Tag: Trump

  • A remarkable rebuke of a sitting president

    I tolja this was serious biz. I tolja he’d get in trouble. He’s getting in trouble.

    The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement.

    Mr. Comey, who made the request on Saturday after Mr. Trump leveled his allegation on Twitter, has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down the claim because it falsely insinuates that the F.B.I. broke the law, the officials said.

    Not because it’s an obvious lie about Obama, but whatever.

    Mr. Comey’s request is a remarkable rebuke of a sitting president, putting the nation’s top law enforcement official in the position of questioning Mr. Trump’s truthfulness. The confrontation between the two is the most serious consequence of Mr. Trump’s weekend Twitter outburst, and it underscores the dangers of what the president and his aides have unleashed by accusing the former president of a conspiracy to undermine Mr. Trump’s young administration.

    Too bad Comey helped him get elected then isn’t it.

    The White House showed no indication that it would back down from Mr. Trump’s claims. On Sunday, the president demanded a congressional inquiry into whether Mr. Obama had abused the power of federal law enforcement agencies before the 2016 presidential election. In a statement from his spokesman, Mr. Trump called “reports” about the wiretapping “very troubling” and said that Congress should examine them as part of its investigations into Russia’s meddling in the election.

    Yeah, Donnie, and while you’re at it tell them to look into Obama’s birth certificate, and also that DNA evidence that exonerated the Central Park 5.

    Mr. Comey’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering is certain to invite contrasts to his actions last year, when he spoke publicly about the Hillary Clinton email case and disregarded Justice Department entreaties not to.

    Well yes. I do wonder about those contrasts.

    The claims about wiretapping appear similar in some ways to the unfounded voter fraud charges that Mr. Trump made during his first days in the Oval Office. Just after Inauguration Day, he reiterated in a series of Twitter posts his belief that millions of voters had cast ballots illegally — claims that also appeared to be based on conspiracy theories from right-wing websites.

    As with his demand for a wiretapping inquiry, Mr. Trump also called for a “major investigation” into voter fraud, saying on Twitter that “depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!” No investigation has been started.

    I know what the resemblance is. It’s that in both cases he’s making shit up. It’s that in both cases he’s completely reckless about making large claims that could have huge impacts without due diligence. It’s that in both cases he seems to have no clue whatsoever how to go about questioning or testing or investigating claims; he seems to have no clue that that’s even necessary.

    He’s hopelessly dense and hopelessly unwilling to learn.

  • It shows this president doesn’t know how to conduct himself

    Clapper on the other hand has flatly denied it. He says he would have known if it had happened and it didn’t happen. President Liar is lying.

    Speaking on NBC News on Sunday morning, former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., who served in that post in the Obama administration, denied that a wiretap was authorized against Trump or his campaign during his tenure.

    “There was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time as a candidate or against his campaign,” Clapper said on “Meet the Press.”

    He added that he would “absolutely” have been informed if the FBI had sought or received a warrant to wiretap Trump or his campaign.

    “I can deny it,” Clapper continued.

    President Liar doesn’t get to just make shit up and then demand investigations of the shit he just made up. He’s not a dictator. He thinks he is, but he isn’t; not yet.

    The unusual and blunt on-the-record statement came shortly after the White House issued a statement doubling down on the explosive accusations Trump leveled against Obama on Twitter on Saturday.

    The explosive accusations based on nothing.

    Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said he is not aware of evidence to back up the president’s claim.

    “I have no insight into exactly what he’s referring to,” Rubio said on “Meet the Press.” “The president put that out there, and now the White House will have to answer for exactly what he was referring to.”

    Obama’s allies were more blunt, denying flatly that the former president had ordered a wiretap of Trump’s campaign.

    “This may come as a surprise to the current occupant of the Oval Office, but the president of the United States does not have the authority to unilaterally order the wiretapping of American citizens,” said former Obama White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

    Wouldn’t it be a relief if the current occupant of the Oval Office had even that much knowledge of what said occupant can and cannot do? Wouldn’t you think he would have studied it up a little before moving in?

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told “Meet the Press” that Trump is “in trouble” and acting “beneath the dignity of the presidency.”

    “The president’s in trouble if he falsely spread this kind of information,” Schumer said. “It shows this president doesn’t know how to conduct himself.”

    It shows it for the 80 thousandth time.

  • The greatest overreach and the greatest abuse of power

    Yesterday it was wild bullshit based-on-nothing claims screamed on Twitter at dawn, today it’s solemn demands for Congressional investigation. No doubt tomorrow it will be Republicans solemnly announcing that investigation. This isn’t a government, it’s a clown car.

    President Trump, a day after leveling a widely disputed allegation that President Barack Obama had ordered the tapping of his phones, on Sunday demanded a congressional inquiry into whether Mr. Obama abused the power of federal law enforcement agencies before the 2016 presidential election.

    In a statement from his spokesman, Mr. Trump called “reports” about the wiretapping “very troubling” and said that Congress should examine them as part of its investigations into Russia’s meddling in the election.

    But there are no such “reports.” There are people saying. The people saying are just saying. Assertions are not the same thing as reports, and it’s not reasonable for Congress to investigate every assertion that someone on Fox News decides to throw out there. The money spent on that could be better spent on foreign aid or clean water.

    A spokesman for Mr. Obama and his former aides have called the accusation by Mr. Trump completely false, saying that Mr. Obama never ordered any wiretapping of a United States citizen.

    “A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” Kevin Lewis, Mr. Obama’s spokesman, said in a statement on Saturday.

    Obama’s a lawyer and has respect for the law. Trump’s a fraudulent real estate hustler, and has contempt for the law.

    On Sunday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary, said the president was determined to find out what had really happened, calling it potentially the “greatest abuse of power” that the country has ever seen.

    “Look, I think he’s going off of information that he’s seen that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential,” Ms. Sanders said on ABC’s “This Week” program. “And if it is, this is the greatest overreach and the greatest abuse of power that I think we have ever seen and a huge attack on democracy itself. And the American people have a right to know if this took place.”

    By “information he’s seen” she means people barfing it out on Fox and Breitbart. That doesn’t count. Presidents can’t be demanding investigations on the basis of what they saw on Fox News this morning. That’s not how any of this works.

  • A civilization-warping crisis of public trust

    Trump’s frothing at the mouth claims this morning don’t seem to be going over all that well so far.

    The president, who regularly has access to classified information and intelligence briefings, relied on Breitbart News for his information about the alleged wiretap, according to the person.

    Breitbart, the media outlet previously run by White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, published a story Friday outlining actions supposedly taken by the Obama administration to monitor Trump Tower in New York during the campaign. The story, which claimed the moves were aimed at undermining Trump’s candidacy, referenced commentary on Thursday by radio host Mark Levin that made similar claims.

    Neither Breitbart News nor Levin cited independent reporting to back up the assertions.

    But Mark Levin said it. Isn’t that all that’s required? Somebody else saying it?

    “A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for Obama, said in an emailed statement on Saturday. “As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”

    Ben Rhodes, Obama’s former deputy national security adviser, also denied Trump’s claims on Saturday. “No President can order a wiretap,” Rhodes wrote on Twitter in a response back to Trump. “Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you.”

    I would like more protection from people like Trump, and most especially from Trump.

    Trump’s flurry of tweets sparked further concern by some in Congress, who called on the president to be more forthcoming about his wiretapping accusations.

    Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican who has been a Trump critic, said Saturday that Trump’s allegations suggest that even if Obama wasn’t involved, a court may have seen sufficient evidence to authorize a wiretap — a potentially groundbreaking development.

    Ah. That would be interesting. President Bonehead lets us all know that Intelligence people may have evidence he’s been up to no good.

    Any legal wiretapping would have been initiated by intelligence agencies, with court approval required under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. According to federal law, a FISA court approving a wiretap of Trump’s home or offices would have had to find probable cause that the facility was being used on behalf of a foreign power, or that Trump’s associates were involved in espionage.

    Such a wiretap could have been obtained without Obama’s involvement, if intelligence agencies determined — and got a court to agree — that Trump or his associates were acting on behalf of a foreign government. Trump has denied colluding with Russia, saying he has no links to the country.

    “If it was with a legal FISA court order, then an application for surveillance exists that the court found credible,” Sasse said in a statement. “The president should ask that this full application regarding surveillance of foreign operatives be made available.”

    The U.S. is “in the midst of a civilization-warping crisis of public trust, and the president’s allegations today demand the thorough and dispassionate attention of serious patriots,” Sasse said.

    Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence committee, said Trump had “no evidence” to support his “spectacularly reckless” claims.

    “No matter how much we hope and pray that this President will grow into one who respects and understands the Constitution, separation of powers, role of a free press, responsibilities as the leader of the free world, or demonstrates even the most basic regard for the truth, we must now accept that President Trump will never become that man,” Schiff said in a statement.

    He seems to be heading very determinedly in the opposite direction.

  • Good-bye salmon

    The man is scum.

    The Trump administration has proposed cutting federal funding for restoring Puget Sound by 93 percent.

    For the fiscal year ending this June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has spent $28 million on Puget Sound restoration and monitoring. It has channeled those funds through tribes, nonprofits and local governments, which carry out the on-the-ground work.

    Next year, that would drop to $2 million under the White House proposal revealed this week.

    I wonder how much salmon he and his wives and children and in-laws eat. I wonder where he thinks salmon comes from.

    Many other EPA programs would be reduced or eliminated. Overall, the agency’s funding would drop from to $6.16 billion next year from $8.24 billion this fiscal year. (That’s down from a 2010 high of $10.3 billion).

    One-fifth of the agency’s 15,000 jobs would be eliminated within a year.

    …

    Programs to clean up major water bodies were hard hit: The Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay would also lose more than 90 percent of their EPA funding; cleanup funds for San Francisco Bay and Long Island Sound would be eliminated.

    EPA’s environmental justice and climate protection programs would be cut by more than two-thirds.

    While Trump gets richer every day.

  • It could have come from anywhere

    Politico gives a little snapshot of life as a presidential staffer.

    In other phone conversations with several people over the last 48 hours, the image-conscious Trump has spoken more generally about his frustrations with his administration – and the perceptions surrounding it. “He’s tired of everyone thinking his presidency is screwed up,” said one person who spoke to him.

    After the meeting, Trump left for Florida, where he spoke at a Republican National Committee meeting on Friday evening. On Saturday morning, he sent out a number of tweets, some of which accused former President Barack Obama of tapping Trump Tower phone lines during the final days of the 2016 election, without citing evidence.

    Way to make everyone stop thinking his presidency is screwed up!

    One White House official said he woke up Saturday morning to Trump’s tweets and grimaced. It was unclear, this person said, where the president had gotten the idea, but that it likely wasn’t from an official source. “It could have come from anywhere,” this person said.

    Several other people close to Trump said they weren’t sure where he got his information for the posts. One of these people said most of Trump’s aides were back in Washington and woke up exasperated at the posts.

    After making the explosive claims – and trashing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s TV ratings – in the Twitter rant, the president headed to the golf course near his Mar-a-Lago resort.

    Image result for trump golf

  • Born amid the fever swamps of the far right

    Chris Cillizza at the Post looks at Trump’s raving paranoia.

    Donald Trump’s political career was born amid the fever swamps of the far right. He seized on a favorite conspiracy theory bubbling there — that then-President Barack Obama was not, in fact, born in the United States and therefore was an illegitimate president — to boost his profile in national politics.

    That boost eventually led to his 2016 candidacy. That candidacy led to President Trump. But what never changed is Trump’s roots in the conspiracy theory world.

    That makes sense in a way. Trump is a remarkably empty, unthinking, incurious, ignorant guy. Conspiracy theory is attractive to people with those deficits, because it’s a Story, and a Story is all it is. Shiny! It doesn’t require thought or rich information, and in fact it flourishes in their absence.

    There is, as you probably already guessed, no detail about the alleged wiretapping included in any of the Trump tweets. Trump’s tweets appear to trace back to an article Friday on Breitbart News headlined “Mark Levin to Congress: Investigate Obama’s ‘Silent Coup’ vs. Trump.” That article, based heavily on conservative talk radio host Levin’s views, suggest the Obama administration conducted a “silent coup” to keep Trump from the presidency.

    Here’s the key paragraph:

    In summary: the Obama administration sought, and eventually obtained, authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign; continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government, virtually ensuring that the information, including the conversations of private citizens, would be leaked to the media.

    The problem here, of course, is that what Levin — and Breitbart — use as evidence for these claims are a series of seemingly unconnected events — from FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court requests to Trump joking about the Russia email hack, to the release of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails in the fall. The proof that all — or any — of these events are tied together by actual facts as opposed to supposition is not offered.

    But for Trump that’s fine – supposition is good enough for him, because he’s just that empty and mindless.

    Here’s the thing: Conspiracy theorists see everything as connected. If you doubt them, well of course you do because you’re in on it. That’s not the standard that we can have for the president of the United States. Proof is required.

    The ball is in Trump’s court. Short of convincing evidence to back up the wiretapping claims, the conspiracy-theory candidate has become the conspiracy-theory president.

    And he has the nuclear codes. This just won’t do.

  • Sources

    The Post suggests what may have inspired Trump’s deranged tweets announcing that Obama wire tapped him.

    Trump offered no citations nor did he point to any credible news report to back up his accusation, but he may have been referring to commentary on Breitbart and conservative talk radio suggesting that Obama and his administration used “police state” tactics last fall to monitor the Trump team. The Breitbart story, published Friday, has been circulating among Trump’s senior staff, according to a White House official who described it as a useful catalogue of the Obama administration’s activities.

    And on the basis of that he makes libelous assertions on Twitter. He skips intelligence briefings, and demands that what intel he does read be kept very short, and instead he relies on right-wing media with minimal ethical standards for his “information.”

    Some current and former intelligence officials cast doubt on Trump’s assertion.

    “It’s highly unlikely there was a wiretap,” said one former senior intelligence official familiar with surveillance law who spoke candidly on the condition of anonymity. The former official continued: “It seems unthinkable. If that were the case by some chance, that means that a federal judge would have found that there was either probable cause that he had committed a crime or was an agent of a foreign power.”

    A wiretap cannot be directed at a U.S. facility, the official said, without finding probable cause that the phone lines or Internet addresses were being used by agents of a foreign power — or by someone spying for or acting on behalf of a foreign government. “You can’t just go around and tap buildings,” the official said.

    And you can’t just go around and accuse people of wire-tapping your building on the basis of nothing, either, but Trump thinks rules don’t apply to him.

  • Is it legal for a sitting President to be out of his tree?

    So…everybody around him must be thinking it’s all over, right? He’s too mentally unstable to have the [shudder] nuclear codes?

    That was 6:30 a.m. at Taco Del Mar, so he probably hadn’t “just found out” anything, let alone that. No, I don’t believe that his staff sit up all night finding out stuff so that they can tell him it at six in the morning when he’s off resting his signing arm at the golf resort.

    Then, two hours later, he got back to the serious business.

    So it’s official now that he’s fucking batshit crazy, right? The kind of crazy that could decide to order the nukes on a whim at any moment?

  • He could have stated his response more accurately

    Childe Donald is back on Twitter.

    Brian Williams on MSNBC had a good time last night pointing out that Trump is saying Sessions committed perjury there.

    Brian William explained that any lawyer would tell Trump to shut up.

    Trump has never been within sight of reality.

    Remember when presidents used to try to act like adults, at least a little bit?

    So pathetic. Totally, dude. So pathetic I can’t even.

    Oh god the tiny fist. How I hate the tiny fist.

  • Don’t need no stinkin ethics training

    We could tell:

    President Donald Trump’s team rejected a course for senior White House staff, Cabinet nominees and other political appointees that would have provided training on leadership, ethics and management, according to documents obtained by POLITICO.

    I guess they were too busy watching Fox News and playing golf.

    The documents suggest the program could have better prepared officials for working within existing laws and executive orders, and provided guidance on how to navigate Senate confirmation for nominees and political appointees, how to deal with congressional and media scrutiny, and how to work with Congress and collaborate with agencies — some of the same issues that have become major stumbling blocks in the early days of the administration.

    But the contract was never awarded because after the election the transition team shifted its priorities, according to a letter the General Services Administration sent to bidders such as the Partnership for Public Service. The program was expected to cost $1 million, the documents show. The contract-based training program was authorized in 2000, and the Obama and Bush transitions both received the training.

    But Trump has the most scorching case of Dunning-Kruger in the history of the world, so naturally he assumes he knows everything already. Why learn anything when you’re already the smartest and most informed guy in the world?

    The Trump team has said it was determined not to spend all of its transition funds, and it returned millions to the government. To some Republicans, the program could be seen as wasteful.

    Oh for christ’s sake. Penny wise pound foolish, people! Ethics training is not the place to scrimp, especially in the case of Trump & Gang.

    The lack of training likely fueled a series of early missteps in the presidency, as aides fired off executive orders and new rules without briefing Congress or their peers at agencies.

    “It looks like a good program, and I wish they had implemented it,” said Norm Eisen, a White House ethics lawyer in the Obama administration who now leads the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It might have spared them the numerous ethics and other messes they have encountered.”

    But noooooooooooooo, because they know better than everybody.

  • It is an ugly, ugly phrase

    David Remnick and Evan Osnos were on Fresh Air yesterday. I know Remnick as the editor of the New Yorker, and a frequent editorialist there; I’d forgotten, if I ever knew, that he used to be Moscow correspondent for the Washington Post. The two of them and a third author, Josh Yoffa, wrote an article about Trump, Putin and the new Cold War. It was a very meaty – informative – interview.

    They wrote the article to explore why Russia messed with the election.

    DAVID REMNICK: Well, I think that goes to your first question about what we found out. Well, a lot of this article is not just about the what, the what happened. It’s the why. The why goes back a – fully a generation in politics and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union not as a liberation, not as the oncoming of freedom of the press and assembly and religion and all these things, and – and yippee, all the republics get to go their own way. That’s not the way he experienced it at all.

    This is a KGB agent who was in East Germany and experienced the end of the Soviet Union as the loss of empire, the way someone in the Ottoman Empire – a servant of the Ottoman Empire would have that kind of tragic sense of loss of empire.

    Or as Churchill and others did about “losing” India…which of course wasn’t theirs to “lose,” but they didn’t see it that way, just as Putin and co didn’t see it that way.

    The Russians didn’t expect Trump to win, and were overjoyed when he did, and now…they’re not so sure. (Yeah we’ve had that. The Shah? That turned out to be not such a brilliant idea. Also the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. And so on.)

    Toward the end of the show they talked about Trump and the press.

    GROSS: Let’s look at what’s happening to the press under President Trump. Trump tweets a lot about the press. On February 17, he tweeted (reading) the fake news media, failing New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS, CNN, is not my enemy. It is the enemy of the American people.

    REMNICK: Yeah, what a phrase, the enemy of the people.

    GROSS: Yeah, I know. That goes back to Stalin, right?

    OSNOS: I recognize that from somewhere.

    Then Remnick became impassioned:

    REMNICK: Well, it goes back to Robespierre. It is an ugly, ugly phrase. I don’t know how self-aware Donald Trump is of that kind of phrase. I guarantee you Steve Bannon knows what enemy of the people means. Stalin used it to keep people terrified. If you were branded a vrag naroda, an enemy of the people, you could guarantee that very soon there would be a knock in the middle of the night at your door and your fate would be horrific.

    To hear that kind of language directed at the American press is an emergency. It’s an emergency. It’s not a political tactic. And if it’s a political tactic, it’s a horrific one. And that needs to be resisted not just by people like me who are, you know, editors or writers but all of us. This is part of what distinguishes American democracy. And it’s untenable, immoral and anti-American.

    Emphasis added, but it’s there in his voice, I assure you. They don’t include emphasis in the transcripts.

    GROSS: So you just said that you’re not sure whether Donald Trump knows the pedigree of that expression enemy of the people, but you’re sure Steve Bannon does. So I’m wondering since this is…

    REMNICK: That doesn’t excuse Trump at all.

    GROSS: No, no, but I’m wondering since you’re implying here that Bannon probably knows that this is a word that was used by Stalin and that had very grave implications when it was used in the Stalinist era, what do you know about any either connections that Bannon has to Russia or about the influence of Russia on Bannon just as…

    REMNICK: I know zero about that, nothing. And it’s been important for journalists to say when they don’t know things, too.

    GROSS: Absolutely.

    REMNICK: But I think it’s important to point out that right now you and I are having and have been having a free discussion. I’m going to go back to my office, and I will publish website and the magazine this week without any government interference. In fact, without any interference of the owners of The New Yorker. That is as close to an ideal situation as possible, and it obtains to this day. And to have people thrown out of the White House press pool for a day or even for a while does not mean the end of the press.

    But it is a very ominous circumstance when the president of the United States uses this kind of language because, quite frankly, and it’s been pointed out more than once, it’s the kind of language that autocrats use in the beginning. And where it will go, we don’t know yet. But he is obviously – this is beyond dog whistles. He is signaling to the base that your enemy, your enemy is those people.

    That’s how autocrats behave. They create an other. Whether it’s the press, whether it’s ethnic or otherwise, it’s the creation of an other. And I find it – I just, you know, it has to be stood up against.

    Yes.

    GROSS: So, David, this is a question for you. It strikes me that The New Yorker has become more overtly political in terms of the covers. The covers have become more political. A lot of the investigations are political. You wrote something that I think may be unprecedented in The New Yorker, which is after Donald Trump was elected, you wrote an editorial saying the election of Donald Trump to the presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution and a triumph for the forces at home and abroad of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny and racism.

    REMNICK: I wish I were wrong on every point. I hope to be wrong on every point. I mean, my hope for my country is much greater than my desire to be right in the moment. That was written on election night. And I wish that every moment in the transition, in the first month of the presidency had proved me wrong.

    But it didn’t. It’s where we are. We’re in new territory, and it’s not good territory.

  • A renaissance for filthy water

    They want dirty water. “Restore dirty water!” they cry.

    President Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday aimed at rolling back one of former President Barack Obama’s major environmental regulations to protect American waterways, but it will have almost no immediate legal effect, according to two people familiar with the White House plans.

    The order will essentially give Mr. Trump a megaphone to direct his new Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, to begin the complicated legal process of rewriting the sweeping 2015 rule known as Waters of the United States. But that effort could take longer than a single presidential term, legal experts said.

    But at least they’re getting started on doing away with that pesky clean water that nobody wants.

    Mr. Pruitt, who was confirmed by the Senate to his new position this month, is expected to enthusiastically dive in to the lengthy task of undoing major environmental rules on clean water, climate change and air pollution. In his former job as attorney general of Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt led or took part in 14 lawsuits intended to block the E.P.A.’s major regulations, including the clean water and climate rules that he is now charged with dismantling.

    Speaking over the weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Mr. Pruitt told an audience, to applause, “I think there are some regulations that in the near term need to be rolled back in a very aggressive way,” and he said those rollbacks would probably begin this week.

    The clean water rule, completed by the Obama administration in spring 2015, was issued under the 1972 Clean Water Act. It gives the federal government broad authority to limit pollution in major bodies of water, like Chesapeake Bay, the Mississippi River and Puget Sound, as well as in streams and wetlands that drain into those larger waters.

    A stirring ambition, undoing all that.

    The Obama administration’s water rule, put forth jointly by the E.P.A. and the Army Corps of Engineers, was intended to clarify that authority, allowing the government to once again limit pollution in those smaller bodies of water. Environmentalists have praised the rule, calling it an important step that will lead to significantly cleaner natural bodies of water and healthier drinking water.

    But it has come under fierce attack from farmers, property developers, fertilizer and pesticide makers, oil and gas producers, golf-course owners and other business interests that contend that it will stifle economic growth and intrude on property owners’ rights.

    Well you can see their point. Rivers and streams are so handy for sluicing away agricultural runoff, pesticides, motor oil – you name it, rivers whisk it away.

  • He merely pirouetted

    John Cassidy at the New Yorker also somehow managed not to be so overwhelmed by Trump’s ability to read a speech aloud that he took that to be A New And Better Trump.

    If there was anything fresh about what Trump said to Congress, it was largely stylistic. He didn’t pivot; he merely pirouetted, and then he dug into the same political ground he has already claimed.

    About all that happened was that Trump, perhaps feeling saddled by low approval ratings, caved to the normal conventions of political communication. These rules dictate that, on august occasions such as a speech to Congress, Presidents talk politely and try to avoid giving offense. They leaven the heavy fare they are bearing with moments of optimism and humanity, promise the viewers some goodies, and offer up some notes of inclusion. Trump did all these things, and he even deployed some uplifting prose. If his Inauguration speech sounded like it had been written by Steve Bannon suffering from a migraine, Tuesday’s appeared to have been the work of a professional speechwriter.

    And all that is just normal, not to say minimal. It’s not remotely a reason to decide Trump is not the malevolent bullying ignoramus he seemed on Tuesday afternoon. Trump is still that malevolent bullying ignoramus with the undisclosed tax returns.

    This tone was markedly different from the one Trump had struck as recently as last week, at the cpac conference, and the television pundits swallowed it whole. In substantive terms, however, Trump didn’t give an inch, or even a millimetre. The soft opening quickly transitioned into a reiteration of Trump’s harsh “America First” agenda, and once he got there his language got considerably darker.

    Take immigration, an issue to which Trump returned repeatedly on Tuesday. After pointing out that he has already ordered the rounding up and deportation of large numbers of undocumented aliens, he boasted, “Bad ones are going out as I speak.” Further promoting the myth that America is bedevilled by an immigrant crime wave, he said that he had ordered the Department of Homeland Security to set up a new office to support the victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants.

    Now why would he do that? Because it’s a chance to foment hatred against a powerless set of Others. He likes that kind of thing. What does that say about him? That he’s a terrible human being. His ability to read a speech aloud doesn’t alter that.

    As Will Wilkinson, the policy analyst and blogger, pointed out during the speech, “The point of Trump’s lies is to create a widespread sense that an open, pluralistic, multicultural society is dangerous.” To justify his many illiberal proposals, as well as his authoritarian instincts, Trump needs to persuade people that everything is going to hell, and that only he can save things. Nowhere in his speech did he depart from this doleful and deceptive script.

    What would Trump want with pluralism? He doesn’t admire anyone or anything except himself, so pluralism is never going to be his kind of thing.

  • Oh, this changes everything

    NPR, predictably, takes the bait.

    Donald Trump’s first speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night was the occasion for his most presidential performance to date, balancing a reprise of his angry campaign themes with a recitation of hopes and dreams for the nation.

    It was his most successful, if not his first, effort at assuming the public persona and personal demeanor associated with his new office. He stuck to the script on his teleprompter, spoke graciously to individuals in the audience and refrained from attacks on critics, rivals or adversaries.

    In other words it was his least worst performance so far – but that’s a very low hurdle. He for once didn’t act like an angry toddler; big deal.

    The president began with words of condemnation for the hate crimes lately unleashed on religious and ethnic minorities around the country, including the fatal shooting of an immigrant from India in a suburb of Kansas City.

    “Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms.”

    It’s good that he mentioned them, very belatedly, but again that’s a low hurdle – but even more, how dare he claim that we are “a country that stands united in condemning hate” when he spent the last two years doing everything he could to stoke and foment and inflame hate? How fucking dare he.

    The president, however, did not respond to critics who say these recent acts have been encouraged by some of his own rhetoric or apparent signs of disrespect for targeted groups. Rather, he turned to strikingly poetic sentiments.

    Fuck poetic sentiments. He has speechwriters; we know that. He incites hatred and he himself persecutes some of the groups he targets for hatred.

    The success of the big speech strategy seemed immediately apparent. Media coverage was largely positive, even laudatory. Snap polls showed big majorities found the speech optimistic and uplifting. The president’s approval rating, which had been at historic lows for a president in his first month in office, is expected to pop back up in the next few soundings.

    I hope people are not that stupid.

    There was the monstrous thing Trump said to the war widow:

    Carryn Owens was honored by a standing ovation by everyone visible in the vast House chamber, regardless of party or position. She wept openly, clasped her hands and looked upward as the ovation continued for several minutes. When it finally subsided, the president said, “Ryan is looking down right now and he’s happy because I think you broke a record.”

    Huh. So Ryan is dead, and his widow is unhappy, but it’s cool because he’s actually just perched up there “looking down” and feeling awesome about the applause his widow got for crying because he’s dead. So he’s not dead and she has nothing to cry about so what was the standing ovation about?

    Meanwhile Trump is still Trump. The fact that he can read a speech doesn’t change that.

  • We’re not allowed to punch back anymore

    My Freethinker column.

    Barry Duke illustrated it with cartoons, including this very pointed one by Matt Bors:

    Matt Bors

  • In a light, off-hand manner

    Meanwhile back at the ordinary everyday White House – they’re still confused (or, more likely, pretending they’re confused). They think corruption is all about intent.

    President Trump’s top adviser, Kellyanne Conway, acted “without nefarious motive” when she promoted Ivanka Trump’s clothing line during an interview last month, the White House said.
    CNNMoney reported Wednesday that a letter from the White House to the Office of Government Ethics said a White House lawyer met with Conway to discuss the rules regarding endorsements by government employees.

    “Upon completion of our inquiry, we concluded that Ms. Conway acted inadvertently and is highly unlikely to do so again,” says the letter, signed by Stefan C. Passantino, a White House deputy counsel for compliance and ethics, according to CNN.

    “It is noted that Ms. Conway made the statement in question in a light, off-hand manner while attempting to stand up for a person she believed had been unfairly treated and did so without nefarious motive or intent to benefit personally.”

    The letter did not note any plans for disciplinary action against Conway.

    Sigh.

    That is not the issue. “She meant well.” “She was just standing up for poor dear Ivanka.” “She was just joking around.” It’s time for the White House people to grow up now. This is not school, it’s the grownup outside world where people have to follow certain rules, including job-related rules. Nobody cares what their mood was when they flouted the rules.

    Presidents are forbidden to use their presidency to put extra money in their pockets. This naturally includes promoting their products on television, which naturally includes allowing their staff to promote their products on television. It doesn’t matter if they do it “without nefarious motive”; it matters only if they do it. They are not allowed to do it. Corruption is a no-no. I don’t know how much simpler it’s possible to make it.

  • Give Trump a chance (jk)

    I hear Trump did a talk last night, and did a fair job of reading the script. I hear that a surprising number of people are announcing that this means he is “presidential” and that we should “give him a chance.”

    This makes no sense to me. He’s had hundreds of thousands of chances, his whole life. People give him a chance all the time. He’s had nothing but chances. He had chances after the election, and more chances after the inauguration. Why should we be giving him more of them now? It’s not as if he’s left us in any doubt about what kind of person he is. He barfs out evidence every day. Why would his ability to do something children learn to do in first grade be a reason to give him yet more chances? Especially when he already has those chances anyway – he’ll have them for four years, unless he’s impeached or otherwise expelled.

    Also – that whole thing with the war widow? I haven’t watched it and hope to be able to avoid watching it forever, but anyway – how revolting can you get.

  • It’s all a plot to make Trump look bad

    Trump was asked about that whole anti-Semitism thing today. He said it’s bad, but, BUT – watch out, because it could be people trying to make Someone look bad. (I think Someone might=Trump.) Osita Nwanevu at Slate tells the story:

    On Tuesday, President Trump responded to the recent wave of anti-Semitic threats around the country in comments to a group of state attorneys general that suggested they had been orchestrated by unknown parties to make him look bad. From BuzzFeed:

    “He just said, ‘Sometimes it’s the reverse, to make people — or to make others — look bad,’ and he used the word ‘reverse’ I would say two to three times in his comments,” [Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh] Shapiro said. “He did correctly say at the top that it was reprehensible.”

    Asked for further information about the purpose of the president’s comments, Shapiro only said, “I really don’t know what he means, or why he said that,” adding that Trump said he would be speaking about the issue in his remarks on Tuesday night.

    The Anti-Defamation League swiftly responded to Trump’s comment in a statement. “We are astonished by what the President reportedly said,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote. “It is incumbent upon the White House to immediately clarify these remarks. In light of the ongoing attacks on the Jewish community, it is also incumbent upon the President to lay out in his speech tonight his plans for what the federal government will do to address this rash of anti-Semitic incidents.”

    Yes but what if they’re not actually anti-Semitic incidents, but rather FAKE anti-Semitic incidents meant to make Trump look bad. WHAT THEN, HUH?

    Trump’s comment fits in well with the conspiratorial view of protests and other events that have emerged in the first month of his presidency. In an interview with Fox & Friends that aired today, Trump said of the demonstrations, “I think that President Obama’s behind it because his people are certainly behind it.” And this morning, Anthony Scaramucci, a man Donald Trump nominated to head the White House Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs, accused Democrats of inciting violence at Trump rallies and warned that the anti-Semitic threats, which forced evacuations at schools and Jewish community centers in over a dozen states Monday, could also be their handiwork.

    Because Trump is so perfect and benevolent and embracing of all humanity that no form of racism or xenophobia (or while we’re at it misogyny or homophobia) could possibly be inspired by anything he says.

  • Trump has offered no words of condolence

    Adam Purinton was in court yesterday. It appears he thought those two Indian guys he shot were Iranian.

    Less than five hours after a man shot up a Kansas bar, killing one Indian man and wounding two other people in an apparently racially motivated attack, an Applebee’s bartender 70 miles away made a 911 call.

    The woman on the phone told the dispatcher that a man had come into her bar and told her he “had done something really bad and he was on the run from the police.”

    The man wouldn’t tell her what he did but kept asking her to allow him to stay at her house. The bartender persisted, persuading him to tell her what happened. “He said he shot and killed two Iranian people in Olathe,” the bartender said.

    Indian, Iranian – Yemeni, Sudanese – whatever. They’re all bad hombres, right?

    This is another one Trump hasn’t bothered to say anything about, as the Kansas City Star observes.

    Nearly a week has passed since two India-born engineers were singled out and shot at an Olathe bar, presumably because they were immigrants, darker in skin tone and possibly viewed by the shooter as unwanted foreigners.

    People around the world were immediately and rightfully horrified.

    But our president?

    Mum. Not a word has been spoken, tweeted or prepped for Trump’s teleprompter.

    Trump has offered no words of condolence for the grieving widow of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, who died from his gunshot wounds.

    The president has expressed no sympathy for Kuchibhotla’s best friend, Alok Madasani, who continues to recover from bullet wounds and the trauma.

    Trump usually loves to celebrate all-American heroes. But he’s passed on commending Ian Grillot, a bystander who leapt to take the gunman down before anyone else was harmed. Grillot was shot, too.

    I guess complaining about “fake news” and sucking up the flattery of Fox and Friends takes up all his time.

    During such moments of crisis, people look to the president for strength and guidance.

    They need to hear their moral outrage articulated, the condemnation of a possible hate crime and the affirmation that the U.S. values everyone’s contributions, whether you’re an immigrant or native-born.

    Ordinarily I don’t, really, but I guess that turns out to be because I take it for granted. Now? It’s impossible to take it for granted, so the silence is deafening.

    White House press secretary Sean Spicer has faced questions about the president’s response to the Olathe shootings. Spicer termed the murder “tragic.”

    But when Spicer was asked about any correlation between the shootings and Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, the White House press secretary proclaimed the assertion “absurd,” shutting down further discussion.

    Those are your bad hombres right there.