It seems the end of the week is tailor made for a long list of the week’s stories that remind us that we just can’t set our expectations low enough for what’s going on with the entire Republican shamble of wrecking the country in the name of the very wealthy. Let’s catch our breath before the Friday night news drop that will set our sights even lower and review.
President Trump could cut his tax bills by more than $1.1 billion, including saving tens of millions of dollars in a single year, under his proposed tax changes, a New York Times analysis has found.
On Wednesday, the White House announced a sweeping plan to cut a variety of taxes that would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. The estimate of Mr. Trump’s savings is based in part on information from his 2005 federal tax return. The analysis compares what his tax burden would be under current law with what it would be under the proposal.
Mr. Trump’s 2005 return is the most recent available publicly and was released in March by David Cay Johnston, a former New York Times reporter. The Times’s figure also relies on an estimate of Mr. Trump’s net worth, calculated by the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index to be $2.86 billion.
“I don’t benefit. I don’t benefit,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday. “In fact, very, very strongly, as you see, I think there’s very little benefit for people of wealth.”
In fact, high-income earners like Mr. Trump are likely to benefit disproportionately if the White House proposal becomes law. The estimates, calculated with the help of Robert Willens, an accounting expert who uses the best accounting software, and Stephen Breitstone, a tax lawyer, provide a view into precisely how.
Though it would not be reflected on his income tax return, Mr. Trump’s proposal to eliminate the estate tax would generate the largest tax savings. If his assets — reportedly valued at $2.86 billion — were transferred after his death under today’s rules, his estate would be taxed at about 40 percent. Repealing the federal estate tax could save his family about $1.1 billion, though it could still be subject to New York estate taxes.
President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser — Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs president worth an estimated $266 million — appears to be completely clueless about what the average American family spends on a car, vacation or home improvement project.
Hours after falsely claiming that “the wealthy are not getting a tax cut” under Trump’s tax reform plan, Cohn appeared at a White House press briefing and spoke to what middle-class Americans have to look forward to. Based on the administration’s assumptions, he said, a typical family that has two children and earns $100,000 per year can expect annual tax savings of approximately $1,000.
“If we allow a family to keep another thousand dollars of their income, what does that mean?” he asked. “They can renovate their kitchen. They can buy a new car. They can take a family vacation. They can increase their lifestyle.” \
The rather tone-deaf comment came in response to a question about how Trump — who could see savings of more than $125 million per year under his own plan — can claim the proposal doesn’t benefit him personally.
The first two storms, it appears, were only wind-ups to the presidential moment that presents itself now. The crisis in Puerto Rico figures to define President Trump’s responses to this remarkable string of powerful storms. After first seeming to blame Puerto Rico’s poor infrastructure and fiscal crises, Trump is now praising FEMA and expressing his wish that the “press would treat fairly.” But this is one where claims of “fake news” will likely be subsumed by the images and realities. Those realities include millions of American citizens in total crisis. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is warning that the lack of “clear command, control and communication” will cause the situation to “deteriorate rapidly.” The general who oversaw the federal response to Hurricane Katrina is calling the situation – yes – “like Katrina.” This is a heckuva comment, from acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke: “I know it is really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths.” Maybe she will be proven right, and Trump will be praised for taking charge. But this will require a lightly staffed administration – led by a president prone to distraction – to do a whole lot of difficult work, and fast.
The mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, lashed out at acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke’s comment that the Hurricane Maria relief efforts are a “good news story,” saying, that in reality, it’s a “people are dying story.”
Speaking outside the White House on Thursday, Duke said she is “very satisfied” with efforts to aid Puerto Rico in the wake of Maria, which devastated the island and has created a humanitarian crisis. Duke said, “It is really a good news story,” an assessment that prompted San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz’s strong rebuttal.
“Well, maybe from where she’s standing, it’s a good news story. When you’re drinking from a creek, it’s not a good news story. When you don’t have food for a baby, it’s not a good news story,” Cruz told CNN’s “New Day,” referring to the plight of Puerto Ricans, many of whom have received little or no aid thus far. “When you have to pull people down from their buildings — I’m sorry, but that really upsets me and frustrates me. You know, I would ask her to come down here and visit the towns, and then make a statement like that, which frankly, it is an irresponsible statement.”
“Damn it, this is not a good news story. This is a people are dying story. This is a life-or-death story. This is a ‘there’s a truck load of stuff that cannot be taken to people story.’ This is a story of a devastation that continues to worsen because people are not getting food and water,” she continued. “It is not a good news story when people are dying, when they don’t have dialysis, when their generators aren’t working and their oxygen isn’t providing for them. Where is there good news here? … I’m really sorry, but you know when you have people out there dying, literally, scraping for food, where is the good news?”
The issue, Cruz said, has not been a lack of supplies but an inability to deal with the logistics of distributing aid on an island that is still largely without power and supplying it to Puerto Rico’s more rural areas. The mayor said San Juan had received three pallets of water — slightly more than 4,000 bottles for a population of roughly 350,000 people — as well as four pallets of food and 12 pallets of baby food and supplies.
On Monday, it emerged that at least six current and former top White House officials, including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner; his daughter Ivanka Trump; and his chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, have been using private email accounts at least sporadically for government business. This is both dumb and richly paradoxical when one considers that Mr. Trump has continued to attack Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account and server as secretary of state, and has prodded his Justice Department to restart an inquiry that cleared her of criminal wrongdoing.
While the president whips up chants of “Lock her up” in red states, his daughter — one of the less credible “moderating” forces in White House history — has been tapping away on her personal email despite being an administration official. Personal emails are not illegal per se, as long as those about government business are forwarded to government accounts. Failure to do that is a potential violation of the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act, which preserve public access to government documents.
Mr. Kushner seems to have a particular problem with official record keeping, having failed to list scores of assets on his government financial disclosure, and forgotten to include meetings with Russians on his security clearance form. Given his central role in the campaign and White House, imagine how his latest lapse in transparency looks to the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and his team, now hoovering up White House documents in their investigation of possible collusion with Russia. Mr. Kushner’s failure to disclose the personal email concerns leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who learned of it from news reports.
But wait, there’s more: Americans have been learning over the past week about Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s habit of flying private jets to official meetings, with occasional detours to luxury resorts where he owns property, or for outings with his family. Mr. Price and Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, have even used private jets on what a White House aide called “a national listening tour … to learn from the heroes on the front lines” of the opioid crisis — all while pushing for a replacement of the Affordable Care Act that would drain billions from Medicaid and addiction treatment. When asked if he would, wisely, fire Mr. Price, the president said on Wednesday, “I’m looking at that very closely.” Mr. Price said on Thursday that he’d reimburse a portion of the cost.
Mr. Price — a multimillionaire orthopedic surgeon who as a congressman took actions that benefited his personal stock portfolio — isn’t the only Trump cabinet member polluting the public trough. There’s Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, the former Goldman Sachs banker who wanted a $25,000-per-hour Air Force jet to ferry him on his European honeymoon, and has been lying that a tax “reform” proposal to enrich wealthy people like him is a boon for the middle class. And there’s Scott Pruitt, industry’s best friend at the Environmental Protection Agency, who’s cost taxpayers more than $58,000 for noncommercial and military flights, and is spending nearly $25,000 to build a “secure phone booth” in his office.
Oh, this is new … Ryan Zinke: US interior secretary ‘spent $12,000 on flight‘. This is what’s known as bringing the CEO corporate culture into public service. You ever wonder why everything you buy from a big company seems really expensive? Well, this is the kind of shit you’re paying for and I can vouch that every CEO basically wears their perks like a North Korean General wears his medals. They’re status symbols of power. Bilking investors and the public out of money is what Corporate Finance profs like me call the Agency Problem.
Mr Zinke flew from Las Vegas to Montana last June on a private jet that cost taxpayers more than $12,000, according to Politico and the Washington Post.
According to a new Quinnipiac poll, a majority of Americans believe that Donald Trump is unfit to be president. That’s pretty remarkable. But you have to wonder how much higher the number would be if people really knew what’s going on.
For the trouble with Trump isn’t just what he’s doing, but what he isn’t. In his mind, it’s all about him — and while he’s stroking his fragile ego, basic functions of government are being neglected or worse.
Let’s talk about two stories that might seem separate: the deadly neglect of Puerto Rico, and the ongoing sabotage of American health care. What these stories have in common is that millions of Americans are going to suffer, and hundreds if not thousands die, because Trump and his officials are too self-centered to do their jobs.
It’s difficult to see how we can continue to function if the only people in charge of government are those least equipped ethnically, intellectually, and skill-wise to do the work that so many public servants train for and work at their entire lives all while go places in coach or cheap rental cars. It’s unlikely the Republicans will be able to get their deviant tax policy through. I certainly hope so because it’s extremely bad fiscal policy. It has nothing to do with economics or the country or anything that tax policy should be about. It’s only about pleasing their donor overlords like the Mercers and the Kochs.
My hope is that we’re at least proving Grover Norquist wrong who only wants Presidents that can sign bills to destroy the country. My other hope is that the Mueller investigation and what’s left of the GAO can get rid of all these grifters. I swear, there is no worse grifter than a CEO gone wild on other people’s money and that’s pretty much what’s in the West Wing right now. It’s no wonder that Mueller is going after these folks in the same manner they tackle an organized crime syndicate.
Speaking with host Brian Williams, the former nemesis of ex-President Bill Clinton said he is well acquainted with Mueller and that the former FBI head is a relentless investigator.
Noting reports that Vice President Mike Pence met with Mueller over the summer to offer his cooperation, host Williams asked Starr what the American public can expect next.
“Counselor, it is my understanding that you are of the belief that the president should be much more wary and on-guard and worried about these Congressional investigations than the Mueller investigation,” Williams suggested.
“No, I think he’s going to be worried about both,” Starr replied. “I think there is a tendency to ignore what Congress is doing when, famously, during the Watergate investigation so many years ago, the explosive fact of the White House tapes, came not from Archibald Cox, but from Congressional investigators during a deposition.”
Restating the fact that Pence said he was cooperating, Starr added, “The president’s lawyers are all saying that, ‘let’s get this done,’ and the way to get it over with is cooperation.”
Saying he isn’t aware of how far the investigation has advanced, Starr said that he expected a “number of indictments”
“Yes or no answer,” Williams pressed. Do you see the president being placed under oath before this is all over?”
“Yes,” the former prosecutor bluntly stated.
The frog marches out of the White House can’t come soon enough for me or the future of our country.
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It’s funny how metaphors that society assigns to rhetoric often turn out to mean one that metaphorically, but, in actuality and in practice, exist as something completely different. I watched bits and pieces of last night’s Trumpvian political rally for Alabama Senator Luther Strange. It was the usual bigotry and big lies in Shout-out-Vision. Just take a moment of thinking about the parents who let their child grow up in Alabama with a name worthy of a Marvel cartoon villain then imagine the Borough-Born Bully-in-Chief and you’ve got a perfect picture and event designed to pander to Southern White Supremacist Christo-Fascists. It was as bad as you’d think.
Prominent Republican leaders aggressively lobbied the president to travel to Alabama to campaign with Strange, something that Trump himself said was a great risk. He was greeted by a full house of supporters, many of whom stayed on their feet during the entire rally, laughing at his jokes and cheering his attacks on political and foreign adversaries.
The president’s rambling speech lasted nearly 90 minutes. He repeatedly cursed, mocked the leader 0f North Korea, jokingly threatened to fire a Cabinet member w ho endorsed Moore, called on professional football team owners to fire players who kneel during the national anthem, promised to build a new “see-through wall” on the southern border, called allegations of Russian interference in the election a “hoax,” accused unions of protecting “sadists” who abuse elderly veterans, and repeatedly relived the 2016 election.
Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton slammed President Trump on Saturday, saying his presidency is worse than she expected it would be.
“I really had such deep doubts about his preparation, his temperament, his character, his experience, but he’s been even worse than I thought he would be,” Clinton told MSNBC’s Joy Reid on “AM Joy.”
“I tried in my concession speech to make clear that we should all give him the space to be president for every American. That’s what we want from our presidents, regardless of our partisan differences, we want to feel like the person in the oval office really cares about and is looking after everybody,” she continued.
“And that just hasn’t turned out to be the case, starting with our inauguration, which is how I opened the book talking about how excruciating it was to go and what a missed opportunity for him because all he did was reinforce the dark, divisive image of America that he’d been feeding to his supporters.”
Madam Secretary must’ve been watching the provocative North Korea performance as well as the I love Alabama and Alabama loves me HateFest. This all got me thinking about that metaphor of draining swamps. Well that and this item from Rachel Maddow on a part of severely flooded Puerto Rico called Levittown. Levittown–yeah one of those Levittowns–was built on a drained swamp. Earthquake inundated Mexico City was built on a drained lake.
The one thing I’ve learned down here in Swampland in a literal drained swamp is that draining swamps is, in actuality, not a particularly smart thing to do. Swamps are very useful and they are chock full of critters that are pretty neat and useful. But, the metaphor draining the swamp was based on just getting rid of the mosquitoes that were causing yellow fever in the 1820s in New Orleans. Then, draining the swamp referred to getting rid of mosquitoes carrying malaria. The entire idea was supposed to be a good thing based on that one thing.
“Drain the swamp” originally means to get rid of the malaria-carrying mosquitoes by draining the swamp. Figuratively, “drain the swamp” means “to exterminate something that is harmful” or anything that most of the people hate such as corruption or government waste. This term is especially attractive for politicians during campaign.
The problem was the mosquitoes. It wasn’t the swamp. Swamps are wonderful things. So why, label the entire swamp as a problem and drain it when we really just need to deal with the lowly mosquito? Well, developers–like the ones of Levittown, PR and up there on the North Shore, LA–just love draining swamps so they can build on places that really shouldn’t be built upon and nature wills out eventually. It’s in our lexicon as a good thing. It’s not.
Swamps are among the most valuable ecosystems on Earth. They act like giant sponges or reservoirs. When heavy rains cause flooding, swamps and other wetlands absorb excess water, moderating the effects of flooding. Swamps also protect coastal areas from storm surges that can wash away fragile coastline. Saltwater swamps and tidal salt marshes help anchor coastal soil and sand.
The swamp ecosystem also acts as a water treatment plant, filtering wastes and purifying water naturally. When excess nitrogen and other chemicals wash into swamps, plants there absorb and use the chemicals. Many of these chemicals come from human activities such as agriculture, where fertilizers use nitrogen and phosphorus. Factories, water treatment plants, and homes also contribute to runoff. Chemicals not absorbed by plants slowly sink to the bottom and are buried in sand and sediment.
For most of history, wetlands were looked upon as wastelands, and as homes for insect pests such as mosquitoes. (Swamps are home to a wide variety of insects, which feed on the wide variety of plants.) People thought swamps were sinister and forbidding.
In the United States, filling or draining swamps was an accepted practice. Almost half of U.S. wetlands were destroyed before environmental protections were enacted during the 1970s. Most of the Everglades have been reclaimed as agricultural land, mostly sugar plantations. Draining swampland also created valuable real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.
Federal and state authorities drained much of the wetlands at the delta of the Mississippi River in Louisiana as part of a massive system of river management. When Hurricane Katrina blew in from the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, the spongy swamp that traditionally protected the city of New Orleans from destructive weather patterns was diminished. The city was hit full force with a Category 3 hurricane.
Eradicating swampland also threatens economic activity. Two-thirds of the fish and shellfish that are commercially harvested worldwide are linked with wetlands. From Brazils varzeas, or freshwater swamps surrounding the Amazon River, to saltwater swamps near the Florida Keys, commercially valuable fish species that depend on wetlands are threatened with extinction.
In the early 1970s, governments began enacting laws recognizing the enormous value of swamps and other wetlands. In some parts of the United States, it is now against the law to alter or destroy swamps. Through management plans and stricter laws, people are trying to protect remaining swamps and to re-create them in areas where they have been destroyed.
Swamps do not need to be drained. It’s a few Swamp Denizens and pests that need eradicating. Most Government functions are useful and necessary. Most public servants are just that. The problem is when the political system gives us a plague of mosquitoes. We need some fish to gobble them up!
So, this metaphor really is a bigger metaphor for fucking things up and making them worse over time by completely misdiagnosing the problem because greed over science. We don’t need to drain the swamp in DC. It’s already technically a drained swamp. We need to quit sending evasive species there.
Given Trump’s goofy fixation on private jets as a symbol of luxury, it should come as no surprise that an astonishing number of his cabinet members are ensnared in scandals involving air travel, whether on private or civilian planes: Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is in the mix, too, though for slightly different reasons.
What we have is a private jet presidency, a low-class orgy of first-class kleptocrats. Remember when people thought Trump would usher in an era of American totalitarianism? Remember when credible, serious people compared Trump to some of the 20th century’s worst dictators? They, like the people who voted for Trump, believed what he said. How foolish. Even if Trump does yearn to become our Dear Leader, realizing that vision would take immense dedication, something neither Trump nor his minions have. The president obsesses over ratings, while his underlings grab what they can before Bobby Three Sticks (Robert S. Mueller III to you and me) starts handing out indictments like parking tickets.
This administration includes some obviously decent, highly capable people, foremost among them Secretary of Defense General James Mattis, Chief of Staff General John Kelly and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. Hope Hicks, the new communications director, is also well regarded by the journalists who work with her. But they are the exception.
Too many of Trump’s cabinet members have taken to behaving like middle managers let loose in the supply closet for the first time, stuffing their pockets with notepads and pens, hoping the stern secretary doesn’t notice. Oh, but she has. Inspector generals for federal agencies seem to be especially busy these days. Ethics lawyers, too.
I’m on vacation and in a different time zone, so it’s hard to stay caught up with everything. Let me see if I have this straight:
EPA chief Scott Pruitt is sucking up ennvironmental investigation resources by demanding a 24/7 security detail This requires 18 agents instead of the usual six.
HHS Secretary Tom Price uses government chartered planes to fly from DC to Philadelphia.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin requested a government plane for his honeymoon. This is in addition to his government-funded excursion to view the eclipse from the roof of Fort Knox.
Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for Donald Trump, has been under investigation on Russia-related charges since 2014. The charges are serious enough that the FBI got warrants to tap his phone both before and after Trump’s election.
And according to the New York Times, Robert Mueller’s document requests from the White House indicate that “several aspects of his inquiry are focused squarely on Mr. Trump’s behavior in the White House.”
Do I have this right? Is there anyone in the Trump administration who’s not prima facie corrupt? Maybe Rex Tillerson, but only because he’s already rich and doesn’t seem to actually give a shit about his job anyway.
I’ve spent hours walking around swamps. It’s one of my favorite places to be these days. I’ve spent many hours trekking around the Barataria Preserve. The girls and I respectfully enjoyed each gator sighting. But, frankly, there are geckos, fish, birds, and all kinds of kewl things that eat the mosquitoes if you let them live and thrive. There are probably fewer mosquitoes there than the French Quarter with its puddles of yuck.
Robert Mueller is a creature of the DC Swamp and he knows how to go after invasive species. The great thing about a functioning ecosystem is that it knows how to cleanse itself. Only the worst of mankind interferes with the process of nature balancing itself.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that Paul Manafort, when he was running Donald Trump’s campaign last year, sought to use his position to curry favor with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin. Manafort also, it appears, considered the campaign an opportune time to try to convince unnamed people who owed him money to finally pay him back. In response to this news, Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer in charge of representing President Trump in matters related to the Russia investigation, told Bloomberg’s Margaret Talev, “It would be truly shocking” if Manafort “tried to monetize his relationship with the President.”
Cobb’s shock is, surely, of the “Casablanca” variety. Manafort’s personal profit-seeking is, if anything, a rather tepid example of the kind of activity that the special counsel, Robert Mueller, might find as he continues to investigate those in Trump’s orbit. I have been reporting on the Trump Organization for the past year, and, the more work I’ve done, the more it has become clear that allowing hangers-on to monetize their relationship with him was, essentially, Trump’s business model.
The Trump Organization, as it has been described to me by more than a dozen people who have worked for it, was nothing like a typical, hierarchical corporation. The company’s central office was tiny and comprised a few dozen people, including Trump, his children, and some close associates, whose collective experience was largely limited to New York, Miami, and a few other American cities. When the company began aggressively pursuing international deals, over the past decade, it relied on a loose grouping of people who were authorized—formally or not—to travel around the world seeking deals in Trump’s name. Pocketing a little for themselves on the side was part of the arrangement.
According to the sources I’ve spoken with, the Trump Organization was shockingly lax in its due-diligence procedures. It seemed willing to do business with pretty much anybody, no matter his background. (Several Trump officials told me the key criterion was insuring that the potential partner could pay.) This was how Trump ended up doing business with the Mammadov family, in Azerbaijan, for example, whose members were publicly suspected by U.S. officials of partnering with a likely front company for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. A Trump project in Georgia was undertaken with a company that had become entangled in one of the greatest bank frauds in history. A Trump partner in Indonesia, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, has been investigated for corruption and for ties to violent and anti-American Islamists. The list could go on.
That is one great list of our current invasive pests. Don’t drain the swamp. Trap the invasive species–like the Trumpnutria–who the greedy put in a place where they do not belong and release into the wild when they no longer find them useful. The Trump Family Crime Syndicate is as Alabaman as kudzu. Trap invasive species! Save our swamps!
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It’s difficult to continually bear witness to a man holding our highest office prove himself unfit to be in the company of grown ups let alone the shadows of other Americans who’ve held and aspired to the job. You just know that most of us are embarrassed and appalled. The last two days have been an ongoing study in personality disorders.
On the eve of a critical week of foreign policy challenges, Donald Trump started his Sunday by retweeting an edited video of him hitting a golf ball into Hillary Clinton’s back — and her falling over from the impact.
That message — a trollish attempt at humor with overtones of violence against women — went out to Trump’s 38.5 million Twitter followers and turned a Sunday expected to be focused on the President’s preparations for the United Nations General Assembly meetings this week into a now-familiar White House circus.
The simple fact is this: With every passing day, it becomes more and more clear that Trump not only will never act “presidential” but also seems to revel in taking the very word — and concept — and dragging it through the mud.
Trump has been fixated on the idea of “acting presidential” (or not) for some time.
“At the right time, I will be so presidential that you’ll call me and you’ll say, ‘Donald, you have to stop that,'” Trump told Fox News personality Sean Hannity back in March 2016. The following month, in an interview on the “Today” show, Trump made a similar promise: “I will be so presidential, you will be so bored. You’ll say, ‘Can’t he have a little more energy?’
And, at times in the campaign, he would go a day or even a few days in which gave a speech entirely from a teleprompter or didn’t personally attack another politician on Twitter or avoided savaging the reporters covering his campaign as some of the most dishonest people in the world.
But those periods were the exception, not the rule. Trump would always return to who he really is: a coarse provocateur — happiest when he is in the midst of some spat or another. While he bills himself as a counterpuncher, Trump is more accurately understood as a street brawler: He looks for fights and, when he finds them, he does anything and everything to win. The only goal is survival.
Since winning the White House, Trump’s promises of a presidential pivot have become fewer and farther between as he appears to have more fully embraced his Internet troll persona.
For just under half an hour Saturday night, President Trump and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, tackled the missile threat looming from Pyongyang. The pair of leaders condemned North Korea’s recent ballistic missile test — and once more vowed to strengthen their joint defenses and ratchet up economic pressure on Kim Jong Un still further.
Trump asked Moon “how Rocket Man is doing” — as the U.S. president put it in a Sunday morning tweet — and took note of the “long gas lines forming in North Korea,” presumably as a result of the stricter sanctions recently implemented.
Residents in the North Korean capital are scratching their heads. Although there are reports of price increases, they’ve seen no queues at the few service stations in Pyongyang, a city of about 2 million people that has more cars than it used to but is still far from congested.
“We are not aware of any long queues at the gas stations,” one foreign resident of Pyongyang said. “At least, I haven’t noticed anything. I asked a few Koreans, and they haven’t seen anything either.”
Another said there had been no obvious change since the last sanctions resolution was passed by the U.N. Security Council. “Traffic on Friday was as heavy here as I’ve seen it. Normal on Saturday. Quieter on Sunday.” In other words, the same as every week.
Trump was in peak troll form as he addressed the U.N. I knew this was likely to be a train wreck but as with all things Trumpvian you can’t speculate on the extent of the disaster. We got the usual Trump merchandising and branding activities along with a sickening, patronizing lunatic rant.
President Trump on Monday spent his first United Nations address trashing the United Nations — while touting one of his properties that sits across the street from its Manhattan headquarters.
“In recent years, the United Nations has not reached its full potential because of bureaucracy and mismanagement,” Trump said at a forum about reforming the U.N.
“While the United Nations on a regular budget has increased by 140% and its staff has more than doubled since 2000, we are not seeing the results in line with this investment.”
Trump urged the U.N. to focus “more on people and less on bureaucracy” and to change its “business as usual,” though he laid out few specifics for reforms he would like to see. Even so, Trump gave no indication that he will weaken the U.S. support for the 193-nation organization.
Trump began his debut address with a plug for his nearby Trump World Tower.
“I actually saw great potential across the street, to be honest with you, and it’s only for the reason that the United Nations was here that that turned out to be such a successful project,” he said.
Trump completed the residential building in 2001, and its 45th floor has been purchased by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which uses it for part of the Saudi Mission to the United Nations.
Trump will spend most of this week in meetings and reception with the U.N., an organization he fiercely criticized before taking office.
As a candidate and President-elect, Trump said the U.N. was “not a friend of democracy” and dismissed it “a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.” He promised major change to come once he was sworn in.
Trump on Tuesday will give a speech to the entire 193-member General Assembly.
I have no idea why none of them stood up and walked out. Also, what’s the status of the emoluments lawsuit?
The other aspect of Mueller’s investigation that appears to be fairly advanced is his obstruction investigation. We know Mueller is looking at obstruction related to the firing of FBI Director James Comey for many reasons—most recently, the Justice Department refused to permit a Senate committee to interview two FBI officials who were witnesses on this issue, and when asked about the matter, referred questions to Mueller. This indicates that Mueller believes the FBI officials are potential witnesses. (If Mueller thinks he might use their testimony later, he would want to reduce the risk that potential defendants and their counsel can learn about it in advance. His trial lawyers don’t want to generate inconsistent accounts from witnesses that can be used to undermine them at trial.)
Mueller also has set up interviews with White House officials who were reportedly involved in the decision to fire Comey, and Trump lawyers reportedly sent a memo to Mueller making legal arguments about obstruction and claiming that Comey is not a credible witness. This suggests Trump’s legal team believes Mueller is focused on obstruction. They wouldn’t waste their time otherwise.
The strength of the obstruction case against the president is still an open question, however. On the day Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, I told the New York Times that “a prudent prosecutor would want more facts before bringing this case against a president.” Since then, many more facts have been disclosed, including Thursday’s revelation that the president erupted at Attorney General Jeff Sessions when he learned of Mueller’s appointment, calling him an “idiot” and demanding his resignation.
The intensity of Trump’s reaction to the appointment is unusual and will prompt questions about why he cared so deeply about losing control over the Russia investigation. Moreover, former White House aides Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus and Vice President Mike Pence will likely be questioned about what they told the president to persuade him not to fire Sessions, and what he said in response. The president’s words could be used by Mueller as evidence of his “corrupt” intent, which he would need to prove obstruction of justice.
The most significant testimony could come from White House Counsel Don McGahn, who reportedly looked at a letter justifying Comey’s firing that was drafted by White House aide Stephen Miller at Trump’s direction. McGahn made numerous deletions and comments in the draft and also discussed his concerns verbally, according to the New York Times, but it was never published. Mueller has that letter, the Justice Department has confirmed.
It is every Washington reporter’s dream to sit down at a restaurant, overhear secret stuff and get a scoop. It rarely happens.
Still, everyone in town important enough to have secrets worth keeping knows that secrets are not safe on the Acela train and in Washington restaurants.
This is especially true in eateries next door to a major newspaper.
Yes, Ty Cobb and John Dowd, lawyers for President Trump, we’re talking to you.
But it’s too late now.
Dowd represents Trump but does not work at the White House. Cobb is a White House employee who is instantly recognizable to many because of his handlebar mustache.
Together, they went for what appears to have been a working lunch at BLT Steak, 1625 I St. NW in Washington. It’s close to the White House and very convenient.
It’s also next door to 1627 I St. NW, which happens to house the Washington bureau of the New York Times.
Sitting at the next table, according to the Times, was Kenneth Vogel, one of Washington’s most skillful investigative reporters. Vogel is a former reporter for Politico, which is based in Virginia, who arrived at the Times just in time for the Russia investigation and, as it turned out, just in time for lunch.
Vogel overheard the lawyers talking about White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II and Jared Kushner, president Trump’s son-in-law, as well as the infamous Trump Tower meeting. Here’s a sample from the article bearing the bylines of Vogel and Peter Baker:
Mr. Cobb was heard talking about a White House lawyer he deemed “a McGahn spy” and saying Mr. McGahn had “a couple documents locked in a safe” that he seemed to suggest he wanted access to. He also mentioned a colleague whom he blamed for “some of these earlier leaks,” and who he said “tried to push Jared out …”
The White House Counsel’s Office is being very conservative with this stuff,” Mr. Cobb told Mr. Dowd. “Our view is we’re not hiding anything.” Referring to Mr. McGahn, he added, “He’s got a couple documents locked in a safe.”
… Mr. Cobb also discussed the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting — and the White House’s response to it — saying that “there was no perception that there was an exchange.”
So, I can’t decide if Trump is being particularly peevish because Hillary Clinton and her book tour are getting lots of air time or if it’s simply because Mueller has got the goods on the Flynns and Manafort, Undoubtedly, the grand juries’ sites are on Don Jr or Jared who are next on deck. But, he’s being the usual troll extraordinaire which he tends to be when Russia heats up and his on camera time cools down. Ratings!! Winning!! Hugely!!! Biggly!!!
I want to end with a tweet I read last night from a St Louis Reporter.
Police just chanted "Whose Streets, our streets" on Tucker Blvd after making arrests
Police officers in St. Louis, Mo., reportedly chanted “whose streets, our streets” as protesters took to the streets early Monday to demonstrate against the acquittal of a white former police officer in a black motorist’s shooting death.
Officers wearing riot gear employed the phrase, according to The Associated Press. The phrase is a mantra typically used by protesters in recent years.
A photojournalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also reported hearing police chanting the phrase after making arrests. He added that a commander he spoke with said police officers using the phrase is not acceptable.
Protests have occurred after judge last week acquitted a former St. Louis police officer on murder charges in the shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith. The state of civil rights in this country is as bad as I’ve seen it for quite some time. Unfortunately, it’s in the hands of the White Supremacist in Chief and his little sidekick the Oldest Living Confederate Widow.
The world is a dangerous place and international relations are challenging to even the most skilled world leaders. Then, there is Kremlin Caligula. Tweeting all things ‘unhelpful’ at all times. This time it was about a terrorist attack in London.
An “improvised explosive device” was detonated on a Tube train in south-west London during Friday’s morning rush hour, injuring 29 people.
The blast, at Parsons Green station on a District Line train from Wimbledon, is being treated as terrorism.
So-called Islamic State says it carried out the attack, which Prime Minister Theresa May condemned as “cowardly”.,
A hunt is under way for the person who placed the device and the area around the station has been evacuated.
Speciralist officers there securing the remains 0f the improvised device and ensuring it is stable.
“I never think it is helpful for anyone to speculate on what is an ongoing investigation,” May told the BBC, without naming Trump. “The police and security services are working to discover the full circumstances of this cowardly attack and to identify all those responsible.”
Earlier Friday, Trump implied authorities were monitoring those responsible for setting off explosives.
“Another attack in London by a loser terrorist. These are sick and demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard. Must be proactive!” Trump tweeted.
He added in a second tweet that “loser terrorists must be dealt with in a much tougher manner. The internet is their main recruitment tool which we must cut off & use better!”
The explosion in southwest London, which authorities are calling a “terrorist incident,” left 29 people wounded. None of the injuries are thought to be life-threatening. Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley told reporters that most of the injuries appeared to be flash burns.
Rowley said police believe the explosion, at about 8:20 a.m. local time, was caused by an improvised explosive device.
Pictures of the alleged explosive device — a white bucket inside a plastic bag in an underground train carriage — circulated on social media but the blast did not seem to have caused major damage, according to the BBC.
“Londoners particularly can expect to see an enhanced police presence, particularly across the transport system across the day,” Rowley said
Meanwhile, North Korea has fired another ballistic missile over Japan. This came after a flurry of threats from its rogue leader that sounded like a big ol’ return fire to Trump. Thursday saw NK threaten to “sink Japan and turn America to ashes” which sounds similar to “fire and fury” to me.
North Korea has fired a ballistic missile across Japan, creating new tension in the region after its nuclear bomb test less than two weeks ago.
The missile reached an altitude of about 770km (478 miles), travelling 3,700km before landing in the sea off Hokkaido, South Korea’s military says.
It flew higher and further than one fired over Japan late last month.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his country would “never tolerate” such “dangerous provocative action”.
South Korea responded within minutes by firing two ballistic missiles into the sea in a simulated strike on the North.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also condemned the launch and the UN Security Council will meet later on Friday in New York at the request of the United States and Japan.
Guess who did have substantive comments on North Korea?
Hillary Clinton may have lost the 2016 presidential election, but MSNBC host Rachel Maddow declared she “is not a retired politician” after an hour long interview with her Thursday.
Her assessment was echoed by many on Twitter as well, with many users agreeing with Clinton’s take on last year’s election, the Donald Trump presidency and current political situation around issues such as the Russia Investigation, North Korea, and DACA.
The interview with Maddow was a part of a book tour for Clinton’s “What Happened,” which follows her journey during the 2016 election.
Speaking about the situation in North Korea, Clinton said it was important for the country to work with allies like South Korea, which she thought the Trump administration was alienating; she also said Trump was failing to braing in experts to deal with the situation.
“We have decimated our state department. I don’t believe that people who have decades of experience with North Korean diplomacy are being brought to the table, even though they should be,” she said.
Speaking on the contentious Russian meddling in the presidential election, she summed up what Trump aspired toward. “I do believe Trump admires authoritarians. He doesn’t just like Putin, he wants to be like Putin. He wants to have that kind of power that is largely unaccountable,” she said.
Following Clinton’s interview, many users on Twitter commented how different the country would have been if Clinton had been elected the president of the U.S.
A Twitter user by the name Joy Reid was quick to draw comparisons between Trump and Clinton. “Excellent @HillaryClinton interview by #Maddow, and what a reminder of the contrast between the president we have and the one we could have,” she tweeted.
Bob Cesca from the Stephanie Miller Show called Clinton an exceptional woman. “Watching HRC on @Maddow and growing furious (again) at whoever first said presidents should be like us. They should be exceptional like her,” he tweeted.
There were many other tweets which hailed Clinton’s clear headedness and articulateness, with many users asserting she should have been the president of the U.S. instead of Trump.
Supporters of President Donald Trump are still furious about his decision to work with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on helping to shield undocumented immigrants who were brought into the United States as children from being deported.
Now some Trump fans have taken their displeasure a step further and have started setting their “Make America Great Again” hats on fire to protest Trump seemingly going soft on his signature campaign issue.
Angry Trump fan Luis Withrow posted a video of himself on Twitter angrily telling Trump that he will “never make America great again” if he didn’t “drain the swamp” in Washington, DC. He then set his MAGA hat ablaze.
Burn baby burn!
Last night was another reminder that we should have had a President Hillary! What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
and if you liked Cat Stevens you may want to read ‘The Unlikely Return of Cat Stevens’ by Howard Fishman at The New Yorker.
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I just got the notice that the Blog Bells and Whistles bill is coming up in a few weeks which means I’m making one of my twice a year pitches to keep the bling in the blog. It’s also giving me pause as I realize how long we’ve been together as a community.
This is blog post #5,673. The first post dates from this week in 2008. It’s been awhile hasn’t it? Yet, the basic reason we exist and the blog exists still stands. It’s our safe place as Hillary supporters.
Hillary Clinton’s latest book has just been released and she’s out on the promotion trail. I imagine it’s very cathartic and hard for her. I imagine her loyal audience of those of us that have put that book on the bestseller list for quite some time are looking foward to its release tomorrow. We are all checking to see if she’s coming near us on her tour.
Excited Utah headlines announce that failed candidate Mitt Romney is likely to run for Orin Hatch’s senate seat if Hatch chooses retirement. No one has asked Mitt Romney to sit down and shut up and to go away. Yet, even though Clinton has announced she will never be a candidate again, the folks that just want to keep women down come at her. She continues to just threaten their hairy, dangling, crooked balls right off of them.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (L) greets Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee prior to receiving the Barbara Jordan Public-Private Leadership Award at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas June 4, 2015. REUTERS/Donna Carson
In whatever role she carves out for herself, she will have to contend with the vitriol she has drawn throughout her public life. She and Donald Trump went into Election Day with historically low favorability ratings, a distinction they have both maintained after the election. In fact, a Gallup poll conducted this June noted that Mrs. Clinton was the first defeated presidential candidate since 1992 whose favorability ratings had not risen by the June after the election (with the exception of John Kerry, for whom Gallup did not have comparable data). Her highest ratings in multiple polls came after her husband was impeached in 1998 and while she was secretary of state. In a review of 10 polls conducted after the election through this summer, in every case a majority of respondents held an unfavorable view of Mrs. Clinton.
Loathed as she may be in some quarters, many Americans do seem to have understood, and to some extent accepted, that Mrs. Clinton is not going to be on an endless hike in the Chappaqua woods.
To probe deeper into attitudes about Hillary Clinton now, and the role of women in politics, we turned to Morning Consult, a polling, media and technology company. It surveyed 2,000 registered voters online from Aug. 24 to 28.
The survey asked respondents to weigh in on a variety of possible roles for Mrs. Clinton: continue to influence the Democratic Party; raise money for Democrats; raise money for charitable causes; lead efforts to help women and girls; write books; and give speeches. Overall, 74 percent thought at least one of those roles was acceptable; 26 percent said she should play all those roles, and 15 percent vetoed all those activities.
Those of us that worked to get her elected and that voted for her–and remember the vast majority of voters voted for her–still want her in public life. Her amazing bouncebackability is an inspiration to this off us that have to keep fighting our minor fights and truly are tired and want to sit home. She shows us how to rise up and go back to it.
You can google Hillary Clinton Book tour, check the news links, and find that white hot hatred of the right wing burning its way right through your screen. You can also experience the vile bestial nature of Bernie bros and their patron saint of White male Privilege. You can also go straight back to all those hidden Hillary Groups of Facebook that purged the Russian trolls and whiny, needy white men and enjoy the comments of the millions of us that will never find Hillary Clinton irrelevant. Bernie Sanders has never been relevant.
“I think it’s a little bit silly to be keeping talking about 2016. We’ve got too many problems,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said this week of Clinton’s book tour.
Excerpts of “What Happened” suggest Clinton plans to argue that Sanders’ insurgent challenge during the Democratic primary rested on unrealistic promises and ultimately paved the way for President Trump’s successful “Crooked Hillary” attacks.
Clinton’s book has reinvigorated debate among Democrats about how much of the blame for President Trump’s victory lies with external forces, such as Russian interference and former FBI Director James Comey’s 11th hour letter to Congress, and how much responsibility lies with Clinton herself.
The focus of her memoir on dissecting the 2016 election has highlighted the lack of consensus on the left about why Democrats failed to capture the White House and fell short of claiming a Senate majority.
“Clinton is right: Sanders’ attacks on her character fed the same narrative as Trump’s. They hurt her in the general election,” wrote Jill Filipovic, a liberal author, in an op-ed for CNN. “And she’s right that running on the Democratic ticket when you’re not a Democrat isn’t just hypocritical, it can be incredibly damaging. For one thing, it gives a candidate a platform to trash the very party he says he wants to lead.”
WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 07: Senate Intelligence Committee member Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) questions witnesses from the Trump Administration Justice Department and intelligence officials during a hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill June 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. The intelligence and security officials testified about re-authorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is the law the NSA uses to track emails and phone calls of non-US citizens. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Democrats may think they dread her tour but they should seriously be thinking about their grass roots because it’s the women that voted, worked for, and love them some Hillary. If they chase the elusive white male, they lose their base and their base is hugely made up of black women. The one thing that I have learned living in the south and working for both the Mary Landrieu Campaign and helping deliver the Louisiana primary votes that sent the Clinton candidacy to the winner circle is the now and future power of black women.
More than two dozen African American women, including political activists and elected officials, have signed an open letter to Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez criticizing him for seeming to take for granted the party’s most loyal base of support.
The letter, published Thursday on nbcnews.com, comes as Perez, who was elected chairman of the DNC in February, is traveling around the country meeting with party leaders in an effort to regroup after last fall’s upset victory by Republican Donald Trump.
In the letter, the authors say that black women have consistently supported the party, but have been ignored by Democratic leaders who seemed to be more focused on winning back white voters who rejected Hillary Clinton in November.
“The data reveals that Black women voters are the very foundation to a winning coalition, yet most Black voters feel like the Democrats take them for granted,” the letter reads. “Since taking office, you have met with and listened to key constituencies. But you have yet to host a Black women leaders convening.”
Tammy Duckworth, Candidate for the US House of Representatives walks off stage after her speech to the Democratic National Convention at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, 04 September 2012. Duckworth was a helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in combat injuries in Iraq. US President Barack Obama will be nominated to run for a second term at the convention. EPA/TANNEN MAURY
That term, identity politics, has been hotly debated in recent years, most notably in reaction to the 2016 election. For some, the Democratic Party’s insistence on focusing on identity politics—or at least, a certain definition of identity politics—is what cost them the election. The most prominent and vocal critic of identity politics has been Columbia University professor Mark Lilla, who declared in a New York Timesop-ed published ten days after the election “that the age of identity liberalism must be brought to an end,” because it had been “disastrous as a foundation for democratic politics in our ideological age.” Lilla expanded this argument into a book-length polemic entitled The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, released in August of this year. His main complaint is that identity politics is having a pernicious effect on the Democratic Party’s ability to win votes from “the demosliving between the coasts.” He finds that a focus on identity politics at the university level is to blame, since young people are not being taught that “they share a destiny with all their fellow citizens and have duties toward them.”
Except Lilla’s argument has nothing to do with identity politics. At least, not as the Combahee River Collective, which coined the term and theorized its meaning, originally laid out. In fact, Lilla spends very little time engaging the collective’s meaning of the term, instead devoting his energy to his own interpretation of identity politics. The one time he does mention their work he is dismissive. In the book he writes: “With the rise of identity consciousness, engagement in issue-based movements began to diminish somewhat and the conviction got rooted that the movements most meaningful to the self are, unsurprisingly, about the self. As the feminist authors of the Combahee River Collective put it baldly in their influential 1977 manifesto, ‘the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.’”
Lilla’s spin on this statement would make identity politics sound like a selfish political theory. But his bad interpretation is not the same as a bad theory. When the collective writes that the “most radical politics come directly out of our own identity,” Lilla reads this as applying to each individual group’s identity when the Combahee River Collective meant “our own” to apply specifically to black women. It is a result of their belief, as they write later in the statement, that, “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” The original intent of identity politics was articulating black women’s struggle at the nexus of race, gender, sexual, and class oppressions, and then forming strategies for dismantling each of these, both in black feminist spaces and in coalition with other groups.
How Lilla misses this is beyond me, since if he read the collective’s statement in full he would have to challenge his own definition of a selfish identity politics against the group’s statements.
The radical act the bernie bros should seek is to vote in more women of color. Their acts just prop up the white male status quo.
Once again, Hillary Clinton is offering some opinions, and, once again, she is being told to keep quiet. This is a familiar pattern for us, no less for her, so perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising to see it recur. But I’d like to push back a bit on this one.
The occasion for this current dust-up is, of course, the release of Clinton’s new book What Happened. Disclosure: I haven’t read it. (Honestly, I don’t find many candidate narratives of their own campaigns all that interesting.) Nor have many of those who are currently criticizing her for writing it. But the main criticisms seem to be:
Clinton shouldn’t be criticizing Bernie Sanders right now because that’s just causing Democratic divisions at a time when the party need unity.
She lost to a vulnerable candidate and thus must be an even worse candidate herself.
Her general election loss means it’s time for her to go away and stop “consuming oxygen.”
HRC, at the bottom of BIGGEST political pile-on in history (media/FBI/opponents) has EVERY right to say her piece. https://t.co/qseZuzZGdY
At some point, we need to assess the role of media in the 2016 witch hunt that ended with the most unfit president ever sitting in the Oval Office. They need to walk in the woods, do some yoga, play with their dogs, and drink chardonnay. But her emails …
But Clinton was also so dogged by the email story that it wound up being the main thing people thought of when they heard her name, above any and all policy considerations, while her opponent received more coverage of his issues and less coverage of any respective scandal – even though his improprieties were, I would argue, far more consequential in terms of showing his character and leadership deficiencies. Trump benefited from scandal diffusion, if you will, as well as the press’ belief that Clinton would win – and thus needed to be held to account for every little error she’d committed.
A lot of Clinton’s recent activities have been met by jeering from conservatives and hand-wringing from Democrats; the former think any discussion about what went down in 2016 is just Clinton being a sore loser, while liberals want to move on from an electoral result that is still pretty embarrassing. But figuring out what happened regarding Clinton’s media coverage and whether it had an effect on the election isn’t “moaning,” as conservative outlets put it, but necessary soul-searching in the wake of an electoral result that few in the press saw coming. The role the media played in elevating a plainly unqualified reality television actor to the White House, even if it wasn’t decisive, needs to be examined.
I once thought that Clinton’s email mess wouldn’t really matter come Election Day, and I’m certainly not going to argue that coverage of it tipped the scales to Trump, that if she hadn’t used a private server she’d be madam president today for sure. In an election that was as close as was the 2016 edition, any little thing could have changed the equation. And none of this is to diminish the role that former FBI Director James Comey’s last-gasp intervention or the meddling of Russia played in getting Trump elected.
However, there’s going to be another election soon enough. What rises to the level of all-encompassing scandal coverage matters. Every day it’s more apparent that “her emails!” didn’t.
So, her book is available tomorrow. I’m going to hug my dog, put on my yoga pants, drink some chardonnay and read it. I’m willing to take any bit of her that makes me feel better than what’s going on right now. If I have to read one more article about how no on pays attention to the poor white working man, I will blow it out my nostrils and tell the writer to blow it out his white male ass or their white male ass kissing lips. The many, many women and men that worked for Hillary’s campaign that had hoped for a more perfect union where all of us would be safer and more valued deserve a few hours of rest from the Trumpian nightmare. Our vision didn’t not include a daily assault on the right to vote, the civil rights of the GLBT, and a return to the glory days of the confederacy and Jim Crow. We are glad she’s still standing and fighting and it gives us some hope.
I am glad that Hillary will still be fighting for a more perfect union and that it’s one that enfranchises all of us and gives us all the respect we are due. Do something radical today. Write a check. Volunteer on a campaign. Support a candidate that truly reflects the diversity and gifts of our nation. Don’t let any one sit the next one out.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Good Afternoon!
Let’s just juxtapose that on this headline from the Business Insider: 
People are dying in Puerto Rico while Kremlin Caligula goes golfing this weekend and tells every one he’s doing a heckuva job.
The New York Times Op Ed page is alive with pieces questioning Trump’s fitness for office. “Private Emails, Private Jets and Mr. Trump’s Idea of Public Service”.
The frog marches out of the White House can’t come soon enough for me or the future of our country.
Other stories of the day were the Federal Government finally got around to telling 
Madam Secretary must’ve been watching the provocative North Korea performance as well as the I love Alabama and Alabama loves me HateFest. This all got me thinking about that metaphor of draining swamps. 
The problem was the mosquitoes. It wasn’t the swamp. 
Kevin Drum asks “Is There Anyone In the Trump Administration Who Isn’t Corrupt?”
I’ve spent hours walking around swamps. It’s one of my favorite places to be these days. I’ve spent many hours trekking around the 
That is one great list of our current invasive pests. Don’t drain the swamp. Trap the invasive species–like the Trumpnutria–who the greedy put in a place where they do not belong and release into the wild when they no longer find them useful. The Trump Family Crime Syndicate is as Alabaman as kudzu. Trap invasive species! Save our swamps!
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
His internet troll persona also tweeted some nastiness at the only other leader in the world with nuclear weapons and about as many personality disorders as Trump. 
Trump was in peak troll form as he addressed the U.N. 
How about what’s Bob Mueller up to?
Which leads us to this interesting development:
Protests have occurred after judge last week acquitted a former St. Louis police officer on murder charges in the shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith. The state of civil rights in this country is as bad as I’ve seen it for quite some time. Unfortunately, it’s in the hands of the White Supremacist in Chief and his little sidekick the Oldest Living Confederate Widow.
Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!
Meanwhile, North Korea has fired another ballistic missile over
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
The radical act the bernie bros should seek is to vote in more women of color. Their acts just prop up the white male status quo.
So, her book is available tomorrow. I’m going to hug my dog, put on my yoga pants, drink some chardonnay and read it. I’m willing to take any bit of her that makes me feel better than what’s going on right now. If I have to read one more article about how no on pays attention to the poor white working man, I will blow it out my nostrils and tell the writer to blow it out his white male ass or their white male ass kissing lips. The many, many women and men that worked for Hillary’s campaign that had hoped for a more perfect union where all of us would be safer and more valued deserve a few hours of rest from the Trumpian nightmare. Our vision didn’t not include a daily assault on the right to vote, the civil rights of the GLBT, and a return to the glory days of the confederacy and Jim Crow. We are glad she’s still standing and fighting and it gives us some hope.
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