It's About Suppression, Con't

In the wake of last week's 5-4 Supreme Court decision allowing Ohio Republicans to purge voter rolls solely on the basis of not voting, I predicted that the decision would serve as a green light for other red states to begin massive voter suppression efforts:

Republicans want as few people eligible to vote as possible for a reason, and this is just one more weapon to use against voter registration drives.  Don't be surprised if red states in fact take up even more aggressive voter purges too, apparently it's open season now on "use it or lose it" as a "right" to vote.

What this means is voting is no longer a protected right, but something that can be taken from you by the states for the reason of choosing not using it.  Alito and the conservative majority on the court aren't concerned with voting rights, they are concerned with Republicans winning, period.

North Carolina Republicans are wasting no time now that they know how the court stands on restricting who can vote and are going for broke to stop groups that vote Democratic from being allowed to cast ballots ahead of midterms.

The last time Republicans in the North Carolina Legislature enacted a law making it harder for some of the state’s residents to vote, a federal court said the statute targeted African-American voters “with almost surgical precision,” and threw it out.

That was last year. Now the legislators are back with a new set of election proposals, and an unconventional plan to make them stick.

Shortly before midnight on Wednesday, Republican senators unveiled legislation that would eliminate the final Saturday of early voting in state elections, a day that typically draws a large share of black voters to the polls. That followed a Republican proposal last week to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would require all voters to display a photo ID before casting votes.

In addition, party leaders say they are preparing a constitutional amendment that would curb the power of the Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, over the state board that controls election procedures.

Since Republicans swept to control of the North Carolina Legislature and the governorship in 2010 and 2012, the state has become ground zero for struggles over election rules and voting rights. But Democrats have recently made gains in the state, most notably with Mr. Cooper’s win in 2016.

Voting rights advocates say Republicans are trying to lock in as much of a political advantage as possible in advance of a November election that could weaken or break their hold on the Legislature.

It's a pretty ballsy plan, I have to hand it to them.

Their plan faces risks. Both voter ID and restrictions on early voting were keystone features of the last Republican elections bill, in 2013, that federal judges struck down as racially discriminatory in 2017.

This time, however, the party’s tactics have changed. The voter ID amendment would require approval by citizens as well as legislators. The final Saturday of voting has been popular — nearly 200,000 citizens voted on that day in 2016 — and African-Americans turned out at a rate 40 percent greater than their share of the electorate. But the bill to eliminate that Saturday would apportion those lost hours among other early voting days, so the total hours of polling would not change.

Opponents call that a smoke screen, and say the legislation is crafted to curtail early voting by requiring local election officials to staff every polling place 12 hours a day for all 17 days of the early voting period. Many election offices will struggle to find enough volunteers to meet that schedule, they say, and will be forced to close early voting sites to comply.

And of course the counties that would be most likely to have to close early voting would be places with large urban black populations like Durham and Mecklenburg, and Sandhills counties in the east with a large percentage of black voters and not a lot of resources like Wilson, Wayne, and Sampson.

Like I said, pretty ballsy, especially bringing in a Voter ID amendment to the state Constitution, assuring that only SCOTUS could stop it, and won't.

Look for more states to put voter suppression efforts into state constitutions the way Republicans did with gay marriage 15 years ago.  Millions of Americans were denied the right to marry until SCOTUS stepped in, but this time that train is headed for the opposite direction.

Immiration Nation, Con't

House Republicans, realizing that they are going to get crushed in November, are scrambling to come up with some sort of cover as Trump's hideous policy of separating kids from their families at the border not only continues unabated, but is actually accelerating.

Nearly 2,000 children have been separated from their families at the U.S. border over a six-week period during a crackdown on illegal entries, according to Department of Homeland Security figures obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

The figures show that 1,995 minors were separated from 1,940 adults from April 19 through May 31. The separations were not broken down by age, and included separations for illegal entry, immigration violations or possible criminal conduct by the adult.

Under a “zero tolerance” policy announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Department of Homeland Security officials are now referring all cases of illegal entry for criminal prosecution. U.S. protocol prohibits detaining children with their parents because the children are not charged with a crime and the parents are.

Sessions announced the effort April 6, and Homeland Security began stepping up referrals in early May, effectively putting the policy into action.

Since then, stories of weeping children torn from the arms of their frightened parents have flooded the media and the policy has been widely criticized by church groups, politicians and children’s advocates who say it is inhumane. A battle in Congress is brewing in part over the issue.

Some immigrant advocates have said women were being separated from their infants — a charge Homeland Security and Justice officials flatly denied. They also said the children were being well cared for and disputed reports of disorder and mistreatment at the border.

On Thursday, Sessions cited the Bible in defending the policy, arguing the recent criticisms were not “fair or logical and some are contrary to law.”

“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” he said.

The International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian aid group, released a statement Friday saying, “A policy of willing cruelty to those people, and using young sons and daughters as pawns, shatters America’s strong foundation of humanitarian sensibility and family values.”

The Trump regime policy has resulted in internment tent camps for migrant children filling America's TV screens during an election year, and Trump is lying and claiming Democrats in Congress are forcing this with Obama-era laws.  It's complete nonsense, and House Republicans want to pass something so they can tell voters they tried to stop it, but of course the bill in front of the House GOP doesn't actually stop Trump from doing this.

The reality is that Trump, congressional Republicans, and most Trump voters all want this policy.

President Trump has calculated that he will gain political leverage in congressional negotiations by continuing to enforce a policy he claims to hate — separating immigrant parents from their young children at the southern border, according to White House officials.

On Friday, Trump suggested he would not change the policy unless Democrats agreed to his other immigration demands, which include funding a border wall, tightening the rules for border enforcement and curbing legal entry. He also is intent on pushing members of his party to vote for a compromise measure that would achieve those long-standing priorities.

Trump’s public acknowledgment that he was willing to let the policy continue as he pursued his political goals came as the president once again blamed Democrats for a policy enacted and touted by his own administration.

“The Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda,” he tweeted. After listing his demands in any immigration bill, he added, “Go for it! WIN!”

The attempt to gain advantage from a practice the American Academy of Pediatrics describes as causing children “irreparable harm” sets up a high-stakes gambit for Trump, whose political career has long benefited from harsh rhetoric on immigration.

Democrats have latched onto the issue and vowed to fight in the court of public opinion, with leaders planning trips to the border to highlight the stories of separated families, already the focus of news media attention. Democratic candidates running for vulnerable Republican seats also have begun to make the harsh treatment of children a centerpiece of their campaigns.

But there are those religious groups that see this as the abomination that it is.

The policy has cracked Trump’s usually united conservative base, with a wide array of religious leaders and groups denouncing it. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention issued statements critical of the practice.

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, who delivered a prayer at Trump’s inauguration, signed a letter calling the practice “horrible.” Pastor Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse, a vocal supporter of the president’s who has brushed aside past Trump controversies, called it “terrible” and “disgraceful.”

We'll see what happens, but my guess is that Trump will continue to blame Democrats, and that his own voters will buy the lie, as they have everything else.  As for the rest of America, we'll see if this motivates us to actually do anything about one-party Trump control.

Last Call For Pell-Mell Paul, Mauled

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been upgraded from Double Secret Probation to the full carcerial experience.

A federal judge ordered Paul Manafort to jail Friday over charges he tampered with witnesses while out on bail — a major blow for President Trump’s former campaign chairman as he awaits trial on federal conspiracy and money-laundering charges next month. 

“You have abused the trust placed in you six months ago,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Manafort. “The government motion will be granted, and the defendant will be detained.” 

The judge said sending Manafort to a cell was “an extraordinarily difficult decision” but said his conduct — allegedly contacting witnesses in the case in an effort to get them to lie to investigators — left her little choice. 

“This is not middle school. I can’t take away his cellphone,” she said. “If I tell him not to call 56 witnesses, will he call the 57th?” She said she should not have to draft a court order spelling out the entire criminal code for him to avoid violations. 

“This hearing is not about politics. It is not about the conduct of the office of special counsel. It is about the defendant’s conduct,” Jackson said. “I’m concerned you seem to treat these proceedings as another marketing exercise.”

Manafort was led out of the courtroom by security officers. He turned and gave a last look and wave to his wife, seated in the well of the court. She nodded back to him.

And I've got news for you: Paul Manafort probably will never leave jail either.  His trial is going to go very, very badly for him, and even if Trump pardons his federal case tomorrow, the state trial will proceed, and he's most likely going to spend the rest of his life in a cell.

He's the first to go to jail.

He will not be the last.

The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

We've talked about the Democrats retaking the House and the struggle to hold the line in the Senate, but there are 36 Governor's seats up for election in 2018, and Democrats are also looking to make big gains at the state level ahead of 2020 redistricting.  The latest Cook Political forecast shows that Dems could pick up seven or more seats out of 50, which would make a huge political difference.

Governors’ races are not immune to mid-term election trends. Just as the party in power loses seats in the U.S. House and Senate, it also loses gubernatorial seats. In the 29 mid-term elections that have taken place since 1902, the party in power has lost seats in 26 of them, or 90 percent of the time. The average loss is 4.5 seats. The biggest losses in the last 50 years came in 1970 when Republicans under President Richard Nixon lost 11 seats. In 1994 as Democrats were losing their majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, they also lost 11 gubernatorial seats. The most recent exceptions to mid-term losses are 1986 when Republicans gained eight governorships under President Reagan (this is the same year that the GOP suffered a net loss of eight U.S. Senate seats), and 1998 when Democrats under President Clinton didn’t lose any seats. 

Given the near historic number of seats Republicans hold and mid-term trends, it would seem that they have nowhere to go but down. They are playing defense this cycle, while Democrats are working to put as many GOP-held seats on the board as possible. 

Both parties are looking at contested primaries in most of the competitive races. The primary calendar is somewhat backloaded in gubernatorial contests, meaning that many of the most important primaries are going to take place in August and early September. These primaries carry a risk for both parties: will the strongest nominees emerge, will a weak nominee take a potentially competitive contest off the table, or conversely, put what should be a safe seat at risk? The number of competitive primaries on the calendar also makes it difficult to assign a range of potential gains or losses.

The big issue is that not all states have decided their primaries yet, which means for now, not all candidates are set.  There are also a lot of open seats this time around, and a lot of toss-ups.

Of the nine seats Democrats must defend, none are in red states, although a couple — Minnesota and Pennsylvania — are in swing states. 

The seats Democrats need to be most concerned about are the open seats in Connecticut and Minnesota. It seems counterintuitive that a seat in a solidly blue state like Connecticut would be in play, but the state faces significant financial problems, the city of Hartford was on the brink of bankruptcy last fall until the state bailed it out, and major employers like General Electric are leaving the state. These are all ingredients for a competitive race. The presumptive Democratic nominee is Ned Lamont, a businessman who defeated then-U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary in 2006 (Lieberman won the general election as an independent). Lamont made an unsuccessful bid for the gubernatorial nomination in 2010. Republicans have a crowded primary, but they are likely to nominate a political outsider. 

In Minnesota, Democrats face a very competitive primary. While U.S. Rep. Tim Walz was thought to be the favorite, he faces challenges from state Rep. Erin Murphy, who won the party endorsement, and state Attorney General Lori Swanson. On the Republican side, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty is facing off against Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson in the primary. If Pawlenty doesn’t win the nomination, this contest becomes less competitive for Republicans. 

The open seat in Colorado may also be up for grabs. On the Republican side, state Treasurer Walter Stapleton is the frontrunner for the nomination in a four-way primary. On the Democratic side, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis and former Denver CFO Cary Kennedy are locked in a battle for the nomination, while state Sen. Mike Johnston is considered a dark horse. Polis is putting considerable personal money into the race, which would make this contest more difficult for Republicans if he wins the nomination.

Things are a lot tougher for Republicans for the same reason they are tough for the Democrats in the Senate: a bunch of seats to defend in states the other party won in 2016.

Republicans are defending 26 seats, including a number in blue and purple states. They go into the general election with one seat – the open seat in New Mexico – in the Lean Democrat column. Republican Gov. Susanna Martinez is unpopular, and Republican nominee U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce does not have a great track record in statewide races, having lost U.S. Senate contests in 2000 and 2008. He is the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation, and as a member of the Freedom Caucus, he is likely too conservative and controversial to win a statewide contest this year. 

There are seven seats in the Toss Up column, including incumbent Govs. Bruce Rauner in Illinois and Kim Reynolds in Iowa. Rauner is easily the most vulnerable incumbent of either party, but his significant personal resources make it hard to put him in the Lean Democrat column, at least for now. Reynolds is running for a term in her own right after becoming Governor when Terry Branstad resigned to become Ambassador to China. She will face Fred Hubbell, former president of Equitable Iowa and former Acting Director of the Department of Economic Development under Democratic Gov. Chet Culver. Hubbell easily won a crowded primary, outperforming expectations. This contest has moved to the Toss Up column. 

The other five contests are in open seats in Florida, Maine, Michigan, Nevada and Ohio. In Florida, both parties are hosting competitive primaries. There isn’t a real frontrunner on the Democratic side. On the Republican side, state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam is the frontrunner, but he is getting a challenge to his right from U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis. Putnam would be a very competitive nominee, while the race gets harder for the GOP if DeSantis, a member of the Freedom Caucus, is the party’s standard-bearer.
Maine will host a three-way contest. Shawn Moody, who ran for Governor in 2010 as an independent and finished fourth, won the GOP primary. As a result of the state’s ranked-choice primary system, it’s not clear yet whether businessman Adam Cote or Attorney General Janet Mills will be the Democratic nominee. There are several independent candidates running, but state Treasurer Terry Hayes seems likely to get the most traction. 

In the open seat in Ohio, Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine will face off against Democrat Richard Cordray, former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. There are three recent polls: one shows DeWine up by six points, another has Cordray up by two points and the third has Cordray up by seven points. It is extremely unlikely that Cordray is up by seven points and he may not even be ahead by two points, but the takeaway from these surveys is that this race is within the margin of error. As a result it has moved to the Toss Up column. 

Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin is in the Lean Republican column, but Democrats are convinced that this race will ultimately be a toss up. Walker is seeking a third term, which is always difficult, but before Democrats can go head to head with Walker, they need a nominee. They are hosting a 10-way primary, and seven or eight of the candidates can make credible cases that they have a path to the nomination. Until the August 14 primary, Walker is left to raise money and fine-tune his organization.

In other words, Dems could pick up seven, possibly eight governor's mansions in November.  That would go a long, long way towards blunting Trump's influence.

Having Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin back on Team Blue could break Trump in 2020.  Let's make it happen, guys.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

It's been an abysmal week for the Trump regime, with the White House's North Korea summit narrative disintegrating under the deluge of bad news:

• Jeff Sessions's ghoulish and indefensible child separation policy for immigrants crossing the border and putting them into internment camps is even stirring Paul Ryan into action, 
• the DoJ's long-awaited Inspector General's report on the Clinton email investigation was correct to spare Clinton and nailed James Comey for essentially assisting Trump in winning the election,
• the major lawsuit filed yesterday by NY AG Barbara Underwood against the Trump Foundation for campaign finance violations and charities fraud,
• Trump lawyer Michael Cohen facing a deadline today to turn over evidence and all but threatening to flip on his client,
• Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, already facing federal and state tax fraud and illegal lobbying charges, could have his bail/house arrest arrangement revoked today over attempted witness tampering in his case,
• and the White House press staff falling apart as both Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders and deputy Raj Shah are rumored to be leaving.

Things have now gotten so bad that  Rudy Giuliani was on FOX News last night demanding Robert Mueller's head.

President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said Thursday evening that special counsel Robert Mueller's probe should be suspended and Friday is the last chance for Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to "redeem themselves."

"I believe that Rod Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions have a chance to redeem themselves and that chance comes about tomorrow," Giuliani told Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Holding up a copy of the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General report, Giuliani argued that Mueller's probe must cease so top FBI officials named in the report can be investigated.

The report, compiled by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz and his staff, found that the FBI's handling of the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server was not affected by political bias. However, multiple agency officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, made decisions that went against department norms and others, like agent Peter Strzok, made inappropriate comments critical of then-candidate Trump.

"Tomorrow, Mueller should be suspended and honest people should be brought in, impartial people to investigate these people like Strzok," Giuliani continued. "Strzok should be in jail by the end of next week."

Giuliani’s call for Mueller to be suspended represents a major turning point for the Trump lawyer. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a White House event at the end of May, Giuliani said he didn’t think the special counsel job was in jeopardy. “I don’t think he’s going to fire Mueller. Mueller is creating his own problems,” Giuliani said.

At this point we have to assume that Rudy's appearance on Hannity last night is what Donald Trump wanted the world to hear, both the demand that Mueller be stopped and a new investigator brought in by Trump, and that Sessions and Rosenstein have "one day" to "redeem" themselves. 

Odds of that Saturday Night Massacre™ happening this weekend just went up astronomically in my book.  If there were ever a weekend where Trump blows his stack and makes his move against the DoJ, it's this one.

We know he's tried to fire Mueller before.  He was always going to try again.  When he realizes that Jeff Sessions can't make all of this go away, especially the NY state case involving Ivanka, Eric, and Don Jr. and the Trump Foundation, he might just take a flamethrower to it all.

Maybe somebody talks him down again. Maybe this is the weekend where he can no longer be talked down.  Stay tuned.

StupidiNews!

• The White House is expected to announce $50 million in new punitive tariffs on Chinese imports as soon as today, Beijing is promising swift retaliation as the US/China trade war escalates.
• The Pentagon is warning of "swift and appropriate measures" in Syria as Russian-backed Assad regime forces in southwest Syria are increasing military action against rebel forces.
• Emirati-led Arab Coalition forces in Yemen are advancing on Sanaa's airport as the UN fears disruption of aid could turn an already worsening humanitarian crisis into a deadly famine. 
• Donald Trump's next controversial pardon could be 1980's "Junk Bond King" Michael Milken, convicted of securities fraud, his pardon is backed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. 
• A new joint study from UC Berkeley and Boise State University finds that in order to avoid humans, mammals in urban areas increase their nocturnal activity by 68%.

Last Call For That's Real White Of You, Con't

As I mentioned earlier this week, Virginia Democrat and Hillary veep pick Sen. Tim Kaine is running for re-election and his opponent is Republican/Actual White Supremacist™ Corey Stewart, who is already calling for Kaine to be investigated and jailed because of the crime of being Hillary's veep pick, or something.

After responding to his victory rally crowds’ “Lock her up” chants by saying it “might just happen,” the Republican Senate candidate who won the GOP primary in Virginia on Tuesday evening, Corey Stewart, again suggested that his opponent should be jailed. 

During a turbulent interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday night, Stewart suggested that his opponent, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) was at the “center” of reports that a government informant was deployed to meet with members of the Trump campaign to probe their contacts with Russian officials at the start of what we now consider the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. President Donald Trump, Stewart —who claims he won because he fully aligned himself with Trump — and other far-right Republicans have seized on reports of the informant as evidence that a spy was sent to infiltrate Trump’s campaign. The President himself has dubbed the whole ordeal “spygate.”

“’ll tell you something, I really do believe that Tim Kaine has been at the center of all this stuff that you’re seeing with regard to the FBI, you know the whole problem is having the FBI spying by federal agency on a presidential campaign,” Stewart told Cuomo, who interrupted him to say there was “no proof” to back up his allegations. 

Stewart shot back: “We’re not in a court of law are we?” 

“That doesn’t mean the truth doesn’t apply, my brother,” Cuomo said. 

Stewart then repeated his claim that Kaine and the entire commonwealth of Virginia were at the “center” of the informant controversy. 

“I would not be surprised if there’s an investigation of Tim Kaine before the year is out,” Stewart said. “Look here’s the question, at the end of the day people have to ask themselves, what has Tim Kaine accomplished in his six years in the United States Senate? Tim Kaine can’t point to a single accomplishment in the United States Senate for Virginia or Virginians. The only thing that Tim Kaine has done in the past six years is run for vice president, and he didn’t even do a very good job at that, I might add.”

Then this morning, Stewart tweeted that Kaine is a terrorist.

Virginia's sitting senator approves of and even applauds his son's participation in a known terrorist organization, #Antifa.

Let that sink in. https://t.co/7foEPLKYHT

— Corey Stewart (@CoreyStewartVA) June 14, 2018

It's only Thursday.  Stewart has been the GOP candidate for Senate for less than 48 hours.  And when I say Stewart is a white supremacist, I'm 100% not being hyperbolic.

He once stood proudly before a Confederate flag, declaring it was not a symbol of hatred, but “about our heritage.” 

After the march of torch-carrying white supremacists in Charlottesville last year, which led to the death of a counterprotester, he criticized “weak Republicans” who “couldn’t apologize fast enough.” 

As officials around Virginia have grappled with whether to remove Confederate statues, he has compared those politicians to leaders of the Islamic State. 

Now Corey Stewart, a county official who for years has played to the hard-right fringe, captured the Republican nomination for Senate in Virginia. 

He did so in a low-turnout primary on Tuesday when many centrist Republicans apparently stayed home, unhappy with a three-way race among candidates all professing strong loyalty to President Trump and given to fiery culture war pronouncements. 

Mr. Stewart, the chairman of a county board of supervisors who briefly led Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign in Virginia, received a congratulatory overnight tweet from the president, who called Mr. Stewart’s Democratic opponent, Senator Tim Kaine, “a total stiff.” 

Tellingly, though, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the party’s campaign arm, said it would not support Mr. Stewart, who lags far behind Mr. Kaine in fund-raising and has a history of cozying up to white supremacists and anti-Semites that threatens to make him an albatross for down-ballot Republicans. 

White House officials said the president was unlikely to cross the Potomac River to campaign personally for Mr. Stewart unless there were signs that his race against Mr. Kaine had become competitive. 

The real worry for national Republicans — and the hope for Democrats — is that Mr. Stewart’s nomination may cost some incumbent Republicans in Virginia their seats in Congress.

When he loses, I hope he takes the rest of the Virginia GOP down with him.

Trump Cards, Con't

It looks like New York AG Barbara Underwood is picking up where her predecessor Eric Schniederman left off (before it turned out he was an abusive monster towards multiple women as he resigned in shame last month) and has now filed suit against the Trump Foundation, Donald Trump, Ivanka, Eric, and Don Jr. for charities fraud.

In the suit, filed Thursday morning, attorney general Barbara Underwood asked a state judge to dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation. She asked that its remaining $1 million in assets be distributed to other charities and that Trump be forced to pay at least $2.8 million in restitution and penalties. 

Underwood also asks that Trump be banned from leading any other New York nonprofit for 10 years — seeking to apply a penalty usually reserved for the operators of small-time charity frauds to the president of the United States. 

In the suit, Underwood noted that Trump had already paid more than $330,000 in reimbursements and penalty taxes since 2016. New York state began probing the Trump Foundation in response to an investigation by The Washington Post.

But she asked the judge to go further, and require Trump to pay millions more. She said a 20-month state investigation found that Trump had repeatedly violated laws that set the ground rules for tax-exempt foundations — most importantly, that their money is meant to serve the public good, and not to provide private benefits to their founders.

“This resulted in multiple violations of state and federal law,” Underwood wrote in the legal complaint. 

The White House and the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump has been president of the foundation since he founded it in 1987. In late 2016, he had promised to shut down the Trump Foundation — but could not while the attorney general’s investigation continued. 

Underwood was promoted to the position of attorney general only weeks ago, succeeding Eric Schneiderman (D) after he resigned following allegations that he had physically abused several romantic partners. Underwood was a career staffer, not an elected official. She has promised not to seek election for a full term as attorney general in the fall.

Underwood declined to comment on the case beyond issuing a written statement. “As our investigation reveals, the Trump Foundation was little more than a checkbook for payments from Mr. Trump or his businesses to nonprofits, regardless of their purpose or legality,” Underwood said in the statement.

Underwood said she had sent letters to both the IRS and the Federal Election Commission, identifying what she called “possible violations” of tax law and federal campaign law by Trump’s foundation. 

Underwood has jurisdiction over the Trump Foundation because the charity is based at Trump Tower in Manhattan and registered in New York State. 

Trump’s children Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump were also named in the lawsuit because they have been official board members of the Donald J. Trump Foundation for years. Under the law, Underwood said, board members are supposed to scrutinize a charity’s spending for signs that its leader — in this case, their father — was misusing the funds.

But in reality, Underwood wrote, the three Trump children exercised no such oversight. The board had not actually met since 1999.

The Trump Foundation is most likely guilty of all the things Trump accused the Clinton Foundation of doing, being a personal slush fund and money laundering vehicle for the Trump family to take kickbacks from for decades.  Believe me when I say Mueller and his team of forensic accountants are follwing this money trail, and as I've said all along, even if Trump fires Mueller and pardons himself on all federal charges, the state charges brought by NY are going to be much harder to make disappear.

That doesn't mean Trump can't find a federal judge to tie up this lawsuit like rope day at a contortionist's convention, but it's not like Trump can fire Underwood or pardon himself from the lawsuit.  Most importantly, his slimy kids are in real trouble from this.  Dad might be able to smokescreen this for a while but Ivanka and her rotten brothers will not have that luxury.

And if these "multiple violations of state and federal law" turn into possible criminal indictments complete with possible prison time, things are going to get real fun around family gatherings.

Oh, and it directly ties into the Trump campaign's constant illegality too.

In violation of state and federal law, senior Trump campaign staff, including Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski, dictated the timing, amounts, and recipients of grants by the Foundation to non-profits. pic.twitter.com/7MnLbwDqlY

— New York Attorney General (@NewYorkStateAG) June 14, 2018

It also means the DoJ will have to certainly open yet another federal investigation into the person in the Oval Office, an investigation that AG Jeff Sessions, having been a member of the Trump campaign at the time, cannot be allowed to oversee.

Congress too should look into this as well.  Republicans certainly would if the legal complaint that the NY AG is producing here were directed towards the Clinton Foundation.

Stay tuned.  The family that crimes together, does time together.

Sayonara, Mouths Of Sauron!

CBS News is reporting that Trump Regime Minister of Disinformation White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders and Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah are out.

Two of the most visible members of the Trump administration are planning their departures, the latest sign of upheaval in a White House marked by turmoil.

Press secretary Sarah Sanders and principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah are both heading for the exits, according to sources inside the White House and close to the administration. Sanders, who has become a confidante of President Trump since the departure of former communications director Hope Hicks, has told friends that she plans to leave the administration at the end of the year.

Shah is also considering his exit, but he has not yet settled on an exact date. Neither Sanders nor Shah responded to repeated requests for comment before this story was published. When reached Wednesday evening, both declined to comment on the record, and Sanders tweeted that she is "honored to work for @POTUS."

Several other lower-level positions in the communications department left vacant in recent weeks are likely to remain unfilled, with more departures expected in the coming weeks, according to a former official.

Numerous staffers have left the White House over the last several months, some voluntarily and others having been forced out. Those departures include Hicks; Jared Kushner's top communications aide, Josh Raffel; homeland security adviser Tom Bossert; National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton; Trump personal aide John McEntee; director of White House message strategy Cliff Simms; communications aide Steven Cheung; congressional communications director Kaelan Dorr; assistant press secretary Natalie Strom; and deputy director of media affairs Tyler Ross.

Now she didn't exactly deny the story in the tweet, which is the tell.  Trump often leaves Huckabee-Sanders and Shah out to dry by tweeting one thing and then leaving them having to deal with the "White House position" being the opposite of what Trump tweeted earlier in the day, and this happens several times a month, if not several times in the same week. It's exhausting having to cover for the worst liar on Earth.

Having said that, the two of them are getting paid handsomely to do it, and nobody's forcing them to, you know, actively work for Donald Trump.  If either of them had any shred of decency they would have resigned months ago or better yet never taken the job to begin with, knowing exactly what Trump was all about.  My sympathies, especially for Huckabee-Sanders, are precisely zero in this situation.  Besides, they'll land at FOX News within a week of leaving.

Somebody in the White House has it out for the two of them, and it could very well be John Barron Donald Trump himself, so who knows.  I'm thinking that neither Huckabee-Sanders nor Shah have what it takes to handle the press once Mueller closes in on Trump, and with Michael Cohen reportedly about to flip, that time could be sooner rather than later.

Of course, Jeff Sessions and John Kelly have been "heading for the exits" for over a year now, so who knows in the end.

StupidiNews!

• Heavy rain, wind and even a possible tornado injured six in Pennsylvania last night as a line of storms ripped through the Wikes-Barre area, including damaging a major shopping center.
• New volcanic activity in Guatamala has closed airports near the Pacaya volcano, just ten days after the eruption of the Fuego volcano killed more than 100 and left 200 more missing.
• Israeli forces have attacked Iranian-backed militia fighters in Syria on Thursday, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is claiming the military action will prevent an exodus of more Syrian refugees to Europe.
• Cable giant Comcast and entertainment juggernaut Disney are locked in a battle for 21st Century Fox's entertainment assets in the wake of the approval of the AT&T/Time Warner merger this week.
• A massive dust storm on Mars has put NASA's Opportunity rover to "sleep", blocking solar panels as the storm forces the rover to hibernate in low-power mode until it passes, which could take months.

Last Call For A World Cup Date Update

The joint North American bid for the 2026 FIFA World Cup by the US, Canada, and Mexico won over Morocco and the tournament will be returning to the states in eight years.

A combined bid from the United States, Mexico and Canada won the hosting rights for soccer’s 2026 World Cup on Wednesday, bringing the tournament to North America for the first time since the 1994 event on a pledge of record crowds, record revenues and, perhaps crucially, a record $11 billion in profits for FIFA, world soccer’s governing body. 

The North American bid defeated its only challenger, Morocco, by a vote of 134-65.
“Thank you for the incredible privilege,” U.S. Soccer President Carlos Cordeiro told the FIFA members in a short speech after the vote, adding, “Football today is the only victor.” 

It will be the first time the World Cup is hosted by three countries, but a vast majority of the tournament will be on United States soil. Of the 80 matches, 10 will be held in Canada, 10 in Mexico and 60 in the United States — including the final, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. 

The last time the men’s World Cup was in North America was when the United States hosted in 1994. It was held in Mexico in 1970 and 1986, and Canada has never hosted.

Wednesday’s vote was the first in which each FIFA member association was given a say on where the World Cup would be held, and the North Americans rode to victory on a wave of support from the Americas, Europe and Asia, plus a few votes poached from Africa. 

After months of meetings and arm-twisting, a campaign that began last August when Morocco jumped into the race on the final day that countries could announce their intention to bid, ended in an instant: with electronic vote totals suddenly flashing onto a giant screen. 

The victory spared U.S. Soccer a second stunning defeat in less than a year; the United States men’s team is missing the World Cup this summer, its first absence since 1986. The American federation spent more than $6 million — out of a combined budget of about $8 million — to bring the World Cup back to North America, and its first-term president, Carlos Cordeiro, had criss-crossed the globe to meet voters since his election in February.

Both new MLS member cities Nashville and Cincinnati are in the running as one of the 17 possible US sites, but odds are pretty long that any of the games will be played in the Midwest, outside of Dallas's obviously massive stadium complex, Atlanta's transportation hub logistics advantage and Philly's sports capital status, expect all the US games to played on the coasts.

Here's the thing though: Cincy and Nashville, along with Kansas City and Denver, should be thankful.  The FIFA World Cup will probably end up with a net cost of well over $20 billion to host if the 2014 Brazil version is any indication, and hey, Brazil nearly went bankrupt and their government collapsed in scandal after the one-two punch of the World cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.

In other words, it's money much better spent on infrastructure, roads, social programs, anything else.  I kind of hope Trump wrecks the bid somehow, because for the first time his belligerence would actually be doing us a favor.

Of course hey by then he won't be in the Oval Office.

Right?

It's Mueller Time, Con't

A new Politico/Morning Consult poll finds that Donald Trump's constant attacks on the Mueller investigation are starting to pay off politically.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s public image has sunk to an all-time low since he began his probe into possible collusion between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. 

Months of sustained conservative attacks led by President Donald Trump and his allies has harmed Mueller most among Republicans, with a record 53 percent now saying they view the lead Russia investigator in an unfavorable light. That’s a 26-point spike since July, when the poll first started asking voters whether they viewed Mueller favorably or unfavorably.

Mueller’s unfavorable numbers have hit highs among both Democrats and independents, at 24 percent and 33 percent, respectively. Thirty-six percent of all registered voters are also seeing Mueller unfavorably, which represents the highest level since the polling first raised the topic 11 months ago. Back then, 23 percent of all voters said they viewed Mueller negatively. 

The spike in the special counsel’s unfavorable ratings come as he begins his second year on the job. Mueller has already publicly netted five guilty pleas and 18 indictments of people and companies tied to his work examining Moscow meddling in the 2016 election. But he’s nonetheless faced sharp attacks from the president, his lawyers and other associates. 

Voters interviewed for the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll also have changed direction on whether they think the Mueller investigation has been on the up and up. In the latest survey, 40 percent of voters said it had been handled unfairly, compared to early February when 34 percent said the probe wasn’t being handled fairly. The percentage saying the investigation was being done fairly remained unchanged from February at 38 percent.

I understand that Mueller's probe is not subject legally to the whims of polls, the antelope can take all the polls they want to about the lioness and she still hunts them, but in the end this was always going to be about politics, not just rule of law. Nixon resigned in 1974 only because leaders in both parties made it clear he was not only going to be impeached but that well more than 67 Senate votes were there to remove him from office.  The Constitution makes it pretty clear that there's only two ways to remove a president, impeachment and the 25th Amendment, and both of those are political, not just legal acts.

However, not all is rosy for Team Orange here.

The latest poll also has bad news for the president. Forty-eight percent of voters believe Trump has attempted to impede or obstruct the Russia investigation, up from 44 percent who offered the same view in early February. Democrats by a wide margin — 79 percent — said Trump was trying to obstruct Mueller’s probe. But 70 percent of Republicans said the president wasn’t meddling in the investigation. 

Trump also may want to rethink his comments about pardoning himself if he’s found guilty of a crime. The president last week told reporters he had the “absolute right” to make that move, but a majority of voters — 59 percent — said they opposed the idea of Trump issuing a self-pardon. Twenty percent said the president should pardon himself, while 21 percent were without an opinion or responded that they didn’t know. 

The breakdown among party affiliation on pardons is also against the president. About a third of Republicans — 34 percent — agree with the idea that Trump should issue himself a pardon. The same number of Republicans also said he should not pardon himself. Among Democrats, just 13 percent said the president should pardon himself, while 77 percent rejected the idea. Only 15 percent of independents said they thought Trump should pardon himself, while 63 percent said no.

Politics, after all, can cut both ways.  Meanwhile, it looks like Michael Cohen is ready to cooperate with Mueller's investigation.

As attorneys for Michael Cohen rush to meet Judge Kimba Wood’s Friday deadline to complete a privilege review of over 3.7 million documents seized in the April 9 raids of Cohen’s New York properties and law office, a source representing this matter has disclosed to ABC News that the law firm handling the case for Cohen is not expected to represent him going forward.

To date, Cohen has been represented by Stephen Ryan and Todd Harrison of the Washington and New York firm, McDermott, Will & Emery LLP. 

No replacement counsel has been identified as of this time. 

Cohen, now with no legal representation, is likely to cooperate with federal prosecutors in New York, sources said. This development, which is believed to be imminent, will likely hit the White House, family members, staffers and counsels hard.

If Cohen flips on Trump, and all indications are this is happening and happening soon, then Trump is done and he knows it.

Things will move quickly now if this story is true. Cohen is all but asking for a pardon and for the Trump to step in on his sate case in Virginia..  The question is now whether or not he'll get it on the federal level, and if Trump can make arrangements to defend him.

We'll see what happens, but my guess is that Trump will make our ongoing Constitutional crisis exponentially worse by the weekend.

Primary Motivations, Con't

A good night for Democrats last night as primary contests were held in Virginia, Maine, North Dakota, South Carolina, and Nevada, plus a couple of special elections in Wisconsin. Overall, it was a pretty good night for Team Blue, especially for women.

Virginia is quietly one of the most important states in the race for the House — at least four seats should be competitive in November — and Democrats have now nominated a woman as their candidate in every one of those important elections.

In the Virginia Second, they nominated veteran Elaine Luria to challenge Rep. Scott Taylor, In the Seventh, Abigail Spanberger got the nod and is now tasked with toppling Dave Brat, one of the most conservative members of the House. And Jennifer Wexton emerged from a crowded primary and will now face Rep. Barbara Comstock, long considered to be one of the most vulnerable House Republicans in the country, in the 10th.

And prior to primary day, in a local Democratic convention, the party picked Leslie Cockburn in the campaign to replace outgoing and scandal-plagued Republican Rep. Tom Garrett. Each of this races is pegged by election forecasters to be either a toss-up or to lean slightly toward the Republicans. These seats would absolutely be in play in a wave year, especially in a state that is consistently trending bluer all the time.

We’ve seen again and again this year that Democratic primary voters want women to be their candidates. Virginia is maybe the starkest evidence yet.

This is a good thing.  Increasing the percentage of women in Congress has been badly needed for, I dunno, 240-plus years or so and Democrats in Virginia are leading the way. Oh, and Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's veep pick in 2016, lucked out last night too as Virginia Republicans decided on white-supremacist adjacent Corey Stewart as their party's candidate for challenging Kaine in November, not that Kaine was in real trouble before.

Wisconsin was also a place for Dems fighting back against GOP Gov. Scott Walker.

After two Republican state lawmakers stepped down to take spots in Walker’s administration, the Wisconsin governor decided to just not call special elections as state law seemed to clearly demand. His lawyers cooked up a farcical literal reading of state law to justify the decision, but Democrats — led by former Attorney General Eric Holder — intervened, the state courts laughed off Walker’s case as absurd, and so the elections were called.

That was the first part of the liberal win, and the second part came on Tuesday, when Democrats prevailed in one of those special legislative elections. Caleb Frostman won in Senate District 1, where Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 17 points in 2016.

One out of two isn't bad considering both special elections were considered safe seats a year ago.  And Walker himself?  He's got to be feeling nervous as he runs for a third term in November.

Last month we found Scott Walker trailing Democratic front runner Tony Evers 49-45 for reelection. Between the polling, the Supreme Court race, and these legislative specials, it's really looking like the climate is such that Walker could lose

— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) June 13, 2018

Oh, and as I mentioned this morning, Mark Sanford did indeed lose his primary contest.  Don't feel too bad for him though.

I'm sure Mark Sanford's MSNBC contract has already been drafted.

— Steve M. (@nomoremister) June 13, 2018

Onward towards November.

StupidiNews!

• Primary contests in South Carolina and four other states concluded last night and GOP Rep. Mark Sanford has been defeated in his re-election bid after Donald Trump endorsed his opponent.
• North Carolina Republicans are sponsoring legislation that would give police investigating any drug-related crime full access to prescription drug records of a suspect without a warrant.
• Britain's high court has ruled that a self-employed plumber is entitled to workers' benefits, a ruling that could profoundly change "gig economy" services in the UK.
• A sweeping federal court ruling in favor of AT&T's $85 billion merger with Time Warner will spur mergers put on hold in several industries as corporate America waited for Tuesday's ruling.
• Three of the four major broadband providers in the US say they have no current plans for paid prioritization of internet traffic for now, but Charter will only commit to no blocking or throttling.

Last Call For Put A Corker In It, Bob

Outgoing Trump party Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee is really upset that Trump's tariffs are going to destroy the (admittedly 100% union-free) auto manufacturing industry in his state, and is kind of grouchy that the rest of the Trump party refuses to back him over, well, Trump.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) ripped his GOP colleagues on Tuesday, asserting they are afraid to vote on his tariff legislation because it could provoke backlash from President Trump.

"'Gosh, we might poke the bear!' That is the language I've been hearing in the hallways. 'We might poke the bear. The president might get upset with us as United States senators if we vote on the Corker amendment,'" Corker said during a heated speech where he was yelling from the Senate floor. 

He added that the Senate is "becoming a body where, well, we'll do what we can do, but my gosh, if the president gets upset with us, then we might not be in the majority, and so let's don't do anything that might upset the president."

Corker's floor speech comes as he has tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to get a vote on his legislation requiring congressional approval for tariffs enacted for reasons of national security amid broader scrutiny of Trump's recent trade moves. 

The Tennessee Republican has pushed for a vote on the measure as part of the Senate's debate on the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). 

Though GOP lawmakers have publicly fretted over Trump's tariff policies, GOP leadership has shown little interest in formally pushing back against the president.

Here's the thing though, Bob... you hitched your wagon to Trump, and now you're all mad because that wagon is headed for a cliff.  It's going to take your party with it, and November's going to be a bloodbath.  If you think voters in your state are mad at the Trump party now, wait until the layoff stories start rolling in on the evening news over the next several months.

And when the economic damage really kicks in next year, we'll see what the Trump party is willing to do as far as reining in Trump.

Of course, Corker will be long gone by then.