Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Oregon GOP Edition

Meanwhile in Oregon, Republicans in the state Senate have apparently walked out of the state legislature and are apparently threatening an armed insurrection along with domestic terrorist white supremacist militia groups in what could be a bloody standoff with state police.

Tensions were already smoldering in the Oregon Senate Wednesday, when Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, poured gasoline on the situation, suggesting he would shoot and potentially kill any state trooper sent to haul him unwillingly back to the Capitol. 

After Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. said Tuesday that his caucus was “prepared to take actions” to prevent passage of a major climate change bill, Gov. Brown announced on Wednesday that she was ready to answer Republican stonewalling by calling lawmakers back for a special session. 

Brown hinted that she would be willing to send state troopers to round up Republicans if they walk out in the final days of the regular legislative session, saying in a statement that she is “in close communication with Oregon State Police.” That’s an option Democratic senators and the governor did not use earlier this year, when Senate Republicans first brought the Senate to a standstill by walking out and preventing the necessary quorum. 

The governor’s hint that she would consider sending troopers in the event of a second walkout triggered an aggressive response from Boquist, which was captured by a KGW news team at the Capitol. 

“This is what I told the superintendent,” Boquist said, referring to OSP Superintendent Travis Hampton. “Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It’s just that simple.”

And no, this isn't just some goober yelling "SPARTA!" before getting ganked at Thermopylae,  Social media accounts of armed militia groups in the state like the Three Percenters are saying they will "provide security" for Republican state senators who as of Thursday had fled the state completely and gone into hiding.

Oregon state police are downplaying the incident.

The Oregon State Police says its officers intend to retrieve the missing senators "in a peaceful, gentle, and process-supporting way." 

The official statement offers few details on what tactics troopers will use to fulfill the governor's order. "She has now given a lawful directive which OSP is fully committed to executing," the statement says. "OSP is utilizing established relationships to have polite communication with these Senators. While we obviously have many tools at our disposal, patience and communication is and always will be our first, and preferred, option."

This could get ugly, and fast.  To recap, Oregon Republicans are willing to resort to deadly, lethal force by working with domestic terrorism groups in order to try to nullify the Oregon state legislature.

These assholes are committing seditious conspiracy as elected lawmakers.

Stay tuned.

The Drums Of War Just Got Very Loud

Last night we almost went to war with Iran.

President Trump approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for downing an American surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching them on Thursday night after a day of escalating tensions. 

As late as 7 p.m. Thursday, military and diplomatic officials were expecting a strike, after intense discussions and debate at the White House among the president’s top national security officials and congressional leaders, according to multiple senior administration officials involved in or briefed on the deliberations.

Officials said the president had initially approved attacks on a handful of Iranian targets, like radar and missile batteries.

The operation was underway in its early stages when it was called off, a senior administration official said. Planes were in the air and ships were in position, but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down, the official said.

The abrupt reversal put a halt to what would have been the president’s third military action against targets in the Middle East. Mr. Trump had struck twice at targets in Syria, in 2017 and 2018.

It was not clear whether Mr. Trump simply changed his mind on the strikes or whether the administration altered course because of logistics or strategy. It was also not clear whether the attacks might still go forward.
Asked about the plans for a strike and the decision to hold back, the White House declined to comment, as did Pentagon officials. No government officials asked The New York Times to withhold the article.

Two scenarios on this:  Scenario One, this is Trump's super ham-fisted attempt at screaming "Hold me back" while motioning at his guys to do so before taking a swing at an MMA fighter at a bar. Occam's razor, and we'll be at war the next time Iran so much as breaks wind.

Scenario Two however makes a lot more sense.

Amid increased tensions between Iran and the U.S., Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the U.S. that a military conflict with Iran would be “catastrophe” and said that Iran was observing its commitments under the Iran nuclear deal.

Speaking during his annual phone-in event, Putin said that he was concerned by the shooting down of an American drone by Iran this week and worried that the U.S. had no ruled out using military force against Tehran in the ongoing crisis between the two countries.

“I will say it straight, it would be a catastrophe, at a minimum for the region,” Putin said, adding it could lead to a new mass exodus of refugees.

What is far more likely is that as with Venezuela, Trump was talked into this but the Russians, having compromised the hell out of us, responded immediately on the hotline and Trump's boss Vlad told him no as this was going down, and in order to save face, Trump concocted this pullback story and leaked it to the press so he can be the big hero.

Our incoherent and dangerous foreign policy that very nearly started a shooting war with Iran was short-circuited last night because the one goddamn person Trump listens to is one of the worst autocratic crooks on Earth, and it's bad for business when one of his client states is bombing another.

That's it.  That's the answer to the mystery of the "sudden pullback".

But there's one more mystery...the leaks for this story landed quickly enough and were confirmed quickly enough that the NY Times dropped this story last night, maybe a few hours after this was all called off.

Did Trump leak this himself all in order to save face after Putin's warning, or did Bolton leak all this in order to force Trump's hand?  Or did somebody else leak this, like intelligence agencies? Or maybe it was Russia?

Or maybe it was more than one of these, which is why it got confirmed and published so quickly.

That's just as much the story as Trump's "pullback".

We deserve to know both stories.

StupidiNews!

• GOP congressional leaders are calling for a "measured" military response to the downing of a US drone by Iran as Congress was briefed Thursday by the State Department on the attack.
• Senate Republicans are begging former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to run for his old Senate seat as former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore has thrown his hat into the ring.
• Demonstrators in Hong Kong took to the streets again on Friday as a deadline to scrap an extradition bill to China expired and Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam remains in power.
• The Senate has voted to block US an arms sale package to Saudi Arabia as the Trump regime vows it will veto the measure and proceed with the military transaction.
• Only about a quarter of Americans say they are interested in NASA missions to the moon or Mars, two-thirds say the space agency should concentrate on scanning for possible asteroids hitting Earth.

Last Call For The Road To GIlead, Con't

A three-judge panel at the 9th Circuit ruled that the Trump regime can begin cutting Title X family planning funding while Planned Parenthood's lawsuit against the government plays out, a sign that the appellate court sees the Trump regime prevailing in its quest to harm women.

A federal appeals court this morning said the Trump administration's family planning rules can take effect nationwide while several lawsuits play out, delivering a major blow to Planned Parenthood and states challenging the overhaul.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Trump administration's request to lift national injunctions ordered by lower federal courts in Oregon and Washington state, as well as a statewide injunction in California.

A panel of three judges, all appointed by previous Republican presidents, said the administration will likely prevail in the legal battle over the Title X family planning program since the Supreme Court held up similar Reagan-era rules almost 30 years ago, though they were reversed by the Clinton administration before taking effect.

"Absent a stay, HHS will be forced to allow taxpayer dollars to be spent in a manner that it has concluded violates the law, as well as the Government’s important policy interest in ensuring that taxpayer dollars do not go to fund or subsidize abortions," the judges wrote in a 3-0 opinion.

Barring further court orders, the Trump administration can enforce a rule finalized this spring that strips federal Title X funding from any clinic that provides abortions or abortion referrals. The administration and anti-abortion movement have celebrated the rules for blocking tens of millions of federal dollars to Planned Parenthood, which serves a large portion of the 4 million low-income patients receiving family planning and health services through the program.

Provider groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have called this a "gag rule" and warned that it will interfere with sensitive conversations between doctors and patients.

For the first time in the Title X program's decades-long history, the new rules also allow funding to faith-based clinics opposing abortion and contraception and to promote "natural" family planning methods, including abstinence. 

The plan to criminalize safe abortion procedures (or to effectively eliminate access to them) and to then start pulling funding for contraception and education for low-income women is being done on purpose, to make women having sexual independence so costly that only wealthy white women can afford it.

For the rest of America, (and for migrants too, let's not forget the Trump regime is literally putting migrant women in camps and taking their kids from them at this point) the goal is to trap them in the underclass.  Gotta have that private prison pipeline, you know.

And the Road to Gilead continues.

Good Ol' Boys Club, Con't

It wouldn't be Kentucky politics unless Jerry Lundergan was in trouble with the Feds, and even in the era of Democrats coming under assault by Bill Barr's Justice Department, Lundergan has been dirty for decades.

Federal prosecutors want to present evidence that Kentucky Democratic Party stalwart Jerry Lundergan funneled corporate contributions to his daughter, Alison Lundergan Grimes, in her 2011 and 2015 races for Kentucky secretary of state as they try to prove he illegally did the same thing in her 2014 U.S. Senate bid.
However, Lundergan has not been charged in connection with alleged illegal contributions in the state races, and his attorneys have asked a judge to bar prosecutors from giving jurors evidence about them.

The new information about Lundergan allegedly making improper corporate contributions to Grimes’ two state campaigns was included in a document filed Tuesday by federal prosecutors.

The document was to provide notice that prosecutors intend to use the information against Lundergan and Dale C. Emmons, a Democratic political consultant, if a judge lets them.

The notice alleged that Lundergan, through companies he owns, spent a total of $325,602 for work on such things as campaign mailers to benefit Grimes’ 2011 and 2015 races. More than $260,000 of that total went to a person identified in the notice only as Person C.

Information in a separate defense motion indicates Person C is Jonathan Hurst, a Democratic political consultant who helped Grimes in her state races and managed her unsuccessful 2014 bid to unseat Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Lundergan’s payments to Hurst included $170,849 in October 2011 for a campaign mailing he ordered and paid for to help Grimes, according to the prosecution motion.

Lundergan paid Hurst and Emmons through companies he owned such as S.R. Holdings Co., the notice said. That is the same company Lundergan allegedly used to make contributions to Grimes’ 2014 race.

The motion prosecutors filed Tuesday also did not identify Grimes as the candidate Lundergan was helping, but other court filings make clear she is the Candidate A referred to in the case.

The motion said Lundergan made the payments during times when Emmons was helping Grimes’ campaign.

Prosecutors said they need to tell jurors about the 2011 and 2015 payments to show Lundergan’s intent to break the law by making corporate contributions to Grimes’ campaign in 2014 without reimbursement from the campaign.

“This evidence is relevant to prove the defendants’ intent, plan, preparation, knowledge, and absence of mistake concerning the crimes charged in the indictment,” the motion said. “Evidence of Lundergan’s prior conduct will establish that he knew and intended to use these same methods to contribute corporate money to Candidate A’s 2013-2014 federal campaign, and that Emmons knew and intended to facilitate these contributions by receiving the corporate payments.”

This is a major reason why Kentucky Dems fail, it's always the Beshear family baggage, the Lundergan family baggage, or both.  Meanwhile Mitch McConnell remains the most unpopular Senator in the country and nobody can beat him here.

The Drums of War, Number 18 Edition

We're witnessing the run up to the Iraq War being used to get us into a shooting war with Iran, and 18 years after 9/11 the time frame isn't 18 months like it was in 2001-2003 but more like 18 weeks.

Administration officials are briefing Congress on what they say are ties between Iran and Al Qaeda, prompting skeptical reactions and concern on Capitol Hill that the White House could invoke the war authorization passed in 2001 as legal cover for military action against Tehran.

As tensions between the United States and Iran have surged, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Pentagon officials have told members of Congress and aides in recent weeks about what they say is a pattern of ties between Iran and the terrorist group going back to after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, officials said.

They have stopped short of telling lawmakers or aides in large group settings that the 2001 authorization for the use of military force from Congress, which permits the United States to wage war on Al Qaeda and its allies or offshoots, would allow the Trump administration to go to war with Iran. President Trump has said he does not want a war, but he ordered 2,500 additional troops to the region in the last month in response to what American officials said was a heightened threat.

Statements tying Iran and Al Qaeda by Mr. Pompeo and other officials point to the potential for the administration to justify invoking the 2001 authorization, some lawmakers say. And when asked in recent weeks by lawmakers and journalists whether the administration would use the 2001 authorization, Mr. Pompeo has deflected the questions.

“They are looking to bootstrap an argument to allow the president to do what he likes without coming to Congress, and they feel the 2001 authorization will allow them to go to war with Iran,” said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia.

Mr. Kaine, a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, declined to discuss details of classified briefings, but said senior administration officials had “talked about Iran providing safe haven to Al Qaeda.”

Mr. Pompeo, a West Point graduate and former C.I.A. director, visited United States Central Command in Florida on Tuesday to talk about Iran with military commanders as acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan announced his resignation.

In a classified briefing that Mr. Pompeo gave on May 21 with Pentagon officials to the full House, “he discussed the relationship between Iran and Al Qaeda,” said Representative Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan.

She said Mr. Pompeo’s talk of that relationship in both public and private settings and his refusal to answer questions on a potential use of the 2001 authorization “raises the specter that to him, the relationship between Iran and Al Qaeda gives the administration that authority.”

Using the 2001 AUMF to justify military force in 2019 is insane, and yet that's exactly where we are headed.

The Trump administration and its domestic political allies are laying the groundwork for a possible confrontation with Iran without the explicit consent of Congress — a public relations campaign that was already well underway before top officials accused the Islamic Republic of attacking a pair of oil tankers last week in the Gulf of Oman.

Over the past few months, senior Trump aides have made the case in public and private that the administration already has the legal authority to take military action against Iran, citing a law nearly two decades old that was originally intended to authorize the war in Afghanistan.

In the latest sign of escalating tensions, national security adviser John Bolton warned Iran in an interview conducted last week and published Monday, “They would be making a big mistake if they doubted the president's resolve on this.” Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan announced on Monday evening that the U.S. was deploying an additional 1,000 troops to the region for “defensive purposes.” And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo jetted to Tampa, Fla., home of Central Command, on Monday evening to huddle with military officials to discuss “regional security concerns and ongoing operations,” according to a State Department spokeswoman.

The developments came as Iran announced it was on course to violate a core element of its nuclear deal with major world powers, exceeding the amount of enriched uranium allowed under the agreement in 10 days unless European nations intervened to blunt the economic pain of American sanctions. And they came as U.S. officials promoted video footage and images showing what they say were Iranian forces planting explosive devices on commercial oil tankers.

All it will take is one "Remember the Maine!" moment with an "Iranian mine" crippling a US naval ship near the Strait of Hormuz, and it's on. It might not even take that much.

War with Iran is Trump's 2020 reelection platform.

StupidiNews!

• Both Philadelphia and St. Louis have taken dozens of police officers off duty after identifying their racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic social media posts exposed lat week.
• Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is resisting the Trump regime's contention that he can be removed from the nation's central bank at will as Trump is blaming the Fed for economic woes.
• The Trump regime is threatening sharp cuts in H1-B work visas as India is demanding that US companies in the country store all data locally in order to protect Delhi's economic interests.
• New Zealand police are opening the country's assault weapon buyback program as the country is set to ban many types of firearms in the wake of the recent deadly Christchurch mosque massacre.
• The Trump EPA is rolling out its plan to replace Obama-era power plant emissions rules, giving energy companies far more leeway to keep polluting coal, gas, and oil plants online for decades.

Last Call For Russian To Judgment, Hope Less Edition

As expected, today's closed-door testimony before the House Judiciary Committee by former Trump regime adviser Hope Hicks was a bust as she refused to answer questions about her time at the White House, claiming immunity via executive privilege.

House Democrats erupted Wednesday at what they said was the White House’s repeated interference in their interview with Hope Hicks, a longtime confidante of President Donald Trump who was a central witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s obstruction of justice investigation.

Several House Judiciary Committee members exiting the closed-door interview said a White House lawyer repeatedly claimed Hicks had blanket immunity from discussing her time in the White House. They said she wouldn’t answer questions as basic as where she sat in the West Wing or whether she told the truth to Mueller.

“We’re watching obstruction of justice in action,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.).

“It’s a farce,” added Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who said Hicks at one point tried to answer a question about an episode involving former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski only to be cut off by the White House counsel.

“She made clear she wouldn’t answer a single question about her time unless the White House counsel told her it was okay,” an exasperated Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) said in an interview. “She couldn’t even characterize her testimony to the special counsel.”

Deutch added that the White House was not formally asserting executive privilege to block Hicks from answering certain questions; rather, the lawyer was referring to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone’s Tuesday letter claiming that Hicks was “absolutely immune” from discussing her tenure in the Trump administration.

Lieu said the White House lawyers were “making crap up” to block Hicks from testifying. He said she answered some questions about her time on the Trump campaign that provided new information, but he declined to characterize her comments.

Jayapal said lawyers even objected to Hicks discussing episodes that occurred after she left the White House — and that Hicks went along with it.

“She is making a choice to follow along with all the claims of absolute immunity,” Jayapal said, adding, “Basically, she can say her name.”

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) took a more forgiving tone, saying Hicks did answer some questions and said a transcript of her testimony released in the next few days would reveal what she said. 

My guess will be it's not much, but what did Jerry Nadler and the Democrats on the committee expect?  Remember that "absolute immunity" means whatever at least five Supreme Court justices decide it means.

On the other side, Nancy Pelosi outright said today that censure of Trump is not going to happen.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially shut the door on censuring President Donald Trump Wednesday but plans to view a minimally redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report this week, her latest attempt to juggle the competing impeachment factions within her caucus.

Pelosi initially rejected an offer from Attorney General William Barr in April to view the less-redacted report, rebuffing Barr’s demands that only top congressional leaders have that access. The speaker’s course reversal on the report comes days after key House panels secured agreements to give more lawmakers access to the evidence underpinning the special counsel’s conclusions.

“We will be having access to a less redacted version of the Mueller report,” Pelosi said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Wednesday morning. “I accepted that because I’m afraid — I really don’t trust the attorney general of the United States.”

Pelosi told reporters she has made the request with the Department of Justice to view the report. A Democratic aide later confirmed that is expected to happen this week.

The California Democrat remained firm in her opposition to opening an impeachment inquiry into Trump right now but quashed the notion of censure — a less severe reprimand for public officials. Pelosi’s censure comments are significant because she is leaving the House with one option if they want to punish Trump — impeachment.

“I think censure is just a way out. If you want to go, you gotta go,” she said. “If the goods are there, you must impeach. Censure is nice, but it is not commensurate with the violations of the Constitution should we decide that’s the way to go.”

So, impeachment or nothing.

Your guess as to which one happens.

The Juneteenth Papers

It's no accident that today's House hearings on reparations came today, on Juneteenth. Ta-Nehesi Coates responded in today's hearing to Mitch McConnell's dismissal of reparations yesterday, and it was amazing.

This rebuttal proffers a strange theory of governance: That American accounts are somehow bound by the lifetime of its generations. But well into this century, the United States was still paying out pensions to the heirs of Civil War soldiers. We honor treaties that date back some 200 years, despite no one being alive who signed those treaties. Many of us would love to be taxed for the things we are solely and individually responsible for, but we are American citizens and thus bound to a collective enterprise that extends beyond our individual and personal reach. It would seem ridiculous to dispute invocations of the Founders, or the Greatest Generation, on the basis of the lack of membership of either group. We recognize our lineage as a generational trust, as inheritance, and the real dilemma posed by generations is just that: a dilemma of inheritance.

It is impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery. As historian Ed Baptist has written, enslavement “shaped every crucial aspect of the economy and politics of America,” so that by 1836, more than 600 million, or more than half of the economic activity in the United States, derived directly or indirectly from the cotton produced by the million-odd slaves. By the time the enslaved were emancipated, they comprised the largest single asset in America: 3 billion in 1860 dollars, more than all the other assets in the country combined. The method of cultivating this asset was neither gentle cajoling, nor persuasion, but torture, rape, and child trafficking. Enslavement reigned for 250 years on these shores. When it ended, this country could have extended its hallowed principles: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all regardless of color. But America had other principles in mind. And so for a century after the Civil War, black people were subjected to a relentless campaign of terror. A campaign that extended well into the lifetime of Majority Leader McConnell.

It is tempting to divorce this modern campaign of terror, of plunder, from enslavement. But the logic of enslavement, of white supremacy respects no such borders. And the God of bondage was lustful and begat many heirs, coup d’etats and convict leasing; vagrancy laws and debt peonage; redlining and racist G.I. bills; poll taxes and state-sponsored terrorism. We grant that Mr. McConnell was not alive for Appomattox. But he was alive for the electrocution of George Stinney. He was alive for the blinding of Isaac Woodard. He was alive to witness kleptocracy in his native Alabama, and a regime premised on electoral theft. Majority Leader McConnell cited Civil Rights legislation yesterday, as well he should, because he was alive to witness the harassment, jailing, and betrayal of those responsible for that legislation by a government sworn to protect them. He was alive for the redlining of Chicago, and the looting of black homeowners of some $4 billion. Victims of that plunder are very much alive today. I am sure they’d love a word with the Majority Leader. What they know, what this committee must know, is that while emancipation dead-bolted the door against the bandits of America, Jim Crow wedged the windows wide open. And that is the thing about Sen. McConnell’s “something”: it was 150 years ago and it was right now. The typical black family in this country has one-tenth the wealth of the typical white family. Black women die in childbirth at four times the rate of white women, and there is of course the shame of this land of the free boasting the largest prison population on the planet, of which the descendants of the enslaved make up the largest share.

The matter of reparations is one of making amends and direct redress, but it is also a question of citizenship. In H.R. 40, this body has a chance to both make good on its 2009 apology for enslavement, and reject fair-weather patriotism. To say that a nation is both its credits and its debts. That if Thomas Jefferson matters, so does Sally Hemings. That if D-Day matters, so does black Wall Street. That if Valley Forge matters, so does Fort Pillow. Because the question really is, not whether we will be tied to the “somethings” of our past, but whether we are courageous enough to be tied to the whole of them.

As I keep saying, the white supremacy of the Trump regime is merely America returning to form.  It's becoming more and more obvious that the Civil Rights era of the last 50 years was not the direction of America's bright future, but an aberration diverting from America's dark past, and Donald Trump is the figurehead of the violent reversion to the mean.

The Drums Of War, Con't

As legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager would say, Trump's Pentagon just "augured into the ground" and is about to take America with it.

Patrick Shanahan withdrew his nomination to become the next secretary of defense, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Tuesday, leaving the Pentagon without a permanent head for the foreseeable future. 

The withdrawal of the former Boeing executive’s nomination came on the heels of multiple media reports Tuesday chronicling a history of domestic violence and assault in the Shanahan family. According to the Washington Post, Shanahan’s son William assaulted his mother, Kimberley, with a baseball bat in 2011. In 2010, police in Seattle arrested Kimberley after a violent confrontation between her and Shanahan, her then-husband, according to USA Today. They subsequently divorced. 

The FBI has been investigating the domestic violence issues as part of its background investigation into the nominee, and that has delayed Shanahan’s nomination process. Shanahan was originally supposed to go before the Senate for his confirmation hearing on Tuesday. It is not clear why these issues did not come up during his confirmation process to be deputy secretary of defense in 2017. 

In a statement on Tuesday, Shanahan said he decided to withdraw his name from consideration for the top Pentagon job because “my continuing in the confirmation process would force my three children to relive a traumatic chapter in our family’s life and reopen wounds we have worked years to heal. Ultimately, their safety and well-being is my highest priority.” 

“After having been confirmed for Deputy Secretary less than two years ago, it is unfortunate that a painful and deeply personal family situation from long ago is being dredged up and painted in an incomplete and therefore misleading way in the course of this process,” Shanahan said. “I would welcome the opportunity to be Secretary of Defense, but not at the expense of being a good father.” 

Shanahan has served as acting defense secretary since his predecessor, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, resigned in December 2018. Shanahan’s nearly six months in office is the longest period in U.S. history in which the Pentagon has gone without a permanent chief. 

The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry, urged the president to fill the top post at the Pentagon “in a matter of weeks, not months.” 

“The uncertainty surrounding this vacant office encourages our enemies and unsettles our allies,” he said in a statement. 

But it does not look like the top Pentagon job will be filled anytime soon. Trump left Shanahan hanging for months before he announced his intent to name him to the permanent position; any new nominee will still have to be subjected to an extensive background check, noted Byron Callan, an analyst with Capital Alpha. Meanwhile, the Senate will break for recess in August. A new nominee will likely have to wait until the fall for confirmation, at the earliest, Callan said. 

If Esper is the nominee, Callan speculated, he will likely be confirmed. But under the Vacancies Act, once nominated, Esper would have to step aside as acting until confirmed, noted Arnold Punaro, a former staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Vacancies Act did not apply to Shanahan, as he was already the deputy secretary of defense. 

The withdrawal of Shanahan’s nomination leaves the Pentagon without Senate-confirmed leadership at a time when the Defense Department is confronting a serious crisis. This week, the Pentagon announced it would deploy an additional 1,000 troops to the Middle East amid escalating tensions with Iran after Trump administration officials accused Tehran of masterminding an attack on two oil tankers.

With Shanahan out, Army Secretary Mark Esper, a former Army infantry officer and lobbyist for the defense firm Raytheon, will take over as acting secretary of defense, Trump wrote on Twitter.

The domestic violence story is the official reason for his complete departure from the Pentagon. By itself, it is breathtaking malfeasance.  This is a man who should not be in government at all, but again, nobody cared about the family's staggering history until Tuesday morning.

But he already had gotten Senate confirmation as Deputy Secretary of Defense in 2017, meaning he had already been through a background check, meaning this was all known to the White House.  He was the nominee and the process was going forward anyway.  Shanahan was all set for his Senate confirmation hearings this week.

And then something went horribly wrong. The plug was pulled.  Shanahan went to the press Monday and the story came out Tuesday.

My theory is that the unofficial reason this is happening is that Shanahan, like Mattis before him, wouldn't carry water for military action against Iran.  Certainly the generals and admirals and intelligence agencies laid out what a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities or against the Iranian navy would entail, and it would be nothing short of disaster.

Understand that John Bolton's mustache is now running our military as well as our foreign intel apparatus. Shanahan was the last major holdout.  2019 so far has been a huge purge of Trump cabinet members that weren't with the new autocracy.  The same day Shanahan goes, Bolton makes his move.

Staff changes are coming to the National Security Council this summer as national security adviser John Bolton elevates some of the senior officials he brought on and bids farewell to some of the people he inherited from his predecessor. 

The NSC’s top official dealing with Russia, Fiona Hill, will return to the Brookings Institution, two administration officials told me. She will be replaced by Tim Morrison, who currently serves as NSC senior director for weapons of mass destruction and nonproliferation-related issues. Anthony Ruggiero, who joined the NSC last year to work on Asia, will take the helm of the WMD bureau as senior director. 

Rear Adm. Doug Fears, homeland security and counter-terrorism adviser on the NSC staff, will leave the White House soon as well and return to the Coast Guard. His successor will be Coast Guard Rear Adm. Peter Brown, who currently commands the Seventh Coast Guard in Miami. This is the job once held by Tom Bossert, but the post was downgraded and folded into the NSC when Bolton came on. 

The NSC’s senior director for Africa, Cyril Sartor, will also leave the White House and return to his home agency, which has been publicly identified as the CIA. Elizabeth Erin Walsh, the current NSC senior director for international organizations and alliances, will move over to lead the NSC’s Africa team. Walsh served during the presidential transition in charge of State Department personnel appointments, where she worked closely with Bolton’s former deputy Mira Ricardel. Ricardel later was pushed out by Melania Trump’s press secretary. Jason Chao will be acting senior director of the international organizations and alliances at the NSC. 

Bolton has slowly but surely changed the makeup of the NSC staff and tightened its structure since assuming office. He has replaced senior staff gradually as their details expire, and he now wants his senior team in place to establish stability in the run-up to the 2020 election, officials said. 

“This is part of Bolton’s effort to bring his own people on and promote them up,” said one administration official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record. "He’s putting his people in places where they can execute the president’s agenda.”

This is happening as Shanahan is being dismissed from the Pentagon, as Trump is kicking off his 2020 reelection campaign, as tensions with Iran are ripe for a catastrophic scenario, and as Trump is purging his internal pollsters for the crime of revealing that Trump is well underwater right now is almost every battleground state.

When we look back on this week in history and the reporting is written and published, I am nearly certain that we will find out (much too late of course) that this was the week where Trump and Bolton's facial hair made the decision to attack Iran.

What that means for America and the world, I can only speculate.  It will not be good.  It will most likely be a disaster of epic proportions.  Between this and Trump's threat of mass deportations starting next week, we know what his 2020 reelection platform is.

War and ethnic cleansing.

StupidiNews!

• DEA officials say more than 16 tons of cocaine were seized from a container ship at the port of Philadelphia on Tuesday in the largest bust in state history, worth more than $1 billion.
• United Nations diplomats are worried that the Trump regime may be planning a military strike against an Iranian nuclear facility in retaliation for attacks on oil tankers earlier this month.
• The US and China are restarting stalled trade talks ahead of this year's G20 summit in Japan later this month, trade analysts are hopeful that a full-scale trade war can still be averted.
• Donald Trump reportedly asked for options to remove Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell earlier this year after the Fed refused to cut interest rates like Trump wanted.
• Facebook says it will spin off a new company called Calibra to handle its cryptocurrency payment systems as the social media giant plans a partnership with Visa, Mastercard and others.

Last Call For No Place Like Home, Con't

Even Google realizes that investing in affordable housing in the Bay Area is a necessity or workers will be completely priced out of their campus.

Google is committing $1 billion to try to provide more affordable housing in the San Francisco Bay Area, where big tech firms have been blamed for putting home prices out of reach for anyone without a rich stock-option plan. Google says the money should result in 20,000 new homes added to the local market, over 10 years.

"We hope this plays a role in addressing the chronic shortage of affordable housing options for long-time middle and low income residents," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement unveiling the plan Tuesday.

As Google and other big tech companies have thrived, many people have struggled to find housing in the region or have been forced into lengthy commutes — 90 miles in at least one case.

People earning $100,000 can afford to live in only 28 percent of the Bay Area's neighborhoods, member station KQED reported last month, based on a review of housing costs and median rent rates. And a study published in April found that the Bay Area had the third-largest population of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S.

Google's announcement comes one week after Mountain View's city council postponed a move to ban RVs from parking overnight on the city's streets — a phenomenon that made headlines last month when reports emerged that hundreds of people were living in RVs to escape high rents.

As Bloomberg reported in May, RVs and vans line the streets of some neighborhoods. Some of the people who live in them have been in the area for decades; others are lower-paid Google workers who can't afford to pay the rent on an apartment close to their jobs.

The problem is nobody already living in Silly Valley wants affordable housing, especially multi-family housing, because that means those people will move in and crash property values.  The NIMBY factor for affordable housing on the West Coast is off the charts.

Google is helping at least, but the real problem is zoning.  And zoning won't change because politicians who do re-zone will be slaughtered at the polls.

Here's the thing though, housing markets eventually crash.  When it happens in the Bay Area, watch out.

The Reach To Impeach, Con't

California Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter lays out the case for impeachment in a really helpful PDF as she is the latest House Democrat to call for an impeachment inquiry to begin.

Freshman U.S. Rep. Katie Porter on Monday threw her support behind an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump, adding another Democratic lawmaker to those clamoring for the move.

The congresswoman from Irvine, California, announced her decision in a video statement. About 60 other lawmakers support opening an inquiry, a far cry from a majority in the 435-seat House.

Porter said she believes Congress must investigate after special counsel Robert Mueller said he couldn't exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice in a probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and didn't have the option to indict a sitting president.

"I cannot with a clean conscience ignore my duty to defend the Constitution. I can't claim to be committed to rooting out corruption and putting people over politics and then not apply those same principles and standards in all of the work I do," Porter said.

She called out the administration for ignoring subpoenas and directing officials to disregard summons to testify before Congress.

"The administration has refused to respect the rule of law," Porter said. "The question is not whether a crisis is in our midst but rather whether we choose to fight against it."

Porter, a consumer protection lawyer and law professor at the University of California, Irvine, was elected last year in one of several contested races that put all the traditionally Republican districts in Orange County under Democratic control amid Trump's low approval ratings.

But Republicans still outnumber Democrats in her district covering a swath of eastern Orange County and hold a slight edge in the county as a whole. Porter already has a number of Republican challengers seeking her seat in 2020.

Fred Whitaker, chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, called Porter "too far left" for her district and "out of touch."

"She doesn't have the support of her district. She doesn't even have the support of Speaker Pelosi," Whitaker said.

Whitaker's argument is actually pretty sound.  She does not have the support from Nancy Pelosi, because Nancy Pelosi does not believe the case has been made to the American public in order to begin an impeachment inquiry.  Pelosi has made it clear that there has to be a sea change in public opinion before she will commit to such a move.

I can see Pelosi's point.  Democrats only get one shot at this, and right now Trump has all but promised that he will absolutely have us in a shooting war with Iran, deep into a massive ICE deportation pogrom, or indicting FBI investigators who dared to look into his malfeasance (or a combination of all three) as soon as Pelosi makes her move.  And let's face it, Mitch McConnell will never allow a real vote to remove Trump.  A Senate trial will be a voice vote, Democrats will complain all they want to, but it will be over in a day.

Having said that, removing Trump at the ballot box is also going to be problematic.

Again, I don't honestly have the answers here.  But Rep. Porter does a good job of laying out the case as to why Trump should be impeached, and it's worth having that PDF on hand.

Deportation Nation, Con't

If you've ever wondered what would happen if a fascist regime had social media, the answer is "announce mass police action against millions on Twitter" on a random Monday night.

President Trump said in a tweet Monday night that U.S. immigration agents are planning to make mass arrests starting “next week,” an apparent reference to a plan in preparation for months that aims to round up thousands of migrant parents and children in a blitz operation across major U.S. cities.

“Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States,” Trump wrote, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “They will be removed as fast as they come in.”

Large-scale ICE enforcement operations are typically kept secret to avoid tipping off targets. In 2018, Trump and other senior officials threatened the mayor of Oakland, Calif., with criminal prosecution for alerting city residents that immigration raids were in the works.

Trump and his senior immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, have been prodding Homeland Security officials to arrest and remove thousands of family members whose deportation orders were expedited by the Justice Department this year as part of a plan known as the “rocket docket.”

In April, acting ICE director Ronald Vitiello and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen were ousted after they hesitated to go forward with the plan, expressing concerns about its preparation, effectiveness and the risk of public outrage from images of migrant children being taken into custody or separated from their families.

Everything's fine thought, right?

Seriously, I've been warning about Trump's upcoming mass deportation regime as his key to 2020 victory for months, if not years now, and the reality is the only thing we were waiting on was the logistics.  They're in place now, the jackbooted thugs, the concentration camps, and the big ugly is coming.

I'd say something pithy like "Well this is as close to ethnic cleansing as America gets" except even a cursory glance at US history involving the federal government's treatment of Native Americans, black slaves and freemen, Chinese immigrants, and Japanese-Americans interred puts lie to that, so much so that we're just returning to form as a nation.

Things are bad now.  They are about to get significantly worse.

StupidiNews!

• Legendary actress, heiress, writer, fashion designer, and mother of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, Gloria Vanderbilt, has died at the age of 95.
• A new United Nations study estimates the Earth will add 2 billion more people to reach 9.7 billion in the next 30 years.
• Ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi apparently collapsed in a Cairo courtroom and died from a heart attack during his trial on espionage charges.
• Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan confirms the US will be sending more than 1,000 troops to US bases in the Middle East for "defensive purposes" as tensions with Iran rise.
• Boeing commercial aircraft head Kevin McAllister is apologizing for the two deadly crashes that grounded the 737 MAX jet, saying getting the plane returned safely to service is a top priority.