Seth Meyers on Donald Trump

So Donald Trump has been impeached. You know, the serial racist criminal who has already cheated in one election, obstructed justice in the investigation of that election, used his office to enrich himself, solicited bribes, inflicted human rights abuses on migrant families, been accused of sexual assault, had six close associates indicted or jailed -- do you remember that guy? You know, the guy who almost definitely committed tax fraud, admitted he broke the law by misusing his personal charity to help his campaign, began his presidency by settling a fraud lawsuit over his scam university, orchestrated an extortion scheme to cheat in the 2020 election, tried to cover it up, got caught, obstructed congress, directed an illegal scheme to pay hush money to cover up an affair, and drove his golf cart onto the green.

Unfairness Of U.S. Senate Distribution

Interesting ... rounded off, the populations of the five boroughs of New York City -- Staten Island, The Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn -- total about 7.4 million people.

The populations of the nine least populous states -- Wyoming, Vermont, District of Columbia, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Manhattan -- total about ... wait for it ... 7.4 million people.

The inequity of representation in the U.S. Senate is staggering. The 7.4 million in the nine least populous states have 18 Senators. The same number of people in the five boroughs of New York City have between them less than a one-third share of 2 Senators.

Staten Island 0.4 M      Wyoming     0.6 M
Bronx            1.2 M      Vermont       0.6 M
Manhattan     1.5 M      D.C.             0.7 M
Queens          2.0 M      Alaska          0.7 M
Brooklyn       2.3 M      N. Dakota     0.8 M
Total              7.4 M      S. Dakota      0.9 M
                                     Delaware       1.0 M
                                     Rhode Island 1.0 M
                                     Montana        1.1 M
                                     Total              7.4 M

New York State, 19.5 M; 2 Senators
9 least populous states, 7.4 M; 18 Senators

Trump's Letter To Nancy Pelosi On Impeachment Eve

Click here for the rambling, unhinged letter from Trump to Nancy Pelosi the evening before his expected impeachment.

The New York Times fact-checked it and found 19 instances of lies or exaggerations.

This will be a document that will live in history -- but it won't have the effect Trump was hoping for. It will be held up by historians and future generations with the ridicule and contempt it deserves.

Ukraine Involvement in U.S. 2016 Election - and the Fox News Version

Click here for a Politico article entitled "Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire," by Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern.

Brian Stelter, in one of his "Reliable Sources" articles, has a piece subtitled "The right-wing roots of impeachment," in which he argues that Hannity and others embellished and blew the Politico article up out of all proportion, using it as the basis for their specious claims that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that meddled in the U.S. election -- with the intention of helping Hillary to defeat Trump.

Stelter says:

How did we get here? How did Trump wind up on the verge of impeachment? Well, his sources of information led him astray. He was misinformed by the shows and sites he was watching and reading.

To be clear: His choices, what Trump did with the information — the withholding of aid money, the alleged shakedown of the Ukrainian president, the claims that it was a "perfect" phone call — that's all his own doing. Trump is responsible for what he did. But what he was hearing from right-wing media was crucial. The conspiratorial bent of his favorite talk shows was critical.

--> Re: Ukraine and 2016: Sean Hannity and other Trump backers took tiny bits of true information from a January 2017 Politico story titled "Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire" and blew it way, way out of proportion, to the point that some viewers thought Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election. Hannity leaned on the Politico story for months and months — in fact, he's still talking about it, as of Sunday -- so it's no wonder why Trump harbored a grudge against Ukraine.

--> Re: the Bidens and Burisma: Enter John Solomon, the right-wing columnist for The Hill who worked closely with Rudy Giuliani to light the fuse of the Ukraine scandal. Trump was watching when Solomon went on Hannity in March and described a Ukrainian effort to "try to influence the United States election in favor of Hillary Clinton." We know he was watching because he tweeted about the segment. Solomon rolled out an anti-Biden conspiracy theory... the feedback loop kept looping... and it ultimately ensnared Trump.

--> Re: the aid money for Ukraine, according to WaPo, Trump saw an article from the right-leaning Washington Examiner titled "Pentagon to send $250M in weapons to Ukraine" and started to ask Q's about the $$.

Here's the thing: The pro-Trump media bubble did not actually help Trump. To the contrary, it led him to the brink of impeachment...

Click here for more at the Stelter "Reliable Sources" piece.

The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report

Click here for "The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report" by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Here's the first paragraph:

The impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election. As described in this executive summary and the report that follows, President Trump’s scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign. The President demanded that the newly-elected Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly announce investigations into a political rival that he apparently feared the most, former Vice President Joe Biden, and into a discredited theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election. To compel the Ukrainian President to do his political bidding, President Trump conditioned two official acts on the public announcement of the investigations: a coveted White House visit and critical U.S. military assistance Ukraine needed to fight its Russian adversary.

Here's Digby's take on it:

As promised, the House Intelligence Committee released its report on the Ukraine investigation on Tuesday. It was another of those days when everyone on TV was madly reading a pile of documents trying to find any nuggets of new information while at the same time attempting to give the public a sense of the larger narrative. This time there was no William Barr on hand to spin things in favor of the president, so the media managed to tell the real story. It is actually more devastating than anticipated.

...

It also makes a strong case that the president and his henchmen obstructed Congress, intimidated witnesses, became the first administration in history to thoroughly stonewall obstruct an impeachment inquiry, and quite likely lied about that "I want nothing" phone call. It unravels all the byzantine relationships between Fox News lawyers, right-wing journalists and various Ukrainian political figures with their own axes to grind.

Family Reunion

Paste this into the address bar of your browser: https://twitter.com/i/status/1199897223993155584

Taylor Testifies - Trump Lashes Out

Bill Taylor, the chargé d'affaires at the Ukrainian embassy in Kiev, gave a closed-door deposition before the House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees on Tuesday, October 22. He's the one who early this year, responding to the Trump/Zelensky phone call when Trump said "I would like you to do us a favor though" while withholding desperately needed military assistance (already voted for by Congress) in connection with Trump's insistence that Ukraine investigate Joe and Hunter Biden's involvement with Burisma, a Ukraine energy company, and his and Giuliani's pursuit of a debunked Internet conspiracy theory about CrowdStrike, the DNC server, and purported Ukrainian interference on Clinton's behalf in the 2016 election, tweeted "I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign."

Apparently the prospect of his testimony has Trump worried. The president* tweeted the following:

So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here - a lynching.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) responded:

“This is a lynching in every sense. This is un-American. I’ve never seen a situation in my lifetime as a lawyer where somebody is accused of a major misconduct who cannot confront the accuser, call witnesses on their behalf and have the discussion in the light of day so the public can judge,” he said.

Graham is lying through his teeth. As a lawyer -- the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, no less -- he knows perfectly well that what is taking place right now is not a trial but an investigation, and secrecy is the normal process. During the Benghazi investigation, 103 witnesses -- in fact, every witness called who was not named Clinton -- testified behind closed doors. 164 African-Americans were lynched in Senator Graham's state.

Responding to the president*'s tweet, Graham said, “I think that’s pretty well accurate. I think lynching is being seen as somebody taking the law in their own hands and out to get somebody for no good reason,” he said.

Hogan Gidley, the principal deputy White House press secretary, made the ridiculous statment that "The president was not equating the impeachment inquiry with the brutal killing during Jim Crow." [HUH?]

"The president is not comparing what's happened to him with one of our darkest moments in American history," Gidley told reporters on the White House driveway. "What he is explaining clearly is the way he has been treated by the media since he announced for president."

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, condemned Mr. Trump for his tweet comparing the impeachment inquiry to a "lynching."

"Thousands of African Americans were slaughtered during the lynching epidemic in this country for no reason other than the color of their skin. The president should not compare a constitutionally mandated impeachment inquiry to such a dangerous and dark chapter of American history," Jeffries said. "I hope that he will apologize."

Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush, who has introduced a bill to make lynching a hate crime, called on Mr. Trump to delete the tweet.

"You think this impeachment is a LYNCHING? What the hell is wrong with you?" Rush said, quoting Mr. Trump's tweet. "Do you know how many people who look like me have been lynched, since the inception of this country, by people who look like you. Delete this tweet."

Greetings From The Lunatic Fringe!

Here's our old friend Alex Jones, foretelling The Apocalypse:

Trump Tweets

Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people. It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call. Arrest for Treason?

His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.....

....If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Pastor Robert Jeffress, @FoxNews (re-tweeted by Trump)

Emotional, Fact-Free Tweet From Jon Voight

"War. This is war against truth." Click here for 2 minutes, 14 seconds of pro-Trump propaganda from the Midnight Cowboy. "This is a war against the highest noble man who has defended our country and made us safe and great again." Trump? "The highest noble man"? Get a grip, Jon.

Click here for a video clip of Rudy Giuliani on Laura Ingraham's show on Fox News melting down and yelling at Chris Hahn, a Democrat who I guess appears from time to time on Fox. I got the clip from a post by Frances Langum on Crooks & Liars. Her description starts:

On Tuesday evening's Ingraham Angle, Rudy Giuliani had an insane meltdown and erupted on a Democratic guest for questioning his crazy Ukraine story.

“Shut up, moron! Shut up! Shut Up! You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know what you’re talking about, idiot!” Rudy screamed throughout.

At one point, Hahn says that at one time he had a lot of respect for Giuliani, but:

What I see you doing now saddens me and it saddens most New Yorkers because you are ruining your reputation -- take a step back and stop going on like this," Hahn said.

Tracking Migratory Birds

Click here for a video representation of the flight paths of migratory birds in Europe.

Boeing 737 Max - Part Deux

Click here for another article about the 737 Max -- like the other one, dated September 18, 2019 -- by Maureen Tkacik in The New Republic -- and this one kicks the crap out of Boeing.

Boeing 737 Max

Click here for a really interesting article, dated September 18, 2019, entitled "What Really Brought Down the Boeing 737 Max?" by William Langewiesche in The New York Times Magazine.

Business Roundtable Moves In A New Direction

Click here for an article at Inc.Com by Peter Gasca, entitled "In This Single Statement, CEOs From the Largest U.S. Corporations Just Changed the Purpose of Business," subtitled "The influential Business Roundtable issued a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, and businesses everywhere should pay attention."

Wikipedia: The Business Roundtable (BRT) is a non-profit association based in Washington, D.C., whose [192] members are chief executive officers of major U.S. companies. Unlike the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose members are entire businesses, BRT members are exclusively CEOs. [The current BRT chairman is Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase.]

On August 19, 2019, the BRT issued a 300-word statement:

Americans deserve an economy that allows each person to succeed through hard work and creativity and to lead a life of meaning and dignity. We believe the free-market system is the best means of generating good jobs, a strong and sustainable economy, innovation, a healthy environment, and economic opportunity for all.

Businesses play a vital role in the economy by creating jobs, fostering innovation, and providing essential goods and services. Businesses make and sell consumer products; manufacture equipment and vehicles; support the national defense; grow and produce food; provide health care; generate and deliver energy; and offer financial, communications, and other services that underpin economic growth.

While each of our individual companies serves its own corporate purpose, we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders. We commit to:

Delivering value to our customers. We will further the tradition of American companies leading the way in meeting or ­exceeding customer expectations.

Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits. It also includes supporting them through training and education that help develop new skills for a rapidly changing world. We foster diversity and inclusion, dignity, and respect.

Dealing fairly and ethically with our suppliers. We are dedicated to serving as good partners to the other companies, large and small, that help us meet our missions.

Supporting the communities in which we work. We respect the people in our communities and protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses.

Generating long-term value for shareholders. [They] provide the capital that allows companies to invest, grow, and innovate. We are ­committed to trans­parency and effective engagement with shareholders.

Each of our stake­holders is essential. W­e commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities, and our country.

I enrolled in a business and economics course back in 1970 with the aim of receiving a business degree. Unfortunately, that was at a time when economic thought in the Western world was undergoing a sea change, from the principles espoused by John Maynard Keynes to those of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School, and I found myself in immediate and profound disagreement with my professors and the new wave of economic thought.

In 1970, Friedman wrote what came to be known as the Friedman doctrine, saying "There is one and only one social responsibility of business -- to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits ..."

For years, this philosophy has been espoused by most businesses based in capitalist economies, and it is indicterined [sic] in every newly-minted MBA ... In 1997, ... the Business Roundtable formalized this philosophy with a definition of corporate purpose as 'The paramount duty of management and of boards of directors is to the corporation's stockholders. The interests of other stakeholders are relevant as a derivative of the duty to stockholders.'

In other words, the number one rule of business is to increase shareholder wealth.

The BRT's statement, if put into practice, signals a very significant turn in corporate direction:

In the statement, the BRT mentions creating value for customers, investing in employees, fostering divers ity and inclusion, dealing fairly and ethically with suppliers, supporting the communities in which we work, protect the environment -- all before ever mentioning "shareholders," which does not happen until the last paragraph.

Unfortunately for my academic career, I was entering university at exactly the beginning of a 50-year interregnum when economic thought was dominated by right-wing conservatives. If this is the beginning of a pendulum starting to swing in the reverse direction, I'm all for it.

Click here for another article along these lines at The Washington Post, written by David Ignatius and entitled "Corporate panic about capitalism could be a turning point."

Dimon had warned earlier this year in his annual letter to his company’s shareholders that the American Dream was “fraying for many” because of stagnant wages and income inequality.

Numerous other indications of a change in the direction of economic thought are mentioned in this article. Interestingly, Ignatius writes that FDR considered "the right-wing demagogue, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who had routed the Bonus Army from its camps," to be the most dangerous man in America. “Did you ever see anyone more self-satisfied? There’s a potential Mussolini for you," Roosevelt wrote.

Click here for an article in The Week, by Windsor Mann, entitled "The false prophet in the White House."

People believe Trump because they want to be deceived. In her book The Confidence Game: The Psychology of the Con and Why We Fall for It Every Time, Maria Konnikova writes, "The true con artist doesn't force us to do anything; he makes us complicit in our own undoing. He doesn't steal. We give. He doesn't have to threaten us. We supply the story ourselves. We believe because we want to, not because anyone made us."

An evangelical told me that God put Trump in the White House "for a reason." Maybe the reason is to teach us a lesson: Don't ever do this again.

Joy Reid at MSNBC tweeted: "This might be the truest article I’ve read about the Cult of Donald Trump, whose supporters really do say (and have told me) he was sent to Washington by God."

Arnie's Message: "Your heroes are losers. You are supporting a lost cause."

"Believe me, I knew the original Nazis."

Click here for an article at The Week, by Peter Weber, entitled "Arnold Schwarzenegger, who grew up around 'broken' and defeated Nazis, has some blunt advice for the alt-right (and Trump)."

Schwarzenegger had a message for "the neo-Nazis and to the white supremacists and to the neo-Confederates," which began: "Your heroes are losers. You are supporting a lost cause. Believe me, I knew the original Nazis." He explained that he was born in Austria in 1947, right after World War II, and growing up he "was surrounded by broken men, men who came home from the war filled with shrapnel and guilt, men who were misled into a losing ideology. And I can tell you that these ghosts that you idolize spent the rest of their lives living in shame. And right now, they're resting in hell." He said it isn't too late to change course, and he wasn't buying Trump's "fine people" excuse for the Charlottesville marchers.

"If you say 'Arnold, hey, I was just at the march, don't call me a Nazi, I have nothing to do with Nazis at all,'" Schwarzenegger said, "let me help you: Don't hang around people who carry Nazi flags, give Nazi salutes, or shout Nazi slogans. Go home. Or better yet, tell them they are wrong to celebrate an ideology that murdered millions of people. And then go home."

Rebuttal to Tucker Carlson's "White Supremacy Is A Hoax" Segment

Click here for an excellent rebuttal to Tucker Carlson's dimwitted segment I discussed in my post below, ""Tucker Carlson: White Supremacy Is a ‘Hoax’ and ‘Not a Real Problem in America.'"

The link is to The Atlantic, and an article by Conor Friedersdorf, entitled "Dismantling Tucker Carlson’s White-Supremacy Argument," subtitled "The Fox News host’s recent segment was among the most poorly reasoned ever."

QAnon!

Feel up to watching a nice little conspiracy-theory video about a sinister plan on behalf of the criminal elites to dominate the world for their evil purposes? Great! Here it is:



According to Q theory, the Mueller report was to bring everything to a head: Mueller would reveal the existence of a vast worldwide criminal cabal, run by the criminal elites -- especially the Bushes, the Clintons, and Barack Obama -- resulting in those evildoers, along with large numbers of Hollywood stars, business magnates, and of course Democrats -- being seized and rushed off to Guantanamo in chains. But it didn't happen! There was much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, but the Q theory lives on.

Click here for a great companion article, explaining the QAnon nonsense in some depth, by Will Sommer at the Daily Beast, entitled "What Is QAnon? The Craziest Theory of the Trump Era, Explained."

Review Of Steve Bannon's Film, "American Dharma"

Click here for the review, at ScreenDaily, by Lee Marshall. The film's been out there for a year, but no one wanted to give Bannon's rancid worldview any publicity. Director Erroll Morris grapples with Bannon's ideology and methodology and suggests that ignoring the political strategist is more dangerous than engaging him.

If you can’t convey the attraction, the director seems to be saying, you can’t convey the danger.

This is the issue with taking on a subject as media-savvy as Breitbart News co-founder Bannon: a man who is used to playing others, and controlling the message, was always going to be hard to play. Morris faced a similar challenge in The Unknown Known, his last cinematic sparring match with one of liberal America’s chief bogeymen, Donald Rumsfeld. But Rumsfeld was also, like The Fog of War’s Robert McNamara, a consummate politician unable to resist the cut and thrust of a debate on strategy. Bannon, for all the abyss that divides the two men’s views and styles, is a weaver of narratives, creator of images and editor of the truth, just like Morris, and simply goes quiet when asked questions he finds uncomfortable.

The result is a fascinating but also in some ways frustrating film, a game of tag that looks resoundingly cinematic but feels like more of a cable or VOD prospect - not least because it lacks the killer punch, the Bannon stumble or revelation that would make American Dharma newsworthy.

"The Hunt," A Film From Universal Studios -- Will It Ever Air?

Here's a trailer for a Universal film scheduled for a September release -- though it may not ever be shown. Called "The Hunt," it shows wealthy liberal patrons of "The Manor," a luxurious hunting camp -- where the game being hunted is MAGA supporters.

"Did anyone see what our ratfucker-in-chief just did?" one character asks early in the screenplay for The Hunt, a Universal Pictures thriller set to open Sept. 27. Another responds: "At least The Hunt's coming up. Nothing better than going out to the Manor and slaughtering a dozen deplorables."

The script for The Hunt features the red-state characters wearing trucker hats and cowboy shirts, with one bragging about owning seven guns because it's his constitutional right. The blue-state characters — some equally adept with firearms — explain that they picked their targets because they expressed anti-choice positions or used the N-word on Twitter. "War is war," says one character after shoving a stiletto heel through the eye of a denim-clad hillbilly.

How will a film like this go over after the national trauma of the El Paso/Dayton weekend? A Universal executive says the movie "is meant to show what a stupid, crazy world we live in," adding, "It might even be more powerful now." [The film, scheduled for release in September 2019, was released on March 20, 2020.]

Tucker Carlson: White Supremacy Is A Hoax (Like Russia)

Click here for an article at the Daily Beast by Justin Baragona entitled "Tucker Carlson: White Supremacy Is a ‘Hoax’ and ‘Not a Real Problem in America.'"

“It’s a hoax,” he declared. “Just like the Russia hoax, it’s a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power.”

I don't get Fox and therefore don't see Carlson's program (although I've seen enough Carlson clips to have despised the man for more than ten years). But I've read that it would be difficult to differentiate between a transcript of a Tucker Carlson show and the "Hispanic invasion" manifesto of the El Paso shooter.

Crediting the president for condemning white supremacy while addressing the recent mass shootings, Carlson not only blasted critics of the president but took it a step further and dismissed the issue of white supremacy altogether, saying “the whole thing is a lie.”

Carlson says the white supremacy threat is "actually not a real problem in America. The combined membership of every white supremacist organization in this country would be able to fit inside a college football stadium."

That may or may not be true -- I don't think there are a bunch of well-organized white supremacist organizations with thousands of followers -- but the reality is that these wackos are lone-wolf shooters who do not belong to any "organization," and they draw comfort and support from Trump's bigoted, racist remarks in his tweets and at his rallies.

He opens the piece by saying, "It's not the job of this show to defend the president, everything he says, and some things we're not going to defend." I'd be interested to know just what those things are that you're not going to defend, Tucker.

He goes on to say about Trump: "He never endorsed white supremacy, or came close to endorsing white supremacy. That's just a lie."

Quite the straw man Tucker has set up there. I've never heard anyone say that Trump has said "I'm a white supremacist," or "I endorse white supremacy." He hasn't. It's all done with dog whistles, and the white supremacists hear it loud and clear. And while all Trump supporters are not white supremacists, all white supremacists are Trump supporters, because they know he wants to accomplish the same things they do. David Duke loves him; comments on The Daily Stormer regularly refer to Trump as "the god-emperor."

Hoverboard Channel Crossing

Click here for an article at The Verge, by Andrew Liptak, entitled "French inventor successfully crosses the English Channel on a hoverboard." He reached a top speed of 106 mph on the 22-mile trip, stopping halfway and landing on a platform to refuel. Watch the video: He looks to be a good 100 feet in the air.

When Trump's Promises Go Unkept

Click here for an article by Paul Waldman at The Plum Line, a Washington Post blog, entitled "How Trump’s biggest broken promise will make white supremacist terrorism even worse."

Is Trump's rhetoric inspiring murders? Waldman says:

There’s another vital question we need to ask: not whether Trump is inspiring murderers, but whether he is now, and will in the future, disappoint them in ways that could lead to more deadly violence.

Trump promised "a return to when people like them were on top. The Muslims would be banned, the minorities would be shown their place, a “big beautiful wall” would be built from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico — and Mexico would pay for it."

The problem will arise, Waldman says, when Trump supporters realize he can't fulfill his promises:

As historian Rick Perlstein noted just after the 2016 election, Trump made practical promises he couldn’t possibly keep, but “the biggest, only made implicitly, was the same one fascist strongmen always offer: transcendent national renewal, built upon the cleansing of dangerous untermenschen from the body politic.” Once that promise inevitably fails to be fulfilled, the results could be catastrophic. “The more Trumpism fails, the more, and more violently, scapegoats will be blamed.”

Moscow Mitch!

Joe Scarborough calling McConnell "Moscow Mitch" apparently hit a nerve.

Click here for an article in the Louisville Courier Journal by Ben Tobin, entitled "Mitch McConnell lashes out on Senate floor about 'Moscow Mitch' accusation."

I have to express my appreciation for Scarborough's moniker -- I hope it sticks -- and also for his tweet during the Mueller hearings:

Jesus, forgive me for ever being a Republican.

Which Party Supports The Principle Of Medicare?

Click here for an article in The Washington Post blog, The Plum Line, by Paul Waldman, entitled "Medicare just turned 54. Let’s remember what Republicans said about it."

Medicare was passed in July 1965, when the Democrats enjoyed huge majorities in Congress -- 295/140 in the House and 68/32 in the Senate. Johnson praised it at the time he signed the bill, saying:

No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents, and to their uncles, and their aunts. And no longer will this Nation refuse the hand of justice to those who have given a lifetime of service and wisdom and labor to the progress of this progressive country.

But the Republicans fought against it with everything they had. Here's what a rising Republican star -- Ronald Reagan, who would be elected to the first of his two terms as governor of California the following year, 1966 -- had to say on the subject:

“One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine,” he warned in a famous radio address. If Medicare were not stopped, Reagan said, “one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

Republicans have made concerted efforts over the years to rid America of this cesspool of socialism, but with little effect. As Waldman says:

Today there are 59 million people on Medicare and 73 million on Medicaid [132 million people], combining to make up a full 40 percent of the American population. So guess what: We have the socialism Reagan warned about, just not for everyone.

And yet that paragon of honesty, President Donald J. Trump, "wrote in a 2018 op-ed that was stunningly dishonest even for him, 'I also made a solemn promise to our great seniors to protect Medicare. That is why I am fighting so hard against the Democrats’ plan that would eviscerate Medicare.'"

"Josh Hawley Is A Fraud."

Click here for the article with that title at Splinter, by Paul Blest. Hawley is the junior senator from Missouri, and a rising star in the Republican party. He defeated two-term Democrat incumbent Claire McCaskill in 2018.

The premise of the article is that while Hawley purports to represent the downtrodden workers of Missouri, he has a very elitist history:

Hawley’s father Ron is a banker. Hawley himself graduated with a B.A. from Stanford, then went on to receive a law degree from Yale and clerk for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts. He then became one of the lead lawyers for the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom arguing the Hobby Lobby case before the Supreme Court, and was elected the attorney general of Missouri at the age of 36. Josh Hawley has had a privileged childhood, an academic pedigree from two of the top private universities in the world (and then, briefly, was an academic himself), a place in some of most prestigious places in the legal profession all before he turned 35, and is now a United States Senator.

Blest points out that "during his successful run for Senate against Claire McCaskill, Hawley usually glossed over all of these details on the campaign trail in favor of anecdotes about 'hard work' and 'growing up in a small town.'”

Along with Tucker Carlson, Hawley was a keynote speaker at the recent National Conservatism Conference in D.C. Remember the name: He'll be a consequential Republican in years to come.

Something's Happening To The Concept Of "Conservatism"

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Something's stirring in the belly of the Trumpist beast.

Click here for an article at The Washington Post by John Burtka entitled "Under Trump, a very different agenda for conservatives emerges." And if reading that article doesn't make you sufficiently afraid, click here for another article, again at The Washington Post, by Max Boot, entitled "What comes after Trump may be even worse." "President Tucker Carlson"? Now there's a phrase that ought to reduce you to a terrified, quivering lump of jelly.

On July 22, there was a gathering in D.C. called the National Conservativism Conference. It marked the beginning of a movement calling itself "national conservatism," an effort to explain the phenomenon of Trumpism within the conservative movement and the Republican party:

When Fox News host Tucker Carlson took the stage at the National Conservatism Conference last Monday in Washington, his tone was self-deprecating yet triumphant. Former deputy national security adviser Michael Anton has deemed Carlson the “de facto leader of the conservative movement,” and the audience wanted a coronation.

For the next hour, Carlson laid waste to the pieties of a thousand white papers and endless summer seminars promoting the dogmas of radical individualism, unfettered free markets and global hegemony — in short, all the things that made up American conservatism for the last generation. It was time, he said, to climb up into the attic and start tossing out the junk. And down it came: Speech after speech declared independence from neoconservatism, neoliberalism, libertarianism and classical liberalism. In substance and in tone, this was not the conservatism of National Review, the Weekly Standard or the Conservative Political Action Conference, but something consciously distinct and admittedly superior.

There has been much intellectual ferment on the right since the 2016 election but never a public gathering of this scale explaining what Donald Trump’s victory means for the future of the Republican Party. Under the auspices of the Edmund Burke Foundation, a new group of self-described “national conservatives” gathered to proclaim that big business is a greater threat to liberty than big government, that identity politics is a Freudian fraud and nation building is a chimera. In short, the aim of this new conservative politics is not more freedom but strong families, resilient faith communities and a thriving middle class. If the influence of Russell Kirk, American conservatism’s founding father, provided the intellectual framework for the conference, Pat Buchanan’s pitchfork populism replaced William F. Buckley’s Northeastern elitism as its animating spirit.

Here is Burtka's assessment of national conservative policy:

In economics, it would aim to strengthen the middle class, reduce income inequality and develop an industrial policy to ensure economic independence from China for essential military supplies. Policy proposals could include incentivizing investment in capital equipment and research and development; ending tax advantages for shareholder buybacks; federal spending on infrastructure; promoting skilled trades and vocational programs; busting up inefficient monopolies through antitrust enforcement; slowing immigration rates to tighten labor markets and raise wages for the working class; holding universities liable for student loan debt in cases of bankruptcy; and raising tariffs across the board while slashing taxes on the middle class.

As relates to culture, national conservatives would aim to support families by being pro-life for the whole life. Policy ideas might include paid family leave, increasing the child tax credit, federally funded prenatal and maternal care, reducing or eliminating income tax on families with three or more children, and working toward a society in which a mother or father can support a family on a single income. America’s Judeo-Christian roots would be celebrated, and churches and charitable organizations would be given preference in caring for the poor.

In foreign affairs, national conservatives’ goal is to protect the safety, sovereignty and independence of the American people. America’s regime-change wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen would be recognized as imperial hubris, and anyone involved in their promotion exiled from future positions in Republican administrations. Presidents who ignore congressional authorization for war would be impeached, and members of Congress who eschew their constitutional duties would be stripped of committee assignments and “primaried” in the next election. We would command the seas and space, bring the remaining troops home, secure our own borders and rebuild America.

All that rings a lot of the right bells: Who in the Democratic party could argue against any of the ideas I've put in bold above? Fine-sounding proposals, but how would they look in practice? Max Boot's article gives us an idea of what national conservatism might look like under President Tucker Carlson:

I fear that President Trump may not be an aberration but a prelude to something even uglier under a demagogue who really is a “stable genius.” (Trump is neither.)

A who’s who of Trumpian intellectuals (an oxymoron?) gathered at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington last week to propound an ominous ideology: “national conservatism.” As Reason reported, the conferees want to ditch the old conservative aversion to having the government micromanage the economy. Many speakers argued for an industrial policy based on tariffs and tax credits to reverse what “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance described as “family decline, childhood trauma, opioid abuse, community decline, decline of the manufacturing sector.” In response, Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.) tweeted: “ ‘National conservatism’ is just collectivism rebranded for the right. It’s a form of socialism built upon fear of the new and different.” (Maybe it should be called “national socialism” instead? If only that term weren’t already taken.)

Boot concludes:

But the real star of the “national conservatism” conference, reports Jacob Heilbrunn in the New York Review of Books, was Fox host Tucker Carlson. An isolationist and nativist, he has called Iraqis “semiliterate primitive monkeys” and said immigrants make “our own country poor and dirtier and more divided.” At the Ritz-Carlton, which is a subsidiary of the largest hotel company in the world, Carlson’s theme was, “Big Business Hates Your Family.” (Maybe not Carlson’s family: His stepmother is an heir to the Swanson frozen-food fortune.)

There has already been talk of Carlson running for president, and, Heilbrunn wrote, “Carlson’s own coy disavowal on the podium was hardly a denial.” Tucker in ’24? Don’t laugh. Weep. The Fox host is more intelligent and disciplined than Trump. He could well be the new leader of authoritarianism in America. If that were to happen, we may look back nostalgically on our present craziness as the calm before the storm.

Click here for a third article at The Washington Post, entitled ""Conservatives want to revive a one-time trick from more than 100 years ago," by Megan McArdle, a discussion of national conservatism's "industrial policy":

Industrial policy was last hot in the 1980s, as an ascendant Japan seemed about to displace us at the apex of the global economy. Center-left policy wonks spent a decade urging us to copy them. By the time they’d convinced everyone, however, Japan was mired in its 20-year “lost decade,” and the United States was entering an unplanned economic boom courtesy of Silicon Valley. Industrial policy abruptly vanished from the national conversation.

She goes on:

The first thing opponents of industrial policy should note is that it can work. But there are some other things we should note, too: that while it can work, it usually doesn’t; that it didn’t cause most of the growth it gets credit for in Asian countries; and that the limited benefits it offers probably can’t be realized by modern-day America.

But first, the concession. Done smartly, strategic trade policy and targeted subsidies can boost a country’s competitive position in growth-promoting industries. And because those industries often cluster, successful national champions can be quite hard to dislodge — just think of Detroit’s decades-long dominance of the global auto market. Once a cluster is established, spillover effects can foster further growth in related sectors.

Unfortunately, industrial policy is rarely particularly smart. Even brilliant planners can’t actually predict the future, and if they guess wrong, they can squander a great deal of taxpayer money while actually making the economy less competitive.

McArdle points out times in history when other countries have adopted similar industrial policies, and gives reasons why she feels these policies would not be successful if applied to the present-day U.S. economy. She concludes:

The problem is, we can’t replicate it because we practically invented it — more than 100 years ago. And it’s a one-time trick that no country ever gets to repeat, no matter how carefully it plans.

Mueller Report Summarized In 5 Minutes

Click here for a celebrity reading of key points in the Mueller report.

Mueller Report For Dummies - With Pictures

Click here for an article at Insider entitled "The Mueller Report," subtitled "Adapted by Mark Bowden, author of 'Blackhawk Down.' With illustrations by Chad Hurd, art director at 'Archer.'"

Speed Up Your Internet Connection

Click here for an article at How-To Geek by Tim Brookes, entitled "How to Speed Up Your Internet Connection."

Doe v. Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein

Click here for the legal document charging Trump and Epstein, Case 1:16-cv-07673, filed September 30, 2016, in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York:

JANE DOE v. DONALD J. TRUMP and JEFFREY E. EPSTEIN Complaint for rape, sexual misconduct, criminal sexual acts, sexual abuse, forcible touching, assault, battery, intentional and reckless infliction of emotional stress, duress, false imprisonment, and defamation.

Jane Doe withdrew her case on November 4, 2016, saying she was "afraid to show her face" due to "numerous threats" against her.

Click here for a pertinent Twitter thread.

Seinfeld: George, The Marine Biologist

Earlier in the episode, Kramer came over to Jerry's apartment, and George was there. He asked them if they wanted to come out with him to Rockaway Beach, because his car trunk was full of old Titleist golf balls a friend had gotten him from a driving range, and he was going to drive them into the ocean. (Jerry and George declined.)

George was dating a girl he had idolized in high school, and in order to appear successful, he told her he was a marine biologist. They were at the beach and found a beach whale, and George told the story:

Big Brother (a.k.a. Google) Is Watching You

Click here for Google's activity page. You can sign in, or if you're already signed in, it shows your Google searches in the past. Click here for Bob Rankin's article on the subject, entitled "Everything Google Knows About You (and How to Delete it).

Tag Your Emails

Click here for an article at How-To Geek by Rob Woodgate, entitled "How to Tag Your Emails For Maximum Searchability." Want to find an email you sent or received six months ago? Tags can help.

A Dramatic Reading of the Mueller Report

Use The Windows 10 Game Bar

Click here for an article by Chris Hoffman at How-To Geek entitled "6 Great Features in Windows 10’s New Game Bar" to learn how to capture video clips and other tricks.

Ideas For All Those Photos You've Taken

Click here for an article at lifesavvy.com by Harry Guinness about suggestions for what to do with those thousands of images you've shot.

Big Brother (Google) Is Watching You!

Here's a short video clip from The Washington Post illustrating how cookies snaffle onto you and then follow you around; "in a week of regular browsing, you might get tagged by 10,000 third-party cookies." That's on Chrome: Firefox doesn't allow them, by default.



Click here for the accompanying article by Geoffrey A. Fowler, entitled "Goodbye, Chrome: Google’s web browser has become spy software."

In a week of Web surfing on my desktop, I discovered 11,189 requests for tracker “cookies” that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer but were automatically blocked by Firefox. These little files are the hooks that data firms, including Google itself, use to follow what websites you visit so they can build profiles of your interests, income and personality.

Holocaust Revisionism

Click here for an article at The Washington Post by Lev Golinkin entitled "‘Never forget’ is dead. And it was killed on our watch." Neo-Nazism -- and worse -- is rampant in Europe.

Gerrymandering Explained

Here's a short, simple explanation from The Washington Post of how gerrymandering works:

Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They're Not Watching You

Click here for an article at How-To Geek by Chris Hoffman entitled "How to See Which Apps Are Using Your Webcam on Windows 10."

Your webcam’s light is on, but which applications are watching you? Windows 10 now has an easy, built-in way to find out. You can also see which apps have previously used your webcam—and the precise time they last accessed it.

Google Home

Click here for an article at How-To Geek by Cameron Summerson entitled "How to Set Up Whole House Audio Using Google Home."

I Like Night Skiing, But ...

... I like to do it on a green or blue run that I'm familiar with. I wouldn't ski this run in the daylight.

Archive Your Stuff!

Click here for an article by Rob Woodgate at How-To Geek entitled "The Best Way to Organize Your Emails: Just Archive Them." Finally, clear out those hundreds of superfluous messages (but you don't want to get rid of them forever). OHIO -- Only Handle It Once!

Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince Of Abu Dhabi

Mohammed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, is arguably the most powerful leader in the Arab world:

“Prince Mohammed is almost unknown to the American public and his tiny country has fewer citizens than Rhode Island. But he may be the richest man in the world. He controls sovereign wealth funds worth $1.3 trillion, more than any other country.

“His influence operation in Washington is legendary… His military is the Arab world’s most potent, equipped through its work with the United States to conduct high-tech surveillance and combat operations far beyond its borders.

“For decades, the prince has been a key American ally, following Washington’s lead, but now he is going his own way. His special forces are active in Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Egypt’s North Sinai. He has worked to thwart democratic transitions in the Middle East, helped install a reliable autocrat in Egypt and boosted a protégé to power in Saudi Arabia.”

Republicans Gradually Came To Support The Nixon Impeachment

Click here for an article at The Washington Post by William S. Cohen entitled "When will the Republican silence on Trump end?"

Cohen is a former Republican congressman, senator and defense secretary who served on the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 during the Watergate impeachment inquiry. And the point he makes is that originally, when the Watergate burglars were arrested and the story began to develop, Republicans were solidly behind Nixon, a popular president who won reelection by a massive margin in 1972.

Commenting on the present state of affairs, he says:

With the exception thus far of Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Republicans have taken the position that Mueller’s redacted report has resolved all issues of alleged presidential collusion with the Russians and obstruction of justice. Case closed.

This is not a tenable position. The Mueller report has raised nearly as many questions as it has answered. But more important, as someone who legislatively helped craft the original Office of Special Counsel, I can attest that Congress never intended to subcontract out its investigative powers to the executive branch.

He goes on to say:

At the moment, public opinion polls indicate that a majority opposes impeachment proceedings against Trump. It also appears unlikely that two-thirds of the Senate would support removing the president from office based on the evidence currently available.

And:

During the Watergate scandal, the majority of the American people initially opposed impeachment proceedings being launched against President Richard M. Nixon.

But as the hearings moved forward, we learned that, among other activities, the president had authorized the payment of “hush” money to those who had engaged in criminal activity; urged his subordinates to commit perjury before Congress; attempted to have the CIA derail an ongoing FBI investigation; and sought to use the IRS to punish those on a list of his political enemies.

[All of those findings apply to Trump.] Cohen goes on to say:

The silence of Republicans today in the face of presidential behavior that is unacceptable by any reasonable standard is both striking and deeply disappointing.

When one talks privately to some Republican members about a president who lurches from tweet to taunt; who, according to those who have worked closely beside him, is incapable of telling the truth even in mundane situations; who accepts the word of Vladimir Putin and rejects the unanimous judgment of our intelligence community that Russia launched a cyberattack at the very heart of our democracy; and whose toxic combination of egotism and insecurity distorts the basic process of governing, they express their disdain and even alarm at how he conducts the nation’s affairs.

Yet, the same members are reluctant to speak out publicly even in the face of behavior they would find intolerable by any previous occupant of the Oval Office.

Republicans who do not venture outside the Fox bubble believe the propaganda they are being force-fed: No collusion, no obstruction, the president was exonerated, the crimes involved were perpetrated by the corrupt investigators. When they learn the truth, the tide will turn.

Tucker Carlson: "Mexico Is A Hostile Foreigh Power"

Who knew?

Click here for a short article at MediaMatters entitled "Tucker Carlson: Mexico is a "hostile foreign power" and America "must strike back."

It has a link to the Fox News broadcast, and says:

TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): When the United States is attacked by a hostile foreign power it must strike back. And make no mistake Mexico is a hostile foreign power. For decades the Mexican government has sent its poor north to our country. This has allowed that country's criminal oligarchy to maintain power and get even richer but at great expense to us. The flood of illegal workers into the United States has damaged our communities, ruined our schools, burdened our healthcare system and fractured our national unity.

Oooookay ... When I first read (at another publication) that Carlson had said "When the United States is attacked by a hostile foreign power it must strike back. And make no mistake Mexico is a hostile foreign power," I thought Carlson must simply have misspoken, and meant to say "Russia" or "China." But no, he's attacking Mexico as an enemy of the United States.

Russia, China, North Korea, Egypt, Turkey, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and other repressive autocracies are fine, but Mexico is an enemy. Is Canada next?

Trump Arrives In Britain!

Here's how Sky News is advertising Trump's arrival in Britain on June 3 (paste this address into your browser):

https://twitter.com/i/status/1134833983261413376

Mueller v. Hannity

Click here for an article in WaPo by Erik Wemple entitled "Mueller ruins Hannity’s parade of deception." As Wemple says, Hannity's reaction the day the Mueller report was released was as follows:

“We begin tonight with a Fox News alert. The witch hunt is officially over. The Mueller report is out. And the president of the United States has been totally and completely vindicated,” said Hannity on that night. More: “Tonight, thankfully, for the sake of this country, truth has prevailed. As the president’s attorneys put it, quote: This vindication of the president is an important step forward for the country and a strong reminder that this type of abuse must never be permitted to occur again.”

I've seen several accounts of Republicans who only listen to Fox and other right-wing TV and radio shows that say words to the effect of, "All I've seen and heard is that the president was totally vindicated, and the investigation was bogus from the start and should never have happened." They don't know what the Mueller report says; all they know is what Hannity, Limbaugh and the rest of the right-wing crowd have told them. I read of one such Republican who was shocked to see Mueller on TV saying that if they had found that Trump did not commit the crime of obstruction, they would have said so. That's not what she had been led to believe, and she said that as a result of hearing Mueller speak, she would read the second volume of the report (the one that deals with obstruction). She had thought, based on Barr's "summary" of the report, that Trump had been exonerated, and she was surprised to learn, from Mueller himself, that that was not the case.

Great! If only they could take the blinders off and expose themselves to information that doesn't come from the Fox News bubble, they would learn that reality is entirely different from what they have been deceived into believing.

Of course, Hannity cannot let Mueller's statement stand on its own:

“Now, today, he officially resigned from the Office of Special Counsel but not before showing the world, of course, what we already know on this program, his partisan hackery true colors, if you will,” said Hannity, in his typical spitfire delivery.

In his statement, Mueller said:

“If we had had the confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not however make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.”

Hannity, with a nice assist from Alan Dershowitz, professed to be shocked that Mueller would say such a thing. Wemple replies:

Thing is, Mueller had already said as much — in his report, which hit the public realm more than a month before his statement. Here’s the relevant passage from Volume II of the report: “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.”

Of course he did! I already knew that, from reading and seeing non-Fox coverage of the report. But statements like that in the report weren't reported in the Fox world.

This very spectacle — the special counsel, in his first public remarks on the investigation — forced Hannity and many others to reckon with the Mueller team’s actual findings. As opposed to the findings that Hannity had been announcing to his viewers in the intervening weeks:

On May 2: “The witch hunt is done. Mueller has gone home. No collusion, no obstruction.”
On May 22: “We now have four separate investigations that have all cleared President Trump of the spurious charges leveled against him and his campaign. No collusion, fact. No obstruction, fact.”
On May 27: “Now, the truth has been laid bare for all to see. No collusion. No obstruction. No truth to the lies that have been peddled daily.”

Folks who place trust in Hannity — and there are many — might have been confused, accordingly, upon hearing Mueller state, “If we had had the confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” So Hannity had to reassure his fans: Mueller doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Dilemma for Fox: If the report actually showed "no collusion" -- it didn't, but that's the Hannity line -- then the report has to be praised for its thoroughness in coming to such a laudable conclusion; but if the report actually implicated wrongdoing -- which it did -- then the report has to be trashed as a bunch of lies from a partisan hack. Which is it to be, Fox?

Propagating misinformation, as it turns out, is a complicated business. To properly air the “no collusion” mantra, Hannity has to hype the Mueller probe’s investigative thoroughness. To properly air the “no obstruction” mantra, Hannity must simultaneously aver that Mueller is “basically full of crap.” It’s one of the luxuries of Hannity’s bubbled existence at Fox News that he will never be forced to choose between the two.

Disgust Is The Appropriate Reaction ...

... to Laura Ingraham for defending a white supremacist on her show, and to Fox News for defending her offensive segment.

Ingraham defended, among other fringe right-wingers, a man named Paul Nehlen. Click here for the complete article, but here are a couple of paragraphs from CNN's Brian Stelter's "Reliable Sources" column:

Nehlen’s racism has been well-documented, and it’s nothing short of disgusting. In April, for instance, he appeared on a podcast and admitted to wearing a shirt featuring Robert Bowers, the man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

"Because, I want to make a point that it will ultimately take -- it might not take a million Robert Bowers -- but it's going to take a lot of people all pushing in the same direction to do what needs to be done, and that is to rid white lands of Jews," Nehlen said on the podcast. "Because they are going to undermine our ability to thrive as a race. They are going to wipe us off the face of the earth."

Nehlen has also shared fringe conspiracy theories, including the idea that Bill and Hillary Clinton are murderers. He is so toxic that even Gab, a platform used by members of the alt-right, banned him. In 2017, the far-right website Breitbart also publicly severed ties with him. Not exactly a mainstream conservative!

Trump's Toxic Lies

Click here for an article by Marshall Cohen at CNN entitled "Fact-checking Trump's flurry of falsehoods and lies after Mueller declined to exonerate him."

After Mueller spoke out regarding the media furor over his report, making it clear that the report stood for itself and he had no intention of elaborating, Trump responded with a flurry of lies. As Cohen says:

One day after special counsel Robert Mueller publicly refused to exonerate President Donald Trump and hinted at potential impeachment, the President responded Thursday with an avalanche of widely debunked lies about the investigation and its findings.

Over a few hours Thursday morning, Trump spread at least 21 lies and falsehoods about the Russia investigation, Mueller's findings, the cost of the probe, and the legal restrictions that Mueller faced when grappling with the possibility of a President who broke the law.

I'm not sure I got all Trump's lies Cohen knocks down, but here are most of them:

In a tweet, Trump said the Mueller probe cost "$40,000,000 over two dark years."

In a tweet, Trump said Mueller had "unlimited access, people, resources and cooperation."

In a tweet, Trump said Mueller was "highly conflicted."

In a tweet, Trump said, "Robert Mueller would have brought charges, if he had ANYTHING, but there were no charges to bring!"

In a tweet, Trump called the Mueller probe a "witch hunt," a label he has used for two years to suggest that the investigation was unfairly targeting him and would bring him down at any cost.

In a tweet, Trump said "Russia has disappeared" from the public debate because the Mueller investigation did not establish a conspiracy of collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia.

In a tweet, Trump said, "I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected."

In a tweet, Trump said, "Mueller didn't find Obstruction either."

In comments on the White House lawn, Trump said, "There's no obstruction, you see what we're saying, there's no obstruction, there's no collusion, there is no nothing."

In comments on the White House lawn, Trump repeated lies about Mueller's conflicts of interest that he had shared earlier on Twitter. Trump said: "I think he's totally conflicted, because, as you know, he wanted to be the FBI director and I said no. As you know, I had a business dispute with him after he left the FBI, we had a business dispute, not a nice one, he wasn't happy with what I did, and I don't blame him, but I had to do it because that was the right thing to do."

In comments on the White House lawn, Trump said Mueller "loves Comey," and added, "You look at the relationship that those two -- so whether it's love or deep like -- he was conflicted." Trump later said Mueller's "relationship with Comey was extraordinary" and that they were "best friends."

In comments on the White House lawn, Trump continued harping on Mueller's perceived conflicts, saying that he "should have never been chosen because he wanted the FBI job and he didn't get it and the next day he was picked as special counsel. So you tell somebody, 'I'm sorry, you can't have the job,' and then after you say that, he's going to make a ruling on you."
Trump later said Mueller "requested" the job and "wanted very badly" to be FBI director again.
Trump later tweeted: "Robert Mueller came to the Oval Office (along with other potential candidates) seeking to be named the Director of the FBI. He had already been in that position for 12 years, I told him NO. The next day he was named Special Counsel - A total Conflict of Interest. NICE!"

In comments on the White House lawn, Trump asked why Mueller didn't investigate "Comey and all the lies." He asked, "Why didn't Comey come clean and say the things that he knows are fact?"

n comments on the White House lawn, Trump asked, "Why didn't they investigate the insurance policy?" He continued, "In other words, should Hillary Clinton lose, we've got an insurance policy. Guess what, what we're in right now is the insurance policy."

In comments on the White House lawn, Trump said: "Russia did not help me get elected. Do you know who got me elected? I got me elected. Russia didn't help me at all. Russia, if anything, I think, helped the other side." He later went even further, saying, "I believe that Russia would rather have Hillary Clinton as president of the United States than Donald Trump.

On the White House lawn, Trump said: "You take a look at collusion between Hillary Clinton and Russia. She had more to do in the campaign with Russia than I did. I had nothing to do."

On the White House lawn, Trump said: "President Obama was told in 2016 just before the election in September (2016) that Russia may try to interfere with the election. He did nothing."

On the White House lawn, Trump said, "Nobody has been tougher on Russia than me." He touted his energy policy, which is supportive of oil pipelines and natural gas fracking, his decision to send weapons to Ukraine and the new sanctions imposed on Russian oligarchs. "Whether it's a whole host of things, there is nobody (who's) ever been more tough or difficult for Russia than Donald Trump," he said. "I have to tell you this, I put sanctions on Russia at a level that nobody has seen before. Nobody even wants to write about it."

Trump said on the White House lawn, "There was no collusion. Read volume one. There was no collusion." This is a reference to the first volume of Mueller's report, which focused on Russia.

On the White House lawn, Trump said, "There were no charges. None.... That means you're innocent. That means you're innocent." Trump continued to make the case that because Mueller had not brought any criminal charges, that "he said essentially, you're innocent."
In comments on the White House lawn, Trump cited Article II of the US Constitution, suggesting that it provided powers that he could use to battle charges against him.
"Someday you ought to read a thing called Article II," Trump said. "Read Article II which gives the President powers that you wouldn't believe, but I don't even have to rely on Article II. There was no crime, there was no obstruction, there was no collusion, there was no nothing."

Robert Mueller Fends Off Hecklers (Fake)

This is pretty good, but it foreshadows what might be coming with phony videos:

Preposterous Trump Propaganda - Would Anyone Believe It?

Click here for some outrageous Trump propaganda.

Treason? Deep State Coup? Nope.

Click here for an article by James Comey in The Washington Post entitled "James Comey: No ‘treason.’ No coup. Just lies — and dumb lies at that," explaining the origins of the FBI investigation.

TV Shows To Watch This Summer

Click here for an article in The New York Times entitled "Here’s What to Watch on TV This Summer." We're being inundated with so much TV, how do you decide what to watch? This article is worth revisiting over the next couple of months as the summer series launch.

Driftglass On The Phony Tea Party, Ten Years Later

This is an article by "the redoubtable Driftglass," as Charlie Pierce refers to him, entitled "There. Is. No. Tea. Party: The Epilogue Continues."

Funny story. True story.

Once upon a time, about a fucking decade ago...

...millions of our fellow citizens who had cheered on the Bush Administration (and screamed "Traitor!" and anyone who dared question the infinite wisdom of George W. Bush) had a sudden and urgent need to completely disavow everything they had said and done for the previous eight years (without, of course, taking any responsibility for saying and doing it) so they could get on with the important business of hating America's first African American president with the heat of 1,000 suns. In a normal, health democracy, the idea that millions of wingnuts could build a mile-high bonfire out of their Bush/Cheney lawn signs and then dance around it pretending they had never even heard of George W. Bush would be a problem for the nation's top mental health professionals.

But we do not live in a normal, health democracy, and millions of wingnuts really did leap almost overnight from relentlessly praising George W. Bush to deny!deny!denying! him harder and faster and more desperately than Peter denied Christ.

But that's not the story either, because really, Republicans lying en masse and in lockstep isn't even a story anymore: it's just another day in America.

No the real story is how massively well-funded and coordinated this lie was by Fox News and all the usual loathsome creatures of the Right (Media Matters has a sampling of Fox News' wall-to-wall barrage of "These are just plain folks rising spontaneously up again the Evil Gummit!" propaganda here.) The real story was how quickly and cravenly the "respectable" media went along with this transparent hoax. In Washington D.C., David Brooks turned the act of jogging past one group of protesters into a deep, sociological proof that they were the salt of the Earth, In Chicago, the local PBS affiliate went all-in with the "We've never even paid attention to politics before" teabagger line of bullshit, failing to do even the most minimal research to find out who they were actually interviewing and what their actual political affiliations really were. Even the "liberal" New York Times could only manage a tepid, he said/she said, Both Siderist take on this "tea party" thing in which some people say it's a real movement full of awesome, while others say it's just ten square acres of Koch-funded AstroTurf, so who really knows?

And the only people straight up calling bullshit on the whole scam?

Surprise! Those dirty, disreputable Liberals who no one listens to anyway.

By early 2010, it was absolutely clear to anyone who wasn't a Republican operative or enabler that the "tea party" was emphatically NOT a spontaneous movement of concerned citizens with no previous political affiliation, but was just one more, GOP-manufactured re-branding scam...

But here's the thing. There was absolutely no stomach in the Beltway media for reporting the obvious fact that these idiots in tricorner hats were nothing but the same old Republican wingnuts who, as one wag put it in 2009...

Like German soldiers after the fall of Berlin...have stopped running away from the catastrophe they created only long enough to burn their uniforms.

So here we are, a decade later.

And now that everything we dirty, disreputable Liberals had long since warned about has long since come to pass, what story do I find running away with social media morning? (From the WaPo)

“It turns out a lot of them were not in favor of limiting the size of government, they were just opposed to the president at the time,” said [Justin] Amash, who helped found the tea party-aligned House Freedom Caucus. “The tea party is largely gone. It was replaced with nationalism and protectionism and the general philosophy of the party now under Trump.”

Yet another Republican being elevated to the rank of Patriot Hero First Class by bravely noticing that his Republican party was full of Republicans all along.

So my question is, how the hell can I get myself graded on that curve?

Interstate Highway System

Click here for a cool transit-style map of the U.S. Interstate Highway System.

Disposable Email Address

Click here for a Bob Rankin article entitled "Here's Why You Need a Disposable Email Address."

Trump Loves OANN.

That's One America News Network. Trump's a big fan -- and it's worse than Fox.

Click here for an article at The Daily Beast by Kevin Poulsen entitled "The Hell of Working at Trump’s New Favorite Network", subtitled "Conspiracy theories, racist outbursts, and a whole lot of Putin love. Working for the far-right One America News Network was a deeply weird experience, former employees say."

Founded and helmed by 77-year-old circuit-board millionaire Robert Herring Sr., OANN launched in 2013 as an answer to the chatty, opinionated content of mainstream cable news channels—and a place for viewers too conservative for Fox News. Under Herring’s direction the network embraced Trumpism enthusiastically starting in 2016, and in recent months the once-obscure cable news channel has been basking in a surge of attention from Donald Trump.

And:

If you don’t live in a world where Donald Trump’s inauguration drew record crowds, Roy Moore won the Alabama special election in a landslide, and Hillary Clinton has her political enemies assassinated, viewing OANN for a couple of hours is a surreal experience that inspires the same vague, uneasy dread you get from a David Lynch movie.

Working there is a million times worse.

“It was a really bad chapter in my life,” a former OANN anchor told the Daily Beast in an interview granted on condition of anonymity. “There were lots of afternoons where I would just sit in the car and cry. I didn't understand why they were doing what they were doing.”

And Trump loves it:

If OANN is all about getting Donald Trump’s attention, it’s finally working. After snubbing the network for two years in his frequent media-focused tweet storms, Trump is now mentioning the channel regularly. In a tweet on Monday, he congratulated the network “on the great job you are doing and the big ratings jump.”

Trump's Vulgar Language

Click here for an article at The New York Times by Peter Baker entitled "Trump and the Four-Letter Presidency."

There's no doubt Trump has coarsened political debate with his profanities and obscenities:

His is the profanity presidency, full of four-letter denunciations of his enemies and earthy dismissals of allegations lodged against him. At rallies and in interviews, on Twitter and in formal speeches, he relishes the bad-boy language of a shock jock, just one more way of gleefully provoking the political establishment bothered by his norm-shattering ways.

And he's becoming more comfortable with vulgar speech as time goes on:

An unscientific survey seems to suggest that if anything, Mr. Trump is growing more comfortable with crudeness. He used the word “bullshit” in public just once in his first two years in office, according to the Factba.se database that tracks his speeches, but on four occasions in the last three months.

The article notes that the use of such language is spreading. The New York Times published the word "bullshit" 14 times in its history prior to its first use by Trump; since then, the word has appeared 26 times -- not all in stories relating to Trump.

Of course, typical Trump: He's hypocritical about it.

Yet Mr. Trump feigned shock in January when the newly elected Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan said she and her fellow House Democrats were “going to impeach the motherfucker.” The president told reporters that “she dishonored herself” by “using language like that in front of her son and whoever else was there.”

Should Democrats Appear On Fox?

It's a dilemma. Elizabeth Warren pointedly rejected a Fox invitation; Media Matters says that Democratic town halls are "used by the president's propaganda network in its ongoing effort to sanitize its brand." Other Democratic candidates have appeared on Fox, including recently Pete Buttigeig. In response to that, Trump tweeted:

“Hard to believe that @FoxNews is wasting airtime on Mayor Pete, as Chris Wallace likes to call him,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Fox is moving more and more to the losing (wrong) side in covering the Dems. They got dumped from the Democrats boring debates, and they just want in.”

Interesting. So according to Trump, Fox shouldn't cover the Democrats at all; they should only cover Republicans. "Fair and balanced"? Yeah, right.

I liked the response to Trump's tweet by Brit Hume. Hume is on the news side of Fox, not the opinion side -- but like Brett Baier, another news guy, there's not any doubt where he stands: solidly right-wing conservative, virtually all the time. So I found his response to Trump surprising. Hume said:

"Say this for Buttigieg. He's willing to be questioned by Chris Wallace, something you haven't done since you've been president. Oh, and covering the Democratic candidates is part of the job of a news channel..."

Chris Wallace, another Fox guy on the news side, is a tough interviewer; he doesn't throw the softball questions Trump would get from Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, or Laura Ingraham.

Democracy In Crisis

Click here for an article in the New York Review of Books by Adam Tooze entitled "Democracy and Its Discontents."

It's heavy going, but not too long. It reviews the following books:

The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It
by Yascha Mounk

How Democracies Die
by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America
by Timothy Snyder

How Democracy Ends by David Runciman

For the American right, Donald Trump’s inauguration as the forty-fifth president of the United States was a moment of political rebirth. Elements of American conservatism had long fostered a reactionary counterculture, which defined the push for civil rights as oppression, resisted the equality of women and the transgression of conventional heterosexual norms, pilloried the hegemony of the liberal media, and was suspicious of globalism and its corporate liberal institutions, including the UN and the WTO. Already in the 1950s this reactionary politics had secured a niche on the right wing of the GOP. It was reenergized by the Goldwater campaign and the conservative backlash against the social revolutions of the 1960s. Reintegrated into the mainstream GOP by Ronald Reagan, it then flared into the open in the ferocious hostility to the Clintons in the 1990s. With Trump it finally claimed center stage. For the right, the explosion of “truth-speaking” by Trump and his cohorts, the unabashed sexism and xenophobia of his administration, and its robust nationalism on issues of trade and security need no justification. His election represents a long-awaited overturning of the consensus of liberalism.

Centrist Democrats also view the administration as historic, but for them it represents the betrayal of all that is best about America. The election of a man like Trump in the second decade of the twenty-first century violated the cherished liberal narrative of progress from the Civil War to the New Deal to the civil rights movement to the election of Barack Obama. This was a self-conception of the United States carefully cultivated by cold war liberalism and seemingly fulfilled in the Clinton era of American power. The election of a man as openly sexist and xenophobic as Donald Trump was a shock so fundamental that it evoked comparisons with the great crises of democracy in the 1930s. Parallels are readily drawn between Mitch McConnell and Paul von Hindenburg. There is talk of a Reichstag fire moment, in which an act of terrorism might be exploited to declare emergency rule. Such references to the interwar period are both rousing and reassuring. They remind us of good battles decisively won. Not for nothing does the anti-Trump movement refer to itself as “the resistance,” recalling memories of midcentury antifascist heroics.

La Dowd Has Doubts About "The Adviser With The Yeti Moustache"

Click here for an op-ed in The New York Times by Maureen Dowd, entitled "Will Trump Be the Sage One?"

The lead picture shows Trump and John Bolton, and the caption is "Many people won’t recognize the adult in the room in this picture. He’s the guy without the mustache."

La Dowd's premise is that Trump is more cautious than his advisers, especially the reckless John Bolton: "... we count on the president to pump the brakes on out-of-control advisers."

She compares and contrasts the situation with W.'s presidency, where a naive and unprepared president was dealing with hawkish advisers.

There is the same feeling of the hawks building a calculated campaign for a Middle East invasion. W.’s administration had a monthslong rollout strategy. “From a marketing point of view,” Andrew Card, W.’s chief of staff, said in the summer of 2002, “you don’t introduce new products in August.” Have the hawks around Trump been waiting to get through two rings of fire — the Mueller threat and Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election — to roll out their latest ingenious product: World War III?

She says:

W. and Trump are similar in some ways but also very different. As Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio notes: W. was interested in clarity. Trump wants chaos. W. wanted to trust his domineering advisers. Trump is always imagining betrayal. W. wanted to be a war hero, like his dad. Trump does not want to be trapped in an interminable war that will consume his presidency.

Certainly, the biographer says, Trump enjoys playing up the scary aspects of brown people with foreign names and ominous titles, like “mullah” and “ayatollah,” to stoke his base.

But Trump, unlike W., is driven by the drama of it. “It’s a game of revving up the excitement and making people afraid and then backing off on the fear in order to declare that he’s resolved the situation,” D’Antonio said. “Trump prefers threats and ultimatums to action because that allows him to look big and tough and get attention without doing something for which he will be held responsible. This is who he is at his core: an attention-seeking, action-averse propagandist who is terrified of accountability in the form of coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base.”

She ends with a quote from David Axelrod:

“If part of your brand is that you’re not going to get the U.S. into unnecessary wars,” he said, “why in the world would you hire John Bolton?”

The Problem Isn't Trump - It's The Republican Party

Click here for an excellent article by Charlie Pierce at Esquire entitled "The Question Isn't How the Republican Party Produced This Disastrous President*. It's How It Took This Long." (I like the way Charlie always refers to the president* with an asterisk to signify something lesser, like a steroid cheat.)

The party is the problem, because of what it's become—a vehicle for bigotry, religious fanaticism, rigged elections, retrograde social policies, renegade plutocracy, staggering wealth inequality, scientific ignorance, reflexive stupidity, violent populism, white supremacy, and a view of the American electorate that is all switch and no bait. (Did I miss anything?)

Well, that's a pretty good start, Charlie. He goes on:

Three times since 1981, the Republicans have produced a president who basically embodied all of these things, just to varying degrees. Ronald Reagan played fast and loose with the truth; is that business about trees causing air pollution really any nuttier than whatever it was that El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago tweeted at 5 a.m. this morning? George W. Bush launched a war on false pretenses and made this a nation that tortures people and is proud of it. Is that any better than what's going on at the border now? The question isn't how the Republicans produced this particular disaster of a president*. The question is what took them so long.

What to do, what to do?

The only possible way to change the Republican Party is to force it to answer for itself, over and over again. One of the biggest mistakes ever made in American politics, as the redoubtable Driftglass reminds us almost daily, was the Democratic Party's blunder in letting the Republican Party off the hook for the various catastrophes wrought by the administration of C-Plus Augustus.

Obama let the Bush/Cheney merry band of war criminals off entirely too easy.

A Very Discouraging Look At Alabama's Vicious New Anti-Abortion Law

Click here for an article at Slate by Lili Loofbourow entitled "The GOP Has Its Final Anti-Abortion Victory in Sight," subtitled "Stripping voter rights. Rigging the Supreme Court. Dull procedural tricks. It’s all paying off at once." The link to the article in WaPo says, "Every anti-abortion move the GOP has made for years is paying off at once." Discussing the law, Loofbourow says:

The point is this web-like convergence, across multiple states, that’s closing like a net around Americans capable of getting pregnant. Multiple states, with multiple paths to the Supreme Court. A law passed to invoke the high court can’t be dismissed as a “strategy” or a “tactic”—the law is exactly what it says. And it was passed to satisfy the beliefs of a minority. Take Georgia: 70 percent of Georgian voters and 68 percent of American voters don’t believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned.* It doesn’t matter. That isn’t stopping Georgia’s government. We’re long past democracy working, even if many have yet to realize it, because so much of its dismantling has been invisible to the public thanks to dark money, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and maneuvers like Ainsworth’s, all of which we’ve been encouraged to consider merely improper. A long campaign to hobble and constrain our representative government at every turn is now paying off dramatically. For decades, extremists have been seizing control through the kind of procedural malfeasance that gets continually mislabeled as assholery or poor etiquette. Over and over, Americans have made the mistake of responding to Republican misbehavior by treating each case as an isolated insult to be transcended. The mature thing, we’ve been told, is to “rise above.”

Republicans have been working diligently at this for the last 40 years; finally, under Trump, it's all coming together. A key element was the recent tainted election in Georgia, where controversies were ruled on by the Georgia Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, in favor of the Republican candidate -- Brian Kemp. That's right; Kemp supervised his own election, controversy be damned. As Loofbourow says:

Yes, a judge found that Kemp’s practices raised “grave concerns for the Court about the differential treatment inflicted on a group of individuals who are predominantly minorities.” It didn’t matter. He’s the governor now. In the name of what he called “voter maintenance,” the man canceled 1.4 million voter registrations in his tenure as secretary of state. He “won” his election by 55,000 votes. The thousand cuts he inflicted on Georgia worked: By the time that court decision came around, it was only a week before the election. Too much damage had been done. Kemp won—technically, but technical wins are all you need—and that yearslong series of cheats has empowered him now to sign a bill that would authorize punishing women for exercising their constitutional right to an abortion.

The damage inflicted by a Trump presidency is going to take decades to repair.