A Complete Cop Out

Black lives still matter.

Botham Shem Jean analyzed risk for a living at a global auditing firm. For someone in his line of work, the evening was shaping up to be as risk-free as it gets: Alone, in his one-bedroom apartment one block from the Dallas Police Department headquarters. 

Fresh from work, he had texted his sister his evening plans: Watching a football game on TV, the Eagles versus the Falcons. He texted a friend, apologizing for not going out with her the weekend before. Mr. Jean, 26, was from the island-nation of St. Lucia. He had a big smile, and was a big eater, winning a meat-lovers’ contest at Big Chef Steak House back in the Caribbean. He still had his ticket for a free meal on his next visit, his prize after eating a two-pound steak in one sitting. 

Unit 1478 on the fourth floor of the South Side Flats apartment complex was an 800-square-foot bachelor pad: dishes piled up in the sink, with pancake syrup, dish soap and other belongings adding to the clutter on the kitchen island. It was the evening of September 6. His 27th birthday was three weeks away. 

In a matter of hours, Mr. Jean would be dead. A white off-duty police officer who lived in Unit 1378 — directly below Mr. Jean — claimed that she mistakenly entered the wrong apartment after returning home from her 14-hour shift and believed Mr. Jean, who is black, was an intruder. Officer Amber R. Guyger, 30, fired her service weapon twice, striking him once in the torso.

He was later pronounced dead at a hospital, his death now the center of a mystery that has angered and puzzled Dallas and beyond.

The racial profiling of black men and women by white police officers put new phrases into the American vocabulary — driving while black, walking while black, shopping while black. The shooting of Mr. Jean seemed to demand its own, even more disturbing version: being at home while black. 

The fatal shooting has become the latest, and most bizarre, confrontation between an unarmed black man and a white officer, angering many who say they simply do not believe the officer’s account. In a city with a decades-old history of racial divisions, the case has again heightened tensions. Protesters chanted and disrupted a City Council meeting on Wednesday, and threats against the police have poured in. Officers have said they believe Officer Guyger’s version of events, while many in the black community — and many white residents as well — do not. City officials and other leaders have been caught in the middle. 

“This is the worst sort of situation, because we all expect to be safe in our own homes,” Michael S. Rawlings, the mayor of Dallas, said in an interview. “Everybody is heartbroken. Everybody wants the same thing — let’s get the answers. This is what the mother said to me. I was sitting there talking to her Saturday morning. And she said, ‘I’m not angry, but I just want to know why this lady shot my son.’”

Existing while black is a fatal offense in America.

There's no way this was justified, despite the Dallas police leaking a story that marijuana was found in Botham Jean's apartment after the shooting, because of course we have to have a "he's no angel" defense of the cold-blooded murder of a black man who lived alone minding his own business because maybe the cop who lived in the apartment below him thought his TV was too loud.

If you are black in America, every day is a risk.

Erasing Women From History, Texas Edition

The Texas Board of Education is about to erase Hillary Clinton and Helen Keller from the school curriculum to replace them with the most important figure in recent American history, the Reverend Billy Graham.

History curriculum in Texas remembers the Alamo but could soon forget Hillary Clinton and Helen Keller.

As part of an effort to "streamline" the social studies curriculum in public schools, the State Board of Education voted Friday to adjust what students in every grade are required to learn in the classroom. Among the changes, board members approved the removal of several historical figures, including Clinton and Keller, from the curriculum.

The board also voted to keep in the curriculum a reference to the "heroism" of the defenders of the Alamo, which had been recommended for elimination, as well as Moses' influence on the writing of the nation's founding documents, multiple references to "Judeo-Christian" values and a requirement that students explain how the "Arab rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict" in the Middle East.

The vote Friday was preliminary. The board can amend the curriculum changes further before taking a final vote in November.

Barbara Cargill, a Republican board member from Houston and former chairwoman, said work groups recommended removing Clinton and Keller, and the board agreed.

"In speaking to teachers and testifiers, they did not mention these specific deletions," she said.

The first woman to win the popular vote for President of the United States isn't noteworthy enough.

The Dallas Morning News spoke with two teachers from the group of board-nominated volunteers that made the recommendations. Both said the state required students to learn about so many historical figures that it resulted in rote memorization of dates and names instead of real learning.

The 15-member work group came up with a rubric for grading every historical figure to rank who is "essential" to learn and who isn't. The formula asked questions like, "Did the person trigger a watershed change"; "Was the person from an underrepresented group"; and "Will their impact stand the test of time?"

Out of 20 points, Keller scored a 7 and Clinton scored a 5. Eliminating Clinton from the requirements will save teachers 30 minutes of instructional time, the work group estimated, and eliminating Keller will save 40 minutes.

History's hard.  We have to teach "Judeo-Christian values" in schools instead.

It's Definitely Mueller Time

Your Friday Mueller News Dump this week is a huge one: former Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort has cut a plea deal to avoid his second trial in exchange for cooperating with the Mueller probe into Russian collusion.

President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has agreed to plead guilty in a foreign-lobbying and money laundering case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. 

Manafort appeared in a Washington, D.C., courtroom Friday morning, looking relaxed in a suit and purple tie, to formally announce the deal.

The deal dismisses deadlocked charges against Manafort from an earlier trial, but only after "successful cooperation” with Mueller’s probe into Russian election interference and whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Moscow on its efforts. Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann did not immediately expand on what cooperation is required under the deal. 

The agreement also calls for a 10-year cap on how long Manafort will be sent to prison, and for Manafort to serve time from his separate Virginia and Washington cases concurrently. But it will not release Manafort from jail, where he has been held since Mueller's team added witness tampering charges during the run-up to the longtime lobbyist's trial. 

Manafort addressed U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson in a soft voice, saying “I do” and “I understand” as she asked him whether he understood what rights he’s giving up. A deputy marshal stood directly behind Manafort, a reminder that he remains in custody. 

Legal experts quickly spun the deal as a win for all the parties involved. Manafort gets a potentially shorter sentence and lessens his legal bills. Trump avoids several weeks of bad headlines ahead of the midterm elections about his corrupt former campaign aide. And Mueller — faced with Trump's constant claims that his probe is a witch hunt — gets to show yet again that his charges are not fabricated and can now divert resources to other elements of his Russia probe. 

But the prospect of Manafort's cooperation with Mueller throws into doubt how much of a win the deal could be for Trump. In addition to running Trump's campaign for several months, Manafort attended the infamous Trump Tower meeting where Trump aides through they might get dirt on Hillary Clinton from a Kremlin-linked lawyer.

It's hard to overstate the importance of this deal.  Mueller wouldn't take this deal (and the judge overseeing Manafort's case wouldn't) unless it served a greater purpose.  And Manafort is still going to get up to ten years tacked on to what he already has from the Virginia trial and he has to forfeit tens of millions in assets, properties, and cash.  He might not actually die in prison.

Donald Trump, on the other hand...well the odds of that being his fate just went up somewhat.  Even a Trump pardon now won't save Manafort...or Trump.  Marcy Wheeler sums it up.

Here’s why this deal is pardon proof: 

1. Mueller spent the hour and a half delay in arraignment doing … something. It’s possible Manafort even presented the key parts of testimony Mueller needs from him to the grand jury this morning.
2. The forfeiture in this plea is both criminal and civil, meaning DOJ will be able to get Manafort’s $46 million even with a pardon.
3. Some of the dismissed charges are financial ones that can be charged in various states.

Remember, back in January, Trump told friends and aides that Manafort could incriminate him (the implication was that only Manafort could). I believe Mueller needed Manafort to describe what happened in a June 7, 2016 meeting between the men, in advance of the June 9 meeting. I have long suspected there was another meeting at which Manafort may be the only other Trump aide attendee.

And Manafort has probably already provided evidence on whatever Mueller needed.

So here’s what Robert Mueller just did: He sewed up the key witness to implicate the President, and he paid for the entire investigation. And it’s only now lunch time.

Robert Mueller just gained the most powerful weapon yet in his arsenal to bring down Trump.  When that weapon is brought to bear, I imagine it will be devastating.

At the very beginning of his time working in Ukraine in 2003, Paul Manafort was in the employ of one Russia’s richest men, an aluminum magnate called Oleg Deripaska. We lazily describe many Russian oligarchs as residing in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. But in the case of Oleg Deripaska, that closeness is a documented fact.

Between 2003 and 2008, Manafort and his firm worked for Deripaska across Europe—in Montenegro, Georgia, and Ukraine. Over that time, the consultant and client also became business partners. Deripaska invested millions in a private equity fund that Manafort established, with the intent of buying assets across the former Soviet Union. Based on various court filings and lawsuits, we know that the relationship went very badly. In these documents, Deripaska suggests that Manafort might have stolen his money. And based on the Special Prosecutors filings, we also know that Manafort owed Deripaska even more money in the form of unpaid loans. Instead of making an effort to settle these large debts, Deripaska says that Manafort simply stopped returning his messages.

Manafort finally reached out to Deripaska, just after he joined Donald Trump’s campaign. In emails obtained by The Atlantic that Paul Manafort traded with an aide, Manafort proposed giving Deripaska special access to the campaign, with the apparent hope of making his debts disappear. We don’t know what became of Manafort’s outreach to Deripaska. Perhaps, it yielded nothing. Deripaska claims that he never received messages from Manafort in 2016. But it’s also worth watching hidden video footage of Deripaska, sitting on his yacht with a top Putin official, procured by the Russian opposition politicians Alexey Navalny. The video captured a meeting held in August 2016, two weeks before Manafort resigned as campaign chair. According to Navalny, the video lends credibility to theory that Deripaska might have been a crucial intermediary between Manafort and the Kremlin.

This is just part of the answers to burning questions that Mueller could get from Manafort.  That's just the start.

And Trump knows it.

If you thought Trump was freaked out before...

But Trump’s anger over Woodward’s book is dwarfed by his continuing fixation on the anonymous New York Times op-ed. Sources told me Trump is “obsessed,” “lathered,” and “freaked out” that the leaker is still in his midst. His son Don Jr. has told people he’s worried Trump isn’t sleeping because of it, a source said. Meetings have been derailed by Trump’s suspicion. “If you look at him the wrong way, he’ll spend the next hour thinking you wrote it,” a Republican close to the White House said. Much of what’s fueling Trump’s paranoia is that he has no clear way to identify the author. One adviser said Trump has instructed aides to call the anonymous author a “coward” in public to shame him or her. “He’s going to continue to shame this person,” a person close to Trump said. “The author will break under pressure or will eventually say, ‘fuck it, it’s me.’” Plans to administer polygraph tests to staff have seemingly died. “Nobody knows who it is,” a former official said.

Oh, and a final thought on why Manafort cooperated from Josh Marshall.

The two words “remain safe” in Manafort lawyer Kevin Downing’s comment on his client’s decision this morning says quite a lot. “He wanted to make sure that his family was able to remain safe and live a good life.”

The kind of people that Manafort is giving up here are the kind of people that make sure chatty people's families end up in mysteriously fatal accidents, if you catch my drift.

Stay tuned.

In A New York (Primary) Minute

Matthew Yglesias comes not to praise NY Dem Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 30-point plus win in last night's Democratic primary over Cynthia Nixon, but to bury his 2020 chances for having to fight this battle at all.

Somewhat ironically, it was actually Cuomo’s presidential aspirations that, in retrospect, have ended up dooming his presidential aspirations.

His father was a liberal icon in his day, and with New York a considerably bluer-than-average state, one natural role for Cuomo to have taken early in his term would have been that of progressive champion. Cuomo was first elected in 2010, the exact same year that national Democrats lost their majorities in Congress, and his New York could have been the proving ground for the next great progressive policy agenda. But he actually had the opposite fear — that governing as a progressive in such a heavily Democratic state would push him to adopt policies that would make him unelectable in a national contest.

Consequently, Cuomo has consistently worked behind the scenes to keep the New York state Senate in Republican hands via the machinations of a small group of state senators who, despite winning election as Democrats, caucus with the GOP. That kept the most ambitious progressive ideas off the legislative agenda, allowing Cuomo to avoid both having overt fights with his base and endorsing policies that pushed the state substantially to the left.

It was a subtle, well-executed game — subtle enough to not be understood by most voters in New York’s Democratic primaries — but in retrospect, it was too clever by half. The mood among national Democrats has swung substantially to the left over the past five years, with Barack Obama recently endorsing ideas like Medicare-for-all and employee representation on corporate boards.

Had Cuomo simply done the normal thing and supported Democratic state Senate candidates and gotten the chance he feared to sign ambitious progressive bills, he’d be perfectly positioned for the circumstances of 2020. Instead, as it stands, he’s left relying on a powerful state party machine and the loyalty of less attentive voters to secure what should have been a total cakewalk of a renomination.

And speaking of that "small group of state senators", the Independent Democratic Caucus as they call themselves were upstate Dems caucusing with the GOP in order to keep Cuomo from having to sign progressive legislation.  They voted to install a Republican state senate leader (Dean Skelos, who got busted by Preet Bharara, then John Flanagan who shared the job along with IDC leader Jeffrey Klein) despite the fact the Democrats had the numbers to control both chambers of the state legislature, and got plum leadership committee assignments from the GOP in Albany as a reward.

They broke up in April when they realized they were going to have a bloody fight on their hands and they wanted to pretend they were Dems again. Cuomo gave them cover.

They got rightfully obliterated last night by those "regulars".

Years of anger at a group of Democratic state senators who had collaborated with Republicans boiled over on Thursday, as primary voters ousted most of them in favor of challengers who had called them traitors and sham progressives.

The losses were a resounding upset for the members of the Independent Democratic Conference, who outspent their challengers several times over, but also a sign that the impatient progressive fervor sweeping national politics had hobbled New York’s once-mighty Democratic machine, at least on a local level.

The most high-profile casualty was Senator Jeffrey D. Klein of the Bronx, the former head of the I.D.C. In that position, he was for years one of Albany’s most powerful players, sharing leadership of the chamber with his counterparts in the Republican conference and participating in the state’s secretive budget negotiations.

But on Thursday, he was defeated by Alessandra Biaggi, a lawyer and former aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, after a campaign in which Ms. Biaggi cornered Mr. Klein into spending nearly $2 million — more than 10 times what she spent — since January, an astonishing sum for a state legislative race. (Cynthia Nixon, in her bid against Mr. Cuomo, spent less.)

In addition to Mr. Klein, at least four other former I.D.C. members had lost their races: Senator Tony Avella in Queens; Senator Jose Peralta in Queens; Senator Jesse Hamilton in Brooklyn; Senator Marisol Alcántara in Manhattan.

At my count this morning six of the eight IDC members are gone now, but that still leaves a 31-31 tie with Democratic one-man roadblock Simcha Felder siding with the GOP and giving them 32.  Dems will have to win in upstate NY, and frankly, after last night's massive turnout, I'm betting they can.

That's going to leave Cuomo in a nasty spot where he may have to, you know, sign progressive legislation next year.

Meanwhile in the NY AG Dem primary to replace Eric Schniederman, NYC Public Advocate Letitia James pretty handily won her primary race over Zephyr Teachout.

New York City Public Advocate Letitia James won a four-way Democratic primary for attorney general in New York on Thursday in a race that was a competition over who could best use the office to antagonize President Donald Trump.

James, 59, would become the first black woman to hold a statewide elected office in New York if she prevails in the general election, where she will be heavily favored. Trump nemesis Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, abruptly resigned from the post in May amid allegations he physically abused women he dated.

James defeated a deep field of fellow Democrats: U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout and former Hillary Clinton adviser Leecia Eve.

New York's attorney general has long had an unusual role as a regulator of Wall Street and an occasional prosecutor of the rich and powerful. The office also recently opened an investigation of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church. But in this contest, Trump emerged as the common foe among all the candidates.

This is the office that will have to continue the criminal investigation of the Trump Organization should Mueller and company get Saturday Night Massacred.

Onward to November.

StupidiNews!

• Flooding in North and South Carolina is already underway as Hurricane Florence's storm surge and heavy rains swamp coastal areas, hundreds of thousands are without power. 
• Multiple explosions were reported in Lawrence, Massachusetts as an over-pressurized residential natural gas pipeline caused fires in dozens of homes.
• The Trump regime is leveling new sanctions against a Chinese tech firm and its Russian subsidiary for evading funding sanctions on North Korea.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren is taking aim at Wall Street banking giants and major tech companies, saying the federal government needs to step in and break up "too big to fail" corporations.
• The yearly 2018 Ig Nobel Prizes are out and honor the science of roller coasters affecting kidney stones, how well human saliva cleans dirt, and just how healthy a human cannibalism diet can be.

Last Call For Supreme Misgivings, Con't

Things just took a wild turn in Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation process for the Supreme Court.  Republicans are rushing to get a full Senate vote before the court begins its term on October 1 and until today it looked like all Democrats could do is just stall for a while as Mitch McConnell and the GOP have the 51 votes no matter what the Democrats do, but now things just got a whole lot more iffy as the FBI just got involved.

The senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee referred information involving Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, to federal investigators on Thursday, but the senator declined to make public what the matter involved.

Two officials familiar with the matter say the incident involved possible sexual misconduct between Judge Kavanaugh and a woman when they were both in high school. They spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

The statement by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California came a week before the Judiciary Committee is to vote on his nomination. “I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” Ms. Feinstein said in a statement. “That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.”

The information came in July in a letter, which was first sent to the office of Representative Anna Eshoo, Democrat of California, and accuses the judge of sexual misconduct toward the letter’s author, a person familiar with the letter confirmed.

Ms. Feinstein, who received the letter from Ms. Eshoo’s office, informed fellow Democrats on the Judiciary Committee about its existence and its contents on Wednesday evening but did not share the letter itself. Several Democrats advised her to take its claims to the F.B.I., and others pressed for it to become public.

In addition to criminal investigations, the F.B.I. conducts background checks on all major government appointees, including Supreme Court nominees. The F.B.I. said in a statement on Thursday that it had received Ms. Feinstein’s referral and included it in Judge Kavanaugh’s background file. A bureau official also said that no criminal investigation had been opened related to the matter.

Needless to say, this is pretty big.  The reason is that during the background check process, the FBI runs a no-holds-barred, nothing-off-limits scouring of a nominee's history.  If the FBI asked Kavanaugh about the sexual misconduct incident and he denied it, and the information Sen. Feinstein got from Rep. Eshoo's office that says otherwise, Kavanaugh could get rung up on providing false information (that "lying to the FBI" charge that seems to be so common these days among Republicans).

We'll see what comes from it.

That Economic Anxiety In Elkhart Again, Con't

Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly is trying to hold on in Indiana, and his chances of keeping his Senate seat may very well hinge on how Trump's trade war with China (and the devastating hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs it brings) plays out with voters in the RV capital of the world, Elkhart.

The impact of the president’s tariffs on everything from steel to soybeans is playing out against the backdrop of the midterm elections, with some Republicans trying to make a robust economy central to their case for maintaining control of Congress. In Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota and other states, the president’s policies are starting to be felt, especially in industries that have large trading relationships with China.

“I think there’s serious concern about the effects of tariffs on the R.V. industry,” said Senator Joe Donnelly, Democrat of Indiana and one of the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents this year. His home is nearby. “So many of the components that go into R.V.s are directly affected by these tariffs.”

“It is something that we watch very, very closely having gone through the other side of this when unemployment was 22 percent,” Mr. Donnelly said, referring to the unemployment rate in Elkhart at the peak of the Great Recession.

In Elkhart, a field of R.V.s is as common as corn. An RV Hall of Fame lionizes the industry and its progress from small aluminum trailers to luxury vehicles with the amenities of expensive condominiums. “We like to say we build fun in Elkhart County,” said Mike Yoder, a Republican and an Elkhart County commissioner.

But Mr. Yoder is among those who think the fun could be ebbing. “Everybody in the industry is aware of the negative significance of that,” he said of the tariffs. “We are experiencing a bit of a slowdown in R.V. production, and a number of companies are working four days instead of five to clean up inventory.”

“My personal opinion is this is horrific for the community,” he continued. “This is a really big deal for us. We export a lot of product and import a lot of product. If this whole trade dispute expands much more, it has serious implications, and we will once again lead the country into a recession, without a doubt.”

It's getting bad in Elkhart again.  Really bad.

The R.V. industry is forecasting sales of about 500,000 vehicles this year, about the same as in 2017 after several years of strong, sometimes double-digit, growth. The tariffs are adding as much as 50 percent to the price of some materials, and the companies in turn are raising prices.

If the name sounds familiar, it should be.  I've been talking about Elkhart since President Obama visited it in 2009 to kick off his stimulus program push. Unemployment skyrocketed here, and then President Obama's policies pushed that unemployment down to 4%.

Elkhart County decided Barack Obama took credit for something he had nothing to do with, and promptly voted for Trump.  Now of course, they have second thoughts.  They have actual economic anxiety, not just the grudging anger of having to give the nation's first black president credit.

But let's remember what they said in December 2016 here in Elkhart.

“He didn’t help us here, but he took credit for what happened,” Chris Corbin, 47, who works for a dispatch company in Elkhart, told me. Corbin thinks it will be Trump who improves the economy. “It’s going to take two terms, but he’ll fix things,” he said.

Trump'll fix things.  Right into another recession.

Brandon Stanley owns a bar in Elkhart. He says he’s optimistic that the economy is improving now that Republicans have regained power, but emphasizes that there are still a host of economic problems that haven’t been solved in Elkhart. As for the shrinking unemployment rate in Elkhart, “they changed how they report unemployment numbers,” he told me, so they’re not believable.

But the coming recession sure is believable.  I bet they'll blame the tariffs on Obama too.

Andi Ermes, 39, offered a number of reasons for disliking Obama. She said Obama didn’t attend the Army-Navy football game, even though other presidents had. Obama has actually attended more Army-Navy games than George H.W. Bush. She said that he had taken too many vacations. He has taken fewer vacation days that George W. Bush. She also said that he refused to wear a flag pin on his lapel. While it is true that Obama did not wear a flag on his lapel at points during the 2007 campaign, it was back on his suit by 2008. Ermes told me the news sources she consumes most are Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and a local conservative radio show hosted by Casey Hendrickson.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ermes sees the biggest signs for hope in the economy in Carrier deal struck by Donald Trump, which will keep 1,000 jobs in the U.S. “He’s not even president yet and already he’s helping the economy,” she said. 

Yeah, about that Carrier plant over in Indy, as Nelson Schwartz of the NY Times took a look just last month at it...

Twenty months ago, a freshly elected Donald J. Trump came to Carrier to claim credit for disrupting management’s plans to shut the factory and shift its jobs to Mexico. The plant stayed open, and more than 700 workers kept their positions. The deal dominated the news and became a political Rorschach test: Mr. Trump’s critics saw a minuscule victory, bought with tax credits, but for many of his supporters, the episode was proof that the incoming president would revive Rust Belt fortunes by sheer force of personality.

After three earlier visits, I wanted to know what Carrier workers themselves thought of the outcome, long after Mr. Trump and his media hurricane had moved on. From afar, one might assume the picture is rosy: Indiana has an unemployment rate of just 3.3 percent, and for people without a college degree, few employers offer the kind of salary and benefits that Carrier does. But when I got to Indianapolis in July, I found that the factory Mr. Trump is often credited with saving is plagued by rising absenteeism and low morale.

“People aren’t coming to work, which is sad because we really need these jobs,” said Ms. Hargrove, who has worked at Carrier for 15 years. “They had a chance to prove that staying was good, but this is ruining it for everybody. It’s killing us. It’s pushing us out the door that much sooner.”

What’s ailing Carrier isn’t weak demand. Furnace sales are strong, and managers have increased overtime and even recalled 150 previously laid-off workers. Instead, employees share a looming sense that a factory shutdown is inevitable — that Carrier has merely postponed the closing until a more politically opportune moment.

In some ways, the situation is a metaphor for blue-collar work and life in the United States today. Paychecks are a tad fatter and the economic picture has brightened slightly, but no one feels particularly secure or hopeful.

You know, economic anxiety.

Heck Of A Job, Trumpie

Dear Carolinas:

Having grown up in Western NC and having went through Hurricane Hugo in '89 (real surprise to find a tropical storm 350 miles inland, lemme tell ya) I know what's about to happen to you this weekend.  It's not going to be pretty, and if you're in the path of the storm, get out.

Having said that, I never had any doubt that federal disaster relief was going to be there when my family needed it.  Thirty years later, my family is being threatened again by a massive storm, and the jackasses in charge aren't exactly filling me with confidence.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said this week that millions of water bottles meant for victims of Hurricane Maria have been left undistributed at an airport in Puerto Rico for more than a year.

CBS News journalist David Begnaud reported on Wednesday that FEMA acknowledged that loads of water bottles were brought to the island in 2017 in the wake of the hurricane and that it turned them over to the "central government."

However, a photographer working for a Puerto Rican police agency, Abdiel Santana, noticed that the water was still sitting at the airport runway one year later, according to Begnaud.

"FEMA says the water, and we’re talking what could be millions of bottles of water, were brought to the island by FEMA last year. FEMA tells me the water was turned over to the central government," Begnaud said in a video posted on Twitter Wednesday night.

"The question is what happened after that. Where was the breakdown?" Begnaud asked.

He added that “the water was kept in an area that was pretty hard-hit during the storm and could have used all the water they could have gotten."

The finding comes as the Trump administration continues to face scrutiny over its response to the hurricane, which ravaged Puerto Rico.

According to an independent study conducted by George Washington University, nearly 3,000 people died as a result of the hurricane — a number that represents a sharp increase from the initial estimate of 64.

To recap, a runway tarmac's worth of pallets of bottled water rotted for a year and nobody admitted they knew about it until CBS spotted it from the sky.

More Details pic.twitter.com/jyPGRqiIy3

— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) September 12, 2018

Almost 3,000 people in Puerto Rico died because the Trump regime dropped the ball, and there's more than a little evidence they did so out of political spite by a truly evil orange man.  So when they say the Carolinas and Virginia and Maryland are going to be OK, and that my family is going to be OK, well you'll excuse me if I don't take that at face value.

StupidiNews!

• Although the intensity of Hurricane Florence has slipped to Category 2, the size of the storm has massively increased as the Carolina coast now faces one of the largest named storms in history.
• A gunman in Bakersfield, California killed his wife at the trucking company where she worked and four other people last night before turning the gun on himself as police closed in.
• Recently-minted US Open women's tennis champion Naomi Osaka has signed a major three-year endorsement deal with Nissan to be the new face of the automaker in Japan and worldwide.
• The Trump regime has lost a lawsuit brought by 19 states over Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's delaying of Obama-era regulations to protect student loan borrowers from predatory practices.
• Apple's latest tech offerings announced at yesterday's yearly event includes the iPhone XS at $999, the iPhone XS Max at $1,099, and the iPhone XR at $749.

Last Call For Keeping Kids in Camps

The Trump regime is still refusing to reunite stolen migrant kids with their parents, and if anything, they're planning to separate more kids and put them in even bigger camps because frankly, nobody's going to stop them.

A tent camp for migrant children in the desert outside El Paso will expand to accommodate a growing number of Central American children crossing the border, the Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday.

HHS, the federal agency tasked with caring for migrant children and teenagers in U.S. custody, said it would more than triple the size of its camp at the Tornillo-Guadalupe Land Port of Entry from 1,200 beds to as many as 3,800.

The Trump administration established the camp in June as a temporary shelter because its facilities elsewhere were running out of space. That occurred at the height of President Trump’s “zero tolerance” prosecution initiative, a crackdown that separated about 2,500 migrant children from their parents.

Widespread condemnation forced Trump to reverse course and stop the separations, but since then, HHS has taken in greater numbers of underage migrants. The number of families illegally crossing the border jumped again in recent weeks, according to border agents and administration officials. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is scheduled to release its latest arrest totals Wednesday.

Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for HHS’s Administration for Children and Families, said the need for emergency capacity was the result of the latest surge at the border, not the administration’s decision to separate families during the crackdown this spring.

“ ‘Family separations’ resulting from the zero tolerance policy ended on June 20, 2018 and are not driving this need,” Wolfe said in a statement.

HHS officials have “worked round the clock to add beds or add shelters to avoid any backup” at the border,” Wolfe added. He said the agency has 12,800 minors in its custody, the highest number ever. Minors spend an average of 59 days in HHS custody, up from 51 days in 2017.

HHS has used the Tornillo site primarily to house older teens, channeling younger children in its custody to more “permanent” sites among the approximately 100 shelters where migrant children are housed.

So more kids will separated from their parents, thousands more, and kept in hell camps in the hot Texas sun, because the Trump regime needs not only a deterrent for people crossing into America, they need a deterrent for Americans themselves.  After all, we already have people fleeing federal food programs because they know ICE will use information to target them, and finding out banks are freezing accounts of suspected non-citizens while the regime is openly calling citizenship of Hispanics into question.

Pretty soon, they won't wait for an answer.

Here's the best part.  With Hurricane Florence on the way, it turns out Trump took $10 million in FEMA funding to pay for the new camps.

President Donald Trump’s administration cut nearly $10 million out of FEMA’s budget in order to fund ICE’s immigration detention centers, according a budget document obtained by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and disclosed on Tuesday night’s edition of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show.

As Maddow reported, Merkley’s staff believes these Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) transfers were made earlier this summer, right before the start of hurricane season.

Merkley, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, acquired the previously undisclosed document, which shows $9.8 million was diverted from FEMA to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pay for more “detention beds” and “ICE’s transportation and removal program.”

Maddow said a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson did not dispute the authenticity of the document when contacted about it, but said the money had not come from the agency’s “disaster and recovery response efforts.”

Merkley disputed that claim in an appearance with Maddow on Tuesday, noting the budget document he obtained shows $9.8 million was transferred to ICE from FEMA’s response and recovery budget.

That's $9.8 million that won't go to people in the Carolinas, who will need that response and recovery effort from FEMA by this time next week.

Oh well.

Papers, please.

First they came for the undocumented immigrants...

The Turtle's Revenge

With GOP control of the Senate actually looking like it may be in play in November, Mitch McConnell is doing everything he can to keep Senate Democrats from being able to campaign against their Republican challengers, even if that means remaining in session all the way through October as he tries to get as many Trump judges confirmed as possible before the music stops.

Traditionally, the Senate hits the road in October of an election year. But the Senate is throwing tradition out the window this year.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is planning to keep the chamber in session for a significant portion of October if not four entire weeks, costing Democrats key campaign trail days and allowing the Senate to continue its work into the fall, according to five Republican officials. The Kentucky Republican wants to keep cranking through as many lifetime judicial nominations and executive nominations as he can with his majority in the balance and the GOP still with the unilateral ability to confirm President Donald Trump’s picks.

Moreover, the Senate GOP has only two members who are considered vulnerable in the election: Ted Cruz of Texas and Dean Heller of Nevada. Democrats, meanwhile, are defending 10 seats total in states that Trump won in 2016, with at least four considered extremely competitive.

The House is expected to head home for the rest of the election season after passing a spending bill later this month. But with the Senate’s unique role confirming the president’s nominees and little political downside to staying in session, McConnell plans to forge ahead into October after slashing the August recess down to little more than two weeks.

“I plan to be here, yeah. Why wouldn’t we be?” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). “You see anything that’s traditional these days? … they don’t need more than a couple of weeks to campaign.”

They may not even get that.   I fully expect McConnell to keep the Senate in session through Friday, October 26th, leaving Democrats with at most 11 days to campaign, while their Republican challengers will have had in some cases up to three months to criss-cross the states they are trying to win in.

Of course, the best way to beat the Turtle at his own game is simply not to show up to play.  Dems should ditch and tell Turtle to go screw off.  Yeah, McConnell plans to confirm dozens of Trump-selected federal judges to lifetime appointments. So the worst-case scenario there is Dems give in to a package deal to quickly confirm the judges en masse only for McConnell to make them stay anyway and take several slow, ugly votes on House GOP packages on abortion, Obamacare, and more GOP tax cuts.

It's not going to be pretty when it happens, so expect it, and don't get suckered in, Dems.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

The Washington Post is confirming Friday's Bloomberg News article that Paul Manafort is indeed in talks with Robert Mueller's team for a plea deal ahead of imminent jury selection in his federal trial next week.

Days before in-person jury ­selection is set to begin in his second trial, President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is in talks with the special counsel’s office about a possible plea deal, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.

The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to ­describe the conversations, cautioned that the negotiations may not result in a deal with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is prosecuting Manafort for alleged money laundering and lobbying violations.

But the discussions indicate a possible shift in strategy for Manafort, who earlier this year chose to go to trial in Virginia, only to be convicted last month in Alexandria federal court on eight counts of bank and tax fraud. He had derided his former business partner, Rick Gates, for striking a deal with prosecutors that provided him leniency in exchange for testimony against Manafort.

“I had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence,” Manafort said in February.

The specifics of Manafort’s current negotiations with prosecutors were unclear, including whether he would provide any information about the president.

However, Manafort’s willingness to engage in talks could be a setback for Trump, who in the past has praised his former campaign chairman for his unwillingness to cooperate with the special counsel.

Prosecutors “applied tremendous pressure on him and . . . he refused to ‘break’ - make up stories in order to get a ‘deal,’ ” the president tweeted last month. “Such respect for a brave man!”

Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni and Mueller spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment. Manafort’s attorneys, Kevin M. Downing and Thomas E. Zehnle, did not immediately return calls for comment.

As I said on Friday:

This could be Manafort fishing for a pardon now, but it's a dangerous game, ask Michael Cohen, who's going to be in jail for quite some time, about that.  Still, Republicans probably want the Manafort trial to go away ASAP rather than a long drawn out trial smack in the middle of midterm campaigns, and Manafort knows it.

So Manafort does have some leverage.  Remember, this trial is all about Manafort's connections to Trump, not just tax fraud and other white collar crimes...and Manafort is going into this already being a convicted felon.  Daily news coverage on this going into October is definitely going to have an effect on Republicans.

They want this trial gone.    They can do it the easy way with a full Trump pardon, or the ugly way and Manafort cuts that deal (or the really ugly way, where Manafort is on trial for the six weeks leading up to the elections with a nasty verdict right before the midterms for Democrats to seize on.)

We'll see what happens, but whatever the decision is, it'll happen this week.

StupidiNews!

• Hurricane Florence will drop to Category 3 strength as the storm expands before slamming into the Carolina coast early Friday, but the storm's path could take it back towards South Carolina.
• Asked about FEMA's Florence response, Donald Trump praised his "incredibly successful" response in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria despite nearly 3,000 deaths.
• Tory lawmakers are warning British PM Theresa May to change course on Brexit or face the consequences, dozens of Conservative Party PMs are considering her ouster.
• Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are now off 80% from their December 2017 highs as the crash continues, outpacing the carnage of the dot-com bubble bursting in 2000.
• Georgia GOP Secretary of State and current gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp says there's no way Georgia can go back to paper ballots as the state is being sued over voting security.

Last Call For The Law Of The Amazon

Amazon's Prime delivery services are very convenient, offering one-day and even same day delivery on items in dozens of US cities.  And the people paid to deliver those millions of packages daily are mostly contractors, not making minimum wage, in unsafe conditions, with no breaks, and no benefits.

Several people described instances when they felt their bosses at Amazon-affiliated courier companies took advantage of them.

Four drivers across three companies said their employers misrepresented the job by promising health benefits without following through. One worker said that when he started his job, his employer promised that he would get health benefits within 90 days of employment. He said he was fired within days of qualifying.

Eight workers across four companies said drivers were denied overtime pay, despite working well over 40 hours a week. Thirteen workers across five companies complained about wages missing from paychecks.

"The culture is predatory," said Ku Irvin, who started working as a driver for DeliverOL, in Aurora, Colorado, in November 2016. "It's a revolving door. A lot of promises are made that are not kept."

Nine months later, Irvin became a manager but said he couldn't stomach it. "Once I got behind the desk, I saw what was going on and it was sickening to me," he said.

A few drivers told Business Insider that they felt powerless to address problems because they feared retaliation.

They described the measures they feared as firings, withholding of wages, and denial of work — meaning drivers could be sent home without a delivery route on days they were scheduled.

"If I didn't come in on my day off, they threatened to fire me," Justin Waring, a former driver for Courier Distribution Systems, in Lisle, Illinois, told Business Insider.

A supervisor at a New Jersey-based logistics company, Prime EFS, sent a threatening text to drivers in late April:

"Tomorrow is Saturday. The Weekend. Where everyone wants to call out," read the message, which was viewed by Business Insider. "You're scheduled for tomorrow so I expect everyone confirmed and on time tomorrow. Any callouts I will make sure you do not receive a route for a week." Prime EFS did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

One Richmond, Virginia-based driver at another Amazon-affiliated courier company claimed he was sent home on a scheduled workday as punishment for arriving one minute late.

"That's their way of disciplining you," said the driver, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of getting fired.

I've talked about Amazon's Dickensian warehouses in the past, and things haven't gotten much better there, but I sure as hell wouldn't work for the company's white collar divisions either.

The company is a stain on the country, frankly.  It needs to be dismantled.

The Mustache Versus The World

Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton's Mustache made it painfully clear Monday (during a Federalist Society speech, natch) that the Trump regime wasn't going to tolerate the International Criminal Court meddling in US affairs any longer.

The United States will not in any way cooperate with the International Criminal Court, national security adviser John Bolton announced in a speech to the Federalist Society on Monday, blasting the ICC as an unaccountable, bureaucratic body that runs counter to the U.S. Constitution and is "antithetical to our nation's ideals."

In his first speech as national security adviser, Bolton made the case that the ICC's authority is invalid, subverts American sovereignty, and concentrates power in the hands of an unchecked authority in a way that is "antithetical to our nation's ideals." In November, the ICC prosecutor asked to investigate crimes allegedly committed by members of the U.S. military who served in Afghanistan. Bolton called those claims unfounded. The national security adviser said it was no coincidence he made his speech on the ICC one day before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

"Today, on the eve of September 11th, I want to deliver a clear and unambiguous message on behalf of the President of the United States," Bolton said. "The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court.We will not cooperate with the ICC," Bolton said. "We will provide no assistance to the ICC. And we certainly will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."

The ICC was formally established in 2002, although then-President George W. Bush authorized the U.S. to "un-sign" the Rome Statute and the Senate never ratified it. Bolton suggested the ICC was created to attack U.S. leadership, not to truly hold egregious international criminals accountable.

"In theory, the ICC holds perpetrators of the most egregious atrocities accountable for their crimes, provides justice to the victims, and deters future abuses," Bolton said. "In practice, however, the court has been ineffective, unaccountable, and indeed, outright dangerous. Moreover, the largely unspoken, but always central, aim of its most vigorous supporters was to constrain the United States. The objective was not limited to targeting individual U.S. service members, but rather America's senior political leadership, and its relentless determination to keep our country secure."

If the ICC does come after the U.S., Israel, or any allies, Bolton said the U.S. will not sit quietly. He listed a number of possible actions Bolton might pursue, from withdrawing financial aid to banning judges from entering the country.

"We will respond against the ICC and its personnel to the extent permitted by U.S. law," he said.

Now there are plenty of countries who are not party to the Rome agreement of 2002 and are not members of the ICC besides the US, but all NATO members are (except for Turkey, of course). We've heard this before, Bolton's Mustache has been tangling with the ICC since it was created 16 years ago.  But Alex Whiting at Just Security cautions that this time, with Trump at the helm, the stakes are much higher, and the damage that the Trump regime will do could be irreversible.

[t]here is the looming Afghanistan investigation, which will likely be authorized any day now by a pre-trial chamber and which no doubt prompted Bolton’s speech today. Indeed, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Monday, “They told us they were on the verge of making that decision, and we’re letting them know our position ahead of them making that decision.” The pending decision is expected to authorize the prosecutor to investigate the Taliban and Afghan government forces, as well as U.S. personnel for acts of torture against detainees in Afghanistan and at black sites in Poland, Romania, and Lithuania. There are reasons to believe that the ICC prosecutor will focus on the crimes of the Taliban, that far exceed in scale the allegations against U.S. persons, but just the existence of this investigation will likely become an impediment to a more constructive relationship between the U.S. and the ICC in the future. On Monday Bolton described the potential U.S. targets of an ICC investigation as “American patriots, who voluntarily went into harm’s way to protect our nation, our homes, and our families in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.” Given this framing, it will be challenging for future administrations to find a path back to even a constructive relationship with the ICC.

In sum, the policies announced today should not be dismissed as just some more overheated bluster from Bolton and this administration. The new rhetorical framing and policy positions genuinely risk serious damage to the ICC and the rule of law around the world, and these steps will be difficult, if not impossible, to undo. The court, for instance, may no longer be recognizable by the time a new U.S. administration makes the effort to pick up the pieces.

While the new U.S. posture reflects the particular ideological stances of Bolton and President Trump, it is also a further consequence of the misguided embrace of torture by U.S. government officials following 9/11. It is because the ICC is turning to scrutinize allegations of U.S. torture in Afghanistan and elsewhere that Bolton had to turn his sights on the court and bring out a wrecking ball. The U.S. has a proud tradition of initiating, supporting, funding, and participating in international institutions to achieve accountability for international crimes, dating back to Nuremberg and continuing through the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and elsewhere. Today the U.S. turned against that legacy, likely for many years to come.

I fully expect Trump to demand that fellow NATO allies leave the ICC once it becomes clear that US military personnel will be facing war crimes investigations for 16 years in Afghanistan.  And if I were Vladimir Putin, I could think of no easier way to destroy NATO permanently than to talk Trump into this exact fight we're seeing play out now.