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Month: August 2018

Manafort Found Guilty. Cohen Pleads Guilty. Who’s Next? @spockosbrain

Published by Spocko on August 21, 2018

Manafort Found Guilty. Cohen Pleads Guilty. Who’s Next?

 By Spocko

 I’m not going to try to analyze the breaking news, there will be plenty of people who will do this
See these stories in the Rolling Stone:

Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty, Admits Trump Directed Election Influence

Paul Manafort Found Guilty on Eight Counts in First Major Russia Investigation Case

What I want to note is that these two cases SHOULD signal a change in how the media talks about this case. But there will be one group that will not, Fox “News.”

People who advised the president during the election have been found guilty and have plead guilty of crimes related to the campaign. Who else could fit into this category? People at Fox News.

Recently Ellen at Newshounds pointed this out from Omarosa’s book
Omarosa: Fox Sent Daily Talking Points, Spin Suggestions, Resources To Trump Campaign and this from Buzzfeed editor Tarini Parti.

Federal election laws aren’t only about money, some of them are about disclosure. Others are about providing assistance and reporting that assistance to the authorities.

What is the value of this Fox News producer’s work?

 It’s time to stop looking at Fox News as a legitimate news organization and start looking at them as a propaganda arm of the GOP. 

Should we start looking at individuals as unindicted co-conspirators in campaign election law violations?

We know who the producer is who has been feeding the Trump White House info. Who gave them their marching orders? Bill Shine is on the inside now, what was he doing before when he was on the outside at Fox? (Besides covering up sexual harassment for decades?)

Suzanne Scott, left, chief executive of Fox News who should know about the producer helping Trump. She is shown, in 2014, with the model Carol Alt and Bill Shine, a former co-president of the network who was forced out in 2017.Credit Larry Busacca/Getty

If people at Fox, like Suzanne Scott and Bill Shine, helped Trump in ways that violated FEC rules, who is going to investigate them? Legitimate media will probably defend them, because they want to believe Fox is legit, but as they can now see people are actually going to jail for violations. This are not just fines. Other news organizations might want to stop classifying Fox News as the media, when especially when Fox execs knowingly break the law.

 Hey Hey NRA, How Much Russian Money Did You Take Today?

The other organization, and set of individuals, to look at related to violating Federal election laws is the NRA. The NRA took money from foreign entities and used it to help Donald Trump and number of other Republicans.  (See my Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony Pulitzer award nominated video)

If Manafort’s and Cohen’s cases lead to FEC violations, shouldn’t the groups and individuals who had similar violations also be charged?

Rachel Maddow pointed out last night that Maria Butina was moved to the same prison that held Manafort. But no reason was given why. Maybe it’s because they both have reason to fear from Russian oligarchs and this is a safer place. 

Sometimes I think I don’t believe anyplace is safe because of all the spy movies I watch.  Then I read about the poisoning of Russian spies in the UK. This stuff is real folks.

[Updated 4:06 pm from draft version.)

Individual One has very big hands

Published by digby on August 21, 2018

Individual One has very big hands

by digby

You’ve undoubtedly heard that Michael Cohen pleaded guilty today to tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign finance violations and he said that he did the latter on the order of the President of the United States. Well, they don’t name Trump, they just say that Cohen did it on behalf of “Individual One”s campaign. The consensus is that the only reason Trump hasn’t been indicted as a co-conspirator is because he is the president and the DOJ says you can’t indict a sitting president.

This brings home something very, very disturbing. The idea behind that ruling is that the US Congress would ensure that a known criminal or foreign agent could not be allowed to stay in the White House if such evidence were to become known. It assumed they would do their duty and impeach the president and then he would be subject to the justice System like every other American. I think we know that Republicans in congress will not convict him in a impeachment trial even if he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue. He knows that too.

I think we need to contemplate what that really means.

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Let’s not forget that Trump is supposed to be doing an important job

Published by digby on August 21, 2018

Let’s not forget that Trump is supposed to be doing an important job

by digby

Excerpts from the  dotard’s interview with Reuters:

ON TURKEY’S DETENTION OF U.S. PASTOR

“I think it’s very sad what Turkey’s doing. I think they’re making a terrible mistake. There’ll be no concessions. And, uh, Pastor Brunson will be a great patriot. OK?” 

ON ECONOMIC DAMAGE TO TURKEY POSSIBLY SPREADING

“No I’m not concerned at all, I’m not concerned.” 

ON POSSIBILITY OF MORE SANCTIONS ON TURKEY

“I like Turkey, I like the people of Turkey very much. Until now I had a very good relationship as you know with the president. I got along with him great, I had a very good relationship, but it can’t be a one-way street.” 

ON POSSIBLY MEETING WITH IRAN’S LEADER

“I didn’t say I would meet. … If he wants to meet, fine. If he doesn’t want to meet, I could not care less. … But I have not asked to meet.”

ON WHETHER HE HAS A TIME FRAME TO END TRADE DISPUTES WITH CHINA

“No. No time frame. I’m like them, I have a long horizon.” 

ON POSSIBLY MEETING WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT XI IN NOVEMBER

“Maybe. I’m not sure that it’s been set up yet. We’ll see.”

ON CHANCES FOR PROGRESS IN TRADE TALKS WITH CHINA THIS WEEK

“I don’t anticipate anything coming out of it.” 

ON CHINA HELPING THE UNITED STATES WITH NORTH KOREA

“They helped very much initially. They’re helping much less now. Because of trade.”

ON HIS LAWYER, RUDY GIULIANI, WORRYING ABOUT A “PERJURY TRAP” IF TRUMP TALKS TO SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT MUELLER

“Well sure. He’s right because if I say something and a guy like Comey, who’s a proven liar – I mean he lied, he admitted he did. You take a look at what he did in Congress he said he gave – he leaked. He lied. So if I say something and he says something, and it’s my word against his, and he’s best friends with Mueller, so Mueller might say: ‘Well, I believe Comey,’ and even if I’m telling the truth, that makes me a liar. That’s no good.” 

ON HIS RECENT MEETING WITH RUSSIA’S PUTIN

“It was only Fake News that criticized. … We had a very good, I guess, close to two-hour meeting. We had another good meeting with a lot of our representatives there. We talked about Israel, we talked about insecurity for Israel, we talked about Syria, we talked about Ukraine.”

“I mentioned Crimea, sure. I always mention Crimea whenever I mention Ukraine. Putin and I had a very good discussion. It was a very — I think it was a very good discussion for both parties. I mentioned the gas pipeline going to Germany.”

ON WHETHER PUTIN ASKED TRUMP TO LIFT U.S. SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA

“No, he did not. He never brought it up.” 

ON WHETHER HE WOULD CONSIDER LIFTING SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA

“No. I haven’t thought about it. But no, I’m not considering it at all. No. I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But I wouldn’t consider it without that. In other words, I wouldn’t consider it, even for a moment, unless something was go — we have a lot of things in common. We have a lot of things we can do good for each other. You have Syria. You have Ukraine. You have many other things. I think they would like economic development. And that’s a big thing for them.”

ON THE FED’S INDEPENDENCE AND HIS CHOICE OF JEROME POWELL TO BE FED CHAIRMAN

“I don’t have an accommodating Fed. Am I happy with my choice? I’ll let you know in four years. I’ll let you know in seven years.”

“I’m not thrilled with his raising of interest rates. No, I’m not thrilled. We’re at a – we’re negotiating very strongly – I don’t call it a trade war – we’re negotiating very powerfully and strongly with other nations. We’re going to win. But during this period of time, I should be given some help by the Fed.” 

ON WHETHER HE BELIEVES IN THE FED’S INDEPENDENCE

“I believe in the Fed doing what’s good for the country.”

ON CHINA AND EUROPEAN UNION CURRENCIES

“I think China is manipulating their currency, absolutely. And I think the euro is being manipulated also. … And what they are doing is making up for the fact that they are now paying a lot for – hundreds of millions of dollars, and in some cases billions of dollars – into the United States Treasury – and so they’re being accommodated and I’m not, and I’ll still win.” 

ON THE MIDDLE EAST

“I’m constantly reviewing Afghanistan and the whole Middle East. We never should have been in the Middle East. It was the single greatest mistake in the history of our country.” 

ON ISLAMIC STATE

“We’ve defeated ISIS. ISIS is essentially defeated.”

ON BLACKWATER FOUNDER ERIK PRINCE PLAN TO PRIVATIZE AFGHANISTAN WAR

“I’m not reviewing an Erik Prince plan.”

ON TALKS WITH NORTH KOREA’S KIM, PREVIOUS PRESIDENTS’ WORK

“I met him three months ago. These guys have been working on it for 30 years. I stopped nuclear testing; I stopped missile testing. Japan is thrilled. What’s going to happen? Who knows. We’re going to see.”

“Look, I have a good relationship with him. I like him. A lot of people will say: ‘How could you possibly like him?’ I get along with him very well; we have a good chemistry. I have a good chemistry with Putin, too.

ON POTENTIAL FOR ANOTHER MEETING WITH NORTH KOREAN LEADER

“I don’t want to comment on that, but it’s most likely we will.”

ON SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES SELF-REGULATING CONTENT ON THEIR SITES

“I think it’s a very dangerous thing when they are their own regulator in terms of who’s going to be on Facebook and who’s going to be on Twitter. I think that whether it’s conservative or liberal, I think that it’s very dangerous.”

You could have picked a random person off the street and they would have had more informed, intelligent answers than that.

My favorite lie among all that gibberish is the one where he says Putin didn’t ask about lifting sanctions. Hilarious…

Oh, and there’s this too, from CNN’s Brian Stelter:

Per Reuters, Trump “again neglected to blame Russia for interfering in the 2016 election, a conclusion reached by the U.S. intelligence community.” Actually it’s even worse than that: He once again cast doubt on that conclusion. 

“I think it’s a disgrace,” he said of the probe. “And they had played right into the Russians—if it was Russia—they played right into the Russians’ hands.” IF it was Russia…

What can you say??? The man is supposed to be president and he’s obviously just a guy who watches Fox TV and tweets a lot.

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A Question for Christians by tristero

Published by digby on August 21, 2018
A Question for Christians

by tristero

Dear Christian friends,

What kind of Christians would deny a pair of elderly women who have lived together nearly 40 years  the right to live in their community — and spout pseudo-Biblical bullshit in order to justify their bigotry?

By any standard — except those held by malicious fanatics — this is the worst, most egregious kind of intolerance.

Mary Walsh and Beverly Nance did considerable research in 2016 before deciding to move into a continuing care retirement community outside St. Louis.

They took a tour of Friendship Village Sunset Hills and were impressed by its pool and fitness center, a calendar crammed with activities, the newly built apartments for independent living. They had meals with a friend and with a former co-worker, and their spouses, all of them enthusiastic residents.

“We’d met other people from the community, and they were very friendly,” said Ms. Walsh, 72, a retired manager for AT&T. “I was feeling good about it.”

Like most C.C.R.C.s, Friendship Village — a “faith-based” but nondenominational nonprofit — includes assisted living and a nursing home on its 52-acre campus, an important consideration.

If one woman someday needed more care than the other, “we’d still be able to have dinner together,” Ms. Walsh said. “We wanted to be together, no matter what happened.”

The community seemed eager to recruit them, too, offering a lower entrance fee if they signed an agreement promptly. So they paid a $2,000 deposit on a two-bedroom unit costing $235,000.

They notified their homeowners association that they’d be putting their house in Shrewsbury, Mo., on the market and canceled a vacation because they’d be moving in 90 days. Ms. Walsh contacted a realtor and began packing.

Then came a call from the residence director, asking Ms. Walsh the nature of her relationship with Ms. Nance, 68, a retired professor.

Natives of the area, they’d been partners for nearly 40 years. Before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages across the country, they’d had a harborside wedding in Provincetown, Mass.

“I said, ‘We’ve been married since 2009,’” Ms. Walsh replied. “She said, ‘I’m going to need to call you back.’”

Last month, the women brought suit in federal court, alleging sex discrimination in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act and the Missouri Human Rights Act.

In turning down their application, Friendship Village had mailed a copy of its cohabitation policy, which limits shared units to siblings, parents and children, or spouses.

“The term ‘marriage’ as used in this policy means the union of one man and one woman, as marriage is understood in the Bible,” the policy noted.

Inside Trump’s maelstrom

Published by digby on August 21, 2018

Inside Trump’s maelstrom

by digby



The pressure is too much for Orange Julius Caesar:

In recent weeks, Donald Trump has privately expressed doubts about White House lawyer Don McGahn’s loyalty. Trump has vented to aides that McGahn doesn’t support the House Freedom Caucus’s quixotic campaign to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein—a bank shot that would leave Robert Mueller unprotected. McGahn has also clashed with Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, whom one Republican said McGahn “hates with the intensity of 1,000 burning suns.” There has been talk of Trump replacing McGahn with his outside lawyer Emmet Flood.

But The New York Times’ revelation that McGahn had spoken for more than 30 hours with Mueller’s investigators has rattled Trump and the West Wing to the core, according to three of Trump’s outside advisers, causing Trump to ratchet up his Twitter war on Mueller to new heights. Over the weekend, Jared Kushner described Trump’s mood as “rip-shit,” according to one of the advisers. “Total meltdown” was how another adviser put it. “He’s extremely frustrated,” a Republican close to the White House said.

The biggest fear rippling through the West Wing is that no one knows what McGahn told Mueller during his multiple interviews. “Trump didn’t know how many hours it was,” one Republican briefed on Trump’s thinking said. Last night, The Washington Post reported that McGahn’s lawyer, Bill Burck, has been doing damage control, telling the White House that McGahn did not “incriminate” Trump. That’s provided little solace to Trump and West Wing aides. “You have to understand McGahn kept notes on every single meeting with Trump,” one former West Wing official said. “There’s no way this guy is going to protect him.” (A person close to McGahn disputed that McGahn took extensive notes of his meetings with Trump, but added that McGahn has only provided Trump’s lawyers a “high-level summary” of his comments to Mueller.) Trump also views McGahn as a “[Reince] Priebus guy,” shorthand for being a member of the Republican establishment of which Trump remains suspicious.

Since news broke of McGahn’s extensive cooperation with Mueller, Trump has been lashing out on Twitter. “He’s got to frame the narrative. He thinks the media is like a shark: you’re either feeding it or it eats you,” one Republican close to the White House said. Privately, Trump blames his precarious position on the people who work for him. Trump’s fury at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, already raging, has been stoked thanks to Sessions’s refusal to resign after months of public abuse. “You can’t talk to Trump without him bringing up Sessions,” one adviser said.

Trump’s frustration with Sessions has even caused him to turn on Giuliani. Over the weekend, Trump blamed Giuliani for the entire Russia probe. According to a person to whom the conversation was described, Trump loudly said to his lawyer: “It’s your fault! I offered you attorney general, but you insisted on being secretary of state. Had I picked you none of this would be happening.” (The White House declined to comment.)

A lot of what’s driving Trump’s ire, White House advisers said, is Trump’s growing realization that his previous legal team, Ty Cobb and John Dowd, made a strategic error in waiving executive privilege to cooperate fully with Mueller. But Trump being Trump, he won’t admit to making this mistake, so he directs blame onto others. Another theory for what’s motivating Trump’s increasingly unhinged tweets is that Mueller may be closing in on his son Don Jr. “A lot of what Trump is doing is based on the fact [that] Mueller is going after Don Jr.,” a person close to the Trump family told me. “They’re squeezing Don Jr. right now.”

Oh my, my, my.

I have sometimes wondered if that overheard” discussion between Dowd and Cobb wasn’t a set-up. How lame can any lawyer be to speak freely in an outdoor cafe right next to the New York Times. Now that we know McGahn understood it to mean that Trump was setting him up to take the fall, it makes me wonder even more.

Of course, Occam’s Razor says that it’s just another example of Trump’s “best people” being hired and they just screwed it all up…

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No biggie. The vets are just fine

Published by digby on August 21, 2018

No biggie. The vets are just fine

by digby

Buncha old losers…

Top Republican lawmakers have no plans to examine the alleged influence that a trio of President Donald Trump’s friends have at the Department of Veterans Affairs, even as Democrats call for an investigation.

The controversy peaked in recent weeks after reports that Marvel Entertainment Chairman Ike Perlmutter, Palm Beach doctor Bruce Moskowitz and D.C. lawyer Marc Sherman hold undue sway with VA leadership, including senior adviser Peter O’Rourke, who formerly served as acting secretary. Liberal veterans group VoteVets filed a lawsuit against the administration last week, claiming the VA is violating federal protocol related to private influence in matters of federal policy.

Scrutiny of the department is high as recently confirmed Secretary Robert Wilkie assumes control of a massive overhaul of the popular Veterans Choice Program giving veterans access to private doctors. Veterans groups are closely watching how the department will implement the bipartisan project, particularly whether it will funnel more resources away from VA facilities.

On Monday, a handful of Senate Democrats on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, led by Sen. Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii, petitioned Chairman Johnny Isakson of Georgia to hold a hearing on the matter. The senators cited the three men’s reported interest in privatization, as well as their influence in a deal to revamp the VA’s electronic health records, as cause for concern.

“While many of the reported incidents occurred prior to now-Secretary Wilkie’s tenure at the VA, it is imperative that we receive his testimony about his interactions and communications with the trio and what actions he has taken and what actions he plans to take to ensure decisions at the VA are being driven by what is best for our veterans without undue outside influence or direction,” the Democrats wrote in a letter to Isakson.

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Ranking Member Tim Walz is also seeking details of correspondence from the department. But Republican leaders of both the House and Senate veterans committees don’t agree the issue warrants congressional intervention.

Isakson said the problem was largely solved after Wilkie was sworn in last month.

“I think we’re moving ahead,” he said. “Most of them are out of there.”

Isakson added that the three men worked around the committee but never affected the committee’s agenda.

“There wasn’t anything I could do about it,” he said. “It never caused us any trouble. It was certainly disruptive and held the VA back some, but we got a great secretary now.”

A spokeswoman for Tennessee Republican Phil Roe, Isakson’s counterpart on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said Roe also believes Wilkie is capable of running the agency independently despite outside pressure.

The VA has also rejected the notion that the three friends ever had any direct influence over the department.

“Secretary Wilkie has been clear how he does business — no one from outside the administration dictates VA policies or decisions — that’s up to him and President Trump,” spokesman James Hutton said in an email. “Period.”

But Democrats aren’t satisfied. Democratic Reps. Julia Brownley and Ann McLane Kuster have petitioned VA Inspector General Michael Missal to investigate and asked Roe to hold a hearing on the matter.

“Not only are these individuals making policy decisions without nomination by the President or Senate confirmation, they have reportedly made personnel decisions that adversely affected the careers of numerous VA employees who felt their counsel was contrary to the delivery of quality care to our nation’s veterans,” the congresswomen wrote to Missal.

Republicans are less concerned. Sen. Mike Rounds said he has concerns about the VA, but they don’t include Trump’s friends.

“I don’t know that it’s necessary to investigate it,” he said. “I think if the president wants to have discussions, he most certainly is welcome to bring in outsiders to have discussions.”

GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy said the issue has to be more than what he called “Trump derangement syndrome” on the part of the president’s critics to warrant an investigation. Presidents routinely have friends and other informal advisers they seek out for opinions, he added.

“I think it would have to make sure that it crossed those thresholds before I would be particularly concerned,” he said.

Of course. Unless it was a Democrat.

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All fall down by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on August 21, 2018

All fall down
by Tom Sullivan


Image via Twitter/WRAL

Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last night marched on and toppled the controversial “Silent Sam” statue memorializing the university’s Civil War war dead:

Monday’s gathering started as a demonstration in support of a UNC graduate student who faces criminal and honor court charges for throwing red ink and blood on the Confederate statue in April. The downtown Franklin Street event quickly morphed into a march to the UNC campus, where police officers stood at the monument.

A skirmish broke out early when someone threw a smoke bomb. Police chased one man and arrested another for resisting, delaying and obstructing an officer.

The protesters quickly took control of the area immediately around the statue, hoisting four tall banners in a square that almost completely obscured it. The head of the Confederate soldier occasionally poked out from the top of the banners.

After early skirmishes, police stood back from protesters surrounding the statue. About 9:30 p.m., students used a rope to topple “Silent Sam.” UNC Chancellor Carol Folt issued a statement acknowledging the longstanding controversy surrounding the statue, but not exactly condemning the “unlawful and dangerous” actions students took in toppling it. Police later loaded the statue into a truck.

Michael Keenan Gutierrez who teaches writing at UNC posted at We’re History:

Silent Sam was among many “Silent Sentinels,” – statues of soldiers without cartridge box, soldiers who could no longer fire a shot – that were manufactured and bronzed in the North and then sent down south for public display. Many of these statues look remarkably similar. Like Silent Sam, they also face north, toward the Union.

Protests of the statue date from as early as 1992. The United Daughters of the Confederacy and university alumni erected the monument in 1913, one of many erected in the period in tribute to the “mystique of chivalric Southern soldiers and the noble Confederate leadership embodied in Jefferson Davis,” otherwise known as the “Lost Cause.”

The UDC accomplished its goal. The myth runs deep in the South. But if there is any doubt about the myths origins and purpose, a portion of the speech industrialist Julian Carr delivered at Silent Sam’s dedication should put it to rest. After likening the cause to Greek heroes of myth with language too saccharine and stomach-turning for modern ears, Carr referenced the terror white southerners unleashed against freed slaves immediately after the war:

The duty due to our dear Southland, and the conspicuous service rendered, did not end at Appomatox[sic]. The four years immediately following the four years of bloody carnage, brought their responsibilities hardly of less consequence than those for which the South laid upon the altar of her country 74,524 of her brave and loyal sons dead from disease, a grand total of 133,821.

It is true that the snows of winter which never melt, crown our temples, and we realize that we are living in the twilight zone; that it requires no unusual strain to hear the sounds of the tides as they roll and break upon the other shore, “The watch-dog’s bark his deep bay mouth welcome as we draw near home”, breaks upon our ears—makes it doubly sweet to know that we have been remembered in the erection of this beautiful memorial. The present generation, I am persuaded, scarcely takes note of what the Confederate soldier meant to the welfare of the Anglo Saxon race during the four years immediately succeeding the war, when the facts are, that their courage and steadfastness saved the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in the South – When “the bottom rail was on top” all over the Southern states, and to-day, as a consequence the purest strain of the Anglo Saxon is to be found in the 13 Southern States – Praise God.

I trust I may be pardoned for one allusion, howbeit it is rather personal. One hundred yards from where we stand, less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison, and for thirty nights afterwards slept with a double-barrel shot gun under my head.

Mob action in removing the statues is indeed vandalism and a crime. New Orleans serves as a more fit model. But it is done. We will see what reaction comes from those who still romanticize the Old South celebrated by Carr and the UDC.

It has become habit for some Republicans to rub Democrats’ noses in the party’s slaver past. Yet when living Democrats insist they not display the Confederate flag or monuments to slavery, they complain it is an attempt to erase their heritage.

* * * * * * * * *

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

Kavanaugh and the dirty,dirty

Published by digby on August 21, 2018

Kavanaugh and the dirty,dirty

by digby

House impeachment manager Lindsey Graham with Mary Bono

So Brett Kavanaugh wanted to get really down and dirty with the Lewinsky investigation and ask Clinton extremely personal sexual questions in his grand jury testimony? Actually, that’s not a surprise. The investigation was full of that sort of extraneous detail with important elements of the case ultimately turning on whether or not Lewinsky orgasmed during their encounters.

I’m not kidding:

The House Judiciary Committee yesterday ended two days of partisan skirmishing behind closed doors with majority approval of the release of President Clinton’s videotaped grand jury testimony in the Monica S. Lewinsky case, along with 2,800 pages of documents containing substantial amounts of sexually explicit material.

All of the material is scheduled to be made available at 9 a.m. Monday, when copies of the documents, printed by the Government Printing Office, are to be handed to the committee and other lawmakers, after which the information will be posted on the Internet. Sources said the documents — appendices to the report on the Lewinsky investigation presented to the House last week by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr — include graphic, and as yet unpublished, portions of Lewinsky’s testimony about her Oval Office trysts with Clinton.

The House radio and television gallery will feed television networks the four-hour videotape of Clinton’s Aug. 17 grand jury testimony, during which he was questioned by Starr and aides.
[…]
Before convening the committee Thursday, Hyde and ranking Democrat John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) had agreed to 155 deletions in the printed material, under guidelines aimed at protecting the privacy of innocent third parties, removing redundant or irrelevant sexual references and striking material being used in ongoing criminal cases, and anything relating to official duties of the Secret Service.

But GOP members, who outnumber Democrats on the committee 21 to 16, rejected an attempt by the minority to delete 25 additional references, according to committee records. Among these were more explicit material relating to sexual interaction between Clinton and Lewinsky, the manner in which Clinton undressed her, and details about their telephone sex, according to sources in both parties.

Other Democratic motions were repeatedly defeated on straight party-line votes, and in a final rebuff, GOP members rejected a Democratic move to allow the transcript of the committee hearings to be made public.

Republicans on the committee approved, 20 to 16, a motion by Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) to restore three deleted references to a cigar in Lewinsky’s sworn testimony to the grand jury, according to information provided by the committee and other sources. One Republican, Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) joined the Democrats in opposing the Barr motions.

Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) said the release of sexually explicit material was necessary because of the president’s insistence that he did not commit perjury when he denied in a sworn deposition that he had sex with Lewinsky. Barr agreed, telling reporters: “It’s extremely relevant. We were forced to do this by the president’s own words.”

Republican sources said that material related, for example, to Lewinsky’s orgasms, was left in specifically to address the question of whether Clinton aimed to arouse Lewinsky — a key component of the definition of sexual relations at testimony by Clinton in the sexual harassment suit brought against him by Paula Jones.

In his report to Congress, Starr contended that Clinton’s perjury on that point was one ground for impeachment.

Nonetheless, Republicans acknowledged there were risks in continuing to disgorge more lurid details of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, beyond the vivid descriptions already made public as part of Starr’s Sept. 9 report to the House. “Nobody can ever predict how the public will react to a decision,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), a Judiciary Committee member.

One sign of GOP nervousness came after Judiciary Committee Republican Bob Inglis (S.C.) proposed that the generic description of one deleted item — which was not included in Starr’s published report — be changed to indicate more specifically the form of sexual contact that it dealt with. Only five other Republican members, Barr, Ed Bryant (Tenn.), Edward A. Pease (Ind.), James E. Rogan (Calif.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) joined Inglis in pushing for the disclosure. The tally defeating the motion was 28 to 6, according to the committee.

“My view is that full disclosure is the best approach,” said Inglis, who is battling to unseat Democrat Ernest F. Hollings in his state’s Senate race this fall. “In a democracy, people have a right to know that government and its operations are open.”

They were drooling over all of this, Graham in particular. Kavanaugh wasn’t alone.

I must say that I never expected any of these perverts to be on the Supreme Court though. Yet another failure of imagination on my part.

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Entitlement cuts will be a the top the list when we get back to “normal”

Published by digby on August 20, 2018

Entitlement cuts will be a the top the list when we get back to “normal”

by digby


You know how this works.They cut taxes for their wealthy owners and then try to throw the poor and the middle class into penury. They are monsters.

CNBC’s John Harwood: You were, during the Obama administration, a big critic of rising levels of national debt. We see the deficit going up to $1 trillion next year, debt levels are rising. About the tax cut: Did you guys go about it the wrong way?

Rep. Steve Stivers: I don’t think we did. I think you’ll see the economic growth will actually reduce the deficit a bit from the projected levels. And I think there’s still an opportunity to continue that growth.

Harwood: No misgivings about a tax cut that was not paid for, that’s allowing debt and deficits to rise like it is now?

Stivers: I do think we need to deal with our some of our spending. We’ve got to try to figure out how to spend less.

Harwood: Entitlements? Social Security, Medicare?

Stivers: Yeah, I mean, what I think we need to do is get some people who are now on government programs jobs, we have more open jobs than we have people on unemployment. So if we could get people to go from unemployment, or a government program, to become a taxpayer, it’s a twofer because not only are they getting less government assistance, they probably have a better life economically and they’re actually paying taxes.

Harwood: You’re talking here about Social Security disability?

Stivers: I’m talking about a lot of programs. A lot of those people, there’s a skills gap. You have to give them the skills they need for the jobs that are available today. I don’t want to be, you know, mean and kick people off of programs, but the way I’d like to see us do it is in the benefit cliffs and create ramps where the more people earn. It might cost them a little more for their social subsidy, but they actually can keep their Medicaid expansion, or they can keep their housing, but they actually have an incentive to take that pay raise and do better and pay more taxes.

Harwood: Your speaker, Paul Ryan, has said the biggest spending issues are in those big entitlement programs, Medicare and Social Security, as opposed to food stamps or welfare or that sort of thing.

Stivers: They are. And we have 10 million people on Social Security disability now — actually, 11 million — more than any time in history. And some of those people can’t work at all, but many of those people can’t work in the job they used to be in. And if we gave them some training, let them keep making a portion of the Social Security disability, but put them back to work, it would be a net win for the individual.

Harwood: But also Social Security and Medicare, right?

Stivers: The only way we’re going to be able to fix Social Security and Medicare is for the two parties to come together — the way that Ronald Reagan did with Tip O’Neill — and figure out how to fix them together. I hope we can do that, I believe it’s the right thing to do.

Yeah well, go fuck yourself. Even blandly referring to bipartisanship after what you Republicans have pulled is a joke. You are the walking political dead and any Democrat who decides to let bygones be bygones will join you.

They know what they are doing, you can tell by his dissembling and circling and idiotic rationalizations. They want sick and old people to work themselves to death. Monsters.

This fight is off the table for the moment. But it’s going to come back. They will never stop trying to destroy the ragged American safety net altogether. And don’t kid yourself. The media is dying to re-establish this bullshit bipartisan “norm” more than any other. They will be thrilled to push it hard the first chance they get.

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Deplorables

Published by digby on August 20, 2018

Deplorables

by digby

What the hell?

Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman revealed on Sunday that a C-SPAN caller had threatened the life of former President Barack Obama during a racist tirade.

Waldman said that he was appearing on the Sunday edition C-SPAN’s Washington Journal when a caller used the N-word to refer to Obama and then wished for his death

A Raw Story review of Sunday’s Washington Journal suggested that C-SPAN had used its 7-second delay to cut off the caller before the slur aired.

In the case of one racist caller on the Republican line, the C-SPAN host was forced to quickly hang up.

“Barack Obama is an illegal alien!” the caller named Christopher boomed.

“How do you know this?” the C-SPAN host asked.

At that point, the show’s audio cut for about 2 seconds, suggesting that C-SPAN producers censored the caller. It was obvious from the expressions on the faces of the two guests that the caller had said something offensive.

Sure, this is fine…

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