Month: September 2019

The Reason I Can Never Enjoy a Good Night’s Sleep Until He’s Removed From Office 

by tristero

Here is why:

President Donald Trump’s acting national security adviser, former Reagan administration official Charles Kupperman, made an extraordinary and controversial claim in the early 1980s: nuclear conflict with the USSR was winnable and that “nuclear war is a destructive thing but still in large part a physics problem.” 

Kupperman’s suggestion that the U.S. could triumph in a nuclear war went against dominant theories of mutually assured destruction and ignored the long-term destabilizing effects that such hostilities would have on the planet’s health and global politics. 

Kupperman, appointed to his new post on Tuesday after Trump fired his John Bolton from the job, argued it was possible to win a nuclear war “in the classical sense,” and that the notion of total destruction stemming from such a superpower conflict was inaccurate. He said that in a scenario in which 20 million people died in the U.S. as opposed to 150 million, the nation could then emerge as the stronger side and prevail in its objectives.

His argument was that with enough planning and civil defense measures, such as “a certain layer of dirt and some reinforced construction materials,” the effects of a nuclear war could be limited and that U.S. would be able to fairly quickly rebuild itself after an all-out conflict with the then-Soviet Union. 

“It may take 15 years, but geez, look how long it took Europe to recover after the Second World War,” Kupperman said. Referring to the Japanese city on which the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb in 1945, he also claimed that “Hiroshima, after it was bombed, was back and operating three days later.”  

It is genuinely difficult for me to read things like this without hyperventilating. This is sheer madness. That someone this nuts should be so close to the nuclear chain of command… frankly, it’s only a matter of time.

And of course, Kupperman’s views are congruent with his boss’s:

Donald Trump asked a foreign policy expert advising him why the U.S. can’t use nuclear weapons, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said on the air Wednesday, citing an unnamed source who claimed he had spoken with the GOP presidential nominee. 

“Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can’t we use them,” Scarborough said on his “Morning Joe” program.

We are living in the single most dangerous moment in all of human history, far more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis or the other terrifying nuclear crises. During those horrific moments, the president of the United States and his advisers were, for the most part, rational actors who fully grasped what nuclear bombs were. Trump and his advisers cannot be trusted to act rationally in a  crisis.

And that’s the main reason why Trump has to be removed. And until he is, only the delusional or the clueless can sleep well.  The situation is profoundly dangerous.

PS For those arguing that there are enough checks and balances to forestall a dangerously disturbed official like Trump or Kupperman from initiating a nuclear strike, please read Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine.

Goodnight.

Catching up with the dotard

by digby

For those of my readers who don’t tweet or have tuned out Donald Trump for the sake of their mental health, I just wanted to put these here so that you can see what your president is sending out into the world:

Yes, he’s still delusional, narcissistic, vengeful, cruel, juvenile and stupid.

In case you were wondering.

Update:

President Donald Trump made a three-tweet argument Friday morning about why he should not be impeached, touting what he said were his accomplishments. Over the course of 139 words, he made six false claims — plus three others that aren’t false but could benefit from additional context.
Let’s go claim by claim. First the false claims, in the order he tweeted them:

Unemployment for Asian Americans and women

“All time best unemployment numbers, especially for Blacks, Hispanics, Asians & Women,” Trump said.

Facts First: The unemployment rates for black and Hispanic people are indeed at record lows, at least since the government adopted its current methodology for tracking those figures in the 1970s. But the rates for Asian Americans and women are not at their “all time best.”
The unemployment rate for Asian Americans was 2.8% in August, higher than the 2.6% in December 2016, Obama’s last full month in office. The rate did fall to a record low under Trump in May 2018, 2.0%, but it then increased; Trump continued claiming he had the record even after that ceased to be true.
The unemployment rate for women was 3.6% in August, the lowest since 1953 if you ignore the 3.4% in April of this year. But the record, set in 1953, was substantially lower, 2.7%.

Energy

“Became Number 1 in the World & Independent in Energy,” Trump said.

Facts First: These are separate claims, and they are both false. The US became the world’s top energy producer under Obama, not Trump; it is crude oil production in particular in which it took the number-one spot under Trump. And the US has not yet become “independent in energy,” though government forecasters predict that US energy exports will exceed US energy imports next year.

The US claimed the top spot on energy production in 2012. This is particularly noteworthy because Trump has accused Obama’s administration of perpetrating a “cruel war on American energy.”
“The United States has been the world’s top producer of natural gas since 2009, when US natural gas production surpassed that of Russia, and it has been the world’s top producer of petroleum hydrocarbons since 2013, when its production exceeded Saudi Arabia’s,” the Energy Information Administration says.

The US is close to energy independence, according to one common definition, but it hasn’t happened yet: the US is expected to export more energy than it imports by 2020, according to the Energy Information Administration. Still, Trump is stretching when he claims this has already occurred.

We should also note that the decrease in US imports and increase in exports began before the Trump administration; Obama presided over a boom in liquefied natural gas exports and signed a bill lifting a 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports.

“The truth is that both of the presidents of this decade (President Obama and President Trump) have presided over an incredibly brisk expansion of our capacity to produce oil and refined products. Executive policy has had little to do with the explosive gains, which are attributable to technology and price,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the Oil Price Information Service.

Definitions of “energy independence” vary. Even if US exports do exceed US imports, the US will still, of course, be using a substantial quantity of resources from other countries.

Judges

“Will soon have record number of Judges, 2 SC Justices,” Trump said.

Facts First: Trump might indeed break the record if he gets reelected, given his current pace, but it would almost certainly take him years; at present, he has appointed less than half the number of judges Ronald Reagan did over Reagan’s eight years, according to data from Russell Wheeler, a Brookings Institution visiting fellow who is an authority on judicial confirmations.

Wheeler’s data shows that Reagan got 373 judges confirmed to district courts and courts of appeal, Bill Clinton 371, George W. Bush 321. As of Monday, it was 142 for Trump, Wheeler says. Reagan, Clinton and Bush, of course, served for eight years to Trump’s less-than-three so far, so we’re not saying Trump will never get there — if he won the 2020 election and kept up his current pace of more than 50 per year, he would do so by 2024. But getting there over a number of additional years does not count as “soon” by any reasonable definition.

Trump could factually make a more narrow boast: in an August article, Wheeler noted that Trump had seated a record number of appeals court judges through that point in his presidency, leaving his predecessors “in the dust.” But Wheeler also noted that Trump had not set an overall record, when you include district courts, and had not set a percentage record regardless.

The Russia investigation

“Done more than any President in first 2 1/2 years despite phony & fraudulent Witch Hunt illegally led against him,” Trump said.

Facts First: “Done more” is subjective, so we’ll let it slide. But there is no evidence the investigation into the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia, which he calls a “Witch Hunt,” was illegal.
Special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed by a Republican whom Trump appointed, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Trump has questioned the motives and tactics of Mueller’s team, but he has provided no evidence of illegality.

“Treasonous crimes”

“No Obstruction, No Collusion, only treasonous crimes committed by the other side, and led by the Democrats,” Trump said.

Facts First: Mueller’s report laid out multiple cases of possible obstruction; Trump’s appointee as attorney general, William Barr, concluded the evidence was insufficient to establish a crime was committed, though other prominent lawyers disagreed. Regardless, there is no evidence of “treasonous crimes” by “the other side,” whether Trump means Mueller’s team or Democrats — and there is no evidence any such crimes were “led by the Democrats.”

“Treasonous” can be read at least slightly softer than Trump’s periodic claim that people involved in the investigation committed actual “treason.” Still, he is baselessly, though vaguely, suggesting some sort of treason conspiracy involving Democrats.

Former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig, someone who can be said to be on the “other side,” was charged in a case arising from the Mueller investigation, but he was acquitted last week. And Mueller secured convictions from multiple people from Trump’s own orbit: former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former deputy chairman Rick Gates, former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former lawyer and Trump Organization executive Michael Cohen.

Claims that need more context

Total employment

“More people working today than ever before,” Trump said.

Facts First: This is true, but Trump is basically taking credit for the population growing. As you can see from the government’s official chart, the number of people working tends to rise steadily with population growth.

The military and veterans

“Rebuilt Military & Choice for Vets,” Trump said.

Facts First: It is debatable how much Trump has “rebuilt” the military, though he has increased military spending. Contrary to his frequent claims, Trump did not get the Veterans Choice health program passed: it was signed into law by Obama in 2014. Trump did sign the VA MISSION Act in 2018, which expanded and modified the Choice program.

This was a more grammatically ambiguous version of the Choice claim than usual, so we won’t call it false. If Trump was claiming that he “rebuilt” Choice, not that he got it passed himself, that is basically true. The VA MISSION Act makes substantial changes to the Obama version of the program, allowing a greater number of veterans to reimbursed for seeing private doctors.

The report on James Comey

“WIN on Mueller Report, Mueller Testimony & James Comey……IG Report, which showed him to be a Disgraced & Dirty Cop,” Trump said.

Facts First: Trump can fairly claim a “WIN” on the inspector general’s report on Comey, which did rebuke Comey for violating FBI policy and his employment agreement when he retained and leaked memos he wrote about his interactions with Trump in 2017. It’s worth noting, though, that the inspector general found that a frequent Trump accusation — that Comey had leaked classified material to the media — was not true.

The inspector general, Michael Horowitz, said Comey set a “dangerous example” for FBI employees in an attempt to “achieve a personally desired outcome,” the appointment of a special counsel. This lent credence to Trump’s accusations that Comey behaved improperly.

At the same time, Horowitz rejected one of Trump’s favorite charges against Comey, finding “no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media.”

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Local politics is ground zero
by Tom Sullivan

NC state House members scramble to redraw legislative districts under court order for the second time since 2011.

As fascinating as the presidential race is — and imperative with an authoritarian kleptocrat in the White House — the rot in this country is widespread beyond the Oval Office.

“From Oregon to North Carolina, GOP lawmakers have used every dirty trick they can to seize power and undermine the power Democrats even after they win elections,” Sophia Tesfaye writes at Salon, unloading on Republican legislators as a class. She recounts crimes against democracy occurring across the country.

North Carolina made national headlines this week when, lacking a supermajority for overriding the state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, Republicans in the state House resorted to trickery to call a snap vote while Democrats were out of the room for September 11 observances. Speaker of the House Tim Moore had put a budget veto override vote on the calendar every day since June 5, hoping for enough Democratic absences to narrowly pass it. He scheduled no votes for the morning of September 11 and told the press and Democratic legislators there would be none. Surprise!

This is the same legislature that tried to strip Cooper of his powers between his 2016 election and his 2017 inauguration. Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan attempted the same after Democrats won governorships there in 2018.

Martin Longman, writing at Progress Pond, calls out the North Carolina GOP as “a kind of worst-possible-case example of where the national party is headed. Nowhere else have I found the Republicans to be more conniving, vindictive, undemocratic and downright criminal.” It demonstrates raw “contempt for democracy,” wrote the Raleigh News & Observer editorial board, “carried out by a Republican majority that courts have repeatedly found to have gained seats through illegal gerrymandering.”

A three-judge state court panel in NC this month ruled in Common Cause v. Lewis the GOP-drawn legislative districts in North Carolina are illegal partisan gerrymanders under the state constitution. Legislators are working overtime this week (image above) to meet the deadline judges set for drawing acceptable, constitutional maps or risk having them drawn by a special master a second time (see below).

In addition to other legislative malfeasance by North Carolina’s Republican elite, the ruling may yet have implications for another case to be heard this fall before the state Court of Appeals. In NAACP and Clean Air North Carolina v. Moore and Berger, a Wake County Superior Court judge ruled in February that two constitutional amendments placed (and passed) on the 2018 ballot are invalid because those same district maps are unconstitutional under state law.

Facing South explained the case in July:

The North Carolina NAACP is challenging two 2018 amendments to the state constitution that imposed a voter ID mandate and lowered the state’s income tax cap. The amendments were passed by the legislature after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was the product of unconstitutional, racially gerrymandered election districts. The state Court of Appeals will hear arguments in the case this fall.

In February, Wake County Superior Court Judge Brian Collins agreed with the plaintiffs and ruled that the legislature “lost its claim to popular sovereignty” after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2017. Collins’ ruling was limited to the two challenged amendments, which were approved by a very narrow margin.

Since then, new evidence has emerged about the 2017 redistricting process from hard drives obtained from the daughter of deceased Republican redistricting expert Thomas Hofeller.

So, the legislative districts North Carolina Republicans drew in 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court in North Carolina v. Covington ruled racial gerrymanders and ordered redrawn in 2017. Those districts a state court invalidated under the state constitution this month as partisan gerrymanders. Now, the GOP could also lose the voter ID amendment their unconstitutional body voted onto the ballot and voters passed in 2018.

It wouldn’t be their first time. Republicans lost Amendment 1 (passed 2012) banning same-sex marriages when a federal judge struck down the amendment in 2014. Should they lose their appeal this fall in NAACP and Clean Air North Carolina v. Moore and Berger, Republicans face a state Supreme Court composed of 6 Democrats and 1 Republican justices.

Given GOP recidivism, maybe there’s a case to be made for a 3-strikes law that disbands entire caucuses.

Tesfaye cites similar antidemocratic behavior by Republicans in Texas, in Florida, in Oregon, and in Tennessee. I could go on, but won’t. The point I will come back to again and again is that President Joe cannot stop this criminality in state capitols. Neither can President Bernie or President Elizabeth or anyone else on the Democrats’ presidential bench even if they win in 2020. Misplaced attention to the presidential media circus every four years has allowed the GOP to take over state legislatures from coast to coast. From there, and with the help of REDMAP in 2010, Republicans have systematically undermined democracy at the state level, corrupting redistricting and passing voter suppression and other laws designed to ensure their continued control of government as a minority party. Stopping them requires concerted local efforts at taking back control of state legislatures.

Democrats’ and donors’ focus on federal races, as well as an anachronistic party culture, means the infrastructure for Democrats regaining control at the state level is in many places as structurally deficient and in need of replacement as America’s bridges. But like climate change, that situation won’t improve by ignoring it. And like the climate, time is running out for action.

If we want change, we will have to do some remediation to get it. Like now.

Tesfaye wraps up her coast-to-coast accounting of malfeasance by warning GOP “calls for civility are actually demands for servility.” They don’t want to govern. They want to rule. (TDWTGTWTR. Too long?)

Friday Night Soother

by digby

This is beautiful:

Three orca whales joined this woman swimming in what she called "a life-changing experience" 🐳😲 pic.twitter.com/Agu9ahWIgy— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) September 7, 2019

I needed that … 🙂

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Who thinks Donald Trump is a moral leader?

by digby

His little princess:

At a mid-August fundraiser in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Ivanka Trump was asked to name the personality traits she inherited most from her parents.

Without much of a pause, Trump told the crowd of roughly 120 high-end donors that her mother gave her an example of how to be a powerful, successful woman.

And her father? He passed onto her his moral compass, she said, according to two event attendees.

Well that explains why she is such a soulless robot doesn’t it?

The exchange was part of a broader conversation about Ivanka Trump’s life in Washington and the White House during a swanky retreat organized by Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in the Wyoming mountains. Her appearance signaled an informal effort by the Trump campaign, family and top aides to woo donors this election cycle by sharing intimate, colorful details about this atypical White House.

The goal: lean on the celebrity status of the sprawling Trump clan, and even well-known aides, to make donors feel like they are part of the show — and deeply committed to winning the president four more seasons.

It also helps to humanize a brash president best known for his prolific tweets, his media-bashing, his boastfulness about his tough negotiating style and his well-worn Apprentice line, “You’re fired.”

Donors from all over the country appear to love the insider take — even if D.C. operatives or Wall Street executives would prefer more concrete insight into the president’s upcoming moves on China tariffs, potential tax cuts or regulatory moves out of agencies.

“As a Trump donor, it is energizing to hear stories about President Trump being personal and engaged on the issues,” said Dan Eberhart, chief executive officer of Canary LLC, a Colorado-based energy company and Trump supporter who has heard colorful stories at other fundraising events. “The media consistently and conspicuously omits any stories of the president being human or personally engaging, so these firsthand accounts really help paint a fuller picture of what’s happening inside the White House.”

Except, of course, Ivanka’s moral compass is her malevolent narcissist of a father so you can’t believe anything she says. It’s just more fantasy that makes them feel better about doing something they know, on some level, is absurd.

“This is a very low-cost way to make a big donor feel special,” said Tammy Vigil, an associate professor of communication at Boston University, who studies political campaigns and persuasion. “The idea is to make people feel like they have the inside scoop. You could think of it as being akin to spending the night in the Lincoln Bedroom, which donors used to get to do.”

“It’s the storytelling that has become the selling point,” Vigil added. “The stories may not actually be accurate, but it still gives people a sense of connectedness.”

Because they’re fools who are impressed by bullshit:

During Ivanka Trump’s conversation at the mountain lodge, moderated by former “Entertainment Tonight” host Mary Hart, the president called into the event to say hello and was put on speakerphone. Donors were absolutely delighted, according to four attendees in the room that night.

His message was simple. The crowd was in good hands with his daughter and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who spoke the following night. Implicit in his brief remarks was the idea that Kushner and Ivanka Trump speak on his behalf, said two attendees — a status the president does not afford to even his top White House aides.

There’s more stupid stuff about the Trump family at the link.

They are just … awful.

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Standard issue Wingnut xenophobia

by digby

Ainsley Earhardt pushes a white supremacist conspiracy theory: “Look at Texas. Is there a chance it could turn blue? You have a lot of illegal immigrants that are coming up there. If they get the right to vote eventually, then they could vote for the Democrats.” pic.twitter.com/aALkQST4Uw

— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) September 13, 2019

This is not new. But it has gone totally mainstream in the Trump era. I’ve been writing about this for a long while. Here’s a fairly recent one from last year:

On Monday, in a courtroom in Wichita, a federal judge told Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach that he had so blatantly violated federal discovery rules in a case he argued, defending a law requiring voters to prove their citizenship, that she ordered Kobach — a former Department of Justice official under George W. Bush — to take remedial legal courses. She also ruled against the law itself, saying there was no evidence it was necessary.

Kobach is best known for writing the “show me your papers” law in Arizona that was also struck down in federal court. He also headed up the ill-fated Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was disbanded after many states balked at Kobach’s demand that they turn over their confidential voter rolls to the federal government. He had very big plans:

Kris Kobach should learn to use folders and cover sheets. pic.twitter.com/q3sqB59wtA— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 21, 2016

Kobach is currently running for governor of Kansas, and the crusade to curtail immigration and voting rights will continue no matter how his checkered political career turns out. This is now a central organizing principle of the Republican party.

Donald Trump’s administration has the most extreme immigration policy in a century. Among his first acts as president was his theatrical Muslim ban. He’s beefed up the border patrol and ICE and told them all to “take off the gloves.” He put one of the most anti-immigration politicians in the country in charge of the Justice Department, and they are systematically deporting people, even those who have been here for 50 years. Trump backed out of a deal to legalize the DACA recipients at the last minute. Now they are separating children from their parents at the border and putting them into detention camps in order to “deter” Latino immigrants, even those who are seeking asylum from the rampant violence in their home countries.

It’s tempting to chalk all this up to simple Republican racism and nativism. That is certainly what fuels the emotion on this issue on the right. Conservative media pounds the message that “the illegals” are all on welfare (which isn’t true) and are ruining the culture with taco trucks on every corner. (If only.) But that isn’t the whole story:

Back in 2014, when the wave of unaccompanied minors from Central American came to the border, Laura Ingraham led the charge against those kids:

Oh no, you won’t. This is our country. . . . Our borders matter to us. Our way of life and our culture matter to us. Our jobs and our wages matter to us. No, you won’t.

She ranted day after day about these children, claiming that the government was “trafficking illegal immigrants from one part of the country to another part of the country to further erode American wages and further forward their goal of ultimate amnesty and changing the electoral and cultural landscape of the United States forever.”

Note that Ingraham said “electoral” landscape. We can see that Trump and his lieutenants see this latest border crisis as an opportunity to get their base fired up and get out to the polls in November. But movement conservatives have a long-term strategy in mind that goes way beyond the midterms and even Trump. That’s why cynical politicians and media stars have been pushing this issue so hard for the last few years.

They realized somewhere along the line that the fundamental xenophobia of the GOP base would make it very difficult to form any sort of governing majority that included Latinos, the fastest growing ethnic group in the country. So they decided their future prospects would be better served by suppressing the Latino vote with spurious accusations of voter fraud and demagoguery about foreigners more generally, in an effort to force the government to curb immigration overall. Anti-immigrant groups like VDARE have made the argument explicit, saying Democrats favor immigration because it will give them an electoral advantage.

Back in August of 2015, Rush Limbaugh endorsed Trump’s hardcore immigration position, saying that “everybody knows that [bipartisan immigration reform] is an immigration plan that is going to result in millions more registered Democrats.” He even got a shout-out from the big guy himself that same day:

Listening to @rushlimbaugh on way back to Jury Duty. Fantastic show, terrific guy!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2015

Limbaugh is a bit cagier these days, saying that he’d support DACA recipients getting a path to citizenship as long as they aren’t given the vote for 12 to 15 years.

Right-wing radio host Dennis Prager made a similar case this year in a piece laying out three reasons the left supports immigration. The first of these:

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, chain migration, sanctuary cities, and citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally will give the Left political power. An estimated 70 to 80 percent of Latin American immigrants will vote Democratic. So with enough new voters from Latin America alone, the Democrats would essentially be assured the presidency and Congress for decades. (If you’re wondering: Reason two is because they are Marxists and reason three is that they want to feel good about themselves.)

The ruling right-wing diva of anti-immigrant fervor is of course Ann Coulter. She has been ranting even more than usual these days, telling Breitbart that nobody should believe the “actor children” at the border, citing some articles from 2011 about refugees embellishing their stories to get asylum. Coulter’s influence on the GOP on this issue can’t be overstated — her book “Adios America” was clearly a major influence on Trump’s agenda.

You may recall that Coulter called Trump’s most notorious immigration speech during the campaign “the greatest political document since the Magna Carta.” It was later revealed that she and Stephen Miller had written it. There are no limits to how low she will go in demeaning and degrading immigrants, but she too has stated clearly what the real issue is. At CPAC in 2014, she put it this way:

Amnesty goes through, and the Democrats have 30 million new voters. I just don’t think Republicans have an obligation to forgive law-breaking just because the Democrats need another 30 million voters.

The nativism we are seeing play out right now is cruel and inhumane. It’s born of an ugly strain of white nationalism that forms the core of the Republican Party under Trump. But the conservative movement is still working feverishly on their own projects, using Trump and his demagoguery to serve their long-term goals. They know that keeping Latinos from voting and shutting down immigration, both legal and illegal, is necessary to their political survival as a movement and a party.

This time they may have underestimated how the rest of America feels about seeing small children ripped away from their families for cheap political purposes. Let’s hope so, anyway.

Yes, let’s hope so …

Did someone put LSD in Lou Dobbs’ Viagra?

by digby

For that matter, all the Republicans’ Viagra?

"The joint is hoppin'. There is sunshine on almost every face and our president is at the top of his game." You simply HAVE TO WATCH this edition of Dear Leader Watch. pic.twitter.com/LZm8h1vnA4— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) September 13, 2019

And people get upset when you call it a cult…

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I’ve got your rambling old white man for you right here

by digby

For all the fears about Joe Biden’s uhm …undisciplined delivery, get a load of this:

President Trump on Thursday told GOP lawmakers at a retreat in Baltimore that “it doesn’t matter” if people like him or not, they have “no choice” but to elect him.

“Whether you like me or not, it doesn’t matter,” Trump said at the conference Thursday night, according to The New York Times. “You have to elect me. You have no choice.”

“Our country will go to hell if any of these people get in,” he continued in reference to Democratic presidential candidates, further warning that if one of them gets elected they would “take your money and very much hurt your families.”

The comments were part of a 68-minute address he gave to the House GOP retreat in Baltimore, which took place during the third Democratic presidential primary debate on Thursday night.

During his speech, he also poked fun at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) name, which he reportedly shortened to “Cortez” because he didn’t have time to “go through the whole damn name.” He made a similar jab at the congresswoman at a rally earlier this year.

He also singled out some Democratic presidential contenders for criticism, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former Vice President Joe Biden.

“I hit Pocahontas too early — I thought she was gone, she has emerged on the ashes and now it looks like she could beat sleepy Joe,” he said.

The president also took a moment to criticize wind turbines, which he once said emit noise that cause cancer.

Trump said “they make noise, they kill all the birds, the energy is intermittent,” according to The Times.

While talking about the structures, the president also reportedly pondered about what would happen to a family watching the Democratic debate on Thursday night on a television that was powered by wind energy.

“You happen to be watching the Democratic debate and the wind isn’t blowing,” Trump said, according to the Times. “You’re not going to see the debate. ‘Charlie, what the hell happened to this debate?’ He says, ‘Darling, the wind isn’t blowing. The goddamned windmill stopped.’”

Forget MAGA. It’s obvious that he’s going to run on “you have no choice but to vote for me.” His BFFs Putin and Kim are nodding their heads in agreement.

Anyway, you can watch some of it here — if you’re a masochist.

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The NRA may be weak, but GOP voters have already been thoroughly indoctrinated

O’Rourke had a good night last night in the debate, mostly because he just said out loud what a whole lot of people believe on this issue — for once.

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My Salon column this morning:

One of the most dramatic moments during Attorney General William Barr’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last spring was an exchange between him and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., about whether he had ever been asked by Trump or anyone in the White House to investigate someone. Barr’s reply was one of the few times the extremely self-assured Trump lieutenant appeared to be rattled:

He said, “I’m trying to grapple with the word ‘suggest,’ I mean there have been discussions of, of matters out there that uh … they have not asked me to open an investigation.” When Harris then asked whether the White House had hinted at an investigation, Barr said, “I don’t know.”

Not that there was any mystery. Trump has been publicly demanding investigations of his perceived adversaries since he took office. He’s never tried to hide it. He’s said it to reporters and tweeted it out frequently. He has no regard whatever for the principle that a president should not interfere with the Department of Justice in general, and has no comprehension of why a democratic society wouldn’t want a president to use the power of federal law enforcement to punish his political enemies.

Since that hearing, Barr has made it clear that he relishes the role of Trump henchman. He has launched a probe into the “origins” of the Russia investigation (the third such inquiry) and is personally looking into the intelligence community’s conduct, having been given blanket access to all classified information by an unprecedented presidential edict. Barr may not have received a direct order to do these things, but there can be no doubt about the president’s deep desire for retaliation against all those who investigated and pursued the Russia claims.

It appears that Barr has found some fellow Trump travelers to help him fulfill the president’s desires. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Rod Rosenstein’s replacement and a longtime GOP player — with no previous experience in the Department of Justice — had given the go-ahead to prosecute former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe.

Donald Trump has had a couple of rough weeks. But that must have made his day.

You may recall that McCabe has been accused of lying to the FBI during a leak investigation, and then later to the inspector general, about whether he gave permission to agents to speak to the Wall Street Journal in 2016, regarding negative information about Hillary Clinton. McCabe claims it’s all a misunderstanding and most legal observers think a prosecution is overkill, especially considering that the Justice Department fired him from the FBI one day before he would have qualified for a full pension, which would normally be considered a harsh penalty for such an infraction.

Of course it’s true that the DOJ prosecutes people for lying to them all the time, and there’s little doubt that McCabe probably put people in jail for exactly what he’s accused of doing. So many observers might conclude that what goes around comes around. But this looks to be a political prosecution and therefore the stakes are on a whole other level.

McCabe has clearly been targeted by Donald Trump personally, along with his defenders in the Department of Justice. Why? Because after Trump fired FBI director James Comey and McCabe assumed his job, the latter ordered the inquiry into the president and Russia that eventually became the Mueller investigation. Trump has been pushing to punish McCabe for that ever since.

It may seem counterintuitive that the lie McCabe is accused of telling had to do with the FBI confirming negative information about Hillary Clinton, but that’s a tried and true move from this administration. James Comey was also ostensibly fired on the basis of his unfair treatment of Clinton — or at least that was the first excuse. One can’t help but think of this as some elaborate form of DOJ trolling, particularly since, according to the Mueller report, Trump repeatedly sought to have former Attorney General Jeff Sessions prosecute Clinton (and was mercifully ignored.

The New York Times likewise reported that Trump had asked former White House counsel Don McGahn to seek DOJ prosecution of both Clinton and Comey:

The lawyer, Donald F. McGahn II, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. Mr. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, Mr. McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Mr. Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.

The president needn’t have worried about impeachment, apparently. The Democrats are at sixes and sevens, unable to muster much of anything but very, very slow handwringing.

Still, the fact that the DOJ is prepared to prosecute Andrew McCabe says that whatever resistance there once was to giving Trump his enemies’ heads on pikes, metaphorically speaking, seems to have gone the way of Jeff Sessions. If House Democrats were actually inclined to charge the president with abuse of power, this case would certainly be among the elements of the crime.

At this writing, it’s unclear whether prosecutors will actually follow through by indicting McCabe. According to the Post, they called back the grand jury that hadn’t met for months this week, presumably to seek such an indictment. But as of Thursday they had been dismissed with no indictment forthcoming, which is unusual. The case is weak. Prosecutors involved in it have quit, with at least one expressing concerns that it is being mishandled. The president’s tweets and comments would almost certainly be used by McCabe’s defense to demonstrate that the prosecution is political in nature. Just this week a jury in the same jurisdiction acquitted former Obama special counsel Greg Craig for lying to the FBI, the same crime for which they could prosecute McCabe. Perhaps Trump’s team is not feeling as confident as they might.

If no prosecution occurs, I think we know someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue who will be very, very upset. But he should be soothed by the knowledge that he has accomplished something important anyway. Members of federal law enforcement will know that they should look the other way if they see any evidence of criminal behavior by Trump or his close associates. Who wants to be the next Andrew McCabe?

Trump surely feels very good about his latest attorney general these days. His personal Roy Cohn is firmly ensconced among a team of loyal Trumpers, dedicated to seeing that the president is protected from all who presume to oversee him. And who knows? They may yet get a show trial out of this.