’t be indicted, this is actually a non-story. She looks at the rest of this story which may end up being more important:

If Trump, as President, can’t be indicted, then he can’t be a putative defendant. So he’ll never be a target so long as he remains President. Dowd is likely the only lawyer on Trump’s team who has enough defense experience to understand that this should offer the President zero assurance at all.

He left when the other, ill-suited attorneys refused to believe him on this point.

Which is why the other main thrust of the story is so interesting. Mueller has also indicated that Mueller wants to start writing his report on obstruction — according to Robert Costa, with the intent of finishing it by June or July, just before Congress breaks for August recess, the official start of campaign season — with plans for a second report on the election conspiracy to follow.

The special counsel also told Trump’s lawyers that he is preparing a report about the president’s actions while in office and potential obstruction of justice, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.

Mueller reiterated the need to interview Trump — both to understand whether he had any corrupt intent to thwart the Russia investigation and to complete this portion of his probe, the people said.

[snip]

Mueller’s investigators have indicated to the president’s legal team that they are considering writing reports on their findings in stages — with the first report focused on the obstruction issue, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

Under special counsel regulations, Mueller is required to report his conclusions confidentially to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who has the authority to decide whether to release the information publicly.

“They’ve said they want to write a report on this — to answer the public’s questions — and they need the president’s interview as the last step,” one person familiar with the discussions said of Mueller’s team.

Trump’s attorneys expect the president would also face questions about what he knew about any contacts by his associates with Russian officials and emissaries in 2016, several White House advisers said. The president’s allies believe a second report detailing the special counsel’s findings on Russia’s interference would be issued later.

That leads us to the question of how a report that Rod Rosenstein has authority to quash could be assured of “answering the public’s questions.” One option is Mueller could propose charges he knows Rosenstein won’t — or can’t — approve, which guarantees that the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Judiciary Committees (currently, Bob Goodlatte, who is retiring, Jerry Nadler, Chuck Grassley, and Dianne Feinstein, who faces a real challenge this year) will get at least a summary.

Mueller could trigger a reporting requirement in the special counsel regulations under which the attorney general must inform “the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Judiciary Committees of each House of Congress” — both parties, in other words — at the end of the special counsel’s investigation, of any instance in which the attorney general vetoed a proposed action. Simply by proposing to indict Trump, Mueller could ensure that Congress gets the word. But this would be of only limited scope: instead of an evidence dump, it need only be a “brief notification, with an outline of the actions and the reasons for them.”

Alternately, Mueller could recommend impeachment, but Rosenstein would be bound by grand jury secrecy rules.

If Mueller believes he has information that could warrant impeachment, he could weave it into a narrative like the Starr Report. But even if Rosenstein wanted to make the report public, he would be limited by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e), which imposes strict limits on the disclosure of grand jury materials. This rule, which has the force of law, is intended to preserve the integrity of grand jury investigations and encourage witnesses to testify fully and frankly. Rosenstein could, if he chose, issue a redacted report that conveys the gist of Mueller’s findings.

While the election conspiracy has involved grand jury subpoenas (to people like Sam Nunberg and Ted Malloch, most recently), the obstruction investigation into Trump has involved (as far as I remember) entirely voluntary interviews and mostly, if not entirely, voluntarily produced evidence. So whereas for the larger investigation, Rosenstein will face this limit (but not if the targets — like Roger Stone — are indicted), he may not here.

She concludes:

Effectively, I think Mueller is giving the GOP Congress a choice. They impeach Trump on the less inflammatory stuff,which will remove all threat of firing and/or pardons to threaten the investigation, not to mention make Trump eligible to be a target for the actual election conspiracy he tried to cover up. Or after they fail to hold the House while explaining why they’re covering up for Trump’s cover up, they will face a more serious inquiry relating to Trump’s involvement in the election conspiracy.

I’m going to guess they’ll go for door number 2. They are much too petrified of their base not to take the chance that they might hold the house no matter how unlikely. But in any case, that report is probably being written as we speak no matter what happens. The record will exist.

Click over to Marcy’s whole piece and also read the rest of her analysis of the latest developments in the Russia probe. She sees things that nobody else sees and it’s always fascinating.

Roger Stone’s dinner

Published by digby on April 4, 2018

Roger Stone’s dinner

by digby

CNN with an interesting scoop:

Roger Stone appeared on the InfoWars radio show the same day he sent an email claiming he dined with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange — and he predicted “devastating” upcoming disclosures about the Clinton Foundation.

Stone’s comments in his August 4, 2016, appearance are the earliest known time he claimed to know of forthcoming WikiLeaks documents. A CNN KFile timeline shows that on August 10, 2016, Stone claimed to have “actually communicated with Julian Assange.”

The comments also raise more questions about what Stone knew about WikiLeaks and about the veracity of his claims to have been in contact with Assange, which he now denies.

On the August 4, 2016, InfoWars show, Stone described the soon-to-appear WikiLeaks disclosures. He also mentioned that he spoke with then-Republican nominee Donald Trump on August 3 — the day before the interview. InfoWars is a fringe media outlet run by Alex Jones, who is known for spreading conspiracy theories.

Stone wrote to former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg on August 4, 2016, that he had dinner with Assange the night before, according to a source familiar with the email exchange. The email was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Monday. The Journal also reported that special counsel Robert Mueller is examining the exchange.

Stone has said the email about the dinner was sent in jest and that he has never met or spoken with Assange.

If I had to guess, the “joke” is that he Skyped or otherwise communicated with Assange while he was eating dinner and just exaggerated for effect. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that he made it up out of whole cloth for no purpose.

The GOP’s 2018 message is simple

Published by digby on April 4, 2018

The GOP’s 2018 message is simple

by digby

Are you with him or agin’ him. That’s all Trump voters care about:

Senator Bob Corker:

“The President is, as you know — you’ve seen his numbers among the Republican base — it’s very strong. It’s more than strong, it’s tribal in nature,” Corker told the Washington Examiner, as flagged by Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire.

“People who tell me, who are out on trail, say, look, people don’t ask about issues anymore. They don’t care about issues,” he added. “They want to know if you’re with Trump or not.”