Skip to content

Month: May 2018

Collusion for dummies

Published by digby on May 21, 2018

Collusion for dummies

by digby

Huh:

Released in a tranche of documents by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning, the release of this email in particular is likely to further ignite already-existing inquiries into the younger Trump’s knowledge of alleged Russian collusion with the Trump 2016 campaign during the presidential election held that same year.

The sender of the email in question is redacted. The email was sent to and apparently received by Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze, a native of the Republic of Georgia and an employee of Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov. Kaveladze was previously interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller over his attendance at the June 9, 2016 meeting.

Aside from Trump Jr.,Veselnitskaya and Kaveladze, the other participants at that meeting included: eventual presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, former Trump 2016 campaign chair Paul Manafort, Russian lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, publicist Rob Goldstone and a Russian translator.

The email was sent on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 8:50 a.m. and was addressed to “Ike Kaveladze.” The subject line reads: “dt jr”–an obvious reference to Donald Trump Jr.

The email also contains an attachment of a PDF file apparently containing a screenshot of a JPEG image. The controversial email reads, in full:

“Why did he release this e-mail admitting to collusion?”

Lol…

Whoever it was had it right. Junior colluded when he agreed to the meeting, said “I love it” an talked about how it would be useful to release it later in the summer.

This really was the smoking gun on collusion. The problem is that in America the Republican Party has decided that Donald Trump working with a foreign government to sabotage Hillary Clinton was a-ok. More than ok. It was virtuous. The crime was anyone in the federal government investigating it instead of putting all of its resources into locking her up for having a private email server.

.

The trade war is “on hold” so that’s good

Published by digby on May 21, 2018

The trade war is “on hold” so that’s good

by digby

Steve Mnuchin said this morning that they are “putting the trade war on hold” which is surprising because Trump assured us that the US could win trade wars “easily” so it’s hard to see why they wouldn’t just press on and win.

No mention of the fact that the “hold” seems to be precipitated by a bribe to the Trump Organization. But that’s ok. Full blown corruption is totally accepted now.

Meanwhile, here’s the head of Trump’s National Economic Council on This Week this morning:

“The president has tweeted about Amazon a lot,” Stephanopoulos said. “Is it appropriate for the president to be singling out companies like this?”

Kudlow responded, “Well, look. I’m not — that not in my lane, OK. I can’t really comment specifically. I haven’t looked at that.”

Stephanopoulos pressed, “Well, it comes under the National Economic Council, doesn’t it?”

Kudlow said, “Well, I suppose so, but again I haven’t been involved in that discussion. Look, the president is a man of many opinions. I think you know that. I think we all know that. It’s up to him. He may be carrying this ball. I can’t comment directly on it.”

Stephanopoulos asked about previous claims by Trump that the U.S. Postal Service is losing billions of dollars to Amazon.

“That simply isn’t true,” Stephanopoulos said to Kudlow. “Isn’t it your responsibility to advise him of the facts?”

“If he asked me directly, it would be,” Kudlow responded. “A lot of people looked at these numbers, and there are many different opinions about the validity of many different numbers, George.”

The economic council director continued, “I have not been deeply involved in Amazon. The president may feel, look, he may feel that there’s some unfairness going on here.”

Stephanopoulos said many people are concerned that Trump may be targeting Amazon because of Bezos’ owning The Washington Post.

“That is what a lot of people are concerned about here … Amazon has not cost the postal service any money. And in fact, the president is targeting them because Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post even though that has nothing to do with Amazon. That’s what they say is inappropriate.”

Kudlow said, “To be honest with you, I have seen numbers. You can probably do this on both sides. A lot of the numbers, by the way, have not been made available. We’ll see.”

Yeah, this administration’s an economic powerhouse. Not to worry though. When they fuck it all up, as they assuredly will, the Democrats will come in and dutifully do all the dirty work and clean up the mess after which the Republicans will take the credit. That’s how this works.

.

Nuts all the way down

Published by digby on May 20, 2018

Nuts all the way down

by digby

I was reading about Roger Stone sounding typically nutty, saying that he may be indicted for something unrelated to the Russia probe and I was thinking that he would proudly go down with the ship because he’s a loon. I wondered why Trump has so many people around him like this and then I remembered this:

Liddy Guilty of Contempt of Congress
By Anthony Ripley|May. 10th, 1974

WASHINGTON, May 10—One of the original Watergate burglary defendants, G. Gordon Liddy, was found guilty today of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions last, July 20 before a House subcommittee.

Federal District Court Judge John H. Pratt, who heard the case without a jury, gave Mr. Liddy a suspended six‐month sentence and one year’s probation, indicating that the penalty was light because of Mr. Liddy’s other sentences.

Mr. Liddy, looking trim and fit but slightly pale from his confinement, is now serving two other sentences. He was jailed for up to 18 months for contempt in refusing to answer grand jury questions and given a term of 6 years 8 months to 20 years for his part in the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office building here.

His latest conviction grew From his appearance as a witness before an executive session of the Special Subcommittee on Intelligence of the House Armed Services Committee.

The subcommittee was investigating possible connecions between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Watergate burglary and also the burglary of the office of Dr. Daniel Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist, Dr. Ellsberg was central figure in the Pentagon papers case Mr. Liddy refused to raise his hand and be sworn in or to answer any questions. Neither Mr. Liddy’s lawyer, P’eter J. Maroulis, nor Philip A. acovara, counsel for the watergate special prosecutor, raised any questions about the basic facts. Thus, there was no need for a jury in this trial.

Instead, Mr. Maroulis argued lgal questions of whether the subcommittee had been properly assembled and whether it used the correct legal documents in summoning Mr. Liddy from his jail cell to the House.

Mr. Maroulis also cited Supreme Court decision in 1876, Totten v. United States, which dealt with President Lincoln’s employment of spies in the Civil War. One of those spies sued for back pay and was turned down.

The Court ruled that “as general principle” public policy forbids trials that would lead to disclosure of confidential matters.

“The service stipulated by the contract was a secret service; the information sought was to be obtained clandestinely and was to be communicated privdtely; the employment and the service were to be equally concealed,” the decision stated.

“Both employer and agent must have understood that the lips of the others were to be forever sealed respecting the relation of either to the matter.”

Mr. Maroulis said that Mr. Liddy’s lips were sealed in court and sealed before Congress.

Mr. Lacovara argued that Mr. Liddy could not classify himself as a spy, and that the burglary of Dr. Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist could not be called a legitimate intelligence operation.

But even if it were legitimate, he said, it would be no defense for refusing to testify before committee meeting to consider intelligence operations and meeting in secret.

Judge Pratt rejected the defense arguments and found ‘Mr. Liddy guilty on two counts of willfully refusing to be sworn in and refusing to testify. The charges are misdemeanors, and each count is punishable by a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Mr. Liddy told the court that he might appeal the decision.

“This was proposed to me, and I rejected it,” he told the court. “I said, ‘Let’s go to trial.”

Liddy did more jail time than any of the other Nixon henchmen. He landed on his feet of course and built a second career as a right wing media star. When people want to talk about how there is no

That was crazy and so is this. But the underlying crime in the Russia investigation is much, much more serious. There is evidence that Trump was selling out US foreign policy for help from foreign adversaries’ in sabotaging his rival’s presidential campaign with possibly money and blackmail involved. Nixon was an evil bastard who abused his office in grotesque fashion. But this is something else entirely.

I guess if you think the US federal law enforcement is so evil that we’re all better off being led by a corrupt, authoritarian American oligarch who’s beholden to other corrupt, authoritarian oligarchs then this is fine. Otherwise we are looking at something much more serious. And it’s been going on for nearly 50 years in one way or another.

.

It’s never the guns

Published by digby on May 20, 2018

It’s never the guns

by digby

QOTD: Santa Fe Texas Residents:

Most residents here didn’t blame any gun for the tragedy down the street. Many of them pointed to a lack of religion in schools.

“It’s not the guns. It’s the people. It’s a heart problem,” said Sarah Tassin, 61. “We need to bring God back into the schools.”

Sure. That will help.

This school was “hardened” by all the standards the gun proliferation activists say should be done. They now say the schools should literally be turned into prisons, with no opportunity for escape apparently, by making only one entrance. (I sure hope there aren’t any fires …)

The new NRA president Oliver North says it’s because of Ritalin and “a culture of violence” to which I’m sure he has never contributed.

Again, they suggest that more guns are the answer. Like tax cuts, guns are always the answer.

I thought this was one of the smarter observations I’ve heard on this subject in a while:

The problem, Kelly said, is “not because we don’t have enough guns. If that were the issue, the United States would be the safest country in the world.”

Devin’s curious blind spot

Published by digby on May 20, 2018

Devin’s curious blind spot

by digby

Devin Nunes was very agitated this week-end over the fact that the FBI investigated suspicions that foreign agents were infiltrating a presidential campaign. Very agitated. He’s not the only one. The whole right wing and more are very upset to learn that the government looked into this evidence before the election which, by the way, turned out to be true.

Nunes said he and his colleagues have been troubled by reports and indications that sources may have been repeatedly reaching out to Trump campaign members and even offering aides money to encourage them to meet. The president, he said, has ample reason to be angry and suspicious.

“If you are paying somebody to come talk to my campaign or brush up against my campaign, whatever you call it, I’d be furious,” Nunes said.

Marcy Wheeler nails exactly what’s so curious about Devin’s reaction to this particular story:

That Nunes thinks Trump should be outraged about this one incident is particularly notable, given that neither Nunes nor anyone else running cover for the Trump administration has ever expressed similar outrage about all the Trump aides that other countries were dangling money and other goods to brush up against. Those include (and this list is far from comprehensive):

  • Russian academics paying Carter Page to speak in Moscow
  • A pro-Russian Syrian group paying Don Jr to speak in Paris
  • Multiple Russian banks floating massive amounts of support to Jared
  • Russia’s RT paying Mike Flynn to appear at an event with Putin
  • Turkish pass-throughs paying Flynn to make a movie
  • Saudi, Israeli, and Emirati sources offering campaign assistance
  • Oleg Deripaska offering to forgive Paul Manafort’s $20 million debt for updates on the Trump campaign
  • Russians offering dirt on Hillary to get a meeting with Trump’s campaign manager, son, and son-in-law

I mean, even the Carter Page Moscow trip was more lucrative than the Papadopoulos research. And the other valuable things offered to campaign aides, by spooked-up sources from a range of countries, were tens or millions of dollars more valuable than what Halper offered, usually without any legit purpose tied to it.

And yet the only intelligence source that Nunes has expressed any outrage about — the only one! — is one associated with the United States, a person with long ties to the Republican party.

I don’t know what motivates Nunes on this. But I think Wheeler might be on to something else too. In this post she notes that Nunes’ midnight ride scandal was all about the “unmasking scandal” that tied into a curious visit to the US by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan who had a secret meeting with Flynn, Kushner, and Bannon in NY. She speculates:

Today’s NYT scoop revealing that the Trump campaign colluded not just with Russians, but also Saudis, Emirates, and Israelis explain why the discovery of the later meetings was so dangerous: because it would reveal other efforts Trump made to sell out American foreign policy…

This puts the unmasking panic — and Devin Nunes’ role in it — in entirely new light. It’s not just that Seychelles meeting in the transition period — it’s this earlier meeting, where a bunch of autocrats got the candidate’s son to agree to collude on the election.
Which makes me wonder, how would Trump Transition Official Devin Nunes know that? When Nunes manufactured a totally bogus unmasking scandal, did he know of these earlier meetings showing illegal collusion?
Update: I realize, now, that Nunes’ unmasking panic may actually have served as a giant red flag for Mueller that there were aspects of the Trump team’s dealings with UAE and Israel that were of acute concern to the team. Well done Devin!

There is more at emptywheel, well worth reading all of it.

It wouldn’t be the first time Devin screwed up. It’s kind of his specialty.

.

Somebody had an extra “diet coke” this morning

Published by digby on May 20, 2018

Somebody had an extra “diet coke” this morning

by digby

Good morning everyone. And now the latest word from the whiny little twit in the White House:

His gaslighting is starting to work, by the way. People on my TV this morning, many of them otherwise fairly sane, are entertaining the idea that the FBI sabotaged Trump to help Hillary Clinton. Sure, they had suspicions that Russian government agents were infiltrating Trump’s campaign and so they very secretly looked into it and said nothing at all about any of it before the election while publicly dragging Clinton through the mud including Comey’s little “revelation” the week before the election but hey, poor Donnie just can’t catch a break.

They’re trying to make us crazy.

Update: Yep

.

Highest and best use by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on May 20, 2018

Highest and best use
by Tom Sullivan


MIT Sloan School Building E62. Photo by Vitor Pamplona, via Creative Commons CC BY 2.0.

An MBA student at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management considers the self-justifying worldview initiates both bring with them and absorb. John Benjamin experiences such institutions of learning as “committed to a strict blend of social liberalism and economic conservatism.” Advertised as open forums for ideas, Benjamin sees the machine language underlying the readable code as built instead on the assumption that the answers to society’s problems are always more business.

The assumption is not unlike that underlying real estate development’s “highest and best use” — which amounts to whatever returns the most money to the owner/investor. HBU just sound loftier and less tawdry than “makes the most money.” It’s like how the gig economy promotes low-paying, no-benefits jobs as flexible. Or the way “the tyranny of data-driven optimization” in tech mistakes information for knowledge, but optimization sounds cooler. Or the chiropractor who told me the ultimate purpose behind getting spinal adjustments was to make the world a better place.

Benjamin writes:

What’s striking, however, is that what counts as “progressive” here almost never crosses class lines. Not once have I heard a discussion of unions while in business school. The minimum wage isn’t a hot topic either. Our political concerns instead trend upward and toward the symbolic; equal representation is the lodestar. And where this “representing” is deemed to matter is instructive, because while it’s obvious people want to be represented at the top, our focus is on the highest of the high echelons of American business: The most commonly cited stats are those that show alarming female and minority underrepresentation among Fortune 500 CEOs and in high-paying STEM jobs. These concerns seek to redress serious wrongs and biases, but one can’t escape the sense that the metrics by which MBAs measure “progress” can become totemic: our version of wanting to see more representative Marvel superheroes while forgetting about the extras’ paychecks.

Our total ideology resembles what philosopher John Gray has coined “hyper-liberalism,” a “mixture of bourgeois careerism with virtue-signaling self-righteousness,” which lends its adherents, who mostly pick it up in the cloistered world of academia, “an illusory sense of having a leading role in society.” The personal is political, yes, but we’ve also made it the whole of politics, in large part because we keep depersonalized economic issues off the table. To patch over the problems of shareholder capitalism, we lean on cultural signifiers and hope they justify the role business leaders play in the world.

Students become like major corporations that sponsor Pride floats for employees or air heartening commercials of workers’ biracial families, then adopt practices that make those peoples’ lives more precarious. We’re the global fast food chain that makes a showy celebration of International Women’s Day, but still underpays female workers, or the firm that sponsors a “Fearless Girl” statue on Wall Street while, you guessed it, cheating its female employees. We’re the startups that use trendy empowerment memes to excuse, even valorize, new forms of privation and indignity for contracted workers. Identity politics, in other words, creates the ethical alibi for when businesses mistreat vulnerable people.

Ah, but the Bible says “money answereth all things,” so it’s all good.

The fundamental question is does the economy serve people or do people serve the economy? Business school has two answers: greater innovation or freer markets.

* * * * * * * *

For The Win 2018 is ready for download. Request a copy of my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

SIFF-ting through cinema, Pt. 1 By Dennis Hartley @denofcinem5

Published by digby on May 20, 2018

Saturday Night at the Movies

SIFF-ting through cinema, Pt. 1

By Dennis Hartley

The Seattle International Film Festival kicked off May 17, so over the next several posts I’ll be sharing highlights. SIFF is showing 433 films over 25 days. Navigating such an event is no easy task, even for a dedicated buff. Yet, I trudge on (cue the world’s tiniest violin). Hopefully, some of these films will be coming soon to a theater near you…

After the War (France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland) – Director Annarita Zambrano’s feature film debut concerns a left-wing radical who fled his native Italy for political asylum in France after assassinating a judge in the 1980s. Now, 20 years later, the French government has rescinded his extradition protection; and to compound his anxiety, a professor in Italy is murdered in the name of the old revolutionary cell he founded. When several of his ex-compatriots are taken into custody, he and his 16 year-old daughter go underground. It’s similar in theme to Sidney Lumet’s 1988 drama Running on Empty, but not as involving; Zambrano’s film starts strong, but gets too draggy and dramatically flat.

Rating: **½ (Plays May 19 & May 26)

The African Storm (Benin, France) – Writer-director-producer-star Sylvestre Amoussou’s political satire (a cross between The Mouse That Roared and O Lucky Man!) is set in the imaginary African republic of Tangara. There are no Marvel superheroes in sight, but there is the nation’s forward-thinking President (Amoussou), who issues a bold decree: he is nationalizing all of his country’s traditionally Western-controlled businesses and lucrative diamond-mining operations. Naturally, the various multinational corporations concerned immediately bring in their “fixers”, who employ every dirty trick in the playbook to sow political upheaval, public discord, and outright violence throughout the tiny nation. Undeterred, the President continues to rally, even daring to denounce (gulp) the IMF and The World Bank. Can he pull this off? I really wanted to love this plucky anti-colonial parable, but…it’s overly simplistic, to the point of cringe-worthy audience pandering (and it knows its audience-anti-corporatist liberals like moi!).

Rating: **½ (Plays May 23 & May 24)

Angels Wear White (China, France) –An orphaned teenager without work papers becomes a pawn in a collusion between her sleazy boss and corrupt officials, who scramble to cover up a local politician’s sexual assault of two primary school girls at the hotel where she’s employed as a maid. There’s no sugarcoating in writer-director Vivian Qu’s drama about the systemic exploitation of women in Chinese society. Qu directs her younger actors with great sensitivity; particularly when handling the more difficult material.

Rating: *** (Plays May 25 & May 30)

Happy Birthday (Greece) – Remember that generation-gap comedy, The Impossible Years? The one where David Niven plays a Professor of Psychology who has to deal with with the embarrassment caused by his free-willed hippie daughter’s shenanigans? Writer-director Christos Georgiou’s family melodrama reminded me of that 1968 film…except here Niven is a Greek cop, and his teenage daughter is a wannabe anarchist. After Dad spots his daughter hurling projectiles at him and fellow officers during a demonstration, tension at home comes to full boil. Mom intervenes; insisting the pair take a time out for a weekend at the family’s country home-where they can hopefully reconcile. What ensues is a kind of family therapy session, which becomes analogous to the sociopolitical turmoil plaguing modern Greece. The film is slow to start, but it becomes quite affecting.

Rating: *** (Plays May 26 and May 30)

Hot Mess (Australia) – I’ll confess, I go into any film labelled as a “mumblecore slacker comedy” with a bit of “old man yelling at whiny millennials to get off his lawn” trepidation, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had watching writer-director Lucy Coleman’s, uh, mumblecore slacker comedy from Down Under. Comedian-playwright Sarah Gaul is endearing as a 25 year-old budding playwright and college dropout who suffers from a perennial lack of focus, both in her artistic and amorous pursuits. For example, she expends an inordinate amount of her creative juice composing songs about Toxic Shock Syndrome. She becomes obsessed with a divorced guy who seems “nice” but treats her with increasing indifference once they’ve slept together. And so on. The narrative is…lax, and the film meanders, but there are a lot of belly laughs. Stay with those closing credits, or you’ll miss “The Tampon Song” (I couldn’t breathe).

Rating: *** (Plays May 19 & May 26)

The People’s Republic of Desire (China) – You thought America’s Got Talent was a mind-numbing celebration of mediocrity? Wait ‘til you get a load of China’s “digital celebrity universe”. Equipped with little more than a digital camera, an internet connection, and even less talent, China’s most popular online celebrities gear up for a contest in which whomever successfully begs the most money from their fans wins. A truly bizarre subculture. Fascinating subject, but this documentary becomes an endurance contest for the viewer.

Rating: **½ (Plays May 19 & May 20)

The Place (Italy) – Much of the “horror” in Paolo Genoveses’ horror anthology is left to the imagination, which is not dissimilar to what an enigmatic benefactor who holds court at a diner requires of his “clients” – if they want their wishes to come true. This deadpan “genie” hands out dubious assignments to desperate souls. There’s an opt-out, but few take it. Slow to start, and somewhat marred by repetitive staging, but becomes more gripping as it chugs along.

Rating: *** (Plays May 20, May 24 & May 26)

Sansho the Bailiff – The great Japanese director Kenji Mazoguchi made nearly 100 films between 1923 and his death in 1956 (he was only 58). This 1954 drama is one of his most admired and beautifully photographed efforts, which is why its recent 4K restoration gives cause for celebration. Based on an 11th-Century folk tale, it’s the story of what happens to the wife and children of a beneficent governor after he is arrested and sent into exile. While travelling to reunite with him, his family is kidnapped by bandits. His wife ends up in a brothel; his son and daughter are sold to the eponymous bailiff, a sadistic land owner. Their subsequent struggles add up to a moving observation on the human dichotomy-from the most unfeeling cruelty to the most selfless act of compassion.

Rating: **** (Special revival presentation; plays May 20 only)

Previous posts with related themes:
2018 SIFF Preview

More reviews at Den of Cinema
On Facebook
On Twitter

— Dennis Hartley

The Overton Window at Work by tristero

Published by digby on May 19, 2018

The Overton Window at Work 

by tristero

In a recent post, Digby quoted from this Politico article discussing the latest infighting among the GOP, where the Freedom Caucus blew up a Paul Ryan-backed farm bill. This passage jumped out:

Almost immediately, Republicans pointed fingers at each other. Freedom Caucus members said GOP leaders brought the matter on themselves by failing to pass a conservative immigration solution for Dreamers sooner. GOP leaders blamed the conservatives for upending a core Trump priority.

Got that? It’s the conservatives versus GOP leaders. The Freedom Caucus are now deemed conservatives instead of the far-right radicals they were just a few years ago. And GOP leaders are now considered moderates rather than rightwing conservatives.

If that’s the case, then Republican like Colin Powell or George H. W. Bush — both of whom used to be thought of as very conservative —are now left-leaning liberals. On that scale, substantial distinctions between liberal, progressive, and left wing ideologies get lost – there simply isn’t any space in the public discourse to make them. Nancy Pelosi’s politics look like they are one step to the right of Communism.

But it gets worse. Re-read that last sentence: “GOP leaders blamed the conservatives for upending a core Trump priority.” Yep, you read that right. Trump, unquestionably a GOP leader, is now considered a moderate Republican.

And that, dear friends, is the Overton Window at work. And here’s why I make sure that my passport is always valid:

If the media characterize Trump as a moderate and the Freedom caucus as conservatives, then what were once considered ultra-right extremists now have a secure seat at the table of America’s national discourse. They’re merely to the right of conservatives now. And that dominance of rightwing ideologies in the discourse allows the ultra-right to claim they have thoughtful, if unusually bold, ideas. One way they do this is by insisting the media draw an ever-so-fine distinction between Nazi ideology and their own, something they’ve taken to calling “white nationalist European identitarianism,” aka WNEI (pronounced “Weenie”).

But back in the reality-based universe, this is obviously a distinction without any substantial difference. Just look at the crowds of rabid Sieg-Heilers at Weenie rallies. And thus, the most extreme and murderous of modern ideologies is no longer on the fringe of American political/cultural discourse.

In fact, it hasn’t been for quite a while. But when the press characterizes Ryanism and then, fercrissakes, Trumpism as mere moderation… we are all in deep, deep trouble. This is very unlikely to end well.

Scott Pruitt on the hot seat, impervious to burns

Published by digby on May 19, 2018

Scott Pruitt on the hot seat, impervious to burns

by digby

There’s such a firehose full of news that I think we all miss important events like this testimony by EPA administrator Scott Pruitt which should have ended his political career. But the president still loves him and he’s getting the job done for the big money boyz

Personally, I think he has some pretty serious psychological problems, paranoia being the first among them.

Some highlights: