Month: June 2018

Trump is an authoritarian. Full stop.

by digby

Addie Stan clarifies the historical moment for us by throwing a glass of ice cold water in our faces and telling us to wake the hell up:

In this image made from video released by KRT, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un shakes hands with President Donald Trump while his sister Kim Yo Jong, left, looks on during thte Singapore summit on June 12, 2018.

If there’s any lesson to be taken from the events of the past week, it’s that there’s a major geopolitical realignment taking place, thanks in part to President Donald Trump’s love of dictators—and likely helped along by whatever Russia’s strongman President Vladimir Putin is holding over Trump’s head.

Trump’s head-snapping behavior during and immediately following the G-7 summit in Canada is a big part of the story, as is his praise for North Korea’s despot boy king, Kim Jong-Un.

Putin—whose minions interfered in the 2016 presidential election to Trump’s benefit, and whose oligarchs apparently hold sway in Trump World—has long sought to crack the Western alliance of the European Union with the United States, a project that appears to be coming along nicely.

Note Trump’s praise for Italy’s new, anti-EU Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, whose anti-establishment Five Star Party has taken power in coalition with the country’s far-right League Party. On June 9, Trump shocked U.S. allies at the G-7 meeting of Western powers by calling for the readmission of Russia, despite its seizure of a chunk of Ukraine. Conte echoed Trump’s view in a tweet.

The president’s use of tariffs as a weapon against U.S. allies is no doubt part of his pro-Putin agenda, and understandably does not sit well with the allies so slapped. The G-7 whiplash executed by Trump, who first peevishly agreed to sign the consensus communiqué issued by parties to the summit and then tweeted his reversal after he left the meeting (what a coward), was assessed by pundits as a negative reaction to comments made by Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who, in a press conference at the summit’s conclusion, called the U.S. tariffs “kind of insulting,” especially given the fact that they were implemented on the grounds of national security.

She takes people to task for shrugging at all this and merely noting that it’s “barely registering”. She says, and I agree, that it’s important to keep sounding the alarm. I’ve felt that way since the day he was elected.

She concludes:

We’re in the grips of a shift in national identity, one in which democracy and adherence to human rights as stated national values (however flawed in their actual execution) are giving way to an acceptance of authoritarian rule. And we’re allowing our country to align itself against the democracies of the world at the hands of a president who is looking more and more every day like a traitor. A president who is helping to fuel the rise of the authoritarian right in Europe.

Just days after Trump walked away from the G-7 consensus statement with a slam at the prime minister of Canada, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was planning to “strengthen the northern border.”

And that announcement, you could say, “barely registered.”

America speaks English, so that makes us English

by digby

According to Trump, that’s the way it works:

President Donald Trump told G7 leaders that Crimea is Russian because everyone who lives there speaks Russian, according to two diplomatic sources.

Trump made the remarks over dinner last Friday during a discussion on foreign affairs at the G7 summit in Quebec, Canada, one of the diplomats told BuzzFeed News.

The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak on the matter.

Russia invaded and then annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, leading to widespread international condemnation and sanctions. It also directly led to Russia being kicked out of the then-G8. Russian President Vladimir Putin defended Russia’s intervention in Crimea at the time saying that he had the right to protect Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Ukraine.

During the dinner, Trump also seemed to question why the G7 leaders were siding with Ukraine. The president told leaders that “Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world,” the source said.

“Somebody” is really getting his money’s worth from this jackass.

This Is Terrorism

by digby

The stories of innocent children being punished by traumatizing them with separation from their parents in a foreign country where they know no one in order to “deter” others from coming to the US is horrific. The country is finally waking up to it although I’m still not sure how many people actually think immigrants, even babies, have human rights anymore.

But that isn’t the only horror being inflicted on immigrants in this country.Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions and the rest of the deplorable GOP are terrorizing the Latino community in order to rid this nation of — Latinos. They are doing everything in their power to scare them into taking their families and leaving the country by going after mothers and babies, teen-agers brought by their parents and even legal residents who had a brush with the law decades ago.. I suspect they would prefer that Hispanic Americans follow:

The daughter of a Los Angeles man who was detained Sunday outside his home by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents spoke out this week about his treatment and the immigration policies that appear to target longtime, law-abiding residents.

Jose Luis Garcia, 62, was watering his lawn and having his morning coffee outside his home in the Arleta neighborhood of San Fernando Valley when ICE agents put him in handcuffs and detained him, according to his daughter, Natalie Garcia.

The arrest came as a shock to the 32-year-old Garcia, who said that her father is a law-abiding, legal permanent resident who came to the United States nearly 50 years ago when he was 13 years old.

He attended Van Nuys High School, and raised his family in Glendale, she said.

Garcia said she was woken up at about 7 a.m. Sunday by the sound of her father yelling her name. She initially thought he was experiencing a medical emergency, but when she came out of the house, she saw eight agents who she did not yet know were from ICE, arresting her father.

Garcia tried to get more information and asked to see the arrest warrant and if they had read him his rights. She said the agents responded rudely, did not answer most of her questions, and told her they did not have to show her the warrant. They told her that it was not a criminal warrant, but an administrative one.

“I didn’t know they were ICE at that moment,” Garcia said. “It just happened so fast and there were so many of them. I was so confused.”

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After the agents had left with her father, it was only then that she saw the coffee cup that he had dropped when he was being arrested. She then looked down at the card the agents had given her and finally realized the agents were from ICE.

“I dropped to the floor in shock, because I didn’t ever expect this,” Garcia said.

Garcia said that she had followed news about the arrests of immigrants who were in the country illegally, but it had not occurred to her that something similar could happen to her own family.

“My dad was comfortable,” she said. “There was no reason for my dad not to get his citizenship. It was just the awareness. He was just too comfortable. He’s a homeowner who pays his taxes.”

“That’s why I urge people to look into your rights and get citizenship if you are able to,” she said.

Garcia said her father has a conviction for a misdemeanor stemming from a domestic violence dispute with her mother that occurred 18 years ago. Her father completed his sentence for that conviction, which was anger management classes and reporting to probation, she said.

ICE officials confirmed in a statement that Garcia, who is a citizen of Mexico, was arrested by deportation officers on Sunday.

“Databases reveal that Mr. Garcia has past criminal convictions that make him amenable to removal from the United States,” the statement said. “Mr. Garcia is currently in ICE custody pending removal proceedings, where an immigration judge with the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) will determine whether or not he has a lawful basis to remain in the United States.”

You can’t beat the irony of ICE deporting someone who committed domestic violence 20 years ago in the same week that the ttorney general unilaterally ruled that women cannot seek asylum in the country if they are fleeing domestic violence.

This is a campaign of terror being waged by the government against a specific community in the United States. There’s no other way to describe it.

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Tilting at Trump Tower

by digby

I wrote about the Cohen news for Salon this morning:

President Trump assured us on Wednesday that his personal chemistry with Kim Jong Un is so powerful that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat. And we learned that the Department of Homeland Security is tightening up security at the Canadian border so that we are prepared to repel any invasion from our new enemies to the north. So now we can once more focus on the important issues of the day. Over the past week everyone has been so focused on the trivia of President Trump blowing up the G7 and fawning over Kim Jong Un like a schoolboy with his first crush that we missed the news that the White House is in nuclear meltdown over Michael Cohen.

Gabriel Sherman reported in Vanity Fair a couple of days ago:

According to a source close to Cohen, Cohen has told friends that he expects to be arrested any day now. (Reached for comment, Cohen wrote in a text message, “Your alleged source is wrong!”) The specter of Cohen flipping has Trump advisers on edge. “Trump should be super worried about Michael Cohen,” a former White House official said. “If anyone can blow up Trump, it’s him.”

With Trump feeling his power from the international incidents of the past week, they are all very worried about how he’s going to react. Sherman writes that Trump seems to be “relishing the freedom to act on his impulses, flying by feel and instinct” which one source describes as “exactly like the Trump Organization.” That’s not good.

On Wednesday morning, MSNBC’s Katy Tur reported that her sources confirmed the report that Cohen expects to be arrested imminently. She said that a source close to Cohen said “his lawyers got a call from lawyers at the Southern District of New York saying they were preparing paperwork.”

Salon’s Shira Tarlo ran down all the various stories that cascaded through the morning reporting that Cohen and his lawyers were parting company reminding everyone of the recent events surrounding Paul Manafort’s lieutenant Rick Gates who also changed lawyers just before he decided to cooperate with the Special Counsel in the Russia investigation. There are many rumors flying that Cohen is indeed ready to cooperate which would undoubtedly require him to tell what he knows about Donald Trump:

Cohen is increasingly likely to flip, parting ways w current lawyer, confirming ⁦@ABC⁩ report https://t.co/pVKWIZIdco

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 13, 2018

Vanity Fair’s Emily Jane Fox who seems to be well connected to Michael Cohen and his circle filled in the blanks, reporting that Cohen is feeling isolated and pushed away by the Trump inner circle and rejected by the family.  Cohen believes he has been dealt an injustice telling Fox, “I feel like Don Quixote. It’s ruining my children’s lives. It’s ruining my wife’s life. It’s worse than a pit in your stomach.”

According to the New York Times all this has Trump tied up in knots too:

Mr. Trump himself has told people he is angry at Mr. Cohen over the messiness of the situation — especially those aspects involving Ms. Clifford. But the president has also indicated to allies that he is worried that if he pushes Mr. Cohen away too hard, it could increase the likelihood that Mr. Cohen will offer information to the government.

One would guess that last little tid-bit certainly whet the appetites of the prosecutors in both the New York case and the Russia probe.

Cohen changing lawyers is where the story gets murky. Sources close to Cohen have told reporters that now that the document production is almost complete, Cohen needs a criminal defense attorney who is familiar with the Southern District of New York and his current lawyer Stephen Ryan works out of Washington. There are also reports that some members of Ryan’s firm, McDermott Will and Emery, are uncomfortable representing Cohen in some of this New York unpleasantness which sounds as though there must be something really unpleasant about it.

But the real issue appears to be about money. Ryan was originally hired to represent Cohen in the Russia probe and $228,000 worth of fees were paid by the Trump Campaign for services rendered in 2017. The representation in the New York matter so far, especially the document review to ensure that the attorney client privilege isn’t breached in the case, is costing a fortune. The firm has had lawyers and analysts working around the clock to make this Friday’s deadline and that doesn’t come cheap.

As it turns out The Trump family is footing much of the bill for that and according to the New York Times, they aren’t happy about how much it’s costing and it’s widened the rift between Cohen and Trump.  You would think the president would be happy to pay it since the document review is being done on his behalf to protect attorney client privilege. Indeed, as far as we know all the lawyers involved in this process have been sharing the information giving him a window into the case he would otherwise not have. Instead, he’s being as cheap as when he refused to pay vendors at his Atlantic casinos and demand that they drop the agreed upon price or take him to court. The man can’t even leave a penny on the sidewalk.

On the other hand, the articles don’t specify exactly what the payment dispute is, so it’s also possible that it’s about an appearance of conflict of interest for Cohen’s attorney, Stephen Ryan. He’s been paid a lot of money by the Trump campaign and now by Donald Trump personally — if Michael Cohen is about to turn states evidence, he probably cannot continue to represent him.

Whatever the case, it’s pretty clear that something is about to happen in the Cohen case and that the president is very concerned about it.  On MSNBC on Wednesday, Vanity Fair’s Fox said that many people in Trumpworld are speculating to journalists that this is why he is acting even more erratically than usual.  At least he’ll always have Singapore.

Right now the lawyers are shaing info. The president likely knows everything that Cohen’s lawyers know. When they stop sharing we will know he flipped.

Lots of

“the issues concern the payment of legal bills to his lawyers…” which mcould mean a lot of things, not just that he can’t pay. His lawyers are also financially involved with Trump and we may be looking at a conflict of interest problemif Trump and Cohen are at odds.

Maggie Severns Politico Trump campaign payments ….

“I think that the Trump organization has reason to distance themselves from Michael Cohen right now.”

— @emilyjanefox, a senior reporter from Vanity Fair has spent months talking to Trump’s fixer and now says Cohen is feeling “isolated” by the president.

I think part of is that these lawyers have ties to Trump World — they were paid by Trump campaign for repping Cohen on the Mueller probe earlier this year and last fall.

“The issue” could refer to the fact that Ryan has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Trump campaign, as Zach noted, which would create a conflict if Cohen is flipping. Or not. It’s awfully hard to tell.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rnc-paid-half-million-law-firm-representing-hope/story?id=55328181

The Trump campaign has spent nearly $228,000 to cover some of the legal expenses for President Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen, sources familiar with the payments told ABC News raising questions about whether the Trump campaign may have violated campaign finance laws.

Federal Election Commission records show three payments made from the Trump campaign to a firm representing Cohen beginning in 2017. The “legal consulting” payments were made to McDermott Will and Emery — a law firm where Cohen’s attorney Stephen Ryan is a partner — between October 2017 and January 2018.

Gabe Sherman “I need help”

Person close to Cohen says he hasn’t flipped yet, “he’s sending up a smoke signal to Trump: I need help.”

— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) June 13, 2018

Is the Trump org paying?

Issue with payment for lawyers also being paid by RNC paying for Trump?

Who flipped Sammy the Bull?

What’s happening with Trump and Cohen’s personal relationship? Everyone knows that he has no loyalty. Has treated Cohen like shit for years.

Emily Fox: VF — Don Quixote, family etc…

Guilty until proven innocent
by Tom Sullivan

Freedom Caucus leader, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) got a grilling last night on “All In” with Chris Hayes. In the wake of a report that immigration officers snatched a months-old child from the arms of her breastfeeding mother, Meadows and Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) came on the show to talk about immigrant family separation at the southern border and immigration legislation making its way through the House. Hayes was not accepting the standard talking points without pushback.

Families need to be unified, Meadows said before alleging a 307 percent increase in “fraud” and human trafficking. “Are they families, are they not?” Meadows said. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of it to make sure families stay together.”

Hayes wasn’t having it. If non-family families are the concern, a DNA test can resolve that.

But there’s a legal way and an illegal way to get here, Meadows replied.

“But wait a second,” Hayes interjected. “Asylum is legal.”

Meadows conceded the point.

Whether or not immigrants arrive legally or illegally, they shouldn’t be separated from their kids, Garamendi argued as Meadows nodded.

But Meadows tried to spin the argument to “legitimate asylum,” “real asylum,” and argue that some, not the vast majority, “game the system.” Again, Hayes pounced.

“What’s happening right now, as far as I can understand,” Hayes began, “… the prosecution is happening before an asylum review. So my point is … these people are coming, they are being prosecuted as criminals for entry, their children are being taken away before an asylum review.”

“I don’t know that I would agree,” Meadows said, before glancing at the floor.

Seeking asylum, Garamendi confirmed, is an “international, legal way.” They may be cheating, “but that can be adjudicated later.”

Finally, Hayes asked Meadows whether separating families is a policy used as a deterrent to people seeking asylum (as White House chief of staff John Kelly has plainly stated). Meadows claimed it is not.

Arguing a policy is not what it plainly is is the Republican tactic in passing legislation requiring photo identity cards for voting. Claiming voter ID bills are drafted to address massive in-person voter fraud investigators cannot find mirrors the rhetoric Meadows used last night. The Trump administration is prosecuting asylum seekers as criminals before gathering evidence that they are. Erect barriers to legal voting because someone might be cheating. (We cannot prove how many or how few.) Punish all families seeking asylum, too, because someone might be faking it. In the tradition of “Kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out,” this is the authoritarian way.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a footnote to a June 11 US Citizenship and Immigration Services ruling undercut the lawful claims of tens of thousands seeking shelter in the United States. Asylum requests on the basis of domestic or gang violence “generally” will not meet the “credible fear” standard under law for seeking a hearing before a judge. A spokesman told reporters the ruling will be implemented as soon as possible:

“USCIS is carefully reviewing proposed changes to asylum and credible fear processing whereby every legal means is being considered to protect the integrity of our immigration system from fraudulent claims,” he added.

The Trump administration has pointed to the numbers of ultimately unsuccessful claims as evidence of bad faith in the asylum system, and Sessions repeatedly has discussed clearing the way for “legitimate” claims to succeed, though he has not explained how a claim could be known as illegitimate before it is heard.

The credible fear threshold is set to consider that many of the immigrants may speak little English, have little to no legal understanding or education, may fear governmental authorities based on their home countries and may be traumatized from their journey. Roughly 80% of asylum seekers pass that screening, though a smaller share of them eventually achieve asylum.

Changes made to immigration policy post-9/11 have rendered them guilty until proven innocent. This from Quora on September 11, 2015:

While intended to increase coordination and efficiency between agencies, the absorption of all immigration policy execution and enforcement within a single body like the DHS is troubling for a number of reasons. Perhaps most importantly, it fundamentally alters the core American philosophy toward immigration, moving it away from one that is primarily welcoming to one that is largely deflective.

[…]

It’s not hard to see how this re-situating of immigration policymaking has reflected a cultural shift in broader American society. Since 9/11, the visibility of anti-immigrant sentiments has exploded to the extent that it is now a chief campaign platform for Republican presidential hopefuls. This is a major departure from conservative standard-bearers of pre-9/11 America; president Ronald Reagan was identifiably pro-immigration and pro-amnesty, after all.

Guilty until proven innocent is not the American way. Nonetheless, this has been the policy towards immigrants since long before the Trump administration. Yet when we talk about reforming our capricious and cruel immigration policies, no one is talking about reforming that.

* * * * * * * *

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

Dear Frank Bruni

by tristero

Dear Frank Bruni,

It will take measured, serious voices to defeat Trumpism. It will also take angry and obscene voices. It will take voting and it also will take massive non-violent protests. It will take a relentless refusal to provide Trump the remotest amount of dignity and it will also take a relentless, rational evisceration of his lies and false claims.

In short it will take us all in a multi-pronged, thorough refusal to permit Trump to get away with destroying this country.

Don’t get me wrong. Your voice is necessary, dear Frank. So is DeNiro’s. So are all others. The issue is Trumpism.  Let’s not devolve into a circular firing squad, ok?

Love,

t

Not “firebrand” — racist

by digby

Charles Pierce does the best job articulating the increasingly absurd reluctance of the media to accurately describe the views of the Trump Republicans:

Stewart is not a “hard-right activist.” Neither is he a “hard-right firebrand.” He is an unapologetic public racist, and damned proud of it, who goes out of his way to associate with other unapologetic public racists, who are damned proud of it, too.

Here’s CNN, tip-toeing around the obvious reality as though it were a landmine.

Corey Stewart, the bombastic conservative who built his public image on championing Confederate symbols, won the Republican Senate nomination in Virginia.

No.

Just no.

Stewart is not a “Confederate Symbols Defender.” Neither is he a “bombastic conservative.” He is an unapologetic public racist, and damned proud of it, who goes out of his way to associate with other unapologetic public racists, who are damned proud of it, too. Here’s a little flashback from The Washington Post at the time of the terrorist attack in Charlottesville:

“All the weak Republicans, they couldn’t apologize fast enough,” Stewart said in an interview with The Washington Post. “They played right into the hands of the left wing. Those [Nazi] people have nothing to do with the Republican Party. There was no reason to apologize.” However, Stewart has made several joint appearances with ­Jason Kessler, organizer of the “Unite the Right” rally that sparked the unrest in Charlottesville. Stewart met Kessler at an event earlier this year to protest the removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park in Charlottesville. And at one point during the primary race, Stewart attended a Charlottesville news conference with Kessler and Isaac Smith, founders of Unity and Security for America (USA), a fledgling group that calls for “defending Western Civilization.”

As you might imagine, the NAACP is a real fan of all these goobers.

For pure politics, the early line is that Stewart’s nomination could be an extinction-level event for Virginia’s Republican congresscritters. This isn’t Alabama, where Moore could have bitten the head off a live chicken and not cost any other Republicans their jobs. Virginia has been purpling for 10 years now, and that means that Stewart at the moment is a case of electoral cholera. Back to the NYT for the details.

Republicans feared that having Mr. Stewart as their nominee against Mr. Kaine, the former vice-presidential nominee, will spur moderate voters and women to desert the party in droves, imperiling several contested House seats in the state. Virginia Republicans, who have not won statewide in nearly a decade, were never optimistic about defeating Mr. Kaine, who has more than $10 million on hand. But their candidates may now find themselves captive to Mr. Stewart’s every utterance over the next five months — an unwelcome burden for lawmakers like Representatives Barbara Comstock and Scott Taylor, who were already endangered in their campaigns for re-election…The National Republican Senate Committee declined to comment on Mr. Stewart’s nomination.

It is difficult to comment when you’re all crowded behind the sofa while somebody sends out for more bourbon.

And a MAGA hat stuffed in your mouth…

Colbert’s Trump trailer

by digby

I actually think the original is more absurd.

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That useless bully pulpit

by digby

I know, I know, there’s no point in a president using his platform to persuade the American people of anything because it just doesn’t work. Everything is structural and talk is cheap. But I think Donald Trump is showing that this isn’t always the case:

Months of sustained conservative attacks led by President Donald Trump and his allies has harmed Mueller most among Republicans, with a record 53 percent now saying they view the lead Russia investigator in an unfavorable light. That’s a 26-point spike since July, when the poll first started asking voters whether they viewed Mueller favorably or unfavorably.

Mueller’s unfavorable numbers have hit highs among both Democrats and independents, at 24 percent and 33 percent, respectively. Thirty-six percent of all registered voters are also seeing Mueller unfavorably, which represents the highest level since the polling first raised the topic 11 months ago. Back then, 23 percent of all voters said they viewed Mueller negatively.

“Robert Mueller’s disapproval rating is at its highest point since Morning Consult and Politico began tracking the Special Counsel,” said Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consult’s managing director. “A key driver of this movement appears to be Republicans. Today, 53 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable impression of Robert Mueller, compared to just 27 percent who said the same in July 2017.”

The spike in the special counsel’s unfavorable ratings come as he begins his second year on the job. Mueller has already publicly netted five guilty pleas and 18 indictments of people and companies tied to his work examining Moscow meddling in the 2016 election. But he’s nonetheless faced sharp attacks from the president, his lawyers and other associates.

Voters interviewed for the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll also have changed direction on whether they think the Mueller investigation has been on the up and up. In the latest survey, 40 percent of voters said it had been handled unfairly, compared to early February when 34 percent said the probe wasn’t being handled fairly. The percentage saying the investigation was being done fairly remained unchanged from February at 38 percent.

Obviously Republicans are far gone. They love their asshole president and believe everything he says. But the fact that 34% of Democrats and 33% of Independents are now disdainful of the Mueller probe that shows this is the result of the president’s relentless criticism.

Mueller hasn’t said a word and his office doesn’t leak so there’s no reason for Democrats or Independents to logically be skeptical at this point. The indictments that have come down so far seem to be justified and there are a lot of people cooperating. The right wing media has followed his lead to the letter but the mainstream media has been telling the story straight.

This is all because the president’s relentless haranguing on twitter and in soundbites has entered the political/cultural ether and people who aren’t paying close attention have just absorbed it. That’s the power of the bully pulpit and Trump is proving that it’s a very useful tool if a president decides to use it.

Let’s see how this one goes:

BREAKING: Trump tweets North Korea no longer nuclear threat. https://t.co/pLj7hszfhr— The Associated Press (@AP) June 13, 2018

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Reality Check 

by tristero

As of June 4, Trump’s approval rating was 90%. It will surely go even higher after the little recent propaganda stunt with his fellow dictator.  90%… That number explains a lot of what we’re seeing, all the sycophancy and normalization.

That’s 90% approval of Trump by Republicans, of course. They’re the only voters that matter right now.

Care to change that?

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