Month: September 2018

The Woodward book: Trump vs his own accomplices

by digby

Review copies are out. And it explains why Trump has been in full meltdown in recent weeks:

President Donald Trump’s closest aides have taken extraordinary measures in the White House to try to stop what they saw as his most dangerous impulses, going so far as to swipe and hide papers from his desk so he wouldn’t sign them, according to a new book from legendary journalist Bob Woodward.

Woodward’s 448-page book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” provides an unprecedented inside-the-room look through the eyes of the President’s inner circle. From the Oval Office to the Situation Room to the White House residence, Woodward uses confidential background interviews to illustrate how some of the President’s top advisers view him as a danger to national security and have sought to circumvent the commander in chief.

Many of the feuds and daily clashes have been well documented, but the picture painted by Trump’s confidants, senior staff and Cabinet officials reveal that many of them see an even more alarming situation — worse than previously known or understood. Woodward offers a devastating portrait of a dysfunctional Trump White House, detailing how senior aides — both current and former Trump administration officials — grew exasperated with the President and increasingly worried about his erratic behavior, ignorance and penchant for lying.

Chief of staff John Kelly describes Trump as an “idiot” and “unhinged,” Woodward reports. Defense Secretary James Mattis describes Trump as having the understanding of “a fifth or sixth grader.” And Trump’s former personal lawyer John Dowd describes the President as “a fucking liar,” telling Trump he would end up in an “orange jump suit” if he testified to special counsel Robert Mueller. 

“He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in crazytown,” Kelly is quoted as saying at a staff meeting in his office. “I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”

Trump irritated he wasn’t interviewed by Woodward for upcoming book 

CNN obtained a copy of Woodward’s book, scheduled for release September 11. The explosive revelations about Trump from those closest to him are likely to play into the November midterm election battle. The book also has stunning new details about Trump’s obsession with the Russia probe, describing for the first time confidential conversations between the President’s lawyers and Mueller. It recounts a dramatic session in the White House residence in which Trump failed a mock Mueller interview with his lawyers.

Woodward sums up the state of the Trump White House by writing that Trump was an “emotionally overwrought, mercurial and unpredictable leader.” Woodward writes that the staff’s decision to circumvent the President was “a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world.”

Circumventing the President

The book opens with a dramatic scene. Former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn saw a draft letter he considered dangerous to national security on the Oval Office desk.

The letter would have withdrawn the US from a critical trade agreement with South Korea. Trump’s aides feared the fallout could jeopardize a top-secret national security program: the ability to detect a North Korean missile launch within just seven seconds.

Woodward reports Cohn was “appalled” that Trump might sign the letter. “I stole it off his desk,” Cohn told an associate. “I wouldn’t let him see it. He’s never going to see that document. Got to protect the country.”

Cohn was not alone. Former staff secretary Rob Porter worked with Cohn and used the same tactic on multiple occasions, Woodward writes. In addition to literally stealing or hiding documents from Trump’s desk, they sought to stall and delay decisions or distract Trump from orders they thought would endanger national security.

“A third of my job was trying to react to some of the really dangerous ideas that he had and try to give him reasons to believe that maybe they weren’t such good ideas,” said Porter, who as staff secretary handled the flow of presidential papers until he quit amid domestic violence allegations. He and others acted with the acquiescence of former chief of staff Reince Priebus, Woodward reports.

Woodward describes repeated attempts to bypass Trump as “no less than an administrative coup d’état.”

The Russia obsession

Woodward’s book relies on hundreds of hours of taped interviews and dozens of sources in Trump’s inner circle, as well as documents, files, diaries and memos, including a note handwritten by Trump himself. Woodward explains that he talked with sources on “deep background,” meaning he could use all the information but not say who provided it.

His reporting comes with the credibility of a long and storied history that separates this book from previous efforts on Trump. The author and Washington Post journalist has won two Pulitzer Prizes, including one for his coverage of the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation.

In one revelatory anecdote, Woodward describes a scene in the White House residence. Trump’s lawyer, convinced the President would perjure himself, put Trump through a test — a practice interview for the one he might have with Mueller. Trump failed, according to Dowd, but the President still insisted he should testify.

Woodward writes that Dowd saw the “full nightmare” of a potential Mueller interview, and felt Trump acted like an “aggrieved Shakespearean king.”

But Trump seemed surprised at Dowd’s reaction, Woodward writes. “You think I was struggling?” Trump asked.

Then, in an even more remarkable move, Dowd and Trump’s current personal attorney Jay Sekulow went to Mueller’s office and re-enacted the mock interview. Their goal: to argue that Trump couldn’t possibly testify because he was incapable of telling the truth.

“He just made something up. That’s his nature,” Dowd said to Mueller.

The passage is an unprecedented glimpse behind the scenes of Mueller’s secretive operation — for the first time, Mueller’s conversations with Trump’s lawyers are captured.

“I need the president’s testimony,” Mueller said. “What was his intent on Comey? … I want to see if there was corrupt intent.”

Despite Dowd’s efforts, Trump continued to insist he could testify. “I think the President of the United States cannot be seen taking the fifth,” Trump said.

Dowd’s argument was stark: “There’s no way you can get through these. … Don’t testify. It’s either that or an orange jump suit.”

What he couldn’t say to Trump, according to Woodward, was what Dowd believed to be true: “You’re a fucking liar.”

Trump’s insults and humiliation

Throughout the book, Woodward portrays the President as a man obsessed with his standing in the media and with his core supporters. Trump appears to be lonely and increasingly paranoid, often watching hours of television in the White House residence. “They’re out to get me,” Trump said of Mueller’s team.

Trump’s closest advisers described him erupting in rage and profanity, and he seemed to enjoy humiliating others.

“This guy is mentally retarded,” Trump said of Sessions. “He’s this dumb southerner,” Trump told Porter, mocking Sessions by feigning a southern accent.

Trump said that Priebus is “like a little rat. He just scurries around.”

And Trump demeaned former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to his face, when Giuliani was the only campaign surrogate willing to defend then-candidate Trump on television after the “Access Hollywood” tape, a bombshell video where Trump described sexually assaulting women.

“Rudy, you’re a baby,” Trump told the man who is now his attorney. “I’ve never seen a worse defense of me in my life. They took your diaper off right there. You’re like a little baby that needed to be changed. When are you going to be a man?”

Trump’s predecessors are not spared either. In a conversation with Sen. Lindsey Graham, Trump called President Barack Obama a “weak dick” for not acting in Syria, Woodward reports.

National security concerns

Woodward’s book takes readers inside top-secret meetings. On July 27, 2017, Trump’s national security leaders convened a gathering at “The Tank” in the Pentagon. The goal: an intervention to try to educate the President on the importance of allies and diplomacy.

Trump’s philosophy on diplomacy was personal. “This is all about leader versus leader. Man versus man. Me versus Kim,” he said of North Korea.

His inner circle was worried about “The Big Problem,” Woodward writes: Trump’s lack of understanding that his crusade to impose tariffs could endanger global security.

But the meeting didn’t go as planned.

Trump went off on his generals. “You should be killing guys. You don’t need a strategy to kill people,” Trump said of Afghanistan.

He questioned the wisdom of keeping US troops in South Korea.

“So Mr. President,” Cohn said to Trump, “what would you need in the region to sleep well at night?”

“I wouldn’t need a fucking thing,” the President said. “And I’d sleep like a baby.”

After Trump left the Tank, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared: “He’s a fucking moron.”

The book provides the context for the now-infamous quote that marked the beginning of the end for Tillerson’s tenure. Tillerson tried to downplay the dispute — “I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that,” he said at a news conference after NBC reported the remark — but he was ultimately fired via tweet.

Woodward also quotes an unnamed White House official who gave an even more dire assessment of the meeting: “It seems clear that many of the president’s senior advisers, especially those in the national security realm, are extremely concerned with his erratic nature, his relative ignorance, his inability to learn, as well as what they consider his dangerous views.”

A recurrent theme in Woodward’s book is Trump’s seeming disregard for national security concerns because of his obsession with money — trade deficits and the cost of troops overseas.

In meeting after meeting, Trump questions why the US has to pay for such a large troop presence in South Korea.

“We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” Mattis, the defense secretary, bluntly explained to Trump at one January 2018 meeting, which prompted Mattis to tell close associates afterward that Trump had the understanding of a “fifth or sixth grader.”

Trump still wasn’t convinced. “I think we could be so rich if we weren’t stupid,” he later said in the meeting, arguing the US was being played as “suckers,” Woodward reports.

The ‘Ernest Hemingway’ of Twitter

Trump’s tweets — and his infatuation with Twitter — are a theme throughout the book.
Woodward reveals that Trump ordered printouts of his tweets and studied them to find out which ones were most popular. “The most effective tweets were often the most shocking,” Woodward writes.

Twitter was a source of great consternation for national security leaders, who feared — and warned Trump — “Twitter could get us into a war.”

Appalled by some of his more outrageous posts, Trump’s aides tried to form a Twitter “committee” to vet the President’s tweets, but they failed to stop their boss.

Priebus, who was blindsided when Trump announced his firing on Twitter, referred to the presidential bedroom as “the devil’s workshop” and called the early morning hours and Sunday night — a time of many news-breaking tweets — “the witching hour.”

Trump, however, saw himself as a Twitter wordsmith.

“It’s a good thing,” Trump said when Twitter expanded its character count to 280, “but it’s a bit of a shame because I was the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters.”

‘A zoo without walls’

Finally, “Fear” is filled with slights, insults and takedowns from both family and staff that speak to the chaos, infighting and drama that Trump allows to fester around him.

Both Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are targeted by the inner circle.

There is a pointed shot at Ivanka from the President’s now-ostracized chief strategist Steve Bannon, who frequently clashed with the first daughter and her husband.

“You’re nothing but a fucking staffer!” Bannon screamed at Ivanka at a staff meeting, according to Woodward. “You walk around this place and act like you’re in charge, and you’re not. You’re on staff!”

“I’m not a staffer!” she shouted back. “I’ll never be a staffer. I’m the first daughter” — she really used the title, Woodward writes — “and I’m never going to be a staffer!”

Two of the harshest comments in the book are directed at Trump and come from his chiefs of staff.

After Trump’s Charlottesville, Virginia, controversy, in which he failed to condemn white supremacists, Cohn tried to resign but was instead dressed down by Trump and accused of “treason.”

Kelly, who is Trump’s current chief of staff, told Cohn afterward, according to notes Cohn made of the exchange: “If that was me, I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times.”

The Washington Post is up with a story as well which contains a few more anecdotes from the book.

People will say that the members of the White House staff are trying to keep things from totally imploding. I think that’s wrong, but we’ll leave it aside for the moment. Republican members of the US Senate know all this about him and instead of using the power of their co-equal branch to serve as a backstop against this unfit cretin, they are accomplices. He doesn’t like them either.

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Lindsey Graham, still too scared to fly solo

“Too hot for prime time”

by digby

This morning’s Kavanaugh hearings have been somewhat exciting with Democrats objecting all over the place. One of them brought up this article about the process this freak show of a White House has used to pack the courts despite the fundamental illegitimacy of this president. This passage was quoted:

The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, as it is officially known, has played a crucial role in putting conservative jurists on the bench. As White House counsel, McGahn is responsible for helping Trump select his judicial nominees. And, as he explained in his speech that November afternoon, he had drawn up two lists of potential judicial appointments.

The first list consisted of “mainstream folks, not a big paper trail, the kind of folks that will get through the Senate and will make us feel good that we put some pragmatic folks on the bench.”

The second list was made up of “some folks that are kind of too hot a for prime time, the kind that would be really hot in the Senate, probably people who have written a lot, we really get a sense of their views — the kind of people that make some people nervous.”

The first list, McGahn said, Trump decided to “throw in the trash.” The second list Trump resolved “to put before the U.S. Senate” for a confirmation vote. The president, McGahn assured his audience, was “very committed to what we are committed to here, which is nominating and appointing judges that are committed originalists and textualists.”

Trump doesn’t even know the Supreme Court is a separate branch of government. He demands personal loyalty from the justices he appoints. All they had to do was ay “too hot for prime time” for him to want to appoint the most hardcore wingnut hacks. It makes him feel macho and potent.

Now, in anticipation of possible loss of the Senate and the further implosion of the presidency and possibly the nation as we’ve known it, the Republicans are pushing through this extremist judge in order to get him in under the wire.

Trump may end up impeached or tossed out of office after one term. But his legacy will be secure with a far-right extremist court that will continue to reshape this country in Trump’s image long after he is gone.

In case you were wondering:

While Trump has lagged behind other presidents in political appointments, the streamlining of the judicial-selection process has helped him deliver a historic number of judges to the federal bench. In 2017, the Senate confirmed 12 of Trump’s appeals court picks — the most for any president in his first year in office. This year, the Senate has already confirmed 12 appellate judges and, according to a Republican Judiciary Committee aide, hopes to confirm at least four more. The White House refers to every new batch of judicial appointees Trump selects as “waves” — in early June, it announced the “Fifteenth Wave of Judicial Nominees”— as if they’re soldiers landing on the beaches of Normandy.

They see it as a war. And they are right.

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Wisdom is in short supply
by Tom Sullivan

CNN last night ran the film RBG. Ginsberg, says IMDB’s introduction to the documentary on the life of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “has developed a breathtaking legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon.” It’s not the kind of act any prospective Supreme Court colleague would prefer to follow. Judge Brett Kavanaugh will have to when his Senate confirmation hearings open today soon after this post goes live.

“Damn, she’s good,” I whispered during Ginsberg’s confirmation hearings in 1993. She was relaxed, frank, and fiercely intelligent, with clear, thoughtful answers to questions senators posed. Ginsberg spoke her mind. She spoke from experience. One never got the feeling she was giving answers tailored to landing her the job. Senators asked her what she thought. She told them. It is an experience yet to be repeated. She was as impressive as Clarence Thomas two years earlier was not, nor anyone confirmed after her. (Where I had the opportunity to watch hearings subsequent to hers as closely, they left little impression.) What for Ginsberg was a serious discussion of constitutional principles and theories even her Senate interlocutors seemed to enjoy has since become a strategic exercise in evasion and running out the clock.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee approved Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s nomination 18-0 and the full Senate confirmed Ginsberg on August 3, 1993 by a vote of 96-3.

GOP senators now reference what they call “the Ginsberg rule,” claiming she set a precedent for evading answers about issues that might come before the court. NPR’s Nina Totenberg’s recollection, however, matches mine. That’s not how it went:

By the time she had finished testifying, Ginsburg had also answered questions about affirmative action, gender discrimination, single-sex education, the limits of congressional powers, even Indian treaties and government funding for the arts. Indeed, a recent study shows that she was among the most responsive nominees ever to appear before the senate Judiciary Committee.

Conversely, Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first nominee, was the least responsive nominee in 50 years, according to the study. The evasiveness titleholder, according to the study, was Justice Abe Fortas, nominated by President Lyndon Johnson to be chief justice in 1968. Pummeled by hostile senators, both Democrat and Republican, Fortas said next to nothing at his confirmation hearing, then saw his nomination filibustered to death. He ultimately was forced to resign from the court in disgrace.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for forthright responses from Brett Kavanaugh. They will be in short supply, as is wisdom.

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

What On Earth is the New Yorker STILL Thinking? 

by tristero

The New Yorker decided it suffered from too great a reputation for excellence and had far too many subscribers. Therefore, they decided to interview the odious Steve Bannon on stage at their New Yorker Festival, a fairly major and prestigious event here in NYC.

Fortunately, they thought better of it once the news came out. But then, David Remnick, The New Yorker’s editor, said this:

“I’ve thought this through and talked to colleagues—and I’ve re-considered. I’ve changed my mind. There is a better way to do this. Our writers have interviewed Steve Bannon for The New Yorker before, and if the opportunity presents itself I’ll interview him in a more traditionally journalistic setting as we first discussed, and not on stage.”

WTF? In the wake of a world-wide resurgence of right wing extremism including neo-Nazism, xenophobia, and racism, Remnick wants to give one of the most unscrupulous and unsavory architects of this madness even more free fucking publicity?

How about Elizabeth Warren? Ocasio-Cortez? Andrew Gillum? Bernie Sanders? Rachel Maddow? Or anyone else prominently involved in the effort to resist and help this world get back on its feet after the catastrophic damage Bannon has wreaked on us?

We live in strange times.

A Fox News Democrat walks toward the light

by digby

Juan Williams wrote this for The Hill:

President Trump likes to complain about “Fake News.”

So, here’s some very real news for him:

Republican control of Capitol Hill and the White House is based on a “fake majority.”

“A majority of the Senate now represents just 18 percent of the nation’s population,” David Wasserman, an editor for The Cook Political Report, wrote in a recent New York Times column.

He added that the crucial Senate seats this November would be “much whiter, more rural and pro-Trump than the nation as a whole. In effect, geography could again be Mr. Trump’s greatest protector: After all, the Senate — not the House — would have the final say on any impeachment proceedings,” Wasserman argued.

Think about this — America’s politics are being run by a cabal in the Senate that fails to represent 82 percent of the American people.

For starters, the 18 percent controlling the Senate have their own right-wing agenda beyond protecting an unpopular president.

They want a Supreme Court majority that reflects their views and not the views of the majority of the people.

To take control of the court they blocked President Obama — a Democrat twice elected with a majority of the popular vote as well as a majority of the electoral college — for close to a year from appointing a centrist judge to the high court.

Senate Republicans, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (Iowa), who will preside over this week’s hearings, refused to even give Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland a hearing, let alone an up or down vote.

And now having already replaced Garland and installed a solid conservative — Neil Gorsuch — the Senate Republicans, who represent fewer than 1-in-5 Americans, are about to force another conservative on the Supreme Court.

If they succeed in locking in another conservative, this time Judge Brett Kavanaugh, they will cement a conservative majority on the court for decades in an act that might be described as tyranny.

It is not just the Senate that is acting against the will of the majority.

Remember that both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were nominated by a president who lost the popular vote by almost three million votes.

If Kavanaugh is confirmed, there is nothing stopping the 5-4 conservative majority on the Court from overturning Roe v. Wade and denying millions of American women the right to an abortion.

This despite the fact that only 29 percent of Americans want abortion to be illegal in all or most cases, according to a July Quinnipiac poll. The vast majority of Americans, 64 percent, want it legal in all or most cases.

Then there is the tyranny of Trump-led GOP efforts to cripple the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

With Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) death, there is nothing stopping the 18-percent-Senate-majority from passing their bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and strip health care from millions of Americans — even though the latest Kaiser poll taken over the summer shows that 50 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the ACA compared to 41 percent who view it unfavorably.

A June Quinnipiac poll similarly found that 51 percent want the ACA to remain in place and 44 percent want it repealed. McCain famously killed the repeal effort because, for all their complaints, Republicans never came up with a better bill to help Americans with the high cost of healthcare.

Will the Arizona Republican who is appointed to fill his seat display the same courage?

Then there is the tyranny of GOP tax cuts.

The 18-percent-Senate-majority passed tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest one percent of Americans.

Forty-six percent of Americans disapprove of the Trump tax law, according to Quinnipiac polling.

An August Fox poll found that ObamaCare is now more popular than the Republican tax cuts. More than half of voters, 51 percent, favor ObamaCare compared to 40 percent who approved of the tax cuts.

That finding is bolstered by another poll, a CNBC survey from June, which found that 49 percent of working American adults — a plurality of all the people polled — said they do not have more take-home pay because of the law.

How about the president’s aggressive focus on border security?

Again, a majority in the Fox poll said they disapprove. Overall, 57 percent of Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of immigration policy.

And when it comes to the Republican president’s handling of race relations, 58 percent in the Fox poll said they disapproved.

So, to recap: The lives of over 300 million Americans are being affected by policies foisted on them by a Senate “majority” that represents less than one-fifth of them and a president who was elected with three million fewer votes than his opponent.

Meanwhile, even as daily controversy, including federal convictions of his associates, surrounds Trump, the 18 percent represented by the GOP majority in the Senate protects the president from impeachment.

What is wrong with this picture?

Liberal comedian Bill Maher has long said that the Constitution is in need of a “page one rewrite.”

That’s funny, but the joke has a bite to it.

Trump has normalized many horrible things in our politics: racism, lying, scapegoating and corruption.

Future historians may look back and conclude one of the most corrosive things he normalized was minority-posing-as-majority tyranny that cheats the majority of the American people out of their democracy.

He’s right, of course. But this is not something that Trump TV could possibly want anyone talking about. It makes their Dear Leader look “illegitimate” which is his worst nightmare.

Maybe Juan Williams been saying this for a while and I missed it. I can only take som much Fox before I feel as if my head’s going to explode. And he’s an in-house “Democrat” so his job is to tepidly and ineffectually challenge the party line. Still this seems more confrontational than usual. He’d better hope that Trumpie didn’t see this…

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The “vulnerability ratio”

by digby

This represents a new level of politicization. He’s long been demanding that the DOJ lock up his political opponents. Now he wants it to allow GOP criminals to go free. Of course, we’ve seen hints of this before. He did, after all, ask FBI director James Comey to let Michael Flynn off so it’s how he generally operates. Still, this is new. He thinks Sessions shouldn’t just be protecting him but should also use the DOJ to protect the GOP majority by allowing their numerous crooks to have free rein so they can stay in power — and protect him. He is, after all, one of the crooks himself.

Maybe this is what got him so worked up:

Bruce Mehlman of Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas has found a new way to measure House Republicans’ peril: “vulnerability ratio,” which he measures as the net number of seats at risk versus the number needed to flip.

Mehlman, a former lawyer for House Republicans, fears that measure is worse for the majority party than it was in 2006 or 2010, when the House flipped. His explanation:

With 38 GOP House seats rated toss-up or worse by Cook Political Report, to only three Dem Seats, 2018 Republicans have net 35 seats at risk, significantly more than they can afford to lose (23). 

With 152% of Repubicans’ margin vulnerable, they’re in a more perilous position than Democrats in 2010 (when 123% of their margin was vulnerable) or Republicans in 2006 (119%).

The Cook data for each year is from the House ratings closest to Labor Day for each cycle.

I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. But if the Democrats keep their heads down and just work like their lives depend on it (which they do) that wave may just materialize. It has to. He’s cray.

A little bit of faith restored

by digby

The monster Newt Gingrich, who once said Democrats were responsible for a woman murdering her own children: “If Mollie Tibbetts is a household name by October, Democrats will be in deep trouble. If we can be blocked by Manafort-Cohen, etc, then GOP could lose [the House] badly.”

Mollie Tibbets’ family is appalled. Her father wrote this op-ed in the DesMoines Register:

Ten days ago, we learned that Mollie would not be coming home. Shattered, my family set out to celebrate Mollie’s extraordinary life and chose to share our sorrow in private. At the outset, politicians and pundits used Mollie’s death to promote various political agendas. We appealed to them and they graciously stopped. For that, we are grateful.

Sadly, others have ignored our request. They have instead chosen to callously distort and corrupt Mollie’s tragic death to advance a cause she vehemently opposed. I encourage the debate on immigration; there is great merit in its reasonable outcome. But do not appropriate Mollie’s soul in advancing views she believed were profoundly racist. The act grievously extends the crime that stole Mollie from our family and is, to quote Donald Trump Jr., “heartless” and “despicable.”

Make no mistake, Mollie was my daughter and my best friend. At her eulogy, I said Mollie was nobody’s victim. Nor is she a pawn in others’ debate. She may not be able to speak for herself, but I can and will. Please leave us out of your debate. Allow us to grieve in privacy and with dignity. At long last, show some decency. On behalf of my family and Mollie’s memory, I’m imploring you to stop.

Throughout this ordeal I’ve asked myself, “What would Mollie do?” As I write this, I am watching Sen. John McCain lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda and know that evil will succeed only if good people do nothing. Both Mollie and Senator McCain were good people. I know that both would stand up now and do something.

The person who is accused of taking Mollie’s life is no more a reflection of the Hispanic community as white supremacists are of all white people. To suggest otherwise is a lie. Justice in my America is blind. This person will receive a fair trial, as it should be. If convicted, he will face the consequences society has set. Beyond that, he deserves no more attention.

To the Hispanic community, my family stands with you and offers its heartfelt apology. That you’ve been beset by the circumstances of Mollie’s death is wrong. We treasure the contribution you bring to the American tapestry in all its color and melody. And yes, we love your food.

My stepdaughter, whom Mollie loved so dearly, is Latina. Her sons — Mollie’s cherished nephews and my grandchildren — are Latino. That means I am Hispanic. I am African. I am Asian. I am European. My blood runs from every corner of the Earth because I am American. As an American, I have one tenet: to respect every citizen of the world and actively engage in the ongoing pursuit to form a more perfect union.

Given that, to knowingly foment discord among races is a disgrace to our flag. It incites fear in innocent communities and lends legitimacy to the darkest, most hate-filled corners of the American soul. It is the opposite of leadership. It is the opposite of humanity. It is heartless. It is despicable. It is shameful.

We have the opportunity now to take heed of the lessons that Mollie, John McCain and Aretha Franklin taught — humanity, fairness and courage. For most of the summer, the search for Mollie brought this nation together like no other pursuit. There was a common national will that did transcend opinion, race, gender and geography. Let’s not lose sight of that miracle. Let’s not lose sight of Mollie.

Instead, let’s turn against racism in all its ugly manifestations both subtle and overt. Let’s turn toward each other with all the compassion we gave Mollie. Let’s listen, not shout. Let’s build bridges, not walls. Let’s celebrate our diversity rather than argue over our differences. I can tell you, when you’ve lost your best friend, differences are petty and meaningless.

My family remains eternally grateful to all those who adopted Mollie so completely and showered us with so much care, compassion and generosity. Please accept our desire to remain private as we share our loss. We love Mollie with all our hearts and miss her terribly. We need time.

That was in response to this piece of toxic swill that Donnie Jr wrote the day before in the same paper.

These deplorable Republicans had better back off.

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by digby

Presidential Proclamation on Labor Day, 2018

On Labor Day, we celebrate the American worker: the bulwark of our national prosperity and the cornerstone of our national greatness. Since taking office, my Administration has sought to restore the obligation of loyalty and allegiance that this Nation’s Government owes to its workers. In all economic decisions, we believe in our sovereign obligation to defend and protect our country’s workforce, and to seek its economic interests above that of any other country. America’s workers pay our taxes, support our values, serve in our military, raise our children, protect our Constitution, and build our communities. They deserve, in return, the unwavering fidelity of their Government.

Guided by this obligation, my Administration has taken historic action to advance prosperity for the American worker: cutting their taxes, eliminating regulations that threaten their jobs, unleashing American energy that powers their lives, restoring American manufacturing, and ending the transfer of wealth out of our country through disastrous trade deals that gutted our industries and our national strength. The result of our pro-America economic policies have been extraordinary: currently, in America, there are a record 162 million people working; initial claims for jobless benefits are at their lowest in half a century; and the unemployment rate of 3.9 percent is historically low.

We have also taken historic action to defend the American worker by upholding and enforcing the immigration laws enacted for their protection ‑‑ and by seeking to reform our immigration system so that it protects the jobs, wages, and livelihoods of our Nation’s workers. Further, as we honor the work of all those in our labor force, we are especially mindful of the dignity gained from a hard day’s work. Thousands of Americans have found a renewed sense of purpose in our resurgent economy. The dedication, resolve, and pride of the American worker are the reason our Nation has achieved prosperity that was once thought unattainable.

Blah, blah,blah, me, me, me for two more long paragraphs, then:

We also recognize and honor the proud and historic role of our Nation’s labor unions in advocating for the interests of the American worker and wage-earner ‑‑ and we have kept our promise to always keep the White House door open to members and leaders of our country’s labor organizations.

Trade, trade, trade, me, me, me, a bunch of stuff that someone else wrote about “our magnificent Republic” and then the signature.

Nobody can remember a president ever using the occasion to brag about his own “achievements”

This morning he marked the day with this:

Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, represented his union poorly on television this weekend. Some of the things he said were so against the working men and women of our country, and the success of the U.S. itself, that it is easy to see why unions are doing so poorly. A Dem!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2018

He was responding to this, all of which is true:

“Unfortunately, to date, the things that he has done to hurt workers outpace what he’s done to help workers,” Trumka said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Trumka’s comments, made one day before Labor Day, come after Trump on Friday issued a statement praising labor unions. Trump lauded organized labor for “advocating for the interests of the American worker and wage-earner.”

But Trumka on Sunday criticized a number of Trump’s policy decisions.
“He hasn’t come up with an infrastructure program that could put a lot of us back to work,” Trumka said. “He overturned a regulation that would deny over 5 million overtime that they would’ve had. He overturned some health and safety regulations that will hurt us on the job.” 

“We keep trying to find areas where we can work with him,” he added.
Trumka has praised Trump in the past for his stance on U.S. trade policies, but has called the president a disappointment, charging that Trump has “used his office to actively hurt working people.” 

“If President Trump wants to change course and join us in the fight to raise wages and standards, and strengthen our democracy and build better lives, then we’ll be ready,” Trumka said in January. “But if he continues down his current path, workers will be looking for a new president in 2020.”

Fox News host Chris Wallace also pressed Trumka on the state of the economy, pointing to low unemployment numbers and suggesting that Trump deserved credit.
“Those are good, but wages have been down since the first of the year,” Trumka said. “Gas prices have been up since the first year. So overall, workers aren’t doing as well.”

To paraphrase Kanye before he became a Trump voter: Trump doesn’t care about working people.

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“It’s time to break free from tyranny and enslavement”

by digby

This is the QAnon Map. Thousands of Trump voters are uying into this lunacy which has Donald Trump as he superhoro who’s going to finally dismantle this massive conspiracy and save us. Also he will own the libs.

Below is the QWorld map which took years in the making. The most important document you will ever come across. Please share & spread awareness. It's time the people receive their deserved hidden truths. It's time to break free from tyranny & enslavement. #Qanon #TheGreatAwakening pic.twitter.com/1KzyY9zwBk— QNN: Qanon News Network (@realQNN) September 1, 2018

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