Lazy Caturday Reads: Russia Backs Tulsi Gabbard; Kamala Harris Gets the Hillary Clinton Treatment.
Posted: August 3, 2019 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Baltimore, Baltimore Sun, Bill de Blasio, caturday, Daniel Pantaleo, Donald Trump, Eric Garner, John Delaney, Kamala Harris, Q Anon, Russian bots, Russian influence on 2020 election, Tulsi Gabbard 23 Comments
Breathe, by Yoko Tanji
Good Morning!!
In 2016, Russian bots targeted Hillary Clinton and worked to support Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein. The candidate they are most afraid of in 2020 appears to be Kamala Harris, and they are pushing hard to get Democrats to support Tulsi Gabbard.
Tulsi Gabbard is not Democrats’ friend.
Clint Watts is an expert on cybersecurity and Russian social media influence.
See also this important thread from Virginia Heffernan.
Stories to check out:
NBC News, from February: Russia’s propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard.
The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 U.S. election is now promoting the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat who earlier this month declared her intention to run for president in 2020.
An NBC News analysis of the main English-language news sites employed by Russia in its 2016 election meddling shows Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is set to make her formal announcement Saturday, has become a favorite of the sites Moscow used when it interfered in 2016.
Several experts who track websites and social media linked to the Kremlin have also seen what they believe may be the first stirrings of an upcoming Russian campaign of support for Gabbard.
Watercolor by Fabienne Rivory
Since Gabbard announced her intention to run on Jan. 11, there have been at least 20 Gabbard stories on three major Moscow-based English-language websites affiliated with or supportive of the Russian government: RT, the Russian-owned TV outlet; Sputnik News, a radio outlet; and Russia Insider, a blog that experts say closely follows the Kremlin line. The CIA has called RT and Sputnik part of “Russia’s state-run propaganda machine.”
All three sites celebrated Gabbard’s announcement, defended her positions on Russia and her 2017 meeting with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, and attacked those who have suggested she is a pawn for Moscow. The coverage devoted to Gabbard, both in news and commentary, exceeds that afforded to any of the declared or rumored Democratic candidates despite Gabbard’s lack of voter recognition.
The Daily Beast, from May: Tulsi Gabbard’s Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists.
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is being underwritten by some of the nation’s leading Russophiles.
Donors to her campaign in the first quarter of the year included: Stephen F. Cohen, a Russian studies professor at New York University and prominent Kremlin sympathizer; Sharon Tennison, a vocal Putin supporter who nonetheless found herself detained by Russian authorities in 2016; and an employee of the Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT, who appears to have donated under the alias “Goofy Grapes.”
Gabbard is one of her party’s more Russia-friendly voices in an era of deep Democratic suspicion of the country over its efforts to tip the 2016 election in favor of President Donald Trump. Her financial support from prominent pro-Russian voices in the U.S. is a small portion of the total she’s raised. But it still illustrates the degree to which she deviates from her party’s mainstream on such a contentious and high-profile issue.
Illustration by Gisela Assensio Perez
The bots loved the way Gabbard attacked Kamala Harris in the second Democratic debate. Politifact looked at Gabbard’s charges against Harris and found them false or lacking context: Were Tulsi Gabbard’s attacks on Kamala Harris’ record as a California prosecutor on target? I hope you’ll read the article.
Finally, The New York Times has a major profile of Gabbard: Tulsi Gabbard Thinks We’re Doomed. Some exerpts:
A Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii who was first elected in 2012, Ms. Gabbard is a singular figure in the 2020 race. She doesn’t fit neatly into any one established ideology or school of thought.
She has a relatively bare-bones political operation and a history of outlier positions, from her foreign policy stances to suing Google for free-speech impingement. Some of her own advisers do not think she will win….
…her run, and the unusual cross-section of voters she appeals to — Howard Zinn fans, anti-drug-war libertarians, Russia-gate skeptics, and conservatives suspicious of Big Tech — signifies just how much both parties have shifted, not just on foreign policy. It could end up being a sign that President Trump’s isolationism is not the aberration many believed, but rather a harbinger of a growing national sentiment that America should stand alone.
On the far left, her supporters appreciate how she talks about respecting Native cultures. On the right, as liberal democracies see authoritarian strongmen rise, Ms. Gabbard’s allies like that she would not meddle with dictators.
The threat from Russia is severely exaggerated, Ms. Gabbard says. Do not beat the drums of war with Iran. Make nice with North Korea.
She flew to Syria in 2017 and had what seemed to be a friendly meeting with Bashar al-Assad, shocking her colleagues in Congress, and voted against a House resolution condemning the dictator’s war crimes. More recently, she said Mr. Assad was “not the enemy of the United States.”
On Russian support for Gabbard:
Illustration by Jacqueline Molnár
“Tracking metrics of Russian state propaganda on Twitter, she was by far the most favored candidate,” said Clinton Watts, a former F.B.I. agent and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “She’s the Kremlin’s preferred Democrat. She is such a useful agent of influence for them. Whether she knows it’s happening or not, they love what she’s saying.”
The appeal, Mr. Watts explained, is clear: “She’s a U.S. military officer and a Democrat who says the U.S. should withdraw from the world.”
And on support from the far right:
She also has attracted the attention of some figures in the alt-right, in part because they imagine that a reordering of America’s role abroad also means pulling away from its longstanding alliance with Israel. David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, has tweeted approvingly of her.
In other news . . .
The Baltimore Sun editorial board is on fire. Yesterday they once again wrote about Trump’s attacks on Baltimore: The pitiful day a U.S. president used a political rally to mock Baltimore’s homicide rate.
Slightly more than 15 minutes into his speech at a rally in Cincinnati Thursday night — right after claiming the crowd was record size but bemoaning how local authorities had limited the arena’s lawful capacity — President Donald Trump set his sights once again upon Baltimore. Basking in the crowd’s adulation, he started listing the dangerous countries where the murder rate was, he believed, not as bad as Charm City’s. El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala. Then he sought his supporters’ response. ” I believe it’s higher than … give me, give me a place that you think is pretty bad,” he excitedly announced. “Give me a place. This guy says Afghanistan,” he said smiling and pointing to a member of the audience. “I believe it’s higher than Afghanistan.”
White Boat par Oxana Zaika
The crowd took it all in appreciatively, smiling, some cheering. They laughed when their leader joked how fact-checkers might contradict him Friday. Like Mr. Trump, they appeared wholly indifferent to people dying in Baltimore.
We have seen much in our day. Crime, poverty, drug abuse, racial discrimination, human trafficking, hate crimes. We have witnessed soldiers marched off to wars, some justified, others not. We have reported on horrible car accidents, serial killings, political corruption, disease outbreaks, air crashes, natural disasters, tragedy heaped on tragedy. But we can’t recall a president of the United States making light of the violent deaths of his fellow Americans….
And what are we to make of an audience that Mr. Trump so often described as “patriotic” yet which views Baltimore with such distaste and indifference? Cincinnati suffers these woes, too. There are murders and trash strewn alleys, overdose deaths and concentrated poverty. Why so little compassion? This was not a game, not the Reds against the Orioles, the Bengals against the Ravens. It was about the carnage on our streets, the 309 people killed here last year, the 197 murdered so far this year.
Remember the way John Delaney attacked Medicare for all at the Democratic debate this week? Here’s an interesting story from Sludge: Delaney Super PAC’s Biggest Donor is Wife of Former Health Care CEO.
As former Maryland representative John Delaney campaigns against single-payer health care and enjoys his considerable investments in the health care industry, he’s getting a boost from the wife of a close friend and former health care CEO. The biggest donor to a pro-Delaney super PAC, The Right Answer Committee, is philanthropist Katherine Bradley, whose husband, David, founded The Advisory Board Company, a major health care research and consulting firm.
In 2017, Advisory Board was acquired by Optum, a pharmacy benefit manager owned by insurance giant UnitedHealth Group. UnitedHealth Group CEO David Wichmann claimed that Medicare for All would “destabilize the nation’s health system” in April.
Painting by Kelly Beeman
Single-payer health care, as exemplified by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (D-Vt.) Medicare for All Act, would end the for-profit health insurance industry and decrease overall health spending in the U.S., according to multiple studies, including one published by the conservative, free-market think tank the Mercatus Center. The government would be able to bargain down drug prices, and fees for service to care providers would likely decrease (although providers would likely see an increase in patients, given that the roughly 30 million Americans without insurance today would all be covered).
Six individuals have contributed a total of $85,000 to the pro-Delaney super PAC in 2019, including $50,000 from Katherine Bradley. David Bradley hasn’t contributed to the super PAC or to Delaney’s campaign this year, but he, his wife, and two of his sons each donated $2,700 to the Delaney congressional campaign in 2017. From 2012-17, the Bradleys gave a total of over $39,000 to Delaney’s campaigns.
A judge has said that the officer who killed Eric Garner should be fired. NPR: NYPD Judge Recommends That The Officer Involved In Eric Garner’s Death Be Fired.
An administrative judge with the New York Police Department has recommended that Officer Daniel Pantaleo be fired for his role in the 2014 death of Eric Garner.
The judge found Pantaleo guilty of using a banned chokehold but did not find him guilty of intentionally restricting Garner’s breathing. Garner’s repeated cry of “I can’t breathe” triggered national outrage and galvanized activists concerned about police use of force.
As a result of the decision, the NYPD announced that Pantaleo has been suspended, “as is the longstanding practice in these matters when the recommendation is termination.” It is unknown whether he will be paid during this suspension.
The judge, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado, issued her recommendation Friday.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio was hit with questions about the Eric Garner case at the last debate. At The New York Daily News, Harry Siegal writes that de Blasio was gaslighting: Garner, Pantaleo, de Blasio and truth: Let’s be honest about how New York City got here</a. It’s a bit complicated. Click on the link to read about it.
One more interesting story from Justin Hendrix at Just Security: Trump’s Encouraging QAnon May Result in Violence—Just ask the FBI.
On Thursday, Yahoo! News published an exclusive story detailing a May 2019 FBI assessment that online conspiracy theories “very likely” result in domestic extremists committing violent crimes. The report notes that it is “the first FBI product examining the threat from conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists and provides a baseline for future intelligence products,” and predicts an increased risk of violent outcomes as the United States enters “major election cycles such as the 2020 presidential election.”
If that happens, it may be in no small part due to President Donald Trump’s endorsement and amplification of conspiracy theories and theorists such as QAnon. A few hours after the FBI assessment leaked, the President held a campaign rally in Cincinnati, where the pre-rally speaker Brandon Straka called out the phrase, “Where we go one, we go all,” a rallying cry of QAnon believers. That’s just the tip of the iceberg….
The President has retweeted QAnon supporters, perhaps unwittingly, dozens of times….Perhaps more significant is the President’s eagerness to engage personally with individuals who advance the conspiracy theory. For instance, right wing media personality Bill Mitchell “has regularly used his radio show and Twitter account to boost and legitimize ‘Q,’ the central figure of the QAnon conspiracy theory, sometimes hosting major QAnon believers,” according to Alex Kaplan at Media Matters. Mitchell was among the extremists invited to the White House for its recent Social Media Summit. Another QAnon supporter and conspiracy theorist, Michael Lebron, was photographed with Donald Trump in the Oval Office last summer, according to CNN.
Much more information at the link.
https://twitter.com/ThatEricAlper/status/1157631335206465536
So . . . What stories are you following today?
Finally Friday Reads: Short Fingered Vulgarian is Vulgar meanwhile Back in the USSovietRepubliklans
Posted: August 2, 2019 Filed under: 2020 Elections, morning reads | Tags: #KKKremlinCaligula, #MoscowMitch, LeningradLindsey 34 Comments
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
It’s Friday, so of course the news is off the wall. I miss my Daddy terribly but I’m really glad that he didn’t live to see the World he fought a war to create crumble at the hands of the Russian potted plant in the Oval Office and his enablers like #MoscowMitch and #LeningradLindsey.
Here’s something you shouldn’t share with your grandchildren ever! But, hey, he’s the new Evangelical Christian Savior so maybe it’s now a sacred gesture!
Trigger Warning: Icky Vulgarian hand gestures.
The big question we have to ask ourselves now is Who are We as a Country? No, really, after all these years as a some what flawed but better than anything else out there constitutional democracy with aspirations towards a more perfect union we now face a group of fanatics who are redefining us into a theocracy and an authoritarian kleptocracy. What has a small group of white republicans and their greedy, power hungry representatives made us into? Will we be able to stop this?
Will Wilkinson writes this Op Ed for the NYT today: “Conservatives Are Hiding Their ‘Loathing’ Behind Our Flag. The molten core of right-wing nationalism is the furious denial of America’s unalterably multiracial, multicultural national character.”
The Republican Party under Donald Trump has devolved into a populist cult of personality. But Mr. Trump won’t be president forever. Can the cult persist without its personality? Does Trumpist nationalism contain a kernel of coherent ideology that can outlast the Trump presidency?
At a recent conference in Washington, a group of conservatives did their level best to promote Trumpism without Trump (rebranded as “national conservatism”) as a cure for all that ails our frayed and faltering republic. But the exclusive Foggy Bottom confab served only to clarify that “national conservatism” is an abortive monstrosity, neither conservative nor national. Its animating principle is contempt for the actually existing United States of America, and the nation it proposes is not ours.
Bitter cultural and political division inevitably leads to calls for healing reconciliation under the banner of shared citizenship and national identity. After all, we’re all Americans, and our fortunes are bound together, like it or not.
Yet the question of who “we” are as “a people” is the central question on which we’re polarized. High-minded calls to reunite under the flag therefore tend to take a side and amount to little more than a demand for the other side’s unconditional surrender. “Agree with me, and then we won’t disagree” is more a threat than an argument.
The way the nationalist sees it, liberals always throw the first punch by “changing things.” When members of the “Great American Middle” (to use the artfully coded phrase of Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri to refer to nonurban whites) lash out in response to the provocations of progressive social change, they see themselves as patriots defending their America from internal attack.
The attackers — the nature-denying feminists, ungrateful blacks, babbling immigrants, ostentatiously wedded gays — bear full responsibility for any damage wrought by populist backlash, because they incited it by demanding and claiming a measure of equal freedom. But they aren’t entitled to it, because the conservative denizens of the fruited plain are entitled first to a country that feels like home to them. That’s what America is. So the blame for polarizing mutual animosity must always fall on those who fought for, or failed to prevent, the developments that made America into something else — a country “real Americans” find hard to recognize or love.
The practical implication of the nationalist’s entitled perspective is that unifying social reconciliation requires submission to a vision of national identity flatly incompatible with the existence and political equality of America’s urban multicultural majority. That’s a recipe for civil war, not social cohesion
I see nothing driving the Republican party today but Racism and personal greed. What does it mean to reject pluralism? Remember when our national motto was not about some angry sky fairy that wasn’t supposedly a commie but “E pluribus unum?”
People at President Donald Trump’s rally in Ohio grew rowdy as they clashed with demonstrators advocating for immigration rights on Thursday, cheering when a protest sign got ripped.
Protesters chanted and held banners that read “Immigrants Built America” and “Chinga La Migra,” which is Spanish slang for “Fuck Border Patrol/Immigration.”
At the time, Trump was falsely accusing Democrats of caring more about inhumane conditions for migrants detained at the border than about the conditions of U.S. citizens.
The president paused his speech for almost three minutes as the scuffle broke out and one of the protesters’ banners was ripped. Security guards eventually escorted the demonstrators out of the stadium.
The crowd roared when the small group of protesters left, and almost the entire arena broke into chants of “Na-na-na-na, hey-hey, goodbye!” and “USA!”
“Cincinnati, do you have a Democrat mayor?” Trump asked sarcastically as he resumed his remarks.
And that follows this horrifying act by Leningrad Lindsey yesterday: “#LeningradLindsey trends after Graham forces asylum bill through Senate committee.” via The Hill.
The hashtag “LeningradLindsey” trended on Twitter Thursday after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) forced a controversial asylum bill through committee.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday advanced a bill to overhaul U.S. asylum laws, waiving committee rules to force the bill through to the full Senate, where it likely won’t get the 60 votes it needs to pass.
But Graham’s move to push the bill through the panel outraged Democrats who say the South Carolina senator broke the rules on how lawmakers take up legislation in order to move a partisan bill along.
And KKKremlinCaliguala insists the Russians didn’t interfere in one of the most bizarre pressers of his Mad King Rule to date. “Donald Trump doubts Russian meddling in 2020 election, disputing Robert Mueller” via USA Today.
President Donald Trump on Thursday questioned former special counsel Robert Mueller’s assessment that Russia is already interfering in the 2020 presidential election, dismissing the notion just as he did after the 2016 election.
“You don’t really believe this. Do you believe this?” Trump told reporters at the White House as he prepared to leave for a political rally in Cincinnati.
His words were in response to a direct question about whether he raised Mueller’s assessment during a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump said he did not discuss election interference with Putin during a phone call Wednesday.
Mueller, whose staff prepared a report detailing efforts by Russians to hack Democrats and manipulate social media platforms during the 2016 election, said last week they will try it again in 2020.
“They’re doing it as we sit here,” Mueller said during high-profile House hearing.
Another unbelievable headline was made by Icky Lizzy Cheney : “REP. CHENEY ACCUSES TRIBES OF “DESTROYING OUR WESTERN WAY OF LIFE” OVER SACRED GRIZZLY PROTECTIONS.” This story is via Native News Online Net.
On a momentous day for Tribal Nations, Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), the House Republican Conference Chairwoman, stated that the successful litigation by tribes and environmentalists to return the grizzly bear in Greater Yellowstone to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) “was not based on science or facts” but motivated by plaintiffs “intent on destroying our Western way of life.”
One of the largest tribal-plaintiff alliances in recent memory prevailed in the landmark case, Crow Tribe et al v. Zinke last September, when US District Judge Dana Christensen ruled in favor of the tribes and environmental groups after finding that the Trump Administration’s US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) had failed to abide by the ESA and exceeded its authority in attempting to remove federal protections from the grizzly. Tuesday, USFWS officially returned federal protections to the grizzly.
Removing protections from the bear, revered as sacred to a multitude of tribes, would have left the grizzly vulnerable to high-dollar trophy hunts and lifted leasing restrictions on some 34,375 square miles. Extractive industry, livestock and logging interests are among those desirous of capitalizing on the area, a region comprised of tribal treaty, reserved rights and ceded lands.
“IF THIS WASN’T LIZ CHENEY AND THE ERA OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, YOU MIGHT BE RENDERED SPEECHLESS BY THE INSENSITIVITY AND MENDACITY OF THE STATEMENT,” SAID TOM RODGERS, A SENIOR ADVISER TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN TRIBAL LEADERS COUNCIL (RMTLC), WHO TESTIFIED AT MAY’S CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON THE TRIBAL HERITAGE AND GRIZZLY BEAR PROTECTION ACT. HR 2532, INTRODUCED BY HOUSE NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN RAUL GRIJALVA, WAS INSPIRED BY THE GRIZZLY TREATY SIGNED BY OVER 200 TRIBAL NATIONS.
“So, in striving to protect our culture, our religious and spiritual freedoms, our sovereignty and our treaty rights – all of which are encapsulated in the grizzly issue – we are ‘destroying’ Cheney’s idea of the ‘Western way of life’?” questioned Rodgers. “I would remind the Congresswoman that at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition an estimated 100,000 grizzly bears roamed from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast. That was all Indian Country. Now there are fewer than 2,000 grizzly bears and our people live in Third World conditions on meager reservations in the poorest counties in the US. Does she really want to talk about ‘destroying’ a ‘way of life’?” asked Rodgers.
So-called Party of Reagan: WHY WHY WHY this? “US-Russia arms control treaty dies; US to test new weapon” via ABC. Which side are we on these days? I don’t get it at all
The United States plans to test a new missile in coming weeks that would have been prohibited under a landmark, 32-year-old arms control treaty that the U.S. and Russia ripped up on Friday.
Washington and Moscow walked out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty that President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed in 1987, raising fears of a new arms race . The U.S. blamed Moscow for the death of the treaty. It said that for years Moscow has been developing and fielding weapons that violate the treaty and threaten the United States and its allies, particularly in Europe.
“Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement released on Friday.
Russia pointed a finger at America.
“The denunciation of the INF treaty confirms that the U.S. has embarked on destroying all international agreements that do not suit them for one reason or another,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday. “This leads to the actual dismantling of the existing arms control system.”
BB sent this link to me to read and it’s as scary as anything I’ve seen in a while. It’s from the UK site Church and State and it shows us what an obscenely right wing religious nutter we have as AG Barr: “Trump’s attorney general wants god’s moral order enforced by government”. This is still giving me nightmares. He’s actually a living breathing THEOCRAT.
J. Beauregard Sessions was a legitimate threat to America’s secular government as Trump’s attorney general, but his theocratic aspirations paled in comparison to Trump’s latest theocratic cabinet member – a conservative Catholic malcontent who is unlikely to ever defend the U.S. Constitution because it is a secular document. It is noteworthy that Sessions only stated that, according to his mind, the separation of church and state in the Constitution is a concept that is unconstitutional. However, his replacement ardently believes that America’s government is duty-bound to enforce god’s laws because there is no place for secularism.
In a 1995 essay, Barr expressed the extremist Christian view that “American government should not be secular;” secularism is an abomination in Barr’s theocratic mind despite the law of the land is unmistakably secular. Furthermore, Barr contends America’s government is supposed to be imposing “a transcendent moral order with objective standards of right and wrong that flows from God’s eternal law;” eternal law best dictated by the Vatican and taught in public schools at taxpayer’s expense.
It is true that as attorney general William Barr will defend Trump’s criminality and corruption; it is one of the only reasons Trump nominated him. However, the real danger to the nation is Barr’s belief that the government’s primary function should be defending and enforcing his god’s moral edicts while ardently opposing any legislative branch effort to make secular laws according to the secular Constitution.
As noted by Michael Stone a couple of weeks ago, in addition to the racism and misogyny one expects from a radical conservative Christian, “Barr is also a bigot when it comes to non-religious people and others who respect the separation of church and state.”
Barr epitomizes the typical extremist religious fanatic by blaming everything from crime to divorce to sexually transmitted diseases on what he alleges is “the federal government’s non-stop attacks on traditional religious values.” In fact, he joins no small number of Republican evangelical extremists who demand that taxpayers fund religious instruction, specifically Catholic religious instruction, in public schools. Barr, as a matter of fact, has called for the United States government to subsidize Catholic education and categorically called for federal legislation to promote Vatican edicts to “restrain sexual immorality;” an explicit reference to his religion’s ban on homosexuality, extramarital sex, and “artificial” birth control. Don’t believe it?
In an address to “The Governor’s Conference on Juvenile Crime, Drugs and Gangs,” Barr condemned the idea of adhering to the U.S. Constitution’s mandated separation of church and state in the public education system. The theocrat said:
“This moral lobotomy of public schools has been based on extremist notions of separation of church and state or on theories of moral relativism which reject the notion that there are standards of rights or wrong to which the community can demand adherence.”
Barr also penned an article in The Catholic Lawyer where he complained vehemently about what he asserted was “the rise of secularism;” something he claims is anathema to a nation he believes should be ruled by theocrats. Barr attempted to give an answer to “the challenge of representing Catholic institutions as authorities” on what is considered right and wrong, or morally acceptable in a secular nation. In discussing what Barr termed was “The Breakdown of Traditional Morality,” the new attorney general complained thus:
“We live in an increasingly militant, secular age… As part of this philosophy, we see a growing hostility toward religion, particularly Catholicism. This form of bigotry has always been fashionable in the United States. There are, today, even greater efforts to marginalize or ‘ghettoize’ orthodox religion…”
Barr is also a bigot when it comes to people who respect the Constitution’s separation of church and state in providing equal rights for all Americans whether theocrats agree or not. Barr’s belief that government is bound to enforce Vatican dictates is what drives his assertion that, for example, equal rights laws demanding that colleges treat homosexual groups like any other student group is inherently wrong.
He claims treating LGBTQ people like everyone else is detrimental because:
“[Equality] dissolves any form of moral consensus in society. There can be no consensus based on moral views in the country, only enforced neutrality.”
Yeah, stuff of nightmares, isn’t it? Try this read on for reasons to run away from your Trump loving whackado relatives and any one else invading your environs with propaganda.
https://twitter.com/profagagne/status/1156971085050667008
So are they going to keep getting away with all of this? How long will Trumpist insanity define our country?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads
Posted: August 1, 2019 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics 18 Comments
Le Paravent Mauresque, by Henri Matisse, 1921
Good Morning!!
Last night’s debate was only slightly more interesting than the one on Tuesday. Once again, CNN moderators baited marginal candidates into attacking those who actually have a chance to win the nomination. Jake Tapper continued to insist on enforcing ridiculous time limits by repeatedly cutting off candidates mid-sentence instead of just allowing them a couple of extra seconds to finish a thought.
The good news is that so far only 7 candidates have so far qualified for the next debate, according to The New York Times.
The Democratic National Committee has set stricter criteria for the third set of debates, which will be held on Sept. 12 and Sept. 13 in Houston. If 10 or fewer candidates qualify, the debate will take place on only one night.
Candidates will need to have 130,000 unique donors and register at least 2 percent support in four polls. They have until Aug. 28 to reach those benchmarks.
Bathers at La Grenouillere, Claude Monet, 1869
These criteria could easily halve the field: The first two sets of debates included 20 of the 24 candidates, but a New York Times analysis of polls and donor numbers shows that only 10 to 12 candidates are likely to make the third round.
Seven candidates have already met both qualification thresholds and are guaranteed a spot on stage. They are:
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey
Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind.
Senator Kamala Harris of California
Former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
Three other candidates are very close: The former housing secretary Julián Castro and the entrepreneur Andrew Yang have surpassed 130,000 donations and each have three of the four qualifying polls they need, while Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has met the polling threshold and has about 120,000 donors.
I can only hope we’ve seen the last of Tulsi Gabbard, the candidate of Putin and Assad. If only someone had confronted her during the debate, but at least it happened afterward.
https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1156788268949594112
The Russian bots were out in force last night in support of this year’s Jill Stein.
I don’t have much more to say about the debate, except that Julian Castro continued to perform very well, and I hope he will get strong consideration for Vice President. From Slate: Julian Castro Made the Best Case for Impeachment Yet.
Beach game and rescue, Pablo Picasso, 1932
On Wednesday night, after Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet articulated the argument that the failure of impeachment in the Senate will only allow Trump to claim he’s been cleared by Congress, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro effectively demolished that case for an audience of millions:
Let me first say that I really do believe that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. All of us have a vision for the future of the country that we’re articulating to the American people. We’re going to continue to do that. We have an election coming up. At the same time, Senator, I think that too many folks in the Senate and in the Congress have been spooked by 1998. I believe that the times are different. And, in fact, I think that folks are making a mistake by not pursuing impeachment. The Mueller report clearly details that he deserves it, and what’s going to happen in the fall of next year, of 2020, if they don’t impeach him, is he’s going to say, “You see. You see. The Democrats didn’t go after me on impeachment. And you know why? Because I didn’t do anything wrong. These folks that always investigate me—they’re always trying to go after me. When it came down to it, they didn’t go after me there because I didn’t do anything wrong.” Conversely, if Mitch McConnell is the one that lets him off the look, we’re going to be able to say, “Well, sure, they impeached him in the House, but his friend Mitch McConnell, Moscow Mitch, let him off the hook.”
Compelling!
In other news, Trump called Putin again Wednesday and, as usual, we only learned about it from Russia. Politico: Russian Embassy: Trump offers Putin help in fighting Siberian wildfires.
Lacy with fan, by Gustav Klimt, 1916
During a phone call between the two leaders, Trump offered American assistance to tame the fires that have engulfed 6.7 million acres of the Siberian woods. The Russian Embassy cited a Kremlin statement that said President Vladimir Putin appreciated the gesture and would take Trump up on the offer if needed. For now, Putin told Trump that Russian military aircraft were deployed to control the situation.
The two leaders agreed to keep in contact about the situation by phone and personal meetings, a Kremlin statement said. The White House confirmed Wednesday that the two leaders had a phone conversation about the wildfires and about trade between the countries. Putin and Trump have maintained a close relationship over the years, much to the consternation of American intelligence during the Trump presidency.
The Russian readout didn’t mention trade, probably because of U.S. sanctions on Russian businesses. I wonder if Trump suggested the Russians use raking debris to prevent future fires? How often do these two talk anyway? And was anyone else from the White House listening to this call? My guess is Trump just called Putin from his bed on his insecure cell phone.
Also yesterday, Trump again interfered in the case against war criminal Edward Gallagher. The Washington Post: Trump orders lawyers’ achievement awards revoked in Navy SEAL murder case.
President Trump on Wednesday ordered the Navy’s top leaders to rescind awards given to military lawyers who prosecuted a war crimes case in which the commander in chief took personal interest.
Rain, Marc Chagall, 1911
Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher was acquitted this month of charges he murdered a wounded Islamic State fighter two years ago in Iraq. Trump had intervened on Gallagher’s behalf, having him removed from solitary confinement in March while awaiting trial.
As the military news site Task & Purpose reported Tuesday, members of the prosecution team were quietly presented with Navy Achievement Medals on July 10 for their work on the case. In tweetsWednesday, Trump said the decorations were “ridiculously given.”
“Not only did they lose the case,” Trump wrote on Twitter, “they had difficulty with respect to information that may have been obtained from opposing lawyers and for giving immunity in a totally incompetent fashion. I have directed the Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer & Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson to immediately withdraw and rescind the awards. I am very happy for Eddie Gallagher and his family!”
It’s hilarious that Trump claims to support the military while constantly undermining it.
Regardless of all the screaming and whining on Twitter about Nancy Pelosi supposedly blocking impeachment, House Democrats are already working on making it happen.
Politico: Majority of House Democrats now support impeachment inquiry.
More than half of House Democrats say they would vote to launch impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, a crucial threshold that backers say will require Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reconsider her steadfast opposition….
Auvers Town Hall in 14 July 1890, Vincent Van Gogh
“The President’s repeated abuses have brought American democracy to a perilous crossroads,” said Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who announced his support on Tuesday. “Following the guidance of the Constitution – which I have sworn to uphold – is the only way to achieve justice.”
Democrats who support impeachment proceedings eclipsed the halfway mark — 118 out of 235 voting members — on Thursday, when Rep. Ted Deutch of Florida announced his support. Deutch was also the 23rd Democratic lawmaker to support impeachment proceedings in the week since former special counsel Robert Mueller testified to Congress, affirming publicly his damning evidence that Trump attempted to obstruct justice.
News flash, Nancy Pelosi wants to be rid of Trump and is doing nothing to stop her caucus from supporting it, no matter how hard the media works to make her look bad.
Florida Rep. Ted Deutsch in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: No more debate. Impeachment inquiry is underway.
Although Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony may not have been a summer blockbuster, it confirmed the damning conclusions of his report. The investigation revealed substantial evidence that President Trump obstructed justice. And that the Special Counsel did not exonerate him.
The Farm, Joan Miro, 1921
President Trump claimed victory. He seems to think that Mueller’s performance wasn’t enough to trigger an impeachment inquiry. Sorry, Mr. President, the question is no longer whether the House should vote to proceed with a formal impeachment inquiry. The inquiry has already begun.
The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole authority of impeachment. Officially launching an impeachment inquiry has never been a prerequisite to using that authority. The Judiciary Committee may refer articles of impeachment to the whole House for a vote at any time.
In the past, a resolution directing the Judiciary Committee to consider impeachment was needed to grant the committee additional subpoena authority and financial resources. That was the official start of an impeachment inquiry.
But times have changed. In 2015, Republican leaders gave committee chairs broad subpoena powers—powers that Chairman Nadler retains today.
No additional step is required. No magic words need to be uttered on the House floor. No vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry is necessary.
Read the rest at the link.
Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg: That Democratic Fight Over Impeachment? It’s a Useful Fiction.
Sometimes, it all comes down to semantics. Reporters have noted a spike in the number of House Democrats supporting an impeachment inquiry. There are now, by one count, 116 of them, just shy of a majority of the party. That’s up quite a bit from a couple weeks ago. But the full story is a little more complicated.
The Lee Shore, Edward Hopper, 1941
It turns out that those who don’t support an impeachment inquiry instead favor continuing the current investigations. And as House lawyers basically admitted last week, that amounts to the same thing. It was once the case that the House Judiciary Committee required special grants of power to move toward impeachment, so beginning an inquiry had serious substantive implications. But that hasn’t been true for a while. Under current House rules and procedures, officially opening an impeachment inquiry is, for the most part, a formality.
So all those lawmakers who say they oppose an inquiry aren’t really preventing anything, and all those who have publicly supported an inquiry aren’t really asking for anything that’s not happening now (aside from perhaps a symbolic vote).
The illusion of a dispute is, however, useful for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A formal vote in the full House might not set any wheels in motion, but it would increase the pressure to make a decision on impeachment one way or the other. Pelosi is quite right to duck that pressure on behalf of her caucus. It’s true that there appears to be plenty to investigate, so it’s both in the party’s interest to keep the inquiry going and the responsible thing to do. But actual articles of impeachment might not have the votes on the House floor, and a failed effort would surely be a victory for President Donald Trump.
Read more at Bloomberg.
This piece by Frank Figluzzi at The New York Times is well worth a read: Why Does Trump Fan the Flames of Race-Based Terrorism?
If I learned anything from 25 years in the F.B.I., including a stint as head of counterintelligence, it was to trust my gut when I see a threat unfolding. Those of us who were part of the post-Sept. 11 intelligence community had a duty to sound the alarm about an impending threat.
The Rose Garden at Wargemont, Pierre August Renoir, 1879
Now, instinct and experience tell me we’re headed for trouble in the form of white hate violence stoked by a racially divisive president. I hope I’m wrong.
Since October, the F.B.I. has made 90 arrests in domestic terrorism cases. Domestic terrorism includes violence by Americans who belong to anti-government militias, white supremacist groups or individuals who ascribe to similar ideologies not connected to Islamic extremism. In fact, the F.B.I. says that of its 850 pending domestic terror investigations, about 40 percent involve racially motivated extremism. In 2017 and 2018, the F.B.I. made more arrests connected to domestic terror than to international terrorism, which includes groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State and their lone-wolf recruits.
Last weekend, a young man with a rifle took the lives of three people and injured at least a dozen others at the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. Preliminary reports indicated that among the gunman’s social media postings was an exhortation to read the obscure 1890 novel “Might Is Right,” which justifies racism and asserts that people of color are biologically inferior.
Figluzzi describes Trump’s hateful racist tweets over the past couple of weeks and connects them to white nationalist terrorism.
Reporting indicates that Mr. Trump’s rants emboldened white hate groups and reinforced racist blogs, news sites and social media platforms. In response to his tweets, one of the four lawmakers, Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, said: “This is the agenda of white nationalists, whether it is happening in chat rooms or it’s happening on national TV. And now it’s reached the White House garden.” She’s right.
To be clear, I am not accusing President Trump of inciting violence in Gilroy or anywhere else. But he empowers hateful and potentially violent individuals with his divisive rhetoric and his unwillingness to unequivocally denounce white supremacy. Mr. Trump may be understandably worried about the course of congressional inquiries, but his aggressive and race-baiting responses have been beyond the pale. He has chosen a re-election strategy based on appealing to the kinds of hatred, fear and ignorance that can lead to violence.
Head over to the NYT to read the rest.
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a nice day, despite all the negative news.
Live Blog: Second night of Second Debates
Posted: July 31, 2019 Filed under: 2020 Elections, Live Blog 21 Comments
Yup Sky Dancers! It’s happening again!
Will tonight be any better or will Jack Tapper out dud the Chuck Todd?The first night didn’t got so well … or says us all and The Atlantic: “CNN Was Ill-Equipped for This During the debate it hosted yesterday, the news network made its best effort to convert discussions of policy into the thing it knows best: punditry.”
The melodrama, it would turn out, was fitting. Throughout the debate, the first of a two-night doubleheader set at Detroit’s Fox Theatre, the event’s moderators—Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, and Don Lemon—did what the network’s trailer suggested they would: They asked questions that might turn this fight for the heart of the party into a plain old fight.
One of their questions: “Senator Warren, you make it a point to say you’re a capitalist. Is that your way of saying you’re a safer choice than Senator Sanders?” Another: “Congressman Ryan, are Senator Sanders’s proposals going to incentivize undocumented immigrants to come into the country illegally?” Another: “Congressman O’Rourke, you live near the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso and disagree with Mayor Buttigieg on decriminalizing the border crossings. Please respond.” The chyrons gave away the game: “QUESTION: Congressman Delaney, do you think Sen. Warren’s wealth tax is a fair way to fund child care and education?” Here was another: “QUESTION: Sen. Klobuchar, who are you referring to when you say candidates are making promises just to get elected?”
Let’s get READY to RUMMMMMMMBle!!!!
Tuesday Reads: Life in the Twilight Zone
Posted: July 30, 2019 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics 20 Comments
Good Afternoon!!
Living in Trump world means you wake up almost every day to situations that previously could only exist in an Onion story. Now they are our reality.
This morning I opened Twitter to find trending topics based on satirical tweets sent by a guy named Dan Lyons. This morning he was mocking Trump’s claim to have been helping first responders on 9/11.
https://twitter.com/realdanlyons/status/1156178706253176832
https://twitter.com/realdanlyons/status/1156012499159810048
https://twitter.com/realdanlyons/status/1156010233438752770
https://twitter.com/realdanlyons/status/1155956845132914689
Pretty funny, right? But lots of people took them seriously, and it’s not difficult to figure out why that happened. Because we’re living in the Twilight Zone now.
#ObamaandBiden is still trending. Will some reporter ask Jim Jordan about it?
Also trending on Twitter: #MoscowMitch and #MoscowMitchMcTreason. The Moscow Mitch nickname was created in response to Mitch McConnell’s continual blocking of election security bills. Then yesterday McConnell had a tantrum on the Senate floor in which he claimed he was being targeted with modern date McCarthyism.
The Hill: #MoscowMitchMcTreason trends after McConnell defends blocking election security bills.
The hashtag #MoscowMitchMcTreason began trending on Twitter Tuesday morning after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fired back against the nickname “Moscow Mitch” in a fiery speech from the Senate floor.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP lawmaker, dubbed McConnell “Moscow Mitch” after McConnell on Friday blocked two election security measures.
The hashtag #MoscowMitch quickly began trending on Twitter following Scarborough’s comments.
McConnell responded on Monday, decrying the attacks against him as “modern-day McCarthyism.”
“I was called unpatriotic, un-American and essentially treasonous by a couple of left-wing pundits on the basis of bold-faced lies. I was accused of aiding and abetting the very man I’ve singled out as an adversary and opposed for nearly 20 years, Vladimir Putin,” McConnell said.
“These pundits are lying, lying when they dismiss the work that has been done. They’re lying when they insist I have personally blocked actions which, in fact, I have championed and the Senate has passed,” he added. “They are lying when they suggest that either party is against defending our democracy.”
Sorry Mitch, but everyone knows you blocked President Obama when he wanted to issue a bipartisan warning about Russians interfering in the 2016 election to help Trump.
Trump continued the Twilight Zone theme this morning as he left the White House. He issued an extended attack on Baltimore, claiming the city’s problems are all Rep. Elijah Cummings’ fault (nothing to do with the Mayor, Governor, or federal government). Next he responded to a question about Dana Millbank’s article calling Mitch McConnell a Russian asset by saying
“I think the Washington Post is a Russian asset, by comparison … Mitch McConnell is a man that knows less about Russia and Russian influence and even Donald Trump, and I know nothing.”
Of the people of Baltimore, he said:
“Those people are living in hell in Baltimore. They are largely African American, you have a large African American population. And they really appreciate what I’m doing, and they’ve let me know it.”
Really? Oh yes, Trump said, African American have been calling the White House and telling him how happy they are with his policies.
TRUMP: “The African American people have been calling the White House. They have never been so happy as what a president has done.”
That Abraham Lincoln, he was such a loser, right Donald? For more of this nonsense, check out Aaron Rupar’s Twitter timeline.
In more serious news, the second Democratic primary debate begins tonight. NPR: Your Guide To Tonight’s Democratic Presidential Debate.
The Democratic presidential candidates take the stage for the second round of debates Tuesday and Wednesday in Detroit. A lot is on the line for the candidates, who have been engaged in back-and-forths over race and health care coming into this round of debates.
On Tuesday, progressives Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren face off for the first time in this campaign. And several other candidates will be scrambling for a breakout night to get back on voters’ minds.
Viewers will also see an odd dynamic onstage — by luck of the draw, all the candidates onstage on Night 1 are white….
In order of their placement onstage, left to right: Spiritualist and author Marianne Williamson; Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas; former Gov. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.; former Rep. John Delaney, D-Md.; and Gov. Steve Bullock, D-Mont.
The first meeting between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders will be the marquee match up. Read more at the link above.
John Ratcliffe
The most terrifying news of the day is that Trump is on the verge of taking control of the U.S. intelligence infrastructure. He has appointed Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe to replace Dan Coates as Director of National Intelligence, even though Ratcliffe has no intelligence background and is completely unqualified. If this appointment is approved by the Senate, we may never learn anything about Russian support of Trump in the 2020 election and Democrats in the House could be cut off from getting any information from the intelligence agencies.
If you watched the Mueller hearings, you may recall Ratcliffe’s unhinged attacks on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Ryan Bort at Rolling Stone: How John Ratcliffe Nailed His Audition to Become Trump’s New Intelligence Chief.
A week ago, Rep. John Radcliffe (R-Texas) was a largely anonymous congressman serving on the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees. On Sunday night, President Trump announced he would be nominating him to oversee America’s intelligence community, a position for which Ratcliffe is woefully under-qualified. Why? Look no further than Ratcliffe’s performance during former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony last Wednesday.
In lieu of asking questions of Mueller, Ratcliffe used his five minutes to make a show of excoriating Mueller for noting that the special counsel report did not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice. Ratcliffe argued that, considering Mueller chose not to prosecute the president, it was outside of his legal purview to elaborate on a decision he chose not to make.
When Mueller tried to explain why the situation was “unique,” Ratcliffe cut him off and continued to rant. “Donald Trump is not above the law. He’s not,” Ratcliffe concluded with a flourish. “But he damn sure shouldn’t be below the law, which is where Volume 2 of this report puts him,” Ratcliffe said.
Back to Rolling Stone:
It was exactly the kind of sound bite designed to earn plaudits from Trump. So too was his appearance on Fox News Sunday morning. “I’m not going to accuse any specific person of any specific crime,” he told Maria Bartiromo. “I just want there to be a fair process to get there. What I do know, as a former federal prosecutor, is, it does appear that there were crimes committed during the Obama administration.”
Trump announced the nomination hours later. “I am pleased to announce that highly respected Congressman John Ratcliffe of Texas will be nominated by me to be the Director of National Intelligence,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “A former U.S. Attorney, John will lead and inspire greatness for the Country he loves. Dan Coats, the current Director, will be leaving office on August 15th. I would like to thank Dan for his great service to our Country. The Acting Director will be named shortly.”
Ratliffe is looney tunes and his only qualification is his loyalty to the mad king.
David Ignatius at The Washington Post: Trump’s intelligence shake-up could be his most dangerous move yet.
Among intelligence professionals, President Trump’s nomination of an inexperienced, partisan politician to oversee America’s spy agencies prompted deep dismay — but also a stolid reaffirmation of the spymaster’s credo: Let’s get on with it.
This combination of incredulity and stoicism was voiced by a half-dozen current and former officers I spoke with Monday about Trump’s choice of Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.) to become director of national intelligence. The worry is partly that Ratcliffe lacks any real experience, and perhaps more that he has embraced Trump’s “deep state” conspiracy theories about the CIA and FBI.
“This makes the workforce wonder, what are we doing here?” said one veteran CIA station chief. But a few moments later he affirmed: “This place is under siege. People say, carry on, protect the mission, avoid the firing range.”
“Analysts will be asking how well [Ratcliffe] will represent our product downtown,” said a second former officer who served in a senior position under Daniel Coats, the departing DNI. This former official predicted that it would take Ratcliffe a year just to understand the vast array of 17 intelligence agencies he will oversee, if he’s confirmed.
The deepest worry among intelligence professionals is how the Ratcliffe nomination, and the intense partisanship that fueled it, will be perceived by the United States’ intelligence partners overseas. “They’re in wait-and-see mode,” said a former senior CIA officer after canvassing a group of intelligence colleagues.
If the White House exerts political control through Ratcliffe, “foreign governments will be wondering if they should be sharing information” with the CIA and National Security Agency, said the veteran station chief.
More articles to check out on this topic:
NBC News: Intel officials worry Trump’s pick for top spy will politicize the job.
The Washington Post: Some officials fear Trump will get the intelligence he wants, not the intelligence he needs, from DNI pick.
ABC News: Trump’s pick for intelligence director misrepresented role in anti-terror case.
The Daily Beast: Trump Intel Pick John Ratcliffe Started Theory of FBI Anti-Trump ‘Secret Society.’
The New York Times: Republican Senators Are Cool to Trump’s Choice for Top Intelligence Post.
Before I wrap this up, I want to call your attention to this long profile of Alan Dershowitz at The New Yorker by Connie Bruck, you really should. It’s devastating: Alan Dershowitz, Devil’s Advocate.
What else is happening? What stories are you following today?
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