[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by pawprints.
Recommended Reading:
Monica Roberts: World AIDS Day 2017
Dr. Verity Sullivan with Phil: Black, Gay, and Proud
Lance Mannion: Why She Won't Shut Up and Go Away; Why She Shouldn't Shut Up and Go Away
Kenrya Rankin: Flint Finally Has a New Permanent Water Source
Christianna Silva: [Content Note: Homophobia; racism] White House Bars Gay Reporter from Christmas Party 'Consistent with Trump Policy to Exclude LGBTQ People'
Nina Besser Doorley: [CN: Misogyny] US Health Services Nominee Alex Azar's Reproductive Health Dilemma
Adi Robertson: Amazon Is Reportedly Talking to Generic Drug Companies
Ryan F. Mandelbaum: Binary Star System May Actually Be a Pair of Orbiting Supermassive Black Holes
Grown and Curvy Woman: Let's Party!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Shaker Gourmet
Whatcha been cooking up in your kitchen lately, Shakers?
Share your favorite recipes, solicit good recipes, share recipes you've recently tried, want to try, are trying to perfect, whatever! Whether they're your own creation, or something you found elsewhere, share away.
Also welcome: Recipes you've seen recently that you'd love to try, but haven't yet!
More Flynn: Mueller Veers Toward Kushner and Pence
A number of further developments as news about former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's plea has developed throughout the day...
FLYNN:
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Brian Ross, Matthew Mosk, Josh Margolin, Adam Kelsey, and Veronica Stracqualursi at ABC News: Flynn Has Promised Special Counsel 'Full Cooperation' in Russia Probe. "Retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn has promised 'full cooperation' in the special counsel's Russia investigation and, according to a confidant, is prepared to testify that Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians, initially as a way to work together to fight ISIS in Syria."
That's a fairly stunning announcement. One has to imagine it blew back Donald Trump's hair, especially considering the reports that he found out about all of this at the same time we did this morning — from news reports, just like the rest of us.
Clearly Flynn is cooperating, given the details of the plea deal, which suggest he has a lot to offer and has freely offered it. There's also this excellent point about his deplorable son, wisely observed by Nick Merrill:
Let’s also remember that the things Flynn is NOT being charged for today are those that involve his son. Seems likely that 1) Flynn has flipped to protect them both 2) A deal like that means what he’s offering to the FBI is significant. https://t.co/DpwTCiPdl5
— Nick Merrill (@NickMerrill) December 1, 2017
Flynn has been around long enough to see that Trump's loyalty is a one-day deal. He's got no reason at all to protect Trump, and every reason that any parent would have to protect his stupid kid.
PENCE:
Betsy Woodruff and Spencer Ackerman at the Daily Beast: 'Very Senior' Trump Official Authorized Flynn's Russia Outreach.
Everything [Donald] Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn discussed last December with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. — everything that led to his dramatic guilty plea and cooperation agreement Friday with special counsel Robert Mueller — he did with the involvement of the presidential transition team.I'll bet he didn't! I'm sure he's busily cooking up yet another transparently mendacious statement about how he doesn't know anything about anything except what he learns from the news.
That's the story told in the most important document Mueller released on a Friday that could have intensified the president's own legal liability: Flynn's stipulation of the facts underlying his December 2016 conversations with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. At least one of those two conversations Flynn undertook at the direction of a "very senior" transition official, the stipulation says.
The documents do not say who directed Flynn to discuss sanctions with Kislyak — a conversation Flynn later reportedly lied about to Vice President Mike Pence, a lie that was the stated reason that Trump fired Flynn in February. But Flynn's statement, following his Friday guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with Mueller's probe, shows that the transition team, at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, was informed at every stage of his discussions with Kislyak.
And that itself raises new questions about what Pence, who ran the presidential transition and publicly affirmed that Flynn never talked to Kislyak about Russia sanctions, actually knew.
Pence's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Again let us recall the extraordinary number of things we have to believe to accept Pence's account that Flynn lied to him about his conversation with Kislyak.
I have been saying these two words over and over again as if they're an incantation for frustratingly elusive accountability, and I will now say them once more: Pence knew.
And if he wasn't himself the "very senior" transition official who directed Flynn to discuss sanctions with Kislyak, he knows who it was. And, aside from Trump himself, the most likely candidate other than Pence is Jared Kushner, who has now been confirmed as the person who directed Flynn to discuss a United Nations Security Council vote.
KUSHNER:
Aram Roston and John Hudson at BuzzFeed: It Was Kushner Who Told Flynn to Make Calls About Israel UN Vote, Source Says.
Jared Kushner, [Donald] Trump's son-in-law, called Michael Flynn in December 2016 and told him to call members of the UN Security Council in an effort to stop a vote on a resolution critical of Israeli settlement policy, according to a person who was present in the room when Flynn took the call.See also Eli Lake at Bloomberg: Kushner Is Said to Have Ordered Flynn to Contact Russia.
Flynn then called Russia's then-ambassador to the United States to seek his assistance, and later lied to the FBI about having done so, according to documents filed in federal court Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller that explained Flynn's guilty plea on two counts of lying to federal agents.
The documents do not say on whose behalf Flynn contacted Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, identifying the person only as "a very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team."
But a Trump transition official who was in the room where Flynn took a call regarding the upcoming UN Security Council vote said Flynn identified the caller as Kushner.
"Jared called Flynn and told him you need to get on the phone to every member of the Security Council and tell them to delay the vote," the person said.
If confirmed, that call would bring prosecutors one step closer to Kushner, who also serves as a senior adviser to Trump.
* * *
Here are a couple of other useful pieces:
Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post: Michael Flynn's Guilty Plea: A Comprehensive Timeline.
Allegra Kirkland at TPM: Former Prosecutors Break Down What Mike Flynn's Plea Deal Really Means.
And finally:
#BREAKING White House plays down Flynn's role, describes him as 'Obama official'
— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 1, 2017
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
We Resist: Day 316
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.
So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.
Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.
* * *
Here are some things in the news today:
Earlier today by me: Michael Flynn Charged with Making "False, Fictitious, and Fraudulent Statements" to the FBI; Trump Pressured Senate GOP to End Their Russia Probe; and GOP Still Trying to Pass a Tax Bill to Destroy America.
NEW: Sen. Mark Warner, ranking Democrat on Senate Intelligence Committee, issues statement on Flynn plea, saying special counsel "has found illegal behavior stretching into the senior most levels of the White House." https://t.co/M99xSzMO3H pic.twitter.com/kfxycTS7Gy
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) December 1, 2017
[Content Note: Nativism; white supremacy] Josh Dawsey, Sean Sullivan, and Ed O'Keefe at the Washington Post: Trump Tells Confidants That a Government Shutdown Might Be Good for Him. "Trump has told confidants that a government shutdown could be good for him politically and is focusing on his hard-line immigration stance as a way to win back supporters unhappy with his outreach to Democrats this fall, according to people who have spoken with him recently. Over the past 10 days, the president has also told advisers that it is important that he is seen as tough on immigration and getting money for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to two people who have spoken with him. He has asked friends about how a shutdown would affect him politically and has told several people he would put the blame on Democrats."
By way of reminder, the Democrats have threatened what I called ethical obstructionism by refusing to sacrifice DREAMers to avoid a government shutdown. Now Trump is fixing to exploit Democrats' decency to force a shutdown in order to win back the fawning adoration of his nativist, white supremacist base.
His malice and narcissism truly know no bounds.
Speaking of which... [CN: Video may autoplay at link] Michelle Kosinski and Sara Murray at CNN: White House Wanted to Publicly Shame Tillerson, Source Says. "Reports that the White House has a tentative plan to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that emerged Thursday were an effort to express [Donald] Trump's deep displeasure and publicly shame his secretary of state, a source with direct knowledge of the White House's thinking said Thursday. The hope from the White House, the source said, is to push out the plan to replace Tillerson and then 'wait for him to punch out.'"
First of all, Rex Tillerson deserves to be shamed because he is a robber baron and a scoundrel who is propping up an authoritarian traitor, not because he has demonstrated insufficient loyalty to that traitor. Secondly, Trump is a terrible boss and a terrible person. Thirdly, Trump is also a fucking coward. He made himself famous by shouting "You're fired!" on a TV reality show, but he doesn't have the courage to fire anyone himself for real. He is a loser and a terrible president without a modicum of the character it takes to do the job well.
Meanwhile, as our State Department falls to pieces... Ben Riley-Smith and Kate McCann at the Telegraph: Donald Trump's 'Working Visit' to UK Dropped as Tensions with Theresa May Grow over President's Far-Right Retweets. "US diplomats have dropped plans for Donald Trump to conduct a visit to Britain in January amid a war of words between the two countries' leaders. Mr Trump, the US president, had been pencilled in for a 'working visit' in the first month of 2018 to formally open America's new London embassy. The trip, a scaled down version of a state visit with no meeting with the Queen, was intended to allow Mr Trump to come to the UK while avoiding the mass protests a full state visit would likely trigger. However, The Telegraph can reveal that the trip has been pushed into the long grass, with no new date in the diary picked."
In less than one year on the job, Trump has turned to shit the relationship with our oldest and best ally.
* * *
Karoun Demirjian at the Washington Post: Erik Prince Tells House Investigators He Met with Kremlin-Linked Banker in Seychelles. "Erik Prince, a supporter of the Trump presidential campaign and founder of the security firm Blackwater, confirmed to House investigators Thursday that he met with a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin while in the Seychelles earlier this year, according to multiple people familiar with the interview. Under questioning, Prince told members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that he had met Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, during a secret Jan. 11 meeting in the Seychelles brokered by the United Arab Emirates as part of an apparent attempt to set up backchannel communications between then-President-elect Donald Trump and Moscow." Reminder: Prince is also the brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
Echidne of the Snakes: Today's Mulvaney Quote. "Mick Mulvaney is now the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). This is what he said about his plans when it comes to protecting consumers: 'We're going to try and limit as much as we can what the CFPB does to sort of interfere with capitalism and with the financial services market.' It's nice that he has taken off his carnival mask so that we can all see he is on the side against which the CFPB was created. ...Mick Mulvaney's role at the CFPB is the by-now familiar one of the fox guarding the chicken coops. That's because the corporate donors which rule the Republican Party want consumer protections to disappear. Business is better for them that way."
Jim VandeHei at Axios: Trump's Mind-Numbing Media Manipulation Machine. "There is a very specific — and dangerous — formula for manipulating the media and hijacking the Twitter/cable/conventional media industrial complex. Trump sets this formulaic trap increasingly often. And news organizations keep falling for it. Step 1: Throw an early morning Twitter bomb... Step 2: The outrage machine kicks in... Step 3: The cable beast awakens... Step 4: The fringes foment... Step 5: Opinions fly... We go to bed, sleep poorly, wake up and do it again. 'How do we pay attention without paying him a kind of homage? Can we respond to his outrages without drowning in our own?' [conservative columnist Bret Stephens wonders]."
Joseph Bernstein and Kendall Taggart at BuzzFeed: Conservative Megadonor Robert Mercer Funded Project Veritas. "The Mercers, secretive billionaires who are among [Donald] Trump's most powerful donors, also helped to fund Project Veritas, the controversial activist organization, tax filings obtained by BuzzFeed News show. Gravitas Maximus LLC — a Mercer investment vehicle through which he also funded the conservative outlet Breitbart — gave $25,000 to Project Veritas, according to a nonpublic portion of a 2012 tax form. The family's involvement has not previously been made public. The Mercer family did not immediately respond to a request for comment." Here's a comment: Fuck the Mercers.
Josh Eidelson at Bloomberg: Federal Contractors Are Offshoring at a Fast Clip Under Trump. "Despite [Donald] Trump's promises to bring millions of jobs back to the U.S., corporate contractors for the government have been 'outsourcing' positions at a speedy pace, according Good Jobs Nation, an organization that advocates for contract workers. In the year since Trump's election, the federal government has certified that 93,449 jobs were lost to outsourcing or trade competition, the labor group said in an analysis of data from the Labor Department's Trade Adjustment Assistance program and Treasury's USASpending.gov database.
* * *
[CN: Sexual harassment and/or assault. Covers the entire section.]
Jessica Bennett at the New York Times: Nine Women Accuse Israel Horovitz, Playwright and Mentor, of Sexual Misconduct. "Inspired by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., and others, a total of nine women have come forward publicly for the first time to describe a pattern of sexual abuse and violations of trust by a man they considered a mentor and friend. ...In response to questions this week, Mr. Horovitz, 78, told The New York Times that while he has 'a different memory of some of these events, I apologize with all my heart to any woman who has ever felt compromised by my actions, and to my family and friends who have put their trust in me. To hear that I have caused pain is profoundly upsetting, as is the idea that I might have crossed a line with anyone who considered me a mentor.'"
I don't know what PR flack came up with this "different memory of events" line that keeps appearing in these garbage apologies, but it's such execrable swill. It's just calling women liars without having the decency to just call them liars.
For those of you who know that Israel Horovitz is the father of Adam Horovitz, aka Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys, Adam was pretty blunt about the allegations against his father: "I believe the allegations against my father are true, and I stand behind the women that made them." Wow.
Meanwhile, in Congress...
Republican Texas Rep. Blake Farenthold settled a sexual harassment complaint from his former communications director with taxpayer money: https://t.co/BzB8D55B9v
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) December 1, 2017
Caitlin MacNeal and Matt Shuham at TPM: Paul Ryan: 'I Don't Know' If There's a Difference Between Trump, Moore.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) did not say whether there is a difference between the sexual misconduct claims made against Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore and [Donald] Trump in an interview with NPR that aired Friday morning.What an absolute scumbag he is. And given the number of times now that Paul Ryan has said he "hasn't reviewed" something about which he's being asked, in order to dodge giving a direct answer, I'd like to know exactly what it is on which he's spending his time.
NPR's Robert Inskeep asked Ryan to explain the difference between the allegations aired against the two men, noting that the speaker had called for Moore to withdraw from the Senate race. Ryan had said of the allegations against Moore: "I believe those allegations are credible."
"I think the Roy Moore — I don't know if — I'm focused on Congress," Ryan first answered. "Roy Moore is trying to come to Congress. My job here as speaker of the House is to help make sure that Congress is an institution that we're proud of and that's what I'm focused on. He's running for Congress and I think the allegations against him were very very credible."
Pressed by Inskeep again to explain the difference, Ryan replied, "I don't know the answer to that. I haven't spent my time reviewing the difference in these two cases."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
GOP Still Trying to Pass a Tax Bill to Destroy America
I honestly don't know what is going on with the Republicans' tax bill at the moment. Normally, I would feel pretty bad about saying that as the introduction to a post, as my primary reason for writing them is to explain what's going on. But, in this case, even Republicans don't know what's going on with their own obscene garbage bill, and neither does anyone else.
What we do know is that Republicans continue to lie about the bill and what its intent is. It is not to "grow the economy." It is, instead, to redistribute wealth upwards and to shrink the revenue of the federal government so severely that Republicans can justify austerity programs that will destroy the paltry social safety net we have.
A Politico piece by Adam Cancryn and Sarah Ferris begins thus:
Republicans are on the verge of a massive tax overhaul that would hand [Donald] Trump his first major legislative victory. But the $1.5 trillion tax package could trigger eye-popping cuts to a slew of federal programs, including Medicare.Yeah. That's the whole point. Congress isn't going to "act swiftly to stop it," because decimating federal programs isn't a bug of this tax bill; it's a central feature.
Unless Congress acts swiftly to stop it, as much as $150 billion per year would be cut from initiatives ranging from farm subsidies to student loans to support services for crime victims. Medicare alone could see cuts of $25 billion a year.
Senate Republicans need 50 of their 52 members to vote for the bill to pass it with a tiebreaking vote care of VP Mike Pence. As of this morning, four were still holding out public support — Susan Collins (Maine), Bob Corker (Tennessee), Jeff Flake (Arizona), and James Lankford (Oklahoma) — but Mitch McConnell's deputy John Cornyn says they're confident they've got the votes, so the public hold-out seems to be for show in at least two cases.
All of this despite the fact that the "nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation ruled that the tax plan Republicans had hoped to move swiftly through the Senate would add $1 trillion to the deficit — even after accounting for the positive impact from economic growth," and despite the fact that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has "grossly" misled the public about the bill, according to Senator Elizabth Warren, whose concerns prompted the Treasury Department's Inspector General to open "an inquiry into why the department's analysis of the Republican tax plan hasn't been released to the public."
This bill is a vile shitshow. The way it's being passed is craven and deplorable. It will tremendously harm most of the people in this country.
And it's not that the Republicans don't care. That would be giving them far too much credit. They are positively thrilled by all of the above.
Meanwhile, they are already fixing to follow-up the presumed passage of this nightmare by coming for our healthcare again and moving ahead with "a package of gun legislation that would sharply expand concealed-carry rights."
Seethe. Make your calls.
Today, our front page is fully dedicated to calls to fight the many disastrous provisions of the #GOPTaxScam. Because today, we can kill this bill.
— 5 Calls 🇺🇸 (@make5calls) December 1, 2017
Light up the phones, team! 🔥📞🔥
Everything you need (info, scripts, DC/local office #'s) 👉 https://t.co/A9p2vAi8yQ pic.twitter.com/YLbKC8OsJQ
Trump Pressured Senate GOP to End Their Russia Probe
One of the things that Robert Mueller is reportedly investigating is whether Donald Trump attempted to obstruct justice by firing FBI Director James Comey. Now it looks like he's got another potential obstruction incident to investigate: A report at the New York Times reveals that Trump repeatedly pressured members of the Republican leadership to end the Senate's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, the intelligence committee chairman, said in an interview this week that Mr. Trump told him that he was eager to see an investigation that has overshadowed much of the first year of his presidency come to an end.Naturally, Trump's defenders immediately returned to their favorite excuse: "Republicans played down Mr. Trump's appeals, describing them as the actions of a political newcomer unfamiliar with what is appropriate presidential conduct."
"It was something along the lines of, 'I hope you can conclude this as quickly as possible,'" Mr. Burr said. He said he replied to Mr. Trump that "when we have exhausted everybody we need to talk to, we will finish."
In addition, according to lawmakers and aides, Mr. Trump told Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri and a member of the intelligence committee, to end the investigation swiftly.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who is a former chairwoman of the intelligence committee, said in an interview this week that Mr. Trump's requests were "inappropriate" and represented a breach of the separation of powers.
You know what they say about ignorance of the law.
In any other administration, this would be a tremendous scandal. If any other president had tried to bully members of the Senate to stop investigating him, it would have been on the front page of every newspaper and been discussed ad nauseum on the cable news channels for days. It would be trending on social media, and no one would be paying attention to anything else, as the public conversation would center around whether the president had broken the law and whether he should resign.
In Trump's administration, this is barely a blip. And that fact may be even more terrifying than the fact that this president has utter contempt for the rule of law.
Michael Flynn Charged with Making "False, Fictitious, and Fraudulent Statements" to the FBI
Just in: Robert Mueller has charged former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn with “willfully and knowingly” making “false, fictitious and fraudulent statements” to the FBI regarding conversations with Russia’s ambassador. pic.twitter.com/WqvDmytYiZ
— David Wright (@DavidWright_CNN) December 1, 2017
One count of making false statements? Flynn must have given Mueller an awful lot in exchange for that. https://t.co/vTosOmHCSe
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 1, 2017
BREAKING FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL: The court has scheduled a plea hearing for Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn (Ret.), 58, of Alexandria, Va., at 10:30 a.m.
— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) December 1, 2017
More charges against Flynn could be coming, especially with regard to his work with Turkey. My guess (and I could be wrong) is that this is a plea deal limited to Trump administration collusion with Russia. I also suspect that this is the reason this deal came first:
Remember: This is the conversation about which Michael Flynn also supposedly lied to Vice President Mike Pence, which was then used as justification to fire Flynn. This could be Mueller's in-road to Pence. https://t.co/vTosOmHCSe
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 1, 2017
At least, I hope so.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker lattendicht: "Memorable non-school childhood activity? Something you did during a weekend, school holiday/vacation/break, either from your own childhood or while looking after kids as an adult."
Going to the public library. One of my favorite childhood activities. Tied with going to the roller rink!
Your Best Photograph
If you're a photographer, even if a very amateur one (like myself), and you've got a photo or photos you'd like to share, here's your thread for that!
It doesn't really have to be your best photograph—just one you like!
Please be sure if your photo contains people other than yourself, that you have the explicit consent of the people in the photos before posting them.
* * *
I snapped this while we were out driving to pick up a pizza recently. Not an amazing composition, but there was such interesting light as the sun was just beginning to set.
Quote of the Day
"You could tell me today that I could marry a rich, generous, lovely, and kind prince who looks just like Idris Elba and the only thing standing in my way of marrying my dream guy is that I could never talk sh-t about Donald Trump again, and I wouldn't take that f–king deal."—Kaiser, in a piece about how Meghan Markle, who is engaged to Prince Harry, will have to restrain her political views in future.
LOL FOREVERRRRRRR. Because SAME!
Daily Dose of Cute
but is too lazy to get up.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
We Resist: Day 315
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.
So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.
Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.
* * *
Here are some things in the news today:
Earlier today by me: More Lauer: This Is What NBC's Indifference Abetted; Trump Looks "Crazy" Because He's Unconstrained by Consequences; and "This is a repudiation of the social contract that Franklin Roosevelt announced at the New Deal."
Nicole Lafond at TPM: White House Plots Shakeup: Tillerson Out, Pompeo to State, Cotton to CIA. "The White House has developed a plan to push Secretary of State Rex Tillerson out of his post at the State Department and replace him with current CIA Director Mike Pompeo within the next several weeks, The New York Times reported Thursday. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) would reportedly replace Pompeo as head of the CIA. ...The Associated Press and CNN also confirmed reports that the White House is planning to replace Tillerson with Pompeo."
This is reportedly all being orchestrated by Chief of Staff John Kelly. (See again my concerns that decisions meant to be made by the president are being made by unelected former military commanders.) It isn't clear whether Trump even approves of the plan. When he was asked about it this morning, his response was: "He's here. Rex is here."
Reporter: "Do you have Rex Tillerson on the job?"
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 30, 2017
President Trump: "He's here. Rex is here." pic.twitter.com/H72H8X529y
So that's one concern. I don't agree with a single decision Donald Trump makes, but I also don't believe that undermining the democratic principle of executive decision-making fixes the issue of an unqualified and indecent president. It just creates a secondary alarming problem.
Further, Pompeo is completely unqualified to be Secretary of State, and Tom Cotton would be a disaster as CIA chief.
When Tom Cotton led 46 Senators to directly engage a foreign entity in 2015, retired Maj Gen Paul Eaton called the action "mutinous". Cotton's eagerness to breach protocol and undermine diplomacy is proof that he should never, ever head our top spy agency. https://t.co/aQSxEhOV1d
— VoteVets (@votevets) November 30, 2017
This is just complete chaos — which is, of course, a known and identifiable strategy of authoritarian regimes.
But it's not like we need a functional State Department, anyway, right? Nothing important going on in the world right now.
Anna Fifield at the Washington Post: North Korea Has Shown Us Its New Missile, and It's Scarier Than We Thought. Oh.
* * *
Madeleine K. Albright at the Washington Post: The National Security Emergency We're Not Talking About. "America's diplomatic professionals have issued a dire warning about the crisis facing the State Department: Scores of top diplomats, including some of our highest-ranked career Foreign Service officers, have left the agency at 'a dizzying speed' over the past 10 months. ...[T]he damage being done to America's diplomatic readiness is both intentional and long-term. The administration isn't hurting the State Department by accident. Tillerson maintained a freeze on hiring long after most other Cabinet officials had stopped. The number of promotions has been cut in half and the quantity of incoming Foreign Service officers by more than two-thirds. He is effectively shutting down the State Department's pipeline for new talent."
Suffice it to say, the solution to this problem is not replacing Tillerson with Pompeo. It's not that Tillerson is incompetent; he's doing precisely what the president hired him to do.
But again, it's not like we need effective diplomacy or anything.
Karla Adam and William Booth at the Washington Post: Britain Furious, Trump Unapologetic as Fallout Swells from Anti-Muslim Videos. Oh fuck.
Mike Allen at Axios: The White House Expects Trump to Get Even More Outrageous. "Officials tell us Trump seems more self-assured, more prone to confidently indulging wild conspiracies and fantasies, more quick-triggered to fight than he was during the Wild West of the first 100 days in office. ...Elected Republicans, at least in public, seem fine with it all. They chuckle and say it's simply Trump being Trump. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and his staff seem fine with, or at least resigned to, this reality. No one who matters is doing anything but egging him on."
Helping him create his own reality in which he is king, emperor, god.
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Gloria Borger, Pamela Brown, Evan Perez, and Kara Scannell at CNN: Jared Kushner Met with Special Counsel About Flynn. "Jared Kushner met earlier this month with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team as part of the investigation into Russia's meddling in the election, according to two people familiar with the meeting. ...The conversation lasted less than 90 minutes, one person familiar with the meeting said, adding that Mueller's team asked Kushner to clear up some questions he was asked by lawmakers and details that emerged through media reports. One source said the nature of this conversation was principally to make sure Kushner doesn't have information that exonerates Flynn."
Welp. That sounds pretty bad for Flynn. (And frankly pretty good for Kushner.)
* * *
I just hate everything right now.
— Imani “I Smell Sex and” Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) November 29, 2017
I really do.
We are fucked for A GENERATION. The courts are lurching so far rightward that it honestly stresses me the hell out.
Y'all remember how Mitch McConnell held that SCOTUS seat for Trump, which he filled with Gorsuch, right? Well, he held 100+ vacancies in the federal courts, too. And Trump is busily filling them with nightmare monsters. https://t.co/vvskwTZ4eE
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 30, 2017
Shira A Scheindlin at the Guardian: Trump's New Team of Judges Will Radically Change American Society.
While the Supreme Court is the court of last resort — and the one that attracts most attention — the judicial business of the United States is decided in what are called 'the lower courts.' The judges appointed to these courts decide 99.9% of all cases.And every single judge he nominates will vote to uphold the assault on voting rights that his party is waging, so no wonder they are behaving like a party who will never have to be accountable to voters ever again.
Most cases never reach the supreme court. It is the so-called lower courts that play a critical role in deciding a wide range of issues. These judges have decided cases involving voting rights, contraception, privacy, sentencing, prisoner rights, gay rights, immigration, desegregation in schools and housing, employment discrimination, affirmative action, workplace rules, environmental impacts, and many others that shape US society. The impact of their decisions are felt daily by more than 300 million Americans.
This is the background needed to understand the importance of Trump's judicial nominations during his first year in office. Much has been made of the administration's legislative failures but Trump's judicial appointments are calculated to have a more lasting impact on American life than many if not all of his proposed legislative initiatives.
Unlike legislation, these life-time appointments are not reversible. That is why it is so important to scrutinize who he is placing on these benches, and what impact they will have.
There are now approximately 144 vacancies in the federal courts, and Trump has already succeeded in appointing 14 judges, meaning that he began his term with more than 150 vacancies — 10% of the federal judiciary.
* * *
[Content Note: Sexual harassment and/or assault. Covers entire section. Video may autoplay at first link.] There are a handful of new allegations of sexual abuse today. I don't have anything to say that I haven't already said literally dozens of times before. I am angry and I am rageful and I take up space in solidarity with these women.
MJ Lee at CNN: Army Veteran Says Franken Groped Her During USO Tour in 2003.
Anna Merlan at the Slot: New England Elected Official Says Al Franken Tried to Give Her a 'Wet, Open-Mouthed Kiss' Onstage.
Jenny Lumet at the Hollywood Reporter: Russell Simmons Sexually Violated Me.
Naaman Zhou at the Guardian: Geoffrey Rush Denies Allegations of 'Inappropriate Behaviour' in Play.
Rachel Tepper Paley at Mic: 4 Former Employees Accuse Celebrity Chef Johnny Iuzzini of Sexual Harassment and Abuse.
And in related news:
Brandy Zadrozny at the Daily Beast: Trump Bragged: 'Nothing in the World Like First-Rate Pussy'.
Brianna Sacks at BuzzFeed: Roy Moore Just Blamed His Sexual Misconduct Allegations on Lesbians, Gays, and Socialists.
Scott Stump at Today: Rep. John Conyers' Accuser Marion Brown Speaks Out: 'He Just Violated My Body'.
Matt Shuham at TPM: Conyers' Lawyer Says Congressman Has No Plans to Resign Amid Accusations.
Lauren Gambino at the Guardian: Nancy Pelosi Calls on John Conyers to Resign over Sexual Harassment Allegations.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
"This is a repudiation of the social contract that Franklin Roosevelt announced at the New Deal."
The quote in the headline is Joseph J. Ellis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian, quoted in a New York Times piece by Peter S. Goodman and Patricia Cohen, on the Republican tax plan. Titled "It Started as a Tax Cut; Now It Could Change American Life," the piece details the many ways in which the quickly hammered together plan, currently being rushed through Congress, will fundamentally alter the United States' economy, politics, and the social contract.
The tax plan has been marketed by [Donald] Trump and Republican leaders as a straightforward if enormous rebate for the masses, a $1.5 trillion package of cuts to spur hiring and economic growth. But as the bill has been rushed through Congress with scant debate, its far broader ramifications have come into focus, revealing a catchall legislative creation that could reshape major areas of American life, from education to health care.And, as of this morning, it looks even more likely to pass, as Senator John McCain, once again proving he is wholly undeserving of his reputation as a "maverick," has come out in enthusiastic support of the bill, commending his party on its adherence to traditional legislative processes, since his votes against the healthcare bills were based on their failure to comport with same. His statement is classic McCain: Sanctimonious, patronizing, self-aggrandizing, and profoundly dishonest.
Some of this re-engineering is straight out of the traditional Republican playbook. Corporate taxes, along with those on wealthy Americans, would be slashed on the presumption that when people in penthouses get relief, the benefits flow down to basement tenements.
Some measures are barely connected to the realm of taxation, such as the lifting of a 1954 ban on political activism by churches and the conferring of a new legal right for fetuses in the House bill — both on the wish list of the evangelical right.
With a potentially far-reaching dimension, elements in both the House and Senate bills could constrain the ability of states and local governments to levy their own taxes, pressuring them to limit spending on health care, education, public transportation, and social services. In their longstanding battle to shrink government, Republicans have found in the tax bill a vehicle to broaden the fight beyond Washington.
The result is a behemoth piece of legislation that could widen American economic inequality while diminishing the power of local communities to marshal relief for vulnerable people — especially in high-tax states like California and New York, which, not coincidentally, tend to vote Democratic.
...Economists and tax experts are overwhelmingly skeptical that the bills in the House and Senate can generate meaningful job growth and economic expansion. Many view the legislation not as a product of genuine deliberation, but as a transfer of wealth to corporations and affluent individuals — both generous purveyors of campaign contributions. By 2027, people making $40,000 to $50,000 would pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes, while the group earning $1 million or more would get a $5.8 billion cut, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office.
...A key feature of the Senate bill is the elimination of a federal deduction for state and local taxes. Conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and American Legislative Exchange Council have sought to end the deduction as a means of reining in government spending.
In high-tax states like California, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut — where electorates have historically shown a willingness to finance ample safety-net programs — the measure could change the political calculus. It would magnify the costs to taxpayers, pressuring states to stay lean or risk the wrath of voters.
Some see in this tilt a reworking of basic principles that have prevailed in American life for generations.
Since the 1930s, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt created Social Security, unemployment benefits and other pillars of the safety net to combat the Great Depression, crises have been tempered by some measure of government support. Recent decades have brought cuts to social services, but the impact of the current bill could be especially consequential.
"This is a repudiation of the social contract that Franklin Roosevelt announced at the New Deal," Joseph J. Ellis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian, said of trimming benefits for lower- and middle-income families to finance bigger rewards for the wealthy. Health coverage would shrink under the Republican plan while multimillion-dollar estates would not have to pay a penny in taxes.
The tax cut package, for instance, could trigger rules mandating cuts to Medicare, the government health care program for seniors, the Congressional Budget Office warned. Some 13 million people could lose health care via the elimination of a key plank of Obamacare. Insurance premiums are also expected to rise by 10 percent.
After careful thought and consideration, I have decided to support the Senate tax reform bill. I believe this legislation, though far from perfect, would enhance American competitiveness, boost the economy, and provide long overdue tax relief for middle class families.Lies. Lies from a party loyalist who knows his only meaningful constituency is the one percent.
For too long, hardworking people in Arizona and around the country have not seen a raise in their paychecks. This bill would directly benefit all Americans, allowing them to keep a higher percentage of what they earn. According to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, every income bracket would see tax relief under this bill. The child tax credit would be doubled to $2,000 per child and the tax code would be substantially simplified.
By lowering our high corporate tax rate to 20 percent, the bill would make our markets far more attractive for investment. It would also encourage American companies to repatriate assets now held overseas. Small businesses, which are vitally important to the dynamism of our economy, would also receive essential tax relief. Combined, these commonsense steps would promote economic growth and stimulate job creation here at home.
For months, I have called for a return to regular order, and I am pleased that this important bill was considered through the normal legislative processes, with several hearings and a thorough mark-up in the Senate Finance Committee during which more than 350 amendments were filed and 69 received a vote.
I have also argued that health care reform, which is important both to the well-being of our citizens and to the vitality of our economy, should proceed by regular order. This bill does not change that. As a matter of principle, I've always supported individual liberty and believe the federal government should not penalize Americans who cannot afford to purchase expensive health insurance. By repealing the individual mandate, this bill would eliminate an onerous tax that especially harms those from low-income brackets. In my home state of Arizona, 80 percent of people who currently pay the individual mandate penalty earn less than $50,000 per year.
Finally, I take seriously the concerns some of my Senate colleagues have raised about the impact of this bill on the deficit. However, it's clear this bill's net effect on our economy would be positive. This is not a perfect bill, but it is one that would deliver much-needed reform to our tax code, grow the economy, and help Americans keep more of their hard-earned money.
And now that McCain has signed on, it's a virtual certainty that the rest of his party will, too. They are governing like oligarchs who know they will never have to face the wrath of angry voters in free and fair elections ever again.
The Republicans have spent decades waging class warfare, and this may be the final blow.
Trump Looks "Crazy" Because He's Unconstrained by Consequences
An enormous amount of (disablist) ink has been spilled publicly musing on the state of Donald Trump's mental health. The debate, such as it is, isn't even about whether there's something wrong with him or whether there isn't, but whether he's "addled" by some neurological illness or "crazy" with some mental illness.
After a(nother) series of unfathomably heinous and reckless tweets yesterday, the debate rages on with renewed energy — and increasingly the conclusion is that Trump is delusional.
Simultaneous to that narrative are observations about how Trump is facing no consequences for any of this behavior. On that subject, there is a very good piece by Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker at the Washington Post: "Trump Veers Past Guardrails, Feeling Impervious to the Uproar He Causes."
These two ideas are deeply interconnected.
The fact that Trump never faces any consequences rarely figures into the commentary on how he's "crazy," but it should — because the reason he presents as "delusional" to so many people is because he is behaving precisely like a person who has never faced any meaningful consequences.
That isn't recognizable or familiar to most of us, because most of us don't live a life anything like that.
But its alienness isn't evidence of illness. It's evidence of Trump's immense privilege combined with his immense character flaws. Especially being pathologically insecure.
Trump has spent most of his life — and the entirety of his adulthood — surrounded by sycophants who create and affirm whatever he wants his reality to be. That's the world he created for himself as the head of the Trump Organization. That's the world he created for himself as the star of The Apprentice. That's the world he created for himself within his own family.
Master of a universe built to his own specifications.
That is what we're seeing on the most visible, grandest scale: A deeply spoiled man who just invents the world he wants and assumes that people will make it happen; who behaves however he wants within that world, where there are no consequences because he didn't design them.
"Trump has internalized the belief that he can largely operate with impunity, people close to him said," write Rucker and Parker. Yeah. No shit. That's because he can.
He is the architect. And his blueprints do not include accountability.
The presidency is supposed to come with built-in accountability in the form of checks and balances — but Trump's party, currently controlling both Houses of Congress, refuses to do that job. Like every other sycophant in Trump's history, they just give him what he wants; reflect back to him the reality that he demands.
He's not delusional. He's creating his own reality. Not just internally, but externally. For real. That's how much privilege he has and how much power he wields. The world of his making does not exist merely in his imagination, but in the actual, physical world around him.
What we mistake for "crazy" is actually Trump striding confidently through a reality of his own making. And it doesn't even matter if it doesn't mesh with ours, if it exists in unresolvable tension with ours. He is untouchable.
At least for now.
He knows it's a tenuous grasp he holds on this invention. That's why he spirals when he feels Bob Mueller getting close. That's why he is telling people that Muller's investigation "will be finished by the end of the year, complete with an exoneration." He's trying to make it so.
What should frighten all of us is that he has good reason to believe, based on past events, that he'll get what he wants this time, too.
More Lauer: This Is What NBC's Indifference Abetted
[Content Note: Description of sexual assault.]
As further details emerge about Matt Lauer's long reign of consequence-free sexual abuse of his female colleagues, and it becomes abundantly clear that NBC management had to have known, the picture of what the network's indiffernce abetted is coming into clear focus — and it is utterly grotesque.
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] At the New York Times, Ellen Gabler, Jim Rutenberg, Michael M. Grynbaum, and Rachel Abrams report on new allegations against Lauer, which include a harrowing account from an anonymous former colleague, who describes being sexually assaulted by Lauer in his office until she fainted and needed medical attention.
The woman who described the encounter in 2001 with Mr. Lauer in his office told The Times that the anchor had made inappropriate comments to her shortly after she started as a "Today" producer in the late 1990s.I am so fucking sad and angry that Lauer did this to her. I believe her, and I take up space in solidarity with her.
While traveling with Mr. Lauer for a story, she said, he asked her inappropriate questions over dinner, like whether she had ever cheated on her husband. On the way to the airport, she said, Mr. Lauer sat uncomfortably close to her in the car; she recalled that when she moved away, he said, "You're no fun."
In 2001, the woman said, Mr. Lauer, who is married, asked her to his office to discuss a story during a workday. When she sat down, she said, he locked the door, which he could do by pressing a button while sitting at his desk. (People who worked at NBC said the button was a regular security measure installed for high-profile employees.)
The woman said Mr. Lauer asked her to unbutton her blouse, which she did. She said the anchor then stepped out from behind his desk, pulled down her pants, bent her over a chair, and had intercourse [sic] with her. At some point, she said, she passed out with her pants pulled halfway down. She woke up on the floor of his office, and Mr. Lauer had his assistant take her to a nurse.
The woman told The Times that Mr. Lauer never made an advance toward her again and never mentioned what occurred in his office. She said she did not report the episode to NBC at the time because she believed she should have done more to stop Mr. Lauer. She left the network about a year later.
A couple things about this account:
First of all, he did not "have intercourse with her." He raped her in his locked office.
Secondly, note the pattern of escalation (which tracks with what I described yesterday): He started with "inappropriate comments," then moved to invading her space/unwanted touching, then to cornering and assaulting her.
Finally, I don't know if NBC's claim that "the button was a regular security measure installed for high-profile employees" is true or if it's bullshit spin. Either way, it's reprehensible that no one in management considered how that button could be used by high-profile employees to harm the employees over whom they wielded enormous power. At best, the installation of such buttons was an aggressively irresponsible decision.
And at worst, they knew exactly how it was being used by Lauer and just didn't care. Anything to keep their $20 million man happy.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Sue Kerr: "What is your go-to home remedy for colds, the flu, etc.?"
Zinc and matzo ball soup!
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