Monday Mash Up: WTF were They Thinking Edition
Posted: October 21, 2019 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Donald Trump must be impeached, hard rock hotel New Orleans Crane implosion, Lying Mike Pompeo, Pierre Delecto, quid pro quo, Ukraine 26 Comments
Portrait of Dr Gachet. Vincent Van Gogh,1890
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
Ever have one of those days where you’re so lost in your head that even the most menial daily tasks wind up all wrong? Well, today, I managed to start the coffee pot without putting the coffee pot in the machine, went out to walk Temple, and came back to a steaming pile of wet grounds all over the kitchen cabinet and floor. I’m just exhausted. That’s my excuse. I’ve spent several weeks watching a building that shouldn’t have been built to begin with tumble down towards beautiful historic buildings and people on the street and then spent a 3 day vigil hoping US engineers could accomplish a demolition feat which it appears they mostly did. Three people died for some one’s profit maximization exercise.
I also have a houseful of guests that should be gone by now and work and bills keep piling up. I’m overwhelmed.
I know I’m distracted but this and watching genocide in Syria on TV knowing full well we had a hand in it although We the People don’t like it. And, that we’re being grifted by a bunch of Thugs passing themselves off as a Political party while the economy is falling apart and we’re picking up the bills for stuff we really shouldn’t be.
Oh, and did I mention all roads from the White House lead to a very happy Vladimir Putin?
What’s an American Girl to do?
So, what the Fuck was Mitt Romney thinking when he did this?
Thinking of him, Roy Lichtenstein, 1963
Yes, Mitt Romney has a sock puppet that evidently represents his conscience or his manhood or something … This is by
Mitt Romney, the senator from Utah, former Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor, is also, apparently, the man behind a Twitter account that uses the moniker “Pierre Delecto.”
Mr. Romney on Sunday admitted to McKay Coppins, a writer at The Atlantic, that he was responsible for the social media account, which he uses to covertly monitor political discourse and occasionally defend himself. It’s unclear what, if anything, Pierre Delecto is a reference to.
Several events preceded the admission.
First, The Atlantic published on Sunday a profile of Mr. Romney, one of the few prominent Republican lawmakers to criticize President Trump over his efforts to press Ukraine to investigate his Democratic rivals. Those efforts form the basis of an impeachment investigation by the House.
Mr. Trump lashed out in response this month, calling the senator on Twitter a “pompous ‘ass’ who has been fighting me from the beginning.” In one tweet, the president used the hashtag “#IMPEACHMITTROMNEY.”
I wonder if Pierre Delecto chats up Carlos Danger. Oh, and why do these names sound like sleazy characters from bad pulp fiction? This is from Ashley Feinberg writing for Slate ” This Sure Looks Like Mitt Romney’s Secret Twitter Account (Update: It Is) Meet “Pierre Delecto.” So there’s a difference between a sleazy sock puppet sending Dick picks trying to prop up Weiner’s manhood and a sleazy sock puppet trying to prop up Mitt Romney’s, right?
Earlier today, the Atlantic’s McKay Coppins published a lengthy profile on Mitt Romney, apparently part of Romney’s effort to set himself up as the noble Republican foil to an out-of-control president. These sorts of pieces, which are more about narrative setting than anything else, typically don’t contain a lot of new information, but this had one notable exception. About midway through, the usually guarded senator revealed that, just like fellow lone-voice-of reason-haver James Comey, he was the owner of a secret Twitter account.
At one point, as Coppins asked him about the #IMPEACHMITTROMNEY hashtag Trump tweeted into being earlier this month, Romney said this:
“That’s kind of what he does,” Romney said with a shrug, and then got up to retrieve an iPad from his desk. He explained that he uses a secret Twitter account—“What do they call me, a lurker?”—to keep tabs on the political conversation. “I won’t give you the name of it,” he said, but “I’m following 668 people.” Swiping at his tablet, he recited some of the accounts he follows, including journalists, late-night comedians (“What’s his name, the big redhead from Boston?”), and athletes. Trump was not among them. “He tweets so much,” Romney said, comparing the president to one of his nieces who overshares on Instagram. “I love her, but it’s like, Ah, it’s too much.”
In other words, a wealth of information that would be highly useful to anyone hoping to track down the senator’s supposedly secret Twitter hideout— or more specifically, to me. The chances seemed high that Romney, a known family man, would want to keep close tabs on his offspring. And as luck would have it, Romney has plenty of offspring .
Not all of his five sons have public Twitter accounts, and some of them, like the dreaded Tagg, have too many followers to possibly dig through. Romney’s oldest grandchild, Allie Romney Critchlow, however, has just 481 followers, making digging through them an annoying-but-not-impossible feat. As I scrolled, while focusing on the ones that appeared to make an effort to conceal their real identities, one in particular caught my eye.
Reader, meet Twitter user @qaws9876, otherwise known as Pierre Delecto.
Seated Harlequin, 1901, Pablo Picasso
Yeah, you can go see what he’s been up to as his super hero alter ego that he undoubtedly costumes in superhero jammies while tweeting away.
And we’re still watching Trumpists wiggle worm their way out of the idea of a Quid Quo Pro that’s been verified and something speculative. You would think a Secretary of State with that much education would have something better to do on a Sunday that make a fool of himself. But then, he’s a Trumpist and a Fundie and a fool
This is from Peter Wade writing for Rolling Stone: “Stunned Into Silence, State Department Chief Recalls Manafort at His Guiltiest. Sec. Mike Pompeo’s attempts to deflect questions about the president’s Ukraine quid pro quo scandal died a horrible death on Sunday.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s attempts to deflect and avoid giving honest and straight answers about President Donald Trump’s Ukraine quid pro quo scandal died a horrible death on Sunday during his appearance on ABC News’ The Week.
Host George Stephanopoulos asked the secretary if it was appropriate to withhold military aid to Ukraine until they pursued an investigation into the president’s political rivals. Stephanopoulos was referring to acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney admitting to the quid pro quo earlier this week. Pompeo said, “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals and secondary things based on what someone else has said.”
Stephanopoulos responded, “Except it’s not a hypothetical.”
um,,, cue the video
https://twitter.com/AdamWeinstein/status/1185947146891288576
That was a poignant pause worthy of Captain James T Kirk of the USS Enterprise!
That is the moment when you could almost see Pompeo start to sweat and one could imagine the memes starting to multiply that would include the intro of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” playing in the background as Pompeo went quiet for a prolonged period of time. Then the secretary eventually awoke from his coma and, with a gravelly voice, righted himself and continued to insist that the question was a hypothetical.
As national security editor for the New Republic Adam Weinstein pointed out, the scene was reminiscent of Trump’s former campaign manager and now-jailed felon Paul Manafort’s infamous 2016 viral moment when he was stumped and stuttered through his answer when asked about Trump’s relationships with Russian oligarchs.
Woman in a Purple Coat, 1937 by Henri Matisse
So, we also have this from the Philadephia Inquirer: by Julia Terruso: “No one shows up to Joe Biden debate-watch parties in Philly. Does that matter? ” Personally, I’ve been invited to both Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris down here in New Orleans and both were held in very crowded bars, well attended, and not the only watch parties in town.
David Bradford set up a bowl of chips, salsa, and some grapes in the common room of his Center City apartment building.
He was hosting a presidential debate-watching party for Joe Biden supporters just blocks from the former vice president’s national campaign headquarters. He didn’t expect a big crowd, but in the end only one other person showed up.
The two men watched in silence and both left before the three-hour debate ended. A reporter turned off the TV on her way out. Bradford’s was one of three watch parties within a 20-mile radius of Center City registered with the campaign. None drew more than seven people.
Elsewhere in Philadelphia, fans of Sen. Elizabeth Warren pinned on buttons and wore “Philly for Warren” T-shirts. They gathered in six different locations from South Philadelphia to Wynnefield cheering at Warren’s responses and jeering when her opponents took shots. Local supporters of Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have also had well-attended watch parties here.
It makes for quite a contrast. But does it matter?
Biden draws from an older, less progressive, often less-educated crowd. That’s not the demographic that often gathers for watch parties. Polling shows his support is more pragmatic than passionate. His campaign has pushed back on the idea he has an “enthusiasm gap” before, arguing it’s something political operatives and journalists obsess over that means little to most Democratic voters.
“The Twitter Democrats are a very small subset of the Democratic Party,” said U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D.,Pa.), who supports Biden. “They are a much younger, more educated, wealthier, whiter subset — they’re important but let’s not make the mistake of extrapolating that they are the party.”
On the other hand, the kind of grassroots momentum that begins in bars and homes can turn into organization: Volunteers canvassing can have a tangible impact. And if some of Biden’s support is less enthusiastic, which polls suggest, there’s the risk it fractures.
Excuses! Excuses! Sounds like something Pierre Delecto would say! And then, here’s when the President got corrected by a Science GRRLLL up there in Space like a real Super Hero!
Seems like a lot of things are just not going as planned … and I’ll provide you with something that only slightly went awry when the entire project was a clusterfuck from the get go. The Great Hard Rock Hotel New Orleans Crane Implosion. We know have a huge crane body stationed like a metal christmas tree impaling Rampart Street. Fortunately, it only took out a sewer and not the main gas and electric lines into the French Quarter. So that was a win because of that and only a few historic buldings like the Saenger Theatre and the Old Roosevelt Hotel where my parents honeymooned in the late 40s lost a few windows.
From TV station WDSU “City: Demolition at Hard Rock went ‘as good as it could have’; next phase is search and extraction”. Also, the next phase is just wait until we learn more about how a crooked developer got this pass the city council and mayor a few years back and managed a go round the planning commission and the master plan and undoubtedly got it through a crook in the city permits office.
Well, it’s a long post already and I’ve only covered a few things in the domestic news. Don’t ask me to look abroad today. Please don’t!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Fraud Filled Friday Reads: Pity the US Taxpayer and pray for the Kurds
Posted: October 18, 2019 Filed under: morning reads 31 Comments
The Beginnings of Chaos, Zhong Baio, 2009
Good Morning!
I figured things that went crazy yesterday would be further elucidated today. I was right. Yesterday’s Trumpist regime actions still look appalling even with a bit more information and explanation. We have Mike Pence getting outfoxed by the Turks which unfortunately means death for the Kursish people in Syria. His negotiations were basically a recipe for capitulation and genocide. I’m also wondering how much money from the US Treasury will be piled into refitting the Doral for a grand old case of emoluments violations? Plus there was Mulvaney’s mea culpa on a Trumpist quid pro quo that cannot be unwound once put on national TV. Is there a stronger description of what’s going on in the White House other than utter chaos? Labeling it all chaos seems like such an understatement!
Let me start with USA Today’s opinion page and the heading from Paul Brandus: “Trump’s unmatched sleaze: Grifters, women, trampling Constitution and now G-7 at Doral”.
We’ve had presidents who were used by members of their own family for personal gain, like Ulysses S. Grant.
We’ve had presidents who stocked their Cabinet with greedy, self-serving mediocrities who took advantage of the public trust, like Warren G. Harding.
We’ve had presidents who swore to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution, only to then abuse it, like Richard Nixon.
And we’ve had presidents who, thanks to a presumptive sense of entitlement, lived slimy private lives, using countless women before tossing them aside — Harding again, plus John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton.
President Donald Trump falls into every single sleazy category, squarely and shamelessly. Just Thursday, we learned that he’ll hold next year’s Group of Seven meeting (with leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom) at his own Doral golf resort in Miami.
It’s the latest example of how Trump, who never divested from his businesses, continues to make millions from them. It’s also the latest reminder that he constantly violates the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which is supposed to ban presidents from accepting money from foreign governments. This while the House is in the middle of an impeachment inquiry and there are two lawsuits pending over the emoluments clause.
“This is unbelievable,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which filed one of those suits, speaking for much of America.
“Flower of Death—The Bursting of a Heavy Shell— Not as It Looks, but as It Feels and Sounds and Smells” (1919) by Claggett Wilson Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
And then there’s this tell-all book by Ex VA chief Shulkin as reviewed in WAPO by Lisa Rein. Here’s the headline: “Ex-VA chief Shulkin’s new book decries ‘toxic, subversive’ culture in Trump’s Washington”.
His security detail leaked his schedule, putting him at risk. A senior adviser on his team circulated a three-page memo outlining his ouster — with a succession plan. His inner circle held meetings without him and scurried to secret huddles at the White House.
And a trio of rich men who are fixtures at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. — but had no experience in the federal government — were his keepers.
These are some of the scenes from David Shulkin’s new book, “It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to Serve Your Country,” an account of his tumultuous 15 months as Trump’s first Veterans Affairs secretary.
The book portrays a toxic, backstabbing culture in Trump’s Washington that, as its title suggests, should give pause to anyone considering public service, Shulkin writes. From his rib-tickling interview with the president-elect to his dismissal by tweet in March 2018, Shulkin says he was blindsided at almost every turn by a multitude of institutions, from his inspector general to the media. And he says veterans are paying the cost.
“The VA was once thought to be the only part of the federal government that was above politics,” Shulkin, 60, writes. But “the environment in Washington had grown so toxic, chaotic and subversive that it became impossible for me to accomplish the important work that our veterans need and deserve.”
Ultimately his own staff did him in, Shulkin writes, turning ethics questions about a trip he took to Europe that mixed business with pleasure to their advantage. The Ivy League-trained physician who had excelled at turning around ailing hospitals was unprepared for the onslaught.
The score-settling book, to be published Tuesday by a division of Hachette Book Group, is Shulkin’s comeback to the forces that derailed him. He describes a deep state of subordinates within his own inner circle — not of career bureaucrats but political appointees — who assumed outsize power with a singular goal: to privatize veterans’ health care.
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René Magritte. The Double Secret, 1927.
I can only imagine that every privatized VA hospital would also carry the Trump logo across its entrance paid for with a hefty bill by the US Taxpayer while Vets languish in lines waiting for services they’ll never receive in the name of personal profit for Trump and his family crime syndicate.
And meanwhile, what is supposed to be a ceasefire in Syria, appears to be a free for all including chemical weapons. This headline is from Foreign Policy and is written by Lara Seligman: “Turkish Proxies Appear to Be Using White Phosphorus in Syria. Photos of children show horrific burns caused by what looks like white phosphorus.” This is a NATO all. WTF?
Turkish-backed forces appear to be using munitions loaded with white phosphorus—a chemical that can maim and kill when it comes in contact with human flesh—in their violent campaign against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, Foreign Policy has learned.
Meanwhile, reports emerged overnight that Turkey has continued to attack Kurdish fighters and civilian settlements in the border town of Ras al-Ain, despite a cease-fire agreement announced by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. Turkish-backed forces targeted a Kurdish medical convoy and an American aid organization trying to get into the town to evacuate wounded civilians, according to a Syrian conflict monitor.
Photos provided to Foreign Policy by a Kurdish source and confirmed by a senior U.S. administration official show children in Ras al-Ain with chemical burns on their chests and faces consistent with wounds from white phosphorus. ()
An official with an aid organization, who declined to be named for security reasons, confirmed that several people had been admitted into the National Hospital in Hasakah city coming from Ras al-Ain with “severe burns” that appeared to have been caused by white phosphorus or napalm.
In a letter supplied to Foreign Policy by Bassam Saker, the representative of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) to the United States, the co-secretaries of the SDC’s health department, Rapareen Hasn and Manal Mhemed, urgently called on the international community to evacuate the wounded civilians.
“Turkey uses all kind of weapons including the internationally prohibited ones, and our medical teams are unable to evacuate the civilians,” according to the letter, which was also confirmed by the senior U.S. administration official. Saker confirmed that the prohibited weapons referred to in the letter are suspected to be “unusual bombs” loaded with white phosphorus.
Separately, a former combat medic who deployed to Syria in 2017-2018 confirmed to Foreign Policy that the photos appeared to show chemical burns.
The She Wolf, 1943 – Jackson Pollock
This is what the Orange Snot Blob in the Oval office laughs off as “not our problem”.
And the letter sent to Erdogen by the Toddler in Chief was seen as an insult to Turkey so there’s this reporting from the UK Independent. “Erdogan says Turkey will take necessary steps against Trump’s ‘disrespectful’ letter. Letter ‘was not in line with diplomatic and political courtesy. We will not forget this lack of respect'”.
The letter “was not in line with diplomatic and political courtesy. We will not forget this lack of respect. This is not a priority for us. But when the time comes we would like it to be known that we will take the necessary steps.”
The extraordinary missive warned the Turkish leader not to be a “fool” over Turkish plans to start a military campaign in northern Syria.
It emerged on Thursday that Mr Erdogan reacted angrily to the letter, throwing it in the bin and commencing the military offensive, which has left dozens of civilians dead and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Well, so much for impressing folks with his stable genius and art of the deal. From Raw Story Today: “Turkey’s foreign minister bursts out laughing as he mocks Trump’s erratic tweets.”
Speaking to the BBC’s HARDtalk this Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu scoffed at the Trump administration’s threat of sanctions over his country’s military operation in northeast Syria, saying that the threat is the result of erratic confused messaging that’s not doing anything to help the situation.
Cavusoglu laughed and mocked Trump for his constant tweeting about various issues, including Turkey.
“Different voices, different positions are coming from the United States, because of the differences between the administration, the State Department, Pentagon, and this and that,” he said.
Meanwhile, here’s what’s partying at Mar A Lago these days. Yeah, it’s still grifting bigots pushing conspiracy theories and stupid rich people if you want to know. This is from the Palm Beach Post: “Another anti-Muslim group to host event at Mar-a-Lago”.
Another anti-Muslim group has scheduled a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, prompting the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy group to again ask the Trump Organization to cancel an event sponsored by such a group.
The Center for Security Policy, a Washington, DC think-tank whose founder, Frank Gaffney once suggested President Barack Obama was a Muslim and that Sharia law threatens American society, intends to host its annual Flame Dinner at Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 23. Tickets for the event start at $650, according to the Center’s website.
Fred Fleitz, the Center’s president and CEO, said the group was not deterred by the Trump Organization’s abrupt decision on Oct. 6 to cancel an event hosted by another anti-Muslim group, ACT for America, after news of that group’s dinner plans grabbed national headlines and drew widespread criticism.
“We are honored to have this event at Mar-a-Lago,” said Fleitz, adding that he has dined at the club many times.
And then there was another HaterPalooza in Texas with the typical Trumpist Rage and Rant. It was even more amped up than usual.
Plus, there was the usual misogyny and lies and insanity. Where do these Trumpers spring from? Who likes this sort’ve thing? Trump’s hateful catharsis in front of aggrieved white bigots is something you could not pay me to do. Not any amount. No HOW.
The Fall of the Rebel Angels, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1592
Beto O’Rouke had a counter rally in what the Dallas Observer called a packed venue.
Standing on a platform surrounded by a crowd of screaming fans and waving signs, Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke told a packed theater at his Rally Against Fear about his plans and dreams for the country.
Throughout the night, he and other speakers focused on the need for gun control, immigration and healthcare reform and denounced the imprisonment of immigrant children and last week’s shooting of Atatiana Jefferson, a 28-year-old woman who was killed in her home by a Fort Worth police officer.
Many issues make it easy to be afraid right now, he said, but it’s important to come together and work to overcome terror, racism, sexism and discrimination.
“We cannot stand for that fear because we must stand for those who have been the victims of that fear,” he said.
Rather than speak from the stage behind him, he opted to stand among the people who came to support him at Thursday night’s event in Grand Prairie. The theater seats 6,000 people and was packed to the gills.
Quite a contrast to the usual attacks on Hillary, “crazy” Nancy Pelosi and any one that dares name the orange devil for what he is.
So let me end with a few things that show we can make progress despite him. Notice this is another moment from a Democratic Candidate President celebrating the strides women have made in Space.
And, there are other things that go on despite the chaos … like Bulldog Mattis roasting Trump which you know always makes the Orange Snot Blob testy.
So, let me end with a classic song that also sums up the times today:
Have a good weekend! What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Things that go bump in the Night! (12 Democratic Candidates for President crowd onto a stage)
Posted: October 15, 2019 Filed under: 2020 Elections, Live Blog 49 Comments
from NBC Live blog for tonight
Well, it’s that Time again!!
From the NBC: link under the photos:
“The largest group of candidates to take the stage will face off Tuesday night at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio. They include front-runners Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren; Bernie Sanders, who returns to the campaign after suffering a heart attack; billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who’s joining a debate for the first time; and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who missed the September go-round after failing to qualify.”
The Debate will be hosted by CNN as announced by CBS:
How to watch the Democratic debate Tonight
- Date: Tuesday, October 15, 2019
- Time: 8 to 11 p.m. ET
- Location: Otterbein University – Westerville, OH
- TV Channel: CNN, CNN en Español and CNN International
- Online stream: Watch the debate on CNN.com or watch CNN on fuboTV (free trial offer)
- Analysis: Watch CBSN for live coverage of the debate before, during and after
Joe Heller Copyright 2019 Hellertoon.com
We will be live blogging tonight so join us!!!
Moving Backwards Monday: US Diplomacy and Military on the Run
Posted: October 14, 2019 Filed under: just because 32 Comments
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
The Acting President* of the United States has just handed a military and diplomatic win to Russia’s Putin, the Iranian Regime, and Putin’s murdering hand puppet in Syria the brutal dictator Assad.
ISIS and former Al Quaeda fighters for Turkey are committing war crimes galore as they slash and murder their way south into Syria in a land grab we haven’t seen for some time. The Assad government is now moving into the area to back up their new allies the Kurds. Did I mention they’re Russian-backed? So, our dumped allies the Kurds are now going to try to stop Turkey who is still a NATO member.
Meanwhile, our troops are in the process of retreating from a hot war in relatively small numbers and scattered in various pockets where they’ve been in embedded with the Kurds with Assad Regime and Russian Forces headed straight at them from one side and Turkey on the other.
From Foreign Affairs and William Burns: “The Demolition of U.S. Diplomacy. Not Since Joe McCarthy Has the State Department Suffered Such a Devastating Blow.”
Our diplomacy is longer carried out by a dedicated, trained and skilled corps of career diplomats, but by the gut feelingd of an autocracy-curious madman.
That Senator McCarthy’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn, was also Donald Trump’s lawyer and mentor is one of history’s sad ironies. Trump’s scorched-earth tactics, casual relationship with truth, and contempt for career public service bear more than a passing resemblance to the playbook that Cohn wrote for McCarthy. And when Trump cried out for a “new Roy Cohn” to replace the late original, it was hardly a surprise that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared—or that he dove into the muck of the Ukraine scandal and agitated for the removal of a career ambassador whose integrity and expertise proved to be an obstruction.
One might imagine that the State Department’s leadership would stand up to the president and for its personnel—so many of whom are doing hard jobs in hard places around the world. If only that were the case.
Instead, today’s leaders have shown no more spine than Dulles did. Secretary Pompeo apparently worked around the embassy in Kiev to advance the president’s private agenda, allowed specious opposition research about Yovanovitch to circulate around the department, and sat on his hands as Trump slandered Yovanovitch on the infamous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and warned ominously that “she’s going to go through some things.” The ghost of Roy Cohn was smiling somewhere.
Even before the Ukraine mess, the Trump administration had been waging a war on diplomacy for nearly three years. The White House regularly pushes historic cuts to diplomacy and development spending, which is already 19 times smaller than the defense budget. Career diplomats are sidelined, with only one of 28 assistant secretary-rank positions filled by a Foreign Service officer, and more ambassadorships going to political appointees in this administration than in any in recent history. One-fifth of ambassadorships remain unfilled, including critical posts.
Not coincidentally, applications to join the Foreign Service have declined precipitously, with fewer people taking the entrance exam in 2019 than in more than two decades. The pace of resignations by career professionals is depressing, the pernicious practice of retaliation against individual officers just because they worked on controversial issues in the last administration is damning, and the silence from the department’s leadership is deafening.
This is news analysis from the New York Times and David E. Sanger.
President Trump’s acquiescence to Turkey’s move to send troops deep inside Syrian territory has in only one week’s time turned into a bloody carnage, forced the abandonment of a successful five-year-long American project to keep the peace on a volatile border, and given an unanticipated victory to four American adversaries: Russia, Iran, the Syrian government and the Islamic State.
Rarely has a presidential decision resulted so immediately in what his own party leaders have described as disastrous consequences for American allies and interests. How this decision happened — springing from an “off-script moment” with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, in the words of a senior American diplomat — likely will be debated for years by historians, Middle East experts and conspiracy theorists.
But this much already is clear: Mr. Trump ignored months of warnings from his advisers about what calamities likely would ensue if he followed his instincts to pull back from Syria and abandon America’s longtime allies, the Kurds. He had no Plan B, other than to leave. The only surprise is how swiftly it all collapsed around the president and his depleted, inexperienced foreign policy team.
Day after day, they have been caught off-guard, offering up differing explanations of what Mr. Trump said to Mr. Erdogan, how the United States and its allies might respond, and even whether Turkey remains an American ally. For a while Mr. Trump said he acted because the Islamic State was already defeated, and because he was committed to terminating “endless wars” by pulling American troops out of the Middle East. By the end of the week he added 2,000 — to Saudi Arabia.
One day he was inviting Mr. Erdogan to visit the White House; the next he was threatening to “totally destroy and obliterate” Turkey’s economy if it crossed a line that he never defined.
Mr. Erdogan just kept going.
Mr. Trump’s error, some aides concede in off-the-record conversations, was entering the Oct. 6 call underprepared, and then failing to spell out for Mr. Erdogan the potential consequences — from economic sanctions to a dimunition of Turkey’s alliance with the United States and its standing in NATO. He has since threatened both, retroactively. But it is not clear Mr. Erdogan believes either is a real risk.
The drama is nowhere near over.
The use of the word ‘drama’ here is probably one of the most serious understatements I’ve ever read as I now wake up and go to bed watching mass slaughter that appears to be part of a planned Genocide of the Kurds. It hearkens back to Turkey’s approach to Armenians in the 1920.
Well, it looks like if Trump won’t do it, Putin will.
Moving us out of its client state, Syria, has been a Russian objective for some time. Trump has given him this deliverable.
Key Takeaway: Russia has finished an advanced anti-access/area denial (A2AD) network in Syria that combines its own air defense and electronic warfare systems with modernized equipment formerly commanded by Syria. Russia can use these capabilities to mount a long-term strategic challenge to the U.S. and NATO in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East. Russia is currently positioned to disrupt the U.S. Anti-ISIS Coalition, constrain future military options for the U.S. in Syria, and increase the cost of deterring future malign action by Iran and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Jackson Diehl of WAPO writes “In a month, Trump has destroyed ‘America First’.”
The uproar in Washington over President Trump’s corruption in Ukraine and malfeasance in Syria has obscured a broader story. In little more than a month, virtually every other foreign policy initiative the Trump administration has pursued has imploded — thanks mostly to the president’s increasingly unhinged behavior.
The unraveling started on Sept. 7, when Trump abruptly announced that he had canceled a previously undisclosed summit with the Afghan Taliban due to be held the next day at Camp David, and shelved a draft peace deal that a State Department special envoy had spent a year negotiating. The immediate result was a spike in violence in Afghanistan — and at least the temporary shelving of Trump’s ambition to pull U.S. troops out of the country before the 2020 election.
A week later, Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran came undone. Following an Iranian-
sponsored attack on a Saudi oil complex, Trump ruled out a military response; instead, he told French President Emmanuel Macron that he was open to a plan to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the United Nations and lift sanctions on his government in return for negotiations. The gambit failed: Rouhani left Trump waiting on a phone line. But Saudi Arabia got the message: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has asked Iraq and Pakistan to broker a de-escalation with Tehran.
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From the Dallas Morning News: ; “The outrageous death of Atatiana Jefferson: What was Fort Worth cop possibly thinking when he shot?. It’s a decision that ripped an innocent woman from her family and one that will forever scar her 8-year-old nephew who was with her at the time.”
Atatiana’s life MATTERS and we must work as a country to hold our police to higher standards and to accountants for the number of black lives they take needlessly and without regard.
Video from the cop’s body-camera as he roamed the backyard with a flashlight at 2:30 a.m captures him hollering “Put your hands up. Show me your hands” and then — almost immediately — firing his gun into Jefferson’s window.
Fort Worth police acknowledged Sunday that the cop never identified himself as a police officer before he fired. Along with the video, police released a fuzzy photo of a gun, apparently found in a bedroom, but did not connect it to Jefferson’s death. Their reason for releasing that photo without context provides no confidence in the department’s credibility.
The episode began when James Smith, a concerned resident who, in the middle of the night, spotted open doors and lights on, called the police nonemergency number and asked an officer to check on the household.
The well-meaning Smith is just the sort of neighbor we all would like to have nearby. He followed the common sense that crime watch groups and law enforcement repeat again and again: If you see something, say something. Smith simply wanted the cops to do a “welfare check” to ensure that the family was safe.
A person shouldn’t die as a result of a caring neighbor. In a killing that is sickeningly similar to the one for which fired Dallas police officer Amber Guyger was just sent to prison, the Fort Worth cop seems to have acted without thinking first. In the Dallas case, Guyger killed Botham Jean after mistaking his apartment for her own and thinking he was an intruder.
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I awake daily to thinking that we keep going backwards to days that should be well behind us. I will leave you with a bright spot. There are so many ways that we are reminded that people of color are still provided second class citizenship. Montgomery, Alabama–the city at the very root of the Civil Rights Movement–elected its first black mayor with a plurality that should uplift us all. CNN’s Faith Karimi and LaRell Reynolds write “Montgomery elected its first black mayor in 200 years. This is why it matters”. The struggle continues but it achieved something special with this.
In the two centuries since its founding, Alabama’s capital of Montgomery and the birthplace of the civil rights movement has never had a black mayor.
That changed Tuesday when Montgomery County probate judge Steven Reed won a runoff election to become the first black mayor of the city founded in 1819. He defeated television station owner David Woods by more than 16,000 votes.
“Let the record show tonight, above all … what we can do when we come together in this city and we build around positivity, around opportunity, and all the things that tie us together versus those things that keep us apart,” Reed told supporters at a rally turned victory party.
Alabama’s second-largest city is a city of contrasts. While it’s the birthplace of the civil rights movement, it was also the first capital of the Confederacy early in the Civil War, and many streets and schools still bear Confederate names.
Montgomery later became the site of Rosa Parks’ famed bus boycott in 1955 and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dexter Avenue Baptist church, as well as the destination of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery protest marches that were met with brutal police violence and led to the Voting Rights Act.
Just last year, the nation’s first memorial to the more than 4,000 victims of lynchings was opened in Montgomery.
What’s significant is highlighted by VOX.
On Tuesday evening, 67 percent of voters backed probate judge Steven Reed, who was up against David Woods, a white television station owner, according to unofficial results. In August, the two received the most votes in the city’s mayoral election (Reed was one of 10 black candidates), but neither candidate captured a 50 percent majority, leading to this month’s nonpartisan runoff election.
Reed will be sworn into office in November, replacing current mayor Todd Strange, who has held office since 2009 and did not run for reelection. According to the Montgomery Advertiser, prior to the October election, Montgomery was one of three cities with a population over 100,000 in the Deep South that had never elected a black mayor.
During his mayoral campaign, Reed said he plans to help Montgomery’s poorest communities by addressing issues like food deserts and poor water quality. Reed also wants to improve economic conditions in the city in the hopes of making Montgomery more attractive to younger people and businesses. Montgomery is also currently dealing with a limited city budget, and city officials have dedicated resources in recent years to reduce crime rates in the city.
Reed’s historic win has drawn national attention and praise from civil rights groups. Other politicians have also praised Reed’s victory, with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris tweeting, “The birthplace of the civil rights movement has a new era of leadership for the first time in its 200-year history.”
Another Democratic Candidates debate is open us with a significant number of women and POC still standing and in good position to take the lead.
Here’s hoping we can still make progress eve though I have a feeling that those Trumpers HateFests are going get worse and the news from Syria will be gruesome. Here’s some news that may or may not shorten it.
There will be 12 folks on the debate stage on Tuesday.
On Tuesday night, the top dozen Democratic candidates are set to appear at the party’s fourth 2020 primary debate, set at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, starting at 5 p.m. Pacific. The debate, co-hosted by CNN and the New York Times, will be broadcast on CNN and streamed online at http://www.cnn.com and http://www.nytimes.com, as well as on the outlets’ apps.
The candidates are former Vice President Joe Biden; Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren; Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders; California Sen. Kamala Harris; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., …
Still going, stay with us …
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas; former Housing Secretary Julián Castro; Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii; Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar … and (deep breath) businessmen Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer.
We will have a live blog and I’m certain BB will have some pre-debate news for us. Frankly, I plan to sip my well iced white wine every time I hear some one say “Impeach him”!!! My glass will first be raised to a toast to whoever!
So, let’s keep keeping on and tell me, what’s on your reading and blogging list today?
And I’ll end by sharing the words of the late Great Curtis Mayfield who wrote and recorded this while I was in high school living the Watergate hearings reality and watching the Vietnam carnage on the nightly news. Still rings true, sir …
I’ve only got one
Don’t run from the burdens of women and men
Continue to give, continue to live
For what you know is right
Withdraw from the darkness and look to the light
Where everyone’s free
At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be
We just keep on keeping on
But they too will soon admit
That there’s still a lot of love among us
When we keep on keeping on
When you have your young, remember this song
And our world surroundings, its leaps and bounds
Ups and downs, is reality
Fractured Fairy Tale Friday Reads: Russians Hiding under the White House Beds
Posted: October 11, 2019 Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: constitutional crisis, Pompeo, Rudy Guilliani, Russian Expressionists, Ukraine 32 Comments/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/bluerider_631.jpg)
Two riders before the red, 1911, woodblock, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. (Wassily Kandinsky)
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
We’re beginning to see just how wrapped up Republicans are with Russians. I ran across this from bellingcat this morning by Casey Michel. And we thought only the NRA was awash in Russian money and influence!!! “Money Talks: Len Blavatnik And The Council On Foreign Relations”.
Last month, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), one of America’s leading think tanks, announced that it had received a substantial donation that would help round out the organization’s upcoming budget. As a statement on the CFR’s website detailed, a CFR member had graciously decided to help facilitate funding for CFR’s intern program. The donation, as CFR’s statement detailed, would provide “paid internships to over one hundred interns each year,” and would help “cultivat[e] the next generation of leaders in government, academia, and the private sector.” CFR President Richard Haass, as he wrote on Twitter, was “[g]rateful” for the “generous gift.”
It’s easy to see why CFR’s brass would express gratitude for the gift. After all, issues surrounding paying interns have circulated among any number of American institutions over the past decade, from media to civil society to, as CFR’s announcement noted, think tanks. A CFR spokesperson told Bellingcat that the donation totaled $12 million.
There was one problem, though. As CFR noted, the donation had come from the Blavatnik Family Foundation — and was specifically facilitated by CFR member Len Blavatnik.
Blavatnik may not be a household name in the United States and has not been sanctioned by any Western governments, but the involvement of Blavatnik, born in the USSR in what is now southern Ukraine, has already sparked a firestorm of internal controversy at CFR.
CFR’s willingness to accept the donation from Blavatnik’s foundation has been a case study in the “soft enabling of kleptocracy,” Sarah Chayes, one of the leading anti-corruption voices in the U.S., told Bellingcat. It also fits into Blavatnik’s previous history of working with what she described as “image launderers,” all of whom have helped Blavatnik — who has worked closely over the years with figures now sanctioned specifically by the U.S. for their role in spreading the Kremlin’s kleptocracy — in shaping the reputation of someone who accrued substantial wealth in the mad scramble for post-Soviet resource and industry.
The pushback over the previous weeks has culminated in an unprecedented protest against CFR’s move to accept and publicize the donation from Blavatnik’s foundation. One letter, addressed to Haass and signed by dozens of the most prominent anti-corruption activists in the U.S. and Ukraine, leading experts on post-Soviet kleptocracy, and former members of the Treasury Department, State Department, and National Security Council, condemned the move as a means of helping “Blavatnik [export] Russian kleptocratic practices to the West.”
Haass and CFR, however, haven’t expressed any concern about the donation, nor about the fact that the U.S.’s leading anti-kleptocracy voices have condemned the move. There’s no indication that CFR will walk back the donation, despite the unprecedented pushback they’ve received.
Three Riders in red, blue and black 1911, woodblock, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. (Wassily Kandinsky)
Blavatnik’s donations to US institutions run a lot deeper than you’d think and the article is worth your time to read. Follow this author. He’s part of the Kleptocracy Initiative and keeps track of these sorts of things.
Along the way, Blavatnik kept a relatively low profile politically, and made efforts — both personal and financial in nature — to retain friends all across the political spectrum, especially in the U.S. Having gained U.S. citizenship, Blavatnik has made a concerted effort to financially back both Democratic and Republican candidates over the years. In 2016, though, Blavatnik split with his prior precedent, and poured some $6 million into Republican coffers, as well as donating $1 million directly to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee. Over the past year, Blavatnik has returned to his old habits, and begun donating across the aisle, according to data from the Federal Election Commission.
But in the aftermath of Russia’s 2016 interference efforts, new questions began to swirl about Blavatnik’s funding. Not only did the U.S. sanction individuals like Vekselberg, figures with whom Blavatnik had previously been close, but last year it emerged that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office had specifically investigated Blavatnik’s donations to Trump’s inauguration. Vekselberg also told the Financial Times that he attended Trump’s inauguration at a table Blavatnik paid for, although Blavatnik’s spokesperson denied this.
Mikhail Vrubel. Pearl.
1904. Cardboard, pastel, gouache, coal.
Kenneth Vogel–writing for the NYT–has the byline for this important read “Giuliani’s Ukraine Team: In Search of Influence, Dirt and MoneyThe president’s lawyer was paid by Lev Parnas, who with Igor Fruman worked on behalf of President Trump in Ukraine.”
When Rudolph W. Giuliani set out to dredge up damaging information on President Trump’s rivals in Ukraine, he turned to a native of the former Soviet republic with whom he already had a lucrative business relationship.
Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-American businessman with a trail of debts and lawsuits, had known Mr. Giuliani casually for years through Republican political circles. Last year, their relationship deepened when a company he helped found retained Mr. Giuliani — associates of Mr. Parnas said he told them he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars — for what Mr. Giuliani said on Thursday was business and legal advice.
Even as he worked with Mr. Parnas’s company, Fraud Guarantee, Mr. Giuliani increasingly relied on Mr. Parnas to carry out Mr. Trump’s quest for evidence in Ukraine that would undercut the legitimacy of the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference on his behalf in the 2016 election and help him heading into his 2020 re-election campaign.
Mr. Giuliani dispatched Mr. Parnas and an associate, Igor Fruman, a Belarusian-American businessman, to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, where, despite fending off creditors at home, BuzzFeed reported, they ran up big charges at a strip club and the Hilton International hotel. Their mission was to find people and information that could be used to undermine the special counsel’s investigation, and also to damage former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a prospective Democratic challenger to Mr. Trump.
Girl with Red Ribbon Alexej von Jawlensy
Here’s a brief take of the Josh Chafetz piece from Common Dreams: “Law Professor’s Advice to House Democrats: Arrest Rudy Giuliani.”
Faced with an intransigent White House unwilling to cooperate with an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s pressuring of the Ukrainian government to investigate his political rival former Vice President Joe Biden, the House should take aggressive action including arresting Rudy Giuliani, a law professor argues in a column for The New York Times Thursday.
“The answer is unlikely to be found in a courtroom,” writes law professor Josh Chafetz.
The White House has repeatedly refused to answer subpoenas and on Tuesday afternoon, as Common Dreams reported, announced in an eight page letter that the administration will flatly refuse to cooperate in the inquiry, a move that could set up a constitutional crisis.
“There is no legal basis for Trump’s position,” NBC analyst Katie Phang said on Twitter Tuesday. “Hard stop.”
House Democrats need to think outside the box, Chafetz argues.
“The House should instead put back on the table the option of using its sergeant-at-arms to arrest contemnors—as the person in violation of the order is called—especially when an individual, like Rudy Giuliani, is not an executive branch official,” Chaftez writes.
Chafetz acknowledges that the move was extreme, but said that the net benefits of taking things to that level would outweigh the possible negatives of such an action and allow for the House to open the door to other punitive actions seen as less radical.
“The House arresting someone would be explosive and clearly should not be undertaken lightly,” says Chafetz. “But the very explosiveness of it would be a way for the House to signal the seriousness of White House obstructionism to the public.”
The Demon Seated, Mikhail Vrubel 1890
The State Department is getting into the spotlight more and more on the entire Ukrainian situation as a Senior Advisor to Pompeo resigns. This is from WAPO. And an Ambassador removed by Trump speaks out.
Michael McKinley, a career diplomat and senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has resigned his position amid rising dissatisfaction and plummeting morale inside the State Department over what is seen as Pompeo’s failure to support personnel ensnared in the Ukraine controversy.
A senior officer who has held a range of diplomatic posts, including ambassador to Afghanistan, Colombia and Peru, McKinley was serving as ambassador to Brazil last year when Pompeo recruited him as a policy adviser and a conduit between his office and the career service.
Pompeo was expected to issue a statement Friday announcing the departure.
McKinley declined to comment Thursday evening.
Among the many issues in which he played a role, McKinley has been closely involved in administration policy on Venezuela, Mexico, Southeast Asia and Afghanistan, where last month President Trump abruptly canceled U.S. peace negotiations with the Taliban that both sides had said were near an agreement.
There seems to be a large number of career professionals in various departments ready to testify and go to Congress as well as the press. And it’s about time.
Which also means that Trump needed a hit from a Hatefest Bong. This time the Orange Plague went to Minneapolis home of Minnesota Nice.
Musicians from Queen to Prince’s estate are suing Trumpto quit using their music. It probably will do as much good as trying to bill the campaign for the public safety issues surrounding every Trump Rally where attendees are none to bully press and public alike and fights frequently break out with encouragement of the Orange Snot Blob. More people protested the visit than attended the rally.
And, as usual Trump lied his fat ass off as well as spewed the usual racist, misogynistic, bigoted crap. He made a point of attacking Somali Refugees in a place where they are an integral part of the community and recently sent Congresswoman Ilhan Abdullahi Omar to serve as the U.S. Representative for Minnesota’s 5th congressional district in 2019. The district includes all of Minneapolis and some of its suburbs.
Safe places from Trumpists in any place will always be bookstores, universities, and libraries were no Trumper dares go. Facts and knowledge are to them what garlic and wooden stakes are to Vampires.
Portrait of the Dancer Alexander Sakharov, 1909
Here’s a look at his claims at a Minneapolis rally, his first since Democrats opened an impeachment inquiry of Trump’s actions as president:
TRUMP: “If our opponent had won that election, you know what would have happened? Right now, China would be the No. 1 economy anywhere in the world. And right now, I can tell you, they’re not even close.”
THE FACTS: No matter who got elected in 2016 — Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton — China’s economy could not have caught up to America’s.
Even if the U.S. economy had not grown at all since 2016, China’s gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic output — would have had to have surged a fantastical 79% in three years to pull even with America’s. That comes to growth of more than 21% a year — something even China’s super-charged economy has never approached.
The Chinese economy continues to slowly narrow the gap because every year it grows much faster than America’s. In 2019, for example, the International Monetary Fund expects Chinese GDP to increase 6.2%, more than double the 2.6% growth it expects for the United States. But it’s got a long way to go to surpass the U.S.
___
TRUMP: “We have totally defeated the ISIS caliphate.”
THE FACTS: His claim of a 100% defeat is misleading as the Islamic State still poses a threat.
IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017, then lost the last of its land holdings in Syria in March, marking the end of the extremists’ self-declared caliphate.
Still, extremist sleeper cells have continued to launch attacks in Iraq and Syria and are believed to be responsible for targeted killings against local officials and members of the Syrian Democratic Forces.
IS controlled large swaths of northern and eastern Syria, where they declared a caliphate in 2014 along with large parts of neighboring Iraq.
U.N. experts warned in August that IS leaders are aiming to consolidate and create conditions for an “eventual resurgence in its Iraqi and Syrian heartlands.”
Mädchen mit Zopf,Alexei Jawlensky (1864-1941)
But, most importantly, Congress heard from Marie Yovanovich today. This is from WAPO “Ousted ambassador Marie Yovanovitch tells Congress Trump pressured State Dept. to remove her.”
Alexej von Jawlensky, self portrait, 1905
We’ve definitely gotten to a watershed here. I’ll end with this from Jonathan Lemire of the Associated Press: “Analysis: In impeachment fight, it’s Trump vs. Constitution ”
Donald Trump has spent his time in office trying to bend the conventions of the American presidency to his will. Now he appears to be trying to override a core principle of democracy: that no one is above the law.
Faced with an impeachment inquiry, Trump has openly defied the core constructs of the Constitution. He chafes at the idea of co-equal branches of government and rejects the House’s right to investigate him.
He has deployed a convoluted logic in which he has declared that the courts can’t investigate him because as president he cannot be charged with a crime but also that Congress cannot impeach him because its inquiry is politically illegitimate.
It’s a “heads he wins, tails you lose” formulation.
“It’s anathema to his character and his life story to be checked and balanced by anything,” said presidential historian Jon Meacham, a professor at Vanderbilt University. “The Constitution was formed to contain appetite. And we now have the president who is driven entirely by appetite.”
In a scathing eight-page letter this week, the Republican president’s lawyers served notice there will be no cooperation with the impeachment inquiry.
Trump’s White House has ignored document requests and subpoenas. It readily invokes executive privilege — going so far as to argue that the privilege extends to informal presidential advisers who never held White House jobs. And his team all but dares Democrats to hold them in contempt.
The impeachment standoff follows a pattern Trump has established throughout his presidency as he has jettisoned experienced advisers and flouted conventions.
The fact that he survived the special counsel’s Russia investigation without paying much of a political penalty left him all the more emboldened.
One day after Robert Mueller’s faltering testimony brought an end to that threat, Trump unleashed a new one by asking Ukraine’s president to investigate his political foe Joe Biden. That prompted the fast-moving impeachment inquiry that Trump now resists.
After two weeks of a listless and unfocused response to the impeachment probe, the White House letter to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week was a declaration of war.
While it was filled with dubious legal arguments, its intent was clear: Trump would not play ball, claiming that the game was rigged against him.
It’s time to shut the Trump Circus down and send him and the monkeys to jail.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
jjlo
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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