The Constitutional Crisis is here. It's been here.
June 4, 2018 1:51 PM Subscribe

The President's lawyers claimed in a secret memo that he's immune from subpoena and on national TV that he can literally murder anyone. Many people are saying this is already a Constitutional Crisis. Then he claimed the power to pardon himself. Others say Trump is speaking from a position of weakness. It's week 71 of the Trump Presidency.

Project Blitz: the legislative assault by Christian nationalists to reshape America
The Supreme Court just quietly handed a big victory to abortion opponents
Supreme Court rules in favor of baker who would not make wedding cake for gay couple
Trump’s ambassador to Germany is making a fool out of himself
Trudeau slams 'insulting' tariffs against Canada in U.S. TV interview
May tells Trump that US tariffs on EU steel are unjustified

Mod-saving reminders to remember the political thread guidelines or take it to the venting thread. Polite request to use the search box!

posted by T.D. Strange (2517 comments total) 120 users marked this as a favorite

Sean Illing, Vox: President Trump says he can pardon himself. I asked 15 experts if that's legal.

“The fact that we're even talking about it is a measure of how far we've fallen under Trump."

My takeaway: it's more than just the pardon itself, it's how everyone reacts. It doesn't absolve or block anything, and certainly not everything.
posted by ZeusHumms at 2:03 PM on June 4, 2018 [42 favorites]

Oh man, if the bar was lowered any further by Trump, it would be underground. This might be the most insane thing I have ever heard a president say.

To that end, here is my latest Trump, kind of an adult version of the children in Village of the Damned, because that's what he is.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 2:03 PM on June 4, 2018 [17 favorites]

y'all please for the love you bear me in your hearts lets not jump straight to a bunch of noisy riffing right out of the gate on this
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:06 PM on June 4, 2018 [83 favorites]

President Trump says he can pardon himself. I asked 15 experts if that's legal.

It’s worth noting that to my knowledge, even medieval kings have never attempted to claim that their power to pardon extended to themselves.
posted by corb at 2:06 PM on June 4, 2018 [70 favorites]

From the Vox article:

All the experts agreed about one other fact: Even if Trump does pardon himself, that would not shield him from impeachment hearings. And most believe if he did make a move like this, it would be both an admission of guilt and a potential constitutional crisis.

If a self-pardon doesn't shield him from impeachment, then the only thing standing in the way will be almost every elected Republican.
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:07 PM on June 4, 2018 [99 favorites]

As for Trump pardoning himself, I think even he knows that's beyond the pale. Even as low a conman sleaze as he is at his core, even Trump wouldn't do it. This is a master troll to keep people talking about Trump. That's all he cares about: being in the limelight, always.

Of course, using superlatives like "always" or "never" about politics, and especially Trump, is basically folly at this point...
posted by zardoz at 2:08 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

A court in Maine ordered the state to submit a plan to expand Medicaid in accordance with the Nov 2017 ballot initiative [source tweet; opinion]
posted by melissasaurus at 2:12 PM on June 4, 2018 [18 favorites]

Also, from the tail end of the last thread, so folks might not have seen it, OR Senator Jeff Merkley tried to enter a blacked out Wal-Mart where a private company is reportedly keeping dozens to hundreds of immigrant children who have been removed from their parents. The facility refused entry and called the cops.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 2:16 PM on June 4, 2018 [90 favorites]

At this point (and not that it would ever happen at this point in time) I think we need an amendment to the Constitution clarifying pardon power -
• The president cannot pardon his or her self
• The president cannot pardon anyone of crimes they have not been convicted of
• The president can not pardon anyone who was convicted of a crime if the crime was related to, or uncovered by, an investigation of potential presidential crimes
• The president cannot pardon anyone who was convicted during his or her term in office
• No pardons can be announced or issued until five years have passed after conviction

The last two would be able to be overridden by a two-thirds majority of Congress, to provide a mechanism to pardon someone who was egregiously wronged by an unfair conviction. The others prevent the president from, obviously, a self pardon, but also from offering people like Cohen or Flynn a "get out of jail free" card.
posted by azpenguin at 2:17 PM on June 4, 2018 [33 favorites]

The president cannot pardon anyone, ever. I can live with that.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:20 PM on June 4, 2018 [41 favorites]

Pardoning is an insane power for the president (or anyone) to have, anyway.
posted by dng at 2:21 PM on June 4, 2018 [17 favorites]

Well, if Trump can not pardon himself, he has President Pence for the fall back option.

In more ways than one.

Talk about your horns of a styracosaurus dilemma.
posted by y2karl at 2:22 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

How about the president has to take on responsibility and punishment for the crimes of anyone they pardon.
posted by dilaudid at 2:22 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Pls delete if egregious derail but honestly is there a time in human history wherein the corruption in a government went SO QUICKLY from the (not terribly unusual in western democracies) levels it was prior to Trump to the (open and blatant, widespread, aggressive, unashamed, giddy) levels it is currently? Even post soviet nations took at least a decade if not longer, no?
posted by poffin boffin at 2:22 PM on June 4, 2018 [71 favorites]

Um, Turkmenbashi ?
posted by y2karl at 2:27 PM on June 4, 2018 [14 favorites]

Trump's moving fast on corrupting his position because if Democrats win the House and Senate, he'll be impeached. If the Dems don't gain that control, he'll at least have a harder time looting the country and pushing through stooges into agencies and judicial positions, and then he could well be voted out in 2020. And if he gets another four years, he still has a limited time-span by which to maximize his personal gains, because once he's out of office, his clout is greatly diminished - for example, he won't be able to inform his former advisers of decisions he'll make the next day, to allow them to cash out their stocks.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:31 PM on June 4, 2018 [12 favorites]

Reposting from the previous thread, because I think it's important:
Where do you protest in the US to shut everything down? How does everyone get there? The answers are "you can't" and "they don't".

posted by Justinian at 2:19 PM on June 4 [+] [!]

I think you just need a critical mass in each major city. It doesn't take many people to clog streets and shut down regular order if they're coordinated and sufficient in number. They don't all have to be in the same place at the same time. Ten cars "stalled" across a freeway can shut it down. If 10% of employees walk out, it's difficult to keep going. If 500 people clog the steps of the state capitol building, no one gets in or out. Even easier are things like not buying anything except in emergencies for a week. I assure you, the businesses will feel it. Immediately.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:31 PM on June 4, 2018 [21 favorites]

wherein the corruption in a government went SO QUICKLY
May I introduce you to Silvio.
posted by Harry Caul at 2:31 PM on June 4, 2018 [20 favorites]

I'm shaking my head over this headline dichotomy Google News just presented me:

California's GOP is collapsing. Is that a sign for Republicans nationwide? (NBC)

California’s primary election could reshape November — and Democrats are panicking (WaPo)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by zakur at 2:37 PM on June 4, 2018 [57 favorites]

President Trump says he can pardon himself. I asked 15 experts if that's legal.

The answer is, it's legal if he gets away with it.

Republican Congresscritters have already shown they favor party over country. If Trump does pardon himself, he may very well get away with it.
posted by zarq at 2:37 PM on June 4, 2018 [17 favorites]

How important is Congressional seniority in the greater scheme of things? Lots of Progressives are running this year and may supplant senior Democrats. Will the loss of seniority be a problem?
posted by zarq at 2:39 PM on June 4, 2018

I feel like a boiling frog. Honestly y'all. I still have that deep part of my brain that watches all of this from a detached perspective and oh won't it be rich when he and his cronies go down. It will make for great television. Then I start to question my faith in the strength of our Constitutional architecture and freak the heck out.
posted by pipoquinha at 2:43 PM on June 4, 2018 [95 favorites]

From Haley Byrd on twitter just now: "I asked Ted Cruz if he agrees with Trump that the president can pardon himself. Cruz is silent for eighteen (18!) seconds before telling reporters its not a constitutional area he's studied."

As they say Lordy! I cant wait for the tape of that one.

In other Having-a-Harvard-Law-Degree-magna-cum-laude-doesn't-make-you-an-astute-legal-scholar news, the guy tweeted this about Masterpiece Cakeshop this morning:

Today’s Supreme Court decision upholding a Colorado baker’s constitutional right to live according to his faith is a major victory for religious liberty. The fact that the decision was 7-2 (not a narrow 5-4) underscores that govt should NEVER discriminate against religious faith.

which is interesting because:
a. that wasn't the courts holding
b. there is not actually any "narrowness" distinction between 7-2 and 5-4 decisions, he's just (intentionally, we must assume) parroting mainstream conservative framing that this wasn't a close decision that didn't punt on the question of whether religious folks can just ignore laws they say don't apply to themselves
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 2:45 PM on June 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

I think you just need a critical mass in each major city. It doesn't take many people to clog streets and shut down regular order if they're coordinated and sufficient in number. They don't all have to be in the same place at the same time.

Mathematically- and programmatically-inclined among you, please do...something with this. There’s got to be someone here who can do an analysis of what it would likely take to shut down major cities for a day, a week, a month. I feel like it would be helpful to have a hypothetical plan and a sense of scale, or a target goal. Helps to combat the learned helplessness reaction if it seems doable.
posted by schadenfrau at 2:48 PM on June 4, 2018 [13 favorites]

Thinking about the Ford pardoning of Nixon, the pardon covered (I believe) crimes that may have been committed. The pardon spared the nation of a drawn out trial of an ex-president. It also denied the nation a trial for the ex-president.

This is a possible option for Trump, of course. He can resign and then receive a pardon from President Pence. There are certain benefits and drawbacks of this plan.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 2:49 PM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

Would a Former President Get Secret Service Protection in Prison?
posted by y2karl at 2:52 PM on June 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

what it would likely take to shut down major cities for a day, a week, a month.

U.S. history is loaded with examples of democratic power.

posted by Harry Caul at 2:53 PM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

HHS sent a really weird statement about Sen. Merkeley's effort to visit a government facility for children:

United States Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), along with five other individuals, attempted to enter an unaccompanied alien children’s (UAC) shelter unannounced and broadcast live via social media last night in Texas. Thankfully for the safety, security and dignity of the children being cared for there, they were denied access. The Department of Health and Human Services takes the legal mandate to care for these children seriously. No one who arrives unannounced at one of our shelters demanding access to the children in our care will be permitted, even those claiming to be U.S. Senators. Senator Merkley should respect the UAC program and engage in the appropriate processes, as many of his colleagues have done before him, to visit ORR facilities. We would welcome him to engage in that process so that he may visit the facility to make headway on this important issue, rather than just headlines.

And @ChadPergram: DHS on not allowing Merkley to visit children separated from parents by ICE: At 2pm on a Friday, the Senator asked to visit a secure DHS facility over the weekend where children are present..his presented obvious and serious privacy concerns – not to mention disrupting operations

While I'd agree that livestreaming where children are present is a potential problem, "oh gosh it's 2pm on a Friday there's nothing we can do" is idiotic, and "even those claiming to be U.S. Senators" is just insulting.
posted by zachlipton at 2:54 PM on June 4, 2018 [70 favorites]

How important is Congressional seniority in the greater scheme of things? Lots of Progressives are running this year and may supplant senior Democrats. Will the loss of seniority be a problem?

Seniority is important in two ways:

1) Within the party, seniority is power. The longer you've been around, the better position you're in to get a chairmanship on a committee or subcommittee, not to mention the possibility of grabbing the brass ring and going for a chamber-wide leadership position. If a bunch of senior representatives from the same state all lose or retire, then the newbies won't have as much clout on their committees, and suddenly there's a lot less influence being wielded to further that state's particular interests in Congress.

2) Experience matters. When long-tentured legislators leave, they take institutional memory with them. Enough of a brain drain could create a break on how Congress does its job as a whole. Of course, given its track record that may not be a bad thing.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:54 PM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

I'd seen a few anecdotal reports of this, but here's one that's more fleshed out. Texas Monthly, Robert Moore, Border Agents Are Using a New Weapon Against Asylum Seekers

As the temperature reached 105 degrees, three Guatemalans made their way north Saturday on the Paso del Norte Bridge linking El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, seeking to claim asylum in the United States. On previous attempts over the past day, they had been met at the long bridge’s apex by Customs and Border Protection agents—a highly unusual tactic—who asked them for identification and told them they couldn’t proceed to the port of entry because the holding cells were at capacity.

This time, the three migrants—a badly sunburned woman, her baby, and a 16-year-old girl who was not related to them—were accompanied by two representatives of Annunciation House, an El Paso organization that has helped migrants and refugees for more than four decades. Once again, they were stopped by two CBP agents, asked for documents, and told they would not be allowed to go further into the United States because of capacity issues. So began a tense standoff Saturday that marks an escalation in U.S. tactics to keep immigrants out of the country—including those legally entitled to enter and seek asylum—and relieve crowded immigration facilities that officials say are filled beyond capacity.

“I know you’re not at capacity. I know that’s what you’ve been instructed to say,” said Ruben Garcia, a 72-year-old who was inspired by Mother Teresa to found Annunciation House in 1976. He has a good handle on how many people are being detained at the bridges, because Immigration and Customs Enforcement eventually releases many of them to Annunciation House. Taylor Levy, a recent law school graduate who is working with Annunciation House, told the agents they were legally required to let the Guatemalans make their asylum claim because they are already several steps inside the country, a boundary that exists at the bridge’s apex.

The two CBP agents, whose nametags identified them as Armendariz and Avila, politely but firmly held their ground. Garcia asked to speak to a supervisor, and they made the call. Before the supervisor arrived, another agent came up to the group. His nametag was obscured by a tactical vest and a semiautomatic rifle.

The agents said they had been assigned to check IDs as people cross the boundary line, a highly unusual effort coming at a time when President Trump is expressing increasing frustration that his administration cannot control the nation’s borders—a key campaign promise of his. IDs are usually required a couple hundred yards further north, and well into U.S. soil, at the port of entry, where people make citizenship and customs declarations—and apply for asylum. And while the agents at the top of the bridge said they were checking the identification of all people walking across the bridge, Levy noted that the agents weren’t checking many IDs other than those of people with the dark skin and threadbare clothing that is typical of many Central American migrants.

Stationing agents at the border to turn back people claiming asylum or sending back those who ahev already crossed the line is immoral and illegal.
posted by zachlipton at 3:00 PM on June 4, 2018 [115 favorites]

Cohen search warrant update: @KatiePhang: #MichaelCohen Special Master findings: only 14 out of 12,543 pages of hard copy materials are Privileged and/or Partially Privileged. Out of 291,770 items from 2 phones & an iPad, only 148 items are Privileged and/or Partially Privileged.

Going to go out on a limb here and say this guy was not doing much actual lawyering.
posted by zachlipton at 3:02 PM on June 4, 2018 [67 favorites]

Out of 291,770 items from 2 phones & an iPad

if you're having a rough day at work, remember that the Special Master just had to look through all the porn on Michael Cohen's camera roll
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:08 PM on June 4, 2018 [64 favorites]

Senator asked to visit a secure DHS facility over the weekend where children are present..his presented obvious and serious privacy concerns – not to mention disrupting operations

For what it's worth, a few immigration attorneys I know have been talking about this on FB, and appear to think that it was laughable that he thought he'd gain entry in the first place. They are routinely denied entry for reasons like:

- Wearing a gray sweater and jeans (too similar to inmate's uniform)
- Wearing an underwire bra
- Wearing a non-underwire bra that's not supportive enough
- Claiming to be council and not having a bar card (because your state doesn't issue bar cards).
- The guard is having a bad day and doesn't feel like allowing an attorney visit.

They also appear to be of the opinion that an unplanned visit by someone with media in tow is not best practice for child welfare.
posted by god hates math at 3:09 PM on June 4, 2018 [30 favorites]

...only 14 out of 12,543 pages of hard copy materials are Privileged and/or Partially Privileged.

Not to throw cold water on this, but the Special Master’s report says out 639 items (consisting of 12,543 pages), 14 items are privileged, not pages. There’s no breakdown as to how many pages are in each item, so a mere couple of privileged items could account for thousands of pages.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:11 PM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

I think Merkley's visit was pure theatre and intended to be exactly that. It's not clear at this point what anyone can do, so some folks are in "try everything" mode.

That story from the Paso del Norte bridge is heartbreaking and enraging.
posted by allthinky at 3:13 PM on June 4, 2018 [27 favorites]

For what it's worth, a few immigration attorneys I know have been talking about this on FB, and appear to think that it was laughable that he thought he'd gain entry in the first place.

Jerry Nadler and Nydia Velasquez, two NYC congresspeople, successfully entered CPB detention at JFK and returned with freed detainees in the immediate wake of the first muslim ban in Jan 2017. His odds weren't high but he wasn't totally without reason for thinking "Im one of 100 senators and this is my business" would open doors for him.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 3:15 PM on June 4, 2018 [39 favorites]

They also appear to be of the opinion that an unplanned visit by someone with media in tow is not best practice for child welfare.

I agree on that point. However, this attempt was about two things - (a) highlighting the issue of children being separated from their parents and then disappearing/being held in who knows what kind of conditions and (b) boosting the public profile of someone running for office.

I don't give too many craps about (b); I do care about (a) and that's maybe the bigger thing for people to keep focused on here, instead of indulging the snidely dismissive part of human nature that the internet seems to bring out in spades in everyone. Performative cruelty is rampant enough; I'm all for some performative empathy.
posted by nubs at 3:19 PM on June 4, 2018 [34 favorites]

zarq: Lots of Progressives are running this year and may supplant senior Democrats. Will the loss of seniority be a problem?

Are there really that many serious primary challenges? My understanding was that the big shift was in people running against normally-uncontested Republican seats, not that elder Democrats were in trouble.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 3:21 PM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

> They also appear to be of the opinion that an unplanned visit by someone with media in tow is not best practice for child welfare.

Hmm, well I hate to be one to recommend to twitter users that they check the actual facts before posting, but if you do take the time to watch the actual video in question, you find out that #1. He had been contacting the actual agency in question to arrange a visit for some time with no response at all and #2. He was very aware that taking cameras inside to film children etc was going to be a no-go and was not planning to do that.

Also, working in a somewhat adjacent field, if a sitting U.S. Senator called to say he'd be visiting in 2 hours or tomorrow or next weekend or whatever, the response would be, "Yes, we'd be happy to see you any time" and absolutely not "F.U. Jackass!" while calling the cops.

Yes, it's "disruptive" or whatever but it's also appropriate oversight.
posted by flug at 3:40 PM on June 4, 2018 [176 favorites]

OP: "Many people are saying this is already a Constitutional Crisis. ... Others say Trump is speaking from a position of weakness."

Why is this presented as a mutually-exclusive proposition? It seems to me pretty clear that *both* are true, and also fundamentally inter-related.

Almost *every* facet of the current administration, both in whole and in individual parts, represents a constitutional crisis, because our Constitution was never set up to deal with such an unprecedented, continual breach of the entire construct of how governance is supposed to be done.

At the same time, his endless excesses and violations make him perhaps the weakest president ever imagined under this system, protected only by the thinnest veneer of support from easily the most corrupt political party America has ever dealt with, and lashing out dangerously for that very reason.
posted by mystyk at 3:44 PM on June 4, 2018 [14 favorites]

Mathematically- and programmatically-inclined among you, please do...something with this. There’s got to be someone here who can do an analysis of what it would likely take to shut down major cities for a day, a week, a month.

Possibly 3.5% of us?
posted by greermahoney at 3:44 PM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

Tom Barnes, The Independent: "Muslim prisoners 'fed ham sandwiches by guards' after breaking Ramadan fast"

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, CAIR claimed two practising Muslim prisoners at the jail were being “starved”, as corrections officers were offering them pork-based meals as they observed the holy month.

The suit demanded a “balanced nutritional diet” for the inmates, policy changes and compensatory and punitive damages, the group said.

It claimed those observing Ramadan receive bagged meals each evening after sunset that provided between 500 and 1,100 calories a day, arguing the men should be receiving 2,600 to 2,800 calories a day under federal health guidelines.

posted by OnceUponATime at 3:47 PM on June 4, 2018 [59 favorites]

Why is this presented as a mutually-exclusive proposition?

Don't read too much into the framing of the opening post...I collected some current links in like 10mins.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:47 PM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

It shouldn't be surprising that the experts are split, but what I found fascinating is that there were some who said 'Yes, he can", others who said "It's a gray area", and still others who said "What a horrible idea/constitutional crisis time/that would be stupid", but I didn't see one who straight up said "No, he can't do that".

The thing is, it all boils down to "Well, he can try." Of course the President can pardon himself. He can declare himself Emperor too. What actually happens when he tries either of these insane tactics boils down to how Congress and the courts respond. It's theoretically possible that Trump could say "I'm Emperor of America now, the Consititution is abolished, bow before me." and everyone wrings their hands and grumbles, but well, the Constitution is abolished so guess we have to bow down now.

The things he's gotten away with already are because the checks and balances against Presidential power have been left intentionally unemployed. You can hope that eventually Trump will do something so egregious, or Mueller's report will be sufficiently damning, that Republicans in congress are forced to act. You can hope that Democrats can win enough power in November that the checks and balances will be employed. You can hope that the American people themselves will rise up and put an end to all this if no one else will.

You can hope.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:49 PM on June 4, 2018 [64 favorites]

As Talking Points Memo notes, Cohen and Trump have not finished making privilege claims, and the Special Taint Master has not finished adjudicating them. Rulings that items are not privileged can also be appealed. We can't make any definitive judgements from the situation so far.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 4:15 PM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

@RapSheet: Donald Trump issues a statement saying neither the #Eagles, nor team representatives, are welcome at the White House tomorrow for their Super Bowl visit. Unreal.

The statement is batshit:

*Statement by the President *

The Philadelphia Eagles are unable to come to the White House with their full team to be celebrated tomorrow. They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country. The Eagles wanted to send a smaller delegation, but the 1,000 fans planning to attend the event deserve better. These fans are still invited to the White House to be part of a different type of ceremonyone that will honor our great country, pay tribute to the heroes who fight to protect it, and loudly and proudly play the National Anthem. I will be there at 3:00 p.m. with the United States Marine Band and the United States Army Chorus to celebrate America.

Really the least of the issues here, but why does it say "Statement by the President" and then talk about himself in the third person?

NFL owners are idiots for thinking appeasement with the anthem policy was ever going to work.
posted by zachlipton at 4:18 PM on June 4, 2018 [136 favorites]

The President's lawyers claimed in a secret memo that he's immune from subpoena

How can it be a "secret" memo if the Trump legal team released it to the New York Times?

And Trump tweeted accusing Mueller of leaking the memo. The New York Times knows very well who they got the memo from, and if Trump is slandering Mueller, then that should be the headline story on the front page. Instead, the New York Times is covering for Trump to protect their access. Trump and the Times are in a dysfunctional relationship to scam the public. Cancel your subscription.
posted by JackFlash at 4:20 PM on June 4, 2018 [52 favorites]

It's Never Lurgi: Amusing thought - suppose Trump does decide to pardon himself. A pardon implies an admission of guilt. The rest of the government freaks out and the courts get involved and the SCOTUS decides, no, a President can not pardon himself.

Does the admission of guilt still stand or is that invalidated by the fact that the pardon couldn't have been given in the first place?

As far as I can tell, the "admission of guilt" thing, though often repeated in these threads, is simply uncertain, rather like the legitimacy of self-pardons. There is precedent for both sides of the question, and it's possible the most commonly cited case on the subject is just misinterpreted by one side (or the other).

I suppose it's almost more of a philosophical than legal question, if the actual punishment and criminal records have been rendered moot by the pardon anyway. But it's weird to suppose that, e.g, posthumous pardons impugn the recipients with guilt, since that would undo the entire point of those.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 4:21 PM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Excuse me mods, I know this is noise, but I hail from Philly and I would like to scream in Trump's face the following:

We're from Philadelphia fucking Philadelphia you don't like us we don't care.
posted by angrycat at 4:21 PM on June 4, 2018 [74 favorites]

@ddale8:
4:41 PM: Why won’t the media talk about the economy?
6:59 PM: Here is an extremely bizarre statement about a football team

This is particularly nuts since a portion of the team, including the head coach, were slated to attend. I guess they're uninvited?
posted by zachlipton at 4:25 PM on June 4, 2018 [22 favorites]

IIUC, once you pardon someone, they are no longer protected by the 5th amendment on matters related to the pardon; so subpeonas and testimony become 'tell all or get indicted for contempt of court.' (perhaps setting off a chain of self-pardons...)

And while I imagine that a pardon would help with the legal branch, the legislative branch would still be free to impeach for 'high crimes.'
posted by kaibutsu at 4:26 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

The New York Times knows very well who they got the memo from, and if Trump is slandering Mueller, then that should be the headline story on the front page. Instead, the New York Times is covering for Trump to protect their access.

Not that I have a lot of energy for defending the NYT, but it's at least conceivable to me that the source was someone involved with the investigation, or otherwise not part of Trump's administration or defense, in which case the NYT may be trying to preserve access to/protect *someone*, but not the guilty-as-hell presidential administration.

What's the case that this is unlikely?
posted by wildblueyonder at 4:33 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Tom Barnes, The Independent: "Muslim prisoners 'fed ham sandwiches by guards' after breaking Ramadan fast"

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, CAIR claimed two practising Muslim prisoners at the jail were being “starved”, as corrections officers were offering them pork-based meals as they observed the holy month.

Compare to the special snowflakes who got SCOTUS to say they didn't have to bake a cake for gays. There are religious rights, and then there are religious rights. Totally different things.
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:41 PM on June 4, 2018 [121 favorites]

Not that I have a lot of energy for defending the NYT, but it's at least conceivable to me that the source was someone involved with the investigation...
What's the case that this is unlikely?

posted by wildblueyonder at 4:33 PM on June 4 [+] [!]

I assumed that, because Trump tweeted about it long before it was published, it came from his camp in a weak attempt to make the investigations, which has been notably leakless, look leaky. My prior being so strong, it would take a lot of data to move it to "Mueller's team did it."
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:44 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

it's at least conceivable to me that the source was someone involved with the investigation

You are welcome to go right on believing that if it helps you sleep at night. But the Mueller team has not leaked once in the last year and a half. On the other hand, we have multiple instances of Trump complaining about leaks that it turns out that he himself leaked -- to the New York Times.

Trump, his family and team departed for Camp David on Friday for a confab. Saturday, the NYT releases the memo, and within minutes Guiliani is on the air extolling the wonderful virtues that that memo and the next day appearing on every Sunday news program.

This isn't the first time. This is right out of the Trump playbook. They get to dominate a few news cycles talking about Trump's extraordinary executive powers and with a little side helping of Mueller slander. Trump is a veteran of reality TV. He knows how this game is played.
posted by JackFlash at 4:48 PM on June 4, 2018 [51 favorites]

I'm looking forward to filling in the little circle next to Joe Donnelly's name along with every other Democrat on my ballot and feeding it into the scantron machine. Calling and faxing my representatives is important, but it feels like yelling into the void.

They can't ignore my vote. At least not yet. That's the hope I cling to.
posted by double block and bleed at 5:04 PM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

May I introduce you to Silvio.

oh lord how did i forget about this buffoon, thank u
posted by poffin boffin at 5:09 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Related: McCain's Revisionist History Is a Team Effort
posted by growabrain at 5:15 PM on June 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

> As far as I can tell, the "admission of guilt" thing, though often repeated in these threads, is simply uncertain

Yes, Eugene Volokh in the Washington Post analyzes the situation pretty well.

I would go beyond 'uncertain' to say the in many cases pardons are obviously intended to clear the record of people who were wrongly convicted and such. In those cases they are the most expedient way to deal with a wrongful conviction. In such cases, the wrongfulness is usually made clear in the pardon declaration and nobody claims accepting this type of pardon is an admission of guilt.

On a closely related topic: The reason there is discussion of "can the President pardon him/herself" is that the constitutional authority to pardon is, per the language of the Constitution itself, pretty absolute and unrestricted. The language itself gives only one exception: "except in Cases of Impeachment" and this Justia discussion of the text gives only a couple of other exceptions:

No pardon by anticipation - ie, you have to wait until the crime has been committed before issuing the pardon. You are not required to wait until indictment, conviction, sentencing, etc. But you can pardon past crimes only, not prospective future crimes.
No pardon of civil contempt charges. Criminal contempt can be pardoned, but not civil contempt.

The remedy for self-pardon is very clearly intended to be impeachment--thus the Constitution's specific exclusion of pardon in the impeachment process.

A pardon is not per se an admission of guilt, but in the particular context of a President pardoning himself, it will be hard to read it any other way. (Though expect Trump and his minions to try hard--"We just need to clear the air of these completely unfounded allegations so that we can move forward with the business of governing blar-blar-blar".)

But a Congress interested in defending its role in the balance of powers would only spend a bit of time ascertaining that the crime for which the president has pardoned him/herself is indeed a high crime and/or misdemeanor and then once that was established, would move directly to conviction as the pardon itself would be evidence the crime was indeed committed.

Pardoning oneself could also be seen as a separate high crime or misdemeanor, as could pre-emptively pardoning one's associates in order to protect oneself.

Of course, all this presupposes some degree of independence and oversight responsibility by the Congress, so at this moment in history, all bets are off.
posted by flug at 5:20 PM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

Melania sighting, at the gold star families reception.

(the clone jokes have already been done on Twitter, thank you for your restraint)
posted by zachlipton at 5:28 PM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

According to three sources briefed on the numbers, advertising revenues for Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are down in recent months. “The pro-Trump thing isn’t working. We can’t monetize DACA and the wall and that right-wing shit,” one staffer said. “Despite all the hype on Hannity, they can’t sell it,” another insider told me.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:35 PM on June 4, 2018 [72 favorites]

They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country.

Cue a photo of Trump standing for the national anthem without his hand on his heart.
And Ted Cruz looking like he's reaching for his revolver.
And Jesus Christ, "Mr." "President," button up your fucking suit jacket when you're standing up.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:37 PM on June 4, 2018 [17 favorites]

Uh. @kyledcheney: Mueller moves to rescind Manafort’s release conditions over alleged witness tampering (h/t @joshgerstein)

Here's the full court filing
posted by zachlipton at 5:44 PM on June 4, 2018 [47 favorites]

Some highlights:

Following the public disclosure of the February 23 Superseding Indictment, Manafort and Person A—who is a longtime associate of Manafort’s—repeatedly contacted Persons D1 and D2 in an effort to secure materially false testimony concerning the activities of the Hapsburg group. Neither Person D1 nor D2 had had any recent contact with Manafort or Person A. But after the Superseding Indictment was publicly disclosed, Manafort called Person D1 on Persons D1’s cellular phone. Person D1 sought to avoid Manafort, so Person D1 ended the call.

The day after the Superseding Indictment was made public, Manafort also sent Person D1 a text message on an encrypted application, stating “This is paul.” Domin Decl. ¶ 14. 3 Two days later, on February 26, 2018, Manafort used the same encrypted application to send Person D1 a news article describing the Superseding Indictment’s allegations concerning the Hapsburg group,which included the statement that “two European politicians were secretly paid around €2 million by Manafort in order to ‘take positions favorable to Ukraine, including by lobbying in the United States.’” One minute after sending the news article, Manafort wrote: “We should talk. I have made clear that they worked in Europe.” Domin Decl. ¶ 15. Toll records for one of Manafort’s phones indicate that Manafort had a short call with Person D1 on February 24, 2018, and that Manafort attempted to call Person D1 again on February 25 and 27, 2018. Id. ¶ 14. As noted in Special Agent Domin’s declaration, Person D1 has told the government that he understood Manafort’s outreach to be an effort to “suborn perjury,” because Person D1 knew
that the Hapsburg group worked in the United States—not just Europe.
...
Person D2 further stated his opinion that Manafort and Person A’s outreach to him and Person D1 was an effort to get them to relay a message to the Hapsburg group: if the members of the Hapsburg group were contacted by anyone, they should say that their lobbying and public relations work was exclusively in Europe—a representation that would be contrary to Person D’s knowledge that the Hapsburg group worked in both Europe and the United States.

There were repeated messages over multiple communication channels trying to get this message across.

Manafort is not a very bright guy. Question is, why was it worth the risk for him to try to cover this up?
posted by zachlipton at 5:48 PM on June 4, 2018 [46 favorites]

Metafilter: My prior being so strong, it would take a lot of data to move it
posted by Death and Gravity at 5:49 PM on June 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

It’s going to be fun when SCOTUS decides, 5-4, that Trump really can pardon himself, with Gorsuch sealing Trump’s victory and making him invulnerable to prosecution.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:51 PM on June 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

Details on why the Eagles made their decision to send a smaller contingent, leading to Trump pulling the plug on the visit. Some people were headed to the airport when Trump called it off, and fewer than 10 people from the Eagles organization were going to attend.

They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country.

That's what Trump says, not what the Eagles said.

[Malcolm] Jenkins, neither pugnacious nor unafraid in expressing his dissatisfaction with President Trump, said back in February that a visit to the White House “wouldn’t be worth his time.” DE Chris Long, a more active and less filtered participant in the national dialogue and on social media, addressed the topic on Pardon My Take even before the Super Bowl victory, saying:
“My son grows up, and I believe the legacy of our president is going to be what it is, I don’t want him to say, ‘Hey dad, why’d you go [to the White House] when you knew the right thing was to not go.”

posted by kirkaracha at 5:54 PM on June 4, 2018 [69 favorites]

It’s going to be fun when SCOTUS decides, 5-4, that Trump really can pardon himself, with Gorsuch sealing Trump’s victory and making him invulnerable to prosecution.

My over-under on the SC ruling on this would be 8-1 against Trump, and taking 9-0 would only pay like 1/2
posted by Justinian at 5:56 PM on June 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Manafort is not a very bright guy. Question is, why was it worth the risk for him to try to cover this up?

He. Has. Children.
posted by ocschwar at 5:57 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Manafort also sent Person D1 a text message on an encrypted application

Either Person D1 is cooperating and turning over Signal messages from Manafort, or Mueller has some SERIOUS NSA Tailored Access level technical support.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:00 PM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

If the president pardons himself and remains un-impeached, you don't have a constitutional crisis, you have a democracy crisis.
posted by Bovine Love at 6:01 PM on June 4, 2018 [74 favorites]

It’s going to be fun when SCOTUS decides, 5-4, that Trump really can pardon himself, with Gorsuch sealing Trump’s victory and making him invulnerable to prosecution.

At no point in the past could I have possibly imagined the number of times I would, in 2018, wonder to myself "what would Scalia make of all this" but here we are.
posted by poffin boffin at 6:03 PM on June 4, 2018 [23 favorites]

My over-under on the SC ruling on this would be 8-1 against Trump, and taking 9-0 would only pay like 1/2

Eh, you never know with Thomas.

Anyway, this is all scary as hell.
posted by skewed at 6:11 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

He. Has. Children.

Sure, but this is just idiotic. He's sending messages from his own phone to potential witnesses the day after he's indicted for running an unregistered lobbying scheme to try to get people to say they never lobbied the US, when there were meetings with members of Congress, US op-eds, etc... that say otherwise.

For context, the "Hapsburg Group" is a group of former European politicians who Manafort paid to perform unregistered lobbying for Yanukovych's party, apparently including former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer.

Manafort's communications took place after he was indicted, had a lawyer, and was on bail. It's just monumentally stupid that he would personally contact anyone involved in the case.

Either Person D1 is cooperating and turning over Signal messages from Manafort

It's clear that Person D1 did cooperate with law enforcement, because they told the government what they thought Manafort was trying to communicate. The filing also kind of glosses over the encryption bit somewhat, saying they retrieved them from Manafort's iCloud account after a court-authorized search. It's not clear how this came to happen exactly if the messages were actually encrypted, but it's also clear that they got everything from Person D1 and Person D2 in May too.

More docs: the FBI agent's declaration, which lays out pretty much everything here in a few readable pages.
posted by zachlipton at 6:15 PM on June 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Big Supreme Court ruling for Baker just out!

The Supreme Court drops opinions around 10am. This tweet was sent at 9:10pm.

@chrislhayes: This makes me think he literally only gets all of his information about everything in the world from watching TV.
posted by zachlipton at 6:17 PM on June 4, 2018 [47 favorites]

Either Person D1 is cooperating and turning over Signal messages from Manafort, or Mueller has some SERIOUS NSA Tailored Access level technical support.

I mean, it's definitely the former, since that person is described as having told Mueller "that he understood Manafort’s outreach to be an effort to “suborn perjury,”", and if I were going to the feds with that sort of thing, I'd show them the texts.

I think Constitutional lawyers are iffy on the "can he pardon himself" thing because there is no case law on it, there's no clear text in the Constitution that says he can or can't, and so you don't have much text with which to predict SCOTUS's decision. Medieval kings never had to pardon themselves, because they were the law, and couldn't commit crimes more or less by definition. This is Trump's argument about obstruction- that all prosecutory powers come from the person of the President, and he can't obstruct himself.

I don't know what Manafort is thinking either. If he's hoping for a pardon, why commit witness tampering? If he's not, then it's even riskier. I don't get it. Also, "The Hapsburg Group" is just a beautiful name for a secret illuminati group that, if I were on the jury, would vote to convict on the name alone.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:25 PM on June 4, 2018 [21 favorites]

Maybe he panicked.
posted by zarq at 6:27 PM on June 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

It’s going to be fun when SCOTUS decides, 5-4, that Trump really can pardon himself, with Gorsuch sealing Trump’s victory and making him invulnerable to prosecution.

My over-under on the SC ruling on this would be 8-1 against Trump, and taking 9-0 would only pay like 1/2
posted by Justinian

Yeah, I don't see any chance that SCOTUS will allow their power of one of the three branches of gov diminished at all. I am not sure how they will justify it and I don't think there will be any case law that they can fall back on, but I think they will say something along the lines of, "Clearly, the founders wanted a separation of powers with checks and balances to be paramount and the executive branch to [either be] the weakest of the branches [or] no more powerful than the other two branches. Self-pardon is never mentioned and legislated against as the founders clearly knew that this would allow EITHER the legislative branch OR the judicial branch to stop this clear violation of the separation of powers. Similarly, it was never legislated what should occur if the Sun rose in the west and set in the east one day. It was an idea so completely ludicrous as to not have been considered."

Their actual argument won't matter. There is no way they are giving up that power.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 6:38 PM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Lock him up!

Guess we know what got Trump so hot and bothered this morning.
posted by Sublimity at 6:40 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

You might wonder why Trump would leak a memo in which he admits to Mueller that the statement Trump Jr. released a year ago about the Tower meeting was a lie and was dictated by Donald Sr.

Keep in mind that this memo that the NYT released Saturday was sent by Trump to Mueller back in January. So Mueller has known for at least six months that the Trump story was a lie. Yet you haven't heard a word about it until now.

Why would Trump admit the lie to Mueller in January? Because Hope Hicks was interviewed by Mueller in late December. She was one of only four people present on the Trump plane when the false cover story about the Trump Tower meeting was crafted. She was the one who transcribed Trump's statement. And she spilled the beans to Mueller in her interview.

So after Hicks reported what Mueller was asking her about, Trump had no choice but to fess up to the deception in his January memo to Mueller or else set himself up for perjury.

So Mueller has known the real story for the last six months and he hasn't leaked. Trump has still been lying to the public about the Trump Tower meeting for the last six months even though his lawyers had sent a memo to Mueller telling the truth. Mueller has known that Trump has been lying to the public for many months and still he hasn't leaked.

But Trump knowing that the real story has to get out eventually chose to leak his own memo -- and bury it in a bunch of obfuscation about pardons and subpoenas. And it worked. Most of the headlines are about the pardons and subpoenas, not the lying about the Trump Tower meeting.

And the NYT has cooperated in this charade by refusing to identify the leaker, even after Trump slandered Mueller blaming him for the leak. The NYT is a collaborator.
posted by JackFlash at 6:43 PM on June 4, 2018 [144 favorites]

Popehat: I can hear Manafort and his lawyers.
Lawyers: WE TOLD YOU NOT TO TALK TO ANYONE
Manafort: BUT IT WAS IN COOODE, WITH AN AAAAAAPPPP
Lawyers: Yeah, you're going to need to increase your fee deposit
Manafort: How much?
Lawyers: Write zeroes asshole. We'll tell you when to stop.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:56 PM on June 4, 2018 [63 favorites]

Muslim prisoners 'fed ham sandwiches by guards' after breaking Ramadan fast

This kind of stupid cruelty just makes me unreasonably angry.

Melania sighting

She was always there. The single set of footsteps are where she carried you.
posted by triggerfinger at 7:07 PM on June 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

Well, we already knew he was afraid of Eagles.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:08 PM on June 4, 2018 [16 favorites]

VoteVets

We support those @Eagles who did not feel right attending, and apologize to those players and coaches, who wanted to attend, that Donald Trump is a whining toddler.

As vets, we fought for the right to #TakeAKnee to protest injustice.

posted by kirkaracha at 7:10 PM on June 4, 2018 [101 favorites]

Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney took his chance to tee off on Trump over the Eagles disinvite:

“The Eagles call the birthplace of our democracy home, so it’s no surprise that this team embodies everything that makes our country and our city great. Their athletic accomplishments on the field led to an historic victory this year. Fans all across the country rallied behind them because we like to root for the underdog and we feel joy when we see the underdogs finally win. I’m equally proud of the Eagles’ activism off the field. These are players who stand up for the causes they believe in and who contribute in meaningful ways to their community. They represent the diversity of our nation—a nation in which we are free to express our opinions.

“Disinviting them from the White House only proves that our President is not a true patriot, but a fragile egomaniac obsessed with crowd size and afraid of the embarrassment of throwing a party to which no one wants to attend.

“City Hall is always open for a celebration.”

posted by gladly at 7:23 PM on June 4, 2018 [171 favorites]

Well, played, Mr. Mayor.

Ooh, is Trump gonna punk out of Mandatory Patriotism Day tomorrow, or be shown up by a several-times-larger crowd at Philadelphia City Hall?

Also, cancelling the Eagles appearance is an insult to the people who might have been planning to attend tomorrow because they are bigger Eagles fans than National Anthem fans.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:34 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Melania sighting, at the gold star families reception.

That may not have been definitive to some but this should be:

@FLOTUS Tonight @POTUS & I were honored to pay tribute to our fallen heroes. Thank you to the Gold Star families that joined us in celebration & remembrance.

That's unquestionably Melania sitting next to Trump.
posted by scalefree at 7:36 PM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Dear god, the Manafort call logs are a thing of beauty. Just an astounding level of dumbassery.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:37 PM on June 4, 2018 [14 favorites]

Remember those 2016 days when we were all into Tim Kaine dad jokes before remembering we didn't like his politics?

@timkaine: This might surprise some people but I think this is the most polite White House in history. They’re always saying “pardon me.”

Sometimes it's nice to look back on a simpler time.
posted by zachlipton at 7:38 PM on June 4, 2018 [68 favorites]

Ooh, is Trump gonna punk out of Mandatory Patriotism Day tomorrow, or be shown up by a several-times-larger crowd at Philadelphia City Hall?

The Mayor's Chief of Staff.

Jane Slusser
Our party was bigger than yours #FlyEaglesFly

PIC OF TRUMP'S INAUGURATION COMPARED TO PHILLY'S SUPER BOWL PARADE/CELEBRATION
posted by chris24 at 7:40 PM on June 4, 2018 [66 favorites]

InTheYear2017: "Are there really that many serious primary challenges? My understanding was that the big shift was in people running against normally-uncontested Republican seats, not that elder Democrats were in trouble."

13 states have held primaries so far (less a few runoffs to be completed); no House Democrat has yet lost a primary.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:44 PM on June 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Greg Proops on “Whose Line Is it Anyway?” tonight introduced two nicknames I had not previously heard:

Orange Julius Caesar
Mango Mussolini
posted by flarbuse at 7:47 PM on June 4, 2018 [14 favorites]

ELECTION RESULT

Dem HOLD in Connecticut House 4:

Concepcion [D] 64.6%
Inacio [D] 28.7%
Nelson [R] 5.0%

Margin changes compared to previous races (combining Dem candidate results):

vs 2016 presidential result margin: Dem improvement of about 9 points.
vs 2016 HD-04 result margin: Dem improvement of about 14 points.

Dem lead in the Connecticut House is extended to 80-71.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:52 PM on June 4, 2018 [20 favorites]

zachlipton: @realDonaldTrump: Big Supreme Court ruling for Baker just out!

So it's one thing when he's like "I love the Military! No Collusion! I am brimming with Innocence!", but Baker is a common surname so capitalizing it is spectacularly confusing. On Wikipedia I easily found at least five American court cases that start with "Baker v" and hence could be abbreviated Baker, of which three made it to the Supreme Court and another two involved gay rights (all unrelated Bakers as far as I know).
posted by InTheYear2017 at 7:54 PM on June 4, 2018 [12 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: The Philadelphia Eagles Football Team was invited to the White House. Unfortunately, only a small number of players decided to come, and we canceled the event. Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling. Sorry!

@ZackBlatt: Fun fact that an alarming number of people don’t seem to understand: Nobody on the #Eagles even kneeled during the national anthem last year.

The NFL owners are idiots, but I repeat myself. They come up with an idiotic policy to try to appease Trump in the hope everyone shuts up and they continue to profit off their cash cow, and that was all for nothing, since now he's hinting he'll attack anyone who doesn't stand on the field and participate in the ceremony the way he wants it done.
posted by zachlipton at 8:04 PM on June 4, 2018 [57 favorites]

Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish: "2) Experience matters. When long-tentured legislators leave, they take institutional memory with them. Enough of a brain drain could create a break on how Congress does its job as a whole. Of course, given its track record that may not be a bad thing."

On the other hand I'm sure most everyone who has worked for a large institution has experienced waiting for someone who has carved out an authoritative niche for themselves to retire so that necessary changes can be made drama free. "hew *wipes brow*, Bob finally retired and now we can use cold boots instead of taping those 25KV connections!"
posted by Mitheral at 8:04 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Terrifyng Images Emerge From Within Once-Peaceful-Now-A-Security-Threat Nation Of Canada
posted by storybored at 8:06 PM on June 4, 2018 [41 favorites]

zachlipton: "now he's hinting he'll attack anyone who doesn't stand on the field and participate in the ceremony the way he wants it done."

The Cheeto has not only rhetoric but also a large amount of direct leverage over the league because the Armed Forces shovel millions of dollars in money and services in kind to the league every year.
posted by Mitheral at 8:13 PM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

CNN, Giuliani on shifting Trump Tower story: 'It was a mistake. I swear to God.'

Rudy Giuliani denied Monday that the disclosure by Donald Trump's attorneys that the President dictated a crucial statement on the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting -- a reversal from past denials -- constituted a lie, instead claiming it was a routine mistake.

"It was a mistake," Giulani, a lawyer for Trump in the Russia investigation, said on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time" Monday. "I swear to God, it was a mistake."

We'll just let the transition to our next story do the commentary here: WaPo, Ashley Parker, In the Trump administration, the truth comes out after vigorous denials, chronicling some of the many times when the White House denies something repeatedly before they admit it.

Greg Sargent, Secret memo to Mueller actually reveals weakness of Trump’s position. It's up there in the FPP (thanks T.D. Strange!), but it finishes the flow of these three stories and is well worth reading if you missed it. Admitting you've been repeatedly lying in public is normally the sort of thing you only do if you're backed in a corner and the alternative is worse. That they've done just that means there need to be a whole lot more questions about what happened and why they spent so long lying about it.
posted by zachlipton at 8:26 PM on June 4, 2018 [21 favorites]

Manafort needs to become a word itself, like santorum, or bork. manafort: verb. To commit fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, treason, and/or other crimes in a damaging yet amateurish and bungeling way. Exp:" My cousin ran for state senate, but it turned out his campaign manager manaforted the whole thing, so no dice. He almost went to jail!"

See also racketeering, securities fraud, and general scumbaggery.

I've had a visceral dislike of Manafort from the first moment I saw him.
posted by vrakatar at 8:30 PM on June 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

Some previews for tomorrow's many, many primaries:

* DKE

* Vox (IA, CA)

* 538 (AL, MS, NJ)

* Taniel races of interest

Remember that CA results (unless something is a total blowout) won't be finalized for several days, at best, maybe as long as two weeks or so. Late mail votes can move totals by several percentage points.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:32 PM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

WaPo, Josh Dawsey and Wesley Lowery, Trump disinvites Philadelphia Eagles from White House visit, citing national anthem dispute. Yes yes, we know that. But there are some details in here that go much deeper than him being upset at the low number of RSVPs and speak to serious abuses of power that I fear will be lost in the noise now that Trump falsely framed this as having to do with the anthem:

A senior administration official said the Eagles promised to have about 70 people there last week. By Monday, the team said only 10 to 12 people might come, this person said, creating a meager celebration. Trump deemed the smaller crowd unsatisfactory, aides said.
...
When some players continued to kneel during the anthem, Trump told White House officials they should punish the NFL as part of a GOP-tax plan. Some aides even began researching how to punish the lucrative league, which receives a valuable exemption, and ideas trickled over to Capitol Hill. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment. Another White House official noted that Trump’s ideas were never implemented and described his orders more as venting.
...
Trump grew angry in April 2017 when Tom Brady said he planned to skip the White House visit with the New England Patriots, huddling angrily with aides and even calling Patriots owner Robert Kraft. One former senior administration official described a chaotic scene unfolding over the heartland of America, as Trump flew back from an event in Wisconsin. Some aides feared Trump was going to cancel the celebration, even though he maintains a close friendship with Kraft.

We know he threatened to use the tax code to punish the league, because he tweeted about it. The news that aides took actions to see how they could carry that out is new. Combine that Trump's meetings with the Postmaster General where he attempted to use the government to punish Amazon, and the pattern is quite clear. And there are lots of witnesses to this abuse of power. Staffers worked on the plans, postal officials were brought in, all with the clear intent of political retaliation. And of course, he just tweeted it out. That this isn't already the subject of hearings is shameful.
posted by zachlipton at 8:36 PM on June 4, 2018 [85 favorites]

Oh, and George Papadopoulos' wife is on Fox News straight-up begging for a pardon: "I trust and hope and ask to President Trump to pardon him."

Normal people are expected to fill out a form and have their application carefully reviewed by the Pardon Attorney, but this seems much more efficient.
posted by zachlipton at 8:40 PM on June 4, 2018 [28 favorites]

We’re definitely going to talk about Puerto Rico, right? A nervous nation inquires. (Alexandra Petri, WaPo)

America, America: After the government of Puerto Rico released its staggering official mortality figures from Hurricane Maria, showing at least 1,400 dead, following a Harvard study that estimated that anywhere from 800 to more than 8,000 people had perished in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, millions of Americans timidly stared at their televisions and waited for the inevitable and brutal reckoning.

“I was nervous about turning on my TV last week,” said Ethel, 46, “because I knew that the biggest national scandal would be the thousands of Americans who had died as a result of Hurricane Maria.” Ethel added that she had eventually turned the TV on, once, to check the weather, but instead Roseanne Barr was on the screen, which she assumed was just a quick break from a stream of debate, soul-searching and fact-finding by a grieving nation.

“I personally,” Dave, 51, who sits at a diner every day in the middle of the country waiting for reporters to come ask him what he thinks of President Trump, said, “believe it is important that if a woman who is on television says something racist or controversial, we discuss that thoroughly first, because that could be very distracting when we are trying as a nation to figure out what went wrong in Puerto Rico and to hold our leaders accountable. So it is good that we got that out of the way, I guess. Anyway, I’m ready now.”

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:46 PM on June 4, 2018 [56 favorites]

Turns out there is a Justice Department opinion on whether or not the president can pardon himself. It dates back to the Nixon era and is an unequivocal no:

Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself.

It is hard to believe that, were this brought to the Supreme Court for adjudication, that they would not grab onto this as sufficient justification to maintain the judiciary's balance of power WRT to the executive.

There are two maneuvers the opinion suggests could work around the problem of "no one may be a judge in his own case": #1. The president could temporarily step aside under the 25th amendment, the VP could step into his place temporarily and execute the pardon, then the president could either resume the presidency or resign. #2. Congress could issue a legislative pardon.

I'm so much looking forward to seeing one and/or all of these scenarios playing themselves out sometime over the next 18 months or so . . .
posted by flug at 8:46 PM on June 4, 2018 [16 favorites]

The president could temporarily step aside under the 25th amendment, the VP could step into his place temporarily and execute the pardon, then the president could either resume the presidency or resign.

If we're analyzing this fanfic it should at least be noted that the Cabinet would also have to be on board to pull this off. Not just hte VP. Secondly, if he's going to resign the 25th amendment is unnecessary. The VP would take over and issue pardons immediately. Like with Nixon.
posted by Justinian at 9:07 PM on June 4, 2018

zachlipton: Oh, and George Papadopoulos' wife is on Fox News straight-up begging for a pardon: "I trust and hope and ask to President Trump to pardon him."

Wow, she strategically styled herself to look like Ivanka, didn't she?
posted by bluecore at 9:08 PM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

@RVAwonk:

Does anyone else wonder if Mueller's team let Paul Manafort out on bail in the first place just so they could monitor him and see if his actions revealed other co-conspirators/additional crimes? Because I wonder that all the time.

posted by Chrysostom at 9:25 PM on June 4, 2018 [64 favorites]

Gotta post this on here for the New Yorkers, because this woman is significantly more inspiring than I thought -
Cynthia Nixon on the Daily Show. All of the women who have been running are what give me hope that the pendulum can swing back the other way from authoritarianism. I am so happy to see so many intelligent, heartfelt, and wise women running for public office.
posted by thebotanyofsouls at 9:32 PM on June 4, 2018 [25 favorites]

Why Florida Democrats can’t count on the so-called ‘black vote’

Note: author Sharon Austin is promoting her book The Caribbeanization of Black Politics in America.
posted by XMLicious at 10:08 PM on June 4, 2018

What's interesting to me about Mueller's request re: Manafort is the dates on those contacts. Manafort pulled this shit in February, and Mueller is only requesting a move now? That leaves me inclined to believe Mueller's team was more than happy to leave Manafort out for the purposes of surveillance. The question, of course, is why they filed to rescind his release now. Has the trail dried up? Did Manafort get a clue and stop doing sketchy shit? Has the surveillance team caught wind of plans for Manafort to flee somehow? That's the curious part.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:03 PM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

Giuliani on shifting Trump Tower story: 'It was a mistake. I swear to God.'

Wait, we now know that Trump admitted the true story to Mueller back in January with a memo to legally cover his ass with regard to perjury and obstruction after being outed by Hope Hicks. But Trump continued to push the same old lie to the public for the last six months, safe in the knowledge that Mueller wouldn't leak and contradict him.

That's not a mistake. That's pure contempt for the public.
posted by JackFlash at 11:06 PM on June 4, 2018 [33 favorites]

What's interesting to me about Mueller's request re: Manafort is the dates on those contacts. Manafort pulled this shit in February, and Mueller is only requesting a move now?

regarding the timing. Past few days we've been kicking around "Can the President pardon himself", and here's Mueller's team going, "Can Trump pardon himself? Don't really care right now, but we are revoking Manafort's bail and tossing Trump's campaign manager in jail until the trial due to the probable cause of obstruction charges."

Motion p.16: obstruction of justice ha[d] been a traditional ground for pretrial detention by the courts

Your move Rudy.
posted by mikelieman at 11:22 PM on June 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

flarbuse

Greg Proops on “Whose Line Is it Anyway?” tonight introduced two nicknames I had not previously heard:

Orange Julius Caesar
Mango Mussolini

My favourite so far is Manchurian Rage Mango.

Not that amusing names make me feel any better about the situation. This is some scary shit. :(
posted by Pouteria at 11:26 PM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Manafort pulled this shit in February, and Mueller is only requesting a move now? That leaves me inclined to believe Mueller's team was more than happy to leave Manafort out for the purposes of surveillance.

That's what I thought too, but the FBI agent's declaration says (footnote 1) that "Persons D1 and D2 provided the content of the text messages described below in May 2018." It's not clear when exactly Mueller's team knew enough of this—they could have waited to interview Persons D1 and D2 to avoid tipping people off, but it's not obvious they had all the information they needed back in February.

Another interesting wrinkle here is that there's a missing link here between Manafort and Person A (presumably Konstantin Kilimnik). Manafort made 8 contacts with Person D1, followed by Person A making 9 contacts with Person D2 and 1 with person D1. Nothing in the filings makes any mention of any communications between Manafort and Person A, and given the context of the messages, it's a conspicuous absence: they obviously must have communicated somehow. I have no clue whether that's leading up to something bigger, but it sure seems like it. Kilimnik is all wrapped up in collusion. If you want the link between the current criminal charges for Manafort's past misdeeds and the Russia investigation, I suspect it runs through here.
posted by zachlipton at 11:27 PM on June 4, 2018 [13 favorites]

"Pardon Me: The Constitutional Case Against Presidential Self-Pardons," Brian C. Kalt, Yale Law Review, January 1997.

One interesting and relevant case he discusses is Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh investigating Iran-Contra. In the waning days of the George HW Bush administration in 1992, Bush pardoned everyone under investigation except himself. This effectively ended the investigation. Apparently he did contemplate pardoning himself, but didn't do so in the end.

"I think President Bush will always have to answer for his pardons," [Walsh] said. "I think that was the most unjustifiable act. There was no public purpose served by that."
posted by flug at 11:56 PM on June 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

List of Presidential Pardons

Makes a pretty good case by itself for abolishing pardons.
posted by benzenedream at 12:25 AM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

Trump's argument from the beginning has been that the law simply doesn't apply to rich people. Remember when the Times analyzed a portion of his taxes, and found he was abusing a loophole in a manner that was likely illegal? Whatever happened with that? Nothing.

And if you read between the lines, it sounds like the Russian operatives were begging Trump's circle throughout to please at least try and hide what they were doing. No, it's not in your interests to talk with Putin directly. No, we're not explaining what we want and giving you Clinton dirt in the same meeting.

And now we're seriously at the point where he's arguing that the law simply doesn't apply to him at all, and being told it may take years to sort out whether or not it does. This country is broken.
posted by xammerboy at 3:10 AM on June 5, 2018 [33 favorites]

If there is an ultimate benefit for making it through 'The Trump Years' it will be a mass realization that "this country is broken" and has been for a very long time before The Donald arose to show us just how badly. If "he's arguing that the law simply doesn't apply to him at all" it's because he has always believed it doesn't, because he belongs to a class for whom it never really has. His ego drove him into the role of a "celebrity billionaire" and made him believe he was the King of Everything long before he officially sought out the gig. It's an often-accurate cliche that you have to hit the bottom before you can rise again, and Donald Trump is America's rock bottom.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:48 AM on June 5, 2018 [36 favorites]

And my previous comment was not intended to be an optimistic "everything's going to work out fine". In fact, I'd say we're looking at a coin flip whether the result of Trump will be (a) an American Revival better than this nation has ever seen before or (b) an American Dystopia beyond what the better scifi authors have imagined... (with a small chance of the coin landing on its edge and returning to whatever we had going before)
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:44 AM on June 5, 2018 [8 favorites]

Donald Trump is America's rock bottom.

TTTCS.

The gladhandlers and grifters are obvious this time, and we're still apparently powerless to do more than howl into the void. It's been remarked, but god forbid we end up with a competent monomaniacal authoritarian next (assuming there is a "next").

[on preview I now see your disclaimer]
posted by aspersioncast at 4:45 AM on June 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

List of Presidential Pardons

Makes a pretty good case by itself for abolishing pardons.

Number of African-American people pardoned for Underground-Railroad-related offenses: 1
Number of people pardoned for conspiring to assassinate Lincoln: 3
posted by box at 4:47 AM on June 5, 2018 [70 favorites]

If we're analyzing this fanfic it should at least be noted that the Cabinet would also have to be on board to pull this off. Not just hte VP.

You're thinking of section 4 of the 25th amendment. But section 3 allows the VP to assume the powers of the presidency without the help of the cabinet (but with the consent of the president). And unlike section 4, section 3 has actually been invoked in the past.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:50 AM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Was for the hundredth time considering the casting for an All The Not-My-President’s Men film. I hit the usuals (Jeremy Renner as Manafort, Michael Gross as Mike Flynn, Molly Shannon as Haberman) when it hit me that casting Deep Throat is going to end up as a spoiler because it would be the same actor playing 45.
Stupid stupid Watergate indeed.
posted by Harry Caul at 5:00 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Makes a pretty good case by itself for abolishing pardons.

Whole lot of terrible people on that list including a lot of Watergate and Iran/Contra folk. Jimmy Carter commuted G. Gordon Liddy's sentence? What the hell?
posted by octothorpe at 5:07 AM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Also, working in a somewhat adjacent field, if a sitting U.S. Senator called to say he'd be visiting in 2 hours or tomorrow or next weekend or whatever, the response would be, "Yes, we'd be happy to see you any time" and absolutely not "F.U. Jackass!" while calling the cops.

Presuming you have nothing to hide, of course. The Senator sure made it look like the facility has something to hide, and given that the Trump administration deserves no benefit of the doubt at all, they likely do.

Which, as I said in the previous thread, hopefully means that facility and its six-figure CEO will soon be looking at heavy duty habeus corpus proceedings, not to mention kidnapping charges.
posted by Gelatin at 5:15 AM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

12 hours after witness tampering added to Manafort's charges, he's admitting he wanted an Attorney General who would kill the Russia probe.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:20 AM on June 5, 2018 [28 favorites]

12 hours after witness tampering added to Manafort's charges, he's admitting he wanted an Attorney General who would kill the Russia probe.

At this point, I'm so frustrated with the ongoing stupid, I just want Mueller to Indict Donald J. Trump on the obstruction charges, and let the courts figure out all these damned hypotheticals.

Damnit. We are all trapped inside Schroinger's Government, waiting for the wave-form to collapse!
posted by mikelieman at 5:24 AM on June 5, 2018 [23 favorites]

If there is an ultimate benefit for making it through 'The Trump Years' it will be a mass realization that "this country is broken" and has been for a very long time before The Donald arose to show us just how badly. If "he's arguing that the law simply doesn't apply to him at all" it's because he has always believed it doesn't, because he belongs to a class for whom it never really has. His ego drove him into the role of a "celebrity billionaire" and made him believe he was the King of Everything long before he officially sought out the gig. It's an often-accurate cliche that you have to hit the bottom before you can rise again, and Donald Trump is America's rock bottom.

I'd really like to believe this but as a Canadian I have to remind you the crazy story of Crack addict mayor Rob Ford and how Ontario is now on the verge of possibly electing his brother as premier of Ontario. There is always more stupid.
posted by srboisvert at 5:24 AM on June 5, 2018 [35 favorites]

Oh, and George Papadopoulos' wife is on Fox News straight-up begging for a pardon: "I trust and hope and ask to President Trump to pardon him."

It'll be interesting to see what happens with this. A pardon here might send a different message than what Cheeto is looking for: cooperate with Mueller and still get pardoned.
posted by duoshao at 5:25 AM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Vox: America’s allies should respond to steel tariffs with targeted sanctions on the Trump Organization

Macleans: Trade Sanctions against America Won't Work. Sanctioning Trump Himself Might. (cited in the vox article and maybe came up in the last megathread):

I propose that instead of taxing the import of American serviettes, we tax Trump. In the spirit of the Magnitsky Act, Canada and the western allies come together to collectively pressure the only pain point that matters to this President: his family and their assets. This could take the form of special taxation on their current operations, freezing of assets, or even sanctions against senior staff. Canada could add a tax to Trump properties equal to any tariff unilaterally imposed by Washington. The European Union could revoke any travel visas for senior staff in the Trump organization. And the United Kingdom could temporarily close his golf course.

Arguably, the legislation to do so already exists. Canada’s Special Economic Measures Act and the Foreign Corrupt Officials Act permit us to sanction public officials who are “complicit in ordering, controlling or otherwise directing acts of corruption”. In the case of Trump, we already have several open examples of this and the various ongoing criminal investigations (of his own government) are expected to produce many more.

posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:35 AM on June 5, 2018 [140 favorites]

Manafort is not a very bright guy. Question is, why was it worth the risk for him to try to cover this up?

Well, someone* that knows him pretty well did once say about him that he has no moral or legal compass. Seems accurate right about now.

He. Has. Children.

*Oh right it was his own daughter who said that, among other things
posted by robotdevil at 5:36 AM on June 5, 2018 [21 favorites]

Oh, and George Papadopoulos' wife is on Fox News straight-up begging for a pardon: "I trust and hope and ask to President Trump to pardon him."

She might've wanted to wait until her husband was sentenced.

Josh Marshall
Presumably a defendent awaiting sentencing on a plea bargain is not legally responsible for what their spouse says on tv. But the upshot of what Papadopoulos wife said on Tucker tonight is that her husband isn’t guilty of anything and faced bogus charges.
2/ Acceptnce of responsibility is a key part of a plea bargain. So very curious how this plays into his sentencing or whether they’re going to want to have a talk with him and ask what is up.
posted by chris24 at 5:37 AM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

Slate: The NFL Anthem Policy Violates Several State Constitutions

Consider California—home of the Los Angeles Chargers, the Los Angeles Rams, the San Francisco 49ers, and for now at least, the Oakland Raiders. Unlike the First Amendment’s negative limit on state action, the California Constitution’s free speech clause affirmatively begins, “Every person may freely speak.” Forty years ago, the California Supreme Court interpreted this language to do what the U.S. Supreme Court would not do: Prevent the owners of a private shopping mall from kicking out protesters. Even the cautious U.S. Supreme Court enthusiastically affirmed this decision. It recognized that every state has the “sovereign right to adopt in its own Constitution individual liberties more expansive than those conferred by the Federal Constitution.”

In other words, the state-action doctrine is a feature of the U.S. Constitution, not all constitutions. And where the U.S. Constitution doesn’t apply—like in shopping malls and perhaps football stadiums—state constitutions are often the highest law of the land.

Today, many states have followed California’s lead in interpreting their own free speech clauses to prohibit private organizations from fining protesters. When the New York Jets and New York Giants open their doors in the New Jersey meadowlands this fall, they will be two of several teams playing in a state whose constitution guarantees free speech against “unreasonably restrictive or oppressive conduct on the part of private entities.” The New Jersey Supreme Court first announced this interpretation shortly before holding that Princeton University violated the state’s constitution when it fined an activist who wanted to protest on its private campus.

The constitutions in the home states of the Broncos, Eagles, Patriots, Seahawks, and Steelers similarly protect protesters from private restrictions. Although the supreme courts of these states generally tolerate reasonable rules to minimize the disruptions that protests can create, they generally strike down rules imposed to protect against a disruption unlikely to happen, to limit the content of a protest, or to avoid the backlash against an unpopular viewpoint.

Thanks to transcripts of NFL owners’ meetings and depositions taken in Colin Kaepernick’s collusion case against the league, there is no doubt that the NFL’s policy wasn’t adopted to minimize disruptive behavior. Rather, the purpose of the policy is to restrict the political content of players’ protests merely out of fear of how fans—or the president—will respond. In this context, the NFL’s policy likely violates several state constitutions. The unconstitutionality of the policy therefore doesn’t depend on state action.

---

And of course, Trump tweeted again this morning that staying in locker rooms was unacceptable to him. So the owners caved for nothing. He'll still be attacking them. Because he needs a culture war to distract. And he's a racist asshole.
posted by chris24 at 5:41 AM on June 5, 2018 [78 favorites]

I am enjoying this thing where everybody I agree with politically is also praising the Eagles, at least.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 5:45 AM on June 5, 2018 [27 favorites]

It’s going to be fun when SCOTUS decides, 5-4, that Trump really can pardon himself, with Gorsuch sealing Trump’s victory and making him invulnerable to prosecution.

SCOTUS can't do anything about state charges, and Mueller tightening the screws on Manafort suggests, once again, that he knows what he's doing, which would include digging up loads and loads of potential criminal charges under New York State law.
posted by Gelatin at 5:47 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Can someone who understands Constitutional law better than me explain the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruling?

Because I'm very confused, not just by the supposed "liberal" Justices joining in support of the bigot, but by the ruling's seemingly contradictory claims.

Kennedy wrote that LGBT people shouldn't be subject to discrimination or the humiliation of being turned away when they seek goods and services. But then he ruled in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop essentially hanging out a "Straights Only" sign.

It looks sort of like he was making a tone argument? That he thought the decision by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was correct, LGBT people shouldn't be subject to discrimination, but that since he thought the Civil Rights Commission said something he thought was mean about religion he had to punish the gay couple to teach the Commission a lesson? Is that it? That doesn't seem like it.

If the ruling had been simply that discrimination against LGBT people was ok as long as it was cloaked in religious talk I'd disagree strongly, but I'd at least comprehend what was decided. But that doesn't seem to be what the decision was so I'm very confused.

Was it really just a tone argument? That seems awfully unlikely for a Supreme Court decision, but Kennedy spent a lot of space talking about the hurt feelings of religious people when facts about past uses of religion to justify oppression were brought up.

Follow up historic question: were there similar cases in the wake of Loving involving people invoking sincerely held religious belief that marriage was only between people of the same race?
posted by sotonohito at 5:53 AM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney: Disinviting them from the White House only proves that our President is not a true patriot, but a fragile egomaniac obsessed with crowd size and afraid of the embarrassment of throwing a party to which no one wants to attend.

Too late.

(NYT: "Crowd Scientists Say Women’s March in Washington Had 3 Times as Many People as Trump’s Inauguration")
posted by Gelatin at 5:57 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Greg Sargent, Secret memo to Mueller actually reveals weakness of Trump’s position. It's up there in the FPP (thanks T.D. Strange!), but it finishes the flow of these three stories and is well worth reading if you missed it. Admitting you've been repeatedly lying in public is normally the sort of thing you only do if you're backed in a corner and the alternative is worse. That they've done just that means there need to be a whole lot more questions about what happened and why they spent so long lying about it.

Years ago, my high school journalism teacher told his class something that the current political press would do well to learn -- when the person you're interviewing lies to you, that's your story.

Tallies of the number of times Trump has lied, or fact-check debunking of specific statements, are of definite but limited value. But they leave unsaid why Trump and his people might lie, which can be many reasons, but one obvious possibility is "because the truth doesn't make them look good."

As such, we see a tacit admission by the media that reality does, indeed, have a liberal bias.
posted by Gelatin at 6:19 AM on June 5, 2018 [18 favorites]

Can someone who understands Constitutional law better than me explain the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruling?

Basically they punted the real question and told the Colorado comission to make a new decision without the language of "animus" towards the religious claim. They're free to come to the same conclusion again, as long as they're nicer about it to the bigot.

Opinion analysis: Court rules (narrowly) for baker in same-sex-wedding-cake case [Updated]

Was it really just a tone argument? That seems awfully unlikely for a Supreme Court decision, but Kennedy spent a lot of space talking about the hurt feelings of religious people when facts about past uses of religion to justify oppression were brought up.

Yes. That's sort of Kennedy's whole deal. He likes polite discrimination and high minded unjust outcomes. Except on the rare occasion he writes a sweeping decision like Obergefell and makes you wonder why the fuck we only see that Anthony Kennedy once every couple years.

The worst form of judicial minimalism — Masterpiece Cakeshop deserved a full vindication for its claims of religious liberty and free speech
A “view” from the courtroom: Justice Kennedy’s Master-pièce de résistance
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:26 AM on June 5, 2018 [17 favorites]

sotonohito: It looks sort of like he was making a tone argument? That he thought the decision by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was correct, LGBT people shouldn't be subject to discrimination, but that since he thought the Civil Rights Commission said something he thought was mean about religion he had to punish the gay couple to teach the Commission a lesson? Is that it? That doesn't seem like it.

I think it's best to see the outcome as a ruling about a court case, not about an act of discrimination or a law against those. No side was declared "correct" in the issue of whether anti-discrimination laws necessarily conflict with first-amendment religious rights.

Consider Miranda v Arizona, which centered on a man accused of kidnapping and rape, and made a ruling in his favor (saying that his confession was not valid evidence because he hadn't been read his rights, thus giving the rights the name "Miranda"). The result of the decision wasn't that Americans have a Constitutional right to commit those horrific acts (although that's exactly how "law-and-order" conservatives viewed it), not was it about whether or not he was guilty/innocent of those acts.

My understanding (I AM NOT A LAWYER) is that this was similar; they determined that the case was prosecuted badly because (in their view) the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was overtly hostile to the defendant's faith, and that this hostility meant they couldn't be neutral arbiters, in the sense that justice is supposed to be blind. That's it. So there was no intention to "punish the gay people" any more than the Miranda decision was meant to punish Lois Ann Jameson (supposing Ernesto Miranda was in fact her attacker, which I have absolutely no idea).

It would be nice if they could have added a ruling on the Colorado law itself, but they didn't (maybe because it really would have been stepping outside their lane to do so, and maybe because they often prefer not to commit that far on controversial issues).
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:27 AM on June 5, 2018 [13 favorites]

Can someone who understands Constitutional law better than me explain the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruling? ...

Kennedy wrote that LGBT people shouldn't be subject to discrimination or the humiliation of being turned away when they seek goods and services. But then he ruled in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop essentially hanging out a "Straights Only" sign.

They didn't rule in favor of the bakery excluding people based on sexual orientation, but rather held that the bakery's 'trial' was unfair due to religious bias of the 'judges.' So, the bakery is basically getting a new trial; the commission could still find them in violation of the anti-discrimination law and then the case would work its way up again on the merits of the religion-as-permission-to-discriminate issue. Ginsburg and Sotomayor disagreed with this outcome and would have ruled in favor of Colorado and there would be no new trial.

The reporting on this case has been spectacularly bad, casting it as a win on the merits -- which is was not -- this lazy reporting will contribute to increased violence toward and exclusion of LGBT people, particularly in states that don't have laws like Colorado's. The baker didn't win so much as he hasn't lost yet.
posted by melissasaurus at 6:28 AM on June 5, 2018 [89 favorites]

12 hours after witness tampering added to Manafort's charges, he's admitting he wanted an Attorney General who would kill the Russia probe.

At one point in Thomas Friedman's book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, he discusses former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. In '97, during the Asian financial crisis, Mohamad kept accusing George Soros and Jews of deliberately devaluing Malaysia's currency, the ringgit. The book's focus is on the effects of globalization, at a time when social media didn't exist yet.

Anyway, globalization was spreading and Mohamad's rants became news in a number of Western countries, often because it was reported by financial media. Here's the NY Times -- a more mainstream source: "But he did not stop there. The next day, addressing a rally of predominantly Muslim villagers, he suggested that Malaysia's troubles might be the result of a Jewish ''agenda'' to weaken the economy of this country of about 20 million people.

''We may suspect that they have an agenda, but we do not want to accuse,'' Dr. Mahathir, who has made anti-Jewish statements in the past, was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency. ''And incidentally we are Muslims, and the Jews are not happy to see the Muslims progress. The Jews robbed the Palestinians of everything, but in Malaysia they could not do so, hence they do this, depress the ringgit.''
In the book, Friedman speculates that the Prime Minister's advisors probably had to go to him at one point and say, "Look, you accused the Jews on Monday. The ringgit fell in value. Then on Tuesday you accused George Soros. The ringgit fell again. On Wednesday, you were back to accusing the Jews. The ringgit keeps falling! Today is Thursday. You accused George Soros and Jewish bankers of trying to trigger a recession. The ringgit is in freefall. Prime Minister? SHUT UP!"

By contrast, something similar has never happened here. Trump's advisors can't force him to shut up and there's nothing that would compel him to do so on his own. The career politicians he's surrounded himself with (including Giuliani) won't do it. For his own self-preservation (or theirs) more than anything else, you'd think they'd try. In any reasonable timeline, the things he says publicly would be political suicide. The racism. Sexism. Angry rants. Lies. Hyperbole. Bizarre conspiracy theories and childish admissions of guilt. Far less inflammatory statements have torpedoed other people's political careers over the years and Trump seems to have made enough of them for ten lifetimes. But while his inability to control his id (and mouth) should be his fatal flaw, somehow it's not happening. If anything, his advisors and the GOP are enabling him. Hell, it seems as if he gets more popular the crazier, sleazier, stupider, dictatorial and more bigoted he gets.

I've never believed for a moment that Mueller would be the one to save the Republic from Trump. Even if he tries, there are too many people in his own party who would rather destroy the country than release power.

The longer this goes on, the more I wonder what it will take to change things.
posted by zarq at 6:29 AM on June 5, 2018 [43 favorites]

"held that the bakery's 'trial' was unfair due to religious bias of the 'judges.' "

Another analogy might be if your local zoning code had a rule about large gathering spaces and adequate parking/traffic impacts. That's going to affect some schools, movie theaters, etc., but the main thing it's going to impact is religious gathering spaces, especially since they tend to buy marginal land spaces and try to do it on the cheap. (Whereas a developer putting up a movie theater will be willing to pay for traffic reconfiguration and/or buy an already-appropriate parcel with adequate parking/traffic access.)

So a very common outcome for local zoning boards is that a local religious congregation applies and the zoning board says, "I'm sorry, but with your meeting times, size of congregation, and frequency of meetings, that parcel can't support an adequate parking lot and the entrance area would need major traffic reconfiguration -- extra lights, specialized cycles -- and we still would expect major traffic jams there, so we're denying a permit to build a religious building there." And religious congregations often grumble and complain they're being discriminated against, but the zoning board can hold up their traffic study and their other zoning decisions and say, "look, we're just not going to make people sit through six light cycles on an arterial road four times a week."

So let's say a local Muslim group wants to build a mosque on this parcel, and when the zoning board deliberates on it, one guy on the board says, "har har har, I sure am glad our zoning code lets us keep those Mohammedans out of our town! Good thing they can't find adequate parking!" That idiot has made it impossible to tell if the zoning board denied the request because of legitimate concerns about parking and traffic, or if they've denied it because they're bigots discriminating against a particular religion (/religion in general).

SCOTUS is saying that the behavior of the Civil Rights Commission makes it impossible to tell if they neutrally applied the law or if they used the law to forward their anti-religious animus. Having dealt with a lot of administrative law things over the years, professionalism in the administrative hearing board/officer is absolutely crucial to those systems functioning and I don't disagree with SCOTUS's finding here that the CRC's decision is undermined by their lack of professionalism in this case. However, like Kagan and Sotomayor, I think they could have also ruled on the merits. I assume they didn't because either they think Colorado can fix the problem on re-do and SCOTUS can avoid addressing the underlying issue, or they know it'll come back and they're hoping to punt until Trump is out of office. Roberts, for all he's a cultural warrior himself, does seem fairly aware that the country is balancing on a cultural war knife edge and he's tried to avoid his court making too many decisions that come down decisively on one side or the other.; in the present political climate, making rulings on "culture war" issues serves to undermine the Court's authority, because half the country thinks it's illegitimate no matter what it decides. I don't think punting and punting and punting is a great way to handle that, but it's not the worst way either, so.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:56 AM on June 5, 2018 [116 favorites]

zarq: But while his inability to control his id (and mouth) should be his fatal flaw, somehow it's not happening. If anything, his advisors and the GOP are enabling him. Hell, it seems as if he gets more popular the crazier, sleazier, stupider, dictatorial and more bigoted he gets.

Insight from Alexandra Erin:

Nobody outside Trump's highly compressed (i.e., small and dense) base actually believes Trump is doing a better job than any of those other presidents, nor that he's better for the country or the party.

If he were doing a better job... they'd be more critical of him. Because they'd feel free to criticize him. They'd know that they could do it without upsetting his (and thus, their) power base.

Early on in his regime, I was worried that Trump would create or take advantage of a disaster to harness the "Rally 'Round The Flag" effect.

What I am realizing is: Trump is the disaster.

Trump is so awful, so dangerous, so disastrous and destructive that he has put the party and the country into a crisis.

And in a crisis, you back the leader.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:59 AM on June 5, 2018 [32 favorites]

Axios: Putin brags of close Trump relationship

"Indeed, Donald Trump and I have, firstly, met more than once at various international venues and secondly, we regularly talk over the phone."

Regularly, eh?

Interviewer: "These so-called troll factories are owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin – you know him very well, he is referred to as “Putin’s chef”, since he caters for all your guests. Is it good that a person who maintains such close relations with the Russian leadership is managing troll factories?

Putin: "You have just said that Mr Prigozhin is referred to as “Putin’s chef”. Indeed, he runs a restaurant business, it is his job; he is a restaurant keeper in St Petersburg. But now let me ask you: do you really think that a person who is in the restaurant business, even if this person has some hacking opportunities and owns a private firm engaged in this activity – I do not even know what he does – could use it to sway elections in the United States or a European country? Could it be that the media and political standards in the countries of the consolidated West have been driven down to such a low level that a Russian restaurant keeper can sway voters in a European country or the United States? Isn’t it ridiculous?"

It's similarly ridiculous that lil' old chef Prigozhin would attack US forces with Russian mercenaries leading to the killing of hundreds of Russians, but here we are. Noteworthy also that he doesn't deny swaying the election, just that it reveals the rottenness of America. On that I agree.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:04 AM on June 5, 2018 [25 favorites]

One of the things that keeps tumbling through my head regarding the children in the Walmart/Detention center is-- do they ever see sunlight?
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:05 AM on June 5, 2018 [35 favorites]

One of the things that keeps tumbling through my head regarding the children in the Walmart/Detention center is-- do they ever see sunlight?

The question we should be asking is how do we make sure they ever see sunlight again.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:09 AM on June 5, 2018 [26 favorites]

"Indeed, Donald Trump and I have, firstly, met more than once at various international venues and secondly, we regularly talk over the phone."

Worst part about it is, it doesn't even matter if it's true! Trump loves talking about how much he talks to Putin, and now Putin is talking up their relationship, it almost doesn't matter if they do or don't actually talk.

Incidentally- I think, if I had to, I would say that the original sin of the Trump "administration" was his refusal to divest his business. Even if you believed he was an angel and could not be influenced by his business ties while in office, any public-minded president would have divested, because it would be in the best interests of the country. Period. It doesn't matter whether Trump is collecting emoluments- the appearance that he could be degrades our politics and our democracy. Weighing his personal wealth on one hand and the interests of the country on the other should not be a contest. But Trump decided, hey, he doesn't have to divest, so he won't.

The question isn't "is he or isn't he technically receiving emoluments", it's "does he care if it looks like he is", and the answer is no, he doesn't.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:13 AM on June 5, 2018 [16 favorites]

Family of Stoneman Douglas student advocate David Hogg 'swatted' at home

Just the attempted murder-by-cop of the family of a teenage gun-control advocate. This is, as they say, America.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:15 AM on June 5, 2018 [122 favorites]

The CEO of the non-profit (Southwest Key Programs) running the detention facility Sen. Merkley tried to visit is raking-in over $770K.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:17 AM on June 5, 2018 [10 favorites]

Just the attempted murder-by-cop of the family of a teenage gun-control advocate. This is, as they say, America.

The collective silence of gun owners that try and tell us they're reasonable while simultaneously joking about stuff like "truck control," hectoring us to respect gun culture, and whining about elitism is complicity, full stop.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:23 AM on June 5, 2018 [30 favorites]

Shouldn't swatting just come with a 5 prison sentence with no parole? There's no reason for anyone to ever do this. It's way beyond a reasonable "youthful indiscretion" and signifies a person who's not ready to be in society.
posted by freecellwizard at 7:44 AM on June 5, 2018 [60 favorites]

Shouldn't swatting just come with a 5 prison sentence with no parole?

At a minimum, there ARE laws about filing false reports that should be invoked.
posted by mikelieman at 7:48 AM on June 5, 2018 [17 favorites]

Although the supreme courts of these states generally tolerate reasonable rules to minimize the disruptions that protests can create, they generally strike down rules imposed to protect against a disruption unlikely to happen, to limit the content of a protest, or to avoid the backlash against an unpopular viewpoint.

Thanks to transcripts of NFL owners’ meetings and depositions taken in Colin Kaepernick’s collusion case against the league, there is no doubt that the NFL’s policy wasn’t adopted to minimize disruptive behavior. Rather, the purpose of the policy is to restrict the political content of players’ protests merely out of fear of how fans—or the president—will respond.

While this above is talking about state constitutions, this is basically always the balance you should be on the lookout for when talking about first amendment restrictions: time and place, and content neutral. For limitations to stand this is the bar they have to meet. It's why you can have restrictions on protest assemblies in government buildings, for example, despite them unquestionably being government property where the public is allowed. When you see those odious "free speech zones" that shuttle folks far past reasonable positioning for making public stinks, that's how they survive: by being ostensibly neutral about the content of the speech. If you never let people parade down main street then you don't have to let Illinois nazis parade down main street either. If you never put religious markers on the court lawn then you don't have to let Church of Satan do it. But if you open the door a crack to let someone in you have to let them all in.

I bang this drum because it's so topical in a number of ways. Not just about when the Supremes let speech restrictions survive, but also because of how this intent signaling bites other restrictions in the ass. As Eyebrows talked about above, whether the "restriction," as ridiculous as it is to call it an imposition for a business to take money to do what they're there to do, on the cake baker was actually neutral with regards to the baker's "speech" intents. Whether the travel ban is actually neutral with regards to religion.

It's also topical with regards to how a sane society would approach the 2nd amendment. The 1st isn't absolute, it just has to be even-handed in making restrictions for safety. Even Scalia, in Heller, couldn't pretend some restrictions couldn't be made. The fact that we don't have those restrictions is all about political will and I'm actually feeling glimmers of hope that the current motivated crowd and public opinion shift will let us acknowledge that "shall not be infringed" is not some magic twist on "make no law" that means the former is inviolate but the latter can be partially ignored.
posted by phearlez at 7:50 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

At a minimum, there ARE laws about filing false reports that should be invoked.

Seems to me it could be charged as a terrorist act, especially when directed at a political figure like Hogg.

ACLU:
Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52) expanded the definition of terrorism to cover "domestic," as opposed to international, terrorism. A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act "dangerous to human life" that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping. Additionally, the acts have to occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and if they do not, may be regarded as international terrorism.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:05 AM on June 5, 2018 [22 favorites]

Ted Cruz extruded a large and sloppy pile of tweets last night in an effort to explain his 18-second silence when asked if the president can pardon himself. In short, his answer has shifted from "[18 second pause]...I don't know" to "I don't know, also fuck you."

Some dishonest journalists have attacked me for "taking 18 seconds" to answer -- without acknowledging that I was walking through the Capitol, late to a meeting, and simply ignoring a question that a reporter had called out at me (as senators do every single day in the Capitol). When reporters chased me down the hall, and another asked the question again, I chose to answer.

Ever the victim, pursued by slavering reporterbeasts. Don't let 'em get you down, Ted.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:34 AM on June 5, 2018 [33 favorites]

Another appalling angle to the attempted swatting is that Hogg and his family are currently in DC receiving an award for his gun control activism named after a man assassinated with a gun, being presented by that man's widow. The message this sends is crystal clear.

This is America, indeed.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:34 AM on June 5, 2018 [25 favorites]

Charlottesville Hate Marcher Elected by Republican Party

They make no attempt to filter this shit and in fact select for it.
posted by Artw at 8:46 AM on June 5, 2018 [37 favorites]

The Atlantic has a good background on Paul Manafort:

Paul Manafort Loses His Cool

Edit to add: good background on the Hapsberg group
posted by Twain Device at 8:51 AM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

I think we’ve basically reached the point where they are pro-shooter now, and attacking the rest of us for being mean to the shooters with the culture wars playbook, and consequently about an inch away from being openly pro-mass shooting.

Why not? They're already far past the point where mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting (and not even counting those that aren't "mass" enough to make the national news) isn't enough for them to deny that they are perfectly willing to accept the shedding of innocent blood as the price of, and justification for, their talismans of magical thinking.

A gun in the house is much more likely to be used against the owner or a loved one than a criminal, yet the gun lobby has promoted a tribal fetish that it's about "protection." From whom, one might wonder. Except one probably doesn't have to wonder.
posted by Gelatin at 8:58 AM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

Now that Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is taking the gloves off. He sent out a series of inflammatory tweets on Sunday, one of which included a 27 year old self-quote re-affirming his pro-genocide position that Israel is a “malignant cancerous tumor” in the region that has to be "removed and eradicated."

@khamenei_ir: "Our stance against Israel is the same stance we have always taken. #Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor in the West Asian region that has to be removed and eradicated: it is possible and it will happen. 7/31/91 #GreatReturnMarch"

Israel responded with a gif from the movie "Mean Girls."

Khamenei then gave a speech yesterday marking the 29th anniversary of the death of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, announcing that he has "ordered Iran’s atomic energy agency to be prepared to upgrade our (uranium) enrichment capacity.” More from Reuters: ....Khamenei insisted on resisting U.S. pressure and again warned of a harsh response if Iran came under attack.

“Tehran will attack 10 times more if attacked by enemies ... The enemies don’t want an independent Iran in the region ... We will continue our support for oppressed nations,” Khamenei said.

Shi’ite Muslim Iran backs President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war, Shi’ite militias in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Yemen’s conflict and Lebanon’s heavily armed Hezbollah movement.

Khamenei also said Iran had no intention of curbing its influence in the Middle East as demanded by the Western powers and urged Arab youth to stand up to U.S. pressure.

“Young Arabs, you should take action and the initiative to control your own future ... Some regional countries act like their own people’s enemies,” he said.

posted by zarq at 9:00 AM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

They make no attempt to filter this shit and in fact select for it.

To be fair I've known a number of people who have run unopposed for Democratic Precinct Committee Person, not sure this is an endorsement of the state party.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:00 AM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

Another interesting wrinkle here is that there's a missing link here between Manafort and Person A (presumably Konstantin Kilimnik). Manafort made 8 contacts with Person D1, followed by Person A making 9 contacts with Person D2 and 1 with person D1.

Wouldn’t it be more likely that Person A - the “long time associate of Manafort” - is Rick Gates? We know he’s cooperating with Mueller.
posted by msalt at 9:14 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

To be fair I've known a number of people who have run unopposed for Democratic Precinct Committee Person

Yeah, most PCO seats are not even filled, it’s likely he saw one was open and just jumped in before the deadline while people had no idea.
posted by corb at 9:15 AM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

From that Slate NFL article linked above:

Forty years ago, the California Supreme Court interpreted this language to do what the U.S. Supreme Court would not do: Prevent the owners of a private shopping mall from kicking out protesters....

The New Jersey Supreme Court first announced this interpretation shortly before holding that Princeton University violated the state’s constitution when it fined an activist who wanted to protest on its private campus.

In neither of those cases, however, was the protester in question an employee of the private organization which sought to restrict speech on their property, which likely makes a difference.

If an employer were not allowed to restrict employees' speech on the job, then not only do you throw out the NFL policy, but also every standard NDA which an employee signs as part of their employment contract if they're privy to information which the company considers confidential. And James Damore (previously) would have a case against Google as a result of being fired for his speech.

Don't get me wrong, I think the NFL policy is reprehensible, but that article has not convinced me that it violates any state free speech clauses, as the article fails to cite any cases which would prohibit an employer from restricting employees' speech while on the job.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:16 AM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Just wait: Huckabee Sanders runs risk of being swept up in the Trump probe if she keep lying for him (CNN)
posted by growabrain at 9:24 AM on June 5, 2018 [41 favorites]

Slate: The NFL Anthem Policy Violates Several State Constitutions

Consider California—home of the Los Angeles Chargers, the Los Angeles Rams, the San Francisco 49ers, and for now at least, the Oakland Raiders. Unlike the First Amendment’s negative limit on state action, the California Constitution’s free speech clause affirmatively begins, “Every person may freely speak.” Forty years ago, the California Supreme Court interpreted this language to do what the U.S. Supreme Court would not do: Prevent the owners of a private shopping mall from kicking out protesters. Even the cautious U.S. Supreme Court enthusiastically affirmed this decision. It recognized that every state has the “sovereign right to adopt in its own Constitution individual liberties more expansive than those conferred by the Federal Constitution.”

Soldier Field in Chicago is not even privately owned. It is owned by the Chicago Park District. I've felt for a while that there should be much more pressure on the NFL on their public subsidy weaknesses particularly now that so much of professional sports has moved off of free broadcast TV to exclusive sports channels. It is much less of a public good these days as they are no longer honoring their half of the deal. They receive incredible subsidies because they ostensibly are "for the area" but these days with ticket prices in the thousands for playoffs, a focus on corporate boxes and the death of baseball's Bleacher Bum seats plus multi-thousand dollar cable plans for TV viewing increasingly leave the masses on the outside looking in. We don't even get our circuses anymore.
posted by srboisvert at 9:36 AM on June 5, 2018 [34 favorites]

Artw: Charlottesville Hate Marcher Elected by Republican Party

For anyone experiencing déjà vu, this is a different person from Arthur Jones, the neo-nazi who won an unopposed Republican primary in Illinois.

To its credit, in both instances, the party has denounced the candidate. (I was actually surprised they would disavow James Allsup, the Charlottesville marcher, since his white nationalism is almost subtle enough to fit Trumpian territory, but I guess they don't consider him a very fine person.)

DevilsAdvocate: Don't get me wrong, I think the NFL policy is reprehensible, but that article has not convinced me that it violates any state free speech clauses, as the article fails to cite any cases which would prohibit an employer from restricting employees' speech while on the job.

Yeah, I understand why this isn't usually how it's argued, but I'm willing to say flat out that the NFL policy is reprehensible primarily because police murdering black people is reprehensible, and while the principle of free expression is important, it's secondary in this instance. If this had all started with white players making a white-power hand gesture, then as far as I'm concerned the NFL could (within the bounds of contract law) establish new rules prohibiting that (although it probably would remain inappropriate for the government to shift its weight on the issue -- I'm not tossing the First Amendment out).
posted by InTheYear2017 at 9:40 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Tehran will attack 10 times more if attacked by enemies

That line feels familiar somehow...
posted by contraption at 9:41 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Superb catch by Adam Weinstein, via Twitter:

"presidential pardon power is not a constitutional area ted cruz has studied, with the exception of his 50-page article on 'the obama administration’s unprecedented lawlessness' in last april’s harvard journal of law and public policy"

LOL
posted by kelborel at 9:41 AM on June 5, 2018 [158 favorites]

Oh man. That's a great catch.
posted by zarq at 9:45 AM on June 5, 2018 [8 favorites]

Betsy DeVos: School safety commission won't focus on guns

“That is not part of the commission's charge, per se.”
posted by Artw at 9:59 AM on June 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

In fairness, it turns out the focus of the article was on Obama's alleged failure to take care that the laws be faithfully executed under Article II, sec 3 of the Constitution, and it only glancingly addresses the pardon power. See 38 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 63 (Winter, 2015).

However, it remains a sick burn and I do not retract my LOL.
posted by kelborel at 10:00 AM on June 5, 2018 [27 favorites]

AP: Iran has informed the U.N. nuclear watchdog that it will increase its nuclear enrichment capacity within the limits set by the 2015 agreement with world powers.

The Iran Project: As of today, they will "increase the capacity to produce uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a chemical compound which serves as feedstock for centrifuges."
posted by zarq at 10:01 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

We’re definitely going to talk about Puerto Rico, right? A nervous nation inquires. (Alexandra Petri, WaPo)

Sunday's All Things Considered on Sunday, June 3 was 90% Puerto Rico, 10% Virgin Islands. Much was on how the islands are preparing for the next storms, but there were also the human interest stories.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:03 AM on June 5, 2018 [17 favorites]

So Iran is playing out exactly the same as North Korea (and to a certain extent, Iraq and Syria), down to many of the same names being involved. Who could have seen this coming?

I mean, besides literally everyone involved in the regulatory process, the majority of the US diplomatic corps, experts in the intersection of nuclear warfare and geopolitics, anyone who paid attention to how the GOP has handled nuclear diplomacy since 9/11, and of course crazy (chicken)hawks worldwide that have been working very hard to bring us to this point.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:13 AM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

Political Wire quotes Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa calling Pruitt “about as swampy as you get."

Said Ernst: “He is about as swampy as you get here in Washington, D.C., and if the president wants to drain the swamp, he needs to take a look at his own cabinet.”

posted by Gelatin at 10:28 AM on June 5, 2018 [19 favorites]

Another fun detail is that this isn't the same aide who Pruitt had house-hunting and mattress-shopping for him -- it's her sister. Nepotism isn't just for Cabinet secretaries anymore!
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:29 AM on June 5, 2018 [17 favorites]

Scott Pruitt's crimes are so small and penny ante that I'm convinced he lacks both imagination and cash.
posted by notyou at 10:31 AM on June 5, 2018 [13 favorites]

Context on Ernst (and fellow Iowa GOP senator Charles Grassley being if anything even harsher): Pruitt has been siding with oil companies rather than farm interests in the endless fights over how to enforce the Renewable Fuel Standard, which is the law that requires blending gasoline with (largely corn-based) ethanol and other biofuels. EPA is putting together a short-term RFS reform plan that could come out as soon as today and by all reports the farm groups that drive Iowa politics are going to haaaaaaaaate it.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:32 AM on June 5, 2018 [16 favorites]

Judge: Trump can be deposed in Summer Zervos lawsuit

A judge ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump can be deposed in a defamation lawsuit brought last year by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on "The Apprentice” who says Trump kissed and groped her after she appeared on the show.

Zervos is one of more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of unwanted sexual contact. The president has vehemently denied all of the women’s claims, which he called “100 percent fabricated,” and he retweeted a tweet describing Zervos’s claim as a “hoax.” Zervos filed a defamation claim against Trump in January 2017 over those denials.
...
Trump could still avoid a deposition, though. His lawyers have appealed to New York's highest court in hopes of avoiding it.

posted by kirkaracha at 10:32 AM on June 5, 2018 [43 favorites]

And why exactly does his wife need help from her husband's connections opening a fast food franchise? She's not capable of doing it herself?
posted by Melismata at 10:38 AM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

Have we discussed the sketchiness of George Papadopoulos' wife Simona Mangiante? Josh Marshall just posted a TPM subscribers-only piece about her called "What The F Is Going On Here?" A snippet:

The upshot is that I talked to some very knowledgable people and from what I can tell it’s basically an open secret that no one thinks Simona Mangiante is Italian. Everyone thinks she’s Russian – press, law enforcement, basically everyone. But ‘think’ isn’t proof. I confirmed on good authority, for instance, that she travels on an Italian passport. It seems like her claim isn’t easily disproven. Even she says that no one seems to believe she’s Italian, but she is. WTF?

All of this might be just a weird curiosity if not for how the two met, or reportedly met. Simona Mangiante worked for Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese academic, who is reportedly a Russian agent and was the one who told Papadopoulos about the “dirt” Russia had on Hillary Clinton. Maybe that’s just a coincidence. But it raises some obvious questions and questions that become more pressing if Mangiante is somehow a Russian who is masquerading as an Italian national.

posted by Lyme Drop at 10:39 AM on June 5, 2018 [32 favorites]

A call was arranged, then canceled, and Pruitt eventually spoke with someone from the company’s legal department

Hey, at least one company paid some attention to its bribery/graft policies! That's a win for today!
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:41 AM on June 5, 2018 [17 favorites]

I wonder what would happen if Democrats representing vulnerable seats simply refused to go along with McConnell's shenanigans and didn't show up.

It doesn't look like Democrats could deny Republicans a quorum, although speaking of "historic obstruction," they could, and should, request a quorum call every day and not allow McConnell to proceed with a presumed quorum, as well as refusing to provide the unanimous consent on which the Senate relies for anything at all, even a vote to break for lunch.
posted by Gelatin at 10:41 AM on June 5, 2018 [41 favorites]

Not to downplay Icahn's shadiness, but it could also just be that in the two decades since Pruitt first won public office his lips have remained firmly and continuously affixed to the oil industry's collective butt.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:44 AM on June 5, 2018

Simona Mangiante worked for Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese academic, who is reportedly a Russian agent and was the one who told Papadopoulos about the “dirt” Russia had on Hillary Clinton.

Since Mifsud hasn't been seen since last Halloween there's some dispute about whether that "is" should be a "was."
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:45 AM on June 5, 2018 [13 favorites]

I wonder what would happen if Democrats representing vulnerable seats simply refused to go along with McConnell's shenanigans and didn't show up.

He'd probably use the opportunity to spring another Kill Your Constituents Act with a simple-majority vote.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:49 AM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

And why exactly does his wife need help from her husband's connections opening a fast food franchise?

Sadly I have firsthand experience, I worked there for 6 years in highschool and college and watched several people still in my contacts get their own stores. I have family that still work there. Chick-fil-a is actually really selective about who they offer franchises, you have to really love Jesus and really buy into their whole cult-like mentality. I don't have current figures or anything, but most of their franchises go to internal candidates that have worked their way up for years, going to corporate leadership trainings, doing national openings, volunteering at their creepy camp, etc. If you haven't been in their system, it's not easy to get a Chick-fil-a restaurant.

Also they fucking print money. I'm not sure anyone understands just how profitable a freestanding Chick-fil-a store is, they routinely gross 2-3+ million annually, which is several times more than most competition. They have people that literally sell their existing franchises with other brands to come work as assistant managers in hopes of getting a Chick-fil-a store.

All of that makes Pruitt trying to leverage his wife into one without going through the usual channels look MORE corrupt.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:51 AM on June 5, 2018 [92 favorites]

h/t Sarah Kendzior, Rep. Don Byer on Twitter:

Since we raised the issue of SF-86 omissions by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, reasons for concern about their suitability for security clearances have grown. Yet somehow both were granted clearances on the same day last month. We are demanding answers from the White House.

14 months ago @tedlieu @RepJerryNadler @RepRaskin @PeterWelch and I pointed out problems with Kushner's clearance forms - including omitted meetings with the Russian Ambassador - to the FBI, and asked that his clearance be revoked. 2/

As the revelations about Kushner's indiscretions grew, including the bombshell that he tried to set up a secret communication with the Kremlin, the calls for pulling his security clearance grew also. 3/

Jared Kushner's SF-86 omissions raised questions about similar omissions on the security clearance forms submitted by his wife and fellow White House adviser, Ivanka Trump. We put those questions directly to the White House. They never responded. 4/

It emerged that a federal investigation into Ivanka Trump for real estate fraud was dropped under strange circumstances. Trump and Kushner were also fined by the Office of Government Ethics because their ethics filings had big errors in the value of their jointly-held assets. 5/

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump also were revealed to have avoided public scrutiny by conducting official business using a private email server.
None of these issues stopped them from being granted clearances. We are asking the White House to explain why that is. 6/

Media reports citing sources close to Jared Kushner suggested that Kushner was cleared by "career" officials, without explanation. But the FBI told us that adjudications of security clearances for White House EOP staff are made by the White House. 7/

The SECRET Act, recently passed unanimously by Congress in the wake of the Rob Porter scandal, requires the White House to explain its security clearance process to Congress. We want them to explain how Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were granted security clearances. 8/8

posted by Dashy at 10:54 AM on June 5, 2018 [95 favorites]

Peter Beinart has an excellent analysis in the Atlantic of the history of US sanctions and their consequences. The essay examines Iran and how it has been and is likely to be affected in the future by sanctions.

"How Sanctions Feed Authoritarianism: Past experience shows that economic pressure does change societies—but it mostly facilitates hardliners. Iran’s regime may be next.": In 2003, American leaders fantasized about a liberal, democratic, non-expansionist Iraq only to find that America’s own sanctions policies had helped destroy that dream. Now another Republican administration—led by some of the same foreign-policy officials—is spinning similar visions about Iran. The Iranians most invested in that vision warn that America’s policies are making it impossible. And the Trump administration either doesn’t know or doesn’t care.

posted by zarq at 10:58 AM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

Dinesh D’Souza did a CNN interview, and this is the guy the President has seen fit to pardon:

Pointing out that D’Souza said that Trump pardoned him so he could be a voice for his principles, Camerota brought up his old tweets with “racist overtones,” including one in which he called Obama’s father “a philandering, inebriated African socialist.”

“I’m confused, what are the principles that you are hoping to be able to talk about now and spread?” Camerota asked.

“Obama’s father was a philandering, inebriated African socialist as a matter of fact,” D’Souza replied.

“Are you anti-philandering?” Camerota shot back.

After a pause, D’Souza protested, “look I’m not talking about this.”

Camerota again pressed the commentator if he was anti-philandering, but D’Souza refused to take the bait.

“I am trying to figure out what your principles are and they seem confusing,” Camerota said. “Because you are a supporter of the president and the idea that you would go after President Obama’s father for philandering and for being vulgar, that strikes some as hypocritical.”

“Why aren’t you speaking out about President Trump’s philandering?” she asked. “Why aren’t you speaking about out about his vulgarity?”

After a painful choke, D’Souza said his problem with Obama’s father was not his philandering, and that his remark was “not a sleazy attack on an individual.”

Camerota countered that D’Souza’s remark about Obama being from the “ghetto” was a “sleazy attack on an individual.”

D’Souza explained that Obama’s use of a selfie stick in the Oval Office was “degrading.”

posted by zachlipton at 11:07 AM on June 5, 2018 [137 favorites]

Have we discussed the sketchiness of George Papadopoulos' wife Simona Mangiante?

According to this article their relationship blossomed from "a flirtation that began on LinkedIn."

WTF? Who does this? This vexes me. I'm terribly vexed.
posted by zakur at 11:07 AM on June 5, 2018 [75 favorites]

RealClearPolitics has a transcript up of an interview by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt and AG Sessions. It ends: HH: Mr. Attorney General, are you a grandfather?

JS: Yes, I am.

HH: Can you imagine your grandchildren separated from your children for a period of 72 hours or even longer in a dormitory with up to, the deputy secretary told me, 1,000 other children and the impact on them of that?

JS: Hugh, you can’t, the United States can’t be a total guarantor that every parent who comes to the country unlawfully with a child is guaranteed that they won’t be, is guaranteed that they will be able to have their hand on that child the entire time. That’s just not the way it works.

posted by zarq at 11:09 AM on June 5, 2018 [28 favorites]

According to this article their relationship blossomed from "a flirtation that began on LinkedIn."

So people really are just acting out hackneyed movie plots? Because this really looks like ‘Russia uses attractive female spy to woo and marry young political professional they found online, as possible vector for surreptitious approach to U.S. presidential campaign’. Poor Papadopoulos, catfished into betraying his country, our national security compromised because he can’t get a date IRL and turned to LinkedIn instead....
posted by LooseFilter at 11:17 AM on June 5, 2018 [32 favorites]

This is your regular reminder that applying for asylum is a legal process. It is not entering the country unlawfully.
posted by Gelatin at 11:18 AM on June 5, 2018 [127 favorites]

Gizmodo, FCC Emails Show Agency Spread Lies to Bolster Dubious DDoS Attack Claims. In which the FCC's comment system can't keep up with John Oliver levels of traffic (I cannot believe that's an actual phrase), so they lie and say there's been a series of DDoS attacks rather than admit they can't handle the load, even claiming that the same thing happened in 2014 and former chair Tom Wheeler covered it up.

Michael Krigsman, a ZDNet columnist, went as far as encouraging the FCC to complain to his boss about his own colleague, who wrote a story about the FCC's refusal to provide any proof of an attack.
posted by zachlipton at 11:18 AM on June 5, 2018 [19 favorites]

That said, I wonder if they are cracking down so hard on people who immigrate with young children because they see the DACA endgame not working out in their favor? That young people who grew up knowing only the United States as their home may gain a pathway to citizenship despite the efforts of Trump and hardline Republicans?
posted by Gelatin at 11:20 AM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

Are there really that many serious primary challenges? My understanding was that the big shift was in people running against normally-uncontested Republican seats, not that elder Democrats were in trouble.

Many more Republican incumbents are being primaried. But some key Dems are being primaried as well. From Jan: 10 Democratic Primaries To Watch In 2018 and from Feb: Progressives storm Democratic primaries
posted by zarq at 11:23 AM on June 5, 2018

But Chick-fil-A does a different arrangement, where the franchisee puts up only $10,000 and the company then pays for all start up costs, including real estate, construction, equipment. For that $10,000 investment, the franchise owner then generally takes home six figures - personally - from each franchise.

Wow, that is REALLY messed up. The whole reason for companies to go with a franchise model over a corporate model is that they give up some control over the individual store operations but can dump a lot of the risk off to the franchisee.

The whole point of a franchise is that you can setup a successful business model but then don't have to buy some or all of the stuff it takes to get a new location up and running. Most of the risk falls on the franchisee but it's offset by whatever corporate support they give (some, like McDonalds, provide kind of a lot others basically just let you slap their name on the building).

I don't know that I'd call what Chick-Fil-A does a franchise model and I'd be curious to hear about how much independence from their corporate overlords franchisees really have once they've gotten their store up and running though that discussion probably isn't really relevant to the thread.
posted by VTX at 11:23 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

According to this article their relationship blossomed from "a flirtation that began on LinkedIn."

WTF? Who does this? This vexes me. I'm terribly vexed.

In a nutshell, men with no boundaries, who don't see any problem using a tool designed exclusively for professional networking opportunities as a way to pick up women. Why yes I have met people like this, and it is not a character flaw limited to their online dating appetites, why do you ask?

The fact that he fell directly into the Russians' honeypot while being a loathsome man with no personal/professional boundaries is just further proof that the writers ran out of ideas eighteen months ago, and are just phoning it in while the royalty checks continue to clear.
posted by Mayor West at 11:25 AM on June 5, 2018 [37 favorites]

Meeting on LinkedIn? Yuk. When I go on LinkedIn, I'm looking for interview proposals, not date proposals! (Or MLM proposals; TBH I don't know what is worse!) I have to wonder if that was a catfish. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist!

Gelatin: That said, I wonder if they are cracking down so hard on people who immigrate with young children because they see the DACA endgame not working out in their favor? That young people who grew up knowing only the United States as their home may gain a pathway to citizenship despite the efforts of Trump and hardline Republicans?

Aaaannnnd, many, if not most, of these young people grow up to be Democrats. The Republicans are catering hard to older, richer, white people, which is a losing game unless they start disenfranchising voters left and right. The numbers are not in the R's favor, so they need to cheat.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:27 AM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

Hugh, you can’t, the United States can’t be a total guarantor that every parent who comes to the country unlawfully with a child is guaranteed that they won’t be, is guaranteed that they will be able to have their hand on that child the entire time. That’s just not the way it works.

Sessions is manifestly incapable not only of empathizing with the parents, but also cannot for a moment consider the children as human beings with human requirements for well-being. In his mind the children go to Kelly's-Or-Whatever and that's that, sins of the fathers, you know. The egregious diminishing of the actual atrocity here, with "taking children away and making them disappear indefinitely into defunct wal-marts" transmuted into "these illegals are bitching about not being able to literally have constant physical contact with their whelps" is a window into the sociopathy of Jeff and the rest.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:27 AM on June 5, 2018 [44 favorites]

By the way, note the interesting pivot Sessions makes mid comment:

JS: Hugh, you can’t, the United States can’t be a total guarantor that every parent who comes to the country unlawfully with a child is guaranteed that they won’t be, is guaranteed that they will be able to have their hand on that child the entire time. That’s just not the way it works.

It's almost as if he was about to say that the United States couldn't guarantee that the children of immigrants won't be shipped off to concentration camps, when it certainly could. And note also that he dishonestly rephrases Hewitt's scenario of "separated from your children for a period of 72 hours or even longer in a dormitory with up to ... 1,000 other children" to "have your hand on that child the entire time." Reprehensible, even from someone considered by his fellow Senators as too racist to be confirmed as a Federal judge.
posted by Gelatin at 11:30 AM on June 5, 2018 [24 favorites]

Some Minnesota Elections Brou-ha-ha:

Congressperson Keith Ellison (MN-5) has announced his candidacy to be the Attorney General of Minnesota. (twitter link to announcement) He will not be endorsing a candidate for the MN-5 congressional seat that he is vacating. However, MN-5, which includes Minneapolis and a few nearby 'burbs, has been a very blue district since the 1960's.

The DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) Party has endorsed Erin Murphy (and running mate Erin Maye Quade) for Governor. Current MN Attorney General Lori Swanson (and running mate current MN-8 Congressperson Rick Nolan) and current MN-2 Congressperson Tim Walz will force a DFL primary in August. Everybody's got an opinion about the importance of the DFL endorsement and whether or not forcing a primary is a good thing, but it will happen.

The GOP has endorsed Jeff Johnson, but the elephant in the room (ha) is that Tim Pawlenty has decided to skip the convention and go straight to the primary to get his old job back. He was governor from '04-'11 and since then has run for president and has been working as a lobbyist for Wall Street on Capitol Hill.
posted by Elly Vortex at 11:32 AM on June 5, 2018 [10 favorites]

CNN: Alex van der Zwaan, only person to serve time in Mueller investigation, deported

They've got to go back, folks.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:34 AM on June 5, 2018 [17 favorites]

Aaaannnnd, many, if not most, of these young people grow up to be Democrats. The Republicans are catering hard to older, richer, white people, which is a losing game unless they start disenfranchising voters left and right. The numbers are not in the R's favor, so they need to cheat.

I'll point out that as late as the election of 2000, Republicans considered the Latino vote absolutely gettable -- George W. Bush presented himself as speaking Spanish, and his party had not yet written off that demographic at all. Much opinion was spouted about the social conservatism of many Latinos, for example, to which Republicans could presumably appeal. But even he could not get an immigration bill past his own party, for whom the word "amnesty" has been weaponized into meaning anything less than mass deportation in chains, to say nothing an increasing embrace of overt racism. After that, it's small wonder Republican strategist consider the demographic lost, and so -- as they so frequently need to do, given the unpopularity of their agenda -- need to cheat.
posted by Gelatin at 11:36 AM on June 5, 2018 [12 favorites]

WaPo, Trump fixates on pardons, could soon give reprieve to 63-year-old woman after meeting with Kim Kardashian

President Trump is privately telling aides that he is strongly considering pardoning Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old woman serving a life sentence, after meeting with Kim Kardashian to discuss her case, as he becomes increasingly fixated on his ability to issue pardons.

The pardon for Johnson could come as early as Tuesday, and the paperwork was being finalized Tuesday morning, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Trump’s aides and associates see Kardashian’s celebrity imprimatur as crucial and alluring to the president.

But the potential pardon of Johnson has caused consternation in the West Wing, with top advisers — including chief of staff John F. Kelly and White House counsel Donald McGahn — disturbed by the process, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

Kelly has reviewed Johnson’s background and her 1996 conviction — she was sentenced to life in prison on drug possession and money laundering charges — and is not convinced she deserves a pardon, an administration official said. And McGahn has also argued against the possible pardon as an unnecessary action by the president, a second official said.
...
Trump has recently become intensely focused on his ability to grant pardons, asking his lawyers to compile a list of candidates. A White House official this week said Trump is “obsessed” with pardons, describing them as the president’s new “favorite thing” to talk about. He may sign a dozen or more in the next two months, this person added.
...
The White House is also now weighing whether to grant a presidential pardon to two ranchers from eastern Oregon, Dwight and Steven Hammond, whose 2016 imprisonment on arson charges inspired the 41 day-armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Ranching and farming groups, as well as some militia adherents, have pushed for clemency to send a signal that federal officials won’t engage in overreach out West.

He's reportedly asking his friends who else he should pardon too. I'm inclined to think Johnson deserves a pardon, as do thousands of other people who don't have celebrities to champion their cause personally to the President. But it's also clear that he's come to realize that pardons are one of the few things that actually work like how he thought all presidenting works: you order something and, poof, they're letting someone out of prison. And as he realizes the obvious connection between that power and the investigation that's swallowing up everyone he touches, he's just going to be even more obsessed with it.

And it's distressing that the reporting here doesn't emphasize the lack of process. There is a pardon process in this country, with guidelines and application forms and review by lawyers. And the people using that process deserve a chance, even if they aren't close to one of Trump's friends.
posted by zachlipton at 11:38 AM on June 5, 2018 [46 favorites]

(To say nothing of simple human compassion.)
posted by Sys Rq at 11:44 AM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

Some Minnesota Elections Brou-ha-ha

Gotta be honest, I'm baffled and a little bit repelled by a lot of aspects of the Rolling Clusterfuck of Minnesota Democratic Politics right now. Walz sidestepping the endorsement was kind of gross but I guess understandable from an "insatiable hunger to win" perspective. Swanson hopping into the gov race like she did was even grosser, and I guess more insatiable. I don't understand Ellison's move at all; if we're in an existential fight for the future of the republic, as he's been saying, I just don't get leaving a position with a fairly high national profile to become a state-level elected official. And the clown car of filings to replace him in MN-5 (just the clown car of filings in general; Mike Hatch is back?) is just dispiriting.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 11:45 AM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

Does Trump think that if he pardons a bunch of people, him pardoning himself or other Russiagate conspirators will get lost in the shuffle?

Though in truth, I don't doubt that with few actual legislative achievements and his agenda on permanent hold in Congress, the more-or-less unilateral nature of the pardon power appeals to him. (Of course it isn't unilateral; there's a process, which of course he's abusing.)

Still, I am reminded of the scene in Schindler's List when the eponymous hero tries to talk monstrous commandant Goeth into being more merciful by describing the power inherent in pardoning someone. And it's notable that whatever temporary feelings of mercy Schindler may have kindled didn't last very long before Goeth was back to his bloodthirsty ways.
posted by Gelatin at 11:47 AM on June 5, 2018

@ewstephe: "I'm an honest person" - @PressSec on whether her August comments about the Air Force One statement were accurate

She still has no comment on why she said Trump didn't dictate the Don Jr. statement when the legal team says he did.

She now says "my credibility is probably higher than the medias" and "I think if you spent a little more time trying to report the news instead of tearing me down," you'd do a better job.
posted by zachlipton at 11:49 AM on June 5, 2018 [18 favorites]

another day another shambolic WH press briefing.

Chris Geidner tweeting: Press Sec refuses to answer questins about her own Aug 2017 statement about Don Jrs Trump Tower meeting statement and the presidents role in creating Don Jrs statement

"you said something from the podium, was it accurate or not?" @jdawsey1 asks.

Again, Press Sec will not answer.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:49 AM on June 5, 2018 [25 favorites]

(Of course it isn't unilateral; there's a process, which of course he's abusing.)

He's obviously abusing the pardon power, but he's not really abusing the process, exactly. The process is there to help the President make just decisions. Since he doesn't believe in process, he finds it superfluous. The process is not not proscribed by law or Constitution. It was set up by the Executive, and it can just as easily be ignored by it. Arguably, there could be a better process than there was! But he's just taking a dump all over it. Which, you know, is bad. But the underlying actual pardon power is very close to unilateral.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:53 AM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

She now says "my credibility is probably higher than the medias" and "I think if you spent a little more time trying to report the news instead of tearing me down," you'd do a better job.

"Probably"?! Way to hedge your bet there, Sanders.

Notice also how she pretends that her dishonesty isn't a major obstacle to reporting the news, though she fully intends it to be.

I think Harry Truman had a relevant observation regarding the ambient temperature of the food preparation area.
posted by Gelatin at 11:53 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

I don't know how many of you listened to The Weeds but this week they talked about this child separation atrocity and apparently the subtextual belief among the whackadoos now running the country is that most of the families coming to the border are not real families. They think they're all traffickers and the kids aren't their own kids. So as far as they are concerned, they aren't separating families, they're breaking up criminal conspiracies that include children.

I've written about this at some length before, but I challenge one of these walking piles of dog excrement to come to the (heavily Hispanic, largely first-generation) school where my wife is principal, and explain that no, the parents these kids love and are terrified to lose are actually vicious human traffickers and all-around bad dudes, and we have to get them out of here before they commit further atrocities like getting their GEDs or finding a job with earlier hours so they can go to their kids' dance recital.

I relish not only the thought of seeing one of them twisting in the wind when their genocidal madness meets tangible reality, but also at the thought that these kids have seen some shit, and will let fly with both barrels in a way I can't do justice here.
posted by Mayor West at 11:57 AM on June 5, 2018 [19 favorites]

Dara Lind, with the latest on immigration, Trump keeps making it harder for people to seek asylum legally

Is there still a “right way” to seek asylum in the US?

The Trump administration’s tactics at the border — both the ones it’s announced and bragged about officially and the ones that lawyers, advocates, and journalists have witnessed — add up to a picture that makes it hard to say, for sure, that someone with a legitimate need for humanitarian protection will be able to enter the US safely.

If an asylum seeker enters the US illegally, she’ll be referred for prosecution and put in jail. Her children will be taken from her with a promise of reunification once she’s served her sentence — a promise whose fulfillment is up to the already overwhelmed Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is struggling to house and keep track of the immigrant children it already has.

But if an asylum seeker tries to enter the US legally, at a port of entry, she may not fare any better. Some asylum seekers have been separated from their children at ports of entry, though advocates don’t believe it’s happening systematically. The Trump administration has promised to prosecute anyone who submits a “fraudulent” asylum claim — and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made it clear that he suspects many, if not most, asylum claims are fraudulent.

She may not be allowed to enter legally at all. She might be turned back one or more times, told there’s no room for her today. She might be told there’s no room for her at this port of entry at all, or that the US isn’t taking refugees anymore, or that she’s not allowed to apply for asylum unless she registers with the Mexican government first. She might be blocked from setting foot on US soil, depriving her of even the nominal right to claim asylum in the US.

posted by zachlipton at 11:58 AM on June 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

> gun owners that try and tell us they're reasonable while simultaneously joking about stuff like "truck control,"

Just for anyone not up on this, the typical argument of the gun supporter who brings this up is something like: "If that psychopath had...driven a truck into that crowd and killed 100 people would we be talking about truck control?"

And the answer of course a resounding YES, WE DO and WE ARE!

Trucks, cars, etc are indeed extremely useful tools but they are also, simultaneously very dangerous--killing over a million and serious injuring over 20 million people annually puts traffic injuries and fatalities as among the leading causes of disability and premature death globally.

And so in fact every country in the world takes serious steps towards "truck control" including registration, licensing, training, insurance requirements, many law regulating use, etc etc etc. Some of the fatalities are intentional, most are unintentional. It doesn't matter--we take reasonable steps to reduce both types.

And in fact, many reasonable people across the world think we should take "dangerous vehicle control" to the next level and do what we need to in order to actually eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries.

And why not? Why would we not work to eliminate unnecessary fatalities and injuries, especially if we can do so while retaining almost all of the usefulness of the underlying technology?

> A gun in the house is much more likely to be used against the owner or a loved one than a criminal, yet the gun lobby has promoted a tribal fetish that it's about "protection."

It's interesting to see the fantasy of the hero gunman riding in to kill the bad guy and save the day playing out in the real world situation of the poor Stoneman Douglas resource officer. He is getting all the blame--both from himself and others--for not being the hero good guy with a gun that everyone--again, including the resource officer himself--dreams of.

He's being judged not against the norm of regular human behavior, or even well-trained law enforcement officer behavior, but against some kind of impossible myth we've created about how these situations should play out if armed and trained people are (semi) nearby.

(FWIW if you read the article linked above, it is clear that by the time the officer received the radio call of "possible firecrackers," traveled across campus to reach the area where the firecrackers were reported, heard a couple of possible shots whose origin was impossible to determine, and called in the report of the shots (or was it firecrackers? he wasn't sure at the time) and to shut down the school, 11 victims were already dead. He spent two minutes trying to size up the situation and figure out where the shots were coming from and by that time all the remaining victims were dead. Even if he had immediately rushed somewhere, it was very unclear where the 'somewhere' should have been, and the chance of him encountering the shooter even if he had been rushing around randomly in that two-minute period are pretty much nil.

In short this was a typical 'combat' type situation where information is extremely ambiguous and everything is playing out very quickly over a very short time frame. Given time, information, and communication you could eventually figure it out but you don't have any of the three.

Yet, we expect superhuman knowledge, perception, and response. And we respond with dripping bucketloads of blame when it is not forthcoming as expected.)
posted by flug at 11:59 AM on June 5, 2018 [80 favorites]

@jbendery: Q: So Trump supports a cake baker's right to free speech, but not an NFL player's right?
Sarah Sanders: "The president doesn't think this is an issue simply of free speech. He thinks it's about respecting the men & women of our military, it's about respecting our natl anthem."

That's a fascinating definition of free speech where the President gets to decide what counts as speech.

Anyway, he's now explaining why everyone should stand for the anthem, reading a bunch of words he's clearly never seen before.
posted by zachlipton at 12:04 PM on June 5, 2018 [42 favorites]

She now says "my credibility is probably higher than the medias" and "I think if you spent a little more time trying to report the news instead of tearing me down," you'd do a better job.

Every moment they spend sitting in that room with her proves her right. There's zero reason for any respectable media outlet to still be wasting time at these briefings, especially if they're not going to simply repeat the last question she won't answer until she does. When she lies, they should only ask the same question until she ends the briefing or changes her answer. Allowing her to move on and then reprinting her lies is collaboration.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:05 PM on June 5, 2018 [42 favorites]

Sarah Sanders: "The president doesn't think this is an issue simply of free speech. He thinks it's about respecting the men & women of our military, it's about respecting our natl anthem."

That's a fascinating definition of free speech where the President gets to decide what counts as speech.

Not only that, but the national anthem is a song honoring our nation, not just the military. It has nothing to do with honoring the military at all, and if Trump thinks so, he's dangerously wrongheaded and someone should tell Sanders so and shame on her for suggesting it.
posted by Gelatin at 12:08 PM on June 5, 2018 [32 favorites]

But it's also clear that he's come to realize that pardons are one of the few things that actually work like how he thought all presidenting works: you order something and, poof, they're letting someone out of prison.

Relatedly: have we seen fewer Executive Orders issued recently? Those have a similarly alluring "THIS IS MY PRESIDENTIAL COMMAND MAKE IT SO" quality but I suspect he's become quite disillusioned with how many of them immediately get tied up in court challenges.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:08 PM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

This is kind of amazing. These people were hoping to see their favorite football team, and instead they got a four minute speech in which Trump spoke for dead soldiers and delivered patriotic platitudes and then they got their fill of Sousa marches while Trump wandered around shaking some hands. Trump stayed maybe 10 minutes before wandering off back to the White House sometime in the middle of The Stars and Stripes Forever.

What is even happening?
posted by zachlipton at 12:11 PM on June 5, 2018 [24 favorites]

Not only that, but the national anthem is a song honoring our nation, not just the military. It has nothing to do with honoring the military at all, and if Trump thinks so, he's dangerously wrongheaded and someone should tell Sanders so and shame on her for suggesting it.

Sure it is. It’s about how much they sucked at defending Baltimore during the War of 1812.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:14 PM on June 5, 2018 [23 favorites]

The anthem thing is so dumb but also really sinister. I've struggled quite a bit over what to do when it played at my univ's last two commencements, but this latest set of decrees from a fucking despot to rise in keeping with his tyrannical fake blather about "respect" has made it crystal clear that I need to stay seated or take a knee from now on. However everybody else chooses to express themselves is fine, but all Americans of good conscience should think long and hard about what they want to endorse and enable here.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:16 PM on June 5, 2018 [54 favorites]

German politicians call on US to withdraw ambassador
Richard Grenell under fire for saying he’ll seek to ’empower’ anti-establishment parties across Europe.
The US ambassador to Germany was on Tuesday accused of attempting to act as a rival to Angela Merkel after it emerged he had invited the Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz to a meeting during his visit to Berlin next week.
Meanwhile he has recently met with Netanyahu.
posted by adamvasco at 12:20 PM on June 5, 2018 [32 favorites]

Dispatches from the Hooray for America celebration on the lawn:

"I’ve asked 6 of the “fans” at the White House who was the @Eagles quarterback during the super bowl. Not ONE person knew." - Tim Furlong, NBC

"Breaking: Reporters on the South Lawn have confirmed the @realDonaldTrump was heckled and booed when he came out to celebrate America." - April D. Ryan

lol
posted by marshmallow peep at 12:20 PM on June 5, 2018 [86 favorites]

Meanwhile he has recently met with Netanyahu.

I'm curious to know why you included this.
posted by zarq at 12:27 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

@AP_Politics: Government says Medicare will become insolvent in 2026, three years earlier than expected, Social Security to follow in 2034.

Al Gore tried to tell us, but everyone was too busy mocking his debate performance to listen to his plan to fix it. And then we've done fuck all since then.
posted by zachlipton at 12:27 PM on June 5, 2018 [31 favorites]

I'm curious to know why you included this.

Is it common for an ambassador to hold meetings with heads of state outside their portfolio?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:29 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

"Breaking: Reporters on the South Lawn have confirmed the @realDonaldTrump was heckled and booed when he came out to celebrate America." - April D. Ryan

@NoahGrayCNN: This is not true. There was a protester who shouted at Trump and was booed.

And here's Trump forgetting the words to God Bless America.

I can't believe he didn't last 10 minutes at his stupid patriotic ceremony.
posted by zachlipton at 12:30 PM on June 5, 2018 [30 favorites]

8th-graders given bulletproof backpack plates as graduation gifts.
This. Is. America.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:33 PM on June 5, 2018 [29 favorites]

Is it okay to talk about Melania Trump's disappearance yet? The Washington Post thinks so.
posted by rikschell at 12:34 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

I looked around and just took a knee. Join me, white people.

Looks like this guy at the White House followed your advice, as captured by a Sweedish TV reporter. Bravo!
posted by zachlipton at 12:34 PM on June 5, 2018 [26 favorites]

It has nothing to do with honoring the military at all, and if Trump thinks so, he's dangerously wrongheaded and someone should tell Sanders so and shame on her for suggesting it.

Can we please, please, please not do this thing where Trump and his horcruxes get to define issues by coming down on one side or the other of them?

The National Anthem has significant meaning to the military, military members, and veterans who go to war with that flag on their shoulder, and whose coffin is covered by that flag when they die. They are not the only people it is significant to, but it doesn't mean that members of the military do not have deep (and often complicated) feelings about the anthem and the flag, or that many civilians do not stand for the flag as a part of honoring the military for whom the flag is so deeply entwined with the lives they often give in their nation's service.

And yes, I do find people sitting for the anthem that has so much meaning disrespectful. But the national anthem controversy is not and should never be 'is it respectful or not to stand for the flag'. The point of the national anthem controversy is that respect for the flag is not truly respect if you're not going to honor the principles and nation that raised it. So yeah, I would like everyone to stand for the flag in my perfect world, but also standing for the flag means standing for people's right to do things that I find disrespectful because goddammit we are a free country and better men than me died to make it so. And if you're standing for the flag but refusing to stand up for people who break your hearts by disrespecting it, that is what's wrong. Not saying that honoring the flag honors the military.
posted by corb at 12:34 PM on June 5, 2018 [25 favorites]

April Ryans tweet is half true (which is more than you can say for most of what Sarah Sanders says): Trump WAS heckled, then the heckler was booed.

Im also curious about the phrasing "forgetting the words" to God Bless America or as Deadspin put it "unable to remember words" - is there any compelling reason to believe he ever knew them? in that Deadspin tweet which is a close up on his face during the song the only fucking words he knows are "to the praries" and "god bless America"
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:34 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

And here's Trump forgetting the words to God Bless America.
I can't believe he didn't last 10 minutes at his stupid patriotic ceremony.

As delicious as this may be, it's God Bless America, not the National Anthem. I honestly doubt too many people can get more than four lines in before getting lost.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:39 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

I don't think it's really unreasonable to expect that the guy who threw a fit because not enough football players wanted to come to his party and demanded people appear before him to sing patriotic songs know the words to some patriotic songs, at least the two being sung at his event.
posted by zachlipton at 12:46 PM on June 5, 2018 [72 favorites]

> German politicians call on US to withdraw ambassador - Richard Grenell under fire for saying he’ll seek to ’empower’ anti-establishment parties across Europe.

Interesting . . . one of my Republican friends here in Missouri, formerly a very high profile office-holder at the state level, recently tweeted a series of links to news stories talking about the rise of far-right parties across Europe.

Maybe I'm mis-reading, but my sense was that it was a bit of boosterism, and "Look how awesome right-wing politics like ours are doing across the world. Trump is really lighting a far under our kind of people at home and abroad!"

But if you actually bother the read the articles--we're talking about far-right extremist, racist parties here. Nationalist, white nationalist, anti-immigrant, neo-facist. That's our spectrum.

Not the right-most 50% of the general population--the rightmost 5-10% who would quite literally burn things down if they could.

And just to be clear: When Grenell says he'll "’empower’ anti-establishment parties across Europe" that's exactly the type of parties he is talking about.

That's who we're jumping in bed with now?
posted by flug at 12:47 PM on June 5, 2018 [18 favorites]

I looked around and just took a knee. Join me, white people.

Looks like this guy at the White House followed your advice, as captured by a Sweedish TV reporter. Bravo!

I also really appreciated this followup tweet by Kim Kelly.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:53 PM on June 5, 2018 [33 favorites]

How a Ragtag Group of Socialist Filmmakers Produced One of the Most Viral Campaign Ads of 2018 ( Via BB)
posted by growabrain at 12:54 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

Some interesting context from the New Republic on Ellison's decision to leave Congress and run for AG.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:58 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

Couple deleted; let's call it good on this "does he know the words"/"how does this public appearance showcase yet again that he sucks in all the ways we know he sucks", theme. We know. If there's nothing going on, we can just pause and have the thread be quiet for a bit, and people can go look at something else -- e.g. 1, 2, 3.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:59 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

flug: And just to be clear: When Grenell says he'll "’empower’ anti-establishment parties across Europe" that's exactly the type of parties he is talking about.

Yup. Angela Merkel, Malcolm Turnbull, Theresa May, and Emmanuel Macron have each received Trump's ire at various times, and are all nominally right-of-center in their own countries' politics (excepting Macron if we only measure in terms of their most recent electoral opponents, but I don't). On first principles he should get along with all of them, especially Turnbull and May. But instead, which sort of world leaders haven't gotten a tongue lashing? The ones extreme enough to be totalitarian, e.g Duterte, Erdogan, and of course Putin.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 12:59 PM on June 5, 2018 [13 favorites]

Is it common for an ambassador to hold meetings with heads of state outside their portfolio?

Not common, no. I mean, does it happen? Sure.

But this was apparently a brief "courtesy" meeting at the airport that turned into a quick handshake, so it's not like it's particularly earthshaking.
posted by zarq at 1:01 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

> The National Anthem has significant meaning to the military, military members, and veterans who go to war with that flag on their shoulder, and whose coffin is covered by that flag when they die.

Unless I missed something, this sentence illustrates the problem perfectly. It begins by mentioning about the meaning of the national anthem, then jumps straight over to "that flag." What does "that" in "that flag" refer to, if not the national anthem?

The national anthem is not the flag, and while your error may just be a coincidence, whether intentional or not this is EXACTLY what Kap critics do to denigrate him and the protests in general.
posted by rhizome at 1:06 PM on June 5, 2018 [47 favorites]

Yeah there's a weird conflation of the anthem with the pledge of allegiance and it's not great.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:09 PM on June 5, 2018 [26 favorites]

I agree with rhizome's point that the national anthem is not the flag, but "The Star Spangled Banner" is about that flag that the military wears, etc.
posted by emelenjr at 1:10 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

the phlegmatic king: "Gotta be honest, I'm baffled and a little bit repelled by a lot of aspects of the Rolling Clusterfuck of Minnesota Democratic Politics right now. "

No kidding, I've started and given up on writing something several times. Everything is going crazy town.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:15 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

The Star-Spangled Banner is about the flag the same way the flag is about freedom: as a symbol and not the thing itself.

The history of people fighting over the proper deference to symbols is not a pretty one.
posted by rhizome at 1:15 PM on June 5, 2018 [22 favorites]

"The Star Spangled Banner" is about that flag that the military wears, etc.

The military wears a lot of things. We don't stand up and sing songs about the Universal Camouflage Pattern.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:15 PM on June 5, 2018 [43 favorites]

I don’t stand for the flag or the anthem because I’m a Christian and I think it’s idolatrous. I kneel and say the Apostles’ Creed quietly—or louder if someone gives me crap about it. Now that it’s a statement against Trump, that’s just a nice bonus.
posted by EarBucket at 1:15 PM on June 5, 2018 [30 favorites]

After another press briefing in which @PressSec dodges questions about the reliability of Trump's various public statements, a reporter shouts one final question as Sanders retreats from the podium (34:40): "What color is the sky in the President's world?"
posted by Chrysostom at 1:22 PM on June 5, 2018 [76 favorites]

And really, either way I'm not particularly jazzed about the expectations of deference and support for a tool of violent imperialism.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:24 PM on June 5, 2018 [42 favorites]

And of course, the inclusion of "God Bless America" in the first place is perfectly dissonant. Kevin Baron:

Trump now singing God Bless America, written by Ирвинг Берлин, an immigrant Russian Jew also known as Israel Beilin, and later known as Irving Berlin. He arrived at age 5 with his parents, fleeing the pogroms.

Luckily, border control didn't separate him from his parents.

posted by FelliniBlank at 1:34 PM on June 5, 2018 [106 favorites]

The history of people fighting over the proper deference to symbols is not a pretty one.

Enforced deference is the best kind of deference.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:39 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

We don't stand up and sing songs about the Universal Camouflage Pattern.

Well, we do, but you can't see us.
posted by banshee at 1:42 PM on June 5, 2018 [146 favorites]

We don’t *actually* have to honor our military, nor demonstrate deference to them. I don’t care if the flag has significant meaning to military members. They are entitled to determine the significance that the flag has to them, but so do I. It has a significant meaning to me too, concerning the principles this country is supposed to stand for, and if I decide to signal that I disagree with the direction this country is going and make a demonstration of one, then I am doing exactly what I should be doing as a citizen of the US. The military and its supporters absolutely do not and have no right to expect to dictate to me how I should behave in regard to the flag because of their choice in vocation. The First Amendment expressly gives me the right to freely criticize the government.

And quite frankly I don’t think either the Pledge of Allegience or standing for the flag should be a thing. It’s weird. We shouldn’t be pledging allegience to any symbol or nation or government, specifically because when a government goes off the rails, pressure from citizens to “respect the flag” and other jingoistic claptrap makes it that much harder to remove problematic leaders and reverse direction. We should be able to evolve as a nation and not turn our flag and Constitution into unchangeable sacred symbols that can never be criticized or further amended.
posted by Autumnheart at 1:43 PM on June 5, 2018 [158 favorites]

respect for the flag is not truly respect if you're not going to honor the principles and nation that raised it

The principle that must be honored is that people can do whatever the hell they want to do the anthem is playing. Stand. Sit. Take a leak. Check email. The principle is freedom and liberty. And performative anything is disrespectful to THAT.
posted by mikelieman at 1:46 PM on June 5, 2018 [26 favorites]

zarq: "Many more Republican incumbents are being primaried. But some key Dems are being primaried as well. From Jan: 10 Democratic Primaries To Watch In 2018 and from Feb: Progressives storm Democratic primaries"

Your original question was, "How important is Congressional seniority in the greater scheme of things? Lots of Progressives are running this year and may supplant senior Democrats. Will the loss of seniority be a problem?"

I think the seniority question was answered already - it's important to a given *constituency*, but not necessarily to the party overall, because you get x number of seats on committees regardless. But I want to push back on the premise of lots of progressives may primary out current Dems with lots of tenure, because I don't that that's accurate.

Looking at the articles you linked - of the seats mentioned as 10 primaries to watch, eight were either not Congress, were open seats, or were a GOP-held seat. One was for a House seat in IL (this attempt failed), one is Diane Feinstein (this is very likely to fail). The Politico article does mention some actual examples - the two failed attempts in IL, and six between MA and NY. That's not that many, honestly.

Sorry if this comes off as pedantic. But I think what's clearly happening is lots of progressives are running this year, but relatively few of them are doing so to primary out sitting Congressional Dems. And most of those attempts probably will not succeed, mainly because it's a hard thing to do-only one GOP House member has lost in the primary so far. So any concern re: seniority is misplaced, I think.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:49 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Gotta be honest, I'm baffled and a little bit repelled by a lot of aspects of the Rolling Clusterfuck of Minnesota Democratic Politics right now.

I'm going to give Keith Ellison a pass on this one -- he started out as a civil rights attorney and having him as MN AG, an office that has a fair bit of prosecutorial autonomy, could result in real change. Congressman Ellison has a louder microphone but Attorney General Ellison has more power.

Regardless I don't think we'd be in the middle of a DFL version of Carrol's Caucus Race had current AG Lori Swanson not withdrawn from the AG ballot in favor of running for Governor.

Late breaking to the clusterfuck is that State Rep Ilhan Omar just jumped into the race. If she wins she'd be both the first Muslim woman and the first Somali-American in congress.
posted by nathan_teske at 1:49 PM on June 5, 2018 [23 favorites]

How about we do a switcheroo and force people to honor and respect immigrant children and store all the fucking flags in abandoned wal-marts with blackened windows?
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:50 PM on June 5, 2018 [134 favorites]

Regardless I don't think we'd be in the middle of a DFL version of Carrol's Caucus Race had current AG Lori Swanson not withdrawn from the AG ballot in favor of running for Governor.

Didn't she already kind of declare once and then drop out of the race? I remember people voting for her at my precinct caucus because they weren't listening when it was announced she was not in the race after all. She gets my biggest side-eye, followed by Tim Walz who was pretty clear in advance that he was going to do that.

I wouldn't put forth the effort to side eye Tim "I never won a majority of the vote for governor" Pawlenty.

The Erin-Erin ticket is very exciting to me but it does worry me that they have no outstate representation.
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:56 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

Every moment they spend sitting in that room with her proves her right. There's zero reason for any respectable media outlet to still be wasting time at these briefings, especially if they're not going to simply repeat the last question she won't answer until she does. When she lies, they should only ask the same question until she ends the briefing or changes her answer. Allowing her to move on and then reprinting her lies is collaboration.

I think today I saw Jim Accosta saying two things to this that made sense, although, yes, the press should do better:

1. SS's non-answers or lies or whateverthefuck are in themselves revealing
2. Reporters have so many questions on different topics that there is a strong motive to not follow up on the reporter to whom Sanders lied. So, think about it; you have a question about NK and SS just said some bullshit about the National Anthem. Do you abandon your North Korea question and yell you lie?

I did appreciate the question of the color of the sky in Trump's world, though. More of this.
posted by angrycat at 1:58 PM on June 5, 2018 [11 favorites]

More primary previews for tonight:

* 538: SD, NM, IA, MT
* 538: California
* Vox

Also:

* Nate Cohn: CA primary results tend to be pretty predictive of the national environment

* Special elections trend has been basically flat, once you adjust for partisan lean of the district
posted by Chrysostom at 1:58 PM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

So, think about it; you have a question about NK and SS just said some bullshit about the National Anthem. Do you abandon your North Korea question and yell you lie?

Yes?

I mean, what's the point of you even being in the room if you know every word coming out of her mouth is a bald-faced lie? Either stop coming to the briefings, or use your position to make a public statement that the executive branch is lying to the public every day of the damned week. Anything less is collusion with the bastards.
posted by Mayor West at 2:02 PM on June 5, 2018 [18 favorites]

Thanks you, corb, for sharing that. I DO care what veterans think, and even if you don't, it's political suicide for Democrats to disrespect the sacrifice of the troops. The anthem and in particular the flag ARE real symbols of that sacrifice, which is of course why (draft dodger) Trump is trying to hijack them. He wants nothing more than to equate protesting him with protesting the troops. BUT this all misses the bigger point:

Kneeling is a gesture of respect. People kneel before their king, their god, the woman they want to marry. It’s also how football players honor the injured (as in the character and ideals of our nation). It has always been a respectful gesture.
posted by msalt at 2:03 PM on June 5, 2018 [25 favorites]

I'm not sure what military ya'll were in but my 6 years my significant feelings regarding The Star Spangled Banner amount to:

1) "Fuck, shit, I can't believe I got caught outside during Morning Colors again."
2) "Where is the nearest flag? The boat, maybe?"
3) "Nope, that guy is facing toward the speakers, I'll just be like him."
4) "Man, this song is long."
5) "Why am I the only person that knows you're supposed to drop your salute at the last note, then stay at attention until carry on sounds."

Now, my time in the military thankfully didn't involve flag-draped coffins and tearful widows, and as it happens none of my uniforms actually featured any little flags, so maybe I didn't get the Full Patriotic Experience. In any case, all of you have my blessing as a honorably discharged veteran to stand or kneel or pick you nose during the national anthem. I, and the sailors still standing the watches I stood, sacrificed so that you can live your life the way you want to, including opting out of mandatory displays of patriotism.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:04 PM on June 5, 2018 [146 favorites]

Luckily, border control didn't separate him from his parents.

Horrifyingly enough, they would have at least separated little Israel Berlin from his father if not his mother.

At Ellis Island, he and his siblings would have been separated from his father to undergo a barrage of tests. That was standard procedure at the time -- men were separated from women and children. Berlin's wikipedia page notes that he was kept "in a pen with his brother and five sisters until immigration officials declared them fit to be allowed into the city." There's more about the process here.
posted by zarq at 2:05 PM on June 5, 2018 [24 favorites]

I've been wondering about Trump and the looming subpoenas in various cases.

Obviously he will refuse and go to court to to try and stop the subpoenas.

But what happens if he loses in court but refuses to show up anyway?

If I refused to show up for a subpoena the court would send cops or court officers by to arrest me and compel me to show up. I rather doubt the Secret Service would let anyone arrest a sitting President.

It seems unlikely that the Republicans in Congress, and especially those in the Senate, would impeach and remove Trump for refusing to show up when subpoenaed by a court for a sexual harassment case.

Is that the end of it then? Could Trump simply refuse to show up if he lost the challenges to his subpoenas and get away with it?

Increasingly it does seem as if we in the USA have set things up so that a sitting President is basically immune to all laws as long as that President is willing to simply stonewall and defy the law and Congress won't impeach. Is that basically the situation or have I overlooked something?

I'm largely asking because it seems that some of the stuff being said by non-White House Republicans could be seen as trial balloons for apathetically going along with letting Trump refuse to obey a subpoena. I'm doubtful that many/any Republican voters would object too strenuously to a Senator who failed to impeach Trump for failing to appear when subpoenaed.
posted by sotonohito at 2:05 PM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

In a free country you can not only disagree with your country but you also don’t have any obligation to be respectful about it. If your country is embodied by the flag or some song by all means disrespect away on both. That is freedom, right?
posted by Bovine Love at 2:09 PM on June 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

The founders of the United States were wary of having standing army; Elbridge Gerry* called a standing army "the bane of liberty" and compared it to an erection:

A standing army is like a standing member. It's an excellent assurance of domestic tranquility, but a dangerous temptation to foreign adventure.

* Yep, the "gerrymandering" Gerry.

The US has had a small military for most of its history; a large force has only been the norm since the late 1940s.

Hero-worshiping the military has been on the rise since 9/11:

Who is a hero? In today’s America, it is someone who chooses a military career, puts on a uniform, and prepares for war. Placing soldiers and veterans on this kind of pedestal is a relatively new phenomenon. Past generations of Americans saw soldiers as ordinary human beings. They were like the rest of us: big and small, smart and dumb, capable of good and bad choices. Now we pretend they are demi-gods.
...
One reason Americans have come to view soldiers as our only protectors is that we have accepted the idea that our country is under permanent threat from fanatics who want to kill us and destroy our way of life. Yet we also felt this way at the height of the Cold War, and we did not fetishize soldiers then the way we do now.
...
Our communities are full of everyday heroes. These are the nurses, schoolteachers, addiction counsellors, community organizers, social workers, coaches, probation officers, and other civilians who struggle to keep Americans from slipping toward despair, sickness, or violence. They guide people away from hopelessness and toward productive lives. Society collapses without these people. Yet we rarely give them the chance to acknowledge the gratitude of cheering multitudes. That honor is reserved for those whose individual merit may be limited to their choice — perhaps motivated by a variety of factors — to put on a uniform.
...
Even worse, it distracts attention away from the scandalous way we treat our veterans. Cheering for them in public and saluting them in cliché-ridden speeches is a way to disguise the fact that our society callously discards many of them. Shocking rates of unemployment, mental illness, homelessness, addiction, and suicide among our veterans constitute a national disgrace. It is far easier, however, to spend a few seconds applauding a smiling soldier than to contemplate a troubled veteran left behind by an uncaring country.

posted by kirkaracha at 2:15 PM on June 5, 2018 [79 favorites]

Is that the end of it then? Could Trump simply refuse to show up if he lost the challenges to his subpoenas and get away with it?

Vox asked a bunch of legal experts a while back whether Trump could ignore a subpoena from the Special Counsel. Here are their answers.
posted by zarq at 2:18 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

David Koch is retiring for "health reasons." One down, one to go.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:21 PM on June 5, 2018 [14 favorites]

it's political suicide for Democrats to disrespect the sacrifice of the troops.

Why is it political suicide for Democrats, but not the Republican President of the United States?
posted by zarq at 2:24 PM on June 5, 2018 [65 favorites]

Who is a hero? In today’s America, it is someone who chooses a military career, puts on a uniform, and prepares for war.

(From this opinion piece by Stephen Kinzer)
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 2:26 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

It begins by mentioning about the meaning of the national anthem, then jumps straight over to "that flag." What does "that" in "that flag" refer to, if not the national anthem?

The national anthem is not the flag, and while your error may just be a coincidence, whether intentional or not this is EXACTLY what Kap critics do to denigrate him and the protests in general.

So, while I'm super familiar with a lot of ceremonies about the flag and the National Anthem, I suck at sports and am not very familiar with football games. It has been my assumption, upon hearing that the National Anthem is played at football games, that it is played in the same way that it is played/sung at other civic/military ceremonies, etc - when the flag has entered/been placed/raised/etc. Is this not the case? Is there no flag at football stadiums when they play the National Anthem?
posted by corb at 2:27 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

The status of the flag at sporting events varies. Sometimes there is an actual physical flag on the field. Sometimes there is a virtual flag displayed on the jumbotron. Sometimes there's a tiny flag on a flagpost outside the stadium that nobody can really see. Dunno if there is never one, though.
posted by zug at 2:31 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

I think today I saw Jim Accosta saying two things to this that made sense, although, yes, the press should do better:

1. SS's non-answers or lies or whateverthefuck are in themselves revealing
2. Reporters have so many questions on different topics that there is a strong motive to not follow up on the reporter to whom Sanders lied. So, think about it; you have a question about NK and SS just said some bullshit about the National Anthem. Do you abandon your North Korea question and yell you lie?

Somewhere way back in Clusterfuck 2016, I think (so about 6000 years ago, subjective time), I read an article that was trying to grapple with the fact that the press was having to cover a lying liar who lies, and how to do that. And one of the reporters interviewed in the article said something to the effect of - "yes, we know this person is lying. The lies are obvious. So we don't call them out on it, because the lies are so obvious that everyone understands it; we don't need to point it out."

And it made me realize that for reporters, just like any other profession, the stuff you deal with day in and day out becomes something you assume everyone else knows just as well as you do. And that assumption is wrong, and they need to put context into what they are reporting, so that it is clear that people are lying. But that runs into the other problem, which is that no one has the time or the space to do that any more; it's a constant stream of news tidbits without the needed context. And the problem with it all is that the media can say "Trump claimed X", but without the needed context, by just reporting it, it lends it credibility.

And I don't know what the answer is. I feel like we're living in the first major war of the information age, and we're losing, and we don't even know enough to know that we're in it, much less fight it.
posted by nubs at 2:32 PM on June 5, 2018 [34 favorites]

Is there no flag at football stadiums when they play the National Anthem?

Oh, there is; the question is why?

Because the Pentagon pays millions of dollars to the NFL, MLB, etc for these jingoistic ceremonies.

I don't think anyone should be compelled to any sort of display of nationalism because the Pentagon paid the owner of a football team for the display.
posted by Existential Dread at 2:32 PM on June 5, 2018 [55 favorites]

Here’s a vet who has been on hold for hours waiting for the VA today, in case honoring the troops means keeping our promises to them rather than muddling through God Bless America in front of random non-Eagles fans.
posted by zachlipton at 2:35 PM on June 5, 2018 [31 favorites]

From this opinion piece by Stephen Kinzer
Dammit, forgot to link. Thanks, Jpfed!
posted by kirkaracha at 2:35 PM on June 5, 2018

And it made me realize that for reporters, just like any other profession, the stuff you deal with day in and day out becomes something you assume everyone else knows just as well as you do. And that assumption is wrong, and they need to put context into what they are reporting, so that it is clear that people are lying.

(This is one instance of the problem of reporters implicitly assuming vastly more knowledge on the part of their readership than they actually have.)
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 2:39 PM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

Because the Pentagon pays millions of dollars to the NFL, MLB, etc for these jingoistic ceremonies.

DING DING DING

All this mawkish hand-wringing about the anthem is over the military attempting to insinuate themselves into civilian culture to further bloodshed. Not out of any sense of duty to honor soldiers, mind you, but rather out of a highly cynical urge to convince (or even coerce) the civilian population into falling behind the Heinlein-esque "service guarantees citizenship" fuckery that conservatives have been cultivating over the years.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:47 PM on June 5, 2018 [38 favorites]

The military and its supporters absolutely do not and have no right to expect to dictate to me how I should behave in regard to the flag because of their choice in vocation. The First Amendment expressly gives me the right to freely criticize the government.

And Trump least of anyone does not have the right to use the honor of veterans and service members to criticize those who take a knee as an act of protest over deadly racist violence. He does not have the right to turn the flag of my country into a weapon of racism. His doing so, to say nothing of his desire to suppress protest, dishonors the flag and the anthem far more than taking a knee ever could.
posted by Gelatin at 2:48 PM on June 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

We sing the national anthem at ball games because it's traditional. In fact, we've been singing the Star Spangled Banner at baseball games since the 1918 World Series. Over a dozen years before it was adopted as our national anthem. During wartime, it becomes symbolically more important to civilians. During peaceful times, somewhat less so.

The tradition has spread far beyond games played at the professional level. Go to any high school and college football, baseball, basketball, soccer or lacrosse game and the audience will probably be asked to rise and sing along to the national anthem. We live in a very nationalistic country. Much more nationalistic (and frankly jingoistic) than many other democracies.
posted by zarq at 2:48 PM on June 5, 2018 [18 favorites]

In seconds, we faked our way into a political campaign, got unsecured voter data -- Data analytics firm says this is normal: "It's the way that campaigns are run." (Cyrus Farivar for Ars Technica, May 5, 2018)

The Republican who shared this Web address to Ars did so out of concern that his party was lax when it came to digital security. He told us that he would prefer a system in which volunteers, at a minimum, have to confirm an email address and not have such unfettered access to voter data that could be used by non-Republicans to cause mischief.
...
Ira Rubenstein is an attorney and legal fellow at New York University who has written extensively on this issue. He told Ars that the free sharing of such voter data is not new, but it is troubling.
...
The Republican Party of California, and its contractor, a Southern California firm named Political Data Inc., told Ars that this online tool is fully within such laws that allow for sharing of voter data for political purposes.

"It's the way that campaigns are run," Paul Mitchell, a PDI vice president, told Ars. He also noted that his company had anti-scraping measures in place to prevent automated searches, but the company declined to specify in detail.

Mitchell compared such campaign tools to paper files of decades past and said that any campaign office would provide an online and/or texting method similar to this one as a way to reach out to voters. However, spiriting away large quantities of analog data that is not connected to the Internet would be far more difficult.

Plus, volunteers, he said, don't typically share such data or use it for non-campaigning purposes.
...
Fabian Valdez, the California GOP's digital director, has given trainings on PDI's software. He told Ars that there was nothing in this data that was "proprietary."

"So in terms of data security, one could see it as: 'I have access to all this voter data,' but it's not voter data that you couldn't get access to. There's no real concern on our end. If a Dem were to jump into our [volunteer] list, there's no concern that they're going to rip off our data, as they would have access to the same data."

Valdez added that he was unaware of "any abuse of this data."

posted by filthy light thief at 2:49 PM on June 5, 2018 [10 favorites]

Because the Pentagon pays millions of dollars to the NFL, MLB, etc for these jingoistic ceremonies.

Those events aren't specifically about singing the national anthem. They're events, displays and ceremonies that may or may not happen before or after the anthem is sung.

The anthem would be sung anyway, regardless of whether a military-related event was staged. It's not as if local little league games where the anthem is played are being subsidized by the freakin' Pentagon.
posted by zarq at 2:52 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

So, think about it; you have a question about NK and SS just said some bullshit about the National Anthem. Do you abandon your North Korea question and yell you lie?

What's the point of asking the question if you can't trust her to at least give a semblance of a truthful answer?

Spin is one thing, but the job of the press is to keep politicians honest by showing that there are consequences if they dissemble. One consequence could be reporters asking pointing out when politicians give a non-answer or lie. If there are no negative consequences, they aren't going to stop. Why should they -- respect for truth, justice and the American way?
posted by Gelatin at 2:52 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Formerly-Esteemed Law Professor Alan Dershowitz: “The President wasn’t wrong when he said I want loyalty from my Attorney General. It’s the constitution that’s wrong for allowing that kind of a division to occur.”

This is true if you start from the legal axiom that Donald Trump is infallible.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:55 PM on June 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

Without footage of any Eagles players kneeling in protest, Fox runs with footage of players kneeling in prayer. Fox News apologizes for implying Eagles players were kneeling in protest. They were praying. (WaPo)
posted by peeedro at 2:57 PM on June 5, 2018 [23 favorites]

Does no one see that it is crazy to force someone to salute a flag that stands for freedom? Is it respectable to compel respect? Doesn't real respect have to be, by definition, freely given?

None of which is to say I find taking a knee disrespectful. I've always seen it as signifying the feeling the country is not living up to its historic ideals. If you love something, you need to speak up when you see it being taken away.
posted by xammerboy at 3:01 PM on June 5, 2018 [55 favorites]

Trump Picks Fight With The Eagles, Philadelphia Takes It From There (NPR, June 5, 2018)

Christopher Wallace, the executive producer of FOX News @ Night with Shannon Bream, said the network erred during a broadcast Monday night when it used footage of Eagles players kneeling during a segment about the cancellation, implying that the players had taken a knee during the anthem last season — an act that players on other NFL teams have said is meant to protest police violence and racial inequality. The players were apparently praying.

Wallace said in a statement released by Fox News on Tuesday that "To clarify, no members of the team knelt in protest during the national anthem throughout regular or post-season last year. We apologize for the error."

Wallace's apology came hours after Eagles tight end Zach Ertz quoted a Fox News tweet to say via Twitter, "This can't be serious.... Praying before games with my teammates, well before the anthem, is being used for your propaganda?! Just sad, I feel like you guys should have to be better than this."

Fox News has since deleted that original tweet.

It's The Biggest Primary Day Of the 2018 Midterms: Here's What To Watch For (NPR, June 5, 2018)

Welcome to 2018's Super Tuesday.

Voters head to the polls in eight states today to pick nominees for Senate seats, governor, and several key congressional races that could decide control of the House of Representatives this fall.

Mississippi, Alabama, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota all vote today. But, with good reason, most of the national focus is on California.

Democrats see their path to the House majority running through the two dozen districts that sent a Republican to Congress in 2016, but voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Seven of these districts are in California, with the highest concentration in the longtime Republican outpost of Orange County.

Sensing a Democratic surge, Republican incumbents Ed Royce and Darrell Issa retired, raising Democratic hopes even higher in those races.

posted by filthy light thief at 3:02 PM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

And I don't know what the answer is. I feel like we're living in the first major war of the information age, and we're losing, and we don't even know enough to know that we're in it, much less fight it.

No, these are the death throes of too-big-too-fail information organizations. (Hi Sony Music!). The first major war of the information age was lost thirty-some-odd years ago. They say if you lean in close to an old console television, you can still hear the metaphorical record scratch.

On rewatch (that's "Morning in America", kids), there sure are a lot of flags in that ad. Noted perjurer Michael Deaver (hey, look, perjury! Everything old is new again) spins a little everytime that video gets a like.

Philosophical question: Reagan and Trump go horseback riding. Which happens first: (a) Trump falls off the horse, or (b) Reagan says, "Well . . . "
posted by petebest at 3:09 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

And why exactly does his wife need help from her husband's connections opening a fast food franchise? She's not capable of doing it herself?

As aside: no, she probably isn't capable of doing it herself, and "Wife of Head of EPA" probably isn't enough either.

My brother-in-law has been on both sides of this for McDonalds (20+ years in McD corporate culminating in being in charge of 600+ stores, and now owner of 12 or so stores), and it's incredibly hard. Part of his job was shepherding through franchisee applications and most of time they were not successful. I remember one instance of a 50+ year operator (at the time that was practically at McD's founding) having an extremely difficult time getting a franchisee for his son. It was ultimately successful, but only because these people had been in the McDonalds family since the Kennedy Administration.

The only reason my bro-in-law was able to get stores is because there was a period where McD was selling off distressed corp owned stores, and he had worked besides the people deciding who could purchase the stores or a quarter century.

And from what my bro-in-law told me about Chick-Fil-A (he briefly explored non-McD franchise opportunities because it appeared McD was forcing him to stay corporate since he was more valuable there), they are even pickier for vetting as their stores print money even faster than McD. So yeah, not surprising a US Cabinet member reached out to try (and apparently fail at) getting his wife a franchise.
posted by sideshow at 3:10 PM on June 5, 2018 [11 favorites]

Of course, this is exactly what Samuel Johnson was referring to when he said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Though calling Trump a scoundrel suggests he has infinitely more decency than is actually the case.
posted by Grangousier at 3:28 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

The US has had a small military for most of its history; a large force has only been the norm since the late 1940s.

Hero-worshiping the military has been on the rise since 9/11.

posted by kirkaracha at 4:15 PM on June 5 [23 favorites +] [!]

Maybe a little late here (it's tough keeping up with the threads), but this has been bugging me since I was riding to a Scout meeting with my Dad when GWB announced his ultimatum in 2003. Enough that I put down two podcasts hammering away at it, if I can add my voice to kirkaracha's and Kinzer's.
posted by TheProfessor at 3:33 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

It’s unsurprising that people are up in arms about athletes’ show of respect for the national anthem, but only because it’s taking place in a country that considers it perfectly normal for six-year-olds to swear an oath of loyalty before starting school each morning.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:34 PM on June 5, 2018 [55 favorites]

All you need to know about Trump's hallow flag waving is whether he disinvites the all-white Washington Capitols when they win the Stanley Cup (behind die-hard Putin fan Alexander Ovechkin). Spoiler: he won't.

This isn't about flags or anthems or respect for the military, and Trump's treatment of the NBA and NFL athletes vs MLB and NHL is all the proof anyone needs.

As with everything Trump, it's about stirring up racial animus and riling up the white base into a racist froth. That's it. It's not more complicated.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:40 PM on June 5, 2018 [20 favorites]

My six-year-old's school says the Pledge of Allegiance on Monday mornings. I sometimes stay for their morning ceremony and when they say the Pledge I stay seated and silent. I really dislike the idea of mandatory loyalty oaths; I mean even the title "Pledge of Allegiance" sounds profoundly un-American.

(I don't like the Johnny-come-lately "under god" part, either.)
posted by kirkaracha at 3:43 PM on June 5, 2018 [40 favorites]

Apparently the Capitols do have one black player. What a position he's going to be in.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:50 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Hm, this is fishy: on the advertising on another page I was looking at, it's a half cut off page advertising Villaraigosa for governor, but it's showing Trump's head.

HMMMMMMMMMM.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:52 PM on June 5, 2018

@seungminkim: “Kelly Sadler is no longer employed within the Executive Office of the President.” – @RajShah45

Well, um, ok then. Is she still employed by the government?
posted by zachlipton at 3:57 PM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

Hero-worshiping the military has been on the rise since 9/11.

I would say more that there has been a switch since 9/11 from honoring genuine heroes - such as Medal of Honor awardees - to a more generalized heroism for 'the military', which may be part of trying to lure people into an all-volunteer force. In my more cynical moments, I think this is because Medal of Honor awardees, when recognized for the heroism they embodied, can also say inconvenient things about, for example, their treatment after service, while the bulk of the military can't say anything inconvenient with one voice. But it is indisputable the Medal of Honor has been awarded far less since 9/11 than in the wars previous to that.[Daily Beast]

For example, the Vietnam War had 3 million soldier-participants, and awarded 246 Medals of Honor - 92 of them to living persons. 2.5 million servicemembers, by contrast, were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and .... they were awarded 10 Medals of Honor, only 3 to living persons, even though many people's Silver Star citations sound like movie scripts.
posted by corb at 4:00 PM on June 5, 2018 [14 favorites]

Well, um, ok then. Is she still employed by the government?

Maybe?

The White House had been strategizing an exit for Sadler for the last two weeks, a senior administration official said. There had been a discussion about relocating her to another agency or department outside of the White House, and it remains unclear if she is going somewhere else or leaving the administration entirely.

posted by kirkaracha at 4:00 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

I mean even the title "Pledge of Allegiance" sounds profoundly un-American.

Just wait till the Orange Duce mandates a return to the original Bellamy Salute!

And the Pledge is not Un-American. This is America. The hoods are off.
posted by Celsius1414 at 4:02 PM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

Why is it political suicide for Democrats, but not the Republican President of the United States?

It has, and it should more than it does. If you remember back to July 2016, Trump was hurt severely by attacking Kizer and Ghazala Khan, the Pakistanti-born Gold Star parents of a deceased serviceman. Trump figured that their brown skin would make it OK, and it didn't.

I think constantly attacking Trump for disrespecting troops, for ducking service, and for describing avoiding VD as his own personal Vietnam is a great thing to do. It's not going to make him resign tomorrow, but it wears away at him. Don't let him keep changing the subject.
posted by msalt at 4:07 PM on June 5, 2018 [17 favorites]

WaPo, Mueller was investigating Trump adviser as unregistered agent of Israel, his wife says

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III last summer threatened to charge George Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser to President Trump, with acting as an unregistered agent of Israel, Papadopoulos’s wife said Tuesday.

Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos, an Italian lawyer who married Papadapoulos in March, said the special prosecutor’s office claimed to have evidence that Papadopoulos had worked on behalf of Israel without registering as a foreign agent while he was serving as an energy consultant before he joined the Trump campaign.
...
“I know he doesn’t have anything to do with Russia,” she said in an interview. “We know he was under scrutiny because of his ties to Israel, not his ties to Russia. So what’s this about?”
...
Simona Papadopoulos’s assertion that Mueller threatened her husband with another charge, first reported by the Daily Caller, came as she conducted a series of media interviews this week in which she argued that her husband never conspired with Russia to assist Trump’s campaign.

Her tone represents a shift since January, when she told The Washington Post that Papadopoulos would be remembered like John Dean, the former White House counsel who pleaded guilty to his role in the Watergate coverup and then became a key witness against other aides to President Richard Nixon.

“There’s a lot to come,” she said then. “He was the first one to break a hole on all of this.”

But on Tuesday, Simona Papadopoulos said her earlier comments were misinterpreted. She said she and her husband have reassessed his role after learning that his contacts with London professor Joseph Mifsud led the FBI to opened a counterintelligence investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia. And Papadopoulos was also upset to learn that a Cambridge professor who hired him to write an energy paper in the fall of 2016 was a source for the FBI, she said.

“George took responsibility for lying to the FBI and cooperated with the government. Cooperating doesn’t mean following an agenda,” she said. “Cooperating doesn’t mean against the president .... It means cooperating with the truth.”

Now, she said she believes her husband deserves a pardon from Trump, who has asserted recently that he has the power even to pardon himself.

Papadopoulos is “a victim, honestly,” she said. “He made a mistake. He pleaded guilty for that mistake. It would make sense for the president to pardon him.”

Like Josh Marshall, I have no earthly idea what's going on with Simona Papadopoulos, but none of it makes the slightest bit of sense.
posted by zachlipton at 4:17 PM on June 5, 2018 [17 favorites]

Because the Pentagon pays millions of dollars to the NFL, MLB, etc for these jingoistic ceremonies.

That was largely stopped after the program was revealed in 2015; in fact, the NFL returned $700,000 to the league. Maybe completely stopped; I haven't been able to find confirmation one way or the other.

TPM reported that "Pentagon higher-ups have issued guidance banning sports marketing contracts for some of these “paid patriotism” activities, including national anthem performances." But they don't spell out what "some of these" means.

Interestingly, the military didn't start this program until 2011, two years after players started coming out for all games, and it ramped it up as it ended a similar program sponsoring Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s NASCAR team because their analytics didn't show any marketing benefit from the $100 million over 4 years that Earnhardt got. (The NFL got $6.7 million from 2013-2015.)
posted by msalt at 4:18 PM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94: Formerly-Esteemed Law Professor Alan Dershowitz: “The President wasn’t wrong when he said I want loyalty from my Attorney General. It’s the constitution that’s wrong for allowing that kind of a division to occur.”

This is true if you start from the legal axiom that Donald Trump is infallible.

Dershowitz engages in a lot of sycophancy, and I'm sure he knew how his words sounded out of context. But the clip is worth watching because his main point is actually sensible. It really is a failure point of the Constitution that the same person is both the cabinet-level head of the executive-branch Justice Department and the Top Law Person of the whole country. It can create a conflict, and Dershowitz points to other countries (both parliamentarian, I think) that he believes solve the problem by having two people with distinct roles (though I have no idea if that works in practice as well as in principle).

So he wasn't exactly calling Trump infallible and almighty, the way Giuliani has been. The problem is when he suggests it's "not wrong" for the president to expect loyalty under the circumstances. That's because, on a purely ethical level, the national good should totally override the good of a single branch — the president ought to take one for the team, here (even as the government itself should have been structured so such sacrifice was never necessary). To say otherwise is like saying that a reporter who moonlights as a sales rep is "not wrong" to talk up their product on-air. Or like saying it's acceptable, even positively good, for companies to prioritize shareholder value over the values of employees or customers, which… oh, right.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 4:20 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Apparently the Capitols do have one black player. What a position he's going to be in.

He's Canadian. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by art.bikes at 4:22 PM on June 5, 2018 [14 favorites]

If you remember back to July 2016, Trump was hurt severely by attacking Kizer and Ghazala Khan, the Pakistanti-born Gold Star parents of a deceased serviceman.

I remember the media saying he was hurt severely. I don't actually see any evidence it hurt him in the long or even medium run. It just fell down the memory hole like everything else.
posted by Justinian at 4:22 PM on June 5, 2018 [62 favorites]

Trump's poll numbers dropped, he was criticized by people of all parties, and he defensively rushed out statements and strategems to evade or dodge responsibility. What hurts him long run? That's an epistemological quandary. But I for one am convinced that allowing him to change the subject as he so clearly wanted to helped Trump.
posted by msalt at 4:25 PM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

It really is a failure point of the Constitution that the same person is both the cabinet-level head of the executive-branch Justice Department and the Top Law Person of the whole country.

I don't necessarily think it is a failure. The President's power over the Attorney General is that he can fire the Attorney General without cause. It is not necessary for the Attorney General to owe loyalty to the President for this power to be effective. The Attorney General should have loyalty only to the Constitution, and should the President ask him to choose between loyalty to the Constitution or loyalty to the President, he should resign.

Indeed, Congress wields a similar ability to terminate an Attorney General through the impeachment process, but no-one would claim that the Attorney General owes loyalty to the Congress.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 4:26 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

There's something potentially odd going on with Herbert Lee, who is running as a Democrat in CA-39. It seems like there's a bunch of reasons to think he's acting as a spoiler to purposefully split the Democratic vote, or at least his campaign has a bunch of strange ties to far-right Chinese Americans in the area.
posted by zachlipton at 4:27 PM on June 5, 2018 [10 favorites]

Dershowitz Is a far right warhawk with a particular interest in setting fires in the Middle East, I am pretty sure he means what he says as regards Trump and is against anything that gets in the way of the conflicts he desires.
posted by Artw at 4:29 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

It may have something to do with this story reported about 8 months ago about Michael Flynn:

Papadopoulos Spoke In Israel With CEO Of Company Tied To Flynn Scandal Figure: The former Trump campaign adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators examining Russia’s role in the 2016 election spoke at a conference in Israel last year with the CEO of an Israeli energy company with ties to a Turkish businessman who has been subpoenaed as part of a separate investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

posted by zarq at 4:30 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Fortune: Donald Trump Jr.'s 'Defense of Daddy' Book Is Getting a Cold Shoulder From Publishers

Several major publishers have reportedly passed on a planned book by Donald Trump Jr., citing concern that he may face legal charges related to the Mueller investigation of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election. [...] [H]e is getting some pushback from major publishers,” Charles Gasparino, a Fox Business senior correspondent, said on the network. “They’re questioning him about the Mueller probe. They’re worried that he might be charged. Put all that together and people are backing off this thing.”

If it's what you say, I love it
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:31 PM on June 5, 2018 [52 favorites]

The Federal oath of office is a loyalty oath to the constitution alone. In a conflict between constitution and president, it is very clear where the the loyalty of anyone working on behalf of the Federal government should lie.
posted by Zalzidrax at 4:36 PM on June 5, 2018 [31 favorites]

For what it's worth, we tried requiring Congressional okay to remove high-ranking executive officials, but it was eventually found unconstitutional.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:41 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

South Dakota state lawmaker: Businesses should be allowed to 'turn away people of color'
posted by Artw at 4:48 PM on June 5, 2018 [24 favorites]

I'm always happy to vote for Adam Schiff but doing so today gave me an added bit of joy as a giant fuck you to Trump and all his cronies. Go Schiffy.
posted by Justinian at 4:51 PM on June 5, 2018 [21 favorites]

538 primary liveblog.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:57 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

Gerard Baker out.
posted by Melismata at 5:05 PM on June 5, 2018

South Dakota state lawmaker: Businesses should be allowed to 'turn away people of color'

And let's not forget Rand Paul flirting with saying he wouldn't have voted for the Civil Rights Act because it shouldn't apply to private institutions.
posted by XMLicious at 5:08 PM on June 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

Gerard Baker was the editor of the Wall Street Journal, if you didn't recognize the name.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:10 PM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

If you remember back to July 2016, Trump was hurt severely by attacking Kizer and Ghazala Khan

lol trump hasn't been hurt severely by anything in his entire life, and his base applauded that attack.
posted by poffin boffin at 5:13 PM on June 5, 2018 [41 favorites]

Hmm...

Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerry Baker is stepping down from his post to become editor-at-large, News Corp announced Tuesday afternoon. Baker will be replaced by Matt Murray, the paper's current executive editor.

No idea of that means a change from their policy of being uniformly awful.

Baker served as editor-in-chief for just over five years, and was previously deputy editor. In his new role, Baker will now write a column and host the paper's conferences. He will also now host a Wall Street Journal-branded news and interview show on Fox Business Network, which shares an owner with the Journal, Rupert Murdoch.

Okay, so he was basically fired but it’s conservative fired so he gets a column and TV show, suction cup to Trumps backside very much still in place.
posted by Artw at 5:18 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Yeah but that’s one less asshole controlling a major media outlet.
posted by Melismata at 5:25 PM on June 5, 2018

That might be making some assumptions about this Matt Murray.
posted by Artw at 5:27 PM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

NJ Senate - Bob Menendez significantly underperforming at this point, up only 57-43 (16% in).

In a different environment, he'd be in serious trouble in the general.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:54 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

Aiming at Trump strongholds, Mexico hits back with trade tariffs:

Mexico's retaliatory list, published in the government's official gazette, included a 20 percent tariff on U.S. pork legs and shoulders, apples and potatoes and 20 to 25 percent duties on types of cheeses and bourbon.

A net importer of U.S. steel, Mexico is also putting 25 percent duties on a range of American steel products.

Mexico’s trade negotiators designed the list, in part, to include products exported by top Republican leaders’ states, including Indiana, where Vice President Mike Pence was formerly governor, according to a trade source familiar with the matter. Bourbon-producing Kentucky is the home state of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican.

posted by peeedro at 6:02 PM on June 5, 2018 [24 favorites]

NJ-02 Dem - Looks like conservative state Sen Jeff Van Drew handily wins here, by about 35 points. Van Drew is seen as the strongest contender for the Dems. District went Trump 51-46, but race is seen as Tossup to Lean Dem.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:12 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

he wouldn't have voted for the Civil Rights Act because it shouldn't apply to private institutions.

Note that when the South was forcibly desegregated, all the white folk that could moved their kids from public schools into private institutions. Investigating the private academies was one of Hillary's first gigs.
posted by sebastienbailard at 6:13 PM on June 5, 2018 [28 favorites]

LA County left nearly 120K voters off the rolls (2.3% of registered voters, though turnout is looking pretty abysmal). Those impacted are being encouraged to cast provisional ballots.

What a mess. Going to slow down vote counting too.
posted by zachlipton at 6:21 PM on June 5, 2018 [8 favorites]

South Dakota state lawmaker: Businesses should be allowed to 'turn away people of color'

Maybe it's the corpse reviver but I can't tell whether this is parody, the Onion, or sincere.

2018 you have broken my brain.
posted by Dashy at 6:26 PM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

(Disclaimer: self-link)
I found this California voter's guide/handmade zine at my volunteer job today. It is a fed up exhausted cartoon delight.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:26 PM on June 5, 2018 [13 favorites]

What a mess. Going to slow down vote counting too.

CA counts mail-in votes postmarked Election Day, so there's automatically a significant delay.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:32 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

NJ Sen - AP calls for Menendez, looks like it will be in the neighborhood of 60-40, which is quite weak over pretty token opposition.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:36 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

NJ-11 - Mikie Sherill wins handily with 74%. 49-48 Trump district, former seat of longtime rep Frelinghuysen. District is Tossup to Leans Dem.

Very tight primary on the GOP side still.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:41 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

Good special election result. 23 point swing to Ds.

Dave Weigel (WaPo)
Democrats have gained #SD17 in Missouri, their 42nd red-to-blue flip since January 2017. Trump won the seat by 4 points; @replaurenarthur won by 19.
posted by chris24 at 6:47 PM on June 5, 2018 [46 favorites]

ELECTION RESULT

Dem GAIN in Missouri Senate 17:

Arthur [D] 59.6%
Corlew [R] 40.3%

Margin changes compared to previous races:

vs 2016 presidential result margin: Dem improvement of about 24 points.
vs 2016 SD-17 result margin: Dem improvement of about 42 points.

GOP lead in the Iowa Senate is reduced to 24-10.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:51 PM on June 5, 2018 [32 favorites]

godammit, chris24
posted by Chrysostom at 6:51 PM on June 5, 2018 [27 favorites]

GOP lead in the Iowa Senate is reduced to 24-10.

I think this is Missouri senate, not Iowa. I don't think there are any Iowa senate seats being decided today.

However, it is the primary in Iowa, and Democratic turnout seems to be very high. I think this is an indicator of enthusiasm. We'll see if it holds up, but I'm hopeful.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:55 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

Zuckerberg, round II:

Howard Schultz on presidential speculation: 'Let's see what happens'

Why the Starbucks guy should not be President

I mean, he's a smart guy, he'd probably be good at it, better than the current trashfire of course, and obviously he's all "Republicans and Democrats are equally bad" which is going to make him a darling of wonky centrist Dems, but hasn't a fucking hope of winning since...
A) he's basically a living avatar of late capitalism at a time when late capitalism has entered its faliure mode of Trumps and Brexits.
B) lot of people just hate Starbucks of course, including the nutters who obsess over red cups on the right. Good luck winning them over with your "business accumen", it;s not actually anything they care about.

Worst case, he enters the Dem primary and somehow wins, despite the fact that half the party is going to hate him, then tanks worse than Hillary.

Slightly more likely worst case: Ill fated 3rd party campaign somehow peeling off enough votes to swing things to Trump.

Actually Plausible worst case: Enters Dem primary, becomes divisive figure, doesn't actually win but still manages to fuck things up anyway by being such a lightning rod.

Of course there's a fair chance he just wants to dabble in local politics and it won't be America as a whole's problem for a while.
posted by Artw at 6:57 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

Yes, Missouri SD-17.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:58 PM on June 5, 2018

My bad Chrysostom. :)

In other news, Trump is on a multi-tweet rant of batshit stuff literally straight from r/conspiracy on Reddit.
posted by chris24 at 7:00 PM on June 5, 2018 [16 favorites]

I was just wondering, what does it do to say, a five year old to spend a month in an internment camp, separated from anybody they know, likely not interacting with either adults or peers in the way a five year old should? Seriously. For a five year old, that's a long damn time. What does that do to them?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:01 PM on June 5, 2018 [57 favorites]

In other news, Trump is on a multi-tweet rant of batshit stuff literally straight from r/conspiracy on Reddit.

On the plus side, he didn't quite think through how he structured the rant, leaving this individual tweet for future historians to use as an example of "THERE IS ALWAYS A TWEET"

@realDonaldTrump
...This is a level of criminality beyond the pale. This is such a grave abuse of power and authority, it’s like nothing else we’ve seen in our history. This makes the Nixon Watergate burglary look like keystone cop stuff
posted by chris24 at 7:09 PM on June 5, 2018 [25 favorites]

Why the Starbucks guy should not be President

Worse, he's a Third Way, Fix the Debt guy which translated means cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Nope, nope, nope. That's not what Democrats need for a president.
posted by JackFlash at 7:10 PM on June 5, 2018 [29 favorites]

Today is the first election in California with same-day voter registration, and it seems to be working fairly well here.

On the other hand, this election has officially jumped the shark, with Harry Winkler left off the voter rolls in LA.
posted by zachlipton at 7:14 PM on June 5, 2018 [26 favorites]

I was just wondering, what does it do to say, a five year old to spend a month in an internment camp, separated from anybody they know [...]

I hope we find out, because when governments round people up it's usually to conceal their existence and their wellbeing from the public. It would very much be open to the government to keep these children confined for years while stymieing writs of habeus corpus by concealing their names and their location. I understand that ICE has already done this with other people accused of being unlawful immigrants. The government might even move these children to somewhere that they can claim is outside the protection of the Bill of Rights, such as a US base leased from another country, and we'd never know what's happening to them. Once again, this isn't fanciful: this is what the US has already done with other prisoners, specifically to avoid those prisoners exercising their constitutional and other human rights.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:15 PM on June 5, 2018 [27 favorites]

Good downballot news:

Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin, who was found to have "personally pocketed more than $750,000 worth of funds allocated to feed inmates in the county jail he oversees," lost his re-election bid in the GOP primary tonight in Alabama.

posted by Chrysostom at 7:17 PM on June 5, 2018 [42 favorites]

Remember that Alabama sheriff that pocketed $750K worth of the money that was supposed to go to feed the prisoners at the jail he runs? He lost his primary.

Still going to be a GOP office one way or another, but he's out.
posted by zachlipton at 7:18 PM on June 5, 2018 [16 favorites]

And then you say, "godammit, Chrysostom"
posted by Chrysostom at 7:20 PM on June 5, 2018 [62 favorites]

And then you say, "godammit, Chrysostom"

What like out loud or
posted by petebest at 7:26 PM on June 5, 2018 [25 favorites]

It's just good journalistic practice to have two sources for everything...
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:27 PM on June 5, 2018 [33 favorites]

1. Rand Paul’s rejection of key provisions of the ADA were reason enough to disqualify him from any public office. Yet here he is enjoying his second term as a US Senator.

2. Um...how is said Alabama sheriff not in prison for embezzlement?

3. You do not drop The Fonz from the voting rolls.

These are not the Happy Days I was promised.
posted by darkstar at 7:29 PM on June 5, 2018 [14 favorites]

I was just wondering, what does it do to say, a five year old to spend a month in an internment camp, separated from anybody they know.

Nothing good, and the chronic stress is especially damaging. Here's a little general info about effects of caretaker deprivation on young children, with links to a few more items. The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement last year opposing family separation.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:32 PM on June 5, 2018 [12 favorites]

Harry Winkler?
posted by Bovine Love at 7:33 PM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

Harry Winkler?

Jeff Goldman's cousin.
posted by Marticus at 7:35 PM on June 5, 2018 [30 favorites]

NM-02: Xochitl Torres Small wins Dem nomination handily. District went 50-40 Trump, but Dems are excited about this one. Particularly because it looks like the GOP is about to nominate state Rep Yvette Herrell, widely considered to be about the most right-wing person in NM politics.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:35 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

2. Um...how is said Alabama sheriff not in prison for embezzlement?

Alabama has a weird old law where the sheriff is personally responsible for feeding inmates and gets funds for that purpose, to the extent that the sheriff personally owns the trays and utensils. This has been going on for years (in one 2009 case, the sheriff fed prisoners a truckload of old corndogs while pocketing the leftover cash) and the sheriffs insist it's all perfectly legal. Seems like something the legislature could fix, given that it's been repeatedly abused time after time. Almost like it's setup for graft and mistreatment of prisoners on purpose or something.

Harry Winkler?

Oops. Henry, of course. Also known as the Fonz. Or Barry Zuckerkorn. I hope they checked to see if he was listed under those names.

And then you say, "godammit, Chrysostom"

I mean, I just flagged the duplicate for a mod, but I appreciate the instructions to curse you.
posted by zachlipton at 7:37 PM on June 5, 2018 [17 favorites]

An NSC contractor was arrested at a White House checkpoint on a warrant for attempted murder. I don't really know why you'd show up for work at the White House if you're wanted for attempted murder, or why the police waited for him to come to work instead of looking for him, but here we are.
posted by zachlipton

Well his boss campaigned on getting away with it and is sitting in the WH himself right now with out being arrested, so there is precedent?

(One could even argue he is actually responsible for a death on 5th st like he said he would do, but I find that to be a bridge too far.)
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:45 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

McConnell has (it's now being reported) cancelled most of the planned August Senate recess

Yeah it screws the Dems & that's unfortunate. But you know who else it screws? Trump. Given all his talk against Sessions people've been eyeing the August recess as a window of opportunity for him to fire him & make a recess appointment to replace him without needing Congressional approval. Congress doesn't recess, no recess appointment, Advise & Consent, Trump can't do whatever the hell he wants whenever he wants without taking anybody else into consideration. McConnell just hit the narcissist in the nuts.
posted by scalefree at 7:46 PM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

Shaping up as another strong night for women, looks like at least seven Dem nominees will be women.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:47 PM on June 5, 2018 [29 favorites]

So we're not saying anything about the latest Tweets where Trump basically is the conspiracy toting, crazy, racist uncle at Thanksgiving, right? Like as a society we're going to collectively ignore it and wheel him over to the psych hospital while he's screaming how he's the President of the United States and the nurse is all condescendingly "of course you are dearie" while they prepare the straight jacket, right?
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 7:53 PM on June 5, 2018 [20 favorites]

Discussion about the flag, the military, the anthem, and how to show proper respect or not to all are completely sidestepping the glaringly obvious fact that Trump is a giant fucking racist. He’s shitting himself because a black dude got out of line, his followers are shitting themselves because a black dude got out of line, and all of this handwaving jingoistic bullshit is a cover for fucking racists.

I’m sure that Trump and his fans are also flagwaving fascist clowns, as well as being giant fucking racists. But don’t lose sight of the racism. Aggrieved whites in America don’t want black people to fucking exist. They don’t want immigrants to exist. They don’t want Muslims to exist. They don’t want spanish speaking people of any kind to exist.

If they can’t stop them from existing then they’ll do the next best thing which is to terrorize and silence them. They are virulent, blatant white supremacists. Their language and actions are a prelude to the violent oppression of POC. This all started because a black dude took a knee to protest the indiscriminate destruction of black bodies by the police. So you have to demand his silence because silence is complicity and white supremacists always try to make POC complicit in their own oppression.

Tldr:
All you Black folks, you must go
All you Mexicans, you must go
And all you poor folks, you must go
Muslims and gays
Boy, we hate your ways
So all you bad folks, you must go
posted by supercrayon at 7:55 PM on June 5, 2018 [49 favorites]

On the other hand, this election has officially jumped the shark, with Harry (sic) Winkler left off the voter rolls in LA.

Holy shit it really is Fonzie. They totally vote-blocked The Fonz! This is so not okay! I mean, not groovy. Not hip. Y'know.

Beeeeeeeeeee
posted by petebest at 7:55 PM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

Peter Callaghan, MinnPost: [MN Attorney General Lori] Swanson decision sets off mad scramble among Minnesota Democrats
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:56 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

I apologize if this counts as noise, but one little happy change that I've noticed this year: I'm subscribed to the subreddit /r/voting, whose ostensible purpose is to get into theoretical arguments about the merits of different voting systems. IRV is not monotonic! and all that. But the way reddit works, non-subscribers can just browse to whatever subreddit sounds right and post stuff, and because of that /r/voting is transforming into people helping each other figure out how they can register or vote in their new state, when's such-and-such primary, etc.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:58 PM on June 5, 2018 [19 favorites]

Also, the U.N. Human Rights Office spoke out against the Trump administration family separation policy today:

The use of immigration detention and family separation as a deterrent runs counter to human rights standards and principles. The child’s best interest should always come first, including over migration management objectives or other administrative concerns. It is therefore of great concern that in the US migration control appears to have been prioritised over the effective care and protection of migrant children.

The US should immediately halt this practice of separating families and stop criminalizing what should at most be an administrative offence – that of irregular entry or stay in the US.

posted by FelliniBlank at 8:00 PM on June 5, 2018 [42 favorites]

California is closed! Now only 10-20 days to get final results!
posted by Chrysostom at 8:05 PM on June 5, 2018 [10 favorites]

ArbitraryAndCapricious: "However, it is the primary in Iowa, and Democratic turnout seems to be very high. I think this is an indicator of enthusiasm. We'll see if it holds up, but I'm hopeful."

Looks like yes.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:09 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Early indications are that Dems are looking pretty good to avoid top two lockout in CA-39 and CA-49, CA-48 too close to tell right now.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:18 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

CA-10 is looking real dicey, though, and that wasn't even on my radar.
posted by Justinian at 8:21 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Well, as the real Mel (not Mo) Brooks would say...
(no, it's nothing from Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein or The Producers)
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:23 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm used to Trump's tweets, and even his flag ceremony somehow didn't seem as off the wall as it obviously was, but it's the Pruitt Chick-fil-A story that has me completely broken.

This isn't spending beyond the guidelines or unnecessary travel or conflicts of interest. This is just straight up using his position, and government personnel, to attempt to secure a lucrative private business deal for his family. It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to investigate, and he should have been gone within an hour. That he still has a job is the most blatant sign yet that the government is for sale, that there are no consequences to using your position for profit, even if it doesn't benefit the man at the top.

And that should be obvious by now, but the sheer audacity of the inaction on this one is crushing. They haven't been entirely without shame when it gets bad enough: Price, Shulkin, a bunch of withdrawn nominations. But this is just so bad, and it's just another day of "oh Scott's back on his bullshit again."
posted by zachlipton at 8:24 PM on June 5, 2018 [81 favorites]

Yeah, nerve-wracking. The later ballots do tend to be a bit more D-favoring, but we'll just have to wait and see.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:26 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

AP calls it for Feinstein, to zero surprise. Second place TBD.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:30 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

I know you were all waiting on tenterhooks but Dianne Feinstein has squeaked it out and will be the senior Senator from California come November.
posted by Justinian at 8:31 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Iowa Primary tea-leaves: our turnout was about twice what we expected for a primary. We run parallel closed primaries, so voters have to pick a party affiliation, and that broke about 3 to 1 in favor of people voting in the Republican primary vs the Democratic primary for our county.

A shocking number of people don't seem to have any clue what a Primary election is *for*, but it sure seems like the uninformed masses are *aware* of politics right now, and that's driving turnout. The midterms are going to be off the hook bonkers from a turnout perspective.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 8:37 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

CA-49 seems in good shape. CA-48... less so. Pray for CA-48!
posted by Justinian at 8:39 PM on June 5, 2018

So why didn't anybody serious put up a challenge against Menendez? McCormick, with no name recognition and I don't think that much of a campaign, ended up with around 38% of the Democratic vote.

I mean, it's New Jersey, so that helps Menendez a lot, but clearly an awful lot of voters wanted better, and I can't say I blame them.
posted by zachlipton at 8:42 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Because the parties are still extremely strong in New Jersey, and they didn't want a challenger. Which is aggravating, to say the least.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:43 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

NM-01: Debra Haaland has won the Dem nom with about 39%. It's a very blue district, so she's virtually assured election - she'll be the first Native American woman rep ever.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:46 PM on June 5, 2018 [51 favorites]

"NM-01: Debra Haaland has won the Dem nom with about 39%. It's a very blue district, so she's virtually assured electiong - she'll be the first Native American woman rep ever."

Oh, gosh, my in-laws are in her district and they ADORE her. SO EXCITE! Really pleased!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:50 PM on June 5, 2018 [21 favorites]

Wow, Menendez sounds corrupt as shit. Small beans in the Trump era, but still.
posted by Artw at 8:52 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

One interesting thing about CA-48 is that Rohrabacher is a 30-year veteran who can't crack 30% of the vote in a Clinton +2 district. He is down to crazification factor levels of support. I really hope we didn't screw this up. Anyone have any Scott Baugh thoughts?

Bonus news:

El Diario, Ecuatoriano hace delivery de pizza en Brooklyn y cae en manos de ‘La Migra’. Spanish language reports (and an NYC Councilman) a man delivering pizzas to Fort Hamilton (General Lee Avenue, of course) in Brooklyn was questioned by military police, detained, and handed over to ICE. His family says the military personnel kept the pizzas that were in his car too.

Slate, Many of the “Eagles Fans” at Trump’s Patriotism Rally Looked Suspiciously Like White House and Congressional Interns
posted by zachlipton at 8:53 PM on June 5, 2018 [41 favorites]

CA-gov: As expected, Newsom handily in front. However, Villaraigosa looks to have seriously faded to 4th place, meaning no GOP lockout of the top two. Newsom is almost certain to win the general, but GOP lockout probably would have suppressed GOP votes in downballot races in November.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:56 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

@LATSeema: WAIT: Viillaraigosa's campaign just said they are asking LA County to keep vote centera open until Friday bc of the more than 118K voters whose names were missing from the rolls at polling places.

I don't think you can really do that, but it certainly points to a certain sense of desperation for Villaraigosa. Note that LA hasn't returned many votes yet, so he's got a lot more votes due one way or another.
posted by zachlipton at 8:59 PM on June 5, 2018

I'm seeing people online (I know, I know) being very ragey at the Democratic Party and the DCCC over the problems in California. What the hell? This is happening because you people wanted to take power away from the DCCC. You didn't want the Party telling you who to nominate! This is what you get! THIS IS WHAT YOU GET.

"How dare the Democrats not stop us from deliberately fucking up royally" is what I'm getting from people.
posted by Justinian at 9:02 PM on June 5, 2018 [42 favorites]

Anyone have any more sources on the guy detained at the military base? I can’t tell from the article whether he was stopped by the gate guards and asked for multiple IDs because of the level of security and his possessions were retained by base security, or whether some joes ordered pizza and when the guy got to the door, they forcibly held him and called ICE while eating the pizzas he brought.
posted by corb at 9:09 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

MT-Sen: As expected, it's a fight between Russ Fagg and Matt Rosendale. Good news for Rosendale: Fagg is trailing him in most of the state other than his home district. Bad news for Rosendale: Said home district happens to be Yellowstone County, home of Billings - the largest city in Montana, which basically makes it our political Golden Snitch.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:10 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

A week ago The Intercept published “Hidden Horrors of ‘Zero Tolerance’ — Mass Trials and Children Taken From Their Parents” by Debbie Nathan, with a photo of one of the mass trials. On Sunday Nathan was interviewed by the Houston Chronicle, then this morning she appeared on Democracy Now! (full show .mp4, alt link, .torrent) with audio taken at a trial she attended, which I'm now noticing is also embedded in the original Intercept article. (Also here's an article at the World Socialist Web Site, who are apparently Troskyites?)

Several of the sources note that mass trials of undocumented immigrants, specifically, began during the Bush admin, continued through Obama, and have become more recent under Trump.

I've spent about an hour looking for more information on mass trials in general and the conditions under which they happen, in the U.S. or internationally—particularly an explanation of how this counts as due process—but I'm stymied. They seem to have occurred throughout U.S. history and on some occasions decisions made at mass trials are invalidated by higher courts; and U.S. news media talks all the time about mass trials that occur overseas. But there doesn't even seem to be a Wikipedia article on the topic.

Through HathiTrust and the Internet Archive, and refined Google searches, I've found legal discussions that usually find fault in passing with a specific trial, but again no general discussion of mass trials.

So... does someone with better google-fu than me feel like taking a crack at it? (Or has this already been discussed? I Ctrl-F'ed in this thread and the previous uspolitics thread and was surprised to not find the photo mentioned, but maybe I'm picking the wrong keywords.)
posted by XMLicious at 9:13 PM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

Maybe learn the fucking words to "God Bless America" and the National Anthem before you try to show off how patriotic you are. Dumb motherfucker.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:13 PM on June 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

But this was apparently a brief "courtesy" meeting at the airport that turned into a quick handshake, so it's not like it's particularly earthshaking.

It is actually pretty bizarre to travel to the airport to pay a courtesy visit to the head of another government, when you're the US ambassador to Germany, and taken in context with his other unprofessional and undiplomatic behaviour, there's no reason to extend Grenell the benefit of the doubt.

Courtesy visits from an ambassador are almost always to the head of state or head of government or minister or whatever of their host country. There are some exceptions that mainly occur at a different level, when important people are travelling (generally things where it would be rude not to pop in and say hi while you're in the neighbourhood, e.g. the head of a UN agency on mission might briefly visit a country ambassador) but this isn't one of those times, as the ambassador wasn't travelling - Netanyahu didn't pay the visit to Grenell, and nor should he have. So yes, to my mind it was a breach of protocol.

Source: used to arrange diplomatic courtesy visits.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 9:13 PM on June 5, 2018 [50 favorites]

Oy, CA-48 voter here and the problem here has been that Kierstead locked up the CA Dem party endorsement, which gave him the official party endorsement on the first page of the ballot guide. Meanwhile, another Dem, Rouda locked up all the other endorsements: DCCC, indivisible, the endorsements of the several candidates who dropped out, etc.

At the moment, Kierstead’s front page endorsement is propelling him the second spot behind Rohrabacher, but Rouda is pulling a close fourth — and a shitload of Dem votes. Third place ATM is another Republican.

What a cluster.
posted by notyou at 9:21 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

"On first principles he should get along with all of them, especially Turnbull and May..."

This is from a while back, but it seems to me that Tr*mp is quite definitely following the despicable example of Australia's policies, fully endorsed by Turnbull and enacted by our very own talking potato, Peter Dutton, regarding separation of refugees and the increasingly inhumane treatment of them (in our case, in offshore detention facilities).
posted by h00py at 9:24 PM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

CA gov - Decision Desk calling 2nd place for Republican Cox.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:24 PM on June 5, 2018

Newsom is very happy with that result. Governor of California is a sweet gig. And who knows what can happen in 2024 or 2028.
posted by Justinian at 9:25 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Another interesting race to watch tonight is the recall election in Santa Clara County for Judge Persky over the Brock Turner sentencing. The recall is currently leading 59/41.
posted by zachlipton at 9:26 PM on June 5, 2018 [24 favorites]

CA-10 looking better now that San Joaquin has started counting. Wasserman thinks a Dem lockout looks unlikely there, and I suspect the initial fears were a quirk of the reporting process.

Local news is calling it: Judge Persky has been recalled.

Here in San Francisco, we might know who the mayor is sometime next week (we use a ranked choice voting system, and this is the first time it might decide the mayor's race).
posted by zachlipton at 9:35 PM on June 5, 2018 [18 favorites]

Roy Moore's wife, Kayla Moore, loses bid for state Republican Executive Committee

(sad antisemitic trombone)
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:38 PM on June 5, 2018 [62 favorites]

@daveweigel:

Now that NJ is done voting:

- Rs with less than $100k in the bank are the nominees in #NJ02 and #NJ05, likely taking them off the board.

- In #N07 and #NJ11, GOP districts since before Reagan was president, Democrats out-voted Republicans.

posted by Chrysostom at 9:42 PM on June 5, 2018 [13 favorites]

Not an exaggeration, this is really quite breathtaking in its obstruction of the Rule of Law.

@Susan_Hennessey This is an astonishing chart from @WSJ showing current DOJ vacancies. https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-sidelines-effort-to-appoint-justice-department-no-3-1528208396 …
posted by scalefree at 9:45 PM on June 5, 2018 [11 favorites]

I have no idea what things even mean, but here goes:

There's a legal blogger I follow called David Schraub. He has an ongoing series of Things People Blame the Jews For (e.g., the weather, Turkish taxis, etc.) In the latest one, Volume XLV: Electing Trump (and Making Russia Pay For It), he links to someone called John Schindler writing for an outfit called The Observer, who breathlessly asks

“What if the real secret of the Trump campaign isn’t that it’s a Kremlin operation, rather an Israeli operation masquerading as a Russian one?”

The online journal didn't look familiar to me, so I looked up its editorial board – the editor is Joseph Meyer, which rang a very vague bell. Long story short, The Observer is owned by Jared Kusher, Meyer is his brother-in-law, what the hell is even going on any more.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:46 PM on June 5, 2018 [44 favorites]

People I don't want to alarm anyone but there's another orb and this time Netanyahu and Macron are touching it
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:49 PM on June 5, 2018 [31 favorites]

scalefree's link to that DOJ vacancies story is a WSJ paywalled article, but if you have WSJ access, the link is actually https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-sidelines-effort-to-appoint-justice-department-no-3-1528208396.
posted by kristi at 9:53 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Democracy Journal, Middle America Reboots Democracy

At the current pace, it seems likely that the pop-up leaders and grassroots groups of 2017 will, by 2019, have repopulated the local layer of the Democratic Party in much of the country. National media misperceptions to the contrary, this will not look like a far-left reinvention of Tea Partiers or a continuation of Bernie 2016. It will look like retired librarians rolling their eyes at the present state of affairs, and then taking charge. And it will happen first and foremost in the suburbs, those middle-class, Middle-American spaces that grew up alongside a generation—the Baby Boomers—whose last act of generational transformation may just have arrived.

This change will come smoothly and cooperatively in some places and through conflict and displacement in others. The change will move farthest and fastest outside of the metropolitan cores where local Democratic Party patronage structures still persist. Purple suburbs, mid-size cities, big towns in red regions—these are the unexpected epicenters of the quake underway. The cumulative result will be local Democratic Party leadership across much of America that is slightly more progressive and much more female than it was, although not much more socio-economically diverse. Everywhere, the renovated party locals will be passionate about procedural democracy: determined to fight gerrymandering, regulate campaign activities and finance, and expand and guarantee voting rights for all.

For those wondering who is going to rebuild the foundations of U.S. democracy— assuming the national guardrails survive—the answer across much of the U.S. heartland seems clear. The foundation rebuilders in many communities across most states are newly mobilized and interconnected grassroots groups, led for the most part by Middle America’s mothers and grandmothers. They see the work to be done and are well into accomplishing it.

posted by zachlipton at 9:53 PM on June 5, 2018 [81 favorites]

@Redistrict: BREAKING: hearing word of a possible tabulation error in Orange Co. that could be costing Harley Rouda (D) ~2,000 votes in #CA48. If confirmed, we'd have a very tight race for 2nd between Keirstead (D), Baugh (R) & Rouda (D).

Jaw clenching intensifies.
posted by zachlipton at 9:57 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

he links to someone called John Schindler

We've covered Schindler before. He's a legit ex-spook, NSA analyst & Naval War College professor who turned wacky. Here's a decent if not completely up-to-date writeup on him in the Atlantic: How Surveillance-State Insiders Try to Discredit NSA Critics.
posted by scalefree at 10:00 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

About New Mexico's CD1 and Dem Deb Haaland -- I live in the district. Some people say it's blue, but it's really purple. The GOP has held the seat often.

I have been volunteering for Deb. She is warm and classy.
posted by maurreen at 10:01 PM on June 5, 2018 [14 favorites]

@Susan_Hennessey This is an astonishing chart from @WSJ showing current DOJ vacancies.

The WaPo has a story on the depth of dysfunction between Trump and Sessions that has this quote:

One person who knows Sessions, though, said the attorney general probably thinks “he’s the only person standing between the president and the complete destruction of the Justice Department.”

Which is a scary thought.
posted by peeedro at 10:08 PM on June 5, 2018 [13 favorites]

Wow, that Middle America Reboots Democracy article that zachlipton posted above is fantastic.

I want to quote a bunch of it but I'd basically just be copy-and-pasting the whole article. Just this one teaser, then:

Pennsylvania Together has identified more than 60 candidates who ran for local or municipal office in this state with new local groups’ support in November 2017. Most were first-time candidates; more than half were women; four out of five won. That last fact is all the more striking because the candidates were often running in places presumed to be so heavily Republican that Democrats hadn’t fielded campaigns there in recent memory. In Chester County, a large exurban and rural county west of Philadelphia, Democratic candidates swept row offices that Republicans had carried with an average 17-point margin of victory in 2015. School boards and township councils that had not had Democratic members in decades now do: sometimes, in the majority.

Go read it. It's great.

Thanks, zachlipton!
posted by kristi at 10:13 PM on June 5, 2018 [27 favorites]

AL Chief Justice - Roy Moore ally Tom Parker has won the GOP nom, ousting incumbent Lyn Stuart. Parker will face Bob Vance, who actually came pretty close to defeating Moore himself in this same race in 2012.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:13 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

John Schindler is part of the Louise Mensch League of Extraordinary Frauds
posted by Yowser at 10:24 PM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

@Redistrict: Projection: state Sen. Kevin de Leon (D) advances to November election vs. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) in #CASEN. Republicans locked out.

Good. Given Feinstein's performance tonight (and de León's paltry showing), I don't have much hope for November here, but this at least has a chance of getting some real issues raised and keeps the pressure on Feinstein.
posted by zachlipton at 10:32 PM on June 5, 2018 [26 favorites]

Looks like GOP is locked out of Lt. Gov as well, fwiw.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:32 PM on June 5, 2018 [11 favorites]

MT Senate - AP calls GOP nom for state auditor Matt Rosendale. Rosendale was Tester's preferred opponent - he's originally from Maryland, and carpetbagging can be a pretty potent issue in Montana.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:43 PM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

Since this Eagles thing has become an issue and people are discussing the Stanley Cup winning team White House visit: when Boston last won the Cup, they were invited by President Obama to visit. Goalie Tim Thomas, a very Right-Wing person, publicly refused to attend. It raised a bit of fuss [article by someone who thinks Thomas was wrong but probably also thinks NFL players should kneel.] So now, for the President to reverse things and disinvite is weird.
[And re: earlier comment about Black players in the NHL, the Capitals also have Ryan Reaves, who, like Pelly-Smith, is Canadian-born. The NHL has players from a lot of countries. Bellemare, who plays for Las Vegas, was born in France. He is black. But nobody fills out a form that says what colour they are, so... why is a team visit to the White House worth so much talk while there is not a peep about no generic drugs at a more reasonable cost or just how is that trade war going anyway or does Iran have a bomb yet and how would you know..? It's because Trump sets the agenda of distraction and I just contributed and I am sort of sorry.]
posted by CCBC at 10:44 PM on June 5, 2018 [8 favorites]

GOP lockout probably would have suppressed GOP votes in downballot races in November.

I'm not sure Cox on the ballot will do a ton for GOP turnout, but what will is an upcoming CA ballot measure in November to repeal last year's gas tax increase. We're the state that once recalled a governor in large part because he tripled the vehicle license fee. There's going to be a lot of noise about the gas tax to get Republicans to vote.
posted by zachlipton at 10:47 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

MT Senate - AP calls GOP nom for state auditor Matt Rosendale. Rosendale was Tester's preferred opponent - he's originally from Maryland, and carpetbagging can be a pretty potent issue in Montana.

Yeah, Fagg was close enough to Rosendale that the Club for Growth was running a pretty strong anti-Fagg campaign here. It seemed like every other YouTube ad was their ad about how Fagg cut 45 years off a DV case.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:49 PM on June 5, 2018

Aaron Persky, the judge in the Brock Turner rape case, has been recalled.
posted by un petit cadeau at 10:56 PM on June 5, 2018 [63 favorites]

Also there was a successful recall of Dem Newman in CA SD-29 over a vote for the gas tax. This (at least until the election) removes the Democratic supermajority in the state Senate, which is needed for tax increases.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:00 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Ars Technica:

Hoax emergency call sends SWAT team to home of gun-control activist
Swatter targeted Parkland survivor David Hogg; luckily, he wasn't home.

Judge orders EPA to disclose any science backing up Pruitt’s climate claims
EPA will have to comply with an information request by July.

And finally, possibly related to un petit cadeau's link...

In seconds, we faked our way into a political campaign, got unsecured voter data
Data analytics firm says this is normal: "It's the way that campaigns are run."
[...]we were sent a lengthy public URL (beginning with http://phonebank.the-pdi.com) designed for Republican volunteers in a Southern California recall campaign. The URL allowed us to access active Republican voter data, including names, addresses, phone numbers, ages, genders, and party affiliations.

We accessed this information without agreeing to any terms of use or stipulating that we were, in fact, Republican volunteers. The website had no meaningful security controls whatsoever.

[...]

The Republican who shared this Web address with Ars did so out of concern that his party was lax when it comes to digital security. [...] The website did not even attempt to confirm our alleged email address.

[...]

The Republican Party of California and its contractor, a Southern California firm named Political Data Inc., told Ars that this online tool is fully compliant with the laws that allow for sharing of voter data for political purposes.

posted by XMLicious at 11:00 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

Downballot good news: Two progressive challengers in New Mexico state House races appear to have defeated conservative Dem incumbents. No GOP candidates in these districts, either.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:04 PM on June 5, 2018 [20 favorites]

Downballot good news: In CA AD-76, which has been GOP-held for years, it looks like the top two slots will be Dems.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:12 PM on June 5, 2018 [24 favorites]

The jobs not done until there isn't a single Republican officeholder left in the state. But that's a good start.
posted by Justinian at 11:17 PM on June 5, 2018 [22 favorites]

Have we mentioned Zach Wahls yet? He just won his Iowa State Senate primary through Run for Something. This was his campaign announcement: "Remember that young man from Iowa who spoke to the Iowa legislature a few years ago about growing up with two moms? Hi. That was me — and today, I'm announcing my campaign to join the Iowa legislature."

I don't know a lot about him (and welcome insight from those who do), but twitter is jazzed and Matt Fuller, who spends his time talking to Congress for a living, describes him as "smarter and more politically gifted than 99% of Congress."
posted by zachlipton at 11:25 PM on June 5, 2018 [41 favorites]

In today's News of the Crazypants (even by 2018 standards):

NBC's Ben Collins: We have an active, real-life QAnon-based standoff in Tucson, where complete dipshits believe an abandoned homeless camp is a pedophile ring.

Thank you again, Infowars!

JJ McNab of Forbes.com: There's a one-sided standoff shaping up in Tucson, Arizona. A group called Veterans on Patrol, headed up by a guy who has never served in the military, found an abandoned homeless camp.

In a fit of Pizzagate-conspiracy-theory-level research, the group has announced that this was actual a super secret sex camp where countless little children have been tortured and killed.

When local cops took a look at the abandoned camp and shrugged, the non-veteran leader climbed a local tower and issued his demands for the govt to bring in cadaver dogs to look for dead kids or else he wouldn't come down from the tower. He came down that night.

This is the third time this guy has climbed a tower looking for attention. He did it in 2015.

So far, it's just a bunch of people, some militia demanding attention. The only reason this could actually turn into a standoff is because this is happening on privately-owned land and they are trespassing.

If the local PD is smart, they will ignore them and let boredom and the blazing hot Arizona summer sun do its thing.

The conspiracy theory floating around this abandoned camp involves George Soros, a cement company, a local mayor whose last names is (da da da) Rothschild, the QAnon hoax, secret underground tunnels, John McCain, rape trees, and so on.

And it goes on in that stupid and even stupider by the minute vein, since instead of ignoring these loons, the cops actually humored them by bringing out a cadaver dog, for no reason. Then ICE got involved and said "nothing to see here, folks," so obviously they, too, are Deep State or whatever. Other militia dolts are arriving in response to a Facebook alert requesting supplies and reinforcements. Oy vey.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:28 PM on June 5, 2018 [48 favorites]

@JeffMerkley: My visit to the McAllen processing center was a harrowing experience. Children were in cages. People were distraught. Kids were ripped from their parents’ arms. It’s unconscionable that we are treating them this way.

Here's the full segment from Chris Hayes' show.
posted by zachlipton at 11:34 PM on June 5, 2018 [35 favorites]

> Dem GAIN in Missouri Senate 17:

Arthur [D] 59.6%
Corlew [R] 40.3%

Margin changes compared to previous races:

vs 2016 presidential result margin: Dem improvement of about 24 points.
vs 2016 SD-17 result margin: Dem improvement of about 42 points.

Kevin Corlew was a pretty strong R candidate for this district. He is a moderate Republican (good for thise district), came out against the Greitens shenanigans quite early (also good), has a great record of moderate leadership in Jefferson City (good, but does not always translate to votes), and has won House elections, some pretty handily, in a House district that covers a portion of the Senate district.

I don't know how he fares as a campaigner or a fundraiser. But overall he is a moderately strong to very strong R candidate for this district and it has got to be discouraging for Missouri Republicans that he was not within 5-10 points anyway.

The Greitens fiasco playing out within the past week clearly impacted this race. If Greitens had waited to resign until a week before the upcoming November elections we might have seen Ds up 20 points across Missouri in that election.

But given that L'affaire Greitens will have greatly faded from the public consciousness by November, I'd say Missouri Ds will be doing great in November if they can manage to pull out +5% to +10% overall vs recent elections.

That would be enough to cut the R's current veto-proof majority in both House & Senate but not nearly enough to give Ds a majority in either chamber (I've mentioned many times here that the districting setup gives Rs a very strong structural advantage in the state legislature).

Still, it would be an interesting and substantive change here if the legislature were to make a strong move towards parity--say 55/45 or even 60/40 would be vastly different and better than the current 70/30 split in both chambers.

BTW the Clean Missouri proposal will be on the November ballot and i predict it will win handily. It could help significantly to even up the odds for Democrats in Missouri starting in 2020. We'll see.
posted by flug at 11:34 PM on June 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

NBC's Ben Collins: We have an active, real-life QAnon-based standoff in Tucson, where complete dipshits believe an abandoned homeless camp is a pedophile ring.

And it will surprise no one that Roseanne Barr, president of the QAnon fanclub, is spreading this Tucson nonsense.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:36 PM on June 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

@Redistrict: Breaking: Scott Baugh (R) now looking likely to come in 4th place in #CA48. Race for 2nd likely coming down to Hans Keirstead (D) & Harley Rouda (D).

@Redistrict: Dems currently pulling 50.6% of primary votes in #CA49 (and likely to go higher in late counting), a pretty good omen of their fall chances for a pickup there.

JCPL slowly starts to soothe.
posted by zachlipton at 11:42 PM on June 5, 2018 [10 favorites]

The day Trump leaves office I think I might go into a coma from the lack of adrenaline and cortisol rushing through my veins.
posted by Justinian at 11:45 PM on June 5, 2018 [62 favorites]

The day Trump leaves office I’m going to party all year.
posted by gucci mane at 11:50 PM on June 5, 2018 [34 favorites]

With 93% reporting Rouda and Kierstead are separated by approximately 100 votes in the contest to see who gets to go up against Rohrabacher (R - Moscow) come November!
posted by Justinian at 12:27 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

NM-01: Debra Haaland has won the Dem nom with about 39%. It's a very blue district, so she's virtually assured election - she'll be the first Native American woman rep ever.

Haaland supports defunding ICE. So good on many levels.
posted by chris24 at 12:29 AM on June 6, 2018 [21 favorites]

CCBC: " The NHL has players from a lot of countries."

Well sort of. The NHL currently has players from only 17 countries. 46% of players are Canadian. Of the 17 countries 4 only have a single representative and 9 fail to post double digits. 82.7% of players come from just 3 countries (Canada, US, Sweden)
posted by Mitheral at 12:38 AM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

@JeffMerkley: My visit to the McAllen processing center was a harrowing experience. Children were in cages. People were distraught. Kids were ripped from their parents’ arms. It’s unconscionable that we are treating them this way.

I was looking for information about the McAllen processing center and ran across this video from the interior of the U.S. Border Patrol station. It was filmed in 2014 because of concerns over the conditions there. Mylar blankets, concrete floor, and very crowded conditions. A central processing facility for unaccompanied kids was opened in the same year to help with overflow from the station. In a warehouse. With cages. Some of this cruelty isn't new. The new part is the reprehensible separation of kids from their parents. The preceding years of caged "processing" of children are also reprehensible.

I'm not trying to minimize what's happening at the right border now. It's undoubtedly getting worse under Trump. But what were we doing in 2014? Probably thinking America was doing fine under Obama. None of this is fine.
posted by Mister Cheese at 12:41 AM on June 6, 2018 [64 favorites]

The conspiracy theory floating around this abandoned camp involves George Soros, a cement company, a local mayor whose last names is (da da da) Rothschild, the QAnon hoax, secret underground tunnels, John McCain, rape trees, and so on.

"This club has everything..."
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 12:42 AM on June 6, 2018 [48 favorites]

John Couvillon
2018 PRIMARY TURNOUT (EXCLUDING CALIFORNIA): Democratic turnout up 69% from 2014, Republican turnout up 4%.
posted by chris24 at 12:44 AM on June 6, 2018 [53 favorites]

Wasserman: #CA49 Projection: Mike Levin (D) advances to November election vs. Diane Harkey (R). Both parties avert shutout. @CookPolitical rating will move from Toss Up to Lean D.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:45 AM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

@Redistrict: Worth noting that Josh Harder (D)'s lead over Ted Howze (R) for 2nd slot in #CA10 continues to shrink slightly w/ E-Day counting. Too soon to say with certainty that Dems have avoided a shutout here:
Jeff Denham (R): 22,272
Josh Harder (D): 9,014
Ted Howze (R): 8,406

*drinking intensifies*
posted by zachlipton at 12:47 AM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

CNN: On Wednesday, President Donald Trump's White House will host its first iftar. "Many American Muslims are skeptical, if not scornful, about breaking bread with Trump, citing the President's rhetoric and actions towards Muslims and other religious and racial minorities."
posted by zarq at 12:49 AM on June 6, 2018 [16 favorites]

GOP lockout probably would have suppressed GOP votes in downballot races in November.
---
I'm not sure Cox on the ballot will do a ton for GOP turnout

Dave Weigel (WaPo)
The national take on Newsom-Cox is that this will boost R turnout. The CA Dem take: This frees up *tens of millions* of dollars and labor GOTV for other races, which would have otherwise been spent fighting Villaraigosa.
posted by chris24 at 12:53 AM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

With 99.8% counted Rouda is ahead of Kierstead by 70 votes! I hope they don't get into some weird internecine recount bullshit.
posted by Justinian at 1:07 AM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

What if the real secret of the Trump campaign isn’t that it’s a Kremlin operation, rather an Israeli operation masquerading as a Russian one?
...
Long story short, The Observer is owned by Jared Kusher, Meyer is his brother-in-law, what the hell is even going on any more.

What with all the end-of-times nuttiness with the Pence crowd I imagine Israel's involvement would be considered a feature, not a bug, by Tangerine Scheme's base.

In other words, "ok, there really was collusion but don't worry it wasn't the Russians. Donny was just helping to speed up the second coming. We've already filled out the forms to have him canonized as St. Yuge the Orange."
posted by duoshao at 4:53 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

Was CA-10 even on the radar for a Dem lockout? There's still 6 Dem candidates in that race? The top 2 primary system is an abomination, California has to fix this.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:55 AM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Hoax emergency call sends SWAT team to home of gun-control activist
Swatter targeted Parkland survivor David Hogg; luckily, he wasn't home.

OK so I thought the police had access to all kinds of intel... so before sending lethal force based on one bogus tip, why not get tapping the phones, get a helicopter over the site with listening gear, etc?

It is like keystone cops. Don't the SWAT teams feel like schmucks when they get played like this?
posted by Meatbomb at 5:09 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

CNN: Republicans, however, had a good night in California, because their leading candidate for Governor, John Cox, made it on the November ballot where he will face off against Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who easily finished first.

So not getting totally shutout of statewide races equals a good night?
posted by octothorpe at 5:15 AM on June 6, 2018 [13 favorites]

Here in my county, Contra Costa, we have three Democratic Representatives - McNerney (District 9), DeSaulnier (District 11), and Swalwell (District 15), who are pretty much cruising to victory. No excitement here! I didn't need an Ambien to sleep or anything.

DeSaulnier is my Rep, and he's in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and he's great, so I was happy to vote for him. No holding my nose, hooray!
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 5:19 AM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

OK so I thought the police had access to all kinds of intel... so before sending lethal force based on one bogus tip, why not get tapping the phones, get a helicopter over the site with listening gear, etc?

Local departments typically don't have the resources to afford stuff like this, and phone taps usually require judicial oversight, which makes them useless in an emergency. Plus, why would you waste a perfectly good opportunity to dress up in SWAT gear and play COPS for the afternoon?
posted by Rykey at 5:33 AM on June 6, 2018 [17 favorites]

Courtesy visits from an ambassador are almost always to the head of state or head of government or minister or whatever of their host country. There are some exceptions that mainly occur at a different level, when important people are travelling (generally things where it would be rude not to pop in and say hi while you're in the neighbourhood, e.g. the head of a UN agency on mission might briefly visit a country ambassador) but this isn't one of those times, as the ambassador wasn't travelling - Netanyahu didn't pay the visit to Grenell, and nor should he have. So yes, to my mind it was a breach of protocol.

Interesting! Glad to learn something new. Thank you for explaining!

So how would this normally have been handled? I assume then that the request by Grenell should not have been made. Would Netanyahu and/or his team have declined to meet with him? Could there be any downside to that? (e.g., is there any possibility that might have been seen as a snub?)

I'm curious as to why the request by Grenell would have been allowed.
posted by zarq at 5:38 AM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

I know it's upthread now but for corb or anyone wondering, here's a (small) update on Pablo Villavicencio, the man detained by military police and turned over to ICE while trying to deliver a pizza at Fort Hamilton. Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams and City Council Member Justin Brannan are trying to find out what happened at the base and what's currently happening to Villavicencio; there's a press briefing scheduled for 11 this morning.
posted by halation at 5:42 AM on June 6, 2018 [19 favorites]

Roy Moore's wife, Kayla Moore, loses bid for state Republican Executive Committee

Well, there goes her family's chance for revenge.

"Thank you to all who voted for me today! Congratulations to Mrs. Lasseter," Kayla Moore posted on Facebook Tuesday night. "Sorry I couldn't post sooner but I have had a difficult time trying to find it as we are out of town. Thank you all again!"
She sounds competent.

Roy Moore's former campaign manager, Rich Hobson, was also defeated yesterday. He was trying to unseat Representative Martha Roby (R-Ala.)
posted by zarq at 5:49 AM on June 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

Although Roby didn't actually win, because the Alabama primary system requires a majority of votes for the nomination. She's in a runoff with Bobby Bright, a former Democratic rep who switched parties, and most coverage of the race has linked Roby's poor performance (for an incumbent) to the fact that she un-endorsed Trump after the Access Hollywood tape came out.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:04 AM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

People I don't want to alarm anyone but there's another orb and this time Netanyahu and Macron are touching it

What is Varys doing there, this isn't good
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:22 AM on June 6, 2018 [16 favorites]

Helicopter mounted listening gear is like a microscope attached to a strobe light.

It's hilarious that people still put full blame on the person calling the police, never holding police departments accountable for procedures and training that get innocent people killed.

In my industry we have a risk model, where the benefits of caution are weighed against the cost of not acting. And the results are measured and verified. What sort of risk model says that hundreds of citizens killed is an acceptable price for the benefits of aggressive military style policing? What even are those supposed benefits? Are any outcomes improved by SWAT tactics?
posted by idiopath at 6:31 AM on June 6, 2018 [36 favorites]

And it will happen first and foremost in the suburbs, those middle-class, Middle-American spaces that grew up alongside a generation—the Baby Boomers—whose last act of generational transformation may just have arrived.

Co-authored by Theda Skocpol, Professor of Sociology, Harvard, b. 1947.

The Boomers are not going to save us from the future they've created.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:33 AM on June 6, 2018 [12 favorites]

Helicopter mounted listening gear is like a microscope attached to a strobe light.

It's probably not using a condenser mic, yeah? Maybe a gyro-stabilized laser mic?

The problem with this sort of thing doesn't go away just because its crappy and not that useful to The Man from a practical standpoint. Scalia is gone, but the 4th Am. jurisprudence he left behind basically says that cops can use invasive technology to conduct searches at a distance without a warrant only when the technology becomes commonplace such that it's no longer within a persons normal expectation of privacy.

These inch-a-mile erosions matter.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:37 AM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

NPR reporting report: Steve Inskeep interviewed the chair of the CA Democratic party this morning. He spent a long time setting up a question about how much danger the Dems were in yesterday. CA guy interrupted him to criticize that framing and get to the point - they're on the ballot. Then Steve pivoted instantly from "aren't there too many Dems?" to "does anyone even want to vote for these Dems?" which CA guy also shut down. He allowed none of Steve's nonsense.

I cackled through the whole thing and occasionally yelled "Fuck you, Steve!" I recommend. Very cathartic.
posted by Emmy Rae at 6:38 AM on June 6, 2018 [77 favorites]

How about this framing Steve? Rs dying in SoCal.

Dave Weigel (WaPo)
Combined GOP vote in #CA48:

2014 primary: 67.1%
2018 primary: 53.0%

In #CA49:

2014 primary: 61.4%
2018 primary: 48.5%

Some stuff left to count, but the Dem SoCal gains that started in 2016 seem to have continued.
posted by chris24 at 6:44 AM on June 6, 2018 [26 favorites]

In my industry we have a risk model, where the benefits of caution are weighed against the cost of not acting. And the results are measured and verified. What sort of risk model says that hundreds of citizens killed is an acceptable price for the benefits of aggressive military style policing? What even are those supposed benefits? Are any outcomes improved by SWAT tactics?

Oh, I see, risk to life, not risk to personal wealth.
posted by ZeusHumms at 6:46 AM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

I heard that NPR too, and the Dem consultant was glorious. Inskeep wanted so much to go with the hackneyed "Dems in Disarray" narrative, and the Democrat was having none of it. He make the party look good, and more, used the opportunity to point out that Californians are rejecting Republicans even in famously conservative Orange County.
posted by Gelatin at 6:53 AM on June 6, 2018 [41 favorites]

Dem Senator Joe Manchin: ‘Im Open to Supporting’ Trump in 2020

“I’m with him sometimes more than other Republican senators are with him,” said Manchin. “Washington Democrats are making it more difficult for me to be a West Virginia Democrat.”
posted by Artw at 6:55 AM on June 6, 2018 [9 favorites]

Ben Strauss, Politico: ‘It’s the Least Political Thing a President Does’

Presidents going back to Calvin Coolidge have hosted championship teams at the White House. Some wonder if the tradition is on its last legs with Donald Trump.

Marc J. Spears, ESPN: LeBron James, Stephen Curry agree that next NBA champs won't visit White House (autoplaying video)
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:00 AM on June 6, 2018 [19 favorites]

Artw: Dem Senator Joe Manchin: ‘Im Open to Supporting’ Trump in 2020

Infuriating, but also enlightening, as evidence of the extent to which senators really do listen to and follow their constituents. Trump got a higher share of the vote in West Virginia, 68.5%, than any other state.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 7:04 AM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

Meanwhile in "Lets blow everything up" territory: - Steve Bannon is on a far-right mission to radicalise Europe. He’s leading a Trumpian onslaught to undermine European democracy itself.
Then there is Michael Pack: the Bannon ally Trump wants for government broadcast job.
Trump wants Pack to lead the Broadcasting Board of Governors – but will it turn Voice Of America into a propaganda tool? (when wasn´t it?)
Trump has told reporters that he no longer speaks to his former campaign chief Steve Bannon. Which of course means he does.
posted by adamvasco at 7:06 AM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

Guardian: Cambridge Analytica director 'met Assange to discuss US election'

A Cambridge Analytica director apparently visited Julian Assange in February last year and told friends it was to discuss what happened during the US election, the Guardian has learned. Brittany Kaiser, a director at the firm until earlier this year, also claimed to have channelled cryptocurrency payments and donations to WikiLeaks. This information has been passed to congressional and parliamentary inquiries in the UK and US.

Seems perfectly normal.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:07 AM on June 6, 2018 [18 favorites]

Ha ha, fuck you Steve. And speaking of having to walk back the "Democrats In Disarray" narrative, Ralph Northam is getting high approval numbers so far. Remember the howling and Chicken Little-ing that boring ol' Ralph Northam was sure to either lose, or do a dismal job if he was elected? Now, with a Medicaid expansion happening, the "Dems in Disarray why didn't we elect Perriello" crowd needs to eat their words.

And I'm heartened by all the women running for office and winning nominations!

Democracy journal article: This goes to show the importance of local politics. The way to get a blue state where you can have nice things is to elect Democrats to local offices. We in Cali have seen how our quality of life improves when we have Democrats in charge. (I'm going to miss Jerry Brown! Like whoa!) This improves our bench for nationwide office as well.

P.S. Ageism isn't cool. We wouldn't let other -isms slide so can we not with the age bashing? There are and always have been plenty of "Boomer" Democrats and SJWs.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 7:09 AM on June 6, 2018 [26 favorites]

Rosie M. Banks: the "Dems in Disarray why didn't we elect Perriello" crowd needs to eat their words.

Let them bake cake.
posted by Too-Ticky at 7:13 AM on June 6, 2018 [21 favorites]

With regards to the Medicaid expansion in Virginia, I have seen reference to (but not much in-depth discussion of) the fact that the expansion includes a work requirement and that that requirement may subsequently be thrown out. Does anyone have more information on this?
posted by C'est la D.C. at 7:17 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

> Wow, that Middle America Reboots Democracy article that zachlipton posted above is fantastic.

If we keep reiterating this sentiment and posting a different excerpt of the article, we could have the entire text quoted in this thread. Seriously, it's a great article.

The protagonists of the trends we report on are mainly college-educated suburban white women. We tell their stories not because college-educated white women are the most Democratic slice of the electorate (they aren’t) or because they are the most progressive voices within the Democratic Party (they aren’t) or because they have a special claim to lead the left moving forward (they don’t: nor do they pretend to). Rather, what we report here is that it is among these college-educated, middle-aged women in the suburbs that political practices have most changed under Trump. If your question is how the panorama of political possibility has shifted since November 2016, your story needs to begin here.

posted by RedOrGreen at 7:23 AM on June 6, 2018 [18 favorites]

We wouldn't let other -isms slide so can we not with the age bashing? There are and always have been plenty of "Boomer" Democrats and SJWs.

There are plenty of Boomer everyone and everything. That goes without saying. So what?

Not every element of generational politics amounts to "ageism." We don't silence people on stratification by gender or race because gender and race can have "isms" attached to them. And we don't excuse people from those discussions because they are liberal otherwise. Boomers didn't want to be silenced on generational politics in the '60s, did they? That was kinda the brand.

TFA specifically pointed up the Boomer's conventionally-recognized transformational role in society (largely self-recognition, but we can leave that) and suggests we should all be looking to Boomers to do it one last time. Well, I think it's far more likely Boomers will continue to defund the future in favor of getting by in the present as they have been doing since the '80s.

On the other hand, for lots of Boomers (who are not Harvard profs) there may not be much of a choice -- WaPo: A crucial Medicare trust fund will run out three years earlier than predicted, new report says. It's too much to expect of any generation to literally vote to put themslves in an early grave over more bailouts.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:26 AM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

Dem Senator Joe Manchin: ‘Im Open to Supporting’ Trump in 2020

“I’m with him sometimes more than other Republican senators are with him,” said Manchin. “Washington Democrats are making it more difficult for me to be a West Virginia Democrat.”

OMFG can we not do Manchin the Fake Dem for the bazillionth time? The dude sucks but he still votes with the Dem caucus by several percentage points more than the most lefty R and about 40% more often than his fellow WV senator. He can //** redacted obscene act w/ Trump **// on a daily basis for all I care so long as he remains a bulwark against at least some of the R's awful agenda. Let him say all the bullshit he wants as long as he keeps that seat against another Capito

From https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/

Trump score
How often Capito votes in line with Trump's position: 95.8%
How often Manchin votes in line with Trump's position: 61.6%
posted by phearlez at 7:28 AM on June 6, 2018 [42 favorites]

I am so glad I am am not alone in my hatred of Steve Inskeep's bullshit. He is the avatar of bad interviews.
posted by benzenedream at 7:35 AM on June 6, 2018 [18 favorites]

Absolutely. Hell, we’re just fortunate Manchin is officially a Dem for purposes of control of the Senate. As far as that goes, even if he voted with Trump as often as Capito (and he doesn’t), given that West Virginia is such a conservative State, I’d still consider it a net gain that he caucuses with the Dems.

I’d love to swap out half a dozen more Rs in super conservative states for Manchin clones.
posted by darkstar at 7:36 AM on June 6, 2018 [12 favorites]

It's too much to expect of any generation to literally vote to put themslves in an early grave over more bailouts.

They will because of Fox News. My dad worked for the VA and receives army retirement health benefits and still thinks government health care is bad and the private market can do it better because of Fox News.
posted by Fleebnork at 7:37 AM on June 6, 2018 [28 favorites]

WaPo: A crucial Medicare trust fund will run out three years earlier than predicted, new report says. . . .
Dismantling through privatization has long (40 years now) been an active libertarian and rich-class project. Here's an interview with Nancy MacLean, whose excellent book Democracy in Chains, details the political background and recent history of this project. It notably included the long range 'Social Security is Failing!' propaganda campaign started a few decades ago.
"The libertarian notion that they’re somehow re-creating the vision of the Founders is thus a total fantasy. What the libertarians would create is, in fact, an utterly unsustainable society, government and environment. They would say that their cause is “liberty,” and they say things like, “we are advancing pro-growth policies and limited government, putting more tax dollars in your pocket.” Who’s going to disagree with bromides like that?

But when you find out they’re using your energies to build momentum to privatize Social Security and Medicare, undermine our public education system, and make it impossible for the government to ensure clean air and water or action on climate change, then you start to get a different picture of what this is all about."
posted by Harry Caul at 7:37 AM on June 6, 2018 [13 favorites]

Fantastically accurate and incisive profile of Trump and his base by David Roth of Deadspin: The NFL Is Too Dumb To Realize That Donald Trump Is Never Going To Stop With This Shit

He’s a man who only knows how to do a couple of things, but one of those things is to find a bruise and then push and push on it. He does that very well. . . .

[H]e is not listening or learning or changing, because those are not things he does. He is pushing and pushing and pushing at this issue because that is what he does, and because he is nothing without something to push against. There is no compromise to make. Trump wants to become the world, to erase and expunge everything from it that is not him or about him. A generation of the worst and most hard-hearted people that this country has ever produced are lined up outside the church he has opened, and they are willing to leave everything outside in order to gain entry. It’s the only way in. It’s the only way there will be enough room. . . .

[The Trump voting] population tends to have just about the racial and class characteristics that you’d expect, but at a fundamental level what binds it together is the belief that you and your personal comfort are the most important thing in the world; the politics that follow from this are callous and cruel in the most casual and checked-out way imaginable. It is a worldview that allows for unimaginable suffering and injustice precisely because it refuses even to imagine that suffering and injustice or the people broken under it. It greets every inconvenience or perceived slight against the individual with a foot-stamping demand to speak to a manager, and everything else with a shrug, or at most with some half-reasoned hand-waving in the direction of justification before changing the subject back to what really matters, the only person in this universe who is actually real—the man in the armchair, feeling it all.

posted by FelliniBlank at 7:43 AM on June 6, 2018 [97 favorites]

we’re just fortunate Manchin is officially a Dem for purposes of control of the Senate.

One of the reason why it's worth keeping track of his statements, because I absolutely would not count that chicken. the second he matters he's going to flip or extract Republican policies by threatening to flip.
posted by Artw at 7:45 AM on June 6, 2018 [15 favorites]

I'm definitely wary of that, but at the same time Manchin has had opportunities to ratfuck the Dems since 2016 and declined -- he was rock-solid on healthcare, and has reportedly turned down Cabinet offers at least twice.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:58 AM on June 6, 2018 [12 favorites]

It greets every inconvenience or perceived slight against the individual with a foot-stamping demand to speak to a manager, and everything else with a shrug, or at most with some half-reasoned hand-waving in the direction of justification before changing the subject back to what really matters, the only person in this universe who is actually real—the man in the armchair, feeling it all.

Narcissist Nation.
posted by notyou at 7:58 AM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

WSJ: Kim Jong Un Begged for Summit ‘on His Hands and Knees,’ Giuliani Says

“They also said they were going to go to nuclear war with us, they were going to defeat us in a nuclear war,” Mr. Giuliani said. “We said we’re not going to have a summit under those circumstances.” After Mr. Trump canceled the meeting, Mr. Giuliani said: “Well, Kim Jong Un got back on his hands and knees and begged for it, which is exactly the position you want to put him in.”

...Rudy?
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:59 AM on June 6, 2018 [30 favorites]

Snuffleupagus, while it may be true that not every element of generational politics is “ageism”, your being snarky about the age of one of TFA’s authors felt pretty ageist to me FWIW. Will note that the beginning of the article stressed the importance of women ages 30 to 60 so clearly not a baby boomer only thing even in TFA. Was there a gratuitous shout out to boomers? Sure. Now you’ve made your gratuitous response. Can we please stop acting as though characterizing any given cohort of millions of people is useful? Just because the mainstream media does it constantly does not mean we have to follow that terrible example.
posted by Bella Donna at 8:03 AM on June 6, 2018 [16 favorites]

C'est la D.C.: "With regards to the Medicaid expansion in Virginia, I have seen reference to (but not much in-depth discussion of) the fact that the expansion includes a work requirement and that that requirement may subsequently be thrown out. Does anyone have more information on this?"

It definitely includes work requirements, haven't seen anything about that being removed. That was pretty much the price to pay to get a few GOP defections. Dems have a good chance of taking both houses in 2019, so hopefully we can get those removed.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:05 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

T.D. Strange: "Was CA-10 even on the radar for a Dem lockout?"

It got mentioned as an outside chance, but definitely was not on most people's radar.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:06 AM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is stupid and not news but I would like to share Kellyanne Conway accidentally calling Trump "The Commander of Cheese."
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:08 AM on June 6, 2018 [44 favorites]

Now you’ve made your gratuitous response

It's not gratuitous, we have real problems with divergent interests along generational lines despite common politics. How do you save Medicare and do any kind of student loan forgiveness? Or, for that matter, save the current programs that have already been curtailed?

But I agree we aren't going to much headway on all that through some extended sidebar here and I don't mean to derail the thread.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:10 AM on June 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

Darkstar: Absolutely. Hell, we’re just fortunate Manchin is officially a Dem for purposes of control of the Senate. As far as that goes, even if he voted with Trump as often as Capito (and he doesn’t), given that West Virginia is such a conservative State, I’d still consider it a net gain that he caucuses with the Dems.

I’d love to swap out half a dozen more Rs in super conservative states for Manchin clones.

I agree - the Senate is the place where we're going to have to really compromise our precious, progressive principles the most. Because we get two Senators for an entire state, we're kind of stuck with ConservaDems in many places like West Virginia. Hell, even in California, Dianne Feinstein is cruising to a nomination and probably a re-election, because 1) we do have plenty of moderate Dems, even here, and 2) lots of people who might otherwise be De Léon voters don't want to toss out a veteran Senator, especially in these "interesting" times.

So, we have to do our best with what we have. As long as the more conservative Democrats are not actual turncoats in the Lieberman mold, or Jim Justice (West VA governor, who switched from D to R at a Trump rally grrrrrr) I think we can deal. Let's just elect those progressives and Socialists at the local and Representative level when we can!
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 8:13 AM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

Steve Benen: Trump administration struggles with undiplomatic diplomats (emphasis in original)

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Tuesday cited the D-Day invasion during an answer about the current state of US-German relations.

“We have a very strong relationship with the government of Germany,” Nauert said. “Looking back in the history books, today is the 71st anniversary of the speech that announced the Marshall Plan. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion. We obviously have a very long history with the government of Germany, and we have a strong relationship with the government of Germany.”
I imagine being the State Department spokesperson in this administration is difficult, and so I try to be sympathetic toward Nauert, a former Fox News personality, who is obviously in a tough job.

But, c’mon.

It’s not enough that the Trump administration dispatched a notorious Internet troll to be the U.S. ambassador in Berlin; the State Department found it necessary to point to D-Day as an example of our relationship with Germany?

In case anyone – say, Heather Nauert, for example – has forgotten, the D-Day invasion was part our campaign to liberate France from Nazi occupation. Or put another way, on D-Day, Germans weren’t our allies.

Has the United States enjoyed a long relationship with Germany? Yes. Does D-Day serve as a helpful representation of that relationship? No.

posted by zombieflanders at 8:14 AM on June 6, 2018 [70 favorites]

he was rock-solid on healthcare

Depends on whose healthcare we're talking about. Manchin voted against repealing the ACA (as well as against Trump's tax bill) but also voted with Republicans for a radical ban on abortion in January.
posted by zarq at 8:18 AM on June 6, 2018 [11 favorites]

Fair, I should have said "on the ACA."
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:19 AM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

so I try to be sympathetic toward Nauert, a former Fox News personality, who is obviously in a tough job

Maybe she should have let someone qualified for the job take it instead. It's hard to be more complicit in the dumbing-down of politics than taking a political job you can't do.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:19 AM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

WSJ: Kim Jong Un Begged for Summit ‘on His Hands and Knees,’ Giuliani Says

Only the best people? I literally can't imagine worse people sometimes. The president's lawyer, so clearly thrilled to be back on the inside, just spouting dangerous nonsense. More Rudy failing:

Giuliani: Mueller’s team is trying ‘very hard to frame’ Trump

Their rhetoric is accelerating--have they directly used the word 'frame' before?
posted by cudzoo at 8:20 AM on June 6, 2018 [23 favorites]

Yes, there are work requirements in Virginia, but that is because Republicans have a senate majority. It was a close call as it was and a years long project. Terry McAuliffe was unsuccessful in many attempts but it looks like Northam will finally get it done.

The work requirements are detestable but at least 400,000 people will now be getting nearly free healthcare. Virginia has long had one of the most restrictive Medicaid systems. If you were not a single parent with a child you got absolutely nothing, no matter how poor or homeless. This expansion is a big step in the right direction.

Work requirements are not allowed by Obamacare law. But Trump appointee Seema Verma is issuing waivers to Republican states in defiance of the law. It remains to be seen if there will be a court challenge in any of those states.

This is another case where elections have consequences. The winner gets to decide how the laws are enforced.
posted by JackFlash at 8:20 AM on June 6, 2018 [15 favorites]

Fair, I should have said "on the ACA."

*nod* I want to be clear that I'm not trying to play gotcha. His vote for that damned bill may very well have been the will of his constituents, (he's waffled on questions about abortion in the past,) but because of it I don't think of him as a Democrat or an ally.
posted by zarq at 8:21 AM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

It's absolutely incredible that these QAnon Pizzagate Commando-LARPing jackholes down in Tuscon are grasping at straws to invent yet another super-sekrit child sex cult, while there's evidence of an actual conspiracy by an enormously shady NGO hiding hundreds of children in former Wal Marts, etc., and doing who-knows-what to them.

As if we needed more evidence that we aren't living in a shared reality. Where are the John Ringo-reading, testosterone-jacking, coal-rolling neckbeards who are so worried about the children? Over there protecting fictitious white children from an imaginary threat with their big manly guntrucks.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:21 AM on June 6, 2018 [82 favorites]

The alt-right/internet weirdo obsession with child molestation has always, blatantly been a get out of criticism free card with a side order of projection. They found the one thing that everyone can agree is 100% evil so that if anyone goes, "Now wait a minute..." they can go "CHILD SEX RING!!!!!" and we're all supposed to be like, "Oh, okay, carry on." People who don't live on the internet I guess might be fooled, but anyone who has been online prior to 2015 already knows that 4chan has always been synonymous with creepy pedo shit. Those same people suddenly seeing pedos around every corner is fucking rich. (Protip: They don't actually see pedos around every corner. They're trolling everyone.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:30 AM on June 6, 2018 [59 favorites]

Rust Moranis: Roy Moore's wife, Kayla Moore, loses bid for state Republican Executive Committee

(sad antisemitic trombone)

Surely this could be played on a shofar?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:30 AM on June 6, 2018 [32 favorites]

So many alt-right weirdos involved are in custody cases I’m wondering if that plays a part in it.
posted by Artw at 8:33 AM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

The Tucson nutball live youtube feed has exactly the same atmosphere as the Malheur Refuge stream in the terminal stages of the occupation, except this time there's no occupied Federal compound. Instead it's just crazy armed people in the desert surrounding a small pile of homeless people's garbage. I suppose it's better this way.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:33 AM on June 6, 2018 [22 favorites]

When (as many have put it) the comments section becomes the president, that results in an identity crisis, nicely summarized by The Onion: Man With 20 Rifles Can’t Remember If His Goal To Start Or Stop Violent Overthrow Of Government
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:37 AM on June 6, 2018 [59 favorites]

So many alt-right weirdos involved are in custody cases I’m wondering if that plays a part in it.

I mean if we're going to go down that road, being religious and opposed to abortion and working class probably has a high correlation with being in family court.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:38 AM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

The alt-right/internet weirdo obsession with child molestation has always, blatantly been a get out of criticism free card with a side order of projection. They found the one thing that everyone can agree is 100% evil so that if anyone goes, "Now wait a minute..." they can go "CHILD SEX RING!!!!!" and we're all supposed to be like, "Oh, okay, carry on."

In fact, this is the point: accusing their ideological enemies of child rape and murder means they're the good guys, and thus don't have to prove it by showing compassion or improving the world in any way, and can drown out the little voice in their head that looks at their fellow travellers and says 'are we the baddies?'

The Satanic Panic of the 90s was the same thing.
posted by Merus at 8:39 AM on June 6, 2018 [63 favorites]

Scaramucci on CNN:

“You’re like everybody else now in the media,” Scaramucci said, mimicking members of the media: “‘Oh, the President’s a liar. The President’s a liar.’”

“When you lie, why shouldn’t you be called a liar?” Cuomo asked.

“Because there’s different styles of communication,” Scaramucci said.

posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:39 AM on June 6, 2018 [50 favorites]

The guy who once told a reporter on the record that, "I'm not Steve Bannon, I'm not trying to suck my own cock" is arguing the merits of tone.
posted by zarq at 8:43 AM on June 6, 2018 [75 favorites]

In fact, this is the point: accusing their ideological enemies of child rape and murder means they're the good guys, and thus don't have to prove it by showing compassion or improving the world in any way, and can drown out the little voice in their head that looks at their fellow travellers and says 'are we the baddies?'

Very well said.

See also, all the people who freak out about Katie Steinle whenever the detention of asylum-seekers is brought up. Like any of these people would have given two single shits about Katie Steinle or her family if she'd been murdered in actual cold blood by an ex, or accidentally killed by a white person in any capacity. But they're just sooooo concernnnned about this one death if this one white woman, it they seem to think it makes them and their motivations unimpeachable.

It's concern trolling of such a deep level, they're concern trolling themselves.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:44 AM on June 6, 2018 [43 favorites]

They don't actually see pedos around every corner. They're trolling everyone

I think that’s the optimistic scenario. There aren’t very many reasons to be obsessed with pedophilia and child rape rings. Some of them are tragic, but most of them are horrifying.

Really hoping this is the one element of the right wing playbook that doesn’t turn out to be pure projection, but it’s pretty much the last of my hope.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:44 AM on June 6, 2018 [17 favorites]

Really hoping this is the one element of the right wing playbook that doesn’t turn out to be pure projection, but it’s pretty much the last of my hope.

Oh, there's a well documented history of Republicans and child-rape.

Consider the civil case Doe v. Trump and Epstein, where one of the witnesses was the person who recruited Doe for Epstein's child sex parties when she literally got off the bus in NYC. The preponderance of evidence in that case shows that Donald J. Trump raped a 13 year old girl in 1994.

And the RNC nominated him for president. So child rape isn't a showstopper for the party at large.

Oh, btw, the same time that Trump's Fixer Michael Cohen was paying other women for their silence, Doe chose to voluntarily withdraw the lawsuit.
posted by mikelieman at 8:51 AM on June 6, 2018 [35 favorites]

I seem to recall Sandusky and Paterno both having connections to the PA GOP.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:51 AM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

Plus the whole Roy Moore thing where evangelical Christianity basically outed itself as being pro-paedophilia.

The ones that started off as channers absolutly would have been involves in all kinds of shady edgelord shit to do with CP or pretending to have CP, and Chan’s being chans may have been exposed to an amount of it.

Not sure how much the fundies and the channers cross over with angry-guy-with-a-gun-in-a-desert whackjobs though.
posted by Artw at 8:54 AM on June 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

It's Blood Libel for the internet age.
posted by thebrokedown at 8:55 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

In response to Amnesty International's report the US-led coalition's strikes to take Raqqa from ISIS included "potential war crimes", Pentagon: ‘No one will ever know’ how many civilians U.S. has killed in fight against ISIS (WaPo):

U.S. Army Col. Thomas Veale, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, said that despite the U.S. military’s best efforts to assess civilian casualties, no one will ever know exactly how many civilians U.S. strikes have killed since the fight began in 2014.

“As far as how do we know how many civilians were killed, I am just being honest, no one will ever know,” Veale said in a briefing at the Pentagon by video link from Baghdad. “Anyone who claims they will know is lying, and there’s no possible way.”

Any civilian casualty count is now fake news.
posted by peeedro at 8:58 AM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

So many alt-right weirdos involved are in custody cases I’m wondering if that plays a part in it.

I think there’s a ton of young men that have been promised a ticket to an adoring wife and children, who neither have the financial resources or emotional capacity to make that a worthwhile deal for someone, and when their marriage collapses they think they just got a “bad one”, and so they are very resentful for being “financially penalized” for getting a “bad draw”. Then they think that the reason they can’t get another adoring wife and child is because of the consequences from the first one, rather than this is not a model which works and if it was they couldn’t make it.
posted by corb at 9:01 AM on June 6, 2018 [32 favorites]

ACLU files suit over citizenship question on census, bringing total of suits over the issue to five.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:02 AM on June 6, 2018 [23 favorites]

They don't actually see pedos around every corner. They're trolling everyone.

You're dead-on with most of this, but I don't think this last bit is entirely true; it implies some sort of self-awareness that is very blatantly lacking.

It might be the case for a lot of Channers and T_Ders, for whom there's clearly a Venn diagram overlap with these sovereign citizen / minuteman militia types (which already seem contradictory, but there you go). But I think there's probably as much overlap with the guys you used to run into at the gas station in Rachel, NV with eight-foot telescopic lenses, trying to get pics of the aliens at Area 51.

I think some of these dudes really do see pedos around every corner, because they actually are obsessed, and are operating in an echo-chamber of shitty weird cognitive dissonance that pretty much makes them immune to belief disconfirmation.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:04 AM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

The child sex ring stuff is also straight out of the Russian FSB/KGB playbook. One of their favorite tactics [NYT link] is to plant child porn on critics and then arrest them over it. We may yet see Trumps FBI (or maybe ICE) doing the same thing here, the Qanon/Pizzagate stuff is setting the stage for it.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:04 AM on June 6, 2018 [44 favorites]

Updates on an actual pizzagate: Villavicencio did have valid NY State ID on his person when he was detained at Fort Hamilton, and had previously delivered pizza to the base without incident using that same ID. Apparently this time they asked him for "proof of citizenship" in addition to his ID, though it's unclear what they meant by that or how he was meant to provide it. (Obtaining valid NY State ID does not require proof of US citizenship and non-citizens can hold valid state ID and drivers' licenses in NY.)

He is still being held and his family have been informed that he is scheduled to be deported next week. His wife and his two young children are US citizens.
posted by halation at 9:13 AM on June 6, 2018 [40 favorites]

Uh that article posted by T. D. Strange is pretty terrifying.

In the case of Mr. Bukovsky and the others involving pornography stored — or planted — on the computers of Kremlin critics, the high degree of deniability offered by the shadows of cyberspace has left the accused struggling to salvage their reputations.

“To use a technical term, you are completely screwed,” said Jeffrey Carr, the head of Taia Global, an American cybersecurity company, and the author of a book on cyberwarfare. “If something like this is sponsored by the Russian government, or any government or anyone with sufficient skill, you are not going to be successful. It is terrible.”
...
The idea that Europeans and Russian opponents of the Kremlin are sexual deviants with a taste for pedophilia is a strange but recurring theme in Russian propaganda.

I am really not looking forward to this.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:14 AM on June 6, 2018 [21 favorites]

Ian Millhiser: The Christian Right’s bizarre plan to destroy civil rights laws by trolling (CW: drawing of an aborted fetus)

Neil Gorsuch, who occupies the seat that Senate Republicans held open for a year until Donald Trump could fill it, called for a radical reinterpretation of what it means to discriminate on the basis of faith. Sure, Phillips would have baked the exact same cake for an opposite-sex couple, but Gorsuch believes that civil rights laws must bow to the “religious significance” Phillips’ “faith may attach to” two identical cakes.

Phillips “alone was entitled to define the nature of his religious commitments,” and “those commitments, as defined by the faithful adherent, not a bureaucrat or judge, are entitled to protection under the First Amendment.”

Gorsuch, in other words, would allow religious objectors to claim the full protection of the First Amendment whenever their actions were motivated by their religious faith, even if they were treated no differently than a secular person who behaved identically. States would be required to bring the full weight of the law down upon religiously motivated trolls like the ones who were kicked out of that Seattle coffee shop, or else they could lose the ability to enforce civil rights laws protecting LGBTQ people.

Indeed, Gorsuch’s proposed rule could render much of American law simply unworkable. Could a state enforce traffic laws against a religious driver who was speeding because he didn’t want to be late to church? Or, for that matter, would Gorsuch overrule the Supreme Court’s decision in Tony & Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor, which held that employers with religious objections to a federal labor law still must pay their workers the minimum wage?

As the late Justice Antonin Scalia warned in Employment Division v. Smith, “to make an individual’s obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law’s coincidence with his religious beliefs,” except when the law survives an extraordinary level of constitutional scrutiny, would permit such an individual to “become a law unto himself.” That outcome “contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense.”

And yet, that’s exactly what Gorsuch appears ready to do. And, if Trump gets to place someone else on the Supreme Court, it is likely that Gorsuch will have the votes to do it. It will be a great day for trolls.

posted by zombieflanders at 9:16 AM on June 6, 2018 [33 favorites]

Hobby Detectives: Americans have been riveted in recent months to every new detail coming out of the ongoing investigation into possible collusion by the Trump campaign. An army of amateur investigators has managed to uncover new developments in the case. Who are they and what drives them?
posted by adamvasco at 9:19 AM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Tuesday cited the D-Day invasion during an answer about the current state of US-German relations.

"Don't mention the war! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right."
posted by schoolgirl report at 9:21 AM on June 6, 2018 [24 favorites]

“There’s No Check on Trump Except Reality”
posted by jgirl at 9:27 AM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

Trump is signing the VA MISSION Act today. It's another one of these bills that involve spending money on things that have bipartisan support, so it passed overwhelmingly... but the bill doesn't provide any source of funding. Naturally there is a bipartisan proposal to fund the bill, which is currently being condemned by the Trump administration, who would rather fund it by cutting things that Democrats consider essential.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:27 AM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

I'll be damned. Trump followed Kim Kardashian's advice and commuted Alice Johnson's sentence.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:35 AM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

Probably because she was Kanye's wife, but hey, any port in a storm for something.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:37 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oh boy, here we go, and THANK YOU FOR THIS DELIGHTFUL GIFT, UNIVERSE! --

Buzzfeed: Ivanka Trump Was In Contact With A Russian Who Offered A Trump-Putin Meeting
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:41 AM on June 6, 2018 [78 favorites]

Gorsuch, in other words, would allow religious objectors to claim the full protection of the First Amendment whenever their actions were motivated by their religious faith, even if they were treated no differently than a secular person who behaved identically.

Time for the Satanic Temple to get much, much more active. Also time for devout medical professionals who offer reproductive services to ignore all the gag rules and laws restricting clinic activity - providing health services is part of their religious beliefs.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:45 AM on June 6, 2018 [71 favorites]

The contacts reveal that even as her father was campaigning to become president of the United States, Ivanka Trump connected Michael Cohen with a Russian who offered to arrange a meeting with one of America’s adversaries — in order to help close a business deal that could have made the Trump family millions.

These interactions also shed new light on Cohen, the president’s former personal lawyer and fixer, who is under criminal investigation and who played a key role in many of Donald Trump’s biggest deals — including the audacious effort to build Europe’s tallest tower in the Russian capital.

And that explains a whole lot more about why Trump went utterly bananas when Cohen's records were seized and why he was tweeting about "beautiful young lives ruined" recently.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:49 AM on June 6, 2018 [31 favorites]

So when can pacifists stop paying taxes because funding the US military is against their beliefs?
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:49 AM on June 6, 2018 [66 favorites]

Giuliani: Mueller’s team is trying ‘very hard to frame’ Trump

Their rhetoric is accelerating--have they directly used the word 'frame' before?

Yet another interesting concession by Trump's PR team, in that Giuliani's statement is an admission that the evidence in the public domain does indeed make Trump look guilty.
posted by Gelatin at 9:57 AM on June 6, 2018 [13 favorites]

Putin Talks To Trump On The Phone Almost As Much As Hannity Does
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:04 AM on June 6, 2018 [18 favorites]

In fact, this is the point: accusing their ideological enemies of child rape and murder means they're the good guys, and thus don't have to prove it by showing compassion or improving the world in any way, and can drown out the little voice in their head that looks at their fellow travellers and says 'are we the baddies?'

The left evangelical blogger Slacktivist has suggested that a similar motivation is behind the religious right taking up the cause of abortion. Saddled with the guilt of being on the wring side of the civil rights movement, opposing abortion, they believe, means they are against killing babies, so they must be the good guys.
posted by Gelatin at 10:04 AM on June 6, 2018 [22 favorites]

So many alt-right weirdos involved are in custody cases I’m wondering if that plays a part in it.

Never forget that the MRA movement had its roots in gatherings of men aggrieved over custody cases that didn’t break their way. This was one of the rank misogynist seeds or kernels that later waves of PUA, redpiller, incel and MGTOW activity agglomerated around.
posted by adamgreenfield at 10:09 AM on June 6, 2018 [56 favorites]

Yet another interesting concession by Trump's PR team, in that Giuliani's statement is an admission that the evidence in the public domain does indeed make Trump look guilty.

Team Trump Kicking Up New Fuss Over Emails Given To Mueller

Yet another line of an attack that screams guilty. All they've got is obfuscation and procedural challenges.
posted by cudzoo at 10:11 AM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

I'd be delighted to see any evidence at all that the average white conservative evangelical in the US has anything even remotely approaching guilt or regret on having been on the wrong side of the civil rights movement.

One time, we were playing Apples to Apples, and somebody played "Rosa Parks" for "Courageous". My aunt, who was the judge, said something like, "She's not courageous; she's the woman who started all this trouble." Quite an eye-opener.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 10:21 AM on June 6, 2018 [53 favorites]

Well, it's not exactly guilt on the part of evangelicals, but there was definitely a lot of annoyance and fear. THE NOT-SO-LOFTY ORIGINS OF THE EVANGELICAL PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT

"[W]hat galvanized the Christian community was not abortion, school prayer, or the ERA [Equal Rights Amendment]. I am living witness to that because I was trying to get those people interested in those issues and I utterly failed. What changed their minds was Jimmy Carter’s intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation."
posted by Harry Caul at 10:22 AM on June 6, 2018 [27 favorites]

Rust Moranis: Guardian: Cambridge Analytica director 'met Assange to discuss US election'

Just wanted to quote this in more detail, because it seems big and I don't want it to get lost in the daily shitstorm:

Kaiser [the CA director] is also alleged to have said that she had funnelled money to WikiLeaks in the form of cryptocurrency. She called the organisation her “favourite charity”. The reports passed to investigators say that money was given to her by third parties in the form of “gifts and payments”.

So: she served as a cut-out. Recall that Nix, CA's CEO, was soliciting Assange for Clinton's emails.
posted by cudzoo at 10:22 AM on June 6, 2018 [18 favorites]

The media really need to start pushing the idea, "well, if he's innocent, he's got nothing to fear from an investigation. He should just ignore it and do his job. What's he afraid they're going to find?"

And use the word "fear," not "he's got nothing to worry about."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:24 AM on June 6, 2018 [26 favorites]

>> Sure it is. It’s about how much they sucked at defending Baltimore during the War of 1812.

Speaking of which...
posted by AndrewInDC at 10:25 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Definitely Not Sean Spicer: So we're not saying anything about the latest Tweets where Trump basically is the conspiracy toting, crazy, racist uncle at Thanksgiving, right? Like as a society we're going to collectively ignore it and wheel him over to the psych hospital while he's screaming how he's the President of the United States and the nurse is all condescendingly "of course you are dearie" while they prepare the straight jacket, right?

Well, yes and no -- I'm expecting he'll get some mental care treatment in prison, like 10 out of 11 psychiatric patients housed by the government ("Here’s what this crisis looks like from the inside—a series of lost lives and a few rare victories—as reported by a prisoner-journalist" -- John. J. Lennon, a contributing writer at The Marshall Project, via Esquire)

Of course, maybe Kushner (and Karsdashian) will succeed in efforts for prison reform before then.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:27 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

@Acosta: SCOOP: When Trudeau pressed Trump on national security justification for tariffs on Canada Trump responded: “didn’t you guys burn down the WH?” That was Britain during the War of 1812

@ddale: If Trump indeed made this joke to Trudeau, I wouldn't jump on him for a historical error or whatever. I've heard lotsa Canadians make "we burned down the White House" jokes, though "we" weren't a country yet.

@jwsthomson: Ya this is a point of pride for most Canadians. Don't take that away from us.

@ddale: Absolutely, CNN needs to stop trying to fact-check us out of a key accomplishment
posted by zombieflanders at 10:29 AM on June 6, 2018 [68 favorites]

Philip Roth’s 2004 warning about demagogues is more relevant than ever

In 2004, Philip Roth published The Plot Against America, a work of alternative historical fiction imagining a world where Charles Lindbergh drove Franklin D. Roosevelt from office. As we mourn Roth’s passing, it is worth remembering his warning.

Roth’s Lindbergh sweeps to the presidency on, literally, an “America First!” ticket. He takes over a fractured Republican Party and campaigns against the advice of consultants and politicians, flying his own plane around the country, offering plainspoken denunciations of interventionism and identity politics.

“We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we must also look out for ours,” says Roth’s Lindbergh of the Jews. “We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.”

This, throughout The Plot Against America, is Lindbergh’s message: that America is being taken advantage of, that it has lost sight of its own needs amid the clamoring of its interest groups, that its diversity has become a weakness, that the world will only respect us if we elect a leader whose steel they fear.

The crowds roar in response. “Lindbergh can deal with Hitler, they said, Hitler respects him because he’s Lindbergh. Mussolini and Hirohito respect him because he’s Lindbergh.” The echoes of Republicans cheering Trump’s aggression and brazenness as a foreign policy unto itself ring loudly.

posted by kirkaracha at 10:38 AM on June 6, 2018 [39 favorites]

Besides, their fact-checking isn’t all that great.

Historians note the British attack on Washington was in retaliation for the American attack on York, Ontario, in territory that eventually became Canada, which was then a British colony.

”York, Ontario” presumably refers to York, Upper Canada — before Canada “eventually became Canada,” the year was 1790 — which you may know as Toronto, Ontario.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:40 AM on June 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

Renee Graham, Boston Globe: Trumpjugend wear their MAGA hats on trips to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.
posted by adamg at 10:51 AM on June 6, 2018 [12 favorites]

T.D Strange, the eight times claimed in the article isn't "almost as much" as the reported almost daily contacts with Hannity.
posted by LarsC at 10:51 AM on June 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

I saw a teen in a fucking MAGA hat at the NMAAHC in October 2016. Only bad part of the whole visit.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 10:58 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

Over at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum lays out A Very Brief Timeline of That Trump Tower Meeting, which is old news to everyone in the thread, but still worth looking at for its bald delineation of ... Collusion? Treason? Obstruction of justice? All of the above?

The same day that the NYT calls Trump for comment about the meeting, Trump meets in private - totally in private - with Putin, and the day after that, he dictates Don Jr.'s infamous statement about "adoptions". And then they hunker down to lie relentlessly about it.

If it weren't 2018, this would be a 5-alarm scandal with "Impeachment Watch" headlines everywhere.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:01 AM on June 6, 2018 [43 favorites]

@Acosta: SCOOP: When Trudeau pressed Trump on national security justification for tariffs on Canada Trump responded: “didn’t you guys burn down the WH?” That was Britain during the War of 1812

The War of 1812 is trending on Twitter.
posted by zarq at 11:01 AM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

Jim Bridenstine, current NASA administrator and former former three-term Republican congressman from Oklahoma, now says he believes that climate change is actually a real thing and that humans are responsible for it. He had publicly rejected current climate science as recently as 2016.
posted by anastasiav at 11:08 AM on June 6, 2018 [35 favorites]

I work right next to the National Mall. These teenage MAGA chuds are all over the place, and they're proud of doing it. "Trumpjugend" is a 100% accurate descriptor.

And no, I'm not interested in anyone lecturing me on how "they're just children" or similar attempts to handwave this shit away. They're old enough to know what it means in a city that has such a central part in African American history, let alone a museum dedicated to it.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:09 AM on June 6, 2018 [69 favorites]

South Dakota state lawmaker: Businesses should be allowed to 'turn away people of color'

posted by Artw at 4:48 PM on June 5 [18 favorites +] [!]

Well, they can, but they have to claim it's for religious reasons...
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:11 AM on June 6, 2018

Bringing to light another possible GOP split and Trump self-goal, regarding the 2018 elections: Congressional Republicans Push Back On Trump Administration's Trade Policies, in which Bob Corker (who only votes with Trump 84.5 percent of the time, down from 86% back in Oct. 2017) boldly states

I've always expressed my disagreement when it's occurred. This one is one that we can deal with legislatively. And I also know that the vast majority of our caucus would agree with this.

And some other GOP folks kind of half-heartedly mutter a sound that might indicate agreement.

Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley hasn't signed on to Corker's plan, but he says he worries that tariffs and Trump's threat to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement will harm farmers in particular.

CHUCK GRASSLEY: And from the standpoint of agriculture, what can happen if the president fails - yes I'm very nervous myself. And in 12 town meetings last week in northwest Iowa, that's what I constantly heard.

Iowa's not counted in 538's look at "what if tariffs cost Trump the farm vote," a feature piece back in April 2018.

In particular, there are three states that Trump won by narrow margins in which a mass farmer defection could prove pivotal: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In each of these states, the number of farmers¹ far exceeds the president’s margin of victory in 2016. If all three states saw significant ag defection, a Democratic challenger could pick up a total of 46 Electoral College votes — enough to tip the balance even if Trump performs up to his 2016 standards in every other state in the union.

¹ According to data from the 2012 Census of Agriculture published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We’re using the USDA definition of “farm operator.”
posted by filthy light thief at 11:11 AM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

I work right next to the National Mall. These teenage MAGA chuds are all over the place, and they're proud of doing it. "Trumpjugend" is a 100% accurate descriptor.
^ This ties very nicely in with several scenes from Roth's Plot Against America, mentioned earlier. Yikes.
posted by Harry Caul at 11:11 AM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

These teenage MAGA chuds are all over the place, and they're proud of doing it.

Trolling will be the formative political experience of a whole segment of the younger generation. Such civic effluent will take decades to pump out of the country's social water table.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:13 AM on June 6, 2018 [36 favorites]

zombieflanders: They're old enough to know what it means in a city that has such a central part in African American history, let alone a museum dedicated to it.

They're trolling IRL, just like the young cowboy-dressed man I saw in the Austin airport, sporting a conspicuously large confederate flag belt buckle with his shirt tucked behind the buckle to further accentuate it.

Trolling will be the formative political experience of a whole segment of the younger generation. Such civic effluent will take decades to pump out of the country's social water table.

Disinfecting the youth, particularly as they grow up to be not youth, will be hard work, but work worth doing. Gaining "points" by pissing off people you see as your opponents is a terrible form of democracy. Unfortunately, pieces like the article/interview by McKay Coppins in The Atlantic titled "Stephen Miller: Trump's Right-Hand Troll" seem more likely to bolster Stephen's clones and copycats, who pretend that negging is an appropriate way to show off your superior intellect.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:22 AM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

Trolling will be the formative political experience of a whole segment of the younger generation.

The conventional wisdom is that millennials are much more liberal than previous generations. While true in aggregate, this is a slight oversimplification; the averages are pulled WAY up by millennial women. Millennial men have only an 8 percent lean towards Democrats.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:26 AM on June 6, 2018 [45 favorites]

Vox: Tuesday was another historic night for women candidates
posted by Chrysostom at 11:26 AM on June 6, 2018 [12 favorites]

filthy light thief quoting Senator Corker: I've always expressed my disagreement when it's occurred. This one is one that we can deal with legislatively.

Of course, he's wrong because all his "disagreements" can be dealt with legislatively, even if the legislation doesn't address Trump directly and is instead about the minimum wage or whatever else he takes "principled" opposition to. Consistently caucusing with Democrats remains a credible, powerful threat that doesn't jeopardize anything important, or even put his (non-existent) re-election at risk. Heck, if that's too much for him, he could at least abstain from everything until the Senate shows more resistance.

But regardless it's a good thing that tariffs are naturally gonna prompt a fair amount of Republican discord.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:28 AM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

More from Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney (make sure you listen to the whole clip):

@ruinista : "The pull quote is nice, and it's what'll get the headlines, obviously, but literally every single other word from that clip is what matters."

@NBCNews: "Donald Trump is meaningless to this whole process, he's meaningless to the city and the city's success. He tries at every chance he gets to tear cities down, and eventually he'll be gone."

posted by gwint at 11:31 AM on June 6, 2018 [66 favorites]

The Boomers are not going to save us from the future they've created.

It's strange to me that all the blame goes to the Boomers. What happened to Gen X? I had high hopes for my generation. It's high time we took a hard look at ourselves and accepted that we didn't turn out as we may have wanted. Frankly, I don't think we would come out very well from a direct comparison with Boomers, especially in our political choices and social values.
posted by xammerboy at 11:32 AM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

Haven't millennials aged out of the 'Trumpjugend' demographic?
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:32 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

What happened to Gen X?

A big dip in birthrate.
posted by Artw at 11:33 AM on June 6, 2018 [31 favorites]

It's strange to me that all the blame goes to the Boomers. What happened to Gen X?

Gen X has always had a strong cynical side where everyone is out for themselves. That said, every generation, including the ones before the Boomers, shares some of the blame and responsibility.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:33 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

It's strange to me that all the blame goes to the Boomers. What happened to Gen X? I had high hopes for my generation. It's high time we took a hard look at ourselves and accepted that we didn't turn out as we may have wanted.

I mean, you're not wrong. But there literally aren't enough Gen-Xers to make a dent in the Boomer vote.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 11:34 AM on June 6, 2018 [30 favorites]

@JessicaASmith8 [video]: I asked Scott Pruitt a quick question about the reports he tried to help his wife become a Chick-fil-A franchisee. "With great change comes, I think, opposition...I love, she loves [Chick-fil-A]"

This is an amazing must watch 35 seconds of video, in which he both admits it and just kinds of babbles on incoherently while recording an ad for Chick-fil-A.

@RamCNN: Trump went around table at FEMA, praising members of his cabinet individually. Except for Sessions, who got, "Thank you Jeff, thank you very much." (via @NoahGrayCNN)
posted by zachlipton at 11:34 AM on June 6, 2018 [20 favorites]

Well, I'm GenX, and when the leading edge of us were old enough to vote for the first time, who did we vote for? Ronald Reagan! In droves! And even with Millennials, the much-vaunted Hope Of The Democratic Future, male millennials - especially white male millennials - are not overwhelmingly liberal, as Jpfed's link points out.

Generation-bashing isn't going to get us anywhere, and, frankly, it offends people like me who have no plans to grow old, mean, and Fox-y in a bad way.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:41 AM on June 6, 2018 [12 favorites]

Enough on the generalities about which generation is the bad one, what about the kids these days etc. - let's stick to actual events and updates.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:41 AM on June 6, 2018 [20 favorites]

Meanwhile, in Gallatin County, Montana, the GOP primary for County Clerk and Recorder/Surveyor is a dead tie at 4,965-4,965.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:42 AM on June 6, 2018 [11 favorites]

NBC, Stormy Daniels suit: My old lawyer was a 'puppet' for Trump, Cohen

Stormy Daniels says in a new lawsuit that her former attorney betrayed her and became a "puppet" for President Donald Trump and his personal lawyer while still representing her.

The filing in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday alleges that Trump attorney Michael Cohen "hatched a plan" and "colluded" with Beverly Hills lawyer Keith Davidson to get the adult film actress to go on Fox News a few months ago and falsely deny she had an affair with Trump more than a decade ago. Cohen even referred to Davidson as "pal" in one text cited in the complaint.

The lawsuit against Davidson and Cohen also claims that Trump was aware the two attorneys were communicating and coordinating for his benefit — unbeknownst to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford.

Attached to the complaint is a set of text messages between Cohen and Davidson (where did Avanatti get these?), including the time Cohen had her scheduled to go on Hannity in January of this year until "the wise men all believe the story is dying and odn't think it's smart for her to do any interviews." Also in March, Cohen texts: "With flotus. GIve me a minute."
posted by zachlipton at 11:45 AM on June 6, 2018 [37 favorites]

Something in the air with right wing newspaper editorships?
Paul Dacre to step down as Daily Mail editor in November
posted by Artw at 11:51 AM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

Maybe he wants to be a paperback writer.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:52 AM on June 6, 2018 [30 favorites]

Breaking down that Guardian article: Cambridge Analytica was hired by the Trump campaign, as well as the Leave.EU campaign. Cambridge Analytica solicited stolen Clinton emails from WikiLeaks. Then-CEO of Cambridge Analytica Alexander "Skeevy" Nix lied to the UK Parliament by saying “We have no relationship with WikiLeaks. We have never spoken to anyone at WikiLeaks. We have never done any business with WikiLeaks. We have no relationship with them, period.”

In fact, Cambridge Analytica received money from "third-parties" and distributed it to WikiLeaks. Perhaps those third-parties are the campaigns who hired them?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:58 AM on June 6, 2018 [15 favorites]

Top Aide to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt Resigns. That's Millan Hupp, the staffer who performed tasks such as looking for Pruitt's housing and trying to find him a used Trump Hotel mattress:

According to one top EPA official, the 26-year-old was “tired of being thrown under the bus by Pruitt,” and weary of seeing her name constantly appear in headlines about the agency. Officials began drafting her resignation paperwork on Monday morning, just after portions of her congressional testimony were made public.

But the EPA is a really classy place:

EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox, reached by phone, would not comment. He said: “You have a great day, you’re a piece of trash.”

Pruitt, naturally, is famous for not taking out his trash.
posted by zachlipton at 12:04 PM on June 6, 2018 [49 favorites]

EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox, reached by phone, would not comment. He said: “You have a great day, you’re a piece of trash.”

Once again: That isn't some random person being chased down by the media, 60-Minutes-Reluctant-Interviewee style. That a person the EPA pays taxpayer dollars to deal with the media.
posted by Gelatin at 12:07 PM on June 6, 2018 [113 favorites]

Surely that's in reference to the EPA policy document Trash: The Beauty of Nature's Misunderstood Decorations
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:07 PM on June 6, 2018 [21 favorites]

Kevin Drum lays out A Very Brief Timeline of That Trump Tower Meeting

It's a good timeline, but it's missing the evolving accounts of who was at the meeting. It took at least three rounds of explanations before we found out the eight people known to have attended the meeting. Wikipedia has a good article.

So, we have multiple lies about how the meeting was set up, what the meeting was supposed to be about, who was at the meeting, when Trump knew about the meeting, and how involved Trump was in writing the phony cover story about the meeting.

On July 13, Corey Lewandowski lied about his and Trump's whereabouts during the meeting, claiming they were at a rally in Florida. There was no rally in Florida; Trump was at Trump Tower during the meeting.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:10 PM on June 6, 2018 [14 favorites]

I would add that those text messages don't appear particularly damning to me

Negotiating the details of a client's public appearances with opposing counsel seems pretty bad to me. It's not a smoking gun, but why should Cohen have any say over when and where she speaks?
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:17 PM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

Meanwhile, in Gallatin County, Montana, the GOP primary for County Clerk and Recorder/Surveyor is a dead tie at 4,965-4,965.

Voters whose ballots were rejected have the rest of the day to resolve the matter. Must be a busy time for the candidates!
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:19 PM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's the "wise men" text that seems the most damning to me. Who was Cohen talking to for PR advice about this? Did they work at the White House?

I think the issue is less the texts, which I agree don't say a ton, and more the coordination in general. Davidson was supposed to be representing Daniels. The suit alleges that Davidson tipped off Cohen that she was going to get a new lawyer and go public, which led Cohen to rush to that sham arbitration to get a gag order. If that's proven, it's pretty damning for Davidson.

It's also just weird that they were working together to put her on TV. Her agreement didn't obligate her to make public appearances to further the scheme. So why was Cohen acting as her booking agent?
posted by zachlipton at 12:20 PM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox, reached by phone, would not comment. He said: “You have a great day, you’re a piece of trash.”

Oooo, clearly a graduate of the DOCTOR Sebastian Gorka School of Media Etiquette.

Wow, remember Seb? That was like a geologic epoch ago.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:21 PM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

@prernaplal: ICE has now released a flyer for parents separated from their children at the border. A flyer. And it's in English.

Filled with egregious abuse of the passive voice, naturally: "if you became separated" like we're talking about a lost child at the zoo. And there are plenty of reports of this system not actually working.
posted by zachlipton at 12:23 PM on June 6, 2018 [29 favorites]

Wow, remember Seb? That was like a geologic epoch ago.

The Dragon of Budapest rises from his slumber

Gorka: Hannity and I Are Going to Trump’s North Korea Summit
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:23 PM on June 6, 2018 [16 favorites]

@prernaplal: ICE has now released a flyer for parents separated from their children at the border. A flyer. And it's in English.

Filled with egregious abuse of the passive voice, naturally: "if you became separated" like we're talking about a lost child at the zoo. And there are plenty of reports of this system not actually working.

I figured it was an entrapment deal designed to lure desperate undocumented parents to contact ICE and get scooped up.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:30 PM on June 6, 2018 [16 favorites]

The Dragon of Budapest rises from his slumber

Gorka: Hannity and I Are Going to Trump’s North Korea Summit

Oh god, it's my fault. I inadvertently Beetlejuiced him with only two mentions. Sorry, everyone.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:32 PM on June 6, 2018 [38 favorites]

Gorka: Hannity and I Are Going to Trump’s North Korea Summit

At some point it's just authoritarian summer camp.
posted by jaduncan at 12:38 PM on June 6, 2018 [30 favorites]

I predict Trump will have much nicer things to say about Kim Jong-Un than he will about the other leaders at the G7 in a couple days. Which should tell you everything you need to know about that.
posted by Justinian at 12:39 PM on June 6, 2018 [18 favorites]

Finally, here's the full Clifford v. Davidson/Cohen complaint (state court, this will be fun).

The complaint includes the bare assertion that "The 'wise men' referred to above included Mr. Trump, with a footnote that explains that Trump denied knowing anything about this, but it's not explained how or why we should believe Trump was part of this discussion.

Also: "After learning of Ms. Clifford's plans through the improper disclosure of confidential information by Mr. Davidson, Mr. Cohen undertook efforts to meet the next day with Mrs. Melania Trump, in order to "get out in front" of the approaching lawsuit and publicity, and convince her that Ms. Clifford was a liar and not to be trusted."

The complaint says that Clifford has requested her entire client file from Davidson five times, including text messages and correspondence relating to her, and Davidson hasn't produced everything.

There are some big holes here, such as why Trump is part of the "wise men," but lordy I hope there are tapes.
posted by zachlipton at 12:44 PM on June 6, 2018 [9 favorites]

This one was under the radar, but Vermont's filing deadline has passed, and it looks like only a Democrat has filed for House district Windham 1. It's currently GOP-held, so that's an automatic flip.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:51 PM on June 6, 2018 [65 favorites]

The National Law Review has a deep-in-the-weeds discussion of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau leadership chaos. Meanwhile, Allegedly Acting Director Mulvaney has fired all the members of an outside advisory board he is legally required to meet with.

Interesting note: Deputy Director and Aspiring Acting Director Leandra English has never actually met Allegedly Acting Director Mulvaney. They work in different offices.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:53 PM on June 6, 2018 [16 favorites]

Man, it's only 4 pm. I'm not sure today has sufficient infrastructure to tolerate the weight of much more schadenfreude.

Uh oh, I hear joists creaking. NYT's Eric Lipton: NEWS: Just told by senior EPA person that Sarah Greenwalt, senior counsel to Pruitt, has also resigned. Asking EPA public affairs for confirmation. Comes after another aide Millian Hupp also resigned today.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:57 PM on June 6, 2018 [32 favorites]

Remember that sheriff that pocketed the money meant to feed inmates in Alabama? He lost his primary last night. There is sadly no Democrats running in that race, so his Republican opponent will be sherriff, but maybe he'll be slightly less evil.
posted by emjaybee at 1:00 PM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

Washington [state] sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose political ad spending

Facebook and Google were paid millions for political advertising purposes in Washington but failed for years to publish related information — such as the advertiser’s address — as required by state law, alleges a lawsuit by the state’s attorney general.

Washington law requires that “political campaign and lobbying contributions and expenditures be fully disclosed to the public and that secrecy is to be avoided.”

[...] Earlier this year, Eli Sanders of Seattle’s esteemed biweekly paper The Stranger requested to view the “books of account” from both companies, and another person followed up with an in-person visit; both received unsatisfactory results. They alerted the AG’s office to these investigations in mid-April, and here we are a month and a half later with a pair of remarkably concise lawsuits.

[...] The case likely will not result in significant monetary penalties for the companies in question; even if fines and damages totaled tens of millions it would be a drop in the bucket for the tech giants. But deliberately skirting laws governing political spending and public disclosure is rather a bad look for companies under especial scrutiny for systematic dishonesty — primarily Facebook.

A bad look, indeed. And here we are. Just for fun, Alphabet Inc, Google's parent company, made $3.5 Billion-with-a-B in profit in the first three months of this year. Washington may fine them hundreds of thousands of dollars.
posted by petebest at 1:03 PM on June 6, 2018 [25 favorites]

Wait, so the US attendees of the North Korea summit are: Trump, Gorka, Hannity, and Dennis Rodman?

The writers seem to be setting up some kind of four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypse scenario.
posted by baltimoretim at 1:12 PM on June 6, 2018 [30 favorites]

Jim Bridenstine, current NASA administrator and former former three-term Republican congressman from Oklahoma, now says he believes that climate change is actually a real thing and that humans are responsible for it. He had publicly rejected current climate science as recently as 2016.

That moment when you realize you are actually surrounded by rocket scientists.
posted by srboisvert at 1:19 PM on June 6, 2018 [94 favorites]

Bridenstine is ex-military. He must have at least some residual desire to secure the respect of his subordinates, and in NASA, that means, as he put ut, doing some reading.
posted by ocschwar at 1:26 PM on June 6, 2018 [11 favorites]

Also, Bridenstine isn't there to kill climate science; that's Pruitt's job. He's there to sell off our space program.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:28 PM on June 6, 2018 [24 favorites]

Finally, here's the full Clifford v. Davidson/Cohen complaint (state court, this will be fun).

Avenatti manages to work in both "collusion" and "puppet" twice each at least in that complaint.
posted by mikelieman at 1:32 PM on June 6, 2018 [11 favorites]

The Nation: Cynthia Nixon for governor
posted by The Whelk at 1:43 PM on June 6, 2018 [21 favorites]

Ken Klipperstein thought it would be fun to FOIA Israel's gifts to Trump when he visited last year. There's some of the usual stuff, an old bible, book of psalms, a menorah, a carved wooden Madonna and Child, and wait for it, "mother-of-pearl portrait of POTUS."

I can only imagine the meetings trying to come up with something suitable for his ego before someone said "how about a picture of himself?"
posted by zachlipton at 2:07 PM on June 6, 2018 [15 favorites]

This sounds interesting. Lawyer to ex-Trump campaign aide Manafort taps ethics adviser (Reuters):

Marc Garfinkle, a New Jersey ethics attorney, told Reuters that he has been retained by Bruce Baldinger, a longtime lawyer for Manafort also based in New Jersey, as a legal consultant to advise him about “attorney confidentiality and privilege issues that may arise” in the case. He did not elaborate on the details.

(Baldinger is a longtime lawyer for Manafort on real estate dealings, which are under investigation by Mueller, not part of his defense team.)
posted by pjenks at 2:10 PM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

lol trump hasn't been hurt severely by anything in his entire life, and his base applauded that attack.

I don't understand the point of this defeatism. Trump has been hurt by lots of things in his life, and the fact that none of them ended his career as a public figure does not contradict that.

It's hard to pin down the precise impact of the Khizr Khan fight, since it took place during the Democratic convention, but several Republicans criticized him (a new development) and by August 2nd Hillary led Trump by 9 points in the polls.

Trump's base will never change, but the less partisan middle decides who wins and was heavily influence by this move. It's never going to one incident that ends Trump's career. It will be blow after blow that reduces him to the crazification factor until a significant chunk of Republicans either get voted out of office, or decide their self-interest lies in impeaching & convicting him.
posted by msalt at 2:10 PM on June 6, 2018 [25 favorites]

Mueller Inspecting Witnesses’ Phones

“Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is requesting that witnesses turn in their personal phones to inspect their encrypted messaging programs and potentially view conversations between associates linked to President Trump,” CNBC reports.

“Since as early as April, Mueller’s team has been asking witnesses in the Russia probe to turn over phones for agents to examine private conversations on WhatsApp, Confide, Signal and Dust… Fearing a subpoena, the witnesses have complied with the request and have given over their phones.”

“While it’s unclear what Mueller has discovered, if anything, through this new request, investigators seem to be convinced that the apps could be a key to exposing conversations that weren’t previously disclosed to them.”

u colluding? 😜
posted by petebest at 2:21 PM on June 6, 2018 [33 favorites]

CNBC breaks the story: Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Team Is Requesting That Witnesses Turn In Their Personal Phones To Inspect Their Encrypted Messaging Programs

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is requesting that witnesses turn in their personal phones to inspect their encrypted messaging programs and potentially view conversations between associates linked to President Donald Trump, sources told CNBC.

Since as early as April, Mueller's team has been asking witnesses in the Russia probe to turn over phones for agents to examine private conversations on WhatsApp, Confide, Signal and Dust, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Fearing a subpoena, the witnesses have complied with the request and have given over their phones, the sources said.[...]

The revelation that Trump associates are giving Mueller access to their encrypted apps comes as former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is being accused by investigators of tampering with witnesses through the same types of programs.

"Sources" are almost certainly from among other Mueller interviewees who are signalling to Team Trump the range of Mueller's digital investigation. Texting addict Roger Stone can't be feeling too secure right now.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:33 PM on June 6, 2018 [25 favorites]

Ken Klipperstein thought it would be fun to FOIA Israel's gifts to Trump when he visited last year. There's some of the usual stuff, an old bible, book of psalms, a menorah, a carved wooden Madonna and Child, and wait for it, "mother-of-pearl portrait of POTUS."

Either he got stiffed or there's another shoe that's going to drop. Where is the Bottle of Sand in Many Colours? Where is the String of Miniature Camels Carved From Olive Wood? I don't even see a Kova Tembel!
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:41 PM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

Sounds like things are going great behind the scenes at the National Security Council. You definitely love to hear quotes like, "Our nation is getting hacked left and right, and the senior director responsible for the cybersecurity strategy... is spending his time playing junior ‘Game of Thrones’ inside the NSC."
posted by Copronymus at 2:44 PM on June 6, 2018 [20 favorites]

Either he got stiffed or there's another shoe that's going to drop. Where is the Bottle of Sand in Many Colours? Where is the String of Miniature Camels Carved From Olive Wood? I don't even see a Kova Tembel!

No Michal Negrin tchotchke for Melania?
posted by PenDevil at 2:45 PM on June 6, 2018

I got a twofer here for you fine folks, equal parts weird & sad. Actually it's a threefer - weird, sad & inappropriate. Trump & Pence are in a Homeland Security meeting with Melania in attendance (there's your inappropriate). For reasons unknown & inexplicable Trump takes his water bottle off the table & sets it on the floor (weird!). Without hesitation Pence follows suit (and sad). I have no idea what this means but now I feel a little like the guy in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas who wanders into the bathroom & finds them sucking LSD off the one guy's shirt.

Trump in inexplicably decides to put his water bottle of the floor. Pence has no other choice but to follow suit.
posted by scalefree at 3:01 PM on June 6, 2018 [45 favorites]

It's probably code for something. Looks like trump takes a napkin and puts it on his crotch right after.
posted by mrgoat at 3:08 PM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Loyalty tests.
posted by rhizome at 3:09 PM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Melania has a different brand of water than everyone else in the room. She's no dummy.
posted by xammerboy at 3:12 PM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Melania has a different brand of water than everyone else in the room

Trump also has the blue-capped water. Wonder what that means. I eagerly look ahead to to a post-aquakremlinology era.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:15 PM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

Trump's bottle is empty, but Pence has a full bottle of water that he just whips off the table and puts on the floor like a complete psychopath.
posted by Don Pepino at 3:21 PM on June 6, 2018 [19 favorites]

Downthread discussion of the water bottle maneuver says they were prepping for a photo, because looking like you might drink water like a human fails to project the proper air of authority.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:23 PM on June 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

This is how being in an abusive relationship with a narcissist must be. Scrutinizing every move like a lunatic hoping to predict what will happen next. The whole country is gas-lit batshit by now.
posted by thebrokedown at 3:27 PM on June 6, 2018 [39 favorites]

What's inappropriate about FLOTUS being in a homeland security meeting?

Lack of a security clearance? Not having a government position with homeland security responsibilities?

Although she does have an Einstein visa.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:30 PM on June 6, 2018 [14 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
Thank you to everyone at @FEMA HQ for today’s briefing on preparations for the upcoming hurricane season. Disaster response and recovery is best achieved when it’s federally supported, state managed, and locally executed – this is the successful model we will continue to build.

"I'm pleased to announce that with the progress we've already made, the number of people potentially killed in next year's hurricane season has been reduced by 4,000-6,000."
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:33 PM on June 6, 2018 [11 favorites]

‘People don’t realize’: Trump and the historical facts he wants you to know (video compilation)

Trump’s public remarks are filled with dozens of similar comments. They often begin with some variation of the phrase, “Most people don’t know . . .,” and end with a nugget of information that many of those surrounding him — fellow world leaders, diplomats, journalists, politicians or aides — do indeed already know.
...
Trump’s lessons are often accompanied by raised eyebrows, widened eyes and a “gee whiz” look that suggests perhaps the nation is witnessing the president’s education in real time.

Is Trump playing the role of educator in chief, or simply sharing historical facts he’s newly learned? The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

posted by kirkaracha at 3:42 PM on June 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

Additional votes counted late last night and this morning have moved a Republican into second position in CA08 which if it holds would make that the first (and likely only) district in which a Democratic won't appear on the ballot. Not a disaster since CA08 is an R+10 district. A flip there would have meant the Republicans were down to like 100 seats. Which is impossible.
posted by Justinian at 3:43 PM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

GOP House candidate: If anyone treated my daughter the way Trump treats women, I’d ‘use my Second Amendment’

“We like President Trump because he says what he says and he means what he says,” Danny Stockstill, a Republican candidate running for a seat in the 1st Congressional District in Tulsa said during a forum Tuesday night, Tulsa World reported. [...] “If my daughter ever dates a man who treated her like he treats women, I’m going to use my Second Amendment. If I ever find out my son has treated women the way he has, I don’t care how old [my son] is, I’m going to come down on him."

I badly want to see this as "Republican candidates are standing up to Trump for being a disgusting monster" but I'm way more convinced by "Threatening to shoot people is so deeply ingrained in GOP rhetoric that their candidates will accidentally do it even to the authoritarian leaders they're loyal to."
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:47 PM on June 6, 2018 [33 favorites]

Meanwhile, on the sports page: after Philly.com reported that fewer than ten Philadelphia Eagles players planned to attend the White House event, Ian Rapaport (NFL Network) tweeted that the players included "Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles... and maybe one other player." A Politico White House reporter heard it a little different: "two or three players + owner + MASCOT."

Neither Nick Foles nor Swoop could be reached for comment.
posted by box at 3:48 PM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Last night I had a discussion with a friend about the Canadian tariffs and we speculated on what, if anything at all, would the US/Trump use justify them due to national security concerns. Trump or someone (I lose track) has blah blahed at some point about the need for a strong steel industry for military production purposes. Or at least something close to that. That's the only semi-reasonable sounding reason that we could come up with.

We also figured they might somehow bring up thee ole 'Canada lets in terrorists' canard and twist it somehow to be related. I don't really know how but with this admin who knows.

We made an utterly stupid jokes about them using the War of 1812 and the burning of the White House as a reason. (Yes I know we weren't 'Canada' at the time and it was Britain but when many of us make jokes about Canada defeating the US in the War, that's part of the joke. It's weird humor I know).

So yes. We joked and then today...it became real.

It is so utterly ridculous that I've been having problems processing it as real. It's also one of very few times I have ever felt deep down insulted by something a US official has said or done regarding Canada. It not only disrepectful, to me it also comes from a place of contempt. It is a feeling I'm not used to and don't like at all.

What in the hell is our PM and officials supposed to do with this sort of shit? Even if as some MAGA types are trying to spin as 'Trump making a joke, lighten up' nothing changes in the respect and contempt department. A serious question was asked and we got back gooblygook.

I realize that Trump likely has no real answer because the National Security thing is a BS cover, though I expect someone somewhere is trying to get something sorta okay sounding into the Trump brain so he doesn't talk 1812 again. We may even get a tweet if he finds out about how much he's being made fun of right now.

And just to note, in case it makes it way up to the Trump brain, one type of spin I've seen MAGAs trying to push is that the fact that we know about what Trump said is enough reason for Canada being a big security concern. You see the 'leak' of the call must of come from Canada. Justin told the media. Therefore Canada can't be trusted and is a threat to the US. They just proved it.' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Jalliah at 3:54 PM on June 6, 2018 [13 favorites]

@ZoeTillman: NEW: DOJ says the government plans to release John Doe, the American suspected of ties to ISIS who has for months been challenging his detention by the US military in Iraq. Plan is to release him in Syria, per filing

Waiting for some analysis here, but that's a pretty huge change from their previous plans to hold him indefinitely without due process.
posted by zachlipton at 4:04 PM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

President Trump’s fake patriotism (Alexandra Petri, WaPo)

Because reality in 2018 is indistinguishable from ham-handed parody, here is what happened this week.

Only a few of the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles were going to show up at the White House to meet the president, so the White House emitted a Very Strongly Worded Statement saying that the Eagles had been disinvited because they were not willing to respect the national anthem. No, the statement said, the president could not bear to see the flag and the troops and this amber grain-waving land so sorely disrespected, so therefore they would be having an afternoon of patriotic singing and troop saluting with no Philadelphia Eagles whatsoever, just regular eagles, if any were available, that fans of the sports franchise (or White House staff) would be free to attend (whichever filled the venue in a lifelike manner first).

And then what happened? If you guessed “they had an afternoon whose only purpose was to showcase the president’s sterling and remarkable patriotism, which was far, far better than any Philadelphia Eagle could hope to have, in which they sang ‘God Bless America’ and President Trump did not seem to remember all the words,” you would be correct.

(Do read the rest—it's quite vicious)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:07 PM on June 6, 2018 [29 favorites]

The SF D S A’s guide to organization, AKA, how we won two ballot referendums

(TLDR: the old stuff works. If it worked in the 30s it works now.)
posted by The Whelk at 4:11 PM on June 6, 2018 [44 favorites]

The discharge petition to advance an immigration bill in the House is now at 215/218 signatures.

Republicans Look Ready To Force A Vote On Democrats’ DACA Proposal. Ryan will try a last-ditch effort to avoid a discharge petition tomorrow, and failing that, it's likely to get enough signatures from moderate Republicans to put it over the top.

Of course, the likelihood that anything makes it out of the House that can pass the Senate and Trump will sign seems vanishingly small, but here we are.
posted by zachlipton at 4:17 PM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

“We like President Trump because he says what he says and he means what he says,” Danny Stockstill, a Republican candidate running for a seat in the 1st Congressional District in Tulsa said during a forum Tuesday night, Tulsa World reported. [...] “If my daughter ever dates a man who treated her like he treats women, I’m going to use my Second Amendment. If I ever find out my son has treated women the way he has, I don’t care how old [my son] is, I’m going to come down on him."

Don't treat my daughter badly or I'll own a gun?

Or does he think the second amendment authorizes shooting people?
posted by srboisvert at 4:20 PM on June 6, 2018 [32 favorites]

It’s an abbreviated shibboleth: “Second Amendment [remedies/solutions]” — i.e., killing someone with a gun
posted by Barack Spinoza at 4:24 PM on June 6, 2018 [14 favorites]

Donald Trump has still treated women that way. Why doesn't he use his first amendment right now?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:43 PM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

I give Mr. Stockstill a tiny smidgen of credit for mentioning his son in that unhinged speech; the daughter-purity thing is usually coupled with a double standard of willfully ignoring male offspring's misbehavior.

Jalliah: What in the hell is our PM and officials supposed to do with this sort of shit? Even if as some MAGA types are trying to spin as 'Trump making a joke, lighten up' nothing changes in the respect and contempt department. A serious question was asked and we got back gooblygook.

It's pretty much the only way that bullies and alt-righters use humor, to mask spite and cruelty. It can work because they then act like any objection is an objection to jokes per se, which of course it isn't. Even the same joke can be fine or not based on context. A president wants to winkingly reference 1812? That's fine. A president does so as an answer to a serious question? That's contempt.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 4:48 PM on June 6, 2018 [18 favorites]

GOP House candidate: If anyone treated my daughter the way Trump treats women, I’d ‘use my Second Amendment’

Are you just noticing this? Before the election Hillary released several ads of Trump talking about women in his own words and Priorities USA had an ad of women lip syncing to Trump's comments. "Blood coming out of her whatever" and "grab them by the pussy" were before the election, too.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:03 PM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

Donald Trump has still treated women that way. Why doesn't he use his first amendment right now?

None of those women are Stockstill's property.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:22 PM on June 6, 2018 [14 favorites]

Today's been pretty uneventful, so to liven it up a little, here's a video of Rudy Giuliani having a swingin' dance party. [real]
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:28 PM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

Buzzfeed: Ivanka Trump Was In Contact With A Russian Who Offered A Trump-Putin Meeting

The update here is amazing:

Ivanka Trump, who now works in her father’s administration, did not respond to questions sent to her personal email, chief of staff, and the White House. A spokesperson for her attorney wrote that Ivanka Trump did not know about the Trump Moscow project “until after a nonbinding letter of intent had been signed, never talked to anyone outside the Organization about the proposal, and, even internally, was only minimally involved. Her only role was limited to reminding Mr. Cohen that, should an actual deal come to fruition (which it did not) the project, like any other with the Trump name, conform with the highest design and architectural standards.”

More than five hours after BuzzFeed News published this story, the spokesperson, Peter Mirijanian, wrote that he "inadvertently" left off part of the statement: "Ms. Trump did not know and never spoke to Dmitry Klokov. She received an unsolicited email from his wife (who she also did not know) and passed it on to Michael Cohen who she understood was working on any possible projects in Russia. She did no more than that."

But interviews suggest that her involvement ran deeper.

In November 2015, Ivanka Trump told Cohen to speak with Klokov, according to the four sources. Cohen had at least one phone conversation with the weightlifter, they said. It is not known what the men discussed over the phone, but they exchanged a string of emails that are now being examined by congressional investigators and federal agents probing Russia’s election meddling.

In one of those emails, Klokov told Cohen that he could arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and Putin to help pave the way for the tower. Later, Cohen sent an email refusing that offer and saying that the Trump Organization already had an agreement in place. He said he was cutting off future communication with Klokov. Copying Ivanka Trump, the Russian responded in a final brusque message, in which he questioned Cohen’s authority to make decisions for the Trump Organization. Frustrated by the exchange, Ivanka Trump questioned Cohen’s refusal to continue communicating with Klokov, according to one of the sources.

So they denied it, then claimed they "inadvertently" left out the bit that actually confirms it, and then BuzzFeed explains that story is a lie too.
posted by zachlipton at 5:31 PM on June 6, 2018 [42 favorites]

CNN: Woman's forced labor for Salvadoran guerrillas means she must leave US, court rules

She was kidnapped by Salvadoran guerillas three decades ago, watched her husband be killed and forced to cook and clean for the militants. Now she can't stay in the US — because that was supporting terrorists, a court says.

The main appellate body of the immigration courts issued a divided opinion Wednesday with broad implications, finding that a woman from El Salvador is ineligible for status in the US because her 1990 abduction and forced labor amount to "material support" of a terrorist organization.
posted by Rust Moranis at 5:44 PM on June 6, 2018 [67 favorites]

Ralph Peters was on CNN tonight and said nearly the exact words that are the title of this thread. Worth tracking down, links might appear here.
posted by vrakatar at 5:49 PM on June 6, 2018

Christina Wilkie, Meet the New York architect who was a key figure in Donald Trump's deals and connections in Eastern Europe

Her tweet really emphasizes how weird this story is: "On April 11, I called Trump’s favorite architect to ask about jobs he did in Eastern Europe that recently drew Mueller’s eye. Within hours, John Fotiadis closed down his 10 yr old architecture firm, deleted his portfolio and left Twitter. He’s still MIA."

He's not exactly MIA; he apparently took a job at an engineering firm, but he shuttered everything and went dark the minute someone asked about his work for Trump. Oh, and he also did work for Rinat Akhmetov, the Ukraine billionaire who hired Manafort.

Also, Giuliani launched into a disgusting attack on Stormy Daniels and her occupation today. I'm not going to quote it here because we don't need that crap in this thread, but it's really gross, and he's the last damn person who should be talking about which women are deserving of respect.
posted by zachlipton at 5:56 PM on June 6, 2018 [39 favorites]

According to the court documents, the woman was kidnapped by the guerrillas in El Salvador and made to do the cooking and cleaning "under threat of death." She was also "forced to witness her husband, a sergeant in the Salvadoran Army, dig his own grave before being killed."

I am close to broken, comparing the idea that a woman who was enslaved by violent armed men is disqualified from remaining in this country on that basis, against the contrasting example of Mr. "No Collusion" and his lifetime of consequence-free graft and corruption. We really do have two disgustingly different standards of justice in play.

Swear an oath on the bones of your foremothers that when we get the GOP out of power we will hold the Democrats' feet to the fire until this system is utterly destroyed. With Clinton, with Obama, far too many of us turned a blind eye or just hoped for the best. We need to elect as many properly left people as we can and then push them to act. Get rid of ICE, instill as much free movement as possible - because if capital can move why can't labor - free everyone who is detained, find and make whole everyone who is still alive who has been deported, start a truth-telling process to name the dead and the oppressors. There's a big work ahead and we need to be ready to back it.

Meanwhile, I strongly urge everyone to search for immigrants' rights groups or legal offices that work on these matters - just google "immigrants rights groups [your state/city/region]" and hook yourself up with some facebook pages or twitter. You can build enough into your social media (or into a dummy account that you use only for political notifications) that you'll start getting alerts for donations, call-ins, protests and whatever else your area has going. I guarantee you that if there is any kind of immigration activity in your area, there will be church groups, support networks and so on somewhere in the region, and you can help them, even if it's only "everybody call in because this guy is being held by ICE". People get illegally held pretty regularly, as far as I can tell, and calling helps get them released.

The case of this poor woman is so grotesque and terrible that it seems paralyzing, but there are still things we can do, and we need to act while there's still room to act.

Honestly, it's vieux jeu to say "stay woke", but lots of us have been asleep for much too long.
posted by Frowner at 6:25 PM on June 6, 2018 [102 favorites]

@chrisgeidner: Here's the full text of the resolution passed by the Senate tonight authorizing the Intel Comte to provide DOJ with records relating to a pending leak investigation. Note there is an exception for "matters for which a privilege should be asserted." As others have noted, here's the joint statement from Intel Comte Chair Burr and Vice Chair Warner: "The Committee is cooperating with the [Justice] Department on this matter. Any questions about the investigation should be directed to the Department of Justice.” The Justice Department, however, has not responded to a request for comment about the investigation. I have no inside information on what this is about, but this seems like the most likely possibility I can think of off the top of my head —> [NYT from March: Senate Intelligence Leaders Say House G.O.P. Leaked a Senator’s Texts]

Encouraged as I am by the possibility that Nunes could be in trouble, if that's what this really is, it's a pretty astonishing thing.

Also, Rep. Tom Rooney, a Republican on House Intel, is not having it with the spy business:

"What is the point of saying that there was a spy in the campaign when there was none?" Rooney said in an interview on Wednesday. "You know what I’m saying? It’s like, ‘Lets create this thing to tweet about knowing that it’s not true.’ … Maybe it’s just to create more chaos but it doesn’t really help the case."

posted by zachlipton at 6:25 PM on June 6, 2018 [14 favorites]

Guardian: Cambridge Analytica director 'met Assange to discuss US election'

Meanwhile, Cambridge Analytica’s Nix denies withdrawing $8m before collapse—Financial Times (Twitter link).

Alexander Nix, former chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, has hit back at allegations that he withdrew more than $8m from the data company shortly before it collapsed.

The Financial Times on Tuesday reported that Mr Nix was in a stand-off with investors over the alleged withdrawal, according to several people involved in the dispute.

According to the people, the withdrawal came after Mr Nix learned British media was reporting on allegations about his company’s role in a massive leak of Facebook user data in March.

Speaking to the UK parliamentary select committee for digital, culture, media and sport, Mr Nix said: “the allegation made in that article is false, the facts in that article are not correct.” Mr Nix did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the FT on Monday and Tuesday.

Nix further claimed, “After this media storm I have personally invested millions of dollars to meet staff payments, staff salaries and staff bonuses.” So, not embezzlement or bribery, then.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:40 PM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Former US attorney says Manafort will likely go to prison Friday

Jail, actually but I'll take it.
posted by msalt at 6:46 PM on June 6, 2018 [51 favorites]

CNN: Woman's forced labor for Salvadoran guerrillas means she must leave US, court rules

This is the worst US news I've read in . . days.

Writing for the majority, Board of Immigration Appeals Judge Roger Pauley ruled that "material support" can be virtually anything that is provided to a terrorist organization that supports their overall mission that they would otherwise would need to seek somewhere else.

"In fact, no court has held that the kind of support an alien provides, if related to promoting the goals of a terrorist organization, is exempt from the material support bar, and we discern no basis to import such a limitation," Pauley wrote.

Pauley also concluded there was no exception for support given "under duress" under US law and the actions do not need to be "voluntary."

Dissenting board member and Judge Linda Wendtland blasted the court's interpretation, pointing out the relevant statute lists a number of examples of "material support" like offering safe houses, transportation, funds and other tangible furtherance of their mission.

"I cannot conclude that the menial and incidental tasks that the respondent performed -- as a slave -- for Salvadoran guerrillas, including cooking, cleaning, and washing clothes, are of 'the same class' as the enumerated forms of assistance set forth in the statute,"

The actions. do not need. to be *voluntary*. I forgot these judges are not under the Judiciary.
I think we've found Obama's post-presidential job, whether he knows it or not yet. Someone go wake his ass up.
posted by petebest at 6:53 PM on June 6, 2018 [40 favorites]

@ndrew_lawrence (Media Matters) [video]: "Hey remember when Assange DM'd Hannity asking him to reach out on an encrypted app? Tonight Hannity is freaking out about Mueller searching encrypted apps and "advised" all Mueller witnesses to "bash" their phones "into itsy bitsy pieces""

When you watch the clip, he's saying it as a Hillary Clinton thing because she destroyed phones under entirely different circumstances. Anyway, do not destroy evidence because Sean Hannity told you to.
posted by zachlipton at 6:57 PM on June 6, 2018 [41 favorites]

@ndrew_lawrence (Media Matters) [video]: "Hey remember when Assange DM'd Hannity asking him to reach out on an encrypted app? Tonight Hannity is freaking out about Mueller searching encrypted apps and "advised" all Mueller witnesses to "bash" their phones "into itsy bitsy pieces""

So, is encouraging or helping people to destroy evidence a crime, like suborning perjury?
posted by Mental Wimp at 7:00 PM on June 6, 2018 [33 favorites]

Nice, just like that "smash your Keurig to own the libs" movement. Of course this has the tasty criminal angle, so maybe Hannity is really telling people to fall on their swords to destroy evidence and take whatever fall opens up before them.
posted by rhizome at 7:04 PM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think we've found Obama's post-presidential job, whether he knows it or not yet. Someone go wake his ass up.

Obama is the all-time Most Valuable President of deportations. 2017 saw fewer removals than 2016.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 7:06 PM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

Race ratings updates from Sabato:

* SD gov: Safe R => Likely R
* VT gov: Likely R => Safe R

* NY-18: Safe D => Likely D (this is due to Maloney running for NY AG)

===

Also, preview of Cook NJ and CA House changes from Wasserman:

* NJ-02: Lean D => Likely D
* NJ-11: Toss-up => Lean D

* CA-21: Lean R => Likely R
* CA-49: Toss-up => Lean D
posted by Chrysostom at 7:22 PM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

Obama is the all-time Most Valuable President of deportations. 2017 saw fewer removals than 2016.

So he can garner some redemption at the same time. Its win-win.
posted by petebest at 7:23 PM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

I won't get into how I know him (or used to know him). But John Fotiadis (Trump's Favorite Architect above) really wanted to be a musician.
posted by kimdog at 7:23 PM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

Mystery illness striking diplomats in China afflicts more victims (WaPo):

The State Department is evacuating several Americans from China amid health concerns about mysterious symptoms arising after unusual noises detected by U.S. diplomats and their families working in the consulate in Guangzhou.

After initial screenings by a medical team dispatched last month when the first incident was reported, the State Department has sent “a number” of affected people to the United States for further evaluation, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

The evacuation was the first sign that the unexplained ailments previously known to have afflicted only one U.S. government employee in China has now broadened and threatens to become a full-blown health crisis like the one that affected at least 24 U.S. diplomats and their families in Cuba.

posted by peeedro at 7:23 PM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

Politico: Republicans losing patience with scandal-scarred Pruitt

Kennedy - who played a role in pushing Price out of HHS - sounds like he's about done with him.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:28 PM on June 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

The actions. do not need. to be *voluntary*.

Well the good news is, now every corporation that any terrorist has ever bought anything from can now be charged with material support to a terrorist organization.

Wait... what's that? I'm being advised through my earpiece that nothing like that will ever happen because this only applies to non-white non-wealthy people.
posted by XMLicious at 7:35 PM on June 6, 2018 [44 favorites]

KC Star: Secret deal by gov Greitens had him admitting there was basis for going to trial on felony computer tampering charge.

This sort of undercuts his story that it's all trumped up politically motivated charges.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:39 PM on June 6, 2018 [13 favorites]

WaPo, Dawsey, In private FEMA remarks, Trump’s focus strays from hurricanes, in which someone taped the private part of his FEMA meeting and handed it to the Post (Melania? What is she thinking? I think about that tweet daily).

The meeting was supposed to be about hurricane preparedness, as disaster officials gathered at Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters days after the start of the 2018 season.

But President Trump had a lot else on his mind, turning the closed-door discussion into soliloquies on his prowess in negotiating airplane deals, his popularity, the effectiveness of his political endorsements, the Republican Party’s fortunes, the vagaries of Defense Department purchasing guidelines, his dislike of magnetized launch equipment on aircraft carriers, his unending love of coal and his breezy optimism about his planned Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“It’s an interesting journey. It’s called the land of the unknown — who knows? We’ll maybe make a deal. Maybe not. As I say to everybody, are you going to make a deal?” Trump said, according to audio of the FEMA meeting obtained by The Washington Post. “Maybe and maybe not. Who knows?”
...
When Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan began speaking, Trump within 10 seconds moved the conversation to negotiating airplane prices. He said the government was getting ripped off on ships and planes because the “ordering process for the military is so bad. . . . It’s not a competitive bid.”

“We saved $1.6 billion on Air Force One,” he said. “Can you believe it? I got involved in the negotiations. The press refuses to report that, but that’s okay. . . . People were really surprised.”

Military officials have not been able to explain where Trump got such a figure. A Defense Department official told Bloomberg News this year that the department had no information to back up that claim.
...
“I understand a big story is being done in a major newspaper talking about what a great Cabinet this is,” he said, without specifying the outlet. “What a great Cabinet this has turned out to be.”

“Our level of popularity is great,” he added.

So glad we're preparing for hurricane season. That someone leaked this is pretty amazing.

WaPo, Joseph Hagin, point person on Korea summit, plans to leave White House soon. He's a former deputy chief of staff to W, one of the few people around who knew how the White House works, and might want to go to the CIA now.

Politico, House Dems seethe over superdelegates plan

During a two-hour-plus meeting with a group of House Democrats at DNC headquarters, Perez laid out two options under consideration for superdelegates by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee. There’s a June 30 deadline for any proposed amendments to the DNC charter, which will be voted at during a key August party meeting, right in the middle of election season.

The first proposal – a product of the “Unity Reform Commission” established at the 2016 convention to “revise and reduce” the role of superdelegates - would create three categories of superdelegates. Some superdelegates would be allowed to vote in the first roll-call vote for the presidential nominee, while other would not.

However, Perez warned members that this proposal won’t win enough backing to be adopted at the August DNC session.

The second option, which Perez supports and appears far more likely to be enacted, would allow superdelegates to continue to exist, but they couldn’t vote during the first round of the presidential roll-call vote. However, they could vote during the second round or any subsequent roll call, and they still would be permitted to support any candidate they want.

Perez believes this approach ensures “we have an inclusive party, transparent process, democratic principles, and empowers the grassroots,” said a DNC official.

And that’s what set the House members off, as none of them believes there will be any more than one roll-call vote for the nominee.

The Hill, Dem leaders embrace pay-go, in which Pelosi and Hoyer say they'll follow pay-as-you-go rules if Democrats retake the House. Counterpoint: Democrats Vow to Bring Back Stupid and Harmful Spending Rule if They Win Back the House. Having a semblance of fiscal responsibility when Republicans are trying to destroy the country and there are things worth assuming debt for is exhausting.

WaPo, ‘I can understand about 50 percent of the things you say’: How Congress is struggling to get smart on tech, in which Congress doesn't understand technology, and Democrats want to revive the Office of Technology Assessment.

Politico, Trump seeks to reorganize the federal government. The White House wants to move nutrition programs such as SNAP and the school lunch program out of USDA and into HHS, renaming HHS to add "Welfare" to its name. Oh, and cutting State and USAID. It's a Heritage Foundation scheme; they're very excited that HHS is rolling out work requirements for Medicaid and want that replicated. I can't imagine it has any chance of happening, since it would require Congressional approval, and the committees in charge of overseeing USDA aren't going to vote to reduce their power anytime soon. And this is your regularly scheduled reminder that HHS oversees Medicare and Medicaid, programs that are not welfare.

Daily Beast, Trump Has Floated Golfing With Kim Jong Un if Singapore Summit Goes Well. Given that both Trump and Kim have a history of dubious claims about their golfing abilities and/or integrity on the court, this isn't going to go well. There's an old Rocko's Modern Life episode involving a rigged golf game with unlimited resources that this brings to mind.
posted by zachlipton at 7:40 PM on June 6, 2018 [26 favorites]

Oh wait I thought it was done, but it got stupider again. Another mess for Pruitt: Overstaying his White House welcome at lunch

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt loves eating at the White House mess, an exclusive U.S. Navy-run restaurant open only to White House officials, Cabinet members and other dignitaries.

But apparently he liked it too much, and the White House asked him to please eat elsewhere sometimes.

In response to Pruitt's recurring use of the restaurant next to the Situation Room in the basement of the West Wing, a member of the White House’s Cabinet affairs team told agency chiefs of staff in a meeting last year that Cabinet members shouldn't treat the mess as their personal dining hall, according to three people with knowledge of the issue.
...
Pruitt has been known to complain that EPA headquarters has no cafeteria of its own and no private dining quarters, according to multiple sources, who said Pruitt still often heads to the White House for lunch. One source said EPA officials called the White House to explain that Pruitt didn’t have a place to eat at EPA and would like to continue to visit. Pruitt’s EPA office is only a few blocks up Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.

@ashleyfeinberg: to be fair, he did try to buy his own place to eat lunch
posted by zachlipton at 7:44 PM on June 6, 2018 [47 favorites]

The Hill, Dem leaders embrace pay-go

God dammit.

Say it with me, once more and with feeling: DEFICITS DONT MATTER
posted by dis_integration at 7:53 PM on June 6, 2018 [25 favorites]

I'm all for Pay Go if the pay part comes from hiking taxes on rich folks and cutting the military.

Somehow I doubt that's what they're gonna do.
posted by Justinian at 7:54 PM on June 6, 2018 [24 favorites]

Obama is the all-time Most Valuable President of deportations.

This has been covered in these threads before, but the idea that Obama deported more people than anyone else is a misleading view of the situation.

As detailed below, the Obama-era policies represented the culmination of a gradual but consistent effort to narrow its enforcement focus to two key groups: The deportation of criminals and recent unauthorized border crossers.

posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:56 PM on June 6, 2018 [28 favorites]

Tonight Hannity is freaking out about Mueller searching encrypted apps and "advised" all Mueller witnesses to "bash" their phones "into itsy bitsy pieces"

What are the odds that Trump's butler finds strange little pieces of phone scattered around his bedroom tomorrow morning.
posted by JackFlash at 8:03 PM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

PAYGO means there's no Democratic agenda until you can say how you're going to pay for something, or you're able to make the successful argument that it's worth assuming more debt to do it so you waive the rule. Any Democrat with a serious policy proposal should be able to explain how they're going to pay for it or justify deficit spending. The ACA did it, and so should our priorities now.

Sure, it's tempting to point to the Iraq War and the 2017 tax cuts and declare that if Republicans don't need to pay for what they want, we shouldn't either, but it's irresponsible. And you can believe that without being secretly out to cut Social Security or thinking we're Greece, starting deficit panics, and calling for austerity.
posted by zachlipton at 8:05 PM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** Primary round-up: Consensus take is that the CA results are indicative of picking up a few seats there, overall fit with model of slight Dem advantage in the overall House. Crosstab, Upshot, DKE.

** 2018 House:

-- UT-04: Dan Jones poll has incumbent GOP Love up 47-43 on Dem challenger McAdams [MOE: +/- 5%]. Same outfit polled this race in Feb, and had Love up 6.

-- Interesting look at NC-09 race from McClatchy.

-- Current 538 generic ballot average: D+6.4 (46.3/39.9)

** 2018 Senate -- VA: Roanoake College poll has Kaine up in the low teens versus any of the three GOP candidates (primary is next Tuesday) [MOE: +/-4.2%].

** Odds & ends -- Reform DA candidates had a rough night in California, a few bright spots, though.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:05 PM on June 6, 2018 [13 favorites]

@FullFrontalSamB: Sam addresses the controversy from last week's show.

1:47 video, worth watching.
posted by zachlipton at 8:07 PM on June 6, 2018 [23 favorites]

but it's irresponsible.

Not really though. We can spend all we want and it will barely affect inflation. And if that spending is on infrastructure, childcare and job programs, it’s actually an investment that makes us richer in the future. We literally do not need to figure out how to pay for programs. We can just pay for them. It’s the magic of fiat currency, a central banking system and being the richest, most important economy in the world
posted by dis_integration at 8:14 PM on June 6, 2018 [19 favorites]

PAYGO is for chumps. Time and time again, Democrats have responsibly instituted PAYGO rules when they control congress and time and time again the Republicans then turn around and bust the PAYGO rules to give tax cuts to the rich when Republicans control congress.

A lot of the quirks in Obamacare that people complain about are due to Democrats rigidly abiding by the PAYGO rules.

Nope, Democrats have been falling for the starve the beast strategy of Republicans for too long. Democrats responsibly come up with half-assed social programs to appease the deficit scolds and then Republicans turn around blow it all up with tax cuts. To hell with PAYGO. Democrats should pass good social programs and let the Republicans worry about the deficits -- starve the tax cuts.
posted by JackFlash at 8:23 PM on June 6, 2018 [69 favorites]

We can spend all we want and it will barely affect inflation

That can't be true unless you're using "spend all we want" hyperbolically. Or saying that massively increasing the money supply wouldn't lead to inflation.
posted by Justinian at 8:34 PM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

...his dislike of magnetized launch equipment on aircraft carriers...

An oldie but a goodie!
posted by notyou at 8:48 PM on June 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

Paul Rosenzweig at Lawfareblog looks at the filing on Manafort's alleged attempted witness tampering and finds the evidence thin. Basically he says that the evidence presented could, if fully credited (a bunch of it are people's perceptions), lead one to believe Manafort was attempting witness tampering but that it's not even close to being strong, persuasive evidence that someone with no preconceptions would see as conclusive.

His theory is that the Mueller team is finally starting to feel the pressure and may believe they need to get Manafort to flip tout suite in case the whole thing explodes in a Saturday Night Massacre, so they are pushing this on less complete evidence than on which they have previously relied because of a new sense of urgency. He does leave open the possibility they could present additional evidence at the hearing but he doesn't seem to think that very likely. At least thats the sense I get from the piece.

tl;dr - the evidence against Manafort here is not as strong as Mueller's team usually goes with, so maybe they feel like time is running out on them. There are indeed indications Manafort was trying to do this but the evidence is not particular substantial.
posted by Justinian at 8:51 PM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

That can't be true unless you're using "spend all we want" hyperbolically. Or saying that massively increasing the money supply wouldn't lead to inflation.

We’ve been growing the money supply like wild with low interest rates and “quantitative easing “ for years and years and inflation remains low. I suspect that the reason is low wage growth. If public investment ends up driving up wages, perhaps there will be some inflation, but this could be counteracted in a lot of ways. For example single payer health would reduce costs in a huge sector of the economy. But the fact is that we’ve basically been printing money and then setting it on fire for nearly 30 years and we’re still rich as Croesus
posted by dis_integration at 8:53 PM on June 6, 2018 [16 favorites]

One addendum to my comment about Manafort. My understanding is that to show Manafort violated his terms of release doesn't require much beyond probable cause so if Mueller's team isn't planning to bring witness tampering charges and only wants to put pressure on him by getting him thrown in the pokey before trial they may not need more than a bunch of suggestive evidence.

But I'm no lawyerologist so I could be missing something.
posted by Justinian at 8:56 PM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

That can't be true unless you're using "spend all we want" hyperbolically. Or saying that massively increasing the money supply wouldn't lead to inflation.

You been watching the last decade? The Fed has been trying like mad to flood the economy with money and avoid a deflationary spiral. We had like three major QE events and the M2 has been climbing like crazy.

90% of the money we flooded the market with has gone into the bank accounts of the 1%. That's why we can flood like crazy and not even move the needle.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 8:56 PM on June 6, 2018 [19 favorites]

If we can spend 10 trillion on wars and planes that don't work and literally passing out cash to rich fuckers without paying for it, Democrats should point that out and point out that the same 10 trillion could've been spent on free college and free healthcare and bailing out underwater homeowners and and and and

Instead the big idea they learned from 2016 is apparently to revive Simpson-Bowels.

Then they wonder why we want to stop trying.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:08 PM on June 6, 2018 [32 favorites]

But I'm no lawyerologist so I could be missing something.

Au contraire, everyone in these threads (and half of Twitter) has become a lawyerologist.

and lawruspex.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:16 PM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

Pay-go plus never raising taxes means no major new programs from Democrats ever again, just endless fights over a zero-sum pie. It also means your favorite program -- pre-K, college tuition, universal health, jobs program, etc -- will be relentlessly attacked from the center-left because it is 15% in the red over the first decade. "It's irresponsible to offer life-saving health care if it raises the deficit and/or it shows you are not serious about policy."
posted by chortly at 9:24 PM on June 6, 2018 [22 favorites]

The lesson they should have learned is "no one gives one fuck about the deficit, least of all Republicans". That statement by Pelosi is the most demoralizing thing I've read in the last 18 months of the Trump era, above even when Gorsuch was confirmed. They've learned nothing. Literally nothing. It's still the same game to them, one which they're intentionally playing to lose.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:47 PM on June 6, 2018 [18 favorites]

Or does he think the second amendment authorizes shooting people?

Have you not seen a 2A zealot? That's absolutely what they believe.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 9:54 PM on June 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

And why, if these Democrats think the debt is bad, would they want something like pay-go that keeps it at exactly its current level? Surely they would want to shrink that terrible debt, which means they should be in favor of massive government cuts. Or they think there is some sustainable level, in which case why does it happen to be exactly $21 trillion? Pay-go is not an economic policy -- a true economic policy would claim that a debt of X was optimal (like Reinhart and Rogoff's (stupid) 90% of GDP), and shoot for that. Say what you will for them, at least the Republicans' various positions on this issue are coherent: (1) the debt is terrible so we should massively cut programs (traditional right); (2) 90% is ideal, so let's do some judicious austerity (center-right); (3) debts don't matter, so spend all you want and make cuts out of honest hate (modern right). But pay-go, which declares that whatever the debt happens to be right now is ideal, is either exactly the sort of ignorant status-quo-biased centrism we deride around here, or is duplicitous posturing for other ignorant centrists.
posted by chortly at 10:11 PM on June 6, 2018 [15 favorites]

Having read the articles, don't you guys think the most likely explanation for Pelosi and Hoyer's statements are as part of a battle with Trump and the Republicans? Even if Democrats take back the House almost nobody thinks they'll also get the Senate (though Alabama makes it within the realm of the possible) and even if they got both Houses Trump is still President.

So they can't actually pass anything they want to pass. Adopting pay-go is purely symbolic without the Presidency and just another hammer to hit the Republicans with. They can campaign on being the party of fiscal responsibility going into 2020. It costs nothing and could persuade ~~dummies~~ swing voters who don't really know anything except that this sounds good to them.

Now if they maintain pay-go next time they have both Houses of Congress and the Presidency... yeah that's a paddlin'.
posted by Justinian at 11:00 PM on June 6, 2018 [19 favorites]

Could be a gambit. North Korea has shown the Executive Branch has a weakness for them.
posted by rhizome at 11:11 PM on June 6, 2018

I think that is indeed the correct account of what they think they are doing. But campaign promises matter: even if no one on the left paid any attention while the strategy somehow miraculously persuaded the swing-voters (who must somehow be both policy-ignorant and responsive to minutiae like pay-go), Democrats would still go into 2020 constrained by 3 years of public commitments to pay-go -- not to mention the Democrats who they will persuade to believe in pay-go. The strategy of adopting a centrist platform before an election because you can always renege afterwards is usually counter-productive: it mostly fails to persuade the centrists (who are generally the most oblivious), while publicly committing politicians to centrist policies and persuading some of the left to move center-ward.
posted by chortly at 11:12 PM on June 6, 2018 [11 favorites]

Only partially US politics: but I'd recommend the footage of Alexander Nix being called back before the UK Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in order "to have a second chance to answer some of the questions" that comprised his previous testimony in February.

NIx: smart - but not nearly to the degree he imagines, supercilious to the bone and compelled to the indignity of having to answer questions (rather than read the statements he pre-prepared) - makes a fascinating witness. For those without 3 hours to spare - here is a short summary of the session.
posted by rongorongo at 11:17 PM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

zachlipton: "“We saved $1.6 billion on Air Force One,” he said. “Can you believe it? I got involved in the negotiations. The press refuses to report that, but that’s okay. . . . People were really surprised.”"

As with essentially all Cheeto rants/talking points he's both wrong on the numbers, claiming credit for something that didn't actually happen and mistaken on the lack of press coverage (a google search for "cost of Airforce One" pulls up coverage of the deal from basically every reputable news source and even Fox).

zachlipton: "Daily Beast, Trump Has Floated Golfing With Kim Jong Un if Singapore Summit Goes Well. Given that both Trump and Kim have a history of dubious claims about their golfing abilities and/or integrity on the court, this isn't going to go well. "

Man I think golf is the most boring spectator sport possible and I'd pay several hours salary to watch a mic'd uncut video of that game.
posted by Mitheral at 11:24 PM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

The thing is, "responsible economic management" is just code, and it gets misinterpreted by left-leaning parties everywhere.

You and I might think that responsible economic management would have something to do with matching spending to available resources in such a way that conditions for the citizenry improve over time, but to any party whose natural constituency is the moneyed classes, all it means is making sure that the right of the moneyed classes to keep and bear money shall not be infringed.

Here in Australia we saw much the same kind of thing play out. We had a left-leaning Labor Government during the GFC, who responded to it with a bunch of classically Keynesian debt-funded pump priming, including a straight-up gift of $900 to every taxpayer to help prop up the retail sector. As a result, Australia was the only OECD country not to go into recession as a consequence of that crisis.

The response from the Right was to invent the slogan "debt and deficit disaster", which they continued to wheel out at every opportunity in an attempt to justify swingeing spending cuts to the usual suspects (welfare recipients, public broadcaster, universities, hospitals) after subsequently getting their hands back on the levers of power. Apparently they had no choice but to be their usual vicious selves because of the terrible budgetary position those latte sipping elites had left us in before the chickens had come to their senses and voted Colonel Sanders back in again.

But now that they've been in for a good long while, and now that their Treasurer has waved some kind of magic accounting wand that reclassifies some of what used to be counted as debt as not debt, and even though the debt under these clowns is actually stratospheric even compared to their worst scare stories about what Labor would have done had we re-elected them, is paying down debt anything like their priority? Of course not. The most recent budget is all about tax cuts here and tax cuts there and tax cuts everywhere, and it will be no surprise to any of you to learn that those who will benefit the most from all of these cuts are the wealthiest Australians.

They can campaign on being the party of fiscal responsibility going into 2020.

Complete waste of time. Because the moneyed classes also control the organs of public discourse, the public in general will always retain the impression that it's the right-wingers who are actually the more "economically responsible" of the two alternatives on offer. The Dumbs need to campaign on what they will spend on and hammer the Repugs for failing to cover any of that. Where the money is supposed to come from is simply not going to matter, this time around. It's where it's going that people care about, or they wouldn't have been such keen marks for the orange excrescence in the first place.
posted by flabdablet at 11:28 PM on June 6, 2018 [29 favorites]

I dunno you guys. I think our ability to take on debt without negative consequences depends on the demand for treasury bonds as low risk investments. But the perception that they are low risk comes from a belief that budgeting will always be carried out in a sustainable way. If we just started literally not caring how much debt we took on, might that not lead to the perception that we couldn't possibly intend to really pay out all the interest we eventually would owe? And a drop in demand for our bonds?

Plus I don't think we are going to be the world reserve currency forever, immune to inflation because people always want to buy dollars. Especially not with Trump at the helm. For a lot of reasons (like us pulling out of the Iran nuclear desl) people are trying to move away from the petrodollar. And generally trying to make their economies less dependent on ours.

Plus I guess "but we are special, we ca n get away with it" just sounds a little too good to be true. At least, to good to be true forever. And I think believing it is true might make it less true, if you see what I mean.
posted by OnceUponATime at 11:45 PM on June 6, 2018 [9 favorites]

If Trump has demonstrated anything in terms of political strategy, it's that saying the quiet parts loud frees you from a lot of the go-to criticisms of your opponents and lights up your base like nothing else. What's more, our unmentionable, hinted-at policy strategy, unlike "blame the Mexicans," is a morally and economically sound response to many of the problems we face.

It's past time to start talking openly about taxing the rich. If they wag fingers and chant "tax and spend" we respond "Yes, that's what governance is" and go back to outlining workable plans to salvage our country based on levying new taxes against the people who have hoarded all the wealth.
posted by contraption at 11:49 PM on June 6, 2018 [86 favorites]

If we just started literally not caring how much debt we took on, might that not lead to the perception that we couldn't possibly intend to really pay out all the interest we eventually would owe?

Even more to the point, if we did so after having flagrantly displayed to the world that the American system will readily empower and give carte blanche to an argle-bargler who openly campaigned on defaulting on the national debt.
posted by XMLicious at 12:10 AM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

If Trump has demonstrated anything in terms of political strategy, it's that saying the quiet parts loud frees you from a lot of the go-to criticisms of your opponents and lights up your base like nothing else.

And in the case of the center-to-left, saying the quiet parts loud, standing for some damn thing, and welcoming bold, practical, plainspoken ideas grows the base because it brings many more young voters on board rather than alienating and disillusioning and frustrating the fuck out of them en masse at the time of life when they are most open, energetic, and resilient.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:19 AM on June 7, 2018 [15 favorites]

I dunno you guys. I think our ability to take on debt without negative consequences depends on the demand for treasury bonds as low risk investments.

This is a common misperception. As I understand it, America's ability to deficit spend is not really dependent on finding buyers for treasury bonds, and the danger of the debt is not that people are going to start selling US bonds or refusing to buy them. When you print your own money, the only real constraint is inflation. And the evidence of the last few decades is that inflation is much more affected by other factors than by deficit spending, and in fact huge spending increases (like Republican tax cuts) seem to have little to no discernible effects on inflation. Yes, we could be subject to a global financial attack ("loss of confidence") like Argentina, but no economist thinks that is at all likely to happen any time soon. The arguments against the deficit stand or fall on inflation, and it continues to appear that inflation is both stable, and relatively unaffected by this kind of spending (though this is admittedly a very contentious issue among economists).

In any case, if you don't believe this argument, you need to have a theory (like Reinhart and Rogoff) about what the proper debt level is. But regardless of where you come down, pay-go, which assumes the status quo is ideal, is bunkum. Even if you buy into the (mistaken) metaphor of nation as household, it makes no sense to think that if you are thousands of dollars in debt, the best strategy is to make sure you spend exactly as much as you earn. Pay-go both makes no intrinsic sense, and serves to further Republican framing that deficits trump social services.
posted by chortly at 12:37 AM on June 7, 2018 [19 favorites]

I'll be damned. Trump followed Kim Kardashian's advice and commuted Alice Johnson's sentence.

In order to normalize the other pardons.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:13 AM on June 7, 2018 [15 favorites]

Next Trump should follow her advice on contouring and do something about that raccoon thing around the eyes
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:09 AM on June 7, 2018 [25 favorites]

Man I think golf is the most boring spectator sport possible and I'd pay several hours salary to watch a mic'd uncut video of that game.

Given that Trump loves sociopathic dictators almost as much as he loves himself then it's quite possibly going to be lots of reciprocal grooming and 'locker-room talk'. 99.75% chance Trump makes a gag about how he envies Kim, because they won't let him lock his opponents up (and/or kill people trying to cross the border).

If it goes really well Kim could even usurp Putin as most powerful world-leader-by-proxy.
posted by Buntix at 3:35 AM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Has the Democratic party learned nothing from the special elections and primary races around the country that have shown how hungry voters are for a truly progressive platform? Even if this PAYGO talk is gamesmanship designed to make Republicans look like hypocrites or score points with voters, when have either of those gambits actually worked? Republicans have never cared about being hypocrites, and their voters don't care. And Republicans will always be the fiscally responsible daddy party, even though they're the ones who run up big deficits and squander surpluses.

I don't think it's aimed at Republicans, but rather at Democratic-leaning, but not actually very liberal white suburbs and, more, at donors. These aren't visible donors, of course: this about dark money and PAC influence. DCCC endorsements tend to follow money that isn't publicly visible.

This isn't as disempowering of the grassroots as it sounds, however: money doesn't steer the base, and the DCCC can lose to the grassroots at the primary ballot box. The Democratic party is still in the process of realignment, and the New Democrat model is still pretty embedded. Indeed, one lesson of 2016 is that primary voting behavior, not general election voting behavior, is one of the most powerful tools the grassroots have for steering the party. Even if you don't win the primary, you still push the nominee, and over a few cycles, the Party changes. We're seeing this again in the New York gubernatorial contest, for example.

In the wake of the shock of Trump, a lot of things are being reappraised, but the fundraising structure of the Democratic Party's major administrative and financial institutions will be some of the last things to change: they're trailing indicators in that respect, and will be reshaped more by how primaries in the Democratic Party play out in the next few election cycles than anything else. None of this means abandoning work done outside the party apparatus, or even abandoning criticism...of Democratic incumbents between elections. It does mean that a general election, counterintuitively, is just about the worst time to punish a candidate in your own party that you don't like.
posted by kewb at 4:15 AM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

For Justinian...

G. Elliott Morris (Crosstab)
The Ipsos/Reuters poll (the one that recently had Republicans up by 6 points) now has Democrats winning the generic ballot by 11 points.

Greg Sargent (WaPo)
New NBC poll: Dems lead generic House ballot by 10 points, 50-40.
Key point: Despite economy, voters still want a check on Trump by a large margin.
Another key finding from the NBC poll: In competitive states and congressional districts, more than 50 percent of voters signal support for a candidate who will act as a check on Trump.

---

Two others came out yesterday, Quinnipiac D+7 and YouGov D+6. The RCP generic ballot average is at D+6.3 and that's without the NBC D+10 added in yet.
posted by chris24 at 4:24 AM on June 7, 2018 [14 favorites]

And the 538 average is D+6.4 without the new Ipsos/Reuters and NBC polls added in yet.
posted by chris24 at 4:31 AM on June 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

Trump: Texans took boats out to watch Hurricane Harvey.

"Sixteen thousand people, many of them in Texas, for whatever reason that is. People went out in their boats to watch the hurricane...That didn't work out too well."

posted by Thorzdad at 4:42 AM on June 7, 2018 [17 favorites]

All taxes come from the 1%. Everybody else gets to keep everything they make.

Is there a compelling reason to think that wouldn't be a wildly popular platform? Banks wouldn't back candidates who espoused it, Fox News would be apoplectic, sure. But á Trump (and even, yes Virginia, there is an AfterTrump) why not? Federal fiscal responsibility is an actual lie to hamper Dems, "Better Jobs" is the most uninspiring thing since chewed-up paper, the gloves are off, burned, and didn't help much anyway - let's go.
posted by petebest at 4:42 AM on June 7, 2018 [20 favorites]

One more thought regarding debt and stuff... You know what words keep coming into my head these days? "Socially constructed."

Femininity and masculinity are socially constructed. Race is socially constructed. The value of a dollar is socially constructed. The law is a social construct. The government is a social construct.

These are all things that have reality and force and affect people's lives. If you don't believe the value of a dollar is real then try paying rent with Monopoly money. Try stealing a cop car. Social constructs are very real. But they only continue to be real as long as people believe in them. I'm really struggling with that idea right now... realities that (unlike science) do care whether you believe in them or not.

And I guess these days I am thinking of politics as the work of dismantling and rebuilding social constructs. Work that takes place inside other people's heads. No wonder campaigning is so expensive. Maybe we should spend more! Getting ideas, the raw material of social constructs, into people's brains... that's not easy.

And then when a social concept collapses... you get revolution, or runaway inflation, or a run on the bank, or women's lib, or... just sudden dramatic changes that no one thought possible before they happened.

Social constructs are like the gods in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, whose power comes directly from the strength of their followers' belief. They have real and awesome power... until people stop believing in them. And then all the sudden they are powerless.

(Okay, that became about more than the debt.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:43 AM on June 7, 2018 [46 favorites]

Thorzdad: Trump: Texans took boats out to watch Hurricane Harvey.

$10 on "Mr President was obviously making a joke".
posted by Too-Ticky at 5:06 AM on June 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

I can’t find the thread where I saw Sady Doyle’s latest essay linked, but, uh, it’s terrifying and belongs here, too.

It’s an overview of the birth of a terrorist movement based on male entitlement, misogyny, and racism. And no one’s taking it seriously, even though these fucks are now the Nazi vanguard.

And it’s not just the right wing — Chapo Trap House features, too. Women have been calling out their harassment for a while, and no one cares. And given the incel language for rape and sexual slavery — “sexual redistribution” — I just...

These are terrorists. They’re growing. People need to start listening to women.
posted by schadenfrau at 5:14 AM on June 7, 2018 [66 favorites]

Foreign leaders who embraced Trump now feel burned (Politico, via Politicalwire)

Foreign leaders are learning that hand-holding, golf games, military parades and other efforts to personally woo President Donald Trump do not guarantee that Trump won’t burn them on key policy issues.

[...] “Trump is very selfish and I think he views flattery as a one-way street where he gets flattered and then there’s no real reciprocal benefit going back the other direction,” said one former White House official. “If you’re a foreign leader you have to realize if you try to butter up Trump it doesn’t really matter, it’s a one way street.”

To be sure, some world leaders are reaping the benefits of flattery. Saudi Arabia rolled out the red carpet for Trump during his spring 2017 visit and has seen unprecedented support from the U.S. The same largely goes for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

What makes the difference, the former official said, is that those regimes take a transactional approach. Many American allies have relied on appeals to reason, data and shared values.

“If you’re not a despot, you can’t really be transactional,” the former official said.

Reason. "Values". He _understands_ North Korea.
posted by petebest at 5:25 AM on June 7, 2018 [26 favorites]

All taxes come from the 1%. Everybody else gets to keep everything they make.

1%? Hell no. Top 5% of income household here. No kids. Tax the hell out of us, we have plenty. For starters, stop capping our social security contributions. It's absolute madness that our SS rate goes DOWN as we make more money.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 5:26 AM on June 7, 2018 [88 favorites]

And if you wanted more reason they're focusing on culture war besides being racist fascists...

John Harwood (CNBC)
NBC/WSJ poll: in swing House districts, knowing that a candidate supports Trump tax-cut bill makes voters LESS likely to back the candidate by a margin of 12 percentage points
posted by chris24 at 5:32 AM on June 7, 2018 [40 favorites]

This thing about the Texas storm sightseers strikes me as confabulation. Trump's brain: "I remember that there were a bunch of people out in the storm. But why?? I don't know! Well, maybe they were out there...taking a look-see? Ok. I guess maybe. Sounds good. Let's roll with that!" Confabulation isn't a person purposefully lying to you, it's the person's brain trying to make sense of something that escapes them at the moment with what facts they have at hand. It is, of course, a trait of dementia and also does not preclude a person otherwise straight-up lying at times.
posted by thebrokedown at 5:39 AM on June 7, 2018 [14 favorites]

“If you’re not a despot, you can’t really be transactional,” the former official said.

Right on time, Trump complains about traveling to Canada ahead of Singapore summit with Kim (WaPo):

In particular, the president said Tuesday to several advisers that he fears attending the Group of Seven summit in rural Charlevoix, Quebec, may not be a good use of his time because he is diametrically opposed on many key issues with his counterparts — and does not want to be lectured by them.

Additionally, Trump has griped periodically both about German Chancellor Angela Merkel — largely because they disagree on many issues and have had an uneasy rapport — as well as British Prime Minister Theresa May, whom he sees as too politically correct, advisers say.

Behind the scenes at the White House, there have been staff-level discussions for several days about whether Trump may pull the plug on the trip and send Vice President Pence in his stead, as he did for an April summit of Latin American leaders in Peru.

posted by peeedro at 5:52 AM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Thorzdad: Trump: Texans took boats out to watch Hurricane Harvey.

$10 on "Mr President was obviously making a joke".

"Does President Trump have any proof that people were watching the hurricane from boats for fun?"
"The President has been very clear on this issue. Next question."
posted by Etrigan at 6:10 AM on June 7, 2018 [15 favorites]

Too-Ticky: $10 on "Mr President was obviously making a joke".

thebrokedown: Trump's brain: "I remember that there were a bunch of people out in the storm. But why?? I don't know! Well, maybe they were out there...taking a look-see? Ok. I guess maybe. Sounds good. Let's roll with that!"

You're very close, and I believe the perennially spot-on Trump-interpretor Alexandra Erin has it nailed: it's about the phrase "Coast Guard". I can only imagine that this quote is a result of Donald Trump's limited understanding of what the Coast Guard does, that they're the ones who rescue people who do foolish things in boats and get themselves into trouble. (Which is how his tax bracket interacts with them.)

He knows the picture that results from that understanding doesn't make sense (hence the "for whatever reason") but he doesn't have it in him to ask a clarifying question, read further, or correct his understanding. He just rolls with it. Thousands and thousands of people rescued by the Coast Guard? Must have been a lot of boat parties that got out of hand.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:13 AM on June 7, 2018 [37 favorites]

Daily Beast, Trump Has Floated Golfing With Kim Jong Un if Singapore Summit Goes Well.

Oh goodie, that'll be 18 holes-in-one for the both of them then.
posted by lydhre at 6:20 AM on June 7, 2018 [13 favorites]

Has the Democratic party learned nothing from the special elections and primary races around the country that have shown how hungry voters are for a truly progressive platform?

Hillary Clinton got nearly 3,000,000 more votes running on the most progressive Democratic platform in the history of the United States.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:32 AM on June 7, 2018 [72 favorites]

InTheYear2017: He knows the picture that results from that understanding doesn't make sense (hence the "for whatever reason") but he doesn't have it in him to ask a clarifying question, read further, or correct his understanding. He just rolls with it.

Sounds legit, which makes it utterly impossible that Sarah HS will ever say it.
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:44 AM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Has the Democratic party learned nothing from the special elections and primary races around the country that have shown how hungry voters are for a truly progressive platform?

Welcome to the jungle: Centrist Democrats charge through California primaries

Centrist Incumbents Edge Out Rivals in Illinois Primaries

Establishment-Backed Moderate Wins Heated Democratic House Primary In Texas

Former Bernie Sanders Staffer Gets Crushed In Iowa House Primary

With Centrist Democrats' Success, Party's Identity Struggle Gets More Complicated

---

And many of the special election winners - Lamb, Jones, etc, - were more centrists than firebrand leftists.
posted by chris24 at 7:27 AM on June 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

Counterpoint: In Georgia, Stacey Evans (white, working to appeal to disaffected middle-class white "moderates") was completely destroyed by Stacey Abrams (black, working to get out the vote among Georgia's disenfranchised minority communities).
posted by hydropsyche at 7:33 AM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

Yahoo: Sources: Colin Kaepernick's legal team expected to subpoena President Trump in case against NFL

Kaepernick’s legal team is expected to seek federal subpoenas in the coming weeks to compel testimony from Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other officials familiar with the president’s agenda on protesting NFL players, sources with knowledge of the quarterback’s collusion case against the NFL told Yahoo Sports.

The aim will be a dive into the administration’s political involvement with the NFL during Kaepernick’s free agency and the league’s handling of player protests, sources said. This after recent disclosures that multiple owners had direct talks with Trump about players kneeling during the national anthem. The content of those conversations between Trump and owners – as well as any forms of pressure directed at the league by the administration – are expected to shape the requests to force the testimony of Trump, Pence and other affiliated officials, sources said.

Trump's been talking trash about professional football for decades, but this time it's a straight-up First Amendment case.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:37 AM on June 7, 2018 [70 favorites]

Millennials and retirement: How bad is it?

Politico just tweeted this with the text "Analysis: Millennials should be willing and able to work longer than their parents and grandparents did", and boy did it get peoples backs up.

Like the "you should have half your income in a bank by age 35" of a few weeks back it's not exactly a deliberate attack, it's just cruel because it's a demand for the impossible. That shit is just not sustainable - at some point you run out of hours millennials can put into gig economy jobs without making headway and get you a grim meathook future were everyone dies in poverty.

Or, you know, we have a socialist revolution.
posted by Artw at 7:38 AM on June 7, 2018 [71 favorites]

Democratic Party leadership likes...

The stories in the comment you were replying to are about primary results, which are decided by rank and file voters, not "party leadership." This seems like a non-sequitur.

Anyway, there's a lot of diversity in the views of elected Democrats as well as in the views of voters. But it's not all along one axis (economic left vs. economic right) -- it's also in views on race and gender and sexuality, and in how much enforcement power the government should have, and so on. I actually think there is a lot of consensus on ideas like overturning Citizens United if possible, regulating Wall Street, subsidizing health care, and raising the minimum wage. Even "centrist" Democrats mostly want to do those things. The divide, to the extent there is one, is over priorities. Maybe for some people immigration and criminal justice and reproductive rights are more pressing issues... and over tactics... do we try to get what we want be compromising ("caving") or demanding ("bullying")?
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:41 AM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm almost beginning to think the American public can't be collectively characterized as anything in particular when it comes to responsiveness to political messaging. Or even that the Democratic Party isn't a hive mind with grand unifying traits besides being left of center. But that's probably silly of me.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 7:42 AM on June 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

When you only have one functioning party it kind of has to be a big fricking tent.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:42 AM on June 7, 2018 [14 favorites]

This whole 'is it a Progressive wave' or 'is it a Centrist hold' in the upcoming midterms isn't a right-wrong, yes-or-no question, and the reason the Centrists are probably going to win out is that we liberals like to rely on the data, on what the journos are saying, rather than on building our own narrative, damn the rest.

Take the Tea Party/radical rightists from 2008 on. They won some House races, a few Senate races, but the majority of the GOP was, of course, what it had always been. But the media played along with those folks, hyping up the power of the 'grass-roots' [astroturfed] Tea Party, creating that narrative for them.

Of course the entire Democratic Party isn't going to get swept out in a Progressive wave in one election. But the way to build that wave for the future (if that's what we in this thread, who as I understand it, control politics left of the GOP, want) is to just write the narrative ourselves. There's no outlet in the US that won't write "Progressives Set to Sweep Midterms" and put out "Progressive Failure in X Primary Should Make Leftists Worried about 2018" the very next day."

(Edited for a missing word)

Build the story and they will come, more or less.
posted by TheProfessor at 7:44 AM on June 7, 2018 [16 favorites]

Former US attorney says Manafort will likely go to prison Friday

Jail, actually but I'll take it.

MDC Brooklyn perhaps?

Justinian: One addendum to my comment about Manafort. My understanding is that to show Manafort violated his terms of release doesn't require much beyond probable cause so if Mueller's team isn't planning to bring witness tampering charges and only wants to put pressure on him by getting him thrown in the pokey before trial they may not need more than a bunch of suggestive evidence.

Indeed, my eye was drawn to that in like p.16 of the filing. Probable Cause of OBSTRUCTION charges are enough to land you in detention until trial.

While everyone is arguing about whether Trump can pardon himself, Mueller is throwing Manafort into "jail" because of probable cause of the thing he's investigating Trump for.

If there's any competent legal staff on Trump's payroll, I expect they're shitting themselves. While Trump and Giuliani continue their case for an insanity plea.
posted by mikelieman at 7:45 AM on June 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

Probably Schumer's worst characteristic is that he is consistently using President Trump and Republican control of Congress as a handy opportunity to allow through a bunch of things rank-and-file Democrats hate. (The Week)
posted by The Whelk at 7:45 AM on June 7, 2018 [12 favorites]

Millennials and retirement: How bad is it?

"Water and dryness: How bad is it?"
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:47 AM on June 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

Like the "you should have half your income in a bank by age 35"

Not half, twice.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:49 AM on June 7, 2018 [11 favorites]

It's past time to start talking openly about taxing the rich.

I suggest:
000% Inheritance Tax up to 1 Million dollars of assets.
010% up to 2M
025% up to 3M
050% up to 5M
075% up to 7M
090% up to 10M

And 100% Inheritance Tax for everything over 10 Million Dollars
posted by mikelieman at 7:51 AM on June 7, 2018 [31 favorites]

Additionally, Trump has griped periodically both about German Chancellor Angela Merkel — largely because they disagree on many issues and have had an uneasy rapport — as well as British Prime Minister Theresa May, whom he sees as too politically correct, advisers say.

oh, I think Trump's problems with them are lot less complicated than 'issues' and being 'politically correct.' anyone want to guess what else it might be? hmmm, what else do Merkel and May have in common?

to quote Browning way out of context: Gr-r-r-r, you swine!

(I find myself thinking that a lot these last 18 months.)
posted by martin q blank at 7:55 AM on June 7, 2018 [14 favorites]

This jungle primary that is a ringing endorsement of centrism, this is the one where everyone was shouting "consolidate your votes on the DCCC pick or the republicans will lock dems out" for about a month, yeah?

It wasn’t just California. And I can think of a few reasons actual Democrats (the kind who vote in primaries) maybe wouldn’t trust new firebrands who attack from the left without a history in the party. That well’s been somewhat poisoned.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:55 AM on June 7, 2018 [16 favorites]

And he goes on TV sometimes. Most recently, he's been trying to get media attention by loudly blaming the recent moderate spike in gas prices on Trump leaving the Iran deal and rolling back EPA efficiency standards. (While that might be somewhat true, the increase is not that large, and has already fallen considerably from late May.)

I don't know if it's still a thing, but there used to be a saying amongst Hill staffers that the most dangerous place to be in DC is between Chuck Schumer and a TV camera.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:58 AM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

D’Alessandro told TPM on Monday that he wouldn’t have been competitive at all against Axne, who had most of the establishment support,

Sanders appeared in a tv ad for D’Alessandro, did robocalls and appeared with him on the campaign trail. As the TPM article notes, Sanders may have been responsible for up to half of the nearly $300K D'Alessandro raised. But while Sanders was clearly influential in terms of helping the candidate raise funds, in the end it wasn't anything close to near enough. The voters chose Axne.

It's funny that D'Alessandro would talk about his lack of party support now. Because his best chance at securing the nomination would have been a runoff. Why? Because he has a lot of friends and political clout in the state party, and probably could have secured the nomination over Axne in a state convention. He might even have been counting on that.

There were supposed to be four Democrats on the ballot, not three. And four candidates would have meant a higher chance that none of them would have gotten the 35% majority required to secure the nomination. If that had happened, the will of the primary voters would have been bypassed in favor of a party-chosen candidate at a convention.

The wrench in the plan: the fourth candidate, Theresa Greenfield, was disqualified from the ballot a few months ago thanks to forged signature shenanigans. So then there were three, and D'Alessandro had to make the best case he could to Iowa's voters.

Cindy Axne was better at it. She certainly was better at offering short personal stories that resonated with voters. (Read her answers to questions 2, 9 and 14 here and compare them to D'Alessandro's. Also look closely at her answer to Question 4, which was a hell of a lot better than his considering his target audience. NAFTA has been good to Iowa farmers. They support it.) Axne also secured the endorsement of Emily's List (yay for an openly pro-choice candidate.)

The truth is, there wasn't that much difference between them on a lot of issues.

It wasn't party endorsements that ended D'Alessandro's candidacy. It was the voting public. And their rejection of him wasn't necessarily a rejection of progressivism, universal health care, a $15 minimum wage or free college tuition, but rather of a candidate who didn't prove on at least a couple of key issues that he understands what matters to his future constituents.
posted by zarq at 8:06 AM on June 7, 2018 [21 favorites]

With the Senate: my understanding is that many, many things are done by unanimous consent. Even though the Democrats do not control the Senate, couldn’t they withhold consent as a bargaining tool? Or at least couldn’t one Senator do that?
posted by kerf at 8:13 AM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

Another largely unsung Democratic hero to celebrate: The Quiet Rage Of Mazie Hirono (NPR, June 7, 2018)

Mazie Hirono (Senator's website) used to be known as the "good girl" of Hawaii politics.

She was seen as polite, never in-your-face, not a boat-rocker. But now, that view has changed.

As one Hawaii columnist put it, she is a "badass."

"I always was," Hirono said in an interview with NPR. "I just wasn't very noisy about it. I've been a fighter all my life. I just don't look like that."

The Senate's only immigrant takes that fight to President Trump, whom she openly calls "xenophobic" and a "liar." "To call the president a liar, that is not good, but it happens to be the truth," the soft-spoken Hawaii senator told Time recently.

The Democrat also takes that fight to Senate Judiciary Committee, as it weekly considers a tranche of Trump judicial nominees, abandoning longstanding rules that guaranteed significant time to examine each nominee's record. There are lots of big-gun Democrats on the committee, senators who get a lot more attention than Hirono. But she is perhaps the most dogged, albeit polite, questioner.

That doggedness will be even more important this summer because Republican leader Mitch McConnell has just canceled most of the August recess, mainly to push through more Trump judicial nominees before the midterm elections. McConnell's aggressiveness about judges is galling to Hirono.

"The word hypocrisy comes to mind," she said, adding that McConnell just wants to get "more right wing, ideological judges" on to the courts. The Republican-controlled Senate has already confirmed 21 Trump appeals-court appointees, compared to nine Obama appointees when the Democrats controlled the Senate at a comparable time.
...
Her reply was that what she wants are judges who are fair, qualified, and "care about individual and civil rights."

And then, without missing a beat, she added, "If that's considered liberal, as opposed to what I call justice and fairness, as I am wont to say, f*** them!"

We need more like Senator Hirono.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:15 AM on June 7, 2018 [101 favorites]

It wasn’t just California. And I can think of a few reasons actual Democrats (the kind who vote in primaries) maybe wouldn’t trust new firebrands who attack from the left without a history in the party. That well’s been somewhat poisoned.

Sorta kinda on that note: a lot of people on my local Indivisible FB group went for Feinstein over Kevin De Leòn not because "we want the centrist" but "we want to keep an experienced Senator, who already handled a big honkin' crisis (the Moscone/Milk assassinations in San Francisco) in office right now, instead of sending a freshman, because of the Trump administration." With Feinstein at least, there was a hard-core incumbency advantage.

And I think that not wanting to risk the blue wave (so we'll hold our noses) is understandable, as well as not wanting to make gambles on newcomers in a time of crisis. You might get a Kamala Harris - or not. With Trump (not to mention McConnell!) in office, risking the "or not" looks dicier to many.

On that note, building up a progressive bench locally is a good idea for all kinds of reasons. Not just "little laboratories of democracy," but because these local folks are the ones who go on to national elections. The progressive wave is new. It's not surprising that those who are ready for Congressional offices are more centrist, because that's who we've had for a long time.

I really, really want a progressive wave and a DSA which is viable nationally and Medicare for all and a new WPA and all that fun democratic socialist stuff. But it's not going to happen all of a sudden. Acting all fatalistic and like it's over is going to do more harm than good. We can leave that to the mainstream media, not to mention good old Steve Inskeep!

Finally, it's possible to have progressives in moderate's clothing. Ralph Northam, Terry McAuliffe, oh hell Kirsten Gillibrand used to be a centrist! Dianne Feinstein is moving leftward! (De León's challenge probably did help, so a leftie challenge isn't in vain!) We absolutely can move the Overton window leftward with who we have. Politicians respond to their consituents! (Ideally. Some are pigheaded. Vote them out.)
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 8:18 AM on June 7, 2018 [41 favorites]

i <3 that you did not include Nice Polite Republican personality steve inskeep among the msm because fuck that guy
posted by entropicamericana at 8:22 AM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

I mean the mere existence of primary challenges from the left here in New York is pushing incumbents away from centrism.
posted by The Whelk at 8:27 AM on June 7, 2018 [27 favorites]

zachlipton: The discharge petition to advance an immigration bill in the House is now at 215/218 signatures.

Republicans Look Ready To Force A Vote On Democrats’ DACA Proposal. Ryan will try a last-ditch effort to avoid a discharge petition tomorrow, and failing that, it's likely to get enough signatures from moderate Republicans to put it over the top.

Immigration Debate Shines Spotlight On Divided GOP (NPR, June 7, 2018)

The party is divided over two very different approaches on immigration. Conservatives have been agitating for months for a vote on hard-line immigration legislation authored by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. GOP leaders never brought the bill up for a vote because they say it doesn't have the support to pass the House.

At the same time, frustrated moderate Republicans — many of whom represent the battleground districts that will determine control of the House this November — began working with Democrats last month on a discharge petition to force a vote on the floor.

A discharge petition is a legislative act of rebellion that can overrule party leaders by forcing House votes on a bill if 218 lawmakers sign the petition. The measure is rarely successful because it requires at least some members of the majority party to rebel against their own leaders.

GOP leaders strongly oppose the discharge petition, but signatures keep getting added to it. As of Thursday morning, supporters were just three votes shy of the 218 they need. If today's meeting failed to produce any agreement or progress in ongoing talks, it is likely the petition reaches the 218 threshold this week.

Last month, conservatives voted down a farm bill they support on the floor as a leverage play on immigration to counter the moderates' discharge petition strategy. The farm bill now can't pass until the immigration debate is resolved.

Stellar coordination and deal-making here. Speaking of deal makers: How Artful Is Trump's Dealmaking? (NPR, June 7, 2018)

Several experts in negotiation, however, question whether Trump has what it takes to pull off a historic nuclear deal when he meets next week with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"Although his Art of the Deal sold a lot of copies, I don't think he's a very impressive negotiator," said Robert Mnookin, who directs the Harvard Negotiation Research Project.

Mnookin, who wrote his own book on negotiation called Bargaining with the Devil, says Trump often goes from tough and adversarial one minute to ingratiating the next.

He used to call Kim Jong Un "Little Rocket Man." Now he praises the dictator as "very honorable." The president calls that flexibility. Mnookin says it makes Trump hard to trust.

Ya don't say. But in attempt to figure out what might happen, NPR let Sen. James Risch Spin On The Prospects For The U.S.-North Korea Summit, playing hype man for Trump in both his tanking of the Iran sanctions and his potential for Trump to do something different than prior U.S. presidents. NPR's Rachel Martin pushes back against some of Risch's hype and divisiveness ("as you know, there's a tremendous hate and vitriol against President Trump from the other side in this town ... they criticize everything he does"), even points out that Trump has the same options with "levers for change" as past administrations. And for a good cackle, you can hear Risch say "there's a person in the White House who says what he means" -- and then he says something else.

Also, Risch says there'll be second-tier sanctions against the EU nations, "our friends and allies" who "parade in here every day," because they have to choose between doing business with Iran ("1% of their economy in Europe") and doing business with the US, as if the US is the only one with bargaining power here.

A final NPR link: One Month Later, What's Become Of Melania Trump's 'Be Best' Campaign?

During a launch for the initiative last month in the White House Rose Garden, Trump said she would promote the well-being of children and work to raise awareness about online bullying and the impact of opioids on young people.

"I will also work to shine a spotlight on the people, organizations and programs across the country that are helping children overcome the many issues they are facing as they grow up," Trump said.

But beyond shining a spotlight, it's unclear what the initiative will involve.
...
By way of comparison, in the first month of Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign, she had already visited a handful of schools and youth organizations to promote physical fitness.

Maybe she could visit the detained immigrant children and connect with them?
posted by filthy light thief at 8:33 AM on June 7, 2018 [20 favorites]

By way of comparison, in the first month of Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign, she had already visited a handful of schools and youth organizations to promote physical fitness.

You skipped quoting what was probably the most important part of the story. That may be due in part to the first lady's health; one week after the ceremony, on May 14, the White House said she had undergone a procedure to treat what was described as a benign kidney condition. She was hospitalized for nearly a week and didn't re-emerge in public until this week.

On Wednesday, she joined President Trump at a briefing on the hurricane season, where he said she was doing well.

"She went through a little rough patch, but she's doing great, and we're very proud of her," he said.
I think it's okay to give the woman a little slack about how much she's managed to accomplish after having kidney surgery.
posted by zarq at 8:40 AM on June 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

I mean, I seriously expect Melania Trump to accomplish absolutely nothing of consequence the entire time her husband is in office except to show the world what a shitty marriage she has. But the article literally spent three graphs right between the sections you quoted talking about how, one week after the initiative was announced, she was hospitalized and had surgery.
posted by zarq at 8:50 AM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

Billions in U.S. solar projects shelved after Trump panel tariff
posted by paper chromatographologist at 8:50 AM on June 7, 2018 [14 favorites]

Meanwhile, in Maine....

Our primary is Tuesday. Previously, candidate Max Linn was disqualified from the US Senate race (running for Sen. King's seat) due to quite a lot of dead people signing his petition to get on the ballot. He still appears on the ballot but votes for him won't count.

But that won't stop him. Oh no. He doesn't think the decision of the Maine Secretary of State, and of the Maine Supreme Court is fair. So, he's going to Federal Court. And, he's still campaigning. His Trump-centric lawn signs are popping up everywhere, and he's apparently sending out this charming mailpiece, encouraging Trumpists to vote for him in the primary. (Also, his supporters are putting signs out in New Hampshire, for reasons nobody can explain.)

In summary: Trumpist old white guy thinks rules don't apply to him.

FYI, the Dems are running this unknown guy against King (so basically fielding no candidate). King's main competition from the R's will be Eric Brakey, a two-term Maine Senator from SD 20. Brakey is more of a Libertarian than a true R. Anti-abortion Dem Ben Pollard has also said he's running against King as an independent, but its not clear if he was able to get the signatures needed by June 1st.
posted by anastasiav at 8:53 AM on June 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

I want to emphasize the point that zarq makes above. Look at the difference between Axne and D'Alessandro in their candidate questionnaires on this question in particular:

14: What is your personal relationship with firearms?

Axne: Growing up I remember my grandfather, who owned firearms and was a hunter, teaching me to respect the power of guns. As a former administrator at the Department of Natural Resources, I know that Iowans have a long tradition of using guns for hunting, protection, and sport and that most Iowans play by the rules and want strong background checks that keep guns away from unsafe individuals. I will fight for universal background checks and funding to allow the CDC to research gun related violence.

D'Alessandro: I have not developed a personal relationship with a gun or any other inanimate object.

It's pretty stark. To me, Axne's response is subprime sauce given that children are being routinely murdered in schools, but y'know, that aside, it's undoubtedly genuine-sounding. It's empathetic. It tells you something about her personally, reminds you of relevant experience, and shows that she understands and respects her constituency.

The other response is flip, one-line nonsense.
posted by joyceanmachine at 8:54 AM on June 7, 2018 [30 favorites]

He's full of conspiracies and grievance this morning. Return of the "Pakistani Mystery Man," inching closer to tweeting about Seth Rich. The demand typical of narcissist authoritarians that they not only be allowed to be abuse power, but be thanked for it. Since these tweets are spaced out over a period of a few hours it's likely that he's not just responding to something on Fox and that something else is bothering him.

Our Justice Department must not let Awan & Debbie Wasserman Schultz off the hook. The Democrat I.T. scandal is a key to much of the corruption we see today. They want to make a “plea deal” to hide what is on their Server. Where is Server? Really bad!

When will people start saying, “thank you, Mr. President, for firing James Comey?”

The Obama Administration is now accused of trying to give Iran secret access to the financial system of the United States. This is totally illegal. Perhaps we could get the 13 Angry Democrats to divert some of their energy to this “matter” (as Comey would call it). Investigate!
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:58 AM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

When will people start saying, “thank you, Mr. President, for firing James Comey?”

I'm pretty close! I'm at “fuck you, Mr. President, for firing James Comey.” And so many other things.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:03 AM on June 7, 2018 [13 favorites]

D'Alessandro: I have not developed a personal relationship with a gun or any other inanimate object.

Christ, what a contemptuous asshole. Perhaps honing your political skills among the dirtbag left on Twitter is not the best preparation for a political candidate.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:03 AM on June 7, 2018 [29 favorites]

The Obama Administration is now accused of trying to give Iran secret access to the financial system of the United States.

In Trump's defense this is [real].
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:22 AM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

BTW, yes, we do need more like Mazie Hirono in Congress, and Filthy Light Thief's comment and Hirono's "quiet rage" made me think: A politician can be a good progressive voice without being a "firebrand." I think the media, in particular, conflates "centrist" with "quiet" or "stodgy" or even "safe pair of hands." And that's not true. Honestly, I wish Americans didn't value charisma so much in their politicians.

FiveThirtyEight provides a chart to show how often Congresspeople vote with Trump. You can find both Senators and Representatives. If you arrange the "Trump score" in ascending order (from least to most) the usual Senators show up - Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand - but also Ed Markey (D-MA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) as having low Trump scores (a rough indicator for "progressive"). I don't think I'd know much about these people without Wikipedia and the Internet (and Chrysostom!). They're not attention-grabbers.

My own House Representative, Mark DeSaulnier, is only slightly to the right of Barbara Lee and is in the House Progressive Caucus. A flamboyant, firebrand personality he is not! But he gets the job done! He's a good safe pair of progressive hands and I happily voted for him. (And he haaaaates Scott Pruitt. All Bay Areans are environmentalists at heart - even Republicans! - because we love our beautiful area. Mess with Mt. Diablo and you've got a fight on your hands.)

So I have to wonder how much of this "Centrists Won!" is "Boring People Won!" (Once again, remember Ralph Northam? I can't remember who pointed out that he was really to the left of Tom Perriello on some issues, but his more stodgy personality made people forget that.) Give me all the boring progressives any day over hot-air-blowing "Firebrands" who can't get stuff done.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:22 AM on June 7, 2018 [31 favorites]

Billions in U.S. solar projects shelved after Trump panel tariff

Not only do you not get the investment of solar projects elsewhere but you also don't get to decide where the investment for solar panel production occurs.

See now if Trump were a smart man he'd offer money to subsidize hi-tech manufacturing in the Appalachians, get some great high paying jobs in there, shore up his base, and lock up PA and OH for 2020 while putting VA back in play. You can do all sorts of things like give payroll tax rebates to employ the long unemployed to make it easier to develop ancillary small business manufacturing industries around these corridors, give out grants to retrain workers with a retraining to job pipeline, and shared equity schemes for developmental capital where the government makes a profit on industry that grows.

But instead he wants to throw a few thousand miners back into the dark.

Trump is not a smart man. I don't say thankfully because I would be fucking overjoyed if Trump did anything like this.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 9:23 AM on June 7, 2018 [17 favorites]

A more detailed breakdown of the NBC poll.

- By 48-23, voters are more likely to support a congressional candidate who promises to be a check on Trump. This rises to 52-19 in competitive House districts.

- By 53-31, voters are more likely to support a congressional candidate who has opposed Trump most of the time. This rises to 55-28 in competitive House districts.

- The competitive districts are overwhelmingly held by Republicans, 54 of 59 seats. So even places where Republicans control the seat, big majorities want to check Trump and oppose his policies.

- Democrats enjoy a large enthusiasm gap: 63 percent of them are extremely interested in the midterms, while among Republicans, that number is only 47 percent.
posted by chris24 at 9:26 AM on June 7, 2018 [20 favorites]

anastasiav: Jim Bridenstine, current NASA administrator and former former three-term Republican congressman from Oklahoma, now says he believes that climate change is actually a real thing and that humans are responsible for it.

Imma let you finish, but the White House has sought to reduce funding for satellites to observe environmental changes on Earth and eliminate NASA's office of education

... a new survey of 2,541 Americans by Pew Research Center, which aims to represent the views of US adults, finds that these views appear to be out of step with public priorities.

The survey asked respondents about their top priorities for NASA, and the highest support came for "monitor key parts of the Earth's climate system" (63 percent) and "monitor asteroids/objects that could hit the Earth" (62 percent). Sending astronauts to Mars (18 percent), and the Moon (13 percent), lagged far behind as top priorities for respondents.

"We found that to be pretty surprising," said Cary Funk, who led the study. This is partly because a focus on crewed missions has been such a highly visible facet of NASA past exploration program, and because the agency has made a big deal out of sending humans to Mars and, more recently, a human return to the Moon. "The tricky part is that we don’t have this kind of data in the past," she said. "We haven’t asked the public a whole lot about other missions that the agency is engaged in."

(Eric Berger for Ars Technica, June 6, 2018 -- "NASA’s priorities appear to be out of whack with what the public wants")

Speaking of what's good for the public vs what Trump wants: Confirmed: ZTE to reopen after $1 billion fine, new leadership -- Deal follows terms outlined by Donald Trump in a May tweet. (Timothy B. Lee for Ars Technica, June 7, 2018)

For the last month, Chinese smartphone giant ZTE has been largely shut down after the Trump administration banned US firms from selling it technology. But now ZTE has made a deal with the Trump administration allowing it to re-open. Reuters first reported the deal yesterday, and it was confirmed by US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross today.
Reviving ZTE has been a personal focus for President Trump, whose government is in the middle of broader trade negotiations with the Chinese government. Last month, Trump tweeted that he was looking for a way for ZTE to "get back into business, fast" because there were "too many jobs in China lost" from ZTE's shutdown.
According to Ross, the deal includes a $1 billion fine as well as $400 million held in escrow to deter ZTE from further misconduct. ZTE will have 30 days to change its board of directors and executive team.
"We are literally embedding a compliance department of our choosing into the company to monitor it going forward," Ross told CNBC.
The terms of the new deal are similar to the those Trump outlined in a May 25 tweet, saying that ZTE might reopen "with high level security guarantees, change of management and board, [and it] must purchase U.S. parts and pay a $1.3 Billion fine."

Filed under "Too many jobs in China lost" - or under "Thanks for the trademarks" (NYT) after Ivanka won 7 new trademarks in China, or "Sanction-swapping" (CNN, auto-playing video) with the idea that China may loosen agricultural tariffs in Midwest "Trump Country" ahead of midterms. (Too bad they'll still face EU, Canadian and Mexican tariffs.)

Also, this is the worst of despotic hypocrisy - Trump and backers rant about countries doing business with Iran, when one of ZTE's infractions was ... doing business in Iran (Angry Bear blog, which reminds me that another issue with Trump's deal -- that about-face also came a mere 72 hours after the Chinese government agreed to put a half-billion dollars into an Indonesian project that will personally enrich Donald Trump (HuffPo).

There is only one Trump scandal.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:27 AM on June 7, 2018 [40 favorites]

Now-deleted Solid Gold Tweet from Prime Minister Shinzō Abe recorded for posterity here
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:32 AM on June 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

Don Pepino: ... I think it's deliberate like all wordlabbedtohell conservative rhetoric....

Huh? I don't have strong feelings about that quote one way or the other, but it's obvious to me that D'Alessandro (a Democrat, right?) is decidedly pro-gun-control and is glibly dismissing gun culture entirely. (Which is why I thought to myself "Maybe that's lousy politics but I kind of want to pump my fist in the air because yeah, the hell with all guns everywhere.")
posted by InTheYear2017 at 9:36 AM on June 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

Trump: Many Texans watched Harvey from their boats, requiring Coast Guard rescue

“I didn't see anyone taking the approach that would reflect his comments,” Gonzalez said. "I'll be sure to invite the president to ride out the next hurricane in a jon boat in Galveston Bay the next time one approaches," he added.

No one could explain the president’s comment.

posted by T.D. Strange at 9:38 AM on June 7, 2018 [19 favorites]

But were any of these Hurricane Boat Parties celebrating the 9/11 attacks?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:40 AM on June 7, 2018 [12 favorites]

Today in America: 5-year-old kids are learning to survive school shootings with a nursery rhyme to the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'

Lockdown, lockdown, lock the door
Shut the lights off, say no more
Go behind the desk and hide
Wait until it's safe inside
Lockdown, lockdown, it's all done
Now it's time to have some fun!

As good a new national anthem as any.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:47 AM on June 7, 2018 [106 favorites]

Alan He (CBS)
Senator Cornyn to @seungminkim on the mounting Pruitt scandals: “I don’t think it looks good but I like what the administrator has been doing from a policy perspective. These all seem like distractions from that and it’s really up to the President not me.”

---

Eh, who cares about corruption and abuse of power as long as you're destroying the planet.
posted by chris24 at 9:50 AM on June 7, 2018 [37 favorites]

“I didn't see anyone taking the approach that would reflect his comments,” Gonzalez said. "I'll be sure to invite the president to ride out the next hurricane in a jon boat in Galveston Bay the next time one approaches," he added.

Given his fear of being on a boat on open water, I suppose he would have to be hog-tied and the other end of the line belayed on a bollard.

And I doubt the Secret Service would let that happen.
posted by Stoneshop at 9:53 AM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Lockdown, lockdown, lock the door
Shut the lights off, say no more
Go behind the desk and hide
Wait until it's safe inside
Lockdown, lockdown, it's all done
Now it's time to have some fun!

Five, six, grab your crucifix...
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:58 AM on June 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

I don't think it's flip, I think it's deliberate like all wordlabbedtohell conservative rhetoric. They are all about defining personhood. Corporations and fetuses are people. Guns are not people. Immigrants are not people. Knee-takers are not people. It is possible to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, a fetus, a corporation, and maybe your dad. But not one of the Trumpdefined "animals" and certainly not with an inanimate object. And the singlemost inanimate of all objects, the one with which you least can have a personal relationship, is a gun.

If someone is running for office in Iowa, then they're going to be speaking to both gun owners and gun control advocates. This is an issue that does in fact mean something to voters.

Playing word games makes it seem like a candidate is not taking the issue seriously. Doing so during their chance to communicate their position on the issue with voters all over the state, who may not pay attention to anything else said during the entire campaign is very, very stupid.

If a male candidate is asked, "Where do you stand on aborting children?" and they reply, "Well, I'm certainly not getting one myself any time soon!" that would send a similar message. The question makes an assumption. It's possible to respond to the idea by explaining that one thinks a fetus is not a person or a child and also state that they're pro-choice without sounding like they think the issue is a joke or that the interviewer is an idiot for asking.
posted by zarq at 9:59 AM on June 7, 2018 [20 favorites]

@ZoeTillman: NEW: DOJ says the government plans to release John Doe, the American suspected of ties to ISIS who has for months been challenging his detention by the US military in Iraq. Plan is to release him in Syria, per filing

Here's that analysis I was waiting for: The Latest—and Perhaps Last—Twist in Doe v. Mattis

Whatever happens in Doe’s case going forward, the idea that the government could hold an American citizen in military detention for over nine months without even a preliminary judicial ruling as to the legality of that detention is one that we should all find discomfiting.

Fourth, and related, it is striking to both of us that the government appears increasingly inclined to avoid those merits—and to prevent the federal courts from weighing in on the merits of Doe’s detention (and the much bigger, and more important, question of whether the 2001 AUMF encompasses the Islamic State, which no court has yet resolved). Whether that’s a reflection of the government’s assessment of its chances of prevailing or not, it is certainly curious. We also continue to find it striking that there is no further talk of a federal prosecution option notwithstanding the strong basis for a material support prosecution that appears on the face of the government’s earlier filings in this case.

posted by zachlipton at 10:00 AM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

5-year-old kids are learning to survive school shootings with a nursery rhyme to the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'

It may be simply my own emotional reaction that is clouding my judgment but I don't think it's entirely healthy to connect a lullaby whose melody is so ubiquitous (shared with the ABC song) to something potentially traumatic. It is true that songs can be effective mnemonic devices. My hope is that someday, we won't need our children to commit lockdown procedures to memory.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:05 AM on June 7, 2018 [18 favorites]

Maybe someone else with more knowledge can chime in, but I helped out a stranded boat on Lake Superior a couple years ago and when radioing the Coast Guard was told they only do rescues if lives are in serious danger. They re-route calls to local salvage/rescue companies. Now a hurricane might be considered life-threatening but if there were boats and they were just being stupid I don't think the Coast Guard would respond. At the time we were told that it was a newish policy for the CG.

Also, the number of boaters who are completely unprepared for their one and only motor to stop working is frightening. I rescued a 30 foot fishing boat 10 miles off shore from my freakin' kayak.
posted by misterpatrick at 10:05 AM on June 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

Both those answers on guns are garbage TBH. At least the one that isn’t folksy nonsense is shorter.
posted by Artw at 10:09 AM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

Paul Ryan: ‘Let’s Make This Clear —There Is No Collusion’

“In all of this, in any of this, there’s been no evidence that there’s any collusion between the Trump campaign and the President and Russia,” he said. “Let’s just make that clear — there is no collusion."

posted by duoshao at 10:12 AM on June 7, 2018 [8 favorites]

I hope he gets a cell next to Nunes, at this point he’s just as complicit in obstruction.
posted by Artw at 10:13 AM on June 7, 2018 [32 favorites]

It may be simply my own emotional reaction that is clouding my judgment but I don't think it's entirely healthy to connect a lullaby whose melody is so ubiquitous (shared with the ABC song) to something potentially traumatic.

Mark my words: within four years, kids are going to use this song to time washing their hands.
posted by Etrigan at 10:15 AM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Paul Ryan: ‘Let’s Make This Clear —There Is No Collusion’

To be fair to Ryan, this is a subject to be kept in the family.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:16 AM on June 7, 2018 [16 favorites]

“In all of this, in any of this, there’s been no evidence that there’s any collusion between the Trump campaign and the President and Russia,” he said. “Let’s just make that clear — there is no collusion."

awwwww. somebody's doing penance for saying there was no FBI spy in the boss's campaign. How cute.
posted by martin q blank at 10:16 AM on June 7, 2018 [13 favorites]

Politico, Judge Jeanine still tangoing with Trump over an administration role

Jeanine Pirro has a top-rated Fox News show and a forthcoming book — “Lies, Leakers, and Liberals” — but she still wants to be President Donald Trump’s attorney general.

A former prosecutor and judge, Pirro has repeatedly told Trump’s aides and advisers over the past 18 months that she’s interested in taking over as the nation’s top law enforcement official, according to four people familiar with the conversations.

Trump has dangled the possibility of giving her a top appointment. During a November meeting in the Oval Office, the president raised the possibility of nominating Pirro to a federal judgeship, according to a former administration official, though this person added that Trump was more likely engaging in flattery than seriously considering putting Pirro on the bench.

Haberman has an even stronger version in a tweet: Pirro interviewed to be the DAG. Sessions resisted. When he resisted, Trump advisors told him if he didn't give her a hearing, Trump might end up giving her SCOTUS

Things are so so stupid.
posted by zachlipton at 10:18 AM on June 7, 2018 [30 favorites]

Tried calling my senators in WA just now (Murray and Cantwell) about the separation of migrant children from families and putting them in detention centers. Murray's voicemail is full, while with Cantwell I got through to a staffer. This is typical of my experience, as it seems like Murray is the senator in Washington that actually does stuff while Cantwell is seemingly invisible most of the time.

With Cantwell's staffer, I asked where the senator is on this. She said Cantwell is strongly opposed and working with her colleagues to end this and has spoken out about it before. I asked where she'd done that, because there's nothing on her website about it, I've seen nothing in the media, and scrolling through her Twitter account I saw no mention of it there, either. The staffer was taken aback by that but said something about signing onto a letter with others and holding the Trump administration accountable.

I think I got her a little shaken up by pointing out what I wasn't seeing and asking where Cantwell is on this. It's something I'd recommend to anyone calling their reps. Open-ended questions are good, because they usually get you better answers than a yes/no and a nod. Be ready for the canned response and keep pushing if you can make yourself do it. I will fully admit I got choked up talking to her, mostly because I feel pretty helpless sitting at home calling a staffer on the phone, but if you feel helpless, too, I can't recommend strongly enough that you try doing this much, because I feel better for trying.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:20 AM on June 7, 2018 [40 favorites]

Things are stupid, but I have to believe that Jeanine Pirro is incapable of being confirmed by the Senate. That's just how I choose to live my life today.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:21 AM on June 7, 2018 [24 favorites]

(Also, his supporters are putting signs out in New Hampshire, for reasons nobody can explain.)

Apparently, they didn't realize they had crossed the border. It's not like you cross a river, over a bridge which has a sign that says Entering New Hampshire.

The signs were around a bunch of shopping centers that get a lot of Mainers (no sales tax in NH!) so it's not crazy that the campaign would want to put signs there. It's just not entirely clear if, apart from the not getting the permission from the land owners bit, and the sheer number of signs, if out of state political signs are actually allowed.

(The signs were incredibly confusing when I saw them crop up--our primaries aren't until September, and neither of our senators are up this year.)
posted by damayanti at 10:24 AM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

"Shooter, shooter in the halls,
ballistic bullets go through walls
if we all just join the chorus
teacher takes a bullet for us
this is now our life you say
thank you thank you NRA!"
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:26 AM on June 7, 2018 [68 favorites]

Paul Ryan: ‘Let’s Make This Clear —There Is No Collusion’

To be fair to Ryan, this is a subject to be kept in the family.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:16 AM on June 7

Here's what ~~irritates~~ continues to irritate me:

The Washington Post itself has reported on Ryan's most recent statements.

They also happen to be the paper that broke the original story about Ryan insisting that this stuff "stays in the family."

Why is it that we mefites remember this & commenters at TPM remember this, but the folks whose job it is to report on these things day to day don't think it's useful to offer direct evidence that the person saying this stuff is lying?

I get that no one wants to call a sitting politician a liar because [insert bullshit objective media argument here].

But at the very least, it seems like one might reference a damning story that directly contradicts the ~~lie~~ statement offered at the moment.
posted by narwhal at 10:27 AM on June 7, 2018 [44 favorites]

You know if we’re going to get another Trump Justice I almost hope it’s the worst person imaginable like Pirro. She wouldn’t vote much different than whatever other Gorsuch clone the Federalist Society digs up, but she’s personally even more detestable. I want John Roberts to have to suffer her in conference sessions for the next 30 years. You helped create this reality, fucking enjoy.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:29 AM on June 7, 2018 [8 favorites]

Talking Points Memo: The Missouri House committee investigating a host of allegations against former Gov. Eric Greitens on Wednesday dropped its effort to subpoena records from a secretive non-profit founded to support his agenda.

The move likely signals an end to the House committee’s effort to learn more about who funded the group, A New Missouri, which isn’t required to disclose its donors.

Nothing to see here, the bad man is gone, no need to hurt anyone's feelings.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:40 AM on June 7, 2018 [16 favorites]

The Washington Post itself has reported on Ryan's most recent statements.

They also happen to be the paper that broke the original story about Ryan insisting that this stuff "stays in the family."

To be fair to the WaPo, they just ran an AP wire story on Ryan's comments. They haven't filed their own story yet, and hopefully it will poke Ryan's remarks full of holes.

That said, the AP should do a proper job of contextualizing them, like, say, "Trump Jr. (Goldstone emails, TT meeting), Papadopoulos (facts recounted in guilty plea), Manafort (correspondence w Kilimnik, debts, working for free), Page (facts elicited in testimony), Smith (Flynn-backed effort to obtain emails from Russia), Roger Stone (public statements)..." (As @nycsouthpaw observes, "Evidence of collusion is like butter at a state fair. It’s everywhere and kinda overwhelming when you think about it all.")
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:45 AM on June 7, 2018 [17 favorites]

It may be simply my own emotional reaction that is clouding my judgment but I don't think it's entirely healthy to connect a lullaby whose melody is so ubiquitous (shared with the ABC song) to something potentially traumatic. It is true that songs can be effective mnemonic devices. My hope is that someday, we won't need our children to commit lockdown procedures to memory.

One of the lastest school shootings involved a student at the school who fired into cupboards because he knew that was the lockdown procedure.

Lockdown procedures are not a cure.
posted by srboisvert at 10:53 AM on June 7, 2018 [57 favorites]

@Doktor Zed: To be fair to the WaPo, they just ran an AP wire story on Ryan's comments. They haven't filed their own story yet, and hopefully it will poke Ryan's remarks full of holes.

This is true; thanks for pointing it out. I actually followed up on my own irritation & called the WaPo to submit a correction and discovered the same thing: that the feed is piped in directly from the AP without editorial.

I found the report on APNews here & the reporting about Ryan keeping things in the family here.

I used the AP's contact form to submit a similar correction suggestion.

I don't know that this will yield an actual update or not, but it feels better than screaming into the void.. well, it's on a par with screaming into the void.
posted by narwhal at 10:55 AM on June 7, 2018 [8 favorites]

The lack of context in general is a real problem. David Corn touched on this in Donald Trump Is Getting Away With the Biggest Scandal in American History

We had spent 15 or so minutes on these important developments, delving into the details—but without referring to the essence of the story. And it hit me: Though it’s clear Trump’s presidency has been hobbled by the Russia scandal, the manner in which this matter plays out in the media has helped Trump.

Almost every day, Trump pushes out a simple (and dishonest) narrative via tweets and public remarks: The Russia investigation is a…well, you know, a witch hunt. Or a hoax. Or fake news. He blasts out the same exclamations daily: Witch hunt, hoax! Hoax, witch hunt! That’s his mantra.
...
The other side—the accurate perspective—isn’t that complicated. In 2016, Vladimir Putin’s regime mounted information warfare against the United States, in part to help Trump become president. While this attack was underway, the Trump crew tried to collude covertly with Moscow, sought to set up a secret communications channel with Putin’s office, and repeatedly denied in public that this assault was happening, providing cover to the Russian operation. Trump and his lieutenants aligned themselves with and assisted a foreign adversary, as it was attacking the United States. The evidence is rock-solid: They committed a profound act of betrayal. That is the scandal.

But how often do you hear or see this fundamental point being made? The media coverage of the Trump-Russia scandal—which has merged with Cohen’s pay-to-play scandal, the Stormy Daniels scandal, and a wider foreign-intervention-in-the-2016-campaign scandal—has yielded a flood of revelations. Yet the news reporting tends to focus on specific components of an unwieldy and ever-expanding story: a Trump Tower meeting between Trump aides and a Kremlin emissary; what special counsel Robert Mueller may or may not be doing; the alleged money-laundering and tax-evasion skullduggery of Paul Manafort; a secret get-together in the Seychelles between former Blackwater owner Erik Prince and a Russian financier; the Kremlin’s clandestine exploitation of social media; Russian hackers penetrating state election systems; Michael Flynn’s shady lobbying activities; Trump’s attempted interference in the investigation; and so much more. It is hard to hold on to all these pieces and place them into one big picture.
...
With his “no collusion” chant, Trump is like an embezzler who yells, “There was no murder”—and asserts that is the only relevant benchmark. Think of what Trump did during the campaign in this fashion: A fellow is standing on a sidewalk in front of a bank. He is told the bank is being robbed. He can see armed men wearing masks in the bank. Yet when people pass by and ask what is happening in the bank, he says, “There is no robbery. Nothing to see. Move along.” Even if this person did not collude with the robbers, he is helping the gang perpetrate a crime. And in Trump’s case, the criminal act was committed for his gain.

We've wound up in this position where the well-proven facts are already damning, yet Republicans have framed the debate so entirely around "collusion" that we spend every day looking for a new smoking gun that literally says "collusion" instead of taking stock of where we are. And absent context, the "no collusion" framing keeps winning out.
posted by zachlipton at 10:57 AM on June 7, 2018 [84 favorites]

Today in America: 5-year-old kids are learning to survive school shootings with a nursery rhyme to the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'

This scene from Snowpiercer seems unexpectedly relevant.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:58 AM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

Let's play everyone's favorite game show: WHEEL-O-PRUITT. We'll just spin the giant wheel here and assemble a mad lib for today's scandal. Here we go.... Pruitt enlisted security detail in picking up dry cleaning, moisturizing lotion

While EPA security agents are required to protect Pruitt at all times — both while he is working and during his off hours — the two individuals said the administrator had asked members of the detail to perform tasks that go beyond their primary function. In one instance, they said, he directed agents to drive him to multiple locations in search of a particular lotion on offer at Ritz-Carlton hotels.

One other occasions, they added, he asked agents to pick up his dry cleaning without him.

"Made government employees drive me around to search for the right rich person lotion" is our winner for today folks.
posted by zachlipton at 11:06 AM on June 7, 2018 [57 favorites]

In one instance, they said, he directed agents to drive him to multiple locations in search of a particular lotion on offer at Ritz-Carlton hotels.

This is literally Mike and Ike from the TV show Limitless.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:16 AM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

Well . . it's the week before primaries here in VA-10. And the old school GOP machine is coaling and trolling mail boxes across the land. The very first political literature we've received in our new home (blue-ish Winchester) is a glossy 8x11 three fold all about pedophile secrets of Shak Hill, including a picture of him in jorts, and then somehow trying to tie it him being a tool of Pelosi.

"Paid for by Comstock for Congress" (smallest type featured, at bottom of last page.)
posted by Harry Caul at 11:18 AM on June 7, 2018

NYT,‘It’s Horrendous’: The Heartache of a Migrant Boy Taken From His Father

Since his arrival in Michigan, family members said, a day has not gone by when the boy has failed to ask in Spanish, “When will I see my papa?”

They tell him the truth. They do not know. No one knows.
...
He refused to shed the clothes he had arrived in, an oversize yellow T-shirt, navy blue sweatpants and a gray fleece pullover likely given to him by the authorities who processed him in Texas.

“For two days, he didn’t shower, he didn’t change his clothes. I literally had to peel the socks off his feet. They were so old and smelly,” Janice said. “I realized that he didn’t want anyone to take anything away from him.”

posted by zachlipton at 11:30 AM on June 7, 2018 [36 favorites]

zarq Thing is, yes it was a bad answer (or at least a politically harmful answer, personally I fucking loved it) but it was also an incredibly bad question.

Asking "what is your position on gun legislation" or "what do you think should be done with gun laws" would have been a vastly better question.

When I saw the "what is your personal relationship with firearms" I genuinely thought it was from an NRA questionnaire not a normal one. Look at all the stuff it simply presumes there. It presumes you think its possible to have a personal relationship with firearms. It presumes you have one. It presumes that your presumptive personal relationship with firearms is more important than your thinking on laws about guns.

It's a horribly written and conceived question. Taken in isolation from the political campaign it deserves a flippant, dismissive, and scornful answer because it's so badly formed. It's a bad question and whoever wrote it should feel bad.

Again, obviously in the context of the political campaign the sensible thing to do would be answer the question you want them to have asked and gone into a discussion of your thinking on gun laws. But I can really sympathize with a person who looks at that sort of gun fanatic pandering question and says "eh, fuck this shit." It's not the best answer politically speaking, but knowing absolutely nothing about the candidates other than their answers to that question I like D'Alessandro more than the other person. There's something refreshing about a person who calls out bullshit for what it is instead of pretending it's great stuff that deserves lots of careful consideration.
posted by sotonohito at 11:32 AM on June 7, 2018 [19 favorites]

Shak Hill is a republican running against Comstock in the primary. The Comstock team registered shadyshak.com (the creepy candidate) if you want to see their dumb hit piece on him.
posted by peeedro at 11:35 AM on June 7, 2018

I have not developed a personal relationship with a gun

is a perfectly legit and honest, if terse, answer to a poorly worded gun control question

or any other inanimate object.

and this is where he veers hard into smarmy ding-dong territory.
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:36 AM on June 7, 2018 [23 favorites]

it's the week before primaries here in VA-10.

VA-10 also gets the fascinating* Nathan Larson running for state senate, a proud self-declared pedophile with a manifesto stating that women should literally be property and that the only reason to allow non-whites in the US at all is so they can do the "proletariat" jobs that otherwise whites would have to do.

He also says that the only thing feminism does is to put women ahead of "beta males" on the heirarchy - "gammas (aka cucks) and omegas (aka incels) will remain at the bottom." (That is an exact quote.)

*Fascinating in the sense that it's hard to believe that much vile can be shoved in a package that small.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:37 AM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

zachlipton: Things are so so stupid.

I see your Pirro DAG and raise you:

John Hudson: "A spokesman for the marijuana cryptocurrency PotCoin confirms that the group is currently in discussions with Dennis Rodman to support his trip to Singapore during President Trump’s talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un"
posted by bluecore at 11:41 AM on June 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

As numerous people on Twitter have pointed out, today's Pruitt embarrassment leaves open the question of why he didn't just have them call and see if the lotion was available.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:41 AM on June 7, 2018 [13 favorites]

zachlipton: Republicans have framed the debate so entirely around "collusion" that we spend every day looking for a new smoking gun that literally says "collusion" instead of taking stock of where we are. And absent context, the "no collusion" framing keeps winning out.

I don't think it is. All we're seeing in polls is Republicans being (unsurprisingly) unconvinced.

I also don't think there's anything inaccurate, at this point, with saying that collusion very clearly happened. I don't think there's something technically correct about denying it, knowing what we know at this point. When Trump "no collusion", he isn't equivocating, like the man in the joke who says "My dog doesn't bite... but that's not my dog." He's lying, because he colluded, end of story.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:41 AM on June 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

yet Republicans have framed the debate so entirely around "collusion"

Yes agreed let’s all go with the more accurate “treason”

Literally no one gives a fuck how it was narrowly defined in the constitution by a bunch of dudes who would never be able to conceive of literally anything that happened in 201

We all know what it means

Just call it treason
posted by schadenfrau at 11:42 AM on June 7, 2018 [31 favorites]

President Trump: "Maximum pressure is absolutely in effect [on North Korea]. We don't use the term any more because we're going into a friendly negotiation; perhaps after that negotiation I will be using it again."

* headdesk *
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:45 AM on June 7, 2018 [22 favorites]

VA-10 also gets the fascinating Nathan Larson running for state senate

The guy's certainly a racist nutjob asshole, but his ceiling is about 1.68% so maybe he's not the most pressing threat.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:46 AM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

Asking "what is your position on gun legislation" or "what do you think should be done with gun laws" would have been a vastly better question.

The first rule of political debates are that the questions are meaningless, you're meant to get your talking points out no matter what is asked.
posted by PenDevil at 11:47 AM on June 7, 2018 [17 favorites]

John Hudson: "A spokesman for the marijuana cryptocurrency PotCoin confirms that the group is currently in discussions with Dennis Rodman to support his trip to Singapore during President Trump’s talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un"

Not the first time they will have done this.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:51 AM on June 7, 2018

NYT: Ryan Promises Vote on Immigration Amid G.O.P. Divisions

Hoping to head off narrow legislation to protect young undocumented immigrants, ... Speaker Paul D. Ryan promised Thursday that House Republicans would draft legislation on immigration for a floor vote in the coming weeks, setting up a showdown on one of the thorniest political issues just as the midterm campaign comes into focus.

It's open season on the most cynical, cruel, ridiculous legislative proposals that the Freedom Caucus can dream up to punish people fleeing horrible circumstances or just dreaming of a better life out of the shadows. Because "freedom isn't free", so someone needs to pay the price.
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:07 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

I am so very tired of these arsehats.
Politico : Trump and Bolton spurn top-level North Korea planning.
The Hill: Bolton has not yet called a top-level meeting on Trump-North Korea summit.
And finally Dear Leader - 'I don't think I have to prepare very much' for Kim summit. (Politico again).
Why don't the Marines just march in and take him away.
posted by adamvasco at 12:07 PM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Again evidence that when Trump says something's good for him, he means only with his base. He truly is - and cares to be - president of only 35% of America.

Kyle Griffin (MSNBC)
NFL players who kneel during the anthem are *not* unpatriotic, voters say 58–35%.

A majority of Repubs say players are unpatriotic. White voters with no college degree are split.

All other party, gender, education, age, racial groups say they're not unpatriotic. @QuinnipiacPoll
posted by chris24 at 12:10 PM on June 7, 2018 [21 favorites]

Why don't the Marines just march in and take him away.

Because at least 60% of them love him.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:11 PM on June 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

This administration has made me re-think every positive thought I've ever had about people who choose military service.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:15 PM on June 7, 2018 [29 favorites]

zarq Thing is, yes it was a bad answer (or at least a politically harmful answer, personally I fucking loved it) but it was also an incredibly bad question.

One of the things I do for a living is media train clients. I teach them to view every interview question as an opportunity to get their message across. It doesn't matter what the question assumes. It doesn't really even matter how it is asked. The client has something to convey to his audience and should at least try. Doing so may very well mean taking a bad question and answering it differently than is expected.

Interviews aren't zero sum games and shouldn't be treated as such.

I gave an example in my previous comment that showed one way the candidate could have answered the question without coming across as arrogant or trying to avoid giving a straight answer. There are a hundred other ways he could have done that.

All interviewers have some innate bias. Many questions will be inherently biased in the way they are positioned. Answering them well doesn't mean you have to accept their framing.

On the other hand, a self-aware candidate may realize that some of the potential future constituents he wants to reach may very well have a "personal relationship with their guns" and there may be some benefit in addressing those people's concerns and fears without making them think you view them all as serial killers. Or that you'll treat them that way once you're in office. Iowa already has limited gun control laws. It also has a few restrictions on licensing and ownership. Any fool trying to win votes from people who use their guns for legitimate purposes (hunting, pest/predator control) could speak about commonsense ways of strengthening those restrictions (and eliminating access to the kinds of guns -- semiautomatic weapons, for one) that aren't needed for those purposes) in ways that make sense for the public good without making it sound like they're trying to ban all guns, everywhere.

There's something refreshing about a person who calls out bullshit for what it is instead of pretending it's great stuff that deserves lots of careful consideration.

And yet he lost.

Ignoring or dismissing the fears of the electorate is one way to make yourself look out of touch and lose an election. Was this the straw the camel couldn't carry? Probably not. But did it help him? I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Consider the way D'Alessandro missed the mark on the NAFTA question. One segment of Iowan society relies on international trade access to make money from their farms. Another segment (manufacturers and their employees) sees NAFTA as detrimental to their businesses, jobs and income. Everyone who runs for state and federal office in Iowa knows this. It's like Iowa 101.

Those people vote. All of them. They're going to vote to protect their lives and livelihoods. He chose to appeal to one over the other. And that's fine. It's a valid choice to make. But he didn't bother to address that second group at all. That's a missed opportunity. He could have told farmers he understands their needs and will fight for new trade agreements that support everyone in Iowa, including them. Instead, he wrote them off.

Thoughtful candidates win elections by focusing on the needs and concerns of their constituents.
posted by zarq at 12:19 PM on June 7, 2018 [35 favorites]

I actually followed up on my own irritation & called the WaPo to submit a correction and discovered the same thing: that the feed is piped in directly from the AP without editorial.

Kudos to you! Hopefully they'll get the message, because it's no different from the way CNN and USAToday are reporting it, with an emphasis on Ryan aligning with the dubious findings of the Nunes-controlled House Intel Committee's hastily compiled report. (I ought to channel my irritation at the state of journalism in a similarly productive way.)

Yes agreed let’s all go with the more accurate “treason”

Please, let's not rehash the US constitutional definition of treason. Besides, Mueller's sticking to the legal charge of "conspiracy", so that should be good enough for us.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:19 PM on June 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

This administration has made me re-think every positive thought I've ever had about people who choose military service.

According to the same poll, most officers disapprove and the Navy as a whole disapproves more than it approves. The Coast Guard wasn't included but anecdotally is still less chudified. So I don't think it's fair to judge all people who enter military service equally harshly. Rank-and-file marines, though? Yikes.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:20 PM on June 7, 2018 [15 favorites]

Because at least 60% of them love him. /// This administration has made me re-think every positive thought I've ever had about people who choose military service.

Well, 59% of Marines approved in October of last year. Overall the picture is much less favorable. Assuming public 40% approval, only 4% more overall troops approve of him than in the general public and officers are 10% lower in approval than the general public.

The Military Times poll found that 44% of all troops surveyed had a favorable view of the president, compared to 40% who had an unfavorable view.

The views shifted depending on which service members were surveyed, though. While 48% of enlisted troops said they approved of Trump, only 30% of officers held a favorable opinion of the commander-in-chief.

Per the poll, 53% of officers said they had unfavorable views of Trump.

The poll revealed some other divides, as well:

- Men in the military were more likely to support Trump (47%) than women in the military (32%)
- Non-white troops were more to view Trump unfavorably (51%) than white troops (37%)
- The president was the most popular among Marines (59% favorable)
- He was the least popular among among sailors (49% unfavorable)

More than 1,100 active-duty troops were surveyed. The poll was conducted prior to the controversy over how Trump has handled phone calls with Gold Star families, including the widow of one of the soldiers who died during the Niger mission this month.

posted by chris24 at 12:22 PM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

Last night's Colbert about the lying Liar-In-Chief and the lying liars who work for him.
posted by growabrain at 12:27 PM on June 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

It's good to see Alice Johnson out of prison after Trump unilaterally commuted her sentence. It's like an Emperor agreeing to set free a single condemned gladiator from the Colosseum.

Sadly, the President would probably enjoy that analogy.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:40 PM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

Re: the ZTE thing...I thought this was an interesting comment on ZTE and US tech, found in the comments for an ArsTechnica story.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:43 PM on June 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

Deray: Remember, Trump has been transparent about using Kim Kardashian’s recent plea re: #AliceMarieJohnson to curry favor with black voters. Trump *does not* care about criminal justice reform or black people, for that matter. Let’s not confuse the right action for a good person.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:50 PM on June 7, 2018 [33 favorites]

A system where people get pardons if they're famous/related to someone famous and/or personally know the president sounds great.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:53 PM on June 7, 2018 [17 favorites]

How to Tell If the North Korea Talks Are a Success

...if you really want to know if the North Korea talks are successful, there’s a simple way to judge them: Hold President Trump to the standard he set in criticizing the Iran nuclear agreement.
...
According to the president’s Iran logic, North Korea must be forced to dismantle its shorter-range missiles that can reach Japan, as well as its forward-deployed conventional military that threatens South Korea—just as Trump criticized Iran’s “missiles and weapons that threaten its neighbors.” Trump’s agreement with Kim must bring an end to the proliferation of North Korea’s technology and know-how around the world, compel North Korea to eliminate any biological or chemical weapons in its possession, end its acts of terror, and halt criminal activities including cybercrimes, counterfeiting, drug-dealing and any other means now used to generate illegal revenue. Further, Pyongyang should be required to improve its abysmal human rights record by closing its gulags and labor camps. Failure to get North Korea do all of these things means that Trump will have flunked his own test.

posted by kirkaracha at 12:57 PM on June 7, 2018 [33 favorites]

It's also worth noting how white the military is (like Trump's base), and also the fact that so much of the military is drawn from southern states.

I don't doubt that there is probably more support for him from people in uniform rather than less, but I also don't believe it's overwhelming. More to the point, simply being military vs not isn't going to be the deciding factor here. All those people in uniform and their dependents have backgrounds that influenced them before they signed up.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:15 PM on June 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

candidate Max Linn was disqualified from the US Senate race [in Maine] ...He still appears on the ballot but votes for him won't count. ... he's still campaigning... and he's apparently sending out this charming mailpiece, encouraging Trumpists to vote for him in the primary.

Can we find a way to do this in every election -- have some idiot Trumpist on the ballot, actively campaigning for those people and neutering their votes? It's like the sterile mosquitos released to breed.
posted by msalt at 1:18 PM on June 7, 2018 [27 favorites]

The river of politics has long since swept past last night's discussion, but since it will surely recur, one last bit on pay-go and debt: a brief essay from 1848 (via Naked Capitalism) describing the previous century of misguided panics about debt. Even 150 years ago, there was enough evidence to conclude:

They erroneously imagined that there was an exact analogy between the case of an individual who is in debt to another individual and the case of a society which is in debt to a part of itself; and this analogy led them into endless mistakes about the effect of the system of funding.

posted by chortly at 1:33 PM on June 7, 2018 [16 favorites]

FYI we’re still counting votes in CA-48. Rohrabacher still in the lead (and will remain there), but the Dems in 2nd and 3rd have swapped places:

Keirstead: 18,827
Rouda: 18,782

Rouda had a ~70 vote lead when they wrapped up counting on election night.

Keirstead tweeted yesterday that there were still 40k to 50k ballots left to count and to expect more flip flops as this process continues.

(Chrysostom also mentioned this would be the case.)
posted by notyou at 1:33 PM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

An architect who helped arrange President Donald Trump’s business deals in eastern Europe abruptly shut down his firm within hours of being contacted by a reporter, deleted his portfolio and Twitter account — and has gone missing.

Architect John Fotiadis designed some of Trump’s luxury developments in former Soviet lands, some of which have fallen under scrutiny by special counsel Robert Mueller, but the former Trump associate suddenly disappeared after he was contacted by CNBC reporter Christina Wilkie
posted by growabrain at 1:35 PM on June 7, 2018 [23 favorites]

Sean Spicer gives a useless, almost content-free interview to Rolling Stone
posted by zarq at 1:36 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

I feel like comparing Chapo to incels is pretty irresponsible. If I'm wrong, please do let me know.

Did you actually RTFA? The comparison arises because women are getting the same sorts of harassment from Chapo dudes. They share patterns. Doyle actually explains it quite well. In the fucking article.

TL;DR: you’re wrong.
posted by schadenfrau at 1:38 PM on June 7, 2018 [27 favorites]

Sean Spicer gives a useless, almost content-free interview to Rolling Stone

Saw that and decided not to link it here for exactly that reason.
posted by rhizome at 1:39 PM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

I also don’t totally know where to begin with calling the comparisons women make about the harassment they themselves are subjected to “irresponsible,” but it certainly is...something.
posted by schadenfrau at 1:41 PM on June 7, 2018 [25 favorites]

cjelli, thanks for that great link about the federal judge ruling that AG Sessions violated the Constitution and it is not legal for the Department of Justice to bully Philadelphia into cooperating with ICE. (Ooh, it's a 93-page ruling! That's prefaced with Shakespeare quotes and starts out with a reference to the Odyssey!)

I just wanted to remind people that Philly is not the only city to fight back - San Francisco and San Jose won their lawsuit back in April, as well, and there are probably other cities who have filed suits that I'm not aware of.

One lesson I keep learning these past few months is that there are a lot of ways to resist, and it's happening at a lot of levels. It's not all about federal action - cities and states can fight for good, and they - we - can win.
posted by kristi at 1:47 PM on June 7, 2018 [30 favorites]

Rock 'em Sock 'em, I can't recall who above linked to this article about the deadly intel movement by Sady Doyle, but it includes this passage:

The podcast’s hosts, to say nothing of their rabid online fanbase, perceived themselves as enemies of the far-right manosphere. Nevertheless, their tactics — and targets — were often disturbingly similar. I’d been a regular punching bag for Chapo throughout 2016 and early 2017, culminating in a graphic death threat being sent to me by a man who was seemingly on friendly terms with Chapo host Felix Biederman.

One of the podcast hosts mocked someone's rape (Twitter thread).

Fans say it's a humour podcast; others say the hosts are dirtbag leftists who are sexist assholes (or worse). I don't listen to it, and after reading about the hosts I don't plan to.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:48 PM on June 7, 2018 [10 favorites]

It's also worth noting how white the military is (like Trump's base)

The military is 40% POC, basically the same as the US overall.
posted by chris24 at 1:54 PM on June 7, 2018 [15 favorites]

"I'm sorry, Mr. Pruitt, but we have to cut you off. Don't you think you've had enough meatloaf?"

Vice: Scott Pruitt was asked to stop eating at the White House

“We love having Mr. Pruitt, but it’s not meant for everyday use,” one source told Politico. Another added that the White House asked Cabinet members to visit the mess only occasionally because there just wasn’t enough space for them to use it every day.

In July 2017, he paid $400 for nine different visits to the mess [...] And he loved a good “chocolate freedom,” a dessert of molten chocolate cake made with imported French chocolate.

What.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:54 PM on June 7, 2018 [20 favorites]

The FBI Inspector General report on their actions leading to the 2016 election will be released June 14.

It’s expected to say Comey defied DOJ authority.

Defied to help Trump of course, not for spying or to help Clinton.
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:55 PM on June 7, 2018 [11 favorites]

And I do think that it is irresponsible to imply that there is some kind of organized, targeted leftist-equivalent to incels, or that Chapo is involved in such a movement.

This is accurate. I listen to Chapo, and they don't do anything even close to this. They're very ironic and snarky in a kind of abrasive way, but they're not pushing any kind of misogynistic ideological program at all. The complaints mentioned in that article and this thread are all shitty and indefensible, but they're also one-off examples of their worst host, Felix Biederman, going too far when making a bad joke on Twitter. Like the show or not (and there are plenty of good reasons not to like it), These guys aren't organizing harassment campaigns or instilling any kind of incel-like ideology in their listeners.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 1:56 PM on June 7, 2018

It’s expected to say Comey defied DOJ authority.

To hand Trump the election.

His defiance damaged Clinton and helped Trump right before the election.
posted by chris24 at 1:56 PM on June 7, 2018 [20 favorites]

That Philadelphia vs Sessions and ICE ruling has some amazing bits, but the judge saves the best for last, in footnote 19 on the last page:

When deciding a case within the broad topic of immigration, a judge may be tempted to cut a wide swath into many issues about which public debate continues. This opinion purposely sticks to the issues concerning the JAG grants to Philadelphia. However, assuming the accuracy of current estimates that 11 million undocumented aliens are residing in the United States, most of them living peacefully with families, children and good jobs – in contrast to the small number who would qualify as criminal aliens – the complex issues in this case demonstrate the sheer impossibility, as well as great expense, of relying on a policy of “removal” (deportation) of all undocumented aliens. The idea that the judicial process, with the necessary procedures and protections and appellate reviews, can accomplish this task is completely unrealistic. An ICE official in this case testified that many cases take at least several years to resolve, with great expense to the taxpayers and the parties. From a judge’s point of view, Congress needs to act.

posted by kristi at 1:57 PM on June 7, 2018 [16 favorites]

>Confabulation isn't a person purposefully lying to you, it's the person's brain trying to make sense of something that escapes them at the moment with what facts they have at hand.

"And that land mass over there is called a 'stick out' because of the way it sticks out into the water."
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:57 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

It’s expected to say Comey defied DOJ authority.

To hand Trump the election.

Which for some reason will not be mentioned in any of the dozens of Fox News pieces on the subject.
posted by saturday_morning at 1:58 PM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

it would be cool to not rush in with the NOTHING TO SEE HERE comments just because a funny podcast might be tied to lefty-originating harassment of women
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:59 PM on June 7, 2018 [33 favorites]

The White House menu apparently dates back to the Clinton administration? There's a picture of the Freedom dessert over at Notes from a Messy Kitchen: ....lunch in the Navy Mess Hall, the West Wing’s Private dining room.
...
Since the late 1800’s, Navy Stewards have been utilized to provide food service to the President of the United States. The White House Mess was established in 1951, and continues to be operated by Naval officers. The menu is fairly short and simple, and believe it or not the calorie count was not Mrs. Obama’s doing – it dates back to the Clinton Administration, when the White House Mess revamped the menu to offer more healthy options.

posted by zarq at 2:01 PM on June 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

Trump on preparing for the negotiations with Kim.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:09 PM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's also worth noting how white the military is

Wut??? Having grown up or lived near a military base most of my life, this contradicts my observed reality.
According to this Pew Research article, "Racial and ethnic minority groups made up 40% of Defense Department active-duty military in 2015." And "In the same year, blacks made up 17% of the DOD active-duty military – somewhat higher than their share of the U.S. population ages 18 to 44 (13%)."

Weirdly, it's almost like the DOD is one of the few major employers to take diversity seriously.
The percentages of enlisted personnel by race are *not* reflected equally in the officers. (Which is all kinds of fucked up, but certainly not unique to DOD).

and on preview... beaten by Chris24 :(
posted by ButteryMales at 2:10 PM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

The DOJ IG report on actions taken around the election is expected on June 14th. It's going to be a long complex report covering many factors about which everyone will be angry. Twitter is going to suck.

On a related note, Being extremely online can only bring you pain:

Unsurprisingly, it turns out feverishly commenting “huge mood” on every meme while a chorus of neo-nazis and chemtrail enthusiasts scream into the void isn’t exactly great for your mental health. (Sorry, Twitter.) According to a new study published in the medical journal “Depression and Anxiety” on Thursday, negative interactions online appear to worsen the average person’s depressive symptoms, regardless of whether they are depressed already or not, while positive interactions have little to no effect.

@keithlalexander: Second trial in @realDonaldTrump Inauguration Day rioting trial results in no convictions. All 4 defendants either acquitted or jury was unable to reach unanimous verdict. Judge declares mistrial. Two trials, 9 defendants since December, no convictions in either.

This kind of gets to the central contradiction of the #Resistance law enforcement types, the Witteses and Asha Rangappas and friends. These are good people with good insights. But the core ethos behind them is a constant faith in the good behavior and judgement of the FBI and DOJ. And those, of course, are the same organizations who, and this is not a Trump thing by any means, who are hiding evidence and pushing for collective punishment in the J20 case. It's the same DOJ that's fighting for the travel ban and to separate children from their parents at the border and to cut off funding for sanctuary cities and to allow Trump to block people on Twitter. It's the same DOJ that's run by Jeff Sessions. These are not the institutions that will save us, and I wish those who have dedicated their lives to praising them could stop for a second and see that.
posted by zachlipton at 2:16 PM on June 7, 2018 [12 favorites]

Definitely Not Sean Spicer: "For starters, stop capping our social security contributions. It's absolute madness that our SS rate goes DOWN as we make more money."

they do the same here in Canada and ya it's stupid.

paper chromatographologist: "Billions in U.S. solar projects shelved after Trump panel tariff"

That's OK, I'm sure both Canada and Mexico will be willing to sell you all nice tariff free electricity produced by the panels we are installing.

Rust Moranis: "When will people start saying, “thank you, Mr. President, for firing James Comey?”"

Thank you Mr Cheeto for firing Comey which gave us the Mueller rope we will hang your administration with.
posted by Mitheral at 2:19 PM on June 7, 2018 [14 favorites]

Judge Roasts Feds for Order Detaining Immigrant Children

“I don’t understand how you could possibly justify what happened to L.V.M.,” U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty told a government attorney at a hearing that stretched for nearly five hours.

Born in El Salvador, L.V.M.’s name is shielded in court documents, and his story is a heartbreaking one. Fleeing gang violence in the country of his birth, the boy and his family found asylum in the United States. He says he never spent a night apart from his mother or had any disciplinary issues until immigration authorities detained him after interpreting a hand gesture he made in his high school hallway as a gang symbol.
...
Austin blamed these delays on the change in command at the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Hours after President Donald Trump named him head of the agency, Scott Lloyd issued a directive requiring his signature for children in the agency’s detention to be released. Lloyd based this decision on unspecified news reports about MS-13 gang activity, including articles based on allegations that were later discredited and dropped.

Unlike the child-welfare specialists previously in charge of resettling children, Lloyd has no formal education, training or expertise in social work.

Judge Crotty appeared disturbed by Lloyd’s impulsive decision-making.

“So far as I can gather, there was no process at all here,” Crotty said.

posted by zachlipton at 2:25 PM on June 7, 2018 [56 favorites]

Weirdly, it's almost like the DOD is one of the few major employers to take diversity seriously.

My understanding was always that the poor in our country join the military because of the ability to get college paid for, and other benefits, and often because they have few other opportunities for getting a good job. And POC are much more likely to be poor, so...

It never to me looked like the military was diverse in its hiring out of the desire to do the right thing. But I have no special knowledge of this, and would love to be wrong.
posted by greermahoney at 2:26 PM on June 7, 2018 [10 favorites]

As numerous people on Twitter have pointed out, today's Pruitt embarrassment leaves open the question of why he didn't just have them call and see if the lotion was available.

posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:41 AM on June 7 [8 favorites +] [!]

Also, I have some startling news! There's this new-fangled thing called the World Wide Web where you type in some words and it searches for things related to those words. Now, hold on, it gets really science-fictiony here, but stay with me. Some forward-thinking stores have placed what are called "pages" on this so-called Web, so if you were to type in "name of fancy Ritz-Carlton lotion" it would tell you right away which stores carried that fancy stuff. Cool, huh? Maybe Pruitt should be told about it, no?
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:29 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Reuters, Exclusive: U.S. immigration authorities sending 1,600 detainees to federal prisons

U.S. authorities are transferring into federal prisons about 1,600 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees, officials told Reuters on Thursday, in the first large-scale use of federal prisons to hold detainees amid a Trump administration crackdown on people entering the country illegally.

An ICE spokeswoman told Reuters five federal prisons will temporarily take in detainees awaiting civil immigration court hearings, including potential asylum seekers, with one prison in Victorville, California, preparing to house 1,000 people.
...
At Victorville, the prison getting the largest number of people, workers are moving about 500 inmates in a medium-security facility to make space, said John Kostelnik, local president for the American Federation of Government Employees Council of Prison Locals union.

“There is so much movement going on,” said Kostelnik. “Everyone is running around like a chicken without their head.”

posted by zachlipton at 2:30 PM on June 7, 2018 [12 favorites]

The White House menu apparently dates back to the Clinton administration?

Some of the items seem to. I had some suspicions about a dessert named 'freedom,' and, lo and behold, here's an Atlantic article from 2007:

"[Karl] Rove recommended the "chocolate freedom tart," a French dessert renamed during the Iraq invasion."

I have my doubts about either the Bush or Trump White House serving sandwiches named 'Grant Park' and 'Hyannis Port' (chicken, apples, cranberries, and walnuts--on a croissant) but even Karl Rove knew that you just can't fuck with a French dessert.
posted by box at 2:32 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

The fact that the lockdown lullaby is on a wall in a school in my beloved Somerville, MA is just breaking my heart further. We moved a couple years ago but that’s where my children would have gone to kindergarten. Holy fuck this fucking country.
posted by lydhre at 2:33 PM on June 7, 2018 [20 favorites]

And I do think that it is irresponsible to imply that there is some kind of organized, targeted leftist-equivalent to incels, or that Chapo is involved in such a movement.

So, just your regular old, unorganized, targeted harassment. Got it. Incels are horrific, but the fact that even our own "allies" target women for harassment, and other "allies" will handwave it away is horrific in a different way. I've found the increasingly undeniable misogyny on the left tremendously depressing because I no longer feel like I can count on men that I thought I could count on. Who will stand for women and who will excuse bad men with "good" politics?
posted by Mavri at 2:33 PM on June 7, 2018 [58 favorites]

“This is an important moment for all Philadelphians, especially our immigrant community,” Philly Mayor Jim Kenney said in the statement. “It prevents a White House run by a bully from bullying Philadelphia into changing its policies.”

DOJ just put out a news release: "Yesterday the Mayor of Philadelphia was filmed dancing and celebrating a victory for criminal aliens in a federal district court case"

Again, this is the same DOJ that's people think will somehow save us from Trump.
posted by zachlipton at 2:37 PM on June 7, 2018 [15 favorites]

Giuliani Casts Doubt On Trump’s Stormy Daniels Affair: ‘Look At His Three Wives’

First off, I don't know that "look at his three wives" is seizing the moral high ground.

"I know Donald Trump. Look at his three wives,” Giuliani said. “Beautiful women, classy women, women of great substance."

Beautiful is subjective, and we'd have to agree on a definition for "great substance" unless he's just asserting they're corporeal. However, I wouldn't necessarily say women who fuck other women's husbands, like two-thirds of Trump's wives and two-thirds of Giuliani's wives did, are "classy."

“You’re going to tell me that being involved in pornography isn’t demeaning to women?

I dunno, ask President Trump and the First Lady, who have both appeared in soft-core porn.

Giuliani defends comments about Stormy Daniels' credibility

If you're involved in a sort of slimy business, (that) says something about you -- says something about how far you'll go to make money.

This I might be able to agree with.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:38 PM on June 7, 2018 [34 favorites]

It's like an Emperor agreeing to set free a single condemned gladiator from the Colosseum.

"Give us Barabbas!"
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:40 PM on June 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

NYT, The Chemical Industry Scores a Big Win at the E.P.A.

The Trump administration, after heavy lobbying by the chemical industry, is scaling back the way the federal government determines health and safety risks associated with the most dangerous chemicals on the market, documents from the Environmental Protection Agency show.

Under a law passed by Congress during the final year of the Obama administration, the E.P.A. was required for the first time to evaluate hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals and determine if they should face new restrictions, or even be removed from the market. The chemicals include many in everyday use, such as dry-cleaning solvents, paint strippers and substances used in health and beauty products like shampoos and cosmetics.

But as it moves forward reviewing the first batch of 10 chemicals, the E.P.A. has in most cases decided to exclude from its calculations any potential exposure caused by the substances’ presence in the air, the ground or water, according to more than 1,500 pages of documents released last week by the agency.

Instead, the agency will focus on possible harm caused by direct contact with a chemical in the workplace or elsewhere. The approach means that the improper disposal of chemicals — leading to the contamination of drinking water, for instance — will often not be a factor in deciding whether to restrict or ban them.

The approach is a big victory for the chemical industry, which has repeatedly pressed the E.P.A. to narrow the scope of its risk evaluations. Nancy B. Beck, the Trump administration’s appointee to help oversee the E.P.A.’s toxic chemical unit, previously worked as an executive at the American Chemistry Council, one of the industry’s main lobbying groups.

WaPo, The U.S. just had its warmest May in history, blowing past 1934 Dust Bowl record
posted by zachlipton at 2:44 PM on June 7, 2018 [28 favorites]

Reuters, Exclusive: U.S. immigration authorities sending 1,600 detainees to federal prisons
Jesus Christ. I guess this is the next phase of ALEC's Truth in Sentencing bills program, get immigrants as quickly as possible into prison labor.
posted by Harry Caul at 2:48 PM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

According to CNN, the big Senate classified information scandal right now isn't about the Nunes gang leaking, as we had thought, but the Senate. Justice Department investigating ex-Senate Intel staffer over allegations classified information was disclosed. No real details here other than a "former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer who allegedly disclosed classified information."
posted by zachlipton at 2:51 PM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

If you take undocumented migrants and turn them into slaves, that doesn't actually "save American jobs" does it? (and it's evil)
posted by puddledork at 2:51 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

The military is 40% POC, basically the same as the US overall.

Fair enough. I stand corrected, and to be honest that number makes me feel a little better.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:52 PM on June 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

If you take undocumented migrants and turn them into slaves, that doesn't actually "save American jobs" does it? (and it's evil)

We're already there, and have been for some time: Immigration detainees shouldn't be coerced into $1-a-day jobs
posted by zachlipton at 2:55 PM on June 7, 2018 [12 favorites]

> U.S. authorities are transferring into federal prisons about 1,600 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees, officials

I omitted one word and read this as "U.S. authorities are transferring into federal prisons about 1,600 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials" and thought to myself, "Whelp, they're off to a good start, then."

If only . . .
posted by flug at 2:57 PM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

So we've literally moved "undocumented" people - presumably, all non-white - from internment camps to labor camps, while depriving them of any representation.

At a certain point, the historical similarities start to look less like warnings, and more like a blueprint.
posted by MysticMCJ at 3:00 PM on June 7, 2018 [43 favorites]

The goal is always free labor and enlarging the prison state to include everyone.
posted by The Whelk at 3:06 PM on June 7, 2018 [36 favorites]

Um so I have a new thing to have nightmares about. There's an ongoing effort by Texas to have the ACA declared unconstitutional now that the individual mandate has been repealed (because if that's gone, there's no tax, and then NFIB v. Sebelius falls apart; this was kind of the worst-case scenario people were warning about when they got rid of the mandate).

Just before the government is set to file its brief, which would normally be defending the law, the career DOJ attorneys filed to withdraw their names from the case.

tl;dr
The Trump administration might decline to defend Obamacare in court, which is very scary to some legal scholars
(though it is not totally without precedent, see DOMA)
as for whether this means the law will actually be overturned, not necessarily, it’s way too soon to say

I should also pull back here and flag that Nick’s biggest concern is that civil line attorneys only pull their names off briefs in extreme circumstances, when they think the arguments are in such bad faith they can’t attach their name to it

“meritless… not ethical"

so it’s not just that the Trump administration is declining to defend the ACA, but that the lawyers involved think the arguments being made to justify that decision are in such bad faith that they refuse to be associated with them

We're still waiting on the brief to know what's actually happening, but this is concerning. It is, as Bagley notes, not unprecedented, but DOJ's refusal to defend the ACA would be a far cry from the refusal to defend DOMA, and it's pretty concerning. DOJ lawyers do not normally pull their names like this.
posted by zachlipton at 3:06 PM on June 7, 2018 [19 favorites]

So we've literally moved "undocumented" people - presumably, all non-white - from internment camps to labor camps, while depriving them of any representation.

That's why it's also super-handy to remove their children, because it's much easier to do slave labor without having to tote around a pesky toddler or wipe a seven-year-old's nose the whole time. And the relocation also shores up your specious grounds for separating families in the first place: "Your Honor, the plaintiff can't be so heartless as to suggest that we house these precious babies in federal prisons! That's why we're warehousing them in abandoned Wal-Marts hundreds of miles away! It can't be helped!"
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:07 PM on June 7, 2018 [11 favorites]

It never to me looked like the military was diverse in its hiring out of the desire to do the right thing. But I have no special knowledge of this, and would love to be wrong.

Side note, but I work and make recommendations for West Point and they very much desire more qualified African American applicants, and I just received an email from the AA female lieutenant that's visiting states to try to get more to apply. There are a whole lot of reasons why black teenagers have lower rates to join the Army versus the other branches, so that's understandable, but I can absolutely say that one of the key officer programs/service academies would love to have a greater percentage of underrepresented populations. For the last four years, every all-hands brief has had it as one of the key priorities for the institution.

As a side note, no one should join the military to make their way in the world because they were poor (I did though it worked out), but it's absolutely vital that if we do have a military, it should look like the US as a whole (which is why we need more women in it, too).
posted by Lord Chancellor at 3:08 PM on June 7, 2018 [14 favorites]

Dave Weigel (WaPo)
Primary vote totals for both parties in #CAGov:

2014: Dem 55.3% GOP 40.0%
2018: Dem 61.3% GOP 38.6%

That's before probably 1.1m more votes are counted. The "maybe there'll be a red wave bc the GOP didn't get locked out of the gov race" take is odd.

---

The late vote is typically heavily D, so the percentage will only get better. And historically, Ds outperform their primary turnout percentage in the general in CA.
posted by chris24 at 3:11 PM on June 7, 2018 [8 favorites]

Donald Trump 'tired of Theresa May's school mistress tone’ and may turn down talks with her at G7

Tone policing leading to the acceleration of the breakdown of world order is a good reason not to have elected a misogynist President.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:12 PM on June 7, 2018 [72 favorites]

Between May, Trudeau and Macron, helluva week for US-Allies relations.

Emmanuel Macron
The American President may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be. Because these 6 countries represent values, they represent an economic market which has the weight of history behind it and which is now a true international force
posted by chris24 at 3:13 PM on June 7, 2018 [47 favorites]

but it's absolutely vital that if we do have a military, it should look like the US as a whole

Agree, and thank you for the info.
posted by greermahoney at 3:14 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

From zachlipton's 1600 detainees to be moved into Federal prisons link:

ICE spokeswoman Dani Bennett said, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is working to meet the demand for additional immigration detention space, both long and short term” due to a surge in illegal border crossings and a U.S. Department of Justice zero-tolerance policy.

“To meet this need, ICE is collaborating with the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), private detention facility operators and local government agencies,” she said in a statement to Reuters.

You'll recall that one of the first things the new administration did was to rescind the Obama-era memo that directed the DOJ to reduce the use of private, for profit prisons: NPR (Feb. 23, 2017) Private Prisons Back In Mix For Federal Inmates As Sessions Rescinds Order.

The Reuters story is pretty thin, but it notes that inmates at the Victorville facility had to be moved to another facility to make room for the incoming immigrant detainees. Maybe that's a private facility?
posted by notyou at 3:17 PM on June 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers. The EU trade surplus with the U.S. is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out. Look forward to seeing them tomorrow.

Macron and Trump are having a real "Homer: Marge, since I'm not talking to Lisa, could you please ask her to pass me the syrup" thing right now.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:17 PM on June 7, 2018 [22 favorites]

NYT, White House Analysis Finds Tariffs Will Hurt Growth, as Officials Insist Otherwise

A White House economic analysis of President Trump’s trade agenda has concluded that Mr. Trump’s tariffs will hurt economic growth in the United States, according to several people familiar with the research.

The findings from the White House Council of Economic Advisers have been circulated only internally and not publicly released, as is often the case with the council’s work, making the exact economic projections unknown. But the determination comes as top White House officials continue to insist publicly that Mr. Trump’s trade approach will be “massively good for the U.S. economy.”

'Damn the research, we'll do it live' seems to be the White House motto.
posted by zachlipton at 3:20 PM on June 7, 2018 [17 favorites]

Re: Pruitt and his ritzy Ritz-Carlton lotion. The agents could have called around, they might have checked the internet... but those options aren't bad for the environment.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:22 PM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that

WHO IS HE TALKING TO?? Are we, the Twitter users of the world, supposed to forward this to world leaders? I’m completely baffled.
posted by greermahoney at 3:25 PM on June 7, 2018 [49 favorites]

WHO IS HE TALKING TO??

It's junior high. Please pass the note.
posted by chris24 at 3:27 PM on June 7, 2018 [29 favorites]

It's also worth noting how white the military is (like Trump's base)

The military is 40% POC, basically the same as the US overall.

Yes, among enlisted personnel. In fact, if you just look at enlisted, more than 50% are minorities -- more than their share of the population. By the time you get up to the rank of the lowest officer, second lieutenant, it's down to 25% minority, 12% for colonel, and less than 10% for generals.

So you could say that military officers are Trump's base.
posted by JackFlash at 3:30 PM on June 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

Donald Trump 'tired of Theresa May's school mistress tone’ and may turn down talks with her at G7

n.b. This hit piece from Murdoch's Daily Telegraph is sourced almost entirely from the US side:

One senior US diplomat said Mr Trump has expressed annoyance at Mrs May’s frequent demands, which are seen as taking advantage of the UK-US relationship.

Another long-time friend of the president revealed he had privately complained of how Mrs May calls him out in public when he is deemed to have stepped out of line.

A third figure, a former White House official who attended meetings between the pair, confirmed the frosty relationship: "No offence, but she is basically a school mistress. I’m not sure anyone gets on well with her.”[...]

Former aides of Mrs May have insisted that Mr Trump often expresses his love for Britain during phone calls and adopts a respectful tone. However, few claim their relationship is especially warm.

Trumpists clearly want to lower the bar for their interactions, in case Trump goes off on her, and Murdoch's happy to undermine the PM since he'd rather have Jacob Rees-Mogg at Number 10.
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:32 PM on June 7, 2018 [8 favorites]

It would be comical if the UK wasn't so monumentally fucked.

(And by the exact same fascists who installed Trump no less)
posted by Artw at 3:36 PM on June 7, 2018 [10 favorites]

The Daily Telegraph isn't Murdoch, it's the Barclay Brothers. Murdoch owns the Times of London.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:38 PM on June 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

How many minutes has it been since the last round of WHEEL-O-PRUITT? Daily Beast: Scott Pruitt Made Public Servants Fetch His Protein Bars And Greek Yogurt

Pruitt’s tastes in snacks are rather refined, according to former aides. He is particularly fond of finger food from the upscale eatery Dean & Deluca, according to a former EPA official. Pruitt is also particular about his coffee tastes, the former official said, and would often direct an aide to brew him pour-over coffee, which he prefers to more run-of-the-mill brewing methods.

An agency spokesperson declined to comment directly on this story. “EPA will not be commenting on anonymous sources who are working to distract Americans from Administrator Pruitt’s accomplishments on regulatory certainty and environmental stewardship,” the spokesperson told The Daily Beast in an emailed statement.

posted by FelliniBlank at 3:39 PM on June 7, 2018 [14 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers. The EU trade surplus with the U.S. is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out. Look forward to seeing them tomorrow.

Canada is the largest buyer of American farm exports.
posted by chris24 at 3:43 PM on June 7, 2018 [14 favorites]

NY Post, Pizza delivery guy: I never signed form that led to ICE arrest

The pizza delivery guy who was detained by immigration agents during a run to Fort Hamilton says he never agreed to let the Brooklyn Army base perform a background check on him.

“That is a lie. I didn’t sign anything. They never told me anything and I never signed anything,” Pablo Villavicencio told The Post in a phone interview from immigration detention Thursday.

Villavicencio, an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador, says he was detained by military police and then handed over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement when he came to the base Friday to deliver Italian and a guard wouldn’t accept the IDNYC card he usually shows for identification.
...
But Villavicencio insists he never signed anything.

“I am 100 percent sure that I did not sign any document there. The office has video and cameras there. I am sure you can access them to see that I didn’t sign anything,” he said.

posted by zachlipton at 3:49 PM on June 7, 2018 [48 favorites]

The Daily Telegraph isn't Murdoch, it's the Barclay Brothers.

Good grief, all this time I've been confusing the ownership with Murdoch's Australian Daily Telegraph. Oh well, it's hardly less conservative for it.

Anyroad, the knives are out for May.
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:51 PM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Robert E Kelly (Korea/Intl relations expert)
Word is that Trump wants to sign a peace treaty w/ N Korea in Singapore to have a dramatic 'win.' As is predictable by now w/ Trump tho, this is more hype than substance. The NKs have long sought a peace treaty, just as they have a POTUS summit. TRUMP IS GIVING STUFF AWAY, not wheeling and dealing his way into some great achievement. Trump is pushing an open door, not 'winning.' Trump gave the NKs the summit they've wanted for 25 years for nothing; if he also gives them the similarly long-sought peace treaty for no serious concession, that is a disaster.

Remember, the peninsula does not need a treaty to be peaceful. Deterrence has been stable for 65 years. The peace treaty is not about peace - which already exists but for NK provocations - but about the recognition and normalization of NK as a distinct Korean state separate from the real Korea, i.e., SK. That is a huge concession. That is why no POTUS ever gave up the treaty before, just as no POTUS before gave up the summit either. Trump is depressingly ignorant of this, but if a deal at any price is the goal, 'peace in Korea' would be quite easy actually - we can always just give NK what they want.

If Trump doesn't get a huge concession for the treaty, that will be two major asks from NK for which we got zippo. Wow. You'll never hear about this in Foxworld, but diehard, non-Trumpized hawks on NK may well call Trump as an appeaser. (Watch for that charge late next week.) The irony is ridiculous: Hannity, Giuliani, Gorka, and the rest are claiming T's toughness bludgeoned NK into submission; T threatened nuclear war. But actually he is turning out to be a gift for doves. Unreal. END
posted by chris24 at 4:00 PM on June 7, 2018 [25 favorites]

Between May, Trudeau and Macron, helluva week for US-Allies relations.

74 years ago yesterday Americans and their British and Canadian allies landed in Normandy to free France from Nazi occupation. Now we have a Nazi in the White House alienating our oldest and closest friends.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:00 PM on June 7, 2018 [41 favorites]

So in a followup to the question about whether the Washington Capitals get a presidential audience should they win the Stanley Cup: Hard pass: Smith-Pelly will skip White House visit if Caps win Cup

"The things that he spews are straight-up racist and sexist," Canada's Postmedia quoted Smith-Pelly as saying Wednesday as the Capitals prepared for Game 5 against the Vegas Golden Knights. "Some of the things he's said are pretty gross. I'm not too into politics, so I don't know all his other views, but his rhetoric I definitely don't agree with. It hasn't come up here, but I think I already have my mind made up."

Smith-Pelly, one of two black Capitals players, is from the Toronto area. He spoke two days after Trump cancelled the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles' visit to the White House, and a day after NBA stars LeBron James and Curry both said they wouldn't visit.

Of course, whether Smith-Pelly and the Canadians among his teammates would have been deemed a security risk to burn down the White House is left as an exercise for the reader.
posted by hangashore at 4:11 PM on June 7, 2018 [15 favorites]

Failure to get North Korea do all of these things means that Trump will have flunked his own test.

There was never any realistic chance that he would pass by this measure. Any NK deal will fail by the metrics he set for the Iran deal. That isn't in question; the question is whether the media and Congress let him get away with that.

Reports are still that Trump will send any proposed treaty through Congress. While I obviously wouldn't want Congress to reject a reasonable deal to spite Trump, I would support Democrats insisting that if the NK deal isn't "better" than the Iran deal that both treaties be passed together. Don't let him get away with fucking over one if the other isn't measurably better.

Remember that treaties require a 2/3 vote. So there is a lot of leverage to be had.
posted by Justinian at 4:21 PM on June 7, 2018 [10 favorites]

Welp. Here's the government's brief on the ACA.

@nicholas_bagley:

As expected. The Justice Department believes the crucial insurance reforms of the Affordable Care Act are unconstitutional and will not defend them. This is an enormous blow to the integrity of DOJ. The Justice Department doesn't think an injunction is immediately warranted. But on no uncertain terms, it argues that the federal courts should invalidate the crucial operative provisions of the ACA.

I am at a loss for words to explain how big of a deal this is. The Justice Department has a durable, longstanding, bipartisan commitment to defending the law when non-frivolous arguments can be made in its defense. This brief torches that commitment. Pick your adjective. The arguments that the plaintiffs have offered in favor of their argument that the penalty-free mandate requires striking down the whole statute are silly. Laughable. Ridiculous. Unprincipled. And yet -- To be clear, the ACA remains intact, and will remain intact for the foreseeable future. This case is not going anywhere fast, and the likelihood that the Supreme Court endorses this travesty of an argument is slim. But the blow to the institutional integrity of the Justice Department is profound. That's why three line attorneys -- civil servants who have made arguments they disagreed with countless times -- removed themselves from this case. These arguments are that far beyond the pale.

DOJ is arguing that community rating and guaranteed issue, the planks that make the ACA work by requiring health insurance companies to sell to everyone regardless of health status at equal prices, has to go.
posted by zachlipton at 4:23 PM on June 7, 2018 [48 favorites]

The NBC poll today makes it clear what's going on with Trump and exactly who is his base:

Approval among white men without a college degree: 68% approve, 29% disapprove.
Approval among everybody else in the country: 38% approve, 60% disapprove.

So. Yeah.
posted by Justinian at 4:24 PM on June 7, 2018 [73 favorites]

So you could say that military officers are Trump's base.

Trump approval among veterans who identify as Republicans: 98% (2017 poll). All categories except Democrats have a 10%-15% bump when applied to veterans.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:35 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Isn't this going to massively backfire on them? Taking health insurance away from 12 million people seems like a terrible idea, politically, but then again I'm not a Republican.
posted by zrail at 4:36 PM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

As a white man without a college degree, I'm proud to be one of the 29%.
posted by mephron at 4:36 PM on June 7, 2018 [82 favorites]

Natasha Bertrand, The Atlantic: Senate Investigators May Have Found Missing Piece in Russia Probe:

Curt Weldon, a Republican and former Pennsylvania congressman, lost his re-election campaign more than a decade ago following an FBI probe into his ties to two Russian companies. He has “connections to both Russia and the Trump campaign” that are raising suspicions among senators, a spokeswoman for Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said. Feinstein is the committee’s ranking member, and wants to interview Weldon, the spokeswoman said.

Interesting because Weldon is pretty obscure outside Pennsylviania - not a well-known Senator or Cabinet official. It really does make me wonder if the spate of Republican retirements might have more to it than just rats fleeing a sinking ship. I think most are just that, but I wonder if a few others will be caught in the net.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 4:36 PM on June 7, 2018 [24 favorites]

Donald Trump 'tired of Theresa May's school mistress tone’ and may turn down talks with her at G7

For the sake of accuracy, it should be noted that:
1. that’s supposedly a quote from an unnamed ex-White House staffer, not Trump himself. It’s not even clear that it’s from a Trump-era staffer, nor that the quote conveys anything to do with Trump or his feelings about Theresa May, and:
2. the United States, unlike the UK, doesn’t even have such a thing as a school mistress/master, so it’s somewhat odd that an American would jump immediately to that phrasing; instead, the gender-neutral “principal” is (and pretty much always has been) the usual term for the same job. This leads me to believe that the actual wording used was likely schoolmarm (which is used exclusively as a gendered slur, and never a simple job title) and the Telegraph is being loosey-goosey with the quote (as UK newspapers are horribly wont to do) while also having a stick up its ass about Americanisms (because it’s the Telegraph). I am also somewhat suspicious of the construction “I’m not sure anyone gets on with her.” It might be interesting to know who this supposed former White House official is, why they speak as Etonian as Jacob Rees-Mogg’s childhood monacle, and why anyone should care what they have to say on this or any other matter.
3. The Telegraph’s interpretation that it all means Theresa May is too “politically correct” is just...what even is that? Sense: Make some. She had a bunch of UK citizens deported by shredding their paperwork — quite the SJW!

In conclusion: The Telegraph is just the same garbage as the Daily Mail, but served on a silver platter by one’s valet. Treat it as such.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:40 PM on June 7, 2018 [23 favorites]

To go along with the NBC/WSJ D+10 and Ipsos/Reuters D+11 earlier today...

Fox News Poll
BREAKING! #2018GenericHouseVote: Democrats preferred over Republicans by 9 pts. in new @FoxNews #Poll, up from 5-pt. Dem edge in March

MORE: https://fxn.ws/2kTqa8x

---

Also in the poll...

- More Democrats (72 percent) are extremely or very interested in the upcoming elections than Republicans (63 percent).

- A year ago, the GOP had a 15-point advantage on the deficit. Now, Democrats are preferred by one point. That’s because fewer voters are saying Republicans can do better. Last June, 50 percent preferred Republicans over Democrats (35 percent). Now, it’s 35 percent Republicans and 36 percent Democrats.

- On immigration, voters by 71-23 percent favor giving legal status to Dreamers.

- 4-in-10 independents (43 percent) and 2-in-10 Republicans (20 percent) say it is at least somewhat likely that they will vote for a Democrat in this year’s election with the specific intent of providing a check on the president and the Republican Congress. Among Democrats, nearly 9-in-10 feel that way (86 percent).
posted by chris24 at 4:44 PM on June 7, 2018 [18 favorites]

I am also somewhat suspicious of the construction “I’m not sure anyone gets on with her.” It might be interesting to know who this supposed former White House official is, why they speak as Etonian as Jacob Rees-Mogg’s childhood monacle, and why anyone should care what they have to say on this or any other matter.

GADZOOKS, IT'S GORKA!
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:49 PM on June 7, 2018 [18 favorites]

It is astonishing the amount of sustained Republican effort, for years, that has gone to trying to make sure health insurance companies can deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, despite the widespread unpopularity of this even among Republicans. Someone should put that in an ad.
posted by zachlipton at 4:50 PM on June 7, 2018 [23 favorites]

According to CNN, the big Senate classified information scandal right now isn't about the Nunes gang leaking, as we had thought, but the Senate.

Speaking of Nunes, CNN reports: Top Democrat on House Intel Committee Seeks Release of All Russia Probe Interviews—specifically to the Special Counsel

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee is raising public pressure on Republicans to release transcripts of all the panel's interviews related to the Russia investigation, saying they could be of value to the ongoing Mueller probe.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., wrote to the committee's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., two weeks ago requesting that the dozens of transcripts be released, saying they could shed "additional light on the issues of collusion and obstruction of justice."

Schiff said Thursday he had not received a reply to his request. Nunes' office declined to comment.

In his letter, Schiff also raised concerns that some witnesses “may have testified untruthfully” before the committee, and that special counsel Robert Mueller and his team “should consider whether perjury charges are warranted.”

"Certainly the testimony of Don Jr., Erik Prince, Roger Stone and others is inconsistent with the public reports of meetings, conversations and other facts that have now been established," Schiff said in an interview with NBC News. "And so if those public reports are accurate, then clearly they were not telling the truth."

Meanwhile, Nunes is still pressuring Rosenstein for more classified materials about the FBI informant on the Trump campaign.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:54 PM on June 7, 2018 [22 favorites]

Donald Trump 'tired of Theresa May's school mistress tone’

Really? And yet he apparently likes being spanked with magazines with his pictures on the cover. He's been a bad, bad president.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:56 PM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Sent back to Mexico's violence, Des Moines student dies within weeks

Manuel died a brutal death alone in a foreign land, a symbol of gang supremacy in a country plagued by violent drug cartels. It happened three weeks after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned him to Mexico, a country he had left at age 3 when his parents brought him here without a visa.

The fact that America was the only home he has known made Manuel eligible to apply for and be granted DACA status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program initiated by former President Barack Obama. It exempted from deportation certain young people, referred to as DREAMERS, who were brought to the U.S. without papers as children. That status didn’t protect Manuel when he came to immigration authorities’ attention after being stopped for speeding last fall. An ICE spokesperson said in a statement that a federal immigration judge terminated his DACA status because of two misdemeanor convictions.

In Zacatecas, Manuel had gone out to get food with an acquaintance of his cousin's, who apparently was known to the killers, Verduzco said. "He was in the wrong place at the wrong time." Both were killed. Manuel's throat was slit.
posted by Rust Moranis at 5:03 PM on June 7, 2018 [101 favorites]

The Senate leak investigation story continues to develop, and it's taken a turn. NYT, Justice Dept. Seizes Times Reporter’s Email and Phone Records in Leak Investigation

Federal law enforcement officials secretly seized years’ worth of a New York Times reporter’s phone and email records this year in an investigation of classified information leaks. It was the first known instance of the Justice Department going after a reporter’s data under President Trump.

The seizure — disclosed in a letter to the reporter, Ali Watkins — suggested that prosecutors under the Trump administration will continue the aggressive tactics employed under President Barack Obama.
...
A prosecutor notified Ms. Watkins on Feb. 13 that the Justice Department had years of customer records and subscriber information from telecommunications companies, including Google and Verizon, for two email accounts and a phone number of hers. Investigators did not obtain the content of the messages themselves. The Times learned on Thursday of the letter, which came from the national security division of the United States attorney’s office in Washington.

The records covered years’ worth of Ms. Watkins’s communications before she joined The Times in late 2017 to cover federal law enforcement. During a seven-month period last year for which prosecutors sought additional phone records, she worked for Buzzfeed News and then Politico reporting on national security.

Shortly before she began working at The Times, F.B.I. agents approached Ms. Watkins seeking information about a previous three-year romantic relationship with James A. Wolfe, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s former director of security, saying they were investigating unauthorized leaks.

She did not answer their questions. Mr. Wolfe stopped performing committee work in December and retired in May.

Mr. Wolfe was not a source of information for Ms. Watkins during their relationship, she said, adding that she told editors at Buzzfeed News and Politico about it and continued to cover national security, including the committee’s work. Ben Smith, the editor of Buzzfeed News, declined to comment. Politico did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

posted by zachlipton at 6:12 PM on June 7, 2018 [8 favorites]

@shearm: SNUB: In the latest bitter back-and-forth with G7 allies, @realDonaldTrump will skip most of day 2 of the summit, leaving early on Saturday for his meeting with Kim Jong Un in Singapore, according to statement from @PressSec

This is just pathetic.
posted by zachlipton at 6:32 PM on June 7, 2018 [30 favorites]

In international crypto-conservative populism news: Doug Ford, the nastier and smarter brother of renowned crack mayor and Trump prequel Rob Ford, has won total control of the government of Ontario on a promise to scrap sex ed, block a federally mandated carbon tax, and make beer cheaper.

Commiseration is available over here.
posted by saturday_morning at 6:42 PM on June 7, 2018 [31 favorites]

NYT, With Mueller Closing In, Manafort’s Allies Abandon Him, mainly notable because it attaches names to the individuals in the Mueller filing, and these folks have a history if you read the link. Also it explicitly says his old buddies went to Mueller: "Instead of engaging, Mr. Friedman and Mr. Sager informed Mr. Mueller’s team of the efforts to reach them." Manafort reportedly thinks this is like the Enron case, and is reading a book that claims misconduct in the Enron prosecution.
posted by zachlipton at 6:43 PM on June 7, 2018 [12 favorites]

Can I get Mefite opinions on the Colorado state primary elections happening now?

Apologies if this has already come up, I've had to check out of the politics threads because ijustfuckingcan't.
posted by medusa at 6:46 PM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Manafort reportedly thinks this is like the Enron case, and is reading a book that claims misconduct in the Enron prosecution.

Based on what we've seen so far, Manafort is manifestly not the smartest guy in the room.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:57 PM on June 7, 2018 [19 favorites]

Shortly before she began working at The Times, F.B.I. agents approached Ms. Watkins seeking information about a previous three-year romantic relationship with James A. Wolfe, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s former director of security, saying they were investigating unauthorized leaks.

Petraeus got busted for leaking to the woman he was sleeping with too, didn't he? Is this just how things are done in the government? Hey baby, want to come up and see my ~~etchings~~ classifed intel?
posted by Justinian at 7:09 PM on June 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

I feel like people should realize that House of Cards isn't a good model of behavior.
posted by Justinian at 7:10 PM on June 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

Update: James Wolfe has been indicted for three count of making false statements to investigators about his "repeated contacts with three reporters" and false statements about "providing two reporters with non-public information related to the matters occurring before the SCCI." Interestingly, there are no charges for disclosing classified information, just the false statements.
posted by zachlipton at 7:20 PM on June 7, 2018 [10 favorites]

Dave Weigel (WaPo): Primary vote totals for both parties in #CAGov:
2014: Dem 55.3% GOP 40.0%
2018: Dem 61.3% GOP 38.6%
That's before probably 1.1m more votes are counted.

Well, about the 1.1m estimate...

Nate Cohn (NYT)
The numbers are out: at least 2.6 million ballots left to count in California. Huge turnout
For some context, puts on track for 6.8 million votes. 7.3m votes in 14 general election for governor
posted by chris24 at 7:29 PM on June 7, 2018 [10 favorites]

MALE-1 in the Wolfe subpoena is almost certainly Carter Page. It further mentions that REPORTER #3 contacted MALE-1 for a comment for a news story; this NBC News article seems to fit the description.
posted by reductiondesign at 7:34 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Petraeus got busted for leaking to the woman he was sleeping with too, didn't he? Is this just how things are done in the government?

Watkins says Wolfe wasn't a source during the relationship, but I've just learned a new detail that makes this one even weirder: Wolfe's wife was a 20-year FBI agent. Wolfe was Director of Security for Senate Intel for 30 years. This is going to get very ugly.

There's also a very good question floating around: if she was notified in February, why does the story say "the Times learned on Thursday of the letter?"

Here's a copy of the Wolfe indictment.
posted by zachlipton at 7:37 PM on June 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

Health care was already the number one election issue in pretty much every poll. And in exit polls after specials and primaries. And one where Ds consistently poll higher than Rs with voters. And Donny just made it an even bigger issue on the ACA's most popular feature. 27% of the public has pre-existing conditions.

@LOLGOP:
Now, every Republican who voted for Trump's tax giveaway for the rich also voted to help Trump try to end protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions.
posted by chris24 at 8:06 PM on June 7, 2018 [35 favorites]

H.R. 3 (the rescission bill) just passed the house. Strips $1.8b from CHIP to cover shortfalls that states may have.

No hope of it getting out of the Senate thankfully but hey, it wouldn't be a Thursday if the GOP weren't trying to strip money from agencies intended to help sick children.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 8:14 PM on June 7, 2018 [11 favorites]

The pre-existing condition thing is totally, totally perplexing. Ultimately, you can't have a pre-existing condition exemption without an individual mandate, because the economics don't work. But I assumed the strategy was to keep it until they could repeal the whole ACA or until the system collapsed and the insurance companies begged them for relief, at which point they could say that the problem was that the ACA didn't work, not that they didn't care about people with pre-existing conditions. But this just seems like handing the Democrats a huge honking issue right in time for the midterms. I don't understand what they're doing.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:18 PM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

It's easier to understand what they're doing when you remember that they don't understand how any of this works.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:21 PM on June 7, 2018 [40 favorites]

Yeah, when polls show the electorate overwhelmingly in favor of pre-existing condition coverage but moderately against a mandate you can read that as "lots of people are ignorant and/or dumb". They are completely inseparable. There are two ways to have pre-existing conditions covered. One, universal coverage. This is how Obamacare wants to do it. Secondly, fully funded high-risk pools. This is how the Republicans claim to want to do it except they only want to fund the high risk pools to like 5% of what it would require. Not, like, 75%. 5%. I've seen estimates that put that number even lower.
posted by Justinian at 8:23 PM on June 7, 2018 [11 favorites]

I don't understand what they're doing.

The Democrats have zero chance of 60 votes in the Senate again this generation. If you scuttle the ACA now through the courts it won't ever be able to be fixed. If they dare try to fix it you can start a brand new shitfight and fire up your base a'la 2010.

It's a long, long, long game.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 8:26 PM on June 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

Missed this in all the madness today (tomorrow is going to be even worse with the G-7 trip nonsense). Keith Davidson is suing Stormy Daniels and Avenatti for defamation, arguing he helped Daniels achieve "her stated goals of monetizing her reported 2007 sexual relationship with Donald Trump." Separately, Davidson also has a claim against Michael Cohen for recording their calls.

Lordy, I hope there are tapes.

----

@sbg1: You know all those warnings about the international order melting down? it’s pretty much happening folks... POTUS vs the entire rest of the G-7 in a Twitter feud hours before summit. To repeat: this is NOT normal
posted by zachlipton at 8:26 PM on June 7, 2018 [46 favorites]

Yeah, they want to kill the ACA, but this doesn't do that. The ACA will still be defended by states AGs and Texas' legal case is pretty much bullshit and *should* fail. So now it just damages Rs with limited chance of success besides firing up the nutjobs who are already fired up.
posted by chris24 at 8:32 PM on June 7, 2018 [8 favorites]

But I assumed the strategy was to keep it until they could repeal the whole ACA or until the system collapsed and the insurance companies begged them for relief, at which point they could say that the problem was that the ACA didn't work, not that they didn't care about people with pre-existing conditions. But this just seems like handing the Democrats a huge honking issue right in time for the midterms. I don't understand what they're doing.

The brief says they want to delay repeal till 2019. The Trump administration is not Susan Collins, they only care about FOX News headlines, and "repeal Obamacare" is still the animating force there.

It's a long, long, long game.

Also they truly, truly, truly believe that health insurance itself should not be legal, much less have the government involved in any way whatsoever. They really, truly, want only the rich to have access through cash up front payments, and everyone else who can't pay in full to die in the gutter. There's no grand electoral strategy except to the extent they're talking to themselves, it's true belief that no one deserves care unless they can pay.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:34 PM on June 7, 2018 [22 favorites]

The pre-existing condition thing is totally, totally perplexing.

It makes more sense if you realize that they are only talking about the very small percentage of insured people in the individual market, about 7%.

Everyone else already has protection against pre-existing conditions -- employer insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, VA. That's why most people simply don't give a damn about Obamacare. They've already had their for decades.
posted by JackFlash at 8:40 PM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Secondly, fully funded high-risk pools. This is how the Republicans claim to want to do it except they only want to fund the high risk pools to like 5% of what it would require. Not, like, 75%. 5%. I've seen estimates that put that number even lower.

I've been doing ACA-related outreach and enrollment work since the very beginning of the Obamacare rollout in 2013.

I still vividly remember the real anguish of people who, because of the initial issues with healthcare.gov, were having problems getting signed up for insurance coverage.

I had to keep boxes of kleenex in my office. One woman who was a cancer survivor and who had been getting *some* help through the state-run high risk pool sobbed uncontrollably as she explained how much she needed true, comprehensive insurance and had been working for weeks, calling the overloaded healthcare.gov call center and being on hold, knowing that she was finally able (in law) to get health insurance coverage at the same rates as everyone else but (in practice) couldn't get the damn paperwork figured out.

WE CANNOT GO BACK TO THAT.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:42 PM on June 7, 2018 [81 favorites]

They really, truly, want only the rich to have access through cash up front payments, and everyone else who can't pay in full to die in the gutter.

They want something more like segregation/nazi-era government services: middle-class white folk get health care from their employer, poor black folk die in the gutter.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:46 PM on June 7, 2018 [11 favorites]

JackFlash, remember though that there were also 40 million people entirely outside the insurance market. I'd guess that closer to 25-30% of Americans were entirely fucked (or at risk of being entirely fucked) if they became seriously ill. And, of course, a healthy working person with decent benefits who became a sick and unable-to-work person often then lost their access to good health insurance precisely because of their illness.

(I know you know this. But it's perilously easy to forget how shitty things were before the ACA.)
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:48 PM on June 7, 2018 [18 favorites]

It makes more sense if you realize that they are only talking about the very small percentage of insured people in the individual market, about 7%.

Everyone else already has protection against pre-existing conditions -- employer insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, VA. That's why most people simply don't give a damn about Obamacare. They've already had their for decades.

This isn't true. The ACA guaranteed issue provisions apply to all individual and group plans. Prior to 2010, employer plans could absolutely deny coverage for preexisting conditions, and did all the fucking time. The Trump administration's new argument would roll back guaranteed issue for all plans, not just those sold on the Obamacare exchanges.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:48 PM on June 7, 2018 [63 favorites]

That's true too (although to nitpick, existing policies were grandfathered in and there's still probably a few around).

Bottom line, if you have a preexisting condition or may potentially have one in the future*, ending guaranteed-issue coverage with community rating is a terrible thing for your health and financial stability.

*this means everyone
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:52 PM on June 7, 2018 [13 favorites]

Yeah, when polls show the electorate overwhelmingly in favor of pre-existing condition coverage but moderately against a mandate you can read that as "lots of people are ignorant and/or dumb". They are completely inseparable.

There's one way of separating them I can think of that's arguably fair: let people opt out, but let insurers re-rate or stipulate pre-existing conditions among those who later want back in.

It's not a perfect solution, because people are bad at risk, and they're worse at overcoming their partisan blinders, and so there would be some decent people who are trapped either by human limits, their own blinkered temperament, or in Republican disinformation bubbles who would end up thinking they're being clever/freedom/whatever by opting out and hurting themselves.

But we could do our best to try and educate would-be opt-outs before they decide to get out of the risk pool. And many of these people are already a part of an army that's trying its best to actively move the country backward on policy. If being able to opt out makes 'em happy enough that they'd approve of actual society for everybody else, it's better than letting them drag everyone back with them.
posted by wildblueyonder at 9:03 PM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

We were already basically doing that under Obamacare, plenty of people just paid the mandate penalty, or intended to do that before it wasn't enforced. If that was the goal, there was no reason to repeal the mandate. People already had a choice, pay extra taxes, or participate in the risk pool. The problem was structural, the exchange markets were not broad enough to constitute a viable risk population without somehow forcing healthy people to buy in. That problem is not solvable on the individual market.

All of these solutions that leave choice to the consumer are flat out bad policy and will never be workable. Everyone gets sick. Everyone needs care at some point. No one can "choose" to opt out of the risk pool called life, and presenting the option to do so is at best naive and more likely malicious. The only sensible policy decision is a risk "pool" defined as "everyone in a given country".

And we're still the only western democracy that has never gotten there.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:26 PM on June 7, 2018 [20 favorites]

Prior to 2010, employer plans could absolutely deny coverage for preexisting conditions, and did all the fucking time.

Mostly not. HIPAA, passed in 1996. It prevented employer plans from excluding pre-existing conditions as long as you had continuous coverage with no gap longer than 63 days. It prevented looking back any farther than 6 months for a pre-existing diagnosis. And worst case, even if never insured previously, a new employer could not exclude pre-existing conditions for more than 12 months. As long as you kept reasonably steady employment, you were covered forever. Children under age 19 were always covered. And before HIPAA, every state also imposed similar pre-existing condition rules for employer plans. So employer plans have had pretty restrictive pre-existing condition rules for decades.

While not as good as Obamacare, most people were pretty happy with their employer insurance or Medicare. I realize that there are lots of people who were screwed under the old system, but we are talking about the politics here. The reason that the vast majority of people don't care about Obamacare is that they were pretty happy with the way things were. The political constituency for Obamacare was a fairly small percentage of people in the individual insurance market and the poor.
posted by JackFlash at 9:39 PM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

medusa: "Can I get Mefite opinions on the Colorado state primary elections happening now?"

I wish I could shed more light. I know that public polling of the gubernatorial primary has been really scanty.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:07 PM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

GOP hoping for more hacked material:

DCCC chair Rep. Ben Ray Luján: Campaigns should "absolutely not" use hacked materials against opponents "in any form or fashion."

NRCC chair Rep. Steve Stivers: I won't "run down one of my candidates for using something that's in the public domain."

posted by Chrysostom at 10:10 PM on June 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

Meanwhile in the GA gubernatorial race: AJC: Secret recording shows [Republican candidate Casey] Cagle backed ‘bad’ bill to hurt gov race rival

"Cagle told Clay Tippins in the recording that he circumvented the state Senate’s top education leader and swallowed his own misgivings over the bill, which raised the cap on tax credits for private school scholarships to $100 million, purely to prevent Hunter Hill from receiving financial help from a super PAC."
posted by reductiondesign at 10:41 PM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

While not as good as Obamacare, most people were pretty happy with their employer insurance or Medicare.

I mean? I was 30 before I had a job that offered healthcare, and I'd been working since I was 16. Full time employment with benefits is a huge, HUGE privilege.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:31 PM on June 7, 2018 [68 favorites]

Iris Gambol: "Re: Pruitt and his ritzy Ritz-Carlton lotion. The agents could have called around, they might have checked the internet... but those options aren't bad for the environment."

Well to be fair to the agents: driving around gets you away from Pruitt and with a reduced security presence it's possible some terrorist will knock him off.

chris24: "
Canada is the largest buyer of American farm exports."

Well, for the moment.
posted by Mitheral at 11:45 PM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Yeah, when polls show the electorate overwhelmingly in favor of pre-existing condition coverage but moderately against a mandate you can read that as "lots of people are ignorant and/or dumb".

Or that there are a lot of people like me who aren't covered by their jobs, can't afford insurance even under "Obamacare", but hope to some day. I'm glad some people are really benefiting by getting coverage they wouldn't have been able to before the ACA, but for me it means I'm paying money to help other people get coverage I can't get myself since I lose tax refund money for not having insurance I can't afford. Even if I could somehow scrape enough to afford would likely lose should any calamity happen that would keep me from work as that would cut off my income for maintaining continuance of the coverage, not to mention quite possibly putting me on the street.

The lowest tier packages are likewise almost worthless for having co-pays and exceptions that would bankrupt me as fast as not having coverage at all if something major did occur. So you take your chances and hope for the best because relying on employer/insurance company based coverage for the nations welfare is inherently idiotic.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:51 PM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

@ZoeTillman: NEW: DOJ says the government plans to release John Doe, the American suspected of ties to ISIS who has for months been challenging his detention by the US military in Iraq. Plan is to release him in Syria, per filing

Update: an emergency filing where they say they think it's lovely that the government wants to release their client, but:

The United States government intends to bring Petitioner to a war-torn area in Syria that the government itself has repeatedly described as an active battlefield (from which, it represented, it initially removed Petitioner for his safety); that official government sources continue to describe as exceedingly dangerous; and that is controlled by an alliance of militias called the Syrian Democratic Forces ("SDF"), the same forces who have already demonstrated their hostility to Petitioner by detaining him, shooting at him, beating him, and threatening him with death. The government plans to leave Petitioner in this area without any identification, without any official document authorizing his travel, and without any official statement from the U.S. government that Petitioner poses no threat.

posted by zachlipton at 12:00 AM on June 8, 2018 [17 favorites]

So you take your chances and hope for the best because relying on employer/insurance company based coverage for the nations welfare is inherently idiotic.

Just to elaborate how this kind of income based insurance can really screw someone over if they're at the wrong level of working poor. I did have insurance through my employer until the ACA was passed at which point the regulations combined with insurance company rate changes caused my small business employer to drop coverage since they couldn't afford it. They instead gave all their employees raises to match the money they had been spending on insurance so they could buy their own. The increase in income though effectively raised the premium each month as the government subsidy was lower for the higher yearly wage.

The increase also had the nifty effect of pushing me above the level of eligibility for low income housing since that measure doesn't account for insurance mandates. So the "raise" that was intended to go to replace the insurance I once had ended up costing me my apartment and increased the monthly amount I'd have to pay for insurance. Moving out of low income housing then took the rest of the raise and then some leaving me with less money and health coverage than when I started. I could go on about the "fun" added by my parents battle with insurance companies that required me to lend them money after they burned through their life savings, but that'd be too much hilarity for one post.

Again, I am really glad the ACA helped some people, but from where I sit it was the wrong. and personally costly, approach to the problem and one I suspect was chosen as much for strategic election purposes as it was a desire to actually fix things.
posted by gusottertrout at 2:32 AM on June 8, 2018 [10 favorites]

Again, I am really glad the ACA helped some people, but from where I sit it was the wrong. and personally costly, approach to the problem and one I suspect was chosen as much for strategic election purposes as it was a desire to actually fix things.

I see "fixing things" as Universal Medicare. The ACA is what was politically possible at the time. The best thing now is to vote for people who don't want folks dying in the streets, and if we gt the political will to actually fix the issues, we can move forward for a change.

tl;dr: Get everyone you know who can vote, to actually vote.
posted by mikelieman at 4:08 AM on June 8, 2018 [18 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers. The EU trade surplus with the U.S. is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out. Look forward to seeing them tomorrow.

The EU is charging massive tariffs? I wonder what the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration has to say?

"U.S. exports to the European Union enjoy an average tariff of just three percent."

Hmm, why does Trump think we're being charged huge tariffs? Krugman thinks it's because he thinks VAT is a tariff even though it applies to both domestic goods and imports.
posted by chris24 at 4:16 AM on June 8, 2018 [10 favorites]

Everyone else already has protection against pre-existing conditions -- employer insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, VA. That's why most people simply don't give a damn about Obamacare. They've already had their for decades.

When I worked in the US, I and my fellow employees had a great plan through our employer, and everyone was still worried about pre-existing conditions, because having one meant that you were locked into that employer, as if you lost or changed your job, you were not going to be covered in future against, say, breast cancer, or other conditions. I've known many people stuck in jobs simply because of this; I think that's why that part of the law is so popular all round, as it was in fact something people did think about a lot.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 4:18 AM on June 8, 2018 [60 favorites]

from where I sit it was the wrong. and personally costly, approach to the problem and one I suspect was chosen as much for strategic election purposes

You're saying the Democrats decided they just really wanted to lose 63 House and 6 Senate seats in the largest electoral disaster in a almost a century? This is truly some 12th dimensional chess politicking.

It's perfectly legitimate to argue that Obamacare was a policy error but the idea that it was passed for political reasons is contradicted by history, logic, and common sense. Obamacare passed despite the Democrats knowing it was electoral suicide in the short term. Pelosi told her caucus that a lot of them would lose their jobs over this vote.

But she asked them to do it anyway because they thought it was the right thing to do for the country. You don't have to agree. But don't slander the folks who deliberately walked the plank with their eyes wide open.
posted by Justinian at 4:18 AM on June 8, 2018 [74 favorites]

The HuffPost asked all 235 House Republicans what they would do if President Donald Trump pardoned himself.

Just one – Justin Amash – said he would support impeachment.

We didn’t get many yes or no responses to our survey question ― just three, in fact ― so we sought out Republicans in hallways and asked them the question directly. Still, only one Republican said definitively he would support impeachment if the president pardoned himself: the libertarian-minded Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan.

In interviews with more than two dozen Republican members on Capitol Hill, most avoided the question.

“I don’t wanna talk about hypotheticals,” Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) told HuffPost. Conaway helmed the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government, ultimately asserting that it had not. “I’m not a constitutional scholar, so I don’t know if he’s got the authority to do it or not,” Conaway said. “That seems to be a red herring to foment unrest, trouble and nonsense.”

Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) also hid behind his ignorance. “I don’t want to brag, but I’m not a lawyer,” he said, noting he couldn’t answer whether the president had the power to pardon himself, and therefore couldn’t answer whether it was an impeachable offense. A number of members delivered a variation of this line, saying they hadn’t looked into the matter seriously and therefore didn’t know if the president had that authority.

Three Republicans — Reps. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Walter Jones (R-N.C.) — all said they didn’t think the president had the authority to pardon himself, but all of them avoided the question of impeachment. Lance and Jones said the issue would go to the Supreme Court relatively quickly, and Fitzpatrick just repeated that “he’s not going to pardon himself.”

Although almost all 235 Republicans either declined to answer, or said they couldn’t answer, only one Republican said the president did have the authority to pardon himself: Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.).

posted by chris24 at 4:34 AM on June 8, 2018 [21 favorites]

FYI, a running list of Rs who have called bullshit on Spygate in the last few days:

Paul Ryan - Speaker
Richard Burr - Chairman, Senate Intelligence Committee
Lindsey Graham
Trey Gowdy - House Intelligence Committee
Tom Rooney - House Intelligence Committee
Elise Stefanik - House Intelligence Committee
posted by chris24 at 5:11 AM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) also hid behind his ignorance. “I don’t want to brag, but I’m not a lawyer,”

Cool. Are you a lawmaker? Or just a windbag.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:14 AM on June 8, 2018 [10 favorites]

Under Trump, “America First” Really Is Turning Out to Be America Alone

Last year, the German Foreign Office embarked on what two sources described to me as its first-ever effort to produce an America strategy aimed at answering that question, with the goal of producing a strategy document similar to those it has for adversaries. “Essentially, it’s an overhaul of German foreign policy,” a senior German official told me, “since the key assumption being called into question is the total reliance we have on the friendship with the U.S.” Work on the new strategy began after Trump’s Inauguration but accelerated last spring, after the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, returned from Trump’s initial foray into international summitry rattled by him and announced that “Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands.” The painful realization, the senior German official said, was that “we might get to a situation where we see Americans not only as friends and partners but also as competitors and adversaries. We don’t want to do that. That is how we treat other great powers around the globe, like Russia and China.”

Germany is literally planning for war with America.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:23 AM on June 8, 2018 [21 favorites]

Again, I am really glad the ACA helped some people, but from where I sit it was the wrong. and personally costly, approach to the problem and one I suspect was chosen as much for strategic election purposes as it was a desire to actually fix things.

Gusottertrout, that is exactly what I asked everyone about when the ACA was mooted, and they (a range of wonkish friends) all pooh-poohed it. I have, thank god, employer coverage - but I could immediately see that if I didn't, I make too much to qualify for meaningful subsidy but little enoug that the cost of a monthly insurance payment would be a huge, huge hardship.

I am so sorry about your cascade of misfortune, the more so because it was obviously, totally predictable from the start.
posted by Frowner at 5:24 AM on June 8, 2018 [7 favorites]

A pretty good explanation from HuffPost on Trump's decision not to defend the ACA. A snippet:

The Trump administration on Thursday officially threw its support behind a new, seemingly far-fetched legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, arguing that the law’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions are unconstitutional. The lawsuit, now before a federal district judge in Texas, comes from officials in 20 conservative states. And its prospects for success look slim. The Supreme Court has already rejected two legal challenges to the law, the second on a 6-3 decision that came with a strongly worded ruling from Chief Justice John Roberts.

State attorneys general will step in to defend the law from this new challenge. And they will not have difficulty making their case.

The lawsuit’s key argument is that Congress intended for the pre-existing condition protections to work in tandem with the law’s individual mandate, the provision that people have insurance or pay a penalty. Now that Congress has decided to zero out the penalty, as Republicans did last year as part of the 2017 tax cut, the pre-existing conditions have to go, too. That would mean insurers would no longer be subject to “guaranteed issue” (a requirement that they sell policies to anybody, regardless of medical status) or “community rating” (a prohibition on charging higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions).

The problem, many scholars have noted, is that Congress has taken action since it passed the Affordable Care Act. Specifically, it left pre-existing protections in place even as it reduced the individual mandate penalty to zero. Regardless of whether that was a smart policy move, it is clearly what Congress intended ― and Congress gets to make those kinds of decisions.

“If Congress had wanted to repeal the guaranteed issue and community rating provisions of the law, it would’ve done so ― but it didn’t,” Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan, told HuffPost. “The fact that Congress separately repealed the tax makes the argument here not just extravagant but preposterous,” said Michael Dorf, a constitutional law expert at Cornell University.

Even some lawyers who supported previous lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act, such as Ilya Solmin from George Mason University Law School, think this latest lawsuit is weaker. “There is a big difference between a court choosing to sever a part of a law, and Congress doing so itself,” Solmin wrote at the Volokh Conspiracy blog. “And in this case, Congress has already effectively neutered the individual mandate, while leaving the rest of the ACA in place.”

All of that suggests there’s a good chance the lawsuit never even gets to the high court.

posted by chris24 at 5:26 AM on June 8, 2018 [6 favorites]

Well, we all feared that President Dumbass might start World War III. We just didn’t realize it would be an economic war, and that it would be the US against the rest of the world.
posted by darkstar at 5:30 AM on June 8, 2018 [7 favorites]

You're saying the Democrats decided they just really wanted to lose 63 House and 6 Senate seats in the largest electoral disaster in a almost a century? This is truly some 12th dimensional chess politicking.

It's perfectly legitimate to argue that Obamacare was a policy error but the idea that it was passed for political reasons is contradicted by history, logic, and common sense. Obamacare passed despite the Democrats knowing it was electoral suicide in the short term. Pelosi told her caucus that a lot of them would lose their jobs over this vote.

No. I'm saying Obama introduced the idea in the election as a classic move of "triangulation" in order to distance himself from "Hilarycare" and adopt a Romney idea as an appeal to the middle and to outmaneuver his opponents. It was about winning the election, not the idea so much in itself other than as some moderate address to the healthcare crisis of the time.

That was the classic democrat move, to veer to the middle and talk about "the possible" which all too often turned out to be warmed over Republican hand me downs from previous decades. "The possible" oddly doesn't seem to faze republicans who act on their wildest imaginings all the time while for Democrats somehow it seems to revolve around trying to gain and keep seats by acting "moderately" then wondering why people don't get excited about their ideas.

In this instance, maybe they did decide to take a stand even though they believed it would cost them their jobs, but if you're going to make a stand and lose your job for it how about making it for what the real goal should be instead of a lukewarm, confusing, hard to sell half measure?

I vote for democrats, voted for Obama, but much of the time it simply is because they aren't republicans and, if forced to choose, prefer hand me downs from an era when liberalism still was a force to new duds from the invigorated dreamers of constitutional destruction that is the current GOP. Maybe that is all I can expect, all that is "possible", that's hardly something I'm going to celebrate or lose much sleep over "slandering" someone for representing. It may well be there's simply no way universal health care will happen in the US, I don't want to believe that because it is so obviously the right way to go, but, sure, it could be the case, but I won't just accept that as fact without first seeing it fought for like the republicans fight for the rich and powerful.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:35 AM on June 8, 2018 [13 favorites]

AP's Zeke Miller @ZekeJMiller reports: "On South Lawn before departing for Canada, Trump calls for Russia to be reinstated in G-8 (which has been the G-7 since the annexation of Crimea)"

Also, he wants to bring back asbestos—of which Russia is the leading global supplier.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:40 AM on June 8, 2018 [49 favorites]

That was the classic democrat move, to veer to the middle and talk about "the possible" which all too often turned out to be warmed over Republican hand me downs from previous decades. "The possible" oddly doesn't seem to faze republicans who act on their wildest imaginings all the time while for Democrats somehow it seems to revolve around trying to gain and keep seats by acting "moderately" then wondering why people don't get excited about their ideas.

Moreover, Republicans aren't afraid to advocate for 'impossibly' and 'laughably' conservative (read: authoritarian, antidemocratic) policies to change where 'triangulation' lands. Until we triangulate ourselves into the gulag. Exit through the Overton window, pursued by a bear.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:41 AM on June 8, 2018 [9 favorites]

but if you're going to make a stand and lose your job for it how about making it for what the real goal should be instead of a lukewarm, confusing, hard to sell half measure?

Because it was the most expansive health care bill they could get through Congress. They couldn't even get a public option through the Senate because of Lieberman. If they can't even pass a public option how are they supposed to pass single payer or the equivalent? So they took what they could get and advanced the ball 15 yards. Yeah, they still have half the field to go, but the alternative was punting. Again.
posted by Justinian at 5:46 AM on June 8, 2018 [43 favorites]

Also, he wants to bring back asbestos—of which Russia is the leading global supplier.

How much can I bet that at some point either or both of Donald Trump or his father Fred Trump had asbestos abatement forced on them by the Evil Government in the past.
posted by mikelieman at 5:46 AM on June 8, 2018 [34 favorites]

AP's Zeke Miller @ZekeJMiller reports: "On South Lawn before departing for Canada, Trump calls for Russia to be reinstated in G-8 (which has been the G-7 since the annexation of Crimea)"

Is he just trolling us now? What's next, walking out with a Russian Flag pin on his lapel? I swear-to-god wouldn't actually be surprised at this point. He'd just claim it was a joke or in service of better relations or something.

That's all I've got. I'm speechless.
posted by Justinian at 5:49 AM on June 8, 2018 [24 favorites]

AP's Zeke Miller @ZekeJMiller reports: "On South Lawn before departing for Canada, Trump calls for Russia to be reinstated in G-8 (which has been the G-7 since the annexation of Crimea)"

Also, he wants to bring back asbestos—of which Russia is the leading global supplier.

Trumptallica presents: Disaster of Puppets
posted by Barack Spinoza at 5:50 AM on June 8, 2018 [9 favorites]

G7 Views Trump’s US as Rogue State, as France Threatens a “G6” Memo
Emmanuel Macron@EmmanuelMacron
The American President may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be. Because these 6 countries represent values, they represent an economic market which has the weight of history behind it and which is now a true international force.
posted by adamvasco at 5:52 AM on June 8, 2018 [27 favorites]

He also said he's considering pardoning Muhammed Ali. But...

Daniel Dale (Toronto Star)
Trump’s idea to pardon Muhammad Ali is confusing. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1971. And in 1977 Jimmy Carter granted a blanket pardon to draft evaders.
posted by chris24 at 5:58 AM on June 8, 2018 [28 favorites]

mikelieman: How much can I bet that at some point either or both of Donald Trump or his father Fred Trump had asbestos abatement forced on them by the Evil Government in the past.

Holy shit, good call:

In 1980, he had assembled the lots and permits to start his biggest development, Midtown Manhattan’s Trump Tower. First, his company had to demolish the asbestos-laden department store that occupied the lot. Trump’s contractor hired two hundred undocumented Polish workers to do the job for under $5 an hour.

They worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, with no overtime pay. Many of them were not even paid all of their paltry wages, and some did not get paid at all. They sued the contractor and Trump; Trump stalled and denied, until finally settling sixteen years later.

source: How the Trumps Got Rich
posted by bluecore at 6:02 AM on June 8, 2018 [71 favorites]

can't wait for the posthumous pardons for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
posted by logicpunk at 6:13 AM on June 8, 2018 [15 favorites]

At this point it's pretty obvious he's taking orders directly from Putin. We're living in an occupied state.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:17 AM on June 8, 2018 [41 favorites]

Is he just trolling us at this point?

Yes, because that's all he's got left. He takes random questions from the White House press corps on his way to the helicopter—a tactic Reagan used to cover up his cognitive impairment—and spews out whatever outrageous answers occur to him. And because he's not entirely out of touch with reality*, he'll monitor the reactions, mainly from the media and his base, and decide how to proceed, which was basically how he campaigned in the primaries.

More from Zeke Miller:

Trump before boarding Marine One to begin trip to G7: “If we can’t make a deal we’ll terminate NAFTA”

Trump on Comey: “He’s a very dishonest man,” says release of IG report on his birthday is a great birthday present via @colvinj

Per @colvinj, Trump asking football players to recommend people to pardon “Friends” or others

Brian Klaas (WaPo)
For decades, Vladimir Putin’s main foreign policy goal has been to weaken NATO by driving a wedge between the US & its closest allies.

The G-7 summit is a very public display of Trump making Putin’s dream come true.

---

And Putin just negged Trump.

Miriam Elder (Buzzfeed)
Putin’s spokesman on Trump’s G8 comments, basically thanks but no thanks. “We’re putting an accent on other formats”
posted by chris24 at 6:22 AM on June 8, 2018 [27 favorites]

What Happens When A Bad Tempered Detestable Doofus Runs An Empire?

An article about the striking similarities between Trump and Kaiser Wilhelm II.

One of the many things that Wilhelm was convinced he was brilliant at, despite all evidence to the contrary, was “personal diplomacy,” fixing foreign policy through one-on-one meetings with other European monarchs and statesmen. In fact, Wilhelm could do neither the personal nor the diplomacy, and these meetings rarely went well. The Kaiser viewed other people in instrumental terms, was a compulsive liar, and seemed to have a limited understanding of cause and effect. In 1890, he let lapse a long-standing defensive agreement with Russia—the German Empire’s vast and sometimes threatening eastern neighbor. He judged, wrongly, that Russia was so desperate for German good will that he could keep it dangling.

Switch a couple of countries around and that could be today's headlines....
posted by sotonohito at 6:24 AM on June 8, 2018 [71 favorites]

To state the obvious, there is no rationale for having a global forum that excludes the $14 trillion autocratic economy of China while including the $2 trillion autocratic economy of Russia.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 6:27 AM on June 8, 2018 [21 favorites]

Putin’s spokesman on Trump’s G8 comments, basically thanks but no thanks. “We’re putting an accent on other formats”

AP: Putin: Cooperation with China at Unprecedented Level

“Cooperation with China is one of Russia’s top priorities and it has reached an unprecedented level,” Putin said.

Xi said the two countries have “always firmly taken the development of relations as a priority direction.”

They have “resolutely supported the other’s core interests ... and jointly proactively participated in international affairs and global governance,” Xi said.

Following their talks, Xi presented Putin with China’s newly created Friendship Medal at an elaborate ceremony. [...]

The statement also criticized the U.S. decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and said they would endeavor to keep it alive and ensure further trade with Iran

Putin knows exactly what he's doing.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:29 AM on June 8, 2018 [24 favorites]

Yeah, for as much as Trump is for sure in the pocket of Putin, the asbestos thing is pure ego and self-interest on his part. He's been angry about asbestos abatement as a slumlord for years, and has frequently gone on rants about how great a material it is and how awful the government is for stopping its use (because it's cheap, you see, which is all he really cares about, and damn the cancer risks).
posted by tocts at 6:33 AM on June 8, 2018 [7 favorites]

To state the obvious, there is no rationale for having a global forum that excludes the $14 trillion autocratic economy of China while including the $2 trillion autocratic economy of Russia.

There are definitely blinders on about China with respect to things like Tibet and Falun Gong and so on but get back to me on this when China annexes part of Europe and starts an honest to god war, tanks and all, on European soil. There’s good reason to put the equivalent of the diplomatic dunce hat on Russia . Hell they should have kicked the US out when we invaded Iraq
posted by dis_integration at 6:33 AM on June 8, 2018 [3 favorites]

Lots of winning here in Western PA:

No one to spread the mulch: Landscapers contend with foreign worker shortage
DANIEL MOORE
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This week at the garden center, the shelves were empty, weeds spouted up through the ground and a fleet of 10 trucks had been sold off. Mr. Cafaro is liquidating, laying off 10 American workers and will close the shop this Saturday.

The cause: the loss of half his expected workforce as a result of delays and restrictions in the U.S. visa system.

posted by soren_lorensen at 6:35 AM on June 8, 2018 [30 favorites]

FYI, a running list of Rs who have called bullshit on Spygate in the last few days:

Paul Ryan - Speaker

Who turned around the very next day and said "no evidence of collusion." Color me impressed.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:41 AM on June 8, 2018 [10 favorites]

I did look to see if the landscape company owners in the above article were Trump donors, which I want to mention is pretty easy. The FEC is shit at actually enforcing campaign finance laws, but they can run a searchable database pretty well.

Anyway, the only campaign donors of any sort I could find were the folks who actually did get their workers through the lottery. They were Tim Murphy primary campaign donors which... AHAHAHAHA.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:49 AM on June 8, 2018 [3 favorites]

Germany is literally planning for war with America.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:23 AM on June 8

Well, let's not exaggerate things here. Germany is stating that they are preparing to treat the US as a potential threat instead of steadfast ally, just like they treat Russia and China. "Planning for war" is rather hyperbolic, the issue is already bad enough as it is, we don't need to skew it further towards doomsday.

From a geopolitical point of view this is a very interesting development, corporations have been centralizing power and money for decades eased along by globe spanning free trade deals. Now that centrist vision is fading, countries are drifting apart and entities that are far less democratic and far less capitalistic (e.g. Russia and China) stand to make huge gains. Interesting times.
posted by Vindaloo at 6:53 AM on June 8, 2018 [21 favorites]

To state the obvious, there is no rationale for having a global forum that excludes the $14 trillion autocratic economy of China while including the $2 trillion autocratic economy of Russia.

India and Brazil both have larger economies than Russia and are democracies. Australia is about to overtake Russia, as is Korea.
posted by chris24 at 6:59 AM on June 8, 2018 [19 favorites]

Germany is stating that they are preparing to treat the US as a potential threat instead of steadfast ally, just like they treat Russia and China

OTOH, We'll save money when Germany throws out the Twenty-some-odd US Military bases on their soil.

And consider the potential savings getting thrown out of NATO will bring.

< /sarcasm>
posted by mikelieman at 7:04 AM on June 8, 2018 [3 favorites]

Regarding the garden store closure: how much of our economy is based on workers who cannot remain? How much on the illegally low wages they receive?
posted by Slackermagee at 7:09 AM on June 8, 2018 [11 favorites]

FWIW I don't think the kompromat is what's driving him. Narcissists are a type of sociopath & sociopaths aren't driven by fear. I believe what's driving him is simple greed, that Putin effectively promised him ownership of America in the same way that Putin owns Russia. Trump, horrible businessman who shits on everything he's ever owned, jumped at the chance. And here we are, on the path to being owned.
posted by scalefree at 7:10 AM on June 8, 2018 [10 favorites]

chris24: Emmanuel Macron - "... neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be ..."

Seems like this will be less of a G7 Summit and G6 vs 1 Summit, or possibly an intervention.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:19 AM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

Regarding the garden store closure: how much of our economy is based on workers who cannot remain?

A lot. Most especially seasonal work like landscaping, agriculture and construction. Every time some state has decided to crack down on seasonal migrant workers, the result has been exactly this. And in this case, they aren't undocumented workers working under the table, they are legal recipients of work visas.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:24 AM on June 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

Just for the record, Germany has always planned for war with America, and vice versa. Every country plans for war with every country that can touch it. It's just the way things work. Everyone knows it.

This is just Germany saying out loud, "Look, we all know what's going on with that asshole. Let's not whisper about it anymore."
posted by Etrigan at 7:25 AM on June 8, 2018 [24 favorites]

Rust Moranis: Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers. The EU trade surplus with the U.S. is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out. Look forward to seeing them tomorrow.

greermahoney: WHO IS HE TALKING TO?? Are we, the Twitter users of the world, supposed to forward this to world leaders? I’m completely baffled.

Possibility 1: he thought he was dictating a letter to some staffer, but instead tweeting.

Possibility 2: the people on TV talk to him, so maybe he can talk to people on the internet the same way.

Related: On Fox News, Pleading for Mercy in the King’s Court -- As the president flexes his pardon power, supplicants line up to make their case. (Isobel Thompson for Vanity Fair, June 5, 2018)

At Fox News, Donald Trump serves at once as assignment editor and fanboy-in-chief, watching—and tweeting—as his own wild conspiracies and policy ideals are echoed back into the White House residence. “The network has become a safe space for Trump fans,” a Fox executive told my colleague Gabriel Sherman earlier this year. And now, a new kind of reality show is playing out with Fox at the center. With Trump suddenly enamored of his pardon power—he recently pardoned conservative gadfly Dinesh D’Souza, and has floated a pardon for Martha Stewart and a commutation for Rod Blagojevich—Fox News has become a clearinghouse for appeals to the president’s magnanimity.
...
The spectacle began last week, with Patti Blagojevich appearing on-air to beg that her husband’s sentence be commuted. (The former Democratic governor is currently serving out a 14-year sentence after being convicted on 17 counts of public corruption, the most notable being his attempt to sell Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder.) “I see that these same people that did this to my family, [who] secretly taped us, and twisted the facts, and perverted the law [which put] my husband in jail—these same people are trying to do the same thing that they did to my husband, just on a much larger scale,” she said, tailoring her message to an audience of one.

Fuckin' 2018, everyone. What the fuck. Want a pardon? Get on Fox News and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:26 AM on June 8, 2018 [20 favorites]

You can’t have an intervention with a narcissist. He already thinks it’s “us vs them,” might as well give him the fight he wants.

Go G-6, kick his ass. The US needs it and us US-ians need to see that there are sane and strong international voices that won’t scrape before this fucking idiot.
posted by lydhre at 7:26 AM on June 8, 2018 [44 favorites]

* Not entirely, but close. AP's Jonathan Lemire: “President Trump just praised Dennis Rodman’s rebounding skills, even though ‘he was not that tall.’” Rodman is 6 ft 7 in.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:22 AM on June 8

This might actually be the most correct thing Trump has ever said. Rodman and Barkley were absurdly good rebounders for their height. 6'7" is the average in the NBA today.
posted by The Notorious SRD at 7:31 AM on June 8, 2018 [6 favorites]

Doktor Zed: Also, he wants to bring back asbestos—of which Russia is the leading global supplier.

Make America Cancerous Again ... but without long-term health care support from the ACA, of course.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:37 AM on June 8, 2018

Regarding the garden store closure: how much of our economy is based on workers who cannot remain? How much on the illegally low wages they receive?

Half of the American agriculture sector[1][2]. There are farms even up here in rural upstate New York that are falling apart without the cheap, skilled labor. (Both legal and illegal. ICE crackdowns have also been a thing.)

I am frankly pretty worried about food prices this autumn and have been stepping up my gardening and canning quite a bit as a result.
posted by ragtag at 7:37 AM on June 8, 2018 [14 favorites]

Regarding the garden store closure: how much of our economy is based on workers who cannot remain? How much on the illegally low wages they receive?

There's actually a lengthy Wikipedia article on the economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States, but because it's hard to pin down any actual numbers, there are a lot of generalizations and theories. And because it's Wikipedia, there's a wide range of theories.

But for an idea of the scale, here's a pull quote from an opinion piece on The Hill by H. A. Goodman titled Illegal immigrants benefit the U.S. Economy (4/23/14)

According to the Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project, there were 8.4 million unauthorized immigrants employed in the U.S.; representing 5.2 percent of the U.S. labor force (an increase from 3.8 percent in 2000). Their importance was highlighted in a report by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs that stated, “Without the undocumented population, Texas’ work force would decrease by 6.3 percent” and Texas’ gross state product would decrease by 2.1 percent. Furthermore, certain segments of the U.S. economy, like agriculture, are entirely dependent upon illegal immigrants.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture states (in 2012) that, “about half of the hired workers employed in U.S. crop agriculture were unauthorized, with the overwhelming majority of these workers coming from Mexico.” The USDA has also warned that, “any potential immigration reform could have significant impacts on the U.S. fruit and vegetable industry.” From the perspective of National Milk Producers Federation in 2009, retail milk prices would increase by 61 percent if its immigrant labor force were to be eliminated.
...
Although Harvard economist Jorge Borjas has stated that illegal immigrants from 1980-2000 have reduced the wages of high school dropouts in the U.S, he also states that the average American’s wealth has increased by 1 percent because of illegal immigration. In an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times, UC Davis economist Giovanni Peri stated that new laws are needed to meet demands within industries like construction, agriculture, and hospitality: “In recent decades, the high demand for these services and the pressure for keeping their cost low and prices competitive have generated incentives to hire undocumented workers.”

But as is clear with so many people in the broad and dingy Trump orbit, there's a lot more thinking with the (racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic) gut than any reasoning based on facts, research, or science.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:49 AM on June 8, 2018 [6 favorites]

I am frankly pretty worried about food prices this autumn and have been stepping up my gardening and canning quite a bit as a result.

Speaking of which. In an expression of the zeitgeist this passed across my FB feed this morning. Pick Your Own, a database of pick your own produce farms across the US & Canada. Now you have no excuse.
posted by scalefree at 7:54 AM on June 8, 2018 [5 favorites]

Narcissists are a type of sociopath & sociopaths aren't driven by fear.

This is impressively wrong.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:55 AM on June 8, 2018 [22 favorites]

Kara Voght, Mother Jones: This Evangelical Minister Helped Build the Religious Right. He Now Believes He Made a Terrible Mistake.

The past four decades have seen an ever-tightening alliance between American evangelicals and the Republican Party, and few have played as pivotal a role in fostering that coupling as Reverend Rob Schenck [previously from 2003 ]. The evangelical minister from Buffalo, New York, gained national notoriety in the 1990s as a fervent anti-abortion activist who orchestrated shocking stunts to promote his cause...

...today, Schenck is, in many respects, unrecognizable. He’s distanced himself from many of his fellow evangelical pastors and former political allies, leaving his anti-abortion work behind in favor of another pro-life cause, though one uncommon among American evangelicals: gun control.

Schenck attributes this transformation to his late-career doctorate in ministry—specifically, his research on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who questioned the symbiotic, and problematic, relationship that emerged between Adolf Hitler and the 1930s German evangelical churches. Schenck began seeing parallels in the closeness between the American evangelical church and the Republican Party, and wondering if the religious institution to which he’d dedicated his life had become complicit in providing a spiritual veneer for a hate-filled political agenda. The result of this co-dependence, Schenck says, culminated in 2016 with four-fifths of white American evangelicals supporting Donald Trump, whose behavior often stands in sharp contrast to traditional Christian values. Schenck, still an activist to his core, is now a voice of ethical reform in American evangelicalism and public policy, specifically on gun safety.

Schenck explores this Trumpian phenomenon and his personal evolution in his new memoir, Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister’s Rediscovery of Faith, Hope and Love. He is self-critical as he explores the forces that gave way to the ultimate abandonment of his former values, highlighting particular moments when his thirst for power and influence overrode his pillars of faith. Ultimately, the work is a meditation on the thorny relationship between religious leaders and politicians, and the dangers that lie in getting too close to the sun.

posted by ZeusHumms at 8:13 AM on June 8, 2018 [43 favorites]

CNN: Court rules that a woman's work for Salvadoran guerillas, performed while she was enslaved by them, constitutes material support of a terrorist organization. If this ruling stands she will be deported back there.

Have you called your electeds yet today to oppose these deportations?
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:20 AM on June 8, 2018 [26 favorites]

can't wait for the posthumous pardons for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Not with that last name, alas.
posted by Melismata at 8:23 AM on June 8, 2018 [3 favorites]

At this point it's pretty obvious he's taking orders directly from Putin. We're living in an occupied state.

This may be a bit dramatic.
posted by Rock 'em Sock 'em 2 minutes ago [1 favorite +] [!]

It’s more comforting to think he is being instructed how to disassemble the US rather than doing it on his own. Because, you know, where does he think he’s gonna go live?
posted by From Bklyn at 8:28 AM on June 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

At this point it's pretty obvious he's taking orders directly from Putin. We're living in an occupied state.

This may be a bit dramatic.

It makes sense when you realize that "occupy" is a 16th-19th century slang term meaning "to fuck."
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:28 AM on June 8, 2018 [17 favorites]

In my fantasy world, Kim Jong Un speaks better English than Trump.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:29 AM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

It’s more comforting to think he is being instructed how to disassemble the US rather than doing it on his own. Because, you know, where does he think he’s gonna go live?

We're in this entire [gestures] mess in part because millionaires and billionaires aren't tied to living in any particular place. They have enough money they can live wherever they want, comfortably and happily. Fuck the rest of us. If we want to be happy and comfortable we should have been born rich people.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:33 AM on June 8, 2018 [11 favorites]

@SamanthaJPower: He doesn’t even try not to seem like the Manchurian Candidate.

That's former ambassador to the UN Samantha Power. Talking about the President.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:41 AM on June 8, 2018 [83 favorites]

I'll ask a question here (mods feel free to delete if this belongs more in metatalk).

It seems everyone is waiting for the Mueller investigation to finish and then hoping for some (happy) resolution. What happens once the Mueller investigation concludes and there are no charges against POTUS and not enough evidence to support impeachment? Does everyone just go back to living under their shells, unhappy and disempowered, waiting for Trump to get re-elected?

I ask because with the current state of the Republican party it seems like it will take a momentous amount of evidence for any of them to flip and support impeachment.
posted by Vindaloo at 8:43 AM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

@SamanthaJPower: He doesn’t even try not to seem like the Manchurian Candidate.

Muscovian Candidate, surely.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:48 AM on June 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

My assumption is that our only way out is through the ballot box.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:48 AM on June 8, 2018 [24 favorites]

What happens next depends entirely on

1) the midterms
2) the midterms
3) keeping the pressure on even after the midterms

A best* case scenario is probably something like:
- An historic Blue Wave gives Democrats the House and, crucially, the Senate
- at the same time, the midterms reveal that the remaining GOP base is a much smaller minority than anyone realized
- the Mueller revelations + the midterms make it poisonous for the GOP to continue to follow Trump in lockstep
- through continued popular political pressure, the GOP gives up Trump — he resigns or is 25th’d out under threat of impeachment — in exchange for not throwing all of them in jail (we should still throw all of them in jail)
- we all continue to fight the resulting Pence administration, and the country is so sick of this shit that the Dems get the Presidency and both houses of Congress in 2020
- we somehow avert civil war anyway

*there are no good options anymore, just fascism, civil war, or not-fascism not-civil war, soooo
posted by schadenfrau at 8:54 AM on June 8, 2018 [41 favorites]

Does everyone just go back to living under their shells, unhappy and disempowered, waiting for Trump to get re-elected?

i corner the market on wicker
posted by poffin boffin at 8:56 AM on June 8, 2018 [28 favorites]

You know, I don't like to take shots at people in bad situations and I feel for folks who find themselves caught in a lull point/donut hole/whatever you want to call it with regards to a policy. But the ACA unquestionably made life better for millions of people and if the saboteurs hadn't fucked up Medicare expansion it would have been millions more than that. So to take the position that this made things a little worse for you so the hell with it? That's better than the "I don't need it because I'm financially secure and don't worry I won't be able to get employer-based insurance." But not by a whole lot.
posted by phearlez at 8:58 AM on June 8, 2018 [14 favorites]

My plan is to assume the Mueller investigation will do nothing and hope the rage it produces will help us in retaking Congress in 2018 and driving Trump out in 2020.

But I assume Trump is going to be in office until 2020 and all we can really do is win back at least one branch of Congress and use that to impede him.
posted by sotonohito at 9:00 AM on June 8, 2018 [18 favorites]

It seems everyone is waiting for the Mueller investigation to finish and then hoping for some (happy) resolution.

I don’t think that’s an accurate assessment of these threads. The majority of us have admitted that there is likely nothing that would get him impeached. We’re working like hell to make sure he’s not re-elected, though.

We are, of course, susceptible to the occasional perp-walk fantasy, and we take some solice in those who helped him into power being targets of Mueller’s investigation. But I think very few here really think we’ll ever see 45 in a orange Trumpsuit.
posted by greermahoney at 9:02 AM on June 8, 2018 [12 favorites]

My plan is to assume that anybody who sees enormous midterm voter mobilization, a string of major protest marches, the ACA call-a-thons, etc., and still says the public is sitting on its hands and waiting for Mueller to magically fix everything is arguing in bad faith.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:03 AM on June 8, 2018 [26 favorites]

Mitt Romney predicts a second term for Trump.

(Because of course, as we know, Mittens is always wearing flip-flops.)
posted by Melismata at 9:04 AM on June 8, 2018

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: We’ve Got a Problem. A Big Problem.
If candidate Trump and President Putin had made a corrupt bargain which obligated President Trump to destabilize all U.S. security and trade alliances (especially NATO, which has been Russia’s primary strategic goal for 70 years) and advance the strategic interests of Russia, there’s really nothing more remotely realistic he could have done to accomplish that than what he has in fact done.
...
The bank robber helped the teller get the job and now the teller just won’t seem to lock the safe or even turn on the alarm. We can debate forever whether the teller is just absent-minded or has some odd philosophical aversion toward locks. The debate may be unresolvable. It truly doesn’t matter.

posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:05 AM on June 8, 2018 [64 favorites]

Narcissists are a type of sociopath & sociopaths aren't driven by fear.

This is impressively wrong.

I tend to use narcissist as shorthand for malignant narcissist, which is somewhat sloppy. Not all narcissists are sociopaths but malignant narcissists are. Trump is a malignant narcissist. Trump is a sociopath. He has no capacity for empathy & expresses its lack through selfishness, greed, grandiosity & punishment.
posted by scalefree at 9:05 AM on June 8, 2018 [3 favorites]

France pledges support for Germany against US on trade

France’s finance minister has pledged that his country would stand with Germany against US onslaughts on global trade and postwar multilateralism, adding to a chorus of complaints directed at President Donald Trump ahead of the G7 meeting in Canada.

tl;dr - EU must become independent of the dollar, German firms must stand strong and EU must stay united as the US wouldn't respect weakness, and finally WTF
posted by infini at 9:06 AM on June 8, 2018 [7 favorites]

I don't know if you've actually been reading these threads, but the predominant purview of most people here is to focus on chopping Trump's knees out in the midterms so, even if he's president, the back half of his presidency is one where he doesn't have the house or senate to pass his bullshit legislation.

Also, investigations. Let a thousand Benghazis bloom. Keep the heat on him. Turn the tide. Let him be the one who cooks.
posted by scalefree at 9:11 AM on June 8, 2018 [29 favorites]

Since I exhorted people to call their folks in Washington, I want to share this anecdote about my calling experience: when I started calling my electeds about the family separation policy a week or two ago, they had no ready response:

"Has Senator Klobuchar made a statement regarding the separation of families at the border?"
"I'm not sure if she has made an official statement... let me look...[pause] I am not sure. I don't see anything. Can I pass along a message for you?"

When I called this past Tuesday, I got - yes, she's tweeted, she said this, she is introducing legislation to make sure these kids are taken care of. Same for my 2nd senator, Tina Smith. They are expecting the question. When I called Keith Ellison's office on Tuesday I barely finished my question before they responded with a great statement, unequivocally stating that it's unacceptable and needs to stop, plus talking about community meetings he has set up to get feedback and look into the issue.

Of course, that's not enough. I conclude the call by thanking them for their actions so far and explaining that ICE is targeting members of my community who deserve to be here. Since ICE has not been held accountable for rights abuses by Republicans or Democrats, they must be disbanded for all of our safety.

Key ideas for your use:
- I am glad the Senator/Rep thinks it's important to protect the kids, and it's clear that the best way to do that is keep families together
- these are nonviolent community members being targeted for minor offenses. Deportation is a completely inappropriate response.
- seeking asylum is an internationally protected right
- ICE is routinely violating the rights of immigrants
- ICE makes my community less safe and should be disbanded
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:16 AM on June 8, 2018 [70 favorites]

@McFaul: BTW, Putin doesnt want to rejoin the G-7. He's trying to destroy Western clubs, not join them. So Trump's overture looks all the more ridiculous -- both weak and ill-informed.

@juliaioffe: According to my reporting, the expulsion from the G8 upset Vladimir Putin more than economic sanctions. My question is: if you're a master deal-maker, why do you give someone who sees the world in stark, zero-sum terms the thing he wants most without getting anything in return?

Narrator voice: he did get something in return
posted by zachlipton at 9:50 AM on June 8, 2018 [24 favorites]

I wait for him to get reelected in a election tampered with landslide, and then after 4 more years he declares himself emperor.

The states hold the elections, not the feds. And Donald Trump is not going to live forever.
posted by Existential Dread at 9:54 AM on June 8, 2018 [11 favorites]

Yeah, that's about my only hope, unless he declares himself emperor for life and Ivanka empress after him.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:03 AM on June 8, 2018

Does favouriting that comment count as premeditation, asking for a friend.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:04 AM on June 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

Not just one friend. Tons of them.
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:05 AM on June 8, 2018

In the Color-Me-Shocked file:

Trump White House under fire for lack of Muslim-American representation at Ramadan celebration

No Muslim-American leaders or activists appear to have attended the dinner. (Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, declined to provide a final guest list), and it is not clear if any were asked. The dinner was instead attended by a number of Middle Eastern diplomats and senior officials, including representatives from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan, as well as one American Muslim military chaplain. According to the Guardian, representatives of a number of prominent domestic Islamic advocacy organizations, including the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), were surprised not to be invited to the dinner.

posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:06 AM on June 8, 2018 [44 favorites]

How do you even ethically represent minority groups with this administration? You want to hold on to the hope that maybe you'll be able to get through to someone, somehow, but at the same time do you really want to participate in whatever offensive minstrel show the WH is putting on, where you are almost guaranteed to be the butt of endless disgusting jokes from someone you factually know thinks you are less human than they are? Knowing that your attendance will be used to justify both current and future acts of grossness?
posted by poffin boffin at 10:19 AM on June 8, 2018 [34 favorites]

The direction of the trend on Iftars is puzzling. Last year the White House just didn't hold one at all, while this one was held but without the invitation of any American Muslim groups. Given that the alt-right crooks running the show feel more emboldened as time goes on, I'd have expected it the other way around.

But real life isn't a story and doesn't always follow logical narratives, so there's probably no deeper meaning to it -- the administration was Islamophobic in one way last time, and now they are in a different one, that's it.

(If I had to craft an "explanation", maybe whoever organizes these things hoped that future court decisions on Muslim bans will be convinced that the religious/racist animus, which is the primary reason those bans are generally found unconstitutional, has magically left the executive branch.)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 10:24 AM on June 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

@LOLGOP:
Now, every Republican who voted for Trump's tax giveaway for the rich also voted to help Trump try to end protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions.

Not only should every Democrat who gets in front of a microphone point that fact out, but they also need to note that it isn't a coincidence; those two facts are very much related. Republicans are all about income redistribution, from the working classes to the rich.
posted by Gelatin at 10:24 AM on June 8, 2018 [21 favorites]

But real life isn't a story

Au contraire! It's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,
posted by kirkaracha at 10:34 AM on June 8, 2018 [11 favorites]

@McFaul: BTW, Putin doesnt want to rejoin the G-7. He's trying to destroy Western clubs, not join them. So Trump's overture looks all the more ridiculous -- both weak and ill-informed.

Sometimes the best way to ruin a club is to join it.
posted by srboisvert at 10:36 AM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

This is from several Scaramuccis ago, but a good point about Mueller's list of questions for Trump:

If Muller [sic] wanted to know whether Trump was involved in creating the bogus Don Junior story about meeting with Russians in Trump Tower to discuss adoption policy, then he would have asked, “Did you have any involvement . . ..” But he didn’t; he asked, “What involvement did you have . . ..” That’s because he already knows that Trump was involved, and he just wants Trump to tell him how deeply involved he was.
...
All of Mueller’s questions are phrased that way, which means he knows that Trump knew about or talked about or participated in every episode covered by the questions; he doesn’t want to know whether Trump was involved, because he already knows that. He just wants to know how deeply Trump was involved, or at least how deeply involved Trump will admit to having been.

It’s no wonder Trump’s lawyers freaked out when they heard these questions. The questions don’t just show that Mueller is casting a wide net; they also show that he’s already got the goods.

posted by kirkaracha at 10:37 AM on June 8, 2018 [14 favorites]

Just ask Groucho Marx.
posted by Melismata at 10:38 AM on June 8, 2018

Poffin boffin, I too assumed that would be the choice representatives of American muslims would face, but it sounds like they just invited their overseas business partners.
posted by LarsC at 10:42 AM on June 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

Bernanke Says U.S. Economy Faces a ‘Wile E. Coyote’ Moment in 2020

Bernanke said the $1.5 trillion in personal and corporate tax cuts and a $300 billion increase in federal spending signed by President Donald Trump “makes the Fed’s job more difficult all around” because it’s coming at a time of very low U.S. unemployment.

“What you are getting is a stimulus at the very wrong moment,” Bernanke said...

posted by furtive at 10:49 AM on June 8, 2018 [10 favorites]

gusottertrout: "Again, I am really glad the ACA helped some people, but from where I sit it was the wrong. and personally costly, approach to the problem and one I suspect was chosen as much for strategic election purposes as it was a desire to actually fix things."

phearlez: "You know, I don't like to take shots at people in bad situations and I feel for folks who find themselves caught in a lull point/donut hole/whatever you want to call it with regards to a policy. ... So to take the position that this made things a little worse for you so the hell with it?"

When you've identified that you're already on thin ice, maybe you'd do better not making a straw man out of what you're responding to. It's clear to me that gusottertrout feels harmed by the ACA being triangulated to hell and the democrats not *actually* exploring the possibility space (they said single-payer wasn't on the radar from the outset, with no evidence to back up that proposition). To insinuate that asking the democrats to go further is saying "the hell with it" seems mean.
posted by TypographicalError at 10:50 AM on June 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

WaPo legal reporter, Spencer Hsu, "BREAKING A new indictment was returned by prosecutors with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III this afternoon in federal court in Washington, according to court papers. Details are expected imminently."
posted by gladly at 10:53 AM on June 8, 2018 [22 favorites]

@aawayne: *KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK INDICTED BY ROBERT MUELLER WITH 3 COUNTS
posted by zachlipton at 10:55 AM on June 8, 2018 [29 favorites]

“What you are getting is a stimulus at the very wrong moment,” Bernanke said...

The problem with even trying to argue this line is that it assumes facts not in evidence (namely: that the point of the giveaway was economic stimulus). The fact that a giant cash giveaway to the ultra-rich isn't going to help the economy doesn't matter to the people who decided to do it if their ultimate goal was the giveaway, and the prospect of stimulus was just the fig leaf for doing it.
posted by tocts at 10:56 AM on June 8, 2018 [14 favorites]

Trump to depart G-7 summit early

President Donald Trump continued to criticize Canada early Friday morning after the White House announced he will leave the G-7 summit before its conclusion following a day of back-and-forth with fellow world leaders that foreshadowed confrontations during the meeting of the world's largest advanced economies.
...
By pulling out early, Trump will skip sessions focused on climate change, the oceans and clean energy. He will also miss the traditional group-photo opportunity among fellow heads of state.

posted by kirkaracha at 10:56 AM on June 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

But wait, 2-for-1 special day at the indictment factory! @Tom_Winter: BREAKING / NBC NEWS: Paul Manafort has been hit with another superseding indictment by Mueller's office.

Still waiting on the filings.
posted by zachlipton at 10:57 AM on June 8, 2018 [35 favorites]

U.S. v. Paul J. Manafort, Jr. and Konstantin Kilimnik (1:17-cr-201, District of Columbia)

Third Superseding Indictment
posted by mikelieman at 11:02 AM on June 8, 2018 [16 favorites]

@ChrisMegerian: Paul Manafort and his compatriot, Konstantin Kilimnik, have been indicted on obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice
posted by zombieflanders at 11:03 AM on June 8, 2018 [22 favorites]

Charles Krauthammer only has weeks to live.
posted by Melismata at 11:03 AM on June 8, 2018 [15 favorites]

CA-48 vote count update:

DANA ROHRABACHER (REP-Moscow) 34,074 30.4%
HANS KEIRSTEAD (DEM) 19,335 17.3%
HARLEY ROUDA (DEM) 19,206 17.1%

Keirstead has stretched his lead over Rouda from 45 to 129.

There's a second REP in 4th place with 18,009 votes, but the Dems ahead have been pulling away.

This morning the local NPR reported that there'd be a major effort today to count the remaining ballots, which are mostly vote by mail ballots that were hand delivered to polling places on election day. My guess is these should benefit Rouda more than Keirstead as Rouda had more of the momentum late, but I'm usually wrong about this stuff.
posted by notyou at 11:11 AM on June 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

The Manafort/Kilimnik obstruction is count 6 and 7 in the 3rd superseding indictment, btw...
posted by mikelieman at 11:12 AM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

Holy cow that Krauthammer statement. No one deserves that.
posted by notyou at 11:14 AM on June 8, 2018 [11 favorites]

What is Kilimnik's location? I assume somewhere he won't be extradited?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:16 AM on June 8, 2018

Franklin Foer's piece, which is well worth reading, ends by asking the same question. It appears to be where you'd expect:

When I recently emailed Kilimnik, he responded quickly. He wanted to let me know that he disapproved of the media’s coverage of Manafort, including my own, which he ascribed to “a hatred against certain people in the US Government.” He told me, “I don’t want to play a role in this zoo.” I replied and asked Kilimnik about his present whereabouts, a question he left hanging. In December, Robert Mueller hinted, in passing, that Kostya had relocated to Russia. When I asked around Kiev, nobody had any evidence to the contrary. It was a prospect that Kostya suggested was a possibility last year in a text to Christopher Miller. “I hope I am able to get out of the country. Before ‘patriots’ start hunting me down.” Fleeing the accusation of spying for Vladimir Putin, he has apparently taken refuge with him.

posted by zachlipton at 11:18 AM on June 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

gusottertrout: "Again, I am really glad the ACA helped some people, but from where I sit it was the wrong. and personally costly, approach to the problem and one I suspect was chosen as much for strategic election purposes as it was a desire to actually fix things."

I know a lot of people in this situation, many artists that couldn't afford both healthcare and to work freelance. In the end, the situation sucks, and is why we need real living wages and a universal basic income to supplement healthcare, though healthcare needs to be free.

We just saw Walmart pay their executives money that could have been used to give their employees a living wage. This is the same company that purposefully pays their employees just enough to supplement their income with federal assistance. Strange that these conservative companies are so willing to take from all of us to profit, and work so hard to deny everyone healthcare.
posted by xammerboy at 11:20 AM on June 8, 2018 [18 favorites]

It's clear to me that gusottertrout feels harmed by the ACA being triangulated to hell and the democrats not *actually* exploring the possibility space (they said single-payer wasn't on the radar from the outset, with no evidence to back up that proposition).

It's this, exactly. The difference of thought here seems to be, in part, from where different people are starting placing the emphasis. I'm saying it was misguided from the start, but I'm happy at least that something got passed to help some people who wouldn't otherwise have had medical coverage. I simply do not take it as a given that somehow selling the idea of free medical care for all forever is really as difficult as it is and was made out to be, and certainly no more so than the ACA which no one seemed to sell well, which will not fix the health care problem, only improve it while leaving big problems minimally addressed, which makes it easier to tear apart or blame for future problems in the system.

LBJ was a dick, but he understood that if you're going to change the system be as bold and as clear as possible and help as many as you can in direct and transparent ways. People will understand it and the reach of it will be almost impossible to undo later. You may suffer for it in the short run, but the benefits to the people will last.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:22 AM on June 8, 2018 [9 favorites]

The superseding indictment charging Paul Manafort with felonies committed while on bail would appear to guarantee that Manafort, now under house arrest, will be sent to jail within days. Will this precipitate a sudden change-of-heart regarding his willingness to co-operate with the Special Counsel's inquiry? I sure hope so!
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:26 AM on June 8, 2018 [25 favorites]

Um, how did everyone miss this yesterday? Cozy land deals meant big money for Trump family and friends

The purchase of three properties by President Trump’s son-in-law on the banks of a toxic Brooklyn canal triggered a series of unusual real estate deals and a windfall profit from transactions financed by a bank tied to the Trump family.

The property transactions totaling more than $150 million began in late 2014 and early 2015 and included sales prices well above the assessed value of the parcels, as well as high-risk loans that experts said raise red flags. At the center of each deal is either Jared Kushner or Michael Cohen, whose business dealings have attracted close scrutiny from prosecutors and regulators since Trump’s election.

The transactions were financed through Signature Bank, one of three banks whose ties to Kushner have been widely reported to be under review by New York banking regulators. The bank’s board members have included Ivanka Trump and former Republican U.S. senator Al D’Amato, a dealmaker and power broker in New York business and politics who has been a vocal supporter of President Trump.
...
In October 2014, a joint venture led by Kushner Companies paid $72.5 million for three lots of land along the polluted waterway to a company owned by New York developer Herbert Chaves. Kushner’s company was a 5% shareholder in the venture, and commercial real estate company SL Green held the rest. Real estate and lobbying records indicate the Kushner firm was the operational leader of the venture.

Chaves' firms used the cash from Kushner to buy apartments from Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Chaves paid $32 million for four apartments that Cohen bought one to three years prior for $11.4 million.

posted by zachlipton at 11:29 AM on June 8, 2018 [34 favorites]

I feel like the ACA discussion is kind of becoming an extended sparring match; please drop it all around at this point.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:32 AM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

@Popehat, if you're wondering what happens now:

Lawsplainer: or, in which Alec lives to regret that he asked me this very good question.

Bail in federal court is governed by the Bail Reform Act. It has a provision for revoking bail because the defendant is accused of a crime. The standard for determining whether the person has violated the law, and thus violated their bail conditions, is probable cause. Probable cause is a very low standard.

And a bail revocation ain't a trial. The defendant can present evidence, and can cross-examine whatever witnesses are called, but the normal rules of evidence don't apply, and the judge can consider hearsay, like an agent's report. If the judge finds you committed a crime on bail, that creates a rebuttable presumption that you should be held without bail now. (In the language of the statute, that no conditions will assure your attendance at trial and the safety of the community.) Good luck rebutting.

And by the way, those accusations that Manafort committed a crime on bail? Mueller got a grand jury indictment, establishing probable cause. That may be all the judge requires. Manafort's in trouble. I mean, even in the context of someone facing multiple indictments trouble.

posted by zachlipton at 11:32 AM on June 8, 2018 [41 favorites]

We all know that Mueller works on his own schedule, but the coincidental timing of this new indictment and its new defendant with Trump's G7 trip is something to be savored.

(Expect undiplomatically acting-out from Trump while in Quebec. His tweet this morning "Won’t be talking about the Russian Witch Hunt Hoax for a while!" isn't going to last long.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:34 AM on June 8, 2018 [7 favorites]

Manafort's in trouble. I mean, even in the context of someone facing multiple indictments trouble.

His hairpiece is awful, too.
posted by Melismata at 11:37 AM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

Chaves' firms used the cash from Kushner to buy apartments from Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

Any NY lawmakers want to run on throwing these fucks directly into the Gowanus? Please, give me a reason to send you money.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:41 AM on June 8, 2018 [6 favorites]

Alas, no threat from the US Gov't is going to top the ever-present, and considerably more existential, threat from Putin and the FSB.

I will eat an incredibly expensive gluten free...thing...if Manafort rolls on Trump.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:43 AM on June 8, 2018 [9 favorites]

Manafort's in trouble. I mean, even in the context of someone facing multiple indictments trouble.

Heh. He also had to put up $10m as a bail bond, so a finding of probable cause on this will be exciting for him on multiple levels.
posted by jaduncan at 11:43 AM on June 8, 2018 [21 favorites]

I will eat an incredibly expensive gluten free...thing...if Manafort rolls on Trump.

But, Gates rolled, and Flynn rolled, and Papadopoulos rolled. Aren't they facing the same risk? It seems more surprising that Manafort is still holding on.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:45 AM on June 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

There's been a lot of speculation, probably well-founded, about Manafort fearing for his life/safety. But if that's the case, wouldn't federal prison be a place of refuge? Wouldn't the food be less likely poisoned, etc? Maybe the simple answer is that he can't allow himself to think that, which is sort of understandable. Lots of people operate day-to-day, hour-to-hour, because it's not feasible to see too far past their own nose. I do that myself, on a much small scale. But still.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:47 AM on June 8, 2018

What happens once the Mueller investigation concludes and there are no charges against POTUS and not enough evidence to support impeachment? Does everyone just go back to living under their shells, unhappy and disempowered, waiting for Trump to get re-elected?

I ask because with the current state of the Republican party it seems like it will take a momentous amount of evidence for any of them to flip and support impeachment.

With a Democratic congress and senate Trump would already be impeached. The standard for impeachment was never meant to be a legal standard. They understood how difficult organized crimes can be to prove even while being committed openly, and wanted a lower bar. This difficulty is why Capone was nailed for tax fraud, though everyone knew what he was doing. We shouldn't have to prove Trump guilty from a legal perspective. His campaign met with Russians to fix an election, and that's all we really should need to know.

What I'm hoping will happen is that Mueller will lay out a very strong, very clear case for Trump's impeachment, along with a very strongly worded recommendation and warning. I'm also hoping that the Democrats control congress and launch a thousand investigations into him and his family, and force him to release his tax returns. Finally, I hope the court finds him guilty of breaching the emoluments clause, and recommends to congress they have him return his profits and dissolve his businesses. I don't expect Trump to be impeached, but I do think his life as president can be made a lot more difficult. Realistically, I think this path could lead to his resignation.

But if none of that happens we have no choice but to keep up the pressure, keep calling him out on his bullshit, and keep reminding everyone that he should have already been impeached in a sane world. His crimes require punishment for the good of the country. No pardon for Trump in his lifetime.

* I wouldn't mind a scenario where, like Capone, Trump is busted for lesser crimes like tax fraud. The New York Times already said he's guilty of illegally abusing a loophole. Where's that investigation? Why hasn't the investigation into his family's real estate fraud, where they openly admit guilt in emails, been re-opened?
posted by xammerboy at 11:47 AM on June 8, 2018 [16 favorites]

With a Democratic congress and senate Trump would already be impeached.

But let's remember that conviction requires a 2/3rds majority in the Senate. Republican Senators would need a damn good reason to vote to convict their own President, and that has yet to materialize.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:50 AM on June 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

I just realized where this is all going. Trump is going to pardon Hillary Clinton, isn't he? And then himself, "just to be fair."
posted by msalt at 11:53 AM on June 8, 2018 [34 favorites]

But let's remember that conviction requires a 2/3rds majority in the Senate. Republican Senators would need a damn good reason to vote to convict their own President, and that has yet to materialize.

Proper investigations will tend to materialize those more than just ignoring perjury in existing testimony and failing to call the most useful witnesses, of course.
posted by jaduncan at 11:56 AM on June 8, 2018 [5 favorites]

But, Gates rolled, and Flynn rolled, and Papadopoulos rolled. Aren't they facing the same risk? It seems more surprising that Manafort is still holding on.

There's been a lot of speculation, probably well-founded, about Manafort fearing for his life/safety. But if that's the case, wouldn't federal prison be a place of refuge?

I can't find the articles now, but Manafort has been enmeshed in the shadiest of shady FSB/Russian mob worlds for a long time. The speculation was that he took the Trump campaign manager job because he owed some very frightening people a lot of money. He didn't have much of a choice.

And federal prison might -- MIGHT -- protect Manafort himself, but he has a family. Specifically, he has daughters who have shown, through those now sort of tragic text messages? That they know more than is perhaps safe to know about dad's business.

If I were Paul Manafort I wouldn't say a goddamn thing. I would have already accepted that I would probably die in prison.
posted by schadenfrau at 12:00 PM on June 8, 2018 [9 favorites]

Dave Weigel: (WaPo)
RealClearPolitics generic House ballot average on June 8:

2010: GOP 42.8%, Dem 42.3%
2014: GOP 41.8%, Dem 41.3%
2018: Dem 46.0%, GOP 38.4%

---

In 2010, Rs gained 63 seats, the most since 1938.

In 2014, Rs gained 13 seats. Not as big but they already had a 33 seat advantage and ended up with a 59 seat advantage.
posted by chris24 at 12:00 PM on June 8, 2018 [12 favorites]

What I'm hoping will happen is that Mueller will lay out a very strong, very clear case for Trump's impeachment, along with a very strongly worded recommendation and warning.

All Mueller's obligated to do is issue a report to the Justice Department though. What if they squash it?
posted by kirkaracha at 12:03 PM on June 8, 2018

There's been a lot of speculation, probably well-founded, about Manafort fearing for his life/safety. But if that's the case, wouldn't federal prison be a place of refuge? Wouldn't the food be less likely poisoned, etc?

If the Russian mob* wants Manafort dead, then he's way deader in prison than he is on the outside.

* -- Which is to say, the Russian government.
posted by Etrigan at 12:03 PM on June 8, 2018 [6 favorites]

But let's remember that conviction requires a 2/3rds majority in the Senate. Republican Senators would need a damn good reason to vote to convict their own President, and that has yet to materialize.

These people are profiles in CYA, not profiles in courage. If there is a Blue Wave this fall and the smart move for Republicans that want to stay in Congress is to impeach him, it will shock you how they never supported him all along.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:04 PM on June 8, 2018 [15 favorites]

It's possible the Justice Department squashes the report, but I think the country will have a meltdown if that happens.
posted by xammerboy at 12:05 PM on June 8, 2018 [3 favorites]

I sure will.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:07 PM on June 8, 2018 [14 favorites]

If the Russian mob* wants Manafort dead, then he's way deader in prison than he is on the outside.

Kinda sorta. He's so obviously a national security prisoner that I find it hard to imagine he wouldn't end up in ADX Florence. Killing someone in solitary there would be, to put it mildly, hard, and especially someone under ongoing surveillance, interrogation and protection from the FBI CI team. It's not like he's going to end up getting shanked by someone in for hotwiring a car.
posted by jaduncan at 12:08 PM on June 8, 2018 [3 favorites]

If Mueller completes his report, and it accuses someone important of serious crimes, it will become public one way or another. Covering it up might constitute the greatest obstruction of justice in American history, and someone is surely going to find that unacceptable. (Rhymes with Hob Cruller)
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:19 PM on June 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

Important Alexandra Erin insight about the apparent, obvious truth that Repubicans will never, ever, ever turn on Trump: If you've wondered what it would take for the GOP to turn on Trump, what act he could do that would be so hideous, so horrible, so unethical, so illegal, so morally reprobate and indefensible that they would abandon him?

I'll tell you what act:

Costing them both houses.

So that's the thing about marriages of convenience. Sometimes, inconvenience strikes. That's what we can make happen this month, and the next, through November and beyond.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 12:22 PM on June 8, 2018 [49 favorites]

All Mueller's obligated to do is issue a report to the Justice Department though. What if they squash it?

This administration is specifically known for how fast information escapes from its control. The NYT might be goddamn worthless, but even they would know a journalistic coup if it landed in their lap from a single unnamed source in the Justice Department.
posted by Mayor West at 12:24 PM on June 8, 2018 [3 favorites]

(Expect undiplomatically acting-out from Trump while in Quebec. His tweet this morning "Won’t be talking about the Russian Witch Hunt Hoax for a while!" isn't going to last long.)

That promise didn't survive his 100 foot stroll to Marine One this morning.
posted by mmascolino at 12:38 PM on June 8, 2018 [5 favorites]

All Mueller's obligated to do is issue a report to the Justice Department though. What if they squash it?

If Justice buries it, I believe (IIRC) the SSCI or HPSCI is required to put their own report out, probably with more redactions than the Mueller report would have. I can't find a reference to this process right now, though.
posted by rhizome at 12:45 PM on June 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

In this afternoons edition of smacking your hated AG around to own the libs:

Trump, in apparent break with Sessions, says he is likely to back marijuana bill (NYT).
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:50 PM on June 8, 2018 [15 favorites]

Trump, in apparent break with Sessions, says he is likely to back marijuana bill (NYT).

Let them squabble. If something gets through to Trump and he signs it to spite Sessions, we win. If Sessions has to squabble with Trump and it undermines his authority, also win.
posted by Twain Device at 12:51 PM on June 8, 2018 [13 favorites]

CNN, Carl Higbie, who left Trump administration over racist comments, resigns from Trump-aligned group

It turns out that companies are willing to donate to support Trumpism, but they'll stop when CNN starts reporting the money is going to someone who says racist things. This surely won't stop them from donating to people who support racist actions, just a little bit more quietly.
posted by zachlipton at 12:56 PM on June 8, 2018 [6 favorites]

In this afternoons edition of smacking your hated AG around to own the libs

If Trump wants to own me by handing me a giant spliff and, in the process, making Jefferson Beauregard's lil ole head explode, I'm willing to take one for the team. You're welcome, America.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:30 PM on June 8, 2018 [18 favorites]

Tampa Bay Times, Adam Putnam’s office stopped concealed weapons background checks for a year because it couldn’t log in

For more than a year, the state of Florida failed to conduct national background checks on tens of thousands of applications for concealed weapons permits, potentially allowing drug addicts or people with a mental illness to carry firearms in public.

A previously unreported Office of Inspector General investigation found that in February 2016 the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services stopped using a FBI crime database called the National Instant Criminal Background Check System that ensures applicants who want to carry a gun do not have a disqualifying history in other states.

The employee in charge of the background checks could not log into the system, the investigator learned. The problem went unresolved until discovered by another worker in March 2017 — meaning that for more than a year applications got approved without the required background check.

The employee in question was working in the mailroom before being put in charge of background checks. "I didn't understand why I was put in charge of it," she said. It took around a year before someone started to wonder why they weren't getting any denial notices and discovered nobody ever followed up on the login issue.
posted by zachlipton at 1:50 PM on June 8, 2018 [66 favorites]

Holy cow that Krauthammer statement. No one deserves that.

posted by notyou at 11:14 AM on June 8 [8 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

Apparently, he doesn't agree...
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:50 PM on June 8, 2018 [15 favorites]

It's clear to me that ... feels harmed by the ACA being triangulated to hell and the democrats not *actually* exploring the possibility space (they said single-payer wasn't on the radar from the outset, with no evidence to back up that proposition).

Since there is much confusion on this, I think its important to set the record straight with actual documents rather than opinion.

Here is the New York Times the week before the final ACA vote in the Senate and Lieberman in his own words.

"In a surprise setback for Democratic leaders, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, said on Sunday that he would vote against the health care legislation in its current form."

"“You’ve got to take out the Medicare buy-in,” Mr. Lieberman said. “You’ve got to forget about the public option. "

"A Senate Democratic aide, perplexed by Mr. Lieberman’s stance, said, “It was a total flip-flop, and leaves us in a predicament as to what to do.”"

Lieberman was the necessary 60th vote. Without his vote there is no ACA. Democrats got the best deal they could get under the circumstances. Single-payer was literally written into the bill and had been in there for months throughout the debate until the very last minute due to Lieberman's defection. You can read the earlier drafts with your own eyes if you are so inclined.

It is absolutely untrue that "single-payer was not on the radar". Single-payer Medicare buy-in was written into the bill by Democrats all along. They were sabotaged by Lieberman, an Independent, at the last moment.
posted by JackFlash at 2:01 PM on June 8, 2018 [73 favorites]

Re: Bernanke's comments

I've been assuming that the reason for stimulating the economy when it's already at or near full employment is to force the Fed to raise interest rates.

The rentier class has been unhappy that they couldn't get the old usurious returns on lending out money and were afraid we'd have low interest rates forever.
posted by duoshao at 2:05 PM on June 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

Reuters, Exclusive: Nearly 1,800 families separated at U.S.-Mexico border in 17 months through February

The numbers are a bit misleading here, because they cover such a long period. The most pressing one is this:

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official testified last month to Congress that between May 6 and May 19, 658 children were separated from 638 parents because of the stepped-up prosecutions. That brings the total of officially acknowledged separations to more than 2,400, though that does not include recent weeks or the period from March 1 to May 6.

So they separated more families in two weeks in May than they did in months before.

Also, I don't think we covered this in the thread yet, but it's a thing, and you should call your Senators about it:

On Friday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with 26 other Democrats and two independents introduced a bill that would put new limits on federal law enforcement’s ability to separate immigrant children from their families unless a court decides that would be best for the child.

The bill specifically states that a minor cannot be removed from a parent or legal guardian “solely for the policy goal of deterring individuals from migrating to the United States.”

posted by zachlipton at 2:08 PM on June 8, 2018 [33 favorites]

Lieberman was the necessary 60th vote.

He wasn't even elected as a Democrat that Congress. He lost the 2006 Democratic primary and was elected as the Connecticut for Lieberman candidate in the general election.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:18 PM on June 8, 2018 [5 favorites]

People here keep talking about things like the nation rising up if Mueller is fired or if he comes out with a damning report against Trump and the Republicans, but I just don’t see that happening. The entire investigation seems amorphous and complex. Where were the riots when Trump got elected? We had plenty of warning that he was propped up by the Russians back then, plenty of data to draw a conclusion, and yet there wasn’t a nationwide shutdown. The women’s marches and the protests against the Muslim ban, those struck a chord with people, and that’s what got people up and in the streets. But a giant, far-reaching investigation of a massive, complex right wing conspiracy, by a bunch of feds in suits? I just don’t see people freaking out over that, besides people here and my group of friends who all nerd out on this stuff.
posted by gucci mane at 2:18 PM on June 8, 2018 [5 favorites]

Trump, in apparent break with Sessions, says he is likely to back marijuana bill (NYT).

Given the effectiveness of Trump's legislative efforts this is very dire news for the pot lobby.
posted by srboisvert at 2:21 PM on June 8, 2018 [15 favorites]

I've been assuming that the reason for stimulating the economy when it's already at or near full employment is to force the Fed to raise interest rates.

The Fed had begun unwinding its balance sheet (raising interest rates) long before Trump was elected. If you are looking for a conspiracy involving the rich in all this, consider that the rich benefited enormously from the Fed's loose money policy, and as that policy was wound down, they got their tax break.

Now also consider that Trump's tax cut will result in enormous budget deficits that will be funded with Federal debt. Who buys debt? Rich people so they can safely stash their tax cut savings.
posted by notyou at 2:22 PM on June 8, 2018 [3 favorites]

But, Gates rolled, and Flynn rolled, and Papadopoulos rolled. Aren't they facing the same risk? It seems more surprising that Manafort is still holding on.

Check out Manafort's list of past clients sometime. The rumored mob ties of Cohen and Trump are nothing compared to him. Manafort is buds with international arms dealers and he has literally worked for war criminals. As in his clients have literally included dictators, military leaders, and governments cited for massive human rights abuses. Maybe he's confident that he has the connections to save himself, maybe he's pissing himself with fear over what could happen if he talks, maybe he's just a hardened badass, but I feel like it might take a lot for him to roll. Unfortunately.
posted by Anonymous at 2:23 PM on June 8, 2018

Tampa Bay Times, Adam Putnam’s office stopped concealed weapons background checks for a year because it couldn’t log in

@Everytown: For more than a year, concealed gun permits were given out in Florida without background checks because Adam Putnam’s office couldn’t log onto the system. And now, Putnam, a self-described “#NRASellout,” is running for Florida Gov on a -- wait for it -- *public safety* platform.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:30 PM on June 8, 2018 [22 favorites]

Rep Ted Deutsch (he of the parkland victims town hall on CNN):

TB Times: @adamputnam failed to run concealed carry background checks for OVER 1 YEAR.

My blood is boiling. This is an unimaginable failure for anyone who serves the public.

He made FL less safe. He put lives at risk.

He must resign.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 2:33 PM on June 8, 2018 [50 favorites]

Where were the riots when Trump got elected?

What do riots accomplish? The Women's March was more effective for the purpose of showing "this is not normal" and "this guy is not popular." And it was one of the largest demonstrations in history. About 1 out of every hundred Americans participated. Non-violent protests typically need the sustained participation of about 3 or 4 out of every hundred people, to successfully bring down a corrupt ruler.

The entire investigation seems amorphous and complex

The breathtaking obstruction of justice of firing Mueller is not complex or hard to understand. He is investigating the president. If the president fires him, who would not conclude the president has something to hide?
posted by OnceUponATime at 2:36 PM on June 8, 2018 [24 favorites]

For the record, I wouldn't have health insurance right now if it weren't for the ACA. My husband and I both have chronic health conditions and don't have access to employer-based coverage because he works for a small business. We pay a lot for our coverage, after subsidies, and it is not the best coverage. We've used the ACA off and on since it was introduced and the coverage has gotten more expensive and shittier throughout that time.

HOWEVER, we currently pay about the same in premiums as we did when we last had an employer plan, although it is now post-tax (which is ridiculous honestly). The coverage is shittier but it pays for the $600/month medication that keeps my husband alive and able to work. So just that ONE medication being covered saves us almost the entire cost of the coverage. The government subsidies are essentially paying about as much as an employer would for us.

The ACA is really expensive for lower-middle-class/working class people who are healthy. I get that. If we were both healthy we would probably save that money or make the repairs to our home that we desperately need or do something else with it. But the ACA is literally life and death for working class people who are sick who wouldn't have any option otherwise.
posted by threeturtles at 2:42 PM on June 8, 2018 [41 favorites]

The breathtaking obstruction of justice of firing Mueller is not complex or hard to understand. He is investigating the president. If the president fires him, who would not conclude the president has something to hide?

You have to look at it from the perspective of somebody who is not following it closely. To me, it's all small pieces of a near-completed puzzle. To a person who scans headlines, who has to deal with kids and a job and watches cable news or, God forbid, Fox, they see a bunch of little scandals, all which seem esoteric and "oh this guy kinda associated with Trump may have done something bad?" and each one never gets enough individual air time to garner outrage. No television news outlet has a segment or a reporter who is helping viewers keep track of the bigger picture. What we need is at least one national news outlet that's willing to keep a large, consistently updated explainer on their front news page or in a regular segment that ensures viewers have a hold of a larger scandal. But the only one doing something like that is Fox, and the "scandal" they're tracking is the giant Deep State Conspiracy Against Trump.

A Mefite has a wonderful website that keeps track of all the Russia stuff. We need something like that in the national eye. And I guess it is a metaphor for the whole problem that I consider myself on top of the scandal and yet I have forgotten both the MeFite's name and the website's location, so, uh, if someone remembers could they post it again?
posted by Anonymous at 2:43 PM on June 8, 2018

All Mueller's obligated to do is issue a report to the Justice Department though. What if they squash it?

Keeping in mind that Mueller's already indicting, getting guilty pleas, convictions, sentencing, imprisonment, and deportations, there's no actual LAW I can find that says that the President CAN'T be indicted.

Since we're covering uncharted territory already, and "Norms" are a thing of the past, I say "GO FOR IT". Present to the Grand Jury. Indict President Donald J. Trump. And let the chips fall where they may.
posted by mikelieman at 2:43 PM on June 8, 2018 [10 favorites]

With a Democratic congress and senate Trump would already be impeached.

But would he be convicted? Would 15 Republican Senators (- whatever Democratic supermajority margin we're imagining) vote to convict and remove him? I don't see it.

I'm afraid the future is: Dems take the House and maybe even the Senate, hold hearings, lay out in great detail the evidence that proves Trump works for Putin, impeach him, the Senate holds a trial and presents and reviews the evidence again – and then fails to convict him, and we just... have a President who we know is on Russia's side.

And in 2020 every last deplorable, outraged by the impeachment attempt, rolls coal to the polls to reëlect him.
posted by nicwolff at 2:43 PM on June 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

Also, the obstruction of justice case is getting roped into the Russia stuff* and it is not emphasized nearly often enough that Trump could be totally in the clear vis-a-vis Russia and still be dead-to-rights guilty of obstruction. Which he is, because he admitted to it on national television Jesus fucking Christ.

*Like I just did in my last comment
posted by Anonymous at 2:45 PM on June 8, 2018

The investigation is simple for us to understand, but I’m not sure how “regular” people look at it.
posted by gucci mane at 2:46 PM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

zachlipton: Also, I don't think we covered this in the thread yet, but it's a thing, and you should call your Senators about it:

On Friday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with 26 other Democrats and two independents introduced a bill that would put new limits on federal law enforcement’s ability to separate immigrant children from their families unless a court decides that would be best for the child.

This is the Keep Families Together Act, and it was co-sponsored by 31 senators, including Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-N.J.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Angus King (I-Maine), Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-Nev.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

I just called and thanked my CA senators.
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:48 PM on June 8, 2018 [41 favorites]

Sorry to keep posting, but I've also heard suggestions that state AGs could come after him even if he isn't charged with anything on the federal level. It's one of the reasons Mueller is working so closely with the states on this.
posted by Anonymous at 2:48 PM on June 8, 2018

I have forgotten both the MeFite's name and the website's location, so, uh, if someone remembers could they post it again?

That’s OnceUponATime and her site is here.
posted by cardinalandcrow at 2:58 PM on June 8, 2018 [26 favorites]

Crud, the bill's press release at Feinstein's site has statements excerpted from current lawsuits, and some choice quotes from the co-sponsors. A recollection from our honorable congresswoman from Hawaii:

“My mom brought my brother and me to this country when I was only seven years old. All of our possessions were packed into a single suitcase and we shared a single room. But at least we had each other,” Hirono said. “The Trump administration’s new policy of separating immigrant children from their families is reprehensible and unconscionable. This bill stops ICE from taking this unnecessary and cruel action.”

From yesterday's NPR piece, The Quiet Rage of Mazie Hirono: "As I tell my staff," she said, "people are getting screwed in this country every single second, minute, hour of the day. And, by our efforts, if we can decrease that number, we will be making a difference. We will be doing our jobs."
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:00 PM on June 8, 2018 [18 favorites]

Hey schroedinger,

A Mefite has a wonderful website that keeps track of all the Russia stuff. We need something like that in the national eye. And I guess it is a metaphor for the whole problem that I consider myself on top of the scandal and yet I have forgotten both the MeFite's name and the website's location, so, uh, if someone remembers could they post it again?

I think you're thinking of the fantastic Active Measures website by the fabulous OnceUponATime.

Also, not by MeFites but still good summaries:

Investigate Russia (I believe this was formerly at Bill Moyers's site)

Mother Jones

Washington Post

I've got a little note of these in the document where I log info about, well, all civic engagement stuff, from which Senators to call about what, to links and research to remind myself about later.
posted by kristi at 3:04 PM on June 8, 2018 [18 favorites]

I for one am shocked that Sessions lied in his confirmation hearing.

SASSE: And in parallel before the courts, what instances would it be legitimate, if any, for the solicitor general to not defend the law in court?

SESSIONS: That's a very good question, and sometimes, it becomes a real matter.

In general, the solicitor general as part of the Department of Justice and the executive branch, states the position of the Department of Justice. And it has a duty, the Department of Justice does, to defend the laws passed by this body, by Congress. And they should be defended vigorously, whether or not the solicitor general agrees with them or not, unless it can't be reasonably defended.

And so sometimes, you reach a disagreement about whether or it's reasonably defensible or not. But that's the fundamental question and the Department of Justice should defend laws that Congress passed unless it's -- they're unable do so, in a reasonable way.

posted by chris24 at 3:06 PM on June 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

Grace Segers, City & State New York: Can New York circumvent Trump's pardon power?

But [Representative Jerry] Nadler, who hails from Manhattan’s Upper West Side, is not the only New York Democrat who could pursue legal action against Trump. New York’s law enforcement officials also potentially have the opportunity to investigate and even charge Trump and his family members, business partners and campaign officials – but it would require action by the state Legislature.

Errol Louis, CNN: The shocking downfall of Schneiderman won't help Trump for long (This was before Barbara Underwood was appointed successor AG. It's very doubtful she's going to call off the legal eagles.)

I haven't heard any news of California trying to prosecute Trump, but the Powers That Be here don't like him one bit, so if they had the chance I'm sure they'd bring up charges. I am sure there are other, blue states, as well, who might be able to charge Trump with something - and there is nothing he could do about it.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 3:10 PM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

Thank you, cardinalandcrow and kristi. aaaaaaand that's whose comment I was responding to.

Anyway, "China hacked a Navy contractor and secured a trove of highly sensitive data on submarine warfare" but we don't need any more funding towards cybersecurity nosirree
posted by Anonymous at 3:16 PM on June 8, 2018

Correction: funding for cyber was boosted in the proposed 2019 budget, which makes me wonder if this had something to do with it given his previous resistance to acknowledging it was a problem
posted by Anonymous at 3:17 PM on June 8, 2018

> unless it can't be reasonably defended.

Well there's your problem. This is a weasel-clause big enough to drive an ICE truck through.
posted by rhizome at 3:19 PM on June 8, 2018 [9 favorites]

Sam Levine (HuffPo)
Breaking news: Federal judge blocks Indiana law allowing state to remove voters from the rolls based on match from Interstate Crosscheck program, a system run by Kansas SoS Kris Kobach
posted by chris24 at 3:25 PM on June 8, 2018 [50 favorites]

Burning Crosscheck
posted by banshee at 3:31 PM on June 8, 2018 [11 favorites]

Hey, so, for anyone wondering what we can do now, today, to make a difference in the midterms:

I just got mail from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. They've got a Midterm Match donation thing happening right now where contributions are doubled. (I hope that works for all donations, not just donations in response to this mailing.) From the mailing:

LDF is ramping up its Prepared to Vote initiative to equip voters with information about how to comply with election laws proven harmful to communities of color, including confusing and onerous photo ID laws.

Our goal is simple: Ensure maximum participation by votors of color. We work with grassroots organizations and provide outreach in target states such as South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas - places with a history of voter discrimination.

They're also fighting in the courts, including suits against Texas's SB 14, and in Alabama against requiring photo ID, and LDF v Trump, which helped lead to the horrible Commission on Election Integrity getting disbanded.

I started paying attention to the NAACP's work after noticing a few comments from Eyebrows McGee mentioning their GOTV work. I want to help Get Out The Vote. The immediate way to fight back against attempts to disenfranchise voters is to GOTV, so we can vote in people who support automatic voter registration and other pro-voting policies.
posted by kristi at 3:48 PM on June 8, 2018 [30 favorites]

Kyle Griffin (MSNBC)
70% of voters say Trump shouldn't fire Mueller. 13% say he should.

Republicans say 50-23% Trump shouldn't fire Mueller.

56% say the FBI informant was "routine." 33% say the FBI spied on the Trump camp. Repubs are the only group who believe the spy allegation. Quinnipiac Poll
posted by chris24 at 3:50 PM on June 8, 2018 [14 favorites]

Meanwhile, in Michael Cohen's court case, Buzzfeed legal editor Chris Geidner@chrisgeidner posts today's developments:

JUST IN: Judge Kimba Wood "agrees with the Government" that Cohen, Trump, and Trump Org objections to the special master's privilege recommendations should be filed publicly—except for the parts that specify "the substance of the contested documents."

Recall that Cohen, Trump, and the Trump Org's lawyers presented the special master with their claims of privilege. The special master then makes her determinations, in a report to the judge with recommendations. But C, T, and TO can still object to those recommendations.

Under this order, those objections will have to be made publicly — but the portions that detail the substance of the claimed privileged material can be filed directly with the judge and not be made available publicly or to the government. Then, Judge Wood makes the final call.

So, even if Cohen and Trump successfully claim client-attorney privilege on seized evidence, we'll find out they raised objections and get to read their arguments. In short, another legal setback for Team Trump's efforts to keep us in the dark.
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:57 PM on June 8, 2018 [14 favorites]

MeFi’s own Louise Mensch, is that you?
posted by EarBucket at 4:48 PM on June 8, 2018 [11 favorites]

Yesterday I happened to run into one of the Democrats that is running to unseat Gaetz in the Florida first Congressional district. We talked for a while, discussed his positions on the issues, and the race. I was favorably impressed that he urged me to check out his opponent, who is an immigrant and a woman of color, to see if her policy positions might be closer to my own. He also mentioned that the two of them have agreed that whoever loses the primary will immediately swing their organization into support of the winner. From my conversation with him, and what I have been able to find on the other candidate, I would be happy to vote for either of them in the general.

Democrats are thin on the ground here, and I know it is unlikely that we can flip this seat this year in any case. But the conversation gave me some unexpected comfort - that even here, good people are stepping up and trying - and I thought I would share.
posted by Vigilant at 4:51 PM on June 8, 2018 [74 favorites]

I haven't heard any news of California trying to prosecute Trump, but the Powers That Be here don't like him one bit, so if they had the chance I'm sure they'd bring up charges. I am sure there are other, blue states, as well, who might be able to charge Trump with something - and there is nothing he could do about it.

New York is important because Trump Tower is the scene of the crimes. Trump may own properties in other blue states, but the campaign and all the nefarious meetings we know about were run out of the Tower in New York. It's going to be very difficult for California to prosecute for anything that happened in Trump Tower.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:15 PM on June 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

Follow-up from a story earlier in the week(↑):

Ex-FCC chair says there was no net-neutrality cyberattack in 2014

posted by XMLicious at 5:20 PM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

The speculation was that he took the Trump campaign manager job because he owed some very frightening people a lot of money. He didn't have much of a choice.

Is it my imagination, or are a lot of people going to wind up dead in the near future?
posted by Melismata at 5:36 PM on June 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

Trump actually does something about the G-7 maybe it’s worth the dramatics. But a Russian puppet who signed the sanctions bill? Tossing off a random remark? Okay.

Samantha Power is not really who I’d go for on this. There’s a sort of liberal technocrat bubble that feels like it’s incredibly obvious that Trump is a puppet for Russia, and the confirmation bias is strong with that crowd.

I mean, calling for Russia's reinstatement to the G8 after they invaded Ukraine and Crimea is not just any "random remark". It's obvious he is a puppet for Russia because that is the simplest explaination and tracks exactly with what a president controlled by Russia would do at every turn. There is no evidence that's inconsistent with Trump acting for the sole benefit of himself and Putin to undermine America's broader interests. Power and John Brennan would not be saying this stuff about a Jeb Bush administration. They're saying it about Trump because it fits the evidence, not because they're biased.

Chris Hayes: Having now listened to Trump's riff about letting Russia back into the G-8 about a dozen times, it's pretty clear it was a rehearsed set-piece.

I'm not the only one that thinks he's literally getting direct marching orders from the Kremlin. Most close observers are coming to that conclusion, because every new action and additional piece of evidence reinforces it.

I literally believe Putin controls our nuclear launch codes, not Trump.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:39 PM on June 8, 2018 [29 favorites]

Is it my imagination, or are a lot of people going to wind up dead in the near future?

Unfortunately, the question is whether it will be a ton of innocent people instead of the deserving.
posted by Celsius1414 at 5:41 PM on June 8, 2018 [16 favorites]

But he didn’t; he asked, “What involvement did you have . . ..” That’s because he already knows that Trump was involved, and he just wants Trump to tell him how deeply involved he was.

I'm not saying this is wrong but to me it has the feel of an "assumed close". Basically a sales technique where you phrase every question in a way that implies the answer you're hoping for. I'm sure the wording is all purposefully and meticulously chosen either way but it's entirely plausible that it would be chosen for it's subtle manipulation effect rather than what the phrasing implies about what he knows. Could be both.
posted by VTX at 6:44 PM on June 8, 2018 [6 favorites]

Hah, Catherine Rampell is on CNN right now and rephrased a mefi-favorite saying in a way I hadn't heard before. She was talking about Manafort and how he was in hock for tens of millions of dollars (or was it 10 million?) to Russian interests. She gave a piece of advice to listeners; If a seasoned operative shows up to your political campaign and offers to be your campaign manager for free... you're not the customer, you're the product.

That saying is a trooper. It works for so many things!
posted by Justinian at 6:48 PM on June 8, 2018 [73 favorites]

gucci mane: "The investigation is simple for us to understand, but I’m not sure how “regular” people look at it."

These things can be complicated but there are plenty of emoluments clause violations that anyone can understand. EG: US sanctions on ZTE have shuttered the company; ZTE spends 500 million on Trump property; couple days later ZTE sanctions lifted and back in business.

Rosie M. Banks: "I am sure there are other, blue states, as well, who might be able to charge Trump with something - and there is nothing he could do about it."

I bet the Trump criminal organization has been evading taxes in red states too and at least some red state tax departments will jump on the band wagon if the ball gets rolling in blue states. All sorts of property spread around to seize under RICO too.
posted by Mitheral at 6:59 PM on June 8, 2018 [5 favorites]

Not all heroes wear capes.

A protestor heckled Scott Pruitt during his address at a conference for the religious right, holding up a bottle of lotion.
posted by chris24 at 7:11 PM on June 8, 2018 [39 favorites]

Where were the riots when Trump got elected? We had plenty of warning that he was propped up by the Russians back then, plenty of data to draw a conclusion, and yet there wasn’t a nationwide shutdown. The women’s marches and the protests against the Muslim ban, those struck a chord with people, and that’s what got people up and in the streets.

Both of these protests were planned. The women's march was planned before Trump became president, and then after became a lightning rod for resistance against Trump. The travel ban protests were organized and ready to go when the ban came into effect. I think the lesson here is that whenever we get word that Mueller is ready to drop his report, we need to be ready to hit the streets, just as we are if he fires Rosenstein.
posted by xammerboy at 7:12 PM on June 8, 2018 [10 favorites]

I suspect Manafort may be unflippable, ironically, because his crimes are truly horrendous. You can make a deal with someone to keep them out of jail if they flip on Trump, but you cannot make a deal to keep someone out of jail if their crimes include war crimes against humanity. At the most, you could maybe take the death penalty off the table. However, this is pure speculation.
posted by xammerboy at 7:17 PM on June 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think the lesson here is that whenever we get word that Mueller is ready to drop his report, we need to be ready to hit the streets, just as we are if he fires Rosenstein.

So what you're saying is somebody should start putting something like this together. Quick guys, no time to waste!

NOBODY IS ABOVE THE LAW—MUELLER FIRING RAPID RESPONSE
posted by scalefree at 7:17 PM on June 8, 2018 [13 favorites]

If Mueller's report doesn't lead to impeachment, a Democrat congress could potentially drown Trump in additional investigations. There's so much to potentially investigate. None of it pleasant. All of which will eat away at his popularity (one hopes).

Also, there is also still the chance that he will be prosecuted for state level crimes. It would be pretty interesting to see Trump run the country as president from a jail cell. A frighteningly real possibility.

And Mueller's report, if it becomes public, could make its case in a way that strongly resonates with the public. Even Trump supporters have strongly supported the independent investigation, suggesting they may be waiting for a neutral arbiter to decide whether or not he needs to go.

Then there are the courts. Maryland is suing Trump, because his hotels are in violation of the emoluments clause and take business from them. They can order him to produce his tax returns and dissolve his businesses. This is something Republicans could resist as well, but the public may feel differently about them defying a court order.

Or, the economy could tank. I think we might see Republicans come around rather quickly if that happens.
posted by xammerboy at 7:42 PM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

ABC 7 Chicago Eyewitness News interview with Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos. A snippet:

Mangiante Papadopoulos, 34, said her husband never acted in a way to collude with Russia to meddle with the election. "I have more ties to Russia than he does," she stated during the I-Team interview.

Goudie: What are your ties to Russia?

Mangiante Papadopoulos: No, I was joking. I've been to Russia for work, I have visited Russia, I have a few friends in Russia, so I was joking saying I have more ties to Russia than George.

posted by Lyme Drop at 8:27 PM on June 8, 2018 [42 favorites]

Or, the economy could tank. I think we might see Republicans come around rather quickly if that happens.

But can't they just borrow another couple trillion from the future?
posted by contraption at 8:28 PM on June 8, 2018

June 5: LeBron James and Steph Curry Say Neither NBA Finals Team Will Visit the White House

Jim Acosta, 5:41 AM - 8 Jun 2018

Trump on Cavs and Warriors: “We’re not going to invite either team.”

Continued Trump, "nanny nanny boo boo."
posted by kirkaracha at 8:52 PM on June 8, 2018 [9 favorites]

Vigilant: "Yesterday I happened to run into one of the Democrats that is running to unseat Gaetz in the Florida first Congressional district. We talked for a while, discussed his positions on the issues, and the race. I was favorably impressed that he urged me to check out his opponent, who is an immigrant and a woman of color, to see if her policy positions might be closer to my own. He also mentioned that the two of them have agreed that whoever loses the primary will immediately swing their organization into support of the winner. "

In pretty much all of the California races, Democrats have closed ranks and endorsed the nominee, even if the primary was a little ugly. In general, I think we're seeing a rather high level of party unity.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:53 PM on June 8, 2018 [29 favorites]

From this linked article I found some paragraphs that line up a few things for me:

His [Konstantin Kilimnik's] new boss had been hired by one of the richest, most powerful men in Russia, the aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a man with a reputation that justifiably inspired fear given the pattern of deaths that had followed the unlikely rise of his empire in the 1990s. Deripaska—and his business partner, the British financier Nat Rothschild—hired Manafort to help shape the politics of the post-Soviet world to both protect his investments and engineer lucrative opportunities.* One of Manafort’s first assignments was to see whether there was any hope of thwarting the democratic revolution that had swept through Ukraine in late 2004.

Which brings us to Yanukovytch, which I knew, then:

Those claims [that Kilimnik had personally removed the RNC platform item to help arm Ukraine to fight Russian proxy armies there] might have been bluster—and Kostya has since told reporters he had nothing to do with the platform. But hard evidence, in the form of emails obtained by The Atlantic, suggests that Kostya’s patron needed help with an even more delicate matter.

Manafort was haunted by a piece of unfinished business: the untidy end of his dealings with Oleg Deripaska. In 2006, Manafort had asked Deripaska to bankroll an investment fund that he intended to launch. According to court documents, the fund was meant to buy up firms across Ukraine and elsewhere in the post-Soviet region. Deripaska sunk $18.9 million into the effort and promised a much larger sum

What ultimately became of that money is the subject of virulent dispute, except for one fact: It was gone. Although Manafort promised Deripaska an audit of the investment, it never arrived. Then, in 2011, he simply stopped responding to Deripaska’s efforts to reach him. Manafort’s evasions provoked Deripaska’s relentless enmity. He demanded compensation for what he later described in a lawsuit as Manafort’s “fraud, gross negligence, blatant disloyalty, and rapacious self-dealing.”

Cut to the chase, Manafort becomes Trump campaign chair and says, "Oleg, baby, I landed a golden goose - I've got your money! Let's be pals!"

* Sounds legit.
posted by petebest at 8:54 PM on June 8, 2018 [15 favorites]

Deripaska's the guy whose plane kept showing up at Trump rallies. He's also the guy who bought Trumps Palm Beach shack for $100 millyun bones or clams or whatever you call them. He bulldozed it and sold the land because, hey. Money ain't shit.
posted by petebest at 9:09 PM on June 8, 2018 [16 favorites]

Uh, no. That was Dmitry Rybolovlev. Aluminum king, fertilizer king, it's hard to keep them all straight.
posted by kemrocken at 10:48 PM on June 8, 2018 [9 favorites]

I'm afraid the future is: Dems take the House and maybe even the Senate, hold hearings, lay out in great detail the evidence that proves Trump works for Putin, impeach him, the Senate holds a trial and presents and reviews the evidence again – and then fails to convict him, and we just... have a President who we know is on Russia's side.

And in 2020 every last deplorable, outraged by the impeachment attempt, rolls coal to the polls to reëlect him.

I think you're glossing over the hearings part - one of the reasons it's so important for Democrats to take back the House is that they get to run televised hearings. Six months of Democrats laying out a very reasonable case that the Trump admin are systematic liars, and enough damning testimonies, and you're going to pare Trump's support down to the deplorables.
posted by Merus at 3:39 AM on June 9, 2018 [27 favorites]

The challenge for the G7/8/6 is to face the fact that what is critical for global order inherently conflicts with MAGA

"We have to try to convince the United States to remain in the community of nations.”

Friday’s trade session, where the Group of 7 allies planned to confront the US president over trade tariffs, had “some emotions” but was civilised and diplomatic, said the official who followed the talks.

This summit started very badly, and it could end without the usual communique agreed by all.

Divisions between Mr Trump and the other six leaders go way beyond trade - they include climate change, relations with Iran and the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is one of those arguing it might be better to set out those differences clearly rather than give a false impression of unity. It's more honest, she said, than pretending everything's OK.

Others still believe some sort of consensus can be found, and Mr Trump says he's hopeful of progress. But there's no doubt about Mr Trump's isolation.

He dislikes negotiating with groups, and he will leave well before the end of this G7 summit: next stop Singapore, to face Kim Jong-un, and seek the sort of one-to-one deal he much prefers.
posted by infini at 5:17 AM on June 9, 2018 [5 favorites]

There's a distinct change in tone in the reporting media from outside of the United States.
posted by infini at 5:19 AM on June 9, 2018 [18 favorites]

infini: "There's a distinct change in tone in the reporting media from outside of the United States."

For what it's worth, here's a headline from NBC News: Trump hits the world stage, Day 1: Come late, leave early, offend host, alienate allies.

posted by octothorpe at 5:25 AM on June 9, 2018 [47 favorites]

And CNNMoney:

Forget the G7. A summit happening in China is what really matters
posted by infini at 5:30 AM on June 9, 2018

Perhaps 'No collusion' is based on abject submission not technically counting?

The BBC's been going with the line that Trump has no interest or belief in international cooperation leading to mutual benefit, instead seeing everything as a zero-sum game. Which isn't a new idea, nor anything other than acknowledged truth on the blue, but it's still sobering to see it presented as such to all.
posted by Devonian at 6:03 AM on June 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

In conclusion: The Telegraph is just the same garbage as the Daily Mail, but served on a silver platter by one’s valet. Treat it as such.

The Daily Torygraph has certainly taken a turn for the tabloid-y lately. For instance, here's their series of photos purportedly showing Macron leaving marks on Trump's tiny hands after an intense handshake at G7. It's journalistic junk food, but emblematic of how he appears to have deliberately run behind schedule in order to miss his scheduled discussion with the French President.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:16 AM on June 9, 2018 [8 favorites]

Business Insider article with a NK defector on how there's no Korean war but class war.
posted by Harry Caul at 7:07 AM on June 9, 2018

Stupidest timeline: Gab.ai users start to think their platform is controlled by Jews.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:21 AM on June 9, 2018 [8 favorites]

To summarize the stupid timeline -- Everything I don't understand and sort of don't like must be the fault of someone else. Emphasis on 'else'.
posted by puddledork at 7:29 AM on June 9, 2018

Trump just said Russia used to be part of the G8 but then "Something happened" and now they're out of it

It sounded as if he wasn't entirely sure why Russia got kicked out of the G8
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:29 AM on June 9, 2018 [26 favorites]

Washington Post: A family was separated at the border, and this distraught father took his own life

A Honduran father separated from his wife and child suffered a breakdown at a Texas jail and killed himself in a padded cell last month, according to Border Patrol agents and an incident report filed by sheriff’s deputies.
The death of Marco Antonio Muñoz, 39, has not been publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security, and did not appear in any local news accounts.

The devastation, death, and memory-hole disappearing of this man was not incidental but by design.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:33 AM on June 9, 2018 [69 favorites]

Reformatting my comment for (hopefully) better readability, although I can't say it's easier to understand...

He does, but of course it's Obama's fault--and that's, like, the 5th craziest thing he said. Here's the indispensable Daniel Dale:

Trump: "We've concluded a really tremendously successful G7." Trump thanks Trudeau and says, "The people of Canada are wonderful, it's a great country...beautiful country, I might add." Note: the G7 is not over, Trump is just leaving, so it's over for him.

Trump: The U.S. has been "taken advantage of" for "decades and decades" on trade. He complains of Canada's dairy tariffs, falsely claims that the U.S. has no dairy tariffs. Trump says they discussed the threat of "uncontrolled migration" and how to help migrants "remain and prosper in their own home countries." Trump falsely claims that the U.S. had an "$817 billion" trade deficit last year. He usually just says $800 billion. That number excludes trade in services. The actual deficit last year was $566 billion. Trump on trade: "I blame our past leaders...I congratulate the leaders of other countries for so crazily being able to make these trade deals so good for their countries and so bad for the United States." Trump says Kim Jong Un has an opportunity few people have ever had, if you look back at history. "It's a one-time shot." Trump says "some people" like the idea of bringing Russia back into the G7. He says "something happened" a while ago that resulted in Russia being kicked out. He says it'd be better if Russia was back. "We're looking for peace in the world, we're not looking to play games." Trump: "No tariffs, no barriers, that's the way it should be. And no subsidies." He complains that Canada has "tremendous tariffs" on dairy. It's genuinely unclear that he understands that the point of free trade agreements like NAFTA is to eliminate tariffs and barriers. Trump says it was "not contentious" talking trade with other leaders, "relationships are outstanding," Trudeau did a good job, but "it's gotta change." "We're like the piggy bank that everybody's robbing," he says.

! Trump says other countries will reduce their tariffs "or we'll stop trading with them -- and that's a very profitable answer if we have to do it." That is one of the most nonsensical claims of his presidency.

Trump says it was Barack Obama who "let Crimea get away." "Obama can say all he wants, but he allowed Russia to take Crimea. I may have had a much different attitude," he says. "Why did he do that? Why did he do that?" But "with that being said, it's been done a long time." Trump on NAFTA: If a deal isn't made, it'd be bad for Canada and Mexico but "a good thing" for the US, but even though it'd be better for the US to not have a deal, he wants to make a deal. Trump claims that the NAFTA parties are "very close" on the proposal for an auto-termination "sunset clause" Canada and Mexico say they cannot accept. Trump asks a reporter who they're with, then says of course it's "fake news CNN." "I could tell by the question," he says. Trump laments that the U.S. used to be a country that was very "cashflow oriented." Truly have no idea what he's talking about. Trump says his relationship with allies is great, then adds: "You can tell that to your fake friends at CNN." Trump lies that the U.S. has a trade deficit with "almost every country." It has a trade surplus with more than half of all countries. This is the 20th time he has said this.

False claims coming fast and furious now: Trump says the U.S. has a $100 billion trade deficit with Mexico (it's $69 billion; he's said this 25 times); that he's started building The Wall (no). Trump says he'll know whether Kim Jong Un is serious "in the first minute" of their meeting, because of his "touch" and "feel." Trump complains of "haters" who complain that he's giving Kim Jong Un a meeting. "Give me a break," he says. Trump is now telling his usual tales about how the leaders of China, Canada and the EU, behind closed doors, basically admit they've been taking advantage of the US all these years. "The U.S. press is very dishonest, much of it," Trump says in Canada. Trump talks more about "the fake news," then leaves. That was all very Trumpful.

posted by zombieflanders at 7:57 AM on June 9, 2018 [31 favorites]

June 5: LeBron James and Steph Curry Say Neither NBA Finals Team Will Visit the White House

Jim Acosta, 5:41 AM - 8 Jun 2018

Trump on Cavs and Warriors: “We’re not going to invite either team.”

Continued Trump, "nanny nanny boo boo."

I wonder how things will go with the Capitals. Their star player is Russian and many more players are immigrants, another key player is a black Canadian who said he wouldn't go but they are already a Washington team which makes the visit/not-visit about 100X more awkward.
posted by srboisvert at 8:01 AM on June 9, 2018

He's already sort of invited the Capitols.

"I think we’ll have the Caps," Trump said the morning after the hockey team in the city he now resides in won the Stanley Cup. "I mean, we’ll see."

The president made the remark to reporters outside the White House as he prepared to leave Washington for the Group of Seven Summit in Quebec.

posted by T.D. Strange at 8:11 AM on June 9, 2018

Metafilter, you've convinced this socially-anxious lurker to get involved in local races.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in my next-door district and her campaign's push right now is canvassing. Today they're super close to me, the weather is nice and I have no excuses, save my fear. Any experiences or suggestions for first-time canvassers?
posted by Sweetdefenestration at 8:13 AM on June 9, 2018 [49 favorites]

CA-48 vote count update:

DANA ROHRABACHER (REP-St Petersburg) 36,020 30.3%
HANS KEIRSTEAD (DEM) 20,496 17.3%
HARLEY ROUDA (DEM) 20,476 17.2%

(The top two vote getters will face off in the November general.)

Keirstead's lead has narrowed (129 votes yesterday; just 20 today). This tracks with the expectation that Rouda would surge as the late-arriving mail-in ballots are tallied. This thing is could come down to single digits.

I voted for Rouda because he seemed to have the late momentum and I was concerned about a split knocking both Dems out; Keirstead was my policy/candidate preference (although honestly there's not much gap between the two policy-wise). Given the close race, and the distance to the 4th place REP who might have slipped into 2nd, it looks like I was mistaken to vote strategically.
posted by notyou at 8:22 AM on June 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

Trump says other countries will reduce their tariffs "or we'll stop trading with them -- and that's a very profitable answer if we have to do it."
Trump on NAFTA: If a deal isn't made, it'd be bad for Canada and Mexico but "a good thing" for the US, but even though it'd be better for the US to not have a deal, he wants to make a deal.

This apparently encapsulates one of the most serious cognitive deficits of Trump and his myriad supporters. They see everything as zero-sum, with one party ending up a loser. It's seems inconceivable to him that trade can be mutually beneficial. I say "apparently" and "seems" because, on the other hand, it could be he's just completely lying as to his beliefs. I mean, they clearly make no logical sense. If it's better for the US to stop trading, then why are we trading? Why negotiate at all if it's going to inevitably hurt us? Let's just go it alone and come out ahead. I'm inclined to believe that Trump does hold certain inchoate beliefs, but they are entirely subordinate to his need to dominate regardless of consequence. Much like his pathetic followers are obsessed with "making liberals cry" regardless of the immense self-inflicted damage caused by supporting attacks on the working class.

The upside to this posturing is that it may prove to be Trump's Waterloo, as it's been reported that the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, as well as other think tanks, are aggressively resisting Trump's anti-trade stance. If the pro-fascist Trumpsters and free-trade oligarchs wind up infighting, hopefully they'll weaken each other to the point where progressives stand a fighting chance.
posted by xigxag at 8:23 AM on June 9, 2018 [12 favorites]

suggestions for first-time canvassers?

It's just knocking on doors and talking to people. If a person responds negatively for whatever reason, do not engage; tell them to have a great day, and move on.

(I was a field manager for a canvassing operation.)
posted by salix at 8:26 AM on June 9, 2018 [19 favorites]

Any experiences or suggestions for first-time canvassers?

You’ll probably be paired with a more experienced buddy, but make sure to say this is your first time!
posted by The Whelk at 8:34 AM on June 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

Stupidest timeline: Gab.ai users start to think their platform is controlled by Jews.

This is actually pretty funny.
posted by zarq at 8:37 AM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

The upside to this posturing is that it may prove to be Trump's Waterloo, as it's been reported that the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, as well as other think tanks, are aggressively resisting Trump's anti-trade stance. If the pro-fascist Trumpsters and free-trade oligarchs wind up infighting, hopefully they'll weaken each other to the point where progressives stand a fighting chance.

The insularity alone will kill the deals. As one of the articles on the G7 linked above says, its asking a bit much for the G6 to make economic concessions to a country about to use them to strengthen its own military might (what Navarro's trade PR in the NYT op ed was all about).

Stop trading when manufacturing is hollow? How will the US wait the few months it will take for Amazon's print on demand clothing factory in PA to come online?

Trade and "deals" need trust to make happen in a fruitful manner. Is there any bipartisan initiative thinking about the collective future of the American economy?
posted by infini at 8:41 AM on June 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

Sweetdefenestration

Be straightforward. Don't try to be cute or funny.

I wouldn't normally self-link, but here's a story of a canvas that didn't go the way the door knockers expected.

Here's another one.

Note, I'm not saying you'd do this, but I'm just putting them out there as cautionary tales. You have no idea how people are going to react. The only thing you can do is control your approach, so keep it simple and to the point.

Also, I post them as encouragement, because no matter how scared you are, I'm betting that there is no way that you even come close to having as bad an experience as these guys had.
posted by sardonyx at 8:42 AM on June 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

"Any experiences or suggestions for first-time canvassers?"

Save your knuckles, carry a golf ball. (My own canvas knuckles.)

The hardest part is the first one. I've canvassed a whole bunch, and psyching myself up for the first door remains tough, because I'm shy with strangers and approaching strangers seems super-hard to me. And then after I knock on the first door -- whether they answer or not! -- I'm over the hump and continuing is no problem, and it's actually kinda fun! It's less fun at the end of two 12-hour days of canvassing because you're just super tired, but it's fun!

I like to carry a water bottle and keep a few more cool ones stashed in my car in a cooler -- summer canvassing can be very hot, and you hate to break your momentum by running to a store for more drinks.

Elderly people are either very brusque or they like to chat a bit -- especially if they're on the other side of politics. (But they're nice about it! The chatty ones like to see younger people involved, and like to talk.)

I've canvassed over a thousand houses and I have maybe 4 bad stories? And they're all pretty funny bad stories to tell afterwards, nothing traumatic, just some low-key assholes. (Like when I was canvassing for myself, the lady who apparently missed me introducing myself at the start of the pitch and started talking about how she hated that idiot Eyebrows McGee and hoped I would unseat her. I replied, "Well, ma'am, I am that idiot, but I certainly understand your frustrations.") Plenty of "Thank you, but I don't vote for Democrats" or random conspiracy theorists who clearly watch Fox News, but those are fine. Only about four where I was like "Whoa, that was bizarre/intense/mean/offensive."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:43 AM on June 9, 2018 [45 favorites]

If Mueller's report doesn't lead to impeachment, a Democrat congress could

Please, everyone, the term "Democrat" Congress is an epithet, an insult; the correct term is "Democratic," as in "a Democratic Congress could...."

Democrat Party (epithet)
Since When Did It Become the Democrat Party?

This is not mere semantics or pedantry, the names of things have power (i.e., framing). Apparently Barry Goldwater started using the term "Democrat Party" back in the 1950s, but it didn't gain widespread traction until Frank Luntz (creator of the term 'death tax,' to use in lieu of 'estate tax') started advocating it in the 1990s, around the time of Gingrich and Kemp's congressional takeover, and Rush Limbaugh started using it exclusively, with the Republican Party changing language in its platform officially in 1996.

It is an insult, I would love it if folks here could learn to stop using that particular bit of phrasing--at least for this oldster, every time I see or hear the term 'Democrat Party,' I am made aware of how successfully the Republican conservative cultural movement of the 1980s & 90s seeped into everyone's brains and worldview, in ways we aren't even aware of, because they were so adept at language and framing.

If this is still confusing or seems nit-picky, imagine dropping the '-an' from the other side: Republic Party. Makes no sense, right? See, 'Democratic Party' has too many positive associations in people's minds, bc to be democratic is good...thus, 'Democrat Party'....which actually correctly refers to a literal party attended only by people who are Democrats.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:44 AM on June 9, 2018 [38 favorites]

This apparently encapsulates one of the most serious cognitive deficits of Trump and his myriad supporters. They see everything as zero-sum, with one party ending up a loser. It's seems inconceivable to him that trade can be mutually beneficial. I say "apparently" and "seems" because, on the other hand, it could be he's just completely lying as to his beliefs.

Trump's worldview is definitely based on zero-sum outcomes. The real estate market in Manhattan is the purest zero-sum game, with only a limited available amount of land to develop and too many competitors for it. On top of that, when Donald Trump started in real estate in 1968, the per-worker US construction output was starting to fall off after a sharp rise in the post-war period when his father made all his money.

Trump's formative economic outlook was shaped by cut-throat competition in a stagnating, deal-based industry rife with corruption—and he hasn't bothered to learn anything since.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:47 AM on June 9, 2018 [10 favorites]

Please, everyone, the term "Democrat" Congress is an epithet, an insult; the correct term is "Democratic," as in "a Democratic Congress could...."

This is really annoying. It's not an epithet, and I have no idea why some people constantly make it an issue.

I'm a Democrat. I live in a Democracy. My Senators and Rep are Democrats. It's not a big deal if the party gets called "Democrat Party", please leave that weird fetish to the Republicans.
posted by weed donkey at 8:51 AM on June 9, 2018 [11 favorites]

Yes, leave it to the Republicans.

You're a democrat and your Senators are Democratic Senators. It's not getting defensive or fighting Republicans to insist that people use the correct words for things.

It's not a matter of opinion, it's objective fact and it's kind of important that at least one side in this thing remain the side where objective facts matter.

I don't care that Republicans keep using "democrat" because it offends my sensibilities, I care because IT'S THE WRONG TERM!
posted by VTX at 8:59 AM on June 9, 2018 [20 favorites]

please leave that weird fetish to the Republicans.

What we call things creates the reality of them in our minds. Just because you personally get it, and it doesn't affect how you think, does not mean that is universally true. For most of my adult life, in the realm of electoral politics, the Republican Party has understood this and won, won, won.

Idea Framing, Metaphors and Values
The power of framing: It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it
In Politics, Progressives Need to Frame Their Values
Introduction to Political Framing

I'm genuinely surprised that, in 2018, anyone can be dismissive of the power of language and framing.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:01 AM on June 9, 2018 [49 favorites]

Last canvas tip! Spring $10 for a clipboard with storage so you can carry extra pens, and extra petitions/paperwork/handbills/whatever you're doing that day. You can stash your finished petitions inside rather than shuffling them all under the clip, you can keep secondary handouts handy (like, if you're mainly canvassing for a candidate and handing out their flyer, but you've got a secondary flyer from the party in case people ask about the county gas tax referendum, or want info about registering to vote, or whatever, you can keep those in the clipboard instead of trying to shuffle three handouts). And if it starts to rain, you can quick stash everything inside the clipboard instead of under your shirt!

A friend of mine who's a long-time party stalwart puts a sticker for every candidate he canvasses for on the back of his favorite canvas clipboard, and it's really neat to see all the years of cavassing collaged.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:02 AM on June 9, 2018 [14 favorites]

Let's leave it there on Democrat/ic, points made all around.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:05 AM on June 9, 2018 [7 favorites]

I like to carry a water bottle and keep a few more cool ones stashed in my car in a cooler -- summer canvassing can be very hot, and you hate to break your momentum by running to a store for more drinks.

Seriously, stay hydrated. And wear a hat.

If you get a weird buzzy headache and you feel like you want to lie down on somebody's porch and take a nap, you're dehydrated.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:09 AM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

He complains that Canada has "tremendous tariffs" on dairy.

It's 270%. TPP would've eliminated it and allowed imports to be 3.25% of domestic production.

Some current U.S. ad valorem duties:

350% on smoking tobacco
131.8% on peanuts
98.9% on prepared groundnuts
35% on tuna
29.8% on fresh or dried dates
28.2% on track-suits of synthetic fibers
25.9% on men's or boy's swimwear of synthetic fibers
25.6% on dried onions
25% on trucks
20% on dairy
20% on fresh or chilled spinach
16% on wool sweaters

US avg tariff rate: 2.79%
Canada: 2.44%

Not that facts matter. He cherrypicked dairy because it allows him to play his zero sum game.
posted by chris24 at 9:10 AM on June 9, 2018 [20 favorites]

Here's a Twitter thread from Sacdems on how the VBM counting is going in Sacramento, California.

2. On Election Day, only 17,000 people actually voted at a vote center (number didn’t include voters dropping vbm envelope at a vote center). That’s why their website said 100% of ballots counted at 10pm. By design, EVERY voter is a default vbm voter, not a poll voter as in past.

3. 17,000 ballots is just 2% of all voters in Sacramento County. Pro tip for any candidate running for office under this new system, election night is now just a way to thank your volunteers. No one will know results of any local election for a few weeks at best.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:11 AM on June 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

Thank you for all the canvassing tips! I will be the most hydrated, shaded, smiling, friendly newbie today, and repurpose my teacher store-n-go clipboard (that I have waiting for me on my desk at school) next time!
posted by Sweetdefenestration at 9:14 AM on June 9, 2018 [16 favorites]

Sweetdefenestration, please also wear sunblock! Seriously, sidewalks reflect glare, and it is super easy to get too much sun. Make sure you get your neck, your nose, the backs of your hands, your ankles, any other exposed areas, and reapply regularly, especially if you sweat. Also, carry at least one granola bar/other form of snack!
posted by halation at 9:20 AM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

He complains that Canada has "tremendous tariffs" on dairy.

Canada's dairy industry is incredibly safe and more regulated and tested than the American industry. There are much stricter regulations regarding hormones and additives -no rBST allowed and milk has to test antibiotic free (versus US 'safe levels').

The reason for tariffs is also that Canada manages production with a quota system to prevent a glut that would bankrupt dairy farmers by lowering prices to the point of unprofitability unless you are big ag.

So it isn't really the case that milk is completely fungible.

Plus milk in bags - so national (identity) defence (with a c!) should also be a claim.
posted by srboisvert at 9:28 AM on June 9, 2018 [11 favorites]

Trump Shows Up Late to G7 Women’s Empowerment Breakfast

During the few hours he spent at the G7 Summit in Quebec, President Trump effectively acted as a one-man turd in the punch bowl, distancing America from its supposed allies at just about every opportunity.

On Saturday morning, Trump threw in straight-up rudeness to his list of offenses, showing up conspicuously late to a meeting assembled by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the topic of women’s empowerment — which, admittedly, is not high on Trump’s list of concerns.

posted by kirkaracha at 9:28 AM on June 9, 2018 [18 favorites]

Beyond the crazed rant Daniel Dale tweeted about from today, yesterday Trump had a Festivus airing of grievances.

Alberto Nardelli (Buzzfeed)
#G7 trade discussion yesterday. I understand that Trump presented a list of grievances, listing what each country, one by one, owed the US - trade deficits, tariffs, defence and so on. Basically, a live performance of his Twitter threads.
- Trump was especially "strong" towards Trudeau, ranting about agriculture, and Merkel. He reportedly said NAFTA was the second worst deal ever, WTO was the worst, and that US/he paid to defend other countries, they don't pay to defend themselves.
- Macron hit back hard, imparting on "an economic lesson" to the US president, a source said, over how free trade works and why Trump's tariffs don't.
- I understand that at one point, Trump suggested the creation a tariff-free zone among G7 members. 'you up for that?' According to the source, other leaders were later unclear whether this was a provocation or an actual proposal on the table.
- The source described Trump as a "whirlpool", "out of control".
- I also understand that during the #G7 leaders’ discussion on trade Trump told Trudeau that it’s useless to make tearjerking speeches about Canadian soldiers helping US fight together in the war if he then puts very high tariffs on dairy products
posted by chris24 at 9:47 AM on June 9, 2018 [21 favorites]

- Trump was especially "strong" towards Trudeau, ranting about agriculture, and Merkel.
- Macron hit back hard, imparting on "an economic lesson" to the US president

I noticed that during his typically-batshit press conference today he referred to Trudeau as "Justin," Merkel as "Angela," and Macron as "Macron."
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:51 AM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

This photo released by Merkel's office is pretty extraordinary.

I don't fundamentally know how the rest of the world is supposed to negotiate with someone who demands nonsense. Even the counties we usually say, stupidly, are run by "madmen" tend to have fairly rational demands that correspond with their situation, while we're running around demanding an end to high tariffs that don't exist: "It's sort of the trade equivalent of basing immigration policy on a crime wave by undocumented immigrants that exists only in Trump's fevered racist imagination. But unlike little kids torn from their parents, major economies can and will strike back."
posted by zachlipton at 9:56 AM on June 9, 2018 [62 favorites]

and Macron as "Macron.

Maybe because Macron can literally crush his tiny hands.

Corinne Perkins (Reuters)
The imprint of French President Emmanuel Macron's thumb can be seen across the back of Trump's hand after they shook hands at the G7. Great frame from ⁦@LeahMillis⁩
posted by chris24 at 9:57 AM on June 9, 2018 [26 favorites]

This photo released by Merkel's office is pretty extraordinary.

The only person with an open mouth in that photo is Bolton. Nobody's looking at him.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:00 AM on June 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

major economies can and will strike back.

WaPo: An open letter on trade: The facts speak for themselves - by 29 E.U. Ambassadors to the U.S

Simply put, the E.U. invests more in the United States, buys more American services and employs more American workers than the other way around. As a ready comparison: 45 of 50 U.S. states export more to the E.U. than they do to China. And what of China’s foreign direct investment into the United States? It’s around one-hundredth that of Europe’s.

posted by chris24 at 10:07 AM on June 9, 2018 [15 favorites]

The only person with an open mouth in that photo is Bolton. Nobody's looking at him.

Uh, it looks to me like Emmanuel Macron is speaking to John Bolton, while Trump is looking at Macron in a desperate attempt to ignore Angela Merkel.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 10:07 AM on June 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

Ugh, I know that look, my father used to use that. It what he did and looked like when he didn't understand what was happening, didn't want to listen to anyone else's arguments (because they're starting to challenge his already decided on beliefs), and wasn't going to do this anymore. But he also couldn't leave yet. Just cross the arms, bunker down, and stop engaging. Eventually, everyone else stops talking to him and he gets the little dopamine hit of being right about everything, once again.

Only this time it's the leader of the free world. (And also donald trump.)
posted by mrgoat at 10:12 AM on June 9, 2018 [48 favorites]

This photo released by Merkel's office is pretty extraordinary.

I liked this cartoon from the comments.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:16 AM on June 9, 2018 [28 favorites]

Do the other countries of the world just figure that they’re speaking to a Russian agent?
posted by gucci mane at 10:28 AM on June 9, 2018 [8 favorites]

Only this time it's the leader of the free world.

I think we can drop this label now.
posted by infini at 10:38 AM on June 9, 2018 [77 favorites]

I can't even imagine what it's like to deal with him. World leaders may be used to dealing with people who are politically opposed, dishonest, and even sociopathic. But all that, plus the emotional stability of a toddler and dumb as a bag of hammers is just . . . what do you even do? How do you prepare? How do you respond in the moment?

I think it's going to have to come down to the G6 putting together a take-it-or-leave-it offer for the Trump administration, and preparing to weather the inevitable trade war (which they're probably better suited to do than the US), with an open invitation back to the negotiating table for the next administration, at which time they'll probably have even more leverage as the US has spent a few years punching itself in the face in a trade tantrum and the G6 countries have spent the time strengthening relationships between themselves and others.

Like you can see the outlines of a G6 + partners arrangement that can dominate trade and diminish the US and even expand into a NATO-like military alliance to cover gaps from having the US out in the cold, it's just that the US hasn't been led by somebody stupid enough to throw away their hegemony before. Even the UK could be pulled away from the US with the carrot of a saner (and more profitable) world order and the stick of hard Brexit. I think the US would eventually be welcomed back into the fold, but we'd find ourselves less necessary than before, with far less bargaining power.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:40 AM on June 9, 2018 [22 favorites]

That photo....Trump's body and face loudly broadcast his defiance and contempt, but if you can make yourself look at him closely, you'll also see his smug satisfaction at pissing these people off, and knowing that they can't do anything about it. He is just loving their powerlessness and frustration.

All of us (most likely, and most unfortunately) know iterations of this kind of person in real life, and know how unbelievably damaging their behavior is, and the large-scale economic consequences of Donald Trump's toxicity are nearly upon us, and they will be terrible.
posted by LooseFilter at 10:43 AM on June 9, 2018 [44 favorites]

Adam Davidson, circling around the same point David Corn has been making lately:

I am becoming increasingly convinced that the biggest journalistic challenge of the Trump presidency is not uncovering more dirt (though we need to keep doing that). It is more important to make clear what we already know to the low information news consumer.

Of course, the Always-Trumpers are unmovable. But there is a large number of Americans who just find it all confusing and overwhelming and can't get a grip on the core narrative. How do we communicate clearly to them? For real. I'm genuinely asking.

It reminds me of the financial crisis. I helped create @planetmoney for just this reason: not to add more incremental details, but to place the flood of news into a clear narrative context. I would love to work with folks who want to think this through. And not just journalists. @GhostPanther did a better job of communicating the financial crisis than any of us. This story has all the makings of great comedy, drama, suspense. Tons of awesome characters.

Working with him on The Big Short movie, I learned from @GhostPanther that you can reach an audience that doesn't even know it wants to learn about complex issues if you tell a powerful story in a fun, exciting way. There is so much fun to have in this story.

I love Vox and Trump, Inc. and the other great efforts to lay the story out clearly. And we need to keep that up. But I'm thinking of something else. Something that reaches people who would never tune into a podcast about policy or about Trump. I get that I might be fooling myself and that nothing matters anymore and the country is in rigid, defined camps. It's clearly true to some degree. But, there are people who just haven't heard it laid out correctly. They want to understand. Let's explain it to them.

posted by zachlipton at 10:46 AM on June 9, 2018 [71 favorites]

FT, Economists reject Trump claims of unfair trade system

First, take Mr Trump’s claim, directed mainly at the EU and Canada, that “we charge a country ZERO to sell their goods, and they charge us 25, 50 or even 100 per cent”.

US tariffs are indeed slightly lower than those of the EU and Canada but the difference is marginal. WTO statistics show that the EU’s average trade-weighted tariff was 3 per cent in 2015, the latest year for which this figure was available. Canada’s average trade-weighted tariff was 3.1 per cent, compared with 2.4 per cent for the US.

The difference is even smaller when it comes to the tariffs that US exporters actually paid in 2015 — a weighted average of 1.4 per cent on non-agricultural goods sold in the EU, and 2.1 per cent on non-agricultural exports to Canada. EU exporters to the US paid an average weighted tariff of 1.6 per cent; Canadian exporters 1.3 per cent.

Paul Krugman, the US economist and Nobel laureate, said Mr Trump appeared to be mistaking the EU’s application of value-added-tax (charged on imported and domestically produced goods equally) for a tariff, showing that he was “making trade policy with zero understanding of the most basic facts and concepts”.
...
Mr Wolff said Mr Trump’s fundamental mistake was to assume that the US trade deficit was a function of tariffs. “The main driver of the trade balance is domestic behaviour on savings and investment”, he said.

He added that the president’s recent tax cuts gave “a huge stimulus to the consumer — that will increase it”.

There are exceptions in particular industries, and nobody is opposed to at least negotiating those—negotiating lower tariffs has been successful US trade policy for decades—, but the overall problem he's ranting about is tariff rates that are near zero. He doesn't know what VAT is and will never admit he's wrong, so he'll just keep saying this nonsense and the rest of the world doen't know how to respond. And then as he rants about how other country's tariffs are too high, he keeps heading toward protectionism at home?
posted by zachlipton at 11:06 AM on June 9, 2018 [15 favorites]

@zachlipton, re: Adam Davidson
I've been thinking this too. For print/web a single page info graphic with a few short pieces of text could probably give people an overview to put things in context. For video, 2 or 3 minutes should be enough.

The question is what are the right forums to put it in front of the audiences that need to see it and how to get it there?
posted by duoshao at 11:06 AM on June 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

I am becoming increasingly convinced that the biggest journalistic challenge of the Trump presidency is not uncovering more dirt (though we need to keep doing that). It is more important to make clear what we already know to the low information news consumer.

I love this, but not just for Trump, for everything, because I think the news media acting like everybody understands basic civics and history on up to complicated issues of trade and treaties and so on is a laughable dereliction of duty since we know that by and large people are not well versed in these things so every piece of news is missing context. There's a whole big educational component missing in reporting because nobody is providing the tools to contextualize the world around us to the majority of people who maybe paid enough attention in highschool to pass, but may not have even had quality education to begin with and certainly haven't retained anything into adulthood. It's funny, the core mission of journalism is to educate the public... but where are the educators in the newsroom? Just imagine if you ran stories by an actual teacher and not just an editor before they hit the air or the page.
posted by jason_steakums at 11:09 AM on June 9, 2018 [23 favorites]

As someone who works in the US dairy industry, I think we could learn a few things from the way they do things. As a technology-intensive industry that produces a highly perishable commodity, dairy farmers are in a very different situation than, say, grain farmers. Most farmers have very little control over the payment they receive for their milk (the processors do) and everyone’s currently locked into a race to the bottom as they keep adding cows and contributing to the glut of milk. With a current Class III milk price of ~$15 (https://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/ams/DYMACLASSIII.pdf) most farmers are losing money with production costs of about $17.50/cwt (https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/47913/r-usmilk.xls?v=43221) (these are the most recent production cost figures available from the Economic Research Service). Farmers need to do something to exert more leverage over their milk checks. The problem is, absent a supply management scheme, the incentive is to continue expanding and hope for small marginal gains multiplied by many cows.

[Edit: By “they” I mean Canada.]
posted by wintermind at 11:12 AM on June 9, 2018 [14 favorites]

We desperately need that kind of journalism for immigration reporting (Dara Lind at Vox is a unique standout). Right now, it's pretty much all either heartbreaking personal narratives or facts-and-figures stories. Few US citizens have a clue how the system works, what asylum even is or who can and can't claim it, what the legal immigration process actually looks like for all those who scream "get in line," what enormous powers immigration enforcement has to conduct "death-penalty cases in a traffic-court setting."
posted by zachlipton at 11:15 AM on June 9, 2018 [27 favorites]

WaPo: We Republicans must all speak out to protect the Mueller investigation - Dick Thornburgh U.S. Attorney General '88 to '91

As a lifelong Republican, I am proud that my party has consistently revered the rule of law as a central tenet of our country’s values. I have been honored to serve under seven presidents, including as U.S. attorney general under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. I know from experience that the Justice Department effectively performs the awesome responsibility of enforcing our laws and assuring that justice is provided equally and fairly to all.

Many recent comments about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his investigation have been regrettable and undeserved. I was surprised to see President Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, a respected former U.S. attorney, suggest this week that Mueller is “trying very, very hard to frame” the president, echoing comments made by the president himself that the investigation is “a Witch Hunt.” Those comments are the antithesis of who Mueller is and how he operates.

I know Bob Mueller as a colleague in law enforcement and as a friend, and I highly respect his judgment and moral compass. Mueller is the right person to investigate Russia’s apparent assault on our democracy. He possesses the skills and discipline necessary to perform his role, and his past leadership as head of the Justice Department’s criminal division and as director of the FBI leave no doubt as to his ability to evenhandedly conduct significant investigations. He is serious but not sensational and loyal to the rule of law.

Mueller must put all applicable evidence before an impartial grand jury that will decide whether to bring charges. We must let him do his job.

It is disconcerting to witness the unfair attacks on the Justice Department now occurring; they erode public confidence and corrode the integrity of a core principle of our country. Our country must not let hyperpartisanship diminish the rule of law. That is not who we are, and it isn’t what we should ever become. I have great confidence in the special-counsel process. Indeed, my party has always stood with law enforcement, recognizing that its job is both difficult and essential. Law-enforcement officials ranging from state and local police to FBI officers in the field to prosecutors and judges must be able to do their work without fear of political retribution.

I urge all members of Congress to become more vocal in their defense of the rule of law. Elected officials must stress unambiguously their support of the role of the special counsel and guard his right to pursue this investigation in a fair and impartial manner. Through whatever means members of Congress deem appropriate, they must defend the rule of law and the integrity of the special counsel’s mission.

As John Adams said, our country is “a government of laws, and not of men.” This founding principle of our democracy must be protected. We will be remembered by what we say and what we do in this challenging time in America’s history. We must all speak out and work to protect the special counsel’s investigation from interference. As Republicans, we owe that much to our party. As citizens, we all owe even more to our country.

posted by chris24 at 11:16 AM on June 9, 2018 [28 favorites]

It's funny, the core mission of journalism is to educate the public... but where are the educators in the newsroom?

Everything old is new again.
Again.
posted by halation at 11:18 AM on June 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

I noticed that during his typically-batshit press conference today he referred to Trudeau as "Justin," Merkel as "Angela," and Macron as "Macron."

Easy, he can't say Emmanuel.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:18 AM on June 9, 2018 [34 favorites]

The question is what are the right forums to put it in front of the audiences that need to see it and how to get it there?

I'm afraid that if there was an answer to that question we wouldn't have a Trump (or a GWB, even) in office in the first place. The people who most need to see and understand key facts are the least likely to want to understand them, because they chafe against what these people want to believe.
posted by Rykey at 11:18 AM on June 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

US is a 'piggybank everyone is robbing', says Trump at G7

Is he listening to any one at all in whatever passes for his advisory team? Where were his kids?
posted by infini at 11:21 AM on June 9, 2018 [5 favorites]

If you weren’t already a little in love with Senator Hirono, this will probably do it:

Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono has been quietly continuing her practice of asking every federal judiciary nominee whether they have ever been accused of sexual misconduct for months now. And to anyone who would criticize her for it, or for her other pointed questions about their commitment to civil rights, Hirono has just two words: "F*** them!"

posted by schadenfrau at 11:24 AM on June 9, 2018 [64 favorites]

because they chafe against what these people want to believe.

You're referring to the Always-Trumpers that Adam Davidson mentioned in the second paragraph as a lost cause.

But then he goes on to discuss a different group of people that aren't already bought into Trump's narrative but don't have a way or the time/attention/motivation to invest the time to get their arms around the basic story.

What's needed is a way to give them a rough picture without making them work for it.
posted by duoshao at 11:25 AM on June 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

He doesn't know what VAT is and will never admit he's wrong, so he'll just keep saying this nonsense and the rest of the world doen't know how to respond.

It's worse that just Trump. All of his economic advisers -- Mnuchin, Muvaney, Kudlow, Hasset, and even actual economist Navarro -- are spouting the same VAT-is-a-tariff nonsense. It's up is down, black is white level of nonsense. It's a whole cabinet of crazy.
posted by JackFlash at 11:32 AM on June 9, 2018 [8 favorites]

Adam Davidson, circling around the same point David Corn has been making lately

Davidson re-tweeted this response from NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen @jayrosen_nyu: "I described one piece of that puzzle here, Adam. It introduces a key distinction between "troubles" and "issues." The short version is: start with troubles. http://pressthink.org/2016/12/prospects-american-press-trump-part-two/#p28 …"

From that link:

Where troubles meet issues: listening better.

After the election we heard this a lot: journalists need to listen better to people outside their current orbit and pick up the signals they somehow missed in 2016.[...]

[...] Journalists, I think, need to listen for people’s troubles, and find the points where they connect to public issues. And they have to be better at that than a broken political system is. From there they can start to rebuild trust.

The distinction between “troubles” and “issues” was struck by sociologist C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. He said troubles were the problems that concern people in their immediate experience. “An issue is a public matter: some value cherished by publics is felt to be threatened.” When the issues that get attention fail to connect to people’s troubles, or when common troubles don’t get surfaced and formulated as public issues… that is where journalism-as-listener can intervene, and earn back trust.[...]

Whenever troubles don’t match up with issues, there is trust to be won for journalists able to listen better than systems that are failing people. Somehow this insight will have to be combined with more traditional virtues in journalism, if the press is going to withstand the attacks that are coming and thrive in a far more dangerous world.

Rosen holds up the Boston Globe's success with Spotlight, which sprung from their listening to all the individual stories of abuse by the Catholic Church and then confronting those in power with the full account they assembled, and the Texas Tribune's new community reporter position, which they inaugurated last March and which looks like a complete success.

The question remains how to implement this for the Trump presidency now that we're already over a third of the way through it.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:33 AM on June 9, 2018 [21 favorites]

Here's what doesn't make sense, MAGA, and Trump's take on trade and the G7 clash with the hypothesis that he's a Russian puppet. Sure, the outbursts (Make it the G8 because Obammy made it the G7) and the outcomes (wedge within Nato) are music to the Russian ears, but the rest of it sounds more like a very fundamental misunderstanding about American power and American standing, status, and leverage on the world stage. In fact, it is coming across as a strategy gone very badly wrong. One that was based on an insular and limited worldview, one that led to an exagerated and grandious sense of Superpower of the Free World Leadership with 5 times the military (drugged, badly trained, exhausted, and privateerly profiteered) of the rest of the planet combined. One that now makes sense of this odd statement.
posted by infini at 11:47 AM on June 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

The people who most need to see and understand key facts are the least likely to want to understand them, because they chafe against what these people want to believe.

Trump and the Republicans before him are very effective at repeating simply stated lies until people you wouldn't ever expect to fall for it start acting like there's validity to them, or at least a valid question. If you start simply stating basic truths on repeat the way he does lies, I think you'll see people you wouldn't ever expect start to internalize them. The consistency is the key, consistently repeating basic knowledge on civics and other topics required for a functional democracy, as if you are teaching kids. The higher level news stories would be much more effective with this baseline educational context.

How's about instead of a feel good local news package on some human interest story, we use that time to cover a basic topic that connects to the big story of the day, and you keep going back to that lesson in the reporting on that story? Not every show can be John Oliver, but you can do a simpler and shorter version of that, do refreshers on the topics regularly, toss to the website for these background segments during the show and always link them in relevant stories on the site, just always pushing basic education. Build a real foundation of knowledge instead of these stories that are basically context-free word salads to a lot of people without that foundation, because there are a million dickheads with agendas out there offering to make simple sense of it all to anyone who doesn't understand. I mean, it's worth a shot at least.
posted by jason_steakums at 12:03 PM on June 9, 2018 [13 favorites]

For that you’d need some kind of not ravenous profit at any cost model like say, expanded public broadcasting (self link)
posted by The Whelk at 12:07 PM on June 9, 2018 [11 favorites]

Is he listening to any one at all in whatever passes for his advisory team? Where were his kids?

Pretty sure his advisory team is more than happy with whatever line of bullshit he's going with at that particular second, since his real audience is the MAGAhats he's whipped into a frenzy of self-pity and rage about how the world hates and fears yet mistreats and disrespects the U.S.A.

And his kids? Off grifting somewhere and quite happy that Dad's sucking up all the attention.
posted by hangashore at 12:10 PM on June 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

A rough picture should probably start with the meeting at Trump Tower, because it lays out the first premises. Russia wanted to hurt the Clinton campaign, and hurt American democracy in general. To do that they reached out to try to help the Trump campaign. It is illegal for them to do that. It would be illegal for the Trump campaign to accept that help. But that's exactly what they tried to do. When the offer was made to DJT Jr, he said "I love it, I'd love to commit that crime with you." And he walked into that meeting with a bunch of campaign officials and said "I hear you have some information for us." I.e. "I hear you have some crime we can commit."

That shows a guilty intent. Whether the crime actually happened or not - he says it didn't, but we still don't know - he walked in with the intent to commit crimes. That's enough reason to be suspicious and investigate. And that's just publicly known information.

Then you can go to the Russian active interference, which is pretty well proven, and say "they knew this crime stuff was going on and didn't report it." That's probably where the first segment should stop. It puts the thin end of the wedge in, with publicly known and believable information, and it focuses on the most unusual crimes - the quid pro quo, the corruption, and sexual assault, while serious, feels a lot more run of the mill.

I think I will actually put together a video along those lines, but it might take a while.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 12:10 PM on June 9, 2018 [29 favorites]

Paul Krugman, the US economist and Nobel laureate, said Mr Trump appeared to be mistaking the EU’s application of value-added-tax (charged on imported and domestically produced goods equally) for a tariff, showing that he was “making trade policy with zero understanding of the most basic facts and concepts”.
...
Mr Wolff said Mr Trump’s fundamental mistake was to assume that the US trade deficit was a function of tariffs. “The main driver of the trade balance is domestic behaviour on savings and investment”, he said.

Also the US should always have a trade deficit simply because it is a rich rich country. You know what rich people do? They buy stuff. More stuff than poor people. Because they are rich.

Of course Trump may 'solve the trade deficit' by economically hurting America and making Americans poorer so they then don't buy as much stuff. Environmentally this actually might not be a bad thing. American consumerism and polluting is quite out of control on a per capita basis. However, I do not think this is exactly what Trump's supporters were meaning to vote for.
posted by srboisvert at 1:16 PM on June 9, 2018 [28 favorites]

Okay, so Trump is confused about the function and purpose of VAT.

There's also this hot take: Trump Threatens To End Trade With United States’ Closest Allies

So, what we're boiling this down to is that Trump wants to END ALL TRADE unless other countries .. uh... stop collecting VAT on American goods? Is that what this is?

I'm sure his wealthy "friends" are going to have a few choice words to say to him about this, mostly in the shape of "shut the fuck up, donnie, you're out of your element."
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 1:45 PM on June 9, 2018 [14 favorites]

Dave Weigel (WaPo)
After last night’s count of late ballots in #CA10, Dems definitely out of “lockout” danger zone. Josh Harder’s lead (for second place) up from 800 votes to 2,157 votes. Combined GOP vote down to 52.2%. (Was 58.9% in 2014.)
posted by chris24 at 1:48 PM on June 9, 2018 [11 favorites]

Julia Davis
Russia's state TV hosts struggle to contain their grins of deep satisfaction, as they point out: "Trump never mentioned Crimea" when he expressed his desire to restore Russia to G7(G8). They wonder out loud whether it's time to resurrect their "joke"—"Trump is ours" (#ТрампНаш).

VIDEO
posted by chris24 at 1:50 PM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

I'm sure his wealthy "friends" are going to have a few choice words to say to him about this, mostly in the shape of "shut the fuck up, donnie, you're out of your element."

Depends on how well set up they are to ride the chaos down. Some of them are going to be salivating at the prospect of the utter destruction of western society.
posted by Artw at 1:55 PM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

After last night’s count of late ballots in #CA10, Dems definitely out of “lockout” danger zone. Josh Harder’s lead (for second place) up from 800 votes to 2,157 votes. Combined GOP vote down to 52.2%. (Was 58.9% in 2014.)

Thank goodness (this is my district). That 52.2% total is changeable, too, as best I can tell the token non-incumbent R candidate (who finished third) received nearly all ‘get rid of Denham’ votes. Canvassing in this district is absolutely key—while my sense is that folks are persuadable, it needs to be face-to-face.
posted by LooseFilter at 2:01 PM on June 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

Trump isn't going to say "Crimea" because he doesn't want anybody to be able to make memes of him saying the word, "crime."
posted by rhizome at 2:09 PM on June 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

David Akin
Trump this morning told us that #NAFTA partners are close to agreeing to a sunset clause. Just now, @JustinTrudeau said: ""There will not a sunset clause. Canada has been unequivocal.” #G7

---

And Trump is ranting about trade again.

@realDonaldTrump
Just left the @G7 Summit in beautiful Canada. Great meetings and relationships with the six Country Leaders especially since they know I cannot allow them to apply large Tariffs and strong barriers to U.S.A. Trade. They fully understand where I am coming from. After many decades, fair and reciprocal Trade will happen! The United States will not allow other countries to impose massive Tariffs and Trade Barriers on its farmers, workers and companies. While sending their product into our country tax free. We have put up with Trade Abuse for many decades — and that is long enough.
posted by chris24 at 2:09 PM on June 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

From that you'd think it was everybody else who'd recently applied a load of arbitrary tariffs to American goods, rather than the other way round.
posted by dng at 2:14 PM on June 9, 2018 [13 favorites]

The United States will not allow other countries to impose massive Tariffs and Trade Barriers on its farmers, workers and companies. While sending their product into our country tax free.

David Mack (Buzzfeed)
Trudeau literally just announced Canada will put retaliatory tariffs on the US on July 1. "Canadians are polite, we're reasonable, but we will not be pushed around," he said.
posted by chris24 at 2:15 PM on June 9, 2018 [36 favorites]

Another.

Eritrean ICE detainee commits suicide in transit in Egypt

A Saturday statement by ICE confirmed the death, adding that Testfatsion had been in ICE custody since Feb 2, 2017 following his arrest at the Hidalgo, Texas Port of Entry after he attempted to unlawfully enter the United States. Court records show he went to the U.S. seeking asylum.
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:27 PM on June 9, 2018 [17 favorites]

Trudeau literally just announced Canada will put retaliatory tariffs on the US on July 1

Happy Canada Day!
posted by Sys Rq at 2:30 PM on June 9, 2018 [15 favorites]

Here's what doesn't make sense, MAGA, and Trump's take on trade and the G7 clash with the hypothesis that he's a Russian puppet.

I mean, sabotaging America's economy and all of its alliances at the same time seems like something a Russian puppet would do?
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:33 PM on June 9, 2018 [32 favorites]

From the OP:

Trump’s ambassador to Germany is sabotaging the Atlantic alliance

So this is a three pronged attack? Bannon in Italy and France, whosis in Germany, and DJT himself spraycasting on Twitter?

Can we replay the soundbite "Trade wars are easy to win" on an infinite loop somewhere?
posted by infini at 2:34 PM on June 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

I mean, sabotaging America's economy and all of its alliances at the same time seems like something a Russian puppet would do?

Yes adn no. What if it were part of the Imperial America strategy where the sole superpower projects its might and right to exert control over its perceived hegemony, as it's manifest destiny and a bunch of documents going back to Bush II? And it fell flat?
posted by infini at 2:36 PM on June 9, 2018

Restaurants Boycott Army Base That Called ICE on Pizza Delivery Man

Perhaps more Paxil in the water might help overall?
posted by infini at 2:38 PM on June 9, 2018 [59 favorites]

NYT (Krugman): Debacle in Quebec

...Still, there has never been a disaster like the G7 meeting that just took place. It could herald the beginning of a trade war, maybe even the collapse of the Western alliance. At the very least it will damage America’s reputation as a reliable ally for decades to come; even if Trump eventually departs the scene in disgrace, the fact that someone like him could come to power in the first place will always be in the back of everyone’s mind.

What went down in Quebec? I’m already seeing headlines to the effect that Trump took a belligerent “America first” position, demanding big concessions from our allies, which would have been bad. But the reality was much worse.

He didn’t put America first; Russia first would be a better description. And he didn’t demand drastic policy changes from our allies; he demanded that they stop doing bad things they aren’t doing. This wasn’t a tough stance on behalf of American interests, it was a declaration of ignorance and policy insanity.

Trump started with a call for readmitting Russia to the group, which makes no sense at all. The truth is that Russia, whose GDP is about the same size as Spain’s and quite a bit smaller than Brazil’s, was always a ringer in what was meant to be a group of major economies. It was brought in for strategic reasons, and kicked out when it invaded Ukraine. There is no possible justification for bringing it back, other than whatever hold Putin has on Trump personally.

Then Trump demanded that the other G7 members remove their “ridiculous and unacceptable” tariffs on U.S. goods – which would be hard for them to do, because their actual tariff rates are very low. The European Union, for example, levies an average tariff of only three percent on US goods. Who says so? The U.S. government’s own guide to exporters.

True, there are some particular sectors where each country imposes special barriers to trade. Yes, Canada imposes high tariffs on certain dairy products. But it’s hard to make the case that these special cases are any worse than, say, the 25 percent tariff the U.S. still imposes on light trucks. The overall picture is that all of the G7 members have very open markets.

So what on earth was Trump even talking about? His trade advisers have repeatedly claimed that value-added taxes, which play an important role in many countries, are a form of unfair trade protection. But this is sheer ignorance: VATs don’t convey any competitive advantage – they’re just a way of implementing a sales tax — which is why they’re legal under the WTO. And the rest of the world isn’t going to change its whole fiscal system because the U.S. president chooses to listen to advisers who don’t understand anything...

posted by chris24 at 2:52 PM on June 9, 2018 [60 favorites]

Restaurants Boycott Army Base That Called ICE on Pizza Delivery Man

“We've received word that ICE plans to move Pablo Villavicencio from the Hudson County Jail Sunday night to deport him on Monday. @SenSchumer @SenGillibrand have the power to intervene. Call them NOW to tell them to #FreePablo and #AbolishICE

@SenSchumer (202) 224-6542
@SenGillibrand (202) 224-4451 “ @HudCoDSA
posted by The Whelk at 2:57 PM on June 9, 2018 [35 favorites]

The answer to the G7's problems is obvious: expel the Trumpited States from the group and replace it with Mexico (also making NAFTA threats mostly irrelevant).

And the faster Trump sabotages the American economy, the more Americans will abandon him and his party. The top .01% will continue to keep the Stock Market at fraudulently high values while the rest of the nation sinks, but I, personally, have seen little relationship between the Dow Jones and Real Life since the "1987 Black Monday Crash".
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:05 PM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

The answer to the G7's problems is obvious: expel the Trumpited States from the group and replace it with Mexico

Thought at first you meant kick out the reddest US states and replace them with Mexico.
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:22 PM on June 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

Kick out the US and invite California. Fifth largest economy in the world after the United States, China, Japan and Germany.
posted by chris24 at 3:25 PM on June 9, 2018 [30 favorites]

Jim Goldgeier (Senior fellow, Council Foreign Relations)
Biggest reason not to go back to a G8? It was never a real thing. Clinton did it to give Yeltsin status while moving forward on NATO enlargement. Russia has neither the economic heft nor democratic norms to make being with other 7 meaningful especially since we have a G20. Trump's musings on this make no sense and are offensive given Russian invasion of Ukraine. But talk about going back to G8 distracts from the real issue which is what is the point of the G7? Right now it just looks like the other 6 trying to find ways to rein in Trump.

Daniel W. Drezner (WaPo)
Retweeted Jim Goldgeier
Also, Russia was never a member of the G7 Finance Ministers meeting, which was almost as important as the Head of State summits.
posted by chris24 at 3:37 PM on June 9, 2018 [17 favorites]

VATs don’t convey any competitive advantage

Where Trump's stupidity becomes exponential is that actually VAT, overall, does convey a competitive advantage. To the U.S.

For any sort of internet service purchase or subscription, from an EU provider you have to pay VAT* that gives an automatic 20% discount (based on UK VAT rates) if you buy a similar service from the U.S. Even for physical goods the VAT saving can sometimes be more than the extra postage cost if it's below the import trigger level (or you buy from someone willing to fake the customs declaration).

Not to defend VAT in any way: it's a horrible tax that is utterly regressive (& misogynist) and should be abolished.

Speaking of: in UK news, it turns out there's recent extensive evidence of collusion between the Brexit campaign (and in particular Aaron Banks), but more importantly, the march to protest Tommy Robinson getting arrested melanged into the naked bike ride also going on today [TW: pics contain fascism].

* If you are a business reselling services, you can reclaim this, but there's still a delay between the outlay and recovery, and more admin that pretty much eats the savings.

** Also the cartoon kirkaracha posted above was by Jim Pavlididis, and was originally about the Paris Climate Accords.
posted by Buntix at 3:38 PM on June 9, 2018 [12 favorites]

@SenSchumer (202) 224-6542
@SenGillibrand (202) 224-4451

Left a message with Gillibrand, but Schumer just has an automated message telling you to call back on Monday, which will be too late.

If you have any other way of getting Schumer’s attention, have at it.
posted by schadenfrau at 3:57 PM on June 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Kick out the US and invite California. Fifth largest economy in the world after the United States, China, Japan and Germany.

Oh God

I mean part of me is like “YEAH THAT’S RIGHT” but also initiating separate international diplomatic relations with individual states seems like it would definitely be a bullet point in the eventual 8th grade textbook chapter, “The Road To The Second American Civil War”
posted by schadenfrau at 4:00 PM on June 9, 2018 [16 favorites]

“#BREAKING: @LegalAidNYC wins emergency petition filed today in the #SDNY staying #ICE from deporting #PabloVillavicencio. “
posted by The Whelk at 4:05 PM on June 9, 2018 [61 favorites]

Donny's mad at Justin.

And what do cars have to do with Canada?

@realDonaldTrump
Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!
- PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, “US Tariffs were kind of insulting” and he “will not be pushed around.” Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!
posted by chris24 at 4:07 PM on June 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

He just followed that up and called Trudeau dishonest and weak. Jesus fucking christ.
posted by Justinian at 4:11 PM on June 9, 2018 [22 favorites]

I'm inclined to believe that Trump does hold certain inchoate beliefs, but they are entirely subordinate to his need to dominate regardless of consequence. Much like his pathetic followers are obsessed with "making liberals cry" regardless of the immense self-inflicted damage caused by supporting attacks on the working class.

This is your regular reminder that Trump is a malignant narcissist. Malignant narcissists are also known for their paranoia and persecution complexes -- here's a handy "is this person a paranoid narcissist?" checklist that combines key traits of narcissistic and paranoid personalities, so everyone can play along at home. The irony is that he's so convinced "those people" are trying to take advantage of him/the U.S. and he can't see the way he is actually being manipulated by people who know how to exploit narcissism for their own benefit. Speaking of....

Is he listening to any one at all in whatever passes for his advisory team? Where were his kids?

Personality type that gets along best (at all) with narcissists? other narcissists. I think it was someone in one of these threads who referred to it as "mutual grooming" or words to that effect. It's narcissists all the way down.
posted by camyram at 4:12 PM on June 9, 2018 [20 favorites]

Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!

Daniel Dale
This is pretty wild. Trump is saying that his steel and aluminum tariffs, which are officially being imposed on "national security" grounds, are actually a response to Canada's milk protectionism.
- The G7 countries found a way to come up with a joint statement that papered over their vast differences with Trump. Trump is now saying he's rejecting the statement because he's angry at Trudeau's (quite restrained) news conference.
- As with the Russia investigation, the travel ban and lots of other things, Trump is saying things out loud about his tariffs that undermine his administration's superficial official rationale and that undercut his legal case.
posted by chris24 at 4:14 PM on June 9, 2018 [36 favorites]

He just followed that up and called Trudeau dishonest and weak.

Trump's mirror again. He probably just saw the Merkel photo of himself looking petulant and week.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:15 PM on June 9, 2018 [15 favorites]

The United States Climate Alliance - which is committed to upholding the Paris agreement, no matter what the federal government does - now consists of 16 states plus Puerto Rico. This suggests that inviting California - or even just the blue states, which are the wealthiest on the whole - as a trading partner as an end-run around Trump and Co. is a possibility. California does have the world's fifth largest economy, after all, and a government which would be eager to cooperate with international allies.

It will be interesting to see if other countries and blue states do an economic, as well as a climate, end-run around the feds.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 4:19 PM on June 9, 2018 [13 favorites]

Russia's state TV hosts struggle to contain their grins of deep satisfaction, as they point out: "Trump never mentioned Crimea" when he expressed his desire to restore Russia to G7(G8). They wonder out loud whether it's time to resurrect their "joke"—"Trump is ours" (#Трампнаш).

Tass also quotes Putin: "One of [Trump's campaign] promises was to improve US-Russian relations. I hope that it will happen, at least we are ready for that and I think that the ball is in the US court. [...] We are ready to boost, deepen and improve relations with the United States." He goes on to say that Trump is "a hostage to the internal US political process", which is practically daring Trump to do something drastic to break free of any remaining checks and balances.

The US ambassador to Germany was on Tuesday accused of attempting to act as a rival to Angela Merkel after it emerged he had invited the Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz to a meeting during his visit to Berlin next week.

And earlier this week, Austria offered to host Trump and Putin for a summit in Vienna after Putin suggested it to Chancellor Kurz, who's lately been seesawing between pro-Europe and pro-Russian positions.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:20 PM on June 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

And what do cars have to do with Canada?

A bunch. We export an absolute fuckton of vehicles to the US every year. Of course, we import *two* absolute fucktons *from* the US (which we would happily buy from Japan or Korea instead) so, you know. Trump gonna Trump.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:24 PM on June 9, 2018 [15 favorites]

The 2 words you can’t say in a Democratic ad

Democratic voters want single payer health care. But don’t expect to hear Democratic candidates talk about it — at least not in those words.

Who the fuck thinks that's a good idea?

Some Democrats argue that instead of focusing on the potentially divisive idea of single payer, the party should defend the Affordable Care Act against "sabotage" from Trump and congressional Republicans, who combined to repeal the individual mandate and scrap a key subsidy program that helps cover low-income people. That message is more compelling this year, argues Brad Woodhouse, campaign director of pro-Obamacare group Protect Our Care.

That horse has fucking sailed. Democrats need to be the party of health care now, not the party of fucking around doing nothing in Obamacare's ruins.
posted by Artw at 4:31 PM on June 9, 2018 [67 favorites]

Donny's mad at Justin.

That's only because nobody's translated Macron's tweets to him yet:

"Au #G7Charlevoix, le Président Trump a vu qu'il avait face à lui un front uni. Se retrouver isolé dans un concert des nations est contraire à l'histoire américaine." {In #G7Charlevoix, President Trump saw that he faced a united front. To find oneself isolated in a meeting of nations is contrary to American history.}

"L'importation d'acier et d'aluminium ne représente pas une menace à la sécurité intérieure américaine ! Le fondement de la décision américaine suscite des doutes, y compris au sein du Congrès américain et dans l'administration des États-Unis." {The importing of steel and aluminum does not pose a threat to US domestic security! The basis of the US decision raises doubts, including in the US Congress and in the United States administration.}

His accompanying picture of him and Trump is as dramatic as Merkel's, if somewhat artsy.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:35 PM on June 9, 2018 [22 favorites]

god he's so stupid, just a big stupid dumb pathetic moron baby, and i hope fucking canada invades and forces everyone to speak french
posted by poffin boffin at 4:37 PM on June 9, 2018 [74 favorites]

Not for nothing, but this, this situation — being held hostage by a violent and abusive narcissist — is how you get trauma. On a global political scale.

I think maybe the American relationship with the world could have been described as abusive for...a while, but Jesus Christ we’re getting crazier and the abuse is escalating, and the rest of the world must just be thinking about how to get the fuck out.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:37 PM on June 9, 2018 [29 favorites]

“Single layer”/Maedicare for All is a moderate position now, along side immigration reform/path to citizenship/abolish ICE , pot legalization, and gun control. That’s the nugget you build a new center around.
posted by The Whelk at 4:39 PM on June 9, 2018 [34 favorites]

Trump's still throwing a temper tantrum.

NBC's Kristen Welker reports: "A major twist to the G7– @POTUS pulls out of the communique after the White House says the U.S. has signed on. Also accuses @JustinTrudeau of making 'false statements.'"

(And that verbal echo of "false statements" suggests he's also obsessing about the Mueller nailing Flynn over that.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:43 PM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

WP: Six House Democrats on Friday sought a criminal investigation into Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt for reportedly using his office in a bid to secure work for his wife.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:49 PM on June 9, 2018 [51 favorites]

Thank you to all of you who shared canvassing wisdom! My shift was short, and mostly no one was home. But it was a great experience, even for a socially-anxious type like me. I'm even signing up for more shifts in farther away 'hoods.

Thank you to all in these threads who have shared your engagement efforts. I really don't think I would have pounded the pavement today if it weren't for being inspired by all your posts.
posted by Sweetdefenestration at 5:02 PM on June 9, 2018 [63 favorites]

Rep. Eric Swalwell (CA-15), Ranking Member of the CIA Subcommittee for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, on Thursday introduced the Duty to Report Act to help protect our elections from foreign interference.

The Duty to Report Act would make it a crime for federal candidates, their immediate families, or people involved with their campaigns to fail to notify the FBI if any of them are told about, offered, or receive in an unsolicited way non-public, materially significant information about another candidate for the same office which they know or should know is from a foreign power or the agent of a foreign power.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:12 PM on June 9, 2018 [53 favorites]

Rep. Eric Swalwell (CA-15), Ranking Member of the CIA Subcommittee for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, on Thursday introduced the Duty to Report Act to help protect our elections from foreign interference.

Nice. We'll see who opposes it, and then we'll know who's compromised.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:16 PM on June 9, 2018 [19 favorites]

Cameron Ahmad (Trudeau's Communication Director)
Statement from the Prime Minister’s Office:

We are focused on everything we accomplished here at the #G7 summit.

The Prime Minister said nothing he hasn’t said before — both in public, and in private conversations with the President.

---

Haley Byrd (Weekly Standard)
Trump: We are implementing tariffs without congressional approval because steel and aluminum imports constitute a national security threat

Also Trump: We did the tariffs in retaliation for Canada’s dairy tariffs

HEADDESK GIF
posted by chris24 at 5:19 PM on June 9, 2018 [31 favorites]

In a rational universe, congress would already be working on a solution to stop the executive branch from unilateral treaty power. I'm not a constitutional scholar, but wasn't that power granted by an act?
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 5:22 PM on June 9, 2018 [10 favorites]

PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, “US Tariffs were kind of insulting” and he “will not be pushed around.” Very dishonest & weak.

I don't know if Trump's claim is at all accurate, but anyone with experience in politics knows how dangerous it is to leave a meeting before its conclusion. I don't even mean elected-office politics: the same thing applies to any meeting that's meant to come up with a joint position. If you're in a strong enough position you can close the meeting early; if you're not in a strong position you hang on to the end so that your position is reflected in the minutes. The fact that Trump left early and then whined about the outcome shows that he's weak, weak, weak. The adults are trying to work things out and he's treating the G7 as a photo opportunity.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:25 PM on June 9, 2018 [61 favorites]

I'm not a constitutional scholar, but wasn't that power granted by an act?

Depending on what you mean by "treaty" the President doesn't have unilateral treaty power. He can enter into executive agreements unilaterally, as Obama did with Iran, and internationally this is usually recognized as a treaty. But under the Constitution a true "treaty" is only something which the President negotiates and then passes the Senate by a 2/3 vote.

I'm unclear on what the practical difference is. To me it would make sense that a President could unilaterally withdraw from an executive agreement (as Trump has done) but Congress would have to act to withdraw from a ratified treaty. But so far as I am aware that has not been held to be the case. Previous Presidents have unilaterally withdrawn from ratified treaties and the courts have allowed it to happen but I don't know if they did so on the merits or for technical reasons or what.

But if a President can unilaterally withdrawal from a ratified treaty I don't really understand the point of going through the ratification process since it apparently doesn't do anything?
posted by Justinian at 5:29 PM on June 9, 2018 [7 favorites]

Hear me out: What if he is simply going crazy? Maybe from the incredible stress, maybe something else? Could it be that he is simply cracking out, and his incoherent ramblings are a sign of something medical?
posted by growabrain at 5:31 PM on June 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

He hasn’t changed in the slightest.
posted by Artw at 5:32 PM on June 9, 2018 [51 favorites]

Yeah, the interpretation more supported by the facts and by people who have known Trump for years is that he's always been a ragey narcissistic crybaby asshole. It's true that if you compare him speaking extemporaneously now and video of him from a few decades ago you can see a difference but that is a common thing which happens as a lot of people age.
posted by Justinian at 5:35 PM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

Simply going crazy? Read up on the guy, this is consistent with his business behavior going back 30 years.

1) demand too much
2) move the goalposts mid negotiation
3) be surprised when the only people who will do business with you are extortionists and gangsters
posted by benzenedream at 5:38 PM on June 9, 2018 [18 favorites]

1. JFC, we now have a diplomatic incident, and a developing trade war, with Canada, people! Canada! I’m trying to wrap my head around just how terrible you have to be at diplomacy and foreign policy to turn Canada into an openly-insulted adversary. Soon, he’s going to be calling for a Wall on our northern border, too!

2. I used to tell people that being President required a special skill set and demeanor, and that while I’d love the chance, I don’t think I could do it. But after seeing the past year and a half, I have NO DOUBT that I would be able to do the job infinitely better than the idiot currently sporting the title.

Darkstar / Inanimate Carbon Rod, 2020!
posted by darkstar at 5:43 PM on June 9, 2018 [46 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!

Flavio Volpe (President of Canada's auto parts industry association)
Retweeted Donald J. Trump
So.... you’re suggesting using a National Security regulation to charge $8B in tariffs to *American* consumers who buy 1 million cars made by American automakers, containing 60% American parts content, because of the price of milk in Windsor?

Where do I start?
posted by chris24 at 5:45 PM on June 9, 2018 [65 favorites]

Daniel Dale
This was the subdued, sorry-but tone of the Trudeau news conference that so irked Trump: "Canadians: we're polite, we're reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around."

VIDEO
posted by chris24 at 5:48 PM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

So Justin did give Trump a gift: a framed photograph of Trump's grandfather's Canadian brothel.
posted by nubs at 6:02 PM on June 9, 2018 [53 favorites]

This is pretty wild. Trump is saying that his steel and aluminum tariffs, which are officially being imposed on "national security" grounds, are actually a response to Canada's milk protectionism.
- The G7 countries found a way to come up with a joint statement that papered over their vast differences with Trump. Trump is now saying he's rejecting the statement because he's angry at Trudeau's (quite restrained) news conference.
- As with the Russia investigation, the travel ban and lots of other things, Trump is saying things out loud about his tariffs that undermine his administration's superficial official rationale and that undercut his legal case.

This is how Canada wins the obvious case at the WTO and gets to sanction the US with the full backing of the international legal structure that we built in the first place.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:04 PM on June 9, 2018 [29 favorites]

And this begins Trump versus the WTO, the one time any of us will be rooting for the WTO as the less awful and more obviously in the right thing.
posted by Artw at 6:07 PM on June 9, 2018 [17 favorites]

Soon, he’s going to be calling for a Wall on our northern border, too!

Please please please build the northern wall. You guys are starting to scare us down there.
posted by fimbulvetr at 6:10 PM on June 9, 2018 [14 favorites]

This is how Canada wins the obvious case at the WTO

And this begins Trump versus the WTO

Hah! You'se guys are underestimating how shitty everything already is.

Diplomats search for way to save trade system after U.S. vetoes judges.

tl;dr - Trump has been vetoing all judges nominated to WTO's Apellate Body. There should be 7. We're down to 4 since Trump is blocking new appointments. 3 are needed for a quorum. Trump is well on his way to killing the thing and so much terribleness has been going on that even people in this thread don't know about this one!
posted by Justinian at 6:12 PM on June 9, 2018 [57 favorites]

Yes, Donald, please go tariff-mad and raise prices on as many things as possible for Americans before the midterms (and I'm saying that as a low-income American consumer, but not a likely car buyer). I've seen a couple Letters to the Editor in the dead-tree media of my deep-purple California metro area that are giving total credit for the healthy economy to the 'Trump tax cut' and Administration de-regulation (they'll let Pruitt have a solid gold throne AND a solid gold toilet as long as he keeps breaking the environment for Business). If "economic uncertainty" drove them to America's Fake Billionaire, then give them some certainty - certain disaster. And do it fast, before the 2018 elections give the Trumpublicans a chance to blame it on the DemocratIC* Party.

And yes, the VAT is a regressive tax, especially since it applies to nearly everthing at every step in the producer-to-seller-to-consumer path, unlike American sales taxes which is slightly less regressive because it can be applied differently to different products.

*yes, a personal pet peeve, not like the pronunciation of 'gif' or 'ribald'. In fact, why don't we add an '-ic' to both party names? RepublicanICK.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:13 PM on June 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

For some reason, this most recent incident of dropping trou and shitting on the table in front of the entire world leaves me particularly despondent for the future, more so than any of the countless other vile things he's done lately.
posted by Behemoth at 6:13 PM on June 9, 2018 [13 favorites]

For some reason, this most recent incident of dropping trou and shitting on the table in front of the entire world leaves me particularly despondent for the future

Yeah, me too. It’s like, I still had a tiny tiny bit of hope that some crumb of decorum or at least not wanting to embarrass himself personally would keep him marginally in line when meeting with other world leaders. Today, that last bit of hope died.
posted by Weeping_angel at 6:25 PM on June 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

So Justin did give Trump a gift: a framed photograph of Trump's grandfather's Canadian brothel.

Ich denke, auch Merkel wollte Trump ein Gift geben.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:26 PM on June 9, 2018 [19 favorites]

If you were wondering "how is Trump going to monetize meeting with Kim Jong-un", well:

Trump open to U.S. embassy in Pyongyang, North Korea

He thinks we get paid for opening new buildings because the only thing he understand is real estate openings. And who knows, he's probably going to make a shitload off this, Kim is already good at money laundering its not a big stretch to cut in Trump on some petty cash in exchange for normalizing relations and tacitly approving North Korea as a nuclear power.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:28 PM on June 9, 2018 [5 favorites]

NYT (Krugman): Debacle in Quebec

Quebacle, surely.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:29 PM on June 9, 2018 [51 favorites]

Well, in Canada he was embarrassing himself just talking about milk with Justin Trudeau. How does it make you feel that the little man-child left early to go talk nuclear weapons with Kim Jong Un?
posted by JackFlash at 6:30 PM on June 9, 2018 [10 favorites]

Joe in Australia. I see what you did there.
posted by michswiss at 6:32 PM on June 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

I don't know if Trump's claim is at all accurate ...

It is a misread of Canadian politeness. For assholes in particular, it is easy to misread a very polite Canadian "Go Fuck Yourself" as weakness, not understanding we are just being polite and saying it as "Well, sorry, I don't really agree with that and may have to look into it." But really it is Go Fuck Yourself. If he can't handle Canadians, he is really and truly fucked with the Japanese.
posted by Bovine Love at 6:32 PM on June 9, 2018 [54 favorites]

Quebacle, surely.

An Impeccably Quebecable Debacle
posted by rhizome at 6:37 PM on June 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

If he can't handle Canadians, he is really and truly fucked with the Japanese.

Good luck for him the UK no longer exists as a world power.
posted by Artw at 6:38 PM on June 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

He thinks we get paid for opening new buildings because the only thing he understand is real estate openings. And who knows, he's probably going to make a shitload off this, Kim is already good at money laundering its not a big stretch to cut in Trump on some petty cash in exchange for normalizing relations and tacitly approving North Korea as a nuclear power.

Given the precedent set by Dick Cheney I'd heartily expect a hasty no-bid contract awarded to Trump Kids Construction Company for the US Embassy in Pyongyang.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 6:39 PM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]

Trump open to U.S. embassy in Pyongyang, North Korea

But wait, there's more...

Bloomberg: Trump, Kim Planning One-on-One Talk at Start of Summit

Donald Trump intends to meet one-on-one briefly with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the beginning of their June 12 summit -- a moment the president has said will be a critical gauge of whether a deal is likely, according to a U.S. official familiar with their plans.

Trump said Saturday he thinks he’ll know “within the first minute” if Kim is serious about giving up his nuclear arsenal and whether “something positive will happen.” The current plan is for Trump and Kim to be alone for that first minute, although likely with translators in the room.

Trump and Kim will be joined later by their closest aides, including U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, the official said. White House officials were told that Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong -- who represented North Korea in a diplomatic overture at the Winter Olympics -- will also be present in Singapore.

And how is Trump going to know "within the first minute"? He ~~explained~~ bullshitted, "My touch, my feel, that's what I do."
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:41 PM on June 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

After the North Korean summit, I expect Trump to return to the US triumphantly bragging how he traded the cow for some magic beans.
posted by SPrintF at 6:43 PM on June 9, 2018 [44 favorites]

The one-on-one is to discuss Trump Tower Pyongyang. If Kim isn't receptive Trump will know right away that "nothing positive will happen" at the summit.
posted by duoshao at 6:45 PM on June 9, 2018 [8 favorites]

Interesting New Yorker piece on the strategic challenges of the ACLU in the current era.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:47 PM on June 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

The A.C.L.U.’s electoral work has had a clarifying effect after Charlottesville. There is no elaborate ritual of objectivity. This candidate is for civil liberties, that one isn’t. People know where you stand.

Well that’s good to hear, please no more elaborate jerk off excercise s about the moral purity of giving money to nazis.
posted by Artw at 6:51 PM on June 9, 2018 [7 favorites]

John McCain
To our allies: bipartisan majorities of Americans remain pro-free trade, pro-globalization & supportive of alliances based on 70 years of shared values. Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn’t.
posted by chris24 at 6:53 PM on June 9, 2018 [26 favorites]

Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn’t.

If only Mr. John McCain had found himself in a position of power where he could have done something on these issues. Maybe he could have made a difference? I guess we'll never know.
posted by Justinian at 6:56 PM on June 9, 2018 [126 favorites]

And how is Trump going to know "within the first minute"?

Admittedly, it's not even the first minute yet and even I know. Of course Kim isn't planning to give up his nuclear arsenal. Why the hell would he? We're not coming to the table with anything more appealing than we've offered in the last 20 years, and the recent example of Iran doesn't exactly give nuclear-capable malefactors much of a reason to trust any offer we might come up with.
posted by jackbishop at 6:56 PM on June 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

> This photo released by Merkel's office is pretty extraordinary.

"Christ, what an asshole."
posted by runcifex at 6:57 PM on June 9, 2018 [13 favorites]

Kliph Nesteroff's showbiz/nostalgia tumblr is often strangely relevant to current events, like this clipping about a show produced in Canada by Lorne Michaels before he came down to make SNL: "That's Canada For You". Great title.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:59 PM on June 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

"My touch, my feel, that's what I do."

Touching and feeling? Ah, the "grab them by the pussy" school of international diplomacy.

Trump's other quote on this today was "At a minimum, I do believe, at least we'll have met each other... hopefully, we will have liked each other." In the first instance, meeting each other, talk about a low bar. In the second- his desire to be liked by autocrats is literally unbounded. It's remarkable.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:03 PM on June 9, 2018 [15 favorites]

That New Yorker piece on the ACLU (by Benjamin Wallace-Wells) that Chrysostom linked above has some really interesting info - for example,

Last year, as a kind of experiment, the A.C.L.U. made a small investment in the district attorney’s race in Philadelphia. The group had become interested in the race because one of the candidates, a former civil-rights lawyer named Larry Krasner, was campaigning on the promise to help end mass incarceration. The A.C.L.U. helped send ex-felons door to door, talking about the brutalities and injustices of prison, and Krasner won.

That's breathtakingly brilliant. And it WORKED.

The article also has some really good info about the Ira Glasser era, when Glasser emphatically preached against getting involved in politics, and the thinking of the current executive director, Anthony Romero, who believes getting involved in elections can indeed align with the mandate and spirit of an organization dedicated to civil liberties.

I recommend giving it a read. Thanks, Chrysostom!
posted by kristi at 7:24 PM on June 9, 2018 [53 favorites]

Soon, he’s going to be calling for a Wall on our northern border, too!

Please please please build the northern wall. You guys are starting to scare us down there.

I suggest using the newly more expensive softwood timber, aluminum and steel.
posted by srboisvert at 7:34 PM on June 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

A Republican who filmed herself harassing a trans woman lost her election. By a lot. (Alex Bollinger, LGBTQ Nation

In May, Jazmina Saavedra streamed video of herself harassing a transgender woman in a Denny’s bathroom. For half an hour, Saavedra paced in the restaurant, shouted at the transgender woman through the stall wall, and laughed with a friend about how she carries a stun gun and pepper spray for situations like that.

“So, that guy is violating my right to use the ladies’ room here, and he’s saying he’s a lady! Stupid guy,” Saavedra said in the video, which Facebook removed.

On Tuesday, Saavedra soundly lost the primary election for California’s 44th House District, getting 10% of the vote behind Democrat Nanette Barragan (66%) and Democrat Aja Brown (17%).

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:37 PM on June 9, 2018 [78 favorites]

The most interesting thing in that race isn't mentioned - 2nd place finisher Brown had dropped out in April. So Saavedra lost to someone who hadn't been running for two months.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:42 PM on June 9, 2018 [61 favorites]

But it's a top-two jungle primary, right? So does Brown's absence mean that Barragan is running unopposed, or that Saavedra gets to run against her?
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:45 PM on June 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Nope, Saavedra is out, regardless.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:48 PM on June 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

My touch, my feel...

That worked out real well for W, didn't it?
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:50 PM on June 9, 2018

Johnny, I only regret that I have but one like to give that article.

Thus ever to transphobes.
posted by greermahoney at 7:52 PM on June 9, 2018 [14 favorites]

Ivanka with the partying with Stanley Cup and Putin's favorite player Alexander Ovechkin. On the Sabbath, no less. Contrast with the treatment of black athletes.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:14 PM on June 9, 2018 [7 favorites]

Jay Nordlinger (Senior Editor, National Review)
I have read what Trump said at the G-7 about Russia, Crimea, etc. I have read it but can hardly believe it. This is the U.S. president? Why is he talking like an RT host? Just when you think things might be slightly normal -- you're jolted back into reality. A head-spinning time.
posted by chris24 at 8:16 PM on June 9, 2018 [13 favorites]

Poll: Democratic Undergrads Far Less Likely To Trust, Befriend People With Differing Political Views

Dartmouth did a poll in April asking undergraduates how they would react in various social situations to someone with political beliefs different from their own. Specifically, each respondent was asked if they would date, befriend, trust, study with, or work on a class project with someone from the opposing camp.

The survey found that in every case, Democrats were far more likely to say they would not engage socially with someone they disagreed.

It continues to be pretty much my only qualifying question to any person, place, or thing: Do (they / it) support Trump?

I know in the first minute if something productive will come from it.
posted by petebest at 8:20 PM on June 9, 2018 [36 favorites]

RepublicanICK

Republicaniksy, niet?
posted by porpoise at 8:21 PM on June 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, “US Tariffs were kind of insulting” and he “will not be pushed around.” Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!

Former Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to Trudeau.

Roland Paris
Retweeted Donald J. Trump
Big tough guy once he’s back on his airplane. Can’t do it in person, and knows it, which makes him feel weak. So he projects these feelings onto Trudeau and then lashes out at him. You don’t need to be Freud. He’s a pathetic little man-child.
posted by chris24 at 8:22 PM on June 9, 2018 [85 favorites]

The most interesting thing in that race isn't mentioned - 2nd place finisher Brown had dropped out in April. So Saavedra lost to someone who hadn't been running for two months.

Waitress, I'll have The Ashcroft Special.
posted by rhizome at 8:23 PM on June 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

It is a misread of Canadian politeness.

You may not have picked it up, but that's Canadian for "You motherfucker."
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:26 PM on June 9, 2018 [19 favorites]

Guardian: Arron Banks ‘met with Russian officials multiple times before Brexit vote’: Documents seen by Observer suggest multiple meetings between 2015 and 2017

Arron Banks, the millionaire businessman who bankrolled Nigel Farage’s campaign to quit the EU, had multiple meetings with Russian embassy officials in the run-up to the Brexit referendum, documents seen by the Observer suggest.

Banks, who gave £12m of services to the campaign, becoming the biggest donor in UK history, has repeatedly denied any involvement with Russian officials, or that Russian money played any part in the Brexit campaign. The Observer has seen documents which a senior Tory MP says, if correct, raise urgent and troubling questions about his relationship with the Russian government.

The communications suggest:

• Multiple meetings between the leaders of Leave.EU and high-ranking Russian officials, from November 2015 to 2017.

• Two meetings in the week Leave.EU launched its official campaign.

• An introduction to a Russian businessman, by the Russian ambassador, the day after Leave.EU launched its campaign, who reportedly offered Banks a multibillion dollar opportunity to buy Russian goldmines.

• A trip to Moscow in February 2016 to meet key partners and financiers behind a gold project, including a Russian bank.

• Continued extensive contact in the run-up to the US election when Banks, his business partner and Leave.EU spokesman Andy Wigmore, and Nigel Farage campaigned in the US to support Donald Trump’s candidacy.

posted by chris24 at 8:26 PM on June 9, 2018 [31 favorites]

This photo released by Merkel's office is pretty extraordinary.

If you pop over into the bad side of town, reddit's r/the_donald, you'll see the whole subreddit in utter glee over this photo. To them it portrays Trump as a give-no-fucks absolute-boss, next level negotiating champ. Repeatedly they portray it as showing "who is really in charge". It can't be overemphasized how reality has becomes split. I see a petulant jerk with a kind of befuddled look, and they see their hero standing up to the evil lady globalist who wants to screw america. Everything is filtered now before it is even real.
posted by dis_integration at 8:28 PM on June 9, 2018 [50 favorites]

jason_steakums: " it's just that the US hasn't been led by somebody stupid enough to throw away their hegemony before."

Geez can you imagine the effect on US military employment if NATO starts shuttering US bases.

infini: "Here's what doesn't make sense, MAGA, and Trump's take on trade and the G7 clash with the hypothesis that he's a Russian puppet."

Nah, The Cheeto just can't stay on target. Can you imagine being his Russian Handler?

Justinian: "He just followed that up and called Trudeau dishonest and weak. Jesus fucking christ."

Stupid Watergate continues: 'I’ve been called worse things by better people'
posted by Mitheral at 8:32 PM on June 9, 2018 [8 favorites]

Trump brothel to re-open as tourist attraction

Cruise ships now bring cheechakos ["newcomers"] to Bennett from Japan, Sweden and beyond, most of them not expecting to find a Trump franchise. “Believe me, we didn’t come to see that,” says Gary Graff, a visitor from Kentucky. “We’re grateful that Canadians even let us into the country, given the man in the executive mansion.”

Truth.
posted by petebest at 8:32 PM on June 9, 2018 [13 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!

Editor-in-Chief Weekly Standard.

Stephen Hayes
‏Retweeted Donald J. Trump
Got it. Russia attacks our elections, steals our cyber secrets, supports our enemies and meddles (currently) in our 2018 vote - and they’re worthy of G-8 membership. But a strong G-7 ally says something POTUS doesn’t like at a press conference and it’s time for toughness?
posted by chris24 at 8:39 PM on June 9, 2018 [53 favorites]

I can't read these crocodile tears by NeverTrumpers, every last one of them is perfectly fine with this in exchange for Gorsuch and 1/9 federal appeals judges now being TrumpJudges.

You don't get to make a deal with the devil and then cry when he throws your first born in the lake of fire.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:43 PM on June 9, 2018 [36 favorites]

RE: Explaining the Trump/Russia thing to "low information" voters.

I just listened to an episode of Fake the Nation and I was really surprised when I heard Larry Wilmore say that he doesn't believe that Trump colluded with Russia. I'm obviously paraphrasing but he thought Trump was too stupid to have done it, and anyway, they hacked Hillary and the Democrats too, didn't they? I honestly don't know what to make of it when someone who hosted his own topical news show and presumably has read at least some of the stories about all of the Trump campaign's entanglements with Russia just dismisses it out of hand. I mean, making an equivalence between Trump, who asked on national television, for Russia to get Hillary's emails and Hillary (and/or the DNC) having their e-mails hacked is hurting my brain badly. Anyway, I despair for the public at large if someone like Wilmore can't see the connection.
posted by runcibleshaw at 9:22 PM on June 9, 2018 [12 favorites]

I honestly don't know what to make of it when someone who hosted his own topical news show and presumably has read at least some of the stories about all of the Trump campaign's entanglements with Russia just dismisses it out of hand

Usually it's because neoliberalism is the true enemy. I'm not sure that applies in Wilmore's case, though.
posted by Justinian at 9:35 PM on June 9, 2018

Trump is totally criminal, but he is no criminal mastermind. His narcissism allows him to see himself as 'totally in charge' while others pull his strings. He's also too dumb to realize the illegality of his own actions; it's no excuse that will hold up in a court of law, but a big deal with some in the 'court of public opinion'. His appeal to "low information" voters is that he is basically an "ultra-low information" leader and that gives the morons and idiots something they can aspire to... "if he can grab the gold ring, why can't I?" (Well, for one thing, you don't have a multi-millionaire father and you lack his connections to all the criminal and corrupt institutions in New York City...)
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:38 PM on June 9, 2018 [8 favorites]

Anyway, I despair for the public at large if someone like Wilmore can't see the connection.

TBH I've just come to expect that when someone gets famous for their smart, unique and often refreshing and dead-on take on current events, there is a real good chance they eventually hit that point where they start losing touch and running with Both Sides Hot Takes. It seems easy for someone legitimately smart to fall into that trap or into outright high-on-their-own-supply contrarianism when people look to them for their opinions, that "everything you know is wrong!" iconoclasm is a tempting kind of a cheat code for keeping up the image.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:46 PM on June 9, 2018 [22 favorites]

I've always found Wimore to be very much in the Jon Stewart mold of "both parties are the same amirite?" Their professional brand depends on being viable in Democratic and Republican administrations, they're very susceptible to the overton window effect. Republicans might be 1000x worse than even 8 years ago, but because Democrats are 1x bad, let's call it 500x and blame both.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:47 PM on June 9, 2018 [17 favorites]

WaPo, ‘They just took them?’ Frantic parents separated from their kids fill courts on the border

Juana Francisca Bonilla de Canjura wiped tears from her face in the courtroom as she listened to the proceedings through a translation headset. In her hands, she clutched the passports of her two daughters: Ingrid, 10, and Fatima, 12. They had come together from El Salvador, then were separated at a hielera. The bright blue documents were her only way of getting them back.

“I don’t have any idea where they are,” she’d told a Post reporter shortly before the hearing began. “Nobody knows anything. Nobody says anything — just lies. They said they were taking them for questioning, and we were only going to be apart for a moment. But they never came back.”

“What pains me is the thought they are suffering without me,” she said. As she spoke, a Border Patrol agent in green fatigues cut off the conversation.

“You can’t ask them about their families,” the agent told the reporter. “They are in my custody.”

posted by zachlipton at 10:11 PM on June 9, 2018 [52 favorites]

“You can’t ask them about their families,” the agent told the reporter. “They are in my custody.”

"These measures will have a deterrent effect because - A. The prisoners will vanish without a trace. B. No information may be given as to their whereabouts or their fate."
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:24 PM on June 9, 2018 [66 favorites]

David Frum in conversation with Larry Wilmore at Live Talks Los Angeles, Feb 2018

Some interesting back and forth in there on political shifts and inflection points over the last few decades. Wilmore calls Trump "amazingly charismatic" (though a "narcissistic orange blob") so make of that what you will.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:25 PM on June 9, 2018

There's a reason Wilmore lost his gig...
posted by Windopaene at 10:33 PM on June 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

No. You can debate the scale of it, you can debate how much Trump knew when, you can debate how much it really changed things, you can debate how much Trump requested and how much he just let happen, but you cannot debate that Russia both used hacking and propaganda to attempt to swing the election. It's fact, not opinion.
posted by bootlegpop at 10:52 PM on June 9, 2018 [72 favorites]

It's plausible that Trump didn't know about all of the senior people in his campaign colluding with the Russians but there is no doubt he's obstructed justice in the investigation.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:27 PM on June 9, 2018 [33 favorites]

Yes. When your defence is that "Fighting Back" against an investigation doesn't constitute obstruction, you've almost certainly committed obstruction.
posted by jaduncan at 11:51 PM on June 9, 2018 [7 favorites]

I hope people realize that when these tariffs are lifted the U.S. will go right back to buying Chinese steel, but foreign customers won't necessarily return to buying U.S. jeans, motorcycles, and whiskey. Many will develop new brand loyalties.
posted by xammerboy at 11:55 PM on June 9, 2018 [40 favorites]

Imo, the impact will reverberate beyond just trade. This man's infantile responses are one thing, and a short term thing. In the medium to longer term, trust has been seriously damaged on a fundamental level. Far too much has come clear on agendas and strategies for the old post WW2 order to continue as it has done. That level of damage to "the rules based order" which the pundits were predicting has come true. Now the questions are at the institutional level, beyond any one man or human filling a role. Especially for Germany, not only one of the biggest economies in the EU, but currently dealing with this man's representative, who doesn't seem to know where the lines are. Benefits of doubt given to inexperience and ignorance have evaporated into thin air. Can you honestly trust this C-in-C to defend the NATO against the Russians after this summit?
posted by infini at 1:23 AM on June 10, 2018 [10 favorites]

> And the faster Trump sabotages the American economy, the more Americans will abandon him and his party.

Maybe? But populist politicians always blame hard times on their favourite scapegoats, and their followers are usually more than happy to follow along.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:02 AM on June 10, 2018 [10 favorites]

Some of Trump's followers are 'populist fanboys', some are proud fascists, and some are just spoiled Americans who will be the first to peel off when the economic gains evaporate. Of course, we have no good idea how many are in each category, but looking at America, I'm suspecting that third group is very significant.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:27 AM on June 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

[Fake The Nation] doesn't believe that Trump colluded with Russia. I'm obviously paraphrasing but he thought Trump was too stupid to have done it.

I'm baffled by this trope. Trump didn't have to do anything to collude with the Russians. He just had to be aware they were helping him, and then do nothing.
posted by xammerboy at 3:11 AM on June 10, 2018 [19 favorites]

Legally speaking he probably does have to have taken some sort of overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. There is no legal duty to report most crimes, only a moral one. Ok, that's a conspiracy. Collusion doesn't have a legal meaning as we keep hearing from the talking heads so I guess he could still collude by doing nothing. But as they keep telling us on the talking head shows, "collusion" is not a crime.

Something as small as a Don Sr. equivalent of Don Jr's "especially later in the Summer" would probably suffice technically. Hell, calling for Russia to release Clinton's "33,000 deleted emails" would be a no brainer if you could clear the hurdle of people disbelieving he could be breaking the law brazenly on live television. Like if he was caught shredding a document in which he had written to the Russians asking for it to happen people would see it for what it is, but because he did it staring into a camera it goes in the memory hole.

But yeah, doing nothing wouldn't be enough to incriminate him.
posted by Justinian at 3:27 AM on June 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

The Last Covfefe
posted by growabrain at 3:33 AM on June 10, 2018 [12 favorites]

[Fake The Nation] doesn't believe that Trump colluded with Russia. I'm obviously paraphrasing but he thought Trump was too stupid to have done it.

The truth is he's too stupid not to have done it.
posted by dng at 3:37 AM on June 10, 2018 [12 favorites]

Also, In my years as an FBI agent, I never encountered an innocent subject who actively worked to obstruct an investigation that would have proved their innocence
posted by growabrain at 3:37 AM on June 10, 2018 [53 favorites]

What, seriously now, no silliness no wacky conspiracy theories, what it Trump doing? Or, what does he think he’s doing and there are people in government who ‘know better’ who have a vested interest in not having it all go up in flames, why aren’t they acting? Are we to take this to mean Trump didn’t just light the torch, which is what it looks like from over here.

There’s something performative about his assholery that I can recognize and discount: you made me feel bad with all your fancy words and boring ‘policy’ talk so I’m going to shit on your dining room table. During dinner. I get that, I was an angry kid once too. But what I learned is that there’s no win at the end of that display...

But is there really no-one to tell him to cut the shit? Or is his shit-stirring good for business? Or good enough for selective businesses that they don’t care about everything else?

There are so so so many questions about Trump’s behavior: Occam’s razor tells me Trump wants to burn it all down - but Occam’s razor also tells me Trump didn’t come up with this himself. (And again, the fuck is he doing? Burning it all down at his age means... he doesn’t care about his kids? Because any billion dollar fortune he might think he’s going to get he’s only got maybe ten years to enjoy.).

I don’t see anything good on the horizon, and it’s causing me concern.
posted by From Bklyn at 3:56 AM on June 10, 2018 [8 favorites]

In the first year-and-a-half of the Trump Era, I have gone from seeing anyone who respects the Dastardly Donald being simply dumb to them being essentially immoral, someone I cannot trust to park their car without running down at least one child, dog or old lady (or me).

I never, ever forget for a second that the preponderance of evidence in Doe v. Trump and Epstein shows that in 1994, Donald J. Trump raped a 13 year old girl.

And anyone who doesn't think that's a show-stopper and supports Donald J. Trump lacks empathy ( or a soul ), and is no friend of mine or any G-d fearing American.
posted by mikelieman at 4:00 AM on June 10, 2018 [43 favorites]

> And the faster Trump sabotages the American economy, the more Americans will abandon him and his party.

>Maybe? But populist politicians always blame hard times on their favourite scapegoats, and their followers are usually more than happy to follow along.

Yeah, I’m more thinking about how fascists and strong men with minority support consolidate power by provoking war with some external force.

So. That doesn’t feel great.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:38 AM on June 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

What, seriously now, no silliness no wacky conspiracy theories, what it Trump doing?

There's that 1987 interview in which he dreams of the United States and the Soviet Union teaming up for global domination, forcing the other nations of the world to their knees to prevent anyone else from acquiring substantial nuclear arsenals and compel the surrender of nuclear weapons technology by anyone else who has it—

You apply as much pressure as necessary until you achieve the goal. You start off telling them, ‘Let’s get rid of it.’ If that doesn’t work you then start cutting off aid. And more aid and then more. You do whatever is necessary so these people will have riots in the street, so they can’t get water. So they can’t get Band-Aids, so they can’t get food. Because that’s the only thing that’s going to do it—the people, the riots.

and then presumably the Fourth Reich uses its iron-fisted ‘my touch, my feel, that's what I do’ to force everyone to buy Trump steaks and Trump wine and have some North Korea style international kidnappings for sex slavery.

Anyways, insofar as there's any thought whatsoever occurring, it has seemed to me that a narrative along these lines has been running internally in parallel to all of the other two-bit gambits and stuffing money into his pockets and tantrums and masturbatory fantasies of brilliance and adoration.
posted by XMLicious at 4:46 AM on June 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

But is there really no-one to tell him to cut the shit? Or is his shit-stirring good for business?

Clearly not. Republicans have been systematically removing all norms and institutional checks on their power for decades, and by now it’s clear that no one in their party has the personal guts or integrity to stand up to Trump.

A strongman was always the only possible result. That the strong man might not be to their liking is a problem that they clearly did not think through. And now it’s too late.
posted by msalt at 4:47 AM on June 10, 2018 [19 favorites]

There is no legal duty to report most crimes, only a moral one.

It's basically moon law at this point, but there is misprison of felony.

Here's an article from Volokh discussing its weirdness.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:54 AM on June 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

Fresh covfefe memes
posted by growabrain at 5:20 AM on June 10, 2018 [8 favorites]

David Frum in The Atlantic:

Trump is locked into a cycle in his top-level diplomacy: bully-cringe-bully-cringe. He bullies traditional friends and allies; he cringes to adversaries, dictators, and potential funding sources for Trump enterprises. Bullying the G7 was the weekend’s story; cringing to North Korea—and behind it, China—will be the story of the week ahead.

posted by box at 5:53 AM on June 10, 2018 [28 favorites]

Now that Trump's arrived in Singapore for his supposedly historic summit with Kim, maybe Macron should remind him, "Ya know, we have nukes too, Dotard. And they can definitely reach Mar-a-Lago."
posted by xigxag at 5:57 AM on June 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

It's basically moon law at this point, but there is misprison of felony.

To recap. The Russians broke the law, 52 USC 30121, by reaching out to the Trump Campaign offering -- anything -- including dirt on their opponent.

The Trump Campaign, instead of reporting the crime, assumed criminal liability under 18 USC 4 ( misprison of felony ) AND by scheduling the meeting under 18 USC 2.

With all these people, ( 18 USC 371 ) and lying about it ( 18 USC 1001 ), to me, it seems that Mueller has already integrated all this into his investigation, then drilled down on Manafort. Someone upthread thought that there may already be sealed indictments. RICO-ing the Trump Campaign would tie it all up in a nice bow.

And it's going to take some serious Truth and Reconciliation to prove to our prior allies that our government is up to the task of resolving these outliers.
posted by mikelieman at 5:58 AM on June 10, 2018 [28 favorites]

Floating around Twitter: why don’t government’s attack the Trump Org itself instead of trade warring it? Seize that Scottish golf course and towers in Vancouver for one.
posted by The Whelk at 6:05 AM on June 10, 2018 [39 favorites]

And it's going to take some serious Truth and Reconciliation to prove to our prior allies that our government is up to the task of resolving these outliers.

We'd need to convince them that we'd never elect someone like Trump again. Can any of us promise that?
posted by Anonymous at 6:41 AM on June 10, 2018

Floating around Twitter: why don’t government’s attack the Trump Org itself instead of trade warring it? Seize that Scottish golf course and towers in Vancouver for one.

Isn’t the US one of the biggest international tax havens for non-US citizens?

They take his stuff, he takes theirs.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:41 AM on June 10, 2018

We'd need to convince them that we'd never elect someone like Trump again. Can any of us promise that?

This is the damage that will last generations. And is probably how the US's prominent place in the world is permanently diminished. Honestly, everyone else has been waiting for an excuse for a long time anyway, and this is the perfect one. We can't be trusted not to do this again until we've overhauled our democracy, and I don't believe that even the Democrats are on board with doing that to a meaningful extent anytime soon.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:48 AM on June 10, 2018 [32 favorites]

RICO-ing the Trump Campaign would tie it all up in a nice bow.

I haven't found an actual lawyer who thinks RICO is a smart play from Mueller. The courts read it as a desperation card, not a trump card.
posted by Merus at 6:51 AM on June 10, 2018

We'd need to convince them that we'd never elect someone like Trump again. Can any of us promise that?

This is the damage that will last generations.

I mean. It’s been 75 years, and now Germany is the leader of the free world. So maybe one generation.

Still not great though.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:55 AM on June 10, 2018 [29 favorites]

This is the damage that will last generations. And is probably how the US's prominent place in the world is permanently diminished.

Not that I'm endorsing any particular replacement, but is 'the US is no longer the unquestioned 600 pound gorilla of world policy' necessarily a bad outcome?
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:00 AM on June 10, 2018 [25 favorites]

Larry Kudlow got on the electric teevee box this morning to pontificate on the summit, and it was a doozy. As Daniel Dale recounts, he started off with a rant about the "betrayal" of Trudeau, culminating in some good old "stabbed in the back" rhetoric, which coming from this administration certainly doesn't sound ominous. But c'mon, Larry, tell us why you and Trump are really mad:

Now, POTUS is not gonna let a Canadian prime minister push him around, push him, POTUS, around, President Trump, on the eve of this -- he is not going to permit any show of weakness on a trip to negotiate with North Korea.
[...]
Kim must not see American weakness. It’s that short...[Trudeau was] pouring collateral damage on this whole Korean trip, that was a part of Trudeau's mistake. Trudeau made an error, he should take it back, he should pull back on his statements.
[...]
He can't put Trump in a position of being weak going into the North Korean talks. He can't do that. And by the way, President Trump is NOT weak!
[...]
Why throw a monkey wrench into a meeting of the Western allies? We were coming together beautifully, okay? And then he goes out there and pulls this amateur political stunt…amateurish scheme that really broke up all the goodwill from that meeting in Quebec.

Can't wait for the next Infrastructure Week!
posted by zombieflanders at 7:00 AM on June 10, 2018 [21 favorites]

Not that I'm endorsing any particular replacement, but is 'the US is no longer the unquestioned 600 pound gorilla of world policy' necessarily a bad outcome?

To clarify, no, I didn’t mean it that way at all. I think it’s better for the world and ultimately better for my country’s ego. But the fundamental lack of trust this will engender is going to hurt us for a while.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:04 AM on June 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

Floating around Twitter: why don’t government’s attack the Trump Org itself instead of trade warring it?

The UK is still selling off as much property as possible to actual Russia oligarchs, they're not about to act against Trump personally either, as the entire post-Brexit economic plan seems to be about hoovering up as much international money laundering as possible and latching onto Trump with a US trade deal.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:04 AM on June 10, 2018 [12 favorites]

The UK is preparing itself for asset stripping and liquidation, it’s not going to piss off potential buyers.
posted by Artw at 7:17 AM on June 10, 2018 [11 favorites]

Now, POTUS is not gonna let a Canadian prime minister push him around, push him, POTUS, around, President Trump, on the eve of this -- he is not going to permit any show of weakness on a trip to negotiate with North Korea.
[...]
Why throw a monkey wrench into a meeting of the Western allies? We were coming together beautifully, okay? And then he goes out there and pulls this amateur political stunt…amateurish scheme that really broke up all the goodwill from that meeting in Quebec.

Is Trump's Mirror telling us that his turd-in-the-punchbowl routine at the G7 was just a dominance play to make him look Strong & Tough prior to his NK meeting? Trump's Razor says yes, it is.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:22 AM on June 10, 2018 [15 favorites]

Now, POTUS is not gonna let a Canadian prime minister push him around, push him, POTUS, around, President Trump, on the eve of this -- he is not going to permit any show of weakness on a trip to negotiate with North Korea.

LOL coming from a party that sent a letter signed by 47 R senators to try to derail the Iran Deal.

But hey, pulling out of an agreement with Allies in a fit of pique sure shows NK you're a reliable partner they can depend on to follow through.
posted by chris24 at 7:27 AM on June 10, 2018 [17 favorites]

Trump's Tariffs Worry A Small Steel City In Pennsylvania

"We need tariffs, but when it starts to impact the company where you work ... you're thinking, well wait a minute, time out!" he said.

Please, Mr Leopard. I didn't want you to eat MY face.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 7:27 AM on June 10, 2018 [56 favorites]

by now it’s clear that no one in their party has the personal guts or integrity to stand up to Trump

The GOP is getting everything they've ever wanted, and Trump is a giant distraction out in front of it all. They'll cast him aside as soon as he's no longer useful.

Not that I'm endorsing any particular replacement, but is 'the US is no longer the unquestioned 600 pound gorilla of world policy' necessarily a bad outcome?

Depends on the parts of the future that are most important to you, in my opinion. China takes the long view and has for 6000 years, so I have quite a bit of hope that if humans are going to meaningfully survive the sixth mass extinction and climate change, their style of thinking and planning is what's going to do it. But if human rights are an important goal, then it's probably a pretty bad thing if the Western Democracies fall aside.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:27 AM on June 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

The Whelk: "Floating around Twitter: why don’t government’s attack the Trump Org itself instead of trade warring it? Seize that Scottish golf course and towers in Vancouver for one."

I can't speak for Scotland but Canada generally likes to follow the rule of law which is what the counter tariffs are doing. Note that Canada's at least are carefully worded to only 100% offset the illegal American levies.
posted by Mitheral at 7:31 AM on June 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

Simon Maloy (MMFA)
just sitting here thinking about the several years Republicans spent attacking one specific president for "alienating our allies" and "emboldening our enemies"

Ned Pyle
On 9/11, thousands of Americans on 238 airliners were diverted to Canada as part of Operation Yellow Ribbon. Canada cared for them for days, The small town of Gander took in 7,000 people alone. In our hour of need, Canada was there. And this orange maggot calls them an enemy

David Jolly (fmr R congressman)
Under scrutiny from loyal allies, Trump chooses to strengthen his alliance with Putin and Kim Jong Un. Notwithstanding geopolitical consequences, it demonstrates a grown man unable to hold his own among peers, so instead seeks affirmation among adversaries willing to provide it.
posted by chris24 at 7:31 AM on June 10, 2018 [79 favorites]

Not that I'm endorsing any particular replacement, but is 'the US is no longer the unquestioned 600 pound gorilla of world policy' necessarily a bad outcome?

It's complicated. I worry that the decline of the unipolar world will tempt leaders into risky strategies that the check of a hegemon would have prevented. The law among nations remains the law of all against all and maybe having a nation qua hobbesian strongman makes sense for preserving (relative) peace. I'm not really sure, but I don't think a greater balance of power among the nations is an unadulterated good. Balance means conflict among equals who are therefore more likely to risk war.
posted by dis_integration at 7:32 AM on June 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

Oh, look at that, even more invocations of the Dolchstoßlegende from the Administration this morning:

@vmsalama: Trump adviser Peter Navarro tells Fox News this morning: "There's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with Donald J Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door."
posted by zombieflanders at 7:34 AM on June 10, 2018 [20 favorites]

I mean. It’s been 75 years, and now Germany is the leader of the free world. So maybe one generation.

Well, like middleclasstool said:

We can't be trusted not to do this again until we've overhauled our democracy, and I don't believe that even the Democrats are on board with doing that to a meaningful extent anytime soon.

Germany overhauled itself, to say the least. It also took the complete destruction and occupation of the country to do so. So, uh, overhaul is possible, but likely? I don't think so. Not without some truly dire circumstances driving it.
posted by Anonymous at 7:35 AM on June 10, 2018

As a Canadian dual and daughter of a Canadian immigrant, one thing I could not have predicted was waking up one morning to find that Canada is now the enemy.

Seriously, y'all, G6 this shit. Ignore us and maybe we'll go away.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:36 AM on June 10, 2018 [19 favorites]

Discovering that this novel exists this morning made me a smidge less abjectly miserable.
Hope Never Dies

"Vice President Joe Biden is fresh out of the Obama White House and feeling adrift when his favorite railroad conductor dies in a suspicious accident, leaving behind an ailing wife and a trail of clues. To unravel the mystery, "Amtrak Joe" re-teams with the only man he's ever fully trusted--the 44th president of the United States. Together they'll plumb the darkest corners of Delaware, traveling from cheap motels to biker bars and beyond, as they uncover the sinister forces advancing America's opioid epidemic."
posted by thebrokedown at 7:43 AM on June 10, 2018 [43 favorites]

David A. Clarke, Jr. @SheriffClarke
.@realDonaldTrump should invite JUSTIFY to the White House lawn for winning the Triple Crown.
Justify is a WINNER like Trump who could care less about leftist identity politics.
#MAGA

NarrowlyDecidedHat @Popehat
Come on, that’s a dumb, impulsive animal who shits wherever he wants, doesn’t understand geopolitical issues, and is just known for showy races. Why would Justify want to meet him?

posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 7:45 AM on June 10, 2018 [108 favorites]

Paul Krugman subtweeting his entire paper:

It's normal to feel that people you disagree with politically are offering bad solutions to our problems. But Trump has brought something new: his policy agenda is almost entirely directed at problems we don't have -- problems that exist only in his warped imagination 1/ These include:
- A wave of violent crime by undocumented immigrants
- Massive illegal voting by the same
- Massive Canadian tariffs against US goods
- Conspiracy by the Elders of Zion to take over the world

OK, he hasn't actually gone after point #4, but give him time 2/Journalists obviously have a hard time coping with all of this. They're afraid to say that the president is completely out of touch with reality -- that sounds "unbalanced." So, all too often, they pretend that he's talking about something real 3/ This amounts, in practice, to huge pro-Trump bias: you're bothsidesing a debate where one side isn't even wrong, just completely insane And the other dodge -- instead of talking about the substance, talk about how it's playing with Real Americans in diners -- is just as bad 4/ There's a test taking place as you read this: Trump defenders are out there claiming that Justin Trudeau, not Trump, blew up the summit. This is pure gaslighting; how many reporters will pretend to take it seriously? 5/

posted by T.D. Strange at 7:48 AM on June 10, 2018 [94 favorites]

[Fake The Nation] doesn't believe that Trump colluded with Russia. I'm obviously paraphrasing but he thought Trump was too stupid to have done it.

I'm baffled by this trope. Trump didn't have to do anything to collude with the Russians. He just had to be aware they were helping him, and then do nothing.

Pretty much this. "Too stupid" still isn't a denial of it happening; it's a denial that it was a crime because he didn't understand it was a crime. Replace "too stupid to collude" with "too stupid to [any other crime]" and see how stupid that phrase is.

It can't be robbery, because he's too stupid to commit robbery.
It can't be tax evasion, because he's too stupid to commit tax evasion.
It can't be sexual harassment, because he's too stupid to commit sexual harassment.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 7:56 AM on June 10, 2018 [18 favorites]

Does "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" sound familiar?
posted by mikelieman at 8:01 AM on June 10, 2018 [13 favorites]

"too stupid to [any other crime]" and see how stupid that phrase is.

THIS. For fuck's sake he already gets the lowest bar ever everywhere else. I wouldn't expect MeFi to give a white, male, born rich, Penn/private school-educated, lifelong businessman a pass because he can't be expected to realize what is illegal or not. Jesus fucking Christ, he's a 70 year old billionaire who became president and we're supposed to excuse effectively treason because he supposedly doesn't really know it's wrong. FUCK THAT. He's not that stupid. He just hopes you are.
posted by chris24 at 8:02 AM on June 10, 2018 [82 favorites]

Trump was trained in the art of blackmail and collusion by none other than Roy Cohn, so he's had plenty of practice using proxies to commit illegal acts, if only on the municipal scale. I would bet Trump has blackmail material on Guliani from his days paying off the NY mayor.
posted by benzenedream at 8:06 AM on June 10, 2018 [22 favorites]

[...]
Kim must not see American weakness. It’s that short...[Trudeau was] pouring collateral damage on this whole Korean trip, that was a part of Trudeau's mistake. Trudeau made an error, he should take it back, he should pull back on his statements.
[...]

An American using the phrase 'collateral damage' when talking about Canadians is more conservative projection. America has actually inflicted real life, real world, real war collateral damage on Canadian soldiers when we stood alongside the United States at the opening of the Afghan war and then failed to court martial the pilots despite considerable evidence to warrant it.
posted by srboisvert at 8:12 AM on June 10, 2018 [18 favorites]

Kim must not see American weakness. It’s that short...[Trudeau was] pouring collateral damage on this whole Korean trip, that was a part of Trudeau's mistake. Trudeau made an error, he should take it back, he should pull back on his statements.

It's always "you must support me" but there's never an "I'm supporting you". Narcissists assume assistance is their due.
posted by scalefree at 8:17 AM on June 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

I'm still boggled that they think the way to appear tough heading into the NK summit is to back out on a previously agreed to statement and then heap scorn and abuse on a long time ally. Because both of those make you look like a stable, predictable place to make a deal with.

Anyways, probably time to rework the lyrics to Blame Canada
posted by nubs at 8:17 AM on June 10, 2018 [11 favorites]

Richard N. Haass (President, Council Foreign Relations)
The unraveling of G-7 summit works in NK’s favor as @realDonaldTrump will not want to bust up 2 summits in a row lest people conclude he is the problem. Increases incentive for Kim to up his asks and limit his compromises and for Trump to do the opposite. Hardly the ideal context
posted by chris24 at 8:18 AM on June 10, 2018 [24 favorites]

@SheriffClarke
@realDonaldTrump should invite JUSTIFY to the White House lawn for winning the Triple Crown.
Justify is a WINNER like Trump who could care less about leftist identity politics.
#MAGA

@realgaiuscaligula should name Incitatus as Consul. Incitatus is a WINNER like Caligula who could care less about triggering the Praetorian Guard. #MRGA
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:18 AM on June 10, 2018 [51 favorites]

He can't put Trump in a position of being weak going into the North Korean talks. He can't do that. And by the way, President Trump is NOT weak!

Yeah, this screams strength and confidence.
posted by chris24 at 8:31 AM on June 10, 2018 [43 favorites]

Another deeply sickening but informative report on family separation with details on the foster/shelter situation and court proceedings:

Boston Globe: Down on the border, a new trail of tears

Aleman-Bendiks, the public defender, said several of her clients have told her their children were taken from them by Border Patrol agents who said they were going to give them a bath. As the hours passed, it dawned on the mothers the kids were not coming back.
----------------------------------
[The judge] then turned to the defendants. “I hope you understand the reason there was a separation is you violated the laws here,” Ormsby said to them.

posted by FelliniBlank at 8:38 AM on June 10, 2018 [27 favorites]

their children were taken from them by Border Patrol agents who said they were going to give them a bath

"In order to prevent panic, camp guards told the victims that they were going to take showers to rid themselves of lice."

Abolish ICE.
posted by jedicus at 8:41 AM on June 10, 2018 [101 favorites]

Somehow the link the Blame Canada link a few comments up brought Randy Newman's "Political Science" to mind.

video
lyrics

Asia's crowded, Europe's too old
Africa's far too hot, and Canada's too cold
South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one, there'll be no one left to blame us
posted by kingless at 8:41 AM on June 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

Abolish ICE.

"Abolish ICE" has already entered the rhetoric of D candidates, so it's time to start pushing overton with "abolish and prosecute ICE."
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:46 AM on June 10, 2018 [57 favorites]

their children were taken from them by Border Patrol agents who said they were going to give them a bath

Adam Jentleson (Harry Reid's former Deputy CoS)
If you support or implement this policy on the pretext that it keeps you safe and preserves national sovereignty, you would have supported sending Jews to concentration camps on the pretext that it keeps you safe and preserves national sovereignty.
posted by chris24 at 8:47 AM on June 10, 2018 [84 favorites]

While his boss was inviting Russia back to the G8...

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats: Russia is Attempting to Influence US Midterms, Divide Transatlantic Alliance
posted by chris24 at 8:51 AM on June 10, 2018 [18 favorites]

Josh Marshall:

His goal is to threaten, cajole, walk away and try other antics that will allow him to impose tariffs and not have the target retaliate. Then he’s “won.” They “caved.” You see things start to spin out of control when the other countries either threaten to impose or do impose their other retaliatory tariffs. That’s totally predictable. But Trump views it as picking a fight.

International trade is complicated and involves lots of dimensions I don’t have sufficient knowledge about. But again, that’s not what any of this is about. This is a large scale version of Trump’s practice of pressing for super low rates for a service and then not even paying the vendor. They gotta problem with that? Fine, sue me! He needs to win and you need to lose. Indeed, he won’t know he’s won until you lose. This is not a recipe for any kind of longterm success for a great power or really any major state for that matter. You can see it in Trump’s own history, which is a long one of burned bridges, banks that shut him out and people who refused any longer to do business with him. That’s why he became dependent on criminal money from overseas and scams like Trump University.

posted by T.D. Strange at 8:52 AM on June 10, 2018 [38 favorites]

Adam Best: Fox & Friends accidentally said this about the Singapore summit: "regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators." This gaffe is probably the most honest thing ever said in the program's history. [includes video]
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:09 AM on June 10, 2018 [105 favorites]

zombieflanders: "Oh, look at that, even more invocations of the Dolchstoßlegende from the Administration this morning:

@vmsalama: Trump adviser Peter Navarro tells Fox News this morning: "There's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with Donald J Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door.""

Every day I'm even more embarrassed for our country.
posted by octothorpe at 9:27 AM on June 10, 2018 [8 favorites]

A Photo for the Ages of Our Unfolding Disaster TPM on the G7 photo and photos of the same moment from different sources.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:31 AM on June 10, 2018 [18 favorites]

Given the language I suspect that’s a Stephen Miller penned talking point.
posted by Artw at 9:31 AM on June 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

So Trump & Co. expect Canada to be America First too and get pissed when they dare be Canada First. Got it.
posted by chris24 at 9:35 AM on June 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

The fuller Navarro quote is just as insane.

"All Justin Trudeau had to do was take the win. President Trump did the courtesy to Justin Trudeau to travel up to Quebec for that summit. He had other things, bigger things on his plate in Singapore. He did him a favor and was even willing to sign that socialist communique."
posted by chris24 at 9:39 AM on June 10, 2018 [13 favorites]

> A Photo for the Ages of Our Unfolding Disaster TPM on the G7 photo and photos of the same moment from different sources.

Artist's Interpretation
posted by Arson Lupine at 9:40 AM on June 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

France blasts ‘incoherent’ Trump after G7 fiasco

France pledged on Sunday to stand by the G7 summit statement disowned by Donald Trump and took a swipe at the U.S. president by declaring that international cooperation could not depend on “fits of anger” or “little words.”

Apparently incensed by remarks about U.S. tariffs at the closing press conference on Saturday by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump — who had already left the gathering in Quebec — tweeted that he had instructed U.S. officials not to endorse the final communiqué, which had already been agreed and published.

In a statement on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said all of Europe would continue to stand behind the communiqué, which included a commitment by the seven leading industrialized democracies to a “rules-based international trading system” and a pledge to “continue to fight protectionism.”

“We spent two days to obtain a text and commitments. We will stand by them and anyone who would depart from them, once their back was turned, shows their incoherence and inconsistency,” said the statement, quoted by Le Monde, which did not mention Trump by name but was clearly referring to his actions.

“International cooperation cannot depend on fits of anger or little words. Let us be serious and worthy of our people,” the statement said.

Germany also said it remained committed to the G7 declaration.

posted by chris24 at 9:42 AM on June 10, 2018 [28 favorites]

@SheriffClarke: .@realDonaldTrump should invite JUSTIFY to the White House lawn for winning the Triple Crown. Justify is a WINNER like Trump who could care less about leftist identity politics. #MAGA

Allen Wallace
Breaking: #Justify turns down invitation to White House. Asked why, the #TripleCrown winner said “If I wanted to see a horse’s ass, I would’ve finished second.”
posted by chris24 at 9:46 AM on June 10, 2018 [123 favorites]

@SheriffClarke: .@realDonaldTrump should invite JUSTIFY to the White House lawn for winning the Triple Crown. Justify is a WINNER like Trump who could care less about leftist identity politics. #MAGA

I think inviting Justify would be a fine move for the White House to make, just as long as they invite the horse's owners as well. Including George Soros.
posted by scalefree at 9:53 AM on June 10, 2018 [20 favorites]

Sadly real world Soros outside of Trumpist phantasmagoria might actually be a bit of a horse’s ass himself.
posted by Artw at 10:00 AM on June 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

just as long as they invite the horse's owners as well. Including George Soros.

Holy moly, I think you just foiled the plot to have Antifa supersoldiers crawl out of Justify in the dead of night to put the White House to the torch.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:00 AM on June 10, 2018 [12 favorites]

Another reason why you won't see Justify at the White House:

The fleet chestnut thoroughbred named Justify who won the 144th Kentucky Derby yesterday was bred by a Canadian family with an "out of control" passion for horses, admits Langley-based breeder John Gunther.

posted by hangashore at 10:00 AM on June 10, 2018 [14 favorites]

Former PM of Sweden...

Carl Bildt
Absolutely unique behavior. First negotiates, agrees and signs a statement. Then revokes the entire thing with an inflight tweet. Stable? Genius?

Former PM of Belgium.

Guy Verhofstadt
“Just tell us what Vladimir has on you. Maybe we can help.”
THE INFAMOUS PIC OF G7 LEADERS

---

Daniel Dale
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland: "Canada does not believe that ad hominem attacks are a particularly appropriate or useful way to conduct our relations with other countries."
- Freeland repeats that the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs are "illegal," says Canada is retaliating in "sorrow," not in anger; tariffs are "perfectly reciprocal," dollar-for-dollar"; Canada is "very measured" on trade. "We use fact-based arguments," she says.
- Freeland's manner is rather different than Kudlow's and Navarro's.
- Asked about Navarro's "special place in hell" remark about Trudeau, Freeland pauses and says, "Canada does not conduct its diplomacy through ad hominem attacks. We don't think that that is a useful or productive way to do business."
- Freeland continues: "And perhaps we refrain particularly from ad hominem attacks when it comes to our relationships with our allies." Says the real insult, though, comes from being targeted by such unjustified tariffs from a close ally.
- NAFTA: Freeland says she had a good meeting with Lighthizer, talking again this afternoon. "When it comes to our negotiating approach, we always bring fact-based arguments to the table. We are always reasonable...always prepared to talk...that's the Canadian way."
- Freeland directly addressing Canadians: "I am really confident...at the end of the day, common sense will prevail. And, you know, the fact that we're united right now is going to help us to get there."
- In summary: Freeland offered measured criticism of the Trump team's insult pile-on, but she repeatedly attempted to turn the focus back to the inappropriateness and insultingness of the Trump tariffs, which she said is the core issue here.
posted by chris24 at 10:08 AM on June 10, 2018 [58 favorites]

an "out of control" passion for horses

Huh.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:15 AM on June 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

A Photo for the Ages of Our Unfolding Disaster TPM on the G7 photo and photos of the same moment from different sources.

Or indeed, look at the difference between Merkel's now-iconinc image and another one from the same scene captured by the same photographer. They're separated by only a short time, but the former sums up the spirit of the meeting while the latter now looks incongruous, thanks, of course, to Trump's petulance after leaving.
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:25 AM on June 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

I hope someone in the Trump administration can translate that statement from Canadian to American for him so he knows Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland just said he was a lying, childish, boorish asshole who can go piss up a rope.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:25 AM on June 10, 2018 [29 favorites]

Freeland says she had a good meeting with Lighthizer, talking again this afternoon. "When it comes to our negotiating approach, we always bring fact-based arguments to the table. We are always reasonable...always prepared to talk...that's the Canadian way."

Can Canada please come invade us so we can preemptively surrender? Annexation is really the best solution for the world at this point.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:31 AM on June 10, 2018 [21 favorites]

Freeland also just godwinned Trump and the US, telling the New York Times in its article First Canada Tried to Charm Trump. Now It’s Fighting Back.:

America’s closest friend and ally and a country that might see America more clearly than it sees itself now offered a dire warning about the perils to liberal democracy in this “fraught” era. Freeland said she had recently come across a “terrifying” quote from Adolf Hitler, explaining his rise to power in Germany in a time of economic uncertainty and grievance. “I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached,” Hitler had said. “Our political problems appeared complicated. The German people could make nothing of them. ... I, on the other hand ... reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realized this and followed me.”

She leaned forward, a look of concern in her eyes. “How do you attract voters and public support compared with the flashiness of exciting, chaotic, fact-ignoring populism?” she asked. “The reason Hitler won was because all of the other politicians were giving complicated and difficult explanations about difficult things. Hitler just told people simple things that they wanted to hear.”

In closing, the NYT asks her if Canada can’t rely on the United States, then what country can? Her response is simply, "Americans should be asking themselves that. It’s a good question."
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:35 AM on June 10, 2018 [69 favorites]

Fox & Friends accidentally said this about the Singapore summit: "regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators."

Or else it’s a trial balloon for normalizing the idea of Trump as a dictator.
posted by Autumnheart at 10:43 AM on June 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

Freeland also just godwinned Trump and the US

THAT WORD DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING ANYMORE.
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:47 AM on June 10, 2018 [22 favorites]

former PM of Belgium wins the caption contest
posted by infini at 10:48 AM on June 10, 2018 [16 favorites]

THAT WORD DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING ANYMORE.

No, it still applies.

Mike Godwin: "By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you."
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 11:06 AM on June 10, 2018 [72 favorites]

The existence of blanket pardons has always made me very angry.

Presidents and governors should be required to spell out what actions are being excused, or for violations against which specific laws a pardonee is being excused from indictment. Anything that's left out remains fair game. And if they're not willing to say it out loud, well, don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
posted by Zed at 11:09 AM on June 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

It's complicated. I worry that the decline of the unipolar world will tempt leaders into risky strategies that the check of a hegemon would have prevented. The law among nations remains the law of all against all and maybe having a nation qua hobbesian strongman makes sense for preserving (relative) peace. I'm not really sure, but I don't think a greater balance of power among the nations is an unadulterated good. Balance means conflict among equals who are therefore more likely to risk war.

There's a test taking place as you read this: Trump defenders are out there claiming that Justin Trudeau, not Trump, blew up the summit. This is pure gaslighting; how many reporters will pretend to take it seriously? 5/

This is why unilateralism, however benevolent dictatorial it may be, will not work for the entire Rest of the Planet. Multilateralism is not only a thing with multiple papers and articles and courses in curricula but nobody wants a war. You need educated populations to go along with wealth and weapons.

One of the EU's reason for coming into existence is peace in Europe. If you'll look up the numbers, most of Western Europe downsized their defense forces, and given that many of the Defense ministers are women (with a lot less testosterone) there's a lot less flag waving going on over there far away from toxic warfighting.

China's got a markets problem on its hands and is looking for new customers globally for its "cheap China made" goods. Its economy is not built on a foundation of the military/industrial complex and thus its selling cheap shit that is going to keep the gazillions brought into the middle class humming and happy.

I am nobody but an old woman sitting on her couch but I have yet to hear warlike words from anyone. Welp Putin doesn't count cos he didn't actually rattle any sabres before barging into wherever he did.

imo, Bannon bringing white nationalism back into Europe is a bigger challenge right now.
posted by infini at 11:13 AM on June 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

I am wondering about the analysis I read from some NK expert that Trump, because he needs a win badly after the G7, will give away shit to get nothing of real consequence.

That analysis just doesn't feel in keeping with how a narcissist behaves, especially one with John Bolton in his ear.
posted by angrycat at 11:21 AM on June 10, 2018

What, seriously now, no silliness no wacky conspiracy theories, what is Trump doing?

My biggest insight into Trump's motivations came when he explained that most Americans pay about $10 a month for health insurance, likely having confused it for a life insurance scheme promoted in a popular commercial. My realization was he not only knows nothing about the subject at hand, he strongly believes he's talking about a different subject entirely, some mishmash of different things he's seen on t.v. with a talking point here or there he's picked up on and dug his heels into.

I think what we saw at the G7 summit from the other world leaders was not so much anger as complete frustration and bewilderment in the face of an absurdly bizarre worldview. A tariff war hurts everyone involved, makes no sense, and tariffs really aren't a problem. We trade pretty freely. Trump is a bit like King George, which is to say he has something like a touch of dementia, only it's a malignant megalomania that drives him to constantly confabulate a worldview that doesn't really jibe with reality or what should be important.

So he doesn't really know what he's doing or why, only that he feels hurt and angry and he's heard some things from T.V. that lead him to think certain things are to blame. He really is, sadly, like a lot Americans. If I were talking to him at a party, I wouldn't so much disagree with him as find him hopelessly confused, wildly under informed, and somewhat unhinged. There wouldn't be much point in trying to straighten him out either. And there you (we) are.
posted by xammerboy at 11:47 AM on June 10, 2018 [69 favorites]

Doug Ford and his people are probably already trying to organize some sort of photo op summit with Trump. I bet they’ll get on great.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:53 AM on June 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

Interestingly enough, this just hit the twitters. @fordnation [Doug Ford]: We will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Prime Minister and the people of Canada. My number one goal is to protect jobs in Ontario, starting with my unwavering support for our steel and aluminum workers.

Bannon may dream of a global alliance of Trump-like leaders, but the problem with a global alliance where everyone runs on nationalist self-interest is that they're all nationalists.
posted by zachlipton at 12:03 PM on June 10, 2018 [58 favorites]

Abolish ICE.

At the risk of approaching Frank Lutz-style dark arts, there is a neat rhetorical appeoach Democrats could take here.

“Immigration has been an issue ever since Republicans quietly eliminated the Border Patrol. A lot of people didn’t even notice! We need to abolish ICE, bring back the Border Patrol and enact comprehensive immigration reform.”
posted by msalt at 12:03 PM on June 10, 2018 [32 favorites]

[Doug Ford]: We will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Prime Minister

It really can’t be overstated how delicious this is. Justin Trudeau is the face of everything Doug Ford’s base despises, and Trump is their summer boyfriend from a different school. That all it took to get Doug Ford’s unwavering support was for Trudeau to judo-flip that nationalism against itself is hilarious and reassuring. Ford doesn’t even assume office until the end of the month, and Trudeau already has him flat on the mat. Seems like this premiership might be a lot easier than we thought.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:39 PM on June 10, 2018 [24 favorites]

Multilateralism is not only a thing with multiple papers and articles and courses in curricula but nobody wants a war. You need educated populations to go along with wealth and weapons.

to say that nobody wants war, or that multilateralism or trade or education will prevent war, is the most history-blind thing I've ever heard. War has happened in every geopolitical situation through history; whether there's a hegemonic power or not, whether there's an interconnected complex economy or not, whether there's a shared currency or not, whether the population is educated or not. People just get fighty.

To say that nobody wants war right now, in Europe, is sort of true, except for the people who want to go fight Muslims, who just happen to be mostly out of power, and all of that can change real real fast as the people who are motivated and able to make peace die or age out of office. The US is a major stabilizing force in the rich parts of the world, even as we destabilize the poorer parts. And if the occupation of Crimea doesn't signal an intent to do more of the same, I don't know what does.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 1:02 PM on June 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

@realgaiuscaligula should name Incitatus as Consul. Incitatus is a WINNER like Caligula who could care less about triggering the Praetorian Guard. #MRGA

Surely #SPQR?
posted by The Tensor at 1:08 PM on June 10, 2018 [18 favorites]

I am becoming increasingly convinced that the biggest journalistic challenge of the Trump presidency is not uncovering more dirt (though we need to keep doing that). It is more important to make clear what we already know to the low information news consumer.

I think a big part of the problem is some key misunderstandings that have pounded into Americans brains by the media. For instance, all of non-stop media interviews with Giuliani suggest an improbably high, technical, legal bar that must be cleared for Trump to be impeached. The emoluments clause, which is a sentence or two long with no gray areas, has been made out to be extraordinarily complex and gray. Americans never got the memo that immigrants contribute to the economy, pay taxes, and generally don't commit crimes. Coal and steel jobs cannot and should not be saved for many straightforward reasons. There is no tariff war. And on and on. We are besieged by an all encompassing noise that feeds constant doubt, fear, and confusion.
posted by xammerboy at 1:08 PM on June 10, 2018 [23 favorites]

Oh my god. Politico, Meet the guys who tape Trump's papers back together

Solomon Lartey spent the first five months of the Trump administration working in the Old Executive Office Building, standing over a desk with scraps of paper spread out in front of him.

Lartey, who earned an annual salary of $65,969 as a records management analyst, was a career government official with close to 30 years under his belt. But he had never seen anything like this in any previous administration he had worked for. He had never had to tape the president’s papers back together again.

Armed with rolls of clear Scotch tape, Lartey and his colleagues would sift through large piles of shredded paper and put them back together, he said, “like a jigsaw puzzle.” Sometimes the papers would just be split down the middle, but other times they would be torn into pieces so small they looked like confetti.

It was a painstaking project that was the result of a clash between legal requirements to preserve White House records and President Donald Trump’s odd and enduring habit of ripping up papers when he’s done with them – what some people described as his unofficial “filing system.”

Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House must preserve all memos, letters, emails and papers that the president touches, sending them to the National Archives for safekeeping as historical records.

But White House aides realized early on that they were unable to stop Trump from ripping up paper after he was done with it and throwing it in the trash or on the floor, according to people familiar with the practice. Instead, they chose to clean it up for him, in order to make sure that the president wasn’t violating the law.
...
“I had a letter from Schumer – he tore it up,” he said. “It was the craziest thing ever. He ripped papers into tiny pieces.”

Lartey did not work alone. He said his entire department was dedicated to the task of taping paper back together in the opening months of the Trump administration.

Worse, the article goes on to say that these career government officials who've handled Presidential records for decades, and had never seen anything like this, were recently fired without notice or cause.
posted by zachlipton at 1:24 PM on June 10, 2018 [171 favorites]

Trump-Kim Summit
Live Blog
posted by infini at 1:26 PM on June 10, 2018

I was just about to post this, zachlipton. This administration makes my historian's heart ache for many reasons.
posted by mynameisluka at 1:28 PM on June 10, 2018 [10 favorites]

The media is so caught up in the optics and such of this summit that they seem to have completely abandoned putting it in context. This summit, in and of itself, is not an accomplishment for Trump. It's a concession. NK would have loved to have met with previous administrations without preconditions but none were will to make that concession!

Every so often an analyst makes this point and the "journalist" thanks them and then an hour later we're back to the simple fact of the meeting being portrayed either actively or passively as an accomplishment.

I want to tear my hair out! This meeting is a concession! THIS MEETING IS A CONCESSSION. Arrrgh, rage.
posted by Justinian at 1:34 PM on June 10, 2018 [76 favorites]

Putin yearned for a Trump presidency so badly because he knew that Trump viewed the Western alliance with such deep suspicion that a serious rupture might be possible.

What he might not have counted on was just how quickly and easily his vision would be realized
posted by growabrain at 1:34 PM on June 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

I just hope that when peaceful non warlike people sit down (like in the year I was born) and chant "we don't want war" long enough and loud enough, someone hears it.
posted by infini at 1:50 PM on June 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

I absolutely 100% agree. Let's prove it to everyone.

Angelo Carusone (MMFA)
Fox News host Pirro, just now: “I'm convinced Trump would walk into a den of lions and come out a winner.”
posted by chris24 at 1:52 PM on June 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

I'm sorry, was that 'winner' or 'dinner'?
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:01 PM on June 10, 2018 [25 favorites]

Between Pirro and Giuliani, who is the most thirsty for the Attorney General position?
posted by PenDevil at 2:02 PM on June 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

Americans may disagree with Trump, but are not willing to restrain him.
From John McCain on down, Americans are speaking out today to say that Trump doesn’t represent the U.S. But McCain and his colleagues have been quite uninterested in restraining Trump through the legislative process, or even passing resolutions of disapproval. Foreigners, too, can read Trump’s approval numbers in his own party. The U.S. Constitution provides alternate power centers, even for foreign affairs — but all the angst on Twitter is meaningless unless congressional leaders choose to take up their power. This is American foreign policy now.
posted by infini at 2:02 PM on June 10, 2018 [15 favorites]

It was a painstaking project that was the result of a clash between legal requirements to preserve White House records and President Donald Trump’s odd and enduring habit of ripping up papers when he’s done with them – what some people described as his unofficial “filing system.”

Hahahah oh my god what

How much of a criminal do you have to be to develop this habit

Like who taught him this? The dumbest Soprano?
posted by schadenfrau at 2:07 PM on June 10, 2018 [58 favorites]

The Tensor: "Surely #SPQR?"

MAGA types are not big fans of the Senātus.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:13 PM on June 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

AP: Fox News host sorry for calling Trump, Kim ‘two dictators’

"I'm very sorry for calling you a dictator, President Trump. You are definitely not a dictator. Please, please don't get me fired with a phone call on a whim or ruin my life by targeting me with your army of tens of millions of twitter goons with no legal or political repercussions."

TPM: Flake On WH Adviser’s ‘Special Place In Hell’ Comment: ‘This Cannot Be Our Party’

Whale louse to other whale lice: "This cannot be our whale." (resumes feeding on algae growing on surface of insane fascist whale)
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:18 PM on June 10, 2018 [39 favorites]

Please, please don't get me fired with a phone call on a whim or ruin my life by targeting me with your army of tens of millions of twitter goons with no legal or political repercussions.

Please don't send me to the cornfield.

The parallels grow with every passing day. They are uncanny.
posted by Justinian at 2:25 PM on June 10, 2018 [12 favorites]

Have any other elected Republicans decided to join Sen. Flake in his stance that these comments do not represent the party? Because I haven't seen any, which kind of suggests that Flake just might be mistaken as to what his party actually believes.
posted by zachlipton at 2:25 PM on June 10, 2018 [13 favorites]

How much of a criminal do you have to be to develop this habit

Like who taught him this? The dumbest Soprano?

I'm strongly reminded of Mac on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia thinking that if he ate a contract it would make it null and void
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 2:25 PM on June 10, 2018 [18 favorites]

The interesting thing about the "Trump ripping up papers" story is how it exposes weaknesses in not just "norms of governance" but actual laws that aren't backed by a process that is enforceable in practice.

Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House must preserve all memos, letters, emails and papers that the president touches...or else what, exactly? Who goes to jail and how does that happen?

It sounds like the scotch tape brigade has been mostly fired. Trump clearly has no interest in obeying that law, so at some point the institutional framework in the White House that has been going to hilarious lengths to comply will break down. But then who has standing to sue? Will Congress hold impeachment hearings over those records?
posted by allegedly at 2:26 PM on June 10, 2018 [44 favorites]

I don't know which prospect is more unsettling:
a) Trump was told stop ripping up papers so that the WH didn't have to spend time putting them back together, and he keeps doing it because he's a madman
or
b) Nobody said shit because they're toeing the line because he's a madman
posted by angrycat at 2:30 PM on June 10, 2018 [47 favorites]

That scotch-tape story is maddening. The Trump Predisential Library No Collusion! is going to suuuuuck.
posted by petebest at 2:39 PM on June 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

Like who taught him this? The dumbest Soprano?

Are you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?
posted by Sphinx at 2:39 PM on June 10, 2018 [21 favorites]

A dozen White House advisers, former aides and people close to the president anonymously pour their hearts out to the New York Times for its portrait of Survivor: The White House, ‘Drama, Action, Emotional Power’: As Exhausted Aides Eye the Exits, Trump Is Re-energized

Several high-profile aides, including John F. Kelly, the president’s chief of staff, and Joe Hagin, a deputy of Mr. Kelly’s, are said to be thinking about how much longer they can stay. Last week, Mr. Kelly told visiting senators that the White House was “a miserable place to work,” according to a person with direct knowledge of the comment.

The turnover, which is expected to become an exodus after the November elections, does not worry the president, several people close to him said. He has grown comfortable with removing any barriers that might challenge him — including, in some cases, people who have the wrong chemistry or too frequently say no to him.

Mr. Trump, who desires a measure of chaos at all times, is reveling in the effects of his own mercurial decision-making, the people said.[...]

People who did not work with Mr. Trump before the White House see his behavior as deteriorating; people who have worked for and with him for years say he has never changed, and there are simply fewer people around giving him a level of cover.

Staff turnover at the Trump White House currently sits at 51 percent.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:42 PM on June 10, 2018 [27 favorites]

More year of the woman:

Montana Democratic women made their presence known in contested primaries, winning all 15 races in which the party had a woman running. The party had 16 total contested primaries.

Women also accounted for 64 of the 130 Democrats on the ballot in both contested and uncontested races Tuesday. On the Republican side, women prevailed in two of the 21 contested primaries and made up about 13 percent of the party's total candidates.

posted by Chrysostom at 2:56 PM on June 10, 2018 [28 favorites]

Judge Halts Deportation of NY Pizza Delivery Man

First, they came for the pizza delivery guys, and I said nothing.
posted by petebest at 2:58 PM on June 10, 2018 [29 favorites]

It's interesting living in a world where war could be started by a simple Trumpy tweet by Trudeau or another ally, such as:

"Canadians will Stand their Ground and not be pushed around by Temper Tantrum Trump and his cronies! He wants to Bully us but we will always work with our Friends and Allies around the world. Trump makes America LOSE in global Trade and Power!! No Seat at the table anymore!!"

Trump sees their hard-lined but still carefully diplomatic communications after the summit as insulting. But a world leader could really fuck things up if he/she talked directly to the toddler on the toddler's level.
posted by hexaflexagon at 3:14 PM on June 10, 2018 [10 favorites]

The guys on that Brooklyn base must be unknowingly ingesting so much urine and feces these days. And for the rest of time.
posted by Artw at 3:31 PM on June 10, 2018 [21 favorites]

Not sure if it was in this thread, but I saw somewhere that most restaurants in the area are now refusing to deliver to the base.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:38 PM on June 10, 2018 [38 favorites]

The analysis I dislike the most, because it's so dispiritingly plausible, is that 45 synthesised the G7 shitstorm to make it easier to give NK whatever it wants while still wearing the Tarzan skin, so with that out of the way he can go and blow up Iran.
posted by Devonian at 3:50 PM on June 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Bannon may dream of a global alliance of Trump-like leaders

I'm not sure that he cares if they're all aligned. Bannon's not stupid and conflict among nationalist autocracies seems like the natural outcome.

I'm not sure if Bannon just wants to burn it all down or if he has a fascism fetish like US conservatives had for Mussolini and Franco back in the day.
posted by duoshao at 4:01 PM on June 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

First, they came for the pizza delivery guys, and I said nothing.

See, we did say something. Lots of us did and are. But zero elected Republicans did, or are, or will. And they're the only ones that can do anything about any of this, because our system of government is a tyranny by extreme minority.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:12 PM on June 10, 2018 [43 favorites]

imo, Bannon bringing white nationalism back into Europe is a bigger challenge right now.

That is totally "gilding the lily", where the lily is the lily-white nationalism entrenched in Europe since forever and the gilding is made of shit.
posted by Celsius1414 at 4:15 PM on June 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

But White House aides realized early on that they were unable to stop Trump from ripping up paper after he was done with it and throwing it in the trash or on the floor, according to people familiar with the practice.
------
How much of a criminal do you have to be to develop this habit

FWIW, I have a "Done with this, rip in half and put in recycling bin" workflow too. However if anyone asked me, "Please don't", I wouldn't have any issues with it.
posted by mikelieman at 4:29 PM on June 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

"Can Canada please come invade us so we can preemptively surrender?"

Canada's war slogan could be "Thirty-four forty or fight!"
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:34 PM on June 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

However if anyone asked me, "Please don't", I wouldn't have any issues with it.

Or if there were a law that required you to preserve your documents, I bet.
posted by thelonius at 4:38 PM on June 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

I’ve joked many times that the US will never invade Canada because it’s easier and cheaper for them to just buy us out, but now I’m not so sure.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:43 PM on June 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

Or if there were a law that required you to preserve your documents, I bet.

Well, I am not an asshole, so just asking me would suffice. But you can be sure if it was a law, and I had sworn an oath to faithfully execute he laws, you wouldn't even have to ask me. I would just do what's expected of any professional who works well with others.
posted by mikelieman at 4:48 PM on June 10, 2018 [12 favorites]

I don't really understand the U.S. going after Iran in the context of Trump's being beholden to Putin. Would Putin benefit in some way by an unprecedented conflagration in the Middle East?
posted by angrycat at 4:52 PM on June 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

I don't really understand the U.S. going after Iran in the context of Trump's being beholden to Putin. Would Putin benefit in some way by an unprecedented conflagration in the Middle East?

Not sure if I'm right, but I think one explanation could be: when US and allies normalize relations with Iran that opens the way for our companies to pursue opportunities in Iran, which means competition with Russian companies. Note Boeing's huge order from Iran. If we reimpose sanctions our companies (and possibly EU companies) will stop doing business in Iran and Russia can take more of the business.
posted by duoshao at 5:02 PM on June 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

Conflict with Iran benefits Putin in many ways including:
-Russia wants to sell nuclear technology and reactors as well conventional weapons to everyone
-Russia wants gas prices to go up
-Russia looks like a stable security partner, while the US looks untrustworthy and foolish
posted by lumnar at 5:03 PM on June 10, 2018 [11 favorites]

Hey, has noted libertarian Rand Paul said anything about the ICE side of things? Seems like a libertarian cause if there ever was one.
posted by Behemoth at 5:13 PM on June 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

Also Russia gets an increased flow of war refugees into Europe to stoke xenophobic fears with.
posted by jason_steakums at 5:14 PM on June 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

State media has largely kept North Koreans in the dark about the summit. So there will be one outcome for North Koreans, one outcome for Trump/Fox fans, and one outcome for objective reality.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:17 PM on June 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

Well, I am not an asshole, so just asking me would suffice. But you can be sure if it was a law, and I had sworn an oath to faithfully execute he laws, you wouldn't even have to ask me. I would just do what's expected of any professional who works well with others.

But you're not a malignant narcissist & career conman with a long lifetime's experience of doing whatever the hell he wants at any given moment without being held to account for it. His primary tool is face-to-face persuasion in the moment; leaving a paper trail independent of his audience's memory only dilutes that, creating a check on the authority of his impact on their emotions.
posted by scalefree at 5:19 PM on June 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

Another joins the worthless tweet club.

@SenatorCollins
We’ve had differences w/ Canada over the years, particularly regarding subsidies from the provincial & nat’l governments; nevertheless, Canada remains our close ally, good friend, & one of America’s biggest trading partners. In Maine, we have a special relationship w/ Canada. Many border communities are truly intertwined. Canadian nurses, for example, cross the border every day to work in Maine hospitals. A Madawaska, Maine, mill pumps pulp from the Canadian side of the border to be made into paper on the US side. We must preserve this friendship.

---

And a memory from a time when senators did more than tweet. The story of Jim Jeffords leaving the Republican Party to caucus with the Democrats to stop the Bush/Cheney agenda.

WaPo: How Jim Jeffords single-handedly bent the arc of politics

In the late afternoon of May 22, 2001 an apocalyptic-looking set of thunderstorms rolled across the National Mall, with bolts of lightning striking just outside the Capitol dome. Inside the Senate chamber, an even bigger storm was brewing -- James Jeffords, the venerable patrician Senator from Vermont, had informed Democratic and Republican party leaders that he was likely crossing the aisle.

Two days later Jeffords, who died Monday at age 80, would leave the Republican Party that he served in on Capitol Hill for the previous 26 years, first in the House and then the Senate, and would caucus with Democrats. The move ended an historic five-month run in which the Senate sat deadlocked at 50-50 margin, with Vice President Dick Cheney giving Republicans titular control as the tie-breaking vote. Jeffords was handing Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) the title of majority leader and putting the breaks on the domestic agenda of the Bush White House. [...]

It was one of those rare singular moments when one lawmaker, with one vote, truly bent the arc of politics in a different direction. It also served to highlight the feud between the still-dominant conservative wing and the increasingly marginalized moderate faction of the Republican Party. "Given the changing nature of the national party, it has become a struggle for our leaders to deal with me and for me to deal with them," Jeffords said in Burlington...
posted by chris24 at 5:40 PM on June 10, 2018 [23 favorites]

An entire department taping his papers back together. That's what ten people? Each paid $75,000 a year? $750,000 to pay a department to pick up his trash full time for a year? Nice.
posted by xammerboy at 5:44 PM on June 10, 2018 [25 favorites]

Full Nazi.

“Just the abuse that they endured, being called filthy and stinky and being mocked for crying,” Jayapal told The Post. “One woman said ‘I want to be with my children’ and the Border Patrol agent said: ‘You will never see your children again. Families don’t exist here. You won’t have a family anymore.’ ”

‘Mothers could not stop crying’: Lawmaker blasts Trump policy after visiting detained immigrants
posted by monospace at 5:46 PM on June 10, 2018 [100 favorites]

An entire department taping his papers back together. That's what ten people? Each paid $75,000 a year? $750,000 to pay a department to pick up his trash full time for a year? Nice.

Now we just need a department of people who run along behind him super-gluing the fragments and remnants of civil society back together as he passes.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:03 PM on June 10, 2018 [20 favorites]

An entire department taping his papers back together. That's what ten people? Each paid $75,000 a year? $750,000 to pay a department to pick up his trash full time for a year? Nice.

Those people are professional archivists who should be doing things like preserving things for history and later display / declassification, for the National Archives and Presidential library, etc. They had real professional jobs before this. Instead they're picking up his trash.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:08 PM on June 10, 2018 [52 favorites]

Terry Bradshaw supports Eagles in their spat with Donald Trump

The Philadelphia Eagles gained a somewhat unlikely ally in their fight for social justice, amid a controversy spurred by Donald Trump's decision to disinvite the Super Bowl champion from the White House.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers legend and FOX NFL Sunday analyst/co-host Terry Bradshaw offered his wholehearted support for the Eagles in their protest.

"I agree with the Eagles. Totally. One hundred percent. Trump just needs to ... go somewhere and enjoy the money he's got," Bradshaw told TMZ Sports.

"You know what's so bad about that whole event? Was how they were portrayed as protesting, kneeling, during the national anthem when they were praying. That is just wrong."

Bradshaw has been a consistent supporter of the Republican Party and hasn't been shy in making his conservative views public.

posted by chris24 at 6:15 PM on June 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

Trump and Kim are set to meet Tuesday on an island originally called Pulau Blakang Mati, "Death Behind Island". It was renamed Sentosa ("Peaceful") in 1972 after a renaming contest by the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board. The origin of the original name is unknown.

There's an urban legend that it was so named because of World War II; the British fort on the island had cannons facing south (towards the sea) to ward of a sea invasion from the Japanese, but the Japanese ended up invading from the north instead. Wikipedia has a more nuanced version of the story though. But in any case, I think the name existed before WWII, so that's probably not why.
posted by destrius at 6:20 PM on June 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

I don't really understand the U.S. going after Iran in the context of Trump's being beholden to Putin.

I don't think Trump is a rational actor and I don't think his tirades about foreign policy can be micro-managed by anyone. That being said, his actions on Iran are probably very much in Russia's interest.

The sanctions regime worked because the technology underlying the world's banking system is a cooperative enterprise, primarily through the Society for Interbank Financial Telecommunications. The system was a European creation, but a data center was set up in Virginia when the US joined SWIFT, and transactions were copied across as a matter of course. That changed when it was revealed that, as a consequence of the September 11th attacks, the US Security sevices were routinely scrutinising the data. Since then, the US's access to European transactional data has had to pass through a European portal.

One of Iran's preconditions for a new "deal" is that Europe not cooperate with third-party sanctions imposed by the US. That would mean finally separating SWIFT's European and US data centers, effectively cutting the US off from lots of transactional intelligence. That intelligence doesn't just concern Iran and the Middle East; it's also used to enforce sanctions against Russia. This separation would also establish a precedent that European countries, most of which are explicitly allied to the US via NATO and other treaties, are willing to openly work against US foreign policy.

Even if Trump's policies hurt Iran (which remains to be seen) that doesn't mean it hurts Russia. Russia, like all nations, operates from perceived self-interest and wants Iran to be its junior partner. Renewed sanctions would increase Iran's dependence on Russia, while in Europe it would legitimise Russian engagement as a means of countering US foreign policy. And, as others have said, higher oil prices are good for Russia.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:24 PM on June 10, 2018 [27 favorites]

I don't think Trump is a rational actor and I don't think his tirades about foreign policy can be micro-managed by anyone. That being said, his actions on Iran are probably very much in Russia's interest.

Yeah, Trump is basically impossible to control, which presumably Putin knows. Rather than giving Trump significant marching orders, Putin probably gives him a nudge toward destructive impulses now and then and then steps back to enjoy the chaos. Alternately, he can probably nudge Trump away from doing something genuinely destructive to Russian interests--hence the slap on the wrist strikes in Syria rather than something substantive. Even if the strikes inevitably weren't going to change the reality on the ground, they could've done something punitive and expensive; instead, they blew up some empty shacks. Even that whole mess with US forces engaging Russians in Syria was basically the US side defending themselves. Trump didn't order that.

Putin is getting what he wants just with the chaos and dissent and disunity. Going with a whole detailed agenda is gonna be beyond Trump's ability. A useful idiot is still an idiot.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:41 PM on June 10, 2018 [11 favorites]

Hey, has noted libertarian Rand Paul said anything about the ICE side of things? Seems like a libertarian cause if there ever was one.

Well, Rand Paul is more a libertarian of convenience than any sort of iconoclast that seriously believes in freedom. The bigger question is: why should we still believe that libertarians are still somehow reasonable?

Remember, they supported and in large part still support pretty much everything that enabled the rise of the far-right and Trump in the first place. Harmful economic policies, demonstrably racist voter suppression, misogynist attacks on women's health care, and homophobic/transphobic "religious freedom" policies were and still are popular with libertarians. They also keep trying to push moronic, hateful wingnuts like Jeff Flake and Evan McMullin on us; and then if we call them out on it, then they get all upset that we're not "meeting them halfway" on their proto-fascist fuckery. That it's so fucking difficult for them to give up Jim Crow, forcing LGBTQ people into poverty and suicide, back-alley abortions, and starving children physically and mentally, without complaining every step of the way proves how unreasonable they are. Of course, pointing any of this out will get you accused of being unreasonable, tribalist, and hateful.

So maybe let's just not assume that libertarians, Paul family or otherwise, are willing to do anything but get rid of the guy who says out loud what they're fans of on the DL.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:45 PM on June 10, 2018 [42 favorites]

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Fair Trade is now to be called Fool Trade if it is not Reciprocal. According to a Canada release, they make almost 100 Billion Dollars in Trade with U.S. (guess they were bragging and got caught!). Minimum is 17B. Tax Dairy from us at 270%. Then Justin acts hurt when called out!

Why should I, as President of the United States, allow countries to continue to make Massive Trade Surpluses, as they have for decades, while our Farmers, Workers & Taxpayers have such a big and unfair price to pay? Not fair to the PEOPLE of America! $800 Billion Trade Deficit...

....And add to that the fact that the U.S. pays close to the entire cost of NATO-protecting many of these same countries that rip us off on Trade (they pay only a fraction of the cost-and laugh!). The European Union had a $151 Billion Surplus-should pay much more for Military!

....Germany pays 1% (slowly) of GDP towards NATO, while we pay 4% of a MUCH larger GDP. Does anybody believe that makes sense? We protect Europe (which is good) at great financial loss, and then get unfairly clobbered on Trade. Change is coming!

The stupid. Please. Just. Make it stop already.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 6:48 PM on June 10, 2018 [43 favorites]

Court issues preliminary injunction against Indiana voter purge using Kris Kobach's Crosscheck program.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:11 PM on June 10, 2018 [37 favorites]

Updates on California House races of interest:

* CA-08: Dems look like they will get locked out, as Dem Doyle trails Republican Donnelly by 1184 votes. Trump won this district 55-40, and it was seen as out of reach to flip for anything short of a miracle.

* CA-10: Josh Harder has safely locked up second place for the Democrats.

* CA-48: Dem candidate still up in the air as Hans Keirstead retains the lead for second place over Harley Rouda by a slim 87 votes. GOP candidate Scott Baugh is out of the running at about 1600 votes further back.

* CA-49: Mike Levin appears to have sealed the deal on second place, the AP having called the race.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:26 PM on June 10, 2018 [21 favorites]

This week:

* Special elections in Wisconsin AD-42 and SD-01. You will recall these are the races Gov Walker had to be sued in order to hold.

* Primaries in: ME, NV, ND, SC, and VA.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:29 PM on June 10, 2018 [15 favorites]

It was a painstaking project that was the result of a clash between legal requirements to preserve White House records and President Donald Trump’s odd and enduring habit of ripping up papers when he’s done with them – what some people described as his unofficial “filing system.”

Hahahah oh my god what

How much of a criminal do you have to be to develop this habit

I like dunking on Twitler as much as the next person, but in fairness, you don't have to be a career criminal to develop a habit for shredding all of the letters that you don't intend to keep.

You just have to be the victim of identity theft and dumpster divers.

With that said, even those affected by identity theft should be able to unlearn the habit if they get a job like President of The United Fucking States.
posted by bl1nk at 7:32 PM on June 10, 2018 [14 favorites]

Even the victims of identity theft don't automatically shred business correspondence. You would generally want to refer back to, e.g., past advice and commitments, invoices, receipts and so forth.

I think our knowledge of Trump's business practices shows why he wouldn't care about any of those: he doesn't pay his bills and he doesn't actually care about any formal commitments. I think he learned to actively avoid keeping a paper trail because in the absence of a written record he could just bluster until the whole thing ended up in court.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:46 PM on June 10, 2018 [26 favorites]

Per Twitter, Robert DeNiro just started off his intro of Bruce Springsteen on the Tony Awards with: "I’m just gonna say one thing, Fuck Trump. It’s no longer Down with Trump, it’s Fuck Trump." Entirely bleeped out by CBS, though.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:48 PM on June 10, 2018 [66 favorites]

Here's the unbleeped video from the Australian feed, via Twitter.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:00 PM on June 10, 2018 [45 favorites]

Democratic candidate for Maryland's gubernatorial race airs campaign ad during Fox & Friends, makes history by kissing his husband in the ad, and literally says, "Take that, Trump." It doesn't have quite the same oomph as DeNiro, but we all know it means the same thing.
posted by Ruki at 8:48 PM on June 10, 2018 [50 favorites]

I am a 53 year Canadian, I am not a supporter of Trudeau, but jesus fucking christ I wish Justin had leaned over and smacked Trump right in his fat, bloated, orange fucking face.
This is the first time I have felt personally insulted by an American president. His behaviour was appalling and the idiotsticks around him were just as bad.

Russia interferes with the electoral process?
Attack Canada over non existent issues!
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 10:04 PM on June 10, 2018 [46 favorites]

Damn the person that taught Trump the word reciprocal
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:10 PM on June 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

WP columnist Anne Applebaum writes about the association between Brexit funder Arron Banks and Russian associates:

...Russians don't usually give direct funding, the exception being Marine Le Pen's National Front. Instead, they offer lucrative business deals to high-ranking members of the movement....There is some evidence of this in the case of the Austrian Freedom Party, and also the Italian Northern League. Important point: It's not illegal, or not necessarily. It doesn't break laws on foreign funding for political parties, if they exist...Russian offers of lucrative private deals could be used to make politicians 'pro-Russian,' even if those deals somehow don't work out. That may have been the point of that Trump Tower Moscow negotiation, though we don't know enough about it...of course, if the deals come through, then the money can be used to finance a political campaign - legally.

posted by rongorongo at 11:40 PM on June 10, 2018 [18 favorites]

Banks is going to be interviewed by the UK parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Tuesday. Bring popcorn, if he shows up.
posted by PenDevil at 12:57 AM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Per the Straits Times regarding Trump's pre-summit meeting with Singapore's PM Lee:

"Lunch was catered by Gordon Grill at Goodwood Park Hotel. Dishes on the menu include angus beef tenderloin, lobster bisque and cherry jubilee with clotted ice cream."

I don't even know where to begin. On the one hand, the carbon footprint of the dessert alone is galling, especially in a place with so many delicious local fruits. On the other hand, at least they didn't waste perfectly good laksa on him. A bisque made from tinned lobster that's flown at least as far as he has should suit his palate just fine.

Now I want laksa.
posted by Westringia F. at 1:23 AM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I can neither confirm nor deny that I went to the article solely to see if it said to what doneness Trump received his tenderloin. Sadly it did not say. But we know. We know.
posted by Justinian at 1:44 AM on June 11, 2018 [18 favorites]

I don't know what it says about me that the thing that irritates me the most in Trump's latest round of Twitter tantrum-throwing is that he keeps calling the Prime Minister of Canada "Justin".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:00 AM on June 11, 2018 [8 favorites]

hé keeps calling him Justin to infantalize the PM. Same with Merkel because she's a woman. Not with Macron because hes still impressed with all the hardware hé saw last July.
(sorry, very old iPad, bad spelling)
posted by mumimor at 3:18 AM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

And here we go:

Nathaniel Rakich, 538, Primary Briefing: Virginia, Nevada, South Carolina, North Dakota
posted by nangar at 5:00 AM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

David Frum gets a post-summit assessment from anonymous G7 officials for the Atlantic Trump Goes to War Against the Democracies—Through the G7 summit, the brittle pretense of unity held together. Then came the tweets.

• “He’s like Heath Ledger’s Joker—but without the operational excellence.”
• “Trump’s gonna Trump.”
• “He is testing to the breaking point relationships that there was never any reason to test in the first place.”
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:18 AM on June 11, 2018 [21 favorites]

The "Justin" thing is exactly what Stephen Harper's Conservatives tried during our last election, too.

Somehow I expect that Trump, unlike the Conservatives, won't finish with the "Nice hair, though" line.
posted by clawsoon at 5:38 AM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

I take issue with a line from your linked article, Dr Zed:

Whatever you think of Canada’s milk protectionism (and few Canadians who don’t directly profit from it will defend it), it is not a threat to U.S. national security.

Who is this guy to speak on our behalf? I don't know anyone opposed to our supply managed dairy market, including my staunchly conservative family. Some people wish import tariffs on cheese would be relaxed.

I mean sure, we have our free market whackadoos as well but do a little research before speaking out your ass.

...otherwise, an illustrative summary.
posted by Evstar at 5:46 AM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

You know, I cheered and favorited DeNiro's Tony speech and tweeted it so as many people could see it as possible, but the more I think about it, the more I favor Canada's approach. The problem is not Trump; he could die today and we'd still have massive issues. Trump is a symptom, and while I appreciate DeNiro's shorthand, a Tony's speech with tuxedoed Broadway people jumping up and applauding--how is that going to empower Trump's base's sense of persecution.

I think we have to be careful. And I say this wishing I could just go around punching Nazis forever and solve the problem that way, I'd punch two zillion Nazis if it would work. But I don't think that or the equivalent will work unless or until we exhaust ballot box options.

Shrug, who knows, maybe DeNiro will motivate the left to get out to midterms. And we certainly can't expect mothers who have their children in ICE detention to say this.
posted by angrycat at 5:48 AM on June 11, 2018 [13 favorites]

Web of elite Russians met with NRA execs during 2016 campaign
The contacts have emerged amid a deepening Justice Department investigation into whether Russian banker and lifetime NRA member Alexander Torshin illegally channeled money through the gun rights group to add financial firepower to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential bid.

Other influential Russians who met with NRA representatives during the campaign include Dmitry Rogozin, who until last month served as a deputy prime minister overseeing Russia’s defense industry, and Sergei Rudov, head of one of Russia’s largest philanthropies, the St. Basil the Great Charitable Foundation. The foundation was launched by an ultra-nationalist ally of Russian President Putin.

The NRA spent $30 million on Trump.
posted by PenDevil at 5:54 AM on June 11, 2018 [40 favorites]

From the 538 Analysis of Tuedays upcoming VA Republican Senate primary (to oppose Tim Kaine):

Running against Stewart is the Rev. E.W. Jackson, who lost a 2013 campaign for lieutenant governor while defending comments he made likening homosexuality to pedophilia and Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan.

Hope hes updated his platform to demonize Planned Parenthood by comparing it to a group his party hasn't fully embraced.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 5:57 AM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

going to empower Trump's base's sense of persecution

So a Hollywood celebrity swore? And that pisses off the people who voted for a constantly cursing TV star? The same people who call everyone else snowflakes who need safe spaces? The same people who say "fuck your feelings"? Sorry but fuck their feelings. They are deplorable. They are racists. They are fascists. And they will invent reasons to be victims whether we speak the truth about them or not. I'm done catering to the feelings of vile people. Fuck giving in to abusers. If people think being "mean" to Nazis made them Nazis, I disagree. Letting them get away with this shit for decades is why we are where we are. We can't convince them or change them anyway. And we don't need them. The good people in this country outnumber them. We vote and we will beat them. We don't need to compromise with or accommodate them.
posted by chris24 at 6:16 AM on June 11, 2018 [91 favorites]

Who is this guy to speak on our behalf?

I flagged the article as coming from David Frum as a caveat lector, but when all's said and done, he's a Toronto-born dual US-Canadian citizen.

For once, though, Trump isn't misquoting a figure when he complains about a 270% Canadian milk tariff, as Toronto Star correspondent Daniel Dale points out. "It's part of Canada's extremely strict protectionist dairy system called 'supply management.' Polls suggest Canadians have mixed opinions on it, but the dairy lobby is powerful." (In comparison, Dale also cites a study estimating US subsidies equal 73% of producer returns.)

Bringing an irrelevant case into an ongoing debate is a very Trumpian distraction tactic, of course, and it disrupts the good-faith discussion of complex issues almost as much as his outright lies.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:22 AM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

all I'm saying is I want the racists to stay home in November. If that means cursing at them, do that. If that means a Trudeau like statement with appeals to decency, do that. If both work, do both.

just trying to avoid a civil war here
posted by angrycat at 6:25 AM on June 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

just trying to avoid a civil war here

It's kind of a good-news / bad-news situation atm.
posted by petebest at 6:29 AM on June 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

my desire for a civil war has waned somewhat.

Maybe I can help you with that.

Immigrant moms in SeaTac prison 'could hear their children screaming'

“In most cases, they were taken into a different room like, ‘Here we’re going take your photograph,’” said U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal. “Then after the photo was taken, they were taken to a different room from their child. So they never got to say goodbye.”
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:34 AM on June 11, 2018 [62 favorites]

how is that going to empower Trump's base's sense of persecution.

There is nothing you can say or do that won't empower the base's sense of persecution. They are professional titty-babies, a coterie who have built their respective identities around taking offense at anything or anyone suggesting that a white ethno-state is not a good idea. They will find offense in any statement, anywhere, saying even the faintest negative thing about Trump's or their own expansive idiocy. We cannot hope to win elections by trying to avoid giving them offense, because it is literally what they have programmed themselves to do, whilst simultaneously chortling about the triggered liberal snowflakes. De Niro could make a reasoned statement about the foolhardiness of trade wars, or he could stand in the middle of Time Square shouting vulgarities into a megaphone, and it will garner exactly the same reaction on /r/the_donald.

We can beat them by mobilizing our own base, which is much much larger and much much angrier because we're pissed off about actual things the bloviating jack-o-lantern is doing to our countrymen, rather than hobgoblins trotted out on Fox News to manufacture outrage among the professionally outraged.
posted by Mayor West at 6:34 AM on June 11, 2018 [65 favorites]

There is nothing you can say or do that won't empower the base's sense of persecution.

Yeah, this. They're not mad because you're being rude to them, they're mad because you won't bow and scrape to them. Look at the Canadian government: unfailingly diplomatic and yet receiving ire because they're standing up for themselves.
posted by The Notorious SRD at 6:40 AM on June 11, 2018 [53 favorites]

just trying to avoid a civil war here

I’m starting to feel like that horse has left the barn

And the barn is on fire

And we’re trying to negotiate with both fire and an absent horse
posted by schadenfrau at 6:40 AM on June 11, 2018 [71 favorites]

we’re trying to negotiate with both fire and an absent horse

Leave Justify out of this.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:43 AM on June 11, 2018 [43 favorites]

The tearing-up-paper thing, aside from the obvious implication of habitual criminality, fits well with the "mmm, that's some ~strong~ leadership" image I've described before. Papers are for eggheads. Real men don't have time for that nonsense. They work with their hands! Hands that rip up papers. Getting stuff done, dammit!

Of course, something tells me that Obama doing the same thing would suddenly register suspicion.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:46 AM on June 11, 2018 [7 favorites]

There is nothing you can say or do that won't empower the base's sense of persecution.

They took offense at the suit Obama wore & the mustard he used. These are people looking for excuses. They will find them no matter what we do or say.
posted by scalefree at 6:48 AM on June 11, 2018 [73 favorites]

Race plays a part in this as does misogyny. I have met both white women, and brown men who fall into this same category of "Offended you won't bow and scrape". Speaking as a WoC from a different culture, I wonder if the base is actually composed of that minority segment of the population who deep down inside wonder if they're losers and are thus just looking for a scapegoat. Thus this common thread pulls together the oddest group of losers, especially on Reddit.
posted by infini at 6:57 AM on June 11, 2018 [11 favorites]

Immigrant moms in SeaTac prison 'could hear their children screaming'

These are crimes against humanity. Systematic kidnapping against a class of people with the specific intent of harming children and inflicting pain on the parents as a deterrent. It's little different than Boko Haram, and we don't know that some of those kids won't be abused while in ICE custody, literally the same as Boko Haram.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:02 AM on June 11, 2018 [82 favorites]

SCOTUS just upheld Ohio's voter purge law, which allows states to remove infrequent voters from voter rolls, which is blatant disenfranchisement--all GOP-supported so far, natch. It was 5-4, which means that conservatives' efforts, led by Roberts, to go further than the gutting of VRA in Shelby v Holder continues apace.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:12 AM on June 11, 2018 [42 favorites]

It was 5-4

Thank McConnell. If you're thinking about "civil war" as a future event, remember that the GOP already destroyed the Judicial Branch for generations in order to permanently cripple democratic elections. This is like if the tattered Rebels fleeing Hoth in Empire Strikes Back were wondering what they could do to avoid galactic civil war.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:16 AM on June 11, 2018 [25 favorites]

@AriBerman: In 5-4 decision Alito reverses 6th circuit & upholds Ohio's purging of infrequent voters. Ohio has purged 2 million voters since 2011, more than any other state. Black voters 2x as likely as whites to be purged in state's largest counties

@PoliticsWolf: We're just a few steps away from Republicans requiring vast swaths of Democrats to have to re-register to vote every couple of elections. This is burdensome by design

@jbouie: LRT: Ohio's frequent voter purges—that require you to return a form if you haven't voted in the relative past—are a step away from straight up Jim Crow shit.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:18 AM on June 11, 2018 [71 favorites]

Every 5-4 decision with Gorsuch in the majority is illegitimate on its face.

Pack the Court.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:19 AM on June 11, 2018 [61 favorites]

Another Marine Vet caught teaching military tactics to fascists, white nationalists

This seems to be an issue.
posted by The Whelk at 7:21 AM on June 11, 2018 [32 favorites]

(A new voting rights bill aimed at universalism: automatic registration at 18, expanded by mail, voting holidays, reenfransicement, etc, needs to be the first push of a democratic majority if and when they ever get back in power, which is completely not assured)
posted by The Whelk at 7:22 AM on June 11, 2018 [79 favorites]

As Jamelle Bouie points out (and I hope he's working on a piece about this decision), this is SCOTUS explicitly endorsing the awful, bigoted conservative position on "active" versus "passive" citizens, which is how they already frame those using the social safety net as parasites looking for unicorn candy.

We're already rushing towards their dumb fucking world where Service Guarantees Citizenship, the question now is whether we can even stop it, let alone reverse it.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:45 AM on June 11, 2018 [29 favorites]

Election Day should be a paid day off, nationwide. Excepting people like myself, an Albany County Elections Inspector.
posted by mikelieman at 7:46 AM on June 11, 2018 [33 favorites]

Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic:

The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.

“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”

What is it? I asked. Here is the answer I received:

“The Trump Doctrine is, ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”

posted by octothorpe at 7:49 AM on June 11, 2018 [33 favorites]

a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking.

Names or GTFO.
posted by petebest at 7:54 AM on June 11, 2018 [38 favorites]

Impeach Neil Gorsuch and reverse every 5-4 decision in which he participated, by statute.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:54 AM on June 11, 2018 [63 favorites]

We Should Be So Lucky Dept:

Latest buzz: @EricGreitens independent run for U.S. Senate. State law allows #Greitens to spend summer gathering petition signatures to get on Nov. 6 ballot vs Josh Hawley. No pending legal issues and he certainly has the time. #mosen

posted by Chrysostom at 7:57 AM on June 11, 2018 [13 favorites]

There's more (and almost as bad) to Goldberg's article from other (unnamed) officials:

The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.

The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said that Trump believed that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”[...]

The administration officials, and friends of Trump, I’ve spoken with in recent days believe the opposite; that Trump is rebuilding American power after an eight-year period of willful dissipation. “People criticize [Trump] for being opposed to everything Obama did, but we’re justified in canceling out his policies,” one friend of Trump’s told me. This friend described the Trump Doctrine in the simplest way possible. “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine,” he said. “We’re the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine.”

Besides the racist animus in the subtext, this is exactly the same kind of hubris we heard from Bush 45 officials before the administration embarked on catastrophic crusades.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:57 AM on June 11, 2018 [63 favorites]

“The Trump Doctrine is, ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”

Sounds better in the original russian: Мы Америка, сука!
posted by Omon Ra at 8:01 AM on June 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

“Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.”

It's literally called Pax Americana not Chao Americana you fucking gits.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 8:06 AM on June 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

"They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us."

Asshole, even if they wanted to agree with you, the lunatics you've put in power can't even agree on what color they think the sky is!
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:08 AM on June 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

Pia Guerra's latest for The Nib: Jeff Flake’s Identity Crisis
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:20 AM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Charlie Pierce: Disenfranchising Voters Is Not Trumpism, It's Republicanism

Roberts didn’t need any coaxing, or the eventual election of Donald Trump, to [gut the VRA]. He’d been at that game since he was a baby lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, which also went to court to preserve the tax-exempt status of racially segregated Christian academies in the South. This later was the main goal of Karl Rove when he engineered the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys because they wouldn’t pursue phony voter fraud cases on behalf of the Bush White House. The Republican Party didn’t need Donald Trump to play fast and loose with the disenfranchisement of people in this country. It’s been committed to that for years.

I am occasionally told, and by people I respect, that I should not be too hard on the Republican apparatchiks now doing pale public penance on the cable news shows. But, without a serious reckoning with everything they did to make this president* inevitable, the deeper problems with American politics never will be solved. There was a system in place that produced a John Roberts, and a Karl Rove, and a Kris Kobach, and Donald Trump didn’t create it. It was a system that worked very well at winning elections, and the price for all that success was the prion disease that now has eaten away most of the party’s higher intellectual functions and has damaged the country’s institutions, possibly beyond repair.

These documents, and not some glowing nostalgia for Reagan-era photo ops and Mike Deaver stage design, are what conservative Republicanism always has been about: exclusion from the American experiment, and a ferocious desire to choke off any avenue of redress available to the victims of that exclusion. Apologize for that, folks, and then we can talk.

posted by zombieflanders at 8:20 AM on June 11, 2018 [84 favorites]

“Permanent destabilization creates American advantage"

So Putin is actually giving orders to Trump, who has picked advisors {Bolton, etc.) perfect for destroying alliances.
posted by benzenedream at 8:21 AM on June 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

Like ISIS, but the chaos in which it grows is the entire world.
posted by Artw at 8:23 AM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

The zero-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine: “I have no idea what I’m doing."
posted by scalefree at 8:24 AM on June 11, 2018 [8 favorites]

So a Hollywood celebrity swore? And that pisses off the people who voted for a constantly cursing TV star? The same people who call everyone else snowflakes who need safe spaces? The same people who say "fuck your feelings"? Sorry but fuck their feelings. They are deplorable. They are racists. They are fascists. And they will invent reasons to be victims whether we speak the truth about them or not. I'm done catering to the feelings of vile people. Fuck giving in to abusers. If people think being "mean" to Nazis made them Nazis, I disagree. Letting them get away with this shit for decades is why we are where we are. We can't convince them or change them anyway. And we don't need them. The good people in this country outnumber them. We vote and we will beat them. We don't need to compromise with or accommodate them.

The beauty of this coming from Robert De Niro is that he has spent the later years of his career making movies targeted at Trump supporters playing a character who would probably be a trump supporter and Trump supporters ate it up and missed that is was satire.
posted by srboisvert at 8:27 AM on June 11, 2018 [7 favorites]

The beauty of this coming from Robert De Niro is that...

like Trump, he is a shitty real estate developer.
posted by peeedro at 8:33 AM on June 11, 2018

Chrysostom: "Not sure if it was in this thread, but I saw somewhere that most restaurants in the area are now refusing to deliver to the base."

Here's a link on this.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:36 AM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

The NRA spent $30 million on Trump.

And $70 million on the 2016 election overall. The NRA's funding sources are not public. This should be a huge red flag, because where in the fuck does the NRA get that kind of money? (Obvious Russia is obvious.)
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:36 AM on June 11, 2018 [47 favorites]

Kim Jong Un Offers to Host Peace Talks Between United States and Canada

In addition to offering to host U.S.-Canada talks in Pyongyang, Kim urged the immediate creation of a demilitarized zone along the border separating the two hostile nations.

(Borowitz Report)
posted by Dashy at 8:47 AM on June 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

Thank McConnell. If you're thinking about "civil war" as a future event, remember that the GOP already destroyed the Judicial Branch for generations in order to permanently cripple democratic elections. This is like if the tattered Rebels fleeing Hoth in Empire Strikes Back were wondering what they could do to avoid galactic civil war.

An actual fighting civil war, because of the way red and blue are distributed, would be a bloodbath of unimaginable scope. Compared to that we're in a pretty metaphorical civil war.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:55 AM on June 11, 2018 [19 favorites]

With all this over-the-top rhetoric from Trump about Canada and his claims that we are a threat to US national security, it is honestly starting to feel like it is time to start worrying about him muttering about Anschluss and sending US tanks rolling over the border.

Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.

What to when the beast is no longer friendly and even-tempered?
posted by fimbulvetr at 9:04 AM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

So for people living in and near Ohio (I'm not superclose but I could get up to Cincinnati if there was work to be done), is there some sort of boots-on-the ground registration/reregistration drive to be done to turn back the tides of these voter purges? Or in other states where similar obstructions are being put in the way of voter registration? What are the best resources to direct money and volunteer labor towards to keep voter registrations active?
posted by jackbishop at 9:04 AM on June 11, 2018 [17 favorites]

Trump Will Leave Summit With North Korea Early

Donald Trump has decided to leave his historic summit with Kim Jong-un 15 hours earlier than expected, flying back to Washington on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday morning. The White House says that this change of plans is a product of talks moving more quickly than expected. But there’s reason to suspect that it is because they are barely moving at all.
...
Now, both sides appear prepared to let Tuesday’s historic face-to-face between the sitting leaders of the U.S. and North Korea function as more of an ice-breaker (and photo op) than a high-stakes diplomatic showdown. “We are hopeful this summit will have set the conditions for future successful talks,” Pompeo said during his remarks Monday.

posted by kirkaracha at 9:07 AM on June 11, 2018 [18 favorites]

“We are hopeful this summit will have set the conditions for future successful talks,” Pompeo said during his remarks Monday.

The conditions have been well established. Kim is bored, calls you up, asks for a week in an exotic location, and the US comes running and picks up the bill.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 9:12 AM on June 11, 2018 [20 favorites]

An actual fighting civil war, because of the way red and blue are distributed, would be a bloodbath of unimaginable scope.

Yes (Cracked.com article, but it makes a couple of good points)
posted by thelonius at 9:16 AM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

Politico: Inside Obama’s secret meetings with 2020 contenders

Barack Obama has in recent months met with at least nine prospective 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Deval Patrick, pulling them in for one-on-one sessions at his Washington office.

All the meetings were arranged quietly, without even some close advisers to the people involved being told of the conversations, in part because of how much Obama bristles at his private meetings becoming public knowledge. All have been confirmed to POLITICO by multiple people who have been briefed on the secretive sit-downs.

[...]

Many of the conversations have circled around Obama holding forth about how much Democrats should be heading into the midterms talking about the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election versus focusing on kitchen table issues. Don’t chase the shiny objects, he tells them. Don’t hyperventilate over the flash of any tweet. Think about what’s going to stick in the long term.

posted by monospace at 9:26 AM on June 11, 2018 [14 favorites]

> Many of the conversations have circled around Obama holding forth about how much Democrats should be heading into the midterms talking about the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election versus focusing on kitchen table issues.

If a hostile foreign takeover of the United States Treasury, Armed Forces, and industrial base isn't a "kitchen table issue" for voters, then I think we're just about done with this American experiment.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:31 AM on June 11, 2018 [44 favorites]

diamond joe please don't squander your goodwill by running; just spend your retirement waxing your camaro in the driveway while wearing cutoffs and a muscle shirt with a boombox blaring dokken

tia
posted by entropicamericana at 9:32 AM on June 11, 2018 [55 favorites]

I have been remiss in not linking this before now - I founded, and co-run with several others, News You May Have Missed on Facebook. Hope you'll follow us. We post weekly on Sundays a rundown of news we think needs more attention. Our most recent post is here.
posted by joannemerriam at 9:33 AM on June 11, 2018 [15 favorites]

Trump Will Leave Summit With North Korea Early.

Following an ill-advised commitment to meet, over-promising results & under-preparing for negotiation in favor of non-existent instinctive abilities, the inevitable next step in the Trump process: move the goalposts to something both modest & vague, not easily measurable & easily met.
posted by scalefree at 9:38 AM on June 11, 2018 [22 favorites]

Yes (Cracked.com article, but it makes a couple of good points)

it seems astonishingly foolish that they bring up the possibility that "many rural police departments would be unable to effectively suppress their militia because, "... a lot of these rural police departments are outmanned and outgunned by the militia ... you have a small department, in some areas there may be twice as many or three times as many militia members.""

the rural police departments are full of officers who are PART of the militias. they're not in opposition. they have the same goals and values, along with all the other police departments across the US, urban or rural, north or south: the normalization of systemic violence to minorities and the elevation of the white race.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:39 AM on June 11, 2018 [75 favorites]

and don't even fucking get me started on how eager and willing the military would be to collaborate.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:42 AM on June 11, 2018 [17 favorites]

a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking.
Names or GTFO.

This one is not hard. Who has direct access to the president's thinking? There's only one person who does.

This reminds me of the time I sat on the slide with a girl I had a crush on and she quizzed me about who my crush was. "Do I know her?" "Um... yes... really well."

(Dear reader, she never did guess, and I never got up the nerve to say.)
posted by clawsoon at 9:46 AM on June 11, 2018 [11 favorites]

petebest: That scotch-tape story is maddening. The Trump Predisential Library No Collusion! is going to suuuuuck.

This should probably go in the FFFFFUUUUU thread, but I had the chance to visit the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, which is a lovely place, full of reminders of the great things Bill and Hillary Clinton did. While Bill is front and fore-most, Hillary's history is present throughout the museum, including Katy Perry's dress and cape worn at Hillary rallies, on loan from Katy Perry.

After about half an hour of enjoying myself at the Clinton Museum, I realized ... Trump is going to get a museum. Donny's gilded hall to himself and himself alone. Or maybe some really uncomfortable pictures with his daughter and women who look like his daughter. Maybe his pouty toddler staring, cowering under the angry gazes of the G6 (let's admit it, at this time, the US has excluded itself from a position of power).

My only hope is that there is a Museum for Crooks across the street, and maybe an ACLU chapter next to it, and then a Planned Parenthood office down the block, with a variety of religious centers in the area. Let's toss a free health clinic in the area, and a nice public park, with good access to public transportation.

Back to reality: The FCC's Net Neutrality Rules Are Dead, but the Fight Isn't (Klint Finley for Wired, June 11, 2018)

Federal net neutrality protections are officially dead.

Today the Federal Communications Commission's rules barring internet providers from blocking or slowing content, or giving special treatment to certain content, were wiped off the books, following an FCC vote last December. But don't expect to see huge changes right away.

First, there are still some rules constraining broadband providers. Several states (Wikipedia), including New York and Washington, have passed regulations that ban or discourage internet providers from favoring certain content based on payments from content providers. Comcast, the nation's largest broadband provider, is temporarily forbidden from violating net neutrality under the terms of the government's approval of its 2011 acquisition of NBC Universal (Wikipedia); that restriction expires in September. Charter, the second-largest home broadband provider, is required to uphold net neutrality until 2023 under the terms of its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in 2016 (Wikipedia).

Meanwhile, most major internet providers have promised not to block, throttle, or discriminate against legal content. But net neutrality activists don't want to take the companies at their word. They’re fighting to block the FCC's December decision in both Congress and the courts while also working to pass new state laws.

Emphasis mine, because blocking or throttling isn't the only way to promote one site or service over others: the most likely way to squash competition on the internet is zero-rating services or sites, allowing a user with a bandwidth cap to use certain sites without impacting that cap. Say Hulu is zero-rated by Comcast, who owns a 30% stake through NBCUniversal (Hulu page on Wikipedia), but Netflix isn't zero-rated. Which service will get more subscribers through Comcast? And what's the chance that a new company or service could compete with Hulu's zero-rating? But no one is getting throttled or blocked, so clearly the internet is still free, but some services are more free.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:49 AM on June 11, 2018 [38 favorites]

Doktor Zed: ‘Drama, Action, Emotional Power’: As Exhausted Aides Eye the Exits, Trump Is Re-energized

Two thoughts: this is so close to having the DERP acronym. Let's swap Emotional for Republican, and we're there!

Also, is Trump some sort of Vampire Troll, growing more powerful as his supporters waste away?

Looking to San Francisco as a leader in ... something: How Tech Shaped San Francisco’s Unresolved* Mayor’s Race (Nitasha Tiku for Wired, June 11, 2018)

The race came down to three left-of-center Democrats, all current or former members of the city’s Board of Supervisors, all supporting propositions that would increase a tax on commercial rents, and all claiming to want to increase affordable housing: London Breed, Mark Leno, and Jane Kim, from moderate left to progressive left.
...
Almost a week after the election, there’s still not a clear read on how voters viewed tech’s influence. Leno briedly held the lead in the complex vote count, but as of Sunday, Breed was ahead by 1,580 votes; the counting is expected to drag on for weeks.

The mayor’s powers are limited, but it’s a decision worth watching, especially in San Francisco, an incubator not just for invasive species of ride-hailing apps, short-term rental platforms, for-profit philanthropy, and electric scooter-shares, but also for public sentiment towards the tech industry, starting with the humans at the epicenter of its seismic waves. As tech executives testify around the globe, swearing they can still make the world a better place, San Francisco is the quickest test to tell if they really want to be good neighbors.

The political shift, however symbolic, is already under way. “Policies like the Twitter tax break would never pass today. The reverse is now being considered: how to tax and regulate tech,” says John Whitehurst, a veteran political consultant who worked on the campaign to support Proposition D, one of two competing ballot measures to tax commercial real estate that was endorsed by Breed.

posted by filthy light thief at 10:05 AM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I realized ... Trump is going to get a museum

It won't be around long: you know they'll build it in Trump tower, which means there won't be any sprinklers to put out the fire started by shoddy electrical wiring.
posted by duoshao at 10:14 AM on June 11, 2018 [15 favorites]

I realized ... Trump is going to get a museum

Whatever it is, I expect it to be the best presidential museum ever, believe me, a very good place to visit.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:22 AM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I've been thinking about the voter purges in light of this: I recently got a sample primary ballot in the mail for someone who no longer lives here. (Not campaign stuff, official board of elections sample ballot.) If that had been a real vote by mail ballot, I could have filled it out and sent it in. The states have a duty to keep their voter rolls accurate and up to date - and that's the excuse being used for the purges. The records being purged are of people who haven't voted for more than ten years, so the state is assuming they just no longer live at that address, and may be registered at a new address. (Of course, people who rent are much more likely to move.)

Placing that duty on the voters (to keep their registration affirmatively updated like your driver's license) would probably not be great. But the states have to fulfill that duty one way or another. Most of the possible solutions raise data privacy concerns. I'm sure there is a solution, my point is that this should be included in Universal voting initiatives.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 10:25 AM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

The records being purged are of people who haven't voted for more than ten years

Two years in Ohio. Miss two consecutive elections, two years apart, and you are purged.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:28 AM on June 11, 2018 [23 favorites]

I believe they send you a letter at four years, and actually purge at six, if no response.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:31 AM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

Two years in Ohio. Miss two consecutive elections, two years apart, and you are purged.

Which for most voters means, miss one presidential election and you can't vote in the next one, since they probably didn't vote in the midterms.

There are two problems there, but only one is being manipulated by purging voter rolls.
posted by Twain Device at 10:31 AM on June 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

Rainbo, it's very possible to identify reasonable-sounding justifications for these laws, as you have just done. But the reality is that the intent is to disenfranchise minority voters and Democrats. And these laws are effective in doing that. This is not a time to step back and consider hypothetical problems. Experts who study these issues have repeatedly found that voter fraud is so rare as to practically be a nonissue. Voter disenfranchisement, however, is very bad and getting worse.
posted by prefpara at 10:33 AM on June 11, 2018 [53 favorites]

Who oooooops I thought it was 2 presidential elections. And then they send you a notice and wait for a reply and then you're purged. That would still be 5 years though. So that's shittier than I thought, but doesn't change the rest of what I said

Voter fraud is a non issue but having up to date voter rolls is still an important and legitimate duty.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 10:33 AM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

"Trump is going to get a museum. Donny's gilded hall to himself and himself alone. "

So how this works is, the ex-president has a foundation to raise money for his museum, and his foundation builds it and pays to set up the museum and archive. The National Archives run the archives/library, and the foundation runs the museum. After a while (timing varies a bit), ownership of the library and museum transfers to the National Archives. (Since about 2000, foundations have to provide an endowment to the National Archives to keep the museum piece running and maintain the building; Congress appropriates money for the archives part. Foundations usually continue to raise money for the museum, but are no longer in charge of it after ownership transfers.)

And when the National Archive takes over, they immediately rip out all of Nixon's self-approved exhibits about how Watergate was a coup orchestrated by his enemies, and put in new exhibits about how Nixon was a failed president who committed hella crimes. Nixon's foundation is still kinda pissed about it! But they're not in charge. Truman's got a lot more critical of his use of the atomic bomb after NARA was in charge.

I suppose Trump doesn't have to build himself a museum, and maybe if he gets impeached won't, and then there'd just be a boring archive. But the beauty of the (probable) Trump Presidential Museum is that he gets to pay to build it (or it doesn't get built!), and pay or fundraise a shit-ton of money that he hands over to NARA, who will promptly rip out all his self-congratulatory exhibits and, using his own money, make a museum of Why Trump Sucked.

And I wonder exactly how many people are going to be willing to hand him cash for his Trump Presidential Theme Park, shortly to become the Museum of Trump Suckitude, when he's finished fucking everyone over, sending half his associates to prison, and having the foreign cash spigots cut off. It'll be fun to watch!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:33 AM on June 11, 2018 [78 favorites]

The most horrifying thing for me as a voter was finding out that none of my absentee ballots were counted when I lived abroad. Although if there's another way to interpret my (never purged) voter status in 2012 being listed as "never voted" then I'd be glad to hear it.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:36 AM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

Rick Hasen: It is an unfortunate decision, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s lone dissent provides two paths forward to mount new attacks on these voter suppressive laws based on their discriminatory impact.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:40 AM on June 11, 2018 [23 favorites]

And the Supreme Court will reject those 5-4 as well. Any voting-rights strategy that presumes Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch are considering the issues in good faith will fail.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:41 AM on June 11, 2018 [26 favorites]

That would still be 5 years though

No, two. If you vote in the primary election in Ohio this year, miss the general and the next general, you are purged.

And then they send you a notice and wait for a reply

No, what happens is that they say they sent you a notice and that you didn't reply. Neither of those have to be true.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:42 AM on June 11, 2018 [20 favorites]

I guess professional voting rights expert Rick Hasen never considered that.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:43 AM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

the despair is strong today
posted by angrycat at 10:49 AM on June 11, 2018 [22 favorites]

Voter fraud is a non issue but having up to date voter rolls is still an important and legitimate duty.

Is there an identified problem that we don't have that? Is this addressing a real & existing problem in our voting system?
posted by scalefree at 10:51 AM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Monmouth poll out, for the OH-12 special election (Aug 7). Again using multiple models. Balderson is the GOP candidate, O'Connor the Dem:

Registered voters: Balderson 43 / O'Connor 33
Normal midterm: Balderson 48 / O'Connor 39
Enthused Dems: Balderson 46 / O'Connor 39

OH-12 went 53-42 Trump.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:51 AM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

GCU Sweet and Full of Grace: No, what happens is that they say they sent you a notice and that you didn't reply. Neither of those have to be true.

The next Adam Putnam will be a Republican who "forgets" to mail the voter notices for a full year, then runs for higher office, explicitly campaigning on the basis of having helped prevent the "wrong" people from voting.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 10:52 AM on June 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

He does say "At some point the Court may well consider striking down as unconstitutional that part of the Voting Rights Act which holds it is illegal for states to pass voting laws which have a discriminatory impact," which strikes me as blinkered optimism. Any suit saying voter-purge laws have a disparate impact or discriminatory purpose would put that question squarely before the Court, and they would vote, 5-4, that either there is no such impact/purpose (because racism is over, they said so in Shelby County v. Holder) or the law is unconstitutional because of reasons.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:53 AM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

Is there an identified problem that we don't have that? Is this addressing a real & existing problem in our voting system?

No. An American is more likely to believe they have been abducted by a UFO than commit in-person voter fraud, which is what these laws that are proposed claim they are trying to prevent. But it doesn't really matter, because the only thing any of these laws have been found to do is blatantly suppress votes along extremely discriminatory lines. Every piece of data has proven this over and over and over again, and all the excuses that conservatives try and come up with has done nothing to disprove that at all.

It's the return of Jim Crow, pure and simple, brought to you by the GOP, and aided and abetted by "moderate" libertarians and conservatives..
posted by zombieflanders at 11:00 AM on June 11, 2018 [54 favorites]

I suppose Trump doesn't have to build himself a museum...

He can just build an extension onto one of those Creationist Bible Dinosaur museums. Same mandate of historical revisionism and denial of science, same clientele. Make it a twofer deal. Sell coupons on QVC.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:05 AM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

It's my understanding that presidential libraries are funded through private donations? In which case I see it as a harmless thing that terrible people with a shit ton of money they could put towards harming people can do instead. I'm ok with that.
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:18 AM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's my understanding that presidential libraries are funded through private donations?

The entire last season of Veep is about trying to find someone to fund her library, and no one wants to do it

Fuck this fucking timeline are you kidding me
posted by schadenfrau at 11:21 AM on June 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

We already had the Library of Donald Trump's Tweets.
And Donald Trump: A Man of Characters, a history of Trump's tweeting.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:22 AM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Even if you believe the state needs to act aggressively to keep the voter rolls up to date, there are still ways to do that without going out of your way to disenfranchise voters, as Ohio does. Ohio requires you be registered 30 days before the election, which means that even someone who diligently checks their registration status could be locked out if they don't do it in time. Same-day registration isn't perfect (here in California, where we just had it for the first time last week, you have to go wait in line at the county elections office to do it, and not everyone is going to be able to do that), but it's at least a symbol that we want as many votes as possible to count, so we're going to have something to offer you besides just turning you away. But that's not what Ohio wants; they want to turn people away.

As an aside, we have a motor voter law; why not a landlord voter law? Could be just as simple as "you have to give this voter registration form to your tenants after they move in," since nobody actually wants their landlord further involved in their registration process; have an exception for small landlords if you want. Why isn't a pitch to update your voter registration part of setting up electricity service? Or changing your address with the post office?

If the issue is really keeping voter rolls accurate, there are lots of ways to proactively do that in a way that makes voting more accessible. That Ohio has chosen only solutions that make it harder to vote should be a clue as to their motives.
posted by zachlipton at 11:23 AM on June 11, 2018 [48 favorites]

And then they send you a notice and wait for a reply

No, what happens is that they say they sent you a notice and that you didn't reply. Neither of those have to be true.

Or, like Quinta Jurecic, you go thru one of the lower circles of bureaucratic hell because of a typo:

Also, they had misspelled my mailing address, and in NJ at the time the only way to get your absentee address changed was to have them send you a letter that you could send back. Obviously that doesn't work if the address in the system doesn't exist.

Pretty easy weakness in the system to exploit...
posted by sapere aude at 11:26 AM on June 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

OH Secretary of State is up this year; Democrat Kathleen Clyde has pledged to end the voter purges immediately.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:28 AM on June 11, 2018 [65 favorites]

In Canada you just check a box every year when you file your taxes to ensure your information in the voter rolls are up to date. Easy-peasy.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:29 AM on June 11, 2018 [79 favorites]

Looks like we have another auto-flip to the Democrats in the Vermont House - no Republican filed to run in Addison 3, currently one Dem, one GOP.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:29 AM on June 11, 2018 [15 favorites]

Lest you think that I'm joking about the "more likely to believe you've been abducted by a UFO" quip, the number of fraudulent votes cast in American elections between 2000 and 2016 is estimated to be somewhere between 0 and 31 out of 1,000,000,000. Right-wing assholes Kris "if my middle inital isn't K it should be" Kobach and Hans van Spakovsky essentially got laughed out of court recently after they were sued by the ACLU because they couldn't come up with a single election that had been swayed by IPVF. Of course, for anyone following the issue, this shouldn't come as a surprise, because nobody who has studied it has ever found one either.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:32 AM on June 11, 2018 [18 favorites]

I can't find where (or if) this has been linked, but James Patterson and Bill Clinton have co-authored a thriller, The President Is Missing. NYT review says it's good, but then it's a "celebrity" review.

I'm not a big fan of Patterson's recent work. Maybe I just feel as though he is consuming half of the literary world's oxygen. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Clinton might have the grounding to force Patterson to write well.

Patterson usually puffs out 65,000 word books into 400 pages. This one has 513 pages so it may actually be a book-length book.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:38 AM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

In his "Stupid Watergate" update, John Oliver warns of Trump going "full O.J."

John Oliver has famously dubbed the ongoing Trump-Russia investigation “Stupid Watergate,” since, as the Last Week Tonight host put it on Sunday’s show, everyone involved in this latest attempt by a sitting president to undermine American democracy is “dumb, and terrible, and bad at everything.” Oliver might have apologized for dipping back into the Stupid Watergate well once again for his main story, except that, as he explained, the Trump administration’s only hope for survival in the face of Robert Mueller’s dogged pursuit of evidence of its traitorous bumbling is to wear the American public (and beleaguered late-night comedians) down to numb nubs. And, as Oliver spelled out in his examination of the trifold tactics of a certain state media organ and blaring propaganda engine, Trump, unlike Richard Nixon, has Fox News further scouring the airwaves with relentless, unmitigated bullshit.

posted by kirkaracha at 11:39 AM on June 11, 2018 [19 favorites]

Why is "Autocracy: Rules for Survival" Masha Gessen speaking at a $500/ticket Intellectual Dark Web event alongside racists, fascists and islamophobes, and featuring session titles "Has #MeToo Gone #TooFar?" and "Does Islam Pose a Unique Challenge to Modernity?"

What exactly is going on here?
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:41 AM on June 11, 2018 [25 favorites]

(Since about 2000, foundations have to provide an endowment to the National Archives to keep the museum piece running and maintain the building; Congress appropriates money for the archives part. Foundations usually continue to raise money for the museum, but are no longer in charge of it after ownership transfers.)

Maybe 3M (Scotch tape) could be tapped for a bit of sponsoring.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:42 AM on June 11, 2018 [7 favorites]

I'm not a big fan of Patterson's recent work. Maybe I just feel as though he is consuming half of the literary world's oxygen. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Clinton might have the grounding to force Patterson to write well.

I don't think Patterson has written a book himself in over 15 years; he has a large stable of ghost writers working under him, typing up basically every stray cocktail-napkin plot idea that he's ever had since the first few Alex Cross books.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:44 AM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

NYT review says it's good, but then it's a "celebrity" review.

Counterpoint: In Bill Clinton’s New Thriller, the Final Villain Is Feminism

Hopefully this won't be relevant because Bill shouldn't be in front of the public anymore, for a whole ton of reasons. Bring in the donors if you must Bill, but behind closed doors please, for the love of god.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:45 AM on June 11, 2018 [15 favorites]

Vox, Dara Lind, The Trump administration’s separation of families at the border, explained
posted by zachlipton at 11:48 AM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

Why is "Autocracy: Rules for Survival" Masha Gessen speaking at a $500/ticket Intellectual Dark Web event alongside racists, fascists and islamophobes, and featuring session titles "Has #MeToo Gone #TooFar?" and "Does Islam Pose a Unique Challenge to Modernity?"

What exactly is going on here?

Hasn’t Masha Gessen morphed into a Russia skeptic along Greenwaldian useful idiot lines?
posted by schadenfrau at 11:49 AM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hasn’t Masha Gessen morphed into a Russia skeptic along Greenwaldian useful idiot lines?

She's always been hesitant to ascribe unitary blame to Putin, but I hadn't seen Greenwaldism from her. Maybe that's changed. Even if it has, though, this event ostensibly has nothing to do with Russia. It's Sam Harrises and Dave Rubinses and general atheist-to-Nazi-pipeline reactionism. Why?
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:53 AM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

down to numb nubs

Actually hypersensitive, at this point.
posted by nubs at 11:53 AM on June 11, 2018 [25 favorites]

Or, like Quinta Jurecic, you go thru one of the lower circles of bureaucratic hell because of a typo:

And with the low or even non-existent security measures on these databases, as has been reported, that's one of the ways to flip elections: no need to mess with the, hopefully better protected, vote totals after tallying, no possible discrepancies between observed number of voters and vote totals. You don't even have to delete records, just change Tuttle into Buttle and there you are.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:59 AM on June 11, 2018 [13 favorites]

while I appreciate DeNiro's shorthand, a Tony's speech with tuxedoed Broadway people jumping up and applauding--how is that going to empower Trump's base's sense of persecution.

Trump's base feels a sense of persecution because deep down, they know they are in the minority. And decent people everywhere need to show them that indeed, they are.

(They also feel a sense of persecution because they know full well how they'd like to treat powerless minorities, and fear the same being done to them. Which just shows how incompatible their views are with a democratic society.)
posted by Gelatin at 12:01 PM on June 11, 2018 [33 favorites]

"It's my understanding that presidential libraries are funded through private donations? "

So when FDR built his own museum (because he was rich!), presidents still had custody of their own papers, and it was a civic-minded decision to keep his personal archives as president (which were very extensive!) available to the public in a museum. Truman wasn't rich, so he formed a foundation, fundraised, and built an archive of HIS papers, and then donated it to the federal government. After Truman, that was the standard (but voluntary!) practice. After Nixon, presidential records law got way stricter and presidents began to lose personal custody of their papers, and as presidential-libraries-and-museums got more elaborate, stricter rules came into place for donating them to the federal government.

So the National Archives (NARA) remain the custodians of all the presidential papers (/files) and they are paid from the federal budget; they would maintain that archive no matter what. Every president since FDR has chosen to build a museum about their presidency and to house their archives. These are built with private donations, and then turned over to the federal government when completed; since 2000ish, as they got more elaborate, NARA has required the foundation to donate a NARA-determined sum as an endowment to a) maintain the building (which the president gets to design) and b) run the museum, which isn't part of NARA's funding. NARA, through its federal funding, pays to run the archives.

The bigger and more elaborate Trump makes his museum, the more it'll cost him to build it, and the more money he'll have to turn over to NARA for the endowment. And as soon as it goes to the feds, they can change anything they want to, and the NARA folks are pretty serious about removing hagiographies and making the museums more historically accurate.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:14 PM on June 11, 2018 [31 favorites]

@steve_vladeck: Here's the new ruling from AG Sessions on asylum claims based on private violence. Most importantly, an applicant "must show that the government condoned the private actions or demonstrated an inability to protect the victim." That's quite a high burden

This is another immigration case that Sessions has assigned to himself to decide (which again, why the fuck is this a thing?). This decision will make it harder for people to claim asylum when they're being persecuted by non-government actors, especially victims of domestic violence.
posted by zachlipton at 12:21 PM on June 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

Counterpoint: In Bill Clinton’s New Thriller, the Final Villain Is Feminism

this might be 100% correct for all I know but the article doesn't connect the dots to the headline.
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:22 PM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

(which again, why the fuck is this a thing?)

Ministerial discretion (I have nfi what it's called in the US) is one of those norms where it's important for making sure a cabinet minister is able to be a safety valve on stopping injustice from being carried out that's contrary to the spirit of a law even if it's not the letter of the law.

It's not meant for racist bigots to live out their fantasies of sending brown people back home to die. But since this is 2018 and norms are dead this is now a problem.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 12:27 PM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Even if it has, though, this event ostensibly has nothing to do with Russia. It's Sam Harrises and Dave Rubinses and general atheist-to-Nazi-pipeline reactionism. Why?

Isn’t the answer pretty much always either because they’re either a useful idiot or an actual Nazi?

Regardless of the answer, whatever credibility she had left just went up in smoke, as far as I’m concerned.
posted by schadenfrau at 12:29 PM on June 11, 2018 [8 favorites]

how is that going to empower Trump's base's sense of persecution.

Thing is, there is literally (and i mean literally literally not metaphorically literally) nothing that people on the left can do that won't fuel their sense of persecution.

They've turned the chip on the shoulder attitude into a high art. If you are an identifiable liberal or leftist and you say "hi!" to a MAGA hat type they'll turn it into an insult.

Because, ultimately, they are firm believers in what might be termed the negative proof of persecution. That is, they believe that if the other person/side/group is **NOT** persecuted that means they must be persecuted.

They view all interaction as inherently adversarial and having a clear winner and a clear loser. If they aren't grinding their boot into your face they assume that you must be the one grinding your boot into their's. A non-boot grinding in someone's face situation is simply not something they believe is possible.

Since the American left is not groveling in submission and routinely subjected to Trump style shows of dominance and humiliation it naturally follows that they believe the American right **IS** groveling in submission and that everything the American left does is, automatically and by definition, a Trump style effort to display dominance and to humiliate the American right.

Since they are incapable of accepting "hi" as a neutral greeting and instead will turn it into an insult, why bother with anything but "fuck you?"
posted by sotonohito at 12:30 PM on June 11, 2018 [48 favorites]

From Wonkette: Paul Manafort Probably Going To Jail Friday, So HAHAHAHAHAHA
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:34 PM on June 11, 2018 [28 favorites]

From Wonkette: Paul Manafort Probably Going To Jail Friday, So HAHAHAHAHAHA

Anyone giving odds on Manafort somehow fleeing the country ahead of that?
posted by nubs at 12:37 PM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

From Twitter via @evanhper:
BREAKING: Trump administration will stop granting asylum to victims of domestic abuse and gang violence. Tens of thousands impacted. Story coming shortly.
posted by nikaspark at 12:38 PM on June 11, 2018 [34 favorites]

I'll offer a cake: "I am 100% sure that Paul Manafort will attempt to flee the country before Friday".

I'm thinking this time it should be a carrot cake...
posted by sotonohito at 12:39 PM on June 11, 2018 [7 favorites]

Ministerial discretion (I have nfi what it's called in the US) is one of those norms where it's important for making sure a cabinet minister is able to be a safety valve on stopping injustice from being carried out that's contrary to the spirit of a law even if it's not the letter of the law.

We have that too, in the sense that DHS can grant immigration parole for humanitarian or national interest reasons. What's happening here is much more insidious. As I understand the system, the Board of Immigration Appeals is an entire court within the Department of Justice. Its judges are Article II judges controlled by the executive. They can make a ruling, in this case granting asylum to a domestic violence victim, and Sessions can reassign it to himself, rule on it (denying asylum), and then make precedent that the BIA and immigration courts have to follow in all their cases, at least until the regulations are changed or an Article III court (a real federal court) rules otherwise.

This isn't limited to this one case; Sessions is setting precedent that will prevent domestic and gang violence victims from claiming asylum:

Generally, claims by aliens pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors will not qualify for asylum. While I do not decide that violence inflicted by non-governmental actors may never serve as the basis for an asylum or withholding application based on membership in a particular social group, in practice such claims are unlikely to satisfy the statutory grounds for proving group persecution that the government is unable or unwilling to address. The mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes— such as domestic violence or gang violence—or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim.

And that will now be considered in thousands of asylum cases.
posted by zachlipton at 12:39 PM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

Arron Banks (Brexit campaign funder) on Nigel Farage's radio show:

Nigel: was there Russian collusion in the Brexit campaign?
Arron: maybe at a low level.
posted by PenDevil at 12:47 PM on June 11, 2018 [18 favorites]

Anyone giving odds on Manafort somehow fleeing the country ahead of that?

Paulie won't catch a commercial flight, but may well catch a flight from this temporal realm.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:49 PM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Arron Banks (Brexit campaign funder) on Nigel Farage's radio show:

I've been seeing this around. Does anyone have the actual audio or a reliable quote? Because that's not in quotation marks, and Carole Cadwalladr is not trustworthy. She tweeted this during the Zuckerberg hearings, and she completely fabricated the last bit of the "quote": he never said "to target you better," which changes the meaning entirely, and she refused to delete the tweet or acknowledge she had made a mistake.

She's reporting on really important topics, but I'm having a really hard time trusting her.
posted by zachlipton at 12:56 PM on June 11, 2018 [14 favorites]

Anyone giving odds on Manafort somehow fleeing the country ahead of that?

My guess is that jail time is the last pressure that Mueller can apply to Manafort to see if he'll flip. I would be surprised if Manafort isn't prepared to do actual time while he stays quiet. We'll have to wait and see the strength of Mueller's case if Manafort weathers his time, and somehow Cohen doesn't flip either.
posted by gladly at 12:59 PM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

From Twitter via @evanhper:
BREAKING: Trump administration will stop granting asylum to victims of domestic abuse and gang violence. Tens of thousands impacted. Story coming shortly.

A lawsuit seeking an injunction coming shortly too, I'd expect.
posted by Gelatin at 12:59 PM on June 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

So disallowing asylum on the basis of gang violence threats means they're perfectly fine with MS-13 "animals" or whoever terrorizing people outside the US with impunity, just not here. Can't say I'm surprised.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:00 PM on June 11, 2018 [51 favorites]

It's potentially important to keep in mind that Mueller isn't asking for Manafort to be sent to jail as a pressure mechanism, it's just the only way to stop him from committing new crimes while awaiting trial.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:02 PM on June 11, 2018 [48 favorites]

"When I told them I am American, they asked me, where are your documents? I said I had them in my car. When I told them that, they asked me, why don’t you carry your documents?" When ICe came to this Tennessee town, the town fought back (NYT)
posted by The Whelk at 1:02 PM on June 11, 2018 [32 favorites]

Even if you believe the state needs to act aggressively to keep the voter rolls up to date, there are still ways to do that without going out of your way to disenfranchise voters, as Ohio does.

The part that galls me is that they are completely unconcerned about false negatives.

This lack of attention to detail could be easily solved by making both the state and private contractors liable for disenfranchising legitimate voters. Given that America has fought wars to preserve democracy the value of a vote should be at least the value of a life.
posted by srboisvert at 1:13 PM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

The bigger and more elaborate Trump makes his museum, the more it'll cost him to build it, and the more money he'll have to turn over to NARA for the endowment. And as soon as it goes to the feds, they can change anything they want to, and the NARA folks are pretty serious about removing hagiographies and making the museums more historically accurate.

Is there anything other than common sense and/or good taste that would prevent him from making his own competing museum featuring what he sees as The Truth, and openly calling the official NARA one the usual fake news?
posted by poffin boffin at 1:16 PM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

I remember when jscalzi went to the Creation Museum. I imagine going to the Trump museum will be similar.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:24 PM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

> Arron Banks (Brexit campaign funder) on Nigel Farage's radio show:

I've been seeing this around. Does anyone have the actual audio or a reliable quote?

Here's the direct quote from LBC's authenticated Twitter account:

Nigel Farage: “Your case aside, do you think there was any Russian collusion in the Trump or Brexit campaign?

Mr Banks: “It think it’s possible, but only at a low, amateur level”

Modified. Limited. Hangout.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:27 PM on June 11, 2018 [24 favorites]

Assuming there's only going to be one museum, and not a franchise of "museums" that are more akin to a carnival side-show combined with Fox and Friends, is incredibly optimistic.
posted by MysticMCJ at 1:27 PM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

Thanks, I was just trying to drum this up myself. Some more context from LBC's site:

The pair rubbished the suggestion Leave.EU received financial help from Russia, with Mr Wigmore telling Nigel “not one penny or rouble”.

Asked how many meetings he had with the Russian Embassy, Mr Banks said: "two lunches, one cup of tea".

Speaking in a wider context, Nigel asked Mr Banks if he thought there had been any collusion between Russia and the Trump or Brexit campaigns. The Leave.EU founder replied: “I think it’s possible at a low level – when we talked about these bots and the things that the Russians were trying to do. But at a very, sort of, amateur level.

Also, we should really use rubbish as a verb more often.
posted by zachlipton at 1:30 PM on June 11, 2018 [7 favorites]

I am not worried about the Trump-Kim summit, and you shouldn’t be either National Treasure Alexandra Petri, WaPo:

First off, we know that President Trump has not prepared, because he did not feel that he needed to prepare. Preparation is for hemorrhoid sufferers. “It’s about the attitude,” Trump has said publicly.

Trump is known for his attitude, primarily the confidence that allows him to feel that he has a firm grasp of the facts all the time, regardless of what the facts are or whether what he has in his grip is in fact a dead rat wrapped in damp paper towels and not a fact at all. Nothing compares to the boundless, unruffled confidence of someone who knows so little about a subject that he cannot even tell that what he is saying is wrong. This is why Trump has always been so successful on the international stage, or if he has not, he has not noticed.

Why prepare for this summit? Why break the habit of a lifetime? Any information he learned would just push out other tidbits, like the lyrics to that snake poem-song he likes to recite at rallies or Tiffany’s name. It is fine to treat this summit with North Korea, a hostile regime in possession of nuclear weapons, the way you usually treat a group PowerPoint presentation about the water cycle.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:59 PM on June 11, 2018 [34 favorites]

Is there anything other than common sense and/or good taste that would prevent him from making his own competing museum featuring what he sees as The Truth, and openly calling the official NARA one the usual fake news?

I mean, eventually he is going to die, probably sooner rather than later. Unless he (God forbid) dies a martyr I don't forsee even the most diehard faithful continuing to defend his legacy after he dies. Unless there's serious money in a Truth of Trump Museum nobody is going to bother defending his legacy for him. There will always be new living people waiting in the wings to appeal to the Trigger the Libs crowd.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:23 PM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

Ari Berman, We Now Know Why Steve Bannon and Kris Kobach Lobbied for a Citizenship Question on the Census

The initial push for the citizenship question now appears to have come from Bannon, back when he was a top White House adviser. In July 2017, months before the Justice Department proposed the question, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach—at the time the vice chair of President Donald Trump’s now-defunct Election Integrity Commission—wrote to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. He told Ross that he was writing “at the direction of Steve Bannon” and said it was “essential” that the citizenship question be added to the census. Kobach wrote that the absence of a citizenship question “leads to the problem that aliens who do not actually ‘reside’ in the United States are still counted for congressional apportionment purposes.”

Kobach’s correspondence with Ross contradicts the Trump administration’s stated rationale for the question—Kobach never mentioned the VRA in his letter—and lends credence to the view that the question was added to target areas with many immigrants and boost Republicans politically.
...
The documents, first reported by NPR, also show that Ross overruled career census staff in making his decision in March to approve the citizenship question. (He wrote at the time that it would lead to “more effective enforcement” of the VRA.) John Abowd, the chief scientist at the Census Bureau, wrote to Ross that the citizenship question “is very costly, harms the quality of the census count, and would use substantially less accurate citizenship status data than are available from administrative sources.”

Six major lawsuits, including the one from New York and 16 other states, are currently challenging the citizenship question.

posted by zachlipton at 2:28 PM on June 11, 2018 [42 favorites]

Like ISIS, but the chaos in which it grows is the entire world.

Like Uber, but for government.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:38 PM on June 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

Jessica Winter, New Yorker, The Language of the Trump Administration Is the Language of Domestic Violence. This is really worth reading. I'm not going to pull lots of quotes since it's a subject I don't want to push on everyone, but: "A slow, quiet terror continues to spread through the American populace. We are all being made into complicit bystanders in Trump’s violence. We are all members of Trump’s toxic, traumatizing family now."
posted by zachlipton at 2:51 PM on June 11, 2018 [63 favorites]

"Is there anything other than common sense and/or good taste that would prevent him from making his own competing museum featuring what he sees as The Truth, and openly calling the official NARA one the usual fake news?"

None at all, except that NARA owns all the documents and much of the presidential paraphernalia. He can stick whatever he wants in his own museum -- even get copies of his papers from NARA! -- but without an agreement in place, the feds won't take it over and keep running it after his death, and it won't be official. (Which is basically why Nixon's didn't become official until 2007, because his foundation was fighting so hard to keep it a pro-Nixon museum and NARA wouldn't agree to that. (Nixon owned his own papers; because of post-Watergate presidential records changes, Trump doesn't.)

In fact -- if Trump lives long enough -- I imagine that's basically exactly what will happen. He'll build some golden hall dedicated to him -- maybe even make it the biggest one ever! -- his kids will eventually raise all the money to endow it (after he complains that NARA is going back on their agreement to run the big, beautiful museum he built for them out of the kindness of his heart, having paid no attention to the part where he has to raise an endowment, the biggest ever, on his biggest-ever building), turn it over to NARA having not listened to one word about how this all works, and be shocked and enraged when they pull down the golden statue and put up a Museum of Russian Collusion and special exhibits on How Racism Became Mainstream and Lies the President Told, and spend the rest of his life on a mission against the National Archives, who will be called "fake news" twice a week on twitter forever.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:52 PM on June 11, 2018 [22 favorites]

Uhhhhh. George Conway (yes, that George Conway), Lawfare, The Terrible Arguments Against the Constitutionality of the Mueller Investigation, defending the Mueller investigation. So that's interesting.
posted by zachlipton at 3:03 PM on June 11, 2018 [22 favorites]

My guess is that jail time is the last pressure that Mueller can apply to Manafort to see if he'll flip.

Remember those other 2 guys from the Campaign's meeting with Russian criminals in Trump Tower, who Mueller HASN'T moved forward on? I bet they're watching really closely, not to see if Manafort flips, but what Mueller could be doing to them next.

I mean, it's POSSIBLE that Donald Jr and Kushner don't have any money laundering transactions in the past.
posted by mikelieman at 3:42 PM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Remember how Trump monetised his Secret Service protection? I'm sure he'll have some grift set up for his Presidential Library, presuming there's any sort of succession. I bet NARA's rules are regulations, or even just policy, so Trump or his ghastly successors can rewrite them as necessary. Even without that, though, the building (or access to the building) could be owned by a Trump shell company; or it could be in the forecourt of one of his properties so his stores get foot traffic; or the signage could serve as a billboard for his property. Maybe he'd retain the air rights, or lock the library into a bad lease (which may only be bad because it relies on the good faith of both sides). Whatever it is, though, this is specifically the sort of thing that he has experience with, except that in his former career he wasn't able to manipulate the rules the other side has to follow.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:42 PM on June 11, 2018 [7 favorites]

This lack of attention to detail could be easily solved by making both the state and private contractors liable for disenfranchising legitimate voters.

Remember, since the 2002 HAVA , there are provisional ( aka affidavit ) ballots available, for when you're not in the rolls.

In Albany County: "AFFIDAVIT VOTING - Whenever your name does not appear in the poll ledger or the voter registration or enrollment list, or you do not provide identification when required, you will be offered an affidavit ballot."

N.B.: You might not be offered a ballot. We are required to do a 2 hour training every cycle, but how much people take away varies.
posted by mikelieman at 3:46 PM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Credit service shuts down payments on all gun purchases (Lois Weiss, NY Post)

Several gun-related businesses were suddenly — and without warning — disrupted in recent weeks when Intuit stopped processing credit card payments because sales were gun-related, The Post has learned.

Some of the payments stopped didn’t even involve firearms, but simply T-shirts and coffee mugs and gun safety classes, according to small business owners.

As a result, the businesses had to scramble to track down customers to get them pay their bills after Intuit credited back to customers’ accounts the purchases — even if the T-shirt was already shipped or the class already taken, one businessman told The Post.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:58 PM on June 11, 2018 [36 favorites]

In other collusion news, there's a New Yorker article explaining how in December 2016 the Israeli ambassador got the Trump transition team (including Kusher, Flynn, Bannon, and Kislyak) to try to block Obama's U.N. settlements resolution.

A few weeks after Trump’s Inauguration, Dermer and other Israeli officials visited the White House to share a summary of Israel’s intelligence documenting the alleged role of Obama Administration officials in the settlements resolution. The Israelis also provided the Americans, through “intelligence channels,” with some of their underlying intelligence reports on the U.S. role.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:00 PM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Scotch taping papers back together reminded me of a damaged document and archivist story.

Canada has two copies of it's Constitution (actually they are proclamations of recognition of the 1982 law that amended the our old Constitution and attached the bill of Rights and Freedoms to it, making it our new Constitution basically) signed by the Queen (but not Quebec).

When the Queen came to visit shortly after the law was passed, a signing ceremony was organized. But the day of the event it was raining a bit, so the first copy ended up getting slightly rain marked. After the ceremony they went inside they asked the Queen to sign a second copy to have something pristine to display. Archivists put the water damaged copy away and the second copy was kept out as the official one.

One day a guy came to the archive in Ottawa and asked to see the Constitution. My uncle who was an archivist there went and got the good copy and laid it out for him. But the guy wasn't there to study it, instead he pulled out a bottle with a mix of paint and glue inside and proceeded to pour the contents onto the document. (It was a protest against American cruise missile testing in Canada). The guy immediately surrendered (not that my uncle would have done anything more than perhaps cower on the floor causing the guy to trip) but my uncle got a medal for the fuck up, and now archivists refer to our Constitutions as "Rainy" and "Stainy".
posted by phoque at 4:00 PM on June 11, 2018 [139 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
The fact that I am having a meeting is a major loss for the U.S., say the haters & losers. We have our hostages, testing, research and all missle launches have stoped, and these pundits, who have called me wrong from the beginning, have nothing else they can say! We will be fine!

There's a lot to unpack here but I'm gonna go ahead and stare glassily into the void instead.
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:15 PM on June 11, 2018 [39 favorites]

...say the haters & losers... ...all missle launches have stoped...

With only a couple hours until the summit, who has time to worry about spelling when you're busy trolling pundits.
posted by chris24 at 4:20 PM on June 11, 2018 [8 favorites]

Glassy/Void 2020

This update from the NYC Thorn (@NycThorn), your socialist source of fine grain electoral news in NYC has a good round up of our increasingly interesting city politics - the bit about returning to a tuition free City College gaining momentum and the mayor pushing back is ...interesting,
posted by The Whelk at 4:23 PM on June 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

As a frequently demoralized archivist I just have to say the comments in defense of my profession and the Canadian Constitution story are giving me life right now, thanks MetaFilter!
posted by mostly vowels at 5:07 PM on June 11, 2018 [26 favorites]

Loony Lefty Uodate: DSA membership skyrockets in unlikely places, like Pioneer Valley
posted by The Whelk at 5:08 PM on June 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Just won big Supreme Court decision on Voting! Great News!

This was basically while he's on the way to the summit. Uh, who won exactly? I don't remember seeing Trump's name as a party to the case. Kind of gives the game away here as to the intent of this policy.
posted by zachlipton at 5:15 PM on June 11, 2018 [54 favorites]

The Pioneer Valley is the home of Amherst College, Mt. Holyoke College, Hampshire College, Smith, and the University of Massachusetts. It's also where Northampton is, which (probably) has more lesbians per capita than the rest of New England. Springfield has a large Puerto Rican community. In sum: I would fully expect the DSA to be doing well in the Pioneer Valley, it's not unlikely at all.
posted by suelac at 5:17 PM on June 11, 2018 [28 favorites]

Between the still uncorrected "stoped" tweet and his crowing about having "won big", Trump's obviously beside himself with anxiety about this summit.

About this time last year, intel analysts and professors were warning us that Trump's intemperate tweeting was "a gold mine for foreign intelligence" and "a rich source of raw intelligence". He's now offering Kim a virtually unobstructed view on his state of mind—and it's scattered, defensive, and desperate, his narcissistic need for something to make him look good at an all-time high, as he goes into diplomatic negotiations of the utmost sensitivity.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:20 PM on June 11, 2018 [17 favorites]

He's now offering Kim a virtually unobstructed view on his state of mind

It's like how Kim brought his own toilet so that his spoor cannot be collected and analyzed, except it's Trump's brain-toilet and instead of keeping it to himself he's shitting in a billion homes worldwide.
posted by Rust Moranis at 5:24 PM on June 11, 2018 [14 favorites]

the Trump transition team (including Kusher, Flynn, Bannon, and Kislyak)

I see what you did there.

This was basically while he's on the way to the summit. Uh, who won exactly?

I have to say, I really hate how The Summit is being hyped by news media. Politico's headline article right now is titled "Countdown to Trump’s ‘first minute’ with Kim" and refers to it as "what could be the most dramatic moment of Trump’s presidential tenure to date." Sure, it's a big deal in some ways, but mostly because it's crazy, and regardless, it's not a boxing match. By covering it this way, they're giving Trump exactly what he wants--attention--and perpetuating the nonsense that got him elected.* He's playing them like a goddamn fiddle** once more.

*kinda, maybe
** cf. Nero
posted by cudzoo at 5:25 PM on June 11, 2018 [22 favorites]

That's a great point cudzoo. I really like Van Jackson's variation on that theme, The Trump-Kim Summit Is WrestleMania for Pundits

More disconcertingly, whitewashing Trump’s motivations and methods by treating his foreign-policy decisions as somehow high-minded or in the national interest leads to what Georgetown University professor Daniel Nexon has called the “analytical normalization” of the president — essentially rendering his words and deeds into something acceptable by evaluating them in a serious way.

This gives a pass to both Trump and future politicians to have entirely corrupt, self-serving motivations as long as they deliver specific things people want to see happen. At best, that’s Nietzschean foreign policy. Analysts who treat Trump’s moves on the international stage as if he were George Shultz or Henry Kissinger are engaging in a process that gradually eliminates the need for logic or expertise, which steers us into a world where nothing is real and everything is a joke.

Instead of playing along in hopes that the game magically works out favorably for U.S. interests, pundits should never mention Trump’s foreign-policy moves without tying them to his venal motivations. They should be pointing out how other countries — especially dictatorships — continue to reap benefits from the U.S. president’s foreign-policy decisions. They should be routinely charging Trump with accusations of running a foreign policy of distraction on the American public. And above all, they should avoid calling balls and strikes as if the relationship between the presidency and the foreign-policy industry has not fundamentally changed from that of decades past. Trump is rendering us all into handmaidens to his personal agenda, and even many who despise him play along. Americans — even expert ones — seem unable to resist doing their part in maintaining kayfabe.

posted by zachlipton at 5:33 PM on June 11, 2018 [30 favorites]

I have to say, I really hate how The Summit is being hyped by news media.

In their defense, I can sympathize with their reluctance to admit that the actions of the President of the United States aren't newsworthy. Admitting how fucked you are is painful.
posted by mikelieman at 5:34 PM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Our Great Larry Kudlow, who has been working so hard on trade and the economy, has just suffered a heart attack. He is now in Walter Reed Medical Center.
posted by zachlipton at 5:40 PM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Larry Kudlow, who gave that manic performance slamming Trudeau and consigning him to a special place in hell, has suffered a heart attack.

...

Kudlow was once known as a guy who got fired from Bear Stearns in the early 90s for a cocaine addiction. I'm sure this is unrelated.
posted by Justinian at 5:40 PM on June 11, 2018 [44 favorites]

I hope Kudlow is okay and all, but why is the president himself tweeting out medical announcements re: his staff just moments before meeting the leader of North freaking Korea?
posted by Barack Spinoza at 5:44 PM on June 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

consigning him to a special place in hell
That was Navarro, I believe.
posted by neroli at 5:47 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

That tweet didn't reference Trump at all. It was probably ghostwritten.
posted by Quonab at 5:47 PM on June 11, 2018 [15 favorites]

Man, Trump isn't going to be happy about Kudlow upstaging him like this
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:56 PM on June 11, 2018 [32 favorites]

What a photo-op just occurred! A crazed autocrat who posts insane ranting to twitter for everyone to see just shook hands. With Kim Jong-Un.

Seeing the line of American flags interspersed with North Korean flags at the same level is truly a shocking sight. Trump honestly has no idea what he's doing.
posted by Justinian at 6:07 PM on June 11, 2018 [43 favorites]

Is there a link for that photo? Thank you!
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:09 PM on June 11, 2018

Of the NK and American flags and Trump/KJU shaking hands? I'm watching it on CNN/MSNBC so it was live video. I have no doubt there will be official photos, I'm sure someone (or me) will link them as soon as they are available.
posted by Justinian at 6:11 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

Is there a link for that photo?

It is on the Guardian live blog but here is the photo in all its red, white and blue glory.
posted by vac2003 at 6:14 PM on June 11, 2018 [7 favorites]

Winning. I mean KJU. Without giving up anything.

Anna Fifield (WaPo Tokyo Bureau Chief)
People taking photos of Kim Jong Un with their phones as he walks past in Singapore, featured on the front page of North Korea's main newspaper. The message here: Our Respected Leader is admired and revered around the world. He is a global statesman.
PIX
- Quite apart from the photos themselves, I can't believe North Korea reported this so quickly. Usually the regime takes days to report news. Here, they took only hours, even though they had to get the photos/report from Singapore. KJU clearly wants this message out, and fast.

---

Elise Hu (NPR Seoul bureau chief)
Over on South Korean TV broadcasts, analysts say North Korea will be very impressed with its flags side to side by the US flag. "NK media will use this image to tell the people that NK is now on equal status" #TrumpKimSummit
PIC
posted by chris24 at 6:14 PM on June 11, 2018 [27 favorites]

Hey guis did the US media have a fraction of this coverage of the G7?
posted by Yowser at 6:15 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pic from the Washington Post.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:16 PM on June 11, 2018

Kim got his pictures. Kim's face as Trump says "We will have a terrific relationship, I have no doubt."

He can rush to the airport now. He has what he needs.
posted by zachlipton at 6:17 PM on June 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

Having the US flags on the same level as the flags of an oppressive horrible regime like NK is a bigger desecration of the American flag than 100 million football players kneeling for the anthem.
posted by localhuman at 6:17 PM on June 11, 2018 [131 favorites]

Hey guis did the US media have a fraction of this coverage of the G7?

Exactly. The entire way this is playing out is just flattering his obsession with ratings, which is basically all he understands. The TV media's approach to coverage - live video of the meeting on all stations - is itself a political act.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 6:18 PM on June 11, 2018 [13 favorites]

Less blurry version of the same pic.
posted by Justinian at 6:19 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I updated that comment with the highest resolution I could find. I think that's probably the best we'll get until the official photos come out.
posted by Justinian at 6:21 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

But Trudeau...

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin (AJ)
Kim Jong Un just got the sitting president of the USA to say to him “it’s my honor” upon meeting him. Kim Jong Un replied “It hasn't been an easy road." Think of how that is going to be packaged and played out in North Korea. #NorthKoreaSummit
VIDEO
posted by chris24 at 6:29 PM on June 11, 2018 [19 favorites]

You guys remember that time Obama bowed slightly
posted by saturday_morning at 6:31 PM on June 11, 2018 [116 favorites]

Seeing the line of American flags interspersed with North Korean flags at the same level is truly a shocking sight. Trump honestly has no idea what he's doing.

Two little Hitlers will fight it out until
One little Hitler does the other one's will
posted by petebest at 6:37 PM on June 11, 2018 [11 favorites]

Dennis Rodman is on CNN wearing a MAGA hat and plugging a marijuana blockchain company while claiming the White House called pass along gratitude from Trump today. In conclusion, 2018 sucks.
posted by zachlipton at 6:39 PM on June 11, 2018 [27 favorites]

And literally crying about the reaction he got when he returned to the US from his first visit to NK.
posted by chris24 at 6:43 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

Should I create a new FPP for the summit?
posted by destrius at 6:43 PM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Seeing the US flag interspersed with the flag of a nation that operates death camps would have seemed a lot more incongruous a few years ago.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:45 PM on June 11, 2018 [42 favorites]

In a surprise to no one, the usual suspects are touting these photos and the mere fact the summit is occurring as a massive win for Trump and something no other President has "been able" to accomplish.

And people like Chris Cuomo on CNN are playing into it. He keeps talking about this as a moment many people thought would never happen. Literally speaking, that's true. But it's not true because this was a difficult thing to arrange. Meeting unilaterally with North Korea was trivial! Fucking Dennis Rodman managed it. It's true because meeting unilaterally with NK is a huge concession!

Once again we see what you can accomplish when you do not care about policy in the slightest and only about how you can market something. Trump doesn't care that he has given up the game to NK before it even starts, only that he can sell this as a triumph and his base and part of the middle will believe him. You know and I know that the meeting is a concession. But most people don't; they really will believe this was a huge success. Not what might come out of it in the future, but the fact that this first meeting occurred at all.
posted by Justinian at 6:47 PM on June 11, 2018 [45 favorites]

Is it just me, or is the illustration of Bernie in this Economist article a bit too Nazi propaganda caricaturish?

Berned out: Democrats will soon decide that Bernie Sanders is an indulgence they cannot afford
posted by chris24 at 6:55 PM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Ok here's the photo of the day (AP Photo/Evan Vucci), with Trump giving the thumbs up.

Thing is, I'm normally way less on the "conventional wisdom" says this is a disaster side than the foreign policy establishment. Giving up a PR loss isn't that bad of a concession even if it's unlikely to lead to much. Talking is generally better than not talking. Trying to make peace is a good thing, and setting lots of preconditions to talking is often unhelpful. But there has to be some preparation and a coherent negotiating strategy behind it. And more importantly, there has to be some basic trust that our leader is interested in negotiating in the best interest of the nation, that they even understand what our values are to know when they're trading them away. We have none of that here.

Anyway there's always a tweet (2014): Dennis Rodman was either drunk or on drugs (delusional) when he said I wanted to go to North Korea with him. Glad I fired him on Apprentice!
posted by zachlipton at 6:57 PM on June 11, 2018 [24 favorites]

Oh, and having met for 45 minutes, Trump comes out to announce they now have an "excellent relationship."
posted by zachlipton at 6:58 PM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Is there a 1-dimensional chess?
posted by petebest at 7:09 PM on June 11, 2018 [28 favorites]

The Singapore Summit - Yeah, this is actually sliver of good. This is a major humiliation, sure, but after the G6+1 debacle and its fallout, it's not the worst humiliation this week. Let Trump lose all the respect, and get Kim Jong Un used to being flattered and indulged by the American political elite. Once we have a real president back in charge, Kim will want a way to keep that glow going, and will make concessions to get it. We live in the age of Stupid Nixon. At least we aren't carpet-bombing Cambodia.

Yet.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:09 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ok I went ahead and did it. FPP for the summit.
posted by destrius at 7:11 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hey, I nixed that post. If we're going to have a separate post on it, it needs to be something that can lead to a more in-depth conversation about whatever of substance might really happen at the summit; if it's just going to be more "omg these assholes" stuff, it should just stay in here.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:17 PM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

NYT:

A federal judge on Monday sharply criticized the Justice Department’s argument that President Trump’s financial interest in his company’s hotel in downtown Washington is constitutional, a fresh sign that the judge may soon rule against the president in a historic case that could head to the Supreme Court.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland, charge that Mr. Trump’s profits from the hotel violate anti-corruption clauses of the Constitution that restrict government-bestowed financial benefits, or emoluments, to presidents beyond their official salary. They say the hotel is siphoning business from local convention centers and hotels.

posted by Chrysostom at 7:18 PM on June 11, 2018 [24 favorites]

[Yeah I think I was overreacting to the hype over the event here, which has been pretty grating to me, and I don't have the time to work on another post now. Maybe somebody else?]
posted by destrius at 7:19 PM on June 11, 2018

I realize this is a weird thing to say given the massively historical nature of the handshake that took place an hour ago, but given the fact that the summit's just going to be today, I'm not sure it really needs it own post unless/until it actually results in something more than a photo-op? Maybe a wrap-up with analysis after it's over, when we'll need a new megathread anyway?
posted by zachlipton at 7:20 PM on June 11, 2018 [7 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 House -- Cook Political's Amy Walter on what a wave actually means.

** 2018 Senate:

-- Dem Senate PAC dumping $80M into races, both defense (FL, IN, MO, MT, ND, WV) and offense (AZ, NV, TN). Notably not on the board: PA, OH, WI.

** FL: Morning Consult poll has gov Scott up 40-39 on Sen Nelson [MOE: +/- 4%].

===

Previews for tomorrow's primaries:

* 538
* Vox
* DKE
* More Vox on Virginia House and Maine governor
* Races to watch
posted by Chrysostom at 7:31 PM on June 11, 2018 [15 favorites]

We lost to an insane person. ("Democrats Turn to Hollywood for Messaging Help", Politico)

LOS ANGELES — The Democratic National Committee and members of Congress are turning to Hollywood for help with voter turnout and messaging ahead of the midterm elections and 2020 presidential campaign, quietly consulting with a group of actors, writers and producers here.

[...] The group is primarily focused on programs to increase voter registration, and the DNC’s involvement is limited to that effort. [...] In one of the group’s first projects, members are working to find young celebrities who might post videos of themselves registering to vote. Targets include stars of the TV comedy “Black-ish” and celebrities with ties to Puerto Rico. The group is also discussing a college campus voter registration drive that would include some kind of VIP concert or other experience for students who register large numbers of voters.

Why am I thinking of "Hands Across America" right now?

“It really is focused on … what do we stand for? In some ways, how did we lose?” Gregory said. “It is a moment of soul searching right now, in that we lost to an insane person … and that was more appealing than what we had to offer.”

We're soul-searching? . . . Uhh . . Okay thank you. We'll let you know.
posted by petebest at 7:37 PM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

The TV media's approach to coverage - live video of the meeting on all stations - is itself a political act.

This.

CNN wanted Trump to win. The NYT wanted Trump to win. They both still want him to get reelected. Because he makes them a fat stack of money. That simple fact explains every hour of empty podium and "FBI Clears Trump" headline, and now their slavering coverage of shitting on 60 years of US policy.

The "pro-Trump media" is the US media. Period.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:38 PM on June 11, 2018 [73 favorites]

steers us into a world where nothing is real and everything is a joke

Of FFS as if this didn't happen long ago. This administration has been the sickest joke of the modern era, from long before Trump was sworn in. I'd say the elevator ride with the paid audience was the start of it.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:41 PM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

WaPo, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump made at least $82 million in outside income last year while serving in the White House, filings show

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s daughter and son-in-law, brought in at least $82 million in outside income while serving as senior White House advisers during 2017, according to financial disclosure forms released Monday.

Trump earned $3.9 million from her stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington and more than $2 million in severance from the Trump Organization, while Kushner reported over $5 million in income from Quail Ridge, a Kushner Cos. apartment complex acquired last year in Plainsboro, N.J.

The filings show how the couple are collecting immense sums from other enterprises while serving in the White House, an extraordinary income flow that ethics experts have warned could create potential conflicts of interests.
...
Trump earned at least $12 million last year, with the largest source of income coming from the trust that oversees her clothing brand, which paid her more than $5 million, the filings show.

The new filings reflect a change in the structure of Trump’s payments from limited liability companies affiliated with the Trump Organization. Trump will now receive guaranteed fixed yearly payments instead of payments based on profits from three companies tied to the Trump Organization’s international projects.

The change was made in consultation with Office of Government Ethics officials to reduce her “interest in the performance of the business,” according to her filing. Her share of that payment in 2017 was $747,622, the filing shows.

Trump’s $2 million in severance came after she left the Trump Organization in January of last year when her father was inaugurated. She officially joined the White House as an unpaid senior adviser in March 2017, after her initial attempts to serve as an informal adviser raised ethics questions.

She got millions of dollars in severance? WTF?

And Jared still can't fill out his forms right:

Kushner disclosed that he had failed last year to report several stakes in limited liability companies — including Vegas Seven, which is a Las Vegas online news publication, and the Veggie Grill, a restaurant in Manhattan Beach, Calif. The filing noted that Kushner divested of his stakes before joining the White House but did not report the assets previously because of an accounting oversight.

posted by zachlipton at 7:46 PM on June 11, 2018 [37 favorites]

Colin Kahl:
{THREAD} Did Trump associates hire the Israeli firm Black Cube in May 2017 to spy on @brhodes & me (& our families) in an effort to discredit the Iran Deal?

Reports suggest they did
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:49 PM on June 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

I forgot. Bolton has an interesting disclosure:

The largest speakers’ fees came from the foundation run by Ukrainian steel magnate Viktor Pinchuk, which paid Bolton $115,000 for speeches in September 2017 and February 2018. Pinchuk, who generally advocates for closer ties between Ukraine and the West, also donated $150,000 to President Trump’s charitable foundation in exchange for a short speech Trump made to one of Pinchuk’s conference by video in 2015.

Pinchuk sure loves to pay US political figures for speeches, huh?
posted by zachlipton at 7:50 PM on June 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

Dem Senate PAC dumping $80M into races, both defense (FL, IN, MO, MT, ND, WV) and offense (AZ, NV, TN). Notably not on the board: PA, OH, WI.

My take-aways are that Sherrod Brown in OH and Bob Casey in PA are, at this point at least, very well-liked and have weak challengers. I also noticed that MN (Tina Smith's seat) is not on the list, either - despite the dribbling from some of the danker, darker corners of Twitter and Daily Kos that she can't fill St. Al "The Martyr" Franken's shoes. I presume that means Smith is (as far as we know) safe in her seat. Here's hoping for MN to keep up with my state California and have two women senators!

The toss-up state I'm most worried about is Florida; Rick Scott seems to be the most popular Republican challenger in the races for vulnerable seats. But we can still have the blue wave if every single eligible voter does just that! California, I am ashamed to say, had a disgracefully low turnout. Bad state! No cronuts!
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 7:52 PM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

The filing noted that Kushner divested of his stakes before joining the White House but did not report the assets previously because of an accounting oversight.

Ok, I'm not like wealthy or anything, but we do have some assets and let's see... What would I do if handed a financial disclosure?

Forward it to our CPA and pay him for the hour it takes to file it for me.
posted by mikelieman at 7:55 PM on June 11, 2018 [8 favorites]

Context: how North Korea sees the summit. “The Country I Saw,” or “How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love North Korea’s Bomb (Almost)”
posted by scalefree at 7:57 PM on June 11, 2018

I don't ever call anything totally safe but yeah, PA and OH are basically set for the Dems. In MN, Klobuchar is really popular - she won every single county last time out - and Smith should be fine coming along for the ride.

I think Nelson should squeak it out in FL, but Scott has more money than God, so it will be close.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:58 PM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

Just to revisit the US's diplomatic debacle from this weekend to distract us from the one going on right now, the New York Times has some insider details on Trump's behavior at the G7 in its article Escalating Clash With Canada, Trump Is Isolated Before North Korea Meeting:

Mr. Trump never really wanted to attend the Group of 7 meeting, but aides pressed him to go even as they feared it would be a disaster because he was being forced to do something he did not want to do. He rebelled by showing up late and leaving early.

During closed-door meetings, Mr. Trump largely listened through most issues, firmly crossing his arms and swiveling a bit in his seat, according to people who were in the room. At points, he looked around trying to catch the eyes of others, as if looking for reassurance, the witnesses said. Some smiled back; others did not.

He arrived 18 minutes late for a Saturday session on gender equality and did not bother putting his headphones on for translation when President Emmanuel Macron of France spoke. At some points, Mr. Trump closed his eyes in what people in the room took to mean he was dozing off.

But he came alive whenever trade was mentioned, mocking and insulting other leaders, particularly Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, according to the witnesses. Ms. Merkel was clearly not happy but largely kept quiet, evidently not wanting to provoke more conflict. Mr. Trump’s conversation was described by European officials as stream of consciousness, filled with superlatives but not following a linear argument.[...]

“It started out as a good summit because we were actually talking to each other, instead of past each other,” said Peter Beyer, the German government’s coordinator on trans-Atlantic relations. But he added, “It looks like the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner in international agreements, and that’s bad.”

As for the eventually scuppered joint statement, the NYT provides specific details about the Trump delegation's intransigent behavior, such as how they haggled over the phrase “rules-based international order”, insisted on using the word “reciprocal” in the trade section, and stalemated climate change and plastic reduction discussions.

And after attempting to humiliate US allies and sabotage negotiations with them, Trump is now cozying up to a vicious dictator for a photo op.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:11 PM on June 11, 2018 [32 favorites]

> “It looks like the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner in international agreements, and that’s bad.”

The U.S. is no longer a reliable partner in *anything*. I’m 44 and really regret never having visited NYC when I had the chance Before, because now I question whether I’ll ever be able to trust the U.S. enough to feel comfortable crossing the border again.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:29 PM on June 11, 2018 [22 favorites]

Cruz defends Trump policy of family separation

"There's actually a court order that prevents keeping the kids with the parents when you put the parents in jail [...] So when you see reporters, when you see Democrats saying don't separate kids from their parents, what they're really saying is don't arrest illegal aliens," Cruz said.

"There is a reason why under the Obama administration that often didn't happen, because when they apprehended people here illegally, they just let them go. And when you let them go, you didn't separate children from parents," Cruz said. "There's no doubt that illegal immigration causes human tragedies and many of those tragedies are visited on kids."

- AND -

Trump Administration Launches Denaturalization Effort to Strip Citizenship From Those Suspected of Naturalization Irregularities

I used to be a little concerned about my apparently limitless capacity for hatred but the hatred has crowded out and destroyed the part of my brain that felt concern.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:43 PM on June 11, 2018 [57 favorites]

At points, he looked around trying to catch the eyes of others, as if looking for reassurance, the witnesses said. Some smiled back; others did not.

If you scroll through the various countries' official G7 photos, Stephen Miller is positioned what looks like directly in Trump's eyeline behind Macron and May.
posted by camyram at 8:49 PM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

But he came alive whenever trade was mentioned, mocking and insulting other leaders, particularly Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, according to the witnesses. Ms. Merkel was clearly not happy but largely kept quiet, evidently not wanting to provoke more conflict. Mr. Trump’s conversation was described by European officials as stream of consciousness, filled with superlatives but not following a linear argument.

It’s not really clear (or I just can’t accept it happened, even now), but does this mean that he was heckling as they spoke?
posted by winna at 8:50 PM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

If you're wanting to find a little hope amid all the cynicism, keep in mind that this entire spectacle has been shepherded by Moon Jae-in, a former student activist and human rights lawyer. Despite the despicableness of the two people the cameras are mostly aimed at, it's not impossible that some good could come of this process.
posted by oulipian at 8:54 PM on June 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

Worthless Democrat on CNN praising Trumps efforts in placating Kim by lavishing him with everything he wants despite so far having gotten nothing in return is like some kind of weird, too on the nose synecdoche.
posted by Artw at 9:14 PM on June 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

and the Veggie Grill, a restaurant in Manhattan Beach, Calif.

This is terrible news. Veggie Grill is an actually pretty good local vegan chain, and that particular Veggie Grill is where my partner had their greatest brush with fame (she introduced herself to Anze Kopitar of the LA Kings, while he was still in a cast after he’d busted his ankle late in the 10-11 season and after the rest of the team lost to the SJ Sharks 4-2 in the first round of the playoffs. “Sorry about your leg,” she said. “We really could have used you against the Sharks.”)
posted by notyou at 9:23 PM on June 11, 2018

Worthless Democrat on CNN...

At this point, anyone who says “it could be worse!” ... is one of the people trying desperately hard to make sure it’s worse, and they should be treated accordingly.

...I’m thinking Dying Light 2/Last Of Us 2; that sort of thing, except in the real world. Maaaybe fewer crepuscular rays, less motion jitter, but otherwise on the nose.
posted by aramaic at 9:28 PM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

What possible good can come of this summit? We don't know how much uranium North Korea has, or if Kim has secret plants making it. Any agreement will be entirely dependent on Kim's word, which we know is less than worthless. In return we legitimize his rule, and likely grant him a series of concessions that slowly stabilize his regime. Winning?
posted by xammerboy at 9:38 PM on June 11, 2018

I don't oppose the idea of a summit in principle, I just don't think Trump is at all qualified, prepared, or capable of doing it and I think he's there for all the wrong reasons. Also, Kim isn't the only one whose word is less than worthless. As I said in a previous thread maybe NK is on its last legs and Kim as trying to grab as much as possible to salvage as much as possible. Or maybe the career folks in State will negotiate something halfway reasonable. Maybe the South Koreans and Chinese will work something out. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Hope and maybe are not a strategy for a winning summit with North Korea.
posted by Justinian at 9:42 PM on June 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

fimbulvetr: "In Canada you just check a box every year when you file your taxes to ensure your information in the voter rolls are up to date. Easy-peasy."

To be fair that only works if you file a return; lots of people with low incomes don't.
posted by Mitheral at 9:43 PM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Obama signals he is ready to talk with Kim Jong-un

Standing with South Korea’s president last week, Obama said he favored Korean reunification, but also signaled he’s ready to talk with the Hermit Kingdom.
...
As usual, he coupled that with a stern-sounding warning, adding,“Pyongyang needs to understand it will not achieve the economic development it seeks so long as it clings to nuclear weapons.”
...
All pudgy dictator Kim Jong-un needs to do is play hard to get, routinely denounce America, and presto — he’s assured of victory. In exchange for vague promises, which nobody expects him to keep, he’ll get to keep his nukes and free American food to feed his starving country.
...
The Obama appeasement disaster would be complete if North Korean troops join the Russian axis. And why wouldn’t they? Vladimir Putin is a better friend and worse enemy.

posted by kirkaracha at 9:47 PM on June 11, 2018 [31 favorites]

Worthless Democrat on CNN...

Why are you watching CNN? It's worse than Breitbart, in terms of negative impact on society. Just don't watch it. Don't watch any TV news. It's all garbage made by garbage people.

Just stop watching CNN. And cancel your NYT subscription.
posted by weed donkey at 9:54 PM on June 11, 2018 [19 favorites]

KJU seems to be having second thoughts about all this: [click for video] @nowthisnews Trump to photographers: Are you taking good pictures so we look 'nice and handsome and thin?'

Kim Jong-un: ...
posted by scalefree at 10:04 PM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

Trump just showed off the interior of the presidential limousine to KJU and a bevy of photographers

What I assume were secret service dudes were to trying to move the photographers out of the way
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:05 PM on June 11, 2018 [7 favorites]

SINGAPORE (AP) — President Donald Trump shows North Korea's Kim Jong Un interior of presidential limousine as they stroll during summit.
posted by zachlipton at 10:05 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

that only works if you file a return; lots of people with low incomes don't.

Your health insurance card can also serve to register you, usually people have that one. Sorry to rub it in.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:05 PM on June 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

the NYT provides specific details about the Trump delegation's intransigent behavior, such as how they haggled over the phrase “rules-based international order”,

Hegemonic Power Inexplicably Attacks Rules That Enforce Own Hegemony
posted by jaduncan at 10:06 PM on June 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

>>Every 5-4 decision with Gorsuch in the majority is illegitimate on its face. Pack the Court.
>Impeach Neil Gorsuch and reverse every 5-4 decision in which he participated, by statute.

Fair, but a bad precedent in both cases. A better and totally legitimate and overdue alternative:

Impeach Clarence Thomas for perjury during his confirmation hearing, and for subsequent sexual harassment he has committed while on the bench. "Totally non-partisan." And same result. Once Dems have reclaimed a majority, still better to focus on reversing the new voter purge ruling, Citizens United, etc.
posted by msalt at 10:08 PM on June 11, 2018 [7 favorites]

Trump to photographers: Are you taking good pictures so we look 'nice and handsome and thin?'

Because Trump already told the world Kim is short and fat, so what's the point?
posted by xammerboy at 10:09 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

>>fimbulvetr: "In Canada you just check a box every year when you file your taxes to ensure your information in the voter rolls are up to date. Easy-peasy."
>To be fair that only works if you file a return; lots of people with low incomes don't.

That's not a reason not to do it. it still works for everyone who files a return. And ditto motor voter, which is already the law in Oregon and some other states. Obviously we'll still need other ways to register voters, and registration drives. But for the 92% or whatever of Americans who either drive or file taxes, let's start there and mop up the rest after.
posted by msalt at 10:13 PM on June 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

@mostly_vowels As a frequently demoralized archivist...

We are all the beneficiaries of the greatest free lunch in the (known) history of the planet.* That luffly manna being the sum total of human discovery to date. Stored knowledge is the very DNA of civilsation and the point we progress from; as such the curators of stored knowledge are kinda some of the most important people there are: we are all fleeting and the only way we can add to the world is to have our contributions remembered.

Especially those documenting/archiving Trump, as mistakes and deeply erroneous results tend to be under-reported. Especially those that are a bit "Treatment A caused the patient to explode".

---

The Whelk: Floating around Twitter: why don’t government’s attack the Trump Org itself instead of trade warring it? Seize that Scottish golf course and towers in Vancouver for one.

With the one up in Aberdeen then even just a proper investigation (and possible civil suit) of all the seriously evil shit they did building it would probably be enough to shut it down. Since they seem to do this all their 'businesses' then it's possible mass research & reverse-Thiels could push a lot of them out of business (they're not known for ever actually being anything but credit funded). FWIW because they do run their businesses as private limited companies their accounts, etc., are available (lots of companies so I've just linked their director records).

* Also part of the problem with the libertarian/profitarian/individualist right that Trump (et al) play to. They bought into the Randian A = A thing, when actually it's A = A + all of us.
posted by Buntix at 10:19 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

here in NZ when you file a change of address at the Post Office one copy of the form goes to the electoral roll people
posted by mbo at 10:20 PM on June 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

Trump and Kim are about to sign an agreement. Nobody knows what it says. This is fine. Photo.

Trump describes the document he and Kim are about to sign as "important" and "comprehensive" and Kim calls it "historic" - but neither say what is IN the document.
posted by zachlipton at 10:43 PM on June 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

US and North Korea will sign pledge to keep the momentum going, official says.

That's it, that's the ~~joke~~ triumph.

All right, all right there could be other things in the pledge. But come on who didn't see this coming.
posted by Justinian at 10:43 PM on June 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

Trump called the letter "very comprehensive" and said something along the lines of "I think our relationship with the whole Korean peninsula will be very different from what it has been in the past."

Press conference 2:30PM local time, within the next hour.

Pundits on various cable and international channels have been saying all day that if nothing else the summit is "historic"—I wonder if the sense in which it'll be historic is in the withdrawal of colonial powers from East Asia, like the transfer of Hong Kong in 1997.

Trump after the post-signing photo op: "We'll meet again, we'll meet many times."
posted by XMLicious at 10:47 PM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Hopefully the press conference will prove me wrong and there will be a comprehensive, good denuclearization plan. I expect a mostly relatively vague statement about peace and denuclearization-without-defining-the-term. We'll see.
posted by Justinian at 10:51 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

"We'll meet again, we'll meet many times."

Don't know where, don't know when.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:54 PM on June 11, 2018 [27 favorites]

So essentially this is just another letter in a big envelope that no one's read yet
posted by mbo at 11:00 PM on June 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

Trump seems ecstatic about this meeting, and hugely complimentary to Kim. The difference between his words for Kim and Trudeau couldn't be more different. My feeling is there will be a big announcement from this.

CNN. Speaking moments after the two leaders signed the unspecified document, President Trump said that he had developed a "very special bond" with Kim Jong Un. "It’s been an honor to be with you." When asked if he would invite Kim to the White House, Trump responded that he would: "Absolutely, I will."

Asked if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to denuclearize, Trump said, "We're starting that process very quickly, very, very quickly. Absolutely."

posted by xammerboy at 11:12 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

US and North Korea will sign pledge to keep the momentum going, official says.

See how easy it is, Jared? It's not a puzzle. Bigly.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 11:18 PM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

@CNN: President Trump and Kim Jong Un will sign an agreement to acknowledge the progress of the talks and pledge to keep momentum going, a US official told CNN

And I mean that’s fine. We give up a propaganda coup in exchange for talking. Not the end of the world as some will portray it, though surely a lost opportunity to press for matters of substance, or even just mention human rights. But at best, it’s fine, just something that helps the two leaders with domestic PR and not the master stroke of diplomacy we’ll be hearing about endlessly. Kim will drag this out with endless meetings for his gratification.
posted by zachlipton at 11:19 PM on June 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

My feeling is there will be a big announcement from this.

There was always going to be a big announcement. Trump couldn't walk away without one. The question is whether it is a meaningful announcement. I put my marker on "not" a while back. I'm still thinking that's the case.

Jim Sciutto: Difficult to sell this as substantive: US official says ‘signing’ will be document from US and NK to acknowledge progress and pledge to keep momentum alive, reports @jeffzeleny #TrumpKimSummit
posted by Justinian at 11:20 PM on June 11, 2018

We give up a propaganda coup in exchange for talking.

Actually, we gave up two propaganda coups because both leaders will use this to subvert freedom in their own countries.
posted by benzenedream at 11:23 PM on June 11, 2018 [38 favorites]

Or maybe the career folks in State will negotiate something halfway reasonable.

I do hope something good comes out of this. My concern is that since we don't know how much uranium or secret producing plants Kim has, we will never be able to verify he's destroyed them all. I think we just have to accept that whatever the agreement, Kim may or may not continue to have bombs no one knows about. If the point is denuclearization, I don't know how you can ever confirm you've achieved that. The best you can hope for is to remove the process from open sight, and it's questionable how much that's worth, especially if in return you sustain a regime that looks to be on its last legs.
posted by xammerboy at 11:25 PM on June 11, 2018

Realistic expectation: Trump puts on a shower of meaningless praise, North Korea goes through some motions and dials back some provocations to keep the concessions coming, but never really gets rid of any of its nukes. Then when something causes NK to be aggressive again, Republicans will be shocked, shocked that such a thing could happen. They will never once hold their own president accountable for whatever bullshit from NK he enables.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:28 PM on June 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

The statement is out. They've committed to working towards denuclearization of the "Korean Peninsula". That's North Korea's position, pure and simple. It means withdrawal of the nuclear umbrella and forces from SK. To North Korea I mean. Who the fuck knows if Trump understands that.
posted by Justinian at 11:36 PM on June 11, 2018 [37 favorites]

@JChengWSJ:

Four points of the Trump-Kim Declaration:

1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new U.S.-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
2. “The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.”
3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.

Sure. Swell. Are we committed to denuclearization as well? I don't know. Whatever, we'll "work toward" it, someday. It's a 25-year-old commitment already (to the day!). Here's a hard to read photo of the text. No CVID ("complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement").

@RadioFreeTom: I just watched a completely clueless President proclaim a special bond with one of the most ruthless murderers in the world, whom he thinks is “a talented man” who “loves his country.” If I cringed any harder my spine would snap.

That's kind of the problem here. I'm not all that uncomfortable swallowing the PR hit of the meeting, even if the photos make me cringe deeply, because I generally believe talking is better than not talking. But there's just no justification for this kind of gratification of a mass murderer. US foreign policy has a long history of being cozy with awful people, but have we ever been so unctuous to achieve so little?
posted by zachlipton at 11:42 PM on June 11, 2018 [39 favorites]

That's a ridiculous declaration. There is nothing there that the DPRK has not previously agreed to (see previous comment about what denuclearization means to them). So Trump gave them a propaganda coup for literally nothing. His deal was "I give you what you want and get zero."
posted by Justinian at 11:47 PM on June 11, 2018 [19 favorites]

The quick hot takes on the teevee: The take on CNN was "this is nothing new" and the take on MSNBC from the analyst is "if there are not additional documents this is going to be a major problem for the President."

I disagree with that, of course, his base will call it a triumph and the middle may believe them. But the real issue is its a major problem for the world.
posted by Justinian at 11:51 PM on June 11, 2018 [14 favorites]

Hard but not impossible to read version of the text. You can compare it to the 1993 joint statement.

@Psythor: The iTunes terms and conditions contain a more substantive clause about not using nuclear weapons than the document that Trump and Kim just signed.

Kim is going to milk their new friendship for all its worth: The White House summit; The Mar-a-Lago summit; just a tour of Trump properties; maybe he wants to see Vegas? As long as they both get photo ops from this that make them look like equals and nobody in Congress stops Trump, they can keep doing this for ages.

@meghara: Statement from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the summit: "The fact that leaders from both countries can sit together and have an equal conversation already has significant meaning. This is creating a new history, and Beijing welcomes and supports such outcome."

Note the emphasis on "equal" there. China, who wants credit for making this happen, thinks it's lovely to see the US and North Korea on equal terms.
posted by zachlipton at 11:57 PM on June 11, 2018 [16 favorites]

Did CNN mention how the President had be talked out of removing US troops from South Korea earlier this year?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:59 PM on June 11, 2018 [18 favorites]

I remember hearing W's warmonging speech about the "Axis of Evil." If someone told you the subsequent history over the past 17 years of the US's relationship with these three countries, would you have believed them? And how will it compare to 17 years hence?

Perhaps this was naïve, but I was really excited about the prospect of Iran liberalizing as a result of the nuclear deal, of being pulled towards the world's democracies (as stained in blood and injustice as those democracies may be). Somehow this whole affair with Trump and KJU feels like the opposite, of Trump pulling us down - I could easily imagine part of their private conversation involving Trump saying, effectively, "boy, I wish I had things like you do..."
posted by tarshish bound at 12:00 AM on June 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

I will also be very depressed if this summit gives Trump "cover" from the separation of families at the border, which is an insane disgrace.
posted by tarshish bound at 12:03 AM on June 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

What I wouldn't give to have a reporter ask Trump if the statement he just signed is better than the Iran deal. I want to see how he manages to say "yes".
posted by Justinian at 12:04 AM on June 12, 2018 [17 favorites]

So Trump claimed this was going to be so much better than Obama's Iran deal, where did that come from, does he have any idea?
posted by mbo at 12:08 AM on June 12, 2018

This is so hilariously pathetic. I think it was Michael McFaul on MSNBC a bit earlier who pointed out that the letter announces plans for plans for plans for Mike Pompeo to negotiate with "a relevant high-level DPRK official". They didn't even get the name of someone for him to meet with, while Kim got elevated to a Peer of the U.S. President with sloppy sycophantic public ass-kissing from him and a public invitation to the White House, at a summit announced by some South Koreans who were visiting the country earlier this year rather than the State Department because it's been pummeled into irrelevance.

It's genuinely a good thing that this locks the U.S. into a course of action much less likely to result in nuclear war but this is going to be so iconic of the Trump presidency and probably the U.S.'s role on the world stage in the 21st century: the at-least-it's-better-than-nuclear-war "historic" diplomatic "coup" placed on the mantle alongside things like the blaaaaargh you animal! largest missile strike in human history that didn't kill anyone.
posted by XMLicious at 12:46 AM on June 12, 2018 [13 favorites]

Trump's post-summit press conference will be live anytime now at that link, if you're curious how they're planning to spin this and/or have nothing better to do in the middle of the night.

Naturally, there will be no press conference with Kim. Obama forcing Castro to take questions from the world's press was an important moment, and we'll have none of that here.
posted by zachlipton at 1:01 AM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

Trump leading off the Q&A with some praise for how Trump ran North Korea so that's good.

He said some nice things about Otto Warmbier. That was good.

And now talking about wanting to bring our troops home from NK. Aaaand he just announced we're stopping our joint exercises. For... nothing!
posted by Justinian at 1:25 AM on June 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

where did that come from,

His gut, as with all his comparisons, decisions and actions.

does he have any idea?

He thinks he does; however, by any rational yardstick the answer should be "none at all".
posted by Stoneshop at 1:28 AM on June 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

The press conference started with a really really weird video about peace in Korea made by someone called "Destiny Pictures" (as in the narrator randomly told us that at one point) that Trump said they gave Kim. Did the White House commission this thing? How? Why? Where did they find such an awful filmmaker?

Trump is now claiming that Kim agreed to destroy a "missile engine testing site" even though that's not in the document they signed, and that the war will end really soon. He says the sanctions will remain in effect, but just look to China, which said today they could relax sanctions.

Asked about Kim's human rights abuses and Otto Warmbier, Trump says that Warmbier "did not die in vain" and seems to say this happened because of Warmbier, but has nothing to say on human rights abuses besides talking about how tough Kim is to take over the country at a young age. It was really gross. He goes on to say he wants to be able to withdraw all our troops from South Korea someday ("I want to bring our soldiers back home") and now we'll be "stopping the war games which will save us a tremendous amount of money" unless and until the negotiations go badly. So that's new. And fairly large concessions without anything in return.

The useless document they signed is a "very very comprehensive document."
posted by zachlipton at 1:30 AM on June 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

John Roberts just asked Trump about human rights and he's just talking about the remains of POWs. Says people ask him for helping getting their sons back. A lot of centenarians talking to Trump I guess.
posted by Justinian at 1:31 AM on June 12, 2018 [19 favorites]

My mind is truly boggled by this.

Cautious, highly technical real-world negotiations = WEAK WEAK WEAK.

Bizarre ass-kissy joint press conference achieving zero = MASSIVE WIN.

Being a moron who's agog about what he sees on TV and understands what plays with similar morons can't really be all it takes to be US President these days, can it?
posted by Mocata at 1:32 AM on June 12, 2018 [21 favorites]

A comment on the New York Times is comparing the summit agreement to the fall of the Berlin Wall. I'm pretty sure that's how the coverage will go...

Trump will demilitarize. North Korea will denuclearize (sort of). China will prop up Kim. China will militarize the region. It's been the plan all along. Trump is the one in a million president that wants it too. The big winner will be China and Kim. The big loser all of Korea.
posted by xammerboy at 1:43 AM on June 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

Trump says he hasn't slept in 25 hours and that we haven't given up anything by agreeing to meet. He also gave a bonkers rant about how joint military exercises with South Korea cost too much, explaining that they have to fly bombers in from Guam and he knows a lot about airplanes and how much that costs. He called our own military exercises "provocative."
posted by zachlipton at 1:46 AM on June 12, 2018 [34 favorites]

Special places in hell for democratic best friends
Great honours for nuclear war-threatening absolute dictators.

I would so like to see the GOP top bods asked about this straight out. Is this the America they want? Because this is on them. This is all on them.
posted by Devonian at 1:47 AM on June 12, 2018 [44 favorites]

I... did Trump just claim credit for "saving" 50 million people? Like they owe their lives to him now?
posted by Justinian at 1:51 AM on June 12, 2018

Now he's claiming that Trudeau thought that Trump was on a plane and couldn't see his press conference, but there are really lots of TVs on Air Force One: "He learned. that's going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada."
posted by zachlipton at 1:56 AM on June 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

That's an open admission that if something happens, but isn't covered on Fox News while he's watching, he will never hear about it.
posted by contraption at 2:17 AM on June 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

@mattkorda: Asked about the hundreds of thousands of people currently imprisoned in North Korean gulags, Trump says: “I think they are one of the great winners of today.”

No, it did not make any more sense in context.

That propaganda video Trump played for Kim was so deeply weird, and I'd like far more explanation as to where this came from.
posted by zachlipton at 2:25 AM on June 12, 2018 [23 favorites]

@JenniferJJacobs: "I think honestly he's going to do these things," Trump says of Kim Jong Un, then expresses doubt, saying he may stand before us in 6 months and admit he was wrong. Then adds: "I don't know that I'll ever admit that I was wrong. I'll find some kind of excuse."

SINGAPORE (AP) — Trump says he talked up North Korea's real estate, beachside hotel opportunities in Kim Jong Un meeting.

@psmith: Trump: "You've got great beaches... I said to him, you could have the greatest hotels in the world."
posted by zachlipton at 2:45 AM on June 12, 2018 [37 favorites]

Y. Varoufakis (Guardian, 11.06.): If Trump wants to blow up the world order, who will stop him?

The Trump administration is building up a substantial economic momentum domestically. First, he passed income and corporate tax cuts that the establishment Republicans could not have imagined even in their wildest dreams a few years ago. But this was not all. Behind the scenes, Trump astonished Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat’s leader in the House of Representatives, by approving every single social program that she asked of him. As a result, the federal government is running the largest budget deficit in America’s history when the rate of unemployment is less than 4%.

Whatever one thinks of this president, he is giving money away not only to the richest, who of course get the most, but also to many poor people. With demonstrably strong employment, especially among African American workers, inflation under control and the stock market still buoyant, Donald Trump has his home front covered as he travels to foreign lands to confront friends and foes.

Is this accurate?
posted by progosk at 3:06 AM on June 12, 2018

I have insomnia so while listening to local CBC radio playing their BBC overnight service I caught the tail end of a discussion about Trump and Kim. They hammered him, and made very good points while comparing the North Korean agreement to the Iran deal and essentially saying Trump has no clue, and not a single thing was gained for the US.

So, not all mainstream media is buying the narrative, which is refreshing.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 3:10 AM on June 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

zachlipton: "I don't know that I'll ever admit that I was wrong. I'll find some kind of excuse."

Whoa. This is very likely both honest and factually correct... Stop the presses!
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:13 AM on June 12, 2018 [20 favorites]

CNBC has a transcript of The Document.
posted by flabdablet at 3:24 AM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

AP: Trump has stunned the Korean Peninsula by announcing the stoppage of US-South Korean war games. Seoul's presidential office tells the AP that it's trying to discern the exact meaning and intent of Trump's comments.
posted by PenDevil at 3:27 AM on June 12, 2018 [17 favorites]

Guadian live blog of Arron Banks being interviewed in front of UK House of Commons committee to discuss Brexit funding and Russia. It's getting testy.
posted by PenDevil at 3:37 AM on June 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

Fox News on North Korea talks
posted by farlukar at 3:47 AM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Jeffrey Wright
Justin Trudeau just turned off the #TrumpKimSummit and fired up a centrifuge.

---

If you're on Twitter, you should really follow Jeffrey (of Westworld fame). Passionate and very political.
posted by chris24 at 3:51 AM on June 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

Guadian live blog of Arron Banks being interviewed in front of UK House of Commons committee to discuss Brexit funding and Russia. It's getting testy.

I watched a bit of this on the live stream. I think Arron Banks might be the most immediately unlikeable person I’ve ever seen in my life.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 3:54 AM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Trump has stunned the Korean Peninsula by announcing the stoppage of US-South Korean war games. Seoul's presidential office tells the AP that it's trying to discern the exact meaning and intent of Trump's comments.

Trump is the Pete Davidson of international relations
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:01 AM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Bill Neely (NBC)
So this is NOT new- Summit agreement.... "Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." REAFFIRMING. TO WORK TOWARDS... This is an intention only.

Robert E Kelly (Korea expert & lifelong Republican)
Retweeted Bill Neely
Wow. If this is it... this is depressing. This is even thinner than most skeptics anticipated. I figured Trump wd at least get some missiles or a site closure or something concrete. This looks pretty generic. Maybe there will be some surprise in presser?
- God, this is just depressing. All that hype for this? All that drama and the Nobel talk? Come, art of the deal. This is it? This is, well, pathetic given that the US president was personally involved.

---

And that was before the presser where he fucked over SK on war games.

Robert E Kelly
Two more Trump concessions just in this presser: stopping US-S Korea military exercises and hope to withdraw US troops from SK. And what have we gotten from NK for these? STOP GIVING STUFF AWAY for nothing.
- Kicking around a peace treaty, also tied to no specific concession. Criticized SK as cheap-skates, bc Guam-based bombers are costly. Apparently jet-fuel is so expensive, it’s worth casting aside a 60-year ally and friend. (Try to imagine Fox’s response if Obama had said something that petty.) Abe worried that Trump would throw Japan under the bus over short-range missiles. Actually he’s doing that to South Korea. If we don’t get something enormous for all this, this is very depressing.

Robert E Kelly
Post-presser, let’s just say it: Trump is a dove on North Korea. There is nothing ‘strong’ about the following: 1. Gave the summit for nothing. 2. Ducked human rights. 3. Gave up milex with S Korea for no concrete concession. 4. Declared desire to remove USFK, also for nothing

---

There's a bunch more retweets and comments from other experts on his Twitter timeline that further show what a shitshow this was.
posted by chris24 at 4:08 AM on June 12, 2018 [37 favorites]

Here's a working link to the video Trump showed Kim and played for the press (there was a Korean language version of it too). It's so damn odd, like an ad for joining modern civilization casting Trump and Kim as the heroes for the meeting they just had, cut out of stock footage and with an ad for "Destiny Pictures" in the middle of it. Why does this exist? It's just madness.
posted by zachlipton at 4:14 AM on June 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

Cautious, highly technical real-world negotiations = WEAK WEAK WEAK.

Bizarre ass-kissy joint press conference achieving zero = MASSIVE WIN.

It's almost like their response is driven by some fundamental difference between the two principals having nothing to do with either the tone or specific outcome of an individual negotiation.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:21 AM on June 12, 2018 [13 favorites]

The NK leadership is going to need a bigger sock.
posted by daveje at 4:24 AM on June 12, 2018

Circling back to Scott vs Nelson in Fl-I think Scott wins. He has a very effective ad (I saw it while watching HGTV of all things) saying Nelson is not a bad guy, he's just been in Congress too long and it's time for a change. It sounds reasonable and in this state I bet it works.
posted by wittgenstein at 4:29 AM on June 12, 2018

"Trump astonished Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat’s leader in the House of Representatives, by approving every single social program that she asked of him. As a result, the federal government is running the largest budget deficit in America’s history when the rate of unemployment is less than 4%."

"Whatever one thinks of this president, he is giving money away not only to the richest, who of course get the most, but also to many poor people. With demonstrably strong employment, especially among African American workers, inflation under control and the stock market still buoyant, Donald Trump has his home front covered...."

Is this accurate?

No! I have no idea what this person is on about, particularly regarding Trump's having pleasantly surprised Nancy Pelosi -- nor do I comprehend why The Guardian decided it was a good idea to publish what seems on annoyed skimming, to be honest to be some dumbass Lexit/Berniebro-ist op-ed.

Poor and lower-income people overwhelmingly are getting fucked over by this government, and with the exception of some diehard white people who don't mind being poorer as long as their emotional desires are met via high-level government trolling of everyone who isn't a cis-white hetero male...

Sure, the employment numbers are great. That meant very little under Obama (one point that I'm actually willing to concede to conservatives, though I strongly disagree with them about how and why), and it means even less under Trump. Full-time Uber driving is not the same as a livable wage.
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:32 AM on June 12, 2018 [51 favorites]

The only coherent lesson Iran or any other would be dictatorial regime can take from this is the US will throw a party to welcome you to the nuclear club, notwithstanding any amount of prior threats. There's no reason not to restart the centrifuges.

Except that US foreign policy is run by Donald Trump, who is run by Fox News (with a side order of Vlad Putin) and both of them hate Muslims and don't have any strong feelings one way or the other about things that happen on the Korean peninsula.
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:37 AM on June 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

Yglesias: Dangerous to assume Trump is a “dove” or genuinely makes concessions for “nothing,” the question is what forms of private compensation is he seeking for himself and his family.

The real negotiation happened when they were alone with just the translators. North Korea is giving up Trump Beach Pyongyang or Trump Golf Pyongyang, while Trump is trading away the American alliance with South Korea. He didn't get back nothing, we'll just never know what his ask was because it was corrupt, and Republicans traded away our democracy for judges that hate brown people.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:39 AM on June 12, 2018 [86 favorites]

Is this the same Destiny Pictures that made that crazy video?

I mean, there seems to be a certain common business interest that Trump might have with the CEO’s beginnings:

Born and raised in New York, Mr. Castaldo began a professional career in the casino business working 10 years as a croupier in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Mr. Castaldo then relocated to Los Angeles where he currently resides to pursue his passion of telling stories.

posted by snortasprocket at 4:41 AM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Dangerous to assume Trump is a “dove” or genuinely makes concessions for “nothing,”

Sure. Whether it was just a photo op that his idiot base sees as *Nobel-worthy* or some hidden corruption, Trump got something. The "nothing" in my mind and I'm guessing most's refers to the US/world.
posted by chris24 at 4:45 AM on June 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

There’s a distinct Singapore “summit” thread here FYI.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 4:57 AM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Headed off to vote in the *shudder* Republican *shudder* primary this morning. As I posted on my Facebook:

If you're not a Republican and you don't live in the 7th, you might be tempted to skip voting in Virginia's primary election today.

However, remember that ANYONE can vote in the Republican primary because we don't have party registration in Virginia.

And this year, the Republican choices for US Senate are:
1) A white supremacist
2) A whackadoodle theocrat
3) Nick Freitas

Even if you're a die-hard Libertarian, Democrat, Green, etc. and would normally never vote for a Republican even in a primary election, ask yourself this:

Which one of those dudes do you want to spend the next 5 months hearing about?

So go vote in the Republican primary today. You can always shower afterwards.

posted by Jacqueline at 5:06 AM on June 12, 2018 [37 favorites]

I considered voting in the Repulibcan primary for the first time ever, but we have a close mayor's race between a sort-of shitty NIMBY Democratic incumbent and a sort of shitty Democratic developer-bro with seemingly some issues with a woman as his boss, which is more important locally.

With the local candidates and no primary challenger to Tim "the greatest problem in the Trump era is deregulating Wall Street banks" Kaine, it's not a great day for Virginia democracy.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:31 AM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is certainly not going to be a great insight, but watching some of the interactions between DJT and KJU, it's clear to me, the idiot sees KJU as someone he can mentor, while at the same time aspiring to the same level of familial dynasty.

The question remains though, who will be leaving Apprentice Dictator in the next episode.
posted by michswiss at 5:41 AM on June 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

Donnie would like to go play now, George.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:03 AM on June 12, 2018

Jeff Flake’s criticism of Trump’s G7 antics is a sham
posted by Artw at 6:09 AM on June 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

I’ve been thinking about the estimate that nearly 500,000 undocumented immigrants live in NYC, which has a population of about 8.5 million. That’s about one in seventeen. Someone linked a piece I can no longer find about how insane zero tolerance/100% deportation is as a policy, using that ratio as an example. If it were possible to wave a magic wand over NYC and deport every undocumented immigrant, the disruption to every aspect of NYC life, both business and family, would be catastrophic. It’s not just an impossible goal, it’s an obviously undesirable one. The disappearance of one seventeenth of a major city’s population is a disaster that a sane government would go to extraordinary lengths to prevent. There’s no benefit to pretending to take Republicans at face value when they claim that this is what they want (but never putting it in those concrete terms). If we look at what they are doing, rather than at what they say, then we can plainly see that what they want - what they are putting into practice - is to terrorize undocumented immigrants as a group and destroy the lives of those of them whom they can easily put their hands on, without regard to individual circumstances. The status of being undocumented now justifies, to Republicans, any and all uses of overwhelming state power, as punitively and brutally as possible. Not in service of a realistic or achievable aim, not in service of a desirable aim, but merely to satisfy their longing for the suffering of this group of people.

The other thing that I’ve been thinking about is common law marriage. Common law marriage is an eminently practical invention, and inherently a rejection of an overly formal approach to government where legal status always trumps de facto circumstances. Common law marriage recognizes that two formally unmarried people can, in practice, intertwine their lives just as deeply and completely as who people who are formally married. Here, technicalities do not trump actual reality. Two people who, for years, have lived with one another, have shared their risks and rewards, have shared finances, perhaps have raised children together - those two people are married for all intents and purposes, regardless of the absence of a governmental marriage certificate. And those two people (and our society in general) derive the same benefit from the protections that the legal status of marriage provides. We remember what these are from the lists that we saw during the conversation about marriage equality.

I wish that we had a government that was not so brutal, and I also wish that we had a government that was realistic. In reality, there are millions of undocumented immigrants who have lived among us for years, for decades, putting down deep roots in our communities, creating families here, working here, and contributing in uncountable ways to the richness and fullness of our American lives. In reality, these people are common law residents who have committed a misdemeanor. A pragmatic solution to that problem recognizes them as such. That pragmatic solution might involve fines or individualized penalties of other kinds, but not mass deportation. Not disappearances into prisons where legal and human rights are denied to those incarcerated. Not the traumatization of children, not the internment of children, not ripping fucking children from their fucking parents’ arms.
posted by prefpara at 6:12 AM on June 12, 2018 [64 favorites]

Being a moron who's agog about what he sees on TV and understands what plays with similar morons can't really be all it takes to be US President these days, can it?
posted by Mocata

There's also the total lack of empathy, in virtually any sense of the term.
posted by ZeusHumms at 6:15 AM on June 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

The thing that stops me from taking any Nobel Peace Prize nomination for Trump seriously is that the award winner often gives an address as part of the award ceremony.
posted by ZeusHumms at 6:21 AM on June 12, 2018

And this year, the Republican choices for US Senate are:
1) A white supremacist
2) A whackadoodle theocrat
3) Nick Freitas

Trick question, every Republican is a white supremacist.

And lest anyone think Freitas isn't a white supremacist or a whackadoodle theocrat, he became semi-famous recently for blaming the "Democrat party" for, well, I'll let his words speak for himself:

Many of the perpetrators of recent mass shootings have come from broken homes, he said. Studies show that the breakdown in families “can be attributed to various cultural changes [from] the Sixties to include the abortion industry,” Freitas said, to groans from Democrats. “The welfare state contributed significantly to dismantling the family,” he continued.

Freitas defended the Second Amendment and decried government efforts to stop people from defending themselves. Democrats really only see one solution to societal violence, he said: “tearing apart or gutting the Second Amendment” and banning all guns.

Why do Republicans resist debating a ban on bump stocks? “Because quite frankly, I don’t think any of us on this side of the aisle believe you when you say that’s all you want to do,” Freitas said.

Instead, Democrats just want to demonize their opponents, “comparing members on this side of the aisle to Nazis,” he said, referring to an email Del. Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) sent out to supporters last month that slammed Republicans for supporting assault weapons similar to those “created by Nazi Germany.”

Freitas criticized a letter from a 24-year-old teacher, which Del. Dawn Adams (D-Richmond) read a few days ago, in which the teacher said she worried that politicians were debating between the Second Amendment and her life. And Freitas was especially upset, he said, by a recent comment from Del. Ken Plum (D-Fairfax) comparing the gun rights issue to segregation.

As BlueVirginia points out, In Nick Freitas’ Warped World, It’s NEVER EVER the Guns. Predictably, when several fellow delegates (many of whom are African-American) pointed out that this is some racist bullshit, he blamed them for being too easily offended. Also, his endorsements from fellow legislators include noted white supremacist and anti-Semite Ron Paul (and his white supremacist son Rand) and several violently transphobic politicians, and his field operations manager is a virulent misogynist.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:26 AM on June 12, 2018 [24 favorites]

Justinian: John Roberts just asked Trump about human rights and he's just talking about the remains of POWs. Says people ask him for helping getting their sons back. A lot of centenarians talking to Trump I guess.

Out of curiosity I did some arithmetic and that's exactly correct. If, at age 18, you had a child who himself participated at age 18 in the very last year of the Korean War, you would have to have been born in 1917.

I'm quite sure he's heard about the "relatives" and just cannot comprehend how a man who died young could be anything but a son (or perhaps a grandson) because great-grandparents, great-uncles, etc are old people.

zachlipton: Trump says he hasn't slept in 25 hours

Okay, but would that make any appreciable difference to the quality of his jabbering? I mean, it's not like he could be less unfiltered

Then adds: "I don't know that I'll ever admit that I was wrong. I'll find some kind of excuse."

Holy shit
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:28 AM on June 12, 2018 [29 favorites]

A couple deleted - let's move the substantial North Korea stuff over to the North Korea/US summit thread, so we don't end up with two threads saying the same things.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:12 AM on June 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

...wait, so this is still the "megathread"? I thought we were using the "potus45" tag to denote new megathreads?
posted by tonycpsu at 7:21 AM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

That tag is for anything Trump related so people don't have to type Trump, and so it'll get hidden or found by the USpolitics sidebar widget. People wanted a thread on the summit, so the summit thread is on just that.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:24 AM on June 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

Ella Nilsen, Vox: Ranked Choice Voting: Maine voters blew up their voting system and started from scratch

Maine is the first state in the nation to use ranked-choice voting (also known as instant-runoff voting) in a statewide election. It’s largely seen as a rebuttal to LePage, who was elected in 2010 with less than 40 percent of the vote and reelected four years later with less than 50 percent. Besides being known for his obscenity-laced language, the governor has used his power to drag out the implementation of the state’s Medicaid expansion, which passed overwhelmingly on a ballot initiative last year.

And this election is today.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:26 AM on June 12, 2018 [27 favorites]

I hope Mainers are not as whiny about ranked-choice voting as some San Franciscans seem to be. The whining seems to come from more "moderate" (for San Francisco values of "moderate") voters who see their advantages in "winner take all, first past the post" elections slipping away. Also because a lot of people in California vote by mail, results are slower to trickle in and even slower to finalize when candidates are running neck and neck.

Personally, I like the idea of ranked-choice voting and want to see it more widely adopted. Of course people who are advantaged by the "first past the post winner take all" system will whine, but hey, them's the breaks.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 7:49 AM on June 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

The complaint seems to be that in person first past the post makes for better television? Fucking media.
posted by Artw at 7:52 AM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

Ironically, in Canada it was the LESS moderate parties that got all whiny about potential ranked-ballot voting. The concern there was that more moderate parties are likelier to be people's second choice, and therefore to form government.

I think this is deeply stupid when you consider that RBV takes strategic voting out of the equation, but hey, politicians gonna politic.
posted by saturday_morning at 7:56 AM on June 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

The complaint seems to be that in person first past the post makes for better television? Fucking media.

More charitably, that it pressures spoilers to drop out before they torpedo the election. At least, that's the argument.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:56 AM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

So it takes the media circus "horse race" element out of politics to make it Boring. And it takes the strategy out of politics, making it Even More Boring.

BRING. IT. ON. Bring on the ranked choice voting everywhere. Boring politics is good politics. Part, but only part, of the pickle we Democrats are in now is the idea of politics as spectacle. Taking some of that spectacle out might do our system good.

#MABA! #MakeAmericaBoringAgain
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 8:02 AM on June 12, 2018 [50 favorites]

Yeah but ranked-choice allows third-party votes (and fourth-party, etc) without them functioning as spoilers -- that's the whole point -- so objecting along those lines is either rock-stupid or flagrantly disingenuous.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:03 AM on June 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

but there are really lots of TVs on Air Force One: "He learned. that's going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada."

One of the unexpected benefits of president Trump's kayfabe comments on Trudeau is how it managed to unify our parliament and various partisans. That almost never happens.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:03 AM on June 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

Yeah but ranked-choice allows third-party votes (and fourth-party, etc) without them functioning as spoilers -- that's the whole point -- so objecting along those lines is either rock-stupid or flagrantly disingenuous.

Hey-what-now parties? /monocledrop
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:05 AM on June 12, 2018

If the mods don't mind, I'd like to insert a plug for Maine's primary day here:

- We're voting on the damned ranked choice thing again. Even if you are unenrolled, go do that. Yes lets ranked choice go forward. No is a vote to delay implementation and repeal the law if the Maine constitution isn't changed by 2021.

- Your local town or city (like Portland) may be voting on your school budget or other local non-primary issues.

- If you are unenrolled, and would like to vote in a primary, you can change from unenrolled to Dem or R (or Green or Libertarian) at your polling station.

- If you are not a registered voter, Maine has same-day voter registration. Just find your polling place and bring a copy of your Maine Driver’s License or other valid photo ID, a current utility bill, a bank statement, a paycheck stub or other government document that shows your current name and address. Maine has no bar to convicted felons voting. Maine Voter Rights

Polls close at 8 pm.
posted by anastasiav at 8:09 AM on June 12, 2018 [28 favorites]

Extremely important image juxtaposition of the G7 summit
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:09 AM on June 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

I think I may spend too much time thinking about politics because last weekend my sister and I had tons of farm work to prioritize and I suggested using ranked choice voting to determine in what order our task list should get done. We did not do this.

Anyway last year Minneapolis elected our mayor via ranked choice voting. I heard a candidate round table where the interviewer asked them all if they had a suggestion for listeners' 2nd and 3rd choice. Only one person was brave enough to answer the question and she did not win.

The little independent paper that shows up for free on my doorstep once told me "Vote your hopes and dreams!" and I feel ranked choice voting makes that a little more possible.
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:13 AM on June 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

Regarding primaries: Colorado has all-mail elections, so I've already received, voted, and returned my ballot. However, the primary is officially two weeks from today, which is going to be an excruciatingly long wait for results. This is the first year that unaffiliated voters can vote in the primary and I'm curious to see how that affects the outcome.
posted by danielleh at 8:21 AM on June 12, 2018

The complaint seems to be that in person first past the post makes for better television? Fucking media.

Any thing that makes better television drives up viewership, which allows higher ad rates to be charged, which leads to higher profits for local stations.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:24 AM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think I may spend too much time thinking about politics because last weekend my sister and I had tons of farm work to prioritize and I suggested using ranked choice voting to determine in what order our task list should get done. We did not do this.

IRV takes a set of rankings and gives you a single winner, but if you want something that takes a set of rankings and gives you a ranking- a full ordering of the candidates- then you want the Kemeny-Young method.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:32 AM on June 12, 2018

saturday_morning: I think this is deeply stupid when you consider that RBV takes strategic voting out of the equation, but hey, politicians gonna politic.

Although instant-runoff is more resistant to strategy than simple plurality is, almost no system is truly immune. That's been mathematically proven for any system where voters rank candidates and the winner is chosen deterministically, without random chance.

(One exception, a non-ranked, non-deterministic system which is totally absurd but has some weird philosophical/mathematical arguments in its favor, is random ballot. Everyone declares their favorite candidate, a random ballot is chosen, that's the winner. Since your ballot either will or won't be picked, there's no reason not be to completely honest in your preference; it's impossible to "spoil" anything. The downsides are obvious, but they're really just a variant of the downsides of unrestricted "pure" democracy. The supporters of fringe candidates will always try pulling their weight somewhere in the process, so maybe a 5% chance of victory, with 95% chance they shut up and try again next cycle, is preferable to a guarantee that they affect 5% of a major party's platform. Probably not, but whatever system you use has to deal with fringe types somehow.)

Also, I'd like to assert some terminology pet peeves. Although it is the case that "ranked choice" usually refers to instant-runoff, it's not the only system with ranking (It is definitely the most widespread). And "first past the post" just bugs me personally because there really is no definable "post" a winner must exceed, so that's why I call it "plurality".
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:36 AM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

Newspapers even more doomed: Trump's commerce department put a tariff on Canadian paper that jacked up all U.S. newsprint prices
posted by Artw at 8:54 AM on June 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

That's a feature not a bug.
posted by scalefree at 8:55 AM on June 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Not ominous at all: New immigration office to target "citizenship cheaters"

It won’t stop there. Citizenship is about to become extremely conditional.
posted by Artw at 8:57 AM on June 12, 2018 [49 favorites]

The NK summit is an I-can't-even thing with its own thread now, so I'll circle back to Russia, Brexit, and Aron Banks. Although we've talked about Josh Marshall talking about this article, I didn't find a direct link to MeFi's own Charlie Stross' take yet: The Pivot.

Something huge is happening in the UK right now, and I wonder where it's going. [...]
Now we're seeing a rival collusion conspiracy surface. Not all billionaires stand to profit from seeing the remains of British industry sink beneath the waves, and not all of them are in the pocket of the Kremlin's financial backers. [...]
If I'm right, then over the next four to eight weeks the wrath of the British press is going to fall on the heads of the Brexit lobby with a force and a fury we haven't seen in a generation.

You wanted interesting times?
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:06 AM on June 12, 2018 [11 favorites]

It won’t stop there. Citizenship is about to become extremely conditional.

I was going to quote "Service guarantees citizenship," but we've already seen they wouldn't be that generous. "Service gives you a pretty good chance at citizenship as long as you're white and don't try anything funny" doesn't have quite the same ring, but maybe they can workshop it before the rollout.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:07 AM on June 12, 2018 [24 favorites]

Your local town or city (like Portland) may be voting on your school budget or other local non-primary issues.

We have the vote on the school budget in my city in Maine, and it is frustrating. I'm on the school committee and the finance sub-committee and the process is something like this:

School superintendent and admin of schools start their planning process in October/November
Finance committee is presented with a budget
A half dozen meetings of three hours each, open to the public and broadcast, where we go through each school, department, etc. line by line with principals, department heads, etc.
Along the way we'll correct errors, trim some amounts, remove things entirely and (less often) add some things.
We also create a "revisit list" of items we want more info about or may decide to adjust later
Budget is presented to the full school committee for a first reading; any of them may ask questions and suggest alterations that are voted on by the entire committee.
Legal wording created based on final budget. Public meeting where anyone can speak about the budget and then it is voted on by the school committee.
Assuming it passes, a second public meeting and final vote.

Number of people from the public who came to the finance committee meetings: one
Number of people who came to either of the public votes: the same person plus two others

Next step is presenting it to the City Council as part of their budget process. They ask us questions, etc. They can vote to adopt it into the city budget as is, or make motions to decrease it by a set amount (but they cannot direct us to cut/add certain things). I suppose in theory they could direct us to add money to the budget but I've never seen that happen. This year, two city councillors voted in favor of trimming it but were defeated.

Then the entire city budget is voted on and adopted BUT STILL we have the vote today on the school budget. The problem, or at least one of them, is that the public doesn't get to vote to approve the city budget. So if anyone is not happy about their taxes going up a bit, they lobby people to vote down the school budget (this is the frustrating part).

So we have the city election day in June and usually it's the only thing on the ballot and an embaressingly small amount of people come out and (up to this point in history) approve the budget (although the vote has moved closer the past few years). They also overwhelmingly vote against the proposal remove the requirement that voters approve of the school budget. With the primary this year it will be interesting to see how the numbers shake out with a greater amount of voters.

TL;DR - please vote for my school budget because I like to see engagement and I don't want to go back and have all those meetings again. Also it would be detrimental to the students.
posted by mikepop at 9:09 AM on June 12, 2018 [19 favorites]

This happens so frequently that I've probably forgotten at least a dozen other instances, but: the last week feels like a real, significant collapse of this country's power and interests on a global stage.

Like, we've seen Trump do real damage domestically. We've seen him embarrass the country on a national and international stage.

But that was nothing compared to how much damage could be done to our diplomatic interests when he actually spent some time focusing on them.

In the course of a week or so, he's managed to align us with NK and Russia, and against most of our steadiest allies. He just stabbed SK in the back at a press conference, while he and his proxies have been actively insulting the leader of Canada.

He speaks approvingly of European leaders who lean right/fascist, and buddies up to and excuses regimes who actively torture and murder.

Meanwhile, China is sitting back and grinning.

And I'm so fucking exhausted in *anticipation* of seeing the "center-" and right-wing media try to tell us how much of a god damned victory this all was.
posted by bluemilker at 9:14 AM on June 12, 2018 [42 favorites]

Not ominous at all: New immigration office to target "citizenship cheaters"

Bye, Melania.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:18 AM on June 12, 2018 [21 favorites]

Oh, FFS. LePage is such a complete embarrassment:

Amid Maine’s first ranked-choice election, LePage declares he ‘probably’ won’t certify results

"LePage, in an interview with WCSH-TV, called the voting system “the most horrific thing in the world” and said he “probably” won’t certify the results and instead will “leave it up to the courts to decide.”

LePage also said, incorrectly, that Maine had ranked-choice voting before and former Gov. Joshua Chamberlain “got rid of it” because it was not working.

Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, in an interview Tuesday morning, said he was getting guidance from the Attorney General’s Office about how to proceed if LePage follows through with his threat.

His “basic instinct” is that there is another way to certify results if LePage doesn’t, Dunlap said.

“It has to be certified, it is whether he does it or I do it, that is what we are trying to figure out right now,” Dunlap said. He should know what will happen by the end of election day, Dunlap added."
posted by anastasiav at 9:19 AM on June 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

"LePage, in an interview with WCSH-TV, called the voting system “the most horrific thing in the world” and said he “probably” won’t certify the results and instead will “leave it up to the courts to decide.”

I really do not understand[1] how we got to a system in this country where most of us are employment-at-will and can be shown the door because our boss doesn't like our taste in haircuts but somehow government folks get to decide that their skyfriend or personal grudges tell them not to do their jobs and... nothing?

[1] I actually do understand racism and bigotry and corruption but those five words are way less profane than the ones I really want to type
posted by phearlez at 9:23 AM on June 12, 2018 [33 favorites]

LePage, of course, also had to be sued to obey the voter approved Medicaid expansion.

His two plurality victories are totally the reason RCV is happening in Maine.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:26 AM on June 12, 2018 [17 favorites]

Trump says he’ll punish ‘the people of Canada’ because of Trudeau’s news conference

Escalating his attack on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Donald Trump is now pledging to punish “the people of Canada” economically because of the post-G7 news conference in which Trudeau criticized Trump’s tariffs.

“That’s going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada. He learned. You can’t do that. You can’t do that,” Trump said Tuesday in Singapore after meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Trump repeated the vague threat in an interview with ABC. “I actually like Justin, you know, I think he’s good, I like him, but he shouldn’t have done that. That was a mistake. That’s going to cost him a lot of money,” Trump said.

posted by chris24 at 9:28 AM on June 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

FU LePage you DO NOT Bring Chamberlain into your mess. He has more smarts, dignity, and honor in his parts shot off in the Civil War than you do in your entire frackin body.

Ranked Choice voting cannot come soon enough!
posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 9:31 AM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Trump repeated the vague threat in an interview with ABC. “I actually like Justin, you know, I think he’s good, I like him, but he shouldn’t have done that. That was a mistake. That’s going to cost him a lot of money,” Trump said.

Notable for once again assuming that everybody else is also grifting their countries, it's just the dictators who are honest about it (and therefore better friends than those lying elected leaders).
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:33 AM on June 12, 2018 [21 favorites]

LePage, of course, also had to be sued to obey the voter approved Medicaid expansion.

LePage has vetoed an astonishing 450 bills (including the state budget) in the past seven years. In 2015 he even screwed up an attempted pocket veto of about 65 bills, and went to court to try and stop them from becoming law.

On one hand, this has forced the legislature to learn to work together to get anything done. On the other hand, it has impaired a lot more than just the Medicaid expansion. Basically at this point everything needs to be voted on twice, because he's going to veto virtually every bill the legislature sends him.
posted by anastasiav at 9:36 AM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

> That’s going to cost him a lot of money

And this is why the republicans still will never reject Trump - He speaks purely in punitive language, and that's perfectly in line with the present republican mindset that they love to sell as "actions have consequences," but it's really "people who say or do things i don't agree with should be punished"
posted by MysticMCJ at 9:37 AM on June 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

For the best economy EVAH nutjobs.

Jay C. Shambaugh (fmr member of Obama's Council Economic Advisers)
not good from today's BLS release:

"Real average hourly earnings were unchanged, [seas adj], from May 2017 to May 2018."

for production and non supervisory workers:

"From May 2017 to May 2018, real average hourly earnings decreased 0.1%, [SA]"
posted by chris24 at 9:40 AM on June 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

@mikeshepherdME: Just in from @MESecOfState: Certifcation doesn't apply to primaries, so @Governor_LePage actually doesn't have anything to certify.

"He can bluster all he wants, but he can't change the results." #mepolitics
posted by Chrysostom at 9:44 AM on June 12, 2018 [27 favorites]

Navarro then apologizes for saying over the weekend that there was a "special place in hell" for Justin Trudeau. "I used language that was inappropriate, and basically lost the power of that message. That was my mistake, those were my words."
posted by infini at 9:46 AM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

I worry that, after it becomes normalized to strip citizens of their citizenship despite following the law to achieve naturalization, it will next become normalized to strip citizens by birth of their citizenship because Reasons.

That's absolutely where they're going: Trump: NFL players unwilling to stand for anthem maybe ‘shouldn’t be in the country’

Republicans are playing the long game, and the goal is complete ethnic cleansing.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:48 AM on June 12, 2018 [72 favorites]

That's absolutely where they're going: Trump: NFL players unwilling to stand for anthem maybe ‘shouldn’t be in the country’

@realDonaldTrump
Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!
3:55 AM - 29 Nov 2016

Listen to him.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:53 AM on June 12, 2018 [61 favorites]

@mikeshepherdME: Just in from @MESecOfState: Certifcation doesn't apply to primaries, so @Governor_LePage actually doesn't have anything to certify.

"He can bluster all he wants, but he can't change the results." #mepolitics

Did I tune in to a rerun of last weeks pardon-Muhammad-Ali plotline?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 10:08 AM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Jess Macy Yu, Reuters: "The United States unveiled a new $256 million representative office in Taiwan’s capital on Tuesday, a de facto embassy that underscores Washington’s strategic ties with the democratic, self-ruled island as it faces escalating tensions with China."

Not a great move while we're trying to negotiate an end to the trade war with China. It probably wouldn't have raised so many hackles if Trump hadn't screwed up basic elements of diplomacy with China immediately after taking office.
posted by jedicus at 10:12 AM on June 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Just a note about the NRA and Alexander Torshin .
In a 2011 handwritten letter, former NRA President David Keene offered help to Alexander Torshin for his “endeavors” - whatever they were.
posted by adamvasco at 10:14 AM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

Trump is rebooting the country, tearing up contracts foreign (trade) and domestic (policy) and Congress is letting him.

For instance, it used to be that the US never denaturalized its citizens.
posted by rhizome at 10:14 AM on June 12, 2018 [18 favorites]

it used to be that the US never denaturalized its citizens.

I predicted this a year ago. It's necessary if he wants to accomplish the horrific aims of his supporters. I'm angry to see it, but this was never a surprise. We knew this was coming. We need to fight now, fight hard, or it is going to get worse. Next, I promise you, will be going after the children of people who were citizens at the time but have since been 'denaturalized'.
posted by corb at 10:17 AM on June 12, 2018 [55 favorites]

Is this accurate?

No! I have no idea what this person is on about, particularly regarding Trump's having pleasantly surprised Nancy Pelosi -- nor do I comprehend why The Guardian decided it was a good idea to publish what seems on annoyed skimming, to be honest to be some dumbass Lexit/Berniebro-ist op-ed.

For what it's worth, tivalasvegas, Varoufakis is a committed champion of a radical, progressive refounding of democracy in Europe - with something of a utopian manifesto, truth be told - so it might be that this is his macro-economist self tipping the dialectical scale to make a point.

For a more nuanced discussion of his thinking, A. O'Hehir has a recent article/interview in Salon: Is the global economy just a giant debt scam? What the financial elite doesn’t want you to know.
posted by progosk at 10:19 AM on June 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

Rosie M. Banks: "California, I am ashamed to say, had a disgracefully low turnout."

FWIW, so far, vs 2014 midterm, GOP turnout up 10%, Dem turnout up 35%.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:21 AM on June 12, 2018 [29 favorites]

We need to fight now, fight hard, or it is going to get worse.

accurate but on the other hand oh no i might get sent back to a country with socialized medicine and indigenous representation in the government
posted by poffin boffin at 10:23 AM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

I snipped bits of Emmy Rae's suggested scripts for calling your Members of Congress to action about ICE tearing families apart, and sent them to a friend in the middle of a despairing slump (this is a white woman who has a long history of activism, from literal bra-burning, to kayaking to Alcatraz to bring supplies to the American Indian occupiers... I regularly tell her about MeFi activists and what y'all are doing, and she perks right up).

Friend's reaction: "pelosi office said her views on this are on her website and tried to get RID of me. i chewed her out and she put me on hold. but i waited and said no, i want to know NOW what nancy thinks about this. my computer is BROKEN !!!!
.then i called Harris. totally different. she has 2 bills in congress on this.
BUT i pointed out… where is her presser with a big fat public statement on this ? what about the people who never go to websites to read political statements from our leaders? . . . .
okay who else should i call? i’m just warming up ! . . . [Feinstein's office:] so the phone answerer says go to the website and read her views plus she put out a bill. i just said: i want to see her call a presser and make “a very big deal out of this to shame our president for allowing this”. she says welll she was on a talk show saying it.
not good enough!!! i said. just do the presser and speak up loud and clear."

Some of y'all have said that too much mainstream media just refuses to cover Democratic Members of Congress, so... is my friend barking up the wrong tree with asking her MoC to call press conferences?
Is there any point calling NBC, ABC, NPR etc to demand that they give airtime to Democratic Members of Congress about this issue (or any other issue)? Presumably putting pressure on their advertisers would be more efficient, but like, I get how boycotting Hannity works, but is there any way to pressure advertisers to pressure media outlets to give airtime to sane Members of Congress instead of whackjob MoCs?
What other concrete, specific actions (especially media-attractive ones) can constituents demand their MoC take? Eg, Emmy Rae mentions that Keith Ellison's office said they'll be holding community meetings to get feedback. What else can we reasonably push MoC, or media outlets, to do?
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 10:24 AM on June 12, 2018 [17 favorites]

Here's another CA-48 vote count update:

DANA ROHRABACHER (REP-Vladivostock) 40,703 30.6%
HANS KEIRSTEAD (DEM) 23,077 17.3%
HARLEY ROUDA (DEM) 22,705 17.0

The second place finisher faces Rohrabacher in the general. Keirstead's lead over Rouda stretches to 372 from yesterday's 87.

In other CA elections news, GOP gubernatorial hopeful John Cox says that Trump will come to California to campaign on Cox's behalf. Any guesses what Trump's nickname for Gavin Newsome might be? Little Gavin? "Any Twosome Newsome" (appreciate any context you may have for that one).
posted by notyou at 10:25 AM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

appreciate any context you may have for that one

Newsom first got national press when he unilaterally declared marriage equality as mayor of San Francisco, directing the clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and performing the ceremonies himself.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:32 AM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

Varoufakis was also the Greek Finance Minister back when Greece seemed about to threaten to pull down EU banking by defaulting/demanding a debt restructure. He resigned when it was clear the government would cave to the banks' updated, austerity-laden bailout plan rather than continue to press for renegotiation.

He's generally insightful and worth keeping track of -- but I have to agree with others in the thread: that analysis quoted above seems based on some misunderstandings of the situation here.
posted by notyou at 10:35 AM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah, those lines felt wierd, whence my question... All good, thx!
posted by progosk at 10:43 AM on June 12, 2018

I predicted this a year ago. It's necessary if he wants to accomplish the horrific aims of his supporters. I'm angry to see it, but this was never a surprise.

Was it a surprise that second-choice Ted Cruz wholeheartedly backs up Trump on separation of children from parents at the border?
posted by JackFlash at 10:47 AM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

Some of y'all have said that too much mainstream media just refuses to cover Democratic Members of Congress, so... is my friend barking up the wrong tree with asking her MoC to call press conferences?

I have to imagine that the despised Steve Inskeep and his fellow NPR folk, for example, would rather interview US Senator Such-and-So than Republican Strategist #143. I am not informed about media but my guess is that your friend is barking up the right tree - this IS something our elected folk should be raising all manner of hell about. Introducing a bill and writing one tweet ain't enough.

Adam Schiff seems to get airtime, so someone knows how to do it.
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:52 AM on June 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

rhizome: For instance, it used to be that the US never denaturalized its citizens.

Maybe we're talking about different things, but it seems to have happened enough for Wikipedia to have a list. Recent entries (the most recent is 2015) are basically all people who engaged in terrorism or war crimes and hid that when applying.

But the very first person on it is Bhagat Singh Thind, a spiritual writer/academic who served in the Army (the first turbaned Sikh in it) toward the end of World War I. The sequence of events is tricky to follow, but I think it goes like: in 1918, he was naturalized, his citizenship rescinded, he applied for it and got it again, there was another revocation, the Supreme Court confirmed that he couldn't be a citizen in 1923, which had a devastating impact on Indian-American citizenship in general. But finally in 1936 he was able to become a citizen permanently.

The entire time, the only reason for denaturalizing was explicitly racial: American case law was considered to guarantee naturalized citizenship only to people either ethnically white or African. Even with that filter, quite a few other Indian-Americans did become citizens, thanks to the flexibility of concepts like "Caucasian". Thind's own legal argument to the SC was that he was a "high caste Aryan", and the court's dialogue centered on incredible white-supremacist nonsense about whether or not his caste was "conquerors" (that being the desirable, "practically white" status here) and as far as I could tell, nothing about, like, equal protection under the law.

So, depressingly, there is precedent for what these Nazi zombie fuckers could try again.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 10:55 AM on June 12, 2018 [21 favorites]

Recent entries (the most recent is 2015) are basically all people who engaged in terrorism or war crimes and hid that when applying.

Mea culpa, I was referring to born citizens but unfortunately "denaturalization" applies to both born and naturalized. I thought "revoked" might be better, but it doesn't really make the distinction either.
posted by rhizome at 11:07 AM on June 12, 2018

Denaturalization actually picked up pace under President Obama with the advent of Operation Janus and Operation Second Look. Deportation picked up under Obama as well, and many Trump immigration policies are extensions of earlier programs with increased enforcement. But of course, Trump can take a terrible program and find a way to make it 1000% more cruel. That's what he does.
posted by Emera Gratia at 11:19 AM on June 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

Denaturalization actually picked up pace under President Obama

Not of natural-born citizens, which is what Trump is talking about doing.
posted by rhizome at 11:25 AM on June 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Not of natural-born citizens, which is what Trump is talking about doing.

Yes, but at least his power is limited in that regard--the Supreme Court has held that natural-born citizens cannot be involuntarily stripped of citizenship (and the Court has also held that flag-burning is protected under the First Amendment). So Trump may want those things, but he's not getting them at the moment. And in a hopeful sign, the Supreme Court put limits on the denaturalization of foreign-born citizens in last year's Maslenjak decision--and even Justice Gorsuch joined in the majority on that one, though he would have preferred a narrower decision. Trump is terrible and our democracy is at risk, no doubt, but it is not yet gone.
posted by Emera Gratia at 11:33 AM on June 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

Vanity Fair's anonymous cast of Trump outside-insiders are firing warning flares: “The Era of Primal Trump”: Insiders Fear Trump Is Lurching from One Nuclear Showdown to Another—Advisers worry that with Singapore in the rearview mirror, “It’s going to hit the fan pretty soon.”

As Trump returns from Singapore after his historic, self-touted, inconclusive meeting with Kim Jong Un, people close to the president say the Mueller probe is reaching an inflection point. “It’s going to hit the fan pretty soon,” a friend of the president told me.

Within the next month, Mueller is reportedly planning to deliver his findings in the obstruction of justice investigation to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. “Donald is very worried,” said a Republican close to Trump. The difference is that Trump is now more unshackled than at any point in his presidency, meaning that firing Mueller or Rosenstein remains a possibility. “We’ve entered the era of primal Trump,” one outside adviser told me.

Trump allies view the legal cloud hanging over Trump’s former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, as at least as ominous as the obstruction investigation. According to a source close to Cohen, Cohen has told friends that he expects to be arrested any day now. (Reached for comment, Cohen wrote in a text message, “Your alleged source is wrong!”) The specter of Cohen flipping has Trump advisers on edge. “Trump should be super worried about Michael Cohen,” a former White House official said. “If anyone can blow up Trump, it’s him.”

With the Department of Justice Inspector General's report scheduled to be released this Thursday, there are sure to be spasms across Trumpland this week.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:37 AM on June 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

So after some shocked googling, it turns out natural born citizens can be stripped of their citizenship for committing one of several expatriating acts, most of which concern signing up for foreign military service or taking oaths of allegiance or whatever, but also includes:

(7) conviction for treason or attempting by force to overthrow the U.S. government, including conspiracy convictions.

We get the hint, writers. We fucking get it.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:43 AM on June 12, 2018 [37 favorites]

With the Department of Justice Inspector General's report scheduled to be released this Thursday, there are sure to be spasms across Trumpland this week.

The situation is complex enough that every partisan news source will have something to crow about/ perceive as vindication in the IG report. My tentative guess is that Fox will have something to be pleased about and this may actually decrease Trump's perception of his own danger, or at least it will temporarily distract him with something shiny.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:48 AM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

(7) conviction for treason or attempting by force to overthrow the U.S. government, including conspiracy convictions.

Yes, but note even there, the Court has held that such acts must be done "with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality. The fact of intention is critical; it is not the mere performance of the actions" that leads to a loss of citizenship. So a conspiracy conviction or treason conviction by itself is not enough--there has to be an actual intention to relinquish citizenship (so yeah, the U.S. can't get rid of Manafort that easily...).
posted by Emera Gratia at 11:51 AM on June 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

"conscious choice to try to fix the deportation issue by pushing through comprehensive immigration reform"

Obama mostly deported recent arrivals (and yes, actual criminals). He did that, I think, to combat Republican allegations that he didn't care about border security. I think he hoped that if he could convince them he wasn't in favor of "open borders," they might bend a little on DACA and other measures which would protect long time residents who had been unable to get legal status.

That's just my opinion, not a super informed analysis. I am willing to be corrected. But that's how I perceived it at the time.

Of course Republicans took almost every gesture of good faith from Obama and distorted it into something else.
posted by OnceUponATime at 11:52 AM on June 12, 2018 [20 favorites]

I think a lot of the reasons for that failure was a conscious choice to try to fix the deportation issue by pushing through comprehensive immigration reform -- to concentrate on getting legal status for immigrants, thereby shortcutting around the issue of how to handle undocumented immigrants

It was classic Obamaism. Increase deportations like Republicans wanted, in hopes that they would give him credit for moving right and reciprocate with votes for comprehensive immigration reform. The mistake was treating Republicans as acting in good faith. They were never going to vote for any immigration reforms, period. They were never going to vote for any Obama policy, ever. Mitch McConnell said so a week in and Obama refused to believe it for 7 years. So ramping up deportations was done for no reason and later lead to more cruelty by Trump's ICE.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:00 PM on June 12, 2018 [50 favorites]

Hey, do you want to tell the government not to implement racially discriminatory work requirements for Medicaid in Ohio? Because you can do that in about two minutes. The counties that will be exempt from the work requirement are 94% white, while the ones that won't be...aren't.

Here's the comment page. Here's a sample comment you can crib from.
posted by zachlipton at 12:24 PM on June 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

Newsweek: DHS Announces "Strengthened Northern Border Strategy" Amid Growing Tensions Between U.S. and Canada

In a press release published on Tuesday, the DHS said its new strategy "establishes a clear vision and concrete actions that will improve DHS's efforts to safeguard our northern border against terrorist and criminal threats, facilitate the safe and efficient flow of lawful cross-border trade and travel and strengthen cross-border critical infrastructure protection and community resilience."

Probably time to stop making "they'll have to build a Northern Wall too" jokes.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:31 PM on June 12, 2018 [25 favorites]

He's generally insightful and worth keeping track of -- but I have to agree with others in the thread: that analysis quoted above seems based on some misunderstandings of the situation here.

He might be going by what Bernanke said recently
posted by infini at 12:32 PM on June 12, 2018

Speaking of border walls: Inside Palmer Luckey’s Bid to Build a Border Wall -- How the Oculus founder, along with ex-Palantir executives, plans to reinvent national security, starting with Trump's agenda. (Steven Levy for Wired, June 11, 2018)

Palmer Luckey—yes, that Palmer Luckey, the 25-year-old entrepreneur who founded the virtual reality company Oculus, sold it to Facebook, and then left Facebook in a haze of political controversy—hands me a Samsung Gear VR headset. Slipping it over my eyes, I am instantly immersed in a digital world that simulates the exact view I had just been enjoying in real life. In the virtual valley below is a glowing green square with text that reads PERSON 98%. Luckey directs me to tilt my head downward, toward the box, and suddenly an image pops up over the VR rendering. A human is making his way through the rugged sagebrush, a scene captured by cameras on a tower behind me. To his right I see another green box, this one labeled ANIMAL 86%. Zooming in on it brings up a photo of a calf, grazing a bit outside its usual range.

The system I’m trying out is Luckey’s solution to how the US should detect unauthorized border crossings. It merges VR with surveillance tools to create a digital wall that is not a barrier so much as a web of all-seeing eyes, with intelligence to know what it sees. Luckey’s company, Anduril Industries, is pitching its technology to the Department of Homeland Security as a complement to—or substitute for—much of President Trump’s promised physical wall along the border with Mexico.

Anduril is barely a year old, and the trespassing I’d witnessed was part of an informal test on a rancher’s private land. The company has installed three portable, 32-foot towers packed with radar, communications antennae, and a laser-enhanced camera—the first implementation of a system Anduril is calling Lattice. It can detect and identify motion within about a 2-mile radius. The person I saw in my headset was an Anduril technician dispatched to the valley via ATV to demonstrate how the system works; he was about a mile away.
...
The idea of the nimble maverick overthrowing lead-footed incumbents is, of course, the favorite startup narrative. But the people behind Anduril are not untested newbies; they have significant experience in tech and politics. Besides Luckey, who gave money to an alt-right group and donated to Trump’s inaugural committee, the team includes former executives from the secretive data-crunching company Palantir, whose work for many government agencies has raised alarms about intrusive surveillance. And Anduril’s lead investor is Founders Fund, the VC firm headed by Peter Thiel, a prominent Trump supporter and the guy who shut down Gawker.

They're really going all in on the LOTR references -- first Palantíri, and now Andúril?

On April 7, exactly a week after Luckey left Facebook, the four invited around half a dozen potential recruits to Luckey’s Orange County home. As the guests ate Chick-fil-A, the founders presented a pitch deck. By attracting “disruptive talent with a Silicon Valley vision, Anduril will be the next great defense company,” it promised. They would need “crazy mad scientists,” political connections, and lots of capital. “Almost every single person that was at that initial dinner is here right now,” Stephens says.

Is Chick-fil-A like the kinder version of Trump's meatloaf? Like a "if you're willing to support this homophobic, Christian semi-cult, you're clearly on our team" kind of thing?

Dark jokes aside, this tech is like CCTV on secret government-tested steroids, at least for rural areas. At least until people who wish to evade detection from this system start testing it with camouflage and costumes, or attack the pole-mounted infrastructure with drones.

But because the Wired author (or Wired editors) aren't completely heartless, they included this clarification:

In a 10-week span since the towers were installed, Lattice helped agents catch 55 people and seize 982 pounds of marijuana. (For 39 of those individuals, drugs were not involved, suggesting they were just looking for a better life.)

To be more complete in this story-telling, the article would then note that the families were separated, and deported back into the dangerous living situations they had been fleeing in the first place. But this is a tech-focused article, so that's way too far into the real lives impacted by the current U.S. border policies and practices.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:12 PM on June 12, 2018 [28 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina. I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!

This is so weird when the polls close in a couple hours. Also weird that the guy well known for having affairs is throwing this stone. Also just plain weird.
posted by zachlipton at 1:16 PM on June 12, 2018 [21 favorites]

A human is making his way through the rugged sagebrush, a scene captured by cameras on a tower behind me. To his right I see another green box, this one labeled ANIMAL 86%. Zooming in on it brings up a photo of a calf, grazing a bit outside its usual range.

Since the computer can tell possible MS-13 members from animals I'm pretty sure it's not racist enough to make the cut.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:20 PM on June 12, 2018 [21 favorites]

McClatchy, Trump looking to erect tent cities to house unaccompanied children

The Trump administration is looking to build tent cities at military posts around Texas to shelter the increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children being held in detention.

The Department of Health and Human Services will visit Fort Bliss, a sprawling Army base near El Paso in the coming weeks to look at a parcel of land where the administration is considering building a tent city to hold between 1,000 and 5,000 children, according to U.S. officials and other sources familiar with the plans.

HHS officials confirmed that they’re looking at the Fort Bliss site along with Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene and Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo for potential use as temporary shelters.

The aggressive plan comes at the same time that child shelters are filling up with more children who have been separated from their parents. The number of migrant children held in U.S. government custody without their parents has increased more than 20 percent as Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen rolled out the administration's new policy zero tolerance policy that separates children from their parents who now face prosecution.

More than 10,000 migrant children are being held at HHS shelters, which are now 95 percent full.

posted by zachlipton at 1:21 PM on June 12, 2018 [48 favorites]

Sanford-Arrington is considered a toss-up. So Trump can play it either way. Sanford wins, Trump only got in at the very end, so he can't be blamed. Arrington wins, it was due to Trump.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:24 PM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Trump looking to erect tent cities to house unaccompanied children

Does this machine seem at all odious to anybody else
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:26 PM on June 12, 2018 [21 favorites]

Does this machine seem at all odious to anybody else

It does seem a lot like a bodies-on-the-gears moment, doesn't it?
posted by Sophie1 at 1:31 PM on June 12, 2018 [27 favorites]

Concentration camps for children.

These people are evil.
posted by schadenfrau at 1:34 PM on June 12, 2018 [63 favorites]

You say tent cities, I say concentration camps.

Seriously though "immigration detention" is a totally inadequate way to refer to fucking disused wall marts full of cages.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 1:36 PM on June 12, 2018 [21 favorites]

Trump looking to erect tent cities to house unaccompanied children

I've asked this before, but no response.

Other than calling Sen. Collins' office and yelling at them, and throwing some money at the ACLU, is there anything else AT ALL we can do?

I'm far from Texas, but I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been some kind of physical protest at the existing Wal-mart camps, in the style of the airport protests. I mean, I understand that doing so would be exponentially more dangerous than protesting at an airport, but the feeling of helplessness is becoming overwhelming.

There must be something else we can do?
posted by anastasiav at 1:37 PM on June 12, 2018 [21 favorites]

It does seem a lot like a bodies-on-the-gears moment, doesn't it?

I tend to think that this is where we'll look back - if we don't act at some inconvenience or loss to ourselves - and say that we wish we'd acted.

Why didn't people stop the Japanese internment camps? Well, now you know.

Look for legal groups, church groups and immigrants' rights groups in your region, contact them, pay attention on social media. If you have an opportunity to act,take it.

I am about ready to organize a mefite picket at the immigration building, TBH.

Basically, if no one is doing anything, in my opinion it's okay just to start up yourself as long as you don't do something radically stupid that undercuts others' efforts.
posted by Frowner at 1:38 PM on June 12, 2018 [48 favorites]

This sort of detention is traumatic for anyone, but combined with the severe attachment trauma of separating children from the parents...I don’t have words.

They are grievously, deliberately, unnecessarily injuring children. They will be left with lifelong wounds, if they survive. The sort of nebulous, difficult to treat trauma that will make it difficult to attach to anyone else, to join in the human experience of connection. Many of them will never feel safe again. Many will develop substance abuse problems, chronic illnesses. Most will suffer serious adverse health consequences for the rest of their lives.

If they survive at all. If they aren’t sold to traffickers. If they don’t go “missing.”

They are choosing to do this to children. There is no policy justification, no logistical benefit to separating them from their parents. It is cruelty for the sake of cruelty.

It is a crime against humanity. It is evil, true evil, the kind of evil I just realized I never expected to encounter in real life.

I am fucking undone.
posted by schadenfrau at 1:42 PM on June 12, 2018 [83 favorites]

There are ICE detention centers all over the place. I wasn't part of this protest (mcduff did you see this?) but a bunch of ADAPT/Tuesdays with Toomey folks went to the Philly ICE detention center and chanted loud enough for the detainees inside to hear. More of this. More solidarity.
posted by angrycat at 1:43 PM on June 12, 2018 [18 favorites]

Miranda Carter, The NewYorker: What Happens When a Bad-Tempered, Distractible Doofus Runs an Empire?

About a decade ago, I published “George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I,” a book that was, in part, about Kaiser Wilhelm, who is probably best known for being Queen Victoria’s first grandchild and for leading Germany into the First World War. Ever since Donald Trump started campaigning for President, the Kaiser has once again been on my mind—his personal failings, and the global fallout they led to.
...
Wilhelm changed his position every five minutes. He was deeply suggestible and would defer to the last person he’d spoken to or cutting he’d read—at least until he’d spoken to the next person. “It is unendurable,” a foreign minister wrote, in 1894. “Today one thing and tomorrow the next and after a few days something completely different.” Wilhelm’s staff and ministers resorted to manipulation, distraction, and flattery to manage him. “In order to get him to accept an idea you must act as if the idea were his,” the Kaiser’s closest friend, Philipp zu Eulenburg, advised his colleagues, adding, “Don’t forget the sugar.” (In “Fire and Fury,” Michael Wolff writes that to get Trump to take an action his White House staff has to persuade him that “he had thought of it himself.”)

posted by ZeusHumms at 1:43 PM on June 12, 2018 [16 favorites]

If there is an ICE detention center in or near NYC, happy to see you there tomorrow with my best and brightest protest signs. Now I'm going to go hug my baby.

Your friend,
A refugee brought here at the age of 5
posted by prefpara at 1:48 PM on June 12, 2018 [51 favorites]

ICE has helpfully provided a map of places to protest:

ICE Detention Facility Locator
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:49 PM on June 12, 2018 [35 favorites]

TBH, I think we have to move towards shutting these places down. I think there are enough people incensed about this issue that if we organized correctly, we could have massive protests at some of these places on a rolling basis.

Something to consider: If you are trying to block something, you don't need five hundred people who are all cool with getting arrested. You need maybe 500 people who are willing to show up and take direction, and ten people who are willing to chain themselves to something. You need enough of a crowd to provide witnesses and to impede the movement of guards, and ideally you have a crowd that is too big for them to arrest anyway - when you have five hundred arrestees, you have a giant problem. The police do not generally want to detain 500 people - they're not equipped for it, for starters.

This just has to stop, you guys. I don't want to be alarmist or depressing but I really feel that we're just one bad week away from mass killings at the border.

Reach out to whatever orgs are local to you - sometimes left-leaning churches have task forces about immigration. Follow people on Twitter, and you'll find a lot more connections and retweets from smaller organizations.

Another thing you can do if you're at a university - push your university to say something. It may or may not work, but campaigning to get the university president to make a statement (even a weak sauce one) in support of immigrant students is a way to attract attention.

But here is the deal - all along we've basically been operating on a system where if enough people protest a thing, there will be a reaction, and eventually you can get some kind of reform, even if it's a shitty reform that falls apart over time. This isn't an iron law. What happens when we all get out there with our signs and Trump is just like "fuck you, machine gun emplacements at the borders" or whatever. Tyrants don't have to listen, they just tyrannize. And at that point, the choice is between keeping your head well down or putting yourself to what you might call very serious inconvenience vis a vis your own security and freedom.
posted by Frowner at 1:53 PM on June 12, 2018 [63 favorites]

Yeah I've reached my 'I'm ready to go to jail now' point. Maybe after seeing perhaps the fortieth kid in a cage, I got to the fuck it point.
posted by angrycat at 1:57 PM on June 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

A protest at the TV station would be more effective.
posted by petebest at 1:59 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the ICE Detention Facility map.
There was a protest last week in Burlington, VT at the ICE office, but it is not a detention center.
posted by MtDewd at 1:59 PM on June 12, 2018

Pretty funny how all those people who a few days ago flipped their shit over a nonexistent innocent-child torture camp in the desert now get a thrill from the establishment of a real innocent-child torture camp in the desert. Not ha-ha funny, though.
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:07 PM on June 12, 2018 [54 favorites]

But here is the deal - all along we've basically been operating on a system where if enough people protest a thing, there will be a reaction, and eventually you can get some kind of reform, even if it's a shitty reform that falls apart over time. This isn't an iron law. What happens when we all get out there with our signs and Trump is just like "fuck you, machine gun emplacements at the borders" or whatever. Tyrants don't have to listen, they just tyrannize. And at that point, the choice is between keeping your head well down or putting yourself to what you might call very serious inconvenience vis a vis your own security and freedom.

As always, Frowner's whole comment is both true and insightful. To sweeten the pill though, it's obvious that Trump lacks the strength of character to overcome some varieties of public disapproval. This is especially true during the stage where he floats ideas, kidding on the square, hey maybe I could abolish term limits etc. The earlier he meets a tide of contempt and resistence, the more likely the fightback is to be successful.

This isn't early enough, maybe. But pushing hard against the slide into ethnic cleansing at this stage, using all of the suggestions above, means less likelihood of having to make the harder and starker choice - what do I do about machine gun nests at the border? - in a few months or years.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 2:11 PM on June 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

Some things to potentially include in your next call to your electeds:

Hi, I am Name, a constituent in Zip. I am calling because I am horrified by reports of families being separated at the US Border. I have also read reports of the government creating and maintaining a tent city in which to house children who have been forcibly separated from their parents. This is a violation of human rights.
1. What is Elected's position on family separation at the border? (Whatever their response, this is a good time to point out that seeking asylum is a legal right, and for families entering illegally, to respond by separating them is completely unjustifiable and unnecessary.)
2. What is Elected doing to protect children and families suffering under current policy?
3. Our state has X number of detention facilities. Will Elected consider visiting one to gain a better understanding of what ICE is doing to immigrant families?
4. How will Elected hold the Trump administration accountable for these human rights violations?
5. [for heartless Republicans (but I repeat myself)] Separating parents from their children is much more expensive than housing them together. Does Elected think that is an acceptable use of our tax dollars?
posted by Emmy Rae at 2:13 PM on June 12, 2018 [42 favorites]

Rust Moranis: Pretty funny how all those people who a few days ago flipped their shit over a nonexistent innocent-child torture camp in the desert now get a thrill from the establishment of a real innocent-child torture camp in the desert. Not ha-ha funny, though.

They think it's the same children, and that the second set of camps are the salvation from the first ones. Just so we're clear on the nature of their delusion -- they think anyone showing up at the border with kids is "trafficking" them and was somehow doing so at the (not real) camps. (Or rather, they pretend to think that, while understanding the awful reality deep down, because humans rationalize.)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 2:20 PM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

ICE's Human Rights Violators & War Crimes Unit

2. To identify and prosecute individuals who have been involved and/or responsible for the commission of human rights abuses across the globe.

Huh.
posted by petebest at 2:20 PM on June 12, 2018 [41 favorites]

There must be something else we can do?

direct fucking action that i cannot describe here without being banned forever. sorry.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:27 PM on June 12, 2018 [46 favorites]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who knew a thing or two about Nazis:

"In the first place [the church] can ask the state whether its actions are legitimate and in accordance with its character as state, i.e., it can throw the state back on its responsibilities. Secondly, it can aid the victims of state action. The church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community. The third possibility is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself."

I'm ready to start putting spokes into wheels.
posted by EarBucket at 2:36 PM on June 12, 2018 [17 favorites]

direct fucking action that i cannot describe here without being banned forever. sorry.

The situation today really makes me appreciate the issues that John Brown and Frederick Douglass struggled with.
posted by mikelieman at 2:37 PM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

CNN, Rosenstein threatens to call on House to investigate its own staff

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's ongoing battle with House Republicans reached new heights Tuesday, as the No. 2 senior leader of the Justice Department threatened to call on the House to investigate its own committee staff.
Rosenstein has butted heads with House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes for months over a subpoena for documents related to the Russia investigation, but the battle spilled out into public view Tuesday after Fox News reported staff on the committee felt "personally attacked" at a meeting with Rosenstein in January.

Justice Department officials dispute the recounting of the closed-door meeting detailed in the story, and Rosenstein will now "request that the House General counsel conduct an internal investigation of these Congressional staffers' conduct" when he returns from a foreign trip this week, DOJ said.

"The Deputy Attorney General never threatened anyone in the room with a criminal investigation," a Justice Department official said. "The FBI Director, the senior career ethics adviser for the Department, and the Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs who were all present at this meeting are all quite clear that the characterization of events laid out here is false.

"The Deputy Attorney General was making the point -- after being threatened with contempt -- that as an American citizen charged with the offense of contempt of Congress, he would have the right to defend himself, including requesting production of relevant emails and text messages and calling them as witnesses to demonstrate that their allegations are false," the official said. "That is why he put them on notice to retain relevant emails and text messages, and he hopes they did so."

So Nunes's people started a fake scandal about something that happened in January. Paul Ryan could stop Nunes any time he wants to. That's his legacy.
posted by zachlipton at 2:40 PM on June 12, 2018 [43 favorites]

There must be something else we can do?

If you happen to be a lawyer, those immigrant children could use some representation. National Immigration Law Center.

They could also use more foster homes.
posted by OnceUponATime at 2:42 PM on June 12, 2018 [18 favorites]

From the ICE link that petebest posted, the fourth mission of the unit is: To oversee the development of programs in response to the former President's Presidential Study Directive-10, the prevention of mass atrocities.

Please no one point out to Trump that they're continuing a study Obama started
posted by mabelstreet at 2:45 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

FWIW, I've been putting myself on lists of available lawyers since the airport protests and haven't heard a peep. I'd encourage people to DONATE to these organizations. They don't have the budget to accept even additional volunteers.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:46 PM on June 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

I just got an email from my local Indivisible group with a form to find "Families Belong Together" events near you this coming Thursday. Here it is.
posted by kelborel at 2:46 PM on June 12, 2018 [13 favorites]

For anyone really ready to begin putting spokes in wheels, our government luckily wrote a handy little booklet on the subject. It's all about doing small, incremental things quietly and with as little risk to you as possible so that you can keep doing them. Most won't apply to our current situation, but never underestimate a little sawdust in the engine.
posted by Krazor at 2:47 PM on June 12, 2018 [13 favorites]

As a Washinton resident, who feels incompetent, because me people who are pretty good, who's heading across the country tomorrow... Monkey Wrecnh ideas...?
posted by Windopaene at 2:49 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Trump’s Fake Movie Trailer Starring Kim Jong Un: What the Hell Did I Just Watch?

Apparently, all you need to practice international diplomacy in the Trump era is a free trial of Final Cut Pro X and zero qualms about rebranding a merciless dictator as an action hero.

...in terms of movie trailers consisting almost entirely of stock photos of shiny cities and trains, doubtlessly put together at the last possible minute on the whim of an impulsive idiot, I would still give this trailer a zero because it was really poorly written and also bad.
...
“A new world can begin today!” our budget Mr. Moviefone promises. Don’t believe him? Do these majestic white horses running on water convince you? No? How about some home video footage of kids playing bumper cars?
...
In summation, yes, it is a great idea to present a home-made movie trailer at big important meetings. However, it would have been nice if this trailer featured more than two sound effects and didn’t just rephrase the same idea over and over again in order to meet a length requirement.

On the other hand, I did appreciate the fancy train and magic horse representation, and I can’t wait for Destiny Pictures to release the pee tape!

posted by kirkaracha at 3:04 PM on June 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

Airstrike Reportedly Hits Doctors Without Borders Facility In Yemen

A Saudi-led airstrike blasted off the roof and pulverized walls of a cholera treatment center in Yemen, but no one was hurt, according to an international aid group, even as civil war has led to widespread outbreaks of the disease.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says the newly constructed treatment center had clear markings on the roof identifying it as a health care building and that staff had shared its coordinates with the Saudi and United Arab Emirates-led coalition.
...
The U.S. "has provided targeting information, equipment and aircraft refueling to the Saudi air campaign, which has been widely criticized for being indiscriminate and killing civilians in places like hospitals, funerals and homes."

posted by OnceUponATime at 3:06 PM on June 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

WATCH LIVE: Democratic Senators Talk About Legislation To Bar Trump Administration From Separating Immigrant Families
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:06 PM on June 12, 2018 [39 favorites]

The NRA has pulled its past candidate grades off its website, because "I think our enemies were using that." An F from the NRA was becoming a badge of honor so they took them all down.
posted by zachlipton at 3:09 PM on June 12, 2018 [86 favorites]

Senior Justice Dept. lawyer resigns after shift on Obamacare
posted by Artw at 3:30 PM on June 12, 2018 [14 favorites]

We Now Know More About Why Rand Paul’s Neighbor Tackled Him Over Landscaping

In October, Paul reconstructed the pile. A few days later, Boucher again had them hauled away. Less than 10 days later, Paul again made another pile of limbs and leaves, again in the same spot. Boucher took his beef to the Rivergreen Homeowner’s Association, but it did not help.

On Nov. 2, Boucher hit some kind of limit with his patience. He poured gasoline on the pile of debris and set it on fire. The resulting fireball gave him second-degree burns on his arms, neck, and face.

The next day, Paul, possibly underestimating the depths of his neighbor’s rage, used his lawnmower to blow leaves from his property onto Boucher’s. Then he piled on the insults: “During this process, Rand Paul stepped away from his lawnmower, gathered several branches from an adjacent pile of trash, and placed them in the exact location where the last pile had been burned just one day prior.”

posted by OnceUponATime at 3:47 PM on June 12, 2018 [32 favorites]

Arron Banks admits giving Trump campaign phone number to Russian government
posted by growabrain at 4:25 PM on June 12, 2018 [23 favorites]

HuffPo, DNC Quietly Adopts Ban On Fossil Fuel Company Donations

*extremely Dr. Strangelove voice* Why didn't you tell the world, eh?
posted by zachlipton at 4:26 PM on June 12, 2018 [36 favorites]

It never ends with these people!

[WaPo] John Bolton was paid $115,000 to participate in two panels sponsored by foundation of Ukrainian steel magnate
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 4:35 PM on June 12, 2018 [21 favorites]

DNC Quietly Adopts Ban On Fossil Fuel Company Donations

I, for one, would be fine with the DNC adopting this stance loudly, and I think a lot of voters and would-be voters feel the same way.
posted by Rykey at 4:37 PM on June 12, 2018 [14 favorites]

VA-10: Looks like state Sen Jennifer Wexton will win the Dem nomination to take on rep Barbara Comstock, perhaps the most vulnerable Republican in the House.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:39 PM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

The Trump administration is looking to build tent cities at military posts around Texas to shelter the increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children being held in detention.

Fellow military members, I know you know the Nuremberg defense is insufficient. Get those orders in writing and then disobey them.
posted by corb at 4:40 PM on June 12, 2018 [65 favorites]

The Guardian:

Kim Jong-un has accepted Donald Trump’s offer of a visit to the White House, North Korea’s state new agency has reported, with the regime leader extending a similar invitation to the US president.

posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 4:40 PM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Remember the standoff in Tucson over the "super-secret sex camp where countless little children have been tortured and killed"? Well, things have taken an alarming turn. First is that a Border Patrol cop was shot and wounded this morning while patrolling a ranch. And to make things worse, the guy heading up the Tucson show has latched onto another crackpot conspiracy theory involving "X"s in the desert and is claiming that they may torture anyone they catch, and might also open fire on anyone trying to stop their activities.

Meanwhile, the head of the Oath Keepers has joined the heavily-armed "patriots" there, and has chosen to make the local Chief of Police a target. For those that don't know, the Oath Keepers (who have been designated an extremist anti-government group by the SPLC) are a group of allegedly "tens of thousands of present and former law enforcement officials and military veterans." They've joined with white supremacist movements to serve as their security staff, set up webinars on how to create kill zones and engage in warfare in residential areas in advance of the 2016 election, and are generally Very Bad News.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:40 PM on June 12, 2018 [46 favorites]

More legal skirmishes between Putin's chef and Mueller over the IRA indictment. Bloomberg: Russia Keeps Meddling, Mueller Says in Bid to Guard Evidence

U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller warned that Russian intelligence services still have active “interference operations” into U.S. elections and that handing over certain evidence in a criminal case could imperil ongoing investigations.

Mueller on Tuesday asked a federal judge in Washington for an order to protect voluminous evidence sought by lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting LLC, one of three companies and 13 Russian nationals charged in a February indictment alleging election meddling via social media. Prosecutors have uncovered evidence of other individuals and entities who are “continuing to engage” in similar activities.[...]

Unauthorized disclosure of such evidence would help foreign intelligence services in Russia and elsewhere while undermining U.S. law enforcement and national security investigations, Mueller’s prosecutors wrote in Tuesday’s request for a protective order.

U.S. documents identify “sources, methods and techniques used to identify the foreign actors behind these interference operations,” Mueller wrote. Improper disclosure of that information would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates and let them “adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations.”

Prosecutors said they have gathered “unclassified but sensitive information that remains relevant to ongoing national security investigations and efforts to protect the integrity of future U.S. elections.” It includes the identities of cooperating individuals and companies, as well as links between the defendants, uncharged parties and foreign governments, that goes well beyond what prosecutors intend to disclose at trial, they wrote. They said they gave additional details to U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich under court seal.[...]

Defense lawyers for Concord say they should be able to share evidence with Prigozhin, but Mueller disagrees. “As long as Prigozhin chooses not to appear personally in front of this court, he is not entitled to review any discovery in this case,” the filing said.

Meanwhile, Russia’s troll factory just launched a new website targeting Americans—“USA Really. Wake Up Americans.” by IRA-offshoot RIA FAN.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:43 PM on June 12, 2018 [17 favorites]

Quick note that the Mexican elections are in a couple of weeks and the last presidential debate is tonight in a little over two hours' time. Current frontrunner is a leftwinger who isn't very fond of Trump (or NAFTA). For anybody interested in discussion, I put up a post here.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 4:44 PM on June 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

State Sen. Nick Freitas has a somewhat surprising early lead in the VA GOP primary

He's the least insane, but like, that's really not saying much.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:45 PM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

VA-10: GOP incumbent Comstock should hold on here, but she's doing really poorly. Up 62-38 with 52% in.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:46 PM on June 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

Looks like every competed Virginia Dem primary is led by (and probably will be won by) a woman.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:54 PM on June 12, 2018 [30 favorites]

T.D. Strange: "I considered voting in the Repulibcan primary for the first time ever, but we have a close mayor's race between a sort-of shitty NIMBY Democratic incumbent and a sort of shitty Democratic developer-bro with seemingly some issues with a woman as his boss, which is more important locally. "

This one is tight as a freaking drum - 10 vote margin with 38% in.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:07 PM on June 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Is Chick-fil-A like the kinder version of Trump's meatloaf? Like a "if you're willing to support this homophobic, Christian semi-cult, you're clearly on our team" kind of thing?

Assuming by "Orange County" they mean Irvine, Chick-Fil-A is the clear winner in the "decent food you can get from a drive-thru very quickly" competition around here. I'd personally rather grab something from In-N-Out, but sometimes I don't have the time to wait 2X-3X longer in line for it.

Personally I'd have sent an intern over to StoneFire Grill for tri-tip, but then you'd have to order ahead.
posted by sideshow at 5:17 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

> Looks like every competed Virginia Dem primary is led by (and probably will be won by) a woman.

Pretty much. Over in district 9, Anthony Flaccavento is crushing Justin Santopietro, but that's that's the only contested Dem race in the entire state where a woman wasn't running. Looks like a woman is going to win in every other Democratic primary race.
posted by nangar at 5:20 PM on June 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

Yeah, sorry, I should have been clearer.

Also, Vangie Williams could still lose in VA-01, but she's been consistently ahead all night.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:22 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

SC-01 GOP primary crazy close between Mark Sanford and Katie Arrington, a spoiler third candidate might prevent either from breaking 50%. In that case, there will be a runoff in two weeks.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:24 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

VA-10: Looks like state Sen Jennifer Wexton will win the Dem nomination to take on rep Barbara Comstock

If you enjoy bad campaign ads, don't miss one of her Va-10 competitors Dan Helmer's invitation to the Helmer Zone. Be glad that guy didn't win.
posted by peeedro at 5:24 PM on June 12, 2018

Update from CA-48: Keirstead expands his lead over Rouda for 2nd place to 456 votes. Still could go either way, but the late Rouda surge may not have developed.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:26 PM on June 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

But here is the deal - all along we've basically been operating on a system where if enough people protest a thing, there will be a reaction, and eventually you can get some kind of reform, even if it's a shitty reform that falls apart over time. This isn't an iron law. What happens when we all get out there with our signs and Trump is just like "fuck you, machine gun emplacements at the borders" or whatever. Tyrants don't have to listen, they just tyrannize. And at that point, the choice is between keeping your head well down or putting yourself to what you might call very serious inconvenience vis a vis your own security and freedom.

I would suggest looking up the Romanian revolution in 1989. It's particularly notable because they captured on film the exact moment that Nicolae Ceaușescu realised he was completely fucked. The key here is the army and the intelligence forces, both things Trump hasn't been particularly interested in corrupting. It's not yet clear if the Secret Service has been corrupted by his influence either, but if the coup happens, the Secret Service are either on Trump's side or the coup is over in seconds.
posted by Merus at 5:32 PM on June 12, 2018 [11 favorites]

Happy to report that the ranked choice voting ballot in Maine was straightforward and the poll workers were clearly pointing it out to people as they handed out the ballots. They reported turnout had been steady throughout the day. It was pretty lively this evening, but I usually vote in the morning so I don’t have a basis for comparison.

Other that that, it was business as usual - regular non-ranked voting on a handful of offices and voting to approve the school budget. Then I collected my lobster roll and blueberry pie from the poll workers and was on my way.
posted by mikepop at 5:34 PM on June 12, 2018 [23 favorites]

The key here is the army and the intelligence forces, both things Trump hasn't been particularly interested in corrupting.

Trump has absolutely shown interest in corrupting military and intelligence services. His relative competence and effectiveness at it is up for debate and difficult to determine until and unless it's put to exactly the test we're hoping doesn't happen. But don't think for a second he hasn't tried. We've discussed one example after another here on the blue.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 5:38 PM on June 12, 2018 [13 favorites]

VA Senate: Corey Stewart has been called GOP nominee. Stewart is an repentant neo-Confederate, and it's expected his being the candidate will hurt the downballot GOP candidates.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:56 PM on June 12, 2018 [18 favorites]

...Rand Paul stepped away from his lawnmower, gathered several branches from an adjacent pile of trash, and placed them in the exact location where the last pile had been burned just one day prior.

Jury nullification.
posted by orange ball at 5:57 PM on June 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

This one is tight as a freaking drum - 10 vote margin with 38% in.'

96% in and nominal favorite Corey Stewart has retaken the lead. Expect a lot more MS-13 ads.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:07 PM on June 12, 2018

All precincts have reported in VA-01, and Vangie Williams won. So it's official: Women totally cleaned up in the Virginia Dem primaries today. (Some other districts still have a few precincts out, but that's the only one that was close.)
posted by nangar at 6:11 PM on June 12, 2018 [17 favorites]

VA Senate: Corey Stewart has been called GOP nominee. Stewart is an repentant neo-Confederate, and it's expected his being the candidate will hurt the downballot GOP candidates.

Republican pollster from Virginia.

Christine Matthews
Republican House incumbents in #VA10, #VA07, #VA02 and #VA05 will be hurt by Corey Stewart's divisive (racist) rhetoric at the top of the ticket - and no, all politics isn't local in this case.
posted by chris24 at 6:19 PM on June 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

Wait. Paul lives in a place where they have an HOA? I mean....talk about not following one's principles.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:23 PM on June 12, 2018 [30 favorites]

All precincts have reported in VA-01, and Vangie Williams won.

I know who needs to star in her next campaign ad.
posted by prefpara at 6:24 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Expect a lot more MS-13 ads.

Yep, Stewart was up in Northern Virginia last week on a full MS-13 panic, promising to Make Fairfax Safe Again. I'm not surprised Stewart won the nomination, but I am surprised he won in Fairfax and Loudoun; I've been operating under the illusion that republican here were still not so Trumpy and more Marco Rubio/John Kasich types. But I think part of the reason Comstock had such a close race against a zero-charisma nobody is that the Trumpers were mad at her for keeping her distance and that sane republicans are a dying breed.
posted by peeedro at 6:26 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Personally, I don't believe politics really is local anymore above the statehouse level, and not always there, either.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:29 PM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

The immigration discharge petition in the House is dead for now, falling two signatures short. All Dems signed in the end.

@rachaelmcbride: BREAKING: House Rs will vote on TWO daca bills next week: a conservative solution/Goodlatte and a compromise bill that HAS NOT BEEN AGREED TO. this will shut off the discharge petition. Moderates dont' appear to have the votes to get to 218 to force Dreamer bills they want

Oh good. A generic compromise that doesn’t exist. This will go well.
posted by zachlipton at 6:50 PM on June 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

Dems pissed off at being jumped by Trump on the “giving things away for nothing” game will no doubt be excited by this one.
posted by Artw at 6:55 PM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

SC-05: Ugh, Archie Parnell has won the Dem nomination. Pretty much his whole staff quit and the party urged him to drop out after a domestic violence incident came to light.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:58 PM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

Ugh indeed.
posted by Artw at 7:01 PM on June 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

NPR is jumping in on the "annotated Trump speeches" bandwagon, which is [so fucking sad to say, but here we are, happy 2018 everyone] something I support: President Trump's Press Conference On North Korea Summit, Annotated (June 12, 2018)

It's my honor today to address the people of the world, following this very historic summit with Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea. We spent very intensive hours together, and I think most of you have gotten the signed document, or you will very shortly. It's very comprehensive. It's going to happen.
The document is just over a page long and touches on a range of topics but provides few details.

Snarky counter-argument: "long" and "comprehensive" are a relative terms, so "a little over a page" "range of topics" could be long and comprehensive for Trump, especially if it's not just bullet points and photos.

But seriously -- we're to the point where the president is so unfactual that his speeches justify an extensive collection of counter-points, not just a quick note here and there they the numbers were fudged a bit. Then again, what else should we expect form a narcissistic, habitual liar? Oh right, we'd expect that he wouldn't get elected to President of the United States of America. (Some times I find myself muttering "this is not normal, this is not normal" to myself while reading or hearing news.)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:12 PM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

It's the so-called House Republican moderates that got rolled. They're basically agreeing to take up the Goodlatte bill, which slashes legal immigration and has minimal protections for Dreamers (and has zero chance in the Senate), in exchange for nothing because there isn't even a compromise bill to vote on.
posted by zachlipton at 7:17 PM on June 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

anastasiav: There must be something else we can do?

poffin boffin: direct fucking action that i cannot describe here without being banned forever. sorry.

Apropos of nothing at all, except an interesting look at history in England: This Map Shows 42 Sites of British Suffragette Protest and Sabotage (Natasha Frost for Atlas Obscura, June 8, 2018)

If nothing else, there's a protest sign that's as pertinent today as it was over 100 years ago: DEEDS NOT WORDS
posted by filthy light thief at 7:19 PM on June 12, 2018 [18 favorites]

WTF? CBP is doing counterintelligence and leak investigations? WaPo, Customs and Border Protection agent faces inquiry after questioning reporter about her sources

The actions of a Customs and Border Protection agent who confronted a reporter covering national security issues about her confidential sources are being examined by the CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility, the agency said in a statement Tuesday.

The agent, Jeffrey A. Rambo, contacted journalist Ali Watkins last June as the Trump administration was ramping up its investigations of unauthorized leaks to reporters, and he identified himself as a government agent.

Rambo met with Watkins at a restaurant in Washington after initially contacting her by email. A reporter taking such a meeting with a potential source would not be unusual.

But after he arrived, Rambo said the administration was eager to investigate journalists and learn the identity of their confidential sources to stanch leaks of classified information. He questioned Watkins broadly about her reporting and how she developed information, according to the people familiar with the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
...
At his meeting with Watkins, Rambo also had what appeared to be a sheet of information about Wolfe, as well as the Senate staffer’s current wife and his ex-wife, said one person familiar with the events.

Rambo also tried to enlist Watkins in his efforts, asking her to help the administration in its effort to crack down on leaks, the person said.

posted by zachlipton at 7:26 PM on June 12, 2018 [17 favorites]

Lee DeVito, Detroit MetroTimes: Proposed Michigan social studies standards erase references to gay rights, Roe v. Wade, and KKK

Includes a link to a survey to submit feedback (presumably they pay more attention to feedback from Michigan residents), and a pdf link to the draft. It's trippy. "Democratic" and "democracy" crossed out on pp. 8 and 9, p. 11 has " Identify our country’s flag ~~as an important~~ AND DESCRIBE ITS IMPORTANCE AS A symbol of the United States" .... Ugh. I'm going to get up and take a breather from the internet now.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 7:38 PM on June 12, 2018 [18 favorites]

ELECTION RESULT

Dem GAIN in Wisconsin Senate 1:

Frostman [D] 51.4%
Jacque [R] 48.6%

Margin changes compared to previous races:

vs 2016 presidential result margin: Dem improvement of about 21 points.
vs 2014 SD-01 result margin: Dem improvement of about 26 points.

GOP lead in the Wisconsin Senate is reduced to 18-15.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:42 PM on June 12, 2018 [41 favorites]

Proposed Michigan social studies standards erase references to gay rights, Roe v. Wade, and KKK

If you like erasing the civil rights movement you'll love erasing Native Americans.

Teachers fight to keep pre-colonial history in AP course curriculum

High school history teachers are fighting back against a change to the Advanced Placement World History course, arguing that it will eliminate lessons on pre-colonial civilizations and present a Eurocentric view of the world.

Under the changes, the AP course will start teaching world history from the year 1450, which largely eliminates study of the pre-colonial Americas, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:45 PM on June 12, 2018 [22 favorites]

First Democrat to hold the seat in 41 years, incidentally.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:45 PM on June 12, 2018 [24 favorites]

Yay! My neighborhood action team made hundreds of calls into the 1st Senate district, it feels good to win! Walker, we are coming for you...
posted by rockindata at 7:47 PM on June 12, 2018 [27 favorites]

Frostman's WI state senate victory is in my district! And the Democratic get out the vote effort was very strong. We had two personal visits to our house (yesterday and today) asking whether we planned to vote and if we needed help getting to the polls. We received handmade postcards. And phone calls. We're pretty generous supporters of area Democrats and consistent voters, so I don't know if we received extra attention for that or if, conversely, we received relatively little because we were a sure thing. Anyhow, woo hoo! On Wisconsin!
posted by carmicha at 7:49 PM on June 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

ELECTION RESULT

GOP HOLD in Wisconsin Assembly 42:

Plumer [D] 53.2%
Lloyd [R] 45.0%

Margin changes compared to previous races:

vs 2016 presidential result margin: Dem improvement of about 6 points.
vs 2016 AD-42 result margin: Dem improvement of about 9 points.

GOP lead in the Wisconsin Assembly is extended to 64-35.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:52 PM on June 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

If you were dying to know, in the Alexandria, VA mayoral race vice mayor Justin Wilson has unseated incumbent Allison Silberberg, 53-47. From the outsider[*] perspective, this was a race primarily driven by development issues, and secondarily by Silberberg seeming to be a bit of a flake.

* I used to live in Alexandria, but it was back in the Bill Euille days.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:56 PM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

If nothing else, there's a protest sign that's as pertinent today as it was over 100 years ago: DEEDS NOT WORDS

I'm 2100 miles away and dropping everything to go get arrested sounds appealing, but would leave my own child facing homelessness. And the effort alone would be largely futile anyhow.

I feel like such a coward for not doing anything but making phone calls, though.
posted by anastasiav at 7:57 PM on June 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

You mean the racists aren't just the rural poor?

Zach Carter (HuffPo)
Corey Stewart's #VASen margin of victory is substantially less than his win in Fairfax County. Suburban D.C. Republicans put him over the top.
posted by chris24 at 7:59 PM on June 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Measure to split California into three states qualifies for November ballot.

The plan now calls for dividing the state into California, which would run from Los Angeles north along the coast to Monterey; Southern California, which would go from San Diego and Orange County north past Fresno to Madera County; and Northern California, which would encompass everything from Santa Cruz north, including the Bay Area and Sacramento.

Tim Draper is the worst.
posted by zachlipton at 8:00 PM on June 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

SC-01: Looks like Katie Arrington has won the GOP nom outright, unseating incumbent Mark Sanford (he of the Appalachian Trail).

Second GOP incumbent to be primaried this year.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:00 PM on June 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

Trump knew what he was doing jumping onto the Arrington train a couple hours before the polls closed, too late to make an actual difference but in time to take the credit.
posted by zachlipton at 8:02 PM on June 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

Alexandria insider[*] perspective: The main "development issue" was that a long-planned subway station in the city was radically scaled back -- cutting three of the planned four entrances that people were organizing home purchases, business planning, etc., around -- and the city kept it secret for a full year. This is a bad election season for that kind of fuckery.

*I've never lived in Alexandria but I have friends who do, are active in local politics, and have been venting about it
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:04 PM on June 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

They were talking about that station when I moved there in 2001!
posted by Chrysostom at 8:06 PM on June 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

The agent, Jeffrey A. Rambo

Oh come on.

*fist-bumps calendar*
posted by petebest at 8:08 PM on June 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

Par for the course from the subway commission that took 14 years to build a rail connection to Dulles and then stopped four miles short of the airport.

(Don't worry, they're still working on the rest! As soon as they sort out the fact that every new station was built with the wrong concrete mix.)
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:11 PM on June 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

NV-04: Former Rep Steve Horsford wins the nom easily over progressive state sen Pat Spearman. District is Likely Dem.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:18 PM on June 12, 2018

Meanwhile, in the last bastion of Liberty, "A ~~wacko~~tech billionaire's proposal to split California into three states qualified for the November ballot on Tuesday, the Secretary of State's Office announced" *

The geographical split would be: Northern California: from Santa Cruz to the Oregon border, including the Bay Area and Sacramento. Southern California: Most of the 'inland valleys', including Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Riverside, San Bernardino, plus Orange and San Diego counties. Just Plain California: coastal from Los Angeles all the way to Monterey. Two very Blue states and one rather-Red-but-getting-Purplish-in-some-areas one.

The wacko billionaire had previously promoted but failed to get on the ballot a plan to split the state SIX ways. This'll be a proposition to watch (in the not-so-proud tradition of California's bad ballot initiatives). I need to exercise my eyes for all the eye-rolling required come November.

*link to site for small-metro-area McClatchy-owned paper's site... one of the few papers I do NOT say "cancel your subscription", but I've been close.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:18 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-sanctions/north-korea-state-media-says-trump-agreed-to-lift-sanctions-against-north-idUSKBN1J9022
posted by kemrocken at 8:20 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Gerrymandering, but on a whole 'nother level.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 8:20 PM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm sorry, I sort of messed that up, but it's still readable.
posted by kemrocken at 8:22 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

@Redistrict: Remarkable: after tonight, Dems have nominated women in 73/150 (49%) of '18 House races (excluding Dem incumbents). On GOP side, just 18/112 (16%).

The incumbency bias obviously means we're a long way from parity, but wow that party disparity.
posted by zachlipton at 8:22 PM on June 12, 2018 [26 favorites]

I, uh, don't think you can just declare your state is now three states. Even if you're a billionaire. What's the point of wasting our time with this bullshit?
posted by Justinian at 8:25 PM on June 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

They were talking about that station when I moved there in 2001!

It's been discussed since literally the 70s. Currently projected for 2022, and people are pissed over the scaled back plans after 40 years of waiting.

Also only 2/6 city council members were reelected, and the 5 term incumbent member of the WMATA board lost resoundingly. Wilson the developer-douchebro won over the NIMBY incumbent mayor Silberberg. It was almost a clean sweep for the progressive New Virginia Majority slate
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:28 PM on June 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

About the detention camps, they are:

1. An act of racist terrorism against immigrants and people of color generally.

2. Intended to terrorize and break the will of the opposition - nakedly doing something monstrous with the world powerless to stop him.

3. Intended to shift the window, so that people will take any minor amelioration and say, "Oh well merely separating families and sending them to actual buildings isn't so bad, at least the children are indoors in the air-conditioning instead of outside in the desert".

This is obviously both racism and strategy, and equally obviously bodes very, very badly.

I think there needs to be national coordination to fight back. There's already some, but I keep thinking that there needs to be a unified strategy, like a national immigrants' rights coordinating committee or something with local chapters. There is enough national motivation here that given a coherent strategy, there could readily be rolling protests of the detention centers, big groups showing up to confront politicians, more fundraising for lawyers, etc. My impression when I talk to people is that information is not spreading effectively enough and that there are tons and tons of fantastic local orgs but not much national, and this is a national disaster.

Trump is trying to terrorize and demoralize everyone who can't be bought off, from the very center of the center left to the leftist edges - anyone who isn't ready to make their peace with the GOP, anyone who isn't a rich white citizen who has no skin in the game and can afford to gently deplore from the sidelines.

I think that we have to respond to this not only as a human rights disaster which has to be stopped in itself by whatever means we can muster, but also as a strategic attack on our feelings of possibility and hope, with the goal of defeating us before we even start.

What these people are doing is monstrous and they revel in monstrosity. They're trying to stun us with fear and horror as a tactic.

There's going to be a big shuffle, either way - either new social formations arise (meaning we create them) which can stop our slide into greater tyranny and disaster - and with those new social formations we make a new society - or we lose, and it's more concentration camps for children, more racist lies in state textbooks, the disassembly of our voting system, more Peter Thiels and Mark Zuckerbergs and Palantirs and Crosschecks, more erosion of wages and medical care, shorter and shorter lives for working people while the billionaires go to Mars, a deteriorating physical world.

This is a historical inflection point and I think we've all got to get wise to that.
posted by Frowner at 8:32 PM on June 12, 2018 [117 favorites]

What makes the Potomac Yard Metro station being cut back so bad is they were taxing that part of the city a bit more to pay for it and oh well, now it's not gonna be done like we said. I live up near Shirlington but in the city still and it doesn't affect me too much but I too am not pleased ( and I only moved here 4 years ago )
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:43 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

I, uh, don't think you can just declare your state is now three states. Even if you're a billionaire.

If the people vote yes, does California have to request it from Congress?
posted by corb at 9:04 PM on June 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Republican Rep. Steve King Promotes Well-Known Neo-Nazi On Twitter. This isn't even debatable; this is retweeting a guy who gladly calls himself a "Nazi sympathizer."

Call your reps and ask them to condemn King and white supremacy.
posted by zachlipton at 9:05 PM on June 12, 2018 [51 favorites]

Steve King has been doing that for years. Not sure what's new?
posted by Yowser at 9:10 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

If the people vote yes, does California have to request it from Congress?

Yes. Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution:

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

posted by Chrysostom at 9:13 PM on June 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Steve King has been doing that for years. Not sure what's new?

What's new this time is that the Nazi he's retweeting calls himself a Nazi and posts videos about Blood Libel. It's that the small and flimsy fig leaf has blown away.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:15 PM on June 12, 2018 [23 favorites]

NV gov: Steve Sisolak wins Dem nom over Christina Giunchigliani by about 12 points. Giunchigliani got a late Hillary Clinton endorsement; Sisolak was backed by Harry Reid, who is still pulling some strings in NV politics.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:19 PM on June 12, 2018

I've been operating under the illusion that republican here were still not so Trumpy and more Marco Rubio/John Kasich types[....] sane republicans are a dying breed.

Noting what Frowner said about historical inflection points: you can see three basic stages during the Holocaust. Initially there was antisemitic legislation, but it was incorporated in the normal governmental structure so the mayor and the local police were the ones closing Jewish businesses and so forth. That's sort of where the US is with nonconforming migrants right now. In the second stage, they made people (mostly Jews, obviously) disappear - initially through ghettoisation, then deportation. That's where the US is going, and it's terrifying, because once people have been disappeared then literally anything may be done to them.

The third stage, though, was normalisation: when the government didn't even need to hide what it was doing. It took place remarkably quickly: the deportation (and eventual extermination) of Jews from Austria took place in October 1941. Less than three years later the loss of labour to the war effort meant that Jewish slave workers from Hungary were a common sight in Austria, and locals bartered with the government for their services. I've read a letter from an Austrian priest serving near where my relatives were confined, complaining that Jewish slaves were being housed in his stables and that he wasn't being paid enough for the inconvenience.

So right now the US is just entering the stage where people can be legally disapeared en masse, although it's been going on for some time in a piecemeal way (and it's basically what happened to Japanese Americans in WW2). People need to know that it doesn't end there: the fact that people have been taken away makes it easier for government propaganda to portray them as enemies of the state and as un-persons. This is another reason why it's very important to keep prisoners/internees/deportees visible: because once they've been taken away, the government can say anything about them and it will be believed.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:30 PM on June 12, 2018 [85 favorites]

It’s not like we didn’t know what Steve King was, but there’s something especially chilling about his open embrace of an avowed Nazi. He doesn’t even think he needs plausible deniability at this point.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:31 PM on June 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

The third stage, though, was normalisation: when the government didn't even need to hide what it was doing. It took place remarkably quickly: the deportation (and eventual extermination) of Jews from Austria took place in October 1941. Less than three years later the loss of labour to the war effort meant that Jewish slave workers from Hungary were a common sight in Austria

It's been just 17 months and we've gone from "increased deportations" to "concentration camps for children". There's 31 months left of the Trump administration, minimum.

The only thing that stopped the holocaust was external intervention brought on by Nazi expansionism. There's no where for America to expand, and no force on Earth that can impose an external defeat.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:41 PM on June 12, 2018 [34 favorites]

It's been just 17 months and we've gone from "increased deportations" to "concentration camps for children"

Concentration camps for children where they separate children from their mothers under the pretense of baths, no less.
posted by corb at 9:53 PM on June 12, 2018 [46 favorites]

The rate at which the bad news out of the U.S. is accelerating is astonishing, which is an indication that Trump is the match that has lit decades’ worth of kindling.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:01 PM on June 12, 2018 [14 favorites]

Michelle Wolf gets to the bottom of why the New York Times op-ed page is so terrible.
posted by Catblack at 10:02 PM on June 12, 2018 [21 favorites]

Trump has absolutely shown interest in corrupting military and intelligence services. His relative competence and effectiveness at it is up for debate and difficult to determine until and unless it's put to exactly the test we're hoping doesn't happen. But don't think for a second he hasn't tried. We've discussed one example after another here on the blue.

I did say 'army' rather than 'military', because it's unarguable that certain sections of the military have been emboldened to do awful things under Trump. But he's been condescending and disrespectful to the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and the Coast Guard, and he seems to blindside the Army with a new, unhelpful policy every six months or so.
posted by Merus at 10:05 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

The only thing that stopped the holocaust was external intervention brought on by Nazi expansionism. There's no where for America to expand, and no force on Earth that can impose an external defeat.

And the thing that allowed the Holocaust as we know it to proceed was the war: it was in that context that it went from Kristallnacht to Babi Yar to Treblinka; from a campaign of expulsion and performative/symbolic humiliation to mass murder. What will/would push us into the point of no return is a national emergency that distracts and intimidates and obfuscates us into genocide. Pick one or more shocks to the system: a war with Iran that goes bad (which it would), say, plus a severe economic downturn, or whatever. A manufactured or coincidental Reichstag fire. The possibilities are endless.

If you don't have direct connections with the people in your community who will be in danger, consider reaching out to or becoming involved with a local (fundamentalist/evangelical protestant excluded) religious establishment. Based on historical precedent, these are the institutions that can be expected to organize the protection and sheltering of people in worst-case circumstances. Friends (Quakers), Catholic churches in some areas, non-Orthodox Jewish congregations, even LDS. If protest doesn't work or becomes too dangerous and you don't have access to other local resistance then that'll probably be the best bet for helping people.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:09 PM on June 12, 2018 [14 favorites]

Can we start organizing nationwide protests from here?
posted by maurreen at 10:20 PM on June 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

Facing Pressure From Amazon, Seattle Repeals ‘Head Tax’. It was a tax that would have set a per-employee tax from companies with revenues above $20 million to provide housing to Seattle's homeless. Amazon, Starbucks, and other large employers revolted and bullied the city council to kill it.
posted by zachlipton at 10:24 PM on June 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

Let’s not get into the head tax, it was a horrible idea poorly executed, and the debate does not belong here.
posted by bq at 10:34 PM on June 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Seattle city council is garbage, has been for a long time. Remember the SuperSonics...?
posted by Windopaene at 10:38 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yes, won't someone think of the poor starving businesses?
posted by runcibleshaw at 10:45 PM on June 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

Amazon, Starbucks, and other large employers revolted and bullied the city council to kill it.

A few weeks ago, Redfin put out a statement saying they weren't thrilled about the head tax because X, Y, Z, etc., but at the same time they weren't joining any efforts to kill it because homelessness in Seattle needs to be addressed. What I found most interesting in their statement was the core, unambiguous message of, "There were fairer and simpler taxes proposed and the business community shot those down, too, so this is what we're left with. We have to do something and nobody liked the sensible stuff, so let's suck it up and do this instead."

While they couched that in a lot of general unhappiness about the head tax, I thought that was a refreshingly honest and human statement for a big company.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:46 PM on June 12, 2018 [42 favorites]

That crazy video Trump showed Kim? It was created by the National Security Council who decided to present it as being made by a non-existent production company Destiny Pictures. Except it didn't.
posted by Stoneshop at 4:01 AM on June 13, 2018 [17 favorites]

It was created by the National Security Council

There is a very intriguing sentence in their 2018 document, pg 40:

SHAPE AND REFORM INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL AND TRADE INSTITUTIONS: The United States will continue to play a leading role in institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization (WTO), but will improve their performance through reforms. These reforms include encouraging multilateral development banks to invest in high quality infrastructure projects that promote economic growth. We will press to make the WTO a more effective forum to adjudicate unfair trade practices.
posted by infini at 4:11 AM on June 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

Among a bunch of bullshit tweets praising himself and his shitty NK giveaway this morning, we get this...

@realDonaldTrump
We save a fortune by not doing war games, as long as we are negotiating in good faith - which both sides are!

---

I wonder why he's so eager to stop these war games. Maybe a January WSJ article could help...

Around the same time, Mr. Trump had an idea about how to counter the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, which he got after speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin : If the U.S. stopped joint military exercises with the South Koreans, it could help moderate Kim Jong Un’s behavior.

posted by chris24 at 4:32 AM on June 13, 2018 [64 favorites]

Two very Blue states and one rather-Red-but-getting-Purplish-in-some-areas one.

I thought MeFi loved the idea of splitting California? At least, you guys we the ones who talked me into it. Having such a concentration of left leaving people all in one huge state minimizes the amount of representation those people get in the Senate and the electoral college? Wouldn't this "three states" idea result in, worst case, 4 Democratic senators from CA and 2 Republicans? Which is about the same as the 2-0 they have now? And possible make it 5-1 or even 6-0?

Since every states' electoral college votes are equal to its number if Reps plus number of senators and the same number of Reps would presumably be split up among the 3 states... Don't the 4 extra senators mean four extra electoral votes for president too?

I thought this was our wacky plan? Plus statehood for Puerto Rico and DC so they each get 2 senators. And the national popular vote compact and mult-member districts with ranked choice voting for the House.
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:40 AM on June 13, 2018 [9 favorites]

North Korea Plays Up U.S. Concessions to Kim Jong Un

North Korea said Wednesday that President Donald Trump had told Kim Jong Un that he intended to halt U.S.-South Korea military exercises and lift sanctions against the North, suggesting through its state media that Mr. Trump had explicitly acceded to two longstanding North Korean demands during bilateral talks at their summit meeting a day earlier.

The report put a distinctly North Korean spin on the summit meeting between the two leaders, the first between a sitting U.S. president and a leader of North Korea. The report quoted Mr. Kim as saying that, if the U.S. were to take “genuine measures for building trust,” then the North could reciprocate in a “commensurate” fashion—a clear suggestion that U.S. concessions would have to come before any North Korean move.

This is why you allow note takers.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:57 AM on June 13, 2018 [13 favorites]

Just a reminder Steve King displayed a confederate flag on his desk for years despite the fact that Iowa fought in the Union.
posted by PenDevil at 4:57 AM on June 13, 2018 [28 favorites]

Eric Brakey for Senate (NH). He's got my vote. Or he would if I could vote in New Hampshire.
posted by scalefree at 5:11 AM on June 13, 2018

The Maine vote isn't complete, but voters have easily passed the ballot measure to retain ranked choice voting, seemingly by a larger margin than the original measure to implement it passed.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:11 AM on June 13, 2018 [18 favorites]

@funder TIP: Two Republican insiders just told me that GOP Rep Nunes, GOP Rep Rohrabacher and Sean Hannity are currently under criminal investigation by the Federal Gov’t.
posted by scalefree at 5:14 AM on June 13, 2018 [15 favorites]

As much as I hope this is true, Scott Dworkin (@funder) is not quite full Mensch but is on the spectrum.
posted by chris24 at 5:17 AM on June 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

It has been 0 days since a Scott Pruitt scandal.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:39 AM on June 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

Yeah, Dworkin has a lengthy Twitter track record of making sensational #Resistance claims that don't pan out, particularly when backed by "insider" information. (He has a side gig with his grassroots independent Democratic Coalition to keep visible, which often gives his feed an air of self-promotion.)

Meanwhile, in actual Nunes news, the Fresno Bee reports that Nunes' ties to winery in sex-harassment suit violate House ethics rules, complaint says. Last Thursday, the nonprofit American Democracy Legal Fund filed a complaint against Rep. Devin Nunes with the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate if he violated the House code of conduct because of his partnership in Napa County winery "Alpha Omega". A sexual harassment lawsuit against the company that was settled in 2016 alleges that 25 of the company's top investors (all "John Does") hired sex workers and used cocaine on a fundraiser yacht cruise in 2015—and Nunes has declined to answer questions about if he attended the event.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:52 AM on June 13, 2018 [18 favorites]

Absolutely believable that all those people are under some kind of investigation of some kind, due to all being one degree of separation away from people under investugation, and that that’s not of huge significance and nothing will come of it.
posted by Artw at 6:10 AM on June 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

I thought MeFi loved the idea of splitting California?

The Russians supported the idiot Calexit movement. I'm pretty sure they support spreading chaos in every way possible, including reducing the size and power of an economy, California's, that is vastly larger than theirs.
posted by SPrintF at 6:13 AM on June 13, 2018 [16 favorites]

Shirlington but in the city still

Ah, Lavernington.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 6:14 AM on June 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

The Maine vote isn't complete, but voters have easily passed the ballot measure to retain ranked choice voting, seemingly by a larger margin than the original measure to implement it passed.

And yet, the GOP leadership of Maine seems uninterested in the democratic process. [The Hill] GOP Maine governor says he ‘probably’ won’t certify results of ranked-choice primary election
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 6:14 AM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah, we covered that one yesterday. Primary votes don't get certified anyway.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:16 AM on June 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

The Russians supported the idiot Calexit movement. I'm pretty sure they support spreading chaos in every way possible, including reducing the size and power of an economy, California's, that is vastly larger than theirs.

As a Californian, born and bred: I agree. I don't count people jumping on the CalExit bandwagon briefly in November 2016 due to post-election PTSD and trauma. I like California as it is - while splitting up might get us more senators, etc. it will diminish our power and our economy. Right now, while Trump and his minions might talk tough about our immigrants and our LGBT citizens and Libby Schaef etc. etc., we're the 500-lb gorilla who sits where we want to because of our 2.7 trillion economy. (That's "trillion" with a "T.")

So fuck this "split up California" business. It would immiserate a lot of the poor, inland areas of California - Trinity County can't grow enough weed and draw enough tourists to profit. Though I'm allowed to roll my eyes and view with contempt the fact that they want John Cox for governor.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:38 AM on June 13, 2018 [18 favorites]

The Root: Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer Michael Avenatti Wanted Evidence of Rudy Giuliani’s Porn Habits. Looks Like He Found It

Summary: Giuliani made a nasty remark about Stormy's career, so Avenatti invited the Internet's pornographic proprietors to cough up evidence that Giuliani is a practicioner of the onanistic arts. Apparently, the Internet has produced it, in the form of IP-logged activity. Although Avenatti has not yet delivered the....coup de main.

@MichaelAvenatti, 2 hours ago:
"It’s been raining receipts since Saturday. And I love the forecast for Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Giuliani (who appears to have gone missing since his idiotic, sexist comments)."
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:44 AM on June 13, 2018 [35 favorites]

Harry Enten (from 538): Two live interview polls taken over the last few weeks in Ohio Senate... Average has Sen. Sherrod Brown (Dem) with a *15* point advantage. This is a state that Trump won by 8.
posted by octothorpe at 7:01 AM on June 13, 2018 [13 favorites]

California cannot split. Humboldt to Chico has all the water. Yolo to Ventura has all the food. And Ontario to San Diego has all the money. Join or die.
posted by blnkfrnk at 7:01 AM on June 13, 2018 [31 favorites]

anastasiav: I feel like such a coward for not doing anything but making phone calls, though.

Don't - you're doing more than many people.

Also, "Deeds not Words" is something I interpreted as something that can be said to your representatives, because they have the most direct potential to change many of the current events from Another Tragedy Under Trump to Time To Fix This Broken System.

In other words, a statement on your website doesn't mean much, why not push legislation forward and hold a press conference on that?
posted by filthy light thief at 7:02 AM on June 13, 2018 [14 favorites]

Saw two stories on my AppleNews feed this morning -- "Mueller approval at lowest level" and "Even Mueller-friendly GOPers getting weary of investigation."

Then I noticed they were both from Politico, and no other outlets had anything along these lines. What's the story behind their propoaganda push?
posted by msalt at 7:06 AM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

I haven't heard the term 'calexit' spoken since its figurehead's actual residence in Russia was revealed.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:06 AM on June 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

Two live interview polls taken over the last few weeks in Ohio Senate... Average has Sen. Sherrod Brown (Dem) with a *15* point advantage. This is a state that Trump won by 8.

Yeah, this Suffolk poll has Brown leading Renacci 53-37 in the Senate race, Cordray leading DeWine 43-36 in the governor race [MOE: +/- 4.4%].

I don't know, that's almost too good. DeWine is a pretty popular guy, for reasons that have always escaped me. Still, if we were to pick up OH governor (and SOS!) going into re-districting, that would be big.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:07 AM on June 13, 2018 [10 favorites]

Would it help to protest the businesses choosing to supply the detention camps? Or would that horribly backfire and harm the detainees?
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:10 AM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Siena poll of NY gov Dem primary has Cuomo leading Nixon, 61-26 [MOE: +/- 3.6%].
posted by Chrysostom at 7:15 AM on June 13, 2018

A few deleted; let's steer back toward signal rather than noise here; we don't need to see every one-liner or clickbaity link someone puts up somewhere.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:19 AM on June 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

Siena poll of NY gov Dem primary has Cuomo leading Nixon, 61-26 [MOE: +/- 3.6%].

Those are the same numbers as the last poll, right? Anyone know why she seems to have stalled out?
posted by schadenfrau at 7:19 AM on June 13, 2018

DeWine is a pretty popular guy, for reasons that have always escaped me.

I dunno that it's popularity so much as luck (he's won a lot of his elections during Republican "waves" of various strengths) plus some basic Midwest political skills of tacking moderate-ish when Ohio's mood is more moderate (Lt. Governor to George Voinovich) and swinging rightwards when the conservative base gets cranked up (suing the Obama administration over the constitutionality of the ACA.)

I agree, though, that a huge lead for Cordray at this point seems a little too good to be true.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:31 AM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

What's doubly infuriating about Steve King's latest nazi escapade is the crickets from local news about it out here in his district, per usual these days. God forbid truth makes your readers or viewers the tiniest bit uncomfortable.

For King's voters this wouldn't make them uncomfortable in the least. If anything they'd feel a momentary satisfying warmth in the knowledge that libs were triggered.

In other news Giuliani's Large Adult Son has mysteriously lost West Wing access.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:34 AM on June 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

Saw two stories on my AppleNews feed this morning -- "Mueller approval at lowest level" and "Even Mueller-friendly GOPers getting weary of investigation."

There's a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll—conducted June 7-10—that puts Mueller's unfavorables at 53 percent among Republicans, 33 percent among independents, and 24 percent among Democrats. This is hardly surprising after the unceasing attacks by Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill and in the media. The bad news for Trump is: "Forty-eight percent of voters believe Trump has attempted to impede or obstruct the Russia investigation, up from 44 percent who offered the same view in early February. Democrats by a wide margin — 79 percent — said Trump was trying to obstruct Mueller’s probe. But 70 percent of Republicans said the president wasn’t meddling in the investigation."

GOP congress members are clearly sensing a shift in the political winds and making pronouncements in the media accordingly.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:39 AM on June 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen likely to cooperate as his attorneys leave case, sources say

As attorneys for Michael Cohen rush to meet Judge Kimba Wood’s Friday deadline to complete a privilege review of over 3.7 million documents seized in the April 9 raids of Cohen’s New York properties and law office, a source representing this matter has disclosed to ABC News that the law firm handling the case for Cohen is not expected to represent him going forward.

To date, Cohen has been represented by Stephen Ryan and Todd Harrison of the Washington and New York firm, McDermott, Will & Emery LLP.

No replacement counsel has been identified as of this time.

Cohen, now with no legal representation, is likely to cooperate with federal prosecutors in New York, sources said. This development, which is believed to be imminent, will likely hit the White House, family members, staffers and counsels hard.

posted by BungaDunga at 7:40 AM on June 13, 2018 [75 favorites]

Its an incredible Overton window shift. The far right, including European fascist movements, has been thoroughly normalized in just two years to the point where we’ll see “regular” republicans quoting them on the regs and not just designated extremists like King.

See also everyone favorite Neo-Confederate of the Moment, Corey Stewart.

Fenit Nirappil
Flash back to my first election night at the Post, when Corey Stewart told me his 2015 victory in the county board race showed the importance of Republicans reaching out to POC voters. During campaign, he said he didn't want to be "immigration man" anymore [see tweet for screenshotted quote]
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:40 AM on June 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

Cohen, now with no legal representation,

Give him a public defender like every other poor and indigent client in New York.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 7:47 AM on June 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

Theres also a non-zero chance SCOTUS rules on the muslim ban thursday, so im taking a wait-and-see approach to Eid pre-celebrations.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 7:48 AM on June 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

Those are the same numbers as the last poll, right? Anyone know why she seems to have stalled out?

Previous poll was 58%-27%, so he's actually lengthened his lead slightly. This poll was taken June 4 - 7. On June 3, Former governor David Paterson took a swipe at her, saying she should run for lower office before trying to take the governor's mansion. And her campaign managed to repeatedly spell Ithaca wrong on an invite to a campaign event there at the beginning of the month. Not the end of the world, but also not a good look for a politician who is trying very hard to convince areas north of NYC that she can represent them properly.

Since then (may affect future polls,) she's had a decent, detailed writeup in the Times about her education plan. (They called it "Ambitious, Progressive, Expensive".) Visited a mosque -- which Cuomo never has. She also skipped the Puerto Rican Day Parade, which probably pissed off a lot of people.
posted by zarq at 7:49 AM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Cohen, now with no legal representation, is likely to cooperate with federal prosecutors in New York, sources said. This development, which is believed to be imminent, will likely hit the White House, family members, staffers and counsels hard.

AhhhhhhhhhhHAHAHAHAH holy shit

Oh god it’s all about to get so much worse, isn’t it?

Give him a public defender like every other poor and indigent client in New York.

Absolutely not. He’s not poor or indigent, he’s just an asshole. And public defenders are spread too thin as it is.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:50 AM on June 13, 2018 [47 favorites]

Republican Racists Would be Nationally (In)Famous If Our Media Worked the Way the Right's Does

Steve King is being Steve King again. [...]

If the media favored by liberals and centrists in America worked the way the right-wing media works, King would be a household name by now, notorious across America for his racism. If we had media with the reach of talk radio and Fox News that made every King outburst the subject of round-the-clock stories for days, his extremism would be widely recognized in America. He'd be famous (or infamous). As it is, he's known to Iowans and to politically engaged lefties. The rest of the country is barely aware that he exists.

The rest of the country also doesn't know about the extremism of Corey Stewart, who just won the GOP Senate nomination in Virginia. [...]

But there isn't saturation coverage of Stewart, and there won't be. He'll never be subjected to days and days of negative stories and commentary in the non-conservative press. There'll be isolated items, and then attention will move on -- and some coverage will be disturbingly "measured," like this New York Times tweet, which merely calls Stewart a "firebrand" (although the linked story and the sub-headline in the tweet get into some specifics): [...]

The unabashedly partisan right-wing press names and shames its Antichrists -- and remember, it's effectively the mainstream media for much of America. The actually mainstream media does no such thing. That imbalance has real consequences.

posted by tonycpsu at 7:51 AM on June 13, 2018 [44 favorites]

Can we start organizing nationwide protests from here?

Families Belong Together has been organizing a Nationwide Day of Action which is scheduled for tomorrow (June 14th). Right now there are events listed for CA, NY, MA, ID, FL, MT, TX, OR, NH, UT, KY, PA, OH, AZ, MI, CO, and a ME one was added sometime yesterday. I think boosting the signal on that might be helpful.
posted by anastasiav at 7:51 AM on June 13, 2018 [31 favorites]

The rest of the country also doesn't know about the extremism of Corey Stewart, who just won the GOP Senate nomination in Virginia.

Corey Stewart is so committed to slavery cosplay that he lives in a colonial era plantation complete with, according to Wikipedia, a "dungeon for quarrelsome Indians and disobedient slaves".
posted by peeedro at 7:54 AM on June 13, 2018 [9 favorites]

Re: Cynthia Nixon, I think it's mostly that Cuomo is reasonably popular. I think it's terrific that Nixon is running and forcing Cuomo to take left on some issues, but I don't think she'll win, bar some serious bombshell about Cuomo.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:55 AM on June 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

On June 3, Former governor David Paterson took a swipe at her, saying she should run for lower office before trying to take the governor's mansion.

See this is the thing. Anyone with experience with lower office who is on the bench and takes on Cuomo is rolling the dice their entire political future. So it's like complaining about how she's not a fucking unicorn or something.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 7:56 AM on June 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

Sarah Kendzior: Cohen as cooperating witness could provide info on:
* Trump Org finances
* use of threats, blackmail, bribes
* Russian mafia (and other mafias)
* RNC and its finances
* Manafort and other Trump hires esp those involved with Russia/Ukraine
* numerous oligarchs
* NYC enablers

and the first one means Jared and Ivanka and Dumb and Dumberer ...
posted by Dashy at 7:58 AM on June 13, 2018 [31 favorites]

The other thing about the increasing integration of the Republican Party and European Fascists is that every fascist party in Europe is heavily bankrolled by Russia, so it allows Russia to ge its hooks into them further.
posted by Artw at 8:04 AM on June 13, 2018 [9 favorites]

Data Analysis: Influx of Democratic Women Could Spell the Hyde Amendment’s Demise (via)

Although public support for the Hyde Amendment is mixed, and is much lower in blue states, Democrats have yet to mount a successful effort to repeal it. This is largely due to the fact that, while Democratic voters and those in Democratic-leaning demographic groups are overwhelmingly in support of allowing federal funding for abortion care, Democratic members of Congress are themselves divided: there are still 61 House Democrats who have not co-sponsored the repeal of Hyde. Some of these Democrats represent more conservative districts, where the median voter may not support federal funding for abortion.

However, many of those who have failed to support repeal of Hyde actually are not in conservative districts. Fifty-two Democratic members of Congress who oppose the Hyde Amendment represent districts won in 2016 by Hillary Clinton, and of those, 45 represent districts that Clinton won by ten points or more. What explains Democratic opposition to the repeal? [...]

Although merely hypothetical, our analysis indicates that the surge in women running for office as Democrats will be good for women. Decades of scholarship finds that when women run, women win, and with their success, progressive legislation will be more likely to be proposed and passed.

None of this matters unless Democrats gain a majority, but it appears even that isn't going to be sufficient without bouncing some of these male Democrats who are performing below replacement level on issues of reproductive freedom.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:18 AM on June 13, 2018 [33 favorites]

> Give him a public defender like every other poor and indigent client in New York.

Absolutely not. He’s not poor or indigent, he’s just an asshole. And public defenders are spread too thin as it is.

I don't know what the law is in NY but a judge can likely order an attorney - not a PD - to take on the case. Doesn't mean, I believe, that they have to do it pro bono. But, again, local law so dunno.

I absolutely agree PDs shouldn't be further stretched to cover this asshole but I also think it's important that we stick to a belief that everyone, even garbage like this clown, deserves representation.

Which is not to take in the slightest from my eating popcorn glee at this development. What did these lawyers discover that caused them to bail? Or what disagreement did they have with Cohen that led one side or the other to pull the ripcord? Or is he just so toxic that they simply don't want to have anything to do with him?
posted by phearlez at 8:19 AM on June 13, 2018 [9 favorites]

We've discussed before how the polls showing steady support for Trump within the GOP are deceptive because they don't show the shrinking of the GOP itself. Well here's that study.

A number of Republicans appear to be becoming independents
posted by scalefree at 8:22 AM on June 13, 2018 [31 favorites]

What did these lawyers discover that caused them to bail? Or what disagreement did they have with Cohen that led one side or the other to pull the ripcord? Or is he just so toxic that they simply don't want to have anything to do with him?

I'm willing to bet it was a combination of most or all of the above honestly. We can almost guarantee they discovered his shady business antics, I'm sure he isn't fun to deal with, and the toxicity of the dignity wraiths is enough alone.
posted by Twain Device at 8:24 AM on June 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

A number of Republicans appear to be becoming independents

Until they actually stop voting Republicans into office I am going to assume that number is, like, 4.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:26 AM on June 13, 2018 [43 favorites]

In October, Paul reconstructed the pile. A few days later, Boucher again had them hauled away. Less than 10 days later, Paul again made another pile of limbs and leaves, again in the same spot. Boucher took his beef to the Rivergreen Homeowner’s Association, but it did not help.

On Nov. 2, Boucher hit some kind of limit with his patience. He poured gasoline on the pile of debris and set it on fire. The resulting fireball gave him second-degree burns on his arms, neck, and face.

Penny Arcade has been dead to me for years now because of shitgibbon behavior from the artists and other associated folks, but I feel like this situation calls perfectly for this golden oldie. These two people could not more deserve to be neighbors.

Wait. Paul lives in a place where they have an HOA? I mean....talk about not following one's principles.

You have this exactly backwards. HOAs are perfect exemplars of the libertarian ideal. Private groups attaching varied obnoxious limitations, historically racist as all get out, to personal behavior and largely immune to citizen government intervention except in the most extremes. Often petty, childish, expensive, and organized in such a way that only the most privileged can get themselves into a decision making role which, once they're in it, they can use to abuse and control others.
posted by phearlez at 8:27 AM on June 13, 2018 [36 favorites]

I don't know what the law is in NY but a judge can likely order an attorney - not a PD - to take on the case. Doesn't mean, I believe, that they have to do it pro bono. But, again, local law so dunno.

Oh lord I hope he gets the laziest underperformer from one of those firms that advertises on the subway.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:34 AM on June 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

We've discussed before how the polls showing steady support for Trump within the GOP are deceptive because they don't show the shrinking of the GOP itself. Well here's that study.

Not so much a study as some noodling around with Gallup numbers. I don't really see the effect they're describing. Consider these two data points from just before the election through the most recent data on that Gallup page:

Week            %R      %I      %D
2016 Nov 1-6	27	36	31
2018 May 1-10	26	43	29

Since the election, the Republicans have lost 1 point, Democrats have lost 2, and independents have gained 7 (I assume the difference comes from a change in the number of people answering "unsure").

Two more datapoints, this time looking at the independents who lean one way or the other:

Week           %LR     %LD
2016 Nov 1-6	16	15
2018 May 1-10	18	15

So the share of independents who lean the Republicans has gone up by two points and the share who lean toward the Democrats has stayed the same.

There's not a margin of error on that page, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was at least ±1%. I don't see any evidence that people are fleeing the Republican party in significant numbers. A good argument for focusing more on registration and turnout rather than trying to convince Republicans of the error of their ways.
posted by jedicus at 8:41 AM on June 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

On the other hand, the victories of Doug Jones and Conor Lamb *were* due to GOP crossover.

My take is that we do whatever is appropriate locally, and where possible, do both.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:45 AM on June 13, 2018 [31 favorites]

Wyden, Gillibrand, Markey, Merkley, Murray and Warren Introduce Bill to Secure Elections -- The Protecting American Votes and Elections Act of 2018 requires paper ballots and statistically rigorous “risk-limiting” audits for all federal elections – the two steps cited by election experts as necessary to give voters confidence that election results have not been changed by foreign governments or other hackers.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:58 AM on June 13, 2018 [76 favorites]

Mr. Cohen doesn’t yet have a replacement law firm but is searching for a federal criminal lawyer in New York, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Cohen wants to hire a lawyer with close ties to the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, the people said.

Mr. Cohen hasn’t yet decided whether he will cooperate with prosecutors in the case, according to one of those people.

Show him a draft of the indictment and tell him that his counsel will be shown no professional courtesy. Trap him in at every turn.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 9:06 AM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

This could be a prelude to him agreeing to coöperate; but it could also simply be Cohen wanting a a different team now that the case is moving on to a new stage, with the document review wrapping up.

I think this Cohen asking Trump for help with lawyers and money.
posted by notyou at 9:09 AM on June 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

May I suggest Cohen start a Go Fund Me. There's plenty of gullible rubes that will facilitate a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 9:20 AM on June 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Cohen does sketchy bullshit even when he could get the same results by playing it straight. I wouldn't be surprised if this is less about a flip and more that his lawyers realized he's toxic as fuck, probably lying to them and/or not following their advice, and is generally dangerous to their careers just to be around.

Obviously I hope he's flipping but it's hard to get my hopes up on that yet.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:28 AM on June 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

I think this Cohen asking Trump for help with lawyers and money.

The shit has definitely hit the fan.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:34 AM on June 13, 2018 [38 favorites]

How was he to know she was with the Russians too?
posted by Chrysostom at 9:36 AM on June 13, 2018 [31 favorites]

Re: US politician’s love for European facists, quick reminder that POTUS approvingly retweeted a UK neo-nazi terror group six months ago.

We could really do without this feedback loop, as approval from rightwing politicians and media in the States provides legitimacy to unpleasant fringe lunatics like noted piece of shit Tommy Robinson.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 9:37 AM on June 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

Loony Left report: I’m going to be talking publically about ...public banking and postal banking next week so I just want to drop this paper as reference “Central banking for all: a public option for bank accounts”
posted by The Whelk at 9:38 AM on June 13, 2018 [34 favorites]

Re: Today's Pruitt story. WaPo reporter Brady Dennis has a lengthy Twitter thread on it that's a good read, but my eyes bugged out at the statement that part of the reason he's so fixated on getting his wife a new job is the cost of maintaining a DC residence in addition to his $1.18 million home in Tulsa.

My wife is from Tulsa. We've done the math on housing there. It is very, very difficult to find a house that costs over a million dollars in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Even if you're looking for a mansion, you're going to find some pretty damn impressive mansion options in the mid-high six figures. If Pruitt bought a $1.18 million house in Tulsa, it was the result of him walking into a realtor's office and asking, Jake Peralta-like, for “your million dollar-est house, please.”

God, what a tool.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:48 AM on June 13, 2018 [65 favorites]

Arleta woman ‘in shock’ after ICE agents detain father, a legal resident, outside home

Jose Luis Garcia, 62, was watering his lawn and having his morning coffee outside his Arleta home when ICE agents put him in handcuffs and detained him, according to his daughter, Natalie Garcia. The arrest came as a shock to the 32-year-old Garcia, who said that her father is a law-abiding, legal permanent resident who came to the United States nearly 50 years ago when he was 13-years-old. [...] “Databases reveal that Mr. Garcia has past criminal convictions that make him amenable to removal from the United States,” the statement said. [...] ICE officials would not confirm or reveal details about the nature of the “past criminal convictions,” citing confidentiality reasons.

His only criminal record is an 18 year old misdemeanor. ICE is the Gestapo. If you have any sympathy for low-level and rank-and-file ICE employees, don't.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:49 AM on June 13, 2018 [80 favorites]

Pruitt is 100% having an affair and trying to cover it up, it makes all his werid penny ante grifter actions make sense
posted by The Whelk at 9:49 AM on June 13, 2018 [20 favorites]

What did these lawyers discover that caused them to bail?

If I was betting, I would put it all on "Lied to his lawyers".
posted by mikelieman at 9:52 AM on June 13, 2018 [21 favorites]

Hey, on the horror show of migrant children in detention centers and such: is there anywhere/anyone to support with donations to fight this?

I know some good people involved with Kids in Need of Defense. If you're interested in funding efforts to protect migrant children traveling alone, it might be a good fit for you.
posted by baltimoretim at 9:53 AM on June 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

Hey, on the horror show of migrant children in detention centers and such: is there anywhere/anyone to support with donations to fight this?

Families belong together has tons of marches scheduled for tomorrow all over the country.
posted by Sophie1 at 9:57 AM on June 13, 2018 [20 favorites]

Vox: The Trump administration’s separation of families at the border, explained

Still reading, but so far this seems like a good rundown of what's happening.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:03 AM on June 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Women's Refugee Commission is working for representation at the border, and takes donations.
posted by Harry Caul at 10:07 AM on June 13, 2018 [9 favorites]

It has been 0 days since a Scott Pruitt scandal.

Trouble in Griftland for Scottie.

Laura Ingraham
PRUITT BAD JUDGMENT HURTING @POTUS, GOTTA GO: Pruitt had aide, GOP donors help wife find job: report

---

And they're negging Donnie in Russia.

Steve Rosenberg (BBC Moscow correspondent)
The Russian press is calling the Singapore summit a "PR success" & "victory" for Kim Jong-un. One paper warns that Trump's "exaggerated self-belief in his powers of negotiation" puts the US president "at risk of manipulation by his negotiating partners."
VIDEO
posted by chris24 at 10:09 AM on June 13, 2018 [26 favorites]

Breaking Cohen news via Caroline Orr @ RVAwonk: NEW: Per @KatyTurNBC, Michael Cohen has received word from federal prosecutors that they are preparing paperwork to arrest him.
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:19 AM on June 13, 2018 [68 favorites]

"exaggerated self-belief in his powers of negotiation" puts the US president "at risk of manipulation by his negotiating partners."

On one hand, it's Russian propaganda. On the other hand, they're not wrong.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:21 AM on June 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

NEW: Per @KatyTurNBC, Michael Cohen has received word from federal prosecutors that they are preparing paperwork to arrest him.

🎉🎂🎉🎂🎉🎂
posted by wenestvedt at 10:21 AM on June 13, 2018 [61 favorites]

RE donations, a friend posted this link from the Today show, which has these suggestions:

How to help child immigrants

Together Rising Love Flash Mob. Organized by best-selling author and blogger Glennon Doyle through her non-profit organization, the fundraising effort will go to provide bilingual legal and advocacy assistance for 60 children, aged 12 months to 10 years, currently separated from their parents in an Arizona detention center. Their first priority will be to establish and maintain contact between children and their parents, with the ultimate goal of reunification and safety and rehabilitation for the children.
The Florence Project and Refugee Rights Project. This organization provides legal assistance and social services to detained immigrants in Arizona.
The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. This organization works for the rights of children in immigration proceedings.
Kids In Need Of Defense (KIND). This organization works to ensure that no child appears in immigration court alone without representation.
Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project. They work to prevent the deportation of asylum-seeking families fleeing violence.

posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 10:22 AM on June 13, 2018 [37 favorites]

I think this Cohen asking Trump for help with lawyers and money.

Per the NYT: "Mr. Cohen’s current legal team is expected to stay with him for the rest of the week as they struggle to complete a laborious review of a trove of documents and data files seized from him by the authorities two months ago. But after that review is finished, he will seek new legal counsel, the people familiar with his case said. The issue is primarily over payment of the legal bills of one of his lawyers, Stephen Ryan, according to a person familiar with the discussions."
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:24 AM on June 13, 2018 [17 favorites]

Hey, on the horror show of migrant children in detention centers and such: is there anywhere/anyone to support with donations to fight this? I caught the link to the National Immigration Law Center up above. Anyone else fighting this in court or supporting families hit by this garbage?

I made my gifts to the following orgs:

RAICES Texas (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services)

National Catholic Fund for Migration and Refugee Services, who, along with Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, are providing a good deal of the foster care currently being offered for these kids.

The National Immigration Law Center would also be a good resource.
posted by anastasiav at 10:28 AM on June 13, 2018 [18 favorites]

The NYT's Trump access journalist Maggie Haberman @maggieNYT adds: "Trump has been fuming about Cohen in private, blaming him for the messy Stormy Daniels situation. But he also is fearful of making that public because of chances it further pushes Cohen toward SDNY"
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:29 AM on June 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

NEW: Per @KatyTurNBC, Michael Cohen has received word from federal prosecutors that they are preparing paperwork to arrest him.

This seems...odd? Like I know there are de facto separate systems of justice in the US, and how a person of color with low-level federal crimes will get their door kicked in, family terrorized, etc., while an Enron type gets the polite phone calls saying, "Hey, we're gonna arrest you at your convenience, just a formality." But Cohen is plainly the slippery evidence-destroying type.

Why would they call him up and say "we're just getting the paperwork together?" Unless he's under close surveillance and they want to catch him trying to flee or set something on fire or...?
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:33 AM on June 13, 2018 [14 favorites]

is there anywhere/anyone to support with donations to fight this? I caught the link to the National Immigration Law Center up above.

Northwest Immigrant Rights Project: "As of June 11th, NWIRP staff and volunteers have been able to perform intake interviews and screenings with 33 asylum seekers and have scheduled 50 additional intakes. . . . we plan on assisting many asylum seekers in ‘credible fear interviews’ with immigration officials and are working with a number of parents to help them get to be in contact with their children." They're also looking for attorneys, especially Spanish- and Cantonese-speakers.

Also, Bay Area people, there's a regular interfaith protest, 11 to noon on 2nd Sundays of every month outside the ICE detention center in Richmond, CA: "The protest opened and closed with the banging of drums, shaking of tambourines, clapping, and calls from the protesters. As Brooks told the group, “folks can hear us when we make noise.” This is how they let the detainees inside know they are not forgotten" [quote is from the "interfaith" link].
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 10:34 AM on June 13, 2018 [15 favorites]

South East Asians fighting deportation, but the problems goes beyond ICE and has roots in the 1994 crime bill (The Nib)
posted by The Whelk at 10:46 AM on June 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

But Cohen is plainly the slippery evidence-destroying type.
...
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:33 AM on June 13 [3 favorites +] [!]

I'm pretty sure they've already got all the evidence. All of it.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:50 AM on June 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

Maybe they just figure it would be more fun to pick him up trying to board a plane to Moscow.
posted by nickmark at 10:52 AM on June 13, 2018 [10 favorites]

@alexandraerin
Just so everyone's clear, we are *well* past the point of "First they came for" right now.

The canaries have all been dead for some time. Died the day of the first bumbled Muslim ban in fact.
posted by Artw at 10:55 AM on June 13, 2018 [34 favorites]

Maybe they just figure it would be more fun to pick him up trying to board a plane to Moscow.

You laugh, they may not have jurisdiction on Air Force One.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:55 AM on June 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

"Why would they call him up and say "we're just getting the paperwork together?""

They don't actually kick down doors very often, but if they're going to come surprise-arrest you, it's when you're not cooperating with the investigation (or they've just found out you did it and think you may be armed and then they're gonna kick stuff). Cohen has been talking with the feds -- personally or via lawyers -- basically daily since his office was raided in April (which was a surprise action to him). Since he's already enmeshed in the proceedings, they know where to find him, there are already legal proceedings in progress, etc., it's pretty normal to say "We're going to be filing charges on Friday." That's why in a lot of high-profile criminal investigations, the person being charged turns themself in. It's actually super-common in low-profile, everyday cases too, where they've been investigating a crime, you've been interviewed a few times about it, and the DA will say "We're filing charges and will be before the judge on Friday at 9 a.m., please present yourself at the courthouse, or we'll have to send police to pick you up." (You may be most familiar with it in cases like teenaged shoplifting or underage drinking, where cops tell the parents to bring the kids to the courthouse so they can be criminally charged, since they're not usually flight risks and dragging kids in in handcuffs is not a good scene.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:58 AM on June 13, 2018 [19 favorites]

Mr. Cohen’s current legal team is expected to stay with him for the rest of the week as they struggle to complete a laborious review of a trove of documents and data files seized from him by the authorities two months ago. But after that review is finished, he will seek new legal counsel, the people familiar with his case said.

I really wouldn't read too much into this new set of lawyers thing just yet. Who you would grab in a hurry for document review is probably different from who you want representing you in court, once you've had time to think about matters. They're different skill sets, which may or may not be able to be handled by the same guy or by the same firm. I'm guessing he grabbed who he could in the moment, and things like compensation or next steps may not have been fully addressed at the time. That he wants/needs different counsel for the next phase isn't in itself unusual, I'd say. I also wouldn't be surprised if the judge orders that his current counsel stay on the job until the document review phase is complete, and then order that Mikey be allowed some time to find someone else. I don't see this change as a sign of flipping, TBH.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:05 AM on June 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Quinnipiac Ohio poll:

Senate: Brown up 51-34 on Renacci

Governor: Cordray up 42-40 on DeWine

[MOE: +/- 3.7%]
posted by Chrysostom at 11:07 AM on June 13, 2018 [9 favorites]

North Korea said Wednesday that President Donald Trump had told Kim Jong Un that he intended to halt U.S.-South Korea military exercises and lift sanctions against the North.

From Trump's comments and the video I gather he seriously doesn't understand that most of world does not want to have a fun, relaxing beach vacation in a country that imprisoned and then likely tortured to death a young American tourist last year. Come for the mediocre beaches! Stay... well, because we may not let you leave! I know it's a beautiful country, but it will be a long time before I would recommend anyone casually visit.
posted by xammerboy at 11:16 AM on June 13, 2018 [13 favorites]

Rawstory has MSNBC video and story
posted by Twain Device at 11:17 AM on June 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Thank you so much for that link, scaryblackdeath! That's indeed a great summary.
posted by Melismata at 11:17 AM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Former Johns Hopkins professor argues Trump is getting worse, may be “on the boundary of psychosis and reality”. Based on Trump’s public behavior, some of the world’s leading clinicians have concluded that the president of the United States is mentally unwell.
posted by growabrain at 11:17 AM on June 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

(so as not to abuse the edit window, MSNBC video about Cohen.)
posted by Twain Device at 11:17 AM on June 13, 2018

I really wouldn't read too much into this new set of lawyers thing just yet. Who you would grab in a hurry for document review is probably different from who you want representing you in court, once you've had time to think about matters.

MWE has represented him since last summer (months before the search and seizure).
posted by melissasaurus at 11:19 AM on June 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

I see Cohen changing lawyers as a signal that he's changing strategy. I can only assume his strategy thus far has been to deny and fight. I'm thinking this is a good sign he's decided on a different path, namely flipping. It would make sense that you'd need another lawyer in this case, I think. Whoever he chooses as his next lawyer will likely tell us more.
posted by xammerboy at 11:22 AM on June 13, 2018

Former Johns Hopkins professor argues Trump is getting worse, may be “on the boundary of psychosis and reality”.

Being on the boundary of reality would mean a sudden and stunning improvement in his mental health. Is this professor writing from 1987?
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:22 AM on June 13, 2018 [37 favorites]

Bloomberg, Issa Is Said to Be a Candidate to Become Trump’s New CFPB Chief

@Taniel: picking the 2nd wealthiest man in Congress to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sounds about right for Trump's government.
posted by zachlipton at 11:34 AM on June 13, 2018 [23 favorites]

@gabrielsherman: Person close to Cohen says he hasn’t flipped yet, “he’s sending up a smoke signal to Trump: I need help.”

House Democrats (and John Cusack!) are protesting in front of CBP headquarters today, expecting to be arrested.
posted by zachlipton at 11:40 AM on June 13, 2018 [43 favorites]

CNN: She says federal officials took her daughter while she breastfed the child in a detention center

The undocumented immigrant from Honduras sobbed as she told an attorney Tuesday how federal authorities took her daughter while she breastfed the child in a detention center, where she was awaiting prosecution for entering the country illegally. When the woman resisted, she was handcuffed, Natalia Cornelio, the attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, recalled from her interview with the woman, who had been detained under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy to refer anyone caught crossing the border illegally for federal prosecution.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:54 AM on June 13, 2018 [27 favorites]

"Why would they call him up and say "we're just getting the paperwork together?""

They don't actually kick down doors very often, but if they're going to come surprise-arrest you, it's when you're not cooperating with the investigation (or they've just found out you did it and think you may be armed and then they're gonna kick stuff).

Yeah, if you remember back to a billion years ago when the feds showed up at Manafort's Alexandria condo at 6am, there was a subsequent bunch of media appearance whining about gestapo tactics (they knocked) and indignation that they didn't just make a polite phone call and ask if maybe he could step away from the shredder for a few minute and come in at his convenience. It was amazingly tone-deaf and full of the level of rich old white dude privilege that permeates the administration, but it wasn't all that far off the mark in claiming this was more aggressive than the way such white collar pinches usually go down.

Steal a million and you get your door kicked in. Steal a billion and you get a polite knock at the door or an opportunity to have your lawyer work out a time for you to surrender yourself, potentially with help keeping the photos down to a minimum.
posted by phearlez at 12:24 PM on June 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

Whereas, come to the border penniless to beg for a chance of a better life for your children and your baby is ripped from your breast.
posted by Sublimity at 12:28 PM on June 13, 2018 [46 favorites]

FYI, looks like there is a good chance the "split California" initiative is not legal.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:28 PM on June 13, 2018 [14 favorites]

Foreign Policy, Trump Appointee Compiles Loyalty List of U.S. Employees at U.N., State

A senior advisor to the State Department appointed just two months ago has been quietly vetting career diplomats and American employees of international institutions to determine whether they are loyal to President Donald Trump and his political agenda, according to nearly a dozen current and former U.S. officials.

Mari Stull, a former food and beverage lobbyist-turned-wine blogger under the name “Vino Vixen,” has reviewed the social media pages of State Department staffers for signs of ideological deviation. She has researched the names of government officials to determine whether they signed off on Obama-era policies — though signing off does not mean officials personally endorsed them but merely cleared them through the bureaucratic chain. And she has inquired about Americans employed by international agencies, including the World Health Organization and the United Nations, asking their colleagues when they were hired and by whom, according the officials.

Senior career officials who have to deal with this are, unsurprisingly, looking to head for the exits. It's not going well:

Other officials said Moley and Stull have impeded the bureau’s day-to-day work by keeping career officials out of some meetings with foreign counterparts, a break from accepted practice, and refraining from briefing them on the outcomes.

Officials have resorted in some cases to asking foreign government officials about the results of the meetings with their own bosses.

Stull also requires that every directive issued by the office be reviewed by her first, causing a bureaucratic bottleneck and even stalling issues that appear to be priorities of the White House.

According to two officials, she has stripped all references to “international law” and “international order” from action items and memos coming from the international organization bureau.

“I don’t know if she thinks international law doesn’t exist if they just take out any reference to it, but that’s not really how things work,” one of the officials familiar with the matter said.“ I have in my entire federal career never experienced anything at this level of chaos and dysfunction.”

posted by zachlipton at 12:34 PM on June 13, 2018 [49 favorites]

Michael Bérubé, Democracy: R.I.P., Liberal Contrarianism

This is a bit of a long read, and the narrative style doesn't exactly lend itself to excerpting, so I'd encourage reading the whole thing. I think Bérubé makes a great case that the #SlatePitch / liberal contrarian wing of the left has seen its power diminished in recent years. They're still out there wanking, of course, but aside from some love from centrists who are just looking to confirm their priors, their influence over the discourse on the left seems to be waning.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:41 PM on June 13, 2018 [14 favorites]

Former Johns Hopkins professor argues Trump is getting worse, may be “on the boundary of psychosis and reality”.

From the article:

In addition to that, I think Donald Trump is deteriorating for a second completely independent reason, which is that we're seeing clear evidence of organically based cognitive decline.

Potentially relevant anecdata that I believe I've mentioned before: When my malignant narcissist parent developed dementia, it took us a long time to recognize because at first their behavior became only slightly more delusional than "normal" malignant narcissist parent. Making up conversations? Not new. Convinced the world was out to get them? Not new. Repeating the same stories/opinions/airings of grievances over and over? Not new. An "I'm never wrong about anything -- you're wrong!" attitude makes early cognitive decline easy to hide, even if you don't have a physician you can dictate your test results to.

I'm generally against armchair psychiatry of public figures, but I've lived this one, you guys.
posted by camyram at 1:02 PM on June 13, 2018 [47 favorites]

Whereas, come to the border penniless to beg for a chance of a better life for your children and your baby is ripped from your breast.

Well, it's not like they were invited.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

posted by kirkaracha at 1:03 PM on June 13, 2018 [25 favorites]

@gabrielsherman: Person close to Cohen says he hasn’t flipped yet, “he’s sending up a smoke signal to Trump: I need help.”

And this of course gets to the whole problem of access journalism and routinely anonymous sourcing.

NBC: Katy Tur breaks down her reporting that Michael Cohen expects to be arrested soon with Gabriel Sherman, Danny Cevallos, Natasha Bertrand and Tom Dupree.

My reporting from a source close to Cohen lines up with your reporting that he is worried about being arrested on Friday or potentially next week. There's also some new reporting from our colleagues here at NBC that he's telling other friends different things, no, he is not worried about it. This has kind of been the way that it has gone when reporting Michael Cohen news. There will initially be reports about how he's feeling from people who do know him well that reporters have built a relationship with and trust, and then when that starts to break through into the news cycle, suddenly there will be a reversal, and it's like "Oh no, no, I never said that."

This NBC roundtable discusses the Cohen question from all angles, but it's Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman who points out toward the end that Trump thrives on chaos and his aides have learned to produce that chaos for him, up to and including lying to the media (which is, I'd like to reiterate, a lot easier to do as anonymous sources).
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:03 PM on June 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

How does this keep happening? 2013.

@realDonaldTrump
John Kerry is openly celebrating the tenuous nuclear deal with Iran. Great dealmakers do not celebrate deals,they just go on to the next one. The reason great dealmakers do not OPENLY celebrate a deal, especially one that is not complete, is that it shows weakness to the other side
posted by chris24 at 1:11 PM on June 13, 2018 [60 favorites]

Whether that California initiative is legal or not, I have to imagine that every water rights attorney within 1000 miles has been told to not make any plans that can't be broken after November. If California were to be split into three states, the legal battles over water in the region would be even more berzerk than they already have been.
posted by azpenguin at 1:16 PM on June 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

Other than Cohen flipping, I think the most likely potential reasons why his lawyers are jumping ship are: 1) he's shifting over to folks with more criminal defense expertise if things are going that way or 2) his current lawyers have reason to believe Cohen's intending to perjure himself.

If it's the latter, they can't say so, so "trouble over a bill" would be a plausible out.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:17 PM on June 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

That Bérubé article is ostensibly a requiem for the #SlatePitch centrist-"left," but it actually devotes even more of its time to attacking the far left. The ongoing rage from the center-left against [Berniebros/ FireDogLake/ NakedCapitalism/ Jacobin/ the 2% who vote third-party/ Russia skeptics/ class-based progressivism/ college-age trans purists/ etc (all attacked at various points in the essay)] continues to baffle me, even though I agree with many of the criticisms. A 6000-word essay deriding the demise of the centrist-"left," of which 3000 are devoted to attacking the far left (and 1000 are an extended critique of Mark Lilla of all people)... I mean, the premise is correct -- RIP #SlatePitch -- but the execution is far more infighty than it needs to be.
posted by chortly at 1:18 PM on June 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

chris24: How does this keep happening?

IOKIYRMe

In other news of minor mitigations for everything being terrible: Trump's Ban On Funding For Overseas Abortions Has Some Little-Known Exceptions (NPR, June 13, 2018)

It was one of Donald Trump's first acts as President: a Jan. 23, 2017 executive order that cuts off U.S. support to foreign groups unless they promise not to "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning." This includes providing patients with referrals or information about the procedure, even if those activities are funded by non-U.S. government sources.

Every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has adopted a variant of the "Mexico City policy" — so called after the city where it was first announced. And every Democratic successor has reversed it.

But Trump's version is far more sweeping. Rather than limiting the ban to U.S. aid for family planning services, Trump has for the first time applied it to aid for virtually all global health services, including HIV treatment and prevention. Meaning if any health service also provides information on abortion, it can't get U.S. funding. As NPR has previously reported, some of the world's largest charities providing health care for people in poor countries have deemed the terms ethically or logistically unacceptable — critics often refer to the policy as "the global gag rule." As a result, these groups have already given up millions of dollars in U.S. funding and begun cutting back on services.

Less well-known is that the administration has actually included several exceptions to the policy — essentially a list of conditions under which a group that accepts U.S. aid money can still refer clients to an abortion provider. Now several advocacy groups that oppose the policy are trying to spread the word. Among them is the Washington, D.C.-based group Center for Health and Gender Equity, or CHANGE, which released a this month report that includes an analysis of these exceptions.
...
Still, Sippel of CHANGE says anecdotal evidence suggests many aid groups in South Africa are unaware of the exemption. For instance, officials of one group, Sonke Gender Justice, told her they had decided against applying for new funding because of the abortion policy. "And we were like, 'No, you can apply!'"

Sonke's leadership was still nervous about it, she says, because the "affirmative duty" clause does not specify by name which nations it applies to. So out of an abundance of caution Sonke officials included a letter in their application formally requesting an exemption under the affirmative duty clause. "They don't technically need it. But they just want that confirmation," says Sippel. That was in February. The group is still waiting for the government's response.
...
Another exemption with potentially sweeping implications is one that has been in every version of the policy since Reagan. Known as the "passive referral" exception, it spells out that in countries where abortion is legal, a health-care worker with a group receiving U.S. aid dollars can tell a woman where she can obtain an abortion if the following four conditions are met:

The woman is already pregnant.

She states that she has already decided to have an abortion.

She then asks where she can obtain the abortion safely and legally.

And finally, the provider believes that the ethics of the medical profession in their country require them to respond with information.

This is less of a loophole than it might appear, cautions Sippel, because the set-up requires the woman to know that abortion is a legal option in her case and proactively request a referral.

There may also be linguistic challenges. For instance, in Zimbabwe, says Sippel, a representative of one aid organization told her that the Shona language spoken there does not actually have a word for "abortion." Instead, says Sippel, women may use a term that roughly translates as "aggressively pulling or removing." If a provider is relying on an interpreter who translates that word ambiguously, they may be nervous about jeopardizing their U.S. funding over a technicality.

First, fuck Republicans and this bullshit. Second, fuck Trump for making it so much worse.

Third, thank the fuck for CHANGE and other advocates for better policies in the face all this shit.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:41 PM on June 13, 2018 [22 favorites]

I think this analysis is interesting. Being in the United States and undocumented is NOT a crime. It is a civil offense and the response is deportation.

Entering the United States illegally is a crime. Not all undocumented aliens have done this. Many who are in the United States without documentation have for example, overstayed a visa.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 1:47 PM on June 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

even when Trump's out of office (god willing in 951 days, 20 hours, 18 minutes), he's still going to keep up the insanity from his Twitter account

This is reason #1 I'm adamant a pardon by Pence is not acceptable. It'll free Trump up for the rest of his life to peddle his bullshit to the remaining 25% of Americans who'll defend him to the death. Effectively it'll put him in the position he was probably intending to be in before he won the election: being a mouthpiece for Russia attacking the administration in exchange for laundered money.
posted by Room 101 at 1:48 PM on June 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

Entering the United States illegally is a crime.

NO THE FUCK IT IS NOT. NOT IF THE PERSON ENTERING IS DOING SO WITH THE INTENTION OF CLAIMING ASSYLUM. OUR OWN FUCKING LAWS (AND HUMAN DECENCY) SAY THESE FOLKS DESERVE DUE PROCESS AND NOT THE ABJECT TORTURE THEY ARE BEING SUBJECTED TO.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 1:51 PM on June 13, 2018 [100 favorites]

Entering the United States with the intent to claim asylum isn't illegal, as much as Jeff Sessions wants to pretend it is, so I'm not sure where the conflict is between your statement and dances_with_sneetches.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:54 PM on June 13, 2018 [16 favorites]

> That Bérubé article is ostensibly a requiem for the #SlatePitch centrist-"left,"

Bérubé's point doesn't seem to be about where people are on the political spectrum -- which is obviously quite subjective -- than it is about specific behaviors. Mickey Kaus or Richard Cohen attacking Democrats from "within" 15 years ago isn't at all different than Mark Lilla or Glenn Greenwald doing the same now. The issues change, and the author's self-identification on a one-dimensional political spectrum might be different as well, but the "liberal contrarian hot take" factor (as Bérubé describes it) remains. Note that he uses the qualifier "so-called" when he describes these people as "progressives" and "leftists", noting that "[t]his is a pattern unbroken in 50 years of lefter-than-thou-ism and hallucinations of a third major party." He's not accepting their self-identification as leftist, and neither should anyone else, as the term is virtually meaningless without knowing about specific policy preferences, strategic goals, and the soundness of the plans for reaching those goals.

The thing being attacked in the essay is contrarianism, full stop. That many of the modern contrarian hot-takers are categorized by some as leftists seems incidental to his point. Does Katie Roiphe call herself a "leftist?" Does Mark Lilla? I certainly don't think Greenwald does. What sense does it make to judge the quality of the piece by the percentage of its targets who accept a particular political label?
posted by tonycpsu at 2:41 PM on June 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

Thank you, Holy Zarquon. For the record, I've never doubted your second coming.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:43 PM on June 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

"Even the liberal New Republic...."
posted by Chrysostom at 3:10 PM on June 13, 2018

Just catching up on the "Destiny Pictures" bizzarrity, when the article quotes one of the evil dictators as saying,

“We had it on cassette. An iPad,” Trump said. “They played it. About eight of their representatives were watching it. I thought they were fascinated by it. I thought it was well done. I showed it to you because that is the future.”

ha-brpbrpbbhurrup-ga-whah??

“We had it on cassette. An iPad,”

I don't - is . . . Can I have my Hillary Presidency now? I mean, we're done here, right?
posted by petebest at 3:26 PM on June 13, 2018 [28 favorites]

...even when Trump's out of office..., he's still going to keep up the insanity from his Twitter account...
I don't think you can tweet from jail, can you?
posted by MtDewd at 3:30 PM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Was Trump's propaganda video produced by the Scientology video team? Exact same feel as the wacky Tom Cruise video.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 3:31 PM on June 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

@maxwelltani: Trump says Russia should be back in the G-7 because over dinner, he could ask Putin: "Would you do me a favor? Would you get out of Syria? Would you do me a favor? Would you get out of Ukraine? Get out of Ukraine, you shouldn't be there, just c'mon."

Trump's said a lot of dumb things, but thinking Putin will pull out of Ukraine because he says "just c'mon" (*Will Arnett voice*) and invites him to meetings is a new low.
posted by zachlipton at 3:32 PM on June 13, 2018 [17 favorites]

I thought MeFi loved the idea of splitting California?

IANAL and IANAD but MeFi DTMFA'd that idea after it sat on the counter un-refrigerated for 2 days.
posted by srboisvert at 3:34 PM on June 13, 2018 [19 favorites]

IANAL and IANAD but MeFi DTMFA'd that idea after it sat on the counter un-refrigerated for 2 days.

For the obvious Kremlin-pushed pro-Republican plan, sure. But I mean if a California breakup plan involved producing six permanently pro-Left-gerrymandered functional city-states, a la David Faris...I might still eat it.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:41 PM on June 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

@kylegriffin1 [video]: BAIER: Kim Jong Un is "clearly executing people."
TRUMP: "He's a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father ... if you could do that at 27-years old, I mean, that's 1 in 10,000 that could do that." (via FOX)
posted by zachlipton at 3:41 PM on June 13, 2018 [28 favorites]

Former Johns Hopkins professor argues Trump is getting worse, may be “on the boundary of psychosis and reality”.

After watching that video of Trump—and Kyle Griffin quotes only a portion of his appalling response—Dr. Gartner's diagnosis of him seems all the more accurate: "Malignant narcissists deteriorate. When they gain power, they become more inflamed in their grandiosity and in their paranoia. They also become more unrestrained in their sadism and in their will to power. Malignant narcissists like Trump are antisocial and have a willingness to do anything to get and keep power. The noted psychologist Erich Fromm actually argued that such personalities then begin to verge on psychosis at that point, becoming so grandiose and paranoid that they really live on the boundary of psychosis and reality."
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:50 PM on June 13, 2018 [16 favorites]

NYT: How to Lose the Midterms and Re-elect Trump

Frank Bruni editorial that, based on the photo of De Niro being angry, is about how being mad at Trump is the real problem. I didn't read it because I already read the first version that they published in installments over a period of years, titled "How to Sabotage Hillary's Campaign and Get Trump Elected," and I hated it.

cancel your subscription
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:55 PM on June 13, 2018 [48 favorites]

Here's the full Bret Baier interview. Trump went on to pull the same whataboutism he uses with Putin: "Yeah, but so have other people done some really bad things. I could go through a whole lot of nations where a lot of bad things were done."

It's telling that the thing he thinks deserves praise is inheriting stuff from your dad. And murder.
posted by zachlipton at 3:59 PM on June 13, 2018 [46 favorites]

I don't - is . . . Can I have my Hillary Presidency now? I mean, we're done here, right?

I miss the taco trucks most of all.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:09 PM on June 13, 2018 [40 favorites]

If it's the latter, they can't say so, so "trouble over a bill" would be a plausible out.

I mean, yes, but if there's anything we've learned, is that this bunch are, to a man, cheapskate grifting nogoodniks who never pay their tabs. So it's entirely believable.

In other news, I finally have time free to go to one of my local Beto for Texas organizing events this weekend and I am excite. We have such a steep uphill climb here in TX but I sure do see a lot of signs in people's yards for this guy and so I let a tiny bit of hope survive that change is possible.
posted by emjaybee at 4:09 PM on June 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

...even when Trump's out of office..., he's still going to keep up the insanity from his Twitter account... I don't think you can tweet from jail, can you?

He doesn't actually run the twitter account that much, it's largely Scavino. I don't expect the tweets will ever stop, even if he dropped dead. His twitter "voice" will live on for forever maintained by acolytes.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:12 PM on June 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

Hey NYC - I'll be outside of ICE HQ at 26 Federal Plaza noonish with some signs. There's no protest planned as far as I know. I just need to do something, and this is what I thought of. Friendly faces welcome.
posted by prefpara at 4:13 PM on June 13, 2018 [54 favorites]

Rick Scott boldly advocating for the end of pre-existing condition protections. Because cancer patients have themselves to blame.

American Bridge
Wow: @ScottforFlorida just admitted he thinks returning to a time when insurance companies could discriminate based on pre-existing conditions is a good idea.

“We’ve got to reward people for taking care of themselves...It’s no different from what companies have done the past.”

VIDEO
posted by chris24 at 4:14 PM on June 13, 2018 [22 favorites]

We’ve got to reward people for taking care of themselves

That um... that applies to some actions one could take right now but none of those are "not having a pre-existing condition".
posted by Slackermagee at 4:18 PM on June 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

@atrupar: Trump claims, preposterously, that parents of Korean War veterans came up to him during the 2016 campaign and said, "when you can, we'd love our son to be brought back home -- you know, the remains." The Korean War ended in 1953.
posted by zachlipton at 4:19 PM on June 13, 2018 [31 favorites]

I picked up on that one in real time. It was so ridiculously preposterous I did a spit take. Dude literally can't help himself. Actually I think I was reacting to a different time he said people asked him for their sons back. So it wasn't a slip of the tongue he really is all in on this bullshit.
posted by Justinian at 4:21 PM on June 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Trump claims, preposterously, that parents of Korean War veterans came up to him during the 2016 campaign and said, "when you can, we'd love our son to be brought back home -- you know, the remains." The Korean War ended in 1953.

At my most charitable, I'll say that sometimes people use general language, like "Bring back our boys" to refer to people who would be like 80 years old now. I have been guilty of this myself. But like - it's commonly understood by everyone you talk to that if you're forty years old and saying "Bring back our boys" you don't actually mean your literal boys.

This is such a small thing to get angry about and yet. And yet.
posted by corb at 4:30 PM on June 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

i think the point here is that for people to have lost children (let's be generous and say 18-25 year old soldiers) in the korean war, those parents would be about 100 years old right now. no significant number of 100 year olds have ever at any time spoken to trump for any reason. his lies are stupid and lazy and so are the people, his fans, who believe them.
posted by poffin boffin at 4:34 PM on June 13, 2018 [47 favorites]

he literally only said it because one time he heard someone mention we had participated in a war in korea. he doesn't know when, or where, or why. all he knows is how to spew moronic, meaningless glurge, the shit that his fans send one another in FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: emails and post about ungrammatically on flag-laden facebook pages.
posted by poffin boffin at 4:36 PM on June 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

They'd be closer to 110 in most cases. There's only a handful of people that old in the entire world. They are not talking to Trump.
posted by Justinian at 4:37 PM on June 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

(The median age of a Korean War veteran today would be almost 90.)
posted by Justinian at 4:38 PM on June 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

It’s the M*A*S*H error - he’s thinking of Vietnam.
posted by Artw at 4:42 PM on June 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

His twitter "voice" will live on for forever maintained by acolytes.

That was the really sad thing for me about the story going around last month about the school teacher who corrected a letter from the White House and sent it back; that the Office of Presidential Correspondence has adopted a house style to mimic Trump's grammar and capitalization eccentricities from twitter. It made me sad our government was intentionally producing garbage writing to send people who took the time to write their president.
posted by peeedro at 4:51 PM on June 13, 2018 [18 favorites]

@maxwelltani: Trump says Russia should be back in the G-7 because over dinner, he could ask Putin: "Would you do me a favor? Would you get out of Syria? Would you do me a favor? Would you get out of Ukraine? Get out of Ukraine, you shouldn't be there, just c'mon."

Trump's said a lot of dumb things, but thinking Putin will pull out of Ukraine because he says "just c'mon" (*Will Arnett voice*) and invites him to meetings is a new low.

Quite. Besides, it’s been done, Canadian accent and all.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:55 PM on June 13, 2018

the Office of Presidential Correspondence has adopted a house style to mimic Trump's grammar and capitalization eccentricities from twitter.

Working Towards The Twëeter.

Not really a joke; that's what it is.
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:57 PM on June 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

It's a different M*A*S*H error -- the show debuted in the 70s, and he thinks it's an early example of reality TV.
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:59 PM on June 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

CBS News: Sarah Sanders, Raj Shah planning to depart the White House
posted by octothorpe at 5:13 PM on June 13, 2018 [16 favorites]

Sources told the network that Sanders is planning on leaving the job by the end of the year. Deputy press secretary Raj Shah is also reportedly eyeing a White House exit, but has not yet decided on a departure date. Both officials are among the most visible members of the Trump administration, and would be the latest communications staffers to depart the White House. The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

🎉 🎉 🎉 🎉 🎉 🎉 🎉
posted by Rust Moranis at 5:14 PM on June 13, 2018 [9 favorites]

(Eventually, maybe at the end of the year.)
posted by zachlipton at 5:15 PM on June 13, 2018

LIARS NEEDED
INQUIRE WITHIN
posted by EarBucket at 5:25 PM on June 13, 2018 [34 favorites]

Politico: White House Counsel McGahn Recused His Office from Mueller Probe

White House Counsel Don McGahn recused his entire staff last summer from working on the Russia investigation because many of his office’s lawyers played significant roles in key episodes at the center of the probe, former White House attorney Ty Cobb said on Wednesday.

McGahn made the decision to halt his staff’s interactions with Special Counsel Robert Mueller because many of his own attorneys “had been significant participants” surrounding the firings of national security adviser Michael Flynn and FBI Director James Comey, Cobb said.

“The White House made a decision to recuse his entire office,” Cobb said during a panel discussion hosted by George Mason University in Northern Virginia.

The former Trump White House lawyer explained that McGahn’s recusal was a key reason for why he was hired last summer to manage President Donald Trump’s official response on the Russia case, including filling Mueller’s requests for documents and arranging interviews with current and former White House aides.[...]

McGahn and at least two of his top aides, chief of staff Ann Donaldson and former senior associate counsel James Burnham, have sat for interviews with Mueller.

McGahn himself was questioned by the special counsel for his role in Flynn’s firing last February, as well as Comey’s ouster that May. He’s also explained Trump’s request to try to stop Attorney General Jeff Sessions from recusing himself from the Russia probe.

(Also, is anyone working on a new thread this evening? We're definitely going to need one before the DoJIG's report tomorrow.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:29 PM on June 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

WaPo, Pressure on Michael Cohen intensifies as Mueller stays focused on the Trump attorney

Cohen is under intensifying scrutiny from federal prosecutors in Manhattan who are examining his business practices, as well as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is continuing to investigate episodes involving Cohen, according to a witness who testified in front of a grand jury in Washington last week.

Andrii V. Artemenko, a former member of the Ukrainian parliament, said in an interview that many of the questions he faced during several hours of testimony Friday were focused on his interactions with Cohen. Artemenko met with Cohen in January 2017 to discuss a back-channel peace initiative for Ukraine.

“I realized that Michael Cohen is a target” of special interest to Mueller, Artemenko told The Washington Post this week, days after he was questioned.
...
The special counsel’s ongoing questions about Cohen’s activities indicate that Mueller remains intently focused on Trump’s attorney, even after referring a separate probe into Cohen’s business practices to federal prosecutors in Manhattan months ago.
...
The president’s allies are worried that prosecutors in Manhattan are attempting to build a criminal case against Cohen to push him to cooperate with the special-counsel probe — a prospect they see as potentially dire.

Artemenko says he was questioned about the backchannel Ukraine deal that went through Cohen, which yep, seems like something to focus on. I do appreciate the rundown of Cohen's conflicting stories about the envelope that resulted from that meeting, in which Cohen has claimed he delivered it to Flynn and also said he threw it away unopened.
posted by zachlipton at 5:38 PM on June 13, 2018 [13 favorites]

Jacob Soboroff just toured the Brownsville facility for detained child migrants, and will be talking about it on MSNBC shortly:

Just finished tour, don’t even know where to start. One of the first things you notice when you walk into the shelter — no joke — a mural of Trump with the quote “sometimes losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.” Presidential murals everywhere. But that one is 1st.

This shelter, Casa Padre, is the largest licensed childcare facility of its kind in the country. Nearly 1,500 boys 10-17 in here now. They’re supposed to sleep four to room. Nearly every room has 5. They’ve received a variance from the state because of overcrowding.

Officials here said they’ve never had an MS-13 member here, ever. Moments after we walked in a shelter employee asked us to smile at hundreds of detained migrant kids in line for a meal because “they feel like animals in a cage being looked at.”

Kids here get only two hours a day to be outside in fresh air. One hour of structured time. One hour of free time. The rest of the day is spent inside a former Wal Mart
...
But things are moving in the wrong direction — capacity is 1497 and tonight 1469 boys will sleep here.

have been inside a federal prison and county jails.

This place is called a shelter but these kids are incarcerated.

No cells and no cages, and they get to go to classes about American history and watch Moana, but they’re in custody.

posted by zachlipton at 5:47 PM on June 13, 2018 [70 favorites]

Sources told the network that Sanders is planning on leaving the job by the end of the year.

Straight to a fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School, undoubtedly.

Everyone who voluntarily works with the Trump administration should be absolutely unemployable. If any organization you're in contact with hires Sanders, or Spicer, or Nielsen, or Kelly, stop supporting that institution, full stop. Cold Turkey. No exceptions. These people should not be welcome in polite society, ever again, for any reason. The Tomi Lehren treatment is how every Trump apologist should be treated. No jobs. No respect. Drink in the face in public. They're all unredeemable, and any institution that touches them should be made to answer for it just the same.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:48 PM on June 13, 2018 [69 favorites]

The president’s allies are worried that prosecutors in Manhattan are attempting to build a criminal case against Cohen to push him to cooperate with the special-counsel probe — a prospect they see as potentially dire.

Over a year into the Mueller investigation and I still can't get over how absurd it is that 1) every time Trump allies talk about this stuff they're just like "oh, yeah, there's a mountain of stuff there for Mueller if this guy flips, it would be a disaster!" and 2) pretty much nobody in the media is talking about that even though it's right there in the quotes from their sources, it is so goddamn weird and makes me feel crazy.
posted by jason_steakums at 5:56 PM on June 13, 2018 [29 favorites]

One of the first things you notice when you walk into the shelter — no joke — a mural of Trump with the quote “sometimes losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.” Presidential murals everywhere. But that one is 1st.

Fucking fuck. Seriously, how fucking fucked up is this? 1,500 scared imprisoned kids, and do you put up some kid art or calming scenes of puppies with inscriptions in Spanish? No, you paint propaganda murals of Dear Leader like some kind of surreal Stalinist nightmare. I can't tell if this is meant more as morale-building for the CBP/ICE thugs or intimidation aimed at the kids. Chilling.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:02 PM on June 13, 2018 [97 favorites]

Addition from Soboroff:

Something I just told @chrislhayes: this place is a licensed child care facility with trained staff. There are 26 operated by the same nonprofit, @SouthwestKey. [the joint with the $770k CEO]

Its president told me that potential new tent cities that will be on federal property *don’t* have to be licensed.

So basically, this one is the Ritz Carlton of juvenile concentration camps. The rest will be much worse.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:17 PM on June 13, 2018 [46 favorites]

the tent city thing freaks me the fuck out for so many, many reasons but the main one is: it's texas. in the summer. i realize they're more likely to give out some overbid contract to some piece of shit shady supplier to poorly, barely, climate control everything rather than just let the kids all die from heatstroke, but like. they might not.

i've reached the point where i'm reminding myself how much the us military spent on a/c during the iraq war, to comfort myself that since someone will probably be able to make a huge profit in very slightly lessening the harm being done to these kids, it makes it more likely to happen. that's where i'm at today.
posted by poffin boffin at 6:30 PM on June 13, 2018 [27 favorites]

This is a small ray of hope in the sea of horror that is happening with immigration, asylum seekers, the EPA, the G-7, etc. I was just on the conference call for people who have volunteered for March For Our Lives, Road to Change, the Parkland Students Summer Tour for registering young people to vote. I volunteered to register voters at their first event/kick off in Chicago on Friday, June 15 from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm:
The Faith Community of Saint Sabina's
Annual End of the School Year Peace March & Rally
Rally in the parking lot of Saint Sabina Church
at 78th Place and Throop Street

The young people from Parkland sounded awesome on the phone call, can't wait to see them on Friday. I'm also bringing petitions for Term Limits for Office of the Mayor in Chicago, which we hope to have on the ballot in November.

Do something. Anything. E-mail your elected officials, call if you are up to calling them. Send $5.00 (or $1.00 if that is all you can do) to a charity helping immigrants, talk to your family, friends, neighbors, the checkout person at the store, ANYONE you are comfortable talking with and ask if they are registered to vote and if they plan on voting. If you can do more aggressive things, do them, but it is ok to not be able to do them. Do the things you can. It helps me to disburse my feelings of hopelessness and despair. And I have moments of hope!
posted by W Grant at 6:42 PM on June 13, 2018 [17 favorites]

Soboroff's tour of the boys' concentration camp is a propaganda exercise. That's not his fault; it's better that we have some information about what's going on, even if it's been managed by the regime. Don't let this be like the Red Cross visits to Theresienstadt, though. Watch for the lacunae, the places they couldn't enter, the people they couldn't speak to, and (most importantly) the people who weren't there. Totalitarian regimes protect their agents through secrecy. If any of you have the opportunity to document anything associated with this, even just someone's name, please do so - and share the information.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:43 PM on June 13, 2018 [66 favorites]

The tent city thing must be inspired by Joe Arpaio. And by a desire to be just as cruel for even less reason.
posted by mubba at 6:49 PM on June 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

a mural of Trump with the quote “sometimes losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.”

Straight out of a North Korean prison camp. Why do you think he gets along so well with Kim? This is what it was always all about. One giant abusive household, the abuser's cruelty and manipulation trickling all the way down onto the very most powerless, the very most vulnerable. Making every single one of us a part of it and complicit through inaction.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:53 PM on June 13, 2018 [36 favorites]

Here's the mural.

People are going to want you to forgive this some day. Never.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:00 PM on June 13, 2018 [86 favorites]

I'd be tempted to paint something like "faith sets you free" on there and see if anyone noticed.

This is really bad, guys. And no one appears to be doing much of anything particularly effective about it. I'm not excepting myself there. Like everyone else I have my excuses.
posted by Justinian at 7:04 PM on June 13, 2018 [16 favorites]

MSNBC video of the "Child Immigrant Detention Center" report.

I mean, wasn't this exactly what the Tea Party assholes screamed about for years? Like pretty much down to the "abandoned WalMart" details. Well, except everyone was going to be white. What a disgusting trainwreck this is.
posted by petebest at 7:16 PM on June 13, 2018 [18 favorites]

Here's the mural.

Jesus, we've finally reached full dystopia. We have always been friends with North Korea.
posted by Sphinx at 7:19 PM on June 13, 2018 [9 favorites]

I'm a little surprised nobody snuck a Pepe in there.
posted by contraption at 7:24 PM on June 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

Straight out of a North Korean prison camp.
That is straight out of Jeff Sessions twisted mind and black heart via Stephen Miller. Miller worked for Sessions, he also worked for Michelle Bachman. There is a special kind of twisted crazy in him.

Trump is the puppet, he is not the problem, he is a huge orange symptom of the problem(s). If he leaves office early, Jeff Sessions will still be there, Mitch McConnell will still be there, the Republican Party will still be there, the White Evangelicals will still be there, Police will still be actively slaughtering people of color...white supremacy will still be fighting to the death to survive.

People are doing things about this, just today a group of congresspeople "From left, Reps. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., actor John Cusack, Reps. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., John Lewis, D-Ga., Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., Al Green, D-Texas, Judy Chu, D-Calif., and others march on 14th Street, NW, to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection offices in protest of the Trump Administration's policy of separating families". They also went to the White House and shut the street down there for awhile. And Senate Dems introduce bill to prevent separation of families at border. It will take time to educate the public on this, just to get them to know what is happening -- there were two major distractions this past week, the G-7 and then the North Korea distraction that the media focused on. We need to keep working to keep these horrors in the news and making Americans aware of what is happening. The People in power in Washington, and in Texas, and in Arizona do not want this talked about -- they want it expanded -- we have to overcome that power. Public pressure from the masses can still change things, but we have to work at amassing that pressure.
posted by W Grant at 7:25 PM on June 13, 2018 [28 favorites]

I hope Jesus is real and he comes back and he's fucking pissed. To paraphrase Denis Leary, have you ever taken a cold shower? Well multiply that by 15 million times. That's how pissed off Jesus should be at these so called followers of his enabling this ghoulishness.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 7:28 PM on June 13, 2018 [9 favorites]

I hope Jesus is real and he comes back and he's fucking pissed.

The thing about Rightwing Jesus is if he exists, he doesn't deserve to be worshipped. And if the Jesus they pretend to worship exists, they'll all burn in hell.
posted by chris24 at 7:31 PM on June 13, 2018 [18 favorites]

I mentioned this before, but it is kinda strange to see the immigration services acting as an ad hoc child welfare agency. I'm beginning to wonder if it really would be so crazy for a group of state AGs to sue for custody of the minors to be transferred to the appropriate state agencies because public safety, public health and the general police power are reserved to the states Constitutionally.

That immigration is a pretty clearly Federal matter weighs against that but. Tent cities. Derelict Walmarts. Worth a try?
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:32 PM on June 13, 2018 [13 favorites]

Comcast offers $65 Billion for the controls to Trump's brain

$65B for Fox media properties, including Fox "News". That's 20% more than Disney offered. Disney now has five days to counter.

This just in, television has little to no effect on human behavior, which is why it shouldn't be regulated or discussed as such. And now, this.
posted by petebest at 7:38 PM on June 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

Fox News is not part of the 21st Century Fox bidding war.
posted by reductiondesign at 7:39 PM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Fox News is not part of the 21st Century Fox bidding war.

Yes it is. Disney was going to divest FNC and Sky as part of the deal. They only want the vast content libraries that Fox have for TV and movies letting them go toe to toe with Netflix.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 7:44 PM on June 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Call for donations to Texas immigrants' rights org RAICES's immigration bail fund

I didn't even think about this, but apparently you can't get out of immigration detention until you pay your full "immigration bond" of anywhere between $1500 and $10,000. And then they make you "rent" an electronic monitor, because they are Nazi garbage.

So in addition to everything else, you have to pay thousands of dollars before you can even deal with all the rest of the stuff. And who would have $10,000 more easily available than someone who fled violence or poverty and maybe has already paid a coyote or a "job" service thousands of dollars?

If - and it's a big if - we get family separation and child detention stopped, we have to press on and smash the whole thing, or it will just be whole families sitting in the cold room in detention with no meds, blankets or food because they don't have $40,000 in cold cash money.
posted by Frowner at 7:47 PM on June 13, 2018 [31 favorites]

NYT: "The Fox News cable network, the Fox broadcast stations, the Fox Business Network and the sports network FS1 would not be part of a transaction."

CNBC: "The deal included Fox's movie studios, networks National Geographic and FX, Star TV, and stakes in Sky, Endemol Shine Group and Hulu, as well as regional sports networks."

WSJ: "Neither bid includes Fox News, Fox Sports 1 or the Fox broadcast network and its TV stations, which will be spun off into a new company."
posted by reductiondesign at 7:49 PM on June 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

Yeah... Corporate hegemony or not, it’d be a bit weird for for the same company to own Fox News and MSNBC.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:53 PM on June 13, 2018

"Next on Fox and Dyed In the Wool Enemies, 30 minutes incomprehensible shouting, and drug advertisements"
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:57 PM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Sarah Sanders
‏Verified account @PressSec

Does @CBSNews know something I don’t about my plans and my future? I was at my daughter’s year-end Kindergarten event and they ran a story about my “plans to leave the WH” without even talking to me. I love my job and am honored to work for @POTUS

*hungrily glances toward jar of popcorn kernels*
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:58 PM on June 13, 2018 [22 favorites]

It's weird because I'm pretty sure Sarah Sanders knows how to explicitly deny something if she wants to, and she didn't actually do that here despite using a lot of words.
posted by zachlipton at 8:01 PM on June 13, 2018 [48 favorites]

Ronna McDaniel
@GOPChairwoman
Complacency is our enemy. Anyone that does not embrace the @realDonaldTrump agenda of making America great again will be making a mistake.
7:22 PM - Jun 13, 2018

Threatening any elected Republicans who might feel a tug of conscience about child concentration camps. Also known as Wednesday.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:01 PM on June 13, 2018 [30 favorites]

Major sports and news assets including Fox News, Fox Business Network and Fox Sports would be spun off into a separate company.

My mistake, Trump's brain is *not* a part of the $65Billion sale. I regret the error. We now return you to your regularly scheduled inchoate screaming, already in progress.
posted by petebest at 8:02 PM on June 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Threatening any elected Republicans who might feel a tug of conscience about child concentration camps. Also known as Wednesday.

You're being generous assuming that's just a threat against R pols.
posted by chris24 at 8:03 PM on June 13, 2018 [21 favorites]

I mentioned this before, but it is kinda strange to see the immigration services acting as an ad hoc child welfare agency

Technically, I believe they're under the care of HHS. It's still all very weird and bad, but that's the system that was hurriedly set up in 2003 when they created DHS, and it hasn't been fixed since. We need some system for unaccompanied minors- I don't think this is at all optimal- but minors who show up at the southern border have to be someone's responsibility.

It was one thing when Obama's HHS had to face an unprecedented wave of unaccompanied minors and another when Trump's ICE is ramping up detentions of accompanied minors, so.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:04 PM on June 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Yeah I took that to be a threat against all of us
posted by localhuman at 8:09 PM on June 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

Politico, Annie Karni, Trump White House advertises at a Hill job fair amid staff exodus

The White House – which has been having trouble filling positions as it bleeds staffers – is now trying to find recruits at a conservative job fair on the Hill.

“Interested in a job at the White House?” is the subject line of an email that was blasted out widely to Republicans on the Hill late Wednesday advertising the upcoming event.

It promises that “representatives from across the Trump administration will be there to meet job seekers of every experience level.” A person familiar with the planning said that Johnny DeStefano, who oversees the White House personnel department, and Sean Doocey, a deputy assistant to the president for presidential personnel, are expected to be on hand, among other officials from the West Wing.
...
A job fair is seen as an unusual step for a White House to take. Typically jobs in the executive branch are coveted career-making opportunities.

A former Obama administration official said it would have been unheard of in the previous administration, and that West Wing jobs were rarely even listed on UsaJobs.Gov, the official job search site for the federal government. But the executive branch of the Obama administration did sometimes host events on campuses of historically black colleges and universities to meet potential candidates from underrepresented groups, the former official added.

posted by zachlipton at 8:10 PM on June 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

It's weird because I'm pretty sure Sarah Sanders knows how to explicitly deny something if she wants to, and she didn't actually do that here despite using a lot of words.

My parsing of that tweet is that SHS believes that

(a) disdainful criticism of liberal media
(b) potentially relatable family values content
(c) flat denial of a liberal media assertion
(d) blatant adoration of the glorious leader

will be enough to get her a Personal Audience with the Autocrat where she can use her trumpwhispering skills to absolve herself and/or distract him onto another, more emotionally-gratifying topic for long enough to arrange for herself a quiet exit.

The complicity of the high-level women in the Trump Administration is so frustrating and exhausting.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:11 PM on June 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

Oh, sure, deny you're quitting now, but wait a week.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:22 PM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

A presidential portrait is framed and hung so you can easy swap it out for the new guy.

We're never going to be rid of this meddlesome p-word, that's what this means.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:31 PM on June 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

They've taken down his name from many of "his" buildings already. He may be trying for more permanent trophies, but the chances of that are all dependent on the upcoming elections (is it under 20 weeks away already?). Walls can always be painted over, especially in big box stores, which previously had ugly logos and slogans on them.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:43 PM on June 13, 2018

Walls can always be painted over

Damnatio Memoriae. Best case scenario is he gets Geta'd.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:53 PM on June 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

F&M poll of PA races:

* Senate: Casey leads Barletta, 44-27

* Governor: Wolf leads Wagner, 48-29

[MOE: +/- 6.5%]
posted by Chrysostom at 9:14 PM on June 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

Why is "Autocracy: Rules for Survival" Masha Gessen speaking at a $500/ticket Intellectual Dark Web event alongside racists, fascists and islamophobes, and featuring session titles "Has #MeToo Gone #TooFar?" and "Does Islam Pose a Unique Challenge to Modernity?"

It's still not clear what went on here, but Masha Geesen apparently asked herself the same question, saying that they misrepresented the event and she's pulling out.
posted by zachlipton at 9:15 PM on June 13, 2018 [27 favorites]

She doesn't believe Russia interfered with the U.S. elections. I listened to her on a New Yorker podcast. This was just something she brought up at one point and then moved on. Yes, the interviewer was incredulous. I have no idea if she feels strongly about it. Anyway, I'll bet that's where the invite came from.
posted by xammerboy at 9:43 PM on June 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Sabato moves OH races left:

* Senate: Leans D => Likely D

* Governor: Leans R => Toss-up
posted by Chrysostom at 10:05 PM on June 13, 2018 [16 favorites]

Sounds like she's on the nose. CNN is, as always, a garbage fire which has been the TrumpRuussia channel for more than a year.
posted by Yowser at 10:14 PM on June 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

I feel a lot of the "left" people who discount Russian interference or blame the Democratic party for Trump or whatever just want to feel special. Like they're the smartest guy in the room and of course you would believe those things because you're not as intelligent as them and by the way here are the real bad guys. It's part cynicism towards everyone and part ego. But all exhausting.
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:31 PM on June 13, 2018 [28 favorites]

Having read a bunch of Gessen's writings on the Russian election stuff (and they are numerous) I come away with the strong impression that a lot of her skepticism as to various aspects are driven by the concern that we may use the Russia plot as an excuse not to come to terms with the American populace's responsibility for Trump's election. Which makes sense given her concern about autocracy. Gessen very much does not want us to believe that Trump only happened because RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA. Trump happened because a hell of a lot of Americans are ignorant racist fucknozzles and a bunch more are lazy ignoramouses who couldn't be bothered to vote even in the face of racist authoritariansim.

I do think she perhaps somewhat undersells the Russian interference. Mostly by writing a lot about the troll farms and such and less about the DNC and other hacking efforts, and minimizing the social media efforts as ravings of subliterate trolls. I think our understanding of the situation has moved past that. We can't say that this swung the election. But we certainly can't say it didn't, either.
posted by Justinian at 10:33 PM on June 13, 2018 [49 favorites]

There may be a generational aspect to people who don't see the effectiveness of Russia's social media efforts as well. Gessen is 51 which is by no means particularly old but it does mean she didn't grow up online and connected the way people even 10 years younger than she did may have. I have noticed something of an age divide in how seriously people take that part of the Russian plot.
posted by Justinian at 10:35 PM on June 13, 2018 [14 favorites]

I don’t think it has to be one thing or another. The fact of the matter is that America has been divided for a long time, thanks to the Republicans, Fox News, and others who have stoked racial fears and culture war animosity within the country, and pitted our citizens against each other. It’s not too ridiculous to believe that an outside source could manipulate this environment through a combination of cyber crimes, money laundering, media manipulation, propaganda, and a whole boatload of other tactics: some that were targeted and with a clear purpose (for example: using social media to instigate protests and counter-protests), and some that just happened to work out by chance. We have indictments against people and organizations that literally lay out an actual Russian plot, as well as evidence of other instances that probably helped further the result but may not have been part of the plot. I don’t know if Trump yammering about Obama’s birth certificate on Fox News all the time was part of any plot, but it definitely fed into a media narrative that Obama was a Muslim, which continues to persist to this day, and is really a small part of a bigger picture.
posted by gucci mane at 11:04 PM on June 13, 2018 [10 favorites]

So, I've been busy and haven't been, uh, mired or anchored in the news, but based on the snippets I've seen in the last 24 hours and cross referencing that with the evidence of incompetence and the pattern of things coming true when someone rather orange says the opposite on Twitter over last 1.5 years multiplexed with whatever insane timeline we're on...

...I'm just going to happily eat an avocado or two, go peacefully to bed and assume that one or more of the following is going to happen within the next few days, weeks or before the 4th of July.

A) There is a McDonald's and a Trump Hotel opening in North Korea.

B) The entire planet is going to get nuked except - somehow - for North Korea.

C) Trump calls a press conference where he undresses completely, unzips the skin down his back and Kim Jung Un steps out in a flawless tuxedo like that one James Bond scene.

D) Trump's hair finally starts talking, saluting and issuing orders like Dr. Strangelove's mechanical arm.

But I'm holding out for Z) which is the part where I find my damn portal gun and get back to like at least C150 or even maybe C148 or so because this timeline is fucking dumb, and at this point I doubt I'll ever find C147 again and it was vaguely mellow, if predictable.
posted by loquacious at 11:04 PM on June 13, 2018 [15 favorites]

MSNBC video of the "Child Immigrant Detention Center" report.

I did a short turn as a teacher in a juvenile detention center once. What I'm seeing here is basically the same except worse. There's less privacy. These kids have no sense of how long they're supposed to be there. They don't have lawyers or family contact. And--with a caveat for appropriate skepticism of our criminal justice system--the kids I taught were awaiting trial for violent crimes, or actually convicted of them. These migrant kids did nothing of the sort.

This is a nightmare.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:05 PM on June 13, 2018 [70 favorites]

Mike Pompeo lashed out at reporters when asked about how Pyongyang’s disarmament would be verified.

When pressed, the secretary of state lost his temper. “I find that question insulting and ridiculous and, frankly, ludicrous,” the former Republican congressman said. “I just have to be honest with you. It’s a game and one ought not play games with serious matters like this.”

So... I guess Trump told Pompeo the agreement will be based on pinkie swear? I mean, I definitely wouldn't have thought there was a problem, but Pompeo is acting like a teenager asked why he smells like smoke.
posted by xammerboy at 11:52 PM on June 13, 2018 [36 favorites]

Well, to be fair to Pompeo, it's been obvious for some time that Republicans consider accountability of any kind nothing more than a game to be played. It's quite understandable that even they might be getting weary and frustrated that they have to belabor that point.
posted by wildblueyonder at 11:57 PM on June 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

Wow that's crappier than I imagined. It's not even competent naziïng. Clip art of Klownwig, the WH, and flag - and block all-caps text. I guess we should appreciate the lack of misspellings and errant Capitalization.

Not that it's better by any material measure, but the video shows murals of Obama and Ulysses Grant and quotes from them as well as the one of Trump. I assume that this is the reason for the repeated emphasis that the children at the center are "learning American history." (Their own mass detention probably being the most important lesson about American History.)
posted by XMLicious at 12:15 AM on June 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

But I'm holding out for Z) which is the part where I find my damn portal gun and get back to like at least C150 or even maybe C148 or so because this timeline is fucking dumb, and at this point I doubt I'll ever find C147 again and it was vaguely mellow, if predictable.

Counterpoint: CERN broke Reality, and there's no going back.
posted by mikelieman at 1:16 AM on June 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

WaPo has an article up about Casa Padre (the Brownsville former Walmart.) Video is embedded.

"The policy of criminally prosecuting all who cross the border illegally is creating a new category of residents at these holding centers, young boys and girls who are grappling with the trauma of being unexpectedly separated from their mothers and fathers. To accommodate them, Sanchez said Southwest Key is retrofitting some facilities with smaller bathrooms, smaller sinks, smaller everything."

The quote on the mural of Trump should actually read “sometimes dodging a battle you find a new way to dodge the war.”

And painting over is too mild. It's much more satisfying to have at it with a paintball gun, a wrecking ball or the judicious use of high explosives.
posted by Stoneshop at 2:47 AM on June 14, 2018

OnceUponATime: They've had two weeks to put together a show. It's good to know who is easily fooled by potemkin villages, though.
posted by Yowser at 3:11 AM on June 14, 2018 [14 favorites]

@DvoraMeyers: The Orthodox Union gave Jeff Sessions a "justice" award. The OU is a fucking joke.

And these pieces of shit have the gall to go after people like me and call us kapos.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:18 AM on June 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

That Ronna McDaniel quote is almost as chilling as the mural. She's one shade of plausible deniability away from "Those who dare oppose us will stand knee-deep in the blood of their children."

There's a process at work here — not that this is news to anyone here, but it would be lovely to see it reported on in what passes for the national press. The straight-up fascists are getting emboldened. Trump himself is finally free of most of the actors and structures that had inhibited the untrammeled expression of his id, and the sense of disinhibition is now cascading down through the Partei.

Through some combination of perceived permission to unleash their own inner foulness, and abject, doglike working-toward-the-Führer dynamics, the gloves are coming off, the rhetoric is becoming more overt, they no longer bother to dissemble their links to out-and-proud white supremacists. We're at the final inflection point, the place where what it is this administration is becoming (and has always wanted in its not-so-secret heart to be) is being made plain for all to see. If this moral test is flunked there will be no others that count, until we reach whatever reckoning passes for Nuremberg in our time.
posted by adamgreenfield at 3:19 AM on June 14, 2018 [45 favorites]

Fed Chief ‘Puzzled’ That Despite Good Economy, Few Workers Getting Raises
When will people finally start getting meaningful pay raises?
Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, had no satisfactory answer.
He called it a “puzzle.” And then, as if measuring his words, he said he wasn’t prepared to call it a “mystery.”

It's almost as if there's a predatory wealthy class sucking up all the economic gains... naaaah.
posted by PenDevil at 3:40 AM on June 14, 2018 [86 favorites]

(It's not just the United States, either. The fascists are outing themselves all over the world. Trump is, as usual, less a tribune or a champion than an epiphenomenon.)
posted by adamgreenfield at 3:43 AM on June 14, 2018 [16 favorites]

Oh, and look: the OU enthusiastically supported hate in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. That's a fairly large percentage of Jewish Americans that have decided to voluntarily and even happily reward fascists for concentration camps, pogroms, expansion of the secret police; and subhuman status for groups that have shared our fates, not just during the Holocaust, but throughout history. And no, a weak-ass "private conversation" beforehand does not and will not absolve them of their transgressions or their complicity. This is throwing away 3000 years of history for what amounts to tax breaks and subsidies, and the ability to allow hate crimes.

I sincerely hope that individual Orthodox organizations and congregations condemn this in the strongest terms possible, and break off any association with the OU in the event it doesn't completely backtrack.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:57 AM on June 14, 2018 [23 favorites]

I can't believe I'll be voting for Tim Kaine in order to stop an idiot nazi. For the second time. But here we are.
posted by Harry Caul at 4:22 AM on June 14, 2018 [18 favorites]

Whelp, I'm beside myself again.

TRUMP (on Kim Jong-Un "clearly executing people"): "He's a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father....I don't care who you are, what you are, how much of an advantage you have... if you could do that at 27-years old, I mean, that's 1 in 10,000 that could do that...so he's a very smart guy and a great negotiator and I think we understand each other."

Trump was 25 when he took over the company from his dad and re-named it the Trump Organization (It had been called Elizabeth Trump and Son -- i.e. Fred.) What a buch of pathetically transparent horseshit. Trump is, more or less, jealous.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:40 AM on June 14, 2018 [22 favorites]

It's amazing how much "Making America Great Again" involves the President of the United States testifying that there's no real difference between the U.S. and Russia ruled by a former KGB agent or between the U.S. and North Korea. I bet he'll be quoted in lots of school history books... in Russia and China and North Korea.
posted by XMLicious at 5:04 AM on June 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

It's good to know who is easily fooled by potemkin villages, though.

It's the evidence available to us, at the moment. We can keep in mind that new evidence may eventually come out that contradicts it, but we shouldn't dismiss the evidence we have just because it's not what we were expecting. That way lies "Infowars". And we shouldn't give in to the temptation to be disappointed that the situation is not as bad as we thought.
posted by OnceUponATime at 5:10 AM on June 14, 2018 [15 favorites]

Child abuse is now part of America's official immigration policy.
The trauma caused by separations is not the byproduct of necessary legal process – it’s a punishment designed to be grotesque to scare other migrants.
To this administration, asylum is not a valid legal process, it is a loophole that needs to be closed.
posted by adamvasco at 5:23 AM on June 14, 2018 [38 favorites]

I'm glad this camp is no worse, but even if the guided tour accurately reflects it; and even if other camps are of the same standard; it is an outrage that these children are there at all.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:37 AM on June 14, 2018 [17 favorites]

D) Trump's hair finally starts talking, saluting and issuing orders like Dr. Strangelove's mechanical arm.

Not that everything's not terrible, but this needs to get animated, adult-swim-style, tout de suite.

"Mein President" airs Thursday nights @ 11pm, 10pm Central. Starring Rob Corddry as Trump's hairpiece, Todd Barry as Trump's codpiece, and Sarah Silverman as the Diet Coke. Follow the adventures of Trump's hair as it bullies, tweets, and out-guesses itself into a final confrontation with John Oates' moustache
posted by petebest at 5:39 AM on June 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

I'm glad this camp is no worse, but even if the guided tour accurately reflects it; and even if other camps are of the same standard

(Narrator: They are not.)
posted by mikelieman at 5:40 AM on June 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

JustSecurity with a summary of possible information Mueller investigation will/is gather from Cohen.
Short version: Trump Tower Moscow promises for promoting Yanukovich's Ukraine and lifting sanctions on Russia may have become simply straight up cash to Cohen/Trump for same.

All the usual suspects involved: Manafort hand off of Ukraine promotion, Sater in on the Trump Tower dealings early, Steele dossier Cohen-ish elements slowly being confirmed. Vekselberg cash flowing.
posted by Harry Caul at 5:51 AM on June 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Laurie Goodstein (NYT National Religion Correspondent)
THREAD There is sudden, serious pushback from religious leaders to Trump's immigration policies, especially separating families, denying Dreamers a path to legalization and refusing asylum to victims of gang violence and domestic abuse. First up, US Catholic Bishops:

US Catholic Bishops: "Families are the foundational element of our society and they must be able to stay together." STATEMENT

- Southern Baptist Convention passed this: "RESOLVED, That we desire to see immigration reform include an emphasis on securing our borders and providing a pathway to legal status with appropriate restitutionary measures, maintaining the priority of family unity..." Link to the full immigration resolution by the Southern Baptist Convention.
- An even bigger group of evangelicals has sent a letter to President Trump asking that families seeking asylum be kept together because of the "traumatic effects of this separation on these young children."
- Trump supporter @FranklinGraham on @CBNNews: “It’s disgraceful , it’s terrible to see families ripped apart, and I don’t support that one bit. And I blame the politicians for the last 20, 30 years that had allowed this to escalate to the point this is today.”
- Of course, many religious leaders and organizations - Jews, mainline Protestants, Muslims, many more - have been saying these same things consistently. What's changed here is the tenor of the criticism, and the voices.
- When Franklin Graham calls it "disgraceful," that's a change worth noting.
- Some of these religious leaders are the very same evangelicals, Southern Baptists and Catholics who helped Trump build his base.
posted by chris24 at 6:06 AM on June 14, 2018 [58 favorites]

Follow the adventures of Trump's hair as it bullies, tweets, and out-guesses itself into a final confrontation with John Oates' moustache

This reminds me of a sketch the UK's Spitting Image ran during the Reagan years

The president's brain is missing
posted by foleypt at 6:11 AM on June 14, 2018

Every single person involved in the mass torture of children should spend the rest of their lives in jail.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:11 AM on June 14, 2018 [33 favorites]

Thing that occured to me this morning: Casa Padre in Brownsville (where Jacob Soboroff went yesterday) is 1,500 boys. I believe this is the same facility that Senator Jeff Merkley tried to visit a week or so ago.

Where are the girls??
posted by anastasiav at 6:15 AM on June 14, 2018 [58 favorites]

There is sudden, serious pushback from religious leaders to Trump's immigration policies

I’ll believe it from the rightwards religions when it amounts to anything.
posted by Artw at 6:17 AM on June 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

Every single person involved in the mass torture of children should spend the rest of their lives in jail.

If they are going to go full-Nazi, then it's time to go Full-Nuremberg Trials
posted by mikelieman at 6:18 AM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

The constant, ongoing effluvia of power abuse, gaslighting and lies we’ve experienced as a nation has caused me serious stress. I had no idea how just how much, how ground down by it all I’ve felt, until I was dealing with a bad-faith eBay seller this morning and literally broke into tears when discussing it with eBay customer service. (FWIW, eBay ruled in my favor and is forcing the seller to comply, which, thank God for small victories right now, because otherwise I don’t even.)

I feel like our nation has an undiagnosed disease and we can’t get the doctors to take our symptoms seriously. It’s like the whole world is staring in shock at the extent of the problem and how it’s harming us, but the key people that have the power to stop it (elected Republicans) are complicit, and the people who at least have the platforms to call attention to it (elected Dems & the media) are either ineffectual, or cowards, or have an interest in letting the problem continue to grow.

We are being traumatized by a malignant narcissist, people are dying, families are being torn apart, hate and corruption are running amok, and a full third of the country seems to be on board with it.

I desperately need someone with some authority to step in and put a stop to this, and my greatest fear is that neither Mueller, nor November, nor God, nor that Arc of the Moral Universe thingy are going to arrest this evil.
posted by darkstar at 6:21 AM on June 14, 2018 [57 favorites]

It doesn't look as bad as the "call the police on the senator who wants a tour" behavior had led me to expect. Certainly better than the proposed tent cities. But it does appear over crowded with zero privacy.

The reason it "doesn't look as bad" is almost certainly that there has been public outcry over child separation since it started.

Ask yourself this: What reason do you have to believe that the kind of person who runs a detention center for migrant children will treat them any better than he is forced to do?

Don't be fooled. These people are responding to public outcry and media, trying to make things look okay. The minute the pressure is off, it will all slip - maybe not back to cages and mats, but overcrowding, denial of medical care, abuse by staff, trumped up charges against "problem" children, willfully making things hard for parents.

Many people on metafilter are probably familiar with how the Red Cross and other international agencies were allowed to tour the ghettos and camps in Nazi Germany in the beginning. You can find photos of people in "not too bad" (for the value of "not too bad" that equals "stripped of your home and possessions, forced into prison, demonized, deprived of rights, held under threat") physical circumstances, and we all know why those photos were shown and where it all went.

The goal with these situations is to rely on people's underlying racism, just as the goal of those photos was to rely on people's underlying anti-Semitism - we are supposed to think, "well, it's not actually a cage, it's good enough for migrant children, after all they are here illegally", rather than think "no one should be detained this way, burn it down".

Don't get snowed. These are bad people, gussying things up for the cameras doesn't change that.
posted by Frowner at 6:23 AM on June 14, 2018 [128 favorites]

TBH the sanitized version looks pretty bad to me. And Of course there’s worse.
posted by Artw at 6:28 AM on June 14, 2018 [25 favorites]

Sanchez and his wife together make about a million dollars a year running the place.

The kids get two hours of free time a day, of which one hour is outdoor time. They get two phonecalls a week. If you were a kid, your parents were in detention, maybe your other family had problem immigration status, what if you could not even succeed in calling your family on your whole two calls a week?

They just made 700 hires. Want to bet that many of those hires are not vetted for being safe to work around kids?

Kiddie prisons with pool tables are still kiddie prisons.

Remember when we were talking about how Trump is "not normal"?

Many of us on metafilter go through life relatively safe - we have relatively stable interactions with employers, landlords, banks and the police. Because we have our lives to live, it is very, very easy to assume that the existing legal order is basically okay but with a few bad actors, and what it needs is tweaking - after all, our interactions with it are okay, could be a little better but not ruinous.

What should be leaping out at us in this hashtag age is that below the surface of our collective life, things are not fucking normal at all and have never been "normal". Child prisons, even for child criminals, are pretty garbage - kids get abused there all the time. "Keeping kids off the streets" while you make a cool million to run the place is exploitation, not normalcy.

All these systems have to be changed. You know Rokko's Basilisk? (Well, now you do!) These are all basilisks in that once you know, you're on the hook. We know how bad things are. Ignorance is an excuse but we're not ignorant now.
posted by Frowner at 6:33 AM on June 14, 2018 [92 favorites]

From way up thread: "Many of the conversations have circled around Obama holding forth about how much Democrats should be heading into the midterms talking about the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election versus focusing on kitchen table issues."

If a hostile foreign takeover of the United States Treasury, Armed Forces, and industrial base isn't a "kitchen table issue" for voters, then I think we're just about done with this American experiment.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:31 on June 11 [44 favorites +] [!]

Before I left California, I tried to convince one of my friends to vote in the 2016 main election. This woman, a POC, who was couch-surfing and had been effectively homeless for years, pointed out that she had been unable to get hired during Obama's years in office; what difference could her vote possibly make to the quality of her own life? This came from a smart woman with a graduate degree.

At a discount grocery store I talked about the horror of Trump's election with a cashier and another cashier, a man of colour who appeared to be in his 20s, was all, "I never vote. They're all crooks. What's the point?"

It seems to me that a lot of middle-class and upper middle-class white Americans are getting a tiny taste under Trump of the misery and disenfranchisement that others have experienced for years and years and years. I am a white cis lady with white cis privilege. I will do everything in my power (which admittedly is nearly nonexistent) to convince progressive Democrats and Democrats generally to make all upcoming elections about kitchen-table issues and NOT Russian interference.

When I visit California later in the year, I want to talk to people like my unemployed friend and those cashiers about how their local and national votes can make their lives better because of Medicare for All, living-wage laws, etc. Russia's election interference is horrifying. Trump's personality and behaviour are a plague upon this nation. But we cannot take back power via hate voting. We have to give new voters and reluctant voters something to vote for.

That is not catering to Trump voters. Fuck Trump voters. That is simply recognising that humans want to know what's in it for them. There have been lots of good suggestions here on constructive, appealing positions that Democrats already have. I really think if we make any of the elections referendums on Russia or Trump, Trump will get reelected. Please, let's not. Thank you.
posted by Bella Donna at 6:36 AM on June 14, 2018 [25 favorites]

Don't get snowed. These are bad people, gussying things up for the cameras doesn't change that.

The existence of child detention camps is itself the crime. The act of separating children from their parents for no fucking reason is inherently traumatic. It is the crime.

That these people are undoubtedly committing other heinous crimes on top of that — does no one remember that they’ve already admitted to losing 1500 children? Those kids are gone, likely to traffickers; someone with access and authority fucking sold them — does not alter the severity of the underlying crime.

Every single thing about this is evil.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:45 AM on June 14, 2018 [42 favorites]

The comparison to Theresienstadt above was right on and worth repeating. Casa Padre is the sanitized face of horror, and that does not make it or the no doubt worse detention camps remotely acceptable. That's the narrative everyone who talks about it should adopt.
posted by jackbishop at 6:54 AM on June 14, 2018 [21 favorites]

Religions stepping up and calling for families to be imprisoned together is not quite the moral conviction I want to see.
posted by srboisvert at 7:01 AM on June 14, 2018 [56 favorites]

> I really think if we make any of the elections referendums on Russia or Trump, Trump will get reelected. Please, let's not. Thank you.

Who is proposing making elections referendums on Russia or Trump? This is a caricature of what is actually happening, and that's what makes Obama's false dichotomy between Russia and "kitchen table issues" so frustrating. The 2018 elections will be, for the most part, localized races where Democrats run on local issues, but they should not be afraid to run against a very unpopular President who is taking foreign policy orders from the Kremlin when such appeals will help them win. This idea that Democrats are or will be all "RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP" has no basis in reality. It should be "both, and".
posted by tonycpsu at 7:04 AM on June 14, 2018 [16 favorites]

Well, there's this statement from Cardinal Sean O'Malley in Boston:

These individuals and families are fleeing documented violence, chaos and murder in the neighborhoods of Central America. The United States is now openly before the world using children as pawns to enforce a hostile immigration policy. This strategy is morally unacceptable and denies the clear danger weighing upon those seeking our assistance.

posted by adamg at 7:05 AM on June 14, 2018 [85 favorites]

chris24: “We’ve got to reward people for taking care of themselves...It’s no different from what companies have done the past.”

That's right, people have as much control over their bodies as ... bosses have over their companies. Yup, that checks out, nothing unusual with that statement.

When will we give companies the power to vote? They have the power of free speech and freedom of religion, so voting is next, right?

And now a word from your doctor(s): Fed-up AMA doctors overwhelmingly support gun restrictions in sweeping votes -- They voted to support assault weapon bans, minimum buying age, and closing loopholes. (Beth Mole for Ars Technica, June 13, 2018)

The nation’s largest physicians group overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday to adopt a series of aggressive stances on gun control (NYT) and other policies aimed at curbing gun violence, according to the Associated Press. These include blanket support of assault weapon bans and disapproval of arming teachers.

The sweeping support for the measures comes amid a streak of school shootings, high rates of gun violence in inner cities, and soaring suicide rates (firearms are the most common method of suicide, accounting for roughly 49 percent, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

"We as physicians are the witnesses to the human toll of this disease," Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency-medicine specialist at Brown University, said at the meeting.
...
The members also voted to:

Support laws requiring licensing and safety training for gun owners, as well as registration of guns

Support any laws banning people younger than 21 from buying a gun or ammunition

Push for laws allowing relatives to obtain court orders to remove guns from suicidal or imminently violent individuals

Push for training for doctors to better recognize suicide risks in patients

Push for eliminating loopholes that allow people with a legal history of domestic violence, including stalking, to buy or own a firearm

The AMA represents less than a quarter of the nation’s doctors, with 243,000 members in 2017. But it has been a heavy hitter in lobbying. Between 1998 and 2011, the group was the second highest spender on lobbyists in the country, spending $263 million.

posted by filthy light thief at 7:11 AM on June 14, 2018 [21 favorites]

TRUMP (on Kim Jong-Un "clearly executing people"): "He's a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father....I don't care who you are, what you are, how much of an advantage you have... if you could do that at 27-years old, I mean, that's 1 in 10,000 that could do that...so he's a very smart guy and a great negotiator and I think we understand each other."

There are 25 million people in North Korea. Roughly 2 million men and 2 million women at the ages of 15-24. So at 1 in 10,000 there are probably at least 400 other people who could do the same job. Now that is a 10 year cohort so I guess it would be 40 people in any given year. Assuming they don't get executed first. So even in trying to compliment him on a singular achievement Trump essentially places Kim Jong-Un merely in the first two rounds of the NBA draft.

In the United States the numbers would be more than 10X higher.
posted by srboisvert at 7:11 AM on June 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

> I feel like our nation has an undiagnosed disease and we can’t get the doctors to take our symptoms seriously.

There's no doctor that can fix nations. We're our own immune system. We're our defense against the cancer.
posted by nangar at 7:12 AM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

The Supreme Court ruled today in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky [opinion pdf] that Minnesota's ban on political apparel inside a polling place is overly broad/ambiguous and violates the First Amendment. The decision was 7-2, majority opinion written by Roberts; Sotomayor and Breyer dissenting.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:19 AM on June 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

@CNNJason (Jason K. Morrell):

Not the birthday gift Trump wanted today

North Korean state media just debuted new behind the scene footage of the Trump-Kim Summit, showing Trump saluting a North Korean General.

[image]

posted by pjenks at 7:24 AM on June 14, 2018 [46 favorites]

On Morning Joe this morning, Rep. Sanford: Race came down to allegiance to Trump

The Republican primary voters are a cult. They pledge allegiance to the slogan on the hat of Trump's America.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 7:25 AM on June 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

the video shows murals of Obama and Ulysses Grant and quotes from them as well as the one of Trump

Is this the Grant quote?

I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day, regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.

posted by kirkaracha at 7:25 AM on June 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Religions stepping up and calling for families to be imprisoned together is not quite the moral conviction I want to see.

Maybe not. But if there was ever a time when it is the Right Thing to (very temporarily) swallow our indignation and accept an incremental step towards something better, even if it passes through ground that is still unacceptable, this would be it. I can't think of a huge number of things more demanding immediate triage than "stop orphaning children." If I have to stand next to closed-border scum long enough to get this stopped, I will.
posted by phearlez at 7:25 AM on June 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

When will we give companies the power to vote? They have the power of free speech and freedom of religion, so voting is next, right?

Already sort of being proposed: No Regulation without Representation Act [bill text].

This legislation prohibits states from regulating beyond their borders by imposing sales tax collection requirements on businesses with no physical presence in the taxing state [nb: this is the current supreme court precedent and a valid policy proposal], and no vote in the representation that would implement such a tax [this part is bonkers; also the bill would apply to any regulation, not just tax collection].

posted by melissasaurus at 7:26 AM on June 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

@DonaldJTrumpJr on if the GOP is becoming a cult: "If it's a cult, it's because they like what my father is doing."

Don Jr closes @foxandfriends interview by turning to camera and wishing his dad a happy birthday.
"Hopefully he's watching, I imagine he is -- happy birthday dad, I love you very much."

[normalness intensifies]
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:34 AM on June 14, 2018 [28 favorites]

Trump supporter @FranklinGraham on @CBNNews: “It’s disgraceful, it’s terrible to see families ripped apart, and I don’t support that one bit. And I blame the politicians for the last 20, 30 years that had allowed this to escalate to the point this is today.”

Let's be crystal-clear that by this, he means he blames those politicians who understand the value of immigration to this country, whether they perceive that value as primarily economic or moral. The "disgraceful" escalation he sees is legal immigration, not xenophobia and racism. Graham, truly, is among the worst of these human beings, and I wish I believed in hell so his soul might find a punishment commensurate with its hateful smallness.
posted by adamgreenfield at 7:40 AM on June 14, 2018 [24 favorites]

It's a systematic effort to inflict trauma to punish refugees.
posted by jaduncan at 7:40 AM on June 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Franklin Graham experiencing a strange stirring in his shriveled, vestigial conscience is a big deal. Evangelical leaders denouncing this, even with mumbling bothsidesism, is a significant shift in the ground. It’ll give cover for clergy who might otherwise feel uncomfortable talking about it, and space for laypeople to listen to their own consciences instead of ignoring them for party-line ideology.

I’ll be the first to tell you that most white evangelicals are bad people who believe bad things. But images of children suffering, I think, still have the power to move many of them. A swell of evangelical anger about this might be the one thing that could get Congress to act on it. Depressed evangelical turnout in the fall would mean a bloodbath at the polls.
posted by EarBucket at 7:42 AM on June 14, 2018 [21 favorites]

"Race came down to allegiance to Trump"
Well that's squarely on the nose.
posted by Harry Caul at 7:43 AM on June 14, 2018 [13 favorites]

It's a systematic effort to inflict trauma to punish refugees.

a.k.a. "The Pacific Solution" a.k.a "The Australian Method". I suspect the next step will be to just ship any illegitimate border crosser to Guantanamo to fully realize this policy.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 7:44 AM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Breaking nicely: New York files suit against President Trump, alleging his charity engaged in 'illegal conduct'

The New York attorney general on Thursday filed suit against President Trump and his three eldest children alleging “persistently illegal conduct” at the president’s personal charity, saying Trump repeatedly misused the nonprofit — to pay off his businesses’ creditors, to decorate one of his golf clubs and to stage a multimillion dollar giveaway at his 2016 campaign events.

In the suit, filed Thursday morning, attorney general Barbara Underwood asked a state judge to dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation. She asked that its remaining $1 million in assets be distributed to other charities and that Trump be forced to pay at least $2.8 million in restitution and penalties.

I like the cut of Underwood's jib.
posted by Dashy at 7:44 AM on June 14, 2018 [106 favorites]

Franklin Graham experiencing a strange stirring in his shriveled, vestigial conscience is a big deal. Evangelical leaders denouncing this, even with mumbling bothsidesism, is a significant shift in the ground.

"It's terrible what they force us to do" is not conscience. The original, real-deal Nazis v.1.0 said the same thing.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:44 AM on June 14, 2018 [21 favorites]

Maybe not. But if there was ever a time when it is the Right Thing to (very temporarily) swallow our indignation and accept an incremental step towards something better, even if it passes through ground that is still unacceptable, this would be it. I can't think of a huge number of things more demanding immediate triage than "stop orphaning children." If I have to stand next to closed-border scum long enough to get this stopped, I will.

Sure, but the point is that once we get them on the run - once we have a victory - we can't go back to sleep. A lot of people stop being involved after one big push, and it's understandable because they find the time on top of school, childcare, work, family responsibilities, elder care, managing their own health, etc to protest or call in...Like, I don't think it's some kind of huge sign of moral failure to say "now that this one giant problem has been resolved, I am going to go back to my average busy and demanding life".

But now has to be different - we have to keep on after the first big hurdle if we possibly can.

If we don't get rid of the whole detention center process, it's just going to come back, probably worse.

Because I get almost all my politics from the Lord of the Rings, I think about how, as it were, the Dark Tower was broken but its foundations were not removed, and then what do you get? You get Naz....is.

Also we have to keep our eye on the ball - regular immigration detention for adults who have committed no meaningful crime (because seriously, if you are in danger or impoverished at home, is it really a crime-crime to cross a border?)....is really terrible. People die there. People's medications are withheld, people are sexually abused. People are put in "cold rooms" as, basically, torture. And then you pay $5000 in bond (that I bet you never get back, either) if you even do get out.

All detention centers should be abolished. The "crime" of crossing the border should be abolished. If capital can migrate freely, humans should be able to migrate freely. There are probably some procedural and visa questions in terms of how basically free migration should actually work, but there simply should not be an apparatus aimed at the "crime" of crossing the border.
posted by Frowner at 7:46 AM on June 14, 2018 [40 favorites]

Metafilter: Because I get almost all my politics from the Lord of the Rings
posted by Barack Spinoza at 7:47 AM on June 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

Breaking nicely: New York files suit against President Trump, alleging his charity engaged in 'illegal conduct'

happy birthday, asshole.
posted by marshmallow peep at 7:47 AM on June 14, 2018 [78 favorites]

“As our investigation reveals, the Trump Foundation was little more than a checkbook for payments from Mr. Trump or his businesses to nonprofits, regardless of their purpose or legality,” Underwood said in the statement.

Not news, but really nice to hear from the NY-fucking-Attorney General.
posted by pjenks at 7:50 AM on June 14, 2018 [38 favorites]

What's the over-under on Trump's next tweet containing the words "what about the Clinton Foundation?" and maybe "DISGRACEFUL" ?
posted by wabbittwax at 7:51 AM on June 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

And -- remember that much of the reporting on the tRump Foundation's murky dealings was done by David Fahrenthold, who wrote the article above, and who won a Pulitzer for that work. He's a fucking hero.
posted by Dashy at 7:51 AM on June 14, 2018 [67 favorites]

Attorney General Underwood gets better and better. She's not going to rely on word getting out through the old news channels. THREAD!

...

Our investigation found that the Trump Foundation raised in excess of $2.8 million in a manner designed to influence the 2016 presidential election at the direction and under the control of senior leadership of the Trump presidential campaign.

...

posted by pjenks at 7:59 AM on June 14, 2018 [47 favorites]

So this suit is entirely separate from Mueller's investigation it seems? Seems like a smart move. State charges, so can't be pardoned by Trump/Pence. Even a total dismantling of Mueller's investigation won't impact this one at all.
posted by Twain Device at 8:03 AM on June 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

The NYT is going with “vast lawbreaking” in its breaking news headline.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 8:05 AM on June 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

Marcel Dirsus
This is part of a speech given by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas today. We are witnessing a seismic shift in world politics.

How can Europe hold its own in a world radicalised by nationalism, populism and chauvinism? This is what I keep thinking about when I consider Germany’s role in Europe these days. And this question is always in the back of my mind when I talk to my European counterparts, and, of course, during my visits to Moscow, Washington, Africa and the Middle East.

• Donald Trump’s egoistic policy of “America First”,
• Russia’s attacks on international law and state sovereignty
• and the expansion of the giant that is China.

That world order that we once knew, had become accustomed to and sometimes felt comfortable in – this world order no longer exists. Old pillars of reliability are crumbling under the weight of new crises and alliances dating back decades are being challenged in the time it takes to write a tweet. The US was long the leading power among the free nations. For 70 years, it was committed to freedom, prosperity and security here in Europe.

A few days ago, I stated that we will respond to the latest decisions made by the US with appropriate countermeasures. Believe me, the fact that a German Foreign Minister has to say this is something that, to be honest, I wouldn’t have thought possible. However, the Atlantic has become wider under President Trump and his policy of isolationism has left a giant vacuum around the world. We have felt that in particular since the G7 Summit.

Who will fill this vacuum? Authoritarian powers? Anyone at all? Or will the European flag become the new banner of the free world, as the stars and stripes of the US once were?

Colin Kahl (Obama FP advisor)
Retweeted Marcel Dirsus
The German foreign minister identifies three illiberal great powers that challenge international order: Russia, China,...and Trump’s America.
posted by chris24 at 8:05 AM on June 14, 2018 [83 favorites]

Harry Caul: "Race came down to allegiance to Trump"

Hey, whattaya know: I can rearrange the game pieces and look what it spells:

"Allegiance to Trump came down to race."

I wonder if the numbers back that up?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:10 AM on June 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

Bella Donna I believe one of the more toxic, and horrifyingly successful, of the bits of Republican propaganda over the years is their promotion of the idea that politics is an inherently filthy, dirty, and dishonest activity, and that politicians are inherently venial, corrupt, and dishonest.

It's been incredibly successful both because it appeals to everyone's desire to appear cynical and worldly, and also because there are corrupt politicians they can point to as proof that they're right.

The widespread belief that politics is inherently bad and politicians are inherently corrupt promotes the sort of apathy you report. Why bother doing anything? They're all the same. Politics is like a sausage factory, you don't want to see how it works. They're all corrupt. Everyone in politics is out for themselves.

It also encourages people to accept bad behavior from the politicians in their party. A while back a person who learned I didn't much like Trump demanded "name one thing he's done that Crooked Hillary hasn't!" as if it were some sort of ultimate and irrefutable argument. He clearly believed that all politicians were crooked so Trump looting the treasury is no big deal and Democrats complaining about it are just being hypocrites. He was 100% certain that Obama had gotten filthy rich from corruption and gave me a condescending lecture about my charming naivete and partisan blinkers when I noted that Obama didn't seem to have done any crimes.

It's a perfect way to suppress voter turnout and immunize your own base to blatant corruption from people like Trump. A great many Americans, and not all of them Republicans by any stretch of the imagination, believe that Trump's corruption is nothing new or worth commenting or being horrified about. They all do it, right? They're all the same. Why bother?
posted by sotonohito at 8:11 AM on June 14, 2018 [67 favorites]

It’s Happening Here Because Americans Can’t Admit it’s Happening Here
posted by Artw at 8:14 AM on June 14, 2018 [32 favorites]

State charges, so can't be pardoned by Trump/Pence

It's a civil suit, so pardons don't enter into it at all. However, it is not clear whether a sitting president has (temporary) immunity from civil suits filed in state court. Personally I think it's nonsense: being elected president should not be a 4-8 year reprieve from civil suits for wrongs committed prior to being elected. Who knows what the Supreme Court would say, but there were no dissents in Clinton v. Jones, which held that there was no immunity against civil litigation in federal court, at least for acts committed prior to being elected and unrelated to the office.
posted by jedicus at 8:14 AM on June 14, 2018 [14 favorites]

Buzzfeed: President Donald Trump told G7 leaders that Crimea is Russian because everyone who lives there speaks Russian, according to two diplomatic sources.

This is Putin's ethnonationalist line and either he got it from Miller et al or it came straight from the horse's mouth.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:19 AM on June 14, 2018 [66 favorites]

David Fahrenthold should absolutely get tons of the credit for this, but let us not forget that the reason he started digging was that Trump chickened out of a GOP debate by claiming he was attending a yuuuge veterans charity event. Fahrenthold said "Huh, I wonder where that money will go...". It's an own goal.
posted by Etrigan at 8:25 AM on June 14, 2018 [55 favorites]

Buzzfeed: President Donald Trump told G7 leaders that Crimea is Russian because everyone who lives there speaks Russian, according to two diplomatic sources.

Watch out, USA: England is coming for you.
posted by Bovine Love at 8:48 AM on June 14, 2018 [49 favorites]

I believe one of the more toxic, and horrifyingly successful, of the bits of Republican propaganda over the years is their promotion of the idea that politics is an inherently filthy, dirty, and dishonest activity, and that politicians are inherently venial, corrupt, and dishonest.

On top of that GOP members of congress have incorporated this into their worldview, which, ironically, impedes even the uncorrupt ones' ability to perform their basic functions, e.g. pass legislation (most obviously the pig's dinner their signature tax bill) and serve as a check on the executive branch.

Cook Political Report editor Amy Walter @amyewalter glosses this dysfunctionality:

Why aren't GOPers pushing back on Trump? Is it all a cult thing? A don't "poke the bear" thing? Yes, both play a part. But, the bigger reason is that Congress has absolutely no idea how to play its constitutional role (1)

Most of these members - esp. on GOP side - have been elected since 2010. They ran as anti-establishment, anti-Washington. They see themselves as individuals - not members of "Team America." (2)

Moreover, and I make this point a lot, candidates have been running for years with the message that Congress is broken and stupid. And, then, in comes a POTUS, who isn't from politics and says "yep, they are." (3)

Voters believe this too since politicians have been telling them for years how incompetent Congress is. So, in comes a POTUS who says, "these guys suck, trust me to fix it." And, voila, voters say "well, of course. And, Congress, you stay out of the way and don't mess it up." (4)

And, here we are. Members of Congress willing to cut out their own branch of government on reining in the executive branch because just about everyone - themselves included - don't think they are capable of doing anything constructive. Fin. (5)

And that, frankly, is the most generous interpretation I've encountered to explain the inaction of Paul Ryan & co.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:54 AM on June 14, 2018 [38 favorites]

About 43 minutes ago, Trump had a very busy Twitter moment and tweeted 4 tweets in a row railing against the various investigations against him. Doesn't seem like flailing to me at all. No siree.

Now that I am back from Singapore, where we had a great result with respect to North Korea, the thought process must sadly go back to the Witch Hunt, always remembering that there was No Collusion and No Obstruction of the fabricated No Crime.

So, the Democrats make up a phony crime, Collusion with the Russians, pay a fortune to make the crime sound real, illegally leak (Comey) classified information so that a Special Councel will be appointed, and then Collude to make this pile of garbage take on life in Fake News!

The sleazy New York Democrats, and their now disgraced (and run out of town) A.G. Eric Schneiderman, are doing everything they can to sue me on a foundation that took in $18,800,000 and gave out to charity more money than it took in, $19,200,000. I won’t settle this case!...

....Schneiderman, who ran the Clinton campaign in New York, never had the guts to bring this ridiculous case, which lingered in their office for almost 2 years. Now he resigned his office in disgrace, and his disciples brought it when we would not settle.
posted by Twain Device at 8:55 AM on June 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Here is a facebook post that got forwarded around to one of the FB groups I follow. It came with photos of the woman, her son and the ankle monitor:

This is Glendy. I met her and her 7 year old son on my flight back from California. She looked exhausted and sad but even so she offered a shy smile when she sat next to me. We began to chat and the story she began to share with me left me heartbroken. This was her second flight since she was taken out of an immigration detention center. She had spent almost a week there with her son. She and her husband were separated at the detention center. The little boy was agitated and clearly distressed. She told me they had slept on the floor each night and given only a small blanket that she described as nylon material. The AC was turned up high and they were very cold. When her husband was separated from them her boy cried for two days asking for his father. They were unable to shower for the entire duration and when her son wet himself from the trauma they endured, the officers did not allow her to wash him up. She witnessed some children being separated from their families and women hysterically crying out for their children. She spoke of pregnant women sleeping on the hard floor. One boy stood by a window looking for his father for 4 days. She described how swollen his eyes were from days of crying and lack of sleep. She doesn’t know where her husband was taken and with tears in her eyes she said she felt dead inside. They had lost their humble home in a mudslide in Guatemala and hoped to find work and a better life in the USA. She told me how much she enjoyed working, as if trying to convince me she was not here to get anything without putting in the hard work. Somehow she was released to the care of some family in Rhode Island until her deportation hearing. Her brother in law had paid for the plane tickets and was waiting for them. She has never met him before. She lifted her pant leg and showed me the ankle monitor they had put on her. She only had the clothes on her back and a few personal items in a clear bag. I asked her if they had given her any food for the trip. No, she replied. “We have not eaten since this morning.” It was 10 pm. She still had another plane to catch once she landed in Charlotte. Once we landed, I bought them breakfast and walked them to their gate. The little boy had been given a clean pair of pants from a church organization. They were probably 4 inches above his skinny ankles and his sneakers were too big for his little feet. His eyes darted back and forth as we walked through the busy airport, trying to understand this new world, this strange language and what was happening to his family. He looked so very sad and frightened. Once we reached the gate, I hugged her tight and told her to try to stay positive, pray hard, and thank God she was not separated from her little boy. I hope one day she will remember that during a horrible time in her life, there was at least person who truly cared. I got to my car and cried in the long term parking lot for 15 minutes. 💔 This is really happening folks. What are we doing? Why are we separating families? If we must send them back, why separate children from their mothers?

Some takeways: Husband was basically disappeared; most of their stuff seems to have been taken; deprived of food; A/C turned up high to create a "cold room" for people w/no blankets or heavy clothes; not allowed to shower or clean up in detention; ankle monitor; pregnant women and small children kept in physically unhealthy conditions; children taken away from parents and left with no one to care for them.

Most of this is bog standard for detention centers all the time. People were getting disappeared in detention before family separation, it's just that it wasn't a uniform policy and children weren't being detained separately.

This women's "crime"? Losing her home in a mudslide.
posted by Frowner at 8:55 AM on June 14, 2018 [90 favorites]

a foundation that took in $18,800,000 and gave out ~~to charity~~ more money than it took in, $19,200,000.

Completely oblivious, of course, to the fact that this is exactly what you would expect when a "charitable organization" is a complete phony that exists only to serve as a cutout for bribes to and from your family and election campaign.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:01 AM on June 14, 2018 [29 favorites]

Now that I am back from Singapore, where we had a great result with respect to North Korea, the thought process must sadly go back to the Witch Hunt, always remembering that there was No Collusion and No Obstruction of the fabricated No Crime.

Part of his legal jeopardy is that he didn't obstruct the crimes his campaign undertook on his behalf.

As for obstructing justice in the investigation, he did it on live TV and keeps on doing it, so good luck with that.
posted by Gelatin at 9:02 AM on June 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Cartoonishly criminal evidence, via @NYStateAG:

From: Corey R. Lewandowski [mailto:clewandowski@donaldtrump.com] Sent: Friday, January 29, 2016 12:27pm To: Allen Weisselberg Subject: RE: Veterans Charities Allen - Is there any way we can make some disbursements this week while in Iowa? Specifically on Saturday. Corey R. Lewandowski Campaign Manager

posted by pjenks at 9:03 AM on June 14, 2018 [46 favorites]

@jonswaine: From NYAG lawsuit: Donald Trump personally ordering the use of $100,000 from his nonprofit foundation to settle a legal issue for his private club Mar-A-Lago. Which is against the law.
posted by zarq at 9:03 AM on June 14, 2018 [71 favorites]

It’s Happening Here Because Americans Can’t Admit it’s Happening Here

I am normally on Team No Coddling These Idiots, but now that an actual genocide seems to be accelerating, I really think we should hold our noses and start painting these people as deeply unAmerican.

Go the Superman route. A mass goddamn media campaign. If that is what will work, do it.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:04 AM on June 14, 2018 [17 favorites]

LA Times: Speaker Paul Ryan says he disagrees with Trump's policy of separating children from their parents at the border

"We don't want kids to be separated from their parents. We believe because of the court ruling, this will require legislative change," Ryan said.

More "this is bad, it's a shame all these vague circumstances conspired to make us have to do it like we'll continue to do." Fuck you, Paul. This is your doing.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:05 AM on June 14, 2018 [51 favorites]

Buzzfeed: President Donald Trump told G7 leaders that Crimea is Russian because everyone who lives there speaks Russian, according to two diplomatic sources.

By this reasoning, Quebec belongs to France, Chile and much of the rest of South America belong to Spain, and the US belongs to England.
posted by zarq at 9:07 AM on June 14, 2018 [33 favorites]

I am normally on Team No Coddling These Idiots, but now that an actual genocide seems to be accelerating, I really think we should hold our noses and start painting these people as deeply unAmerican.

Hear, hear. For far too long these cretins have had the gall to describe themselves as "real America" (like Sarah Palin, who said as much while McCain's running mate). More Americans live in cities than don't, for example.
posted by Gelatin at 9:07 AM on June 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

Carrying this to its "logical" conclusion, If the US belongs to England that means Donald Trump is an illegitimate President and we're really still royal subjects.

Tomorrow's headline:
"USA to Queen Elizabeth: We've Made a Terrible Mistake"
posted by zarq at 9:09 AM on June 14, 2018 [27 favorites]

"We don't want kids to be separated from their parents. We believe because of the court ruling, this will require legislative change," Ryan said.

Congress could, but does not, refuse to appropriate money for these privately-run detention centers. Ryan is, as always, a spineless hypocrite.
posted by Gelatin at 9:09 AM on June 14, 2018 [40 favorites]

To be honest, I could go with "it's unamerican to have people starve in the streets or be detained in immigration jails, therefore let's immediately stop it". If people have a real, positive vision of the United States as it should be, and this motivates them to act to bring their vision into being, that's fine. It's a bit of philosophical sleight of hand, but as long as we get to, eg, "slavery was unamerican, genocide of native people is unamerican, and since those things happened/are happening we must immediately move to repair everything that can be repaired and stop everything that can be stopped", I'm good with it.

Positive patriotism isn't my thing, but honestly whatever gets you through the night.
posted by Frowner at 9:16 AM on June 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

It's IG report day, which means an unbearable period of contextless leaks that take all the meaning out of a 500 page document as Congress and the White House are briefed. So despite the negative news value of such leaks, here we are: WaPo, IG report criticizes Comey’s handling of Clinton probe, includes anti-Trump exchanges among FBI personnel

Perhaps the most damaging new revelation in the report, according to multiple people familiar with it, is a previously unreported text message in which Peter Strzok, a key investigator on both the Clinton email case and the investigation of Russia and the Trump campaign, assured an FBI lawyer in August 2016 that “we’ll stop” Trump from making it to the White House.

“[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” the lawyer, Lisa Page, wrote to Strzok.

“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok responded.

Though the inspector general condemned individual FBI officials, the report fell significantly short in supporting the assertion by the president and his allies that the investigation was rigged in favor of Clinton, according to a person familiar with its content, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share findings before the report’s formal release.

@ThePlumLineGS: Here's my prediction: Trump will seize on isolated findings such as this one to claim an anti-Trump conspiracy, *even if* the IG concludes that the overall handling of the Clinton probe, and the decision not to prosecute her, were legitimate

Really seems like the main headline there should be "IG report doesn't support Trump claims of rigged investigation" then.
posted by zachlipton at 9:17 AM on June 14, 2018 [23 favorites]

Based on the LA Times story, it seems the plan is to add language barring family separations to the GOP immigration bills that will come up next week. So, "we'll agree to stop sending kids to concentration camps, but only if you join us in fucking over the DREAMers." Everything's a bargaining chip for these jackasses.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:17 AM on June 14, 2018 [23 favorites]

In the wake of the disastrous G7 summit, Canada is considering how to hit Trump where it really hurts him: Could Ottawa Slap the Trump Organization with Trade Sanctions? (McLean's)

During Tuesday’s Question Period, [Regina-Lewvan MP Erin] Weir took the floor, saying everyone in the House “supports the Prime Minister standing up to President Trump” and that “unlike previous American presidents, Trump has made himself vulnerable by not divesting his personal business interests.” Then, to nodding heads, including that of Green Party leader Elizabeth May, he asked: “To apply further pressure, has the government considered retaliatory sanctions targeting the Trump organization rather than the American people?”

At the other end of the room, Foreign Affairs minister Chrystia Freeland didn’t exactly reject the prospect of sanctioning Trump’s collection of companies, of which past disclosures suggest there are 144 in 25 different countries. As she’s done before, Freeland stressed that the tariffs enacted by the U.S. are “illegal” and “unjustified,” and that the national security justification offered up by the Trump administration is an insult to Canadians.

Then she added, to the approving nods of cabinet members around her: “We are now in a consultation period. We welcome ideas from all Canadians on what should and what should not be in our retaliation list.”

In an interview, Weir cited the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act—often referred to as the Sergei Magnitsky law—as an example of Canadian legislation that allows Ottawa to sanction foreign nationals engaged in corruption. “It is an interesting one, given President Trump’s alleged ties with Russia,” Weir says.

For the time being, it appears that the Canadian government intends to stick to in-kind trade restrictions. "Speaking on background, a senior government official told Maclean’s: 'We have clearly laid out our retaliation plan. That is our plan for now.'" Of course, since Trump cares solely about himself, it's debatable how much effect a trade war would have on his thinking unless it hit his own business.

(Also, with the DoJIG report being leaked in advance of today's release, is anyone working on a new thread?)
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:22 AM on June 14, 2018 [32 favorites]

Seeing a pleasing number of Stringer Bell references with respect to the extensive papertrail that the Trumps seems to have left regarding the illegal use of their foundation. Let’s say it together: Is you taking notes...
posted by chappell, ambrose at 9:25 AM on June 14, 2018 [18 favorites]

a foundation that took in $18,800,000 and gave out to charity more money than it took in, $19,200,000.

How exactly does that work? Is that some sort of magical Trump math? Writing bad checks that can't be cashed?
posted by JackFlash at 9:28 AM on June 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'd love to see their 990PF.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:32 AM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

A few points about some sort of ad campaign about how un-American it is to brutalize immigrants...

1) These people were largely radicalized under what we currently think of as our moderate right wing party. Now that the so-called moderates are being pushed out in favor of straight-up fascism (with the main distinction being how honest they are about it), good fucking luck winning any hearts and minds.

2) That line is weak as shit. America has brutalized immigrants for years, and saying otherwise is like Clinton getting up on the podium at the DNC talking about how America is already great. The only actual effect, given point 1, would be to jade your allies on the left as you blatantly lie about the treatment of them and their ancestors.

3) Increasingly, "American" as an ideal doesn't really mean that much and has very little emotional weight. For the left it's a cynical ploy to appeal to the fictional trump swing voter. For the right it's prefaced by "White" before it's "American". They've been indoctrinated into this ideology by a cowardly and wretched GOP through 40 years of white identity politics gussied up as patriotism.

This isn't the sort of problem that you can advertise your way out of, I'm afraid, much to the chagrin of DNC strategists and consultants.
posted by codacorolla at 9:33 AM on June 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

> How exactly does that work? Is that some sort of magical Trump math? Writing bad checks that can't be cashed?

Quantitative Sleazing
posted by MysticMCJ at 9:36 AM on June 14, 2018 [39 favorites]

I have never seen this before! On the official NYAG website so far as I can see ALL the trump supportive, #WHtaboutclintonFDN tweets are from bots! None are from any #MAGA supporters! Is this the inflection point?
posted by Wilder at 9:36 AM on June 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'd love to see their 990PF.

Here you go (PDF) for 2016.

Worth noting that as designated directors of the charity, Donny Jr., Eric and Ivanka are on the hook for illegal disbursements.
posted by JackFlash at 9:37 AM on June 14, 2018 [31 favorites]

According to the foundation statement:

"The Foundation has donated over $19 million to worthy charitable causes - more than it even received. The President himself- or through his companies - has contributed more than $8 million. The reason the Foundation was able to donate more than it took in is because it had little to no expenses. This is unheard of for a charitable foundation."

They really have no fucking clue.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:37 AM on June 14, 2018 [37 favorites]

How exactly does that work? Is that some sort of magical Trump math? Writing bad checks that can't be cashed?

There was no distinct charitable foundation that existed separate from the Trumps' other accounts. Any money you gave to the foundation went to the family, and any money it gave to charity came from their personal or business accounts as a method of making the foundation appear legitimate. All that had to happen for giving to exceed incoming donations is a math error when somebody was figuring out how much money the foundation was supposed to have that year.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:37 AM on June 14, 2018 [15 favorites]

North Korean state media just debuted new behind the scene footage of the Trump-Kim Summit, showing Trump saluting a North Korean General

Insanity. The General saluted Trump, and he returned the salute. He's not supposed to do that. And now NK is using it for propaganda purposes.

From the CNN article, Rear Admiral John Kirby (retired): "Kirby said the appropriate thing for Trump to do in that situation would have been to nod his head and shake the general's hand.

"(Trump's) the commander in chief. He doesn't even salute his own generals. They salute him. That's the way it works. You certainly don't do it with leaders of foreign military and you most certainly don't do it with the leaders of foreign militaries of an adversary nation.""
And he's right. From a protocol standpoint, the Commander in Chief is not supposed to salute the troops. Why? Commander in Chief isn't a military title. It's a job description. Trump's not a military officer. He's a civilian who never served in the military.

Now, Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush all saluted our troops. So much so that Republicans kicked up a HUGE fuss when President Obama didn't salute US Marines. Reagan made a habit of saluting US troops. Clinton only did it very rarely but Bush did it much more frequently. Bush and Reagan were both veterans, so an excuse can be made that they once served. Even though they're not supposed to salute when they aren't in uniform.

But as far as I know, none of them saluted an adversary country's military leader(s), which is an insane breach of protocol. It also plays into North Korea's propaganda goals: the President of the United States is showing deferential respect to one of their military leaders. We don't recognize North Korea, both because they're a brutal dictatorship and because their Dear Leader believes he's the proper ruler of all of Korea. Including the thriving Democracy to the South. By saluting, it looks like Trump is respectfully recognizing them as an equal.

There are a bunch of MAGA idiots on Twitter excusing this as Trump being polite. He's not polite. He's an idiot who repeatedly excoriated President Obama for invented breaches of protocol but was too damned stupid to know what to do when meeting a foreign general of an unfriendly power.
posted by zarq at 9:38 AM on June 14, 2018 [72 favorites]

I believe one of the more toxic, and horrifyingly successful, of the bits of Republican propaganda over the years is their promotion of the idea that politics is an inherently filthy, dirty, and dishonest activity, and that politicians are inherently venial, corrupt, and dishonest. - sotonohito

I can't favorite this enough. And how they conflate politics with governing, tarring both with a broad brush. The Dems are the party of not more government, but good government, accountable government.
posted by jetsetsc at 9:39 AM on June 14, 2018 [25 favorites]

@kenvogel: NOTABLE: The TRUMP FOUNDATION statement pushing back on the @NewYorkStateAG lawsuit alleging the Trump Organization improperly controlled the Trump Foundation came from a Trump Org email address.
posted by zachlipton at 9:40 AM on June 14, 2018 [83 favorites]

North Korean state media just debuted new behind the scene footage of the Trump-Kim Summit, showing Trump saluting a North Korean General.

Hardly a surprise, given that he's already bent a knee to a Russian dictator.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:43 AM on June 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

2) That line is weak as shit. America has brutalized immigrants for years, and saying otherwise is like Clinton getting up on the podium at the DNC talking about how America is already great. The only actual effect, given point 1, would be to jade your allies on the left as you blatantly lie about the treatment of them and their ancestors.

3) Increasingly, "American" as an ideal doesn't really mean that much and has very little emotional weight. For the left it's a cynical ploy to appeal to the fictional trump swing voter. For the right it's prefaced by "White" before it's "American".

Did you actually read the article I was referencing? This was exactly what I meant when I said I was normally not about coddling these people. Genocide, oppression, and slavery aren’t, to our great shame, unAmerican in fact.

But I think there is room to strive for the ideal of what American was supposed to mean while acknowledging what it actually has meant.

And there is not going to be one magic bullet that stops a genocide amidst a collapse into fascism, so ducking throw everything against it. There appears to be some moral line somewhere, still, at this particular moment in time. Fucking exploit it if it will save those kids.

Or we could circle up for another firing squad.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:46 AM on June 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

There are a bunch of MAGA idiots on Twitter excusing this as Trump being polite.

I mean, they'd excuse him pledging allegiance to another country's flag if [when?] it comes to that. It's beyond reprehensible (both Trump and his MAGA idiot's behavior I mean) but honestly should come as zero surprise to anyone by this point in the stupidest timeline. I'm not saying you were surprised, I just don't know how to address folks around me who *do* continue to be surprised at MAGA supporter behavior as if there really was a 'surely this' moment that would convert even the least voracious of them to tuck tail or denounce their tiny-handed leader.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:46 AM on June 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

I believe one of the more toxic, and horrifyingly successful, of the bits of Republican propaganda over the years is their promotion of the idea that politics is an inherently filthy, dirty, and dishonest activity, and that politicians are inherently venial, corrupt, and dishonest.

It's (partly) damage control for Watergate. Nixon wasn't a failure of the Republican party, he was a failure of American politics as a whole! We're not horrible monsters, it's just that government is inherently corrupt!
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:47 AM on June 14, 2018 [27 favorites]

Sotonohito: I flagged your comment as fantastic. I think the idea that politics is a corrupt and dirty business, that all politicians are crooked and sociopathic, and that "the swamp" must be drained, is at the heart of what is wrong with our country. (In part. The legacy of slavery is the other big half of the equation.) It leads to distrust of experts, to bothsiderism/whataboutism ("Trump is corrupt? What about Crooked Hillary?" "Franken is a groper? What about Slick Willie?"), to voter apathy ("Why bother voting? They're just a bunch of apparatchiks, they don't care, they won't get anything done!") and to accepting bad behavior ("Politicians are not Boy Scouts! A little grab-ass is just the price you have to pay!").

It's something that has to be overcome in order to have the government we want. It would probably be easier to start locally, and build up the Democratic (and Democratic Socialist) party city by city and state by state, and get people to elect the squeaky clean and capable. In my experience, there is less apathy where people can see decent people elected to office and those people are capable and can serve their constituents. It's very hard when there's gridlock.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:57 AM on June 14, 2018 [21 favorites]

The President himself- or through his companies - has contributed more than $8 million.

This isn't helping. If proved that Trump was self-dealing from his foundation, then he was illegally taking tax deductions for his $8 million contribution -- laundering taxable income through his charity to avoid taxes. That's tax fraud, a criminal act prosecuted by the IRS. This goes beyond just a New York State civil fine for the foundation.
posted by JackFlash at 9:59 AM on June 14, 2018 [61 favorites]

How awful of the NY AG to drop this suit on DOJ IG Report day!
posted by notyou at 10:02 AM on June 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

> @kenvogel: NOTABLE: The TRUMP FOUNDATION statement pushing back on the @NewYorkStateAG lawsuit alleging the Trump Organization improperly controlled the Trump Foundation came from a Trump Org email address.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and
posted by tonycpsu at 10:03 AM on June 14, 2018 [33 favorites]

There are a bunch of MAGA idiots on Twitter excusing this as Trump being polite.

I mean, they'd excuse him pledging allegiance to another country's flag if [when?] it comes to that.

2009 [Telegraph]: Barack Obama criticised for 'bowing' to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

CNN: GOP [Ad] accuses Obama of ‘groveling’ to Saudi King

2012 [Breitbart]: Obama Bows to Mexican President (actually, a handshake and shoulder clasp)

Having a President who does not believe in American exceptionalism and constantly disavows it in front of the world is starting to get on my nerves. Respect for foreign leaders is one thing, but bowing before anyone is as unAmerican as it gets. We fought a war to disassociate ourselves from the kind of government in which one man is expected to bow to another. But Obama doesn’t understand that, because he doesn’t understand America....All he wants to do is “show us our place” on the world stage, which certainly hasn’t done anything to boost his popularity overseas – anymore than it has here in the U.S. of A....Here are our President’s previous bowing lowlights...

Jul 2012:
@realDonaldTrump -- @BarackObama bowed to the Saudi King in public--yet the Dems are questioning @MittRomney's diplomatic skills.

May 2017, upon Trump visiting Saudi Araba and being greeted ceremonially:

@DRUDGE_REPORT: "GREAT AGAIN: Unlike Obama, Trump doesn't bow... "

Except, as widely noted, he totally did:
@JoeNBC: TRUMP BOWS the top photo in Saudi and other Arab newspapers.

IOKIYAR. (EBIYAW.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:03 AM on June 14, 2018 [41 favorites]

That's tax fraud, a criminal act prosecuted by the IRS. This goes beyond just a New York State civil fine for the foundation.

Joyce Alene (MSNBC Legal Analyst)
This is interesting in so many regards, but especially that the NY AG has sent a referral for a criminal case to the IRS. I guess someone has tax returns.
posted by chris24 at 10:04 AM on June 14, 2018 [55 favorites]

Chutes and pardons.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:06 AM on June 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

WaPo: Underwood said that oversight of spending at Trump’s foundation was so loose that its board of directors hadn’t met in 19 years, and its official treasurer wasn’t even aware he was on the board.

That's an unusual definition of 'loose.'
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:10 AM on June 14, 2018 [78 favorites]

"USA to Queen Elizabeth: We've Made a Terrible Mistake"

Liz to Harry: "You and Meghan, can you handle this? I think there's a bit more work to do than I can spare at the moment."
posted by Stoneshop at 10:24 AM on June 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

This is interesting in so many regards, but especially that the NY AG has sent a referral for a criminal case to the IRS. I guess someone has tax returns.

They definitely have the NYS tax returns, which are based on the federal return, and the IRS is authorized to disclose federal individual and business tax return information to the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance under an information sharing agreement.
posted by melissasaurus at 10:34 AM on June 14, 2018 [16 favorites]

This was talked about before the election, but here is the actual receipt, which seems to be in Trump's own handwriting, in which he explicitly writes that he is spending money from his charity to settle a business dispute related to Mar A Lago zoning in Palm Beach.

It's not often you see an admission of guilt in the perpetrator's own handwriting, with a Trump OK no less. Good grief!
posted by JackFlash at 10:36 AM on June 14, 2018 [60 favorites]

It's really nice to see the receipts like that coming up in the NY AG lawsuit. Amid all the gaslighting, it's a refreshing voice of reason calling out from the distance: "hey, remember all those things you read about a couple years ago that seemed really illegal? They were actually really illegal. And somebody cares."

With dozens of awful stories a day, we need that voice a lot more.
posted by zachlipton at 10:39 AM on June 14, 2018 [65 favorites]

> It's not often you see an admission of guilt in the perpetrator's own handwriting, with a Trump OK no less. Good grief!

WE GOT HIM!
posted by tonycpsu at 10:40 AM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Here is a facebook post that got forwarded around to one of the FB groups I follow. It came with photos of the woman, her son and the ankle monitor:

Checking in from Rhode Island, I'm 95% positive that there was a quickly planned soiree where the price of admission was an article of clothing for either Glendy or her son.

Also, the rabbi of my Modern Orthodox shul issued a statement strongly denouncing the OU for the Sessions thing and spoke out against family separation. It begins "Supposedly, we're an Orthodox Union member synagogue. This used to be a mark of reputation and pride, but it's a shameful stain this morning." (It also talks about Moishe Bane's retracted comment about homosexuality and assures our LQBTQ members that we stand proudly with them. My rabbi is the best.)

That's the news from today's issue of Rhody Resistance.
posted by Ruki at 10:41 AM on June 14, 2018 [39 favorites]

Bloomberg: Republicans’ Unease Grows Over Trump Policy Separating Families at Border

Unease! My word, they're approaching Concern.

“I think we all can agree that it’s a terrible outcome, to see the children separated from their parents,” Cornyn said at a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

("The difficult decision had to be made [...] For the organisation which had to execute this task, it was the most difficult which we had ever had. [...] To have endured this and at the same time to have remained a decent person — with exceptions due to human weaknesses — has made us tough.")

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa also wrote on Twitter, "I want 2 stop the separation of families at the border" and give the government "the tools it needs 2 quickly resolve cases."

Grassley then y u not do NEthing 2 stop it, asshole?
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:42 AM on June 14, 2018 [19 favorites]

*deep breath*

@kyledcheney: IG found that on numerous occasions, COMEY used a personal GMail account to conduct official FBI business, according to source briefed on the report.

BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS BUT HER EMAILS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
posted by zachlipton at 10:48 AM on June 14, 2018 [102 favorites]

Graham jokes about Corker: GOP would have to be organized to be a cult

Graham then pulled his blood-spattered cowl back up and returned to the chanting-circle.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:53 AM on June 14, 2018 [24 favorites]

sotonohito: "Bella Donna I believe one of the more toxic, and horrifyingly successful, of the bits of Republican propaganda over the years is their promotion of the idea that politics is an inherently filthy, dirty, and dishonest activity, and that politicians are inherently venial, corrupt, and dishonest.

It's been incredibly successful both because it appeals to everyone's desire to appear cynical and worldly, and also because there are corrupt politicians they can point to as proof that they're right."

I know that people on Metafilter consider voting to be inviolately important, but I'm less fanatical about it. Living in the US is a nightmare and there are lots of people that no one is helping. When you look up and only see shit raining down on you no matter what you do, cynicism is the only reasonable answer.

Anyways, ascribing this solely to a Republican propaganda campaign is bad. People have agency and they hate America because as far as they can tell America hates them.
posted by TypographicalError at 10:55 AM on June 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

For the organisation which had to execute this task, it was the most difficult which we had ever had.[...]To have endured this and at the same time to have remained a decent person — with exceptions due to human weaknesses — has made us tough.")

Rust, I think of those Himmler speeches allatime these days — about their bizarre, looking-the-wrong-way-through-the-telescope application of human empathy, and what it implies about the human heart.

The scariest thing about them (for me, anyway) is how they so clearly delineate the difference between the aberrant sociopathic monsters we wish people like Himmler were, so as to cleanse ourselves of any possible stain of similarity or resemblance, and what they actually were: human beings who are simply capable of great evil.

But for a very few — and Trump may, in fact, number among them — I don't think that in the present circumstances we're for the most part confronting people functionally incapable of empathy. They have all the necessary equipment, as it were, to be caring. They're capable of being decent, toward those they believe deserving of decency. They've merely chosen to shut that apparatus off. And that's where my definition of evil starts.

I know this is terribly abstract, but it matters to me. Where there is active choice, there is culpability for that choice. And hopefully, someday, justice.
posted by adamgreenfield at 10:57 AM on June 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

Still going through the NY OAG's filings and referral letters and... OMG, Barbara Underwood, THANK YOU.

Finally the adults are coming home, and there's going to be hell to pay.
posted by mikelieman at 10:59 AM on June 14, 2018 [30 favorites]

Still going through the NY OAG's filings and referral letters and... OMG, Barbara Underwood, THANK YOU.

I don't know about hell to pay, but it sure seems to vindicate Farenthold's reporting, as well as being obvious evidence of criminal behavior that the media would have to bend over backward to equivocate or dismiss. (Narrator: They'll try.)
posted by Gelatin at 11:02 AM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

I think what pisses me off most about Stupid Fucking Moronic Watergate is that if there was a handwritten note from Hillary directing the Clinton Foundation to settle one of Bill's sexual harassment suits there would a god damned armed militia descending on Washington and the GOP threatening a second civil war if she wasn't out of the White House by COB.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 11:05 AM on June 14, 2018 [27 favorites]

Get your 568 page IG report here.
posted by zachlipton at 11:06 AM on June 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

Still going through the NY OAG's filings and referral letters and... OMG, Barbara Underwood, THANK YOU.

Finally the adults are coming home, and there's going to be hell to pay.

I still remember the boo-hooing and Chicken Little-ing from a few quarters about Schneiderman stepping down after being outed as a sexual assaulter. He was gonna saaaaave us! Damn that Kirsten Gillibrand (who had nothing to do with it anyway)! Politicians aren't Boy Scouts! We're DOOMED without our male savior!

And now the WOMAN who took Schneiderman's place is stepping right up. Thank you, Barbara Underwood. Eat crow, Chicken Littles and misogynists.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:09 AM on June 14, 2018 [100 favorites]

Here's another angle in the Trump Foundation case. The Trump Foundation is a special type of charity called a private foundation. This is quite different from a public charity like the Clinton Foundation.

A private foundation is usually funded by personal donations from the founder, in this case, Trump. Private foundations are not supposed to be soliciting lots of donations from outsiders. In fact, this is a big red flag for the IRS because of the temptation to use the private foundation as a tax evasion scheme.

Unlike a public charity which allows anonymous donations, a private charity has stricter rules which require the disclosure of all the donors to the foundation. You can see these donors yourself on Form 990PF linked above on Schedule B.

If you go back through the forms for many years you find that a lot of these "donations" are from business associates. It's quite possible that Trump would tell a business that owes rent to Trump, for example "Don't pay me, donate your payment to my foundation so I don't have to pay taxes on the income."

There are dozens of these business donors over the years. They just need to get one of them to flip and admit that they were really paying Trump for services. That again is tax fraud. The names are listed on the 990PF. Prosecutors just have to drag every one of them into a grand jury and put them under oath.
posted by JackFlash at 11:10 AM on June 14, 2018 [68 favorites]

It is striking to me how fast Underwood must have pulled the trigger; and how long Schneiderman must have sat on the same work.

And how much Schneiderman and Trump had in common, after all.
posted by Dashy at 11:12 AM on June 14, 2018 [34 favorites]

If you go back through the forms for many years you find that a lot of these "donations" are from business associates. It's quite possible that Trump would tell a business that owes rent to Trump, for example "Don't pay me, donate your payment to my foundation so I don't have to pay taxes on the income."

Mr. Fahrenthold and 2016 would like someone to finally notice that Trump directed $2.3 million owed to him to his tax-exempt foundation instead of say, declaring it as income.
posted by Dashy at 11:15 AM on June 14, 2018 [48 favorites]

Political Wire quotes the WaPo:

Former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn said that an escalating trade war could wipe out the benefits of the Republican tax law passed last fall, the Washington Post reports.

Said Cohn: “If you end up with a tariff battle, you will end up with price inflation, and you could end up with consumer debt. Those are all historic ingredients for an economic slowdown.”

It's fascinating that Republicans are already predicting lackluster economic news despite the magic they predicted the tax cuts would work (and that with interest rates still at historic lows). And Trump launching a trade war has given them a scapegoat. Democrats should not let them get away with it, pointing out that the wealthy will still be getting richer.
posted by Gelatin at 11:18 AM on June 14, 2018 [22 favorites]

Reading these posts about the IG report, all I hear in my mind is a voice breathily singing, "Happy birthday, Mr. President..."
posted by Superplin at 11:18 AM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

SEPTEMBER! SEPTEMBER, 2016!!!!! THIS WAS ESTABLISHED FACT!!!!!
I will excuse myself to the yelling thread, now.
posted by Dashy at 11:18 AM on June 14, 2018 [29 favorites]

I know that people on Metafilter consider voting to be inviolately important, but I'm less fanatical about it. Living in the US is a nightmare and there are lots of people that no one is helping. When you look up and only see shit raining down on you no matter what you do, cynicism is the only reasonable answer.

I understand this but at the same time there aren't a lot of tools in the ol' tool box. One of my friends who is a hard-core non-voter is dependent on food stamps - or was dependent on food stamps, before the series of changes to SNAP that have made them virtually inaccessible. Now not only is getting good food a challenge, getting enough calories is a challenge. If we had a strong democratic majority that was indebted to the left, these changes would not have happened, not because the Democrats are so wonderful but because it would have been politically impossible.

When people talk about how they shouldn't bother voting because everyone is corrupt, everything is already terrible, etc, it seems like folks don't understand (through no fault of their own, because this fact is obscured) the complex web of bureaucracy that sustains our daily lives. Are there going to be more or fewer bus routes? Are there going to be discount bus card programs for low income people? How much funding will the university-run public legal and medical clinics receive? Will the sliding scale clinic get any grants this year, or will the federal program issuing those grants get defunded? Do the police focus on doing homeless sweeps or do they have a policy of tolerance?

The Medicaid expansion, imperfect though it was, enormously benefited many marginalized people. The states that didn't accept the expansion would have accepted the expansion if they'd had democratic majorities indebted to the left.

If the state is not indebted to left majorities then every aspect of life will get worse, and there is no possibility of any meaningful positive change. This will affect almost every marginalized person, because it will shift every bureaucratic decision-making apparatus to the right. I do not know a single poor person whose life has not been made substantially worse by the drift to the right of the past twenty years.

A distinction between "Democrats will fix things themselves" and "we need to elect Democrats by working from the left so that we can twist arms" is a pretty big deal.

If folks are suffering to the point where they don't have the psychic or material wherewithal to voite, that's understandable, but that's not the same as saying "nothing ever can change, cynicism is the only accurate understanding of the world".

Like, the other options take a lot more effort than voting, because the other options are variants on "mass uprising", and if you think it's hard to coordinate and win a political campaign, you should try running an insurrection that isn't immediately put down with force of arms. If it comes down to mass uprisings of one kind or another, we all have to do our duty to our fellow humans, but let's not kid ourselves about how fun, quick or straightforward it's going to be.
posted by Frowner at 11:19 AM on June 14, 2018 [84 favorites]

If you go back through the forms for many years you find that a lot of these "donations" are from business associates. It's quite possible that Trump would tell a business that owes rent to Trump, for example "Don't pay me, donate your payment to my foundation so I don't have to pay taxes on the income."

Vince and Linda McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment "donated" $5M to the DJTF, coincidentally during a year that Trump was a featured performer at and leading up to WrestleMania.
posted by Etrigan at 11:19 AM on June 14, 2018 [38 favorites]

@kyledcheney: IG found that on numerous occasions, COMEY used a personal GMail account to conduct official FBI business, according to source briefed on the report.

Sam Stein (DailyBeast/MSNBC)
COMEY Oct. 12: " I have gotten emails from some employees about this, who said if I did what Hillary Clinton did I’d be in huge trouble. My response is you bet your ass you’d be in huge trouble.”

It turned out, he did use personal email.
posted by chris24 at 11:20 AM on June 14, 2018 [63 favorites]

It is striking to me how fast Underwood must have pulled the trigger; and how long Schneiderman must have sat on the same work.

Reading Trump's tweets about it, it appears that they had been negotiating a settlement. Drag that out long enough, and you get to 2018 with no appearance of anything.

Underwood gets in, looks at the case and says no more negotiating, let's get this moving forward so we can get it resolved.
posted by mikelieman at 11:21 AM on June 14, 2018 [31 favorites]

It makes me wonder if Schneiderman was being blackmailed into slow-walking the investigation. If so, we can thank #metoo for getting him out of the way of the investigation. And if Underwood is not going to seek re-election - then that's the Battle Cry Of No Fucks Given. I hope this ends very badly for Trump and the Traitor Tots.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:31 AM on June 14, 2018 [54 favorites]

zarq: By this reasoning, Quebec belongs to France, Chile and much of the rest of South America belong to Spain, and the US belongs to England.

Except the parts where indigenous languages are still spoken in the Americas, which looks different from historic maps of native peoples (more information).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:32 AM on June 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

It is striking to me how fast Underwood must have pulled the trigger; and how long Schneiderman must have sat on the same work.

I don't have the time/resources to find it now, but I recall reading that there was potentially blackmail material on Schneiderman, from one or another cyber breaches? It is not surprising, in that case, that he was trying to negotiate a resolution rather than prosecute.
posted by W Grant at 11:32 AM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Underwood has said she's not running for the position, but geez, if her office pulls this off, she won't have to run, she'll be given the job by popular acclamation.
posted by notyou at 11:33 AM on June 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

From the NYS OAG/Trump Foundation lawsuit

62. The Foundation represented on its 2013 IRS tax return that it did not contribute to a Section 527 political organization and did not participate in any political campaign. In its list of specific contributions on the 2013 tax return, the Foundation did not disclose its contribution to And Just for All in Tampa, Florida. Instead, it listed a $25,000 contribution to a Kansas-based Section 501(c)(3) organization with a similar name, Justice for All. Contrary to this disclosure, the Foundation never made a contribution to the Kansas-based Justice for All.

Amateurs. Stupid, stupid amateurs. Auditors see through this shit like Supergirl's X-Ray vision. If you're going to launder money, at least learn how to launder money....
posted by mikelieman at 11:40 AM on June 14, 2018 [39 favorites]

Underwood has said she's not running for the position, but geez, if her office pulls this off, she won't have to run, she'll be given the job by popular acclamation.

I've always said she's above this NY AG gig. US Supreme Court material, but maybe a few years as AG under a Democratic president would do our nation good.
posted by mikelieman at 11:42 AM on June 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

the complex web of bureaucracy that sustains our daily lives

Yeah, this! Bureaucracy is normal. All of our lives are dictated by bureaucracy! It allows me to buy oranges in the summer, have heating in the winter, and do crazy things like take showers and fly on airplanes. I love these bureaucracies!

People who don't like bureaucracies are called Libertarians. And we all know they are stupid and foolish, but I still hear people constantly complaining about "bureaucracy" kind of like how they complain about "politicians". As many have said, it's a simple and cynical way to make oneself appear wise.

But these cynical viewpoints are poisoning these concepts - poisoning the very fabric of our lives and democracy. Bureaucracies, just like politicians, are what we want them to be. And if we want them to be approachable and life-enriching, it's up to us to do that. We are the bureaucracy, we participate in it every day, and if we hate it then we are hating ourselves.
posted by weed donkey at 11:44 AM on June 14, 2018 [55 favorites]

And Just for All in Tampa, Florida
What is this? Google brings up nothing. Was this Pam Bondi's campaign?
posted by Kitty Stardust at 11:45 AM on June 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Libertarians, on the other hand, fucking love means-testing, a major way of introducing bureaucracy and hassle into goverment services.
posted by Artw at 11:47 AM on June 14, 2018 [15 favorites]

Trump and his minions were "not too smart"? They never had to be; they were committing white collar crimes in New York City, where looking the other way is a fine art, and there was no greater master of it than Current Trump Spokestroll Rudy Giuliani.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:49 AM on June 14, 2018 [15 favorites]

If you're going to launder money, at least learn how to launder money....

At the very start of the Trump scandal, Josh Marshall used the analogy of an event horizon -- one can't see a huge, gravity-distorting object, but one can infer things about it from activity on its perimeter. And he pointed out that Trump and his minions were sure acting like there was something terrible they were desperate to keep anyone from finding out.

Of course Trump is bellicose about the Mueller investigation and trying to influence public opinion. Because he was an amateur at laundering money, and Mueller is obviously hot on the trail of various crimes.

He's guilty. He's acting guilty. And so are his associates (including many Congressional Republicans). His defenders like Giuliani don't even bother any more with the premise Trump might be innocent.

It remains to be seen whether Trump and his cronies will do time, but they're clearly, obviously guilty -- so much so that, once again, the media has to open itself to utter sophistry to even pretend there are tow sides to the question of, say, whether Trump admitted to obstructing justice in an NBC interview.
posted by Gelatin at 11:49 AM on June 14, 2018 [42 favorites]

Rust Moranis: Graham jokes about Corker: GOP would have to be organized to be a cult

I think he's confusing organized religions and cults. Which is totally normal.

zachlipton: Get your 568 page IG report here.

NPR cuts to the chase: Report Condemns FBI Violations In 2016 Clinton Probe But Finds No Political Bias

Comey's actions, it concluded, were "extraordinary and insubordinate," and none of his explanations amounted to a "persuasive basis for deviating from well-established department policies."

Comey wasn't the only person whose conduct has undercut public faith in the Justice Department, the report found.

For example, two FBI officials, special agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page, also have been under intense scrutiny after their text messages were collected during the inspector general investigation and later released to Congress and the public.

Yup, totally normal that Comey would publicly announce that his agency is re-examining Hillary Clinton’s email investigation 11 days before the election. And that's completely the same as the private texts, writing

Page -" (trumps) not ever going to become president right? Right!

Strzok: no. No he's not. We'll stop it."

You know, as two staffers in the FBI, compared to Comey, the fooking Director.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:49 AM on June 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

James Comey: This Report Says I Was Wrong. But That’s Good for the F.B.I.

But even in hindsight I think we chose the course most consistent with institutional values. An announcement at that point by the attorney general, especially one without the transparency our traditions permitted, would have done corrosive damage to public faith in the investigation and the institutions of justice. As painful as the whole experience has been, I still believe that. And nothing in the inspector general’s report makes me think we did the wrong thing.

*gestures broadly at everything that's happened since then*
posted by tonycpsu at 11:52 AM on June 14, 2018 [29 favorites]

Found the answer to my own question. Yeah, that $25K went to Pam Bondi. Apparently, they claimed it was a mistake and paid a fine on this contribution.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 11:52 AM on June 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

they were committing white collar crimes in New York City, where looking the other way is a fine art,

Can we, y'know, not with the ignorant, uncalled-for New York-bashing? I seem to recall it's the NY AG responsible for the current action.
posted by adamgreenfield at 11:52 AM on June 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

And Just for All in Tampa, Florida
What is this? Google brings up nothing. Was this Pam Bondi's campaign?

Yes, this is the Pam Bondi case in which the Trump Foundation illegally donated $25,000 to Bondi's political campaign. This was resolved in September 2016 before the election in which Trump claimed it was just a simple mistake (must have picked up the wrong checkbook) and paid a $2500 fine for the illegal donation. Which prompted the press to forget about this actual illegal activity and immediately pivot back to the important stuff like the Clinton emails.

Even though Trump already paid the penalty, this is being brought up again by the AG to establish a pattern of wrongdoing and that it is not an isolated incident.
posted by JackFlash at 11:56 AM on June 14, 2018 [24 favorites]

Feels like the corruption that’s been evident since the Iraq war is finally starting to come to light. I wonder if CA became as dirty as NYC or DC.

The thing is, NYC is corrupt as fuck. Not compared to defense contractors and the rest, but like on any reasonable scale of criminality, NYC real estate is high up there. And it all becomes one corrupt super organism when you start to look at political corruption and finance.

So NYC is going to be at the center of a lot of this. Which means some Democrats. Unfortunately when corruption is so endemic that it’s just the way things are done, anyone who’s gotten anything done is likely to be implicated. So believe me when I say this: hang them all.

I am fucking done. I am 100% on board to brand the GOP as the party of criminals, because they embraced this with fucking GLEE, but I want them all to go down.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:59 AM on June 14, 2018 [36 favorites]

While NYC bashing is bad, I do think it's quite obvious that the Democrats have a long and unfortunate history of looking the other way about financial crimes.

It should not have taken Donald J. Trump being elected president before we started looking into his, apparently massive, financial crimes. It should not have taken the total and utter collapse of Enron before we started looking at their proven to be massive financial crimes. It should not have taken the biggest banks on Earth wrecking the entire global economy by gambling before we started looking into their financial crimes.

In America everyone in power is far too willing to ignore white collar crime. The Democrats have the advantage in that they at least pay lip service to the idea that white collar crime is real crime. But seriously, Trump should have been in prison and bankrupt decades ago.

I think the most difficult but most necessary thing we will have to fight for if we ever have a Democratic majority again is going to be serious trust busting, redirecting law enforcement away from petty crimes by black people and onto big crimes by rich white dudes, and in general pushing away this attitude that financial crimes by the rich should be ignored until they get into politics.

Even harder is going to be recognizing that money is power, and that power exercised in secret is always power abused. We need to have vastly more financial transparency in the USA, not only is it bad that Trump kept his tax returns secret, so too is it bad that absolutely anyone who earns more than $1,000,000 is able to do the same. Once a person commands enough money their finances need to be a matter of public knowledge simply to keep an eye on the enormous power that money represents.
posted by sotonohito at 12:04 PM on June 14, 2018 [71 favorites]

Watchdog criticizes Comey but finds no proof FBI’s Clinton probe tainted by bias

Horowitz found that five FBI employees assigned to the email case exchanged texts or instant messages that were hostile to Trump or supported Clinton. In one previously unreleased exchange, FBI agent Peter Strzok — who was deeply involved in both the Clinton probe and the investigation of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia — seemed to vow to block Trump from winning.

Trump's "not ever going to become president, right? Right?!" FBI attorney Lisa Page asked via text on August 8, 2016.

"No. No he won't. We'll stop it," Strzok replied.

1) They didn't stop it.
2) Is there any proof they actually did anything to stop it?
3) Strzok and Page were having an affair, so this exchange might not be official FBI communiques

Despite individual agent's personal feelings towards Clinton and Trump, the FBI released a nothingburger about the Clinton probe right before the election and sat on the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:06 PM on June 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

Trump's "not ever going to become president, right? Right?!" FBI attorney Lisa Page asked via text on August 8, 2016.

"No. No he won't. We'll stop it," Strzok replied.

I recall having basically this exact conversation with my mom while we were vacationing together in Florida in October 2016. I await the 24/7 Fox News coverage of the exchange.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:07 PM on June 14, 2018 [29 favorites]

Yeah, I mean if anyone has any evidence im wrong id be all about seeing it but isn't the most accessible interpretation of "No no he wont, well stop it" have the "we" meaning the American Electorate. It wasn't exactly an uncommon view at the time he wrote the text that we were simply too good to elect a horrible racist grifting piece of shit president.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:09 PM on June 14, 2018 [15 favorites]

So NYC is going to be at the center of a lot of this. Which means some Democrats.

Then let's send them to jail too. Let justice be done, though the heavens fall. The media loves its "both sides do it" narrative," but what they overlook (Narrator: Deliberately) is that Democrats get rid of their crooks and wrongdoers, and Republicans elect theirs.
posted by Gelatin at 12:10 PM on June 14, 2018 [25 favorites]

One of the first things you notice when you walk into the shelter — no joke — a mural of Trump with the quote “sometimes losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.”

This turns out to be a quote from a chapter in the ghost-written Art of the Deal in which Trump boasts about how he evicted his tenants at 100 Central Park South by using the scummiest slumlord tactics.

We are beyond satire.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:13 PM on June 14, 2018 [73 favorites]

Yeah, I mean if anyone has any evidence im wrong id be all about seeing it but isn't the most accessible interpretation of "No no he wont, well stop it" have the "we" meaning the American Electorate. It wasn't exactly an uncommon view at the time

It also wouldn't hurt to reinforce the narrative that despite hindsight, his confidence was somewhat justified. Nearly three million more people voted for Clinton, and it too Comey and the Russians putting their thumbs on the scale to tip the election to Trump.

One of the things that makes the various crimes of the Trump presidency so outrageous is that he never was legitimate in the first place. Maybe he thought he had no legitimacy to lose.
posted by Gelatin at 12:14 PM on June 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

In America everyone in power is far too willing to ignore white collar crime. The Democrats have the advantage in that they at least pay lip service to the idea that white collar crime is real crime. But seriously, Trump should have been in prison and bankrupt decades ago.

I think the most difficult but most necessary thing we will have to fight for if we ever have a Democratic majority again is going to be serious trust busting, redirecting law enforcement away from petty crimes by black people and onto big crimes by rich white dudes, and in general pushing away this attitude that financial crimes by the rich should be ignored until they get into politics.

Sotonohito, you're on a roll today - that's two flagged-as-fantastic comments! I agree with you. Democrats need to 1) take white-collar crime seriously and 2) run squeaky-clean, choirboy-and-girl, Eagle Scout candidates of impeccable integrity. We were talking about cynicism and the perception of government as corrupt earlier in the thread; having looked the other way with regard to Trump's, and other's, crimes just adds to the cynicism and apathy which is endangering our democracy.

#LockThemAllUp
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 12:15 PM on June 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

David Fahrenthold is taking some well-deserved victory laps:

Just talking to a former IRS official about this. He was amazed at the range of the violations here. "They hit an extroardinary catalog of how *not* to run a private foundation. There’s little else he could have done that would have made it worse."
posted by sapere aude at 12:16 PM on June 14, 2018 [55 favorites]

There’s little else he could have done that would have made it worse.

Including, sadly, running for President and making investigations inevitable.
posted by Gelatin at 12:18 PM on June 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

I can already tell that I'm going to want to strangle a bunch of headline writers today. WHAT IS COMEY BEING CRITICIZED FOR. IS IT FOR BEING ANTI-CLINTON? I BET IT FUCKING IS.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:22 PM on June 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

Eliott Spitzer was elected as Attorney General in NYS in 1998, replacing Dennis Vacco, a Republican. Spitzer had run as someone who would take on white collar crime and then spent his career as AG prosecuting it. Before the '01 collapse of Enron. Before the '08 banking crisis. The NY AG's office still has a white collar crimes unit and it is obviously quite active.

He was loathed, vilified and feared. Wall Street celebrated his downfall. But his legacy has lived on in subsequent AG's. Cuomo, Schneiderman and now Underwood. Who have also been loathed, vilified and feared.

All four were and are Democrats.

It's incorrect to say that all Democrats turn a blind eye. Since Spitzer's first term began in January 1999, New York City's majority-Democratic residents have been electing Democrats to the AG's office who have done their best to fight corruption at the highest levels of the financial sector. They've scored some huge wins. We should leave the false "both sides" takes to Fox News where they belong.
posted by zarq at 12:26 PM on June 14, 2018 [51 favorites]

At long last, three reporters (the first was Jim Acosta of CNN, I don't know the other two yet) really went after Huckabee Sanders on the family separation atrocity just now. After she had fobbed the first two off with the usual "we're just enforcing the law; Democrats have to fix the law but are playing politics" BULLSHIT, the third guy let her fucking have it, repeatedly asking, "Do you have no empathy? You're a parent of young children. These people have nothing and they come here seeking asylum, and you choose to traumatize them" etc. I cheered.

Sadly, the rest of the roomful of craven access-sucking cowards let her ignore him and move on.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:30 PM on June 14, 2018 [47 favorites]

So Comey is sticking to his defense that "I'm the only honest man in government" and that Loretta Lynch and Sally Yates (hmm, what do they have in common) are untrustworthy.
posted by JackFlash at 12:30 PM on June 14, 2018 [15 favorites]

@DvoraMeyers: The Orthodox Union gave Jeff Sessions a "justice" award. The OU is a fucking joke.

Update on the morality of the Orthodox Union: @AliceOllstein: @PressSec on the separation of infants from their mothers at the US-Mexico border: "It is very biblical to enforce the law...It's a moral policy to enforce the law."

@AliceOllstein: The next reporter points out (correctly) that it is not a law to separate children and parents. It's a policy of the Trump administration that could change today

This is not true. There is no law that requires immigrant families to be separated. The decision to charge everyone crossing the border with illegal entry — and the decision to charge asylum seekers in criminal court rather than waiting to see if they qualify for asylum — are both decisions the Trump administration has made.

posted by zachlipton at 12:31 PM on June 14, 2018 [34 favorites]

Oh, Sessions went all biblical too, citing Romans 13 and then departing from his prepared remarks to say that the Lord told Nehemiah to build a wall to "keep bad people out."
posted by zachlipton at 12:35 PM on June 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

@NBCNews: Reporter: Are you confident in EPA Admin. Pruitt?
Speaker Ryan: "Frankly I haven't paid that close attention to it ... I don't know enough about what Pruitt has or has not done to give you a good comment."

I realize Ryan is on his way out and cares even less than usual, but claiming that you have no earthly idea what's going on when you're a leader of the branch of government charged with overseeing it should be cause enough to forever end the idea that you're not a clown.
posted by zachlipton at 12:39 PM on June 14, 2018 [62 favorites]

OK, the hero reporter was CNN's Brian Karem. Here's the video (via Twitter).
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:40 PM on June 14, 2018 [27 favorites]

"It is very biblical to enforce the law...It's a moral policy to enforce the law."

An "I was just following orders" for our time.
posted by chris24 at 12:43 PM on June 14, 2018 [34 favorites]

Manchin Touts Border Wall Vote in Bid for Trump Fans

His much vaunted secret magic appeal across the aisles is that he’s super racist, in case that hasn’t been clear.
posted by Artw at 12:43 PM on June 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

When SHS accuses him of just wanting more TV time... just, holy shit.
posted by marshmallow peep at 12:44 PM on June 14, 2018 [24 favorites]

More bad news in court for Donald Trump, per Law.com's Mike Scarcella:

NY Court of Appeals today denies Trump move to block defamation suit by ex-'Apprentice' contestant Summer Zervos

NY appeals court, ruling against Trump: 'Motion for a stay dismissed as academic.' https://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2018/Jun18/DecisionList061418.pdf … (link h/t @steve_vladeck)

posted by Doktor Zed at 12:55 PM on June 14, 2018 [26 favorites]

Interesting observation from Jake Tapper on the Strzok aspects of the report: The IG seems to hint (but doesn't outright conclude) that it was Strzok who drove the decision not to seek a warrant for Anthony Weiner's laptop when they first got it in September 2016. Comey didn't know about it at the time, and when he did find out in October (thanks to the SDNY US Attorney office asking about it), the push for a quick turnaround set off the October Surprise letter that we all know and love.

So rather than slanting the investigation in Clinton's favor, Strzok's desire to “stop him” may have been the first domino falling on that stupid fucking letter that helped set the world on fire.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:55 PM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

@DvoraMeyers: The Orthodox Union gave Jeff Sessions a "justice" award. The OU is a fucking joke.

Twitter was filled with angry Jews this morning. Many of them were Orthodox and questioning why the OU would honor a man who had previously praised the law that kept Jewish refugees from coming to America during the Holocaust. Demanding answers. They mocked the OU for speaking with Sessions in private about immigration, (and demanded to know what was said,) then praising him in public. Especially considering the plaque.

The plaque given to Sessions had a well-known phrase from Deuteronomy (16:20): "Justice, Justice shall you pursue." The Torah and Mishnah have a great deal to say about the concept of justice and it's purpose in Judaism. Multiple passages speak of Jews' religious obligation to treat everyone, but especially those in need with compassion, respect and dignity. To respond without vengeance or cruelty -- by ancient standards. It's not a perfect thing. But for the Orthodox Union to give an award to a man who represents an administration that by every standard is cruel, unjust and treats innocents like garbage, is a damned sin.

The OU has spent many years on the wrong side of various debates, in sharp opposition to the more progressive Reform movement and the somewhat less progressive Conservative movement. They've been homophobic, sexist and transphobic. But I never thought I'd see the day when they defended an agent of white supremacists. I hope this acts as a stark wake up call to their congregations. Because they for damn sure shouldn't be claiming to represent all Jews or "proper" Jewish values.
posted by zarq at 12:55 PM on June 14, 2018 [45 favorites]

How exactly does that work? Is that some sort of magical Trump math? Writing bad checks that can't be cashed?

Let's say you start out 2016 with $20,000,000 cash in the bank. Over the course of the year you spend $19,200,000 on charitable giving and received $18,800,000 in donations.

At the end of 2016, you now have $20,000,000-$19,200,000+$18,800,000=$19,600,000 cash in your bank account. Same as any other organization that spent more than they took in.
posted by VTX at 12:55 PM on June 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Here's another curious thing about the Trump Foundation 990PF for 2016. On page 1 there is an entry for $62,184 of ambiguous "Other Income" referring to Statement 2.

If you go to Statement 2 is says that the $62,184 is "Reimbursements of prior distributions." This apparently refers to the illegal payment to Bondi of $25,000 plus $2500 penalty that had to be reimbursed to the foundation. But that leaves another $35K in unexplained reimbursements.

This means that there is likely another $35k in illegal charity distributions that hasn't been explained yet but that Trump quietly reimbursed in the lead up to the election after the exposure of the illegal Bondi distribution. I wonder who got that $35K payment from Trump and for what purpose?

Oh, what a treasure trove of corruption. As with Al Capone and his tax returns, I'll take it.
posted by JackFlash at 12:57 PM on June 14, 2018 [29 favorites]

I realize Ryan is on his way out and cares even less than usual, but claiming that you have no earthly idea what's going on when you're a leader of the branch of government charged with overseeing it should be cause enough to forever end the idea that you're not a clown.

Remember when Republicans used to give a shit about the presidency becoming more Imperial? You know. 1993-2001 and 2009-2017.

Now we have a wannabe Caligula sitting on the fucking throne and crickets.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 1:01 PM on June 14, 2018 [32 favorites]

Let's say you start out 2016 with $20,000,000 cash in the bank.

Imma have to stop you right there.

If you look at the Trump Foundation returns, it never had anything close to $20M dollars. It was very lightly funded, especially by Trump.

So the only reasonable way to interpret Trump's statement is the that the $18M or $19M is not an annual cash flow statement but is cumulative over the life of the foundation. So it still makes no sense.
posted by JackFlash at 1:03 PM on June 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

Here's an up-to-date list of sponsors for Feinstein's Keep Family Together Act. You can see if your Senators are on this list and contact them with appropriate messages based on their presence or absence. (Pro tip: if they're a Republican, you do not need to check the list first.)
posted by zachlipton at 1:06 PM on June 14, 2018 [17 favorites]

Joe Scarborough
The IG Report headline: FBI Director Comey broke protocol in ways that helped elect Donald Trump

---

John Harwood (CNBC)
to sum up: Justice Dept Inspector General concluded that bias did NOT affect Clinton email investigation, that FBI had PROPER reasons for declining to prosecute her, and that the only improper actions influencing 2016 election were actions that damaged Clinton, not Trump.
posted by chris24 at 1:08 PM on June 14, 2018 [33 favorites]

Josh Marshall's Brutal Reading post is a good take on how damning the IG report is for Comey, even when the IG doesn't fully attack Comey explicitly. It starts

I’ve just been doing an initial read-through of the portion of the report about the decision to send the October 2016 “Comey Letter” to Congress. It’s like watching a 4x Slo-Mo video of a horrible car accident. It gets worse and worse. You know what’s coming. It’s endless and yet you know how it ends.

There’s a lot of fancy explanations and discussions. But by the end, it all comes down to just ignoring longstanding DOJ guidelines and precedent that you make every effort to avoid election-influencing actions on the heels of an election. You’re not supposed to do that. They came out with various arguments about how this case was an exception and they should do it. And they did it. Or rather, James Comey did it. It ends up really being that simple. It was a huge mistake. And the IG says as much.

And goes from there. The thing about bias is that it rarely looks like bias when you just look at a single instance. You can't see the forest until you back up and compare this case to others at the FBI (Russia, but also decades of previous investigations), at which point the locally-justified decisions become much more damning in context (the rest of Marshall's post expands upon this nicely). I hope this means we can go back to hating Comey now, even as we may welcome any new cooperation he provides in taking down Trump.
posted by chortly at 1:08 PM on June 14, 2018 [27 favorites]

I realize Ryan is on his way out and cares even less than usual, but claiming that you have no earthly idea what's going on when you're a leader of the branch of government charged with overseeing it should be cause enough to forever end the idea that you're not a clown.

On top of that, Ryan isn't being asked about some obscure minor official; he's being asked about the head of the EPA, whose name has surfaced in connection with multiple scandals and abuses of power, and oversight is Congress' job. Feigning ignorance is his only alternative to saying something critical of Pruitt, and it's notable that even though it's ridiculous, Ryan chooses that tack.
posted by Gelatin at 1:09 PM on June 14, 2018 [16 favorites]

I haven't had time to read it, but judging by the crickets, I'm guessing the IG report doesn't address the rumors that the rogue pro-Trump agents in the NYC office forced Comey to reopen and disclose the Clinton investigation?
posted by martin q blank at 1:10 PM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

I hope this means we can go back to hating Comey now

don’t worry I kept the homefires burning on that misogynist piece of republic-killing shit
posted by schadenfrau at 1:20 PM on June 14, 2018 [59 favorites]

rogue pro-Trump agents in the NYC office

According to Jake Tapper: "the only thing that prompted FBI to finally act on Weiner laptop were "people outside of the FBI" (from US Attorney SDNY) asking about it"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:22 PM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

The so-called "compromise" House immigration bill is out (hint: the same Republicans who are backing this bill have said they'll vote for the rule to debate the Goodlatte bill, making them hardly moderates). $25B for border security/wall, DHS must not separate parents and children in their custody (sounds like there's a loophole there, huh?), kill the diversity visa lottery, a weird sort of DACA deal that provides temporary protection and maybe sorta a path to green cards, "asylum reform", and more. There's a provision toward the end that "clarifies" that ICE detainers are valid even on DUIs and provides immunity to states for honoring detainers.

I'll post a wrap-up on the details once the experts have gone through this.
posted by zachlipton at 1:23 PM on June 14, 2018 [15 favorites]

Billy House (Bloomberg)
Letter to Justice IG Horowitz from GOP Reps. Biggs, DeSantis and Gaetz asks for all drafts of his report on handling of Clinton case. They write that they are "concerned" that "people may have changed the report in a way that obfuscates your findings."

@goldengateblond
Retweeted Billy House
Here's how you know the Comey report was a bust, politically: A bunch of Trump sycophants think it was altered. 🙃
posted by chris24 at 1:24 PM on June 14, 2018 [41 favorites]

"Do you have no empathy? You're a parent of young children. These people have nothing and they come here seeking asylum, and you choose to traumatize them"

It's natural to look at this scene with disgust, both for the reporters sitting there doing nothing while a tiny handful push the issue, and for Sanders and her routine display of inhumanity. But I'm going to take this and the stuff from the Catholic Church and others as encouragement. It matters.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:31 PM on June 14, 2018 [28 favorites]

If white collar crime were pursued in a legal and propaganda campaign, in the same way that "drugs" were pursued in the 20th Century, none of this would be happening. All these fuckers would already be in jail.

$25,000 illegal campaign contributions are gateway crimes, they lead to harder stuff, like poisoning towns and stealing children.

White collar crime kills. There's your Democratic agenda.
posted by Horkus at 1:35 PM on June 14, 2018 [85 favorites]

NBC News: Trump admin will house migrant kids in tents in Tornillo, Texas

Average June high temperature: 96
Average December low temperature: 28
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:41 PM on June 14, 2018 [35 favorites]

As a child of the eighties growing up in a leftist household, we were steeped in Reagan hatred. And I'm not saying that that I feel kindly towards him today. But what I can say is that I just heard a clip about Reagan talking about the need for trade alliances and it just about fucking broke my heart, because this man I've hated all my life now sounds as reasonable as fuck, and it's one thing to hear Obama's soaring oratory and hurt, it's another thing to have Killer Mike's "Reagan" on your Spotify playlists and then almost tear up hearing Ronnie speak.
posted by angrycat at 1:45 PM on June 14, 2018 [37 favorites]

Always funny when even one of the worst people in the world won't lie about your craven partisan bullshit.

Joe Walsh
So the #IGREPORT proves what?

1. The FBI was right to decide not to charge Hillary with a crime.
2. That decision wasn't motivated by political bias or improper considerations.
3. James Comey made mistakes.
4. Those mistakes helped Trump win.

Sounds like Hillary got screwed.
posted by chris24 at 1:53 PM on June 14, 2018 [77 favorites]

It makes me wonder if Schneiderman was being blackmailed into slow-walking the investigation. If so, we can thank #metoo for getting him out of the way of the investigation.

Now we just need to find out what they have on Cyrus Vance, Jr. and Andrew Cuomo. Or just vote them out, that might be easier.
posted by msalt at 1:57 PM on June 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

They've been homophobic, sexist and transphobic. But I never thought I'd see the day when they defended an agent of white supremacists. I hope this acts as a stark wake up call to their congregations.

i mean??? if the first 3 didn't?? i don't expect much now.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:01 PM on June 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z2j-Kg8Rq6A
I´m sorry not to provide a clickable link, but am struggling with this old ipad. The link is to Avenatti and Scaramucci on Colbert, and Scaramucci exactly uses the all politicians are liars mentioned above. It´s a chilling example.
Something Else I´ve been thinking about as a not American, so I´m uncertain if this is correct reasoning: after reading about the American prison system and it´S use of forced labor, I am thinking wether this treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers is a Way of reintroducing slavery? First put all the refugees in concentration camps, then send them on forced labor, just linke the nazis, but also just like it seems from the outside that a lot of prisons are already functioning today?

Goddamit I hope I Will Sohn have a Worning computer Alain.
posted by mumimor at 2:06 PM on June 14, 2018 [18 favorites]

Even Shapiro.

Ben Shapiro
Basically, all these FBI agents were so convinced Hillary was going to win that they made a bunch of decisions that helped her lose.
posted by chris24 at 2:15 PM on June 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

I am thinking wether this treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers is a Way of reintroducing slavery

Yes, you're not alone about thinking this. Technically, people in immigration detention can't be used for labor, as they aren't being held pursuant to any crime. However, there is a lawsuit proceeding alleging that people in ICE detention were required to work- mostly at housekeeping sorts of things, but it's still forced labor and still unconstitutional.

People held for the crime of illegally crossing the border could, constitutionally speaking, be compelled to work, but as it's a misdemeanor, I don't know how long they are likely to be sentenced for.
posted by BungaDunga at 2:20 PM on June 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

Did I hear y'all want a 50-state strategy? Axios, Tom Steyer is launching a "Blue Wave" program to help Democrats

Tom Steyer is launching a "Blue Wave" program to expand NextGen America's volunteer network from 11 states to all 50 states by creating an online community to help engage voters before November.

Why it matters: For all the impeachment tension between Steyer and Washington Democrats, this is just another way he's trying to help the Democratic Party take back control of the House this year.

The details: The program will create an online community of volunteers who will work to meet NextGen America's goal of texting 7 million voters and making 500,000 calls in the group's targeted congressional districts.

Steyer should not run for President, but he's doing a hell of a lot of good putting people on the ground who know how to turn out young voters.
posted by zachlipton at 2:22 PM on June 14, 2018 [38 favorites]

zarq I don't mean to argue that the Democrats are as bad, or that the Democrats haven't done good things about white collar crime. But they aren't doing enough. Democrats voted for the bill to re-de-regulate the banking industry, for example.

More to the point, there isn't a War on Drugs style push for prosecuting white collar and financial crime from the Democrats. They do vastly better than the Republicans of course, but that's insufficient.

It's our fault, all Democratic voters I mean not us here on metafilter specifically. We let the Democratic party slip away from unions and economic justice and trust busting. There's a lot of other stuff going on, and getting all that campaign cash from the billionaires who agree with us on social issues tends to muzzle efforts to get serious about financial crimes and financial transparency.

Again, I'm not advocating bothsides-ism here, nor saying that the Democrats are just as bad. I'm simply saying that they're insufficiently good, and that it's our fault for letting all that American Dream, rah rah capitalism, fear of being labeled a filthy Commie, and so on for letting "better than the Republican" become good enough.

It's always been a sort of back and forth, historically. The progressive party of the era would wage a brief campaign against the worst of the wealthy looter class, score some victories, and then relax and a decade or two later the wealthy looter class are right back at it. We never engaged the issue on the sort of ongoing, War on Drugs level intensity and duration, that it needs.

Social justice and economic justice go hand in hand though. We can't really win social justice victories if economic justice isn't on the agenda.
posted by sotonohito at 2:25 PM on June 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

Steyer should not run for President, but he's doing a hell of a lot of good putting people on the ground who know how to turn out young voters.

That goes for people like Howard Schulz, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah, in fact any rich celebrity. Don't run for office. Fund the party, get out the vote, make the 50-state strategy great again; wealthy celebs and businesspeople can do much more good that way than by some quixotic political run, albeit with a bit less ego-stroking.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 2:25 PM on June 14, 2018 [27 favorites]

They've been homophobic, sexist and transphobic. But I never thought I'd see the day when they defended an agent of white supremacists. I hope this acts as a stark wake up call to their congregations.

i mean??? if the first 3 didn't?? i don't expect much now.

Don’t forget islamaphobic. That’s another dead certain flag that you’re dealing with shitbags.
posted by Artw at 2:27 PM on June 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

I haven´t seen this anywhere else. To me it is amazing in this day and age but the USA seems to adore its old time religion.
Sessions - that evil fuck - “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” said Sessions.
He added: “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”
Sanders was asked about Sessions’ statement, and was challenged: “Where does it say in the Bible that’s moral to take children away from mothers?”
Pushing back, Sanders said: “I’m not aware of the attorney general’s comments or what he would be referencing, [but] I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is repeated throughout the Bible.”
So my American friends welcome to the Theocracy, it's official now.
posted by adamvasco at 2:34 PM on June 14, 2018 [30 favorites]

Caught Hannity's show on the ride home (why yes, I do enjoy sticking needles under my fingernails, why do you ask?). As you might expect, it's very much about combing through the large log of texts and emails in the OIG report for pull-quotes from FBI agents about how much they hate Trump. This, according to Hannity and his guests, is a clear display of bias and motive for 'making up' the investigation.

This is going to get worse before it gets better.
posted by Room 101 at 2:35 PM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

I am thinking wether this treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers is a Way of reintroducing slavery

This is my working theory, yes. They've already found ways to conscript (mostly Black) American citizens into forced labor across the private prison system. ("Resisting arrest," driving while black, etc etc etc.) I'm sure they'll find ways to convict migrants in detention of something, too, and then like magic, legal slavery.

The 13th amendment is already on the list of things we need to fix, I know. But goddamn we should nuke that clause from orbit.
posted by schadenfrau at 2:37 PM on June 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

@kyledcheney: IG found that on numerous occasions, COMEY used a personal GMail account to conduct official FBI business, according to source briefed on the report.

@HillaryClinton: But my emails.
posted by zachlipton at 2:38 PM on June 14, 2018 [170 favorites]

Here I was, like an idiot, thinking the Trump Foundation lawsuit, IG report, saluting a North Korean officer, and repeatedly citing the bible to justify forcing families apart was a pretty packed news cycle for the day, when... WSJ, Prosecutors Investigating Michael Cohen for Possible Illegal Lobbying

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether Michael Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer for Donald Trump, illegally engaged in secret lobbying, people familiar with the investigation said, as part of the government’s broader probe into Mr. Cohen’s business dealings.

In the course of that investigation, the prosecutors have contacted companies that hired Mr. Cohen as a consultant after Mr. Trump won the 2016 presidential election, including AT&T Inc. and Novartis AG , according to other people familiar with the matter. The companies paid a total of about $1.8 million to Mr. Cohen in 2017 and early 2018 for his insights into the Trump administration.

Investigators in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York are examining whether Mr. Cohen violated any federal disclosure laws in connection with his consulting deals, including whether he lobbied for domestic or foreign clients without properly registering, the people familiar with the investigation said.

Michael Cohen is under an awful lot of investigations.
posted by zachlipton at 2:52 PM on June 14, 2018 [40 favorites]

Because he is BAD AT DOING CRIMES.
posted by Horkus at 2:59 PM on June 14, 2018 [33 favorites]

Good god. Comey to Brennan and Clapper on why they shouldn't make any kind of public statement on Russia's actions, sent October 5th (page 348):

I think the window has closed on the opportunity for an official statement, with 4 weeks until a presidential election. I think the marginal incremental disruption/inoculation impact of the statement would be hugely outweighed by the damage to the [Intelligence Community’s] reputation for independence. I could be wrong (and frequently am) but Americans already “know” the Russians are monkeying around on behalf of one candidate. Our “confirming” it (1) adds little to the public mix, (2) begs difficult questions about both how we know that and what we are going to do about it, and (3) exposes us to serious accusations of launching our own “October surprise.” That last bit is utterly untrue, but a reality in our poisonous atmosphere.

And then this asshole turned around a few weeks later and launched an October surprise for Trump. Reason 2 is particularly notable though: he didn't want to say anything public about what was happening because people might just ask what they were doing about it, and the answer was fuck all.
posted by zachlipton at 2:59 PM on June 14, 2018 [67 favorites]

God forbid the FBI has to answer difficult questions about foreign manipulation of an election. We should really just put the Feds on the simple things.
posted by MysticMCJ at 3:07 PM on June 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

Because he is BAD AT DOING CRIMES.

RIGHT?? Like I FULLY realize there are a vast and worthy wealth of vile things, actual crimes, to be utterly furious, disgusted, despairing, enraged about with this godawful administration but my god I will never get over having every last one of them done by INCOMPETENT FUCKING MORONS.

why can't the collapse of western civilization at least have come at the hands of people with cunning fiendish supervillain minds instead of by people who could be handily outsmarted by a drunk juvenile baboon. twice.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:08 PM on June 14, 2018 [33 favorites]

Michael Cohen is under an awful lot of investigations.

The indictments. All of them.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:10 PM on June 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

So keep quiet a month before the election that the Russians are monkeying around on behalf of one candidate, but it's Red Alert time a couple of weeks before the election because you might've found more dick pics on the Weinermachine?
posted by kirkaracha at 3:15 PM on June 14, 2018 [29 favorites]

Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, Texas is looking for (via the ACLU) donations of supplies via an Amazon wishlist for families claiming asylum who have been released, often with ankle monitors, by CBP.
posted by zachlipton at 3:16 PM on June 14, 2018 [31 favorites]

I am seething with rage at that Comey email (or was it a gmail?). I can't even handle it. Trump literally denied that Russia was interfering with the election on the debate stage; it was not "known". Comey was just A-OK letting that slide right before he turned around and dropped a giant turdbomb on Clinton's campaign two weeks later.

The size of the double standard that Clinton was abused with is just incomprehensible. I don't think future generations will even believe this happened.
posted by 0xFCAF at 3:19 PM on June 14, 2018 [45 favorites]

Aren't Republicans all about religious exemptions from having to follow laws? Now they're using the bible as the reason why they're forced to follow laws? Make up your minds, asssholes.

Also, I'm not entirely sure Jesus was talking to Roman lawmakers when he to follow Roman laws. He may very well have told them to fix their shit.
posted by Green With You at 3:21 PM on June 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

I don't think future generations will even believe this happened.

You're not alone.

@kyledcheney: IG found that on numerous occasions, COMEY used a personal GMail account to conduct official FBI business, according to source briefed on the report.

Matthew Yglesias
Retweeted Kyle Cheney
Future generations are never going to believe this bullshit was the hinge on which history turned.

LOLGOP
The future will marvel over the anger that was summoned over a woman using email and no one will have to bother explaining that it was just some sad old sexism.
posted by chris24 at 3:25 PM on June 14, 2018 [36 favorites]

Hm, you know what? I'm a Sedaris fan and I never, ever heard any drama coming out of this.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:31 PM on June 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

ACA is the law. Roe is the law. Never see them cite Romans 13 for those.
posted by chris24 at 3:34 PM on June 14, 2018 [65 favorites]

Yoni Appelbaum has a mini thread on the history of using Romans 13 to defend slavery.
posted by zachlipton at 3:38 PM on June 14, 2018 [29 favorites]

In the past 24 hours alone, we got the following:

* Photographic evidence that Trump was illegally self-dealing from his charity, which is what the nutjob rightwing media accused Clinton of doing
* A report that Comey was using non-government email, exactly what the news cycle focused on to the exclusion of all other Clinton activity
* A Biblical defense of ripping children from their mothers' arms, while Clinton was rumored to be running a child sex ring out of the basement of a basementless pizza parlor
* Images from the ~~concentration camps~~ ~~cages~~ facilities where immigrant children are being ~~interned~~ housed, after 8 years of hearing about how Obama wants to round up everyone and put them in "FEMA camps"

At this point I would not be shocked to learn that Donald Trump was born in Kenya. Projection seems to be the only thing these people are capable of.
posted by 0xFCAF at 3:40 PM on June 14, 2018 [138 favorites]

“I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is repeated throughout the Bible.”

Again, my years as a Biblical scholar are preventing me from ignoring that Joseph and Mary violated the King’s royal decree seeking to separate children from their parents, and fled to another country to seek asylum from the King’s deadly violence.

I’m not sure how much more on the nose you can get, except to point out how the Parable of the Good Samaritan demands that we take care of travelers in distress, even to the point of feeding, clothing, housing and providing health care.

Or, indeed, that Jesus himself was eventually murdered by the lawful government of the day.

I swear, the gross, willful obtuseness about some of the most fundamental teachings and themes of Scripture makes me so angry at the Evangelical Christian movement and their eagerness to embrace authoritarianism and hatred when it suits them. It’s why I eventually had to give up the ministry — I just couldn’t remain a part of such hypocrisy and wickedness.
posted by darkstar at 3:40 PM on June 14, 2018 [127 favorites]

That Comey email proves he threw the election to elect Trump. The IG's conclusion that they couldn't determine he had political motives is bullshit. The political motive is right the fuck there in writing.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:40 PM on June 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

This tweet from Matt Yglesias basically sums up my feelings on the last 2 years. Are there equivalent cases in the past where history turned on such trivial and idiotic goddamn bullshit?
posted by Justinian at 3:41 PM on June 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Are there equivalent cases in the past where history turned on such trivial and idiotic goddamn bullshit?

Many. History's mostly that.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:43 PM on June 14, 2018 [24 favorites]

"It is very biblical to enforce the law...It's a moral policy to enforce the law."

What are the two commandments that all the Law and the Prophets hang on? If your law does not consider, "Love your neighbor as yourself," then your law is not grounded in God. The key word is love. Forcing children from their parents is not love. It is apathy or hatred.

The Bible used as a bludgeon. It's like Satan quoting scripture. Perversion. A tool for evil.
posted by Mister Cheese at 3:44 PM on June 14, 2018 [37 favorites]

that Jesus himself was eventually murdered by the lawful government of the day

I sort of have the feeling that a lot of the people who are all "ripping children away from their families is the law, we should follow the law, it's in the Bible!" are also the sort of people who would argue that it was the Sanhedrin and not the Romans who killed Jesus.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 3:45 PM on June 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

The Bible used as a bludgeon. It's like Satan quoting scripture. Perversion. A tool for evil.

Ye shall know them by their fruit.
posted by yesster at 3:48 PM on June 14, 2018 [18 favorites]

Are there equivalent cases in the past where history turned on such trivial and idiotic goddamn bullshit?

Franz Ferndinand's driver making a wrong turn and stopping to turn back around right where Gavrilo Princip happened to be hanging out after missing his planned chance to shoot Ferdinand earlier?
posted by chris24 at 3:49 PM on June 14, 2018 [23 favorites]

The same book of the Torah that fundamentalists loooove to quote about homosexuality also has the words "The stranger who sojourns with you shall be as a native from among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord, your G-d."
posted by Ruki at 3:49 PM on June 14, 2018 [27 favorites]

The size of the double standard that Clinton was abused with is just incomprehensible

Minor quibble: it was, and is, very comprehensible to about half of us

Half of the trauma of 2015-16 was the fucking Cassandra complex of seeing this play out, in real time, only to be gas lighted from the left and the right when you tried to point it out

I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever know the full depth of my fucking anger over it

I kind of hope I don’t
posted by schadenfrau at 3:51 PM on June 14, 2018 [105 favorites]

No, wait, I'm wrong about that. Different books. (edit: No, I was right the first time. Carry on.)
posted by Ruki at 3:51 PM on June 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

come on, the bible tells you it was right for lot to offer to let the horny gang of townspeople rape his children rather than touch an angel's butt. fuck the bible right in the ear.

it's right about shellfish though.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:57 PM on June 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

Ezekiel 16.49: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.”
posted by EarBucket at 3:59 PM on June 14, 2018 [17 favorites]

I had reason to rewatch The Big Short a little while ago, and one scene has really stuck with me. In it, Mark Baum talks about living in an era of fraud in America in all things - banking, government, sport, etc., and that eventually fraud doesn't work. People get caught. And I was thinking, man I wish that were true. I wish that the current run of fraudsters and conmen running things would get caught, but it seems like nothing matters anymore. No one cares enough, there are no consequences.

And now this day, which has been one revelation after another of fraud and grift and graft and stupidity and pettiness. There still might not be any consequences. I'm afraid of that. But I'm at least relieved today to feel like some portion of the monumental fraud and bullshit these shitgibbons have been engaging in has been exposed. I hope it still means enough to enough people for something to actually change.
posted by nubs at 4:00 PM on June 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

As a recovering Catholic, I would love to be done with this religion thread. Just because the R's want to use religion as their weapon, does not mean we should be using it as our shield. Our shield is the separation of church and state.
posted by greermahoney at 4:04 PM on June 14, 2018 [45 favorites]

The same book of the Torah that fundamentalists loooove to quote about homosexuality

So-called "Christians" who lean on the Old Testament to justify bigotry and hatred miss the entire fucking point of Christianity.

Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The entire point of a New Testament is leaving the Angry God rulebook behind and living with love, forgiveness, and compassion.

I'm agnostic, but I've read the Bible cover-to-cover twice, was baptized as a Southern Baptist at ~13, and went to Vacation Bible School in Mountain Grove, Missouri as a kid. We had red-letter Bibles, "with the words of our Lord and Savior set forth in dignified red italics." If you stuck to the red-letter words it all sounded pretty good, but I can't abide people using Christianity to mistreat and condemn other people.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:08 PM on June 14, 2018 [33 favorites]

Reuters: Trump told me 'You're a brutal killer', EU's Juncker says

Jean-Claude Juncker has been called many things during his premiership of Luxembourg and presidency of the European Commission, but probably never what he says U.S. President Donald Trump called him at the weekend: “a brutal killer”. Juncker, who attended a meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven major powers in Canada last week, spoke about his encounter with Trump in a speech to Bavaria’s regional assembly in Munich on Thursday. “Trump told me last week: ‘Jean-Claude - you are a brutal killer’,” Juncker said. “It is the first time Luxembourg has become such a danger to the United States. I think he meant it as a compliment, but I am not sure.”

Has anybody tried turning the universe off, waiting 30 seconds, and then turning it back on again?
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:12 PM on June 14, 2018 [65 favorites]

Comey's "but Americans already “know” the Russians are monkeying around on behalf of one candidate" is fascinatingly horrible. He puts "know" in quotes like it's all very cute that we can maybe kind of guess what's going on, but keep in mind this is from October 5th. What happened a few weeks later? NYT, October 31: Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia:

Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government. And even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump.

The public demonstrably did not "know" what Comey thought we did, because people in his own agency leaked the opposite and got it published in the Times.
posted by zachlipton at 4:18 PM on June 14, 2018 [59 favorites]

'Biblical' anything has fuck all to do with actual justice or legal system. (He screamed at the media device.)
posted by Harry Caul at 4:18 PM on June 14, 2018 [15 favorites]

Agreed that we should probably drop the religiosity derail, because although it is profoundly topical to the wickedness going on and the hypocrisy of those complicit, it is unlikely to lead those of us in this thread to a place of greater clarity and/or emotional calm, to continue to harrow over that particular field.
posted by darkstar at 4:24 PM on June 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

The entire point of a New Testament is leaving the Angry God rulebook behind and living with love, forgiveness, and compassion.

Not according to millions of Christians, it's not.

For the record, Judaism is not supposed to be an "Angry God Rulebook." Core philosophies of the religion emphasize compassion, kindness, justice, fairness, love and human dignity. Just as millions upon millions of Christians have adopted beliefs that run counter to those values, so have hundreds of thousands of Jews. And they all do so by wrapping themselves in a cloak of religious righteousness and faith that they have found the One True Path.

That's human influence.
posted by zarq at 4:25 PM on June 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

The public demonstrably did not "know" what Comey thought we did, because people in his own agency leaked the opposite and got it published in the Times.

And the public "knew" Hilary was "corrupt" because JAMES FUCKING COMEY publicly reopened the investigation 11 days before the election for no reason.

His rationale of avoiding any October surprise for Trump, but fuck it for Clinton, THAT IS THE POLITICAL MOTIVE.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:26 PM on June 14, 2018 [23 favorites]

I feel so fucking angry on behalf of Hillary Clinton, that woman was robbed of the presidency. She was absolutely cheated out of it. We were cheated out of having her as president, and not having the orange shit gibbon. Misogyny is wild. I despair.

The shit going on with kids being ripped away from their parents and put into concentration camps is evil. I’m an American abroad and I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack from moment to moment over what’s happening at the border. Other than giving money and contacting my reps and senators I feel like there’s nothing I can do to help from here. Is this what Germans felt like watching Nazi shit unfold from another country? If anyone knows anything that can be done by people outside the States please put it here because I will do anything to help those families.
posted by supercrayon at 4:36 PM on June 14, 2018 [49 favorites]

'Biblical' anything has fuck all to do with actual justice or legal system.

Render unto Cheeser
posted by banshee at 4:40 PM on June 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

This is literally, verbatim, a reply a friend of a friend had to the internments for tots camps:

What, exactly, is the problem? It sounds like these folks are doing the best they can for these kids. What's the alternative?

House asylum seekers in the community and get their kids into school isn't even on the fucking radar. Fuck this country is cruel.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 4:42 PM on June 14, 2018 [46 favorites]

Ezekiel 16.49: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.”

So what you're saying is, Republicans want to sodomize America. Got it.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:46 PM on June 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

“Trump told me last week: ‘Jean-Claude - you are a brutal killer’,” Juncker said. “It is the first time Luxembourg has become such a danger to the United States. I think he meant it as a compliment, but I am not sure.”

Killer is like Trump's favorite term of endearment

It's what he calls people he likes

This is not sarcasm
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:02 PM on June 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

They're not "Christians." They're actual, real Christians who have terrible views.
posted by This time is different. at 5:05 PM on June 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

Just like Not All Muslims are ISIS, Not All Christians are like this.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:07 PM on June 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm sorry. I don't think Judaism is an Angry God Rulebook and I'm sorry if my comment sounded like I did. I meant how "Christians" tend to view the Old Testament.

posted by kirkaracha at 4:47 PM on June 14 [3 favorites +] [!]

Some Christians. I'm an apatheist, but I think it's important to recognize that the majority of Christians, at least in the US, are not fundamentalists looking to use the Bible as a way to oppress the people they dislike or fear. Almost all the ones I know are repulsed by conservative evangelicals.
posted by Mental Wimp at 5:08 PM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

the majority of Christians, at least in the US, are not fundamentalists looking to use the Bible as a way to oppress the people they dislike or fear.

Poll: white evangelical support for Trump is at an all-time high
White Evangelicals Can't Quit Donald Trump
Why Evangelicals—Still!—Support Trump
With White Evangelicals, Trump Weathers Stormy Daniels Saga

"This is not who we are"
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:15 PM on June 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

Absolutely, Not All Christians are like this. Nevertheless, there's a difference between "Not all Christians are like this" and "These people aren't actually Christian." The first is correct, and the second is either gaslighting or self-deception. In any case, things would have to change pretty dramatically in the US for Christians in general and white evangelical Christians in particular to be in a position analogous to Muslims being equated with ISIS.
posted by This time is different. at 5:22 PM on June 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Evangelicals make up only about a quarter of Christians in the US, and only 3/4 of them are white. And they are not all conservative, either. It's easy to believe they're a majority because they are so fucking loud because the mainstream media give them an outsized voice, often conflating them with all Christians.
posted by Mental Wimp at 5:24 PM on June 14, 2018 [14 favorites]

WaPo, Costa, Trump allies seize on DOJ report as they seek to undercut Mueller probe
Politico, Trump allies in Congress say FBI report may sully Mueller probe

The frightening thing here is that this is coming in part from top GOP leadership, not just Matt Gaetz-types and Sean Hannity. It doesn't matter what the report says; it's long and quotes can eb found in it, so it must mean Mueller is wrong.
posted by zachlipton at 5:24 PM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Daily Beast, Woodruff+Ackerman, Defense Contractors Cashing In on Immigrant Kids’ Detention, in which the usual suspects who have profited off the past 17 years of war while racking up various forms of misconduct findings would like to be in charge of migrant children now.
posted by zachlipton at 5:27 PM on June 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

Fuck me. All I meant is that the people who self-identify as Christians but use Christianity to punish and demean people they don't like act in opposition to the guy the religion is named after and what he said. I'm out on this topic.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:28 PM on June 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Every last bit of our current situation hinges on our society's look-the-other-way when it comes to white-collar crime. Enforce laws already on the books and most of the bad players are broke, in prison, or both. It's this stolen money, and the power it wields, that leads to the funding of hate and gutting of protections for the marginalized.

Is it because most of society fails to see that it's our money these people are stealing and piling up in their "offshore" banks? That when Joe and Jane Trumper grumble about taxes, or prices, or wages, or health care, they're basically grumbling about the one person in every thousand (hell, make it one in ten thousand, or even one in a hundred thousand) who is compelled to horde every cookie the rest of us put on the plate?

Fuck that.
posted by maxwelton at 5:31 PM on June 14, 2018 [22 favorites]

LA Times, 'Prison-like' migrant youth shelter is understaffed, unequipped for Trump's 'zero tolerance' policy, insider says

Colleagues at a government-contracted shelter in Arizona had a specific request for Antar Davidson when three Brazilian migrant children arrived: “Tell them they can’t hug.”

Davidson, 32, is of Brazilian descent and speaks Portuguese. He said the siblings — ages 16, 10 and 6 — were distraught after being separated from their parents at the border. The children were “huddled together, tears streaming down their faces,” he said.

Officials had told them their parents were “lost,” which they interpreted to mean dead. Davidson said he told the children he didn’t know where their parents were, but that they had to be strong.

“The 16-year-old, he looks at me and says, ‘How?’” Davidson said. As he watched the youth cry, he thought, “This is not healthy.”

Davidson quit this week after being a youth care worker at the Tucson shelter, Estrella del Norte, for just a few months. He decided to speak out about his experiences there in hopes of improving a system often shielded from public scrutiny. His comments in a telephone interview offer a rare look into the operation of a migrant shelter.
...
Davidson saw more and more confused and upset children, most from Latin America. There also were more of what staff call “tender age” children, those under 13. Some were as young as 4, he said.

“What was once a transient facility with a staff that was strained and struggling is now becoming a more permanent facility,” and more “prison-like,” Davidson said.

Davidson is on Chris Hayes' show now, talking about the trauma these kids have experienced. He says he got a week of training.
posted by zachlipton at 5:37 PM on June 14, 2018 [54 favorites]

All I meant is...
Sorry, that was clear enough. The Christian/"Christian" distinction is a real sore spot, but I could have made my point with more generosity.
posted by This time is different. at 5:41 PM on June 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Thank you to every MeFite who has mentioned Resistbot in this and other threads. I finally tried it and will add to the chorus that it makes contacting legislators surprisingly simple. If you are reading this thread and telling yourself you really should DO SOMETHING, try it. Right now. Go ahead. You may feel a tiny bit less despairing.
posted by a fish out of water at 5:47 PM on June 14, 2018 [19 favorites]

The OU has put out a garbage statement trying to justify their meeting wih AG Jeff Sessions.
posted by zarq at 5:54 PM on June 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Meanwhile how long have I been yelling about latino death camps, why doesn't this vindication feel great.
posted by poffin boffin at 6:02 PM on June 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

The OU has put out a garbage statement trying to justify their meeting wih AG Jeff Sessions.

I would call it a crappy apology, but it's not even an apology. And they can talk about "religious freedom" all they want, but in the actual context of the meeting, what they were talking about was the freedom to demand resources that could otherwise have gone to the very same struggling marginalized communities being targeted by Sessions they have vilified. On top of that, they were also rewarding Sessions for the "freedom" to deny basic civil rights and humanity to LGBTQ people.

They gave him a plaque that read tzedek, tzedek tirdof--"justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live." It's clear that they desire to pursue neither justice nor the chance to live for a great many people who are suffering.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:14 PM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

I think it's obvious. Trump mistook Jean-Claude Juncker for Jean-Claude van Damme.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:14 PM on June 14, 2018 [17 favorites]

Meanwhile in NYC a thousand strong group of socialists, community groups, governmental hopefuls and ...bands, took over park avenue to protest Andrew Coumo’s developer friendly policies.
posted by The Whelk at 6:25 PM on June 14, 2018 [22 favorites]

On days like today I find it illuminating to check in on Fox News. Just now on Hannity, Rudy Giuliani held up a copy of the IG report and demanded that the FBI do some sort of investigation into this whole affair. I hope someone can find a clip of that at some point because Hannity's face was priceless.
posted by mcdoublewide at 6:27 PM on June 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

Border Patrol Is So Desperate for New Agents, It’s Spending Millions to Help Recruits Finish Their Applications

I'm sure relaxing standards to hire the needed number of thugs by "providing them with 'helpful information' about their entrance exams" won't lead to the horrific abuse of children, since there have never been historical parallels to give any sort of warning.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:29 PM on June 14, 2018 [25 favorites]

WaPo, ‘Why can’t we just do it?’: Trump nearly upended summit with abrupt changes

After arriving in Singapore on Sunday, an antsy and bored Trump urged his aides to demand that the meeting with Kim be pushed up by a day — to Monday — and had to be talked out of altering the long-planned and carefully negotiated summit date on the fly, according to two people familiar with preparations for the event.

“We’re here now,” the president said, according to the people. “Why can’t we just do it?”

Trump’s impatience, coupled with a tense staff-level meeting between the two sides on Sunday, left some aides fearful that the entire summit might be in peril.
...
At one point, after watching North Korean television, which is entirely state-run, the president talked about how positive the female North Korean news anchor was toward Kim, according to two people familiar with his remarks. He joked that even the administration-friendly Fox News was not as lavish in its praise as the state TV anchor, one of the people added, and that maybe she should get a job on U.S. television, instead.

At another point, Trump marveled at how “tough” the North Korean guards seemed, noting that they were always stone-faced and refused to shake hands, the two people said. One recalled the president joking that they could likely take on White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general. A second did not remember the president specifically mentioning Kelly, but just noting more generally that Kim’s guards seemed formidable.
...
As part of creating a personal rapport with Kim, Trump also privately talked about wanting to extend an unusual olive branch to the North Korean leader: The president suggested he might be able to orchestrate a meeting or proposal with some of his real estate developer and financier friends, who could bring lucrative development deals to Kim’s country. It is unclear whether he ended up mentioning the idea to Kim.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who spoke with Trump as he flew home from Singapore on Air Force One, said the president was simply being his natural “salesman” self.

“He is selling condos, that’s what he is doing,” Graham said. “He’s approaching North Korea as a distressed property with a cash-flow problem. Here’s how we can fix it.”

They convinced him to stick to the schedule by telling him moving it would be bad for ratings.
posted by zachlipton at 6:30 PM on June 14, 2018 [51 favorites]

To add to the #notallchristians, there was a surprising amount of backlash to Mike Pence's appearance at the Southern Baptist Convention yesterday, Why Southern Baptists giving Mike Pence a platform is so controversial (WaPo):

When Vice President Pence late Wednesday morning addresses one of the country’s biggest Christian gatherings — the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting — he’ll be following a decades-long line of White House Republicans who have come to speak to the right-leaning group.

Which is why experts on conservative Christianity were wowed by the sight Tuesday of multiple Southern Baptist pastors trying — through the meeting’s formal procedures — to block Pence’s talk or, at least, pass a ban on inviting politicians to future annual meetings. Video of the Dallas convention hall showed many hundreds of hands holding yellow ballots go up when a Virginia pastor argued that hosting a Trump administration official hurts Southern Baptists of color and endangers soul-saving in general.

None of the four separate measures passed (a few were referred for consideration in the coming year). But historians say the effort was the first real controversy in the convention about a GOP speaker since the evangelist Billy Graham pushed for the invitation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1972 and reveals the significant upheaval among conservative evangelicals about President Trump and the mixing of partisan politics and religion.

Texas Observer: Why Some Baptists Weren’t Happy with Mike Pence’s Stump Speech at Texas Gathering

And the HuffPo has a twitter roundup: Mike Pence Boasts About Trump’s Accomplishments At Southern Baptist Meeting
posted by peeedro at 6:45 PM on June 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

The OU has put out a garbage statement trying to justify their meeting wih AG Jeff Sessions.

I think it's actually a justification for not criticising Sessions after having just invited him to their convention and given him a plaque. The JTA implies that the OU invited Sessions to thank him for a commitment that was apparently (a) good policy; and (b) the sort of thing that is actually in the OU's field of interest: redressing unlawful and presumably antisemitic discrimination against a Jewish group attempting to establish a synagogue. You can read about it in this Politico article but, long story short, Carlos Rendo, the mayor of Woodcliffe Lake and 2017 Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey, repeatedly stymied Valley Chabad in its attempt to purchase a property - including using eminent domain to buy at least one property out from under them.

The OU itself is fundamentally an umbrella body for about 1,000 Orthodox synagogues and skimming its political archives is like a window into Bizarro World politics where everything is assessed on the narrow grounds of whether it helps or hinders the operations of a synagogue. E.g., the OU's position on the environment is that synagogues should be assisted in becoming more energy efficient, and it is opposed to compulsory contraceptive health care because it would raise the insurance costs of synagogues. IMO, while the nature of the US political system means that special pleading of this sort is almost always bad, that's not inevitably the case: the OU opposed Trump's executive order on (Muslim) immigration because that was an interference with religious liberty, which would be bad for synagogues. I can see why the OU was interested in the Woodcliffe Lake issue, and it's the sort of civil rights thing a US attorney general should get involved in. But.

While I don't think Jewish civil liberties should be subordinated to other interests, Sessions is personally horrible, and protecting a horrible regime, and there's a bigger picture here. Right-wing forces use religious concerns as wedge issues, and the OU specifically is being used to counter the appearance of this all being about Christianity. There are a bunch of ways to put pressure on the OU, including getting its member synagogues to resign. Their formal membership is actually tiny; it wouldn't take very much to have an impact. Also, NCSY is associated with the OU: there are probably many young adults presently or formerly in NCSY who would welcome the chance to be more politically active. At the very least, the OU could promote practical pro-refuge and pro-sanctuary efforts under the banner of traditional Jewish concerns, while still avoiding anything that smacks of non-synagogue politics.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:59 PM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Giuliani [on Fox News]: Rosenstein and Sessions have one day to redeem themselves. Mueller Must Be Suspended Tomorrow. Strzok Must be Imprisoned with a Week.

We're just in full on "pretend the IG report has damaging things to say about Mueller and millions of people will believe it" territory now. Almost like there's something happening tomorrow involving Mueller that they're worried about.
posted by zachlipton at 7:02 PM on June 14, 2018 [24 favorites]

@ChadPergram: Democrats win the annual Congressional baseball game, 21-5. They have won two games in a row. 7 of their last 8 and their 41st in the series. Dem LA Rep Cedric Richmond tosses a complete game. Hit a 3-run home run.
posted by zachlipton at 7:12 PM on June 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury" was released 5 months, or 161 days, or ~16 Scaramuccis ago.

It's been five months.
posted by petebest at 7:23 PM on June 14, 2018 [15 favorites]

So tomorrow is ground zero for the investigation I take it?
posted by gucci mane at 7:24 PM on June 14, 2018

Or day zero? What do you call it? Basically tomorrow is potentially a big day to see what happens?
posted by gucci mane at 7:24 PM on June 14, 2018

As Lenin tells us, in some decades nothing happens, in some years a decade happens.

Wow I’ve been starting a lot of sentences recently with “as Lenin tells us”
posted by The Whelk at 7:31 PM on June 14, 2018 [33 favorites]

@natesilver538
One shouldn't underrate how much the media's obsession with Clinton's emails stemmed from its obsession with fending off accusations of liberal bias. Trump had... LOTS of issues.... so there was tremendous weight put on this one Clinton issue to preserve "balance".
posted by Artw at 7:35 PM on June 14, 2018 [50 favorites]

A senior editor at WORLD, a conservative evangelical news magazine.

Mindy Belz
Sessions isn't only misleading but dangerously so. The chief law enforcement officer in the land! 1. "Illegal entry" has been expanded by Sessions to incl asylum seekers 2. Sessions isn't following law but dictum 3. Rom 13 isn't a sword for the USG to wield as a threat.
posted by chris24 at 7:37 PM on June 14, 2018 [17 favorites]

@natesilver538: One shouldn't underrate how much the media's obsession with Clinton's emails stemmed from its obsession with fending off accusations of liberal bias. Trump had... LOTS of issues.... so there was tremendous weight put on this one Clinton issue to preserve "balance".

Interesting sense of balance when the person who's not really that bad gets 63% more bad coverage than the criminal.

“The various Clinton-related email scandals—her use of a private email server while secretary of state, as well as the DNC and John Podesta hacks—accounted for more sentences than all of Trump’s scandals combined (65,000 vs. 40,000) and more than twice as many as were devoted to all of her policy positions."

Or when coverage of emails got 400% more coverage than Trump's treatment of women and history of harassment.

But I guess that is a proper balance when one of them is a woman.
posted by chris24 at 7:47 PM on June 14, 2018 [79 favorites]

Thing is, all that effort to preserve "balance" bought the institutional media fuck all in terms of credibility with Republicans. Here's a Nieman Lab graph on media trust. All that effort in the name of false balance bought the NYT about the same trustworthiness rating among people who identify themselves as on the right as HuffPo. They can hand the opinion section over to Bari Weiss' parade of nonsense all they want, and maybe it gets them clicks, but it's not giving them a bit of credibility with the right.

Overcovering Clinton scandals to try to balance the fact that there were way way more Trump scandals didn't even achieve anything anyway, making this all even stupider.
posted by zachlipton at 7:58 PM on June 14, 2018 [38 favorites]

I think it was a combination of rampant misogyny, what Nate correctly identifies as an obsession with the appearance of balance even when things are unbalanced (and at which they failed even by their bullshit metrics), and the same thing that got Obama, Comey, and the rest. The media never took Trump's chances seriously and so they never covered him as a serious candidate with all that entails.

That no-one but 538 took Trump's chances seriously is going to haunt us all for a very long time.
posted by Justinian at 7:58 PM on June 14, 2018 [14 favorites]

Why did it take two years for the Trump foundation stuff to reach a court? The article spelled out his wrongdoing. Also, while I'm grateful something's finally being done about this, this is 20 million he didn't pay taxes on. A drop in the bucket for Trump. Meanwhile, we know he never paid taxes on something like a billion dollars worth of income, most likely illegally. Update please?

What about the real estate fraud his family openly engaged in, as shown by their emails? These don't seem like especially complex cases. You would think, being the highest profile person in the world, they would deserve some attention? Much less fast tracking? Come on!
posted by xammerboy at 8:02 PM on June 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

And covering him like an unserious reality show star instead of a real candidate made them a shit load of money.

They had a massive financial motive, on top of their bullshit pursuit of "balance" in fear of being called liberal by Republicans. They still have the same motives and will in 2020. They have every incentive in the world to learn zero lessons from their coverage of 2016, because they're paid not to learn them.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:05 PM on June 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

I think it was a combination of rampant misogyny, what Nate correctly identifies as an obsession with the appearance of balance even when things are unbalanced (and at which they failed even by their bullshit metrics), and the same thing that got Obama, Comey, and the rest. The media never took Trump's chances seriously and so they never covered him as a serious candidate with all that entails.

Not to mention commercial considerations, i.e., the need to make the election a "horserace" and exciting to watch, to pull viewers.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:06 PM on June 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

This sounds worrying:

@deepakguptalaw
Wow. The Voting Section of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division (whose mission is *protecting* voting rights) is suing states under the National Voter Registration Act (a law designed to *increase* eligible voters) to force states to *kick people off* voting rolls!!
posted by Artw at 8:12 PM on June 14, 2018 [31 favorites]

Lawfare, Nine Takeaways From the Inspector General’s Report on the Clinton Email Investigation

And there's still more news! @mj_lee: New: Michael Cohen files for restraining order against Michael Avenatti, asking he be restrained from communicating with press and public about merits of Stormy Daniels lawsuit: “Avenatti’s actions are mainly driven by his seemingly unquenchable thirst for publicity."
posted by zachlipton at 8:26 PM on June 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

Lawfare, Nine Takeaways From the Inspector General’s Report on the Clinton Email Investigation

One revelation that seems to have picked up steam is the OIG finding that Comey “used a personal email account to conduct unclassified FBI business” and that he did so in circumstances that were “inconsistent with Department policy.” Hillary Clinton herself has seized the moment, tweeting the tidbit with the line “But my emails.” As juicy as this may seem to some, it does not have the makings of a genuine scandal. According to the report, Comey used his personal email for unclassified matters, and there isn’t the slightest hint that he discussed anything sensitive or remotely close to classified information on that account. There is no comparison to what Clinton was accused of having done. It is squarely in the category of minor breach of protocol, rather than possible security infraction.

This is complete and utter horseshit. Clinton didn't have classified information on the server at the time, a small part of the emails were classified retroactively.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:41 PM on June 14, 2018 [34 favorites]

", there was a surprising amount of backlash to Mike Pence's appearance at the Southern Baptist Convention yesterday, Why Southern Baptists giving Mike Pence a platform is so controversial "

I was not surprised. I was at a Methodist seminary when the Methodist conference considered inviting W (a Methodist) to speak, and the conference went up. in fucking. flames. People were absolutely infuriated. Among people who take their Christianity seriously, there are a whole lot of people, all over the political spectrum, who are super-serious about not getting entwined with the government.

But the other reason I'm not surprised is immigration. Evangelical leaders cynically turned abortion into an issue when they couldn't use racism any longer (as we've covered at length), and while there are pro-choice evangelicals, they're a small number and it's a pretty solid issue for them. HOWEVER, in selling this and making evangelicals into true believers on abortion, they have created a whole suite of related issues that evangelicals consider part of combating abortion. Among them are trans-racially adopting children from third-world countries (/inner-city neighborhoods) because you have to save them from being aborted. And creating asylum for women and children, in particular, coming to the US from countries where they might abort because they can't afford to keep the baby or live under a repressive regime. The early cynics preached "save the babies!" and their flocks said, "Um, all the babies?" "Yes, all the babies!" "Even the black and brown ones?" "ALL THE BABIES, just vote republican, okay?" So a lot of these churches set up missions in Latin America and go down there yearly to run orphanages and visit people in jail and work on clean water projects and a lot of it is Misery Tourism For Jesus that doesn't help with anything, BUT it's created a whole cadre of evangelicals who take immigration reform (and especially people seeking asylum) really seriously, who know a shit-ton about Latin America and have spent significant time there (and aren't fooled by this MS-13 nonsense), and consider welcoming Latin American immigrants part of fighting abortion.

This has been rumbling beneath the surface in a lot of evangelical churches for a good long while, including the SBC, as pro-immigration evangelicals who take the "I was a stranger and you welcomed me" part seriously push for their conferences to be more strident on immigration reform, and the racist parts push back, and they could often be put off with talk about not rewarding illegal immigrants with amnesty and blah blah blah. But now we're talking people seeking asylum with their babies, their unaborted babies, and border control literally ripping these children away from their parents, and this has pushed every single "immigration helps stop abortion" button that these people have (that was cynically cultivated by cynical politicians masquerading as religious leaders). And there's not really a way for the racist half of the conference to silence the pro-immigration half, because their rallying cry for 30 years has been "ABORTION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING" (along with "we're not racist!") so they can't really now say "Well we only meant some abortions, and also we're definitely racist."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:51 PM on June 14, 2018 [81 favorites]

I'm more cynical, Eyebrows; I think a lot of churches look at falling attendance and see immigrants ( especially ones already in their faith, and beholden to a church that maybe helped them come here) as a solution.

I mean, I'm all for it if it helps us work around the racism/hatred. But also, the idea that evangelicals worry about immigrant babies just makes me wonder how many of those detained kids will get "adopted" by "nice" white Christian families when their parents conveniently can't be found.
posted by emjaybee at 9:08 PM on June 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

anastasiav and frowner, thanks so much for mentioning the RAICES immigration bond fund up thread. I just made a painfully large (for me) donation to them thanks to you, and I'm so glad I did.
posted by mabelstreet at 9:08 PM on June 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

What the Bible Says About How to Treat Refugees

“So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty. (Malachi 3:5)

OMG Trump is going straight to Hell.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:16 PM on June 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

@MarkAgee
As someone who grew up Southern Baptist it’s funny when y’all quote the Bible at evangelicals like they’ve even read it
posted by Artw at 9:18 PM on June 14, 2018 [44 favorites]

But now we're talking people seeking asylum with their babies, their unaborted babies...

And white evangelicals are still largely indifferent to their suffering: "By more than two-to-one (68% to 25%), white evangelical Protestants say the U.S. does not have a responsibility to accept refugees. Other religious groups are more likely to say the U.S. does have this responsibility. And opinions among religiously unaffiliated adults are nearly the reverse of those of white evangelical Protestants: 65% say the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees into the country, while just 31% say it does not."

I get the impulse to look for a liberatory counter-movement within white evangelicalism, but there just is not a meaningfully influential or even numerous anti-racist, pro-asylum bloc. We might as well be talking about the mythical moderate rebels.
posted by This time is different. at 9:38 PM on June 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

"I get the impulse to look for a liberatory counter-movement within white evangelicalism,"

I don't think they're a liberatory countermovement, I think they are people who took the cynical teachings seriously -- who failed to understand the dogwhistles and subtexts and just took the text -- and now that hidden agenda is out in the open, they're being quite clear that that is not what they agreed to. Because it isn't. (They're "saying the quiet parts loud" as we like to say.) And I think it's kind-of amusing to see some of these leaders hoist on their own cynical petard when people took what they said seriously, instead of understanding it as cynical cover for racism.

There are also hella racists, I don't dispute that for a second. (There are also, in much smaller numbers, progressive Southern Baptists, and politically conservative Southern Baptists who abhor racism and reject everything Trump. And I am glad to see their voices get heard.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:53 PM on June 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

VTX: "At the end of 2016, you now have $20,000,000-$19,200,000+$18,800,000=$19,600,000 cash in your bank account. Same as any other organization that spent more than they took in."

Also whatever cash the foundation had on hand isn't stuffed under a mattress; the Foundation would have been making money from its float. Though because it is the Cheeto I wouldn't be at all surprised that some cheques written by the foundation were intentionally not cashed as a way of The Cheeto getting a payoff.
posted by Mitheral at 10:34 PM on June 14, 2018

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 House:

-- PA-16: Normington Petts poll has incumbent GOPer Kelly up 50-44 on Dem DiNicola [MOE: +/- 4.9%]. This is the second recent poll to have DiNicola within mid single digits. District went 58-38 Trump.

-- PA-10: PPP poll has incumbent GOPer Perry up 52-43 on Dem Scott [MOE: +/- 4.1%]. District went 52-43 Trump.

-- ME-02: Looks like the Dem nominee will be Jared Golden, who was considered to be more electable than rival Lucas St. Clair, who had stirred up some local controversy.

-- Women dominated the Virginia Dem primaries.

-- Very interesting Elliott Morris article on qualitative (Cook Political, et al) vs quantitative (538, etc) forecasting.

-- Rebuttal to that stupid NYT op-ed about Democrats in the suburbs.

-- Current 538 generic ballot average: D+7.7 (47.1/39.4)

** 2018 Senate:

-- DKE Senate race ratings

-- VA: In wake of Corey Gardner winning the nomination, the NRSC is basically writing off the state.

-- TX: Just what is up with this third party entrant into the race?

** Odds & ends:

-- London Breed's mayoral victory in SF and black female political power.

-- Winners and losers from Tuesday primaries.

-- NC GOP up to typical shenanigans, attempting to limit early voting.

-- Civitas poll has NC Supreme Court race tied at 35 each. This is a major opportunity for Dems to cement their control.

posted by Chrysostom at 10:49 PM on June 14, 2018 [16 favorites]

Davidson is on Chris Hayes' show now, talking about the trauma these kids have experienced. He says he got a week of training.

One the most telling aspects of the sequestering of immigrant children is how it's being done in such haste, without needed resources, and with no consideration for their welfare. If this were a sensible policy it wouldn't need to be carried out like this. It's the sudden and secret actions of a police state.
posted by xammerboy at 11:07 PM on June 14, 2018 [36 favorites]

VA: In wake of Corey Gardner winning the nomination, the NRSC is basically writing off the state.

That was Corey Stewart who won the nomination, being dropped by Cory Gardner of the NRSC (I know you know this Chrysostom, and were just bemused by the tweet).
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:26 PM on June 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Colbert: "I don't think god picked you, because I don't worship Vladimir Putin" and "if we let this happen, we are a feckless country."

Get some rest; tomorrow's going to be long.
posted by zachlipton at 11:38 PM on June 14, 2018 [21 favorites]

Too many Cor(e)ys, it's like an 80s comedy in here.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:52 PM on June 14, 2018 [29 favorites]

Trump's foundation scam is the first time I've heard the legal community unanimously and unequivocally say that if Trump wasn't president he'd likely be going to jail (NYTimes):

“People have gone to prison for stuff like this, and if I were representing someone with facts like this, assuming the facts described in this petition are true, I would be very worried about an indictment,” said Jenny Johnson Ware, a criminal tax attorney in Chicago. “If I were representing someone who had committed these acts, who was not president of the United States,” she said, “I would be looking to negotiate a resolution.”

Marcus Owens, who ran the I.R.S. division that oversees nonprofits during the administrations of Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, said there have been several cases where people were criminally prosecuted for filing false tax returns of charities they controlled. The difference in Mr. Trump’s case, he said, is that those cases were “less egregious.”

Instead of going to jail, he's likely to have all his foundation's assets seized, but the more important outcome may be the public at large will finally see Trump unambiguously as a criminal.
posted by xammerboy at 12:32 AM on June 15, 2018 [38 favorites]

Too many Cor(e)ys, it's like an 80s comedy in here.

It is exactly the plot to License to Drive, except in the political version the car is constantly running people over.
posted by rhizome at 12:53 AM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

In non-ICE ice news, some truth leaked out past the muzzling of science: a joint project between NASA and the ESA performed a study-of-studies on the Antarctic ice sheet records from the past quarter-century and has estimated that the annual net ice loss increased from ~43 gigatons yearly during the period 1992-2002 up to ~220 gigatons per year between 2012 and 2017. DOI 10.1038/s41586-018-0179-y.
posted by XMLicious at 3:01 AM on June 15, 2018 [18 favorites]

About a billion scaramuccis ago, someone here suggested that the Real reason Trump run was to avoid prosecution.
posted by mumimor at 3:16 AM on June 15, 2018 [7 favorites]

I don't think that works because I don't think he expected to win, nor particularly wanted to. He didn't want to lose, of course, 'cause he's Trump. Ideally he would have won the popular vote and lost the electoral college so he could spend the rest of his life playing up his victimhood and decrying the corruption of the system that denied him his rightful place, all while milking the rubes out of their money.

Instead we're all screwed, including maybe Trump.
posted by Justinian at 3:19 AM on June 15, 2018 [13 favorites]

I made a new FPP for this... *sigh* this this this this

NEW POST!
posted by From Bklyn at 4:08 AM on June 15, 2018 [13 favorites]

@MarkAgee
As someone who grew up Southern Baptist it’s funny when y’all quote the Bible at evangelicals like they’ve even read it

As someone who also grew up Southern Baptist, I've got some bad news for you, Mark.
posted by Rykey at 4:09 AM on June 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

-- PA-10: PPP poll has incumbent GOPer Perry up 52-43 on Dem Scott [MOE: +/- 4.1%]. District went 52-43 Trump.

Copy-paste error? The headline of the article you link says "Polls finds three-term Congressman Perry with only a slim 45-41 lead over Veteran and Pastor George Scott".
posted by octothorpe at 5:17 AM on June 15, 2018

🍪🍪🍶
posted by petebest at 5:33 AM on June 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

mumimor: "About a billion scaramuccis ago, someone here suggested that the Real reason Trump run was to avoid prosecution."

Nah, it was the opportunity to grift large and get his face on camera. Even he didn't expect to win.
posted by Mitheral at 7:28 AM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

the more important outcome may be the public at large will finally see Trump unambiguously as a criminal

Oh come now. It's not like he shot somebody on Fifth Avenue.
posted by flabdablet at 7:36 AM on June 15, 2018

Seriously, there is really very little point in maintaining Surely This illusions about Trump's base.
posted by flabdablet at 7:41 AM on June 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

NEW THREAD
NEW THREAD
NEW THREAD
posted by greermahoney at 8:02 AM on June 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

octothorpe: "Copy-paste error? The headline of the article you link says "Polls finds three-term Congressman Perry with only a slim 45-41 lead over Veteran and Pastor George Scott"."

You are 100% correct.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:28 AM on June 15, 2018

Oh come now. It's not like he shot somebody on Fifth Avenue.

Yet.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:22 AM on June 15, 2018

I've been offline for a few days, and when I came back, I noticed that at the top of the site, there is a banner about funding shortfalls with Mefi. These political threads are killers when it comes to staff and site resources. Those of us who partake regularly in these threads, and who have available resources, now is the time to chip in. $8,000 a month shortfall could spell the doom of the site we all love and visit all the time. At the risk of sounding like an NPR host, please contribute now. Give generously and often.

I think we'd all be lost without Mefi, let's not find out.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 9:39 AM on June 15, 2018 [29 favorites]

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