Last Call For Criming While Republican

In the Trump era, being a felon no longer bars one from Republican office, because all you have to do to expunge your criminal record in the court of public opinion is blame Obama's evil deep state operatives for your false conviction.

Former New York congressman Michael Grimm is a felon who has admitted to hiring undocumented workers, hiding $900,000 from tax authorities and making false statements under oath. To hear him tell it, that’s a reason Staten Island Republicans should vote him back into office. 

“It’s almost identical to what the president has been going through,” Grimm says of the federal investigation that led to his imprisonment. “It’s not an accident that under the Obama administration the Justice Department was used politically. And that is all starting to come out.” 

Grimm has uncovered a new reality in the constantly changing world of Republican politics: Criminal convictions, once seen as career-enders, are no longer disqualifying. In the era of President Trump, even time spent in prison can be turned into a positive talking point, demonstrating a candidate’s battle scars in a broader fight against what he perceives as liberal corruption. 

In a startling shift from “law-and-order Republicans,” Trump has attacked some branches of law enforcement, especially those pursuing white-collar malfeasance, as his allies and former campaign officials are ensnared in various investigations. 

Following his lead, Republican Senate candidates with criminal convictions in West Virginia and Arizona have cast themselves as victims of the Obama administration’s legal overreach. Another former Trump adviser who has pleaded guilty to a felony has also become an in-demand surrogate, as Republicans jump at the chance to show their opposition to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

“Here’s a general rule of thumb: Lawmakers should not be law breakers,” said Susan Del Percio, a New York GOP consultant who advised Grimm in 2010 but opposes his candidacy. “I guess it’s a different political norm we are facing today.”

No Republican can be guilty of a crime because it was all an Obama/Clinton plot to discredit them, and you can bet Donald Trump will be using that same excuse the second anything remotely resembling recommended charges from Mueller appear.

This is what I mean when I say Trump is a symptom of the utter rot of the Republican party, not the cause of it.  It's not Trump who believes he is above the law, it's the entire party that now believes laws and convictions no longer apply to them.

Republicans are proudly running for Congress while having been convicted of serious criminal charges and they are boldly declaring their criminal records to be meaningless politically-driven shams.  I disagree that Republicans have changed from being "the party of law and order" at all, they simply believe they are legally and morally righteous because no Republican could ever be convicted except by kangaroo courts run by those people.

And you can be damn sure Republicans want laws to apply to everyone besides them to boot.  It's not a change, it's an apotheosis.

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

Darren Martin is currently working for the Commissioner of NYC's Social Services after serving a stint as an Obama White House intern and Dem House staffer.  He moved back to the Big Apple to start his job and had a hell of a housewarming gift: neighbors called 911 on him because being black, of course he was committing burglary.

It was an unsolicited homecoming that left Bronx native Darren Martin unsettled. 

After spending several years working on Capitol Hill and in the White House with the Obama Administration, Martin recently made the move back to New York, getting a job with the city and finding a unit in a 5-story walk-up on the Upper West Side. 

On moving day this past Friday, Martin got an unexpected visit from the NYPD. 

“I’m in my apartment but you know – you can’t go nowhere without the cops following me,” Martin said during the encounter live streamed via Instagram. 

Turns out, someone called 911 to report a “burglary in progress” and the suspect was the building’s brand new tenant – Martin. 

“Somebody called the cops on me in my own building,” he told viewers who were tuning in to watch the live video. “About how many are ya’ll? About six of ya’ll showed up, rolled up on me.” 

He has a packed work schedule and that was the only time he had to move into the building. 

“I didn’t really think anyone was going to call the cops on me because I mean – I was moving into the building.”

Wisely, Martin shared the encounter on social media, which is something I damn sure will do the next time I have a run-in with police here in Kentucky.  But it just goes to show you that no matter how educated and well-off you are being black in America, it just takes a phone call and the suspicion of a "well-meaning neighbor" in your newly gentrified neighborhood (just a few blocks from 110th Street and Harlem north of Central park mind you, like don't tell me you haven't seen a black person up across the hundred, man) to put you in a situation that could be fatal.

And we have to live with that fear every day.

Black lives still matter.

Bibi Wags That Dog Again

As embattled Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu continues to face multiple corruption investigations that threaten to bring down the government, it appears that he views his best chance of political survival as providing flimsy pretext for the Trump regime to scrap the US/EU nuclear deal with Iran in favor of a good old fashioned war. NY Magazine's Jonah Shepp:

In a special address on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented what he described as shocking, indisputable evidence that Iran had lied about its covert nuclear weapons program in the past and “continued to preserve and expand its nuclear weapons knowledge for future use” after signing the 2015 deal with six world powers to halt its nuclear activities.

Netanyahu was speaking on primetime Israeli television, but his presentation was delivered primarily in English and appeared targeted to a daytime audience in the U.S. (and perhaps an audience of one, residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.) rather than to his fellow Israelis. If so, it certainly had its intended effect, causing President Donald Trump to declare that he was “100 percent right” about the failings of the nuclear deal, less than two weeks ahead of his next chance to derail it.

Much like Netanyahu’s previous dire warnings about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, however, this one is being hugely oversold. The trove of Iranian documents recently obtained by Israeli intelligence, most of which date to before the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was adopted, do not constitute proof that Iran either has violated or intends to violate it. Several experts and European diplomats pointed out that the Israeli prime minister had not revealed anything they didn’t already know, nor did he provide a proverbial smoking gun to show that Iran was making an end run around the JCPOA. If Mossad had found slam-dunk proof of noncompliance in their brazen heist of Iran’s nuclear archive, surely Netanyahu would have included it in his PowerPoint. That he didn’t suggests that they haven’t.

The nuclear deal is an imperfect document, to be sure, as agreements signed between adversaries usually are, but right-wing criticism of it tends to proceed from the false premises that the Obama administration was unaware of Iran’s past behavior and unconcerned that the JCPOA would not prevent Iran from engaging in nuclear activity in perpetuity. Of course we knew that Iran was pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program prior to 2015: That’s why we made them agree to stop it.

It also takes some chutzpah for the prime minister of Israel — whose own nuclear program involved lying to the international community, duping American nuclear inspectors, and possibly stealing highly enriched uranium from the U.S., and which has never acknowledged that program’s existence — to accuse another country of engaging in this particular kind of duplicity. But surely Netanyahu feels that the choices Israel made in its pursuit of the bomb were justified for the sake of its national security, given that it has always been surrounded by enemies.

The White House immediately issued a blaring press release stating that Iran has a covert nuclear program, as in present tense today, which would be a clear violation of the agreement, and only several hours later bothered "correcting" the release to say Tehran had a covert nuclear program, which...yeah, was the whole point of the Iranian nuclear deal. The correction came of course after dozens of breathless right-wing armchair generals declared the nuclear deal dead amid depressingly familiar expectations of a replay of sixteen years ago.

Trump needs a war as much as Bibi does right now, and a fight of some sort with Iran seems like their best collective bet.  Remember, it only took 18 months before the Bushies had convinced the world that we needed to bomb Baghdad into scrap metal after 9/11.

And hell, it was only seven weeks between Colin Powell's UN speech on Saddam having "weapons of mass destruction" and the US invasion of Iraq.

Might want to keep that in mind.

StupidiNews!

• Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain has announced in his new book that this will be his final term, the 81-year-old has been diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer and will retire in or before 2022.
• The first of Central American asylum-seekers crossing Mexico have reached the US, the Trump DoJ has already announced several arrests and deportation proceedings.
• The Trump regime has pushed back steep new metal tariffs on Canada, the EU and Mexico for another month, while Argentina, Australia and Brazil have negotiated permanent exemptions.
• The Obama recovery has now extended into the second year of the Trump era as the US has reached 94 consecutive months of economic expansion, the nation's second-longest streak.
• Caterpillars of the Oak Processionary Moth are invading London, the toxic hairy crawlers can cause severe allergic reactions and British forestry officials are working to eliminate nests.

Last Call For It's Mueller Time, Con't

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is well aware of the fact that his greatest shield in his investigation of Donald Trump is a sniper-accurate leak from the press gallery just to remind everyone that the investigation is moving along particular lines, and today's round from way downtown is a solid hit.

Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russia’s election interference, has at least four dozen questions on an exhaustive array of subjects he wants to ask President Trump to learn more about his ties to Russia and determine whether he obstructed the inquiry itself, according to a list of the questions obtained by The New York Times.

[Read the questions here.]

The open-ended queries appear to be an attempt to penetrate the president’s thinking, to get at the motivation behind some of his most combative Twitter posts and to examine his relationships with his family and his closest advisers. They deal chiefly with the president’s high-profile firings of the F.B.I. director and his first national security adviser, his treatment of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between campaign officials and Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton.

But they also touch on the president’s businesses; any discussions with his longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, about a Moscow real estate deal; whether the president knew of any attempt by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to set up a back channel to Russia during the transition; any contacts he had with Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser who claimed to have inside information about Democratic email hackings; and what happened during Mr. Trump’s 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant.

The questions provide the most detailed look yet inside Mr. Mueller’s investigation, which has been shrouded in secrecy since he was appointed nearly a year ago. The majority relate to possible obstruction of justice, demonstrating how an investigation into Russia’s election meddling grew to include an examination of the president’s conduct in office. Among them are queries on any discussions Mr. Trump had about his attempts to fire Mr. Mueller himself and what the president knew about possible pardon offers to Mr. Flynn.

“What efforts were made to reach out to Mr. Flynn about seeking immunity or possible pardon?” Mr. Mueller planned to ask, according to questions read by the special counsel investigators to the president’s lawyers, who compiled them into a list. That document was provided to The Times by a person outside Mr. Trump’s legal team.

A few questions reveal that Mr. Mueller is still investigating possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. In one of the more tantalizing inquiries, Mr. Mueller asks what Mr. Trump knew about campaign aides, including the former chairman Paul Manafort, seeking assistance from Moscow: “What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?” No such outreach has been revealed publicly.

Mueller has been pretty tight-lipped since the Comey book and the Cohen raid, and there's been a lot of speculation as to what he's been up to.  Sometimes it's good to keep your opponent guessing, but other times, it's good to show a few cards in your hand just to let the other guy know he's the mark at the table and there's not a damn thing he can do about it.

Mueller asking specific questions about Flynn, Sessions, Comey and that fateful June 2016 meeting with the Russians in Trump Tower, mean Trump is in real trouble.

And Mueller wants Trump to know that.

PS:  Mueller already knows the answers.  All of them.

Your move, Donny.

Kelly Green

White House Part-Time Maybe Chief of Staff John Kelly is back at it, saving the world from Donald Trump's stupidity or something.

White House chief of staff John Kelly has eroded morale in the West Wing in recent months with comments to aides that include insulting the president's intelligence and casting himself as the savior of the country, according to eight current and former White House officials. 

The officials said Kelly portrays himself to Trump administration aides as the lone bulwark against catastrophe, curbing the erratic urges of a president who has a questionable grasp on policy issues and the functions of government. He has referred to Trump as "an idiot" multiple times to underscore his point, according to four officials who say they've witnessed the comments.

Three White House spokespeople said they don't believe it's accurate that Kelly called the president an "idiot," adding that none of them has ever heard him do that or otherwise use that word. 

Officials said Kelly's public image as a retired four-star general instilling discipline on a chaotic White House and an impulsive president belies what they describe as the undisciplined and indiscreet approach he's employed as chief of staff. The private manner aides describe may shed new light on why Kelly now finds himself — just nine months into the job — grappling with diminished influence and a drumbeat of questions about how long he'll remain at the White House. 

"He says stuff you can't believe," said one senior White House official. "He'll say it and you think, 'That is not what you should be saying."

Trump, who aides said has soured on his second chief of staff, is aware of some though not all of Kelly's comments, according to the current and former officials.

The White House spokespeople said they haven't heard Kelly talk about himself as the one saving the country, and that if anything he may have spoken in jest along those lines. 

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said Kelly's comments about Trump, when compared to previous White House chiefs of staff, "suggest a lack of respect for the sitting president of a kind that we haven't seen before." Beschloss said the closest similarity would be President Ronald Reagan's chief of staff during his second term, Don Regan, who "somewhat looked down on" his boss and eventually lost the support of the staff and the president. Regan was replaced after two years by Howard Baker. 

The last time it became public that one of Trump's top advisers insulted his intelligence behind his back, it didn't go over well with the president. White House aides have said Trump never got over former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calling him a "moron" in front of colleagues, which was first reported by NBC News. Trump later challenged Tillerson to an IQ test and fired him several months after the remark became public. 

Current and former White House officials said Kelly has at times made remarks that have rattled female staffers. Kelly has told aides multiple times that women are more emotional than men, including at least once in front of the president, four current and former officials said.

So just a reminder that yes, John Kelly is far, far from the "adult in the room" when it comes to riding herd on Trump.  He goes on to say that he takes credit for scrapping the DACA deal last year, and saved Trump because he's an idiot.

Trump actually is pretty dense, but that doesn't mean Kelly isn't a screaming racist asshole.

The National Russia Association, Con't

Lost in the noise this weekend about Trump and the WHCD this weekend was the NRA quietly going to the ramparts because they know they're going to be under investigation for their ties to Russian oligarchs and funneling Russian money to the Trump campaign.

The National Rifle Association is setting aside years of documents related to its interactions with a Kremlin-linked banker, as the gun-rights group appears to be bracing for a possible investigation, according to sources familiar with the situation. 

The NRA has faced fresh scrutiny from congressional investigators about its finances and ties to Alexander Torshin, one of the 17 prominent Russian government officials the US Treasury Department recently slapped with sanctions. The gun-rights group has said it is reexamining its relationship with Torshin, who is a lifetime NRA member, in the wake of the sanctions. 

The renewed attention has highlighted the close-knit if sometimes uneasy alliance between top NRA officials and Torshin -- a relationship that ensnared members of Trump's team during the presidential campaign, inviting further congressional scrutiny. 

Those inquiries could shed light on the tightly held fundraising practices and political activities of the NRA. The political powerhouse shelled out more than $30 million in 2016 to back Donald Trump's candidacy -- more than it spent on 2008 and 2012 political races combined, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Vice President Mike Pence is slated to speak at the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Dallas next Friday, an official told CNN. 

The NRA recently found itself facing allegations that the FBI was investigating whether Torshin illegally funneled money through the group to bolster Trump, according to a McClatchy report. The NRA has publicly denied any contact from the FBI and insisted it hasn't accepted illegal donations. 

Despite the public denials, officials at the gun-rights group have been anxiously preparing as if they were already under investigation, sources said. Some employees have been tasked with preserving years of documents mentioning Torshin or his associate, Maria Butina, who runs a pro-guns group in Russia, a source familiar with the situation said. Privately, some officials have expressed anxiety about a potential investigation and the group's Russian ties.

Even the Trump regime has acknowledged Torshin is a mobbed-up Putin flunky, leveling sanctions against him last month.  Sure, the Trumpies dragged their feet long enough for the Russians to move their cash out of the US and into offshore safe havens, but the point is Torshin's on the list, and his favorite charity is the NRA.

And suddenly the NRA had $30 million to give just to Trump's campaign.

I know foreign campaign donations are pretty small potatoes compared to the rest of the wrongdoing by the Trump regime, but if it takes both Trump and the NRA out of the GOP equation in 2018 and especially 2020, I'm all for it.

StupidiNews!

• Eight journalists are among the 29 dead in Afghanistan as Taliban suicide bombers attacked the Afghan security HQ and then detonated a second blast to kill reporters who had shown up.
• WH physician Dr. Ronny Jackson will reportedly resign his position after his withdrawn nomination for VA Secretary, his temporary replacement Dr. Sean Conley will remain in the role.
• T-Mobile and Sprint are once again looking for a merger, betting that Trump-era regulators will be far more receptive to the $26 billion wireless carrier deal than President Obama was in 2014.
• Ohio refinery giant Marathon wants to buy Texas-based rival Andeavor for $23.3 billion, the combined largest US refinery company would control 17% of the nation's refinery capacity.
• Russia has built a floating nuclear power plant for use in the Arctic Circle, but environmentalists are sounding the alarm that the vessel could cause a disaster in rough weather.

Last Call For The Wolf Among The Sheep

The White House Correspondents' Dinner did have a comedian last night, Michelle Wolf, and she unloaded on Trump, the press, and the whole nine yards in the most brutal takedown since Colbert.




Do watch the whole thing, it's hysterical.

Here's your money quote though:

“You guys are obsessed with Trump. Did you use to date him? Because you pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him. I think what no one in this room wants to admit is that Trump has helped all of you. He couldn’t sell steaks or vodka or water or college or ties or Eric. But he has helped you. He’s helped you sell your papers and your books and your TV. You helped create this monster and now you’re profiting off of him. And if you’re going to profit off of Trump, you should at least give him some money because he doesn’t have any.”

Needless to say, the Sunday shows have been howling all day about this.  Hit dogs holler the loudest. But as Steve M. points out, Wolf's real accomplishment was upstaging Donald Trump.

Since Trump descended that escalator in 2015, no one's managed to upstage him -- except a comedian who was as harsh and vulgar as he is.

Clinton aide Philippe Reines told us last month that the Democrats should run someone in 2020 who'll get down and dirty the way Trump does, who'll be as brazen and uncensored. Last night suggests that he has a point -- except that nearly all the coverage of Michelle Wolf is negative.

So you can't seize attention from Trump except by being Trump, but if you are Trump, they'll slam you. You can't win.

Democrats need to keep that in mind.  No matter what the Dems' message is in 2020, it will be drowned out by the Trump Show.  "Hillary Clinton didn't have a platform" was the biggest lie of 2016, and I expect the same will be true of the Dem running in 2020.  The media certainly didn't care.  What they cared about was Trump, because Trump sold copy, commercials, and clicks.

Clinton wasn't news until she lost.

Looking Through The Genes Catalog

Last week an arrest was made in the 40-year old Golden State Killer case, and it seems like one of America's most notorious unsolved serial killers was nabbed thanks to DNA evidence.  But that evidence meant California investigators went through commercial DNA databases from online genealogy companies to catch a killer, and not through criminal databases. 

Police may have their man, but at what cost to the rest of us in an era where data privacy already is greatly flawed and companies have, and own, your genetic information?

No one has thought about what are the possible consequences.”The trail of the Golden State Killer had gone cold decades ago. The police had linked him to more than 50 rapes and 12 murders from 1976 to 1986, and he had eluded all attempts to find him. 

In the years since, scientists have developed powerful tools to identify people by tiny variations in their DNA, as individual as fingerprints. At the same time, the F.B.I. and state law enforcement agencies have been cultivating growing databases of DNA not just from convicted criminals, but also in some cases from people accused of crimes. 

The California police had the Golden State Killer’s DNA and recently found an unusually well-preserved sample from one of the crime scenes. The problem was finding a match. 

But these days DNA is stored in many places, and a near-match ultimately was found in a genealogy website beloved by hobbyists called GEDmatch, created by two volunteers in 2011. 

Anyone can set up a free profile on GEDmatch. Many customers upload to the site DNA profiles they have already generated on larger commercial sites like 23andMe. 

The detectives in the Golden State Killer case uploaded the suspect’s DNA sample. But they would have had to check a box online certifying that the DNA was their own or belonged to someone for whom they were legal guardians, or that they had “obtained authorization” to upload the sample. 

“The purpose was to make these connections and to find these relatives,” said Blaine Bettinger, a lawyer affiliated with GEDmatch. “It was not intended to be used by law enforcement to identify suspects of crimes.”

But joining for that purpose does not technically violate site policy, he added.
Erin Murphy, a law professor at New York University and expert on DNA searches, said that using a fake identity might raise questions about the legality of the evidence. 

The matches found in GEDmatch were to relatives of the suspect, not the suspect himself. 

Since the site provides family trees, detectives also were able to look for relatives who might not have uploaded genetic data to the site themselves.

On GEDmatch, “it just happens they got lucky,” said Dr. Ashley Hall, a forensics science expert at the University of Illinois in Chicago. 

23andMe has more than 5 million customers, and Ancestry.com has 10 million. But the DNA in databases like these are relevant to tens of millions of others — sisters, parents, children. A lot can be learned about a family simply by accessing one member’s DNA. 

“Suppose you are worried about genetic privacy,” Ms. Murphy said. “If your sibling or parent or child engaged in this activity online, they are compromising your family for generations.”

If I'm DeAngelo's defense attorney, I'm moving to have all this DNA evidence tossed on on that technicality.  And even though from a genetic perspective, I'm adopted and I'd like some genetic testing done for the possibility of hereditary diseases, I'm loathe to do so for exactly these reasons.

It's a lot to think about in the era of privacy.  When I was in school the Human Genome Project was just getting underway.  20 years later we have commercial DNA databases with millions of subjects.  It's something that needs regulation, and fast.  It doesn't meet the Dr. Ian Malcolm test:

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

We've got to get a handle on this fast, because it's going to be used again, and quickly.  The intersection of Silicon Valley tech, police investigation, and data privacy is already a massive trainwreck.

Sunday Long Read: Rebuilding In Boise

Idaho, like nearly all of the Rocky Mountain states, flipped heavily to Trump and the GOP in the last six years (and even then Colorado is purple at best).  Democrats have been all but wiped out between the Mississippi River and the West Coast, and the Gem State is no exception. 

Coming out of the wilderness and getting back to the kind of balance that brought Western Dems to power won't be easy, but in this state, there's at least one candidate who isn't waiting around and wants to surf the blue wave right into the Governor's office.

Shake Paulette Jordan’s hand and you likely won’t forget it. Her handshake is firm enough to be just shy of crushing, and she’s an expert at that disarming, straight-in-the-eye engagement. Jordan wants to make sure you know that she sees you. She’s tall — just under 6 feet — and her years on the basketball court compound the air of dominance with which she navigates a room. You could call it cocky. Or you could just use the word her supporters use: confident.

On a blustery day in March, Jordan is in Boise, Idaho, for an evening fundraiser featuring local indie-rock darlings Built to Spill. She’s spent a fair amount of time in the state capital, both as a representative of her tribe, the Coeur d’Alene, and the tribes of the Northwest, but also as a member of the Idaho state legislature. 

But Boise isn’t home. That’s up north, in the Idaho Panhandle, just outside of Plummer, Idaho, where her family grows timothy hay and bluegrass. As a teen, Jordan’s parents or grandparents drove her an hour each way, every day, to go to school at Gonzaga Prep in Spokane, Washington — a city where another Democrat, Lisa Brown, is making national headlines running as a candidate in an area previously assumed to be a Republican stronghold. 

“Lisa Brown is really great,” Jordan told me at a coffee shop just blocks away from the capitol building. “She’s a nice lady. But I don’t do nice. That’s not me.” 

At 38, after serving just two terms as a state representative, Jordan is not a conventional gubernatorial candidate. Until she resigned to dedicate herself full-time to running for governor, she was the only left-leaning legislator from North Idaho to survive the 2016 Trump wave that took out even the most established Democrats in the area. She’s a progressive, but declines comparisons to Bernie Sanders; she’s a woman of color, running to become the US’s first Native American governor, in a state that is 82% white. In the Idaho house, she refused to toe the party line. She’s referred to state Rep. Heather Scott, a far-right legislator and favorite liberal enemy, as a friend. 

And while the bulk of the Idaho Democratic establishment has endorsed Jordan’s opponent, Boise school board member A.J. Balukoff, Jordan has earned the support of the progressive PAC Democracy for America, Planned Parenthood, Our Revolution, and was among the first five candidates endorsed on the national level by Indivisible. In January, Jordan was asked to speak at the national Women’s March gathering in Las Vegas; while there, she met and was endorsed by Cher. 

Her candidacy has come to symbolize the breadth of the post-Trump wave of candidates who are energizing Democrats on both the local and national levels. When Mic ran a brief piece about Jordan in January, it stamped a picture of Jordan with “Young, Progressive, and Running.” At least 250,000 people shared or liked the piece on Facebook — several thousand more than live in all of North Idaho. 

Jordan’s not a centrist or a moderate, nor is she a veteran or a handsome white guy with two kids, like many of the candidates who have been forwarded by the Democratic Party to win over swing states and districts. And she’s not intimidated by calls, such as those from her opponent, that she should bide her time. “I think I bring more experience this time around and had leadership roles that Paulette hasn’t had,” Balukoff, who previously ran for governor in 2014, told Idaho Politics Weekly. “I think people should stay with me this time around. She may be what we need next time.” 

“We’ve seen this attitude all across the country, especially with female candidates,” Jordan said in reference to the article, which had been published just days before. “We saw it with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. We see it now. People say, well, not this time. But my grandmothers were always at the forefront. They’d say, we make the difference we want to see.” 

Jordan has caught the national eye as a Native woman, and a progressive at that, who is vying to make history in a conservative state. In Idaho, however, she’s marketed herself as an independent, straight-talking, ranch-raised woman, in touch with the needs of people outside of urban areas and willing to work across the aisle to find solutions that work. But ahead of the May 15 primary, she still needs to persuade Idaho Democrats — many of whom remain convinced of their party’s impotency and irrelevance across the state — that the person they choose to run in a long-shot race against Republicans actually matters.

I have no idea if Jordan can succeed outgoing GOP Gov. Butch Otter, , who is hanging up his hat after 3 terms, let alone win her primary against Balukoff.  But keep an eye on her.  She's the kind of candidate the Dems need right now and in the future.

Throwing The New Guy In The Deep End

There's no rest for the wicked as newly confirmed Trump Regime SecState Mike Pompeo is already off on his first leg of the "Sorry We Didn't Have A Secretary Of State For Two Months" Tour and is already trying to put out fires in the Middle East.

As Saudi Arabia considers digging a moat along its border with Qatar and dumping nuclear waste nearby, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Riyadh on his first overseas trip as the nation’s top diplomat with a simple message: Enough is enough.
Patience with what is viewed in Washington as a petulant spat within the Gulf 

Cooperation Council has worn thin, and Mr. Pompeo told the Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir, that the dispute needs to end, according to a senior State Department official who briefed reporters on the meetings but who was not authorized to be named. 

Last June, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates led an embargo by four Arab nations of Qatar, accusing the tiny, gas-rich nation of funding terrorism, cozying up to Iran and welcoming dissidents. Years of perceived slights on both sides of the conflict added to the bitterness. 

Mr. Pompeo’s predecessor, Rex W. Tillerson, spent much of his tenure trying to mediate the dispute, which also involved Egypt and Bahrain, but without success. The Saudis, keen observers of Washington’s power dynamics, knew that Mr. Tillerson had a strained relationship with President Trump and so ignored him, particularly because Mr. Trump sided with the Saudis in the early days of the dispute.

But Mr. Pompeo is closer to Mr. Trump and thus a more formidable figure. And in the nearly 11 months since the embargo began, Qatar has spent millions of dollars on a Washington charm offensive that paid off earlier this month when its leader, Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, had an Oval Office meeting with Mr. Trump during which the president expressed strong support for the tiny country.

So Mr. Pompeo came here to deliver the same message to Mr. Jubeir at an airport meeting Saturday afternoon; to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman later that night; and to King Salman in a meeting planned for Sunday: Stop. 

Confronting Iran, stabilizing Iraq and Syria, defeating the last of Islamic State, and winding up the catastrophic civil war in Yemen are seen in Washington as increasingly urgent priorities that cannot be fully addressed without a united and more robust Arab response. 

Mr. Pompeo arrived in Riyadh on the same day that Houthi forces in Yemen shot eight missiles at targets in the southern Saudi province of Jizan, killing a man. The fusillade was the latest sign that Yemen’s blood bath is a growing threat to the region.

I'm thinking that the Saudis are going to continue to tell the State Department to go screw themselves because they know they can go over Pompeo's head to Trump the same way they did with Rex the Wreck.  It's sad that at this point everyone is freely admitting how awful Tillerson was at this job, and that how Pompeo is actually an improvement somehow, but the point is that the real problem with America's foreign policy is Donald Trump, and until that changes, nobody's going to take us seriously.

Qatar might get a break, but the Saudis do love picking on them, and Trump does love a bully, so who knows?

Last Call For Cult Of Personality

Donald Trump skipped the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner again tonight in favor of a rally in Michigan where he could be the star without any jokes at his expense, because Trump is a bully and tyrant who cannot tolerate the notion that everyone doesn't love him.

President Donald Trump kicked off a campaign-style rally in Michigan on Saturday by taking a shot at the media as journalists gathered in Washington, DC, for the White House correspondents' dinner.

"You may have heard I was invited to another event tonight -- the White House Correspondents' dinner," Trump said, "but I'd much rather be in Washington, Michigan, than in Washington, DC right now. That I can tell you."

This is the second year in a row that the President has skipped the annual dinner in favor of rallying with his supporters.

In the opening minutes of the rally, Trump called on the crowd to "elect more Republicans so we can protect our cities, defend our borders, grow our economy, and continue to make America great again."

Trump also took aim at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, who are running for reelection this year.

"The Democrats don't care about our military. They don't, and they don't care about our borders, and I don't think they care much about crime," Trump said. "Nancy Pelosi and her gang -- they've got to be voted out of office. They've got to be voted out of office."

Trump went on to say Stabenow "wants people to flow into the country. And you people just keep putting her back again, and again, and again. It's your fault. So you gotta get to the poll."

Trump is definitely going to take his attack show on the road to personally go after Democrats this summer, and it's going to be ugly.  Expect a lot more of this in the months ahead.

A Tester Of The Bully’s Pulpit

Donald Trump has found his scapegoat for the failure of Ronny Jackson's nomination for VA Secretary, and it's not Roony Jackson (or Donald Trump, who of course didn't bother vetting Jackson.)  No, the villain is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, Montana's Jon Tester, who has now been targeted by Trump for complete annihilation because nobody is allowed to oppose Dear Leader, and examples must be made.

President Trump called on Saturday for the resignation of Senator Jon Tester, the Montana Democrat who helped thwart his effort to install the White House physician in the cabinet, suggesting that the president may try to exact retribution in the fall congressional elections in a state that he won by a wide margin. 

Two days after the doctor, Ronny L. Jackson, withdrew from consideration for secretary of veterans affairs amid a flurry of reports about his conduct on the job, Mr. Trump made clear he did not intend to let the matter go. In a pair of early morning messages on Twitter, the president said the accusations raised by Mr. Tester against Dr. Jackson were fabricated. 

 “Allegations made by Senator Jon Tester against Admiral/Doctor Ron Jackson are proving false,” Mr. Trump wrote. “The Secret Service is unable to confirm (in fact they deny) any of the phony Democrat charges which have absolutely devastated the wonderful Jackson family. Tester should resign.” 

He added: “The great people of Montana will not stand for this kind of slander when talking of a great human being. Admiral Jackson is the kind of man that those in Montana would most respect and admire, and now, for no reason whatsoever, his reputation has been shattered. Not fair, Tester!” 

Mr. Tester fired back a few hours later with a statement noting that Mr. Trump had signed eight of the senator’s bills to make the Department of Veterans Affairs more accountable and responsive to veterans. “It’s my duty to make sure Montana veterans get what they need and have earned, and I’ll never stop fighting for them as their senator,” he said.

The president has been sharply criticizing Mr. Tester for days, singling out the Democrat while ignoring Republican opposition that had built to Dr. Jackson’s nomination. Mr. Tester, the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, took the lead in publicly questioning Dr. Jackson’s record, but he had the support of Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, the Republican chairman of the committee, who signed a joint statement with him saying the issues should be investigated. 

But Mr. Tester is from a conservative state that in 2016 supported Mr. Trump strongly, giving him 55.6 percent of its votes to 35.4 percent for Hillary Clinton. Even before the flap over Dr. Jackson, Mr. Trump and the Republicans had hoped to use the power of that 20-point margin to defeat Mr. Tester for re-election this fall and defend their narrow 51-seat majority in the Senate. 

Mr. Tester released a list of accusations this week against Dr. Jackson alleging loose distribution of prescription drugs, a hostile work environment and drunkenness.
The allegations, Mr. Tester said, were raised by more than 20 current and former military personnel who had worked with Dr. Jackson, whose White House medical unit is run by the military. 

Several of those military officials also described their experiences and concerns about Dr. Jackson to reporters, although they spoke on the condition of anonymity because of their status as members of the military.

Expect this to be Trump's modus operandi over the next several months. Republicans may not want his endorsement in November, but they'll settle for him relentlessly attacking key Democrats in Trump states and there's a damn good chance it's going to work.

Let’s be honest here, if I’m Trump’s strategist (or whatever dark corner of Trump’s brain passes as such) I’m attacking red state Dem senators as much as possible.  I treat them like I treated Hillary Clinton. I hold rallies in those states and start “Lock them up!” chants. I blame everything that has gone wrong in my first 18 months on the fact the GOP doesn’t have 60 seats in the Senate.

What’s our press going to do, call him out on it? Like they “did” in 2016?  Please.  They’re just as terrified of this bully as the Dems are, because Trump and his goons have outsized power that we give them and refuse to take from them.

Now Tester has to either keep trying to placate Trump, or stand his ground in a state where Clinton lost by 25 points. Either path is fraught with instant peril.

And then Trump will move on to his next Democratic prey, maybe Claire McCaskill, maybe Joe Donnelly, maybe Joe Manchin or Heidi Heitkamp.  Yes, I know I said earlier today and it will be easy to bring Trump into any race as Republicans with primary challengers will, but it doesn’t mean that’s a winning strategy fo Dems in a state where Trump is at 55 or 60% approval.

Remember that these are the same Dems that had to balance on a tightrope in 2012 and won for various reasons, and yes, sometimes those reasons were outright running as a check against Barack Obama.  I didn’t like it then, but your alternate choice was someone like Todd Akin or another lunatic Republican and I’ll take the Democrat every time rather than somebody I know who will be proud to vote with Trump 96% of the time.

Does that make me a pragmatic son of a bitch?  It does.  But that pragmatism is the only way we get to 51 senators and kicking Mitch McConnell out of the Senate majority leader’s office.

Like it or not, the Senate system massively favors small red states just like the House massively favors large blue ones.  We have to play both to win both. And that means backing Senate Dems, even the Manchins and Heitkamps and Testers.

The Party Of Trump, All Day, Every Day

Democrats running in 2018 don't have to lift a finger trying to tie Republican candidates to Donald Trump, the GOP is scrambling every day to do it themselves.

Congressman Robert Pittenger couldn’t go 30 seconds without mentioning President Donald Trump.

At a church 5K run and a local Republican convention, an early voting station and a panel discussion hosted by a pro-Trump group, the GOP congressman in the midst of a primary battle typically waited between five and 30 seconds before invoking the president as he campaigned last weekend—and often, the favorable comparisons to iconic conservative President Ronald Reagan weren’t far behind.

It was a constant reminder of the lengths Republican candidates are going to embrace Trump this primary season, from here in Pittenger’s district to Senate races in West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana, all places where primary Election Day comes May 8. It’s more evidence of the president’s grip on the GOP base—and of the perils facing any Republican candidate in a conservative area who is perceived as insufficiently supportive of Trump.

“You can’t be against the president and make it work,” said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, who hails from another conservative North Carolina district and is familiar with the dynamics in Pittenger's Ninth District stretching from suburban Charlotte east to the Fayetteville area. “Yet at the same time, you have to be true to who you are and hopefully make a compelling case on how you’re going to be representative of the people.”

In Pittenger’s primary, there is no doubt that the animating issue of the campaign is support for Trump—and he and his most prominent opponent, the deeply conservative Mark Harris, are taking increasingly extreme measures to prove their Trumpian bona fides.

They have fought over the timing of their Trump endorsements in 2016 (a matter of weeks, according to PolitiFact), featured Trump in their campaign materials, run ads questioning the other’s support for Trump, in Pittenger’s case—or Trump’s support for Pittenger, in Harris’s case—and dropped the president’s name at every opportunity.

As GOP activists arrived at their tables for a lunchtime gathering of the Ninth District GOP convention here on Saturday about an hour outside of Charlotte, they found cards at their places, informing them that “just like he did on the campaign trail in 2016, Mark Harris will stand with President Donald Trump” on issues such as "build the wall" and "repeal Obamacare."

And as they pulled back their chairs, they were greeted by an image of Trump— posing on another, larger placard, next to Pittenger. “Congressman Pittenger: Working with President Trump to deliver conservative results for the 9th District!” read the missive.

“You get endeared to Reagan because he’s a national treasure, we had him longer,” Pittenger said when asked about his favorite president. But, he added, “Frankly, Donald Trump has already begun endearing himself to people because he is so principled.”

As he offered those reflections, Pittenger stood near a table stocked with his campaign literature, including a flier that touted his “pro-Trump voting record.” The original number, a 95.7 percent rating, had been crossed out by hand, and now read, in large pink penmanship, “97 percent.”

Grown men falling all over themselves to be Donald Trump, because the primary voters demand it.  They demand his racism, his misogyny, his ignorance, his hatreds, from every candidate.  They want to take a sledgehammer to every liberal in America and keep smashing and smashing and smashing until we stop existing.

The GOP is the party of Trump, all day, every day, and this primary season will prove that there's no room for anyone but Trump in the party.

There are no "moderates" left in the GOP, in case that wasn't painfully obvious.  and after this spring, there will only be Trump and the people howling to serve him as Dear Leader.

Might want to take that into consideration.