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Month: August 2019

Trump’s war on people of color has many fronts

Published by digby on August 4, 2019

Trump’s war on people of color has many fronts

by digby

There is clearly a white supremacist terrorist front that is escalating its violent tactics. We’ve seen it in action this weekend. It takes its inspiration from their Commander in Chief.

But there are others working behind the scenes:

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller wasn’t getting an immigration regulation he wanted. So he sent a series of scorching emails to top immigration officials, calling the department an “embarrassment” for not acting faster.

The regulation in question would allow the Department of Homeland Security to bar legal immigrants from obtaining green cards if they receive certain government benefits. The rule will likely be released in the coming days, according to a pair of current and former Trump officials briefed on the timeline.

The emails, which POLITICO obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, shed new light on how aggressively Miller has pressured the Department of Homeland Security to move faster on regulations to limit immigration. Critics say the new rule will be used to shore up Trump’s political base in the coming election year, and that it’s an illegitimate tool to reduce legal immigration.

One former Trump official said Miller has maintained a “singular obsession” with the public charge rule, which he’s argued would bring about a transformative change to U.S. immigration.

At the receiving end of Miller’s pressure campaign was U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service Director Francis Cissna, an immigration hawk with strong support from restrictionist groups who resigned in May amid a broader Homeland Security Department shakeup that also saw the exit of former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and other top officials.

In an email sent on June 8, 2018, Miller lambasted Cissna for the pace of his efforts to implement the public charge rule. “Francis — The timeline on public charge is unacceptable,” Miller wrote. “The public charge reg has been in the works for a year and a half. This is time we don’t have. I don’t care what you need to do to finish it on time. You run an agency of 20,000 people.”

In the message, Miller derided Cissna’s overall performance at USCIS, the agency charged with screening visa applicants and processing immigration paperwork. Cissna was known for his deliberate approach to the regulatory process.

“It’s an embarrassment that we’ve been here for 18 months and USCIS hasn’t published a single major reg,” Miller barked.

According to a version of the rule proposed in October 2018, the regulation would allow federal immigration officials to deny green cards to legal immigrants who’ve received food stamps, welfare, Medicaid, prescription drug subsidies or Section 8 housing vouchers. It could also deny green cards to immigrants deemed likely to receive such government benefits in the future.

With Trump poised to make immigration a centerpiece of his 2020 reelection campaign, a new crackdown on legal immigrants who receive government assistance could energize voters who view immigration — even when done legally — as a fiscal drain and cultural danger.

“This is something that will play well going into the next election, especially considering the prevailing view among the Democratic candidates who are talking about admitting more immigrants and offering more benefits,” said Jessica Vaughan, a director with the Center for Immigration Studies, which pushes for lower levels of both legal and illegal immigration.


There’s more at the link. The repeated attacks on immigrants, legal, undocumented, refugees and citizens are coming from all directions, led by Miller and Trump in the White House. He has recently added black Americans to his favorite list of targets.

Keep in mind that these are legal immigrants they are harassing now. They are creating a lower caste in America of people unable to live and move about freely.

We’ve seen this sort of thing before.

Oh Ivanka

Published by digby on August 4, 2019

Oh Ivanka

by digby

Maybe you could spare us your thought and prayers and have talk with daddy. His racist rhetoric is the inspiration for half the mass shootings in America. This was found on the El Paso shooter’s Facebook:

Republicans always pretend like they are going to take some kind of action right after a mass shooting. Nothing ever happens.

Here’s Trump having fun last night as the nation was reeling from the shooting in El Paso:

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America’s carnage

Published by digby on August 4, 2019

America’s carnage

by digby

Cliff Schecter on the guns:

Your dystopian nightmare has arrived, much as you feared it would.

Looking at the imagery of the shooting by an apparent radicalized right-wing terrorist at the Earle Cabell Federal Building in Dallas, it’s difficult not to stop and recoil at the picture of two glass doors and a third revolving door in between them shot in; a cop on the left peering inside, gun drawn, while a female cop on the left, using the concrete of the building as cover, aims her gun down the street and a third policeman looks to be heading inside.

It’s a scene straight out of any number of scenes you’ve seen in bloody action movies, where the bad guy thinks he’s the hero. The only thing missing is Bob “Snake” Plissken or Neil McCauley’s crew in body armor.

The thing is, it’s all too real, even though I know it’s gotten increasingly difficult to tell the difference since a certain raccoon-eyed, apricot-coiffed huckster and zealot descended a golden escalator almost four years ago today and eventually ascended to the presidency with a little help from his friends. Or comrades.

The shooter in this latest installment of American Carnage—whose name I won’t help spread—was white, 22 years old, wearing a mask and combat gear (of the kind I saw go on for miles at the arms bazaar known at the NRA’s convention in 2015) and fired an assault rifle at a federal building that houses federal courts, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas, and U.S. Marshals. With a dollop of common sense and a peek at his social media, I could take a pretty good guess at what motivated this murder-bent madman.

But I don’t have to, because, per usual with those who act out what Donald Trump, some prominent Republican members of Congress, Fox News hosts, and right-wing talk radio-goons encourage every single day with their virulent lies, eliminationist rhetoric, and crackpot conspiracies, he left a rather ample trail of digital breadcrumbs.

A personal Facebook page is filled with a “collection of ammunition and swords” and a claim he was about to “defend the modern Republic.” Additionally, per NBC News, he published “vague warnings of an upcoming attack, conspiracy theories about the U.S. government, memes from far-right internet subcultures like 4chan, and misogynist memes.” And how could any page like this be complete without a swastika, and posts about secret pedophile rings and CIA experiments?

We’ve reached this dystopia, of course, by choosing our own adventure. On the one hand, we had the experiences of Canada, Spain, Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Israel, South Korea, Switzerland, every other advanced democracy, every credible researcher, and people possessing three-digit IQs not bought off like Mitch McConnell killing sanctions for Russian oligarchs willing to mine in Kentucky.

On the other, failed “hot mom” wannabe actress Dana Loesch, who craves fame like most humans would water in a desert, and a completely discredited fraud of a researcher, John Lott, who sometimes goes by what I can only guess is his porn name, Mary Rosh. And what to say about the organization they represent, the NRA, where a guy who committed constitutional crimes to sell arms to Irani mullahs so he could use the proceeds to arm right-wing Central American hit squads killing any nuns and children who got in their way was apparently the most aboveboard guy among the suits?

Yes, the NRA, which worked with an indicted Russian spy to allegedly funnel millions in dirty money to the Trump campaign, handles its finances like it owns the Taj Mahal (nearly $11 million in debt and counting!), is now under investigation for violating its tax-free status in New York, has double deals that themselves seem to be double dealing, and features a who’s who of racists, domestic terrorist-enablers, statutory rapists, and other lovelies on its board.

I know, tough sledding figuring out who to trust on how to best regulate guns. Do we pass real, meaningful, regulation of a legal-yet-dangerous product as the first group would argue, and like with every example in our history from alcohol to tobacco to driving and meatpacking, see deaths and injuries plummet with science-based, smart policy? Or take the word of the second group of grifters and cutthroats in it for the cruelty and the cash?

Sadly, you know the answer here. We went with Door No. 2, as the Republican Party’s used every anti-democratic measure in its arsenal, some baked into our system, others made up on the fly, to stymie legislation the overwhelming number of Americans want because it would clearly make us safer. Those Americans include a large majority of Republicans, by the way.

A study I recently conducted with my new political intelligence and strategy firm, GSB, found that over 88 percent of Americans supported universal background checks, including 83 percent of Republicans, 88 percent of rural dwellers, 89 percent of suburbanites, and 84 percent of men. This should be a no-brainer, but GOP electeds answer to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh these days, not their voters.

Hence, our dystopian present.

If you want to know just how ridiculous this has all become, this shooting took place around the corner from where five Dallas police officers were gunned down in a 2016 ambush. But that wasn’t enough for the Fox News interns known as the Republican Congressional Caucus do a damn thing.

For the shock-jocks on air who blather on about “freedom” and the “Constitution,” there is apparently a breezy ability to forget how the First Amendment rights to assemble peaceably and speak freely are lost when you’re staring down the barrel of an AR-15 purchased by an angry red hat at a private sale, sans background check.

In this era of endless Hollywood sequels and reboots, we’re watching the same inevitable and pointless horror play out again and again while headed toward what may become the most divisive election in the past 160 years, if Trump’s history, mouth, and thumbs are any guide. His kind of talk, amplified by Fox and all its smaller-but-just-as-ruthless friends, plus a lot of powerful guns in private hands with little to no regulation, is a recipe for tragedy that should worry us all.

I’m just going to leave that there for now.

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Excuse me, with all due respect: go to hell

Published by digby on August 4, 2019

Excuse me, with all due respect: go to hell

by digby

Truth:

Meanwhile, on the day white supremacist espousing Trump’s views mowed down nearly 50 people killing 20, this is what the president spent the evening retweeting:

In fairness, Dan Scavino tried to clean it up later:

Yeah, right …

“President body bags”? by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on August 4, 2019

President “body bags”?
by Tom Sullivan


Dayton, Ohio night skyline.

File under Make America Grieve Again.

Woke up looking for more details of the El Paso, Texas shooting on Saturday. Instead found a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio. CNN reports the suspect (deceased) wore body armor. Less than 14 hours separate the two. Only a single shooter is suspected in each case. This post will just summarize what I’m able to find this morning.

Twenty known dead, 26 injured in El Paso after a white male from the Dallas suburbs, 21, wearing yellow-tinted tactical glasses and shooting muffs opened fire with an AK-style rifle (7.62×39mm) at a crowded WalMart. Authorities are investigating the event as domestic terrorism. Police are “reasonably confident” the shooter posted a 2,300-word manifesto “filled with white nationalist language and racist hatred toward immigrants and Latinos” on a right-wing fringe message board, 8chan. NBC reports:

Terrorism experts warn that nothing should be taken at face value in the propaganda material left behind by hate crime suspects, which aim to provide fodder for social media pickup and mainstream media coverage.

The screed posted to the anonymous extremist message board railed against immigrants in Texas and pushed talking points about preserving European identity in America.

How many actual victims is in doubt because some El Paso victims fearing immigration authorities may have avoided hospital treatment.

Nine known dead in Dayton, plus the alleged shooter, 16 taken to hospitals. Eight were treated and released. “Most of us can’t get to our cars because there are bodies scattered all over across the street from our cars,” an eyewitness told Dayton’s WKEF last night.

An unconfirmed eyewitness account describes the Dayton shooter as a “white man in all black with an [AR-15-style assault rifle]” who “just opened fire for 30 seconds straight, killing or injuring 10-20 people” outside an Oregon district bar. Dayton’s mayor Nan Whaley reports in a press conference that the alleged shooter carried a .223 rifle, wore body armor and carried additional magazines (7:15 a.m. EDT). The suspect and possible motive have not been identified. Police killed the gunman in less than a minute after the firing began.

Beto O’Rourke in El Paso called out the president for inspiring violence:

USA Today displays this headline: El Paso, Dayton make 251 mass shootings in the US in 216 days, more shootings than days in the year. Others believe Dayton is 250, but at this point it is hard to keep count.

The president who takes credit for all things good and no things bad likes inventing nasty nicknames almost as much as he enjoys maligning non-whites, immigrants, and political opponents. How about “President body bags”?

When you get to the bottom: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood **** By Dennis Hartley @denofcinema5

Published by digby on August 4, 2019

Saturday Night at the Movies

When you get to the bottom: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ****


By Dennis Hartley

Helter skelter in a summer swelter
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter
Eight miles high and falling fast
– “American Pie”, by Don McLean

Chapter One: It’s 1969, OK

Once upon a time (well…a month ago) I wrote a piece about two related films; Andrew Slater’s documentary Echo in the Canyon, and Jacques Demy’s 1969 drama Model Shop, which Slater namechecks as an inspiration for his look back at the influential music scene that thrived in L.A.’s Laurel Canyon neighborhood from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.

I’d never seen (or heard of) Model Shop until its recent TCM premiere. From my review:

Like many films of its era, “Model Shop” is a leisurely, episodic character study. […] Interestingly, it is both very much of its time, and ahead of its time; a precursor to films exploring modern love in the City of Angels like Hal Ashby’s “Shampoo” and (especially) Alan Rudolph’s “Welcome to L.A”. Like those films, this is a gauzy, sun-bleached vision of a city that attracts those yearning to connect with someone, something, or anything that assures a non-corporeal form of immortality; a city that teases endless possibilities, yet so often pays out with little more than broken dreams.

It appears Model Shop is a gift that keeps on giving-it is also cited by Quentin Tarantino as an inspiration driving his latest postmodernist opus, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Then again, there are any number of “inspirations” fueling any Tarantino film you’d care to name. He is contemporary cinema’s doyen of pop-cultural re-appropriation (some cry “plagiarism”, but rare is the filmmaker who doesn’t wear their influences on their sleeve).

As a film geek who never meta-reference I didn’t like, I enjoy the parlor game aspect of his films. The title: “once upon a time in Hollywood” pulls double duty. It is a nod to a 1969 Leone western (Tarantino’s film is set in 1969). “Once upon a time” suggests a fairy tale; you can expect a subversion of reality, despite the fact it is set “in Hollywood”, a real place you can visit. A real place, of course, where they crank out fantasies-on reels.

Chapter Two: The Actual Fucking Review

It’s too late
To fall in love with Sharon Tate
But it’s too soon
To ask me for the words I want carved on my tomb

– “It’s Too Late”, by The Jim Carroll Band

Marilyn Monroe once famously said “Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.” Of course, she was specifically referring to the craft of acting, and the difficulty of maintaining integrity while toiling in the skin-deep recesses of the Dream Factory. Indeed, there are myriad stories of those who got off the bus in Tinseltown with stars in their eyes, determined to “make it” at any cost-only to get chewed up and spit out; dreams shattered, souls crushed.

Hollywood is also a “place” where you can divide your show biz types into two categories: Those who are on their way up, and those who are on their way down. Then, there’s the ephemeral confluence where (to quote my favorite line from Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous) “You’ll meet them all again on the long journey to the middle.”

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a screen capture of one such confluence. On her way up: Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie)…a young, beautiful star fresh off positive reviews for her role in the latest “Matt Helm” spy film. On his way down: her neighbor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio)…a middle-aged, alcoholic ex-TV actor with a middling film career.

Right out of the gate, Tarantino is signaling his intent to mix fact with fantasy by placing fictional characters (like Rick Dalton) alongside real-life characters (like the late Sharon Tate) in his tale; so, abandon hope now of standard biopic clichés…all ye who enter here.

Dalton’s partner-in-crime is veteran stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Booth was Dalton’s long-standing stunt double in a hit TV western series that made Dalton a multi-platform star du jour in the mid-60s (suggested by a cleverly simulated “archival” clip of Dalton lip-synching a song on the music variety show “Hullabaloo”-which triggered my PTSD regarding Bill Shatner’s nightmare-fueling but mercifully brief stint as a pop idol).

Due to Dalton’s driver’s license suspension (a result of one-too-many DUIs) Booth has also become the fading actor’s de facto chauffeur; in fact, he has ostensibly become his live-in P.A., groundskeeper and handyman – for which he receives a stipend. Despite that, their friendship is not necessarily transactional, like Elvis and his “Memphis Mafia”.

The two buds share a world view; demonstrated by a reactionary mindset regarding members of the counterculture (whom they refer to as “dirty fuckin’ hippies”) and a casual racism. In a telling flashback, we learn how Booth got himself fired from a stuntman gig on “The Green Hornet” TV series-he goads Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) into a back lot scrap by mocking his fight philosophy and derisively addressing him as “Kato” (this has in turn goaded relatives and fans of the late martial arts superstar into hurling accusations at Tarantino of Asian stereotyping and defamation of Lee’s character and legacy; I would argue 1.) the writer’s intention was merely to add exposition to Booth’s back story, and 2.) “once upon a time” offers up a major clue: THIS IS A FAIRY TALE).

About those dirty fuckin’ hippies. If you know Sharon Tate’s heartbreaking life story, then you’re aware her journey is inexorably enmeshed with a particularly odious group of dirty fuckin’ hippies. Namely, Charles Manson and his followers, aka The Family. Yes, they all have a part to play in this postmodern Grimm’s fairy tale; more on that shortly.

But first, back to Rick Dalton’s flagging career. Pushed by a fast talking Hollywood agent (played by a scenery-chewing Al Pacino) to overcome his “TV actor” stigma by taking an out-of-character role as a heavy in an arty western directed by Sam Wanamaker (Nicholas Hammond) Dalton reluctantly signs on (the real Sam Wanamaker did direct a 1971 western called Catlow, which had Leonard Nimoy playing a heavy…coincidence?).

I should warn Tarantino fans anticipating non-stop action with shit blowing up and/or a freakishly high body count: Dalton’s struggle to recover his acting mojo takes up a sizeable chunk of the film’s 159-minute run time. This is not Kill Bill Tarantino; this is Jackie Brown Tarantino. In other words, the Model Shop influence is strong in this one, as in (to reiterate from my review) a “leisurely, episodic character study” (well…mostly).

I know, what about that whole Manson Family thing? Brad Pitt gets his star turn when his character gives one of Charlie’s girls a ride back to the ranch (as in Spahn). Short of the climax, it’s the most “Tarantino-esque” set piece in the film. The sequence is drenched in dread and foreboding, yet perfectly tempered by darkly comic underpinnings and the idiosyncratic pentameter of Tarantino dialog. Bruce Dern has a great cameo as George Spahn, and Dakota Fanning is almost too convincing as psycho daisy Squeaky Fromme.

Which brings us to the climax. You knew where this was headed, didn’t you? You know this takes place in the Summer of 1969. You know what happened on that awful night in August. And, you know that this wouldn’t be a “Tarantino film” without at least one itsy bitsy shot of adrenaline, jabbed straight into the heart of sudden, shocking and surreal Grand Guignol. Surely. you’re thinking, a film involving the Manson Family and directed by Quentin Tarantino simply must feature a cathartic orgy of blood and viscera…amirite?

Sir or madam, all I can tell you is that I am unaware of any such activity or operation… nor would I be disposed to discuss such an operation if it did in fact exist, sir or madam.

What I am prepared to share (as I suspect anyone who’s read this far would really, really appreciate it if I could just wrap up this goddam tome sometime this Century) is this: DiCaprio and Pitt have rarely been better, Robie is radiant and angelic as Sharon Tate, and 9 year-old moppet Julia Butters nearly steals the film. Los Angeles gives a fabulous and convincing performance as 1969 Los Angeles. Oh, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is now my favorite “grown-up” Quentin Tarantino film (after Jackie Brown).

Previous posts with related themes:

Echo in the Canyon & Model Shop
10 Essential Rock Albums of 1969
Top 10 movies about the movies

More reviews at Den of Cinema
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On Twitter

— Dennis Hartley

This week’s carnage

Published by digby on August 3, 2019

This week’s carnage

by digby

I’m certainly glad we have a president who is tweeting and rallying his crowds with xenophobic and racist rhetoric. What could go wrong?

I’ve read the manifesto that’s circulating online. I won’t link to it right now until it’s confirmed that it came from the gunman.  But if it is his, he’s like the Christchurch killer — quoting “The Great Replacement” as his inspiration.  A white supremacist terrorist.

Here’s his leader today:

A message from the Trump administration:

Moscow Mitch Take Two

Published by digby on August 3, 2019

Moscow Mitch Take Two

by digby

Dana Milbank follows up with some other details about the majority leader’s strange and unexplained new warmth toward Russia and its oligarchs in the age of Trump:

“Moscow Mitch” was red hot.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, on the Senate floor Monday, denounced critics (including me) who say his recent blocking of efforts to fortify defenses against another Russian attack on U.S. elections are aiding and abetting Vladimir Putin.

“For decades, I have used my Senate seat to stand up to Russia,” the Kentucky Republican protested.

Unfortunately for McConnell, two days later came a reminder that he has taken a rather different posture toward Russia of late. Indeed, it appears, he has been key to helping Russian oligarchs with ties to Putin skirt U.S. sanctions and invest in an aluminum mill in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky.

Citing Senate lobbying disclosures, Politico reported Wednesday that two former McConnell staffers had signed on as lobbyists for the Braidy Industries mill, which is 40 percent owned by Russian aluminum giant Rusal. That company has long been controlled by Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch who, the United States alleges, has said “he does not separate himself from the Russian state.” Braidy also hired a PR firm founded by yet another former McConnell aide, the outlet reported Friday.

It is well established in Washington that, as Politico’s Anna Palmer noted in 2014, “there’s little difference between the McConnell confidants who used to be on his payroll and those who still are.” The article specifically cited former McConnell chief of staff Hunter Bates, who is now one of the Braidy lobbyists.

A McConnell spokesman said that the lobbyists, hired by Braidy on May 20, requested two meetings but that those were declined and no meetings have been held “to date.”

McConnell himself had championed the oligarchs’ cause before. After the Trump administration last year exempted Deripaska-related enterprises from sanctions, a bipartisan rebellion attempted to reinstate the sanctions (House Republicans joined Democrats in a 362-to-53 vote), but McConnell led a successful effort in the Senate to thwart the rebellion, which he called a “political stunt.” (In exchange for sanctions relief, Deripaska agreed to reduce his ownership in Rusal’s parent company, but Deripaska could retain de facto control .)

Three months later, the Russian aluminum giant announced its $200 million investment in Kentucky. McConnell declared in May that his vote to exempt Deripaska enterprises from sanctions was “completely unrelated.”

Of course.

It was also unrelated, no doubt, to the fact that Len Blavatnik, a Ukrainian American whose SUAL Partners owns 22.5 percent of Rusal, contributed $3.5 million to the McConnell-affiliated Senate Leadership Fund between 2015 and 2017, making McConnell his top recipient. Blavatnik — whose partner in the Rusal investment, Putin-allied oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, has been hit by U.S. sanctions — gave millions more to other Republicans and to Donald Trump’s inauguration. (Another Rusal owner, Russian state-owned VTB Bank, is also under U.S. sanctions.)

Russia-backed Braidy, in a government filing, said it sought up to $1 billion from U.S. taxpayers in low-cost debt financing. Democrats, concerned Braidy would supply aluminum to the Pentagon, requested an investigation; Braidy says it has no plans to supply the Pentagon and no longer seeks the financing.

A McConnell spokesman said the notion that McConnell helped Russian oligarchs skirt sanctions and invest in the mill is “an entirely false narrative that has zero basis in actual fact.” He acknowledged that the McConnell-affiliated PAC has received contributions from Blavatnik’s Access Industries and Al Altep Holdings, but he said Democrats have also received contributions from Blavatnik.

Beyond Blavatnik’s contributions and Rusal’s investment, McConnell’s venture-capitalist brother-in-law, Jim Breyer, who has made vast political contributions to McConnell, has invested extensively with Putin-tied Russian venture capitalist Yuri Milner.

This doesn’t appear to be a guy who, as President Trump described McConnell this week when asked about my column, “knows less about Russia and Russia’s influence than even Donald Trump. And I know nothing.”

McConnell was a Russia hawk for decades. But that hasn’t been so clear lately, with the Deripaska sanctions, the Russia-tied political contributions, the tepid support for investigating Russia (“case closed,” he pronounced, before the Intelligence Committee finished its investigation), and his allergy to aggressive action to protect U.S. elections.

I exaggerated last week in saying McConnell has blocked “all” election-security bills since Congress authorized $380 million for the purpose last year; senators unanimously passed, for example, relatively minor measures clarifying that hacking a voting system is a federal crime and denying entry to foreign nationals who have violated U.S. election law. But by the Trump administration’s own assessment, not enough has been done, and McConnell has resisted action on more substantive efforts. As Rules Committee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said in explaining why election-security bills aren’t moving: “The majority leader is of the view that this debate reaches no conclusion.”

But that’s no excuse for preventing the debate from happening. If Americans don’t have confidence our elections are free and fair, nothing else in our democracy has value.

McConnell is free to take any position he likes on oligarchs and Russian money. But if he wishes to shed the “Moscow Mitch” moniker, he’ll stop blocking the Senate from even considering ideas to protect democratic elections.

He is as corrupt as Trump and just as unpatriotic.

Having this revealed upsets him, obviously. But that’s only because he knows that on some level his right-wing constituents are feeling a little dissonance when they hear “Moscow Mitch.” They’re probably get used to it as Mitch inevitably adopts the “fake news” mantra.

But on some level, despite the fact that they will never admit it, everyone knows that Mitch is dirty. And he knows they know.

Oh, and by the way, he and his equally corrupt wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, are also neck-deep in illegal Chinese money.

He is totally corrupt and completely without morals or ethics.

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High praise for Warren from Obama’s guy

Published by digby on August 3, 2019

High praise for Warren from Obama’s guy

by digby

I thought this was interesting, and somewhat unexpected, from David Axelrod:

Here are my reflections on a stormy and revealing week in the Democratic presidential race. The first is that Elizabeth Warren is running a strategically brilliant campaign.

More than any other candidate, she has a clear, unambiguous message that is thoroughly integrated with her biography. That is essential to a successful campaign.
Her unsparing critique of corporate excess and her expansive — and expensive — agenda for change mirror those of the reigning left champion, Bernie Sanders, in places. But where Sanders sometimes seems like a parody of himself — or of Larry David’s parody of Sanders — Warren seems fresher, deeper and more precise in her execution.

John Delaney, the former congressman and health tech entrepreneur, learned this when he tried to tangle with Warren over her support for Medicare for All, a plan that would abolish private insurance.

Delaney argued that there were other, more politically feasible ways to strengthen coverage. But he delivered his point with all the charm of a corporate auditor and Warren crushed him with a killer line:

“You know, I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for,” she said, as the crowd erupted in cheers.

The jibe, like her entire campaign, is exhilarating to Democrats who have no patience for the incrementalism that governing in a big, diverse and closely divided democracy requires.
There is a valid argument, borne out by polling and common sense, that a proposal to abolish the private insurance that covers 180 million Americans might be too radical a change to make all at once. 
It also hands President Trump a huge cudgel with which to flay Democrats in a race that promises to be close.
But Warren has put critics of her grand plans on the defensive in much the same way Barack Obama put Hillary Clinton on the defensive in 2008, when she argued that Obama’s plans were fantastical in the real world of Washington.
A big aspirational message is more satisfying than a cramped, political one. Warren is positioning herself as Big Change versus the status quo. Yes We Can versus No We Can’t.
And for those who say that Medicare for All and some of her other positions are fraught with peril, Warren had another message:

“I get it,” she said. “There is a lot at stake, and people are scared. But we can’t choose a candidate we don’t believe in just because we’re too scared to do anything else. And we can’t ask other people to vote for a candidate we don’t believe in.

“Democrats win when we figure out what is right and we get out there and fight for it. I am not afraid. And for Democrats to win, you can’t be afraid, either.”
I don’t know if Elizabeth Warren will win the nomination. Her sometimes professorial style can be off-putting and she has yet to break through with the white working class voters with whom Biden and Sanders are doing well.
Moreover, there are legitimate critiques of her policy on substantive and not just political grounds. But it is going to take more than what we saw on either stage this week to win that battle.
Warren has a theory of the case and is prosecuting it very skillfully.

Warren has the policies. And she appears to be good at the politics too.