Pondering the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
On Sunday mornings we present a preview of the guests on the morning talk shows so you can choose which ones to watch or some do something more worth your time on a Sunday morning.
This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on Sunday’s “This Week” are: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT); and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The roundtable guests are: ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Mary Bruce; former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ); Democratic Strategist Brown James; and Axios National Political Reporter Jonathan Swan.
Face the Nation: Host Margaret Brennan’s guests are: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL); Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA); and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA).
Her panel guests are: Byron York, Washington Examiner; Michael Crowley, Politico; Rachael Bade, Washington Post; and Shawna Thomas, Vice News.
Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests on this week’s “MTP” are: Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO); and Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA).
The panel guests are: Kristen Soltis Anderson, Republican pollster; Prof. Eddie Glaude, Jr., chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University; and Eliana Johnson, National Review.
His panel guests are: Karen Finney, Democratic strategist; Abdul El-Sayed, former Michigan Democratic gubernatorial candidate; David Urban, Republican strategist; and S. E. Cupp, Republican columnist.
The first church Mohammed Nasar Mohammed Azar tried to blow up had already finished its service by the time he arrived. The Easter Sunday mass there had started early.
“He came in the car around 8:30 a.m., and they told him mass is over now,” said Bishop Joseph Ponniah, of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Batticaloa, eastern Sri Lanka. “Then he went to the next church.”
That timing mix-up saved the lives of hundreds of people inside St. Mary’s, who were already back in their homes by the time Azar walked through the church gates, intent on murdering everyone inside.
‘Senseless hate’: the far right’s deep roots in southern California
The Poway synagogue shooting is far from the first time California’s Jewish communities faced threats, as rightwing groups date as far back as the 1920s
The murderous attack on the Poway synagogue in San Diego last weekend may have shattered some people’s image of southern California as a sunny, liberal enclave. But the region has for decades been an incubator of far-right politics, and it’s far from the first time its Jewish communities have faced violent threats.
“Hate groups and hate activity run pretty deep in southern California, and have for a very long time,” said Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “This activity is deeply rooted in Orange county and northern San Diego,” she added.
Giving Birth in India‘The Women Here Are Afraid’
Every year, 32,000 women in India die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth. To reduce that number, the government plans to begin training midwives. A visit to a maternity ward in Hyderabad shows the difference they can make.
It is shortly before 1 a.m. in a state hospital in the South Indian city of Hyderabad. Four women are lying next to each other on metal tables, their legs stretched out toward the door. They are naked from the waist down.
Another woman in a dark blue dress is squatting on one of the tables and groaning. “You’re doing great,” says Rekha Marandi, a 25-year-old midwife who has pulled on a plastic apron over her flower-patterned blouse. A child might be born at any moment.
Maduro rallies troops against US after opposition asks army to join protests
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro urged the army on Saturday to be ready for a possible US military intervention against his regime, days after opposition leader Juan Guaido appealed to troops to join the rebellion against Maduro.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro urged his troops Saturday to be “ready” for potential US military action, as a limited number of opposition supporters marched on military barracks in a bid to win the armed forces’ support.
The small turnout for the Saturday marches — with participants in the hundreds, not the thousands — is another setback for opposition leader Juan Guaido, following a failed military uprising earlier in the week.
North Korea: Kim Jong-un oversees ‘strike drill’ missile component test
North Korea has confirmed via state media that leader Kim Jong-un has overseen a “strike drill” testing various missile components.
“A number of short-range projectiles” were also fired from the Hodo peninsula into the Sea of Japan on Saturday.
North Korea’s leader gave the order of firing to “increase the combat ability” of the country, the announcement said.
US President Donald Trump tweeted he believed Mr Kim would not jeopardise the path towards better relations.
A WAR REPORTER COVERS “THE END OF ICE” — AND IT WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT CLIMATE CATASTROPHE
FOCUSING ON BREATH and gratitude, Dahr Jamail’s latest book, “The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption,” stitches together personal introspection and gut-wrenching interviews with leading climate experts. The rapidly receding glaciers of Denali National Park, home to the highest peak in North America, inspired the book’s title. “Seven years of climbing in Alaska had provided me with a front-row seat from where I could witness the dramatic impact of human-caused climate disruption,” Jamail writes.
With vividly descriptive storytelling, Jamail pushes further north into the Arctic Circle where warming is occurring at double speed. He surveys rapid changes in the Pribilof Islands, where indigenous communities have had to contend with die-offs affecting seabirds, fur seals, fish, and more — a collapsing food web. The story continues in the fragile Great Barrier Reef, utterly ravaged by the warming ocean. South Florida is faring no better: Jamail finds that 2.46 million of the state’s acreage will be submerged within his lifetime. Experts are aghast everywhere Jamail visits. In the Amazon, rich in biodiversity, the consequences are especially enormous.
This was no ordinary homecoming. This was a do-or-die attempt to lay the ghost of years of rejection from the horse-rearing elite and the literati who sat in those privileged boxes overlooking the track and those unprivileged craven hordes who grovelled around the centre-field where he had suffered as a boy.
The clubhouse as I remember was worse, much worse than I had expected. It was a mess. This was supposed to be a smart, horsey clubhouse, oozing with money and gentry, but what I saw had me skulking in corners. It was worse than the night I spent on Skid Row a month later, back in New York. My feet crunched broken glass on the floor. There seemed no difference between a telephone booth and a urinal; both were used for the same purpose. Foul messages were scrawled in human excrement on the walls and bull-necked men, in what had once been white, but were smeared and stained, seersucker suits, were doing awful things to younger but equally depraved men around every corner. The place reminded me of a cowshed that hadn’t been cleaned in fifteen years. Somehow I knew I had to look and observe. It was my job. What was I being paid for? I was lucky to be here. Lots of people would give their drawing arm to be able to see the actual Kentucky Derby which was now hardly an hour away. Hunter understood and was watching me as much as he was watching the scene before us.
Something splattered the page I was drawing on and, as I moved to wipe it away, I realized too late it was somebody’s vomit. During the worst days of the Weimar Republic, when Hitler was rising faster than a bull on heat, George Grosz, the savage satirical painter, had used human shit as a violent method of colouring his drawings. It is a shade of brown like no other and its use makes an ultimate statement about the subject.
‘Seen enough?’, asked Hunter, pushing me hastily towards an exit that led out to the club enclosure. I needed a drink. ‘Er… one more trip to the inner-field Ralph I think,’ I heard Hunter say nervously. ‘Only another half-hour to the big race. If we don’t catch the inner-field now, we’ll miss it.’ So we went.
While the scene was as wild here as it had been in the clubhouse, it had a warmer, more human face, more colour and happiness and gay abandon – the difference in atmosphere between Hogarth’s Gin Lane and Beer Street. One harrowed and death-like the other bloated with booze but animal-healthy.
Who would have thought I was after the gristle, the blood-throbbing veins, poisoned exquisitely by endless self-indulgence, mint juleps, and bourbon. Hide, anyway, behind the dark shades you predatory piece of raw blubber.
The race was now getting a frenzied response as Dust Commander began to make the running. Bangles and jewels rattled on suntanned, wobbling flesh and even the pillar men in suits were now on tip-toe, creased skin under double-chins stretched to the limit into long furrows that curved down into tight collars.
Mouths opened and closed and veins pulsed in unison as the frenzy reached its climax. One or two slumped back as their horses failed, but the mass hysteria rose to a final orgasmic shriek, at last bubbling over into whoops of joy, hugging and back slapping. I turned to face the track again, but it was all over. That was it. The 1970 Kentucky Derby won by Dust Commander with a lead of five lengths – the biggest winning margin since 1946 when Triple Crown Champion, Assault, won the Derby by eight lengths.
…
‘I think it’s time I was thinking of getting back to New York. Let’s have a meal somewhere and I can phone the airline for plane times. What day is it, we seem to have lost a weekend. I need a drink.’
‘You need a lynching. You’ve upset my friends and I haven’t written a goddamn word. I’ve been too busy looking after you. Your work here is done. I can never come back here again. This whole thing will probably finish me as a writer. I have no story.’
‘Well I know we got a bit pissed and let things slip a bit but there’s lots of colour. Lots happened.’
‘Holy Shit! You scumbag! This is Kentucky, not Skid Row. I love these people. They are my friends and you treated them like scum.’
I suppose this is good thing since you can hardly be expected to follow Horse Racing unless you’re a tout or plunger in one of the few forms of gambling deemed socially acceptable (as opposed to Poker, which is not gambling at all) and 2 year olds don’t have much of a record to handicap.
This year Joe Drape at the New York Times picks Tacitus, Roadster, and Improbable; Melissa Hoppert picks Improbable, Game Winner, and Tacitus. That link has takes on every horse in the field. Haikal and Omaha Beach have been scratched.
But it’s really mostly an excuse to wear hats that would be rejected from a 5th Avenue Easter Parade or Royal Wedding and get tanked up on Bourbon that is best sipped with a soda chaser and not muddled up with mint.
To prepare mint extract, remove about 40 small mint leaves. Wash and place in a small bowl. Cover with 3 ounces bourbon. Allow the leaves to soak for 15 minutes. Then gather the leaves in paper toweling. Thoroughly wring the mint over the bowl of whisky. Dip the bundle again and repeat the process several times.
To prepare simple syrup, mix 1 cup of granulated sugar and 1 cup of distilled water in a small saucepan. Heat to dissolve sugar. Stir constantly so the sugar does not burn. Set aside to cool.
To prepare mint julep mixture, pour 3 1/2 cups of bourbon into a large glass bowl or glass pitcher. Add 1 cup of the simple syrup to the bourbon.
Now begin adding the mint extract 1 tablespoon at a time to the julep mixture. Each batch of mint extract is different, so you must taste and smell after each tablespoon is added. You are looking for a soft mint aroma and taste-generally about 3 tablespoons. When you think it’s right, pour the whole mixture back into the empty liter bottle and refrigerate it for at least 24 hours to “marry” the flavors.
To serve the julep, fill each glass (preferably a silver mint julep cup) 1/2 full with shaved ice. Insert a spring of mint and then pack in more ice to about 1-inch over the top of the cup. Then, insert a straw that has been cut to 1-inch above the top of the cup so the nose is forced close to the mint when sipping the julep.
When frost forms on the cup, pour the refrigerated julep mixture over the ice and add a sprinkle of powdered sugar to the top of the ice. Serve immediately.
I suppose I might mention this is the 145th edition and ask you all rise for perhaps the most racistanthem in sports.
The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home,
‘Tis summer, the darkies are gay,
The corn top’s ripe and the meadows in the bloom,
While the birds make music all the day.
The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
All merry, all happy and bright:
By’n by Hard Times comes a knocking at the door,
Then my old Kentucky Home, good night!
Weep no more, my lady,
Oh! weep no more to-day!
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,
For the old Kentucky Home far away.
They hunt no more for possum and the coon
On the meadow, the hill, and the shore,
They sing no more by the glimmer of the moon,
On the bench by the old cabin door.
The day goes by like a shadow o’re the heart,
With sorrow where all was delight:
The time has come when the darkies have to part,
Then my old Kentucky Home, good-night!
Weep no more, my lady,
Oh! weep no more to-day!
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,
For the old Kentucky Home far away.
The head must bow and the back will have to bend,
Wherever the darkey may go:
A few more days, and the trouble all will end
In the field where the sugar-canes grow.
A few more days for to tote the weary load,
No matter, ’twill never be light,
A few more days till we totter on the road,
Then my old Kentucky Home, good-night!
Weep no more, my lady,
Oh! weep no more to-day!
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,
For the old Kentucky Home far away.
It is made no better for having been composed by Stephen Foster.
This year’s controversy is dead Horses, at least 23 at Santa Anita alone. They’re trotting out the usual suspect, performance enhancing drugs (I take Lasix and between changing prescriptions I have accumulated quite a surplus. I frequently joke with my Doctor I should get into horse doping as a side-line.) when in fact it’s more likely inbreeding and genetic deformity.
The track is likely to be sloppy or wet at Post Time which is 6:50 pm ET.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Deadly shootings at Kent State during the Vietnam War; Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain’s prime minister; Chicago’s Haymarket Riot; ‘Freedom Riders’ head South; Birth of the outfit behind the Oscars.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.
North Korea has fired several short-range missiles from its east coast, South Korea’s military said, amid growing tensions with Washington following a failed nuclear summit in February.
South Korean and US authorities are analysing details of the missiles, which were fired towards the east from the Hodo peninsula at around 9am local time.
The missiles flew distances ranging from 70kms to 200 kms (44-124 miles), according to South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff.
The plot that failed: how Venezuela’s ‘uprising’ fizzled
When the coup was hurriedly launched a day early, defections from the regime failed to materialise, Maduro remained in power and the US government looked like it had badly miscalculated
The video that appeared on Tuesday morning had the appearance of history in the making. In the purple light of dawn, it showed a group of armed men and a military vehicle on a road leading to La Carlota airbase in eastern Caracas.
In the foreground, stood Juan Guaidó – the head of the national assembly recognised by most western countries as the rightful leader of Venezuela – declaring the “final phase of Operation Freedom” with oratory seemingly destined for legend.
“Today, brave soldiers, brave patriots, brave men loyal to the constitution have heard our call. We have finally met on the streets of Venezuela,” Guaidó said.
Pakistan urges Facebook to take down polio vaccine misinformation
Pakistan urged Facebook to remove harmful polio-related content from the social networking site on Friday, saying it was jeopardising eradication initiatives and putting the lives of vaccinators at risk.
Polio vaccination campaigns have faced stubborn resistance for years in Pakistan.
In recent months Pakistani social media has been inundated with fake news reports and videos — garnering thousands of views and shares in the last week alone — claiming numerous children have been killed by the polio vaccine.
Thousands of parents have refused to allow their children to be inoculated.
“The parental refusals due to propaganda on Facebook regarding the vaccine is emerging as the major obstacle in achieving complete eradication of the virus,” Babar Atta, who is helping oversee the country’s vaccination drive, said in a statement.
Rockets fired from Gaza day after Israel kills four Palestinians
No casualties reported as dozens of rockets reportedly land in Israeli settlements and towns surrounding Gaza Strip.
Dozens of rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, a day after Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in two separate incidents in Gaza.
There were no casualties reported after the rocket fire on Saturday morning, the Israeli army said.
The Iron Dome missile system intercepted dozens of projectiles, the army said, adding that about 90 rockets were fired from the besieged enclave.
WHEN ERIK PRINCE arrived at the Four Seasons resort in the Seychelles in January 2017 for his now-famous meetings with a Russian banker and UAE ruler Mohammed bin Zayed, he was in the middle of an unexpected comeback. The election of Donald Trump had given the disgraced Blackwater founder a new opportunity to prove himself. After years of trying and failing to peddle a sweeping vision of mercenary warfare around the world, Erik Prince was back in the game.
Bin Zayed had convened a group of close family members and advisers at the luxurious Indian Ocean resort for a grand strategy session in anticipation of the new American administration. On the agenda were discussions of new approaches for dealing with the civil wars in Yemen, Syria, and Libya, the threat of the Islamic State, and the United Arab Emirates’ longstanding rivalry with Iran. Under bin Zayed’s leadership, the UAE had used its oil wealth to become one of the world’s largest arms purchasers and the third largest importer of U.S. weapons. A new American president meant new opportunities for the tiny Gulf nation to exert its outsized military and economic influence in the Gulf region and beyond.
8chan, a nexus of radicalization for the Poway and Christchurch shooters, explained
The online platform is a dark, toxic corner of the internet.
On April 27, a 19-year-old man opened fire at a San Diego synagogue, killing one person and injuring three others. The incident took place six weeks after a 28-year-old man murdered 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The two have a disturbing commonality: They were both hanging out in the same dark corner of the internet, specifically a site called 8chan.
8chan is an online message board that since its 2013 launch has become the home of some of the most vitriolic content on the internet. It characterizes itself as the “darkest reaches” of the online world in its tagline and has fostered a reputation as a nearly lawless space for free speech — however hateful or dangerous it may be — to flourish.
On Wednesday night, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sat down with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow for an extended interview that was sobering and enlightening.
In the first segments, Secretary Clinton talks about the importance of Americans keeping focused on the themes and findings in the Mueller report amid the antics and obfuscation that William Barr has brought to the Special Counsel process. She also discusses the dubious legal arguments being made by Attorney General William Barr on Donald Trump’s behalf and the disdain it shows for Congress and the American oversight process. She said that Barr is doing the job he was hired to do, protect Donald Trump.
She then turns the discussion to impeachment which she believes must take a back seat to fact finding as it did in Watergate in 1973. Sec. Clinton talks about the importance of the role of the House Judiciary Committee in continuing to explore and publicize the findings of the Mueller report with an eye toward whether what is learned leads to the impeachment of Donald Trump.
The conversation then turns to the Mueller report and the Russian interference with the 2016 election and how successful it was and the dangers of Republicans putting partisanship ahead of national security just because their candidate was the beneficiary of that interference. Since Republicans are blocking legislation on orders from the White House, Sec. Clinton dropped this supposition:
Let’s suppose that you had one of the Democratic nominees for 2020 on your show, and that person said, you know, ‘The only other adversary of ours who is anywhere near as good as the Russians is China. So why should Russia have all the fun? And since Russia is clearly backing republicans, why don’t we ask China to back us?
And not only that, China, if you’re listening, why don’t you get Trump’s tax returns? I’m sure our media would richly reward you. Now according to the Mueller report, that is not conspiracy because it’s done right out in the open. so if after this hypothetical Democratic candidate says this on your show, within hours, all of a sudden, the IRS offices are bombarded with incredibly sophisticated cyber tools looking for Trump’s tax returns, and then extracts them and then passes them to whatever the new Wikileaks happens to be and they start being unravelled and disclosed, nothing wrong with that.
I mean, if you’re going let Russia get away with what they did and are still doing according to Christopher Wray, the current FBI director who said that last week, they’re in our election systems. We’re worried about 2020, he said. So, hey, let’s have a great power contest, and let’s get the Chinese in on the side of somebody else. Just saying that shows how absurd the situation we find ourselves in.”
The interview ends with a discussion of the Republicans’ and Trump’s obsession with her. The secretary said, “I’m living rent free inside of Donald Trump’s brain.” She says that repeated calls for re-investigations, and the effectiveness of Republican smear campaign are tactics appealing to their base of supporters.
Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.
Neither man seems ready for harsh political reality.
It’s still very early, but Joe Biden has emerged as the clear front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Bernie Sanders is in second place, although he appears to be fairly far behind, and one poll shows him in a statistical tie with Elizabeth Warren. So what should we think about the men currently leading the field?
Well, I have concerns. Not about electability, a topic about which nobody knows anything. Never mind what today’s general election polls say: What will polling look like after the inevitable Republican smear campaign? The answer to this question depends, in turn, on whether news organizations will cooperate with those smears as gleefully as they did in 2016.
No, my concerns are about what will happen if either man wins. Are they ready for the political trench warfare that would inevitably follow a Democratic victory?
The trouble with both Biden and Sanders is that each, in his own way, seems to believe that he has unique powers of persuasion that will let him defy the harsh reality of today’s tribal politics. And this lack of realism could set either of them up for failure.
In America, no one is above the law — except the president and everyone who does wrong in his name.
On Wednesday, when Attorney General William Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Mueller report, he addressed lawmakers more as if he were a member of President Trump’s legal team than as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. Barr framed Trump’s actions as fully justifiable, even arguing that if the president feels an investigation is unfounded, he “does not have to sit there constitutionally and allow it to run its course.”
Whether out of sycophantic loyalty or a deep-seated belief in executive impunity, Barr has used his position to insulate the president from legal scrutiny. He has done everything in his power to downplay the impact of the special counsel’s investigation.
He did not hesitate, for example, to frame Robert Mueller’s findings as an exoneration of the president, despite a report that said otherwise. By itself, this gave Trump the appearance of vindication, as major media outlets declared him innocent of “collusion.”
“The Good Fight” is entertainment for the resistance.
In the second season of the serial drama “The Good Fight,” Diane Lockhart, an attorney played by the regal 67-year-old actress Christine Baranski, makes a heated speech at a meeting about a legal strategy for impeaching Donald Trump. “I have spent the last few months feeling deranged,” she shouts, though she uses an expletive before “deranged.” “Going numb! All Trump, all the time. What’s real, what’s fake? Well, you know what? I just woke up.”
This captures a pretty widespread feeling among Americans right now — consider all the women who mobilized for Democrats in the midterms — but it’s surprisingly rare to see it expressed in pop storytelling. Part of the dystopian character of Trump’s presidency is his ubiquity; he dominates the news cycle, late-night TV, and book publishing. Yet Trumpism has, with only a few exceptions, gone weirdly unprocessed by fiction, either written or filmed.
Perhaps that’s because people are desperate for a respite from Trump, or because the imagination can’t compete with the strangeness of reality. It means that while there’s an explosion of news stories about the current moment, there’s a lack of the sort of human tales that might help discombobulated Americans make sense of what we’re going through.
President Trump’s latest position on the Mueller report is that it both totally exonerates him and is fatally flawed at its very core — because it doesn’t totally exonerate him.
Signs are mounting that House Democrats are reaching a breaking point in the face of Trump’s maximal resistance to any and all oversight. That resistance just took a new turn, when Trump told Fox News that former White House counsel Donald McGahn should defy a subpoena to appear before Congress.
McGahn’s testimony to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III provided the basis for the report’s conclusions on some of Trump’s worst obstruction of justice efforts, and Democrats hope he can shed more light on them. A major confrontation looks all but inevitable.
So the White House is justifying its maximal resistance with a broadened set of claims. These are set forth in a newly released letter that White House lawyer Emmet Flood sent to the Justice Department, complaining bitterly about Mueller’s investigation.
Because the Mueller report disclosed his conclusion that he could not conclusively determine that Trump hadn’t committed criminal obstruction of justice, the letter argues, the investigation is hopelessly tainted.
What’s more, it argues, Trump fully cooperated with that tainted investigation. But now that it’s over, he retains the right to exercise executive privilege to prevent his advisers from testifying to Congress — that is, to resist all efforts to further flesh out Mueller’s conclusions.
The argument is ludicrous but revealing. It shows in a roundabout way that Trump’s real position is that he should be beyond the reach of accountability entirely.
No wonder President Trump thinks he can defy Congress, tell his aides and former aides to defy Congress, threaten to fire the special counsel and mislead the American people: Attorney General William P. Barr told him (and us) that a president can end any criminal inquiry if he thinks it is unjustified. (Financial fraud? Witness tampering?) The Founders might be surprised to find out that the term of a U.S. president is the equivalent of a “stay out of jail” card, good until he leaves office — but not before pardoning himself, presumably.
With such advice, the equivalent that a president can do no wrong, Trump is convinced that he can fight “all the subpoenas.” Those Democrats are such meanies, why should he have to endure a co-equal branch investigating him? [..]
On one level, you might say this is just Trump saying stupid things. He cannot stop McGahn, so what is the harm? The harm is that the president is the chief executive who took an oath to faithfully execute the laws, not to think up groundless, absurd ways to block an investigation.
And this is precisely the kind of conduct Barr inspired with his declaration that the president can cut off any investigation he thinks is unjustified. Barr now invites and incites Trump to become even more brazen in his defiance of Congress and his disdain for the rule of law. Barr has created a monster who now roams through the landscape destroying norms, tearing up the statute books and encouraging lawlessness by others. (Why wouldn’t every witness in a criminal proceeding brought by the feds try the same sort of shenanigans?)
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli born; The U.S. Supreme Court rules racial covenants in real estate are unenforceable; Joe DiMaggio makes his baseball debut; Singers Pete Seeger and James Brown born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Down through the centuries, this trick has been tried by various establishments throughout the world. They force people to get involved in the kind of examination that has only one aim and that is to stamp out dissent.
His imposing image stares out from government buildings, bridges, billboards, shops and tuk tuks as Thailand prepares for its first coronation in seven decades.
This weekend, two years after he ascended the throne, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, also known as Rama X, will finally be officially crowned.
The ceremony, which will last three days, is a historic moment for Thailand. The monarchy is considered the spiritual protector of the people and commands, particularly among older generations, a deity-like reverence. The death of Vajiralongkorn’s father, the widely beloved King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 2018 aged 88, was marked by a national outpouring of sorrowand an official year of mourning.
Sudan demonstrators vow to take protests to Europe and US: ‘This is our last chance’
Hundreds of thousands gathered in rallies across Sudan on Thursday demanding the immediate creation of a civilian-led government
Protesters in Sudan have vowed to take their rallies to embassies across Europe, as hundreds of thousands marched in Khartoum and other parts of the country to demand the military hand over power to civilians.
Three weeks after president Omar al-Bashir was overthrown, demonstrators gathered across the capital and marched to a main sit-in outside the military headquarters.
A coalition of activists led by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) said Thursday’s self-styled “Million Man March” was held because talks with Sudan’s military council have reached a deadlock.
Reporters Without Borders head: ‘Journalism in Europe has been weakened’
Jamal Khashoggi, Daphne Caruana Galizia, Jan Kuciak: Their murders are among the most serious attacks on press freedom and a symptom of a deep-rooted problem, says Christophe Deloire of Reporters Without Borders.
Almost one person in two in the world does not have access to freely reported news and information. As Europeans, we can count ourselves lucky that we enjoy “this freedom that allows us to verify respect for all the other freedoms.”
In the World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), our continent is by far the one where freedom of the press is the most widely observed. But let us not turn a blind eye on the fact that, in recent years, a dam has burst and this cornerstone of our democracy has been seriously damaged.
Seoul says Pyongyang must show ‘action’ to win sanctions relief
South Korean foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha said Friday that Pyongyang needs to show “visible, concrete and substantial” denuclearisation action if it wants sanctions relief, as the North’s deadlock with the United States continues.
Kang’s comments at a press conference come just days after a senior North Korean official warned Washington of an “unwanted outcome” if it didn’t adjust its stance on economic sanctions.
Washington and Pyongyang have been at loggerheads since the collapse of a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump in February.
Their homes were burned down in racist violence. Then officials told them to flee
Story by Denise Hruby
Photographs by Arno Friebes
When rocks crashed through the windows of their home, the bathroom seemed the safest place to hide. Huddled together, the family of Vasil Velichkow Hristov — including his six young grandchildren — listened as an angry mob chanted threats and racial slurs.
“Come out, Roma, we’ll make soap out of you,” they yelled, according to several people who were nearby at the time.
Once a positive example of integration of the ethnic Roma community in Bulgaria, the northern central city of Gabrovo has been engulfed by racist violence and anti-Roma protests since April 10.
“We define a coup d’état as the sudden and irregular (i.e., illegal or extra-legal) removal, or displacement, of the executive authority of an independent government,” wrote the Coup D’etat Project at the University of Illinois’ Cline Center for Democracy in 2013.
Michael Klarman, a Harvard Law School professor, told PolitiFact that the Russia investigation “is not a coup, because the FBI had very good reasons for commencing an investigation of Trump. It beggars belief that anyone in the FBI had the intention of subverting a duly elected president.”
Anthony Clark Arend, a professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University, agreed.
“By using the term ‘coup,’ the president is suggesting that Mueller, and by extension his own Justice Department, are acting outside the law,” Arend said. Yet Mueller “was appointed and supervised by Rod Rosenstein, the president’s chosen deputy attorney general.”
Of the 12 types of coups recognized by the Cline Center, nine do not seem to have anything to do with what Trump is talking about, including military coups, rebel coups, popular revolts, dissident actions, palace coups, foreign coups, internationally mediated transitions, forced resignations, and self-coups, in which the leader strong-arms other branches of government to entrench power.
Two other types cited by the center are defined by how far they got — attempted coups (which try and fail) and coup conspiracies (which never get to the stage of being carried out). Any supposed coup against Trump would have been a coup attempt, since he’s still in office. But that doesn’t mean there actually was a coup attempt.
“Inasmuch as the Russia investigation began before Trump was elected, and at a time when it was universally assumed that Hillary Clinton would be elected, it cannot have been an attempt to overthrow the U.S. government,” said Richard Bulliet, a Columbia University historian. “It was an attempt by duly established arms of the state to prevent seizure of the government by a witting or unwitting Russian agent.”
The lead author of the Cline Center report, University of Illinois political scientist Peter F. Nardulli, agreed that Trump’s definition wouldn’t fit.
“The vast proportion of extralegal overthrows of the government involve violence,” Nardulli said. “What happened with Trump was simply the unfolding of a normal governmental procedure in accord with the rule of law. It was a totally different genre from a coup.”
Of the Cline Center’s categories, Trump would presumably be referring to a “counter coup,” which is defined as involving “the elimination of a usurper by members of the prior regime within a month of the initial coup.”
But in Trump’s case, he didn’t take office through a coup (he was duly elected by the Electoral College) and the supposed counter-coup actually began before he actually won the presidency. So calling it a counter coup is problematic, too.
“I cannot see in any way shape or form how this would be a coup in any reasonable sense of the word,” said Richard Nephew, adjunct professor and senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “We have a long, historical legacy of holding to account our senior officials and representatives for their conduct.”
You want a Coup? I’ll give you a Coup, albeit a failed U.S. sponsored one.
For weeks, the Venezuelan opposition had been working on a comprehensive blueprint to finally force President Nicolás Maduro from office. Several of his top military and civilian aides were said to have been persuaded to switch sides, while others would be allowed to leave the country. There was a strong suggestion that Maduro himself might peacefully fly to Havana.
“They produced a pretty full plan,” a U.S. official said of the opposition. Implementation was tentatively set for Wednesday, although no date had been finalized.
On Monday, however, the plan started to fall apart.
Maduro, it seemed, had gotten wind of it, and opposition leader Juan Guaidó responded by rushing ahead. At dawn Tuesday, after alerting the U.S. State Department, Guaidó released a video saying that significant Venezuela military units were with him and that the moment had come to rise up against Maduro.
But after a day of bloody protests, the government remained intact. The Trump administration publicly blamed Russia and Cuba — Maduro’s top backers — for keeping him in place and discouraging expected high-level defections.
…
U.S. officials said the United States did not directly participate in the opposition’s secret negotiations with Maduro officials. “We were aware of the efforts, beginning about two months ago,” a second senior administration official said. “There were times when it seemed serious, and other times not so serious.”
But “the last few weeks, it was clear that . . . they were reaching agreement” with Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, along with the head of the Maduro-appointed Supreme Court and the commander of his presidential guard, to switch sides, this official said.
While not officially recognizing Guaidó, Padrino and the others were said to be ready to sign documents declaring their loyalty to the Venezuelan constitution, under which the opposition-led National Assembly had declared Maduro’s reelection last year invalid and, on Jan. 23, named Guaidó interim president. The United States and more than 50 other countries, primarily in Latin America and Europe, have also recognized him.
In exchange, the Venezuelan officials would keep their jobs and be integrated into the new administration. For those who might want to leave the country, the United States had given indirect assurances they would not be barred from doing so, and might even be allowed access to any assets stashed overseas.
Over the past two weeks, administration officials said, they had received indications that even Maduro himself might be prepared to fly to Cuba.
On Monday, however, the opposition and the administration received word that Maduro was aware of the plan. Early Tuesday, Guaidó appeared at a military base in eastern Caracas, along with a small band of armed men in military uniforms, to announce that “Operation Liberty” had begun.
“People of Venezuela,” he said, “we will go to the street with the armed forces to continue taking the streets until we consolidate the end of [Maduro’s] usurpation, which is already irreversible.”
At about 6 a.m., Bolton called Trump and his own top aides to say the announcement had come.
At midmorning, however, Padrino appeared on live television, wearing combat fatigues and body armor, surrounded by other military officers under a large portrait of Maduro. He declared the uprising an attempted coup and denounced protesters gathered in the streets. Reports of defections and government collapse, he said, were “fake news.”
The administration, seeking to undermine Maduro’s trust in those around him, decided to out Padrino; Maikel Morena, the chief justice of the Supreme Court; and presidential guard commander Ivan Rafael Hernandez Dala by name, saying they had agreed to sign documents supporting the constitution.
When Maduro failed to appear throughout the day, Pompeo eventually declared that the Venezuelan leader “had his plane ready” but had been dissuaded from leaving by Russia.
The senior administration official noted that “when times get tough” for Maduro, including a number of failed coup attempts in the past, “he has always had a plane ready.” But, the official said, “the information we had was that he was very seriously contemplating” a departure on Tuesday morning.
“Then the Russians said don’t leave,” said the official, who characterized Russia’s intervention as “advice,” perhaps based on a reading of how the day would unfold.
Besides, Brown Commies bent on Word Domination which is our gig.
