Steve Benen
What They Voted For: Grotesque Dishonesty
Fact checkers at the Washington Post note:
On Sept. 7, President Trump woke up in Billings, Mont., flew to Fargo, N.D., visited Sioux Falls, S.D., and eventually returned to Washington. He spoke to reporters on Air Force One, held a pair of fundraisers and was interviewed by three local reporters.
In that single day, he publicly made 125 false or misleading statements — in a period of time that totaled only about 120 minutes. It was a new single-day high.
That such grotesque dishonesty is precisely what Trump voters wanted makes its own point. Steve Benen noted, yesterday, in consideration of yet another Trump administration travel scandal, "If you voted for the Republican ticket in 2016 because you hoped to avoid four years of ethics controversies, I have some very bad news for you." The upside for those voters is that nobody really voted for Donald Trump in hope of avoiding a scandal-ridden presidency. To the other, or, rather, toward the more useful, we might wonder when it will be acceptable to stop pretending this was ever about anything other than graft and supremacism.
Image note: President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, D.C., 27 August 2018 (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Benen, Steve. "FEMA director faces investigation at an inconvenient time". msnbc. 13 September 2018.
Kessler, Glenn, Salvador Rizzo, and Meg Kelly. "President Trump has made more than 5,000 false or misleading claims". The Washington Post. 13 September 2018.
Posted in #TrumpSwindle, #WhatTheyVotedFor, alt-Right, American culture, Bigotry, Christian supremacism, Conservative, Culture, Democrats, Election, Ethics, Feminism, Masculinity, Misogyny, People, Politics, Psychology, racism, Religion, Republicans, Travel, White House and tagged #TrumpSwindle, #WhatTheyVotedFor, Air Force One, bad news, Billings, Christian supremacism, conservative misogyny, dishonesty, Donald Trump, ethics controversies, fact checkers, false claims, false statements, Fargo, Glenn Kessler, graft, grotesque, Kevin Lamarque/Reuters, male supremacism, Meg Kelly, misleading claims, misleading statements, misogyny, Montana, MSNBC, North Dakota, religious supremacism, Salvador Rizzo, scandal-ridden presidency, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Steve Benen, supremacism, The Washington Post, travel scandal, Trump administration, Trump voters, white supremacism on 2018.09.14 by bd. Leave a comment
Rudy's Bizarre Adventure (Recollection Remix)
The intersection of #DimensionTrump and coming right out and saying it is itself a futile endeavor; something can easily go here about parallel lines, overlap, and single tracks. Meanwhile, there is a no longer confidential memo from John Dowd to Robert Mueller, in January, and it is worth reconsidering the last several months of presidential simmer and tantrum in light of what we learn. Steve Benen tries, today, explaining one particular aspect:
This was the first time Trump World acknowledged the president's direct role in dictating the wording of his son's statement to the New York Times. In fact, the president's legal team and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders specifically told the public, on multiple occasions, that Trump had nothing to do with crafting that statement. Those denials, we now know, were plainly false.
Over the course of the last year, Trump and his team have already changed their story about the purpose of the meeting—more than once—and these new revelations take the evolving narrative in an even messier direction.
Asked about the contradictions, Rudy Giuliani told ABC News yesterday, "This is the reason you don't let the president testify. Our recollection keeps changing."
And there you have it. Something, something, mumble, murmur only goes downhill from there. Or not. Giuliani could stand at the bottom of a giant sinkhole and tout the merits of natural engineering, and for some reason people would try to take him seriously.
Oh. Right.
Posted in #DimensionTrump, #TrumpSwindle, #WhatTheyVotedFor, alt-Right, Beltway, Congress, Conservative, Crime, Ethics, Government, History, Justice, Law, Liberal, Mental Health, Politics, Psychology, Punditry, Republicans, Strange, US House of Representatives, US Senate, White House and tagged #DimensionTrump, #TrumpSwindle, #WhatTheyVotedFor, ABC News, absurdity, adventures, Advertising, alarming proposition, alternative facts, American people, ashamed, assertion, bizarre, boasts, Chas Danner, clusterdiddling, CNN, come right out and say it, confessions, confidential memo, Daily Intelligencer (blog), delusional, Donald Trump, former U.S. Attorney, fundamental acknowledgment, guilt, harangue, hilarious, hilarity, impeach, impeachment, indictment, John Dowd, jury, laughable, lie, lying, monumental, MSNBC, Mueller probe, New York Magazine, parallel lines, personal attorney, political argument, politicians, President of the United States, public opinion, Robert Mueller, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, sincerely held beliefs, single tracks, sitting president, spectacle, spygate, State of the Union (TV), Steve Benen, stubborn, The New York Times, This Week (TV), unvarnished truth, voter enthusiasm, witnessed, working politics on 2018.06.04 by bd. Leave a comment
A Minor Detail (Tennessee Six)
Perhaps it seems nitpickety, but if we attend the setup from Steve Benen—
In the aftermath of the deadly school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, opponents of gun reforms came up with quite a few culprits to blame for the bloodshed. None of them, of course, included easy access to firearms.
The public should blame the number of doors at the school, for example. And abortion. And video games. And Ritalin, secularism, Common Core, and trench coats.
And while some of this was expected—the right consistently tries to steer public discussions away from guns after mass shootings—Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) broke new ground when she tried to connect school shootings and porn.
—and the detail via Jennifer Bendery—
During a meeting last week with local pastors, Black raised the issue of gun violence in schools and why it keeps happening.
"Pornography," she said.
"It's available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there's pornography there," she continued. "All of this is available without parental guidance. I think that is a big part of the root cause."
—it seems well enough to note Mr. Benen's punch line—
Her argument raised a variety of questions, though I'm inclined to start with this one: where exactly is Diane Black buying her groceries?
—might be leading with the wrong question. To the other, who really wants to make the point when the result means listening to a bunch of Republicans talking about internet pornography.
Posted in American culture, Arts, Beltway, Bigotry, Business, Capitalism, Christianity, Comedy, Congress, Conservative, Consumer, Corporate/Business Culture, Crime, Criticism (artistic), Family, Feminism, Government, Gun/Firearm (culture), History, Humor, Internet, Law, Masculinity, Misogyny, Parenthood, People, Photography, Politics, Psychology, Purity/Family Values (culture), Religion, Republicans, Strange, Stupid, Tea Party, US House of Representatives and tagged children, detail wrong question, Diane Black, Distinguished Member, firearm hazard, firearm violence, grocery store, gun violence, internet pornography, Jennifer Bendery, mass shooting, MSNBC, parental supervision, persistent trope, pornography, punch line, school shootings, setup, Steve Benen, Tennessee problem, The Huffington Post, TN06CD on 2018.05.30 by bd. Leave a comment
The State of the Department (Quack)
#AmericanPrestige | #WhatTheyVotedFor
"guess how many people are working on Iranian nuclear proliferation at the State Department? as of today....zero"
―Anne Applebaum
We should be clear that by today, the columnist means Friday last, when she posted the tweet, which refers, in turn, to a report from Foreign Policy:
One of the State Department's top experts on nuclear proliferation resigned this week after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, in what officials and analysts say is part of a worrying brain drain from public service generally over the past 18 months.
Richard Johnson, a career civil servant who served as acting assistant coordinator in State's Office of Iran Nuclear Implementation, had been involved in talks with countries that sought to salvage the deal in recent weeks, including Britain, France, and Germany — an effort that ultimately failed.
Johnson's departure leaves a growing void in the State Department's stable of experts on Iran's nuclear program and highlights a broader problem of high-level departures from government.
Officials say the trend is particularly evident at the State Department, where Trump sidelined career diplomats and morale plummeted under former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The office Johnson led has gone from seven full-time staffers to none since Trump's inauguration.
Today is Tuesday, and elsewhere in the commentariat Steve Benen notes, "The article didn't explicitly say that Johnson resigned in protest, but there doesn't appear to be much of a mystery about what happened here."
Posted in #PresidentPuppet, #PutiTrump, #TrumpSwindle, #WhatTheyVotedFor, alt-Right, American culture, anti-Islam, Beltway, Bigotry, Christian supremacism, Conservative, Democrats, Ethics, foreign policy, Geopolitics, Government, History, International, Islam, Journalism, Liberal, Media (culture), Peace, People, Politics, Psychology, Punditry, Religion, Republicans, Social Media, White House and tagged #AmericanPrestige, #NoPuppetNoPuppet, #PutiTrump, #TrumpSwindle, #WhatTheyVotedFor, American prestige, Anne Applebaum, China, columnist, devastating, diplomacy, discourse, Foreign Policy magazine, Hassan Rouhani, Iran, Iran nuclear deal, Mohamed Yehia, MSNBC, nuclear expert, nuclear proliferation, obvious question, participants, prestige, Quackery, Richard Johnson, Russia, serious, State Department, Steve Benen, superpowers, tweet, Twitter, U.S. Department of State, U.S. State Department on 2018.05.15 by bd. 1 Comment
Not at All Unexpected if We Just Stop and Think About It for a Moment
#NationalistRepublicanArmy | #WhatTheyVotedFor
As Steve Benen explains—
In 1994, then-Sen. Chuck Robb (D-Va.) offered a famous description of his Republican rival, Oliver North.
"My opponent is a document-shredding, Constitution-trashing, commander-in-chief-bashing, Ayatollah-loving, arms-dealing, criminal-protecting, resume-enhancing, Noriega-coddling, Swiss-banking, law-breaking, letter-faking, self-serving, snake-oil salesman who can't tell the difference between the truth and a lie," Robb said.
North went on to narrowly lose that race—then Republican Sen. John Warner (R) endorsed the Democrat, and North was denounced by Ronald Reagan—but he nevertheless cemented his role as a far-right celebrity and conservative media personality. Today, he landed a notable new gig.
—this is your new president of the National Rifle Association: Oliver North, ladies and gentlemen.
Image notes: Top — Oliver North speaks to the National Rifle Association in Dallas, Texas, 4 May 2018. (Photo: Lucas Jackson/Reuters) Right — Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North, former aide to former National Security Adviser John Poindexter, is sworn in 7 July 1987 before the House and Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, D.C. on arms sales to Iran and diversion of profits to Nicaraguan Contra rebels. (Photo: Chris Wilkins/AFP/Getty Images)
Benen, Steve. "Despite his criminal scandal, Oliver North to lead the NRA". msnbc. 7 May 2018.
Posted in #WhatTheyVotedFor, alt-Right, Beltway, Business, Celebrity (culture), Conservative, Corporate/Business Culture, Crime, Ethics, Gun/Firearm (culture), History, Marketing, People, Politics, Republicans and tagged #NationalistRepublicanArmy, #WhatTheyVotedFor, arms-dealing, Ayatollah-loving, Chris Wilkins/AFP/Getty Images, Chuck Robb, commander-in-chief-bashing, conservative media personality, Constitution-trashing, criminal-protecting, denounced, far-right celebrity, Iran, Iran-Contra scandal, John Warner, law-breaking, letter-faking, Lucas Jackson/Reuters, MSNBC, National Rifle Association (NRA), Noriega-coddling, Oliver North, resume-enhancing, Ronald Reagan, self-serving, snake-oil salesman, Steve Benen, Swiss-banking on 2018.05.07 by bd. Leave a comment
The Pruitt Watch (Peat Fire)
While the idea of a rioting dumpster fire experienced brief vogue among media commentators trying to describe the Donald Trump presidency, the slowburning, filthy corruption of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt seems to describe something akin to a peat fire. The lede from the New York Times:
Since moving to Washington, Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has attracted the attention of federal investigators because of his unusual association with lobbyists, including his rental of a condominium last year owned by the wife of a lobbyist with business before the E.P.A.
As a state senator in Oklahoma 15 years ago, Mr. Pruitt went even further: He bought a home in the state capital with a registered lobbyist who was pushing for changes to the state's workers' compensation rules—changes that Mr. Pruitt championed in the legislature.
And as with the condominium rental in Washington, Mr. Pruitt never publicly disclosed his financial relationship with the lobbyist, who, like Mr. Pruitt, lived in the home when in Oklahoma City on business.
But if for some reason the Pruitt Watch seems frustrating, or even verges toward incomprehensible, perhaps the striking report from The Atlantic suggests a flashpoint:
As Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt faces a seemingly endless stream of scandal, his team is scrambling to divert the spotlight to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. And the White House isn't happy about it.:
In the last week, a member of Pruitt's press team, Michael Abboud, has been shopping negative stories about Zinke to multiple outlets, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the efforts, as well as correspondence reviewed by The Atlantic.
"This did not happen, and it's categorically false," EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said.
To the other, an unnamed White House official claiming knowledge of the situation explained: "Absolutely nothing Scott Pruitt did would surprise me." And, yes, that last might as well include, the prospect of the EPA Administrator simply persisting and enduring, though the article did not.
Posted in #DrainTheSwamp, #TrumpSwindle, #WhatTheyVotedFor, alt-Right, Beltway, Business, Congress, Conservative, Corporate/Business Culture, Crime, Environment, Ethics, Government, History, Journalism, Law, Media (culture), People, Politics, Republicans, Science, Strange, Travel, US House of Representatives, White House and tagged #DrainTheSwamp, #TrumpSwindle, #WhatTheyVotedFor, advocates, apparent, approval, Attorney General, Basav Sen, Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images, campaign, campaign finance, campaign funds, Campaign Legal Center, client, CNN, condominium, corruption, Department of the Interior, divert spotlight, Donald Trump, dumpster fire, Elaina Plott, election watchdog, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), EPA spokesman, financial relationship, first class, flashpoint, flights, Fortune (magazine), government doesn't work, Gregory Wallace, high tolerance, Hiroko Tabuchi, home purchase, Jahan Wilcox, journalists, Michael Abboud, MSNBC, negative press, negative stories, never disclosed, Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, peat fire, pinstick, reassignment, recorded, registered lobbyist, reimbursement, rental, Ryan Zinke, Sara Ganim, scandal, science agency, Scott Pruit, Secretary of the Interior, security detail, shopping stories, smoldering, state senator, Steve Benen, Steve Eder, temper tantrum, The Atlantic, The New York Times, transparency, Trump administration, Trump White House, vaguely, workers' compensation on 2018.05.04 by bd. 1 Comment