Have I told you how much I love Waffle House? Hash Browns! Smothered! Covered! Capped! Country Style! Any time you want them, 24/7.
Sure it’s a heart attack on a stick. I don’t get South that much, last time was a little over a year ago during the Women’s March.
Well, I’m about to go again (weather permitting). We’re going to look at Cherry Blossoms (2 weeks early because Global Warming) and, oh yeah, participate in the March For Our Lives (gave you the page with the merch, all the cool kidz will be wearing it).
You may say, “ek, you’re 120+ years old!” Well, I can still move a little and it’s open to everybody. Get to visit my cousin (the other one) and her kidlings whom I’m told don’t run around naked so much any more.
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 10:30am (ET) 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.
IN MID-JANUARY, Citigroup executives held a conference call with reporters about the bank’s fourth-quarter 2017 earnings. The discussion turned to an obscure congressional bill, S.2155, pitched by its bipartisan supporters mainly as a vehicle to deliver regulatory relief to community banks and, 10 years after the financial crisis, to make needed technical fixes to the landmark Wall Street reform law, Dodd-Frank.
But Citi’s Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach told the trade reporters he thought that some bigger banks — like, say, Citigroup — should get taken care of in the bill as well. He wanted Congress to loosen rules around how the bank could go about lending and investing. The specific mechanism to do that was to fiddle with what’s known as the supplementary leverage ratio, or SLR, a key capital requirement for the nation’s largest banks. This simple ratio sets how much equity banks must carry compared to total assets like loans.
S.2155 did, at the time, weaken the leverage ratio, but only for so-called custodial banks, which do not primarily make loans but instead safeguard assets for rich individuals and companies like mutual funds. As written, the measure would have assisted just two U.S. banks, State Street and Bank of New York Mellon. This offended Gerspach. “We obviously don’t think that is fair, so we would like to see that be altered,” he told reporters.
Republicans and Democrats who pushed S.2155 through the Senate Banking Committee must have heard Citi’s call. (They changed the definition of a custodial bank in a subsequent version of the bill. It used to stipulate that only a bank with a high level of custodial assets would qualify, but now it defines a custodial bank as “any depository institution or holding company predominantly engaged in custody, safekeeping, and asset servicing activities.”) The change could allow virtually any big bank to take advantage of the new rule. …
Americans outraged by their country’s mass shooting epidemic appear to be organizing at an unprecedented rate, following the 14 February shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were killed.
The gun policy reform group Everytown for Gun Safety said a 25% leap in members in the two weeks after the Parkland shooting meant the group had overtaken the National Rifle Association in size – although the gun lobby’s claim of 5 million members has not been independently verified and is widely seen as inflated.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has opened 16 chapters since the Parkland shootings, the group said. Sandy Hook Promise, an advocacy group founded after the 2012 elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 young children and six adults were killed, has seen a wave of new signatories to its namesake vow. …
ON MARCH 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed a law granting U.S. citizenship to the residents of Puerto Rico. But 101 years later, the federal government, by abandoning the island in the wake of a crippling debt crisis and an even more devastating hurricane, is treating Puerto Ricans like citizens in name only.
Washington’s failure to adequately help Puerto Rico rebuild its economy and school system was the focus of a daylong conference at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, hosted by the American Federation of Teachers, the Hispanic Federation, and the Albert Shanker Institute.
The event drew powerful progressive politicians — namely Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. All three back the Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands Equitable Rebuild Act, often referred to as a “Marshall Plan” for the territories. The bill, authored by Sanders, would provide $146 billion to Puerto Rico’s recovery, would forgive its debt, and would establish Medicaid and Medicare parity. Unlike in the U.S., the federal government subjects Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to annual Medicaid caps.
Five months after Puerto Rico’s worst natural disaster in nearly a century, more than 30 percent of the island — over 900,000 people — still live without electricity. Roughly 270 public schools still lack power, and some areas of the island do not expect to see restored electricity until the end of May. Puerto Rico was struggling even before Hurricane Maria: With roughly $123 billion in debt, the island declared bankruptcy last May. …
For months, Congress circled 5 March in bright red ink. It was the deadline – arbitrarily imposed by Donald Trump – for lawmakers to find a way to protect hundreds of thousands of young undocumented migrants, known as Dreamers, from deportation.
But on Monday in Washington that deadline will pass unceremoniously. Negotiations have all but ceased as the nation turns to face another crisis. Congress is under pressure to act on guns, the one issue as politically polarizing as immigration.
“We’re not optimistic and we’re not holding our breath for Congress to pass immigration legislation,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigrants’ rights group.
Last year, Trump announced the end of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), a program that allows people brought to the country illegally as children to apply for renewable two-year work permits. Established by Barack Obama in 2012, Daca shields 690,000 people from deportation.
This week, though, a supreme court decision removed any urgency on Capitol Hill. The justices ruled that Daca must be reinstated while lower courts consider challenges to Trump’s action. The ruling could leave Dreamers in legal limbo for months. …
HAZLE TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) — Police say a damning clue led to the arrest of a Pennsylvania man charged with stealing a pot of meatballs — red sauce smeared on his face and clothes.
Authorities in Luzerne County have charged 48-year-old Leahman Glenn Robert Potter with burglary, criminal trespass and theft by unlawful taking for allegedly swiping a pot of meatballs from a man’s garage on Monday.
Police say the victim reported his meatballs missing and told officers at around 2:30 p.m. Monday that he saw Potter standing in front of his house with red sauce on his face and clothes. The pot was found on the street.
It’s unclear if Potter washed the sauce off before he was arrested a short time later.
Potter’s attorney did not immediately respond to a voicemail seeking comment.
Mercantilism is a national economic policy designed to maximize the trade of a nation and, historically, to maximize the accumulation of gold and silver. Mercantilism was dominant in modernized parts of Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries before falling into decline, although some commentators argue that it is still practised in the economies of industrializing countries, in the form of neomercantilism.
It promotes governmental regulation of a nation’s economy for the purpose of augmenting state power at the expense of rival national powers. Mercantilism includes a national economic policy aimed at accumulating monetary reserves through a positive balance-of-trade, especially of finished goods. Historically, such policies frequently led to war and also motivated colonial expansion.
Mercantilist theory varies in sophistication from one writer to another and has evolved over time. High tariffs, especially on manufactured goods, were an almost universal feature of mercantilist policy. Even if mercantilism and protectionism are applied through the same economic measures, they have opposite aims. Mercantilism is an offensive policy aimed at accumulating the largest trade surplus. Conversely, protectionism is a defensive policy aimed at reducing the trade deficit and restoring a trade balance in equilibrium to protect the economy.
Well, true enough except for that last bit about Mercantilism and Protectionism being different because they have opposite policy aims. They have the same aim- to enrich your country at the expense of others. Labeling one “offensive” (bad) and the other “defensive” (good) is simply propaganda.
However because they posit a zero sum game between national powers you can see the appeal to The Donald who 1) is a simplistic moron and 2) views any negotiation as a contest of wills in which there are winners and losers (probably because of #1).
As I was taught in History and Economics 101, Mercantilist and Protectionist policies can be effective under certain conditions for a limited amount of time. They are variations of what is generally called a “Command Economy” where Policy Makers decide what goods and services are available to citizens (at reasonable prices, there are always leaks) and allocate Labor and Capital to enterprises that are viewed as beneficial to the State (L’état, c’est moi), mostly but not always military power.
Think Command Economies are ineffective? Well, they worked Ok for France and England in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries and more contemporarily for Germany and the Soviet Union in the 20th (not that the 19th was immune, just it was more of the same).
The essential conditions for implementing a Command Economy are that you not starve too many people (you can starve quite a few but once you pass a certain threshold production declines), that you have control over Imports (Tariffs and Customs Interdiction), that you have control over your domestic market (Luxury Taxes or Prohibitions), and that you have control of your Capital (Nationalize tradeable commodities, restrict currency transfers). Labor? They’re basically Slaves anyway, who cares? Use your Monopoly on Violence (at least internally) to beat them into submission.
If you have those and your Economy is sufficiently large and varied enough to sustain itself internally you can basically tell the rest of the World to piss up a rope. Japan did this for 400 years.
In the 19th Century many Nations became Industrialized enough that their Internal Market was no longer able to absorb their entire output and finding some sucker other party to trade for it was essential for continued growth. A School of Economic Thought developed that instead Nations should concentrate on promoting Industries where their output was superior or more desirable (Competitive Advantage) and instead encourage the removal of Trade barriers to increase the volume of Money flowing in and decrease the cost of essential commodities that others could produce more cheaply.
And now the Modern Monetary Theory part. As long as “Money” was tied to a central commodity (historically Gold and Silver) it was easy to keep score but more and more transactions were taking place in commodity valuations of more useful kinds (How many pounds of Opium do you want for those Silks? How much Oil for those Guns?) and the relative scarcity of Gold and Silver produced severe constraints on the Growth Potential of Economies since Governments were reluctant to inflate because of damage to the wealth of Elites (Sorry, you lost the War. Your Slaves and your currency are both worth exactly nothing.).
Eventually in 1972 we did away with even evaluating Currency in terms of other Currency and it now serves the purpose of being a means of transaction and nothing else. I’d advise you to invest in Bananas due to the coming Cavendish Plague but they rot really quick and might go bad on you before the Market takes off. Maybe Yap Island Stones.
So Tariffs are not as effective as they were since many Markets are now dominated by Producers who have Competitive Advantage. Indeed in many cases Nations no longer produce essential goods (we can’t build a Missouri Class Battleship today, not that they’re essential any more- history has passed them by, they are relics) and are forced to trade for them meaning that opportunities for retaliation are rampant. The chief Economic result is a voluntary rise in inflation, a consumer tax, as vendors pass through their new cost ($175 a Car for example).
You don’t even hurt the people you’re thinking you do. If for instance you think China is going to take it on the chin (oh yes, pun intended) you might be surprised to learn that they are only 11th in Steel and 4th in Aluminum.
Number 1 in both?
I’ll note Russia is #5 and #2. You should really check with your puppetmaster Donald.
Other allies who are effected? Steel- Brazil (2), South Korea (3), Mexico (4). Aluminum- United Arab Emirates (3).
Now I totally get why The Donald did this. He’s pissed as hell about Hope Hicks and worried sick that Mueller is going to prove him a traitor (not likely, we’re not technically at war with Russia but there are other laws) and scoop up the rest of his family who are all criminals and as the reports say, he wants to punch somebody. In waltzes Wilbur Ross who says- have I got a target for you (since he’s wanted this since before Day 1) and smuggles in a group of Steel and Aluminum lobbyists for an impromptu dog and pony show.
Yawn. I rate the likelihood it will every be implemented around a 3 (on a scale of 1, never, to 10, for sure) and it may boost his popularity among his rabid base by 1 or 2 points for a week or so (though not on Wall Street) and then it will vanish on the ash heap of history.
If not it will sting for a while and then be instantly reversed by the next Administration with abject apologies and hundreds of Billions in make up dollars (which is also a pun, see if you spot it).
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here.
Sunday night is the big movie awards night, the Oscars. This year the festivities start at 1 PM ET on ABC. The Red Carpet parade begins at 5:30 PM ET culminating with the big event at 8 PM ET. I will be ensconced in my usual spot on the couch with a large bowl of buttery popcorn and a pitcher of Martinis with several olives. But what to eat besides popcorn? Here are some ideas starting with a luscious desert you can make tonight.
A quick raspberry sauce adds pastry-shop polish to this cheesecake. Want extra to serve alongside the dessert? Double the ingredient amounts and reserve half the sauce. Bonus: You’ll get more of the berries’ anti-inflammatory benefits.
Baking a salad might make you nervous, but a quick moment in the oven will only wilt the greens slightly and yet melt the cheese so that it cloaks the greens nicely.
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
Rodney King beaten in Los Angeles; Inventor Alexander Graham Bell born; ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ becomes the U.S. national anthem; ‘Time’ first hits newsstands; Steve Fossett’s non-stop global flight.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one’s opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
There is a huge storm hitting the northeast coast, a Nor’easter, that is causing chaos with ground and air transportation. With winds reaching near hurricane force, there are downed trees and power lines. It will be gone tomorrow and the clean up begins. Slowly, everything will return to normal. Too bad that can’t be said for the chaos that is emanating from the White House.
The week started with Trump’s jack of all trades and master of none losing his security clearance and his closest confidant Hope Hicks testifying before the House Intelligence Committee and abruptly resigning Wednesday. Rumors have been flying for weeks that National Security Advisor General H. R. McMaster would be leaving his position to return to the Pentagon. It’s no secret that Chief of Staff John Kelly is not well liked among what remains o Trumnp’s hangers on, so rumors of his departure persist, egged on by the firing of White House Staff Rob Porter over spouse abuse accusations. And, lest we forget, Trump’s televised meeting with a bipartisan group of congress critters to express his wishes on gun control, starting with violating the Fourth Amendment by confiscating guns without due process. Even this current Supreme Court might have an issue with that idea. It didn’t end there.
Apparently, Wednesday night, hurt and licking his wounds, Trump met with Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and White House Director of Trade, who had also invited for steel and aluminum executives unbeknownst to other White house officials. That prevented the Secret Service from vetting nor was Chief of Staff Kelly given their names. Ross and company talked the “unglued” Trump into launching a tariffs war that has tanked global stock market for the last two days. NBC News Stephanie Ruhle and Peter Alexander reported this:
With global markets shaken by President Donald Trump’s surprise decision to impose strict tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the president went into battle mode on Friday: “Trade wars are good, and easy to win,” he wrote on Twitter.
But the public show of confidence belies the fact that Trump’s policy maneuver, which may ultimately harm U.S. companies and American consumers, was announced without any internal review by government lawyers or his own staff, according to a review of an internal White House document.
According to two officials, Trump’s decision to launch a potential trade war was born out of anger at other simmering issues and the result of a broken internal process that has failed to deliver him consensus views that represent the best advice of his team. [..]
Trump, the two officials said, was angry and gunning for a fight, and he chose a trade war, spurred on by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro, the White House director for trade. [..]
By midnight Wednesday, less than 12 hours before the executives were expected to arrive, no one on the president’s team had prepared any position paper for an announcement on tariff policy, the official said. In fact, according to the official, the White House counsel’s office had advised that they were as much as two weeks away from being able to complete a legal review on steel tariffs. [..]
There were no prepared, approved remarks for the president to give at the planned meeting, there was no diplomatic strategy for how to alert foreign trade partners, there was no legislative strategy in place for informing Congress and no agreed upon communications plan beyond an email cobbled together by Ross’s team at the Commerce Department late Wednesday that had not been approved by the White House.
No one at the State Department, the Treasury Department or the Defense Department had been told that a new policy was about to be announced or given an opportunity to weigh in in advance. [..]
The Thursday morning meeting did not originally appear on the president’s public schedule. Shortly after it began, reporters were told that Ross had convened a “listening” session at the White House with 15 executives from the steel and aluminum industry.
Then, an hour later, in an another unexpected move, reporters were invited to the Cabinet room. Without warning, Trump announced on the spot that he was imposing new strict tariffs on imports.
By Thursday afternoon, the U.S. stock market had fallen and Trump, surrounded by his senior advisers in the Oval Office, was said to be furious
Needless to say, this didn’t please congressional Republicans, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and economics advisor Gary Cohn who were all caught off guard.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has asked witnesses about Kushner’s efforts to secure financing for his family’s real estate properties, focusing specifically on his discussions during the transition with individuals from Qatar and Turkey, as well as Russia, China and the United Arab Emirates, according to witnesses who have been interviewed as part of the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to sway the 2016 election.
As part of the scrutiny of Kushner’s discussions with Turks, federal investigators have reached out to Turkish nationals for information on Kushner through the FBI’s legal attache office in Ankara, according to two people familiar with the matter. Separately, Qatari government officials visiting the U.S. in late January and early February considered turning over to Mueller what they believe is evidence of efforts by their country’s Persian Gulf neighbors in coordination with Kushner to hurt their country, four people familiar with the matter said. The Qatari officials decided against cooperating with Mueller for now out of fear it would further strain the country’s relations with the White House, these people said.
Kushner’s family real estate business, Kushner Companies, approached Qatar multiple times, including last spring, about investing in the company’s troubled flagship property at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York, but the government-run sovereign wealth fund declined, according to two people familiar with the discussion. Another discussion of interest to Mueller’s team is a meeting Kushner held at Trump Tower during the transition in December 2016 with a former prime minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, or HBJ, according to people familiar with the meeting.
HBJ had been in talks with Kushner Companies about investing in its Fifth Avenue property, which is facing roughly $1.4 billion in debt that is due in 2019, these people said. Those talks with the company continued after Kushner entered the White House and stepped away from the business, but last spring HBJ decided against investing, these people said.
In the weeks after Kushner Companies’ talks with the Qatari government and HBJ collapsed, the White House strongly backed an economically punishing blockade against Qatar, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, citing the country’s support for terrorism as the impetus. Kushner, who is both President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a key adviser, has played a major role in Trump’s Middle East policy and has developed close relationships with the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE
The weather in Washington improved enough for Trump to leave this afternoon for his Mar-a-Lago country club to surround himself with the club’s patron and play some golf. Maybe this will be a peaceful weekend for all of us, too, at least until he starts tweeting or Monday comes.
Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing coalition, which has the best chance of winning Italy’s election on Sunday, wants to boot out 600,000 migrants and pump cash into Italian pocketbooks. An opponent, the Five Star populist party, promises an online canvas of its members every time a major decision arises, in an experimental exercise of hyperdemocracy. And the ruling center-left party is tanking, even though Italy’s economy looks rosier than five years ago when it took power.
Italians head to the polls this weekend in Europe’s most closely watched election this year. And in a bitterly divided campaign — and with more than a few shades of U.S. debates — voters are animated by issues of migration and a nagging sense that Italy’s post-crisis economic recovery has made life better for the richest without touching the citizens below.
The winner will help shape Europe’s direction at a time when the European Union is contending with threats to rule of law in its member states Hungary and Poland and negotiating a bitter divorce with Britain. And because Italy is a main gateway for migrants into Europe, the decisions it takes about how to treat those who reach its shores will reverberate throughout the continent.
But if Italians agree they don’t want the status quo, they are split about the best direction for their country, which is the fourth-largest economy in Europe. Opinion polls suggest the likeliest outcome of Sunday’s election is a Parliament too splintered to form a workable majority, leading to a center-spanning caretaker government or new elections and months of deadlock.
…
Since the last election five years ago, (Five Star) the anti-establishment party founded by comedian Beppe Grillo in 2009 has become the biggest force in Italy and tops the opinion polls. Yet its members have struggled to transform themselves from swashbuckling outsiders into a group that could plausibly hold power, and they have shown mixed results when they have captured local governments. The final polls before a 15-day blackout period ahead of the election gave them about 28 percent of the vote, well short of the roughly 40 percent needed to capture Parliament. But if they overcome their reluctance to form coalitions and can convince another party to join forces, they could unsettle establishment leaders across Europe.
…
Italy’s economy grew a modest 1.5 percent last year, a major improvement over the crisis years but far from enough to make most voters feel the benefits. Youth unemployment is stuck at a stubborn 35 percent, and overall unemployment is higher than the European average, so many voters are fed up. But the parties leading the polls haven’t offered plans that add up, according to most mainstream economists. Berlusconi’s center-right coalition is promising $1,220 a month to every adult Italian as a universal basic income, for example, without fully explaining how he would pay for it.
…
Italy sometimes seems to churn through leaders faster than it can come up with new ones. So political instability is nothing new. But with the advent of the Five Star Movement, Italian politics now appears tripolar — and it’s not clear that voters will lean heavily enough for anyone to come up with a workable majority. Even if Italy heads to the polls again in the near future, there’s no reason to believe the dynamics would change.
…
Far-right Northern League leader Matteo Salvini has a pierced ear and a genial, everyman style. In a political landscape starved of charismatic leaders, he is one of the most gifted. There’s even an outside chance his party will garner more votes than Berlusconi’s, which could put him on top as a candidate for prime minister. If that happens, he would be the first far-right populist to lead a Western European nation since 1945. He’s even more committed than Berlusconi to kicking out migrants. After a former Northern League candidate attacked migrants in Macerata last month, Salvini briefly condemned the violence — then changed the subject to the problems he says migrants bring to Italian society.
…
The ruling center-left Democratic Party dominated elections for European Parliament in 2014, but its support has collapsed nearly by half, to 23 percent. Former prime minister Matteo Renzi was beloved by elites but disliked by ordinary Italians for what was seen as an aloof, entitled style. A left-wing faction broke off. Then the right-wing parties and populists took over the worker-friendly policies that were typically the domain of the left, such as lowering the retirement age and offering guaranteed incomes. There’s little expectation Renzi and his allies will have a role in the future government unless it is as a junior partner to Berlusconi.
Hollywood doesn’t understand much. I get a chuckle when they try to duplicate or allude to the realities of New England, especially the asshole we call the Nutmeg State. When Who’s The Boss was on the opening montage used to have me rolling on the floor. It was supposed to be set in Fairfield and since I lived in Fairfield for a few years before moving to Stars Hollow I can assure you there is exactly NO part of Fairfield that looks like that. Westport or Greenwich maybe, but not Fairfield.
Fairfield is actually a kind of gritty and depressing place dominated by Strip Malls, Metro North, and I-95. The houses are teeny tiny crackerboxes perched on quarter acre or smaller lots so close you can pee out your bathroom window and hit your neighbor’s wall.
Well, after a few beers you can.
There are lots of misconceptions about Stars Hollow too. Oh sure, the exteriors are all supposed to look like they came out of Washington Depot (a real place, I’ve had dinner there, it’s not particularly nearby) but the real model is supposedly Wallingford where you’d need a six pack but is otherwise utterly lacking in charm or amenities. There’s 3 blocks of Main Street in typical New England Mill Town mode but it’s well hidden and all the action is along Rt. 5 which is a hideous gash of Big Boxes, Parking Lots, and Strip Malls (I really don’t like Strip Malls).
At least in Wallingford you don’t have Hot Sheet Hotel Boulevard where you can rent by the Hour, Day, Week, or Month punctuated with Tattoo Parlors, Liquor Stores, Strip Clubs, and Dive Bars.
That would be Meriden, the next town over.
Everything Hollywood Doesn’t Understand About Poverty
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
Rutherford B. Hayes declared U.S. President after disputed election, Mikhail Gorbachev born, “King Kong” and “The Sound of Music” premiere in NYC.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game.
Yesterday was a busy day for news coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It started with Donald Trump meeting with a bipartisan group at the White House to discuss passing comprehensive gun legislation. While it had Democrats smiling, it didn’t make the Republicans in the room very happy.
In 2016, NRA-endorsed Republican candidate Donald Trump won the presidency after many months of insisting that his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton was going to grab your guns.
In February 2018, President Trump publicly called for a subversion of due process, and for the government to “take the guns first.”
During a televised meeting with lawmakers at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, the president and assembled legislators spent the hour riffing on ideas for securing schools and curtailing gun violence in America. Trump ping-ponged between various policy positions and postures, invariably making unforced interjections that would make his staunchest pro-gun supporters cringe.
When Vice President Mike Pence talked about how those who are a “danger to themselves or others” should have their firearms taken away, but also afforded due process, the president jumped in to one-up Pence.
“Or, Mike, take the firearms first, and then go to court,” Trump said, breaking with his own vice president on live TV. “Because that’s another system. Because a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures.”
The president continued, sounding like the caricature of “gun-grabbing” Democrats he’d once warned against: “I like taking the guns early. Like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida… To go to court would have taken a long time. So you could do exactly what you’re saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second.”
He didn’t stop there:
He endorsed legislation first pushed by the Obama White House to expand federal background checks for private gun sales, shot down GOP efforts to expand the rights of concealed carry permit-holders, and even suggested reviving a Democratic measure to ban “assault weapons.”
Trump wanted everyone in the room to be, in his words, “very, very powerful on background checks.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who has pushed an assault-weapons ban for years, was visibly giddy as the president suggested including that measure in congressional gun-control legislation. “We’re gonna get it passed,” the president then declared.
Never mind due process and the Fourth Amendment. Totally not relevant. Yikes!
Then late in the afternoon, Communications Director Hope Hicks tendered her resignation one day after telling the House Intelligence Committee that she sometimes tells “white lies” for her boss. I suppose no one ever told her that a “white lie” is a lie. Besides being the fourth communication director to leave in just over a year, Hicks was also Trump’s closest confidant.
In announcing her resignation Wednesday, White House Communications Director Hope Hicks created yet another gaping hole in a West Wing senior leadership structure littered with them. But the most consequential effect of her departure may be that it deprives the White House of an aide who knows President Donald Trump better than any other colleague.
Sources in and out of the White House say that Hicks’ absence from day-to-day operations will almost assuredly further isolate Trump at a time when he has a dwindling roster of aides whom he fully trusts. [..]
Hicks’ departure may prove more significant than the others. She served alongside Trump at his business empire, on the campaign trail, and in the White House. Along that path, she earned a reputation for keeping a low profile and for her abiding loyalty to her boss.
The trust worked both ways. President Trump heavily leans on Hicks for counsel, validation, personal assistance, and comfort—to the point where her unofficial job as “Trump whisperer” typically overshadowed her official title of communications director. The president has a great deal of affection for Hicks, and has nicknamed her “Hopey.” And that affection was shared by his children as well.
“The family had come to really rely on her since the number of people there they like and trust is so small,” the former White House official said.
Hicks has already met with Special Counsel Robert Mueller III back in December. She was interviewed for two days. If what she told the Intelligence Committee wasn’t something she told the Mueller’s investigators, she may be making a return trip to his office.
That wasn’t the end of the bad news for the White House
Donald Trump’s beleaguered son-in-law Jared Kushner said that he would divest himself of his family’s real estate business, take no pay for his position in the White House and fully concentrate on the business of running the country. Two of those three things are lies. Jared doesn’t get paid to work for his father-in-law but he has been conducting his family’s business in the White House so he isn’t totally invested in running the country. The New York Timesbroke this story last night.
Early last year, a private equity billionaire started paying regular visits to the White House.
Joshua Harris, a founder of Apollo Global Management, was advising Trump administration officials on infrastructure policy. During that period, he met on multiple occasions with Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said three people familiar with the meetings. Among other things, the two men discussed a possible White House job for Mr. Harris.
The job never materialized, but in November, Apollo lent $184 million to Mr. Kushner’s family real estate firm, Kushner Companies. The loan was to refinance the mortgage on a Chicago skyscraper.
Even by the standards of Apollo, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, the previously unreported transaction with the Kushners was a big deal: It was triple the size of the average property loan made by Apollo’s real estate lending arm, securities filings show.
It was one of the largest loans Kushner Companies received last year. An even larger loan came from Citigroup, which lent the firm and one of its partners $325 million to help finance a group of office buildings in Brooklyn.
That loan was made in the spring of 2017, shortly after Mr. Kushner met in the White House with Citigroup’s chief executive, Michael L. Corbat, according to people briefed on the meeting. The two men talked about financial and trade policy and did not discuss Mr. Kushner’s family business, one person said.
There is little precedent for a top White House official meeting with executives of companies as they contemplate sizable loans to his business, say government ethics experts [..]
Mr. Kushner’s tenure in the White House has been dogged by questions about conflicts of interest between his government work and his family business, in which he remains heavily invested. Mr. Kushner steers American policy in the Middle East, for example, but his family company continues to do deals with Israeli investors.
This blurring of lines is now a potential liability for Mr. Kushner, who recently lost his top-secret security clearance amid worries from some United States officials that foreign governments might try to gain influence with the White House by doing business with Mr. Kushner.
Investigators working for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election, have asked questions about Mr. Kushner’s interactions with potential investors from overseas, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Kushner’s firm has sought investments from the Chinese insurer Anbang and from the former prime minister of Qatar.
One of the NYT reporters who wrote the article, Jess Drucker spoke with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow reminding her, and us, that while Kushner had resigned his position with Kushner Companies he kept his ownership stake in the companies, Not exactly what you would call divesting.
Mueller is following the money and Kushner is leaving quite a trail. Hang tight, that was only Wednesday’a news.
You write what you know, just like my New York Times best selling (twice, no kidding) cousin does. I’m not going senile, I’ve been 120+ for the last 13 years and I’m just as fake as Sam Clemens. He lived not far from Stars Hollow, not that anything in the Nutmeg State is far from Stars Hollow.
Capo di Tutti are term limited and as part of the deal I’d already picked my successor before I got elected. It was kind of an interesting meeting, there were 3 other people present.
First was a former Capo who had a commitment problem that led to keys being thrown on the Hotel roof at 3 am during my term and awkward hours trying to persuade his momentary object of affection (as opposed to his long term obligation) to stay involved despite her shabby treatment because she really was quite talented (get your minds out of the gutter) while we waited for it to get light enough for the Janitor to go out and find them. She liked me well enough because I was a nice guy but alas I was ultimately ineffective. Without her leadership her Local faded.
Oh, he was a fun guy- and connected. After I got elected he took me under his wing to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid and thwart the National cabal. We were going to a meeting and he got us thrown out of the Airport Bar by arguing with the Bartender which was not only a problem when our flight got delayed for 3 hours, but also the next time we passed through that hub and the same Bartender was at the same Bar. He was… memorable.
The second was the current Capo, nice enough guy. I met him when he was Consigliere to a Local Capo when I was also a Local Capo and Consigliere to my buddy on the make for Capo di Tutti. She had a friend and originally I hooked up with the friend and my buddy hooked up with her. That didn’t work out and several awkward months later I hooked up with her and we had a splendid if temporary time together. I later, but before this meeting, learned he had done everything he could to poison that relationship.
You can choose to disbelieve this because I remember it clearly so many years later, but I really didn’t hold it against him.
The last was my eventual successor, leader of the largest Local in our Region and one that my buddy and I had been cultivating for years. They were split between Capulets and Montagues and both of them loved us.
They all hated my opponent, the only declared candidate at that point, and came to beg me to run. Hah! I was already running. And I didn’t hate him, I was sorry for him. He was a nice guy but he had really serious health issues and I was convinced the job would kill him, it damn near killed me. The price of the deal was that I’d give ambitious guy a cushy job and my endorsement next time.
Sure. Whatever.
I won! This was my theme song-
We’ll skip forward a bit and just say I kept my promise. Ambitious guy was a complete disappointment and a total failure. As past Capo I was busier than ever covering for his sorry ass and I resolved that next cycle I’d install my activist brother, who does almost everything just as well as if I’d done it myself and the rest he does better. For years I’ve felt guilty about that because, it’s not fun. In recent conversations I’ve confessed this and he loyally alleges he was flattered and honored.
Well… brother, you know. Between us we dominated the politics (he more Michael, me more Vito) of the organization until we got tired of doing it. This was his theme song-
And that finally brings me to my main point (ask TMC, I talk exactly the same way I write) which is I was browsing The New York Times when I ran across this-
Amid the dizzying details of internet trolls, almost a million dollars’ worth of antique rugs and fake bank accounts, the indictments brought by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, in his investigation of Russian tampering in the 2016 election have one thing in common.
Both the indictment of 13 Russians associated with a troll farm called Internet Research Agency and the indictment of President Trump’s onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort accuse the defendants of pretending to engage in American politics in good faith but secretly serving someone else’s interest. In both cases, the charge, “conspiracy to defraud the United States,” is an assertion that they were really serving the interests of Russia or of a Russian-backed Ukrainian politician, and that by hiding their true intent, the defendants prevented the United States government from protecting our politics from undisclosed outside influence.
That precedent, and the guilty plea to the same charge by Rick Gates, Mr. Manafort’s deputy, may pose a real danger to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser. According to reports, Mr. Mueller appears to be assessing whether Mr. Kushner, in the guise of pursuing foreign policy on behalf of the United States, was actually serving the interests of his family and foreign governments.
On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that “officials in at least four countries” — United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico — “have privately discussed ways they can manipulate” Mr. Kushner by taking advantage of his “complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience.” The president gave his son-in-law an expansive foreign policy role, including an effort to negotiate peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The implication in the article is that the United States government has intercepted communications of foreign leaders talking about ways they could take advantage of Mr. Kushner, whose family real estate empire is facing substantial debt woes.
The biggest concern in the Post report — and surely one reason such intelligence led to Mr. Kushner’s being stripped of his interim top-secret security clearance last week — is that foreign countries would offer him personal financial benefits in the same conversations in which he purports to represent America’s best interests.
There has already been ample reporting suggesting that Mr. Kushner may have done just that. During a period when Mr. Kushner was negotiating President Trump’s first visit to China, his family business was trying to sell a debt-ridden property in New York to an insurance company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Public scrutiny of the deal scuttled it. Last May, The New York Times described how, immediately after the Trump administration extended a visa program for wealthy investors, Mr. Kushner’s sister invoked Mr. Kushner in a presentation seeking Chinese investment in one of the family’s New Jersey real estate developments.
Such appearances of conflict might not, by themselves, get Mr. Kushner in trouble. The president has broad authority to set the country’s foreign policy, and public corruption laws have been far more difficult to enforce after a 2016 Supreme Court decision overturning the conviction of the former Virginia governor Robert McDonnell on bribery charges.
But Mr. Kushner might face more trouble to the extent he keeps such negotiations secret from those in charge of carrying out United States foreign policy. When the national security adviser, H. R. McMaster, learned of some of Mr. Kushner’s communications only after the fact, he was surprised, one official told The Post, and thought it was “weird.”
Mr. Kushner has been famously tardy in disclosing his business interests and ties with foreigners in his application for a security clearance. He was still making updates to his forms as recently as January. That means he has conducted an entire year of foreign policy without officially disclosing all the personal interests he may have been serving.
Finally, the risk might be greater still if Mr. Kushner negotiated such deals before Mr. Trump’s inauguration. That’s the possibility raised by Mr. Kushner’s pre-inauguration meetings with Russia. In December 2016, Mr. Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, the head of a bank under American sanctions, Vnesheconombank. That meeting came after Mr. Kushner suggested a back channel of communications in a meeting with Russia’s ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, according to Mr. Kislyak.
Nor did Mr. Trump’s transition team alert the Obama administration before Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates visited New York in December 2016 for a meeting involving Mr. Kushner and others at Trump Tower.
While the proper authorities may not have been informed of this series of meetings, Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with Mr. Mueller’s investigators late last year, did attend or at least knew of them. Steve Bannon, who recently sat for 20 hours of interviews with special counsel prosecutors, participated in the Zayed Trump Tower meeting along with Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kushner. So if they are a concern to Mr. Mueller, he has recently gotten far more details of what happened at the meetings.
Mr. Kushner’s defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, has been very forthcoming with the press. But he seems to have relied on the same on-the-record quotation since Feb. 16, when news first broke that Mr. Kushner might lose his interim security clearance. Twelve days ago, a statement from Mr. Lowell to The Washington Post directly addressed the gist of the story that just broke Tuesday. Mr. Kushner’s job, Mr. Lowell said, was “to talk with foreign officials,” which, he added, Mr. Kushner has done “properly.”
Perhaps Mr. Kushner is just a person who had no idea what he was doing and wanted to improve his and his family’s finances. Still, there are many reasons to question whether he has talked with foreign officials with the proper disclosures, designed to ensure that those claiming to represent the interests of the United States aren’t hiding their own interests or those of foreign governments.
In pursuing his investigation into Russian tampering, Mr. Mueller appears to be doing something more: restoring the regulatory teeth to ensure that those engaging in American politics are doing what they publicly claim they are. If Mr. Mueller extends this effort to foreign policy, Mr. Kushner may be in real trouble.
We like emptywheel even when we don’t understand her or disagree with her. I’ve personally met her several times, not that she’d remember me, and she’s been funny and charming and whip smart.
She’s had a bum rap in the past because she swears like a 20 year old (just as I do, I’ve taken an Internet test so it must be true) in conversation though she’s more circumspect in print (as am I) and has been banned from several Cable News (can we just agree they all suck?) Networks because they’re Puritan Prudes who need to grow up.
It is a genuine pleasure see her hit the Big Time! I’ll point out how much the NYT Opinion Editor, James Bennet, sucks at some later date, in this case he is not wrong.
I don’t have much connection with my cousin. When her Dad, Richard’s brother, died her Mom forbade my Father from mentioning it at the Marathon watching party she had arranged so he didn’t “spoil the mood”.
If you’re like me you don’t even know who Zack Morris is, and you should be thankful because even though I have an unhealthy fixation on ‘Tween Comedies I’d never before beheld the excrescence that isSaved By The Bell even though it’s a cultural touchstone for a certain group of mid-90s GenXers.
For those who’ve had the misfortune you can take some solace from the fact that Screech is now a toothless Meth Addict who wanders homeless around Los Angeles selling his body for the next rock and fighting rats for discarded Taco droppings.
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s 
