The Jordan Rules

Massive anti-austerity protests in Jordan over the last week have resulted in King Abdullah sacking PM Hani Mulki and calling for the formation of a new government in an effort to tamp down tensions in the country.

Jordan’s King Abdullah on Monday asked Omar al-Razzaz, a former World Bank economist, to form a new government after Hani Mulki resigned as prime minister following the country’s biggest protests in years, a ministerial source said.

The move appeared aimed at defusing popular anger over planned tax hikes that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in the capital Amman and other parts of Jordan since last week. Razzaz was education minister in Mulki’s government. 

Jordan, a staunch U.S. ally that has a peace treaty with Israel, has remained stable through years of regional turmoil. 

Police chief Major General Fadel al-Hamoud said security forces had detained 60 people for breaking the law during the protests and 42 security force members had been injured, but protests remained under control.

“Rest assured, Jordan is a safe and secure country, and things are under control,” said Major General Hussein Hawatmeh, head of the Gendarmerie security department, appearing along with Hamoud at a news conference. 

Public anger has grown over government policies since a steep general sales tax hike earlier this year and the abolition of bread subsidies, both measures driven by the International Monetary Fund. 

Political sources earlier said Abdullah had summoned Mulki for an audience in the king’s palace.

In a sign the tax hikes could be shelved, the Petra news agency, citing the speaker of parliament, said lawmakers were on course to ask the king’s permission to hold an exceptional session, with a majority demanding the changes be withdrawn. 

Mulki, a business-friendly politician, was appointed in May 2016 and given the responsibility of reviving a sluggish economy and business sentiment hit by regional turmoil. The tax increases have caused his popularity to plummet. 

The protests widened on Saturday after Mulki refused to scrap a bill increasing personal and corporate taxes, saying it was up to parliament to decide.

The IMF fiddling with economies is not always a good thing, in fact, it rarely is.  King Abdullah is cagey enough to understand what's going on however and he's more than happy to throw his technocrats under the bus to save his own neck.  But Jordanian protesters know what they're doing in the post-Arab Spring age of social media, too.

Jordanians involved in the anti-government protests in opposition to the draft income tax law appear to be well-organized, mature in their approach and focused on specific goals. 

The demonstrations started on Wednesday in Amman, organized by professional unions against the draft tax laws required by the International Monetary Fund. 

But unlike in the protests staged in Jordan in 2011 at the height of the Arab Spring, observers said most participants are not ideological and the protests are not limited to just men. 

Hiba Obeidat, who took part in the 2011 demonstrations, told Arab News that the current protests reflect a young population that has matured. 

“This is different from the first Arab Spring. Participants want to make sure that the mistakes of 2011 are not repeated. 

“Participants want to be sure no external group hijacks the current protests, as happened in the Arab Spring when the Muslim Brotherhood benefitted from the protests of the largely secular participants.

And they got results, and quickly.  Would that the US worked that way these days.  Or ever.

The Maria Massacre: Los Olvidados Muertos

The shocking report last week that the true death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria last September exceeded that of Hurricane Katrina or 9/11 is something America is no longer being silent on, and if Democrats have any heart, they absolutely need to pound the Trump regime on its devastating failure that cost thousands of American lives.

Days after a new study from researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health estimated that the death toll from Hurricane Maria may be as high as 4,645 people, mainly because of delayed medical care, hundreds of protesters gathered on Saturday in the shadow of the United Nations to demand that the international organization audit the number of casualties.

The Puerto Rican government is reviewing its official death toll from the storm, which it said in December was 64.

“If it were 5,000 kittens, there would be outrage,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of Uprose, a Latino organization in Brooklyn. “If it was 5,000 dogs, there would be outrage. If it was 5,000 blonde-haired, blue-eyed women, there would be outrage.”

The protest was organized by the Collective Action for Puerto Rico, a coalition of faith-based and labor organizations. Protesters held signs saying “Puerto Rican lives matter” and “If you are not angry you are not paying attention.”

They took off their shoes as a symbol of the people who died as a result of the storm but who were not immediately counted, and called for more attention to be paid to the hurricane’s aftermath in the form of more assistance for people still struggling on the island as hurricane season begins.

“Sisters and brothers in this country forget that the people of Puerto Rico are our fellow Americans,” said Linda Sarsour, who was one of the lead organizers of the Women’s March in Washington. “They deserve to be treated just like any American in any part of this country.”

United Nations officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump failed Puerto Rico, and thousands died as a result.  Period.  And there's every reason to believe that the actual death toll could be higher.

Researchers behind the study, which was published on Tuesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, visited close to 3,300 randomly selected households across Puerto Rico. They found that 38 people from those households died in the months after the storm.

Using their independent estimate of the number of deaths, researchers calculated the mortality rate after the hurricane and compared it with mortality rates from 2016. Researchers found a 62 percent increase in the mortality rate from Sept. 20, 2017, when the hurricane hit, through Dec. 31, 2017, compared with the same time period in 2016.

The study found that the official death toll of 64 was a “substantial underestimate of the true burden of mortality after Hurricane Maria,” and that the estimated 4,645-person death toll could exceed 5,000.

Puerto Rican officials said in December that they planned to revise the official death toll, counting direct and indirect storm deaths. The commonwealth commissioned a study on Hurricane Maria deaths from the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, which is expected to release the first part of its review this summer.

No matter how you estimate it, the reality is that the "official" death toll of 64 is one of most mendacious government lies in existence. Los Olvidados Muertos, the Forgotten Dead, will not be forgotten any longer.

Especially in November.

StupidiNews!

• Dozens are reported dead after the eruption of Guatemala's Fuego volcano, President Jimmy Morales has declared three days of national mourning.
• California has banned state agency travel to Oklahoma over the state's new law that bans gay and lesbian couples from adopting.
• North Korea has replaced its top three military officials ahead of a proposed June 12 meeting with Donald Trump in Singapore, which for now appears to be still on.
• Donald Trump will face furious G7 leaders in Quebec this week over new American steel and aluminum tariffs on the EU, Mexico, and Canada, China is also warning against new tariffs.
• Apple's annual Worldwide Development Conference kicks off today with expected details of this year's versions of its iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac and Apple TV operating system upgrades.

Trump Cards, Con't

There are two political parties in the US, the Democrats and Trump.  Despite historically dismal overall approval ratings, ratings among the GOP find Trump to be second only to post 9/11 Dubya in approval from his own party at the 500-day mark.

So no, the notion that Republicans will turn on Trump even should Mueller or the Senate present evidence of conspiracy or worse is ludicrous.  They will defend Trump even at the cost of their own livelihoods.  The Republican party is nothing more than the racist, misogynist, bigoted cult of personality that worships Trump, and so are all of his voters.

I'm tired of being nice to them.  It's only made them love Trump more.

It's time to call these assholes out this November and throw them out of power for good.  Get registered, get ready, get friends, get to the polls.  At every turn President Obama's open hand was met by fist after fist.

Now it's time to fight.

Sunday Long Read: From Moscow To London

If you want to know why Putin and his oligarchs have been so successful at money laundering, and why Donald Trump is doing his best at emulating them to create a oligarchy where Trump is most powerful human being on the planet, the key has always been in Moscow's financial relationship with London, as Oliver Bullough of The Guardian explains in this week's Sunday Long Read.

In March, parliament’s foreign affairs committee asked me to come and tell them what to do about dirty Russian cash. As a journalist, I’ve spent much of my career writing about financial corruption in the former Soviet Union, but the invitation came as something of a surprise. After all, ever since I was at school in the 1990s, British politicians have welcomed Russian money to our shores. They have celebrated when oligarchs have bought our football clubs, cheered when they’ve listed their companies on our Stock Exchange. They have gladly accepted their political donations and patronised their charitable foundations.

When journalists and academics pointed out that these murky fortunes could buy influence over our democracy and undermine the rule of law, they were largely dismissed as inconvenient Cassandras warning MPs to beware Russians bearing gifts. But earlier this year, after the poisoning in Salisbury of the former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, those little-heeded prophecies jumped straight into the pages of Hansard. “To those who seek to do us harm, my message is simple: you are not welcome here,” Theresa May told the House of Commons on 14 March, in a speech that blamed Russia for the attack. “There is no place for these people, or their money, in our country.”

Britain’s entire political class joined the prime minister in this screeching handbrake turn. MPs who had long presented the nation’s openness to trade as a great virtue suddenly wanted to be seen as tough on kleptocrats, tough on the causes of kleptocrats. Having allowing so much Russian money into Britain, these MPs were now seized with concern that Vladimir Putin might, through his power over his nation’s super-rich, be able to influence our institutions. Were we selling Putin the rope with which he would hang us, they wondered.

That is why, on 28 March, I took a seat in committee room six, a chamber high up in the Palace of Westminster, with heavy furniture, a view over the River Thames, and a carpet like a migraine. The foreign affairs committee exists to monitor the work of the Foreign Office – essentially, to keep an eye on Boris Johnson – but its members can investigate any subjects they choose. This time, they had chosen to look into the money Putin and his cronies hold in Britain and its overseas territories, with a view to exploring fresh opportunities for sanctions.

I had brought along a list of things I wanted to talk about: how we should improve our defences against money laundering; how we need transparency about who owns property; how MPs themselves must stop taking money from dodgy ex-Soviet oligarchs if they want others to do the same.

But the first question, from Priti Patel, the former international development secretary, threw me: “Can you give the committee a sense of the scale of so-called ‘dirty money’ being laundered through London?” she asked.

It is a vast question, worthy of a book in itself, and one that even the National Crime Agency would struggle to answer, let alone me. Then came her second question: “What assets has that hidden money gone into?”

I tried my best – I mentioned property, private schools, luxury goods – but I think she and I both knew I’d fluffed it. I should have brought along specific examples, with times and dates and names. The embarrassing truth is that, although I have written about Russia and its neighbours for two decades, during which I have increasingly specialised in analysing corruption, it had never really occurred to me to ascertain precisely how much stolen Russian money had found a home in the UK, or to chart exactly where it had ended up.

If someone like me had been this culpably incurious, it is hardly surprising that politicians with dozens of other priorities have had to scramble to understand what we’re facing. But for the past couple of months, I have belatedly tried to discover an answer to the foreign affairs committee’s questions.

It turns out that the situation is even more worrying than I had suspected.

It is far too late for the UK, facing Brexit and financial catastrophe of their own making, being sliced off like a cut of prime beef and served to Putin and Moscow.  The rest of the EU is barely holding on, and all indications are that Italy and Spain will be the next to fall.  Putin has all but won, and his absolute dominance of Europe through a new Warsaw Pact is now only a matter of time.

But Putin has already gotten his hooks into the US with Trump, a willing agent who has worked out for the Kremlin apparatchiks beyond their wildest dreams.  Putin is carving up London Broil right now, but he has our country on the menu, and the knives are already out. Trump still thinks he can be Putin, and he'll destroy our democracy to get there.

And that's when Putin will take the reins.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

The NY Times drops a copy of a Trump regime memo to Special Counsel Robert Mueller written back in January that asserts that Mueller has no power to subpoena Donald Trump, and that Trump has absolute power over the investigation into his own malfeasance.

President Trump’s lawyers have for months quietly waged a campaign to keep the special counsel from trying to force him to answer questions in the investigation into whether he obstructed justice, asserting that he cannot be compelled to testify and arguing in a confidential letter that he could not possibly have committed obstruction because he has unfettered authority over all federal investigations.

In a brash assertion of presidential power, the 20-page letter — sent to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and obtained by The New York Times — contends that the president cannot illegally obstruct any aspect of the investigation into Russia’s election meddling because the Constitution empowers him to, “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.”

[Read the Trump lawyers’ confidential memo to Mr. Mueller here.]

Mr. Trump’s lawyers fear that if he answers questions, either voluntarily or in front of a grand jury, he risks exposing himself to accusations of lying to investigators, a potential crime or impeachable offense.

Mr. Trump’s broad interpretation of executive authority is novel and is likely to be tested if a court battle ensues over whether he could be ordered to answer questions. It is unclear how that fight, should the case reach that point, would play out. A spokesman for Mr. Mueller declined to comment.

“We don’t know what the law is on the intersection between the obstruction statutes and the president exercising his constitutional power to supervise an investigation in the Justice Department,” said Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor who oversaw the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration. “It’s an open question.”

Hand-delivered to the special counsel’s office in January and written by two of the president’s lawyers at the time, John M. Dowd and Jay A. Sekulow, the letter offers a rare glimpse into one side of the high-stakes negotiations over a presidential interview.

Though it is written as a defense of the president, the letter recalls the tangled drama of early 2017 as the new administration dealt with the Russia investigation. It also serves as a reminder that in weighing an obstruction case, Mr. Mueller is reviewing actions and conversations involving senior White House officials, including the president, the vice president and the White House counsel.

The letter also lays out a series of claims that foreshadow a potential subpoena fight that could unfold in the months leading into November’s midterm elections.

“We are reminded of our duty to protect the president and his office,” the lawyers wrote, making their case that Mr. Mueller has the information he needs from tens of thousands of pages of documents they provided and testimony by other witnesses, obviating the necessity for a presidential interview.

The problem with such an argument is that it assumes the Executive cannot be checked by any power in the Executive, only by the Judicial or the Legislative, and that describes a country where the president is above the law.  Trump is now resorting to not only attacking his critics openly on Twitter, and at rallies, but now he's using the Oval Office's weekly address to attack Democrats directly.

In his weekly address, Trump blamed Democrats for slow-walking many of his nominees through the confirmation process, saying that Senate Democrats had "shamelessly obstructed" hundreds of qualified picks.

"Senate Democrats call it 'the resistance,' " he said.

"From day one, Senate Democrats have shamelessly obstructed, stalled, and filibustered the confirmations of hundreds of talented men and women who are eager to come to Washington, D.C., to make a difference," he said. "They want to serve our country."

Trump also blasted the party's opposition to his hard-line demands on border security and immigration. He said that Democrats were withholding support for his policies because the party is "afraid it’s going to make me and the Republicans look good."

"They have blocked every effort to close deadly loopholes, to keep out vicious criminals, and to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs," Trump said. "They are a disaster at the border."

"These actions are endangering our citizens, threatening our communities, and undermining our national security," he continued.

Pay very, very close attention to that last part.  In just the last few days, the President has declared that foreign trade practices by our closest allies like Canada constituted a national security threat that required action through punitive tariffs.  His EPA has determined that solar and wind power are national security threats that require America to force utilities to buy coal and nuclear power.

Now he has determined that Democrats are "undermining our national security" along with critics, and he has asserted absolute power over the investigation into his campaign.

He will soon take action against those critics.  Very soon, I fear.

Trump Cards, Con't

With renewable power sources like wind and solar becoming more cost-effective and efficient every month, the Trump regime has declared war on the planet and is looking to instead prop up coal and nuclear plants by using the power of the government to mandate environment-wrecking energy companies and throttle green initiatives.

Trump administration officials are making plans to order grid operators to buy electricity from struggling coal and nuclear plants in an effort to extend their life, a move that could represent an unprecedented intervention into U.S. energy markets.

The Energy Department would exercise emergency authority under a pair of federal laws to direct the operators to purchase electricity or electric generation capacity from at-risk facilities, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg News. The agency also is making plans to establish a "Strategic Electric Generation Reserve" with the aim of promoting the national defense and maximizing domestic energy supplies.

“Federal action is necessary to stop the further premature retirements of fuel-secure generation capacity,” says a 41-page draft memo circulated before a National Security Council meeting on the subject Friday.

The plan cuts to the heart of a debate over the reliability and resiliency of a rapidly evolving U.S. electricity grid. Nuclear and coal-fired power plants are struggling to compete against cheap natural gas and renewable electricity. As nuclear and coal plants are decommissioned, regulators have been grappling with how to ensure that the nation’s power system can withstand extreme weather events and cyber-attacks.

Although the memo describes a planned Energy Department directive, there was no indication President Donald Trump had signed off on the action nor when any order might be issued. The document, dated May 29 and distributed Thursday, is marked as a "draft," which is "not for further distribution," and could be used by administration officials to justify the intervention.

While administration officials are still deciding on their final strategy -- and may yet decide against aggressive action -- the memo represents the Energy Department’s latest, most fully developed plan to intervene on behalf of coal and nuclear power plants, pitched to the president’s top security advisers.

Energy Department representatives did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

The notion that solar and wind power are unreliable to the point of constituting a potential threat to national security is ludicrous, especially when pitched against the proven dangers of nuclear power.  Of course this is Trump paying off energy executives who supported him, because this is what Trump does. Paul Waldman:

You might think that Republicans would be outraged about this. We’re talking about the federal government not just “picking winners and losers,” something free-marketeers claim to abhor, but literally ordering utilities to buy a certain kind of fuel, which just happens to be the kind that creates the most pollution and in many cases costs more (don’t worry about the inclusion of nuclear energy; this is really about coal).

But Republicans are not outraged, because as former House speaker John Boehner said yesterday, “There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party.” And the rule in the Trump party is: Reward those who serve you, and punish those who don’t.

Any ideological considerations must take a back seat to that principle. Sometimes it means cutting regulations, and sometimes it means increasing regulations; it just depends on who the winners and losers are. Liberals may say mockingly that this proposed rule smacks of socialism, but it isn’t guided by any kind of philosophy of governing. It’s a payoff.

In 2016, Trump repeatedly promised the residents of states such as West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania that he was going to revive the coal industry. He went to West Virginia, donned a helmet, pantomimed digging with his lips pursed, and said, “For those miners, get ready because you’re going to be working your a–––– off.” Everyone cheered, and it’s hard to blame them, since many of their communities have been devastated by the steady loss of what were once well-paid jobs with good benefits (negotiated by a union, of course). Unlike Clinton, who accepted the reality of coal’s decline and wanted to help those communities find other ways of reviving themselves, Trump simply said that he’d bring back coal.

But the idea that we could eliminate some environmental regulations and thereby bring all the coal jobs back was always ludicrous. Estimates of the number of coal jobs in America vary slightly (see here or here), but they generally come in between 50,000 and 75,000, which means that there are more Americans who work at Arby’s than there are in the entire coal industry. That’s the product of a long-term decline attributable mostly to automation (you don’t need to send 1,000 miners down into the hole with pickaxes anymore) and competition, especially from natural gas, the price of which has plummeted with the fracking boom.

No reasonable person thinks that the coal jobs are coming back, but this was one of the most explicit promises Trump made, and if he doesn’t deliver, it will make everything he said in 2016 look like a scam. And if the market no longer wants coal, Trump will force power plants to buy it.

Trump made promises.  He will keep them by abusing the powers of his office, no matter how much damage it does to the country and the planet, because only his supporters matter to him.  The rest of us are just collateral damage, we're not even Americans, we're not even human, we're "animals".  The irony is that his promises will damage his supporters the most, but as long as they can be convinced that those who are the "enemy" and didn't support Trump are in an even worse place, they'll vote for Trump and the GOP every time.

The constant dehumanization and demonization of the Obama coalition has metastasized into today's GOP.  We are chattel to be ruled, kine to be slaughtered by Trump and his forces, and they want to be on the "winning" side even as it costs them everything.

History says this road leads to apocalypse, and we're running out of time to prevent it.

Last Call For Big Mouth Small Hands

This morning, the Tangerine Tyrant tweeted how good the jobs report was going to be well before its embargoed 8:30 AM eastern release.  That raises a number of moral and legal questions, explains Matt Yglesias.

The crux of the matter is that while the president and his senior aides always get an advance look at the jobs data, they never talk about it in public. And while, in theory, Trump didn’t say anything about the content of the briefing he got Thursday night, he was clearly teasing good news about the report. And if he’s willing to be this cavalier about the rules in public, one has to wonder what he would do with the information in secret during his various late-night phone calls. 

If you don't think Trump is using the information he gets to enrich himself, you haven't been paying attention to all the instances where he's used the Oval office to directly enrich himself, and his friends.  There's a reason why Trump continues to emulate Putin's oligarchy, it offers him unlimited power and the checks and balances put in place to rein him in don't exist because he's more than happy to spread the wealth that depends on him remaining in charge.  We live in that era in America now.

The larger reason for secrecy around government economic data is not fear that it will be released early to the public, but that it will be spread privately to individuals who will then be able to make a profit off trading on insider information. 

A normal president would have trouble getting away with this because his sources of income would be routinely disclosed to the public. Trump, however, does not disclose his income tax returns. And the information he does disclose about his financial assets is uninformative because it simply tells us he owns a lot of shell companies. 

Trump also routinely holds freewheeling evening discussions with friends from the worlds of business and conservative media. He has even been known to casually leak Israeli intelligence to the Russian foreign minister in what we are all supposed to believe was an accident. 

It’s obviously not possible for journalists to know for sure what non-Twitter use Trump is putting this information to in secret. As with many other Trump corruption issues, it would be relatively simple for Congress to use its oversight powers to find out. 

But from Inauguration Day until today, congressional Republicans have unanimously preferred not to know anything about how Trump is misusing his powers of office for personal financial gain, so we’re not likely to find out as long as they remain in the majority.

Republicans fleeing the House know they're in trouble with the voters, but they also know that right now the government gravy train is as loaded as it's ever been, and they're going to ride the rails as long as they can.

As I keep saying, Trump is merely the metastasized, malignant symptom of the cancer in the body politic.  Until we excise the GOP, the disease will continue to spread.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

Team Trump is counting heavily on Jeff Sessions to take out all of the major players in the Mueller probe before they can reach Trump himself, and it's a race against the clock now to see who gets to the finish line first.  On one side, Sessions is under pressure to turn on his boss.

President Trump pressured Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reclaim control of the Russia investigation on at least four separate occasions, three times in person and once over the phone, according to sources familiar with the conversations.

Why it matters: The fact that there were multiple conversations shows that Trump's pressure on Sessions to stop recusing himself was heavier than previously known. The sustained pressure made several officials uncomfortable, because they viewed it as improper and worry that it could be politically and legally problematic.

What we're hearing: The New York Times this week reported on one of these conversations— which occurred at Mar-a-Lago in March 2017 — and said Robert Mueller is investigating it. But Trump’s other direct conversations with Sessions about the subject have not been previously reported.

A source with knowledge of the conversations said they occurred throughout last year, until fairly late in the year — not just in the short period after Sessions recused himself last March.

The details: Two sources familiar with the conversations told me the president never, to their knowledge, ordered Sessions to cancel his recusal from the Russia investigation. Instead, he asked Sessions whether he’d “thought about” un-recusing himself.

Trump told Sessions he’d be a “hero” to conservatives if he did the “right thing” and took back control over the Russia investigation, according to two sources with knowledge of their conversations.

Trump also told Sessions he’d be a hero if he investigated Hillary Clinton, according to one of the sources.

Trump also repeated the “hero” line separately to aides and privately mused about whether it would be possible to limit the scope of the Mueller investigation to avoid his business affairs.

The White House declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Sessions.

I've told you time and again that Donald Trump is motivated by petty revenge and wants Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton erased from history for daring to oppose him.  He wants them both in prison, he wants them both gone from the public eye, he wants them both eliminated from the field.  Sessions is the tool Trump promoted in order to make that happen.  Sessions isn't doing it directly, yet.  But the effort to dismantle the players in the Mueller probe is well underway.

Investigators from the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office recently interviewed former FBI director James B. Comey as part of a probe into whether his deputy, Andrew McCabe, broke the law by lying to federal agents — an indication the office is seriously considering whether McCabe should be charged with a crime, a person familiar with the matter said.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz accused McCabe in April of misleading investigators and Comey four times — three of them under oath — about authorizing a disclosure to the media. Horowitz referred the findings to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office to determine whether criminal charges are warranted.

Lying to federal investigators can carry a five-year prison sentence, though McCabe disputes that he intentionally misled anyone. Comey’s interview, while significant, does not indicate prosecutors have reached any conclusions, and people familiar with the process said it is not surprising given the allegations McCabe faces. A referral from the inspector general does not guarantee charges will be filed.

Michael R. Bromwich, McCabe’s lawyer, said in a statement: “A little more than a month ago, we confirmed that we had been advised that a criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney’s Office had been made regarding Mr. McCabe. We said at that time that we were confident that, unless there is inappropriate pressure from high levels of the Administration, the U.S. Attorney’s Office would conclude that it should decline to prosecute. Our view has not changed.”

He added that “leaks concerning specific investigative steps the US Attorney’s Office has allegedly taken are extremely disturbing.”

McCabe is the first to be hug out to dry for the Mueller probe.  The plan is to undermine the FBI and the Justice Department through the DoJ's Inspector General, the next installment of the IG office's report on the Clinton probe is due Monday. "Investigating the Investigators while the investigation is ongoing" isn't a new tactic, but it is a dangerous one.  Comey appears to be the next target for an IG criminal referral, and eventually the trail will lead to Rod Rosenstein and Mueller.

The question is can they get there before Mueller gets to Trump.  The race is on, and the country hangs in the balance.

Trump Trading Blows

So the Trump regime has basically declared TRADE WAR™ on everybody, Canada, Mexico, the EU, China, probably Lesotho and Uruguay while we're at it, and our (once) closest allies are now happy to follow suit.

President Trump Thursday imposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum from the European Union, Canada and Mexico, triggering immediate retaliation from U.S. allies against American businesses and farmers. 

The tariffs — 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum — take effect at midnight Thursday, marking a major escalation of the trade war between the U.S. and its top trading partners. 

“It’s more than highly unusual. It’s unprecedented to have gone after so many U.S. allies and trading partners, alienating them, and forcing them to retaliate,” said economist Douglas Irwin, author of a history of U.S. trade policy since 1763. “It’s hard to see how the U.S. is going to come out well from this whole exercise.” 

In response, the E.U. said it would impose duties “on a number of imports from the United States,” referring to a 10-page list of targets for retaliation it published in March, which included Kentucky bourbon and Harley-Davidson motorcycles. European leaders also vowed to proceed with a complaint to the World Trade Organization. 

“This is protectionism, pure and simple,” said Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission.

The Mexican government said it would levy import taxes on U.S. exports of pork bellies, apples, cranberries, grapes, certain cheeses, and various types of steel. And Canada levied a surtax on $16.6 billion of American steel, aluminum and other products, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pronounced Trump’s claim to be protecting national security an “affront” to Canadians who fought alongside American GIs from World War II to Afghanistan.

So US manufacturers are now scrambling on supply chain issues, because suddenly aluminum and steel just got considerably more expensive, and every cent of those costs are going to be passed along to US consumers.  The real issue though will be the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs lost as a direct result of this.

Donald Trump’s long-standing promise to use import tariffs to try to revive the US steel and aluminum industry was opposed by US economists, labor experts, and even the industries themselves—but the White House did it anyway. As a result, over 146,000 Americans will lose their jobs, economists estimate. 

Tariffs might protect some jobs in the US steel industry, but far fewer than the number of jobs that will be lost. That’s because steel manufacturers in the US employ far fewer people than industries that make things out of imported steel, like automakers. Just over 400,000 people in the US work in metal-producing jobs, economist Jed Kolko wrote in March. Four and a half million work in jobs that depend on metal. 

Employers in the other industries are going to have to pay more for materials, making their products costlier and less competitive. This will force them to cut jobs, economists and industry officials say. Hurting US manufacturers even further, the countries hit by the tariffs will also tax imported US products. 

Republicans in Congress called the tariffs “dumb” and “damaging” after the White House announcement, and a US retail industry trade group said they “will raise the cost of doing business for thousands of American companies, including retailers, and will stifle efforts to expand and create jobs.” 

The Trade Partnership, a economic consulting group, estimated in March that five US jobs will be lost for every one saved by the proposed tariffs, or about 146,000 jobs in total. That estimate assumed the US’s partners in the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, Mexico and Canada, would be exempted from the tariffs.

146,000 jobs lost will be bad enough, but since our largest steel and aluminum importing partner is, you know, Canada, expect those job losses to be much, much higher.

It's going to be bad, folks.  And Trump's petty transactional mindset is going to harm millions of Americans.  You're not going to want to be a red state Republican in about five months, guys.

StupidiNews!

• Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy has been forced out of power by a successful no-confidence vote, opposition Socialist Workers' Party leader Pedro Sanchez will form a new government.
• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is raising the possibility of military conflict with US forces in the region, warning that the regime will reclaim lost territory even if protected by US troops.
• Italy's new government was sworn in Friday after a compromise was agreed upon by Five-Star and League lawmakers, economist Giuseppe Conte will be Italy's new Prime Minister.
• New Jersey, California, and New York all announced plans to build electric vehicle charging stations with over a billion in combined infrastructure projects across the three states.
• The Trump regime EPA is finishing a roll-back of Obama-era auto emissions standards, freezing them at 2020 levels and eliminating tougher targets by California and other states.

Last Call For Television Rules The Nation

I'm old enough to remember when former VP Dan Quayle went after CBS sitcom Murphy Brown because the show "glorified" single motherhood and destroyed family values.  Meanwhile, a quarter-century later, Trump is now demanding TBS cancel late-night host Samantha Bee's show because she was mean to Ivanka.

The White House this morning blasted Samantha Bee and TBS over Bee having called White House staffer/ First Daughter Ivanka Trump a “feckless c**t” in a segment about President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.

“The language used by Samantha Bee last night is vile and vicious. The collective silence by the left and its media allies is appalling,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. 

“Her disgusting comments and show are not fit for broadcast, and executives at Time Warner and TBS must demonstrate that such explicit profanity about female members of this administration will not be condoned on its network.” 

TBS has not yet responded, but has pulled the video.

Though it had mostly been conservative critics blasting away at Bee this morning, CNN joined in this morning. 

“Let me just say, one parent to another – parent of a daughter – no, no, no!” CNN’s John King said of Bee’s remark, shortly after the White House issued its statement.
“Criticize the president’s daughter, criticize the policy. Some things just aren’t funny,” King insisted. 

“Roseanne’s racism is not funny. Samantha Bee using that word is not funny. Sarah Sanders just called it vile and vicious language. I could not agree more,” he continued.

Bee is falling all over herself trying to save her show, but it looks like hers is the head that has to roll in "exchange" for Roseanne Barr.

“I would like to sincerely apologize to Ivanka Trump and to my viewers for using an expletive on my show to describe her last night. It was inappropriate and inexcusable,” Bee said in a statement. “I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it.” 

In a subsequent statement, TBS wrote, “Samantha Bee has taken the right action in apologizing for the vile and inappropriate language she used about Ivanka Trump last night. Those words should not have been aired. It was our mistake too, and we regret it.”

Bee's language was inappropriate and yeah, she's probably going to get canned before the week is out, but I have to say that when the White House press secretary starts demanding TV shows are canceled and networks oblige, how long before the Trump Regime demands that news outlets that dare to run stories critical of Dear Leader have their plugs pulled too?  That's actual censorship by the government, folks.  If this does happen, and it will, we cross a huge line that we don't come back from.

And no, this is wholly different from Roseanne's racist rant on Twitter yesterday that got her show yanked, but that doesn't matter.  The High Church Of Both Sides Do It must be appeased. I hope Netflix picks her up after Sam Bee loses her show, she's very talented, funny, and informative.  If she had said this last week however, she would have been fine.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

The Powers The Be have decided that voters don't care about the Mueller probe or Trump's Russian collusion mess, and it's all about pocketbook issues in November.

Candidates barely mention it. TV ads don’t highlight it. Polls show Americans aren’t voting on it.

The Russia probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is barely registering in the campaigns by Democrats seeking to wrest control of Congress from Republicans in November -- even as the year-long investigation has consumed Washington and poses a threat to Donald Trump’s presidency.

Over the last year, the probe into possible coordination between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia has extracted five guilty pleas and 17 indictments, and has involved some of the president’s senior advisers, personal lawyer and family members. It’s become a focal point of partisan fighting in Congress and is a frequent topic of the president’s tweets.

Yet six months before elections for every House seat and a third of the Senate, Democrats have concluded the topic lands on deaf ears.

“I don’t think it’s a big issue for voters,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democrats’ election arm that’s working to take control of the chamber from the GOP. 

He said Thursday at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast that it’s “important for the country” that the investigation continue until it uncovers the truth of the president’s role in any collusion. But he said voters are more attentive to pocketbook issues such as reducing health-care costs, confronting China over its trade practices and ending tax breaks for hedge-fund managers. 

Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said at a May 16 gathering of progressives in Washington that voters are “not asking me about Russian bots; they’re asking me about soybean exports.” 

In recent primaries -- including those in Georgia, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Indiana -- Democrats and Republicans seldom mentioned Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. 

“It’s a non-issue here in Indiana. I don’t think voters care one bit about it,” said Kyle Hupfer, the chairman of the Indiana GOP. “I never heard it come up one time.” 

As November elections draw closer, the Russia issue could take on more prominence, especially if there are significant developments in the investigation. But there’s no sign of that happening yet as many candidates focus on primary races.

Core Democratic voters are unified in disdain for the president and in support of the special counsel’s investigation. But the probe hasn’t dented Trump’s high popularity among Republicans. Polls show four in five GOP-leaning voters nationally approve of his job performance.

While I gladly admit that Democrats should be running on health care, gas prices, and pocketbook issues (and how the GOP has failed America repeatedly on the economy) it's interesting to note that all voters cared about in 2016 was Clinton's emails, and Trump's massive wrongdoing "barely registers a blip" among voters now.

There's a problem with that, and it directly involves our lousy media living in perpetual fear of losing access to Trump when it seems every White House staffer with a grudge is leaking freely to everyone they can find these days because of the crumbling, chaotic mess that is the Trump regime, but I don't buy that voters don't care.

Republican voters don't care, sure.  But if Mueller moves this summer like I expect with more indictments and grand juries, I'm betting people will suddenly start paying attention again.

And you know who cares about Mueller and the Russia probe?

Donald Trump won't shut up about it and has wanted control of it since it began.

By the time Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort for dinner one Saturday evening in March 2017, he had been receiving the presidential silent treatment for two days. Mr. Sessions had flown to Florida because Mr. Trump was refusing to take his calls about a pressing decision on his travel ban.

When they met, Mr. Trump was ready to talk — but not about the travel ban. His grievance was with Mr. Sessions: The president objected to his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Mr. Trump, who had told aides that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry, berated Mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate request.

Mr. Sessions refused.

The confrontation, which has not been previously reported, is being investigated by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, as are the president’s public and private attacks on Mr. Sessions and efforts to get him to resign. Mr. Trump dwelled on the recusal for months, according to confidants and current and former administration officials who described his behavior toward the attorney general.

The special counsel’s interest demonstrates Mr. Sessions’s overlooked role as a key witness in the investigation into whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct the inquiry itself. It also suggests that the obstruction investigation is broader than it is widely understood to be — encompassing not only the president’s interactions with and firing of the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, but also his relationship with Mr. Sessions.

Investigators have pressed current and former White House officials about Mr. Trump’s treatment of Mr. Sessions and whether they believe the president was trying to impede the Russia investigation by pressuring him. The attorney general was also interviewed at length by Mr. Mueller’s investigators in January. And of the four dozen or so questions Mr. Mueller wants to ask Mr. Trump, eight relate to Mr. Sessions. Among them: What efforts did you make to try to get him to reverse his recusal?

The president’s lead lawyer in the case, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said that if Mr. Trump agreed to answer the special counsel’s questions — an interview is the subject of continuing negotiations — he should not be forced to discuss his private deliberations with senior administration officials. Talking about the attorney general, Mr. Giuliani argued, would set a bad precedent for future presidents.

Stay tuned.

Foot-Brawl Game, Or, Flag On The Play

Former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has taken the NFL to court over his very strong case that he was blackballed over his national anthem protests after 2016, and after depositions by NFL owners in the case, it seems that not only does Kaep have a winnable case, he may help bring down Donald Trump as well.

The first snippets of testimony have emerged from the depositions taken in the Colin Kaepernick collusion grievance. And it’s becoming even more obvious that the NFL changed its anthem policy at the direct behest of the President. 

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, while testifying in the Kaepernick collusion grievance, shared the details of a phone call with the President.

“This is a very winning, strong issue for me,” the President told Jones, according to Andrew Beaton of the Wall Street Journal. “Tell everybody, you can’t win this one. This one lifts me.” 

The President was right. There was no way to win. Even by giving in. 

Per Beaton, the NFL declined comment on the matter, citing the confidentiality that applies to the grievance proceedings. A White House official did not dispute the testimony.

And as Kaep's lawyer pointed out last week, the Oval Office interfering in directly in business personnel decisions is a legal no-no.

As noted on Thursday by LawAndCrime.com, attorney Mark Geragos suggested in a Thursday tweet that efforts of the top two members of the executive branch to pressure the NFL to force players to stand for the anthem potentially run afoul of Title 18, Section 227 of the United States Code. A violation of 18 U.S.C. 227 arises if the President and/or the Vice President intended “to influence, solely on the basis of partisan political affiliation, an employment decision or employment practice of any private entity” and “influence[d], or offers or threatens to influence, the official act of another.”

A clear example of a prohibited action under 18 U.S.C. 227 would arise if, for example, the President pressures a news outlet to fire a reporter who asks too many tough questions, under threat of revoking access. While more murky as it relates to the NFL, it seems fairly clear that the President and/or the Vice President have pressured (successfully) the NFL to remove the pre-existing right of its players to protest during the national anthem. 

It feels too simple to be applicable, but the language is as plain as it can be. And the punishment feels too harsh, with imprisonment of up to 15 years and potential disqualification from holding office. 

But the law contains a bright line that potentially may have been crossed. The NFL is a private employer. The President and/or the Vice President successfully pressured the NFL to change its anthem policy to remove the right of players of protest during the anthem, which amounts to an employment practice.

In other words, Jerry Jones testifying that Donald Trump asked him and the other NFL owners to change their national anthem policy for players specifically because it helped Trump politically is kind of a big, big deal.

I'm betting I'm not the only person who noticed, either.

StupidiNews!

• US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to try to lay the groundwork for a possible summit in two weeks with North Korea, while on-again, off-again diplomacy continues.
• US bank regulators are looking at rolling back or even eliminating the Volcker Rule, put into place after the 2008 financial crisis to prevent banks from making risky investments.
• The Trump regime's trade war with Europe is escalating as the US is expected to announce steep new tariffs on steel and aluminum on all EU countries this week.
• Europe's largest investment firm is noting that institutional investment clients are making a major shift on climate change, moving away from fossil fuel companies and towards green investments.
• San Francisco is taking ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft to court after a major California state supreme court ruling on whether drivers are contractors or employees entitled to full benefits.