Month: July 2019

I have been brutally critical of Fred Hiatt and the Washington Post over the years. Dana Milbank has been my Wanker of the Day more times than I can count. But I have to give them all props for printing this in today’s paper.

Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset.

This doesn’t mean he’s a spy, but neither is it a flip accusation. Russia attacked our country in 2016. It is attacking us today. Its attacks will intensify in 2020. Yet each time we try to raise our defenses to repel the attack, McConnell, the Senate majority leader, blocks us from defending ourselves.

Let’s call this what it is: unpatriotic. The Kentucky Republican is, arguably more than any other American, doing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bidding.

Not only did Milbank write this and the Post agree to publish it, but the first sentence (“Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset”) also appears as the headline to the piece.

If I have any problem at all with the language here it is that “unpatriotic” doesn’t really cover the extent of the problem. You can be unpatriotic because you don’t stand for the national anthem. People have different opinions about what makes for good citizenship and what kind of behavior indicates a lack of love for country. There are people who refuse to serve in the armed services even during times of urgent need during wartime, and they may still believe they’re doing what’s best for the country.

The problem with McConnell’s behavior isn’t that he’s refusing to do what’s expected of him. It’s more serious than that. He’s acting more like a saboteur. If he were blowing up our train tracks and arms depots, he’d hardly be doing more to give aid and comfort to the enemy.  He’s actually in a position to appropriate money and craft policies to protect our voting systems from outside infiltration and manipulation, and he’s refusing to act.

Imagine that we learned that a terrorist group had a nuclear dirty bomb on a timer set to go off in Baltimore’s harbor and the police chief blocked access to the roads and shipping lanes leading there so that no one could defuse the weapon before it detonated. What would we call that police chief?

I’d call him “Mitch McConnell.”

Here is something important to remember:

In 1974, the Watergate prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, and his grand jury obtained a judge’s permission to send the evidence they had gathered to the House Judiciary Committee, which was already formally conducting an impeachment inquiry into Nixon. In that case, the Nixon Justice Department did not object to letting lawmakers see the materials.

Whether he was disposed to do it or not, Robert Mueller does not appear to have believed he had the authority to make a similar request. If he had attempted it, I’m sure Attorney General William Barr would have objected.

On Friday, the House Judiciary Committee moved ahead with making the request for this material on their own, without the support of the now-shuttered Office of Special Counsel and without the acquiescence of the Trump Justice Department.

The House Judiciary Committee on Friday said it would ask a federal judge to unseal grand jury secrets related to Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation and use the court filing to make the most explicit declaration yet that lawmakers are weighing whether to impeach President Trump.

In a significant escalation, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the Democratic chairman of the committee, said at a news conference that the application to the court would declare that the panel needs access to Mr. Mueller’s grand-jury evidence — such as witness testimony — to decide whether to recommend articles of impeachment against the president.

“Because Department of Justice policies will not allow prosecution of a sitting president, the United States House of Representatives is the only institution of the federal government that can now hold President Trump accountable for these actions,” Mr. Nadler quoted the legal filing as telling the judge, Beryl A. Howell, who supervised Mr. Mueller’s grand jury.

Unless you want to include the electorate, Jerry Nadler is absolutely correct that, given the hand’s off posture of the Department of Justice, the House of Representatives is the only entity in the country with the authority and responsibility for holding a criminal president to account. The committee with jurisdiction is the Judiciary, which Nadler presently chairs. If he doesn’t do something, then nothing will be done.

In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee was already formally investigating impeachment when Leon Jaworski decided unilaterally that they needed all the available information. So far, in 2019, the committee has not begun a formal inquiry. Some people think this distinction might be crucial on court, and why not be on the safe side? What’s the harm?

But Nadler is arguing that formalities are unnecessary because impeachment is clearly within his jurisdiction and the courts cannot deny him crucial information he needs to exercise his powers. I think he’s on solid ground here, but there’s no telling how it will turn out in front of Judge Howell, let alone a very conservative Supreme Court should it reach them on appeal.

The significant thing, I guess, is that Nadler has now gone to court to argue that he’s investigating impeachable offenses. There’s a degree of formality to that step that was previously lacking.

Maybe Rashida Tlaib will get her wish after all.

 

In May, when I saw that the left in Australia had suffered an unexpected defeat and that “rugby-crazed beer drinker” Scott Morrison had retained his position as prime minister, I wrote:

Someone once asked the singer Joe Cocker why he quit doing drugs. If I remember his answer correctly, he said, “You can only bang your head against a wall for so long before it hurts.”

The global left has to offer a solution to rival fascism to the lower middle class or fascism will continue to rise and consolidate its power by establishing state-to-state relationships. The strategy of insulting them and spurning them for their reactionary beliefs and reprobate leaders has not been working.

This week the United Kingdom followed suit by electing an actual rugby player as their prime minister, although only registered members of the Conservative Party were able to cast a vote.

If you’re a Russian, this stuff is probably the best entertainment yet invented, but having the western coalition run by outright buffoons isn’t very funny to me.

This past spring, I wrote the “Billionaires are Only Half-Awake” and “What if Big Business Falls In Completely With Trumpism” because of my concern that business leaders in this country (and not just those predisposed to watch Fox News) will learn to tolerate the destruction of civil and human rights and acquiesce to the consolidation of power in the executive branch of government. The reason they may do this is because they find the alternative more personally threatening. Since these people own the newspapers, television and radio stations, and also fund most of the major non-profit media outlets, this is like losing a last line of defense against tyranny.

As a result of this worry, I’ve had my eyes peeled for warning signs. Now I have one:

Wealthy Republican donors frightened of a socialist takeover in Washington have boosted support for House Republicans despite concerns about the party’s direction, providing a ray of hope for recapturing the majority in 2020.

Democrats scoff at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for insisting Democrats in Congress are a bunch of socialists led by “the squad,” four liberal firebrands in the House frequently at odds with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But the message is paying dividends, literally, with Republican donors writing five, six and seven figure checks to the party’s congressional campaign committees and affiliated super PACs.

Robust engagement by GOP financiers, hardly guaranteed with the uncertainty of President Trump’s reelection prospects and after the stinging defeat House Republicans suffered in the midterm elections, is making them optimistic about a quick rebound.

I’d only characterize this as half-a-warning sign because big-monied Republican donors making big donations to the Republican Party is only a continuation of what came before. It’s disappointing to see these people swallowing their qualms, but the more severe danger will come when formerly left-leaning or spread-the-money-to-both-sides business leaders jump to the right with both feet.

For now, this remains more of a risk than a reality, but a lot will depend on how the Democratic Party’s primaries and caucuses play out.

While careful to give House and Senate Republican leaders credit, GOP operatives involved in fundraising say the single biggest factor in the gold rush has been what donors are witnessing in the House and the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In June, when I wrote Should the Democrats Go Left or Occupy the Middle?, I offered my rebuttal to the argument that the surest way to lose the 2020 election is to position the party in the center. I also said that there are defensible perspectives in favor of going for broke with a strong left-leaning message that could mobilize people for the large challenges, like climate change, that we’ll be facing in the next decade. The Australian left just blew an election they were supposed to win with that exact strategy, but maybe it could work here.

For me, winning is paramount. Losing will allow fascists to “continue to rise and consolidate…power by establishing state-to-state relationships,” now including the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. This will mean self-destructive trade wars, the empowerment of white nationalism, the loss of hard-won human rights, more media and corporate consolidation, less press freedom, and (if history is a guide) potentially much worse things as well.

The left needs a populist message that reaches everyone, but if they’re not going to attempt that, then the safer bet is to occupy the vast areas in the middle that Trump has abandoned.

Hello photo lovers!

The series of foto flogs continues on the revamped and revitalized Progress Pond.

The Foto Flog was curated by a lot of people over the years. At one point, they were even themed – Foto Fairs. For now let’s keep it loose. This week’s featured photo is just one of the street murals I encountered in Rotterdam. It captures the city’s slogan. Someone added an s to “make” suggesting that the slogan is not empty. So although perhaps we are not quite ready for a Foto Fair, let’s see if anyone has any good street mural photography to share. Maybe it’ll be an informal Foto Fair.

Posting photos should be easy. Do you have images hosted somewhere? You should just need an url. Once you place an url of your photo into a comment, your photo should post just fine. No need for any code any more. I host some of my personal photos on Flickr. I think some others use Imgur and find that hosting service satisfactory. Whatever works.

To participate in the foto flogs, you don’t have to be a pro. I am definitely an amateur hobbyist. I’ve been taking tons of photos – mostly of landscapes and cityscapes – since I was in my early teens. Currently, I use my LG ThinQ 40 for everyday use. I do have a 35mm camera that is a good three decades old, although one of my daughters seems to have commandeered that one. I’ve always been impressed with the folks who have posted their work in the past. So, let’s make this come to life.

Cheers!

Well, I’ll give credit to the Trump administration for one thing. They know how to pick unsympathetic people to execute.

According to the Justice Department, the inmates to be executed include Daniel Lewis Lee, a member of a white supremacist group who murdered a family of three and threw them into the Illinois Bayou in Arkansas in 1999. Another is Lezmond Mitchell, who stabbed to death a 63-year-old woman and forced her granddaughter to sit next to her dead body on a “30 to 40-mile drive” before then murdering her as well. He was sentenced in 2003.

Also to be executed is Wesley Ira Purkey, who was sentenced in 2003 for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl, whose remains he dismembered dumped into a sewage pond. The DOJ adds he also was convicted on state charges for bludgeoning an 80-year-old woman to death with a claw hammer.

Alfred Bourgeois is now scheduled for a Jan. 13, 2020, execution after his 2004 sentencing for the torture, sexual molestation and murder of his toddler daughter. The last newly scheduled execution is for Dustin Lee Honken, who shot and killed five people, including a single mother and her 10- and 6-year-old daughters, and was sentenced in 2004.

You won’t be hearing a whole lot of people argue that these five monsters deserve to live after what they’ve been convicted of doing. So, score one for the fascists! They’re not incompetent at absolutely everything.

Of course, the death penalty has fallen out of favor globally despite the fact that there are still people in the world who us claw hammers on grandmothers and rape and murder their own toddlers. The federal government hasn’t executed anyone in the last sixteen years, but they’re still allowed to do it if they feel like it. Trump feels like it.  I know you are shocked.

Half the states in the union have either banned the death penalty or imposed a moratorium on exercising it. Of the states that don’t have a statute for killing people, only North Dakota, West Virginia, and the northern half of Maine voted for Trump in 2016. Many of the states that authorize state-sanctioned premeditated murder have found it difficult to find methods of execution that don’t amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Lethal injection is considered so suspect on that score that states have trouble acquiring the drugs. Others, like North Carolina, are stymied by the fact that doctors in the state are prohibited from participating. To get around some of these problems, Utah used a firing squad to kill an inmate in 2010.

In general, the death penalty is well on the way to being abolished worldwide.

Among countries around the world, all European (except Belarus) and many Oceanian states (including Australia and New Zealand), and Canada have abolished capital punishment. In Latin America, most states have completely abolished the use of capital punishment, while some countries such as Brazil and Guatemala allow for capital punishment only in exceptional situations, such as treason committed during wartime. The United States (the federal government and 29 of the states), some Caribbean countries and the majority of countries in Asia (for example, Japan and India) retain capital punishment. In Africa, less than half of countries retain it, for example Botswana and Zambia. South Africa abolished the death penalty in 1995.

Heinous and unforgivable crimes are committed in every country, so there are always examples of people who seem completely deserving of execution. Yet, people are coming around to the idea that it’s better to let these people live than to accept all the tradeoffs and downsides of killing them.  This is just one more area where the United States is failing to take a leadership role.

What I learned from watching seven hours of Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress on Wednesday had absolutely nothing to do with the factual matters of the Russia investigation. I’m not sure I learned a single new thing on that score.

Instead, I learned that Mueller is lamentably beginning to show his age and that’s he’s probably the worst Deep State coup leader in the history of the genre. I’m generally skeptical of intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and that includes the American variety. But, in this case, they had reasons of both patriotism and basic self-preservation for wanting to deliver the goods. Mueller failed the entire intelligence community as well as the country.

He said himself, in his report (Volume II, p.171), that Congress has the Constitutional authority to “criminalize certain obstructive conduct by the president, including suborning perjury, intimidating witnesses, or fabricating evidence…” He concluded (Volume II, p.176) that “Congress clearly has authority to protect its own legislative functions against corrupt efforts designed to impede legitimate fact-gathering and lawmaking efforts.” He wrote (Volume II, p.177 ) that “Congress has the authority to impose the limited restrictions…on the President’s official conduct to protect the integrity of important functions of other branches of government,” including the proper functioning of grand juries.

But, more importantly, he decided that Congress is the only authority that has the power to hold the president to account while he is serving in office. He reemphasized this in his brief press appearance in May when he said, “The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.”

During his appearance before the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday,  Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas tried to get Mueller to expand on this point.

ESCOBAR: Director Mueller, at your May 29, 2019 press conference, you explained that, quote, “the [OLC] opinion says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting President of wrongdoing”, end quote. That process other than the criminal justice system for accusing a President of wrongdoing, is that impeachment?

MUELLER: I’m not going to comment on that.

ESCOBAR:  In your report, you also wrote that you did not want to quote “potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct,” end quote. For the non-lawyers in the room, what did you mean by “potentially preempt constitutional processes”?

MUELLER: I’m not going to try to explain that.

ESCOBAR: That actually is coming from page one, Volume II—in the footnote is the reference to this. What are those constitutional processes?

MUELLER: I think I heard you mention at least one.

One has to ask what Mueller is trying to accomplish by being coy about this. He’s clear about several things. In Volume II, p.2 of his report, he writes that the president’s conduct “presents difficult issues” that preclude him from being cleared of criminal conduct.

…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. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

He acknowledges that Congress is the proper body to address that criminal conduct. In his testimony on Wednesday, he said that the Russians had so far not been deterred from interfering in our elections in the future and that “they’re doing it as we sit here.” When questioned by Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff of California, Mueller said that knowingly accepting campaign assistance from a foreign power was “unpatriotic” and “wrong.” When asked if Donald Trump’s embrace of WikiLeaks was problematic, he stated, “Problematic is an understatement in terms of what it displays in terms of giving some, I don’t know, hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal activity.”

Given all of this, he ought not stand in the way of giving Congress that the kind of information and momentum they need to actually do something to protect the country and the integrity of our elections. And, yet, there he was refusing to concede the most obvious thing in the world, which is that Congress was asking him to help them act on his report for the benefit and security of the nation. He couldn’t even engage in that conversation or let the word “impeachment” escape from his lips.

Quite aside from this making his entire investigation a pointless exercise, it also allows Trump to continue to gut the intelligence and law enforcement agencies of the government. Mueller insisted that his investigation had not been a witch hunt and that his conclusions were not “fake news.” He repeatedly agreed that he had not exonerated the president. He agreed that Jeff Sessions had properly recused himself, that James Comey had been fired under suspicious circumstances, and that the president had ordered him to be fired as well, and yet these attacks on the FBI, Justice Department, and his own office will now go unanswered as Trump moves to complete his purge by replacing Dan Coats as the director of National Intelligence.

While Mueller stumbled over his answers and hid behind a lot of bullshit to defend his non-responsiveness to countless questions from both sides, the Republic goes up in flames. The president is above the law and our country is left bereft of professional intelligence leadership and wide open to more foreign attacks on our elections.

This isn’t just a failure for our nation, but it’s also a repeat of Mueller’s experience in Vietnam. Mueller fought gallantly in that conflict, winning a truly impressive number of commendations. But what was the result in the end, but total humiliation and disaster?

Nonetheless, after Vietnam, Mueller prospered and the country eventually recovered. That’s is unlikely to be true this time. He was so worried about protecting his reputation that he ruined it without fulfilling his mission and protecting the rest of us.

On Tuesday, Bijan Rafiekian was convicted of “acting as an unregistered foreign agent in the U.S., and conspiracy to violate that law as well as to submit false statements to the Justice Department in a foreign-agent filing.” He faces up to 15 years in prison. So, who is he?

The Iranian-American businessman, who was [Michael] Flynn’s main partner in his short-lived consulting firm, also served as an adviser to the Trump transition team on national security issues. Rafiekian previously served on the board of the Export-Import Bank through Senate-confirmed appointments by President George W. Bush.

Michael Flynn, who briefly served as our country’s national security advisor, has separately been charged and pleaded guilty to giving false statements to the FBI. He is still awaiting sentencing. As you can see, Donald Trump only hires the best people, particularly for sensitive posts related to our nation’s defense.

The conviction of Rafiekian was secured by prosecutors despite the fact that they were not able to use Flynn on the stand because he proved unreliable as a cooperating witness.

In Flynn’s absence, prosecutors relied on emails, Skype chats and other witnesses to make their case that the Flynn firm project Rafiekian spearheaded was approved at the highest levels of the Turkish government.

The short-lived research, public relations and lobbying effort focused on building public and government support for a key goal of the Turkish government: getting the U.S. to expel and extradite a dissident Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen. Gulen has lived in Pennsylvania for two decades and was blamed by Turkey’s current leadership for a coup attempt in July 2016.

The key element here is probably not that Flynn and Rafiekian were taking money from a foreign government to do lobbying work without registering with the appropriate government authorities. I think the American people should focus on what they were trying to accomplish. They were attempting to convince the government to expel a cleric living in Pennsylvania so he could be executed in Turkey for committing treason.

The people doing this became the key players in building Trump’s foreign policy team during the transition.

This is how Donald Trump went about “cleaning the swamp” in Washington, DC.

I am watching the Robert Mueller hearings. It’s a lot of yelling. As I type these words, Matt Gaetz is screaming a lot. Apparently he’s taking Sean Hannity’s advice that the GOP ask rapid-fire questions like this in an effort to muddy the waters.

The only thing I care about is whether the Democrats decide to move forward with an impeachment inquiry. If they’re not going to actually do anything, then the only purpose all this serves is to make people like me angry for no good reason.

Marty’s better at analysis than me, and has been following the Russia investigation like a red tail hawk tracking its prey. Maybe he sees something I don’t, but all I see is play acting.

Hi music lovers!

I thought I’d do something green and recycle a bit. This track is probably my theme song:

Chumbawamba was a band that I initially associated with mid-1980s anarchopunk. A friend of mine got to crash with them in the UK one summer early during my college days and brought back a couple of their albums, which he promptly made sure I had dubbed on tape. They were on point politically and musically it was obvious that they were extremely talented. Tubthumping may have been one of the more left-field top-40 hits to land the charts, but in a sense I was not surprised. It was cool to see a band of artists who were well into their 30s by then break big and introduce a wider audience to some perspectives they might not have considered otherwise. And for any of us on the left, we get knocked down a lot these days. The point is to get up again.

The jukebox and bar are open. Have a good time and be responsible (we can do both).

Cheers!

Don’t this sound like an innocent man?

Just got back only to hear of a last minute change allowing a Never Trumper attorney to help Robert Mueller with his testimony before Congress tomorrow. What a disgrace to our system. Never heard of this before. VERY UNFAIR, SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED. A rigged Witch Hunt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2019

Does it sound like a man who has been totally exonerated by Robert Mueller?

It seems like much ado about nothing. The “Never Trumper” in question is Mueller’s longtime assistant, Aaron Zebley.

Robert S. Mueller III’s longtime right-hand aide will appear beside him at the witness table during a hearing on Wednesday with the House Judiciary Committee to assist as needed as the former special counsel answers questions about his investigation, people familiar with the hearing said.

Mr. Zebley will probably also appear by Mueller’s side when he testifies separately to the House Intelligence Committee, although those negotiation are ongoing or at least have not yet been announced. Mueller apparently made the unusual request that Zebley be sworn in, presumably so he could pawn off some of the detailed answers to him. The committees balked at that arrangement and therefore Zebley will take the more traditional role of a non-sworn participant. Mueller will be able to consult with him to make sure he answers questions accurately, but he will have to give the testimony on his own.

It’s amazing that Trump considers this unusual, let alone some kind of disgrace.

It is not uncommon for government witnesses to bring aides along to congressional hearings for that purpose, though in almost all cases, the aides sit behind, rather than next to, the witness. Mr. Mueller is being asked to account for two years’ worth of investigative details uncovered by a large team of investigators and to do so while avoiding the disclosure of nonpublic information.

Trump calls this “a rigged Witch Hunt,” which is, again, inconsistent with his contention that these gentlemen have absolved him of any criminal or nefarious activities. As for Mr. Zebley being a “Never Trumper,” that term is normally reserved for Republicans who couldn’t support the party if it nominated Trump. Zebley has no known political affiliation:

The president frequently attacked members of Mr. Mueller’s team during his investigation for their political affiliations or prior statements. But Mr. Zebley was not one of those targets. He has no known party affiliation, and according to a Washington Post review, has not donated to candidates from either party.

Trump insists Zebley should not be allowed to help Mueller in his testimony even though Mueller’s spokesperson Jim Popkin described Zebley as the “deputy special counsel” and said he “had day-to-day oversight of the investigations conducted by the office.”

Despite all this sturm und drang, I don’t expect much to come from Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday. Unless he’s willing to say that the president is a traitor who should be removed from office, I think the president will weather the day without seeing the dynamic change much. I get no sense that Mueller will stick his neck out at all in any way. I hope I’m wrong.