Monday Reading

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

As you are doubtless aware, the Republican National Convention circus starts tonight.  There'll be plenty of freaks and oddities, clowns piling out of clown cars, prestidigitation designed to distract, and lots to clean up after the elephant parade.  The carnival barker will dominate the show because it's his show, his circus.

Better late than never:

Two dozen former Republican lawmakers on Monday came out to endorse Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on the first day of the 2020 Republican National Convention.

Fox News reports that the list of former GOP lawmakers is headlined by Jeff Flake, the former Arizona senator who frequently clashed with the president before retiring in 2018.

The other Republicans endorsing Biden are former Sens. John Warner of Virginia, Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire, and former Reps. Steve Bartlett of Texas, Bill Clinger of Pennsylvania, Tom Coleman of Missouri, Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, Charles Djou of Hawaii, Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma, Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland, Jim Greenwood of Pennsylvania, Bob Inglis of South Carolina, Jim Kolbe of Arizona, Steve Kuykendall of California, Ray LaHood of Illinois, Jim Leach of Iowa, Connie Morella of Maryland, Mike Parker of Mississippi, Jack Quinn of New York, Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island, Chris Shays of Connecticut, Peter Smith of Vermont, Alan Steelman of Texas, Bill Whitehurst of Virginia, Dick Zimmer of New Jersey, and Jim Walsh of New York.

No Bushes, Corker, Romney, etc.  Integrity and principles were never a strong suit with Republicans. Just influence and power.

E.J. Dionne, Jr., tells us why the list above and the one of over 70 Republican national security officials published last week matters:

...[O]utside of his political base — you can expect it will be well attended-to on immigration, guns and abortion — Trump is not looking for love this week.

His primary goal is one Kentucky politics watchers have long ascribed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: The president wants to be the second most loathed person on the ballot come November. He will try to efface Biden’s image of empathy and decency with a ghoulish cartoon sketch of a man under the control of radical forces.

By highlighting support for Biden from prominent Republicans, Biden’s lieutenants made Trump’s job more difficult. The Democratic convention was also relentless in portraying the pain and suffering the nation has endured because of Trump’s mishandling of covid-19. And it was just as determined to turn Biden, by virtue of his own trials, generous spirit and thoughtful calm, into the ideal healer.

The party of no ideas:

The Republican Party will not adopt a new platform at its convention beginning Monday night and will instead maintain the party’s 2016 platform and broad support for President Donald Trump’s agenda, the Republican National Committee announced Sunday. In a resolution, the party stated that it would “continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda” and would not issue a new party platform until 2024, citing the scaled-back convention and inability for the Convention Committee on Platform to meet. It remains unclear what Trump’s second-term agenda is, as he has repeatedly failed to describe policies he plans to enact... 

Still can't believe a major political party punted on the incredibly basic task of drawing up a party platform and instead just issued a statement that's basically an "I'm With Stupid" T-shirt.

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 24, 2020

  
 
Good trouble:

Postal workers in Washington State have reinstalled high-speed mail sorting machines—dismantled after controversial orders from the U.S. Postal Service— despite USPS orders not to put machines back in use.  [snip]

Only two facilities, Seattle-Tacoma and one in Dallas, seem to be ignoring the Postal Service’s directive to leave decommissioned sorting machines out of use.

The postal unions need to get behind this and give these employees and others around the country cover for acting in the best interests of the Postal Service and the American people.

It seems oily oligarch/ foreclosure king and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had a significant role to play in getting Postmaster General DeJoy into his position:

In early February, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin invited two Republican members of the Postal Service’s board of governors to his office to update him on a matter in which he had taken a particular interest — the search for a new postmaster general.

Mr. Mnuchin had made clear before the meeting that he wanted the governors to find someone who would push through the kind of cost-cutting and price increases that President Trump had publicly called for and that Treasury had recommended in a December 2018 report as a way to stem years of multibillion-dollar losses.

It was an unusual meeting at an unusual moment.

Since 1970, the Postal Service had been an independent agency, walled off from political influence. The postmaster general is not appointed by the president and is not a cabinet member. Instead, the postal chief is picked by a board of governors, with seats reserved for members of both parties, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate for seven-year terms.

Now, not only was the Trump administration, through Mr. Mnuchin, involving itself in the process for selecting the next postmaster general, but the two Democratic governors who were then serving on the board were not invited to the Treasury meeting. Since the meeting did not include a quorum of board members, it was not subject to sunshine laws that apply to official board meetings and there is no formal Postal Service record or minutes of what was discussed.

Nearly six months later, that meeting, along with other interactions between Mr. Mnuchin and the postal board, has taken on heightened significance as the Trump administration confronts allegations it sought to politicize the Postal Service and hinder its ability to handle a surge in mail-in ballots in November’s election. In interviews, documents and congressional testimony, Mr. Mnuchin emerges as a key player in selecting the board members who hired the Trump megadonor now leading the Postal Service and in pushing the agenda that he has pursued.

Of course, Mnuchin has been involved in sabotaging USPS funding, blocking access to Trump's tax returns, and so many other egregious acts in service to the Orange Shitstain that he deserves a special place in the Trump regime's pantheon of evildoers.

We close by recommending you get a fuller picture of life around the Internet with Infidel 753's excellent link round- up.  Hopefully by now you've bookmarked his blog like a good citizen!

Self-Dealing, Self-Promoting, Trump-Protecting Swamp Critters

Here's a limited round- up of your Trump swamp critter news for today.

Treasury Secretary Steve "Moochin'" Mnuchin:

The Office of Government Ethics refused to certify Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s 2018 financial disclosure statement over a sleight-of-hand arrangement involving his stake in a film production company. In 2017, he transferred his holdings in Stormchaser Partners to its founder, Louise Linton, then gained them back when they married a month later.

Now Mnuchin is revising his federal ethics pledge to recuse himself from any decisions that could benefit the company, which the ethics office says puts him back “in compliance.” However, he has continued to work on a trade deal with China that includes expanded access for the movie industry, The New York Times reported Thursday. [snip]

Walter Shaub, a former federal ethics chief under Barack Obama and Trump, blasted the accommodation for Mnuchin. A spouse’s business holdings have always been considered as posing potential conflicts of interest for a federal official, he emphasized. In addition, he warned that the Trump administration views the conflict-of-interest law as “inapplicable to a broad multi-sector trade agreement,” such as the one Mnuchin is helping negotiate with China. That means the administration would find it acceptable if the treasury secretary negotiates a “clause in such an agreement that increases the value of the asset he sold Linton,” Shaub wrote.  (our emphasis)

Medicare/ Medicaid/Obamacare administrator Seema "She Seema Nice" Verma:

The Trump appointee who oversees Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare quietly directed millions of taxpayer dollars in contracts to Republican communications consultants during her tenure atop the agency — including hiring one well-connected GOP media adviser to bolster her public profile.

The communications subcontracts approved by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma — routed through a larger federal contract and described to POLITICO by three individuals with firsthand knowledge of the agreements — represent a sharp break from precedent at the agency. Those deals, managed by Verma’s deputies, came in some cases over the objections of CMS staffers, who raised concerns about her push to use federal funds on GOP consultants and to amplify coverage of Verma’s own work. CMS has its own large communications shop, including about two dozen people who handle the press.

Verma, a close ally of Vice President Mike Pence, has become a lightning rod for pushing work requirements in Medicaid and spearheading the Trump administration’s efforts to unilaterally unwind pieces of Obamacare. She previously worked as a consultant to conservative states seeking to reshape health care programs for the poor. (our emphasis)

IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig and IRS Chief Counsel Michael Desmond:

President Trump personally lobbied Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to prioritize the confirmation of his nominated Internal Revenue Service chief counsel on Feb. 5, about the time House Democrats started talking seriously about telling the IRS to turn over Trump's tax returns, The New York Times reports. On Feb. 27, the Senate confirmed the nominee, California tax lawyer Michael Desmond, and now Desmond will be advising the IRS on how to respond to House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal's (D-Mass.) request for six years of Trump's personal and business tax returns.

As a private tax lawyer, Desmond had briefly advised the Trump Organization on what a spokesman called a "discrete" IRS reporting matter before Trump took office, Bloomberg reported last July, and he worked alongside two current tax counsels to the Trump Organization, Sheri Dillon and William Nelson.

Trump's IRS commissioner, Charles Rettig, meanwhile, owns 50 percent shares of two one-bedroom residential rental units in the Waikiki Trump International Hotel and Tower in Hawaii, each worth $1.1 million, The Wall Street Journal reported last June, before Rettig's confirmation hearing. And as ProPublica and WNYC noted in October, Rettig — then a California tax attorney — argued in Forbes in February 2016 that Trump shouldn't release his tax returns, four days after Trump unveiled his dubious "I'm under audit" excuse for keeping his returns secret.  (our emphasis)

But all is not quite lost.  There are good people in Federal agencies -- career civil servants -- who're not letting the corruption and malfeasance pass:

Tricia Newbold set an important mark when she became the first official currently serving in Donald Trump’s White House to take accusations of wrongdoing to Congress—and to put her name publicly behind them.

But Democrats on Capitol Hill say that beyond Newbold, a small army of whistle-blowers from across the government has been working in secret with the House Oversight Committee to report alleged malfeasance inside the Trump administration. Lawmakers and aides are reluctant to discuss information they have gleaned from anonymous government tipsters in detail. But the list of whistle-blowers who either currently or previously worked in the Trump administration, or who worked closely with the administration, numbers in the “dozens,” according to a senior aide from the committee now led by Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland.  (our emphasis)

A welcome consequence of the 2018 midterm elections is that there's finally oversight in Congress, and Democrats will be aggressive in exercising it. It couldn't have come too soon.

Monday Reading (UPDATED)

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

Today's must read:  Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's (D-RI) "battle plan for beating the right."

Victory has traits. Victory must be organized. Organization requires strategy, preparation, tactics, training, and teamwork. Brave and able troops have been slaughtered throughout history in failures of organization. 

Losing has traits, too. As Democrats, we offer better and more popular policy positions, and we have flamboyant heroes. Yet, so often, we lose. Now we have won back a foothold on power, and the question is: what do we do with it? I’m sick of losing. I’m particularly sick of our “loser traits.” It’s time we faced up to them.

Go read it, absorb it, promote it.

In his retrospective of former Defense Secretary James Mattis, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jim Hoagland offers his historical perspective on Mattis and the regime he worked for:

This much we know: Mattis never expected, intended or accepted that he would be driven to resign from the Trump administration. He told friends as much when they teased that he must keep a letter of resignation tucked inside his jacket pocket at all times. Unspoken but hanging in the air at such moments was the Mattisonian thought: The bastards will have to fire me. 

He abased himself — not something he would have endured willingly — by staying on in a Cabinet of crooks, dolts and sycophants who form the biggest swamp in Washington in my 50-plus professional years here.  (our emphasis)

Speaking of crooks, dolts and sycophants, Treasury Secretary Steve "Mr. Marie Antoinette" Mnuchin took a break from golfing at Cabo (while 800,000 federal employees are on shutdown furlough) to make some calls at his boss's request, the kind of calls a crook, dolt and sycophant would make:

The Treasury Department said that Mnuchin held a series of calls with CEOs of major banks: Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.

"The CEOs confirmed that they have ample liquidity available for lending to consumer, business markets, and all other market operations. He also confirmed that they have not experienced any clearance or margin issues and that the markets continue to function properly."

Equity markets have been rocky for various reasons, including tariff wars, general uncertainty, and the Fed increasing interest rates. No markets rise forever and we've seen a long run. A recent survey of global CEOs showed that chief financial officers overwhelmingly expect a recession by 2010 and many think 2019 will be the year. [snip]

Mnuchin's move might have made sense if there were public concerns about bank stability. Bank stocks have been taking a hit with market oscillations. When people worry about the economy, they expect that banks may suffer. When things slow, fewer people and companies take out the loans that are the source of institutional income. 

But there hasn't been a lot of concern about underlying bank stability. At least, there wasn't until Sunday evening when the tweets hit the fan. Particularly as Mnuchin was reportedly on vacation in Mexico.  (our emphasis)

Paul Krugman has a brief twitter thread on the subject here. Here's the conclusion:

We should take seriously the possibility that we're looking at an economic team as clueless as their boss -- and that they'll respond to real problems by firing off off-point tweets from various golf courses 5/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 23, 2018

See also the Update below.

All quiet on the Mueller front?  Not really.  Max Bergmann and Sam Berger tell us Individual 1's cooked:

For nearly two years, since the U.S. intelligence community released its report on the Russian campaign to assist Donald Trump in the 2016 election, the American people have been seeking an answer as to whether the Trump campaign colluded with its Russian counterpart. In the endless speculation about the direction of the investigation, a common view was that maybe the investigation would never implicate President Trump or find any collusion.

But a flurry of recent activity this past week all points in the same direction: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation will likely implicate the president, his campaign, and his close associates in aiding and abetting a Russian conspiracy against the United States to undermine the 2016 election. [snip]

Mueller is coming. And he is clearly coming for Trump. Not simply for obstructing justice but for conspiring with a hostile foreign power to win an election. This is a scandal unlike any America has ever seen. 

Man, would that make the season bright!

Where there's smoke, there's probably something hot and burning:

Jerry Falwell Jr. confirmed that he loaned $1.8 million — with the help of President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen — to a young pool attendant he and his wife had befriended while staying six years ago at a luxury hotel. 

Buzzfeed News had previously reported on a lawsuit that claimed the evangelical leader and his wife had developed a “friendly relationship” in 2012 with Giancarlo Granda, then 21 years old, at Fontainebleau Miami Beach, and Falwell confirmed in a court filing that he helped set up the younger man in business. 

Fallwell, who runs homophobic/ theocratic Liberty University, was among the first evangelical endorsers of serial adulterer and crime boss Donald "Rump" Trump.  If you don't smell something off here, you may want to consult an ENT specialist.

Finally, as always, please check out the link round- up at Infidel 753's joint.  He's done his usual fine job of collecting items for you to browse, so give him some love.

UPDATE:  Well, we heard from the New York Stock Exchange today -- it dropped 653 points!  Thanks, Mnuchin!  Thanks, Trump!

When Only The Best Will Do - Doo

Someone in Los Angeles had no problem picking the perfect gift for former foreclosure asswipe and current Treasury Secretary Steve "27 cents" Mnuchin and his self- impressed, obnoxious wife:

A package filled with manure and addressed to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin prompted a check from the bomb squad in Bel Air Saturday. 

Authorities said a call came in around 7:30 p.m. regarding a suspicious package labeled to Mnuchin that was left in a neighbor's driveway in the 900 block of Bel Air Road. 

The package was also labeled as being from "the American people." (our emphasis)

It was a shitty, but appropriate, gift!

(Photo:  The Moochin' Mnuchins, strikin' a pose.)

Flying High On The Taxpayer's Dime (UPDATED)

Various watchdogs are now looking into the champagne travel costs of three of neo- fascist incompetent Donald "Rump" Trump's well- heeled cabinet members:  EPA's Scott "Screw It" Pruitt, HHS's Tom "For Sale At Any" Price, and Treasury's Steve "Moochin'" Mnuchin.

As EPA's Pruitt methodically cuts EPA staff and budget in service to the fossil fuel industry, he's not so careful about taxpayer money when it comes to his well- cushioned ass (our emphasis throughout):

Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency chief, has been criticized for his frequent travels back to Oklahoma, where the former state attorney general is discussed as a possible candidate for governor. Although he has mostly flown commercial, the high-priced fares suggest he was probably not traveling coach. 

In the latest development, the EPA confirmed Wednesday that Pruitt flew in a private jet round trip from Denver to Durango, Colo. He also reportedly flew a military plane from Cincinnati to New York. 

Separately, the EPA — which has also been targeted for deep budget cuts — is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on Pruitt’s round-the-clock security detail.

Mnuchin, the infamous foreclosure king of California, is also facing questions about using private jets for public business:

Mnuchin, a former Wall Street executive and Hollywood producer worth as much as $350 million, married Scottish actress Louise Linton in June at Trump International Hotel near the White House. He requested an Air Force jet for his honeymoon to Scotland, France and Italy. His office said he needed access to secure communications during the trip but withdrew the request after finding another option. 

Mnuchin did take a military jet last month from New York to Washington, saying once again he needed a secure phone line. The Aug. 15 flight cost at least $25,000, ABC News reported. 

HHS's Price, however, is determined to make his fellow hypocrites look like pikers when it comes to bilking taxpayers:

Price’s trips on chartered jets could prove more problematic. He has called for deep spending and staffing cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, including a $6-billion reduction at the National Institutes of Health, opening him to charges of both poor judgment and hypocrisy. 

Politico has documented 26 flights by Price on private charter planes at taxpayer expense since early May, estimating the cost at more than $400,000. It found frequent, low-cost airline flights on some of the routes he took, as well as train fares as low as $72 for a trip between Washington and Philadelphia — as opposed to about $25,000 for his charter. 

Two of Price’s private jet trips paid for by the government were to places where he owns property — St. Simons Island, Ga., and Nashvile, Politico reported Tuesday. A department spokesman said Price conducted official business and visited family members and colleagues.

The ethically challenged Price, you may recall, was involved in shady insider stock trades when he was a Congressman from Georgia writing legislation to benefit those companies.  He was confirmed anyway by his fellow Republican crooks and crackpots.

BONUS: The great former Congressman John Dingell weighs in:

Trump and his millionaire cronies are flying around the country on private planes YOU pay for, destroying programs and policies YOU deserve.

— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) September 27, 2017

UPDATE: Uh-oh. Interior Secretary Ryan "Stinky" Zinke has a private jet problem too.

Tell Us Again Why Democrats Should "Play By The Rules"

Here's more reason, if any were needed, for Democrats to forget the old rules and "comity" and resist these illegitimate f*ckers by any and all means possible:

BREAKING: Senate committee approves Trump Treasury, Health nominees without Dems present after GOP changes panel's rules.

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) February 1, 2017

This would be after Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee sent a letter to Republican chair Sen. Orrin "Nut" Hatch (Hypocrite-UT) asking that both Treasury nominee and "foreclosure machine" villain Steve "27 Cents" Mnuchin and HHS nominee and corrupt inside trader Rep. Tom "For Sale At Any" Price (Teabagger-GA) be called back to the committee to answer for their dishonest answers to questions in previous testimony.  Let's pause to hear more about how Congressional Republicans would be a "brake" on the worst features of neo- fascist authoritarian chaos moron Donald "Rump" Trump's administration =crickets=.

With complete control of government, Republicans are running roughshod over the legitimate concerns and rights of Democrats both in Congress and in Rump's White (supremacy) House. As we quoted Dave Leonhardt below, "The only thing worse than the system that the Republicans have created is a system in which one political party volunteers to be bullied." Should Democrats not be quick enough to realize this paradigm, they will not only lose to Republicans, they will lose their base (a base that's energized and several miles ahead of party "leadership") in the process.

Treasury Secretary Designate Ran A "Foreclosure Machine"

The emerging assminstration of neo- fascist sociopath Donald "Rump" Trump has a new member swamp thang: Treasury Secretary- designate Steve "27 Cents" Mnuchin, a Rump fundraiser and former Goldman Sachs executive who gained notoriety during the 2008 financial meltdown for running a "foreclosure machine" that caused untold misery to thousands of home owners. That machine, OneWest Bank, carried out more than 36,000 foreclosures in California under Mnuchin, who later profited handsomely (as much as $200 million?) from the sale of the bank. Some of the bank's shady practices under Mnuchin look all too familiar.

Here's some background from Bloomberg:

Dubious lending practices. Bailouts. Foreclosures. Robo-signing. Huge executive paydays. If Steven Mnuchin is nominated for Treasury secretary, his confirmation process promises to dredge up every controversy of the U.S. mortgage meltdown almost a decade ago.

Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner and movie financier with no government experience who spent the past six months working as Donald Trump’s chief fundraiser. Trump’s transition team recommended Mnuchin for the Treasury job, people with knowledge of the matter said last week, and a decision could come any day. The part of his background that’s likely to get the most scrutiny is the six years he spent running OneWest Bank, a Southern California lender. [snip]

The bank carried out more than 36,000 foreclosures during Mnuchin’s reign, according to the California Reinvestment Coalition, a San Francisco-based nonprofit whose deputy director, Kevin Stein, dubbed the bank a “foreclosure machine.” The group has accused OneWest of shoddy foreclosure practices and avoiding business in minority neighborhoods, claims the bank has denied. 

Then there are these victims of Mnuchin's bank:

If Mnuchin gets the nod, the world will hear more about people like Leslie Parks, who found the locks on her Minneapolis home changed during a blizzard in December 2009 after OneWest foreclosed. Or Rose Gudiel, who was evicted from her Pasadena home under circumstances she claimed were improper and inspired about 100 people to march on Mnuchin’s Bel Air, California, mansion in 2011.

Now, there's someone who fits the profile of a "populist," amirite?

One wonders how the nomination of banker, hedge fund millionaire and former Goldman Sachs "globalist" financier (we leave to your imagination the right- wing dog whistle there) Mnuchin will go over with the neo- Nazi/ white nationalist segment of Rump's base.  Or, perhaps we're expecting too much consistency from a mob that has a larger goal in mind -- that of implementing a white nationalist agenda regardless of the individual moving parts -- and who'll likely continue to "Heil Trump."  For the low- information, run- of- the- mill Rump voter (as Steve M. has noted regarding the likely demise of Obamacare), we don't see them blaming Rump or Republicans for any disaster that a Mnuchin- led Treasury may someday call down on their "economically anxious" heads.  That would be too reasonable.

BONUS: This sums it up nicely:

Trump doesn’t have a coherent view of policy. But he does have an ethos of plunder. And he’s stacking his cabinet w like-minded jackals https://t.co/MB9VJQw6hT

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 30, 2016

BONUS II:  Of course, he's a believer in supply- side, trickle down economics.

BONUS III:  Charles Pierce on the like-minded jackals Rump's stacking his cabinet with.

(Photo:  Protesters outside of Mnuchin's Bel Air estate in October 2011.)