Guest post: Once the opportunities are there, women are interested

Mar 19th, 2018 5:31 pm | By

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on They can’t see what they can’t see.

I get frustrated with the way this debate gets framed. It’s not that the “ideas” that Damore and his ilk promote are “off limits,” as Coyne would have it. It’s that they are such inferior ideas when it comes to explaining our present reality.

I have no quarrel with the abstract notion that women and men may differ, whether biologically or for culture-driven reasons that we don’t wish to change, in ways that mean that not every profession will end up with a 50/50 split of men and women even when we have achieved complete and utter Gender Equality Utopia. Call this the Gender Differences Hypothesis.

What I do quarrel with is the claim (sometimes explicit, sometimes implied) that all observable deviations from a 50/50 split can be explained by the GDH, and therefore we can declare that discrimination is trivial or non-existent and that we are already in Gender Equality Utopia. Not when virtually all of those deviations from a 50/50 split seem, curiously, to fall in such a way that men are disproportionately represented in those professions that are most powerful, well-compensated, and respected. Not when we have all sorts of scientifically rigorous, peer-reviewed research that show that (e.g.) the same behavior that is perceived as strong leadership from a man is seen as bitchy and pushy from a woman, that women somehow got hired more often for symphonies when auditions were made gender-blind, that women professors are discriminated against on student evaluations.

You know — the sort of hard scientific evidence that critical thinking scientists claim to value over feelings and anecdotes and folk legends. Unless those folk legends involve speculation about how women like pink because their evolutionary forebears handled the berry-picking.

Back when the United States passed Title IX and required that colleges receiving federal funds provide equal access to athletic programs for women, there were many who declared that this was absurd because women just weren’t as interested in sports as men, it was obvious, and trying to force it to be otherwise was an exercise in “social engineering.” Well, it turns out that women and girls were a lot more interested in sports than they were generally given credit for. Once those opportunities were provided, college women were interested. And younger girls, given something to aspire to, got interested, too.

Twenty years ago, if asked about these things, I probably would have agreed with the Damores and Blackfords and Coynes of the world. The reason I changed my mind isn’t because I decided to put feelings or abstract utopian goals ahead of cold hard facts; it was that I looked at the cold hard facts and realized that some of my assumptions were wrong.

To circle back to the original point (finally!): the GDH isn’t “off limits” any more than “God did it” is “off limits” as an explanation of the creation and diversity of life forms on this planet. It just comes up short as an explanation.



They can’t see what they can’t see

Mar 19th, 2018 4:17 pm | By

I wrote a post on Facebook a bit ago:

You know what I’m sick of? I’ll tell you what I’m sick of. I’m sick of men writing think pieces explaining why women should be perfectly happy to see men writing think pieces about how women just happen not to be suited to all those careers in which they’re a minority, because it’s their temperament to be too nurturing and cuddly to be suited for [desirable job X].

I’m sick of seeing those men never pause for one second to take into account the fact that being seen as unsuited for [desirable job X] IS ITSELF AN OBSTACLE and that they themselves are adding to the obstacle by lecturing us on why we shouldn’t be “offended” by such claims but just smile acceptingly and take it all on board.

That’s what I’m sick of.

Then I decided to talk about it here including saying what the source irritant was. It was a pair of articles, by Russell Blackford and then by Jerry Coyne linking to Russell, on the Damore memo and how reasonable it was and how mistaken it is to think otherwise.

Russell first:

In August 2017, James Damore, a Google software engineer, was fired for writing an internal memo that offered views about sex-related differences in interests and emotions.

Damore had suggested that part of the over-representation of men in software engineering at Google might be due to psychological differences between women and men: not intellectual differences, but differences in what activities the sexes find attractive and enjoyable. He argued that Google should focus on equality of opportunity for individuals, without necessarily expecting equality of outcomes across its workforce.

Damore’s firing from Google was an example of an increasing intolerance of inconvenient or controversial ideas within democratic societies. Here, then, is one great moral challenge of our time. Once an issue becomes politically toxic, we may reject inconvenient viewpoints out of hand. We may reject opponents – viewing them as ill-disposed people – without listening to them, and we may even try to punish them for their views.

But this wasn’t a disinterested discussion at a think tank. It was a non-supervisory male employee writing up his unsolicited opinions on why there are fewer women than men in jobs like the ones at Google – in other words a contribution to a hostile work environment. It’s not just a matter of “oh my god this man’s valuable academic opinion on a completely random abstract subject has been suppressed!!” – it’s also a matter of person from favored group explaining to disfavored group that it’s disfavored because of its own psychological quirks, in the workplace. If one put it in racial or ethnic terms it would probably be more obvious how grotesque and discriminatory that is – “Oh you see it’s just that Indians are mystical and contemplative so they don’t want coding jobs, it’s quite natural” – but when it’s women, the dudes just don’t see it.

Damore explained that these are statistical differences, discernible at the level of populations, and that there is a large overlap in the distribution curves for the respective sexes. For example, many individual men might be more oriented to feelings and people than most women. Thus, he emphasised, these findings should not be used to stereotype or prejudge individuals.

No indeed, they should simply be used to explain why there are so few women at Google and there’s no need to do anything about it, especially not telling dudes to quit telling women why they won’t like working at Google.

Now Coyne’s:

As a scientist, I’m appalled when certain ideas that may be true, but offend some group or other, are considered off limits, even when those ideas—like global warming—must be accepted and discussed if we’re to save the planet. Psychological differences between men and women aren’t as dangerous to the welfare of Earth as a whole, but if we’re to figure out the reasons for sex disparity in professions, we have to take them seriously and figure out what effect, if any, they have on gender parity.

But the point isn’t that the ideas “offend”; the point is that they can contribute to an environment perceived as hostile. They certainly don’t have to; research and inquiry into the reasons for sex disparity in professions can obviously be a feminist and a feminist-compatible project; but random coder guy putting out a memo explaining it’s because women would rather stay home with the babies is not that inquiry. Yes, that’s hyperbole; I find the refusal to see this extremely annoying. The point is that Damore is not a researcher or scholar in evo psych or the reasons for sex disparity in professions, and there are sound and compelling reasons to ask why he thought he needed to put out a memo on the subject the upshot of which was “it’s because they don’t want to, not because we don’t let them, so there’s no need to do anything about it.”

Again: I think this would be blindingly obvious to them if it were about race, and I find it infuriating that they can’t see it when it’s about women.



A very long-term and secretive relationship

Mar 19th, 2018 2:32 pm | By

About Cambridge Analytica

Senior executives at Cambridge Analytica – the data company that credits itself with Donald Trump’s presidential victory – have been secretly filmed saying they could entrap politicians in compromising situations with bribes and Ukrainian sex workers.

In an undercover investigation by Channel 4 News, the company’s chief executive Alexander Nix said the British firm secretly campaigns in elections across the world. This includes operating through a web of shadowy front companies, or by using sub-contractors.

In one exchange, when asked about digging up material on political opponents, Mr Nix said they could “send some girls around to the candidate’s house”, adding that Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful, I find that works very well”.

If law enforcement does that it’s entrapment, and it’s not permissible. If freelancers do it…I guess it’s blackmail? Which is illegal.

They also talked about offering bribes, filming it and putting it on the internet.

Offering bribes to public officials is an offence under both the UK Bribery Act and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Cambridge Analytica operates in the UK and is registered in the United States.

It’s also nothing to do with Cambridge University.

The admissions were filmed at a series of meetings at London hotels over four months, between November 2017 and January 2018. An undercover reporter for Channel 4 News posed as a fixer for a wealthy client hoping to get candidates elected in Sri Lanka.

Mr Nix told our reporter: “…we’re used to operating through different vehicles, in the shadows, and I look forward to building a very long-term and secretive relationship with you.”

We’re bit players in someone else’s drama.



He was framed!

Mar 19th, 2018 10:59 am | By

Trump decides to hire another wack job for his legal team, because things aren’t weird enough yet.

President Trump has decided to hire the longtime Washington lawyer Joseph E. diGenova, who has pushed the theory on television that Mr. Trump was framed by F.B.I. and Justice Department officials, to bolster his legal team, according to three people told of the decision.

Good idea; that’s what Don needs: more wack jobs on his “legal team.”

Mr. diGenova is not expected to take a lead role but will instead serve as a more aggressive player on the president’s legal team. Mr. Trump broke over the weekend from the longstanding advice of some of his lawyers that he refrain from directly attacking the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, a sign of his growing unease with the investigation.

Aka his sweating panic about the investigation, along with his total lack of filter and complete inability to evaluate anyone or anything according to reasonable criteria.

The plan isn’t official though, so he may change his mind, especially if Fox News gives it the thumbs down.

Mr. diGenova has endorsed the notion that a secretive group of F.B.I. agents concocted the Russia investigation as a way to keep Mr. Trump from becoming president. “There was a brazen plot to illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton and, if she didn’t win the election, to then frame Donald Trump with a falsely created crime,” he said on Fox News in January. He added, “Make no mistake about it: A group of F.B.I. and D.O.J. people were trying to frame Donald Trump of a falsely created crime.”

Yep that’s the ticket, more paranoia and fantasy, that’s just what Trump needs.



More death penalty

Mar 18th, 2018 5:21 pm | By

Trump plans to kill more people.

President Donald Trump will roll out new plans to tackle the country’s opioid epidemic on Monday in New Hampshire, the White House said Sunday. The plan will include stiffer penalties for high-intensity drug traffickers, including the death penalty for some dealers, Andrew Bremberg, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, told reporters Sunday.

The concept of the death penalty for certain drug traffickers is something Trump has been outspoken about, but this will be the first time it will be part of an official administration plan.

“The Department of Justice will seek the death penalty against drug traffickers when it’s appropriate under current law,” Bremberg told reporters during a phone call Sunday evening.

rump called for the death penalty to drug dealers earlier this month at a rally in Pennsylvania. His plan is expected to focus on sentencing reforms for drug dealers that would stiffen penalties for high-intensity drug dealers while “other people languishing in prison for these low-level drug crimes,” a senior administration official said.

“The President thinks that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime,” the official said, adding that these penalties would be for dealers who bring large quantities of opioids — particular fentanyl — into the United States, not the people that are “are growing pot in the backyard or a friend who has a low-level possession crime.

“His plan will address, and he will address, the stiffening of penalties for the people who are bringing the poison into our communities,” the official added.

The stiffening – geddit? They’ll be stiffs. If you kill people you turn them into stiffs. He’s such a joker.

On Sunday’s call with reporters, administration officials would not get into specifics on Trump’s death penalty proposal and referred all questions to the Department of Justice. When asked if the death penalty would be an appropriate punishment for some traffickers, a senior administration official again referred the question to the department but said capital punishment would be fitting in some instances.

The official said the death penalty proposal would be something the Justice Department will be “examining to move ahead with to make sure that’s done appropriately” and not wait for Congress to propose possible legislation on the matter.

Yes let’s hurry up and kill people.



When people are chosen by a man

Mar 18th, 2018 3:56 pm | By

Ruth Marcus on Trump’s efforts to control what people say about him:

[Robert] Costa [in April 2016]: “One thing I always wondered, are you going to make employees of the federal government sign nondisclosure agreements?”

Trump: “I think they should. . . . And I don’t know, there could be some kind of a law that you can’t do this. But when people are chosen by a man to go into government at high levels and then they leave government and they write a book about a man and say a lot of things that were really guarded and personal, I don’t like that. I mean, I’ll be honest. And people would say, oh, that’s terrible, you’re taking away his right to free speech. Well, he’s going in.”

Comes with the job though. It’s a public service job.

In the early months of the administration, at the behest of now-President Trump, who was furious over leaks from within the White House, senior White House staff members were asked to, and did, sign nondisclosure agreements vowing not to reveal confidential information and exposing them to damages for any violation.

Some tried to say no but Priebus leaned on them so they gave in, figuring it was unconstitutional anyway.

Moreover, said the source, this confidentiality pledge would extend not only after an aide’s White House service but also beyond the Trump presidency. “It’s not meant to be constrained by the four years or eight years he’s president — or the four months or eight months somebody works there. It is meant to survive that.”

This is extraordinary. Every president inveighs against leakers and bemoans the kiss-and-tell books; no president, to my knowledge, has attempted to impose such a pledge. And while White House staffers have various confidentiality obligations — maintaining the secrecy of classified information or attorney-client privilege, for instance — the notion of imposing a side agreement, supposedly enforceable even after the president leaves office, is not only oppressive but constitutionally repugnant.

But also very very Trump-like. He has a hugely inflated opinion of himself and a correspondingly low opinion of everyone else. He thinks he’s entitled to own people for life.

“This is crazy,” said attorney Debra Katz, who has represented numerous government whistleblowers and negotiated nondisclosure agreements. “The idea of having some kind of economic penalty is an outrageous effort to limit and chill speech. Once again, this president believes employees owe him a personal duty of loyalty, when their duty of loyalty is to the institution.”

He thinks everyone in the world owes him loyalty, or at least deference. He thinks no one has any right to point out what an empty sack of wind he is.

In the draft agreement, which is all Marcus has seen, they were demanding $10 million for

each and any unauthorized revelation of “confidential” information, defined as “all nonpublic information I learn of or gain access to in the course of my official duties in the service of the United States Government on White House staff,” including “communications . . . with members of the press” and “with employees of federal, state, and local governments.”

$10 million plus a gallon of ice cream.

As outlined in the document, this restriction would cover Trump aides not only during their White House service but also “at all times thereafter.”

The document: “I understand that the United States Government or, upon completion of the term(s) of Mr. Donald J. Trump, an authorized representative of Mr. Trump, may seek any remedy available to enforce this Agreement including, but not limited to, application for a court order prohibiting disclosure of information in breach of this Agreement.”

Also, if you slip up, they’ll kill your children.



An extraordinary acceleration

Mar 18th, 2018 11:12 am | By

The Post sums up the state of play:

McCabe’s firing — coupled with the comments from Trump and his personal attorney, John Dowd on Saturday — marked an extraordinary acceleration of the battle between the president and the special counsel, whose probe Trump has long dismissed as a politically motivated witch hunt.

Or to put it another way, an extraordinary acceleration of the battle between Trump and the rule of law.

[Trump’s personal lawyer John] Dowd said in a Saturday morning statement, “I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia Collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt Dossier.”

Dowd’s defiance was a dramatic shift for a legal team that had long pledged to cooperate fully with Mueller. The White House has responded to requests for documents, and senior officials have sat for hours of interviews with the special counsel’s investigators.

They’re testing, testing, to see what they can get away with.

Trump has been known to direct surrogates to make bold claims publicly as a way of market-testing ideas. Dowd declined to say whether he consulted with the president before issuing his statement. “I never discuss my communications with my client,” he said.

White House officials denied that this is all coordinated.

Still, officials acknowledged that Trump shares his lawyer’s sentiment that the Mueller investigation should come to a swift conclusion.

“We were all promised collusion or nullification of his election or impeachment,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. “We were promised something that never came to be.”

Well that’s Trump-level stupid. It’s a process, it’s ongoing, there have been indictments. There is no “never” here, because it was never a ten days and it’s over thing; an investigation takes as long as it takes.

In a Sunday morning tweet, Trump accused Comey of lying in testimony to Congress as he was questioned by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa): “Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when asked “have you ever been an anonymous source…or known someone else to be an anonymous source…?” He said strongly “never, no.”

Trump in the past has masqueraded as a fake publicist by the name of John Miller or John Barron to leak flattering or boastful details about himself to tabloid reporters.

Pointed.

In another tweet, Trump repeated his now-familiar attacks on McCabe and Comey. Some Trump allies said they worry he is playing with fire by taunting the FBI.

“This is open, all-out war. And guess what? The FBI’s going to win,” said one ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. “You can’t fight the FBI. They’re going to torch him.”

Let’s hope so.

Trump’s lawyers have long spoken privately about what they view as political bias inside the FBI and in the early stages of the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to two top White House advisers.

Since late summer, Dowd and attorney Jay Sekulow have warned the president about what they saw as mounting evidence of pro-Clinton bias among senior FBI officials.

If that’s true, and to the extent that it’s true, I wonder how much of it is “political” bias and how much of it is competence bias or law bias or both. Clinton’s a lawyer and competent; Trump is neither.

Dowd and White House lawyer Ty Cobb have publicly asserted that they are working collaboratively and cooperatively with Mueller’s investigators, voluntarily providing dozens of witnesses and hundreds of thousands of pages of records. Dowd told The Post in January that Trump was providing the special counsel “the most transparent response in history by a president.”

But behind the scenes, Dowd has told colleagues that the probe was poisoned. He has blamed it on an anti-Trump faction of law enforcement officials he derisively calls “the Comey crowd,” which includes McCabe, who was Comey’s deputy when the FBI began investigating Russia’s intrusions and possible links to the Trump campaign.

But there are so many reasons to be anti-Trump, most of them not political. Comey and McCabe know how to think and reason; Trump pisses on the very idea that thought and reasoning are necessary. If they do prefer Clinton to Trump it could be for that kind of reason – she’s an adult, she can talk coherently, she’s well informed. You could sum it up as “professionalism” if you liked. Trump is like a toddler inflated with a bicycle pump. You can’t have a coherent conversation with Trump, because he doesn’t know how – all he knows how to do is grab the mic and babble chaotically until someone takes it away from him. Maybe Comey and McCabe are simply allergic to Trump on a professional level (and also of course know that that level of stupidity is dangerous for the country).

Democrats on Saturday quickly rushed to protect the Mueller probe, as former national security officials defended McCabe’s character and raised questions about the manner in which he was fired.

Sen. Mark R. Warner (Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted: “Every member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, needs to speak up in defense of the Special Counsel. Now.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned of “severe consequences from both Democrats and Republicans” should Trump try to curtail or interfere with Mueller’s investigation.

I hope he’s right about the Republicans part.



Graham’s pledge

Mar 18th, 2018 10:43 am | By

We’re on a knife edge, it appears.

That’s terrifying. On the other hand Haberman seems to have overlooked something. Lindsay Graham made an actual promise on CNN this morning.

Sen. Lindsey Graham gave a stern warning Sunday to President Donald Trump against firing special counsel Robert Mueller.

“As I said before, if he tried to do that, that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency,” the South Carolina Republican said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Mueller can only be fired for cause, he said, and he sees no cause.

Graham called for Mueller to be able to carry out his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election “independent of any political influence.”

“I pledge to the American people, as a Republican, to make sure that Mr. Mueller can continue to do his job without any interference,” he said.

Now to hold him to it.



Tidy profit

Mar 18th, 2018 9:44 am | By

Kushner sleaze unveiled:

When the Kushner Cos. bought three apartment buildings in a gentrifying neighborhood of Queens in 2015, most of the tenants were protected by special rules that prevent developers from pushing them out, raising rents and turning a tidy profit.

But that’s exactly what the company then run by Jared Kushner did, and with remarkable speed. Two years later, it sold all three buildings for $60 million, nearly 50 percent more than it paid.

Now a clue has emerged as to how President Donald Trump’s son-in-law’s firm was able to move so fast: The Kushner Cos. routinely filed false paperwork with the city declaring it had zero rent-regulated tenants in dozens of buildings it owned across the city when, in fact, it had hundreds.

Of course it did. Isn’t that just Trumpworld all over – fuck the underlings who aren’t rich enough to buy Luxury Condos™, we’re here to make even more millions so we’ll lie to the city and get them all bounced out. They can live ten to a room like the good old days.

“It’s bare-faced greed,” said Aaron Carr, founder of Housing Rights Initiative, a tenants’ rights watchdog that compiled the work permit application documents and shared them with The Associated Press. “The fact that the company was falsifying all these applications with the government shows a sordid attempt to avert accountability and get a rapid return on its investment.”

And to do it by shafting hundreds of people.

In all, Housing Rights Initiative found the Kushner Cos. filed at least 80 false applications for construction permits in 34 buildings across New York City from 2013 to 2016, all of them indicating there were no rent-regulated tenants. Instead, tax documents show there were more than 300 rent-regulated units. Nearly all the permit applications were signed by a Kushner employee, including sometimes the chief operating officer.

Ticking that box left them free to hassle sitting tenants out.

“It was noisy, there were complaints, I got mice,” said mailman Rudolph Romano, adding that the Kushner Cos. tried to increase his rent by 60 percent. “They cleaned the place out. I watched the whole building leave.”

Mailman, you see. Prince Jared doesn’t trouble himself about people like mail carriers and their need for somewhere to live.



Hand inching toward the fire button

Mar 18th, 2018 9:03 am | By

Trump is trying hard to lay the groundwork for firing Mueller.

Fox and Friends…a show on a network that’s notorious for Just Plain Making Shit Up and for being ardent, immovable fans of President Pussygrabber.

Says the man who lies multiple times every day.

A few thousand people reminded him that Mueller is a Republican.

His people have stepped in.

Quick – we’ve got to keep him distracted!



All false sir

Mar 17th, 2018 5:57 pm | By

He’s in a lather.

All false sir – I would have made that Pack of lies sir.

I think Trump is probably thinking that if he fires a bunch of people all at once then firing Mueller will get lost in the crowd and he’ll get away with it. I think he’s that dumb and that criminally-minded.

Just what I was thinking.



Just another Saturday

Mar 17th, 2018 11:05 am | By

And of course…



Like the mob or drug cartels

Mar 17th, 2018 10:37 am | By

The Post asks if firing McCabe might come back to bite Trump on the ass.

Trump has now, after all, cemented the enemy status of a top-ranking official at the FBI (its No. 2) and onetime acting director. He previously did that by firing McCabe’s superior, former FBI director James B. Comey, and Comey has rewarded that decision by leaking unhelpful things and testifying about Trump in a negative light. He is now set to release a book.

Former federal prosecutor Patrick Cotter said McCabe would still be bound by confidentiality rules and can’t share anything about grand jury testimony that he may have gleaned. But he said the treatment of McCabe is without real compare.

“I would add that for me, and I think many former law enforcement personnel, it is difficult to recall any precedent for the kind of personal vindictiveness the action by the executive exhibits towards a career FBI agent like McCabe, except from the longtime targets of federal law enforcement, like the mob or drug cartels,” Cotter said. “With those criminals I noted that their hate was personal towards the agents and attorneys they thought were building cases against them. This move strikes me as very similar.”

Very, very, very similar. So similar. Verging on identical. Donald Trump is a mobster filled with hatred at the people who are onto him. He’s also, stomach-turningly, the president of the US. Every day that this grotesque nightmare continues pulls us down farther into the mire.

And it was made abundantly clear Friday night that McCabe is incensed by the decision. He released a lengthy statement deriding his firing as “slander” and arguing that the inspector general’s report was accelerated in response to his closed-door testimony saying he would corroborate key claims made by Comey. He suggested the whole thing was part of a campaign to undermine the investigations involving Trump.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the press he’s “a bad actor” on Thursday.

“This attack on my credibility is one part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more generally,” McCabe said. “It is part of this administration’s ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the special counsel investigation, which continue to this day. Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the special counsel’s work.”

But maybe the IG report will show that McCabe really is a bad actor.

Or maybe it won’t.



The full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption

Mar 17th, 2018 8:29 am | By

What the lawyers on MSNBC were saying last night is that even if McCabe did what the IG report is said to accuse him of doing, the speed of the firing is wholly abnormal and suspect. They said IG reports just never work that way – the consequences take months, not hours.

And in conclusion



Mirth

Mar 16th, 2018 11:27 am | By

He thinks it’s funny.

President Donald Trump consumed Thursday morning’s TV headlines with amusement. Reports of tumult in the administration were at a feverish pitch — even on his beloved Fox News — as the president reflected on the latest staff departures during an Oval Office conversation with Vice President Mike Pence and Chief of Staff John Kelly.

With a laugh, Trump said: “Who’s next?”

Hahahaha he’s an incompetent corrupt zero who’s ruining everything; how hilarious.



Loyalty purge

Mar 16th, 2018 10:35 am | By

Trump’s people have been trying to politically cleanse the State Department, according to a couple of House Democrats.

Two top House Democrats said Thursday that they have proof the Trump administration engaged in an intentional effort to rid the State Department of career officials they suspected of being “disloyal” to President Trump, citing documents a whistleblower gave to the panel.

The ranking Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Government Reform committees sent a letter to White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, writing that they received documents “indicating that high-level officials at the White House and State Department worked with a network of conservative activists to conduct a ‘cleaning’ of employees they believed were not sufficiently ‘supportive’ of President Trump’s agenda.”

That is, the political people tried to clean out the civil service people. It’s not supposed to work that way.

“Over the past year, we have heard many reports of political attacks on career employees at the State Department, but we had not seen evidence of how extensive, blunt, and inappropriate these attacks were until now,” Reps. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) and Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.) wrote in the letter.

Most of the targeted employees had worked on Obama administration initiatives no longer supported in the Trump administration, such as the Iran deal, or were considered insufficiently loyal to Trump and his agenda.

But they’re not supposed to be “loyal” to Trump or anyone else. Their work is not supposed to be contingent on loyalty that way.

In their letter, Cummings and Engel detailed some of the exchanges from the whistleblower’s documents, including emails in which Trump-appointed senior staff referred to certain department employees as “turncoat,” “associated with previous policy,” “Obama/Clinton loyalists not at all supportive of President Trump’s foreign policy agenda,” and “a leaker and a troublemaker.”

The documents they cited also contain communications between administration officials and Trump supporters outside the White House, such as former House speaker Newt Gingrich. In one email Gingrich forwarded to Trump-appointed State Department officials, another booster, David Wurmser, suggested “cleaning house” at the State Department.

That’s not how any of this works.



He likes watching it

Mar 16th, 2018 9:41 am | By

The Post did a big story on the chaotic, frenzied, giggling-terrified atmosphere in Trump’s White House. Who will go next? Who will be marched out by security without a jacket?? Who will be fired on Twitter next?! What Fox News “personality” will get the next key national security gig?!?

Trump has decided to fire McMaster, but he’s dawdling over it partly to spare McMaster embarrassment (right because it’s not at all embarrassing to be fired-but-not-quite-yet) and partly because he wants to find a replacement first. Good luck with that! Who wouldn’t want to work for a guy who takes pleasure in abruptly firing people via Twitter? Besides everyone?

The turbulence is part of a broader potential shake-up under consideration by Trump that is likely to include senior officials at the White House, where staffers are gripped by fear and un­certainty as they await the next move from an impulsive president who enjoys stoking conflict.

Or, to put it less tactfully, from an impulsive president who revels in sadistic public bullying.

That’s what we’re all living with: a head of state who is the worst kind of mean stupid chickenshit high school bully – a guy who loves having money and power because they enable him to grind people’s faces whenever he feels like it. He “enjoys stoking conflict” because he enjoys watching other people’s misery. That’s who he is. He’s no more complicated or interesting than that – he’s a mean narcissistic child who has never moved on from being a mean narcissistic child.

And on Thursday, Trump signaled that more personnel moves were likely. “There will always be change,” the president told reporters. “And I think you want to see change. I want to also see different ideas.”

That’s just the cover story. “Change” is a code-word for tormenting his employees.

Trump enjoys watching his subordinates compete for his approval. Many of the rumors are fueled by Trump himself because he complains to aides and friends about other staffers, or muses about who might make good replacements.

“I like conflict. I like having two people with different points of view,” Trump said last week, rapping his fists toward one another to simulate a clash. “I like watching it, I like seeing it, and I think it’s the best way to go.”

True, true, false. He loves watching it, he loves seeing it, and he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about whether it’s the best way to go or not. It’s just more scoops of ice cream to him.



None of whom were able to attend

Mar 15th, 2018 5:12 pm | By

About that history conference where out of 30 speakers a mere 30 were men…

I’ve heard that before. What you do then is ask more.

To historians at that!

So many they forgot to ask.



Emboldened to throw off the shackles

Mar 15th, 2018 2:23 pm | By

Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair thinks Trump may fire Sessions soon.

From the moment Donald Trump appointed Chief of Staff John Kelly last summer, he vented to friends and advisers that Kelly was too overbearing, preventing him from acting on his instincts and impulses, the things that got him elected president. To truly be himself, Trump turned to Twitter and Fox & Friends. But over the past week, even though Kelly is still nominally on the scene, his presidency has entered a new phase—one in which Trump feels emboldened to throw off the shackles that have thus far constrained him.

That’s bad. We don’t want Trump feeling emboldened. We want Trump feeling emfrightened; we want Trump feeling small and weak and out of place. We want him longing for the good old days on 57th Street. We want him thinking about quitting.

Speaking to reporters shortly after tweeting that he had replaced Tillerson at Foggy Bottom with hardline C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo, Trump indicated he would soon move against his remaining antagonists, many of whom he appointed with glee, in the executive branch. “I’m really at a point where we’re getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want,” he said.

Normal, halfway competent presidents don’t go about getting the Cabinets they want by trial and error, they do the work to get it right the first time. The fault for having the Cabinet he didn’t want is Trump’s, not anyone else’s.

One hire he seems to want is John Bolton, who wants to bomb Iran, so that should work out a treat.

But he also still plans to fire Sessions.

According to two Republicans in regular contact with the White House, there have been talks that Trump could replace Sessions with E.P.A. Administrator Scott Pruitt, who would not be recused from overseeing the Russia probe. Also, as an agency head and former state attorney general, Pruitt would presumably have a good shot at passing a Senate confirmation hearing.

And then he could fire Mueller.

That put me into a bit of a panic this morning, but friends on Facebook told me even firing Mueller won’t necessarily stop the investigation.

Regardless, though, the removal of Mueller wouldn’t necessarily stop the case in its tracks. Whoever was responsible for that firing could appoint another special counsel, for one thing; it was, in fact, the work of Archibald Cox’s successor, Leon Jaworski, that led to some of the most significant court findings in the Watergate scandal.

Even if there was no successor forthcoming, the case and investigation could and probably would continue on its own as a regular FBI inquiry.

Starting an investigation at the FBI is a formal process, requiring agents to demonstrate evidence of a criminal predicate to move to what’s known as a “full field” investigation, and, similarly, closing an investigation requires a formal decision to “decline” charges. The “Mueller probe” isn’t actually a single case; at this point there are multiple independent investigations underway, including into Paul Manafort and Rick Gates’ former business dealings, into the campaign’s separate dealings with Russian officials, and into possible obstruction of justice around Jim Comey’s firing.

Some of those cases were well underway before Mueller took over—it was, in fact, the early work of investigators that led to the guilty pleas last fall of George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn—and others have been launched since. All would and could continue without him. Without Mueller, the assigned FBI agents would return to the Washington Field Office and the prosecution would be placed, most likely, under the supervision of either the US attorney in DC or the Eastern District of Virginia, where the court cases are already playing out.

Perhaps the key lesson of Mueller’s investigation thus far has been that at every step, Mueller and his investigative dream team have known more and been further ahead in their process than the public anticipated or realized. At every stage, Mueller has surprised the public and witnesses before him with his depth of knowledge and detail—and he shocked the public with news last fall that Papadopoulos had been arrested, been cooperating, and pleaded guilty, all without a single hint of a leak. The news last week that Comey himself had testified before Mueller’s team weeks earlier continues the pattern that even amid the most scrutinized investigation in history, Mueller is moving methodically forward, with cards up his sleeve to play.

There’s no reason to believe, in fact, that Mueller—who has surrounded himself with some of the most thoughtful minds of the Justice Department, including Michael Dreeban, arguably the country’s top appellate lawyer, whose career has focused on looking down the road at how cases might play out months or even years later—hasn’t been organizing his investigation since day one with the expectation that he’d someday be fired and worked to ensure that this, his final chapter in a lifetime of public service at the Justice Department, won’t be curtailed before it has gotten to what Mueller calls “ground truth.”

So. Panic abated.

H/t Ken Cope



The role foreign money may have played

Mar 15th, 2018 1:27 pm | By

Mueller issues a subpoena.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has subpoenaed the Trump Organization to turn over documents, including some related to Russia, according to two people briefed on the matter. The order is the first known instance of the special counsel demanding records directly related to President Trump’s businesses, bringing the investigation closer to the president.

It was delivered “in recent weeks,” Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman say vaguely. It orders the Trump Organization to hand over all records related to Russia and other topics of the investigation.

Word of the subpoena comes as Mr. Mueller appears to be broadening his investigation to examine the role foreign money may have played in funding Mr. Trump’s political activities. In recent weeks, Mr. Mueller’s investigators have questioned witnesses, including an adviser to the United Arab Emirates, about the flow of Emirati money into the United States.

Well somebody damn well has to.

Mr. Mueller could run afoul of a line the president has warned him not to cross. Though it is not clear how much of the subpoena is related to Mr. Trump’s business beyond ties to Russia, Mr. Trump said in an interview with The New York Times in July that the special counsel would be crossing a “red line” if he looked into his family’s finances beyond any relationship with Russia. The president declined to say how he would respond if he concluded that the special counsel had crossed that line.

It’s not clear why Trump thinks he gets to declare what the lines are. He’s not a dictator or a king.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers are in negotiations with Mr. Mueller’s office about whether and how to allow his investigators to interview the president. Mr. Mueller’s office has shared topics it wants to discuss with the president, according to two people familiar with the talks. The lawyers have advised Mr. Trump to refuse an interview but the president wants to do it, as he believes he has done nothing wrong and can easily answer investigators’ questions.

Good.