Last Call For Russian To Judgement, Con't

Republicans are busy pretending that Trump has been exonerated already and that there was never any evidence at all of collusion, going so far as to compare the "liberal nutjob conspiracy" of Russian collusion to birtherism or 9/11 truther stuff, rather hysterically rich stuff considering Trump was a major proponent of pushing the Obama was born in Kenya story himself.

Millions of American believe the worst about their current president, claims every bit as toxic in their own way as “truther” smears against George Bush or “birther” smears against Barack Obama. The Trump collusion narrative has gotten a far wider and more respectable hearing than either of the two conspiracy theories that plagued the Bush and Obama administrations. Truth is truth, and it’s important for responsible people to not just understand and respond to actual evidence — no matter where it leads — but also acknowledge its absence. And so far the absence of evidence points to Trump’s innocence of some of the worst allegations ever leveled against an American president or his senior team.

The right is convinced that the collusion story is over and done and that "nobody cares about Russia anymore, there's no evidence."  The problem is that the Trump regime has done a pretty lousy job of hiding the fact they've gone to great lengths to stop the investigation to determine if there's collusion or not, and that leads us to the old Nixonian adage "The cover-up is worse than the crime".

The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.

The move by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump’s conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said.

Trump had received private assurances from then-FBI Director James B. Comey starting in January that he was not personally under investigation. Officials say that changed shortly after Comey’s firing.

Five people briefed on the requests, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said that Daniel Coats, the current director of national intelligence, Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, and Rogers’s recently departed deputy, Richard Ledgett, agreed to be interviewed by Mueller’s investigators as early as this week. The investigation has been cloaked in secrecy, and it is unclear how many others have been questioned by the FBI.

So there's now three components to Mueller's investigation:  Possible Russian collusion with Trump to help throw the election, Trump's possible money laundering through Russian connections, and the possible obstruction of justice.  Republicans are trying to convince you that while the first has no solid evidence yet, that the money laundering and obstruction must be FAKE NEWS too.  Hence the pressure on Mueller to resign or to be fired by Trump.

That's not how this actually works, of course.

The NSA said in a statement that it will “fully cooperate with the special counsel” and declined to comment further. The office of the director of national intelligence and Ledgett declined to comment.

The White House now refers all questions about the Russia investigation to Trump’s personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz.

“The FBI leak of information regarding the president is outrageous, inexcusable and illegal,” said Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Kasowitz.

The officials said Coats, Rogers and Ledgett would appear voluntarily, though it remains unclear whether they will describe in full their conversations with Trump and other top officials or will be directed by the White House to invoke executive privilege. It is doubtful that the White House could ultimately use executive privilege to try to block them from speaking to Mueller’s investigators. Experts point out that the Supreme Court ruled during the Watergate scandal that officials cannot use privilege to withhold evidence in criminal prosecutions.

The obstruction-of-justice investigation of the president began days after Comey was fired on May 9, according to people familiar with the matter. Mueller’s office has taken up that work, and the preliminary interviews scheduled with intelligence officials indicate that his team is actively pursuing potential witnesses inside and outside the government.

Again, the Republicans are trying to do everything they can to shift the investigation away from Trump and towards the FBI, NSA, CIA and the free press.  It's a concerted effort, but judging from the opinion polls it's failing miserably.

The larger point is that obstruction of justice has been part of Mueller's investigation since the beginning. 

And Trump is terrified.

Water We Waiting For In Flint, Con't

The wheels of justice grind slowly when it comes to the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan, but eventually they will crush the guilty.

The head of the Michigan health department was charged Wednesday with involuntary manslaughter, the highest-ranking member of Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration to be snagged in a criminal investigation of Flint’s lead-contaminated water. 

Nick Lyon is accused of misconduct in office for failing to alert the public about an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the Flint area, which has been linked by some experts to poor water quality in 2014-15. 

The manslaughter charge is punishable by up to 15 years in prison, while the misconduct charge carries a prison sentence of up to five years. 

The state’s chief medical officer, Dr. Eden Wells, was charged with obstruction of justice and lying to a police officer. The obstruction charge carries a prison term of up to two years. 

Lyon’s failure to act resulted in the death of at least one person, 85-year-old Robert Skidmore, special agent Jeff Seipenko told a judge. 

The charges were read in court by Seipenko, a member of the state attorney general’s team. Lyon and Wells were not in court. A message seeking comment was left for Lyon’s attorneys. Wells’ lawyer was not immediately known. 

Flint began using water from the Flint River in 2014 but didn’t treat it to reduce corrosion, resulting in lead leaching from old plumbing into the water system. When the state was made aware of elevated lead levels in the drinking water, the Snyder administration confirmed the result and switched Flint back to the Detroit area water system in October 2015. 

Some experts also have linked the water to Legionnaires’ disease, a type of pneumonia caused by bacteria that thrive in warm water and infect the lungs. People can get sick if they inhale mist or vapor, typically from cooling systems. 

Twelve people died and another 79 in the Flint area were sickened in 2014 and 2015.

Hopefully more charges are coming, but the person who needs to be prosecuted and put behind bars is Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.  Never forget that he's the man behind this mess in Flint and still hasn't fixed the problem.

More as always on Flint from our friends at Eclectablog.

A Capitol Crime Committed By A Coward

Reports this morning are that a gunman opened fire at a Virginia baseball field where several House GOP members were taking ball practice for the annual House baseball game.  Louisiana GOP Rep. Steve Scalise was shot in the hip and two Capitol Police officers were also shot and wounded.

Rep. Steve Scalise was shot Wednesday morning in Alexandria, Virginia, a House colleague told CNN, in what sources are calling an apparent "deliberate attack." 

The shooting took place at a practice for the GOP congressional baseball team. 

Scalise, a member of the House Republican leadership as the majority whip, appeared to have been shot in the hip and it appeared two Capitol Hill police agents were shot, according to Rep. Mo Brooks, who told CNN he was on deck when the shooting occurred.

According to both congressional and law enforcement sources, the shooting appears to be a "deliberate attack." 

Two law enforcement sources told CNN the shooter, who is in police custody, has been taken to a hospital. 

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who was at the practice, told CNN "it would have been a massacre" had Capitol Police not been present. 

"Nobody would have survived without the Capitol Hill police," Paul said on CNN. "It would have been a massacre without them." 

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake added that he saw a member of Scalise's security detail return fire on the gunman for what felt like 10 minutes, even though the police officer was wounded in the leg. 

"50 (shots) would be an understatement, I'm quite sure," Flake said when asked about the total amount of gunfire, including police returning fire. 

Flake said two members of Scalise's security detail were wounded, and another man was wounded in the chest. 

Once they were able, Flake said he and Rep. Brad Wenstrup, who is a physician, went out to where Scalise was lying after dragging himself away from the shooting to apply pressure to the wound. Scalise was coherent the whole time, Flake said. 

The President is monitoring the situation, the White House said in a statement.

Don't care which side of the political fence you're on, opening fire on people, elected officials or otherwise, makes you a scumbag asshole.  It looks like the gunman was taken down and is in custody, and I hope there's a nice little concrete box waiting for him for the next 50 years.  

As far as I'm concerned, this is as awful as Rep. Gabby Gifford's attempted assassination in Arizona a few years back.  Capitol Police are there for a reason folks, and they did their job.  I don't politically agree with Scalise, but in no way in any universe is this anything other than a criminal act perpetrated by an absolute coward.  Rand Paul is right, it would have been a massacre without the Capitol Police there.

But somebody decided to take the bullet box over the ballot box route.  That is never, I repeat never, acceptable in any way.

StupidiNews!

• At least six are dead with 50 injured and casualties are expected to rise as firefighters search through a West London public housing high-rise engulfed by flames early Wednesday morning.
• Virginia Democrat Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam will face former RNC chair Ed Gillespie in November as voters took the polls for the state's gubernatorial primary on Tuesday.
• Donald Trump has given Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan, Mattis has previously said that a substantial increase in US troops is needed.
• The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter-point at its June meeting today, investors are looking for clues if future hikes are still on the table in 2017.
• The Trump FDA is indefinitely delaying new food nutrition labels, food, beverage and grocery store industry groups say that two years just isn't enough time to implement the changes.

Last Call For Mr. Unpopularity Over Here

Meanwhile the Trump regime train wreck is starting to take its toll on the Donald.

A record 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the job President Trump is doing, according to Gallup's daily tracking poll.

That is slightly higher than Trump's previous disapproval threshold, which was 59 percent in late March, according to the poll.

Meanwhile, 36 percent of those surveyed in the latest tracking poll approve of the job Trump is doing, near the record low of 35 percent from March 28. Neither former President Barack Obama nor President Bill Clinton ever reached 60 percent in the survey, while George W. Bush reached the 60 percent disapproval mark nearly five years into his presidency.

The daily poll of approximately 1,500 U.S. adults is conducted via telephone and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

To be fair, it took Trump all of five months to end up at "Dubya who got wiped out in the 2006 midterms" level.  Five months to stack up as much incompetence as Bush did in five years.

And it's only just begun.  We're seriously at the level of finding out if Trump has a floor to his disapproval numbers...or a ceiling to his malfeasance.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

A double header tonight on Russia, first up, given the Trump regime's multiple failed attempts to remove sanctions against Russia, it looks like the Senate is taking that option out of Trump's hands.

Senators have struck a deal to put a comprehensive Russia sanctions bill on the floor this week, according to those negotiating the legislation. 

The measure, which will be attached to a bill to stiffen Iran sanctions that is under consideration, incorporates proposals to codify existing Russia sanctions, introduce punitive measures against Moscow in light of Russia’s aggressive activities in Ukraine, introduce measures addressing Syria and the realm of cyberhacking, and give Congress the power to review efforts by the administration to scale back sanctions against Russia before they can go through. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) filed the amendment late Monday, setting up a vote for later this week, after extensive talks with Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Foreign Relations Committee’s ranking Democrat, Benjamin L. Cardin (Md.), Banking Committee ranking Democrat Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and vocal Russia critics John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) were also involved in various stages of the discussion. 

“This is a very comprehensive piece of legislation,” Corker said Monday night after the measures were introduced. “It really touches all the components.” 

Various senators involved in the discussions had filed three different bills to increase sanctions against Russia over its involvement in the wars in Ukraine and Syria, as well as over allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Some proposed bills also included measures to give Congress the power to block the president from easing up on sanctions against Russia and to better counter Russian propaganda in the United States and Europe.

Corker said that he had drafted a fourth bill about three months ago addressing several of the points, but that his office had never released it. 

The measure filed Monday night directs sanctions toward Russia’s intelligence and defense apparatus, as well as parts of its energy, mining, railways and shipping economy. It also includes provisions to punish those engaged in corruption and human rights abuses.

Tacking this on to the Iran sanctions bill is clever, meaning it will get GOP support (as well as force Trump to swallow it.)  Senator Brown yesterday all but said that the measure has enough votes to override any possible Trump veto attempt, and the House won't be a problem here.   Senator Corker too believes this will pass with well more than 67 votes.

Trump's boss in Moscow won't be happy.  That's because the other big Russia story has to do with their interference in our elections, it wasn't just a few states, but 39.

Russia’s cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump’s election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported. 

In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said. 

The scope and sophistication so concerned Obama administration officials that they took an unprecedented step -- complaining directly to Moscow over a modern-day “red phone.” In October, two of the people said, the White House contacted the Kremlin on the back channel to offer detailed documents of what it said was Russia’s role in election meddling and to warn that the attacks risked setting off a broader conflict. 

The new details, buttressed by a classified National Security Agency document recently disclosed by the Intercept, show the scope of alleged hacking that federal investigators are scrutinizing as they look into whether Trump campaign officials may have colluded in the efforts. But they also paint a worrisome picture for future elections: The newest portrayal of potentially deep vulnerabilities in the U.S.’s patchwork of voting technologies comes less than a week after former FBI Director James Comey warned Congress that Moscow isn’t done meddling. 

“They’re coming after America,” Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the election. “They will be back.” 

A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington declined to comment on the agency’s probe.

Again, the easiest way to ensure Republican dominance was to have someone take out as many Democratic voters as possible out of the voter databases, since the GOP was in the process of doing that anyway.  The result:  Trump won the electoral college by fewer than 100,000 votes in the right four states, all states that showed dramatic reductions in black voter turnout.

We'll see what the White House does here.

Mulling Over Mueller

The Trump Regime is at least floating the trial balloon if Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is currently investigating Russia/Trump connections, should be fired.

Donald Trump is considering dismissing the special counsel assigned to the Russia investigation, a confidant said on Monday.

Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy told PBS Newshour that Trump is “considering perhaps terminating” Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who was appointed to run the investigation into Russian influence on the campaign by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on May 17.

Asked later if Trump is really considering firing Mueller, Ruddy said: “Yes.”

The "enlightened" pundits on the right are trying to do everything they can to sell this, the reason being that Mueller cannot be objective because of 1) his personal and professional friendship with James Comey from their FBI years and 2) as former FBI Director, his investigation would only serve as a cover-up for failures by the intelligence community to stop Russian interference.

Yeah, suddenly the Trump regime and its lackeys are worried about possible conflicts of interest, guys.

Meanwhile, Jack Goldstein at Lawfare ponders if Trump could fire Mueller himself, or if he has to order the person who appointed him, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, to do it.  The legal iddues say Trump most likely has the authority, but from a non-legal standpoint, it's a nightmare scenario.

It is a matter of Rosenstein’s judgment--about whether he is convinced by Trump’s reasons for the firing, about his relationship to the president and his view of the president’s prerogatives in this situation, about how he characterizes the overall situation he finds himself in, about the actions he is or isn’t willing to associate himself with, and about what his sense of integrity demands. At least two factors lead me to think Rosenstein will resign: (1) He has already seen his reputation soiled and his judgment questioned by the manner in which the President used his memorandum as a pretext for firing Comey; and (2) He appointed Mueller to great bipartisan acclaim, and he presumably did due diligence and convinced himself that Mueller was fit to serve. Unless Trump comes up with a clinching reason for firing Mueller that is now hard to fathom, it is hard to see how Rosenstein carries out the the order. He will resign.

Second, what happens as Trump moves down the line of succession? Newly confirmed Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand would be next, and then (I think) would come acting AAG for the National Security Division Dana Boente, who is not confirmed for that job but who has been Senate-confirmed as a U.S. Attorney. What a spot these two would be in! Would they carry out the President’s order, or resign? It might seem obvious that they would resign because they would not want to carry out or associate themselves with what Rosenstein would have thought, by hypothesis, was a bad faith or at least unacceptable order by the President. I think this is what would happen. But at some point down the chain of command a countervailing principle, call it the Bork principle, arises: stability in the Justice Department and in law enforcement more generally.

The decision by Brand or Boente to execute the President’s order or resign would be complicated by at least two unusual factors: (1) Unlike in Watergate, Attorney General Sessions remains in place above them, and could ensure, outside the Russia investigation from which he is recused, that the Department continued to function (assuming Sessions himself does not resign); (2) Amazingly, DOJ has no other Senate-confirmed officials, and there are complex questions about the line of succession after Brand and Boente for non-confirmed DOJ officials, and about the operation of the new Trump EO, and whether there is discretion on this matter and who can exercise it.

It is easy to imagine Brand resigning and perhaps Boente after her. It is also easy to imagine that one or the other carries out the President’s order on the Bork principle but at the same time announces that she or he plans very quickly to appoint a new Special Counsel of undoubted integrity to continue Mueller’s investigation. (I will ignore for now—these hypotheticals are getting depressing and complicated—what happens if Trump fires Brand or Boente for appointing a new Special Counsel.)

Third, what does Congress do? That is obviously the really important question. There is no doubt that firing Mueller would cause a backlash in Congress. The question is how much of one, and specifically, would it be enough to cause Republican leadership to intervene strongly with the President, and ultimately with impeachment? The answer depends on the reasons Trump gives for firing Mueller, the manner in which he does it, the precise reaction in DOJ, and what the nation’s reaction is. If Congress does not check the President, that leaves only the midterm or presidential elections, or possibly a 25th Amendment solution, as ways to stand up to the President. That may seem a depressing conclusion. But I predict it would not come to that. If the crazy scenario that got me to this point in the hypothetical decision chain materializes, Congress would rise up quickly to stop the President, and the pressure on the cabinet would be enormous as well. If I am naive in thinking this, then we are indeed in trouble.   

From a raw political standpoint, there's nothing at this juncture that makes me think the Trump Cult will do anything but cheer Mueller's firing.  Trump obviously thinks he can get away with it and win, and frankly why wouldn't he?  Which GOP members of Congress would stand up to Trump and demand his resignation or threaten impeachment?  McCain? Ryan? Rubio? McConnell?  The string of Republicans who have at every juncture so far shown nothing but abject cowardice?

Do you think Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan will appoint a special prosecutor?  Do you think Trump voters will care?

Goldstein does.

I do not.

StupidiNews!

• Attorney General Jeff Sessions will face the Senate Intelligence Committee today under oath, he will respond to allegations made last week in testimony by fired FBI Director James Comey.
• North Korean state news is responding to a Donald Trump tweet about the country's missile tests with a threat that its missiles can reach New York City.
• After a week of sanctions and a blockade by its Gulf State neighbors, Qatar's finance minister says the government is still "extremely comfortable" in its financial position.
• During a trip to Miami later this week, Donald Trump is expected to announce the reversal of much of President Obama's diplomatic and economic normalization with Cuba.
• The malware suspected of being used by Russia to crash Ukraine's power grid last December has been found in the wild, prompting warnings that it could be used more widely.

Last Call For The Trump-go Cult

At this point, the Cult of Dear Leader Trump has reached Jim Jones/David Koresh/Charles Manson levels of insanity, as CNBC's John Harwood reports.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has displayed various reactions to the pressures of his job, from angry tweets to effusive exaggerations to self-defeating candor. 

On Monday, Trump tried something new: bathing in praise from his Cabinet in front of TV cameras. 

After a weekend dominated by discussion of whether he had committed obstruction of justice, the president called in reporters for what he billed as his first full Cabinet meeting. He began with an opening statement laced with the sort of wild self-congratulatory boasts that are his trademark.

"Never has there been a president with few exceptions … who has passed more legislation, done more things," Trump declared, even though Congress, which is controlled by his party, hasn't passed any major legislation. 

He hailed his plan for the "single biggest tax cut in American history," even though he hasn't proposed a plan and Congress hasn't acted on one. He said "no one would have believed" his election could have created so many new jobs over the past seven months (1.1 million), even though more jobs (1.3 million) were created in the previous seven months. 

Typically, a president's initial comments mark the end of on-camera coverage of White House Cabinet meetings, with administration aides then escorting members of the small press "pool" out of the room. But Trump invited reporters to remain as he called on his senior-most advisers to "go around, name your position" and say a few words about the administration's work. 

"Start with Mike," Trump said, referring to his vice president. Mike Pence, whom Trump kept in the dark for two weeks after learning that then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had given the vice president false information earlier this year, responded by saying that serving as Trump's number two is "the greatest privilege of my life." 

"An honor to be here," said Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recently offered his resignation amid strains over the Russia investigation. 

"My hat is off to you," said Energy Secretary Rick Perry, referring to the president's explanation of his decision to abandon a global climate change agreement. 

"We thank you for the opportunity and blessing you've given us to serve your agenda and the American people," said Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, the subject of recent reports that Trump may fire him.

The kayfabe continues.  The true believers will believe.  Most of all, they will vote.

But please, tell me another one about Obama's "cult of personality".

The Worst-Kept Secret In Washington

Meanwhile, Trumpcare is most likely going to become law of the land and tens of millions of Americans will lose their health insurance outright, tens of millions more will be kicked off Medicaid as it will go to a block grant program, while the rest of us will find our employer plans will now cover far less and be far more expensive.  In other words, as Trumpcare sneaks through the Senate, going back to 2009 isn't an option, it's going back to a far worse and far more broken health-care system.

The Affordable Care Act is in deep trouble — in Washington and large swaths of the country. 

Senate Republicans began to coalesce around the framework of a plan to repeal and replace the law last week. Their plan would, like the bill the House passed in May, almost certainly cause millions of low-income Americans to lose coverage by ending the Medicaid expansion. It would help the young and healthy at the expense of the older and the sick. 

Meanwhile, across the nation, health insurance plans are beginning to flee the Obamacare marketplace. They’ve cited the uncertainty around the health care law’s future, sown by congressional Republicans and the Trump administration. The number of counties with zero health plans signed up to sell 2018 coverage keeps growing. 

The possibility that Republicans will repeal Obamacare or drive it into collapse is an increasingly real one. That’s a reality where millions fewer have health insurance coverage and lower-income Americans struggle to afford coverage. 

“Slowly but surely, I think we’re gonna get there,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the No. 2 Republican, told reporters on Thursday, regarding Obamacare repeal. “We’re coming together.”

And it's the same "moderate Senate Republicans" who are now planning to throw tens of millions of Americans in the gutters.

Behind closed doors, Senate Republicans have worked out a path toward Obamacare repeal. The plans under discussion would end Medicaid expansion, causing millions of low-income Americans to lose health coverage. They may allow health insurance plans to charge higher premiums to people with preexisting conditions, too. 

In other words: The emerging bill looks a whole lot like the unpopular bill the House passed last month. It creates the same group of winners (high-income, healthier people) and the same group of losers (low-income, sicker people). 

The Republican plan is coming together because moderate senators are beginning to drop some of their initial repeal objections. Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), for example, now back a plan to end the Medicaid expansion. 

Both were ardent critics of the House bill’s deep Medicaid cuts, which would cause 14 million Americans who rely on the public program to lose coverage. Portman put out a harsh statement the day the House passed its health care bill. 

“I’ve already made clear that I don’t support the House bill as currently constructed because I continue to have concerns that this bill does not do enough to protect Ohio's Medicaid expansion population,” Portman said plainly. 

But now Portman has endorsed a plan to phase out the Medicaid expansion entirely, just to do so on a longer timeline than the House bill. Portman and Moore Capito want a seven-year phase out, rather than the House bill’s three-year off-ramp. 

At the end of the day, though, phasing out Medicaid expansion over seven years has the same effect as three years: You end coverage for millions of low-income Americans.

Right now the uninsured is under ten percent.  Under the GOP plan, that could double, if not triple. The bad old days of "rescission" where insurance companies found ways to deny you and your family coverage and treatment whenever possible will now be the government's job as well as Medicaid will have a fixed limit of who it can cover.

It's going to be a disaster unless we can convince the Senate GOP that it will cost them everything, and one of the states hardest hit will be here in Ohio if Rob Portman has his way.

Maybe, you know, we should get rid of the guy.

Reince's Impossible Job

Tang the Conqueror has given his Chief of Staff Reince Priebus three weeks to "fix the White House" or he's fired, which begs the question "Can Priebus start by having Trump resign?"

President Donald Trump has set a deadline of July 4 for a shakeup of the White House that could include removing Reince Priebus as his chief of staff, according to two administration officials and three outside advisers familiar with the matter.

While Trump has set deadlines for staff changes before, only to let them pass without pulling the trigger, the president is under more scrutiny than ever regarding the sprawling Russia investigation, which is intensifying the pressure on his White House team.

Days after his return from his first foreign trip late last month, Trump berated Priebus in the Oval Office in front of his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and deputy campaign manager David Bossie for the dysfunction in the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the conversation.

Trump had been mulling bringing on Bossie as his deputy White House chief of staff and Lewandowski as a White House senior adviser with a portfolio that includes Russia, but told the two at that meeting that they would not be joining the White House until Priebus had a fair chance to clean up shop, according to the sources.

"I'm giving you until July 4," Trump said, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation.

"I don't want them to come into this mess. If I'm going to clean house, they will come in as fresh blood."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer, in a statement on Sunday, refuted the idea that Priebus is facing a July 4 deadline. "Whoever is saying that is either a liar or out of the loop," Spicer said. 

The thing is nobody believes Trump is actually going to do this, because nobody believes Priebus can "clean up" anything in the White House without duct taping Trump's hands together for the next year so that he can't use Twitter for starters.  The biggest non-secret in DC is that Priebus is about as responsible for the problems in the Trump regime as Lex Luthor's accountant is for his failing to beat Superman.

Once Trump realizes the story makes him look bad for makling the threat and even worse if he carries through with it, this will evaporate like so many other of his tantrums.  Three weeks after all is a long time for talking Trump out of something (just ask the Saudis, or Spicer, still gainfully employed.)

Count on it.

StupidiNews!

• Puerto Rico has once again voted for full US statehood in an overwhelming 97% win, but less than a quarter of voters cast ballots as opposition parties pointed out Congress has the final say.
• The Attorneys General of Maryland and DC are expected to announce a lawsuit today against Donald Trump for violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution.
• Both Downing Street and the White House are denying news reports on both sides of the Atlantic that Donald Trump will delay his planned state visit to London.
• French President Emmanuel Macron's party has placed first in Sunday's first round of legislative elections among record low turnout, Macron's alliance could win 75% of seats.
• Microsoft will launch the Xbox One X 4K console to compete with Sony's PS4 Pro, the console will launch in November at $499.

Last Call For Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Remember Brandon Russell's arrest last month?  The white supremacist neo-Nazi convert with the framed picture of Tim McVeigh, with the explosive-making materials in his room who was arrested for shooting his roommates?

A man accused of shooting his two roommates Friday in a Tampa Palms apartment told police he shared neo-Nazi beliefs with the men until he converted to Islam then killed them because they showed disrespect for his faith. 

The revelations weren't over. 

Officers found a garage stocked with bomb materials as they arrived to investigate the double homicide, leading to federal explosive charges against Brandon Russell — a Florida National Guardsman and admitted neo-Nazi who kept a framed photo of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on his dresser.

Good news, he's out on bond because a Florida judge doesn't believe he's a threat.

Brandon Russell is capable of making a bomb — and he admitted doing so.

Officials believe he also participated in neo-Nazi chat rooms where he threatened to kill people and blow up places.

Investigators found guns, ammunition and white supremacist propaganda in his bedroom, court records say. A framed photograph of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was on his dresser.

Prosecutors believe those reasons should keep Russell behind bars while he awaits trial on federal charges. A judge, however, disagreed and decided that Russell can be released on bond.

In a ruling Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas McCoun III of a federal-district court in Tampa said he does not believe there’s “clear and convincing evidence” that Russell is a threat to the community. Russell, 21, was charged last month with possession of unregistered destructive devices and unlawful storage of explosive material.

Guess he wasn't brown enough to be a terrorist.  The again if he was, he'd be dead by now.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

The Trump regime is running scared after last week's testimony by fired FBI Director James Comey, and the Trumps are now going all-out to discredit Comey.  Only one problem: it blew up in their faces.

Soon after former FBI director James B. Comey testified that President Trump told him that he “hoped” the FBI would drop its investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the president's personal lawyer flatly denied that accusation and said Trump “never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone.”

But Donald Trump Jr. — the president's eldest son — seemed to confirm Comey's version of events in a Saturday interview on Fox News as he tried to emphasize the fact that his father did not directly order Comey to stop investigating Flynn.

“When he tells you to do something, guess what? There's no ambiguity in it, there's no, 'Hey, I'm hoping,'" Trump said. “You and I are friends: 'Hey, I hope this happens, but you've got to do your job.' That's what he told Comey. And for this guy as a politician to then go back and write a memo: 'Oh, I felt threatened.' He felt so threatened — but he didn't do anything.”

Trump also said that Comey's testimony “vindicated” the president and that everything in it was “basically ridiculous.”

“I think he's proven himself to be a liar in all of this. I think he's proven himself to be a dishonest man of bad character,” Trump said.

His comment came during an interview with Jeanine Pirro, a former New York district attorney and judge who is a longtime friend of the Trump family. Pirro has long been a go-to interviewer for the president and his allies when they need a sympathetic cable news host who will enthusiastically agree with them and not ask any difficult questions. (That same day, Pirro attended a baby shower in New York for Lara Trump, who is married to Eric Trump.) After the interview aired late Saturday night, Pirro tweeted: “Such a great interview!” Trump agreed and tweeted: “Good times. Thanks Judge.”

Talk about media in the tank for the White House, huh.  The Trump kids aren't nearly as smart as they think they are, but look who they learned from.

Hours after Donald Trump Jr unloaded on James Comey in a Fox News interview on Saturday, President Trump sent a Sunday morning Twitter attack in Comey's direction. 

Trump's tweet: "I believe the James Comey leaks will be far more prevalent than anyone ever thought possible. Totally illegal? Very 'cowardly!'"

Team Trump unleashed their media hitman, Corey Lewandowski, this weekend openly calling for Comey to be prosecuted and jailed, because that's what dictators do to dissidents.

“Look, what he admitted yesterday, George, is this guy’s the leaker. He is the deep state in Washington that is everything is wrong. He admitted under oath that he gave his contemporaneous notes to a law professor,” Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told anchor George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “And if that’s what he has done, he continues to do this, if this is his pattern, as the FBI director he absolutely should have been fired, and if he is the chronic leaker he should be potentially prosecuted for leaking information.”

Again, the toughest job in America right now is being Trump's lawyer screaming internally every time he tweets or his staff pulls nonsense calling for a gross abuse of power.  That's because Robert Mueller continues to expand the Trump/Russia investigation with top personnel, as Paul Rosenzweig at Lawfare notes:

What's the worst thing that happened to Donald Trump this week? It was NOT Director Comey's testimony. Rather, it must be the late Friday news that Robert Mueller has hired Michael Dreeben, on a part-time basis, to help with his investigation. Dreeben, a deputy in the Office of the Solicitor General, has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court. His specialty has, for the last 20 years, been criminal matters and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of criminal law. I once saw him argue a Supreme Court matter without a single note. In short, he is quite possibly the best criminal appellate lawyer in America (at least on the government's side). That Mueller has sought his assistance attests both to the seriousness of his effort and the depth of the intellectual bench he is building.

Trump's incompetent toadies versus the best the government has to offer?  It won't even be a contest.  Having already hired the DoJ's top fraud division lawyer in Andrew Weissmann earlier this month, Mueller is putting together the team necessary to sink Trump.

The question down the road is when Mueller comes back with his tale of money laundering and criminal activity, will Trump simply pardon everyone and Republicans move on as I expect?  It may fall to NY state AG Eric Schniederman to land the real blows as Trump can't pardon state crimes.

But in the end as I've said, only the House GOP can impeach Trump, and even then there will never be 67 Senate votes to remove him, and even should I be wrong on that, who would enforce that when Trump has control of the US military?

This is a marathon, folks, not a sprint.

Sunday Long Read: The Death You Cannot See

Having come of age in the early 90's, the specter of HIV and AIDS was more or less beaten into my generation, that sex was basically going to kill you if you had it.  Having protected sex was still seen as something potentially lethal and terrifying, and largely responsible for the awful abstinence movement that followed in schools 20 years later.

But HIV has always been far worse for the black community, and for the LGBT community, and for black gay and bisexual men in 2017, the rate of HIV infection now surpasses the national rate for any country on Earth.

Early on a balmy morning last October, Cedric Sturdevant began his rounds along the bumpy streets and back roads of Jackson, Miss. Sturdevant, 52, has racked up nearly 300,000 miles driving in loops and widening circles around Jackson in his improvised role of visiting nurse, motivational coach and father figure to a growing number of young gay men and transgender women suffering from H.I.V. and AIDS. Sturdevant is a project coordinator at My Brother’s Keeper, a local social-services nonprofit. If he doesn’t make these rounds, he has learned, many of these patients will not get to the doctor’s appointments, pharmacies, food banks and counseling sessions that can make the difference between life and death.

Negotiating a maze of unpaved roads in Jackson in the company car, a 13-year-old Ford Expedition with cracked seats and chipped paint, he stopped to drop off H.I.V. medication at a couple’s home. One of the men was H.I.V.-positive, the other negative; they lived in the neighborhood locals call the Bottom, where every fifth or sixth home is abandoned, with broken windows, doors hanging off hinges, downed limbs and dry leaves blanketing front yards. Sturdevant banged on the door of a small house, its yard overgrown with weeds; he knew not to leave the package on the doorstep, where it could be stolen. After a while a young man emerged, shirtless, shrugging off sleep. He had just gotten out of jail. Sturdevant handed him the package, shook his hand and told him to “stay out of trouble.”

Sturdevant drove on another 15 minutes to pick up Marq (a shortened version of his name to protect his privacy), a teenager who was still reeling from the H.I.V. diagnosis he received the previous spring. As they headed to and from a doctor’s appointment and a meeting with a counselor, Sturdevant, slow-talking and patient, with eyes that disappear into his cheekbones when he smiles and a snowy beard, gently grilled him, reminding him to stay on his meds. The teenager slumped in the back seat, half listening, half checking his texts. He looked up briefly when Sturdevant told him, “You’ve come a long way. I’m proud of you.” But Marq barely said goodbye as he jumped out of the car in front of a convenience store on an avenue scattered with a pawnshop, a liquor store and several Baptist churches, and he all but admitted he was planning to spend the afternoon smoking weed and looking at Instagram. “Knucklehead,” Sturdevant whispered, as the teenager slammed the door. Pulling off his favorite Dallas Cowboys baseball cap and running a hand over his bald head, Sturdevant added softly, “Breaks my heart.”

These patients of Sturdevant’s are the faces of one of America’s most troubling public-health crises. Thanks to the success of lifesaving antiretroviral medication pioneered 20 years ago and years of research and education, most H.I.V.-positive people today can lead long, healthy lives. In cities like New York and San Francisco, once ground zero for the AIDS epidemic, the virus is no longer a death sentence, and rates of infection have plummeted. In fact, over the past several years, public-health officials have championed the idea that an AIDS-free generation could be within reach — even without a vaccine. But in certain pockets of the country, unknown to most Americans, H.I.V. is still ravaging communities at staggering rates.

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using the first comprehensive national estimates of lifetime risk of H.I.V. for several key populations, predicted that if current rates continue, one in two African-American gay and bisexual men will be infected with the virus. That compares with a lifetime risk of one in 99 for all Americans and one in 11 for white gay and bisexual men. To offer more perspective: Swaziland, a tiny African nation, has the world’s highest rate of H.I.V., at 28.8 percent of the population. If gay and bisexual African-American men made up a country, its rate would surpass that of this impoverished African nation — and all other nations.

The crisis is most acute in Southern states, which hold 37 percent of the country’s population and as of 2014 accounted for 54 percent of all new H.I.V. diagnoses. The South is also home to 21 of the 25 metropolitan areas with the highest H.I.V. prevalence among gay and bisexual men. Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, the country’s poorest state, is best known for blues, barbecue and “The Help.” It also has the nation’s highest rate — 40 percent — of gay and bisexual men living with H.I.V., followed by Columbia, S.C.; El Paso; Augusta, Ga.; and Baton Rouge, La. In Jackson, a small city of just over 170,000, half a dozen black gay or bisexual men receive the shock of a diagnosis every month, and more than 3,600 people, the majority of them black men, live with the virus.

The South also has the highest numbers of people living with H.I.V. who don’t know they have been infected, which means they are not engaged in lifesaving treatment and care — and are at risk of infecting others. An unconscionable number of them are dying: In 2014, according to a new analysis from Duke University, 2,952 people in the Deep South (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas) died with H.I.V. as an underlying cause, with the highest death rates in Mississippi and Louisiana. Among black men in this region, the H.I.V.-related death rate was seven times as high as that of the United States population at large.

We talk about living in a world now where HIV can be treated, but there's still plenty of people who don't get tested and can't afford treatment even if they are aware they have the virus.  Especially for younger black folk, HIV is not something they worry about, or get tested for, like those my age.  That wasn't drilled into them, they took it for granted.

But here it is, destroying the black community, and awareness is just not something that happens anymore.  Maybe this article will help.