Immigration Nation, Con't

Republicans are quick to claim they are "winning" the public opinion debate on immigration because Americans are against people crossing the border illegally, and that Democrats in turn want "open borders", "no enforcement", and even "anarchy" as Trump has blathered on this week on Twitter about.

Americans are broadly against illegal border crossings, especially in border areas, that's true, but the reality is that Trump's handling of immigration is just as unpopular as Trump himself is, as are the specific actions he's taking in the name of "enforcement".

Americans overwhelmingly oppose the Trump administration’s now-rescinded policy of separating immigrant children from their parents, and smaller majorities also disagree with the president’s call to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and to restrict legal immigration by limiting citizens from bringing parents and siblings to this country, according to a new Washington Post-Schar School poll.

On other aspects of the immigration debate, however, a more mixed picture emerges. Americans are more closely divided on the question of whether enough is being done to prevent illegal immigration and whether the country has gone too far in welcoming immigrants. Also, more people say they trust President Trump than congressional Democrats to deal with the issue of border security. The support for Trump on the border security issue is especially evident in congressional districts considered key battlegrounds in this fall’s midterm elections.

Democrats appear more energized than Republicans about the fall elections, especially in battleground districts. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters in those districts, 59 percent say the midterms are extremely important, compared with 46 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Overall, registered voters say they prefer to vote for a Democrat over a Republican for the House, 47 percent to 37 percent. The margin on that question is not statistically larger in battleground districts, standing at 12 percentage points.

The nation remains deeply divided along party lines, as it has throughout and before Trump’s presidency. Two other divisions define the political environment of 2018. On issues of immigration, as well as questions about Trump’s presidency, the gaps between men and women and between white voters with and without college degrees are sizable. Women and white college-educated voters are far more dissatisfied with the president and his policies than are men and white voters without college educations. However, gaps based on education are less significant in battleground districts.

Trump’s overall approval stands at 43 percent, while his disapproval is 55 percent. Among men, 54 percent approve; among women, 32 percent approve.

His handling of immigration draws slightly higher disapproval, with 39 percent approving and 59 percent disapproving. More than twice as many say they strongly disapprove as say they strongly approve. Among men, 51 percent disapprove, but among women, 67 percent disapprove. Among whites with college educations, 68 percent disapprove, but among non-college whites, 56 percent approve.

Approval of Trump's separation policy at the border is a crushing failure for him, only 29% approve.  Even white voters hate it., 65% against and only 33% for.  Hispanic voters are the most opposed, 77-20% against. Independent voters are opposed 74-25%.

Only Republicans think this is a good idea, 61-36% in favor of it.

As far as who is to blame for the separation policy, Trump or immigrants, it's an even split. 37% blame Trump, 35% blame immigrants, and 25% blame both equally.  But there are a lot of splits, men blame immigrants more 43-33% with 23% sharing the blame, while women blame the Trump regime 41-28% with 27% sharing equal blame.

A similar split is among Hispanic respondents, 41-23% blame the Trump regime with 28% sharing the blame, among African-Americans it's also 41%, but a substantial 48% think both the Trump regime and immigrants bear responsibility.  Only 8% of African-Americans blame immigrants solely for Trump's policy, 89% think he shares part or all of the blame.

Any way you look at it, the numbers continue to be bad for Trump and good for Democrats with just four months to go to the midterms.

Thank You For Your Service, Suckers

If there's any doubt left that Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis is still in control of the Pentagon rather than being Trump's lap dog (rather than Mad Dog!) then that just got put to rest with this shameful story.

Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned.

The AP was unable to quantify how many men and women who enlisted through the special recruitment program have been booted from the Army, but immigration attorneys say they know of more than 40 who have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their futures.

“It was my dream to serve in the military,” said reservist Lucas Calixto, a Brazilian immigrant who filed a lawsuit against the Army last week. “Since this country has been so good to me, I thought it was the least I could do to give back to my adopted country and serve in the United States military.”

Some of the service members say they were not told why they were being discharged. Others who pressed for answers said the Army informed them they’d been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them.

Spokespeople for the Pentagon and the Army said that, due to the pending litigation, they were unable to explain the discharges or respond to questions about whether there have been policy changes in any of the military branches.

If you think for a second that the US Army doesn't know why it's discharging recruits, that's complete nonsense.

Eligible recruits are required to have legal status in the U.S., such as a student visa, before enlisting. More than 5,000 immigrants were recruited into the program in 2016, and an estimated 10,000 are currently serving. Most go the Army, but some also go to the other military branches.

To become citizens, the service members need an honorable service designation, which can come after even just a few days at boot camp. But the recently discharged service members have had their basic training delayed, so they can’t be naturalized.

Margaret Stock, an Alaska-based immigration attorney and a retired Army Reserve lieutenant colonel who helped create the immigrant recruitment program, said she’s been inundated over the past several days by recruits who have been abruptly discharged.

All had signed enlistment contracts and taken an Army oath, Stock said. Many were reservists who had been attending unit drills, receiving pay and undergoing training, while others had been in a “delayed entry” program, she said.

“Immigrants have been serving in the Army since 1775,” Stock said. “We wouldn’t have won the revolution without immigrants. And we’re not going to win the global war on terrorism today without immigrants.”

Stock said the service members she’s heard from had been told the Defense Department had not managed to put them through extensive background checks, which include CIA, FBI and National Intelligence Agency screenings and counterintelligence interviews. Therefore, by default, they do not meet the background check requirement.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” she said.

As with the family separations and permanent immigrant detainment/deportation regime that Trump has created, discharging immigrants from the Army is 100% being done on purpose and at Trump's command. 

Did anyone think that a government run by Donald Trump, a man who regularly stiffed customers,  contractors and vendors as a businessman and got away with it, would keep its word?

The people who voted for him do.  Even when they know he's lying to them.

Getting Out, Scott Free

If there were any more turnovers in the Trump regime, they'd have to hire Karl Malone.

Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, resigned after facing months of allegations over legal and ethical violations.

Mr. Trump announced the resignation in a tweet on Thursday in which he thanked Mr. Pruitt for an “outstanding job” and said the agency’s deputy, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, would take over as the acting administrator on Monday. In his resignation letter, Mr. Pruitt cited “unrelenting attacks on me personally” as one of the reasons for his departure, an apparent reference to the numerous investigations into his stewardship of the agency.

Mr. Pruitt had been hailed as a hero among conservatives for his zealous deregulation, but he could not overcome a spate of ethics questions about his alleged spending abuses, first-class travel and cozy relationships with lobbyists. Earlier on Thursday, The New York Times reported on new questions about whether aides to Mr. Pruitt had deleted sensitive information about his meetings from his public schedule, potentially in violation of the law.Mr. Pruitt also came under fire for enlisting aides to obtain special favors for him and his family, such as reaching out to the chief executive of Chick-fil-A, Dan T. Cathy, with the intent of helping Mr. Pruitt’s wife, Marlyn, open a franchise of the restaurant.

Reminder: he's almost certainly going to be indicted soon.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly told associates that Mr. Pruitt has done what he has wanted in terms of cutting regulations, so he has been reluctant to let him go. Mr. Pruitt has made himself available to the president as a confidant as well as a possible next attorney general.

But White House advisers for months have implored Mr. Trump to get rid of Mr. Pruitt, including his chief of staff, John F. Kelly. Ultimately, the president grew disillusioned with Mr. Pruitt after a cascade of accusations of impropriety and ethical missteps overshadowed Mr. Pruitt’s policy achievements.

In recent days, people who have spoken with Mr. Trump said he sounds exasperated with his EPA administrator’s negative headlines. “It’s one thing after another with this guy,” one person close to Mr. Trump quoted the president as saying.

Uh-huh. 

The real reason Pruitt was fired?

Mr. Pruitt is the subject of at least 13 federal investigations, and a government watchdog agency concluded that he had broken the law with his purchase of a $43,000 secure telephone booth. He was also under investigation for his 2017 lease of a bedroom in a condominium linked to a Canadian energy company’s powerful Washington lobbying firm, and for accusations that he demoted or sidelined E.P.A. employees who questioned his actions.

Of course, there is that whole "wants to be Trump's Supreme Court pick" thing.  Who knows.

By the way, you can argue that Pruitt's immediate replacement will actually be worse because Pruitt's deputy, Andrew Wheeler, is just as awful, but nowhere near as blatantly greedy.

We're still very screwed on climate change.

At Lady Liberty's Feet

Therese Patricia Okoumou climbed up on to the Statue of Liberty's dress on the 4th of July to protest the Trump regime's immigration policies for several hours before police were able to apprehend her.

A woman who climbed up to the robes of the Statue of Liberty to protest the separation of migrant families was taken into custody after a standoff with police on the Fourth of July. 

Authorities had tried to talk the woman down but she refused to leave. For nearly three hours, she crossed the base of the statue, at times sitting in the folds of the statue's dress and under Lady Liberty's sandal. The woman was identified as Therese Patricia Okoumou by a law enforcement source close to the investigation and another source who knows her. 

The woman was part of a group of protesters and had declared that she wouldn't come down until "all the children are released," a source with the New York Police Department told CNN. 

About 16 officers with the New York City Police Department's Emergency Service Unit -- a team trained to perform some of the most dangerous rescues in the city -- took part in the rescue/apprehension effort, Officer Brian Glacken said in a news conference Wednesday evening. 

"At first, she wasn't friendly with us, but we took the time to get a rapport with her so that took a while," said Glacken. 

"She just kind of mentioned the kids in Texas. I guess the whole debate that's going on about that. In the beginning, she threatened to push us off, push the ladder off, but we stayed with her," Glacken added. 

Finally, officers with ropes and climbing gear reached her. 

"At first she was being a little combative, then she was willing to cooperate with us. She actually apologized to us for having to go up and get her," Glacken told reporters. 

Officers put a harness and ropes on her to bring her down, and she crossed to the other side of the statue with the officers where a ladder was propped up on the base of the statue. 

Expect a lot more very public protests this summer and ahead as we move through the Trump era, but the real test will be November.  Trump is convinced that Republicans will not only keep the House and Senate but actually gain seats, and he's heading off to talk to the man who will almost certainly try to help make that happen later next week.

Also in another note, I have the rest of this week off, so posting will be light (as you've already figured out.)

Stay tuned.

Last Call For What It Means To Be A Citizen

As we watch fireworks and enjoy a cookout this evening as we celebrate America's birthday, remember that the Trump regime is actively engaging in not only eliminating asylum applications and all but ending legal immigration (seemingly for anyone who doesn't happen to be from Russia) but actively seeking to remove citizenship and deport previously naturalized citizens.

Oh, but Trump still can't book a real July 4th act at the White House.

So there's that, I guess.

The Next War On The Board

AP's Josh Goodman brings us the story of how Donald Trump was about to get American involved in yet another illegal, costly, and inhumane invasion, this time in Venezuela.

As a meeting last August in the Oval Office to discuss sanctions on Venezuela was concluding, President Donald Trump turned to his top aides and asked an unsettling question: With a fast unraveling Venezuela threatening regional security, why can’t the U.S. just simply invade the troubled country?

The suggestion stunned those present at the meeting, including U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, both of whom have since left the administration. This account of the previously undisclosed conversation comes from a senior administration official familiar with what was said.

In an exchange that lasted around five minutes, McMaster and others took turns explaining to Trump how military action could backfire and risk losing hard-won support among Latin American governments to punish President Nicolas Maduro for taking Venezuela down the path of dictatorship, according to the official. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.

But Trump pushed back. Although he gave no indication he was about to order up military plans, he pointed to what he considered past cases of successful gunboat diplomacy in the region, according to the official, like the invasions of Panama and Grenada in the 1980s.

The idea, despite his aides’ best attempts to shoot it down, would nonetheless persist in the president’s head.

The next day, Aug. 11, Trump alarmed friends and foes alike with talk of a “military option” to remove Maduro from power. The public remarks were initially dismissed in U.S. policy circles as the sort of martial bluster people have come to expect from the reality TV star turned commander in chief.

But shortly afterward, he raised the issue with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, according to the U.S. official. Two high-ranking Colombian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing Trump confirmed the report.

Then in September, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Trump discussed it again, this time at greater length, in a private dinner with leaders from four Latin American allies that included Santos, the same three people said and Politico reported in February.

The U.S. official said Trump was specifically briefed not to raise the issue and told it wouldn’t play well, but the first thing the president said at the dinner was, “My staff told me not to say this.” Trump then went around asking each leader if they were sure they didn’t want a military solution, according to the official, who added that each leader told Trump in clear terms they were sure.

Eventually, McMaster would pull aside the president and walk him through the dangers of an invasion, the official said.

Taken together, the behind-the-scenes talks, the extent and details of which have not been previously reported, highlight how Venezuela’s political and economic crisis has received top attention under Trump in a way that was unimaginable in the Obama administration. But critics say it also underscores how his “America First” foreign policy at times can seem outright reckless, providing ammunition to America’s adversaries.

The problem isn't that Trump was talked out of invading Venezuela.

The problem is that the people that talked Trump out of it, H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson, are both long gone and have been replaced with far more belligerent advisers.

There's going to come a point very soon where Mueller and/or the Senate Intelligence Committee reveals its findings, and it will be a very bad time for Donald Trump.  He will of course want to lash out and distract Americans from this news.

A nice little war would get the job done.  North Korea and Iran would draw global condemnation, but Venezuela, non-nuclear, full of people needing "liberation" from leftists?

American leaders have done it before.

They'll do it again.

The Incivility War

An near-unanimous majority of Americans agree that the US has a serious political incivility problem, but we're still rather split on whose fault that is, the GOP or the Dems.

More voters blame President Trump than Democrats for the lack of civility in politics, according to a new Quinnipiac poll.

The survey found that 91 percent of Americans say the lack of civility in politics is a serious problem, with 47 percent of respondents saying Trump is responsible for that. Thirty-seven percent pointed the finger at Democrats.

Additionally, 55 percent of adults said Trump's rhetoric has emboldened people who hold racist views to publicly express those beliefs.

The poll was conducted June 27–July 1 among a group of 1,020 voters. It has a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.

The good news, I guess, is that Americans do seem to agree that Trump is a serious problem across the board.

American voters disapprove 55 - 40 percent of the job President Trump is doing, compared to a 52 - 43 percent disapproval rating in a June 20 Quinnipiac University National Poll and reversing a trend which showed Trump's net approval inching up.

The president gets negative grades on most character traits:

• 58 - 38 percent say he is not honest;
• 55 - 43 percent say he does not have good leadership skills;
• 55 - 43 percent say he does not care about average Americans;
• 62 - 34 percent say he is not level-headed;
• 63 - 32 percent say he is a strong person;
• 57 - 39 say he is intelligent;
• 60 - 37 percent say he does not share their values;
• 62 - 36 percent say he does not provide the U.S. with moral leadership.

But this still won't be enough to motivate people to vote against him, I suspect.  Tens of millions of us long ago made peace with the fact that a screaming racist as president wasn't a dealbreaker as long as people got what they wanted out of him policy-wise. 

Something to remember on this July 4th.

Last Call For Trump's Race To The Bottom

With an impending second Supreme Court pick, the Trump regime is making it very clear what direction they expect the Roberts Court to take over the next year or two: the end of abortion, the end of LGBTQ equality and same-sex marriage, the end of voting rights and civil rights, and the end of affirmative action.

The Trump administration will encourage the nation’s school superintendents and college presidents to adopt race-blind admissions standards, abandoning an Obama administration policy that called on universities to consider race as a factor in diversifying their campuses, officials said. 

The reversal would restore the policy set during President George W. Bush’s administration, when officials told schools that it “strongly encourages the use of race-neutral methods” for admitting students to college or assigning them to elementary and secondary schools. 

Last November, Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked the Justice Department to re-evaluate past policies that he believed pushed the department to act beyond what the law, the Constitution and the Supreme Court had required, Devin M. O’Malley, a Justice Department spokesman, said. As part of that process, the Justice Department rescinded seven policy guidances from the Education Department’s civil rights division on Tuesday. 

“The executive branch cannot circumvent Congress or the courts by creating guidance that goes beyond the law and — in some instances — stays on the books for decades,” Mr. O’Malley said. 

The Supreme Court has steadily narrowed the ways that schools can consider race when trying to diversify their student bodies. But it has not banned the practice. 

Now, affirmative action is at a crossroads. The Trump administration is moving against any use of race as a measurement of diversity in education. And the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the end of this month will leave the court without its swing vote on affirmative action and allow President Trump to nominate a justice opposed to a policy that for decades has tried to integrate elite educational institutions. 

A highly anticipated case is pitting Harvard against Asian-American students who say one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions has systematically excluded some Asian-American applicants to maintain slots for students of other races. That case is clearly aimed at the Supreme Court. 

“The whole issue of using race in education is being looked at with a new eye in light of the fact that it’s not just white students being discriminated against, but Asians and others as well,” said Roger Clegg, president and general counsel of the conservative Center for Equal Opportunity. “As the demographics of the country change, it becomes more and more problematic.” 

The Obama administration believed that students benefit from being surrounded by diverse classmates, so in 2011, the administration offered schools a potential road map to establishing affirmative action policies that could withstand legal scrutiny. The guidance was controversial at the time that it was issued, for its far-reaching interpretation of the law. Justice officials said that pages of hypothetical scenarios offered in the guidance were particularly problematic, as they clearly bent the law to specific policy preferences.

That policy is now dust, and by the time 2021 rolls around, affirmative action in college admissions will be gone as well, along with a number of other things.  It's going to be a dark time in American history, a time where in the last throes of white dominance of American culture that everything can and will be done to delay, if not reverse the inevitable demographic shift ahead.

And I say inevitable but that's not actually true if Trump starts deporting millions of undocumented immigrants and even legal immigrants, and then robbing the political, social, economic, and voting power of those of us who remain.  There's plenty that Trump can do to shift America back into white supremacy mode as the default.

The Harvard admissions case is particularly important, because "proving" that affirmative action "harms" one minority group (Asian-Americans) to help African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans has long been the holy grail of the "Let's not see race" brigade.  If that gets to Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and a fifth Trump pick, the ballgame is done.

A lot of stuff is going to fall apart on those lines actually, and the goal is to make sure that the coming rightward shift is so vast and generational that it will never be undone in our lifetimes.

We'll see what happens, but it's just a reminder that given the choice, there were tens of millions who sides with giving Donald Trump Supreme Court picks...and tens of millions more who didn't think it was important enough to bother voting over.

By the way, destroying America's public education system and turning it into something only the 1% will be able to afford in the future is absolutely the goal of the GOP right now, and they're hard at work dismantling education as a right.

A Michigan judge ruled last week that children do not have a fundamental right to learn how to read and write. 

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Public Counsel, the nation’s largest public interest law firm, on behalf of Detroit students that sought to hold state authorities, including Gov. Rick Snyder (R), accountable for what plaintiffs alleged were systemic failures depriving children of their right to literacy, according to the Detroit Free Press. 

"I'm shocked," said Ivy Bailey, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, the newspaper reported. "The message that it sends is that education is not important. And it sends the message that we don't care if you're literate or not." 

The suit also sought fixes to crumbling schools that, among other measures, Detroit Public Schools Community District officials reportedly said would amount to more than $500 million.

After all, the future is going to need a lot of prisoners for private lockups.

Sinema Of The Mind

I had high hopes for Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema, who six years ago ran on to the scene as the first openly bisexual member of the House (along with the House's first practicing Buddhist, Hawaii's Tulsi Gabbard!) and it seemed like an exciting time for women Democrats in the Obama era.

And then her votes started coming in, and she's basically the most conservative woman Democrat in either chamber these days, with a FiveThirtyEight Trump Score of  58.5%. Among her fellow Democrats, only Joe Manchin in the Senate and Henry Cuellar and Collin Peterson in the House vote more often with Trump.

Little surprise then that she's now squarely poised to become Jeff Flake's replacement in the Senate where her first vote in the upper chamber will almost certainly be against Chuck Schumer as leader.

All over the country, Republicans are attacking vulnerable Democratic senators as pawns of Chuck Schumer, the most polarizing Democratic leader second only to Nancy Pelosi.
Kyrsten Sinema, one of the party’s most-prized recruits and a keystone of Democrats’ long-shot hopes of capturing the Senate this fall, has a ready rejoinder.

“I am not going to vote for him,” she said matter of factly when pressed on her view of the Democratic leader. 

Sinema’s stance, revealed for the first time in a recent interview with POLITICO, is more radical than any member of the Democratic caucus, even vulnerable senators facing reelection deep in Trump country. But Sinema is staking her surprisingly strong campaign for Arizona’s open Senate seat on her close relationships with Republicans, praise for moderate Democrats and a distaste for the Democratic leader. 

Her opposition to Schumer is just one example of how the three-term House member is carving out a center-left Senate campaign in the Republican state, hoping it’s enough to inoculate herself from the national party’s baggage and land Democrats their first Arizona Senate seat in 30 years. 

She is notably more deferential to Trump than most Democrats are. “He has challenges,” she responded when asked whether Trump is a good president. “Transitioning from a CEO position to a presidency is probably a difficult challenge.” 

Facing a daunting map that heavily favors Republicans, Arizona is a must-win for Democrats’ hopes of capturing the Senate. For Sinema, the race is the culmination of years of careful calculations and transformations that began even before she was elected to the House in 2012. 

Sinema worked for progressive activist Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign and once unsuccessfully ran for the Arizona state House under the Green Party banner. But she has walked a far more moderate path in Congress — sometimes to criticism from her liberal colleagues — joining the conservative Blue Dog Democrats and voting with President Donald Trump nearly 60 percent of the time. 

Now the self-described workout addict and part-time university professor spends weekends and congressional recesses crisscrossing Arizona, running full throttle in a race blown open by GOP Sen. Jeff Flake’s impending retirement. Recent polls have shown Sinema with a sizable lead, and privately top Republicans are alarmed that the race might be getting out of reach. 

While Sinema, 41, builds up her name recognition and a $6 million-plus war chest,Republicans are engaging in a slugfest of a primary that will go on deep into August. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) to emerge from a three-way primary against former state Sen. Kelli Ward and ex-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, but Democrats say McSally is being pushed too far to the right to beat Sinema. 

With no real opponent — Schumer privately backed her for the seat even before she’d announced, helping clear the field — Sinema can press her advantage. She leads McSally by an average of 8 points, according to Real Clear Politics.

That's Chuck Schumer for you, he clears the decks for Sinema to run unopposed in the primary and she turns around and knifes him in the front.  I've said this before, but dear god I miss Harry Reid.

Still, if Sinema wins, she's going to be another problematic Blue Dog for sure. That's certainly an improvement over Martha McSally, who makes Marsha Blackburn over in Tennessee look sane by comparison, but in a Blue wave scenario, both Sinema and Democrat Phil Bredesen will join the ranks of the Blue Dogs on the D side in red states.  It may be the two pickups the Dems need to control the Senate.

Like it or not, Sinema just might be a key player in 2019.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

Apparently former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is getting tired of being ignored by his one-time boss who kicked him to the curb after his office was raided and is now making it very clear that he plans to talk to Robert Mueller and congressional investigators to save his own ass. WaPo's AAron Blake:

Michael Cohen once said he would “take a bullet” for President Trump. He reportedly said he would rather “jump out of a building than turn on Donald Trump.”

He now sounds ready to leap.

In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos running Monday morning, Trump's former lawyer and fixer sent his clearest signal to date that he is prepared to flip on Trump. And while there have certainly been other signs recently, this one came from the horse's mouth.

“Once I understand what charges might be filed against me, if any at all, I will defer to my new counsel, Guy Petrillo, for guidance,” Cohen said.

Pressed on his past commentary about being willing to do anything for Trump, Cohen again hinted at flipping: “To be crystal clear, my wife, my daughter and my son, and this country have my first loyalty.”

Cohen agreed to this interview knowing that this would be a prominent question. And it can't have been a coincidence that a trio of stories emerged a couple weeks back, all pointing toward possibly flipping on Trump. There was a Wall Street Journal story indicating that he was unhappy with Trump for not helping with his legal bills. CNN quoted an anonymous source close to him saying, “If they want information on Trump, he's willing to give it.” Then Cohen resigned as deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee by citing not just the investigation he faces, but his disagreement with the Trump administration's policy of separating families at the border. That latter justification seemed conspicuous, given Cohen has pledged complete loyalty to Trump and rarely spoken publicly about policy.

And Cohen's interview came with another big signal: the reported end of a joint agreement between Cohen and Trump's legal team to share information. Such things often presage a more antagonistic relationship or even cutting a deal to inform on someone else. Michael Flynn's lawyers stopped sharing info with Trump's lawyers, for example, shortly before he flipped.

Cohen clearly wants Trump to come to his rescue, and everyone knows he has the goods on Donald.  The bigger story is that if Cohen didn't have anything worth giving to Mueller and investigators that was worthwhile at this late date, he would have been charged and would be awaiting his inevitable demise like Paul Manafort is now.  Instead, as Blake has indicated, Cohen appears headed down the Michael Flynn path, where he pleads to a small charge like "lying to the FBI" in exchange for information.  Flynn took the deal, as did Manafort's partner, Michael Gates.  Cohen is clearly next.

On the other hand, the feds already have truckloads of evidence recovered from that raid earlier this year, including shredded documents that the FBI has pieced together, and some of those have been leaked to BuzzFeed News:

When the Department of Justice announced this month that investigators had pieced together records found in a shredder belonging to the president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, critics, legal experts, and journalists feverishly speculated about what they might contain.

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for adult film star Stormy Daniels and Cohen's devoted nemesis, tweeted that the shredded documents could be a “huge problem.” MSNBC host Ari Melber devoted a large part of his program in May to the shredded documents and suggested that “something is going down.” Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent and CNN analyst, tweeted: “This is not going to end well for the defense.”

Now, BuzzFeed News has obtained documents reconstructed by the FBI. A close examination shows that the records are a combination of documents that prosecutors already had, handwritten notes about a taxi business, insurance papers, and correspondence from a woman described in court filings as a “vexatious litigant” who claims she is under government surveillance.

Rebuilt from thin strips of paper, the shredded records are sometimes difficult to comprehend. One page doesn’t include full words and is a jumble of numbers, letters, and bar codes. One document appears to be part of an envelope. There are fragments of handwritten notes. There is an invitation to a reception in Miami to meet with business representatives from Qatar. Several of the records seem to be insurance forms for an apartment.

The clearest page documents a payment that has already been reported: a $62,500 wire transfer from March into a First Republic Bank account controlled by Cohen. This would fit with a series of payments reportedly from the Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy. He reportedly paid Cohen to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement with a former Playboy model with whom Broidy was romantically involved. A federal law enforcement source told BuzzFeed News that prosecutors already possessed some of the records dealing with Cohen’s financial transactions.

So where we go from here may not be up to Cohen at all, but Mueller and his team of prosecutors.  It's entirely possible that Mueller doesn't need Cohen himself at all.

We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• Rescuers in Thailand have located a lost boys' soccer team and their coach, stranded in a cave system that flooded after monsoon rains, and are working on how to get them all out.
• Rhode Island is the first US coastal state to sue major energy companies over the effects of climate change, following suit from several local US governments nationally, over rising sea levels.
• Former Malaysian PM Najib Razak has been arrested by state authorities on charges of embezzlement and graft after officials discovered money missing from a state fund Razak founded.
• The White House is indicating that it currently does not recognize Russia's military annexation of Crimea, but that status could be on the table for the Putin-Trump summit later this month.
• Just weeks after purchasing Time Warner and promising lower prices for DirecTV subscribers, AT&T is raising prices on its DirecTV streaming service saying it now has more content to offer customers.

Last Call For Meanwhile In Bevinstan, Con't

When we last checked in with Kentucky GOP Gov. Matt Bevin, his bluff on threatening to end Medicaid expansion and revoke medical coverage for 450,000+ Kentuckians was called out in a major way as a federal judge blocked Bevin's plan to make Kentucky the first state to subject Medicaid recipients to work requirements.

A federal judge in Washington D.C. has struck down Kentucky's plan to start requiring some Medicaid recipients to work or volunteer in order to continue receiving benefits.

The ruling blocks Gov. Matt Bevin's administration from implementing the change, which was scheduled to start Monday in one Northern Kentucky county and extend to most of the rest of the state by the end of the year.

When the requirements were first challenged in January, Bevin warned that if the work requirements were defeated in court, he would unilaterally end Medicare expansion in the state and nearly a half-million Kentuckians -- more than 10% of the state -- would immediately lose health care coverage as a result.  He wasted no time in taking those hostages. 

Now it seems Bevin is slicing off fingers as proof he's willing to hurt as many of those hostages as possible...or in this case, he's sending back eyes and teeth.

Gov. Matt Bevin's administration announced it is cutting Medicaid dental and vision benefits to nearly half a million Kentuckians after a judge on Friday rejected his plan to overhaul the government health plan. 

The decision prompted an outcry Monday from Democrats who called the Republican governor's move rash, harsh and possibly illegal. 

"We've got to have the public rise up," said U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth of Louisville. "This is going to be extremely dangerous for the citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky." 

On Sunday, the Bevin administration in an email described the cuts as "an unfortunate consequence of the judge's ruling." 

On Monday, it followed with a statement saying it was "working through" impacts of the judge's order and that it hopes to "quickly resolve the fallout from the court ruling." 

Democrats including Yarmuth, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, several state legislators and Louisville Metro Council President David James held a press conference to denounce the cuts, which were made after Bevin's Medicaid overhaul was rejected by a federal judge in Washington D.C. 

Medicaid, an $11 billion-a-year health plan in Kentucky, covers about 1.4 million people, more than 600,000 of them children. The federal government provides about 80 percent of the money for Kentucky's Medicaid program. 

Bevin's changes to Medicaid that include work requirements, premiums and other new rules, were to take effect Sunday. 

But on Friday, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg vacated Bevin's entire plan and sent it back to officials at the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services for further review, The judge said the Trump administration, in approving the plan, didn't consider the basic provisions of federal Medicaid law, which is to provide access to health care for low-income and vulnerable citizens. 

Speakers on Monday expressed outrage at Bevin's cuts. 

Fischer called Bevin's actions "unnecessary and callous." State Sen. Gerald Neal called the cuts "not only a rash step, but a harsh step."

And state Rep. McKenzie Cantrell, a Democrat from South Louisville, said the impact is hardest on the many poor people covered by Medicaid who work at low-wage jobs and are struggling to keep up with all the changes. 

"It's red tape for poor people," she said.

So Bevin has now taken vision and dental care away from more than 10% of the state, just to be an asshole.  Personally, I've never wanted a man to be defeated more soundly in a Governor's race than I do right now. 

Matt Bevin should resign in utter shame and he should have to face the hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians whose lives he just directly harmed through his complete disregard for human dignity.

When I say Republicans exist to punish the people Obama and the Democrats helped, this is exactly what I mean.  They are emotionally cauterized sociopaths.

And Matt Bevin?  He's one of the worst of the lot.

The Revenge Of Timmy And The Paydays

In the Trump era where the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been all but shut down, Dodd-Frank legislative provisions have been rolled back, and the Trump tax bill has put billions upon billions more in the pockets of Wall Street, it should be no surprise that the same guys who got us into subprime housing are now going into the payday lender business.

Meet Mariner Financial, who will literally give money away to customers...and then use its crushing corporate power to take twice the loan back, plus interest.

Mass-mailing checks to strangers might seem like risky business, but Mariner Finance occupies a fertile niche in the U.S. economy. The company enables some of the nation’s wealthiest investors and investment funds to make money offering high-interest loans to cash-strapped Americans.

Mariner Finance is owned and managed by a $11.2 billion private equity fund controlled by Warburg Pincus, a storied New York firm. The president of Warburg Pincus is Timothy F. Geithner, who, as treasury secretary in the Obama administration, condemned predatory lenders. The firm’s co-chief executives, Charles R. Kaye and Joseph P. Landy, are established figures in New York’s financial world. The minimum investment in the fund is $20 million. 

That's right, our old friend Timmy is back, and he's in the legal loan shark business.

And business is booming.

Dozens of other investment firms bought Mariner bonds last year, allowing the company to raise an additional $550 million. That allowed the lender to make more loans to people like Huggins. 

“It’s basically a way of monetizing poor people,” said John Lafferty, who was a manager trainee at a Mariner Finance branch for four months in 2015 in Nashville. His misgivings about the business echoed those of other former employees contacted by The Washington Post. “Maybe at the beginning, people thought these loans could help people pay their electric bill. But it has become a cash cow.” 

The market for “consumer installment loans,” which Mariner and its competitors serve, has grown rapidly in recent years, particularly as new federal regulations have curtailed payday lending, according to the Center for Financial Services Innovation, a nonprofit research group. Private equity firms, with billions to invest, have taken significant stakes in the growing field. 

Among its rivals, Mariner stands out for the frequent use of mass-mailed checks, which allows customers to accept a high-interest loan on an impulse — just sign the check. It has become a key marketing method. 

Just sign on the dotted line and cash the check.

And then the goon squad shows up to break your neck.

The company’s other tactics include borrowing money for as little as 4 or 5 percent — thanks to the bond market — and lending at rates as high as 36 percent, a rate that some states consider usurious; making millions of dollars by charging borrowers for insurance policies of questionable value; operating an insurance company in the Turks and Caicos, where regulations are notably lax, to profit further from the insurance policies; and aggressive collection practices that include calling delinquent customers once a day and embarrassing them by calling their friends and relatives, customers said.

Finally, Mariner enforces its collections with a busy legal operation, funded in part by the customers themselves: The fine print in the loan contracts obliges customers to pay as much as an extra 20 percent of the amount owed to cover Mariner’s attorney fees, and this has helped fund legal proceedings that are both voluminous and swift. Last year, in Baltimore alone, Mariner filed nearly 300 lawsuits. In some cases, Mariner has sued customers within five months of the check being cashed.

And all of this is 100% legal thanks to Trump and the GOP.  Oh, and Obama's Treasury Secretary, who definitely landed on his feet.

There are tons of these Wall Street-funded "finance companies" around.  Just here in NKY, there's Eagle Finance, One Main Financial, Heights Finance Corporation, Regency Finance Company, Republic Finance, and of course Mariner Finance, all within 5 miles of where I live.

Oh, and it's Kentucky, so the payday lenders are still there too.

But remember, the economy is doing great, right?

Trump Trades Blows, Con't

Trump's trade war continues as new tariffs take effect this week against US products in Canada and China, and Trump seems fully committed to a full-scale conflict with the EU as well which could lead to a major economic depression in the US.

President Trump defiantly stood by his tariffs on Sunday as Canada hit back hard, Mexico elected a new leader who seems prepared to confront him, and the European Union issued a scathing condemnation of his policy as “in effect, a tax on the American people.”

Instead of backing down, Trump brushed off the mounting pressure from businesses and world leaders to scale back the taxes before they cause additional job losses and slower economic growth.

This week will be a critical test of Trump’s resolve as Canada on Sunday imposed tariffs on $12.6 billion of U.S. products and China is set to levy high tariffs on $34 billion worth of American goods, including soybeans, on Friday, the same day that Trump plans to tax an additional $34 billion worth of Chinese items.

The additional taxes make it harder for U.S. companies and farmers to sell some items abroad, and they raise costs on many products used in U.S. manufacturing. But Trump shrugged off fears that the tariffs will hurt the economy.

“Every country is calling every day, saying, ‘Let’s make a deal, let’s make a deal.’ It’s going to all work out,” Trump said Sunday, echoing his remarks earlier in the year that trade wars are “easy to win.”

Despite Trump’s rhetoric, concerns are growing that Trump’s appetite for tariffs only appears to be expanding as trade tensions escalate. Many who argued that Trump was just threatening tariffs as a negotiating tactic and would never let the skirmish intensify are now saying they may have miscalculated.

Trump said in an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that the European Union is just as bad as China on trade and that he didn’t intend to sign a new North American Free Trade Agreement deal until after the midterm elections in November.

“The European Union is possibly as bad as China, just smaller,” Trump said Sunday, pointing to the “car situation.”

The E.U. sent Trump’s Commerce Department an 11-page document on Friday threatening that the global community would put tariffs on up to $290 billion of U.S. products if Trump moves forward with tariffs on foreign autos, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post.

“Protective measures would undermine U.S. growth, negatively impact job creation, and not improve the trade balance,” E.U. leaders wrote, adding that auto tariffs would “damage further the reputation of the United States.”

Trump is now engaged in trade fights with most of the world’s major economies, including China, the European Union and Japan. Although Trump speaks periodically with leaders from these nations, formal trade talks have stalled with most of them as the two sides remain far apart and foreign countries say Trump’s wishes are unclear.

Trump's going to "win" this trade war no matter how many thousands, if not millions, of US jobs it costs. On top of all this, Trump wants the GOP Congress to pass a bill that would effectively allow Trump to go around the World Trade Organization and unilaterally make tariff decisions at will.

Amazingly enough, the draft legislation is currently titled the "United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act" which for those of you playing at home means that the bill would be the US FART Act.

This is who is running things in Washington right now, guys.

A walking fart joke.

StupidiNews!

• Leftist populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has easily won Mexico's presidential election on Sunday, Lopez Obrador will take office on December 1.
• Virginia GOP chairman John Whitbeck has resigned rather than working with GOP Senate candidate and white nationalist Corey Stewart, who promises a "vicious" campaign against Dem Sen. Tim Kaine.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is in trouble as German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer is threatening to resign over Merkel's opposition to stiff new asylum limitations.
• The Trump regime's move to ban the spouses of H-1B work visa holders from taking any US job could cost up to 100,000 jobs or more as Trump plans yet another reversal of Obama administration policy.
• The suspect in last week's Annapolis shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper was identified using facial recognition technology after police discovered he had damaged his fingerprints.