The Trump thread: All things Donald

[Athos_131]

Trump speaks at level of 8-year-old, new analysis finds

Donald Trump may call himself a genius on Twitter, but his spoken statements say otherwise.

An analysis of the President's first 30,000 words uttered in office found Mr Trump speaks at a third- to seventh-grade reading level – lower than any other President since 1929. Mr Trump’s vocabulary and grammatical structure is “significantly more simple, and less diverse” than any President since Herbert Hoover, the analysis found.

The comparison is based on interviews, speeches and press conferences for every president dating back to 1929, compiled by online database Factba.se. Analysts at Factba.se studied the “off-script” remarks of all 15 men – essentially, everything but their prepared speeches – to compare and contrast their speaking skills.

Analysts ran the records through eight different tests for vocabulary complexity, diversity, and comprehension level. In every single test, Mr Trump scored the lowest.

Mr Trump averaged significantly fewer syllables per word than the last 14 Presidents, and used significantly fewer unique words. The gaps appeared when comparing all available remarks, and when comparing only the first 30,000 words of each presidency. Social media posts were excluded from the data.

“Compared to the 14 presidents who preceded him, by every measure, [Mr Trump’s] use of words when off script are significantly less diverse, and simpler, than all presidents who preceded him back to Herbert Hoover,” wrote Factba.se CEO Bill Frischling.

The topic of Mr Trump’s mental acuity has dominated the national conversation since the publication of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, an explosive new book about the Trump administration. The book’s author, Michael Wolff, claims Mr Trump’s family, friends, and coworkers all regularly questioned his fitness to serve.

Mr Trump disputed these claims via Twitter last week, claiming he was a “very stable genius” and “like, really smart”. He was supported by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who called questions about the President’s mental state “outrageous”.

“It's absolutely outrageous to make these types of accusations and it's simply untrue, and it’s sad that people are going and making these desperate attempts to attack the President,” she said in an interview on Fox & Friends.

But many Congressional Democrats – and even some of Mr Trump’s fellow Republicans – still refute the idea that the President is their intellectual superior. More than a dozen House and Senate Republicans declined to endorse Mr Trump’s claim that he was a “genius” in interviews with CNN on Monday.

Republican Senator Jerry Moran, for example, said Mr Trump was “smart and capable at getting himself elected president”. But when asked whether he was a genius, Mr Moran replied: “Got nothing.”

#Resist

[Lois]

"I know words, I have the best words."

 

[Athos_131]

‘It’s a disaster over there’: Commerce reaches new heights of dysfunction

Constant infighting among top officials. Sudden departures of senior staffers without explanation. A leader who is disengaged and prone to falling asleep in meetings.

The Commerce Department has reached its apex of dysfunction under Wilbur Ross, according to four people with knowledge of the inner workings of the department. The 81-year-old Commerce secretary, who has for months endured whispers that he is on the outs, spends much of his time at the White House to try to retain President Donald Trump’s favor, the sources said, leaving his department adrift.

He’s hardly the only top Trump official to seek the president’s approval. But department insiders say they’ve rarely seen Commerce so rudderless — and they say Ross’ penchant for managing upward at the expense of his staff is leading to what one plugged-in observer described as “a disaster over there.”

“With our ongoing trade wars and the census looming, Commerce needs functional leadership to be effective, and right now they just don’t have it,” said Theo LeCompte, a former top Commerce official in the Obama administration who speaks often with former colleagues.

One common complaint: Ross, a successful investor before Trump tapped him as secretary of Commerce, isn’t frequently seen in the building talking to employees or rallying them to do good work.

“He’s sort of seen as kind of irrelevant. The morale is very low there because there’s not a lot of confidence in the secretary,” said a former outside adviser to Commerce who is still in touch with many employees at the department. “He’s not respected in the building.”

Ross doesn’t hold routine meetings with senior staffers, according to a person familiar with the department’s inner workings and a former outside adviser — a departure from past practice that one source attributed to the secretary’s lack of stamina.

“Because he tends to fall asleep in meetings, they try not to put him in a position where that could happen so they’re very careful and conscious about how they schedule certain meetings,” said the former outside adviser. “There’s a small window where he’s able to focus and pay attention and not fall asleep.”

A Commerce official disputed that criticsm, saying that Ross has frequent afternoon meetings, including “long” meetings on the census.

“Secretary Ross is a tireless worker who is the sole decision-maker at the department," said Commerce press secretary Kevin Manning. "He routinely works 12-hour days and travels often, with visits to seven countries and eight states in the last three months to advance the president’s agenda."

Yet top Commerce officials have pushed to not have Ross called to testify at congressional oversight hearings, according to two sources close to the department, because they fear he isn’t up to the task. “There’s a great deal of effort to shield him from testifying ever again,” said one of the sources.

A Commerce official disputed that and said, “He’s obviously going to have to testify again. … You can’t get through the rest of [congressional appropriations] season without testifying again.”

Ross did testify at an oversight hearing on the census for nearly seven hours in March, and emerged through the ordeal generally unscathed. But according to one person familiar with the department, the consensus among the top ranks of the administration was that it would be best to avoid a repeat appearance.

“There was a great deal of concern to not have him testify expressed from the White House,” this person said, characterizing the instructions as: “‘Don’t do this, people. Don’t do this, he’s probably not the right guy to go there.’”

Ross certainly has other reasons to avoid Congress — namely, the heated dispute between Hill Democrats and the administration over adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

In April, Ross offered to send aides to testify on his behalf before a House Appropriations subcommittee, an offer the panel’s Democratic chairman, José Serrano, said showed “stunning disrespect.” Serrano’s Republican counterpart, Robert Aderholt, told Reuters that Ross refused to testify out of “concern that this hearing might focus more on political or legal issues than the budget itself.”

“His relationship with the Hill has deteriorated more and more, and he’s just not interested in dealing with the Hill if he can avoid it,” said a person familiar with the department’s internal discussions.

A Commerce official noted that Ross talked to Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) two weeks ago, and held a party two months ago that a number of senators attended. Another Commerce employee observed, “This administration is very hesitant to do oversight in general or to comply with oversight requests in general.”

There are public signs, however, of apparent unease with Ross as a spokesperson for the administration. At an appearance at the White House in mid-July on an announcement on abandoning the citizenship question in the census, the Commerce secretary stood next to Trump the entire time and was one of three people who didn’t speak. Attorney General Bill Barr, on the other hand, spoke at length.

Ross’ relationship with the White House and with Trump was also damaged by stories that came out in the past 18 months showing that he wasn’t as rich as he had claimed and hadn’t fully divested some stock as he had promised, according to the former outside adviser. (The Commerce official disputed that, arguing that the White House has not cared about these issues.)

Ross’s deputies, meanwhile, are coming under fire of their own as tensions rise withini the department.

Political appointees sometimes close doors right in front of career employees to keep them out of meetings, one former Commerce official in touch with former colleagues said.

Meanwhile, “it’s totally infighting among the politicals,” said another person familiar with the department. “It’s just everybody fighting everybody.” In particular, the relationship between Ross’ office and the legislative affairs team is “clearly broken,” this person said.

Charles “Kolo” Rathburn, who had been acting head of legislative affairs, “was unceremoniously let go” and abruptly left earlier in July, according to a person familiar with Commerce and the outside adviser, who said it had to do with issues of professional conduct in the workplace. Another person familiar with Commerce also confirmed his departure.

“He wasn’t allowed to clean out his office,” said one of the people. Rathburn had replaced Mike Platt, who had left in early May.

A Commerce official said Rathburn, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, is working to pass the bar exam and has an offer for a higher-paying position at a law firm if he does.

Ross Branson, who had been deputy assistant secretary of legislative affairs and was Platt’s deputy, also left Commerce on Friday, according to two people familiar with his departure. He had become “collateral damage,” according to one of the people, and was told that he had to look for a new job. He starts on Monday as head of legislative affairs at the Export-Import Bank, a position that a Commerce official described as “definitely a promotion.” Branson and the Ex-Im Bank did not respond to a request for comment.

Much of the tension inside the building has centered on Earl Comstock, who shepherded Ross’ confirmation on Capitol Hill and is one of the secretary’s top lieutenants as the department's policy director.

The disarray inside Commerce is drawing an intervention from chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and other White House officials, who are trying to figure out how to wrest control from Comstock, who increasingly seems to be involved in everything that happens inside the department.

“Things come to a screeching halt because he demands to be the final decision on everything whether it’s an email that goes out to the Hill or a letter to respond to X, Y and Z,” said a person familiar with Commerce.

Comstock, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, has also been at the center of many of the spectrum battles between the Federal Communications Commission and the departments of Transportation, Education, Commerce and NASA and NOAA, according to an administration official. He has “literally been seeding bad intel and bad information to get other people agitated,” said the official.

He also tried to scuttle a joint White House-FCC summit on 5G, the wireless technology, in April by “calling everyone he could 24 hours before the event trying to get it to be canceled,” this person said. Comstock clashed in particular with former National Telecommunications and Information Administration chief David Redl, who left his post abruptly in May.

Critics of Ross’ leadership at Commerce also have a new target of concern: chief of staff Michael Walsh, who is described by some as inexperienced on policy and difficult to work with.

Walsh didn’t respond to a request for comment, but the Commerce official said that he has good relationships throughout the administration and on the Hill and visits the White House frequently. A second person familiar with Commerce also claimed, “People want his job so they’re spreading bad stuff on him.”

The chaos inside the department has had consequences for some employees.

“There’s great frustration among people who really want to use their skills and talents to help this country and are being marginalized by a White House who doesn’t need to ask any questions because it already thinks it has the answers,” said Roger Fisk, a Commerce official in the Obama administration. “All of that expertise is just lying dormant hiding in plain sight."

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump met with Nunes to talk intel chief replacements

President Donald Trump recently spoke to top House Intelligence Republican Devin Nunes about replacements for the country’s intelligence chief — the latest sign that Dan Coats’ tenure may be short-lived.

Nunes, who grabbed national attention with his controversial allegations of Obama administration surveillance abuses, met with Trump and other senior White House officials last week to discuss who could take over for Coats at the Office of Director of National Intelligence, according to three people familiar with the get-together.

Coats has run ODNI since early in the Trump administration, but his job security is the subject of constant speculation, especially after he gave public testimony on North Korea, Iran and Syria that diverged from Trump’s prior comments on the issues. The ODNI chief oversees the government’s intelligence agencies, coordinates the country’s global information-gathering operation and frequently briefs the president on threats each morning.

The meeting between Trump and Nunes has only fueled more chatter about Coats’ departure. The pace of Trump’s discussions with allies about potential replacements has ramped up in recent weeks, the people said.

Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst who served as national security adviser John Bolton’s chief of staff, has been discussed as a possible ODNI replacement. Fleitz left his White House post in October 2018 to serve as president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy, a far-right think tank that has been sharply critical of “radical Islam.”

Some within the intelligence community have also promoted the ODNI’s current No. 2, Sue Gordon, as be a logical replacement for Coats. Gordon is a career intelligence official who is generally well-liked within the organization.

The White House and Nunes did not comment for this report. ODNI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump and Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, are closely aligned on intelligence issues. Both have pushed accusations that career officials — particularly under the Obama administration — have been misusing their power to target political enemies and manipulating intelligence findings for political purposes.

Because of these similar views, some on Capitol Hill and in the intelligence community think Nunes himself could be in the mix for an intelligence post, even if it’s not at ODNI.

“The president would certainly consider Devin Nunes for the director’s position and I eventually see him serving in some capacity in this administration,” said one member of Congress who speaks to Trump frequently. He noted, however, that he sees “all of Devin’s efforts being directed towards a reelection effort in Congress.”

Such speculation has provoked some anxiety at the top of ODNI, according to one person with direct knowledge.

Nunes, who served on Trump’s presidential transition team, made national headlines within the intelligence community in early 2017 when serving as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Nunes made a much-discussed “midnight run” to the White House in March 2017 to obtain what he described as classified information. He later said that information bolstered accusations that the Obama administration had improperly “unmasked” the names of Trump associates whose conversations were vacuumed up by intelligence agencies monitoring foreign agents’ communications in 2016. Normally, the names of U.S. citizens who show up in intelligence reports are kept secret unless there is an overwhelming national security need to expose them.

The New York Times and The Washington Post later reported that three White House officials had helped Nunes gain access to the documents, prompting criticisms that Trump’s aides were feeding Nunes information in the hopes of legitimizing the president’s evidence-free claims that the Obama administration had wiretapped his campaign. Nunes countered that the documents were shown to him by a whistleblower.

Nunes’ public statements about the material later prompted a circumscribed ethics investigation into whether he had improperly disclosed classified information to the press. Nunes was eventually cleared in the probe.

After Nunes’ unmasking inquiry fizzled, he launched a broader probe into alleged surveillance abuses against Trump by the Obama-era FBI and Justice Department.

As head of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes crafted a classified memo detailing these apparent abuses. The memo prompted a rare rebuttal and warning from DOJ.

First, the agency noted that Nunes had not actually seen the relevant underlying intelligence and therefore could not judge whether the department had acted inappropriately. Second, the agency warned that warned releasing the memo could carry significant national-security risks.

But Trump overrode those concerns, and ordered the memo’s declassification at Nunes’ urging.

Trump has since described Nunes as “a true American Patriot the likes of which we rarely see in our modern day world” and “a man of tremendous courage and grit,” saying he “may someday be recognized as a Great American Hero for what he has exposed and what he has had to endure!”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Newt Gingrich just gave away the game

It is now beyond obvious that the populist economic nationalism that President Trump ran on in 2016 was a big scam — that in office, Trump has embraced conventional GOP plutocracy on most economic matters, while pursuing a nationalism on immigration that at its core is reactionary nativism.

That’s the context in which Trump’s attacks on four nonwhite female lawmakers are now unfolding, and the New York Times has some good new reporting that fleshes this out, demonstrating that these attacks are meant to thrill working-class whites — even as his actual economic agenda is doing little to nothing for them.

I want to highlight a quote from Newt Gingrich in the piece, because it illustrates what’s really going on here with unusual clarity — particularly given that Gingrich is a staunch Trump ally.

The background is a discussion of the type of populist legislation that Trump could theoretically sign to bolster his reelection chances, such as a minimum wage hike or a big infrastructure spending bill:

The president’s allies say that his talent is in scorching the opposition, and he is unlikely to deviate much from that task.

“I think he doesn’t mind if it happens, but it’s not his primary focus,” Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, said of racking up policy accomplishments. “His primary focus is to so thoroughly define Democrats as the party of the radical left. I think that matters much more to him than any particular bill.”

I’m pretty sure Gingrich just basically let it slip that Trump is more interested in attacking Democrats as radical than he is in working on proposals that would lift the fortunes of working-class Americans, including the working-class whites in his base.

In one sense, of course, Gingrich’s observation is just obviously true. Trump isn’t interested in governing, and he plainly derives enjoyment from abusing people, a pleasure that often seems particularly evident when he’s directing that abuse at minorities, particularly minority women.

Beyond this, it’s also obviously true that Trump isn’t interested in signing legislation such as a minimum wage hike or an infrastructure package. The Times piece digs into the deeper reasons for this: Trump is surrounded by conservatives who are exploiting his disinterest in policy to push a hard-right agenda; the “moderates” around him, such as Jared Kushner, are more interested in things like criminal justice reform than in populist economic policies.

Then there’s the fact that the Republican Party opposes such policies. Trump has largely outsourced his economic agenda to the GOP, signing a massive corporate tax cut that lavished enormous benefits on the highest earners. Trump has also gone all in with the GOP’s drives to get rid of environmental regulations and roll back Obamacare’s protections for millions, perhaps out of zeal to destroy his predecessor’s legacy.

In sum, Trump completely abandoned the economic populism that former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon once boasted would create a durable transracial working-class majority. Gingrich is right that Trump isn’t interested in economic populist policy. (Trade is an exception, but this largely appeals to Trump because it allows him to rage at foreign and “globalist” elites and absurdly claim he’s shaking down foreign countries for tariffs.)

But Gingrich’s quote also captures a deeper truth, as well.

Trump is vulnerable in 2020 because both sides of the Trumpist equation — the plutocracy and the reactionary nationalism — are unpopular. Democrats won the House by campaigning against the GOP on health care and taxes, and Trump’s hate-campaign against migrants and his immigration cruelties no doubt helped.

The Trumpist agenda drove away enormous numbers of suburban and college-educated whites and allowed Democrats to make (much smaller) inroads with non-college educated and rural whites. (Remember, in 2018, the bottom fell out for the GOP even in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the “blue wall” states Trump cracked.)

A saner health-care agenda and legislation pitched at the working class probably would help Trump with both of those constituencies. But they aren’t going to happen. Which leaves another option for Trump to try to win reelection: To “thoroughly define Democrats as the party of the radical left,” as Gingrich puts it.

That, of course, is what the attacks on the four nonwhite lawmakers are really about. They are meant to scare college-educated whites, particularly women, out of voting Democratic (which seems risky, since overt racism and white nationalism could further alienate them), and supercharge Trump’s working-class white base in those blue-wall states, making an electoral college victory possible even if Trump loses the national popular vote by a bigger margin (which actually could work).

Gingrich’s quote, unpacked, basically concedes that Trump would rather spend his time on racist and white nationalist attacks on minority lawmakers than on legislating for that transracial working class Bannon waxed eloquent about — and that for reelection purposes, the former is the substitute for the latter.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Yet again, Trump falsely blames illegal voting for getting walloped in California

A few hours after celebrating his $16 billion bailout to farmers affected by the trade war with China, President Trump told a roomful of young conservatives about the dangers and political opportunism of socialist handouts.

“Socialism is not as easy to beat as you think,” Trump said to attendees of Turning Point USA’s Teen Student Action Summit. Why? Because people like free things.

“Don’t kid yourself,” he said later. “Not as easy when I’m up there on the debate [stage] all alone with some maniac that they” — the Democrats — “chose and that maniac is saying, ‘We’re going to do this for you! We’re going to do that for you! We’re going to give you everything! Everybody gets a free Rolls-Royce, every family!' ”

“ 'And we’re going to take better care of illegal immigrants than we take care of our own citizens!’ they tell you,” he said.

The riff was off in a new direction.

“And when they’re saying all of this stuff, and then those illegals get out and vote, because they vote anyway. Don’t kid yourself,” he said. “Those numbers in California and numerous other states, they’re rigged. They’ve got people voting that shouldn’t be voting. They vote many times, not just twice, not just three times. It’s like a circle. They come back, they put a new hat on. They come back, they put a new shirt on. And in many cases, they don’t even do that. You know what’s going on. It’s a rigged deal.”

Trump is making three claims here, all untrue.

The first is that immigrants who are in the country illegally vote in federal elections. Despite years of investigation into alleged voter fraud, no evidence has emerged of any significant number of people casting illegal ballots, much less people who are in the country illegally. On the face of it, the idea doesn’t make much sense: A group of people worried about attracting attention from federal authorities are going to risk their presence in the United States and their incomes to . . . vote?

American citizens barely vote, and we’re allowed to. We’re supposed to believe that immigrants in the country illegally are so concerned about their representation in the U.S. House that they both violate a federal law and do so publicly to have their voices heard? It’s ridiculous.

The focus on California here is obvious. Trump lost California by 4.3 million votes in 2016. As Trump allies have pointed out, take away California and Trump wins both the electoral and popular votes. (Flip Texas, though, and Hillary Clinton wins both.) Trump presents himself as popular and reflecting the will of the people, something that’s hard to do when the people preferred another candidate in 2016. But if those millions of votes were illegal? Well, now we’re in business.

That brings us to Trump’s second claim: that people vote over and over again.

This nonsense about people putting on a hat to vote again is something Trump has said before. It seems to be predicated on the idea that the integrity of the voting process rests on the ability of pollworkers to remember if they’ve already seen a prospective voter cast a ballot.

The next time there’s an election, try this: Go in, give your name, get your ballot, vote — and then go out, put on a hat and try it again. In your experience, what would happen? I suspect it would be something like this: Either you’d be recognized and the poll workers would assume you were drunk or you’d go up and give your name again and they’d see you voted and the poll workers would assume you were drunk.

To be fair, Trump has spent a lot of time hyping and trying to rig online surveys, in which voting multiple times doesn’t even require a new hat. So perhaps he just assumes it works in real life, too.

He should know better from personal experience. In 2004, he tried to cast his vote for president with a film crew and TV personality in tow. He wasn’t on the voter rolls, so he was repeatedly turned away from polling places in New York.

The show was “Access Hollywood.” The TV personality was Billy Bush. You can’t make this stuff up.

The third untrue thing Trump said to the Turning Point teens was that the process was rigged. He was subtle in a Trumpy way, suggesting with an audible wink that fraudulent voting is allowed by California’s Democratic leadership. That’s why the voters didn’t have to change shirts: The state’s leadership is in on it.

So let’s think about this, too. The idea is that poll workers are given instructions to let people come in and vote over and over? Instead of just, say, faking the results? It’s like running a bank and instead of wiring money to a surreptitious account you ask friends to come in and rob the place every two weeks. Good way to loop a lot more people into your crimes! And yet, despite that, there’s no evidence that this even happens.

Now Trump and his allies will claim that there’s lots of evidence of fraud in California in the form of lots of people being eligible to vote who shouldn’t be. They may, as Trump has in the past, point to a settlement between the conservative group Judicial Watch and Los Angeles County in which more than a million people will be removed from voter files. Across the state, a number of counties have more voters on the rolls than eligible voters.

Why? Because people die and people move. And since it’s rare for anyone to bother voting multiple times in multiple places or to try to vote using an assumed identity — because, again, people don’t really care about voting anyway — the voter rolls fill up with people who don’t live in those counties anymore.

There was a report from the Pew Center on the States several years ago that noted that voter rolls were bloated with outdated registrations but that, as its authors quickly noted after Trump seized on the research, there was no indication of rampant fraud.

Again, let’s consider an analogy. Let’s imagine that someone claims that there are thousands of burglaries in a small town in a year. To bolster that claim, they note both that lots of people own screwdrivers, which could be used to pry open a window, and they point to the only burglary on record, in which a screwdriver was used.

This is not strong evidence of an epidemic of burglaries, particularly as there haven’t been many burglaries recorded. Perhaps the response is that the burglaries have gone undetected, which is fair. But by that argument you could similarly claim that every person on Earth has been abducted by aliens at some point but had the memory of it erased. Maybe! Probably not.

Trump keeps hyping this stuff because he wants to impugn immigrants, disparage Democrats as corrupt and seem more popular than he actually was in 2016. It’s as untrue now as it ever was. Hopefully some or most of the teenagers in the audience for his speech are more aware of that than he seems to be.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

How did Trump end up in front of a presidential seal doctored to include a Russian symbol?

At first glance, there was nothing unusual about President Trump’s introduction Tuesday at Turning Point USA’s student summit. In many ways, it mirrored the production style that has become synonymous with Trump’s campaign rallies.

Following a 12-minute video illustrating Trump’s rise to the presidency, music blared as the president’s name flashed across a giant screen in a bold shade of red. Trump took the stage and soaked in the raucous cheers from hundreds of young supporters packed inside the Marriott Marquis in Washington.

Charlie Kirk, Turning Point’s outspoken founder and executive director, was on his left. But the image on the screen to Trump’s right — captured in dozens of photos and videos from the event — is less familiar.

The image almost resembles the official seal of the president, but a closer examination reveals alterations that seem to poke fun at the president’s golfing penchant and accusations that he has ties to Russia. Neither the White House nor Turning Point knows how it got there or who created it.

The eagle has two heads instead of one — a symbol historically tied to empire and dominance. It closely resembles the bird on the Russian coat of arms and also appears on the flags of Serbia, Albania and Montenegro. Its left talons, rather than clasping 13 arrows, appear to clutch a set of golf clubs.

One Washington Post reader noted a website that sells merchandise featuring what appears to be the same fake seal. In those images, the words on the parody eagle’s banner say “45 es un titere,” which in Spanish translates to “45 is a puppet.” On the official presidential seal, the eagle’s mouth holds a banner with the U.S. motto, “E pluribus unum" — out of many, one. The fake seal on the shop’s merchandise shows the eagle clutching cash in its right talons.

The Post reached out to the Twitter and Facebook accounts associated with the Web retailer, “OneTermDonnie,” but has not received a reply.

A projection of the true presidential seal was centered behind Trump’s name as he walked onstage. The true seal was also on the lectern where the president spoke for 80 minutes.

A White House spokesperson told The Post they did not see the fake seal before it appeared on-screen and referred questions about the incident to Turning Point.

In a phone interview Wednesday, a spokesman for the conservative group said he didn’t know where the altered seal came from or how it ended up on a screen behind the president. He said the mistake probably came from the team that handled the event’s audio and visual production.

“It was a last-minute A/V mistake — and I can’t figure out where the breakdown was — but it was a last minute throw-up, and that’s all it was,” he said. “I can’t figure out who did it yet.”

“I don’t know where they got the image from,” he added.

According to Turning Point, the audio/visual team helped create and coordinate the graphics, images and videos displayed at Tuesday’s event — including the official seal shown behind Trump’s flashing name on the screen.

The Turning Point spokesman said the team was made up of staff from his organization and from the hotel. On Wednesday evening, he was still working to determine who, exactly, was responsible.

“Somewhere there was a breakdown. I think it was as simple as a rushed move throwing up an image, and it was the wrong one,” the spokesman said, adding it was unfortunate that the faux seal drew attention away from the event’s star-studded lineup of conservative speakers. “It was an A/V mistake . . . it certainly wasn’t our intention.”

Employees at the Marriott Marquis say the hotel generally does not furnish images or video for groups hosting events there. The venue provides only the space and the technology, such as televisions and projectors. The hotel’s event manager who helped coordinate the summit did not return phone messages requesting comment Wednesday.

Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007, said the president’s staff should typically have advanced knowledge and command over images and video displayed at events where the president appears.

He called the incident “careless.”

“You should have control over what the private group is doing, what they’re putting on the screen and anything else,” said Painter, now a law professor at the University of Minnesota. “To let someone project something on the screen that isn’t controlled by the White House is pretty stupid.”

A congressional statute indicates that the presidential seal may not be used to falsely suggest sponsorship or approval by the U.S. government, but Painter and other legal experts say parodies of the seal are protected under the First Amendment right of free expression.

The projection appeared to be a practical joke — but one likely to embarrass a particularly image-conscious president, Painter said.

“Someone is going to be getting in trouble,” he said, “but they got one heck of a good laugh out of it.”

The bird on the doctored seal closely resembles the shape of the double-headed eagle that has been Russia’s coat of arms for centuries. It appears on some former renderings of the country’s flag and figures prominently in the jerseys of Russia’s vaunted national hockey team.

The set of clubs in the eagle’s claw are probably a tribute to Trump’s well-documented golfing habit. The Post previously reported that by October of last year, the president had visited his golf course in Virginia more than 40 times and spent all or part of more than 70 days at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.

In May, the HuffPost reported that Trump’s golfing cost taxpayers more than $102 million in travel and security expenses. This comes despite the fact that Trump frequently censured Barack Obama for his love of the sport — he tweeted at least 27 times that Obama played golf too much. On Saturday, Trump made a surprise appearance at a wedding ceremony held at the Bedminster location.

The two-headed eagle also appears at the bottom of the logo for Turnberry, Trump’s luxury resort and golf course in Scotland.

For Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, the fact that a doctored seal appearing to mock Trump was allowed to be projected behind him as he walked onto a stage was equal parts stunning and perplexing.

“It’s hard to believe . . . who did this?” she said. “Was someone at Turning Point trolling Trump? I just think Putin would probably approve.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Meet the man who created the fake presidential seal — a former Republican fed up with Trump

Charles Leazott hadn’t thought about the seal in months.

The 46-year-old graphic designer threw it together after the 2016 presidential election — it was one part joke, one part catharsis. He used to be a proud Republican. He voted for George W. Bush. Twice.

But Donald J. Trump’s GOP was no longer his party. So he created a mock presidential seal to prove his point.

He substituted the arrows in the eagle’s claw for a set of golf clubs — a nod to the new president’s favorite pastime. In the other set of talons, he swapped the olive branch for a wad of cash and replaced the United States’ Latin motto with a Spanish insult. Then, his coup de grace: a two-headed imperial bird lifted straight from the Russian coat of arms, an homage to the president’s checkered history with the adversarial country.

“This is the most petty piece of art I have ever created,” the Richmond resident said in an interview with The Washington Post.

The seal wasn’t meant for a wide audience. But then, years later, it wound up stretched across a jumbo-tron screen behind an unwitting President Trump as he spoke to a conference packed with hundreds of his young supporters.

That was Tuesday. On Wednesday, The Post was the first to report that the seal was fake — and that neither the White House, nor Turning Point USA, the organizers of the star-studded Teen Student Action Summit, knew how it got there or where it came from. Leazott woke up Thursday and saw the news in a Reddit post as he drank his morning coffee. Then, a torrent of messages.

“It’s been chaos,” he said. “This is not what I expected when I woke up today.”

No one expected it. A Turning Point spokesman said Wednesday the conservative group wasn’t even aware of the phony seal until The Post called him. He spent that night trying track down the culprit and determine whether it was an intentional act by a rogue staffer, or just an honest mistake.

The faux seal was on-screen for at least 80 seconds, in plain sight but largely ignored as hundreds in the room at the Washington Marriott Marquis trained their attention on Trump.

But the modified symbol was loaded with jabs at the president — subtle and overt. The Russian eagle, an allusion to accusations that he embraced the Kremlin, and the Spanish script, a reference to Trump’s controversial border policies and his denigration of Latin American immigrants. Instead of E pluribus unum — “out of many, one” — Leazott wrote “45 es un títere,” or “45 is a puppet,” a callback to a viral exchange between Trump and Hillary Clinton in a 2016 debate.

“I’m a graphic designer, it’s just something I tossed together,” he said. “This was just a goofy thing for some people I knew. I had no idea it would blow up like this."

By Thursday morning, the Turning Point spokesman said the group had identified the staffer responsible for turning Leazott’s design into a trending topic. He called the incident a last-minute oversight, the result of a quick online search to find a second high-resolution photo of the presidential seal to place behind Trump. He said the mistake was “unacceptable.”

“We did let the individual go,” the spokesman said. “I don’t think it was malicious intent, but nevertheless.”

Leazott doesn’t buy it. He thinks whoever was responsible had to know exactly what they were looking for. He believes the person dug up the image he created and used it intentionally.

“That’s a load of crap,” he said in response to Turning Point’s explanation. “You have to look for this. There’s no way this was an accident is all I’m saying.”

After The Post story published, Internet sleuths went looking, too. They found the image’s origin, tracing it back to an online marketplace Leazott set up to sell shirts and stickers sporting the seal, along with other jokey “resistance” apparel. And the citizens of the Web wanted to buy his stuff.

In one fell news cycle, Leazott began making money and fielding calls from papers and TV stations from across the country. People wanted to support him. But the trolls came, too.

“The worst has been Facebook,” he said, which he hadn’t checked “in like a year.”

“Holy crap at the amount of vile, hateful Facebook messages," he said. "It’s apparently a personal affront to some people.”

But, Leazott said, it’s him who gets the last laugh. A photo of Trump in front of his seal is now his computer background, and the person who used it at the event is “either wildly incompetent or the best troll ever — either way, I love them.”

As of Thursday afternoon, Leazott’s shirts were sold out. He said he had to start working with a fulfillment center just to meet the demand. He also revived the primary website for his brand, OneTermDonnie, which includes a paean to the American Civil Liberties Union, where the site says 10 percent of all sales will be directed.

“It’s cool people are buying this, that’s great and all,” he said. “But I’ve got to be honest, I am so tickled in the most petty way possible that the president of the United States, who I despise, stood up and gave a talk in front of this graphic. Whoever put that up is my absolute hero.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Kushner owns lots of Baltimore-area apartments. Some are infested with mice.

In a now-viral tweetstorm on Saturday, President Trump characterized Rep. Elijah E. Cummings’s Baltimore-based congressional district as a “rodent infested mess” where “no human” would want to live.

His criticism rang with a particular irony in Baltimore County, where presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner owns more than a dozen apartment complexes that have been cited for hundreds of code violations and, critics say, provide substandard housing to lower-income tenants.

In an interview Saturday, Baltimore County Executive John A. Olszewski Jr. condemned Trump’s comments as “an attack on basic decency.”

“It is certainly ironic that the president’s own son-in-law was complicit in contributing to some of the neglect that the president purports to be so concerned about,” Olszewski (D) added.

Kushner Cos., which started operating in Maryland in 2013, has owned almost 9,000 rental units across 17 complexes, many of them in Baltimore County, the Baltimore Sun reported earlier this year.

The properties generate at least $90 million in annual revenue. Kushner stepped down as chief executive of the company in 2017, when he became a senior White House adviser.

A company representative did not address questions Sunday about whether the group agreed with Trump’s characterization of the area, but wrote: “Kushner Companies is proud to own thousands of apartments in the Baltimore area.”

In 2017, Baltimore County officials revealed that apartments owned by the Kushner firm were responsible for more than 200 code violations, all accrued in the span of the calendar year. Repairs were made only after the county threatened fines, local officials said, and even after warnings, violations on nine properties were not addressed, resulting in monetary sanctions.

In an investigation by the New York Times and Pro Publica published earlier that year, tenants of Kushner properties reported mouse infestations, mold problems and maggots. A private investigator who looked into Kushner’s property management company, Westminster Management, described the managers as “slumlords.”

Christine Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Kushner firm, asserted at the time that the group was in compliance with all state and local laws. Then-Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz said that was “a stretch of truth.”

“We expect all landlords to comply with the code requirements that protect the health and safety of their tenants, even if the landlord’s father-in-law is president of the United States,” added Kamenetz, who died in 2018.

Shannon Darrow, a program manager at the tenant advocacy group Fair Housing Action Center of Maryland, said Sunday that she was “appalled” by Trump’s comments about Cummings’s district, which includes about half of Baltimore City, and most of the majority-black sections of Baltimore County. She added that she found Trump’s attacks ironic given the legacy of Kushner’s properties in the district.

“Basically, [Kushner] has been creating a race to the bottom in terms of poorly maintained properties,” she said. “He’s been very, very deeply implicated.”

In the past two years, the Kushner firm and its affiliated entities have been sued multiple times by Baltimore-area residents who allege that the company has charged them excessive fees and used the threat of eviction to pressure them into paying.

From 2013 to 2017, corporate entities associated with Kushner apartments requested the civil arrest of 105 former tenants — the highest number among all property managers in Maryland during that period, the Sun reported.

“It’s been our recent experience that working families have been preyed on at the benefit of Mr. Kushner and his company,” Olszewski said.

A group of tenants recently attempted to file a class-action lawsuit alleging unlawful rental practices by the company. Their request was denied by a Baltimore Circuit Court judge.

#Resist

[joan1984]

"...A group of tenants recently attempted to file a class-action lawsuit alleging unlawful rental practices by the company. Their request was denied by a Baltimore Circuit Court judge..."

All the way at the end of the supposed 'story' posted by our resident "Racist Troll".. more non-story complaints. Please Fuck Off, Athos. TY

[Athos_131]

Yellow Wall has been very upset since the impeachment talks from last week's hearings got them ramped up.

Sunlight is a great disinfectant.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

...non-story complaints.

Do random phrases like this mean anything to you?  



Because they're meaningless to everyone else.

[Athos_131]

Trump aide submitted drafts of 2016 'America First' energy speech to UAE for edits, emails show

When candidate Donald Trump prepared to give a major energy speech during the 2016 campaign, one of his closest advisers provided a pre-speech review to senior United Arab Emirates officials, an unorthodox move that caught the attention of federal investigators, according to emails and text messages uncovered by a House Oversight Committee investigation.

“The Trump Administration has virtually obliterated the lines normally separating government policy making from corporate and foreign interests,” according to a report overseen by House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, who commissioned the investigation into back channel business dealings between certain Trump aides and Middle Eastern countries.

Two weeks before Trump was scheduled to deliver the energy policy speech, Thomas Barrack, a California investment tycoon with extensive contacts in the Middle East and who later helped oversee Trump’s inauguration, provided a former business associate inside the United Arab Emirates with an advance copy of the candidate’s planned remarks. The associate then told Barrack he shared them with UAE and Saudi government officials, after which Barrack arranged for language requested by the UAE officials to be added to the speech with the help of Trump’s campaign manager at the time, Paul Manafort.

“This is the most likely final version of the speech. It has the language you want,” Manafort confirmed in an email to Barrack on the day of the speech, according to the report. Manafort has since gone to prison for financial crimes unrelated to his campaign work.

The White House declined to comment.

House investigators note in their report that none of the documents they gathered indicate “whether Trump was aware that drafts of his speech were circulated to foreign officials in the Middle East or that feedback had been provided through Mr. Barrack and Mr. Manafort.”

Attorneys for Manafort declined to comment when reached Monday.

The back-channel exchange caught the attention not only of House investigators but also of federal prosecutors, according to a report late Sunday in The New York Times, which first reported on the dealings.

ABC News has obtained copies of more detailed emails and texts from House investigators, who gathered more than 60,000 documents showing what they say are the intermingling of private interests and public policy decision by Trump aides both before and after he took office. The resulting investigative report, made public Monday, presents events surrounding the 2016 energy speech as a prime example of how Trump’s close aides were granting their foreign business contacts access to campaign policy decisions.

A source close to Barrack confirmed the basic details to ABC News. A statement from Barrack’s spokesman, first published by The Times, said prosecutors had confirmed to Barrack’s attorney that “they have no further questions for Mr. Barrack.” His aides told The Times he never worked on behalf of foreign states or entities and he was ultimately disappointed that more of the language sought by his contacts in the Middle East did not wind up in Trump’s speech.

Trump traveled to North Dakota in May of 2016, having just clinched the Republican nomination for president. He intended to give a policy speech that would solidify his position on oil, gas and coal – an energy speech that would make clear he would prioritize American energy jobs over grand multi-national environmental pacts like the Paris climate agreement.

Trump called his approach an “America First” energy plan that would “make America wealthy again.”

“Under my presidency, we will accomplish complete American energy independence,” he told the crowd. “Imagine a world in which our foes, and the oil cartels, can no longer use energy as a weapon.”

In the midst of the muscular, America-first approach that became a hallmark of his campaign, he added a phrase intended to placate an audience far away in the United Arab Emirates, telling the crowd “we will work with our Gulf allies to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy.”

The language was modest when compared to what was requested by officials in the oil-rich emirates, according to the text messages exchanged between Barrack and Rashid al-Malik, a former business associate in UAE. Al-Malik had secretly worked as an intelligence asset for the UAE government, “tasked to report to his Emirati intelligence handlers on topics of consequence to the UAE,” the House report said, citing an Intercept news report.

William F. Coffield, an attorney for al-Malik, told ABC News his client “was never a conduit to the Trump organization for anyone. He has never been a paid intelligence source for anyone.”

“Mr. al-Malik is from the UAE and has a home in the U.S. He loves the UAE and the USA,” said Coffield. “He was a business associate of Mr Barrack’s, and they shared a personal desire to build bridges between the citizens of both. It’s really that simple.”

Barrack and al-Malik began the text message exchanges two weeks before Trump’s energy speech was set to be delivered, according to the House report. Barrack sent a draft of the candidate’s energy remarks to al-Malik and a message that said, “What do you think of his energy message given to American executives with a pro Middle East point of view -- for you and Saeed to rebiew [sic] for me quickly. I need a few pro Middle East aspects.” The report does not identify “Saeed.”

An hour later, al-Malik responded, “This is what I got from them,” according to the report.

The text does not identify “them,” but House investigators say they believe it is a reference to Saudi and Emirati officials. In that text, al-Malik requests that new language add references to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and UAE Crown Prince Abudhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, as well as a line that states: “We can and should support reform in the Middle East, in the process thereby reducing the appeal of Islamic terrorism, and support our allies who are fighting our enemies.”

The following day, Barrack proposes the additional language to Manafort, suggesting references to the two Arab leaders and language that loosely mirrors the sentiments that had been requested. He adds in his email, “This is probably as close as I can get without crossing a lot of lines,” according to the report.

The language that winds up in Trump’s speech ultimately does not include the direct references to the Gulf leaders but does include a nod to the requested sentiment – expressing his desire to “work with our Gulf allies to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump shares Twitter accounts linked to conspiracy theory QAnon

President Trump on Tuesday promoted two Twitter accounts that have shown support for the online conspiracy theory known as QAnon, amplifying the fringe accounts to his millions of followers.

The president tagged one user in a tweet about election security and retweeted another blaming Democrats for voter fraud.

“We should immediately pass Voter ID @Voteridplease to insure the safety and sanctity of our voting system. Also, Paper Ballots as backup (old fashioned but true!). Thank you!” Trump tweeted.

The user he tagged, @Voteridplease, has shared content related to QAnon. Trump then retweeted another account that shared a large graphic that read, “DEMOCRATS ARE THE TRUE ENEMIES OF AMERICA!” That user has also linked to QAnon material.

QAnon centers on the idea that an anonymous government official, or “Q,” has been secretly sharing messages and symbols that serve as evidence of a hidden plot to overthrow Trump. Those who believe in QAnon parse tweets, photos and other online content for hidden meanings, or “crumbs” — and signs that Trump knows and supports their cause.

Trump has retweeted content connected to QAnon in the past, but it’s unclear whether he knows that he’s doing so — Trump often retweets his followers.

But QAnon supporters are overjoyed when Trump does retweet, believing it’s evidence he supports their movement.

Almost immediately, Trump’s tweet this time caught the eye of some QAnon adherents on the anonymous online forum 8chan.

“Not the first time. Not the last time,” wrote one anonymous user in response to the president’s post.

Benjamin T. Decker, a former Harvard researcher and chief executive of Memetica, which investigates online disinformation, said, “Getting a tweet from the president demonstrates they have a wider reach than they actually have.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump's pick for intelligence director misrepresented role in anti-terror case

President Donald Trump's pick for the next director of national intelligence, Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, has misrepresented his role in an anti-terrorism case that he's repeatedly cited among his credentials related to national security issues.

The apparent embellishment is related to two anti-terrorism financing trials in a case known as the U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation, the second of which resulted in convictions for several individuals found to have illegally funneled charity money to the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas.

In a 2015 press release, Ratcliffe's House website stated, "When serving by special appointment in U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation, he convicted individuals who were funneling money to Hamas behind the front of a charitable organization."

His official campaign website, in a February 2016 post, also touted his "special appointment as the prosecutor in U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation, one of the nation's largest terrorism financing cases."

But ABC News could find no public court records that connect Ratcliffe to either of the two trials for the case. Former officials directly involved in the decade-long Holy Land Foundation investigation could not recall Ratcliffe having any role, and four former defense attorneys who served on the cases told ABC News on Monday they had no recollection of Ratcliffe being involved with any of the proceedings that resulted in the convictions of their clients.

In a statement to ABC News, Ratcliffe's office clarified that his status regarding the case was instead related to investigating issues surrounding what led to the mistrial in the first case.

"Because the investigation did not result in any charges, it would not be in accordance with Department of Justice policies to make further details public," Rachel Stephens, a spokesperson for Ratcliffe, said. "However, Department of Justice records will confirm that as both Chief of Anti-Terrorism and National Security for the Eastern District of Texas from 2004-2008, John Ratcliffe opened, managed and supervised numerous domestic and international terrorism related cases."

Stephens didn't identify any specific terrorism cases prosecuted by Ratcliffe, however, and didn't comment on the discrepancy between the previous statement on Ratcliffe's website that he "convicted individuals who were funneling money to Hamas."

"The lead prosecutor was [U.S. Attorney] Jim Jacks," said Matthew Levitt, a former FBI analyst who served as the government's expert witness in both trials. "I met with him every time. But I was only there (at the trial) for my testimony. I don't think I've ever met John Ratcliffe. I didn't even think of the trial when his name came up for DNI -- it didn't even occur to me."

A spokeswoman for the Northern District of Texas' office referred requests for comment to Ratcliffe's office. The Department of Justice referred questions on the matter to the White House.

A senior Democratic aide on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where Ratcliffe would face a confirmation hearing, told ABC News Monday evening that it's "safe to say we will be looking at his experience and record in intelligence-related issues."

Prior to his time as U.S. attorney, Ratcliffe was appointed by President George W. Bush as chief of anti-terrorism and national security in the Eastern District of Texas. According to the U.S. attorney who led the office at the time, Matthew Orwig, Ratcliffe worked on several cases involving domestic and international terrorism, but declined to name specific cases.

"People see trials and people see the high-profile stuff, and that's really just a tiny percentage of the great work that's done by law enforcement every day since 9/11," Orwig told ABC News. "When you think about it, for the last 15 years, he's very much been in the national security arena, first as anti-terrorism coordinator, then as U.S. attorney, then as a congressman on the Judiciary Committee, the Homeland Security Committee and the Intelligence Committee."

"I can't think of anyone who would have a better background that equips them for the position," Orwig added.

Ratcliffe has also made questionable claims about his exact role in targeting undocumented immigrants.

In a February 2014 interview with radio station KETR, he said, "As U.S. attorney, I arrested 300 illegals in a single day." Two years later, Ratcliffe's campaign for Congress issued a press release repeating that claim. And according to the biography on his current congressional website, as of Monday night, he "arrested 300 illegal aliens in a single day."

But in April 2008, when nearly 300 undocumented immigrants were arrested in raids tied to Texas poultry plants, those happened not only in Texas but in Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas and West Virginia. And at the time, Ratcliffe made clear that it was federal agents who made the arrests.

In June 2017, another Ratcliffe press release was more nuanced about his role in the raids as U.S. attorney, saying his "work led to the arrest of more than 300 illegal aliens in a single day."

#Resist

[Athos_131]

New law would bar Trump from appearing on Calif. ballot if he doesn’t disclose tax returns

Trump would be barred from appearing on California’s primary ballot next year if he declines to disclose his tax returns under a measure signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) that could prompt other Democratic-led states to follow suit.

The new law is expected to draw a high-profile court challenge, but its implications for Trump remain unclear. Absent the emergence of a credible Republican primary challenger, he could opt not to appear on California’s ballot and still win the GOP nomination.

Trump broke with decades of tradition during the 2016 election by not voluntarily releasing his tax returns. His administration has rebuffed efforts by the Democratic-led House to obtain the documents from the Internal Revenue Service.

In a statement, Newsom said that given its size, California has “a special responsibility to require this information of presidential and gubernatorial candidates.”

“These are extraordinary times and states have a legal and moral duty to do everything in their power to ensure leaders seeking the highest offices meet minimal standards, and to restore public confidence,” he said.

Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal attorney, said in a statement that California’s “attempt to circumvent the Constitution will be answered in court.”

Tim Murtaugh, a Trump campaign spokesman, said that California had run afoul of the Constitution by passing the measure, which was approved by the legislature along party lines.

“The Constitution is clear on the qualifications for someone to serve as president and states cannot add additional requirements on their own,” Murtaugh said in a statement. “The bill also violates the 1st Amendment right of association, since California can’t tell political parties which candidates their members can or cannot vote for in a primary election.”

Though inspired by Trump, the law applies to any candidate seeking the presidency or the governorship of California.

Candidates are required to file copies with the California secretary of state of every tax return filed with the IRS in the five most recent taxable years. Filings are required at least 98 days ahead of the primary election.

California’s primaries are scheduled for March 3, the day known as Super Tuesday because of the large number of delegates at stake.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) has requested six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns, from 2013 to 2018, a period that includes several years before Trump became president.

Neal recently sued the Trump administration in federal court to obtain the records, after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin argued in a May letter that Neal’s “unprecedented request” should be denied.

Neal cited a 1924 law that gives his committee the power to request tax returns from the Treasury Department for review in closed session.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

House Republican retirements reflect transformation of party in Trump era

Rep. K. Michael Conaway has long been in charge of cleaning up messes made by other Republicans.

In 2007, Conaway, a CPA, oversaw an audit of National Republican Congressional Committee finances that exposed a nearly $1 million embezzlement scheme. He then got placed on the House Ethics Committee amid several partisan investigations, eventually chairing that panel, a task no one requests.

Finally, two years ago, GOP leaders tasked Conaway (R-Tex.) with temporarily taking the reins of the House Intelligence Committee’s probe of Russian interference efforts to aid Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, because other Republicans had run into trouble.

But on Wednesday, Conaway — respected enough that he was occasionally floated as a potential compromise GOP speaker — announced he would retire next year rather than run for a ninth term.

He became the eighth Republican this year to announce retirement plans, including five in the past few days as the House wrapped up its session and headed out for a 46-day summer recess. Most of those GOP retirements, so far, come from safely red seats — Conaway’s West Texas district went for Trump by a nearly 59-point margin in 2016.

Conaway, 71, said the time was right to walk away, after four years as chairman of the Agriculture Committee and these two years as its ranking Republican. He faced GOP term limits for that coveted post.

“This is a perfect time as I transition,” he said at a news conference in Midland. “I told folks for a long time, ‘When I’m no longer in a leadership position, I’m coming home.’ ”

Rep. Rob Bishop (Utah), facing a similar term limit as top Republican on the Natural Resources Committee, confirmed his decision to retire a few days ago.

These retirements by influential Republicans suggest that there is increasing doubt about whether they can defy history and become the first caucus to flip the House majority during a presidential election since 1952. If he had stuck around, Conaway had a chance to become the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, while Bishop is near the top of the Armed Services Committee.

The unspoken fear among Republicans is that more retirements could be on the way, particularly over this long recess as members of Congress spend time with their families, travel their district or make official overseas trips.

That time away helps lawmakers recharge and come back to Washington ready for the fall and winter legislative slog — or realize how much they enjoyed their time away from the Capitol, prompting them to prepare their retirement announcements.

Meanwhile, on Sept. 10, the first full day back in session for the House, all eyes will be on a special election in a North Carolina district Republicans should win comfortably. Instead it’s a neck-and-neck race.

Should Democrat Dan McCready prevail there, just after lawmakers have spent so much time away, the retirement floodgates could open. If those leaving include lawmakers from politically vulnerable terrain, that would make the Republican climb to the majority even steeper.

Changes in the House majority are often followed by a large number of retirements. In 2008, after the Democratic sweep of the 2006 midterms, 27 House Republicans retired. In 1996, after the 1994 midterms gave the GOP its first majority in 40 years, 29 Democrats decided to leave the House.

The longer-term issue from all these retirements might just be the quality of lawmakers serving in the Capitol.

Again and again, those heading for the exits tend to come from the ranks of respected veterans who do not fit in this era of Congress, when controversial statements produce social media attention and then cable news hits, leading to large online fundraising hauls.

The Trump era has taken this formula and put it on steroids, vaulting backbenchers with little experience into the sort of prominence that the committee chairs do not command.

Both caucuses have seen this phenomenon, but Republicans impose term limits on top committee spots, and that creates a bigger brain drain.

In 2016, as he hit his six-year limit as chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) decided to retire. A staunch conservative who represented Florida’s right-tilting Panhandle for almost 16 years, Miller worked behind the scenes to pass a sweeping bipartisan overhaul of medical treatment for military veterans.

After a heated primary in 2016, Matt Gaetz, then a 34-year-old state legislator, emerged as Miller’s successor, becoming a nonstop presence on cable news as a Trump ally.

Conaway and Bishop are classic workhorses, not show horses. They focused on issues critical to their regions — farming for West Texas, public lands for Utah — and expanded outward for experience on other issues.

Republicans should be more alarmed by the retirement decisions of Reps. Paul Mitchell (Mich.), who is in just his second term, and Martha Roby (Ala.), once considered a rising star from the class of 2010.

Roby, who just turned 43, was the face of what many hoped would be the GOP’s future: She’s a conservative mother of two who once worked at Sony Music and who can talk about 1980s heavy metal and the Pentagon’s 10-year procurement plans.

In the decennial reapportionment, Alabama is likely to lose a seat, and by 2022 Roby would probably have had to face another GOP incumbent in a member-vs.-member primary — one in which her past criticisms of Trump’s behavior would no doubt get re-litigated.

On July 15, Mitchell became one of the few Republicans to forcefully denounce Trump for his “go back” comments directed at four Democratic congresswoman of color.

“These comments are beneath leaders,” Mitchell wrote on Twitter.

Less than 10 days later, barely 2½ years into his congressional service, he announced he would retire at the end of 2020.

Who replaces these Republicans, even as they come from safe GOP districts, will say much about whether the party wants to make any course correction away from the Gaetz model of politics and back toward the Conaway approach to governance.

“I expect a spirited primary process,” Conaway told reporters in Midland.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Senators introduce bipartisan measure to punish Saudis for Khashoggi murder

Sens. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) introduced bipartisan legislation Wednesday seeking to punish the Saudi government for the October murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Their bill, similar to one passed overwhelmingly in the House earlier this month, would require the director of national intelligence to identify which Saudi officials were involved in killing Khashoggi and require the Trump administration to impose visa sanctions on those individuals and deny them entry into the United States.

“This bill is another important message to the Saudis that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi will not go unpunished,” Graham said in a statement. “If you played a role in the murder, you have no business traveling to the United States. This bill accomplishes that goal.”

This new legislation comes days after the Senate failed to override President Trump’s vetoes of three bills blocking arms deals benefiting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which lawmakers sought as a way to hold Saudi leaders accountable for the slaying of Khashoggi and for the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

The president has resisted calls from Congress to punish Saudi leaders, putting Republicans in a difficult position as they determine how hard to push for sanctions on Saudi officials in defiance of Trump.

Last week, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman James E. Risch (R-S.C.) offered a watered down bill that would restrict U.S. visas for some members of the Saudi kingdom but not Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Over Risch’s objections, committee members advanced a stricter sanctions bill to impose a moratorium on all nondefensive arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and to impose sanctions on Saudi leaders involved in Khashoggi’s death, including the crown prince.

Risch has said there’s no point pushing a bill that is going to be vetoed by the president.

“We cannot let our foreign policy be dictated solely by narrow economic and security concerns. Our values are equally if not more important than our interests,” Coons said in a statement. “We have a long history with Saudi Arabia but the President has failed to hold the country’s senior leadership to account for the horrendous murder of Jamal Khashoggi. This legislation will ensure the United States doesn’t turn a blind eye to egregious violations of human rights.”]Sens. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) introduced bipartisan legislation Wednesday seeking to punish the Saudi government for the October murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Their bill, similar to one passed overwhelmingly in the House earlier this month, would require the director of national intelligence to identify which Saudi officials were involved in killing Khashoggi and require the Trump administration to impose visa sanctions on those individuals and deny them entry into the United States.

“This bill is another important message to the Saudis that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi will not go unpunished,” Graham said in a statement. “If you played a role in the murder, you have no business traveling to the United States. This bill accomplishes that goal.”

This new legislation comes days after the Senate failed to override President Trump’s vetoes of three bills blocking arms deals benefiting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which lawmakers sought as a way to hold Saudi leaders accountable for the slaying of Khashoggi and for the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

The president has resisted calls from Congress to punish Saudi leaders, putting Republicans in a difficult position as they determine how hard to push for sanctions on Saudi officials in defiance of Trump.

Last week, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman James E. Risch (R-S.C.) offered a watered down bill that would restrict U.S. visas for some members of the Saudi kingdom but not Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Over Risch’s objections, committee members advanced a stricter sanctions bill to impose a moratorium on all nondefensive arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and to impose sanctions on Saudi leaders involved in Khashoggi’s death, including the crown prince.

Risch has said there’s no point pushing a bill that is going to be vetoed by the president.

“We cannot let our foreign policy be dictated solely by narrow economic and security concerns. Our values are equally if not more important than our interests,” Coons said in a statement. “We have a long history with Saudi Arabia but the President has failed to hold the country’s senior leadership to account for the horrendous murder of Jamal Khashoggi. This legislation will ensure the United States doesn’t turn a blind eye to egregious violations of human rights.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Why my committee needs Trump’s tax returns

For three decades, the House of Representatives and its Ways and Means Committee have been the site of my life’s work. I never aspired to be a senator or governor or president.

Instead, I learned arcane House rules and sought a position on the Ways and Means Committee because of its tremendous potential to help my district. I have listened to my constituents on matters such as taxes, health care, international trade and Social Security, which are within the committee’s purview. Untold hours have gone into developing legislation and trying to improve, pass or defeat countless bills. That’s the job.

I’d rather hold a roundtable in Pittsfield, Mass., or cross-examine Medicare administrators than pick fights on cable news. Those arguments tend to drive people into their corners, shrinking opportunities to accomplish real results.

I’m an institutionalist. I respect Congress, for all its imperfections. As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, I am responsible for congressional oversight of the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service’s administration of the federal tax code. The tax code gives the committee chairman the power to request taxpayer information from the IRS. The committee has exercised this power at various times in the past and has never been denied by the IRS or the Treasury Department.

In early April, I requested the president’s tax returns to fulfill a legitimate congressional oversight responsibility: Our voluntary tax-compliance system hinges on the public’s faith that our tax laws are administered fairly and without favor to those in power. The president is unique: No other American has the power to sign bills into law and direct an entire branch of government. That power, and the extent to which the IRS can audit and enforce federal tax laws against a current or future president, merits closer legislative scrutiny.

The IRS has a policy of performing mandatory audits on all sitting presidents and vice presidents. But neither Congress nor the public knows anything about the scope of those audits and whether the president can exert undue influence on the IRS to affect his or her tax treatment. If, for example, the president is already under audit at the time he or she takes office, what happens to that audit? We don’t know.

My committee will consider legislation regarding the mandatory audit program to ensure these audits are conducted fairly and without undue influence from the commander in chief. And, as part of our deliberations, we must review his tax information to better understand the audit program and propose any needed changes.

The law on this is very clear: The IRS “shall furnish ” the Ways and Means Committee with the requested tax returns. Both Democrats and Republicans have made requests for taxpayer information under 6103(f)(1) of the U.S. tax code in the past. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that Congress is entitled to a presumption that its investigatory activities are legitimate, and, in this case, the legitimacy is self-evident. And yet, the administration has stonewalled Congress, ordering the IRS commissioner not to comply with the plain language of the law and setting up a pending legal clash.

I did not pick this fight, but I will not shirk it because it’s about something much bigger than tax forms. This is not an exercise in political retribution: I am not willing to trade the reputation of the Ways and Means Committee for cheap political gains.

The committee is a venerable part of U.S. history, having given the nation Social Security, Medicare, the entire tax code, all of our trade agreements, and numerous programs serving children and families. This committee financed America’s role in both world wars, and its antecedent paid for the Lewis and Clark expedition. I have no intention of squandering my chairmanship of this distinguished panel on petty or malevolent efforts to embarrass the current president.

But in this country, we take seriously the Magna Carta’s precept of the rule of law, not the law of rulers. I will fight with everything I have to reassert Congress’s constitutional mandate to serve as an equal branch of government. This country has thrived through the centuries because we have durable political institutions with a robust system of checks and balances.

Our political institutions won’t continue to function unless we guard them vigilantly, and my colleagues and I in the House majority are committed to doing so. It is the root of our oath to uphold the law.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Democrats should talk more about Trump’s weakness and unpopularity

Joe Biden, fresh off a debate in which he gave a mixed performance, just said this to reporters:

I promise you. If I get the nomination, I will win Michigan. I promise you that. I will win Pennsylvania. I will win Ohio. I will win these states that he got 72,000 extra votes on to give himself an election. Look, folks. It’s not that there was this great migration to him. It didn’t occur. We’re talking about 72,500 votes in three states that changed. Otherwise, Hillary Clinton would be president with a margin of over 3 million votes.

We should hear this from Democrats more often. My point here is not to agree with Biden that he will win those states as the nominee. I’ve argued that we should insist Biden explain why he’s the candidate to win back the Rust Belt, rather than take it on faith that the older white guy who also happens to be from the more centrist wing of the party, as opposed to a more populist candidate, is best positioned to do that.

Rather, my point is that this is something many Democrats arguably should say with regularity — specifically, that President Trump is actually somewhat tenuously positioned for reelection, given how tenuous his initial victory was. He pulled an electoral college rabbit from his hat by winning an incredibly tight margin in a handful of states, amid a perfect storm of circumstances, while losing the national popular vote by 3 million.

So it’s good that Biden pointed out the fluke-like nature of Trump’s electoral college victory and his massive popular-vote loss as two sides of the same coin. Other Democrats might do this more often.

For one thing, we know this kind of talk rattles Trump. Remember the fiasco of Trump’s leaked internal polling? In March, the Trump campaign conducted an internal poll and found that Trump was trailing Biden in many key states, in some by large margins. Trump flatly denied the existence of the bad polling, after which it emerged that the polling did in fact exist. Trump’s team then cut ties with the pollsters.

Trump tends to react in a rage when he senses he’s losing control. He has repeatedly erupted in fury over spikes in border crossings, at one point ordering underlings to break laws to get the border under control, and we know Trump sees those border numbers as metrics that indicate his presidency is failing. When Trump thinks he’s losing, he does crazy things. And crazy things make swing voters uncomfortable.

For another thing, Trump actually is deeply unpopular, and so are his policies. Trump just slapped yet another round of tariffs on China, because whatever he thinks of as a good trade deal is eluding him. He’s in a jam: He needs a deal for reelection purposes — trade is one of his signature issues — but the longer the trade war drags on, the harder it is politically for him to accept a bad deal, because the results won’t be worth the pain it caused his own constituencies.

As it is, Trump’s trade policies are unpopular, and that isn’t likely to improve anytime soon. And Trump is still stuck at 42 percent in the national polling averages.

As political scientist Jonathan Bernstein points out, both the depth and the durability of Trump’s unpopularity are important; the latter suggests it will be hard to get his numbers up substantially, and the former suggests that a lot of people who don’t approve of his performance will have to vote for him to win.

Pointing out Trump’s unpopularity more often might also help allay the horrible tendency of pundits to treat Trump as if he possesses magical political powers in just about all situations. Every time Trump does something unhinged — whether it’s threaten to shut down the southern border entirely or tell U.S.-born nonwhite lawmakers to go back to where they came from — a throng of pundits stampedes forth to tell us how politically brilliant it is. Injecting Trump’s unpopularity into the discussion might mitigate that a bit.

I’m not remotely saying it will be easy to beat Trump. It will not be. Trump has a reasonable shot at winning reelection, if only because of the advantages of incumbency and the economy. But he’s not in a strong position, either, and Democrats should point that out more often.

After all, Trump and his propagandists obviously view the creation of the cult-like illusion that he is winning everywhere as central to his political mystique. Trump regularly blames the media for fabricating polls that accurately depict his weak standing. He even pretended large protests greeting him abroad never happened.

Puncturing that mystique rattles Trump. And he hates it.

#Resist