Last Call For Three People Outside Jefferson City, Missouri Con't

Two developments today in the ongoing train wreck that is Missouri GOP Gov. Eric Greitens and his impending impeachment on sexual assault charges.  First up, Missouri's Attorney General has announced evidence of potentially brand-new campaign fraud charges unrelated to the previous sexual assault case that Grietens is already facing.

Attorney General Josh Hawley announced Tuesday morning that his office has uncovered potential criminal wrongdoing by Republican Gov. Eric Greitens. 

Hawley said that during the course of an investigation into the charity Greitens founded, his office found evidence that Greitens allegedly obtained and transmitted the charity’s donor list for political fundraising. 

“And he did all of this without permission of the Mission Continues,” Hawley said Tuesday. 

“This is known as computer tampering. And given the value of the list in question it is a felony.” 

Hawley, a Republican, said that his office lacks the jurisdiction to prosecute the governor on this matter because the alleged crime was committed in St. Louis. 

He said he obtained court permission to share all of the evidence with St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, which will enable her to make a decision on whether to charge the governor before the statute of limitations runs out. 

Gardner’s office is already prosecuting Greitens for allegedly invading a woman’s privacy by taking her photo without her permission in 2015. 

In February, Hawley launched an investigation into Greitens’ use of the charity donor list belonging to The Mission Continues, a charity Greitens founded in 2007. The inquiry is part of the attorney general's role to enforce Missouri's consumer protection and charitable registration and reporting laws.

So it looks like Greitens took his entire donor list for his charity dedicated to helping vets, and used it for his political campaign, which is a colossal no-no. This would have fried him like an egg even without the sexual assault charges he's facing, but after this I don't see how he can possibly stay in...oh wait a minute, I'm getting some new information here.

State lawmakers in Missouri claim they’ve been threatened with a sharp decrease in donations unless they actively support embattled Gov. Eric Greitens (R), who has been charged with photographing a woman while she was naked and using the image to threaten her with blackmail. 

Greitens has also been accused of assaulting the woman and coercing her into a sexual relationship. He was indicted on felony invasion of privacy charges related to the nude photo back in February. 

“Lots of people, including me, have been threatened that, if we go against the governor, we will never get financial support from any of the major donors in [Missouri],” one unnamed legislator reportedly told local Missouri Scout, a private news service covering state politics. 

When Missouri Scout asked other lawmakers to weigh in on the claim, many told the news outlet the threats were allegedly “widespread.” 

The legislator’s comment was tweeted out by public relations expert and former American Conservative Union (ACU) executive Gregg Keller on Monday morning.
Calls by ThinkProgress to several Missouri state lawmakers went unanswered on Monday. It’s unclear whether the lawmakers being targeted were predominantly Republican or who had allegedly threatened to pull their financial backing.

Well then.  Support the governor or we pull your money and you'll lose.  This is what happens when party over state happens, kids.  Eventually anyone who plays this game loses the purity test and is burned.

That's how the GOP rolls.  Luckily, we have ways of shutting them down.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is getting a lot of attention, and he's definitely under federal investigation and has been for months.  But if the goal is to find and flip the guy who knows where all the legal bodies are buried underneath all those Trump Organization properties, Bloomberg's Tim O'Brien notes that Cohen actually isn't the tastiest fish to fry, and that the real person Mueller and/or US Attorneys in New York want to flip is the Trump Organization's former executive VP: Jason Greenblatt.

Greenblatt specialized in real-estate law at a major New York firm before signing on with the Trump Organization in 1997. He soon became Trump's true in-house counsel and the company's executive vice president. Everything that mattered in the Trump Organization, every sizable deal or sensitive transaction, required Greenblatt's signature, not Cohen's. Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, has played a similar role when it comes to the company's finances. 

At the end of 2016, Greenblatt left the Trump Organization after the president made him a special representative for international negotiations. Weisselberg still helps Trump's sons manage the business while Trump is in the Oval Office. Now that special counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed the Trump Organization for business records, his investigators may get around to interviewing Greenblatt and Weisselberg, who almost certainly have more expansive information on the president's business activities than Cohen does. 

If that happens -- or if the U.S. attorney's office in New York takes a similar interest -- then the media might have to reassess its take on Cohen and the role he's playing in the broader drama surrounding the White House. 

Adam Davidson, the New Yorker writer who wrote the recent article about Cohen, is a careful reporter who has spent a lot of time navigating some of Trump's business deals (he's also an acquaintance of mine). In his piece, however, he refers to Trump's company as "a small, sad operation, mostly run by his two oldest children and Michael Cohen." 

That's not true. Cohen has never run the company in a significant way. "I wish I was clearer about Michael Cohen's role," Davidson told me when we talked about his article. "He was a central player in the problematic overseas deals that will become central to these investigations. But he definitely wasn't running the company."

In other words, Cohen is definitely in trouble for all the foreign money and influence peddling, not to mention the whole Stormy Daniels payoff affair.  But if the true goal is cracking open the vault on Trump's money laundering through the Trump Organization, then Greenblatt is the man to go after.

He shouldn't be hard to find, either.  He's currently Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, apparently specializing in yelling at the Palestinians.

We'll see.  I would expect the Cohen trove will lead to some very uncomfortable interviews with Greenblatt. Allen Weisselberg, who is still with the Trump organization as CFO, has already gained the attention of NY AG Eric Schniederrman.

Stay tuned.  Trump's money guys have been the key to this mess for some time now.  Mueller may be closer than we know on them.

The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

National Democrats now believe more than 100 GOP seats are in play in the House, including six in Ohio, and they're putting their money in winning back the Buckeye State.

Democrats hope to pick up as many as six congressional seats in Ohio this November as they try to win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives by riding a grassroots backlash against President Donald Trump. 

In a briefing with reporters on Friday, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico identified 104 Republican seats around the country as winnable for Democrats, including those held by Holmes County's Bob Gibbs, Bainbridge Township's Dave Joyce, Cincinnati's Steve Chabot, Dayton's Mike Turner and Columbus' Steve Stivers. 

The Democratic campaign organization also believes the Columbus-area seat vacated by Republican Pat Tiberi's resignation to lead the Ohio Business Roundtable might be winnable, Lujan said. 

"The quickest way to restore checks and balances in America is winning back the House of Representatives," said Lujan, who said Republicans hold many seats because of gerrymandered districts that Democrats can win if there's strong turnout. 

Republicans were skeptical of the Democrats' clams. 

"The DCCC can't wish a seat into play," said Jesse Hunt of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "They are remarkably consistent when it comes to over-promising and under-delivering, and they'll fail to flip every one of these seats."

Two observations:  First, DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Lujan is still a Blue Dog jackass, but he's better than Steve Israel or Debbie Wasserman Schultz at this game by a country mile.  I know that's not a real high bar considering how many House seats Israel and Schultz lost this decade, but at least we're putting candidates in races.  (Well, mostly, there's a dozen or so Republicans running unopposed, like there's still nobody running against Liz Cheney for her dad's old at-large House seat in Wyoming, and here in Kentucky nobody even bothered to try to run against Hal Rogers in KY-5. Oh well.)

Second, you notice the NRCC's Jesse Hunt said "they'll fail to flip every one of those seats" instead of "any one of those seats" like you would expect?  I don't know if that's a misprint, a misheard quote, or what, but if not that's a huge, huge admission on his part.  Just how many seats does Hunt expect to be flipped in Ohio?  How about the rest of the country?  Does Hunt believe that Republicans will keep the House?  Remember, Ohio went for Trump by 8 points in 2016.  For Hunt to admit that Republicans are going to lose seats in the state is an ominous sign for the GOP indeed.

As far as my predictions, Chabot, Joyce and Turner are definitely in trouble, Stivers and especially  Gibbs less so, Pat Tiberi's old seat in OH-12 is in play though.  I think the Dems can pull off four of the six, but if the dam truly breaks and Stivers and Gibbs go down, the resulting wave could take Jim Renacci too. Keep an eye on Christina Hagan vs. Renacci either way.

Oh, and speaking of surprise wins, it looks like Arizona's 8th is absolutely in play in next week's special election to replace GOP Rep. Trent Franks, who quit in disgrace.

The special election for an Arizona House seat is in a statistical dead heat in the final week of the race, according to a poll released on Monday. 

A poll from Emerson College found physician Hiral Tipirneni (D) narrowly leading with 46 percent, compared to former state Sen. Debbie Lesko (R), who is at 45 percent — well within the poll’s margin of error. 

Monday’s poll is an outlier and a huge swing in the direction toward Democrats, with other recent polling showing Lesko winning by double-digit margins. The latest public poll on Friday from OH Predictive Insights and ABC 15 Arizona found Lesko leading by 10 points, 53 to 43 percent.

Arizona’s special election has captivated national attention, with Republican groups pouring more resources into a district that President Trump won by 21 points in 2016. The winner of the April 24 race will replace former Rep. Trent Franks (R), who resigned after reportedly discussing paying a staffer to act as a surrogate mother. 

Democrats have been overperforming in deep-red districts, most recently when they pulled off a significant upset victory in a Pennsylvania district that similarly went for Trump by 20 points. 

The survey found that Hiral, a first-time candidate, leads among independents, 42 to 28 percent. And she has a positive favorability rating, with 49 percent who view her favorably, compared to 29 percent who view her unfavorably. 

Forty-three percent of voters view Lesko favorably, compared to 45 percent who have an unfavorable opinion of her. An Emerson College pollster said that Franks could be a drag on Lesko’s campaign. The former congressman donated $2,700 to Lesko, according to The Arizona Republic.

Again, we're talking about a district that was +20 for Trump, now somewhere between +10 to -1.  That's at least a ten point swing and probably more, maybe even the 20 needed to win.  If we're regularly looking at double-digit swings towards Democrats, and in the last six months we have absolutely seen that, then those 104 districts that the DCCC happens to be chasing may not be the upper limit of what could happen.

I mean, look at New Jersey.

A new Monmouth poll in New Jersey finds Democrats have a 19 point advantage over Republicans in the generic House ballot, 54% to 35%. 

“If this result holds, it would mark a substantially better result for Congressional Democrats in New Jersey than in recent elections. Democrats won the statewide House vote by 8 points (53% to 45%) in 2016 and an even smaller 2 points (50% to 48%) in the 2014 midterm. Moreover, the poll finds that the overall swing is coming mainly from GOP-held seats.” 

“In the five House seats currently held by a Republican, voter preference is split nearly evenly at 46% for the GOP candidate and 44% for the Democrat. The aggregate vote from these five districts in the past two House elections averaged a sizable 22 point advantage for the Republicans (59% – 38% in 2016 and 61% – 38% in 2014). On the other hand, the poll’s vote share in the seven seats currently held by Democrats – 59% Dem to 28% GOP – is in line with the average 30 point advantage Democrats held in these districts in both 2016 (65% – 32%) and 2014 (62% – 36%).” 

Said pollster Patrick Murray: “This is pretty astounding. Not only are New Jersey Democrats doing better on the generic House ballot statewide, but the shift is coming almost entirely from districts currently held by the GOP. If these results hold, we could be down to just one or two – or maybe even zero – Republican members in the state congressional delegation after November.”

Don't take this good news as a reason to let up.  Take it as a reason to make sure you vote in November.

[UPDATE] Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Charlie Dent just announced he will resign in "the coming weeks".

BREAKING: Rep. Charlie DENT announces he’ll resign in May. pic.twitter.com/Ke25mdCY3G

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) April 17, 2018

StupidiNews!

• Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain has been hospitalized and is being treated for an intestinal infection, he continues to recover from treatment of brain cancer which he was diagnosed with last year.
• The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced, with the New York Times winning three and locally the Cincinnati Enquirer with an award, the prize for Music went to rapper Kendrick Lamar.
• Myanmar's new president Win Myint says he will pardon more than 8,000 political prisoners to mark the country's new year, but two Reuters journalists will remain behind bars.
• The world's chemical weapons watchdog agency will begin investigations on a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria near Damascus from ten days ago that prompted US missile strikes.
• After 15 months the Trump regime has finally nominated a NASA administrator, a Senate vote on Oklahoma GOP Congressman Jim Bridenstine is expected by the end of the week.

Last Call For Comey Island, Con't

ABC ran an hour-long interview with former FBI Director James Comey last night ahead of Comey's book release on Tuesday, and it pretty much confirmed every thought I've had about the guy:

I’m just thinking if there was anyone in America who should have known that Donald Trump was an unethical sack of garbage, it should have been the *Director of the FBI* and yet Jim Comey was apparently *repeatedly surprised* by just how much of a cartoonish crook Trump was

— Zandar Wakandar (@ZandarVTS) April 16, 2018

Comey also says that if given the choice, he still would have informed the world eleven days before the 2016 election of the Clinton e-mails on Anthony Weiner's laptop, a bungled mess of an investigation reveal that essentially cost Clinton the race.

My take on Comey hasn't changed, he's self-serving and is using defending the "honor" of the FBI as an excuse to violate FBI rules and absolve himself of being the Judas goat that basically elected Donald Trump in the last week of October 2016. 

To save you the trouble of reading the transcript, he takes shots at everyone on the way out the door: Trump, Bob Mueller (who was his boss at one point), Rod Rosenstein, Hillary Clinton, David Petraeus, Loretta Lynch, Michael Flynn, Republicans in Congress, Democrats in Congress, the American people, you name it. Everyone's at fault here except James Comey, according to James Comey anyway.

Finally he compares Trump to a forest fire that damages America but clears out the old to make way for the new and hopes America will recover, but not if Democrats impeach Trump, which will do more damage to the country and "let the American voters off the hook" for electing the guy in the first place.

The real victim of all this is James Comey though, at least that's his view.  For that, I'll never forgive the man.

You shouldn't either.  He's right about Trump being an unfit mob boss, but he's only saying what's obvious now in the harsh glare of the spotlight that Comey himself wanted in order to save his own ass.

History won't be kind to either man.

The Greitens Report

Hey guys, Bon Tindle. here.  It's been a while, and I'm sorry that these are the circumstances that bring me back.  Zandar graciously asked me to help cover the shame of my home state, Missouri.

[Zandar here.  Bon Tindle has graciously agreed to write about Missouri GOP Gov. Eric Greitens for ZVTS as she lives in the state, so please let her know what you think in the comments!]

After reading the entire report about our governor, I was upset for a variety of reasons.  As a woman who has been targeted by a man in power, I recognized the setup.  The way they test victims, and make sure they are able to terrorize them into silence.  The stalking and unwanted appearances.

And, of course, the violence.

This story has a lot of angles, and speaks to a lot of topics.  I am going to focus on the victim and consent right now, and circle back to other subjects in later posts.

It is important to note that the victim did not consent to the acts that took place.  She was sometimes not even given the chance to give or revoke consent because she was not in control of her situation, such as when the photograph was allegedly taken.  Other times, she complied because it brought her closer to escape.  In testimony deemed credible, the victim was not a willing party to the actions that took place.

That's called rape, and there is no backing away from it.  The blackmail is an enormous ethical violation as well, but the way the rape was engineered is thoroughly disturbing.

But there are other violations, as well.  The media grabbed this story and took off, and though the fact was known that the victim did not initiate the story, very few stopped to consider what that means.  It means this story was not driven by the victim, and was likely against her wishes. It was broken by her ex-husband, who drove the narrative for the first several days.  It involved a recorded call and the victim had no idea her words were recorded. While that is legal in Missouri, that doesn't mean it is ethical when used to further victimize.  Thoughtless posters on social media poked fun without considering it came at a victim's expense.  These are issues that also need to be addressed and filed appropriately.

Good journalists note these things and question the motives of a source. I am very proud to say the Springfield News-Leader was sensitive to this throughout the coverage.  They also voiced an opinion that the governor must go, in light of what we know.  For the record, I could not agree more.

Make no mistake, there is some support for Greitens among the most loyal, but it is dying quickly.  Political allies are dropping one by one, but as the story unfolds and the victim gains credibility, most people I  have interviewed believe there is a dead end ahead, whether through resignation or involuntary process is the only question.

I will continue to cover this, and as the story develops bring it over here and share the local knowledge and response.

Sign Of The Times

The New York Times editorial board finally makes the call on Trump that they should have made more than 18 months ago.

News reports point to a growing possibility that President Trump may act to cripple or shut down an investigation by the nation’s top law-enforcement agencies into his campaign and administration. Lawmakers need to be preparing now for that possibility because if and when it comes to pass, they will suddenly find themselves on the edge of an abyss, with the Constitution in their hands.

Make no mistake: If Mr. Trump takes such drastic action, he will be striking at the foundation of the American government, attempting to set a precedent that a president, alone among American citizens, is above the law. What can seem now like a political sideshow will instantly become a constitutional crisis, and history will come calling for Mr. Hatch and his colleagues.

For months, investigators have been examining whether Mr. Trump’s campaign conspired with the Russian government to undermine American democracy, and whether the president misused his power by obstructing justice in an effort to end that investigation.

Until the last few weeks, Mr. Trump had shown restraint, by his standards, anyway. He and his lawyers cooperated with investigators. Mr. Trump never tweeted directly about Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and spoke about him publicly only when asked.

Alas, that whiff of higher executive function is gone. Mr. Trump is openly attacking both Mr. Mueller and Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, appointed by Mr. Trump himself. Mr. Rosenstein is overseeing the Russia investigation and signing off on Mr. Mueller’s actions.

Of course, this president has been known to huff and puff, to bluff and bluster, and he may be doing no more than that now. He may choose not to fire either man. We know he has already twice told his aides he wanted Mr. Mueller fired, only to be talked out of such rash action.

But if the president does move against the investigators, it will be up to Congress to affirm the rule of law, the separation of powers and the American constitutional order. The miserable polarization and partisan anger that have been rising in American life for decades will hit a new crescendo, and that will present congressional Republicans with a heavy burden indeed.

They go on to plead with congressional Republicans, starting with Senate president pro tempore and Judiciary Committee chair Orrin Hatch, to do the right thing for America's sake should Trump make the move we all at this point expect him to make on Rosenstein and Mueller (and possibly Jeff Sessions being taken out by the ensuing collateral damage as well).

I wouldn't hold my breath on Hatch doing anything at all.  Mitch McConnell will see to that.  Paul Ryan in the House?  Well, he's heading for the hills.  Don't expect anything there either.

This was always going to be up to Republicans in Congress, and there's nothing that I've seen that makes it even remotely feasible that they will choose country over party.  Perhaps in January with a new House and Senate controlled by the Dems, but the one we have now, no way.

And let's not forget we have an entire media empire devoted to keeping Trump in power no matter how far he goes.

The 2018 elections may be our best hope, and even then by the time they roll around it may already be too late.

StupidiNews!

• Former First Lady Barbara Bush is in failing health according to a family spokesperson, the 92-year-old matriarch is forgoing more hospitalization and instead is focusing on "comfort care".
• Britain's foreign minister says that the US, Britain, and France will consider all options should the Assad regime use chemical weapons again in Syria.
• Likewise, Russian President Vladimir Putin warns that another strike by the US in Syria will "cause global chaos" as the Trump regime is expected to announce new sanctions against Syria's suppliers.
• The US Supreme Court will take up a case this week on whether or not states can force all online retailers to collect sales taxes, not just businesses that have a physical presence in a state. 
• Energy Secretary Rick Perry appears eager to help coal and nuclear plant companies out with an emergency bailout order that could cost taxpayers billions.

Last Call For Courting Disaster

The Trump regime has long insisted that it has unlimited power over firing Robert Mueller and can choose to do so at any time for any reason, and made that statement again last week.

The White House “has been advised” that President Donald Trump has the authority to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday.

Trump fumed to reporters about Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign on Monday after the FBI raided the office and other properties of his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. The president described the raid as a crime, called the probe “a disgrace” and “an attack on our country” and entertained a question about whether he would fire the special counsel, but didn’t directly answer it.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said.

Sanders, asked repeatedly about the remarks on Tuesday, referred many questions to Trump’s lawyers and the Department of Justice. But asked whether Trump can fire Mueller, she insisted that he could.

“We’ve been advised that the president certainly has the power to make that decision,” she said, an answer that suggests the White House has explored the matter.

Even with some Republicans saying that he shouldn't fire Robert Mueller, no Republican has ever said that Trump lacks the authority to do so, nor do they see the need to make it clear through legislation that he can't.

Senate Republican leaders sharply warned President Donald Trump not to fire Robert Mueller III on Tuesday - but they once again stopped short of embracing legislation to protect the special counsel.

Their reluctance to take more forceful action came as Democratic leaders voiced new urgency to shield Mueller a day after Trump said he had been encouraged by some to dismiss the special counsel. At least one rank-and-file Republican endorsed moving forward soon with a bill to protect him.

But Senate GOP leaders were not budging from their position against taking preventive action, underscoring the downside they have long seen in being too confrontational against the leader of their party. Even at moments of great uncertainty about what Trump will do next, congressional Republican leaders have opted not to further agitate him.

"I haven't seen clear indication yet that we needed to pass something to keep him from being removed, because I don't think that's going to happen," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. McConnell did not elaborate on why he believed that.

And should Trump fire Mueller's current boss, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, well, they've laid out a succession plan for that, too.

Rosenstein, the No. 2 official at the department, is supervising the Mueller probe because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from all matters related to the 2016 presidential campaign. 

So if Rosenstein is fired or recuses himself (as a witness to key events), someone else at the Justice Department will have to manage the investigation. 

This is where the department's succession plan and the President's executive order for vacancies come into play. 

The following list of individuals -- which is a mashup of officials because certain Trump nominees have not yet been Senate-confirmed -- would be next in line to step in Rosenstein's shoes:

1. Solicitor General Noel Francisco
2. The assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven Engel
3. The assistant attorney general for national security, John Demers
4. The US attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Robert Higdon
5. The US attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Erin Nealy Cox  

Under this hypothetical, Francisco would be the first in line to supervise Mueller. But Rosenstein's acting principal associate deputy, Ed O'Callaghan, would become acting deputy attorney general for all other regular duties.

Now, I always thought it was odd that the Solicitor General, the government's lawyer before the Supreme Court, would be the number three person at the DoJ, followed by four lawyers all appointed by Trump. And yes, Francisco was appointed by Trump too, he was on Dubya's recount legal team back in 2000.

"So what does all this mean, Zandar?" you ask.

It means that alarm bells should be ringing all over Washington DC.

It means Donald Trump is going to try to fire Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller, and soon. 

Because Noel Francisco is auditioning for Rosenstein's job by arguing before the Supreme Court that Trump can fire Mueller.

The Supreme Court is set to hear a seemingly minor case later this month on the status of administrative judges at the Securities and Exchange Commission, an issue that normally might only draw the interest of those accused of stock fraud.

But the dispute turns on the president's power to hire and fire officials throughout the government. And it comes just as the White House is saying President Trump believes he has the power to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

Trump's Solicitor Gen. Noel Francisco intervened in the SEC case to urge the high court to clarify the president's constitutional power to fire all "officers of the United States" who "exercise significant authority" under the law.

"The Constitution gives the president what the framers saw as the traditional means of ensuring accountability: the power to oversee executive officers through removal," he wrote in Lucia vs. SEC. "The president is accordingly authorized under our constitutional system to remove all principal officers, as well as all 'inferior officers' he has appointed."

Yes, this is what you think it is.  Trump wants a call on firing Mueller from the Supreme Court.

In addition to representing the administration before the Supreme Court, Francisco, a former law clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, could be in line to oversee the Mueller inquiry if Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein is fired. Atty. Gen Jeff Sessions has recused himself from the investigation.

Peter Shane, a law professor at the Ohio State University, called Francisco's argument a "radical proposition," and one that goes beyond what is at issue in the case. The justices said they would focus only on how the SEC in-house judges are appointed. But Francisco is asking them to go further and rule on the "removal" issue.

"The solicitor general is obviously trying to goad the court into a broad statement about the removability of all officers of the United States," Shane said. "Were the court to make any such statement, it would surely be cited by Trump as backing any move by him to fire Mueller directly."

It's possible that this is just a contingency plan.  Trump's lawyers continue to insist he has the power to fire Mueller anyway.  But should the courts make such a call in this case, Trump would have the cover he needs.

Now I think the Supreme Court won't address this issue yet and could even ask the Trump regime to refer the issue to Congress if they want increased authority.  Such a statement could imply that Trump doesn't have the power to fire Mueller however, and I think SCOTUS may punt completely and keep the narrow focus.

But the fact Francisco is even asking the courts for this is a dead giveaway that Trump wants to make this move ASAP.

Be ready.

America Gets That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds Trump's approval rating inching back up to 40% from 36% in January, but the real news is Trump's base is coming back to him.

Overall, Trump has gained ground in approval among several demographic groups that were important in his 2016 campaign. For one, 59 percent of Americans living in rural areas now approve of his job performance, up 17 points from January and a smaller seven points from last November. Among white rural Americans specifically, his approval is even higher: 65 percent approve, up from 50 percent in January.

Trump garners above-water approval among whites, 53 percent of whom approve of the president, up seven points from January. He does even better among whites without college degrees (60 percent, up seven points) and white men without college degrees (70 percent, up six points). Almost three-quarters of conservatives approve of the president in the latest poll, 74 percent, up nine points from January.

Trump continues to face overwhelming disapproval from an array of other groups, including 79 percent of racial and ethnic minorities, 67 percent of adults under age 30, and 64 percent of women. Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats and over 8 in 10 liberals also disapprove of Trump.

If you're wondering why the last six weeks has been nothing but Trump attacks on his enemies' list, it's because Trump is circling his wagons and rallying the base, and these numbers are out before the latest strikes in Syria.  When it comes to rural white voters, and especially white men without college degrees, Trump is now fully their man.  Portraying attacks on Trump as attacks on them is a deliberate strategy.

It's working.   I expect this number to only grow as we head into midterms.

I don't know if it will be enough to save other Republicans in November, especially since Trump's attacks are landing on congressional Republicans and there's a lot of collateral damage on the GOP in general.  But if Trump gets those white voters to turn out, the blue wave will crash on the rocks and do no damage.

This tells me Trump is re-motivating the base, even with taking his trade war with China into effect on rural voters.  They believe he's going to win and make the jobs come back.  They're willing to suffer for him for a variety of reasons.

This also tells me that red state voter suppression of black and Hispanic voters will be even more important in 2018 and 2020.

The most important poll in 2018 though happens on Election Day.  Get out there.

Sunday Long Read: The Birth Of Racism

Over the last twenty years, America's infant mortality rate has increased dramatically, and the change has come almost exclusively at the expense of black mothers and black babies.  This is true for pregnant black women regardless of education and income level, and in the era of Trump, this is will absolutely explode into a national crisis of epic proportions.

From 1915 through the 1990s, amid vast improvements in hygiene, nutrition, living conditions and health care, the number of babies of all races who died in the first year of life dropped by over 90 percent — a decrease unparalleled by reductions in other causes of death. But that national decline in infant mortality has since slowed. In 1960, the United States was ranked 12th among developed countries in infant mortality. Since then, with its rate largely driven by the deaths of black babies, the United States has fallen behind and now ranks 32nd out of the 35 wealthiest nations. Low birth weight is a key factor in infant death, and a new report released in March by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin suggests that the number of low-birth-weight babies born in the United States — also driven by the data for black babies — has inched up for the first time in a decade.

Black infants in America are now more than twice as likely to die as white infants — 11.3 per 1,000 black babies, compared with 4.9 per 1,000 white babies, according to the most recent government data — a racial disparity that is actually wider than in 1850, 15 years before the end of slavery, when most black women were considered chattel. In one year, that racial gap adds up to more than 4,000 lost black babies. Education and income offer little protection. In fact, a black woman with an advanced degree is more likely to lose her baby than a white woman with less than an eighth-grade education.

This tragedy of black infant mortality is intimately intertwined with another tragedy: a crisis of death and near death in black mothers themselves. The United States is one of only 13 countries in the world where the rate of maternal mortality — the death of a woman related to pregnancy or childbirth up to a year after the end of pregnancy — is now worse than it was 25 years ago. Each year, an estimated 700 to 900 maternal deaths occur in the United States. In addition, the C.D.C. reports more than 50,000 potentially preventable near-deaths, like Landrum’s, per year — a number that rose nearly 200 percent from 1993 to 2014, the last year for which statistics are available. Black women are three to four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts, according to the C.D.C. — a disproportionate rate that is higher than that of Mexico, where nearly half the population lives in poverty — and as with infants, the high numbers for black women drive the national numbers.

Monica Simpson is the executive director of SisterSong, the country’s largest organization dedicated to reproductive justice for women of color, and a member of the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, an advocacy group. In 2014, she testified in Geneva before the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, saying that the United States, by failing to address the crisis in black maternal mortality, was violating an international human rights treaty. After her testimony, the committee called on the United States to “eliminate racial disparities in the field of sexual and reproductive health and standardize the data-collection system on maternal and infant deaths in all states to effectively identify and address the causes of disparities in maternal- and infant-mortality rates.” No such measures have been forthcoming. Only about half the states and a few cities maintain maternal-mortality review boards to analyze individual cases of pregnancy-related deaths. There has not been an official federal count of deaths related to pregnancy in more than 10 years. An effort to standardize the national count has been financed in part by contributions from Merck for Mothers, a program of the pharmaceutical company, to the CDC Foundation.

The crisis of maternal death and near-death also persists for black women across class lines. This year, the tennis star Serena Williams shared in Vogue the story of the birth of her first child and in further detail in a Facebook post. The day after delivering her daughter, Alexis Olympia, via C-section in September, Williams experienced a pulmonary embolism, the sudden blockage of an artery in the lung by a blood clot. Though she had a history of this disorder and was gasping for breath, she says medical personnel initially ignored her concerns. Though Williams should have been able to count on the most attentive health care in the world, her medical team seems to have been unprepared to monitor her for complications after her cesarean, including blood clots, one of the most common side effects of C-sections. Even after she received treatment, her problems continued; coughing, triggered by the embolism, caused her C-section wound to rupture. When she returned to surgery, physicians discovered a large hematoma, or collection of blood, in her abdomen, which required more surgery. Williams, 36, spent the first six weeks of her baby’s life bedridden.

The reasons for the black-white divide in both infant and maternal mortality have been debated by researchers and doctors for more than two decades. But recently there has been growing acceptance of what has largely been, for the medical establishment, a shocking idea: For black women in America, an inescapable atmosphere of societal and systemic racism can create a kind of toxic physiological stress, resulting in conditions — including hypertension and pre-eclampsia — that lead directly to higher rates of infant and maternal death. And that societal racism is further expressed in a pervasive, longstanding racial bias in health care — including the dismissal of legitimate concerns and symptoms — that can help explain poor birth outcomes even in the case of black women with the most advantages.

“Actual institutional and structural racism has a big bearing on our patients’ lives, and it’s our responsibility to talk about that more than just saying that it’s a problem,” says Dr. Sanithia L. Williams, an African-American OB-GYN in the Bay Area and a fellow with the nonprofit organization Physicians for Reproductive Health. “That has been the missing piece, I think, for a long time in medicine.”

Racism can and does kill at birth in America.

That is the cold, hard truth.

We live in a country where making sure black mothers gave birth was more important in the era of slavery than it is today, because back then black women were an economic investment.  In 2018, black people are routinely killed because we are seen as without worth.  The stress of that is lethal.  In an era where simply being black gets you arrested for the crime of being at a Starbucks and waiting for a friend, the stress kills.

And I'm so tired of this.  We all are.

It's killing us.,  Everything about this country it seems is designed to kill us.  It is specifically designed to kill black women.  It is monstrous.

It is all we can do just to survive.

The Bonfire Of The Manatee

Adam Davidson at the New Yorker has covered the collapse of systems before, both in Iraq and in the 2007 financial crisis, and posits that this week was the turning point, like the bankruptcy of Bear Stearns and Dubya's 2003 "Mission Impossible" declaration on the USS Abraham Lincoln, that indicates events are now leading into the end of the Trump regime.

I thought of those earlier experiences this week as I began to feel a familiar clarity about what will unfold next in the Trump Presidency. There are lots of details and surprises to come, but the endgame of this Presidency seems as clear now as those of Iraq and the financial crisis did months before they unfolded. Last week, federal investigators raided the offices of Michael Cohen, the man who has been closer than anybody to Trump’s most problematic business and personal relationships. This week, we learned that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months—his e-mails have been read, presumably his phones have been tapped, and his meetings have been monitored. Trump has long declared a red line: Robert Mueller must not investigate his businesses, and must only look at any possible collusion with Russia. That red line is now crossed and, for Trump, in the most troubling of ways. Even if he were to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and then had Mueller and his investigation put on ice, and even if—as is disturbingly possible—Congress did nothing, the Cohen prosecution would continue. Even if Trump pardons Cohen, the information the Feds have on him can become the basis for charges against others in the Trump Organization.

This is the week we know, with increasing certainty, that we are entering the last phase of the Trump Presidency. This doesn’t feel like a prophecy; it feels like a simple statement of the apparent truth. I know dozens of reporters and other investigators who have studied Donald Trump and his business and political ties. Some have been skeptical of the idea that President Trump himself knowingly colluded with Russian officials. It seems not at all Trumpian to participate in a complex plan with a long-term, uncertain payoff. Collusion is an imprecise word, but it does seem close to certain that his son Donald, Jr., and several people who worked for him colluded with people close to the Kremlin; it is up to prosecutors and then the courts to figure out if this was illegal or merely deceitful. We may have a hard time finding out what President Trump himself knew and approved.

However, I am unaware of anybody who has taken a serious look at Trump’s business who doesn’t believe that there is a high likelihood of rampant criminality. In Azerbaijan, he did business with a likely money launderer for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. In the Republic of Georgia, he partnered with a group that was being investigated for a possible role in the largest known bank-fraud and money-laundering case in history. In Indonesia, his development partner is “knee-deep in dirty politics”; there are criminal investigations of his deals in Brazil; the F.B.I. is reportedly looking into his daughter Ivanka’s role in the Trump hotel in Vancouver, for which she worked with a Malaysian family that has admitted to financial fraud. Back home, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka were investigated for financial crimes associated with the Trump hotel in SoHo—an investigation that was halted suspiciously. His Taj Mahal casino received what was then the largest fine in history for money-laundering violations.

Listing all the financial misconduct can be overwhelming and tedious. I have limited myself to some of the deals over the past decade, thus ignoring Trump’s long history of links to New York Mafia figures and other financial irregularities. It has become commonplace to say that enough was known about Trump’s shady business before he was elected; his followers voted for him precisely because they liked that he was someone willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, and they also believe that all rich businesspeople have to do shady things from time to time. In this way of thinking, any new information about his corrupt past has no political salience. Those who hate Trump already think he’s a crook; those who love him don’t care.

I believe this assessment is wrong. Sure, many people have a vague sense of Trump’s shadiness, but once the full details are better known and digested, a fundamentally different narrative about Trump will become commonplace. Remember: we knew a lot about problems in Iraq in May, 2003. Americans saw TV footage of looting and heard reports of U.S. forces struggling to gain control of the entire country. We had plenty of reporting, throughout 2007, about various minor financial problems. Somehow, though, these specific details failed to impress upon most Americans the over-all picture. It took a long time for the nation to accept that these were not minor aberrations but, rather, signs of fundamental crisis. Sadly, things had to get much worse before Americans came to see that our occupation of Iraq was disastrous and, a few years later, that our financial system was in tatters.

I have to agree.  This week, in particular the Cohen raid, was the moment that when we look back on the Trump era, will be the moment where we can point to this all ending very badly for Trump and for America.  The rest of this play hasn't been written yet, but you can see the foreshadowing and the smell the coming storm.  If the November 2016 election was act one and the Mueller investigation starting in May 2017 was act two, the Cohen raid signals the third act of our uniquely American dark comedy.

I don't know where all this will end up.  As with Iraq and the Great Recession, the coda will take years, if not decades, to perform on the world stage.  I don't know what will come after, whether it's a Pence presidency, a neutered Trump under a Democratic Congress, or an America plunged into something much worse, but the Trump era as it is now is on its way out.

It's up to us to shape that coda.

Last Call For The Other Side

The Trumpies are in real trouble from the Cohen side of Mueller's probe, and they know it.  At this point the only thing keeping their side from complete breakdown is message discipline, and that's starting to come apart at the seams.  

The goofballs over at Power Line think Trump should pardon everyone and rip off the bandaid, as if it will end the Mueller probe or resolve any of the issues involving Trump, Russia, money laundering or obstruction of justice.

In “What is to be done?” I set forth the possibility that President Trump might shut down his entanglement in the Mueller probe (the Mueller Switch Project) by pardoning its criminal targets so far: Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and the Dutch lawyer. He could do so with the explanation that Mueller’s probe has come up dry on its supposed predicate of Russian collusion with the Trump presidential campaign. Rush Limbaugh argued the pardon option in “If you want to end this, Mr. President, start pardoning.”

As President Trump has said repeatedly, there was “no collusion.” Thus the never-ending detours of the Mueller probe. In this scenario President Trump would leave Mueller free to write up the results of his investigation into Russian interference in the presidential campaign and even the evidence of alleged collusion, if any. I have assumed the veracity of the president’s claim of “no collusion” from the outset. If it weren’t true, we would have heard about the facts that make it out by now and we haven’t.

The "Where's the smoking gun?" strawman is a fun one, as if somehow everything we've heard about Trump doing in the last 18 months doesn't disqualify him from office.  But here's the hysterical part:

Mulling this over a bit further, I have one final thought. If President Trump were to take up the pardon solution, I think he would be well advised to include Hillary Clinton and the entire Clinton circle in the pardons. He could explain that he is trying to put the controversies arising from the past election behind us for the good of the country. It might make him look magnanimous and would have the additional advantage of driving them and their friends absolutely nuts.

Can you imagine what the people baying for Clinton and Obama's blood at Trump rallies would do should LOCK HER UP become "Well we pardoned her"?  Start the RINO hunt!

This is what the "principled" defense of Trump looks like, folks.  Highbrow comedy at its finest.

Wag The Dog, Con't

Trump's efforts to get the Comey/Cohen stories off the front page may have worked for a day, but Syria, Russia, and Iran are already taunting the Tangerine Tyrant as last night's missile strikes against Syria were mostly intercepted by Russian air defenses.

Syria, Russia and Iran shrugged off strikes on Saturday by the United States and its allies against three Syrian chemical weapons facilities, which drew angry condemnations but no indication that there would be a wider escalation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the U.S.-led strikes against Syrian chemical weapons facilities as an “act of aggression,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatalloh Ali Khamenei tweeted that the attack represented “a war crime,” and the Syrian Foreign Ministry described it as “barbarous aggression.”

But the pre-dawn volleys of cruise missiles launched by the United States, Britain and France were limited to three sites linked to Syria’s chemical weapons program and triggered no retaliation. Russia said they did little damage and that most of the cruise missiles targeting Syrian sites had been intercepted by Syrian air defenses, including all of those that were bound for the site from which last week’s alleged chemical attack originated.

World leaders sought to tamp down any tensions associated with the strike.

“This was not about interfering in a civil war and it was not about regime change,” Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May told a news conference in London. “We expressly sought to avoid escalation and did everything to avoid civilian casualties.”

In Damascus, there was defiance and relief as residents jolted awake by explosions at around 4 a.m. realized the strikes would be limited. Syrian state television broadcast scenes of citizens taking to the streets to celebrate and demonstrate their support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, waving Syrian, Russian and Iranian flags.

“The honorable cannot be humiliated,” said a post from the Twitter account maintained by Assad’s office shortly after the attack. A few hours later the account tweeted a video of him walking nonchalantly to work through the halls of the Syrian presidential palace.

The United States and its allies said three facilities associated with Syria’s chemical weapons program were targeted: a scientific research center in the greater Damascus area, a chemical weapons storage facility west of Homs, and a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and command post, also near Homs.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said they did little damage. In a statement the ministry said that of 103 cruise missiles fired in the U.S.-led airstrike, 71 were shot down by Syria’s Soviet-made air-defense systems. The intercepted missiles included all 12 of those bound for the Al-Dumayr military airfield near Damascus, where the chemical attack that triggered the crisis was allegedly launched.

If you want to know what Putin's retaliation was for being called out by both British PM Theresa May and Trump for last month's attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, you're looking at it, and once again Putin has won a near complete victory.

Yes, the chemical weapon attack by Assad a couple weeks ago was abhorrent, but it was also obvious in its intent to get under Trump's skin and show the world that the US and UK can no longer just launch cruise missiles with impunity.  The Russians still insist that Britian was behind the chemical weapon attacks both on their home soil and in Syria and the US is aiding and abetting in war crimes, and both Trump and May look like fools.

And remember, this is being done all while Trump's travel ban preventing refugees from war-torn Syria, who we've been bombing since day one of the Trump regime, from entering the US as the worst refugee crisis in recent history continues to unfold.  He fires missiles into their country, then when their people flee the hell he's brought to them, he calls them terrorists and leaves them to rot.

Trump is so predictable in his egomania that Putin is having a field day with it, and once again he's gotten the upper hand on proving just how easily he can make Trump his puppet, this time for all the world to see. And Russia is now promising retaliation.

And the trouble back here in the states?  That hasn't gone away just because a petulant man-child threw a $100 million military temper tantrum.  And what does Trump get for his troubles?  His most virulent supporters like Alex Jones and Michael Savage have utterly turned on him this weekend, vowing that Trump has given in to the "globalists".

On we go.

Meanwhile In Bevinstan, Con't

As if we didn't have enough news to process today, here in Kentucky things also took a turn for the worse, both ugly and bizarre.  GOP Gov. Matt Bevin vetoed the state budget, tax reform, and pension reform bills because they didn't punish state employees and Kentucky's poor enough earlier this week, so on Friday the state legislature overrode all three vetoes.

The Kentucky General Assembly on Friday voted to override vetoes by Gov. Matt Bevin on three key bills: the two-year, $22 billion state budget; changes to the tax code expected to generate several hundred million dollars in new revenue; and a measure that will give pension relief to local governments.

Although the House and Senate are overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans, lawmakers said they wanted to show their independence from the Republican governor, who early in the day criticized their budget and tax bills on Twitter.

“If you think siding with the governor and giving him the authority to control this budget is a good idea, then vote ‘No,’” Sen. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, told his Senate colleagues, urging them to vote for the veto override on the budget bill.

Lawmakers return to the Capitol on Saturday for the last day of the 2018 legislative session. They said they expect to pass one or more measures to “tweak” inadvertent errors in their hastily assembled tax bill and deal with other problems brought to their attention in the past two weeks, including additional money needed for the statewide Kentucky Wired internet broadband project.

Bevin does have line-item veto power, but he scrapped all three bills in their entirely because his significantly deeper budget cuts, especially to education and infrastructure, were not included.  He sent the bills back this week and announced that unless his cuts were passed, he would call a special session and keep it open until he got his way.

When he didn't get what he demanded on cuts to education funding and teacher benefits and pensions, Matt Bevin showed who he truly is to the entire state, country, and world.

Gov. Matt Bevin, asked Friday about teachers leaving the classrooms to attend a protest rally in Frankfort, said, “I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”

Louisville’s WDRB-TV interviewed Bevin outside the Capitol Friday about the rally.

In the interview, Bevin said, “This is what’s crazy to me. Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of children today were left home alone?

He then added that consequently a child in Kentucky was sexually assaulted. He added that he guaranteed a child was “physically assaulted or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn’t have any money to take care of them.”

Kentucky Education Association President Stephanie Winkler said Friday night she was appalled at Bevin’s comment.

“There are no words,” Winkler said. “My mouth was hanging open and I don’t even know what I can tell you." 

Lawmakers in both parties called him out after Bevin exploded in rage on Friday.

“The disgusting comments by Gov. Bevin insinuating that a peaceful protest by teachers would lead to sexual assault are reprehensible,” tweeted state Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville. “I don’t agree with these comments & I find them repulsive. I disagreed with his radio comments about teachers before & I disagree with these.”

In response to Wise’s tweet, Daviess County Superintendent Matt Robbins called for the Republican-led General Assembly — in Frankfort on Saturday for its last day of business — to censure Bevin.

“This is reprehensible and his own party needs to tell him enough is enough,” Robbins said.

Former House Speaker Jeff Hoover, who has been sniping with Bevin over his ethic hearing on sexual harassment had just two sentences on Twitter:

“Out of control. Unhinged.”

Another Republican senator, Whitney Westerfield of Hopkinsville, said on Twitter he was troubled, frustrated and disappointed by Bevin’s comments, “once again needlessly and unjustly demonizing a group of professionals who, like the eight I met with for an hour before we convened, were engaging with legislators peacefully.”

I've been telling people for years that Bevin is an asshole of the lowest order.  What Trump is doing to the country right now, Bevin's been doing since 2015.  If you still somehow had doubt that he wasn't a vile scumbag, now you know what Kentucky's had to deal with.

I expect that situation will be rectified next year.