Hullabaloo

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

 
“If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”

by digby




Those words were spoken by President Lyndon Johnson, February 27, 1968, exactly 50 years ago today. It was a different time. Today most people don't watch "the evening news." and there is no person who can lay claim to speak with authority to most of the nation. Authority is diffuse now, we all seek and find it in our own corners of modern media.

Back then Uncle Walter had the trust of most Americans and when he said this on the evening news it stunned many people. This wasn't a hippie kid, anti-war protester --- it was Cronkite. It must be true:

Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we’d like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective. Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I’m not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone. Khesanh could well fall, with a terrible loss in American lives, prestige and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the northern regions, and it is doubtful that the American forces can be defeated across the breadth of the DMZ with any substantial loss of ground. Another standoff. On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that the Vietnamese government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on the cities. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it probably won’t show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another standoff.

We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi’s winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that — negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer’s almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy’s intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.

There's no one in American media who who has the authority to do this today. In fact, I think that maybe Robert Mueller may be the only person in the country who has it.

And that's just ... pathetic.


.
digby 2/27/2018 05:00:00 PM

 
Very fine people

by digby

Charlottesville, 2017

I'm sure this is nothing to worry about ...

Antisemitic incidents in the US surged 57% in 2017, the Anti-Defamation League said on Tuesday, the largest year-on-year increase since the Jewish civil rights group began collecting data in 1979.

Close to 2,000 cases of harassment, vandalism and physical assault were recorded, the highest number of antisemitic incidents since 1994, it said.

The rise comes amid a climate of rising incivility, the emboldening of hate groups and widening divisions in American society, according to ADL’s national director, Jonathan Greenblatt.

“A confluence of events in 2017 led to a surge in attacks on our community – from bomb threats, cemetery desecrations, white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, and children harassing children at school,” he said.

Rising numbers were in part attributed to the fact that more people were reporting incidents than ever before, the ADL said, adding that its staff independently verify the credibility of each claim.

Incidents were reported in all 50 US states for the first time since 2010, with higher numbers reported in areas with large Jewish populations.

Donald Trump’s administration has been accused of failing to condemn religious bigotry. Jewish groups scolded the president last year for not mentioning Jews or antisemitism in a statement about the Holocaust.

Following August violence at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacists waved insignia from Nazi Germany and yelled “Jews will not replace us”, Trump was slammed for suggesting a moral equivalency between members of the far right and counterdemonstrators. “You had people that were very fine people on both sides,” he said.

Some of Trump's best family members are Jewish so he can't possibly be an anti-Semite, amirite?

Maybe he's just a standard issue dumb bigot who is so clueless that he thinks he can make distinctions between the "good ones" and the "bad ones" but there are not good Nazis.

This is of a piece with the ethnic nationalism that's growing all over the world and the fact that it's happening in the US is truly disturbing since this country has always taken pride in the fact that it is an immigrant nation. Now we have this:

The U.S. is no longer devoted to securing "America's promise as a nation of immigrants."

That's according to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) anyway, which changed its official mission statement late Thursday and dropped the language to describe the country.

The federal agency that grants visas and U.S. citizenship now refers to itself as an organization that "administers the nation's lawful immigration system." The new mission statement also eliminates the word "customers" to refer to visa applicants.

In a letter to employees, L. Francis Cissna, USCIS's director, said the changes were a "straightforward statement (that) clearly defines the agency's role in our country's lawful immigration system and the commitment we have to the American people."

It's clear all right. Is it Nazi? No. But it's definitely a reflection of this new right wing ethnic nationalism. And that leads nowhere decent people want to go.




digby 2/27/2018 03:30:00 PM

 
Give guns to all the best golfers

by digby




The New Yorker's John Cassidy takes what I consider to be the appropriately horrified tone in discussing Trump's outrageous discussion with Governors yesterday. As he notes, most of us didn't get past his supercilious assertion that he would have run into the school unarmed to tackle the shooter but there was more to it. And it was just insane. After Washington Governor Jay Inslee offered some solutions his state has tried and told the president that the teachers do not want to be responsible for armed defense of the schools:

Trump called on Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, who explained how his state has already adopted a “school-marshal program,” in which teachers and other school employees are given weapons and firearms training. “And, candidly, some school districts, they promote it,” Abbott said. “They will have signs out front, a warning sign that, be aware, there are armed personnel on campus.” Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor of Arkansas and a former U.S. Attorney who once developed a school-safety program for the N.R.A., spoke next. His said that his state, too, had “licensed certain school districts and those who want to be trained to handle an active-shooter situation.”

Trump seemed pleased as punch, particularly by Abbott’s contribution. “Well, I think that’s great,” he said. “Essentially, what you are saying is that when a sick individual comes into that school, they can expect major trouble, right, major trouble. The bullets are going to be going towards him, also. . . . You know what’s going to happen, nobody’s going into that school.”
In making this argument, which follows the logic of the jungle, and of failed states like Yemen and Iraq, Trump seemed blissfully, or purposely, unaware of the fact that many school shooters end up shooting themselves, and, therefore, might well be immune to the logic of deterrence. Adam Lanza, who killed twenty-six people at Sandy Hook Elementary School, shot himself in the head before the police arrived. Similarly, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two Columbine shooters, made no effort to escape after carrying out their massacre, and they shot themselves after the police arrived.

Trump also didn’t deign to explain how a teacher with a handgun could be expected to fend off a disturbed teen-ager with an AR-15, or how students might be expected to react to the sight of their teachers carrying guns. Instead, he asserted that arming educators would be cheaper and more effective than hiring more armed guards, or relying on local police officers, such as the ones who failed to stop Nikolas Cruz at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida. “They don’t love the students; they don’t know the students,” Trump said dismissively. “The teachers love the students. They want to protect the students.”

The thought of teachers expressing their affection for their students by bringing high-powered weapons into their classrooms is grotesque. For a sitting President to endorse such an idea is almost beyond comprehension. But as the discussion illustrated, Trump wasn’t merely outlining his own vision. In this area, as in so many others, some gun-friendly red states have already adopted the twisted N.R.A. logic, at least in fledgling form.

The most that can be attributed to Trump is that he is putting his own unhinged spin on this decivilizing agenda. Repeating his earlier claim that he didn’t want all teachers to have guns, he said, “I want highly trained people that have a natural talent, like hitting a baseball, or hitting a golf ball, or putting.” At this point, he joined his hands together, as if he were gripping a putter on a golf course, and moved them back and forth. “How come some people always make the four-footer and some people under pressure can’t even take their club back?” he asked. “Right? Some people can’t take their club back. You don’t know what it is.”

Republicans have shown for some time that they loathe and despise public school teachers. They reduce them to penury, force them to take on every illness of society and them blame them when things go wrong. Now they want the schools to be locked down prisons where the teachers are moving targets for every disturbed kid who gets excited at the prospect of holding a great big gun in his hand and taking out everyone he believes has caused his misery. I would guess teachers are high on that list.

We have a very, very sick element in our society and it's not just the people who are shooting up every public space in America.

.

digby 2/27/2018 02:00:00 PM

 
The hottest hoax on record

by digby



I'm sure this is nothing to worry about:

“Crazy,” “weird,” and “wacky.” That’s how scientists are describing the temperature in the Arctic.

Over the weekend, the world’s northernmost weather station, located just 440 miles from the North Pole, warmed to 43 degrees Fahrenheit during what’s normally the coldest time of the year. That’s about 60 degrees above average for February. The rising temperatures, caused by a “warm air intrusion,” have left scientists in shock. Sea ice in region is also at its lowest levels on record.

“This is simply shocking. I don't have the words,” meteorologist Eric Holthaus tweeted.

Those Chinese hoaxters are very, very good at what they do.

I shouldn't be so flippant. This is an emergency. And we're just ... helpless as long as these f-ing morons are running the world.

These days I look at little kids and my chest gets tight with fear for them. It's terrifying.

.


digby 2/27/2018 12:30:00 PM

 
Trump's primal scream

by digby

Is he about to blow?

WITCH HUNT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 27, 2018

I trust everyone can see the utter, fatuous absurdity of the president of the United States quoting Fox News right wingers kissing his ass by endorsing his persecution of his former rival in public:

“He’s got a very good point. Somebody in the Justice Department has a treasure trove of evidence of Mrs. Clinton’s criminality at her own hands, or through others, that ought to be investigated. I fully agree with the President on that.” @judgenapolitano on @marthamaccallum Show

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 27, 2018

“I’ve been skeptical about the collusion and obstruction claims for the last year. I just don’t see the evidence....in terms of the collusion, it’s all a bit implausible based on the evidence we have.”  Jonathan Turley on @FoxNews

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 27, 2018

“We’ve seen NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION....I have seen nothing, the firing of James Comey and all of the aftermath, that suggests that the President has obstructed justice because he’s exercising his power as the President of the U.S. I just don’t see it.”  Judge Ken Starr

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 27, 2018

I guess this is supposed to persuade his followers that everything is just fine. But sounding hysterical isn't going to be reassuring. 

.

digby 2/27/2018 11:00:00 AM

 

The new strongmen

by digby

I wrote about the global strongman phenomenon and Trump's place in it for Salon this morning: 

The New York Times had a startling headline on Monday morning, which describes a global phenomenon that we're only beginning to grasp in America. It said: "With Xi’s Power Grab, China Joins New Era of Strongmen." The story itself was about Chinese President Xi Jinping abolishing term limits and announcing he would lead China indefinitely.

Term limits are fairly recent in China having been put into the constitution in the 1970s by Deng Xiaoping in the wake of the long succession crisis under Mao Zedong. Still, as the Times points out, there was a time not long ago when this would have provoked a strong outcry from the United States, which used to have some moral authority when it came to democratic norms. Those days are no more. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued the tepid statement: "I believe that's a decision for China to make about what's best for their country." And that was that.

But the more chilling aspect of the headline is its evocation of "the era of the strongman," naming Vladimir Putin of Russia, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey as the prime examples of the era's new authoritarian leaders. One could certainly also add Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and Kim Jong Un of North Korea. There is also, of course, the one with the biggest hands in the business, President Donald Trump, although he is better characterized as a "rhetorical" strongman, at least for the moment.

Still, it's telling that as Trump slags American neighbors and allies on a daily basis (he went after Canada on Monday) he is complimentary to all the aforementioned leaders. Yes, he has called Kim of North Korea "Little Rocket Man" -- but that's actually an affectionate nickname, compared to what he says about some American politicians. In the past Trump has complimented Kim, saying, "You gotta give him credit, how many young guys -- he was like 26 or 25 when his father died -- take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden ... he goes in, he takes over, and he’s the boss." As we know, he has had nothing but kind words to say about Putin, Sisi and Erdogan, all of whom have taken steps this year that would have caused major diplomatic disruptions in the past. Trump only has admiration for their bold "defenses" of their countries.

Just this week, Axios reported that Trump constantly tells people that he wishes he had the authority to do what the Asian strongmen do:

He often jokes about killing drug dealers ... He’ll say, "You know the Chinese and Filipinos don’t have a drug problem. They just kill them." 

But the president doesn't just joke about it. According to five sources who've spoken with Trump about the subject, he often leaps into a passionate speech about how drug dealers are as bad as serial killers and should all get the death penalty. Trump tells confidants a softer approach to drug reform — the kind where you show sympathy to the offenders and give them more lenient sentences — will never work. 

He tells friends and associates the government has got to teach children that they'll die if they take drugs and they've got to make drug dealers fear for their live

He grudgingly admits that it would be difficult to pass such a law but he would "love" to do it.

Trump just "loves" the death penalty, period. He's been agitating for it since the 1980s when he took out that infamous full-page ad calling for the Central Park Five to be executed. (Those five young men were subsequently found innocent of the crime for which they were convicted.) During the presidential campaign, after the shooting of police officers in Dallas, Trump promised he would seek the death penalty for anyone who killed cops. (This was the one occasion where he eschewed his tiresome solution that mass shootings could be stopped if only everyone were armed. After all, they all were. It didn't help.)

Trump has been generous with his praise for Philippine president Duterte, telling him that he was dealing with drugs "the right way," which evidently involves extrajudicial killings and mass incarceration.

He and Duterte have something else in common. Everyone knows that Trump bragged about assaulting women by grabbing their genitalia against their will. According to the Guardian, last week Duterte directed a group of soldiers to tell female rebels that there was" a new order coming from the mayor: "‘We will not kill you. We will just shoot you in the vagina.’” This would, he said, render them "useless."

Duterte runs on the cruder side of the strongman spectrum but Trump apparently finds him refreshing. He invited him to the White House to the consternation of decent people everywhere. Duterte at least had sense enough to decline the invitation.

So far Trump's worst assaults on civil liberties and due process have been stymied by the courts and the Justice Department. (He is having better luck with the Department of Homeland Security, which is moving quickly in an authoritarian direction.) With respect to foreign policy, he is such a buffoon that one would normally only worry that he'd make a fool of himself here at home while the career diplomats at the State Department step in behind him and clean up the mess.

Sadly, the State Department itself is a mess. Rex Tillerson hasn't bothered to fill most of the important political appointments, and is sidelining the career foreign service people who know anything. Nothing could be more alarming than the fact that we still have no ambassador to South Korea and instead sent the totally unprepared Ivanka Trump to represent our nation at the Winter Olympics.

Meanwhile, the latest report from Politico is that Tillerson is having a fit over son-in-law Jared Kushner, UN ambassador Nikki Haley and national security adviser H.R. McMaster's constant interference. White House chief of staff John Kelly apparently agrees with him, and made the mistake of repeating to Kushner Tillerson's remark that "there cannot be four secretaries of state." Kushner, who still has no security clearance, reportedly replied, "No, but we need a secretary of state who is supportive of the president."

It's always about personal loyalty to Trump with these people. That's the hallmark of the strongman leader. It's all about them. Trump is not as efficient as Xi, Putin or Erdogan, and he's not quite as far gone as Duterte. But he's the closest we've come to a true strongman leader in the United States, and he's just getting started.

.

digby 2/27/2018 09:30:00 AM

 
Bonehead Move by Georgia Lt. Gov. Cagle. He Tells Delta Airlines to Support the NRA, or Else

By Spocko

Today from Georgia's Lt. Governor.

I will kill any tax legislation that benefits @Delta unless the company changes its position and fully reinstates its relationship with @NRA. Corporations cannot attack conservatives and expect us not to fight back.

— Casey Cagle (@CaseyCagle) February 26, 2018

On Saturday I wrote about how the supporters of the NRA will respond to corporations deciding to not associate with the NRA  I wrote.

The NRA will respond to corporations withdrawing support, probably by threatening the companies that have left, and the ones who are standing with them.

Some NRA members might be smart and try and entice the companies they still have by buying more of their product, but based on my experience, they prefer to punish and intimidate when they don't get their way.

Cagle's tweet is really an amazing statement. I wonder if he ran it by the heads of the 17 Fortune 500 companies that make their home in Georgia?  Did he talk to the CEO of Delta before he sent that out?  No doubt he talked to the AG, so it must be legal. On the other hand, maybe it's a rogue tweet like one of Trump's.

I've worked with a lot of high powered CEOs, they don't like it when people tell them what to do.  But they do understand tax breaks, revenue streams, public relations problems and brand issues. They will take this threat very seriously. But how they react might not be what Cagle wants. 

They will be pissed. Unless Cagle's announcement was coordinated ahead of time with the approval of Delta management (a possibility) Delta's lawyers and lobbyists were probably burning up the phone lines with the Governor's office all day.

Cagle threatening to use his big tax break stick on Delta for deciding to cut a marketing discount program with a trade group with a toxic brand is a boneheaded decision.

NRA's brand is toxic right now. You don't tell companies to embrace toxicity. It's bad PR. It's bad brand management.

I don't know Georgia politics, but the NRA is not the only powerful lobby in the state.

Think of the other groups with lobbying power that don't like or want more guns everywhere.

Transportation lobby. Do you really think airlines want to go back to allowing guns on planes?
Does UPS really want drivers to carry guns?

Health care lobby. Sure they can make up to 95k for each gun shot wound, but does the Lt. Gov.  know that two thirds of gunshot victims admitted to American hospitals are covered by Medicaid, or don’t have health insurance at all?  (University of Iowa, July edition of the journal Injury Epidemiology.) The taxpayers pick those costs up, not private health insurance.

Education lobby. Emory University employs a lot of people, has Cagle heard all those teachers and parents explaining what "a horrifically bad idea" arming teachers is?

Military lobby. Maybe Cagle is counting on the military to back him. I'm friends with a lot of military guys who think the NRA's positions on guns everywhere is nuts.  They know what it takes to be proficient with a gun. They have seen the damage an AR-15 can do to a human. The military of today isn't a bunch of good ol' boy hunters. When they come back from war, they may still hunt, but they know they know what AR-15s are designed to kill, and it ain't ducks.

Is This Three Dimensional Chess Or Trump-style Bullying?


Companies have always played one state against another for tax breaks and perks. Cagle might think that Delta is so entrenched that they can't easily get up and leave. But when corporations get pissed at a state they have lots of tools to use to get and keep tax breaks and perks. It's not just threats to move.

Maybe Cagle and the governor are trying to play three dimensional chess. They might be hoping to get more taxes out of the airlines while satisfying their gun loving base with this threat. It might pay off. On the other hand, behind the scenes Gagle could end up groveling and apologizing to Delta AND getting no new votes from their current supporters. The Lt. Gov. night get a bump from his base, but will get knocked by others for an economically stupid move.

This announcement came out of the Lt. Governor's office. They are testing the reaction of the public and how this corporation will respond to this threat. Depending on the reaction and the polling, the Governor will either walk back Cagle's threat, soften it, or support it.

If I were a betting Vulcan, I would put my Quatloos on Delta coming out on top. One of the things I've learned over the years is it's better to convincing people to do something that is in line with their stated values than to threaten them. It's not really a stretch for an airline that doesn't allow guns in the cabins, to walk away from an associate with a toxic brand like the NRA.

What can you do? Call and tweet Delta @Delta to thank them for their action to disassociate themselves for NRA's toxic brand.

I tried to call them today, I think I got the wrong number.

Delta Delta Delta can I help ya help ya help ya? from Michal Spocko on Vimeo.


Spocko 2/27/2018 08:00:00 AM

 

Con Air

by Tom Sullivan

"It's almost acting like a crime family," the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart told Chris Matthews last night. MSNBC's Hardball panel was discussing President Trump punting to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly whether to grant a waiver to Trump son in-law Jared Kushner so he may continue to handle highly classified documents. Kushner is unable to pass a background check and earn a permanent security clearance; he holds a temporary one. Like his wife Ivanka, Kushner continues to serve in the White House not because of qualifications, but because he is family with personal loyalties to the president. The panel questioned whether he and others from the Trump inner circle are in government to serve the country or just themselves.

In the Trump tradition of naming inexperienced friends and family to senior positions in government, press reports surfaced late Sunday that Trump is considering naming his longtime personal pilot, John Dunkin, to head the Federal Aviation Administration. The position has been vacant since President Obama's FAA chief, Michael Huerta, stepped down:

John Dunkin flew Trump around during his campaign in 2016, piloting a Boeing 757 dubbed "Trump Force One." The president clearly thinks highly of Dunkin, telling airline executives he was a "real expert" at a White House meeting a year ago.

"My pilot, he's a smart guy and knows what's going on," Trump said in February 2017. "He said the government is using the wrong equipment and instituting a massive, multibillion-dollar project, but they're using the wrong type of equipment."

Trump referred to an ongoing air traffic control modernization program known as NextGen.

Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) and acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell are also under consideration, Axios reported Sunday. Dunkin has already had an interview. If chosen, Trump's personal pilot would manage an agency with 47,000 employees and a $16 billion budget.

Given how many Trump family and associates have flown with Dunkin, how many have already pleaded guilty to federal crimes, and how many other of Trump Force One's passengers face federal indictments, plus Trump's well-deserved reputation for flimflam and ... well, you know what the jokes do.

On any other day, that might seem strange.

* * * * * * * *

Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail.


Undercover Blue 2/27/2018 06:00:00 AM

Monday, February 26, 2018

 
Little Eric Trump, Donald Trump's mini-me

by digby



Poor Eric got all tongue tied trying to talk about Russia today:

“What started off as a hoax – you know, Trump won the election because of Russia – has been proven to be nothing further from the truth,” Eric Trump said on “Fox & Friends.”

Nothing has been proven on that front: It is out of the immediate scope of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe to determine if Russian meddling tipped the election in Trump’s favor. Neither has Mueller concluded, one way or the other, whether the Trump campaign knowingly worked with Russia to influence the election. (Donald Trump Jr. and several other senior campaign officials have acknowledged meeting with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, though.)

“But the Russians being bold enough to meddle has to be stopped, and I hope that gets addressed,” co-host Brian Kilmeade said.

“I agree and I wish Obama would have done that,” Trump replied. “If he knew, which he clearly did, I wish he would have stopped it. And the big question is: why did he do nothing about it?”

He might ask Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): the Washington Post reported in December 2016, citing “several” unnamed officials, that McConnell had raised doubts about the intelligence reports showing Russia hacked Democratic officials’ emails, and other measures, when briefed about them before the election.

McConnell, in the paper’s words, “made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden appeared to affirm that story earlier this year. McConnell, Biden said, “wanted no part of having a bipartisan commitment saying, essentially, ‘Russia’s doing this. Stop.'”

Right. The Russian interference story was a hoax but he thinks Obama should have stopped the interference.

They are starting to trip over themselves now. The hoax story was important because it explained why they have done nothing to address the problem and have actually attempted to obstruct the punishments the Obama administration imposed and have refused to implement the sanctions. Now that they can't deny it happened they are left with whining, sniveling and blaming the Obama administration for not stopping it and are left dumbstruck when asked what they plan to do about it.

It's fine with their cult followers. Obama can be blamed for everything and Trump is infallible.


.


digby 2/26/2018 06:00:00 PM

 
Only the cult believes Trump on Russia

by digby







New polling from USA Today/Suffolk

The poll of 1,000 registered voters, taken after Mueller's team indicted 13 Russians and three companies on criminal charges, spotlight the potential perils ahead for the president if he ends up in a showdown with the special counsel. A 58% majority say they have a lot or some trust in Mueller's investigation, while a 57% majority say they have little or no trust in Trump's denials.

"I think he's doing a heck of a job," John Shaw, 60, of Madison, Wis., said of Mueller. "He's not leaking anything. He's going piece by piece, methodically putting this whole thing together."

Lauryne Haynes, a retiree from Farmington Hills, Mich., who also was called in the survey, puts her faith in the president. "I think that Trump had nothing to do with Russian meddling," she said in a follow-up interview. "He understands the situation that they are not our friends. I think he's truthful and I think he's sincere about wanting the best for the country."

Mueller is certainly not overtly playing politics the way that ken Starr and his leaky ship did. That' makes a big difference in the way people will perceive the outcome.If he doesn't come up with anything I think people will accept it. If he does, only the most loyal of Trump's supporters will deny it.

Even Nixon held on to about 25% of the public when he resigned. They still exist today. But for the most part when an investigation is conducted professionally and thoroughly without getting involved in the day to day partisan action, most people will accept the results. At least they have in the past and it appears that most are still prepared to do that.

For the sake of our government's legitimacy, I hope so. This Russia story is the most shocking political and national security scandal in our history.
digby 2/26/2018 04:30:00 PM

 
Donald "Il Duce" in full effect

by digby

Watch Trump's body language as Gov of Washington Jay Inslee explains to him how stupid his arming teachers idea is and asks him to lay off Twitter. pic.twitter.com/fnA47yjyyk

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 26, 2018

He does NOT want to hear anyone contradict him. That's why he watches Fox News. I will be waiting for the chorus of fools admonishing Inslee that he should have been more respectful toward the man who hurls childish nicknames and rudely insults other politicians in public.

Keep in mind that this is a Governor of one of the 50 states. In the normal way of things they are accorded great respect by the president, at least in public, as fellow executives in charge of their own governments. Trump doesn't recognize that of course. He's the only one who counts.


.
digby 2/26/2018 03:00:00 PM

 
The generic ballot looks good again

by digby

I don't know what happened in December and January. Maybe people were just feeling good because it was the holiday season. Or it could have been noise caused by a variety of different factors. In any case, it seems to righted itself again and the Democrats are looking good for November. The picture above is the 538 polling average.

CNN shows an even bigger advantage in its latest poll:

Democrats hold a 16-point lead over Republicans on a generic congressional ballot, according to a new poll from CNN.

The poll conducted by SSRS finds 54 percent of registered voters would support a Democrat in their congressional district, compared with 38 percent who say they would favor a Republican candidate.

In a CNN poll taken last month, Democrats held just a 5-point lead over Republicans on a generic congressional ballot.

The CNN poll is at the high end when it comes to the Democratic advantage in the generic ballot.

A Marist poll released this month found Democrats with a seven-point lead, while a Harvard/Harris Poll survey released last week found them with a five-point lead. A Quinnipiac poll released last week also found Democrats with a 15-point lead.

In another good sign for Democrats hoping to regain the House in this fall's midterm elections, the CNN poll finds that a majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting.

 
President Macho would have run into the hail of gunfire

by digby

pic.twitter.com/qNk6dxQ3n7

— SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER (@brianbeutler) February 26, 2018

And remember this?

I was at Mar-a-Lago and we had this incredible ball, the Red Cross Ball, in Palm Beach, Florida. And we had the Marines. And the Marines were there, and it was terrible because all these rich people, they’re there to support the Marines, but they’re really there to get their picture in the Palm Beach Post… so you have all these really rich people, and a man, about 80 years old—very wealthy man, a lot of people didn’t like him—he fell off the stage. 

Trump explained that this was a $100K-per-table fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago estate and the Marines, he admitted, were given "the worst table in the whole place" at the very back of the room in the corner. 

When the old man fell in front of Trump, there were two completely different responses---one from the Marines, and one from Trump: 

The Marines ran up front, picked up the man, covered in blood, and formed a human stretcher to carry him out.  

Then there was Donald Trump: 

And you know what I did? I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting,’ and I turned away,” said Trump. “I couldn’t, you know, he was right in front of me and I turned away. I didn’t want to touch him… he’s bleeding all over the place.
I felt terrible, you know, beautiful marble floor, didn’t look like it. It changed color. Became very red....His wife is screaming—she’s sitting right next to him, and she’s screaming.
I was saying “Get that blood cleaned up! It’s disgusting!”

And cops all over the country love this asshole.

Here are actual nerves of steel. But, you know, she wsn't equipped to be a big macho president, IYKWIM.




digby 2/26/2018 12:00:00 PM

 
CPAC is Trump and Trump is CPAC

by digby

My Salon column this morning:

For some reason this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, seems to have gotten more attention than usual. That's saying something, since for the last 15 years or so it's gotten much more attention than it deserves. CPAC is like a 10-car pile-up — frightening and horrible, but you can't look away.

Salon's Jeremy Binckes and Matthew Sheffield have each weighed in on this year's event -- with Binckes making the case that it shows that the GOP is now thoroughly Trumpified while Sheffield argues that it's now Trump who's been absorbed by the Republican Party. I think CPAC shows that the Trump strain has always been slithering around under the rock of conservative movement politics, and 2016 just turned it over and let it run amok.

The first CPAC was organized to bring young conservatives and political activists together for a conference to map out movement and electoral strategy. It took place in 1974 in the midst of the Watergate scandal, which divided the conference between those who thought Richard Nixon was toast and those who wanted him to fight on. It was, by all accounts, a very lively disagreement. They turned to the man they all agreed was the Great Conservative Hope, Gov. Ronald Reagan of California, who was the keynote speaker and gave one of his most important speeches, heralding his strong primary run against Gerald Ford in 1976 and his winning campaign in 1980.

Reagan introduced three former U.S. military prisoners of war in that speech, one of whom was John McCain, to reverent, thunderous applause. This year the longtime Arizona senator, who has a brain tumor and may well be near the end of his life, was insulted by the president of the United States from the CPAC podium. That shouldn't have come as any surprise. The CPAC podium, for at least the last couple of decades, is where decency and humanity go to die.

I won't go into the horrors of the 1990s. The party under former House speaker Newt Gingrich was as aggressively obnoxious as it is today: That was the height of the "vast right wing conspiracy's" power. Let's just say that in 1994 CPAC was where Paula Jones made her debut and leave it at that.

It was during the glory years of the George W. Bush administration that the media started paying close attention to what was really going on there. Michelle Goldberg wrote for Salon in 2003 that there were "t-shirts with the words 'Islam: Religion of Peace' surrounding a photo of a bomb with the word 'Allah' on its timer" among dozens of other hideous anti-Muslim items for sale that were flying off the shelves. Remember this was during the time Bush was telling his followers that Islam was a religion of peace.

But it didn't matter. CPAC attendees may have hated Muslims but they loved Bush. In fact, they loved him almost as much as the sainted Ronald Reagan, whom they continued to worship like a god. The Iraq war got their blood pumping wildly and this was how they wanted to see their president:



One of the biggest attractions at the conference for many years was the odious Ann Coulter, who packed the room with rapturous fans screaming with delight at her indecent commentary. Back in 2003 she made one of her most famous shocking statements, which has since been taken up by none other than her hero Donald Trump: "Why shouldn't we go to war for oil. We need oil." In 2006 she got into her groove with “I think our motto should be, post-9/11, ‘raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.’” In response to a question about her biggest ethical dilemma, Coulter said, “There was one time I had a shot at [Bill] Clinton. I thought ‘Ann, that’s not going to help your career.’”

She really hit her comedic stride in 2007, however, when she dropped this bomb:

I was going to talk about the other Democratic candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word “faggot.”

She got a huge ovation for that one, but it seemed to upset some of the old guard and Coulter was disinvited the next year. Organizers replaced her with an even bigger draw in 2009, Rush Limbaugh, who gave a memorable, rambling speech bucking up the crowd to oppose anything the new President Barack Obama wanted to do. Down in the bowels of the conference where the merchandise was being flogged they were selling racist pictures of Obama dressed as a witch doctor.

In 2011, when Donald Trump made his first appearance and started the original buzz about his potential candidacy, he said in his speech, "Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I'll go a step further. The people that went to school with him never saw him; they don't know who he is. Crazy." He went on Bill O'Reilly's show that night and said he had investigators in Hawaii looking for Obama's birth certificate. The rest is history.

It's been getting a little stranger than usual lately, even by the racist, far-right standards of CPAC. In 2016 the event was overrun with neo-fascists who were booted them to the margins. In 2017, the thrill of Trump's unexpected victory was still fresh and the "alt-right," in the form of Steve Bannon, was the big draw. This year it the global far right got its turn in the CPAC spotlight, with Marion Maréchal-Le Pen of France and Nigel Farage of Britain as big draws.

And the CPAC tribes love Donald Trump with the same passion they felt for Bush and Reagan. These people really aren't that choosy.

CPAC used to pretend that it was a conference about "ideas" and the "conservative agenda." But as NeverTrump conservative Ben Howe said on MSNBC on Friday, it's really just about making liberals cry. Frequent CPAC star Dinesh D'Souza put it this way in his 2002 book “Letters to a Young Conservative":

One way to be effective as a conservative is to figure out what annoys and disturbs liberals the most, and then keep doing it.

Nothing could disturb and annoy liberals more than Donald Trump.

It sounds innocuous enough. Maybe liberals should just stop crying and these people would stop being so obnoxious, right? But there's something more sinister about this than at first seems obvious. That attitude lies at the heart of something ugly and dark that's grown up in our culture and around the world.

There was one young white supremacist marching in Charlottesville last year who, when things got scary, stripped off his white polo shirt uniform and tried to blend in with the crowd. When he was asked by a journalist why he was doing what he'd been doing, he said:

It’s kind of a fun idea. Just being able to say, like, "Hey man, white power!" You know? To be quite honest, I love to be offensive. It’s fun.

One of his cohorts thought it might be fun to mow down a bunch of people with his car that day and ended up killing someone. That desire to be "offensive" isn't a joke, and neither is the offensiveness of CPAC. Look where it's gotten us.

.

digby 2/26/2018 10:30:00 AM

 
Let's catch the sickos who sent Parkland survivor death threats

by Spocko


Death threats force Parkland shooting survivor to leave Facebook

Cameron Kasky says he has received "graphic death threats."

Who does this? What kind of sickos send death threats to a shooting survivor? Why did they send them to Kasky? I would like to find all of them and ask why. "What was your intention? What did you hope to accomplish?"

I think law enforcement needs to take death threats coming from gun owners more seriously.

Of course law enforcement has to answer the usual questions about any threats:

1. What kind of threat is it? It is at true threat?  (see Elonis v, United States) 
2. Where is the threatener located relative to the person they are threatening? A threat from someone nearby has more opportunity to act. 
3. What is their motive for the threat? 
4. Does the threatener have a history of threats? Have they acted on them? 
5. Do the have the means to carry out the threat? (Yes, I know, a gun is just a tool, like a hammer, "You can kill with a hammer too! Are you going to arrest all hammer owners who send death threats?" blah, blah, blah.)

Time for FBI Investigations of Death Threats

The FBI got criticized not following up on gun owner Nikolas Cruz. This is a perfect time to redeem themselves in the eyes of the public.

I can already hear the all caps crying, "They are targeting law-abiding gun owners who are just exercising their free speech!!" However:

1) Threatening speech is not protected speech.

2) Don't send death threats, you won't have a problem.

Gun owners should welcome the FBI tracing threats. In fact, actual responsible gun owners will turn in the ones that they know are doing this. Like in this story:

Last week, in Bellevue Nebraska, 18-year old Nicholas Scott threaten to shoot people who were going to walk out in support of gun control. 

 Based on the story, it looks like he had the means, motive and opportunity to carry this out.

High school student arrested for threatening to shoot those who walked out in support of gun control

I don't think anyone should be sending death threats, but that's my Vulcan side. But if it happens then we need to find them, verify it was them, and there should be consequences.

Sue people who send death threats

I've been pushing economic sanctions as leverage to weaken the gun lobby and force them to pay for the damage they do. This would be a way to pay for the psychological damage they cause.

We know the Las Vegas shooter was rich. He had money for expensive guns. If the FBI finds out that someone is sending death threats and they have money to pay for expensive guns, there needs to be civil lawsuits against these people in addition to criminal legal cases.

I would develop the cases for criminal charges first, then civil charges. I've suggested this idea to some lawyers and GVP groups. Maybe this could be my money making business that gets me off this planet.

Responsible gun owners shouldn't worry that they are being unfairly targeted by law enforcement, because they are not sending death threats. Right?

If you are a gun owner and you are sending death threats to the Parkland survivors, we will find you, we will catch you, and we will sue you.

I always see this comment under stories about reducing the amount of guns, "Come and get them!" But with civil lawsuits there is no need for the sheriff, police or Obama to go to their location to take their guns. They can just go to the bank and take their assets.

We aren't coming for your guns, we're coming for your assets.



Spocko 2/26/2018 09:00:00 AM

 

Ask South Vietnam

by Tom Sullivan

The GOP's 2011 gerrymandering of North Carolina's congressional districts flipped me from NC-11 into NC-10. Subsequent court rulings forced new maps, not only for congressional seats, but for some state House and Senate districts as well. It meant that in the March 2016 primary, I voted in NC-10, but by Election Day 2016, I'd been whipsawed back into NC-11. That map is still under challenge. There's no telling where — without ever moving — I'll be voting this November.

But time has all but run out for another congressional district redraw before November 2018. Meaning, similar to how Senate Republicans ran out the clock on Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, Republican legislators in North Carolina will have held onto their gerrymandered congressional map for almost the full ten-year cycle.

North Carolina is hardly alone.

Axios provides a summary of where various gerrymandering challenges stand across the country:

Wisconsin

The latest: The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case this spring.

The backdrop: Wisconsin Republicans appealed a lower-court ruling that struck down the legislative map drawn in 2011 citing that it was unconstitutional because it's heavily skewed in their favor. The court later ordered the state to draw a new map by Nov. 2017, a request the U.S. Supreme Court blocked when it agreed to hear the case last year.

Why it matters: If the justices uphold a lower court ruling challenging the State Assembly Districts, this would be the first time the Supreme Court strikes down a voting map on the grounds of partisan gerrymandering.

Maryland

The latest: The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a partisan gerrymandering case on March 28. A decision is expected by June.

The backdrop: The case centers on the 6th congressional district, which was redrawn in 2011 to include parts of the heavily Democratic Montgomery County. ​While Republican voters argue that the Democratic-controlled legislature is unfairly drawn, three judges ruled against the plaintiffs' request to discontinue the use of the current map ahead of the 2018 midterm election.

Why it matters: This is the only redistricting legal battle filed against Democrats. Republicans there said the current map has diluted their votes and cost an incumbent his seat.​

The Axios post goes on. It's shocking to see the cases all lined up in one place. Texas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan. With the exception of Maryland (noted above), all the cases stem from the Republicans' successful REDMAP effort in 2010 to gain control of state legislatures and the post-2010 census redistricting (emphasis mine):

The idea behind redmap was to hit the Democrats at their weakest point. In several state legislatures, Democratic majorities were thin. If the Republicans commissioned polls, brought in high-powered consultants, and flooded out-of-the-way districts with ads, it might be possible to flip enough seats to take charge of them. Then, when it came time to draw the new lines, the G.O.P. would be in control.

David Levdansky expected another "picnics-and-handshakes" campaign in 2010. Instead, outside groups flooded his Pennsylvania House of Representatives district south of Pittsburgh with inflammatory and false flyers attacking him for "increasing taxes by a billion dollars" and alleging he voted "to waste $600 million taxpayer dollars and build an Arlen Specter library.”

Rebutting the cascade of lies was fruitless. The thirteen-term Democrat lost by 151 votes.

NC state Senator John Snow, a Democrat in the far western mountains of North Carolina, faced a blizzard of mailers from three groups backed by Art Pope. One of them, Jane Mayer recounted for The New Yorker, was "reminiscent of the Willie Horton ad that became notorious during the 1988 Presidential campaign."

Snow saw $800,000 from outside groups flung his way and lost by 161 votes in a district spanning eight counties.

After gaining control of state legislatures in the 2010 elections, Republicans began furiously packing and cracking.

UC Irvine's Rick Hasen (Election Law Blog) called the North Carolina gerrymander "the most brazen and egregious" case in the country, with Republican legislators admitting what they'd done and arguing it was legal. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court agreeing to hear both the Wisconsin (Gill v. Whitford) and Maryland (Benisek v. Lamone) cases first is significant. "It could also be that Gill finds partisan gerrymandering claims justiciable," Hasen wrote in December, "but leaves certain issues open, issues which the Court then must resolve in Benisek." Or else (a reader suggested) "they want to hear a challenge to a Democratic gerrymander in addition to the Wisconsin Republican gerrymander." That might appeal to Chief Justice John Roberts.

Should the court find partisan gerrymanders unconstitutional, Republican legislative majorities will have to look for new ways rig elections in their favor, and they will.

For readers who have followed this post every morning, the point is that mid-term elections matter. Local (even rural) state-level elections matter, to Republicans if not to citified progressive activists. Democrats across the country were caught napping in 2010 and the rest is history. They relied too long on coattails from higher-profile national and statewide races to elect their candidates in rural and/or marginal districts outside their bright-blue urban strongholds, and allowed opponents free rein in the countryside. Ask South Vietnam how well that worked.

If on the other hand Democrats believe an advanced ground game might have scraped together a couple of hundred votes among eight under-resourced counties, and if they want to win back state legislatures by 2020, there is a link below worth following.

* * * * * * * *

Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail.


Undercover Blue 2/26/2018 06:00:00 AM

Sunday, February 25, 2018

 
The spirit of our country is its military might?

by digby

That's what our Dear Leader thinks anyway:

President @realDonaldTrump on military parade: "I think it's great for spirit, the military loves it, they love the idea...we have a great country and we should be celebrating it." pic.twitter.com/hAMtelrRP3

— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 25, 2018

.
digby 2/25/2018 06:00:00 PM

 

The CPAC boys and girls have made their choice

by digby

They've decided on their "favorite" Democrats in 2020. They figure the following will be the easiest for Trump to beat:

According to a very unofficial straw poll conducted Thursday and Friday morning, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts emerged as the potential challenger CPAC "voters" believe Trump would most assuredly outlast. 

After Warren, the leading vote-getters were:
2. Oprah Winfrey (10)
3. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey (9)
4. (tie) Hillary Clinton (7), Sen. Bernie Sanders (7)
6. Sen. Kamala Harris (6)
7. Rep. Maxine Waters of California (5)
8. Former Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota (4)
9. (tie) Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota (2), Utah Senate candidate Mitt Romney* (2)
11. Former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia

You can see what most of those people have in common I'm sure. These folks have never heard of subtlety.

My favorite comments in the article were that they didn't think most of these people had the "experience" to be president. And they are all Trump fanatics, the most ignorant, ill-equipped, unfit person to ever hold the office.

Honestly, it must be something in the envelope glue these Republicans use that turns them into blithering fools.

.



digby 2/25/2018 04:30:00 PM

 
Politics and Reality Radio: Former SWAT Operator Says Trump’s Call to Arm Teachers Is Ridiculous; A Different Approach to Medicare for All

with Joshua Holland

This week, Donald Trump repeatedly called for arming teachers. It's his Big Idea to contain gun violence, despite the fact that all mass shootings, on and off of school campuses, represented only around 3 percent of gun homicides last year. We kick off our show by talking to someone who knows a thing or two about facing off against armed bad hombres, and who says the idea is nothing short of silly. David Chipman served as a member of the ATF's Special Response Teams -- the agency's equivalent of SWAT -- and now serves as a senior policy advocate at the Giffords Campaign.

Then we'll speak with Topher Spiro, senior fellow for health policy at the Center for American Progress, about CAP's new proposal for a universal health care system called Medicare Extra for All.

Finally, we'll be joined by Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, to discuss corporate America's efforts to pay Republicans back for the windfall it received in the tax bill with a wave of propopaganda designed to hoodwink the public into thinking that the cuts are trickling down into their paychecks.





Playlist:
Gorillaz: "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head"
Earl: "Tongue Tied"
The Beatles: "Hello Little Girl"
Moby: "Down Slow"


As always, you can also subscribe to the show on iTunes, Soundcloud or Podbean.



digby 2/25/2018 03:30:00 PM

 
ICYMI: me this week

by digby


Once again, I thought I'd link to all my Salon columns for the week for those who have lives and are just catching up:



If democracy makes a comeback, suburban women will lead it



Trump’s source of inspiration? Paul Manafort’s dark deeds and dubious clients



Donald Trump Jr.’s Indian vacation: The family cash-grab continues



Trump begins to face the truth on Russia — with a new round of lies



Who’s in charge of the classified intelligence about Trump? Trump. It’s a problem

.

digby 2/25/2018 01:30:00 PM

 
February 25, 1968

by digby

I don't know why it just occurred to me that it's been 50 years exactly since 1968. I have to assume there have been a thousand navel gazing essays that I've missed. It's all ancient history now, of course.

But it's interesting that we are in something of a similar situation today with the left fired up, a burgeoning youth movement, civil rights and equality at the center of our politics ---- and shootings. Always the shootings. We don't have big war (yet) thank God. (1968 would have 16,899 Americans killed in South Vietnam.) Today we have different threats, with climate change, a rising global far right movement and an information sea change that's challenging the very concept of reality. But Americans have divided in the same way on either side of those threats. We always do.

Anyway, I was reminded by Professor Peter Dreier via email today of an event that took place on this day back in 1968 and he graciously allowed me to reproduce it here:

I'm shocked that the media (mainstream and left) overlooked this important milestone in American musical and political history. Fifty years ago today (February 25, 1968) Pete Seeger sang the controversial anti-war song "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour show on CBS. Pete had been blacklisted from network television since the 1950s because of his leftist politics, so for the Smothers brothers to invite him to sing on their popular show -- much less to sing a powerful anti-war song in the midst of the Vietnam war -- was an act of courage. 

What made Pete's appearance on February 25, 1968 controversial was that he had performed "Big Muddy" on the Smothers Brothers show the previous September, but CBS refused to broadcast it and removed it from the tape. An angry Tom Smothers made sure that the story of the censorship appeared in the media. Because of the bad press, an outcry among the public, and probably because the Vietnam War had become even more unpopular, the Smothers Brothers were allowed to invite Seeger back later in the season, when he again sang “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy," which was clearly metaphor for the Vietnam war. 

Pete first sang a medley of anti-war song, then launched into "Big Muddy." Here's a video of Pete's performance 50 years ago today: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHETC5qAnqo. For those unfamiliar with Pete's political and musical story, here's my tribute to him, published in The Nation after he died in 2014: https://www.thenation.com/article/pete-seeger-brought-world-together/

.


digby 2/25/2018 11:30:00 AM

 
Trump TV loves their Dear Leader so, so much

by digby

An actual question Judge Jeanine asked Trump:

"Your approval rating is soaring. When you talk about the economy & low unemployment & the stock market & great things that have been happening, you have accomplished all of this. To what do you attribute these incredible advances?" pic.twitter.com/rK1OkEQpz9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2018

Meanwhile in the real world:

President Donald Trump's approval rating in a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS stands at 35%, down five points over the last month to match his lowest level yet.

The slide follows a January bump in approval for the President, a finding that appeared connected to a bullish stock market and strong reviews for the economy. His new rating matches a December poll, which marked his lowest approval rating in CNN polling since taking office in January 2017.
The President also earns his lowest rating yet among Republicans, though he is still viewed positively among his own partisans. Overall, 80% of self-identified Republicans say they approve of the President, one point below his previous low mark of 81%, hit in late September of last year. Just 13% of Republicans say they disapprove of the President's performance. Approval for the President stands at just 5% among Democrats and 35% among independents.

Also:

As President Trump sends mixed signals about what he'll support when it comes to gun legislation, his approval rating has fallen to its lowest level in the USA TODAY survey since he was inaugurated last year. Just 38% now approve of the job he's doing as president; 60% disapprove.

That's a steep drop from the president's standing one year ago, in March 2017, soon after his first address to Congress had received good reviews. Then, 47% expressed approval, a high-water mark for him in the poll; 44% expressed disapproval.

What's more, the intensity of feeling is hardening against the president. Now, the percentage who "strongly disapprove" of him is more than double the percentage who "strongly approve," 39% compared with 16%.

.

digby 2/25/2018 09:00:00 AM

 

Step by step...inch by inch...

by Tom Sullivan

Some unexpected snark this morning from the New York Times' Peter Baker regarding the walls slowly closing in on the Oval Office:

WASHINGTON — In a fiery speech to supporters on Friday, President Trump went after his vanquished opponent from 2016. “We had a crooked candidate,” he declared. The crowd responded with a signature chant from the campaign trail: “Lock her up!”

About three hours later and 10 miles to the north, Mr. Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, who helped put him in the White House, arrived at a federal courthouse in Washington to plead guilty to being crooked and face the prospect that the authorities will now lock him up.

The Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election so far has yielded 100 criminal counts against 19 people and three companies. The guilty plea on Friday by Rick Gates, Donald Trump's former deputy campaign chairman mentioned above, adds to the count of former Trump associates facing more than chants.

“When you put that all together, the White House should be extremely worried,” Benjamin Wittes told the Times. Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare.

In what Axios calls the "War of the Memos," minority Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) on Saturday released their memo rebutting the claims of Rep. Devin Nunes' memo. Released in January, the Nunes memo alleged FBI misfeasance or worse in their FISA-approved surveillance of former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The memo attempted to delegitimize the Russia investigation as well as the FBI itself. Much of the hue and cry from Republicans centered on Nunes' allegations that the Steele dossier assembled as paid opposition research against Trump "formed an essential part" in the bureau obtaining warrants from the court.

The Democrats' rebuttal counters that prior to obtaining the dossier the FBI had reason to believe Carter Page was "knowingly assisting clandestine Russian intelligence activities." Indeed, Page had been on the FBI's radar since 2013 when the agency indicted several Russian spies who had targeted Page for recruitment.

The memo contains little not already known, Marcy Wheeler notes. But it adds an important piece of information about the Russian outreach via Joseph Mifsud to Trump adviser George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos has already pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his conversations with people working with the Russian. Wheeler cites this passage from the Democrats' memo:

George Papadopoulos revealed [redacted] that individuals linked to Russia, who took interest in Papadopoulos as a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, informed him in late April 2016 that Russia [two lines redacted]. Papadopoulos’s disclosure, moreover, occurred against the backdrop of Russia’s aggressive covert campaign to influence our elections, which the FBI was already monitoring. We would later learn in Papadopoulos’s plea that the information the Russians could assist by anonymously releasing were thousands of Hillary Clinton emails.

Wheeler writes:

While the description of what Papadopoulos said is redacted, the context makes it clear (as does this Adam Schiff tweet) that Papadopoulos didn’t tell Downer specifically what Russia had told him was available, only that they could release it to help Trump.

But that Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russians were thinking of releasing it to help Trump is news, important news. It means the discussions of setting up increasingly senior levels of meetings between Russia and the Trump campaign took place against the offer of help in the form of released kompromat.

Which, particularly given the evidence that Papadopoulos shared that information with the campaign, makes the June 9 meeting still more damning.

It is yet more evidence that the Trump campaign went into the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting knowingly hoping to obtain stolen Hillary Clinton emails the Russians were offering in support of the campaign. Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were in that meeting. Investigation special counsel Robert Mueller now has Manafort under a microscope.

Former White House Counsel John Dean pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in the Watergate investigation. He weighed in last night on the pressure Manafort faces:

Mueller is throwing everything he can against Manafort, including Gates who can nail him. Increasingly it appears Manafort is the link to Russian collusion. If Gates can testify that Manafort was acting with Trump’s blessings, it’s the end of his presidency. That’s substantial. https://t.co/t6pHNno1xL

— John Dean (@JohnWDean) February 25, 2018

Replying to Wheeler about whether current White House counsel Don McGahn may face charges in the investigation, Dean acknowledged he could be, "I was not charged rather plead, when I realized what I had done. Before Watergate no one had heard of obstruction, which is no excuse. Stupidity often topped sinester in planning. That will be true here."

Step by step, Mueller's investigation gets closer to the Oval Office. But should it yield evidence of direct involvement by the president himself, it seems unlikely any of the president's associates in the House of Representatives will do anything about it, even with many among the senior staff of the White House facing criminal charges. More than likely, the chants of his supporters to lock up their opponents will grow louder. Whether they simply will sound increasingly pathetic remains to be seen.

If it wasn't so serious and threat to this fall's elections, the investigation into Russian election interference in 2016 might resemble an old vaudeville sketch, "Slowly I Turned." Video here.

* * * * * * * *

Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer, at tom.bluecentury at gmail.


Undercover Blue 2/25/2018 06:00:00 AM

Saturday, February 24, 2018

 

Saturday Night at the Movies

Run for the shadows: Top 10 Film Noirs

By Dennis Hartley




It’s been a dark week here in Seattle. I actually mean that in a good way. Film noir expert/revivalist Eddie Muller brought his “Noir City” mini-festival to town (sponsored here by SIFF), hosting seven days of screenings at local theaters. Muller’s travelling exhibition gives audiences around the country a chance to catch films from the “classic” noir cycle on the big screen. That’s what got me thinking about my favorite genre entries.

And thinking. And thinking.

This is one of the toughest “top 10” lists I’ve tackled, because I could easily do a “top 100”. Out of the 3700 titles in my personal movie collection (I know…it’s an illness), over 800 fall in the noir/neo-noir/mystery categories. One could say I’m a little obsessed.

I had to narrow it down this way: which noirs have I re-watched the most times? That was the chief criteria behind these selections. So note going in that this is not designed to be my definitive assemblage of the most “historically important”, or “classic” noirs of all time (although several of these titles might be considered as such). These are purely personal favorites, so if this compels you to fire off a “You Philistine! I cannot believe you overlooked [insert title here]!!!” response, your indignation is duly noted beforehand.

One more note. I’m fully aware that most film scholar types generally define the “classic noir cycle” as cynical, darkly atmospheric B&W crime dramas produced between 1940 and 1959; consequently any similar entries going forward automatically get tossed into the “neo” noir bin. That said, there are some (like yours truly) who respectfully argue that the Force remains strong, at least through the mid-1970s. And so it goes. Alphabetically:

Ace in the Hole – Billy Wilder’s 1951 film is one of the bleakest noirs ever made:

Charles Tatum: What’s that big story to get me outta here? […] I’m stuck here, fans. Stuck for good. Unless you, Miss Deverich, instead of writing household hints about how to remove chili stains from blue jeans, get yourself involved in a trunk murder. How about it, Miss Deverich? I could do wonders with your dismembered body.

Miss Deverich: Oh, Mr. Tatum. Really!

Charles Tatum: Or you, Mr. Wendell-if you’d only toss that cigar out the window. Real far…all the way to Los Alamos. And BOOM! (He chuckles) Now there would be a story.

Tatum (played to the hilt by Kirk Douglas) is a cynical big city newspaper reporter who drifts into a small New Mexico burg after burning one too many bridges with his former employers at a New York City daily. Determined to weasel his way back to the top (by any means necessary, as it turns out), he bullies his way into a gig with a local rag, where he impatiently awaits The Big Story that will rocket him back to the metropolitan beat.

He’s being sarcastic when he exhorts his co-workers in the sleepy hick town newsroom to get out there and make some news for him to capitalize on. But the irony in Wilder’s screenplay (co-written by Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman) is that this becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy for Tatum; in his attempt to purloin and manipulate the scenario of a man trapped in a cave-in into a star-making “exclusive” for himself, it’s Tatum who ultimately becomes The Big Story. Great writing, directing and acting make it a winner.

Chinatown - There are many Deep Thoughts that I have gleaned over the years via repeated viewings of Roman Polanski’s 1974 “sunshine noir”.

Here are my top 3:

1. Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water.

2. Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.

3. You may think you know what you’re dealing with, but, believe me, you don’t.

I’ve also learned that if you put together a great director (Polanski), a killer screenplay (by Robert Towne), two lead actors at the top of their game (Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway), an ace cinematographer (John A. Alonzo) and top it off with a perfect music score (by Jerry Goldsmith), you’ll produce a film that deserves to be called a “classic”.




The Friends of Eddie Coyle- This vastly under-appreciated 1973 crime drama/character study from director Peter Yates features one of the last truly great performances from genre icon Robert Mitchum, at his world-weary, sleepy-eyed best as an aging hood. Peter Boyle excels in a low-key performance as a low-rent hit man, as does Richard Jordan, playing a cynical and manipulative Fed. Steven Keats steals all his scenes as a scuzzy black market gun dealer. Paul Monash adapted his screenplay from the novel by George P. Higgins. A tough and lean slice of American neo-realism, enhanced by DP Victor J. Kemper’s gritty, atmospheric use of the autumnal Boston locales.



High and Low – Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 noir, adapted from Ed McBain’s crime thriller King’s Ransom, is so multi-leveled that it almost boggles the mind. Toshiro Mifune is excellent as a CEO who, at the possible risk of losing controlling shares of his own company, takes responsibility for helping to assure the safe return of his chauffeur’s son, who has been mistaken as his own child by kidnappers.

As the film progresses, the backdrop transitions subtly, and literally, from the executive’s comfortable, air conditioned mansion “high” above the city, to the “low”, sweltering back alleys where desperate souls will do anything to survive; a veritable descent into Hell.

On the surface, the film plays as a straightforward police procedural; it’s engrossing entertainment on that level. However, upon repeat viewings, it reveals itself as more than a genre piece. It’s about class struggle, corporate culture, and the socioeconomic complexities of modern society (for a 50 year old film, it feels quite contemporary).



Kiss Me Deadly – Robert Aldrich directed this influential 1955 pulp noir, adapted by A.I. Bezzerides from Mickey Spillane’s novel. Ralph Meeker is the epitome of cool as hard-boiled private detective Mike Hammer, who picks up a half-crazed (and half-naked) escapee from “the laughing house” (Cloris Leachman) one fateful evening after she flags him down on the highway. This sets off a chain of events that leads Hammer from run-ins with low-rent thugs to embroilment with a complex conspiracy involving a government scientist and a box of radioactive “whatsit” coveted by a number of interested parties.

The sometimes confounding plot takes a back seat to the film’s groundbreaking look and feel. The inventive camera angles, the expressive black and white cinematography (by Ernest Laszlo), the shocking violence, and the nihilism of the characters combine to make this quite unlike any other American film from the mid-50s.

The film is said to have had an influence on the French New Wave (you can see that link when you pair it up with Godard’s Breathless). British director Alex Cox paid homage in his 1984 cult film, Repo Man (both films include a crazed scientist driving around with a box of glowing radioactive material in the trunk), and Tarantino featured a suspiciously similar box of mysterious “whatsit” in Pulp Fiction.




Night Moves – In Arthur Penn’s 1975 sleeper, which you could call an “existential noir”, Gene Hackman delivers one of his best performances as a world-weary P.I. with a failing marriage, who becomes enmeshed in a case involving battling ex-spouses, which soon slides into incest, smuggling and murder. Alan Sharp’s intelligent, multi-layered screenplay parallels the complexity of the P.I.’s case with ruminations on the equally byzantine mystery as to why human relationships, more often than not, almost seem engineered to fail. I think I’ve just talked myself into watching it again.



Strangers on a Train– There’s something that Wim Wenders’ The American Friend, Rene Clement’s Purple Noon (and Anthony Minghella’s 1999 remake, The Talented Mr. Ripley) all share in common with this 1951 Hitchcock entry (aside from all being memorable thrillers). They are all based on novels by the late Patricia Highsmith. If I had to choose the best of the aforementioned quartet, it would be Strangers on a Train.

Robert Walker gives his finest performance as tortured, creepy stalker Bruno Antony, who “just happens” to bump into his sports idol, ex-tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) on a commuter train. For a “stranger”, Bruno has a lot of knowledge regarding Guy’s spiraling career; and most significantly, his acrimonious marriage. As for Bruno, well, he kind of hates his father. A lot. The silver-tongued sociopath Bruno is soon regaling Guy with a hypothetical scenario demonstrating how simple it would be for two “strangers” with nearly identical “problems” to make those problems vanish…by swapping murders. The perfect crime! Of course, the louder you yell at your screen for Guy to get as far away from Bruno as possible, the more inexorably Bruno pulls him in. It’s full of great twists and turns, with one of Hitchcock’s most heart-pounding finales.



Sunset Boulevard – Leave it to that great ironist Billy Wilder to direct a film that garnered a Best Picture nomination in 1950 from the very Hollywood studio system it so mercilessly skewers (however, you’ll note that they didn’t let him win…the Best Picture statuette went to All About Eve that year). Gloria Swanson’s turn as a fading, high-maintenance movie queen mesmerizes, William Holden embodies the quintessential noir sap, and veteran scene-stealer (and legendary director in his own right) Erich von Stroheim redefines the meaning of “droll” in this tragicomic journey down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Wilder coscripted with Leigh Brackett and D.M. Marshman Jr.



Sweet Smell of Success– Tony Curtis gives a knockout performance in this hard-hitting 1957 drama as a smarmy press agent who shamelessly sucks up to Burt Lancaster’s JJ Hunsecker, a powerful NYC entertainment columnist who can launch (or sabotage) show biz careers with a flick of his poison pen (Lancaster’s odious, acid-tongued character was a thinly-disguised take on the reviled, Red-baiting gossip-monger Walter Winchell).

Although it was made over 60 years ago, the film retains its edge and remains one of the most vicious and cynical ruminations on America’s obsession with fame and celebrity. Alexander Mackendrick directed, and the sharp Clifford Odets/Ernest Lehman screenplay veritably drips with venom. James Wong Howe’s cinematography is outstanding. Lots of quotable lines; Barry Levinson paid homage in his 1982 film Diner, with a character who is obsessed with the film and drops in and out of scenes, incessantly quoting the dialogue.



Touch of Evil – Yes, this is Orson Welles’ classic 1958 sleaze-noir with that celebrated (and oft-imitated) opening tracking shot, Charlton Heston as a Mexican police detective, and Janet Leigh in various stages of undress. Welles casts himself as Hank Quinlan, a morally bankrupt police captain who lords over a corrupt border town. Quinlan is the most singularly grotesque character Welles ever created as an actor, and stands as one of the most offbeat heavies in film noir.

This is also one of the last great roles for Marlene Dietrich (who deadpans “You should lay off those candy bars.”). The scene where Leigh is terrorized in an abandoned motel by a group of thugs led by a creepy, leather-jacketed Mercedes McCambridge could have been dreamed up by David Lynch; there are numerous such stylistic flourishes throughout that are light-years ahead of anything else going on in American cinema at the time. Welles famously despised the studio’s original 96-minute theatrical cut; there have been nearly half a dozen re-edited versions released since 1975.

Posts with related themes:

Ride the Pink Horse
Mickey One
They Live By Night
In a Lonely Place
The Night of the Hunter
North by Northwest
Notorious
Brighton Rock (2010 vs. 1947 versions)
Kubrick’s Noir Cycle: The Killing and Killer’s Kiss
My Obsession with Ida Lupino: Moontide and Road House

More reviews at Den of Cinema
On Facebook
On Twitter



--Dennis Hartley

digby 2/24/2018 05:30:00 PM