Last Call For The Con Way

A federal watchdog agency is telling the White House that adviser Kellyanne Conway has indeed violated the Hatch Act on multiple occasions and should be immediately fired, the Trump Regime responded with a gigantic middle finger.

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) sent a 16-page report to Trump accusing Conway of breaking the law on numerous occasions “by disparaging Democratic presidential candidates while speaking in her official capacity during television interviews and on social media” and calling on the president to oust her “immediately.”

“As a highly visible member of the administration, Ms. Conway’s violations, if left unpunished, would send a message to all federal employees that they need not abide by the Hatch Act’s restrictions,” special counsel Henry Kerner wrote to Trump. “Her actions thus erode the principal foundation of our democratic system — the rule of law.”

The White House immediately rejected the office’s recommendation that Conway be fired, saying its findings are “deeply flawed and violate her constitutional rights to free speech and due process.”

The office, which is unrelated to former special counsel Robert Mueller of the Russia investigation, has never recommended that the White House fire an employee over Hatch Act violations.

White House spokesman Steven Groves accused the office of making a politically motivated decision to target Conway.

“Its decisions seem to be influenced by media pressure and liberal organizations – and perhaps OSC should be mindful of its own mandate to act in a fair, impartial, non-political manner, and not misinterpret or weaponize the Hatch Act,” he said in a statement.

Expect Henry Kerner to be fired well before Kellyanne Conway.  And no, the White House doesn't give a damn about the Hatch Act or any other laws, because we no longer have rule of law in this country when it comes to the Executive Branch.

Conway is untouchable as Propaganda Secretary.

Trump White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Thursday snapped at a reporter after he asked her for comment on the U.S. Office of Special Counsel’s conclusion that she has repeatedly broken the law.

CNBC White House correspondent Eamon Javers reports that he asked Conway if she had any reaction to the report on her repeated violations of the Hatch Act that bars most executive branch employees from engaging in political activity.

In response, Javers says Conway pointed at the door and said, “Can you leave please?”

Javers then asked her again — and she delivered a churlish response.

“I have no reaction,” Conway said. “Why would I give you a reaction?”

Nothing matters, and the media will continue to book Conway on news shows as if nothing happened, and Conway will continue to violate the Hatch Act.

The Hunter and The Hunted

Remember our old friend California GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, who won reelection in 2018 despite being indicted for massive campaign finance fraud and embezzlement?  Turns out his wife just sold him up the river, and poor Duncan is going to fry like a cheese stick.

The wife of indicted Republican U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter of California has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to misuse campaign funds, including for an Italy trip that cost more than $10,000.
Margaret Hunter, who worked as her husband’s campaign manager, had previously pleaded not guilty to corruption charges alleging the couple used more than $250,000 in campaign funds to pay for personal trips, hotel rooms and shopping sprees.

But on Thursday she withdrew that plea in U.S. court in San Diego and pleaded guilty to a single count carrying a sentence of up to five years in prison.

The misuse of campaign funds spanned from 2010 to the end of 2016.

The move suggests she is cooperating with the prosecution and might even testify against her husband. His trial is scheduled for September.
His attorney, Gregory Vega, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Margaret Hunter’s guilt should have no impact on his client’s case.

Oh, but it will.  And Duncan Hunter's own wife is going to sell him out and put him in prison.  I can't wait.  Another Republican in California falls?

The FIrst Hat Leaves The Ring

No surprise that Starbucks founder Howard Schultz is hitting the road and suspending his presidential campaign, the guy with basically zero support is laying off staff while still saying he's ready to re-enter the race after Super Tuesday if Joe Biden isn't the nominee by then.

Starbucks billionaire Howard Schultz told campaign staff that he is making significant cuts to his team, as he suspends his political plans for the summer.

Schultz came into the office Wednesday for the first time in months and met with the staff, according to a person in the room. He announced that he was letting everyone go except those in senior leadership positions, adding he would not make a decision about running for president until after Labor Day.

Shortly thereafter, Schultz sent an email to supporters, saying that medical reasons had taken him out of commission for months, and he still needed time to recover.

“While I was in Arizona, I unfortunately experienced acute back pain that required me to cut my travels short,” he wrote. “Over the following two months, I underwent three separate back surgeries. Today, I am feeling much better, and my doctors foresee a full recovery so long as I rest and rehabilitate. I have decided to take the summer to do just that.”

Early this year, Schultz announced that he was considering running for president as a centrist independent. He had traveled around the country doing public appearances and promoting his memoir ― while facing significant criticism from some Democrats who say that his run could help President Donald Trump win a second term.

Schultz told his staff Wednesday that he was closely watching former Vice President Joe Biden, the frontrunner on the Democratic side who is more moderate and centrist than many of the other candidates. Schultz said that if Biden does not appear to be the nominee, he would think about jumping into the presidential race after Super Tuesday.

“He is realigning a team for the next phase of his exploration,” a Schultz aide said in response to a request for comment.

And yet even with Schultz gone, there's still a score of Democratic presidential hopefuls.  I'm hoping a dozen of them or so will be gone after the first debate in two weeks, but the DNC seems bound and determined to drag this on through at least September, while Trump will have a clear field to attack whomever he wants.

The faster the Democratic field gets reduced to say, five or six, the better the Dems will do in 2020.

StupidiNews!

• Seven suspects, including the confessed gunman, have been arrested in a plot to kill former Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz in his homeland of the Dominican Republic.
• A new study finds that as much as a fifth of the Earth's current ocean life could be gone due to climate change by the end of the century.
• Donald Trump promised Polish President Andrzej Duda 1,000 US troops to deter Russian aggression as the White House hosted the NATO ally on Wednesday.
• Maine has become the eighth US state to legalize assisted suicide as Gov. Janet Mills has signed legislation into law, allowing doctors to prescribe terminally ill patients a fatal dose of medication.
• The oldest known evidence of cannabis use has been found in China from 2,500 years ago, marijuana was used as part of ancient funeral rituals to honor the dead.

Last Call For Amash-ed Potato

I said before that Donald Trump's reaction to GOP Rep. Justin Amash's call for his impeachment would tell the tale, and that if Trump ignored Amash, it was all for show.  Turns out Trump is not only refusing to ignore Amash, but he's made the Michigan congressman's primary defeat the centerpiece of his Michigan 2020 campaign.

Donald Trump and his top allies are moving to make Justin Amash pay for becoming the sole Republican congressman to call for the president’s impeachment.

Trump and his top advisers have discussed the prospect of backing a primary challenge to the Michigan lawmaker — a highly unusual move for a president against a member of his own party that would effectively amount to a warning shot to other Republicans thinking of crossing him. The conversations come as the billionaire DeVos family, which has deep ties to the administration and remains one of Michigan’s most powerful families, has announced it will cut off the congressman. That move could send a signal to other conservative donors deciding whether to invest in Amash.

Trump has raised the primary challenge idea with Vice President Mike Pence and North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, a close Trump ally who co-founded the conservative House Freedom Caucus with Amash. Trump has also addressed the subject with Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, a former Michigan GOP leader who remains influential in the state.

Those who’ve spoken with the president say he’s made no firm decision about taking on Amash, who’s accused the president of engaging in “impeachable conduct” and left the door open to a third-party campaign for president. Trump, they point out, is mostly focused on his own reelection and often cools down after he has time to process a slight. There are also potential risks: Trying to unseat Amash could elevate him or turn him into a martyr.

Others in the president’s inner circle are skeptical that Amash, whose office did not respond to a request for comment, will even seek reelection.

Yet in some of the conversations, the president has been adamant that the White House take a forceful stand against the congressman. The deliberations underscore Trump’s penchant for exacting political retribution against those who’ve wronged him — something he executed with devastating precision against former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and former South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford.

White House spokespersons declined to comment, as did spokespersons for Pence and Meadows. McDaniel, who under party rules is prohibited from supporting primary candidates, declined to address her conversations with Trump but said in a statement that it’s “sad to see Congressman Amash parroting the Democrats’ talking points on Russia.”

“The only people still fixated on the Russia collusion hoax are political foes of President Trump hoping to defeat him in 2020 by any desperate means possible,” she said. “Voters in Amash’s district strongly support this president and would rather their congressman work to support the president's policies that have brought jobs, increased wages and made life better for Americans."

Trump has no choice but to crucify Amash, potential martyrdom or otherwise.  And I doubt Amash will be a martyr, he'll just have his political career utterly exterminated.  Like it or not, without fundraising support, he'll be buried.  The larger point is without being utterly obliterated, Trump will face more Republicans turning on him.  Amash has to be staked out for the vultures or the next Republican to decide to bail on the Trump train will take a lot more with them.

No, it has to end here.  Expect to see more Republicans close ranks around Dear Leader this month.

Amash's Democratic opponent is who we need to be cheering on.

Reaching A Con Census

Caught red-handed last month as the GOP lied to federal courts about plans using citizenship status on the US Census to harm Democratic strongholds, the Trump regime is now taking its ball and running for the hills.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday moved to block Congress’ access to documents about how a citizenship question was added to the 2020 census.

Trump claimed executive privilege over subpoenaed documents at the urging of the Justice Department, as the House Oversight and Reform Committee was beginning proceedings Wednesday morning to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with the panel’s subpoenas, which the committee issued in April.

“These documents are protected from disclosure by the deliberative process, attorney-client communications, or attorney work product components of executive privilege,” Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote in a letter to House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).

“Regrettably, you have made these assertions necessary by your insistence upon scheduling a premature contempt vote,” Boyd added.

Boyd’s letter came just minutes before the committee convened to vote on civil and criminal contempt citations for Barr and Ross. Talks between the Justice Department and the committee broke down late Tuesday night after both sides exchanged last-minute offers that would have staved off the contempt votes.

“This begs the question: what is being hidden?” Cummings said. “This does not appear to be an effort to engage in good faith negotiations or accommodations. Instead, it appears to be another example of the administration’s blanket defiance of Congress’s constitutionally mandated responsibilities.”

Cummings offered to postpone Wednesday’s votes if the Justice and Commerce departments agreed to turn over a small batch of specific documents. But a spokeswoman for Cummings said the Trump administration did not accept that offer, adding: “Despite more than two months since we issued the subpoenas and more than a week since we told the agencies we were moving to contempt, the agencies have made no commitment or counter-offer regarding any of the critical documents in our subpoenas.”

Add this to the piles of evidence of obstruction of justice, but again, Trump wins this if he's able to tie up all these subpoenas from House Democrats in court until after the election, and all indications are that's the plan.

Whether or not Democrats can force this in the court of public opinion remains to be seen, but it's increasingly looking like it may be their only hope.

Deportation Nation, Con't

Let's call what the Trump regime is doing to migrant children by its proper name: internment camps.

The Trump Administration has opted to use an Army base in Oklahoma to hold growing numbers of immigrant children in its custody after running out of room at government shelters.

Fort Sill, an 150-year-old installation once used as an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, has been selected to detain 1,400 children until they can be given to an adult relative, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The agency said Fort Sill will be used “as a temporary emergency influx shelter” to help ease the burden on the government as it prepares to house a record number of minors even though it already operates about 168 facilities and programs in 23 states.

Health and Human Services said in a statement that it has taken about 40,900 children into custody through April 30. That’s a 57% increase from last year, which is a rate on-pace to surpass the record figures in 2016, when 59,171 minors were taken into custody. The agency had assessed two other military bases before selecting Fort Sill.

The children would be held inside facilities that are separate from the general on-base population. HHS personnel, not American troops, will oversee them.

Using military bases in this way is not new. In 2014, the Obama Administration placed around 7,700 migrant children on bases in Texas, California and Oklahoma, including Fort Sill. The temporary shelters were shuttered after four months. Last year, the government evaluated several military bases to shelter migrants, but ultimately decided not to use the facilities.

However, it appears unavoidable this year. Apprehensions of children at the border are already nearing record numbers. U.S. Customs and Border Protection released data last week that showed the figures had skyrocketed to 56,278 at the end of May, a 74% increase over last year. The influx of migrants, mainly from Central America, is straining an already exhausted system, U.S. officials say. Several children have died while in U.S. custody since last year.

The difference from 2014 being that the Obama administration actually returned and resettled these kids with relatives and family, and yes it was temporary.  The Trump regime doesn't plan to give these kids back at all and in fact is creating a humanitarian crisis in order to generate enough outrage to authorize mass deportations.

It was bad when Obama did it, yes.  It's infinitely worse when Trump is doing it now.

StupidiNews!

• Protesters in Hong Kong are on their fourth day of demonstrations against an extradition bill to China, calling on city Chief Executive Carrie Lam to withdraw the bill or resign.
• Donald Trump dared Democrats wanting to impeach him to "bring it on" as Republicans are circling the wagons around an increasingly isolated Trump regime.
• In a 229-191 party line vote, House Democrats have approved authority to sue Trump regime advisers who ignore subpoenas, paving the way for lawsuits against potentially dozens.
• Puerto Rico plans to move its presidential primary contests up to March in order to "be heard" in 2020 politics on Hurricane Maria, debt restructuring, and more.
• A new Energy Department study finds geothermal power could be a major player in US renewable energy even in states outside California and Alaska.

Last Call For That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

The latest Qunnipiac poll has various Democrats beating Trump by significant margins in head-to-head matchups right now.

In a first look at head-to-head 2020 presidential matchups nationwide, several Democratic challengers lead President Donald Trump, with former Vice President Joseph Biden ahead 53 - 40 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University National Poll released today.

In other matchups, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University National Poll finds:

• Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders over President Trump 51 - 42 percent;
• California Sen. Kamala Harris ahead of Trump 49 - 41 percent;
• Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren tops Trump 49 - 42 percent;
• South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg edges Trump 47 - 42 percent;
• New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker by a nose over Trump 47 - 42 percent.

In the Trump-Biden matchup, women back Biden 60 - 34 percent, as men are divided with 47 percent for Biden and 46 percent for Trump. White voters are divided with 47 percent for Trump and 46 percent for Biden. The Democrat leads 85 - 12 percent among black voters and 58 - 33 percent among Hispanic voters.

Republicans go to Trump 91 - 6 percent. Biden leads 95 - 3 percent among Democrats and 58 - 28 percent among independent voters.

"The head-to-head matchups give this heads up to President Donald Trump's team: Former Vice President Joseph Biden and other Democratic contenders would beat the president if the election were held today. Leads range from Biden's 13 percentage points to thin five-point leads by Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Cory Booker," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

"It's a long 17 months to Election Day, but Joe Biden is ahead by landslide proportions."

"That said, the Trump bump to 42 percent job approval is nothing to sniff at. It's one point shy of the best Quinnipiac University survey number ever for President Trump," Malloy added.

A total of 70 percent of American voters say the nation's economy is "excellent" or "good," but only 41 percent of voters say Trump deserves credit for an excellent or good economy. Another 27 percent say Trump does not deserve credit and 28 percent say the economy is "not so good" or "poor." 

In other words, the one thing keeping Trump in the race, he's no longer getting credit for.  That's far more important than any of the head-to-head matchups, which at this point are about as predictive as me guessing the outcome of the 2020 World Series in June 2019.

Buckle up regardless.  If Trump's losing steam on the economy then it's all bets are off time.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

As Jon Chait notes, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee want to drop the Russia investigation and move forward to "protect the country from future attacks".  Except of course that Senate Majority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell won't allow a vote on any measures to do just that.

The New York Times reported a few days ago that McConnell is refusing to bring to a vote any bill to safeguard the elections from foreign attack. There’s a Democratic bill to provide election funding to state and local governments. There’s a bipartisan Senate bill to “codify cyberinformation-sharing initiatives between federal intelligence services and state election officials, speed up the granting of security clearances to state officials, and provide federal incentives for states to adopt paper ballots.” McConnell won’t allow any of them to come to a vote.
The threat from Russian election interference is actually quite severe. Russian intelligence breached at least one Florida county computer system and planted malware in a manufacturer of vote-tabulating machines, according to the Mueller report. While the probability that Russian hackers could actually change the outcome of the next election is low, the consequences would be extraordinarily high — especially if they do so by actual vote-rigging rather than mere information warfare.

Exactly why McConnell is so blasé about this threat is impossible to say, but the next time McConnell takes some action that sacrifices his partisan interests for the greater good will be the first.

Of course, Collins’s whole notion that guarding against the next Russian political operation requires halting all investigation of the last one is obviously disingenuous in the first place. The Mueller report shows in detail that Trump and almost everybody working for him welcomed Russian help, legal or otherwise. The reason the government isn’t doing more to protect our democracy from the next attack is that the people who cooperated with the last attack don’t want to.

We could ask why that is, but that's obvious by now.  Mitch McConnell wants the Russians to throw the elections for Republicans in 2020 and give the GOP total control of the government back.  There can be no other conclusion at this point.

Mitch McConnell is a traitor.

It's Above Your Pay Grade

Not even House Democrats are blockheaded enough to try to pass a congressional pay raise right now, which is I guess good news considering they actually did try it and the response was exactly what you would expect to an organization polling slightly below drug-resistant gonorrhea.

House Democratic leaders are postponing consideration of a bill that would include a pay raise for members of Congress, after facing a major backlash from the party's most vulnerable members.

Top Democrats agreed in a closed-door meeting Monday night to pull a key section of this week’s massive funding bill to avoid escalating a clash within their caucus over whether to hike salaries for lawmakers and staff for the first time in a decade, multiple lawmakers confirmed.
At least 15 Democrats — mostly freshmen in competitive districts — had pushed to freeze pay after some Democratic and Republican leaders quietly agreed to the slight pay increase earlier this month.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) confirmed to POLITICO after the meeting that he "thinks" they would pull the bill so that Democrats can resolve the issue of congressional pay raises.

The issue flared up in the Democratic leadership meeting on Monday, where there was an intense discussions of whether to force members to go on the record about a pay raise, which some battleground Democrats believed would create a target on their back in 2020.

"Nobody wants to vote to give themselves a raise. There's nothing good about that," said Rep. Katie Hill (D-Calif.), who attended Monday's meeting.

But Hill said she also believed the issue deserved more discussion to ensure that stagnant pay wasn't deterring average Americans from running for office — particularly if they already live in districts with high costs of living. 

The potential vote set off Democratic political consultants who warned that if members were on the record supporting a pay raise for themselves it could be seen as tone deaf. One strategist called it “political suicide” for freshman Democrats in swing districts if they were made to take the vote. 

Stagnant pay in the House isn't deterring average Americans from running for office, you dolt.  It's the millions of dollars necessary to run for office that's doing that, and thanks to Citizens United, that will be the case for the foreseeable future.  If you don't have the money to play, you get buried by the guy who does 99% of the time.

I really shouldn't have to explain this to House Democrats, but here we are.

StupidiNews!

• A helicopter crash in NYC killed the pilot as the vehicle landed badly on the rooftop of the 787 Seventh Ave. building's helipad and started a fire.
• The assassinated half-brother of North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un was reportedly a CIA informant, Kim Jong Nam was killed at a Malaysian airport in 2017 by two women with a nerve agent.
• The head of the UN's atomic watchdog agency says Iran has followed through on threats to enrich uranium, but still may be below the stockpile limits in Tehran's deal with the UN.
• Several GOP senators are siding with Senate Democrats to rebuke Donald Trump's planned arms sales to Saudi Arabia, but it's unclear what, if anything, the Senate can do at this point.
• The US Supreme Court will hear arguments later this year on a lawsuit by an African-American owned cable network against cable giant Comcast over discrimination in refusing to carry it.

Last Call For Deportation Nation, Con't

Last week we discovered that Ken Cuccinelli has no chance of being confirmed as Trump's immigration head because of all the Republican senators he's pissed off over the years, so on Monday, Trump simply named him as acting head and will leave him there indefinitely because nobody's going to tell him no.

Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) on Monday began his new job as acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a controversial appointment that could set up a showdown between the White House and Senate Republicans.

President Trump tapped Cuccinelli to lead the agency, which is tasked with administering the nation’s legal immigration system, at a time when he is seeking to crack down on illegal migration and make it tougher for immigrants to obtain benefits.

“Our nation has the most generous legal immigration system in the world and we must zealously safeguard its promise for those who lawfully come here,” Cuccinelli said in a statement distributed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “I look forward to working with the men and women of USCIS to ensure our legal immigration system operates effectively and efficiently while deterring fraud and protecting the American people.”

Cuccinelli’s appointment was weeks in the making, with Trump eyeing the fellow immigration hardliner for a top role at DHS.

He will replace L. Francis Cissna, who was forced out as USCIS chief late last month amid a rolling shakeup at the department.

Just like any other "Senate Republicans are against this" situation, they will fall in line and do what Trump tells them to do. And Cuccinelli is there for a reason.

As Virginia’s top law enforcement official and in his years serving in the Virginia state senate, Cuccinelli laid a long track of aggressive anti-immigrant policies intended to restrict access to public services, employment, and even citizenship from migrants and their families. That record, combined with his vociferous defense of President Donald Trump on cable news and in conservative media outlets, puts Cuccinelli firmly in line with an administration that has made combating undocumented immigration its top domestic policy goal.

In his new role at Homeland Security, Cuccinelli will be one of the Trump administration’s top bosses on immigration-related matters, a portfolio that has felled other senior administration officials in recent months as the president has grown dissatisfied with stubbornly high rates of illegal entry into the United States.

If his record on immigration issues is any indication, Cuccinelli will embrace that role with relish. While his support for President Donald Trump may be relatively newfound, his championing of hardline Trump-style immigration policies is more than a decade in the making.

Although Cuccinelli first drew national attention during his time as Virginia’s attorney general for his attempts to keep laws against oral sex on the books, he also became a staunch advocate on behalf of aggressive immigration policies in other states. In 2010, Cuccinelli filed an amicus brief in support of S.B. 1070, an Arizona law that allowed police officers to investigate the immigration status of any person arrested or detained by law enforcement based on a “reasonable suspicion” that they were in the country illegally. That same year, he released a legal opinion expanding a similar policy to include any suspected undocumented immigrant stopped by law enforcement for any reason.

“Virginia law enforcement officers have the authority to make the same inquiries as those contemplated by the new Arizona law,” Cuccinelli wrote in the opinion. “So long as the officers have the requisite level of suspicion to believe that a violation of the law has occurred, the officers may detain and briefly question a person they suspect has committed a federal crime.”

Cuccinelli told reporters at the time that any police officer had the authority to question potential undocumented immigrants “so long as they don’t extend the duration of a stop by any significant degree.”

Those stances on illegal immigration appear tame compared to other proposals that Cuccinelli had backed before becoming attorney general. During his eight years in the Virginia state senate, Cuccinelli was the chief patron—the body’s version of primary sponsor—of a rash of bills targeting undocumented immigrants in the commonwealth.

One proposed law would have allowed employers to fire employees who didn’t speak English in their workplace, and stipulated that any employee so fired would be “disqualified from receiving unemployment compensation benefits.” Another bill would have allowed businesses to sue competitors that they believed to be employing undocumented immigrants for economic damages, plus $500 “for each such illegal alien employed by the defendant.”

In one case, Cuccinelli championed one of Trump’s most aggressive immigration policies before Trump himself did. In a 2008 bill, Cuccinelli urged Congress to call a constitutional convention to amend the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution “to clarify specifically that a person born to a parent who is a U. S. citizen is also a citizen of the United States,” to the exclusion of the children of undocumented immigrants who are born in the United States.

And this clown is now Trump's chief immigration law enforcement officer.  Illegally, I might add.  But who cares?  Nothing is illegal anymore when Trump does it.

The Turtle, His Wife, And The Road To Corruption

When the GOP Senate Majority Leader is married to the Trump regime's Transportation Secretary, she helps him deliver those road projects here in Bevinstan that other states don't get, just in time to kick off his 2020 reelection campaign.

The Transportation Department under Secretary Elaine Chao designated a special liaison to help with grant applications and other priorities from her husband Mitch McConnell’s state of Kentucky, paving the way for grants totaling at least $78 million for favored projects as McConnell prepared to campaign for reelection.

Chao’s aide Todd Inman, who stated in an email to McConnell’s Senate office that Chao had personally asked him to serve as an intermediary, helped advise the senator and local Kentucky officials on grants with special significance for McConnell — including a highway-improvement project in a McConnell political stronghold that had been twice rejected for previous grant applications.

Beginning in April 2017, Inman and Chao met annually with a delegation from Owensboro, Ky., a river port with long connections to McConnell, including a plaza named in his honor. At the meetings, according to participants, the secretary and the local officials discussed two projects of special importance to the river city of 59,809 people — a plan to upgrade road connections to a commercial riverport and a proposal to expedite reclassifying a local parkway as an Interstate spur, a move that could persuade private businesses to locate in Owensboro.

Inman, himself a longtime Owensboro resident and onetime mayoral candidate who is now Chao’s chief of staff, followed up the 2017 meeting by emailing the riverport authority on how to improve its application. He also discussed the project by phone with Al Mattingly, the chief executive of Daviess County, which includes Owensboro, who suggested Inman was instrumental in the process.

Todd probably smoothed the way, I mean, you know, used his influence,” Mattingly said in a POLITICO interview. “Everybody says that projects stand on their own merit, right? So if I’ve got 10 projects, and they’re all equal, where do you go to break the tie?”

“Well, let’s put it this way: I only have her ear an hour when I go to visit her once a year,” he added of Chao and Inman, a longtime Bluegrass State operative who had worked as McConnell’s advance man. “With a local guy, he has her ear 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You tell me.”

The circumstances surrounding the Owensboro grant and another, more lucrative grant to Boone County, highlight the ethical conflicts in having a powerful Cabinet secretary married to the Senate’s leader and in a position to help him politically. McConnell has long touted his ability to bring federal resources to his state, which his wife is now in a position to assist.

Chao’s designation of Inman as a special intermediary for Kentucky — a privilege other states did not enjoy — gave a special advantage to projects favored by her husband, which could in turn benefit his political interests. In such situations, ethicists say, each member of a couple benefits personally from the success of the other.

“Where a Cabinet secretary is doing things that are going to help her husband get reelected, that starts to rise to the level of feeling more like corruption to the average American. … I do think there are people who will see that as sort of ‘swamp behavior,’” said John Hudak, a Brookings Institution scholar who has studied political influence in federal grant-making.
In fact, days after launching his 2020 reelection campaign McConnell asked Owensboro’s mayor to set up a luncheon with business and political leaders at which the senator claimed credit for delivering the grant.

“How about that $11 million BUILD grant?” McConnell asked the crowd rhetorically, according to the Owensboro Times. He then recalled his role in securing earlier grants to the city, adding, “It’s done a lot to transform Owensboro, and I was really happy to have played a role in that.”

I mean the grants are helping the people of my state, even my county with that INFRA grant announced last year. I has suspected that Chao has something to do with it, but this is pretty much proof, with Chao designating someone to Kentucky to be in charge of the pork projects to keep Mitch's voters happy.

It's helpful and the interstate improvements are going to make a big difference.

It's also corrupt as hell. Mitch isn't buying my vote with a couple of interchanges. 

Chao should resign over this.  It won''t happen, it'll be forgotten in a week.  Ask Alex Acosta.

A Supreme Storm Warning

If it's a Monday in June, it means it's time for the Supreme Court, and we start off with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg all but promising that the major cases yet to be resolved this term, including the Roberts Court's major decisions on gerrymandering and citizenship questions on the US Census, will be decided by a 5-4 vote.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg hinted that sharp divisions will mark the final weeks of a Supreme Court term that will include major rulings on the census and partisan gerrymandering.

Speaking before the annual conference of federal judges in New York, Ginsburg suggested that more than a quarter of the court’s remaining 27 rulings will be decided by a single vote. Of the 43 argued cases settled so far, 11 were by a vote of either 5-4 or 5-3, she said.

“Given the number of most-watched cases still unannounced, I cannot predict that the relatively low sharp divisions ratio will hold,” the 86-year-old justice said, according to a copy of her remarks provided by the court on Friday.

The justices are scheduled to finish their nine-month term at the end of this month. It’s the first session since Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court and strengthened its conservative majority.

Ginsburg has made an annual practice of summarizing the high court’s term at the June conference, often offering what seem to be tantalizing hints about the outcome of the court’s biggest disputes.

She touched on both the census and gerrymandering cases in her remarks Friday. She linked the census case, which will determine whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross can include a question about citizenship in the 2020 survey, to the court’s decision last year upholding President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

The travel ban ruling “granted great deference to the executive,” Ginsburg said. Opponents of the citizenship question “have argued that a ruling in Secretary Ross’s favor would stretch deference beyond the breaking point.”

We'll see what decisions are announced today.