[Al_U_Card]

It's as simple as dropping the labels, avoiding the stereotypes and looking at the pros and cons whether they appeal to your sensibilities or not. That is the only high ground that exists. The rest is just part of the downward spiral that leads nowhere good.

[Winstonm]

Saved, and Jesus wasn't a factor.

WaPo:

Quote

At the White House press briefing room lectern, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders essentially walked back President Trump’s promise of unconditional talks with Kim Jong Un by the end of May. She insisted that before such talks can occur — Trump never mentioned any conditions — North Korea would need to take “verifiable” steps to denuclearize. North Korea will not voluntarily denuclearize, at least under this regime and at least not now, let alone allow inspectors free rein. In imposing conditions North Korea cannot possibly agree to, the White House has wriggled out of what could have been a devastating error.

In other words, because Trump has both a massive ego and virtually no understanding of foreign policy, he foolishly leaped at the bait dangled by the South and North Koreans. Putting Kim Jong Un, a human rights criminal whose regime effective murdered Otto Warmbier and who is violation of multiple United Nations declarations, on the stage with the American president would have been a gift of immense proportions to Kim. It would cast him as a normal leader on the international stage, who — if Trump had his way — achieved a publicity coup without giving up anything.

Funny, his own spokesperson made the president out to be both a moron and a danger.

[nige1]

A pity: prospects of a Dotard-Rocketman meeting raised hopes of postponing Armageddon.

[Winstonm]

This Seychelles meeting in quite interesting. Why would this group - Trump, et al - be so intent on setting up a back channel to Russia that circumvented U.S. intelligence?

When you look at the group - Manafort, in deep financial trouble with Deripraska, Flynn, pissed off and desperate to become a rich man fast, Kushner, holding the mortgage on a huge white elephant and in desperate need for a cash infusion, and Trump, desperate for business with Russia and a general greedy sleazebag - it would appear that after surprising even themselves with winning the election, they were in a huge hurry to try to find a way to capitalize monetarily on that victory. If they could trade lifted sanctions for cash, how much would Russia pay, perhaps 0.5% of the Rosneft sale? More?

You can pretty much bet that this group is a criminal enterprise with people who think, plan, and act like other criminal enterprises in their all-encompassing reach for money. The only real question is how far-reaching the criminality extends.

[y66]

From Trump White House quietly issues report vindicating Obama regulations by David Roberts at Vox:

Quote

OMB gathered data and analysis on “major” federal regulations (those with $100 million or more in economic impact) between 2006 and 2016, a period that includes all of Obama’s administration, stopping just short of Trump’s. The final tally, reported in 2001 dollars:

Aggregate benefits: $219 to $695 billion
Aggregate costs: $59 to $88 billion

By even the most conservative estimate, the benefits of Obama’s regulations wildly outweighed the costs.

According to OMB — and to the federal agencies upon whose data OMB mostly relied — the core of the Trumpian case against Obama regulations, arguably the organizing principle of Trump’s administration, is false.

[Winstonm]

y66, on 2018-March-09, 21:08, said:

From Trump White House quietly issues report vindicating Obama regulations by David Roberts at Vox:

In other words, proof that Trump's actions against Obama are simply vindictive?

[y66]

From Trump Really Wants His Wingman by Gail Collins at NYT:

Quote

Donald Trump may be going to Korea! Also, to Moon Township, Pa.!

While the president’s plan to have direct talks with the North Koreans is fascinating, in a sort of unnerving way, right now we’re going to look at the Moon Township angle. There’s a special House election coming up on Tuesday, and it’s perfectly possible that when it comes to international détente versus the 18th Congressional District, the White House’s real fixation is western Pennsylvania.

The 18th C.D. is at the heart of the white, working-class vote that won Trump the Electoral College. It also has wildly gerrymandered borders aimed at guaranteeing Republican control unless the incumbent does something incredible, like championing anti-abortion legislation after hinting to his mistress that she ought to get an abortion if she’s pregnant.

Whoops. That was Representative Tim Murphy. Gone but not forgotten.

So there’s this special election, which features Democrat Conor Lamb, a handsome young former federal prosecutor, versus Rick Saccone, a Republican state representative who is hanging onto Donald Trump like — um, we will not say Stormy Daniels. That would be totally tacky, and this is a serious political moment. We’ll just say that Saccone says he wants to go to Washington and be the president’s “wingman.”

The current district is going to vanish in November when new, less-outrageous boundary lines go into effect. So the only thing that’s really at stake here is whether the voters are going to send an epic, albeit mainly symbolic, rejection letter to Trump. The president is obsessed. He’s scheduled to appear at a rally there this weekend, and he’s sending every possible White House warrior — from Kellyanne Conway to Donald Jr. — to the front lines.

People, do you think Pennsylvanians are going to get out and vote in the middle of March because Donald Jr. asked them to? Just wondering.

If the Democrat loses, Nancy Pelosi will have only herself to blame. It's Hillary all over again. A woman showing her emotions over good...

The 18th C.D. is very connected to steel making. (Democrat Lamb, when asked about trade issues, tends to say that he thinks whatever the president of the steelworkers’ union thinks.) Last week, as the race got tighter and tighter, Trump suddenly announced he was imposing a ginormous tariff on imported steel and aluminum, triggering the resignation of his chief economic adviser and something as close to a rebellion as you could imagine among the little weenies who make up the Republican members of Congress.

Do you think it could possibly have all been for western Pennsylvania? Duh.

The Republicans have been complaining that Saccone is a terrible candidate, which is a good way of getting off the hook themselves if he loses. It’s also sort of true. His ads are boring, and his previous social media was worse.

“We’re here at The Hangar bar,” Saccone yells in a Facebook video from Moon Township itself. “Look at all the happy people here!” Actually, there seemed to be a goodly number of empty seats, even though Saccone was giving away free food (“ … we got pizzas, we got wings …”).

In the state legislature, Saccone was a conservative who did not always behave like a guy who expected a congressional seat to open up in his backyard. He once voted against a bill strengthening Pennsylvania’s animal cruelty laws, which passed the House 167 to 20. It was called Libre’s Law in honor of a young Boston terrier abuse victim. Saccone never mentions Libre, although Lamb seems to bring that puppy up quite a bit.

Lamb is selling himself as a bipartisan new-broom guy who would vote to get rid of Nancy Pelosi as Democratic House leader. (Coincidentally, he’s getting very little money from the official Democratic money stream, for which Pelosi is a tireless fund-raiser.)

He’s driving right down the middle — pressing for stronger gun background checks while constantly mentioning that he’s a former Marine who “still loves to shoot.” One Lamb ad features him firing at a target with a semiautomatic rifle. Many Democrats attempt to get some gun cred by showing pictures of themselves at least pretending to be hunting, but when you’re chopping away with an AR-15 that’s serious business.

Meanwhile Saccone, who started by attempting to pummel Lamb as an enemy of the Trump tax cuts, has pulled way back on that issue. If the race is an upset, or even very close, people are going to start re-evaluating the Republican theory that cutting taxes is a selling point so stupendous that it resembles a political Second Coming.

Now instead, the Republican attack ads howl that as a prosecutor, Lamb made a plea bargain deal with a drug dealer.

“People are laughing at you, Rick,” retorted Lamb in a debate, pointing out that the dealer in question went up the river for a decade and lost his two houses. “Ten years is a serious sentence.”

He then demanded that the Republican say the ads were false.

“Your ads are false,” retorted Saccone. It was that sort of encounter.

Perhaps the most interesting moment came when Saccone dismissed Lamb as “someone who’s young and idealistic, who still hopes he can change the world.” Which may go down as the most depressing political attack in modern history.

So … bottom line seems to be that it’s the idealist or the wingman. Guess who’s the Donald Trump candidate.

I suspect it's hard not to feel smug when writing about a guy who wants to be Trump's wingman and can't even fill a bar for a photo op by giving away free wings. But surely Ms. Collins is joking, trolling even, if she thinks this is serious journalism. Where are the mods at the NYT?

Perry Bacon Jr. at 538 has a more respectful if somewhat annoyingly speculative take:

Quote

The special election on Tuesday in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District isn’t the huge story that Alabama’s U.S. Senate race was. But the Keystone State campaign might still have implications beyond just deciding who will represent the people in this district in the U.S. House for the next 10 months.

Democratic candidate Conor Lamb, a former federal prosecutor, is essentially tied with Republican Rick Saccone, a Pennsylvania state representative, according to a couple of polls released this week. An Emerson College survey showed Lamb leading Saccone 48 percent to 45 percent. A Gravis Marketing poll had Saccone up 45 percent to 42 percent.

One piece of good news for Lamb (and potentially Democrats more generally): In the Emerson survey, 63 percent of Lamb’s backers reported that they were “very excited” to vote next week, compared with 53 percent of Saccone’s supporters. That could be a sign of greater enthusiasm on the Democratic side, as we have seen in other special elections in 2017 and 2018.

No single special election tells us that much about the national political environment. But politicos are watching these special elections, including the Pennsylvania race, so closely that they may have outsize implications. First, there’s the Democratic wave watch: President Trump carried the 18th District, which includes some Pittsburgh suburbs but also smaller towns bordering West Virginia, by almost 20 percentage points. So even a narrow loss by Lamb would reinforce the broader narrative of special elections since Trump’s inauguration — namely that Democrats are outperforming Republicans in races across the country and have a strong chance of winning the House in November.

[Winstonm]

y66, on 2018-March-10, 09:01, said:

From Trump Really Wants His Wingman by Gail Collins at NYT:


I suspect it's hard not to feel smug when writing about a guy who wants to be Trump's wingman and can't even fill a bar for a photo op by giving away free wings. But surely Ms. Collins is joking, trolling even, if she thinks this is serious journalism. Where are the mods at the NYT?

Perry Bacon Jr. at 538 has a more respectful if somewhat annoyingly speculative take:

If you will notice, the Collins piece is clearly marked as Op-Ed, not news. Different standards, entirely. But I assume you were joking.

[Winstonm]

Wah-wah-wah!

Yahoo:

Quote

First daughter Ivanka Trump reportedly has complained that chief of staff John Kelly is embarrassing her husband Jared Kushner. Kelly was, after all, the one who decided to downgrade Kushner’s top security clearance.

“Why do you have to embarrass Jared like that?” Trump recently complained to a friend, according to a Vanity Fair report on Friday.

Likewise, we might ask, "Why do you guys have to embarrass our country like that?"

[RedSpawn]

Winstonm, on 2018-March-09, 20:52, said:

This Seychelles meeting in quite interesting. Why would this group - Trump, et al - be so intent on setting up a back channel to Russia that circumvented U.S. intelligence?

When you look at the group - Manafort, in deep financial trouble with Deripraska, Flynn, pissed off and desperate to become a rich man fast, Kushner, holding the mortgage on a huge white elephant and in desperate need for a cash infusion, and Trump, desperate for business with Russia and a general greedy sleazebag - it would appear that after surprising even themselves with winning the election, they were in a huge hurry to try to find a way to capitalize monetarily on that victory. If they could trade lifted sanctions for cash, how much would Russia pay, perhaps 0.5% of the Rosneft sale? More?

You can pretty much bet that this group is a criminal enterprise with people who think, plan, and act like other criminal enterprises in their all-encompassing reach for money. The only real question is how far-reaching the criminality extends.

I will say this is a SUPER fair question and why was this "back-channel" discussion even taking place before the inauguration of the President-Elect?

Source: https://www.washingt...m=.5c8e440d3695

Quote

“Back channels” have been used by every modern president, from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama. If that’s so, what’s the problem with the pre-inauguration contacts between White House adviser Jared Kushner and two Russian intermediaries?

It’s a fair question. But that doesn’t mean that the right answer is a reflexive approval of Kushner’s contacts, as offered Sunday by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, who said of such offline communication: “It’s both normal, in my opinion, and acceptable.”

The devil here, as in most things, is in the details. Most analysts agree that it’s appropriate for presidents and their senior aides to use secret contacts to advance U.S. foreign policy goals. And it’s fairly routine for incoming administrations to have get-acquainted talks with foreign governments, too. Such back channels can add stability and predictability in foreign relations.

What’s not okay is when an incoming administration seeks to undermine the policies of the incumbent. We have “one president at a time.” That’s not just a political truism but a matter of law, enunciated back in 1799 in the Logan Act, which prohibits private meddling with official policy during a dispute. The fact that this statute has never been enforced criminally doesn’t blunt its importance.

[Many think this law is obsolete. It could actually be a big problem for Trump.]

And it’s not okay, either, for any citizen, even the son-in-law of the president-elect, to propose contacts that would use the communications tools of a foreign intelligence service to evade detection. As Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday: “You have to ask, well, who are they hiding the conversation from?”

The secret Kushner contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Kremlin-friendly banker Sergey Gorkov raise similar questions to Michael Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak. Flynn resigned as national security adviser in February after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Pence and the public about whether, in a Dec. 29 conversation with Kislyak, he discussed easing anti-Russia sanctions after Trump’s inauguration.

The reason that Flynn’s conversations were “problematic,” in the words of former acting attorney general Sally Yates, was that they might have undermined the penalties the Obama administration had imposed that very day against Russia for hacking the 2016 presidential election.

Did any of Kushner’s conversations have a similar effect of undermining existing policy? That’s one of the questions investigators will explore. Published reports have said that Kushner wanted to discuss better coordination with Russia of U.S. policy toward Syria. Did those contacts help frustrate the efforts of then-Secretary of State John F. Kerry to reach a peaceful transition in Syria? Again, a question worth asking.

One difference between the Kushner and Flynn cases is that when press reports surfaced about Kushner’s Russia contacts, he doesn’t appear to have provided misleading information, as Flynn allegedly did to Pence and the public.

The basics of the Kushner case were reported in late March, by the New York Times and in my column. I wrote then: “Kushner’s Russia problem was that he met after the election not just with … Kislyak but also with … Gorkov, who was prepared to act as an intermediary to President Vladimir Putin.” I noted that Kushner had agreed to testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the meetings.

I speculated that when Kushner testified, he would “tell the Senate that he wanted to explore opening a discreet channel to Putin, similar to those he established with numerous other global leaders during the transition. But after the secretary of state nomination went to Rex Tillerson, a genuine friend of Putin, Kushner apparently concluded Trump didn’t need any such back channel.” Kushner still hasn’t testified, and we don’t yet know the whole story, but the basic template has been evident for two months.

The reason back channels sometimes make sense is that it’s hard to explore options under a public spotlight. The Soviets sent a spy to meet Robert Kennedy before the 1961 inauguration to get a sense of JFK, according to historian Tim Naftali in Slate. President Kennedy used his brother for discreet contacts with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin during the Cuban missile crisis, partly because JFK didn’t want his advisers to know what trade-offs he was considering. President Richard Nixon and his top adviser Henry Kissinger used back channels so often and widely that they became habitual.

The Obama administration continued this pattern: Obama explored options with Iran through an Omani intermediary, and used a similar, secret channel to begin discussions with Cuba about the normalization of relations.

These crisis contacts are powerful, but potentially destabilizing. That’s why they’re left, by law, to official representatives of the U.S. government.

However, I think the Russia involvement has much less to do with election stealing and more to do with money laundering involving pre-existing business relationships with President Trump and his enterprises. We will eventually see that the love of money is the root of all evil.

[Winstonm]

RedSpawn, on 2018-March-10, 11:10, said:

I will say this is a SUPER fair question and why was this "back-channel" discussion even taking place before the inauguration of the President-Elect?

Source: https://www.washingt...m=.5c8e440d3695


However, I think the Russia involvement has much less to do with election stealing and more to do with money laundering involving pre-existing business relationships with President Trump and his enterprises. We will eventually see that the love of money is the root of all evil.

There are back channels for diplomacy and then there are back channels to hide your intent. I would lay odds on the latter concerning this bunch.

[Winstonm]

This latest move on tariffs is nothing more than a last minute play to try to hold the Pa. seat in the house.

[Winstonm]

From WaPo:

Quote

By Shane Harris, Rosalind S. Helderman and Karoun Demirjian March 9 at 7:42 PM Email the author
Donald Trump was so eager to have Vladi­mir Putin attend the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow that he wrote a personal letter to the Russian president inviting him to the event, according to multiple people familiar with the document.

At the bottom of the typed letter, Trump scrawled a postscript adding that he looked forward to seeing “beautiful” women during his trip.

Trump’s letter to Putin, which was described by people with knowledge of its contents, shows how interested he was in attracting the personal attention of the Russian president. The real estate magnate, who owned the Miss Universe pageant, wrote the note at a time when he was looking to expand his brand to Russia.

The letter, the first known attempt at direct outreach by Trump to Putin, has been turned over to investigators probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign.

Question of the day: whuch insider had access to this letter and turned it over?

[cherdano]

The pee tape is real.

[johnu]

RedSpawn, on 2018-March-10, 11:10, said:

I will say this is a SUPER fair question and why was this "back-channel" discussion even taking place before the inauguration of the President-Elect?

"Why" indeed. The Soviet Union was around since 1922 and the current Russia Federation since 1992. A reasonable person might conjecture that back channels were already established and operating by previous administrations.

[johnu]

Winstonm, on 2018-March-10, 18:27, said:

From WaPo:



Question of the day: whuch insider had access to this letter and turned it over?

Inside observers have said that Trump doesn't use email, so he writes paper letters which are scanned by staff and sent as attachments in email. Anybody who was CC'd or BCC'd would have a copy.

[Al_U_Card]

johnu, on 2018-March-10, 19:11, said:

"Why" indeed. The Soviet Union was around since 1922 and the current Russia Federation since 1992. A reasonable person might conjecture that back channels were already established and operating by previous administrations.

The Russian nation suffered greatly during and after both WWI and II. American troops were present until the mid 1920's and the US support of the White Russian forces lasted well into the 30's. OSS and CIA using Gehlen's espionage network against them, as well as other reasons led to great mistrust of the US. JFK opened the first back channels as a means of circumventing his own intelligence and military that were gung-ho to wipe the USSR from the face of the earth.
Can you blame them for being wary?
Trump is doing his thing, thick as thieves as that may be. The thug Putin may well be able to appreciate that.

[Winstonm]

I do not think that even the most ardent supporters of this president are stupid enough to believe that the mad scramble of Kushner, Prince, et al, to establish hidden communications with the Kremlin outside the watchful eye of U.S. intelligence had anything to do with diplomacy; rather, I think those supporters simply don't care.

The reason they don't care is because the present version of the Republican party is no longer a political organization but a religious cult, with its own chants, each provided by the high priest. In such a movement, thinking is not required, only blind loyalty to the leader.

[Al_U_Card]

Winstonm, on 2018-March-11, 09:13, said:

I do not think that even the most ardent supporters of this president are stupid enough to believe that the mad scramble of Kushner, Prince, et al, to establish hidden communications with the Kremlin outside the watchful eye of U.S. intelligence had anything to do with diplomacy; rather, I think those supporters simply don't care.

The reason they don't care is because the present version of the Republican party is no longer a political organization but a religious cult, with its own chants, each provided by the high priest. In such a movement, thinking is not required, only blind loyalty to the leader.

Just turn your statements around and they might as well be referring to you, on Trump, or to me, on global warming. The guy is certainly different, but also no better or worse than most of his predecessors. Preaching to the choir is like pissing into the wind. It may feel good at the start but it doesn't end well.

[Winstonm]

Al_U_Card, on 2018-March-11, 11:12, said:

Just turn your statements around and they might as well be referring to you, on Trump, or to me, on global warming. The guy is certainly different, but also no better or worse than most of his predecessors. Preaching to the choir is like pissing into the wind. It may feel good at the start but it doesn't end well.

I have to disagree with you, Al, and for this reason: have you ever changed your own personal views? If you are like everybody else, it requires a lot of energy to constantly fight or try to ignore cognitive dissonance. Sometimes, it is the voice of reason from outside the bubble that finally tips the scales and encourages true examination of beliefs.