Don’s snuff porn

Jul 26th, 2017 12:31 pm | By

The American Prospect tells us about Trump’s latest crowd-incitement, yesterday in Youngstown, Ohio.

On Tuesday evening, at a campaign-style rally in Youngstown, Ohio, President Donald Trump treated his audience to a bit of snuff porn involving high-school age girls and some bad hombres.

After painting all the people currently under deportation orders as drug-importing gang members, the president described their purported crimes. “So they’ll take a young, beautiful girl, 16, 15—and others—and they slice them and dice them with a knife because they want them to go through excruciating pain before any die,” Trump said. “And these are the animals that we’ve been protecting for so long.”

A more perfect encapsulation of the proclivities of the president’s poisonous psyche could not be imagined by even the likes of Quentin Tarantino. It’s all there, the racism, the dehumanization of immigrants, and a sexualized violence involving bleeding women—or, in this case, girls.

He what?

It’s true.

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Mens sana in corpore sano

Jul 26th, 2017 11:58 am | By

Surprise Fact Department: the US Defense Department spends 84 million bucks a year on Viagra & its cousins.

In the DoD system, which dispensed eight types of ED meds in 2014, Viagra, added to the DoD formulary in 2012, tops the list for most popular: Of the 1.18 million prescriptions, 905,083 were for Viagra, at a cost of $41.6 million.

Cialis ranked second, with 185,841 prescriptions totaling $22.82 million.

Revatio — one of the costliest ED medications in the DoD formulary — was the least frequently prescribed: 1,699 prescriptions in 2014 for a total cost of $2.24 million, according to DHA.

Worth every penny.

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It’s just a tantrum, official says

Jul 26th, 2017 11:23 am | By

Don is still making an exhibition of himself on Twitter, asking the world why Sessions does what he does when he’s the one who appointed him and we’re not. Dude why are you asking us?

But, you know, it’s all part of his cunning plan to bully Sessions into quitting, or inspiring Rod Rosenstein to jump up in the middle of the night and fire Mueller, or something. It looks like crazy but it’s actually fiendishly clever manipulation.

Or is it. The Post talked to people who say it’s just Trump being Trump.

President Trump renewed his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions Wednesday, questioning on Twitter why the top U.S. law enforcement official had not replaced the acting FBI director — a move that Trump himself has the authority to do.

In two tweets just before 10 a.m., Trump wrote, “Why didn’t A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got big dollars ($700,000) for his wife’s political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives. Drain the Swamp!”

Drain the Swamp! he cries, but he’s the one who chose the swamp and appointed the swamp. He chose Sessions, he nominated Sessions, he made Sessions part of his administration. It was you, Charlie.

Trump has for days been attacking his attorney general, and he has similarly been critical of McCabe, who took over as the acting director of the FBI after Trump fired James B. Comey. But his latest attack is curious.

Sessions was not the attorney general during the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. And the president himself could remove McCabe without Sessions. Administration officials actually contemplated doing so after Comey’s firing. Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein met with four other candidates to lead the FBI on an interim basis, though the administration ultimately stuck with McCabe.

Plus…why is he asking us?

A person familiar with internal White House discussions about Sessions said Trump’s attacks on Sessions are a public airing of what the president has been saying for months privately — that he blames Sessions’s recusal for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate possible ties to Russia. But the person cautioned that neither the president nor his advisers have articulated a plan for replacing Sessions with someone else, and the angry words are primarily a venting of the president’s anger, rather than a calculated effort to drive the attorney general out of office.

Oh yes? So it’s not a cunning plan – it’s just Trump acting like a giant baby, “venting” his narcissistic rage in public on social media?

It’s hard to tell which is more terrifying: his malignancy or his stupidity.

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The degradation of the independent law enforcement function itself

Jul 26th, 2017 7:14 am | By

Benjamin Wittes has thoughts on the effects of the current situation on people at the Department of Justice and on the rest of us.

The trouble is that remaining in office does not merely demean the individual dignity of the attorney general and the deputy attorney general when the President whines about the attorney general’s compliance with Justice Department recusal rules; when he attacks the attorney general for not investigating a political opponent; when he openly suggests that the Justice Department’s leadership should act in his personal interests; or when he suggests that the deputy attorney general is biased against him as a result of previous service as U.S. attorney in a Democratic-majority city. These are also degradations of the institutional offices these men hold. And continuing to hold those offices in silence when the president says these things them permits that degradation to go unchallenged—both before the workforce and before the public.

To the workforce, this sort of rope-a-doping by the department’s leadership might provide a short-term protection against political interference in an investigation, and I don’t diminish the importance of that protection. Rosenstein and Sessions (who is recused, in any event) may by tolerating belittling by the President to allow their investigators and prosecutors to do their work unmolested. But the long-term cost is the corrosion of the norm not merely that investigators and prosecutors are ultimately protected from White House interference on investigative matters, but that presidential attempts at such interference are themselves unacceptable. To allow the Justice Department and FBI workforces to witness on an ongoing basis the president hectoring, threatening to fire, and belittling the attorney general and deputy attorney general is to allow them to witness also the degradation of the independent law enforcement function itself. For the departmental leadership to tolerate the repeated statements by the president of his expectation that their function is nothing more elevated than that of agents of his political power and protection is, at some level, to accede to the acceptability of those statements. Even if in practice, in the short term, law enforcement functions independently as a result, accepting this characterization of its function has to socialize over time the way people at the relevant agencies understand the jobs they are doing. It will drive honest people away, prevent good people from coming on board, and over time it will influence the way many people think about their work.

Perhaps even more important than the message that leadership’s rope-a-doping sends to law enforcement officers is the message it sends to the public about law enforcement. For the public to see this kind of presidential behavior towards the attorney general and the deputy attorney general, for the public to see both men tolerate it, and for the public to see there be no consequences for it will, again over time, make it acceptable behavior. That’s the way political norms change—the way old norms get discarded and the way new ones develop. If it’s okay for the president to criticize the attorney general for recusing when it’s not convenient for his interests for the attorney general to do so, then why is not okay for him to demand as a condition of appointment that the attorney general promise not to recuse? And why is it not okay for a prospective attorney general to comply with such a demand? If it’s okay for the President to tweet that his political opponent should be investigated, why is it not okay for the attorney general to investigate those the President says should be criminally investigated? Why is it not okay for the President to order up such an investigation?

That’s all the more true since a lot of people are probably paying more attention to the DoJ right now than they ever have before. We’re drinking in what’s being played out before us day after day; how can we help but absorb the messages being sent?

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They have established that these guys are willing

Jul 25th, 2017 4:58 pm | By

Jared Kushner thinks it was all no big deal…but people who know something about Russian intelligence operations all think it was a very typical overture.

Yesterday, Kushner insisted, “I did not read or recall this e-mail exchange before it was shown to me by my lawyers.” Whether or not that’s true, he attended the meeting. According to Kushner’s account of the meeting, it was uneventful. He got there late, some Russians he never heard of were discussing adoption policy, and he quickly messaged his assistant to call him so he had an excuse to bail. Longtime intelligence officials have a more jaundiced view. Michael Hayden, the former head of the National Security Agency, told me that he was convinced the meeting was a classic “soft approach” by Russian intelligence. He cited a recent Washington Postarticle, by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, that argued that the meeting “is in line with what intelligence analysts would expect an overture in a Russian influence operation to look like,” and that it may have been the “green light Russia was looking for to launch a more aggressive phase of intervention in the U.S. election.”

Hayden told me, “My god, this is just such traditional tradecraft.” He said that he has talked to people in the intelligence community aboutMowatt-Larssen’s theory and that “every case officer I’ve pushed on this” agreed with it. “This is how they do it.”

Hayden explained that the Russians would have learned several things from the approach. “Would they take the meeting?” he said. “So, then you get the willingness. No. 2, would they report the meeting?” Hayden suggested that Russian intelligence was sophisticated enough to know whether the Trump campaign reported the meeting to the F.B.I., which it didn’t. So, while Kushner claimed that the meeting was irrelevant, from a Russian intelligence perspective it would have been seen as a clear signal. “At the end, they have established that these guys are willing,” Hayden said, pausing. “How do I put this? They did not reject a relationship.”

And what have they been doing ever since? Gee, more of the same. Trump made “you – me – talkytalk?” gestures at Putin over dinner, and then went over and more or less sat in his lap. That’s definite non-rejection of a relationship.

Eric Swalwell, a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told me that one of the key questions that congressional investigators have for Kushner is why he ignored the intelligence community’s warnings about Russia. “Once it became public that they were interfering in our election, which was in June, why did you continue to have contacts with them?” Swalwell, whose committee interviewed Kushner on Tuesday morning, said. “They don’t discuss at all, like, ‘Hey, Russia is interfering in our election. Should we talk to them about that?’ ”

In fact, Kushner never raised Russia’s meddling during his two post-election meetings with Russians, according to his own accounts. Kislyak contacted Kushner on November 16th, and they met on December 1st. Once again, the Russians seemed to have a level of access to the Trump campaign that other countries, including Western allies, could only dream of. In his testimony, Kushner confirmed that at this meeting, which took place in Trump Tower, he and Kislyak and Michael Flynn, the incoming national-security adviser, who also attended, discussed using communications equipment at the Russian Embassy. Kushner said the purpose was to relay information from Russian generals about Syria.

There was no skepticism about Russia or its actions in recent years from Kushner. But Kislyak was representing a leader who, as John Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, recently noted, “assaulted one of the foundational pillars of our democracy, our electoral system, that invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, that has suppressed and repressed political opponents in Russia and has caused the deaths of many of them.”

But Kushner understands none of that, because he’s just a real estate profiteer. He doesn’t get it and he doesn’t care that he doesn’t get it, because he’s too ignorant and self-serving to care – like the whole Trump gang.

Kushner claims he was simply a naïve staffer exchanging benign pleasantries. His professed innocence about the nature of these contacts may be the most troubling part of his testimony. The Russians were running a complex—and seemingly successful—campaign to gain access to Trump’s orbit, and the President-elect’s most trusted adviser claims he was clueless about what was actually going on. Kushner’s testimony does not reveal evidence of any crimes, but it does reveal a campaign and Presidential transition that were remarkably easy targets for Russian intelligence efforts.

“The Russians clearly thought they had reasons to believe this would be a friendly audience,” Hayden said. “If you’ve never seen a major-league curveball, you shouldn’t pretend you’re a major-leaguer.”

They’re in over their heads, and they don’t care.

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51-50

Jul 25th, 2017 4:20 pm | By

Sure enough, “hero” McCain returned to the Senate and the vote was 50-50 and Pence broke the tie, so they voted to debate how best to take health insurance away from millions. They’re evil demons.

That doesn’t mean they’ll be able to pass a bill, but it does confirm their evil demonhood. They want to take health insurance away from millions, and will if they can agree on the details.

President Trump has been pushing aggressively for Republicans to pass a repeal-and-replace plan, and jabbed lawmakers this week by saying anyone who votes against kicking off debate is saying they are “fine with the Obamacare nightmare.” Speaking during a joint news conference in the Rose Garden Tuesday, Trump said he was “very very sad” for the Republicans who opposed the motion but “very happy with the result” of the vote.

“Now we’re all going to sit together and try to come up with something really spectacular,” the president said, though he acknowledged Republicans face “a narrow path” on health care. “It’s a very, very complex and difficult task, something I know quite a bit about.”

Moron. He knows very little about it. He only thinks he knows quite a bit about it because he knew absolutely nothing before and picked up a little during the process.

On Tuesday a coalition of medical and consumer groups reiterated their intense opposition to all the health-care plans Senate Republicans have been considering, calling on them to drop those bills and begin anew with a bipartisan process that includes standard committee hearings.

In a conference call, David Barbe, the president of the American Medical Association and part of the coalition, challenged the claims Senate GOP leaders have made about their main legislation to dismantle large parts of the Affordable Care Act.

“It does not make care more affordable to low-income Americans,” Barbe said. “It does not reduce out-of-pocket costs. It could trigger substantial increases for patients with preexisting conditions.”

They don’t care. They just want to break it.

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You have to know about the word “momentum”

Jul 25th, 2017 9:37 am | By

But my favorite part of Trump’s Address to the Nations Boy Scouts is where he just veers off into telling them a long boring story about this one guy he met 50 years ago, like any other damn windbag you accidentally sit next to at a dinner or on a bus or in the dentist’s waiting room. You know those – the ones who just talk, regardless of who is next to them or what the likelihood is that anyone in hearing will give a damn.

In life, in order to be successful, and you people are well on the road to success, you have to find out what makes you excited. What makes you want to get up each morning and go to work? You have to find it.

If you love what you do and dedicate yourself to your work, then you will gain momentum, and look — you have to, you need to. The word momentum — you will gain that momentum, and each success will create another success. The word momentum.

I’ll tell you a story that’s very interesting for me when I was young. There was a man named William Levitt — Levittowns, you have some here, you have some in different states. Anybody ever hear of Levittown? (Applause.) And he was a very successful man. He was a homebuilder — became an unbelievable success, and got more and more successful. And he built homes, and at night he’d go to these major sites with teams of people and he’d scour the sites for nails and sawdust and small pieces of wood. And they’d clean the site so when the workers came in the next morning, the sites would be spotless and clean, and he did it properly. And he did this for 20 years, and then he was offered a lot of money for his company.

And he sold his company for a tremendous amount of money. At the time especially — this was a long time ago — sold his company for a tremendous amount of money. And he went out and bought a big yacht, and he had a very interesting life. I won’t go any more than that because you’re Boy Scouts, so I’m not going to tell you what he did.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

TRUMP: Should I tell you? Should I tell you?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

TRUMP: Oh, you’re Boy Scouts, but you know life. You know life. So — look at you. Who would think this is the Boy Scouts, right?

So he had a very, very interesting life, and the company that bought his company was a big conglomerate. And they didn’t know anything about building homes, and they didn’t know anything about picking up the nails and the sawdust and selling it — and the scraps of wood. This was a big conglomerate based in New York City, and after about a ten year period they were losing a lot with it. It didn’t mean anything to them, and they couldn’t sell it.

So they called William Levitt up and they said, would you like to buy back your company, and he said yes, I would. He so badly wanted it, he got bored with this life of yachts and sailing and all of the things he did in the south of France and other places. You won’t get bored, right? You know, truthfully, you’re workers. You’ll get bored too. Believe me. (Applause.) Of course, having a good few years like that isn’t so bad. (Applause.) But what happened is he bought back his company, and he bought back a lot of empty land. And he worked hard in getting it zoning, and he worked hard on starting to develop.

And in the end he failed, and he failed badly. Lost all of his money. He went personally bankrupt, and he was now much older. And I saw him at a cocktail party, and it was very sad because the hottest people in New York were at this party. It was the party of Steve Ross who was one of the great people — he came up and discovered — really founded — Time Warner, and he was a great guy. He had a lot of successful people at the party.

And I was doing well so I got invited to the party. I was very young, and I go in — but I’m in the real estate business — and I see 100 people, some of whom I recognize and they’re big in the entertainment business. And I see, sitting in the corner, was a little old man who was all by himself. Nobody was talking to him. I immediately recognized that that man was the once great William Levitt of Levittown, and I immediately went over — I wanted to talk to him more than the Hollywood show business communications people.

So I went over and talked to him, and I said, Mr. Levitt, I’m Donald Trump. He said I know. I said, Mr. Levitt, how are you doing? He goes, not well, not well at all. And I knew that, but he said not well at all. And he explained what was happening and how bad it has been and how hard it has been. And I said what exactly happened? Why did this happen to you? You’re one of the greats ever in our industry. Why did this happen to you? And he said, Donald, I lost my momentum. I lost my momentum. A word you never hear when you’re talking about success. When some of these guys that never made ten cents, they’re on television giving you things about how you’re going to be successful, and the only thing they ever did was a book and a tape.

But I’ll tell you, it was very sad, and I never forgot that moment. And I thought about it, and it’s exactly true. He lost his momentum. Meaning, he took this period of time off long — years — and then when he got back, he didn’t have that same momentum. In life, I always tell this to people, you have to know whether or not you continue to have the momentum, and if you don’t have it that’s okay. Because you’re going to go on and you’re going to learn and you’re going to do things that are great. But you have to know about the word momentum.

As long as you know about the word “momentum” you’ll be fine.

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It’s downright icky

Jul 25th, 2017 9:04 am | By

Some parents of Boy Scouts are furious.

One parent wrote: “Done with scouts after you felt the need to have my kid listen to a liar stroke his ego.”

…

Responding to the criticism of the speech, the Boy Scouts of America insisted it was “wholly non-partisan and does not promote any one position, product, service, political candidate or philosophy”.

It said the invitation to Mr Trump was a “long-standing tradition and is in no way an endorsement of any political party or specific policies”.

Except that the way it played out, it was.

Many parents, lobbyists and politicians took to social media to cite the 107-year-old organisation’s values, and to suggest Mr Trump had failed them.

Lobbyist for women’s and LGBT rights Amy Siskind tweeted: “If the Boy Scouts organization has any decency, they’ll come out with a statement tonight denouncing Trump, and giving instructions for all troop leaders to speak to these boys about what they just heard and why it was wrong.”

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The Trumpler youth cheered and chanted

Jul 25th, 2017 8:38 am | By

More on Trump’s confusion of the Boy Scouts with the Hitler Youth:

“Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts?” President Trump asked the 40,000 people gathered in Glen Jean, West Virginia, on Monday for the Boy Scout Jamboree.

The answer is President Trump. The event, which occurs every four years, was attended by about 24,000 boys, ages 12 to 18, but Trump treated it like a raucous campaign rally. During a rambling, 35-minute speech, he playfully threatened a member of his cabinet about getting the votes to repeal Obamacare, recounted his election win in great detail, and attacked President Obama.

A post on the Jamboree’s blog had warned troops to be “courteous” and refrain from chanting phrases like “lock her up” as they are “considered divisive by many members of our audience, and may cause unnecessary friction between individuals and units.” That did not prevent the audience from applauding Trump’s partisan attacks and even booing when he mentioned Hillary Clinton.

“Divisive” is a weasel-word. Those chants are worse than just “divisive.” In any case the warning failed; the Boy Scouts cheered and booed on cue.

It seems the president had prepared a speech about letting “your scouting oath guide your path,” but his trademark asides and non sequiturs dominated the address. Here are Trump’s weird comments to his largely underage audience.

1. Trump starts off by marveling at the size of the crowd and attacking the press.
“Boy, you have a lot of people here. The press will say it’s about 200 people. [Laughter.] It looks like about 45,000 people. You set a record today. [Applause.] You set a record. That’s a great honor, believe me. Tonight we put aside all of the policy fights in Washington, D.C. — you’ve been hearing about that with the fake news and all of that. [Applause.] We’re going to put that aside. And instead we’re going to talk about success, about how all of you amazing young Scouts can achieve your dreams … I said, who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts, right?”

2. Trump calls our nation’s capital a “cesspool.” 
“You know, I go to Washington and I see all these politicians, and I see the swamp. And it’s not a good place. In fact, today, I said we ought to change it from the word swamp to the word cesspool, or perhaps, to the word sewer. But it’s not good. Not good.” [Applause.]

3. Trump boasts that ten members of his cabinet were Boy Scouts, then threatens to fire one of them.
“Secretary Tom Price is also here. Today Dr. Price still lives the Scout Oath, helping to keep millions of Americans strong and healthy as our Secretary of Health and Human Services. And he’s doing a great job. And hopefully, he’s going to get the votes tomorrow to start our path toward killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare that’s really hurting us, folks.”

[Applause. Crowd chants “USA! USA! USA!”]

Yep; it did. That’s the part that’s making me hate this country today: that that rich narcissistic pig stood up in front of 40 thousand Boy Scouts and called expanded health insurance “this harrible thing” – and they applauded and chanted. I hate this nightmare.

4. Trump says we need more “loyalty,” doesn’t explain what he’s referring to. 
“As the Scout Law says: ‘A Scout is trustworthy, loyal’ — we could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that.”

5. Trump marvels at the size of the crowd and attacks the “fake media” for refusing to show it (though CNN aired the speech).
“I’m waving to people back there so small I can’t even see them. Man, this is a lot of people. Turn those cameras back there, please. That is so incredible. By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible, massive crowd, record-setting is going to be shown on television tonight? One percent or zero? [Applause.] The fake media will say: President Trump — and you know what this is — President Trump spoke before a small crowd of Boy Scouts today. That’s some — that is some crowd. [Applause.] Fake media. Fake news. Thank you.”

6. Trump attacks his predecessor for failing to address the Boy Scouts (Obama sent a video message in 2010).
[Audience chants, “We love Trump! We love Trump! We love Trump!”]

“By the way, just a question, did President Obama ever come to a jamboree?”

[Audience shouts, “No!”]

“And we’ll be back. We’ll be back. The answer is no, but we’ll be back.”

There’s a lot more, including a long wandering story about rich men in New York and the wild parties on their yachts and what they get up to out there and not saying it to the Boy Scouts wink wink nudge grab them by the pussy wink nudge.

Nightmare, I tell you.

From Gnu Atheism with apologies to Tom Lehrer

Image may contain: one or more people, people standing and text

Be prepared!
If you are a Scout today.
Be prepared!
For what Trump might come and say.
Seems they couldn’t get a speaker from the Klan
So they got someone about to hit the fan.

Be prepared!
He does not need any notes
For a long
Diatribe about his votes.
Let him count the countless thousands who the press won’t say were there.
They’re the very few survivors of that dread Obamacare.
If you do not vote against it then be scared.
Be prepared!

Be prepared!
God and Christmas have come back.
Be prepared!
Even if belief you lack.
If you claim he’s not for freedom, that’s just spin,
“But if you do what we say” then ” you will win”.

Be prepared!
Be alert and be awake,
For the news
Has to praise him or it’s fake.
Even Fox, apart from Hannity, has had it up to here.
If you haven’t lost your sanity you know the end is near;
In his lying tweets he soon will be ensnared.
Be prepared!

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That’s how you do it

Jul 25th, 2017 7:22 am | By

Pete Souza posted this on Instagram today:

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Roosevelt used the occasion to talk about good citizenship

Jul 25th, 2017 6:23 am | By

The Post details how aberrant and wrong and narcissistic Trump’s speech to the Boy Scouts yesterday was.

For 80 years, American presidents have been speaking to the National Scout Jamboree, a gathering of tens of thousands of youngsters from around the world eager to absorb the ideas of service, citizenship and global diplomacy.

In keeping with the scouts’ traditions, all eight presidents and surrogates who have represented them have stayed far, far away from partisan politics.

I had assumed that, without knowing anything specific about it, because after all, it’s the Boy Scouts – it’s not a set of people you would expect to be interested in the minutiae of Donald Trump’s political biography and it’s also not a set of people you have any business assuming are political allies. That’s not how Trump played it though. He made it all about him, and he treated them as rabid Republicans.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the occasion to talk about good citizenship. Harry S. Truman extolled fellowship: “When you work and live together, and exchange ideas around the campfire, you get to know what the other fellow is like,” he said.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower invoked the “bonds of common purpose and common ideals.” And President George H.W. Bush spoke of “serving others.”

For a brief moment at this year’s jamboree in West Virgina, President Donald Trump indicated that he would follow that tradition — sort of.

“Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts?” he said.

It’s a miracle he didn’t tell them about his adventures in pussy grabbing.

Then, standing before all 40,000 of them, he bragged about the “record” crowd size, bashed President Barack Obama, criticized the “fake media” and trashed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In the lengthy 35-minute speech, the president threatened to fire his Health and Human Services Secretary if he couldn’t convince members of Congress to vote for the Republican health-care bill.

In short, he made a completely disgusting spectacle of himself.

At one point, he told a rambling story about a conversation he had at a New York cocktail party with a once-successful home builder who “lost his momentum.” The lesson, apparently: “You have to know whether or not you continue to have the momentum. And if you don’t have it, that’s OK.”

Throughout the address, Trump dropped in praise for “the moms and the dads and troop leaders” and thanked the scouts for upholding “the sacred values of our nation.”

And then quickly reverted to talking about himself and his political to-do list.

It was yet another example of Trump ignoring the custom that past presidents have dutifully observed in such public ceremonies. In his first full day in office, Trump bucked tradition at the CIA when he delivered a campaign-style speech in front of a memorial wall for fallen agency employees. In May, he used a commencement ceremony at the Coast Guard Academy to lament that he has been treated “more unfairly” than any other politician in history. And so it was at this year’s jamboree. Trump, who promised to be different than all the rest, was indeed just that, talking to the scouts in a way no president ever has.

His only interest is himself, and he’s so Theory of Mind-deficient that he thinks everyone shares that interest.

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He’s looking forward to it

Jul 25th, 2017 5:00 am | By

Oh, brilliant – now we’re expected to rejoice that War Hero With Glioblastoma Is Returning to the Senate to Vote on Urgent Matter – in fact to add his vote to the other Republican votes TO TAKE HEALTH INSURANCE AWAY FROM MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.

I hate this country right now. Hate it. Trump’s performance in front of the Boy Scouts yesterday has pushed me over the edge.

John McCain has excellent health insurance, because he’s a senator, and he’s coming back to vote to take it away from people who don’t have the good fortune to get health insurance from their employers.

It was just five days ago that John McCain, the longtime Arizona senator, two-time presidential candidate and perhaps America’s most famous prisoner of war, was diagnosed with a deadly form of brain cancer.

And yet, McCain is set to make a dramatic return to the U.S. Senate Tuesday for a key vote on health care.

“Look forward to returning to Senate tomorrow…,” McCain tweeted Monday night.

…to vote to take health insurance away from people who aren’t John McCain.

It will be a remarkable moment, to see this man, whom his daughter described poetically as a “warrior at dusk,” take his place again in the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” where he has represented his southwestern state for 30 years.

Oh yes, very remarkable; remarkable for how disgusting it is.

The GOP has not been able to gather the votes in the Senate — and that has started to really rankle President Trump. His irritation was evident during his appearance Monday at the Boy Scouts National Jamboree in West Virginia.

“As the scout law says, a scout is trustworthy, loyal,” Trump said. He added, “We could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that.”

Speaking of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, an Eagle Scout, he said, “Hopefully he’s going to gets the votes tomorrow to start our path toward killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare that’s really hurting us.”

Yeah, he did. I watched the clip where he said it. My brain woke me up at 3 a.m. replaying it. It’s why I hate this country right now – that hideous vision of a bloated rich man telling the fucking Boy Scouts how Harrible Obamacare is. Now I’m being told to marvel that a mortally ill rich man is returning to add his vote to the struggle to grab health insurance away from millions of people.

Before the Scouts, Trump wasn’t quite done yet: “He better get Senator Capito to vote for it. He better get the other senators to vote for it. It’s time.”

Sen. Capito is West Virginia Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, one of the holdouts on voting for what Republicans have so far proposed when it comes to health care. She’s one of a dozen or so senators who have not committed to even voting for the motion to proceed.

Nevermind that Boy Scouts is supposed to be an apolitical organization. The group put out a statement after the speech saying it does not endorse any candidate.

He thought they were the Hitler Youth. Pathetically, a lot of them acted as if they were – there was a great deal of cheering.

This is life at the bottom of the muck.

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Take it away

Jul 24th, 2017 4:01 pm | By

There’s precedent for this enraged determination to rescind a piece of legislation that does something to help the non-rich. Republicans now are trying hard to take health insurance away from millions of people who won’t be able to afford it. In 1936 they tried hard to take Social Security away.

The 1936 story, told in detail in Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s, “The Age of Roosevelt,” began in October when a group of Detroit industrialists worked out an anti-Social Security campaign that the Republican National Committee quickly adopted. Two weeks before the election, signs began appearing in plants with the message, “You’re sentenced to a weekly pay reduction for all your working life. You’ll have to serve the sentence unless you help reverse it November 3.” On opening their pay envelopes workers were told, “Effective January, 1937, we are compelled by a Roosevelt ‘New Deal’ law to make a 1 percent deduction from your wages and turn it over to the government. . . . You might get this money back . . . but only if Congress decides to make the appropriation for this purpose. There is NO guarantee. Decide before November 3—election day—whether or not you wish to take these chances.”

Nothing was said about the employers’ contributions to Social Security or how the system would really work, but as the election grew nearer, Republicans were sure that they had an issue that would undermine labor’s support for Roosevelt. Republican candidate Alf Landon, who in September had declared that Social Security was “unjust, unworkable, stupidly drafted, and wastefully financed,” upped the stakes still further by insisting the federal government had no way of keeping track of Social Security recipients. “Are their photographs going to be kept on file in a Washington office? Or are they going to have identification tags put around their necks?” he asked.

The attack on Social Security infuriated Roosevelt, and on October 31, in a campaign speech at Madison Square Garden, he took off the gloves. “Only desperate men with their backs to the wall would descend so far below the level of decent citizenship as to foster the current pay-envelope campaign against America’s working people,” the president declared. The Republican disinformation campaign against Social Security was, FDR believed very different from politics as usual. When his opponents implied that Social Security would be stolen from its intended recipients, they were, he argued, guilty of more than deceit. “They attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself,” the president declared.

Nicolaus Mills, Dissent

Roosevelt fought back. The election wasn’t close.

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A public relations campaign aimed at methodically strangling it

Jul 24th, 2017 3:14 pm | By

The Trump gang has been using money meant to promote Obamacare enrollment to campaign against it.

The Trump administration has spent taxpayer money meant to encourage enrollment in the Affordable Care Act on a public relations campaign aimed at methodically strangling it.

The effort, which involves a multi-pronged social media push as well as video testimonials designed at damaging public opinion of President Obama’s health care law, is far more robust and sustained than has been publicly revealed or realized.

The strategy has caught the eye of legal experts and Democrats in Congress, who have asked government agencies to investigate whether the administration has misused funds and engaged in covert propaganda in its efforts to damage and overturn the seven-year-old health care law. It’s also roiled Obama administration veterans, who argue that the current White House is not only abdicating its responsibilities to administer the law but sabotaging it in an effort to facilitate its undoing by Congress.

They’re just desperate to take health insurance away from millions of people. Desperate. Wetting their pants desperate.

“I’m on a daily basis horrified by leaders at the Department of Health and Human Services who seem intent on taking healthcare away from the constituents they are supposed to serve,” former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in an interview with The Daily Beast. “We always believed that delivering health and human services was the mission of the department. That seems to not be the mission of the current leadership.”

They want more people with no health insurance. That’s what they’re working overtime to get.

Under Secretary Tom Price’s stewardship, HHS has filmed and produced a series of testimonial videos featuring individuals claiming to have been harmed by Obamacare. Those “viral” videos have had decidedly limited reach, often gathering somewhere between 100 and 200 views each. But the Department has made a heavy investment in them nonetheless. To date, it has released 23 videos. A source familiar with the video production says that there have been nearly 30 interviews conducted in total, from which more than 130 videos have been produced.

…

Funding for those videos would come from the Department’s “consumer information and outreach” budget, which was previously used for the purposes of advertising the ACA and encouraging enrollment. The Trump administration has requested $574 million for this specific budget item, though HHS declined to detail how much it has devoted to specific line items. Two sources familiar with the videos say that HHS continues to draw money from the outreach fund, even though its objective has switched from promoting the ACA to highlighting the law’s critics and its shortcomings.

It’s “outreach” to get people to lose their health insurance. Eyes on the prize, folks.

Then there is Twitter. The official HHS account has become a clearinghouse for anti-Obamacare messaging. Since the Trump administration came into office, @HHSGov has mentioned “Obamacare” 13 specific times, 10 of which could be described as openly hostile of the law. Twice the account has re-tweeted Secretary Price’s own account when it has explicitly encouraged legislative efforts to undo Obamacare. The first was on May 4, when Price applauded the house for passing its bill, the American Health Care Act. The second came on June 5, when Price used the hashtag #RepealAndReplace.

Perhaps the most glaring efforts to publicly undermine the ACA, has come on the Department of Health and Human Service’s own website. In the Obama administration, this piece of online real estate featured direct links for consumers to apply for coverage and infographic breakdowns of the ACA’s benefits and critical dates. Since Trump was inaugurated, it has been retrofitted into an bulletin board for information critical of the law.

Currently, for example, the banner image on the site leads to a page explaining the ways in which the ACA “has done damage to this market and created great burdens for many Americans.”

Subtle changes have been made to the “About the ACA” section of the website as well that reflect the current administration’s hostility toward to the law.

  • * The “Plain Language Benefits” section has been scrapped as has the section on “ER Access & Doctor Choice.”
  • * Under the “pre-existing conditions” section, the Trump version has removed any mention of women no longer being able to be charged more than men for coverage.
  • * Under the “Young Adult Coverage” section, the Trump HHS site no longer notes that before the ACA insurance companies could have removed enrolled children at the age of 19.
  • * Mentions of the “Affordable Care Act” have been replaced with “current law.”
  • * And while the Obama HHS site had a section noting that the ACA forced insurance companies to provide “easy-to-understand” summaries of benefit and coverage packages, the Trump site has no such page.

They’re demons.

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The girls with internal injuries

Jul 24th, 2017 12:13 pm | By

Allison Pearson points out that porn is having some bad effects on girls.

I was having dinner with a group of women when the conversation moved onto how we could raise happy, well-balanced sons and daughters who are capable of forming meaningful relationships in an age when internet pornography is as freely available as a glass of water. Porn has changed the landscape of adolescence beyond all recognition. Like other parents of our generation, we were on a journey without maps or lights, although the instinct to protect our children from the darkness was overwhelming.

A couple of the women present said that they had forced themselves to have toe-curlingly embarrassing conversations with their teenagers on the subject. “I want my son to know that, despite what he might see on his laptop, there are things you don’t expect a girl to do on a first date, or a fifth date, or probably never,” said Jo.

A GP, let’s call her Sue, said: “I’m afraid things are much worse than people suspect.” In recent years, Sue had treated growing numbers of teenage girls with internal injuries caused by frequent anal sex; not, as Sue found out, because she wanted to, or because she enjoyed it – on the contrary – but because a boy expected her to.

And what boy expects boy gets.

There was stunned silence among the mothers around that dinner table, although I think some of us may have let out involuntary cries of dismay and disbelief.

For Sue’s surgery isn’t in some inner-city borough where kids may have been brutalised or come from cultures where such practices are commonly used as contraception. Sue works in the leafy heart of Hampshire. The girls presenting with incontinence were often under the age of consent and from loving, stable homes. Just the sort of kids who, only two generations ago, would have been enjoying riding and ballet lessons, and still looking forward to their first kiss, not being coerced into violent sex by some kid who picked up his ideas about physical intimacy from a dogging video on his mobile.

Oh that’s nothing – the other day Teen Vogue (which is aimed at teenage girls) had a piece on how to submit to anal sex.

The harm, of course, is not just physical. A study this week revealed that the number of schoolgirls at risk of emotional problems has risen sharply. Scientists for the Journal of Adolescent Health were surprised to see a 7 per cent spike in only five years among girls aged 11 to 13 reporting emotional issues. Boys remained fairly stable while girls faced “unique pressures”. Researchers said the causes could include the drive to achieve an unrealistic body shape, perpetuated by social media and an increasing sexualisation of young women.

But there’s always Ivanka to look up to and Gwyneth to sell us jade eggs.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 20 comments


The Prevezon case was settled for $6m with no admission of guilt

Jul 24th, 2017 11:21 am | By

Waaaaaait a second.

I’m not sure I’m reading this right.

The Guardian has a big investigative multi-author story on Russian money-laundering and Trumps and lawsuits and all that.

A Guardian investigation has established a series of overlapping ties and relationships involving alleged Russian money laundering, New York real estate deals and members of Trump’s inner circle. They include a 2015 sale of part of the old New York Times building in Manhattan involving Kushner and a billionaire real estate tycoon and diamond mogul, Lev Leviev.

Go on.

Leviev, a global tycoon known as the “king of diamonds”, was a business partner of the Russian-owned company Prevezon Holdings that was at the center of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit launched in New York. Under the leadership of US attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump in March, prosecutors pursued Prevezon for allegedly attempting to use Manhattan real estate deals to launder money stolen from the Russian treasury.

The scam had been uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant who died in 2009 in a Moscow jail in suspicious circumstances. US sanctions against Russia imposed after Magnitsky’s death were a central topic of conversation at the notorious Trump Tower meeting last June between Kushner, Donald Trump Jr, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin.

What? Kushner did this deal with Leviev in 2015, and Preet Bharara prosecuted Prevzon (linked to Leviev)?

Oh but it gets worse.

Two days before it was due to open in court in May, the Prevezon case was settled for $6m with no admission of guilt on the part of the defendants. But since details of the Trump Tower meeting emerged, the abrupt settlement of the Prevezon case has come under renewed scrutiny from congressional investigators.

May 6 this year.

Four Russians attended the meeting, led by Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer with known Kremlin connections who acted as legal counsel for Prevezon in the money laundering case and who called the $6m settlement so slight that “it seemed almost an apology from the government”. Sixteen Democratic members of the House judiciary committee have now written to the justice department in light of the Trump Tower meeting demanding to know whether there was any interference behind the decision to avoid trial.

Holy shit.

Question: was this meeting the meeting to settle the case? Or was it the meeting with Don 2 last year? It seems to mean the former, but it’s not crystal clear. If it is the former…jeeeeezus.

Constitutional experts are also demanding an official inquiry. “We need a full accounting by Trump’s justice department of the unexplained and frankly outrageous settlement that is likely to be just the tip of a vast financial iceberg,” said Laurence Tribe, Harvard University professor of constitutional law.

Stunning.

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Self-righteous display

Jul 24th, 2017 9:35 am | By

The latest in the Hypatia saga: the Associate Editors have circulated a new letter among the philosophers. Daily Nous shares it:

We, the members of the Board of Associate Editors of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, are deeply disappointed that the Editors and members of the journal’s nonprofit board have been unwilling to collaborate with us toward a constructive solution to the current crisis, utilizing the processes for reviewing and changing policies outlined within the journal’s approved governance documents. As scholars who highly value Hypatia and who have dedicated a great deal of time and energy to its success, we are troubled by the recent statements by the Editors and the nonprofit board (posted on Hypatia’s website and Daily Nous on July 20, 2017). We are sending this response to members of the feminist philosophy community who have leadership positions in various feminist associations and journals because we do not wish to fuel speculations and inaccurate and harmful narratives about Hypatia of the kind that have circulated widely on the internet since this crisis broke in April.

Collaborate. They’re disappointed – deeply disappointed – that the editors and the board don’t want to collaborate with them. How collaborative was their letter about Tuvel’s article? How collaborative was that (now removed) Facebook post? Not collaborative at all, that’s how collaborative. It was a horrifying thing to do to a junior colleague and a very destructive thing to do to Hypatia…and its editors and board. Why should they expect the editors and the board to collaborate with them now? It’s a bit Trumpian, this expectation of collaboration that runs only one way.

Also notice that oh so typical agent-free version of the saga: “since this crisis broke in April.” As if it were an unexpected volcanic eruption. They caused the damn crisis with their uncollaborative letter and post.

On Monday, July 17 the nonprofit board gave us an ultimatum of either resigning by noon on July 19 or they would suspend the journal’s governance documents and, thus, the authority of the Board of Associate Editors. At that time, the nonprofit board also informed us that they planned to make a public statement in which they would announce either our resignation or their suspension of the Journal’s governance documents, depending on our response to their ultimatum. They also informed us of the Editors’ impending resignation, retroactive to July 1. Their recent public statement claims that they have “temporarily” suspended our authority. Nonetheless, their unilateral decision is a de facto suspension of Hypatia’s governance documents and a firing of us.

We strongly disagree with several of the claims made in both the Editors’ and the nonprofit board’s public statements explaining this action. Throughout this controversy, we have been guided by commitments to excellence, academic integrity, and inclusiveness that have long informed Hypatia’s vision and have established it as a leading feminist philosophy journal. Additionally, we remain steadfast in our commitment to working within the letter and spirit of the journal’s current governance document that was approved in 2012 by Hypatia’s Editors, Associate Editors, and founding members of the nonprofit board. To this end, we have repeatedly requested that the Editors and the nonprofit board engage in a mediation process with us, facilitated by a feminist philosopher acceptable to all parties. Our aim in making this proposal was to initiate a collaborative process in which we could discuss our differences, identify common goals, and find a constructive way forward for the good of Hypatia. Much to our regret, the Editors and the non-profit board rebuffed these requests, maintaining that we are solely responsible for the controversy in ways that, in our view, systematically deflect attention from the substantial philosophical and methodological issues that we see as the heart of the matter. Despite our persistent requests for mediation, the nonprofit board stated their willingness to engage in mediation only after they had posted their public statement, suspended our authority, and, de facto, suspended the journal’s governance document. We find it untenable to participate in such a process on these terms.

Ah, yes, mediation. They want collaboration and they want mediation – after they wrote those poisonous attacks on Tuvel. I’ve seen that before. Two or three of the inquisitors at Freethought Blogs tried to make me agree to “mediation” at the same time they were writing long inquisitorial blog posts about me every other day. Nope.

We whole-heartedly endorse the COPE guidelines cited by the nonprofit board, and we regard Hypatia’s governance structure and guidelines as living documents that should be held open to revision in the face of new challenges. However, while we have stressed the importance of acting within the framework for policy review set out in the journal’s governance document in order to address the crisis, the nonprofit board has made it clear that they were prepared to set those guidelines aside, using the legal power they have as signators to the publishing contract with Wiley-Blackwell. Hypatia’s nonprofit board was formed in 2008 for the purpose of handling the financial matters of the journal and signing contracts with the publisher. Hypatia’s Board of Associate Editors has existed since the journal was established and is identified, both in Hypatia’s governance documents and in the nonprofit board’s own operating guidelines, as centrally responsible for reviewing and revising the journal’s policies and, more generally, for ensuring Hypatia’s continuity as a journal founded and sustained by a community of scholars rather than by a corporate institution. We continue to believe that the best prospects for meeting current challenges lie in working within this framework, not setting it aside.

We understand that feminist philosophers are divided in their opinions about the letter we posted in May. We would like to emphasize that our letter neither called for retraction nor impugned any individual actions on the part of the journal’s editors. Instead, our letter clearly stated that it is the journal’s review process, not a particular, individual execution of that process, that requires review. A commitment to undertake such a review would make it clear that we take seriously public critiques of the journal and would be necessary if Hypatia is to realize the ideals of inclusiveness that we highly value. We understand that our decision to issue the letter was unusual, and that some members of our community consider it an abdication of our responsibilities as Associate Editors. To those colleagues, we ask that you consider carefully the position we have held since we drafted that letter: that our duties as Associate Editors of the flagship journal of feminist philosophy include being responsive to the voices of members of historically marginalized groups who have found philosophy in general, and feminist philosophy in particular, indifferent and at times hostile to their contributions. 

We are greatly concerned that the most recent public statements from the Editors and the nonprofit board will deepen a split in the feminist philosophy community. It is our hope that, as a community, we will opt instead to respond by reflecting upon, and seeking to ameliorate, the various ways in which feminist philosophy has not yet lived up to its ethical commitment to transform itself, and philosophy as a whole, into a discipline that honors the perspectives and welcomes the scholarly contributions of historically marginalized groups, including people of color, trans* people, disabled people, and queer people. The current controversy did not begin with our letter; it is instead grounded in long-standing differences and tensions within the field. It is precisely our respect for Hypatia that informs our belief that what is at stake here is not only the continued existence and relevance of this particular journal, one that has done so much to establish feminist philosophy as a respected and valued scholarly field, but also the very identity and parameters of feminist philosophy itself. This is a pivotal moment in which we need to come together to ensure that our practices and scholarship are appropriately responsive to relevant work by those who are marginalized within the discipline of philosophy.

We deeply regret that the Editors and nonprofit board were unwilling to engage with us in systematically reflecting on these issues and collaboratively addressing their implications for Hypatia. The declaration by the nonprofit board that they are suspending our authority means that we cannot fulfill our duties as Associate Editors in accordance with the journal’s governance documents. Regrettably, we see no alternative but to resign from Hypatia’s Board of Associate Editors with this letter.

Linda Martín Alcoff, Ann Cahill, Kim Q. Hall, Kyoo Lee, Mariana Ortega, Ásta Sveinsdóttir, Alison Wylie, George Yancy

I think what the editors and the board were unwilling to engage with the Associate Editors in was not “systematically reflecting on these issues” but doing so via public letters and Facebook posts. In other words the Associate Editors attacked Tuvel and Hypatia publicly and unilaterally, and now reproaches the board of Hypatia for not wanting to continue with that game.

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Filters can be necessary

Jul 23rd, 2017 6:34 pm | By

This is annoying. Someone called Iona Italia wrote a post about Richard Dawkins’s de-platforming from a speaking event at radio KPFA in Berkeley. I think the de-platforming is rude and stupid and also shockingly under-justified by the people at KPFA, whose written explanation is about as cogent as a Trump tweet. But in writing about this Italia basically says it’s great that Richard is so rude. Yeah no – it’s not.

Dawkins has always been a man without a filter, who says exactly what he thinks, without worrying whether it might offend. This means that, in his public statements on politics, he occasionally sounds goofy or politically incorrect or voices a sentiment without considering how it will be interpreted by others. He’s no diplomat, no politician. But his frankness is one of his most important qualities, a manifestation of the passion his new book title alludes to, a passion for truth. He has real integrity: he always says what he believes to be true, unafraid of how it will be received. He sometimes admits he’s wrong and corrects himself but he never self-censors in advance. He always speaks truth to power.

Excuse me but that is crap. He does not always speak truth to power – he very often speaks belligerently and rudely to people with no power, and he very often does it for no reason of principle but just because he gets impatient and/or he is indignant at being contradicted…much like Trump.

And this business of having no filter and saying whatever one thinks without worrying whether it might offend is – obviously – far from always a virtue. Yes it’s often useful to shock the respectable, yes it’s often a good thing to shake up conventions; that does not mean it’s always awesome to blurt whatever pops into your head and then shout at anyone who talks back. There’s being a rebel and there’s being an asshole, and it’s just not the case that Richard is always the first and never the second.

I wish people made this distinction more often.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 5 comments


At least Loud Obbs thinks he’s doing a good job

Jul 23rd, 2017 5:40 pm | By

Aw poor Donald. He’s cracking. For the first time he’s letting us know it hurts.

As if the laughter of the Russians were our fault and not his.

Aw. If he weren’t such a sadistic monster, I might feel a little sorry for him at that. But he is, so I don’t. He’s earned his feelings of abandonment by being such a terrible human being and head of state.

No, the sad thing is that Republicans so far have not done anything to stop him or slow him down.

And every story is bad because…?

Blah blah, blurt blurt. He’s watching Fox with his phone in his hand.

That’s just pathetic.

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He can’t, unless he can

Jul 23rd, 2017 5:10 pm | By

On Friday the Post ran an editorial by Laurence Tribe, Richard Painter, and Norm Eisen, titled No, Trump can’t pardon himself. The Constitution tells us so.

Can a president pardon himself? Four days before Richard Nixon resigned, his own Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel opined no, citing “the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case.” We agree.

The Justice Department was right that guidance could be found in the enduring principles that no one can be both the judge and the defendant in the same matter, and that no one is above the law.

The Constitution specifically bars the president from using the pardon power to prevent his own impeachment and removal. It adds that any official removed through impeachment remains fully subject to criminal prosecution. That provision would make no sense if the president could pardon himself.

But Trump doesn’t care what makes sense and what doesn’t, so could he and his people just go ahead and do it anyway? Is there anyone who can stop him who would stop him? Millions of people would if they could, but among people who actually can, I don’t know what the numbers are.

President Trump thinks he can do a lot of things just because he is president. He says that the president can act as if he has no conflicts of interest. He says that he can fire the FBI director for any reason he wants (and he admitted to the most outrageous of reasons in interviews and in discussionwith the Russian ambassador). In one sense, Trump is right — he can do all of these things, although there will be legal repercussions if he does. Using official powers for corrupt purposes — such as impeding or obstructing an investigation — can constitute a crime.

But there is one thing we know that Trump cannot do — without being a first in all of human history. He cannot pardon himself.

He would love to be a first in all of human history.

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