No One Is Above the Law
November 9, 2018 4:49 PM Subscribe

After Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned on Wednesday at Trump’s request (Washington Post), Trump installed loyalist Matthew Whittaker as Acting Attorney General (New York Times). Whitaker has a tangled history with the Mueller probe (NBC)—and a reputation as a crackpot (WaPo Opinion) and "a f*cking fool" (Daily Beast) who worked for scam firm that threatened victims with Krav Maga-style beatdowns (Vanity Fair), claimed judges should have a "biblical view of justice" (Des Moines Register), said he'd indict Hilary Clinton (USA Today), held a dark money–funded executive position at an anti-Clinton group (Slate), called the courts "the inferior branch" (NYT), and supported Trump Jr.'s Russia meeting (CNN). Legal experts are calling the appointment unconstitutional (Neal K. Katyal and George T. Conway III, NYT)… seriously, unconstitutional (John Yoo, Axios)… honestly, "Is he legally qualified to be the acting attorney general? No." (Andrew Napolitano, Fox News). Now Trump says “I don’t know Matt Whitaker,” despite several Oval Office visits (NYT), and telling Fox & Friends "I know Matt Whitaker." (CNN)

HEADLINE ROUNDUP:

• Trump vs. Mueller: ‘Protect Mueller’: Protesters across U.S. decry president’s dismissal of Sessions as attorney general (WaPo); If Trump Fires Mueller—How a Democratic-controlled House can salvage the Russia investigation (Marcy Wheeler, TNR); It’s Probably Too Late to Stop Mueller—The prospects for interference are dimmer than many imagine. (Benjamin Wittes, The Atlantic); How Mueller Could Defend the Russia Investigation From Interference (Natasha Bertrand, The Atlantic); In Thursday Hearing, Mueller’s Team Gets Specific About What They Can Do Without Whitaker’s Pre-Approval (EmptyWheel.net); Judges Order Mueller to Explain Impact of Sessions-Whitaker DoJ Shakeup (Politico)

• Trump vs. the Midterm Results: Despite the GOP losing seven governorships and 26 House seats (and counting), Trump touts "Big Victory" in midterm elections (CBS); US Intelligence Officials to Review Midterms For Signs of Foreign Interference (ABC); Trump Is Going To Escalate His Attacks On American Democracy Post-Election, No Matter Who Wins (Evan McMullin, NBC); Why Putin Isn’t Sweating the Midterms—The Kremlin strongman has invested in Trump because he’s disrupting the world order (and now looks stronger than his Western rivals at Macron’s WWI commemoration). (Politico)

• Trump vs. Enemies of the People Journalists: On Wednesday, Trump’s Press Conference Was Nutty, Self-Absorbed, and Full of Lies—The president dismissed the public’s election rebuke and stabbed his allies in the back. And that was just the start. (Slate); Sarah Sanders' attempted to smear White House–barred CNN reporter James Acosta by circulating obviously doctored video from InfoWars; the Washington Post's Greg Sargent asks, rhetorically, "How could the White House lie about something that's on video, where everyone can see what really happened? The answer is that the audacity of the White House's lying is *the whole point* of it. The lying is an *assertion of power.*"; The NYT's Melissa Chan, drawing from her experiences of having her press credentials denied by authoritarian China, warns her US-based colleagues—“this "most reporters are okay but @Acosta is aggressive" thing is the EXACT line Chinese propaganda printed about me. It's a tactic, people.”; and today was no different—Trump Unleashed: Best Bites From President’s Impromptu Press Conference (Talking Points Memo)

• Trump vs. the Caravan: Although Fox News and Trump seem to have lost interest in the caravan (Fast Company), he signed a proclamation barring asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border—sources said the proclamation was authored by senior policy adviser Stephen Miller (Daily Beast). Meanwhile, the Pentagon is no longer calling its border mission 'Operation Faithful Patriot', and soldiers will not be involved in denying border entry to migrants (CNN). As for the Trump administration's earlier family separation policy, 171 kids from separated families are still in custody. Most won't be reunited with their parents. (CNN)

IN OTHER HEADLINES:

• Donald Trump Played Central Role in Hush Payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal—Federal prosecutors have gathered evidence of president’s participation in transactions that violated campaign-finance laws (@WSJ) "Trump was involved in or briefed on every step of the hush payments arranged by Michael Cohen, telling him of the Stormy Daniels payment in Oct. 2016, “Get it done,” according to Cohen’s testimony to prosecutors," says co-writer Rebecca Ballhaus.

• SCOTUS-related Round-up: Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized after fracturing three ribs in a fall but has since been released. (MSNBC); Trump Joins Kavanaugh for Formal Supreme Court Investiture Ceremony (Bloomberg); Kavanaugh Accuser Christine Blasey Ford Continues Receiving Threats, Lawyers Say (NPR)

• US Treasury Department Announces New Sanctions for Russian Activities in Crimea (CNBC) but the White House Is Letting Russian Ultra-Nationalist Dmitri Rogozin In to the U.S.—Despite Sanctions (WaPo)

• Trump Administration Issues Rules Letting Some Employers Deny Contraceptive Coverage (WaPo) "The circumvention of this mandate, first proposed by Trump health officials a year ago, is part of the administration’s alliance with social conservatives for whom “religious liberty” has become a central cause and who had objected to the contraceptive mandate."

• After Sessions, Who Will Trump Dump Next? (Politico); Trump Is Telling People He Wants to Replace Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross by the End of the Year (CNBC); Zinke Prepares to Leave Trump’s Cabinet (Politico) "Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has been exploring potential roles with Fox News, the energy industry or other businesses amid growing signs that he will leave President Donald Trump's Cabinet as he faces investigations into his ethics, according to people knowledgeable about the discussions."

• If the Midterms Were a Test of the Country’s Character, Americans Failed (Sarah Kendzior, Toronto Globe and Mail) "We did not repudiate racism and hate en masse. We did not restore dignity and decency to the electoral process by ensuring the integrity of the vote.[…] This is a small but significant victory – not enough to stave off autocracy, but perhaps enough to slow it, and certainly enough to lay the groundwork for future change."

• Horserace/Invisible Primary: 2020 Presidential Candidates Who Could Take On Trump (Politico)

Today is the 658th day of the Trump administration. There are 724 days left until the 2020 elections.

Previously in U.S. Politics Megathreads: "You know what I am? I'm a [] nationalist."

Megathread-Adjacent Posts and Sites: ANGER IS AN ENERGY (US Election Day); Fiat Lux! (CA ballots and elections); OnceUponATime's Active Measures site; and Chrysostom's 2018 Election Ratings & Results Tracker

Elsewhere in MetaFilter: On MeTa, what Mefites are doing to improve things; and on AskMe, nonpolitical volunteering from home.

As always, please consider MeFi chat and the unofficial PoliticsFilter Slack for hot-takes and live-blogging breaking news, the current MetaTalk venting thread for catharsis and sympathizing, and funding the site if you're able. Also, for the sake of the ever-helpful mods, please keep in mind the MetaTalk on expectations about U.S. political discussion on MetaFilter. Thanks to box and Chrysostom for their help creating this post. U.S. Politics FPPs are generally collaborative, and a draft post can usually found on the MeFi Wiki.

posted by Doktor Zed (1973 comments total) 116 users marked this as a favorite

The temptation with new politics posts made on the weekend is to fill them up with chatter because the weekend news is slow, but I will be aggressively deleting that -- try to provide information-rich comments, please!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 4:54 PM on November 9, 2018 [32 favorites]

So, ahh, are we still keeping all the election related stuff (tally updates, FLORIDA, etc) in the Official Election Thread (which will soon need a sequel itself) or shall we recombine?
posted by notyou at 5:01 PM on November 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

Zinke might be looking for an exit, but in the meantime. WaPo, Zinke is the Cabinet official most vulnerable to Democratic probe, White House fears. But if he left, would anybody notice the difference? He apparently isn't so fond of showing up:

Public records also show that Zinke took 66 “personal days” between March 2017 and August 2018, excluding weekends and federal holidays. That total exceeds the 39 annual days off federal senior executives would be given during that same period.

Swift, who noted that Cabinet members are excluded from the standard federal leave system since they often work outside normal work hours and while traveling, said Zinke “generally chooses to work through the weekend and then take his personal time to spend with his wife and children who do not live in D.C.” “During these days outside of the office, the Secretary continues to work on Departmental matters,” she said, emphasizing that he has worked “at least 35 weekends” outside Washington and on some days that were marked “personal on his calendar.”

posted by zachlipton at 5:06 PM on November 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

[National Association of Black Journalists] appalled by Trump's disrespect of black female journalists

President Donald Trump rejected National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) member and CNN White House reporter Abby Phillip's question today as "stupid" on national television. Phillip asked the President if he wanted acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to "rein in Mueller," referring to Robert Mueller the special counsel investigating possible Russian influence in the 2016 election. Whitaker has been critical of the Mueller investigation.

NABJ members and other journalists have taken to social media expressing their frustration with the president's continuous attacks.

"The most powerful man in the free world is verbally abusing journalists," said NABJ President Sarah Glover. "The past two years have been filled with assaults on the media and Donald Trump's comments this week have reached an all-time low with attacks on three black female journalists. His dismissive comments toward journalists April Ryan, Abby Phillip and Yamiche Alcindor are appalling, irresponsible, and should be denounced."

posted by zachlipton at 5:11 PM on November 9, 2018 [34 favorites]

My 83-year-old Mom made it to Times Square.

(She made it to DC in 1989 too; that sign read “Post-Menopausal Woman Nostalgic For Choice”.)
posted by nicwolff at 5:32 PM on November 9, 2018 [94 favorites]

A reminder that we should savor every victory, no matter how small in the scheme of things: BMI tells Trump campaign Rihanna's work has been removed from their license agreement
posted by scaryblackdeath at 5:40 PM on November 9, 2018 [60 favorites]

DC statehood watch: Rep-elect Jennifer Wexton (VA-10) throws her support behind it.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:53 PM on November 9, 2018 [21 favorites]

From TPM on the Trump press conference today 11/9/2018

President Trump on Friday claimed he doesn’t know the man he tapped as acting attorney general, continued to berate reporters, and complimented former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s “taste.”

And that’s not all. Here are the most noteworthy comments Trump made to White House reporters before departing for Paris for an event commemorating World War

The press needs to stop reporting Trump's behavior and comments as though it is self evident that it is wrong. The press has to specifically and deliberately refute his absurd responses and call them out as lies without taking the content as any sort of serious presidential opinion.
posted by bluesky43 at 6:00 PM on November 9, 2018 [50 favorites]

So, ahh, are we still keeping all the election related stuff (tally updates, FLORIDA, etc) in the Official Election Thread (which will soon need a sequel itself) or shall we recombine?

The Official Election Thread has 2100+ comments; I vote to recombine.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 6:03 PM on November 9, 2018 [14 favorites]

and this from Evan McMullen's piece in Think:

Conservatives must begin to measure everything Trump does first by its impact on the health of the republic, not by partisan priorities. No party goal is more important than the protection of our liberty. Not one.

I see no Republicans who are willing to put country first.
posted by bluesky43 at 6:03 PM on November 9, 2018 [20 favorites]

I want Zinke investigated top to bottom and everything he did in relation to the monuments.
posted by azpenguin at 6:05 PM on November 9, 2018 [16 favorites]

Meanwhile Jane MacAlvey, author of No Shortcuts, talks to the Sacramento DSA about organizing agter the elections
posted by The Whelk at 6:15 PM on November 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

Doctors release new recommendations to reduce gun violence.

NRA tweet warns doctors to 'stay in their lane' over gun control.

After California Shooting, Doctors Hit Back at NRA for Trying to Silence Them Over Guns.

After Pittsburgh, Thousand Oaks, Will New Congress Push for Gun Safety Research?

Thousand Oaks parents: ‘I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts. I want gun control.’
posted by homunculus at 6:20 PM on November 9, 2018 [58 favorites]

Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Tom Wright posted an insightful thread on the peculiarities of Trump's Paris trip. Although he's participating in the Armistice anniversary ceremonies, he's snubbing Macron's Paris Peace Forum (but Putin is attending, and China is presenting its One Belt One Road).

Meanwhile, Trump opened his Armistice visit to France with jab at Macron (AP). Bolton's already arrived and, predictably, is shitting the diplomatic bed: “'I think the enduring lesson (of World War I) for the United States is that when you become a global power ... you have global interests to protect,' Bolton said. 'Great world leaders,' he said, are 'driven by national interests.'”

So, ahh, are we still keeping all the election related stuff (tally updates, FLORIDA, etc) in the Official Election Thread (which will soon need a sequel itself) or shall we recombine?

With everything that's still going on with the midterms—the extended counting, the recounts, and the interference and rat-fuckery from the GOP—that topic could support a brand new FPP on its own. (I'm afraid that it's not likely to change for the short term at the very least.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:22 PM on November 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

A planning reminder since 'tis the season: the Women's March is Saturday 1/19/19
posted by XMLicious at 6:24 PM on November 9, 2018 [23 favorites]

Crooked Media's Brian Beutler makes an interesting point about the timing of Trump firing Sessions:

Trump just ran a campaign warning everyone that Democrats secretly want to impeach him. Every Democrat thus faced questions from the press about impeachment and nearly all of them said, "no, no, that’s not what we’re about. We just want to do proper oversight, see where it goes."

If you're a corrupt president, and you've successfully forced most Democrats and the Democratic leadership to weigh in—on the record, ahead of an election—against impeachment, when do you commit a pre-meditated impeachable offense?

Right away is when.

This is part of an authoritarian pattern of actions by Trump, enabled by nearly every elected Republican,, the Washington Post's Greg Sargent argues.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:39 PM on November 9, 2018 [42 favorites]

I’m sure McSally knows she’s going to be handed McCain’s seat when Kyl leaves next year, so she’s not too agitated about not winning this race.
posted by darkstar at 6:40 PM on November 9, 2018 [5 favorites]

Trump's acting attorney general involved in firm that scammed veterans out of life savings. "Donald Trump’s new acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, was involved in a company that scammed US military veterans out of their life savings, according to court filings and interviews."
posted by homunculus at 6:44 PM on November 9, 2018 [30 favorites]

After the White House Banned Jim Acosta, Should Other Journalists Boycott Its Press Briefings? (Masha Gessen, The New Yorker).

Spoiler alert: He has no idea.
posted by bluesky43 at 6:46 PM on November 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

"no, no, that’s not what we’re about. We just want to do proper oversight, see where it goes."

isn’t this what you say when the plan is not to impeach until you’ve got him dead to rights and you think it could get a conviction in the senate?

it seems just as likely that trump did it because he was told not to fuck things up before the election by firing sessions, and then he did it the first possible second that he could.
posted by murphy slaw at 6:46 PM on November 9, 2018 [13 favorites]

Spoiler alert: He has no idea.

(Masha Gessen is a woman)
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 6:54 PM on November 9, 2018 [12 favorites]

Josh Marshall points out a very odd section of this CNN article:

Sessions realized too late that Whitaker was auditioning for his job

Rosenstein and O’Callaghan, the highest-ranked officials handling day-to-day oversight of Mueller’s investigation, urged Sessions to delay the effective date of his resignation.

Soon, Whitaker strode into Sessions’ office and asked to speak one-on-one to the attorney general; the others left the two men alone. It was a brief conversation. Shortly after, Sessions told his huddle that his resignation would be effective that day.

O’Callaghan had tried to appeal to Sessions, noting that he hadn’t heard back about whether the President would allow a delay. At least one Justice official in the room mentioned that there would be legal questions about whether Whitaker’s appointment as acting attorney general is constitutional. Someone also reminded Sessions that the last time Whitaker played a role in a purported resignation — a few weeks earlier in September, with Rosenstein — the plan collapsed.

(emphasis mine)
posted by murphy slaw at 6:58 PM on November 9, 2018 [35 favorites]

Looks like Marcy Wheeler was right on the money on Wednesday: "Any bets on whether Whitaker was a source for NYT's story that almost got Rosenstein fired a few weeks ago?"
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:04 PM on November 9, 2018 [32 favorites]

What plan? I'm totally failing to grasp the significance there, please help.
posted by agregoli at 7:05 PM on November 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

There were stories that Rosenstein had talked about wearing a wire with the president. But he's a survivor, as they say.
posted by M-x shell at 7:09 PM on November 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

Okay, I'll knock together a new election thread. Seems like there are things happening on multiple fronts.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:12 PM on November 9, 2018 [17 favorites]

More from the CNN scoop, with the immediate aftermath of Sessions's "resignation" telephone call:

John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, asked Sessions to submit his resignation, according to multiple sources briefed on the call. Sessions agreed to comply, but he wanted a few more days before the resignation would become effective. Kelly said he'd consult the President.

Eventually, there were two huddles in separate offices. Among those in Sessions' office was Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, his deputy Ed O'Callaghan, Solicitor General Noel Francisco and Steven Engel, who heads the Office of Legal Counsel.

A few yards away, Whitaker strategized with other aides, including Gary Barnett, now his chief of staff.

The rival huddles, which haven't been previously reported, laid bare a break in the relationship between Sessions and Whitaker that had emerged in recent weeks, after it became clear that Whitaker played a behind-the-scenes role in an aborted effort to oust Rosenstein.

A source close to Sessions says that the former attorney general realized that Whitaker was "self-dealing" after reports surfaced in September that Whitaker had spoken with Kelly and had discussed plans to become the No. 2 at the Justice Department if Rosenstein was forced to resign.

In recent months, with his relationship with the President at a new low, Sessions skipped several so-called principals meetings that he was slated to attend as a key member of the Cabinet. A source close to Sessions says that neither the attorney general nor Trump thought it was a good idea for Sessions to be at the White House, so he sent surrogates. Whitaker was one of them.

But Sessions did not realize Whitaker was having conversations with the White House about his future until the news broke in late September about Rosenstein.

The anti-Whitaker faction at the DoJ is leaking like a sieve the size of the Capitol dome.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:13 PM on November 9, 2018 [68 favorites]

AP: Trump’s Move To Limit Asylum Is Immediately Challenged In Court

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump issued an order Friday to deny asylum to migrants who enter the country illegally, tightening the border as caravans of Central Americans slowly approach the United States. The plan was immediately challenged in court.

Trump invoked the same powers he used last year to impose a travel ban that was upheld by the Supreme Court. The new regulations are intended to circumvent laws stating that anyone is eligible for asylum no matter how he or she enters the country. About 70,000 people per year who enter the country illegally claim asylum, officials said.

“We need people in our country but they have to come in legally,” Trump said Friday as he departed for Paris.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other legal groups swiftly sued in federal court in Northern California to block the regulations, arguing the measures were clearly illegal.

“The president is simply trying to run roughshod over Congress’s decision to provide asylum to those in danger regardless of the manner of one’s entry,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt.

The litigation also seeks to put the rules on hold while the litigation progresses.

It wasn’t clear whether the case would go before a judge before the rules go into effect Saturday. They would be in place for at least three months but could be extended, and don’t affect people already in the country

posted by murphy slaw at 7:29 PM on November 9, 2018 [23 favorites]

I didn’t get to respond in the last thread, but there someone posted a chant from the NYC protest “We will not go away Welcome to your everyday” and that really threw me off because I’m one of the people responsible for that and I had no idea it had become a thing. At the Women’s March in DC, it was originally first day, and while I’m sure others must have done the same elsewhere, in my part of the march, I loudly changed it to everyday and it was an experience for me to hear the crowd around me start saying it, too. So thank you for sharing that.

If we’re combining threads, I had mentioned that my Rep, David Cicilline was going for Assistant Democratic Leader. Cheri Bustos had also put her name in but has since dropped out after Ben Jay Lujan entered the race. I’m less than pleased about this development.
posted by Ruki at 7:36 PM on November 9, 2018 [62 favorites]

ABC reports: Tensions Rising Between Mueller, Manafort Over Level of Cooperation: Sources

Talks between Special Counsel Robert Mueller and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort have grown increasingly tense over Manafort’s apparent lack of cooperation with the investigation, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Prosecutors from Mueller’s office have been asking Manafort about a wide range of topics in nearly a dozen meetings since Manafort agreed to cooperate in September, sources said, but the Mueller team is “not getting what they want,” said one source with knowledge of the discussions.[...]

The agreement between Manafort and Mueller’s team remains intact, but sources told ABC News there’s frustration over whether Manafort is fully providing the information he agreed to offer, putting a strain on the deal.[...]

Sources tell ABC News Mueller has been asking Manafort questions about his time working with Stone from the mid 1980s through their time with the Trump campaign. Manafort has offered little information on those topics that would assist prosecutors, sources said.

As always, the question is who's leaking this and to what end, though if this is from Manafort's lawyers, it could be a signal to Team Trump (since their joint defense agreement no longer applies).
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:53 PM on November 9, 2018 [19 favorites]

'Late Show' and 'Late Night' has been booking Democratic politicians on the regular for a while now - Late Show dropped a hint in the last week or two that the actual filming is pretty heavily rehearsed/ semi-scripted (but importantly, well researched).

The Dem pols come across as entertaining and fairly non-cringey ("Pokemon go to the polls...") - it seems like there are sympathetic writers and coaches/directors helping them out so they present better. If that's the case, I'm all for it.

Culture war - progressives need to fight back, and 'entertainment' is one of our wheelhouses.
posted by porpoise at 8:07 PM on November 9, 2018 [17 favorites]

Shortly before 5 AM in Paris, @realDonaldTrump tweeted a very cagey defense of his new Acting Attorney General:

Matthew G. Whitaker is a highly respected former U.S. Attorney from Iowa. He was chosen by Jeff Sessions to be his Chief of Staff. I did not know Mr. Whitaker. Likewise, as Chief, I did not know Mr. Whitaker except primarily as he traveled with A.G. Sessions. No social contact... [Which elides over the dozen or so White House meetings Trump had with Whitaker that Sessions did not attend.]
....Mr. Whitaker is very highly thought of by @SenJoniErnst, Senator @ChuckGrassley, Ambassador @TerryBranstad, Leonard Leo of Federalist Society, and many more. I feel certain he will make an outstanding Acting Attorney General!

Daniel Dale observes: “In one of his occasional did-a-lawyer-draft-this-tweet? tweets, Trump has gone from "I don't know Matt Whitaker" to "no social contact." This is the kind of dishonest distancing Trump usually does after the firing, resignation, scandal or guilty plea, not immediately after appointing the guy.”

The Trump or Not Bot rates this double-tweet as a 57%/64% chance of Trump himself writing them.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:23 PM on November 9, 2018 [23 favorites]

Also, the NYT's Michael Schmidt points out, "Fact check: The White House pressured Sessions to make Whitaker his chief of staff."
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:37 PM on November 9, 2018 [27 favorites]

Can I sum this up to make sure I have it right? Whitaker approaches Trump and Co and basically says he's interested in Sessions' job, and probably also says that when he has it, he'll take of the Mueller investigation. Sessions is aware, but willingly resigns when Trump asks him to anyway. Trump being Trump, is pretending that none of his conversations with Whitaker ever took place.

Is that it? This is pretty much what I assumed anyway when Trump announced Whitaker would be replacing Sessions. Even if Whitaker never plotted with Trump (and he obviously has), Whitaker's past statements about how he would derail the investigation on Fox News speak for themselves. This is some real cartoon level despot bullshit, and it just keeps getting more and more transparent.

I don't think at any point in our history any previous president would have gotten away with removing the person in charge of an investigation into themselves, much less replacing him with someone who's on the record as wanting to destroy that investigation. I'm at a loss.
posted by xammerboy at 8:40 PM on November 9, 2018 [26 favorites]

Comey Used Private Email for FBI Business (NYPost)

Fired FBI chief James Comey used his private Gmail account hundreds of times to conduct government business — and at least seven of those messages were deemed so sensitive by the Justice Department that they declined to release them.

The former top G-man repeatedly claimed he only used his private account for "incidental" purposes and never for anything that was classified — and that appears to be true.

But Justice acknowledged in response to a Freedom of Information request that Comey and his chief of staff discussed government business on about 1,200 pages of messages, 156 of which were obtained by The Post.

So. There's that.
posted by petebest at 8:53 PM on November 9, 2018 [71 favorites]

New elections post up.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:55 PM on November 9, 2018 [19 favorites]

His weakness is now evident. Economy appears booming, even a bit of wage growth, yet his party was shellacked and lost the House in a wave election.

The media will stop treating his behavior as possibly politically smart.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:56 PM on November 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

Bob Woodward on Bill Maher
posted by growabrain at 9:23 PM on November 9, 2018

The Des Moines Register has background on Whitaker's unsuccessful and probably bogus prosecution of a democratic state senator in Iowa, Why did Matthew Whitaker prosecute this openly gay state lawmaker?

It ends with noting that the defense sought to obtain communications between the FBI, Justice Department, and Whitaker's US attorney's office to look for a political motivation but were turned down in District Court. It does mention that these memos are something a member of congress might be able to obtain. Hint hint, people!
posted by peeedro at 9:31 PM on November 9, 2018 [18 favorites]

The Mary Sue's Week in Reproductive Justice recap: Reproductive Rights Are Safer After the Election, but Still Not Safe
posted by homunculus at 9:45 PM on November 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

Trump Says He’s Not Firing Interior Secretary Zinke, For Now (Flathead Beacon, Kalispell, MT, AP 11/9/2018):

Asked outright by reporters Friday if he would fire Zinke, however, Trump said, “No, I’m going to look into any complaints.”

Speaking Friday to a radio station in Montana, Zinke dismissed reports he already was hunting for his next job.

“I think I’m probably going to be the commander of space command,” Zinke said. “How’s that one?”

“I enjoy working for the president,” Zinke added. “Now, if you do your job, he supports you.”

In an email, Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said Zinke was “denying in strongest possible terms” any plans to leave.

We'll see, won't we?
posted by cenoxo at 9:55 PM on November 9, 2018

hey guys and gals listen: trump is demanding a revote in az because he says the results are illegitimate. and all this is in defense of martha nobody, when R control of the senate is already assured anyhow.

think about that. these close senate results mean he is showing us what he will do regarding the 2020 election results far earlier than he really wanted to, without the benefit of months of fearmongering about the results being fake. we should take careful note.

anyone who thinks he will step down if he loses when HE is on the ballot is being naive. everyone needs to prepare for what they will do and how they will feel on that day, the day he loses and refuses to concede. get ready for it. it's coming.
posted by wibari at 10:06 PM on November 9, 2018 [118 favorites]

From the CNN piece on Sessions' firing, stronger evidence it was a firing:

John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, asked Sessions to submit his resignation, according to multiple sources briefed on the call. Sessions agreed to comply, but he wanted a few more days before the resignation would become effective. Kelly said he'd consult the President.

posted by scalefree at 10:13 PM on November 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

New Arizona Senate Election? Donald Trump Claims There's 'Corruption,' Suggests New Vote, As Democrat Takes Lead (Newsweek, 11/9/18)
posted by cenoxo at 10:18 PM on November 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

so apparently whitaker was served a subpeona for documents in the FTC investigation of World Patent Marketing, but he just… blew it off?

WaPo:

Whitaker, named this week by President Trump as acting attorney general, occasionally served as an outside legal adviser to the company, World Patent Marketing, writing a series of letters on its behalf, according to people familiar with his role.

But he rebuffed an October 2017 subpoena from the Federal Trade Commission seeking his records related to the company, according to two people with knowledge of the case.

The FTC alleged in a 2017 complaint that the company bilked customers with fraudulent promises that it would help them market their invention. The FBI has also investigated World Patent Marketing, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Whitaker was not named in the FTC complaint. World Patent Marketing, without admitting fault, settled the case for more than $25 million earlier this year, according to court documents.

Justice Department officials declined to comment on Whitaker’s handling of the FTC subpoena.

the acting chief cop of the USA thinks responding to a federal subpoena is optional. okay.
posted by murphy slaw at 11:16 PM on November 9, 2018 [44 favorites]

After the White House Banned Jim Acosta, Should Other Journalists Boycott Its Press Briefings? (Masha Gessen, The New Yorker).

Spoiler alert: He has no idea.

It's not an easy question to answer - I honestly don't know which side I come down on myself. The Guardian's Suzanne Moore, on the other hand, is a strong "Yes".
posted by Paul Slade at 1:06 AM on November 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sinema expands lead in Arizona Senate race

At the highest levels of the national party, there’s frustration with McSally — and a sense that she’s not being aggressive enough throughout the process.

While Florida Gov. Rick Scott has lashed out at election officials over the vote counting in his state, McSally has been largely silent. Top officials with the White House and Republican National Committee, who’ve been prodding the McSally campaign to amp up its efforts, have expressed frustration that the Arizona congresswoman hasn’t tried to drive a message that there’s something amiss with the vote count.

On Thursday evening, senior Republicans joined the McSally campaign for a conference call to discuss the state of play. On the call, Justin Clark, the White House director of public liaison, and Mike Roman, a veteran opposition researcher who is working with the RNC, pressed the McSally campaign on what was being done.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, meanwhile, has spoken with Lines, and has expressed a desire for more aggressiveness.

So far, the congresswoman has not addressed the vote counting directly. On Friday, Kyl released a statement saying “Democrats’ legal strategy sounds an awful lot like an effort to disenfranchise voters” from the state’s rural counties.

Lines held a press conference shortly before Friday’s court hearing to echo Kyl’s statement of “disenfranchisement.” Ultimately, the GOP got its desired result in that hearing.

Trump, who was briefed by aides on the Arizona and Florida tallies on Thursday, has also weighed in. “Just out — in Arizona, SIGNATURES DON’T MATCH. Electoral corruption - Call for a new Election? We must protect our Democracy!” the president tweeted on Friday afternoon while en route to Paris.

Among some senior Republicans, there is suspicion about why McSally has chosen to hold back. Some are convinced that she’s willing to let the race go and instead hope for an appointment to the state’s other Senate seat. Kyl, who was picked to replace the late Sen. John McCain, has yet to commit to serving for a full term.

This is America.
posted by scalefree at 1:11 AM on November 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

At first I was naively thinking McSally has some understanding of proportionality & the importance of the rule of law. And then I got to the end & realized she's just tired from the campaign & wants to take the easy path to power now that all that "will of the people" stuff isn't working out.
posted by scalefree at 1:21 AM on November 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

As a reminder, we do have a post for elections in overtime (including the Arizona race, and Trump's fraud / conspiracy cage-rattling on that and other close races).
posted by taz (staff) at 1:43 AM on November 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

oh god, i missed the best part of that Post article:

Another advisory board member who also did legal work for the company, New York-based attorney Eric Creizman, said he also received a subpoena from the FTC and turned over records regarding the company.

“I thought you kind of had to respond to subpoenas,” he said. “If you’re busy, that doesn’t give you the right to avoid a subpoena.”

posted by murphy slaw at 1:51 AM on November 10, 2018 [28 favorites]

Lawrence O'Donnell (I thin it was...might have been Rachel) had a number of clips of Trump saying he didn't know Whitaker. I have to say (and I don't THINK it was wishful thinking) that his eyes actually looked worried. Like he's thinking "oh I made a mistake". I mean I've never seen his eyes look quite like that I don't think. We'll see if he walks the nomination back after all this stuff about Whitaker and the threats to vets that the inventor-help scam he was working for gets out more.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 2:00 AM on November 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

Among some senior Republicans, there is suspicion about why McSally has chosen to hold back. Some are convinced that she’s willing to let the race go and instead hope for an appointment to the state’s other Senate seat.

I like, and by like I mean hate, how the idea that maybe McSally is "holding back" because she just wants the votes counted accurately isn't even brought up as a possibility. It's as though it's plain inconceivable.
posted by Justinian at 2:38 AM on November 10, 2018 [59 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!

At least nine people are dead, an entire town has been destroyed, the situation is so bad that the skies are apocalyptic 150 miles away, flames are racing through Malibu as we speak, and this is what the President has to offer?
posted by zachlipton at 4:09 PM on November 10 [9 favorites +] [!]

And 23 people are dead in two mass shootings in the last week, all due to "gross gun mismanagement". Drop the weight of the federal government on that one, why don't you. Oh, and the best way to mitigate fires like the ones in California (and Australia) is to fucking deal with climate change.
posted by michswiss at 4:05 AM on November 10, 2018 [55 favorites]

You cannot be serious:

James Comey discussed sensitive FBI business on his private email

In one email on Oct. 7, 2015, Comey seems to recognize the hypocrisy of the FBI investigating Hillary Clinton’s email practices while he’s exchanging FBI info on his own private account because his government account was down.

Two days after complaining that his “mobile is not sending emails,” Comey asked an aide that the testimony he was to deliver to the Senate be sent on his private account — calling it an “embarrassing” situation.

“He [aide] will need to send to personal email I suppose,” Comey wrote. “Embarrassing for us.”

Lock him up. Not even kidding, the statute of limitations will still be active if a Democratic administration takes over in 2020. Charge James Comey.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:48 AM on November 10, 2018 [37 favorites]

The reason not to "lock him up" is precisely that there's no crime being committed. Not by Hillary, not by James; just violations of workplace policy. And there's nothing criminal about being a massive hypocrite either. As for the way he influenced the election... maybe that rises to criminal behavior, yeah.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 5:12 AM on November 10, 2018 [66 favorites]

Oh, and the best way to mitigate fires like the ones in California (and Australia) is to fucking deal with climate change.

Also, the utility companies have been quite negligent in trimming trees from their right-of-way, WILDFIRE COSTS IN CALIFORNIA: THE ROLE OF ELECTRIC UTILITIES
posted by mikelieman at 5:25 AM on November 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

Ugh

First you tweet barely understood insults to your host

and then

you sit down to discuss barely understood tweets

Seriously, this twitter thing is fucking ridiculous way to run this planet.

No other institution runs itself based on trolling and mega thread you said he said we said idiocy.
posted by infini at 5:40 AM on November 10, 2018 [17 favorites]

A few words from an eyewitness: The Pure, Unbridled Joy of Finally Seeing Scott Walker Lose - Katherine Krueger, Splinter
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:15 AM on November 10, 2018 [29 favorites]

But Obama once said 57 states at the end of a long campaigning day when he clearly meant 47.

Mark Lowen (BBC)
In today’s ⁦@lemondefr⁩: When #Trump received the leaders of #Estonia, #Latvia and #Lithuania, he began by blaming them for the war in Yugoslavia. It took them a few moments to realise he’d mixed up the Balkans and the Baltics. ⁦@SylvieKauffmann⁩
PIC OF ARTICLE
posted by chris24 at 7:16 AM on November 10, 2018 [53 favorites]

Finally, you stay in to watch Fox because its cold and rainy at the Frenchie cemetery where that stupid event with Shortie is going on
posted by infini at 7:18 AM on November 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

Macron looks like he's barely suppressing laughter in about half the pictures I see of him and Trump.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 7:24 AM on November 10, 2018

This picture alone is hilarious.

Trump hates to be touched.

I think Macron's trolling and if so, good for him.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 7:26 AM on November 10, 2018 [69 favorites]

The Pure, Unbridled Joy of Finally Seeing Scott Walker Lose

The thing is that republicans are like the last boss in a video game. We beat this form, but he’ll be back as a news commentator and then as a lobbyist. They never worry about being terrible in office because they know there are no consequences to their career.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 7:49 AM on November 10, 2018 [33 favorites]

In the previous thread, somebody said this WSJ piece about Trump's direct involvement in the payments to many more women than just McDougal and Daniels... including Jane Doe. If that's the case, it seems like a seriously under-reported part of the story. It's now a matter of fact that Trump paid someone for no reason other than her allegation of rape -- if he never did it, why would he pay her? Are newsrooms hesitant to touch on something as horrific on that, for fear it will blow up in their face if his innocence on that is somehow proven?
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:09 AM on November 10, 2018 [17 favorites]

chris24: ...Almost half of California forests are managed by the federal government.

More than half (bullet points added):

University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources > Forest Research and Outreach > California Forests

• Of the approximately 33 million acres of forest in California, federal agencies (including the USDA Forest Service and USDI Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service) own and manage 19 million acres (57%).
• State and local agencies including CalFire, local open space, park and water districts and land trusts own another 3%.
• 40% of California's forestland is owned by families, Native American tribes, or companies.
• Industrial timber companies own 5 million acres (14%).
• 9 million acres are owned by individuals with nearly 90% of these owners having less than 50 acres of forest land.
...
California forests face a number of threats. The greatest threat is not loss of forest due to harvesting and the lack of subsequent regrowth but conversion to non-forests from serious catastrophic events such as large wildfires and land use conversion to agricultural and residential land uses. Indeed, the standing forest volume continues to increase on both private and public forest lands. However, we are witnessing a significant increase in the occurrence of large wildfires. As the economic value of forests as a source of woods products is decreasing due to high costs, low income, and woods products infrastructure loss it becomes harder for owners of forest properties to maintain economic sustainability. Softwood sawmill capacity in California shrank by 25% in the last few years alone, according to CalFire.

There are no Twitter solutions.
posted by cenoxo at 8:14 AM on November 10, 2018 [23 favorites]

InTheYear2017 asked: Are newsrooms hesitant to touch on something as horrific on that, for fear it will blow up in their face if his innocence on that is somehow proven?

Oh, yeah. I can't imagine an editor touching that story without some significant proof. That said, I suspect that news organizations that still pay for journalists to journal have research people working on it. It's hard to cover a Jane Doe situation, because you need to be meticulous in your hiding of the Doe's identity, and often details that corroborate her story would lead to her being discovered. Being discovered in this situation means being subject to rape and death threads, with the very real possibility that one of Trump's minions would kill you and expect a pardon. And...AND he might get one. Witness for example, what is happening to Dr. Ford.

So, Doe is terrified to talk, as you would be. Ethical journalists don't want to break her anonymity. Unethical journalists like Fox would out her in a second, but are afraid her story is true, and child rape may actually turn some Rs into people. (Bwhahahahaha, no, it won't. I can't even say that with a straight face.)

That story is like the third rail. I'm not sure there's a safe way to approach it.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:25 AM on November 10, 2018 [18 favorites]

It's not just forest mismanagement, it's also an increased number of dead trees due to climate change and the pine bark beetle.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:31 AM on November 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

Finally, you stay in to watch Fox because its cold and rainy at the Frenchie cemetery where that stupid event with Shortie is going on

The best part of this article is that every picture has either sunshine or blue sky in it.
posted by rhizome at 8:36 AM on November 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Churchill's grandson slams Trump for skipping cemetery visit because of weather

Ex-Obama adviser swipes at Trump for canceling visit to American cemetery because of weather - Chris Mills Rodrigo, The Hill
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:52 AM on November 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

Classic abuser procedure: isolate your target (the US) so that it doesn't have any of its old friends anymore and make sure you control access to the only friend options (Putin, Erdogan, Duterte) you do allow.
posted by rhizome at 8:59 AM on November 10, 2018 [26 favorites]

One of the pictures in Finally, you stay in to watch Fox because its cold and rainy at the Frenchie cemetery where that stupid event with Shortie is going on is captioned "Mr Macron and Ms Merkel in the railway carriage where the Armistice was signed". No, no, no. The railway carriage in which Macron & Merkel are sitting is a replica. I'm surprised that Sky News would make that mistake since Hitler's destruction of the original carriage is fairly infamous.
posted by rdr at 9:00 AM on November 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

Your "Republicans Support the Troops" roundup:

NYT: With little electricity, no combat pay and holidays away from home, the 5,600 American troops on the southwest border are on a mission ordered by a politically determined commander in chief and a Pentagon unable to convince him of its perils. They're in sight of Whataburger and stuck eating MREs. The article points to an estimated $200 million cost (still not allocated in any budget!) for a mission keeping soldiers away from their families over holidays to, um... protect us from a trickle of refugees.

The Hill: Government spending millions to protect Confederate cemeteries

Bloomberg: Trump Trip to Pay Tribute to U.S. Fallen Canceled in French Rain
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:05 AM on November 10, 2018 [38 favorites]

FWIW, on the above: I feel like the "combat pay" complaint in the NYT headline is kinda dodgy since no, this isn't combat -- but that does kinda speak to the uselessness of the mission in the first place.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:10 AM on November 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

Reckoning With the First Native American Governor Being a Conservative - Nick Martin, Splinter

On Kevin Stitt's victory in the Oklahoma governor's race as a Republican.

There was no hubbub over his candidacy, or what it meant for the Sooner State, or for Native Americans across the nation. But regardless of how the national media or even the candidate viewed the campaign, there is no getting around the fact that Stitt—a citizen of Cherokee Nation as a descendant of his great-grandfather, Robert Dawson—is the first Native American governor in United States history.
...
The opportunity to be represented, as a minority citizen, at the highest levels of government in a two-party system like America’s is not one you pass on. As commenters here love to remind me, perfect is the enemy of good, and in criticizing a Native elected official I’m certain will push for measures that make me grind my teeth, I feel a pang urging me to ease up, to enjoy the fact that we are no longer segregated and utterly forgotten, that Natives are finally being seen as people with something to offer in national politics and to win, regardless of whether they wave their Native identity as a flag or relegate it to a toss-off remark in a single interview. It’s the same pang I felt when I took on Elizabeth Warren’s attempt to co-opt our history—why attack someone that could ultimately serve as a stepping stone forward, either for our country or Indian Country?

I know it in my bones that Stitt, over the course of his governorship, will push conservative, regressive policies that hurt Oklahoma residents who need schools and affordable healthcare. And that’s why it’s important (for me, at least) to remember that with the privilege of being among the first generations to break into mainstream American culture and society comes the responsibility for Native citizens to remind the folks that have long been embedded in said culture and society that we are not a single-minded group of people. For all the good I’m sure Haaland and Davids will do in D.C., and all the positive pieces that are published as a result, it will be just as important to stay on the heels of those of us that are pointed in the opposite direction. And in the case of Kevin Stitt, I am positive of two things: I am proud, regardless of his politics, to know that a Native person finally climbed to the top of a state government, and that I will be among the crowd railing against him if and when he tries to drag Oklahoma backwards, because that is my privilege, and it I’ll be damned if it’s squandered.

Emphasis mine.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:12 AM on November 10, 2018 [49 favorites]

Your "Republicans Support the Troops" roundup:

I'd also include Trump rankles veterans with comments about PTSD and California shooter (WaPo). Trump is trading in uninformed and gross speculation about veterans and PTSD, reinforcing wrong and harmful stereotypes connecting mental health issues to violence, to avoid having to comment on gun control.
posted by peeedro at 9:31 AM on November 10, 2018 [17 favorites]

Thanks for adding that. I had that in mind when I started posting, but as usual with this regime's bullshit I lost track of all the awful. Even when you narrow things down to a sub-topic there's just Too Much Hurtful Bullshit to remember it all at once.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:37 AM on November 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

I don't think at any point in our history any previous president would have gotten away with removing the person in charge of an investigation into themselves, much less replacing him with someone who's on the record as wanting to destroy that investigation.

I really don't mean to be pedantic, but Trump has yet to actually 'get away with' anything that he's done as President--or maybe, has only gotten away with it so far. Doing terrible and horrible things, even if you are the President, is always an option open to any person in a free society, but that society also hopefully holds someone accountable should they make that choice, and that part is complicated and takes time.

This distinction has been important for my own emotional health, remembering that, truly, the wheels of justice turn slowly but grind exceedingly fine (if we work to make it so, and not let this asshole actually get away with it all).
posted by LooseFilter at 9:39 AM on November 10, 2018 [8 favorites]

I really don't mean to be pedantic, but Trump has yet to actually 'get away with' anything that he's done as President--or maybe, has only gotten away with it so far. Doing terrible and horrible things, even if you are the President, is always an option open to any person in a free society, but that society also hopefully holds someone accountable should they make that choice, and that part is complicated and takes time.

If he doesn't suffer the consequences of his actions before he dies, he will have gotten away with it. We need to make sure this doesn't happen.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:47 AM on November 10, 2018 [16 favorites]

> Oh, and the best way to mitigate fires like the ones in California (and Australia) is to fucking deal with climate change.

There's no more typical California wildfire season. It may be year-round, experts warn. "You're getting longer periods of the year when you get these fires. We're literally burning the candle at both ends," said a UCLA climatologist.

The Terrifying Science Behind California’s Massive Camp Fire

This is what a climate change reckoning looks like. “All of it is embedded in the background trend of things getting warmer,” Lareau says. “The atmosphere as it gets warmer is thirstier.” Like a giant atmospheric mosquito, climate change is sucking California dry.

The consequence is fires of unprecedented, almost unimaginable scale. California cities are no longer safe from fire, and with climate change, things are only bound to get worse from here.

“Mass shootings and mass burnings,” Pyne says. “Welcome to the new America.”

Climate Change May Increase Heat Waves, Coastal Damage, & Wildfires In California

The California Natural Resources Agency recently released a new statewide climate change assessment. According to the report, climate change impacts in California will increase in severity over the coming decades. Rising temperatures will result in more heat waves, and by 2050 there might be an extra 11,000 heat-related deaths each year. It is expected there will also be more wildfires. Rising ocean levels will cause billions of dollars in damage to coastal areas. Heather Williams, the Communications Director for CNRA, answered some questions for CleanTechnica about the assessment.

posted by homunculus at 9:50 AM on November 10, 2018 [16 favorites]

Finally, you stay in to watch Fox because its cold and rainy at the Frenchie cemetery where that stupid event with Shortie is going on

"As we sit here in the rain, thinking how uncomfortable we must be these minutes as our suits get wet and our hair gets wet and our shoes get wet, I think it's all the more fitting that we remember on that day, in Dieppe, the rain wasn't rain, it was bullets,"

Justin Trudeau via @ChazReddBear (video footage in tweet).
posted by Buntix at 9:58 AM on November 10, 2018 [79 favorites]

The railway carriage in which Macron & Merkel are sitting is a replica. I'm surprised that Sky News would make that mistake since Hitler's destruction of the original carriage is fairly infamous.

BBC Radio 4 got it right, though. I'm listening to their 6pm news now, and they've twice pointed out that the carriage is a replica.

Also: Perhaps Trump's bone spurs act up in the rain?
posted by Paul Slade at 10:10 AM on November 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

There is a video I do NOT recommend seeking out, of a survivor of the Camp Fire. He went to go convince his friends to evacuate like he was doing, and when the fire caught them, he had the presence of mind to drive into a creek bed. His little SUV is badly damaged, the plastic bits all melted, the paint scorched, the glass discolored, but it still runs and drives, and the depression of the creek bed and the metal roof saved him and his dogs as the fire raged above.

His friends and neighbors? Seriously. Do not seek out this video. He sees their remains, and in shock, calmly says, "She wanted to put on her makeup before leaving the house. That's all it took."

Americans are used to land of bounty and ease, where the threats are well known and accounted for. A tornado killed people in Baltimore, and the entire city of Paradise, CA was destroyed in the same week.

Climate Change is an existential threat to the Republic. Its deniers should be viewed the same way, and a core part of the problem that needs solving.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:10 AM on November 10, 2018 [113 favorites]

Trump to give nation's highest civilian honor to someone who gave the GOP a lot of money.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:25 AM on November 10, 2018 [19 favorites]

"As we sit here in the rain, thinking how uncomfortable we must be these minutes as our suits get wet and our hair gets wet and our shoes get wet, I think it's all the more fitting that we remember on that day, in Dieppe, the rain wasn't rain, it was bullets,"

Wow. That was powerful. It's refreshing to see a leader who understands what his responsipilities really are.
posted by homunculus at 10:26 AM on November 10, 2018 [34 favorites]

Marcy Wheeler, writing in Empty Wheel about the walking clusterfuck that is Matthew Whitaker: Did Emmet Flood Mean to Create a Legal Morass, or Is He Off His Game?, or, Is this Don McGahn’s last fuck-up?

This entire post is premised on two things: first, that Emmet Flood is among the rare people in Trump’s orbit who is very competent. It also assumes that because both these issues — White House Counsel until Cipollone takes over, and White House Counsel in charge of protecting Trump from the Mueller investigation — would fall solidly in Flood’s portfolios, he would have a significant role in the plot.

Perhaps not. Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo is claiming (in a CNN report that should be read in its entirety) he worked on the plan with Don McGahn.
Leonard Leo, the influential executive vice president of the Federalist Society, recommended to then-White House counsel Don McGahn that Whitaker would make a good chief of staff for Sessions.

“I recommended him and was very supportive of him for chief of staff for very specific reasons,” Leo said Friday.
So maybe this scheme was, instead, planned out by Don McGahn (who has been officially gone since October 17).

If Wheeler's hypothesis that Whitaker's takeover as AAG has been in the works in August 2017 is correct, then naturally McGahn would be the one responsible, as White House legal counsel, for this mess. And if so, does it also add another reason behind his pronounced anxiousness to leave in the last few months of his tenure—even exiting the White House before his successor can come on board?

Of course, we haven't heard a peep from Emmet Flood, temporary Assistant to the President and Counsel to the President—because he's the only goddam lawyer on Team Trump who knows better than to be interviewed by the press on anything except unattributed background—and Leonard Leo's buddy Pat Cipollone is still undergoing a background check and is not expected to start in a full-time capacity until mid-November.
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:30 AM on November 10, 2018 [10 favorites]

Trump has yet to actually 'get away with' anything that he's done as President--or maybe, has only gotten away with it so far.

I think if you "only" get away with flagrantly flouting the constitution for a year, or two or three or four, than for all practical purposes that's actually getting away with it. Trump's businesses are in violation of the emoluments clause, which basically says the president cannot personally receive benefits in any way or kind from foreign powers. If the Senate won't call him on it, and the courts take four years to hear any related cases, then the system is broken.

There's no punishment waiting for him down the line for breaking the emoluments clause or unconstitutionally installing his own hand picked Attorney General. The courts will just eventually, when it's too late, decide he can't do that anymore. That's it.

I still believe there's a good chance Trump will go down. Mueller's investigation may turn out to be so iron clad, so undeniable, that even Republican Senators are moved to call for impeachment. But the larger point, that the constitution's enforcement is in reality incredibly weak, and that Trump did indeed get away with flouting it, will still need to be addressed, historically if nothing else.
posted by xammerboy at 10:48 AM on November 10, 2018 [23 favorites]

Trump to give nation's highest civilian honor to someone who gave the GOP a lot of money.

In addition to a casino magnate and GOP mega-donor check out the list of other honorees:

Sen. Orrin Hatch, former football player and Minnesota Supreme Court justice Alan Page, football player Roger Staubach, Elvis Presley, Babe Ruth and Antonin Scalia.

What a bizarre hodgepodge. It's like whatever Trump happened to see on the History Channel in passing as he scanned between Fox News and CNN.
posted by JackFlash at 10:49 AM on November 10, 2018 [29 favorites]

The courts will just eventually, when it's too late, decide he can't do that anymore. That's it.

And even this is assuming his hand picked to rule for him judges...don't actually rule for him.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:01 AM on November 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Bloomberg: Trump Trip to Pay Tribute to U.S. Fallen Canceled in French Rain

Al Monitor's Laura Rozen points out, "Pompeo apparently skipping too"

Huh.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:07 AM on November 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

More on Pompeo's cancellation today, from the AP's Jill Colvin: "Quick update: Secretary Pompeo did not wind up going either. Per the state dept, his visit was “canceled due to scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather.” Other staff did attend." (Supposedly, "The president was supposed to go by helicopter (about a half-hour trip) but helicopters can’t fly in this kind of weather." How did all the other world leaders get out there?)

Incidentally, where's Bolton in this mysterious no-show of American officials?

Maybe Trump's intimidated by Macron's big hands. Reuter's Steve Holland : "Our great photographer Carlos Barria captured Macron’s grip in Trump’s hand at Elysee Palace" Pix!
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:22 AM on November 10, 2018 [17 favorites]

After the non-story-stories of Trump/Macron's various physical contact, I want to see his expression as PM Rutte goes in for the Dutch-triple-kiss.
posted by Seeba at 11:35 AM on November 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

The National UAE's Joyce Karam has more pix: "Theresa May , Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau all paid respects. Trump absence because of bad weather looks more awkward in photos." and "John Kelly & Gen Dunford represented US instead of POTUS."

And former Dubya speechwriter David Frum—who, if nothing else, has firsthand experience with these kinds of presidential visits—offers his impressions in a long-ish thread:

"It's not even 60 miles from central Paris to the monument. If the weather is too wet & windy for helicopters, a presidential motorcade could drive the distance in an hour. [...] Visiting the close-to-Paris monument is anyway already a climb-down from what any normally patriotic president would wish to do on the centenary of the 1918 Armistice: pay respects at the Meuse-Argonne cemetery, the large US military burying place in Europe. [...] But bottom line: Trump willfully insisted on an unnecessary trip to France to mark the WW1 centenary -then once he got there shirked on grounds of weather the job of honoring those who fought and died in rain and mud 100 years ago"

The Washington Post (dateline Paris): ‘Real Low Energy’: Critics Pile On After Trump Cancels Visit to U.S. Military Cemetery Outside Paris
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:39 AM on November 10, 2018 [38 favorites]

Alternate explanation for Trump's no-show from Hmm Daily's Tom Scocca: "Skipping the memorial is bad but it seems more likely to be a sign of his complete physical degeneration than of his moral degeneracy[.] He's a bad person so it's easy to focus on his laziness and selfishness but we probably consistently underestimate how he just doesn't have the ability to do the job"
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:43 AM on November 10, 2018 [49 favorites]

Remember that Trump originally planned a big Hitler-style military parade in his honor in Washington DC on this date, but it was cancelled. I don't doubt for a minute that Trump just sulking because he isn't the star of the reality show that he had planned.
posted by JackFlash at 11:47 AM on November 10, 2018 [34 favorites]

Trump has yet to actually 'get away with' anything that he's done as President--or maybe, has only gotten away with it so far.

2,975 dead Puerto Ricans might disagree. If Clinton had won and also failed so dramatically, I have little doubt that the GOP would have impeached her.
posted by homunculus at 12:01 PM on November 10, 2018 [49 favorites]

everyone needs to prepare for what they will do and how they will feel on that day, the day he loses and refuses to concede.

His refusal will mean nothing if he doesn't have the support of a strong military team. If the Secret Service agents assigned to him won't stop the new team from physically escorting him out, he's done - he can yell about election fraud and still being the president all he wants.

And so far, I'm not seeing him inspire enough loyalty to keep himself around. His cronies know that when investigations start rolling, he won't be helping them. He won't be pardoning them or providing other support. If they're lucky, he'll say that they're awesome noble people who deserve the best, so maybe they'll be able to get elected by a fanatic evangelical racist Republican district somewhere, but only if they stay out of prison.

He may keep pretending he's still going to be president forever, right up until January 19th 2021, but he doesn't have a support base that will help him keep control of the house - Congress will start working with the new president; his security access will be revoked - and more important, the access of everyone who might support him will be revoked.

Kelly is a violent bigoted asshole, but I can't see him refusing to step down when the newly elected president appoints someone else to take his place. I don't see him literally shooting it out with half of the White House staff, which is what it would take.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:02 PM on November 10, 2018 [16 favorites]

And speaking of Puerto Rico: Inside the Battle to Save Abortion Rights in Puerto Rico: Providers on the island say access has been hindered by Hurricane Maria and threatened by legislation.
posted by homunculus at 12:02 PM on November 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

Let's not pursue a thing about whether he's "gotten away with" things in some sense or other; nothing hangs on whether that specific expression applies or not. And ditto for hypotheticals about when he loses; trying to stick to actual events.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:02 PM on November 10, 2018 [8 favorites]

From that photo of the handshake: it appears that Trump must be biting his nails. This I did not know.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:21 PM on November 10, 2018

It was also raining last year. Here is how a real leader does it - scroll to 1:15
posted by growabrain at 12:30 PM on November 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

Presented without comment:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
But it’s kind of drizzly, let’s not go.

posted by bcd at 12:32 PM on November 10, 2018 [35 favorites]

I think there's some confusion here. The excellent Trudeau speech in the pouring rain, posted at 12:58 was from 2017 and commemorating WWII. Still, it makes a good point.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 12:40 PM on November 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

The reason not to "lock him up" is precisely that there's no crime being committed. Not by Hillary, not by James [Comey]; just violations of workplace policy. And there's nothing criminal about being a massive hypocrite either.

And floating this kind of talk will only encourage Trump to prosecute Comey, who is on the president's shit list already for daring to question him. The fact that Comey effectively swung the election to Trump is certainly not going to cause him to hesitate; if anything, he would tout that as proof against the obvious historical point that Comey intervened to help his fellow Republican.
posted by msalt at 12:41 PM on November 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Presented without comment:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
But it’s kind of drizzly, let’s not go.

Donald Trump: Poetry Muse.
posted by homunculus at 12:53 PM on November 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

And floating this kind of talk will only encourage Trump to prosecute Comey, who is on the president's shit list already for daring to question him.

When you ignore DOJ instructions and flout procedure and good sense to leak sensational bullshit with full appreciation that you can throw an election to a pig, you get covered in shit.

And it annoys the pig. I think. (NOT PIGIST)
posted by petebest at 1:01 PM on November 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

Alternate explanation for Trump's no-show from Hmm Daily's Tom Scocca: "Skipping the memorial is bad but it seems more likely to be a sign of his complete physical degeneration than of his moral degeneracy[.] He's a bad person so it's easy to focus on his laziness and selfishness but we probably consistently underestimate how he just doesn't have the ability to do the job"

Also bro doesn't even know how to umbrella.
posted by srboisvert at 1:39 PM on November 10, 2018 [13 favorites]

William Saletan: If Trump Wants the Russia Investigation to End, He Should Stop Committing Crimes
posted by growabrain at 1:47 PM on November 10, 2018 [17 favorites]

From the thread that bcd just linked, above:

Trump hasn’t visited troops in combat zones. Didn’t show up at a war memorial b/c of rain. Ordered troops to the border as a political stunt, forcing soldiers away from family at holidays. Insulted gold star families. Cut veteran benefits.

But at least he stands for the anthem.

Combined with his insulting McCain for getting shot down and tortured, and his “bone spurs” draft deferments, there can be no doubt about just how heartfelt is his “support” of the military and their families.
posted by darkstar at 1:50 PM on November 10, 2018 [46 favorites]

It's rounding the Interwebs and relevant to my interests:

How to honor troops in the pouring rain, feat. V.V. Putin (June, 2017, Telegraph)

PR Bonus Levels Unlocked!
posted by petebest at 1:59 PM on November 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

From The Atlantic, The Legal Precedent That Could Protect Jim Acosta’s Credentials:

“Once the government creates the kind of forum that it has created, like the White House briefing room, it can’t selectively include or exclude people on the basis of ideology or viewpoint,” said Ben Wizner, the director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

The new steps enunciated in the Sherrill decision to ensure that reporters’ First Amendment rights are not violated include the requirement to give the reporter notice and the right to rebut a formal written decision, which must accompany any revocation. “We further conclude that notice, opportunity to rebut, and a written decision are required because the denial of a pass potentially infringes upon First Amendment guarantees,” the court’s ruling states. “Such impairment of this interest cannot be permitted to occur in the absence of adequate procedural due process.”
...
“What they’ve done here is not only unwise, but probably illegal,” the ACLU’s Wizner concluded.

posted by peeedro at 2:01 PM on November 10, 2018 [29 favorites]

Skipping the memorial is bad but it seems more likely to be a sign of his complete physical degeneration than of his moral degeneracy.

He may not have wanted to do the golf cart thing again... But who knows? We STILL have no idea what his physical health is like.
posted by xammerboy at 2:51 PM on November 10, 2018

The American civil war didn't end. And Trump is a Confederate president

In the 158th year of the American civil war, also known as 2018, the Confederacy continues its recent resurgence. Its victims include black people, of course, but also immigrants, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, trans people, gay people and women who want to exercise jurisdiction over their bodies. The Confederacy battles in favor of uncontrolled guns and poisons, including toxins in streams, mercury from coal plants, carbon emissions into the upper atmosphere, and oil exploitation in previously protected lands and waters.

posted by jgirl at 2:56 PM on November 10, 2018 [70 favorites]

Marcy Wheeler: The Kremlinology (ha!) of the Sessions Huddle

So for the sake of this Kremlinology, I will assume that Sessions remained Attorney General for the remainder of the day on Wednesday. That means that, for at least a half day after this went down, any orders he gave were binding and all those men huddling with him on Wednesday morning retained the relative seniority to Whitaker that they started the day with.
...
In a room of men huddling with Jeff Sessions at a time he undeniably retained authority as Attorney General, at least one person — it might though is unlikely to be Sessions, it might be the Solicitor General who would argue the case legally, it might be the Deputy Attorney General or his deputy overseeing the Russian probe, it might be the guy who ultimately decides such things, or it might be several of them — at least one of those senior DOJ officials raised questions about whether Whitaker’s appointment would be constitutional. All of those men are sufficiently senior to ask Engel to write up a memo considering the question, and so long as Sessions retained the authority of Attorney General, he could decide whether to accept Engel’s advice or not. Sure, the President could override that (Obama overrode OLC, to his great disgrace, in Libya). But Trump would be on far shakier legal ground to do so without OLC’s blessing, and anyone operating in defiance of the OLC opinion could face legal problems in the future.

And an OLC opinion is precisely the kind of thing that Mueller’s team might submit to the DC Circuit — under the authority of the Senate approved and third-ranking Noel Francisco — in a sealed appendix to a challenge to Mueller’s authority.

Who Is Lawfully the Attorney General Right Now?
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:59 PM on November 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

Who Is Lawfully the Attorney General Right Now?

Spoiler: If Whitaker's appointment is legal, about which there is substantial controversy, then it's Whitaker. (It is not a slam-dunk controversy. There's a SCOTUS ruling strongly implying no, but other rulings saying that the president can temporarily appoint people to fill gaps as needed.)

If not, Rosenstein's job description includes filling the AG role in case of "a vacancy in the office of Attorney General, or of his absence or disability." This may be a strong point against Whitaker: the position was not "open" just because Sessions was no longer doing it: the Deputy AG automatically is placed in that spot.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:19 PM on November 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

Another advisory board member who also did legal work for the company, New York-based attorney Eric Creizman, said he also received a subpoena from the FTC and turned over records regarding the company.

Creizman apparently used to represent George Papadopoulos. The George Papadopoulos who wants to retract his guilty plea.
posted by ryoshu at 3:28 PM on November 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

> The American civil war didn't end. And Trump is a Confederate president

That's a good piece on the current unpleasantness. If we weren't doing megathreads I think it'd be worth an FPP, and a good companion to this one.
posted by homunculus at 4:34 PM on November 10, 2018 [13 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor.

Hollywood Reporter: L.A. Mayor Says Federal Fire Assistance Is on the Way — Despite Trump's Comments

[T]he top executive of the union that represents California's firefighters responded at length to Donald Trump's criticism on Saturday with a condemnation of the President's tweet about "poor" forest management.

"The president’s message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to the victims of the cataclysmic fires is Ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines," stated California Professional Firefighters President Brian K. Rice.

"At a time when our every effort should be focused on vanquishing the destructive fires and helping the victims, the president has chosen instead to issue an uninformed political threat aimed squarely at the innocent victims of these cataclysmic fires," Rice added. "At this moment, thousands of our brother and sister firefighters are putting their lives on the line to protect the lives and property of thousands. Some of them are doing so even as their own homes lay in ruins. In my view, this shameful attack on California is an attack on all our courageous men and women on the front lines."

And someone on Trump's comms team realized this tweet went too far and had @realDonaldTrump send out a couple of conciliatory ones. The Trump or Not Bot rates them as having only 34% and 21% chance of actually being written by Trump
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:42 PM on November 10, 2018 [14 favorites]

Weekly Standard, A Note on Steve King

The congressman disputed a story we reported. We stand by it.

Last week, Adam Rubenstein visited Iowa to report on Steve King’s re-election effort. He filed several pieces from there, including one that reported on comments King made before a small meeting with voters in Webster City. The headline of that article was: “Did Steve King Just Refer to Immigrants as ‘Dirt?’” In the story, Adam reported on a jocular exchange King had with a supporter, in which King says that if he wants to grow spicy jalapenos, he’ll have to import dirt from Mexico. When King laughs at his comment, an attendee interjects, saying the dirt from Mexico is already “on the way.” King agrees, saying, “there’s plenty of dirt" coming from Mexico, the West Coast and other places, too. “This is the most dirt we’ve ever seen.” Adam transcribed and printed the entire exchange as part of his article.

On Friday and Saturday, Congressman King sent several tweets criticizing THE WEEKLY STANDARD, claiming we knowingly posted false information and suggesting we weren’t releasing the audio because it doesn’t exist. “You heard it directly from Jeff King and chose to defend your junk yard dog. You refused to release the tape,” he wrote. He later added: “Just release the full tape. Leftists lies exist without original sources because they are false and manufactured accusations. Weekly Standard is transitioning into ‘Antifa News.’”

King's claims are false.

Here is the audio. The exchange, as transcribed, starts at about the 20-second mark. King is quoted accurately throughout.

posted by zachlipton at 4:52 PM on November 10, 2018 [91 favorites]

Guardian: Yes, Twitter Is Putting Tweets In Your Timeline From People You Don't Follow—‘There are times when you might miss out on tweets we think you’d enjoy’ explains social network

Basically, @jack is an asshole.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:58 PM on November 10, 2018 [67 favorites]

President Donald Trump was scheduled to take a 30-minute helicopter ride from Paris to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in Belleau, France. But a rainy forecast for the city made it too risky for him to safely fly there, the White House said.

Who knew? Marine helicopters can't fly in the rain. I hope nobody leaks this to the Russians.

The White House lied. Again.
posted by JackFlash at 5:05 PM on November 10, 2018 [22 favorites]

@AnikaNoniRose

Dear news outlets, you want to do something radical and powerful? Next white house press event with the president, only send your Black woman reporters. #IfYouHaveAny

10:44 PM - 9 Nov 2018
posted by bluesky43 at 5:43 PM on November 10, 2018 [119 favorites]

@neurovagrant, 6 Nov 2018:

For election night, I present to you the best thing I learned in my time as a (third-party) sysadmin in the House of Representatives: From a congressional IP, you can only read one XKCD comic: the climate change/average Earth temperature timeline.

XKCD will load the URL of any comic you're linked to, but when it makes a call for the graphic, it will *only* return the climate temperature comic to a congressional IP, including the House wifi. So you're still at the right URL, wondering wtf.

posted by homunculus at 6:04 PM on November 10, 2018 [157 favorites]

Trump will golf in the rain, though.

Cost of 149 golf trips to taxpayers, so far, something like $79 Meellion.

And while the redoubtable Led Zeppelin song, "Golf in the Rain" plays, I posit that Trump's disrespectful and dispresidential hidey-holing today may not be about the weather (obvs.), but adding to what was noted above, He don't look good.

That spray tan is maybe the worst yet, and his old white eyes look positively gray with ... illness? Despair? Bananapantsery? Dunno. Not good though, not good.
posted by petebest at 6:09 PM on November 10, 2018 [8 favorites]

The National Republican Senate Committee is calling just counting votes "vote suppression":

Paul Waldman: Heads up: If this is any indication, Republicans are going to start calling any Dem effort to safeguard voting rights or count votes "voter suppression," turning the term 180 degrees from its current meaning.

It's the same thing Trump did with "fake news."

posted by T.D. Strange at 6:14 PM on November 10, 2018 [45 favorites]

Cory Gardner, up for reelex in CO, a blue state just two years from now, is head of the NRSC. Smart move Cory. Being a lying partisan hack is sure to go over well.
posted by chris24 at 6:19 PM on November 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is hilarious and I wish I could personally make Trump watch this video. Thank you Resistance Music Break!

@riotwomennn #Resistance Music Break continues

Trump: Desperate Cheeto ... always caught up in a web of deceito

posted by bluesky43 at 6:20 PM on November 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Light rains keep Trump from WWI memorial in France
posted by porpoise at 6:41 PM on November 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

@AbigailBimman :"As of now (9:30PM Paris time), Trump has not shown up to the dinner for world leaders hosted by the French president at the @MuseeOrsay. Trudeau arrived at 7:30 as scheduled. Thanks for following along today - I am signing off Twitter for the night."
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:00 PM on November 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

One always measures friendships by how they show up in bad weather. - Churchill

World War One is one of the greatest tragedies in human history, but while people remember the machine gun fire, the shelling, the gas and the disease, few consider how windy it was and what that did to their hair.
posted by adept256 at 7:02 PM on November 10, 2018 [47 favorites]

Well then. Philly peeps, we need to show up again next week.

One week from right now, the Proud Boys and other white supremacist groups are coming to rally in Philadelphia, right outside the National Museum of American Jewish History.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:04 PM on November 10, 2018 [24 favorites]

Trump eventually showed up to the dinner, and was seated next to Erdogan, where they apparently discussed Jamal Khashoggi's murder.

Between the refusal to go to the memorial today and showing up hours late to dinner, something's clearly wrong.
posted by zachlipton at 7:06 PM on November 10, 2018 [22 favorites]

Between the refusal to go to the memorial today and showing up hours late to dinner, something's clearly wrong.

Remember how we learned that the DOJ gives the White House notice of indictments coming down a few days ahead of time, so they can prepare?

Remember how Mueller dropped the indictments against the 12 Russians on the eve of the Trump/Putin meeting in Helsinki?

I do.

Off the top of my head, the whole AG thing might be falling apart, since you know, there's a chain of succession and everything. Or Mueller might be rocking and rolling next week.

Either way, if Trump is miserable, it's a win.
posted by mikelieman at 7:38 PM on November 10, 2018 [43 favorites]

fluttering hellfire: "Hickenlooper for Gardner's seat?"

He should do that, but right now he is thinking of running for president. Hopefully he changes his mind, I think he'd be a very favorable shot at flipping the Gardner seat.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:57 PM on November 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Do people like Hickenlooper really believe they have a shot at winning the nomination? I realize Trump won but he had a couple ins that somebody like Hickenlooper doesn't have. He was a celebrity with near total name recognition and he went all-in on the Republican base's racism. I don't see that there is anything equivalent on the left that Hickenlooper or the other longshots could exploit that somebody far more well known isn't already working.

He should absolutely take the Senate route. But I guess every politician secretly wants to be President?
posted by Justinian at 8:11 PM on November 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

The incoming Congress should be doing as much as they can to head off the 2020 Confederate War as possible, such as reenabling domestic terrorism investigations and in general treating the Proud Boys, Neo Nazis, White Nationalists et al just as bad as Black Lives Matters has been treated under Trump.

I don't know how to deal with the 20%+ of law enforcement and the military that are Confederacy supporters, but deprogramming them has to be a priority if we aren't going to be always on the edge of a coup
posted by benzenedream at 8:22 PM on November 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

Off the top of my head, the whole AG thing might be falling apart, since you know, there's a chain of succession and everything.

45 really wants to believe that government works like business, and like a corrupt personality-cult business at that: if you remove The Guy In Charge, everything falls apart because nobody else knows what anyone else was doing, and they all have their own petty goals that have no focus and no connection to whatever they told the stockholders.

It really hasn't clicked for him that all the evidence collected in the case doesn't go away, that it's all still available for whoever picks up the thread, for whatever department requests it, that it's been duplicated in a dozen (secure) computers and is neatly tagged by keyword, person, time/date, and location. He really thinks that if he gets rid of Mueller, the whole thing evaporates. So he thinks it's a race: can I knock down that guy before he gets in The Final Shot that results in an indictment that leads directly to me.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 8:23 PM on November 10, 2018 [19 favorites]

For what it's worth, it's seeming like Trump wasn't late to the dinner, but there's still a bunch of confusion here.
posted by zachlipton at 8:28 PM on November 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig:

WSJ reports that federal prosecutors in SDNY had an 80-page draft indictment ready to go on Michael Cohen before he pled. I worked in SDNY and I can tell you: 80 pages is (to use a technical term) a LOOOOOONG indictment. Had to be lots of crimes and co-conspirators in there.

posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:08 PM on November 10, 2018 [10 favorites]

A Trump Counter in Leschi, Seattle
posted by growabrain at 10:09 PM on November 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

I know it's irrelevant in the scheme of things, but if you have an '80s metal soul like I do, this may be a tiny bit of a boost: Political Axl vs Trump vs rando troll vs Sebastian Bach.

Sometimes discover find your childhood heroes are trash. Sometimes you discover they're your kind of trash.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:59 PM on November 10, 2018 [45 favorites]

The only reason Trump golfs in the rain is because he can wear a hat. So his hair won’t look all shit. That’s why he missed the ceremony- you can’t wear a hat in the rain at a commemoration.
posted by awfurby at 11:31 PM on November 10, 2018 [10 favorites]

So this is an interesting thread, in which the scam Whitaker helped with happened to use Trump's name and image, likely without authorization, a whole bunch of times in its marketing.

@WendySiegelman: SCOOP: World Patent Marketing, the FL patent company the FTC called a scam and shut down, that bilked customers out of millions, and was advised by Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker - released a 2015 promo video featuring images Donald Trump

If anything could get Trump to reconsider, the unauthorized use of his likeness could do the job.
posted by zachlipton at 12:00 AM on November 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

in both the photos from today and the press spray yesterday, trump’s eyes look like he hasn’t slept in days
posted by murphy slaw at 12:04 AM on November 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Good, I hope he's having a shitty time.
posted by rhizome at 12:16 AM on November 11, 2018 [60 favorites]

You know who is really pissed off about the Trump blowing off the ceremony at Belleau Wood?

Every Marine who ever served.

Robert Muller III is a Marine.

I think we're in the 3rd act now...
posted by mikelieman at 1:12 AM on November 11, 2018 [45 favorites]

What does Trump's hair look like in the rain anyway? I don't think I've ever seen a photo.

[There is this New Yorker cover, though.]
posted by Paul Slade at 3:45 AM on November 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

Twitter snapshots of Trump's rolling diplomatic disaster in Paris this morning, illustrating US isolation under his administration:

The Atlantic's Rachel Donadio:

Grey and raining here in Paris today, where church bells are tolling for the centennial of the Armistice that ended the First World War, signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. World leaders are gathering at the Arc de Triomphe for a commemoration.

Trump is arriving solo, in his own motorcade. The others took buses then walked.

ABC's Clark Bentson: "Topless protestor runs toward #Trump motorcade on the Champs d’elysee before Armistice Day. Most likely from Femen"

The Washington Post's David Nakamura "World leaders are walking shoulder to shoulder along the Champs Elysses but Trump arrived separately and isn’t participating in this." (w/TV video) "Sarah Sanders told WH pool reporters that Trump arrived separately due to "security protocols" though she did not elaborate."

Al Monitor's Maxim Suchkov: "Meanwhile in #Paris. #Western leaders' reactions to #Putin's appearance." (pic)

NBC's Monica Alba: "Quick snapshots of President Trump’s reaction as President Macron wrapped his armistice speech, strongly rebuking nationalism and calling it “a betrayal of patriotism”" (pic1, pic2)

Between Trump's disrespect for American war dead—in particular the insult to his Marine Corps supporters—and for Armistice Day—he's obviously ignorant of its profound importance to Europe—the Democrats should have ready-made attack ads for 2020. Of course, Trump will undoubtedly commit more diplomatic blunders between now and then.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:24 AM on November 11, 2018 [42 favorites]

Any indication there have been seri death threats against Trump in Paris? That might some of what’s going on.
posted by bluesky43 at 5:48 AM on November 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

"Meanwhile in #Paris. #Western leaders' reactions to #Putin's appearance."

Find yourself someone who looks at you the way Donny looks at a real enemy of the people of the United States.
posted by chris24 at 6:03 AM on November 11, 2018 [28 favorites]

Reuters: "Putin, who was last to arrive at the ceremony, gave Trump a brief thumbs up as he greeted them."
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:24 AM on November 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

This is the first time I've seen a genuine smile on his face.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:28 AM on November 11, 2018 [16 favorites]

Man, that picture of Putin approaching Macron, Merkel, Trump, and Melania Trump.

Macron: Merde. Dois-je parler à ce connard?
Merkel: Scheisse.
Trump: HI VLAD!
Melania: I am envisioning myself in my happy place... I am a very wealthy widow taking a long, luxurious bubble bath....
posted by orange swan at 6:55 AM on November 11, 2018 [42 favorites]

Yes, I just saw someone on facebook post "But he beefed up the depleted military and gave them a raise."
posted by maggiemaggie at 7:19 AM on November 11, 2018

Putin arrives:

On the one hand I was hoping Trump would meet his maker, on the other hand, I should have been more specific.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:29 AM on November 11, 2018 [37 favorites]

CNN sent Jim Acosta to Paris to cover this, and the White House has no control over the press coverage there.

Did Acosta's treatment of him like a President and not a celebrity doing a PR event rattle him so much he hid in his hotel room?
posted by mikelieman at 7:34 AM on November 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

Tony Robinson's view.
posted by Paul Slade at 7:41 AM on November 11, 2018 [8 favorites]

Find yourself someone who looks at you the way Donny looks at a real enemy of the people of the United States
Nobody's mentioned this, but his lips are looking very blue in that picture. That is not a healthy fellow.
posted by glasseyes at 7:43 AM on November 11, 2018 [8 favorites]

Serious question: Can Muller run in 2020?
posted by metasunday at 8:09 AM on November 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

It Begins ...

Democrats Will Probe Trump’s Targeting of CNN (Axios)
(via)
House Democrats plan to investigate whether President Trump abused White House power by targeting — and trying to punish with "instruments of state power" — The Washington Post and CNN ...

... [Chairman of House intelligence committee, Adam]* Schiff brought up two avenues of inquiry with a press-freedom theme, aimed at investigating possible administration actions to target two of the nation's highest profile corporations.

1) Schiff said Trump "was secretly meeting with the postmaster [general] in an effort to browbeat the postmaster [general] into raising postal rates on Amazon."

"This appears to be an effort by the president to use the instruments of state power to punish Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post," Schiff said. Jeff Bezos is founder, chairman and CEO of Amazon, and owns the Washington Post.

2) Schiff said Congress also need to examine whether Trump attempted to block AT&T’s merger with Time Warner as payback to CNN.

"We don't know, for example, whether the effort to hold up the merger of the parent of CNN was a concern over antitrust, or whether this was an effort merely to punish CNN," Schiff said.

Eeeexcellent.

*Woo fricking g-ddamn Hoo!
posted by petebest at 8:11 AM on November 11, 2018 [44 favorites]

Merkel, Macron, Trump, and.. Rutte. That extremely tall guy (because Dutch) is the prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte. (Sorry, seeing my soon-to-be adopted country overlooked made me jump in.)
posted by antinomia at 8:21 AM on November 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

The fact that troops are deployed internally in miserable freaking conditions without pay while huge chunks of California are just burning to the ground feels like reading one of those histories where you’re going “wow how did they not see what was coming?”
posted by The Whelk at 8:23 AM on November 11, 2018 [57 favorites]

Joseph Stiglitz: 'America should be a warning to other countries' - Gareth Hutchens, Guardian

In the lead-up to his [mid-November]Australian visit, the renowned economist warns of the triple threat of rising inequality, the undermining of democracy and climate change

posted by ZeusHumms at 8:34 AM on November 11, 2018 [16 favorites]

Democrats Will Probe Trump’s Targeting of CNN

I mean...ok? But is this really the top investigation priority? Really?

House Dems Already Have Their List of Trump Scandals to Investigate. Here It Is.

Oversight Republicans Block 11 More Subpoenas for a Total of 64 Motions Denied
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:45 AM on November 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

As an expert in communication with body language I just saw Putin give Trump a Thumbs up in full sight and Trump’s response was minor embarrassment/mild arousal lip bite. I fucking can’t believe the evidence of my eyes right now
....

Shudder!
posted by Wilder at 8:47 AM on November 11, 2018 [14 favorites]

If you want a lot of press coverage, investigating a press-centric story is a good play.

And if you want to really torque Trump's nuts, then making it all about CNN is the way to do it.
posted by mikelieman at 8:51 AM on November 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

Churchill's grandson slams Trump for skipping cemetery visit because of weather

‘Churchill’s grandson’ sounds quite good, but it’s only Nicholas Soames, who is exactly as bad as you might imagine a Tory MP whose grandfather was Churchill would be. All the reactionary politics and self-importance of his grandfather, without the saving grace of having beaten Hitler.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 8:54 AM on November 11, 2018 [23 favorites]

If you want a lot of press coverage, investigating a press-centric story is a good play.

It read to me like it was business-centric (Amazon postal rates, the AT&T buyout), but with press aspects. Business news + media company news does tend to filter into a lot of streams that maybe House Investigation news wouldn't.
posted by petebest at 8:55 AM on November 11, 2018

Putin arrived in Paris today. Yesterday he was in Moscow yesterday to attend the unveiling ceremony for the monument to Turgenev. The Kremlin's website publishes regular updates of his public activities (in English, as well). This morning he sat next to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and EC President Jean-Claude Juncker at a working breakfast at the Elysee Palace while Trump sat next to Macron, if we want to get into Kremlinology 2.0.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:57 AM on November 11, 2018

Worth noting Schiff will chair Intelligence, he wouldn't have the committee jurisdiction over the ATT/CNN thing, it'd probably be Cummings on Oversight or Nadler on Judiciary because it's a merger.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:01 AM on November 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

He's deliberately targeting the press for not parroting whatever propaganda he throws at them. Investigating if he's illegally using the power of his position, to intimidate people out of their first amendment rights (which, I think might be contrary to some government document somewhere that he swore to uphold?) seems like a good, and fairly important thing.

Maybe it doesn't need to be the top priority, but it's definitely on the ol' oversight list.
posted by mrgoat at 9:02 AM on November 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

Maybe it doesn't need to be the top priority, but it's definitely on the ol' oversight list.

Investigating bias against CNN and WaPo is a hop, skip and jump away from investigating bias in favor of Fox.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 9:06 AM on November 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

"The fact that troops are deployed internally in miserable freaking conditions without pay while huge chunks of California are just burning to the ground feels like reading one of those histories where you’re going “wow how did they not see what was coming?”"

Trump playing golf while California burns is sort-of like Nero playing fiddle while Rome burns, except that Nero had an infrastructure plan.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:10 AM on November 11, 2018 [37 favorites]

Nero was playing the lyre at Antium, a different town, while Rome burned, and afterwards he allowed refugees to camp in his gardens, brought them food and promoted the reconstruction of the city with better fire codes. After doing jack shit for Puerto Rico, Trump is objectively worse than Nero at disaster management.
posted by sukeban at 10:26 AM on November 11, 2018 [152 favorites]

Investigating bias against CNN and WaPo is a hop, skip and jump away from investigating bias in favor of Fox.

While I'd love to see a US equivalent of the Leveson Inquiry against Fox News, any such commission would have to restrict itself to actual wrongdoing. The Trump White House's favoritism toward Fox and News Corp. would have to include an unlawful or at least unethical component (maybe Bill Shine's skirting ethics with his waiver about meeting with former Fox colleagues comes to mind, or Sean Hannity appearing onstage with Trump at last week's Missouri rally).

A much bigger target for communications is Kushner's deal with the Sinclair Broadcasting Group for better Trump 2016 campaign coverage in a possible quid pro quo for favorable treatment of their market expansion plans by Trump's FCC. Anyone with reps on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and/or Subcommittee on Communications and Technology should definitely contact them about that, especially the former's incoming chair Frank Pallone (I can't find who'll be the chair of the latter).

Incidentally, in the run-up to the midterms, Gallup found that Democrats favored someone other than Pelosi as Speaker (so who knows if there'll be wheeling and dealing should a leadership contest play out): "By 56% to 39%, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said Nancy Pelosi should be replaced as their leader in the House rather than kept in that role by being elected the next speaker. These views are similar among Democrats across the ideological spectrum."
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:31 AM on November 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

> Al Monitor's Maxim Suchkov: "Meanwhile in #Paris. #Western leaders' reactions to #Putin's appearance." (pic)

Ha!
posted by homunculus at 10:43 AM on November 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

I'd get used to being disappointed by the new House not doing much at all.

They’re not even in fucking office yet. Can we hold off on declarations of disappointment until they’re sworn in ffs?
posted by Autumnheart at 10:47 AM on November 11, 2018 [103 favorites]

I'd get used to being disappointed by the new House not doing much at all.

Anticipointment!

To me it seems like there's a decent chance the incoming House will be able to get some things done, especially down in the weeds where the Tea Party creeps have lurked for nearly a decade.

As usual, while half the lefties I know are arguing that nothing can ever improve and there's no point getting our hopes up, Republicans are projecting the incoming Dems will change everything (for the worse). E.g. Daily Caller is Cassandra-ing out about the "Medicare for all Democrats" in the next Congress.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:48 AM on November 11, 2018 [42 favorites]

Anticipointment!

I love this!
posted by Autumnheart at 10:57 AM on November 11, 2018 [24 favorites]

How Chris Christie lost the AG slot.

@saletan Chris Christie on ABC, on Whitaker: "I think he's really there to land the Mueller investigation, to get it done. ... What the president's attempting to do here is to have someone who's already been involved, to get the Mueller investigation to its completion."
posted by scalefree at 11:13 AM on November 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

Sky News reports from today's American Commemoration Ceremony: “"You look so comfortable up there under shelter as we're getting drenched, you're very smart people" - Donald Trump thanks the Second World War veterans at the Suresnes American Cemetery #LestWeForget” (w/video)

He can't even make an impromptu joke without sounding like the resentful, entitled asshole that he is. Can anyone imagine Obama engaging in the behavior Trump's displayed all weekend without incurring a massive political backlash?

This morning he sat next to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and EC President Jean-Claude Juncker at a working breakfast at the Elysee Palace while Trump sat next to Macron, if we want to get into Kremlinology 2.0.

I was only joking about Kremlinology 2.0, but it seems there may have been behind-the-scenes diplomatic manoeuvring about the seating arrangements (which are, after all, a big deal in terms of protocol).

Russian media-watcher Julia Davis reports: "Kremlin pool journo claims that the seating was changed at the last minute, with Trump being moved away from Putin, across the table - next to Macron."

Later: "#Russia's state media complains that Putin and Trump "weren't allowed to communicate," as the seating arrangements were changed at the last minute in order to keep them apart. Putin told Russian media that the two managed to talk nonetheless and their conversation went well."

Maybe Putin mentioned how Russia has started bracing themselves for ‘sanctions from hell’ and feared the friend they thought they had in Trump was now ‘hanging by a hair.’ (Julia Davis, Daily Beast)
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:31 AM on November 11, 2018 [11 favorites]

Oh please. As long as so many in the military remain totally racist and eager for war in "shithole countries," shunning a Veteran's Day ceremony will have no effect on 2020 with that demographic if DJT is still around by then.

I disagree that it will have no effect. It will have some effect, even if that effect isn't measurable or even immediately discernible. Just before the mid-terms I browsed the #GOPVotingBlue hashtag on Twitter and read many tweets in which formerly lifelong Republicans gave their many and varied reasons for deciding to start voting Democrat. Racism and healthcare were two of the most popular reasons, but even then the tweets were all quite individual as to specifics and framing. Everyone who had switched allegiance had had their own personal breaking point, their own unique stance on why they did. So many of the things that have happened over the last two years were mentioned. Every horrible thing Cheeto and the Republicans do chips away just a little at their support and/or mobilizes formerly non-voters. Some people will never see the light, but many will eventually.

One of the very common mistakes that people on the left make is that we think it's so obvious that the Republicans are wrong that right wing voters should just get it at some point, that there should be a dramatic turning point, that each new awful revelation might prove to be that turning point. But the reality is that we're never going to get that sudden about face. The blue wave is real, and it's growing, but it's not going to happen quickly or without a lot of work on the part of the resistance. This is about re-educating an entire populace, and education is an involved and complex process that works at a different pace with each individual involved, not a sudden mass epiphany.
posted by orange swan at 11:40 AM on November 11, 2018 [77 favorites]

Doktor Zed: He can't even make an impromptu joke without sounding like the resentful, entitled asshole that he is. Can anyone imagine Obama engaging in the behavior Trump's displayed all weekend without incurring a massive political backlash?

I mean, all of us can imagine what would happen, but the Fox News demographic won’t ever hear about this because their media environment is setup to keep away these sorts of issues from them. Is the media environment on the other side of the aisle making a big deal out of this? Judging from CNN’s front page, they’re really leading with Macron vs Trump. Imagine if the “liberal” media cooked up controversies like Fox does, with the whole JAQing off headline thing that they do: “Did Trump snub veterans at WW1 ceremony?” “Were Trump’s statements disrespectful of war heroes?” Or even “Trump disrespects fallen heroes in Paris: while world leaders paid their respects, President Trump complained about the rain.”

Trump does so much anti-American stuff, and in these particular events has done nothing but express disdain and disrespect for being part of something that is traditionally giving respect for the dead and the events of a colossal war, and nobody thinks to make a big deal out of it.
posted by gucci mane at 12:22 PM on November 11, 2018 [13 favorites]

Maybe Putin mentioned how Russia has started bracing themselves for ‘sanctions from hell’ and feared the friend they thought they had in Trump was now ‘hanging by a hair.’ (Julia Davis, Daily Beast)

have i been asleep, or is russian state media all but explicitly endorsing one party in an american election in giant red letters a relatively new phenomenon?
posted by murphy slaw at 1:02 PM on November 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

NBC News, Veterans haven't received GI Bill benefits for months due to ongoing IT issues at VA

The Department of Veterans Affairs is suffering from a series of information technology glitches that has caused GI Bill benefit payments covering education and housing to be delayed or — in the case of Roundtree — never be delivered.

"I’m about to lose everything that I own and become homeless," Roundtree said. "I don’t want to be that veteran on the street begging for change because I haven’t received what I was promised."

Without the GI Bill's housing stipend, Roundtree was kicked out of his apartment and is now living on his sister's couch, miles from school, where he feels like a burden on his family. The new living situation required him to move all his belongings into a storage container, which he can no longer afford. Now all of his possessions are in danger of being auctioned off by the storage facility.
...
There are many veterans, like Roundtree, across the country who are still waiting for VA to catch up with a backlog created after President Donald Trump signed the Forever GI Bill in 2017. The landmark piece of legislation greatly expanded benefits for veterans and their families, but it did not upgrade the VA's technical capabilities to account for those changes. While it is unclear how many GI Bill recipients were impacted by the delays, as of Nov. 8, more than 82,000 are still waiting for their housing payments with only weeks remaining in the school semester, according to the VA. Hundreds of thousands are believed to have been affected.
...
In a Nov. 5 letter to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie, Roe said that employees at the processing center told the group that IT systems at the office froze and crashed so often that tasks that once took five minutes now required 45 minutes. Computers often suffered a “blue screen of death,” which required restarting machines, and “managers had to write off 16,890 man hours due to system crashes or latency issues.” “While Committee staff never witnessed a ‘blue screen of death,’” the letter said, “they did witness the system crash no fewer than five times in a ten minute period.”

The President is jealous that a couple of 90-somethings WWII vets got to set under an awning, while hundreds of thousands of vets are getting screwed out of their benefits with nary a tweet of concern from him.
posted by zachlipton at 1:18 PM on November 11, 2018 [63 favorites]

Al Jazeera: “Can Iran survive US sanctions?” (first 10min or so)

I'd missed that for all the “maximum pressure means maximum pressure” crap, the Trump administration inserted a 6-month waiver for all of Iran's highest-volume oil trading partners, so they got the PR boost of announcing the sanctions before the election without any increase in oil prices appearing in the news. (Though I see that several people commented about the waivers in the last thread and I just didn't catch those comments.)
posted by XMLicious at 1:23 PM on November 11, 2018

It's just staggering to me how poorly Trump performs at the ceremonial aspects of the presidency. Americans have gotten so used to the substantive and stylish parts of the presidency being twinned that entire news cycles get dedicated, uselessly, to the "style" parts. I think that's a huge part of why people start fondly remembering the George W and Reagan. Those administrations were really damaging to the US and to the rest of the world, but they could fulfill the ceremonial aspects of the American presidency really well. I think, on some level, they thought that was the most important part of the job. (Like the Bushies who bragged that W had a dress code to insist that people wear suit jackets in the Oval Office, as if showing respect to a symbol was more important than performing the actual job.) In this country, the White House can really get away with a lot if they can signal that everything is normal and respectable. Trump is obnoxious and embarrassing, but I'm a little relieved that his administration doesn't have the basic competence or discipline to fully use the power of the presidency in this way.
posted by grandiloquiet at 1:31 PM on November 11, 2018 [37 favorites]

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who is poised to take control of the House Judiciary Committee in January, said that he plans to call acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker as his first witness, the Washington Post reports.

The hearing would focus on Whitaker’s “expressed hostility” to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, which Nadler called “a real threat to the integrity of that investigation.”

Nadler added that he is prepared to subpoena Whitaker if necessary.

POP-cawwn! GETcher POP-cawwn right hee-AH!
posted by petebest at 1:33 PM on November 11, 2018 [23 favorites]

Remember a couple days ago when a mob of anarchists trapped Tucker Carlson's wife in her own home and made her fear for her life and call 911? Yea, none of that happened:

One last point on the Tucker Carlson protest, you don't wanna believe the protestors, why not go with the police version of events?

Cause there is a police report.

I'm gonna say that's a more reliable source than Mr. Carlson.

And it completely contradicts him.

Here goes.
First, the police interacted w/ the protestors as they were leaving & they didn't arrest anyone.

They actually saw the person spray-paint the anarchist symbol on the driveway.

The protestors were walking away slowly. Two walked with canes (yes). No one tried to run. BTW there were 4 legal observers at this protest. People going to someone's house to break in, don't usually take legal observers. The police talked to the protestors about not having a problem w/ them exercising their first amendment rights but that spray-painting the driveway was crossing the line. That was the issue. If the police had received a frantic 911 call from Mrs. Carlson saying she was terrified, had locked herself in her pantry & people were trying to break into her house, there is no way that the police would have let the protestors go. They would have made arrests. They would have sent so many squad cars to that location if she represented what was happening in that way. Police tend to over-react. They didn't here. That tells me Mrs. Carlson did not call & say she was being terrorized. In the police report, there is no mention whatsoever of any damage to the front door of Mr. Carlson's residence. Not a scratch. This is consistent w/ protestors' saying they simply knocked on the door and then left a placard resting on it before retreating to the street. There is no mention in the police report of anyone chanting anything about pipe bombs or chanting any sort of threats against Mr. Carlson. What the police appeared to be focused on was the spraying of the anarchist symbol on the driveway of the residence by one person. That was the extent of the property damage. That was the extent of the activity that could possibly be construed as unlawful. Even when it was reported that the incident was being looked at as a hate crime, it appears that this was the focus of the investigation. (How that could in any way be prosecuted as a hate crime is a subject for another day.) What is of concern now is that, since there has been such misreporting to which unfortunately people on the left like @StephenAtHome have given credence, there will be political pressure to bring criminal charges for activity that is not criminal. I hope those people will take the time to reconsider and correct their misstatements. Oh, hey, let me add, I'm not one to point to the police as a credible source. I am a public defender, people. But they are a more credible source here than Tucker Carlson. I am also trying to beat the MAGA folks at their own game. Like, what, you don't believe law enforcement?

I was at the protest outside Tucker Carlson’s house. Here’s what actually happened.

One of the protesters knocked firmly on Carlson’s front door three times then trotted back down the steps to join the rest of the group in the street. This person did not throw their body against the door, as Carlson has claimed to newspapers. A police report on the incident makes no mention of damage to the Carlsons’ front door from the three stiff knocks, contradicting Carlson’s claim that the demonstrators had cracked the door.

Another protester read a brief statement through an amplifying device, then led the group in a series of chants against Carlson’s habitual promotion of white supremacist ideology and xenophobia on his Fox News program. Some of the chants included the refrain “we know where you sleep at night.” At multiple points, a chant broke down despite the rhythm-track efforts of a protester with a tambourine.

Video posted on LiveLeak shows portions of the event, which lasted less than 10 minutes. It also illustrates Carlson’s other embellishment — that one person was caught on a security video saying they wanted to return to his home with a pipe bomb. In fact, the person filming is heard saying “Pipe bombs! Synagogue victims!” as the speaker with the amplifying device wraps up their initial statement and begins to lead chants.

A few people did goto his home. None of them threatened him or his family. No one tried to break in. The police report doesn't say that anyone did any of those things.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:15 PM on November 11, 2018 [65 favorites]

These antifa people are not helping. Banging on someone's door and shouting "we know where you live" is classic terrorist intimidation.
posted by JackFlash at 2:25 PM on November 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

USAT: Schumer open to including Mueller protection in a must-pass funding bill.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:33 PM on November 11, 2018 [16 favorites]

Trump is obnoxious and embarrassing, but I'm a little relieved that his administration doesn't have the basic competence or discipline to fully use the power of the presidency in this way.

I sincerely doubt that Trump's attire has swayed one vote. He can't be polite and courteous without alienating the 30% that love him for being a hate filled racist asshole (he can be polite, just look at him with Putin).
posted by benzenedream at 2:35 PM on November 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm sure anti-abortion protestors tell themselves the same thing.
posted by kokaku at 2:40 PM on November 11, 2018 [13 favorites]

In what way? This sounds a lot more like a community refusing to allow someone to opt out of societal repercussions to their actions.

I don't think you'd be arguing that if it were a bunch of MAGAhats knocking on, say, April Ryan's door and threatening her.

But since it doesn't appear to be what happened it doesn't seem useful to hash it out further.
posted by Justinian at 2:41 PM on November 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

I'm sure anti-abortion protestors tell themselves the same thing.

This ignores the context of the existence of high levels of violence in right wing protests when compared to left wing protests. See, for example, the previous executions of abortion workers.
posted by jaduncan at 2:43 PM on November 11, 2018 [18 favorites]

Schumer open to including Mueller protection in a must-pass funding bill.

I'm so tired of Democrats not saying when they'll take a stand. Schumer's position about what Democrats will do when McConnell doesn't support this maneuver (and he won't) is "we'll see what happens down the road."

Down the road? The damn road has come to an end, Schumer. It's time to shit or get off the pot and let someone else take over!
posted by Justinian at 2:47 PM on November 11, 2018 [14 favorites]

I guess I’m just missing where the “threats” occurred, unless we’re buying into Carlson’s narrative.

Perhaps you should ask a few of your friends, perhaps women, what the words "we know where you live" means.
posted by JackFlash at 2:48 PM on November 11, 2018 [20 favorites]

I agree: there's absolutely no difference protesting at a public figure's home and telling a private citizen you might murder them in their bed sometime. No daylight between those two things at all, nosiree.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 2:57 PM on November 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

Perhaps you should ask a few of your friends, perhaps women, what the words "we know where you live" means.

Depends on the context. Given they were outside the house, I'm not sure their intent was the same as you're thinking.

Either way, my take away is "Tucker Carlson doesn't live in a gated community?"
posted by mikelieman at 2:58 PM on November 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

Sorry, the exact chant, as reported by a participant linked above was "we know where you sleep at night" which is certainly no better. I want nothing to do with these shits.
posted by JackFlash at 2:58 PM on November 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

Context means nothing, got it.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 3:00 PM on November 11, 2018 [8 favorites]

What does Trump's hair look like in the rain anyway? I don't think I've ever seen a photo.

[There is this New Yorker cover, though.]

There's also this Ben Jennings cartoon.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:03 PM on November 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

USAT: Schumer open to including Mueller protection in a must-pass funding bill.

Anyone can propose an amendment, what Chuck needs to prove is he can hold his traitor caucus together to force a filibuster and partial* shutdown if Mitch McConnell laughs in his face and tells him to put up or shut up, knowing he can't.

* - most of the government is already funded for next year, there's only really DHS because of the ongoing wall dispute outstanding.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:07 PM on November 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I see no contradiction between acknowledging Tucker as the lying hypocritical shitbird that he is & saying we ought to be able to draw our own lines as to what we consider acceptable means & that protesting people like him at home, especially those with families, is outside the bounds of what we support even if the protesters are being polite & not breaking down doors (which didn't happen) or spraying anarchy symbols on the driveway (which did).
posted by scalefree at 3:12 PM on November 11, 2018 [26 favorites]

These antifa people are not helping. Banging on someone's door and shouting "we know where you live" is classic terrorist intimidation.

I guess don't be a Fascist and you won't need to worry about the Anti-fascists coming by.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 3:35 PM on November 11, 2018 [40 favorites]

I am fine with people being called out in public for their actions, even if and especially when it ruins their dinner. I don’t think it is productive or appropriate to harrass people in their home. Unless their home is a de facto public space like the the White House, Trump Tower or Mar a Lago. I am fine with fighting twice as hard, but not okay with sinking to their level.
posted by snofoam at 3:50 PM on November 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

traitor caucus

I have to say, in a charged atmosphere where the term "enemy of the people" is being used, I'm not real wild about calling insufficiently left Democrats "traitors."
posted by Chrysostom at 3:52 PM on November 11, 2018 [48 favorites]

I guess don't be a Fascist and you won't need to worry about the Anti-fascists coming by.

There needs to be a real difference between fascists & anti-fascists aside from being on different teams or there's no point to any of it.
posted by scalefree at 3:57 PM on November 11, 2018 [8 favorites]

Tucker wasn't home. They knew he wouldn't be home. It was an effort to intimidate his family. So, making Tucker uncomfortable, fine, not fascist. Intentionally doing the same to his family when you know he's not there, that's on the fascist spectrum
posted by chris24 at 4:04 PM on November 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

His children are 15 to 23. Not all adults.
posted by chris24 at 4:08 PM on November 11, 2018

I’m not sure we need to go twenty rounds on Carlson as the battleground for the soul of American protest or so on, maybe rein it in at this point.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:11 PM on November 11, 2018 [30 favorites]

For pete's sake. Anyone would think that protesting outside people's homes was new, but people protested outside the home of the CEO of Northern States Power back in the early nineties in an effort to prevent the building of nuclear waste storage on an island in the Mississippi, and people protested outside of the CEO of Jimmy John's when he was illegally firing union organizers. And those are just the two situations that I can think of locally. People also protest outside the governor's mansion and the U of M president's house, now that I think about it.

This is not new, it's not especially appalling and it seems to have been a perfectly standard protest well within the range of protests against other powerful people.

Saying that this is unpleasant for his wife and children is about the same as saying that strikes are unfair because they negatively affect consumers - it ends up reducing collective problems to individual comfort and convenience and ranking the comfort and convenience of a few individuals over the safety and wellbeing of many. It's very easy to do this because individual experience in the moment is easy to notice and grasp, and mass experience over time is not. But still.
posted by Frowner at 4:15 PM on November 11, 2018 [63 favorites]

in my opinion, having a wild rumpus at carlson’s house and tagging his driveway is one of those, “worse than a crime, a mistake” things.

i’m not clear what it was intended to achieve - either it was a half-assed protest or a quarter-assed act of intimidation, and either way the only outcome was to give Carlson something to rant about on the TV and feed the “antifa are barbarians” narrative that Fox is pushing.

at any rate we’ve probably spent about 20x as many brainwaves on it as it's worth
posted by murphy slaw at 4:15 PM on November 11, 2018 [15 favorites]

Not all behavior can be placed onto a fascist-anti fascist axis.
posted by Rumple at 4:25 PM on November 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Axios, Swan (in an uncharacteristically verbose piece that's careful to point out what Trump can and cannot do and describes its sourcing, which makes me think some of the criticism of the birthright citizenship story sunk in), Trump wants no more relief funds for Puerto Rico

President Trump doesn't want to give Puerto Rico any more federal money for its recovery from Hurricane Maria, White House officials have told congressional appropriators and leadership. This is because he claims, without evidence, that the island’s government is using federal disaster relief money to pay off debt.
...
In late October, Trump grew furious after reading a Wall Street Journal article by Matt Wirz, according to five sources familiar with the president's reaction. The article said that "Puerto Rico bond prices soared ... after the federal oversight board that runs the U.S. territory’s finances released a revised fiscal plan that raises expectations for disaster funding and economic growth."

Sources with direct knowledge told me Trump concluded — without evidence — that Puerto Rico's government was scamming federal disaster funds to pay down its debt.
...
A second source said Trump misinterpreted the Journal article, concluding falsely that the Puerto Rican government was using disaster relief funds to pay down debt.
A third source said Trump told top officials in an October meeting that he wanted to claw back congressional funds that had previously been set aside for Puerto Rico's recovery. "He's always been pissed off by Puerto Rico," the source added.

The article's comparison of Katrina funding to Maria funding is particularly eye-opening.

@CharlesMBlow: This is an evil racist. Period. Big dot ⚫️
posted by zachlipton at 4:30 PM on November 11, 2018 [40 favorites]

"If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row"- Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith says in Tupelo, MS after Colin Hutchinson, cattle rancher, praises her.
Hyde-Smith is in a runoff on Nov 27th against Mike Espy.
posted by adamvasco at 4:31 PM on November 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

It's easy to say these antifa people aren't helping if you aren't out in the streets actively fighting actual nazis. Antifa aren't a monolith and they will naturally have varied methods with varied outcomes. Dismissing antifa because of a disagreement over the actions taken to protest Tucker Carlson is missing the biomass of the Earth for the trees.

Tucker is afraid that people will say words at him / his family, antifa are actually in the streets fighting the people that Tucker encourages to murder others.
posted by lazaruslong at 4:34 PM on November 11, 2018 [33 favorites]

It's also buying into the right's framing of "antifa equals very bad, boo hiss".
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 4:37 PM on November 11, 2018 [14 favorites]

It's also buying into the right's framing of "antifa equals very bad, boo hiss".

Which, I mean, is how the right would respond to Antifa even if Antifa did literally nothing but stay at home and occasionally tweet that genocide is rude.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:45 PM on November 11, 2018 [27 favorites]

"If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row"- Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith says in Tupelo, MS after Colin Hutchinson, cattle rancher, praises her.
Hyde-Smith is in a runoff on Nov 27th against Mike Espy.

Relevant details: Hutchinson and Hyde-Smith are white, and Espy is black.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:47 PM on November 11, 2018 [26 favorites]

i swear this is my last word on the subject…

this particular protest at carlson’s house was kind of ramshackle and counterproductive.

i can say this without thinking that antifa in general are ramshackle and counterproductive. if anything. it stands out because of the contrast between this particular act and the sum total of the other work that antifa resistors are doing.
posted by murphy slaw at 4:49 PM on November 11, 2018 [13 favorites]

Relevant details: Hutchinson and Hyde-Smith are white, and Espy is black.

Other relevant details: Mississippi had more lynchings than any other state. Including an alleged lynching by hanging this year. Last state execution by hanging? 1940.
posted by chris24 at 4:51 PM on November 11, 2018 [25 favorites]

As journalists continue to excavate Matt Whitaker's sleazy past, his appointment as acting attorney general has FBI and DOJ officials in a 'daze' (Business Insider).

One current FBI agent was blunt when asked about Whitaker's appointment.

"Seriously? This guy?" the agent, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, told INSIDER. "No words."[...]

"Main Justice people are in a daze" since Whitaker's appointment "and have been for a while," one former DOJ official — who requested anonymity to freely discuss the mood within the department — told INSIDER. "Local [assistant US attorneys] are keeping their heads down and just doing their work but are pretty embarrassed, particularly in New York and Chicago."

Courthouse News examines his previous employement just prior to joining the DoJ: Large Payments to Trump AG Pick Found in Scam Firm’s Records

As civil litigation over the now-defunct company trudges on, however, court records in more than 10 lawsuits show that acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker may have profited handsomely from his former role as a World Patent Marketing board member.

Known as WPM for short, the company paid at least $9,375 to Whitaker between October 2014 and late February 2016, and its financial records indicate that the company owed him $7,500 more for work between May 2016 and February 2017.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on whether Whitaker returned what WPM paid him for his role on the 12-member “Invention Team Advisory Board.” A receiver in charge of the court-ordered investigation of WPM found this board to be a sham designed to “impress customers and foster sales.”

For reference, here's the FTC's complaint against Desa Industries, Inc., d.b.a. World Patent Marketing (PDF), and @WarfareNavel has assembled a thread of WPM's super-scummy Twitter feed.

Before that gig, Whitaker ran the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT)—“a chop shop of fake ethics complaints” (NYMag).

Donald Trump’s new acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker ran for statewide office twice in Iowa, and lost badly both times. After the second defeat — he finished fourth in a 2014 GOP Senate primary — a group of conservative lawyers in Washington, D.C., approached with him with an idea. According to a GOP operative familiar with the discussion, the group recruited Whitaker into an effort to start a conservative counterpoint to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. For years, CREW had bedeviled the right with its crusades for good governance and its annual list of the most corrupt members of Congress. The Republican legal world saw the outfit as little more than a partisan operation masquerading as a government-accountability project, and they wanted their own version.[...]

But the group never earned much respect in political circles in Washington, D.C.

“It was one of the hackier things I ever saw,” said one GOP operative involved in some of the early efforts of the new group. “If you wanted to be treated seriously you have to do serious work. The whole thing just became a chop shop of fake ethics complaints.”

Also, the AP reports that FACT may have violated its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.

And before that, as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, he unsuccessfully prosecuted Iowa State Sen. Matt McCoy for attempted extortion. McCoy writes about his experience of this for Politico: "I Was the Subject of a Political 'Witch Hunt.' Matt Whitaker Directed It. "People should be very concerned with Whitaker’s elevation to acting attorney general. The DOJ is supposed to be blind to politics. Whitaker clearly is not."
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:44 PM on November 11, 2018 [39 favorites]

AP, Russia protests journalist’s interrogation at US airport

Russia’s Foreign Ministry is complaining that the interrogation of a website editor at a U.S. airport shows authorities are persecuting Russian journalists.

Alexander Malkevich, editor of the USA Really website, reportedly was detained and questioned for several hours Friday at a Washington airport and told that his site must register in the U.S. as a foreign agent. The website is funded by the sponsors of the Russian “troll factory” accused of interference in the 2016 U.S. vote.

Malkevich was released and traveled to Paris, according to state news agency RIA-Novosti.

A ministry statement on Sunday said the incident was “evidence of the campaign of pressure by the American authorities not only on the Russian press, but on any independent opinion about the United States.”

This is astonishingly weird framing by the AP. This is the guy who tried to throw a weird protest against "fake news" in front of the White House (McClatchy has more background on USA Really). It's certainly worth reporting, but what Malkevich is doing stretches the definition of "journalist" to the point that it's hard to say it belongs in the headline.
posted by zachlipton at 5:52 PM on November 11, 2018 [11 favorites]

USA Really makes Russia Today look like the BBC.
posted by murphy slaw at 6:08 PM on November 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

> President Trump doesn't want to give Puerto Rico any more federal money for its recovery from Hurricane Maria, White House officials have told congressional appropriators and leadership. This is because he claims, without evidence, that the island’s government is using federal disaster relief money to pay off debt.

Bloomberg article from Oct. 23rd: Trump Falsely Claims Puerto Rico Wants to Use Aid to Pay Its Debt

2,795 Puerto Ricans died on his watch after Hurricane Maria, and now this? There really is no bottom to that man's degeneracy.
posted by homunculus at 6:28 PM on November 11, 2018 [19 favorites]

Beast, Ackerman, ICE Is Imprisoning a Record 44,000 People: Congress told the immigration agency to reduce its detentions. Instead, ICE detained more people than ever, The Daily Beast has learned. Where did it find the money?

That senator, Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley, told The Daily Beast it was unsurprising that the Trump administration was “exceeding historic high water marks of detainees to pursue their ideologically driven policy agenda.” But Merkley, a member of the powerful Senate appropriations committee, demanded ICE account for how it had somehow found the money—something it and the Department of Homeland Security would not do in response to The Daily Beast’s questions.

“It is incredibly important that ICE explain how they’re paying for nearly 4,000 more beds. In September, when I discovered that ICE had been reprogramming FEMA dollars to pay for immigrant detention centers, I wasn’t given the information from the administration. I wasn’t given the information as a member of the Senate appropriations committee. I found the information through outside resources,” Merkley said.
...
An ICE spokesperson, Danielle Bennett, acknowledged that Congress funded ICE for 40,520 average daily detainees this year, “though ICE does have the flexibility to go above that number.” Neither Bennett nor DHS answered The Daily Beast’s repeated questions about where the money for thousands more detentions every day came from.
...
In other words, since at least mid-September, ICE has busted through its congressionally-mandated detention cap of 40,520 people by between 3,000 and 4,000 people—even after surreptitiously getting money from elsewhere in DHS.

They took the money out of FEMA last time. Where'd it come from this time?
posted by zachlipton at 6:36 PM on November 11, 2018 [40 favorites]

Coal Ash Kills Workers. Trump Kills Coal Ash Regulations. While hundreds of sick laborers celebrate a verdict in Tennessee, the EPA is weakening rules to protect them.
posted by homunculus at 7:17 PM on November 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

Bernie Sanders and the Lies We Tell White Voters
posted by homunculus at 7:27 PM on November 11, 2018 [17 favorites]

The link says Large Payments to Trump AG Pick Found in Scam Firm’s Records but the word "large" doesn't appear in the linked article.

Known as WPM for short, the company paid at least $9,375 to Whitaker between October 2014 and late February 2016, and its financial records indicate that the company owed him $7,500 more for work between May 2016 and February 2017.

I would not call those large payments. It doesn't look like he's even going to collect his last four invoices, all being 18+ months old. The relative size of the payment hardly matters anyway (unless he was overpaid, but these amounts don't leave much room for that).

From the looks of it, his invoices were all the same amounts, spread months apart, but at irregular intervals. If he was on a retainer, they would be regular, like monthly. What did he do that generated the same fee at odd intervals? It sure looks like he did the same thing 9 times, whatever it was.
posted by M-x shell at 7:34 PM on November 11, 2018 [4 favorites]

What did he do that generated the same fee at odd intervals? It sure looks like he did the same thing 9 times, whatever it was.

Maybe it was the fee he charged for sending threatening letters?
posted by Slothrup at 7:43 PM on November 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Richard Objeda, West Virginia Lawmkaer Who Led Teacher Strikes, Will Run For President. The announcement is tomorrow at noon.

RICHARD OJEDA is running for president. Ojeda, a West Virginia state senator and retired U.S. Army major, lost his congressional bid in the state’s 3rd District on Tuesday, but saw the largest swing of Trump voters toward Democrats in any district around the country — overperforming 2016 by more than 35 points. Still, in a district Donald Trump carried by 49 points, Ojeda, who rose to prominence leading teacher strikes in West Virginia, lost by 12 points.

Ojeda’s case for his candidacy is straightforward: The Democratic Party has gotten away from its roots, and he has a unique ability to win over a white, black, and brown working-class coalition by arguing from a place of authority that Trump is a populist fraud. He’s launching his campaign with an anti-corruption focus that draws a contrast with Trump’s inability to “drain the swamp.”

His authority — and one of his greatest liabilities — would come, in part, from his own previous support of Trump in the 2016 general election. After backing Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primary, Ojeda refused to support Hillary Clinton, seeing her as an embodiment of the party’s drift toward the elite.

It. Is. Possible. To. Make. A. Valuable. Contribution. To. This. Country. Without. Announcing. Your. Candidacy. In. The. Democratic. Primary. (I shout, and am ignored by thousands.)
posted by zachlipton at 7:54 PM on November 11, 2018 [74 favorites]

Trump’s election bashing may portend scary things for 2020. The president sent out numerous tweets suggesting that some of the midterm elections might have been “rigged.”

And Trump’s comments might portend things to come. We’ve become desensitized to the president’s near-daily dramas, missteps, obvious lies, and conspiracy theories. We may become desensitized to attacks on the electoral system, too. Worse, people might start to believe, as they have come to believe Trump’s claims about the “fake news” media, that the voting system really is somehow compromised.

As the former Obama advisor and Pod Save America host Dan Pfeiffer suggested on Twitter, it’s not far-fetched to believe that Trump might resort to attacks on the electoral system if things don’t go his way in the 2020 presidential election.

posted by homunculus at 7:57 PM on November 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

His authority — and one of his greatest liabilities — would come, in part, from his own previous support of Trump in the 2016 general election. After backing Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primary, Ojeda refused to support Hillary Clinton, seeing her as an embodiment of the party’s drift toward the elite.

Should've started with that and saved me a couple paragraphs' worth of reading.
posted by Behemoth at 7:57 PM on November 11, 2018 [69 favorites]

Should've started with that and saved me a couple paragraphs' worth of reading.

I saved you the bit where he's convinced his class experience will help him connect with the Democratic Party's base of people of color, a theory that is profoundly undercut by the fact that he didn't sour on Trump until after the 2016 election, given that Trump started his campaign with racism and ended it with more racism. "Yeah, I supported the racist until I realized his economic policy was a scam, but I promise I understand Black Lives Matter because I'm here for the working class" is a message that strikes me as exceedingly unlikely to go over well.
posted by zachlipton at 8:13 PM on November 11, 2018 [32 favorites]

After backing Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primary, Ojeda refused to support Hillary Clinton, seeing her as an embodiment of the party’s drift toward the elite.

Obviously, shunning Clinton to support Trump is a huge WTF disqualifier, but at this point I cannot view anyone identifying as a Democrat who did not vote for Clinton as anything but a person who is a bona fide sexist (there are some exceptions, but the vast majority of people I talk to about this don't fall into that category). Maybe I'm just sick of witnessing and dealing with sexism as millions of little paper cuts, day in and day out; but I take a zero tolerance view towards it, and I hope the Democratic Party will someday do the same. I kind of think that a person's views on Hillary Clinton is a generally reliable indicator of how sexist that person is. Ojeda is a nonstarter.
posted by triggerfinger at 8:25 PM on November 11, 2018 [39 favorites]

that the voting system really is somehow compromised.

worse, the voting system is compromised, by lack of standards, unreliable equipment, and measures designed to spuriously disqualify ballots.

it’s just not compromised by hordes of voters voting illegally.

it’s not far-fetched to believe that Trump might resort to attacks on the electoral system if things don’t go his way in the 2020 presidential election.

he resorted to attacks on the electoral system in an election that he won.

if he loses, it’s not far-fetched that he”d do so, it’s guaranteed, but louder and with more sinister allegations.
posted by murphy slaw at 8:32 PM on November 11, 2018 [17 favorites]

zachlipton: "It. Is. Possible. To. Make. A. Valuable. Contribution. To. This. Country. Without. Announcing. Your. Candidacy. In. The. Democratic. Primary. (I shout, and am ignored by thousands.)"

Speaking of which, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce my candidacy for the presidency.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:35 PM on November 11, 2018 [103 favorites]

at this point I cannot view anyone identifying as a Democrat who did not vote for Clinton as anything but a person who is a bona fide sexist

I know some, but I'm in the Bay Area bubble, where Stein was seen as a reasonable protest vote. Anti-"elitist" progressives could safely vote Green and be assured that California would still go for Clinton.

But anyone who voted for Trump, or who supported the idea of Trump over Clinton? OH HELL NO. Not unless I get to see an abject, public apology that describes exactly how they came to realize the toxicity of the racist, sexist garbage they used to believe, and what they're going to do in the future to repudiate their former values.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 8:38 PM on November 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

I know some, but I'm in the Bay Area bubble, where Stein was seen as a reasonable protest vote. Anti-"elitist" progressives could safely vote Green and be assured that California would still go for Clinton.

I hold these people almost more responsible. They knew better. This attitude was blasted out on social media to states where it really did matter. It infected absolutely everything about that election. There was a widespread permission structure not to vote Clinton because "it's OK, she's going to win".
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:13 PM on November 11, 2018 [56 favorites]

People voting for Stein was the ultimate example of not learning from history. *Recent* history!
posted by Chrysostom at 9:22 PM on November 11, 2018 [35 favorites]

It's a little long but not easily summarized.

Trump campaigned to protect himself, not help Republicans

The midterms are over, so expect President Trump to adjust accordingly: The “caravan” will now drop out of the news; the troops sent to the border will quietly pass their time drilling in the Texas sunshine. The conspiracy websites and QAnon groups that have been chattering about “the invasion” for weeks will shift their focus, because they aren’t needed anymore. It’s not an accident that Trump lost his temper precisely at the moment when Jim Acosta of CNN posed a direct question about the caravans. The president knows the story was a stunt, and he wants to move on.

The question, in retrospect, is why this particular stunt was deployed. To put it differently: Why did Trump decide to take a nonexistent threat from people a thousand miles away and turn it into the center of the Republican Party’s midterm election campaign? Instead, he could have focused on genuinely good economic news, such as low unemployment or high growth. The economic story might have united people; it might have won his party extra votes. It would certainly have had some impact in the wealthy suburbs that switched, during the election, from red to blue. By contrast, the caravan story, with its elements of fiction and fantasy, divided Americans and turned many against him.

We know a part of the answer. Of course, his aim was to “consolidate the base” in red states — a tactic that helped the Republican Party win, for example, in Missouri. Claire McCaskill, the state’s defeated Democratic senator, told the New York Times that every time she walked into a restaurant in rural Missouri, she saw Fox News showing footage of the caravan. Missouri voters bought into the myth, as well at the myth that Democrats were going to open the borders. But that same tactic was risky, because it also alienated suburban voters, giving the Democrats the edge in New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere.

But the fiction of the caravan also had another function. Like Trump’s past advocacy of birtherism, this was a myth that bound together his supporters into a community of believers. Those who accepted it had to filter out all counter-evidence to accept the previously unacceptable use of the U.S. military to guard against an invisible foe, to accept the word “invasion.” And now that this community of believers has learned to accept one fantasy, it can easily be primed to accept those that follow. This is a trick that’s been used by autocrats throughout history, and now the U.S. president will use it as well.

Trump’s preplanned decision to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the midterms — by means of an undated resignation letter, clearly written to be used at the president’s will — was a hint of what is coming. At some point in the presumably not too distant future, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is going to submit his final report. Mueller may even indict some more people, maybe some close to Trump. In January, when the new Democratic House of Representatives takes over, further investigations will open, perhaps into Trump’s history of suspected tax fraud, perhaps into his business relationships with Russia. I don’t know which of these things bothers the president most, or what exactly he is hiding. Regardless of the details, he will need tools to deploy when they are revealed.

Unlike President Richard M. Nixon, Trump is not going to resign if the institutions of the state prove that he has broken the law. He can’t resign: To do so would bring down not only his administration but also his business and his reputation, the basis of which is his personal brand. He will try, instead, to break the institutions — and he will need the support of his community of believers to do it.

That’s why his campaign rhetoric wasn’t designed to help the Republican Party: It was designed to provide him with a claque of supporters who have bought into his message that the media are “enemies of the state,” that Democrats promote chaos and mob violence, that only he is protecting them from a nonexistent “invasion.” As he seeks to undermine the Justice Department, to denigrate law enforcement — and above all to stay in office — he will ask those loyalists to put pressure on Congress, to support him on social media, to provide counter-narratives, to back up the fictions he is going to conjure up. That’s how he will, in the words of White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, “fight back.”

posted by scalefree at 9:29 PM on November 11, 2018 [61 favorites]

if there is one lesson that i hope people learned from 2016 it’s that voting is a tool to strategically forward your political interests, not a means of self-expression. “protest votes” in a two-party first-past the post system are worse than throwing your vote away, they’re aiding those most opposed to your interests.

vote for the candidate that you love unreservedly in the primary. get bummed if they don’t win. and then hustle to get the winner elected in the general. if you have to hold your nose to pull that lever, you can talk about that after the election.

if you want to express yourself, write a goddamn essay. vote to protect your interests.
posted by murphy slaw at 9:35 PM on November 11, 2018 [119 favorites]

“protest votes” in a two-party first-past the post system are worse than throwing your vote away

I agree; I was just pointing out that not all of the not-for-Clinton Democrats voted otherwise out of sexism; some of them voted out of deep misunderstandings of how elections actually work.

It’s not an accident that Trump lost his temper precisely at the moment when Jim Acosta of CNN posed a direct question about the caravans. The president knows the story was a stunt, and he wants to move on.

I wish they'd keep focusing on uncomfortable questions. Has any reporter got an on-camera answer to, "we've heard your campaign slogan, so... when was America great before?"
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:46 PM on November 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Donald Trump to Award Medal of Freedom to Wife of One of His Biggest Donors

Miriam Adelson, 72, was among seven people who will get the Medal of Freedom next week. Her husband is Sheldon Adelson, 85, founder and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, and a vehement supporter of far-right causes.

The award, is given to those “who have made especially meritorious contributions to ~~the security of national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,~~ Donald Trump.
posted by adept256 at 9:49 PM on November 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

Everything is for sale to the highest bidder, if you’re Trump. The dignity of the Presidency, the appointments to high office, the lives of his fellow citizens, the goodwill of the nation, our relationships with our historic allies, our security and standing in the world. Nothing is without its price tag for the slick talker in the cheap suit with shiny trousers, sitting now behind the Resolute Desk.
posted by darkstar at 10:09 PM on November 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

Chrysostom/Giant Meteor 2020
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:32 PM on November 11, 2018 [33 favorites]

Nadler Says ‘Lackey’ Whitaker Will Be First Witness
The incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee says Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker needs to explain how he can impartially oversee the Mueller probe.

Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York, the likely incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called the acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, “a complete political lackey.” Speaking Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, Nadler said Whitaker will be “our very first witness” summoned, or subpoenaed if necessary, once the Democrats assume control of the House of Representatives in January. Nadler said he will ask how Whitaker can be trusted to impartially supervise an investigation that he publicly criticized as a cable-news commentator.

“He’s already prejudged the Mueller situation,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, said on the same program. “If he stays there, he will create a constitutional crisis by inhibiting Mueller or firing Mueller.”

Schumer added that he and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi have sent a letter to the Justice Department’s chief ethics official asking whether Whitaker should recuse himself from overseeing the Russia probe, as Sessions did, drawing Trump’s ire early in his administration. The letter reportedly asks Assistant Attorney General Lee Lofthus, a career official, whether he has already issued guidance on a possible recusal, which would not automatically become mandatory.

posted by scalefree at 11:51 PM on November 11, 2018 [12 favorites]

A general strike seems to be rapidly brewing. Doing anything January 15th, 2019?

Multireddit list.

#earthstrike seems to be a working tag, and there's a discord.
posted by loquacious at 12:14 AM on November 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

Will Hutton's optimistic view of the mid-terms: The message from the midterms: a new, progressive US is slowly taking shape

But the message of the midterms is that this is not what the vast majority of Americans believe in or want. The majority culture so far has been denied its full expression by the US electoral system. Rural conservative states such as Wyoming and North Dakota, with fewer than a million voters, return the same number of senators as urbanised California with 40 million people.

Add the gerrymander of creating artificial districts with Republican majorities and suppressing the votes of blacks and ex-prisoners and the pro-conservative bias is near complete.

Yet the nearest the US has to a national election where those preferences can be expressed is in the House of Representatives. It now looks more like the US than ever – emphatically controlled by O’Rourke-style liberals with a record number of women, of whom two are Muslim. California and New York are now fiercely Democrat, as are the young, African Americans and Latinos. They enlist social media, not in centralised hothouses and data farms, but in myriad individual networks. They are the future, rejecting wholesale Trump’s rhetoric and values. They and O’Rourke’s charisma could carry the country, making inroads into the rural and smalltown US that its political system so privileges.

posted by mumimor at 1:11 AM on November 12, 2018 [11 favorites]

The Guardian links Manafort's GRU handler to Putin's pal Oleg Deripaska: Konstantin Kilimnik: Elusive Russian With Ties To Manafort Faces Fresh Mueller Scrutiny—New details emerge about 48-year-old said to have ties to Russian intelligence, including the use of a private jet owned by an oligarch close to Putin

Interviews with Kilimnik associates, congressional sources, Russia and Ukraine experts, and reviews of records have disclosed previously unreported details about Kilimnik’s work with Manafort and Patten, and other ties to Deripaska, the Russian oligarch friendly with Putin:

• Kilimnik used a jet owned by Deripaska for at least one leg of an oddly timed and brief trip to New York to meet Manafort in early August 2016, according to two sources familiar with congressional investigations. Their meeting took place soon after a meeting that Kilimnik has said he had in Moscow with Deripaska.[...]

• Kilimnik’s work with Manafort dates back longer than is widely known. When Kilimnik was fired from his job heading the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) office in Moscow in early 2005, after he was caught secretly working part-time for Manafort, the pair had been working together for almost a year, two former colleagues said.

Incidentally, security guards turned away the Guardian's reporter when he tried to approach Kilimnik's Moscow home since "Kostya from the GRU" refused to respond to their requests for comment.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:43 AM on November 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

the acting chief cop of the USA thinks responding to a federal subpoena is optional. okay.

We've been saying "IOKIYAR" (It's Okay If You're A Republican") for years -- at least thru the George W. Bush Administration and probably preceding it -- as a sarcastic registration of contempt for obvious Republican hypocrisy (and obvious media double standards). But it's essential to realize how seriously many Republicans believe it.

When your core belief is in an in-group that the law protects but does not bind and an out-group that the law binds but does not protect, IOKIYAR sums up exactly what you truly believe, as Whitaker obviously does.

Of course, this belief makes him unfit to work in the Justice Department, even as a janitor, and is entirely anathema to the essential American principle of rule of law. One hopes that two-plus years of Republican malfeasance -- blatant, unapologetic Republican malfeasance -- might create a fertile ground for the media to recognize what its lazy and foolish "balance" reflex has avoided hitherto.
posted by Gelatin at 5:53 AM on November 12, 2018 [32 favorites]

Gods help me this really is a real thing that is real. Even Snopes says so.

Trumpy Bear (?!?)

@atrupar I can't believe this commercial that just ran on Fox News is for real
[video]
posted by scalefree at 6:12 AM on November 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

I like, and by like I mean hate, how the idea that maybe McSally is "holding back" because she just wants the votes counted accurately isn't even brought up as a possibility. It's as though it's plain inconceivable.

At the same time, the so-called "liberal media" treats Republican claims of voter fraud and excuses for voter suppression and not counting every ballots as if they were made in good faith.
posted by Gelatin at 6:13 AM on November 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

This is my surprised face.

In North Korea, Missile Bases Suggest a Great Deception

WASHINGTON — North Korea is moving ahead with its ballistic missile program at 16 hidden bases that have been identified in new commercial satellite images, a network long known to American intelligence agencies but left undiscussed as President Trump claims to have neutralized the North’s nuclear threat.

The satellite images suggest that the North has been engaged in a great deception: It has offered to dismantle a major launching site — a step it began, then halted — while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads.

The existence of the ballistic missile bases, which North Korea has never acknowledged, contradicts Mr. Trump’s assertion that his landmark diplomacy is leading to the elimination of a nuclear and missile program that the North had warned could devastate the United States.

“We are in no rush,” Mr. Trump said of talks with the North at a news conference on Wednesday, after Republicans lost control of the House. “The sanctions are on. The missiles have stopped. The rockets have stopped. The hostages are home.”

His statement was true in just one sense. Mr. Trump appeared to be referring to the halt of missile flight tests, which have not occurred in nearly a year. But American intelligence officials say that the North’s production of nuclear material, of new nuclear weapons and of missiles that can be placed on mobile launchers and hidden in mountains at the secret bases has continued.

And the sanctions are collapsing, in part because North Korea has leveraged its new, softer-sounding relationship with Washington, and its stated commitment to eventual denuclearization, to resume trade with Russia and China.

Moreover, an American program to track those mobile missiles with a new generation of small, inexpensive satellites, disclosed by The New York Times more than a year ago, is stalled. The Pentagon once hoped to have the first satellites over North Korea by now, giving it early warning if the mobile missiles are rolled out of mountain tunnels and prepared for launch.

But because of a series of budget and bureaucratic disputes, the early warning system, begun by the Obama administration and handed off to the Trump administration, has yet to go into operation. Current and former officials, who said they could not publicly discuss the program because it is heavily classified, said there was still hope of launching the satellites, but they offered no timeline.

posted by scalefree at 6:19 AM on November 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

Reiterating the frequent request to please identify the source of a link so people can decide if they want to use one of the limited free views of a site like the New York Times or the Washington Post. Thanks.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:29 AM on November 12, 2018 [18 favorites]

Of course Trump's reaction to all the negative coverage his Paris trip received was to go on Twitter and brag about what a great success it was and make his usual isolationist threats under his all-caps slogan "Trade must be made FREE and FAIR!". This morning @realDonaldTrump posted, "Just returned from France where much was accomplished in my meetings with World Leaders.", going on to complain about how the US hasn't been treated "fairly", complaining (without basis) about paying for "LARGE portions of other countries military protection", getting only "Trade Deficits and Losses" in return, and concluding with a threat for other countries to either pay for the US's "great military protection" or do it themselves. (Trump or Not Bot calculates a 93–100% chance Trump himself authored these tweets.)

With Macron's European defense coalition getting off the ground (Reuters), and Germany calling for an alternative to US-led global payments infrastructure (Business Insider), Trump is setting the US up to lose either way.

Yeah you're not supposed to use a flag as a blanket, patriots.

The issue of this abominable product's inherent disrespect for the flag aside, its commercial shamelessly portrays their "Ultra Cozy American Flag Themed Blanket" as something (a) their mother-figure cuddles like a security blanket and (b) Trumpy Bear literally wraps around itself while climbing a flagpole. It's almost as grotesque as how Trump has repeatedly hugged the flag at his events.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:32 AM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

It’s time for the press to suspend normal relations with the Trump presidency via PRESSTHINK, a project of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, written by Jay Rosen.

what the president says is neither automatically newsworthy nor automatically suspect. Rather, it has to be judged in context. Which sounds super-reasonable. Who can be against “context” and case-by-case judgment? But here’s the context: bad actor, cannot be given the benefit of the doubt, no matter what the case is.

“How,” asked Chuck Todd on Meet the Press June 17, “can we believe a president who routinely says things that are provably false?” Instead of treating these questions as unsolvable riddles, Chuck Todd could… suspend normal relations. For Meet the Press, that might mean: don’t accept as guests the people the White House sends out as defenders of the provably false (especially Kellyanne Conway.) If Trump himself is willing to sit down with Chuck Todd, fine. Take him on over his many falsehoods. But no surrogates or fog machines unless they are willing to correct the president.

For the Washington Post it might be declining to participate in so-called background briefings. For NPR, it might be refusing to report false claims by the President unless they are served as a “truth sandwich,” a suggestion recently made by Brian Stelter and Margaret Sullivan, interpreting the work of George Lakoff. For CNN, never going live to a Trump event — on the grounds that you will inevitably broadcast falsehoods if you do — would be a good start.
posted by bluesky43 at 7:37 AM on November 12, 2018 [60 favorites]

Folks, things like weird commercials for products and the proper display of the flag are derails here - if they're really interesting, they can have their own threads. Thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:48 AM on November 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

The current President of the United States, trying to directly undermine democracy now, 4:44AM via Twitter:

The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible ― ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!

Apparently we've moved on from Stupid Watergate to Stupid Bush v. Gore?
posted by LooseFilter at 8:17 AM on November 12, 2018 [42 favorites]

I realize we do not need more evidence of this, you are either convinced of it or you are not, but Trump's attempting to undermine the Florida election is yet more proof that the GOP is full shit every time it uses the phrase "states rights"

Do not ever, at any point in the future, fall for this elephant dung. (reference very much intended)
posted by Twain Device at 8:22 AM on November 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

Once again, Trump has expressed extreme disrespect for members of the military, in this case by saying that Florida residents serving overseas shouldn't have their ballots counted because he is ignorant of how elections work and is therefore confused by the concept of preliminary, unofficial results not being the final count.

Being the narcissistic Nazi he is, he of course assumes that anything that he doesn't understand must be the result of some vast conspiracy against him. He also doesn't understand that (for better or worse) states count votes, not the federal government, so his opinion on the matter is less than worthless.
posted by wierdo at 8:30 AM on November 12, 2018 [23 favorites]

Reiterating the frequent request to please identify the source of a link so people can decide if they want to use one of the limited free views of a site like the New York Times or the Washington Post

Reiterating that using incognito mode gets right past the leaky paywall system NYT and WaPo use. Firefox and Chrome have plugins that will let you automatically open certain sites in incognito automatically.
posted by phearlez at 8:32 AM on November 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

NYT:

House Democrats plan to hold early votes on proposals to protect people with pre-existing medical conditions, an issue they continually emphasized in midterm races. The votes will test campaign promises by Republicans who declared their support for such protections.

Democrats will push for the House to intervene in a lawsuit in which 20 states, with support from the Trump administration, are challenging provisions of the Affordable Care Act, including the protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

If the states’ lawsuit succeeds, legislation to shore up the health care law and coverage for people with pre-existing conditions could become a priority for Congress.

posted by Chrysostom at 8:34 AM on November 12, 2018 [40 favorites]

large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere

Nice try, chief. Large numbers of ballots showed up out of somewhere—that is, they weren't properly included in the first count, so they need to be counted. Also, what weirdo said about military ballots.
posted by Rykey at 8:34 AM on November 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

I've been wondering about the best way to shift cultural expectations about "declaring" election outcomes, which helps normalize this otherwise-abnormal (even by their standards) anti-democracy shit-stirring by the right (because then you can have the perception that some ballots are inherently "later" than others even though many of them are actually the ones cast earlier in the month).

What if some Democrats here and there started a stance of never conceding or accepting a race, no matter how far apart it is, until every last vote is counted? Like, if someone in a very blue but highly-populated district didn't give a victory speech until three days after "Election Night" (or even two weeks if there are overseas ballots to include), some conservatives would call it fishy while some liberals would pull at their hair in frustration. But it may help establish the principle that "Election Night" simply isn't a thing.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:37 AM on November 12, 2018 [33 favorites]

I'm racking my brain for a time when "state's rights" has been used as anything other than as a last appeal to a constitutional shibboleth when the wingnut fringe of a state's government decides to do something that's otherwise widely held to be reprehensible.

The current emoluments proceedings I guess? Still haven't heard that phrase trotted out, even though it seems to apply.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:42 AM on November 12, 2018

I'm racking my brain for a time when "state's rights" has been used as anything other than as a last appeal to a constitutional shibboleth when the wingnut fringe of a state's government decides to do something that's otherwise widely held to be reprehensible.

Marijuana.
posted by Melismata at 8:44 AM on November 12, 2018 [23 favorites]

large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing

So which is it? Are there suddenly extra ballots or are ballots missing? He can't even keep his lies consistent in the same sentence.
posted by Servo5678 at 9:02 AM on November 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

What if some Democrats here and there started a stance of never conceding or accepting a race, no matter how far apart it is, until every last vote is counted? Like, if someone in a very blue but highly-populated district didn't give a victory speech until three days after "Election Night" (or even two weeks if there are overseas ballots to include), some conservatives would call it fishy while some liberals would pull at their hair in frustration. But it may help establish the principle that "Election Night" simply isn't a thing.

Democrats Should Remember Al Gore Won Florida in 2000 — But Lost the Presidency With a Preemptive Surrender
posted by homunculus at 9:02 AM on November 12, 2018 [45 favorites]

The thing about the Right and "State's Rights" and "Local Control" is that, as more liberal states and urban areas take it upon themselves to just go right on ahead and enact policy that is more in line with the needs/desires of their constituents, it's always Republicans that coming screaming in to Put A Stop To All That. See gun control legislation in every city located in a state with a R-dominated legislature. See basically every single thing ever done in Washington DC.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:06 AM on November 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

Yeah, like in the 1960s when the Feds swooped in and said sorry, lunch counters must be desegregated.
posted by Melismata at 9:07 AM on November 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

I've been wondering about the best way to shift cultural expectations about "declaring" election outcomes

It's a bootstrapping problem. Having counties declare votes as soon as they're tabulated is meant to dispel the idea of behind-the-scenes shenanigans, but that in turn means that a particular type of vote -- typically in rural counties that aren't massively geographically dispersed -- is treated as more legitimate because those votes come in early during the "Election Night" window.

It's a variant on the "Good/Cheap/Fast: pick two" problem. If you want Good and Fast, the infrastructure isn't going to be cheap. If you go with Cheap and Fast, then the results aren't going to be any good. And that's even before considering how partisans wield far too much power on the conduct of American elections.

Young democracies establish faith in elections through uniform standards.
posted by holgate at 9:13 AM on November 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

Trump Completes a Shameful Trip to Paris, Just as He Needs the Global Stage (Robin Wright, New Yorker)

... Trump’s relations with his foreign counterparts are crumbling. The U.S. schism with Europe—where millions of Americans died to preserve allies—has arguably not been this deep since the First World War ended. The gap is wide on existential issues (climate change), global threats (Russia), and war and peace (the Iran nuclear deal). Since Trump took office, Europe has launched discussions on creating military and financial institutions that skirt the United States.

Even the bromance with Macron has ended. Last week, the French President said that Europe needed a regional military, because it could no longer rely on the United States as a partner. On Twitter, Trump slammed Macron’s idea as “very insulting.” The two men tried to make nice in Paris. But in his Armistice speech the French leader openly rebuked Trump’s “America First” agenda. “Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism,” Macron told world leaders. “By saying, ‘Our interests first, who cares about the others,’ we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what gives it grace, and what is essential: its moral values.” Macron warned of “old demons” resurging and endangering chaos. As he spoke, Trump grimaced.

The only leader that the President seemed to connect with at the Armistice ceremony was the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, who showed up late. When he joined the commemoration, the two men smiled at each other. Putin gave Trump a thumbs-up sign.

... Trump’s need for foreign-policy breakthroughs comes as his biggest diplomatic initiatives are either stuck or breaking down. The Helsinki summit with Putin, in July, has produced nothing on arms control, Ukraine, or Syria. The Middle East peace plan designed by Jared Kushner has been repeatedly delayed. Since the Singapore summit, in June, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, has not provided an inventory of his nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons or ballistic missiles—much less explained how or when they will be destroyed. The scheduled meeting in New York last week between the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Yong Chol, was abruptly cancelled—and is not expected until next year. Earlier this month, North Korea warned that it could restart “building up its nuclear forces” if U.S. sanctions are not removed soon.

Trump is also spurning diplomatic opportunities. He opted out of two other summits this week in Asia, a pivotal venue given China’s growing dynamism and the North Korea initiative. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation—twenty-one members that border the Pacific Rim—accounts for more than forty per cent of world trade and more than half of the world’s total G.D.P. It will meet in Papua New Guinea. The smaller summit, of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, will be held in Singapore. Other world leaders, including Putin and the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, will attend one or both summits. Trump will be at neither; Vice-President Pence flew out on Sunday in his stead.

The next test of whether Trump can wring out a foreign-policy success will be the annual G-20 meeting of the world’s biggest economies, which will open in Buenos Aires on November 30th. Trump is scheduled to hold talks with both Putin and Xi. “There are powerful reasons why Trump will be more engaged after the election, not least because he has more room for maneuver abroad than he will at home,” Daalder told me. “It is those bilateral meetings, where his goal is to win, that will continue to be his focus. Plenty for him to do, even if the chances of success in all of them are slim.”

posted by Barack Spinoza at 9:16 AM on November 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio is weighing a presidential run

In an interview with cleveland.com, Brown said that he's heard from an "overwhelming" number of people who have told him he should think of a presidential run, and that he and his family intend to discuss it over the holidays, when his children and grandchildren will be around.

"This will very much be a family decision," said Brown. "It would affect a decade of our lives. It is a very personal, serious decision."

He said he believes the message of worker empowerment that he espoused in this year's re-election should be a blueprint for the national Democrats to win back the White House in 2020 and that he'd be happy if his message is adopted by other Democrats running for president.

"My message clearly appeals to Democrats, Republicans and independents," said Brown. "We showed you can get votes by being authentic and standing up for workers. People in Washington don't understand the dignity of work."

(i know we probably don't need a comment for every single democratic presidential hopeful to crawl out of the woodwork, but this is Adorably Rumpled Sherrod Brown we're talking about)
posted by murphy slaw at 9:17 AM on November 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

The thing about the Right and "State's Rights" and "Local Control" is that, as more liberal states and urban areas take it upon themselves to just go right on ahead and enact policy that is more in line with the needs/desires of their constituents, it's always Republicans that coming screaming in to Put A Stop To All That. See gun control legislation in every city located in a state with a R-dominated legislature. See basically every single thing ever done in Washington DC.

And see net neutrality legislation in California.
posted by duoshao at 9:21 AM on November 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

Trump Completes a Shameful Trip to Paris, Just as He Needs the Global Stage (Robin Wright, New Yorker)

Yeah, so we're going to do this again? You can't shame someone who doesn't feel shame.

Oh, but we'll report on him as someone who does! Let's talk about how strong he is, what with resisting the shame and all.
posted by rhizome at 9:38 AM on November 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

Brown doesn't really look his age, but he will be 68 in 2020. No. No Boomers. Sorry. The US had Boomers run in their 40s (Clinton), 50s (W Bush) and now their 70s. Can't go from presidents born in the 1940s to ones born in the 1950s.

These early 2020 rumblings are ridiculous, and yet there'd be value in Dems having an early sense of clarity about the field for the next two years, and the meta-argument about the consequences of gerontocracy would be part of that.
posted by holgate at 9:43 AM on November 12, 2018 [20 favorites]

In my beloved Oregon, ballots must be *received* by Election Day, rather than posted. Additionally, for those who wish to vote after the Postal Service delivery deadline, there are official ballot drop boxes all over the place. Every library has a drop box, and many other public places have them too. The one I like to use is at a McDonald’s.

Resulting context: voting is easy and results can usually be reported on Election Day.

In California and Washington, ballots can trickle in from the USPS over a period of days or weeks and the count drags on and on.
posted by chrchr at 9:44 AM on November 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

I'm not convinced that "counting is done faster" is necessarily an asset.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:45 AM on November 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

House Democrats are vowing their first bill will establish automatic voter registration, give redistricting powers to independent commissions over state legislatures and mandate more strict campaign finance disclosures.

Dead in the water. States rights will be an endless font of pushback, not to mention the voting machines remain untouched by legislation. I'd argue that's as big a problem as any of those.

Sure, everybody wants their hobbyhorse petted, but the fact that Dems choose only items that have no third-party interest (whatever Diebold is called now) seems telling. Maybe it's a simple calculus of priorites and likelihood of passage, maybe it's cowering. I mean, after all the bullshit with voting machines this election and nary a peep? Also telling.
posted by rhizome at 9:54 AM on November 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

Dead in the water.

Before the extremely brief window where we thought Dems might take more than the House, I seem to remember months and months of people saying "when the Dems take the House they should put forth all kinds of good bills they know won't ultimately pass, as a concrete demonstration of what the Rs keep blocking and as a promise of what they'll try for once they have the power to implement it." But now it's back to "there's no point so let's not even bother"?
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:59 AM on November 12, 2018 [127 favorites]

Dead in the water

Very little the House passes will pass in the Senate. That doesn't mean there isn't value in the House passing it.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:01 AM on November 12, 2018 [63 favorites]

Dead in the water.
Yep as dead in the water as the ACA, gay marriage and legalizing marijuana was. No chance whatsoever.
posted by Harry Caul at 10:01 AM on November 12, 2018 [34 favorites]

Democrats Should Remember Al Gore Won Florida in 2000 — But Lost the Presidency With a Preemptive Surrender

He didn't lose because of a preemptive surrender, he lost because he didn't ask for a statewide recount of all the votes. The Supreme Court's intervention was bullshit, but Gore would've lost the recount it stopped.

It's true that more people voted for Gore in Florida in 2000, and he would have won a statewide recount, but that was never an option.

He should have taken the position that all votes be counted, and not conceded until that happened.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:05 AM on November 12, 2018 [20 favorites]

It is both dead in the water and should still be done. Get every last Rep on record as to how they feel about vote suppression and gerrymandering.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:06 AM on November 12, 2018 [28 favorites]

I'd love to see a series of televised hearings on all of the issues in that bill before anything gets brought to the floor, there are a lot of voices that need to be amplified on these topics, and a lot of shady groups involved that need to be publicly shown for what they are.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:09 AM on November 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

But now it's back to "there's no point so let's not even bother"?

No, it's about being more vicious about righting wrongs rather than making rhetorical points.

"Ooooh, we'll show everybody what legislative bummers those Republican are!" [tries to pull foot out of wood chipper]
posted by rhizome at 10:11 AM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

House Democrats plan to hold early votes on proposals to protect people with pre-existing medical conditions, an issue they continually emphasized in midterm races. The votes will test campaign promises by Republicans who declared their support for such protections.

Note how the NYT slyly implies here that Republicans, despite their repeated promises on the campaign trail, actually don't support coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. You don't say.

At least, not enough.
posted by Gelatin at 10:15 AM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Reiterating that using incognito mode gets right past the leaky paywall system NYT and WaPo use.

Hmmm...I don't know what's going on with me personally, but that isn't always working for me any more (but I don't want to waste a click to find exactly what "You have 3 free articles left even though you think you're in incognito mode" text shows up to share here), which is why I wish I could get some warning. I know, I know NOBODY WANTS TO, but still. My work actually now has free NYT subscriptions for all but you can only read it while AT work, which, uh... WaPo also used to do that for my work but for some reason it doesn't work any more and I've never been able to find any news as to what changed.

With regards to Sherrod Brown, I loved the book by his wife, Connie Schultz, called "And His Lovely Wife" about what it's like to be a political wife. I'd be very curious to see how she feels about a presidential run.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:16 AM on November 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

the democratic party leadership has poor moral values and is moreover out of touch with their base and with the people of the united states in general. It’s okay. It happens.

So we gotta protest them relentlessly. we gotta support insurgent groups currently acting within the Democratic Party, the most prominent of which is currently the DSA. If you are lucky enough to have a center-left representative, call them again and again and again to pressure them to support left legislation, even if it’ll die in the senate. Give money to potential democratic party primary challengers against center-right incumbents the second those challengers appear. In short, put the fear of Marx into the bastards.

The Democratic Party leadership isn’t something to follow. It’s something to bully.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:19 AM on November 12, 2018 [17 favorites]

No, it's about being more vicious about righting wrongs rather than making rhetorical points.

i'm not sure what your prescription for the democratic legislation in the house would be, then? very little that would forward the democratic agenda will be able to get past the senate. the stuff that will is likely to be so anodyne that it won't excite any voters at all.

the job of the House at this point is to investigate the administration, block egregious legislation that started in the senate, and provide a road map demonstrating what a democratic government will achieve if it takes the steering wheel of government. all of these are important.
posted by murphy slaw at 10:24 AM on November 12, 2018 [50 favorites]

the job of the House at this point is to investigate the administration, block egregious legislation that started in the senate, and provide a road map demonstrating what a democratic government will achieve if it takes the steering wheel of government. all of these are important.

Not to mention drawing a stark contrast between what Democrats and Republicans actually stand for, and giving the latter no cover to pretend "they care" about people with pre-existing conditions. So what; you still voted to take their health care away.
posted by Gelatin at 10:30 AM on November 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

I'm not convinced that "counting is done faster" is necessarily an asset.

Sure, but I would assert that there’s an advantage to knowing when you have a complete set of ballots. In Oregon, we know that all valid ballots are in the custody of election officials at 8pm on Election Day.
posted by chrchr at 10:33 AM on November 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

On Veterans Day, Advocates Warn Against Pence & Trump-Led Attacks on VA Healthcare

By Protecting Veterans’ Health, You May Protect Your Own: V.H.A. doctors care for some of America’s most vulnerable. They are not “bad apples” who “rob us or cheat us.” (NYT)
posted by homunculus at 10:37 AM on November 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

Can we stop with the defeatism and the Negative Nigel whining about "Dummycrats R Useless!" And we wonder why so many potential Democratic voters stay home! We can't even savor a victory - and it was a victory, a blue wave - without the "womp womp" of defeatism before we've even seated our new House members and state legislators!

I love Metafilter, and the politics thread. But the pessimism and defeatism can get out of hand. We didn't get to a Republican-controlled government overnight; we rested on our laurels after Obama was elected and let our post-2006 gains slip away. (I blame Rahm Emmanuel, who hated Howard Dean and the 50-state strategy, and ruthlessly squelched it after he became Obama's chief of staff. We've paid the price.) Now we've made a great start in reclaiming local and state governments, and we have a blue House filled with more progressives, women, POC and religious diversity. We haven't seen what the leadership will do yet!

As for the Senate - we're still in the minority there, elections have consequences, so we are going to have to do the best we can with what we have.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:43 AM on November 12, 2018 [79 favorites]

In Oregon, we know that all valid ballots are in the custody of election officials at 8pm on Election Day.

Does this include overseas ballots?
posted by Chrysostom at 10:43 AM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hmmm...I don't know what's going on with me personally, but that isn't always working for me any more (but I don't want to waste a click to find exactly what "You have 3 free articles left even though you think you're in incognito mode" text shows up to share here), which is why I wish I could get some warning. I know, I know NOBODY WANTS TO, but still. My work actually now has free NYT subscriptions for all but you can only read it while AT work, which, uh... WaPo also used to do that for my work but for some reason it doesn't work any more and I've never been able to find any news as to what changed.

Disable ad-block for the sites. It seems to be sensitive to that. ( I use a network based DNS solution too, a pi-hole, so I still don't see the ads, but the javascript triggers aren't fired, so it shows up without the counter ). Sometimes Privacy Badger is stopping a cookie that it wants, too..
posted by mikelieman at 10:44 AM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

In Oregon, we know that all valid ballots are in the custody of election officials at 8pm on Election Day.

Does this include overseas ballots?

Yes. Military and overseas voters can also elect to return ballots by fax or email if they can't mail them back in time to make the 8pm deadline.
posted by SpaceBass at 10:50 AM on November 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

i'm not sure what your prescription for the democratic legislation in the house would be

I am not whom you are replying to, but I'll take a stab at this:

1) Craft each bill as narrowly as possible. e.g.: "Extend Medicare Eligibility 1 year downward.", with a clear appeal ( provide healthcare security for an additional x number of Americans )

2) Pass it in the House.

3) IF the Republican senate passes it, go to step 1 with another narrow issue, otherwise, record all the Republicans against Healthcare Security.

4) Make a minor change in the House. e.g.: Extend Medicare Eligibility 2 years downward.", with more appeal
( Shoulda passed the first iteration Republicans... )

5) Goto step 2

The House does what it's supposed to do ( and there's plenty of room for the oversight committees ), and the bad-guys are clearly identified. And look at this huge list of their obstruction for the campaign ads next cycle...
posted by mikelieman at 10:54 AM on November 12, 2018 [16 favorites]

3) IF the Republican senate passes it, go to step 1 with another narrow issue, otherwise, record all the Republicans against Healthcare Security.

And even if they do, confident in Trump vetoing it (which he probably would, but at desperate as he is for approval and to brag about "making deals," maybe not?), then put the same bill back up for an override, even if it's doomed. Hey presto, Republicans vote against heathcare security after all.
posted by Gelatin at 10:58 AM on November 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

Earlier this morning Trump went to ground after returning from Paris, the WaPo's Josh Dawsey reports: A lid at 10 AM. Trump will have no movements today, per White House. (Which means no Veteran's Day trip to Arlington for the jet-lagged Donald.)

And now ABC reports Michael Cohen arrived in Washington, D.C., Monday morning, accompanied by one of his criminal defense lawyers. He declined to answer questions from @ABC about why he was there. https://abcn.ws/2DAKwyQ

It feels like something's in the air (and not just a forecast of rain).
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:01 AM on November 12, 2018 [39 favorites]

Trump will have no movements today

TMI!
posted by murphy slaw at 11:05 AM on November 12, 2018 [54 favorites]

When it comes to election reform, tackling the gestalt as planned by Pelosi and the Dems is, I think, much better than going through individual issues would be.

Americans, generalized as a group, tend to come at election reform with a kind of quasi-optimism bias that "things can't really be all that bad". They see ID as a small inconvenience at best, while they do support extending the time window beyond a single day because even middle-class white people dislike fitting a visit to the polls into their Tuesday.

But they tend not to even be aware that Voter ID laws are usually coupled with the shuttering of DMVs because the difficulty was the only real purpose. By discussing the larger principles rather than piecemeal issues, you advance the conversation better (which is all that can be hoped for as a first step right now, nationally).
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:06 AM on November 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

NPR: House Democrats are vowing their first bill will establish automatic voter registration, give redistricting powers to independent commissions over state legislatures and mandate more strict campaign finance disclosures.

I'm all for these. Honest question, though: How much say does the federal government have over how states conduct elections? Could the federal government specify every little detail and process?
posted by scottatdrake at 11:19 AM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

That issue is one of the many indications that this bill is definitely not designed to pass and be enacted as law. See also: It would repeal Citizens United by statute, which doesn't work since the case was about the meaning of the First Amendment.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:21 AM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

How much say does the federal government have over how states conduct elections? Could the federal government specify every little detail and process?

The simplest way to do it is to tie it to federal funding. This is how the federal government can do things like set the drinking age at 21: not directly, but by denying (10% of) federal transportation funds to states that don't comply. See South Dakota v. Dole.
posted by jedicus at 11:23 AM on November 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

PSA: Americans do not get to make fun of the French Army ever again. (Hit the translate link if you need. It's worthwhile.)
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:27 AM on November 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

Madison365 (WI): Baraboo Schools Investigating Purported Nazi Salute Prom Photo.
posted by adamg at 11:37 AM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

Obama honored Veterans Day by laying wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery.

Trump celebrates Veterans Day with a 40% off sale on MAGA merchandise. Promotion code? Honor.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:42 AM on November 12, 2018 [38 favorites]

Trump celebrates Veterans Day with a 40% off sale on MAGA merchandise. Promotion code? Honor.

with these kinds of prices, VALOR is a STEAL!
posted by murphy slaw at 11:43 AM on November 12, 2018 [44 favorites]

murphy slaw: "(i know we probably don't need a comment for every single democratic presidential hopeful to crawl out of the woodwork, but this is Adorably Rumpled Sherrod Brown we're talking about)"

Probably our first candidate described as "rumpled" since Wendell Willkie.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:51 AM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Robert Costa, a week ago:

a new term today from McConnell, when talking about scrutiny of President Trump by congressional Democrats: "presidential harassment"

He repeats it a few times at this news conference. Clearly a new talking point.

Today, @realDonaldTrump: "The prospect of Presidential Harassment by the Dems is causing the Stock Market big headaches!"
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:53 AM on November 12, 2018 [11 favorites]

a new term today from McConnell, when talking about scrutiny of President Trump by congressional Democrats: "presidential harassment"

Notice how, just as with "fake news" and "voter suppression," Trump is taking harrassment from #metoo and trying to turn it around to benefit him. Will the media let him get away with it this time?
posted by Gelatin at 11:57 AM on November 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

"voter fraud" is their watchword, "voter suppression" is ours.
posted by murphy slaw at 11:59 AM on November 12, 2018

My 83-year-old Mom made it to Times Square.

(She made it to DC in 1989 too; that sign read “Post-Menopausal Woman Nostalgic For Choice”.)

posted by nicwolff at 5:32 PM on November 9 [88 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

That is flat-out baller.
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:04 PM on November 12, 2018 [18 favorites]

"Harassment" in this context means "not letting the rich white man do whatever he wants, free of resistance or even criticism."
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:09 PM on November 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

I’m old enough to remember when my (soon-to-retire) Republican Representative campaigned almost solely on fulfilling his Constitutional responsibility of harassing the President.
posted by Etrigan at 12:14 PM on November 12, 2018 [36 favorites]

Mitch McConnell knows all there is to know about "presidential harassment."
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:24 PM on November 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

The prospect of Presidential Harassment by the Dems is causing the Stock Market big headaches!

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

-- Teddy Roosevelt
posted by kirkaracha at 12:26 PM on November 12, 2018 [56 favorites]

Boring.... Boring.... Boring.... Boring.... Putin!
posted by growabrain at 12:28 PM on November 12, 2018 [13 favorites]

"voter fraud" is their watchword, "voter suppression" is ours.

Republicans are already referring to attempts to actually count votes as "vote suppression."
posted by Gelatin at 12:38 PM on November 12, 2018 [11 favorites]

Is there anything in the pipeline to actually stop counting the votes? Are Dems holding strong in the face of these threats? This is going to be a trial run for the 2020 election. We already saw Trump parrot Russian bot talking points in not conceding the election and claiming “voter fraud”. They’re already able to suppress votes and throw out votes for ridiculous reasons, but being able to stop acounting “legitimate” votes and just picking winners is a new level.
posted by gucci mane at 12:45 PM on November 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

It is both dead in the water and should still be done. Get every last Rep on record as to how they feel about vote suppression and gerrymandering.

Prediction: the Republicans will mumble something incoherent about how the bill is a deceptive ploy by George Soros to gerrymander in favor of the liberal elitist antifa Muslim Communist Democrats, and their base will go "oh, okay, dodged a bullet there."

(Seriously, the attempt to discredit Missouri Amendment 1 did blame George Soros... I think. It was a bit too word-salad-esque to make any actual sense.)
posted by Foosnark at 12:46 PM on November 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Amendment 1 was approved 62-38, though, while McCaskill was losing by 6 points. So, I feel like voting rights can be a vote-getter.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:08 PM on November 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

Prediction: the Republicans will mumble something incoherent about how the bill is a deceptive ploy by George Soros to gerrymander in favor of the liberal elitist antifa Muslim Communist Democrats, and their base will go "oh, okay, dodged a bullet there."

Oh, I'm sure they will. They can spin it however they want, and I'm positive it'll be mind-gibberingly ridiculous. Be that as it may, get them on the record with their nonsense with a Yea or Nay.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:11 PM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

Agreed, Chrysostom, and this is likely the best model for more lasting reforms. State constitutional amendments that serve to guarantee and expand enfranchisement in voting. Independent redistricting, expanded registration, etc. Even in red-leaning states, such amendments clearly can get passed, making it a harder go for Republicans in Washington to suppress votes in those states that they otherwise control.
posted by darkstar at 1:13 PM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

If we're going to have an old white dude in the 2020 field, I'd much rather the Old White Guy Slot go to Sherrod Brown than Joe Biden. People forget how truly terrible Biden's Senate record was as ~~the Senator For The Credit Card Company~~ from Delaware, and that's without all the Creepy Uncle Joe stuff that's bound to come out in the metoo era and re-watching him run the Anita Hill disgrace. And don't mention he was a principal architect of the failed War on Drugs.

Brown is shockingly liberal for continuing to win in Ohio. He basically has a sparkingly record of support for nearly every progressive cause. In the 110th Senate Brown was the 5th most liberal Senator by DW-Nominate and 10th in the 113th Senate. Biden was 27th in the 110th Senate, the last before becoming VP, and averaged 38th over the course of his career.
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:18 PM on November 12, 2018 [41 favorites]

21 Grahams: Descriptions of Donald Trump, stated between 2015 and 2018, by Lindsey Graham
posted by growabrain at 1:26 PM on November 12, 2018 [31 favorites]

I would be approximately 10,000 times more likely to support Sherrod Brown than Joe Biden. Approximately 10 million times more likely. Brown is actually not a terrible idea.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:49 PM on November 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! HA HA HA! I just realised today was the day Trump was supposed to visit Ireland. Glad I don't have to be dealing with that shit today. There is hope people. There is still some hope.
posted by Elmore at 1:59 PM on November 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

@KenDilanianNBCBREAKING: Roger Stone pal Jerome Corsi tells my colleague @annaschecter that Mueller's investigators informed Corsi about a week ago he will be indicted for perjury. "When they have your emails and phone records...they're very good at the perjury trap," he says.

Yeah, that's just plain perjury, friendo.
posted by soren_lorensen at 2:03 PM on November 12, 2018 [69 favorites]

Yeah, that's just plain perjury, friendo.

When you realize the "perjury trap" is a thing the accused is good at.
posted by rhizome at 2:10 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would be approximately 10,000 times more likely to support Sherrod Brown than Joe Biden. Approximately 10 million times more likely. Brown is actually not a terrible idea.

He's in "this is something we’ll talk about as a family" mode at this point.

But much as I like Adorably Rumpled Sherrod Brown, and I know his ex has been supportive of his last several campaigns and all, but I'd like to register a strong preference at this point to not have a Presidential debate that consists of two white male boomers arguing about who was more abusive to their spouses decades ago.
posted by zachlipton at 2:11 PM on November 12, 2018 [26 favorites]

@KenDilanianNBCBREAKING: Roger Stone pal Jerome Corsi tells my colleague @annaschecter that Mueller's investigators informed Corsi about a week ago he will be indicted for perjury.

Marcy Wheeler notes: "What's interesting about this is Corsi said he spent all day Friday with his lawyers. Did he consider pleading but now will contest it?"

And "As I laid out here, there's circumstantial reason to believe that Corsi and Stone learned not just THAT WL would drop Podesta emails, but that they included ones pertaining to Joule attack Bannon had already started, in August 2016. [Yes, that's when Kostya from the GRU visited Manafort.—ed.] Importantly, Corsi renewed that attack on October 6, 2016, the day before the Podesta emails came out, and 5 days before the stolen emails in question came out."

Incidentally, CNN's Russia investigation reporter Marshall Cohen points out: "Today is a federal holiday, but at least five of Robert Mueller's prosecutors are working today at their office in downtown DC. (h/t @emsteck)"

No wait—"Update: At least eight Mueller prosecutors worked today."

Also, from NPR's Tim Mak: "Maria Butina marked her 30th birthday in jail, with a visit by Russian diplomats from the embassy, per Russian news org TASS"
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:18 PM on November 12, 2018 [22 favorites]

Mike Pompeo, Foreign Affairs, Confronting Iran: The Trump Administration’s Strategy

The president’s own public communications themselves function as a deterrence mechanism. The all-caps tweet he directed at Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in July, in which he instructed Iran to stop threatening the United States, was informed by a strategic calculation: the Iranian regime understands and fears the United States’ military might.

@benjaminwittes: Is it just me or is the Secretary of State in this article actually suggesting that the president's tweeting in allcaps deters the Iranian regime?
posted by zachlipton at 2:21 PM on November 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

rhizome: "I mean, after all the bullshit with voting machines this election and nary a peep?"

There are several bills floating around about voting machines; in the Senate, Klobuchar's Secure Elections Act.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:22 PM on November 12, 2018

Corsi's doing a livestream, if you want to see what someone making a series of increasingly poor decisions looks like.
posted by zachlipton at 2:23 PM on November 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

Today, @realDonaldTrump: "The prospect of Presidential Harassment by the Dems is causing the Stock Market big headaches!"

Use a dictionary FFS. We will go with Daniel Webster's since this is an American thang:

1 a : of, relating to, or befitting a president or a president's authority
presidential duties/responsibilities

b : of or relating to the election of a president

c : performing functions delegated by or under the authority of a president

2 : of, based upon, or having the characteristics of presidential government

Presidential harassment is either harassment by a president or harassment in a manner befitting a president.

Now I am not a full on prescriptivist but this latest Republican use seems to me to be a weird and awkward stretch.
posted by srboisvert at 2:30 PM on November 12, 2018 [13 favorites]

Now I am not a full on prescriptivist but this latest Republican use seems to me to be a weird and awkward stretch.

When you want something to stick in the mind of those you're trying to manipulate, to hell with grammar: use as few words as possible.
posted by Brak at 2:34 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Corsi's doing a livestream , if you want to see what someone making a series of increasingly poor decisions looks like.

Oh, good grief, is this going to be Sam Nunberg all over again?

Shareblue's Caroline Orr is live-tweeting Corsi's streaming meltdown: “Jerome Corsi, speaking of his talks with Mueller's team: "The entire negotiations...have just blown up. I fully anticipate that in the next few days I will be indicted for some form or other of giving false information."” and “Jerome Corsi: "To the best of my knowledge, I've never met Julian Assange."”

The Atlantic's Natasha Bertrand adds: “Roger Stone associate Jerome Corsi on his livestream: “I’m gonna be indicted. That’s what we’re told. I’m fully expecting it.” He then asks for donations to his legal defense fund.” (#NeverStopGrifting)

And: "Corsi says he was questioned extensively about a trip he took to Italy with his wife 2 years ago...he says it was for their anniversary."

Meanwhile CNBC checks in on Michael Cohen: Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen takes the train to Washington to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller's team
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:35 PM on November 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

Beast, Heather Nauert Isn’t U.N. Ambassador Yet, but State Department Staff Say She’s Got One Foot Out the Door: Should she ultimately get the gig, it would be another blow for a State Department that has struggled for two years to fill numerous key vacancies.

There's a story in here described as "the Pompeo cheese incident," which is too many paragraphs to pullquote, but nicely sums up how petty these people are.
posted by zachlipton at 2:37 PM on November 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

The simplest way to do it is to tie it to federal funding. This is how the federal government can do things like set the drinking age at 21: not directly, but by denying (10% of) federal transportation funds to states that don't comply. See South Dakota v. Dole.

Now a foolish consistency could well be the hobgoblin of small legal minds but several states are fighting against this in the Sanctuary city kerfuffle.

State's rights. What a mess.
posted by srboisvert at 2:43 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Without Murdoch, There is No Trump (Jeff Jarvis)

In which a hapless CNN hosehead defends Fox News from mean ol' Bill deBlasio.

I will not mince words: Rupert Murdoch has single-handedly brought American democracy to ruin. Cable news — especially CNN — made its business on conflict and the rest of media built theirs on clickbait but only Fox News is built to — in de Blasio’s words — “sensationalize, racialize, and divide.” Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. are specifically to blame. How can any civilized soul, let alone a media correspondent, not have heard Laura Ingraham’s bilious racist rant last week and then demanded in all caps and bold: HOW THE FUCK IS THIS ON TELEVISION? WHO ALLOWS THIS? Murdoch does.

... This is not going to go away of its own accord, as if the nation one day wakes up from this nightmare, hits itself upside the head, and asks: “What were we thinking?” This is going to go away only through exposing what is happening. You’d think journalists would be the first to understand that.

I do think journalists understand that, and there's not a damned thing they can do about it. Right Zuck? (NYT)
posted by petebest at 2:49 PM on November 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

@esquires1215, replying to Bertrand re Corsi's trip to Italy two years ago, in that Twitter thread: I wonder what the dates were? Michael Cohen was in Italy July 9-17, 2016.

Cohen showed his passport to Buzzfeed last year, when he denied he'd ever been to Prague:

The stamps indicate he traveled abroad at least four times in 2016: twice to London, once to St. Maarten, and once to Italy in July. The Italian trip is the most intriguing, because it places Cohen in what’s known as the Schengen Area: a group of 26 European countries, including the Czech Republic, that allows visitors to travel freely among them without getting any additional passport stamps.

Upon entering the Schengen Area, visitors get a rectangular stamp with the date, a country code, their port of entry, and a symbol showing how they entered — such as an airplane or a train. In Cohen’s passport, that mark appears on page 17, with a date of July 9. The mark is too faint to be fully legible. The exit stamp, similar but with rounded edges, is also light, but the letters “cino” are legible, indicating he flew out of Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport in Rome. That stamp is dated July 17.

posted by Iris Gambol at 2:49 PM on November 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

David Roth, This Is All Donald Trump Has Left

The culture has been inching further and further into Trump’s gilded funhouse for years now, and you surely do not need me to tell you that it fucking sucks in there. But we are, by now, all the way in. Trump is nearly as ubiquitous in the culture as he has always believed he should be; the one deeply held belief that has been evident throughout his whole faithless disgrace of a life is people should be talking about Donald Trump more, on television, and he has just about seen that part through. All Trump wants, all he has ever wanted, is to be able to keep doing and taking and saying whatever he wants whenever he wants. He ran for president for this reason and this reason only.

His politics, to the extent that they’ve ever been legible, have always been off-the-rack big city tabloid bullshit—crudely racist exterminate the brutes/back the blue authoritarianism in the background and ruthless petty rich person squabbling in the front. His actions since becoming president have been those of a dim, cruel child playacting at being a powerful—giving orders without quite knowing what they mean or how they might be carried out, taunting enemies, beating up the people he can afford to beat up without having to be called to account for it, lying as needed or just for yuks. He hasn’t changed a thing since graduating from punchline to president. It’s been clear for decades that Trump was both an asshole and a dummy; this is now a problem not just for the odd unlucky cocktail waitress and his staff of cheesy apparatchiks but literally every person on earth.

Presidents exert a kind of ambient influence on the culture, but as Trump is different than previous presidents his influence necessarily feels different. Barack Obama wanted to be a cosmopolitan leader who brought people together and into a deeper empathy through a mastery of reason and rules; the country he governed doesn’t works like that, though, and the tension between that cool vision and this seething reality grew and grew. By the end, his presidency had the feeling of a prestige television show in its fifth season—handsomely produced and reliably well-performed but ultimately not really as sure what it was about as it first appeared to be. Trump has no such pretense or noble aspiration, and has only made the country more like himself; living in his America feels like being trapped in a garish casino that is filling with seawater, because that is what it is.

posted by zachlipton at 2:50 PM on November 12, 2018 [97 favorites]

This Is All Donald Trump Has Left

He looks unusually...human-colored in that photo. Did he run out of orange bronzer?
posted by kirkaracha at 2:57 PM on November 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

David Roth, This Is All Donald Trump Has Left

I enjoyed that. As much as I hate to think about Trump, it's important as a culture that we understand what is happening and have words and names to explain what circle of hell we're in.
posted by chaz at 3:10 PM on November 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

@esquires1215, replying to Bertrand re Corsi's trip to Italy two years ago, in that Twitter thread: I wonder what the dates were? Michael Cohen was in Italy July 9-17, 2016.

Natasha Bertrand: "Yes, Italy seems significant. It’s also where Papadopoulos met Joseph Mifsud in 2016."

(n.b. Papadopoulos' new wife, the mysterious Italian national Simona Mangiante, worked for the even more mysterious Prof. Mifsud, though she claims that she never discussed Mifsud with him and that it was only after she had stopped working for Mifsud that they met in person).
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:14 PM on November 12, 2018 [11 favorites]

Matt Drudge deleted his twitter account history. Was he involved in disseminating wikileaks stuff? I don't read Drudge.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:16 PM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

> There's a story in here described as "the Pompeo cheese incident ...

When the current unpleasantness is long past, and our descendants living in domed cities on the barren hellscape of the former Earth turn to mindless soap operas for entertainment, "The Pompeo Cheese Incident" will be an episode title in their hit period tragi-comedy about the early 21st century.

At a guess, the show will be called "The Grifters".

(And yeah, "The Missing Professor Mifsud", sure, why not.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 3:17 PM on November 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

It fascinates me that these people think deleting your account history on Twitter actually deletes anything. It just marks it not visible. It's still 100% available for subpoena.
posted by zrail at 3:18 PM on November 12, 2018 [16 favorites]

David Roth, This Is All Donald Trump Has Left

Very much in the spirit of H S Thompson, back when he was a wonderful writer, and necessary to actual, real journalism.

I just wish staid, confirming enablers like the NYT would publish things like this, but respectability at all costs, even though the world we live in as far as politics go, has very little these days.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 3:21 PM on November 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

It fascinates me that these people think deleting your account history on Twitter actually deletes anything. It just marks it not visible. It's still 100% available for subpoena.

I don't think they're actually under that assumption (as stupid as they in fact seem to be). It's more what Giuliani straight up admitted to a couple months ago: this is going to be fought in the court of public opinion, not law.
posted by Room 101 at 3:23 PM on November 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

Looking through the internet archive of Drudge's Twitter account, it looks like he tweets and deletes. Going back to last year it seems that the most tweets he's ever had is 3 or so.
posted by sporkwort at 3:26 PM on November 12, 2018

drudge is in the game of “hot scoops” and innuendo - and when that’s your biz, having your words out there for critique longer than the moment they grab attention is an active liability
posted by murphy slaw at 3:38 PM on November 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

Newly revealed North Korean missile bases cast doubt on value of Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un

On Monday, a new report from a Washington think tank identified more than a dozen hidden bases in North Korea that could be used to disperse mobile launchers for ballistic missiles in the event of a conflict.

Are these bases evidence that North Korea is cheating on the agreement it reached in June, when President Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore? Analysts say the answer is no — although there are plenty of caveats.

“Kim hasn’t broken any promises," said Jeffrey Lewis, a nonproliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterrey. "Instead, he’s making good on one of them — to mass produce nuclear weapons.”

posted by kirkaracha at 3:51 PM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

He didn't lose because of a preemptive surrender, he lost because he didn't ask for a statewide recount of all the votes. The Supreme Court's intervention was bullshit, but Gore would've lost the recount it stopped.

It's true that more people voted for Gore in Florida in 2000, and he would have won a statewide recount, but that was never an option.

He should have taken the position that all votes be counted, and not conceded until that happened.

Do not forget the role of Republicans organizing a riot (The Brooks Brothers Riot) and then pointing at the riot as evidence for the need to quickly resolve the election to avoid further violence. It was a rather ridiculous Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles Moment.
posted by srboisvert at 3:52 PM on November 12, 2018 [22 favorites]

Putin Loses His Best Friend in Congress As California’s Rohrabacher Goes Down
Ed Kilgore | NY Mag

Over the weekend, there were probably a few long faces in the Kremlin when the Associated Press called the election for the 48th U.S. House District of California for Democrat Harley Rouda. This marked the end of the 30-year congressional career of Dana Rohrabacher, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan who became known for his exceptional spirit of friendship toward the former Evil Empire’s latest management. Often called “Putin’s favorite congressman,” Rohrabacher was also a big supporter of Putin’s other friend in the White House. Neither affiliation wore well on voters in his Orange County district, particularly this year...

Rohrabacher has refused to concede until all the votes are counted, but since late ballots tend to trend Democratic in California (threatening to submerge two other Orange County Republican candidates, Mimi Walters and Young Kim, who are still ahead narrowly), Rouda’s four-point lead looks unassailable. Rohrabacher can now spend as much time as he wants in Russia — as a tourist.

posted by Barack Spinoza at 3:56 PM on November 12, 2018 [22 favorites]

Just a reminder, it is grifters all the way down. From STAT by Damien Garde: Did Rep. Chris Collins sell his biotech stock without telling Congress?

Rep. Chris Collins, the New York lawmaker facing insider trading charges, was once the No. 2 shareholder in an Australian firm called Innate Immunotherapeutics. According to the company’s most recent disclosure, he’s no longer even in the top 20 shareholders.

What’s unclear is what happened to his shares.

Under law, members of Congress are required to publicly disclose their stock trades within 30 days. Yet there is no record of Collins having sold the bulk of his shares.
posted by Bella Donna at 3:56 PM on November 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

But we are, by now, all the way in.

I certainly feel as if the way he experiences the world -- as an accumulated present in which past events and fictitious ones show up from time to time -- has bled over into media coverage and the way in which people are refresh-refresh-refreshing for something to happen. Because it might. Plenty of people have compared it to living with an abuser, and that's on the mark, but the broader psychological effect provides the kind of insight not normally covered by source-driven historians into what living under authoritarianism in an era of mass communication feels like.

(This is connected to the subject of Will Davies's new book Nervous States: "As we become more attuned to 'real time' media, we inevitably end up placing more trust in sensation and emotion than in evidence.")
posted by holgate at 3:58 PM on November 12, 2018 [10 favorites]

Another advisory board member who also did legal work for the company, New York-based attorney Eric Creizman, said he also received a subpoena from the FTC and turned over records regarding the company.

Creizman apparently used to represent George Papadopoulos. The George Papadopoulos who wants to retract his guilty plea.

posted by ryoshu at 3:28 PM on November 10 [4 favorites +] [!]

Goddammit, now I've got to go back and get a shitload more red string...
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:01 PM on November 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Fox News hasn't tweeted in, so far as I can tell, 4 full days. I'm starting to think this is the start of the long-prophecied tossing overboard of Trump now that they can't get any more legislation through? They went after Whittaker and now this. I assume they're all-in on the voter fraud bullshit since they can continue that line of attack in a post-Trump GOP but... 4 days is a long time to go radio silent. Does anyone believe their Tucker Carlson excuse?
posted by Justinian at 4:03 PM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

Joshua Matz, The Justice Department’s new tactic: Leapfrog judicial process and go straight to the Supreme Court

The Justice Department has implemented a new strategy for defending President Trump’s most controversial policies: Declare an urgent threat to the executive branch, bypass ordinary judicial procedure and rush straight to the Supreme Court. Over the past few weeks, it has made this move in cases involving climate change, immigration, the 2020 Census and Trump’s ban on military service by transgender people. The department’s aggressive tactics rest on a rather overt calculation that the court’s right-leaning majority will nearly always side with the administration — and that five justices will repeatedly bend the rules to kill cases against Trump.

It seems unlikely that a majority of the Supreme Court is enthusiastic about this development. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is deeply committed to preserving confidence in the court as a branch of government that speaks “for the Constitution,” not “one party.” That concern also appears in statements by many of his colleagues. As Justice Elena Kagan has observed, “It’s an incredibly important thing for the court to guard — this reputation of being fair, of being impartial, of being neutral, and of not being some extension of the terribly polarized political process and environment that we live in.”

By treating the Supreme Court as a willing ally rather than a neutral arbiter, Trump’s lawyers are encouraging a dangerously cynical view of an institution whose public legitimacy is its very lifeblood. Worse, by filing a slew of irregular petitions that require immediate action, the department is forcing the court to navigate a political minefield.

posted by zachlipton at 4:03 PM on November 12, 2018 [13 favorites]

(This is connected to the subject of Will Davies's new book Nervous States: "As we become more attuned to 'real time' media, we inevitably end up placing more trust in sensation and emotion than in evidence.")

i constantly catch myself assuming that 100% of the information required to form an outrage response is present in the surface-level details of a new story. the 24 hour news cycle doesn’t actually leave anyone better informed, it just puts us in the position of speculating on insufficient information for more and more of our waking hours.
posted by murphy slaw at 4:06 PM on November 12, 2018 [19 favorites]

I mean, it’s hardly the weirdest thing Trump has done, not even top ten, but I’m surprised by his staying away from the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One and also from Arlington Cemetary, and just staying in the White House. I wonder if it’s finally sinking in that he took a beating at the midterms.

And heck, if people’s wildest theories about his finances are true, maybe he’s genuinely scared about the upcoming subpoenas coming from the House of Representatives. Heck, maybe he’s rethinking this whole being-a-president lark and will resign (which thanks to his Vice President, is only a moderately cheery thought) in hopes of staving off investigation into his finances, if he really is as non-rich as some people think.

Canceling everything to stay at home watching TV isn’t something that fired up people do.
posted by Kattullus at 4:07 PM on November 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

Sky News reports from today's American Commemoration Ceremony: “"You look so comfortable up there under shelter as we're getting drenched, you're very smart people"

More from the same speech:

Through rain, hail, snow, mud, poisonous gas, bullets and mortar, they held the line, and pushed onward to victory — it was a great, great victory; costly victory but a great victory — never knowing if they would ever again see their families or ever again hold their loved ones.

But he couldn't go to Belleau Wood because of rain. And blew off visiting Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day because Fox and Friends was on.

Ceterum autem censeo Trumpem esse delendam
posted by kirkaracha at 4:07 PM on November 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Does anyone believe their Tucker Carlson excuse?

No.

My first thought was that they fired the social media producer in charge of that feed, but they wouldn't let a hose of propaganda rest for no reason.

Combined with the other silences, a letter about preserving records (spoliation) would have been the flare that terrified people. They don't know what Twitter stores (probably everything) versus what they have control over. So they're deleting Sent Items in Outlook thinking that deletes them from the server where the data is held. They don't know what copies are where. They don't know how digital records work. So it reads, to me, like panic.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 4:12 PM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

Putin Loses His Best Friend in Congress As California’s Rohrabacher Goes Down

It is still astounding to me just how much Putin has got for his investment in Trump.

For a few hundred million in laundered money/loans/contracts, and the side hustle of a social media propaganda campaign that probably cost chump change in comparison, he got the US to voluntarily undermine trade relationships, long-standing security relationships, treaties, and sanctions agreements to an astounding degree.

Our new trade war alone will cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars. And we’ve voluntarily stepped out of forward-looking treaties like the TPP that will leave us wrong-footed for a generation or more.

All it took Putin was helping some corrupt, easily-manipulated, puffed-up, Reality Show idiot get elected US President, backed up by a handful of complicit, self-dealing jackanapes in Congress, and watch in probably amazed glee at his success, as in two years they set to destroying the country.
posted by darkstar at 4:12 PM on November 12, 2018 [43 favorites]

By treating the Supreme Court as a willing ally rather than a neutral arbiter, Trump’s lawyers are encouraging a dangerously cynical view of an institution whose public legitimacy is its very lifeblood.

Which is why Ds should be calling the court illegitimate/tainted/partisan and a Trump rubber stamp at every possible opportunity. Make Roberts tack a bit to the center if he wants to maintain any credibility for the institution where he'll spend the rest of his life, long after Trump is gone.

The attack also has the benefit of being true.
posted by chris24 at 4:19 PM on November 12, 2018 [32 favorites]

Combined with the other silences, a letter about preserving records (spoliation) would have been the flare that terrified people.

Is there any reason to believe Fox has received such a letter apart from the fact that it would explain the silence? I grant that there is no evidence for any explanation at this point, just wondering if I missed something.
posted by Justinian at 4:22 PM on November 12, 2018

CNN: Trump Properties Received $3.2 Million During Midterms, FEC Records Show

Campaigns and PACs spent at least $3.2 million at Trump-owned and branded properties throughout the two-year midterm election cycle, a CNN analysis of Federal Election Commission filings shows. And the total could rise after post-election financial reports are published by the commission.

No single group spent more than the Republican National Committee, which spent at least $1.2 million at the properties since the start of 2017.

About half of the RNC spending came in two installments -- $367,000 for travel expenses at Trump National Doral Miami in mid-June, after the group's spring meetings at the Florida club, and $222,000 for "venue rental and catering" at Mar-A-Lago in March connected to fundraising events at the resort.
Trump's own presidential reelection campaign was also among the groups spending the most at Trump properties throughout 2017 and 2018, despite not being on the ballot. The campaign has spent more than $950,000 at Trump properties since the start of 2017.

And America First Action -- a pro-Trump super PAC founded early in 2017 and funded primarily by GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson -- was another top patron of Trump properties, dropping at least $360,000 throughout the cycle.

#NeverStopGrifting
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:25 PM on November 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

I assume they're all-in on the voter fraud bullshit since they can continue that line of attack in a post-Trump GOP but... 4 days is a long time to go radio silent. Does anyone believe their Tucker Carlson excuse?

I don’t believe it for a minute. There’s no official statement; the only reason anyone thinks it’s to do with Carlson is some guy said so on Twitter — not an official spokesman, but a Fox employee. But I can’t find the initial Tweet where he says it now, and Variety, The Hill et al are citing it as “other outlets are reporting.”

If Fox were going to take a moral stand — and a boycott is a moral stand! — I don’t believe for a second they’d miss a chance to trumpet themselves as martyrs and heroes. And it’s telling the the main Fox News account and Fox Politics are down, but the show sub-Twitters are all active, from Fox Sports to Fox & Friends and on. I don’t know what it smells like, but a principled boycott over Twitter’s lousy harassment policy ain’t it.
posted by Andrhia at 4:26 PM on November 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

I don't know much about Sherrod Brown in the Old White Guy sweepstakes, but I do know that years back, a co-worker who was from Ohio and was (to me) an insufferable "country club" Republican, described Brown as a "a goon." That's enough to make me curious!
posted by TwoStride at 4:26 PM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

also, it’s not like Fox has stopped broadcasting in any other media. i’m unaware of any legal jeopardy that tweeting could expose them to that isn’t the same as any given broadcast day of Fox News?

shit’s weird, man.
posted by murphy slaw at 4:27 PM on November 12, 2018

Man, that picture of Putin approaching Macron, Merkel, Trump, and Melania Trump.

As I looked at the picture and thought about how Trump expresses disdain and contempt to most other people, but to people like Putin, Duterte, Kim JU, etc., he is almost like a puppy dog, I got a sudden, awful thought. Trump likes people known for killing their enemies. He'd like to do it himself, but lacks an organization with either the competence or the loyalty to do so. My revulsion at seeing his face as this notion arose caused me to spit up in my mouth a little.
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:27 PM on November 12, 2018 [28 favorites]

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is deeply committed to preserving confidence in the court as a branch of government that speaks “for the Constitution,” not “one party.”

This is wishful thinking, not something for which there is any evidence beyond one single data point in the Obamacare case. One time is not "committed".
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:31 PM on November 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

Is there any reason to believe Fox has received such a letter apart from the fact that it would explain the silence? I grant that there is no evidence for any explanation at this point, just wondering if I missed something.

No, I do know 1) what freaks corporate people out and 2) what they don't know-e.g. is my email stored locally or in the cloud? What about those times I used my Gmail account? How does this relate to my phone? My iCloud account? My wifi at home versus at work? Who can record what? Where?

And to me, this looks like paralysis and panic at being unable to answer those questions.

And I know that spoliation of evidence is something courts take really seriously--like for the love of God, don't start digitally shredding. So paralysis seems a reasonable second choice.

Maybe I'm wrong!
posted by A Terrible Llama at 4:33 PM on November 12, 2018

OK, not Twitter, but this appears to be the ambiguously sourced oldest article about the “Fox is off Twitter because Tucker Carlson” story.
posted by Andrhia at 4:38 PM on November 12, 2018

He'd like to do it himself, but lacks an organization with either the competence or the loyalty to do so.

It's true. I semi-jokingly floated the idea of Trump trying a Russian Apartment Bombing strategy for his re-election, and a friend snorted, and asked who he'd task with pulling it off, Eric?
posted by chaz at 4:41 PM on November 12, 2018

So Fox is punishing us by not tweeting? "PLEASE, Fox, please don't keep hitting us with the silent treatment. It's making liberals cry!"
posted by msalt at 4:42 PM on November 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

Not to cross threads, but AP has called AZ Sen for Sinema [D].
posted by Chrysostom at 4:46 PM on November 12, 2018 [41 favorites]

Meanwhile, let's check in on what's happening in Florida, not inside the elections offices, but outside. NBC, Step right up: The recount circus has come back to Florida

The mood was alternatively festive and angry. One minute, members of Bikers for Trump were dancing to songs like Can's "I Want More," re-recorded with pro-Trump lyrics, and the next minute, a woman with long blonde hair who said her name was MJ was yelling at the top of her lungs about “the f------ Jews.”

An ersatz news conference broke out around the woman, who told the assembling crowd that she herself was Jewish, but frustrated that the large Jewish population in South Florida reliably votes Democratic.

A large tattooed man with a shaved head who gave his name only as Taco stepped up beside her. He was wearing a cut-off black shirt that featured a drawing of Trump riding a Harley Davidson Motorcycle and holding a sawed off shotgun that said "Drain the Swamp." "They control the media, they control the entertainment business and that's what they do," he said. "Donald Trump has done more for the Jews and Israel than anybody before. And it doesn’t matter."

@AmyEGardner: Overheard security officers at the Broward County elections HQ tonight about a woman providing security for two recount observers who came through with a gun on her hip. She was stopped by the mag [magnetometer—metal detector]. The mag worked. She left without protest.

@jonward11: Was at Broward elections office today and talked to one Republican protester outside who got into a back and forth with another group and then was talking about going to his car to get his gun. Leaders need to tamp this down.
posted by zachlipton at 4:55 PM on November 12, 2018 [13 favorites]

I think McSally's gracious and upbeat concession statement is worth a look, too, if only because it stands in such sharp contrast to the crazy shit coming out of Florida's GOP establishment and the White House.

There's so much to be thankful for out of the mid-term results. I didn't think "Arizona Republicans count up all the votes and act like normal people" would be one of the top-tier things to be thankful for, but here we are.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 4:57 PM on November 12, 2018 [47 favorites]

By the way, Sinema won't back Schumer as minority leader.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:57 PM on November 12, 2018 [29 favorites]

NYT, Senators Reach Bipartisan Deal to Ease Sentencing Laws

A bipartisan group of senators has reached a deal to rewrite the nation’s sentencing and prison laws for the first time in a generation, giving judges more latitude to sidestep mandatory minimum sentences and easing drug sentences that have incarcerated African-Americans at much higher rates than white offenders.

The lawmakers believe they can get the measure to President Trump during the final weeks of the year if the president embraces it.

The compromise would eliminate the so-called stacking regulation that makes it a federal crime to possess a firearm while committing another crime, like a drug offense; expand the “drug safety valve” allowing judges to sidestep mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenders; and shorten mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, according to draft text of the bill obtained by The New York Times.

It would also retroactively extend a reduction in the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine signed into law in 2010, potentially affecting thousands of drug offenders serving lengthy sentences.
...
The senators believe they can win over most Democrats and, with cover from Mr. Trump, a large block of Republicans. But they fear outspoken conservative opponents to liberalizing sentencing laws, especially Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, could pull Mr. Trump out of their camp.

@DLind: This is theeeeee test for any theory of Trump-as-dealmaker. Sessions is out, and the bill has been precompromised to the point that not only Chuck Grassley but the FOP is on board. If he rejects, there won’t be much reason beyond a commitment to “toughness” etc.
posted by zachlipton at 4:57 PM on November 12, 2018 [26 favorites]

Isn't it more or less a pretty sure thing that she'll be appointed when Kyl retires? So a friendly concession seems pretty easy when you're just going to get the other seat sometime in the next year.
posted by triggerfinger at 5:02 PM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

McSally has to play it cool now. She knows she lost. Unlike most Republican election losers, though, she has a vested interest in maintaining a veneer of respectability. She’s still angling for McCain’s seat when Kyl relinquishes it. (Either by appointment next year or by election in 2020.) If she goes off like a loudmouth conspiracy nut right now, she could jeopardize Independent support when she runs for office again.

But realistically, I think we are soon to be looking at a McSally [R] & Sinema [D] senatorial duo for the next thirty years or so. Which parity, for Arizona, is still a step forward from the double [R] teams of Kyl & McCain, or McCain & Flake that we’ve had for thirty years. The last Democratic senator AZ had was when DeConcini [D] — one of the “exonerated” members of the Keating Five — retired in ‘88.

Edit: Not to mention that having two women in these positions of power is a major improvement, too.
posted by darkstar at 5:12 PM on November 12, 2018 [18 favorites]

The Washington Post and NBC have posted summary articles of Corsi's wild live stream.

What they both have in common is a statement from Roger Stone, who's piggy-backing on this story: "My attorneys have fully reviewed all my written communications with Dr. Corsi. When those aren't viewed out of context they prove everything I have said under oath regarding my interaction with Dr. Corsi is true. It is possible to take individual communications out of context to create a false impression to a grand jury. Such a case would be weak and would fail." All in all, it sounds like the mendacious Stone's attempt to use Corsi as an alibi has blown up in his face. How could someone who pushed the Swiftboat, Birther, and QAnon conspiracies have turned out to be so untrustworthy?

By the way, Corsi's attorney refused to comment to the Post about his client's on-air allegations.

Fox News hasn't tweeted in, so far as I can tell, 4 full days.

Ditto WikiLeaks, coincidentally.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:17 PM on November 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

An ersatz news conference broke out around the woman, who told the assembling crowd that she herself was Jewish, but frustrated that the large Jewish population in South Florida reliably votes Democratic.

Yeah, well, Jews like us are frustrated that Jews like you keep on supporting fascists and anti-Semites (and more and more often, actual fucking Nazis), lady.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:30 PM on November 12, 2018 [23 favorites]

Maybe Fox has moved over to Gab, following their demographic...
This photo is amazing, from Chip Somodevilla. It is both disturbing and Very Fucking disturbing. Truly worth a thousand words.
posted by Clathrate Bomber at 6:32 PM on November 12, 2018 [56 favorites]

President Trump is going to be so disappointed in him.

@PaulaReidCBS JUST IN: DOJ says Acting Attorney General Whitaker will consult with senior ethics officials at DOJ about possible recusal in Special Counsel investigation. DOJ Spox Kerri Kupec says,
"Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker is fully committed to following all appropriate processes and procedures at the Department of Justice, including consulting with senior ethics officials on his oversight responsibilities and matters that may warrant recusal."
posted by scalefree at 6:35 PM on November 12, 2018 [32 favorites]

I find it interesting to watch phrases enter the media mainstream. In my Google News feed at the moment, two stories from different sources:

Is "makes a baseless claim" the latest step in inching towards being able to call the president a liar in the headline?
posted by Nerd of the North at 6:40 PM on November 12, 2018 [32 favorites]

Kyrsten Sinema is the first Democrat to win an Arizona Senate seat in 30 years (Li Zhou | Vox)
posted by Barack Spinoza at 6:42 PM on November 12, 2018 [16 favorites]

Is "makes a baseless claim" the latest step in inching towards being able to call the president a liar in the headline?

Maybe? nice observation. at least a lot of news outlets have stopped leading with a headline of just repeating the stupid tweets. this is the sad state of progress in the media.
posted by bluesky43 at 6:47 PM on November 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

From that David Roth article posted above:

In the most basic sense, just in terms of getting off his ass to do the basic boring things presidents do, Trump can’t do the job. He can’t care and he won’t work and he never tells the truth both because he doesn’t know it and is afraid to know it.

There is no reason to ask him or anyone who works for him questions—a half-truth isn’t true enough and even a half-lie is still a lie, and they will never do better than either. The work that needs doing, which Trump and his people cannot do or even see, is plain and urgent. It’s all much bigger than him.

(Emphasis mine.) For all the good the Jim Acostas and April Ryans of DC do, it's ultimately always been a fool's errand. Spend those once-a-month press conferences slamming them with facts. No Questions Asked. That's the press' only real job now.
posted by petebest at 6:49 PM on November 12, 2018 [24 favorites]

But realistically, I think we are soon to be looking at a McSally [R] & Sinema [D] senatorial duo for the next thirty years or so.

Assuming that McSally is appointed to the McCain seat - which sounds likely, if not 100% - she's up again in 2020. She didn't win this time, I wouldn't bet the house on her winning again, if the Dems come up with a good candidate.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:50 PM on November 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

So maybe the news isn't that good.

Justice Department Poised to Issue Legal Opinion Supporting Whitaker Appointment
Agency lawyers to cite 2003 guidance for President George W. Bush

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department is expected to publish a legal opinion in support of Matthew Whitaker’s installation as acting attorney general as early as Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter said, following questions about whether he can legally serve in the role.

The department’s Office of Legal Counsel is expected to say that President Trump had the ability to appoint Mr. Whitaker, the person said. Mr. Whitaker took over last week as an interim successor to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions when Mr. Sessions was ousted by Mr. Trump.

The opinion is expected to support the Trump administration’s position that the president’s authority to tap Mr. Whitaker is affirmed by guidance the office issued in 2003. At that time, the office concluded that President George W. Bush could name a non-confirmed employee of the Office of Management and Budget as the agency’s acting director.

The OMB director, like the attorney general, is a principal officer of the federal government. The 2003 opinion avoided that problem by defining an acting director as an “inferior officer,” who under Supreme Court precedent doesn’t require Senate approval to be appointed.

Critics from across the ideological spectrum have said Mr. Whitaker’s appointment is a potentially invalid end-run around the Senate’s power to provide “advice and consent” on senior executive-branch nominations. Others have said Mr. Whitaker’s appointment was lawful under a statute called the Vacancies Reform Act.

In addition, others say Mr. Whitaker’s ties to a witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 elections and his history of critical comments about that inquiry raise questions about his impartiality and his ability to supervise it. The special counsel is designed to be insulated from political considerations.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said Mr. Whitaker would follow “all appropriate processes and procedures,” including consulting with senior ethics officials on “his oversight responsibilities and matters that may warrant recusal.”

posted by scalefree at 7:03 PM on November 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

So I guess he is above the law.
posted by xammerboy at 7:10 PM on November 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is the same OLC that under W said torture was a-ok, remember.

Until a judge weighs in this means little. You can always find a lackey to write some bullshit justifying what you want to do.
posted by Justinian at 7:15 PM on November 12, 2018 [14 favorites]

No, it's about being more vicious about righting wrongs rather than making rhetorical points.

I'm not sure what's the bigger waste of time. Try to hash out an intelligent, say, infrastructure bill with Trump that is not another giveaway to the rich, or put forward good popular bill proposals destined to fail. I'm pretty sure trying to work with Republicans will go nowhere fast, even when trying for half or a quarter of a loaf, but I see no reason not to try both strategies.
posted by xammerboy at 7:15 PM on November 12, 2018

The OMB director, like the attorney general, is a principal officer of the federal government. The 2003 opinion avoided that problem by defining an acting director as an “inferior officer,” who under Supreme Court precedent doesn’t require Senate approval to be appointed.

I saw something about this, and it was saying that that keeps Mueller safe, because inferior officers (Mueller) have to be supervised by the category of superior officers, who have been Senate confirmed. This would be Rosenstein. Whitaker still might have access to all of the Mueller case files by dint of being Acting AG, but he can't fire Mueller or anything like that.
posted by rhizome at 7:21 PM on November 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

Not to go all conspiracy theory, but....here's a conspiracy theory (FB link):

Something is up, something is up, something is up. EIGHT of Mueller’s prosecutors are working today, a federal holiday. Michael Cohen traveled from NY down to DC this morning to go to Mueller’s office. Trump AND Pence skip Arlington on Veteran’s Day, on top of Trump’s skipping the fallen soldiers memorial in Paris on Saturday after flying to Europe for it. Rupert Murdoch visits Mitch McConnell at the Capitol last Thursday morning, and Fox’s last tweet is a few hours later (FOUR DAYS AGO). Wikileaks (“arm of the GRU” per Pompeo) Twitter account went silent AT THE SAME TIME. Matt Drudge just deleted his Twitter account. Roger Stone/Infowars stooge Jerome Corsi says he’s been told he’s about to be indicted. Roger Stone said a few weeks back he was expecting to be indicted imminently. Something is up, something is up, something is DEFINITELY up. 🌪 🌋 🔥

posted by triggerfinger at 7:27 PM on November 12, 2018 [48 favorites]

“We’ll see.”

—Donald Trump

“See you in court!”

— also Donald Trump
posted by darkstar at 7:30 PM on November 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

So, Sinema has pulled this off. And this feels good. But it also feels weird. I've never really seen anything like this before. I voted for the first time in the 1992 election. Since then, the biggest wins we've had here is Napolitano winning the governorship twice, and while that was nice, she still always had a GOP legislature so nothing really got done. I'm not used to winning anything bigger than a ballot proposition here. I'm a lifelong Dem, and we just don't win here. Every time around there's this spark of hope that maybe this is the year where we have a breakthrough, and then come that Tuesday in November, it's yet another rout.

And not this time. We actually won. It actually happened.

But there's still even more hope. We have a fighting shot at taking the Secretary of State office. This would be massive. Voter suppression would be nipped in the bud to as large a degree as possible under the law. And the legislature is just short of even, meaning the GOP likely doesn't have the votes to pass anything nasty. We have a Dem superintendent of education. We have an educator who will be leading education and not trying to privatize our school system. And it looks like we will have a Dem on the Arizona Corporation Commission, setting things up for 2020 when 3 of the 5 seats are up. Sinema, Hobbs, Hoffman, Kennedy, and also McSally's replacement in CD2, Kirkpatrick, all Dem women. This is seismic.

This feeling will take a while to get used to. I hope we have even more of this in 2020.
posted by azpenguin at 7:35 PM on November 12, 2018 [81 favorites]

Oooh, add the National Enquirer to the list of publications (Fox, Wikileaks) that hasn't tweeted since Friday. Pretty sure David Pecker has been part of the Mueller investigation.
posted by triggerfinger at 7:37 PM on November 12, 2018 [16 favorites]

Three major institutions ceasing their Twitter activity for a weekend does begin to look like a trend, doesn’t it? Maybe everyone’s on vacation?

I can’t applaud your comment loudly enough, azpenguin. This November could have been better for us, but it could have been much, much worse. A Huppenthal as our Superintendent of Public Instruction while working to destroy it. A Flake mewling his concerns while voting for every one of the worst laws and justices set before him. A J.D. Hayworth bombastically parroting whatever Cato Institute drivel he just skimmed through.

We’ve had some decent (if moderate) Dems in office in the past. I fought for Harry Mitchell [D] and got to visit him in Hayworth’s nice, former office in D.C. which he got to take over because the delayed vote tally meant that offices had already been assigned for the new Congress before the transition was made. I was thrilled when he voted for Obamacare, and was devastated when he was defeated two terms later by Schweikert [R].

But what happened this November has been a very encouraging thing to behold, and a much needed release from the pressure cooker we’ve been in for these past two years, especially. Is that a green shoot I detect, peeking from beneath the snow?
posted by darkstar at 7:55 PM on November 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

> Kyrsten Sinema is the first Democrat to win an Arizona Senate seat in 30 years (Li Zhou | Vox)

She's also the first female senator from Arizona and the first openly bisexual senator ever.
posted by homunculus at 8:16 PM on November 12, 2018 [32 favorites]

WaPo, Trump is preparing to remove Kirstjen Nielsen as Homeland Security secretary, aides say

President Trump has decided to remove Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and her departure from the administration is likely to occur in the coming weeks, if not sooner, according to five current and former White House officials.  Trump canceled a planned trip with Nielsen this week to visit U.S. troops at the border in South Texas and told aides over the weekend he wants her out as soon as possible, these officials said. The president has grumbled for months about what he views as Nielsen’s lackluster performance on immigration enforcement and is believed to be looking for a replacement who will implement his policy ideas with more alacrity.  The announcement could come as soon as this week, three of these officials said.

posted by zachlipton at 8:32 PM on November 12, 2018 [9 favorites]

Why the 2018 Midterms May Have Been Bluer Than You Think - Andrew Gelman, Slate
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:33 PM on November 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

There is no Senate confirmed deputy at DHS, so God only knows who will get the “acting” Secretary role (Kobach? Miller?).

Jeebus. I would guess the leak is from Trump himself as he tries to redirect the media narrative from the Trump disaster it’s been since last Tuesday to a different kind of Trump disaster (Who’s in the Cabinet, Anyway?) for a change of pace.
posted by notyou at 8:49 PM on November 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Trump is preparing to remove Kirstjen Nielsen as Homeland Security secretary, aides say

Apparently someone willing to put children in wire cages isn't sufficient to satisfy Trump. He wants someone willing to do even more heinous activities.
posted by JackFlash at 8:50 PM on November 12, 2018 [36 favorites]

Although maybe Bolton as the leaker/voice in Trump’s ear is the better guess.
posted by notyou at 9:06 PM on November 12, 2018

Municipal elections in Utah next year can use ranked choice voting.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:04 PM on November 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

To harass, one must have power. When leading the world's largest military in history, one has all the power, and one de facto cannot be harassed, but rather only subject others to harassment. Presidential harassment is an oxymoron spoken of by a maximoron.
posted by riverlife at 10:09 PM on November 12, 2018 [11 favorites]

David Rothkopf: The walls have crumbled for Trump
posted by growabrain at 10:30 PM on November 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

God only knows who will get the “acting” Secretary role (Kobach? Miller?)

I don't think an "acting" designation can come from outside the agency, they snuck Whitaker in by first making him Sessions' Chief of Staff. The Anti-Vacancy Reform Act allows for Senate confirmed nominees to slide to another role, that's how Mulvaney keeps accumulating job titles, but Trump can't just pick Kobach off the street and say "oh you're the Secretary of Homeland Security now" without Kobach being confirmed by the Senate. He could slide over say, Rick Perry, but not just anyone. If he shitcans Nielsen, it'll probably be a career person in a caretaker role until he can actually get some heinous fuckwad confirmed. Maybe Lou Dobbs. Or Steve King. Which he will be able to do because there's only two conceivable Republican defectors anymore, and Collins and Murkowski both don't give a fuck about immigration issues.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:31 PM on November 12, 2018

This is just a note to recall that Kirstjen Nielsen was appointed to the post on December 5, 2017.

In January, she testified to the Senate that she didn’t recall hearing Trump mention “shithole” countries in the meeting which others reported he did say.

In March, she expressed her support for Trump’s ban on Transdender people in the military.

In May, she testified to Congress that she was unaware that the FBI, CIA, and NSA had all jointly concluded that Russia had colluded to interfere in the 2016 US elections to favor Trump (a conclusion echoed by the Senate Intelligence Committee’s own report). Later, she backtracked and said she accepted their findings. In an interview in July, she backtracked again and said she’d seen no ovidence the Russians tried to favor Trump.

In the same July interview, when asked about the violence perpetrated by White Supremacists in Charlottesville, she evaded denouncing White Nationalism, said both sides were at fault, and neither side was right or wrong.

In June, she lied by stating that the DHS did not have a zero-tolerance policy of separating migrant families, when they had already stripped over 2000 children from their parents in the previous six weeks. The DHS’s own website said such a policy was in place. Later that month, she defended the practice as necessary to prevent families for using it as a loophole to avoid detention.

Near the end of the month, she argued that the Administration was not using family separation as a deterrent, while concurrent reports from other Admin officials stated explicitly that deterrence was a key element of the policy. (Government data on border arrests shows it had no effect on deterrence.)

After arguing explicitly that it was impossible for the President to sign an Exective Order ending the zero-tolerance policy unilaterally without Congress’ intervention, then when the issue became too hot politically, she was present at Trump’s signing the E.O. doing just that.

Incarceration of asylum seekers continues, however, with new detention camps being built for thousands of migrants from funds taken from FEMA and shifted to ICE, both agencies in DHS.

This is Kirstjen Nielsen, the person that Trump wants to fire because he feels she is not acting aggressively enough to secure the borders.
posted by darkstar at 11:49 PM on November 12, 2018 [105 favorites]

Regarding the U.S.A.-flagged Trumpy Bear (above), do the sellers and buyers know about the Russian Bear? If so, this item may signal a stronger relationship than we thought. Has Putin given one to The Donald? Is there a recording chip inside?
posted by cenoxo at 12:02 AM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

In North Korea, Missile Bases Suggest a Great Deception

Ankit Panda, What to make of a new report on N. Korea’s undeclared missile operating bases

The New York Times‘s framing of the story left many North Korea-watchers—including this author—perplexed. There is no “great deception” by North Korea with regard to its missile operating bases because there is no deal with North Korea concerning its ballistic missile programs.

The Singapore declaration and the inter-Korean summit declarations of April 27 and September 19 this year do not commit Pyongyang to either disclose the sites identified by Bermudez et al., and they certainly contain no unilateral commitment by North Korea to disable or dismantle these facilities. On the contrary, the existence of these bases and, most importantly, their ongoing activity and expansion in 2018 demonstrate that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s Day guidance for the country’s missile engineers and nuclear scientists to mass produce warheads and missiles is going ahead.
...
The framing of the discovery of these bases as a “deception,” by contrast, increases the dangers that President Donald J. Trump in the United States might come to realize that his own impression of this year’s process with North Korea has been false all along, raising the possibility of the United States lashing out again Kim by resorting to military force.

The day after he returned from the June 12 summit with Kim in Singapore, Trump famously tweeted that there is “no longer a threat” from North Korea. The CSIS team’s work is the latest bit of evidence, following multiple reports this summer based on leaked U.S. intelligence estimates, that North Korea’s nuclear forces remain very real.

posted by zachlipton at 12:16 AM on November 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

>>PSA: Americans do not get to make fun of the French Army ever again.

Considering the much greater price the French paid in major wars, we shouldn't disrespect their military at all:

• WWI French deaths ... 1,697,000 to 1,737,800 Total ... 4.29% to 4.39% of Population
• WWI U.S. deaths ... 117,466 Total ... 0.13% of population

• WWII French deaths ... 600,000 Total ... 1.44% of population
• WWII U.S. deaths ... 419,400 Total ... 0.32% of population

French casualties in Indochina were about 45,000-50,000 and U.S. casualties in Vietnam over 58,000. The U.S. population was about four times larger than France, thus the relative percentage of U.S. population was about 1/4th as much.

Too high of a price by any standard.
posted by cenoxo at 1:19 AM on November 13, 2018 [26 favorites]

Three major institutions ceasing their Twitter activity for a weekend does begin to look like a trend, doesn’t it? Maybe everyone’s on vacation?

Apparently, it's a boycott because of the Tucker Carlson thing, although the conspiracy is a lot more fun.
posted by parm at 2:07 AM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

The framing of the discovery of these bases as a “deception,” by contrast, increases the dangers that President Donald J. Trump in the United States might come to realize that his own impression of this year’s process with North Korea has been false all along, raising the possibility of the United States lashing out again Kim by resorting to military force.

just another normal day in 2018, where experts in North Korean policy worry that the choice of framing of an article in the Times may provoke the president of the united states into starting a nuclear war
posted by murphy slaw at 2:35 AM on November 13, 2018 [16 favorites]

A boycott is the simplest explanation for Fox's Twitter silence... except that it would be sort of pointless to protest without telling anyone, no? That Variety article merely cites "multiple outlets" but unless Fox is a moody teenager they can give their own reasons for their silence.

Of course, perhaps it's a matter of having it both ways -- they don't want to rock the boat by announcing the boycott and they don't want to alienate conservatives who believe one should happen. But Trump himself continues to use Twitter as usual, so just what sort of conservative is going to expect anyone else not to?

When I consider all the other conservative outlets gone silent likewise without having said anywhere "This is about the Tucker thing", I have to wonder.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 3:21 AM on November 13, 2018 [10 favorites]

...And Twitter boycott doesn’t explain why the National Enquirer and Fox News Politics FACEBOOK pages have been dark since Friday.
posted by Andrhia at 4:16 AM on November 13, 2018 [10 favorites]

Drudge deletes his tweets after a couple of days. Combine that with a few days no posting protest and it looks like he's deleted his account.
posted by chris24 at 4:20 AM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Has anyone watched Fox News? (I'm not volunteering) If they were boycotting Twitter (a) wouldn't they announce it every 30 minutes on TV, and (b) wouldn't Trump have threatened to boycott Twitter too?

I sure wish he'd boycott Twitter
posted by mmoncur at 4:28 AM on November 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

Maryland is taking Trump to court over Whitaker. NYT:

Now, Mr. Whitaker’s appointment is facing a court challenge. The State of Maryland is expected to ask a federal judge on Tuesday for an injunction declaring that Mr. Whitaker is not the legitimate acting attorney general as a matter of law, and that the position — and all its powers — instead rightfully belongs to the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein.

Mr. Trump may not “bypass the constitutional and statutory requirements for appointing someone to that office,” the plaintiffs said in a draft filing obtained by The New York Times.

The legal action escalates the uproar surrounding Mr. Trump’s installation of Mr. Whitaker as the nation’s top law-enforcement officer, from criticism of his basic credentials and his views on the Russia investigation to challenges to the legality of his appointment. Last week, Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate’s top Democrat, sent a letter demanding to know why Mr. Trump chose an “unconfirmed political appointee” as acting attorney general, rather than follow the Justice Department’s statutory line of succession.

Maryland is asking a judge — Ellen L. Hollander of the Federal District Court for the District of Maryland, a 2010 Obama appointee — to rule on who is the real acting attorney general as part of a lawsuit in which it sued Mr. Sessions in his official capacity. Because Mr. Sessions is no longer the attorney general, the judge must substitute his successor as a defendant in the litigation, so she has to decide who that successor legally is.

posted by chris24 at 4:28 AM on November 13, 2018 [44 favorites]

Norah O’Donnell from CBS this morning says

@PaulaReidCBS reports: “I’ve spoken with many sources with knowledge of the Special Counsel investigation, and we do expect new indictments to be coming as soon as today.”

So maybe there is something going on and we should buckle up.
posted by Brainy at 4:53 AM on November 13, 2018 [39 favorites]

Fucker fucks things up:
@RealDonaldTrump:

Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the U.S., China and Russia. But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two - How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not!

Get fucked, you fucking fucker. FUUUUUUCK you.
Edit: not gonna change a thing. I hate this fucking asshole like I have not hated any human being on this planet.
posted by PontifexPrimus at 5:01 AM on November 13, 2018 [86 favorites]

So maybe there is something going on and we should buckle up.

And maybe that's why he's suddenly starting shit with France.
posted by rhizome at 5:10 AM on November 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

Beyond the idiocy and ignorance of what NATO is and how it operates, this proves how much he was bothered by all the pix of Macron and Merkel being thick as thieves and excluding him. He's jealous and trying to gin up conflict between them because he hates being the third wheel. And is clueless and awful enough to risk restarting French-German tensions, which has killed tens of millions through history, to do it.
posted by chris24 at 5:12 AM on November 13, 2018 [16 favorites]

@RealDonaldTrump:
Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the U.S., China and Russia. But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two - How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not!

HAHAHAHA!
I thought someone had explained to him what Macron said and how NATO works while he was in Paris?

Anyway, I guess the rest of NATO are already working around him and generally waiting for him to disappear. One detail I gave a moment of thought during the Paris thing was that the press wrote "they" moved him away from Putin for the dinner. Who are "they"? The French hosts, his handlers, Merkel and Macron together? It seems he had originally been sat next to Putin and then someone changed their mind. Not really important and I try to keep away from the speculation stuff, but this detail struck me as an indication that someone has decided to be the adult(s) in the room.

Now it would be very nice if everyone in favor of democracy would grow up and begin treating that unfit president like the drooling oversize toddler he is.
posted by mumimor at 5:14 AM on November 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

He's jealous and trying to gin up conflict...

That's ridicu... no, that makes sense. Especially with the un-love coming from the Mueller situation, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Anyway, I guess the rest of NATO are already working around him...
The headline in 'Der Spiegel' (German magazine) was simply, "World leaders commemorate end of WWI, Trump stays in his room." Which, in German, was particularly dismissive.

Also from Der Spiegel was this quote from Putin:
"Europa ist eine starke wirtschaftliche Union und es ist ziemlich normal, dass Europa in Fragen der Verteidigung und Sicherheit unabhängig, eigenständig und souverän sein möchte" "Europe is a strong economic union and it is perfectly normal for Europe to want to be free, independent and sovereign in questions of defense and security" Maybe it was this tweaking of Trump's nose that put him in such a snit...
posted by From Bklyn at 5:27 AM on November 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

While Trump not only knows very little about 20th-c. history and its intricacies, but also seems to believe that history is an obnoxious non-real thing-of-the-past that disturbs what he is trying to do Right Now, I feel that the "it was Germany" tweet is based on yet simpler grounds. It's a game of "who's wearing the black hat," perfectly in line with the regressive sandbox battles mindset he is cultivating in all other interactions. It's good that I learned English reading the "Peanuts" because there's really not more to see here. The "Mad Punter" has struck again. Hee Hee.

Somehow sideways, the bon mot "you can't learn from history because history was written in German"* flutters past my mind here, no idea why. The joke is about old-fashioned historians, the language itself, and the fact that old German books are often set in difficult-to-decipher Fraktur (it is not about what Germans did in history, because that wouldn't be funny, would it now). But it's not that Trump would learn anything from history in any language, really.
posted by Namlit at 5:52 AM on November 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

Maybe? nice observation. at least a lot of news outlets have stopped leading with a headline of just repeating the stupid tweets. this is the sad state of progress in the media.

Yeah, all of a sudden in the past week the Boston Globe is leading its headlines with “Without evidence, Trump says ...” Some light bulb must have gone off at a meeting. They should read Metafilter more.
posted by Melismata at 6:01 AM on November 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

... the old “Speaking German” dig Otto used in Fish called Wanda...

posted by growabrain at 6:02 AM on November 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

So when is the last time a U.S. president did not visit Arlington or another military memorial on Veterans Day? This is a real question, not snark.
posted by sacre_bleu at 6:05 AM on November 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

So when is the last time a U.S. president did not visit Arlington or another military memorial on Veterans Day?

CNN: Obama Not the 1st President to Miss Memorial Day at Arlington (2010)

But that's not the real answer to the question.

The fact is that Trump, an utterly malignant narcissist, cares less than nothing for American dead. They can't provide the slavish adoration he depesperately desires, so they're worthless to him.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:17 AM on November 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

CNN and Acosta have filed a lawsuit against Trump, John Kelly, Sarah Sanders, Bill Shine, and two members of the Secret Service, alleging violations of First and Fifth Amendment rights.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:31 AM on November 13, 2018 [77 favorites]

Rep. [Jason] Lewis draws flak for blaming GOP election losses on John McCain - Brian Bakst, MN Public Radio

In an article he wrote for the WSJ:

"McCain's last-minute decision prompted a 'green wave' of liberal special-interest money, which was used to propagate false claims that the House plan 'gutted coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.' That line was the Democrats' most potent attack in the midterms," Lewis wrote in a commentary piece under the headline "Who Lost the House? John McCain."

Of course, Lewis lost his bid for reelection for MN 2nd Congressional District to Angie Craig.
posted by ZeusHumms at 6:32 AM on November 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

Regarding this claim from Lewis: Nobody's crystal ball works properly anymore these days... but mine tells me that if the ACA repeal had passed, the "green wave" would have been twice as high and the Republicans would have been in vastly more trouble because every ad saying "Representative X wants to take your healthcare" would have used the punchier "took away".

And kudos to CNN. It seems clear they ought to win on the merits because the rationale for barring Acosta was a blatant lie, and the White House might be on firmer ground if they'd just said "We don't like CNN as a matter of principle".
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:42 AM on November 13, 2018 [15 favorites]

So when is the last time a U.S. president did not visit Arlington or another military memorial on Veterans Day?

To answer the question formally, Obama was in Beijing for a summit in 2014 on Veteran's Day, but Biden took his place at Arlington. Obama still caught flack for it from certain corners.

This past Sunday, Pence visited troops at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson AK during a refueling stop at the beginning of his week-long Asia trip (his absence is going to make things that much more interesting at the Trump White House if shit hits the fan).
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:46 AM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

... on the Wednesday morning after the elections, it was work as usual when the nurse interrupted my stream of everyday afflictions to let me know that my next patient had answered “yes” to a screening question about suicidal thoughts. This jumps a patient to the top of the priority list, and we quickly ushered him in. I hadn’t seen Mr. A (a pseudonym) in more than a year, but physically, that was fine: His hypertension was well controlled with just one medication, and he’s managed to beat back his diabetes with a vigilant diet. His mental health, though, was a different story....
I’m a Doctor. Trump Is Taking a Serious Toll on My Patients
posted by growabrain at 6:52 AM on November 13, 2018 [34 favorites]

Yeah, that's just plain perjury, friendo.

It'd be nice if the media pushed back on the term "perjury trap." While it technically is a thing, asking about an actual crime the subject committed, which the subject would like to lie about due to guilty knowledge, but the prosecutor has proof of and therefore will know the subject is lying, isn't a perjury trap at all. It's prosecution of a guilty individual.
posted by Gelatin at 7:06 AM on November 13, 2018 [33 favorites]

well played, CNN:

John Aravosis: CNN hired GOP star-attorney Ted Olson, who refused to work for Trump when asked! Now that’s a troll.

posted by murphy slaw at 7:16 AM on November 13, 2018 [43 favorites]

Regarding the U.S.A.-flagged Trumpy Bear

Which advertises, "Show your patriotism with the new Trumpy Bear" in classic Cult of Personality style.

Often, a single leader became associated with this revolutionary transformation and came to be treated as a benevolent "guide" for the nation without whom the transformation to a better future could not occur. This has been generally the justification for personality cults that arose in totalitarian societies, such as those of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong.

Ceterum autem censeo Trumpem esse delendam
posted by kirkaracha at 7:25 AM on November 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

David Neiwert on authoritarian personalities, unrolled Twitter thread: "No authoritarian regime has ever existed without a substantial portion of the population it rules actively supporting and preferring it. They all have large armies of followers who sustain them in power. So to understand authoritarianism, it’s essential first to understand the distinctive personality types that are attracted to it and support it. Because this what is keeping Donald Trump’s presidency afloat, and what makes it a threat to democracy itself."
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:30 AM on November 13, 2018 [55 favorites]

...And Twitter boycott doesn’t explain why the National Enquirer and Fox News Politics FACEBOOK pages have been dark since Friday.

Lawyers like serving things late friday because it ruins their opposing counsel's weekend. I imagine people got something, and their lawyers said, "Don't do anything until we get back to you!"

And they haven't. And since they lawyers weren't going to change their plans, are now reviewing the filings, and getting ready to advise their clients.

I think the Roger Stone thing is bigger than anyone imagined.
posted by mikelieman at 7:43 AM on November 13, 2018 [10 favorites]

Beyond the idiocy and ignorance of what NATO is and how it operates, this proves how much he was bothered by all the pix of Macron and Merkel being thick as thieves and excluding him. He's jealous and trying to gin up conflict between them

I imagine that there are few things that would push Donald Trump's buttons more than "I'm sorry, you're not on the list for the VIP room."
posted by mikelieman at 7:47 AM on November 13, 2018 [10 favorites]

Trump closed a diplomatic office designed to keep track of released Guantánamo inmates and make sure they didn’t return to their insurgencies. Now the U.S. government has lost track of several of them, including one who has returned to Syria
posted by growabrain at 7:56 AM on November 13, 2018 [25 favorites]

Lawyers like serving things late friday because it ruins their opposing counsel's weekend.

I worked with someone who had someone served at his wedding, right at the altar. "Are you so-and-so?" Hard to evade at that point.

But yes -- process serving can one of the fun parts of lawyering, a real creative outlet for being an unabashed dick.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:03 AM on November 13, 2018 [17 favorites]

Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the U.S., China and Russia. But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two - How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not!

Unusually, Matthew Gertz notes Trump did not pick up this talking point from Fox:

AFAICT Fox & Friends did not cover Macron during the 6 am hour before Trump's 6:50 am tweet, which means the feedback loop is working the other way this morning.

Once Trump informed Fox & Friends they should be pissed about Macron, they got pissed about Macron.

And the president appears to have gotten the Macron approval rating talking point from Brian Kilmeade.

Left, Fox & Friends, 7:29 am:
Kilmeade: "Big picture, he's got 26 percent approval rating, he thought he'd pick up a few points by beating up on" Trump.

Right, Trump, 8:17 am: ["The problem is that Emmanuel suffers from a very low Approval Rating in France, 26%, and an unemployment rate of almost 10%." and so on and so forth] (pic)

Whatever it was that set Trump off about Macron, it's interesting that for a change Fox & Friends started following his lead.

And now @realDonaldTrump tweeted, "By the way, when the helicopter couldn’t fly to the first cemetery in France because of almost zero visibility, I suggested driving. Secret Service said NO, too far from airport & big Paris shutdown. Speech next day at American Cemetary in pouring rain! Little reported-Fake News!" (which had to be deleted and then reposted without typo).

Trump's public schedule is almost empty today, except for an intelligence briefing at 11:30 AM and a Diwali ceremony at 1:45 PM, so he's going to have a lot of "executive time".
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:04 AM on November 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

David Neiwert on authoritarian personalities,

H. Arendt's insight on the first behavioral cluster Neiwart identifies, authoritarian submission: nobody has the right to obey.
posted by progosk at 8:04 AM on November 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

Has anyone watched Fox News? (I'm not volunteering) If they were boycotting Twitter (a) wouldn't they announce it every 30 minutes on TV,

Basically ever weekday I spend an hour in a room that has Outnumbered on in the background and I haven't noticed anything.

I'm envisioning something funny like those notifications aired on cable/satellite telling customers to call and complain when negotiations fall apart for random channels, but as far as I've noticed there hasn't been any mention of Twitter whatsoever. Though this particular show might not be the typical avenue for that sort of thing, I don't know.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:08 AM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Conservatives have gone fully fact-free: So how the heck do we even talk to them? - Amanda Marcotte, Salon

The “debate” over the Jim Acosta video shows the right has no use for facts. Is there any way to talk to them?
…
In truth, it doesn't actually require much in the way of grace or wits to gaslight liberals. All it requires is a shameless willingness to say obviously false things, and then watch your opponents -- still romantically attached to the idea of reasoned debate -- grow increasingly desperate in insisting that objective reality should inform one's opinions.
…
The first thing liberals and journalists should do is find ways to speak the truth without inviting conservatives to troll them with "debate" about it — debate that will inevitably just be the pitting of lies against truths, leaving those who still believe in reason frustrated and giving conservatives endless opportunities to gloat about their triggering talents.
...
There are a variety of tools that accomplish this, but the primary one is to avoid speaking to liars and instead speak about them.
...
Brevity is key here. Whenever you're explaining, you're losing.
…
It's a good idea to remember what the troll is trying to get out of this situation. For most conservatives who play this game, they "win" either by baiting a liberal into a pointless and unwinnable debate or by making the liberal flustered and angry. So don't reward them by giving them either.
...
Instead, try to raise the social costs of lying for the purpose of trolling -- as high as possible. For randos on social media, shame is admittedly unlikely. Blocking them and depriving them of the interaction they crave is the only real method. But on those occasions when you're engaged with a coworker, friend or family member, that's a time that social shaming — which liberals are often reluctant to use, but which can be really effective — is helpful.

posted by ZeusHumms at 8:10 AM on November 13, 2018 [40 favorites]

Here's a chart from Critical Mention of all 2,500+ caravan mentions on Fox News from Oct 1st - today.
Fox peaked at more than 200 mentions, including re-runs on Oct. 22.
On Monday, 5 references.
posted by growabrain at 8:12 AM on November 13, 2018 [15 favorites]

Conservatives have gone fully fact-free: So how the heck do we even talk to them? - Amanda Marcotte, Salon

"avoid speaking to liars and instead speak about them"

My family is a blissful liberal bubble, but this article is an excellent guide to Thanksgiving for many here. Also a reasonable blueprint for political strategy from the left.
posted by mcstayinskool at 8:27 AM on November 13, 2018 [27 favorites]

Rep. [Jason] Lewis draws flak for blaming GOP election losses on John McCain

Lewis is the charmer who had a sad that you couldn't call women sluts anymore. And when confronted about it during the campaign, stood by those comments.
posted by chris24 at 8:46 AM on November 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

So when is the last time a U.S. president did not visit Arlington or another military memorial on Veterans Day?

CNN: Obama Not the 1st President to Miss Memorial Day at Arlington (2010)

But that's not the real answer to the question.

Particularly since he was attending a memorial at a different military graveyard.

"Let's set the record straight. Mr. Obama will participate today in a ceremony at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois, about 50 miles south of Chicago."
posted by srboisvert at 9:12 AM on November 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

RE: The Wisconsin Nazi school in Baraboo:
Jordan Blue is the only student not saluting.
Reporter Jules Suzdaltsev added: I called my grandma last night to let her know that internet Nazis had posted her address online because they were mad about something I wrote, and she said, "It's okay дорогой, if Nazis are mad at you then you're doing something right."
posted by growabrain at 9:15 AM on November 13, 2018 [80 favorites]

On Nielsen's replacement: frothingly anti-immigration Senator Tom Cotton [R - AR] spent the weekend making a lot of really uninformed tweets about asylum and such. It was probably his audition.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:15 AM on November 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

> On Nielsen's replacement: frothingly anti-immigration Senator Tom Cotton [R - AR] spent the weekend making a lot of really uninformed tweets about asylum and such. It was probably his audition.

I know that a special election in Arkansas would be a very remote pickup possibility, but the Trumpists have got to be looking at Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) and thinking long and hard about giving up a Senate incumbent at this point...

(And having written that, maybe Arkansas has some bizarre anti-democratic Senator replacement procedure?)
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:23 AM on November 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

homunculus: Doctors release new recommendations to reduce gun violence.

NRA tweet warns doctors to 'stay in their lane' over gun control.

After California Shooting, Doctors Hit Back at NRA for Trying to Silence Them Over Guns.

After Pittsburgh, Thousand Oaks, Will New Congress Push for Gun Safety Research?

Thousand Oaks parents: ‘I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts. I want gun control.’

Very related, from the prior elections thread -- Chrysostom: 15 House Republicans with A NRA ratings lost on Tuesday. All 15 were replaced by Democrats with F NRA ratings.

A Third Rail No More: Incoming House Democrats Embrace Gun Control (NPR, Nov. 13, 2018)

The deadly mass shooting at a bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., last week came less than a day after dozens of Democrats who campaigned on promises to strengthen gun laws were elected to the House of Representatives. Across the country, candidates from Virginia, Georgia, Texas and Washington State bluntly called for more gun safety, seemingly emboldened to take on the NRA.

In total, 95 candidates endorsed by Giffords PAC won seats in the House. Giffords PAC is the gun-violence prevention group founded by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband.

Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, pointed to equally successful results — an 83 percent win rate among its 66 endorsements in federal races.

Both groups insist that in contests where they took on incumbents supported by the NRA, they were more successful than the powerful gun lobby.

In an emailed statement, the NRA said "gun control was not a decisive factor on election day," disputed the notion of a "blue wave" and pointed to key Senate wins in Tennessee, Indiana and Missouri, where NRA-backed candidates defeated Democratic incumbents.

Still, the NRA has not seen this level of electoral pushback in a long time. In recent elections, gun rights groups have consistently outspent gun control groups, according to data analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics. But not this year. Gun control groups spent about $2.4 million more than gun rights groups on congressional races in 2018.

First we ouspend them, then we win elections, and then we start addressing gun violence prevention (Angie Craig's section on gun violence prevention, which looks like a good start). Then we brand NRA a terrorist group? Enough of thoughts and prayers and fistfuls of NRA money (Michael Hiltzi for Los Angeles Times, Feb. 15, 2018). Banning firearm research is good as killing people, and then there's fear-mongering about "taking away your guns," even right after mass shootings (David Smith for The Guardian, Feb. 22, 2018).
posted by filthy light thief at 9:26 AM on November 13, 2018 [43 favorites]

Also from NPR today -- Firearms And Dementia: How Do You Convince A Loved One To Give Up Their Guns?

Good on NPR on pairing the policy with emotions, as facts alone are pushed aside as "fake news" or countered with other "facts."
posted by filthy light thief at 9:28 AM on November 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

Trump's public schedule is almost empty today, except for an intelligence briefing at 11:30 AM and a Diwali ceremony at 1:45 PM, so he's going to have a lot of "executive time".

Obama used to get shit about taking time to do an NCAA bracket.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:30 AM on November 13, 2018 [27 favorites]

some bizarre anti-democratic Senator replacement procedure

its just called racist voter supression.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:32 AM on November 13, 2018

It is worth noting that Arkansas passed that bill in February of 2017.
posted by soelo at 9:39 AM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

I think the Roger Stone thing is bigger than anyone imagined.

It's already been proven that Roger Stone was in contact with Russian military intelligence about election interference. From there, it's easy to imagine a black hole–sized political scandal, even if we can only vaguely infer it at the moment.

NYT: In North Korea, Missile Bases Suggest a Great Deception

Meanwhile, @realDonaldTrump has moved on to defending himself against the new story out of North Korea, calling it "inaccurate" and "Just more Fake News." Claiming his administration "fully know about the sites being discussed", he promises his faithful, "I will be the first to let you know if things go bad!"

While South Korea agrees, 'Nothing New' In Report Identifying North Korean Bases—"North Korea never pledged a promise to abandon this missile sites," a spokesman for South Korea's president said (NBC), Trump's problem is that it shows him up as a master of the so-called art of the deal and instead just an ignorant huckster blundering about on the world stage.

Reminder: On July 13, @realDonaldTrump tweeted, "Just landed - a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!"
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:00 AM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Mueller seeking more details on Nigel Farage, claims Jerome Corsi, particularly interesting with the Brexit deal details coming out today
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:11 AM on November 13, 2018 [15 favorites]

(And having written that, maybe Arkansas has some bizarre anti-democratic Senator replacement procedure?)

As noted, Arkansas appoints Senate replacements. Is this anti-democratic, I guess, maybe? But 36 states do it, it's not some crypto-Jim Crow thing that only AR and MS do, or whatever.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:16 AM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Time for a new Brexit thread, clearly.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:19 AM on November 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

After 18 years of Bush, Obama & Trump, BuzzFlash Bids a Fond Farewell
posted by growabrain at 10:21 AM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

TPM: WSJ Says Deputy NSC Director to Be Canned Over Spat with FLOTUS
posted by Chrysostom at 10:21 AM on November 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

claims Jerome Corsi

why anyone thinks that anything that comes out of the mouth of someone who's best buds with Roger Stone is newsworthy is beyond me.
posted by murphy slaw at 10:22 AM on November 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

Chrysostom: Time for a new Brexit thread, clearly.

A political blog I occasionally visit (Outside the Beltway) has already used the best possible title for it: Bregrets, They’ve Had A Few
posted by InTheYear2017 at 10:29 AM on November 13, 2018 [16 favorites]

why anyone thinks that anything that comes out of the mouth of someone who's best buds with Roger Stone is newsworthy is beyond me.
Indeed, it will be interesting after all this to look at how Stone, Corsi & Co. were trying to spin what they thought was going on and supplant themselves as the source of all things Mueller.
posted by Harry Caul at 10:34 AM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

claims Jerome Corsi

THis is the guy who piled up money by peddling a pseudoscientific theory of the earth's core being a source of an ever renewing supply of hydrocarbons.

Laughable, but his claims helped retard US progress towards getting off fossil fuels by a decade. I will toast the day he passes on to his reward
posted by ocschwar at 10:43 AM on November 13, 2018 [10 favorites]

(People who wonder what Tom Cotton getting a cabinet post would mean for Arkansas might enjoy this piece of analysis from last year, when the rumor was CIA director.)
posted by box at 10:52 AM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Chrysostom: TPM: WSJ Says Deputy NSC Director to Be Canned Over Spat with FLOTUS

Pulling quotes from the quoted WSJ piece:

The president became involved in that decision at the urging of first lady Melania Trump, whose staff battled with Ms. Ricardel during the first lady’s trip to Africa last month over seating on the plane and requests to use National Security Council resources, according to people familiar with the matter.

The first lady’s team told the president that they suspect Ms. Ricardel is behind some negative stories about Ms. Trump and her staff.

Ms. Ricardel also repeatedly clashed with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and his Pentagon team over staffing decisions and policy differences, according to people familiar with the feud. That discord has created a chill in relations between Ms. Ricardel and Defense Department officials wary of her intentions, these people say.

Ms. Ricardel has served as a vital ally for Mr. Bolton as he settled into his West Wing role after taking the national security job in April. Mr. Bolton lost another loyalist last month when his longtime friend, Fred Fleitz, stepped down after serving just six months as chief of staff and executive secretary for the National Security Council.

Focusing on the "spat" undermines the fact that Donald "I Like Conflict" Trump (Yahoo News, March 6, 2018) creates his own in-house chaos, because it entertains him.

Also, a reminder that this rate of turn-over is ridiculous, not the sign of a well-oiled machine. We can't forget that this isn't normal.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:56 AM on November 13, 2018 [22 favorites]

Also, a reminder that this rate of turn-over is ridiculous

Just wait until the congressional investigations get going!
posted by C'est la D.C. at 11:00 AM on November 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

claims Jerome Corsi --- THis is the guy who piled up money by peddling a pseudoscientific theory of the earth's core being a source of an ever renewing supply of hydrocarbons.

He's also Mr. Swift Boat so he can fuck off and die forever.
posted by chris24 at 11:15 AM on November 13, 2018 [37 favorites]

I love that France is trolling Trump.

French Embassy U.S. (@franceintheus)
Yesterday we participated in a ceremony at @ArlingtonNatl to honor the sacrifices of soldiers during #WWI by laying a wreath on the tomb of the #UnknownSoldier. #VeteransDay
PIX
posted by chris24 at 11:18 AM on November 13, 2018 [42 favorites]

I'm very fortunate in that my parents have been very progressive their whole life. However, they've not been the sort of people who attend rallies or protests. Trump has them fired up. My 77 year old (former-air force) dad went to his first political protest last Thursday. He got the Move-On notification at 4:30 and was there with a sign in his hand that said "Resist" by 5. I've always been proud of him, but I was so proud of him this time that I cried a little when I heard that he'd done that. My mom was at her volunteer job or she would have gone too.

Part of me hates that my parents are having to do this in their retirement years, but a bigger part of me is just so proud that they are willing to drop everything and stand up for truth and justice.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:21 AM on November 13, 2018 [82 favorites]

Daniel Dale delivers "Donald Trump Does Diwali":

—At his White House Diwali event, Trump calls up FCC chair Ajit Pai, then chides him over, I think, his handling of conservative Sinclair's attempt to buy Tribune Media: "I just didn't like one decision he made, but that's alright. Not even a little bit. But he's independent."
—Trump, instructed to light the multiple parts of the Diya, says he didn't want to be selfish. Pointing at the journalists in the room, he says, "They'll accuse me of being selfish."
—Struggling briefly to light one of the parts of the Diya, Trump says, "I thought somebody set me up here...where they think it's so cute...they didn't do that."

Short but sweet. And by sweet, I mean appalling.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:24 AM on November 13, 2018 [13 favorites]

John Santucci
‏ @Santucci

Just asked the First Lady’s office about deputy national security advisor Mira Ricardel : “It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House,” Stephanie Grisham The First Lady’s communication director to @ABC
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:31 AM on November 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

That is a really strong statement from the FLOTUS office. I would love to know more details about what happened on the Africa trip.
posted by all about eevee at 11:35 AM on November 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

For the FLOTUS to speak this loudly about it, it must have been one hell of a fight that provoked this statement -- like shouting obscenities and throwing of crockery.
posted by JackFlash at 11:37 AM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

chris24: I love that France is trolling Trump.

French Embassy U.S. (@franceintheus) Yesterday we participated in a ceremony at @ArlingtonNatl to honor the sacrifices of soldiers during #WWI by laying a wreath on the tomb of the #UnknownSoldier. #VeteransDay

Trolling Trump can (now) be done by simply being humane.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:37 AM on November 13, 2018 [29 favorites]

Ms. Ricardel has served as a vital ally for Mr. Bolton as he settled into his West Wing role after taking the national security job in April. Mr. Bolton lost another loyalist last month when his longtime friend, Fred Fleitz, stepped down after serving just six months as chief of staff and executive secretary for the National Security Council.

Bolton used to be a Rumsfeld-class bureaucratic wrangler who made short work of H. R. McMasters when he came for his job. Now, barely more than half a year into running Donald Trump's National Security Council, he's down one ally and in danger of losing another. This is some Game of Thrones nonsense going here.

Instead of concentrating on his favorite project of threatening Iran, Bolton has to contend with distractions like cleaning up Jared's mess—saying the audio tape of Khashoggi's killing doesn't implicate the Saudi crown prince—or this spat with Melania. He looks like another example of the political adage "Everything Trump Touches Dies".

Sarah Kendzior, independent journalist and expert in authoritarians, puts this donnybrook in context: "Typical in autocratic governments. They fire frequently to create chaos and leave a void, weakening external checks. The void is then filled by an increasingly narrow circle of loyalists. The longer in power, the more paranoid the ruler gets, and the narrower the circle becomes."
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:39 AM on November 13, 2018 [25 favorites]

Trolling Trump ~~can (now)~~ could always be done by simply being humane.

FTFY, cf. the Central Park Five.
posted by bcd at 11:43 AM on November 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

Just asked the First Lady’s office about deputy national security advisor Mira Ricardel : “It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House,”

Request for clarification of the antecdent of "she" in that statement.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:55 AM on November 13, 2018 [62 favorites]

This is one of those times when we know that at least one party is wrong, and likely lying, but we don't know why, or which (or whether it's really both.)

Trump is lying. If the President of the United States wants to go to a thing, particularly a thing to which he was invited and which has had advance teams and is not currently under some form of hurricane advisory and/or declaration of war, then his people (including his Marine air crew and his Secret Service detail) will get him there. If they cannot do so, then they will publicly and exhaustively detail the reasoning that went into that decision. Neither Marine Helicopter Squadron One nor the Secret Service has done anything of the sort. This is most likely because they are currently engaged in a shouting match with someone in Kelly's or Sanders' office; it may also be because no one has bothered to ask them to lie about it, because they know there would be a shouting match, and it is better simply to let Trump tell the lie and ignore questions about it.

Trump is lying. He didn't want to go, he didn't care that it would become a thing, he thinks he can use it as more "#FakeNews!!1!" tweet fodder, and he's probably right.
posted by Etrigan at 12:00 PM on November 13, 2018 [74 favorites]

We're talking about a security and support apparatus that literally ships a helicopter and motorcade overseas with the president whenever he travels. This was a super public moment of diplomatic importance and a moment of importance for the military--particularly, the military branch flying that very helicopter. A support/security screw-up on this would be the end of careers. If the president wanted to go, they would have gotten him there.

My first suspicion is Trump had some sort of meltdown in Paris and it's only a question of whether it was a matter of his physical health or something mental or emotional. It's possible he was with his inner circle freaking out about the mid-terms and indictments and all that. Trump's Razor suggests he was either throwing a tantrum or his lifestyle caught up with him while he was traveling and he doesn't want anyone to know he's a mess.

They make contingency plans. They have protocols for everything. The one thing that could break down to stop the show isn't the weather or the helicopter or the motorcade. It's the guy they're all there to escort.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:12 PM on November 13, 2018 [89 favorites]

The Backlash to the GOP’s Union-Bashing Has Begun in Earnest: After a string of attacks on organized labor across the Midwest in recent years, Republicans are starting to pay at the polls.
posted by homunculus at 12:33 PM on November 13, 2018 [21 favorites]

I didn't think the Dale's coverage of Trump's Diwali ceremony needed a [real] tag, but those are the reports coming out. We're accustomed to full-blown shit-shows, but this was more like a shit-sketch.

Maggie Haberman relayed:

"Thank you very much everybody, we'll be talking about," Trump tells the pool at the Diwali ceremony when questions about Nielsen and the CNN suit were shouted out.

He then walked out of the room.

Her colleague Niraj Chokshi has more:

President Trump just announced his nominee to replace Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit: Neomi Rao, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

He announced it at a Diwali ceremony. "We were going to announce that tomorrow,” he said.

Buzzfeed's Zoe Tillman has posted an article about Rao: Trump Is Nominating Neomi Rao To Take Justice Brett Kavanaugh's Former Seat, noting, "Rao was considered a frontrunner for Kavanaugh's seat from the start (see our story right after Kavanaugh was confirmed[...] — she's got a long track record in administrative law, which is a big part of the DC Circuit docket, and deep conservative bona fides. Why does the DC Circuit matter? It's the main forum for big legal fights over executive power and agency actions[…]."
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:36 PM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Just asked the First Lady’s office about deputy national security advisor Mira Ricardel : “It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House,” Stephanie Grisham The First Lady’s communication director to @ABC

Join me for a moment in a brief magical journey back to the time when things mattered. The year was 1993, when seven employees of the White House Travel Office were fired. First Lady Hillary Clinton was accused of orchestrating the firings, then lying about them. This led to William Safire calling Hillary "a congenital liar," connected to the Vince Foster narrative in ways not worth getting into, and set the stage for *waves hands variously at all this*. The investigations lasted from 1993 all the way to 2000, and Clinton was wildly painted as Machiavellian and deceitful for exceeding her expected role as First Lady.

So of course here we are in 2018, and the First Lady's office, and I remind you that nobody elected Melania Trump, is openly decreeing that a national security aide should be fired. Nothing matters.
posted by zachlipton at 12:40 PM on November 13, 2018 [118 favorites]

And just an update on that:

@MichaelCBender: John Bolton’s No. 2, Mira Ricardel, was escorted from the White House moments ago, an administration officials tell ⁦@WSJ⁩. Ricardel was standing just a few feet from President Trump earlier this afternoon.
posted by zachlipton at 12:42 PM on November 13, 2018 [23 favorites]

The Trump administration's series of corruption scandals has regionals…

AL.com: Trump’s Southeast Regional EPA Administrator Indicted On Alabama Ethics Charges "A Jefferson County grand jury has indicted the Southeast regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and a former Alabama Environmental Management Commissioner for violating state ethics laws. Charges include multiple violations of Alabama’s Ethics Act, including soliciting a thing of value from a principal, lobbyist or subordinate, and receiving money in addition that received in one’s official capacity, according to the Alabama Ethics Commission."

Now that Trump's appointees have had a year or two to get their snouts in the public trough, we can expect more of this sort of thing to break into the headlines.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:43 PM on November 13, 2018 [20 favorites]

And just an update on that update on that, from @EamonJavers [CNBC]:

A White House official just told reporters the WSJ story is not accurate. Says Mira Ricardel has not been fired or escorted off the grounds and is at her desk and still works at the WH now.

Asked if the White House has a response to the statement from the First Lady’s spokesperson that Ricardel “no longer deserved the honor of serving in the White House” the official said: “the East Wing speaks for the East Wing.” I asked the official if Ricardel will still be sitting at her desk tomorrow. The official said: “I don’t know, will you guys be sitting in your booths tomorrow? We’ll see.”

So everyone hates everyone, basic facts like "is this person inside or outside" are apparently unknowable, and we're randomly threatening to throw the press corps out of the building. Welcome to Tuesday at the White House.
posted by zachlipton at 12:58 PM on November 13, 2018 [47 favorites]

John Bolton’s No. 2, Mira Ricardel, was escorted from the White House moments ago

They (Team Melania?) waited until Bolton was traveling in Singapore to axe her.

Time for CNN to update their scoreboard: Who Has Left Trump's Administration and Orbit? Ricardel lasted only 183 days—just as long as Sean Spicer. (Nikki Haley is the current record-holder for longest-lasting departing Trump official. Jeff Sessions follows, just barely ahead of Don McGahn, having served 639 days to McGahn's 636.)

Trump's claims of running a "well-oiled machine" notwithstanding, this astonishing rate of turnover is deeply abnormal.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:59 PM on November 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Time for CNN to update their scoreboard: Who Has Left Trump's Administration and Orbit? Ricardel lasted only 183 days—just as long as Sean Spicer. (Nikki Haley is the current record-holder for longest-lasting departing Trump official. Jeff Sessions follows, just barely ahead of Don McGahn, having served 639 days to McGahn's 636.)

anthony scaramucci's record stands untouched, and seems likely to remain so.

(technically he tied with sally yates but she was not hired by trump)
posted by murphy slaw at 1:02 PM on November 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

@anniekarni: A new thing on Trump’s private schedule that I haven’t seen before: in addition to some “executive time” today, he has two blocks of “policy time.”

@jdawsey1: It was installed earlier this year to help him focus on issues. A Kelly creation. It sometimes goes better than others.

So Trump's executive time can be interrupted by policy time, which is presumably when Kelly tells him he has to turn off the TV and get his homework done before Tucker Carlson comes on.
posted by zachlipton at 1:07 PM on November 13, 2018 [33 favorites]

So, um, Scavino thought it would be nice to use Trump's account to tweet about the President's Diwali celebration. Except he called it "a holiday observed by Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains throughout the United States." As the first, second, and fourth sentences of the Wikipedia article on Diwali will tell you, it's celebrated by Hindus.

No worries, he'll just delete the tweet and try again, except, no, wait, he made the same mistake a second time.
posted by zachlipton at 1:16 PM on November 13, 2018 [39 favorites]

"a holiday observed by Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains throughout the United States."

TRUMP: We're starting to say merry Diwali again... You notice a big difference between now and two or three years ago? It was going in the other direction rapidly, right? [fake]
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 1:21 PM on November 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

Sopan Deb on twitter (in the same twitter thread zachlipton linked to):
WERE GOING TO START SAYING HAPPY DIWALI AGAIN! [real- sarcastic, but real]
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 1:23 PM on November 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

It is celebrated by some in those groups in addition to Hindus according to the Wikipedia entry.
posted by wobumingbai at 1:25 PM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yes, I should clarify Diwali is not only celebrated by Hindus, but since there are over a billion adherents to Hinduism around the world, it's a major omission.

His third attempt finally mentions Hindus, but omits all the other religions previously mentioned.
posted by zachlipton at 1:28 PM on November 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

In summary, Diwali is a holiday of contrast.
posted by cmfletcher at 1:33 PM on November 13, 2018 [56 favorites]

Diwali is celebrated by Hindus, and Sikhs have their own concurrent holiday. It's like Christmas season. Honestly, I can't tell if @realDonaldTrump is deliberately trolling us by repeatedly screwing up like this as a distraction or if they're really that stupid and the distraction is just a by-product.

The LA Times paints an ugly picture of behind the scenes at the Trump White House: Trump, Stung By Midterms And Nervous About Mueller, Retreats From Traditional Presidential Duties

With the certainty that the incoming Democratic House majority will go after his tax returns and investigate his actions, and the likelihood of additional indictments by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Trump has retreated into a cocoon of bitterness and resentment, according to multiple administration sources.

Behind the scenes, they say, the president has lashed out at several aides, from junior press assistants to senior officials. “He’s furious,” said one administration official. “Most staffers are trying to avoid him.”

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of a brooding president “trying to decide who to blame” for Republicans’ election losses, even as he publicly and implausibly continues to claim victory.

The LAT also addresses how Trump's sulking will further undermine his administration's standing at the ongoing Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which Mike Pence is attending in his place (in itself a snub to our Asian allies).
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:36 PM on November 13, 2018 [14 favorites]

if I were one of our Asian allies, I'd be pretty pleased DJT didn't come.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:37 PM on November 13, 2018 [13 favorites]

Maryland AG files motion challenging Whitaker appointment " Frosh said in a statement, "The Constitution and Congress have established vitally important processes for filling high-level vacancies in the federal government. Few positions are more critical than that of U.S. Attorney General, an office that wields enormous enforcement power and authority over the lives of all Americans. President Trump's brazen attempt to flout the law and Constitution in bypassing Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rosenstein in favor of a partisan and unqualified staffer cannot stand."
posted by Harry Caul at 1:39 PM on November 13, 2018 [15 favorites]

The US is making it harder to cross the border at Tijuana (Buzzfeed):

It’s the latest mission for the thousands of troops the Trump administration has deployed to the border as a result of the incoming migrant caravan. As the thousands of Central Americans have approached, the White House has ordered a number of policy shifts that advocates and experts characterize as legally questionable, ineffective, and frenzied. [...]

Former Homeland Security officials pointed to the shutdown as evidence that the administration cares little about migrants making asylum claims when they arrive at the border.

“At the end of the day, they want to block people from making asylum claims — period,” said John Sandweg, former head of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Obama administration. “It isn’t about the reasons they purported to say in the regulation and proclamation — to create a more orderly process — this is about blocking people from making asylum claims and getting around the statutes.”
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:42 PM on November 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

...it's beginning to look a lot like Diwali...
posted by growabrain at 1:43 PM on November 13, 2018

A White House official just told reporters the WSJ story is not accurate.

Is it too much to ask, if we're taking official statements from people, and particularly official contradictions of press reports, that we name them?
posted by jackbishop at 1:46 PM on November 13, 2018 [16 favorites]

What the hell is going on here? And who the hell is Javer's source?

Sounds an awful lot like Sarah Huckabee-Sanders, to me.

Although the "we'll see" is a favorite expression of the orange pupa currently cocooning in bitterness and resentment.
posted by notyou at 1:48 PM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

HuffPost, Republicans Launch Surprise Bid To Prevent Debate On U.S. Support For Bloody Saudi War

Republican leadership in the House of Representatives will move Tuesday evening to quash a bill that would end U.S. support for the brutal Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen, a Democratic aide and an activist in touch with multiple Capitol Hill offices told HuffPost.

Coming on the first day of a lame-duck session — the GOP’s final few weeks controlling the lower chamber — the bid surprised anti-war advocates and top Democrats who have been rallying opposition to the controversial Yemen war for months and made clear they wanted a serious debate on the matter soon after the midterms.

The bill argues that the U.S. assistance is illegal, since Congress never voted on it, and the legislation has the public support of the Democratic future chairmen of the most important House panels dealing with foreign policy ― Reps. Adam Smith (Wash.) and Eliot Engel (N.Y.) ― as well as leaders like Democratic Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.)
...
Meanwhile, the situation in Yemen has become more dire, with the United Nations repeatedly calling it the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and aid groups issuing urgent warnings over the past two months that more than 14 million people are on the brink of famine.

posted by zachlipton at 1:48 PM on November 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

Maryland AG files motion challenging Whitaker appointment

Motion and memorandum of law, if you're into those things.
posted by mikelieman at 1:49 PM on November 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm just holding out for Muellerwali later this week.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:50 PM on November 13, 2018 [72 favorites]

> The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of a brooding president “trying to decide who to blame” for Republicans’ election losses, even as he publicly and implausibly continues to claim victory.

The scaffolding holding Trump's ego in place must be incredibly intricate yet rickety. I picture a building which was built too tall and starts to lean to one side, forcing workers to hastily lay down temporary support structures, which in turn cause the building the lean the other way, which necessitates the establishment of support structures on that side, etc., etc., forever.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:50 PM on November 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

Some updates on the CNN lawsuit.

@chrisgeidner: The CNN lawsuit against Trump has been assigned to Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee who was a former counsel to Chuck Grassley. FWIW: I don't think it's as clear a sign as you all do that it was assigned to Judge Kelly! Note: He worked for Grassley on Judiciary when Grassley and Graham were the two Republicans to vote for the federal media shield law in committee.

@chrisgeidner: JUST IN: Judge orders the Trump administration to respond to CNN's TRO request by 11a Wednesday. Hearing set for 3:30p Wednesday.

So this is moving quickly.
posted by zachlipton at 1:55 PM on November 13, 2018 [22 favorites]

I picture Trump's psyche as the Winchester Mystery House
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 1:57 PM on November 13, 2018 [22 favorites]

Doktor Zed: The LA Times paints an ugly picture of behind the scenes at the Trump White House: Trump, Stung By Midterms And Nervous About Mueller, Retreats From Traditional Presidential Duties

I'd like a graph or some other document detailing what Trump used to do that was so presidential that he has stopped doing, like the President's daily briefings ... oh wait, he stopped taking daily briefings before he was in office (reported by NPR on Dec. 13, 2016).
posted by filthy light thief at 2:11 PM on November 13, 2018 [13 favorites]

@chrisgeidner: JUST IN: Judge orders the Trump administration to respond to CNN's TRO request by 11a Wednesday. Hearing set for 3:30p Wednesday.

1:18-cv-02610 CABLE NEWS NETWORK, INC. et al v. TRUMP et al
Anyone got a PACER account they don't mind using?
posted by mikelieman at 2:22 PM on November 13, 2018

> Maryland AG files motion challenging Whitaker appointment

Maryland Challenges Appointment of Trump’s Acting Attorney General

This is connected to Maryland's current law suit against the DOJ over the ACA:

Maryland’s current motion is relevant to Maryland’s ongoing lawsuit from September, suing the ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions for “his official capacity” joining in with a Texas case that attempted to “dismantle” the Affordable Care Act.

In June, the Justice Department refused to defend the ACA in a Texas Case that attempted to tried to throw out Major ACA provisions, like protecting individuals with pre-existing conditions. They also argued that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had made the Obama Administrations the healthcare tax mandate unconstitutional.

Judge Hollander’s ruling will determine who can legally substitute for Sessions as a defendant in this ACA suit.

“The health care of millions of Marylanders and Americans is at stake,” said Frosh. “The suit cannot go forward without a legitimate Attorney General, and an Acting Attorney General making decisions that could affect matters of life and death without lawful authority puts all of us at risk.”

posted by homunculus at 2:22 PM on November 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

> Fox News hasn't tweeted in, so far as I can tell, 4 full days.

Ditto WikiLeaks, coincidentally.

And Julian Assange's blue-ticked Twitter account @JulianAssange has now been suspended.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:25 PM on November 13, 2018 [24 favorites]

Hmmm... All this twitter accounts going dark. I guess finally Twitter exec realize that furthering a conspiracy is a bad idea.

Unlawful use

You may not use our service for any unlawful purposes or in furtherance of illegal activities. By using Twitter, you agree to comply with all applicable laws governing your online conduct and content.

posted by mikelieman at 2:31 PM on November 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Anyone have a pulse on the bot traffic on Twitter? Any strange hashtags or trends popping up?
posted by filthy light thief at 2:35 PM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

mikelieman: I guess finally Twitter exec realize that furthering a conspiracy is a bad idea.

If Twitter itself were the one behind the silence (which seems to include Fox, Wikileaks, and... Jill Stein!), we'd hear, in other corners of the web, absolutely no end of the whining from at least some of those involved. Also, the company would simply name the policy being followed and/or apply a formal block, as they have done plenty of times in the past.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 2:39 PM on November 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

Ooh! I think I hear Mueller sliding down twitter's chimney! 🎄
posted by sexyrobot at 2:43 PM on November 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

Jill Stein has been mostly quiet but she tweeted once and retweeted a couple things so I don't know if she should be included in the radio silence or not.
posted by Justinian at 2:43 PM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Buzzfeed: Joseph Mifsud Wants to Testify Before the Senate, a Lawyer Claims—“We are working towards his appearance,” a lawyer closely associated with the Maltese professor wrote in an email to BuzzFeed News.

"[I]n an email to BuzzFeed News sent on Monday, Stephan Roh, a 51-year-old Swiss lawyer with a long history of dealings with Mifsud, wrote, “Prof Mifsud is to testify in front of the US Senate — we are working towards his appearance.” Spokespeople for the Senate Intelligence Committee declined to comment, and BuzzFeed News has been unable to independently verify this claim."

The Atlantic's Natasha Bertrand: "New: Joseph Mifsud's lawyer Stephan Roh told me a few days ago that he is negotiating with the Senate Intelligence Committee to have Mifsud testify. Senate Intel has declined to comment, but since BuzzFeed just reported on Roh's claims, here's the full email he sent me on Friday. Note: This was his response to my questions about the claims in his book, that Papadopoulos has been echoing, that Mifsud was associated with western intelligence agencies." (pic)

Roh sounds like a piece of work, per Bertrand, writing in the Atlantic last May:

FBI agents working for special counsel Robert Mueller allegedly detained a lawyer with ties to Russia who is closely associated with Joseph Mifsud, the shadowy professor who claimed during the election that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

The revelation was made in a book co-written by that lawyer, Stephan Roh, and set to be published next month. “The Faking of RUSSIA-GATE: The Papadopoulos Case” is the latest in a stream of books aiming to capitalize on the chaos of this political moment.[...]

The lawyer allegedly questioned by Mueller’s team, Stephan Roh, is a German multimillionaire with ties to Russia. He hired Mifsud as a “business-development consultant” in 2015, and is Mifsud’s “partner and best friend” and “the money behind him,” Papadopoulos’s wife, Simona Mangiante, who worked for Mifsud briefly, told me. Roh’s wife is Olga Roh, a Russian fashion designer who appeared on the British reality TV show Meet the Russians.[...]

Roh intersected with Mifsud at two institutions: the now-defunct London Academy of Diplomacy and Link Campus University, a private institution in Rome that Roh co-owns, and where Mifsud taught briefly. In April 2016, Mifsud and Roh spoke on a panel together at the Kremlin-backed Valdai Club—a think tank that is close to President Vladimir Putin and hosts him every year for a keynote address. The club is described in the book as “one of the most influential Russian think tanks in Moscow, maybe even the most prestigious.”

As though today hasn't been weird enough…
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:47 PM on November 13, 2018 [13 favorites]

There's a whole different Whitaker scandal that previously escaped attention. AP, Whitaker abandoned taxpayer-funded project in Iowa in 2016

While in private business, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker walked away from a taxpayer-subsidized apartment-rehabilitation project in Iowa after years of cost overruns, delays and other problems, public records show.

The city of Des Moines ultimately yanked an affordable housing loan that Whitaker’s company had been awarded, and another lender began foreclosure proceedings after Whitaker defaulted on a separate loan for nearly $700,000. Several contractors complained they were not paid, and a process server for one contractor could not even find Whitaker or his company to serve him with a lawsuit.

posted by zachlipton at 2:50 PM on November 13, 2018 [33 favorites]

Joseph Mifsud Wants to Testify Before the Senate, a Lawyer Claims

The first step is proof of life.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:53 PM on November 13, 2018 [15 favorites]

>> Fox News hasn't tweeted in, so far as I can tell, 4 full days.

> Ditto WikiLeaks, coincidentally.

And Julian Assange's blue-ticked Twitter account @JulianAssange has now been suspended

@RudyGiuliani has been radio silent since Nov. 9.

@NatEnquirer just started tweeting again this afternoon, having gone quiet for the duration of the holiday weekend.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:58 PM on November 13, 2018

Madison365 (WI): Baraboo Schools Investigating Purported Nazi Salute Prom Photo.

Hey, it's my alma mater!

I wish I could say I'm surprised by this, but these kinds of attitudes were around more than 20 years ago. I guess I'm a little surprised by the number of students in the photo (it's higher than I would have thought).

When I was a senior, somebody ran for student council and made posters with his head "photoshopped" (is that what we call it when it was a zine-style cut-and-paste photocopy job?) onto Nazi guard bodies. Nobody said boo about it. It didn't even make the local paper. It's possible a teacher made him take them down (my memory is pretty fuzzy), but I think the overall response was a collective eye roll.

Another time a student came out as gay in speech class. Probably the first to come out in the high school's history, and his classmates were not kind. All manner of bullying followed, including physical and verbal assault. Teachers and administrators did nothing.
posted by rocketman at 3:03 PM on November 13, 2018 [21 favorites]

There are many reports of school administrators waving off reports of racial slurs, harassment and other behaviors. Any idea if there is a political or legal method for getting the principal fired?
posted by msalt at 3:07 PM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

> Joseph Mifsud Wants to Testify Before the Senate, a Lawyer Claims

The first step is proof of life.

Bellingcat's Raphael Satter is in the process of parsing the metadata on a photo of Mifsud that Stephen Roh sent him last month, which supposedly was taken in Zurich:

The picture shows Mifsud in what appears to be an office somewhere, wearing a white collared shirt and clasping a pen in his right hand, looking up at the camera with a serious, slightly quizzical look. On the table: a signed power of attorney document and the May 17 edition of Zurichsee-Zeitung, a Swiss-German newspaper. Also on the table, off to the side, is what appears to be a copy of the Democratic National Committee’s lawsuit against the Russian government, WikiLeaks, the Trump campaign, and many others (including Mifsud) resting under a pair of eyeglasses. It’s just barely visible, but Mifsud’s name appears to be highlighted in pink. On a chair to Mifsud’s right is a dark blazer and a stylish attache case.

Roh told Satter the image was intended "for verification purposes and asked me not to publish it."
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:07 PM on November 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

Found it.

1:18-cv-02610 CABLE NEWS NETWORK, INC. et al v. TRUMP et al full complaint
posted by mikelieman at 3:11 PM on November 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

Not to abuse the edit window on CNN v Trump et al... I'm dying here. In that complaint, the first 2 cites are NY Times v. Sullivan and Hustler v. Falwell. If this is the inflection point where this mess finally turns around, this is a hell of a kickoff.
posted by mikelieman at 3:15 PM on November 13, 2018 [16 favorites]

WaPo, D.C. man arrested on gun charge after relatives alert police to his alleged white nationalist outbursts

Court papers assert that after his brother’s death, Jeffrey Clark posted on Gab a photo of the brothers wearing masks and holding a shotgun and a rifle, in front of a flag with a skull and cross bones. The documents said Jeffrey Clark posted a description of himself as a “Meth-Smoking, Pipe bomb making, mailman-murding ... Che Guevara of the altright.”

Of the attack on the synagogue, court papers said Jeffrey Clark posted a picture of the suspected gunman spattered in what appears to be blood and wrote, “This was a dry run for things to come.”

posted by zachlipton at 3:19 PM on November 13, 2018 [13 favorites]

The longer the Fox twitter blackout lasts the less plausible the Tucker Carlson cover story becomes. I'm surprised none of the other networks have picked up the story.
posted by Justinian at 3:22 PM on November 13, 2018 [9 favorites]

NYT, Jennifer Senior, I Take Back My Praise of Jeff Flake’s Book

This happens more than you’d think. I would know. For just over two years, I was a daily book critic for this paper. I second-guessed myself more than I’d care to admit.

But there are almost no reviews I’d take back.

Now, however, I’m seriously reconsidering my mostly kind review of “Conscience of a Conservative” by Senator Jeff Flake, the Republican from Arizona, whose successor, Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, was finally announced last night.
...
I said that Flake’s book had rhetorical power.

But looking back on it, it didn’t. Jeff Flake’s book couldn’t even convince Jeff Flake. As of this writing, he has voted with Trump 84 percent of the time.

posted by zachlipton at 3:45 PM on November 13, 2018 [34 favorites]

AP DoJ reporter Eric Tucker: Attorneys for George Papadopoulos have filed motion to withdraw from the case.

Which led to George Papadopoulos's posting streak on Twitter today:

—Big announcement coming this week. Enough of the responsive and passive approach.
—Two options for Joseph Mifsud’s testimony: 1) I was just acting like a big shot to Papadopoulos when I was validating rumors to him about Clinton and emails. 2) The checks have stopped from western intelligence, and I am here to testify that I was working with them to hurt Trump.
—If I was a western intelligence agent sent on an operation to cause a Russia conspiracy, I would be livid if my own colleagues threw me under the bus and called me a Russian agent just to get a FISA. Looking forward to hearing Mifsud’s testimony. It’s in the national interest.
—To be clear: I am extremely happy with my current legal team. The lawyers who withdrew today did not have my confidence for months and are not part of any current discussions. I wish them well.

@simonamangiante has been pretty active today, too.

The whole thing smells like provokatsiya in preparation for a nice big dezinformatsiya campaign. And I'm still wondering if we should read anything into Putin giving Trump a big, public thumbs-up on Sunday.
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:48 PM on November 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

The longer the Fox twitter blackout lasts the less plausible the Tucker Carlson cover story becomes.

I sorta agree with this, but I can't think of any alternative explanations. Some folks have suggested a link to Mueller and incoming indictments, but why would past interaction with Russian troll teams or Cambridge Analytica (just for example) demand halting twitter activity now and in the future? So if it isn't the past that prompted the boycott, what is it in the present?

Weird.

(Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson himself isn't boycotting Twitter, so, er, there's that.)
posted by notyou at 3:49 PM on November 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

Politico, Dan Diamond, HHS talks to anti-abortion groups, scientists as it weighs canceling fetal tissue research

The Trump administration is continuing to weigh plans to discontinue more than $100 million in research projects that use fetal tissue, alarming scientists and some HHS officials while invigorating the president’s supporters in the anti-abortion community.

The White House last week convened a meeting to consider canceling the projects, according to two individuals with knowledge, and anti-abortion groups like Susan B. Anthony List have been invited to give input. Scientists who use fetal tissue in their research also have been invited to defend their work.
..
The review began in September after HHS abruptly terminated one longstanding contract with a fetal tissue provider and opened an audit of all federally funded research and practices related to fetal tissue, most of which is obtained from abortions.

Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir, the politically appointed official leading the review, is expected to issue recommendations on whether or not to continue funding the research. Giroir has been enthusiastic about the possibility of replacing fetal tissue with alternatives, said two people who have spoken to him.
...
Fetal tissue has been instrumental in developing vaccines, scientists say, such as researching how the Zika virus affects the brains of fetuses in utero. Researchers maintain there are few feasible alternatives.

posted by zachlipton at 3:56 PM on November 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

Giuliani may be staying quiet on Twitter, but it seems he's been spending his time leaking to the press:

ABC: Trump And His Legal Team Met Monday To Answer Mueller's Questions: Sources

Reuters: Trump Could Answer Written Russia Probe Questions This Week: Source

There's nothing substantial in these leaks, of course, but at least we now know what Trump was doing yesterday instead of attending Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington.
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:59 PM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

I sorta agree with this, but I can't think of any alternative explanations. Some folks have suggested a link to Mueller and incoming indictments, but why would past interaction with Russian troll teams or Cambridge Analytica (just for example) demand halting twitter activity now and in the future?

I like mikelieman's suggestion above that their lawyers suggested a twitter break, pending some legal development. Or maybe they're all just readying a new media strategy as the special counsel probe proceeds into a new phase.

There's nothing substantial in these leaks, of course, but at least we now know what Trump was doing yesterday instead of attending Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington.

I mean, we can never be sure Giuliani's telling the truth, but this gives credence to our speculation about Trump's absence, and the cocoon-of-bitterness-and-resentment reporting.
posted by cudzoo at 4:06 PM on November 13, 2018

suggestion above that their lawyers suggested a twitter break, pending some legal development

I keep seeing people speculate on this. Is there any reason for it? Fox News is still active on Facebook, not to mention the fact that they're still running a television network in which they constantly spew their ideas across the nation. I agree that their Twitter silence is conspicuous, but they have in no way gone generally silent, and I just haven't seen any basis besides total speculation for the idea that some kind of pending legal action involving them has them spooked. Or did I miss something?
posted by zachlipton at 4:14 PM on November 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

at least we now know what Trump was doing yesterday instead of attending Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington

They've been procrastinating on this for months. It seems pretty urgent to skip the Arlington ceremony on Monday--especially immediately after blowing off the ceremony in France--instead of meeting on Tuesday.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:25 PM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Can anyone expand on WTF any of that Papodopolous bit a few comments above means??
posted by yoga at 4:34 PM on November 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

Can anyone expand on WTF any of that Papodopolous bit a few comments above means??

yes. papodopolous is not very bright, and is receiving terrible advice from someone, possibly his wife, who may or may not be italian and/or a russian agent.
posted by murphy slaw at 4:37 PM on November 13, 2018 [21 favorites]

but at least we now know what Trump was doing yesterday instead of attending Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington.

On rereading, I feel foolish for having typed this. There's absolutely no reason to trust this version of events, particularly not from anonymous leakers on Team Trump. I should have said: "but at least we now know what they want us to think Trump was doing yesterday instead of attending Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington."

Can anyone expand on WTF any of that Papodopolous bit a few comments above means??

That presumes it means something rather than being distracting nonsense.

Business Insider has more: George Papadopoulos Dumped By His Own Lawyers As The Former Trump Aide Embarks On a 'Self-Defeating Gambit'

Elie Honig, a former prosecutor from the Southern District of New York, told INSIDER that Papadopoulos' lawyers' reasoning is atypical.

"Normally, when a case is over and a defendant is sentenced, the lawyers don't formally withdraw from representing that person," Honig said. "The case just ends. The lawyer doesn't say, 'OK, I'm out.'"

Honig said it was more likely that Papadopoulos' "lawyers are trying to disassociate with him because of the conspiracy theories he's spreading, or perhaps they told him to knock it off and he's not listening."[...]

The other possibility, Honig said, is that if Papadopoulos is seriously considering withdrawing his guilty plea, his lawyers would no longer be able to represent him because of a conflict of interest.[...]

"There's no way Mueller would cooperate with him again if Papadopoulos withdrew his plea," Honig said. "So his only options are to enter a guilty plea without a cooperation agreement, which would almost certainly require him to do more than 14 days. Or he can go all the way and go to trial, where he would be buried."

"So he's got nowhere to go here," Honig added. "It's a self-defeating gambit."

As murphy slaw said, someone on Team Trump appears to be giving him terrible advice. But like the rest of the has-beens, fuck-ups, and third-rate grifters that Trump somehow attracts into his orbit, he's willing to take it because he thinks, mistakenly, it'll advance his own interests.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:42 PM on November 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

To further surmise: George Papadopolous, after reaching the Bargaining stage of grief as occasioned by his signing of a plea deal, has unfortunately backslid back into Denial instead of progressing to Depression and Acceptance. "I knew I didn't really try to conspire with the Russian government! I was just being used by the dems." It's entirely possible he's convinced himself of that.
posted by Room 101 at 4:43 PM on November 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

All quiet on the western Trump (Alexandra Petri, WaPo)

When asked about his favorite books, Donald Trump frequently cites Erich Maria Remarque’s classic World War I novel “All Quiet on the Western Front.” He told Michael Wolff he was rereading it. He told Megyn Kelly it was his favorite. Given his apparently boundless passion for this book, it may be surprising he could not muster the fortitude to show up at a rainy event commemorating the end of World War I. However, anyone who has read “All Quiet on the Western Front” even once will remember how often they had to call the war on account of weather. Below are some excerpts. Thanks to my chatter who suggested this!

Kemmerich has lost his foot. He looks ghastly. His voice sounds like ashes. As soon as the rain stops, we will go and get his foot back for him. We can’t risk it before.

Katczinsky and I leave him on the stretcher and go to the mess tent. The rations have not come up yet. As long as it rains, they cannot risk the cook getting damp. If the cook were damp, no one would know what to do.

“It’s no good,” Kat says. Kat is an old soldier.

I know better than to ask him if it will be long.

A hideous and noxious mist begins to rise and billow toward us across No Man’s Land. Fear clamps my chest like a cold hand. But soon the word goes down the line, “It’s only gas.” “It isn’t fog.” We put on our masks and give thanks. So far I have escaped the weather altogether.

I am young. I am 20 years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. But I have not been caught in a chilly mist with nothing but an umbrella to protect me. I have been spared that.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:51 PM on November 13, 2018 [41 favorites]

The new Papadopolous angle seems to rest on accusing this Misfud character of actually being a Western intel agent (rather than a Russian one as the sheeple would believe), perpetrating a sting. At least, that's going by his retweet of Simona, his fiance (not wife).

George also seems confident that Misfud will testify as such, on the basis that his being called a Russian agent amounts to betrayal from his American colleagues and he'd be eager to set the record straight. Assuming everything he's saying is a delusion (or even if somehow it isn't), I'm not sure how anyone can possibly expect that. I mean, would Misfud benefit from declaring himself to be an American spy?
posted by InTheYear2017 at 4:59 PM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

At least, that's going by his retweet of Simona, his fiance (not wife).

They got married last year.
posted by murphy slaw at 5:02 PM on November 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Acting ICE director Thomas Homan, without any sense of irony, tells Tucker Carlson that he objects to people comparing ICE to Nazis because they "are simply enforcing laws enacted by Congress."
posted by zombieflanders at 5:15 PM on November 13, 2018 [48 favorites]

Yeah I had a lapse there in reading an article without checking the date.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 5:15 PM on November 13, 2018

The Post brings us further details on the above-mentioned "cocoon of bitterness and resentment" (and honestly, I've never felt so close to him; welcome to the club) in Five days of fury: Inside Trump’s Paris temper, election woes and staff upheaval

As he jetted to Paris last Friday, President Trump received a congratulatory phone call aboard Air Force One. British Prime Minister Theresa May was calling to celebrate the Republican Party’s wins in the midterm elections — never mind that Democrats seized control of the House — but her appeal to the American president’s vanity was met with an ornery outburst.

Trump berated May for Great Britain not doing enough in his assessment to contain Iran. He questioned her over Brexit and complained about the trade deals he sees as unfair with European countries. May has endured Trump’s churlish temper before, but still her aides were shaken by his especially foul mood, according to U.S. and European officials briefed on the conversation.

For Trump, that testy call set the tone for five days of fury — evident in Trump’s splenetic tweets and described in interviews with 14 senior administration officials, outside Trump confidants and foreign diplomats, many of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
...
During Sunday’s flight to Washington from Paris, aides filed into the president’s private cabin to lobby him against the leading contender to replace Kelly, Nick Ayers, who is currently Vice President Pence’s chief of staff. These aides told Trump that appointing Ayers would lower staff morale and perhaps trigger an exodus. But the president continues to praise Ayers, who also enjoys the support of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, according to multiple White House officials.
...
Trump told aides he thought he looked “terrible” and blamed his chief of staff’s office, and Fuentes in particular, for not counseling him that skipping the cemetery visit would be a public-relations nightmare.

posted by zachlipton at 5:19 PM on November 13, 2018 [23 favorites]

Acting ICE director Thomas Homan, without any sense of irony, tells Tucker Carlson that he objects to people comparing ICE to Nazis because they "are simply enforcing laws enacted by Congress."

This is the guy Politico reports Trump wants to replace Kirstjen Nielsen: Trump Considers Tough-Talking Former Ice Director For DHS Chief—Trump likes Thomas Homan's frequent and often fiery appearances on cable news defending the White House's immigration policies.

Consider Homan's Fox appearance to be his job interview.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:19 PM on November 13, 2018 [14 favorites]

Trump told aides he thought he looked “terrible” and blamed his chief of staff’s office, and Fuentes in particular, for not counseling him that skipping the cemetery visit would be a public-relations nightmare.

How truly fucking stupid do you have to be to not realize that skipping the cemetery visiting portion of the 100th anniversary ceremonies for the end of the first world war is not a cute look for anyone?!

I swear to god every time I think I'm numb to the complete and utter shambling horseshit golem that is Trump, he up and does something that makes me facepalm so hard I see stars
posted by palomar at 5:27 PM on November 13, 2018 [95 favorites]

Five days of fury: Inside Trump’s Paris temper, election woes and staff upheaval

Another access-journalism special from Trump Whisperer Philip Rucker. At least some Trump insiders are giving us fair warning:

“He was frustrated with the trip. And he’s itching to make some changes,” said one senior White House official. “This is a week where things could get really dicey.”[...]

The senior White House official, who speaks to the president regularly, said Trump has been grousing lately about getting rid of Kelly. “But he’s done this three or four times before,” this person said. “Nothing is ever real until he sends the tweet.” [emphasis added, because this is the unreal situation Trump's dragged the whole nation into]

And in the continued fallout from Trump's diplomatic disaster in Paris, today Merkel declared, “We should work on the vision to one day create a true European army.” and “The times that we could rely on others without reservation are over. That means we Europeans have to take our destiny into our own hands if we want to survive as a community.” (Politico.EU)
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:28 PM on November 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

Meanwhile, some expert, expert trolling by Senator Turtle.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, Fox News Op Ed: Will Dems work with us, or simply put partisan politics ahead of the country?

[Real] - but save yourself the click and the blood pressure spike.
posted by RedOrGreen at 5:29 PM on November 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

Some blood-pressure reducing responses...

Dracula: Will the mortals work with us, or simply prioritize their own blood ahead of our collective needs?

Now That I, Jaws, Have A Combustible Air Tank In My Mouth And A Gun Pointed At Me, Will The Fishermen Put Partisanship Aside And Work Together? — MY COLUMN
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 5:49 PM on November 13, 2018 [58 favorites]

In response to Mitch McConnell’s real tweet, I hope Joyce White Vance is heard: Merrick. Garland. (Also Real)
posted by Silverstone at 5:54 PM on November 13, 2018 [15 favorites]

> HHS talks to anti-abortion groups, scientists as it weighs canceling fetal tissue research

Fetal tissue research is the victim of special interest politics

HHS secretary Azar is empowering anti-fetal tissue research ideologues at the expense of science

Don’t Stand in the Way of Fetal Tissue Research: The Trump administration is obstructing work that benefits everybody.
posted by homunculus at 5:55 PM on November 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

Mitch McConnell you have labored long to restart the American civil war. You are a confederate and an enemy war fighter. NO QUARTER
posted by maniabug at 5:57 PM on November 13, 2018 [23 favorites]

@mikelieman: 1:18-cv-02610 CABLE NEWS NETWORK, INC. et al v. TRUMP et al
Anyone got a PACER account they don't mind using?

Found it.

1:18-cv-02610 CABLE NEWS NETWORK, INC. et al v. TRUMP et al full complaint

Tip: High profile cases like this will always show up on Free Law Project via RECAP, so no PACER login needed. Here's the docket; free PDFs available for many docket entries besides the complaint:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/8169022/cable-news-network-inc-v-trump/
posted by zakur at 5:58 PM on November 13, 2018 [17 favorites]

As I've touched on before: To us and almost anybody else who follows politics with any seriousness, what McConnell says is trolling. But to middle America, it simply works, exactly as it appears on its face. Even if it doesn't win them over to the cause of outright hating Democrats, it activates their frustration over ~gridlock~.

That one time he expressed a determination to make Obama a "one-term president"? He's basically never broken character since (which is why we have to go back that far for a quote like it). His objection to Garland was framed in words that sounded "reasonable". Yes, he is Dracula, but he always keeps his mouth clean of the blood. That's precisely why the base of the GOP tends to consider him a traitor hardly any better than McCain -- why, what sorry excuse for a leopard is he, without any bits of face on his teeth? Why doesn't he relish the enemy's screams?

So... just something to bear in mind when we are in a mood to pick apart the seemingly-conciliatory "Let's work together" words from leaders on our own side. By all means, media and news figures definitely should speak in total candor about what's really going on in this country. But politics is a different game with different rules. The mere fact that McConnell says some nice words doesn't mean Republicans are, in fact, surrendering the board -- and this can be extrapolated to politicians as a set.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:09 PM on November 13, 2018 [18 favorites]

Courthouse News, Ninth Circuit Declines Second Look at Kids’ Immigration Fight

Toddlers will continue representing themselves in immigration court in the wake of a Ninth Circuit panel’s refusal Tuesday to revisit dismissal of a class action that claimed kids should have court-appointed attorneys in immigration proceedings – a refusal that drew a blistering dissent from five circuit judges.
...
The ACLU, meanwhile, cited its deposition of Immigration Judge Jack Weil, who implied toddlers can master immigration law after all.

“I’ve taught immigration law literally to 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds,” Weil said in his deposition. “It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of patience. They get it.”
...
Berzon outlined the obstacles kids face in trying to navigate arcane immigration law in a language they often do not understand. She cited one case where lawyers described the three-year-old they represented crawling on the table during his removal hearing.

“Absurdly,” Berzon wrote, “the only thing atypical about that case was that the child had a lawyer.”

posted by zachlipton at 6:22 PM on November 13, 2018 [27 favorites]

Will Dems work with us, or simply put partisan politics ahead of the country?

Mitch McConnell, October 2010: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

Biden: McConnell decided to deny us cooperation before we took office

Biden says that during the transition, he was warned not to expect any cooperation on many votes. “I spoke to seven different Republican Senators, who said, ‘Joe, I’m not going to be able to help you on anything,’ he recalls. His informants said McConnell had demanded unified resistance. “The way it was characterized to me was: ‘For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’” Biden says.

The Party of No: New Details on the GOP Plot to Obstruct Obama

TIME just published “The Party of No,” an article adapted from my new book, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era. It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”

Strict Obstructionist

...from the outset, McConnell blocked or frustrated just about everything the administration tried to do, including the government’s distribution of TARP funds, in January 2009, just three months after McConnell voted to authorize them.
...
McConnell initially had to struggle for purchase. But in February, he settled on opposing Obama’s plan to close the terrorist-detention center at Guantánamo Bay...“Winning on Guantánamo,” the senator told me, “sent a message to all of us that Obama was not bulletproof.” McConnell deployed the same daily barrage against financial reform (16 floor speeches) and health care (105 floor speeches). Along with the endless delays, this exacted a heavy toll on Democratic approval ratings. Obama could not evolve into a post-partisan leader, because McConnell wouldn’t let him.
...
Beyond this lies the fundamental question of whether a party has any responsibility to address society’s problems in good faith. So far, McConnell’s legacy as Republican leader is to have taken his caucus further than anyone else toward the proposition that it doesn’t. But the public is not likely to notice that anytime soon.

Also: “He has been described as having the ‘natural charisma of an oyster.’”
posted by kirkaracha at 6:24 PM on November 13, 2018 [60 favorites]

I just haven't seen any basis besides total speculation for the idea that some kind of pending legal action involving them has them spooked. Or did I miss something?

Based on litigation experience: if a party is ordered to preserve their Twitter history in anticipation of discovery, that party will usually need to limit who has access to the account to ensure its preservation. So that could mean that their social media staff would be locked out, and no new posts would appear for awhile. It is speculative, of course, but could explain a Twitter silence. Especially if Twitter history (maybe DMs?) is relevant in a way that Facebook and other communication avenues are not.
posted by Emera Gratia at 6:25 PM on November 13, 2018 [10 favorites]

More emboldened Nazis:
Members of a neo-Nazi group formed in the wake of the deadly Charlottesville rally outed themselves as perpetrating hate crimes and sharing bomb manuals in leaked Discord chat logs.
Unicorn Riot, a journalism collective that tracks hate groups, reported that members of the National Socialist Legion discussed harassing Jews who attended the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh months before the October massacre at the temple.
posted by growabrain at 6:27 PM on November 13, 2018 [24 favorites]

Especially if Twitter history (maybe DMs?) is relevant in a way that Facebook and other communication avenues are not.

FOX News interacting with the GRU from the official twitter account would be something.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:37 PM on November 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

To further surmise: George Papadopolous, after reaching the Bargaining stage of grief as occasioned by his signing of a plea deal, has unfortunately backslid back into Denial...

What lesson would you take away from being sentenced a mere 14 days for lying to the F.B.I about meeting with Russian agents to fix the presidential election? Why cooperate instead of receiving a sentence that will practically vindicates you?
posted by xammerboy at 6:47 PM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Of course, @MichelleObama’s my wife, so I’m a little biased here. But she also happens to be brilliant, funny, wise – one of a kind. This book tells her quintessentially American story. I love it because it faithfully reflects the woman I have loved for so long.
posted by growabrain at 7:05 PM on November 13, 2018 [29 favorites]

AP DoJ reporter Eric Tucker: Attorneys for George Papadopoulos have filed motion to withdraw from the case.

The judge has already gotten back to them and OK'ed this.

Marcy Wheeler: "Randolph Moss didn't think very long or hard about whether Pap's lawyers should be freed from any further obligation of representing him. Maybe he regrets falling for Pap's remorse schtick?" (pic)

I hope Judge Moss feels like a total schmuck after sentencing Papadopoulos so leniently.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:05 PM on November 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

So, I wonder about Melania Trump's security clearance. Maybe the seating problem has to do with her hearing things of a national security nature, she may not hear. Remember Nancy Reagan and her astrologer were key in running the US for a while. There has to be more to this story than personality clash.
posted by Oyéah at 7:19 PM on November 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

In today’s edition of “Can You Imagine?”, can you imagine if any Democratic First Lady in history had made an official announcement that a member of the President’s Administration no longer deserved to serve? Clinton was pilloried when it was merely suspected she had opposed her husband’s Administration officials.

Can you imagine what Michelle Obama would have been called by millions of conservatives, had she ever done anything like that?
posted by darkstar at 7:36 PM on November 13, 2018 [23 favorites]

What lesson would you take away from being sentenced a mere 14 days for lying to the F.B.I about meeting with Russian agents to fix the presidential election? Why cooperate instead of receiving a sentence that will practically vindicates you?

With the craziness inherent in this issue, I had to go reread the Special Counsel's filings on GPap.

And, according to the plea agreement, sentencing would have been delayed until after he's cooperated, to make sure he would fulfill his commitments first. Mueller's not going to fall for One Secret Trick that the gold-fringed flag crowd relies on.

I really can't figure out what he's up to, which is fine. I'm rational, he isn't. There's no shame in not understanding irrational people's motivation.
posted by mikelieman at 7:40 PM on November 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

Please enjoy this FOX news graphic. Nice happy smiling brown faces offering free healthcare, so scary!
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:44 PM on November 13, 2018 [19 favorites]

To demonstrate how irrelevant The Onion's satire had become in the last 2 years, here are some headlines from today's Politics:

* Trump Delivers Touching Tribute To Fallen Heroes Of WWE

* Steve King Vehemently Denies Comparing Immigrants To People

* Chris Collins Thanks Supporters With Can't-Miss Tip On Biotech Stock

* Sessions: ‘I Am Proud To Have Served White America’

* Hillary Launches Campaign To Raise $100 Million Or Else She’ll Run For President

* Trump Unveils Reelection Campaign Plan To Drive Bus Into Crowds Across Country

* Georgia Election Worker Assures Black Man Ballot Scanner Supposed To Sound Like Shredder
posted by growabrain at 7:52 PM on November 13, 2018 [24 favorites]

HuffPost, Fuller, Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic Foes Think They Have The Votes To Block Her

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) told reporters Tuesday night that he was “100 percent” confident there were enough votes to block Pelosi ― more than 20 ― during a speaker floor vote. He said the anti-Pelosi members planned to release a letter demonstrating to Pelosi that she doesn’t have the votes, at which point they expect other Democrats to step up and run for the speaker position.

Moulton said the members, led by less than a dozen existing Representatives and some incoming Democrats who have said they won’t support Pelosi, are figuring out when to release the letter ― “we’re going to see what makes the most sense” ― but they plan to do it before the caucus votes for its leaders behind closed doors at the end of November.
...
It’s easy to see how Pelosi’s vote problem isn’t fake. But it’s also difficult to see who would be speaker if it’s not her.

Roll Call, Lindsey McPherson, Anti-Pelosi Democrats Claim They Have Numbers to Block Her in Speaker Floor Vote

The plan is to send the letter before the Democratic Caucus holds its leadership elections on Nov. 28. Pelosi only needs a simple majority to win the caucus nomination for speaker, a threshold she is expected to easily meet, especially since no one is currently challenging her. But she’d need a majority of the entire chamber — 218, if everyone is present and voting — to prevail in a floor vote.

Some Democrats have called for raising the threshold for the caucus vote to 218 to align with the broader chamber rules. But Pelosi loyalists have pushed back — 14 of them wrote a letter Monday arguing against the “extraordinary” rule change.

I swear, if these folks tear down Pelosi without actually having an alternative candidate who can get anything resembling 218 votes, I will punch things.
posted by zachlipton at 8:31 PM on November 13, 2018 [62 favorites]

Federal Budget Deficit Is Exploding (Bloomberg)

The U.S. recorded a $100.5 billion budget deficit in October, an increase of about 60 percent from a year earlier, as spending grew twice as fast as revenue.

... A ballooning U.S. budget shortfall — fueled by tax cuts, spending hikes and an aging population — is driving the Treasury Department to raise its long-term debt issuance.

*clink* *clink* *clink*
Conservatiiiiives!
*clink* *clink* *clink*
Come out to plaaaAayy!
posted by petebest at 8:33 PM on November 13, 2018 [32 favorites]

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) told reporters Tuesday night that he was “100 percent” confident there were enough votes to block Pelosi

It's worth noting that Moulton is a member of the pro-business New Democrat Coalition that describes itself as "moderate" and "pro-growth" and supporting a balanced budget.

Thanks, but no thanks.
posted by JackFlash at 8:51 PM on November 13, 2018 [29 favorites]

question how many members of the NDC are there in the house

question is the number of members of the NDC plus the number of republicans greater than or equal to 218
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:56 PM on November 13, 2018

The Democratic House Must Prioritize Protecting the 2020 Census: An inaccurate count disproportionately harms the young, the elderly, and people of color.

The Democratic Party has a long to-do list after eight years in the congressional minority. With a hostile White House and Republicans holding a bitterly divided Senate, the upcoming session of Congress has little potential to produce legislation reflecting Democratic priorities.

Given this situation, Democrats have signaled that the House is eager to aggressively investigate the Trump administration. A less sexy but far more important priority should be to use the power of House committees to protect the 2020 US Census. A politically manipulated, inaccurate Census exacerbates inequality, skews the distribution of federal funds, and ensures another decade of distorted political representation. In almost every instance, Census inaccuracies disproportionately impact the young, the elderly, and people of color.

posted by homunculus at 8:57 PM on November 13, 2018 [20 favorites]

I swear, if these folks tear down Pelosi without actually having an alternative candidate who can get anything resembling 218 votes, I will punch things.

Adam Schiff on MTP re Pelosi for Speaker:

We need the strongest general that we have; we need the best tactician, we need the best organizer... and that's her. There's no one else, honestly, that comes close.

posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:06 PM on November 13, 2018 [44 favorites]

I’m pretty sure the only alternative candidate is Tim “I’m a white guy from Ohio so I should be President despite having zero actual accomplishments” Ryan.

I’m all for new blood in the leadership, Pelosi isn’t a Queen, but there really isn’t another viable Speaker and bringing her down without a real backup plan just because you want to get on FOX News in Youngstown Ohio is idiotic...and also the most Democrat thing ever.

I’m happy we won over the alternative, but this coalition of a ton of New Democrat and Blue Dogs coming back into power after they were nearly wiped out of the party combined with the trend of the base towards the hard left is going to be very, very rocky, when what we need is laser focus on messaging and investigations.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:06 PM on November 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

I swear, if these folks tear down Pelosi without actually having an alternative candidate who can get anything resembling 218 votes, I will punch things.

Are there any names being seriously floated, aside from Steny Hoyer, who somehow manages to have all of Pelosi's downsides (thoroughly establishment, relatively conservative, "bipartisan," nearly 80 years old, moderate-at-best, track record of squelching more progressive up-and-comers) and literally none of her upsides (good at cat-herding, vote-wrangling, and arm-twisting)? Because if we end up with fucking Hoyer at the end of all this...
posted by halation at 9:08 PM on November 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

Are there any names being seriously floated

Tim Ryan. This is all a Tim Ryan insurgency to boost his 2020 profile.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:09 PM on November 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Texas AG Ken Paxton has been named as the chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association. That's an interesting choice, since he was indicted in state court for felony securities fraud in 2015, and is awaiting trial (he also stole a $1,000 pen once, which isn't really the point, but I'm going to mention it anyway).

The new vice-chair, Indiana AG Curtis Hill, is breathing easy, as he was recently informed by a special prosecutor that he would not face charges for allegedly groping a fellow legislator and several aides at a capital city bar.

The finest legal minds the Republican Party has to offer, everyone.
posted by zachlipton at 9:11 PM on November 13, 2018 [17 favorites]

There's no one else, honestly, that comes close.

This violates the Bus Rule, and something they should work on. A deeper bench would be really helpful if Nance really is a linchpin. I mean seriously, bring some sidekicks up.
posted by rhizome at 9:21 PM on November 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

They ABSOLUTELY need to work on the bus factor. There ABSOLUTELY needs to be a deeper bench. BUT the solution to the bus rule isn't to locate the most integral person in your organization and purposefully run a bus over them.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 9:23 PM on November 13, 2018 [66 favorites]

It’s also possible that, even if they trained up a deep bench of good performers, Pelosi would still be head and shoulders above the rest, due to her temperament, experience, and other factors.

She didn’t get to where she is at the top of the national political game just by being mentored/trained well. She has all that, plus an innate gift that makes her extraordinarily skilled at doing this job.

Even if the bus factor were addressed by good organizational development, Schiff’s statement that “nobody comes close” to Pelosi might well still be true.
posted by darkstar at 9:29 PM on November 13, 2018 [8 favorites]

For better or for worse, Joe Crowley was supposed to be the next guy up, and he got hit by the AOC bus. The uncertainty in leadership right now is evidence of, and the consequence to, progressive success. This is what winning primaries looks like. I think that's good, and I'm not trading AOC back for fucking Joe Crowley and an easier leadership election. It doesn't mean it's easy in the moment. This is akin to what happened when Dave Brat knocked off Eric Cantor, only then the fate of the republic wasn't in the balance because we had Obama.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:30 PM on November 13, 2018 [14 favorites]

Tonight Rachel Maddow reported on the long, strange journey of the Yanky Poop Train:

Stench of EPA official's indictment scandal reaches Jeff Sessions: Rachel Maddow reports on the indictment of Trump’s southeast regional EPA administrator, Trey Glenn, on ethics charges in Alabama and how the scandal, which even reaches as far as ousted Trump A.G. Jeff Sessions, is becoming emblematic of the Trump administration.
posted by homunculus at 9:34 PM on November 13, 2018 [11 favorites]

Poop train previously.
posted by peeedro at 9:49 PM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

An optimistic view: The political pendulum is swinging back from conservative control in so many ways

Other writers have been pondering the motion of our historic pendulum, and each of us sees a different meaning in the moment. I believe we are at the end of an era, and today’s midterm elections will begin a reversal. I’d even use the word redemption for where we are headed next.

posted by homunculus at 10:15 PM on November 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

the problem with “pendulum theory” is that for the last half-century or more, every swing to the right goes farther, and every swing to the left barely makes it back to the middle.

if this election is the start of a pendulum correction to the left, i fear that the next rightward backlash will knock the clock clear off the mantelpiece and into the fireplace
posted by murphy slaw at 10:27 PM on November 13, 2018 [69 favorites]

It's punctuated equilibrium. The sessile spineless priapulid worms that have been dominant are about to be replaced with a dazzling diversity of trilobites and other arthropods that can respect a woman's right to choose and condemn white nationalism.
posted by XMLicious at 10:44 PM on November 13, 2018 [25 favorites]

Good god. Of COURSE Trump uses twitter for keeping in touch with his goons. What else would he use? How long has Twitter been subpoenaed (and watched closely by Mueller) is the real question. They just got told on friday. And now Trump has to dance in the spotlight or admit the whole game is up...like a puppet.
posted by sexyrobot at 11:01 PM on November 13, 2018 [7 favorites]

I'd be curious to know whether anyone who has familiarity with litigation that has touched on twitter discovery knows how Twitter would handle a subpoena for user's information.

Republicans are the party of elderly, white, techno-phobic dudes. I mean, Trump isn't comfortable with email. Is it too much to hope for, that they are so bad with technology that they think freezing or deleting their twitter accounts this week will keep Mueller from seeing their DMs over the past 4 years?
posted by msalt at 11:29 PM on November 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

We're at that point in a Trump disaster where Trumpland insiders are cathartically leaking to any vaguely sympathetic journalist who'll listen.

Politico: Staff Anger Spills Over at White House—A drumbeat of exits is mixing with Trump’s anger after the midterms and a much-criticized trip to Europe.

Bottled-up hostility in President Donald Trump’s administration flowed to the surface Tuesday during a remarkable 12-hour period following an awkward midterm détente and tense trip to Paris over which the president is still seething.

“It’s like an episode of ‘Maury,’” one former Trump aide observed to POLITICO as the spectacle unfolded. “The only thing that’s missing is a paternity test.”[…]

White House aides and advisers have long anticipated an internal staff reckoning once the uneasy truce broke and the dust settled after the elections. But some conceded that the drumbeat of exits, the threat of subpoenas from the Russia probe and anticipated investigations by a newly empowered Democratic House — along with a raft of negative media attention in recent days — were taking a heavy toll on not only the president, but also on the aides and advisers' thinning ranks.[…]

“The Trump administration has been so consistently off the rails that days like today just blend into everything else,” another former White House official concluded. “That in and of itself may be the biggest indictment of all.”

Even here on the megathread, Larry Kudlow's moronic, backbiting presser yesterday didn't rate a mention amid the chaos.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:55 AM on November 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

What makes anybody think that there's any Twitter-related subpoena? The working theory now is that Trump was secretly DMing the main @FoxNews twitter account to talk to people? And there's a secret subpoena for that? Because what? I know we're all antsy for the indictment fairy, but this just seems like layers and layers of wishful thinking being extrapolated from no data.

I think people see indictments coming & the unexplained Twitter behavior & just put them together. It's not unreasonable given the abject stupidity we've come to expect from this lot. But I haven't seen any direct evidence in favor of it either so it's just supposition at this point.
posted by scalefree at 2:05 AM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

The U.S. recorded a $100.5 billion budget deficit in October, an increase of about 60 percent from a year earlier, as spending grew twice as fast as revenue.

The stunned talent agent manages to ask, "That's one hell of an act. What do you call it?"

"The Tea Party."

For a group that came into power chanting about the deficit, this is quite the legacy.
posted by zachlipton at 2:14 AM on November 14, 2018 [73 favorites]

Worst part: Trump's base won't give a single shit. "Drain the swamp" and "Lock her up" are way more fun to say than "Budget def-blah-blah" or whatever, and anyhow you only look at that numbers stuff when the president's a Democrat.
posted by Rykey at 2:58 AM on November 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

They never cared about the deficit, it was always a canard to attack the welfare state and blame the housing crisis on minorities. The end goals were always massive tax cuts paid for, if at all, by ending Social Security and Medicare. They got half, and we’re damn lucky they hated Obama more than they actually wanted a “Grand bargain” to do the other half, because he tried for years to give it to them and they refused to say yes.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:37 AM on November 14, 2018 [31 favorites]

over at the Post, dana millbank has some scathing words about whitaker’s lack of qualifications which reveals some details i had not seen elsewhere:

During the current U.S. attorney general’s time on the company’s advisory board, from 2014 onward, World Patent Marketing:

● Claimed that “DNA evidence collected in 2013 proves that Bigfoot does exist,” had a website selling Bigfoot paraphernalia and planned a celebrity event called “You Have Been Squatched!”

● Asserted that “time travel” could be “possible, perhaps within the next decade” and tried to raise money using bitcoin for time-travel research by one of Whitaker’s fellow board members. The company suggested users might “relive moments from your past” or “visit your future.”
…
On his Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire in 2003, when he was tapped to be a U.S. attorney, he was asked to list the “most significant cases” he litigated. The top two:

“Personal injury claim resulting from driver of automobile driving over Mr. Harkness’ leg.”

“Breach of Contract and Negligence Claim arising out of dry cleaning performed by Lenox Cleaners that operated out of a Hy-Vee store in Creston, Iowa.”

So his experience with World Patent Marketing really comes in handy. As The Post’s Carol D. Leonnig and Rosalind S. Helderman reported, Whitaker wrote “a series of letters” on behalf of the company. The Justice Department said Whitaker has said “he was not aware of any fraudulent activity.”

If so, he certainly had to be aware of zany activity. A photo places him in the Florida offices where “there were always handsome, ‘well built’ guys coming and going,” according to an FTC filing, and which overlooked a “full nudity” strip club called Tootsie’s Cabaret. When the FTC searched the Florida offices, it found 115 prescriptions, “primarily for testosterone and syringes.”

posted by murphy slaw at 5:17 AM on November 14, 2018 [66 favorites]

Come on, how do you leave out the part about the Big Dick John?
posted by uncleozzy at 5:26 AM on November 14, 2018 [16 favorites]

i will leave matters of prurient interest to others, i am here to talk about bigfoot and dry cleaning
posted by murphy slaw at 5:36 AM on November 14, 2018 [104 favorites]

And a bigfoot pornography writer has now been elected to the House of Representatives. All of the pieces are coming together.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:41 AM on November 14, 2018 [19 favorites]

If this (ahem) culminates in Chuck Tingle being elected President in 2020, I won't complain.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:44 AM on November 14, 2018 [33 favorites]

According to the Wikipedia page for World Patent Marketing, last year someone named Brian Mast said he was put on the advisory board without his consent. So is the same excuse possibly available to Whitaker? Well, there's a quote on the same page from him that's a pretty unequivocal endorsement, specifically of the organization's ethics. And his actions imply a commitment extending even after the group's termination did them part...

"As a former US Attorney, I would only align myself with a first class organization. World Patent Marketing goes beyond making statements about doing business 'ethically' and translate those words into action." Following the shut down the other advisory board members returned fees they had received, however according to news reports, Whitaker did not respond to a request for fees to be returned. (cited to CNBC)

Like with his on-record criticism of Mueller, it may be correct to regard "Co-directed a big ol' Trump-style scam machine" not as some awful misstep on Whiter's part so much as an audition for his new role.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 5:47 AM on November 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

i will leave matters of prurient interest to others, i am here to talk about bigfoot and dry cleaning

and I'm all. out. of dry cleaning.

[The Tea Party] never cared about the deficit, it was always a canard to attack the welfare state and blame the housing crisis on minorities.

As I quipped in 2009, hey mock them if you want but it takes real commitment to opposing deficit spending for them to be out here for the 7th year in a row.

It was quite the coincidence that it only got to trouble levels at the same time as blackity black black! It was very convenient that somehow later it would turn out that Obama passed both stimulus packages, the first one even before GWB left office!
posted by phearlez at 6:22 AM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

I love that The Weekly Standard regularly trashes the occupant of the Oval Office!

The Vaporware Presidency

The term vaporware gained common usage in tech circles in the early 1980s. "Vaporware" refers to a piece of software that is announced long before it actually exists. Coined by a disgruntled Microsoft engineer complaining about the company's Xenix operating system, vaporware carried an additional meaning: The reason the nonexistent software was announced so prematurely was to act as an anti-competitive club against other potential entrants to the market. Sometimes the company announcing its vaporware knew it couldn’t deliver the product. Sometimes it didn’t even intend to deliver it.

Today, when tech people talk about vaporware, they generally mean incompetence. But the roots of the term encompass malice, too.

Whatever its motivations, the Trump presidency has been bloated with vaporware. And much of it came pre-installed.

posted by jgirl at 6:23 AM on November 14, 2018 [15 favorites]

Today, when tech people talk about vaporware, they generally mean incompetence.

I'm all for slagging the Trump admin for incompetence but in 25 years in the field that's not what I've ever heard anyone meant when it came to vaporware. Maybe sometimes it might include incompetence when it comes to companies failing to actually bring things to market, but I'd assert the core matter is one of empty promises, as in this thing being promised doesn't exist. Whether it will or won't at some future point isn't usually core to the criticism. It's a sibling to FUD - fear, uncertainty, doubt - an attempt to impact people's actions/decisions now based on some hypothetical future.

No, I am not secretly Bob Cringely.
posted by phearlez at 6:29 AM on November 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

TPM: Neo-Nazi Brothers Tied to Pittsburgh Massacre
Occasionally you’ll find a news story which lays out a series of stunning facts but doesn’t quite add them up. The Washington Post published just such a story this afternoon about two brothers named Jeffrey Clark, Jr. and Edward Clark, both of whom were active in “alt-right” circles and followers of Richard Spencer. Jeffrey was arraigned today on weapons charges in DC. Edward is dead. Their story points to the possibility that Roberts Bowers synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh may not have ended with him.

HuffPo: DC Neo-Nazi Who Called Pittsburgh Murders A ‘Dry Run’ Arrested; Has Deep Ties To 'Alt Right'
In May 2017, the Clark brothers teamed up with far-right “Pizzagate” propagandist Jack Posobiec, who was then the D.C. bureau chief for the far-right website Rebel Media, to shoot footage for a film Posobiec was working on about Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staffer whose murder near the Clarks’ home in Bloomingdale has spawned numerous far-right conspiracy theories.
posted by PenDevil at 6:32 AM on November 14, 2018 [21 favorites]

Continuing the derail, my perspective as a software engineer is that "vaporware" is what happens when the people selling the software are allowed to make up dates and features without having them checked by the people actually responsible for implementing the software.

This ties directly back to Trump, whose only skill is in selling a product and who has never bothered listening to anyone else -- let alone anyone who might be responsible for implementing the product he's selling.
posted by Slothrup at 6:35 AM on November 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

Welp, people at the Weekly Standard are ... not tech-savvy.
posted by jgirl at 6:48 AM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

It's just odd they had it all right in the first grafs but then diverted into this unsupported assertion of what people supposedly mean 'today.'
posted by phearlez at 6:55 AM on November 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

If the right wing hack community had maintained communication links with tech people, we'd be living in a very different world today.
posted by ocschwar at 7:02 AM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

In the last few weeks, we've watched Republicans claim that counting all the votes for an election is fraud and that they are the party who wants to ensure healthcare coverage. There's something more going on here than the usual hypocrisy. They suggest Republicans can claim anything and that half the country will accept it as true or plausible. Masha Gessen points to similar behavior in Russia as cultural totalitarianism.
posted by xammerboy at 7:05 AM on November 14, 2018 [35 favorites]

Michigan's New Dem Governor Is Already Flooding Her Administration With Corporate Interests - Libby Watson, Splinter

tl;dr: Democrat Gretchen Whitmer's father was CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan from 1988 to 2006. His replacement, Dan Loepp, did a lot of heavy lifting for her campaign (through encouraging employee contributions), and was appointed to her transition team.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:08 AM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh, Splinter. The Town Hall/Daily Caller/etc. of the left. Never stop whining, Splinter.

Maybe they ought to give the newly elected Democratic governor a chance first, and thank their stars that Schuette wasn't elected.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 7:13 AM on November 14, 2018 [24 favorites]

P.S. so as not to abuse the edit window: Splinter, and its Cool Girls Watson and Krueger, seem to have a special hate for women Democrats. Krueger authored a hit piece on Kirsten Gillibrand last year. And Splinter in general purged its comment section a few weeks back to allow for more sycophants and less criticism. I really, really hate Splinter. They are NOT helping.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 7:16 AM on November 14, 2018 [24 favorites]

We have a small soundproof booth where folks can go if they want to fight about corporate dems vs lefty etc. Been there, done that, soundproof booth.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:24 AM on November 14, 2018 [28 favorites]

NYT book critic Jennifer Senior: Now, however, I’m seriously reconsidering my mostly kind review of “Conscience of a Conservative” by Senator Jeff Flake, the Republican from Arizona, whose successor, Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, was finally announced last night.
...
looking back on it, it didn’t. Jeff Flake’s book couldn’t even convince Jeff Flake. As of this writing, he has voted with Trump 84 percent of the time.

The so-called "liberal media" -- especially that subset on a Diogenes-like search for a "serious, honest conservative" -- would do well to consider that just maybe things conservatives say are not said in good faith.
posted by Gelatin at 7:27 AM on November 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

Politico: Trump Meddles In McCarthy-Jordan Leadership Brawl

Trump has privately urged the House majority leader to strike a deal with the conservative Freedom Caucus founder, who is challenging McCarthy for the minority leader post next Congress, multiple lawmakers and aides said. It remains unclear what exactly the deal would entail.[...]

The discussions between the president and McCarthy about Jordan, which took place last week, set off a round of speculation among lawmakers inside the Capitol that Trump may try to push Jordan to become the top Republican lawmaker on the House Judiciary Committee, a panel expected to launch an array of Democratic investigations against the president — and possibly even an impeachment probe.

“Jim Jordan will be the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee,” top Trump ally Cory Lewandowski predicted Tuesday evening on MSNBC’s Hardball.

Jordan wants that position, according to GOP lawmakers and aides. And Trump thinks Jordan would be a ferocious defender.[...]

Some Republicans have suggested there is a way to make all parties happy. Jordan is next in line on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where Democrats are also readying a series of investigations into Trump and his administration. Jordan, who wanted the position in previous years, could be tapped to be the top GOP member on the committee, the Republicans say.

And why does Trump care so much about the Judiciary Committee besides the obvious issue of impeachment? NYMag suggests that rather than impeachment, Trump's biggest existential threat is campaigning in 2020 under the shadow of legal, even criminal exposure on numerous fronts:

The breadth of Trump’s legal exposure exceeds that of any president in American history. It is so vast that it is hard to comprehend. Some, and possibly all, of the following appear to have colluded with Russia on behalf of the Trump campaign: Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., and Michael Cohen. Trump has been doing business with the criminal underworld in Russia and elsewhere for years, the secrets of which may be revealed by Mueller, or by House Democrats obtaining his tax returns. Federal prosecutors are investigating whether he violated campaign-finance laws by directing hush money to various mistresses. The state of New York is investigating the Trump Foundation for alleged misappropriation of funds and the Trump Organization for decades-long tax fraud. He is being sued for violating the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. He is also being sued for fraud.

And this is just the information we know so far, which has come out despite a Congress dedicated to protecting him from investigation, a benefit he will enjoy for only a few more weeks.[...]

The already-unpopular president is looking at two years of perp walks, incriminating testimony and — at best! — a series of suspicious presidential pardons. He barely managed to win the presidency as a brash, controversial novelty. He will have to win it a second time as a known crook.

And Trump won't be able to steal Nixon's "I am not a crook" slogan unless he has the GOP leadership firmly on his side.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:54 AM on November 14, 2018 [18 favorites]

The so-called "liberal media" -- especially that subset on a Diogenes-like search for a "serious, honest conservative" -- would do well to consider that just maybe things conservatives say are not said in good faith.

We are so far past that, though. We're deep into willful, if not gleeful, abandonment of principles. Trump requires Murdoch to exist. The "liberal" media must be x% Murdoch to make Trump an administration. Blame the executives, the editors, the CFO's, whatever - it's where we are with NYT, NPR, CNN, etc. So. Far. Down.

Hell, they barely hint at using the word "lie", and we want SO much to believe it's finally turning. It's a fact that bemused both-sides bullshit got us here, despite all the screaming from our side to cut it out. Then 11/9 happened, and, well all their careless fooling around cost us bigly. Instead of about-facing, as common sense would dictate, they mumbled and normalized, and worked hard to pretend they didn't know what happened.

And now it's all ... this.
posted by petebest at 7:56 AM on November 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

The President of Fox News has issued a statement supporting CNN in their suit to have Jim Acosta's press pass restored - even going so far as to say that they intend to file an amicus brief. They do some quality bothsideserism ("we don't condone the growing antagonistic tone by both the President and the press") but surely Trump will sting a little at getting called out by his favorite propaganda outlet. [ twitter source ]
posted by marshmallow peep at 7:59 AM on November 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

For Trump, that testy call set the tone for five days of fury — evident in Trump’s splenetic tweets and described in interviews with 14 senior administration officials, outside Trump confidants and foreign diplomats, many of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

I love when the media tweaks Mr. Fake News by mentioning how many of his own people are leaking to them.
posted by Gelatin at 7:59 AM on November 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

The breadth of Trump’s legal exposure exceeds that of any president in American history.

getting that feeling again (that i had several times during the campaign) that one of the main reasons that Trump ran for president is that hiding behind the argument that the sitting president cannot be indicted is one of the last remaining defenses he has against the vast cloud of chickens coming home to roost
posted by murphy slaw at 8:04 AM on November 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

In re Michigan: When we elect people, we have to keep pushing them. With rare exception, they're not going to be people who are fundamentally in line with progressive goals, and that means we have to push them. If they're doing something we don't like, call them up and remind them that this session of all sessions, they owe us.

In fact, my plan today is to call Nancy Pelosi's office and say that the Dems owe people like me who turned out to vote for them at the midterms and that with the exception of infrastructure and similar bills, I am completely opposed to "bipartisanship" with the GOP. They need to hear from us - if they understand that we're still mobilized and haven't just gone back to sleep, we have a lot more traction.

This isn't the same as flinging up our hands and saying "centrist Dems" or just saying "support the Democrats because that's all we can do"; it's saying, "we have a set of policy goals and we will push whoever we need to push to get them, regardless of party, regardless of whether we like the politician in general". It's not about name-calling or cynicism or partisanship; it's about getting what we need by using whatever levers we have.
posted by Frowner at 8:06 AM on November 14, 2018 [62 favorites]

The President of Fox News has issued a statement supporting CNN in their suit to have Jim Acosta's press pass restored - even going so far as to say that they intend to file an amicus brief.

Well, obviously, right? I mean, if Trump et al. win against CNN here, then the next time we have a Democratic President, Fox is going to be banned from press events. Along with all the rest of the Murdoch media. They've got to see that coming.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 8:13 AM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Norm Eisen, Obama WH ethics czar, points out the DOJ/OLC memo on Whitaker is "honest about the absurd consequences of its position: Trump could fire ALL Senate confirmed principal officers & replace them with an entire cabinet of cronies of his choosing! That makes a mockery of 'advice & consent' & is unconstitutional."
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 8:20 AM on November 14, 2018 [18 favorites]

Per NBC, Chuck Schumer has been re-elected as Senate Minority Leader by acclamation. No challenger mentioned.

They're never going to learn anything.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:25 AM on November 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

Metafilter: They do some quality bothsideserism.
posted by Melismata at 8:25 AM on November 14, 2018

"Sir, you could just flee the country."

"I AM fleecing the country!"
posted by Stoneshop at 8:30 AM on November 14, 2018 [25 favorites]

Per NBC, Chuck Schumer has been re-elected as Senate Minority Leader by acclamation. No challenger mentioned.

They're never going to learn anything.

Surely now, in the midst of the ongoing election of the top Democratic legislative and party leaders, is not the time for internal squabbles or ideological debates.
posted by chortly at 8:42 AM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

I’ve been expecting the various behind the scenes GOP constituencies to begin breaking away from Trump. The shellacking they just took in the House ought to have emboldened them as it demonstrated Trump’s weakness and reveals the risk of sticking with him through the end. Resistance to Trump inspired the best voter turnout in a midterm in 100 years. Orange County (!) went red to blue. Trump’s brand as a “winner” has become “loser.” Without “winning,” what does he have? He has no natural constituency in either party, no loyalty from any bloc, no bench to draw from for staff and advisers. If 2018 happens again in 2020, the GOP might be reduced to a regional party.

Plus, they got tax breaks, SCOTUS, lots of new Federal judges, a weakened regulatory apparatus, etc, so maybe now is a good time to consolidate gains and hedge against future losses.

I think we should start to see more breaks with Trump along the lines of Fox’s support of CNN/Acosta and the formation of the Federalist aligned legal group Conway is associated with, as they start to recognize Trump is more liability than asset.
posted by notyou at 8:44 AM on November 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

An aside while we wait for indictments - come on come on come on - is there an active Brexit thread where one could rubberneck? It seems like there's a crisis brewing...

NYT: Brexit Live Updates: U.K. Cabinet Deciding Fate of Draft Deal
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:44 AM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Serious question: when was the last a Senate caucus leader was toppled?
posted by Chrysostom at 8:49 AM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

The shellacking they just took in the House

Surely, an unvarnished shellacking will be the finish of Trump's cabinet!

Sorry. But this odd use of shellacking strikes me as hilarious.
posted by SPrintF at 8:50 AM on November 14, 2018 [43 favorites]

Shellac

2) NORTH AMERICAN
informal
(be shellacked)
defeat or beat (someone) decisively.
"they were shellacked in the 1982 election"
posted by Chrysostom at 8:52 AM on November 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

What's so bleak about Schumer getting his clock cleaned by McConnell on every single thing is that it's not like he's a principled person who can't deal with an unprincipled opponent; he's also completely unprincipled, but bad at it.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:53 AM on November 14, 2018 [40 favorites]

notyou: "I’ve been expecting the various behind the scenes GOP constituencies to begin breaking away from Trump."

So there's this new thing about conservative law-talking types against Trump, fwiw.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:54 AM on November 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

Serious question: when was the last a Senate caucus leader was toppled?
George Mitchell in 94?
posted by Harry Caul at 8:57 AM on November 14, 2018

Mitchell didn't run for re-election in '94. I'm asking when there was last a Senate leadership coup, which is what people are asking for with Schumer.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:01 AM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

What's so bleak about Schumer getting his clock cleaned by McConnell on every single thing is that it's not like he's a principled person who can't deal with an unprincipled opponent; he's also completely unprincipled, but bad at it.

I mean, it's kind of easy to win when you control the chamber, right? Chuck never been anything but a minority leader.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:09 AM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

An aside while we wait for indictments - come on come on come on - is there an active Brexit thread where one could rubberneck? It seems like there's a crisis brewing...

I was wondering the same thing. Unfortunately I have deadlines looming and can’t put together a fresh post myself right now. I think this is the last one, almost a month ago.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 9:10 AM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

I think we should start to see more breaks with Trump along the lines of Fox’s support of CNN/Acosta and the formation of the Federalist aligned legal group Conway is associated with, as they start to recognize Trump is more liability than asset.

Except that, without Trump, they don't have a base. They've got nowhere else to go. What Trump taught us is that there really isn't much of a constituency for principled "small-c" conservatism. The party Paul Ryan and the National Review folks thought they were in charge of never really existed. Otherwise being a never-Trumper wouldn't have been a death sentence for solid conservative credentialed folks like Jeff Flake.

The Republican base is just a bunch of bigoted authoritarians. They happily abandon core conservative principles so long as they get their ability to demonize and punish somebody else (Muslims, women, "Globalists," "SJWs," "Thugs," etc.)
posted by leotrotsky at 9:17 AM on November 14, 2018 [14 favorites]

Surely, an unvarnished shellacking will be the finish of Trump's cabinet!

But will it be enough to polish off the man himself?
posted by flabdablet at 9:22 AM on November 14, 2018 [18 favorites]

So there's this new thing about conservative law-talking types against Trump, fwiw.

Here's USC law prof Orin Kerr's twitter thread:

I am proud to be a founding member of a new group of conservative lawyers, Checks and Balances. @adamliptak tells our story in today's @nytimes.
NYT: Conservative Lawyers Say Trump Has Undermined the Rule of Law
On the eve of the Federalist Society’s annual convention, leading conservative lawyers criticized Trump’s attacks on the justice system…
Our mission statement is here:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5096610/Checks-and-Balances.pdf

From the NYT article: "The group, called Checks and Balances, was organized by George T. Conway III, a conservative lawyer and the husband of President Trump’s counselor, Kellyanne Conway*. In recent opinion articles, Mr. Conway has criticized Mr. Trump’s statements on birthright citizenship and argued that his appointment of Matthew G. Whitaker to serve as acting attorney general violated the Constitution."

Other founding members include former PA governor and Dubya DHS secretarty Tom Ridge, former Dubya acting attorney general Peter Keisler, and Lori S. Meyer, a lawyer who is married to Eugene Meyer, the president of the Federalist Society.

We'll see if this makes the slightest bit of difference, though I suppose a crack in the GOP's institutional support for Trump is encouraging (even as Trump tried to shore up his 2020 demagogic credentials during the midterm campaign).

* n.b. @KellyannePolls still hasn't restored "Counselor to the President" to her Twitter bio since removing it last month.
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:23 AM on November 14, 2018 [13 favorites]

leotrotsky: I mean, it's kind of easy to win when you control the chamber, right? Chuck never been anything but a minority leader.

The problem, as I understand, isn't the things that have passed legislatively and couldn't ever be stopped. It's the specific deals that Schumer made frequently, which seemed to give away quite a bit for a dubious return. They mostly involved agreements not to prevent fast-tracked confirmation of federal judges, which is one area where a Senate filibuster power remains. (Not at the Supreme level, but for lower courts. I think.)

At the time, the best defenses I could see were that Schumer was making a very canny strategic choice or at least doing the best with a bad hand. But I haven't seen anyone explain in the weeks/months that have followed exactly how his actions paid off, or was at least good enough in terms of opportunity cost.

In the end, he seems like the sort of politician who seeks to be personally liked and assumes this can translate into power/results for himself and his party, which may have been truer once upon a time. Whereas both Pelosi and McConnell are better at recognizing the low value of generic likability compared with determined caucus-wrangling. (I hate constantly comparing them as I have been, but it illustrates my perspective. Obviously their actual values are miles apart, and she's also never stooped so low as he has on the politics of procedural scumminess.)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 9:26 AM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Where I live there are still 20,000+ votes to be counted that play into a close house race in district 21, where Valadao Rep. has been declared the winner, over TJ Cox Dem. The margin is 2000 votes or less. District 21 in California splits between at least three, maybe 4 counties. Fresno county was allegedly fully counted, but Kern County has a lot of votes piled up to account for. This also includes votes for or against McCarthy.
posted by Oyéah at 9:32 AM on November 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm asking when there was last a Senate leadership coup, which is what people are asking for with Schumer.

Latest possible would be the Byrd to Mitchell switch; I don't know the inside baseball about that.

Congressional caucus leaders are pretty uniformly smart enough that you're not going to see an actual coup; you'll just see something like Gingrich resigning one step ahead of the boot.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:38 AM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

I think we should start to see more breaks with Trump along the lines of Fox’s support of CNN/Acosta and the formation of the Federalist aligned legal group Conway is associated with, as they start to recognize Trump is more liability than asset.

I agree, which is why I think impeachment isn't out of the question. There's less than two years until the next election, and the Republicans will be defending at least 20 seats in the Senate to the Democrats' ~11. Trump isn't going to get any more popular and is likely to get less popular as more and more dirt comes out. If it becomes widespread public opinion that Trump's committed crimes, voting to remove Trump from office might be the smart play for Republican senators.

In a couple of years it will shock you how few Republicans actually supported Trump.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:39 AM on November 14, 2018 [33 favorites]

What is infuriating to me is that Schumer skated to reappointment but Pelosi is the one everyone is pissing and moaning about, despite the fact that Pelosi is far more effective. And no-one can name a person who is fit to succeed her - all they can do is stomp their feet. Is this something of the Last Stand of the Centrist White Male in the House, especially given the fact that our incoming Reps are the most diverse bench we've ever seen?

I don't hate Schumer, and I know as minority leader, his hands are pretty much tied. But I love Pelosi. She's effective. We have health care thanks to her. Yes, she's older, and the Democrats really need to think about their bench and cultivating more younger folks, but sheesh. Misogyny is a hell of a drug.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:43 AM on November 14, 2018 [100 favorites]

Based on how long it took my immediate family to say "Invading Iraq was a bad idea!" they will have never supported Trump in .... 2028 or so.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:43 AM on November 14, 2018 [42 favorites]

They mostly involved agreements not to prevent fast-tracked confirmation of federal judges, which is one area where a Senate filibuster power remains. (Not at the Supreme level, but for lower courts. I think.)

This is incorrect -- there is no longer a filibuster available for any vote on confirming a nominee, either to the executive branch or the courts. When Harry Reid nuked the filibuster on confirmations he left it in place only for SCOTUS, and then McConnell scrapped that to push Gorsuch through.

Rather, Schumer's deals allowed the Trump nominees to move through the Senate faster and with less scrutiny -- meaning there was less chance to catch the ones who are so bad even Republicans might balk at turning over those rocks, and that they were able to confirm far more of them before the midterms than would have been possible with even token Democratic resistance. (That last would have mattered much more with a better Senate map, but that's hindsight)
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:43 AM on November 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

On the GOP side, new leadership team:

Thune — whip
Barrasso — Conf. Chair
Blunt — Policy chair
Ernst — vice chair GOP conference
Young — NRSC

Wow, they managed to add a woman.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:52 AM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

WaPo: Betsy DeVos set to bolster rights of accused in rewrite of sexual assault rules:

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is set to release a sweeping overhaul of how colleges and universities must handle allegations of sexual assault and harassment, giving new rights to the accused including the ability to cross-examine their accusers, people familiar with the matter said.

The proposal is set for release before Thanksgiving, possibly this week, and replaces less formal guidance issued by the Obama administration in 2011. The new rules would reduce liability for universities, tighten the definition of sexual harassment and allow schools to use a higher standard in evaluating claims of sexual harassment and assault.

posted by peeedro at 9:53 AM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Twitter users slam dunk on Marco Rubio after he fumbles sports analogy about Florida vote count - Jen Hayden, Daily Kos
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:58 AM on November 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

Schumer has made the critical mistake of believing in "gentlemen's agreements" multiple times, and has shown no reason to believe this will ever change. Nobody who approaches Mitch McConnell with any semblance of trust and honor should be in any position of power.

I've had my gripes with Pelosi, but she is very good at what she does, and more importantly, she's nowhere near as willing to blindly hand things over like Schumer has done. What she has been is the target of smear campaigns very similar to the ones that Hillary Clinton was subjected to - things we'd like to think we are immune from, but become so much of the background chatter that it spills over.

If what you object to are some of the more painfully frustrating things she has said, I agree with you, but I challenge you to look at the full context, and more importantly, the actions she has taken. There are legitimate gripes to be made about her being a voice of the party when it comes to things like her willingness to appear bipartisan, but her actions have always carried significantly more weight than her words.

And as many have said - there's nobody else who is a clear leader for this role. So flawed as she may be, she's still a great option, and unless someone steps forward who can command the role in anywhere near her ability to do so, she's the one for the job. I feel like we would have seen that person step forward by now if we were going to see it.

Schumer, on the other hand, has been a MUCH more painful "voice of the party" to listen to, but more importantly, he is way too willing to make concessions for nothing, and he still acts as if the GOP is acting in good faith. His actions have been needlessly weak - he is a chastized puppy who is willing to roll over at the slightest hint of a command, on the off chance that it keeps the opposition from saying mean things about him. And critically, there are absolutely people who could step into his role and be more effective than him. He needs to go.
posted by MysticMCJ at 10:00 AM on November 14, 2018 [51 favorites]

But also, critically, no one else is trying to usurp him.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:04 AM on November 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

Canada registers sixfold increase in US citizens seeking asylum in 2017 - Martin Patriquin, Guardian

Americans were the third largest group seeking asylum, spurred by fears they would be deported by the Trump administration.
…
In 2017, some 2,550 US citizens applied for asylum in Canada – an increase of more than sixfold from 2016 and the largest such number since at least 1994, according to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Americans were the third largest contingent of asylum seekers in 2017, after Haitians and Nigerians. The vast majority are children born to Haitian parents, according to experts.

“Most of the Americans applying for refugee status are the children of non-residents,” says Stéphane Handfield, a Montreal-based immigration lawyer. “They are US citizens because they were born there, but they come across the border with their parents because they don’t want to be separated.”

posted by ZeusHumms at 10:05 AM on November 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

But also, critically, no one else is trying to usurp him.

Which is a problem. Currently the only insurgency in the Dems' organization ranks comes from the last remnants of the Blue Dog caucus, not the supposedly rebellious left.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:09 AM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Why wouldn’t the Dems want to keep Pelosi in power so that she can train a suitable successor? Is that not how it works?

Also, how much of this is “Dems in disarray” BS?
posted by gucci mane at 10:09 AM on November 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is set to release a sweeping overhaul of how colleges and universities must handle allegations of sexual assault and harassment, giving new rights to the accused including the ability to cross-examine their accusers, people familiar with the matter said.

I used to be married to a university administrator, and he used to talk about university adjudication systems a lot. I just shook my head and said every time that I do not understand why students who've been assaulted or harassed would play by these rules. I still don't. These are Title IX regs, if I'm not mistaken; this overhaul pertains to how these cases are handled if the victim doesn't go to local, non-university law enforcement to report. There's nothing preventing student victims from calling the police.

I KNOW about the fear of reporting. I'm talking about nothing regulatory or in Title IX that prevents the victim from dropping a dime to law enforcement. Right? I mean, that's true, right?
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 10:09 AM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Right, but....police handle rape claims even worse than universities.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:10 AM on November 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

Right, but....police handle rape claims even worse than universities.

Not sure I agree or disagree. Universities are downright authoritarian in the self-important way they try to make students believe that they govern every facet of a student's life.

In any case, Betsy DeVos isn't in charge of every local and state police force in the country. (Yet.)
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 10:13 AM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Colleges and universities are not really equipped to deal with Title IX as is, and often fumble up responses to sexual assaults. This means is that the kangaroo courts are just going to get worse.
posted by all about eevee at 10:14 AM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

i grew up in a college town, and the university had its own campus police department. the local cops cooperated with them, and would frequently redirect complaints from students (even those that happened off-campus) to the campus police.
posted by murphy slaw at 10:15 AM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

I have a suspicion that the Pelosi kerfuffle of the last couple days was cover for Schumer's re-election. I don't know how AOC's role in the Pelosi thing fits into that theory, though.
posted by rhizome at 10:16 AM on November 14, 2018

An aside while we wait for indictments - come on come on come on - is there an active Brexit thread where one could rubberneck? It seems like there's a crisis brewing...

I was wondering the same thing. Unfortunately I have deadlines looming and can’t put together a fresh post myself right now. I think this is the last one, almost a month ago.

[Hastily thrown together new Brexit thread HERE]
posted by chappell, ambrose at 10:17 AM on November 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

You're also assuming that people don't fear retaliation from supervisors if the abuser is part of the department, too. Or that university lawyers don't deliberately pressure students to seek remediation through the university adjudication system.

I'm not, actually. I've worked at an Ivy League school and have had many other universities as clients. I know firsthand how hideous the atmosphere can be.

How about this: Rather than argue why or why not students play by these kangaroo court rules, I'd love it if there was a way to tell them they don't have to. That they don't have to partake of a university's "justice system" however it's set up according to Title IX and Betsy DeVos.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 10:17 AM on November 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Let's not steer into "all about campus rape", it's a big topic that will take us well off into the weeds in this thread. It's fine for it to be a separate thread; or folks can look at the many threads on this subject we've had in the last five or so years.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:19 AM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

cover for Schumer's re-election

you may be somewhat oversteeped in megathreadology if this seems to you like a nefarious thing that needed cover
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:19 AM on November 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

Grassley set to become Senate pro tempore
The Senate Republican majority of the upcoming 116th Congress has unanimously nominated Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley to be Senate pro tempore.

The position has historically been given to the most senior member of the majority party in the upper chamber of Congress.

Once elected to the position by the full Senate on January 3, 2019, Grassley will be third in the line of presidential succession following the Vice President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
[emphasis mine]
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 10:20 AM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Fortunately the president pro tem position has no significance in an impeachment context. It would only come into play if the President, Vice President and Speaker all suddenly died or became incapacitated.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:25 AM on November 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

> But also, critically, no one else is trying to usurp him.

This is very true. Of course, I still think he needs to go - you could put a literal empty chair there and it would hold more ground, would at least provide some obstruction, wouldn't concede as much, and would have the advantage, thanks to prior GOP conventions, of having faced more Republican ire in the past than Schumer himself has.

But alas, Empty Chair doesn't appear to be a rising star within the party.
posted by MysticMCJ at 10:27 AM on November 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

I'm not sure whether this is good or bad, demonstrating so clearly and uncontroversially that the Executive believes itself above the law.

CNN reports that pretty much the way Team Trump is going: Trump Argues In Court Filing That He Can Limit Journalists' Access to White House “"The President and White House possess the same broad discretion to regulate access to the White House for journalists (and other members of the public) that they possess to select which journalists receive interviews, or which journalists they acknowledge at press conferences," lawyers say in the filing.”

Surprising no one, the DoJ Office of Legal Counsel has issued a memo [PDF] saying that the Whitaker appointment is legal

USA Today's Brad Heath digs into the details: "OLC says it found one other acting attorney general who had not been confirmed by the Senate: J. Hubley Ashton held the office in 1866, for six days. […] (This will be Acting Attorney General Matt Whittaker's seventh full day in office.)"

Rather, Schumer's deals allowed the Trump nominees to move through the Senate faster and with less scrutiny

Buzzfeed's Zoe Tillman: "Senate Judiciary Committee Dems are asking Grassley to hold another round of hearings on judicial nominees who had hearings during the pre-election recess, since very, very few members attended" https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/6/b/6b70ff97-d170-4e81-945c-4e3c50c4e513/DB38CA0C7529FB6EDE835357690B75C0.2018.11.13-jud-dems-to-ceg-noms-2nd-hearing-request.pdf

Paul Brandus's West Wing Reports: "White House sent to the Senate a lengthy list of judges it has nominated to serve on the federal bench; Majority Leader McConnell has said getting more judges confirmed is his top priority"

Fox News's Jason Donner reports from the Capitol just now: "Mitch McConnell: Next Congress will continue top priority of confirming judges, said “no” when asked if there’ll be a partial gov shutdown & asked if special counsel protection legislation was necessary now said “no” & there’s no indication Mueller will not be allowed to finish."
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:31 AM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Flake and Coons trying to bring Mueller bill to floor today.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:48 AM on November 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

from the "remember the caravan" department, Sec of Defense Mattis and Sec. of DHS Nielsen are visiting the troops doing "border support" in texas. Buzzfeed's Vera Bergengruen is livetweeting:

Mattis, standing with Nielsen, is speaking to troops at the Texas-Mexico border right now

Mattis tells troops at the border "the eyes of the world are on you" and that it's the mission is "certainly non-traditional...generally we do homeland security overseas"

Speaking to troops deployed to Texas, Mattis is asked by a soldier whether they will have to take down all that concertina wire they've been putting up along the border since they arrived.

The livestream catches him saying "We'll let you know"

Another soldier asked Mattis what the short and long term goals of the mission at the border are.

"Short term, get the obstacles in. Longer term...it is somewhat to be determined."

Mattis told troops deployed to the border to ignore news coverage questioning the mission - "There’s all sorts of stuff in the news...If you read all that stuff, you’ll go nuts, you know what I mean?"

posted by murphy slaw at 10:49 AM on November 14, 2018 [19 favorites]

Somewhat relevant to the American situation re: stealing refugee children--I heard this great podcast last night that directly connects "stranger danger" messages about threats lying in wait for white suburban children with America's continuing history of taking the children of black and indigenous peoples away from their families--either as slaves or to be "assimilated" into white society. The host calls out the current approach to undocumented children as another form of this long-practiced type of genocide.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 11:01 AM on November 14, 2018 [13 favorites]

The hashtag #FiveWhiteGuys is trending on Twitter - Charlie Pierce, Esquire: The #FiveWhiteGuys Are Offering a Sucker's Bet to Anti-Pelosi Democrats:

Now, it seems, they've gotten the band back together again. The #FiveWhiteGuys are Moulton, Ryan, Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, Kurt Schrader of Oregon, and Bill Foster of Illinois. The driving forces remain Moulton and Ryan, with the latter the putative leader. After an election in which the Democratic Party continues to elect a demographically and politically diverse collection of new House members, Ryan is still insisting that the party needs to "reach out" to angry white men in places like Ohio when, in fact, if the midterms proved anything, it is that the Democratic Party's future is in places like Arizona and Nevada, and even Georgia and Florida, while, except for Sherrod Brown, god bless him, Ohio is a lost cause. It was an outlier even in its own geographic area. There were Democratic—and progressive—victories in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois. Ohio and, yes, Iowa, were loss leaders.

Swear to God, if these assholes succeed, I'll turn into the Hulk and smash things. I am hoping they don't, and that Nancy Smash smacks their noses with rolled-up newspaper and sends them to their places.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:03 AM on November 14, 2018 [39 favorites]

McCarthy elected Minority Leader.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:03 AM on November 14, 2018

Hey American Media! Yeah! You! With the funny shirt! Yeah! You!

This is how you press Republicans on Trump.
posted by downtohisturtles at 11:08 AM on November 14, 2018 [38 favorites]

Do the republicans have any old dudes in the senate that aren't completely and instantaneously hair-afire, teeth-gnashingly, scream-to-drown-them-out-whenever-they-start-talking infuriating? Could they maybe offer pro tem to that person, instead?

Not really? Pro tem goes to the most senior Senator from the majority party, and the most senior Republican is, basically by definition, going to be a decrepit white man who's past the point where he has to think about what he says in public and doesn't see what the big deal with Jim Crow was.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:13 AM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

WSJ, Shelby Holliday and Aruna Viswanatha, Mueller Probes Possible Witness Intimidation by Roger Stone

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office is exploring whether longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone tried to intimidate and discredit a witness who is contradicting Mr. Stone’s version of events about his contacts with WikiLeaks, according to people who have spoken to Mr. Mueller’s investigators.

In grand jury sessions and interviews, prosecutors have repeatedly asked about emails, text messages and online posts involving Mr. Stone and his former friend, New York radio personality Randy Credico, the people said. Mr. Stone has asserted that Mr. Credico was his backchannel to WikiLeaks, a controversial transparency group, an assertion Mr. Credico denies.

Mr. Mueller’s investigators are probing whether Mr. Stone had direct contact with WikiLeaks and knew ahead of time about its release of stolen Democratic emails, as he claimed during the campaign and now denies. Mr. Stone says he is angry at Mr. Credico because his ex-friend has “refused to tell the truth” about being his conduit to WikiLeaks.

Filmmaker David Lugo, who knows both men, said in an interview he has testified before Mr. Mueller’s grand jury about a blog post Mr. Stone helped him draft that was harshly critical of Mr. Credico. Another witness, businessman Bill Samuels, said he was questioned by Mr. Mueller’s team about Mr. Credico’s reaction to allegedly threatening messages sent by Mr. Stone.

Prosecutors also are examining messages between Messrs. Stone and Credico that involve the radio personality’s decision to assert his Fifth Amendment before Congress, according to a person familiar with the probe.
...
In emails sent to Mr. Credico and reviewed by the Journal, Mr. Stone threatened to “sue the f—” out of him, called him “a loser a liar and a rat” and told him to “prepare to die c— sucker.”

posted by zachlipton at 11:14 AM on November 14, 2018 [15 favorites]

> Do the republicans have any old dudes in the senate that aren't completely and instantaneously hair-afire, teeth-gnashingly, scream-to-drown-them-out-whenever-they-start-talking infuriating?

So I know we get some flack for complaining about our own party... The thing is, I can maintain some sense of composure and rationality when I talk about the Dems. If I attempt to even talk about the Republicans, it usually ends up as a vocal exhortation of fury vaguely resembling a much angrier version of the sound of ultimate suffering from the Princess Bride.

So that being said - the answer seems to be a firm "no" as far as I'm concerned. As I think through potential alternatives, literally every one of them is infuriating just in my own imagination - and I tend to be an optimist.
posted by MysticMCJ at 11:16 AM on November 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pro tem goes to the most senior Senator from the majority party

...by tradition. The position is elected by the Senate. They just haven't bothered electing anyone who wasn't the senior serving member of the majority party since 1949.
posted by Etrigan at 11:21 AM on November 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Speaking to troops deployed to Texas, Mattis is asked by a soldier whether they will have to take down all that concertina wire they've been putting up along the border since they arrived.
The livestream catches him saying "We'll let you know"
Another soldier asked Mattis what the short and long term goals of the mission at the border are.
"Short term, get the obstacles in. Longer term...it is somewhat to be determined."
Mattis told troops deployed to the border to ignore news coverage questioning the mission - "There’s all sorts of stuff in the news...If you read all that stuff, you’ll go nuts, you know what I mean?"

I'm thinking about Rumsfeld being asked by soldiers in Iraq why in the hell they don't have armor under the Humvees. It may be my own biases, and hearing/watching the tone of these exchanges may come off much differently than it reads, but those questions strike me as military passive-aggression. These are not the questions asked by soldiers who believe in what they're doing and are happy about it. I hope I'm right about that.

And God I hope some of the Cult of St. Mattis can see the flailing weakness in his answers. Probably too much to hope for, but still.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:25 AM on November 14, 2018 [19 favorites]

@AdamSerwer: Things that can be inferred from this stenographic interview from the Daily Caller: The president's understanding of nigh-nonexistent voter fraud comes from bugs bunny cartoons, and he has also never bought his own groceries

I know Serwer has some flair, but he's being pretty literal here:

The Republicans don’t win and that’s because of potentially illegal votes,” Trump complained. “When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again. Nobody takes anything. It’s really a disgrace what’s going on.”

“If you buy a box of cereal — you have a voter ID,” Trump continued. “They try to shame everybody by calling them racist, or calling them something, anything they can think of, when you say you want voter ID. But voter ID is a very important thing.”

When asked about how to prevent a repeat situation in the 2020 presidential election, Trump bluntly said Snipes needed to go, along with her “cronies.”

The President of the United States thinks people are walking around in circles with disguises to vote and that you need ID to buy cereal.

It's also striking that the White House gave serial plagiarist Benny Johnson an interview.

Can't believe I didn't see this one coming: @aedwardslevy: the President is a Cereal Liar
posted by zachlipton at 11:32 AM on November 14, 2018 [52 favorites]

I think the insinuation is that they're giving away voter ID free in a box of cereal, not that you need ID to buy it.

Still patently ridiculous, just of a different, more tired sort.
posted by Imperfect at 11:38 AM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

It's also striking that the White House gave serial plagiarist Benny Johnson an interview.

as opposed to a job?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:39 AM on November 14, 2018

Good piece in Jacobin by Princeton assistant professor of history Matt Karp:

51 Percent Losers: The midterms have given the Democratic Party a boost. But their professional-class politics are a cul de sac — we desperately need a political revolution driven by the needs and aspirations of the multiracial working class.

tldr: actually I couldn't choose just a couple of paragraphs to lift and quote. It's worth reading the whole thing.
posted by homunculus at 11:39 AM on November 14, 2018 [16 favorites]

Roughly eleven billion years ago in August, Trump said you need photo ID to buy groceries (NB: NYT link). So I think it's the first thing.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:40 AM on November 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

This is how you press Republicans on Trump.

The extended interview is good, too.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:42 AM on November 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

Surprising no one, the DoJ Office of Legal Counsel has issued a memo [PDF] saying that the Whitaker appointment is legal

No less unsurprisingly, the OLC's reasoning seems dubious:

ABC's Mike Levine:

[WaPo reporter] .@DevlinBarrett asked DOJ official: "Doesn't that mean that in theory the president under your interpretation could fire anyone he wants &...just make anyone a cabinet official?" Official responded:
“I don't want to address hypotheticals," but then suggested Devlin was “correct”

Fordham law prof. Jed Shugerman:

I think I caught a major legal error on p. 5 of the OLC memo on #Whitaker.
OLC argues that the Vacancies Act applies to DOJ statute 28 USC 508, because the DOJ statute cross-refers to the VRA.
That would be difficult b/c Congress passed 28 USC 508 before the VRA. See my thread: https://twitter.com/jedshug/status/1062542808106655745

Duke law prof. Walter Dellinger is "unpersuaded" as well:

My main difference with OLC is over the central Supreme Court decision: Eaton (1898). Eaton did as OLC notes, sustain a non-confirmed appointee who was limited in time. But the Ct added that the appointment was “for a limited time AND under special and limited conditions"

Allowing the bypass of the Senate only makes sense where there are “special conditions” as there surely were in Eaton and just as surely were not here where there are on the same floor Senate confirmed officials. OLC is silent on the Q of "special circumstances"

Fun fact via Yale senior lecturer and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa: "The current head of the OLC, incidentally (Steve Engel), worked as a Deputy Assistant AG in the OLC that created the torture memos."
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:00 PM on November 14, 2018 [13 favorites]

A few comments deleted. No biggie but let's skip the "using ID at the supermarket" discussion, which we've had a few times before and which doesn't really lead anywhere useful.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:12 PM on November 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Jed Shugerman has followed up the tweet above:

1. I no longer "think" i caught a major error by OLC. I know they made a major error.

2. If the OLC needed help fixing up a shaky timeline with old calendars, they should have called up Kavanaugh and Squi.

Jed Shugerman just earned the title of the Chrissy Tiegen chair of legal burns at Fordham Law [that last part is fake]
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:13 PM on November 14, 2018 [64 favorites]

Surprising no one, the DoJ Office of Legal Counsel has issued a memo [PDF] saying that the Whitaker appointment is legal.

Recall that the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel also issued memos saying that human torture authorized by the president was just fine. They can write a memo saying literally anything the president asks them to.
posted by JackFlash at 12:27 PM on November 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

HuffPo: DC Neo-Nazi Who Called Pittsburgh Murders A ‘Dry Run’ Arrested; Has Deep Ties To 'Alt Right'

More from domestic terrorism reporter JJ McNab:

When the Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting took place, one of Clark's Gab friends asked if he had done it? It's a pretty good list of the most verbal Bowl Gang members.

And according to the Affidavit, there's evidence that Clark either planned or knew of additional attacks.

This is frightening on a lot of levels, not the least that, had this attack happened, it's very easy to imagine the reaction would very likely have been much different than two weeks ago. The Tree of Life synagogue was a Conservative (the Jewish American definition) congregation in a heavily Jewish area, and while I don't know their political leanings, at least one survivor is a Trump supporter. DC Jews, however, tend to be secular or Reform, are more scattered throughout the city and suburbs, and tend to lean much further to the left. Many of us have proudly marched in solidarity with Muslims and Palestinians for social justice causes, including their rights here and in Israel being attacked.

In the wake of the Pittsburgh attack, even when the ADL (who is theoretically supposed to be supportive to all Jewish Americans) took to the NYT editorial pages to condemn anti-Semitic violence, not once did they name Trump, nor that every single elected official they tied to anti-Semitic rhetoric was a Republican, nor that their favorite bogeyman (Farrakhan) supported Trump in 2016 and has no institutional support amongst Democrats, let alone anything approaching the reach that figures on the right have. And then today they released a report called "How Conspiracy Theories Can Kill," which again fails to mention the president's party or that of the politicians who spread conspiracy theories, and ultimately fails to conclude that maybe, just maybe, this is an issue that is dominated by the right wing.

Apparently we were lucky this time, but that doesn't mean we'll be so lucky next time, or the time after that, or...well you get the idea. We already know that the Israeli government's leadership, who trafficked and engaged in, and continues to traffic and engage in the same anti-Semitic rhetoric that Trump and the GOP does while attacking and detaining even left-of-center Jewish American critics, doesn't care about us. So when there is no guarantee that the institutions and organizations that have no compunctions about supporting the "right" (in several senses) Jewish Americans will support us when it happens, it's scary. I can only hope that they'll finally find the courage to cut out the both-sidesism and the right-washing, but the things we're hearing from conservative Jewish Americans--and what we're not hearing from groups like the ADL--doesn't really give me that hope.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:49 PM on November 14, 2018 [34 favorites]

Four of the six Opinion headlines on the WaPo front page right now:

A frightful portrait of a president out of control
Melania Trump is helping sexist stereotypes stay alive
The White House is in meltdown
The Republican Party has a woman problem

In other words, Wednesday.
posted by Melismata at 12:56 PM on November 14, 2018 [22 favorites]

The "frightful portrait of a president out of control"-type stories have been a constant since Day 1 of Trump's presidency. This one from yesterday includes the line "Trump has retreated into a cocoon of bitterness and resentment," which begs the question of when it was that he lived outside a cocoon of bitterness and resentment.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:02 PM on November 14, 2018 [37 favorites]

For a group [the so-called Tea Party] that came into power chanting about the deficit, this is quite the legacy.

And boy howdy, Democrats should never let anyone forget it. Every single time someone in the media concern trolls about the deficit, Democrats should simply respond "The Tea Party came to power by yelling about the deficit, and their legacy is nothing but more deficits."
posted by Gelatin at 1:07 PM on November 14, 2018 [30 favorites]

@VeraMBergen: Mattis: "My mother was an immigrant, ok? She told me how hard it was to get into America. So believe me, we want legal immigration. That's part of what makes America good, but illegal we're going to carry out the law." (His mother came to the US from Canada as an infant)
posted by homunculus at 1:08 PM on November 14, 2018 [14 favorites]

For a group that came into power chanting about the deficit, this is quite the legacy.

They didn't say boo when George W. Bush turned the all-time record surplus he inherited from Bill Clinton into a then-record deficit. Their chants were really about Fear of a Black President.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:24 PM on November 14, 2018 [23 favorites]

NYT, Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

And when that failed — as the company’s stock price plummeted and sparked a consumer backlash — Facebook went on the attack.

While Mr. Zuckerberg conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, persuading a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.
...
In July, organizers with a coalition called Freedom from Facebook crashed a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, where a company executive was testifying about its policies. As the executive spoke, the organizers held aloft signs depicting Ms. Sandberg and Ms. Zuckerberg, who are both Jewish, as two heads of an octopus stretching around the globe.

Eddie Vale, a Democratic public relations strategist who led the protest, later said the image was meant to evoke old cartoons of Standard Oil, the Gilded Age monopoly. But a Facebook official quickly called the Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish civil rights organization, to flag the sign. Facebook and other tech companies had partnered with the civil rights group since late 2017 on an initiative to combat anti-Semitism and hate speech online.

That afternoon, the A.D.L. issued a warning from its Twitter account. “Depicting Jews as an octopus encircling the globe is a classic anti-Semitic trope,” the organization wrote. “Protest Facebook — or anyone — all you want, but pick a different image.” The criticism was soon echoed in conservative outlets including The Washington Free Beacon, which has sought to tie Freedom from Facebook to what the publication calls “extreme anti-Israel groups.”
...
Facebook also used Definers to take on bigger opponents, such as Mr. Soros, a longtime boogeyman to mainstream conservatives and the target of intense anti-Semitic smears on the far right. A research document circulated by Definers to reporters this summer, just a month after the House hearing, cast Mr. Soros as the unacknowledged force behind what appeared to be a broad anti-Facebook movement.
...
In July, as Facebook’s troubles threatened to cost the company billions of dollars in market value, Mr. Schumer confronted Mr. Warner, by then Facebook’s most insistent inquisitor in Congress.

Back off, he told Mr. Warner, according to a Facebook employee briefed on Mr. Schumer’s intervention. Mr. Warner should be looking for ways to work with Facebook, Mr. Schumer advised, not harm it. Facebook lobbyists were kept abreast of Mr. Schumer’s efforts to protect the company, according to the employee.

posted by zachlipton at 1:29 PM on November 14, 2018 [19 favorites]

This is kind of sort of maybe finally something, if another Republican joins him.

@pkcapitol: Flake takes action: He will not vote to confirm any judicial nominee that is already on Senate calendar, and will oppose any judicial nominee in committee, until the Mueller protection bill gets a vote. In 51-49 Senate, that can make McConnell life a tad more difficult.

This came after McConnell objected to Flake's attempt to bring the Muller protection bill up for consideration by the Senate.

(Note that nominations can be moved out of committee even if Flake doesn't support them there, so this would lead to, at best, a 50-50 tie broken by Pence unless another Republican joins in)
posted by zachlipton at 1:32 PM on November 14, 2018 [25 favorites]

CNN: Republican Senator Threatens To Vote Against Judges After Gop Blocks Vote On Mueller Protection Bill

Retiring Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said Wednesday that he will not vote to confirm the Trump administration's judicial nominees on the Senate floor or advance them in the Senate Judiciary Committee if legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller does not receive a Senate floor vote.

Flake made the new judicial threat after he and Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, unsuccessfully attempted to force a Senate vote on the special counsel legislation Senate Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell objected to the request for a vote from Flake.

Meanwhile, Politico's Darren Samuelsohn reports: “In a one-page status report filed this PM, lawyers for special counsel Robert Mueller and Rick Gates say the former Trump campaign deputy "continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations" and therefore isn't ready to be sentenced yet.”
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:33 PM on November 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

Erik Wemple is tweeting from the Acosta hearing. Some highlights (Boutrous is Ted Boutrous, representing CNN, Kelly is Judge Timothy J. Kelly, Burnham represents the government):

Judge Kelly asks CNN counsel whether revocation if @Acosta revocation was content discrimination on its face. Yes, says Ted Boutrous, repping CNN. Kelly says there is some evidence that it was Acosta’s behavior and not viewpoint that triggered revocation. Says there is “evidence on both sides

“Content-based evidence is overwhelming” says Boutrous, who brings up a Trump campaign email citing CNN bias

Boutrous on Trump: “He’s the most aggressive, dare I say rude, person in the room.”

Boutrous argues that WH has abandoned argument about Acosta placing his hands on an intern during famous mic standoff

Judge Kelly asks why revocation process wasn’t sufficient. Boutrous responds that THERE WAS NO PROCESS

Boutrous and Judge are now discussing the TRO request, and I cannot believe that we are all paying for four government lawyers to appear in court to fight for the revocation of a reporter’s White House credentials.

USG lawyer says WH argument doesn’t depend on the “places his hands on an intern” point initially put forth by @PressSec. And he relies on argument that @Acosta conduct wa such that WH couldn’t run an orderly press briefing

Burnham says that there no case for viewpoint discrimination against CNN bc network has about 50 hard passes

Burnham: “A single journalist’s attempt to monopolize a press conference is not a viewpoint.”

Also: “Grandstanding...is not a viewpoint.”—-USG lawyer Burnham

posted by zachlipton at 1:51 PM on November 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

I guess you never know but I am not sure they're going to have a lot of luck with this 50 other hard passes thing as a counterpoint to viewpoint discrimination. It's still viewpoint discrimination even if you are going after one reporter and letting others at the same organization in, just as you couldn't deny a parade permit to one specific catholic church and say it's okay because you let a different catholic church get one.

Unless they have some sort of documented process for supposed behavior offenses I'm not sure I think they're going to have luck there either. I certainly hope that Boutrous raises the matter of Trump and Sanders' tenor in these events. Seems insane not to raise the matter of whether the administration is setting a tone that reporters are simply going along with.
posted by phearlez at 2:12 PM on November 14, 2018

Boutrous argues that WH has abandoned argument about Acosta placing his hands on an intern during famous mic standoff
...
USG lawyer says WH argument doesn’t depend on the “places his hands on an intern” point initially put forth by @PressSec.

Yeah, so, that entire thing was bullshit from the outset. Just for the record. Acosta should sue for defamation. I halfway believe he could actually meet the "actual malice" standard of NYT v. Sullivan!
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 2:13 PM on November 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

Judge Kelly asks why revocation process wasn’t sufficient. Boutrous responds that THERE WAS NO PROCESS

Wasn't this mentioned in the court filings? Does the judge not read them beforehand? Is he just asking anyway?
posted by reductiondesign at 2:14 PM on November 14, 2018

Guilty Pleasures is the only ice cream truck defending Mueller's investigation into Trump's Russian collusion:
We at @MoveOn don't have any special knowledge of whether indictments are coming down this week. But we can guarantee that you can get free Indict-Mint flavored ice cream at the Trump Hotel tomorrow
posted by growabrain at 2:27 PM on November 14, 2018 [19 favorites]

Matt Fuller, Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic Foes Prepare To Go Public

About a dozen incumbent Democrats and a half-dozen incoming Democrats are preparing a letter pledging to not support Pelosi on the House floor for speaker. The members also intend to note another contingent of Democrats who privately say they won’t support the longtime California Democrat but won’t sign the letter, according to Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), one of the ringleaders of the effort to block Pelosi.

Sources familiar with the letter say there are currently 17 names on it, but the group is trying to get more than 20 members before releasing it. Currently on the letter, though not certain to stay on it, are

[names follow]

So that's 17 names, but there's another 9+ who have made negative statements, including a number of newly elected reps who campaigned on a promise not to support Pelosi for Speaker. Depending on exactly how the last House races go, she can only afford to lose about 16.

There have also been some weirder ideas floated, such as the thought that some Republicans could back her in exchange for her support of the "Problem Solvers Caucus" reform package. This moronic idea would ensure that the House could have daily, perhaps even hourly, votes for Speaker, as the gavel would be held only at the whims of Republicans who could pull their support at any time. Alternatively, some Republicans could just vote Present when the Speaker vote comes around, which would lead to the same problem: Republicans would control the fate of the Democratic Speaker.

What Tim Ryan has not managed to produce is an actual candidate to be Speaker instead, though they're big on Marcia Fudge.
posted by zachlipton at 2:33 PM on November 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

I cannot imagine any Republican wanting "supported Nancy Pelosi" hanging around their necks, ever. Not even for a clever tactical "Haha I did it cuz she sux and Dems suck" argument. They know their base won't accept that kind of nuance.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:37 PM on November 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

they're big on Marcia Fudge.

Well, who ... isn't?
posted by petebest at 2:41 PM on November 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

CNN: Trump's Mood Takes a Foul Turn: 'He's Pissed -- At Damn Near Everyone'

"Yes, he's pissed -- at damn near everyone," a White House official said, noting the mood in the Oval Office is darker than normal this week. After nearly a month straight of campaigning before adoring crowds, the applause has gone silent and the President has retreated. The tempest has led to rampant speculation inside the building about the fates of other senior staffers, some of whom are beginning to plan their exits.

Friends of the President describe him as embittered by the election losses and troubled by the Mueller investigation. He met Monday with his lawyers to go over a series of written questions from the special counsel. Some of his longtime confidants are worried for his health, believing he's gained weight and looks unwell.

The Trump White House springs leaks like these every time there's a crisis or setback, but that doesn't detract from the schadenfreude at the anonymous staffers' sob stories. Otherwise, the main value to this piece are the (unattributed) details about the sparring between Bolton and Team Melania over Mira Ricardel's NSC job—which she still has, as of today.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:45 PM on November 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

The right has succeeded in making another successful woman seem so "problematic" (a word, I note, that in my reading is only applied to women and generally is intended to reference scandals created entirely in the minds of that woman's critics) that some members of her own party are trying to remove her from a position for which she's the current best candidate. That's how effective right wing propaganda mixed with both-wing misogyny is.

In the past, I would have qualified that with a statement that I, of course, don't 100% agree with everything she's said or done, but I recognize I almost never do that with any male politicians because my own internal misogyny never makes me feel like I have to justify or qualify my support of men. Honestly, I don't agree with any human being 100%. None of us do. No politician is perfect. That should just be assumed.

I do think Pelosi is the best person to be speaker of the House in 2018. I hope she regains the gavel and spends the next couple years giving Trump and his minions hell.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:48 PM on November 14, 2018 [85 favorites]

NBC, Anna Schecter, Exclusive text messages show Roger Stone and friend discussing WikiLeaks plans, in which Unreliable Narrator Roger Stone hands his text messages to the press to throw Credico under the bus and deflect from himself:

Six days before WikiLeaks began releasing Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, Roger Stone had a text message conversation with a friend about WikiLeaks, according to copies of phone records obtained exclusively by NBC News.

“Big news Wednesday,” the Stone pal, radio host Randy Credico, wrote on Oct. 1, 2016, according to the text messages provided by Stone. “Now pretend u don’t know me.”

“U died 5 years ago,” Stone replied.

“Great,” Credico wrote back. “Hillary’s campaign will die this week.”

Credico turned out to be wrong on one count — nothing incriminating about Clinton came out that Wednesday. But two days later, on Oct. 7, WikiLeaks released its first dump of emails stolen from Podesta, altering the trajectory of the 2016 presidential election.
...
The text messages obtained by NBC News appear to show that Stone and Credico exchanged messages about Assange having damaging information about Clinton at least as early as Aug. 27, 2016. The texts show that at 6:07 p.m. that day, Credico wrote to Stone, “Julian Assange has kryptonite on Hillary.”

So Stone is releasing this as his defense: he didn't personally collude, but he just got information from someone else.
posted by zachlipton at 2:56 PM on November 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

Some of his longtime confidants are worried for his health, believing he's gained weight and looks unwell.

Right? It's noticeable. He's not having fun.
posted by petebest at 2:58 PM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

BuzzFeed, Stormy Daniels' Attorney Michael Avenatti Has Been Arrested On Suspicion Of Domestic Violence

If we can all just never hear from him or speak of him again, that would be swell.
posted by zachlipton at 3:00 PM on November 14, 2018 [30 favorites]

May as well post the entire article:

Michael Avenatti, the attorney representing porn actor Stormy Daniels in her legal pursuit of President Trump, has been arrested on suspicion of domestic violence in Los Angeles, police confirmed.

Avenatti had not yet been booked, but a report on the alleged incident was taken on Tuesday, Los Angeles police said.

News of his arrest was first reported by TMZ.

Avenatti's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It seems not fully baked yet.
posted by petebest at 3:05 PM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

n.b. Buzzfeed's source of the Avenatti domestic violence story is TMZ, which (a) has very good sources in the LAPD and (b) is very pro-Trump. We'll see how this shakes down, but zero tolerance for domestic abuse when it comes to would-be 2020 candidates.
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:09 PM on November 14, 2018 [14 favorites]

While I feel like the first concern should be for how badly the victim was hurt and the nature of the charges: this seems like exactly the sort of morale boost Trump needs to pull himself out of his funk. He's gonna run around shouting about this guy being abuser, completely disregarding his own long history and the general monumental awfulness of his camp as a whole.

If anyone was wondering when the next avalanche of ugly was coming, here we are.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:13 PM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

This Avenatti thing is the least surprising plot twist I can imagine.
posted by Justinian at 3:17 PM on November 14, 2018 [22 favorites]

Bolton lost to Team Melania, it seems.

The WaPo's Josh Dawsey reports: “Statement from Sarah Sanders: “Mira Ricardel will continue to support the President as she departs the White House to transition to a new role within the Administration. The President is grateful for Ms. Ricardel’s continued service to the American people..."”
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:18 PM on November 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

That CNN article is interesting: TEN people get bylines on it, and it specifically says that Melania thought Mira was a bully. SO THERE'S WHERE HER ANTI-BULLYING CAMPAIGN IS.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:21 PM on November 14, 2018 [13 favorites]

The longest election for Speaker took two months and 133 ballots.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:21 PM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

The Republican Party has a woman problem

I think that's supposed to be the other way around.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:23 PM on November 14, 2018 [17 favorites]

So everything yesterday seems like it was accurate, but the East Wing twisted the knife on Ricardel a bit too early.

The President is so grateful for Ricardel's service that she's been given a new role that nobody seems to have identified its title or even what agency it's situated in. I'm sure all the top management books advise vaguely announcing that the employees you're grateful for have been sent generically elsewhere.
posted by zachlipton at 3:23 PM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

From the department of five-alarm-scandals-that-are-destroying-lives-but-don't-rate-five-minutes-of-attention-anymore, NBC News, Under Ben Carson, more families live in HUD housing that fails health and safety inspections, in which HUD tightened inspection standards in 2016, but hasn't acted to fix the hazardous properties.

An NBC News investigation has found that more than 1,000 out of HUD’s nearly 28,000 federally subsidized multifamily properties failed their most recent inspection — a failure rate that is more than 30 percent higher than in 2016, according to an analysis of HUD records.
...
But more failing properties also mean that HUD has a bigger caseload of troubled homes to oversee. And rather than beefing up the department’s staff to oversee them, HUD has lost hundreds of staff members in the wake of a hiring freeze mandated by President Donald Trump. HUD’s enforcement office, tasked with going after the worst landlords, now has the lowest staff levels since 1999, according to a federal watchdog. At the same time, Carson has proposed raising rents on poor families, requiring them to pay a higher percentage of their income for housing, and the Trump administration has pushed — so far unsuccessfully — for steep budget cuts.

The staff cutbacks have made it more difficult for the department to identify and fix problems quickly, current and former HUD employees say. While tenant advocates have long criticized HUD’s oversight as being too lax, a dozen current and former HUD officials — both political appointees and career staff — also describe a climate of inertia under Carson that they say is undermining the department’s work.

“There’s no urgency on anything,” said a current HUD official who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.
...
In Hartford, just up the street from Infill, a Section 8 property run by another landlord passed inspection in February despite holes in the ceiling, rampant mold and other serious problems. Meeting privately with irate tenants in early October, HUD officials blamed an inspection process that can result in inflated scores from contract inspectors, despite recent reforms.

“That's how you get a passing score with mold, vermin and a falling down bathroom ceiling — the system is broken,” said one HUD official in a recording of the meeting with tenants provided to NBC News on the condition that the participants not be identified. (HUD verified that the recording was authentic.)

posted by zachlipton at 3:29 PM on November 14, 2018 [25 favorites]

If we can all just never hear from him or speak of him again, that would be swell.

I'd like to speak of him just to opine that we should, in the future, be wary of supporting titanically obnoxious pricks just because they're our pricks.
posted by theodolite at 3:38 PM on November 14, 2018 [14 favorites]

I agree with that 100%. The question isn't how did some of us see Avenatti's immolation coming, it's how did some of us not.
posted by Justinian at 3:38 PM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Looks like that CNN piece was right on the money: "Most view Bolton's efforts to preserve Ricardel's job as futile and just delaying the inevitable, which Bolton apparently realized after seeing the drama unfold from half a world away. But Trump has surprised staffers in the past, and there was some speculation on Wednesday that Ricardel will end up in another position in the administration outside the National Security Council. The first lady does not offer the President staffing advice on a regular basis, but one former White House official said that when she does, it carries significant weight."

Meanwhile, NBC and the AP have independently confirmed TMZ's Avenatti scoop.
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:39 PM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

NYT:

President Trump threw his support behind a substantial rewrite of the nation’s prison and sentencing laws on Wednesday, opening a potential but narrow path to enacting the most significant criminal justice overhaul in a generation.

Mr. Trump’s endorsement is considered critical to the success of the bipartisan compromise, which would invest heavily in anti-recidivism programs and lower some mandatory minimum sentences.

posted by Chrysostom at 3:47 PM on November 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

While Mr. Zuckerberg conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, persuading [the ADL] to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.
[...]
In July, as Facebook’s troubles threatened to cost the company billions of dollars in market value, Mr. Schumer confronted Mr. Warner, by then Facebook’s most insistent inquisitor in Congress.

Back off, he told Mr. Warner, according to a Facebook employee briefed on Mr. Schumer’s intervention. Mr. Warner should be looking for ways to work with Facebook, Mr. Schumer advised, not harm it. Facebook lobbyists were kept abreast of Mr. Schumer’s efforts to protect the company, according to the employee.

So, as Adam Serwer puts it:

Facebook decided to defend themselves by spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and then accusing its critics of being anti-Semitic. Difficult to top that combination of evil and cynicism

I take back my upthread assessment: for the ADL and centrist Jews, "we just don't care" is merely the baseline, and active collaboration with enablers of both anti-leftist and anti-Semitic violence (many of who are themselves Jewish) is something to be willingly, if not enthusiastically, pursued in the name of self-interest.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:50 PM on November 14, 2018 [30 favorites]

Every John Kelly piece I’ve read for eight months, but maybe it’s real this time? (Alexandra Petri, WaPo)

Behind the scenes, all is not smooth sailing with the chief of staff, whose exit has been rumored in stories identical to this for the past year.

According to a senior staffer, Trump no longer obeys Kelly’s commands and has started to run loose through the White House grounds at night, sometimes biting the heads off small rodents and refusing to give them up even when Kelly holds out the promise of a rally at which the president won’t have to denounce any white supremacists.

Kelly is frequently frustrated, the staffer says, because his preferred issues, including Cool, Fun Things ICE Could Maybe Do, have been placed on the back burner, and although Kelly painstakingly reviews a PowerPoint presentation with the president every night before Executive Time, doing a special voice for each policy area, Trump is generally unresponsive and makes lip farts until he has finished, sometimes even addressing him as “Reince,” the ultimate sign of disrespect.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:54 PM on November 14, 2018 [33 favorites]

I want to highlight one other bit of the NYT's Facebook story too, though the whole thing is worth reading:

Definers had established a Silicon Valley outpost earlier that year, led by Tim Miller, a former spokesman for Jeb Bush who preached the virtues of campaign-style opposition research. For tech firms, he argued in one interview, a goal should be to “have positive content pushed out about your company and negative content that’s being pushed out about your competitor.”
...
On a conservative news site called the NTK Network, dozens of articles blasted Google and Apple for unsavory business practices. One story called Mr. Cook hypocritical for chiding Facebook over privacy, noting that Apple also collects reams of data from users. Another played down the impact of the Russians’ use of Facebook.

The rash of news coverage was no accident: NTK is an affiliate of Definers, sharing offices and staff with the public relations firm in Arlington, Va. Many NTK Network stories are written by staff members at Definers or America Rising, the company’s political opposition-research arm, to attack their clients’ enemies. While the NTK Network does not have a large audience of its own, its content is frequently picked up by popular conservative outlets, including Breitbart.

That's "@crookedmedia's token Republican" Tim Miller. As a Recode article last year explains, this was exactly what they were quite openly selling:

Given the “spotlight that is on their industry,” Miller told Recode in an interview, the Valley’s biggest brands should invest more to ensure “you have positive content pushed out about your company and negative content that’s being pushed out about your competitor, or regulator, or activist groups or activist investors, that are challenging you.”

We've all focused a lot on foreign information operations, for obvious reasons, but the same circumstances that have left us vulnerable to Russian meddling has left us even more vulnerable to perfectly legal domestic, corporate-baked influence campaigns.
posted by zachlipton at 3:55 PM on November 14, 2018 [14 favorites]

be wary of supporting titanically obnoxious pricks just because they're our pricks

I mean, this is how we got Trump. Both many of his cultists and many more Republicans who weren't exactly on the Trump train but who also didn't oppose it are fully aware he's an obnoxious, cheating, lying bully. They thought he'd be their obnoxious, cheating, lying bully and happily pulled the lever.
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:56 PM on November 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

The Avenatti story has gotten really strange, to the extent I will regretfully mention him once again in the name of accuracy:

Avenatti's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in a statement to BuzzFeed News, attorneys for Avenatti's wife, Lisa Storie-Avenatti, refuted reports by TMZ that the alleged incident involved her.

"My client and I have reviewed the TMZ article alleging that my client, Lisa Storie-Avenatti, has been injured and that Michael Avenatti has been arrested as a result of some incident that occurred between them. This article is not true as it pertains to my client," the statement said. "Ms. Storie-Avenatti was not subject to any such incident on Tuesday night. Further, she was not at Mr. Avenatti’s apartment on the date that this alleged incident occurred. My client states that there has never been domestic violence in her relationship with Michael and that she has never known Michael to be physically violent toward anyone."

But the LAPD is confirming an arrest.

Oh, and Jacob Whol's fake outfit wants credit, which means absolutely nothing because he's a liar who is either telling the truth about lying or lying about a lie.

Anyway, I don't know what's going on, but probably best to wait to find out before coming to broad conclusions.

Also, while we're correcting stories, NBC, Brandy Zadrozny, The FBI said he called the Pittsburgh shooting 'a dry run for things to come.' But he was talking about a different attack., in which Clark is still very much bad news, but the FBI seems to have botched this thing up, as in not checking the datestamps:

A look at Clark’s posting history shows that he was referring to a different alleged terrorist — the man accused of sending pipe bombs to Trump critics — and that Clark posted the comment about a “dry run” before the Pittsburgh shooting took place.

posted by zachlipton at 4:05 PM on November 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

Schumer needs to go, Facebook needs to be dissolved.
posted by The Whelk at 4:08 PM on November 14, 2018 [37 favorites]

Retiring Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said Wednesday that he will not vote to confirm the Trump administration's judicial nominees on the Senate floor or advance them in the Senate Judiciary Committee if legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller does not receive a Senate floor vote.

Too fucking little, too fucking Flake. Even if Flake follows through on this, which he won't, McConnell can wait him out now. At most Flake could slow down the confirmation machine for exactly two months, IF he has a second vote, which he doesn't. They'll call in Pence to break ties and keep confirming.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:10 PM on November 14, 2018 [14 favorites]

Schumer needs to go, Facebook needs to be dissolved.

Nationalized as an arms-length agency, no? (Facebook I mean, not Schumer -- he can go)
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:19 PM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Facebook decided to defend themselves by spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and then accusing its critics of being anti-Semitic. Difficult to top that combination of evil and cynicism

i mean, that’s like the textbook definition of chutzpah right there
posted by murphy slaw at 4:28 PM on November 14, 2018 [19 favorites]

On a conservative news site called the NTK Network, dozens of articles blasted Google and Apple for unsavory business practices. One story called Mr. Cook hypocritical for chiding Facebook over privacy, noting that Apple also collects reams of data from users. Another played down the impact of the Russians’ use of Facebook.

Twitter got a pass since its reputation could not be lowered.
posted by benzenedream at 4:44 PM on November 14, 2018 [14 favorites]

WaPo, A White House aide picked a fight with Melania Trump. The first lady won.

A transoceanic personnel crisis that engulfed the National Security Council this week is partly rooted in a bureaucratic dispute over the seating arrangement aboard first lady Melania Trump’s plane to Africa last month during her maiden solo trip abroad.
...
Soon after the first lady’s office issued its statement Tuesday, surprised senior White House aides walked to Ricardel’s office to see if she was still there. She was, albeit confused.

Bolton, who was awoken in Asia in the middle of the night and told of the dust up, was soon on the phone, telling Ricardel to stay at her desk, three administration officials said.

The White House was trying to find a soft landing place for Ricardel, but agencies including the Commerce Department, where she worked in the first year of the Trump administration, are hesitant to take her on because of her reputation, two senior administration officials said.
...
Melania Trump and Ricardel have never met, according to people familiar with each of them. But the first lady viewed the conservative operative, who was among the most senior women in the West Wing, as a toxic influence within the White House, to the point that she spoke to Trump about Ricardel and authorized others to spread the word that Ricardel had overstepped following the Africa trip, several people familiar with recent events said.

A senior White House official said the first lady believed that Ricardel was spreading false rumors about her office, including a misleading story that aides had arranged a $10,000 hotel stay in Egypt. Other White House aides said Ricardel belittled underlings, yelled at professional staff and was the most disliked aide in the West Wing.

Pickin' seats in the air plane / I fought the FLOTUS and the FLOTUS won

Anyway, I guess having people wander the government looking for an agency willing to take them in is something we do now.
posted by zachlipton at 5:35 PM on November 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

The Republican Party has a woman problem

I think that's supposed to be the other way around.

Problem woman ‘A’ has party: Republican, the?
posted by Barack Spinoza at 5:37 PM on November 14, 2018 [17 favorites]

Maxine Waters and Adam Schiff publicly backing Pelosi.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:40 PM on November 14, 2018 [40 favorites]

Gabriel Sherman's Vanity Fair article makes this a trifecta of Trump White House aide leaks: “Insanity,” “Furious,” “On His Own”: Trump’s Post-Midterms Blues Are Vexing His Staff And Roiling The White House—He’s lashing out at aides and press and foreign leaders, and threatening to roll West Wing heads—but at least he didn’t get his hair wet at the Belleau Wood memorial.

As Donald Trump’s West Wing careens through one of the most turbulent weeks of his presidency, White House officials are struggling to understand the source of the fury fueling the president’s eruptions. “This is a level of insanity I’ve never seen before,” one former West Wing staffer told me. Current and former officials are debating different theories for Trump’s outbursts, ranging from his fears over his son Don Jr.’s legal exposure to the prospect that House Democrats will unleash investigations in January. “He’s under a tremendous amount of mental stress,” one prominent Republican close to him told me.

What’s surprising to some advisers about how bad the past week has been is that Trump initially seemed to take the midterm losses in stride. Last Tuesday, he was in high spirits as he watched election returns come in with about a hundred friends at the White House. Trump told people that his barnstorming rally schedule had mobilized his base and held Republican losses to historical lows, while increasing Republican gains in the Senate. “He really thought he won the midterms,” a prominent Republican who spoke with Trump said.

But by Wednesday, after hours of commentary about the suburbs’ distaste for him and with seat after undecided House seat slipping toward the Democrats, his mood slid, too, hitting bottom in a bizarre and combative press conference. “He was furious about the narrative. He said, ‘Look, I went to all these states and now people are saying Trump lost the election,’” the Republican who spoke with him recalled. Within hours, Trump forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replaced him with Matt Whitaker, who’d been a frequent cable-news critic of the Robert Mueller investigation. Next, Trump directed his press office to revoke CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass, something he’d wanted to do for months but had been talked out of by aides. “This is a matter of the president now being on his own without any countervailing force whatsoever,” a person close to Trump said. “It’s just 100 percent Donald Trump doing what Donald Trump wants.”

All we need now is a new dub of that scene from Der Untergang.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:11 PM on November 14, 2018 [22 favorites]

Regarding Avenatti I'd be happy if people held off on "always knew he was scum" takes unless there's some key evidence I didn't know about that had indicated anything beyond conventional white-man assholishness (which certainly bleeds into abusiveness, I admit this is complicated stuff).

(Also, the facts are still unfolding. Thus far the situation is reminiscent of when Mueller got accused, including "Surefire Intelligence" claiming a role, except actual police have involved themselves. I definitely believe the accuser by default here, but that assumes one actually exists; I seriously wouldn't put it past some inept officer, in today's political environment, to take cues from Jacob Wohl or similar even when making an arrest. To add clarity: It's not his wife, and hence the statement from his wife does not contradict or exonerate.)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:20 PM on November 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

Escalate and distract.
Trump warns antifa: Opposition to you could be tougher and ‘much more violent’.
posted by adamvasco at 6:26 PM on November 14, 2018 [13 favorites]

That’s ... the President inciting violence against his fellow citizens. There’s no other (remotely reasonable) way to read that.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 6:28 PM on November 14, 2018 [65 favorites]

More excavation of the Acting Attorney General's shady past from the Washington Post: ‘He Was Yelling’: Whitaker Pushed Back Against Early Fraud Complaints About Company He Advised

As a member of the company’s advisory board, Whitaker had been told of complaints about the company’s practices, according to two people familiar with the FTC investigation. He did not appear to take any action in response, they said.

In addition, shortly after joining the board in late 2014, Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney in Iowa, personally intervened when a for-profit consumer complaint website posted comments critical of the company.

Ed Magedson, the founder of the Arizona-based Ripoff Report, said he received a phone call from Whitaker in early 2015 after the website posted complaints about World Patent Marketing.

“He threatened me, using foul language,” said Magedson, whose website sells companies a program to improve their reputation among consumers. “He threatened to sue and to ruin my business if I did not remove the ‘false reports.’ ”

At one point, Whitaker said he would refer Ripoff Report to the Department of Homeland Security, Magedson said.

Naturally this kind of person gravitates to Trump's inner orbit.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:32 PM on November 14, 2018 [17 favorites]

Let me guess, the president has never been more isolated.
posted by The Whelk at 6:41 PM on November 14, 2018 [56 favorites]

Trump warns antifa: Opposition to you could be tougher and ‘much more violent’.

That’s ... the President inciting violence against his fellow citizens.

He also, during that interview, clarified that the "opposition" he speaks of includes the police and, critically, the military. He's saying that a force that he is personally the commander of could get much more violent against these American citizens. That's not just exhortation to violence, it's a direct threat that he might order the deaths of Americans, explicitly for the crime of resisting fascism. It doesn't really get any plainer than that.
posted by IAmUnaware at 6:43 PM on November 14, 2018 [66 favorites]

Rebirth of a Nation: Can states’ rights save us from a second civil war?

Progressives’ negative reaction to the words “states’ rights” was formed before the Civil War and reinforced during the Jim Crow era, but there’s a long tradition of progressives using the Tenth Amendment as a political tool, most notably, and successfully, in the 1850s, to resist the Fugitive Slave Act. Many Northern states abolished slavery decades before the Civil War. Wisconsin pioneered unemployment insurance for its residents twenty-four years before the federal government; Wyoming allowed women to vote in 1864, more than fifty years before the Nineteenth Amendment enacted suffrage nationwide.

The modern incarnation of this strategy, which one of its chief theorists, the Yale Law School professor Heather Gerken, calls “new progressive federalism,” has its origins in President George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004, when Republicans took control of all three branches of government. Gerken hoped a states’-rights strategy would serve as a counterweight to Republicans’ control of Washington, and that passing progressive legislation at the state level would be a way for “national minorities” to “constitute local majorities.” Since then, most major progressive reforms have been incubated and become law at the state level—commonsense gun control, tackling climate change, ensuring LGBTQ rights, marijuana decriminalization.

Citizens uninterested in living in Trump world should look to the recent heartening developments in California, Oregon, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington State: local legislators taking on federal power in ways that have proved far more effective than rallies or federal legislative efforts at stalling or presenting alternatives to the Trump Administration’s agenda. The era when the federal government was a progressive force against reactionary states such as Alabama and Mississippi is dead, and progressive change is now flowing from the states, not from Washington.

posted by homunculus at 6:43 PM on November 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

Montana Judge: Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin Can’t Hide Behind First Amendment

Beyond the immediate relevance, it's an interesting case that gets into some important issues about the legal responsibility you hold for inciting a troll storm. Here's the court order adopting the magistrate judge's recommendation and denying the motion to dismiss.

One interesting feature of the ruling is that it straight up called Richard Spencer a "white supremacist."
posted by zachlipton at 6:51 PM on November 14, 2018 [27 favorites]

My kingdom for a dumb Vox explainer on Tim Ryan. Does he have a particularly good press team? Is he known for drinking, John McCain-style, with reporters? Is he especially popular with his colleagues? With fundraisers? With the party membership? Who is this guy? He gets a lot of "rising star" language in news stories, and I just don't see it. I remember he challenged Pelosi for leadership after the last election. I remember he waffled, publicly and embarrassingly, on the Republican tax cut for billionaires (ultimately voting against it when the bill was predictably awful). A quick Google search tells me that he worked for Jim Traficant, was squishy on abortion rights, and has very recently decided that the NRA is not great. He's a bit to the right of Obama and HRC -- and in 2018, that's way to the right of the Democratic caucus.

I understand he's not putting himself forward again as a challenger, but is it plausible to think he could be kingmaker for the next leader? Or president? Even by "beltway media's latest centrist crush" standards, this strength of this guy's media presence makes no sense to me.
posted by grandiloquiet at 6:51 PM on November 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

@johnastoehr: 1. Something happened at the Capitol Tuesday to reaffirm my long-held view that liberals should stop believing what conservatives say liberals believe.

2. One of the biggest obstacles in the history of American liberalism has been this tendency among liberals to accept as true things liberalism’s enemies say about it and them.
3. Newly elected members of the US Congress arrived for orientation. @Ocasio2018 spoke at a sit-in featuring about 200 people outside Nancy Pelosi’s office.
4. The “protest,” as it was called, was organized by an advocacy group aiming to raise awareness about climate change and to advocate for more green-energy jobs.
5. This was manna to Ocasio-Cortez, who made history as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress after unseating US Rep. Joe Crowley, the former No. 3 in the House Democratic leadership.
6. The 29-year-old Latina has been stumping for liberal candidates across the country, making liberal arguments in unapologetically liberal ways. That she spoke with activists demanding action from leading liberals should have come as no surprise to anyone any time anywhere.
7. But then came this bit of disinformation from the spokeswoman of Paul Ryan to Capitol Hill reporters, which set the tone for the entire day: "Huh, well this is unconventional," AshLee Strong wrote in an email. "The incoming speaker is getting protested by one of her freshman."
8. From this point onward, Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t doing what a young dynamic liberal legislator does. No, no, no! She was “protesting” Pelosi!
9. AshLee Strong paved the way for every Capitol Hill reporter to tell a story they had been wanting to tell even though the narrative” was based on a falsehood: that this unruly mob can’t be controlled.
[...]

posted by scalefree at 6:57 PM on November 14, 2018 [76 favorites]

Esquire, An Exhaustive Timeline of Our New Acting Attorney General's Astoundingly Crooked Career, in which the Acting Attorney General has been murdered in a correction:

An earlier version of this article referred to Whitaker as a football "star." With 200 yards and two touchdowns in three seasons at Iowa, it appears he was an unspectacular player. We regret the error.

posted by zachlipton at 7:28 PM on November 14, 2018 [101 favorites]

This season of Game of Thrones sucks
posted by growabrain at 7:48 PM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

- The “protest,” as it was called

There were hundreds of activists staging a sit-in, occupying the hallway and handing Pelosi's staff letters demanding climate action - which was followed by 51 arrests; how are protests defined today?

I'm serious - is 'demonstration' a better description for Tuesday's event? Sunrise (the group who organized the event) refer to it as an 'action' on Facebook, is that the term which should have been used by the media?
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:48 PM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

manifestation.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:55 PM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Hundreds of activists blocking a hallway and demanding political action can pretty reasonably be called a “protest” I think. “Demonstration” might be a more friendly word for it. “Action” is exceptionally vague and I think most news editors, at least, would ask for a stronger, more descriptive word.
posted by Mothlight at 7:59 PM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

manifestation

Funciona bastante bien en español
posted by chappell, ambrose at 8:02 PM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

I am so surprised that this first might happen to the first woman party leader.

Jonathan Allen (NBC):
Here’s your historic first: If Dems sack Pelosi, it will be the first time a minority leader won re-election while leading the party to winning control of the House and was not made speaker.
posted by chris24 at 8:09 PM on November 14, 2018 [26 favorites]

Today we learned Chuck Schumer helped Facebook attack its critics with antisemitic fake news on top of losing two straight elections, largely with his own handpicked Senate candidates, espeically in the disastrous 2016 cycle, on top of being a feckless leader who's repeated capitulated to Trump's judges for no real reason, and we're talking about firing Pelosi.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:17 PM on November 14, 2018 [64 favorites]

It also tapped its business relationships, persuading [the ADL] to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.

Per the article, the incident in question appears to be a response to an image showing known Jew Zuckerberg as an octopus encircling the globe, which, yeah sorry. Don't fucking do that. I'm sure you can flesh out why Facebook is awful without covering for anti-Semitic tropes.
posted by Behemoth at 8:19 PM on November 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

The President Is Missing
posted by The Whelk at 8:27 PM on November 14, 2018 [22 favorites]

This Country Has a Violent White-Nationalist Problem. If it had a real president, he'd get on television and denounce it.

The mass murder in Pittsburgh briefly threw light on the armed and dangerous right-wing underground that journalists like Dave Neiwert and JJ McNab have been warning us about for decades. But that event itself already has begun the long drop to the bottom of the news cycle, so I imagine the larger issues involved in the shooting already are down there waiting for it.

But the fact remains that mainstream conservatism—and the Republican Party, which is its national political vehicle—has been playing footsie with these lunatics since the 1970s. While Republican senators are not out in the woods in camp, shooting up the landscape, prominent Republicans have been giving speeches to the more respectable political cover groups—the League of the South, the Wise Use movement—for years.

Now, though, they have a president* who, at the very least, throws them a juicy rhetorical bone every couple of months, and a fairly well defanged Justice Department headed, at the moment, by a guy who not long ago was scamming people with toilets designed for people with big dicks.

(Note to self: Escape timeline immediately. Find me the portal to the Atavachron.)

If we had a president who was genuinely concerned with the general welfare, as defined in the document to which he swore an oath a couple of years ago, we would have a speech on television denouncing white-nationalist violence for the authentic threat that it is. Instead, we have a president* who makes policy based on the mind of Brian Kilmeade and the political acumen of Steve Bannon, and who likes to refer to these people as "my base."

posted by homunculus at 8:44 PM on November 14, 2018 [20 favorites]

Cortez-Masto to be named DSCC chair.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:16 PM on November 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

zachlipton: "What Tim Ryan has not managed to produce is an actual candidate to be Speaker instead, though they're big on Marcia Fudge."

Matt Fuller:

I will note that Marcia Fudge is one of two Democratic members who refuses to cosponsor the Equality Act, which would extend civil rights protections to sexual orientation and gender identity. (The other is Dan Lipinski.)

posted by Chrysostom at 9:20 PM on November 14, 2018 [21 favorites]

That octopus thing reminds me of this NRO mission patch, which seems fairly apt re. Facebook.

OTOH, this cartoon from 2014 doesn't try to disguise the artist's antisemitism even a little.

Do octopuses in particular have some antisemitic history? (I am aware of the world-circling theme.)
posted by ryanrs at 9:25 PM on November 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

That's "@crookedmedia's token Republican" Tim Miller.

Update: a statement from Crooked Media, ending with: "In short, "we need to get to the bottom of Tim's involvement in this work, and he won't be contributing more to Crooked in the meantime."
posted by zachlipton at 9:43 PM on November 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

Nationalized as an arms-length agency, no?

This is probably the wrong administration for carrying that out.
posted by Apocryphon at 9:44 PM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Marcia Fudge ... Democratic members who refuses to cosponsor the Equality Act,

Equality Act.

How many times has Nancy Pelosi embarrassed Tim Ryan already?
posted by notyou at 9:53 PM on November 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

DC Finally Gets a Mueller-Themed Ice Cream Truck
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:55 PM on November 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

Man Shouts "Heil Hitler, Heil Trump" At Performance of Fiddler On The Roof.
posted by TwoStride at 10:13 PM on November 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

If we had a president who was genuinely concerned with the general welfare, as defined in the document to which he swore an oath a couple of years ago, we would have a speech on television denouncing white-nationalist violence for the authentic threat that it is. Instead, we have a president* who makes policy based on the mind of Brian Kilmeade and the political acumen of Steve Bannon, and who likes to refer to these people as "my base."

We had a president just recently who (despite his imperalist flaws) was deeply commited to anti-racism before his presidency. Early on he responded to a police officer arresting a man because of his skin color who was trying to get into his own house, and said president mildly chided the arresting officer (again: arresting a man trying to get into his own house) rightly as "acting stupidly", and set off a weeks long controversy. For the record you could switch around some skin colors and some time periods, and use that as the b-plot for Barney Fife on an episode of The Andy Griffith Show.

I guess what I'm saying is that America doesn't have a president problem, any more than a gunshot wound has a blood problem - one is just merely the surface evidence that the other exists. The gunshot in this case is a deeply sick, white supremacist and patriarchal ideology that's been ignored by everyone in power since... uh, forever, because white supremacy and patriarchy tend to buy complacency with crumbs of power.
posted by codacorolla at 10:33 PM on November 14, 2018 [40 favorites]

So, having performed in my high school‘s production of fiddler on the roof, I followed the link to the Baltimore Sun above. I viewed a series of videos on that site. One of the segments— I watched several in succession — was a speech by Elijah Cummings and it was amazing. I don’t know much about Maryland or Baltimore aside from Edgar Allan Poe, And having trouble finding a direct link, but I am primed to pay attention.
posted by maniabug at 11:02 PM on November 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Do octopuses in particular have some antisemitic history?

Yes, they do, for the same reasoning.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:52 AM on November 15, 2018

Cf. this WWII-era exhibit. There are plenty of other examples. I can’t speak to the other aspects of the Facebook saga, but yeah. This imagery is not okay in this context.
posted by Brak at 1:18 AM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Do octopuses in particular have some antisemitic history?
The octopus metaphor has been used since the 18th century to symbolize any entity or person accused of having some kind of tentacular, global-reaching power: this collection includes Russia, the British Empire, the USA, Stalin, Prussia, Germany, Communism, Japan, JD Rockefeller, Stalin, Churchill (in both antisemitic and non-antisemitic variants), and capitalism/finance/wealth (also in both antisemitic and non-antisemitic variants). It's also been used to describe Catholic clergy, Freemasons, the Mafia and even used against racism and antisemitism. So while the octopus metaphor does have an antisemitic history, using it was not, until recently, specifically antisemitic. However, many contemporary uses of the trope, particularly in the Arab media (for instance here and here) do focus on the Jews and Israel, and the Zuckerberg cartoon has definitely antisemitic tones.
posted by elgilito at 2:18 AM on November 15, 2018 [28 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump receives a 100% chance of authenticity rating from the Trump or Not Bot this morning: "The White House is running very smoothly and the results for our Nation are obviously very good. We are the envy of the world. But anytime I even think about making changes, the FAKE NEWS MEDIA goes crazy, always seeking to make us look as bad as possible! Very dishonest!"

But this next pair merits only 73%/97% (though the projection going on here puts this in the Trump's Mirror hall of fame): "The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t..." "....care how many lives the ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!"

Buckle up, folks, today is going to be rough.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:39 AM on November 15, 2018 [29 favorites]

Well, I already was nervous about counter protesting the proud boys this weekend here in philly. Good to know that the fash police (redundant) here will know they have the full support of the president to hurt me and my comrades. Yeesh.
posted by lazaruslong at 4:45 AM on November 15, 2018 [13 favorites]

Sounds like Stone was on the blower crying to Trump about his upcoming indictment.
posted by PenDevil at 4:50 AM on November 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

Indictments. Indictments. Indictments. Indictments. Indictments. Indictments. Indictments.

I-I-I wanna know ... Have you ever seeeeen the raiiin ...
posted by petebest at 4:55 AM on November 15, 2018 [9 favorites]

So you know how some kinds of animals can recognize themselves in a mirror but others can't?
posted by scalefree at 5:01 AM on November 15, 2018 [18 favorites]

John Kerry: US 'cannot afford a truculent child president' (Guardian)
Very well put.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 5:12 AM on November 15, 2018 [20 favorites]

The New Republic has a piece up that essentially re-covers the NYT story about Facebook from yesterday. Congressional testimony, octopi, etc. It's entitled, Facebook Betrayed America, and among the items was this:

The Times piece reveals Facebook executives and lobbyists’ campaign of deflection. They pushed the intelligence community not to challenge the company’s response to Russian interference and worked media organizations to push negative stories about the privacy failings of their competitors, such as Google and Apple. Executives berated employees for investigating Russian interference, with Sandberg telling them it “exposed the company legally.”

I mean, of course it did, but still. Not a good look. It concludes:

The depth of Zuckerberg’s insincerity is all too clear: He’s only interested in doing the bare minimum, and his company has proven incapable of self-regulation. Congress was slow to realize as much back in April, but it no longer has any excuse for not bringing the full weight of the law against one of America’s most arrogant, unaccountable monopolies.

Also of note, I'd forgotten the scrap about TNR w/r/t Facebook co-founder Hughes purchasing the magazine as a new toy, rousting people and giving up shortly thereafter.
posted by petebest at 5:22 AM on November 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

In Change Of Tune, Mattis Now Labeling Border Mission ‘Very Good Training’ (emphasis mine)

In his most extensive remarks about the hastily arranged border mission, Mattis argued that it fits an historical pattern dating to early in the 20th century. He noted that President Woodrow Wilson deployed tens of thousands of National Guard and active duty troops to the border in 1916 in response to a Mexican military raid into the U.S.

“That’s over a century ago, and the threat then was Pancho Villa’s troops — revolutionary raiding across the border into the United States,” he said.
[...]
“The eyes of the world right now — certainly all of the Americans — are on you,” Mattis told the soldiers, adding that they are part of a “non-traditional” mission. “We’re here because of the number of illegals who say they are going to illegally try to cross into our country,” he said, apparently referring to the several thousand migrants moving north through Mexico.

A man who has personally and directly commanded troops to commit war crimes against civilians is using blatantly racist and dehumanizing terms against civilians not anywhere close to a war zone. And on top of that, he's characterizing those civilians, who are unarmed and starving, as equivalent to a military force from over a century ago from a completely different country.

Tell me again how Mattis is the "good guy" in this administration?
posted by zombieflanders at 5:27 AM on November 15, 2018 [34 favorites]

He noted that President Woodrow Wilson deployed tens of thousands of National Guard and active duty troops to the border in 1916 in response to a Mexican military raid into the U.S.

We need a word for "ONE SECRET TRICK", which is the staple of the Sov-Cit gold-fringed flag crowd, because it seems like someone heard Wilson sending troops to the border, but didn't read up on subsequently Villa evading 5000 troops of the US Army riding through sovereign Mexico until they had to give up looking because WWI started.

Because without the context, you're NOT drawing the right conclusion.

See Also: Trump Admin belief that the more specific AG succession act can be superseded by the general vacancies act, because there is a vacancy act, and they're nitwits.
posted by mikelieman at 5:38 AM on November 15, 2018 [13 favorites]

"The White House is running very smoothly and the results for our Nation are obviously very good. "

You never go full Baghdad Bob.
posted by thelonius at 5:57 AM on November 15, 2018 [26 favorites]

I already deleted my fb account back in like January due to rage @ Zuck around the CA scandal. Yesterday's revelations that FB hired a PR firm to push anti-Semitic conspiracy theories has me so fucking angry. It's a small thing, but I'm deleting my instagram account now too. Bummer because I like keeping up with my sister there. Guess I'll just have to text her photos from this Saturday's #pushback rally against the Proud Boys et al.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:09 AM on November 15, 2018 [16 favorites]

Funny how Trump installs his lackey over Mueller last week and now he's yapping about the supposed inner workings of the investigation.
posted by chris24 at 6:13 AM on November 15, 2018 [32 favorites]

Tell me again how Mattis is the "good guy" in this administration?

Only by comparison.
posted by GrammarMoses at 6:35 AM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

My kingdom for a dumb Vox explainer on Tim Ryan.

I think most of it is that he's sort of the Platonic Ideal Dem politician for people who developed their understanding of the political landscape in the late 20th century - a group which would include a ton of media figures, professional political staff & consultants, and current politicians (including Tim Ryan himself.) He's 45 with 8 (I think) terms in the House under his belt, so he's no babe in the woods, but still young enough to contrast himself with the 65-70-year olds currently dominating our politics. Raised Catholic by a single mom, played football in high school and college, has done a ton of work supporting vets (all total "mainstream centrist Dem" stuff), but "progressive/hippy-dippy/millennial-friendly" enough to have written a book on mindfulness and another book on how factory farming is terrible and how eating locally from small family farms is the way to go. (Side note: I don't mean that mindfulness or locavore practices are intrinsically weird hippy stuff or pandering to "spoiled" millennials, but that's definitely how they're perceived by a bunch of people, cf. one million previous threads on Metafilter.) He was openly and heatedly critical of the Bush administration.

And he keeps getting elected from a heavily blue-collar district in a supposedly crucial swing state. I dunno if he's got the same charisma, but he's kind of the Gen-X Bill Clinton - transport him as he is back in time to '98/'99 and you could easily imagine him beating George W.

So add it all up and you could see how he would check all the boxes for people considering politicians from a certain perspective, and I would not be at all surprised if he starts taking a run at the Presidency from 2024 onwards. Which means currently he's angling for more power and influence within the existing Dem power structure.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:35 AM on November 15, 2018 [15 favorites]

The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess.

Does this, in any way, sound like anything remotely descriptive of reality? If anyone in the world, outside of Seal Team Six, could be described as running an excruciatingly tight operation, it has to be Bob Mueller.

I honestly can’t remember a single leak, errant statement, flurried media attention grab, or even an askant word from him or anyone associated with him that would indicate the slightest hint of disarray. It’s a textbook case of probity and discipline.
posted by darkstar at 6:36 AM on November 15, 2018 [38 favorites]

I don't know how many times it needs to be proved to me that Zuckerberg is the world's worst human being. The Soros thing is just... evil. That's not the work of a "PR" firm. The fake news? It's coming from inside the house.

I read an article on how tech execs love Harrari, author of Sapiens, recently, and Zuckerberg was quoted at some point as saying something like "Julius Ceasar wasn't democratic, but he brought two hundred years of peace by being a strong authoritarian leader". What?! Seriously?
posted by xammerboy at 6:40 AM on November 15, 2018 [28 favorites]

It's Trump's mirror. He heard that Mueller was making progress and getting people to turn. The only way he [Trump] can do that is with bluster and shouting, so he assumes everyone else most operate the same way.

It's been amply shown over the past few years that when he doesn't know what he's talking about he falls back on assumptions based on his own recent experience. In this case, shouting, infighting, and corruption.
posted by wierdo at 6:41 AM on November 15, 2018 [16 favorites]

They make a desert and call it peace.
posted by whuppy at 6:42 AM on November 15, 2018 [9 favorites]

And to no-one's surprise: Since November 6 -- 8 days and counting -- Trump hasn't mentioned the so-called caravan once in a tweet.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:43 AM on November 15, 2018 [23 favorites]

"The White House is running very smoothly and the results for our Nation are obviously very good. "

You never go full Baghdad Bob.

His very good brain seems run along the very same tracks over and over.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:51 AM on November 15, 2018

Only by comparison.

My point is that it's not even by comparison. He's just as bigoted, just as violent, and just as willing as any other dignity wraith to goose-step when Dear Leader asks.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:52 AM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm not saying the increment is large.
posted by GrammarMoses at 6:57 AM on November 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

Ah, very true.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:08 AM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

The Planet Money podcast by NPR has a new episode out this week:

Episode 876: Patent Deception

World Patent Marketing's pitch to inventors was simple: Pay us lots of money, and we'll take care of the complicated patent office details. Hundreds of tinkerers and would-be visionaries took this deal.

After all, the patent system is complicated. Marketing is tricky. It can be hard to find factories. But, for new inventors, it's hard to tell a legitimate service from a scam. It was especially hard to tell with World Patent Marketing, which boasted an advisory board that included Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.

If you want more, check out this piece in the Miami New Times, by Brittany Shammas, who joins us on this week's show.

posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 7:15 AM on November 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

But by Wednesday, after hours of commentary about the suburbs’ distaste for him and with seat after undecided House seat slipping toward the Democrats, his mood slid, too, hitting bottom in a bizarre and combative press conference. “He was furious about the narrative. He said, ‘Look, I went to all these states and now people are saying Trump lost the election,’” the Republican who spoke with him recalled. Within hours, Trump forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replaced him with Matt Whitaker, who’d been a frequent cable-news critic of the Robert Mueller investigation. Next, Trump directed his press office to revoke CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass, something he’d wanted to do for months but had been talked out of by aides. “This is a matter of the president now being on his own without any countervailing force whatsoever,” a person close to Trump said. “It’s just 100 percent Donald Trump doing what Donald Trump wants.”

So many echoes of history

"There's a man alone, without family, without children, without God ... He builds legions, but he doesn't build a nation. A nation is created by families, a religion, traditions: it is made up out of the hearts of mothers, the wisdom of fathers, the joy and the exuberance of children ... For a few months I was inclined to believe in National Socialism. I thought of it as a necessary fever. And I was gratified to see that there were, associated with it for a time, some of the wisest and most outstanding Germans. But these, one by one, he has got rid of or even killed ... He has left nothing but a bunch of shirted gangsters! This man could bring home victories to our people each year, without bringing them either glory or danger. But of our Germany, which was a nation of poets and musicians, of artists and soldiers, he has made a nation of hysterics and hermits, engulfed in a mob and led by a thousand liars or fanatics. ― ex Kaiser Wilhelm on Hitler, December 1938.
posted by srboisvert at 7:20 AM on November 15, 2018 [54 favorites]

“What are the trade-offs in that?” Zuckerberg said, growing animated.
Well, errr . . millions of people in slavery for one, jackass.
posted by Harry Caul at 7:36 AM on November 15, 2018 [20 favorites]

TPM:

In his most extensive remarks about the hastily arranged border mission, Mattis argued that it fits an historical pattern dating to early in the 20th century. He noted that President Woodrow Wilson deployed tens of thousands of National Guard and active duty troops to the border in 1916 in response to a Mexican military raid into the U.S.

“That’s over a century ago, and the threat then was Pancho Villa’s troops — revolutionary raiding across the border into the United States,” he said.

One soldier asked Mattis what are the short- and long-term plans for the military mission.

Mattis said the short-term objective is to get sufficient numbers of wire and other barriers in place along the border as requested by Customs and Border Protection. The longer-term objective, he said, is “somewhat to be determined.”

“When you’re in something like this,” Mattis said, “it’s dynamic, it’s unpredictable. We’ll have to see.”

Pancho Villa Expedition (WP):

The Pancho Villa Expedition—now known officially in the United States as the Mexican Expedition,[6] but originally referred to as the "Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army"[1]—was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa from March 14, 1916, to February 7, 1917, during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920.

The expedition was launched in retaliation for Villa's attack on the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and was the most remembered event of the Border War. The declared objective of the expedition by the Wilson administration was the capture of Villa.[7] Despite successfully locating and defeating the main body of Villa's command, responsible for the raid on Columbus, U.S. forces were unable to achieve Wilson's stated main objective of preventing Villa's escape.

• "I've had about enough of this" — Cartoon by Clifford Berryman reflects American attitudes about the expedition.

You've got to keep an eye on those early 20th Century historical patterns, all right.
posted by cenoxo at 7:37 AM on November 15, 2018 [10 favorites]

@AdamSerwer: Things that can be inferred from this stenographic interview from the Daily Caller...

Other things that don't need to be inferred, things that Trump just comes out and says: Whitaker is there to end the Mueller investigation.

Like with the Comey firing and Lester Holt interview, Trump can't help but incriminate himself. Brings Mueller up unsolicited when asked about Whitaker.

THE DAILY CALLER: Sure. Could you tell us where your thinking is currently on the attorney general position? I know you’re happy with Matthew Whitaker, do you have any names? Chris Christie —

POTUS: Matthew Whitaker is a very respected man. He’s — and he’s, very importantly, he’s respected within DOJ. I heard he got a very good decision, I haven’t seen it. Kellyanne, did I hear that?

WHITE HOUSE ADVISER KELLYANNE CONWAY: 20 pages.

POTUS: A 20-page?

THE DAILY CALLER: It just came out right before this, sir.

POTUS: Well, I heard it was a very strong opinion. Uh, which is good. But [Whitaker] is just somebody that’s very respected.

I knew him only as he pertained, you know, as he was with Jeff Sessions. And, you know, look, as far as I’m concerned this is an investigation that should have never been brought. It should have never been had.

It’s something that should have never been brought. It’s an illegal investigation. And you know, it’s very interesting because when you talk about not Senate confirmed, well, Mueller’s not Senate confirmed.

THE DAILY CALLER: Right.

POTUS: He’s heading this whole big thing, he’s not Senate confirmed.

So anyway, I have a lot of respect for Matt Whitaker, based primarily on reputation. And I think he’s really — I think a lot of people are starting to come out very much in favor of him during this period of time.

posted by chris24 at 8:00 AM on November 15, 2018 [13 favorites]

For more information about what exactly Caesar did that was so peaceful, you can check out the recent Hardcore History episode entitled "The Celtic Holocaust."
posted by fomhar at 8:05 AM on November 15, 2018 [20 favorites]

Daniel Dale's finished another fact-checking deep dive into Trump's lying record:

How much lying did Donald Trump do in the run-up to the midterms?

He made 815 false claims in one month. EIGHT HUNDRED FIFTEEN.

It took him 286 days to make his first 815 false claims. He just did it in 31.

Trump made more false claims in the two months leading up to the midterms, 1,176, than he did in all of 2017, 1,011.[...]

Trump made 664 false claims in October. That was more than double his previous record, 320 in August. He has now set new monthly records in June, July, August and October.[...]

Last data point: Trump averaged 26.3 false claims per day in the month leading up to the midterms. In 2017, it was 2.9 per day.

More in his article for the Toronto Star: 815 False Claims: The Staggering Scale of Donald Trump’s Pre-Midterm Dishonesty

Speaking of dishonesty, @realDonaldTrump continues this morning's Twitter tirade, ranting further about "Bob Mueller and his gang of Democrat thugs [...] protecting [...] Crooked Hillary [et al.]" and the Democrats' non-existent "“Collusion”" with Russia, then pivoting to lie about Facebook, Google, and Twitter are "biased" in favor of the Democrats. "That’s the real Collusion!" His rants obviously have a cathartic value for him, but he's also transmitting the party line to his faithful. Expect the rightwing noise machine to echo these talking points today, whether or not anything actually happens.

Anyway, he and Melania are scheduled to leave for a damage-control visit to the Marine Barracks before noon, so hopefully that's all the twittering Donald will have time for until the afternoon.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:05 AM on November 15, 2018 [28 favorites]

Perfect timing blaming "liberal" Facebook colluding with Dems the day after we discover they hired a rightwing PR firm to push anti-semitic/anti-Soros points and refused to make certain changes to reduce fake news, hate speech and foreign interference because they wanted to keep Republicans happy.
posted by chris24 at 8:11 AM on November 15, 2018 [17 favorites]

I already deleted my fb account back in like January due to rage @ Zuck around the CA scandal. Yesterday's revelations that FB hired a PR firm to push anti-Semitic conspiracy theories has me so fucking angry.

Yeah, this has been the final straw for me; I'm bailing out of Facebook. Turns out it's not as difficult or painful as I used to think only last week, once properly motivated. Signal for messaging. A WordPress blog. Maybe Mastodon, but it feels kind of intimidating and weird so far.

I'm still on Instagram but eyeing it with some suspicion.
posted by Foosnark at 8:16 AM on November 15, 2018 [10 favorites]

Trump made 664 false claims in October. That was more than double his previous record, 320 in August. He has now set new monthly records in June, July, August and October.[...]

It's like Moore's law, but for lies.
posted by mach at 8:20 AM on November 15, 2018 [26 favorites]

Augustus was just as bloodthirsty when it came to the Western Germanic tribes (i.e. not the Goths, who were Eastern Germanic and were still largely puttering around what is now Ukraine), although (a) he didn't achieve anything near what great-uncle Julius did, and (b) fucking with them had consequences for centuries to come.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:20 AM on November 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

My kingdom for a dumb Vox explainer on Tim Ryan. --- Raised Catholic by a single mom, played football in high school and college, has done a ton of work supporting vets (all total "mainstream centrist Dem" stuff), but "progressive/hippy-dippy/millennial-friendly" enough to have written a book on mindfulness and another book on how factory farming is terrible and how eating locally from small family farms is the way to go.

Matt Grossmann
Of 13 current members on anti-Pelosi list, 10 are to the right of the Democratic caucus median & 11 are to the right of Pelosi. Copying Freedom Caucus tactics, but not a revolt from the left. Capitulating to a centrist minority of caucus would have implications for the session.

Clara Jeffery (MoJo)
Retweeted Matt Grossmann
and 11 are white men

Matt Fuller (HuffPo)
New focus from anti-Pelosi members like Tim Ryan is pointing out the women in their group, like Marcia Fudge and Kathleen Rice.
Ryan and others pushing narrative that a woman should be Speaker, just not Pelosi.

Dorothy Fortenberry (writer on Handmaid's Tale)
Retweeted Matt Fuller
the return of America's most popular female politician: A Woman, Just Not That Woman
posted by chris24 at 8:21 AM on November 15, 2018 [112 favorites]

Tim Ryan got some buzz in 2006/7for a couple of impassioned speeches denouncing George W. Bush and the Iraq War.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:26 AM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Trump's mind is like an old pickup truck stuck in a ditch on a muddy road, spinning its wheels as it digs grooves deeper & deeper.

Matthew Whitaker is a very respected man.
He’s — and he’s, very importantly, he’s respected within DOJ.
But [Whitaker] is just somebody that’s very respected.
So anyway, I have a lot of respect for Matt Whitaker, based primarily on reputation.
And I think he’s really — I think a lot of people are starting to come out very much in favor of him during this period of time.
And you know, it’s very interesting because when you talk about not Senate confirmed, well, Mueller’s not Senate confirmed.
He’s heading this whole big thing, he’s not Senate confirmed.
And, you know, look, as far as I’m concerned this is an investigation that should have never been brought.
It should have never been had.
It’s something that should have never been brought.
It’s an illegal investigation.
posted by scalefree at 8:40 AM on November 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

Zuckerberg told me, “You have all these good and bad and complex figures. I think Augustus is one of the most fascinating. Basically, through a really harsh approach, he established two hundred years of world peace.”

lmao Zuck, we get it, you took "Rome of Augustus" (one of the most popular non-major history courses at Harvard). Stop trying to pretend you're well rounded.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:52 AM on November 15, 2018 [56 favorites]

Scott Lemieux, LGM: On the #FiveWhiteGuys Coup

My longstanding position on Nancy Pelosi as Speaker/Minority Leader has been:

She is an exceptionally good legislative leader.

There is no obvious replacement, and you’d be far more likely to do worse than better.

If I’m going to lose that, there had better be strong evidence of some real benefit.

Claims that Pelosi is a drag on the electoral chances of House candidates strike me as neither plausible on their face nor as far as I can tell supported by any actual evidence [and, after the 2018 wave, there isn’t even a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to go with.]

So it makes no sense to replace her.

Also: if your "movement" isn't smart enough to recognize the need for at least a token non-white-guy so as to avoid being labeled #FiveWhiteGuys, I think that pretty much says all that needs to be said about how much of a strategic supergenius Tim Ryan and his fellow bros are.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:54 AM on November 15, 2018 [57 favorites]

I cannot believe I am asking you folks to not relitigate Roman dynasties.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 8:54 AM on November 15, 2018 [272 favorites]

Et tu, metafilter?
posted by maxwelton at 8:58 AM on November 15, 2018 [91 favorites]

Were they ever really litigated in the first place?

Anyway, one thing I think has been under-discussed on Pelosi's leadership cred is the degree to which the incoming Dem committee chairs had their oversight plans locked and loaded as soon as it became clear that they would in fact be committee chairs. That's strong coordination and it's a credit to Pelosi and her team either for organizing it directly or letting it grow organically and not getting in the way, depending on how it arose in the first place.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:02 AM on November 15, 2018 [20 favorites]

[I cannot believe I am asking you folks to not relitigate Roman dynasties. ]

Have I mentioned lately how much I love this website?
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:03 AM on November 15, 2018 [90 favorites]

I think Pelosi hangs on. I also *hope* that she pledges just to be Speaker for this Congress, and they hash out a development/transition plan for the next Congress.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:04 AM on November 15, 2018 [10 favorites]

That seems like the most likely outcome if she doesn't have the votes to just steamroll the insurgency.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:07 AM on November 15, 2018

Trump and Erdogan also recently discussed another option to relieve tensions — the release of Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who was sentenced in May to 32 months in prison by a U.S. federal judge for his role in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran

I wonder what the Iran hawks in the administration think of this "idea".

Also, Rudy's involved with Atilla. Purely in a personal capacity, nothing to do with the administration, of course.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:11 AM on November 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

I wonder what the Iran hawks in the administration think of this "idea".

To expel and murder (by proxy) a Muslim leader living on American soil? I rather doubt they'll be leading the charge to stop it.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:19 AM on November 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

So we're gonna give Erdogan a dissident to kill to get him to stop bothering Saudi Arabia about the dissident they killed.

MAGA.
posted by chris24 at 9:24 AM on November 15, 2018 [38 favorites]

Yeah, this has been the final straw for me; I'm bailing out of Facebook. Turns out it's not as difficult or painful as I used to think only last week, once properly motivated. Signal for messaging. A WordPress blog. Maybe Mastodon, but it feels kind of intimidating and weird so far.

Hehe, same wavelength. I started a blog, and have been on mastodon for a while. The philly jawns.club is awesome. All are welcome, even if you aren’t in philly.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:25 AM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

Does Michael Flynn still get $15M for Gullen's head or does that go straight into Trump's pocket now?
posted by gladly at 9:26 AM on November 15, 2018 [15 favorites]

NBC's Kyle Griffin is keeping track: Before this morning, Trump had only tweeted once about Mueller since mid-September. He's now tweeted today about Mueller and the investigation 3 times in 4 separate tweets.

Of course, the New York Times, having learned nothing about covering Trump, merely repeats his baseless accusations in their headline to Maggie Haberman's latest: Mueller Team Has ‘Gone Absolutely Nuts,’ Trump Says, Resuming Attacks on Russia Inquiry. Her article then prints Trump's tweets verbatim, without any corrective. This time, she doesn't even have a useful leak to pass on.

Meanwhile, the Special Counsel scored a victory in court against Concord Management and Evgeny "Putin's Chef" Prigozhin, Reuters reports: U.S. Judge Refuses Russian Firm's Bid To Dismiss Mueller Indictment

USA Today's Brad Heath notes, "Four district court judges have rejected five challenges to Mueller's appointment. The D.C. Cir. is considering one of them now, by a grand jury witness. Concord participated in the case as an amicus." Specifically, "One from Concord, three from Manafort (in the D.C. criminal case, the E.D. Va. criminal case and a civil suit), and one from Andrew Miller. Miller's is the one that's now on appeal."

And it seems yesterday a mystery client's lawyers filed a sealed 6,487-word brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals that points to a Miller vs. Mueller dispute (Politico).
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:32 AM on November 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

> For more information about what exactly Caesar did that was so peaceful, you can check out the recent Hardcore History episode entitled "The Celtic Holocaust."

Link. More.
posted by homunculus at 9:40 AM on November 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

Remember that viral town hall where a guy scorned his Congressman for trying to take away his wife's health insurance? That Congressman was Tom MacArthur, architect of the Obamacare repeal. He just lost reelection
posted by growabrain at 10:09 AM on November 15, 2018 [104 favorites]

"People just submitted it. I don't know why. They "trust me" Dumb fucks."
-->
"Basically, through a really harsh approach, he established two hundred years of world peace. What are the trade-offs in that? On the one hand, world peace is a long-term goal that people talk about today. Two hundred years feels unattainable. [On the other hand,] that didn’t come for free, and he had to do certain things."

This is what "growing up" means for these people. A lot of folks have this vague sense that when Zuckerberg puts on the suit and mumbles his poll-tested pap in Congress, it's not that he's a better person, but at least he's learned some basics about being a pragmatic businessman on the global stage, which provides at least some external moderation of what was originally a standard Harvard douche.

But while he has grown, this is what these psychopaths grow up into. They see the world as more nuanced now -- not just an indiscriminate pile of dumb fucks to be exploited, but a complex and seething mass that must be helped along via "trade-offs" and "certain things." We know what these trade-offs are: they are the same things despots everywhere believe need doing in order to civilize the world. It doesn't really matter what specifically Augustus or Julius did here, because the bigger question Zuckerberg is mulling is how to run and expand an empire, and how many gigatons of blood must regrettably be spilled now that (in his mind) he's growing up from a selfish bastard to a benevolent utilitarian.
posted by chortly at 10:12 AM on November 15, 2018 [38 favorites]

If You Can’t Beat Them, Bilk Them: The Market for Caravan Insurance

Economist Dean Baker suggests offering caravan insurance to fearful Fox News watchers as a way to get rich. For $300 a year, you would insure them against any harm they suffer at the hands of caravan refugees that enter the country.

Other ideas are Ebola insurance and MS-13 insurance. And then there is food stamp tax insurance. For $100 a year you would insure someone against the money the government takes from them in taxes for food stamps. Since the cost of food stamps is $50 per person per year, this is a real money maker. Make bigoted ignorance pay.

This is a guaranteed way to impoverish Republicans. Fox News provides the ignorance and fear and you run insurance ads on Fox News to take their money.

"If we can’t reach these people through reasoned argument, we can try a different route. We can try to reach them through their pocketbook."
posted by JackFlash at 10:15 AM on November 15, 2018 [71 favorites]

Economist Dean Baker suggests offering caravan insurance to fearful Fox News watchers as a way to get rich. For $300 a year, you would insure them against any harm they suffer at the hands of caravan refugees that enter the country.

I'd love to see this play out in practice and see if it actually worked. On the one hand it definitely could, for all the obvious reasons. On the other, I could see this being a little like the study (linked upthread?, pretty sure I saw it here), where conservatives would say Obama was born in Kenya in polls, but accurately identify Hawaii when money was on the line. Would they actually shell out for insurance? Or once they had a chance to would they say, nah, not really worth it, but I'm worried about what will happen to other people.
posted by kingjoeshmoe at 10:24 AM on November 15, 2018 [9 favorites]

people do that (or did that) with pet insurance for the rapture. Specifically the promise was that a pet loving Jew or homosexual or similarly-condemned heathen in their well-vetted network would promise to take care of your beloved pet in the event that you are raptured up to Heaven before your pet dies.

I’m in favor, tbh, I’m just not sure about the regulations around insurance.

This is what "growing up" means for these people

Yeah, it cannot be stressed enough: Mark Zuckerberg has not stopped being a narcissist or a psychopath or whatever it was that made him a soulless piece of shit eager and willing to exploit the little people. He has just become more ambitious. He is a truly, truly bad man who is not aware that he is a bad man—in fact, he thinks he’s a good man.

That means he’ll excuse himself anything.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:33 AM on November 15, 2018 [28 favorites]

Isn't caravan insurance just a small step further beyond the gold investment mania that funded Fox news for decade?
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:34 AM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

the study (linked upthread?, pretty sure I saw it here), where conservatives would say Obama was born in Kenya in polls, but accurately identify Hawaii when money was on the line

If anyone has a link my head feels like it’s in need of a good explosion
posted by schadenfrau at 10:35 AM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

Lana Marks, Handbag Designer, is the 4th Mar-a-Lago member that Trump Nominated for Ambassador
posted by growabrain at 10:59 AM on November 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

I wonder, will Old Glory be offering this caravan insurance as a rider to my existing policy?
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 11:04 AM on November 15, 2018 [14 favorites]

rapture insurance

I've been thinking a lot lately about how nice it would be if all those redhats did get raptured and left us behind. It might be our only way out of this mess.
posted by M-x shell at 11:12 AM on November 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

No ruling until Friday in Acosta case.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:12 AM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Fox News's Jason Donner relays Lindsey Graham's cover for Trump's new AAG:

Acting AG Matt Whitaker met w/Lindsey Graham this afternoon at Graham’s office.
Graham: “when it comes to the Mueller investigation I am very confident he will handle it professionally” & Whitaker “believed he did not have a reason to recuse himself legally or factually.”

NBC's Frank Thorp has more:

Sen @LindseyGrahamSC just met with Acting AG Whitaker on Capitol Hill.

Q: Did Whitaker express any concerns about the Mueller investig?

GRAHAM: “Not at all, he said as far as he knows—no, not at all, he’s seen nothing out of bounds or no concerns at all about Mister Mueller”

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, Roll Call reports: Senate Appropriators Cast Doubt on Mueller Protections Making It Into Spending Deal—Chairman wants to keep December spending deal as clean as possible, despite interests of Pelosi, House Democrats
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:45 AM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

TPM has a note from a former federal public corruption prosecutor about "why Trump’s going particularly nuts this week." Trump and his legal team are working on their take-home test from Mueller and have to choose between admitting that he knew in advance about the Trump Tower meeting or continuing to lie about it.

Now, Trump has to decide whether to admit the obvious, or continue his obstruction and denial. If he admits it, he risks (a) implicating his son in perjury for lying to Congress; (b) incriminating himself in a scheme to obstruct justice by concocting a bogus cover story about the meeting; and (c) providing direct evidence of his intent to conspire with potential Russian agents. If he denies it, it will likely provide an open and shut false statement case to Mueller on top of whatever else they have on him.

posted by kirkaracha at 11:46 AM on November 15, 2018 [64 favorites]

Trump and his legal team are working on their take-home test from Mueller and have to choose between admitting that he knew in advance about the Trump Tower meeting or continuing to lie about it.

What's the over-under on "Number of questions on that list that Mueller doesn't already know the answer to"? Zero? Zero-point-five?
posted by Etrigan at 12:05 PM on November 15, 2018 [14 favorites]

Which is precisely why Trump's team will stonewall this as much as is possible and refuse to answer anything directly.

And/or cause a major distraction once he hands his answers back.
posted by delfin at 12:12 PM on November 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

Semi-regular reminder that ICE has illegally detained a journalist for months because of his critical coverage of their detention practices and no one seems to care.
posted by The Whelk at 12:25 PM on November 15, 2018 [47 favorites]

@lizcgoodwin: Trump is traveling to California Saturday to visit people affected by the wildfires, WH announces

Please let's not.
posted by zachlipton at 12:26 PM on November 15, 2018 [17 favorites]

This should go well… Washington Post: Senate Republicans to Plead With Trump to Cut a Deal On the Wall, Keep the Government Open

Senate Republicans are meeting with President Trump on Thursday afternoon to try to sell him on a proposal that would stave off a government shutdown next month but likely stop short of giving him all the money he wants to for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump has been warned by his staff that he may not get the full $5 billion he has demanded for new wall construction, according to a person briefed on the discussions who was not authorized to reveal deliberations.

Senate Democrats say they won’t agree to $5 billion, and Republicans said they intend to remind the president of the constraints imposed by the 60-vote margin that gives Democrats significant leverage in the Senate.[...]

[Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard] Shelby said the message to Trump would be: “Try not to shut the government down, try to avoid that, try to move appropriations.”[...]

At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Wednesday, a half-dozen rank-and-file lawmakers stood up to tell leadership that they needed to fund the wall before they fade into the minority, according to a GOP aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

House Republicans have agreed to the $5 billion Trump wants, but senators struck a bipartisan deal earlier this year to provide only $1.6 billion. It’s unclear how that difference will be bridged.

“I don’t know how this is going to end,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), said Thursday.

At least @thebudgetguy is sanguine: A Government Shutdown This December? Maybe Not.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:35 PM on November 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

Daily Beast, Swin and Lachlan, Even Trump Can’t Stop Mocking Sean Hannity’s ‘Dumb’ Softball Questions

Trump has repeatedly—and sometimes for a sustained period of time—made fun of Hannity’s interviewing skills, usually zeroing in on the low-quality laziness of the host’s questions, the three people with direct knowledge tell The Daily Beast.

“It’s like he’s not even trying,” Trump has said, one source recalled, right before the president launched into a rough imitation of Hannity’s voice and mannerisms to complain that the questions about how “great I am” give him nothing to work or have fun with.

Another person who’s heard Trump make similar comments since his inauguration says they remember the president calling Hannity’s softball questions “dumb.” This source recalled a round of ripping on the TV talker’s interview style and cloying devotion to Trump that lasted long enough that the source glanced at their watch and started feeling sorry for Hannity.
...
The president’s recurring complaints often focus on how sycophantic the TV host can be, both on and off camera, with Hannity’s slobbering leaving no friction to generate the sparks and drama that Trump craves.

posted by zachlipton at 12:40 PM on November 15, 2018 [15 favorites]

Daily Beast, Swin and Lachlan, Even Trump Can’t Stop Mocking Sean Hannity’s ‘Dumb’ Softball Questions

The New Republic smartly observes:

The problem might be that Hannity is trying too hard to please Trump, which has rendered his praise worthless. A New York investigation into the Hannity/Trump relationship once noted, “More than most politicians, Trump abides by the Groucho Marx law of fraternization. He inherently distrusts anyone who chooses to work for him, seeking outside affirmation as often as possible from as vast and varied a group as he can muster — but Hannity is at the center.”

But Hannity is no longer an outsider affirmer. He’s firmly a part of Trump’s circle of cronies. Which is another way of saying he’s a ripe target for Trump’s abuse.

posted by Doktor Zed at 12:54 PM on November 15, 2018 [11 favorites]

NRA Silent When a Black Good Guy With a Gun Is Killed by Police

The NRA doesn’t care about black heroes: Jemel Roberson was “the good guy with a gun.” A black security guard subdued an active shooter in an Illinois bar. When the police arrived, they shot him
posted by homunculus at 12:57 PM on November 15, 2018 [72 favorites]

- The study (linked upthread?, pretty sure I saw it here), where conservatives would say Obama was born in Kenya in polls, but accurately identify Hawaii when money was on the line

-- If anyone has a link my head feels like it’s in need of a good explosion

schadenfrau, might refer to a popular PontifexPrimus comment in a previous megathread, only without the $ angle? The comment excerpts Amanda Marcotte's Twitter as she discussed Jim Acosta:

This is one of those situations where conservatives collectively pretend to believe something they don’t believe... I will bet they don't actually believe what you think they do. Here's a piece I wrote two years ago about how a lot of people don't believe what they "believe"...

The research shows that people who claim to "believe" false things adjust their "belief" on context. If they are in a "trolling the libs" situation, they "believe" Obama is Kenyan. If they think this is a quiz on political knowledge, they admit he was born in Hawaii.

That Twitter thread linked to this Marcotte Salon article, Why do Trump supporters believe so many things that are crazy and wrong? The September 26, 2016 piece quotes Yale professor/Cultural Cognition Projection researcher Dan Kahan, who mentions a paper published in 2014: Public Misunderstanding of Political Facts: How Question Wording Affected Estimates of Partisan Differences in Birtherism

Info on the data collection method, via footnote, does mention money:

The experiment was embedded in a survey conducted by Knowledge Networks (KN, now called GfK Custom Research) (9). [(9) Various incentives were offered in exchange for joining the panel: financial remuneration, incentive points redeemable for cash, and free monthly Internet access and a laptop computer (if the household did not already have these).]
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:01 PM on November 15, 2018 [15 favorites]

NRA Silent When a Black Good Guy With a Gun Is Killed by Police

I won't link to NRA spokesghoul Dana Loesch's Twitter, but she spent several tweets yesterday saying "We don't know all the details, we should wait for the investigation...". These tweets immediately followed her RTing four consecutive "Good Guy With A Gun" stories, none of which she seemed to care to know any further details about.
posted by Etrigan at 1:10 PM on November 15, 2018 [17 favorites]

Zuckerberg: I think Augustus is one of the most fascinating. Basically, through a really harsh approach, he established two hundred years of world peace.

me: *endlessly screaming in History Teacher*

@lizcgoodwin: Trump is traveling to California Saturday to visit people affected by the wildfires, WH announces

See, Trump didn't want to disrupt traffic in Paris with a motorcade, but fuck Californians still sifting through the rubble--or still fighting the fires. America first!
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:20 PM on November 15, 2018 [22 favorites]

Iris, thanks, yes that's exactly the excerpt/study I was thinking of.
posted by kingjoeshmoe at 1:30 PM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Senate Democrats say they won’t agree to $5 billion, and Republicans said they intend to remind the president of the constraints imposed by the 60-vote margin that gives Democrats significant leverage in the Senate.

A while back I looked into the market cap for the entire US coal industry to see what it would cost the federal government to just buy it outright and start winding it down. It was a little under 5 billion dollars, and now every single time I see a number close to that mentioned I can't stop thinking about it as an alternative. Start building a pointless stupid wall as a symbol of xenophobia, or take a bold and concrete step toward dealing with the climate crisis?
posted by contraption at 1:36 PM on November 15, 2018 [49 favorites]

Republicans said they intend to remind the president of the constraints imposed by the 60-vote margin that gives Democrats significant leverage in the Senate.

Great way to get around the old "Yeah, even though I'm a Republican I really do disagree with this nutcase" problem.
posted by Melismata at 1:38 PM on November 15, 2018

the full $5 billion he has demanded for new wall

$5,000,000,000.00

Mexico isn't paying for that fucken wall.
posted by petebest at 2:03 PM on November 15, 2018 [7 favorites]

Texas businessman challenges acting AG’s legality

Still, some lawyers are predicting a flood of motions like Haning's in every kind of case the Justice Department is involved in — virtually guaranteeing that the Supreme Court will have to step in and resolve the issue.

"There will be thousands of identical motions filed throughout the country," said Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law. "Eventually, one judge will declare Whitaker not the acting AG. That decision will throw the entire executive branch into disarray. [The Supreme Court] will have to resolve [that] ASAP."

One judge is eventually going to bite, and we'll have a constitutional crisis over who the AG is. Great system we have here.
posted by zachlipton at 2:11 PM on November 15, 2018 [20 favorites]

> Start building a pointless stupid wall as a symbol of xenophobia, or take a bold and concrete step toward dealing with the climate crisis?

Well, the answer appears to be clear no matter which side of the political divide one happens to be on!
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:12 PM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

> Semi-regular reminder that ICE has illegally detained a journalist for months because of his critical coverage of their detention practices and no one seems to care.

Update: Two-week stay of deportation for Manuel Duran while court panel reviews case
posted by homunculus at 2:15 PM on November 15, 2018 [9 favorites]

@crampell: Another 3,815 Arkansans lost Medicaid as of Nov. 1 for failing to meet new work reporting requirements. Total terminated is now ~12k this year. Reporting system is online only; internet penetration is low in rural AR; many of those not reporting appear to not be logging in at all

This would be a fine subject for Democratic oversight as soon as possible.
posted by zachlipton at 2:16 PM on November 15, 2018 [65 favorites]

Well, the answer appears to be clear no matter which side of the political divide one happens to be on!

Exactly ... Build the wall out of coal. Then everyone's happy!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:31 PM on November 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

>NRA Silent When a Black Good Guy With a Gun Is Killed by Police
I won't link to NRA spokesghoul Dana Loesch's Twitter, but she spent several tweets yesterday saying "We don't know all the details, we should wait for the investigation...". These tweets immediately followed her RTing four consecutive "Good Guy With A Gun" stories, none of which she seemed to care to know any further details about.

Yes. It's not simply that they are silent because they have not gotten around to thinking about the matter. Many parties have challenged them to say something in support of Roberson and have pointed out that their failure to do so calls into question their (presumed, though really is anybody still presuming it?) good faith.

Their silence, therefore, can and should be understood as a deliberate statement in its own right. It's not that they have not taken a position on this matter. They have taken a position and it is totally fair to conclude that that position is that they believe it will alienate more of their supporters than it will gain to speak in defense of a person of color murdered by the police.

When Philando Castile was murdered during a traffic stop for having a legal weapon in the car they seized on what they could to avoid speaking in his defense. The case of Jemel Roberson offers them even less pretext to demur and still they will not speak. They will of course deny that race has anything to do with their positions but it requires an enormous benefit of the doubt that they certainly not deserve to look at their actions and conclude that they are not, in fact, influenced by the race of the victim.
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:32 PM on November 15, 2018 [59 favorites]

"Billion Dollar Bets" to Create Economic Opportunity for Every American

Improve early childhood development
Establish clear and viable pathways to careers
Decrease rates of conviction and incarceration
Reduce unintended pregnancies
Reduce the effect of concentrated poverty on the lives of people living in distressed neighborhoods
Improve the performance of public systems that administer and oversee social services

posted by kirkaracha at 2:33 PM on November 15, 2018 [22 favorites]

No one at Facebook seems to know who hired a DC opposition research firm (The Verge)

One of the bigger bombshells in The New York Times’ massive Facebook investigation published yesterday was that the company had hired an opposition research and consulting firm known as Definers Public Affairs, which it said had created deceptive news posts and pushed them onto a network of conservative websites. Now, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he has no idea who hired them.

It's a daggone mystery, is what it is!
posted by petebest at 2:40 PM on November 15, 2018 [38 favorites]

WaPo, Trump’s nominee to lead ICE won’t rule out separating migrant families again

Ronald D. Vitiello, a veteran law enforcement official tapped by President Trump to run U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, faced criticism at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday for refusing to rule out the possibility that the Trump administration could resort again to separating migrant parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The White House is discussing plans to detain asylum-seeking families for up to 20 days and then give parents a choice: Stay in jail with their child pending a deportation hearing, or allow children to be taken to a government shelter so other relatives or guardians can seek custody of them.

“That option and that discussion is underway,” Vitiello told the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He would not address lawmakers’ questions seeking clarity on how long he believed migrant children should be detained or whether the separation from their families caused them psychological harm. “We’ll get less people bringing their children,” he added. “It is an option.”

posted by zachlipton at 2:41 PM on November 15, 2018 [7 favorites]

> Facebook ... hired an opposition research and consulting firm known as Definers Public Affairs, which created deceptive news posts and pushed them onto a network of conservative websites. Now, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he has no idea who hired them.

And when the Republicans promise to run the government like a business, this is exactly the kind of governance and accountability that they are talking about.
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:50 PM on November 15, 2018 [58 favorites]

This is a stain on our national soul, one that won't easily be washed away. The world watches & learns from us. We've already taught them the value of waterboarding in interrogation. As global warming & its effects accelerate, displaced migrants seeking refuge will only multiply & the nations where they seek it will feel the pressure. Will they learn this from us too? Have we now become an innovator in antisocial techniques?
posted by scalefree at 3:03 PM on November 15, 2018 [10 favorites]

WSJ, Aruna Viswanatha and Ryan Dube, U.S. Is Optimistic It Will Prosecute Assange

The Justice Department is preparing to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and is increasingly optimistic it will be able to get him into a U.S. courtroom, according to people in Washington familiar with the matter.

Over the past year, U.S. prosecutors have discussed several types of charges they could potentially bring against Mr. Assange, the people said. Mr. Assange has lived in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since receiving political asylum from the South American country in 2012.
...
Prosecutors have considered publicly indicting Mr. Assange to try to trigger his removal from the embassy, the people said, because a detailed explanation of the evidence against Mr. Assange could give Ecuadorean authorities a reason to turn him over.

The exact charges Justice Department might pursue remain unclear, but they may involve the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the disclosure of national defense-related information.

In an interview last week, the head of the Justice Department’s national security division, John Demers, declined to comment on the possibility of prosecuting Mr. Assange, saying, “On that, I’ll just say, ‘we’ll see.’”

This is pretty vague stuff, but I sincerely hope they figure out a set of charges that unequivocally separates Assange's actions from anything resembling journalism (say, conspiring with a foreign power), because I don't love where this can end up.
posted by zachlipton at 3:30 PM on November 15, 2018 [7 favorites]

These charts show how Democrats represent the growing modern economy – and how Republicans are left behind

Among other results, this year's midterm elections affirmed this much: in Washington, the two parties now speak for dramatically different segments of the American economy.

Republicans represent the smaller, fading segment, with less-educated, more-homogenous work forces reliant on traditional manufacturing, agriculture and resource extraction. Democrats represent the larger, growing one, fueled by finance, professional services and digital innovation in diverse urban areas.

posted by kirkaracha at 3:43 PM on November 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

The world watches & learns from us. We've already taught them the value of waterboarding in interrogation.

Which we learned from the Khmer Rouge, though it goes back to at least the Inquisition. Credit where it's due and all that.
posted by homunculus at 3:48 PM on November 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

The US Army was waterboarding Filipinos so much in 1902 that it made the cover of Life Magazine. I'm pretty sure we didn't learn it from the Khmer Rouge.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 4:06 PM on November 15, 2018 [27 favorites]

I wonder if Assange will bring up that time the Trump campaign defended Wikileaks in court. Might make things awkward for the DOJ.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:11 PM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Which we learned from the Khmer Rouge, though it goes back to at least the Inquisition. Credit where it's due and all that.

We certainly didn't invent it, not saying that. But we sure as hell popularized it & not just to authoritarian regimes but also every two-bit thug looking for an edge. It's entered the popular culture as the go-to technique for extracting information from people who really don't want to give it up & that's on us post 9/11. And now we're showing the world how to motivate whole populations to find somewhere else to seek refuge.
posted by scalefree at 4:14 PM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

WaPo's Josh Dawsey: “Sen. Lindsey Graham says he met with Acting AG Matt Whitaker this afternoon. Whitaker said he would not recuse himself from the probe, has no plans to shut it down and has not spoken yet with Special Counsel Mueller. "He says he will be following regular order," Graham tells me.”

Former Director of the Office Government Ethics Walter Shaub responds: “We left regular order when POTUS fired the heads of the nation’s top law enforcement agencies, one for investigating his campaign and the other for declining to intervene in the investigation. There is not one thing Whitaker could do in this context that would be regular order.”

Further, Shaub writes in Slate: This Is the Saturday Night Massacre—It’s just happening in slow motion.

But whatever the outcome of Mueller’s investigation, America is establishing new precedents. One precedent is that President Trump fired the FBI director—and Congress did nothing. Another is that Trump admitted the FBI’s investigation of his campaign motivated the firing—and Congress did nothing. A third precedent is that Trump fired the attorney general after having railed against him publicly for refusing to intervene in the investigation—and Congress has done nothing. A fourth precedent is that Trump circumvented the Justice Department’s order of succession so he could replace the attorney general with an individual who has directed partisan attacks at the special counsel, has described publicly how a new attorney general could undermine the investigation, has had a personal and political relationship with an individual involved in the investigation, and has been associated with a company that is the focus of a separate FBI investigation.

We’ll see what a new Congress does about that when it is sworn in this January, but options may be limited unless the Senate’s leadership has a change of heart. Even if the appointment of Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker—the current replacement for Sessions—were to be invalidated, Trump would still be guilty of having fired the nation’s top two law enforcement officials in an effort to obstruct the investigation of his campaign.

posted by Doktor Zed at 4:47 PM on November 15, 2018 [53 favorites]

>> the study (linked upthread?, pretty sure I saw it here), where conservatives would say Obama was born in Kenya in polls, but accurately identify Hawaii when money was on the line

> If anyone has a link my head feels like it’s in need of a good explosion

It's nothing to head-explode over, it's something that follows from the way we (not they, not just the conservatives, we, meaning all humans) use language. Although we often like to pretend that language is a descriptive tool, used to document things in the world and valued in terms of whether or not it accurately corresponds to things in the world, in reality language is primarily a tool used to effect change in the world, in one way or another. By saying that Obama was born in Kenya when money's not on the line, conservatives use language to bind themselves closer to their group. The meaning is roughly "I, the speaker, am someone who conservatives can trust, because I make the sounds 'Barack Obama was born in Kenya'" when prompted. When money is on the line, they are free to say "Barack Obama was born in Hawaii," because the meaning (insofar as meaning exists) now becomes, roughly speaking, "I would like to have more money rather than lose money. Money, please."

We all do this sort of thing. It's okay that we all do this sort of thing. If we were pretend that language is purely a descriptive tool valued with regard to whether or not it accurately describes things in the world, we would be foreclosing upon most everyday uses of language.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 4:47 PM on November 15, 2018 [15 favorites]

Right, it's not that their core beliefs are changing depending on context, it's just that they're aware of what the "right answer" is for a given questioner and are willing to give it when the situation demands. It's the same reason cult deprogramming and treatment of eating disorders are so difficult and prone to regression; it's hard to tell if a subject is making progress or just going through the motions.
posted by contraption at 4:55 PM on November 15, 2018 [9 favorites]

yes-but-also it’s not just a thing that comes up in pathological cases like cults or conservatism. it’s part of everyday life. Words are actions first and meanings second (if at all).
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:18 PM on November 15, 2018

@dsamuelsohn [doc attached]: Mueller/Manafort attorneys confirm talks since guilty plea & ask judge for 10-day extension - deadline is Friday - to file joint status report which “will allow them to provide the court with a report that will be of greater assistance in the court’s management of this matter.”

I, for one, look forward to whatever is coming sometime in the next 10 days.
posted by zachlipton at 5:31 PM on November 15, 2018 [25 favorites]

These charts show how Democrats represent the growing modern economy – and how Republicans are left behind

Sheldon Adelson, the Kochs, and the Wall Street finance bros were left behind by what exactly?

Really, though, the lower income Republicans that were left behind were left behind by the policies set by the wealthy Republicans that they voted for.

This reeks a bit of the ridiculous "liberals are smug elitists" shtick.
posted by duoshao at 5:47 PM on November 15, 2018 [7 favorites]

i dunno: hard to do too much word action without meaning getting involved.
posted by 20 year lurk at 5:55 PM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

@jdawsey1: Giuliani tells me this afternoon that Trump & his lawyers haven't decided whether they'll answer all of Mueller's questions, which are exclusively about events pre-election. "There are some that create more issues for us legally than others," he said.

@matthewamiller: This is what I meant earlier about Trump stalling on the q's until he could get Whitaker in. Now he can just refuse to answer any that are legally problematic, and Mueller's leverage, the threat of a subpoena, is basically gone. Obstruction in plain sight.

Love when the President's lawyer straight up says they can't answer questions about the campaign because of all the crimes.
posted by zachlipton at 6:00 PM on November 15, 2018 [75 favorites]

If cooperating witness Paul Manafort ever told Donald J. Trump about the Trump campaign's illegal meeting with Russian criminals in Trump Tower, then Donald J. Trump is fucked no matter what he does.

And I can't imagine any real attorney allowing him to answer a question like, "When did you learn about the Trump campaign's illegal meeting with Russian criminals in Trump Tower?" but you know, fucking 2018...
posted by mikelieman at 6:06 PM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

> The US Army was waterboarding Filipinos so much in 1902 that it made the cover of Life Magazine. I'm pretty sure we didn't learn it from the Khmer Rouge.

I stand corrected. I completely forgot about the Philippines. Thank you for posting that link.
posted by homunculus at 6:10 PM on November 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

Today, I noticed something. I noticed that my attitude had improved significantly since the elections. I realized that I’ve been dealing with a form of spiritual fatigue that’s had me pretty depressed since November 2016.

Back then, despite the obvious corruptness and incompetence of the GOP Presidential candidate and an equally obviously extraordinarily competent, Democratic candidate, and amid the giddy expectations of the Republican Party being on the verge of sliding into permanent minority status, we saw them inconceivably gain control of all three branches of government. The resulting two-year mess has been amply documented in the ongoing megathread.

Since November 2016, I’ve pretty much stopped watching network and cable news. I could no longer listen to NPR without getting irritated. I’ve steered clear of the many political and news websites I’d frequented, and instead hunkered down with my fellow MeFites here to document and commiserate.

But I noticed, just today, that I feel a ray of hope creeping in. Whatever happens with Mueller (and I’m hoping for massive consequences), we are still in far better condition now than we have been. With at least one house of Congress, we can get some real oversight instead of this bullshit complicit negligence and gaslighting the Republicans have been engaging in for two years. With one house of Congress, at least some of the worst laws will be blocked.

A lot of administrative crap and bad judges are still going to get through, but some good will happen, and for a lot of people, as with Obamacare, it will literally mean the difference between life and death.

So. A little ray of hope, today, as some of the cloud that has traveled around with me for two years has lifted. Not out of the woods yet, but I feel much better about our prospects, and eager to get to 2020 to make them reality.
posted by darkstar at 6:11 PM on November 15, 2018 [83 favorites]

The meaning is roughly "I, the speaker, am someone who conservatives can trust, because I make the sounds 'Barack Obama was born in Kenya'" when prompted.

Ezra Klein just posted an interesting podcast interview with someone who's studied trolling. She noted that one strategy used by trollers is to game the media. Essentially, they say or do something outrageous for media coverage simply to get media coverage. It proves to their cohorts that the media are fools and that they own them. That's the point in its entirety.

So when Trump, adopting this strategy, brings up something like the caravan, he's likely, in part, winking to his audience. They know it's fake, but the fact that it's getting coverage means he's "winning" by successfully manipulating the media into talking about what he wants them to. This works even when they report what's said as untrue. The larger point is to just suck up all the oxygen in the conversation.
posted by xammerboy at 6:36 PM on November 15, 2018 [26 favorites]

we are still in far better condition now than we have been. With at least one house of Congress, we can get some real oversight instead of this bullshit complicit negligence and gaslighting the Republicans have been engaging in for two years. With one house of Congress, at least some of the worst laws will be blocked.

I've been feeling the same way - and let's not forget all our gains at the state and local levels. This will also help block the worst of what Trump and his clown car can do. I feel as if we've come back from the brink. And I think it's healthier to build the Democrats up on all levels rather than wait for a hero to rescue us. Yes! We had a Blue Wave! See what voting, and canvassing and writing postcards and textbanking and every other action can do!

Though a "news diet" is always a good idea. I could drive myself nuts if I wanted to by watching the news all day (seriously, I don't know how people who have TV on as background noise do it).
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:36 PM on November 15, 2018 [9 favorites]

These House Committees Could Make Or Break A Progressive Agenda: The fight for the future of the Democratic Party is already happening on Capitol Hill.

[T]here’s more to exercising power in American politics than winning elections. On much of the key strategic jockeying in Washington that matters most, progressives have a history of losing badly. One of the most important arenas now in play is the Byzantine battle for committee assignments: who gets to sit on which panels devoted to crafting legislation. And the outcome of that struggle may well have greater influence on the shape of the party’s policy agenda than the higher-profile contests for leadership positions. Bills are written and amended in committee, establishing subjects of political change and setting the scope of legislative debate.

In the past, progressive lawmakers have ceded battles over some of the most powerful committees in Congress to more conservative Democrats. “Too often, what’s lacking is a strategy,” said Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, a nonprofit devoted to expanding Social Security and Medicare. “Our activists or champion members in Congress get bought cheap by promises. Leadership can promise to fight for anything ... and it can even be a sincere promise, but if the committees are stacked with Wall Street people, Wall Street always wins.”

This time around, according to Lawson and other activists roaming the halls on Capitol Hill in the days since the Nov. 6 election, progressives are getting more serious about the mechanics of power.

posted by homunculus at 6:38 PM on November 15, 2018 [21 favorites]

For those of you have decided that FB promulgating antisemitism and then blaming progressives is a step too far, and you want to delete your facebook account, this (cached) October 2018 guide from Lifehacker has all the steps and links to make it (relatively) painless.

Yes, it is difficult to adapt initially, but before long, you'll be amazed at how much more productive you are, and how much less annoyed.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:40 PM on November 15, 2018 [27 favorites]

> New York Review of Books, by Valeria Luiselli, Alberto Manguel, Maaza Mengiste, Rabih Alameddine, and Jon Lee Anderson, et al., Our Concentration Camps: An Open Letter
This generation will be remembered for having allowed concentration camps for children to be built in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” This is happening here and now, but not in our names.

Rabbis Lead Pilgrimage To Border To Protest Child Migrant Detention: Rabbis, priests, other clergy and lay leaders drove from Michigan to Texas to hold a rally at the Tornillo detention camp (autoplays embedded video.)
posted by homunculus at 6:42 PM on November 15, 2018 [20 favorites]

Ezra Klein just posted an interesting podcast interview with someone who's studied trolling.

This is a really fascinating discussion, with Prof. Whitney Phillips. She says a lot of what we've been saying here, covering the troll culture is them winning, and they deliberately and openly game the media into covering them. She talks about being quoted as the "troll expert" over and over since around 2006 or so, and pleading with reporters not to give them more exposure, only to be ignored and dismissed.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:43 PM on November 15, 2018 [15 favorites]

Public backing for Pelosi today from: John Lewis, Bobby Rush, and freshmen Katie Hill and Mike Levin.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:49 PM on November 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

I have some hope that Pelosi will win after a couple ballots. Tim Ryan doesn't have a credible alternative. All he can do is fuck everything up. If they have their protest vote and its like 204-30, the insurgents can say they tried and Pelosi can throw them some sort of bone to secure the last 10-15 votes she needs, and win on a second ballot. Everyone can claim victory, and Tim Ryan can start his stupid doomed presidential bid saying he fought Evil Nancy on FOX News, which is all this is about.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:54 PM on November 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

Lots of changes to House rules proposed. Highlights:

* raise the debt limit when budget approved (the old Gephardt Rule)
* 72 hours to review bills prior to floor vote
* ease discharge petitions
* Ethics Committee must open investigation within 30 days of any member charged with a crime
* Eliminate CBO using dynamic scoring
* Require supermajority to increase income taxes on lowest 80% of earners

Mostly looks pretty good.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:57 PM on November 15, 2018 [46 favorites]

Mueller Anxiety Pervades Trump World—Half a dozen people in contact with the White House and other Trump officials say a deep anxiety has started to set in. (Politico)

Lawyers for President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. insist they aren’t worried about special counsel Robert Mueller.

But half a dozen people in contact with the White House and other Trump officials say a deep anxiety has started to set in that Mueller is about to pounce after his self-imposed quiet period, and that any number of Trump’s allies and family members may soon be staring down the barrel of an indictment.[...]

“You can see it in Trump’s body language all week long. There’s something troubling him. It’s not just a couple staff screw-ups with Melania,” said a senior Republican official in touch with the White House. “It led me to believe the walls are closing in and they’ve been notified by counsel of some actions about to happen. Folks are preparing for the worst.”

And the Atlantic's Natasha Bertrand parses what Trump’s latest outburst about Mueller could mean—the president was unusually specific in his attacks against the special counsel.

Trump’s outburst “could just be another rant,” said Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York who handled organized-crime cases. But on the other hand, it could signal action on the part of prosecutors that Trump registers as a threat. Honig explained that prosecutors sometimes get fed up with people they know are not being honest and threaten to bring charges against them. They may also threaten a person’s status as a potential cooperator, which typically comes with reduced charges. “My hunch is that prosecutors had some sort of ‘Time to get real’ conversation with someone implicated in the investigation, which was then relayed to Trump by defense attorneys,” Honig said.[...]

Like Honig, the former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman suggested that if Trump has learned anything about Mueller’s recent moves, it’d likely be from defense lawyers whose clients have been ensnared in the investigation. Goldman, who worked on mob-related cases in the Southern District of New York, speculated that the president may know in advance that “indictments are coming, probably tomorrow.” The special counsel’s office has a pattern of releasing indictments on Fridays.

Perhaps Michael Cohen's trip to D.C. on Monday to meet with Mueller freaked Team Trump while they were working on the questionnaire, or maybe they were spooked Jerome Corsi's claim that day, "The entire negotiations [with the Special Counsel] have just blown up. I fully anticipate that in the next few days I will be indicted for some form or other of giving false information."
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:06 PM on November 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

Require supermajority to increase income taxes on lowest 80% of earners

Is this intended as a hedge against single payer? I mean I'm personally all for taking it out of the top 20%, but nationalizing health insurance is gonna require revenue.
posted by contraption at 7:07 PM on November 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

I would be surprised if yes, Rules Committee is headed by Jim McGovern, who favors single payer.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:10 PM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

Requiring supermajorities to impose taxes is one way California fucked itself up. This is a terrible idea, bottom 80% or no.
posted by Justinian at 7:16 PM on November 15, 2018 [16 favorites]

For sure. But if we're going to criticize Zuckerberg for fawning over a Roman dictator who was a-ok with extra-judicial murder and warmongering, we should at least criticize him for fawning over the right Roman dictator who was a-ok with extra-judicial murder and warmongering.

I think it is perfectly acceptable to associate Zuckerberg with all Caesars. Even the salads. After all facebook associates with me with all of the relatives I have avoided 40 years.
posted by srboisvert at 7:18 PM on November 15, 2018 [29 favorites]

Is this intended as a hedge against single payer? I mean I'm personally all for taking it out of the top 20%, but nationalizing health insurance is gonna require revenue.

Price controls, monopoly and cartel busting, and one fewer aircraft carrier would probably do it.
posted by srboisvert at 7:20 PM on November 15, 2018 [10 favorites]

Yea any hard rules against tax increases are going to be weaponized by Republicans, or further the Californiaization (on taxes and revenue) of the whole country. Advocate for progressive taxation, but don't preemptively rule out any broad based social programs with universal participation. This is letting Republican define Democratic priorities, just like we're apparently letting them tell us who should be Speaker. WTF.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:20 PM on November 15, 2018 [9 favorites]

They know it's fake ...

Meh. My 85 YO father and his girlfriend don't; they believe everything FN and the Star ledger tells them to believe.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:22 PM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

I agree on the tax criticism; worth noting that these are *not* final rules, what finally emerges could be significantly different.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:30 PM on November 15, 2018

Public backing for Pelosi today from: John Lewis

Well, I - think we're done here.

*gathers papers*

Speaker Pelosi, congratulations and best of luck. We'll see ourselves out.
posted by petebest at 7:33 PM on November 15, 2018 [39 favorites]

* Require supermajority to increase income taxes on lowest 80% of earners

Oh goodie, voluntarily instate a filibuster-style supermajority rule that the opposing party, of course, is free to drop via simple majority vote the moment they are next in office. This will be a nice complement to reinstating pay-go.

Incidentally, the post article notes:

Those proposals address some, but not all, of a series of rule changes supported by the Problem Solvers Caucus — a bipartisan group of centrist lawmakers that has threatened to withhold their speaker votes unless certain changes are made.

As I've argued elsewhere, the left flank of the party in Congress is not actually challenging Pelosi -- they are relatively quiet and certainly not proposing any alternative speakers. Ie, they are being pragmatists and team players. But the drawback of that strategy is that the currency of Congress is votes: the right flank of the party is able to extract a bunch of promises for their withheld votes, some of them quite conservative (like pay-go and this proposed supermajority rule), while the left has no real bargaining chips. Which may be the moral thing to do, but the costs are real, since regardless of whether the rules folks make an exception for single-payer, this will certainly "tie their hands" on other major policy initiatives (quotes because as with the filibuster, the rule can always be amended by simple majority, and thus mainly serves as a method for leaders and centrists to prevent the majority of their party from dictating policy).
posted by chortly at 7:40 PM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

Speaker Pelosi, congratulations and best of luck. We'll see ourselves out.

Maybe, but Lewis's endorsement isn't necessarily the straw that breaks the camel's back. Just ask Rep. Mike Capuano, MA-07, whom Lewis endorsed in March. Capuano will be unable to join Lewis in voting for Pelosi because he lost to Ayanna Pressley.
posted by adamg at 7:44 PM on November 15, 2018

The ghost of Jeff Sessions returns for revenge. WaPo, Whitaker told Trump he has concerns over sentencing reform bill

Acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker has privately voiced concerns directly to President Trump about a new bipartisan criminal justice reform bill, according to a GOP senator Whitaker met with Thursday, amid growing opposition to the legislation Trump endorsed with much fanfare this week.

Whitaker has concerns with the “drug part of the bill,” according to Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), and has spoken about the concerns with the National Narcotic Officers’ Associations’ Coalition. Whitaker’s particular concern is how the bill would change drug sentences, and he told Graham that he has also expressed his issues with the bill to the president.

“He said he doesn’t want to kill it,” Graham said Thursday. “He just wanted to express his concerns.”

The bill is so watered down that the Fraternal Order of Police and the National District Attorneys Association support it (so does the ACLU), though the Sheriffs came out against it today, but nope, not good enough for Whitaker.
posted by zachlipton at 7:49 PM on November 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

There's also zero reason to impose unilateral policy constraints when the Senate is in Republican hands. Pass free college for everyone. Pass universal health care. Pass massive Social Security expansion. Don't pay for a dime of it, exactly like Republicans did with the fanciful Ryan budgets that eventually became their actual enacted budget. The whole point of having the House is to create an alternative vision to constant Republican cuts. To do that you actually have to present an alternative, not agree to only abide by the universe of policies found in Heritage Foundation white papers.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:53 PM on November 15, 2018 [64 favorites]

Rewatching the indictment-fest fantasy It's Mueller Time! (the one that's a play on the Daredevil Season 1 ending montage) I was struck by how many of the Trump staffers portrayed in it are gone. It's got to be hard for people who do this stuff to keep up.
posted by homunculus at 8:20 PM on November 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

I would love to see and endless string of small, sharply focused bills, about half of which are clearly and easily funded or have no costs at all - including one adding orientation and gender identity to the list of protected classes - and the other half pie-in-the-sky bills that handwave past whatever funding would be required for them, just like the Republican game. Lower the age that Social Security starts; make medicare required to cover any procedure a doctor says is needed to prevent someone's death (call it the "right to life" bill); any victim of a disaster that gets federal funding has the right to full restitution for all damage done to their property; automatic voter registration and vote-by-mail for all federal elections; reset copyright to the minimum of the Berne Convention (life+50) with corporate works getting 50 years - and throwing all of early Disney into the public domain.

Swamp them with small bills instead of (or in addition to) doing the 500-page last-minute blockbusters. Get them on record, over and over, voting against the things their constituents want. Have the House crowdsource the bills - tell Twitter and Facebook that they want a law to require that criminal fines are proportionate to the criminal's income, not a flat number, and let the legal fandom play with the phrasing until there's something worth pushing through.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 8:23 PM on November 15, 2018 [33 favorites]

WaPo, breaking: Julian Assange has been charged, prosecutors reveal in inadvertent court filing

It's... happening?!
posted by un petit cadeau at 8:32 PM on November 15, 2018 [16 favorites]

Seamus Hughes, a former White House counterterrorism staffer, likes to troll through court records. Today, he found what appears to be a filing where some hapless DOJ attorney inadvertently copy-and-pasted their justification for indicting Julian Assange under seal.

The Post's incredible DOJ/natsec reporters Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett just confirmed it (not just the filing, but that he really has been charged): Julian Assange has been charged, prosecutors reveal in inadvertent court filing

WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange has been charged under seal, prosecutors inadvertently revealed in a recently unsealed court filing — a development that could significantly advance the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and have major implications for those who publish government secrets.

The disclosure came in a filing in a case unrelated to Assange. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kellen S. Dwyer, urging a judge to keep the matter sealed, wrote "due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged." Later, Dwyer wrote the charges would "need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested."

Dwyer is also assigned to the WikiLeaks case. People familiar with the matter said what Dwyer was disclosing was true, but unintentional.

Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia said, “The court filing was made in error. That was not the intended name for this filing.”

This is a good time for Journalism in the Doxing Era: Is Wikileaks Different from the New York Times? The question, of course, is what the charges actually are; there are a number of circumstances that would make me far more uncomfortable with this, and some where what he's doing is unambiguously far from journalism, and I'd hope, though not expect out of the Trump administration, that the charges skew closer to the latter.
posted by zachlipton at 8:33 PM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

Trump and his legal team are working on their take-home test from Mueller and have to choose between admitting that he knew in advance about the Trump Tower meeting or continuing to lie about it.

I suspect that Trump's few remaining politically savvy aides (Bill Shine, for example) are telling him that he can fire Mueller as soon as he answers Mueller's written questions, so that he can say "See! Investigation completely, great job, no collusion, here's a medal."

And Trump thought "Awesome, how hard could that be?" and now the danger of Mueller's jiu-jitsu move giving ground on live vs. written questions is dawning on even our addled Prez.
posted by msalt at 8:35 PM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

> I would love to see and endless string of small, sharply focused bills

was really hoping that this would be followed by "delivering papercuts to the GOP for eternity" at minimum. But your ideas are likely more effective.
posted by MysticMCJ at 8:36 PM on November 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

Julian Assange has been charged, prosecutors reveal in inadvertent court filing

I can't be optimistic about this. My fear is that Whitaker has worked out a deal where they charge Assange, he turns himself in, and pleads guilty for "time served" in the Ecuadorian embassy and/or probation plus a fine (that some Russian oligarch pays).

2 days later Assange decides to relocate to Moscow and is unavailable for testimony.
posted by msalt at 8:37 PM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

@lizcgoodwin: Trump is traveling to California Saturday to visit people affected by the wildfires, WH announces

I know everyone is aware of the fires but I'm not certain people realize how devastating the Camp Fire was? The death toll is now 63 with 631 missing (!). Obviously a lot of the missing are probably holed up on someone's couch but still.

This is basically unprecedented in modern times.

Trump is gonna come and throw some paper towels to us.
posted by Justinian at 8:39 PM on November 15, 2018 [55 favorites]

Also it's weird. If an earthquake killed 100 people I feel like it would get 24 hour coverage. But because its a fire not so much?
posted by Justinian at 8:39 PM on November 15, 2018 [13 favorites]

What Happens After An Entire Town Burns To The Ground

the air quality in SF tomorrow is going to be so bad that school has been cancelled.
posted by The Whelk at 8:42 PM on November 15, 2018 [9 favorites]

the air quality in SF tomorrow is going to be so bad that school has been cancelled.

Yup. Multiple emails and calls that SFSU has closed down campus. can confirm.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:46 PM on November 15, 2018

the air quality in SF tomorrow is going to be so bad that school has been cancelled.

Yeah this is...we're incredibly lucky. The fire is 140 miles away, everyone in the Bay Area is safe and looking at devastation of the Camp Fire in horror, and nothing going on down here is .001% of what's happening around the fire in Butte County. But I don't think people have broadly realized that Northern California has the worst air quality in the world right now, the smoke in Sacramento (where the AQI was nearly 400) was so thick people needed headlights at 3:30pm, schools and colleges are closed tomorrow, the City of San Francisco is straight up telling people not to go outside and will make all the buses free tomorrow.

9+ million people live broadly in the Bay Area-Sacramento region, and they have air that's completely toxic to breathe. It's weird that's not a bit of a bigger story.
posted by zachlipton at 8:53 PM on November 15, 2018 [55 favorites]

Santa Clara University is closed down through the weekend.
posted by Windopaene at 9:02 PM on November 15, 2018

There's a California fire metatalk thread we can probably use for detailed updates.
posted by zachlipton at 9:03 PM on November 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

the linked article above mentioned something stuck in my head since Houston and I saw all those ruined cars.

What's happens when all your stored capital goes up in flames? Houses, cars, these are the things most people's money is tied up in. Where do these people go? How much can other areas absorb large scale destruction of infrastructure and investment? What's the actual rate of people getting insurance claims for this kind of thing and how much is it really? The bulk of Americans can't come up with 400$ in an emergency or are one major hit away from penury - what happens when your entire town burns out and the takes the few things keeping you afloat with it?
posted by The Whelk at 9:16 PM on November 15, 2018 [28 favorites]

> Trump is gonna come and throw some paper towels to us.

One of the few things that brings joy to my shriveled heart is the idea of that fucker being confronted by a swarm of bay area folks all wearing masks.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:39 PM on November 15, 2018 [10 favorites]

New York Review of Books, by Valeria Luiselli, Alberto Manguel, Maaza Mengiste, Rabih Alameddine, and Jon Lee Anderson, et al., Our Concentration Camps: An Open Letter

Valeria Luiselli is one of my favourite authors. Story of My Teeth is excellent and well worth reading in translation (it has an extra chapter written by the translator! For real it is an amazingly good, short and very readable novel that grew out of an independently very interesting project to do storytelling with workers in the JUMEX juice plant) and, perhaps more pertinently, her book Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay In 40 Questions is like this:

Structured around the forty questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction between the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants and the reality of racism and fear—both here and back home

[to be clear, she worked translating for undocumented immigrants and the book grew out of that]

...and her latest, Lost Children Archive [preorder], seems to have (as the title suggests) a major immigration theme as well.

She’s such a great writer. Everyone should buy all of her books.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 9:56 PM on November 15, 2018 [15 favorites]

NY Times: Prosecutors have prepared indictment of Julian Assange
posted by chrchr at 10:24 PM on November 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

Here's hoping this is a sign that we've finally reached All Mueller's Eve. Friday is still grand jury day, yes?
posted by bcd at 10:30 PM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

Enjoy this fact: congress in 2019 will be the least white and least male of all time.
posted by adept256 at 10:48 PM on November 15, 2018 [62 favorites]

The news barely mentions the fact that this is only true because of the Democrats. The Republican House caucus is losing something like half its women members. It is becoming even more white and even more male than before. The explosion of diversity is almost entirely on the Democratic side.

I realize they don't want it to become a political football but, goddamit, when one party is becoming ever more white and male and the other is welcoming to all that's inherently political and not pointing out that it's all happening on one side of the aisle is journalistic malpractice.
posted by Justinian at 11:07 PM on November 15, 2018 [44 favorites]

> These House Committees Could Make Or Break A Progressive Agenda: The fight for the future of the Democratic Party is already happening on Capitol Hill.

@benwikler: "Nancy Pelosi has committed to put Progressive Caucus members—including newly elected progressive champs—on the most powerful committees in the House."
posted by homunculus at 11:46 PM on November 15, 2018 [57 favorites]

Not only is that a good move, it also cuts Tim Ryan's legs out from under him. Hope he realizes his bluff got called.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:54 AM on November 16, 2018 [21 favorites]

@benwikler: "Nancy Pelosi has committed to put Progressive Caucus members—including newly elected progressive champs—on the most powerful committees in the House."

wait, you mean asking for the things we want can result in positive changes? this contradicts everything the centrists have been telling us
posted by entropicamericana at 4:31 AM on November 16, 2018 [36 favorites]

Also it's weird. If an earthquake killed 100 people I feel like it would get 24 hour coverage. But because its a fire not so much??

So, it's not right, but I can say that as an east-of-the-Mississippi person who has only been to CA twice in his life "California has a bigass fire" seems like something we hear, oh, a couple times a year. I intellectually understand that they're big deals, and that this one is a really fucking big deal, but even as a fairly news-attuned person it took me a little while to realize that this wasn't just "oh, look, California's burning again".

It's like there's an inoculation caused by the frequency of it which not only makes each individual incident seem less than it is, but makes it too easy to conflate them all into one class. Earthquakes aren't like this. Hurricanes aren't either -- yet. That may change, along with CA wild fires, as the climate continues to accelerate out of control.

All that said, I understand what a devastation this current fire is. May it end soon. And may the vile shadow of Trump not darken your state's doorstep while you're trying to recover.
posted by jammer at 4:44 AM on November 16, 2018 [22 favorites]

U.S. Marshals Service spending millions on DeVos security in unusual arrangement.

"The $12.1 million that U.S. taxpayers have already paid for the extra security DeVos receives would have paid for 1,968 Pell Grants for low-income college students for the upcoming school year or 268 new elementary teachers in Kansas, based on an NBC review of salary averages in the state."
posted by Slothrup at 5:13 AM on November 16, 2018 [37 favorites]

MetaFilter: all that's inherently political and not pointing out that it's all happening on one side of the aisle is journalistic malpractice.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:24 AM on November 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

Cheney Aide Now In Mueller's Sights (DailyBeast)

“Mueller’s team has been looking into the communications and political dealings of John Hannah, the former Cheney adviser who later worked on Trump’s State Department transition team. This includes interactions with Lebanese-American businessman and fixer George Nader, who brokered meetings between foreign dignitaries and team Trump, and Joel Zamel, a self-proclaimed social media guru with deep ties to Israeli intelligence.”

From all of us at The petebest Cake Shoppe to you and your'n, Happy All-Mueller's Eve everyone!

*The Champs' "Tequila" plays, cake is served*
posted by petebest at 5:25 AM on November 16, 2018 [20 favorites]

Julian Assange is a vile person, but I can't feel happy about his prosecution. No way is it likely that he's being charged for collaborating with Russia and Trump, and even if that is officially what he's being charged for we all know it's really for releasing the Panama Papers and other things embarrassing to the powerful, not for illegally helping Russia help Trump win.

If Mueller has been squandering time on a case against Assange rather than working on real targets then I'm less impressed with him.
posted by sotonohito at 5:30 AM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Catastrophe on camera: Why media coverage of natural disasters is flawed [Patrick Cockburn, Independent 1/20/2011]:

The media generally assume that news of war, crime and natural disasters will always win an audience. "If it bleeds, it leads," is a well-tried adage of American journalism. Of the three categories, coverage of war has attracted criticism for its lies, jingoism and general bias. Crime reporting traditionally exaggerates the danger of violence in society, creating an unnecessary sense of insecurity.

Media coverage of natural disasters – floods, blizzards, hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanoes – is, on the contrary, largely accepted as an accurate reflection of what really happened. But in my experience, the opposite is true: the reporting of cataclysms or lesser disasters is often wildly misleading. Stereotyping is common: whichever the country involved, there are similar images of wrecked bridges, half-submerged houses and last-minute rescues.
...
All these events are dramatic and should be interesting, but the reporting of them is frequently repetitious and dull. This may be partly because news coverage of all disasters, actual or forecast, is delivered in similarly apocalyptic tones. Particularly in the US, weather dramas are so frequently predicted that dire warnings have long lost their impact. This helps to explain why so many people are caught by surprise when there is a real catastrophe, such as Hurricane Katrina breaking the levees protecting New Orleans in 2005 and flooding the city. US television news never admits the role it plays in ensuring that nobody takes warnings of floods and hurricanes too seriously because they have heard it all before.

posted by cenoxo at 5:31 AM on November 16, 2018 [6 favorites]

If Mueller has been squandering time on a case against Assange rather than working on real targets then I'm less impressed with him.

This is being prosecuted by EDVA, not Mueller. So even if it originated with Mueller, he seems to have turned it over to US Attorneys to handle like he did with Cohen to SDNY.
posted by chris24 at 5:40 AM on November 16, 2018 [11 favorites]

Assange was left alone after publishing US secrets. The fact that he’s under prosecution now is because the Trump campaign and the Russians colluded to throw the election and Assange enthusiastically helped.

Remember, the Russians broke into both parties’ computers. Wikileaks only published the materials from one. Assange got them from Roger freaking Stone. That’s not journalism, it’s participating in a hit job. If Assange had any honor before, he certainly sold it out on this event.
posted by rikschell at 5:48 AM on November 16, 2018 [33 favorites]

If Assange had any honor before

Known him 25 years now. He did not.
posted by scalefree at 5:59 AM on November 16, 2018 [45 favorites]

Donald Trump Suddenly Pretends To Care About Comcast Antitrust Violations
posted by homunculus at 6:00 AM on November 16, 2018

... we all know it's really for releasing the Panama Papers and other things embarrassing to the powerful, not for illegally helping Russia help Trump win.

Wikileaks has published embarrassing things about the powerful, but please don't credit them with the Panama Papers. That was done by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Wikileaks "contribution" was to claim it was a USAID and Soro's funded attack on Putin.
posted by papercrane at 6:14 AM on November 16, 2018 [79 favorites]

Don Young, Republican from Alaska, is currently the longest serving member of Congress since he began with the 93rd Congress in 1973. I decided to look back then and see how many women were in Congress for that session.

Zero in the Senate.
Fifteen in the House, (13 D, 2 R), (including Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan!)

Yvonne B. Burke (D)
Patricia Schroeder (D)
Ella T. Grasso (D)
Patsy Mink (D)
Cardiss Collins (D)

Lindy Boggs (D)
Marjorie Holt (R)
Margaret Heckler (R)
Martha Griffiths (D)
Leonor Sullivan (D)

Shirley Chisholm (D)
Elizabeth Holtzman (D)
Edith S. Green (D)
Barbara Jordan (D)
Julia B. Hansen (D)

(I clicked through ambiguous names. Also elected were Bernice Sisk, a man, and M. Caldwell Butler, an Austin Powers look-alike.

There will be at least 128 women in the next Congress, 95 in the House and 23 in the Senate.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:15 AM on November 16, 2018 [29 favorites]

If Assange is a journalist and Wikileaks a news outlet, then I don't see why Putin and his intelligence agency can't claim the same. Assange coordinated with the Trump campaign. He timed his release of emails stolen by the Russians to hurt Clinton's campaign. His objective was to materially help Trump. Assange used the concept of journalism as a shield to engage in political warfare, and in doing so, stretched the concept to its breaking point.
posted by xammerboy at 6:32 AM on November 16, 2018 [10 favorites]

As much as I'd love for Assange to be charged in the Russia probe, the nature of last night's inadvertent leak makes it seem to me that it's more likely to be separate from that investigation. If the original motion that this one was based on came from the special counsel's office, especially under seal, it shouldn't be available to any old Joe Schmoe U.S. Attorney looking for a template, right? Seems like it would have had to originate somewhere that the team prosecuting this case would have access to.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:40 AM on November 16, 2018

Assange and co. are also the inventors of claiming feminism is the latest form of state-sponsored censorship and terrorism. Have fun googling that. < Daily Beast.
posted by Harry Caul at 6:42 AM on November 16, 2018 [10 favorites]

I will bake a separate cake for every person in this thread if we can just not talk about Julian Fucking Assange ever again.
posted by medusa at 6:55 AM on November 16, 2018 [53 favorites]

If Assange is a journalist and Wikileaks a news outlet, then I don't see why Putin and his intelligence agency can't claim the same.

It is possible for Wikileaks to be a news outlet and to also engage in criminal activity, no different than how it is possible for an organization to be legally operating as a charity and yet commit fraudulent activities. Wikileaks and Assange may be total garbage - and maybe they once weren't? or once did okay things concurrent with their shitbaggery? - but it's important we don't criminalize the sorts of activities that revealed mass financial impropriety or waging war that causes tens of thousands of soldiers to be sent to their deaths.

And really, it's not like it's impossible to go after Assange and Wikileaks for actual non-journalistic crimes. They've committed plenty of them.

I will bake a separate cake for every person in this thread if we can just not talk about Julian Fucking Assange ever again.

I'd be delighted to never hear about him again so long as we first hear about him being thrown down into a deep dark hole for being a rapist shitbag.
posted by phearlez at 7:00 AM on November 16, 2018 [29 favorites]

If the original motion that this one was based on came from the special counsel's office, especially under seal, it shouldn't be available to any old Joe Schmoe U.S. Attorney looking for a template, right?

According to the WaPo story: "The disclosure came in a filing in a case unrelated to Assange. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kellen S. Dwyer... wrote the charges would “need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested.” Dwyer is also assigned to the WikiLeaks case. People familiar with the matter said what Dwyer was disclosing was true, but unintentional."

So Dwyer is working on two cases (the Wikileaks one, and the one that Seamus Hughes found the Assange reference in) and got his wires crossed.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:03 AM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Meanwhile, in Singapore, Russia's Putin discusses nuclear pact with U.S.'s Pence (Reuters) "Russian President Vladimir Putin said he discussed Washington’s plans to exit the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) arms treaty with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence when they met in Singapore on Thursday. Speaking to reporters at a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Putin said he and Pence had also discussed relations with Iran."

Reuters reporter Josh Smith comments, "Pence has a slightly better poker face than Bolton" (video). Even Jimmy Kimmel was mocking how happy Pence and Bolton appeared to see Putin in his monologue last night.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:24 AM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

BIG: Judge Kelly rules Jim Acosta’s first amendment rights overrules the White House’s right to have orderly press conferences.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:28 AM on November 16, 2018 [100 favorites]

Looks like Acosta is getting his press pass back ASAP, ordered by a Trump-appointed judge.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:28 AM on November 16, 2018 [29 favorites]

"Forget the myths the media's created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand."

RIP William Goldman who wrote the line we've often quoted in here.
posted by chris24 at 7:30 AM on November 16, 2018 [68 favorites]

Now let's see if Trump ever calls on Acosta again.

I can just see him doing that stupid thing he does at rallies:

"Should I call on you-know-who? I really shouldn't. Should I? If I don't, they'll get mad at me. Maybe I should. What do you think?"
posted by zakur at 7:34 AM on November 16, 2018 [14 favorites]

Between this ruling, the Assange thing which Donny will probably take as an assault on his legitimacy since he spent the last two months of the campaign yapping about how he loved Wikileaks, and the imminent threat of indictments, this should be a fun weekend with Trump sitting in the White House sulking and lashing out.
posted by chris24 at 7:40 AM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Daniel Dale, Washington Post: It's easy to fact check Trump's lies. He tells the same ones all the time.

Listen to this president long enough, and you can almost sense when a lie is coming. If Trump tells a story in which an unnamed person calls him “sir,” it’s probably invented. If Trump claims he has set a record, he probably hasn’t. If Trump cites any number at all, the real number is usually smaller.

Fact-checking Trump is kind of like fact-checking one of those talking dolls programmed to say the same phrases for eternity, except if none of those phrases were true. As any parent who owns a squealing Elmo can tell you, the phrases can get tiresome. I’m sure my Twitter followers get bored when I remind them that Trump wasn’t the president who got the Veterans Choice health-care program passed (Barack Obama signed it into law in 2014 ), that U.S. Steel is not building six, seven, eight or nine new plants (it has recently invested in two existing plants) and that foreign governments don’t force their unsavory citizens into the lottery for U.S. green cards (would-be immigrants enter of their own free will)...

...I believe that journalists need to be just as inexhaustible in combating the president’s lying as the president is in telling the lies, no matter how repetitive or pedantic it can sometimes make us seem...

...For reporting such things, I receive vitriolic emails from some of Trump’s fervent supporters. More interesting to me are the messages from well-meaning skeptics. Why waste your time, people ask, when facts obviously don’t matter anymore?

I disagree. There is a substantial constituency for accurate information about the claims of a president who is, polls suggest, seen as untrustworthy by two-thirds of voters. Even people who generally know that Trump isn’t honest might not know how he is misleading them, and they might want to. The media shouldn’t treat Trump’s devotees as America’s only relevant people.

posted by nubs at 7:47 AM on November 16, 2018 [88 favorites]

@pdmcleod: Judge agrees with the White House that there is no first amendment right to come onto the White House grounds. HOWEVER once they do open up WH grounds to reporters but denies others, first amendment comes into play.

WH press pool being shut down in 3... 2...
posted by uncleozzy at 7:59 AM on November 16, 2018 [15 favorites]

Now let's see if Trump ever calls on Acosta again.

I'm sure he will, he won't be able to resist.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:59 AM on November 16, 2018 [5 favorites]

The headline of that Daniel Dale piece doesn't represent the meat of the article. Dale's main argument is that journalists and news organizations are failing to fact check Trump's lies and call them out, despite the fact that it's so easy to do. It's a damning condemnation of news media, and it's buried behind a laundry list of Trump's lies that we already knew about.
posted by rocket88 at 8:02 AM on November 16, 2018 [53 favorites]

There will be at least 128 women in the next Congress, 95 in the House and 23 in the Senate.

This should absolutely be celebrated, while never losing sight that proportional representation would require 140 more women, while a more appropriate representation would require another few hundred on top of that.

Important side note: of those 128 women, all but 19 are Democrats.
posted by mcstayinskool at 8:02 AM on November 16, 2018 [38 favorites]

Important side note: of those 128 women, all but 19 are Democrats.

31 new R congresspeople. 30 men. 30 white.
posted by chris24 at 8:18 AM on November 16, 2018 [20 favorites]

31 new R congresspeople. 30 men. 30 white.
Demographics of US congress regarding sex and dudes named Mike (via r/dataisbeautiful).
posted by elgilito at 8:44 AM on November 16, 2018 [14 favorites]

Grassley to Trade Judiciary gavel for Finance—His departure paves the way for Lindsey Graham to lead Judiciary. (Politico)

"Grassley's departure paves the way for Graham to take the helm at Judiciary, giving the South Carolina Republican valuable power over Department of Justice confirmations — including the next attorney general. It also gives the next chairman oversight of the DOJ as it supervises special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into President Donald Trump."
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:44 AM on November 16, 2018 [6 favorites]

Wikileaks has published embarrassing things about the powerful, but please don't credit them with the Panama Papers. That was done by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

This feels worth a note (from the Guardian): The lead journalist behind the Panama Papers was killed in a car bomb attack near her home in Malta last year.

I link this mostly because I only found out about this like a week ago. It should've been a massive story, and maybe it even was, but the post-2016 dumpsterfire shitshow has been so bad even news junkies can completely miss huge stories like this. I had no idea this happened. Probably other similarly avid news consumers don't, too. It's a reminder of how many genuinely important stories have been lost amid all this garbage. We have so many five-alarm fires going we can't keep track of them all anymore.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:49 AM on November 16, 2018 [68 favorites]

There’s no money in covering the apocalypse
posted by The Whelk at 8:53 AM on November 16, 2018 [6 favorites]

@rgoodlaw (Ryan Goodman): This is rich. Assange's attorney says it is highly "irresponsible...to put in a public filing information that clearly was not intended for the public and without any notice"
posted by christopherious at 8:58 AM on November 16, 2018 [76 favorites]

@rgoodlaw (Ryan Goodman): This is rich. Assange's attorney says it is highly "irresponsible...to put in a public filing information that clearly was not intended for the public and without any notice"

The metaphysical concept of irony just shat twice and died.
posted by delfin at 9:11 AM on November 16, 2018 [58 favorites]

@rgoodlaw (Ryan Goodman): This is rich. Assange's attorney says it is highly "irresponsible...to put in a public filing information that clearly was not intended for the public and without any notice"

Another Assange lawyer was on Democracy Now today: WikiLeaks Lawyer Warns U.S. Charges Against Assange Endanger Press Freedom Worldwide
posted by homunculus at 9:12 AM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

CNN makes some basic points about Judge Kelly's ruling: Judge Orders White House to Return Jim Acosta's Press Pass

The ruling was an initial victory for CNN in its lawsuit against President Trump and several top aides. The suit alleges that CNN and Acosta's First and Fifth Amendment rights are being violated by the suspension of his press pass.

Kelly did not rule on the underlying case on Friday. But he granted CNN's request for a temporary restraining order. And he said he believes that CNN and Acosta are likely to prevail in the case overall.[...]

As Kelly began to offer his view on the components of CNN's request, he said that while he may not agree with the underlying case law that CNN's argument was based on, he had to follow it.[...]

He left open the possibility that the White House could seek to revoke it again if it provided that due process, emphasizing the "very limited" nature of his ruling and saying he was not making a judgment on the First Amendment claims that CNN and Acosta have made.

This is how Sarah Huckabee Sanders is spinning the Trump White House's court setback (via CBS's Fin Gomez): "Today, the court made clear that there is no absolute First Amendment right to access to the White House*. In response to the court, we will temporarily reinstate the reporter's hard pass. We will also further develop rules and processes to ensure fair and orderly press conferences in the future. There must be decorum at the White House."

Buzzfeed's Paul McLeod points out the nuances SHS tries to obscure: "Judge agrees with the White House that there is no first amendment right to come onto the White House grounds. HOWEVER once they do open up WH grounds to reporters but denies others, first amendment comes into play."

WaPo's Erik Wemple brings up this judicial shade Kelly cast: “Another important point from the federal court hearing today: Not only is the Trump White House out of control, it's incompetent. Here's what Trump-appointed Judge Kelly said about gov't case: "Whatever process occurred within the government is still so shrouded in mystery that the government could not tell me at oral argument who made the initial decision to revoke Mr. Acosta's press pass."”
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:24 AM on November 16, 2018 [41 favorites]

“President Trump offered to nominate Mira Ricardel as ambassador to Estonia after First Lady Melania Trump forced the deputy national security adviser out of the White House,” Bloomberg reports.
(via)

Guy's got zero respect for anything.
posted by petebest at 9:37 AM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

the government could not tell me at oral argument who made the initial decision to revoke Mr. Acosta's press pass.

That's some prime-level cowardice, there. "We're going to court to defend the judgment of... someone... probably someone who works here... likely someone with the authority to give orders... someone that security guards obey, whether or not that authority exists on paper... nevermind; the point is, WE HAVE RIGHTS."

COURT: Who was exercising those rights?

"um.... look man... you gotta understand... it's hard giving press conferences... reporters are mean to us..."

[fake. I hope..]
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:39 AM on November 16, 2018 [14 favorites]

"Whatever process occurred within the government is still so shrouded in mystery that the government could not tell me at oral argument who made the initial decision to revoke Mr. Acosta's press pass."

Run the government like a business, no? Facebook says it doesn't know who contracted Defined.
posted by Stoneshop at 9:40 AM on November 16, 2018 [10 favorites]

What is going on with Splinter?

What's going on is that Nick Martin is their new designated hit job artist, and he's very good a cranking out thousand-word essays declaring this or that to be terrible for reasons. I avoid his stuff, it's overwrought and too overlong.
posted by schoolgirl report at 9:50 AM on November 16, 2018 [10 favorites]

That's some prime-level cowardice, there.

Boy howdy, yes. Revoking a White house correspondent's press pass is a Big Deal, and wouldn't have been done except by a top authority -- likely SHS or Trump himself. The fact that they are trying to dodge the blame for such a blatantly unconstitutional act makes one suspect it was Trump, acting on his usual bad impulses.

As ever, it turns out that bullies are cowards at heart.
posted by Gelatin at 9:50 AM on November 16, 2018 [16 favorites]

“President Trump offered to nominate Mira Ricardel as ambassador to Estonia after First Lady Melania Trump forced the deputy national security adviser out of the White House.”

I would be more Donald's style to nominate her as ambassador to Slovenia.

But then again, Trump can't keep his Baltics and Balkans straight.
posted by JackFlash at 9:55 AM on November 16, 2018 [10 favorites]

The thrill of watching Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bring her whole self to Congress - Alexa Kissinger [no relation], Vox

In 2018, this inspiring freshman class of women is redefining what it means to thrive in Washington. They’re not trying to pass as something they’re not or to act like they’ve been here before. And by sharing their experiences, in real and honest ways on social media, these women, many of whom represent historic firsts, are opening doors to help ensure they aren’t the last.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is taking us along as she cooks mac and cheese and talks about politics, as she geeks out wandering the halls of Congress, an institution that feels far away to so many Americans. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first Muslim women elected to the House, are posting pictures together and bonding. Ayanna Pressley’s video of her sobbing after finding out she won her primary election went viral. Sharice Davids is gushing over meeting heroes like Rep. John Lewis.

And by taking us along, through Instagram stories admitting they had to look up words like “franking privilege” — meaning the privilege to send mail without a postage stamp — during a briefing, to captioning group pictures with #PeopleLikeUs, they’re showing that we don’t have to change ourselves for these institutions. It’s time the institutions changed.

posted by ZeusHumms at 9:58 AM on November 16, 2018 [59 favorites]

Meanwhile in Wisconsin sore loser Scott Walker is open to the idea of letting the GOP legislature limit the power of the incoming democratic governor. These people.
posted by misterpatrick at 10:22 AM on November 16, 2018 [11 favorites]

Frank Rich:
....This is bunker behavior. Only a desperate man would try to derail Mueller by installing this transparent reprobate at the Department of Justice. Even more revealing is how Trump has become more and more unhinged since making his Whitaker move. The growing fury, most manifest in his latest anti-Mueller tweetstorm this week, suggests that he already realizes that the ploy has backfired. It seems to be finally sinking in, perhaps under the frantic tutelage of his lawyers, that his fate and the fates of his son and son-in-law, among others in his immediate orbit, are tied to the fates of Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and all the other president’s men whose comprehensive narrative Mueller is bound to tell America no matter what Trump and his stooge at Justice do to try to foil or decapitate him.
posted by growabrain at 10:33 AM on November 16, 2018 [31 favorites]

Will Jordan (GSG)
Genuinely wild to compare the demographics of Democrats who flipped seats in the 2006 wave vs. the 2018 wave.

...in 2006
- 3% POC
- 13% Women
- 23% Under 45
- 83% White men

...in 2018
- 21% POC
- 68% Women
- 53% Under 45
- 24% White Men
posted by chris24 at 10:36 AM on November 16, 2018 [68 favorites]

The fact that they are trying to dodge the blame for such a blatantly unconstitutional act makes one suspect it was Trump, acting on his usual bad impulses.

Since the judge brought it up, I think the only question left to ask any member of the White House is, "Who initially made the decision to pull Jim Acosta's hard pass?" This should be the majority of the Thanksgiving holiday news cycle. As in "Trump cancels Turkey pardon" to avoid being asked the question.
posted by mikelieman at 10:37 AM on November 16, 2018 [14 favorites]

.... tied to the fates of Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and all the other president’s men ...

I see what he did there.
posted by Twain Device at 10:41 AM on November 16, 2018 [21 favorites]

it really speaks to these times we live in that when I was reminded of the turkey pardon my reaction was "oh god, the turkey pardon is coming" and a feeling of dread settled over me
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:42 AM on November 16, 2018 [43 favorites]

Since the judge brought it up, I think the only question left to ask any member of the White House is, "Who initially made the decision to pull Jim Acosta's hard pass?"

Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?
Jessup: I did the job that—-
Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?!
Jessup: YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT I DID! !
posted by kirkaracha at 10:49 AM on November 16, 2018 [12 favorites]

Nonvoters Have Valid Criticisms of the United States Government - Clarissa Brooks, Teen Vogue OpEd

In this op-ed, writer Clarissa Brooks explains why some young people — especially black and brown youth are critical of the U.S. government — choose to abstain from voting in elections.
…
For some politically engaged black and brown young people who spoke with Teen Vogue, the chaos of the election cycle brought about a storm of frustrations for a number of reasons. What they said is that there’s a variety of reasons they don’t vote in U.S. elections, most of which fit into a larger belief that the U.S. government is not something they want to participate in.

“The system isn’t in place where we can vote for our liberation. It’s in place to reform itself for the better domestically. We don’t demand more from the system because the system was never designed to help everyone in the first place,” Ebony Short, a black 22-year-old cofounder of Georgia State University Panthers for Black Feminism, tells Teen Vogue, speaking about how the U.S. electoral system built in the 18th century was created to protect the interests of states with large slave populations.

"Choosing not to vote, as I have done in the past and will do now, is the active decision to control — in some part — how I am engaging (or [not engaging]) a system I never opted to be a part of,” explains Da'Shaun Harrison, a 22-year-old black organizer, writer, and former student at Morehouse College. “There are ways to be civically engaged without legitimizing this two-party system, so choosing to take ownership of my right to not legitimize this system via electoral politics is a moral and just — morally just — decision."

These young folks have valid reasoning for deciding not to play further into U.S. capitalism, imperialism, and white supremacy. Many feel as if voting for legislation, initiatives, or policies that have proven to be inefficient for those on the margins is a vote into a continued system of disenfranchisement. These young black and brown folks are aware of the forces of white supremacy that they must experience and have chosen the act of not voting as their means to make space to fight for a new and better world.
...
They find other ways to engage with their communities outside of the voting booth.

posted by ZeusHumms at 10:54 AM on November 16, 2018 [5 favorites]

The NYT's Maggie Haberman has an update from Trump's bunker: Is Mike Pence Loyal? Trump is Asking, Despite His Recent Endorsement "President Trump has repeated the question so many times that he has alarmed some of his advisers. But Mr. Trump has not openly suggested dropping Mr. Pence from the ticket in 2020."
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:57 AM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Trump Says He's Completed Written Answers For Mueller, But Not Turned Them In - Philip Ewing, NPR
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:02 AM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

I've heard this before, next we're going to find out that Donald Jr. ate them.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:05 AM on November 16, 2018 [51 favorites]

Probably overzealously proof-reading, you know how he gets.
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:07 AM on November 16, 2018 [19 favorites]

Not that I’ve bought cake or anything, but it’s 2pm on the east coast. Any chance we’ll hear from Mueller today, or would that have happened in the morning?
posted by scarylarry at 11:10 AM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Probably overzealously proof-reading, you know how he gets.

Well, Trump did say he did them on his own.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:11 AM on November 16, 2018

He specifically says he wrote his answers "very easily", like that means something here. The way narcissists turn everything into a contest would be funny if none of them had access to power.

I also have to wonder whether, if he's simply lying about that and the answers remain unwritten, there's any more legal significance to it than for his other lies, given the subject.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:13 AM on November 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

petebest Assuming (please, please) that Trump loses the 2020 election, and the past is anything to go by, I expect that Trump will go out in a screaming rage fit about illegal immigrants voting, declarations that he really won, but ultimately he'll go. Straight to FOX News where he'll get a show all of his own where he can rant, rave, spread conspiracy theories, and generally shit all over incoming President Harris (or whoever).

With him out of the White House, all investigations will instantly come to a screeching halt, the new President will declare that we need to look forward, not back, and Trump will continue to run his FOX News show and real estate money laundering operation until he dies from natural causes at age 120, never admitting any fault, always declaring that he saved America single handedly, and that illegal immigrants voted in 2020 and that's the only reason he isn't President for life.

The instant he's out of office, as with Nixon and Reagan, there will be a strong push by every Republican in existence to declare him to have been the best president in US history, a bold and valiant lion brought low by jackals.

By 2030 Republicans running for office will feel the need to declare that they are like Trump and that Trump would have loved them, just as they do today with Reagan.

No Republican will ever admit that he was senile, racist, or a bad President. Eventually the Democrats will stop fighting it and he will be remembered by lay people as a good man and a good President, just as Reagan and to only a somewhat lesser extent Nixon are.

If you're hoping for justice, or for his assets being seized, or his children facing criminal charges, you will be disappointed. As with Nixon and Reagan at absolute most a few non-family retainers will fall on their swords and going to prison for very short sentences that the next Republican President will quietly pardon so they don't have a criminal record.

This is America. The rich and powerful will not countenance one of their own being held responsible for anything.
posted by sotonohito at 11:19 AM on November 16, 2018 [27 favorites]

RE: Sotonhito's comment, this exact same process has happened with astonishing quickness for George W. Bush, who was widely recognized as a terrible president in 2008, but has become a hero of the hastag resistance since then. GWB was of course helped along by an even worse Republican president coming after, but I feel like it's a natural process of the American Left rolling over and showing their belly once they get the faintest taste of any sort of power.
posted by codacorolla at 11:26 AM on November 16, 2018 [7 favorites]

No Republican will ever admit that he was senile, racist, or a bad President.

While that must certainly be true - we didn't have actual video of the Reagan press conference where he said there were good people on the Nazi .... aw crap.

Well. It just proves my point that it all goes back to Reagan. So. Yay.
posted by petebest at 11:27 AM on November 16, 2018 [6 favorites]

You'll have to rewatch to judge if it genuinely counts as an apology but he has made one televised apology in the aftermath of the Access Hollywood tape's release. He read it like a hostage denouncing his homeland at gunpoint but it was an apology of sorts.
posted by scalefree at 11:27 AM on November 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

@scottwongDC: House Ethics Committee formally reproves Freedom Caucus Chairman @RepMarkMeadows (R-NC) and orders him to reimburse Treasury $40K for failing to adequately address sexual harassment allegations made against his chief of staff & prevent further harassment or retaliation

He's just the worst.

Also remember how Congress started to reform its policies for addressing workplace sexual harassment and then just...didn't? That was a year ago, and they still haven't. Maybe they'll try again.
posted by zachlipton at 11:28 AM on November 16, 2018 [11 favorites]

>Nonvoters Have Valid Criticisms of the United States Government
>The system isn’t in place where we can vote for our liberation.

And when actual fascists coast into power because the people who might have stopped them declined to dirty their hands, will the system then be in place where you can vote for your liberation? Will it be closer, or farther away?

This is like being given a chance to vote on whether you're gonna get kicked in the shins, or shot in the face, and declining to participate because they're both bad. Enjoy your radiant aura of purity while you can, I guess.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 11:31 AM on November 16, 2018 [70 favorites]

NYT, McConnell Tells Trump a Criminal Justice Bill Is Not Likely This Year

Senator Mitch McConnell told President Trump in a private meeting on Thursday that there is not likely to be enough time to bring a bipartisan criminal justice bill up for a vote this year, regardless of the support it has in the Senate and the White House, according to people familiar with the meeting.
...
But Mr. McConnell told the president that the bill would most likely eat up about 10 days on the Senate floor — time that he did not have between now and the scheduled end of the legislative session on Dec. 14, according to the people familiar with the remarks, who were granted anonymity to describe the private meeting. They were not connected to Mr. McConnell.

Once again, McConnell's insistence on the Hastert rule leads to him killing legislation that can get 60 votes. And it seems like it could be done a lot quicker than 10 floor days:

@nielslesniewski: There's no reason, if you used a vehicle, filed cloture on the motion to concur and filled the tree that this would take nearly that long.
posted by zachlipton at 11:31 AM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Even when he was caught on camera advocating powerful men being able to sexually assault women with impugnity, he never even bothered with the 'fake apology' stage that powerful men tend to pretend towards at first.

Aw, c'mon, he did a totally sincere and genuine apology video right after the Grab Them By the Pussy tape came out.

“Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am,” he said. “I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize.”

I mean, sure, he looks like he's in a hostage video and is blinking "MAGA" in Morse code, but he does actually apologize. Right before he blames the Clintons.

Ceterum autem censeo Trumpem esse delendam
posted by kirkaracha at 11:33 AM on November 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

What a stupid rational for for not voting. "The Government" is not some separate thing from society, it's an integral part of it. Small communities can get by just talking to each other but for a society that encumpasses a whole country, you're going to either need a separate organization to govern that society or get used to living under warlords. You participate in "the system" by simply existing. Whether you engage with the system or not, the system engages with you. The only way to avoid it to go off and live separate from society (IE: Be a hermit).

In a previous megathread from ages ago someone compared it to getting dinner at a restaurant. If you choose not to order anything, something will be ordered for you. I suppose you can just get up and leave the restaurant but, again, that's akin to living as a hermit.

By participating you're not "validating the two-party system" you're making your voice heard. If enough of your fellow voters want their representatives to move away from the two-party system those representatives will either do so or the voters will find someone who will. You can even leave the government and voting out of it. If enough members of society are willing to take action to enact change, change will be enacted. Voting simply formalizes the process in an attempt to keep it peaceful.

At least here in MN where voting is somewhat closer to how easy voting should be, we're talking about doing maybe an hour's worth of research and taking half an hour to go vote. I'm asking for 90 fucking minutes a year. I'm sick and tired of all these articles about why people don't vote and the time and energy people spend on rationalizing why they don't want to spend that 90 minutes.

I think the DSA is a good example of an organization that recognizes this. They've carved out this careful plan to infiltrate the Democratic party and slowly take over without losing sight of the larger fight against the GOP. In my fantasy future the DSA eventually splinters off from the Democrats and those two become two new parties. At that point I'd expect the DSA to be the party that supports and pushes for ranked-choice and/or other voting reforms that allow the rise of viable 3rd parties.

Only those who participate in the system are able to change it, well, without a (probably violent) revolution I guess.
posted by VTX at 11:33 AM on November 16, 2018 [36 favorites]

Accused Russian Spy Seeking Plea Deal

“Lawyers for alleged Russian spy Mariia Butina have entered into negotiations with federal prosecutors,” NBC News reports.

“The two sides requested to postpone the next hearing in the case because they are currently ‘in negotiations regarding a potential resolution of this matter,’ indicating that they are working towards a plea agreement.”

This text replaces the default Moose and Squirrel joke. The image on that NBC story is really odd. Kinda creepy odd. She's speaking into a mic, looking at the camera, with soft-focus stripes (flags) surrounding her. Like, what's going on photo-editor-person? No other file photos of Butina walking into court or something? Also, I never noticed there were two "i"'s in her first name.
posted by petebest at 11:36 AM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Trump is not going to be Reaganized, he'll at most be Bushified, which is distinct in my view. (That's assuming an even-worse-at-least-on-the-surface Republican president comes along for him to be compared to, just as Trump's awfulness rehabilitated Dubya.) The extent of Donald's current unpopularity is huge -- it was net negative at the start and has never hit the 50% mark in any valid poll.

When it comes to Reagan, even today's Democrats tend to speak positively -- they shouldn't, but they do, because the myth was that successful. The same is not going to happen for Trump without a cultural shift I don't expect to happen. There will be lots of centrist "He was actually good" hot takes in the 2030s, but the takes will remain hot relative to the larger culture, in the way "Reagan was actually good" isn't.

Sometimes we make exactly the same mistake our DC representatives do, assuming the American people to be more conservative than they are, partly because it's really hard to intuit the structural advantages that give conservatives disproportionate power, and much easier to just see who's in charge and figure it's what people want. In fact, this country, on the whole, really, really doesn't like Trump.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:37 AM on November 16, 2018 [10 favorites]

WaPo: Betsy DeVos set to bolster rights of accused in rewrite of sexual assault rules:

More on this today, WSJ, New Rules for Sexual-Assault Cases Boost Protections for Accused Students

The new rules will significantly narrow the definition of what counts as a reportable sexual assault, and they will allow schools to act only if an assault occurred on campus, throwing into question incidents that take place in off-campus fraternity or sorority houses, for example. Schools also can adopt a higher burden of proof, known as “clear and convincing evidence,” that raises the bar for determining a student’s guilt.

In addition, the rules will require a new set of procedures designed to protect students who are accused of misconduct. Chief among them is a requirement that a lawyer or advocate for an accused student be allowed to cross-examine the accuser, a practice the Obama administration had discouraged for its potential to further traumatize assault victims.

The new rules will strike down the so-called single-investigator model, in which the same person both investigates a claim and determines its veracity.

While various policy proposals are at least broadly debatable on their merits here, allowing schools to only act if an assault occurred on campus is utter madness.
posted by zachlipton at 11:37 AM on November 16, 2018 [8 favorites]

"The Government" is not some separate thing from society, it's an integral part of it.

It is society.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

posted by kirkaracha at 11:37 AM on November 16, 2018 [16 favorites]

With him out of the White House, all investigations will instantly come to a screeching halt, the new President will declare that we need to look forward, not back

I don't think so. Not this time. Democrats, having had a second election stolen from them this century, and the second time by this boor colluding with the Russians to eke out a win over Hillary Clinton and the 2.8 million more people who voted for her, are not in a forgiving mood. Never mind all the horrible things Trump and done, said, and encouraged since.

No, the only way Trump gets a pass is if he resigns, Nixon-like, and is able to get Pence to pardon him. And even then New York State prosecutors will be sharpening their axes.
posted by Gelatin at 11:41 AM on November 16, 2018 [13 favorites]

I don't even think he'll be Bushified. How Dubya managed it is that once he got done being a terrible president he more or less just kind of silently fucked off. If Trump is a) not President and b) still alive, he is constitutionally incapable of just tottering off to quietly paint sunsets at Mar a Lago. He will, day after day, loudly remind the world what a truly broken, sick, awful human being he was and is, until the moment merciful death finally takes him.
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:43 AM on November 16, 2018 [58 favorites]

Trump is not going to be Reaganized, he'll at most be Bushified, which is distinct in my view.

GWB was "Bushified" because he fucked off to Crawford for 10 years and only came back to public life to say some somewhat mean things about Trump. Also, when he's make appearances with the Former Presidents Crew™, he's friendly with everyone.

Two things guaranteed about Trump after he leaves power: He's not disappearing from public life, and he's not going to up there chumming it up with Bill/George/Barack and giving hugs to Hillary/Laura/Michelle.

On preview: Great minds use the phrase "fucked off" apparently, lol.
posted by sideshow at 11:45 AM on November 16, 2018 [43 favorites]

I don't think so. Not this time. Democrats, having had a second election stolen from them this century, and the second time by this boor colluding with the Russians to eke out a win over Hillary Clinton and the 2.8 million more people who voted for her, are not in a forgiving mood.

I would put it differently. *If* the Democrats let it slide the way Obama did, then they will never be in power for the foreseeable future, and we will have tumbled significantly further towards the cliff of large-scale civil violence.
posted by Behemoth at 11:45 AM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

More on this today, WSJ, New Rules for Sexual-Assault Cases Boost Protections for Accused Students

Without getting into 1500 more words about responses in 2018 to being attacked, the obvious take away here is, "If you are going report being attacked, don't waste your time with campus police, but go straight to the city/state police"

Got it.
posted by mikelieman at 11:48 AM on November 16, 2018 [6 favorites]

No time for this criminal justice bill, no time for a proper Kav investigation, today's cloture filing on nominations and so on and on...

The McConnell Interiority Clock is a thing of wonder -- he believes the faster it runs, the less likely it is his actions will catch up with him.
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:48 AM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

And city/state police will immediately refer you to campus police. Problem solved!
posted by agregoli at 11:50 AM on November 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

Or just ask if you really want to ruin this guy's life over one stupid mistake, and then look at you disapprovingly until you leave without filing a report.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:53 AM on November 16, 2018 [11 favorites]

U.S. Marshals Service spending millions on DeVos security in unusual arrangement - Heidi Przybyla, NBC News

The cost to taxpayers could be as much as $19.8 million through next year, according to figures provided to NBC News.

The money comes out of the Education Department budget, and far outpaces what other departments spend on security.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:55 AM on November 16, 2018 [19 favorites]

And city/state police will immediately refer you to campus police. Problem solved!

Yeah, that's part of the 1500 words I didn't write (summary: The whole damn system is wrong, and current education and training isn't meeting expectations , yet we need to grab whatever incremental gains we can. ) IIRC, you don't have to go back to an inferior PD to file a complaint, but teaching people not to accept "NO", is another whole thing.

And that's my signal to sign off. Happy Friday people.
posted by mikelieman at 11:56 AM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

@scottwongDC: House Ethics Committee formally reproves Freedom Caucus Chairman @RepMarkMeadows (R-NC) and orders him to reimburse Treasury $40K for failing to adequately address sexual harassment allegations made against his chief of staff & prevent further harassment or retaliation

Also sanctioned, Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen, who was found to have "made persistent and unwanted advances towards women who were required to interact with him as part of their professional responsibilities." Pelosi called for him to step down last year, which he did not do, but he did not run for re-election (he'll be replaced by Democrat Steven Horsford in January).
posted by zachlipton at 11:58 AM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

I’m fine with women in power, just not this one specific woman currently in power (Alexandra Petri, WaPo)

The first thing I need to make clear is that I love and support women. I am eager to see more women rise to positions of power. Hashtag pink wave! Hashtag pink hat!

But I have to say, I’m a little frustrated that we keep putting forward this specific woman who really grinds my gears. Not because she’s a woman. I would know if that were why. It is not that. It’s just — ugh, her, you know? She just doesn’t excite me, and I feel that she is too compromised. That’s not a woman thing, though. It’s just a her thing. I would have that issue with anyone who had her baggage, that same difficult-to-pin-down sense that something about her was fundamentally tainted.

But it is just this one woman in particular. And can I say how glad I am that we are at a point when we are able to judge women on their merits, as people, and find them inexplicably, inevitably wanting, as people? But definitely all women do not do this. There are plenty of women who do not make my teeth go on edge in the way this one lady does. My mother, for instance. My daughter, for another instance. And others I could name! Oprah, in her current capacity, though I hope she stays in her lane.

In general, I am excited to vote for a woman, maybe even in 2020, though I do, I have to say, worry that maybe other Americans are not so ready, and we wouldn’t want to make that mistake in a year with such high stakes. Not me — I was born ready! I was given birth to by a woman. So it’s clear where I stand.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:01 PM on November 16, 2018 [95 favorites]

If there's an example of DJT ever admitting fault in his entire life, then I've yet to hear of it. Even when he was caught on camera advocating powerful men being able to sexually assault women with impugnity, he never even bothered with the 'fake apology' stage that powerful men tend to pretend towards at first.

Er, umm, there was this decidedly fake apology during the 2016 campaign.(SLYT)
posted by vac2003 at 12:06 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

I also have to wonder whether, if he's simply lying about that and the answers remain unwritten, there's any more legal significance to it than for his other lies, given the subject.

I think this highly likely, that answers have not been written. The questions themselves are Donny's first real hint at what Mueller knows, and how deeply Mueller has gotten into Donny's shit. Donny has only had speculation and paranoia to go on before, and will obviously need to readjust/get-his-story-straight/remember-what-pack-of-lies-he's-already-said. That kind of review by his lawyers will not be easy and is going to take some time, particularly under a Donny cycling through new freakouts and outrages.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:30 PM on November 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

nationalizing health insurance is gonna require revenue.

Since under the current system, everything costs twice as much (for worse outcomes) to cover half the population, cutting out the tollkeepers at the gates to healthcare should pay for itself. Now we cover everyone, for the same price. Single payer should be revenue neutral.
posted by M-x shell at 12:30 PM on November 16, 2018 [14 favorites]

@chrisgeidner: BREAKING: George Papadopoulos's new lawyers seek an order continuing his bail pending the outcome of Andrew Miller's appeal challenging Mueller's authority, asserting it could "directly impact the validity of Mr. Papadopoulos’s prosecution and conviction."

George, what the hell are you doing?
posted by zachlipton at 12:32 PM on November 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

Remember, the Russians broke into both parties’ computers. Wikileaks only published the materials from one. Assange got them from Roger freaking Stone.

I was aware that Stone somehow knew about the leaks ahead of time, but I don't remember hearing that he was the source of the emails to Wikileaks. Why would the Russians use Roger Stone as their cutout?
posted by M-x shell at 12:33 PM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Mariia Butina: Also, I never noticed there were two "i"'s in her first name.

GRU has eyes everywhere.
posted by JackFlash at 12:36 PM on November 16, 2018 [73 favorites]

Since under the current system, everything costs twice as much (for worse outcomes) to cover half the population, cutting out the tollkeepers at the gates to healthcare should pay for itself. Now we cover everyone, for the same price. Single payer should be revenue neutral.

I don't follow? No matter how much the overall cost savings of single payer are (and I agree they would be considerable) you still have to raise taxes in order for the federal government to collect that money rather than having it be paid to private corporations in the form of premiums.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:37 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oprah, in her current capacity, though I hope she stays in her lane.

Petri is a fucking master at her craft.
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:39 PM on November 16, 2018 [33 favorites]

Why doesn’t Jim Acosta just go to the car and change his shirt or put on a hat and go right back into the press briefings?
posted by growabrain at 12:47 PM on November 16, 2018 [56 favorites]

>> Now we cover everyone, for the same price. Single payer should be revenue neutral.

> I don't follow? No matter how much the overall cost savings of single payer are (and I agree they would be considerable) you still have to raise taxes in order for the federal government to collect that money rather than having it be paid to private corporations in the form of premiums.

For those of us with employer-provided health insurance, the idea is that the employer would stop paying for our health insurance (and so could we), nominally add those amounts to our salaries, and then withhold it in increased taxes. So, no net change in our paychecks or in our employers' costs. Also, they get to not be in the business of managing health insurance benefits, etc. etc. Instead, they send their contributions and our contributions to a giant "single payer" trust fund.

Now: whether or not that provides sufficient revenue to pay for single payer coverage for everyone, who's ox gets gored in the transition, what happens to all those insurance company employees who are suddenly unemployed - that's where the conflict is. In broad outlines, single payer could be revenue neutral.
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:51 PM on November 16, 2018 [14 favorites]

I don't follow? No matter how much the overall cost savings of single payer are (and I agree they would be considerable) you still have to raise taxes in order for the federal government to collect that money rather than having it be paid to private corporations in the form of premiums.

We basically print money to pay for military spending. No one ever says, "how on earth shall we pay for our enormous and yet oddly low functioning military" because money is just...forthcoming from the government. There is no reason that we can always find money for the military but need to freak out about Medicare.
posted by Frowner at 12:55 PM on November 16, 2018 [61 favorites]

> then withhold it in increased taxes. So, no net change in our paychecks or in our employers' costs

Right. But it is a change in taxes, in the money going to the government (rather than insurance companies), which is why the proposed rule would come into play.
posted by DebetEsse at 12:56 PM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Ezra Klein just posted an interesting podcast interview with someone who's studied trolling. She noted that one strategy used by trollers is to game the media. Essentially, they say or do something outrageous for media coverage simply to get media coverage. It proves to their cohorts that the media are fools and that they own them. That's the point in its entirety.

This is the most insightful discussion I have heard about the symbiotic trump/media relationship. Whitney Phillips is an academic so there's a fair amount of jargon thrown around but she has a very interesting analysis that traces our current state to the lulz of fourchan. Listen to the podcast before you jump on that last statement metafilter. Where she ends up is that the commodification of and competition in the media makes it very difficult to wrest the narrative from Donald Trump. And he knows it given the number of times he's explicitly referenced the $$ pouring in to media. It's all about him.
posted by bluesky43 at 12:58 PM on November 16, 2018 [11 favorites]

Erik Wemple, This is your government on Trump, in which the government argues that Trump ranting at Acosta during the press conference constituted an element of "due process." Yep, the government argued that Trump telling Acosta "You’re a very rude person" was giving him notice his press credentials would be revoked. It's another example of how Trump's ramblings are laundered into something resembling official policy after the fact.

The Post’s Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker documented last month how government officials scramble to adorn reality so as to shed a ray of plausibility on the false statements or wild promises of President Trump. Such madness arose after Trump in October promised a 10 percent tax cut before the midterm elections for middle-class folks, a fantasy. Trumpites raised the prospect of some kind of resolution expressing a commitment to the president’s loose promise.

A similar dynamic hovers over the CNN suit. When Trump trashed Acosta with the cameras rolling, it looked like the undisciplined and irate rambling of a man who woke up to find his political future in question. After CNN filed its suit, the rant turned into something approaching red tape — an official and compulsory warning to a journalist of impending bureaucratic action.

Judge Kelly rooted out the fraud. In accounting for his granting of the TRO in Friday’s court session, the judge broke down the government’s thin case. “As for notice, the government points to only one statement that could possibly constitute prior notice to Mr. Acosta that his pass would be revoked: The president’s statements to him during the exchange at the press conference on Nov. 7,” Kelly said. “But the president’s statements did not reference Mr. Acosta’s hard pass at all, let alone that it would be revoked.”

posted by zachlipton at 1:00 PM on November 16, 2018 [12 favorites]

Seems like it would be more straightforward to cut out the middleman and directly tax the employers. Why have them pay the additional money to employees only to tax it? While it comes out a wash, psychologically it would be better not to take the money from the individual employees.
posted by Justinian at 1:01 PM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

>> the employer would stop paying for our health insurance (and so could we), nominally add those amounts to our salaries, and then withhold it in increased taxes.

> That would not work (per this proposed rule) because that would be a tax increase (for 80% of americans).

Well, a lot of it would be covered by the same tax brackets on higher salaries, but I take your point, there would have to be some adjustment even if it was just to keep take-home pay constant for our hypothetical employee.

> it would be more straightforward to cut out the middleman and directly tax the employers.

Yes, probably, but there are going to be loopholes and edge cases and people suddenly being classified as independent contractors.

Luckily, we don't need to worry about it! For now, all the House needs to do is vote on aspirational ideas paid for with rainbows and unicorns, and let the mean Republicans vote against goodies for voters.

... and this is where Kevin Drum's "hack gap" comes back to bite us. Democrats want serious proposals, paid for in concrete ways, and here we are, already arguing about the details. Do you recall Republican pundits (forget voters!) even blinking when "serious wonk" Paul Ryan promised that supercharged growth rates would more than make up for his trillion dollar tax cut, thanks to the Laffer fairy?
posted by RedOrGreen at 1:10 PM on November 16, 2018 [14 favorites]

Yahoo, Jenna McLaughlin and Luppe B. Luppen, Leaked chat logs may be used to prove Julian Assange directed hackers

In December 2011, two former members of Lulz Security, or LulzSec — a hacktivist group notorious for penetrating or disrupting a number of corporate and governmental targets like Fox.com, Sony Pictures, gaming websites and the CIA — were discussing a new friend and partner.

That contact, according to Hector Xavier Monsegur, writing under the fictitious name Leon Davidson, was WikiLeaks founder and CEO Julian Assange.

“Between you and me, I’ve been working a lot with the internals of WikiLeaks,” wrote Monsegur, who commonly went by the nickname “Sabu” — and who became infamous for becoming an FBI informant.

“Before lulzsec broke apart, they came to us to hack the entire government of iceland,” he continued, sending a message over encrypted chat service Jabber to fellow hacker Jeremy Hammond, who was later convicted in 2013 for hacking private intelligence firm Stratfor.

The chats appear to reveal a specific instance when Assange may have specifically solicited a crime — the theft of official documents from within the Icelandic government.
...
The chat logs, part of a 100,000-page trove of documents currently in the Department of Justice’s possession, were obtained and published by independent national security journalist Emma Best on Thursday. Best tells Yahoo News the chats are part of the Justice Department’s sealed files, and which the department has verified across multiple sources, including Monsegur’s hard drives and WikiLeaks’ own devices.

Here's Best's story: Sealed transcripts show Assange and WikiLeaks solicited hacks against governments, politicians and corporations – and received files as a result

Emptywheel had some good thoughts in THE THEORY OF PROSECUTION YOU LOVE FOR JULIAN ASSANGE MAY LOOK DIFFERENT WHEN APPLIED TO JASON LEOPOLD in which she notes that Assange's actions with regard to the Vault 7/8 material (a new story now says that Schulte apparently leaked yet more classified information from federal prison that wasn't part of Vault 7 & 8) goes well beyond the bounds of journalism ("using stolen weapons to extort the US government is illegal") and would provide the basis for a prosecution that I, at least, would be a lot more comfortable with than one centered around behavior that's closer to journalism. But she fears that DOJ could be looking at charges around soliciting the theft of protected information, which is a lot closer to what journalists, including Leopold, do in working with sources.
posted by zachlipton at 1:17 PM on November 16, 2018 [15 favorites]

BuzzFeed, Hamed Aleaziz, Trump Administration Again Considering Ways To Force People To Wait In Mexico For Their Immigration Cases

US immigration officials met this week to discuss a proposal to send those who arrive at the US-Mexico border to Mexico while their immigration cases are being processed in the United States, according to sources close to the administration.

The meeting, which included officials from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Customs and Border Protection, was meant so officials could consider a potential regulation that would apply immediately to individuals at the US-Mexico border, including asylum applicants.

Such a proposal would forgo the normally deliberative system that allows for public comment before a new rule is implemented. The ACLU recently sued the administration for following such a process when it instituted major changes to asylum applications at the border.

It’s unclear how the Mexican government would react to such a proposal. The discussions appear to be a renewed effort to discuss a proposal first raised in an executive order signed by Trump in 2017. The Mexican government previously publicly rejected those plans, and the Trump administration made no effort to implement the president's instructions.

posted by zachlipton at 1:27 PM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

But she fears that DOJ could be looking at charges around soliciting the theft of protected information, which is a lot closer to what journalists, including Leopold, do in working with sources

I feel like over time there's been an increasing degree of demonization of Assange, but this sounds like "Hey, send us tips!" even with the knowledge that WL had published leaks, has now been re-engineered into a crime. "Weapons?" That's a tell that the government is reaching, and possibly trying to leap from bridge to bridge with the Russia investigation. "All part and parcel, you see: computers and information." Groan.

This is all based on whatever's public that I know, I can't imagine there's much secret about the case anymore, but I'm willing to change my stance if something more egregious comes to light.
posted by rhizome at 1:55 PM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

These young folks have valid reasoning for deciding not to play further into U.S. capitalism, imperialism, and white supremacy.

I'm so tired of hearing about these fucking tools but I am more tired of people giving them excuses. They have 'valid' reasons in the sense that it's their life and they can choose to vote or not; it's not mandatory. Their reasons are still fucking stupid ones unless someone comes into possession of a magic wand. Until not showing up means there won't be a decision made at the end of an election where one of the people on the ballot ends up in the office what they don't have is defensible reasoning. Because the wheel grinds on whether you dislike it or not and you can do your tiny bit to try to make it suck less or you can opt not to.

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”

The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”

adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)

posted by phearlez at 2:05 PM on November 16, 2018 [62 favorites]

There is no reason that we can always find money for the military but need to freak out about Medicare.

I think the reason I find all of the Veteran's Admin problems so infuriating is specifically because I don't think vets should be a special class. I mean yeah, if they have health issues stemming from service (including mental health), that should be cared for. But even with that--the thing about the VA is it provides services, at least in theory, that everyone should be getting. Health care? That should be a given, period. Help with college? Fucking hell, it shouldn't be this expensive for anyone, and you shouldn't have to spend years in uniform and potentially at risk just to pay for college.

But with the VA, we have, at least, a section of society where even Republicans are like, "Okay, these people earned these benefits, we're good with it." And then Republicans go about undermining and destroying that in any way they can anyway.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:11 PM on November 16, 2018 [20 favorites]

I am extremely sympathetic to young people, especially from systematically disenfranchised communities, who feel like voting is pointless or even counterproductive. But I would like to engage in a respectful dialogue that eventually convinces them they are actually quite mistaken about this rather than uncritically signal-boost the argument that voting is bad praxis or whatever.
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:21 PM on November 16, 2018 [19 favorites]

Luppe B. Luppen (@nycsouthpaw) writing for Yahoo: Subject of Mueller Probe Boasts of Ties To Acting Ag Matt Whitaker

An obscure conservative podcast recorded by a former Trump administration official last Sunday provided a unique window into acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker and the reasons some have found his appointment alarming.

Broadcasting from Hinton, Iowa, a small town in what he called the “reddest part of the state,” Sam Clovis talked about his “very good friend” Whitaker.

“I know Matt very well, I know him well enough that … we’ve chatted on the phone a lot. We’ve texted back and forth,” Clovis said.

In between commercials for “superior” bull semen and the whistle of a passing train, Clovis said Whitaker “has now been given sole responsibility” for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential race.[...]

“He has my 100 percent support and I know he will follow the evidence where it goes, but he will also not let these things get out of out of control … get outside of the confines of what was intended in the special investigator’s position here. So, again, I trust Matt Whitaker to do what he’s supposed to do,” Clovis said.

His comments offered an especially dramatic distillation of Democrats’ worst fears in the wake of Whitaker’s appointment, which stem from his background, ties to Clovis, and potential plans for Mueller.

Whitaker chaired Clovis' Iowa State Treasurer campaign in 2014 (CNBC).
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:23 PM on November 16, 2018 [11 favorites]

"Weapons?" That's a tell that the government is reaching, and possibly trying to leap from bridge to bridge with the Russia investigation.

The Vault 7 leaks were the technical plans for the NSA's cybertools, those were very much weapons akin to stealing the plans for stealth fighter coatings. Those same weapons were then used directly to attack consumers and civilians. You can argue whether it's a good idea for the NSA/CIA to be developing cyberweapons targeting consumer tech, but since we've been living with cyberwarfare for this entire decade, that ship has probably sailed, and I'm pretty OK with protecting cyberweapons like we do other military technology.

I'd also say it's pretty easy to draw a distinction between Assange directing hacks into protected systems, or publishing the content of hacked systems, and legitimate journalists talking to sources. Even the NYT in the Pentagon Papers case didn't ask or aide Daniel Ellsberg in leaking them, and certainly didn't help him break into the Pentagon's computer system to do so. Assange has done all of those things. There's a pretty easy to me line between reporting on the content of classified leaks you receive from a source, and taking direct action to steal that same information from a protected system.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:24 PM on November 16, 2018 [16 favorites]

Top O'Rourke aide moves into Kamala Harris' orbit ahead of 2020 (Eric Bradner, CNN)

The force behind Texas Democrat Beto O'Rourke's record-breaking online fundraising efforts is moving into Sen. Kamala Harris' orbit ahead of her potential 2020 presidential run.

Democratic digital consultant Shelby Cole is joining Authentic Campaigns, the firm founded and led by Mike Nellis, who is Harris' longtime top digital consultant. The move positions Cole to play a major role if the California Democrat runs for president.

posted by mcdoublewide at 2:24 PM on November 16, 2018 [17 favorites]

From Tumblr Staff: Keeping our promise to be transparent about state-sponsored disinformation campaigns

In the days leading up to November 6, 2018, we were provided information by law enforcement authorities, including a list of Tumblr accounts allegedly tied to the IRA. We immediately initiated our own independent investigation and we have now identified a total of 112 accounts that we believe to be IRA-affiliated. These accounts appear to be relics of past IRA activity. None of the blogs contained any content related to the 2018 midterm elections, and all of the blogs were dormant since the 2016 election cycle.

Although these blogs posed no threat to the 2018 elections, consistent with our promise in March, we:

Immediately terminated these accounts and removed the original posts;
Left reblogs of posts from these accounts in place for transparency purposes;
Are notifying you if you liked, reblogged, replied to, or followed one of the accounts; and
Have added the accounts to our public record of usernames linked to state-sponsored disinformation campaigns.

No social media platform is perfect, and obviously Tumblr has its share of problems. But I'm consistently impressed with how much harder they seem to be actually trying at this stuff than the other, bigger platforms like Facebook and Twitter. "Not perfect but trying to be transparent" is so much better than "Yeah, Nazis and harassers all over our site, whatever, but what really needs a fix is the 'like' button."
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:29 PM on November 16, 2018 [30 favorites]

Two Years In, Trump Struggles to Master Role of Military Commander

...unlike past Republican presidents, Mr. Trump has seen little value in the long American deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq and other conflicts. He considers them a waste of money and lives, and has told advisers that the people in the countries where troops are stationed are not really friends of the United States.

One reason he has not visited troops in war zones, according to his aides, is that he does not really want American troops there in the first place. To visit, they said, would validate missions he does not truly believe in.

If only we had some kind of chief who could command the troops to come home.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:31 PM on November 16, 2018 [28 favorites]

Two Years In, Trump Struggles to Master Role of Military Commander

God I hate headlines like that. He is not struggling to do anything, he is completely disengaged from the process of being president of the United States. Stop trying to make him fit your narrative!!
posted by Melismata at 2:34 PM on November 16, 2018 [89 favorites]

@adamliptak: The question of whether Matthew Whitaker was lawfully appointed to be acting attorney general arrives at the Supreme Court — in an unusual context. Represented by Tom Goldstein, a plaintiff in a Second Amendment case asks the court to substitute Rod Rosenstein as the defendant.
Here's the motion. That's, er, well, it's novel

Woof, that is a lot of cites and precedents in that motion. What is the case? Who is Barry Michaels? Because that is bold. Nice work, Barry! (Also please do not be a terrible milkshake duck, Barry)
posted by sexyrobot at 2:48 PM on November 16, 2018

To visit, they said, would validate missions he does not truly believe in.

it's funny how this mirrors the why-I-don't-vote justification.
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:48 PM on November 16, 2018 [15 favorites]

One reason he has not visited troops in war zones, according to his aides, is that he does not really want American troops there in the first place. To visit, they said, would validate missions he does not truly believe in.

That's giving Trump an awful lot of credit for even having the capability to ponder something so principled as what his actions and words appear to validate. Does anybody believe *anything* would stop Trump from going to the war zones and denouncing the missions in front of the world, cameras rolling, if that's what he wanted to do?

I'd bet my vital organs it's actually something more along the lines of "When we told him we couldn't stop the wind from blowing sand on him, he told us to go fuck ourselves."
posted by Rykey at 3:14 PM on November 16, 2018 [17 favorites]

Not going to link to this. Find it yourselves. Or better yet, don't.

Turkey is releasing hidden camera stills of the dismemberment of Jamal Kashoggi.

Arabic news websites are showing them with no content warning or anything.

I expect this will have more impact on world history than the woodcut illustrations of the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife published by newspapers in 1914.
posted by ocschwar at 3:17 PM on November 16, 2018 [9 favorites]

And the CIA is leaking confirmation that they believe MBS ordered it.

Alea iacta est, y'all.
posted by ocschwar at 3:22 PM on November 16, 2018 [22 favorites]

Orange County, California: 2016 vs. 2018
posted by growabrain at 3:32 PM on November 16, 2018 [14 favorites]

The WSJ's Sadie Gurman, on an auditorium of not even half-empty seats at the DoJ yesterday: "Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker’s inaugural appearance in the Great Hall." (pic1, pic2)

U Alabama law prof Joyce Alene notes: "When the AG speaks in the great hall, it's always full. Everyone wants to hear. There are people standing in the back well in advance of his/her entrance."

Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes: "This is astonishing. It's as though thousands of career DOJ officials spoke with one voice: this guy does not represent us."
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:40 PM on November 16, 2018 [50 favorites]

@kylegriffin1: Trump blames forest poor management on the California fires, says if forest areas had been raked out, "you wouldn't have the fires." (via Fox)

He does accept when asked about climate change that "maybe it contributes a little bit."

@VABVOX: Isn't there anyone in Trump's circle who can explain that you don't rake the forest?

He seems to have seen some firefighters creating a fireline on TV, and decided that means the forest needs to be raked. Note that more than half of California's forests are federal land.
posted by zachlipton at 3:41 PM on November 16, 2018 [18 favorites]

do not be a terrible milkshake duck, Barry

NBC notes the

case was originally brought by a Nevada man, Barry Michaels, who asked the justices to rule that the right to own a gun should not be taken away from someone convicted of certain non-violent felonies.

the case has been developing for some time: loretta lynch was the initial defendant. here is the court of appeals for the ninth circuit affirming (in Nov. 2017) the lower court's dismissal of Michaels' challenge to 18 u.s.c. sec. 922(g)(1) et seq.:

It shall be unlawful for any person [...] who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year [...] to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

so maybe not the duck we might have wanted. but evidently a duck that values rule of law.

(on edit: omitted intended link added to "here")
posted by 20 year lurk at 3:46 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

oschwar: And the CIA is leaking confirmation that they believe MBS ordered it.

In a normal, functioning government, if the CIA provided this information (even on background), it'd be taken as a sign that this was the official position of the US government.

In this current shitshow, we cannot discount the possibility that this was leaked on background because the CIA (and/or interests in other departments like State) wants to head off the White House's proposed plan to trade Fehtullah Gulen to Turkey, presumably in exchange for Erdogan easing up on his non-stop roasting of Jared's ol' pal MBS.
posted by mhum at 3:52 PM on November 16, 2018 [21 favorites]

Per @WSJ just now, Pfizer will raise prices on 41 drugs they delayed over the summer to please Trump.

Now the election is over and it’s back to business.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:05 PM on November 16, 2018 [39 favorites]

@passantino: Trump tells @FoxNewsSunday his forthcoming trip to California, where at least 66 people are dead and 600 others are missing, is “just to see the firefighters"

To illustrate how offensive this is, there's a Wal-Mart parking lot in Chico that's full of trailers and tents as far as you can see, and norovirus is breaking out at some of the shelters. But the purpose of Trump's trip, and they still haven't announced where he's going, is apparently just to gawk at the firefighters.

From last night, @jennalane: Overheard in the #CampFire zone: “I hope the President does come here Saturday. I could use some paper towels.”
posted by zachlipton at 4:09 PM on November 16, 2018 [42 favorites]

today in the “i find your legal theories fascinating and wish to subscribe to your newsletter” department, the george papodopoulos situation has gotten so farcical that the writers at TPM are having trouble reeling in their shade:

Coffee boy and foreign policy enthusiast George Papadopoulos doesn’t want to go to jail just yet. He’s asking a federal judge to delay his 14-day prison sentence until a separate appeal challenging special counsel Robert Mueller’s authority is resolved.

“If the entire apparatus that prosecuted Mr. Papadopoulos lacked authority to do so because it is deemed unconstitutional, such a motion would be granted, and his conviction would be reversed,” defense attorneys for Papadopoulos write in the filing.

The 31-year-old was sentenced to just two weeks in prison for perjury after convincing the judge he had shown genuine “remorse” for his crime.

Since then, Papadopoulos has embarked on an anti-Mueller spree in conservative media, claiming to be the victim of an international espionage conspiracy while trying to get a book deal out of it.

Papadopoulos waived his right to appeal in his plea agreement, which reads, “your client also waives any right to challenge the conviction entered or sentence imposed under the Agreement or otherwise attempt to modify or change the sentence or the manner in which it was determined in any collateral attack.”

i’m trying to think of another recent case where a person (or nation) was willing to blow up a sweetheart deal in order to get something better that they were sure they deserved, the details of which remained nebulous at the time of the decision to blow shit up…
posted by murphy slaw at 4:25 PM on November 16, 2018 [12 favorites]

Note that more than half of California's forests are federal land.

That's not even the whole story. 57% of forests in California are federal land. Only 3% are state owned and managed. The other 40% is privately owned, of which 14% is by commercial timber companies.
posted by JackFlash at 4:40 PM on November 16, 2018 [7 favorites]

Trump to nominate Andrew Wheeler, former coal lobbyist, to officially lead EPA. A former coal lobbyist could soon be permanently in charge of environmental protections.
posted by homunculus at 4:42 PM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

There's a new thread about fighting the wildfires in California, btw.
posted by homunculus at 4:45 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Trump has become more and more unhinged since making his Whitaker move. The growing fury, most manifest in his latest anti-Mueller tweetstorm this week, suggests that he already realizes that the ploy has backfired.

And/or has realized that the flipped House isn't a narrow shred of a majority that could be disrupted by a handful of moderate holdouts, and that the Senate didn't shift to a Republican supermajority. Not just, "Whitaker is getting a whole lot more attention than I'd hoped," but also, "...and the House is going to start investigating everything anyway, even if Mueller's case evaporates." (Which it won't. Because whatever legal entanglements Whitaker would kick off by trying to end it, won't be wrapped up by January.) (December is a very short month in the legal world, and even shorter in Congress.)

And every time he tries to figure out what the next dodge is, what to do to remove whichever annoyance is catching his attention at the moment, he runs into yet another "oops; they're getting too close to me over there," and he's melting down.

He's never dealt with business deals that he couldn't run away from when people started to call him on the bullshit.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:27 PM on November 16, 2018 [35 favorites]

I tried finding it myself, and when I found the gruesome pics, folks had already debunked the pics as a hoax- they were stills from a French TV show. I found the episode they named, and the stills I saw were indeed from a French TV show, so I dunno if the whole story about Turkey releasing camera stills is a hoax, but the pics I found were definitely not actual dismemberment stills.

The initial source ( al-sura.com ) is also retracting the story.
posted by ocschwar at 5:32 PM on November 16, 2018 [5 favorites]

Do we know if Trump has any financial interests in coal mining companies? Ditto wall-building outfits? I assume it's grift all the way down, but it'd be nice to be sure about it.
posted by baltimoretim at 5:49 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

ABC: There are dozens of sealed criminal indictments on the DC docket. Are they from Mueller?

More than three dozen sealed criminal indictments have been added to the federal court docket in Washington, D.C. since the start of 2018.[…]

But several legal experts told ABC News the number of sealed cases awaiting action right now is unusual. Fourteen were added to the docket since late August alone, a review by ABC News has found, just as the midterm elections were drawing near and longstanding Justice Department policy precluded prosecutors from taking any public action that could appear to be aimed at influencing political outcomes.[…]

Brett Kappel, a veteran political law expert said he calculated that 16 percent of all the criminal cases filed thus far in 2018 remained under seal, a number he considered “unusually high.” And those were kept under seal much longer than usual, he said.

“They normally only remain sealed until the person who has been indicted has been apprehended,” he said. “The other major reason why a case is initially sealed is that publicly revealing the name of the accused would impede an ongoing investigation.”[…]

Mueller can only indict someone with the approval of the Attorney General, and once the indictments have been approved and filed, any effort to withdraw charges would involve a judge.

At the time, those approvals fell to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein because Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the Russia matter. But President Trump had sent strong signals he planned to replace Sessions after the elections with someone who might be more willing to curtail the probe into Russian election interference and possible collusion.[…]

“You can’t prevent a new AG from blocking new indictments,” [Matthew Miller, a former senior Justice official under former Attorney General Eric Holder] said. “But if you were ready to move on cases, you could return a bunch of indictments under seal. If the stumbling block is approval from Mueller’s supervisors, you get that approval while you still have a supervisor who approves of your work.”

(That's right, “dozens of sealed indictments”.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:01 PM on November 16, 2018 [26 favorites]

Because this is the world we live in now, Marianne Williamson is exploring a 2020 run for president.
posted by triggerfinger at 6:01 PM on November 16, 2018

@BeschlossDC

Richard Nixon, 45 years ago tomorrow night: “In all of my years in public life, I have never obstructed justice....People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.”
link to the video
posted by bluesky43 at 6:12 PM on November 16, 2018 [17 favorites]

If anyone in this thread is also going to be counter-protesting the Proud Boys in Philly tomorrow and is up for meeting up, please send me a MeMail. I'm going regardless, but having some anxiety about being solo. Their MO is apparently to start fights / attack people after the protest is over and people are leaving in 1s and 2s. Thanks.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:24 PM on November 16, 2018 [23 favorites]

Be safe Lazarus, the proud boys are terrorists. Heavily armed terrorists with police backing.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:29 PM on November 16, 2018 [36 favorites]

> Marianne Williamson is exploring a 2020 run for president.

Let's see.. There are 401 candidates who have filed at this point. There were almost 1800 for the 2016 cycle.

Marianne Williamson isn't one of them. Of course, neither is Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mark Zuckerberg, or Michael Avenatti.

Andrew Yang or John Delaney are the top Democratic contenders registered at this point in time. Strangely, we've not once talked about Andrew Yang, and John Delaney has only come up 4 times in this capacity here, mostly as a "Who?"

Will some of the people we talked about register? Maybe, who knows! My point being that it is WAY too early to care about every single person who "explores" a presidential run. Saying you are exploring a run means jack shit on its own, and If Random Media Figure is talking about it, that doesn't mean a damned thing until they hit the form above, and even that is the absolute bare minimum. This is nothing more than celebrity gossip at this point, it and the less we can contribute to the frenzy over the whimsy of famous people who say the word "president", the better off we will all be.

With the state of things as it is now - Literally nobody who we've talked about for 2020 has registered, and I'm already tired of talking about who is or is not a 2020 presidential candidate and what that means for the party.
posted by MysticMCJ at 6:40 PM on November 16, 2018 [14 favorites]

- Do we know if Trump has any financial interests in coal mining companies?

After Massive Giveaways to Industry, Mining Executives Will Spend Big at Trump's D.C. Hotel (SLTheIntercept, 2017/09/14)

Also, the coal industry is a reliable GOP donor.

How a Coal Baron’s Wish List Became President Trump’s To-Do List (NYTimes, 2018/01/09)
Coal industry documents show extent of effort to influence Trump on Paris accord, regulations (USAToday, 2018/06/06)
The EPA's new leader is a former coal lobbyist (LATimes, 2018/07/05)
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:54 PM on November 16, 2018 [6 favorites]

Also, I should point out that while if you aren't on the FEC list you aren't a candidate, just because someone is listed as a candidate doesn't mean that they are actually a real person - It can make for entertaining reading sometimes.

I have to admit that things are screwed up enough that I cannot say with 100% confidence that Kanye Deez Nuts West for the Green party isn't actually a legitimate registration. I can, however, say that it is 100% screwed up that we place less burden of proof on someone being eligible to register as a candidate than we do them being eligible to vote.
posted by MysticMCJ at 6:57 PM on November 16, 2018 [15 favorites]

Chuck Schumer Caved to Facebook and Donald Trump. He Shouldn’t Lead Senate Democrats.
posted by homunculus at 7:00 PM on November 16, 2018 [18 favorites]

Be safe Lazarus, the proud boys are terrorists. Heavily armed terrorists with police backing.

I mean yeah, you're right, they are all of those things. But they are also Nazis openly marching in my city outside the National Museum of American Jewish History. Also, many of them are like, 20 year old losers. But you are right - their weapons and the support of the state are making me nervous. I don't know what else we're supposed to do but show up tho, like, they can't just be here and us not show up? Nazis just murdered our people in Pittsburgh which is so close by. How can we not be there? I dunno.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:07 PM on November 16, 2018 [69 favorites]

> Per @WSJ just now, Pfizer will raise prices on 41 drugs they delayed over the summer to please Trump. Now the election is over and it’s back to business.

More info: Pfizer ends deal to placate Trump, announces plan to raise prices on 41 prescription drugs. Earlier this year, they promised the president they would halt drug price increases. It didn't last long.
posted by homunculus at 7:07 PM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Elizabeth Warren has “she persisted” - May Chuck Schumer forever be branded with “he caved.”
posted by MysticMCJ at 7:17 PM on November 16, 2018 [13 favorites]

Chuck Schumer Caved to Facebook and Donald Trump. He Shouldn’t Lead Senate Democrats.

He should be primaried out of the party at the next opportunity. NY and California are the two places we need strong left leadership. New York is in no way carrying its weight as the example for liberal hopes and dreams. California mostly is, outside of the missed opportunity to dump Feinstien. Step the fuck up New York, and boot Chuck Schumer out of the Senate in 2022. How about Ocasio-Cortez 2022? Or literally any other person other than Schumer.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:19 PM on November 16, 2018 [18 favorites]

Matthew Mosk and Allison Pecorin, writing for ABC and quoted by Doktor Zed: Mueller can only indict someone with the approval of the Attorney General, and once the indictments have been approved and filed, any effort to withdraw charges would involve a judge.

Wait, everything we've been calling a "Mueller indictment" before now was... approved by Jeff Sessions? And now Whitaker can gum that up? What am I missing?
posted by InTheYear2017 at 7:22 PM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

By Rosenstein as Acting AG for the Mueller probe.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:24 PM on November 16, 2018 [6 favorites]

And Whitaker can't gum them up or at least not without a judge's approval. Provided said judge would be made familiar the evidence and actually upholds the rule of law that isn't likely to happen.
posted by VTX at 7:28 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

He's [Trump] never dealt with business deals that he couldn't run away from when people started to call him on the bullshit.

Or anything Michael Cohen couldn't fix with a NDA and a big enough check. I can only imagine the blind terror in whatever part of his mind is aware of this fact. The Acosta thing is telling too, since he also never had anyone at a PR event ask any questions that weren't scripted.

ABC: There are dozens of sealed criminal indictments on the DC docket. Are they from Mueller?

Not only is Donald Trump swimming in dangerous waters without any prior experience, he's in there with perhaps the -- damnit, the 'shark' metaphor breaks down.

(take 2)

Not only is Donald Trump trying to navigate a dangerous jungle with no map, and without any experience, he's being hunted by a g-ddamn U.S. Marine. I think of the sealed indictments like concealed tiger pits.
posted by mikelieman at 7:34 PM on November 16, 2018 [17 favorites]

It looks like Mueller can't make new indictments without Whitaker's approval (although... is Rosenstein still in charge until Whitaker formally says he's no longer running the investigation?), but with dozens sitting around in the pipeline, he may not need to make new ones any time soon. And Whitaker can't just sign something to make those go away; he could make a legal argument against them, but he'd be on pretty shaky ground.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:36 PM on November 16, 2018

Progressives back Pelosi for speaker — in return for more power

It wasn’t a coincidence that moments after Nancy Pelosi promised progressive House leaders more power in the next Congress, a host of liberal groups announced they were supporting her for speaker.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who is expected to co-chair the House Progressive Caucus next year, left a Thursday night meeting with Pelosi in the Capitol and proclaimed that her members would have more seats on powerful committees and more influence over legislation.

IMHO this is a prime example of how savvy Pelosi is. I think it will be a winning combination.
posted by bluesky43 at 7:43 PM on November 16, 2018 [79 favorites]

In this current shitshow, we cannot discount the possibility that this was leaked on background because the CIA (and/or interests in other departments like State) wants to head off the White House's proposed plan to trade Fehtullah Gulen to Turkey, presumably in exchange for Erdogan easing up on his non-stop roasting of Jared's ol' pal MBS.

An offer that Erdogan is publically rejecting now. He really is winning at 3D chess right now. Gulen is old, and his feet of clay are starting to show and cause his followers to leave, as happens with any cult. Not much point in killing him when holding him responsible for the coup lets Erdogan cut a deal sub rosa with the real plotters and not appear weak.

AND...

Erdogan's Neo-Ottomanism is now the least ghastly vision for credible government in the Middle East barring a surge in the popularity of the Jordanian monarchy.

Check. Mate.
posted by ocschwar at 7:55 PM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

posted by lazaruslong: they can't just be here and us not show up? Nazis just murdered our people in Pittsburgh which is so close by. How can we not be there? I dunno.

No man, I'm with you. If they were marching in my town, my crippled ass would be down there, cane in one hand and sign in the other. But I'd be nervous. Cause, Nazis. Openly marching in the United States of America. In the twenty goddamn first century. What a world. I hate this timeline. I love you though, so be safe. It's more benediction than direction. :)
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 7:58 PM on November 16, 2018 [33 favorites]

But the purpose of Trump's trip, and they still haven't announced where he's going, is apparently just to gawk at the firefighters.

He just wants to sit in the truck again.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:13 PM on November 16, 2018 [21 favorites]

Trump’s Defense Spending Is Out of Control, and Poised to Get Worse: Using a time-honored trick, a bipartisan congressional panel argues we should boost the president’s record defense bill even more
posted by homunculus at 8:15 PM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

@kylegriffin1: I'm personally offended by Mueller's silence today.

I mean, yes, very much this. And more broadly, I realize this needs to be done right and that takes time, but the way this country works cannot be that you get to commit crimes for years before someone tells the American people what happened. We're still waiting on answers about what happened in the early days of the administration, answers Flynn has surely long-since provided. We can't wait for Mueller forever.
posted by zachlipton at 8:21 PM on November 16, 2018 [19 favorites]

We're still waiting on answers about what happened in the early days of the administration, answers Flynn has surely long-since provided. We can't wait for Mueller forever.

Counterpoint: The Wire - You come at the King, you best not miss
posted by mikelieman at 8:27 PM on November 16, 2018 [15 favorites]

The Watergate investigation took over two years.
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:27 PM on November 16, 2018 [17 favorites]

Normally these quote pieces go off the rails pretty quick. But I think CNN might have vertigo or something after so long - I mean, what are they supposed to do with this:

"I write the answers. My lawyers don't write answers. I write answers. I was asked a series of questions. I've answered them very easily -- very easily. I'm sure they're tripped up, because you know they like to catch people," Trump told reporters gathered for a bill signing.

... Asked if anything specific triggered his recent angry tweets about Mueller, Trump said: "No, not at all. I'm very happy. I'm very happy with the White House."

"I'm not agitated. It's a hoax. The whole thing is a hoax. There was no collusion," he said of Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling and potential obstruction of justice.

... " 'Gee, was the weather sunny or rainy?' " Trump said, appearing to reference a special counsel lawyer's hypothetical line of questioning. " 'He said it may have been a good day. It was rainy. Therefore, he told a lie. He perjured himself.' So, you have to always be careful with people that probably have bad intentions."

Good god. This man is a gibbering INSANE. CLOWN. In one, very limited, sense I kinda feel bad for the guy. He's so tied up in his own mind you just want to see him blurt it out and have done with it.
posted by petebest at 8:28 PM on November 16, 2018 [38 favorites]

Politico, House conservatives protest LGBT protection in Mexico-Canada trade deal

Protections in the new North American trade pact for LGBTQ people are roiling conservative lawmakers in the House, who are urging President Donald Trump to rescind them.

They are displeased that the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement contains requirements that workers be protected from discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity.

“A trade agreement is no place for the adoption of social policy,” reads the letter, which carries the names of 40 lawmakers and was sent Friday. “It is especially inappropriate and insulting to our sovereignty to needlessly submit to social policies which the United States Congress has so far explicitly refused to accept.”
...
It’s unclear whether the LGBT clauses even have real teeth. Both Canada and the U.S. agree it wouldn’t require a new law. But it’s unprecedented language in a U.S. trade agreement.

USMCA’s Chapter 23 on labor requires countries to implement policies that protect workers against employment discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. Another provision in the same chapter requires countries to promote workplace equality with respect to gender identity and sexual orientation.

*can'ts an even I didn't know I still had hiding under the cushions somewhere*
posted by zachlipton at 8:40 PM on November 16, 2018 [22 favorites]

Pelosi publicly backed by Cheri Bustos and Alma Adams; Haley Stevens seems to be signalling she can be bought off.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:49 PM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Good news dept: Michigan adds online voter registration; down to ten states that don't allow it.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:51 PM on November 16, 2018 [24 favorites]

Cheri Bustos, whom I know personally, is a fucking fantastic human being, and one of my greatest regrets about moving away from Peoria is that I am no longer in her district, because she fucking rocks. If Bustos supports Pelosi, that is as super-strong argument that other people should support Pelosi, because BUSTOS IS AWESOME.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:56 PM on November 16, 2018 [34 favorites]

Think Progress:

On Thursday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) delivered a speech to the conservative Federalist Society that would have been more at home on Alex Jones’ radio show than at a gathering of many of the most powerful lawyers and judges in the country.

In it, Lee warned of a brewing civil war, and claimed that the only way to avert violence would be to eradicate a long list of federal programs including “the interstate highway system,” funding for “K through 12 public education,” “federal higher education accreditation,” “early childhood education, the Department of Commerce,” “housing policy, workforce regulation,” and what Lee labeled the “huge glut of federally owned land.”

The story's subhead is a thing of beauty: "We are ruled by monsters and fools."
posted by Chrysostom at 8:58 PM on November 16, 2018 [42 favorites]

because you know they like to catch people

Law Enforcement: always trying to catch people, the scamps
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:06 PM on November 16, 2018 [14 favorites]

Good god. This man is a gibbering INSANE. CLOWN.

This is why a) presidentialism is mostly bad; b) American presidentialism of the Doris Kearns Goodwin variety is especially bad. Given that the president is head of state and (sorta kinda not really) chosen by the American people there is very little room in mainstream American culture to say "the president is an utter fuckwit" because to say so is to say that the people who chose him and still support him are either fuckwits themselves or tolerant of a fuckwit president for their own agendas. This taboo does not typically apply to fuckwit strong-presidents elsewhere.
posted by holgate at 9:31 PM on November 16, 2018 [17 favorites]

Good god. This man is a gibbering INSANE. CLOWN.

I just went down an hour long legal issue rabbit-hole on "Can a personality disorder be used in an insanity defense?"

And just to remind us of how far we've fallen -- at this time where we are desensitized and insanity is normalized -- that's a serious inquiry in the context of the public behaviour of President of the United States.
posted by mikelieman at 9:35 PM on November 16, 2018 [11 favorites]

American presidentialism of the Doris Kearns Goodwin variety is especially bad.

So she came to speak at my high school and my AP US History class was tapped to ask her questions and I was banned from asking anything because I mentioned that I wanted to grill her about her plagiarism. The fact that this women who is a plagiarist has really propped up this idea of president as first man bullshit really grinds my nuts.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 9:36 PM on November 16, 2018 [19 favorites]

Well, I've said before that American media needs to take all the "presidential historians" out of its Rolodex (that includes Beschloss and Brinkley and Meacham too) and bring in historians of early modern absolutist courts, because that's the actual historic precedent, not whether Teddy Roosevelt might have done something similar back in the day.
posted by holgate at 10:00 PM on November 16, 2018 [8 favorites]

Yeah...I'm kinda thinking that Mueller is giving him TWO weeks to answer the questions (no reports he turned them in yet, right?) so there's no argument that he didn't have enough time to answer carefully. And then at least a few days to tuck "and then the president lied about it, on the record, right here" into all the indictments. Maybe another week? Next Friday?
posted by sexyrobot at 10:03 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Next Friday?

The Friday after Thanksgiving?
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:11 PM on November 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oi. Yeah. Right. :/
posted by sexyrobot at 10:15 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

At this point in the year, I'd say right around MLK Day would be the time frame.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 11:12 PM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

US to accuse Iran of violating chemical weapons treaty.

We're not... he's not stupid enough to invade Iran, right? Right? Somebody?

This is like the runup to Iraq if W was surrounded by even stupider people, had a 40% approval rating, and was under widespread investigation. Instead of, you know, not. W was able to do it because he had massive political capital as a result of the country going insane post-9/11 and giving him a 80+% approval rating.

Trump has none of those things going for him. He wouldn't just invade somewhere? While at 40%? I can't even.
posted by Justinian at 12:11 AM on November 17, 2018 [10 favorites]

Dear House Democrats,

I love it when you throw spaghetti at the wall like this

Vox: Exclusive: House Democrats will introduce a bill to protect millions of health care workers, Nurses and social workers are more likely to get attacked on the job than police officers.

and I hope to see lots more. I hope lots of it sticks.

In the course of your coming food fight, please remember that as you attempt to outpace Republican shit-slinging with a storm of marinara goodness, you must remind the voters again and again that Republicans are the ones who have prevented these things going through. The reason you have to do this is because the Republicans have been in control of three branches of government for years and they didn't think of these things. All they did was pass tax cuts for the rich and try to kill you by taking your healthcare. Like screeching chimpanzees with a half-formed theory of mind who take primitive joy in torturing smaller animals and clubbing to death everything that spooks them, they have been throwing their own poop. Now they will try to take credit for anything good that emerges from the feces-stained chambers of government.

So, at this juncture where you try to show us all the nice things we could have, realize that Republicans will probably try to put their names on them, but you must not let the poop-scented fingers of the Gross Old Perverts near your sane bills. You see, they will smear their poopy hands all over them, and ruin your genuinely good ideas, and then claim credit for passing something helpful that will be smeared with Republican dump juice, which will mean it's not actually helpful.

By all means, throw spaghetti! But theirs is the touch of fecal coliform bacteria, and unless you want to be blamed for infecting the nation with cramps, diarrhea, intestinal illnesses, and serious kidney disorders, you must ensure they wash their hands and scrub the shitstains out of the White House and their own party first. Now is not the time for comity, it's the time to show the nation things other than shit that can be slung in Congress, but only with proper hygiene.

Yours truly,
saysthis
posted by saysthis at 12:40 AM on November 17, 2018 [51 favorites]

zachlipton: The way this country works cannot be that you get to commit crimes for years before someone tells the American people what happened. We're still waiting on answers about what happened in the early days of the administration, answers Flynn has surely long-since provided. We can't wait for Mueller forever.

While there's no doubt Mueller knows lots and lots of things that we don't, I'd caution against assuming there's an Ultimate Picture that he has and we don't. We can already infer Flynn's role in this pretty well, and mere inference is also what the special counsel does, just with a larger dataset.

The reason there isn't in all cases a gap of years and years between "crimes committed" and "public knows there were crimes" is that the criminals themselves are the ones broadcasting their crimes, thanks to their recklessness.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 5:37 AM on November 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

An invasion of Iran is unlikely— they’d need at least six months to position all the stuff and people and we haven’t seen any of that.

Bombs and cruise missiles? More likely, but still seems unlikely to me (but what do I know?).
posted by notyou at 7:32 AM on November 17, 2018

Trump’s Defense Spending Is Out of Control, and Poised to Get Worse

Meanwhile, the Pentagon failed its first-ever audit, official says (Reuters)

The Pentagon has failed what is being called its first-ever comprehensive audit, a senior official said on Thursday, finding U.S. Defense Department accounting discrepancies that could take years to resolve.[...]

“We failed the audit, but we never expected to pass it,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told reporters, adding that the findings showed the need for greater discipline in financial matters within the Pentagon.

“It was an audit on a $2.7 trillion dollar organization, so the fact that we did the audit is substantial,” Shanahan added.[...]

Shanahan said areas the Pentagon must improve upon based on the audit results include compliance with cybersecurity policies and improving inventory accuracy. In a briefing with reporters, he did not provide a figure detailing how much money was unaccounted for in the audit.

It was unclear what consequences there would be after the audit, but Shanahan said the focus would be on fixing the issues.

And a new study from Brown University estimates the US has spent six trillion dollars on wars that killed half a million people (Newsweek) (original paper PDF).
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:41 AM on November 17, 2018 [21 favorites]

We're still waiting on answers about what happened in the early days of the administration, answers Flynn has surely long-since provided. We can't wait for Mueller forever.

I’m willing to wait for that good man for as long as it takes. By all accounts he has superb judgment.
posted by bluesky43 at 7:44 AM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Trump will lionized like Bush was

I was profoundly disappointed and depressed while Bush was president. Objectively, he was worse than Trump in my opinion. Trump potentially will be worse, but Trump has not put us in a forever war, institutionalized torture, given away our record surplus to the rich, destroyed our economy, created a permanent underclass of Americans, etc. Worst of all, he was treated like a moderate. Supported even.

But the reaction to Trump has, in some ways, redeemed my faith in the United States. I go out there and meet so many people who are protesting and involved for the first time in their lives. I see a real blue wave. I'm honestly a little humbled by it, and even hopeful for the future.
posted by xammerboy at 8:02 AM on November 17, 2018 [20 favorites]

he's not stupid enough to invade Iran, right?

I can't find the picture of their latest meeting where John Bolton has this huge, shit-eating grin on seeing Putin (familiar, no?), but this article (AP) recaps Bolton's recent two-day snuggle with the Kremlin about a month ago. You get the flava there.*

Not sure how we'd attack their bros in Iran without some Strangelove-level hijinks going on. Possible, of course, or perhaps Herr Klownwig is just that dumb. Even possibler.

* Not pictured: Bolton's smoldering "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You", performed with a small band later that evening. Reportedly it brought a tear to Volodya's eye.
posted by petebest at 8:09 AM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pre-emptively, because I can hear the keyboards warming up: we're not going to do "was Bush better or worse; is potus45 maybe actually not that bad" and related topics. If things are quiet for a bit, they can just be quiet.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:09 AM on November 17, 2018 [34 favorites]

And a new study from Brown University estimates the US has spent six trillion dollars on wars that killed half a million people

Having just clicked through, the lede is missing there: since 9/11

Six Trillion.
posted by petebest at 8:13 AM on November 17, 2018 [28 favorites]

Just think of all the social woes we could have fixed with six trillion dollars. A socialist wet dream of free education, working infrastructure, funded arts and medicine for all. We could open our arms and welcome those who want to come. We could provide infrastructure in former territories and in those countries where in this timeline we sent bombs and snipers.

Imagine a world where we actually liked our fellow humans.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:18 AM on November 17, 2018 [77 favorites]

Okay so I’ve been at the proud boys counter protest in philly for about an hour and a half.

Numbers: about 25 nazis, 600 or so counter protestors, 200 or so cops. We have a full brass band and drums, a giant 4 person Grumpy Cat, and lots of amazing Gritty signs. They have one dude in body armor, some trump flags, and signs that are in like 12 point font. No sign of Gavin or other notorious proud boys. Maybe they aren’t gonna show.
posted by lazaruslong at 8:43 AM on November 17, 2018 [116 favorites]

Few red tailed hawks circling above us. Thinking of you, rtha.
posted by lazaruslong at 8:59 AM on November 17, 2018 [100 favorites]

And the CIA is leaking confirmation that they believe MBS ordered it.

The WaPo's Shane Harris, following up, catchesTrump lying (which doubtless is why Harris's IC sources leaked this information in the first place):

New: "We haven't been briefed yet" about CIA's findings on Khashoggi killing, Trump said. That's not true. He has been shown evidence of the prince’s alleged involvement in the killing, and privately he remains skeptical.

“This is a situation where everyone basically knows what happened,” said one adviser who talks to Trump often. This person said Trump has repeatedly criticized how Mohammed has handled the situation and has said it is clear they are hiding facts.

“It is possible that this took place without his knowledge,” Trump said in an interview last month with the Post. That also contradicts the CIA’s findings that Mohammed, who exercises absolute authority in the kingdom, would have to know about an operation of this scale.

Washington Post: Trump Says He’ll Speak with CIA About Khashoggi Killing

n.b. Harris uses franker language on Twitter than he does in his article.

Bloomberg's Jennifer Jacobs checks in on Pence: "“I don't want to comment on matters that might be classified,” VP Pence told reporters traveling with him in Asia, on whether MBS is directly responsible for Khashoggi’s killing. "We are going to follow the facts,” Pence said, per @ToluseO."
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:07 AM on November 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

An invasion of Iran is unlikely— they’d need at least six months to position all the stuff and people and we haven’t seen any of that.

They're too busy invading the United States border right now.
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:08 AM on November 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

We're not... he's not stupid enough to

lemme stop you right there
posted by tivalasvegas at 9:09 AM on November 17, 2018 [48 favorites]

"And a new study from Brown University estimates the US has spent six trillion dollars on wars that killed half a million people"

Having just clicked through, the lede is missing there: since 9/11

Six Trillion.
posted by petebest

Half a million individual people killed. That's $12 million per person killed. That's about $18,400 per person currently living in the United States. Imagine if those 500,000 had lived, what they might have been able to contribute to their families and communities, to the world. Imagine if their friends, families, and loved ones did not have to experience the trauma and the loss and the upheaval that effects them every moment of every day now. Half a million is about the population of Miami, Sacramento, Atlanta, Colorado Springs, and Mesa. Devastation on a biblical scale, that is mostly ignored, and that many in power want to repeat and expand.
posted by W Grant at 9:11 AM on November 17, 2018 [42 favorites]

In this current shitshow, we cannot discount the possibility that this was leaked on background because the CIA (and/or interests in other departments like State) wants to head off the White House's proposed plan to trade Fehtullah Gulen to Turkey, presumably in exchange for Erdogan easing up on his non-stop roasting of Jared's ol' pal MBS.

This affair has reminded me once again of how I do not have the full compliment of the legal rights the citizens of my current home have.

I share almost nothing in common with Fehtullah Gulen yet I find myself realizing I am Fehtullah Gulen.

I am a barterable good.

Welcome to bartertown immigrant.
posted by srboisvert at 9:26 AM on November 17, 2018 [15 favorites]

We're not... he's not stupid enough to invade Iran, right? Right? Somebody?

An invasion of Iran is unlikely— they’d need at least six months to position all the stuff and people and we haven’t seen any of that.

Plenty of time before November 2020. I think it's entirely possible that he would start some kind of conflict with Iran if he's feeling desperate about the next election and he thinks it would help him win (I seem to recall Bush using the line 'you don't change horses while you're crossing a river' or something like that regarding Iraq when he was campaigning against Kerry.) It's not like he'd be putting himself at personal risk.
posted by homunculus at 10:02 AM on November 17, 2018

'A Staggeringly Bad Idea': Outrage as Pelosi Pushes Tax Rule That Would 'Kneecap the Progressive Agenda'
Can anybody articulate a good reason for a staunch progressive like Pelosi to even consider promoting this policy? It seems like just bringing it up is handing a talking point to the Republicans; even if it gets summarily shut down they can point to the debate and yell "SEE!?! THEY WANT TO RAISE YOUR TAXES!!!" just because we want to hold open the option of moving more things into the public sector at some point in the indeterminate future. What's the argument in favor of suggesting this? What's her angle?
posted by contraption at 10:15 AM on November 17, 2018 [7 favorites]

> And a new study from Brown University estimates the US has spent six trillion dollars on wars that killed half a million people (Newsweek) (original paper PDF).

I read somewhere recently that for the amount of money we've spent in Afghanistan, we could have payed the college fees for every student in the US for the last 25 years.
posted by homunculus at 10:40 AM on November 17, 2018 [9 favorites]

lionized like Bush was

Maj. Danny Sjursen, U.S. Army officer and former history instructor at West Point: The Reclamation of George W. Bush Is an American Tragedy
posted by homunculus at 10:45 AM on November 17, 2018 [15 favorites]

What's the argument in favor of suggesting this? What's her angle?

Get the Speaker's gavel back. The supermajority bullshit comes from the idiotic "problem solver's caucus" that was started by No Labels (that's Joe Lieberman) and spun off into its own allegedly separate group. It's composed of all the worst Blue Dogs and some Republicans.

She's buying votes from both sides of the party to become Speaker again. Put some progressives on committees, and at the same time give policy concessions to the Republicans and Republicans-in-the-Democratic-Party for their votes. It's why she's risen to where she has, she's incredibly good at this stuff. But she's not focused on the policy implications, she wants her place back.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:50 AM on November 17, 2018 [8 favorites]

What's the argument in favor of suggesting this? What's her angle?

Given the knives that have come out for Pelosi I’m not ready to believe the initial spin on strategically leaked but non binding proposals.

People have been shitting on Pelosi forever, but she’s the force of nature who got the ACA done when even, like, Barney Frank gave up on it. Didn’t she get single payer through the house then? And it was Joe Lieberman who fucked it up in the Senate?

I would much rather look at Pelosi’s actual record than whatever bullshit is being spun by people actively trying to shiv her.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:57 AM on November 17, 2018 [45 favorites]

Didn’t she get single payer through the house then?

She got the public option through the House.
posted by Emmy Rae at 11:00 AM on November 17, 2018 [18 favorites]

The real reason conservative critics love talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s clothes - Gaby Del Valle, Vox

Ocasio-Cortez’s political critics often disparage her clothes. They’re really worried about her policies.

Insert recent "critiques" about her clothing and background here.

The message implied here is twofold: Not only is Ocasio-Cortez lying about her working-class background, but she’s living large while espousing democratic socialist policies. By painting Ocasio-Cortez as a hypocrite, [Eddie Scarry] and other critics are suggesting that when she talks about wealth redistribution, she’s really talking about enriching herself with other people’s money. (Fox News recently said she and some of the other women of color recently elected to Congress have “radical new Democratic ideas” like abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a.k.a. ICE, and a green New Deal.)

These attempts to out Ocasio-Cortez as as someone pretending to be working-class also reveal a deeper, more sinister disdain for the working class. If her critics are to be believed, owning professional clothing and growing up in a suburb mean that someone can’t possibly be struggling. It doesn’t matter where the clothing was purchased or how much the house cost; what matters is whether someone looks “poor.” (On the subject of working-class pretenders, though, plenty of politicians with six- and seven-figure net worths do try to downplay their wealth; few are criticized for doing so.)

This isn’t just about Ocasio-Cortez. The underlying message here is that if working people own anything beyond the bare minimum, then they’re not really struggling. (Remember the 2011 Fox News report about how 99 percent of poor families have refrigerators, and 54 percent own cell phones?) It points to a culture in which people who can’t afford things like health care or housing are blamed for their inability to do so, instead of the blame falling on the policies, and politicians, that make health care and housing so expensive in the first place.

Emphasis mine.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:11 AM on November 17, 2018 [72 favorites]

We spent six trillion on war in the last seventeen years, we don't need to tax people making under a million. That is just such a ridiculous bullshit hole to jump in.
posted by petebest at 11:15 AM on November 17, 2018 [12 favorites]

Don't have the time to chase the source down but I read one bit about the problem solver's caucus that said they were threatening to throw in with Republicans & vote in Kevin McCarthy as Speaker, which would be as disastrous as it sounds. Having a majority doesn't mean much if you can't bring your bills to the floor.
posted by scalefree at 11:38 AM on November 17, 2018

We also need to enact unprecedented, massive, transformative change in our economy over a very short time span. I'm not saying we can't do it without using income tax to shift resources from the private sector to the federal government, but it seems counterproductive to take that option off the table even as a bargaining chip.

How about this. Estate taxes are zero for the first 2 million dollars in assets, and 100% for everything over it.

If your children are so damned great, they'll surely earn their OWN fortunes. Meanwhile, a lot of money sitting in banks gets pumped back into circulation.
posted by mikelieman at 11:40 AM on November 17, 2018 [15 favorites]

House Ethics Committee formally reproves Freedom Caucus Chairman @RepMarkMeadows (R-NC) and orders him to reimburse Treasury $40K for failing to adequately address sexual harassment allegations made against his chief of staff & prevent further harassment or retaliation

The main goal here, of course, was to "resolve" charges against Meadows with the lightest punishment possible before Democrats take over the House.

I'm still hopeful that in the new congress, Devin Nunes will be investigated and severely censured, if not kicked out of the House, for his blatant obstruction of justice, and betraying the House's interest to President Trump with secret midnight meetings, document leaks and the like.
posted by msalt at 11:43 AM on November 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

That's excessive, given that a medical emergency could eat all of that up. However, when it's enough to live decently in a big city and cover emergencies up to the age of 120-150 for each of the kids, there's no point in giving them any of the rest.
posted by bootlegpop at 11:43 AM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Emojis of 116th Congress Members Elect
posted by growabrain at 11:47 AM on November 17, 2018 [16 favorites]

I would much rather look at Pelosi’s actual record than whatever bullshit is being spun by people actively trying to shiv her.

It's a proposal published by her in collaboration with Richard Neal of Massachusetts, who I don't know anything about but who per Wikipedia is also known for preserving the carried interest tax loophole. It's not a leak, it's part of her announced platform. I guess it is just an attempt to keep the right wing of the party in line so she can be Speaker, and we just have to hope/trust that her proven progressive values will ultimately win out over the support of the wealthy backers we'll need her to betray if she's to lead us to meaningful reform.
posted by contraption at 11:53 AM on November 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

That's excessive, given that a medical emergency could eat all of that up.

Not in my imaginary world with universal medicare!
posted by mikelieman at 11:54 AM on November 17, 2018 [8 favorites]

We spent six trillion on war in the last seventeen years, we don't need to tax people making under a million. That is just such a ridiculous bullshit hole to jump in.

It's really not if you believe in universal social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare, and believe that those things should be expanded, and more universal programs like them created. The whole idea is that they're universal. Everyone pays into Social Security, rich and poor alike, and everyone has a right to those benefits as a result. The very fact of being universal gives them legitimacy and is a large part of why those two programs have withstood 80 years of constant Republican assaults. Everyone participates, everyone gets the benefit, and everyone sees how valuable those benefits are.

Agreeing that you will never tax 80% of the population means you are agreeing that we don't need any more universal programs. That's wrong. It's against the core principals of the Democratic party. And its against the major platform they just won a wave election on.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:55 AM on November 17, 2018 [17 favorites]

Pelosi passed: via Medium

The Affordable Care Act: Better known as Obamacare with the public option (the option was eventually taken out for the Republican compromise of the Heritage Foundation mandate, yeah the one they say they hate).

Dodd-Frank: This Wall Street reform was passed as a response to the recession of 2008 with hope that a financial crisis like that will never happen again and in hopes that banks will never become too big to fail.

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay: Sought to make sure women receive equal pay for equal work.

Economic Stimulus Act of 2008: Passed to lessen the blow of a recession and boost the economy away from a financial freefall. “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 put $787 billion into the economy in hope of blunting the effect of the recession.”

The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Which allowed LGBTQ individuals in our military to serve openly without consequence.Pelosi passed:

The Affordable Care Act: Better known as Obamacare with the public option (the option was eventually taken out for the Republican compromise of the Heritage Foundation mandate, yeah the one they say they hate).

Dodd-Frank: This Wall Street reform was passed as a response to the recession of 2008 with hope that a financial crisis like that will never happen again and in hopes that banks will never become too big to fail.

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay: Sought to make sure women receive equal pay for equal work.

Economic Stimulus Act of 2008: Passed to lessen the blow of a recession and boost the economy away from a financial freefall. “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 put $787 billion into the economy in hope of blunting the effect of the recession.”

The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Which allowed LGBTQ individuals in our military to serve openly without consequence.

Via Politico, she also passed:

111th Congress:
Credit Card Reform: The Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights issued new regulations on card companies, demanding that they increase transparency.
Student Loans: The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act increases the amount of Pell Grants for college students.
Tobacco Regulation: The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate the tobacco industry.
Food Safety: The Food Safety Modernization Act would give the Food and Drug Administration more power over food producers (passed by Senate, not yet signed into law).
110th Congress:Raising minimum wage
Hate Crimes Prevention Act
Establishing the Office of Congressional Ethics
Let’s not look past this tweet either, which includes a few more that hadn’t been mentioned yet:

Legislation passed when Pelosi was speaker: Obamacare w/ public option Dodd-Frank Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Econ stimulus Don't ask, don't tell repeal Dream act Cap-and-trade CHIP reauthorization Employee Free Choice Act Fair sentencing act Disclose act That's quite a record
posted by bluesky43 at 12:02 PM on November 17, 2018 [65 favorites]

I'm not sure if Trump in Paradise should go here or in the airtankers in California thread, so I'm cross-posting this:

Trump and Brown are in Paradise, CA and were talking to the press a moment ago, and Trump doubled-down on raking.

Trump Suggests Not Raking Leaves Is Bigger Cause of California Wildfires Than Climate Change

Fueling the Fire: Trump thinks logging will stop the burning in California. It won’t.
posted by homunculus at 12:03 PM on November 17, 2018 [9 favorites]

Given how she stood up for the ACA...tbh Pelosi is the politician I trust the most at this point. I have literally no patience for anyone else at this point. I would like to eject those Blue Dog Problem Solver idiots in the direction of Mars via trebuchet if possible, but I also have a whole bunch of murdery stabby side eyes for anyone on the left giving them cover.

Anyway:

“We go through the gate. If the gate's closed, we’ll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we're going to get health care reform passed for the American people.”
— Nancy Pelosi, 1/28/10

Almost everyone else flaked after Scott Brown was elected. She didn't. She got it done.

She's not my second choice for speaker. She's not a consolation prize. She's the fucking war rig, and we need Furiosa running shit as we go to war with literal, actual fascists.
posted by schadenfrau at 12:04 PM on November 17, 2018 [127 favorites]

“We go through the gate. If the gate's closed, we’ll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we're going to get health care reform passed for the American people.”
— Nancy Pelosi, 1/28/10

I love that quote. and it sums up Nancy Pelosi perfectly.
posted by bluesky43 at 12:07 PM on November 17, 2018 [36 favorites]

On Political Gabfest, the hosts said that the way they expect the Pelosi thing to go down is that she'll orchestrate a vote on her leadership so that the Democrats that need to can openly vote against her without really putting her being speaker in danger. In other words, the challenge to her leadership is mostly theater. There's no serious challenger. You can't beat something with nothing. Don't get too distracted by the process.

They also said that Trump's installing Whitaker is fairly non-controversial legally, though being able to install one's handpicked Attorney General is obviously a problem, not good for the country, a stupid rule. The question even came up as to whether or not Trump can simply install another temporary AG once Whitaker's time (250 days or so) is up. The legal expert said "... I don't know. That's a good question."
posted by xammerboy at 12:10 PM on November 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

Proud Boys update (with videos behind link), @misstessowen:

Now outside police precinct. I think the remaining fascists are waiting for Ubers or Lyfts or what have you

Uber driver turned down Proud Boys

This is completely surreal. Fascists are trying to take taxis , but the drivers keep leaving whenever they realize what’s happening.

I mean what’s the point of late capitalism if a fascist can’t even catch an Uber

And again, hard nope from this driver

posted by zachlipton at 12:10 PM on November 17, 2018 [95 favorites]

@nicholaskitchel

This is the photo taken at the White House right after @HouseGOP voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act last year.

Everyone with an ❌ has since been voted out of Congress.

—

Not enough, but, still, delightful.
posted by AwkwardPause at 12:21 PM on November 17, 2018 [39 favorites]

Trump and Brown are in Paradise, CA and were talking to the press a moment ago, and Trump doubled-down on raking.

Well I hope the fucking press enlightened that fucking idiot. They need to push back hard on these lies in a way that doesn't amplify them.
posted by bluesky43 at 12:22 PM on November 17, 2018 [6 favorites]

I can't speak for the larger Twitter world, but almost no one here or in the Common Dreams article cited above is arguing against Pelosi as speaker, or Pelosi as a person. The specific argument being made is that the tax super-majority rule is a terrible idea, and it's a big error to even make it part of a semi-official "platform" document. This is not saying she's a bad person, just that this specific move is a pragmatic and moral error. The "Problem Solver" caucus is playing hardball in order to get right-leaning policies into the House "platform," and they are succeeding. What's unfortunate is that (a) the left flank of Congressional Dems got a lot of flack for mildly critiquing Pelosi even though it was just talk and was dropped as soon as they got a few committee slots and some other soft promises, and (b) the right flank is very unlikely to actually shoot Pelosi down on a full floor vote (the only vote where they have real leverage) since such a move would be so destructive to party unity that only people as truly insane as the Freedom Caucus would actually seriously attempt it. (Last time I believe there were 60-some anti-Pelosi votes in the Dem caucus vote but only a half-dozen Dem defectors in the floor vote, and those same forces will be in play this time.) So in any case, Pelosi is great, and she is making promises to both flanks because that is how she and Congress works, but this specific promise (plus IMHO the pay-go BS) is both unnecessary and a significant moral error.
posted by chortly at 12:23 PM on November 17, 2018 [6 favorites]

A small correction to the @nicholaskitchel tweet with that photo: Each person who isn't coming back after January get an X, whether because they lost or due to retirement (e.g Paul Ryan).

I wonder why that image is so X-heavy? The total change in seats was 38 (and counting!) and there were/are 238 Republicans. How was it decided which set of Republicans should posing for the photo, and why does it turn out to have been all the most vulnerable ones? I doubt the picture in itself had an effect on the election, but who knows.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 12:31 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

According to a list of Democratic proposals obtained by the Washington Post, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—who is currently fighting back against efforts to prevent her from becoming House Speaker—is pushing for a rule that would "require a three-fifths supermajority to raise individual income taxes on the lowest-earning 80 percent of taxpayers." from the common dreams article.

It's not clear to me what the long term strategy is here. there may be more than meets the eye but I haven't found any good analysis of this. It doesn't make sense that Pelosi would handicap her options in the way this analysis lays out.

What's unfortunate is that (a) the left flank of Congressional Dems got a lot of flack for mildly critiquing Pelosi even though it was just talk and was dropped as soon as they got a few committee slots

I don't think this was mild criticism. This got a lot of press and was giving a lot of fodder to the pundits to talk about disarray in the new house majority. She has come under a lot of criticism beginning before the election with lots of airplay about which candidates would or wouldn't support her.
posted by bluesky43 at 12:34 PM on November 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

Found some further analysis of what happened to the GOP’ers that voted for ACA repeal here.
posted by AwkwardPause at 12:43 PM on November 17, 2018

It's a proposal published by her in collaboration with Richard Neal of Massachusetts, who I don't know anything about but who per Wikipedia is also known for preserving the carried interest tax loophole. It's not a leak, it's part of her announced platform.

Did you even read the document you linked to? It is written and published by the Democratic Rules Committee members, not Pelosi.

As for the budget, this is what it says "replace Republican CUTGO ... with a reasonable rule in light of statutory PAYGO." Reasonable rule is emphasized in the original, which seems to leave a lot of room for interpretation.

And this particular budget statement -- your linked document it indicates that it was written by John Yarmuth, a member of the Progressive Caucus that includes Ocasio-Cortez.

The document is just a laundry list compiled from the individual hobby-horse issues of the committee members.
posted by JackFlash at 12:57 PM on November 17, 2018 [9 favorites]

Get out! Really?

Donald Trump wrote own health letter, says physician Harold Bornstein (BBC)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:03 PM on November 17, 2018 [54 favorites]

Any bill that goes to the House floor comes along with a resolution that contains all the special rules describing how they will consider the bill. This resolution ("the rule") very often overrides any inconvenient House rules, and it only takes a majority vote to pass.

The supermajority rule is dumb, but it's a reduction from the existing supermajority rule (which covers tax increases on anybody), and it will be waived whenever the House finds it convenient to do so.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:19 PM on November 17, 2018 [7 favorites]

> "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row"- Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith says in Tupelo, MS after Colin Hutchinson, cattle rancher, praises her. Hyde-Smith is in a runoff on Nov 27th against Mike Espy. Relevant details: Hutchinson and Hyde-Smith are white, and Espy is black.

This is the kind of appalling behavior that gets you punished with not one, but two Trump campaign rallies.
posted by tonycpsu at 1:23 PM on November 17, 2018 [7 favorites]

I certainly don't know what's in her heart and have no particular sense of her psychology -- these people are all just data points to me -- and I'm a terrible amateur political strategist. But:

It's not clear to me what the long term strategy is here.

The most obvious thing this prevents is a small number of moderate/bluedog-style Democrats allying with Republicans to actually undo the tax cuts for most Americans, which is something you might reasonably worry about.

The second thing it does is allow her to reasonably-comfortably schedule votes on things like that and to allow especially newly-elected moderate members to vote for something like that against the Democratic majority to take back and show their still-conservative constituents in Orange County or wherever, knowing that it can't pass without ~260 votes.

In terms of closing off options, of course we all recognize that the only options here are to offer stuff that the Senate will kill, so we're really talking about what kinds of messaging are going to be good going into the full spread of elections in 2019 and 2020. It's probably fair to say that, yeah, this means that Pelosi and the larger House Democratic leadership aren't planning on putting together a big liberal package, and are probably going to run with a strategy of "Look at how reasonable we are and what an excellent check on Trump we're being!" Obviously this could turn out to be right or wrong, and I don't think I'm fond of it myself, but here's something. Passing a bunch of liberal stuff that gets shot down energizes liberals *and* Republicans of all stripes, so probably a *net* help but not by a wide margin. Something like an enhancement of the war powers act or requiring presidents and cabinet members to disclose their tax forms annually, only to watch McConnell shitcan them, **might** be the low-hanging fruit that lots of people support and only the nutjobbiest Republicans oppose. Likewise voting-rights stuff.

tl;dr: Susan Collins and Cory Gardner in CO and maybe Thom Tillis in NC and Daines in MT and Joni Ernst in IA won't *AT ALL* mind going home and explaining in great and enthusiastic detail why they voted against single-payer or other liberal shibboleths. They'd LOVE to have those votes on their records. I expect Pelosi is focused in part on the votes that those folks have sweaty heaving nightmares about.

Which, again, could be a terrible mistake and I am saying is great. I am saying, tho, that it's not obviously stupid from the get-go.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:23 PM on November 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

Agreeing that you will never tax 80% of the population means you are agreeing that we don't need any more universal programs.

No, it means paying for universal programs can come from the 1%. Or the .01%. Whichever.

How many billions went into USP's in the last 5 years that we have no oversight or knowledge of? Trillions? Not having the money at this very point in history - inasmuch as we ever "have" "money" - is not a thing. Spending it on healthcare, education, and infrastructure for the current population is still not happening though. And "taxes" are part of why. Well then, take that conversation out of the equation for 99% of everyone.
posted by petebest at 1:25 PM on November 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

No, it means paying for universal programs can come from the 1%. Or the .01%. Whichever.

They don't have enough money. A universal program requires a broad tax base. You could expropriate every dime possessed by the top 0.01% and fund your program for a year or two. Then you need more money.
posted by Justinian at 1:27 PM on November 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

Which, again, could be a terrible mistake and I am saying is great. I am saying, tho, that it's not obviously stupid from the get-go.

So obviously this sentence was a cavalcade of typos and editing fuckups and I am not even sure exactly what I wanted it to say.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:32 PM on November 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

It's a perfectly fine thing for House Democrats (and people at large) to have a debate about, but I don't think the outcome of that debate is going to matter much for the next two years.

For those who want a series of real bills that will surely fail in the Senate but which (a) create a stock of ready-to-go legislation for 2021 and (b) allow the Democrats to show the public what they stand for, it does matter over the next two years. It also matters because whoever votes for this rule, especially if they have to publicly defend their vote at any point, will find it considerably harder to reverse course in 2021.

Did you even read the document you linked to? It is written and published by the Democratic Rules Committee members, not Pelosi.

The section referring to the supermajority rule is directly attributed to Pelosi and Neal (and not all the rules are attributed to her): "PROTECT THE MIDDLE CLASS FROM TAX INCREASES: Require a three-fifths supermajority to raise individual income taxes on the lowest-earning 80% of taxpayers. (Leader Pelosi, Ranking Member Neal)" As far as I have heard, no one on her end has claimed this is a misattribution.

Anyway, it's totally reasonable to argue over whether pay-go or this super-majority rule are good ideas -- there are many defenders here and elsewhere -- but it's not the case that it won't affect what happens now and in two years, or that it's not actually a proposal Pelosi and others are seriously making. It's also the case that due to cuing, a lot more people are defending pay-go and the super-majority restriction than were a week ago -- even the proposal of it has swung a large percentage of Democrats rightward.
posted by chortly at 1:32 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

GCU Sweet and Full of Grace.... I am saying, tho, that it's not obviously stupid from the get-go.

Thanks for that analysis. Something like this makes more strategic sense to me than an analysis that claims Pelosi wants to undermine her progressive colleagues.

Also, mefi is the best.
posted by bluesky43 at 1:35 PM on November 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

> Donald Trump wrote own health letter, says physician Harold Bornstein (BBC)

If this is true, and I totally believe it is, I'm only surprised that Trump didn't claim he was immortal, has an IQ of 356 and was the model for Michaelangelo's David.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:46 PM on November 17, 2018 [12 favorites]

@TheContemptor [video]: Trump: "You gotta take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important... I was with the President of Finland... he called it a forest nation and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem."Trump: "You gotta take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important... I was with the President of Finland... he called it a forest nation and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem."

@kastaliamedrano: you watch clips like this and it’s just, no one’s even giving a shit what he says. he just keeps going to fill dead air and no one expects anything from him and everyone’s just waiting for him to be done talking including him

Really, watch the current and next Governors of California as they stand there amid the rubble as this goes on. I know that look. It's the same way you act when a relative with dementia is talking, and you're engaging in an activity that has all the trappings on the surface of a conversation, but without any of the communicative aspects. No information is exchanged; talking is just something you do because it's socially expected and seems to make everyone a little less lonely. Sometimes your relative says something logical, so you nod your head a little in agreement, futility hoping to encourage more of it. Sometimes they say something weirdly unexpected, like they randomly start talking about the President of Finland, so you turn your head in surprise. But you're always acutely aware that you're just playing a game, it's a pretend conversation just as a child pouring tea for dolls is a pretend tea party.

@EskSF: If Gavin stepped up to the mic, paused, and said "What a load of crap," it'd be his LGBT marriage for 2018.

Donald Trump wrote own health letter, says physician Harold Bornstein (BBC)

Time is a flat circle; this is from May. I had forgotten too. Just another scandal that got dropped on the floor after 30 seconds.
posted by zachlipton at 1:51 PM on November 17, 2018 [49 favorites]

It's probably fair to say that, yeah, this means that Pelosi and the larger House Democratic leadership aren't planning on putting together a big liberal package, and are probably going to run with a strategy of "Look at how reasonable we are and what an excellent check on Trump we're being!"

Thanks for that analysis. Something like this makes more strategic sense to me than an analysis that claims Pelosi wants to undermine her progressive colleagues.

I don't think the critics of this proposal are saying it's necessarily a strategic error in terms of gaining more centrist votes, strengthening Pelosi's position, or winning more seats in 2020. Nor have I heard anyone suggest that she's doing out of spite -- a certain version of pragmatism is all that is assumed. But all this is beside the point when the main complaint is not strategic but simply ideological. The critics want to pass big bills and this will make it considerably harder by all accounts. No one particularly expects Pelosi would ever proactively "put together a big liberal package" such as single-payer; rather, the impetus and initial bill language will come from the progressive caucus, potentially building on bill sketches already in circulation. The question is what Pelosi will do in response: support and encourage these bills; remain neutral; or semi-actively oppose them by delaying and encumbering them. This rule is actually beyond even the third option, since it preemptively block such bills with a super-majority rule (which also allows Democratic opponents of the bill to vote for it without the risk of it passing). Pay-go does something similar, btw, since it prevent Democrats from passing unfunded services that build support first and then passing tax hikes to pay for them later. Anyway, these rules can always be revoked, of course, but adopting them would be a strong early attack in the battle between big-bill progressives and conservative Dems.
posted by chortly at 1:54 PM on November 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

"he called it a socialist nation and they spent a lot of time on taxing rich people and educating and doing health care things and they don't have any problem" [fake]
posted by kirkaracha at 1:56 PM on November 17, 2018 [6 favorites]

This is the photo taken at the White House right after @HouseGOP voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act last year.
Everyone with an ❌ has since been voted out of Congress.

The picture's pretty dramatic but 149 Republicans who voted to repeal were re-elected.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:03 PM on November 17, 2018 [8 favorites]

I'm in the bottom 80% of income earners, and I want to see my taxes approximately double. That's because paying for medicare for all would require approximately doubling everyone's taxes. The thing is, though, that if you double my taxes and in exchange, my employer simply pays me the amount currently being spent on my healthcare, I come out about $10,000 a year better off than I am right now.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 2:10 PM on November 17, 2018 [60 favorites]

what the democratic party doesn't want to admit is that a universal set of social programs will mean middle class tax increases - there's no other way to do it

so they come up with the seemingly conservative idea of a supermajority to increase income tax on the bottom 80% - which of course won't happen, but will give them the out of saying "well, we tried, but we couldn't get enough votes, but if we keep fighting ..."

as long as fighting isn't the same as winning, they're set for life

the real problem is the minute a lot of middle class people realize they'll have to pay for a universal set of social programs, they'll start voting republican

our system is becoming more dishonest and corrupt - one of the great "benefits" of trumpism is now the opposition doesn't have to be as honest as they used to be
posted by pyramid termite at 2:10 PM on November 17, 2018

Harold Pollack, Democrats, Don’t Procrastinate on America’s Health

The process of writing the A.C.A. began years before it passed. Democratic legislators, activists and policy experts should be talking right now about how to build on it.
...
So what can Democrats do, when tweaking the Affordable Care Act is insufficient, and when leaping to Medicare for All is unrealistic?

Here’s one strong approach: Medicare Available to All. Three Senate bills introduced by Democrats would allow people to buy into Medicare or Medicaid, while maintaining a private insurance market. Millions of Americans want these public options, because they are fed up with private insurance. This is especially true in rural areas, and in uncompetitive markets with exorbitant marketplace plans.

Private experts propose other worthy plans. Paul Starr’s “Midlife Medicare” would expand the program to otherwise-uninsured Americans over age 50. Jacob Hacker’s “Medicare Part E” would be available to everyone, including within the menu of employer-sponsored coverage.

The Center for American Progress’s “Medicare Extra for All” provides another ambitious model, which would improve public and private coverage without requiring huge new federal tax revenues or smashing the private insurance system. Medicare Extra would be free to those with incomes below 150 percent of the federal poverty line. That’s about $31,000 for a family of three. In one stroke, this would insure millions of Americans who were shut out when their state rejected Medicaid expansion. Premiums and patient cost-sharing would gradually rise with income, but would be capped at an affordable level for everyone.
...
Whatever Democrats decide to do, they should start now, anticipating everything from the Congressional Budget Office’s deficit projections to the Senate parliamentarian’s reconciliation rules. Anyone who doubts the difficulty of this work might ponder Republicans’ rushed A.C.A. repeal effort, whose design was so shoddy that it alienated every patient and provider constituency around.

posted by zachlipton at 2:11 PM on November 17, 2018 [6 favorites]

No, it means paying for universal programs can come from the 1%. Or the .01%. Whichever.

They don't have enough money. A universal program requires a broad tax base. You could expropriate every dime possessed by the top 0.01% and fund your program for a year or two. Then you need more money.

Also funding good things only by taking from the rich fundamentally misses the point. The entire idea is that its universal. Everyone pays. Everyone benefits. Which makes it more or less impossible to ever repeal, unlike a rich-only funding stream which can be much more easily evaded or taken away when Republicans are back at the helm.

What I want is the rich to pay a much greater proportion, in accordance with their greater means. And I want to force them to actually participate in the broader society, not opt out with their own private structures paid for by avoiding their fair contribution. But not to storm their houses and take their lands, and not to exempt regular working people from also paying thier own (much, much, much smaller) proportion.

We've done this stuff before. Democrats have. Every other developed democracy except ours does it. It's really not hard.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:12 PM on November 17, 2018 [46 favorites]

Today the media seems to be having a "this is the day he truly became president" kind of day, and is happy to just uncritically repeat Trump's "we've got to rake more leaves" comments.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:17 PM on November 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

The thing is, though, that if you double my taxes and in exchange, my employer simply pays me the amount currently being spent on my healthcare, I come out about $10,000 a year better off than I am right now.

For years (decades) I have wished that the employer contribution for health insurance was required to be shown as a deduction from gross pay and clearly marked on pay stubs. I think at least some people's feelings about the idea of national single-payer health care and taxes to support it would change if it were.
posted by dilettante at 2:33 PM on November 17, 2018 [51 favorites]

For years (decades) I have wished that the employer contribution for health insurance was required to be shown as a deduction from gross pay and clearly marked on pay stubs. I think at least some people's feelings about the idea of national single-payer health care and taxes to support it would change if it were.

Maybe this is low-hanging fruit to add to the Democratic legislative agenda?
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 2:45 PM on November 17, 2018 [10 favorites]

A universal program requires a broad tax base. You could expropriate every dime possessed by the top 0.01% and fund your program for a year or two. Then you need more money.

Okay. Now I'm not real good with figurin' and "facts", so I could be out of line on all of it, but based on this article (CNBC) on how much the 1% make in a year, it's at least half a million per year, gross.

So the gross income for the 1% for one year is at least $700 Billion. (500,000 * 1,400,000) at a minimum. We know they sit on most of it, but lets say 20% is taxable at a
90% tax rate (yeah well its all hypothetical). So 700B * .2 *.9 is $126B minimum is that right?

This says income tax revenue for 2017 was 1.45 Trillion, which ... Okay so that's ... Not enough 1% money.

Okay, alright - new plan: cancel the wars. Use that money.
posted by petebest at 2:52 PM on November 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

"Medicare Available to All" fuck this
"Midlife Medicare" fuck that
"Medicare Extra for All" fuck this one as well

Every one of these throws out the critical element of Medicare For All, which is its universality, while trying to steal the name to take advantage of the massive popular support that the Medicare for All proposal enjoys. As T.D. Strange says above, Medicare has held on for as long as it has in the face of Paul Ryan and friends because it is universal. It's not an option, it's something we all pay into and it's something we all get to count on.
posted by contraption at 3:07 PM on November 17, 2018 [12 favorites]

If only someone had run on creating a public option...
posted by xammerboy at 3:14 PM on November 17, 2018 [7 favorites]

For years (decades) I have wished that the employer contribution for health insurance was required to be shown as a deduction from gross pay and clearly marked on pay stubs.

Democrats implemented something similar in the Obamacare law. If you look at your annual W-2, Box 12, Code DD -- that is the total annual cost of your health insurance plan including both employer and employee share.

It's not very obvious but it's at least a start. If people looked at this number, many would be shocked at the high cost of a good employer healthcare plan -- averaging about $17,000 for a family and $7000 for an individual. When you compare them to the typically much smaller amount for an exchange plan, you can see why they have higher deductibles and narrower networks. It's because they are relatively cheap compared to an employer plan.
posted by JackFlash at 3:17 PM on November 17, 2018 [6 favorites]

If only someone had run on creating a public option...

Worth noting that the No Labels/"Problem Solvers" people, like literally the exact same people in many cases, are the ones that killed the public option in 2009.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:18 PM on November 17, 2018 [16 favorites]

NYT, Top White House Official Involved in Saudi Sanctions Resigns

A top White House official responsible for American policy toward Saudi Arabia resigned on Friday evening, a move that may suggest fractures inside the Trump administration over the response to the brutal killing of the dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

The official, Kirsten Fontenrose, had pushed for tough measures against the Saudi government, and had been in Riyadh to discuss a raft of sanctions that the American government imposed in recent days against those identified as responsible for the killing, according to two people familiar with the conversations. Specifically, she advocated that Saud al-Qahtani, a top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, be added to the list, and he ultimately was.

The exact circumstances of her departure are murky, and it is unclear whether her advocacy for a hawkish response to the killing angered some in the White House. When she returned to Washington, according to the two people, she had a dispute with her bosses at the National Security Council, where she had served as the director for the Persian Gulf region.

Well this all seems perfectly fine and normal then.
posted by zachlipton at 3:28 PM on November 17, 2018 [19 favorites]

I would like to take another moment to thank all of you, nerds of metafilter, for being the smartest on the web, even when you all disagree with each other.

It’s kind of spoiled me, a little bit, and definitely reinforced the bubble I live in where I get to pretend that most people are good, smart, and kind, but you know what? There are worse things than being spoiled.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:00 PM on November 17, 2018 [63 favorites]

I'm kind of surprised that the business world hasn't made a bigger deal of "Get us out of the health-insurance business! We make widgets!", and being all in for just making all the money spent on health insurance a payroll deduction for medicare tax.

As an accountant, what's not to like?
posted by mikelieman at 4:04 PM on November 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

Keeping your employees dependent on you for the medical care they and their families need to stay alive is great for retention.
posted by contraption at 4:08 PM on November 17, 2018 [69 favorites]

Exactly; why would corporations give up their single greatest piece of leverage?

This is precisely one of the major issues the ACA was meant to address and one reason it was opposed so strenuously. It's a foot in the door in breaking the horrifying situation where your family's health and thus safety is tied to not pissing off your employer.

I think the way forward for fixing the ACA (until we get single payer) is providing subsidies to anyone whose insurance premiums are greater than X% of their income. If you're making 60k and your health insurance costs 14k a year... well, that's not really viable without a subsidy.
posted by Justinian at 4:17 PM on November 17, 2018 [13 favorites]

We Don’t Want a Public Option — We Want Medicare for All: Medicare for All threatens top Democratic donors' interests, so Democrats offer the public option as a watered-down compromise.

A Health System That Punishes the Sick: The Democrats' retaking of the House means that Obamacare is finally safe. But people with preexisting conditions won't be out of the woods until we have a Medicare-for-All system.
posted by homunculus at 4:19 PM on November 17, 2018 [6 favorites]

In Mississippi, Republican concern rises over a U.S. Senate runoff that should have been a romp (Matt Viser, WaPo)

Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith stumbled recently when, in praise of a supporter, she spoke of her willingness to sit in the front row of a public hanging if he invited her — words that, in the South, evoked images of lynchings. She has struggled to grapple with the fallout, baffling members of her party and causing even faithful Republicans to consider voting for her opponent, former congressman Mike Espy.

That Espy is attempting to become the state’s first black senator since shortly after the Civil War made her remarks all the more glaring. It has positioned him to take advantage not only of a substantial black turnout but of a potential swell of crossover support from those put off by Hyde-Smith’s campaign.

Espy remains the underdog in the conservative state, but Republicans with access to private polling say Hyde-Smith’s lead has narrowed significantly in recent days. Republicans need only to look to next-door Alabama, where Democrat Doug Jones pulled out a surprise win last year, to stoke concern.

MetaFilter: a cavalcade of typos and editing fuckups
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:19 PM on November 17, 2018 [30 favorites]

> Keeping your employees dependent on you for the medical care they and their families need to stay alive is great for retention.

Even without that as a stick - that as a carrot is quite enough. I have a generous University employer, and that family insurance coverage actively holds me back from maybe striking out on my own, or doing something else. Given his many needs, I can't afford the risk that my son wouldn't have health insurance coverage, or would have significantly worse coverage.

For a nation that prides itself on its entrepreneurial spirit, the US sure does make it hard for me to do my own thing.

(Whereas with Medicare for All ... )
posted by RedOrGreen at 4:24 PM on November 17, 2018 [13 favorites]

I think the way forward for fixing the ACA (until we get single payer) is providing subsidies to anyone whose insurance premiums are greater than X% of their income.

The ACA already does this through tax credits that can be paid in advance to lower monthly premiums. The subsidy is calculated based on a formula that compares your salary to the cost of the second least-expensive Silver plan available to you (I really hope I got that right!).
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 4:26 PM on November 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

Uh oh, guys. I think the caravan is about to make a comeback in the news.

WaPo: ‘This would be a very good time to do a shutdown,’ Trump says

“If I was ever going to do a shutdown over border security — when you look at the caravan, when you look at the mess, when you look at the people coming in,” the president said. “. . . This would be a very good time to do a shutdown.”

Does he - does he understand that the Republicans still control the House and the Senate, at least through January? And that this lame duck session is likely to be his last real chance for bills passed under unified control?
posted by RedOrGreen at 4:30 PM on November 17, 2018 [9 favorites]

The ACA already does this through tax credits that can be paid in advance to lower monthly premiums.

It does this for people who make up to 400% of the federal poverty line. For one person that's just under $48k. So if you make 50k you don't get a subsidy even if your health insurance premiums are 1/4 of your net income.
posted by Justinian at 4:30 PM on November 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

The subsidy has a hard cutoff at 400% of federal poverty level plus $1. If you have that much income you receive zero subsidy. It would be much better to phase subsidies out slowly.
posted by zrail at 4:31 PM on November 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

I see the confusion, I think. When I said "to anyone" I meant to write "to anyone regardless of their income". It doesn't make sense to me that we means test based on income rather than based on fraction of income paid into premiums.
posted by Justinian at 4:31 PM on November 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

Not wanting to abuse the edit box, I should have added that Mrs. JiLS and I had a silver plan for most of 2018, and we received an advanced tax credit of $725/month for the past ten months (Mrs. JiLS just took a job with employer-sponsored health insurance, so of course we have now abandoned our ACA plan. Of course!)
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 4:32 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

what zrail said. Right now my premiums are going up a good chunk per year as I get older. I haven't calculated it out yet, but it looks to me like in about 5 years I need to deliberately make a bunch less money so that I qualify for a subsidy.
posted by Justinian at 4:32 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

The thing is, in states like Texas and much of the south, the govs decided not to take the subsidy. So, our ACA premium was 2230.00 a month, with a $12,000 deductible. None of my doctors accepted it, the closest rheumatologist that accepted it was over 100 miles away, and I live in DFW, one of the largest metroplexes in the country. It was cheaper for us to pay the fine than to buy the insurance.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 4:33 PM on November 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

Are you certain about this? The subsidy is federal; the states have nothing to do with it IIRC. It's the medi-expansion that the states could reject.
posted by Justinian at 4:34 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'd be more than happy to show you my bills. We cancelled after two months because we couldn't afford to pay an extra mortgage while trying to find a job. Edit to add, I'm over 50.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 4:36 PM on November 17, 2018

I'm not doubting you didn't get a subsidy, I'm saying it wasn't because of the state. You probably, like me, make a bit too much money and get nothing and therefore can't really afford insurance.
posted by Justinian at 4:39 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

zrail, the subsidies DO "phase out slowly." Those making a LOT less than 400% of poverty get a bigger subsidy than those making a LITTLE less than 400% of poverty. Yes, the sliding scale hits $0.00 at 400% of poverty plus a dollar, but it is still a sliding scale. I agree that the cutoff level ought to be much higher, as it seems not to consider the debt payment burdens so many have to pay in addition to insurance premiums.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 4:54 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yes, the sliding scale hits $0.00 at 400% of poverty plus a dollar, but it is still a sliding scale

The scale isn't that straight forward and it doesn't always go to zero at the limit. It depends on the price of the silver plans in your location. The maximum premium cost is set for 9.5% of income just below the 400% income cutoff and any additional is subsidized. In many cases people who are one dollar below the 400% cutoff get thousands in subsidies and one dollar above get nothing. It is known as the ACA subsidy cliff.

People near the cliff can do things to tweak their income to stay below the cliff, such as contributing to a deductible IRA.

As Justinian said, it would be simple to fix this, but it would require new legislation including Republicans in the Senate and Trump in the White House. The reason for the cliff is that Democrats went to great lengths to abide by the PAYGO rules and simply ran out of money for more subsidies. They prioritized those most in need first.
posted by JackFlash at 5:10 PM on November 17, 2018 [10 favorites]

Yes, the sliding scale hits $0.00 at 400% of poverty plus a dollar, but it is still a sliding scale.

So I actually ran through Form 8962 for 2017 just now and, for the county I live in (Washtenaw County, MI), if a family of 3 made $80,640 MAGI you would get $237 in annual premium subsidies. If you made $80,641 you get nothing. That extra $1 is effectively taxed at 237%.

Running through the calculator on Healthcare.gov and using the 2018 FPL levels, the same family would lose $259 for that extra $1 in income.

It's a cliff. It should not be a cliff. Subsidies should be pegged to the second-lowest-cost-silver-plan and 9.7% of income for everyone.
posted by zrail at 5:13 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Not to abuse the edit window: my county is pretty unexceptional. There are counties where the the cliff is multiple thousands of dollars.
posted by zrail at 5:14 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Right now my premiums are going up a good chunk per year as I get older. I haven't calculated it out yet, but it looks to me like in about 5 years I need to deliberately make a bunch less money so that I qualify for a subsidy.

It is super important to look into how you can lower your income for the purposes of retaining your subsidies without having to give up that money. I have been doing that for the past two years. Things like contributing to an HSA, maxing out your 401k or investing money in an IRA (rather than a Roth), can all reduce your income pretty dramatically so that you qualify for subsidies. And the only thing you need to pre-plan is the 401k, the IRA and HSA contributions can happen after the tax year have ended, when you know how much you income you have to adjust for the purposes of tax filing.
posted by nanook at 5:22 PM on November 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

Google gave $5,000 to Cindy Hyde-Smith two days after her public hanging comment.
posted by rdr at 5:22 PM on November 17, 2018 [10 favorites]

On a strategy call tonight, @Ocasio2018 & @RashidaTlaib announced they’d be recruiting and supporting working class primary challengers in blue districts around the country. That’s a historic step for 2 incumbents.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:28 PM on November 17, 2018 [35 favorites]

The unsubsidized healthcare premium category is fairly small, about 3% of the population, but not so small if you are unfortunate enough to fall into it.
posted by JackFlash at 5:28 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

For a nation that prides itself on its entrepreneurial spirit, the US sure does make it hard for me to do my own thing.

There is a whole culture in this country of go-getter self-starter entrepreneurs who have been convinced for 50 years that their natural home is in the Republican Party, because it will help them to be in business for themselves by "cutting regulations" or some bullshit. If the Democratic party could credibly present itself as the party that will level the playing field for entrepreneurs and remove a lot of the things that make running a small business difficult (securing health insurance for yourself, getting a decent group plan for your employees if you have any,) it could change the entire political landscape of the rural US.
posted by contraption at 5:31 PM on November 17, 2018 [46 favorites]

That would be terrible for all the reasons high risk pools are terrible. Everybody in.
posted by contraption at 5:34 PM on November 17, 2018 [12 favorites]

The unsubsidized healthcare premium category is fairly small, about 3% of the population, but not so small if you are unfortunate enough to fall into it.

True. Although I am biased here because one of my high school friends-turned late middle age Facebook friends who is a very successful attorney living in a very expensive house in a very expensive suburb of Chicago with his wife, who BTW is a dentist who owns her own practice, and their two daughters routinely railed in half his FB posts against the costs of "Obamacare" because it was costing him 6% of his income instead of 3% (made up figures), while the remaining half of his posts were him traveling to Germany just so he could go to Oktoberfest and taking his family on a skiing vacation in British Columbia.

You are not him. But he did sour me a bit.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 5:37 PM on November 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

What if a commercial insurance denial for a pre-existing condition, as exercised, immediately triggered Medicare eligibility?

Obamacare outlawed denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions starting in 2014. Trump and the Republicans loosened some of those rules in their tax cut bill last year. You can buy so-called short-term insurance that does not cover pre-existing conditions. But all normal long term health insurance, both employer and individual, guarantees coverage of pre-existing conditions right now. So there is no triggering possible.
posted by JackFlash at 5:38 PM on November 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

> I think the way forward for fixing the ACA (until we get single payer) is providing subsidies to anyone whose insurance premiums are greater than X% of their income.

That would get us close to how health care works in the Netherlands. It's pretty similar to the ACA, but subsidies make sure that unemployed people and lower-income people are covered.
posted by nangar at 5:52 PM on November 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

SF Chronicle: More Than 14,000 Immigrant Children Are In U.S. Custody, An All-Time High

There were 14,056 unaccompanied immigrant minors in Department of Health and Human Services custody on Friday, according to a government source familiar with the number. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that the total had reached approximately 14,000.

That number tops records set just two months ago, putting further strain on an already overburdened system.

The issue of immigrant children in government custody gained widespread attention in the spring and summer when the Trump administration separated thousands of families at the southern border. Almost all those separated children have since left Health and Human Services care, but the total number of children in the system has steadily grown.

The reason is that children who arrive unaccompanied in the U.S. are spending more time in holding facilities before they can be released to suitable adults, often family members. One change that has especially slowed that down is an agreement Health and Human Services signed earlier this year for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to do background checks on potential sponsors.

ICE confirmed in September that it had used that information to arrest undocumented adults who came forward to take custody of children. Previous administrations didn’t look into people’s immigration status when deciding whether to release children into their care, but that changed under President Trump.

The Health and Human Services care system was intended to be a temporary bridge for often-traumatized children into a more stable home while they sought legal status in the U.S. But the Trump administration changed course, declaring that no undocumented immigrant was off limits from potential arrest and deportation.

One result has been an increase in children in custody beyond what the network of shelters across the country can accommodate. Health and Human Services has opened tent facilities in Texas that can house thousands more children.

To reverse this maximized institutional cruelty, the article notes, "Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, co-sponsored a bill this week that would bar the government from using information it collects in the process of resettling children to arrest immigrants. It would also divert funding from ICE to pay for Health and Human Services care."
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:04 PM on November 17, 2018 [22 favorites]

I get it already. She really, really does not care...

First lady Melania Trump’s hotel bills for a day trip to Toronto last year added up to an astonishing $174,000, according to federal expense documents reported by Quartz. She did not spend the night.

posted by xammerboy at 6:30 PM on November 17, 2018 [6 favorites]

~~Free~~ expensive Melania!
posted by uosuaq at 6:46 PM on November 17, 2018 [11 favorites]

@hansilowang (document attached):

Internal Trump admin email shows @TheJusticeDept discussing the possibility of changing current legal protections that keep census info confidential & that sharing individuals' responses w law enforcement, national security officers may "come up later for renewed debate"
...
Issue came up after @RepJimmyGomez, D-Calif., asked if @TheJusticeDept under Trump administration agrees w this 2010 Obama-era DOJ memo confirming the Patriot Act could not force @CommerceGov secretary to release individuals' confidential census info
...
Plaintiffs' attorneys with @manatt @LawyersComm @PublicCounsel for one of the #2020census #citizenshipquestion lawsuits in California say email is evidence that backs up fears abt confidentiality & privacy of #2020census responses among members of their client @BAJItweet

The email is more of a "don't possibly say anything we could want to change our minds on" situation than an actual conclusion that they have any plans to break the confidentiality of census data, but it it is none-the-less terrifying. An interesting wrinkle is the author of the email is Ben Aguiñaga, who has since left his position at DOJ, and is now a clerk to Justice Alito. That would be Justice Alito of the same Supreme Court that is getting involved in the legality of the census citizenship question.
posted by zachlipton at 7:04 PM on November 17, 2018 [7 favorites]

I get it already. She really, really does not care...
First lady Melania Trump’s hotel bills for a day trip to Toronto last year added up to an astonishing $174,000, according to federal expense documents reported by Quartz. She did not spend the night.

FFS. Can you imagine the epic hissy fit republicans would have thrown if Michelle Obama had done that?
posted by homunculus at 7:32 PM on November 17, 2018 [16 favorites]

Roll Call:

Hats have been banned from the House chamber of the Capitol for nearly two centuries — 181 years, to be exact. Under a new proposal from Democrats, the rule would be relaxed to allow religious headwear, like a hijab or kippah.

The change was proposed jointly by Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Incoming Rules Chairman Jim McGovern and member-elect Ilhan Omar as part of a larger overhaul package.

posted by Chrysostom at 7:57 PM on November 17, 2018 [48 favorites]

Can you imagine the epic hissy fit republicans would have thrown if Michelle Obama had done that?

According to TFA,

The previous first lady, Michelle Obama, spent $18,320 on transportation over 10 days in Copenhagen, Denmark, during a 2009 trip that included speeches and meetings to push for Chicago to be the site of the 2016 Olympic Games. Her two-day visit to Chengdu, China, in 2014 cost over $220,000 in hotel bills, the Weekly Standard reported then. The figure included expenses for her advance team, communications staff, and security.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:29 PM on November 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

This may clear up some of Melania's expenses, but, the advance team's costs are separate.

Trump’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham implied in an email to Quartz that the first lady’s “advance team” was responsible for some of the costs. The team ensures “safety measures, medical care, communications, motorcade needs and logistics are all in place,” she wrote. They’re all “legally required for official travel,” she added.

But federal expense documents reported separate, additional costs for the advance team that added up to $18,000, according to Quartz.

posted by xammerboy at 8:35 PM on November 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

I’m seriously wondering if Melania is running her own grift. Unless she rented out the entire hotel, it’s not possible to spend that much at the hotel she supposedly didn’t sleep at.

Well, gotta rent a room (a suite, of course) for the day even if she's not staying, so she has a place to stop between shopping runs. And then there's room service, drinks, maybe a spa visit. Maybe the hotel bills include lodging for security and other staff - they need a place to hang out and hang their jackets even if it's just for a few hours. And again, of course they need suites. And maybe they need to rent all the remaining rooms or suites on that floor, for security reasons; can't have some random person in the elevator with the FLOTUS. Oh, and pay the hotel to provide security in the elevators to keep people away from that floor, because just recoding the keycards is not enough. Also please have the menus reprinted in a color that's easier on the eyes.

When it's not your money, you can rack up ridiculous charges in no time.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:04 PM on November 17, 2018 [7 favorites]

Meanwhile, Joe Biden adopted a new dog.

Thanks Joe, adopting cute animals is the only thing I want to see you in the news for
posted by mmoncur at 10:06 PM on November 17, 2018 [28 favorites]

Yes, animal rescue and spay/neuter advocate sounds like an ideal Biden third act.
posted by contraption at 10:19 PM on November 17, 2018 [24 favorites]

Man Shouts "Heil Hitler, Heil Trump" At Performance of Fiddler On The Roof.

Update: the man apparently got very drunk and claims he thought it would be a good idea to protest Trump by comparing him to Hitler, and, well, it all came out quite badly. He says he's very sorry and is trying to make amends.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by zachlipton at 10:21 PM on November 17, 2018 [23 favorites]

Wow, this may be the first documented case of a reverse Milkshake Duck.
posted by mmoncur at 10:31 PM on November 17, 2018 [41 favorites]

Well, gotta rent a room (a suite, of course) for the day even if she's not staying, so she has a place to stop between shopping runs. And then there's room service, drinks, maybe a spa visit. Maybe the hotel bills include lodging for security and other staff -

I would be surprised if the Secret Service baselines didn't require them to take the top two floors, which gives them a decent perimeter. The real question is, "When Air-FLOTUS has a full suite on-board, why would she need to stop off at a hotel in the first place?"
posted by mikelieman at 10:32 PM on November 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

Wow, this may be the first documented case of a reverse Milkshake Duck.

San Francisco homeowner flies Nazi flag as post-election satire (Nov 2016; the flag was replaced with a gay pride flag after neighbors objected).
posted by migurski at 10:53 PM on November 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

Hey, were either of those people white men, by any chance?
posted by contraption at 11:18 PM on November 17, 2018 [63 favorites]

I had that very conversation with some idiot on the SPLC Facebook post about this. He said basically "Maybe the dude was just trying to be satirical. One of my Jewish friends unfriended me when I did the same thing. Even after I explained to her that it was satire. One of my other Jewish friends said that there was nothing wrong with what I did. But she just won't forgive me."

News flash for white Christian-culture dudes: This is never okay. It is never clever. It is not funny.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:54 AM on November 18, 2018 [56 favorites]

Well, gotta rent a room (a suite, of course) for the day even if she's not staying, so she has a place to stop between shopping runs. And then there's room service, drinks, maybe a spa visit. Maybe the hotel bills include lodging for security and other staff - they need a place to hang out and hang their jackets even if it's just for a few hours.

The Secret Service usually rents more than just one floor for the POTUS. They usually rent the floor above and below as well. I don't know if they discount the FLOTUS. Also they typically send advance teams. I don't see these costs being that out of line.
posted by srboisvert at 5:09 AM on November 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

Half a million is about the population of Miami, Sacramento, Atlanta, Colorado Springs, and Mesa.

Two of these cities don’t fit in this list.

Half a million individual people killed. That's $12 million per person killed. That's about $18,400 per person currently living in the United States. Imagine if those 500,000 had lived, what they might have been able to contribute to their families and communities, to the world.

How many more were maimed and injured? Not to mention mental and emotional trauma.
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:25 AM on November 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

Back off, he told Mr. Warner, according to a Facebook employee briefed on Mr. Schumer’s intervention. Mr. Warner should be looking for ways to work with Facebook, Mr. Schumer advised, not harm it. Facebook lobbyists were kept abreast of Mr. Schumer’s efforts to protect the company, according to the employee.

And Facebook bought Schumer's loyalty for peanuts: Schumer Got $50K In Donations From Facebook — And His Daughter Got a Job (NYPost)

Facebook employees, including some at the top of its corporate pyramid, have helped fill Schumer’s campaign coffers – and he’s returned the favor by carrying water for the social media giant in Congress, according to a recent [NYT] report.

And Alison Schumer, the senator’s youngest of two daughters, works as a Facebook product marketing manager – which pays an average of $160,000, according to Glassdoor.com.

“It sure looks hinky,” [GOP] political strategist Susan Del Percio told The Post. “This is an industry that’s been trying for years to fend off heavy government regulation by actively cultivating relationships with senators and House members.”

(This story of course from a Murdoch-owned tabloid, so it concludes by trying to spin the false story that Facebook is suppressing rightwing news sites, but the salient point remains that Schumer's cozy relationship with FB extends to campaign donations and personal benefits.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:40 AM on November 18, 2018 [18 favorites]

> Espy remains the underdog in the conservative state, but Republicans with access to private polling say Hyde-Smith’s lead has narrowed significantly in recent days. Republicans need only to look to next-door Alabama, where Democrat Doug Jones pulled out a surprise win last year, to stoke concern.

A quick reminder/update that Postcards To Voters needs volunteers for MS Democrat Espy for the senate runoff special (as lalex mentioned way upthread).

The latest instructions I got for this postcard campaign had a mailing deadline of Nov. 20. Again, the runoff election is Nov. 27.

If you're in the US and want to channel your energy away from anxiety/anger/frustration for the next couple of days, and/or would like to focus on something other than the upcoming holiday season, potential family drama, or turkeys (...I was thinking, as in literally for Thanksgiving, but I guess metaphorically in the world, too...), I highly recommend writing a few positive postcards / volunteering / donating for a candidate who believes in a lot of the same things advocated here.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 6:49 AM on November 18, 2018 [11 favorites]

The EPA can't wait to reopen the mine that poisoned North Idaho: "The Trump EPA doesn’t do healing."
posted by Slothrup at 7:38 AM on November 18, 2018 [13 favorites]

Slothrup, I cannot fathom that story. I just... can't. It's an unconscionable violation of the public trust to reopen the mine when the Superfund site is decades from closure.
posted by suelac at 8:04 AM on November 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

The trailer for Alex Gibney's new series Enemies: The President, Justice & The FBI, from Showtime
posted by growabrain at 8:35 AM on November 18, 2018

Warning to anyone clicking that Showtime trailer link: There is a LOT of strobe flickering in it.

It looks to be a general documentary history of recent presidents and their conflict with the FBI, with the current one taking obvious center stage; an exploration of how to deal with an executive who acts above the law.

The trailer's beach-read-legal-thriller-style opening lines about the FBI "not knowing how far up this thing goes" reminded me of one of my favorite Onion headlines of the past year: Blood Drains From Mueller’s Face After Realizing Russia Investigation Might Go All The Way To White House (April 2018)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 9:11 AM on November 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

Also expressed, at various levels of decorum, by Kurt Vonnegut as "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be," or Ken White as the Rule of Goats.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:46 AM on November 18, 2018 [16 favorites]

Facebook Fallout Ruptures Democrats’ Longtime Alliance With Silicon Valley

No Democrat embodies the tensions between tech and Washington like Mr. Schumer himself. In 2011, he joined Ms. Sandberg to announce the opening of the company’s first East Coast engineering office, in New York City, where he had worked to promote start-ups and other tech businesses.

In 2015, Ms. Sandberg co-hosted a fund-raiser for Mr. Schumer in her Bay Area home, according to a Facebook employee briefed on the event. (The same trip featured a Schumer fund-raiser held by Bruce Sewell, then Apple’s general counsel, and attended by Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, according to an executive who declined to be named.).

By the end of the 2016 cycle, Mr. Schumer had raised more money from Facebook employees than any other Washington lawmaker. All told, Senate Democrats have benefited from over $3 million in political contributions from Facebook’s employees and founders over the years.

The technology industry — and Facebook in particular — was also a partner to Democrats in policy battles. Mr. Zuckerberg founded a Washington advocacy group to press for immigration reform, a top priority for Mr. Schumer and other Democratic leaders. More recently, tech companies like Netflix allied with Democrats in the fight over net neutrality rules.

Relations began to cool after the 2016 elections, when evidence mounted that Facebook and YouTube had become fertile ground for foreign interference and domestic misinformation, threatening not only the party’s values but also its electoral prospects.

The more I read about Schumer's coziness with the tech industry the angrier I get. The time for democrats lining their pockets with industries who use their influence to make the rules has to be over.
posted by bluesky43 at 9:51 AM on November 18, 2018 [28 favorites]

Dan Rather: Looking at Trump's reaction to the CIA's stunning conclusion that Khashoggi was murdered at the direction of the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, one can't help but wonder what debt (monetary and otherwise) the President and his family may have with the Saudis
posted by growabrain at 9:58 AM on November 18, 2018 [43 favorites]

The more I read about Schumer's coziness with the tech industry the angrier I get.

Frankly, I get mad about Democrats' coziness with Schumer. I'm starting to feel that the Schumer re-election this week was a hustle, underneath the Pelosi/AOC event and on the eve of the NYT Facebook article coming out.
posted by rhizome at 10:04 AM on November 18, 2018 [17 favorites]

New nickname:

@realDonaldTrump: So funny to see little Adam Schitt (D-CA) talking about the fact that Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was not approved by the Senate, but not mentioning the fact that Bob Mueller (who is highly conflicted) was not approved by the Senate!

(link goes TrumpTwitterArchive, not the beast himself)
posted by pjenks at 10:24 AM on November 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

He said basically "Maybe the dude was just trying to be satirical. One of my Jewish friends unfriended me when I did the same thing. Even after I explained to her that it was satire. One of my other Jewish friends said that there was nothing wrong with what I did. But she just won't forgive me."

I'm not sure satire is the word for it. My understanding is that one point in the play, the guy felt what was happening in the play so strongly resembled what's happening with Trump's immigration policy that he shouted out "Heil Hitler, Heil Trump". In a sense, he was having exactly the reaction the play's director probably hoped for.

That doesn't make it okay. Shouting "Heil Hitler" during a play in this day and age is downright dangerous. I'm surprised people weren't trampled running for the exit. But he wasn't trying to be cute, or funny, or even necessarily outrageous. He was viscerally reacting to the play's subject matter.

I'm glad no one was hurt. I feel sorry for the guy and the people he traumatized, but I'll reserve my righteous and never ending anger for those who are intentionally doing harm to others. There are more than enough of them.
posted by xammerboy at 10:27 AM on November 18, 2018 [8 favorites]

Frankly, I get mad about Democrats' coziness with Schumer. I'm starting to feel that the Schumer re-election this week was a hustle, underneath the Pelosi/AOC event and on the eve of the NYT Facebook article coming out.

agreed. it's just my rage is directed in so many places it can not extend to the entire democratic party apparatus.
posted by bluesky43 at 10:31 AM on November 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Why rake the forest when the Finns vacuum
posted by growabrain at 10:33 AM on November 18, 2018 [11 favorites]

little Adam Schitt

I think this is why I dislike the cutesy-insulting little nicknames people come up with for politicians they don't like. Some of the ones on the left have the benefit of being clever (shout out to Larry Wilmore for coining "Tangerine Idi Amin"), but for the most part they're just... delivery devices for fremdschämen. A grown-ass man thought that was a solid, clever burn and published it on a social media platform? Really? Because I've heard more imaginative burns coming out of my five year old nephew's mouth and he wasn't even trying.
posted by palomar at 10:37 AM on November 18, 2018 [25 favorites]

I'm glad no one was hurt. I feel sorry for the guy and the people he traumatized, but I'll reserve my righteous and never ending anger for those who are intentionally doing harm to others. There are more than enough of them.

Intent isn't magic.
posted by hydropsyche at 11:04 AM on November 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

The GOP Thinks #MeToo Is a Chance to Exploit the ‘Biased’ Press
By Jill Abramson

Republicans seem to perceive the reporting on #MeToo to be more about letting women air their traumas, instead of getting at the truth of what happened. Many think that it is all flimflam to be manipulated, not checkable facts. During the Kavanaugh confirmation battle, Republicans tried to ignore the credible evidence against the nominee. But Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s account remained detailed and consistent, from the moment she identified herself in a Washington Post interview to her testimony before the Senate. Investigative reporters uncovered a lot more, including another accuser who was prepared to testify. Kavanaugh and Republican senators accused the liberal press of ganging up to kill the nomination. But because of the pressures of #MeToo — and perhaps a genuine reaction to the force of her testimony — some tried to have it both ways, saying they believed Ford was sexually assaulted, but that she was mixed-up and confused about the identity of her assailant. “I’m not saying that she was not sexually assaulted,” said Maine’s Susan Collins, who cast one of the decisive votes for Kavanaugh. “I believe that she was, and that that horrible experience has upended her
posted by bluesky43 at 11:05 AM on November 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

> Apparently she needed not one but six hotels for her day trip to Toronto. Costs for each of her six hotels ranged from $12K to $49K. At least one, the Sheraton, she visited twice, staying only 20 minutes the first time but paying the full day rate for at least 100 suites both times. It’s almost like she’s a Trump and she enjoys rubbing our faces in the fact that she can spend our money on frivolous bullshit with impunity.

this has to be some sort of moneymaking scheme. where are there potential kickbacks here?
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:16 AM on November 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh my lord, is this just so she has her own bathroom?
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:18 AM on November 18, 2018 [7 favorites]

OK, here we go (from Huffpo):
In escalation of her activism-driven approach to politics, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urged other progressives to mount primary challenges against some of the more conservative Democratic members of Congress.

The group is calling its new campaign #ourtime

Quote:

On Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez attended the Sunrise Movement’s sit-in at the office of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and endorsed the group’s call for a select committee to address climate change that is comprised solely of members of Congress who have not received fossil fuel industry money. The committee envisioned by Ocasio-Cortez and the group would be charged with drafting a Marshall Plan-style “Green New Deal” to have the U.S. powered entirely by renewable energy by 2035.

The committee idea has gained support from a handful of sitting House Democrats and newly elected ones. But the proposal and Ocasio-Cortez’s support for it also elicited some public opposition from veteran Democratic colleagues, many of whom have senior committee posts and claim that a new panel is unnecessary.

The investigative news site Sludge subsequently reported that each of the Democrats quoted as criticizing Ocasio-Cortez had received massive donations during the 2018 campaign cycle from fossil-fuel industry and electric utility political action committees and employees.
posted by growabrain at 11:21 AM on November 18, 2018 [39 favorites]

It’s almost like she’s a Trump and she enjoys rubbing our faces in the fact that she can spend our money on frivolous bullshit with impunity.
this has to be some sort of moneymaking scheme. where are there potential kickbacks here?

Oh yeah, I call money laundering too. Hasn't Trump, inc. been making a ton of $ by having their donors stay at their resorts. Follow the money. Who owns the hotels that Mrs. Trump has been staying at?
posted by sexyrobot at 11:24 AM on November 18, 2018 [12 favorites]

Politico, Finnish president denies ever discussing ‘raking’ with Trump

@ddale8: There is this phenomenon in which Trump lies about some obscure thing that has previously been untouched by his lying, forcing the people who know about the thing - air traffic controllers! Czech historians! Finnish people! - into bewildered comment. It’s not fun for the world, but these are the most entertaining moments as a fact-checker of Trump - asking some subject expert for comment and having them be like “WHAT? No. He said that? No.”
posted by zachlipton at 11:58 AM on November 18, 2018 [50 favorites]

The benign explanation could be that there were security concerns and the easiest way to solve them was to rent out entire floors of multiple decoy hotels. It's fine, we'll just print more money when we run out. That works, right?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 12:04 PM on November 18, 2018

Melania Releases Statement Calling For Removal Of First Lady From White House (The Onion)

Noting that Melania Trump had repeatedly complained about the first lady to White House chief of staff John Kelly, sources painted a portrait of an East Wing in disarray and in desperate need of a shake-up.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:16 PM on November 18, 2018 [8 favorites]

Trump before the midterms: "I am on the ticket."
Trump after the midterms: "I wasn’t on the ballot."
posted by kirkaracha at 12:17 PM on November 18, 2018 [16 favorites]

WaPo, Eli Saslow, ‘Nothing on this page is real’: How lies become truth in online America

He had launched his new website on Facebook during the 2016 presidential campaign as a practical joke among friends — a political satire site started by Blair and a few other liberal bloggers who wanted to make fun of what they considered to be extremist ideas spreading throughout the far right. In the last two years on his page, America’s Last Line of Defense, Blair had made up stories about California instituting sharia, former president Bill Clinton becoming a serial killer, undocumented immigrants defacing Mount Rushmore, and former president Barack Obama dodging the Vietnam draft when he was 9. “Share if you’re outraged!” his posts often read, and thousands of people on Facebook had clicked “like” and then “share,” most of whom did not recognize his posts as satire. Instead, Blair’s page had become one of the most popular on Facebook among Trump-supporting conservatives over 55.

“Nothing on this page is real,” read one of the 14 disclaimers on Blair’s site, and yet in the America of 2018 his stories had become real, reinforcing people’s biases, spreading onto Macedonian and Russian fake news sites, amassing an audience of as many 6 million visitors each month who thought his posts were factual. What Blair had first conceived of as an elaborate joke was beginning to reveal something darker. “No matter how racist, how bigoted, how offensive, how obviously fake we get, people keep coming back,” Blair once wrote, on his own personal Facebook page. “Where is the edge? Is there ever a point where people realize they’re being fed garbage and decide to return to reality?”

This is an extraordinarily well-told story, a little look a two people: one who writes fake news for profit (and to try to make a point, apparently, though it doesn't seem like it's working) and a real person who, lonely and distrustful, believes and spreads it.

@mikeydickerson: Macedonian teenagers and the GRU figured it out first, but now there are hundreds of Christopher Blairs and millions of Shirley Chapians. The chain reaction went supercritical in 2016 and is now in uncontrolled meltdown. Real Americans using their real names. "Transparency" and "paid for by" disclaimers have no effect. This is why Facebook is now willing to give ground on those issues. There's no danger that doing so will hurt revenue.
posted by zachlipton at 12:18 PM on November 18, 2018 [33 favorites]

Melania Trump's excursion was essentially a private trip and didn't deserve any public expenditure at all. It wasn't a State visit even by the very generous standards by which news media treat the Trump regime. I'm not saying the position of First Lady isn't problematic in itself, but you can't equate Melania's shopping spree with anything done by Michelle Obama.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:24 PM on November 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: So funny to see little Adam Schitt (D-CA) talking about the fact that Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was not approved by the Senate, but not mentioning the fact that Bob Mueller (who is highly conflicted) was not approved by the Senate!

@RepAdamSchiff fires back:

Wow, Mr. President, that’s a good one.

Was that like your answers to Mr. Mueller’s questions, or did you write this one yourself?

I'm ambivalent about the targets of Trump's puerile attacks engaging him on Twitter, but if Schiff is going to do that, then at least he's turning the subject around to the substance of the Mueller investigation. (And his tweet has a much better ratio than Trump's.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:01 PM on November 18, 2018 [25 favorites]

WaPo, Eli Saslow, ‘Nothing on this page is real’: How lies become truth in online America

Holy SHIT this article. How can you read this article and not hold Facebook partially — largely? — responsible for the radicalization of the right?
posted by schadenfrau at 1:19 PM on November 18, 2018 [15 favorites]

Reaching back to the ACA discussion: I am in Texas and I get marketplace subsidies for my ACA plan. But one thing I've learned in the past few years is that the subsidies don't work very well when you're quite poor and when you have unstable employment.

My husband's employement has been unstable the last few years since his company of 15 years was bought by a competitor and shut down. He's landed in the restaurant industry, which is by it's nature very changeable. He's had periods of unemployment and this year, 4 months of being unable to work due to a major car accident.

So when our income significantly changes, I go to the marketplace and report the change, as instructed. So at times this has really lowered our payment. Which is great. Ok, he's unemployed, our premium is only $100/month and we keep our care which we need to live. But then he gets a job and I again report that change and the bill goes up. Okay. But then tax time comes and we owe a bunch of money to repay the subsidies we got during that low income period because our yearly income works out higher than whatever it was when he wasn't working.

The problem being that living close to the poverty line, we don't have savings to cover the premiums if we don't have the income. So we needed the extra help during those lean months. I'm dealing with this again right now because he was out of work for 4 months after the accident but I tried to keep paying the same premiums this time. I'm two months behind on them now, even though he's back to work, but with reduced hours and pay. I reported the new lower income, but the lower premiums don't kick in until December.

The point being that the subsidies are based on yearly income rather than monthly, but for a lot of poorer people that makes it really difficult and costly. I could have been getting the right amount of subsidy for my income every individual month and still end up owing thousands of dollars back on my taxes. Cause it's designed by and for people with stable income.
posted by threeturtles at 1:35 PM on November 18, 2018 [43 favorites]

Free expensive Melania!

You have to seriously wonder if she sees herself as the American version of Imelda Marcos.
posted by gtrwolf at 1:40 PM on November 18, 2018 [6 favorites]

That Espy is attempting to become the state’s first black senator since shortly after the Civil War made her remarks all the more glaring.

That's true, I mean it's really a lot like that DeSantis guy being super blatantly racist about that Gillum guy and you can see what a negative impact that had on . . . oh. right

Going to go write some postcards
posted by robotdevil at 1:46 PM on November 18, 2018 [6 favorites]

I'm ambivalent about the targets of Trump's puerile attacks engaging him on Twitter

It's a step toward confronting him in more substantial ways. However, it could still be a substitute (Schumer prefers this I'm sure) rather than a growing momentum. I think this is where "make me" and pushing our reps to act in our interests by demanding they account for our interests makes sense.
posted by rhizome at 2:00 PM on November 18, 2018

It's a step toward confronting him in more substantial ways.

"Is this your idea of ‘decorum at the White House.’?" would have been a more direct attack, I think.

On the hand, the "Schitt" tweet hasn't been deleted yet, so it's pretty obvious that Trump did indeed write that himself. He must be terrified of Schiff chairing HPSCI.

n.b. This morning on ABC's This Week, Schiff called Whitaker's appointment "unconstitutional" and promised that Democracts would challenge it. He also said that it was obvious Trump chose him "for the purpose of interfering with the Mueller investigation."
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:21 PM on November 18, 2018 [9 favorites]

My income tax (both national and local) is currently 43%. But if you add VAT and car and land ownership it is all way beyond 50%, and I am OK with it all. I think at first when you hear about +50% taxes you think it's crazy, even here when it is a part of life. But then life happens.
Look at my life. Recently my sister was diagnosed with cancer, and I have inherited the same genetic condition. She got her excellent treatment "for free", she is well now without any worries, and our healthcare system instantly contacted me for a screening. I'm going to the local cancer clinic tomorrow, and though it is scary, I don't have to think about our economy. My girls are automatically offered similar screenings and also therapy.
My eldest daughter is pregnant. I can be calm and confident she will get world class care.
Once I lived in the US, and I loved it. I love all of you and anyway the insurance I had back then was identical to the one I had back in Denmark. But now, when I'm dealing with these very precarious situations in my family, I think a lot about tax and benefits.
If it turns out I have cancer and it can't be healed, it still won't have any economic effects for my kids. They can keep on getting educated and building families. They can inherit our farm without consequences.
I do keep up with whatever tax-reductions I'm entitled to, but seriously, any normal human being has more to gain from a social democracy than from runaway capitalism.
posted by mumimor at 2:21 PM on November 18, 2018 [103 favorites]

Des Moines Register, EXCLUSIVE: How Trump administration pressure to dump 4-H's LGBT policy led to Iowa leader's firing

The Trump administration pushed the national 4-H youth organization to withdraw a controversial policy welcoming LGBT members — a move that helped lead to the ouster of Iowa's top 4-H leader earlier this year, a Des Moines Register investigation has found.

The international youth organization, with more than 6 million members, introduced the new policy to ensure LGBT members felt protected by their local 4-H program — part of a larger effort to modernize the federally authorized youth group and broaden membership.

Several states posted the policy on their websites, including Iowa, where it prompted fierce opposition from conservatives and some evangelical groups.

But within days of the LGBT policy's publication, Heidi Green, then-chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, requested that it be rescinded, Sonny Ramaswamy, then-director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the federal department that administers 4-H, told the Register.

Afterward, a NIFA communications manager sent an "urgent" email to at least two states — Iowa and New York — urging the 4-H organizations there to remove the LGBT policy from their websites, the Register found. The subsequent decision to take down the policy set off a firestorm this spring for 4-H programs in at least eight states — including Iowa, Idaho, Wisconsin, California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia and New York. It eventually precipitated the firing of Iowa 4-H director John-Paul Chaisson-Cárdenas, a fierce advocate of the LGBT policy, the Register found after conducting extensive interviews and examining more than 500 pages of state and federal communications.

It's just so hard to put myself in the mindset of grown-ass adults who climb to the highest levels of power in this country, only to decide that what they most want to do with it is discriminate against some LGBT kids who just want—well I was going to say raise the largest rabbit, but I've just learned that 4-H contests apparently now extend to such pursuits as cosplay, so yeah that's pretty awesome.
posted by zachlipton at 2:32 PM on November 18, 2018 [48 favorites]

Dems have the House. Schiff is going to replace Nunes on the Intelligence Committee. The Schitt will hit the fan for Trump in the New Year.
posted by growabrain at 2:34 PM on November 18, 2018 [37 favorites]

Trump endorses Pelosi, which I have to admit is pretty good trolling even if he's serious. Especially if he's serious.
posted by clawsoon at 2:49 PM on November 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Rep. Eric Swallwell is on both judiciary and intelligence and he likes to be on TV. I expect to see him on Chris Hayes a lot after January.

He's running
posted by zachlipton at 2:57 PM on November 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I don't think trump endorsing Pelosi is all that hard to read. One, if he gets her republican votes, he would think he can claim power over her, in some sort of "I gave you this, you owe me" thing. (Spoiler to donald: she doesn't owe him anything.) Two, he loves having Nancy Pelosi as a boogeywoman that he can rail against. She's been the target of a long-running hate machine, same way Hillary Clinton was. Three, he's just straight up misogynist, and he wants a woman in the post to attack more than he wants a man to attack. He'll attack anyone, but if he has a passion in life, it's hurting women. Four, he probably thinks it'll be easier to drum up support against Democrats with her in the speaker's chair, on account of #2.

She, of course, is way better at this politics thing than him. I think she gets it either way, and he goes back to pretending he never supported her.
posted by mrgoat at 3:03 PM on November 18, 2018 [24 favorites]

I think there may be a little of that but Trump is a simple, dumb man. The more straightforward answer is that he thinks Pelosi will be the next Speaker and so he "endorses" her to look like a winner.
posted by Justinian at 3:22 PM on November 18, 2018 [17 favorites]

Justinian: The more straightforward answer is that he thinks Pelosi will be the next Speaker and so he "endorses" her to look like a winner.

I just re-read parts of The Power Broker, and this immediately makes me think of the automatic attraction of New York real estate developers to the powerful as described in the book. You get buildings built if your compass is always oriented in the direction of who has the power. Right now, Pelosi has some of the power.
posted by clawsoon at 3:34 PM on November 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

Also, he knows who Pelosi is. I doubt he could put names to faces for most of the congressional leaders. I remember during the campaign someone asked him something about John Boehner and he had no idea who they were talking about. Between his inherent narcissism and whatever cognitive deficiency he has going on he has a very narrow range.
When he does have names and titles correct he tends to go with that. Even when not, after repeatedly calling the town of Paradise CA Pleasure. Which was oh so creepy.
posted by readery at 3:43 PM on November 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

I agree with most of the “reasons” above, with the addition that Trump has bought into the Republican claims that she was a bad (as in ineffective, as well as wrong-headed) Speaker and thinks that he’s “installing” a poor opponent that he can beat.
posted by Etrigan at 3:51 PM on November 18, 2018 [8 favorites]

Is it possible the person Trump talked to give five minutes before he endorsed Pelosi understands that the Dems are highly allergic to Trump, and is trying to kill Pelosi's chances that way? I don't think it would work, but I could see a Republican thinking "Pelosi is Trump's favorite, so clearly she's the wrong choice for us" would be an appealing message to the Progressives as well as the Blue Dogs.
posted by Rykey at 3:54 PM on November 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

His reasoning, should it exist, doesn't matter. Trump is such a polarizing figure, everything he does is effectively a Xanatos Gambit (Warning SLTvTropes): A Xanatos Gambit is a plan for which all foreseeable outcomes benefit the creator — including ones that superficially appear to be failure.

any statement or action = media attention, sowing dissension, stirring up his base, etc. = infinite scoops of ice cream
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:33 PM on November 18, 2018 [9 favorites]

Oregon Jail Has Released Inmates While Saving Space For ICE Detainees

In a Sept. 29, 2016, email, then-NORCOR Lt. Dan Lindhorst wrote ICE to ask that they increase their number of detainees at the jail.

“I see this morning we are down to 26 ICE detainees,” Lindhorst wrote. “Could you please see if you can get these numbers up. We have been keeping the county numbers low to make room for the 40 detainees that you had asked for. If you are not going to use us to that extent, please let me know that as well so I can advise my sheriffs.”

Less than three hours later, an ICE official wrote back indicating detainees would soon arrive from the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington.

“Tacoma is working on vetting more detainees to go to NORCOR,” ICE official Larry Peterson wrote. “I will let you know when they are ready for transfer.”

“Thanks, I have been getting pressed for people,” Lindhorst wrote back.

“No problem,” Peterson wrote. “I will keep hounding them for more.”

Profiting off the ethnic cleansing of America.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:33 PM on November 18, 2018 [36 favorites]

People From Finland Collectively Said "Excuse Me?" After Trump Said The Country Rakes Its Forests To Prevent Fires. "I perhaps wouldn't compare Finland and California climate-wise..."
posted by homunculus at 5:19 PM on November 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

> The GOP Thinks #MeToo Is a Chance to Exploit the ‘Biased’ Press

Link to full article.
posted by homunculus at 5:36 PM on November 18, 2018

Why the blood of a 1955 Mississippi murder drenches today’s U.S. Senate race

The murder of Lamar Smith may have happened 63 years ago — but don't dare call it a cold case. It is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence in a cruel, sometimes violent and still ongoing conspiracy to suppress black votes in the American South, a chain of custody that stretches from the Ku Klux Klan night riders of the 1860s to Selma's "Bloody Sunday" in 1965 to the computer-aided web of purges, restrictive ID laws and shuttered polling places of the 2010s.

...

Decades later, a witness told the FBI that the killers ambushed Lamar Smith with his absentee ballots in an apparent setup. Although he was shot at 10 a.m. with a large crowd milling around the Brookhaven courthouse, the sheriff, Carnie E. Smith (by now you may have noticed everyone in this saga seems to be named Smith), didn't immediately arrest the blood-stained Noah Smith or two alleged accomplices, Charles Falvey and Mack (wait for it) Smith. Those three men were later cited but an all-white grand jury did not indict them. The district attorney said it was Sheriff Smith's "duty to take that man into custody regardless of who he was, but he did not do it."

The soil that harbored that injustice would nurture Hyde-Smith as she grew up in Brookhaven during the tumultuous 1960s and '70s. The filmmaker Beauchamp told me he's found loose family ties between Hyde-Smith's in-laws and key players in the segregation fight — that his research shows husband Michael Smith is related to 1955 arrestee Mack Smith and that Michael Smith's sister married the grandson of segregationist judge Tom Brady. None of that is surprising, perhaps, in such a close-knit community. The alleged killer Noah Smith died in 1975 and was buried in Macedonia Baptist Church, the same church where Cindy Hyde-Smith has been a Sunday school teacher.

...

Just this year, a Northern Illinois University study ranked Mississippi as still the worst in the nation when it comes to making it hard for citizens to vote — citing factors like its early registration cutoff, lack of early voting, and strict voter ID law. Since Southern states were freed by the Roberts Supreme Court from supervision under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Mississippi has shuttered about 5 percent of its polling places — exactly the kind of thing Hyde-Smith joked about.

posted by T.D. Strange at 6:30 PM on November 18, 2018 [35 favorites]

WaPo, Paul Kane, House GOP women confront a political crisis — their party is mostly men

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) could not agree more. At a forum Tuesday for candidates running for leadership posts, Stefanik stood up and motioned to a room overwhelmingly filled with white male faces.

“Take a look around,” she told the GOP lawmakers. “This is not reflective of the American public.”

Stefanik said she then asked Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the minority leader candidates, what their plans were to recruit and elect more women.

“I was struck that I really didn’t get an answer,” she recalled in an interview Friday.

Wow, what a failure of leadership. I wonder who was in charge of GOP candidate recruitment anyway. Let me just read the next paragraph, and, oh:

As head of candidate recruitment the past two years, Stefanik focused on finding women to run, landing more than 100 candidates.

So 120 GOP women ran in primaries this cycle, a little short of their record of 128 in 2010 and nicely ahead of 2012-2016, but only about 19 will have won. So there's a case to be made here that it's not simply a candidate recruitment problem: the GOP women who are running can't seem to win, for reasons I'm sure we'll be told have nothing to do with sexism.
posted by zachlipton at 8:06 PM on November 18, 2018 [34 favorites]

FiveThirtyEight had an interesting piece on this issue this past June: Why the Republican Party Elects So Few Women
posted by Rhaomi at 8:43 PM on November 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

Brian Stelter's Reliable Sources

After CNN won a temporary restraining order on Friday, forcing the White House to restore his press pass for 14 days, White House officials sent Acosta a letter stating that his pass is set to be suspended again once the restraining order expires.

From the looks of the letter, the W.H. is trying to establish a paper trail that will empower the administration to boot Acosta again at the end of the month.

Oh good, so we can go back to this again. I was really hoping this would be one of those storylines everyone just pretends never happened.
posted by zachlipton at 8:57 PM on November 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

President Trump attacks Navy SEALs, admiral in charge for not killing Osama Bin Laden sooner

It's brain farts all the way down with that guy.
posted by homunculus at 9:02 PM on November 18, 2018 [13 favorites]

the GOP women who are running can't seem to win

Unless it's in Wyoming and Dick Cheney is your father, in which case you can carpetbag your way to a senior House position at the end of your first term.
posted by holgate at 9:08 PM on November 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

Unless it's in Wyoming and Dick Cheney is your father, in which case you can carpetbag your way to a senior House position at the end of your first term.

You think you've got nepotism issues in your state? Cowboy, please.. Call me when the (now former) governor of your state appoints his own daughter to fill the U.S. Senate seat he's vacating.
posted by Nerd of the North at 9:11 PM on November 18, 2018 [8 favorites]

FiveThirtyEight had an interesting piece on this issue this past June: Why the Republican Party Elects So Few Women

I know these site's whole deal is 10000 word explainers on things that don't need 10000 words to explain...but this really didn't need a 10000 word explainer.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:45 PM on November 18, 2018 [12 favorites]

Jebus that 538 article. They not only buried the lede, they then re-exhumed it, burned the bones, and scattered its ashes out to sea.

After spending six grafs explaining the symptoms of the problem, it quotes someone as saying that it’s possibly because of adoption of conservative ideology that makes it less likely for GOP women to be elected to office. (But what ideology, pray, would make that so? We must wait for it to be revealed, dear reader.)

It’s several more grafs describing how the disparity is due to fewer GOP women in the pipeline. Somewhere around graf 13 or so, we hear that the GOP electorate doesn’t encourage women to run. (Why so? Well, wait for it...)

For the next few grafs, we are told it’s because GOP women aren’t perceived, by their own part, as being conservative enough, ideological enough, etc. “There are a bunch of places in the process of getting to Congress that appear to disadvantage Republican women in the context of how ideology and gender interact (even though it’s not clear that Republican women overall are less conservative than Republican men).”.

No shit, Sherlock. But we are really still just describing symptoms of the problem. When do we get the diagnosis, doc? (Wait for it...)

We then get another repetition of the theme that GOP women are perceived as too liberal to win their own party’s primaries, even when they are objectively as conservative as their male counterparts.

At this point, I feel like I’m in an episode of House, at the point in every show where Dr. House, having exhausted all other diagnostic possibilities, is beginning to suspect that the underlying problem may be some extraordinarily rare ailment, imperceptible only to the remarkably insightful few. We are about to get the big reveal, I can feel it!

Then, the article provides several more grafs to document the retention problem for GOP women, related to “limited upward mobility” of the women who have actually been elected to office. Good heavens, if only there were some sort of, I don’t know, larger explanation that might tie all of these loose threads together! Maybe it will come in the last half-dozen grafs of the article? (Surely now! *trembling with excitement*)

Ah. No. The closing grafs of the 53-paragraph article are devoted rather to how and why encouraging GOP women to run for elected office will be good for the party.

What?? Where’s the explanation? Where is the fundamental answer to “Why the Republican Party Elects So Few Women”?

*Ctrl-F “bias”
no results

*Ctrl-F “sexism”
no results

Ah. I see. Could have saved a lot of time if I’d just done that to begin with...
posted by darkstar at 11:23 PM on November 18, 2018 [92 favorites]

I don't think trump endorsing Pelosi is all that hard to read. One, if he gets her republican votes, he would think he can claim power over her, in some sort of "I gave you this, you owe me" thing.

Can't quickly find the source material for it but this on steroids. Trump & the Republicans want to actively wield power over her, holding frequent votes of confidence to turn her into their puppet subject to their voting demands. They want to hold their support over her head & make her effectively a Republican.
posted by scalefree at 1:14 AM on November 19, 2018

First lady Melania Trump’s hotel bills for a day trip to Toronto last year added up to an astonishing $174,000, according to federal expense documents reported by Quartz. She did not spend the night.

She's just doing it because she can. She's acting out, showing her contempt for both her husband & all of us. Six hotels in a city you don't even spend the night in is just running up the score.
posted by scalefree at 1:28 AM on November 19, 2018 [18 favorites]

The Crucial Significance of Lucy McBath’s Win in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District by Jelani Cobb. Excerpt:

Three years ago, HBO aired a documentary called “3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets,” which examined the tortured aftermath of the death of Jordan Davis, a seventeen-year-old boy who was shot as he sat in an S.U.V. parked at a Florida gas station. At the start of the film, you see Lucy McBath, Davis’s mother, sitting at a table, depleted, telling how she came to name her son after the Biblical River Jordan. “I wanted to name him something that would symbolize the crossing over and a new beginning,” she says. Later, you see a more resolute McBath seated in a Senate hearing room with Sybrina Fulton—whose son Trayvon Martin was also shot to death at the age of seventeen—giving testimony about Stand Your Ground laws and their impact on her son’s death.

posted by Kattullus at 3:30 AM on November 19, 2018 [38 favorites]

From Thomas Gagen in the Boston Globe:

Don’t run, Senator Warren, don’t run

A presidential contest is not really a national election but a state-by-state battle. Hillary Clinton would be president today if she had won the 46 electoral votes of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, three states she barely lost.

Warren’s 60.3 percent [win in her Sente reelection bid] this year was about the same as Clinton’s 60 percent share of the Massachusetts vote in 2016. Warren was unable to get much support from people who had cast ballots for Donald Trump or third-party candidates. More of these voters live in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan than in Massachusetts. The next Democratic nominee for president will need to attract many of them to win in 2020.

Democrats did well in those three states in the midterms, electing or reelecting governors and US senators, and increasing their number of US representatives. The winning candidates found language and issues that resonated with the people there. Massachusetts voters, who have not elected a Republican to Congress in 24 years, are not in sync with those voters.

[...]

The 2020 presidential election will be won in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Senator Warren, please don’t run.

posted by jgirl at 4:00 AM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

If only a woman from the upper Midwest existed who was well liked by virtually everyone, had impressive credentials, was roughly middle of the pack ideology-wise among Democrats (making her considerably progressive nationwide), possessed a stabilizing quiet competence, and repeatedly overperformed among swing voters while limiting losses among rural types, all while holding her own among Obama's coalition. If only such a person existed it seems like it would be a no-brainer.

in the distance, the wind whispered... klooooobuuuuchaaaar
posted by Justinian at 4:11 AM on November 19, 2018 [65 favorites]

The 2020 presidential election will be won in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Senator Warren, please don’t run.

Yep, whether it's deserved or not, Warren has taken on baggage in many people's minds from right wing attacks. Jerry Brown, as good as he'd be as president, has a similar problem (Governor Moonbeam).

Why take the chance when we have other great people who haven't already been defined in people's minds?
posted by duoshao at 4:21 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ah. I see. Could have saved a lot of time if I’d just done that to begin with...
But you saved me a lot of time, and gave me a chuckle. Thanks! (closes 538 tab)
posted by mumimor at 4:42 AM on November 19, 2018 [21 favorites]

Yep, whether it's deserved or not, Warren has taken on baggage in many people's minds from right wing attacks.

You do realize that they attack those that they think are the biggest threat? Anyone who's competent is going to collect GOP smears as "baggage." That's no reason to abandon good politicians.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:23 AM on November 19, 2018 [34 favorites]

You do realize that they attack those that they think are the biggest threat?

Eh. Understand that “threat” here doesn’t translate to something rational like “could win elections.” Warren is a threat just by being a woman in power. That she goes after their money and is good at it is not so much threatening to them as it is offensive.

They don’t attack her, or any other woman, because they’re afraid of her specifically. They attack her example. And they’re really good at it.
posted by schadenfrau at 5:31 AM on November 19, 2018 [17 favorites]

From Thomas Gagen in the Boston Globe:

Don’t run, Senator Warren, don’t run

File Under : "Man tries to restricts woman's choices because reasons".
posted by srboisvert at 5:45 AM on November 19, 2018 [43 favorites]

Anyone who's competent is going to collect GOP smears as "baggage."

Thisthisthis. I say it over and over again: Dodging service in Vietnam by going into the National Guard was a hacky trope for an entire generation before George W. Bush ran for President. And then, he defeated two actual literal Vietnam veterans by making their service into jokes.

Don't bother saying, "Oh, this particular Democrat has baggage that the GOP can exploit." They're going to invent baggage. They're going to smirk right into the camera as they make up slime and dare Democrats into getting into the pit with them, and there are going to be plenty of Democrats who take the bait every single time. Fuck those Democrats. Find your candidate and work your ass off for that candidate, and every time someone bleats ...but muh electability..., make another phone call and write another postcard.
posted by Etrigan at 6:13 AM on November 19, 2018 [78 favorites]

California rights groups are calling for greater transparency over a state-run program, funded by the Department of Homeland Security, that would pay non-profits to surveil the communities they serve. < Pacific Standard
posted by Harry Caul at 6:16 AM on November 19, 2018 [11 favorites]

This week's First Branch Forecast is up and if you've been looking for all the Pelosi speaker wrangling you can read about it's worth your look. There's also this bit about these various proposed house rules. (follow the above link if you want the linked text, I am not doing the work to reproduce all the inline links here)

RULES REFORM
House Democrats circulated a list of ideas they’re considering including in the House rules package (available from WaPo here) and asked members for feedback and new ideas as they draft the legislative text. They put their recommendations into these five buckets: the people’s voice, the legislative process, oversight & ethics, budget rules, and inclusion and diversity. Here are eight notable highlights:

— Require every bill that goes through the Rules committee to have a hearing and markup before it goes to the floor.

— Require bill text to be available for 72 hours before the bill can proceed on the House floor for a vote.

— Establish a select committee to improve the operation of Congress.

— Provide assistance and training to offices to properly and securely handle whistleblowers.

— Every committee must hold a Member Day hearing, where all Members can publicly present their legislative ideas and proposals

— Reform (unclear how) the motion to vacate the chair, which concerns how Speakers are deposed.

— Modernize how discharge petitions work.

— Make clear an NDA cannot prohibit a staffer from speaking to OOC, OCE, or the Ethics Committee.

The Dems identified the sources of many of these ideas. I’ve curated all the public-facing proposals I could find and linked to them at getthehouseinorder.com > resources. (If I’ve missed yours, let me know!) Among the outside organizations who participated in the process: Demand Progress; the Rebuild Congress Initiative; the Project on Government Oversight; Public Citizen; Make it Safe Coalition; the Bipartisan Policy Center; the Government Accountability Project; and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO).

Also interesting is something I haven't seen much talk about here - the rules the Rs have passed for themselves. I wonder what the origin of some of them are.

BTW, House Republicans voted on their conference rules, which we discussed last week. The new rules don’t appear to be up yet — they’ll likely be here — but Roll Call has the highlights. (1) A member must resign from leadership if they run for higher office. (2) Any member facing indictment for a felony with a 2 year sentence must resign from their committees. (3) Leadership must step aside if indicted for a felony. Republican rejected a proposal from Rep. Gallagher to allow committee members to pick their own chair/ranking members. Three proposals from Rep. Meadows were not considered.

posted by phearlez at 6:55 AM on November 19, 2018 [9 favorites]

Bloomberg gives Johns Hopkins a record $1.8 billion for student financial aid

Former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced Sunday he is giving a record $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University to support student financial aid at his alma mater and make its admissions process “forever need-blind.”

The gift, believed to be the largest private donation in modern times to higher education, is a landmark in a growing national movement to make elite universities more accessible to students from low- to middle-income families.

Wow!
posted by homunculus at 7:04 AM on November 19, 2018 [26 favorites]

Flagged Etrigan's comment as excellent and regret that I have but one flag to give. Democrats have got to stop knuckling under to Republicans and allowing them to define the terms of the debate. John Kerry was the quintessential Mr. Electable - chosen because of this factor - and he still lost. One reason Democratic candidates for Congress and local offices did so badly in 2014 was that they tried to run away from Obama, and run away from being Democrats in general. Voters don't go for spinelessness.

"I'm not like those other Democrats" is the "I'm not like those other girls" of politics. Probably the only person it works for is Joe Manchin, and he's a long term incumbent. It didn't work for Richard Ojeda running for his first office.

"Electability" is just an excuse to keep women and POC out of office. I hope that is going away soon - if we look at the freshmen in Congress, we see more women, POC, LGBT, in general intersectional Congresspeople. They are, by definition, "electable" because - they got elected! Democrats just need to pick great candidates and campaign like hell for them and get out the vote.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 7:10 AM on November 19, 2018 [28 favorites]

Unclear why taking John Hopkins from #28 on the endowment list to #20 will change their behavior at all. Or why say, Rice University, with an endowment of 5.8billion, on par with the new Johns Hopkins number, isn't already able to be completely "need-blind". Much less Harvard with its 36 billion.

If you wanted to light 1.8 billion on fire, you couldn't do a much better job of it than parking it in a university endowment fund.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:12 AM on November 19, 2018 [25 favorites]

If anyone in 2019 and 2020 is still seriously concerned about electability based on a prospective candidate's "baggage", after four years of our current occupant in the White House? Just remind them who their opponent is going to be in the election. Dropping the mic is optional.
posted by darkstar at 7:17 AM on November 19, 2018 [14 favorites]

Make Your Toilet Great Again!
posted by homunculus at 7:21 AM on November 19, 2018 [9 favorites]

As a higher ed fundraiser, I think that higher ed fundraising is pretty much the most interesting topic ever. But shouldn't it be its own FPP?
posted by all about eevee at 7:41 AM on November 19, 2018 [5 favorites]

Yeah, higher ed funding needs to go somewhere else.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:41 AM on November 19, 2018 [8 favorites]

Trump Administration Faces 2 Legal Challenges For Asylum Restrictions (NPR, Nov. 19, 2018)

President Trump's effort to limit the number of people seeking asylum in the United States will face legal challenges in two different federal courts on Monday.

A federal judge in California will hear a challenge to the president's recent proclamation that requires asylum-seekers to present themselves at official ports of entry. The language of the proclamation makes clear that the administration is primarily concerned with the migrant caravan moving north through Mexico.

But a lawsuit (PDF) filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) argues that the president's proclamation violates federal law in two ways: first, it bypasses rules requiring at least 30 days for "notice and comment" on changes in government regulations; and second, it limits asylum seekers to ports of entry. Under current federal law, migrants may apply for asylum inside the U.S. even if they entered the country illegally.
...
The migrant advocates are asking U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar for a temporary restraining order to stop the administration from implementing the asylum restrictions nationwide.

In a court filing late last week, lawyers for the Justice Department argued that the president has "broad discretion to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States." They said the new rule had to go into immediate effect to avoid creating a rush on the border and that the administration has the right to require asylum-seekers to present themselves at ports of entry.

Lawsuit Challenges Administration's Crackdown On Asylum-Seekers
NATIONAL
Lawsuit Challenges Administration's Crackdown On Asylum-Seekers
The second legal challenge to the administration's asylum policy will take place in a federal court in Washington D.C. where a judge will hear arguments on whether or not domestic abuse and gang violence justify an asylum claim.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration adopted a new policy that says domestic violence and gang violence generally cannot be used as grounds for an asylum.

But immigrant rights groups say the administration ignored decades of legal precedent that says they can be grounds for asylum. And they're asking Judge Emmet Sullivan of the D.C. District Court to block the policy.

Trump also penned a new stanza to add to The New Colossus, attempting to clarify the poem:

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "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!"

The golden door is only open during standard business hours,
And "golden door" means Federally recognized ports,
And you can only be considered to be "yearning to breathe free"
If you're fleeing political discrimination, like if you're conservative,
Anglo Christian and people shout at you at restaurants
-- Donald Trump

[fake, but it feels real]

posted by filthy light thief at 8:27 AM on November 19, 2018 [15 favorites]

Sens. Blumenthal, Hirono, and Whitehouse are taking legal action against the AAG, the Daily Beast reports: Senate Democrats Sue To Block Matt Whitaker From Serving as Attorney General

The latest suit, which was brought by the groups Protect Democracy and the Constitutional Accountability Center for the Senators, argues that Whitaker’s appointment violates the Constitution’s Appointments Clause because the U.S. Senate did not confirm him to his prior post. Whitaker was chief of staff to now-former Attorney General Jeff Sessions before President Trump elevated him to his current gig. Trump did so through the Vacancies Reform Act, which allows the staffing of vacant positions for up to 210 days. But many constitutional scholars have argued that the Vacancies Reform Act doesn’t let the president appoint people to cabinet-level positions who haven’t been senate confirmed. The Senate confirmed Whitaker in 2004 as a U.S. Attorney in Iowa, but his opponents—most prominently George Conway, the husband of White House senior staffer Kellyanne Conway, and former Solicitor General Neal Katyal—say that confirmation has effectively lapsed.

This follows the State of Maryland's legal action seeking to stop the now-acting AG from serving.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:28 AM on November 19, 2018 [25 favorites]

This may be a false dawn, but the way that AOC and her peers are approaching their DC orientation is fascinating: it reminds me a little of younger MPs like Jess Phillips who are frank and open and not beholden to the fustier Westminster traditions, and as a result have an army of nasty trolls aimed at them.

I think it'll slow down a little once they're sworn in and have to think about constituent service and committee business and the dreary work of fundraising, but it'll be interesting to see if they can sustain recurring campaign support over the next two years that reduces the need for daily call time.
posted by holgate at 9:02 AM on November 19, 2018 [13 favorites]

When they said Michelle Wolf killed it at The White House Correspondents' Dinner last year, they were right: Ron Chernow, presidential biographer, to headline White House correspondents' dinner.
posted by peeedro at 9:14 AM on November 19, 2018 [13 favorites]

Remember who they got to host after Stephen Colbert roasted (and scorched) Bush Jr.?

Rich Little. Yes, that Rich Little. If you don't recognize the name or his significance, it's okay. He was the spirit of both-sides-ist political humor via anodyne impressions back in the 1970s and 80s.

Every time the dinner gets a little adventurous with their commentator, they have to make a major back-swing to conventionality.
posted by darkstar at 9:18 AM on November 19, 2018 [10 favorites]

Last Week Tonight’s Season Finale Shows You Three Ways to Spot Authoritarian Leaders
posted by homunculus at 9:31 AM on November 19, 2018 [7 favorites]

President Trump attacks Navy SEALs, admiral in charge for not killing Osama Bin Laden sooner

We get the predictable twitter double down, repeating a frequent lie about Bin Laden.

Meanwhile, Adm Bill McRaven, retired Navy SEAL and Special Operations commander who oversaw the killing of Osama bin Laden and the capture of Saddam Hussein, stands firm, Trump 'threatens the Constitution' when he attacks the media.

Gen Stanley McChrystal stands with McRaven and praises Trump for his honesty: "The President didn't go to Arlington Cemetery for Veterans' Day, and maybe that's honest, because if you really don't care, it would be dishonest to pretend that you do."

Gen Wesley Clark has a WaPo op-ed, I served under 8 commanders in chief. Trump doesn’t grasp the role.
posted by peeedro at 9:56 AM on November 19, 2018 [50 favorites]

Trump doesn’t grasp the role.

The fact that we need to keep repeating this after more than two years is just baffling to me. Am I missing something?
posted by Melismata at 10:00 AM on November 19, 2018 [22 favorites]

Why would he even be asked?
He's not a woman. He's not a comedian. He shows up first on a sloppy google search.
posted by Harry Caul at 10:05 AM on November 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

I hope Chernow gives a mind-numbingly boring talk full of very sly shade at the press and the president. That would be awesome.
posted by suelac at 10:10 AM on November 19, 2018 [22 favorites]

I can’t be the only constituent who would love to just sign up for recurring Patreon-style support of my representative on the understanding they would opt out of the ridiculous fundraising spectacle. I want my representative working on legislation and constituent service and handling the work of being on committees to push issues forward. I don’t want them sitting in a fucking call center all day begging for funds. Hell, just treat it like you won a single term and you’re done at the end, throw yourself wholly into the work, let people re-elect you based on the excellent work you did instead of phone-banking.

This is actually such a good idea that it should literally be floated to all left-leaning congresspeople. I too would do this! I don't want Ilhan Omar to spend all her time scrambling for cash, for instance.

Like, I think this could actually work - it could keep the small-donation momentum going.

Is it illegal in some way? Assuming not, how would one suggest it to one's representatives?
posted by Frowner at 10:21 AM on November 19, 2018 [14 favorites]

Short of killing the dinner entire, which is still the first best outcome now and till the end of time, making them sit through a remedial media literacy seminar about "How to cover an authoritarian" seems like a decent compromise.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:22 AM on November 19, 2018 [25 favorites]

Gen Wesley Clark has a WaPo op-ed

Brief aside: Back in my reporter days, I interviewed Gen. Clark shortly after 9/11. I'll never forget that this guy, who had spent his entire life in the military, had so many troops and weapons at his disposal, told me that the proper response to the terrorist attacks was a police action -- investigate, follow the sources and the money, and capture the ringleaders. Given all our talk above about the $6 trillion spent killing people, imagine if we'd listened to the guy who was supreme commander of NATO instead of a draft-dodging idiot.
posted by martin q blank at 10:24 AM on November 19, 2018 [161 favorites]

Yeah, since just cancelling the correspondent's dinner forever (not just while DJT is in office) is the best solution, hiring a respectable but not particularly charming pop-historian to host is probably the second best option. Not attending the dinner is actually the most respectable decision DJT has made as president. I'm not particularly sorry that there'll be one fewer annual opportunity for an up-and-coming comic to generate a bunch of tweets and maybe parlay the gig into a Netflix show.
posted by skewed at 10:33 AM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

Linguist George Lakoff explains how Trump uses lies to divert attention from the “big truths” -
How the media should respond to Trump’s lies
posted by growabrain at 10:50 AM on November 19, 2018 [19 favorites]

Gen Wesley Clark has a WaPo op-ed, I served under 8 commanders in chief. Trump doesn’t grasp the role.

This article should strongly re-enforce that the president may be the top dog, but the military (and civil service) serve the country, not the president, and probably should not lose sight of that. Presidents come and go, but the the service needs to remain steady.

Also, from the article:
We honor the chain of command, so we trust him with the most central issues of our time...

Surely Wesley understands the difference between honouring chain of command and trust. One does not imply the other. It's nice when you have them both, but that is a bonus.
posted by Bovine Love at 11:03 AM on November 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

The NYT has posted an insider-y 6,000-word profile of Pelosi that seems intent on offering something for everyone to dislike about her by Dubya biographer Robert Draper but nevertheless has some useful interviews: Nancy Pelosi’s Last Battle—As she prepares to lead the House of Representatives again, the most powerful Democrat in Washington will have to navigate between a rampaging president and her colleagues’ plans for fighting back.

While it paints her as impeachment-averse and machiavellian in handling her caucus, she does come off as having a better grip on Trump and the media:

I asked her if she had any reason to believe Trump was willing to work together in good faith. She laughed. “I don’t think he knows,” she said. “You know how I talk to him?” She put down her spoon. “I just say it in public. That’s what he hears: what people say in public. Now, President Bush: a gentleman, we have disagreements on the liberal-conservative spectrum, but it’s not — my God.” She laughed mirthlessly as she thought of Trump again. “What’s the word I could use instead of ‘grotesque’?”

Pelosi shrugged wearily. “We’ll see,” she said. “We’ll have a contrast between decency and dignity and openness and bipartisanship and oneness, and whatever he decides to wake up to be that day.” But, she went on, what lay ahead was not a contest of manners, nor even of parties. In Pelosi’s view, Trump seemed bent on threatening the institutions of democracy, beginning with his attacks on the free press. “He’s trying to destroy the collective consciousness of our country.”

When I half-jokingly protested that in fact Trump loved the press, Pelosi quickly replied: “May I say something you’re not going to like? I think the press loves him. All day on TV — and I don’t even watch TV, except sports. But he says somebody had a horse face — all day we hear about that. We hear about Kanye West, all day. You just give him all day! So I don’t want you to think I’m making an analogy” — the descendant of Italian immigrants then laughed, unable to resist — “but Mussolini, he didn’t care what they said about him, as long as they were talking about him.”

While Draper is obviously trying to irritate the Grey Lady's typical subscriber, the odds are favorable that Trump's going to rage-tweet something about this in the next 24 hours.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:24 AM on November 19, 2018 [40 favorites]

Is it illegal in some way? Assuming not, how would one suggest it to one's representatives

Just like every generation thinks they invented sex, I guess every generation thinks they invented campaign financing.

You have a limit of $2.7k for contributions per election. Setup your bank to mail out 24 checks of $112.50 to your rep’s re-election campaign. Convince enough friends to do it and your rep won’t have to make calls as he/she will have the money to get re-elected. There you go, your election Patreon solution, no Jack Conte required.
posted by sideshow at 11:34 AM on November 19, 2018 [12 favorites]

> You have a limit of $2.7k for contributions per election. Setup your bank to mail out 24 checks of $112.50 to your rep’s re-election campaign. Convince enough friends to do it and your rep won’t have to make calls as he/she will have the money to get re-elected.

This strikes me as a decent proposed DSA project, for DSA types in the audience. Mainly cause DSAers tend to be tolerant of reformist schemes, because (at least in my undisclosed location) DSAers tend to have slightly more money than the median person, and because it’s a very DSA thing (and I mean this in a positive sense) to put down a marker indicating/establishing control over particular elected officials.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:37 AM on November 19, 2018 [5 favorites]

Note that "per election" means "per election cycle", which includes primaries. If you want to (and can afford to) you can contribute $5,400 per individual.
posted by zrail at 11:39 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

@StevenTDennis: The anti-Pelosi letter doesn't mention a single reason for dumping her except a desire for change.

@mollyereynolds: On the Pelosi letter: I've generally been struck by the lack of specificity in the grievances aired (at least publicly) by Pelosi skeptics, in the letter and elsewhere. Contrast their approach with that of the Freedom Caucus in 2015

Gosh, just another generic "not this particular woman in power, for no particular reason whatsoever" situation.
posted by zachlipton at 11:44 AM on November 19, 2018 [35 favorites]

Is this significantly different from the monthly recurring contribution option built into ActBlue? I thought that already kinda was a "Patreon for politicians?"
posted by contraption at 11:45 AM on November 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

The thing that makes it meaningful, as I see it, would be tying it to an organization that’s willing to pull all the donations if the congresscritter steps out of line or otherwise fails to stay bought.

The “like uber but for x” pitch for this is, roughly speaking, “like democratic centralism, but for campaign financing.”
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:51 AM on November 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

@chrisgeidner:

A Census citizenship question challenge update thread: After #SCOTUS agreed on Friday to hear a case over what evidence should be allowed in the case[,] DOJ went back to the trial court, where closing arguments are scheduled for later this month in the trial, asking on Sunday for everything to be put on hold until SCOTUS is done with its case over the evidence.

This morning, Judge Furman ordered the challengers — state gov'ts and immigration groups — to respond to DOJ's motion by 4p Tuesday.Meanwhile, some smart folks are confused by the SCOTUS move to take the evidence case. Here's @marty_lederman: "This is, I believe, a very strange, almost inexplicable, grant ..."

Wow. This is wild. After DOJ's Sunday filing, with a Monday order from the judge directing a Tuesday response, DOJ nonetheless decided to skip over Furman and filed at the 2nd Circuit seeking a stay of all further proceedings pending #SCOTUS ruling in the evidence case. Here's the 2nd Circuit filing, seeking a stay of all further proceedings in the Census citizenship question challenge until SCOTUS rules in the evidence case.

This is all perfectly nuts. DOJ keeps going over the trial court's head to the 2nd Circuit, and over the 2nd Circuit's head to the Supreme Court, and in this case isn't even waiting for the trial court to rule before appealing. And the Supreme Court seems apparently content to repeatedly involve itself in this ongoing nonsense rather than waiting for a complete record to be delivered on appeal.
posted by zachlipton at 11:55 AM on November 19, 2018 [22 favorites]

Scott Lloyd, the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement who spends his time trying to keep unaccompanied teens from having abortions and did not spend his time keeping track of children separated by their parents, is being reassigned. He'll be a senior advisor at the HHS "Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships."
posted by zachlipton at 12:05 PM on November 19, 2018 [8 favorites]

peeedro: Gen Wesley Clark has a WaPo op-ed, I served under 8 commanders in chief. Trump doesn’t grasp the role.

Melismata: The fact that we need to keep repeating this after more than two years is just baffling to me. Am I missing something?

Magical thinking that Trump is actually a logical, functional human being, as seen in the numerous "This Is The Moment Trump Became President" stories, just before he tweets again. At a basic level, it makes sense -- people often deny the existence of things they don't expect, or hope doesn't really exist. Trump can't be that bad at being president, right? Because there are checks in this system to get him into office, so he has to be qualified.

Except the system is just a lot of people, and people are susceptible to being duped and conned, especially by emotional pleas.

Trump is a con-man, not a politician. He won because he lied and appealed to base emotions, not by even appearing to be the more qualified candidate. But it's still hard for a lot of people to say this out loud, or even believe it.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:28 PM on November 19, 2018 [24 favorites]

After CNN won a temporary restraining order on Friday, forcing the White House to restore his press pass for 14 days, White House officials sent Acosta a letter stating that his pass is set to be suspended again once the restraining order expires.

CNN: White House Backs Down From Legal Fight, Restores Jim Acosta's Press Pass

CNN's Brian Stelter:

Breaking: The White House is voluntarily restoring Jim @Acosta's press pass, three days after a court ordered the pass to be returned to him temporarily.[...]

"We have made a final determination in this process: your hard pass is restored. Should you refuse to follow these rules in the future, we will take action in accordance with the rules set forth above. The President is aware of this decision and concurs."

This letter details several new rules for reporter conduct at presidential pressers, including "a single question" from each journalist. Follow-ups will only be permitted "at the discretion of the President or other White House officials."

The WaPo's Erik Wemple covers this donnybrook: "To sum up: WH revoked pass; doubled down on revocation after CNN sued; tripled down after judge ruled in favor of CNN TRO request; and now appears to have bailed on the whole thing, with the condition that people comply with new press-conference rules. Businesses often tell their congressional reps and Cabinet officials that what they need most is a stable regulatory environment. This is the exact opposite."

Once more, the Trump White House has appeared to back down on a fight with the fourth estate, only to tighten the leash on journalists again.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:47 PM on November 19, 2018 [23 favorites]

You can read the new press conference rules.

@ErikWemple: Not much change here. After all, there's long been a discretionary second question at briefings. Sometimes -- many times -- @PressSec grants them, sometimes she does not.

Counterpoint, @ddale8: You don’t think it’s a big change to say that asking an unapproved follow-up question may result in the revocation of your pass?

That does indeed strike me as a pretty large change, that you can be thrown out forever for attempting to ask a follow-up.

Perhaps someone suggested they would lose in court, again, if they argued due process involved making up some retroactive rules and pulling Acosta's credentials again as soon as the TRO expired?
posted by zachlipton at 12:51 PM on November 19, 2018 [20 favorites]

Virginia Could Be The State To Give Women Equal Rights Nationwide (by ratifying the ERA)

Virginian MeFites, do you have comments?
posted by sciatrix at 12:52 PM on November 19, 2018 [16 favorites]

If the big media outlets don't respond to this by boycotting any and all future press conferences until the rules are revoked, then the White House has basically won.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:53 PM on November 19, 2018 [11 favorites]

This is all perfectly nuts. DOJ keeps going over the trial court's head to the 2nd Circuit, and over the 2nd Circuit's head to the Supreme Court, and in this case isn't even waiting for the trial court to rule before appealing. And the Supreme Court seems apparently content to repeatedly involve itself in this ongoing nonsense rather than waiting for a complete record to be delivered on appeal.

Welcome to the Kavanaugh* Court Era, where every legal argument is now subject to the appeal of "but five conservative votes, so you lose". This is the new normal under rule by Judicial Junta.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:55 PM on November 19, 2018 [8 favorites]

Virginian MeFites, do you have comments?
Doesn't surprise me. My wife (ImproviseOrDie) and I signed up to support the Va org pushing this at a local theater showing of the RBG film recently.
posted by Harry Caul at 1:00 PM on November 19, 2018 [11 favorites]

Buzzfeed: Interpol's Last Director Disappeared In a Corruption Probe. The Next One May Be a Russian

Russian prosecutors announced new charges against American-born British financier Bill Browder on Monday, a day after it was reported that a Russian candidate could take control at the international police agency Interpol.

Prosecutors held a press conference in Moscow to accuse Browder — one of Vladimir Putin’s staunchest international critics — of organizing a “transnational criminal group” and of murdering his former Russian attorney Sergei Magnitsky, repeating charges they have brought in criminal cases in the past. They also added an official indictment accusing Browder of using ill-gotten proceeds to support Democratic candidates in the 2016 US election.

The charges follow a report in the Sunday Times of London that British officials are worried that Alexander Prokopchuk, a veteran of Russia’s interior ministry, could be named the next president of Interpol. Interpol delegates from 192 countries are meeting in Dubai this week for the organization’s annual conference, where they will elect a replacement for the former president Meng Hongwei.

Meng, who was also China's Public Security vice-minister, disappeared in September but has now submitted his resignation letter via Chinese officials over unspecified bribery allegations.

Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul: "I cannot believe that a Russian official will lead @INTERPOL_HQ. Russia has an unimpressive record of practicing the rule of law at home and a proven track record of abusing Red Notices and diffusions for political purposes." and "Does the Trump administration support the candidacy of a Russian government official to head @INTERPOL_HQ? Have they made any public statement about this impending disaster? Or does Trump support Putin in this decision?"

Murrow Award–winning independent journalist Lindsey Snell writes for the Daily Beast about Interpol's current state of affairs: Interpol Helps Dictators Hunt Down Dissidents – and Me—Russia, China, and Turkey are among the countries that use the international police organization to harass and hunt down critics.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:11 PM on November 19, 2018 [21 favorites]

Could someone explain something for me about the census citizenship question court case? I can’t tell if the ultimate goal is to get the question removed, or just to get people in trouble for lying about why it’s on there. Is it a done deal?

The goal for the administration re: the census citizenship question is to scare immigrants into not answering the Census, which will affect apportionment for Congressional and state seats and will affect where federal dollars are spent. Is that what you're asking?

My understanding (this is mostly from, I think it was a Dahlia Lithwick podcast on Slate a few weeks ago) is that, as usual, the incompetent people at the head of our government have no idea how to implement this policy because there are Rules about how to change questions, since it's actually important to keep the census as short as possible. They are supposed to do lots of field testing and such to see how changing questions would affect response rates but of course the Commerce Secretary, like most Trumpist officials, doesn't understand how anything works.

So we don't really know whether the question will be on the Census or not.

Does that answer your question?
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:20 PM on November 19, 2018 [12 favorites]

Poitico, Troops at U.S.-Mexican border to start coming home

The Pentagon is set to begin a drawdown of its 5,800 troops from the Southwest border as early as this week, the Army commander overseeing the mission told POLITICO today — even as the approaching caravan of refugees prompted U.S. customs officers to close a port of entry near Tijuana, Mexico.

All the active-duty troops that President Donald Trump ordered sent to the border before the midterm elections should be home by Christmas, said Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, who is running the mission from San Antonio, Texas.

Buchanan also confirmed previous reports that the military rejected a request from the Department of Homeland Security for an armed force to back up Border Patrol agents in the event of a violent confrontation.

Since they're, well, not doing anything, can we hurry it up get them home for Thanksgiving?
posted by zachlipton at 1:26 PM on November 19, 2018 [23 favorites]

FWIW, the census already has at least one known significant undercounting problem, involving children.

A million children under the age of five were missed in the 2010 census (FiveThirtyEight): "William O’Hare, a demographer who has advised the census and produced several reports on missed populations, has found that the rate of uncounted young kids in urban areas is double or triple the national figure, and that kids of color are also more likely to be missed."

Which has direct impacts on federal funding: "The reimbursement formula for Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and a handful of other programs is directly tied to the population reported in the decennial census."

(Nonprofit organizations, like the National Head Start Association, use these inaccurate figures, too.)

Moreover, the undercounting also "has a significant effect on how much funding communities receive from the federal government, and how they are represented by local governments and in Congress."

A census advisory committee was established in 2016, the Undercount of Young Children Working Group.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:53 PM on November 19, 2018 [9 favorites]

ERA: 13 states haven't passed it; one more is all that's needed. Those 13 are: AL, AR, AZ, FL, GA, LA, OK, MO, MS, NC, SC, UT, VA.

Virginia is the only one that's not overwhelmingly R in both branches of state legislature. I went looking for more details and found that it's very hard to get concise lists, or I'd consider putting together the numbers to find out if D + women R made a majority in any other states.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:54 PM on November 19, 2018 [11 favorites]

ERA: 13 states haven't passed it; one more is all that's needed.

Well, one more and a time machine.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:59 PM on November 19, 2018 [7 favorites]

And the Supreme Court seems apparently content to repeatedly involve itself in this ongoing nonsense rather than waiting for a complete record to be delivered on appeal.

*Checks schematic* Yep, running just about as it's supposed to these days.
posted by Rykey at 2:06 PM on November 19, 2018

You can think of the census question on citizenship as akin to voter suppression tactics. Republicans put police and ICE on the street corners in minorities districts on election day to scare away minorities from voting. Likewise they are putting the citizenship question on the census to scare away minority households from being counted.
posted by JackFlash at 2:10 PM on November 19, 2018 [7 favorites]

Hamed Aleaziz reports on this morning's hearing, A Federal Judge Questions The Legal Basis For Trump's New Policy On Asylum Seekers

At one point during the hearing, US District Judge Jon Tigar, who was nominated to the court by former president Barack Obama, asked Department of Justice attorney Scott Stewart that if the Immigration and Nationality Act states that all individuals can apply for asylum regardless of where they enter the United State, but the administration’s policy blocks those who enter illegally from receiving asylum, then “what’s left of that congressional intent?”

posted by zachlipton at 2:12 PM on November 19, 2018 [12 favorites]

Could someone explain something for me about the census citizenship question court case? I can’t tell if the ultimate goal is to get the question removed, or just to get people in trouble for lying about why it’s on there. Is it a done deal?

In addition to tivaslasvegas's answer, which is correct: the court case is challenging the new citizenship question because it appears that the Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, has been lying about the question since he was appointed. The plaintiffs tried to get Ross to testify in a pre-trial deposition to show how badly he was lying, but the SCOTUS denied that (although it allowed his deputy to be deposed). Ross lied about the question because he wanted to make it look as if the DOJ asked Commerce to include the question: he claims DOJ intends to use the data to better enforce the Voting Rights Act. This justification is so laughable on its face that any judge should have ruled for the ACLU right away, but instead we have endless back-and-forth on the procedural stuff.

The Versus Trump podcast has been tracking this case closely, and they have a lot of deep legal geekery to share.
posted by suelac at 2:14 PM on November 19, 2018 [9 favorites]

Yeah, I get why the Republicans want it on there. And I understand that there are shenanigans with Wilbur Ross. What I’m not sure about is if this court case is the thing that could make sure the question isn’t on the census. I thought it was already on there for sure, and I don’t know whether to have hope or not.
posted by Weeping_angel at 2:19 PM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

zachlipton: The Pentagon is set to begin a drawdown of its 5,800 troops from the Southwest border as early as this week, the Army commander overseeing the mission told POLITICO today — even as the approaching caravan of refugees prompted U.S. customs officers to close a port of entry near Tijuana, Mexico.

Surprising no one, Trump's "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner were tweets proclaiming that the Midterm elections were a success for the GOP.

And in "this isn't really how Democracy works, is it?" files: Obscure Concealed-Carry Group Spent Millions on Facebook Political Ads (Issie Lapowsky for Wired, Nov. 19, 2018)

In which we learn that an online training course for Virginia's ridiculously open concealed carry permits (you don't even have to be a Virginia resident, and then you can use your permit in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, per the slightly skeezy but apparently informative USA Carry, whose link I will paste to avoid juicing their search results -- https://www.usacarry.com/concealed_carry_permit_reciprocity_maps.html ) meant a serious potential to sell trainings, and one such training site saw a benefit in being ridiculously hyperbolic in its Dems Are Coming To Take Your Guns rhetoric to increase sales -- but the CEO doesn't believe the rhetoric, he's just a salesman. Also, Wired recaps how un-transparent digital ads are compared to radio, print and TV ads:

Digital political ads exist in a regulatory no-man’s land. Where political advertisers on radio or television must file disclosures with the Federal Election Commission and include disclaimers about who paid for the ad, no such rules exist in the digital space, though some have been proposed. Even on TV, for ads that aren’t purchased by candidates or PACs, the FEC only requires disclaimers on so-called “electioneering communications,” which must be publicly distributed shortly before an election and include clear references to a specific candidate. But the digital gap allows anyone, regardless of motive, to run highly targeted, politically divisive ads with next to no oversight. With its ad archive, Facebook has tried to institute some transparency into the process. But Concealed Online’s multimillion-dollar ad campaign raises questions about how transparent that system really is.

JackFlash: You can think of the census question on citizenship as akin to voter suppression tactics. Republicans put police and ICE on the street corners in minorities districts on election day to scare away minorities from voting. Likewise they are putting the citizenship question on the census to scare away minority households from being counted.

And the people at the Census are working hard to counter that information suppression, and you can get involved through a local or regional Complete Count Committee. Every person counts, because every person missed is decreased Federal support for a decade.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:24 PM on November 19, 2018 [6 favorites]

2018: I don't know whether to have hope or not
posted by agregoli at 2:24 PM on November 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

Have hope, and do the work to make that hope real. Just as every vote counts, every bit of work to make this country (and the world at large) a better place counts.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:26 PM on November 19, 2018 [16 favorites]

Re: Ross' lying, if you want to see why DOJ keeps jumping to the Supreme Court, note that the first time around, when they blocked Ross' deposition but declined to stay the case, Gorsuch and Thomas signed on to a dissent that pretended the contradictory statements never happened. In their accounting,

As evidence of bad faith here, the district court cited evidence that Secretary Ross was predisposed to reinstate the citizenship question when he took office; that the Justice Department hadn’t expressed a desire for more detailed citizenship data until the Secretary solicited its views; that he overruled the objections of his agency’s career staff; and that he declined to order more testing of the question given its long history.

They have justices who are prepared to ignore inconvenient facts when it serves the GOP, so why not get there as quickly as possible? The abuse of process is just one more fact to ignore.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:26 PM on November 19, 2018 [13 favorites]

Yair Rosenberg:

Teresa Shook, the Women's March founder who literally created its event page on Facebook, calls for the March organizers to step down over having "allowed anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform":

Quoting and linking this tweet because upthread from said tweet Rosenberg screencaps an exchange involving Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour that is...not great. And by not great I mean obviously, explicitly anti-Semitic.

These are also the people that treat white women as a monolith, right? I hadn’t seen any of the anti-queer stuff but I’m...ready to believe it.
posted by schadenfrau at 2:28 PM on November 19, 2018 [15 favorites]

The Democrats’ White-People Problem: The Voters Democrats Need to Win Over - Joan C. Williams, The Atlantic

Donald Trump likes to pit elite and non-elite white people against each other. Why do white liberals play into his trap?
...
Where you find white people, you will find racism. All white Americans need to fight it. They also need to stop misusing anti-racism as an excuse for snobbery.

With each Trump-fueled outrage, people on Twitter ask whether I’m finally ready to admit that the white working class is simply racist. What my Twitter friends don’t seem to recognize is their own privilege. If elites cling to the idea that working-class whites are perpetrators of inequality, rather than both perpetrators and victims, perhaps it’s because they want to believe that they are where they are because they’ve worked hard and they’re the smartest people around. Once you start a conversation about class, elite white people have to admit they have not only racial privilege but class privilege, too.

Acknowledging this also requires elites to cede yet another advantage: the extent to which they have controlled Democrats’ priorities. Political scientists have documented the party’s shift over the past 50 years from a coalition focused on blue-collar issues to one dominated by environmentalism and other issues elites cherish.

I’m one of those activists; environmentalism and concerns related to gender, race, and sexuality define my scholarship and my identity. But the working class has been asked to endure a lot of economic pain while Democrats focus on other problems. It’s time to listen up. The only effective antidote to a populism interlaced with racism is a populism that isn’t.

posted by ZeusHumms at 2:37 PM on November 19, 2018 [18 favorites]

I hadn’t seen any of the anti-queer stuff but I’m...ready to believe it.

A lot of folks on the left seem to want to avoid this situation entirely because of how important the Women's March has been... but we can't. Farrakhan, and by extension his enablers, are toxic and must be relegated to nowhereville. Mallory and Sarsour did good work in helping start up the March but that doesn't excuse the rest.

We have no moral basis for condemning those on the right who won't denounce their toxic supporters if we refuse to do it.
posted by Justinian at 2:39 PM on November 19, 2018 [22 favorites]

Well, one more and a time machine.

The weird thing is that the time limit on the ERA isn't in the text of the amendment itself, it's only in the resolution sending it to the states. But it isn't clear whether Congress has the authority to withdraw an amendment from consideration by the states, or what that time limit actually means.

(As opposed to the other amendments with time limits, where the amendment itself says it's inoperative unless ratified before the deadline)
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:42 PM on November 19, 2018 [8 favorites]

The Democrats’ White-People Problem: The Voters Democrats Need to Win Over - Joan C. Williams, The Atlantic
Article had an interesting side point; every so often, Trump makes racist statements that serve at least partially to capture the attention of the left and distract from discussion of class issues.
posted by ZeusHumms at 2:43 PM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

A lot of folks on the left seem to want to avoid this situation entirely because of how important the Women's March has been... but we can't. Farrakhan, and by extension his enablers, are toxic and must be relegated to nowhereville. Mallory and Sarsour did good work in helping start up the March but that doesn't excuse the rest.

Mallory and Sarsour are being stupid about this. Not only are they losing moral legitimacy by defending Farrakhan, the dude is homophobic, misogynistic Trump supporter as well as being an anti-Semite. This is an easy call for them and they refuse to make it.
posted by asteria at 2:44 PM on November 19, 2018 [16 favorites]

ERA: 13 states haven't passed it; one more is all that's needed.

Not quite.

...the ERA is not just one state short of passage because the deadline for state ratification was way back on June 30, 1982, by which time only 35 states had ratified it.
...
Besides the question of the expired deadline, there’s the fact that five of the 37 states rescinded their ratification: Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota.

However, according to Wikipedia's detailed article:

Article V is silent as to whether a state may rescind a previous ratification of a proposed—but not yet ratified—amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

posted by kirkaracha at 2:46 PM on November 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

This is an easy call for them and they refuse to make it.

The obvious possibility is that they refuse to make it because they agree with him on a bunch of it. Sadly, nothing stops one from being anti-misogyny while being homophobic and/or anti-Semitic except the possibility of cognitive dissonance.
posted by Justinian at 2:47 PM on November 19, 2018 [8 favorites]

There’s some follow up to the calls for mallory and Sarsour to step down that gets a little bit more direct. Accusations of financial shenanigans, hiring the Nation of Islam as personal security (?!), and then it ends with this:

They were handpicked to make the movement look less white. That’s not intersectionality. That’s tokenism. And tokenism attracts predators.

So. Some people are starting to, uh, lean in to the discomfort.
posted by schadenfrau at 2:49 PM on November 19, 2018 [13 favorites]

WaPo, Carol Leonnig and Josh Dawsey, Ivanka Trump used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails about government business last year

Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules, according to people familiar with a White House examination of her correspondence.

White House ethics officials learned of Trump’s repeated use of personal email when reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit. That review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner.

The discovery alarmed some advisers to President Trump, who feared that his daughter’s practices bore similarities to the personal email use of Hillary Clinton, an issue he made a focus of his 2016 campaign. Trump attacked his Democratic challenger as untrustworthy and dubbed her “Crooked Hillary” for using a personal email account as secretary of state.

Some aides were startled by the volume of Ivanka Trump’s personal emails — and taken aback by her response when questioned about the practice. Trump said she was not familiar with some details of the rules, according to people with knowledge of her reaction.

Well that's the most inevitable storyline to emerge so far.
posted by zachlipton at 3:40 PM on November 19, 2018 [85 favorites]

But her emails.
posted by asteria at 3:46 PM on November 19, 2018 [10 favorites]

LOCK HER U...you know I can't. Between Ivanka and Sarah Palin, the cogitive dissonance wins today.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:50 PM on November 19, 2018 [6 favorites]

The Pentagon is set to begin a drawdown of its 5,800 troops from the Southwest border as early as this week,

It’s over! The War! It’s finally over! Our brave troops have repelled any possible migrant invasion, as well as any invasions by tigers, unicorns or space aliens! Long shall we commemorate the Nineteenth of November as Victory Over Theoretical Danger Day! USA! USA! 🇺🇸

So, when is the Ken Burns documentary coming?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:59 PM on November 19, 2018 [14 favorites]

LOCK HER U...you know I can't. Between Ivanka and Sarah Palin, the cogitive dissonance wins today.

Sarah Palin links to a "news article" on her own Sarah Palin website, www.governorpalin.org. I guess www.halftermgovernor.org, www.quitgovernoringhalfwaythrough.org, and www.tuckedhertailandran.org were taken.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:00 PM on November 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

CNN: Mueller Argues Whitaker Appointment Has No Impact In Ongoing Subpoena Fight

USA Today's Brad Heath breaks this down:

The special counsel's office says Matt Whittaker's appointment as acting attorney general should have "no effect" on the D.C. Cir. litigation over Robert Mueller's authority. [pic1]

Lawyers for Andrew Miller, the grand jury witness challenging Mueller's authority, also say Whitaker's appointment "does not affect" his challenge to the special counsel's authority. [pic2]

Mueller's office says in a new court filing that "The Special Counsel continues to hold his office despite the change in the identity of the Acting Attorney General."

(To clarify, "the special counsel is arguing that Mueller is an inferior officer. Miller and the Russian company are arguing that he's a principal officer.")
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:15 PM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

In case anyone is having trouble following along, the anti-democratic forces (which includes the White House and the Russians) are simultaneously arguing that the acting Attorney General, top law enforcement officer of the United States, is an inferior officer while the special counsel, who was appointed by the acting Attorney General and who has no authority to do anything not approved by the Attorney General... is a principal officer.

I feel like I'm hallucinating?
posted by Justinian at 4:41 PM on November 19, 2018 [42 favorites]

(They have to argue that the acting AG (Whittaker) is an inferior officer in order to try to make it legal to appoint him since a principal officer has to have been senate confirmed even in this acting capacity).
posted by Justinian at 4:42 PM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

Kevin Robilliard (HuffPo): I’m at @sethmoulton’s town hall in Amesbury, Mass. — my hometown district!

There’s a contingent of at least a dozen protesters here to confront him over his opposition to Nancy Pelosi. Many of the protesters were supporters of Moulton’s — the organizer said she had knocked on over 1,000 doors on his behalf — who are furious about his opposition to Pelosi.

“He feels women are disposable, he feels elderly people are disposable,” one protester said. 2nd questioner goes right at it: Why aren’t you supporting Pelosi?

Moulton: “The American people cried out for change” in the election. He says preserving a “status quo leadership team” would mean Democrats are “failing the American people.” Many of the pro-Pelosi contingent say Moulton is essentially acting like a Tea Party Republican.

“This sounds like Newt Gingrich,” one said. Anti-Pelosi contingent at town hall speaking up: One man says Pelosi gives Trump an easy target, and a high school student says she wants leadership in Congress that understands the threat of school shootings. Moulton gets a big round of applause talking about his work on gun control.

(Also, gun control seems to be the number one issue here. In most districts, healthcare is at the top of the list.) Moulton says he is trying to persuade Marcia Fudge and “others” to run for speaker. As the town hall goes on, it’s pretty clear the crowd is fairly evenly divided between pro- and anti-Pelosi constituents. (There’s a bit of a gender divide.)

Moulton just explained that there’s no way McCarthy will become speaker, even if some Democrats vote against Pelosi.

This is even more poorly thought out than it looked before, either they're willing to throw the Speakership to McCarthy or they have no leverage. And they still don't even have a candidate. I get why Tim Ryan isn't running himself, he's trying to play kingmaker but doesn't want to actually do the job lest it interfere with his 2020 campaign, but what the fuck is Moulton even doing?
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:50 PM on November 19, 2018 [15 favorites]

Tim Ryan isn't running himself, he's trying to play kingmaker but doesn't want to actually do the job lest it interfere with his 2020 campaign

I...I have bad news for him.

Do these dipshits really not know that women are now the heart of the party? They seriously fucking think they can pull this shit and then have a snowball’s chance in hell of national office?

Motherfucker, do you know how angry we already are?
posted by schadenfrau at 4:58 PM on November 19, 2018 [82 favorites]

Ivanka Trump used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails about government business

Well that's the most inevitable storyline to emerge so far.

To be followed next week by an investigative reporter turning up evidence that Trump is, in fact, a Kenyan Muslim, and was once a pilot shot down in combat.
posted by darkstar at 5:07 PM on November 19, 2018 [15 favorites]

Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules.

Ivanka is in violation of a new law signed by Obama in 2014, which was after Hillary Clinton left office. There is no law preventing the use of personal email accounts, not now, not ever. The law only requires that if personal email is used for official business, a copy of that email must be forwarded to the employee's agency for archival.

During Hillary's time in office, there was no deadline for providing archival copies. Traditionally, this was done when you left office and cleaned out your files at the end of your term. In her case she turned over copies shortly after leaving office, as required.

Under the new 2014 law, that email copy has to be transmitted to archives within 20 days. That new law is the one that Ivanka violated. She did not make official copies within 20 days -- in fact, not at all.
posted by JackFlash at 5:36 PM on November 19, 2018 [50 favorites]

hot take: i dont give a shit about Ivanka's emails.

Hypocrisy? Yes. Stupidity? Sure, why not. But I'm all out of fucks.
posted by Justinian at 5:39 PM on November 19, 2018 [5 favorites]

Ivanka's emails: I don't really care. Do U?
posted by yesster at 5:45 PM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

I wouldn't say that I don't give a shit, of course it's awful and damning and hypocritical and should be pursued legally. I just don't think that makes it news worth discussing or getting especially outraged over. Of course they're all stupid criminal hypocrites, we knew that.
posted by contraption at 5:53 PM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

@matthewamiller: The most surprising thing I learned in the Post story about Ivanka is that she has a chief of staff. Why?

We did technically know this before, but it's a rather good question. Ivanka doesn't take a salary, which is problematic in and of itself, but her staff does.
posted by zachlipton at 5:57 PM on November 19, 2018 [9 favorites]

I care about Ivanka emails the same way I care about the caravan: why was it a 24/7 walk to walk story for Clinton and not Ivanka or the countless Trump officials that this has happened with now? Every time this happens is another indictment of the 2016 conduct by the NYT and CNN.

Either this is a story or it never was, and they’ve still never adequately taken responsibility. Until they do the hipocracy is always relevant.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:00 PM on November 19, 2018 [24 favorites]

An important distinction is that Clinton's use of personal email violated no law, but Ivanka's does violate the law absolutely.
posted by JackFlash at 6:04 PM on November 19, 2018 [73 favorites]

There sure are a lot of disgruntled former senior White House officials out there ready to make the President look bad. Let's see if we can get one on the phone now. Hello? WaPo, White House discusses possible Trump visit to troops in Iraq or Afghanistan

In meetings about a potential visit, he has described the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan as “a total shame,” according to the advisers. He also cited the long flights and potential security risks as reasons he has avoided combat-zone visits, they said.
...
Trump has spoken privately about his fears over risks to his own life, according to a former senior White House official, who has discussed the issue with the president and spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about Trump’s concerns.

“He’s never been interested in going,” the official said of Trump visiting troops in a combat zone, citing conversations with the president. “He’s afraid of those situations. He’s afraid people want to kill him.”

Thanks disgruntled former senior White House official! Have a good night.
posted by zachlipton at 6:06 PM on November 19, 2018 [36 favorites]

JackFlash is referring to Public Law 113–187, a.k.a. the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014. Summary; it's interesting how the amendments changed the Archivist's responsibilities, too.

- Prohibits the President, the Vice President, or a covered employee (i.e., the immediate staff of the President and Vice President or office advising and assisting the President or Vice President) from creating or sending a presidential or vice presidential record using a non-official electronic messaging account unless the President, Vice President, or covered employee:

(1) copies an official electronic messaging account of the President, Vice President, or covered employee in the original creation or transmission of the presidential or vice presidential record; or

(2) forwards a complete copy of the presidential record to an official electronic messaging account of the President, Vice President, or covered employee not later than 20 days after the original creation or transmission of the presidential or vice presidential record.

So just having a CC, or possibly even a BCC, to an official email account is the easiest way to satisfy the requirement? And it's still not done? Jeez louise.
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:08 PM on November 19, 2018 [19 favorites]

Kevin Robilliard (HuffPo): I’m at @sethmoulton’s town hall in Amesbury, Mass. — my hometown district!

Seth Moulton update—@banditelli [video]: OH MY GOD SETH MOULTON JUST COMPARED OUSTING NANCY PELOSI TO OUSTING MARGARET THATCHER

If you watch, he means it in a procedural sense of a failed floor vote, but wow is that just an awful thing to say. And it's fitting:

@yeselson: [it's] actually a too perfect parallel because Seth Moulton thinks the successor to Nancy Pelosi should be another John Major.
posted by zachlipton at 6:14 PM on November 19, 2018 [17 favorites]

Virginian MeFites, do you have comments?

The ERA expired before it was ratified and there is no way that Congress extends the time. So, in this Virginian's humble opinion, it does nothing to actually help.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:36 PM on November 19, 2018

Is there anything in the Constitution that actually says Congress can place time limits on a potential amendment if it meets all the requirements?
posted by downtohisturtles at 6:44 PM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

Is there anything in the Constitution that actually says Congress can place time limits on a potential amendment if it meets all the requirements?

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that today's Supreme Count will be able to find such a thing in the Constitution.
posted by Slothrup at 7:00 PM on November 19, 2018 [12 favorites]

Is there anything in the Constitution that actually says Congress can place time limits on a potential amendment if it meets all the requirements?

My sources say no. Article V:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

It also doesn't say anything about a state's ability to rescind its ratification.

The 1808 section is about preventing Congress from banning the slave trade.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:03 PM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

From the Lakoff article above:

Sean Illing:
Why do Republicans seem to be doing much better in terms of framing the debate?

George Lakoff:
A lot of Democrats believe in what is called Enlightenment reasoning, and that if you just tell people the facts, they’ll reach the right conclusion. That just isn’t true.

People think in terms of conceptual structures called frames and metaphors. It’s not just the facts. They have values, and they understand which facts fit into their conceptual framework. You can’t understand something if your brain doesn’t allow it, if your brain filters it out in terms of your values.

Democrats seem not to understand this, and they keep trying to employ reason as a persuasive vehicle. I wish Enlightenment reasoning was an accurate model for how most people think and judge, but it isn’t, and we better acknowledge that fact.

/stage_whisper He's talking about us!
posted by petebest at 7:41 PM on November 19, 2018 [61 favorites]

On what grounds is Lakoff making his argument? It sounds suspiciously like reasoning...
posted by chortly at 7:45 PM on November 19, 2018 [6 favorites]

New rules for keeping your press credential to the Trump White House (Alexandra Petri, WaPo)

Dear press corps,

This hurts us more than it hurts you.

Frankly, it is shocking and appalling to us that you are a group full of such wild, ruthless maniacs as Jim Acosta, who cannot be restrained from further heinous and unthinkable acts except with these explicit guidelines, which it pains us, so, so deeply to inflict upon you.

Really, we would like nothing better than to sit here and answer, in painful — nay, excruciating — detail as many questions as you could possibly throw our way for hours and hours until we were spent, but you have forced our hand. We are so, so bitterly disappointed. In you. You should feel bad. The First Amendment weeps when it sees you, daring to invoke it to ask QUESTIONS of the PRESIDENT. Your president! Have you no decency?

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:48 PM on November 19, 2018 [21 favorites]

Susan Collins shows her true colors (again): Collins breaks with Flake, refuses to compel vote on protecting Mueller

If she runs again in 2020 Maine voters cannot call her a moderate. She's a hardcore Trumper now, as if she was ever anything else. Take back all those hugs.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:02 PM on November 19, 2018 [42 favorites]

@KailiJoy: See if you can spot the difference between these two NYT headlines

Then: Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules
Now: Ivanka Trump's Emails Could Provide New Democratic House With Fodder

(Before you comment something about the author of one of these stories, remember that reporters rarely ever write their own headlines. It's an editorial issue, not one person.)
posted by zachlipton at 8:35 PM on November 19, 2018 [59 favorites]

This is even more poorly thought out than it looked before

The ability of certain Massachusetts pols to act like their head is stuck up their arse goes a long way to explain why Massachusetts elects moderate Republican governors.
posted by holgate at 8:49 PM on November 19, 2018

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the Kind of Progressive Liberals Have Been Begging For -
Rather than combative extremism, she's pushing left with respect. Why are we still complaining?
posted by growabrain at 8:52 PM on November 19, 2018 [12 favorites]

Now: Ivanka Trump's Emails Could Provide New Democratic House With Fodder

FWIW, the headline has been changed to Ivanka Trump Repeatedly Used Personal Email at White House, Review Finds.
posted by peeedro at 8:57 PM on November 19, 2018 [15 favorites]

Josh Marshall, on the Pelosi bs: Yeah, it's so selfish and dumb. The folks from tough districts shld be able to abstain and these clowns from safe districts shld abide by the caucus vote. Plan here is that @SpanbergerVA07 gets crucified on the cross of @sethmoulton's douchebaggery.
posted by Justinian at 9:00 PM on November 19, 2018 [5 favorites]

Then: Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules
Now: Ivanka Trump's Emails Could Provide New Democratic House With Fodder

"FWIW, the headline has been changed to Ivanka Trump Repeatedly Used Personal Email at White House, Review Finds."

The print edition had it as "Ivanka Trump May Be Target Of Democrats For Email Use", so while the online change is an improvement, the print edition headline was still crap.
posted by jedicus at 9:01 PM on November 19, 2018 [10 favorites]

Barack Obama and Donald Trump Can’t Stand Each Other; Edward-Isaac Dovere, The Atlantic

Obama and Trump still haven’t spoken since the helicopter took the former president away after the inauguration, and the worst relationship in politics has only gotten worse. Obama’s exasperation at what’s coming out of Trump has spiked again and again. Trump’s bitterness at Obama hasn’t faded at all, and he’s bristled at the former president staying active. The Friday before the election, Obama was calling Trump a manipulative liar, and Trump was mocking the size of the crowds Obama was drawing. In an interview with Fox News recorded at the White House last Friday, Trump refused to even give Obama credit for killing Osama bin Laden.

posted by ZeusHumms at 9:02 PM on November 19, 2018

I care about Ivanka emails the same way I care about the caravan: why was it a 24/7 walk to walk story for Clinton and not Ivanka or the countless Trump officials that this has happened with now?

I care in the sense that it shows utter contempt for her own family's argument to the United States that this was the most important thing in the world. Same with Trump's use of his personal cellphone. You know there was some security person who said to them "You are the last person, obviously, that wants to be doing this" and the response was just a shrug and eye roll.

I also care in the sense that I knew people that were outraged all day every day for years over Hillary's emails and Obama's golfing, and won't even spend a minute talking about Trump's behavior or thinking about their own sudden change of heart now that Trump's in charge. These same people still attend Trump rallies and chant that Hillary should be locked up.
posted by xammerboy at 9:03 PM on November 19, 2018 [29 favorites]

That suspicious, claimed-to-have-ricin-in-it letter was mailed to Sen. Collins (actually addressed to her husband, Tom Daffron, at their home) a month ago, and the FBI opened an investigation. I think it's safe to say there was no poison, at least. Have any developments in the case been made public?
posted by Iris Gambol at 9:05 PM on November 19, 2018

hot take: i dont give a shit about Ivanka's emails.

Having Most Favored Daughter called to the House Oversight committee chaired by Elijah Cummings : priceless.

(She is not smart. She is a pampered idiot princess. Righteous MeFi alumna Elizabeth Spiers called this a long time ago.)
posted by holgate at 9:15 PM on November 19, 2018 [24 favorites]

CNN, McConnell is lobbying Arizona's governor to name McSally as Kyl replacement

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is leveraging his political power to try to convince Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to choose Rep. Martha McSally to replace Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, who is considering leaving his seat before his term ends, several Republican sources familiar with the conversations tell CNN.

McSally, a Republican congresswoman who once worked for Kyl, lost her Senate bid two weeks ago to Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema. Kyl, who was picked by the governor in September to fill the seat vacated by the late Sen. John McCain. told CNN last week he has decided whether to leave office before his term ends at the end of next year. He wouldn't reveal his decision, but said he will talk to Ducey about it.

@ddayen:

Nobody is really asking why Jon Kyl was so hot to enter and leave the U.S. Senate within a few months, after serving as a paid advisor to the Kavanaugh confirmation and a lobbyist for one of the biggest law firms in D.C.

Kyl was temporarily placed on the Armed Services Cmte while pausing his lobbying services for defense contractors Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. Could it be that Kyl just wanted to gather a few months' worth of political intelligence that goes a bit beyond his existing floor privileges and access to the Senate gym and dining room as an ex-Senator. And Kyl is leaving before he has to show his financial disclosure form, which would have to list all the other companies he's received money from for lobbying. It's a giant, completely under-the-radar scandal to everyone but @jeffhauser

Hell of a system we have where the loser of an election just gets installed in a different seat anyway.
posted by zachlipton at 9:24 PM on November 19, 2018 [49 favorites]

Same system where the election loser takes office with less votes anyway.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:37 PM on November 19, 2018 [16 favorites]

It’s also the same system that lets a candidate for governor of Georgia control the voting process, where a candidate for a senate seat in Florida gets to shut down vote counting, and where the President gets to pick the law enforcement officers that will oversee the investigations into his corruption, and the Justices that will ultimately hear the case.

(Honestly, there ought to be a Recusal amendment to the US Constitution, at the very least, requiring recusal in all matters of law in which an elected official might have a direct conflict of interest.)

The fact that these sorts of self-dealing and chicanery are still allowed reveals a deep flaw in our system.
posted by darkstar at 9:37 PM on November 19, 2018 [50 favorites]

@ZoeTillman: NEW: A federal judge in California has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing new limits on who can apply for asylum -- the TRO will be in effect until Dec. 19

Here's the court order. On a quick skim, it turns out that when Congress says people can apply for asylum "whether or not at a designated port of arrival," a federal judge is going to think those words have some degree of meaning no matter how hard you handwave them away.

I believe I was told I would get tired of winning, but, well, nope.
posted by zachlipton at 10:06 PM on November 19, 2018 [44 favorites]

It’s also the same system that lets a candidate for governor of Georgia control the voting process

Not quite. It's two separate subsystems with two distinct solutions:
- former congresscritters retain privileges that allow them to become rich corporate shills.
- some states really don't like the concept of free and fair elections.
posted by holgate at 11:12 PM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

Honestly, there ought to be a Recusal amendment to the US Constitution, at the very least, requiring recusal in all matters of law in which an elected official might have a direct conflict of interest.

Democrats should be pushing this issue, along with independent redistricting commissions, in all states (especially red states). Voters know what's fair in these casees, on a bipartisan basis, and even if they don't pass, there's a good chance these will become potent issues against Republican incumbents.
posted by msalt at 11:15 PM on November 19, 2018 [14 favorites]

To elaborate on what kirkaracha said (and as mentioned in the Wikipedia article), if Virginia does vote to ratify the ERA, a whole slew of cases become ripe for the Supreme Court to eventually handle:

Does Congress have the power to set a deadline for ratification? Coleman v. Miller holds the opposite, that not setting a deadline means that an amendment is pending. This presumably means that the converse is also true (deadlines mean that an amendment isn’t pending once one is past), but it would still probably go to SCOTUS for a final decision.
If it does have the power to set a deadline, does Congress have the power to extend a deadline for ratification? Obviously Congress would need to extend the deadline again for this to be relevant. With respect to this question, Idaho v. Freeman would effectively be revived as a court case, as it held that they did not that have that power.
Assuming that the deadline exists as fact and can be extended, do ratifications that happen after a deadline expires count towards the ratification count? If not, Illinois, Nevada and Virginia would have to re-ratify after any extension of the deadline.
Assuming that the deadline exists as fact and can be extended, are ratifications that happened before the expiration of a deadline still valid? If not, then you’re basically at 0 or 3 ratifications, depending on the answer to the previous question.
Can states rescind ratifications of a pending amendment? If so, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Idaho’s ratifications are void. Idaho v. Freeman would effectively be revived to cover this case, as it held that rescissions were legal.
If rescissions are legal, can a governor veto a ratification rescission? If not, Kentucky’s ratification is also void. This question wouldn’t come into play until 3 additional ratifications above and beyond Virginia’s were obtained (because either recessions are constitutional and they’re at least 3 states short, or they aren’t and the question is moot).
If the answer to the above is “yes,” can an acting governor veto a ratification rescission, too? If not, Kentucky’s ratification is still void.
Whether or not rescissions are legal, can a state declare its ratification void with a sunset clause? If so, South Dakota’s ratification is void.

ERA proponents are basically counting on winning on questions 1 (no, a deadline is not constitutional) or 2–4 (a deadline is constitutional, but can be extended, and any ratification of the amendment made at any time counts towards the goal, so long as the deadline is pending), 5 (no, NOW v. Idaho is incorrect and rescissions are unconstitutional), and 8 (sunset clauses on ratifications are unconstitutional).

It’s a pretty big legal hill to climb, but you gotta start somewhere.
posted by The Situationist Room with Guy Debord at 11:42 PM on November 19, 2018 [24 favorites]

Catherine Rampell, WaPo op-ed, Arkansas’s Medicaid experiment has proved disastrous, in which a Medicaid recipient had a full-time job, but no computer or smartphone, thought he only needed to report his work hours once instead of all the time, found out his insurance was cancelled when he went to pick up his COPD medication, got sick, ended up in the emergency room, and missed enough work that he lost his job.

Also, the website shuts down at night from 9pm to 7am because the state of Arkansas apparently thinks websites have open hours despite it being 2018.
posted by zachlipton at 1:24 AM on November 20, 2018 [77 favorites]

> Virginia Could Be The State To Give Women Equal Rights Nationwide (by ratifying the ERA)

The first time I became politically aware of anything when I was a little kid was when the ERA failed to get ratified before the deadline. I didn't follow politics, but I heard about it somehow (I probably overheard it while my parents were watching the The MacNeil/Lehrer Report,) and I was shocked and appalled. That's when I began to understand how fucking backwards much of this country still is. I'll be overjoyed if it can somehow be revived and ratified in my lifetime.
posted by homunculus at 1:42 AM on November 20, 2018 [18 favorites]

One of my first paying jobs was working for the National Women's Political Caucus as a canvasser for the ERA. It was a summer job in the late 70's. Small teams of young women would meet every morning on the Upper West Side and drive out to the green green suburbs of North Jersey to knock doors and raise money.

It was a fascinating glimpse into alternative lives. As it happened I was very very good at it, often winning the daily competition to raise the most money for the cause. Of course there were pockets of opposition, ignorant people who'd slam the door in my face but occasionally I'd really change someone's mind. Yes, with reason.

This was pre-Fox News of course. Sadly, Phyllis Schlafly's legacy lives on.
posted by 6thsense at 3:32 AM on November 20, 2018 [16 favorites]

Honestly, there ought to be a Recusal amendment to the US Constitution, at the very least, requiring recusal in all matters of law in which an elected official might have a direct conflict of interest.

Just off the top of my head, this means the Right will sue to force recusal for any (Democratic) woman who votes on abortion-related legislation.

Don’t trust in laws to protect us from people who have already proven they don’t care about laws.
posted by Etrigan at 3:34 AM on November 20, 2018 [48 favorites]

AL.com: Trump’s Southeast Regional EPA Administrator Indicted On Alabama Ethics Charges

Washington Post updates: Trump EPA Official Who Was Indicted On Ethics Charges Has Resigned—“I intend to focus on my family, fight these unfounded accusations and ultimately clear my name," Trey Glenn wrote in a resignation letter.

“On Monday, Wheeler’s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, wrote to Region 4 employees to inform them of the departure of Glenn, who had been appointed in summer 2017 by Administrator Scott Pruitt. [...] He announced that Mary Walker, the region’s deputy administrator, would step into the top role on an acting basis.”
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:13 AM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

The print edition had it as "Ivanka Trump May Be Target Of Democrats For Email Use", so while the online change is an improvement, the print edition headline was still crap.

And relevant to the Lakoff article, shooting Democrats in the foot twice. Once for the both-sides-minus-ClintonDerangementSyndrome, the other for active "protective father" framing.

NYT, you ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine.
posted by petebest at 5:32 AM on November 20, 2018 [19 favorites]

Trump Fans Sink Savings Into ‘Iraqi Dinar’ Scam
Trump supporter Hayes Kotseos runs a North Carolina pool-maintenance company, but she’s got a side bet that she thinks might make her fabulously wealthy: the Iraqi dinar.
The currency is nearly worthless outside of Iraq, but Kotseos bought millions of dinars in April, after watching a video of President Trump at a 2017 press conference. In the clip, Trump says, with characteristic vagueness, that all currencies will soon “be on a level playing field.”

What's that saying... 'Scratch a Trump fan, find a mark'?
posted by PenDevil at 5:50 AM on November 20, 2018 [26 favorites]

Holy shit, that's not a scam, it's yet another Trump-related (or at least adjacent) cult:

“It was like, OK, well, God said the Iraqi dinar is going to revalue,” Kotseos told The Daily Beast...On Facebook, some dinar groups are devoted to praying for the dinar revaluation to come sooner.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:13 AM on November 20, 2018 [8 favorites]

Why is Donald Trump so bad at being head of state? (Daniel Drezner, WaPo)

In the United States, the head of state and head of government are fused into one office, the presidency. Which means that as of right now, Donald Trump is both the head of state and the head of government.

When Trump was about to start his term of office as president, I had a deep sense of foreboding about how well he would do as the head of government. He has mostly lived down to my expectations. I suppose I should be grateful that his incompetence has sabotaged his more destructive policy efforts, but still, the midterm results mean he will face more formidable checks and balances than before.

To be honest, however, I expected Trump to do a better job as head of state. Being head of state requires a lot of pomp and circumstance and grandeur, which are qualities that would seem to fit a man fond of gold leaf. During the campaign it was clear that Trump enjoyed the pageantry of the presidency: the thought of riding Air Force One, and so forth. If there was any dimension of the presidency that Trump would embrace, I thought he would enjoy its symbolic moments.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:14 AM on November 20, 2018 [22 favorites]

I see the stable genius' tweeting "Fools!" at the new Pakistani Prime Minister in true foreign diplomacy fashion has not yet been covered.
posted by infini at 6:50 AM on November 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

To be honest, however, I expected Trump to do a better job as head of state.

I didn't expect him to be good at anything, but I didn't expect him to be this bad. He's the only president to not visit the troops. The reason that is consistently leaked is he is genuinely scared to go, but this makes no sense to me. It's not a phobia like being scared of getting on a plane. He likes to travel, and I'm sure it's been explained to him there's no real danger. But... it would be a drag, wouldn't it? You would have to put up with a night or two of not being royally pampered. There wouldn't be a button to receive endless soda on demand. The only real reason I can fathom for him not doing this is he just can't be bothered.
posted by xammerboy at 6:52 AM on November 20, 2018 [5 favorites]

The only real reason I can fathom for him not doing this is he just can't be bothered.
It's difficult for Trump to grok honoring and respecting others (unless they satisfy his personal dictator/father fetish, which he himself may not even be aware of). Honoring the military just for the sake of honoring them, or as part of his 'job's' duties would never, never occur to him. He's never had a job before, it's outside of his experience.
In a way he's one of the best embodiments of nationalism in general. An ideological extension of vanity, greed, hatred of responsibility to others, hatred of the participation in any community.
posted by Harry Caul at 6:59 AM on November 20, 2018 [10 favorites]

Isn't it documented that he hates travel, prefers to sleep in his own bed?
posted by infini at 7:00 AM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

The reason that is consistently leaked is he is genuinely scared to go, but this makes no sense to me.

I think he's afraid of their manliness and to stand next to their valor and heroism. That's why he likes a good anecdote about "big, strong guys" crying over Trump-love at rallies. Makes him feel good in some deeply troubled way.
posted by amanda at 7:01 AM on November 20, 2018 [11 favorites]

@radleybalko:

My God. If this is true, someone — probably several people — on the US federal payroll wrote a plan to cover up the murder of a journalist. Who of course was killed for writing critically about a US ally.

This is called “accessory after the fact.”

Pompeo handed Riyadh a plan to shield MBS from Khashoggi fallout, says source (David Hearst and Daniel Hilton, Middle East Eye)

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:01 AM on November 20, 2018 [72 favorites]

Trump's terrible at being head of state because sometimes the ceremonial aspects of the job involve honouring or, at the very least, placing the centre of attention on others, which must be a terrible ordeal for him, and if he can't be sitting in the middle of a crowd of people praising him he'd rather be playing golf or watching TV.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:32 AM on November 20, 2018 [12 favorites]

The whole orbit/inspection of the tree thing seemed like some bizarre half-baked ritual to invoke Santa or something.

Do presidents usually do that? I don't remember it, but then I never used to pay much attention to that part of the job. Or are they just making up easy stuff for Trump to do?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:39 AM on November 20, 2018

Trump's terrible at being head of state because sometimes the ceremonial aspects of the job involve honouring or, at the very least, placing the centre of attention on others

Aw, come on. He patted that horse on the butt!

This is the most human/humane thing I've seen him do his entire presidency. Is he doing/done the turkey pardon?
posted by bluesky43 at 7:44 AM on November 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

Pompeo handed Riyadh a plan to shield MBS from Khashoggi fallout, says source

Meanwhile, Reuters reports some Saudi royals are turning against MBS—"Dozens of princes and cousins from powerful branches of the Al Saud family want to see a change in the line of succession," according to several sources.

One can easily imagine a Saudi source leaking the Pompeo story to Middle East Eye in order to undercut MBS's support at court further ("The plan includes an option to pin the Saudi journalist’s murder on an innocent member of the ruling al-Saud family in order to insulate those at the very top" wouldn't go over very well with anyone worried they might be made the fall guy.) The MEE story has a single anonymous "senior Saudi source" for this explosive charge, but David Hearst is a veteran journalist, lately from the Guardian. For its part, Saudi Arabia claims the news site is funded by Qatar and is part of its rival's media-influence campaign (the same claim they've leveled against al-Jazeera).

Caveat lector, as usual, until other news outlets start investigating and corroborating it.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:46 AM on November 20, 2018 [8 favorites]

Usually the First Lady and the First Children do it, but sometimes the President also appears. It's been a tradition to mark the arrival of the tree since about 1961.
posted by all about eevee at 7:46 AM on November 20, 2018

Here are pictures and descriptions of the Christmas tree going back to the 60s. It's a big annual themed First Lady project.
posted by all about eevee at 7:47 AM on November 20, 2018

Is he doing/done the turkey pardon?

The white house official twitter is running a poll to let users choose between saving "Peas" or "Carrots"

[i want to make a diamond and silk joke so bad but the coffee isnt working yet]
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 7:51 AM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Mueller might soon bring charges that even Trump die-hards can't trivialize (Opinion, LA Times)

There are concrete indications that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is now about the business of laying down the last big pieces of the puzzle of Russian intervention in the 2016 election.

Mueller already has done the difficult digging on the Russian side of the equation, bringing detailed indictments in February 2018 for a wide-ranging Russian trolling operation related to the campaign, as well as the July 2016 hacking of Democratic Party emails. Now he’s looking to tie those allegations to people close to the Trump campaign.

The upshot may be allegations of “collusion,” of the sort the president has long denied. The actual charges are likely to be one of three criminal conspiracies: violating federal election laws, violating computer laws, or soliciting or receiving something of value from a foreign government.... They bring with them the possibility that Mueller might opt to name President Trump himself as an unindicted co-conspirator.

[Step one, indict Jerome Corsi] ... A fabulist, blowhard, and general odd duck, Corsi might seem like small quarry for Mueller. But as with Paul Manafort’s lobbying partner Rick Gates, whose cooperation anchored the tax and fraud case against the former Trump campaign manager, Corsi is directly connected to another Trump insider, Roger Stone. Stone was in regular contact with candidate Trump during the campaign, and perhaps with WikiLeaks and its Russian sources.

[Step two, get Manafort to sing]... Mueller requested a 10-day delay in submitting a status report on the ground that the later report would “be of greater assistance” to the court’s work determining what sentence Manafort deserves. ... The whole point of the enormous pressure Mueller brought to bear against Manafort was to shake loose information about persons above him in the food chain. Those are very few, arguably only Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner or Trump himself (who we know believes that Manafort could incriminate him).

[Step three, wrapping Flynn]... Finally, Mueller’s team is scheduled to file a long-delayed court memorandum Dec. 4, laying out its view of the value of the cooperation of former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty more than a year ago to lying about his contacts with a Russian official. His sentencing was put off four times as the prosecutors continued to develop new cases and charges based on the information he provided. That they are now prepared to close the books suggests that they will be informing the court, and thus the public, of the full extent of his cooperation, including imminent new charges or charges that have been filed under seal.

For Sale
Centipede shoes
Shit-covered
posted by petebest at 7:51 AM on November 20, 2018 [34 favorites]

> Mueller might soon bring charges that even Trump die-hards can't trivialize

Perhaps not if they believed that the charges were fairly brought and based on solid evidence of wrongdoing, but Trump and Fox and the rest of the reality distortion network will make sure that doesn't happen.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:59 AM on November 20, 2018 [7 favorites]

Mueller might soon bring charges that even Trump die-hards can't trivialize

They won't trivialize it, but they won't believe it, either. It'll be the rallying point they need to "save the president from the witch hunt." Effectively, it'll give Trump martyr status.
posted by Rykey at 8:12 AM on November 20, 2018 [12 favorites]

Democrats seem not to understand this, and they keep trying to employ reason as a persuasive vehicle. I wish Enlightenment reasoning was an accurate model for how most people think and judge, but it isn’t, and we better acknowledge that fact.

chortly: On what grounds is Lakoff making his argument? It sounds suspiciously like reasoning...

Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds -- New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. By Elizabeth Kolbert for the New Yorker, from the February 27, 2017 Issue

Providing people with accurate information doesn’t seem to help; they simply discount it. Appealing to their emotions may work better, but doing so is obviously antithetical to the goal of promoting sound science. “The challenge that remains,” they write toward the end of their book, “is to figure out how to address the tendencies that lead to false scientific belief.”

This is about the book “Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts That Will Save Us” (Oxford), written by Jack Gorman, a psychiatrist, and his daughter, Sara Gorman, a public-health specialist, writing on decades of research in this area.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:18 AM on November 20, 2018 [18 favorites]

I think it's difficult to comprehend the extent to which many (most? all?) of Trump's supporters are all in on him. His beliefs are their beliefs, his triumphs are their triumphs, the threats to him are threats to them...their very identities and senses of self are intertwined with Trump, almost certainly for good. I know I'll never fully understand it. What I do know is that they're not going to jettison that level of psychological and emotional investment because he and/or his underlings are charged with crimes by individuals and institutions Trump has told them they can't trust.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:24 AM on November 20, 2018 [22 favorites]

Horse pedantry and background: That horse was wearing blinders and couldn't see Trump. It may have seemed nice but it wasn't smart or kind. If a horse can't see you and you pat it on the hindquarters without warning, you're putting yourself at risk of a solid kick or at least a tail lashing out of pure reflex. I doubt that he asked the horse for permission. The other horse looked like it was feeling a bit done with the whole thing. Link to the gif on twitter again.

In fairness, most breeds of draft horses are known for their good natures though individual horses may vary. It is presumably a well trained one actively working in harness, so it probably wasn't a large risk to take. But if you want to pat a horse, get permission from the person and the horse, and pat it on the shoulder, not the backside.

If something had happened, I would have dusted off my recipe for peppermint horse cookies and made some for the horses of my acquaintance, in honor of that patriotic horse.
posted by monopas at 8:44 AM on November 20, 2018 [48 favorites]

I would note that the Federal Records Act of 2014 that Ivanka violated in her use of email was passed unanimously by Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate. That almost never happens, particularly during the Obama administration. Seems that everyone agreed it was really important and not to be taken lightly.
posted by JackFlash at 9:10 AM on November 20, 2018 [21 favorites]

LRB blog has a nasty little story: Trump Cleaners Inc.
posted by adamvasco at 9:20 AM on November 20, 2018 [8 favorites]

Appealing to their emotions may work better, but doing so is obviously antithetical to the goal of promoting sound science. “The challenge that remains,” they write toward the end of their book, “is to figure out how to address the tendencies that lead to false scientific belief.”

You attach an emotional weight to belief in science

Which you’d have to do at a cultural level

And then you have to worry about who gets to define what’s “scientific”

Society in general relies on experts and authority figures. Nothing else really scales. We just have to get better ones. And we might have to wait for the worst of the rightwing cult to die off to get much traction.

OTOH we definitely have to do something about Fox News and the fascist takeover of YouTube. Like as soon as possible.

So...just a minor project, then.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:27 AM on November 20, 2018 [14 favorites]

The White House just issued a press release: Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia. It's not ... good.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:44 AM on November 20, 2018 [32 favorites]

Despite that site being part of the same platform that hosts the Onion, it is [real].
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:48 AM on November 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

"America First!"
"The world is very dangerous place!"

You can practically see the FNORDs at the end of those sentences. And then it just gets more insane from there.
posted by Freon at 9:49 AM on November 20, 2018 [19 favorites]

it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!

‾\_(ツ)_/‾

christ on a crutch
posted by uncleozzy at 9:50 AM on November 20, 2018 [53 favorites]

>> The White House just issued a press release: Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia. It's not ... good.
> Despite that site being part of the same platform that hosts the Onion, it is [real].
> Oh my god.

Setting aside the content for a moment - has there ever been a Presidential statement with eight (EIGHT!) exclamation points? This statement reads at a middle school level, and it makes me feel deeply ashamed that this is an official statement from our Government.

And then the content. Hoo boy.
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:50 AM on November 20, 2018 [42 favorites]

Federal Court Blocks Trump Administration's Asylum Ban - Emily Sullivan, NPR
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:51 AM on November 20, 2018 [12 favorites]

Providing people with accurate information doesn’t seem to help; they simply discount it. Appealing to their emotions may work better, but doing so is obviously antithetical to the goal of promoting sound science.

I keep reading this, but I can't accept it. It doesn't align with my personal experiences or my beliefs about how the world is supposed to work.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:55 AM on November 20, 2018 [17 favorites]

Jesus fuck. It almost looks like he actually wrote it himself, 6 exclamation points (not counting those "quoting" Iran), a couple of bizarre little asides, and a rambling bunch of BS that amounts to nothing.
posted by sotonohito at 9:58 AM on November 20, 2018 [11 favorites]

it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!

CNN's Sarah Westwood: "As @kaitlancollins reported, President Trump has not yet received the CIA's Khashoggi report yet (it is expected to be delivered today). So the President released this statement on Saudi Arabia before he even reviewed the latest intel on what happened."

Slate's Jamelle Bouie "reading this you would think the united states is a client state of saudi arabia" Bouie's being ironic, of course—the logical conclusion is that Trump, and Jared, are wholly in thrall to MBS and the KSA.
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:00 AM on November 20, 2018 [53 favorites]

Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an “enemy of the state” and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that – this is an unacceptable and horrible crime.

So...calling journalists enemies of the state is bad, or only when you murder them?
posted by kirkaracha at 10:04 AM on November 20, 2018 [12 favorites]

Painter/MAGA cultist Jon McNaughton has revealed his new masterwork, featuring, I shit you not, Trump evading Cory Booker, Bill de Blasio, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Richard Blumenthal, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin to score a touchdown.
posted by vverse23 at 10:06 AM on November 20, 2018 [11 favorites]

Setting aside the content for a moment - has there ever been a Presidential statement with eight (EIGHT!) exclamation points?

Personally I don't think an official presidential statement should have any exclamation points. Something something decorum something something gravitas.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:06 AM on November 20, 2018 [12 favorites]

Painter/MAGA cultist Jon McNaughton has revealed his new masterwork ...

This is satirical, right? Please tell me this is meant to be satirical.

... Oh, and the first comment FTW: "No way a guy with bone spurs runs like that."
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:10 AM on November 20, 2018 [27 favorites]

I had to triple-check the legitimacy of that statement because it's so batshit. Even after every crazy, stupid thing this White House has said and done, I still somehow have some sense of "this can't be real," except it is, and here we are.

It's so hard to believe anyone sat down and typed that. My only guess is Trump shouted something like "You write down exactly what I'm telling you!" and this was the result of someone trying to sort through his word salad--and then Trump edited it.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:12 AM on November 20, 2018 [30 favorites]

Trump, as usual, relies on his claim -- false, as far as anyone outside the White House can tell -- that Saudi has agreed to $450 billion worth of purchases from the U.S., including $110 billion in military purchases.

Worth noting that Saudia Arabia's GDP, literally the value of everything every citizen produces in a year, is less than $700 billion. Astonishing that Trump would have you believe that Saudi Arabia is going to send more than half of everything they make in a year to the U.S., even if spread over a decade.
posted by JackFlash at 10:12 AM on November 20, 2018 [22 favorites]

Providing people with accurate information doesn’t seem to help; they simply discount it. Appealing to their emotions may work better, but doing so is obviously antithetical to the goal of promoting sound science.

As soon as someone goes On The Record with a belief, it takes an unusually mature person to then say, "Well actually, I've looked into this more and I've changed my mind." The problem with 2018 is that social media means that everyone and their drunk uncle is able to go on the record with their opinion to an audience of hundreds the second their amygdala activates*.

The reason that the Iraq War(s) are now so unpopular isn't because they were always unpopular with the general population, it's because the general population wasn't publicly announcing their support for them to every single person they ever knew in 1991 or 2002 or whatever. Millions of people have very conveniently forgotten that they were "for it before they were against it" and can walk around pretending that they were right there at the barricades protesting with the very same people they called pinko hippies at the time.

I've been on the internet a long time and realized decades ago that there are a lot of cases where deleting everything you wrote before you actually post it pays great dividends when inevitably the person you were about to post in support of Milkshake Ducks spectacularly. But this is a lesson learned of long, hard experience.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:14 AM on November 20, 2018 [20 favorites]

Painter/MAGA cultist Jon McNaughton has revealed his new masterwork

The painting suggest he ran about 60 yards, which is improbable. Also his whole team is back there; is he supposed to be a wide receiver that just caught a pass? He's pretty chunky for that. But the blue team player's positions look more like they're trying to stop a run. And he's doing Desmond Howard's Heisman Trophy pose.

"When they played football in the old days they didn’t have facemasks. It was a time of blood, guts, and glory." And brain damage, which could explain a lot. And people dying on the field, so they started using helmets.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:15 AM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

“World’s leading sponsor of terror” is the tagline that Iran uses in its podcast ads, so at least that part checks out.
posted by snofoam at 10:15 AM on November 20, 2018 [8 favorites]

The Illegitimacy of the Ruling Class: Americans are losing faith in governance by the elite.

Increasingly we see power stripped naked, no longer protected by the veneer of legitimacy. Legitimacy, or what Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci called hegemony, is always provisional. Rather than coercion, it requires voluntary submission, which lasts only as long as it is consented to. This naked power was personified in Kavanaugh’s sputtering rage at being called to account. A similar lifting of façades is apparent in white supremacist rallies, in the right-wing evangelical alliance with Trump that makes no pretense of his piety, in the conversion of the Environmental Protection Agency into an arm of the coal and oil industries, and in deep tax cuts for the wealthy alongside a staggering outlay for military expenditures. The emperor wears no clothes.

...

Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony served as a window into what Corey Robin calls “the private life of power.” In Commonweal, writer John Gehring described his prep school football team chanting, after a loss to a mostly black school, “That’s all right, that’s okay, you will work for us someday!” This socialization, in all its valorization of hierarchy and its intimate entanglement with violence, produces the future leaders of a state built to preserve class, gender and racial domination.

The state, however, is by no means monolithic. All states, and particularly liberal democracies, are a terrain of struggle between different groups, in which social movements of the exploited and the oppressed can contest or even capture power. The events surrounding Kavanaugh’s appointment were enmeshed in an unusually frank conversation about sexual assault, and gave new momentum to an increasingly militant and rebellious feminism, one that sees patriarchy as part of a regime of social and economic oppression. Reverberating through Ford’s statement, as in so many recent public acts of protest and testimony, is this tremble of hegemony fracturing.

posted by homunculus at 10:17 AM on November 20, 2018 [26 favorites]

You know what really pisses me off with this statement, besides how insane and 4th grade it is?

The President* is supposed to be the world's best negotiator; that's why he's the best, he gets all the deals etc has all the leverage.

He is admitting (and has been admitting for awhile) that they have no leverage over Saudi Arabia. They have all the leverage over us; we get upset about one innocent person being killed and then BOOM! diplomatic relationship over.

So he just told the world "I have no ability to negotiate here. I have no ability to demand any more from Saudi Arabia." Is...that how the world's best negotiator operates? They openly assess how strong the other side is and that their hands are tied? This...this is the piece of shit strongman we elected, who in fact is the coward we've thought all along?

There's like a thousand "irony is dead" moments here but this one kills me. He is happy to be strong-armed by dictators, which is known, but then happy to proclaim that he can't do anything about international incidents! Because my hands are tied! Such a f***ing idiot.
posted by andruwjones26 at 10:18 AM on November 20, 2018 [66 favorites]

That press release literally reads like something I wrote in 2nd grade.
posted by gucci mane at 10:20 AM on November 20, 2018 [9 favorites]

One more thing on the football painting: one of his teammates is taking a knee during the play. Colin Kaepernick?

And Hillary Clinton's on the sidelines holding a What Happened? sign.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:23 AM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

The President of the United States just released an official written statement that he does not care whether the Saudi Crown Prince ordered the assassination of a US resident or not. Now he is pardoning a turkey. None of this is a joke. None of this is, in fact, normal. All of this has to come crashing down, and soon.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:24 AM on November 20, 2018 [41 favorites]

One deleted; gonna ask that we reel it back in a little with the chat/reaction/ugh this fucker.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:29 AM on November 20, 2018

A trio of articles from Ars Technica:

Russia’s Cozy Bear comes out of hiding with post-election spear-phishing blitz -- Emails that seem eerily familiar masquerade as US State Department. (Dan Goodin, Nov. 19, 2018)

Attackers suspected of working for the Russian government masqueraded as a US State Department official in an attempt to infect dozens of organizations in government, military, defense contracting, media, and other industries, researchers from security firm FireEye warned on Monday.

The spear-phishing campaign began last Wednesday. This is almost exactly two years after the Russian hacking group known under a variety of monikers, including APT29 and Cozy Bear, sent a similar barrage of emails that targeted many of the same industries, FireEye said in a blog post. The tactics and techniques used in both post-election campaigns largely overlap, leading FireEye to suspect the new one is also the work of the Russian-government-controlled hacking arm. FireEye researchers Matthew Dunwoody, Andrew Thompson, Ben Withnell, Jonathan Leathery, Michael Matonis, and Nick Carr wrote:
Analysis of this activity is ongoing, but if the APT29 attribution is strengthened, it would be the first activity uncovered from this sophisticated group in at least a year. Given the widespread nature of the targeting, organizations that have previously been targeted by APT29 should take note of this activity. For network defenders, whether or not this activity was conducted by APT29 should be secondary to properly investigating the full scope of the intrusion, which is of critical importance if the elusive and deceptive APT29 operators indeed had access to your environment.

Ajit Pai isn’t saying whether ISPs deliver the broadband speeds you pay for -- FCC is still measuring in-home speeds—but hasn't released report in two years. (Jon Brodkin, Nov. 19, 2018)

Nearly two years have passed since the Federal Communications Commission reported on whether broadband customers are getting the Internet speeds they pay for.

In 2011, the Obama-era FCC began measuring (PDF) broadband speeds in nearly 7,000 consumer homes as part of the then-new Measuring Broadband America program. Each year from 2011 to 2016, the FCC released an annual report comparing the actual speeds customers received to the advertised speeds customers were promised by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, AT&T, and other large ISPs.

But the FCC hasn't released any new Measuring Broadband America reports since Republican Ajit Pai became the commission chairman in January 2017. Pai's first year as chair was the first time the FCC failed to issue a new Measuring Broadband America report since the program started—though the FCC could release a new report before his second year as chair is complete.

For more than three months, Ars has been trying to find out whether the FCC is still analyzing Measuring Broadband America data and whether the FCC plans to release any more measurement reports. SamKnows, the measurement company used by the FCC for this program, told Ars that Measuring Broadband America is still active and that a new report is forthcoming, hopefully next month. But whether the report is released is up to the FCC, and Chairman Pai's public relations office has ignored our questions about the program.

Because of Pai's office's silence, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request on August 13 for internal emails about the Measuring Broadband America program and for broadband speed measurement data since January 2017. By law, the FCC and other federal agencies have 20 business days to respond to public records requests.

The FCC responded to us but denied our request (PDF) for "expedited processing." We had argued that expedited processing was warranted because the broadband measuring data is out of date, depriving American consumers of crucial information when they purchase broadband access.

Charter, Comcast don’t have 1st Amendment right to discriminate, court rules -- Byron Allen's multi-billion dollar suits against Charter and Comcast can proceed. (Jon Brodkin, Nov. 19, 2018)

A US appeals court ruling today said that cable companies do not have a First Amendment right to discriminate against minority-run TV channels.

Charter, the second-largest US cable company after Comcast, was sued in January 2016 (PDF) by Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios Networks (ESN), which alleged that Charter violated the Civil Rights Act of 1866 by refusing to carry TV channels run by the African-American-owned ESN. Allen, a comedian and producer, founded ESN in 1993 and is its CEO; the lawsuit seeks more than $10 billion in damages from Charter.

Charter argued that the case should be dismissed, claiming that the First Amendment bars such claims because cable companies are allowed "editorial discretion." But Charter's motion to dismiss the case was denied by the US District Court for the Central District of California, and the District Court's denial was upheld unanimously today (PDF) by a three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

UPDATE: The appeals court also ruled against Comcast (PDF) in a similar civil rights case in which ESN seeks more than $20 billion. Comcast had argued in a brief (PDF) that "the First Amendment prohibits plaintiffs from suing to alter Comcast's selection of a programming lineup." But today's ruling allows ESN's lawsuit against Comcast to proceed as well.

posted by filthy light thief at 10:31 AM on November 20, 2018 [15 favorites]

Long, horrifying article on the tech firms that scrape the internet and social media to help ICE hunt people. Mostly immigrants, right now, but, you know. Some activists, too.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:40 AM on November 20, 2018 [25 favorites]

Fun fact: This turkey has spent more time at the podium in the White House briefing room than @PressSec for the entire month of November!

-ABC News' Alex Mallin via twitter. [link to tweet with photo of turkey]
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 10:59 AM on November 20, 2018 [42 favorites]

Fun fact: This turkey has spent more time at the podium in the White House briefing room than @PressSec for the entire month of November!

It's a bold statement for ABC News to be so openly disrespectful of the president.
posted by Gelatin at 11:07 AM on November 20, 2018 [16 favorites]

chortly: On what grounds is Lakoff making his argument? It sounds suspiciously like reasoning...

Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds -- New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. By Elizabeth Kolbert for the New Yorker, from the February 27, 2017 Issue

Providing people with accurate information doesn’t seem to help; they simply discount it. Appealing to their emotions may work better, but doing so is obviously antithetical to the goal of promoting sound science. “The challenge that remains,” they write toward the end of their book, “is to figure out how to address the tendencies that lead to false scientific belief.”

Not to go down too much of a philosophical derail, but my point while made in jest is kind of serious: Lakoff, Kolbert, the Gormans, etc, are trying to explain to their readers using logic, facts and reasoning why logic, facts and reasoning don't work. The trivial point to make here is that this is amusingly and almost necessarily self-contradictory, but actually that indicates a deeper philosophical and empirical point: the effects these scientists detect, from Kahneman and Tversky onward, are heterogeneous: while on average people are not very responsive to information and reasons, that doesn't hold for everyone everywhere, especially in aggregate. Science advances, genuine policy wonks hold policy discussions and reach conclusions that may be biased but are not totally disassociated from reality, individuals do rational stuff in response to daily information all the time. What they have found is that in a domain that is highly emotional and low-information, the average person tends not to respond very much to new information -- but as their articles and entire academic lives show, they nevertheless believe that in many many domains, there is some degree of reasoning and facts. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in particular this heterogeneity is correlated with ideology: the center-left, for instance, is much more responsive to reasons and facts than the center-right, especially if you look at the most educated people with less polarized issues. What we are all doing right here, almost inescapably, is engaging in a mix of emotional and rational argument, and it's both logically self-contradictory and factually false to sweep all the facts and reasoning away in broad claims like "Facts Don't Change Our Minds" or "providing people with accurate information doesn't seem to help." Those assertions may be provisionally true in some areas or on average, but aren't applicable everywhere, as the scientists themselves will admit when you ask them (usually blaming the journalists for the hyperbole, but in my experience it's a collaborative misrepresentation).
posted by chortly at 11:09 AM on November 20, 2018 [14 favorites]

Lakoff/framing stuff should probably get its own thread if folks want to really pursue that.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:11 AM on November 20, 2018 [7 favorites]

NBC, Feds have paid undercover informants in migrant caravan

The Department of Homeland Security is gathering intelligence from paid undercover informants inside the migrant caravan that is now reaching the California-Mexico border as well as monitoring the text messages of migrants, according to two DHS officials.

The 4,000 migrants, mainly from Honduras, have used WhatsApp text message groups as a way to organize and communicate along their journey to the California border, and DHS personnel have joined those groups to gather that information.
...
On Monday, DHS officials told reporters that their intelligence on Sunday night had indicated that a group of migrants wanted to run through the car lanes of a border crossing near San Diego. Customs and Border Protection shut down all northbound lanes of the crossing from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. as a result. However, the ambush was never attempted.

51,000 people were apprehended between points of entry at the southern border last month, but we're devoting all these resources to these particular 4,000?
posted by zachlipton at 11:32 AM on November 20, 2018 [7 favorites]

It's so hard to believe anyone sat down and typed that. My only guess is Trump shouted something like "You write down exactly what I'm telling you!" and this was the result of someone trying to sort through his word salad--and then Trump edited it.

The Times story confirms this, via a "senior administration official" who is almost definitely Trump himself (notice who contributed reporting). L. Ron Hubbard also wrote a lot of books this way, maybe that's what gives this press release its piquant Dianetics flavor.
posted by theodolite at 11:32 AM on November 20, 2018 [14 favorites]

Lock her up? (Alexandra Petri, WaPo)

All the bells clanged in every port, in every steeple of every church. As the somber knell rang out over the entire land, President Trump sat motionless at his window, gazing out over the countryside.

“You know the penalty, my lord.”

He nodded. He knew the penalty. That was why the bells tolled.

All the flags slid all the way to the bottom of the staff. A velvet drapery was placed over every statue, even the good ones he was annoyed the states were trying to replace. Around the neck of every ox, a small bell rang mournfully with every step.

What could the nation do but weep?

In the towns they began to rend their garments. The ploughmen at their plows doffed their soft caps and threw them to the ground and trampled upon them. The valleys were still, and the glens and dells, but if you listened you could hear the faerie folk lamenting, and a mournful tinkling as many tiny bells began to ring out. The oceans halted momentarily in their rise.

All the shoes everywhere were placed into a pile and burned. All the books, too, but that was unrelated.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:39 AM on November 20, 2018 [29 favorites]

Cindy Hyde-Smith: I enjoyed my tour of Beauvoir. The Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library located in Biloxi. This is a must see. Currently on display are artifacts connected to the daily life of the Confederate Soldier including weapons. Mississippi history at its best!

Yep. She posted that to her public Facebook account.
posted by rdr at 11:39 AM on November 20, 2018 [21 favorites]

@CBSNews [video]: At the annual White House turkey pardon just now, Pres. Trump took a Thanksgiving-themed swipe at Democrats: "Even though Peas and Carrots have received a presidential pardon, I have warned them that House Democrats are likely to issue them both subpoenas"

I wasn't going to post this because it's just kind of meaningless and stupid, but thinking about it, it seems to be a window into how he sees the world. If you watch, he takes a crack at the 9th Circuit as well. This is all teleprompter stuff, pre-planned, and he can't manage to do the damn turkey pardon without attacking the rule of law. It also makes me think he's just a bit worried about House oversight, and has me concerned what he has planned for pardons.

Anyway, Most turkeys only live a few months after a presidential pardon
posted by zachlipton at 11:54 AM on November 20, 2018 [15 favorites]

Pollster Matt McDermott: It gets worse for Cindy Hyde-Smith, per @JuddLegum: in photos posted from the visit to the Davis house, she is seen posing with Greg Stewart. Stewart is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a member of Free Mississippi, a hate group.

posted by murphy slaw at 12:07 PM on November 20, 2018 [34 favorites]

he pardoned both turkeys? can't even get that right.
posted by 20 year lurk at 12:09 PM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

Cindy Hyde-Smith is acting only as a red-meat merchant right now, which is like a red herring but stinkier. Don't give news cycle lightning rods the attention, especially in cases like this where the person has no actual power. She is an appointed senator in the midst of a contested election next Tuesday.
posted by rhizome at 12:09 PM on November 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

he pardoned both turkeys? can't even get that right.

For the past two decades there has been a bird and a backup bird with cutesy matching names and they've both been pardoned. He's just doing the norm since GWB.
posted by peeedro at 12:17 PM on November 20, 2018 [8 favorites]

Cindy Hyde-Smith is acting only as a red-meat merchant right now, which is like a red herring but stinkier. Don't give news cycle lightning rods the attention, especially in cases like this where the person has no actual power. She is an appointed senator in the midst of a contested election next Tuesday.

But I think the donation $$ she was getting is news...
posted by armacy at 12:28 PM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

So he just told the world "I have no ability to negotiate here. I have no ability to demand any more from Saudi Arabia." Is...that how the world's best negotiator operates?

Since Trump's entire worldview revolves around dominance, rolling over and showing his belly is his only option. Just as with his Helsinki meeting with Putin, he surrenders in public and in the most servile manner.

Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an “enemy of the state” and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood

Thanks, Dumb Donnie, for confirming the Washington Post's scoop earlier this month about how MBS described Kashoggi to Trump in a phone call—which, of course, a Saudi official had to deny happened (“no such commentary was conveyed”).

Meanwhile, the Hill's Jordan Fabian follows up with the reaction from the US Secretary of State:

Pompeo backs up Trump statement, tells State Dept. reporters "it's a mean, nasty world out there" and importance of Saudi alliance is "straightforward"

"This is a long, historic commitment and one that is absolutely vital to America's national security"

Former US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power retorts: "It IS a mean & nasty world, but Trump’s siding with the meanest and nastiest out there (whether Duterte, Sisi, Putin, or assassin MBS) will leave the world even nastier. This statement is a green light for would-be murderers in countries that have things Trump thinks we need."
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:32 PM on November 20, 2018 [34 favorites]

It's time for people to get in front of microphones and say stuff:

@EamonJavers, this morning: Kudlow: “I’m reading some of the weirdest stuff how a recession is in the future- nonsense.”

"There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong. It’s not going to happen." -Kudlow, Dec. 2007

@PhilipinDC: Trump, answering @PeterAlexander’s question on whether he’s afraid of going to a war zone: “I’m going to a war zone.”

@jdawsey1: “It is what it is,” Potus says of Khashoggi killing and Saudi Arabia while leaving the White House.

Just some inspiring leadership here.

After DOJ's Sunday filing, with a Monday order from the judge directing a Tuesday response, DOJ nonetheless decided to skip over Furman and filed at the 2nd Circuit seeking a stay of all further proceedings pending #SCOTUS ruling in the evidence case.

Update: 2nd Circuit says no, you just asked the district court two days ago, you actually need to lose there before we'll talk to you. Meanwhile, lawyers for the plaintiffs have pointed out that the government has filed a motion to delay this case an average of every week between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.

Also, please enjoy this pre-Thanksgiving public service announcement from this garbage fire of a country: get rid of all your romaine lettuce immediately, again.
posted by zachlipton at 12:37 PM on November 20, 2018 [16 favorites]

A few comments deleted. There's a thread for romaine lettuce. Folks, please don't just use these threads as a dumping ground for every news item or "we're fucked" thing that crosses your radar screen. There's a whole site where you can post about things worth discussing. These threads are for stuff related to potus45 and US national politics, they're not just "everybody hang out here forever talking about whatever", because that will slowly kill the rest of the site.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 1:06 PM on November 20, 2018 [41 favorites]

Trump’s Base Isn’t Enough

This year’s results do serve as a warning to Trump in one important sense, however: His base alone will not be enough to win a second term. Throughout the stretch run of the 2018 midterm campaign, Trump and Republicans highlighted highly charged partisan issues, from the Central American migrant caravan to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. And Republican voters did indeed turn out in very high numbers: GOP candidates for the House received more than 50 million votes, more than the roughly 45 million they got in 2010.

But it wasn’t enough, or even close to enough. Problem No. 1 is that Republicans lost among swing voters: Independent voters went for Democrats by a 12-point margin, and voters who voted for a third-party candidate in 2016 went to Democrats by 13 points.

Trump and Republicans also have Problem No. 2, however: Their base is smaller than the Democratic one. This isn’t quite as much of a disadvantage as it might seem; the Democratic base is less cohesive and therefore harder to govern. Democratic voters are sometimes less likely to turn out, although that wasn’t a problem this year. And because Republican voters are concentrated in rural, agrarian states, the GOP has a big advantage in the Senate.

Nonetheless, it does mean that Republicans can’t win the presidency by turning out their base alone, a strategy that sometimes is available to Democrats.

posted by kirkaracha at 1:09 PM on November 20, 2018 [12 favorites]

Frontline: Documenting Hate: New American Nazis "In the wake of the deadly anti-Semitic attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, FRONTLINE and ProPublica present a new investigation into white supremacist groups in America – in particular, a neo-Nazi group, Atomwaffen Division, that has actively recruited inside the U.S. military. Continuing FRONTLINE and ProPublica’s reporting on violent white supremacists in the U.S. (which has helped lead to multiple arrests), this joint investigation shows the group’s terrorist objectives and how it gained strength after the 2017 Charlottesville rally."

ProPublica: An Atomwaffen Member Sketched a Map to Take the Neo-Nazis Down. What Path Officials Took Is a Mystery. "Some experts and former officials see the case as part of a larger pattern, evidence that federal agencies are understaffed and out of position in confronting the threat of white supremacist terrorism — even as the FBI’s latest report shows a spike in hate crimes for the third straight year."

Democracy Now interview with lead reporter: New American Nazis: Inside the White Supremacist Movement That Fueled Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting

How America’s Perpetual Warfare Abroad Is Fueling an Increase in White Supremacist Violence in U.S.
posted by homunculus at 1:21 PM on November 20, 2018 [27 favorites]

"Some experts and former officials see the case as part of a larger pattern, evidence that federal agencies are understaffed and out of position in confronting the threat of white supremacist terrorism — even as the FBI’s latest report shows a spike in hate crimes for the third straight year."

Understaffed, you say? A mystery? Maybe it's a little more like a resistance.

a neo-Nazi group, Atomwaffen Division, that has actively recruited inside the U.S. military

LOOK OVER THERE and surely nowhere else.
posted by rhizome at 1:44 PM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

WaPo, Conservative nonprofit with obscure roots and undisclosed funders paid Matthew Whitaker $1.2 million. He was the only employee. Plenty more shady business with this nonprofit behind the link.

BuzzFeed, Hamed Aleaziz, A Judge Slams ICE Officials For Lying As He Orders Dozens Of Iraqis Released: "The judge in Michigan ruled that the Iraqis must be released because their country will never agree to their return. Most are members of religious minorities." This is the case in which ICE told the court that it was the judge's order that stopped a repatriation flight, when in reality, Iraq refused to accept it. The judge was not amused.

AP, Ken Sweet, AP Exclusive: Audit points to deceptive practices by Navient. Navient being deceptive is hardly surprising, but a larger angle here is that the Department of Education seems to have orchestrated the cover-up. Navient says they have no obligation to discuss other repayment options with borrowers.

One of the nation’s largest student loan servicing companies may have driven tens of thousands of borrowers struggling with their debts into higher-cost repayment plans.

That’s the finding of a Department of Education audit of practices at Navient Corp., the nation’s third-largest student loan servicing company.

The conclusions of the 2017 audit, which until now have been kept from the public and were obtained by The Associated Press, appear to support federal and state lawsuits that accuse Navient of boosting its profits by steering some borrowers into the high-cost plans without discussing options that would have been less costly in the long run.

The education department has not shared the audit’s findings with the plaintiffs in the lawsuits. In fact, even while knowing of its conclusions, the department repeatedly argued that state and other federal authorities do not have jurisdiction over Navient’s business practices.

Quartz, The IRS hired private debt collectors who are squeezing poor people and hurricane victims. They don't seem to be collecting a whole lot, and they take a large chunk of what they do collect, which includes money from hurricane victims who are supposed to be exempt from collection efforts. Congress has made the IRS try private debt collectors in 1996 and 2006, and the efforts caused net losses each time. Oh, and:

Two US senators pushed the IRS to outsource its debt collection to private companies through this program: Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, and Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York who has hailed the initiative for bringing jobs to one of the poorest parts of his state. As if by coincidence, three of the four debt-collecting companies contracted by the IRS are based in Iowa and New York. They declined to comment on the program.

posted by zachlipton at 1:51 PM on November 20, 2018 [29 favorites]

Washington Post has uncovered more about the AAG's tenure at FACT: Conservative Nonprofit With Obscure Roots And Undisclosed Funders Paid Matthew Whitaker $1.2 Million

"In the three years after he arrived in Washington in 2014, Matthew G. Whitaker received more than $1.2 million as the leader of a charity that reported having no other employees, some of the best pay of his career. [...] Whitaker’s 2017 pay from the charity — more than $500,000 for the first nine months, or half the charity’s receipts for the year, according to tax filings — and the group’s earlier, dormant incarnation have not been previously reported by media."

Wingnut welfare is a sweet gig if you can get it.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:51 PM on November 20, 2018 [17 favorites]

Ryan Zinke Blames 'Radical Environmentalists' For California Fires.
“I will lay this on the foot of those environmental radicals that have prevented us from managing the forests for years. And you know what? This is on them,”
10 Nov. Pasadena Fire Association
The fires in So. Cal are urban interface fires and have NOTHING to do with forest management. Come to SoCal and learn the facts & help the victims. Scott Austin, Pres IAFF 809. @IAFFNewsDes
posted by adamvasco at 1:53 PM on November 20, 2018 [24 favorites]

But wait, there's still more on the rule of law beat, and I'm curious if McGhan is talking now that he's out of a job. NYT, Schmidt and Haberman, Trump Wanted to Order Justice Dept. to Prosecute Comey and Clinton

President Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

The lawyer, Donald F. McGahn II, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. Mr. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, Mr. McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Mr. Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.
...
It is unclear whether Mr. Trump read Mr. McGahn’s memo or whether he pursued the prosecutions further. But the president has continued to privately discuss the matter, including the possible appointment of a second special counsel to investigate both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Comey, according to two people who have spoken to Mr. Trump about the issue. He has also repeatedly expressed disappointment in the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, for failing to more aggressively investigate Mrs. Clinton, calling him weak, one of the people said.

The memo is reportedly several pages, so I'm going to assume he didn't read it.
posted by zachlipton at 1:55 PM on November 20, 2018 [25 favorites]

Trump Wanted to Order Justice Dept. to Prosecute Comey and Clinton

That's gotta be a typo, right? Surely he would ask the Justice Department to investigate Comey and Clinton, and the Justice Department would only prosecute them if the investigation found they'd committed crimes.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:02 PM on November 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

its right there in the first sentence of the story. . . trump having, at best, a completely fantastical idea of how one of his own gov't agencies runs is by FAR the least surprising bit of reporting there.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 2:03 PM on November 20, 2018 [11 favorites]

Surely he would ask the Justice Department to investigate Comey and Clinton, and the Justice Department would only prosecute them if the investigation found they'd committed crimes.

Is that sarcasm? I can't tell anymore.

Also, Trump has submitted his take-home open book test to Mueller.
posted by Justinian at 2:04 PM on November 20, 2018 [11 favorites]

More on the breaking news from ABC: Trump Submits Written Responses to Special Counsel "The President today answered written questions submitted by The Special Counsel's Office. The questions presented dealt with issues regarding the Russia-related topics of the inquiry. The President responded in writing,” Jay Sekulow told ABC in a statement. Giuliani added, "It has been our position from the outset that much of what has been asked raised serious constitutional issues and was beyond the scope of a legitimate inquiry. This remains our position today. The President has nonetheless provided unprecedented cooperation."

Meanwhile, back at the Special Counsel's office, Politico's Darren Samuelsohn reports: "Another NEW sealed motion just filed -- apparently from Mueller -- in the mystery grand jury subpoena case we've been tracking here at @politico - This one is 3,074 words. http://ow.ly/UyKY30mGZe1 "
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:13 PM on November 20, 2018 [7 favorites]

Sacramento Bee, Trump promised California $500 million extra for fire prevention. It was an error. And by "error," what they really mean is "lie," because the funding doesn't exist and nobody is asking for it. What the administration is asking for is "new authorizations that would allow the government to circumvent environmental restrictions when conducting forest management work," because of course they are. Forestry experts and environmental groups oppose the measures, which focus on promoting commercial logging.

Lying about $500 million in funding doesn't look quite as bad as throwing paper towels, but pretty high up there on the scale of mistreating disaster victims.
posted by zachlipton at 2:15 PM on November 20, 2018 [27 favorites]

"It has been our position from the outset that much of what has been asked raised serious constitutional issues and was beyond the scope of a legitimate inquiry. This remains our position today.

This is what you say when your client didn't actually respond to any of the other side's discovery requests and you're about to get called in by the judge and ordered to respond. Except here Whitaker is looming and the Judge is Brett Kavanaugh.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:17 PM on November 20, 2018 [10 favorites]

The amount and style of cooperation the president has provided is certainly unprecedented.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:21 PM on November 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

...and that was the moment he truly became the unprecedent.
posted by 20 year lurk at 2:25 PM on November 20, 2018 [19 favorites]

Turns out Matt Whittaker is quite the grifter. I looked up the Form 990 for his non-profit, Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust.

In 2015 his foundation had $500,000 income and he paid himself $250,000 -- 50% of all money collected.

In 2016 his foundation had $1,350,000 income and he paid himself $400,000 -- 30% of all money collected.

The right-wing grift. Collecting money from stupid people and then lining your own pockets.

But there's more. Most of the rest of the money went to two groups. America Rising is a Republican PAC that has specialized in attacking the EPA, including harassing and stalking career employees of the EPA. Using Whittaker's foundation is a classic method of secretly laundering billionaire money into political PACs that have to report their donors. Except since the donor is Whittaker 501(c)3, that donor to Whittaker is concealed, using Whittaker's foundation as the anonymous pass through.

The other recipient of Whittaker's foundation is Creative Research Concepts, which was the public relations firm pushing Whelan's bogus story that Christine Ford had confused Kavanaugh with someone else.

All these toxic people are tied together in rightwing circles of grift. Sabotaging democracy and getting rich doing it.
posted by JackFlash at 2:28 PM on November 20, 2018 [58 favorites]

Turns out Matt Whittaker is quite the grifter. I looked up the Form 990 for his non-profit, Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust.

His financial disclosure forms are out too. Chris Geidner with buzzfeed has this tidbit:

From Whitaker's disclosure forms:
[image]
Data Revised 11/20/2018
Data Revised 11/19/2018
Data Revised 11/16/2018
Data Revised 11/08/2018
Data Revised 11/07/2018

So i guess when it came to his disclosures, you could say . . . he went to Jared('s people).
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 2:34 PM on November 20, 2018 [15 favorites]

When the letter from 16 Members of Congress opposing Pelosi came out yesterday, Marcia Fudge's name was absent, leading some to wonder what happened. The answer:

Pelosi announces intention to restore House Administration Subcommittee on Elections, Name Congresswoman Marcia Fudge as Chairwoman

In return, Fudge issues a statement that she's not running for Speaker and will back Pelosi.

A much-needed House committee to work on voting rights and crossing Fudge off the opposition list in a single press release? Pelosi knows what she's doing here.
posted by zachlipton at 2:34 PM on November 20, 2018 [95 favorites]

“Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are planning on looking into Ivanka Trump’s use of a personal email account to determine whether she violated federal law,” The Hill reports.

A Democratic aide said that the committee is planning “to continue our investigation of the presidential records act and federal records act, and we want to know if Ivanka complied with the law.”

Related: the Washington Post notes that Fox & Friends spent months blasting Clinton’s email use, but gave the Ivanka Trump story just 25 seconds. (via)
posted by petebest at 2:36 PM on November 20, 2018 [17 favorites]

The President has nonetheless provided unprecedented cooperation.

it's unprecedented because nobody ever had to ask the chief executive if they were a russian agent before
posted by murphy slaw at 2:36 PM on November 20, 2018 [24 favorites]

In return, Fudge issues a statement that she's not running for Speaker and will back Pelosi.

I imagine Moulton's "Conservative White Dude Democrat Grievance Session" last night didn't help things.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:40 PM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

I've stopped arguing with people about Pelosi and the speakership. Every time I produce proof that one or more of their objections to her are completely off-base they either deny the evidence in pure MAGAlike fashion or the goalposts zoom away off into the distance. I guess I should have expected that but oh well.

There's also the fact that literally no-one else is running for the Speakership of course but let's not let that get in the way of slamming a powerful woman.
posted by Justinian at 2:44 PM on November 20, 2018 [35 favorites]

(to make sure I'm not misunderstood, I'm not necessarily referring to anyone on Metafilter. It may surprise people to know I also argue offline and in other places. Shocking I know.)
posted by Justinian at 2:44 PM on November 20, 2018 [11 favorites]

Whitaker has pulled a Kushner and has revised his financial disclosure forms five times in the last two weeks

But he's getting right down to work by, er, Acting Attorney General Whitaker Will Travel to John F. Kennedy International Airport to Visit the Mail Distribution Center
posted by zachlipton at 2:46 PM on November 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

It is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, the President is on a plane to his vacation, why is there so much insane news? Daily Beast, Ackerman, Russian Trolls Sue Facebook, Their Old Propaganda Machine

Facebook has for years been an open sewer for state-backed propagandists and their unwitting allies to disseminate lies and posture as trusted news sources. And a year after Facebook belatedly attempted to slam the grate shut on the Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based trolls are taking the social-media giant to court.

A corporate twin of the infamous IRA, calling itself the Federal Agency of News (FAN), filed suit in a northern California federal court on Tuesday demanding that judges force Facebook to restore its account. The Russian outlet insisted it’s merely “an independent, authentic and legitimate news agency.” And it made an argument likely to discomfort Facebook and attract support from the far right: it’s a free speech martyr unfairly victimized by the 21st century discourse’s digital gatekeepers.
...
“Facebook, while claiming to protect the public from ‘fake news,’ is actually engaging in censorship and denying FAN subscribers of access to a legitimate news publication,” it claims. “Facebook seeks to dictate news content based on its own political view point thereby attempting to influence the public media coverage of internal political events in the Russian Federation.”

So the Russian trolls realized that the conservative "Facebook is silencing us" grift has been a smashing success, and thought they'd try it out for themselves.
posted by zachlipton at 2:55 PM on November 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

"The President today answered written questions submitted by The Special Counsel's Office. The questions presented dealt with issues regarding the Russia-related topics of the inquiry. The President responded in writing,” Jay Sekulow told ABC in a statement.

Incidentally, this is transparently a holiday-weekend news dump by Trump's lawyers. They even waited until their client was safely in the air and en route to Florida before dropping this on the press.

Note, however, that Sekulow spoke of Trump answering only Russia-related questions, not any that may have to do with Trump's post-election obstruction of justice. And the NYT's pre-holiday bombshell that Trump tried to have Comey prosecuted only worsens Trump's legal hazard—and I'm betting Trump would have tried this while Comey was on his book tour and in the headlines (FPP).

Buzzfeed: Interpol's Last Director Disappeared In a Corruption Probe. The Next One May Be a Russian

AP, with something approximating good news: US Opposes Russian Nominee to head Interpol Citing Russian “abuses”, the US is backing Interpol’s current interim president, South Korea’s Kim Jong Yang.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:57 PM on November 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

Just to summarize the Matt Whittaker grift, he was running a money laundering operation for billionaires. Billionaires don't want to get their hands dirty or their reputations sullied by dealing directly with shady political operatives.

So they employ a cutout like Whittaker to launder their payouts in order to remain anonymous. The Kochs want to sabotage the EPA -- they give a few million dollars to Whittaker, allowing him to keep a percentage for himself, and he passes the money off anonymously to a political PAC like America Rising. The Mercers want a rightwinger on the Supreme Court -- they give a few million dollars to Whittaker, allowing him to keep a percentage for himself, and he passes the money anonymously to a rat-fucking PR firm like Creative Response Concepts to torpedo Christine Ford.

What did Whittaker do to earn that $1.2 million in a couple of years? Absolutely nothing except write a few checks as directed by his billionaire patrons. The $1.2 million is just his laundering fee.

This grifter is now the acting Attorney General of the United States.
posted by JackFlash at 3:01 PM on November 20, 2018 [79 favorites]

Mouton is in a +19 safe district and as far as I can tell brings nothing to the Party that any other warm body with a D next to their name couldn’t replace.

If AOC and her SuperFriends are looking for safe blue incumbents to primary...Moulton seems like a fantastic choice.

Replacing him with any other progressive, or even a centrist that wouldn’t back an at best quixotic and more likely sexist leadership fight, would be a massive improvement.

Basically Seth is a dime a dozen. There’s undoubtably better white guys even if we limit the universe of candidates to white guys named Seth. Let’s get one of them.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:01 PM on November 20, 2018 [16 favorites]

Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner points out another odd thing about the AAG's appointment: The White House Won't Say When Trump Formally Named Matthew Whitaker As Acting Attorney General—President Trump announced Matthew Whitaker's appointment as acting attorney general in a tweet. That's all the paperwork that's been released.

"After accepting the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the President signed a memorandum addressed to Matthew Whitaker, directing him to perform the functions and duties of the office of Attorney General, until the position is filled by appointment or subsequent designation," White House spokesperson Raj Shah told BuzzFeed News in a statement[...]

Asked when the president's memorandum was dated and when it was provided to Whitaker, Shah did not initially respond. (Jeff Sessions' resignation letter as attorney general, many noted at the time, was undated.)

Asked again on Monday for the information, Shah responded that he had provided all of the information he could, claiming, "Additional information is relevant to ongoing litigation, unfortunately."

It is true that there is ongoing litigation challenging the legality of Whitaker's appointment. There are multiple cases pending in federal district courts and at least one each in a federal appeals court and at the Supreme Court. The White House provided no information, however, as to why that litigation means the information about those dates is being kept secret by the White House.

If the Trump White House screwed up Whitaker's paperwork—which, honestly, would be par for the course—that could result in Rod Rosenstein technically filling the role of Acting Attorney General for an indeterminate period of time…
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:05 PM on November 20, 2018 [33 favorites]

So they employ a cutout like Whittaker to launder their payouts in order to remain anonymous

Wasn't there a court case in that past month or two about the legality of hiding contributions like this? Or am I thinking of something else?
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 3:08 PM on November 20, 2018

AOC just quoted Cardi B on Twitter (Way-before-the-deal me, work-to-pay-the-bills me) and I immediately thought of the Becky Lynch post here on the blue where she slapped back against Ronda Rousey trying to use her working-class history as some sort of slight against her and now here I am remembering when associating politics with WWE was a bad thing.

It's probably still a bad thing but Becky Lynch and AOC are both pretty awesome.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:11 PM on November 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

But he's getting right down to work by, er, Acting Attorney General Whitaker Will Travel to John F. Kennedy International Airport to Visit the Mail Distribution Center

In a surprise twist at the end of the movie it will be revealed that it wasn't because he wants to steal an already in transit piece of mail but instead wanted to insert some mail into the stream.
posted by srboisvert at 3:12 PM on November 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

Hey, about the mail facility at JFK: "The New York ISC opened in 1980 and is the largest office of exchange for international mail in the world. The 800,000-square-foot facility processes almost half of the total international mail volume of the United States. In addition, some 80 percent of all military mail moves through the facility."

Y'know, like ballots.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:32 PM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

Via NBC News - US held back by racism and mommy issues, says Obama:

Former President Barack Obama said "racism" and "mommy issues," among other contributors, were limiting the country's ability to make progress on everything from education to climate change.

Obama, speaking at the Obama Foundation Summit on Monday night, said the answers already exist to solve many of the problems facing both the U.S. and the world, but that the nation was not making progress "because we are still confused, blind, shrouded with hate, anger, racism, mommy issues."

posted by Rosie M. Banks at 3:35 PM on November 20, 2018 [8 favorites]

There's another reason Fudge is suddenly a non-starter. She threw her support behind a Judge who was convicted of brutally beating his wife in front of his children. Said man got a light sentence and was given a job in government afterwards. And guess what? Said man decided to finish the job and is now in custody for murdering his ex wife. So Rep. Fudge has a huge problem, and it's not Pelosi.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 3:36 PM on November 20, 2018 [47 favorites]

Yesterday, Donald Trump had precisely two items on his schedule: a Christmas tree ceremony, and lunch with Mike Pence. His official duties as “President” of the United States literally consisted of looking at a tree and eating. His schedule today consisted of pardoning a turkey – and no, we’re not talking about Donald Trump Jr.

Yes, it’s a holiday week, so you might expect some reduction in the schedule in general. But this guy Donald Trump is now doing almost literally nothing. His back to back days of being a bump on a log come after he took a half hearted trip to California in which he couldn’t even be bothered to learn the name of the devastated city he was visiting, and after he canceled a planned tribute to veterans because it was raining.

So yeah, Trump has pretty much given up on even the slightest pretense of doing the job. This is kind of weird, frankly, because there is ostensibly more motivation than ever for him to keep up appearances. Now that the Democrats have taken control of the House, Trump is going to be investigated to the hilt, all the focus is going to be on whether he should be allowed to keep the job, and everyone is going to be watching him accordingly. His response: to pack it in and do nothing at all.

Maybe Donald Trump’s deteriorating psychological condition has finally caused him to completely cave in and collapse into a barely-functioning state. Or maybe Trump has simply concluded that his presidency is now doomed anyway, so there’s no point in keeping up appearances. Either way, this guy has clearly given up on life – and he’s waiting to be finished off by Robert Mueller and the House Democrats.
posted by growabrain at 3:39 PM on November 20, 2018 [18 favorites]

RE “mommy issues”, it’s a blunt way to distill sexism, but by god it’s true. I am often seeing students treating our women faculty in ways they would never treat the men.

I’m firmly convinced that the main reason conservatives so dislike and demonize educators is that so many of their teachers in school were women, whom they came to associate with the discipline, rules, and sometimes blunt assessment of their performance, that they experienced from their mothers.

Yes, the anti-intellectualism is strong with them, and the insecurity of having a third party evaluate their special snowflake offspring, too. But deep down it’s got a powerful sexist stench to it.
posted by darkstar at 3:45 PM on November 20, 2018 [38 favorites]

Some bright news: after a few weeks of bouncing around, UT04 finally closed out with a win for Ben McAdams, a dem, ousting Mia Love from our gerrymandered districts. Salt Lake County also clocked in 81% turnout for the midterms, which helped to push our various propositions (Medical Marijuana, Medicare Expansion, and an Independent Redistricting Commission) to pass.
posted by msbutah at 3:53 PM on November 20, 2018 [25 favorites]

Trump, this afternoon, when asked if Julian Assange should go free: “I don’t know anything about him. Really. I don’t know much about him. I really don’t.” (w/ video, via the Washington Times's Andrew Blake)

Trump, in the last month of his 2016 election campaign: Says WikiLeaks 141 Times On the Campaign Trail

And there's more (w/video, via Aaron Rupar):

REPORTER: "Should Julian Assange be able to go free?

TRUMP: "Well, Schumer's daughter works for Facebook, I just found out today. If you look at what Facebook has been doing, they have explaining to do.. .I hear Schumer's daughter works for Facebook, nobody knew that until now."

As for Assange's sealed indictment, Buzzfeed's Zoe Tillerman updates: "There's a tentative hearing date of 11/27 in the @rcfp case seeking to have court records unsealed re: criminal prosecution of Julian Assange (this docket entry means RCFP has to file a notice for the hearing, and the date might be different depending on lawyer schedules)"

(@julianassange remains under suspension.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:53 PM on November 20, 2018 [7 favorites]

Wasn't there a court case in that past month or two about the legality of hiding contributions like this? Or am I thinking of something else?

What you may be referring to is a ruling by the IRS under Trump's Treasury Secretary Mnuchin that 501(c)3 organizations like Whittaker's will no longer have to report their donors on their Form 990 Schedule B. Turns out this doesn't make much practical difference currently because the Schedule B with donors is not released to the public. The IRS files it away and buries it in a drawer never to be seen again, allowing complete anonymity of donors. But Mnuchin fears that perhaps Democrats might subpoena that buried information someday, so they want to eliminate reporting completely to keep the grift safe forever.

Shouldn't that level of money laundering also make him guilty of tax evasion on a massive scale?

Unfortunately, it pretty much legal under current regulations. Donations to a 501(c)3 are not tax deductible so the billionaires aren't evading taxes. Tax evasion is not their motivation. It's all about being able to remain anonymous while undermining democracy with hundreds of millions of dollars. Anonymity is the motivation.
posted by JackFlash at 3:57 PM on November 20, 2018 [7 favorites]

> Google gave $5,000 to Cindy Hyde-Smith two days after her public hanging comment.

OTOH, Walmart has withdrawn its support for Hyde-Smith and wants a refund for their donations:

That Feeling When You're Too Racist for Walmart: Cindy Hyde-Smith just got dropped. Is it a sign the Old South is cracking?
posted by homunculus at 4:00 PM on November 20, 2018 [18 favorites]

"mommy issues”

No.

Fuck this trivializing bullshit. How many women died today because a man thought he had a right to kill her? Just today?

Obama needs to sit the fuck down on the issue of misogyny. Or maybe learn something instead of being an asshole about it in public.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:04 PM on November 20, 2018 [26 favorites]

McSweeney's, THE WORLD IS A VERY DANGEROUS PLACE! by Donald J. Trump. [real, by which I mean to say, there's absolutely no joke here beyond the metajoke of its presence here]
posted by zachlipton at 4:07 PM on November 20, 2018 [13 favorites]

There's another reason Fudge is suddenly a non-starter.

She's endorsed Pelosi for Speaker.
posted by peeedro at 4:08 PM on November 20, 2018

Obama needs to sit the fuck down on the issue of misogyny...

Well, I disagree. Profoundly. The way most sexists and misogynists get their first taste of it is in the way they are socialized within their own families. So I personally feel there is significant ibtersectionality there.

That said, it is a blunt simplification. But I don’t think a simplification is inherently trivializing. Still, I know you have valid points to make, and considerable experience to share, which I respect.
posted by darkstar at 4:15 PM on November 20, 2018 [15 favorites]

Charles Pierce: Let's Have a Look at These 'Revolutionaries' Coming for Nancy Pelosi - They could learn a thing or two from the rookie left-handers doing it right.
posted by homunculus at 4:16 PM on November 20, 2018 [11 favorites]

Christina Cauterucci about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram stories
posted by growabrain at 4:17 PM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

zachlipton: "A much-needed House committee to work on voting rights and crossing Fudge off the opposition list in a single press release? Pelosi knows what she's doing here."

Exactly. So a) you've got nice Game of Thrones intrigue work, and b) you've got attention being paid to important issue. The two sorts of things you'd want to see a Dem Speaker paying attention to!
posted by Chrysostom at 4:26 PM on November 20, 2018 [8 favorites]

Trump tweet: One of the reasons Hillary hid her emails was so the public wouldn't see how she got rich- selling out America.
posted by growabrain at 4:29 PM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

"Why Aren't Dems Doing X Policy I Like?" Dept news: Joe Kennedy calling for federal legalization of marijuana.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:34 PM on November 20, 2018 [10 favorites]

Javad Zarif, Iran's Foreign Minister dragging Trump on twitter: Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of. Perhaps we’re also responsible for the California fires, because we didn’t help rake the forests— just like the Finns do?

The world we live in now is one where I'm apparently forced to nod along to an Iranian leader for standing up to our thuggish asshole President.
posted by Justinian at 4:39 PM on November 20, 2018 [39 favorites]

Election Law Blog: There's lots that Congress can do about voting rights and still say safely outside of any constitutional questions.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:40 PM on November 20, 2018 [10 favorites]

A few comments removed; please bring it down a few degrees and keep conversation more at the level of "what folks here are actually saying" vs "what social and historical wrongs exist in the world at large" so we aren't going full-bore at each other for the latter instead of engaging with the former.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:41 PM on November 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

House Dems plan aggressive oversight of perpetually gridlocked Federal Election Commission.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:43 PM on November 20, 2018 [14 favorites]

I read "mommy issues" as a reference to misogyny too, but it's a lousy choice of words that can be read as implying that mothers are responsible for the shitty behavior of their sons.

Obama hasn't burned through my benefit of the doubt reserves yet, so I'll assume he didn't mean it that way.
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:49 PM on November 20, 2018 [21 favorites]

Unfortunately the FEC is specifically designed to be non-functioning. Its 6 member board by law must be 3-3 on partisan lines and can only take action with 4 votes. Imagine how well that works just in general and then imagine it in the FOX News era. Whatever you're picturing I promise you it's less effective in practice than that. The entire agency needs to be scraped, redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up if it's ever going to enforce any modicum of fairness. This is beyond an oversight issue, it was never intended to work from day 1, so it hasn't.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:50 PM on November 20, 2018 [5 favorites]

At the suggestion of Preet Bharara, Lawfare has assembled a remarkably helpful resource page for all the Mueller probe litigations: Litigation Documents Related to the Mueller Investigation

Table of Contents:
—U.S. v. Paul J. Manafort, Jr. (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 1:18-cr-83)
—U.S. v. Paul J. Manafort, Jr. (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:17-cr-201)
—Manafort v. Department of Justice
—U.S. v. Richard W. Gates III (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:17-cr-201)
—U.S. v. Richard W. Gates III (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 1:18-cr-83)
—U.S. v. Konstantin Kilimnik (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:17-cr-201)
—U.S. v. Alexander van der Zwaan (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:18-cr-31)
—U.S. v. Internet Research Agency, et al (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; 1:18-cr-32)
—U.S. v. Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, et al (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:18-cr-215)
—U.S. v. Richard Pinedo, et al (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:18-cr-24)
—U.S. v. Michael T. Flynn (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:17-cr-232)
—U.S. v. George Papadopoulos (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:17-cr-182)
—Andrew Miller v. U.S.
—Sealed v. Sealed

Incidentally, in other court activity, Politico's Darren Samuelsohn reports on legal manoeuvrings from disreputable Birther lawyer Montgomery Blair Sibley: “The lawyer who repped Deborah Palfrey, aka "DC Madam," just filed a friend of the court brief arguing Sessions' resignation "terminated the authority of 'Acting' Attorney General Rosenstein and consequently terminated Mr. Mueller’s putative authority to act as 'Special Counsel.'"” (pic)
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:54 PM on November 20, 2018 [18 favorites]

Didn’t Nixon try to fire all his people and yet the special counsel continued unabated? How does that even work?
posted by gucci mane at 4:57 PM on November 20, 2018

Of all the horrible things he has done, supported or found fine people on both sides of, this latest Khashoggi statement is somehow even worse. Obviously because it is literal murder and dismemberment, but I guess also because it was just one man and it is so clear what happened and how evil it is. It is somehow worse to me than starting a war that inevitably kills thousands. I guess not worse, but more evil.
posted by snofoam at 4:59 PM on November 20, 2018 [9 favorites]

gonna be a real popcorn-chewing Thanksgiving dinner at the Sealed family's table this year
posted by cortex at 5:00 PM on November 20, 2018 [56 favorites]

More on those answers to Mueller's questions, WaPo, Trump submits answers to special counsel questions about Russian interference

But after months of negotiations with Mueller’s team, Trump’s attorneys have refused to answer any questions about his time as president-elect or president, arguing that the special counsel is not legally entitled to details about executive decision-making.

@nycsouthpaw: No answers from Trump on Jared Kushner proposing back channel communications through the Russians’ cable room. No answers on Mike Flynn horse-trading (?) for sanctions relief. No answers on Erik Prince’s mission to the Seychelles.
posted by zachlipton at 5:10 PM on November 20, 2018 [9 favorites]

Didn’t Nixon try to fire all his people and yet the special counsel continued unabated?

See: The Saturday Night Massacre (Wikipedia) (TL/DR: Even after said massacre, Robert Bork had to appoint a new special prosecutor. By then, the Watergate scandal had picked up too much momentum for Bork's choice to make any difference.)

For more Trump-Nixon symmetry, the Atlantic's Natasha Bertrand writes about the eerie parallels between Trump and the Watergate ‘Road Map’—Lawmakers thought Nixon’s gathering of inside information about the Watergate probe from DOJ was an impeachable offense. (via Lawfare on the newly unsealed Watergate road map)
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:10 PM on November 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

Didn’t Nixon try to fire all his people and yet the special counsel continued unabated? How does that even work?

Bork took the AG job after everyone else resigned (reportedly in exchange for being appointed to SCOTUS) and appointed Leon Jaworski to take over, who Bork thought would end the investigation, but actually got into the role and saw the evidence and decided "oh shit, Nixon is guilty as fuck". Jaworski continued the investigation.

Also the only reason Bork appointed Jaworski, who was actually a military prosecutor in the aftermath of WWII, was because Nixon took so much heat from Republicans over firing Archibald Cox. There's no Republican today who would object, because it already happened with Whitaker and only lolJeffFlake said a word.

We're already at the "Saturday Night Massacre" stage of Watergate, and Whitaker is Bork. Except this is the SloMo Massacre, and it's only about 1030pm.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:12 PM on November 20, 2018 [18 favorites]

But after months of negotiations with Mueller’s team, Trump’s attorneys have refused to answer any questions about his time as president-elect or president, arguing that the special counsel is not legally entitled to details about executive decision-making.

1319.

One thousand, three hundred and nineteen.

Thirteen-nineteen.

The 30th safe prime.

MCCCXIX.

That's how many days Richard Milhous Nixon had been President-Elect or President of the United States on the night that five men broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate. 1,319 days.

Trump is at day 742.
posted by Etrigan at 5:22 PM on November 20, 2018 [18 favorites]

But this guy Donald Trump is now doing almost literally nothing. His back to back days of being a bump on a log come after he took a half hearted trip to California in which he couldn’t even be bothered to learn the name of the devastated city he was visiting

I want to see more articles like this - the media pointing out that the job of President usually involves activity, and this guy is a leech absorbing taxpayer dollars and sitting around in his underwear eating ice cream. I want someone to get a copy of his daily schedule and point out how much of it is empty, and what most companies would do with a department manager who did so little. I want reporters to ask if he's so inactive because he's ill.

I want news magazine covers with cartoon pictures of him snoring in bed, with a headline of "Tired or Just Lazy?"

Remind people how much he's not getting done, and how apathetic he is toward anything that doesn't involve him getting richer.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:24 PM on November 20, 2018 [55 favorites]

If you're not following AOC on twitter, you should be. She's just dunking on Republicans like Lebron James.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:28 PM on November 20, 2018 [28 favorites]

Lebron James is a Republican??

But seriously, the amount of over-the-head joke-whooshing and brainwashery going on in that thread from the trollbots is just pathetic. On the order of arguing that Obama once misspoke and said he’d visited 57 states, so that makes him just as bad as Trump, who has told 2.3 kiloLies just this week. Or that AOC - who has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and International Relations - once misspoke about the branches of government, so obviously she fails a civics test (wink, wink) and doesn’t know how government works.
posted by darkstar at 5:47 PM on November 20, 2018 [5 favorites]

ErisLordFreedom: I want someone to get a copy of his daily schedule and point out how much of it is empty, and what most companies would do with a department manager who did so little. I want reporters to ask if he's so inactive because he's ill.

There is a lot of mendacity that the mainstream outlets are missing, for all sorts of reasons. (Too much to cover, too complex to explain, too intertwined with larger dysfunctional systems -- that last one is part of why it specifically took Kashoggi's death for everyone to question the relationship with Saudi Arabia.) But the lack of presidential activity, the frequent golfing, and so on isn't quite one of them as far as I can tell. I see it come up fairly often, because even when the press acts as stenographers, the near-empty schedules are straight from the administration's mouth.

It can feel like the media isn't doing their job if there's still a 40% support level out there. But the truth is that truth-resistant cults can encompass millions and millions of people -- and they've been outnumbered from day one by the rest of us.

That said, I really like the specific ideas. The "he's apathetic" angle is pretty good because it makes him boring, which is scary to a narcissist.

I think someone here on MeFi made that point about 2020 -- the Democratic nominee's best strategy is probably to say "I don't want to talk about the president paying people to keep silent about sexual affairs, I want to talk real issues" -- make him seem not like a powerful villain (though in some respects he is that), but more like the sort of person you brush off when they accost you in the street trying to sell shares of the Brooklyn Bridge.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 5:48 PM on November 20, 2018 [14 favorites]

But this guy Donald Trump is now doing almost literally nothing.

Publicly, at least. We have no idea what kinds of meetings he's conducting with his aides or his lawyers or who he may be telephoning for advice and consultation. (For instance, he spent the Monday after Veterans Day holed up in the White House, discussing his answers to Mueller's questions with his legal team, but we didn't learn this until a little later.)

AP: Trump Arrives At His Comfort Zone At ‘Winter White House’

Trump's now at Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving, where he'll be away from D.C. supervision and completely out of the public eye (except, of course, for his narcissistic habit of popping up to hob-nob with members and guests).
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:50 PM on November 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

Sealed Indictment Law and Legal Definition
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:09 PM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

From kirkaracha's link above to Trump’s Base Isn’t Enough (Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight):

... Republicans lost among swing voters: Independent voters went for Democrats by a 12-point margin, and voters who voted for a third-party candidate in 2016 went to Democrats by 13 points.

Trump and Republicans also have Problem No. 2, however: Their base is smaller than the Democratic one.

I've seen comments in these threads about how there are no independent voters, only people who won't admit they're voting for Trump, or who like to think of themselves as independent-minded but will end up voting Republican anyway.

In my (limited) experience outside of Metafilter, I have indeed met people who don't identify as either Democrat or Republican, or who have big issues with both parties - the ones I've met are NOT just covering for Republican leanings. I also think there are life-long Republican voters who are reaching the end of their rope with the party, or who have paid very little attention to politics their whole lives (which is true of - let's face it - a very large swath of Americans, many of whom have too little time outside of work and too few good sources of information to become better informed), who may be deeply reluctant to call themselves Democrats but who nonetheless have started voting for Democratic candidates ... and may well continue to do so.

I think we have the best chances of winning seats if we aim for votes from both groups - focus on turning out the Dem base (it IS bigger than the Republican base), but also reach out to, and welcome, independent voters - NOT by watering down the progressive Dem message, but rather by showing how the strongest, most progressive Dem platform benefits everyone.
posted by kristi at 6:11 PM on November 20, 2018 [21 favorites]

I also think there are life-long Republican voters who are reaching the end of their rope with the party, or who have paid very little attention to politics their whole lives (which is true of - let's face it - a very large swath of Americans, many of whom have too little time outside of work and too few good sources of information to become better informed), who may be deeply reluctant to call themselves Democrats but who nonetheless have started voting for Democratic candidates ... and may well continue to do so.

Last weekend I was at a party with a friend I've known for a long time, but not very closely. We were in the same social circles in college and have kept in touch. We got to talking about politics, and learned that her presidential voting record was Bush, Bush, didn't vote, didn't vote, Clinton. She said she now regretted not voting for Obama, but that despite her growing issues with the Republican Party, she hadn't been able to bring herself to vote for a pro-choice presidential candidate until 2016, when it became clear that other things mattered more.

All this was 100% news to me. I knew she was Catholic, and I knew she was more conservative than me, but that's not saying much because I'm a flaming lefty. She kept her politics more private before the past couple elections, I guess. But she is well and truly disgusted with the Republicans right now. She said she's not sure she can ever vote for one again.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:33 PM on November 20, 2018 [16 favorites]

We got to talking about politics, and learned that her presidential voting record was Bush, Bush, didn't vote, didn't vote, Clinton.

Just out of curiosity, does she ever vote outside of November of a leap year?
posted by Etrigan at 6:36 PM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

DRUDGE: JUDGE'S SLUDGE BUDGES FUDGE'S PELOSI GRUDGE
posted by tonycpsu at 6:44 PM on November 20, 2018 [25 favorites]

Just out of curiosity, does she ever vote outside of November of a leap year?

Yeah she does, I've seen the Facebook sticker pics. That was just the illustrative example she gave.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:51 PM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Just before the mid-term, CNN had a teaser of Hillary Clinton saying, in an interview, that while she’d like to be President, she doesn’t want to run. It’s still linked on the main CNN page (but, ugh, video articles.)

All I could think of is that SHE BEAT HIM in the popular vote once already, and that was before the last two years of bullshit. Does anyone seriously think that she would lose to him in 2020 if they had a rematch?

I’m all for fresh faces and new blood. But here we have a candidate that has already proven herself, and the playing field is tipped even further in her favor. I’m amazed that there is not a greater clamor for her. Many successful candidates lost their first Presidential contest.

It is heartbreaking to see the Left utter a sort of collective sigh and turn to the next new personalities, when I’m convinced we already have a winner waiting in the wings.
posted by darkstar at 6:55 PM on November 20, 2018 [10 favorites]

NYT, Matthew Whitaker Earned $1.2 Million From Group Backed by Undisclosed Donors. Yes, yes, we discussed that already. But wait, there's a whole different scandal here too:

Mr. Whitaker also faced new questions on Tuesday about donations to his unsuccessful 2014 campaign for a United States Senate seat from Iowa. Mr. Whitaker’s campaign committee received four donations totaling $8,800 this year, a few months after he joined the Justice Department, records show.

Executive branch officials are generally prohibited by a federal law, the Hatch Act, from knowingly soliciting or accepting campaign donations.
...
The four donations to the “Whitaker for U.S. Senate” committee — three of $2,600 and one of $1,000 — came within days of each other at the end of January and the second day of February, federal election records show. They were the first to be made to the account in just over two years.
...
A provision of the Hatch Act allows officials to raise money to retire campaign debt. Mr. Whitaker lent his campaign $50,000 in the 2014 race, and the campaign has yet to repay him for the majority of it.
...
Three of the donors are well known in political circles in Iowa. One of them, Gary Kirke, a wealthy casino owner, donated $2,600. His business partner, Michael J. Richards, made a donation for the same amount a few days earlier, records show.

During the period when Mr. Whitaker was registered as a lobbyist in Iowa, he was registered to lobby for Mr. Kirke’s company.

So Whitaker ran for Senate in 2014. It went rather poorly. His 2014 campaign then received donations in 2018, while he was working at the Justice Department, which could go to pay back debt owned personally to him. This all seems shady as hell.
posted by zachlipton at 7:08 PM on November 20, 2018 [23 favorites]

Many successful candidates lost their first Presidential contest.

Wikipedia's list of unsuccessful major-party candidates has only Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, and Richard Nixon making it to the Oval Office. So, since the rise of the modern American political party, by "Many", you mean "One".
posted by Etrigan at 7:11 PM on November 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

Please oh please let's refrain from arguing about Clinton's 2020 chances unless and until such a candidacy is actually declared. Likewise really for any other speculative candidacy. Y'all know how much of a vortex this shit is even when it's an actual attested race.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:15 PM on November 20, 2018 [36 favorites]

@jackgillum [ProPublica]:

Some quick observations/thoughts on the Ivanka email server story

Unlike Clinton's server, which I found in 2015 was at her house in NY, ijkfamily.com was hosted for a period of time by Outlook/Microsoft. As @bradheath smartly reported last year, it moved to a Trump Org server. That IP, 144.121.114.13, is owned by BBH Solutions, an IT firm in the New York area.

So, where's the server? BBH says data center is in New Jersey, so it could be there there, humming along in a chilly, windowless room. Records show ijkfamily mail at least passes through the co-located server and not entirely hosted by a big provider, like Microsoft or Google. We raised this issue in 2015 because Clinton's staff was thus responsible for protecting it against hackers and nation-state actors.

Also interesting: ijkfamily.com hosts subdomains like "sip" and "lync." SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol, is used for voice/messaging programs. Maybe it was for voice phone calls, for either Jared or Ivanka's use (thanks to @FarsightSecInc and their search tool). Final (and obvious) point: Whether it's Clinton, Ivanka Trump or others, running a private mail server fundamentally puts it out of the control of the U.S. government. That likely puts it, by extension, beyond reach of FOIA requesters and congressional investigators.

So much for that claim that it was all securely hosted by Microsoft. The Post story says "The couple’s emails are prescreened by the Trump Organization for security problems such as viruses but are stored by Microsoft, the people said." That "prescreening" still means all the mail traffic is passing through a privately-administered and potentially server somewhere, the exact same thing Clinton was attacked for.

Note that the sip subdomain mentioned there does point to Microsoft's Lync service.
posted by zachlipton at 7:16 PM on November 20, 2018 [23 favorites]

I'm still looking forward to 600 straight days of front page NYT stories on Ivanka's email server.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:20 PM on November 20, 2018 [49 favorites]

Just before the mid-term, CNN had a teaser of Hillary Clinton saying, in an interview, that while she’d like to be President, she doesn’t want to run. It’s still linked on the main CNN page (but, ugh, video articles.)

I only know about this because, as someone who researches NRA media, they freakin' went to town on the bogey(wo)man narrative about that. (Just the first part, neglecting to mention she didn't want to run.)
posted by Superplin at 7:21 PM on November 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

T.D. Strange: I'm still looking forward to 600 straight days of front page NYT stories on Ivanka's email server.

The amazing thing is that if they actually did this (of course they wouldn't), everyone would rightly perceive it as, one way or another, insincere. (Either a kind of trolling, a desire to avoid appearance of hypocrisy, or something in that vein.) Like, it's not even possible for any news outlet, anywhere on the spectrum, to manufacture "real" outrage about it.

The other amazing thing is that this emails story is coming out the very same day as the White House's ghoulish expression of support for the Saudi government and its right to kill dissidents... and way back in 2016 the one big Hillary scandal besides her emails was how the Clinton Foundation was supposedly an avenue for influence by foreign totalitarian governments, with "Saudi Arabia" by far the most commonly mentioned baddie. And that was all based on a convoluted hypothetical!
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:05 PM on November 20, 2018 [20 favorites]

Like, it's not even possible for any news outlet, anywhere on the spectrum, to manufacture "real" outrage about it.

Does MetaFilter count as a news outlet?

A news eddy then?
posted by petebest at 8:15 PM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

running w/ the hydraulic mode, petebest, it is ... a filter ... of some sort, i think?

but maybe also the pan in which the nuggets and grains of gold settle out of the wash.
posted by 20 year lurk at 8:34 PM on November 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

My intention was: does it truly bother anybody that Ivanka did whatever email thing, in itself, absent the hypocrisy? She's likely committed quite a few outright crimes, e.g real estate fraud and profiting from the White House influence. I don't think private email qualifies as one.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 9:02 PM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

The email thing was always a manufactured controversy. It was a sort of necessary evil done for the sake of getting things to actually happen, because doing it all by the books with government IT workers running the servers was painful and bug-ridden. Before Clinton did it, Colin Powell did it beforehand.

I believe in accountability, and the servers should be considered de-facto government records, but it's not a huge scandal no matter who does it.

But Trump wanted Clinton "locked up" for what wasn't even a criminal violation, so the hypocrisy is entirely the point.
posted by explosion at 9:06 PM on November 20, 2018 [23 favorites]

Dems taking aim at New York's regressive voting laws - early voting and automatic voter registration on the table.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:21 PM on November 20, 2018 [39 favorites]

so the hypocrisy is entirely the point.

And more than Trump, the entire media establishment abetted Trump's attack on the rule of law just to scoop "the first scandal of the Hilary presidency". They've learned nothing. They've acknowledged no wrongdoing. They're fully intending to do the same thing to the 2020 Democratic nominee. They're already starting the process with Warren, and Ocasio-Cortez. They just did the same thing with the caravan.

Beating the hypocrisy into the ground inoculates us all against the next time the NYT and CNN put ratings and clicks over democracy. Which will be every single time, because they're paid to do so.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:40 PM on November 20, 2018 [25 favorites]

Many successful candidates lost their first Presidential contest.

Only Republicans get to run again if they lose the presidential race.

Richard Nixon: lost in 1960, nominated and won in 1968
Gerald Ford: lost in 1976, never ran (for national office) again
Ronald Reagan: lost in the 1976 primaries to Ford, nominated and won in 1980 and 1984
George H. W. Bush: lost in the 1980 primaries to Reagan, VP nominee in 1980, presidential nominee in 1988, lost in 1992 to Bill Clinton
Bob Dole: lost as Ford's VP nominee in 1976, lost in the 1980 primaries to Reagan, nominated and lost in 1996
George W. Bush: won in 2000 as a first-time presidential candidate, won in 2004
John McCain: lost in the 2000 primaries to Bush, nominated and lost in 2008, never ran again
Mitt Romney: lost and lost in 2012, hasn't run again yet (Mittmentum 2020!)

Democrats:
Jimmy Carter: lost in 1980, never ran again
Walter Mondale: lost in 1984, never ran again
Michael Dukakis: lost in 1988, never ran again
Bill Clinton: won in 1992 as a first-time presidential candidate, won in 1996
Al Gore: "lost" in 2000, never ran again
John Kerry: lost in 2004, never ran again
Barack Obama: won in 2008 as a first-time presidential candidate, won in 2012
Hillary Clinton: "lost" in 2016, please God don't run again
posted by kirkaracha at 9:57 PM on November 20, 2018 [18 favorites]

My intention was: does it truly bother anybody that Ivanka did whatever email thing, in itself, absent the hypocrisy? She's likely committed quite a few outright crimes, e.g real estate fraud and profiting from the White House influence.

Al Capone personally murdered the fuck out of some dudes and went to Alcatraz for tax evasion.So whatever it takes at this point.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:59 PM on November 20, 2018 [22 favorites]

Dem GAIN in US Virgin Islands governor.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:04 PM on November 20, 2018 [42 favorites]

My intention was: does it truly bother anybody that Ivanka did whatever email thing, in itself, absent the hypocrisy?

Yes. Yes it does. What Clinton did wasn't illegal. Maybe it showed poor judgment. I don't want to get into that mess again. Whatever, it wasn't illegal. What Ivanka did was illegal. She broke the law in an obvious, straightforward way. Not only that, she broke a law governing something that was discussed exhaustively over the last three years, so she had to know that what she did was illegal. So, she knowingly, outrageously broke the law. You don't have to care about the hypocrisy to be bothered by senior administration officials who also happen to be immediate relatives of the President knowingly breaking the law. The hypocrisy only serves to turn the anger dial up to eleven.

Anyway, I know this pales in comparison to many of the other crimes committed or alleged to have been committed by members of the Trump administration. I can feel the pull of saying that it's just one more piece of corruption for the pile and not a very big piece, so there's no need to get upset about it. Except that we should be upset about all of the corruption in our government. And we should take every opportunity to cut it out root and branch.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 10:07 PM on November 20, 2018 [85 favorites]

Only Republicans get to run again if they lose the presidential race.

Your examples leave out that Gore ran in 1988 as well; Biden has run at least twice and is still being talked up for 2020; Hillary Clinton ran in 2008...

Since 1900, it’s dead even: two Democrats (Bryan and Stevenson) and two Republicans (Dewey and Nixon) have been their party nominee, lost, and been nominated again. Many in either party have run, failed to be nominated, and run again.
posted by Etrigan at 10:27 PM on November 20, 2018 [9 favorites]

I would venture to expand it to a trifecta. In addition to Trump’s rank hypocrisy, and Ivanka’s brazen violation of the law, I’d add that we have a sitting President actively trying to prosecute and imprison (through chivvying his Admin and fomenting mob rage) a political opponent who has broken no law.

So the whole “emails” thing matters because:

1. Outrageous hypocrisy,

2. Brazen criminality, and

3. Autocratic abuse of power.

But sadly yes, when it’s stacked in the pile along with all of the other wickedness, it does rather pale, in comparison.
posted by darkstar at 10:28 PM on November 20, 2018 [13 favorites]

And not to abuse the edit window:

4. The “4th Estate’s” complete abdication of their responsibility to put the aforementioned three issues in proper perspective as they were taking place, and in so doing, deeply harming the country while chasing sensationalism and ad revenue.
posted by darkstar at 10:34 PM on November 20, 2018 [17 favorites]

She's likely committed quite a few outright crimes, e.g real estate fraud and profiting from the White House influence. I don't think private email qualifies as one.

Unless, of course, she's using it to hide a whole bunch of other outright crimes. For example, exchanging god knows what ("launch codes? Omg I totally thought they were lunch codes") with the Chinese government in exchange for all those $weet patents on everything from IvankaTrumpHandbags to IvankaTrumpStemCellHarvestingOrphanages or whatever.
posted by sexyrobot at 10:43 PM on November 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

AP, with something approximating good news: US Opposes Russian Nominee to head Interpol Citing Russian “abuses”, the US is backing Interpol’s current interim president, South Korea’s Kim Jong Yang.

Update: it worked. Yonhap, South Korean elected chief of Interpol for first time, meaning not the Russian candidate. Apparently, we're all just going to ignore the fact that China disappeared the last head of Interpol, which really seems like a subject that should get some follow-up, but this does seem like a more positive step than handing it to Putin's candidate.
posted by zachlipton at 12:33 AM on November 21, 2018 [40 favorites]

The Rude Pundit: Trump's Completely Batshit and Evil Statement About Saudi Arabia and the Murder of Jamal Khashoggi
posted by homunculus at 1:34 AM on November 21, 2018 [15 favorites]

This update hasn't been shared yet, from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation: APEC leaders unable to agree on communique amid US-China trade tensions
posted by cendawanita at 1:37 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Is anyone going to do anything about the fact that Trump tried to abuse the powers of his office to have Hillary Clinton, his political opponent, prosecuted on bogus charges? Anyone? ANYONE?

I mean, I realize this came to light yesterday which is already eons ago in this dystopia we now live in, but what the actual fuck.
posted by lydhre at 5:53 AM on November 21, 2018 [52 favorites]

It's not really that no one thinks it's important or worth doing something about, it's mostly that what reasonable steps that can be taken have been taken. Dems made a ton of gains in the mid-terms and Mueller's investigation continues apace. This is just another thing to pile on the heap.

Once the new congress is seated and gets to work and once Mueller's investigation and whatever happens as a result has played out, then we'll have to reassess where we are and see what other actions need to be taken. Hopefully some sort of satisfactory outcome is the result and we can move on. If not we might have to count on 2020 elections and/or things are going to get out of control as folks on both sides start taking extra-legal action. I hope it never comes to that and Mueller along with congress are able to bring the hammer down on HARD on this shitshow.

It reminds me of my time as an admin on multiplayer server for a military shooter FPS game. Sometimes players would come onto the server just to make trouble. We had some procedures and had to document some stuff before we permanently banned someone so it meant that sometimes that player got some extra time to cause trouble while I was off working through all of our official procedures. Often times their behavior got much worse if they knew the ban-hammer was about to drop. But we had rules and procedures in place for good reason so we followed those rules even if it meant letting bad actors act badly for longer than anyone thought they should be allowed.
posted by VTX at 6:18 AM on November 21, 2018 [13 favorites]

After the midterms, Fox previews its strategy for covering economic downturns: Blame Democrats - Courtney Hagle, Media Matters

I would not respect Fox News less if they sang that over the melody from "Blame Canada!" from the South Park movie.

I wouldn't respect Fox News more either. I'd just be amused.
posted by ZeusHumms at 6:41 AM on November 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

Also interesting: ijkfamily.com hosts subdomains like "sip" and "lync." SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol, is used for voice/messaging programs. Maybe it was for voice phone calls, for either Jared or Ivanka's use (thanks to @FarsightSecInc and their search tool). Final (and obvious) point: Whether it's Clinton, Ivanka Trump or others, running a private mail server fundamentally puts it out of the control of the U.S. government. That likely puts it, by extension, beyond reach of FOIA requesters and congressional investigators.

FWIW, that's the default Office 365 DNS setup if you let Microsoft automatically configure those entries for you. You'll get SIP items put in place even if you never do anything beyond sending email.

Also I'd like to point out (warning: MegaThread link) that this isn't the first egregious email thing pulled by Ivanka. (Summary: She used an app that many orgs blacklisted because it sent your email/email credentials to a third party server)
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 6:45 AM on November 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

Yonhap, South Korean elected chief of Interpol for first time, meaning not the Russian candidate.

Despite this setback, the Kremlin will keep pushing to influence international intelligence agencies, especially in competition with the US. EU to launch joint spy school, boost electronic warfare skills (Politico.EU)

The new projects, signed off by the defense ministers of all the EU’s member countries except Denmark, Malta and the United Kingdom under the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) pact, range from improving training and facilities to boosting maritime operations and air systems, as POLITICO reported before their official adoption.

The establishment of a joint EU spy school would be a big step forward for the bloc’s intelligence community. Until recently, a significant deepening of intelligence cooperation in the Union was blocked by the U.K., which viewed it as unwelcome competition to the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, made up of the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain. With Brexit approaching, London no longer stands in the way.

However, eyebrows will be raised by the proposal to have Greece lead the academy, with help from Cyprus, meaning two of the EU’s members with the closest ties to Moscow would run the project.

(The Kremlin's compromised Austria's intelligence establishment, putting NATO secrets at risk.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:52 AM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

Perhaps someone explained it and in all the WTF that's is the new normal I missed it, but is there any good explanation for why Mueller agreed to let Trump submit written answers to limited questions (which, apparently, they refused to answer all of) rather than insisting on in person testimony under oath?

Because to my layman and admittedly highly partisan and hate filled self, that sure seems like Mueller failing to do his job.
posted by sotonohito at 7:05 AM on November 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Perhaps someone explained it and in all the WTF that's is the new normal I missed it, but is there any good explanation for why Mueller agreed to let Trump submit written answers to limited questions (which, apparently, they refused to answer all of) rather than insisting on in person testimony under oath?

Asking for a written response doesn't preclude a subpoena later on. In fact, it makes it all the more likely that Trump will later say something, under oath or otherwise, that contradicts what he wrote. We can think of it as Mueller giving Trump enough rope to hang himself.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:08 AM on November 21, 2018 [40 favorites]

Per Lawfare, 11/20/20:

New Mueller Investigation Resource Page

Witch hunt or no, the Mueller investigation has so far produced a lot of litigation, and that litigation has produced a lot of documents. Today, Lawfare is releasing a new resource page [*] collating significant documents from the numerous cases filed by and against the special counsel's office. You can find the page here or under "Special Features" in the menu bar above. We'll be keeping the page updated as the litigation moves forward and the investigation continues.

*Litigation Documents Related to the Mueller Investigation.
posted by cenoxo at 7:17 AM on November 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

Politico: Mueller Got Some Answers, But He's Not Done With Trump

The special counsel still wants to question the president over his actions while in the White House — Tuesday's answers only covered Russian hacking during the 2016 election. [...] Next comes the perilous round of negotiations between Trump’s lawyers and Mueller’s prosecutors covering topics like Trump's intentions when firing FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. That line of questioning — which Trump says he shouldn't have to answer — is tied to Mueller's ongoing obstruction of justice investigation.[...]

Legal experts say that the special counsel might have enough information from documents, presidential tweets and witnesses to wrap up the obstruction of justice portion of his investigation and file a report to his DOJ supervisors — all without forcing a court showdown just to nail down an interview with the president.

“My hunch, at least at this time, [is that] the special counsel doesn't need the president's testimony and that he has provided the president with the opportunity to testify simply so that the president does not later complain about the special counsel's further prosecutorial actions or the conclusions of his report when it is made public in one fashion or another,” said Jack Quinn, the former White House counsel under President Bill Clinton.

Meanwhile, Buzzfeed's Zoe Tillman updates on Trump's coffee boy: "George Papadopoulos' lawyers jst filed a one paragraph request to delay his surrender date until the court rules on his motion to continue his bail while a challenge to Mueller's appointment is pending — he's due to report to the Bureau of Prisons on Monday, 11/26" (pic)
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:20 AM on November 21, 2018 [10 favorites]

zachlipton: “Facebook, while claiming to protect the public from ‘fake news,’ is actually engaging in censorship and denying FAN subscribers of access to a legitimate news publication,” it claims. “Facebook seeks to dictate news content based on its own political view point thereby attempting to influence the public media coverage of internal political events in the Russian Federation.”

This is genuinely interesting, in that Facebook is a private company. Though it is an internet titan, it is not the internet, so they have every right to censor content. If Facebook is found at fault for "censoring" a "news organization," I imagine that opens them up to much more liability and public control, including increased potential for proper filing for digital ads. As I quoted above, from a recent Wired article:

Digital political ads exist in a regulatory no-man’s land. Where political advertisers on radio or television must file disclosures with the Federal Election Commission and include disclaimers about who paid for the ad, no such rules exist in the digital space, though some have been proposed.

Facebook's "verification" of political ads is pretty much a rubber stamp, allowing you to claim to by an ad as Mike Pence, or ISIS, but not The Zuck, as displayed by Vice News.

This lawsuit, and Chrysostom's comment noting House Dems plan aggressive oversight of perpetually gridlocked Federal Election Commission gives me hope that the "Wild West" that is internet political adverts will get a little less wild in the coming years, hopefully ahead of the 2020 elections (disregarding the fact that 2020-focused political investigations and machinations have already started).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:21 AM on November 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

is there any good explanation for why Mueller agreed to let Trump submit written answers to limited questions (which, apparently, they refused to answer all of) rather than insisting on in person testimony under oath?

this:
Legal experts say that the special counsel might have enough information from documents, presidential tweets and witnesses to wrap up the obstruction of justice portion of his investigation and file a report to his DOJ supervisors — all without forcing a court showdown just to nail down an interview with the president.

basically, mueller got the white house to fill out his essay questions without a formal subpoena. he still has the option to subpoena Trump for an in-person interview but chances are that the white house will make a privilege claim of some kind that will end up in the courts.

mueller worked the white house over for whatever he could get under voluntary cooperation. he may have enough from other sources to make his case, but if he decides that he needs the president to answer questions in person on the record, that option is still open to him.
posted by murphy slaw at 7:28 AM on November 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

Axios's Jonathan Swan posts what's effectively a press statement from Rudy Giuliani: Behind the Scenes: Trump vs. Mueller

Interestingly, Giuliani seems to confirm that his blabbermouth client has already publicly confessed to obstruction of justice on Twitter and in Fox interviews—"[A]ny question he has on obstruction, ... [t]he president has given [the answers] in interviews, tweets. Other witnesses have given it to him. And the law definitely requires that if you're going to subpoena a president, you have to show that you can't get the information any place else."

He also complains that Mueller's questionnaire "looked like a law school exam ... one big long group of questions, that were multi-part questions." At least he, Sekulow, and Jane Raskin weren't dumb enough to tape Trump during their ad hoc discussions about it—they only took handwritten notes of Trump's answers and typed those up.

Mueller still wants to know about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians and, significantly, “the Russian hacks during the campaign that immediately followed Trump's July 27, 2016, press conference in Florida, when Trump said: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing."”
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:36 AM on November 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

“The Party Won’t Survive”: Lack of Republican Women in Office Could Endanger the GOP (Carter Sherman for Vice News, Nov 20, 2018)

Native Texan and former Capitol Hill staffer Jenifer Sarver had long dreamed of winning a seat in Congress. So when Rep. Lamar Smith, her congressman of 31 years, announced his retirement, she knew it was her shot.

“It certainly happened at a political moment where my voice as a center-right Republican, I think, is thoroughly lacking in the discourse,” said Sarver, who now works as a communications strategist. “And, obviously, we need more women in the Republican Party.”

Eighteen challengers ended up crowding into the Republican primary for Texas’ deeply conservative 21st Congressional District, and Sarver lost the nomination. Her story is far from unique: Despite all the talk of the so-called “pink wave” of women crashing into the 2018 midterms, few GOP women managed to surf it.

While a record-breaking 182 Democratic women secured nominations for seats in the U.S. House, just 52 Republican women did the same, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. Ultimately, only 13 Republican women have so far won seats in the House, compared to 89 Democratic women.
...
“It’s a five-alarm fire,” Rina Shah, a Republican strategist, said of Republican women’s fate in the midterms. “The party won’t survive. It just won’t, if this continues.”

“The numbers are just devastating, when you look at the diversity of the Democratic caucus and the lack of diversity in the Republican caucus,” Sarver added, and a stark signal to women wondering where they fit into the GOP. “You look at the numbers, and you’re like, ‘Well, there isn’t a place for me in this party.’”

Emphasis mine, because they're your words, not mine, but I won't disagree. Also ...

*cough* 2012 RNC Autopsy *cough*

President Obama’s campaign staff boasted throughout the 2012 race that the GOP’s dismissal of minority concerns, intolerance towards gays, celebration of wealth, and fetishism of Ronald Reagan would doom them in November. Today the RNC released their official response: “You were right.”If you watched the Republican primaries and Mitt Romney’s general election campaign last year, the findings from the RNC’s study on why they lost the election are stunning. They’re the kinds of things that would have gotten you thrown out of the room in a GOP debate. They don’t come lightly either: The report was based on interviews with over 2,600 people as well as individual focus groups and polls with demographics like Hispanic voters and former Republicans.

Talking Points Memo also helpfully captured 6 big takeaways:
1. Pass Immigration Reform Yesterday
2. Listen To Minorities
3. Gays Aren’t Going Away
4. Epistemic Closure Is Real

There’s been a long running debate on the intellectual right about whether the GOP suffers from “epistemic closure,” a condition in which conservatives block out all dissenting voices until eventually their own arguments sound nonsensical to anyone who doesn’t already agree with them. The RNC report concludes this is a real and growing problem.

5. Look To The States

The RNC report makes a careful distinction between federal Republicans — bad! — and state Republicans — good!

6. Stop Being The Rich Guys

Less than year after nominating a millionaire investor who proclaimed that “corporations are people,” the RNC is concerned that the party has become too closely tied with wealthy interests.

Oddly, "Listen to Women" wasn't on that list. Also, "Really Do These Things" wasn't the coda.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:38 AM on November 21, 2018 [27 favorites]

they only took handwritten notes of Trump's answers and typed those up.

"typed those up" => attempted to translate into cogent english sentences
posted by murphy slaw at 7:38 AM on November 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

basically, mueller got the white house to fill out his essay questions without a formal subpoena

And the answers "carry the same legal burden for truthfulness as an in-person interview."
posted by kirkaracha at 7:39 AM on November 21, 2018 [14 favorites]

White House approves use of force, some law enforcement roles for border troops

The White House late Tuesday signed a memo allowing troops stationed at the border to engage in some law enforcement roles and use lethal force, if necessary — a move that legal experts have cautioned may run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act.

The new “cabinet order” was signed by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, not President Donald Trump. It allows “Department of Defense military personnel” to “perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary” to protect border agents, including “a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention. and cursory search.”
...

Kelly said in the signed directive that the additional authorities were necessary because “credible evidence and intelligence” have indicated that the thousands of migrants who have now made their way to the U.S. checkpoint near Tijuana, Mexico, “may prompt incidents of violence and disorder” that could threaten border officials.

posted by BungaDunga at 7:45 AM on November 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

From Gavin Bade at Utility Dive:

Bernard McNamee, President Trump's nominee for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, sharply criticized renewable energy and environmental groups while calling for a "unified campaign" to support fossil fuels in a Feb. 2018 speech before Texas lawmakers [...]

McNamee, at the time working for the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), said fossil fuels are "key to our way of life," but renewable energy "screws up the whole physics of the grid." He also portrayed industry lawsuits with environmental groups as a "constant battle between liberty and tyranny." [...]

Whether McNamee's comments will affect his confirmation remains unclear, but he appeared to be headed for approval from the Senate after his hearing last week. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Ak., chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that oversees FERC nominations, said she was happy with McNamee's comments [after the Committee hearing].

posted by nickmark at 7:46 AM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

"…when you look at the diversity of the Democratic caucus and the lack of diversity in the Republican caucus…"

is there a german word for being upset that your plan is working pefectly
posted by murphy slaw at 7:47 AM on November 21, 2018 [20 favorites]

And in some positive news from the FCC, assuming this isn't some Lucy Pulls The Football Away And Laughs moment: Ajit Pai wants to raise rural broadband speeds from 10Mbps to 25Mbps -- FCC-funded rural broadband currently requires download speed of just 10Mbps. (Jon Brodkin for Ars Technica, Nov. 20, 2018)

The Federal Communications Commission is planning to raise the rural broadband standard from 10Mbps to 25Mbps in a move that would require faster Internet speeds in certain government-subsidized networks.

The FCC's Connect America Fund (CAF) distributes more than $1.5 billion a year to AT&T, CenturyLink, and other carriers to bring broadband to sparsely populated areas. Carriers that use CAF money to build networks must provide speeds of at least 10Mbps for downloads and 1Mbps for uploads. The minimum speed requirement was last raised in December 2014.

Today, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he's proposing raising that standard from 10Mbps/1Mbps to 25Mbps/3Mbps. "[W]'re recognizing that rural Americans need and deserve high-quality services by increasing the target speeds for subsidized deployments from 10/1 Mbps to 25/3 Mbps," Pai wrote in a blog post that describes agenda items for the FCC's December 12 meeting.

"[T]he program should support high-quality services; rural Americans deserve services that are comparable to those in urban areas," Pai also wrote.
...
The new 25Mbps/3Mbps standard will apply to future projects but won't necessarily apply to broadband projects that are already receiving funding. For ongoing projects, the FCC will use incentives to try to raise speeds. More money will be offered to carriers that agree to upgrade speeds to 25Mbps/3Mbps, a senior FCC official said in a conference call with reporters.
...
When Democrat Tom Wheeler was FCC chair, Pai supported the commission's 2014 decision to raise the speed benchmark from 4Mbps/1Mbps to 10Mbps/1Mbps but said that the FCC should have also provided carriers with more years of funding to account for the upgrade.

Pai opposed Wheeler's 2015 decision to raise a nationwide broadband standard to 25Mbps/3Mbps. Pai said at the time that 25/3Mbps was too high and criticized the Wheeler-led majority for using different standards, namely the 25Mbps/3Mbps standard for judging nationwide broadband deployment progress and the lower standard in rural projects subsidized by the government. As chair, Pai in 2017 floated a proposal that would lower broadband standards, but he changed course after a backlash.

Despite Pai's claim that repealing net neutrality rules and other regulations will spur broadband deployment, Charter and Verizon both said this year that they're reducing capital expenditures. Broadband lobby groups USTelecom and NTCA recently argued that Internet service is similar to utilities such as electricity and gas distribution. The lobby groups also said that the government should provide more money to private companies to close the rural broadband gap. They complained that "US broadband infrastructure has been financed largely by the private sector without assurance that such costs can be recovered through increased consumer rates."

And I feel even better about this that it's coming right after the midterm elections -- if it came before, it would have felt more like an attempt to woo rural voters with the idea that the Government actually wanted them to have similar internet access to their urban counterparts, instead of just doing right by people who already have fewer opportunities and limited resources.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:47 AM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

NYT, Matthew Whitaker Earned $1.2 Million From Group Backed by Undisclosed Donors. Yes, yes, we discussed that already. But wait, there's a whole different scandal here too

This morning, NPR tied Whitaker to another scandal thru his membership on the board of a sham patent company that cheated would-be inventors. Whitaker claims to have no knowledge of the fraud, which raises the question of why he (and any other corporate type who claims this lame excuse) deserves any of the compensation they were drawing from the job.

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/21/669891671/acting-attorney-general-tied-to-company-accused-of-patent-scams

And Mueller likely already knows the truth of whatever Trump tries to hide, dismiss, or obfuscate, so his written answers should bring no sense of relief, but rather the kind of dread that inspires complaints about "perjury trap" (that is, "you asked me about crimes I committed but could tell if my denials were a lie").
posted by Gelatin at 7:49 AM on November 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

The new “cabinet order” was signed by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly

This is just... weird. It's not an executive order. It's not an order from the Commander in Chief. What general would rely on an order signed by John Kelly to provide authority to shoot people at the border? Why couldn't they get Trump's signature on the thing? What force of law does a "cabinet order" even have, if it's coming from someone who isn't even in the chain of command?!
posted by BungaDunga at 7:52 AM on November 21, 2018 [45 favorites]

You notice it was all the lawyers who seemed to be doing their damnedest to stop digging.

Sessions shut the fuck up right away, and recused himself -- fully, not that "sorta did, sort of didn't "shit Nunes played.

McGahn is cooperating, apparently pretty much voluntarily.

Unlike Manafort, Cohen -- who is only a lawyer on a technicality -- flipped immediately and apparently fully once the full import penetrated his bubble. He pretty much waited until the full scope of what the FBI was gonna get to see from his offices became apparent, got real public for a few weeks in the hope of a pardon, then rolled over when that was clearly not forthcoming.

Nobody with a clue wants to be in the FBI's path on this. Nobody wants to face even the possibility of an obstruction charge, and it honestly appears that flat out nobody wants to take even an iota of the fall for whatever the fuck was going on.

Roger Stone's the next hold-out, but his buddy hasn't even been charged yet and he's suddenly shut up with the tough talk and gone silent, which means his lawyers have gotten through to him. He'll flip once he accepts the situation he's in-- Roger Stone ain't bigger on loyalty than Trump.

Manafort was the only person who tried to hold out. And to this day, I fully believe it's because he couldn't accept that he was gonna lose all his wealth. Once that guilty verdict came down, reality set in. Until that moment, he just couldn't accept the possibility he'd end up without his 50 or 60 million illegally gained dollars. (From)
posted by growabrain at 7:52 AM on November 21, 2018 [22 favorites]

Military Times: White House approves use of force, some law enforcement roles for border troops

Earlier this month, CNN reported that the Pentagon rejected a White House request for troops it viewed as emergency law enforcement at border. This sounds like another case in which Trump really, really wants to do something potentially illegal and keeps hammering away at it until his aides relent.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:53 AM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

What force of law does a "cabinet order" even have, if it's coming from someone who isn't even in the chain of command?!

Not to mention appears to be an open violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
posted by Gelatin at 8:02 AM on November 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

"…when you look at the diversity of the Democratic caucus and the lack of diversity in the Republican caucus…"

is there a german word for being upset that your plan is working pefectly
posted by murphy slaw 16 minutes ago [7 favorites +] [!]

Erfolgsmüdigkeit!

No, wait, that's weariness from so much winning. Ah,

Erfolgsenttäuschung!
posted by From Bklyn at 8:12 AM on November 21, 2018 [18 favorites]

Vox's Andrew Prokop on the Special Counsel's response to Trump's coffgee boy's ill-conceived legal challenge:

New Mueller filing contrasts Papadopoulos's pre-sentencing "remorse" with his post-sentencing protests that he did nothing wrong.

Full filing: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5218928-11-21-18-Mueller-filing-re-Papadopoulos.html

Main gist is that Mueller says there's no good reason to delay Papadopoulos starting to serve his jail sentence on Monday.

Mueller footnote re: Papadopoulos
[² This tweet has since been removed from the defendant's public Twitter account.
³ This tweet has since been removed from the defendant's public Twitter account.
⁴ This tweet has since been removed from the defendant's public Twitter account.] (pic)

In conclusion, never tweet.

Politico's Darren Samuelsohn reports: "Another NEW sealed motion just filed -- apparently from Mueller -- in the mystery grand jury subpoena case we've been tracking here at @politico - This one is 3,074 words. http://ow.ly/UyKY30mGZe1 "

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti: "This indicates that someone challenged a grand jury subpoena issued by Mueller, lost the challenge, and is now appealing."
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:19 AM on November 21, 2018 [19 favorites]

kirkaracha: And the answers "carry the same legal burden for truthfulness as an in-person interview."

Adding to this... it's fun to joke about Trump's answers being a "take home test" and speculate whether it was written in crayon. But even though our legal system is adversarial, it isn't really supposed to be a measure of people's ability to, under pressure, perform their role in that conflict; it's about determining the truth and according consequences for their actions.

Answers given before a live jury may be more truthful in some circumstances (e.g if you're attesting to something you witnessed and didn't write down at the time, so you haven't had as much opportunity to fabricate a memory) and less in others (if the questions are about things that are documented, where remembering it off the spot could be less reliable). In short, just because Donald's lying is compulsive, and thus putting him on the stand would perhaps guarantee perjury, doesn't mean written answers are "cheating" -- but I'm not a lawyer and there may be big factors I've missed.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:22 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

What force of law does a "cabinet order" even have, if it's coming from someone who isn't even in the chain of command?!

That's perhaps the wrong question. The right question, the question that's going to be asked with increasing frequency, is "what sources of power exist to oppose it?"
posted by holgate at 8:25 AM on November 21, 2018 [23 favorites]

Dems taking aim at New York's regressive voting laws - early voting and automatic voter registration on the table.

Not a bad start, but really we need to spend the money on county Boards of Elections to ensure that they have sufficient full-time staff to administer the elections properly AND sufficient staff at the polls AND N+1 ballot scanners/ballot marking devices so that an issue with one scanner isn't a showstopper.

Expectation: 50% of voters > 15 minutes; 95% > 30 mins; 100% > 1 hour.
posted by mikelieman at 8:28 AM on November 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

doesn't mean written answers are "cheating" -- but I'm not a lawyer and there may be big factors I've missed.

I just keep thinking that on the spectrum of ways you could not "Don't talk to cops", taking months to prepare a written statement is going to offer you the smallest opportunity to claim that you were tricked or misspoke or misunderstood a question.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:28 AM on November 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

That's perhaps the wrong question. The right question, the question that's going to be asked with increasing frequency, is "what sources of power exist to oppose it?"

Given that the Pentagon already rebuffed one attempt to "give" them these sorts of powers, I'm wondering what the military will think of it. Is it an order from the President? Can they say "thanks, but no thanks"? They've already said "no thanks" once. If it was signed by the President, it would be more clear that it's an order. But... is this just an opinion? A polite suggestion? Who else can write these letters? Could Sarah Sanders write one and send it along to Mattis? Could Trump direct Sean Hannity to do it?

I guess I'm interested in, is a "cabinet order" a real thing, or is this just a memo?
posted by BungaDunga at 8:40 AM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

I just keep thinking that on the spectrum of ways you could not "Don't talk to cops", taking months to prepare a written statement is going to offer you the smallest opportunity to claim that you were tricked or misspoke or misunderstood a question.

I keep thinking that Trump is always claiming to be 2 weeks away from submitting any document that he doesn't want to talk about.
posted by jaduncan at 8:49 AM on November 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

Is anyone going to do anything about the fact that Trump tried to abuse the powers of his office to have Hillary Clinton, his political opponent, prosecuted on bogus charges?

I think many of us assumed he wanted to recreate Ukraine and Tymoshenko here (probably at Putin's encouragement) and then realized the set up in the US is thankfully a lot more difficult to manipulate.
posted by Tarumba at 9:00 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

The new “cabinet order” was signed by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly

This is just... weird. It's not an executive order. It's not an order from the Commander in Chief. What general would rely on an order signed by John Kelly to provide authority to shoot people at the border?

Most people in the chain of command are going to know this isn't legal. Officers in particular. The higher the rank, the better they know it. It hasn't come up a whole lot in most soldiers' careers, but they pretty much all know they're not supposed to do this kind of shit, and they know why on a legal level even if it's not a full lawyer's knowledge. Which is what makes it crazy as fuck that a retired general would sign such an order.

But there's also the chilling reality of how many people, including people in uniform, are perfectly willing to pass the buck and just follow orders.

So here's what I'm left with: did Kelly sign that thing knowing it isn't legally binding and hoping it would just shut up the boss? Has he checked out on the job to the point that he's just signing crazy shit thinking it doesn't matter? Or did he consider that there are officers who will shrug and say "I had a signed order" and roll with it thinking someone else will take the fall?

Everything in my experience with the US military says they all know better and this isn't gonna fly. Everything I know as a history teacher says my personal experiences don't mean shit.

And even if the Army does the right thing and says Kelly's signature doesn't means shit, the Chief of Staff signing orders like that is still a real bad development.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:01 AM on November 21, 2018 [69 favorites]

If this weird "cabinet order" that

allows “Department of Defense military personnel” to “perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary” to protect border agents, including “a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention. and cursory search.”

...stands, wouldn't that effectively open the door to potentially deploy and use the the military against civilians throughout the 100 mile zone in which the border agents they are supposed to protect can operate and in which 2/3 of the population resides?
posted by Hairy Lobster at 9:05 AM on November 21, 2018 [14 favorites]

the thing i don't get is why they didn't just get trump to sign it? like, you wouldn't even have to trick him, he'd do it enthusiastically.

i'm guessing that this is kelly trying to throw a sop to trump because he knows that if they put out an actual executive order with this it would be a massive obvious violation of Posse Comitatus instead of a plausibly deniable violation.
posted by murphy slaw at 9:06 AM on November 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

Adding to this... it's fun to joke about Trump's answers being a "take home test" and speculate whether it was written in crayon. But even though our legal system is adversarial, it isn't really supposed to be a measure of people's ability to, under pressure, perform their role in that conflict; it's about determining the truth and according consequences for their actions.

Answers given before a live jury may be more truthful in some circumstances (e.g if you're attesting to something you witnessed and didn't write down at the time, so you haven't had as much opportunity to fabricate a memory) and less in others (if the questions are about things that are documented, where remembering it off the spot could be less reliable). In short, just because Donald's lying is compulsive, and thus putting him on the stand would perhaps guarantee perjury, doesn't mean written answers are "cheating" -- but I'm not a lawyer and there may be big factors I've missed.

What you're missing is that (assuming anyone at all sane is in charge) Donald Trump will in no way write the responses. What you'll get is a response from the WH legal team in his name, which will be as anodyne and opaque as legally possible. That is much less useful than testimony from his own mouth.
posted by jaduncan at 9:07 AM on November 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Nuremberg principles V

The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Not that the US cares about international law or morals anymore.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:09 AM on November 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

As per above: no one has the right to obey.
posted by progosk at 9:18 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

And if you're afraid of the consequences of NOT obeying, well, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.
posted by delfin at 9:24 AM on November 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

What you're missing is that (assuming anyone at all sane is in charge) Donald Trump will in no way write the responses.

Well, in an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday (transcript), Trump claimed he wrote or dictated the answers himself:

WALLACE: Your team is preparing written answers to questions about --

TRUMP: No, no, no, not my team. I'm preparing written answers. My -- I - - I'm the one that does the answering. Yes, are they writing them out?

WALLACE: Yes.

TRUMP: Yes. They're writing what I tell them to write.

WALLACE: Are they going to be submitted?

TRUMP: At some point very soon, yes. I've completed them.

WALLACE: So you're -- you are submitting --

TRUMP: And it wasn't a big deal -- by the way, it wasn't a big deal. The answers -- the questions were asked and answered. It wasn't a big deal.

You know, they make it like I had meetings for many, many hours -- I got the questions, I responded, we read them out, I read them once, I read them a second time, we made some changes, that's it. They're very simple.

posted by kirkaracha at 9:32 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

> I got the questions, I responded, we read them out, I read them once, I read them a second time, we made some changes, that's it. They're very simple.

DID YOU COMMIT ANY CRIMES? ~~Yes~~ No.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:37 AM on November 21, 2018 [40 favorites]

i'm guessing that this is kelly trying to throw a sop to trump because he knows that if they put out an actual executive order with this it would be a massive obvious violation of Posse Comitatus instead of a plausibly deniable violation.

This... actually makes sense. Kelly putting his signature to it lets him tell Trump he did it. The military, seeing that it's not Trump's signature, will shrug and decide it's just a legally meaningless memo, and nothing actually happens. This temporarily avoids Trump signing an obviously illegal order.

Not a good sign- depending on how long it takes Hannity to tell Trump that it's not a real order, the troops on the border may still be there by the time he signs a real executive order.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:40 AM on November 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

As U.S. attorney, Whitaker imposed longer-than-usual drug sentences (WaPo):

Raeanna Woody’s crimes hardly seemed like they would add up to a life sentence in prison. She had two nonviolent drug convictions, for possessing marijuana and delivering 12 grams of methamphetamine. But when she was arrested in a third drug case, she said, the office of U.S. Attorney Matthew G. Whitaker decided to make an example of her.

Under Whitaker, who is now acting attorney general, Woody was given a choice: spend the rest of her life in jail, or accept a plea bargain sentence of 21 to 27 years, according to court records. She took the deal.

Federal Judge Robert W. Pratt in the Southern District of Iowa later accused prosecutors of having “misused” their authority in her nonviolent case. He urged President Barack Obama to commute her sentence — and Obama did shorten her term, after she had served 11 years.
...
Whitaker spent nearly five years as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. His office was more likely than all but one other district in the United States to use its authority to impose the harshest sentences on drug offenders, according to a finding by a different Iowa federal judge, Mark W. Bennett, who it called a “deeply troubling disparity.”

posted by peeedro at 9:40 AM on November 21, 2018 [13 favorites]

@justinsink [today]: WH now says, uh, actually he’s nominating Jeremy Katz of Illinois, not the Oracle CEO. Whoops!

@JenniferJJacobs [yesterday evening]: Trump has nominated Oracle CEO Safra Catz to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, a group that gives advice on the conduct and adequacy of the U.S. intelligence community. Also named to board: Saxby Chambliss, James Donovan, Kevin E. Hulbert, David Robertson, WH says.

I constantly go back and forth between being terrified that the people running the country are morons and being reassured that no matter their worst policies, at least they're morons.
posted by zachlipton at 9:49 AM on November 21, 2018 [32 favorites]

Well, in an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday (transcript), Trump claimed he wrote or dictated the answers himself

Since Trump was on TV and his mouth was moving we can be certain he was lying. We can then apply Trump's mirror to determine that what actually happened was exactly the opposite to some degree.

So I'm thinking that Trump was told to sit in the corner, shut up, and only speak when spoken to. His lawyers wrote out the answers and they maybe bothered to get a pro-forma approval from Trump. I picture that being similar to dealing with an obstinate child where you want to give the child the illusion that they have some control but you're really just manipulating the kid into doing what you want. Trump would have been dealt a narcissistic injury and would seek to claim that what actually transpired is that he was in total control and big-boy in charge making all the decisions and everybody knows how powerful he is.

So that's my starting point on the opposite side of the spectrum and I'll adjust my view from there if/when any evidence emerges that suggests anything else.
posted by VTX at 9:51 AM on November 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

Whitaker spent nearly five years as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. His office was more likely than all but one other district in the United States to use its authority to impose the harshest sentences on drug offenders

Applying Trump's Mirror, I would say Whitaker is a prime candidate for a drug test. Perhaps the Senate judicial committee could ask for one. But no.
posted by JackFlash at 9:53 AM on November 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

> So I'm thinking that Trump was told to sit in the corner, shut up, and only speak when spoken to. His lawyers wrote out the answers and they maybe bothered to get a pro-forma approval from Trump.

likely they consulted him for input on relatively unimportant details, while pretending that those details were very important indeed. We know that this is a standard strategy for dealing with 45, since sometimes it backfires. see: the time the republican party powers-that-be told him that coming up with a name of their tax cut bill was very important indeed and then subsequently had to scramble to make the name "The Cut Cut Cut Act" go away.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:57 AM on November 21, 2018 [21 favorites]

Twitter exchange via Thread Reader, DJT and Michelle Wolf:

@realDonaldTrump: So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian. Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go?

@michelleisawolf: I bet you'd be on my side if I had killed a journalist. #BeBest

[Be Best hashtag references Melania Trump's anti-bullying campaign.]
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:05 AM on November 21, 2018 [75 favorites]

All the Democrats running for top spots in the House - Ella Nilsen, Vox

Good overview.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:11 AM on November 21, 2018

I still maintain that if Trump manages to kill off the White House Correspondent's Dinner he will have at least accomplished one good thing during his time in office. The last damn thing America needs is yet one more night for the insider lords of access journalism to get together and pat themselves on the back and proclaim how awesome their access is.
posted by sotonohito at 10:12 AM on November 21, 2018 [33 favorites]

This... actually makes sense. Kelly putting his signature to it lets him tell Trump he did it. The military, seeing that it's not Trump's signature, will shrug and decide it's just a legally meaningless memo, and nothing actually happens. This temporarily avoids Trump signing an obviously illegal order.

This is what I'm hoping for. But that means I'm hoping that a retired general signed an order telling our military to violate the law, knowing damn well it's meaningless and legally non-binding to placate an idiot president, and hoping that the military plays along with him in ignoring the president's illegal and inhumane wishes. Also knowing that there are, in fact, cruel raging racists among the ranks, and sometimes those assholes have authority over others who are not so good at knowing when they are supposed to refuse an order because it's illegal.

Good times.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:17 AM on November 21, 2018 [10 favorites]

Re the campaign to vote against Pelosi on the floor - which, to be clear, is an act of treachery to the caucus: vote against her in caucus, sure, but after she's the Democratic candidate for Speaker, the same rules we use for primaries vs general elections should apply even more strongly to actual elected reps... Anyway, what was I saying?

Buffalo News: Rep. Brian Higgins, in a reversal, will back Nancy Pelosi for speaker

Rep. Brian Higgins of Buffalo reversed course Wednesday and said he will support Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to be the speaker of the House, delivering a devastating blow to a weakening rebellion in the ranks that aims to oust her from the top job in the incoming House of Representatives.

posted by RedOrGreen at 10:18 AM on November 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

BuzzFeed, Geidner, Chief Justice John Roberts Defends Judges Following Trump's Latest Attacks On The Judiciary

Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare comment defending the "independent judiciary" on Wednesday in the wake of President Donald Trump's latest attack on federal judges.

"We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them," Roberts said in a statement. "That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for."

Chief Justice Roberts has a strictly-defined speed at which he wants to play the Federalist Society's long game, and he's fed up with Trump's impatience. But seriously, this strikes me as fairly extraordinary.
posted by zachlipton at 10:18 AM on November 21, 2018 [25 favorites]

The last damn thing America needs is yet one more night for the insider lords of access journalism to get together and pat themselves on the back and proclaim how awesome their access is.

The more so as they've completely ignored some pointed criticism by Wolf and, much earlier, by Colbert, who point out that they're far too chummy with, and not skeptical enough of, their sources.

It was fascinating and appalling to see how the media chattered about Wolf's alleged criticism of Sarah Sanders' looks -- she didn't -- while ignoring the fact that Wolf straight up called Sanders a liar. A liar that none of the alleged professional journalists challenged as such.
posted by Gelatin at 10:18 AM on November 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

This I had missed. Zuckerberg hired Nick Clegg as Facebook's president of global strategy. Nick Clegg, is best known as a punchline in the UK as David Cameron's poodle. He led his Liberal Democrat Party to a record loss of 49 seats and then proceeded to lose his own "safe" seat to the Labor Party for the first time in 130 years.
posted by JackFlash at 10:23 AM on November 21, 2018 [17 favorites]

this strikes me as fairly extraordinary.

It is extraordinary, and I have to think if you're a highly educated and basically well-respected jurist like Justice Roberts, if you start to find the attacks on the judiciary so egregious and insulting that it actually spurs you to take positions you might not have otherwise taken, just to prove that you're actually independent.

Time will tell, I guess.
posted by anastasiav at 10:27 AM on November 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

"We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them," Roberts said in a statement. "That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for."

Sorry, but with Kavanaugh, that ship has sailed.

(Not to mention the one thing Trump is accomplishing is nominating, for Mitch McConnell to gleefully confirm, a raft of new conservative judges groomed by the Federalist Society, and not for their objective neutrality.)
posted by Gelatin at 10:27 AM on November 21, 2018 [21 favorites]

if you start to find the attacks on the judiciary so egregious and insulting that it actually spurs you to take positions you might not have otherwise taken, just to prove that you're actually independent.

Said it before, I'll say it again. We need to be constantly harping on the illegitimacy of the "Trump" court. Roberts is the swing vote now and his desire to have a veneer of respectability over his partisanship is perhaps the only thing that might prevent some truly awful decisions.
posted by chris24 at 10:29 AM on November 21, 2018 [30 favorites]

at this point there aren't enough people left to stop him

Well Emmet Flood hasn't quit yet.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:30 AM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Main gist is that Mueller says there's no good reason to delay Papadopoulos starting to serve his jail sentence on Monday.

Awww...poor little covfefe boy. Will this make him the first #TrumpShitshow crony to actually spend some time behind bars? If so, isn't that cause for celebratory cake? I mean, at least a cupcake right? Maybe a donut b/c that goes best with coffee boy?
(Also, the bakery that just opened up a few doors down might be rapidly driving me insane with cake desire)
posted by sexyrobot at 10:44 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

This... actually makes sense. Kelly putting his signature to it lets him tell Trump he did it. The military, seeing that it's not Trump's signature, will shrug and decide it's just a legally meaningless memo, and nothing actually happens.

With the transgender ban, the DoD managed to smother it through standard-process bureaucracy: well, this is a valid order so we'll set up an assessment panel and eventually submit 20 pages of implementation guidelines that he won't read. But Potemkin orders for Potemkin deployments and Potemkin barbed wire fences? That's almost like the old Soviet joke: "we'll pretend to work as long as the bosses pretend to pay us." And there's slippage here towards increasingly opaque ways to nanny the power of the presidency -- a kind of unofficial batshit regency -- that muddies the agency in those powers and raises the risk of the demented king using his powers in drastic ways.
posted by holgate at 10:49 AM on November 21, 2018 [8 favorites]

The President spent the day today volunteering at the Food Depository in Chicago
posted by growabrain at 10:58 AM on November 21, 2018 [51 favorites]

Wow, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is sick of this shit:

tulsi gabbard, president (and only member?) of the democrats for trump caucus* in the house

* not an actual caucus
posted by murphy slaw at 10:59 AM on November 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

The President spent the day today volunteering at the Food Depository in Chicago

Trigger warning: Cuteness overload at the end of the video.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:08 AM on November 21, 2018 [15 favorites]

On a lighter note, Steve Bannon’s political operation to help rightwing populists triumph in next year’s European parliamentary elections is in disarray after he conceded that his campaign efforts could be illegal in most of the countries in which he planned to intervene.
posted by Slothrup at 11:31 AM on November 21, 2018 [33 favorites]

Thanksgiving Dishes That Will Help You Passive-Aggressively Bring Up Politics

There are some who continue to maintain that talking about politics over a meal, particularly a holiday meal, is bad form. While it's true that an antagonistic discourse has been inserted into every waking moment of our lives (and many nightmares!) the solution probably isn't talking less, but rather talking smarter. Since an overt introduction of supposedly hot-button topics, like basic human rights, may devolve into a shouting match, you might want to try including the following dishes on your menu, all of which will allow you to passive-aggressively steer the conversation toward the thing that everybody is thinking about anyway.

A Pie with 232 Blueberries and 200 Cranberries
Your family may not notice that this pie reflects the new configuration of the House of Representatives after what was unequivocally a blue wave, so you'll need to subtly remind them by saying "This pie reflects the new configuration of the House of Representatives after what was unequivocally a blue wave." If you're really feeling saucy, feel free to launch into a discussion of gerrymandering while you're cutting the slices. This recipe is fine if you mix the berries together, but will pack even more of a punch if you make 46 percent of the pie cranberries and 54 percent of it blueberries. How will you construct this? I don't know! This isn't a cooking blog. This is America.

posted by kirkaracha at 11:42 AM on November 21, 2018 [28 favorites]

does it truly bother anybody that Ivanka did whatever email thing, in itself, absent the hypocrisy?

Running your own server is an aggressive move, and whoever does it (including Hillary) deserves and should get scrutiny on security and record retention grounds.

The thing is, Hillary looked pretty good after such a review. The State Department email server WAS hacked, which was one reason for the move, and as far as we can tell, her server never was. If she had exposed US secrets in attempt to keep political maneuvers away from appropriate scrutiny, she would have deserved many of the attacks on her. Indeed, that was the theory of the attacks in the first place.

Ivanka and Jared deserve every bit of similar scrutiny, and every bit of judgment if they did not do as good a job with security, which is 99.99% likely.
posted by msalt at 11:59 AM on November 21, 2018 [23 favorites]

Ivanka and Jared deserve every bit of similar scrutiny, and every bit of judgment if they did not do as good a job with security, which is 99.99% likely.

They deserve more scrutiny, since what they did was against the law but what Hillary Clinton did wasn't illegal under the law at the time.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:37 PM on November 21, 2018 [17 favorites]

Don't let them get away with it. It's a partisan, illegitimate court and needs to be called out.

John Warner (@biblioracle)
I don't read this as Roberts pushing back on Trump. I read it as Roberts inoculating the Supreme Court from criticism when they ultimately affirm some of Trump's most egregious crap. The conservative members of the court are highly sympathetic to the pro-authoritarian, pro-corporation, anti anti-racism, anti-immigrant substance of Trumpism. They object to the style. Roberts wants to be able to help enact Trumpist policies without getting tagged as Trumpist. When the SC refuses to address partisan gerrymandering, rejects renewing the voting rights act, and even potentially strikes down the federal right to abortion, he wants to make sure we all know it's just judges calling balls and strikes, not ideologues acting politically.

The courts are only a check on Trump until they aren't, and once they aren't, they're gone quickly and possibly forever. Trump is the institution wrecker. It's only a matter of time before the courts go down too. I understand why people remain invested in believing in our institutions like the independent judiciary, but two years of Trump should've disabused most everyone of the notion that those institutions have any real currency in the face of those determined to wreck them. We're in a post-institution age. Trump exploited the phenomenon. The wrecking of the legislature is essentially traceable to Gingrich. The SC destroyed itself with Bush v. Gore. Trump is wrecking the executive. Roberts is trying to maintain an illusion.

---

Seth Cotlar (history prof)
The conservative legal movement (which produced Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh) is the dog that caught the car. For decades they’ve wanted to use the courts as a politicized sledgehammer to smash the New Deal state. Trump is forcing them to do it more openly.
posted by chris24 at 12:47 PM on November 21, 2018 [58 favorites]

A good number of responses to Gabbard’s tweet are people of course claiming that Obama should be rotting in jail over his payments to the Iranians. WaPo did a nice debunking of the illegality claim awhile back. Feel free to refresh yourself.
posted by misterpatrick at 12:50 PM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have “Obama judges,” and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an “independent judiciary,” but if it is why......[many agonizing minutes pass waiting for tweet #2].....are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking. We need protection and security - these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!

I see we're getting into the Thanksgiving spirit of peace and goodwill by picking a fight with the Chief Justice on Twitter after finishing golf.

@kept_simple: trump is too dumb to understand that justice roberts was providing intellectual cover for a federal judiciary that usually supports his agenda

@pattymo: Oh no Mr. Trump, PLEASE don’t make people realize courts are political

@ssamcham: I'm sure the SG's Office is delighted to see this tweet as they prepare to ask SCOTUS for extraordinary and politically charged relief in the Census case and elsewhere.

Speaking of which, a panel at the 2nd Circuit denied the administration's request, yet again, to halt the census case.
posted by zachlipton at 1:11 PM on November 21, 2018 [42 favorites]

In other SCOTUS news: Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor Have Started Teaming Up to Protect Criminal Defendants
posted by homunculus at 1:11 PM on November 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

Schitt's about to get real: House Intelligence Panel Hiring Money-Laundering Sleuths

The House intelligence committee's incoming Democratic majority is taking its first steps to follow Donald Trump's money, The Daily Beast has learned.

The committee is looking to hire money-laundering and forensic accounting experts, three sources familiar with the plans confirm to The Daily Beast. One Democratic committee office said the purpose of the potential new hires is to examine unanswered financial questions about Trump and Russia, but their work could apply broadly across the panel’s intelligence oversight.

Ceterum autem censeo Trumpem esse delendam
posted by kirkaracha at 1:22 PM on November 21, 2018 [32 favorites]

So, Newsweek are suggesting that Trump did sign the order to sign the memo to allow the use of lethal force on immingrants and protesters in the border areas.

“They are pushing DoD’s authority right up to the line of what is permitted without violating the restrictions of Posse Comitatus. Active duty personnel can respond in self-defense of border officials but the perfect world does not exist in factual reality in which this subjective concept can be neatly applied to the environment of border enforcement,” said Brad Moss, a Washington, D.C. based attorney specializing in national security.

The Military Times reported that Defense officials said the language in the White House directive was carefully crafted to stay within the legal limits established under Posse Comitatus.

However, the areas most vulnerable to Posse Comitatus violations, according to Moss, are U.S. service members participating in crowd control and the detention of migrants.

“That becomes the undefined gray line between emergency circumstances and routine border enforcement,” Moss said. "The fine print of when either such behavior is permissible needs to be fleshed out by the government in far more detail.”

It's hard to see how this could be anything other than them trying to have a massacre.
posted by Buntix at 1:27 PM on November 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

> But wait, there's still more on the rule of law beat, and I'm curious if McGhan is talking now that he's out of a job. NYT, Schmidt and Haberman, Trump Wanted to Order Justice Dept. to Prosecute Comey and Clinton

What Trump Has Done Is Already Impeachable By Any Reasonable Standard: If we're following the constitution, as soon as the president* asked the question, he was guilty of a high crime.

Here's the thing. If we're still following the Constitution, as soon as the president* finished asking the question, he was guilty of a high crime and liable to impeachment and removal from office. It doesn't matter that it never happened, or that McGahn talked him out of it. Given his position, the very suggestion by the president* that the Justice Department behave as his personal Praetorian Guard is an obstruction of justice and an abuse of power. McGahn should've walked that conversation over to Robert Mueller's place as soon as he left the Oval Office. However, he didn't, and the Times leaves us with this little land mine deep in the story.
It is unclear whether Mr. Trump read Mr. McGahn’s memo or whether he pursued the prosecutions further.
It is? We're "unclear" whether the president* actually acted on this notion, compounding his felonies, and we're "unclear" whether investigations of Clinton and Comey might be underway right now. That's one fcklord of a cliffhanger right there, NYT.

...

Again, all of this came to light in one two-hour period on one Tuesday of a holiday week. A corrupt president*, already impeachable by any reasonable standard, simultaneously tries to put a bobo in at the Department of Justice and gives us a "maybe yes, maybe no" on the atrocity murder of a journalist, a crime very likely committed at the order of a barbaric foreign satrap with whom the president* has god alone knows how many business ties. Two hours on a Tuesday. So much is falling down.

posted by homunculus at 1:36 PM on November 21, 2018 [46 favorites]

>David Priess, Lawfare 11/5/2018, The Ethical Landmine of Undermining a President From Within [links in original]:

Before Donald Trump secured the Republican Party nomination in the summer of 2016, Lawfare and others hosted articles expressing concern about the potential impact of a Trump presidency on national-security and law-enforcement institutions—often focusing on the dilemma of whether or not career officials should continue to serve in a Trump administration. After the election, fears grew that Trump would shatter long-standing norms of decorum and governance, and the conversation continued. A loose consensus emerged: Career government employees could serve honorably under an ethically challenged president, but they—and their politically appointed superiors—would need to be prepared to resign if an illegal or unethical directive came their way.

This discussion remained hypothetical until it wasn’t. As the theoretical became the actual, some officers quit, while most stayed on the job. A few, however, have sought a way out of this stark dilemma by remaining in place and undermining the president from within his own administration.

They have deluded themselves. That path of subversion, even if initially well-intentioned, leads to an ethical minefield that should not be casually traversed.

Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
posted by cenoxo at 1:38 PM on November 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

AP, New Justice Department head erroneously says bomber had help, in which the acting AG gives a speech to members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force claiming that bomber Ahmad Rahimi had two co-conspirators, boasting that one is now in custody, when that's not true. After reporters said "that's fascinating, please tell us more," the Justice Department acknowledged it was a mistake and removed it from the transcript.
posted by zachlipton at 1:42 PM on November 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

McGahn should've walked that conversation over to Robert Mueller's place as soon as he left the Oval Office. However, he didn't,

do we know this? the NYT reporting appears to be based on anonymous administration sources. isn't it possible that mcgahn spilled his guts to the special prosecutor the second he had no professional obligation to the president and we just haven't heard about it previously because mueller's operation doesn't leak?
posted by murphy slaw at 1:51 PM on November 21, 2018

> Schitt's about to get real: House Intelligence Panel Hiring Money-Laundering Sleuths

Bill Palmer (who also wrote this): Adam Schiff is going after Donald Trump’s money

Back when Special Counsel Robert Mueller was first appointed, he famously hired prosecutors with money laundering backgrounds, and now Schiff is taking the same approach. This sets up a situation in which Schiff will be airing Trump’s dirty (money) laundry in nationally televised congressional hearings, shortly after Mueller has taken his big swing at Trump.

So this can be taken as not only a sign that Adam Schiff and the House Democrats plan to make a big deal out of Donald Trump’s financial ties to Russia and other foreign enemies, but that they expect Robert Mueller to soon lay the groundwork for it before the new House session begins. These are interesting times to say the least, and suffice it to say that Trump is about to be up Schiff creek.

posted by homunculus at 1:55 PM on November 21, 2018 [57 favorites]

This sets up a situation in which Schiff will be airing Trump’s dirty (money) laundry in nationally televised congressional hearings, shortly after Mueller has taken his big swing at Trump.

I am a huge Adam Schiff fan and this is luscious.
posted by bluesky43 at 1:59 PM on November 21, 2018 [23 favorites]

Trump says: "Troops at the border are tough enough to miss Thanksgiving"
as he heads off to his Winter Palace for a four-day weekend.

No word yet whether he will be letting the troops eat cake.
posted by JackFlash at 2:03 PM on November 21, 2018 [30 favorites]

why is trump pardoning a turkey did it murder a journalist
posted by growabrain at 2:05 PM on November 21, 2018 [42 favorites]

Trump says: "Troops at the border are tough enough to miss Thanksgiving"
as he heads off to his Winter Palace for a four-day weekend.

More detail: Donald Trump Says Troops At Border Are ‘Tough’ Enough To Miss Thanksgiving

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, President Donald Trump downplayed the fact that many U.S. troops will be missing Thanksgiving with their families this year because of his decision to send them to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Don’t worry about Thanksgiving,” Trump said. “These are tough people. They know what they’re doing and they’re great. And they’ve done a great job. You’re so worried about the Thanksgiving holiday for them. They are so proud to be representing our country on the border.”

posted by homunculus at 2:09 PM on November 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

AP, Inside Trump’s refusal to testify in the Mueller probe

The date had been picked, the location too, and the plan was penciled in: President Donald Trump would be whisked from the White House to Camp David on a quiet winter Saturday to answer questions from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team.

But as the Jan. 27, 2018, date neared and Mueller provided the topics he wanted to discuss, Trump’s lawyers balked. Attorney John Dowd then fired off a searing letter disputing Mueller’s authority to question the president. The interview was off.

Nearly a year later, Trump has still not spoken directly to Mueller’s team — and may never. Through private letters, tense meetings and considerable public posturing, the president’s lawyers have engaged in a tangled, tortured back-and-forth with the special counsel to prevent the president from sitting down for a face-to-face with enormous political and legal consequences.
...
But first they tried to head off a request. Trump’s lawyers staked out a bold constitutional argument, declaring they considered all his actions as president outside a prosecutor’s bounds. Mueller had no right to question the president on any of his decisions made at the White House, they argued, saying any outside scrutiny of those choices would curb a president’s executive powers.

@emptywheel: There's a great deal about this article that is misleading or downright credulous. It also doesn't mention (for the second time in a day) the HUGE carveout Trump is making for transition questions. As I asked earlier, "If a President makes an expansive new claim to Executive Privilege and the press reports the opposite, did it really happen?" AP's now two for two on missing that story. Further, since it's claiming it has been "nearly 15 years" since a POTUS has been interviewed (actually, 14 & change), they should say, "but he was interviewed abt convos w/Assistant and VP on issues of presidential prerogative" -- the kind of stuff Trump is refusing.
posted by zachlipton at 2:37 PM on November 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

Y'know, after GeeDubz got through eight g-ddamned long years desecrating the Constitution and all things good and proper (although he apparently helped the AIDS situation in Africa, so, uh, good), we had a wave election.

Ran all of the executive and legislative branches for two years. Got ACA passed, but no comeuppance. That's following Wild Bill's eight years of dismantling welfare, telecom, and no comeuppance. I get it. It's an important part of democracy, the peaceful transference of power.

But this time ... Oh you better believe that's a paddlin'. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh - out. Dreamers in. Tax bill -that bullshit scribbled-in-the-margins-insult of a bill? Fuck that. Claw all that back and and while we're at it go big on renewables and unfuck the damage at EPA, DOI, Education and most of all - prosecute these criminal bastards. None of that "look forward" crap! What's the whole point if this goes unpunished? Wait for the Mercer Nazis to get it right next time?! They cannot be reasoned with, as has been made gruesomely obvious, so let's vote in some relatively competent, decent people in and clean this out. War on Drugs, out, War on Corrupt Money Sexual Assault, in.

They left this England place 'cause it was totally bogus - but if we don't get some cool rules, pronto, we'll just be bogus too.
posted by petebest at 2:56 PM on November 21, 2018 [15 favorites]

I’m not sure starting a pissing-match with the guy who could well be the swing vote on the Supreme Court is a good idea.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:58 PM on November 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

We sure have come a long ways when John effing Roberts is considered the swing vote.
posted by JackFlash at 3:01 PM on November 21, 2018 [36 favorites]

but they—and their politically appointed superiors—would need to be prepared to resign if an illegal or unethical directive came their way.

I don't really understand or agree with this. If you're being asked to do something illegal and/or unethical, all you need to do is refuse to do it on the basis that it's unethical and/or illegal, that's all. You don't have to resign, you're doing the right thing! The threat to resign only carries any weight if you're vital to the organization in someway such that they need you to stay on board more than they need whatever illegal/unethical task accomplished. I think you're better off making it clear that you absolutely will not do this thing and you're going to remain an obstacle to them getting it done. Yeah, you're going to be fired anyway but MAKE THEM FIRE YOU! Don't make it easier for them.

I'd have to imagine that, "I was fired from my last job for refusing to do this illegal thing." goes over pretty well in an interview. If it doesn't, that's not a place you want to work.

What am I missing?
posted by VTX at 3:01 PM on November 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

"They are so proud to be representing our country on the border."

Representing our country. In our country. I guess every day I walk from my home in Honolulu to my job in Honolulu, I'm representing Hawaii? Texas is not a foreign country. I mean... I know, I know I'm treating some words Trump said like they were meant to have a logical/denotative meaning. It's like trying to listen for song lyrics in water spraying wildly from a broken fire hydrant.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:26 PM on November 21, 2018 [19 favorites]

> And the NYT's pre-holiday bombshell that Trump tried to have Comey prosecuted only worsens Trump's legal hazard—and I'm betting Trump would have tried this while Comey was on his book tour and in the headlines (FPP).

Trump’s Direction to Prosecute Comey Could Complete the Obstruction of Justice Case: Any one of the president's single acts against the FBI director could be written off by reasonable people, but adding on top a desire to lock him up should tip the scales.
posted by homunculus at 3:29 PM on November 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

In other news: Trump says he can’t imagine anyone but himself as Time Person of the Year
posted by homunculus at 3:32 PM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

In other news: Trump says he can’t imagine anyone but himself as Time Person of the Year

I might die of schadenfreude if Mueller is Time Person of the Year.
posted by Marticus at 3:34 PM on November 21, 2018 [79 favorites]

I have grown weary of the "another brick in the wall" takes on obstruction. Everyone not a blinkered idiot knows Trump obstructed justice and the evidence is overwhelming. Anyone who writes a piece saying that some piece of evidence is not obstruction by itself but another piece in a puzzle needs to have their typewriter repossessed. The obstruction puzzle is now approximately 17,000 fully assembled pieces depicting Donald Trump with the giant neon orange caption "I OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE" written over his head in comic sans.

Just stop. It's not a good take, Barbara McQuade.
posted by Justinian at 3:34 PM on November 21, 2018 [29 favorites]

In other news: Trump says he can’t imagine anyone but himself as Time Person of the Year

President Trump was asked by a reporter Tuesday about Time magazine’s Person of the Year issue, which comes out every December.

And he had one answer for who should be Person of the Year: “Trump.”

“I don’t know, that is up to Time magazine,” he said, noting that he had been given the distinction in 2016. "I can’t imagine anybody else other than Trump, can you imagine anybody else other than Trump?”

posted by kirkaracha at 3:57 PM on November 21, 2018

Facebook dumps news at 5 pm ET before Thanksgiving that it did ask Definers to go after Soros

While still an utterly craven move, at least they've got more guts than Schumer.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:08 PM on November 21, 2018 [16 favorites]

Glad to have reporters getting him on the record with hard-hitting questions that my preschooler definitely couldn't have predicted the answer to.
posted by lostburner at 4:10 PM on November 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

Since you asked...Time MOY 1938. It may be more of a warning to the rest of us, and not such a great honor.
posted by cenoxo at 4:14 PM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I can’t imagine anybody else other than Trump, can you imagine anybody else other than Trump?”

How about no one? That seems fitting somehow.
posted by nubs at 4:19 PM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Daily Beast: DHS Wouldn’t Take Mattis’ No for an Answer on Lethal Force

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis last month objected to using military force to protect border agents on the southwest border, a knowledgeable current U.S. official and a former Defense Department official told The Daily Beast.

Wait, has Mattis finally decided not to be a racist piece of shit with a hard-on for committing atrocities against civilians? Maybe this time the Mad Dog cultists might actually have something to cheer ab--

But Mattis didn’t object on principle. When the Department of Homeland Security requested the so-called force protection mission from the Pentagon, Mattis declined because he thought he lacked the authority to do so, the current official said.

Ah, there's the cowardly war criminal we've all become familiar with these last couple years.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:20 PM on November 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

So now the GOP chairman of the Judiciary committee is attacking Roberts. With a multiple lies. Obama never rebuked Alito. He mildly expressed his disagreement with Citizen's United. Alito disrespected him by saying "not true" during his speech. And then Roberts did criticize Obama afterwards.

@ChuckGrassley
Chief Justice Roberts rebuked Trump for a comment he made abt judge’s decision on asylum I don’t recall the Chief attacking Obama when that Prez rebuked Alito during a State of the Union
posted by chris24 at 4:27 PM on November 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

Wow, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is sick of this shit

Tulsi Gabbard has for several years been acting as a mouthpiece for Bashar Al Assad, who is closely allied with Iran. Naturally she has no love for Saudi Arabia.

(As for me -- a pox on both their houses.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:56 PM on November 21, 2018 [28 favorites]

I can’t imagine anybody else other than Trump, can you imagine anybody else other than Trump?”

Immigrants and/or refugees? Everyone's talking about them and their caravan these days.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 5:19 PM on November 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

Here are Obama's exact words: "With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that, I believe, will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections."

"I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people. And I urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps correct some of these problems."

What he said was his opinion turned out to be absolutely true -- it did open the floodgates for special interests. And the court did reverse precedent. He was calling for action from Congress to fix it -- which is perfectly appropriate for an address to Congress.

For Grassley to compare this to Trump direct attack on the courts is just plain stupid.
posted by JackFlash at 5:36 PM on November 21, 2018 [66 favorites]

trump obviously didn't notice that last year TIME gave Person of the Year to "The Silence Breakers" (collectively the #MeToo movement, Tarana Burke, and other women speaking out about sexual assault).

since that one's taken, how about Nancy Pelosi. that would put a nice capstone on trump's best election ever.
posted by murphy slaw at 5:43 PM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

But wouldn't that then make TIME fake news?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:52 PM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

They could give it to Jim Acosta or April Ryan. Bonus trigger points if they named the late Mr. Khashoggi.
posted by riverlife at 5:59 PM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

Hey we probably don't need to spend a lot of time thinking about the narcissist thinking he should get attention etc.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:13 PM on November 21, 2018 [13 favorites]

I can’t imagine anybody else other than Trump, can you imagine anybody else other than Trump?”

Immigrants and/or refugees? Everyone's talking about them and their caravan these days.

Not in any order of importance:

1. Immigrants
2. Refugees
(thanks NSAID for those ideas)
3. The new diverse congress that will be seated in January.
4. The huge increase of volunteers to seat them.
5. The people who donated small amounts of money in multiple campaigns to change how money works in elections.
6. Voters and the huge amount that showed up for a mid-term.
7. AOC
8. Beto

I could easily list 20 more (Stormy, Avenatti, Kamalah, Warren, Kavanaugh, Dr. Ford, Mueller, etc.) that are more qualified for person of the year before I would say he should be person of the year again, even acknowledging that he could be person of the year in the same way that Hitler was because he was most talked about... just most talked about for being horrible.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 6:26 PM on November 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

A new CBS News poll finds just 15% of Americans say they are “looking forward” to talking politics at Thanksgiving this year.

CBS News, tackling this corrupt administration with the full power of national network news, just as one would expect.
posted by petebest at 7:22 PM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Could we name Earth the Planet of the Year? Because, for me, the most important thing is climate change and the havoc it is spreading across the planet.
posted by SPrintF at 7:31 PM on November 21, 2018 [14 favorites]

I know it feels like it was years ago but the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting was in February. I think the Parkland kids need to be person of the year.

Of course Trump can't imagine anyone else...he can't imagine anything beyond the tip of his stupid nose.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 8:28 PM on November 21, 2018 [20 favorites]

Why is Mueller only asking for written questions instead of demanding an in person interview?

Mueller could subpoena Trump, but then the question of whether a president can be subpoenaed would go to the courts, probably the Supreme Court, and no one has time for that. Look how long it's taking to decide whether or not Trump has broken the emoluments clause, and that case is actually clearer.
posted by xammerboy at 8:43 PM on November 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Michael Moore has the key for the ways Democrats can keep winning in 2020:

“Here’s the lesson I learned in Michigan, is that ballot proposals are the answer. W and Republicans knew this in 2004 — they put 14 ballot measures in 14 states to outlaw gay marriage, to make it illegal.”

“That motivated people to the polls that might not have otherwise gone,” Velshi noted.

“We need for 2020 to have ballot proposals for legalizing marijuana, free college, equal rights for women, and outlaw gerrymandering”
posted by growabrain at 9:19 PM on November 21, 2018 [57 favorites]

SPrintF: "Could we name Earth the Planet of the Year? Because, for me, the most important thing is climate change and the havoc it is spreading across the planet."

Already won it in 1988.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:03 PM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

I’m not sure starting a pissing-match with the guy who could well be the swing vote on the Supreme Court is a good idea.

This is one of Trump's ways of discrediting people and institutions. Pick a fight with someone, drag them down into the mud with you, then start screaming that they aren't playing fair, they are biased against you, etc.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 10:41 PM on November 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

“Here’s the lesson I learned in Michigan, is that ballot proposals are the answer. W and Republicans knew this in 2004 — they put 14 ballot measures in 14 states to outlaw gay marriage, to make it illegal.”

“That motivated people to the polls that might not have otherwise gone,” Velshi noted.

In Minnesota, ballot measures are relatively rare because only the legislature can put them on a ballot. On the other hand, I suspect the odd celebrity running for office can have a similar effect.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:46 PM on November 21, 2018

Just an ordinary day in the Finnish forest.

The Finns have been making jokes about this all week. That's just one of them. This is after he sided with Putin over the CIA in Helsinki. Now he sides with Saudi Arabia over the CIA.

Rake the forests? No wonder they make jokes. That's as dumb as shit.
posted by adept256 at 10:56 PM on November 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Could we name Earth the Planet of the Year?

It is. And because there's no choice in the matter, it's also next year's, and the one after that, and so on for at least the coming centuries until a lucky few manage to get a self-sustaining colony on Mars going (with a humongous bootstrapping from Planet Earth anyway). That is, if we can keep ourselves from terminally fucking things up down here in the meantime, and/or blowing it up to get it over with.

We Have No Backup Earth.
posted by Stoneshop at 10:59 PM on November 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

For Grassley to compare this to Trump direct attack on the courts is just plain stupid.

Merely disingenuous, surely. Lying about Obama (and HRC) appears to have taken them to the White House.
posted by jaduncan at 4:34 AM on November 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

We sure have come a long ways when John effing Roberts is considered the swing vote.

Oh, I agree. But, his statement is an unprecedented act by any member of SCOTUS, let alone the Chief Justice. I'm pretty sure none of the other justices on the right would have objected to what trump said. They'd probably agree with him.

Roberts' releasing the statement is an interesting development. I'd love to see what, if anything, court-watchers make of it.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:16 AM on November 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh, I agree. But, his statement is an unprecedented act by any member of SCOTUS, let alone the Chief Justice.

Well, it's unprecedented by the gender that's apparently permitted to make such statements. < NBC on furor over RBG criticizing Trump.
posted by Harry Caul at 5:36 AM on November 22, 2018 [15 favorites]

Trump is like a novice mafiosi who says "Listen, you need to pay us or we'll beat you up, because we get a thrill from crime! Especially if it's violent!" and Roberts is his colleague saying "Please ignore my friend over here, we would hate for anything to happen to you. This isn't a threat, it's just protection money" and Trump is idiotically pissed that his friend is apparently the mob's most pathetic member, and possibly some sort of cop.

(Unsettlingly, I think Donald himself might understand this analogy, because in reality he does enjoy making veiled threats mafia-style. He just doesn't get why anyone would bother with any layers of subterfuge beyond that.)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:58 AM on November 22, 2018 [24 favorites]

It feels bad and weird but necessary to side with the CIA here. Like, they may be amoral creepers but at least they're amoral creepers with a sense of professional competence? Or, like, they may be willing to sacrifice human decency for national security, but at least they're patriots rather than toxic narcissists? I don't quite know how to put it without sounding terrible, but that's the lesser of two evils for you, I guess.
posted by rikschell at 7:18 AM on November 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

Ok, this Thanksgiving teleconference address to the military from Mar-a-Lago is some weird shit. Shaky camera and ornate empty chair are the highlights.

Also he tried to twist the arm of some poor Naval officer, who presumably drew the short straw and had to answer the Thanksgiving Day conference call, into declaring that steam-powered aircraft catapults on aircraft carriers are better. Then he introduced a fresh Trump neologism in the course of rambling about the border and telling clumsy lies about “riots” in Mexico: the troops reinforcing the border supposedly laid out “cozentina wire”, presumably concertina wire.
posted by XMLicious at 8:18 AM on November 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner:

“When we hear Giuliani say things like ‘we’re not going to answer any questions that we deem irrelevant or unnecessary’, I think what the American people should hear is that ‘the president is not going to answer any questions they deem incriminating,'”

“When we hear that they won’t answer questions about, for example, obstruction of justice, that is plainly because the president would be boxed in by such questions,” Kirschner said, providing as example Trump’s role in writing the misleading narrative about what transpired between the Russians, Don. Jr., and Jared Kushner in Trump Tower.

“If the president were to answer yes, well, now he has admitted potentially to obstruction of justice. If the president answers no, he has probably earned himself a false statements charge. The reason that the president’s defense team is not letting him answer questions about obstruction of justice is because he would be boxed in, he would incriminate himself. It has nothing to do with an exercise of any legitimate executive privilege.”
posted by growabrain at 8:34 AM on November 22, 2018 [30 favorites]

The reason that the president’s defense team is not letting him answer questions about obstruction of justice is because he would be boxed in, he would incriminate himself

If only the Constitution gave people the right to avoid such a conundrum. We should add an amendment and assign it a random number between 4 and 6.
posted by duoshao at 8:48 AM on November 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

Um, yikes:

Hillary Clinton: Europe must curb immigration to stop rightwing populists
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 8:57 AM on November 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

I think what the American people should hear is that ‘the president is not going to answer any questions they deem incriminating

Well, it's the fig leaf Trump's base are always looking for, isn't it? Most Americans know that statements like "I'll answer anything you want, except the obviously irrelevant question about where I was last Thursday morning" are inherently suspicious, but for his base, they're your alibi for getting to stay in the local early-morning diner klatch ("I mean, could *you* say for 100 percent certain where you were last Thursday morning?"). And of course, they give the MSM what they need to maintain their own dumbass version of objectivity: "Amid Mueller's questions on Russia, President cites 'unaliable right' to privacy regarding last Thursday morning", "Guiliani: nothing in Constitution specifically addresses Thursday mornings".
posted by Rykey at 8:58 AM on November 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

The Guardian: Hillary Clinton: Europe must curb immigration to stop rightwing populists

“I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,” Clinton said, speaking as part of a series of interviews with senior centrist political figures about the rise of populists, particularly on the right, in Europe and the Americas.

“I admire the very generous and compassionate approaches that were taken particularly by leaders like Angela Merkel, but I think it is fair to say Europe has done its part, and must send a very clear message – ‘we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge and support’ – because if we don’t deal with the migration issue it will continue to roil the body politic.”

So brave of MISS SLAY QWEEN to continue the proud tradition of letting a thousand MS St Louises bloom.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:59 AM on November 22, 2018 [16 favorites]

declaring that steam-powered aircraft catapults on aircraft carriers are better.

Mick Krever (CNN)
Trump: “Steam is very reliable. Electromagnetic – unfortunately you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly...”

Navy Officer: “Yes sir. You sort of have to be Albert Einstein to run the nuclear power plant that we have here as well, but we’re doing that very well.”
VIDEO

---

This officer deserves a medal.
posted by chris24 at 9:00 AM on November 22, 2018 [94 favorites]

Continuing the proud Clintonite Third Way tradition of trying to beat the right by accepting all of their framing and then doing their work for them.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:02 AM on November 22, 2018 [48 favorites]

@kept_simple: hillary clinton calls for herself to be locked up to quiet the growing fascist menace
posted by zombieflanders at 9:06 AM on November 22, 2018 [48 favorites]

It is. And because there's no choice in the matter, it's also next year's, and the one after that, and so on for at least the coming centuries until a lucky few manage to get a self-sustaining colony on Mars going (with a humongous bootstrapping from Planet Earth anyway). That is, if we can keep ourselves from terminally fucking things up down here in the meantime, and/or blowing it up to get it over with.

So for kicks I read a reboot civilization after an apocalypse manual - The Knowledge:
How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch by Lewis Dartnell. It's kind of mind numbing and ultimately terrifying. The unstated or at least understated takeaway from the book is that you need pretty darn good conditions, about 10,000 people and they had better all be skilled, scientific and all on the same team and then you need the luck of no other apocalypse level thing happening again in order to get civilization back to an approximation of mid-20th century living.

So a self-sustaining mars colony? Not going to happen. Ever. Hell, we barely built our current civilization and we struggle to hang onto it in an environment that we co-evolved with.
posted by srboisvert at 9:21 AM on November 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

clinton and the rest of her compromised generation need to go - this is just an outrageous thing for her to say and totally unnecessary
posted by pyramid termite at 9:23 AM on November 22, 2018 [35 favorites]

I don’t know if this the place to ask or if it should go in the “we’re fucked” climate change thread, but does anyone know of any serious policy proposals on how developed countries in temperate zones can absorb the coming influx of climate change refugees we’ve created?

I mean logistically as well as politically. Like this is coming and we have a moral responsibility to accept people and help them resettle. But I haven’t seen a lot of practical discussion about the details of how we navigate that that realistically acknowledges the conflicts and difficulties that will inevitably arise.

Am I missing something, or is there a genuine vacuum here? My limited experience so far is that people on the left who acknowledge that we have a moral imperative to accept migrants and refugees are less likely to acknowledge, much less discuss, the problems that can, have, and will arise when there are sudden and large influxes in population.

Which makes us look less than credible and leaves a vacuum that bigots are happy to fill. If we want to beat them, we can’t cede that ground. We have to acknowledge all of reality and present a plan to deal with it. Or we’re fucked.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:36 AM on November 22, 2018 [22 favorites]

Grate. Just what I was hoping for for thanksgiving...for Hillary Clinton to Milkshake Duck herself into Neville Chamberlain.
posted by sexyrobot at 9:38 AM on November 22, 2018 [32 favorites]

About a hundred comments ago, I expressed my frustration that Clinton was not being seriously urged to run for office again. This latest quote from her just...jeez. I mean. I can’t even.

Okay, probably time to move on, then.
posted by darkstar at 9:40 AM on November 22, 2018 [16 favorites]

Hillary Clinton: Europe must curb immigration to stop rightwing populists

Our various election laws appear to be able to deal with that.

And about those rightwing populists? There's a bit of cleaning to do at home, Mrs. Rodham.
posted by Stoneshop at 9:48 AM on November 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Hillary Clinton is a centrist, talking at a centrist forum. News at 11.
posted by gucci mane at 9:50 AM on November 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

Sure, that makes sense. In order to counter nationalism we have to give the nationalists whatever they want, and once they're appeased I'm sure they'll stop.
posted by IAmUnaware at 10:08 AM on November 22, 2018 [24 favorites]

As history has shown, the only effective method for dealing with an expanding fascist threat is to appease the fascists so they settle down and go back to being regular people.
posted by contraption at 10:08 AM on November 22, 2018 [42 favorites]

Hillary Clinton is a centrist, talking at a centrist forum. News at 11.

'Immigration "lit the flame" of reactionary, nationalist populism' is not a "centrist" position and if your news source is telling you that, maybe you want to switch channels.
posted by multics at 10:26 AM on November 22, 2018 [24 favorites]

> why is trump pardoning a turkey did it murder a journalist

I'm beginning to think that @nachosarah may very well be my new favorite political commentator .
posted by homunculus at 10:37 AM on November 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

> why is trump pardoning a turkey did it murder a journalist

There's actually just been a major update on that story,

IrateMillenial: BREAKING: White House Turkey refuses Presidential Pardon, is now cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
posted by Buntix at 10:41 AM on November 22, 2018 [79 favorites]

WaPo: Trump contradicts CIA assessment that Saudi crown prince ordered Khashoggi killing

In defiant remarks to reporters from his Mar-a-Lago resort, President Trump brushed aside the agency's assertion that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, insisting that the agency “had feelings” but did not firmly place blame for the death.

The crown prince really seems to have Trump over a barrel on something. Now I wonder what he was discussing with Jared back when they were having their wacky hijinks late at night.

(Remember that story? It was back in prehistoric times, March 2018, The Intercept:
Saudi Crown Prince Boasted That Jared Kushner Was “In His Pocket”, In late October, Jared Kushner made an unannounced trip to Riyadh, catching some intelligence officials off guard. “The two princes are said to have stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. several nights, swapping stories and planning strategy.”)
posted by RedOrGreen at 10:51 AM on November 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

'Immigration "lit the flame" of reactionary, nationalist populism' is not a "centrist" position and if your news source is telling you that, maybe you want to switch channels.

“I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,” Clinton said, speaking as part of a series of interviews with senior centrist political figures about the rise of populists, particularly on the right, in Europe and the Americas.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by gucci mane at 10:53 AM on November 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

> IrateMillenial: BREAKING: White House Turkey refuses Presidential Pardon, is now cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

For those who didn't click, that's a response to James Comey's latest:

@Comey: "Happy Thanksgiving. Got a subpoena from House Republicans. I’m still happy to sit in the light and answer all questions. But I will resist a 'closed door' thing because I’ve seen enough of their selective leaking and distortion. Let’s have a hearing and invite everyone to see."
posted by homunculus at 11:02 AM on November 22, 2018 [31 favorites]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It might ease your confusion to learn that right-wing positions remain right-wing positions regardless of the audience to which they are expressed or the person expressing them.
posted by multics at 11:02 AM on November 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

It might ease your confusion to learn that right-wing positions remain right-wing positions regardless of the audience to which they are expressed or the person expressing them.

Immigration control has been touted on the left as a protection for the working ala Corbyn and his Brexit stance.
posted by PenDevil at 11:12 AM on November 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

Immigration control has been touted on the left as a protection for the working ala Corbyn and his Brexit stance.

That's a fair point, and I don't mean to suggest that any critique of immigration is de facto right-wing. However, the assertion that liberal immigration policy was the spark for populist rage — as opposed to the nationalists who cynically exploited racism and fear of difference to stoke that rage — is, I think, self-evidently rightist if only in its deflection of responsibility off the fascists onto the powerless.
posted by multics at 11:20 AM on November 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

Immigration control has been touted on the left as a protection for the working ala Corbyn and his Brexit stance.

multics' point still stands.
posted by ishmael at 11:21 AM on November 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

“I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,” Clinton said, speaking as part of a series of interviews with senior centrist political figures about the rise of populists, particularly on the right, in Europe and the Americas.

Is this Clinton trying to pre-paint Sanders as too radical ahead of his Nov. 30 launch of the Progressive International together with Europe’s Varoufakis and Brazil’s Haddad?
posted by progosk at 11:28 AM on November 22, 2018

@joshtpm [video]: Trump asks Naval officer, how do you feel about the crap Gerald Ford class aircraft carrier you're on?

This is his weird obsession with "digital" vs "steam" catapults on aircraft carriers yet again.

@kylegriffin1: Reporter: Who should be held accountable for [Jamal Khashoggi's murder]?
Trump: Maybe the world should be held accountable because the world is a vicious place. The world is a very vicious place. (via CBS)

This makes "Crime. Boy, I don't know" sound like inspired leadership.

As for the final "what are you thankful for" question, Trump is a little thankful for his family, but mostly for himself.
posted by zachlipton at 11:34 AM on November 22, 2018 [22 favorites]

Trump: “So when you do the new carriers, as we do and as we’re thinking about doing, would you go with steam or would you go with electromagnetic? Because steam is very reliable, and the electromagnetic – I mean, unfortunately you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly. What would you do?”

Navy Officer: “Yes sir. You sort of have to be Albert Einstein to run the nuclear power plant that we have here as well, but we’re doing that very well. Sir, Mr. President, I would go with electromagnetic. We do pay a heavy cost for transiting the steam around the ship.”

Trump: “Good. OK, I like to hear that. I’m actually happy about that answer, because at least, you know, they’re doing what they’re doing. But that’s actually a very good answer.”

Leading question, followed by wimping out when he doesn't get the answer he wanted. And he's been stuck on Albert Einstein for at least a year and a half.

It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said—and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said, “What system are you going to be—” “Sir, we’re staying with digital.” I said, “No you’re not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.”

posted by kirkaracha at 11:50 AM on November 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

This makes "Crime. Boy, I don't know" sound like inspired leadership.

“At least, you know, they’re doing what they’re doing.”
posted by kirkaracha at 11:51 AM on November 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

re: "left" arguments for immigration control

if your socialism depends on nationalist policies, you just might be a national socialist.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:58 AM on November 22, 2018 [33 favorites]

And he's been stuck on Albert Einstein for at least a year and a half.

Dude’s had two entire years to grow into the role of commander-in-chief, and he’s still got one weird Navy fact that he keeps falling back on.
posted by Etrigan at 12:05 PM on November 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

note: "I'm not a national socialist like Hitler was a national socialist! I'm more of an Ernst Röhm guy!" is not a good argument.

note 2: If you're in a left space and someone starts to be all "but but the working class in our country would have a better bargaining position if it weren't for all these dang immigrants!" you have a responsibility — a duty — to mock them mercilessly. It is a position that some people hold. It is not, however, an acceptable position. If you want to be on the left and stay on the left — if you don't want to turn into an Ernst Röhm guy — you gotta claim solidarity with the whole working class, the international working class, instead of affirming capital's attempts to divide us with borders.

note 3: If you're a liberal taking an anti-immigration stance, you have no excuse whatsoever. get out of here with that junk.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:07 PM on November 22, 2018 [59 favorites]

Trump: "Justice Roberts can say what he wants, but the 9th Circuit is a complete & total disaster. It is out of control, has a horrible reputation, is overturned more than any Circuit in the Country, 79%, & is used to get an almost guaranteed result."

Once again, someone spoke a number to Trump and he illustrates he doesn't have a clue what it means.

First off, is the 9th Circuit on the west coast overturned 79% of the time?

Well, the Supreme Court only reviews one case in 1000 that is adjudicated by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. That's maybe a dozen cases the Supreme Court even considers out of more than 12,000 cases handled annually by the Ninth Circuit.

Out of those dozen cases selected by the Supreme Court for review, 79% are reversed. This high percentage isn't surprising because the Supreme Court requires at least four judges to select for review and they probably wouldn't if they didn't think they have a possible majority. So they select just a few out of thousands. It doesn't mean what Trump implies that 79% of the Ninth Circuit cases are "guaranteed" overturned. Only a few are overturned.

But is even true that the 79% of the Ninth is more than any other circuit?

Well, the 11th Circuit in that liberal bastion of Alabama, Georgia and Florida has a 85% reversal rate of cases reviewed. And the 6th District of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee has an 87% reversal rate of cases reviewed.

So, as usual, dumbass Trump doesn't know or care what he is talking about. He just likes to rile the rubes with his war against "west coast values".
posted by JackFlash at 12:54 PM on November 22, 2018 [55 favorites]

I mean, unfortunately you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly.

For somebody who loves the troops as much as Trump pretends to, he's awful careless about how condescending he sounds toward them. Does he really imagine the twenty-first century military is just so many Beetle Baileys and Gomer Pyles fiddling with the knobs?
posted by Rykey at 12:59 PM on November 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

There's a complicated sense in which my own immigration views are a sort of overton-shifted equivalent to Hillary's. I don't think any major politicians should take the risks inherent in advocating for a truly compassionate policy... because the only truly compassionate policy is open doors to all, and anything short of that (setting aside "We've flagged you as a literal serial killer in your origin country" or whatever) is not justifiably humane. Yet politics remains the art of the possible, and unless the shift happened across the whole Democratic Party in one swoop, thus signalling to the nation that it's "normal now". It's a coordination problem.

If you accept that a solid portion of the population will be deplorable or deplorable-adjacent, the question becomes just how far you go to accommodate them and how you keep backlash down. I think the answer is "Hardly bother at all. For the most part, they can go to hell." But there's still that "for the most part" part.

(A few other wrinkles: Lots of uninformed white Americans already assume our borders are open and they're okay with that -- which is to say, they assume that just about everyone who wants to be a citizen can be one, if there's no big reason they shouldn't be. They hold this assumption even after learning about quotas because people are good at cognitive dissonance. Hence, if you argue for more liberal policies, they figure you must be lowering the threshold to include terrorists or whatever. This is part of the challenge.)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 1:05 PM on November 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

A simple grace for those dining with Trump supporters today:

“Dear Lord, thank you for the bounty we are about to receive... and for making Nancy Pelosi third in line for the presidency. Amen.”
posted by growabrain at 1:14 PM on November 22, 2018 [33 favorites]

Charles Pierce: I'm Thankful for Memories, Good and Bad, and the Common History They Comprise. This Thanksgiving, it's incumbent on all of us to remember.

It is altogether a day of memory, and not all the memories are good ones, and if we're true to ourselves and our heritage, we admit that in our hearts even before cranberry salad gets passed. The epigraph that David Remnick chose for Lenin's Tomb, his essential account of the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of whatever it is that came after, is a now-famous quote from Czech novelist Milan Kundera:
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
The original occupants of this continent didn't have to be told that. Thousands of years of traditions, religious and otherwise, embedded the truth of it in their minds and in the character of their people. They held onto it even while being crushed by a new nation dedicated to reinvention and second chances—for white people, anyway.

The Pilgrims came here for a second chance. So did the Puritans, and they built their shining city on the hill in Boston and then set about constructing a vicious theocracy that hung Quakers, persecuted Catholics, and ran Roger Williams all the way to Rhode Island. Slaves fought to keep their memories alive as a way to keep their families together when they were no longer intact. And so did wave after wave of immigrants who, remembering what they'd fled—For the Irish, famine. For the Germans, failed revolution. For Jews, pogroms and persecution. And today, for the Hondurans, gang violence and civil war—helped them build new lives in a new place.

And the Native people, pushed and crowded and eventually ground up in the wheels on endless reinvention, remembered what had happened to them and why. And, in November, two Native American women were elected to serve in the House of Representatives in the Congress of the United States, and their memories will come with them as they help to write the laws for the country that slaughtered their ancestors.

So, this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for memories, good and bad, and for the common history they comprise, good and bad, peaceful and bloody. They are the best weapons against a politics gone mad and a president* gone mad with it. We find even our collective short-term memory overwhelmed by events, day after day. The president*'s main refuge is the constant present tense, and it is a redoubtable one. But it's not an impregnable one. The arsenal of history, individual and collective, is becoming arrayed against it, and that arsenal's primary weapon is our memory, of who we are and what we were, so we can define whom we want to become. It is still there, waiting to be used, and I give thanks for that.

posted by homunculus at 1:16 PM on November 22, 2018 [39 favorites]

Does he really imagine the twenty-first century military is just so many Beetle Baileys and Gomer Pyles fiddling with the knobs?

YES. YES, HE FUCKING DOES IMAGINE THAT.

I keep saying it, and people keep not believing me: Donald J. Trump does not understand sacrifice and therefore hates anyone who has ever done it. He knows that he has to act like he supports the troops, but he can’t fucking stand them. That’s why he loves having generals working for him, and that’s why he wants a parade that’s all about him, and that’s why he uses them for a campaign photo op and then doesn’t even bother visiting them.

And there are fewer and fewer vets pushing back every time I say it on the social medias. It gets more and more obvious every time he literally phones it in. If he runs again in 2020, the military vote is going to be historically low.
posted by Etrigan at 1:26 PM on November 22, 2018 [57 favorites]

Thanksgiving report from deepest Trump country (in a county named after the founder of the KKK!): My Republican aunt has decided not to vote in the MS Senate Espy/Hyde-Smith run-off because she's absolutely furious that Hyde-Smith's hanging comment has "shown Mississippi in this negative light after all the work we've done to try to prove we aren't so backwards anymore. That was so stupid of her!" This, even though Hyde-Smith greatly helped my aunt get services for her handicapped child years ago. "But she's changed from the lady who helped me then!" (Ok, auntie, you keep believing that.) I am greatly encouraged to hear that she and her friends may not turn out for the run-off. (Of course, then I had to abruptly take my mom and husband and leave because the aunt started talking about how she was the first person on her block to hire a Black secretary, "and all she did to repay me was to steal from me." Baby steps. These fuckers are going to kill me with baby steps.
posted by thebrokedown at 1:26 PM on November 22, 2018 [31 favorites]

> There's a complicated sense in which my own immigration views are a sort of overton-shifted equivalent to Hillary's. I don't think any major politicians should take the risks inherent in advocating for a truly compassionate policy... because the only truly compassionate policy is open doors to all, and anything short of that (setting aside "We've flagged you as a literal serial killer in your origin country" or whatever) is not justifiably humane. [...]

(A few other wrinkles: Lots of uninformed white Americans already assume our borders are open and they're okay with that -- which is to say, they assume that just about everyone who wants to be a citizen can be one, if there's no big reason they shouldn't be. They hold this assumption even after learning about quotas because people are good at cognitive dissonance. Hence, if you argue for more liberal policies, they figure you must be lowering the threshold to include terrorists or whatever. This is part of the challenge.)

Hey. Cut it out.

No, really. Cut it out. The line of argumentation you're engaging in seems very level-headed and reasonable, but it is poison. You are falling for the mechanism by which the Big Lie strategy works. And you're falling for it in the context of the original Big Lie, the granddaddy of them all, the most dangerous Big Lie around.

Here's how it works: A nazi stands up on his hind legs and brays out something about how the unvölkisch outsiders are ruining everything for the nice good völkisch people. Some idiots believe the nazi, because there's a sucker born every minute and nazis are good at finding them.

Then — and this is where you come in — the polite reasonable people accept that some percentage of the population is going to fall for nazi lies, and adjust their political positions to accommodate for that sad fact. Politics is the art of the possible, after all, and better to win half a loaf than lose the whole thing.

Here's the problem: you have now ratified the nazi lie. The idiots now think you think their position is reasonable. They think if you didn't really deep down agree with them, or at least if you didn't think that it's okay to believe the Big Lie, you would have fought them instead of accommodating them. And now the nazi gets to bray out even more nazi lies. Your half a loaf gets halved again, and again, and again, until not even a crumb is left.

When you accommodate the Big Lie, you are not engaging in politics as the art of the possible. You are willfully refraining from politics altogether. You're letting the liars have the playing field all to themselves.

When the nazis propagandize the idiots with Big Lies, you cannot give them a single inch. You gotta propagandize right back, loud and proud, or we are all fucked.

This is serious. This is deadly serious. This isn't an abstract political argument; the lives of my friends and neighbors are on the line. The United States government has in large part fallen into the hands of overt blood-and-soil racist nationalists. It's building concentration camps out in the desert. It's putting children in those camps. It's sending troops to the border and trying its damnedest to find legal fig leaves to get away with telling those troops to shoot anyone with brown skin. It is your responsibility to fight their Big Lie instead of acquiescing to it.

Stop joking around about letting uninformed white Americans stay uninformed, and do some freaking politics instead. It's wrong when Hillary Clinton says it's practical to compromise with nationalists. And it's wrong when any other major politician says it's practical to compromise with nationalists. and it's wrong when you say they should. Cut it out.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 1:53 PM on November 22, 2018 [159 favorites]

Then — and this is where you come in — the polite reasonable people accept that some percentage of the population is going to fall for nazi lies, and adjust their political positions to accommodate for that sad fact

this whole line of argument started when clinton pointed out that "some percentage of the population" of europe has in fact fallen for nazi lies, though. like, that did, in fact, happen. it continues to happen. and those people made electoral decisions based on that, and will continue to make electoral decisions based on that.
posted by halation at 1:58 PM on November 22, 2018

halation

NO

DIRECT QUOTE FROM HRC wth respect to accepting refugees

"I think it is fair to say Europe has done its part, and must send a very clear message – ‘we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge and support’ – because if we don’t deal with the migration issue it will continue to roil the body politic".
posted by lalochezia at 2:07 PM on November 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

When parts of the electorate is falling for nazi lies, we can't get out of it by letting them keep falling for nazi lies. You've got to do the hard work of political education instead. Anything else is political malpractice.

Compromising with nationalist lies makes it socially acceptable to be a nationalist. And when it's socially acceptable to be a nationalist, democracy dies.

We gotta make it impossible to be a nazi fellow-traveler and we gotta make it easy to be an antifascist. When the mainstream compromises with the nazis, they make it easy to be a nazi fellow-traveler and hard to be an antifascist. It is suicide. don't fall for it.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 2:07 PM on November 22, 2018 [47 favorites]

just a little more on the NRA's shellacking :P

"You all know about Lucy McBath's amazing win on Tuesday. Her @MomsDemand colleagues are so proud of her. But did you know that 16 other Moms Demand Action volunteers and gun violence survivors from our organization won their races, too? Here's a little more about each of them."

The NRA Doesn't Seem So Invincible Anymore - "Friendly terrain is shrinking, and the culture is changing."
Gun Control Groups Eclipse N.R.A. in Election Spending - "The financial dominance of the National Rifle Association was topped by gun control groups that helped win the House for Democrats."
The midterm results were a mandate for Congress to act on guns - "The NRA — for decades one of the country's most formidable electoral machines — suffered a major breakdown at the ballot box on Nov. 6. In race after race, Republican candidates with NRA grades of A or A-plus lost to Democrats who ran hard on gun-safety credentials."
NRA on defense: Gun safety may finally have momentum in Congress - "15 House Republicans with 'A' grades from the National Rifle Association lost — to Democrats who all got 'F's from the merchants of death."
Moms Demanded Action ... and Won! Gun Safety Was A Winning Issue In The Midterm Elections - "These wins didn't happen overnight — they happened because of the ground game we've been building since the day after the Sandy Hook School shooting."
'The year of gun safety'? - "According to one exit poll by NBC News, most voters said they supported stricter gun laws, with one in 10 naming it as the country's most important issue."

Proof @NRA is losing power:

30+ NRA-endorsed members lost
political spending ↓
membership dues ↓
approval rating ↓
at least 40 companies broke their business ties
doing away with free coffee & water coolers for employees
cutting back on publications

also btw...

How Nuns Won Duels With the Gun Makers - "A coalition of religious investors, led by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, won a proxy vote last week to require the maker of Smith & Wesson weapons to detail its efforts to make safer guns and report on gun-related violence and financial and reputational risks. This followed a similar victory at Sturm Ruger."
Nuns vs Guns: the activist nuns are at it again - "It is the latest victory for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and its members, which represent more than $400bn in assets. The group, now 50 years old, is known for purchasing stakes in corporations to get a seat at the table and hold management to a higher standard of social responsibility."
Wells Fargo, the NRA's Bank, Doubles Down on Gun Industry - "'This is shocking news because we are in sustained dialogue with Wells Fargo', said Nora Nash, a sister at St. Francis of Philadelphia who was at the meeting as a member of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. 'This new business relationship with Sturm Ruger is in direct conflict with ethics, culture and respect for human rights throughout the company.'"
Investors With $4.8 Trillion Push Gun Industry for Reform - "Here is a story about a group of powerful people who collectively control trillions of dollars of capital and own many of America's largest companies, and who have gotten together and agreed to demand that those companies limit whom they do business with and what products they sell."

posted by kliuless at 3:03 PM on November 22, 2018 [72 favorites]

I understood Clinton to have been speaking mostly about Germany when talking about "Europe" here, since she specifically mentioned Merkel. (Since Germany participates in Schengen, of course, Germany's decision did have implications for other parts of Europe too, to some extent.) Germany truly did take in an astounding number of people very, very quickly, comparatively, and it has been a difficult time for both the newcomers and the people who were already living in Germany. This longread from Der Spiegel from earlier this year does a decent job of outlining them. If other countries had stepped up more, the burden would have been shared, and some of the resentment might have been defused. The US, in particular, should have done more. This is what I took Clinton to be saying -- basically telling Germany to take a break.

There have been quite a few subthreads in this thread and FPPs, both in recent days and over time, about how difficult it is to argue people out of their feelings. I'm not sure how effective "political education" is going to be when that is essentially the task at hand, especially when engaging with people's claims (sometimes probably fatuous, sometimes supported by data) about the challenges of immigration is sometimes equated with "appeasement." Taking in migrants and refugees is right and necessary, but suggesting that people who have seen their lives materially change are "falling for nazi lies" if they feel conflicted or unhappy about that change is not likely to work super-well. Getting other countries to take a turn while Germany absorbs the newcomers it's already taken in might go farther in preventing resentment, and if other countries could learn from what Germany did wrong (and what it did right!) that resentment might be prevented from forming in the first place, or at least from curdling into hostile xenophobia. That's what I understood the bits-and-pieces interview snippets from Clinton to be getting at in TFA.
posted by halation at 3:24 PM on November 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

The HRC quote is so infuriating and odious because she's acknowledging a problem in a specific frame meant to bolster a particular policy prescription for that problem, and that policy prescription is one that implicitly advocates letting billions die. She's not just saying "the way the migration crisis has been handled has led to Nazis," she's saying "migration has led to Nazis, lets stop migration."

Only you can't stop migration. It's coming. The Earth is shrinking. People will do what they have to do to survive. We can treat them like family or like enemies. We can let them on the boat or we can shoot at them as they try to scramble aboard. It's a choice about who we want to be.

What's so frustrating to me is that no one is actual stating the full truth of the situation. This is not -- repeat, NOT -- a "both sides" thing, because one side is not engaging with all the facts because they are uncomfortable with them, and the other is not engaging with reality much at all because they want to commit genocide. There isn't an equivalency, but there is a problem.

1. Continuing climate change and it's cascading effects will result in human migration on an unimaginable scale. The inhabitable Earth is literally shrinking. People will crowd onto the inland islands of habitable land.
2. rapid, massive changes to demands on social infrastructure etc are destabilizing and stressful,
3. historically, societies react poorly to sudden destabilizing stresses
4. the choice is between finding a way to absorb those changes that protects the sanctity of all human life and one that results in at least a little bit of genocide.

and if your claim is that acknowledging 2 is itself a Nazi position, I...I mean, I don't know how to engage with that. It frightens me, because you're essentially saying we can't trust people enough to handle the truth about human history without wanting to repeat it, so we have to deny a portion of reality and much of history. And then the only people talking about the actual thing that is happening in front of people's actual eyes -- that things are changing around them, that suddenly there are more people and they're not like the people you're used to and everything is harder and everyone is hungry, that all the changes have made it feel like you no longer understand how to navigate the world around you -- are the Nazis. And if the Nazis are the only ones talking about that, they'll listen to the Nazis.

Fucking no. The only moral choice is to get people onboard with the idea that we're all in this together. That we need immigrants to help us build a society and infrastructure in the places that will be habitable. That we will not survive without them. And for that it would be good if we had a plan on how to get everyone living together in those tiny little islands.

This is not like anything that has ever come before. We can't pretend it's anything else. Migration is coming, terrible crises are coming. War is coming, to many places. We either decide to work together to survive together, or we devolve into genocidal Fury Road madness. If you're unwilling to talk about uncomfortable truths -- that Nazis are gonna capitalize on this, and how they'll do it -- you're making the latter more likely.
posted by schadenfrau at 3:26 PM on November 22, 2018 [75 favorites]

And even if the Army does the right thing and says Kelly's signature doesn't means shit, the Chief of Staff signing orders like that is still a real bad development.

As always, the West Wing prefigures this.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:35 PM on November 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Somewhere in New York state, Chuck Schumer is throwing his napkin down and storming away from his Thanksgiving table, unable to win the arguments with or persuade his imaginary middle-class dinner guests.
posted by delfin at 4:34 PM on November 22, 2018 [22 favorites]

These seemed like it should be cross-posted, in case anyone hadn't seen the latest global warming post yet:

'Absolute Disgrace': When No One Looking, White House Plans to Dump Major Climate Report on Black Friday. The administration just announced Wednesday that the National Climate Assessment Volume II would be released Friday afternoon

More links and info in the climate change thread.
posted by homunculus at 4:38 PM on November 22, 2018 [18 favorites]

From Vice:
Neo-Nazis Are Organizing Secretive Paramilitary Training Across America
The creation of a new social networking platform called “The Base” appears to be an effort to shift Naziism from a divided digital space to physical, violent insurgency
posted by growabrain at 5:22 PM on November 22, 2018 [15 favorites]

The creation of a new social networking platform called “The Base” appears to be an effort to shift Naziism from a divided digital space to physical, violent insurgency

What do you think the chances are that these knuckleheads know "Al Qaeda" translates as "The Base". They certainly have a lot in common.
posted by duoshao at 5:30 PM on November 22, 2018 [59 favorites]

duoshao: “What do you think the chances are that these knuckleheads know "Al Qaeda" translates as "The Base". ”

100%. It's just like the okay sign thing. It's a way to make it a 'joke' while still communicating the exact message they want to the people they want to receive it.
posted by ob1quixote at 8:21 PM on November 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

This is unsettling. I'm not at all sure how it shakes out.

There’s a really good reason to believe government will have to step in hard to save coal in the short run, because the industry is on the brink of an absolute, final collapse in the very, very near future.

Despite everything Trump has done, 2018 continues to see coal power plants close in record numbers ... and 2019 will see still more. But that’s not the biggest factor pushing the coal industry to a dramatic collapse.

In the last year, it has actually become cheaper to build NEW wind or solar than to simply operate existing coal power plants. Crossing that threshold is bringing on a crisis.

With that milestone, the value of coal still in the ground is now =very close to zero=. And that’s a huge problem for coal companies, because those in-place reserves have always been the greater part of their net value.

That means that everything these companies have—every equipment loan, every pension obligation, and most importantly every reclaimation bond—is now secured by NOTHING. They are swinging in the wind.

In this situation, even the largest, seemingly most secure companies are paper tigers. Even those that can continue to find sales in the declining market, will go down, instantly, with the slightest push.

Billions of on-the-books dollars in the form of in-situation reserves no longer exist. They have gone poof. And as states like Wyoming realize this, the odds of a Giant Light Switch getting flipped in the form of demanding secure bonds, is growing.

It may genuinely be necessary to prop up, or nationalize, the remaining steam coal industry long enough to get cheaper sources on line.

Ten years ago, over 50% of the nation’s power came from coal. That's been very nearly cut in half. Getting rid of the rest is a good thing—but there’s a real danger it’s going to happen in an unstructured collapse. Soon.

posted by scalefree at 8:59 PM on November 22, 2018 [36 favorites]

It's been pretty well-known for a while ever since solar and wind got within striking distance of coal that a lot of these coal companies would be in trouble, and their collapse would come at the expense of the workers in these industries.

There is still a (shrinking) global market for coal, but part of the transition has to be a financial support package for those areas reliant on the coal industry. Not just, like, retraining, but answering the question of how do people pay for their houses, how do they feed themselves, how do they keep their communities intact.

These are communities that need people to speak for them anyway, just because they've been prey for the coal companies for generations, but the fact that we have to do it now to combat climate change is delightful.
posted by Merus at 9:10 PM on November 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

Clinton and the rest of her compromised generation need to go - this is just an outrageous thing for her to say and totally unnecessary

If you're going to triangulate, I thought Obama was on the right track politically, though I didn't agree with all his actions. First, always start the conversation by correcting the misapprehension that we have an immigration problem. We do not have a problem. Immigrants have jobs, pay taxes, and do not commit crime at the same rate as citizens. Next, call for a clear and legal path to citizenship. This is what immigrants want, and it addresses the Republican talking point that illegal immigrants are breaking the law, and laws must be followed.

The issue isn't going away. Democrats already have a thoughtful answer that shows they've heard swing voter concerns.
posted by xammerboy at 9:14 PM on November 22, 2018 [18 favorites]

> Neo-Nazis Are Organizing Secretive Paramilitary Training Across America
The creation of a new social networking platform called “The Base” appears to be an effort to shift Naziism from a divided digital space to physical, violent insurgency

Relevant news (from way back on Nov. 1st): Trump administration decides to stop funding efforts to counter far-right extremism: The Obama-era program appears dead.

Just a few days after the nation was rocked by a Trump supporter’s attempted bombing spree and an anti-Semitic shooter killing 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue, the Trump administration has reportedly decided to end an Obama-era program dedicated to countering domestic terror.

The move, as NBC reported, deals specifically with the U.S.’s Countering Violent Extremism Grant Program. Launched in 2016 and overseen by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the initiative was the first of its kind: a federal grant program dedicated solely to combating the right-wing extremist groups and ideologies that have grown in prominence over the past few years.

All told, the program was allocated $10 million to disburse, with recipients ranging from police departments to former white supremacists. More than two dozen organizations received funds. Now, though, the Trump administration has apparently elected not to renew the program, meaning funding will cease after next July.

...

And that’s not all. As The Daily Beast reported this week, the FBI has also placed less of an emphasis on combating far-right terror under the Trump administration, with one FBI retiree saying the agency currently gives far-right terror threats “the lowest priority.”

Neo-Nazis are preparing for organized domestic terrorist action and Trump is effectively shielding them. The House Democrats need to act on this, and the party needs to make it a campaign issue for 2020.
posted by homunculus at 9:35 PM on November 22, 2018 [40 favorites]

As hate crimes rise, a bill to combat the problem languishes in Congress. The bill could help improve how much we know about the state of hate crimes in America.

The “National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality Act,” dubbed the “NO HATE Act,” was introduced early last year by Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA). However, it has languished in Congress over the past 18 months — perhaps due to the fact that the measure has zero Republican co-sponsors. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced a similar bill in the Senate in 2017.

posted by homunculus at 9:39 PM on November 22, 2018 [9 favorites]

Coal to zero is the new oil to infinity. There will be a severe correction, but uses for coal go beyond burning it in power plants. As always, the companies dealing in the lowest quality product may well die a rapid death, but others will muddle on.

That's not to say there isn't a problem to be solved, there is. But it's not a new one, it's a continuation of recent history, absent stronger action to cushion the blow. (Squeezing Social Security certainly hasn't helped regions that were already highly dependent on that income to keep a minimum base of economic activity going and are only becoming more so as small town industries of all sorts dry up and blow away)
posted by wierdo at 10:00 PM on November 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

the FBI has also placed less of an emphasis on combating far-right terror under the Trump administration

Reminiscent of the Bush administration blowing off warnings on terrorism and deprioritizing anti-terrorist efforts even after the 9/11 attacks. But hey, those statue's boobies don't cover themselves.

Obligatory reminder that John Ashcroft lost his 2000 Senate race to Mel Carnahan, who was dead at the time.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:11 PM on November 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

Coal to zero is the new oil to infinity.

I was thinking the same thing.

Remember when it was being strenuously asserted that we were facing societal collapse from Peak Oil and if you disagreed you were basically innumerate and didn't understand how the world worked? 'Cause that was like 10 years ago.

The Peak Oil people weren't only wrong, they had things exactly backwards. We aren't dying from running out of fossil fuels, we're dying from having too many fossil fuels.
posted by Justinian at 10:13 PM on November 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

There’s a really good reason to believe government will have to step in hard to save coal in the short run, because the industry is on the brink of an absolute, final collapse in the very, very near future.

Buy it out and use federal funds to retrain the workforce as mine pollution remediators while we wind down the entire US coal industry. The cleanup project will be huge and make a great source of Green New Deal jobs, the transition away from coal can be accelerated to help keep carbon out of the atmosphere, and it will make a great pilot program for when we do the entire fossil fuel industry.
posted by contraption at 10:34 PM on November 22, 2018 [37 favorites]

Coal to zero is the new oil to infinity.

Oh man I am getting some major “PeAk OiL!” flashbacks of the MeFi of 10ish years ago. People on this very website were convinced we’d be paying $400 a gallon by now.
posted by sideshow at 10:36 PM on November 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

Justinian: "Remember when it was being strenuously asserted that we were facing societal collapse from Peak Oil and if you disagreed you were basically innumerate and didn't understand how the world worked? 'Cause that was like 10 years ago. "

It was my impression that the peak oil crunch was merely delayed, owing to the worldwide economic slowdown of the 2008 recession and the subsequent maturation of fracking, tar sands, and natural gas development in North America. The latter of which was only rendered profitable by the rising prices and worsening scarcity of conventional oil sources. These increasingly intensive methods of extraction are also far more environmentally damaging, so we may be facing the consequences of too much oil and not enough oil simultaneously soon enough.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:52 PM on November 22, 2018 [19 favorites]

Does fracking make any sense except in context of post-peak extraction?
posted by scalefree at 12:11 AM on November 23, 2018 [11 favorites]

I want to argue so bad. So bad. But I can picture the mod weeping silently, broken, head slumped in his/her cupped hands. So I won't.
posted by Justinian at 12:16 AM on November 23, 2018 [43 favorites]

Peak Mod Tears.
posted by homunculus at 12:25 AM on November 23, 2018 [24 favorites]

NPR: Second Head Of Russian Intelligence Dies Within Two Years

Coincidentally, Bellingcat has been on a roll uncovering the identities of GRU agents.
posted by PenDevil at 12:31 AM on November 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

Why on Earth would we nationalize failing businesses and thus once again privatize the profits and subsidize the losses? While we absolutely should subsidize the (former) workers being displaced, I see no reason to bail out investors and bondholders who so loudly declaim any desire for assistance given their protestations of taxation being theft and all that.
posted by wierdo at 12:37 AM on November 23, 2018 [23 favorites]

Why on Earth would we nationalize failing businesses and thus once again privatize the profits and subsidize the losses?

It doesn't have to be a generous or gentle takeover. Depending on the level of political will we can muster and the sorts of less pleasant alternatives we can ~~threaten them with~~ offer them, we should be able to use some of the tactics outlined here to pick it up for pennies on the dollar.
posted by contraption at 1:04 AM on November 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

pick it up for pennies on the dollar

But to do that we would need some sort of master negotiator in govenment.
posted by snofoam at 3:46 AM on November 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

Somebody versed in the art of the deal, even.
posted by flabdablet at 4:21 AM on November 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

Coincidentally, Bellingcat has been on a roll uncovering the identities of GRU agents.

This seems...brave.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:48 AM on November 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

CIA has Recording of Saudi Crown Prince planning Hit on Khashoggi.
posted by adamvasco at 4:58 AM on November 23, 2018 [20 favorites]

Siri, how old is trump?
posted by growabrain at 5:07 AM on November 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

CIA has Recording of Saudi Crown Prince planning Hit on Khashoggi.

The way Trump has been running cover for MBS over this makes me think that there is the possibility MBS mentioned getting rid of journalists to Trump and he agreed with it and is shit scared some intelligence service has it on tape.
posted by PenDevil at 5:12 AM on November 23, 2018 [19 favorites]

PenDevil: The way Trump has been running cover for MBS over this makes me think that there is the possibility MBS mentioned getting rid of journalists to Trump and he agreed with it and is shit scared some intelligence service has it on tape.

*coughcough* Kushner *coughcough*
posted by emelenjr at 5:39 AM on November 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

Yes it's probably more likely The First Failson is implicated.
posted by PenDevil at 5:42 AM on November 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

*coughcough* Kushner *coughcough*
posted by emelenjr at 5:39 AM on November 23 [+] [!]

I would swear I read somewhere that they agreed to finance 666 5th Ave. Upon which hangs the entirety of Kushner's fortune. So, yeah.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:45 AM on November 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

CIA has Recording of Saudi Crown Prince planning Hit on Khashoggi.

"Her remarks, if she made them, also skate close to involving the CIA in geopolitics"

I thought that the only thing that the CIA was allowed to be involved in is geopolitics. Is my understanding incorrect?
posted by clawsoon at 5:47 AM on November 23, 2018 [9 favorites]

Yeah, that's like saying the Federal Reserve skates close to being involved in banking.
posted by Rykey at 5:54 AM on November 23, 2018 [12 favorites]

Daniel Date: Yesterday, during his televised Thanksgiving call to the troops, Trump tried to get the commander of a Coast Guard cutter in the Arabian Gulf to weigh in on the unfairness of U.S. trade with Gulf countries.

Wasn't it Orwell who said "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a palm covering a face, forever"?
posted by PenDevil at 6:00 AM on November 23, 2018 [12 favorites]

I thought that the only thing that the CIA was allowed to be involved in is geopolitics. Is my understanding incorrect?

I read that as the CIA running its own geopolitics counter to those of the US government.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:06 AM on November 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

I would swear I read somewhere that they agreed to finance 666 5th Ave. Upon which hangs the entirety of Kushner's fortune. So, yeah.

Nope, that was Qatar. The country Saudi Arabia hates so much they wanted to turn it into an island.

It's very confusing. The best I can figure is that Qatar is trying to buy influence with the Trump family in self defense, to counter the influence Saudi Arabia (and possibly Israel) have already bought. Just as Ukraine seems to have attempted to do some favors for Trump to counter Russia.

I have a bunch of links here, but it's hard to figure out the geopolitics, here. It's more like some kind of complicated soap opera story line.
posted by OnceUponATime at 6:19 AM on November 23, 2018 [17 favorites]

I think the intention of the phrase "close to being involved in geopolitics" is based on the myth that the CIA is normally somehow apolitical.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:51 AM on November 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

@qjurecic A preview here of how DOJ is going to try to stop the bleeding from Whitaker
US v Luis Valencia, Case #SA-17-CR-882-DAE
posted by scalefree at 6:57 AM on November 23, 2018

"Even If the Acting Attorney General’s Designation Were Invalid, That Would Not Justify Dismissal of the Indictment."

That seems right to me. The case is United States vs. Valencia, not Jeff Sessions vs. Valencia. Maybe one of our law talkers can explain why this was ever considered realistic (as opposed to the suit from the Maryland AG). This motion seems spurious, and not to have any bearing upon the Maryland suit one way or the other.
posted by M-x shell at 7:09 AM on November 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

And Jesus said, "Blessed are the murdermakers for they will see great profits."

US Evangelicals Ask Americans To Pray For Saudi Arabia’s Murderous Crown Prince

A delegation of American evangelical Christians visited Saudi Arabia this week at the invitation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to Al Jazeera.

The delegation was led on Thursday by communications strategist Joel Rosenberg and included former US congresswoman Michele Bachmann, according to an emailed statement from the group, as well as heads of American evangelical organisations, some with ties to Israel.

"It was an historic moment for the Saudi crown prince to openly welcome evangelical Christian leaders to the palace. We were encouraged by the candour of the two-hour conversation with him today," the statement said.

The group met with other Saudi officials as well during what was a rare act of religious openness for the kingdom, Al Jazeera noted.

Bachmann told the Christian Broadcasting Network that the visit was more than just a publicity stunt:

"We aren’t here for a short-term purpose. We are not here for a photo op. We could care less about that. We’re here to build long-term relations and to benefit our brothers and sisters that are here in this region," former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said.

And Rosenberg encouraged Americans to pray for Saudi leadership, along with that of other countries.

"We’re under no illusions about the challenges that are in Saudi Arabia and that remain. But I think it’s respectful to go and listen to leaders who have the opportunity to make life better for Christians and Muslims and potentially for Israel as well and who are against the crazies in Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. I’d ask people to pray. Pray for the (Jordanian) king. Prayer for the crown prince. Pray for the people of Saudi Arabia. And I think it’s the right thing to do."

The group reportedly spoke with the crown prince about the recent killing of Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi, the details of which have yet to fully emerge.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has insisted the journalist’s death was not on his orders and involved no one in the royal family, saying it was a rogue band of Saudi agents that killed Khashoggi. To date, Saudi Arabia has arrested 18 suspects in connection with the murder.

The American evangelical group said its planned visit to the kingdom was arranged well in advance of Khashoggi’s death, and Rosenberg told CBN that while he understands why some might criticize the decision to keep the meeting, he believes it was the right course of action.

"There’s a lot of people who would say this is the wrong time to go to Saudi Arabia and meet with the leadership there," author Joel Rosenberg told CBN News. "I understand that criticism, but I disagree."

posted by scalefree at 7:10 AM on November 23, 2018 [13 favorites]

A new wave of dissidents in the east can turn back Europe’s populist tide.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:30 AM on November 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

> "'There’s a lot of people who would say this is the wrong time to go to Saudi Arabia and meet with the leadership there,' author Joel Rosenberg told CBN News."

I wondered if this was the Joel Rosenberg who wrote fantasy novels about D&D players becoming their characters back in the 80's, but it turns out it's a *different* Joel Rosenberg who is a "messianic Jew" who writes novels about how terrorism relates to Bible prophecy.

The first Joel Rosenberg, as it turns out, died in 2011, and was a gun nut who was at one point arrested for carrying a handgun into a courthouse.
posted by kyrademon at 8:08 AM on November 23, 2018 [16 favorites]

Stone associate Jerome Corsi is in plea negotiations with special counsel, according to a person with knowledge of the talks (WaPo)
posted by peeedro at 9:19 AM on November 23, 2018 [25 favorites]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the Kind of Progressive Liberals Have Been Begging For
Rather than combative extremism, she's pushing left with respect. Why are we still complaining?

Nuance is the new respectability politics buzzword.
posted by srboisvert at 10:00 AM on November 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

Why are all 3 Trump kids pushing prison reform recently??
posted by growabrain at 10:57 AM on November 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

To make their future incarcerations easier?
posted by kirkaracha at 11:01 AM on November 23, 2018 [11 favorites]

Nuance is the new respectability politics buzzword

Ooh I love word games! Wait, don't tell me let me guess...I'm gonna go with 'Nuanced' means 'White'. Did I get it right? Did I win? Or did everybody just lose?
posted by sexyrobot at 11:08 AM on November 23, 2018 [8 favorites]

> A new wave of dissidents in the east can turn back Europe’s populist tide.

Relevant open thread on the rise of the populist radical right: The new populism
posted by homunculus at 11:15 AM on November 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

> @Comey: "Happy Thanksgiving. Got a subpoena from House Republicans. I’m still happy to sit in the light and answer all questions. But I will resist a 'closed door' thing because I’ve seen enough of their selective leaking and distortion. Let’s have a hearing and invite everyone to see."

House Republicans Subpoena James Comey, Loretta Lynch for Depositions

The House Judiciary Committee has officially subpoenaed former FBI director James Comey and former attorney general Loretta E. Lynch as part of an investigation by House Republicans into supposed misconduct by FBI and Justice Department officials. The subpoenas, widely seen as a last-ditch effort by lame duck Republicans to prove a conspiracy against Trump before they lose power to Democrats in January, were issued ahead of Thanksgiving and call on Comey and Lynch to attend separate private depositions. Comey’s deposition has been scheduled for Dec. 3, while Lynch’s is set for a day later. Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte (R-VA) was quoted by the Associated Press earlier this week as telling colleagues he wanted to hold closed-door depositions with both Comey and Lynch. Democrats have been pushing to make the hearings public.

Comey Vows To Resist Subpoena From House Republicans For Closed-Door Testimony

James Comey, the former head of the FBI who was fired by President Trump, says he will push back on a subpoena to appear in a closed-door session before the House Judiciary Committee unless he is allowed to testify publicly. The committee, which has also issued a subpoena to former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, is looking into how the FBI handled the investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails.

...

Even so, some Republicans argue that the Justice Department and the FBI conspired against candidate Trump, hoping to throw the election to Clinton. Democrats say the GOP is hoping to use the issue to derail or discredit special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

FFS.
posted by homunculus at 11:25 AM on November 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

House Republicans Subpoena James Comey, Loretta Lynch for Depositions

I seriously doubt these depositions will ever occur. They are scheduled for the first week of December and Congress is scheduled to recess a week later. All Comey and Lynch need to do is to delay the deposition for a week or so, which shouldn't be difficult, and then the new Congress takes over in January. There is not much the current House can do in a couple of weeks to compel testimony.
posted by JackFlash at 11:42 AM on November 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

the violence that will result from letting the coal industry take the hard landing it deserves.

What do you mean by this, specifically? Coming from an extended family full of coal miners (and Trump supporters), I have my own ideas, but I'm curious about yours.
posted by Rykey at 11:43 AM on November 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

This whole cut-in-front-of-the-judicial-line craziness continues. According to BuzzFeed, "the Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to take up three cases challenging the administration's repeated efforts to bar transgender people from serving in the military."

From a Twitter thread by Chris Geidner (via Thread reader), "That the administration is doing this today — on a day when many offices are closed and people are not at work and are out shopping or with their families or friends somewhere and not paying attention to the news — should not be lost on anyone. The Trump administration wants to reverse-integrate the military as to transgender people. Transgender people are serving currently, and the Trump administration wants to end that. It's a remarkable position, and courts have called it out for what it is."

This is not the kind of Black Friday nuttiness I expected when I put together a small ffp today about historical Black Fridays.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:56 AM on November 23, 2018 [20 favorites]

The Trump administration wants to reverse-integrate the military as to transgender people. Transgender people are serving currently, and the Trump administration wants to end that.

To be slightly more precise, transgender people are currently serving openly, and the Trump administration wants to end that. Trans people tend to serve at higher percentages than cis people, even when they have to hide the truth.
posted by Etrigan at 12:17 PM on November 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

"I think it is fair to say Europe has done its part, and must send a very clear message – ‘we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge and support’ – because if we don’t deal with the migration issue it will continue to roil the body politic".

It's comments like this which make it ever more clear that Clinton was never going to be a continuation of Obama, himself no bleeding liberal, but at least he's not actively pushing the Overton window to the right in 2018.

And the more I play it over in my head, the more it sounds like a sort of pernicious non-sequitur that doesn't even make sense. Replace the issue of migration with any other that matters to you personally and see how it sounds. "We're not going to be able to continue to provide healthcare for women because if we don't deal with the abortion issue it will continue to roil the body politic." "We're not going to be able to achieve Medicare for All because if we don't deal with the healthcare issue it will continue to roil the body politic."

Deal with doesn't inchoately mean "solve," it's a hard euphemism for "eagerly capitulate to rightwing demands with respect to...," nothing more. And what particularly disgusts me is that in the case of migration, it's a capitulation based purely on privilege, i.e. that the "we" who matter aren't really adversely affected by cutting off migration for those people so "we" might as well go ahead and compromise on this issue. It's the same kind of craven, self-serving capitulation that allowed the Clinton-era Dems to sleep at night while "dealing with" rising violent crime by locking up millions of non-violent black men as "superpredators." By dealing with demands for equality under the law for gay and lesbian Americans by supporting the abhorrent Defense of Marriage Act while endlessly sighing that, too bad, maybe one day, but for now the nation wasn't "ready" yet to accept gay people having the same rights to marry the loved ones of their choice as everyone else has.

Please go away Hillary.
posted by xigxag at 12:36 PM on November 23, 2018 [41 favorites]

House Republicans Subpoena James Comey, Loretta Lynch for Depositions

Oh, and I should mention that while both Comey and Lynch know full well that these depositions aren't going to happen, it is only Comey who is out there bleating about his "principled" stand against closed hearings. It is typical Comey grandstanding as the only honest man. Lynch, who Comey regards as corrupt, remains modestly quiet.
posted by JackFlash at 12:39 PM on November 23, 2018 [17 favorites]

WaPo, Josh Rogin, When Mike Pence met Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping

When the plenary ended, the two men huddled in the corner for about 15 minutes as staff, security and translators swarmed around them. Pence decided to confront Putin about Russia’s interference in U.S. democracy.

“So I looked at him and I said, ‘We know what happened in 2016,’ ” Pence told me in an interview. “And I said, ‘As the president has told you, we’re not having it.’ ”

Putin denied that Russia had done anything wrong, but Pence stuck to his guns.

“And I said, ‘Mr. President, I’m very aware of what you’ve said about that, but I’m telling you we’re not having it,’ ” Pence said. “I wanted to reiterate what the president has said. I thought it was important he hear that from the vice president, too.”

@chrisgeidner: This is such a meta-story, as important (if not more so) for why it's being told than that it (allegedly) happened.

It's a really fascinating time for Pence's team to want to emphasize to the country that their guy is a strong leader who will say tough words to Putin and acknowledge Russian interference. Almost like they can see where we're headed and want to start spreading the idea of swapping out the boss.
posted by zachlipton at 12:55 PM on November 23, 2018 [40 favorites]

I think the coal discussion may be missing the fact that eliminating coal as an energy source will still leave the metallurgical coal industry, which according to popular press accounts is where the recent growth—which began before the 2016 election—has been located. The soft landing for coal workers and coal country isn't going to involve the entire sector.

There's been a rather suspicious-looking story on BBC America today claiming that China is trying to engineer increased global coal usage, which seems tailor-made for apotheosis into a Nationalist talking-point-slash-myth. Chjina is outselling us on the coal! Gotta crank up our own coal industry to stay competitive—nothin' for it but more subsidies and presidential war powers actions!
posted by XMLicious at 1:20 PM on November 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

zachlipton: Almost like they can see where we're headed and want to start spreading the idea of swapping out the boss.

Except if that were the plan, he wouldn't explicitly include Trump in the "we" of "we're not having it". I think he's hoping to make the executive branch as a whole look tough on Putin, not to establish a contrast. Yes, I know that's nonsense to anyone who knows anything, but nonsense is their bread and butter, and even when it comes to more sensible people, the goal is plausible deniability.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 2:12 PM on November 23, 2018

I have family in Pennsylvania in once coal mining towns and recently visited some mining towns in Montana. My own take is that even the people in these towns, even the families that once were coal miners, even previous coal miners, all view the industry as a dead end and the job itself as dangerous and grueling. But there was something to you grow up, your father was in the mines, you know you can have a job in the mines, you and yours and the town is taken care of, most of the town have shared experiences around mining, etc.

Nowadays, the experience is more that if you want a decent life you'll need to move away, usually to a big city. You won't see family that often, and you'll probably return somewhat changed and unable to relate to the people you grew up with. If you stay, you'll probably work in a Walmart or something similar, which, while nicer than a mine, leaves you feeling alienated and without dignity, easily replaceable.

Clinton acknowledged as much as well, only her solution was to prop up small businesses rather than try and revive the mines and drill, baby, drill.
posted by xammerboy at 2:15 PM on November 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

Pence / Putin

I still need to know why Manafort put up Pence over Christie. Was it just smart (conservative) politics? I can see Putin wanting the most extreme Republican in there, just to aggravate our nation's internal differences. Or does Putin have leverage over Pence too? I haven't seen anything linking them. Pence was certainly Russia-adjacent during the transition, but there seems to be nothing proving direct involvement so far. We would need more than what we have so far to keep Pence out.

On the other hand, I'd actually be fine with learning that Pence is just Pence. Like, he's a horrible person but for all the normal reasons, and there are limits to the Russia corruption. Some R's other than Trump are clearly just as guilty. And if it's all of them and a few D's too, root them all out. But in the end, I'd be happy to find out there were still a more than a few R's that would not actually resort to treason to keep power.
posted by M-x shell at 2:17 PM on November 23, 2018 [6 favorites]

@ASlavitt:

Phone rang this AM.

-Woman said we could have “real insurance, not govt insurance like Obamacare” (when told ACA IS private insurance, she lied)
-Asked if pre-ex conditions are covered, she said not 2 ask “50 million questions”
-$99/month, ⬆️ than most ACA coverage

Trumpcare.

@fawfulfan: Trump is what allowed this. Scammers are preying on people left and right and trying to stop them from buying qualified health plans.
posted by zachlipton at 2:23 PM on November 23, 2018 [44 favorites]

Was it just smart (conservative) politics?

I guess Manafort has political cred but mostly he seems like a lifelong financial fixer and grifter. He doesn't seem like a real social conservative--just someone who likes expensive suits and feels it's more easy to get them if you're not on the side of 'regular people'. Like, he just likes being rich and powerful as opposed to not.

So I find the idea of Pence 'just happening to be around' implausible. There are other right wing dipshits with higher name recognition value.

My guess is Pence's involvement was predicated on him not fully realizing he was engaged in illegal collusion with Manafort et al at the time i.e. being assured 'this is only illegal in a minor bureaucratic sense that nobody would ever get upset about and it's all good considering all the unborn babies we could save'.

I can see that being the calculus, at the time. They're not bright guys, and things got out of hand.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 2:42 PM on November 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

It's a really fascinating time for Pence's team to want to emphasize to the country that their guy is a strong leader who will say tough words to Putin and acknowledge Russian interference. Almost like they can see where we're headed and want to start spreading the idea of swapping out the boss.
posted by zachlipton at 12:55 PM on November 23

This is exactly what I thought, and pence has his finger on the pulse of the GOP, apparatus and congress. There's something a foot that maybe Trump knows about too, hence the 'get rid of Pence potential' narrative. Schemers schemers all the way down.
posted by bluesky43 at 2:53 PM on November 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

How Donald Trump Picked His Running Mate

... according to the Kasich adviser (who spoke only under the condition that he not be named), Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer nonetheless: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?

When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?

“Making America great again” was the casual reply.

Donald Trump offered Chris Christie vice president role before Mike Pence, sources say

Manafort had arranged for Trump to meet with [Manafort’s] first choice for the job on July 13: Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Afterwards, the plans [sic] was for Trump and Pence to then fly back to New York together and a formal announcement would be made, a campaign source said of Manafort’s thinking.

What had previously been reported as a “lucky break” by the New York Times was actually a swift political maneuver devised by the now fired campaign manager. Set on changing Trump’s mind, he concocted a story that Trump’s plane had mechanical problems, forcing the soon-to-be Republican nominee to stay the night in Indianapolis for breakfast with the Pence family on Wednesday morning.

Swayed by Pence’s aggressive pitch, Trump agreed to ditch Christie and make Pence his VP the following day, according to a source.

posted by kirkaracha at 3:13 PM on November 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

Boston-area handmaids marched to historic Old North Bridge in Concord to mark election of record number of women to Congress.
posted by adamg at 3:25 PM on November 23, 2018 [14 favorites]

I can see that being the calculus, at the time. They're not bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Add to that the Kushner hate on Christie.
posted by mikelieman at 4:34 PM on November 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

CNBC: Trump Foundation Lawsuit: New York State Judge Rejects Trump Claim That He Can't Be Sued Because He Is President

A New York Supreme Court judge on Friday denied a request from President Donald Trump and his family members to dismiss a lawsuit against them and the Trump Foundation.

In her ruling, Justice Saliann Scarpulla shot down an argument from the Trump family's attorneys that the case should be dismissed because the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution suggests "a sitting president may not be sued."

The suit from New York state Attorney General Barbara Underwood alleges that the charitable foundation violated state and federal laws for "more than a decade."

This may also be a good sign for former ''Apprentice'' contestant Summer Zervos's defamation case against Trump, which Trump's lawyers are appealing on similar grounds.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:13 PM on November 23, 2018 [19 favorites]

It's a really fascinating time for Pence's team to want to emphasize to the country that their guy is a strong leader who will say tough words to Putin and acknowledge Russian interference. Almost like they can see where we're headed and want to start spreading the idea of swapping out the boss.

Speaking of Pence meeting other world leaders, this image of New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, giving Pence what I will describe as a filthy look, is doing the rounds here.
posted by vac2003 at 5:22 PM on November 23, 2018 [8 favorites]

As governor of Indiana, Pence tried to start a state-run news agency (mocked as "Pravda on the Plains") in 2015.

If you're even slightly inclined toward authoritarianism, do you want the conservative, evangelical, anti-abortion, homophobic, tax-cutting Reagan alcolyte, or Chris Christie?

Agreeing that the history with Charles Kushner (Jared's pop) probably didn't help:

In 2005, following an investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, U.S. Attorney Chris Christie negotiated a plea agreement with him, under which he pleaded guilty to 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering. The witness-tampering charge arose from Kushner's act of retaliation against William Schulder, his sister Esther's husband, who was cooperating with federal investigators; Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, arranged to record an encounter between the two, and had the tape sent to his sister.

I'd forgotten that C. Kushner was once one of the biggest Democratic donors in the country (SLNYT):

After the sentencing, Mr. Christie said he was pleased. "It shows that no matter how rich and powerful you are in this state you will be prosecuted and punished for crimes you commit," he said. "This sends a strong message that when you commit the vile and heinous acts that he has committed you will be caught and punished."
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:23 PM on November 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

THR, Bill Shine's Massive Fox News Severance Package Revealed

Bill Shine received an $8.4 million severance package upon leaving his post as co-president of Fox News Channel in May 2017, according to a financial disclosure form he filed upon entering Donald Trump's White House as deputy chief of staff for communications. The document was released to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday, a day after Thanksgiving.

Shine, who officially began working in the White House on July 5, will also receive a bonus and options of about $3.5 million from 21st Century Fox both this year and next year.

That means that Shine will be paid simultaneously by both the White House and the parent company of Fox News, a network that has had close ties to the Trump administration. The severance agreement expires on May 1, 2019.

Shine, of course, was named in multiple lawsuits of helping to cover up sexual harassment at Fox News.
posted by zachlipton at 5:27 PM on November 23, 2018 [17 favorites]

Trump had committed far more vile and heinous acts in New Jersey and was never punished. That's probably why Jared thought it was a good idea to marry into The Donald's clan.

"It shows that no matter how rich and powerful you are in this state you will be prosecuted and punished for crimes you commit,... if you're a Democrat and a Jew.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:31 PM on November 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

> The ghost of Jeff Sessions returns for revenge. WaPo, Whitaker told Trump he has concerns over sentencing reform bill

Meanwhile: Number of women in prison up 800 percent [over the last 30 years] in America due to the War On Drugs
posted by homunculus at 5:37 PM on November 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

Bill Shine's Massive Fox News Severance Package Revealed

Dick Cheney set the precedent on this years ago. While serving as Vice-President, Cheney received more than $2 million in deferred compensation from Halliburton at the same time that the administration was awarding billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to Halliburton for work in Iraq.
posted by JackFlash at 5:54 PM on November 23, 2018 [14 favorites]

“Shine left Fox News after being accused in multiple lawsuits of abetting sexual harassment; Donald Trump promptly hired him to be White House communications director.”

Wikipedia. I love the narrative of Wikipedia.
posted by valkane at 7:43 PM on November 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

This is exactly what I meant by ‘Make America Great Again’ (Alexandra Petri, WaPo)

I wanted a president who would stand up to our greatest threats (journalists, White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner comedians, the institution of First Dog, the French, generals, John McCain) and embrace America’s truest allies (Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia in general, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, anyone with a cool new trick for voter suppression). […]

I have always ranked unforgivable crimes as follows:

Personally insult or show disloyalty to Donald Trump, even a single time — THE MOST UNFORGIVABLE

Insult Donald Trump during a comedy routine: MAYBE LITERALLY THE WORST CRIME

Leak from the White House: AWFUL

Be a lady who is not so attractive for the president to look at: SHAME!

Be a journalist who asks a normal question: BAD

Send witches to hunt our wonderful president: BOO!

Adultery (by a Democrat): STILL A BIG NOPE

Then way, way down deep at the bottom of the list, scarcely even visible: Order the murder of a journalist.

Finally we have a president who can stand up to people who have too long gone unchallenged: Gold Star Mothers, Gold Star Fathers, POW senators, our intelligence agencies and the admiral responsible for the raid on Osama bin Laden. One thing that motivated me when I went to the polls was the thought of seeing someone really lay into the guy who got bin Laden. My eagle soars a little higher just at the thought of it. America First!

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:23 PM on November 23, 2018 [48 favorites]

Thanks kirkaracha,A Terrible Llama, and bluesky43. As far as I can tell from those links, Pence stood out from the field for two things: (1) actually wanting the job and (2) having the least negatives. Maybe Flynn really did lie to Pence, too. I suppose it's just as well, but my vision of President Pelosi is fading into the distance.
posted by M-x shell at 9:05 PM on November 23, 2018

Several nations have tried to restore democracy after populist strongmen. It was never the same. Washington Post link.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 10:19 PM on November 23, 2018 [11 favorites]

The WSJ has yet another leak from Trumpland about the boss's dissatisfaction with one of his cabinet secretaries: Trump Faults Treasury Secretary Over Fed Pick—President publicly signals support for Steven Mnuchin but has expressed unhappiness to advisers in recent weeks (@WSJ)

In conversations with advisers in recent weeks, Mr. Trump also has voiced displeasure with Mr. Mnuchin over the turbulent stock market and the Treasury chief’s skepticism toward the sort of punitive trade actions the White House has taken against China, the people said.[...]

After this article was published online, Mr. Trump tweeted that he was “extremely happy and proud” of Mr. Mnuchin’s performance. He attributed reports to the contrary to “phony sources or jealous people” and incorrectly implied The Wall Street Journal didn’t seek his comment for the article. “They never like to ask me for a quote b/c it would kill their story,” he said.

The Journal made repeated requests for comment this week, including a request for comment from Mr. Trump. The Journal sent the White House a detailed list of questions Friday morning. After initially declining comment, the White House issued statements Friday afternoon, followed by the president’s tweet.

Mr. Trump’s private complaints have sparked concerns among some of Mr. Mnuchin’s supporters that he might be tracing the same downward path as some of the other ex-cabinet members who have run afoul of the president, such as former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

In a conversation with someone who praised Mr. Mnuchin’s performance, Mr. Trump mentioned the volatile stock market. Aides have said he views the market as a barometer of his White House performance every bit as important as his poll ratings. “If he’s so good, why is this happening?” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Mnuchin, according to a person familiar with the matter.

As usual, the reports from inside Trumpland ultimately don't conclude if Trump's seriously considering Mnuchin as part of his anticipated year-end cabinet shakeup or just cathartically complaining and sowing chaos among his underlings.

Also, another Fucking Fuck thread is live: Fucking Fuck XVII—Fucksgiving.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:49 AM on November 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

I think the coal discussion may be missing the fact that eliminating coal as an energy source will still leave the metallurgical coal industry, which according to popular press accounts is where the recent growth—which began before the 2016 election—has been located. The soft landing for coal workers and coal country isn't going to involve the entire sector.

Sorry, no. "Metallurgical coal" is still combusting coal for energy, it's just directly in an industrial process rather than in a power plant to make electricity. To have a chance to save our species from a crisis at a scale we can't imagine, we need to leave all the fossil fuels in the ground, period. Finding loopholes to continue to combust coal is not going to help us. Yes, that means we have to find a new way to make steel or replacements for steel. Yes, we probably should have been working on this over the past 100 years.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:51 AM on November 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

This morning's Krugman: How Democrats Can Deliver on Healthcare
New Jersey shows the way. You got a problem with that?
posted by mumimor at 6:03 AM on November 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

New Jersey shows the way. You got a problem with that?

Yeah, I fuckin do. Whattaya gonna do about it?

Yes, we probably should have been working on this over the past 100 years.

You know how every once in a while some new detail of the impending climate catastrophe becomes clear to you — something that makes sense, but which you’d just never thought of before, like coal being necessary for steel, which is necessary for everything else, or the fact that melting permafrost bubbles and cracks the ground above it on a grand scale, taking out anything we might have been using on top of it, like roads and buildings — and you realize, anew, how very very fucked we are?
posted by schadenfrau at 6:09 AM on November 24, 2018 [23 favorites]

Saboteur in Chief by Fintan O’Toole in NRB.
posted by adamvasco at 7:25 AM on November 24, 2018 [9 favorites]

hydropsyche, if we ain't making steel, we won't be living in organized societies. While I agree that, in general, it's best to leave ancient carbon in the ground, it's certainly possible to use it for industrial processes without dumping the effluent in the atmosphere. If we are to have any chance of survival as a technologically advanced species, it's a complete necessity. Carbon is a useful element, and some of those uses require getting it very hot.

Besides, what we "should" do and what will happen are entirely different things, and I can guarantee you that people will still be digging coal out of the ground for at least another decade no matter what any of us here think about the wisdom of that choice.
posted by wierdo at 8:02 AM on November 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

Just want to add that, given an appropriate carbon tax that embodies the externalized cost of dumping fossil carbon into the atmosphere, people would come up with carbon capture technology that works with existing processes in rather short order.

However, that would also threaten existing power structures in that the newly wealthy may or may not prefer them as they are. Needless to say, a certain segment of our society won't stand for that no matter the consequences. That's the danger of turning politics into religion. A lesson we had learned, but forgot quite quickly once the reds got the bomb.
posted by wierdo at 8:11 AM on November 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

U.S. Climate Report Warns of Damaged Environment and Shrinking Economy
The report, which was mandated by Congress and made public by the White House, is notable not only for the precision of its calculations and bluntness of its conclusions, but also because its findings are directly at odds with President Trump’s agenda of environmental deregulation, which he asserts will spur economic growth.

What’s New in the Latest U.S. Climate Assessment
posted by infini at 8:25 AM on November 24, 2018 [22 favorites]

They are not at odds with some of Trump's claims, because:

the damage will knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century’s end.

means diddly-shit to Trump. He'll be long dead. What matters to him is that environmental deregulation _now_ and the subsequent catastrophic smash-and-grab will boost some numbers _now_, which might get him reelection support from the wealthy interests that benefit from that smash-and-grab.

Assuming that Trump actually thinks about any period of time beyond next week is overly optimistic.
posted by delfin at 8:44 AM on November 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

After Years of Taking Up Too Much Space, Trump Is Finally Small, by Dahlia Lithwick
posted by growabrain at 9:23 AM on November 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

This is the report that the Trump Administration doesn’t want you to see. Years in the making, released on the day after Thanksgiving.
Here are some of the main highlights.
posted by adamvasco at 9:58 AM on November 24, 2018 [12 favorites]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Explained Why Marijuana Should Be Legal on Instagram—But the Live Feed Also Had Wider Significance
posted by homunculus at 10:46 AM on November 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

Jackson Free Press: Hyde-Smith Attended All-White ‘Seg Academy’ to Avoid Integration (via)
posted by tonycpsu at 10:54 AM on November 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

tonycpsu: That's pretty much what happens to any white kid whose parents have sufficient means. The state starved (and probably still does) the public schools because black kids go there, so even the people who aren't racists are likely to try to avoid the public schools. Given that she was a child at the time, I can't really hold that against her.

What I can reasonably hold her responsible for are the things she has done (or not done, as the case may be) as a person in politics and as a parent. Between that and the racist things she's said and done, it's pretty clear she's got no business being in elected office.
posted by wierdo at 11:32 AM on November 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

Not her fault where she went to high school. Is her fault she sent her daughter to the same school.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 11:41 AM on November 24, 2018 [28 favorites]

(To a different segregation academy, but yeah -- that shows this isn't just about where she was sent to school by her parents.)
posted by tonycpsu at 11:42 AM on November 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm actually sort of fascinated by the controversy over Hyde-Smith having attended a segregation academy, because I basically take for granted that any white Southerner of her age probably did. I don't know if that makes me cynical or just Southern-adjacent. There were several school districts near where my mom grew up that literally shut down the public schools for a year rather than integrate. White kids got vouchers to go to private segregation academies, and black kids didn't go to school. It's shocking and horrifying, but I would assume that anyone in Mississippi would already assume that's what she did. What is bad is that she sent her daughter to a (former?) segregation academy. I want to know what the demographics of that school are now.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:43 AM on November 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

I want to know what the demographics of that school are now.

Cindy Hyde-Smith sent her daughter to Brookhaven Academy, which had the following racial makeup in 2016:

386 white students
5 Asian students
1 black student

Brookhaven as a town is 55% black & 43% white. BA opened in 1970 to avoid integration. #MSSen
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:48 AM on November 24, 2018 [40 favorites]

That's pretty much what happens to any white kid whose parents have sufficient means. The state starved (and probably still does) the public schools because black kids go there, so even the people who aren't racists are likely to try to avoid the public schools.

The school Hyde-Smith attended was hastily slapped together the year MS was forced to integrate the public schools by the white supremecist Citizens Council. These schools, unlike segregated academies later in the timeline, were known for having markedly inferior instruction. This implies a dedication to avoiding "racial mixing" that goes well beyond even the norm in white Mississippi. We can't blame Hyde-Smith for this but it does say something significant about her upbringing.

What I can reasonably hold her responsible for are the things she has done (or not done, as the case may be) as a person in politics and as a parent.

And when she was old enough to send her own children to school, she chose a segregated academy. We can absolutely judge her for this.
posted by murphy slaw at 11:48 AM on November 24, 2018 [25 favorites]

Paul Kane on a topic we were discussing here a little while back: Want Congress to look more like the people it serves? Provide member housing, pay staff more

In 2008 the median salary on Capitol Hill was $47,662, according to Legistorm, the nonpartisan for-profit company that researches congressional data.

A decade later the median salary is $50,971.

If this pay had kept up with national inflation rates, the median salary would top $55,000. But that doesn’t even take into account the explosion in the expenses to live in the District.
...
Legistorm’s analysis reveals a predictable trend: fewer staff stay longer in those jobs, turning them over to less experienced hands.

In 2001 and 2002, congressional staff in their 30s represented more than 34 percent of all aides on Capitol Hill, while 20-somethings made up 42 percent of staff.

By 2015 and 2016, people in their 30s represented just 27 percent of all congressional staff, while people in their 20s accounted for more than 55 percent of all aides.

The more that salaries stayed flat, the more veteran staff have decided to leave working for Congress to, most likely, head to the private sector as they began to face decisions about marriage, children and home purchases. The “lifer,” someone serving 20 or 30 years, is a dying breed.

posted by zachlipton at 12:15 PM on November 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

Maxine Waters slams: If Donald Trump is not Offering Prayers, Sympathy & Assistance to Californians, He Should Keep his Mouth Shut
posted by growabrain at 12:39 PM on November 24, 2018 [20 favorites]

AP, Juliet Linderman, Memos to Nobody: Inside the work of a neglected fed agency

Mark Robbins gets to work at 8:15 each morning and unlocks the door to his office suite. He switches on the lights and the TV news, brews a pot of coffee and pulls out the first files of the day to review.

For the next eight hours or so, he reads through federal workplace disputes, analyzes the cases, marks them with notes and logs his legal opinions. When he’s finished, he slips the files into a cardboard box and carries them into an empty room where they will sit and wait. For nobody.

He’s at 1,520 files and counting.

Such is the lot of the last man standing in this forgotten corner of Donald Trump’s Washington. For nearly two years, while Congress has argued and the White House has delayed, Robbins has waited to be sent some colleagues to read his work and rule on the cases. No one has arrived. So he toils in vain, writing memos into the void.

Robbins, a Republican, is the sole member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, which is supposed to decide the appeals and complaints of civil servants. Trump only got around to nominating members a year after he took office, and they've yet to be confirmed. He continues to cast votes which will never be counted or matter in any awy.
posted by zachlipton at 1:02 PM on November 24, 2018 [40 favorites]

> Robbins, a Republican

Is he really, still?
(It's hard to imagine a more soul-crushing job for a highly-qualified lawyer...)
posted by RedOrGreen at 1:08 PM on November 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

“I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,” Clinton said.

Perhaps some numbers might put this is context. She was talking about refugees in particular, not immigrants, per se. Refugees are those fleeing their country because of violence or threats of violence.

In 2015, Germany accepted 1.1 million refugees. The equivalent for a country with the population of the U.S. would be about 4.4 million refugees.

How many refugees did the U.S. actually accept last year? 45,000.

Think about that for a second. Germany accepted 100 times as many refugees as the U.S., equivalently. Think about the uproar over refugees in the mid-term election but imagine that the U.S. had accepted 100 times as many refugees. How do you think that might have affected the election results?

You saw the freakout because of a couple thousand refugees a thousand miles from the border. Then think about the freakout of 4.4 million actually crossing the border. That is what Clinton is talking about in Germany.

As when Clinton said that coal mining jobs are going away, she is speaking a hard truth here. Mass migrations are a severe problem that has to be dealt with. To just look the other way and say just open up the doors without considering the national freakout is naive. If the U.S. had 4.4 million refugees crossing the border last year, I would guarantee that you wouldn't be looking at a Democratic House in congress.
posted by JackFlash at 2:32 PM on November 24, 2018 [44 favorites]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Explained Why Marijuana Should Be Legal on Instagram—But the Live Feed Also Had Wider Significance

The article completely misses the most important part. AOC has an Instant Pot!
posted by srboisvert at 2:56 PM on November 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

Want Congress to look more like the people it serves? Provide member housing, pay staff more

Lord, yes, do this!

Also cutting back on numbers of staff to save money is why we have lobbyists scrawling last-minute stuff in the margins of legislation. More Hill professional staff (committee staff) are needed!

I've known a lot of Hill lifers, was working toward being one when my committee cut back years ago. Just the Hill neighborhood where nearly all of them lived has changed so much, million-plus houses, no more diversity of age, race, or income. Staff can't make it here, and I don't know how non-wealthy members manage it, other than the awfulness of sleeping at the office.
posted by jgirl at 3:37 PM on November 24, 2018 [9 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: Migrants at the Southern Border will not be allowed into the United States until their claims are individually approved in court. We only will allow those who come into our Country legally. Other than that our very strong policy is Catch and Detain. No “Releasing” into the U.S.......All will stay in Mexico. If for any reason it becomes necessary, we will CLOSE our Southern Border. There is no way that the United States will, after decades of abuse, put up with this costly and dangerous situation anymore!

Oh good, more threats to close the border, I say, as I plan a trip to Mexico City.

But there's still more questions than answers about this new tentative agreement, including when the policy will start, what legal authority is being used, who it applies to, how people will be taken care of while waiting in Mexico (and/or what will happen with the Mexican factory owners eager to recruit refugee labor), and what will happen with the inevitable lawsuits over the policy. Vox's Dara Lind breaks it all down.
posted by zachlipton at 4:23 PM on November 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

More Hill professional staff (committee staff) are needed!

Are they needed?

Congress has over 24,000 staff -- that's 45 per congress member. How do you manage an army like that? Do you really need more?

Working personally for congress members are 12,000 -- 14 per House member and 34 per Senate member.

And there are an additional 2500 that work just for the committees, about 50 to 70 per committee. Could a committe manage more than that?

And there are an extra 274 who work for the leadership of the House and Senate.

And another 3500 who work for the Congressional Research Office, the Congressional Budget Office, and the General Accounting Office.

And another 5000 or so as clerks, police and maintenance.
posted by JackFlash at 4:25 PM on November 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

WaPo, Rucker, New book by Trump advisers alleges that the president has ‘embedded enemies’

Two of the president’s longest-serving advisers allege in a new book that scores of officials inside the White House, Congress, the Justice Department and intelligence agencies are “embedded enemies of President Trump” working to stymie his agenda and delegitimize his presidency.

The authors, Corey R. Lewandowski and David N. Bossie, are both Republican operatives who do not work in the administration but are close to Trump and fashion themselves as his outside protectors. They portray the president as victim to disloyalty on his staff and “swamp creatures” intent on extinguishing his political movement.
...
Lewandowski and Bossie met with Trump in the Oval Office on Sept. 20 for a friendly interview, an edited transcript of which appears in the new book. Trump told the authors that he considers the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to have helped him politically.

“I think it makes my base stronger,” Trump said in the interview. “I would have never said this to you. But I think the level of love now is far greater than when we won. I don’t know, what do you think, Mike?”

Vice President Pence, who sat in for a portion of the interview, replied, “As strong or stronger.”
...
The narrative reads in part like Trump’s Twitter grievances in book form.

posted by zachlipton at 4:35 PM on November 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

JackFlash: It feels like you are throwing out big numbers without much context. 14 per house member is also 14 per 747,184 constituents, on average. We have a lot of people in the United States, it makes sense that there are a lot of people involved in making our laws--and constituent services, etc...

Also, framing everything as an "unmanageable army" seems disingenuous. Large organizations exist--so what? (one of them is called "the United States of America") Are you saying individual members are not able manage their own staffs? Are you arguing that some large percentage of maintenance people or clerks are just sitting around and twiddling their thumbs?
posted by ropeladder at 4:56 PM on November 24, 2018 [29 favorites]

Two of the president’s longest-serving advisers allege in a new book that scores of officials inside the White House, Congress, the Justice Department and intelligence agencies are “embedded enemies of President Trump” working to stymie his agenda and delegitimize his presidency.

Well, Jesus on a pogo stick, I should fucking HOPE so.
posted by delfin at 5:20 PM on November 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

So... did the crack team at the WH ever find the guy who wrote the NYT internal resistance open letter, or were they too busy taking to publishers and Axios?
posted by Selena777 at 5:22 PM on November 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

A story about how it is too few:

Why would conservative lawmakers decimate the staff and organizational capacity of an institution they themselves control? Part of it is political optics: What better way to show the conservative voters back home that you’re serious about shrinking government than by cutting your own staff? But a bigger reason is strategic. The Gingrich Revolutionaries of 1995 and the Tea Partiers of 2011 share the same basic dream: to defund and dismantle the vast complex of agencies and programs that have been created by bipartisan majorities since the New Deal. The people in Congress who knew those agencies and programs best and were most invested in making them work—the professional staffers, the CRS analysts, the veteran committee chairs—were not going to consent to seeing them swept away. So they had to be swept away.

— The Big Lobotomy (2014)

Starting in 1995 Republicans in Congress began reducing staff sizes and entirely dismantling institutions like the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) resulting in a dumber legislative body. Congress is now less able to respond to constituents, form its own opinions, and write legislation without industry lobbyist input than 25 years ago.
posted by migurski at 5:30 PM on November 24, 2018 [46 favorites]

The thing is, the southern border (at least the pedestrian crossings) are getting closed occasionally right now. My bro-in-law owns a fast food place just this side of the San Ysidro crossing (the big one that connects to Tijuana) and the ped crossing was closed twice this last week. Something like 90% of his employees live in Tijuana, and every customer is there because they are crossing the border in either direction. So Trump’s border bullshit is fucking over American business owners, but Fox News never seems to mention that part.
posted by sideshow at 5:34 PM on November 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

AOC has an Instant Pot!

And yet she claims to be a socialist. Curious!
posted by contraption at 5:34 PM on November 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

Wouldn’t it be easier to list the people on Earth that don’t own an Instant Pot, at this point?
posted by sideshow at 5:38 PM on November 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

> [Lakoff/framing stuff should probably get its own thread if folks want to really pursue that.]

Done: Truth Sandwiches
posted by homunculus at 5:51 PM on November 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

Rice/Beans 2020
posted by M-x shell at 5:52 PM on November 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

And there are an additional 2500 that work just for the committees, about 50 to 70 per committee. Could a committe manage more than that?

The numbers you listed seem to be 18 years out of date. Since that article seems to have been posted in 2000, personal staff has basically held steady and committee staff has dropped substantially. I'm not going to go look up the exact numbers for you, but by somewhere between a third and a half.

So, yes, committees could easily manage more staff than they are, just like they used to do perfectly well.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:00 PM on November 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

Wait, is closing the border like just a thing that happens randomly?

Historically, uh, nope. Individual crossings might be closed for logistical reasons (a road or a railway line closers or relocates and that crossing is no longer in use, it's a seasonal crossing, it's necessary to make repairs or upgrades). Or to clear severe delays/backlog (or for protesting delays/backlog). But literally closing a whole dang border is mostly only a thing of war, or at the very least, seriously strained relations between countries. The US had a closed "border" of sorts with Cuba, after diplomatic relations were severed in 1961 -- not a literal border, of course, but close enough. Closing borders with a major trading partner like Mexico, though, would be patently absurd. Which is not to say it won't happen in these times. But it would not have happened before Trump.
posted by halation at 7:13 PM on November 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

AOC has an Instant Pot!

New slogan: "A chicken in every pot, and pot with every chicken!"
posted by homunculus at 7:26 PM on November 24, 2018 [19 favorites]

Freshman rep Sharice Davids, who had made some anti-Pelosi noises earlier, officially backs her for Speaker.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:21 PM on November 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

Judd Legum Major League Baseball donates $5000 to Cindy Hyde-Smith

But one prominent American institution is going the other direction: Major League Baseball. According to an FEC report filed on November 24, the Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball PAC donated $5000, the legal maximum, to Hyde-Smith's campaign. The contribution is dated November 23.

The Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball PAC was established in 2002. It was formed "as the sport endured a number of potentially crippling controversies, including the threat of a player's strike and fan anger over the possible contraction of two teams." The commissioner of Major League Baseball is Rob Manfred.

Charles B. Johnson, the co-owner of the San Fransisco Giants, recently donated $2700, the legal maximum to Hyde-Smith. Johnson's wife, Ann, also contributed the max. The donation spurred outrage from baseball fans online.

Saturday's filing by Hyde-Smith also included a $5000 donation from Ernst & Young, an accounting firm that publicly touts its commitment to diversity and inclusion.

posted by zachlipton at 9:31 PM on November 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

What I am saying is that it is already a lot of staff and I haven't seen any real solid evidence that it is too few. Every organization I've ever been involved in has said they need more people. It's sort of an automatic response that I'm wary of.

Most of these people are 20-24 year old unpaid or just-barely-paid interns, and some very small amount of professional upper level staffers, mostly carried over from their campaigns.

Do you really want the entire universe of congressional policy making decided by just out of college entry level staffers, sifting through infinitely funded industry white papers and full-court influence pedaling? Because that's what we have now.

Or would a better idea to be to fund an actual professional policy staff for Congress? Because we've done that before, until Newt Gingrich effectively killed professional Congressional advisory roles. Ask yourself if you trust today's average Congressperson to design an effective climate change policy aided only by people with undergraduate degrees in poly sci, with zero advice from scientists in the field, except those funded by the oil lobby.

That's what you're advocating when you argue against funding congressional staff.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:53 PM on November 24, 2018 [78 favorites]

The Guardian seems to think that Muller news is to be expected at the start of the week. Monday was the extension requested on Manafort's sentencing. Elections are done. Let's hope. Is there any hope of a new thread to begin the week with? This one won't stand any significant news.
posted by stonepharisee at 1:55 AM on November 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

I'm glad you asked! There's a half-drafted new thread on the wiki, and all are welcome, encouraged in fact, to contribute, with a goal of ideally getting it up before Monday.
posted by zachlipton at 2:10 AM on November 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

I'd recommend not posting it too far in advance, because those new threads quickly fill up with chatter, and if there's the tantalizing possibility of something actually going down, tons and tons of comments that are all speculation and nervous energy before anything happens (or doesn't happen) is going to be a problem for those coming to the thread to find the actual news.
posted by taz at 2:41 AM on November 25, 2018 [15 favorites]

Mexico's incoming government denies report Mexico supports Trump admin's new asylum proposal
posted by Harry Caul at 4:59 AM on November 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

AOC has an Instant Pot!

And yet she claims to be a socialist. Curious!

Instant Pots are Canadian.
posted by srboisvert at 5:25 AM on November 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

The Most Damaging Election Disinformation Campaign Came From Donald Trump, Not Russia by Bruce Schneier and Henry Farrell in Motherboard. Our research implies that insider attacks from within American politics can be more pernicious than attacks from other countries. They are more sophisticated, employ tools that are harder to defend against, and lead to harsh political tradeoffs. The US can threaten charges or impose sanctions when Russian trolling agencies attack its democratic system. But what punishments can it use when the attacker is the US president?
posted by Bella Donna at 5:43 AM on November 25, 2018 [18 favorites]

From The Guardian by Carole Cadwalladr: Parliament has used its legal powers to seize internal Facebook documents in an extraordinary attempt to hold the US social media giant to account after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly refused to answer MPs’ questions.

The cache of documents is alleged to contain significant revelations about Facebook decisions on data and privacy controls that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It is claimed they include confidential emails between senior executives, and correspondence with Zuckerberg.

Damian Collins, the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, invoked a rare parliamentary mechanism to compel the founder of a US software company, Six4Three, to hand over the documents during a business trip to London. In another exceptional move, parliament sent a serjeant at arms to his hotel with a final warning and a two-hour deadline to comply with its order. When the software firm founder failed to do so, it’s understood he was escorted to parliament. He was told he risked fines and even imprisonment if he didn’t hand over the documents. ...

The documents seized were obtained during a legal discovery process by Six4Three. It took action against the social media giant after investing $250,000 in an app. Six4Three alleges the cache shows Facebook was not only aware of the implications of its privacy policy, but actively exploited them, intentionally creating and effectively flagging up the loophole that Cambridge Analytica used to collect data. That raised the interest of Collins and his committee. A Facebook spokesperson said that Six4Three’s “claims have no merit, and we will continue to defend ourselves vigorously”.
posted by Bella Donna at 5:52 AM on November 25, 2018 [27 favorites]

From the article...

Facebook said: “The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure. We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook. We have no further comment.”

Well, jeez, that sounds innocent enough! Nothing to see here.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 6:32 AM on November 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

Facebook said: “The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure. We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook. We have no further comment.”

Is a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court binding on the British Parliament? I would love for the court to hold them in contempt.
posted by mikelieman at 6:36 AM on November 25, 2018 [15 favorites]

Good luck with Facebook getting those documents back from Parliament unread or at all. I am trying and failing to imagine the UK folks deferring to the San Mateo Superior Court. I believe the tech bros may have forgotten that the world is larger than Silicon Valley legally as well as geographically.

This is my favourite quote from the Motherboard article above: "Libertarians often argue that the best antidote to bad speech is more speech. What Vladimir Putin discovered was that the best antidote to more speech was bad speech." In context, it makes sense and seems true. Which sucks, because I keep hoping to wake up from this anti-democratic, social-media-fuelled (not exclusively) political nightmare and so far no luck.
posted by Bella Donna at 6:43 AM on November 25, 2018 [23 favorites]

UK MeFites: can you help me understand what "effectively flagging up the loophole" means? Also, attention MeFites in New Jersey, Arizona, Florida, California, Illinois, Texas, and Oregon: Now another group of moderate Democrats is threatening to upend Pelosi’s House Speaker bid. And they’re working with Republicans to do it (from ThinkProgress).

The House Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan collection of lawmakers that reportedly has solved very few problems since its creation, is refusing to back Pelosi unless she adopts their proposed rule changes.

The Problem Solvers have billed the proposals as “breaking the gridlock” of Congress, but CNN notes the rules changes would “empower rank-and-file members to push bills in the House, a power now reserved for the leadership.”

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) ripped the Problem Solvers’ proposed “GOP-friendly rules that will hamstring healthcare efforts from the get-go.”

(Apologies readers and mods for this frenzy of posting. I have a cold and am bored. I will shut up now.)
posted by Bella Donna at 6:53 AM on November 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

"effectively flagging up the loophole" = making Cambridge Analytica aware that Facebook had created a loophole in its privacy policy so that Cambridge Analytica could exploit said loophole. Facebook knowingly assisted and collaborated with Cambridge Analytica.
posted by merocet at 7:05 AM on November 25, 2018 [18 favorites]

can you help me understand what "effectively flagging up the loophole" means?

It's like one time when I was assigning Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action to some undergrads in a course where I'd already made them buy more books than I was comfortable with. Olson was, at the time, dead, so I did not care about his welfare.

What I did was use the computer hooked up to the classroom projector to show them that the book was available at the university bookstore but cautioned them that if they just googled for the book -- like this, let me show you -- the results would have some perfectly legitimate places to pay for the book, like Amazon. But -- here, let me show you -- if you were to click this link right here -- this one, like this -- you'd be taken to a random university professor somewhere else's blackboard page where he or she has accidentally made the entire text of the book freely available as a pdf.

So if you're searching for the book -- again, like this, let me show you, here are the results -- you should be careful not to click on this link. This one. This one here -- I'll click on it now so you can see the URL you should avoid. Because if you were to click on it, that would be a copyright violation, and that would be wrong. You should be careful to buy a copy of the book from the bookstore, or from a legitimate online bookseller. And not to obtain an illegitimate copy of the book by clicking on this link -- this one, here, like this. The worst part is that if you were to click on that link, it would be practically impossible for anyone to actually enforce copyright against you, especially if you were to do it from a public machine.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:14 AM on November 25, 2018 [68 favorites]

Judd Legum Major League Baseball donates $5000 to Cindy Hyde-Smith

MLB has since asked for their money back.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:18 AM on November 25, 2018 [14 favorites]

There's a whole lot more from Carole Cadwalladr in today's Observer. Tying up, Bannon, Farage, Stone, Arron Banks, Yakovenko, Assange. All such lovely people
posted by Myeral at 8:05 AM on November 25, 2018 [13 favorites]

Putin is making moves in Crimea this morning -- a Russian coast guard vessel rammed a Ukranian tugboat and effectively blockaded the Kerch Strait.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:42 AM on November 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

NYT: Across South, Democrats Who Speak Boldly Risk Alienating Rural White Voters

The campaigns of Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Andrew Gillum in Florida and Beto O’Rourke in Texas may have electrified black and progressive white voters — just as Ms. Hyde-Smith’s comments may energize Mississippians to support Mr. Espy — but they had an equal and opposite effect as well: in rural county after rural county, this trio of next-generation Democrats performed worse than President Barack Obama did in 2012.

No, you chucklefucks -- they had an unequal and opposite effect. If the effect were equal and opposite, we wouldn't have been talking about Democrats having a prayer of winning any of these seats. Strong progressive messages put these seats in play, but because they didn't win them, and didn't clean up in the reddest of red counties, I guess it's time for another page A1 story about "Democrats in disarray."

The Twitter headline for this piece was "After painful losses, Democrats in the South face a dilemma: Appeals to progressives cost them the rural white voters who often decide elections." Atrios: responds:

After this election, the NYT puts on the front page a story about how the one place in America they could still find to tell the story about how Real Americans hate Democrats.

It is true that the Democrats are unlikely to be popular and win everywhere and that a one party state at all levels of government in all states and locations is not in our forseeable future. The New York Times is on it!

@JamilSmith: I’m looking forward to the sequel to this article, “Across America, Republicans Risk Speaking Boldly and Alienating Voters of Color.”
posted by tonycpsu at 8:47 AM on November 25, 2018 [74 favorites]

Tying up, Bannon, Farage, Stone, Arron Banks, Yakovenko, Assange

With just a dash of Jordan fucking Peterson via YouTube.

Also:
Arron Banks
is one I'd hitherto escaped knowledge of. One of the petty things I resent about this mess is having to give headspace to this enormous fantasy sports league of insufferable white collar thug-men.
posted by obliviax at 8:50 AM on November 25, 2018 [19 favorites]

So, apparently I’ve had George Stephanopoulos and George Papadopolous conflated in my mind until about two minutes ago.
posted by Autumnheart at 9:40 AM on November 25, 2018 [27 favorites]

Trump demands action to reduce deficit, pushes new deficit spending (WaPo)

Trump also repeatedly told [former National Economic Council director Gary] Cohn to print more money, according to three White House officials familiar with his comments.

“He’d just say, run the presses, run the presses,” one former senior administration official said, describing the president’s Oval Office orders. “Sometimes it seemed like he was joking, and sometimes it didn’t.”

Two current aides said they had not heard Trump make that comment in recent months, and he is changing his tune on the budget in public statements.

“We’re going to start paying down debt,” Trump said during a White House event last month. “We have a lot of debt.”

posted by box at 9:47 AM on November 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

Wait, is closing the border like just a thing that happens randomly? I never thought about it but I just assumed it was like, at least as important to civil society as a Waffle House and therefore was always open barring extreme circumstances. But that's just cause I've never thought about it much

I don’t think it happens “randomly”. I’m sure the two times I mentioned are tied to The Caravan bullshit. Also, to make it more clear this was just the pedestrian crossing.

My main point is that there have already been closures even with the “Imma going to close it!!!” rhetoric.

If the vehicle crossing at San Ysidro was closed on a regular basis, California would prob just go down to zero GOP Congressional reps. We already have Dem supermajorities and no GOP statewide office holders because of Republicans going after the “racist vote” (Prop 187 never forget), and just fucking with the CA economy for a stunt would be about the best thing to make sure the Dems have control forever.
posted by sideshow at 9:59 AM on November 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

From the reporting I've seen the San Ysidro closures were to install jersey barriers topped with concertina wire to create choke points in the fear that large groups would attempt to force their way thru (BBC, WaPo).

The CBP released a statement which reads, in part:

In the early morning hours, CBP officials received reports of groups of persons from the caravan gathering in the city of Tijuana for a possible attempt or attempts to rush illegally through the port of entry instead of presenting themselves as required to a CBP officer. CBP officials suspended operations to safely place impediments at the port of entry that would restrict access to a large group attempting to run through the border crossing. After the CBP response at San Ysidro, no activity materialized at the border crossing.

That's bear patrol logic, institutionalized.

This AP report points out that the pedestrian crossing is used by 110,000 people per day and the closings have riled up the anti-migrant sentiment on the Mexican side of the border, making the whole situation even more precarious for migrants:

Such inconveniences prompted by the arrival of the migrant caravan may have played a role in Sunday's protests, when about 400 Tijuana residents waved Mexican flags, sang the Mexican national anthem and chanted "Out! Out!" referring to the migrant caravan that arrived in the border city last week.

posted by peeedro at 10:44 AM on November 25, 2018 [8 favorites]

Putin is making moves in Crimea this morning -- a Russian coast guard vessel rammed a Ukranian tugboat and effectively blockaded the Kerch Strait.

@Eire_QC: "NOW: BERDYANSK ARTILLERY BOAT OF THE UKRAINIAN NAVAL FORCES HAS BEEN FIRED UPON BY RUSSIAN FORCES, THE BOAT HAS LOST IT'S ENGINE AND IS NOW DRIFTING AWAY. CASUALTIES REPORTED"

"Ukrainian Naval Forces are now opening fire at the Russian Navy, the Berdyansk is a sitting duck the crew is firing back extensively."
posted by Buntix at 11:12 AM on November 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

RUMINT is that three Ukrainian Naval Forces boats have been boarded by the Russian Navy.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:16 AM on November 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Damian Collins MP (and a Tory to boot) tells Facebook to GTFO over their request to get their files back that were seized in the UK.
posted by PenDevil at 11:37 AM on November 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

CNN: Judge orders Papadopoulos to report to prison on Monday

Meanwhile, Papadopoulos is tweeting away about how he'll testify to the Senate if James Comey will answer his questions about FISA, Joseph Mifsud, UK/Australian intelligence on him, and the FBI's relationship, if any, with Charles Tawil, whom Papadopoulos accuses of being a spy in his latest conspiracy-fantasy.

Two weeks without this twerp of a troll will fly by.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:45 AM on November 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

I guess it's time for another page A1 story about "Democrats in disarray."

It's weird to see the form mutate in real time. Jonathan Martin went to Jackson but didn't want to do a Diner Story, so he did a sweeping "Dems in disarray" piece based on entirely hypothetical diner customers and quotes from local operatives.

Atrios tweeted out a pithier summary: "Democrats are illegitimate as long as the people least likely to vote for them do not. This rule does not apply to republicans." I really can't add to that.

Nobody at the NYT would send a reporter to Ocasio-Cortez's district and ask if Republicans have alienated voters in the Bronx, because: a) duh; b) only white voters are granted a platform to legitimise those in political power. The normative values around political mandates are deeply fucked up.
posted by holgate at 11:48 AM on November 25, 2018 [69 favorites]

“We’re going to start paying down debt,” Trump said during a White House event last month. “We have a lot of debt.”

[June 2016: Candidate] Trump: 'I'm the king of debt'

“I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me,” Trump told Norah O’Donnell in an interview that aired on “CBS This Morning.” “I’ve made a fortune by using debt, and if things don’t work out I renegotiate the debt. I mean, that’s a smart thing, not a stupid thing.”

“How do you renegotiate the debt?” O’Donnell followed up.

“You go back and you say, hey guess what, the economy crashed,” Trump replied. “I’m going to give you back half.”

posted by scalefree at 12:05 PM on November 25, 2018 [10 favorites]

“We’re going to start paying down debt,” Trump said during a White House event last month. “We have a lot of debt.”

It's just the usual R method of manipulating the Ds: trash the government and the economy, then when the Democrats take over, being talking about the terrible debt. Trump just doesn't bother to pretend responsibility or even seriousness.
posted by mumimor at 12:10 PM on November 25, 2018 [18 favorites]

CBP just closed the entire northbound San Ysidro border crossing. The Mexican authorities have put up barricades and are in riot gear, blocking passage to the border crossing as a group from the caravan approached peacefully. They are telling people to "go back to the stadium if they want to 'conserve an opportunity.'" Reports of tear gas coming from the US border patrol.
posted by zachlipton at 12:20 PM on November 25, 2018 [16 favorites]

Trump demands action to reduce deficit, pushes new deficit spending (WaPo)

There's a lot of stupidity in here, so I'm going to quote another section:

Trump also is often not versed in the particulars of the federal budget.

Chief of Staff John F. Kelly has told others about watching television with Trump and asking the president how much the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff earns. Trump guessed $5 million, according to people who were told the story by Kelly, startling the chief of staff. Kelly responded that he made less than $200,000. The president suggested he get a large raise and noted the number of stars on his uniform.

posted by zachlipton at 12:29 PM on November 25, 2018 [26 favorites]

@dblock94: "I did the whole "dispatch from Trump Country" thing, but with a twist: Instead of talking to the conservatives, I talked to the progressives."

The Democrats of Trump Country: How liberals in the reddest parts of America are starting to get their groove back.

Indeed, it was telling that most of the rural Democrats I interviewed seemed just as baffled by Trump supporters as urban progressives are. “I don’t understand them, and I’m mad at them,” said Derek Goebel, a fifty-three-year-old native of Page County, where more than 70 percent of people voted for Trump. “They’re not pro-life, because people are dying every day. We’re destroying people’s lives, ripping children from their parents’ arms, and we’re destroying the environment.”

So then who are these newly active liberals? Some, including Goebel, are people who typically vote Democratic but were motivated by Trump to become more outwardly involved. Samuel Halpern, 68, of Page County Indivisible, is a good example. Halpern first heard about Indivisible—a national progressive network set up in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election to “defeat the Trump agenda”—in January 2017 while attending an open-door session held by the staff of Goodlatte, the retiring incumbent. Halpern was expecting a handful of other attendees. Instead, there were thirty-five. Virtually all of them, Halpern said, were “irate and concerned” about the direction of the country. Many of the other attendees were talking about Indivisible, still a relatively new organization. Halpern started helping Page Indivisible, a local group inspired by the national entity, organize. The Page group now has roughly 100 members, a surprisingly large number in a deeply conservative county with 24,000 residents.

Other Democrats were new to politics altogether. Campbell, for example, grew up in a very conservative Mennonite community where voting was taboo. “The idea was that you prayed for your leaders, and whoever God wanted got put in place,” she explained. “It wasn’t your position to make that decision.” But for Campbell, that changed in 2016. “After Donald Trump’s election, it was really clear to me that this was going to be a time that my grandchildren read about in history books. What am I going to say that I did? And for me, it was just clearly becoming politically involved. Simply praying didn’t yield results that I could abide by.”

posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:18 PM on November 25, 2018 [62 favorites]

@averysmallanna “...remember the part in the Christmas story when Mary & Joseph were gassed while seeking asylum”
posted by The Whelk at 1:24 PM on November 25, 2018 [38 favorites]

According to the AP's reporter at the scene:

U.S. agents shot the gas, according to an Associated Press reporter on the scene. Children were screaming and coughing in the mayhem.

Honduran migrant Ana Zuniga, 23, said she saw migrants open a small hole in concertina wire at a gap on the Mexican side of a levee, at which point U.S. agents fired tear gas at them.

“We ran, but when you run the gas asphyxiates you more,” she told the AP while cradling her 3-year-old daughter Valery in her arms.

Mexico’s Milenio TV also showed images of several migrants at the border trying to jump over the fence. Yards away on the U.S. side, shoppers streamed in and out of an outlet mall.

@DLind: A REALLY IMPORTANT thing to be aware of as you consume news about what's going on in Tijuana rn: the MX government and the US government are both working to stop people from entering the US.

@chrisshermanAP: Strong breeze carried US-launched teargas deeper into Mexico. Migrants ran for hundreds of yards before escaping the cloud
US agents have fired another volley of tear gas into Mexico along the Tijuana River. Migrants retreating again.

Some of the migrants who approached the border today were taking part in a protest of the US's slow handling of asylum claims.
posted by zachlipton at 1:39 PM on November 25, 2018 [17 favorites]

Bruce Schneier has cowritten a paper with political science professor Henry Farrell titled Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy. It's an intriguing approach to the ongoing Russian information campaign on the US.

Bruce also wrote an entry about it in his blog, Information Attacks against Democracies.

Democracy is an information system.

That's the starting place of our new paper: "Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy." In it, we look at democracy through the lens of information security, trying to understand the current waves of Internet disinformation attacks. Specifically, we wanted to explain why the same disinformation campaigns that act as a stabilizing influence in Russia are destabilizing in the United States.

The answer revolves around the different ways autocracies and democracies work as information systems. We start by differentiating between two types of knowledge that societies use in their political systems. The first is common political knowledge, which is the body of information that people in a society broadly agree on. People agree on who the rulers are and what their claim to legitimacy is. People agree broadly on how their government works, even if they don't like it. In a democracy, people agree about how elections work: how districts are created and defined, how candidates are chosen, and that their votes count -- even if only roughly and imperfectly.

We contrast this with a very different form of knowledge that we call contested political knowledge, which is, broadly, things that people in society disagree about. Examples are easy to bring to mind: how much of a role the government should play in the economy, what the tax rules should be, what sorts of regulations are beneficial and what sorts are harmful, and so on.

This seems basic, but it gets interesting when we contrast both of these forms of knowledge across autocracies and democracies. These two forms of government have incompatible needs for common and contested political knowledge.

posted by scalefree at 2:25 PM on November 25, 2018 [20 favorites]

Ukrainian President Poroshenko supports the decision to impose the Martial Law in Ukraine. Has called for an emergency Rada session today to vote on the imposition of Martial Law and State of War in Ukraine.
< Twitter
posted by Harry Caul at 2:49 PM on November 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

This is flat out insanity.
posted by odinsdream at 6:07 AM on November 26 [2 favorites +] [!]

This is flat out the point. The keyword is immiseration, the deliberate kind, to make issues of solved problems. We have a refugee process, albeit an imperfect one. The caravan was organized as a protest of the difficulties faced for years by people trying to navigate it. Rather than do the quiet, boring work of fixing it over the objections of racists, they are gassing the protesters, and then blaming them for being a violent threat, in order to enable and perpetuate the racists.

It is the monsters who refuse to process refugees according to law who are the violent threat, and they must be stopped. These terrorists will not hesitate to use tear gas, and many other methods, on whoever opposes them, especially in the name of laws and institutions we already have, because anything that stands in the way of their unbridled exercise of power must, by definition, be removed. The monsters and racists I refer to are the Republican Party.

The way you fight this is by calling it out loudly and NOW, before it becomes bullets and war. America needs immigrants, and we need them now more than ever to swamp our native terrorists with demographic change and votes for sanity. The more immigrants and refugees we take in, the more people we have who remember their children being tear-gassed or worse, and the more enfranchised people we have who will vote for pluralist peace and "never again".

The caravan wanted to obey the law, go through the process peacefully, and make legitimate criticisms of the process with an eye to improving it. THEY are the people we should be listening to on immigration policy, not the nativist GOP. Consider the rural/urban disenfranchisement in the US, and then consider that if you agree with sentiment, the votes of potential migrants are further diluted by the semi-legal migrant population who can't vote. There are 10 million? 20? Who would they vote for? If you sympathize with their plight, your vote, your right to protest, and your right to move around safely in public have to stand in for theirs.

I hope people see the caravan for what it is, and that their message resonates. I hope the tear gas backfires on those who ordered it used. I hope their sacrifices are worth it, and we in this country wake up and decide to take them in, and I hope that taking them in does direct and irreparable damage to the GOP and their agenda...

Ukrainian President Poroshenko supports the decision to impose the Martial Law in Ukraine. Has called for an emergency Rada session today to vote on the imposition of Martial Law and State of War in Ukraine.

...or sooner or later, the caravan or something like it will be the justification when this happens in the US.
posted by saysthis at 3:21 PM on November 25, 2018 [44 favorites]

The way you fight this is by calling it out loudly and NOW ...

I find that saying "so you're saying you TRUST the government, then?" usually stops the Fox News Watchers' argument dead in its tracks.

Confuses them and gives them something to think about ... hopefully.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:32 PM on November 25, 2018 [12 favorites]

The Hill: Trump suggested giving raise to military officer while noting number of stars on his uniform

President Trump reportedly suggested that Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, get a pay raise after learning that he made less than $200,000.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that White House chief of staff John Kelly has told people that he asked the president about the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's salary.

Kelly had reportedly asked Trump to name how much the official made. Trump replied $5 million, people who were told the story by Kelly told the Post.

Kelly, who was reportedly startled by the answer, told Trump that Dunford's position received a salary of less than $200,000.

posted by jgirl at 4:00 PM on November 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

"I mean, it's one banana, what would it cost? Ten dollars?"
posted by holgate at 4:17 PM on November 25, 2018 [37 favorites]

The president of the United States is surprised that generals don't get paid a million dollars per star.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:36 PM on November 25, 2018 [22 favorites]

The House Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan collection of lawmakers that reportedly has solved very few problems since its creation, is refusing to back Pelosi unless she adopts their proposed rule changes.

Charles Pierce: Democrats Can't 'Work With' Republicans Until Republicans Return to Reality. The "Problem Solvers Caucus" has never solved a single problem. Sit down.
posted by homunculus at 5:26 PM on November 25, 2018 [41 favorites]

Regarding Democrats in the South: my 25 year old, conservative evangelical nephew in Texas voted for Beto O'Rourke. He really appreciated that O'Rourke was trying to talk to everyone, and I guess when he checked out O'Rourke's positions, was surprised to learn that O'Rourke was not a communist.

But what really amazed me was when my nephew said that he thought that liberals were doing a much better job at seeming like decent people. I don't think I've ever heard the words "liberals are doing a much better job" from anywhere! I don't really know how unusual my nephew is, but I have at least one datapoint to back up my hunch that articles like the one in the Times are overlooking the fact that Republicans are really turning off people, even ones that want to believe in them.
posted by maggiemaggie at 5:37 PM on November 25, 2018 [39 favorites]

Yes, he told me that he voted for Beto. He volunteered that information on his own (I had been afraid to ask).
posted by maggiemaggie at 5:41 PM on November 25, 2018 [11 favorites]

> Putin is making moves in Crimea this morning -- a Russian coast guard vessel rammed a Ukranian tugboat and effectively blockaded the Kerch Strait.

Trump in July: Trump: I would not have allowed Russia to annex Crimea

Trump in August: Trump says he can override congress directive not to recognise Russian sovereignty over Crimea

I wonder what brain fart we'll be graced with when he hears about his pal Putin's latest. I checked his twitter and he's currently railing against a 60 Minutes story about immigrant family separation.
posted by homunculus at 6:36 PM on November 25, 2018 [9 favorites]

Daily Beast, Ackerman, Trump Ramped Up Drone Strikes in America’s Shadow Wars: "In his first two years, Donald Trump launched 238 drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia—way beyond what the ‘Drone President’ Barack Obama did."

In 2009 and 2010, Obama launched 186 drone strikes on Yemen, Somalia, and especially Pakistan. Donald Trump’s drone strikes during his own first two years on three pivotal undeclared battlefields, however, eclipse Obama’s – but without a corresponding reputation for robot-delivered bloodshed, or even much notice. In 2017 and 2018 to date, Trump has launched 238 drone strikes there, according to data provided to The Daily Beast by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the drone-watchers at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London.

Those numbers come with a slew of asterisks. The amount of drone strikes on the full-fledged acknowledged battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria have, ironically, proven far more difficult to track than those in shadow warzones—and knowledgeable observers like Chris Woods of the UK’s Airwars organization believe that the true center of the drone strikes is found there. Additionally, the toll of how many people, particularly civilians, those strikes on shadow battlefields have slain is, at best, a rough estimate.

posted by zachlipton at 6:44 PM on November 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Another anti-Pelosi House member (Stephen Lynch) appears to be waffling.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:09 PM on November 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

Now he can say people who hate him, his policies, whatever, are aligned with the people he is bombing, who hate him, his policies, whatever, for bombing them. Pick a bogeyman representative of those people and say the haters love the foreign bad guy. "Treason? I dunno! I dunno..."
posted by rhizome at 10:49 AM on November 26 [+] [!]

I'm aligned with people who hate Trump and his Treason. Treasonous Trump needs to go, something even anti-American terrorists know.
posted by saysthis at 7:19 PM on November 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Alternatively

"From Canadians with free healthcare, Mexicans who are sick of cartels, Scottish farmers who are tired of unwelcome golf courses, Germans who welcome fellow humans in need, Yemenis who are sick of starving and dying at weddings, Russians who just want a democratic government, Saudis who don't want to be dismembered, Kenyans who wish rich white kids would stop killing elephants, Chinese who want to buy American stuff, and Finns who want you to know they don't rake the woods, everyone in the world knows one thing - Trump needs to go.
posted by saysthis at 7:25 PM on November 25, 2018 [29 favorites]

This is an interesting tidbit at the end here...

[CNN] Ukraine says Russia opened fire on its naval vessels, seized them

Russian state media has reported the confrontation is a provocation orchestrated by Ukraine and others in America to disrupt the forthcoming meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump at the G20 Buenos Aires summit this week.

Interesting strategy, there.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:36 PM on November 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Won't Get Fooled Again Dept: Incoming House Oversight Committee chair Elijah Cummings says he has no plan to restore subpoena rights to the minority party.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:36 PM on November 25, 2018 [44 favorites]

W/r/t the tear gassing potential immigrants at the border: I remember when they were tear gassing protesters in Ferguson, and a lot of military and ex-military people were saying that it's a war crime and against the Geneva conventions to tear gas the enemy. But, for some reason, it's not illegal to use it on our own citizens. Okay, well that's pretty shitty, but these people now aren't citizens.... Is tear-gassing them a war crime???
posted by Weeping_angel at 7:40 PM on November 25, 2018 [11 favorites]

Won't Get Fooled Again Dept: Incoming House Oversight Committee chair Elijah Cummings says he has no plan to restore subpoena rights to the minority party.

Absolutely. They've shown what their priority is, throwing conspiracy theory chaff in the air. There's already too much risk of it coming from Whitaker, a one-man conspiracy theory shop waiting to happen. No need to add to it. This ain't beanbag.
posted by scalefree at 7:45 PM on November 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

Hey, look over there! It's a new thread!
posted by zachlipton at 7:47 PM on November 25, 2018 [10 favorites]

Won't Get Fooled Again Dept: Incoming House Oversight Committee chair Elijah Cummings says he has no plan to restore subpoena rights to the minority party.

Stephen White
You will never go broke betting on @ChuckTodd trying to demand that Dems rollover for Rs in ways he would never ask Rs to roll over for Dems. Like clockwork. And pathetic.
posted by chris24 at 7:48 PM on November 25, 2018 [21 favorites]

The answer is, "The GOP decided the minority party shouldn't have that power. We are in full agreement."
posted by Chrysostom at 7:58 PM on November 25, 2018 [28 favorites]

I remember when they were tear gassing protesters in Ferguson, and a lot of military and ex-military people were saying that it's a war crime and against the Geneva conventions to tear gas the enemy. But, for some reason, it's not illegal to use it on our own citizens.

As I understand it, the story was that "tear gas" is defined as CN gas, and what law enforcement were using was CS gas. A technicality, but one they can hang whole departments on.
posted by rhizome at 8:20 PM on November 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

I made it to the end of the mega-thread on the same day it ended!!!!! What do I win?
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 8:32 PM on November 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Milk and cookies.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 8:36 PM on November 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

A NEW CAR!
posted by rhizome at 8:59 PM on November 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

oprah_bees.gif
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:13 PM on November 25, 2018 [16 favorites]

my 25 year old, conservative evangelical nephew in Texas voted for Beto O'Rourke.

On the other hand, I previously mentioned in these threads a young male friend of my husband, who is gay, who was trying to decide who to vote for in the Senate race.

Well he and his boyfriend BOTH voted for Ted Cruz.

I...just don't...I don't know how even when one party straight up says they don't want You Personally to have equal rights that you can still vote for them. I guess the white male trumps (har) all.
posted by threeturtles at 9:30 PM on November 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

Hey, look over there!

Over here?
posted by homunculus at 9:32 PM on November 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

NEEWWW THREEEAAAD!
posted by lalochezia at 5:04 AM on November 26, 2018

Hey, look over there!

(Where?)
There's a lady that I used to know
She's married now, or engaged, or something, so I'm told
posted by kirkaracha at 6:46 AM on November 26, 2018 [11 favorites]

Maybe it's just me, but I had trouble finding the link to the new thread upthread, so for anyone else trying to find it too:

───────────────────────────────────

➜ New Thread

───────────────────────────────────

And thank you to zachlipton for starting it!
posted by StrawberryPie at 6:52 AM on November 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

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