Tuesday Reads
Posted: June 6, 2017 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, Incompetence 54 Comments
Posted by Bette Midler on Twitter 6/4/17 https://twitter.com/BetteMidler/status/871494188331786240
Good Morning!!
Just looking at the headlines this morning, it’s hard to see how Trump can last much longer. His administration seems to be crumbling under the weight of Trump’s own stubbornness and stupidity. I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll just start with this incredible story from The Daily Beast (emphasis added):
White House Looked at Dropping Russia Sanctions—Even After Firing Michael Flynn, by Kimberly Dozier.
The White House explored unilaterally easing sanctions on Russia’s oil industry as recently as late March, arguing that decreased Russian oil production could harm the American economy, according to former U.S. officials.
State Department officials argued successfully that easing those sanctions would actually hurt the U.S. energy sector, according to those former officials and email exchanges reviewed by The Daily Beast….
…the March NSC request to the State Department, asking its experts to consider the possible damage of U.S. sanctions on the Russian oil industry, came under the tenure of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, long after Flynn resigned because of misleading the vice president about conversations with the Russian ambassador to Washington about lifting sanctions.
A senior Trump administration official said NSC strategist Kevin Harrington was simply examining the sanctions on Russia and trying to determine their impact, as part of the review of overall policy toward Russia.
So much for the sterling reputation of HR McMaster. I wonder who gave the emails to The Daily Beast? Harrington, who had almost no government experience tried to claim that the sanctions on Russia were hurting the U.S. economy. State Department officials had to explain the facts of life to him.
In the March email, the State Department official explained to Harrington why helping Russia’s oil industry would damage the U.S. energy market, in particular, the shale oil industry.
“We explained, you’ve got it backwards. There’s an oil glut. The reason global oil prices originally collapsed is our shale oil,” the former U.S. official said in an interview, speaking anonymously to describe the interagency conversations with the White House.
In the email, the State Department official wrote “Russian production competes with US tight oil production at prices above $50/bbl,” meaning $50 a barrel. He was referring to the U.S. shale oil industry’s ability to make more money as long as the cost of oil stays above $50.
Please read the whole article. These excerpts don’t begin to demonstrate how idiotic these Trump people actually are.
McCay Coppins has a fascinating piece at The Atlantic about how Trump’s crazy management style will likely lead to this downfall: What Trump Really Fears.
As the blast radius of the Russia investigation continues to expand, Donald Trump is facing an unnerving new reality: The fate of his presidency may now hinge on the motley, freewheeling crew of lieutenants and loyalists who have long populated his entourage.
Last week, a subpoena for Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was approved as part of the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russia’s interference with the presidential election. With that, Cohen was added to a range of Trump allies who are reportedly entangled in the investigation—from outer-orbit figures like Roger Stone and Carter Page, to more visible senior advisers like Michael Flynn and Boris Epshteyn.
Sources close to the president say there is growing concern in the White House about what skeletons may emerge as investigators comb through a coterie of aides, past and present, who would have done virtually anything to win favor with Trump.
“My fear is that a bunch of people were freelancing—doing things not thinking about the repercussions, but thinking Trump would be so impressed by it,” said one person close to the president. He said that with all the resources the government is putting toward the investigation, “they’re going to want a return.” And in a climate like that, any misguided meeting, bluntly worded email, or undisclosed contact with a Russian official—whether or not Trump himself knew about it—could surface as an incriminating bombshell.
On Trump’s management methods:
Long before he entered politics, Trump established a managerial M.O. that came to govern his universe of aides, allies, and hangers-on. Essentially, he populated his team with a cast of scrappy, hard-charging mini-Trumps—people who idolized their boss, and sought to emulate him in every way—and then infused them all with an eat-what-you-kill ethos. Employees are rarely paid impressive salaries at first, but nor are they micromanaged. Instead, they are encouraged to hustle their way up the food chain, competing ferociously with each other to win Trump’s respect, and always seeking out new ways to prove their value.
“He likes to pit advisers against each other,” said one former campaign aide. “He likes the infighting … It’s definitely an environment where you might feel pressured to go the free-range-kid model and say, ‘Hey, let’s see what I can drum up to impress him with.’”
Again, please go read the whole thing. We may be fortunate that the Russians picked such a moronic candidate to support.
Paul Waldman reacts to the Coppins piece at The Week: Trump’s unwinnable war against his own administration.
If you’re like most people, you’ve had a boss you couldn’t stand. But what if your boss couldn’t stand you either? And what if he felt the same way about lots of your coworkers? And if he seemed to be trying to destroy your organization from the inside, not merely through incompetence but through genuine malice? How weird would that be?
Pretty darn weird, as those in the executive branch of the United States government could tell you. Because right now it appears as though President Trump has practically gone to war against his own administration.
Even at the best of times, working for Trump is no picnic. “He likes to pit advisers against each other,” a former campaign aide told McKay Coppins of The Atlantic. “He likes the infighting.” In theory a healthy spirit of friendly competition could produce better results, as everyone vies to get that “Employee of the Month” mug to put on their desk and win the admiring glances of their colleagues. On the other hand, it could devolve into an endless demolition derby of schemes, recriminations, and leaks to the press about how the other factions are a bunch of idiots. Which is what the White House is like right now.
But the real problem is less the staff’s conflicts with each other than the fact that the president seems terribly unhappy with the people who toil in his employ, particularly when they’re trying to restrain him from making a fool of himself or creating policy nightmares.
A case in point: Trump is now turning on one of his most loyal supporters, according to The New York Times: Trump Grows Discontented With Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Few Republicans were quicker to embrace President Trump’s campaign last year than Jeff Sessions, and his reward was one of the most prestigious jobs in America. But more than four months into his presidency, Mr. Trump has grown sour on Mr. Sessions, now his attorney general, blaming him for various troubles that have plagued the White House.
The discontent was on display on Monday in a series of stark early-morning postings on Twitter in which the president faulted his own Justice Department for its defense of his travel ban on visitors from certain predominantly Muslim countries. Mr. Trump accused Mr. Sessions’s department of devising a “politically correct” version of the ban — as if the president had nothing to do with it.
In private, the president’s exasperation has been even sharper. He has intermittently fumed for months over Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election, according to people close to Mr. Trump who insisted on anonymity to describe internal conversations. In Mr. Trump’s view, they said, it was that recusal that eventually led to the appointment of a special counsel who took over the investigation.
Behind-the-scenes frustration would not be unprecedented in the Oval Office. Other presidents have become estranged from the Justice Department over time, notably President Bill Clinton, who bristled at Attorney General Janet Reno’s decisions to authorize investigations into him and his administration, among other things. But Mr. Trump’s tweets on Monday made his feelings evident for all to see and raised questions about how he is managing his own administration.
“They wholly undercut the idea that there is some rational process behind the president’s decisions,” said Walter E. Dellinger, who served as acting solicitor general under Mr. Clinton. “I believe it is unprecedented for a president to publicly chastise his own Justice Department.”
Read more at the NYT.
Trump whined on Twitter yesterday that Democrats are blocking his appointments.
But the real problem is that Trump himself has announced appointments and then failed to submit them to the Senate!
Politico: How Trump is stalling his own nominees.
President Donald Trump is lashing out at Democrats for allegedly stalling his appointments and agenda, but it’s his own administration that is frequentlRy sitting on the necessary paperwork for nominees.
Trump tapped Kevin McAleenan on March 30 to lead Customs and Border Protection, a critical position for his drive to revamp U.S. immigration policy. But the White House didn’t formally submit his nomination to the Senate for confirmation until May 22, nearly eight weeks later.
And McAleenan’s nomination is far from alone in taking weeks to be sent to the Senate, where Republicans are growing impatient and bewildered with the Trump White House’s historic lag in filling administration posts.
Trump’s two nominees for the Export-Import Bank board — ex-GOP Reps. Scott Garrett and Spencer Bachus — haven’t been submitted to the Senate, despite being named April 14. Trump rolled out a batch of 10 judicial nominations to much fanfare on May 8, but two of them have yet to arrive on Capitol Hill.
And Dan Brouillette, nominated by Trump to be Rick Perry’s chief deputy at the Energy Department, was announced on April 3, yet his nomination wasn’t sent by the White House until May 16.
Read the entire shocking story. It’s hard to believe how dysfunctional this administration really is.
As the Comey testimony on Friday approaches, Republicans are growing anxious about Trump’s inability to control himself, according Robert Costa at The Washington Post: As Trump lashes out, Republicans grow uneasy.
President Trump, after days of lashing out angrily at the London mayor and federal courts in the wake of the London Bridge terrorist attack, faces a convergence of challenges this week that threatens to exacerbate the fury that has gripped him — and that could further hobble a Republican agenda that has slowed to a crawl on Capitol Hill.
Instead of hunkering down and delicately navigating the legal and political thicket — as some White House aides have suggested — Trump spent much of Monday launching volleys on Twitter, unable to resist continuing, in effect, as his own lawyer, spokesman, cheerleader and media watchdog.
Trump escalated his criticism of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, incorrectly stating that Khan had told Londoners to not be “alarmed” about terrorism. He vented about the Justice Department, which he said pushed a “politically correct” version of his policy to block immigration from six predominantly Muslim countries, which Trump signed before it was halted in court. He also complained that Senate Democrats are “taking forever to approve” his appointees and ambassadors.
Inside the White House, top officials have in various ways gently suggested to Trump over the past week that he should leave the feuding to surrogates, according to two people who were not authorized to speak publicly. But Trump has repeatedly shrugged off that advice, these people said.
On Republican reaction:
Trump’s refusal to disengage from the daily storm of news — coming ahead of former FBI director James B. Comey’s highly anticipated public testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday — is both unsurprising and unsettling to many Republicans, who are already skittish about the questions they may confront in the aftermath of the hearing. In particular, they foresee Democratic accusations that Trump’s exchanges with Comey about the FBI probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign were an effort to obstruct justice.
Some Republicans fear that Trump’s reactions will only worsen the potential damage.
Gee, no kidding. Some Republicans are going to go down with Trump and they’ll deserve what they get.
One more and then I’ll put the rest of my links in the comment thread. It seems Trump had a hard time getting a lawyer to defend him in the Russia investigation.
Michael Isikoff: Four top law firms turned down requests to represent Trump.
Top lawyers with at least four major law firms rebuffed White House overtures to represent President Trump in the Russia investigations, in part over concerns that the president would be unwilling to listen to their advice, according to five sources familiar with discussions about the matter.
The unwillingness of some of the country’s most prestigious attorneys and their law firms to represent Trump has complicated the administration’s efforts to mount a coherent defense strategy to deal with probes being conducted by four congressional committees as well as Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller.
The president’s chief lawyer now in charge of the case is Marc E. Kasowitz, a tough New York civil litigator who for years has aggressively represented Trump in multiple business and public relations disputes — often with threats of countersuits and menacing public statements — but who has little experience dealing with complex congressional and Justice Department investigations that are inevitably influenced by media coverage and public opinion.
Before Kasowitz was retained, however, some of the biggest law firms and their best-known attorneys turned down overtures when they were sounded out by White House officials to see if they would be willing to represent the president, the sources said.
Among them, sources said, were some of the most high-profile names in the legal profession, including Brendan Sullivan of Williams & Connolly; Ted Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Paul Clement and Mark Filip of Kirkland & Ellis; and Robert Giuffra of Sullivan & Cromwell.
What else is happening? What stories are you following today?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Lol, Bette Midler posted that?
I put the link in the caption so you can check it out.
https://twitter.com/BetteMidler/status/871494188331786240
So the Intercept posted a top secret NSA document and then they inadvertently outed their source.
TOP-SECRET NSA REPORT DETAILS RUSSIAN HACKING EFFORT DAYS BEFORE 2016 ELECTION
The Atlantic: Who Is Reality Winner? The 25-year-old Air Force Veteran has been charged with mailing classified material to a news outlet.
BBC News: Qatar diplomatic crisis: What you need to know.
BBC News: Qatar row: Trump claims credit for isolation.
I’ve been reading about that. Makes me glad that I just read the arms deal to the Saudis is bogus.
So, this is what I’ve been reading …
https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/872075313894838272
Thanks! I was just about to post that. It’s everywhere now and I was looking for your original link.
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I wonder if Trump knows that our main military base in the ME is in Qatar?
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Can you imagine being stationed there at the moment?
I imagine the embassy doesn’t feel every safe either. Good thing Qatar is probably the most modern of the nations in the region! It certainly isn’t SA.
Some one also need to inform Trump about where the 9.11 bombers and their money originated.
Is “credit” the right word?
Politico:
Everything we know about the Mueller probe so far.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/06/mueller-russia-probe-trump-239163
WaPo: Senior diplomat in Beijing embassy resigns over Trump’s climate change decision.
Stuff: Bird-flipping welcome for US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in New Zealand.
Hah! Good for the Kiwis!
The Comey testimony is getting all the attention, but there will be an interesting hearing on Wednesday too.
Alternet: NSA Director Mike Rogers Poised to ‘Drop a Bomb’ on Trump Admin During Wednesday Testimony: MSNBC
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Thereby giving Mueller even more info.
No kidding – he’ll be shooting himself in the foot every few seconds.
He won’t have a shred of dignity (what’s left of any he still has) after this.
As Joy Reid says, Jesus take the wheel. I’ve started ordering popcorn by the pallet, but honestly, you get tired of popcorn, y’know? Maybe time for some of those wasabi soy nuts? Or those lovely sheets of nori? Kale chips with a spot of balsamic vinegar? I’m going to need a cookbook’s worth of different things to make it through this saga.
I bet the political cartoonists, SNL writers, and the folks in late night TV are dancing naked in the streets with bottles of champagne!!!
his aides must’ve wised up and worked to keep him occupied…
Dang! I was sooo looking forward to the public meltdown on Twitter. I bet he somehow finds a way to do it. Remember when he started tweeting during the RNC when the Benghazi mother was giving her speech?
He just cannot help himself.
Who’s going to cover it? He may be giving a speech to an empty room.
That’s probably what they’d like as long as he is as far away as possible from his cell phone. They may just pay folks to sit there.
Did you read this Costa piece?
It’s quoted in my post, lol
That was the piece you quoted! Sheesh! I missed that. I thought this was a different one!
my bad!!!
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Well, Mitch Daniels is certainly much more sharp then Mike Pence ….
Daniels is smart, but evil.
In case you missed it:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a55494/trump-cheap-hotels/
Charlie Pierce calls the bambinos “spalpeen” – I had to look it up. LOLOLOL. So they’re opening an economy hotel chain called “American Idea” starting with the Mississippi delta casino gambling area.
But SHHH! I’m sure they don’t want their father to know.
I just removed the local “progressive” jazz station from my car radio presets after hearing some male NPR-syndicated bozo going full blast after Hillary Clinton for not saying she was completely responsible for her narrow electoral college loss.
This is so frustrating – the more that comes out showing that this election was stolen, the more the baying media is after Hillary to say every freakin preposterous unforeseeable unthinkable event was her sole and own fault.
It doesn’t even make any logical sense. If Russia really did steal this election and hand it to tRump, then Hillary Clinton is the chief victim. But the media, in their blind hatred of women and their desperation to wash off their own guilt, are actively pushing the narrative of a heinous crime that has no victim. They want Hillary Clinton guilty of every single thing that gave us Donald Trump, -and- to be themselves the virtuous gladiators waging an ongoing battle to save America from an unthinkably corrupt administration and from unprecedented interference by a foreign power.
Being the medial, they probably will get away with having it both ways.
“their blind hatred of women and their desperation to wash off their own guilt”
That’s the whole enchilada, right there.
Especially the blind hatred of women, because if it was just guilt they could be jumping on the Russian cyberwar to absolve themselves.
Why?!!! I have never understood the insane, over the top Hillary hatred that lives in so many. Why is she always blamed for everything?! Goddess, she must be the most powerful person on Earth to be responsible for everything that goes wrong! MAKES ME ILL!!!
My opinion is it stems from a very ingrained fear and mistrust of women. Both men and women are conditioned this way from birth. People can’t even describe why they hate her – they just distrust her. I’ve seen even liberal pundits on TV turn into Dr. Hyde when they talk about her.
And yet she’s one of the most trustworthy and compassionate public servants we’ve ever had.
But there is Merkel in Germany, May in Britain, Thatcher long before May…..What’s the explanation there? Americans more women-hating than others? Possibly. Unlikely.
To be clear: I am a huge Hilary supporter, and I also do not understand the hatred.
The Europeans have recent experience of where unbridled hatred of The Other leads. They make much stronger efforts than the US does to counteract hate speech.
Plus they have a history of class-based society where high-class women outrank low-class men. So the concept of powerful women is not strange to them.
The US prides itself on its myth of having a classless society. (Hah. No pun intended but, actually, in both meanings of the phrase.) So, ironically, it’s much more critical to hang on to the status conferred by being male and/or white.
jslat, your mistake is you’re trying to be rational. If somebody is hated, logically it’s because they did something awful.
Not how it works. More like this:
a) decide some people are born to serve so you don’t have to do your own dishes, pick your own cotton, whatever.
b) requires major nastiness because people don’t just happily live in coffin-sized boxes.
c) This is where the trouble really starts: people absolutely have to believe in a just world. It goes right back to monkeys and, for all I know, our shared ancestor with dolphins. It’s not optional. So the only way to be consistently and effectively nasty is to believe the targets deserve it. They have to be horrible, horrible subhumans.
Read some of the historical literature about the way whites thought about blacks 200 years ago, aristocrats thought about “common people,” high caste thought about Dalits, etc., etc., etc.
It’s always the same. Whenever one class of people turns themselves into subhumans so they can stand on the faces of another class of people, the first set, the ones trying to avoid doing the dishes, have to despise the “underlings.”
It has zero to do with anything about their targets.
Thank you for your thoughtful replies – you’ve saved me from posting another rant to try to explain why I think it happens.
Eudhanna, I do think religion has a lot to do with the “from birth” aspect of sexism (as it had with giving the divine stamp of approval for racism until very recently) – if only humans could keep the good in social identification and religion and leave the bad behind!
Why doesn’t the comment form respond to “No, wait, stop!”?
Enheduanna, I’m sorry I got your name wrong. I saw it flying by, but couldn’t catch it.
This is funny from Driftglass re: the law firms turning him down:
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2017/06/unhinged-orange-fire-demon-seeks.html
The title is: Unhinged Orange Fire Demon Seeks Attorney To Share Career Death Spiral
The first commentator wins the Internet today IMO:
Blogger Pablo in the Gazebo said…
There’s always the public defenders office, they can’t turn you down.
Irony scores again! Doesn’t tRump’s budget call for eliminating Legal Aid?
How Donald Trump Shifted Kids-Cancer Charity Money Into His Business
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/06/06/how-donald-trump-shifted-kids-cancer-charity-money-into-his-business/#e9ffa4c6b4a3
This made me cry. We’ve lost our way.
((hugs))
I saw this tweet on another blogsite and made the same comment! What our world could be like…
https://twitter.com/SheSternly/status/872302486610227205