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Month: February 2020

Resist the urge to jump to conspiracy theories, people

Published by digby on February 4, 2020

The most likely reason for the delay in the Iowa caucus results is the combination of new, untried technology with an overly complicated process and the ongoing problem of the media demanding instant results on election night. Sabotage is the least likely explanation.

Here in California, it often takes weeks to process election results and they often turn out to be different than the estimates on election night. It’s not optimal but it isn’t a conspiracy. Better to get it right than end up with what happened in Florida in 2000.

And anytime you see something like this, you should wonder cui bono?

That’s right. This plays directly into Trump’s playbook. Recall in 2016, Trump had his storyline all laid out: I lost because it was “rigged.” (It was, but in his favor as it turns out.)

US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said the election is “absolutely rigged” by the “dishonest media” and “at many polling places”.

His comments appear to contradict his running mate Mike Pence, who told NBC Mr Trump would “absolutely” accept the election result, despite media “bias”.

Mr Trump’s adviser Rudy Giuliani has also accused Democrats of “cheating”.

Polls suggest Mr Trump is losing ground in some key battleground states against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Mr Trump has questioned the legitimacy of the election process in a series of tweets, the latest of which said on Monday: “Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day.

“Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!”

An earlier tweet said: “The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary – but also at many polling places – SAD.”

The White House candidate also tweeted: “Election is being rigged by the media, in a coordinated effort with the Clinton campaign, by putting stories that never happened into news!”

He even said that he would only accept the results if he won.

So, while it’s understandable that people are upset with the Iowa results it’s really not helpful to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon without any proof. All it does is help Trump in the end.

Obviously, it’s important to figure out what happened. But there is no reason to believe that the eventual results that are going to be reported today are not correct. Waiting a few hours to get there isn’t the end of the world and the upside is that it’s now likely that the party will get rid of the Iowa “first in the nation” caucuses once and for all.

Caucuses are a terrible way to do elections in this day and age. They should all be abolished in favor of the systems that make it possible for people to vote in the easiest way. I happen to think the secret ballot is essential for real democracy to flourish and we need all the flourishing democracy we can get right now.

I’m sorry that people are disappointed they didn’t get their big moment of victory with which to roll into New Hampshire but really, by next month this will all be as distant as uhm … the impeachment of the president of the United States and our recent brush with the possibility of WWIII. Things come at you fast these days.

Breakdown, go ahead give it to me

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 4, 2020
Image via Iowa Starting Line tweet: “At one Des Moines precinct tonight, an attendee brought in a concealed bottle of wine, dropped it, and it shattered everywhere.”

For those of you who fell asleep last night waiting for caucus results out of Iowa (my hand’s in the air), there is not much new to report this morning except chaos, meltdown, debacle, etc. Headline writers grabbed for the nearest thesaurus.

Axios reports “not a single result” has been reported from the Iowa caucuses yet this morning.

The Iowa Democratic Party blamed the delay on “inconsistencies” in sets of numbers reported from the field. The New York Times reports a vote-reporting phone app the party developed only in the last two months gave users headaches. Iowa Democrats adopted the process under pressure:

… the party decided to use the app only after another proposal for reporting votes — which entailed having caucus participants call in their votes over the phone — was abandoned, on the advice of Democratic National Committee officials, according to David Jefferson, a board member of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan election integrity organization.

Axios reports new rules instituted to increase transparency went haywire:

The big picture: The debacle overshadowed the winners-losers story of the night, opened Democrats to accusations of incompetence by the Trump campaign and reignited the debate about how long this small, predominately white state should keep its lock on first-in-the-nation status.

Reporters Alexi McCammond and Margaret Talev add:

  • There were reports that some caucus leaders couldn’t get the app to work; they were left on hold anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours with the hotline they were supposed to use to report issues with it, or report via telephone rather than the app. 
  • “We found inconsistencies in the reporting,” a party statement said. “In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail.”
  • The statement said the snafu, which left cable anchors with hours to fill and nothing to say, was “not a hack or intrusion.”

“The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results,” the Iowa Democratic Party said in a statement.

Campaigns headed into New Hampshire’s February 11 primary having to improvise Iowa results and/or imagine momentum they believe they have. Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders declared victory based on unverified counts by their campaigns. Elizabeth Warren arrived in Manchester, N.H. telling supporters Iowa was “too close to call.” 

“We’re going to walk out of here with our share of delegates,” Joe Biden told supporters in Des Moines. “We don’t know exactly what is it yet, but we feel good about where we are.” Unverified internal tallies released by the Sanders campaign suggest the front-runner is no longer the front-runner.

Naturally, the Republican candidate who bankrupted his casinos and whose father repeatedly bailed out his failed businesses crowed that Iowa was “an unmitigated disaster” for Democrats.

So, while you wait:

https://youtu.be/ZYzy8LtyLsk

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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide election mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.

Midnight in America

Published by digby on February 3, 2020

I’ll just leave these here for you in case you missed the closing arguments earlier today.

Schiff was excellent as usual. His first statement evoking Lincoln’s Cooper-Union address which those of you who know this blog, know that I consider to be the most insightful speech about the American body politic ever given, was right on point:

This one just makes you feel sad, knowing that the system is so broken that Schiff has to appeal to the Republicans as if they were sane, decent people when we all know today that they are not.

If you have the time, listen to all of them if you didn’t get a chance. (I’m sorry that Nadler wasn’t able to attend. His wife is ill. )

Trump’s Super Bowl tantrum

Published by digby on February 3, 2020

The Super Bowl ratings were up to 102 million people this year. I’m sure not that many were watching the pre-game show featuring Trump’s interview but even if half were watching it’s a gigantic audience.

What did he do with it? He acted like a child, called names and otherwise made a fool of himself before one of his biggest single audiences ever.

C&L’s John Amato writes:

In 2019, “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan interviewed Trump.

In 2018 Trump refused to be interviewed by NBC.

In 2017 Trump was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly. His “good friend.”

In most cases no matter who the interviewees were, they discussed some matters of public and foreign policy. But for eight minutes yesterday, it was just a solid stream of spiteful Trump state-sponsored TV, hosted by his more recent best friend Sean Hannity.

Vox writes, “Trump’s Super Bowl interview was 8 minutes of pettiness and empty braggadocio”

Sean’s role was to set up Trump with only questions that focused on his whining about his political opponents. He Was a Bud Abbott to an utterly unfunny Lou Costello.

Trump was offered plenty of time to continue to call all investigations into his immoral behavior as “hoaxes” and “witch-hunts” and whine how his poor family suffered so much at the hands of the Democrats.

Then Hannity turned to the “lightning round,” which Hannity’ used to let Trump level unfettered attacks on all his political rivals.

It was pathetic and moronic, and once again the American people are left with no information about how their government is actually serving US interests. There were people in this country who actually wanted to hear about Trump’s Middle East peace initiative or the situation in Iran (war or peace? Ya think?) or North Korea… but instead was served up only red meat and childish nicknames.

I wish I could say for sure that his puerile tantrum turned off many more viewers than it please but I’m honestly not sure anymore.

By the way:

Taxpayers shelled out another $3.4 million to send President Donald Trump to Florida this weekend so he could host a Super Bowl party for paying guests at his for-profit golf course.

The president’s official schedule shows him spending two and a half hours Sunday evening at a “Super Bowl LIV watch party” at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. Tickets sold for $75 each, but were only available to members of the club — the initiation fee for which reportedly runs about $450,000, with annual dues costing several thousands of dollars more.

Oh those crazy hackers

Published by digby on February 3, 2020

Nothing to see here folks. It’s all just Democratic hysteria.

The man who bankrolled the campaign for Britain to quit the European Union boasted about a backchannel to WikiLeaks after Brexit leader Nigel Farage’s secret meeting with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, according to private Twitter messages that have been leaked online.

The messages hacked from Farage’s biggest financial backer, Arron Banks, also raise legal questions over the involvement of Cambridge Analytica in the Brexit referendum, undeclared lobbying efforts in the U.S. on behalf of a foreign power, and a breach of data-protection law by pro-Brexit campaigners.

Banks also joked about being a “full agent” of the Russian state a couple of weeks after Trump was elected president.

Brexit campaigners and Trump staffers became close in 2016 as the two upstart campaigns shocked mainstream politicians and won unexpected victories at the ballot box.

The House Intelligence Committee heard two years ago that Farage was a likely Trump-Wikileaks go-between. Farage says he was just visiting Assange to set up an interview. But the hacked messages seem to say otherwise:

The day after the meeting, Banks sent a private Twitter message to a friend. “I had a drink with nigel,” he wrote. “He had an interesting time with wiki leaks.” On the same day, Banks wrote to a Guardian columnist: “You will have plenty of new material soon ! Wiki leaks specialise.”

Glenn Simpson, whose company, Fusion GPS, came to prominence after the controversial Steele dossier on Trump’s alleged relationship with Russia, told the House Intel committee he had been informed that Farage delivered material to the embassy via a thumb drive.“Nigel and Donald love each other … The media don’t really get how deep the links go.”

“Nigel Farage and Arron Banks had a number of trips to the U.S.… there’s been a misrepresentation of the length of that relationship and the extent of it,” Simpson told the committee. “There was a somewhat unacknowledged relationship between the Trump people and the UKIP people and that the path to WikiLeaks ran through that.”

It turns out Banks has been making the same point about the depth of the relationship with Team Trump in his private Twitter messages for years.

I’m sure they’re all lying in their private messages, just as the Americans testifying about the presidential plot to smear Joe Biden were lying. And all the former staffers appalled by what goes on in the White House are lying. And our own lying eyes.

Everyone’s lying but Trump and his accomplices all of whom are as honest as the day is long.

Let’s investigate the investigation of the investigators!

Published by digby on February 3, 2020

Huckleberry Graham is on a tear. He’s been threatening to “investigate the Mueller investigators” for months now but hasn’t managed to pull the trigger. presumably, he’s waiting for the results of Durham’s “Investigation of the investigators.”

Now Graham wants to launch an investigation of the impeachment investigators. He wants to know “how all this crap started.”

It’s all a partisan witch hunt, dontcha know.

Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr has said that while he does want to hear from the whistleblower, he wants the person’s identity to remain anonymous, so Graham is probably right about this. They aren’t going to let this go.

Everything the whistleblower said has been corroborated by other Trump staffers including his former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Even if he or she was working on behalf of Joe Biden it doesn’t change Trump’s guilt for the crime he committed.

There has been no evidence that the whistleblower conspired with Joe Biden or Schiff. It’s all bullshit designed to appease the angry toddler int eh White House.

As I have noted before, graham has been saying he’s going to do this or that investigation ever since he ascended to the Chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee. He hasn’t done it yet. If he sees wavering in his poll numbers I would guess we will, but short of that, he seems to be vamping. At least for now.

Devouring themselves from within

Published by digby on February 3, 2020

If there has ever been a more corrupt, dysfunctional, chaotic, back-biting administration in history I don’t know what it is.

Recall that “Anonymous” op-ed and the book that came out recently by the same author. Apparently, people inside and outside the White House are using the anonymity of the author to target a true Trumper they don’t like for her policy positions.

Evidently, she’s a Middle East “expert” on the National Security Council who is actually an art historian. Ok. The publisher of the book has been forced to come forward and deny that she is the author because all the “whispering” about her identity has her on the verge of losing her job:

The literary agents for the senior Trump administration official who penned an anonymous New York Times op-ed and best-selling book are breaking their silence to swat down a whisper campaign pinning the unnamed writings on a top National Security Council aide — citing “truly bizarre circumstances” that forced their hand.

“Over the past weeks and months, there has been continual speculation as to the identity of the author known as Anonymous,” Javelin co-founder Matt Latimer, who brokered the book deal for “A Warning,” plans to say in a forthcoming statement obtained by POLITICO. “We have heard various theories and conclusions based on ‘solid reporting.’ We have politely declined to confirm or deny them. That was a decision we made in deference to our author and we had intended to stick by it. Now truly bizarre circumstances have forced us to change that position.”

Old timers will know what I’m talking about when I say that everyone on the right is a kerning expert. Their amateur detective work on this one is really something:

The Trump White House has been a hotbed of palace intrigue since its earliest days, and the whispers against Coates are only the latest in a string of similar campaigns. National Security Council officials have watched in horror as pro-Trump commentators outside the administration have channeled gossip and innuendo purporting to come from inside the White House. Many of the people targeted were career government staffers detailed to the NSC from other agencies, whereas Coates is a political appointee who joined the administration early on.

The purported identity of the unnamed author has been a potent weapon in the White House’s endless internal battles. At times, some have claimed to out their colleagues as Anonymous, who claimed in the op-ed to be part of a “resistance” of like-minded individuals inside the Trump administration. But the official’s name remains a closely guarded secret, and it’s not even clear whether he or she remains in government.

Coates, a former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), is a Middle East specialist with a nontraditional background for a top foreign policy hand. She’s an art historian and the author of a 2016 book on the Western canon, David’s Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art. In a review, the Washington Post’s Carlos Lozada called it “an unusual book, enjoyable in its visuals and prose, even if not fully persuasive in its arguments.” Coates, who once taught at the University of Pennsylvania, has a doctorate in Italian Renaissance art. She declined to comment.

Latimer and his co-founder, Keith Urbahn, are former aides to Donald Rumsfeld, and some allies of the president had pointed out that Coates helped the defense secretary write his memoirs, Known and Unknown. She also once blogged under a pseudonym for Redstate, a conservative website whose leading figures have at times been critical of the president, and published her book with Javelin’s help.

That’s the “evidence” they have for their claim.

The publisher’s response is unequivocal. If they’re lying, they’ve ruined their reputations:

“This ‘investigation’ is based on innuendo, the irrelevant fact that she once worked with this agency on an art history book, and otherwise unprovable allegations — which are unprovable because they are not true,” Latimer will say. “The fact that there is no real evidence has not stopped a whisper campaign against her to members of the press in the hope that someone would write a story. Nor has it stopped uninformed idiots from trying to out her on Twitter on Pavlovian command. As a result, her career is now at risk.”

Latimer’s expected statement on Anonymous describes his decision to come forward as motivated by a need not to allow “people of ill will to frame Dr. Coates or assign views to her that she has never expressed to us.”

“To be very clear so there is no chance of any misunderstanding: Dr. Coates is not Anonymous,” Latimer will say. “She does not know who Anonymous is. We have never discussed Anonymous or the book, A WARNING, with her prior to its publication. She did not write it, edit it, see it in advance, know anything about it, or as far we know ever read it.”

“We all have arrived at a truly dark and disturbing point in politics,” the statement continues. “A time when lies and conspiracy theories substitute for truth while those who know better say nothing out of fear of reprisals. And it is ironic if unsurprising that those who constantly whine about witch hunts are currently pursuing yet another one — without a single care for an innocent woman’s reputation, family, or wellbeing.”

Yes. That’s very true. Maybe Anonymous should come forward then, as should every other person in the White House who has a conscience.

Unfortunately, the US Senate has just endorsed Trump’s deviant, toxic administration because they got some judges and some tax cuts. If those people, who represent a separate co-equal branch of government don’t have any integrity, why should anyone else in Trump’s government?

“Inappropriate” vs “Impeachable”

Published by digby on February 3, 2020

You be the judge.

Clinton lied about having an extra-marital affair in a deposition for a case that was dismissed by a judge. Those people all said he should be removed from office.

Trump used 400 billion in taxpayer dollars to strongarm a foreign government into smearing his political rivals and exonerating the Russian government of their sabotage in the previous election.

But sure, the lying about an affair was a far worse offense.

It’s the crime AND the cover-up

Published by digby on February 3, 2020

Good old Lamar! That would be Sen. Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee — known for that exclamation point after his name, his plaid shirts and his quixotic presidential campaigns. Well, Lamar! threw his reputation and legacy into the fetid compost heap of Donald Trump’s presidency last Friday. Alexander is retiring after this term, so I guess Republicans figured he was the most expendable human sacrifice to step into the breach and betray his oath by casting the deciding vote refusing to hear witnesses in the president’s impeachment trial.

I’m not sure why anyone expected him to do anything else. Alexander is known to be Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s BFF in the Senate, and McConnell’s entire strategy for the trial was to cover up as much as possible and get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. The idea that enough Republican senators would have an attack of conscience, or even the rationality and decency, to call for witnesses in a trial was always a long shot. And frankly, Alexander was one of the longest shots of all.

I think the media got caught up in some of Alexander’s myth as the protégé of former Sen. Howard Baker, another Tennessean who’s been lauded as one of the Republicans who pushed Richard Nixon to resign back in 1974. As I’ve written here before, Baker’s reputation for rectitude was overblown. Early in the Watergate scandal, Baker was the back-channel conduit between the Nixon White House and the Senate Watergate Committee, working secretly on his behalf. The committee’s strategy was to question lower-level staffers first and then move up the ladder. Baker’s vaunted line about “What did the president know and when did he know it?” was actually designed as a cover story for Nixon, asked of people who weren’t in a position to know and giving the impression that while all this skulduggery was happening the president was out of the loop.

As we know, Baker later changed his tune when the evidence became overwhelming and happily accepted the plaudits for his alleged courageous patriotism, knowing all the while that he had actually been Nixon’s accomplice through much of the investigation and his famous question was actually part of a strategy to help the president.

Baker’s Washington Post obituary in 2014 opened this way: “Former senator Howard H. Baker Jr. of Tennessee, who framed the central question of the Watergate scandal when he asked, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” Lamar Alexander isn’t going to be so lucky. His perfidy is right out in the open. And unlike his mentor, Alexander didn’t come around in the end. He sealed Trump’s acquittal.

Of course, Alexander is trying to have it both ways. He explained that while Trump’s misdeeds had been thoroughly proven, the president’s actions had merely been “inappropriate” rather than impeachable, and therefore the Senate didn’t need to hear anything more.

He later made it clear that he planned to vote for Trump, telling the New York Times:

Whatever you think of his behavior. With the terrific economy, with conservative judges, with fewer regulations, you add in there an inappropriate call with the president of Ukraine, and you decide if you prefer him or Elizabeth Warren.

A few other Senators clearly wanted to jump on Alexander’s bandwagon, foolishly laboring under the misapprehension that they too will be given Howard baker-like kudos for their wishy-washy attempt to rationalize their behavior.

The once and future “reasonable Republican” Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse was a particular profile in courage:

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a onetime Trump primary opponent, took Alexander’s tortured rationale even further, admitting that what Trump did was impeachable but declaring that an overtly partisan impeachment is a bad thing. Rubio apparently failed to notice that his vote for removal would make it bipartisan.

On Sunday, Alexander doubled down in an appearance on Meet the Press. It was not flattering to him or the president:

He didn’t know what to do? Trump had just gone through the whole Mueller investigation, which was all about the strange coincidence that his campaign was crawling with people associated with a foreign power that was actively interfering in the election campaign. Alexander also fails to acknowledge that Trump called Zelensky the day after Mueller testified before Congress. Trump even mentioned that in the call, no doubt to show the Ukrainian president that he was home free. It’s always ridiculous to infantilize this president in this way, but in this instance it’s mind-boggling.

He didn’t know what to do? Trump had just gone through the whole Mueller investigation, which was all about the strange coincidence that his campaign was crawling with people associated with a foreign power that was actively interfering in the election campaign and fails to acknowledge that Trump called Zelensky the day after Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller testified before the congress. Trump even mentioned it in the call, no doubt to show the Ukrainian president that he was home free. It’s always ridiculous to infantilize this president in this way, but in this instance it’s mind-boggling.

Anyway, Trump does a good job of that all by himself:

This is a cover-up in plain sight. During the trial itself we had the book excerpts by former National Security Adviser John Bolton showing that the president and even some of his lawyers were lying to the American people.

And just to put an even finer point on it, on Friday night CNN reported:

The Department of Justice revealed in a court filing late Friday that it has two dozen emails related to the President Donald Trump’s involvement in the withholding of millions in security assistance to Ukraine — a disclosure that came just hours after the Senate voted against subpoenaing additional documents and witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial, paving the way for his acquittal.

That was the first time the administration had acknowledged that those emails existed.

The revelations in the Bolton book and these hidden emails being ignored by Republican senators is the equivalent of Walter Cronkite obtaining the “smoking gun tape” from Nixon’s Oval Office recordings, and Howard Baker and the boys deciding they didn’t need to hear it. They could then have concluded that even though Nixon had run an entire criminal operation from the White House, it was worth removing him because he had also done some things they really liked. (In fact, Nixon had some actual achievements, which is more than you can say for the current president.)

Everyone acknowledges that impeachment is a political process. If senators can take Trump’s so-called record into account as a positive side, then they certainly could have taken into account all the rest of Trump’s crimes. From obstruction of justice to epic-scale corruption to an administration rife with cronyism and nepotism, they know what he is. Republicans had a chance to break from him, at least symbolically, and send a message by hearing witnesses even if they weren’t going to convict him. They had a chance to make a statement that the Republican Party does not endorse this president’s criminality. They didn’t do that.

Republicans aren’t just covering up for Trump’s inept Ukraine plot. They are now full accomplices in everything he has already done and everything he will certainly do in the upcoming presidential campaign.

My Salon column reprinted with permission

Filing for dollars

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 3, 2020

The Iowa caucuses are tonight and Super Tuesday primaries are now a month away. Slate’s Molly Olmstead provides a briefing on how the archaic caucus process works — in Iowa, at least. Speculation on how the Iowa caucuses will shake out for Democrats is pointless, but it will fill cable news hours between now and when we actually know anything tonight.

February’s arrival brings with it groundhogs and candidates’ Federal Election Commission filings from the fourth quarter of 2019 (due by the end of January). Open Secrets’ Anna Massoglia else was checking out Donald Trump’s October though December filing over the weekend. No surprise, Trump is using campaign donations to line his family’s pockets.

This news is nearly lost in the crush of Iowa reporting and stories about the remaining Senate impeachment proceedings. Since we are numbed to Trump’s self-dealing, the New York Times mentioned Trump’s campaign profits Saturday almost as a footnote:

The Trump campaign spent about $194,000 at Trump-owned properties. The filings show that the groups supporting Mr. Trump’s re-election together made 150 separate payments to Trump-owned entities and properties, totaling nearly $600,000 for the three-month period, and $1.7 million for the year.

Most of the campaign’s spending went to digital ads, but there was also $1.4 million in legal fees the campaign spent to defend Trump from various legal actions against him. Some of those legal fees went to the Trump Organization.

I spent Sunday morning examining filings from some federal candidates in North Carolina. Five Democrats have filed to contest the NC-11 seat Republican Mark Meadows is vacating. The U.S. Senate race against incumbent Republican Thom Tillis has four Democrats running. The Super Tuesday primary on March 3rd should settle who will run in November, but cash-on-hand is a leading indicator — though not necessarily of the candidate’s qualifications for the job.

Like it or not, the ability to raise money is as much a measure of a candidate’s viability as how many people will stand in her/his corner of a gymnasium on a cold winter’s night in Iowa.

Many a rookie candidate files for office unaware of what it takes to be competitive. A friend once asked me to drop by the event of a Democrat running for Congress in bright-red South Carolina. They were under a pop-up in an empty parking lot. The candidate’s wife had heard I’d been involved with a congressional race before. She asked with hesitation how much it cost.

If you have to ask…. This was not going to go well, so I low-balled and said, “1.1.”

“Million?” she asked in a dejected tone.

That was then. As I reported last May, the average cost for a Democrat to flip a congressional seat in 2018 was $5.5 million.

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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide election mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.