We Don't Need No Education, Con't

The slow death of the civil rights era under the Trump regime continues as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will proceed with handcuffing the department's civil rights office, because systemic racism and sexism in education is embarrassing to Dear Leader, so in order to Make America Great Again™ it will no longer be exposed or even acknowledged.

The Department of Education is scaling back investigations into civil rights violations at the nation’s public schools and universities, easing off mandates imposed by the Obama administration that the new leadership says have bogged down the agency.

According to an internal memo issued by Candice E. Jackson, the acting head of the department’s office for civil rights, requirements that investigators broaden their inquiries to identify systemic issues and whole classes of victims will be scaled back. Also, regional offices will no longer be required to alert department officials in Washington of all highly sensitive complaints on issues such as the disproportionate disciplining of minority students and the mishandling of sexual assaults on college campuses.

The new directives are the first steps taken under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to reshape her agency’s approach to civil rights enforcement, which was bolstered while President Barack Obama was in office. The efforts during Mr. Obama’s administration resulted in far-reaching investigations and resolutions that required schools and colleges to overhaul policies addressing a number of civil rights concerns.

That approach sent complaints soaring, and the civil rights office found itself understaffed and struggling to meet the department’s stated goal of closing cases within 180 days.

The office’s processing times have “skyrocketed,” the Education Department spokeswoman, Liz Hill, said, adding that its backlog of cases has “exploded.” The new guidelines were to ensure that “every individual complainant gets the care and attention they deserve,” she said.

In the memo, which was first published by ProPublica, Ms. Jackson emphasized that the new protocols were aimed at resolving cases quickly.

“Justice delayed is justice denied, and justice for many complainants has been denied for too long,” Ms. Hill said in a statement.

But civil rights leaders believe that the new directives will have the opposite effect. They say that Education Department staff members would be discouraged from opening cases and that investigations could be weakened because efficiency would take priority over thoroughness.

“If we want to have assembly-line justice, and I say ‘justice’ in quotes, then that’s the direction that we should go,” said Catherine Lhamon, who was the assistant secretary of the Education Department’s civil rights office under Mr. Obama, and who now heads the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

It's so funny, these assholes see that Obama demanded action and accountablility, and then under Trump they say "Well we can't possibly close civil rights cases in six months, so why bother opening them?"

Oh well, black and brown people with inferior schools, you're on your own. As long as Taylor and Hunter and Cameryn are OK in their school in the suburbs, well why would their parents need to worry about the rest of those kids in school district?

They don't need no education if it's going to come at the expense of the zero-sum game of education funding in America, right?

Last Call For Russian To Judgment

For a guy who is "vindicated" and "not under investigation" Trump sure is doing a bang-up job of lawyering up.

President Donald Trump has added another high-profile lawyer to his personal legal team as the special counsel investigation heats up.

John Dowd, who investigated Pete Rose for Major League Baseball and represented John McCain during the Keating Five Scandal, among other high-profile clients, has joined the president's legal team, according to two people familiar with the pick. Dowd declined to comment Friday.

The addition of Dowd, a 76-year-old former prosecutor who has practiced law in Washington for decades, adds an experienced hand in the investigation. He joins Marc Kasowitz, Trump's longtime New York lawyer, Mark Bowe, who works with Kasowitz, and Jay Sekulow.

Trump and his aides are facing multiple investigations, including a probe by special counsel Robert Mueller into allegations Russian leaders tried to meddle in last year's election and that Trump's campaign colluded with the Kremlin in the effort. The probe has since expanded to also look at whether Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey, who was leading the broader Russia investigation and by allegedly pressuring intelligence officials to interfere in the probe.

Dowd is a pretty big hitter, and he's been around the DC area for decades, so he knows how the game is played.  He's the reason John McCain wasn't in prison for the Keating Five mess when I was a kid almost 30 years ago.

Now Trump has hired him.

Let that sink in.

Bit Of A Break

On vacation for a bit, so regular posting will be less than usual.

I should be around but not as much.  Just use the below image to sum up the next few days of the Trump regime.



I'll be back on normal schedule Wednesday.

Last Call For Mr. Unpopular Over Here, Con't

And the hits keep on coming for Donny Disaster.

Republicans' satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. took a hit since last month. Forty-one percent of Republicans say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., down 17 percentage points since May. At the same time, satisfaction among Democrats and independents has remained low.

The honeymoon may, in fact, be over for Trump among his base.  When only the base matters, and you stop pretending you ever actually cared about said base, well, things start going bad, fast.

In the week since fired FBI Director James Comey leveled his explosive charges at the president, Capitol Hill Republicans have followed a two-track response. With virtual unanimity, they have insisted that even if Trump did everything Comey alleged, the behavior does not warrant criminal action or impeachment. And simultaneously, while the Trump-Comey confrontation has monopolized media attention, both chambers have advanced deeply conservative policy proposals—with House Republicans voting to repeal the major financial regulations approved under former President Barack Obama, and Senate Republicans working in private toward a plan to repeal Obama’s Affordable Care Act. 

Both of these responses rest on the calculation that Republicans can best avoid losses in 2018 by mobilizing their base supporters, no matter how other voters respond to their actions. But the choice to aim their governing decisions at such a narrow spectrum of Americans could magnify the risks facing Republicans in 2018—and, for that matter, Trump in 2020. As Trump’s presidency careens through increasingly turbulent waters, congressional Republicans are lashing themselves ever more tightly to its mast.

That was most apparent in their collective shrug at Comey’s Senate Intelligence Committee testimony. Strikingly, no leading Republican argued that Comey was fabricating when he said Trump encouraged him to drop the FBI investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Rather, in virtual unison, Republicans declared that even if Trump made the remarks Comey reported, his actions were at most inappropriate, and not illegal. 

The unanimity among Hill Republicans contrasted sharply with the response to Comey’s testimony from the mainstream legal community. Some experts defended Trump’s actions. But a wide array of former federal prosecutors, like prominent former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara; Watergate investigators; and law professors argued that the pattern of behavior Comey described justified opening an obstruction-of-justice investigation. Congressional Republicans have summarily dismissed those conclusions. 

That supine acceptance follows the pattern established when Trump previously violated other norms, like not releasing his tax returns. Every time Trump has broken a window, GOP leaders have obediently swept up the glass, if sometimes after some initial grumbling. That pattern of deference could help explain why Trump might imagine Republicans would ultimately defend him even if he fired special counsel Robert Mueller, as he’s reportedly mused this week.

Trump went on another tirade about witch hunts and Hillary on Twitter today.  If even the base decide he's a petulant loser, then all bets are off as to what depths Trump will sink to in order to try to stay in power.

Guess Who's Coming To Father's Day

The Trump regime isn't even really trying to hide their contempt for public education anymore, and are just being obviously awful now whenever Education Secretary Betsy DeVos can manage it.

The Education Department invited representatives from two anti-LGBT groups to speak at a secretive event on Thursday, a move that prompted the national Parent Teacher Association to pull out of the daylong "Engaging Fathers and Families" event. 

Representatives for the evangelical groups Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council — which advocate for gay conversion therapy — both spoke at the event, according to a copy of the agenda that was obtained by BuzzFeed News, sitting on a panel called "Family Engagement in Faith-based Organizations." The agenda was first reported by Politico. 

The National PTA, which has 4 million members nationwide, said it withdrew from the event after it learned of the two groups' participation, saying in a statement that they were "not in alignment" with the PTA's stance on protecting gay youth. 

The event Thursday, which was hosted ahead of Father's Day, included several high-level officials, including acting undersecretary Jim Manning and the head of elementary and secondary education. 

While the event was live streamed, there was no agenda made publicly available in advance. 

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos did not attend the event, according to the agenda. She has said publicly that she "supports equality" and has "always" been opposed to gay conversion therapy, but under her watch, the department has come under fire for several stances that advocates say harm gay children. Along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, DeVos rescinded protections for transgender children put in place by the Education and Justice departments under Barack Obama. 

DeVos's extended family are some of the biggest donors to both Focus and the Family and FRC, giving millions of dollars over the course of the past decade.

On its website, FRC warns of the danger of allowing gays to raise children, and it has falsely claimed that gay men are more likely to sexually abuse children in their care.

I've long talked about the DeVos dream of privatizing the tens of billions spent on public education in America and creating a permanent two-tier system where only the "right kids" get a quality education, and "undesirable" children get nothing...hey, maybe they don't even need an education because they should maybe start working for a living, the little vermin.  The notion that groups like the FRC weren't specifically invited by DeVos, one of their biggest donors, is too stupid to fathom as she bravely ducked out of the meeting.

After all, you need to cover both ends of the school to prison pipeline in this country, and you have to profit from it while doing it.

The Trumpcare Tornado

Folks, it's not going to be just tens of millions of people on Medicaid or individual plans who are going to be utterly screwed should Trumpcare pass, it will also be tens of millions of people on employer group plans who will suddenly find themselves facing denied insurance coverage over the return of annual and lifetime coverage limits.

The Senate health care bill is expected to allow states to relax the Affordable Care Act rules only on benefits, not on pricing as the House bill does. But that change could impact people far beyond those states, according to a new analysis by the liberal Center for American Progress — because it could lead to a return of annual and lifetime benefit limits, and not just in the states with the waivers. 

The bottom line: As many as 27 million Americans could face annual limits on their coverage, and 20 million could be hit with lifetime limits, according to the analysis.

That's more than eight million people in the big Trump states: Florida, NC, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan who will get screwed by annual limits, and five million plus who will get lifetime limits on their employer-based coverage.

But that's what you voted for, America.

Why it could happen: The Affordable Care Act bans lifetime and annual limits, but only for the 10 categories of "essential health benefits" defined in the law. If a state decides that, say, prescription drugs or maternity care aren't essential benefits anymore, insurers can bring back annual and lifetime limits for them.

Why it could spread beyond those states: Large employers that operate in several states can choose which state they want to use as the basis for their benefits. So if an employer operates in 15 states, and one of them has a waiver from ACA benefit rules, it can set all of its benefits based on that state.

How the study was done: CAP based its estimates on a Willis Towers Watson survey of large employers, in which 20 percent said they'd bring back annual limits and 15 percent said they'd bring back lifetime limits if the ACA rules were repealed. It also used survey data suggesting how many people get their health insurance from large employers.

So that means that big blue states like California, New York, and Illinois would get screwed too as long as they provide insurance in red states who will waive protections on patients.   That's what those states didn't vote for, but hey.

And remember, this is the Senate bill we're talking about.  The details are still hidden because Mitch and the boys don't want America to see the cockroaches scatter in the light.  America overwhelmingly hates this plan, but it looks more and more like we're going to get it anyway, and Trump will sign it into law and screw tens of millions of us.

Fun, huh?

StupidiNews!

• The death toll in Wednesday's Grenfell Tower apartment block fire in West London has risen to 17 with more casualties expected as firefighters continue to search the gutted building.
• In addition to yesterday's shooting at a Virginia baseball field that left GOP Rep. Steve Scalise in critical condition, two more shootings happened yesterday in Brooklyn and San Francisco.
• Donald Trump will visit the US Supreme Court today under the cloud of his Muslim ban case as the court's newest Justice, Neil Gorsuch, is officially sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts.
• Furniture stores in the UK are suffering industry-wide slumps as Brexit uncertainty is driving couch and chair buyers away from shopping.
• Stanford researchers are working on new wireless power charging technology that takes advantage of some of the properties of quantum physics to get the job done.

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.