Last Call For The Reach To Impeach, Con't

Federal prosecutors are moving forward with the next stage of indictments in the Giuliani corruption investigation after last week's arrest of two ex-Soviet business pals of Rudy Giuliani on campaign finance charges.

We know Giuliani is facing a major federal probe from US attorneys in Manhattan over his corrupt clients, including aforementioned ex-Soviet Putin fixers Abe Parnas and Igor Fruman in Ukraine, and previously indicted Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who worked for convicted ex-bank exec Mehmet Atilla.

Now the Turkish state bank at the heart of Zarrab's plan to evade Iranian sanctions has been charged with money laundering and violating US sanctions on Iran.

Federal prosecutors in New York on Tuesday charged Turkey’s Halkbank (HALKB.IS) with taking part in a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran.

The charges against the majority state-owned bank mirror those against one of its former executives, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who was found guilty and sentenced to prison after a trial in Manhattan federal court last year.

A U.S. lawyer for Halkbank did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Prosecutors said that between 2012 and 2016, Halkbank helped run a scheme that allowed Iran to spend proceeds from sales of its oil and gas on international markets, in violation of U.S. sanctions, using a complex web of front companies. 

The scheme ran with the protection of high-ranking officials in Iran and Turkey, some of whom received tens of millions of dollars in bribes, the prosecutors said.

Trump asked Rex Tillerson to get Justice to drop charges against Zarrab on Rudy's behalf.  Just this stuff alone is enough to impeach and remove Trump and put Giuliani in a cage for the rest of his life, but it gets worse for Rudy tonight.

Former Republican Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. 

“A grand jury has issued a subpoena related to Manhattan federal prosecutors’ investigation into Rudy Giuliani, seeking documents from former Rep. Pete Sessions about his dealings with President Trump’s personal lawyer and associates, according to people familiar with the matter,” the newspaper reported.

“The subpoena seeks documents related to Mr. Giuliani’s business dealings with Ukraine and his involvement in efforts to oust the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv, as well as any interactions between Mr. Sessions, Mr. Giuliani and four of Mr. Giuliani’s associates who were indicted last week on campaign-finance and conspiracy accounts, the people said,” The Journal explained. “Mr. Giuliani is the primary focus of the subpoena, the people said. Mr. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing and said he has had no indication his actions are being investigated by prosecutors.”

Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, Trump has had criminal deals with figures from all those countries, and sold out America every time to further his own goals.  And Rudy Giuliani connects almost all of those dots.

Giuliani is now daring House Democrats to do anything to him as he's refusing to cooperate with any subpoenas.  VP Mike Pence is now saying he won't comply either.  Trump has already said he won't cooperate, and Dems are apparently holding off an impeachment inquiry vote while they make their next move.  Meanwhile, more testimony from State Department sources continues this week in House closed-door sessions.

Rudy Giuliani going to jail one way or another, but I'd surely like to see inherent contempt used...

It's About Suppression, Con't

Ohio Republicans, firmly in charge of the state after the 2016 elections, tried to remove nearly a quarter of a million people this year from voting rolls for the crime of not voting often enough.  The Roberts Court agreed in June 2018 that the state could disenfranchise whomever it wanted to, and more importantly it created the precedent that the burden of proof of voter eligibility was on the voter, not the state.

In a last-ditch effort, a few Republicans led by previous Gov. John Kasich and current Secretary of State Frank LaRose sided with the state's Democrats to release the full list of those to be purged to voting activist groups to try to crowdsource the list.  The activists, including the League of Women Voters, found that some 40,000 voters were set to be purged incorrectly, and mysteriously the vast majority of those to be disenfranchised were registered Democrats...including the director of the League of Women Voters herself.

Ohio, where the Democratic presidential candidates are set to debate Tuesday, is both a battleground state and the site of some of the country’s strictest voting laws, from voter ID requirements to a “use-it-or-lose-it” provision that lets officials drop voters seen as inactive.

The combination has led voting rights advocates to contend that parts of the state are regularly disenfranchised, largely in purges aimed at those who have died or moved away, but which also hit real voters who don’t learn they can’t vote until Election Day. Election officials in other battlegrounds such as Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Texas regularly purge their voter lists as well.

This year, a group of elected officials in the state, mostly all moderate Republicans, tried to answer the concerns with an experiment of their own: Rather than purge the voter rolls behind closed doors as had been done in the past, the government released the full list of those to be removed this summer, and gave the list to advocacy groups. The groups said they found the list was riddled with errors.

The result: Around 40,000 people, nearly one in five names on the list, shouldn’t have been on it, the state determined. And it only found out before anyone was actually turned away at a polling place largely because of volunteer sleuthing. 

Few people had expected a problem at that scale.

But the process gave hope to people working on voting rights, who for years had pushed the state to be more transparent in how it was maintaining its voter rolls. Moderate Republicans, caught between advocacy groups pushing for fewer purges and more conservative leaders in other states urging for more, think they may have found a way to thread the needle. 

“We’re talking about crowdsourcing, in simply putting the list out there,” said Frank LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state, whose office oversaw the purge and who manages the election here. 

Ohio’s needle-threading experiment this year — the only time advocates say a state government has released a list ahead of time — also offers one of the first looks at how so many names could be incorrectly removed from the rolls.

In one case, a data mistake from an outside firm meant a large number of people’s names were set to be knocked off. Ohio’s 88 counties each used a different process of removing people from the rolls, an immediate source of headaches for officials trying to compile a statewide list. 

And voting rights groups found an unexplained tranche — around 20,000 people — who had been marked to be purged because of inactivity in future election cycles, but were actually active voters in previous Ohio elections. These voters were in Franklin County, a Democratic stronghold in the state.

For those of you playing at home, Franklin County, Ohio is the capital of Columbus and its surrounding suburbs.  There's about 850,000 registered voters as of 2018 according to the county's board of election website, and the county voted nearly 2-to-1 for Clinton in 2016.  20,000 or more would have lost their right to vote if this hadn't been caught heading into 2020.

Yeah, that's right, half the "errors" in the previous secretary of state's planned purge came from the bluest county in the state.  That guy? Jon Husted? He is now Lieutenant Governor, by the way, under Gov. DeWine.

Weird how that works, huh.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Congress is back in session today, and the House impeachment inquiry rolls on as the Intelligence, Judiciary, and Oversight committees worked through the two-week recess.  Yesterday, former Trump National Security Council Russia expert Fiona Hill went before the Oversight and Intel committees for ten hours, but not Judiciary.

The "not Judiciary committee" part was relevant, because GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz showed up to be an asshole and was booted because while he is on the Judiciary, he's not on either of the other two committees, and he pitched a fit because Republican voters are as stupid as Matt Gaetz thinks they are.  Chuck Pierce let Gaetz have it.

On Monday morning, Fiona Hill, the administration*'s former Russia expert, came to Capitol Hill to testify in closed session to the House Oversight and Intelligence Committees regarding the president*'s attempt at running a protection racket on Ukraine. Gaetz is a member of neither committee, but he showed up anyway, obviously as a mole on behalf of Camp Runamuck. Acting perfectly within the rules of the House, the committees threw his truckling ass out. Gaetz immediately found a bank of microphones in front of which to drive the nails into his own palms.

"It's not like I'm on the Agriculture Committee," Gaetz moped. Good thing, too, since he apparently could be outsmarted by produce.

You may recall that it was Gaetz who Tweeted out what could only be interpreted as a threat toward Michael Cohen before the latter testified to the Judiciary Committee. That episode was referred to the Florida Bar Association in a complaint that charged Gaetz with with witness tampering. The Florida Bar cleared Gaetz because, well, Florida, but it did hurl a handful of uncomplimentary adjectives at him. It's important to remember that any articles of impeachment that are forthcoming will have to go through the House Judiciary Committee of which Gaetz is a member and, as such, he has to be allowed into the room. Where it happens. And people say vaudeville is dead.

That didn't stop FOX News State TV and the like from declaring Monday's testimony illegal or something because Gaetz wasn't allowed in.  But the big loser was once again Rudy Giuliani, who got a double dose of bad news in the last 12 hours.

Fiona Hill, the White House’s former top Russia adviser, told impeachment investigators on Monday that Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, ran a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine that circumvented U.S. officials and career diplomats in order to personally benefit President Trump, according to a person familiar with her testimony.

Hill, who served as the senior official for Russia and Europe on the National Security Council, was the latest witness in a fast-moving impeachment inquiry focused on whether the president abused his office by using the promise of military aid and diplomatic support to pressure Ukraine into investigating his political rivals.

In a closed-door session that lasted roughly 10 hours, Hill told lawmakers that she confronted Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, about Giuliani’s activities which, she testified, were not coordinated with the officials responsible for carrying out U.S. foreign policy, this person said on the condition of anonymity to disclose details of her deposition.

Sondland played a leading role in the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to open investigations of the president’s political rivals, text messages obtained and later released by House Democrats show. Three congressional committees are now probing how Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, as well as a debunked theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. election in an attempt to damage Trump’s candidacy.

Sondland is set to appear before lawmakers later this week.

And in a sign the impeachment inquiry is widening, investigators were discussing whether to question John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, according to people familiar with the matter. Bolton was Hill’s direct superior at the NSC.

John Bolton's mustache doesn't want to be clipped.  Neither does Sondland, I'm thinking.  And all indications are Rudy is going to prison.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are examining Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine business dealings, including his bank records, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. 

The people familiar told the paper that witnesses have been questioned by investigators since at least August about Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer. 

Part of the questioning involves any potential role Giuliani played in an alleged conspiracy involving two of his business associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were indicted on campaign finance-related charges last week. 

CNN previously reported that Giuliani's financial dealings with Parnas and Fruman were under scrutiny by investigators, according to law enforcement officials briefed on the matter. But news of federal prosecutors examining Giuliani's bank records and business dealings in Ukraine brings into focus the level of scrutiny facing Giuliani over his involvement with Ukraine. 

The Journal's report builds on reporting from The New York Times last week that Giuliani is facing an investigation by federal prosecutors into whether his involvement with Ukraine violated federal lobbying laws.

It's already a bad, bad week for Team Orange.  It's going to get a lot worse.  Should Bolton actually flip on Trump, it's going to be lethal.

 

StupidiNews!

• California police say a man walked into the Mt. Shasta police department on Monday and told officers he had killed four people in Roseville, California, with one body in the man's trunk.
• Two MIT researchers and a Harvard colleague will share this year's Nobel Prize in economics for work on global poverty, the team's Esther Duflo is only the second woman to win for economics.
• The European Union is considering a new emergency summit later this month for a Brexit deal, embattled UK PM Boris Johnson last week received the Queen's permission to proceed.
• Hong Kong is now under an "effective curfew" as the city's subway stations are now shutting down at 10 PM local time in response to protester attacks on stations.
• A federal judge has halted lawsuits against Purdue Pharma and the billionaire Sackler family that owns the company, but the reprieve is only for three weeks in order to get all sides talking.

Last Call For Buckeye Blowout, Con't

The polling continues to show Donald Trump losing several key states to generic Democrats and in direct head-to-head matchups, and nowhere is that making Team Orange more nervous than across the river in Ohio.

A new poll from Public Policy Polling and Innovation Ohio shows that Ohio is set to return to its traditional status as a battleground state in 2020.

A memo on the results and the cross tabs can be found on Innovation Ohio’s website.

• Link to Ohio Poll Memo
• Link to Ohio poll cross-tabs

After winning the state by 8 points in 2016, the PPP survey finds President Trump trailing a generic Democratic 47-48% and an underwater 47-51% favorable/unfavorable rating. Given that state’s swing from 2012 to 2016, it is especially notable that President Trump trails a generic Democrat 37-51% with independent voters.

“As Democrats gather to debate in Ohio, these results show that Ohio will once again be a battleground in 2020, and any Democrat would be foolish to write off our state,” said Innovation Ohio President Janetta King. “Given his unpopularity with Ohio voters, it is clear that President Trump’s failures and broken promises are catching up with him in the state.”

“Ohio is a must-win state for President Trump. His poor numbers in this poll help to explain his early spending on TV and digital ads here,” King continued.

The poll also tested President Trump against five Democratic candidates; he failed to top 47% against any of them. This survey comes on the heels of similar results from Emerson Polling.

It gets somewhat worse for Trump in Ohio too.

Trump trails a generic Democrat 48-47 for reelection in the state. Particularly troubling for him is a 51-37 deficit with independent voters. Suburban areas have tended to be a swing vote in Ohio elections but- matching the national trends- they now lean toward voting Democratic by a 53-40 margin over Trump next year. Trump doesn’t get more than 47% against any named Democratic opponent – he trails Joe Biden 48-46, and he’s tied with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren at 47% each. Trump only has leads against two of the lesser-known Democratic candidates: he leads both Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg 47-43 with 10% of voters undecided in those particular matchups.

Ohio’s return to swing state status is a function of Trump’s unpopularity in the state. Only 47% of voters have a favorable opinion of him, to 51% with a negative one. The ratio is even worse for Trump when it comes to voters who have strong feelings about him- just 38% say they have a ‘very favorable’ opinion of him, to 45% who have a ‘very unfavorable’ opinion of him.

It makes sense that Ohio is closely divided when it comes to next year’s election. Right now FiveThirtyEight’s national poll tracker finds Trump to have a 42/54 approval split. That -12 net standing represents a 10 point net drop for him compared to election day 2016 when he lost the popular vote by 2 points. Given Trump’s 8 point victory in Ohio last time, a similar 10 point drop in Ohio to what he’s seen nationally would put him slightly underwater with voters in the state as our new poll finds.

Ohioans narrowly support an impeachment inquiry into Trump, 49/47. These numbers are meaningful not just for Ohio but for the country as a whole, because it shows that even in states that voted pretty strongly for him last time there is still significant support for moving forward with the impeachment process, suggesting there’s not a lot of political liability for Democrats in doing so. There is majority support for impeachment with both pivotal independent voters (54/41) and suburban voters (57/40).

That overwhelming hole Trump's in among suburban voters spells bad, bad news for Ohio Republicans.  I don't expect the Dems to get their act together to the point of winning the state legislature back, but it would be nice if they could at least stop the GOP from having a supermajority in the State House and Senate.

The real story though is age.  Voters under 45 favor the Democrat by large margins, but over 45 favor Trump by ten.  If voters under 45 turn out, my generation and younger, the Dems win Ohio and almost certainly the White House.  If the voter turnout model is 2018, then yes, Trump's going to lose the Buckeye State.

But if it's 2016 or god forbid, 2014, he's going to win here, barely (if 2016) and by 8-10 points again (if 2014).  We'll see who shows up after another 12 months of brutal disinformation on social media, possibly a war or two, maybe a recession, and an impeachment.

It's All About Revenge Now, Con't

The wheels have truly come off the Trump regime, with a brutal viral video showing Donald Trump gunning down all his declared "enemies" like Black Lives Matter and the press, shown to wild applause at a Trump 2020 conference last week at one of Trump's own resorts.

A video depicting a macabre scene of a fake President Trump shooting, stabbing and brutally assaulting members of the news media and his political opponents was shown at a conference for his supporters at his Miami resort last week, according to footage obtained by The New York Times. 

Several of Mr. Trump’s top surrogates — including his son Donald Trump Jr., his former spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis — were scheduled to speak at the three-day conference, which was held by a pro-Trump group, American Priority, at Trump National Doral Miami. Ms. Sanders and a person close Mr. Trump’s son said on Sunday that they did not see the video at the conference. 

The video, which includes the logo for Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, comprises a series of internet memes. The most violent clip shows Mr. Trump’s head superimposed on the body of a man opening fire inside the “Church of Fake News” on parishioners who have the faces of his critics or the logos of media organizations superimposed on their bodies. It appears to be an edited scene of a church massacre from the 2014 dark comedy film “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” 

The disclosure that the video was played shows how Mr. Trump’s anti-media language has influenced his supporters and bled into their own propaganda. Mr. Trump has made attacks on the news media a mainstay of his presidency, and he tweeted a similar — but far less violent video — in 2017. In recent weeks as he has confronted impeachment proceedings, he has ramped up his attacks on the news media, repeatedly calling it the “enemy of the people.”

A person who attended the conference last week took a video of the clip on his phone and had an intermediary send it to a reporter for The Times. Parts of the video were posted on YouTube in 2018 by a user with a history of creating pro-Trump mash-ups.
The organizer of the event said in a statement on Sunday that the clip had been played at the conference, saying it was part of a “meme exhibit.” He denounced the video and said his organization was looking into how it was shown at the event.

“Content was submitted by third parties and was not associated with or endorsed by the conference in any official capacity,” said the organizer, Alex Phillips. “American Priority rejects all political violence and aims to promote a healthy dialogue about the preservation of free speech. This matter is under review.” 

Organizers declined to say exactly where at Mr. Trump’s resort the video was shown.
A person close to Mr. Trump’s son said he was unaware that the video had been played at the conference. Ms. Sanders said she was unaware of the video’s existence until a Times reporter contacted her. 

“I was there to speak at a prayer breakfast, where I spoke about unity and bringing the country together,” Ms. Sanders said. “I wasn’t aware of any video, nor do I support violence of any kind against anyone.”

Sure, plausible deniability.  I haven't seen it and We don't condone violence, Trump said today, we don't know how the video was played at AMPFest, but it was, and Trump's bloody base had a good laugh.  And yes, the video was the product of trolls on the site of one of Trump's many neo-Nazi followers, Carpe Donktum, aka Logan Reed, one of the many professional firestarters who attended the White House's digital propaganda conference earlier this year.

Everything's fine of course, right up until people get killed, or should I say more people get killed.  People have already died thanks to Trump's stochastic "who will rid me of these troublesome enemies" terrorism, then he denies everything when blood is spilled and lives are taken.  Trump has revved these nutjobs up and unleashed them upon America. As Steve M. says, the GOP fringe is the GOP mainstream.  There's no difference.

In the modern Republican Party, this is regarded as perfectly normal. In the modern Republican Party, the fringe is the mainstream.

No doubt when the next lunatic snaps and murders those around him in the name of Trump's "America" after gorging themselves on the products of Trump's hatefest, he'll deny it again.

And if you think congressional GOP folks are going to do anything, well, they're all nihilists now.

The truth is, Trump fatigue is a condition that knows no party, and many Republicans are as tired of this shit as anybody else. That’s not to say they’re outraged, or motivated to Make a Difference. They’re just tired. You can live inside the right-wing bubble in a state of depression, resigned to the fact that, yeah, every five minutes or so, the president is probably going to do something norm-shattering or potentially impeachable, and no, you probably won’t or can’t do anything to change that. Sad!

“I’m totally bored by the story,” one person who speaks regularly with the president told me. “There’s nothing to it. I already know all the details.” This person is bored more generally, too — with the topic of Donald Trump. When we talk about what it would take for the president’s defenders to turn on him, this crucial piece is missing: You can’t feel outraged if you can no longer feel anything at all.

“This isn’t that much different than the other crazy shit he’s done in the last three years,” the senior Republican Senate aide said. “In some ways, people are both pissed off about it but then it’s also like, Are we gonna go crazy over this incident when we’ve seen so much other stuff?" Not to minimize the seriousness here, but what came out in the call transcript is not exactly shocking. If I were to describe Republicans one way, it would be weary.

Just one more thing on the Gish Gallop of ghoulish glee.  Until the next time it happens.  And the next.  And the next...

A Syria's Case Of Withdrawal

Donald Trump has ordered all US troops out of northern Syria as the massacre of (formerly) US-allied Syrian Kurds at the hands of Turkey and Russia now continues unabated.

U.S. troops were preparing to withdraw from northern Syria Sunday as Turkish forces continued their advance.

Hundreds of Islamic State group supporters escaped from a displacement camp in the area and there were reports of alleged atrocities amid growing international alarm.

The situation on the ground was deteriorating rapidly, a U.S. official with direct knowledge told NBC News.

U.S. forces were at risk of being isolated and there was increased risk of confrontation between Turkish forces and U.S. troops, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

President Donald Trump made the decision to withdraw Saturday night, the official said.

About 1,000 troops will leave the area "as safely and quickly as possible," Defense Secretary Mark Esper told CBS' "Face the Nation" in an interview Sunday.

They will not leave the country entirely, he said.

Esper said that the conflict between Turkish forces and U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters had become "untenable" for the U.S. military.

Trump has largely stood by his decision to pull U.S. troops back to clear the way for Turkish forces, despite growing chaos in the wake of their advance.

U.S. allies have urged an end to the Turkish invasion, which has sparked fears of a renewed humanitarian crisis in the region and a resurgent ISIS threat.

Meanwhile the ethnic cleansing of Syrian Kurds, long a priority of the Erdogan regime, is happening in real time.

Hundreds of foreigners affiliated with the Islamic State group (IS) have escaped from a camp in northern Syria amid a Turkish offensive, Kurdish officials say.

They say detainees attacked gates at the Ain Issa displacement camp as fighting raged nearby.

Turkey launched an assault last week aimed at driving Kurdish-led forces from the region.

The UN says 130,000 people have fled their homes, and the figure may rise.

Turkey accuses the Kurds of being terrorists and says it wants to force them away from a "safe zone" reaching some 30km into Syria.

It also plans to resettle more than three million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey - many of whom are not Kurds - inside the zone, which critics say could lead to ethnic cleansing of the local Kurdish population there.

It is genocide.  We're literally standing aside and allowing it to happen.  And it's all because everyone in Trump town thought Erdogan was bluffing, and that Trump would hold him back.  Probably at Putin's orders, as Russia is happily bombing Syrian hospitals while we're headed for the hills. Meanwhile, our troops are retreating to other bases in Syria, but they could be completely pulled out of country in days and as far as the Kurds go, well, Russia is offering a safe haven.  Just like Putin planned it.

It's a disaster of epic proportions.  No country will trust the US again in my lifetime.

Well, except our new Russian bosses.  They'll trust that they have us under their command at all times.

Last Call For Down Loosey Anna Way

Louisiana Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards is headed to a runoff after failing to capture 50% in yesterday's statewide election, against the state's version of Trump. businessman Eddie Rispone.

Edwards was unable to pass the 50 percent threshold; he received 47 percent of the votes cast, according to the AP, with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Rispone, meanwhile, held off a fellow Republican, Rep. Ralph Abraham, 27 percent to 24 percent, to capture second place and earn a head-to-head shot against Edwards on Nov. 16.

The outcome of the primary sets up a potentially very competitive general election. While pre-primary polls showed Edwards with significant leads over both Republicans in possible runoffs, GOP candidates combined for more than half the vote on Saturday.

"Over half of Louisiana voters went to the polls today and cast a ballot for someone other than John Bel Edwards," noted Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, who added that Rispone "will unite Republicans and all Louisianans who want to build a better future for their state."

Edwards, a conservative, anti-abortion Democrat who’s avoided close associations with the national Democratic party, framed his campaign as for “people over politics,” a phrase the Edwards campaign painted on the side of his campaign RV. The state Democratic Party, meanwhile, sent some voters a robocall recorded by former President Barack Obama. The minute-long robocall featured Obama praising Edwards for expanding Medicaid in the state.

But national and state Republicans made a heavy push in the closing week of the race to hold Edwards below 50 percent. President Donald Trump held an election-eve campaign rally in Lake Charles on Friday night, standing alongside both Rispone and Abraham as he urged Louisianans to vote for one of the GOP candidates and deny Edwards the outright victory. The two Republicans also appeared at similar events over the past week with Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son.

Trump celebrated the results Saturday night — and took credit for preventing Edwards from winning a second term. Edwards, Trump said on Twitter, "has done a poor job" as governor, and he called Rispone "a great Republican" in all caps. He also claimed, without evidence, that "after I explained what a bad job [Edwards] was doing," the Democrat's poll numbers dropped from 66 percent to the 47 percent he received on Saturday. Edwards' highest vote share in pre-primary public polling was 52 percent, according to RealClearPolitics, a website that compiles public polls.

The reality is that Louisiana's jungle primary system, much like California's, makes for some interesting matchups and a lot of runoffs.  Trump can scream all he wants to, he certainly did in yet another bizarre, rambling, racist rally on Friday where he threatened to sue Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff for trying to impeach him.

Still, the outcome was expected.  Bel Edwards won with 52% of the vote four years ago in a runoff, and he's widely expected to have another close election again.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Thursday's scheduled deposition by EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland is going to be a doozy, because it's clear he doesn't want to spend a couple decades in prison for this Ukraine cover-up despite giving Trump a cool million or so for the post.

The U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, intends to tell Congress this week that the content of a text message he wrote denying a quid pro quo with Ukraine was relayed to him directly by President Trump in a phone call, according to a person familiar with his testimony.

Sondland plans to tell lawmakers he has no knowledge of whether the president was telling him the truth at that moment. “It’s only true that the president said it, not that it was the truth,” said the person familiar with Sondland’s planned testimony, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.

The Sept. 9 exchange between Sondland and the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine has become central to the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into whether the president abused his office in pressuring Ukraine to open an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden and his son, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. The White House and its defenders have held up Sondland’s text, which included “no quid pro quo’s of any kind,” as proof that none was ever considered.

Sondland will hold out the possibility that Trump wasn’t truthful in his denial of a quid pro quo as well as an alternative scenario in which the president’s interest in the scheme soured at a time when his administration faced mounting scrutiny over why it was withholding about $400 million in security assistance to Ukraine and delaying a leader-level visit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Whether he’s deciding it’s getting too hot to handle and he backs off whatever his position really was a month earlier, I don’t know,” the person said of Sondland’s understanding.

Hours before Sondland called the president, he received a text message from the acting ambassador to Ukraine, William B. Taylor, raising questions about the aid holdup. “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” Taylor texted Sondland.

That’s when Sondland, according to the person’s understanding, called Trump, who then told him he didn’t “want a quid pro quo . . . didn’t want anything from Ukraine.” The call lasted less than five minutes, and Trump appeared to be in a foul mood, according to the person, who spoke to The Post with Sondland’s permission, an intermediary said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Sondland declined to comment through his lawyers.

Sondland, who has emerged as a central actor in Trump’s efforts to persuade Ukraine to open investigations, will be deposed before House investigators on Thursday.

First US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, then former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich, now EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, all three ignoring State Department orders to stay silent, all three throwing Trump under the nearest public transportation vehicle.   Expect to see more and more people bail on Trump in order to save themselves.

Trump's defenders are now out of defenses.

Sunday Long Read: The Man Who Never Left The Consulate

It's been a year now since the brutal murder of Washington Post contributor and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, hacked to pieces by a bonesaw in the depths of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, lured by the promise of finally being able to make the marriage to the woman he loved official.  Evan Ratliff at Insider reconstructs Khashoggi's final days and why he was literally butchered by a ruthless Saudi prince and abandoned by the worst leader in US history.

It was easy to forget, later, that he was a man in love.

That was the Jamal Khashoggi who arrived on a flight into Istanbul, early on the morning of October 2, 2018. He was a few days short of 60 and divorced, a voluntary exile from his native Saudi Arabia living a lonely existence in Virginia. His tall frame carried an unsubtle paunch, and his hair had thinned out to the sides. The graying of his beard was nearly complete, covering an owlish face with eyes that could simultaneously betray easy mirth and deep sadness.

An internationally acclaimed journalist writing for The Washington Post, he was considered brilliant by his peers. But he spent most of his days struggling under the burden of what he'd left behind, writing in hopes of breaking the world's indifference to the creeping repression in his home country. He'd grown dismayed to see its architect, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman — known in the West as MBS — fêted by Washington and Silicon Valley as a dynamic reformer, while his friends and colleagues back home languished in prison for speaking out. His mission, he had come to believe, was to speak for them.

But on that fall morning in Istanbul, Khashoggi stepped off the plane with an entirely different purpose. Five months earlier, at the opening of a conference on Middle Eastern politics, he'd been approached by a 35-year-old researcher named Hatice Cengiz. She knew his work and wanted to interview him for an article she was writing. At the next coffee break, he sought her out. They spoke for nearly half an hour. She asked him about the prospects for reform in Saudi Arabia; he peppered her with questions about Turkish politics. By the end, their exchange had already begun to feel like something deeper. Before his next trip to Istanbul, he emailed to ask if she'd see him again.

The rest happened quickly, at the speed of two people who already knew themselves. By September he had met her parents. Wedding plans were in motion. The pair bought an apartment in Istanbul, the eastern anchor of what would become a dual life there and in the US.

On September 28 they visited Istanbul's civil-marriage bureau to begin the secular portion of the nuptials. Just one small problem, they were told: Because Khashoggi remained a Saudi citizen, they'd need a certificate from the Saudi government stating that he was unmarried. That would require a trip to the Saudi Consulate.

On an impulse, the couple went straight there that day. Outside the gate, Khashoggi left his two phones with Cengiz, knowing consular officials would ask for them at the door and fearing they would take the opportunity to hack them. He was wary. But once inside, the staff greeted him warmly. The document he needed couldn't be produced instantly, but if he came back on October 2 they would have it ready for him, they said. That afternoon, he left for the airport and caught a 2:40 p.m. flight to London to attend a conference.

The night before his return, Cengiz couldn't sleep, her head a scramble of nerves and excitement. Finally she drifted off, and was awoken by a call from her fiancé: His flight had arrived early. Khashoggi caught a cab to the as-yet-uninhabited apartment they'd purchased, in a gated community in Istanbul's Topkapi neighborhood. A security camera in the entryway caught them lightly embracing as they walked inside, just before 5 a.m.

Khashoggi called the consulate. An official told him to arrive at 1 p.m. to collect his paperwork.

At about a quarter to one, they set out. CCTV cameras captured the couple's unhurried stroll as they walked, hand in hand. Khashoggi wore an open-collared shirt and a blazer, Cengiz a headscarf and a long black dress.

At the security blockade typically positioned at the consulate's south-facing side, Khashoggi once again handed her both his phones. Using a handheld metal detector, a security officer conducted a quick scan of Khashoggi's person. Then the journalist passed between the metal barriers and walked briskly up to the main entrance. A doorman in a powder-blue blazer greeted him with a slight bow, and he was gone.

The rest, as they say, is now just another bloody chapter in the ugly history of the House of Saud, a blot on this Earth and one of the most repressive and murderous regimes on the planet.

Right next to the repressive and murderous regime here in the States, of course.  These days we're sending thousands of troops to Saudi soil as mercenaries because Donald Trump expects MBS to pay up front.

Never forget Khashoggi's story, however.

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

Four seconds.

That's how long Atatiana Jefferson lived after a Fort Worth PD officer entered Jefferson's property, saw her through a window, and shot her after a neighbor called police to check on her because Jefferson had left the door open.

Atatiana Koquice Jefferson, 28, was killed in a bedroom at the home at around 2:30 a.m., according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner.

In a statement, the Fort Worth Police Department said that officers from its central division responded to a call at 2:25 a.m. and searched the perimeter of the house on the 1200 block of East Allen Avenue.

One officer, after seeing someone through the window of the home, drew his weapon and fired one shot, killing the woman.

“The individual, a black female, who resides at the residence succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced deceased on the scene,” read the Fort Worth PD’s statement. “The officer, a white male who has been with the department since April of 2018, has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome [of] the critical police incident investigation.”

An officer handling public relations for the department did not immediately return a request for comment from BuzzFeed News.

In its statement, Fort Worth police said that after the shooting, officers entered the residence to find the resident and a firearm, and began administering emergency care. Texas is an open carry state.

Fort Worth PD released body camera footage from the incident taken from the angle of the officer who fired the shot. In it, the officer can be seen taking notice of an open door at the residence — which had its lights on — and then walking around the home’s perimeter with a colleague. He then opens a gate, and walks to a darker part of the yard while holding a flashlight.

Within seconds of walking though the gate, the officer peers through a window, where he presumably sees a person. He quickly raises his flashlight in one hand, gun in another. “Put your hands up, show me your hands,” he shouts before firing a shot — all in less than four seconds.

The body cam footage released by police also includes photos of a gun found inside the house. It's unclear if Jefferson was near the weapon when she was shot by the officer.

And here we're supposed to feel bad for the officer, who now has to live the rest of his life with the fact he murdered a black woman in cold blood.  We'll be told that the officer thought his life was at risk and that he had to kill Jefferson, because if you are black in America, you only draw breath because a police officer hasn't decided you are a threat yet.

Best part is Jefferson owned a firearm in her own home in an open carry state, but we all know open carry only applies to white people in Texas.  Anyone else gets butchered. Second Amendment rights only apply to those who looked like the founders of this "great" country, after all.

I'm so tired of this.  They kill us in our own homes now and get away with it 99% of the time. And if we try to defend ourselves, if we pretend even for a moment that we have the same rights as white people in this country, we pay for that fallacy with our lives.

I'm tired

Last Call For Trump Trades Blow, Con't

Donald Trump's idiotic trade wars have now directly cost the US the top spot as the most competitive economy on Earth.

Singapore has knocked the United States out of the top spot in the World Economic Forum's annual competitiveness report. 

The index, published on Wednesday, takes stock of an economy's competitive landscape, measuring factors such as macroeconomic stability, infrastructure, the labor market and innovation capability. 

Singapore pushed the world's largest economy down to second place this year, with the Asian city state scoring top marks for its infrastructure, health, labor market and financial system. 

And while the United States lost out to Singapore overall, "it remains an innovation powerhouse," the report said. 

Singapore and Vietnam put up strong performances this year partly thanks to the US-China trade war. 

The report noted that the two Asian economies "appear to be benefiting from global trade tensions through trade diversion." Vietnam jumped 10 spots from last year to rank 67th out of 137 countries. 

US imports from Vietnam rose by 36% in the first five months of this year, as companies have been shifting manufacturing from China to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries to avoid steep tariffs. 

The trade war hasn't been a clean win for Singapore, which is heavily reliant on exports and counts China as its biggest trading partner. 

Singapore slashed its forecast for GDP growth in August, after reporting a big drop in economic activity in the second quarter of this year. It's heading for its weakest annual growth since the 2009 global financial crisis. 

So despite Singapore's economy clearly suffering, it's still more competitive than the US because the US suffered more under Trump.

It's a job only the most overrated businessman in America could accomplish.

Never Trump, For Your Narrow Definition Of Never

Tom Nichols wants Trump to lose, but maybe Trump's not such a bad guy after all if Dems don't shut up about those awful gays, or something.

Dear Democrats:

We’ve been together for a while now. It’s platonic, and probably always will be, as we share a home together as friends ever since I left the Republicans. But I appreciate our new relationship, and that’s why I’m comfortable telling you here that I’m worried about you.

We don’t agree about everything; still, we get along pretty well, you and I, centered around the daily understanding that Donald Trump is a dire threat to the United States. That’s why I’ve been comfortable in my public commitment to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee, come hell or high water. You’ve mostly responded to this by…

Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? I feel like you’re not doing your part here.

We take our walks together and we discuss the importance of getting rid of Donald Trump. And yet, when we both leave for work in the morning, it feels like only one of us is really, truly serious about that.

When we watched the LGBTQ town hall on CNN recently, we had very different reactions. This is the event, you remember, where Beto O’Rourke said he’d punish religious institutions for refusing gay marriage, and where Kamala Harris started by informing us of her pronouns, and then Chris Cuomo, after a mild and dopey joke, had to go on Twitter the next day and apologize for making light of it. This is where Elizabeth Warren fielded a question about traditional marriage by with a sneering, smug insinuation that the only people who would ask her about that are men who can’t find a woman.

You thought it was great. You saw a ringing defense of LGBTQ rights and a reaffirmation of what Democrats stand for.

I saw it and thought: Are these people insane? Are they trying to lose the election?

So Nichols has gone from Republican to "independent" with a healthy appetite for scolding the Democrats for not being Republican enough.  Better drop them gays, Dems, or Jake and Linda out in Middle America will vote for Trump just to punish you!

Well if that's the case?

Jake and Linda can go take a long walk off a short elitist coastal city pier.  If you're seriously arguing that reminding voters that Democrats aren't the party trying to relegate LGBTQ+ Americans into permanent second-class status, and you're going to be a bigot and vote for Trump, that's not the Democrats' problem.

"Don't hand issues to culture warriors" warns Nichols, as if Republicans haven't come across the idea of attacking Democrats for supporting or being LGBTQ+ folks, or they've magically forgotten somehow.

Nichols states his case plainly.

We pledged over two years ago to join hands on this one issue. But now I worry that in your zeal to win the Woke Twitter and college campus primary, you will simply make the same mistakes you made in 2016. Your nominee will crush it in the bi-coastal race to be the Honorary Governor of the New Californiork Republic. Blue cities everywhere will welcome you as liberators. And Trump will laugh at you every day from Washington.

This election could be a landslide if the public focuses on Trump’s abuses of power, his offenses against the Constitution, his insane foreign policy, his barely contained megalomania and narcissism. I support your efforts to impeach him, but that’s likely to fail, and it is well within your — our — power to remove him at the ballot box when that happens.

But if you can’t get to 270 electoral votes, you’re going to have to live with me as the grumpiest roommate you ever had. You can count on four years of me letting the tub get grimy, leaving my dishes in the sink, and not speaking to you.

Because if Trump wins again, it’s going to be your fault.

Go screw yourself, Tom.  If Trump wins again, it's the fault of the people who voted for him.

Outfoxed And Out At FOX

FOX News State TV anchor Shep Smith got tired of being the last news guy at the propaganda network, so Friday was his last show. CNN Media correspondent Brian Stetler lays out the tale:

Last month Shep Smith decided that he had simply had enough. 

With President Trump actively distorting the truth and many of his own colleagues helping him do it, the Fox News star prided himself on anchoring a newscast that countered the network's pro-Trump opinion shows. 

The way Smith saw it, he was making sure that accurate information was getting on Fox's air. 

"I wonder," he told a Time magazine reporter last year, "if I stopped delivering the facts, what would go in its place in this place that is most watched, most listened, most viewed, most trusted? I don't know." 

But he reached a breaking point. Sometime in September, according to a well-placed source, he went to Fox News management and asked to be let out of his long-term contract. Tensions with the opinion shows were getting to be too much. 

In late September, 8 p.m. host Tucker Carlson mocked Smith for standing up for his friend and colleague Judge Andrew Napolitano after the judge was called a "fool" by one of Carlson's guests. The network's lack of a vocal defense for Smith following the incident bothered him and the whole episode factored into his decision to leave, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

But that episode was just one of many skirmishes that weighed heavily on Smith. 

Executives at the network leaned on him to stay, but to no avail. On Friday afternoon he announced his departure on the air, then exited the building immediately, clearly emotional about saying goodbye to his television home of twenty years. 

Smith was a Fox News original. He didn't change over the years -- the network changed around him. 

For months I have been working on a book about Fox News in the Trump age. Staffers have been confiding in me about the challenges of covering the news inside a network that is increasingly defined by sychophantic pro-Trump personalities like Sean Hannity.
Staffers on the news side unanimously point to Smith as a role model. 

But "it was clear he wasn't happy, on air and off air," one of the staffers said after Friday's stunning resignation announcement. 

Two other staffers also said he'd indicated he "wanted to leave" -- meaning that he was not forced out by management, as some outsiders immediately speculated on social media. 

"I think it probably just got to be too much," one of Smith's allies inside Fox News headquarters said.

I don't really have much sympathy for anyone who chose to spend 20 years at the GOP's propaganda arm and suddenly realized they were never taken seriously by their own employer as a news anchor.  At best, Shep Smith was a beard, a mask to give FOX's right-wing noise machine credibility.

But that credibility, the last shred, I guess, is gone along with him.  There's zero doubt now that FOX News exists to further the GOP fascist stranglehold on this country and its people.

As with all the Never Trump converts, all I have is scorn for them.  You knew the damage you were doing, and you'd keep doing it as long as anyone other than Donald Trump was the face of the party.

Deportation Nation, Con't

The one thing that Trump's impeachment implosion has really put the kibosh on in the last month is the regime's plans for mass deportations of thousands, maybe millions.  The Trump regime suffered another legal blow in the courts on Friday over his plan to declare refugees and poor immigrants as "public charges" in order to justify refusing them public services and eventually ejecting them from the country.

Federal judges in New York and California on Friday ordered a nationwide block in cases challenging a Trump administration policy that would make it far easier for the government to deny legal status to immigrants who use or are deemed likely to use public assistance. The rule was set to go into effect next week.

Judge George B. Daniels, of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, ordered preliminary injunctions Friday afternoon in two related cases against the administration’s new “public charge” rule that could have denied legal permanent residency and other forms of legal status to many immigrants in the country who are deemed likely to use public assistance.

Daniels wrote in the decision explaining the order in a case announced by the New York attorney general's office in August that he found good cause to grant the motion because the plaintiffs in the case had sufficiently demonstrated their legal claims and that plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm if the rule went into effect.

"Overnight, the Rule will expose individuals to economic insecurity, health instability, denial of their path to citizenship, and potential deportation," he wrote.

"It is a rule that will punish individuals for their receipt of benefits provided by our government, and discourages them from lawfully receiving available assistance intended to aid them in becoming contributing members of our society," he wrote.

"This rule would have had devastating impacts on New Yorkers and our nation, and today’s decision is a critical step in our efforts to uphold the rule of law," New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Twitter.

That rule blockage has now led directly to another result: the sudden departure of one-time ICE boss and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan.

Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security since April and the fourth person to serve in that post since the Trump presidency began, submitted his resignation to the White House on Friday, President Donald Trump announced Friday. 

"Kevin McAleenan has done an outstanding job as Acting Secretary of Homeland Security. We have worked well together with Border Crossings being way down. Kevin now, after many years in Government, wants to spend more time with his family and go to the private sector," Trump said. "Congratulations Kevin, on a job well done! I will be announcing the new Acting Secretary next week. Many wonderful candidates!" 

A source familiar with McAleenan's thinking tells CNN that the acting secretary felt he had accomplished all he could given the political realities of today -- specifically the unlikelihood that any legislative deal on immigration will happen in an election year. 

Moreover, with the numbers of undocumented immigrants apprehended or turned away at the border coming down for the fourth consecutive month -- 52,546 in September, a 65% drop from May -- the lack of crisis is dissuading members of Congress to act and compromise. McAleenan also has two young daughters and a wife with whom he wants to spend more time. 

The announcement has been planned for weeks, sources close to McAleenan say, and has nothing to do with the Ukraine scandal in which Trump and several other Cabinet officials are currently enmeshed. 

A source close to the process told CNN that White House officials tried to talk McAleenan out of resigning. 

In a statement posted to Twitter, McAleenan thanked Trump for the opportunity to serve and department employees for their work. He said he would strive to ensure a smooth transition.

I believe that McAleenan's departure "was in the works for weeks".  I even believe he didn't have "anything to do" with the Ukraine scandal.  What I don't believe is that he left because he "felt he accomplished all he could."

The Trumpies were on a roll on the deportation train, and the federal injunction will probably be decided in Trump's favor like the Muslim ban was should it get all the way to SCOTUS.  But McAleenan didn't want anything to do with it...because he clearly doesn't think the Trump regime is going to be around much longer.

No, he bailed on a sinking ship, and everyone knows it.