Month: July 2019

The Freedom Caucus’s cunning plan

by digby

Greg Sargent reports on the Trump henchmen’s plan to trip up that goofy old guy Robert Mueller and show him for the partisan hack he really is. Not kidding.

With Mueller set to testify to Congress on July 17, Politico reports that Trump’s leading Republicans defenders in the House are putting together a new battle plan that will finally expose the Mueller investigation once and for all as the fraud it has always been.

If Mueller’s investigation exonerated Trump, you would think the best strategy for Trump’s allies would be to simply sit back while Mueller describes his findings in as detailed and unvarnished way as possible. Oddly enough, that’s not what they’re planning on doing.

The monumental absurdity at the core of this disconnect is the reason this strategy is likely to backfire on Trump. Yet, at the same time, the very existence of this strategy, despite its obvious ridiculousness, opens a window on how the Trump propaganda network wields disinformation, and how in certain respects, it does serve his ends.

The Republicans developing this strategy explained it in multiple interviews with Politico. They include Trump’s most determined bodyguards against scrutiny and accountability on Capitol Hill, such as Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Matt Gaetz (Fla.).

These modern-day Clarence Darrows intend to ruthlessly expose “that Mueller’s team was biased against the president from the start and that the Russia investigation was tainted by inappropriate surveillance,” as Politico puts it.

Some of these lines of attack are matters Republicans have already obsessed over endlessly. They will try again to reveal that early surveillance warrants were improperly obtained. So far, those efforts have ended up producing nothing more than buffoonish pratfalls such as the comically ill-fated “Nunes memo.”

Then there are those texts between FBI agents, which were supposed to prove that the FBI tried to derail Trump’s candidacy. They didn’t actually prove anything of the sort.

But Republicans are also set to target Mueller with an attack that appears relatively new. I’ll let Jordan explain:

“The obvious question is the one that everyone in the country wants to know: when did you first know there was no conspiracy, coordination or collusion?” said Jordan, one of the Republicans’ fiercest investigators. “How much longer did it take Bob Mueller to figure that out? Did he intentionally wait until after 2018 midterms, or what?”

Actually, the big question is whether or not Trump’s obstruction made it impossible to follow the conspiracy trail. Also whether or not Barr ended the investigation prematurely.

But anyway … Sargent continues:

This is extraordinary. Mueller did not conclude that there was “no collusion.” His report clarified that “collusion” is a legally meaningless term, while also documenting extensive ways in which Trump and his campaign advisers encouraged, sought to profit from, and attempted to conspire with Russia’s “sweeping and systematic” attack on our political system, and then extensively lied about it.

Mueller did not find enough evidence to charge anyone in Trumpworld with a deliberate criminal conspiracy. That is nothing like what Jordan claims. But the monumental distortion that Mueller found no “collusion,” which is meant to imply that he found no wrongdoing or misconduct of any kind, will serve as the foundation for the line of questioning designed to undermine Mueller.

In other words, the Republican line of attack is basically: So when, exactly, did you reach this conclusion that you never actually reached — that no wrongdoing or misconduct of any kind took place — and how long did you conceal this nonexistent conclusion from the American people?

How Trumpian disinformation works

What’s really telling here is Jordan’s claim that “everyone in the country” wants to know when Mueller concluded there was no “collusion” and thus began suppressing it. As a substantive matter, this is silly: Polls show that majorities think Mueller did not clear Trump of wrongdoing and even still believe “collusion” may have happened.

But what this all illustrates is how this kind of disinformation is supposed to work. Jordan knows that the real intended audience for these attacks on Mueller — that is, the Trump base — exists in an alternate universe where Mueller found no corruption or wrongdoing whatsoever. He also knows pro-Trump media can be counted on to spin the events at the Mueller hearings — no matter what happens — into proof of that nonexistent total exoneration, and into proof that Mueller nefariously concealed the nonexistent total exoneration, too.

The fact that so many previous efforts to unmask the Mueller investigation as illegitimate imploded proves the point: Those implosions do not complicate the spinning of this alt-narrative in the least, because in spite of them, the alt-narrative’s purveyors just keep on claiming it has been proved right.

There’s more.

He’s right, of course. With all the dithering over witnesses, this narrative is in danger of becoming much more prominent. The news media is hungry for scandal and they are already starting to listen to some of this drivel or at least validate them by including this nonsense in their stories about the Russia investigation.

Here’s Louis Gohmert on Mueller:

“He’s done some irreparable damage to some things and he’s got to answer for them. It reinforced the anal opening that I believe Mueller to be.”

“… the anal opening I believe Mueller to be.”
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The trolls helped

by digby

I have no idea if this study is reliable but it’s interesting anyway, particularly in light of Jimmy Carter’s recent comments:

A new study found that for every 25,000 retweets that a known Russian troll account received during the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s poll numbers jumped 1%.

The study, conducted by a team headed at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville and published in the peer-reviewed University of Illinois-Chicago journal “First Monday,” suggests that — despite protests to the contrary by Republicans and Trump allies — the Russian disinformation campaign was successful in influencing the 2016 election.

Details: The Tennessee-Knoxville study analyzed 770,005 tweets in English from known Russian troll accounts, as well as corresponding poll data from FiveThirtyEight’s archive of multiple polling outlets.

Every 25,000 retweets of Russian accounts correlated to a 1% increase in Trump’s poll numbers one week later.

Given the frequency of tweets from Russian accounts, 25,000 retweets would average around 10 retweets per tweet.
Retweets did not have a similar effect on Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.

Caveat: Correlation does not always mean causation. If a Trump talking point encouraged a particularly viral Tweet, for example, it may have also encouraged a change in Trump’s polling on its own.

It’s also worth noting that the U.S. intelligence community has not conclusively weighed in on whether Russia’s interference in 2016 had a tangible impact on the results of the election.

I’ve always figured it probably had some effect. But it can never be proven that it had the effect of handing Trump his extremely meager victories across three swing states. There was a lot going on in that election, much of it under-handed and unusual.

But let’s just say it’s not exactly a radical conspiracy theory to think that the Russian sabotage of Clinton’s campaign and the social media dirty tricks may have had an effect. Of course they did.

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New polling not so good for Trump

by digby

The economy is his big advantage (along with incumbency.) But it’s not really helping him much because he’s well … him:

The solid economy is doing little to bolster support for President Donald Trump.

Americans give Trump mixed reviews for his economic stewardship despite the growth achieved during this presidency, according to a new survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Nearly two-thirds describe as “good” an economy that appears to have set a record for the longest expansion in U.S. history, with decade-long growth that began under Barack Obama. More people consider the economy to be good today than did at the start of the year.

But significantly fewer approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, even as it remains a relative strength compared with other issues. The survey indicates that most Americans do not believe they’re personally benefiting from his trade policies. And only 17% said they received a tax cut, despite government and private sector figures showing that a clear majority of taxpayers owed less after the president’s tax overhaul passed in 2017.

These doubts create a possible vulnerability as Trump highlights the economy’s solid performance in his campaign for re-election in 2020. During two nights of debates last week, almost every Democratic presidential candidate found ways to criticize the president by decrying the wealth gap.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said it was evidence of “corruption.” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders railed against the concentration of wealth in the three richest Americans, while former Vice President Joe Biden said Trump thinks Wall Street, not the middle class, built America.

Results of AP-NORC Center poll on attitudes toward President Donald Trump’s stewardship of the economy and his tariffs.

Christel Bastida, 39, a neuroscience researcher, was active in Democratic politics last year during the Senate race in Texas and plans to run for Houston City Council.

“I personally don’t feel more secure financially and I think that’s the case for a lot of people who are middle class,” she said. “A lot of working-class people are not comfortable now. I know there were tax breaks that were supposed to be helpful to people, but it turns out they’re helpful to billionaires and corporations and I’m neither.”

Nearly half of Americans, 47%, approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, but his overall approval rating — 38% — is low compared with what past presidents have enjoyed in strong economic conditions. Only about 4 in 10 Americans approve of his handling of taxes and trade negotiations.

The public skepticism has persisted even as the president routinely congratulates himself on the economy, including the 3.6% unemployment rate and stock market gains.

He tweeted last week: “The Stock Market went up massively from the day after I won the Election, all the way up to the day that I took office, because of the enthusiasm for the fact that I was going to be President. That big Stock Market increase must be credited to me.”

The 2017 tax overhaul was sold by the administration as a way to return more income to everyday Americans. But the poll shows nearly half say they think their taxes stayed the same or are unsure; 33% said they increased. This suggests the tax cuts may have been too modest to notice or were eaten up by daily expenses, or that people were disappointed with their refunds.

That feeling of being left behind has energized Democrats seeking to turn out the vote next year. The tax overhaul disproportionately favored corporations and the wealthy, allowing Democrats to say the tax cuts were fundamentally unfair.

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the amount they paid in taxes increased in the last year, 42% versus 25%, while more Republicans say their taxes decreased, 25% versus 10%.

Nor are tariffs popular.

Trump has imposed a tax on roughly $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, part of an effort to force the world’s second-largest economy to trade on more favorable terms with the United States. China retaliated with their own tariffs that hit the U.S. agricultural sector, causing the Trump administration to provide aid to farmers with lost profits.

The president has also threated tariffs on Mexico in order to get that country to reduce the border-crossings into the United States and has mused about hitting European autos with import taxes as well.

A mere 15% of Americans said the tariffs will help them and their family.

With regards to the national economy, just 26% said the tariffs will help, a sharp decline from 40% who said that last August. About half said the tariffs will be harmful.

Republicans, in particular, are less optimistic: Half think Trump’s tariffs will help the economy, down from 7 in 10 in August.

Ryan Brueggemann, 37, of New Berlin, Wisconsin, runs a dairy farm with his brother. He supports Trump but dislikes the tariffs, though he understands why the president has deployed them so frequently.

“I don’t believe it’s a great business practice to use them,” Brueggemann said. “But it came down to the point where our country is being taken advantage of unfairly and that the only way other nations were going to listen to what we wanted to renegotiate and even get them to the table to think about it was to get their attention by putting some tariffs on products.”

Paul Miller, 81, a retired shoe factory foreman from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, said he still intends to vote for Trump, since he hasn’t seen anyone better yet in the Democratic field.

Living off his pension and Social Security, Miller said the tax cuts were basically irrelevant for him. And he doesn’t agree with the president’s claim that China is paying for the tariffs, rather than U.S. consumers and companies.

“I sort of have mixed feelings about the tariffs,” he said. “Of course, I don’t believe it when Trump says we won’t have to pay them. We will.”

How about that approval rating overall:

60% disapproval in an economy that most people believe is good.

That’s unusual.

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It looks like Trump may get his tank parade after all


by digby

President Donald Trump has been steadily bulking up the annual Fourth of July celebration on the Mall, inserting himself aggressively into the planning process and demanding military displays of strength, including a flyover by the Navy’s Blue Angels.

Now, he’s decided that he also wants tanks.

According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon is mulling whether or not to let Trump have the vehicles, some of which exceed 60 tons and could do damage to the streets.

Trump has also eschewed the usual practice of hiring an event producer, diving into much of the minutiae — like from where to launch the exorbitant fireworks display — himself.

He has been eager for such a display, punctuated with military imagery, ever since witnessing the Bastille Day celebration in France back in 2017.

Actually, he wanted a military parade for the inauguration:

President Trump’s inauguration team wanted to show off the U.S. military during his inaugural parade, even going so far as to ask the Pentagon for photographs of “military tactical vehicles” that could be used in the parade, The Huffington Post reported Wednesday. 

Emails were exchanged between the Presidential Inaugural Committee and Pentagon officials, the report said.

He loves to play strongman military dictator. I would expect him to start wearing a uniform if he wins a second term. 

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Beautiful letters pay off. Trump wants to reward his best bud with a  pass on nukes

by digby

A very generous American gesture to a murderous dictator who has done absolutely nothing to deserve it

The New York Times reports that the Trump administration may be deciding to just let North Korea keep its nuclear arsenal if they “promise” not to make any more. That’s nice. Kiss Trump’s ass and you can do anything you want. I’m sure that lesson will be taken by many others around the world.

But then, Trump’s always been pretty blase about nuclear weapons. He cares much more about having strongmen flatter him (even though they’re all manuipulating him like a five year old.)

Recall this from the campaign:

Recall this comment in an interview in April 2016 with the Washington Post:

HIATT: Well I guess the question is, does the United States gain anything by having bases [in South Korea]? 

TRUMP: Personally I don’t think so. I personally don’t think so. Look. I have great relationships with South Korea. I have buildings in South Korea. But that’s a wealthy country. They make the ships, they make the televisions, they make the air conditioning. They make tremendous amounts of products. It’s a huge, it’s a massive industrial complex country. And — 

HIATT: So you don’t think the US gains from being the force that sort of that helps keep the peace in the Pacific? 

TRUMP: I think that we are not in the position that we used to be. I think we were a very powerful, very wealthy country. And we’re a poor country now. 

He said this at roughly the same time:

ANDERSON COOPER:So you have no problem with Japan and South Korea having nuclear weapons?

TRUMP: At some point we have to say, you know what, we’re better off if Japan protects itself against this maniac in North Korea, we’re better off, frankly, if South Korea is going to start to protect itself, we have …

COOPER: Saudi Arabia, nuclear weapons?

TRUMP: Saudi Arabia, absolutely.

COOPER: You would be fine with them having nuclear weapons?

TRUMP: No, not nuclear weapons, but they have to protect themselves or they have to pay us. Here’s the thing, with Japan, they have to pay us or we have to let them protect themselves.

COOPER: So if you said, Japan, yes, it’s fine, you get nuclear weapons, South Korea, you as well, and Saudi Arabia says we want them, too?

TRUMP: Can I be honest with you? It’s going to happen anyway. It’s going to happen anyway. It’s only a question of time. They’re going to start having them or we have to get rid of them entirely. But you have so many countries already, China, Pakistan, you have so many countries, Russia, you have so many countries right now that have them.

Now, wouldn’t you rather in a certain sense have Japan have nuclear weapons when North Korea has nuclear weapons?

Now that Kim Jong Un has successfully sucked up to Trump, he’s in the club too.

Basically, the Trump Doctrine comes down to “pay me (us) or else we’ll blow this place up right now.” 

The only thing that really matters to him is money. In every other respect he is a total nihilist. “Waddaya gonna do, shit happens, people die, whatever….” 

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The authoritarian bro doctrine

by digby

My Salon column this morning:

It was obvious by Friday that Donald Trump’s trip to Japan for the annual G20 meeting was going to be a doozy. I don’t think anyone expected quite the circus it turned out to be. At least the European allies don’t have to feel as if Trump has it in for them alone. This time around he showed he can be rude and disdainful toward America’s Asian allies as well.

Ignorant of history and contemptuous of existing treaties, as usual, Trump insulted the host country on his first day by complaining, “If Japan is attacked, we will fight World War III. But if we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us at all. They can watch it on a Sony television.” He either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that the U.S. dictated the defense treaty while Japan was under American military occupation after World War II, and the upside for us has been pretty obvious. Japan is a non-militarized, peaceful, democratic country, something that Trump apparently thinks should change. What could go wrong?

That was just the beginning of the slow-motion train wreck that took place over the next 48 hours. He spent virtually all his time palling around with his favorite strongmen. He praised Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to high heaven, telling him, “You have done a spectacular job.” When asked about the ghastly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump said that “nobody so far has pointed directly a finger at the future king of Saudi Arabia,” which is a bald-faced lie. U.S. intelligence agencies and UN investigators have both concluded that the prince ordered the gruesome execution.

The picture shown on the front pages of Japanese newspapers said everything about their deep, deep bond:

This G-20 family photo on front page of the Japan Times is kind of amazing. Wait for it. pic.twitter.com/6aEp37csSN

— David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) June 29, 2019

And then there was Vladimir Putin, Trump’s bestie. The old pals shared some laughs before the cameras about sabotaging the American election and “getting rid” of journalists. Trump later claimed that he spoke to Putin “a little bit” about election interference, but let’s face facts. Our president has made it quite clear that he thinks there is nothing wrong with a foreign adversary helping him win elections. (Needless to say, he would not feel the same way if his rivals were similarly aided. This isn’t a matter of principle. He does not have any of those.)

But even with all the glad-handing and backslapping with his favorite dictators, Trump found time to watch the Democratic debates and get into a spat with former President Jimmy Carter, who said he believed that Trump is an illegitimate president because of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This upset Trump greatly, and many people clutched their pearls over the allegedly inappropriate comment by a former president. But it should be noted that nobody in the world has observed more elections over the past 40 years than Carter. He knows a thing or two about the subject.

And what can we say about Ivanka Trump, who seemed to be everywhere on the trip. She attended bilateral meetings with heads of state, did weird video read-outs of high-level meetings and generally acted as though she was a combination of secretary of state and the first lady, even inappropriately inserting herself into official photos. You have to wonder whether Mike Pence might have something to worry about.

The real highlight of all these trips is Trump’s traditional freewheeling press conference at the end. He often seems a bit over-caffeinated and confused, perhaps the result of jet lag and spending too much time watching his favorite news shows on TiVo. This one featured some memorable moments, starting with the fact that it’s pretty clear he doesn’t know what “busing” is. But this was a stunning answer to a question from the New York Times’ Peter Baker about a recent interview with Vladimir Putin, in which the Russian president declared that Western liberalism is obsolete:

Trump closes the news conference by acknowledging Putin has a point when he says that western-style liberalism is obsolete, citing “what’s happening in Los Angeles, where it’s so sad to look,” and adds that “at a certain point, I think the federal govt maybe has to get involved” pic.twitter.com/WZ7TWOA45w

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 29, 2019

Putin’s interview was the talk of the meeting. Trump apparently did not understand any of it.

Normal leaders responded the way any American president would have responded in the past:

I strongly disagree with President Putin that liberalism is obsolete. What I find really obsolete are authoritarianism, personality cults, the rule of oligarchs.

My press statement at #G20OsakaSummit: https://t.co/4AxPbNnB1X pic.twitter.com/7IGDJpxtmY

— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) June 28, 2019

But the big news of the trip, of course, was the spontaneous reunion with Kim Jong-un at the DMZ between South and North Korea. Trump basically sent out a “call me maybe” tweet asking if they might say hello when he was in South Korea and Kim agreed. And why not? The most powerful man in the world is begging for Kim’s attention and requires nothing but some pictures to make him look like he’s accomplishing something. Kim doesn’t have to give up his nukes, and in fact, they become much more valuable to him every time Trump comes looking for a photo-op.

Tucker Carlson is now literally defending mass murder😳

“You’ve got to be honest about what it means to lead a country, it means killing people. A lot of countries commit atrocities, including our allies. It’s silly & stupid to point out KJU is ‘so mean”pic.twitter.com/k5PwASgELP

— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) June 30, 2019

Kim, of course, becomes a much more powerful player on the world stage as a result of all this. Meanwhile, the U.S. looks silly, particularly since Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner attended the meeting with Kim at the DMZ as well, along with — Fox News personality Tucker Carlson. Yes, you read that right. He later explained Trump’s and his own thinking on this:

“What is it with your cosiness with some of these dictators and autocrats at these summits?”

President Trump responds to a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta by saying “I get along with everybody…I get along with President Putin. I get along with Mohammad from Saudi Arabia.” pic.twitter.com/XTzGch646d

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 29, 2019

In fairness, ratcheting up tensions with North Korea would be much worse — as Trump is currently doing with Iran. But the idea that he’s somehow working toward a positive goal of denuclearization is absurd. Kim understands perfectly well that his nuclear weapons are his calling card. He’s not giving them up no matter how many cheap beachfront condos Trump offers to build.

Unfortunately, Trump’s compulsion to lick the boots of murderous dictators is actually making Putin’s contention that Western liberalism is obsolete look more and more as if it’s true. The world’s oldest liberal democracy is led by a former TV celebrity who goes around the world being advised by his totally inexperienced daughter and son-in-law and a Fox News pundit. It’s hard to argue that liberal democracy, as practiced by the United States at the moment, is healthy and thriving.

The second coming of Donald Trump
by Tom Sullivan

“Precious president” they called Donald Trump as they prayed for the cameras 18 months ago. He calls to them right back. Trump has plans for mobilizing the GOP’s evangelical base for his reelection in 2020.

Axios reports:

The goal: Paint Trump as a champion of socially conservative issues and warn evangelical voters that his defeat could destroy the progress he’s made.

• “There is a significant evangelical outreach effort. It’s going to be state specific. It’s going to exist in important battleground states and focus on churches and areas where we can have an impact,” a campaign adviser said. “African American outreach will be a component of that. … It’s robust, and it will be well-funded.”

Details: The campaign is hyper-focused on registration. It aims to make sure evangelicals, conservative Catholics and Mormons who are already registered vote on Election Day and — more importantly — ensure that the coalition they’ve built is registering people within their communities on the campaign’s behalf, a campaign official said.

No doubt Trump voter registration drives will find ways around criminal penalties Republicans have enacted against such drives in some states to suppress Democratic votes. Or else state officials will give a wink and a nod to volunteers in MAGA hats and to Ralph Reed’s Faith & Freedom Coalition. The group hopes to register a million new evangelical voters in battleground states such as Ohio, Nevada and Florida whatever the laws there say. The only unpardonable sin for “take no prisoners” evangelicals is getting caught. That makes Trump their kind of sinner.

“The future of U.S. democracy will be on the ballot next year,” warns E.J. Dionne. “No one should pretend otherwise.”

Trump’s evangelical base won’t have to pretend. Conditioned since childhood to think of Jesus as their heavenly king, it’s a small step to accepting Trump as their earthly one. Democracy is for unbelievers. They’re preparing for Donald’s second coming.

On the depressing Kamala birtherism …

by digby

CNN:

Sen. Kamala Harris pushed back Saturday against online attacks about her race, comparing the latest jabs to the racism faced by former President Barack Obama, as fellow 2020 candidates rallied to her defense.

During Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted to his millions of followers a Harris critic who took issue with her identity.

“Kamala Harris is *not* an American Black. She is half Indian and half Jamaican,” the critic, who identified as African American, wrote. “I’m so sick of people robbing American Blacks (like myself) of our history. It’s disgusting. Now using it for debate time at #DemDebate2? These are my people not her people. Freaking disgusting.”

Trump Jr. shared the tweet with the comment, “Is this true? Wow.” He has since deleted the tweet and a spokesman for President Donald Trump’s son told the New York Times that it was a misunderstanding.

“Don’s tweet was simply him asking if it was true that Kamala Harris was half-Indian because it’s not something he had ever heard before,” spokesman Andy Surabian told the Times. “And once he saw that folks were misconstruing the intent of his tweet, he quickly deleted it.”

Lily Adams, the campaign communications director for Harris, dismissed the attack, explaining that people, including President Trump, used similar rhetoric to question Obama’s birthplace. Obama was born in Hawaii.

“This is the same type of racist attack his father used to attack Barack Obama,” Adams told CNN. “It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.”
[…]
Harris, who was born in the US to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father who were both immigrants, has directly confronted critics before who have questioned her black heritage, her record incarcerating minorities as a prosecutor and her decision to marry a white man.

In an interview with The Breakfast Club hosts DJ Envy and Charlamagne Tha God that aired in March, the show’s hosts asked the California Democrat to address a series of derogatory memes that have circulated on social media. One of the hosts cited a meme that said Harris is “not African-American” because her parents were immigrants and she spent her high school years in Canada.

“So I was born in Oakland, and raised in the United States except for the years that I was in high school in Montreal, Canada,” Harris responded with a laugh. “And look, this is the same thing they did to Barack (Obama). This is not new to us and so I think that we know what they are trying to do.”

“They are trying to do what has been happening over the last two years, which is powerful voices trying to sow hate and division, and so we need to recognize when we’re being played,” Harris said.
[…]
Twitter confirmed to CNN that it had suspended some accounts that had been attacking Harris’ race, but said that those accounts had been suspended for other rule violations.

If that’s true it means there were a whole bunch of real people tweeting that stuff. And, it’s a real thing, not just a right wing troll. This won’t be the last we hear of this.

But make no mistake, it’s definitely a right-wing troll. Bon Domenech is selling “Kamala is a cop” t-shirts. Like wingnuts suddenly don’t like cops …

Oy.

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