Monday Reading

As always, please to to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

In case you missed it, Sofia Tesfaye writes about how functionaries lick- spittles in the Trump regime are attempting to silence a whistleblower in the intelligence community who has "urgent" information possibly concerning serious misconduct by Putin's puppet:

According to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a whistleblower who lodged an urgent complaint about wrongdoing within the intelligence community has gone ignored and left unprotected. In a letter released on Friday, Schiff accused a “top intel official of illegally withholding” a “whistleblower” complaint described as “urgent” by the Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC IG) — and one that could implicate the White House.

"A month ago, a whistleblower within the intelligence community lawfully filed a complaint regarding a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of law, or deficiency within the responsibility or authority of the Director of National Intelligence," Schiff said in a statement. The IC IG first notified the committee of the whistleblower complaint on Sept. 9. The next day, Schiff requested a full, unredacted copy of the complaint, the ICIG's findings related to the matter, and all records connected to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) involvement, "including any and all correspondence with other Executive Branch actors including the White House."

In what may be the clearest example yet of obstruction in the Trump administration, acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, in direct contradiction to an unambiguous rule worked out in the wake of Watergate, is refusing to hand over the whistleblower’s complaint to Congress... [snip]

"The Committee can only conclude, based on this remarkable confluence of factors, that the serious misconduct at issue involves the President of the United States and/or other senior White House or Administration officials," Schiff wrote in a letter accompanying his subpoena of Maguire. He continued: "This raises grave concerns that your office, together with the Department of Justice and possibly the White House, are engaged in an unlawful effort to protect the President and conceal from the Committee information related to his possible 'serious or flagrant' misconduct, abuse of power, or violation of law."   (our emphasis)

Party before country and Trump before all else.

Need to plumb the shallow puddle that is Trump's persona?  James Poniewozik has you covered in this excellent op/ ed:

Mr. Trump has been playing himself instinctually as a character since the 1980s; it’s allowed him to maintain a profile even through bankruptcies and humiliations. But it’s also why, on the rare occasions he’s had to publicly attempt a role contrary to his nature — calling for healing from a script after a mass shooting, for instance — he sounds as stagey and inauthentic as an unrehearsed amateur doing a sitcom cameo.

His character shorthand is “Donald Trump, Fighter Guy Who Wins.” Plop him in front of a camera with an infant orphaned in a mass murder, and he does not have it in his performer’s tool kit to do anything other than smile unnervingly and give a fat thumbs-up.  [snip]

The taunting. The insults. The dog whistles. The dog bullhorns. The “Lock her up” and “Send her back.” All of it follows reality-TV rules. Every season has to top the last. Every fight is necessary, be it against Ilhan Omar or Debra Messing. Every twist must be more shocking, every conflict more vicious, lest the red light grow bored and wink off. The only difference: Now there’s no Mark Burnett to impose retroactive logic on the chaos, only press secretaries, pundits and Mike Pence.

To ask whether any of this is “instinct” or “strategy” is a parlor game. If you think like a TV camera — if thinking in those reflexive microbursts of adrenaline and testosterone has served you your whole life — then the instinct is the strategy.

And to ask who the “real” Donald Trump is, is to ignore the obvious. You already know who Donald Trump is. All the evidence you need is right there on your screen. He’s half-man, half-TV, with a camera for an eye that is constantly focused on itself. The red light is pulsing, 24/7, and it does not appear to have an off switch.

This is the cipher endangering our democracy every moment he's in office, surrounded by careerist sycophants and true believers desperate to keep the show from being cancelled.

Speaking of which, E.J. Dionne, Jr., writes about the sham FBI non- investigation of credible sexual assault claims against beer- loving *Justice* Brett "KavaNo" Kavanaugh and the institutional failures triggered by the rotted out Republican Party:

We focus, rightly, on the damage President Trump is doing to our institutions. But the wreckage goes beyond Trump and involves the other two branches of government as well. The right wing’s determination to control the Supreme Court is undermining its legitimacy as well as confidence in the U.S. Senate’s approach to confirming nominees.

For the GOP, nothing will be allowed to derail its effort to create a generation-long conservative majority on the court. And that helps to explain why Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh was railroaded through his confirmation hearings last year after what amounted to a pretend inquiry into the various charges against him.

Remember, the Republican Senate voted in lockstep to confirm this sexual predator.  Every damn one of them.  If you've got one in your state up for re- election in 2020, you know what to do.  Especially with these two:

Cory Gardner and Susan Collins will never live down the shame of voting for a sexual predator to be on the Supreme Court for life.

— Matt Rogers 🎙 (@Politidope) September 15, 2019

As always, we close by recommending you pay a visit to Infidel 753's link round- up.  He covers so much territory every week that you're bound to find lots of "interesting stuff" (as he puts it) to engage you.

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the complete articles/ op eds.

Anxious human windsock Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins' home state newspaper has seen the real Brett "KavaNut" Kavanaugh, and therefore has seen enough:

...Based on what he demonstrated in his own testimony, Kavanaugh lacks the character and judgment to serve on the Supreme Court. 

In his widely watched appearance, Kavanaugh revealed that he has an explosive temper and resorts to bullying when he feels threatened. He was understandably under stress and fighting a high-stakes battle for his reputation, but his temperament was tested during the hearing, and he failed the test. 

Kavanaugh also showed himself to be impermissibly political for a job that is supposed to be above politics. We’re not naive. We understand that federal judges are nominated by presidents and confirmed by senators, and that electoral politics influences their decisions about who gets to serve. 

RIPPING OFF THE MASK 

But we have never had a Supreme Court nominee who ripped off the nonpartisan mask the way Kavanaugh did Thursday and identified himself as an enemy of a political party that represents the policy preferences of millions of Americans. He blamed his predicament on bizarre conspiracy theories, claiming that his troubles stemmed from “pent-up anger about President Trump” and opponents seeking “revenge on behalf of the Clintons” and were not the result of allegations that emerged while he was being evaluated for an important job. After his partisan rant, Kavanaugh will never be able to judge a case without the animus he expressed being considered a factor in his decision. This is not the road we want to take.  (our emphasis)

Are you paying attention, Sen. Collins?

Meanwhile, the FBI background investigation initiated by fellow anxious human windsock and retiring Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake has been (contain your shock) sharply constrained by the White House, despite pathological liar Donald "Rump" Trump's claims to the contrary:

Officials said the F.B.I.’s “limited” supplemental background check of Judge Kavanaugh could be finished by Monday morning. Set in motion late last week by three Senate Republicans, the inquiry was supposed to shed further light on accusations that Judge Kavanaugh engaged in sexual misconduct during his high school and college years and help resolve the fierce national debate over whether he should win confirmation to the Supreme Court. 

But the investigation’s apparent narrow reach has infuriated the judge’s critics, who said he should be subjected to a wide-ranging examination of his drinking and possible sexual misconduct. 

Instead, the F.B.I. was directed by the White House and Senate Republicans to interview just four people: Mark Judge and P.J. Smyth, high school friends of Judge Kavanaugh’s; Leland Keyser, a high school friend of one of Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers, Christine Blasey Ford; and Deborah Ramirez, another of the judge’s accusers.

Marcy Wheeler has an unvarnished take on the "fig leaf" investigation (and faults Dems and the media for their early buy-in):

This was about the easiest thing in the world to predict. Jeff Flake issues some hollow self indulgent bullshit to make himself look like the last great reasonable man, and it is all garbage being run as cover for a complicit Trump White House and weak Senate Republicans (and at least one faux Democrat) desperately and cowardly seeking any fig leaf possible to allow them to put a craven, partisan, angry and drunkard historical sex offender on the United States Supreme Court for the next three to four decades.

They're steering the FBI away from corroborating evidence that could be provided by both Dr. Ford's and Ms. Ramirez's contemporaneous friends and acquaintances.  Also, no checking into the lies KavaNut told during multiple confirmation hearings.  We'll have to leave that up to investigations by the new Democratic House.

The Miami Herald has a heart- wrenching article about the continuing suffering of our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico, over a year after Hurricane Maria:

The face of forgotten Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria could well be that of José Luis “Chegüi” Aponte Cruz, who lost his livelihood and everything in his home when the ferocious storm pushed the roiling sea a mile into this poor beachfront community, sweeping away much of what lay in its path. 

Maria smashed apart the bright yellow concrete beach kiosk where people once came for Chegüi’s famed bacalaítos, or codfish fritters. The storm took his freezer, his fridge and his stove, his tables and chairs, all uninsured. A year later, denied loans or government aid to reopen in a food truck, he has — like much of Puerto Rico — barely begun to recover. [snip]

An analysis by Miami Herald parent McClatchy of public data for FEMA’s housing assistance program found that, as of June 1, Maria survivors in Puerto Rico received an average of $1,800 for repair assistance. In contrast, survivors of Hurricane Harvey in Texas last year got $9,127. 

In many if not most cases, advocates and homeowners say, FEMA grants were hardly enough to replace lost appliances, furnishings and clothing, much less to make repairs sufficient to allow people to remain living safely at home, the purpose of the emergency aid.  (our emphasis)

As the article points out, Puerto Rico has been left to fend for itself by the incompetent, racist Trump regime and a Republican House and Senate only interested in enabling that rotted out regime.

We conclude, as always, with a strong recommendation to check out Infidel 753's excellent round- up of links to interesting blog posts from the last week (the post we did yesterday on 1914 Paris in color was via him).