Month: November 2018

“His personal Verdun”

by digby

Quote o’ the day:

Rather than make the hour-long drive (Aisne-Marne is only 55 miles from Paris), the low-energy president remained behind at the U.S. ambassador’s residence. It’s not as if he didn’t sacrifice anything, however. Odds are that his room didn’t have Fox News. So he was probably reduced to watching CNN all afternoon. If the New York dating scene was Trump’s personal Vietnam, this was his personal Verdun.

That’s Max Boot pointing out that for all of Trump’s love of “the military,” he doesn’t really show much love for the troops.

He’s the first president in memory who has never visited the troops in a war zone. Apparently, he doesn’t think they rate his personal attention. Maybe it’s one of those things like his view of campaigning — he refuses to visit people in their homes or a local diner of soup kitchen because he figures people don’t really respect a King who mingles with the poloi.

Frankly, I think he prefers to mingle with his Red Hats, local police, ICE and Border Patrol. Those are his personal troops. He never misses a chance to be with them.

Trump was very happy to see his fellow white nationalist:

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The War to End All Wars
by Batocchio

Today, 11/11/18, marks the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the Great War, the supposed War to End All Wars that unfortunately didn’t. I’ve always been struck by how eager nations were to go to war at the start and how horrific the reality often was. By the end, by most estimates, about 8.5 million soldiers were dead and the total casualty count was about 37.5 million. Add in a couple million civilian deaths from fighting and several million more indirectly from disease and hunger, and the toll is just staggering. The death count would be exceeded in World War II, but it’s hard to overstate how devastating the “Great War” was to the world, especially Europe.

The Imperial War Museums (a set of five museums in Britain) has posted an excellent collection of first-hand British accounts on the armistice 100 years ago. Follow the link for the audio, but I’ve copied some key accounts below. Not everyone got the news about the armistice, and even for those who did, the final hours could be tense:

The news travelled at different speeds, and was delayed in getting to some places. George Jameson’s unit read about it.

When the war actually ended, we didn’t even know about it. We knew that things were getting pretty critical, we knew that we were doing well and nobody wanted to cop out on one when the war might be ending tomorrow, sort of thing. It was the wrong time to get wounded or hit or anything, you see! So we were pretty careful. But we were moving forward with the idea of taking another position when one of the drivers shouted up to somebody, ‘There’s a sign on that,’ it was an entrance to some house. He said, ‘There’s a sign on that thing marking somebody’s headquarters and it says the wars over.’ Don’t believe it. Nobody would believe it. The war couldn’t be over; it had been on for years, nobody would believe it could finish! It’s a fact; it says there the war was over. So somebody rode back and read this thing that said, as from 11 o’clock this morning, hostilities have ceased. And we then realised the war was over.

Fighting continued in some places as the news made its way along the Western Front, and men still lost their lives on the final day of the war. Jim Fox of the Durham Light Infantry remembered one such incident.

Of course, when the armistice was to be signed at 11 o’clock on the 11th of November, as from 6 o’clock that morning there was only the occasional shell that was sent either by us over the German lines or the German over at our lines. Maybe there was one an hour. And then, about 10am, one came down and killed a sergeant of ours who’d been out since 1915. He was killed with shrapnel, you know. Thought that was very unlucky. To think he’d served since 1915, three years until 1918, nearly four years and then to be killed within an hour of armistice…

William Collins clearly remembered conditions on the morning of the 11 November, and noted the significance of where he was that day.

On armistice morning, I remember the fog was – it was a Monday morning, November the 11th. The fog was so thick that visibility was down to 10 yards. And as we moved and moved on, we found ourselves at about 10 o’clock that morning we were up with the infantry patrols. And of course, when we found out that they were the closest to the Germans, we stopped and we stood in that place until… must have been oh, half past 12, one o’clock before the order was given to retire. A silence came over the whole place that you could almost feel, you know, after four and a half years of war, not a shot was being fired, not a sound was heard because the fog blanketed everything, you see, and hung really thickly over… We were north-east of Mons, whereas I’d started the battle four and a half years before, south-east of Mons. So there I was, back where the war started after nearly four and a half years of it.

For an exhibit, the Imperial War Museum in London recreated “the last few minutes of World War I when the guns finally fell silent at the River Moselle on the American Front” using WWI seismic data that the Smithsonian explains well. Take a listen:

(It seems the birds were added as an artistic choice, and I think they come in too early and too loudly, but it’s still a fascinating piece.)

( Paris.)

In the field, some soldiers celebrated the armistice with gusto, while others were simply exhausted:

Charles Wilson of the Gloucestershire Regiment was delighted when he heard of the armistice.

Well of course there was tremendous jubilation, I can remember. We had just come out of this battle and the armistice was on the 11th of November. We were doing battalion drill back in some village in France when we formed up and the commanding officer made the announcement: an armistice was signed at 11 o’clock today. Of course there was a swell of excitement amongst the men and our only interest then was to find something to drink to celebrate it and there was nothing to be had, not a bottle of wine or anything else! However we soon put that right…

But Clifford Lane was just too physically and mentally shattered to celebrate.

Then as far as the armistice itself was concerned, it was an anti-climax. We were too far gone, too exhausted, really to enjoy it. All we could do was just go back to our billets; there was no cheering, no singing, we had no alcohol – that particular day we had no alcohol at all – and we simply celebrated the armistice in silence and thankfulness that it was all over. And I believe that happened quite a lot in France. There was such a sense of anti-climax; there was such a… We were drained of all emotion really – that’s what it amounted to, you see. Then it was a question of when we were going to get home…

( Trafalgar Square, London.)

More reactions:

Mary Lees, who worked for the Air Ministry, was caught up in the scenes of jubilation that day.

But of course, I mean, Armistice Day was fantastic. You see, you visualise every single office in Kingsway pouring down the Strand. I should think there must have been about 10,000 people. There was no traffic of course. It was solid, like that. And you see, when they got to the end of the Strand of course it opened up, like that, into Trafalgar Square. And still Trafalgar Square was packed. Well, we didn’t get back to the office, to our work, till about half past three, four. And, when I came to get my bus back in the evening, the people had been careering all round London on the buses. But nobody would go inside because they all wanted to go on top and cheer. I forget how many it was in the papers the next morning, fifty or sixty buses had all their railings broken, going up the stairs on the top.

For many, the moment of the armistice was a time to reflect on all the lives that had been lost during the war. Ruby Ord was serving in France with the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

I think it was a bit of an anti-climax. Suddenly you thought about, you see, all the people you had known who were killed, etc. They were just in the war zone, and they could come home in your imagination. But the Armistice brought the realisation to you that they weren’t coming back, that it was the end. I think that it was not such a time of rejoicing as it might have been. You were glad the fighting was over and that not more men would be killed. But I do think it was dampened down very much, in France. I think they had all the enthusiasm probably in England, but I think we were too near reality to feel that way. I didn’t, certainly. I did not go out of camp on Armistice Day.

This remembrance seems the best to end on:

After the long years of hardship, suffering and loss, it was no surprise that the news the war had finally ended was received with such a mixture of emotions by those who were immediately affected by it. From shock and disbelief, to relief and jubilation, men and women around the world had their own reactions to the armistice. Basil Farrer served on the Western Front during the war. He was in Nottingham on 11 November 1918 but found he couldn’t join the cheering crowds in the city that day.

I remember Armistice Day and I didn’t know at the time but in every city, everybody went mad. In London, they were dancing in the streets, the crowds, in all the cities, in Paris and in Nottingham too. In Market Square, it was one mass of people dancing and singing. I did not go there. I do remember – for some reason or other – inexplicable, especially in so young a chap as myself, I felt sad. I did – I had a feeling of sadness. And I did remember all those chaps who’d never come back, because there was quite a lot, nearly a million – not quite a million. As a matter of fact, in Paris I remember the Prince of Wales inaugurating a plaque in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris to the million dead of Great Britain and the British Empire. And I did have a feeling of sadness that day.

Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing, Belgium.)

(Notre Dame de Lorette, also known as Ablain St.-Nazaire French Military Cemetery, France.)

(Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, France.)

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(Poppy on a Canadian grave.)

West of Washington
by Tom Sullivan

Congress bids dasvidanya to Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California’s 48th District. As Tuesday’s votes came in on Saturday, the Associated Press projects the famously Russophile Orange County congressman lost his seat to Democrat real estate entrepreneur Harley Rouda. A “landmark shift away from the GOP for suburban America,” according to the Los Angeles Times. No county “has been at the heart of conservatism since the 1960s” like Orange County. John Wayne country.

But in American iconography, Texas might have a stronger claim to being John Wayne country. Things are changing out there too.

Democrats’ number of state trifectas nearly doubled in the 2018 elections. That is, the party controlling the governorship and state legislative chambers. Republicans held 26 to Democrats’ 8 Tuesday morning. By the end of vote-counting, Democrats’ count went from 8 to 14. Texas was not one of those, and probably will not be for a long time.

Yet despite Beto O’Rourke’s narrow loss in Texas’s U.S. Senate contest to incumbent Republican Ted Cruz, shifts seen in Orange County have their counterpart in Texas. O’Rourke’s campaign proved that much.

Christopher Hooks writes in The Atlantic O’Rourke has reanimated the Democratic Party in Texas. Among the bad takes on the Texas race was that O’Rourke had gone too far left to attract Republican voters:

Dead wrong, it turns out—it looks like some 400,000 people voted for both Abbott and O’Rourke. O’Rourke wasn’t a wild-eyed lefty or a dead-eyed centrist. He was a former small-business owner who came to Congress by beating a Democratic incumbent in his primary from the right, and who spoke passionately about liberal causes while mostly avoiding specific policy prescriptions. He was pro-immigration and pro-trade, which is to say that he had common cause with the left-wingers at the Texas Association of Business.

O’Rourke was a Texas liberal, a member of a long-standing political tradition. The main difference between O’Rourke and previous Democratic candidates is that people liked him a lot. When he spoke to crowds, he talked of our obligations to one another, patriotism, public service, and investment in public projects. It may have been momentarily shocking for political reporters to hear a Texan running for office talking about marijuana, or the principle of universal health care. But 53 percent of Texans support legalizing pot, according to polling from the University of Texas, and 46 percent say that they support a “single national health insurance system run by the government.” A broad semiautomatic weapons ban only pulls 40 percent, but you could make a case that Cruz is the one who’s more out of step—a significant majority of Texans favor requiring criminal and mental-health background checks for all gun sales, including private ones.

Moreover, 51 percent of native-born Texans said they voted for O’Rourke in exit polls. It was the closest Senate race Texans had seen in 40 years, writes AP’s Paul Weber:

On the surface, Texas didn’t change much after Tuesday. Republicans continued a 24-year streak of sweeping statewide races and lost only two seats in Congress, both of which had already been trending toward Democrats. The GOP also still comfortably controls the Texas Legislature, even after losing a dozen seats in what was the biggest single-year pickup by Democrats in decades.

But Republicans’ big margins shrank in a number of places.

Typically easy wins in five congressional districts around Austin, Dallas and Houston were sliced to within 5 percentage points this time. The driving social conservative force in the Legislature, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, won just over 51 percent of the vote in his first election since pushing a failed North Carolina-style “bathroom bill” that would have required transgender people to use public bathrooms that correspond with the sex on their birth certificate. Not surviving, however, was a Republican who carried the bill in the House.

Control of state legislatures shifted towards Democrats last week. Even in deep-red Idaho, Democrats upset Republicans, picking up three seats in the Idaho House and one in the Senate. A second state senate seat in which the Democrat lost by six votes goes to a recount. Maybe not in Idaho, but elsewhere Democrats have more chances of advancing their own legislative agendas, and will be better positioned to roll back Republican gerrymandering by 2021. Republicans control redistricting in 16 states and Democrats in seven, Pew’s Stateline reports. More states are moving to a nonpartisan redistricting process.

Pew continues:

The Democratic power surge in statehouses and governors’ offices will boost a host of progressive priorities, including health care, school spending, gun control, environmental protection and voting rights — even as divided government causes gridlock in Washington.

In at least seven states, Democratic governors succeed Republicans. And the party flipped at least 350 state legislative seats from red to blue. During the eight-year Obama administration, the Democrats lost nearly 900 state legislative seats, allowing Republicans in many states to cut taxes, restrict access to abortion and stiffen voter ID laws with little Democratic resistance.

That is set to change for at least two years. More, if Democrats wisely leverage their wins.

Saturday Night at the Movies

In the lap of the gods: Bohemian Rhapsody (***)

Planning for the Wednesday morning massacre

by digby

CNN reports that Jeff Sessions didn’t realize that Matt Whittaker was a White House mole who was after his job until it was too late. Ok. Kind of dumb of him. But he did realize it eventualy. This part of the story about what happened last Wednesday morning when he was fired sheds some light on how he reacted:

John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, asked Sessions to submit his resignation, according to multiple sources briefed on the call. Sessions agreed to comply, but he wanted a few more days before the resignation would become effective. Kelly said he’d consult the President.

Soon, the sources say, top Justice officials convened on the 5th floor suite of offices for the attorney general. Eventually, there were two huddles in separate offices. Among those in Sessions’ office was Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, his deputy Ed O’Callaghan, Solicitor General Noel Francisco and Steven Engel, who heads the Office of Legal Counsel.

A few yards away, Whitaker strategized with other aides, including Gary Barnett, now his chief of staff.

Emptywheel has a theory. I think she’s may be right:

for the sake of this Kremlinology, I will assume that Sessions remained Attorney General for the remainder of the day on Wednesday. That means that, for at least a half day after this went down, any orders he gave were binding and all those men huddling with him on Wednesday morning retained the relative seniority to Whitaker that they started the day with.

As CNN says in its report, the people huddling with Sessions included key players overseeing Mueller’s probe. Rosenstein and O’Callaghan provide the day-to-day oversight of the probe.

The fact that Whitaker would become acting attorney general, passing over Rosenstein suddenly raised concerns about the impact on the most high-profile investigation in the Justice Department, the Russia probe led by Mueller.

The Mueller probe has been at the center of Trump’s ire directed at Sessions and the Justice Department. Whitaker has made comments criticizing Mueller’s investigation and Rosenstein’s oversight of it, and has questioned the allegations of Russian interference.

Rosenstein and O’Callaghan, the highest-ranked officials handling day-to-day oversight of Mueller’s investigation, urged Sessions to delay the effective date of his resignation.

That day-to-day oversight is critical both to any claim that Mueller operates with constitutional authority and to any effort by Trump and Whitaker to undermine Mueller’s authority.

But CNN doesn’t talk about the important role played in the probe by the other two Senate-confirmed figures in the room, Solicitor General Noel Francisco and OLC head Steven Engel.

As Michael Dreeben, who formally reports to Francisco, noted Thursday (that is, the day after this huddle) during his DC Circuit argument defending the constitutionality of Mueller’s authority, Francisco must approve any appeal Mueller’s team makes (presumably, he must approve any appellate activity at all). The arguments Dreeben made publicly Thursday — as well as whatever arguments Mueller submitted in a brief in sealed form in the Mystery Appeal that same day — were arguments made with the approval of and under the authority of the Solicitor General, the third ranking official at DOJ.

Then there’s Engel. He’s the guy who decides, in response to questions posed by Executive Branch officials, how to interpret the law for the entire Executive Branch. It’s his office, for example, who would decide whether it would be legal for Mueller to indict the President. His office also interprets the laws surrounding things like the Vacancies Reform Act, whether any given presidential appointment is legal.

Which is why this passage of the CNN report is so significant.

At least one Justice official in the room mentioned that there would be legal questions about whether Whitaker’s appointment as acting attorney general is constitutional.

In a room of men huddling with Jeff Sessions at a time he undeniably retained authority as Attorney General, at least one person — it might though is unlikely to be Sessions, it might be the Solicitor General who would argue the case legally, it might be the Deputy Attorney General or his deputy overseeing the Russian probe, it might be the guy who ultimately decides such things, or it might be several of them — at least one of those senior DOJ officials raised questions about whether Whitaker’s appointment would be constitutional. All of those men are sufficiently senior to ask Engel to write up a memo considering the question, and so long as Sessions retained the authority of Attorney General, he could decide whether to accept Engel’s advice or not. Sure, the President could override that (Obama overrode OLC, to his great disgrace, in Libya). But Trump would be on far shakier legal ground to do so without OLC’s blessing, and anyone operating in defiance of the OLC opinion could face legal problems in the future.

And an OLC opinion is precisely the kind of thing that Mueller’s team might submit to the DC Circuit — under the authority of the Senate approved and third-ranking Noel Francisco — in a sealed appendix to a challenge to Mueller’s authority.

I asked around this morning, of both those who think Whitaker’s appointment is not legal and those (like Steve Vladeck) who think it is. And it seems crystal clear: if Whitaker’s appointment is illegal, then that is a disability (just like recusal would be), and the regular DOJ succession would apply. In that case, the Deputy Attorney General would be acting Attorney General, for all matters, not just the supervision of the Special Counsel

This is very reasonable speculation. Keep in mind that when the Saturday Night Massacre came down, Richardson and Ruckleshaus and others in the DOJ had already gamed out what they were going to do. They even knew that Bork was going to be the one to fire Cox.

I suspect these Justice Department leaders have similarly been planning. And as Marcy points out, one of the most interesting aspects of this story is the fact that Francisco was part of the meeting. There’s been a lot of specualtion about where he stands. If Marcy’s right about this, it appears he may have chosen the constitutional order rather than the Trump protection racket.

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Trump’s foreign trip is a bit of a trainwreck so far

by digby

President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the U.S. subsidizes greatly!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018

Unis. pic.twitter.com/a3we7hpKDJ— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) November 10, 2018

Macron tried to flatter him and make him love him, but he’s stuck in a groove about Europe ripping him off and he can’t get out of it. But when Macron said that Europe needs to arm up to defend itself, which is pretty much what Trump is asking them to do when he says they have to pay more to NATO, he gets mad.This is because he’s so stupid that he still hasn’t gotten it into his head that these countries don’t write him a personal check to “pay for” NATO.

By the way, when he said they might need to protect themselves against China, Russia and even the US he was talking about cyberwarfare. The other comment about building up a European Army came later. Not that it matters. Trump is clueless about all of it.

He skipped the ceremony to lay a wreath for the WWI veterans, which is what that picture with Macron and Merkel above is referring to. Frankly, it’s a good thing. He would just pollute sething that’s actually a very meaningful moment.

Nobody really knows why he didn’t go. They said it was raining and they couldn’t fly Marine One. But nobody believes them. It was just drizzlig. He stayed in his hotel room and tweeted insults instead.

None of the European leaders know what to do with him. They’ve tried standing up to him and flattering him and ignoring him and none of it works. Welcome to our world.

Meanwhile in Bizarroworld

by digby

This is the brainwashing happening over on Fox right now. It’s from the OG Orwellian wingnut brainwasher, Newt Gingrich:

Watch the Democrats try to steal elections, and think about how Democratic dishonesty is a much greater threat to freedom than some unproven Russian conspiracy.

As you watch the long, long, long counts in Florida, Arizona and California, remember the long count which stole Republican Sen. Norm Coleman’s Senate seat for Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota back in 2008.

Remember Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia Stacey Abrams’s assertion that her “blue wave” was made up of both legal and illegal residents. Remember that 22,000 of the applications her voter registration group filed in Georgia were either canceled, duplicative or couldn’t be reconciled (probably because the voters did not exist).

The Democratic supervisor of elections for Broward County, Florida, Brenda Snipes, has a consistent record of breaking the law and trying to steal elections.

When you have the state’s sitting governor and Republican Senate candidate, Rick Scott, filing a lawsuit against “rampant fraud” and saying, “I will not stand idly-by while unethical liberals try to steal an election,” you know things have gotten very serious.

As Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has said, “What’s happening in Broward County should concern every American.”

In Arizona, you can bet that many of the 400,000 mail-in ballots still outstanding will turn out to be non-existent or cast by illegal immigrants – or simply made-up by the election officials in two of the state’s most liberal counties. Already, the Arizona Republican Party has alleged that left-wing election officials in one county destroyed evidence related to early voting irregularities.

The fact is that after all of their feigned worries about Russia influencing the election, Democrats will end up stealing a lot more votes than Vladimir Putin ever dreamed of taking.

Watch the next few days unfold. Remember the lies, smears and character assassination Democrats threw at Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

And worry for the very fabric of our country.

Rick Scott has not filed that lawsuit. There is no evidence of fraud. Votes take longer to count because we are voting by mail and there was massive turnout.

Republicans commonly steal elections and are trying to rig the count so they can steal these.

One thing I do agree on. We should worry for the very fabric of our country.

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The stress is starting to get him

by digby

We don’t know exactly why Trump seems to be losing his shit right now, but he is more agitted and freaked out than usua;l. The eection may have arttled him. He is delusional so he may have actually believed his own hype and thought there was a “red wave” coming. (There was — it’s called a bloodbath.) Or maybe he’s freaking out because he knows something bad is about to happen in the Mueller investigation. He’s also said to be very surprised that picking a know nothing hack for Attorney general hasn’t gone over well.

All of those things could be pressing on him. But this Wall Street Journal scoop about the hush money payoffs might be the thing that’s got him going. It appears that some of his formerly closest pals and business associates have flipped on him.

Josh Marshal did a nice recap:

Among the new anecdotes revealed by the Wall Street Journal:

In 2015 after announcing his presidential run, Trump met with AMI CEO David Pecker — a longtime friend whose company owned the National Enquirer — and asked him how Pecker could help the campaign. Pecker, according to the Journal, offered to use the magazine to kill the stories of women who sought to come forward with allegations about affairs with Trump.

When McDougal was thinking in May 2016 about going public about her alleged affair with Trump, her attorney Keith Davidson reached out to an executive at AMI, according to the Journal. The exec and Pecker then tipped off Cohen, who in turn told Trump, prompting Trump to call Pecker for assistance.

Trump was kept up to speed about developments in the McDougal situation, which included AMI first refusing to buy her story for that much because she didn’t have documents backing it up, but then offering her the $150,000 contract because she was also in talks with ABC News about coming forward.

Pecker studied campaign finance law as his company negotiated buying the rights to McDougal’s story, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It was Pecker who called off an agreement discussed by Cohen and Trump to buy the rights to McDougal story from AMI, the Journal reported. Pecker, who was advised by his attorney not to go through with the deal, told Cohen to tear up the agreement, according to the Wall Street Journal.

When Pecker was visiting Trump in early 2017 during the transition, Trump thanked him for killing the McDougal story, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Pecker had also been asked by Cohen to buy off Daniels’ story, but refused because, according to the Journal, “he didn’t want his company to pay a porn star.”

Cohen told Trump in mid-October 2016 that they would have to handle it themselves, and Trump told Cohen to “get it done” — an account that Cohen has relayed to federal prosecutors, according to the Journal.

There was a lot of fretting over who would actually pay the $130,000 in return for Daniels’ silence, according to the Journal, and Cohen’s request that Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg front the money was refused.

The ultimate way Daniels was payed off, through Cohen, ended up costing Trump twice as much than had Trump paid off Daniels himself, because Weisselberg authorized a reimbursement scheme for Cohen that covered the tax hit he took and also a $60,000 bonus, according to the Journal.

Trump, Pecker, who visited Trump in the White House in July 2017, and Cohen are no longer speaking to one another, the Journal reported.

This was apparently in a prepared indictment which the SDNY never filed because Cohen cooperated. They aren’t going after the president, despite clear evidence both in testimony and documents including audiofiles that he committed a crime, because of the DOJ finding that a sitting president can’t be indicted.

I suspect Trump doesn’t care much about that honestly. He doesn’t see it as a big deal to pay off porn stars and playmates and obviously, his supporters don’t care either, especially the deeply religious among them who have proven don’t really care about personal morality after all.

What he cares about is the fact that Weisselberg is involved in all this. He’s the man who knows everything about the Trump Organization’s schemes. And Pecker knows a lot of other things.

I’m sure he wants Whittaker to shut this down as much as he wants him to shut down Mueller. But they are leaking. And he can’t control that.

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Trump blames his own voters for their own deaths

by digby

President Trump threatened to cut federal funding to California over “poor” management as deadly wildfires ravage parts of the state.

There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018

On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted his first comments on the wildfires since they began earlier this week, making no mention of the nine confirmed victims. Instead, he criticized forest management and threatening to withhold federal payments to California.

Authorities confirmed nine people have died so far, and 250,000 residents have been evacuated due to what has quickly grown into California’s most destructive fire in at least a century.

On Friday afternoon, Trump approved an emergency declaration for California, allowing for the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to coordinate on disaster relief, including air support and evacuation assistance. His tweet Saturday morning seems to suggest he may withhold federal assistance for future wildfires.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s operating budget for 2018 is $2.3 billion. The state agency is responsible for providing wildfire relief throughout most of the state.

It’s not the first time this year Trump has criticized the handling of wildfires by state officials. In August, he tweeted that the Mendocino Complex Fire wildfire was being made worse by bad environmental laws that did not allow available water to be properly utilized.

Apparently, Trump doesn’t even have respect for his own voters if they live in California. Butte County voted for him in 2016.

As usual, he has no basic human decency. Neither does he have the vaguest clue about forest management. He heard this from some moron at a rally somewhere and thinks its gospel. And apparently, he believes that the federal coffers belong to him and he gets to dole out federal help only to those he deems worthy.

And hey, maybe he can. He seems to get away with many things we never contemplated. That could go both ways. Maybe California should stop contributing its tax money to “him.”

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Trump’s Spiny Normans
by Tom Sullivan

Whatever he does, Donald J. Trump cannot seem to rid himself of Robert Mueller. The Russia investigation special counsel is Spiny Norman to Trump’s Dinsdale Piranha. Whichever way Trump turns, Mueller is there. Watching.

Trump’s installation this week of alleged con man Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general is already ending badly. A firestorm of criticism and charges the move was illegal had Trump babbling like St. Peter Friday morning he did not know the man he dropped into the job after Jeff Sessions. Last night from France, Trump again swore he did not know him, but heard Whitaker was very highly regarded. Very highly.

In bizarre performance on the White House lawn Friday morning, Trump was showing the strain:

Trump: I don't know Matt Whitaker. pic.twitter.com/C7ZktylyeD— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 9, 2018

In a post heavy with reference links, William Saletan takes readers through the history of Trump’s efforts to quash the “rigged witch hunt” Russia investigation. All leading to Trump’s flop-sweat move of installing Whitaker after dramatic Republican midterm losses leave him facing multiple investigations by Democrat-led House committees:

Whitaker’s assignment with respect to the Russia investigation could scarcely be more obvious. He has dismissed the idea of collusion with Russia, endorsed the Trump Tower meeting, defended Trump’s attempts to pressure Comey, protested the FBI raid on Manafort, urged Rosenstein to restrain Mueller, and declared that Trump has absolute authority to shut down the investigation. Last year, after Trump fired Comey, Whitaker said there was “no case for obstruction of justice.” Whitaker suggested that Trump could use a “recess appointment” to replace Sessions with an attorney general who would cut Mueller’s budget to the point where “his investigation grinds to almost a halt.”

The reason Mueller is still investigating Trump’s crimes after a year and a half, Saletan writes, is Trump keeps committing them.

Plus, the press Trump love-hates keeps uncovering them. Like a moth drawn to a flame, he craves the light but cannot take the heat.

The Wall Street Journal last night published a lengthy investigative report from five authors with dozens of sources detailing Trump’s direct involvement with hush-money payouts to adult film star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. Concealing payouts Trump treated as campaign expenditures leaves him open to prosecution for campaign finance violations, the same ones to which former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty. The Journal reports federal investigators in New York have more than Cohen’s word Trump was directly involved in making and concealing those payments. They have receipts.

Investigations into campaign finance violations and Trump’s business practices by the Southern District of New York are in addition to and separate from the Mueller probe. Stopping Mueller will not stop them. Spiny Norman has a sibling.

Interviewer: Was there anything unusual about him?

Gloria: I should say not. Except, that Dinsdale was convinced that he was being watched by a giant hedgehog whom he referred to as ‘Spiny Norman’.

Interviewer: How big was Norman supposed to be?

Gloria: Normally Spiny Norman was wont to be about twelve feet from snout to tail, but when Dinsdale was depressed Norman could be anything up to eight hundred yards long.