Month: August 2018

Carrying A Gun Didn’t Protect Rep. Collins From Insider Trading Indictment 

by Spocko

Today Rep. Chris Collins (R) NY was arrested for insider trading.  Last year he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post that was carried in major papers around the country. The title of the OpEd was:

I’m a member of Congress and I’m going to start carrying a gun 

I wrote about it here Does Rep. Collins have insurance for a gun accident?  

Rep Chris Collins (R) photo Michael Mroziak, WBFO

My point was to question two narratives pushed by the gun lovers:
1) A good gun with a gun will protect you from a bad guy with a gun
2) Concealed carry gun owners are law abiding and responsible

For the first I pointed out that guns can’t protect you when you are caught unaware. Only something like body armor or bulletproof glass can do that.

For the second I wrote about all the ways that people who break the law don’t expect to be caught, and when they do, there should be penalties and consequences.

You decide to break that law and carry your gun concealed into the gun-free zone then BANG!  You didn’t intend to have an accident, but you did intend to break the law by bringing your gun into a place it was prohibited.  Violating that law could mean you are not covered by insurance.

For people like Collins, breaking a law, such as bringing a gun in a gun-free zone, is an acceptable action because of the explanation given — self protection. Even though scientific data from active shooter cases will show this explanation to rarely be the case, the “self defense” explanation is still used.  An more accurate explanation would be:

“Carrying a gun makes me FEEL safe and like a tough guy. I want to be able to shoot people who I think are threatening me or my loved ones.” 

If I had followed Collins around after his op-ed I’m pretty sure I could have caught him violating the law and entering private businesses where guns were not allowed. If he was busted, and the business wanted to press charges, it would have been a misdemeanor. He probably would have claimed he forgot and that the problem was the law, not him breaking it.

False Statements Made “Knowingly and Willfully” 

Collins allegedly broke several laws in this insider trading case: Conspiracy to Commit Securities Fraud, Securities Fraud, Wire Fraud, Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud and False Statements.

We see people complaining about politicians lying to the public and to the media.But lying to the public or the media is not a crime. If it was, President Trump would be indicted 48 times an hour.

“We will answer the charges filed against Congressman Collins in court and will mount a vigorous defense to clear his good name,”  “It is notable that even the government does not allege that Congressman Collins traded a single share” of the company’s stock.

If Collins ends up being convicted, this will send a shock wave though political circles. How many other Congresspeople, Senators spouses, children and friends have acted on insider knowledge?

The Republicans will demand that a Democrat be indicted “to be fair” and will scream that they are being picked on by the State of New York because they supported Trump. (See NRA whining)

To muddy the waters the conservatives will push the, “both sides do it.” and “It’s a witch hunt to hurt Trump supporters” followed by it’s only an isolated case of a “bad apple.”

Even though the odds are that there are 100’s cases of Republican insider trading and financial shenanigans to one Democrat one, I expect that the media will be searching for (and will be served up on a platter) cases of Democrats who should be charged for securities fraud.

The Democrats attacked will be the ones the conservatives are most worried about. BE PREPARED!  It will be important to not jump to conclusions. The appropriate response for crimes needs to first be:  “There needs to be through and transparent investigations.” and Due process needs to be carried out for all involved.

We know that the Republicans will aggressively go after Democrats in this area, since they assume everyone is as corrupt as they are. In some cases they will be correct! But the people who will be digging up charges and making accusations aren’t going to play fair. They will just want to hurt Democrats and distract from the massive corruption at the top.

Unfortunately, the Democrats will NOT go after Republicans for these kind of crimes. Maybe they are hoping that if they don’t go after the Republicans the Republicans won’t go after them.  That’s not how it will play out.

 If more financial crime cases start popping up on the Republican side, the temptation is to paint all politicians with the same brush, so BE PREPARED.

Always Demand Due Process and Complete InvestigationsI expect a situation like with Al Franken and the allegations of sexual harassment will happen. There will be demands for resignations before all the facts are known.   suggest we demand due process for ALL cases of political financial shenanigans no matter which party. It’s the rational thing to do and politically smart.

If the accusations turn out to be true, then we were fair, and the person well have to accept the consequences. If it turns about to be BS, we can show how the false accusations were politically motivated.

Think about all the investigations of the Clintons that didn’t yield indictments. Those accusations created a sense of “something is wrong there” that has had a long lasting impact.

As much as I would like the Democrats to go after Republican financial chicanery, I don’t think that will happen, but the least we can do is to be aware that the RW alt-media will use a case of their corruption to attack Democrats to set up the mainstream media for their standard “both sides do it” narrative.
.

What’s in it for MAGAs?
by Tom Sullivan

On the extreme end, hate burns hot and fast. How long before Donald Trump’s MAGA movement burns out?

Sociologist Matthew DeMichele and co-authors have studied “formers” who have abandoned far-right extremist groups. “Many of them broke down crying on us,” says DiMichele, a researcher at the Center for Justice, Safety, and Resilience. “It’s shame, it’s guilt, it’s regret,” he tells Slate:

I can remember one individual that we interviewed. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “I’m having trouble stopping the hate.” She was like, “I just want to stop hating and be normal.” We might have had that quote in the paper. But she was compassionate about it. She was very similar to substance abusers that just want to quit doing dope or quit drinking, and she wanted to stop hating and was having trouble.

That and recent election results suggest the sitting president’s movement is starting to splutter.

Republicans have underperformed in special elections for over a year now. It is natural — dare we say, normal — that the party in power loses ground in the mid-terms. But does a movement built on opposition to the governing establishment do as its told when asked to support it? How far can the pendulum swing right before the arc tops out? Part of the GOP’s problem in 2018, Martin Longman suggests, is the caliber of its candidates and buyers’s regret:

But I think a significant part of the problem is that a big chunk of Trump’s voters hate Congress, are not partisan Republicans, and don’t support incumbents or either party. I’ve written about this before, and I’m still uncertain about the size of the contingent, but there’s a significant number of people who always cast their ballot as an effort to vote the bums out. In the match-up of Clinton vs. Trump, that translated to a vote for Trump. In a congressional race, it means that the challenger is likely to get their support (assuming they bother to show up at all).

When the whole premise of the Trump pitch is Washington is filled with bums, will the MAGAs come out to support incumbent Trump bums on his say so? The results of Tuesday’s primaries and Ohio 12’s special election suggest they will not. Trump’s up-is-down boasts of political prowess — the success of his tariffs, reducing the debt (It’s increasing.), and premature declarations of a “giant Red Wave!” in reaction to races too close to call — are wearing thin. At least, thin enough for Trump’s Republican critics to be concerned.

Then there is the rampant criminality and self-dealing. Jonathan Chait yesterday afternoon read off the police blotter from just the previous 24 hours:

1) The trial of Paul Manafort, which has featured the accusation that President Trump’s campaign manager had embezzled funds, failed to report income, and falsified documents. His partner and fellow Trump campaign aide, Rick Gates, confessed to participating in all these crimes, as well as to stealing from Manafort.

(2) Yesterday, Forbes reported that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross may have stolen $120 million from his partners and customers. Meanwhile Ross has maintained foreign holdings in his investment portfolio that present a major conflict of interest with his public office. (The “Don’t worry, Wilbur Ross would never do anything unethical just to pad his bottom line” defense is likely to be, uh, unconvincing to the many people filing suit against Ross for allegedly doing exactly that.)

(3) Also yesterday, ProPublica reported that the Department of Veterans Affairs is being effectively run by three Trump cronies, none of whom have any official government title or public accountability. The three, reports the story, have “used their influence in ways that could benefit their private interests.”

(4) And then, this morning, Representative Chris Collins was arrested for insider trading. Collins had been known to openly boast about making millions of dollars for his colleagues with his insider knowledge. He is charged with learning of an adverse FDA trial, and immediately calling his son — from the White House! — urging him to sell his holdings.

Not only is Trump turning his party into a white nationalist one, he is in effect turning Washington into an extension of the Trump Organization. “Crooks of a Feather” are getting rich, writes Longman. But not those who come to his rallies.

Among the other corruptions is the Republican tax bill. Besides funneling hundreds of millions into the pockets of Trump donors, the bill lined the pockets of members of Congress. Ryan Cooper reminds readers, “Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) seemingly got a personal kickback in the form of tax benefits for real estate (one of his major assets) for his vote.”

Trump supporters may have liked his racist and autocratic leanings. Some may even cheer family separations and deportations of newcomers. But punishing groups they consider lessers will not feed families and pay the bills. Even if they can look past the self-dealing and widespread corruption, how long before they ask themselves, “What’s in it for me?”

Because it wasn’t supposed to be like this:

A South Carolina plant that assembles televisions using Chinese parts plans to shut down and lay off nearly all its employees because of new tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration, the company announced this week.

Element Electronics — which describes itself as the only assembler of televisions in the U.S. — plans to lay off 126 of its 134 permanent full-time employees and close the Winnsboro, S.C. plant on Oct. 5. Notably, there are still at least two smaller companies that continue to assemble speciality televisions in the U.S.

“The layoff and closure is a result of the new tariffs that were recently and unexpectedly imposed on many goods imported from China, including the key television components used in our assembly operations in Winnsboro,” Carl Kennedy, Element’s vice president of human resources, said in a letter to the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce on Monday.

“When you think you’ve reached rock bottom, to get kicked in the gut like this, you didn’t think anything more could happen,” state Sen. Mike Fanning, D-Fairfield told The State. The layoffs come two years after Wal-Mart, the largest grocer in the county and one of its few large employers, closed its doors. Great it is not. People will notice.

* * * * * * * * *

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

Poor, poor pitiful Paul

by digby

Mark Liebovich profiles Paul Ryan as he faces his last months as Speaker of the House:

Ryan is clearly sick of the “What about Trump?” questions and of having the dilemma imposed upon him. He has been held up as a figure of disdain across the spectrum: Trump-lovers have remained suspicious of him as a tool of the establishment and are quick to raise Ryan’s sacrileges against their hero during the campaign; Democrats, “never Trump” conservatives and — quietly — some elected Republicans wish Ryan would provide a stronger counterbalance to a battering-ram president. Ryan, the rap goes, has deserted his post as a potential conscience of the party and voice for decency, and he has allowed Trump’s most fervent acolytes in the House — Devin Nunes, for instance — to run wild in his defense. The speaker knows better and yet goes along anyway. “Ryan traded his political soul,” the conservative columnist George F. Will has written, “for … a tax cut.”

Ryan’s defiance to Trump, such as it is, can carry an almost pro forma quality. He will avoid or claim ignorance if possible (“I didn’t see the tweet”), chastise the president if he must (rarely by name), wait for the latest outrage to pass, rinse and repeat. “Frankly, I haven’t paid that close attention to it,” said Ryan at a June news conference in which he was asked about the job status of Scott Pruitt, the scandal-drenched E.P.A. administrator who was finally run out of office in July and whose mounting offenses over several months would have been impossible for even the most casual news consumer to miss.

“I can understand all of the rationalities,” says Charlie Sykes, a longtime conservative radio host in Wisconsin who spent years trying to persuade Ryan to run for president before turning sharply against him over Trump. “In a Faustian bargain, you get a lot of things. You get the wealth, you get the beautiful women and you get all this good stuff.” In Ryan’s case, this would include tax and regulatory overhauls. “It just turns out the price is higher than you thought.”

Ryan hears such assessments all the time. “I’m very comfortable with the decisions I’ve made,” he told me. “I would make them again, do it again the same way.” He is quick to present his counterfactual. What if he were to pick a fight with Trump every time he said something that offended? “I think some people would like me to start a civil war in our party and achieve nothing.” Why should Ryan, despite his own misgivings, make himself the vehicle for anti-Trump wish-fulfillment?

The counter-counterfactual is this: Are Republican leaders so unwilling to condemn Trump because their voters support him so vigorously, or do these voters support Trump so vigorously because so few Republican leaders have dared condemn his actions? Chicken, meet egg.

“I would say the unwillingness of Ryan and others to offer an alternative vision to Trump would be the reason” that Trump’s approval number is so high, Sykes told me. “When your best and brightest basically run up the white flag, it’s going to have an effect.”

It’s called “leadership” but that’s been outsourced to Trump, Sean Hannity and Alex Jones.

Ryan is complicit at best an accomplice at worst. He prepared the ground and then enabled Trumpism. When faced with what he had wrought, he was a coward. Now he’s running away so that he can repair his tattered reputation.

No.

.

Be Best Con Man

by digby

Trump always said he would choose the best people, the “real killers.” Here’s another one:

Wilbur Ross could be “among the biggest grifters in American history,” according to Forbes magazine, amid new allegations that he may have wrongly siphoned off more than $120 million from business associates. An investigation, citing 21 people who have worked with the man who is now President Trump’s commerce secretary, claims Ross stole “a few million here and a few million there” from various companies. Forbes reports: “All told, these allegations—which sparked lawsuits, reimbursements, and a Securities and Exchange Commission fine—come to more than $120 million.” Ross’ former colleagues offer very unkind words about him. “He’ll push the edge of truthfulness and use whatever power he has to grab assets,” said New York financier Asher Edelman, while another of Ross’ former colleagues said: “He’s a pathological liar.” They say he is obsessed with money, with two former colleagues recounting that he took handfuls of Sweet’ N Low packets from a restaurant near his office, so he didn’t have to go out and buy some for himself. (A Ross spokesman disputed that claim—and denied that he sweetens his coffee.)

And then there’s all the insider trading. Since he’s been Commerce Secretary…

Loyal to what?

by digby

Lol:

#Russia‘s state TV:
The host responds to panelist’s observation that Rand Paul is not well-liked in the US:
“At least he’s one of the few loyalists.” pic.twitter.com/NrgPhnKm7z

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) August 6, 2018

FWIW, I don’t think Rand Paul is “loyal” to Russia. But it is funny to see Republicans in this situation…

.

Recuse is a dirty word in Trumpland

by digby

Greg Sargent wrote yesterday about the coming collision between the Mueller investigation and the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. It’s about the probable need for Kavanaugh to recuse himself from any case pertaining to the Russia probe due to his well known past writing about presidential power which was certainly known by the president’s men before Kavanaugh was chosen. Read the whole thing. It’s a fascinating read.

I would just remind everyone of a piece I wrote a while back about how the Democrats might weaponize this issue to stop this nomination:

The Washington Post reported several months later that Trump had nearly withdrawn the Gorsuch nomination before it even came to a vote:

Trump, according to several people with knowledge of the discussions, was upset that Gorsuch had pointedly distanced himself from the president in a private February meeting with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), telling the senator he found Trump’s repeated attacks on the federal judiciary “disheartening” and “demoralizing.”

The president worried that Gorsuch would not be “loyal,” one of the people said, and told aides that he was tempted to pull Gorsuch’s nomination — and that he knew plenty of other judges who would want the job . . .

When Sen. Lindsey Graham asked whether the president might be subject to prosecution, Gorsuch reportedly answered, “No man is above the law, no man.” At some point in all this, the Post reported that Trump got livid:

“He’s probably going to end up being a liberal like the rest of them,” Trump told Republican leaders, according to a person with knowledge of the comments. “You never know with these guys.”

The president wasn’t just venting. It was serious enough that McConnell had to do some significant hand-holding and cajoling to prevent Trump from yanking Gorsuch from consideration.
[…]
Considering his mercurial nature, it’s also possible Trump himself could destroy the nomination with some ill-timed tweet or a temper tantrum. He no longer listens to anyone, so it’s doubtful that McConnell would be able to talk him down a second time. So perhaps another strategy for Democrats would be to press the nominee as aggressively as possible in public hearings about all the potential Trump crimes in detail and dare him to be “disloyal” while the president is watching.

Since it’s absolutely true that no man should be able to choose his own judge, they could ask if the nominee plans to recuse himself from any of these potential Trump cases. We know how Trump feels about his minions’ recusing themselves. He’s said many times that if Jeff Sessions had told him he was going to do that, he would have withdrawn Sessions’ nomination as attorney general. Maybe the president would well and truly sabotage himself this time.

Push for recusal, Schumer. Push hard. He might just pull the nomination…

.

The “basket” of you-know-whats stands alone

by digby

The Monkey Cage looks at the GOP coalition and they too find that it’s not a Trump loving monolith:

Among strong Republicans, shown on the left side, Trump is the clear winner. He’s even held in higher esteem than Reagan, a party hero. Strong Republicans also dislike McCain, a senator who has repeatedly clashed with Trump.

But the patterns are very different for not-so-strong Republicans (center) and Republican-leaning independents (right). In both groups, Trump’s popularity is not much different than that of Pence or Bush (who has also criticized Trump). These Republicans do not seem to favor Trump substantially more than his Republican predecessor or his own vice president. Notably, Reagan is the clear favorite, with not-so-strong Republicans more likely to favor Reagan over Trump about 80 percent of the time. This is consistent with the finding that “the party of Reagan” still identifies the 40th president as the best in their lifetime. We suspect these results would surprise those discussing Trump’s “almost-unheard-of-level of support from members of his own party.”

Indeed…

Of course, the fact that Palin is even on the list says everything about how the party ended up with Trump doesn’t it?

Real American terrorists

by digby

Oh look. They aren’t even immigrants:

A series of attacks on a mosque, an abortion clinic, and a railroad line looked like the work of a three-man militia, but newly unsealed court documents suggest the alleged bombers might have been following orders from “higher ups” in a network of extremist groups.

In March, feds arrested Michael Hari, Michael McWhorter, and Joe Morris for allegedly bombing a Minnesota mosque, attempting to bomb a women’s health clinic, attempting to ransom a stretch of Illinois railroad, owning a machine gun, and carrying out a series of robberies. The trio appeared to be the principal members of a tiny right-wing group calling itself the “Illinois Patriot Freedom Fighters 3% Militia” or the “White Rabbits.” The group was a small-time anti-government militia that dabbled in a number of extreme causes, from “armed rebellion” against Illinois to encouraging neighbors to buy into “White Rabbit Money,” a fake currency.

But the White Rabbits might not have been as isolated as their separatist platform made them appear.

Hari, the suspected ringleader, was in communication with other militia groups, and took orders for “missions” from “higher-ups,” according to a May search warrant, the unsealing of which was first reported by Champaign, Illinois’ News-Gazette.

Shortly after the trio’s arrest in March, McWhorter and Morris turned on Hari, offering investigators information on Hari’s communications, according to a search warrant for the contents of an email account with Protonmail, an encrypted email service.

McWhorter “told agents that Hari talked about ‘higher ups’ and identified two people Hari identified as ‘Ben Lewis’ and ‘Congo Joe,’” according to an affidavit in support of the search warrant.

No biggie. They’re white and they’re “right.” They are very fine people. We have nothing to worry about.

Tuesday night at the races
by Tom Sullivan

Tuesday night’s Ohio 12 special election ended in a cliffhanger. The historically Republican district Donald Trump carried by 11 points was not supposed to be competitive for Democrats. Yet at the end of the night, Republican state Sen. Troy Balderson led Democrat Franklin County Recorder Danny O’Connor by barely half a percentage point with absentee and provisional ballots yet to be counted (in 10 days) more than twice the margin between them. The remaining uncounted ballots may be enough to trigger a recount, but for now it seems Democrats did not upset in OH-12. Whichever candidate wins, both will face off again on November 6.

The Washington Post’s takeaway?

1. Voters in Republican-leaning suburban districts are souring on Trump.

2. Largely because of that, a wave that will sweep Republicans out of power appears to be building.

Voter fraud hunter and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is in a dead heat with incumbent Gov. Jeff Colyer in the Kansas Republican primary for governor. The Washington Post reports that with 94.8 percent of the precincts reporting, at 6 a.m. Colyer has 120,662 votes to Kobach’s 121,203.

In Michigan’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, Senate Majority Leader Gretchen Whitmer defeated Detroit health official Abdul El-Sayed. The support of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congressional candidate, was not enough for El-Sayed to overpower the establishment Democrat. The Whitmer campaign is on its third campaign manager. She will face Bill Schuette, Michigan’s incumbent state attorney general on November 6.

Dave Weigel adds:

In suburban House districts across the Midwest, left-wing candidates lost to Democrats backed by party leaders, abortion rights groups and labor unions.

And in St. Louis, where party giant-slayer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez traveled to help another young insurgent candidate topple an incumbent, Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) cruised to an easy primary win over challenger Cori Bush.

Party centrists crowed at the defeat of insurgent progressives from the Democrats’ left:

“This is a fantastic night for centrist Democrats,” said Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at the center-left Third Way think tank. “We nominated the right candidates who can win House seats and governor’s mansions for the Democratic Party. There’s a quiet enthusiasm in the middle. There’s a quiet voice that people are not hearing in the media, but it’s loud at the ballot box.”

But perhaps too much too soon for Third Way.

Voters in Missouri rejected Proposition A, blocking state Republicans from passing right to work (for less) laws. AP reports on the Republican push to weaken unions fiancially:

Missouri’s law against compulsory union fees was defeated Tuesday by a 2-to-1 margin, nearly a year after the measure adopted by the state’s Republican governor and Legislature had been scheduled to take effect. It was put hold after unions successfully petitioned to force a public referendum.

The election results effectively vetoed the Missouri measure and halted a string of stinging losses for organized labor. Since 2012, five other once historically strong union states had adopted right-to-work laws as Republicans gained strength in state capitols, raising the total to 27 states with such laws.

Missouri’s referendum was the first time voters had the opportunity to weigh in directly on union fees since the Supreme Court ruled in June public-sector unions could not collect fees from non-members benefited by union contracts. The Missouri measure would have extended that to all private employers in the state.

“The defeat of Proposition A is merely a minor setback on the road to providing workers with the freedom they deserve,” said Jeremy Cady, Missouri director of Americans for Prosperity.

The freedom individual workers deserve is to offset the power of management and to collectively bargain for a fair distribution of wages and benefits. Missouri workers and union leaders gathered 300,000 signatures to put Proposition A on the ballot, twice as many as would have been necessary.

* * * * * * * * *

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

Guess where Trump got his insane “fire” theories

by digby

I had forgotten Trump’s insane blathering about the California drought during the campaign when I read his stupid tweets about the fires earlier. Rick Perlstein wrote it up back then:
In

Donald Trump keeps on upping the ante. Consider what he said at a rally last week in Fresno, on the subject of California’s apocalyptic drought.

Make that “drought,” for according to Donald J. Trump, there isn’t one. Never mind that the years between late 2001 and 2014 have been the driest in California history since record-keeping began; nor the 12 million trees that have died from “drought” in Southern California; nor predictions that the 2015 El Nino would bring relief, though the amount of rainfall actually decreased.

In Fresno, Donald approached the podium. He led off with a customary boast. (“What a crowd . . . I saw on television this morning, five o’clock in the morning, people were lining up. This is crazy, crazy!”) He referred to some real estate transaction he was working “probably 10 or 12 years ago” in their fair city: “They had a problem. You remember the problem, right? They had a problem, I think it was Running Horse, and I was going to take it over and do a beautiful job.” Then, in mid-thought, he pivoted incoherently into the subject on everyone’s minds in that parched agricultural region: “Fortunately, I didn’t do it, because there isn’t any water, because they send all the water out to the ocean, right?”

“I made a fortune by not doing it,” he said. The crowd cheered. Only in Trumplandia do the citizens cheer when they’re not afforded the benefactions of their orange-haired overlord. (I looked it up. His proposal to take over the foundering Running Horse golf course development apparently fell apart because the city refused his demand to dispossess homeowners over a nine-square-mile area through eminent domain.)

He commented that it was too bad he didn’t go through with the deal. Because: “I would have changed the water. . . . You have a water problem that is so insane, that is so ridiculous. Where they’re taking the water and shoving it out to sea.” Loud cheers.

He continued. “It’s not the drought. They have plenty of water. No, they shove it out to sea. Now, why? Because they’re trying to protect a certain kind of three-inch fish.”

“If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that you can have your farmers survive.” Then he moved on.

It made the news: “Donald Trump Tells Californians There Is No Drought.”

Then, however, reporters moved on to the next story, with no time to Google from whence Trump derived this crackpot notion about water taken from farmers and “shoved out to the sea.” The answer, apparently: InfoWars, the website of lunatic conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Who believes, for instance, that the school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, was staged by the government, using actors, in order to force gun control down the American people’s throats.

The theory that California’s water shortage is all the fault of the Environmental Protection Agency is, like most conspiracy theories, grounded in an actual fact. The EPA has, in fact, caused 800,000 acre-feet of water annually to be flushed into San Francisco Bay to maintain its marine ecosystem. The program, however, dates to the early 1990s, and California’s water system, all told, manages over 40 million acre-feet a year. The practice that Trump describes so darkly involves 2 percent of that—and an economically vital 2 percent at that. California fisheries produce jobs in the hundreds of thousands. But not in Fresno.

The notion that rules governing 800,000 acre-feet of water are the cause of the much larger problem, and that business about the “three-inch fish,” dates—word for word—to an April, 2015, InfoWars article entitled “Environmentalists Caused California Drought to Protect This Fish.”

Since last year, Rachel Maddow has been on the case of Donald Trump’s deep ties to Alex Jones. On the morning of December 2, she wrote in a syndicated column, Jones hosted Trump for an extended live interview. “After about 30 minutes of mutual compliments, and Jones telling Trump that ‘about 90 percent’ of his listeners support him, the presidential candidate wrapped things up by telling Jones: ‘Your reputation is amazing.’”

Maddow continued, “That same day, after that interview, 14 people were killed and 21 others were injured in the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. Within hours of that news breaking, Jones and his website—predictably—were hosting discussions of how San Bernardino, like Newtown, like the Boston Marathon bombing, and of course like 9/11, was a hoax. Either it didn’t happen, or if it did it was perpetuated by the government.”

There’s a lot more at the link.

In August of 2018, Trump is tweeting out Alex Jones conspiracy theories as president of the United States.

Think about that.

.