Lazy Saturday Reads: The Endless Scream
Posted: March 10, 2018 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics 30 Comments
Parody of Edvard Munch’s The Scream by Svetlana Petrova
Happy Saturday!!
Our formerly great country has sunk into ridiculousness. In a little over a year, Trump has turned us into a laughing stock around the world. I wonder if there is any way to come back from the disaster he has created. Somehow we have to keep hanging on, hoping that the midterm elections will deliver a blue wave and that Robert Mueller’s team of prosecutors and investigators will dig up enough evidence to bring Trump down through impeachment, indictment, or resignation.
I want to begin with a potential disaster of Trump’s making that hasn’t gotten enough attention. Remember Trump’s decision to shrink the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah by 85 percent? Well, in the parts of the previously public land that Trump is turning over to oil companies, there has been an important scientific discovery. The Washington Post on Feb. 22: Spectacular fossils found at Bears Ears — right where Trump removed protections.
One of the world’s richest troves of Triassic-period fossils has been discovered in an area of Bears Ears National Monument that just lost its protected status, scientists announced Thursday. President Trump signed a proclamation in December that shrank the national monument by 85 percent.
The discovery of intact remains of crocodile-like animals called phytosaurs came to light this week when researchers announced it at the Western Association of Vertebrate Paleontologists conference at Dixie State University in St. George, Utah. Based on an initial excavation, the 70-yard-long site, its depth yet unknown, “may be the densest area of Triassic period fossils in the nation, maybe the world,” Rob Gay, a contractor at the Museums of Western Colorado, said in a statement.
In an interview, Gay, who led a team of researchers on last year’s expedition, called it the “largest and most complete bone bed in the state of Utah, and one of, if not the largest, anywhere in the United States.” He called the discovery of three intact toothy, long-snouted fossils from the period extremely rare, adding that the “density of bone is as high or greater than all the other Triassic sites in the country.”
The fossil bed is part of the Chinle Formation, ancient river and flood plain deposits that run through the center of the original monument President Barack Obama designated in December 2016. But that sedimentary rock also contains uranium, which made it more commercially attractive than other parts of Bears Ears.
In December, The Washington Post reported that the firm Energy Fuels Resources lobbied Interior Department officials to shrink the boundaries of the monument, in part to allow the company greater access to areas where it held uranium mining rights. Trump’s Bears Ears proclamation, which took effect Feb. 2, cut more than 1 million acres from its original 1.35-million-acre expanse. A separate proclamation reduced another national monument in Utah, Grand Staircase-Escalante, by about 800,000 acres.
Please go read the rest. Something must be done to protect these important scientific finds.
This article in the Salt Lake City Tribune provides more background on this story: A search for an ancient crocodile in Utah’s Bears Ears leads to a major discovery of Triassic fossils. A brief excerpt from the end of the piece:
Conservationists have heavily promoted Gay’s discovery because it highlights what they say was the shortsightedness of President Donald Trump’s decision to shrink the Bears Ears monument, a move that is being challenged in court.
“While a discovery of this magnitude certainly is a welcome surprise, protecting such resources was the very purpose of Bears Ears National Monument,” said Scott Miller of the Wilderness Society, an environmental group.
“That President Trump acted to revoke protections for these lands is outrageous, and that he did so despite the Department of the Interior knowing of this amazing discovery is even more shocking,” Miller said. “I hope the courts will act quickly to restore protections for Bears Ears National Monument before any more fossils are looted from the area and lost to science.”
Whatever the outcome of the court case, however, the fossils will remain under the jurisdiction of the Paleontological Resources Protection Act, a 2009 law that carries criminal penalties for those who loot fossils from public lands.
More background on the court battle:
The Washington Post, Dec. 2017: Trump is being sued to stop him from shrinking Bears Ears national monument by 85 percent. Who will win?
Salt Lake City Tribune, Dec. 2017: Feds ask for Bears Ears lawsuits to be consolidated.
Salt Lake City Tribune, Feb. 2018: Tribes fight to keep Bears Ears lawsuit in D.C.
I plan to keep an eye on this story.
And now, back to current disasters. So many people are leaving the Trump administration that the White House staff has been reduced mostly to Trump family members and fanatical loyalists. More resignations and firings are apparently coming soon.
David Smith at The Guardian: ‘Hollowed out’ White House: Trump is on a dangerous path toward no advisers. In recent days, Trump has lost two important White House staff members–Hope Hicks and Gary Cohn– and it looks like more will be leaving soon.
There has never been such a rapid turnover of personnel in a US administration in modern times. If anything, the stampede to the exits appears to be accelerating, raising fears of a “brain drain” that will leave key jobs unfilled and make it ever harder to recruit new talent.
“One of the problems here is the White House is getting hollowed out and the number of people capable of doing things, of doing real things whether you agree or disagree ideologically, is getting smaller and smaller,” Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, told reporters. “So the mess-ups we’ve seen this past week, I think we’re going to see over and over and over again.”
Trump, who spent a decade as host of The Apprentice, has enjoyed pulling back the curtain to allow White House meetings to be televised. But he also appears to be copying the reality TV format of eliminating a member of his administration or cabinet on a weekly basis, leaving the audience in suspense: who’s next?
Multiple reports have suggested that it could be HR McMaster, the national security adviser whose style is said to grate with Trump, or Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state who has been repeatedly marginalised.
In addition, John Kelly, the chief of staff once seen as a stabilising force, has been under pressure over his handling of allegations of domestic abuse against his close aide Rob Porter. And Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, looks especially vulnerable after his security clearance was downgraded and the Russian collusion investigation closes in.
Click on the link to read the rest.
The Boston Globe: AP reports Trump wants to rely less on White House staff.
His staff hollowing out and his agenda languishing, President Donald Trump is increasingly flying solo.
Always improvisational, the president exercised his penchant for going it alone in a big way this week: first, by ordering sweeping tariffs opposed by foreign allies and by many in his own party, then hours later delivering the stunning news that he’ll meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The president has long considered himself his own best consultant, saying during the presidential campaign: “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
Trump has told confidants recently that he wants to be less reliant on his staff, believing they often give bad advice, and that he plans to follow his own instincts, which he credits with his stunning election, according to two people who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about private conversations.
Trump’s latest unilateral moves come at a moment of vulnerability for the president. Top staffers are heading for the exits, the Russia investigation continues to loom and Trump is facing growing questions about a lawsuit filed by a porn actress who claims her affair with the president was hushed up.
Is Trump deliberately imitating the brutal dictators he admires by centering decision-making in himself and his family? It sure seems that way, and it’s frightening. Links to check out on Trump’s latest snap decision–a meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un:
Politico: Trump’s bold stroke on North Korea dissolves into confusion.
The White House on Friday appeared to set tougher conditions for a meeting between President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, saying that the North must take “concrete steps” toward denuclearizing.
The White House also seemed to back away from the two-month timeframe laid out by South Korean officials on Thursday evening during a highly unusual press announcement in the White House driveway.
“Look, they’ve got to follow through on the promises they made,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during a briefing Friday—raising the possibility that a meeting may never happen – even though the White House had touted it as a major achievement less than 24 hours earlier….
The North Korea announcement’s sudden roll-out, followed by confusion and then tons of caveats, also followed a pattern of policymaking in the Trump White House, in which pronouncements often come before detailed plans are concrete.
At issue Friday was the nature of what the North Koreans had promised. Sanders called “denuclearization” a precondition for any direct meeting between Trump and Kim. But experts called the prospect of North Korea dismantling its nuclear program before the start of talks totally unimaginable.
Yuki Tatsumi at HuffPost: It Only Takes One Trump Tweet To Fall Into North Korea’s Trap.
If the Trump-Kim summit happens, it would mark a real breakthrough in the increasingly dangerous situation that has threatened Northeast Asia for the last 25 years. But for now, for many reasons, it is too soon to be optimistic.
The offer Kim made to South Korean presidential envoy Chung Yi-Eung is almost too good to be true. The North Korean dictator committed to suspending nuclear and missile tests, and also reportedly showed understanding that “the routine joint military exercises between the Republic of Korea and the United States must continue.” Above all, Kim expressed his commitment to denuclearization.
The Trump White House has been quick to take credit for Kim’s softened stance, arguing it is the result of the administration’s steadfast efforts to exert maximum pressure on North Korea. It is certainly possible the White House is correct. It is possible that, faced with an American president who does not hesitate to talk about the “annihilation” of North Korea, Kim decided to cement his legacy as the leader who demonstrated his capacity to make his nation a nuclear state, but who agreed to denuclearize and led the country to peace with its old enemy ― and scored a meeting with a sitting U.S. president to boot.
On the other hand, Kim’s gesture could be an extremely cunning trap for the Trump administration, and if Trump falls into it, he could drive a lasting wedge between the U.S. and its allies in the region.
Japan for example. Business Insider: One of America’s closest allies could be the biggest loser if talks between Trump and Kim Jong-Un go south.
While President Donald Trump’s acceptance of an invitation to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un shocked the world on Thursday, no other nation could have been more alarmed than Japan.
The Japanese government received no warning of Trump’s decision, according to The New York Times. Trump is believed to have immediately accepted the invitation after South Korean officials briefed him at the White House. They, too, who were reportedly bewildered by his quick response.
After accepting the offer, Trump called Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and reassured him that the US would continue to exert maximum pressure on North Korea — a talking point that White House officials touted heavily on Friday in the hours after South Korean leaders announced the Kim Jong-Un invite in front of the White House.
Officials say that during Trump’s call with Abe the Japanese prime minister requested a meeting with the US president. Abe told reporters afterward that the US and Japan would be “together 100%” and that he would meet Trump in April.
Read more at the link.
At least we’ve finally reached the weekend and maybe we’ll have some time to recover from another week of news overload. What stories are you following?
Thursday Reads: International Women’s Day and News Overload
Posted: March 8, 2018 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Foreign Affairs, U.S. Politics | Tags: Aras and Emin Agalarov, Donald Trump, Eric Prince, Robert Mueller, Russia investigation, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stormy Daniels 23 Comments
Young Woman in the Garden, by Eduoard Manet
Good Afternoon!!
Today is International Women’s Day; and to demonstrate how far women have advanced in American society (NOT!), the sitting “president” is being sued by a porn star.
In honor of the day supposedly dedicated to women’s progress, The New York Times offers an “interactive feature” entitled “Overlooked” that examines the lives of 15 historically important women whose deaths were ignored by the New York Times obituaries. The fifteen overlooked women are: Ida B. Wells, Qui Jin, Mary Ewing Outerbridge, Diane Arbus, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Plath, Henrietta Lacks, Madhubala, Emily Warren Roebling, Nella Larsen, Ada Lovelace, Margaret Abbott, Belkis Ayón, Charlotte Brontë, Lillias Campbell Davidson. Read their newly written obituaries at the NYT.
Two more pieces to check out:
Brookings: Happy (not so) International Women’s Day.
We’ve heard it all before. Women are sexually harassed and assaulted. Women are discriminated against in the workplace. Women are excluded from political decision-making. Even women who “have it all” can’t seem to get it right. Working mothers are reprimanded for not being present enough for their children or at work.
Vautier, Otto (1863-1919) Femme lisant
International Women’s Day comes and goes every year. But it fails to account for the diverse grievances, needs, and expectations of women in varied contexts. According to Dr. Andres Bustillo, plenty of women go for plastic surgery as a means to cope with emotional stress (and aesthetics is just secondary). Some criticize it as an occasion that turns the recognition of women and their achievements into an exceptional circumstance, a day-long celebration on the 8th of March. After that, normality resumes – a normality in which the patriarchy dismisses issues affecting women, and in which women are discriminated against, harassed, and marginalized on a daily basis.
Read the rest at the link.
Jeff Green Bloomberg: Women Must Wait a Century For Equal Pay.
The United Nations first recognized International Women’s Day in 1975, sparking 38 years of annual demonstrations, private and public proclamations and a general recognition that even in the modern era, gender equality has a long way to go.
More recently, the day has been an opportunity to consider how much has changed, which is especially apt in 2018 as the #MeToo movement continues to expose sexual harassment and misconduct. That’s why Sexual Trauma rehab was made to help women. Nevertheless, this year’s slew of reports are sobering as they suggest backsliding for women’s economic empowerment and for women in business.The World Economic Forum now estimates global pay parity is a century away, an increase from about 80 years in 2016 — in part because the path for women to the most highly paid jobs is less clear. Executive teams globally slipped to being just 24 percent women from 25 percent in the most recent year, according to Grant Thornton. And among new CEO hires globally, less than 4 percent went to women in 2016, professional services firm PwC said.
Young woman reading, by John Singer Sargent, 1911
In the U.S. and in the U.K., there’s even more bad news. The number of women CEOs at the largest U.S. companies will slip to 24 from 27, according to Catalyst, which tracks diversity in companies. Among the 92 largest companies in the U.K., 6.5 percent had women CEOs, a dip from 7.8 percent in 2016, according to executive recruiter Egon Zehnder.
Read more at Bloomberg.
This week there have been several major stories every day about the Russia investigation. It’s difficult to keep up, even if you have as much time to follow news as I do. On top of that, the porn star scandal has broken out of the tabloids and into big-time news outlets.
I won’t recap all the Russia and Stormy Daniels news that broke yesterday, but here are some headlines to check out in case you missed them:
The New York Times: Trump Spoke to Witnesses About Matters They Discussed With Special Counsel.
The Washington Post: Mueller gathers evidence that 2017 Seychelles meeting was effort to establish back channel to Kremlin.
NBC News: Hope Hicks told House Intelligence Committee she was hacked, sources say.
NBC News: Stormy Daniels sues Trump, says ‘hush agreement’ invalid because he never signed
NBC News: Trump lawyer Michael Cohen tries to silence adult-film star Stormy Daniels.
More news on these stories broke this morning. At the top of the heap is a long excerpt at Yahoo News–part 1 of 2–from the new book by Michael Isakoff and David Corn: Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump.
Yahoo News: Miss Universe in Moscow: How Trump’s beauty contest spawned a business deal with Russians and a bond with Putin.
It was late in the afternoon of Nov. 9, 2013, in Moscow, and Donald Trump was getting anxious.
Reading at lamp light Delphin Enjolras
This was his second day in the Russian capital, and the brash businessman and reality TV star was running through a whirlwind schedule to promote that evening’s extravaganza at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall: the Miss Universe pageant, in which women from 86 countries would be judged before a worldwide television audience estimated at 1 billion.
Trump had purchased the pageant 17 years earlier, partnering with NBC. It was one of his most-prized properties, bringing in millions of dollars a year in revenue and, perhaps as important, burnishing his image as an international playboy celebrity. While in the Russian capital, Trump was also scouting for new and grand business opportunities, having spent decades trying — but failing — to develop high-end projects in Moscow. Miss Universe staffers considered it an open secret that Trump’s true agenda in Moscow was not the show but his desire to do business there.
Yet to those around him that afternoon, Trump seemed gripped by one question: Where was Vladimir Putin?
Trump was already obsessed with Putin in 2013 and had dreamed of building a Trump tower in Moscow for decades. Putin never showed up, but he did have his “right hand man and press spokesman” Dmitry Peskov speak to Trump on the phone.
In the lead-up to making the deal that would take the Miss Universe pageant to Russia, Trump went with his entourage and his Russian guest Emin Agalarov to a Las Vegas nightclub called the Act.
Girl reading, William Morris Hunt
Shortly after midnight, the entourage arrived at the club. The group included Trump, Emin, Goldstone, Culpo, and Nana Meriwether, the outgoing Miss USA. Trump and Culpo were photographed in the lobby by a local paparazzi. The club’s management had heard that Trump might be there that night and had arranged to have plenty of Diet Coke on hand for the teetotaling Trump. (The owners had also discussed whether they should prepare a special performance for the developer, perhaps a dominatrix who would tie him up on stage or a little-person transvestite Trump impersonator. They nixed that idea.) [….]
The Act was no ordinary nightclub. Since March, it had been the target of undercover surveillance by the Nevada Gaming Control Board and investigators for the club’s landlord — the Palazzo, which was owned by GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson — after complaints about its performances. The club featured seminude women performing simulated sex acts of bestiality and grotesque sadomasochism — skits that a few months later would prompt a Nevada state judge to issue an injunction barring any more of its “lewd” and “offensive” performances. Among the club’s regular acts cited by the judge was one called “Hot for Teacher,” in which naked college girls simulate urinating on a professor. In another act, two women disrobe and then “one female stands over the other female and simulates urinating while the other female catches the urine in two wine glasses.” (The Act shut down after the judge’s ruling. There is no public record of which skits were performed the night Trump was present.)
As the Act’s scantily clad dancers gyrated in front of them late that night, Emin, Goldstone, Culpo and the rest toasted Trump’s birthday. (He had turned 67 the day before.)
Hmm . . . Do you supposed that performance gave Trump ideas?
More news breaking this morning:
Róbert Berény ~ Hungarian painter, 1887 – 1953
CNN: Amid renewed scrutiny, Erik Prince to host fundraiser for Russia-friendly congressman.
Blackwater founder Erik Prince will host a fundraiser this month for Russia-friendly Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, as Prince faces new questions over a 2017 meeting currently being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Prince and Rohrabacher have been friends and mutual supporters for years: Prince interned for the California congressman on Capitol Hill in 1990, and Rohrabacher vigorously defended Prince when Blackwater faced congressional scrutiny during President George W. Bush’s administration.
The fundraising event, slated for March 18 at Prince’s Middleburg, Virginia residence, is expected to be attended by GOP Reps. Tom Garrett Jr. and Dave Brat, and Lt. Colonel Oliver North, according to an invitation obtained by CNN. Tickets start at $1,000 for the general reception, although donors paying $2,700 will also be invited to attend a VIP event beforehand.
But the fundraiser comes at an uneasy moment for the longtime allies.Prince, an associate of President Donald Trump, is confronting renewed questions regarding a January 2017 trip to the Seychelles islands, where he met with a Russian banker, Kirill Dmitriev and Emirati officials. Also in attendance was George Nader, a Middle East specialist with ties to Emirati leaders. Nader is now cooperating with Mueller’s investigation, CNN has learned.
The Washington Post: Republicans flee the storm over Stormy Daniels and President Trump.
Leisure, by William Worcester Churchill
Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.), whose pithy comments have made him a favorite among congressional reporters, was tight-lipped Wednesday when asked how Republicans would have reacted if President Barack Obama was accused of having had an affair with a porn star.
“I don’t know,” Kennedy said before offering up a blanket condemnation of sexual harassment. “That’s the way I feel about it. This is no country for creepy old men.”
After starting to walk away, Kennedy quickly turned back to a reporter with an urgent clarification: His comments were not intended to reflect poorly on President Trump.
And so it went Wednesday in the wake of the latest development in the Stormy Daniels saga — a lawsuit from the adult film star arguing that her hush-money arrangement not to talk about an alleged affair was null and void because Trump never signed it.
Most Republicans on Capitol Hill sought to avoid the topic altogether, while those who were willing to talk about it were careful not to criticize Trump for allegations that would have sent previous White Houses into a tailspin.
CNN: Trump upset with Sanders over Stormy Daniels response.
President Donald Trump is upset with White House press secretary Sarah Sanders over her responses Wednesday regarding his alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, a source close to the White House tells CNN….
A Girl Reading, Frank Duvenek 1877
On Wednesday, Sanders told reporters that the arbitration was won “in the President’s favor.” The statement is an admission that the nondisclosure agreement exists, and that it directly involves the President. It is the first time the White House has admitted the President was involved in any way with Daniels.
“POTUS is very unhappy,” the source said. “Sarah gave the Stormy Daniels storyline steroids yesterday.”
CNN: US allies are upset. The top economist quit. Trump doesn’t care.
President Donald Trump’s demand that new tariffs be slapped on steel and aluminum imports has spooked markets, prompted his chief economist’s resignation, rattled major US allies and widened a rift with establishment Republicans.
But he nevertheless signaled on Thursday he was intent on moving forward, despite the lingering legal questions and steep resistance from opponents.
The move was widely expected to set off a trade battle that Trump insists the US can win — but which even some of his closest advisers worry could seriously damage a growing American economy.
“Looking forward to 3:30 P.M. meeting today at the White House,” Trump wrote in a morning tweet. “We have to protect & build our Steel and Aluminum Industries while at the same time showing great flexibility and cooperation toward those that are real friends and treat us fairly on both trade and the military.”
Will today be as overwhelming news-wise as Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were? State tuned. What stories have you been following?
Tuesday Reads And Reading Women
Posted: March 6, 2018 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Foreign Affairs, Republican politics, U.S. Politics 42 Comments
Blue Girl Reading, 1912, by August Macke
Good Afternoon!!
I’m still digesting the news from yesterday and preparing myself for the upcoming nor’easter. This one will drop snow on us. Luckily I got out to the store yesterday, so I have plenty of supplies.
Could Wednesday’s nor’easter unleash 2 feet of snow on Massachusetts? Newly released weather maps have dropped a load of fresh information on the upcoming storm, including rapidly increasing snow forecast totals that are beginning to get out of control.
The National Weather Service on Tuesday morning released a new snow total map that increases the high-end totals in parts of northern Mass. to 18-24 inches while moving the rain/snow line farther east, meaning heavier snow totals in parts of Eastern Mass. Communities north and west of Boston could now be getting up to 18 inches, while the Boston area itself is still looking at 6-8 inches.
Areas south of Boston, many of which make up the more than 20,000 still without power from the last storm, are expected to get primarily rain.
Our beloved Pat will be dealing plenty of white stuff on Thursday.
I woke up early this morning and made the mistake of turning on MSNBC. Joe Scarborough thinks it’s impossible for anyone not to feel sorry for Sam Nunberg, whom he refers to as “a kid.” Nunberg is 36. Scarborough also empathizes with Michael Flynn because he’s selling his house to cover his legal fees. ABC News:
Michael Flynn, the retired Army general and ex-Trump national security adviser who pleaded guilty last year to lying to FBI agents about his Russian contacts, has put his Virginia home up for sale to pay mounting legal fees, friends and family members told ABC News.
Inspiration, by Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky
Flynn’s 13-year-old, three-bedroom townhouse in Old Town Alexandria outside Washington, which he bought three years ago, was listed for sale in December with an asking price of $895,000 — money he will use to pay his high legal defense debts, his brother Joe Flynn said Monday.
The retired three-star general and former Defense Intelligence Agency director withdrew to his hometown of Middletown, R.I., last year after he was dismissed by President Donald Trump 24 days into his role as national security adviser, later becoming embroiled in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
In other words, Flynn is trying to sell his second home? Well, boo hoo. I don’t care if he ends up in a trailer park. Maybe he should have thought twice before acting as a foreign agent for Russia and Turkey, not to mention leading “lock her up” chants at Trump rallies.
As for Nunberg, McKay Coppins reports that “the kid” was celebrating his publicly televised meltdown last night: Sam Nunberg’s Spectacular Stunt.
“By the way, you know I’m the number one trending person on Twitter?”
It was just after 8:00 p.m. on Monday night, and the suddenly-famous Sam Nunberg had phoned me from Dorrian’s Red Hand Restaurant, a yuppie hangout on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where he was reveling in his triumph.
After announcing earlier that day his intention to defy a grand-jury subpoena he says he received in the Russia investigation (“Arrest me,” he’d dared prosecutors), the former Trump aide had spent the day conducting a manic media blitz—popping up on multiple cable-news programs, granting interviews to dozens of journalists, and hijacking the news cycle with a car-crash procession of blustery soundbites. Legal experts were warning that his failure to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation could put him in serious legal jeopardy—but at this moment, it seemed, Nunberg was in a celebratory mood.
Woman Reading, by Vasile Ion
As we spoke, Nunberg alternated between this unalloyed bravado and a kind of meta amusement at the media frenzy his performance had commanded. He seemed to take special pleasure in speculating about how Mueller might be reacting to the spectacle. “You know what the funny thing is?” he boasted. “He’s thinking I’m, like, playing eight-dimensional chess with Donald Trump.”
Well, I asked, are you?
He guffawed. “No!”
Nunberg seems to think he’s become a junior version of his mentor Roger Stone. Coppins:
The mystery of his motivations had hovered over the day’s astonishing events, and theories attempting to explain his bizarre behavior had proliferated quickly. Some believed he was responding to being caught in a genuine conspiracy—auditioning for immunity, perhaps, or covering up crimes committed by allies in the president’s orbit….
I won’t venture a guess as to which theory best explains his actions. But as anyone who’s known Nunberg for a while can attest, his behavior Monday doesn’t necessarily require special explanation. He’s been pulling stunts like this for years—this is just the first time he’s gotten the kind of audience he’s always craved.
Whatever. But do I feel sorry for Nunberg like Joe Scarborough does? Hell no! I hope Mueller throws the book at him.
CNN has a shocking story out of Tennessee: Tennessee school removes Confederate flag, lynching murals.
A painting of a Confederate flag and a mural depicting a lynching have been removed from the walls of a Tennessee school gymnasium.
The mural showed a white man, dressed in blue, hanging from a rope tied to a tree branch. Another person was standing nearby, in a red jersey, and holding a Confederate flag.
The painting was intended to depict an athletic team rivalry.L’edition deluxe, Lillian Westcott Hale 1910
It’s unclear how long the paintings have been inside the South Cumberland Elementary School, located 100 miles east of Nashville, but a complaint was first made in December by a concerned janitor of a nearby elementary school.
On Friday, after months of calls and emails to the superintendent and the school board, David Clark, took his concerns public.
“Germany does not display Nazi symbols. This is not heritage, it is racism,” he wrote on a Facebook post.“No action has been planned or taken as of today so I am asking people to call and let them know in a respectful manner, how you feel about these racist symbols being on full public display where children can see them.”
Less than 24 hours later, the post had at least 500 comments and more than 200 shares. Later that same day, the Confederate flag was gone and the mural was repainted to scrap the lynching.
WTF?! What happens to kids who are exposed to images like this in elementary school? Here’s a story from NPR that should serve as a warning: 5 Killings, 3 States And 1 Common Neo-Nazi Link.
At first glance, five killings in three states since last May appeared to be unrelated, isolated cases.
But a common thread is emerging. Three young men have been charged, and all appear to have links to the same white supremacist group: the Atomwaffen Division.
Atomwaffen is German for “atomic weapons,” and the group is extreme. It celebrates Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson, its online images are filled with swastikas and it promotes violence.
A video on its website shows young men in face scarves and camouflage firing rifles during military-style training. The video begins with group members shouting in unison, “Race War Now,” and concludes with the tag line, “Join Your Local Nazis.”
Josef Loukota (Czech, 1879-1967). Reading Girl in Studio
“Atomwaffen no doubt takes some of the white supremacist rhetoric to another level. The views that they articulate are white supremacists on steroids,” said Joanna Mendelson, who follows extremist groups for the Anti-Defamation League in Los Angeles.
“And what is the change they want to see? Real-world violence. Real-world apocalyptic violence,” she added.
Read the rest at NPR.
Of course, as long as we have a white supremacist in the White House, nothing is going to be done about these white extremist groups.
Nothing will be done about Russian influence in our elections or on our foreign policy either. At Crooked Media, Brian Beutler makes some important points: If Russia Owns Trump, It Owns American Policies. Beutler notes that for the first time Paul Ryan is making a half-hearted attempt to stand up to Trump–over trade issues.
For the first time in the two years since people began asking questions about Trump’s relationship with the Russian government, Ryan has taken a lonely stand against the president and his benefactors in Moscow. Not by forcing Trump to divest from his businesses, or to disclose his opaque finances, or by replacing House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes with a competent investigator who hasn’t himself been compromised.
Instead, Ryan is using at least some of his official heft to oppose Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum. His office has publicly implored Trump to reverse himself, and is distributing news articles to reporters tying the tariffs to bad economic and financial news.
But the reason it probably won’t work is that Trump doesn’t care. He’s making U.S. policy based on what’s best for Russia.
The problem, for Ryan and the rest of us, with treating Trump’s behavior as mere heterodoxy, is that it offers no redress for the likelihood that Trump isn’t making policy in the public interest. Ryan can slap back at unwelcome policy proposals as they arise, but as long he allows Trump’s underlying corruption to go unaddressed, they will keep coming, and we’ll have no way of knowing what Trump’s true motives are.
Woman Reading, by Felix Edouard Vallotton
What do steel and aluminum tariffs have to do with Russia? Possibly nothing! But straining ties within the Western alliance, and specifically between the U.S. and Europe, has been a Russian geopolitical goal for decades. Fostering a trade war between America and the E.U. fits that bill perfectly.
And because people like Ryan have allowed Trump to reach the pinnacle of global power without submitting to the most basic transparency norms, we’re all left to wonder whether Trump is being stubborn about tariffs for legitimate political reasons, or for genuinely corrupt ones.
That’s the problem all right. At this point, I’m completely convinced that Trump is acting as an agent of Putin and his oligarchs. We’d better hope the Democrats can win big in the midterms, despite Russian interference.
More headlines to check out:
BBC News: Emails show UAE-linked effort against Tillerson
The Guardian: Woman in Russian spy mystery is Sergei Skripal’s daughter
ABC News: Senator on NRA’s ties to Russia: ‘I remain concerned’
Dana Millbank at the Washington Post: President Trump is blessedly weak
Vanity Fair: “I Don’t Think There’s Anything…Gates Doesn’t Know”: Why Manafort’s Lackey Now Holds All The Cards
The Washington Post: Trump’s name is stripped from Panama hotel
ABC News: Police evict Trump staff from Panama hotel amid ongoing dispute
Vanity Fair: “All The Money Is His”: At Mar-A-Lago, Trump Polls Guests About Kushner’s Bad Press
So . . . What stories are you following today? Please share!
Lazy Saturday Reads
Posted: March 3, 2018 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Boston, child brides, Donald Trump, flooding, golf outings, Hope Hicks, Jared Kushner, John Kelly, Kentucky "Christians", nor'easter, Roy Moore, Texas Democrats, Trump's diet, weather, West Virginia Teachers strike, Winter Storm Riley 24 Comments
Newsstand, by Max Ginsburg
Happy Saturday!!
I spent yesterday in my cozy apartment with uninterrupted electricity, TV, and internet; but outside my refuge, the Boston area was hit by a massive storm. Some parts of Massachusetts had 90 mph wind gusts, and wind gusts of 40 to 50 mph will continue through the day today. Today’s noon high tide is still likely to be dangerous.
The Boston Globe has a collection of photos from the storm if you’re interested. One example:
Water floods from Boston Harbor onto Seaport Boulevard in the Seaport district of Boston. — Greg Cooper EPA-EFE REX Shutterstock
Here’s a video from downtown Boston that I found on Twitter that will give you an idea of what the winds were like.
https://twitter.com/kschroeter1/status/969659147137568768
I hope all you Sky Dancers along the East Coast are safe and warm today!
In other news, Trump has decamped to Florida, and I hope he’ll be busy enough with golf to leave the rest of us alone for awhile. This golfing trip represents a “milestone” for him though.
CNN: A presidential milestone: Trump has spent 100 days in office at one of his golf clubs.
President Donald Trump reached a presidential milestone at his Palm Beach County, Florida, golf club on Saturday: One hundred days in office at a golf club that bears his name.
Trump, once a critic of presidential golfing, has ignored his own advice and made a habit of visiting some of the many golf courses emblazoned in his moniker. The habit is part of the broader trend of the President and first lady making frequent trips to properties owned and operated by the Trump Organization.
Bill Day / Cagle Cartoons
According to CNN’s count, Trump has exclusively visited four golf clubs he owns during his presidency: Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida; Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida; Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia; and Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Trump has spent 36 days at his Florida club and 40 days at his New Jersey course and made the short trip from the White House to his Virginia club 23 times. He golfed once at his Jupiter course with professional golfers Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson and Brad Faxon.
In total, Trump has spent nearly 25% of his days in office at one of his golf clubs. It is impossible to know whether Trump golfs every time he visits one of his golf clubs because White House aides rarely confirm that he is golfing, and Trump has, at times, visited his golf clubs to eat a meal or meet with people.
Melania went to Florida with Trump, and here’s how he treated her while he rushed to get out of the wind and onto Air Force One.
Imagine if Obama had done that to Michelle? But it’s nothing new for our asshole in chief.
One reason Trump may have been so “unglued” lately (besides the Russia investigation) is that he’s apparently on a diet. Bloomberg: Trump Swaps His Beloved Burgers for Salads and Soups in New Diet.
The president whose trademark campaign-trail dinner consisted of two McDonald’s Big Macs, two Filet-o-Fish sandwiches and a chocolate milkshake is cutting back on doctor’s orders to drop a few pounds, according to three people familiar with the matter. Less red meat, more fish.
One person said it’s been two weeks since he saw the president eat a hamburger.
It’s not just the president, though. Jackson and the vice president’s doctor, Jennifer Pena, are pushing healthy food choices throughout the West Wing.
Trump so far has embraced the new regimen, giving aides the impression he feels he is thriving on his new diet, they said.
Still, he is allowing himself indulgences. He ate bacon at breakfast one day this week.
Something very newsworthy has been happening in West Virginia, but national news outlets are only just beginning to cover it.
The New York Times: ‘All-In or Nothing’: How West Virginia’s Teacher Strike Was Months in the Making.
GILBERT, W. Va — Home from a long day teaching English last month at Mingo Central High School, Robin Ellis told her husband the latest talk among the teachers. They were tired of low pay and costly health benefits — and they were mulling a “rolling strike,” in which teachers in a few counties would walk out each day.
“You don’t want to do that,” Donnie Ellis, her husband, said. As a veteran of strip mines and the intense labor conflicts that often came with them, he knew what made some strikes succeed and others crumble.
“It’s got to be all-in or nothing,” he said.
It has definitely been all-in in West Virginia. For seven days now, teachers have refused to work in all 55 counties, shutting down every school in the state.
Teachers and supporters rally outside West Virginia State House Photograph by Craig Hudson Charleston Gazette AP
Every school day since last Thursday, thousands of red- and black-clad teachers, bus drivers and cooks have descended on Charleston to fill the halls of the State Capitol, chanting and singing defiantly in one of the few statewide teachers’ strikes in American history.
On Friday, as thousands crowded into the Capitol, all of the energy was directed at the State Senate, which has yet to take up a bill that would grant teachers a 5 percent pay raise — despite support for the measure by the governor, the Republican-controlled House and the state’s superintendents.
Click on the NYT link to read the rest.
More from the AP via The Chicago Tribune: Statewide West Virginia teacher strike enters day 7 without classes; state Senate nixes vote.
The West Virginia teachers’ strike rolled into its second weekend with the state Senate planning to meet Saturday after declining to take a vote on whether the teachers will get the 5 percent pay raise negotiated by Gov. Jim Justice and union leaders.
Senate Republicans have repeatedly emphasized spending restraint while saying the teachers and West Virginia’s other public workers are all underpaid.
Hundreds of teachers and supporters, including students, rallied at the Capitol on Friday, the seventh day they’ve shuttered classrooms.
Teachers are protesting pay that’s among the lowest in the nation, rising health care costs and a previously approved 2 percent raise for next year after four years without any increase.
“We’re still not close to resolving this critical issue,” said Sen. Roman Prezioso, the Democratic minority leader, requesting the vote Friday. “Let’s send the teachers and superintendents that I’ve seen here from all the different counties, send them home this weekend for a cooling off period. Let’s start school Monday and say this Senate does support education in West Virginia.”
Read the rest at the link.
Here’s another local story that is getting more attention–this is for you, JJ. The Louisville Courier-Journal: Kentucky’s ‘child bride’ bill stalls as groups fight to let 13-year-olds wed.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill to make 18 the legal age for marriage in Kentucky has stalled in a Senate committee amid concerns about the rights of parents to allow children to wed at a younger age, according to several lawmakers.
Known as the “child bride” bill, Senate Bill 48 was pulled off the agenda just hours before a scheduled vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee for the second time in two weeks.
Donna Pollard, who married an older man at age 16, is working for a bill that would raise the legal age for marriage to 18 in Kentucky.
“SO disappointed! My SB 48 (outlaw child marriage) won’t be called for a vote,” sponsor Julie Raque Adams, a Louisville Republican, said in a Tweet early Thursday. “It is disgusting that lobbying organizations would embrace kids marrying adults. We see evidence of parents who are addicted, abusive, neglectful pushing their children into predatory arms. Appalling.”
Eileen Recktenwald, the executive director of the Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs, was more outspoken.
“This is legalized rape of children,” she said. “We cannot allow that to continue in Kentucky, and I cannot believe we are even debating this is the year 2018 in the United States.”
The bill’s supporters have said underage marriages most often involve a teenage girl marrying an older man and may have involved sexual exploitation of the girl.
Guess who’s getting credit for killing the bill? If you guessed right wing “Christians,” you’re right. Patheos:
According to reports, a bill to outlaw child marriage in Kentucky has been indefinitely delayed after opposition from the conservative Family Foundation of Kentucky, a powerful lobbying group backed by conservative Christians in the state.
The Courier-Journal reports Senate Bill 48, Known as the “child bride” bill, has been stalled in committee after the conservative Christian group expressed “concerns about the rights of parents to allow children to wed at a younger age.”
Sherry Johnson, Florida based anti child marriage campaigner who was forced to marry aged 11 in 1971. Photograph by Katharina Bracher
Raw Story explains the legislation:
The modest bill would not totally ban child marriages, but would require a judge to review records to make sure that the child was not the victim of abuse, that there are not domestic violence incident involving either party and that the adult is not a registered sex-offender. The bill would require that the judge deny the right to marry if there was a pregnancy that resulted from the adult spouse molesting the child.
However, this “modest bill” protecting children from being forced into marriage by their parents, is perceived as a threat by conservative Christian lawmakers in Kentucky.
These “Christians” claim the bill would interfere with “parental rights.” The rights of young girls are of course irrelevant.
I have more stories to share; I’ll give them to you links only.
The Week: Hope Hicks apparently kept a White House diary. (I imagine Bob Mueller is already working on the subpoena!)
Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair: “She’s in Immense Personal Jeopardy”: Even for Hope Hicks the White House Got Too Hot.
Jessica Valenti at The Guardian: With Hope Hicks’ exit, we can’t let Trump’s female allies off the hook.
The Washington Post: Days before the election, Stormy Daniels threatened to cancel deal to keep alleged affair with Trump secret.
ABC News: Jared Kushner entanglements increasingly concern President Trump: Sources.
CBS News: John Kelly’s comment about God punishing him with chief of staff job aggravated Trump.
The Washington Post: Trump picks tough-on-crime crusader with history of racial remarks for criminal justice post.
The Washington Post: Trump pushes Republicans to oppose crucial New York-New Jersey tunnel project.
The Dallas News: Texas early voting numbers a ‘wake-up call’ for GOP as Democrats double their 2014 turnout.
Associated Press: Roy Moore pleads for money, saying resources ‘depleted.’
So . . . What’s on your mind? What stories are you following today?
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Thursday Reads: Let’s Hear It For the Kids!
Posted: March 1, 2018 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics 21 Comments
Jamie Margolin (foreground) and other young climate activists in Olympia on Monday
COURTESY OF 350 SEATTLE/ALEXANDRA BLAKELY
Good Afternoon!!
We had another unbelievable breaking news day yesterday. I’m beginning to think this is going to continue until we somehow get rid of Trump. Tomorrow is Friday–the day when the news comes in a flood. Remember the old days when Friday was “news dump” day because people supposedly weren’t paying attention?
But today I want want to begin with an important story that isn’t about Trump and his incredibly dysfunctional White House. I get so obsessed with the Russia investigation news, that I forget there are other life and death issues to examine.
Teenagers are not only leading the way on gun control, they are fighting to save the environment. Grist: Meet the teens schooling us on climate.
Generation Z — millennials’ younger brothers and sisters — are increasingly finding their voices in the Trump era, expanding media-savvy campaigns for racial equality and gun control to encompass climate change. A group of high school students are now planning a nationwide series of climate marches on July 21, when they will confront lawmakers in Washington, D.C., with a list of their demands for a livable climate.
Jamie Margolin
“I’d say I do about three hours of conference calls every single day,” says the lead organizer of the march, Jamie Margolin, a 16-year-old high school sophomore in Seattle. “I’m not new to the climate activism world.”
It’s true. Margolin is one of 13 young plaintiffs suing Washington state government for not taking sufficient action to address climate change. She frequently spends lunches answering emails instead of hanging out with friends. And the Seattle teen is not an anomaly: Statistically, young women of color like Margolin are the demographic most engaged on climate issues.
Margolin started planning the upcoming climate march, which she calls “Zero Hour,” last August, after the Trump administration announced its plans to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. She recruited Mrinalini Chakraborty, head of strategy for the national Women’s March, to help the students file for permits and plan logistics. Now, the organizing committee includes dozens of youth from Connecticut to California. The official website for the march launched last week.
Now, the group is drawing inspiration from the teen-led movement for federal gun control in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Margolin was particularly impressed when the Parkland students confronted lawmakers about accepting money from the NRA — which produced some predictably awkward stammers. Her team is considering making similar demands for politicians to refuse money from the fossil fuel industry.
Read more at Grist..
More on the lawsuit from KUOW: 13 kids sue Washington state for life, liberty and a livable climate.
Thirteen kids are suing the state of Washington and its governor to protect their generation from climate change.
The plaintiffs range in age from 7 to 17.
Their suit, filed Friday in King County Superior Court, says Gov. Jay Inslee and state agencies are violating the constitutional rights of a generation by continuing to let dangerous amounts of carbon dioxide into the sky.
“They are not taking nearly enough action to fight climate change, which my generation is going to suffer from,” 16-year-old plaintiff Jamie Margolin of Seattle said.
The high-school sophomore at Seattle’s Holy Names Academy also founded the group Zero Hour, which is organizing a youth climate march this summer in Washington, D.C.
Somerville, MA High School students sat in silence Wednesday morning to honor the Florida high school shooting victims and call for gun control reform (WBZ-TV)
The students in my nephew’s high school–Cambridge Rindge and Latin–are walking out today to show solidarity with the Parkland kids. Students from other schools around Massachusetts and the rest country had walkouts yesterday. Good for them! I had dinner with my “Generation Z” nephews last night, and they are very concerned about the gun issue. Their mother is quite involved in environmental activism, so they have already participated in many of her activities.
I know we can’t expect kids to save us, but I’m glad to see this youth activism. I hope it translates to voting in the years to come.
Unfortunately, no issue these days is really divorced from the Russia story. It appears that Russians have even gotten involved in trying to influence Americans’ attitudes about climate change. The Washington Post: These provocative images show Russian trolls sought to inflame debate over climate change, fracking and Dakota pipeline.
Russian trolls used Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to inflame U.S. political debate over energy policy and climate change, a finding that underscores how the Russian campaign of social media manipulation went beyond the 2016 presidential election, congressional investigators reported Thursday.
The new report from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee includes previously unreleased social media posts that Russians created on such contentious political issues as the Dakota Access pipeline, government efforts to curb global warming and hydraulic fracturing, a gas mining technique often called “fracking.”
One Facebook post created by a Russian-controlled group called “Native Americans United” shows what appears to be a young girl in a braid peering out over an unspoiled prairie. “Love Water Not Oil, Protect Our Mother, Stand With Standing Rock,” a reference to an Indian tribe that opposed the Dakota Access pipeline. The post also said, “No Pipelines. No Fracking. No Tar Sands.”
Internet Research Agency (troll factory) in St. Petersburg, Russia
The 21-page report drew from documents submitted in the fall by Twitter and Facebook, which owns Instagram, for congressional investigations into the social media influence campaign during the 2016 presidential election. Those probes focused on the efforts by the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm in St. Petersburg that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III indicted in February for disrupting and influencing U.S. politics.
The committee’s report found that between 2015 and 2017, more than 9,000 posts and tweets dealt with U.S. energy policy produced by 4,334 Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts controlled by the Internet Research Agency. Twitter told the committee that more than 4 percent of tweets produced by the Russians dealt with energy and climate issues.
And as we know, Trump is not going to do anything to discourage this Russian manipulation.
Another life and death issue that we don’t focus on enough is what Trump might do in North Korea. National security expert Gordon Kahl highlighted is scary NYT story on Twitter: U.S. Banks on Diplomacy With North Korea, but Moves Ahead on Military Plans.
A classified military exercise last week examined how American troops would mobilize and strike if ordered into a potential war on the Korean Peninsula, even as diplomatic overtures between the North and the Trump administration continue.
The war planning, known as a “tabletop exercise,” was held over several days in Hawaii. It included Gen. Mark A. Milley, the Army’s chief of staff, and Gen. Tony Thomas, the head of Special Operations Command.
They looked at a number of pitfalls that could hamper an American assault on North Korea’s well-entrenched military. Among them was the Pentagon’s limited ability to evacuate injured troops from the Korean Peninsula daily — a problem more acute if the North retaliated with chemical weapons, according to more than a half-dozen military and Defense Department officials familiar with the exercise.
Large numbers of surveillance aircraft would have to be moved from the Middle East and Africa to the Pacific to support ground troops. Planners also looked at how American forces stationed in South Korea and Japan would be involved.
Pentagon officials cautioned that the planning does not mean that a decision has been made to go to war over President Trump’s demands that North Korea rein in its nuclear ambitions.
Gordon Kahl’s interpretation:
https://twitter.com/ColinKahl/status/969184555293925376
As I said at the beginning of the post, there is an unbelievable amount of Trump mess/Russia News. Here are some links to check out today:
The New York Times: Senate Intelligence Leaders Say House G.O.P. Leaked a Senator’s Texts.
Olivia Nuzzi at New York Magazine: The White House Didn’t Break Hope Hicks Overnight.
CNN: Former Trump campaign official said Mueller’s team asked about Hicks.
CBS News: Hope Hicks refused to answer whether “a litany” of Trump associates asked her to lie.
CNN: White House furious at embarrassing stories about HUD, Secretary Ben Carson.
Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine: How Trump’s Saturday Night Massacre Might Start With Jeff Sessions.
The Washington Post: Is Jared Kushner using the White House as his own personal boardroom?
Marcy Wheeler at The New York Times: Has Jared Kushner Conspired to Defraud America?
The Washington Post: Questions linger about how Melania Trump, a Slovenian model, scored ‘the Einstein visa.’
What stores are you following? Please share!
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Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
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