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.