Has Trump been indicted? (And more.)

Covfefe! Everyone else has it all wrong. "Covfefer" is a French verb meaning "to collude." Je covfefe, tu covfefes, il covfefe, nous covfefons, vous covfefez, ils covfefent. Trump covfefa et il covfefera.

Is anyone really buying this? Yesterday, Sean Spicer ducked questions using a rather bizarre tactic:

Spicer suggested during a back and forth with DailyMail.com, immediately after he rebuffed the Post, that Fox's anonymous source was more reliable than the Washington Post's the latter's report was based on a dossier that most news outlets refused to print when it contents could not be verified.

'The dossier that is largely the basis of this has been largely discredited in the first place. Most of the publications here even refused to publish it in the first place. So I'm not going to get into confirming stuff, there's an ongoing investigation,' he rebutted.

First, the Steele dossier has not been discredited. To the contrary: Much of it has been confirmed.

Second -- and most importantly -- the WP report WAS NOT BASED ON THE STEELE DOSSIER. None of the recent Trump stories have had any linkage to Steele's work. In fact, the only ones who have referenced that dossier in recent weeks have been people defending Donald Trump!

Spicer would have made just as much sense if he had said "The Donation of Constantine has been largely discredited. Therefore, Trump is innocent."

Has Trump already been indicted? Even though the idea seems absurd, I'm starting to wonder.

The chief personage making this claim is, of course, Louise Mensch. Not too long ago, many liberals hated me because I dared to declare aloud that I didn't trust her. Nowadays, the same liberals hate me because I continue to find her fascinating. In a recent blog post, she wrote that...

Oh, hell. It'll be easier to pilfer her words than to summarize:

We have New York State Attorney Eric Schneiderman to thank for the genesis of the sealed indictment against Donald Trump currently being held in the Eastern District of Virginia, which has formed the basis of the case of impeachment already begun against him. This is how that happened:

AG Schneiderman began a case of Enterprise Corruption, the state name for RICO, against Donald Trump. The case was based on the activities of Russian mobsters like Semion Moglievich who lived in Trump Tower, Russian oligarchs, and others.

Upon his own judgement and belief, Schneiderman decided that his case touched both Federal issues, and issues of National Security. He took his case to the Federal authorities. While the appropriate Federal District can often be location-based, if a federal case is to start on the same factual basis, the court chosen can also be based on subject matter. Because National Security is involved, Schneiderman brought his case to FISC to be heard.

Earlier this month, Claude Taylor and I reported exclusively that the indictment was granted. We were pulled up on use of the term “granted”, but it is the correct term when, as in this case, no prosecution is yet possible, since a sitting President has immunity; but he can be indicted, and he has been.

What's striking about this story is the specificity. I can visualize a hoaxer who says "Trump has been secretly indicted." I have a much harder time visualizing a hoaxer who brings Schneiderman into the situation.

In his own Twitter feed, Schneiderman mentions nothing about an indictment of Trump -- but neither has he denied what Mensch has said. Like her or hate her, Mensch has become famous enough (or infamous enough) to warrant a denial -- if her claim about Schneiderman is false.

The silence of Schneiderman is fascinating.

Dan Abrams' Law Newz has given the claim respectful attention. (Abrams used to have a show on MSNBC.)

The report says that after the grand jury voted to indict, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein showed the indictment to Senators including Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), and that Representative Al Green (D-Texas) then called for Trump’s impeachment on the House floor. “I can report as fact that the Sergeant At Arms of the Senate … went to the White House on that Wednesday night,” the report says, adding that President Trump was notified that an impeachment case against him has commenced. The report also indicates that a judicial branch official informed Trump that he didn’t follow procedure when he declassified information that he revealed to Russian officials.

LawNewz.com reached out to the offices of Schneiderman and Graham for comment, but they have yet to respond.

Two questions: 1. Why the hesitation? 2. If Mensch and Taylor simply concocted this story, wouldn't they have come up with a yarn impossible to discredit with a single phone call?

By the way, the Law Newz piece has some follow-up on the "Marshall of the Supreme Court" imbroglio...

Mensch drew plenty of criticism when she said in her original report that it was the Marshal of the Supreme Court who gave Trump the news, which is not how this process would go. Mensch corrected herself in the new report, saying that it was the Senate’s Sergeant At Arms who who went to the White House.

Yeah, well, I still say that her mistake was pretty damned strange.

Joy Reid. I heard her say something last night that I've never heard from her before:

"Uh."

That woman talks better than anyone else on television. She's very fast (but not annoyingly so) and always speaks in complete sentences with superb enunciation. And, save for that one occasion, she never says "Uh."

How is this even possible? Years ago, I vowed never again to speak on the radio because I uh I uh I uh I uh I...well, I said "Uh" a lot. My on-air name was uh Joseph uh Cannon.

Is there a trick to it? Do professional broadcasters know of ways to train the tongue? Or is Joy Reid able to speak so well simply because her brain is wired better than the brains of we mere mortals?

Trump notes. Plus: The never-dying menace of the BernieBros

Oh, THIS should be good. You may have heard about the big shake-up in Trump's communication team. My heart sang when I read this bit...

An official explained why Trump will do more of the talking for the White House: "He says things exactly the way he wants them to be said."

Translation: When he says it, he can't second-guess his staff.

No. A better translation: He can't blame his staff when the cigar explodes in his face. After the boom, he will know, as we all will know, that he and only he decided to put that cigar in his mouth, even though it had "EXPLODING CIGAR" clearly written on the band.

Isn't it cute? Donnie really thinks that his problems were caused by his underlings: They don't talk good the way I talk good.

Seeing the light. Following up on the previous post: A friend suggested that the White House mystery light was some kind of fire alarm. Given the location, that idea makes a lot of sense.

Heckuva job, Donnie. Europeans feel so sickened by Trump that they are considering a plan to kick out the American military and erect their own nuclear umbrella. Adieu, America: If you can elect an oaf like that, we just can't trust you anymore.

Donnie luvs Deutschland. Trump's superficially anti-German rhetoric has a rather obvious subtext. Check out his latest:

We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change

Trump thinks that it will be good for the U.S. if Germany militarizes. Has this guy read any history?

Maybe he has. Maybe he's the kind of guy who roots for the wrong side when he watches The Sound of Music.

Mother Jones has a couple of long pieces out on what we know about Traitorgate (my name for the Trump/Putin scandal).

Here's David Corn's "We already know Trump betrayed America." 

And here's Hannah Levintova's timeline, "Hacks, Leaks, and Tweets: Everything We Now Know About the Attack on the 2016 Election."

From the former:

What could be better for Putin? The US government had called him out, yet the GOP presidential candidate was discrediting this conclusion. Trump made it tougher for Obama and the White House to denounce Putin publicly -- to do so, they feared, would give Trump cause to argue they were trying to rig the election against him.

The problem, I think, is that the Democrats -- as  usual -- were far too intimidated by their fear that people might say mean things about them. The Trumpers will always claim that any evidence collected during Obama's term was concocted by those devious, damnable Democratic conspirators. Team Trump has no choice but to make that play. From the Dem point of view, the best defense is a good offense: Sure, the FBI and the intelligence community spied on the Trump campaign. They did so because they had no choice: The Trump campaign was filthy with treason and criminality. 

Just say it, Dems. Those exact words. Don't apologize: Double down, triple down, keep shouting "TRAITOR" at your critics. Do as the Republicans would do if the situation were reversed. 

Trump and Jesus. Trump is on record as saying that he has never asked for forgiveness because he does not believe that he has done anything requiring forgiveness. There are many versions of Christian theology, and Trump's statement is permissible in exactly none of them. Trump has, in essence, proclaimed his un-Christianity. The guy might as well have written 666 on his forehead while sacrificing a goat.

Yet he remains popular among evangelicals. Yesterday, Kurt Eichenwald addressed this bizarre situation. I would like to translate his tweets into conventional prose:

The evangelical movement is a dead group walking. Its biblically ignorant, hate-filled and hypocritical followers have destroyed any credibility it may have ever had. They have pretended for years they are about the Bible and God. They have proved they are just a group of hypocrites who use "GOP" as a substitute to "GOD." There are some whose faith is beyond question - like @EWErickson. But others are frauds. Young people see that, which is why they're peeling away.

These "faithful" had a choice between a woman who teaches Sunday school and a guy who was in two porns, could not name books of the Bible, cited as his favorite phrase in the Bible an Old Testament verse which is LITERALLY the only one specifically repudiated by Jesus in the New Testament. He attends no church, and before he started running, declared that "The Art of the Deal" was his favorite book, followed by the Bible.

If evangelists wanted to vote for him and say "his policies are what I support," fine. But they still pretend it has something to do with their religious faith. They say "He's a good Christian" - a phrase they now show has no meaning in their lexicon. The evangelicals will never recover from their demonstration of hateful hypocrisy. They have shown themselves -- politically -- for what they are.

So remember, evangelicals: Every time you say Trump is Godly, you stick another dagger in your movement by demonstrating its meaninglessness.

The Old Testament verse referenced above was the one containing the phrase "an eye for an eye." Trump:

That's not a particularly nice thing. But you know, if you look at what's happening to our country, I mean, when you see what's going on with our country, how people are taking advantage of us ... we have to be firm and have to be very strong.

Jesus:

You have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other.

I'm sure that evangelicals will offer some inane verbal formulation which -- in their minds -- can resolve this obvious contradiction between Trump's words and the Sermon on the Mount. (If pressed, I could come up such a formulation myself, purely as an exercise in creative thinking.) Fundamentalist religion always offers the brutes a rationale to justify their brutishness.

The BernieBros are still a threat. As most of you know, Jeremy Christian -- the Portland killer whom Trump would not call a terrorist -- was a BernieBro/white supremacist hybrid. The bros will argue, of course, that one cannot judge their Russia-backed "movement" by the example of one deranged loon. This fine article by Val Perry Rendel offers the necessary counterargument: The fruit of the tree is the inevitable result of the seed.

There’s no doubt about his [Christian's] extremism, though his ideology’s harder to pin down. I checked out his Facebook page so that you don’t have to: white supremacy, check; Islamophobia, check; rampant misogyny, check. He’s mad about gender fluidity, Muslims, removing Confederate monuments, fascism, anti-fascism, Nazis, libtards, feminists, taxation, the military-industrial complex, and Ronald Reagan. He calls women disgusting worthless cumbucket whores who kill their babies, and Timothy McVeigh a “TRUE PATRIOT.” He identifies as Libertarian, and wants a Sanders/Stein ticket for…uh, 2017

Reading these words, my mind flashed back to Gore Vidal, whose politics were socialist-ish, yet who tried to develop a friendship with McVeigh. I think that Vidal hoped to live out a fantasy in which he played John Tunstall to McVeigh's Billy the Kid: That misguided young stud just needed the right mentor. Although Jeremy Christian's motives are harder to figure out, I am persuaded that the Bernie movement sprang from the same twisted psychological realm which the Portland monster called home.

Returning to Rendel:

This is the same kind of visceral hatred that’s been festering among hardcore Bernie supporters since the primaries. Before you #notallBerniebros me, I’m not talking about people who preferred Sanders in the primary but voted for Clinton in the general election; those are known as “rational people.” I’m talking about the people for whom it is an article of religious faith that the primary was rigged, and they are hellbent on vengeance. Corrupt corporate crony capitalism, they cry; to them, the DNC is a bigger threat than Trump, and the entire system is rotten and must be burned to the ground before the new socialist order can be ushered in, or something.

The extremes of the political spectrum seem to be overlapping, in the worst way possible. The very fact that we’re having the HE’S YOURS!! NO, HE’S YOURS!! argument is proof of this.

The toxic masculinity and misogyny of the alt-right is not news to anyone. But ever since Sanders’s defeat, a small but vociferous contingent has increasingly sounded more like Alex Jones than the voice of true progressivism. The indignity of losing to a woman, of having to listen to messages that were not tailored specifically and exclusively towards them, unleashed a wave of rage that drove many Clinton supporters underground, threatened to “hunt down” female journalists for “lying” about the primaries, and targeted the superdelegates with a relentless campaign of harassment.

To be absolutely clear: Sanders himself almost certainly did not imagine that his populism would spark an extremist fringe like this. Maybe he could have contained them earlier, but given the rage the alt-left feels at his “betrayal” in endorsing Clinton, probably not. Extremism of this sort typically breeds in a toxic swamp of ingrained misogyny, white supremacy and economic disenfranchisement. Sanders didn’t create any of these, but a lot of his message was coded (deliberately or otherwise) in a way that reinforced the deep-seated conviction that white working-class men are the nation’s top priority.

Here's where I disagree with Rendel. As long-time readers know, I had been a Hillary critic during her tenure as Secretary of State, and there was a brief period when I gave the emergent Sanders movement a few positive words. On a surface level, he says many things with which I agree. But as I learned more about Roger Stone's effective divide-and-conquer strategy, I began to understand what Bernie was really all about.

At first, I did not want to consider Sanders a witting agent of the Trumpers, but at this point, that conclusion is impossible to avoid.

How else to explain the fact that he handed his campaign over Tad Devine, the fiendish political hit man best known for toiling on behalf of Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian Putin puppet who poisoned his rival? Tad knew all about the poisoning, yet he worked for Yanukovych. Bernie knew all about the poisoning, yet he said "Tad, you're my man."

The FEC cited Bernie -- not Hillary, not Trump -- for campaign finance huggermugger. The Sanders do-or-die victory in the Michigan primary was clearly the result of vote fraud. (Sanders, an opponent of the General Motors bailout, had been way behind in all the polls.) Bernie Sanders' excuses for not revealing his taxes were just as phony as Trump's, and just as indicative of his exposure to blackmail and manipulation.

Here is the biggest tell: To this day, Bernie Sanders has refused to address the obvious fact that his followers have devolved into a hideous, unthinking, undemocratic mob, reddish in argot but brownish in shirt. Bernie-ism has become a machine programmed to churn out Jeremy Christians.

Yet Sanders has said not one word to dissociate himself from the disgusting movement bearing his name.

His pro-forma endorsement of Hillary does not count. He made the endorsement purely as a ploy -- a ploy which allows him to exercise a malefic influence within the party which he still refuses to join, and which his followers detest. To regain any credibility, Bernie Sanders must do two things:

1. He must repudiate the movement bearing his name, and he must do so in a forceful fashion. Marx, late in life, had the courage to say "I am not a Marxist." Bernie must say "I am not a BernieBro."

2. He must admit -- in public, and with genuine remorse -- that the Russians have used him as a weapon against the Democratic party. The evidence exists. The evidence is overwhelming. The evidence is conclusive. The evidence is massive. The evidence is damning. The evidence has been established beyond rational debate.

If we don't get a mea culpa, mea maxima culpa out of Bernie, then I hope that the Devil fucks his sorry ass in Hell throughout all eternity. Without Bernie Sanders, we would not have Trump.

By the way: Rendel also brought the following to my attention...

The Young Turks, an online progressive “news” network that has essentially turned into The Bernie Channel, is Republican-funded. Our wacko splinter faction is a useful wedge for the GOP, who ought to know better than anyone the dangers of letting your lunatic fringe into the big tent.

I did not know this. I should have known, and I'm certainly not surprised. Here's the proof.

The Young Turks Network has just announced $4 million in new funding from an unlikely source: former Louisiana Governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Buddy Roemer. The seed money, which includes an option to go up to $8 million, came from the politician’s private equity fund Roemer, Robinson, Melville & Co., LLC.

"RRM has been looking for two years to find the best platform in New Media in which to invest,” Roemer said of the investment. “We believe TYT will be one of the critical players moving forward in a new media world – edgy, unfiltered news commentary at its best. They are a lot like me, sometimes wrong but never in doubt.

Never trust those incapable of doubt. That German fellow who decided to invade the USSR did not know doubt. By contrast, those who question themselves make nuanced, reflective and reasonable decisions. When Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living," he was talking about our constant need to reconsider what we think we know.

Sometimes I think that only those who doubt themselves are truly human. At other times, I wonder if I'm right about that. At this moment, I'm certain of one thing: Cenk, you stenk.

Make America Glow Again

Later today, I'd like to offer a "serious" post about Cambridge Analytica, although those plans may well be scuttled if we get another bombshell revelation in the afternoon. For now, let us contemplate the mystery that has much of Twitter a-titter: Flashing red lights within the White House were seen and videotaped last night. The spectacle lasted some twenty minutes. I have read that the lights were photographed from more than one vantage point, although to the best of my knowledge, no-one has posted video taken by another camera.

Although many have suggested that we are looking at police lights reflected in the windows, it seems clear to me that these mystery glows come from within. Exterior lights would bounce off the white walls and illuminate the trees. (Besides, modern police vehicles have multi-colored lights.) If you examine the footage closely, you'll see that we're dealing with two red lights blinking at different rates.

Here is a plan of the upper floor of the White House, known as the Residence. If you've never been to DC, you may need to be oriented: The Truman Balcony faces the Washington Monument, which stands to the south of the building; thus, the video embedded above was taken from the north. The light would seem to emanate from the dining room and the kitchen. It's hard to imagine why anyone would place two separate lights in both of those rooms.

Is it possible that the lights are coming from the west sitting hall, which is just outside of Der Donald's bedroom? Video of the west side of the building would be of much help here.

(Some home security systems use flashing red lights to scare away burglars. That idea seems rather silly in this context.)

If you look closely at the video, you'll note the presence of what some believe to be four armed black-garbed men on the roof of the WH, situated directly above the flashing red lights. The four "figures" are immobile and probably are not human beings.

That said: Black-garbed men on the roof are not so unusual. I saw (and photographed) what appeared to be armed men on the roof of the WH during a visit to DC in 2013. At that time, there had been a phoned threat against Obama.

Was the video created with After Effects? Possible -- though the task would not be easy. One wonders why anyone would go to the effort. However: Note that the tree branches do not sway at all, even though the flag indicates a stiff breeze. A special effects artist would want to "freeze" that part of the frame in order to make it easier to superimpose the lights. 

As you might have gathered, the phenomenon has engendered many a witticism. The cruelest comment: "Looks like Melania's working again." Another Twitter-user suggested that lights were placed there to give Putin's agents a marker for the extraction point. Several people have suggested, at least semi-seriously, that the mystery may have something to do with a light-based therapy for Alzheimers.

Most of the jokes have to do with the summoning of demonic forces. Throughout my vast perusal of forbidden books and low literature, I've never read about any occult ceremony which involves strobing red lights. In the cinema of David Lynch, flashing blue lights signal the presence of The Other World. Perhaps Trump is offering his riposte to the Twin Peaks revival.

(BTW, I've seen not a single frame of the new Peaks. I marathon binge-watched the original two seasons on VHS well after its initial broadcast, and I'd like to take a similar approach to season three. Teevee is less fun when it comes in weekly dollops.)

Plans and plots and schemes. Plus: Jesus

What times! Once again, yesterday's post feels like last year's post. So much happens so rapidly.

Escape. Jared Kushner is now telling friends that he and Ivanka had always considered moving back to New York after six months in DC.

But...but...why on earth would he leave the administration so soon? He hasn't even achieved peace in the Middle East yet!

Back channel. We've all seen the lame attempts to liken Jared's Russian backchannel to RFK's secret dialogues with a GRU operative during the Kennedy years. One could also draw a comparison to JFK's under-the-radar communiques with Castro, using French journalist Jean Daniel.

It's all so bloody absurd. Kushner's actions were nothing like Kennedy's.

Kushner sought to avoid being overheard by American intelligence at a time when Trump was badmouthing our CIA. Kushner sought to use the Russian consulates' own communication systems, which were considered completely secure. (They weren't.) Kushner has known links to Putin cronies and Russian bankers.

RFK's dialogues with a GRU officer may have been hush-hush in a general sense, but they were known to others within the U.S. government -- including J. Edgar Hoover, who was hardly friendly to the Kennedys. No-one has ever suggested that RFK lied (or "forgot") about the matter on his security forms. No-one has ever suggested that the Kennedys had personal links to Russia. The tentative outreach to Castro came about when JFK felt that it might be possible to seduce the Cuban leader away from the Soviets. Nothing you read about here can be likened to what Jared Kushner did.

Most of all, there is the question of motive. JFK operated at the height of the Cold War; the Missile Crisis proved the need for a relatively private method of communicating with the Russians during times of high tension. Without such a method, you would not be here to read this sentence.

In Kushner's case, much evidence suggests that his motives are far more venal. It all comes down to money. Jared, like Donnie, is a pompously narcissistic "businessman" who doesn't know what he doesn't know -- and as a result, he is ridiculously over-extended on properties he could never have acquired, and probably cannot keep, using purely legitimate funding.

This excellent post on the Kos site offers much useful background...

So here’s the basics in commercial real estate lending, and it should make sense. If you want to use someone else’s money to buy a property, that someone else is going to study the cash flow of that property pretty carefully. You know, to see if it can generate enough in rents to cover its expenses AND pay back your loan, or provide an acceptable return for an equity investment.

For some unfathomable reason, the sources for transactions related to clan Trump never seem to be very good at cash flow analysis. Time after time, team Trump pulls cash out of thin air like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. And then afterward, we hear that the property isn’t performing well and is in financial trouble. Who could have predicted it?! Well, who except for every expert in the local market and every American based bank operating under regulations that include anti money laundering laws and wouldn't touch the deal with a ten foot pole even if it didn't have Donald Trump's greasy fingerprints on it, of course.

What’s maybe the most perplexing is this; none of these horribly bad purchases - ones that no other buyer will touch at the price because they don’t pencil - none of them are a secret. Just how awful a deal they are is out there for all to see. Yet just like a street magician pulling rabbit after rabbit from a hat, the money never dries up. Always cash available for the next deal.

Putin and his cronies have looted Russia to the tune of untold billions. Dirty money needs laundering. Simple as that.

Did Putin choose Trump because Trump's an idiot? That's one possible takeaway from this startling piece in Der Spiegel, hardly the most radical publication in Germany. This article -- an overview of Donnie's big European vacay -- begins with words likely to make any anti-Trumper smile with dark satisfaction.

Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. He does not possess the requisite intellect and does not understand the significance of the office he holds nor the tasks associated with it. He doesn't read. He doesn't bother to peruse important files and intelligence reports and knows little about the issues that he has identified as his priorities. His decisions are capricious and they are delivered in the form of tyrannical decrees.

He is a man free of morals. As has been demonstrated hundreds of times, he is a liar, a racist and a cheat. I feel ashamed to use these words, as sharp and loud as they are. But if they apply to anyone, they apply to Trump. And one of the media's tasks is to continue telling things as they are: Trump has to be removed from the White House. Quickly. He is a danger to the world.

So far so good. Most readers of this blog would agree with everything said by editorialist Klaus Brinkbäumer.

He then goes on to describe four options for removal, even though those four are reducible to a mere two: Impeachment and the 25th amendment. Both, he says, are unlikely. Thus (he says) Europeans are left with the final option:

Fifth: the international community wakes up and finds a way to circumvent the White House and free itself of its dependence on the U.S. Unlike the preceding four options, the fifth doesn't directly solve the Trump problem, but it is nevertheless necessary - and possible.

Angela Merkel has now taken up this theme.

Europe "must take its fate into its own hands" faced with a western alliance divided by Brexit and Donald Trump's presidency, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday.

"The times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out. I've experienced that in the last few days," Merkel told a crowd at an election rally in Munich, southern Germany.

"We Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands," she added.

This, I think, is the very reason why Putin picked an incompetent as his puppet. Trump's doltishness makes him the ideal Russian tool. From a Russian point of view, why not let the man do to the USA what he did to his casinos in Atlantic City? Trump is literally an unsuccessful hot dog salesman. If he continues to run the country the way he ran his businesses, we will no longer be a superpower. (Can we even use that word any longer?)

From Putin's perspective, giving Trump the presidency was a no-lose gambit. If Trump proved an adept politician, Putin would have sanctions lifted. If Trump behaved foolishly, the United States would lose status on the world stage.

But "no-lose" may be overstating the case; Putin may one day regret his choice. Look again at Merkel's statement: The last time Germany decided to "take our fate into our own hands," things turned out rather awkwardly for Russia.

Let's return to the topic of backchannels. Brinkbäumer's piece offers some facts which most Americans don't know.

Crises, including those in Syria and Libya, are escalating, but no longer being discussed. And who should they be discussed with? Phone calls and emails to the U.S. State Department go unanswered. Nothing is regulated, nothing is stable and the trans-Atlantic relationship hardly exists anymore. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Norbert Röttgen fly back and forth, but Germany and the U.S. no longer understand each other. Hardly any real communication takes place, there are no joint foreign policy goals and there is no strategy.

If (as the Trumpian die-hards claim) Kushner had legitimate reasons to establish a backchannel with the Russians, then why won't this administration speak with anyone else -- using any channels?

And then there's Louise...  Remember when she was claiming that 85 year-old Orrin Hatch would be our next president? Not going to happen, of course. That's a fantasy she may have picked up from her friend Evan McMullin, whom I suspect to be one of her "sources."

Now she's claiming that the Supreme Court will invalidate the last election and make Orrin Hatch the 45th president. Not the 46th: the 45th; Trump would be erased. He would become a mere Antipresident, just like the Antipopes of Catholic lore.

The chatter says that in such a scenario, the Supreme Court may invalidate the election of the two men on the ballot: Trump and Pence. Their election would have been invalid. They cheated.

As I previously reported, and reported first, Paul Ryan is on tape admitting that he knows Russian money was laundered into the GOP. My piece predated the Washington Post’s piece on the matter by a week. Sources report there is much more to it than was printed in the short section of tape that reached the mainstream press.

Therefore, since the line of succession would remain – it was after all Donald Trump and Mike Pence who cheated, not the American voters – the next President, and the 45th President of the United States – the successor to Barack Obama – would be Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Uhhhh......yeah.

Sorry, Louise. They're not going to do that. Na ga da-ah, in the words of Dana-Carvey-as-George-H-W-Bush.

(By the way, I'm getting INCREDIBLY HIGH CPU usage whenever I load up the Patribotics blog. This has happened on two separate computers, using more than one browser, with Flash disabled. No, I'm not going to answer any intrusive questions about my system. Whenever websites make my CPU meter go apewire, my attitude is: The problem's not with my computer but with your code. Something is seriously wrong with the code on that site.)

A short while ago, I tried to confirm her "scoop" that the Marshal of the Supreme Court had informed Donald Trump that the Judiciary Committee had formally begun to consider a request for impeachment. Alas, despite a couple of tries, neither she nor any of her people have responded to my requests for confirmation or denial. The Marhsal has a staff of 250 people, and you'd think that one of them would respond to such an inquiry. I guess that when your blog slips from C-list to D-level, people no longer return your phone calls.

For a while, I thought that Mensch referred to the Congressman Al Green's call for impeachment on the House floor. But Green wimped out: He did not translate that call into an actual resolution. Had he done so, the resolution would have gone to the Judiciary Committee. By way of comparison: During Nixon's first term -- before Watergate -- there were three calls for his impeachment, and all of them were expressed as actual resolutions. Without a resolution, Green offered mere words.

Which raises (not "begs") an important question: When will someone in Congress take that important first step? It's not enough to utter the I-word; you have to do something.

At any rate, Claude Taylor made clear that his sources are telling him that a Grand Jury (not a sitting congressman) started the impeachment process, and that this development has been kept very, very secret. Because....reasons.

Sorry. Not buying it.

Unlike others, I think that Taylor and Mensch have good intentions but iffy judgment: They trust sources who should be kept at arm's length. Why would someone "in the know" offer journalistic bombshells to a mere photographer and to an ex-pat writer of British chick-lit who had a brief, wild career as a Tory MP?

That said, Louise remains consistently fascinating to me. Can't help myself. You gotta love her classic response to @realdonaldtrump. He tweeted:

Whenever you see the words 'sources say' in the fake news media, and they don't mention names....it is very possible that those sources don't exist but are made up by fake news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!

Mensch replied:

But "many people are saying" it @realdonaldtrump, isn't that good enough?

Stone note: Roger Stone and Donald Trump disagree on whether Stone and Trump are talking to each other. Stone says yes, Trump says no. If these two men were Democrats, this weird tiff would be huge news on Fox.

I was looking forward to seeing the documentary Get Me Roger Stone until Roger Stone endorsed it.

Jesus! The headline says it all...

Asked About Offshore Tax Havens, MN State Rep. Tells Everyone to Accept Jesus

Democratic State Rep. Paul Thissen, who supported the amendment, had a fairly straightforward question for Republican State Rep. Abigail Whelan, who opposed it: “… Do you think benefiting people who are hiding money in Liberia is worth raising taxes on your own constituents?”

She didn’t even try to answer that one.

Instead, Whelan used her time to tell everyone about Jesus.

Blessed are the money launderers, for they shall invest in Manhattan real estate. Whelan "forgave" Thissen for committing the sin of asking a question which might inconvenience rich crooks. The condescension of these "Christians" makes me want to puke pea soup right into their smarmy mugs.

Elsewhere, Christian broadcaster Dave Daubenmire defended Greg Gianforte's physical attack on a journalist and Donald Trump's rude behavior to lesser men:

“The only thing that is going to save Western civilization is a more aggressive, a more violent Christianity,” he said.

Lock him up? No. SEEK THE DEATH PENALTY!

(This post has been slightly expanded since original publication.)

I confess that this post's title is a provocation, though it expresses my sincere belief. If this Reuters report and this WP report are true -- and as of this writing, they have not been denied -- Jared Kushner is a traitor. He should not simply lose his job; he must be tried. Tried for treason.

Kushner lied on his security clearance forms -- forms which clearly state that a deliberate falsification will result in jail. Any "Oops! Forgot!" claim is a bad joke. Jared Kushner cannot possibly have forgotten a meeting with the Russian ambassador in Trump Tower. No-one can forget an attempt to set up a back channel communication system using Russian facilities.

Matthew Yglesias offered a hilarous tweet: "Who among us has never set up a secret, secure back-channel line of communication with the Russian government?" Indeed! Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

You wanna know who really is without sin in all this? Hillary Clinton.

Yet the Republicans chanted "Lock her up!" because Hillary set up a private email server. Contrary to the incessant lies emitted by right-wing propagandists, that server handled NON-classified communications, with a couple of accidental exceptions (which Hillary did not send). The most often-cited of these exceptions was a piece of piffle about Malawi which never should have received a classification stamp.

That's why the Republican establishment demanded that Hillary Clinton lose her security clearance: Freakin' Malawi. The same establishment is now trying to come up with a way to save Kushner's ass.

The hypocrisy on display here is beyond flabbergasting, beyond infuriating. I cannot think of a parallel in the entire history of partisan double standards. Anyone who can damn Hillary while excusing Kushner and Trump must be mentally sick.

At this time (last December), Trump and his team were bad-mouthing the U.S. intelligence community. Kushner's back-channel was designed to keep Trump's communications with Putin hidden from our people, not from the FSB.

There was an obvious quid-pro-quo behind all of this. Despite changing his stances on nearly all other matters -- health care, coal, Goldman Sachs, trade, taxes -- Trump retains his antipathy for NATO and the European Union. He still opposes Obama's sanctions against Russia. Even Josh Marshall, the "safe-and-sane" blogger who usually steers clear of anything that reeks of conspiracy theory, admits that Trump's opposition to NATO is ominous.

President Trump’s visit to Brussels/Europe wasn’t just another grab bag of impulsive aggression and gaffes. It wasn’t scattershot. It was quite clearly focused on destabilizing and perhaps eviscerating the NATO Alliance and somewhat secondarily, but relatedly, the European Union. This has been the strategic goal of Russia and before it the Soviet Union for decades. The sum total of everything that happened on this trip casts the entire Trump/Russia story in a decidedly more ominous light.

Matthew Yglesias, again:

To undermine NATO in this way has, of course, been a core goal of Russian (and, earlier, Soviet) foreign policy as long as NATO has existed. And through all the ups and downs of the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, Russia has never scored a success on that front as striking as Donald Trump’s elevation to the presidency and his continued refusal to affirm that the United States will defend its allies. Why exactly Trump won’t do that remains a mystery, but the conduct itself is striking — in some ways all the more so because it involves Trump overruling the professional opinion of his own aides in favor of a different, more Russia-friendly line.

It is also quite clear that Trump has personally received funding from the Russians, channeled through Deutsche Bank and the Bank of Cyprus, both of which have provided Putin with money laundry services. No one else would loan money to Trump, given his bankruptcies and well-known phobic reaction to the idea of paying back loans. As recently as 2008, Trump and Deutsche Bank were engaged in a lawsuit because Trump didn't want to pay what he owed. Trump continued to get loans through a Deutsche Bank subsidiary -- and with each passing day, it is becoming clear that he must have had Russian co-signers.

But the Trump/Russia financial links go deeper. From the above-cited piece by Yglesias:

A stray line in the Times story offers a hint of a possible alternate explanation for Kushner’s unusual communications requests:

In the days after the meeting with Mr. Kislyak, Mr. Kushner had a separate meeting with Sergey Gorkov, a Russian banker with close links to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

The Post’s reporting also mentions the Gorkov meeting, more pointedly suggesting that FBI investigators see a possible link between the two events:

The White House disclosed the meeting only in March, playing down its significance. But people familiar with the matter say the FBI now considers the encounter, as well as another meeting Kushner had with a Russian banker, to be of investigative interest.

Tim O’Brien of Bloomberg View, a Trump biographer who Trump has in the past unsuccessfully sued for libel, speculates that Kushner’s interest in Gorkov and his bank was fundamentally about money:

At the time, Kushner had already spent months trying to arrange fresh financing for a troubled building his family owns, 666 Fifth Avenue.

After one of those meetings, Kislyak arranged a meeting between Kushner and Sergey Gorkov, the powerful chief executive of a major Russian bank, Vnesheconombank, also known as VEB.

The WP says that the newspaper first learned about Kushner's backchannel from an unusual source:

The Post was first alerted in mid-December to the meeting by an anonymous letter, which said, among other things, that Kushner had talked to Kislyak about setting up the communications channel. This week, officials who reviewed the letter and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence said the portion about the secret channel was consistent with their understanding of events.

The WP story indicates that the intelligence community learned about the Trump Tower dialogue not through eavesdropping of that location but via an intercepted "after action" report sent by Russian ambassador Kislyak to his superior in Moscow.

Frankly, I'm a bit dubious of this part of the story. Perhaps Trump Tower was bugged -- or "tapped. If the FBI or NSA eavesdropped, they did so for damned good reason: Actual criminal activity was afoot. It is possible that this eavesdropping prompted that anonymous letter.

However, any eavesdropping cannot be revealed to the public at this time. As everyone knows, the Trumpers will leap at any chance to switch the narrative and blame the Obama administration for the "tapp": How DARE Obama find out that we've committed treason! It is simpler all around for the story of Jared's traitorous dealings to be sourced back to Kislyak's report to his superiors, since the NSA is supposed to monitor that kind of communication.

Is there any way to reach Montana? Is there any way to talk to Texas?

pain tension to the noose is knot teasey when yew twine to unentangle Joyce, a humptitrumpteenth attempt to Wake doomed to flail and abbaDonner like all those synavant. Three pages; a personal blest, yet awe for knot. Entanglement persists however Iskander hacks. Enough. Return we now to the whorl of Humpti hisself, thou bullshi eggoman burn of Iblister the terrabull.

Yesterday, ever the Cassandra, I succeeded once again in accurately foreseeing the worst. Gianforte of Montana won.

The common explanation is that he won because most of the votes were cast before the Republican candidate assailed a "liberal" journalist. I suspect that the assault is precisely what put him over. Gianforte's voters, like Trump's, have no consistent ideas about policy or ideology: They have fetishized brutishness. They have become convinced that all liberals are devious demons who deserve only the ax and the chainsaw. Fucking reporter got what he fucking deserved.

And that, my friends, is fascism. At core, Fascism is neither libertarian nor Marxist; it is  engineered proletarian rage-gasm in the secret service of aristocracy, though the aristos may not be able to control what they've started.

I don’t know if Republicans broke American politics or if Republican politics is broken and endangering the whole political system, but it can’t be fixed so long as political elites can’t acknowledge or understand what the source of the failure is.

The fact that Republicans are defending Gianforte and conservative journalists piled on Jacobs isn’t confusing or an outgrowth of “broken politics,” but the inevitable consequence of virulent illiberalism in the American right.

On Thursday morning, the anti-Trump Republican strategist Rick Wilson wrote a bracing denunciation of those on the right who defended the assault of a reporter -- though one seemingly premised on the belief that the “cultural collapse of the GOP into the Trump Troll Party” might be reversed through reason. In truth, everything that’s happened in the past year or so has conditioned conservatives to believe they will face no consequences for poor or unprincipled behavior.

Another example.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Friday appeared to joke about shooting reporters two days after a GOP House candidate in Montana was charged with assaulting a journalist.

Abbott showed off a target sheet to a group of reporters and photographers after signing a bill reducing licensing fees for handguns, according to the Texas Tribune’s Patrick Svitek.

“I’m gonna carry this around in case I see any reporters,” Abbott reportedly joked.

A commenter on Daily Kos (I didn't bookmark the link; sorry) accurately noted that much of Montana is a Limbaugh-only zone as far as the drive-time commute is concerned. Radio listeners have no real alternatives to the GOP party line. It's daily brainwashing in the absence of anyone to snap their fingers and say: "You're in a trance. Wake up!"

Democrats must understand that remaking political reality requires retaking the media. That task requires new voices -- attractive personalities who won't make white rage-addicts feel belittled or under attack.

This job will take money. But money is only part of the problem: The real trick is finding the right way to talk to this audience. Those Montana morning commuters don't want to listen to a voice in the ether screeching "I hate you and I hate everyone like you." People want to be flattered, not insulted.

Unfortunately, many liberals refuse to understand that basic fact of human psychology. "I hate you" is the only message liberals really want to deliver to all of those pale-skinned red-state commuters who voted for Trump and then for Gianforte.

That's one reason why Air America failed. Any attempt to create a new Air America will probably fail just as hard.

So how do we counter the propaganda of the radio rightists?

There are two kinds of propaganda, the subtle and the anvilicious. Both saw service during World War II, when Germans were forbidden on pain of death to listen to enemy radio broadcasts.

The Brits went for the subtle approach, creating what seemed to be ordinary German-language variety programs. Lots of songs, lots of jokes. These shows were carefully laced with news segments designed to underscore the leadership's failings and to convey a whiff (just a whiff) of defeatism.

The Russians, by contrast, went for the thuddingly obvious approach, dropping anvil after anvil. They signal-jacked official broadcasts and insulted Der Fuehrer in the harshest possible terms. Even during the official radio announcement of Hitler's death, a Russian heckler broke in and spewed venom.

(If memory serves, the actual broadcast is heard in Syberberg's film.)

After the war came the analysis: Which form of propaganda worked better? Surprisingly, the Russian approach proved more effective. The British attempt to seduce the audience with popular entertainment simply did not work very well.

Limbaugh and co. have heeded this lesson. For decades, they've been incessantly anvilicious on behalf of the avaricious. This approach has proven infernally effective.

Now, the anti-Trumpians have taken up the anvil. It's about goddamned time. Keith Olbermann might as well be renamed Keith Anvilman. Lawrence O'Donnell is almost as unsubtle.

Good.

Yet not enough. The "anvil" approach is working, but it will not suffice. It needs to be combined with other methods.

Despite the lessons learned from the UK and USSR variants of WWII propaganda, I think that the time has come to reconsider the British way of doing things -- to launch, as it were, a sneak attack. Let's face it: Those Montana commuters won't listen to Keith, even if someone were to place him on the air during drive-time. They're not chomping for Chomsky. They're not aching for Amy Goodman.

We need another type of radio programming, filled with non-newsy things red staters might enjoy, might even consider addictive. I'm not sure what kind of programming would work best. Sports talk? Discussions of superhero movies? True crime? Bigfoot sightings? Maybe all of the above.

Whatever works. Whatever fetches ears.

Every half-hour or so, expose those ears to some news. Real news. Non-Limbaugh news, non-AlexJonesian news, yet also non-mainstream news. Interesting stuff. Contrarian. Liberal-populist. The kind of news that most red-staters never hear. Neither CNN nor Infowars but something else altogether.

The Young Turks may have stumbled onto something close to the right approach to the news. I hate to make that admission, because their lapse into Bernieism was utterly infuriating. My point is that the news programming needs to be part of a larger package. A bright and attractive package. Something fun.

Will this approach work? I don't know. But I can't think of any other way to inject a new type of thinking into the red states. Until we hit upon a way to reach these people, these fellow Americans, they will remain lost. They will be drowning souls at sea, swimming away from the shore because a voice in the air keeps telling them: "Whatever you do, don't go that way."

Our national discourse will continue to spiral and spiral deeper into unreason, until the spiral becomes a swastika. Pretty soon, any journalist asking impertinent questions of a far-right candidate will feel lucky to walk away with bruises and broken glasses. Until reason is restored, our screaming society remain in the most vicious of circles, dazed, reeling, writhing in

Catching up...

Go away for one or two days and so much happens! I'm catching up, I'm catching up.

Right now, I must belatedly add my small voice to the worldwide chorus expressing shock and horror at the Manchester terror episode. What can one say? A blog of this sort exists to offer a "slantwise" or off-kilter view of events, but no such view is necessary or desirable or even possible in this situation. You don't need me to tell you that one would have to be unimaginably evil to set off explosions at an event designed to appeal to young girls.

I suppose I should also offer a few words about candidate Greg Gianforte's assault on reporter Ben Jacobs in Montana. Although many mainstream periodicals have withdrawn support for Gianforte, I believe that he will win his special election, and will, in fact, do better than expected. The Gianforte campaign issued a statement which explained the event as an assault by an evil "liberal" journalist.

Tonight, as Greg was giving a separate interview in a private office, The Guardian's Ben Jacobs entered the office without permission, aggressively shoved a recorder in Greg's face, and began asking badgering questions. Jacobs was asked to leave. After asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined. "Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face. Jacobs grabbed Greg's wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground. It's unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ.

Even though the particulars of this statement conflict with the audio recording of the event, voters in the red states have been trained to see all "liberals" as monsters addicted to deception. In short: Gianforte excused himself by offering up unadulterated right-wing paranoia. He filled the needle with strong, pure junk and gave the addicts a shot of what they crave. They'll worship him for it.

What set off Gianforte was Jacobs' impertinent insistence on asking a discomforting question regarding the CBO's bad news about Trumpcare. However, I suspect that part of what set the candidate on edge was the following:

And is there a Russian angle to this story? Of course there is. On April 25, Jacobs reported that Gianforte owned almost $250,000 in shares in a couple of index funds that are tied to the Russian economy. It doesn't seem like Gianforte is a full-scale kulak yet based on these investments, but it does suggest that his animus toward Jacobs might pre-date Wednesday evening.

Keep these words in mind when liberals blabber optimistically about capturing the House in 2018. The Trumpists, the right-wingers, and the Russians have plenty of money for bribes, and those who cannot be bribed are usually vulnerable to kompromat.

I'll be back soon with more on the "Russian front."

Flynn

After refusing subpoenas and threatening to take the Fifth, Michael Flynn finds himself in deepening trouble. The AP says that documentary evidence proves that Flynn lied about Russia to "federal security clearance investigators." (Would that be the Defense Investigative Serivce?) CNN and Elijah Cumming offer evidence that Flynn lied about the sponsors of his trip to Russia.

According to the Report of Investigation, which Cummings refers to in his letter to committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, Flynn made false statements to investigators about who funded his foreign trips, including a 2015 trip to Russia where Flynn was paid roughly $45,000 to speak at an event in Moscow. According to the letter released Monday by Democrats on the committee, Flynn claimed that his trips were funded by "US companies."

Meanwhile, Flynn's refusal to turn over subpoenaed documents may result in contempt charges.

Chris Christie is saying that he had warned Trump against Flynn. A couple of days ago, CNN reported that American spies (presumably NSA) intercepted a conversation in which certain unnamed Russians bragged about their control of Flynn.

Sources say Flynn also told Kislyak that the incoming Trump administration would revisit US sanctions on Russia once in office. The US has applied sanctions on Russia since 2014 for its actions in Ukraine.

As ever, Louise Mensch goes further than anyone else: She claims that Flynn has decided to turn on Trump and cooperate with the FBI. This report seems semi-believable at first glance, if only because most normal people would make the same decision. However, Mensch's claim doesn't square with Flynn's refusal to cooperate with those subpoenas. If he really has turned (as Mensch avers) then why would he risk a contempt charge? Why play ball with the Bureau while sneering at Congress? It don't add up.

This is one Louise Mensch story which should be proven false or true within a day or so. 

Weiner case bombshell

The Hill is not the kind of publication which would run a story like this unless it had all of its ducks in a row...

The teenage girl who had exchanged inappropriate text messages with former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) lied about her age and political motivations to harm Hillary Clinton, according to a report by the investigative news site WhoWhatWhy.

In a report published Monday, the web site said the girl who exchanged the messages with Weiner was closer to 17 and not 15, as initial reports said. That also puts her above the age of consent in North Carolina.

In addition, she and her family were also not Clinton supporters, as the girl claimed in a letter published by BuzzFeed, according to social media posts unearthed by the website. The report also says the girl initiated the contact with Weiner, and then sought advice from a GOP figure behind "prior efforts to harm Weiner and other Democrats."

The website suggests this could mean that Weiner was the target of a politically motivated plot.

The "victim" (we are told) is a Trump supporter, as are her parents; the mother has made insulting remarks about the Black Lives Matter movement.

I've long suspected that there was more to this case than met the eye. The initial reporting was very iffy, with right-wing publications making the lion's share of the grand revelations. (The original story was broken by far-right writer Chuck Johnson, writing in The Daily Mail.) The girl's messages, as quoted in those reports (and rarely repeated since) were suspiciously erudite -- far moreso than one would expect from any 15 year-old. 

Most of all, my suspicions were raised by the parallels to the strange case of "Betty and Veronica," which arose during Weiner Scandal 1 (back in 2011), and which too many people have now forgotten.

Betty and Veronica were the pseudonyms given to two teenaged girls who allegedly sexted with Weiner. Mediaite reporter Tommy Christopher interviewed the girls and their mother, becoming very involved in the case, and going to more-than-reasonable lengths to confirm their identities. It was later proven that the entire claim was bogus: The women who communicated with Christopher were actors who provided false identification.

(Think of the fake "Mrs. Mulwray" who sets the plot of Chinatown into motion.)

The fascinating Betty and Veronica angle led some researchers to feel -- as I continue to feel -- that there was an untold story underlying the entire Weiner case. At least one published report maintained that Andrew Breitbart possessed both of the incriminating "dick pics" well before the most famous one was allegedly tweeted by Weiner himself. (I am personally convinced that one of the women sexting with Weiner was a ringer working for Breitbart.)

It now seems quite clear -- to me, at least -- that the real target of "Weinergate" was not Weiner himself but Huma Abedin, and through her, Hillary Clinton.

Back in 2011, one of Breitbarters pursuing Weinergate bragged about his formidable hacking skills. Many of the Weinergate enthusiasts also seemed to know a great deal about hacking. These right-wing cyber-warriors surely understood that using social engineering to get into Weiner's laptop would probably allow access to every computer in that home's network -- including Huma's.

Well after most people had forgotten about the 2011 scandal, a small number of writers on both the right and the left remained engaged in what I called a "twilight war" over Weinergate. They focused on resolving the Betty and Veronica mystery. One formerly-respected writer on the left became so obsessed that he lost his reason.

The Brietbart-friendly "twilight warriors" tried to make the claim that Betty and Veronica were hired by Weiner himself, or by the Clintons, or by Soros, or perhaps the "Globalists." In short, they desperately sought to blame everyone other than the obvious suspects: Right-wing dirty tricksters of the Roger Stone/James O'Keefe school.

Louise, again. Ironically, one writer criticizing and questioning the Hill report is none other than Louise Mensch. I say "ironically" because she had once published a piece which questioned the very existence of the "15 year-old girl" in question. Just a few days ago, Mensch offered an apology for that speculation and conceded that the girl was real.

Mensch now points to court documentation (reproduced below) that the girl was under 16. Mensch may not be aware that knowingly "sexting" the underaged is a crime even if the claimed age is false. Even if the "girl" were actually a 40 year-old man, Weiner would still be guilty if he operated under the belief that he was speaking to someone underaged.

At any rate, it is possible for a case of this sort to go through the court system without anyone discovering that the girl in question has lied about her age.

(My mind goes back to a certain case involving a film director, in which the victim's mother, in an apparent attempt to make the perpetrator seem even worse than he was, hyperbolized the initial report to police. Perhaps realizing that a lie -- even a rather small and arguably immaterial lie -- might catch up with them, the mother and daughter tried to drop the case. By that point, of course, things had gone too far.)

I'm sorry, but the time has come for us to learn the name of the girl accusing Weiner. Once a name is divulged, we should be able to determine her age and the family's political stance.

It's possible that The Hill has made a serious misjudgment, but I don't think so. After the "Betty and Veronica" imbroglio, can anyone blame me for suspecting right-wing trickery?

Nota bene: You needn't send in those painfully obvious "WEINER BAD MAN! WEINER BAD MAN!" comments which you are dying to make. We're talking about something else here. This post is about a possible covert op, not about one man's moral failings -- and I will not publish any comments which address the latter without discussing the former. You have been warned. If you don't like my rules, fuck off.

Jeez, Louise! (Updated)

Update: The more I look into this, the more possible it seems that Louise Mensch's most-derided "scoop" may actually be true. Or mostly true. What Mensch's critics (and perhaps Mensch herself) fail to understand is that the impeachment process is surprisingly easy to start, and very difficult to fulfill. Nevertheless, it is indeed a provable fact that the impeachment of Donald Trump has been initiated. (The proof is below.) As for the rest: I'm making inquiries. Responses may come slowly, since today is Sunday. I'll let you know soon whether Mensch and Taylor had it right all along.

And now, here is the post as originally published...

A couple of posts down, I chided Louise Mensch for displaying a near-Trumpian inability to apologize for anything. The next day, she apologized for something -- specifically, for a story about Anthony Weiner. We may discuss that matter at another time.

Right now, she is being crucified by both the right and the left for this piece, written in conjunction with Claude Taylor.

Multiple sources close to the intelligence, justice and law enforcement communities say that the House Judiciary Committee is considering Articles of Impeachment against the President of the United States.

Sources further say that the Supreme Court notified Mr. Trump that the formal process of a case of impeachment against him was begun, before he departed the country on Air Force One. The notification was given, as part of the formal process of the matter, in order that Mr. Trump knew he was not able to use his powers of pardon against other suspects in Trump-Russia cases. Sources have confirmed that the Marshal of the Supreme Court spoke to Mr. Trump.

A couple of months ago, when Mensch was much more popular on the left, I contributed a piece to Democratic Underground warning liberals to be chary of her. In response, many angry DU-ers accused me of being a secret agent for Trump.

Now that so many on the left have turned against Mensch, my first instinct is to spring to her defense. Why? Well...heterosexuality, for one thing. (So I find her attractive. Shoot me.) Beyond that, I just like to be contrary. When they give you ruled paper, write the other way; when the villagers go after Frankenstein's monster, write a pro-monster editorial.

So let's see if there's any way to salvage this.

Many people have pointed out that the Supreme Court plays no constitutional role in the impeachment process. In response to a reader who voiced this complaint, Mensch angrily tweeted:

And we don't report that it does ANYWHERE IN THE STORY. We report a NOTIFICATION

Yeah but. Why would the Marshal of the Supreme Court be tasked with notifying Trump about impeachment? Has that happened before?

I've been reading the Congressional Research Service's manual on Impeachment and Removal. It discusses at some length the various precedents, and at no point does it ever refer to the Supreme Court notifying a target that the impeachment process has begun.

I've also been reading up on the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the impeachment process against Richard Nixon (which was aborted by his resignation). As near as I can tell, the Marshal of the Supreme Court never notified either man of...well, of anything.

So if the Marshal notified Trump, the act appears to have no precedent. I'm not saying that such a thing is impossible; I simply cannot find a precedent. Moreover, I doubt that informing the President of anything falls within the Marshal's job description.

Another problem: I don't understand how the initiation of impeachment would affect the president's ability to issue pardons.

The United States Constitution, Article II, section 2, says that the President "shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment." But in the aforementioned manual, the Congressional Research Service makes clear (on page 3) that this section "bars the President from using the pardon power to shield individuals from impeachment or removal from office."

The Constitution does not stop the President from pardoning potential witnesses or co-conspirators who may be facing criminal charges. Of course, pardoning a co-conspirator would simply remove that person's ability to plead the Fifth, so I don't see how that move would work in Trump's favor.

Perhaps Mensch is saying that the Judiciary Committee is considering impeachment against not just Trump but against a whole range of Trumpians? (Again, I'm trying to put the most charitable spin on this.) But even then, the Supreme Court would simply declare any pardons null and void when it comes to impeachment. I see no need to warn Trump "Don't do it."

Here's an interesting thought experiment: Could Trump pardon Michael Flynn?

One's first response would be "yes" because Flynn is no longer in government and therefore beyond impeachment. Article 2 would not apply to his case. However, contrary to popular belief, it is possible to impeach a former government official, even though the gesture is a bit like hanging someone who is already dead. In 1876, corrupt Secretary of War William Belknap was impeached after his resignation.

(By this logic, Gerry Ford should not have had the ability to pardon Nixon, since Nixon remained impeachable even after his resignation. I don't recall anyone making this argument at the time. Do you? It's probably the case that Gerry's pardon covered only criminal charges by the DOJ, and would not have prevented the House from impeaching Nixon.)

We're left with what may be the most important question of all: Just when does the impeachment process start? What do we mean by "initiation"?
To answer that poser, let's look at the Nixon case. Most people think that the process started on February 6, 1974 when

The United States House of Representatives passed a resolution, H.Res. 803, giving its Judiciary Committee authority to investigate whether sufficient grounds existed to impeach Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States[1] of high crimes and misdemeanors, primarily related to the Watergate scandal.

Actually, there had been a number of previous "starts" to the impeachment process -- and three of those starts occurred before the Watergate break-in, during his first term.

On May 9, 1972, Representative William Fitts Ryan (D-NY) submitted a resolution, H.Res. 975, to impeach President Nixon. The resolution was referred to the Judiciary Committee.[2] The next day, Representative John Conyers (D-MI) introduced a similar resolution, H.Res. 976.[3] On May 18, 1972, Conyers introduced his second resolution, H.Res. 989, calling for President Nixon's impeachment. The resolutions were referred to the Judiciary Committee, where they did not progress. These actions occurred before the break-in at the Watergate complex.

Representative Robert Drinan of Massachusetts on July 31, 1973 called to introduce a resolution calling for the impeachment of Nixon, though not for the Watergate scandal. Drinan believed that Nixon's secret bombing of Cambodia was illegal, and as such, constituted a "high crime and misdemeanor"

So: Which counts as the "initiation of impeachment" date -- May 9, 1972, or February 6, 1974? I would argue that both dates count. We have to think in terms of multiple impeachment efforts.

As near as I can tell, the Marshal of the Supreme Court never popped in to say "Hi!" to Tricky Dick.

In the present day, the question of "When does impeachment start?" is of enormous interest. One could argue that the impeachment of Donald Trump began three days ago.

Let's look at page 17 of the afore-cited Congressional Research Service document.

Initiation

Impeachment proceedings may be commenced in the House of Representatives by a Member declaring a charge of impeachment on his or her own initiative, by a Member presenting a memorial listing charges under oath, or by a Member depositing a resolution in the hopper, which is then referred to the appropriate committee. The impeachment process may be triggered by non-Members, such as when the Judicial Conference of the United States suggests that the House may wish to consider impeachment of a federal judge, where an independent counsel advises the House of any substantial and credible information which he or she believes might constitute grounds for impeachment, by message from the President, by a charge from a state or territorial legislature or grand jury, or by petition

If the Mensch/Taylor story is valid, then just which of these parties got the impeachment ball rolling?

You may not have heard about it, but Congressman Al Green of Texas formally asked for impeachment three days ago. According to the guidelines quoted above, Green "initiated" the process.

Is that what Mensch and Taylor are talking about? Did Green make a whole lot of history without anyone noticing? If so, then Mensch has been at least partially vindicated. She said that impeachment proceedings have been initiated, and such is indeed the case.

Is it also possible that a grand jury has initiated impeachment? There is indeed a grand jury which has issued subpoenas against Flynn. But I doubt that any grand jury could -- or would -- formally ask for the impeachment of Trump in secret. What would be the point of secrecy?

The most interesting idea is impeachment-by-petition. There are several petitions to impeach Trump, and they've acquired an enormous number of signatures, although I've seen no guidelines as to how many are required. See here and here and here. Can we say that the impeachment process was "initiated" the moment these petitions were presented to the Judiciary Committee? Were they, in fact, formally presented to the Judiciary Committee?

A final note:  Mensch's blog contains a "Contact and Whistleblowing" page.

We will be setting up a secure drop shortly. You can contact us securely on patribotics@protonmail.com, or leave us a message via this form.

I know that seasoned spies are always wary of "walk ins." Is Louise Mensch sufficiently wary of the people who use that form? Seems to me that James O'Keefe and his pranksters would love to discredit her.

Kushner, Lieberman, Trump, Putin -- and the Chabad cult

The previous post identified Jared Kushner as the FBI investigation's "person of interest." Chris Hayes tweeted the same. Unfortunately, Kushner is well-protected. You need to be aware of two factors:

1. An obscure ethics rule may prevent Robert Mueller from investigating Jared Kushner, who was a client of Mueller's former law firm, WilmerHare. The Justice Department could waive that rule -- but don't expect Jeff Sessions to do the decent thing.

2. The FBI will soon be under Joe Lieberman, who will surely protect Kushner. Both Lieberman and Kushner are very close to Chabad, a cult within Judaism which one may liken to "The Family," the Christian cult studied in Jeff Sharlet's book. The Moonies may provide an even more instructive basis for comparison. 

I realize that the previous paragraph will open me up to charges of anti-Semitism. Before you lob such accusations, I suggest that you read up on the accusations against Chabad levied by many Jewish writers. You should also read the investigative reports that have appeared in mainstream sources. After you've done the research, you'll see right through the lies told by Chabad's apologists, who claim that this is a benign group devoted to helping Jews "connect more strongly with their faith."

That hardly covers it.

Chabad is a racist cult, every bit as inexcusable as the cognate fundamentalist cults which have arisen from the Christian, Islamic and Hindu traditions. The group's strong connections to both Putin and Team Trump demand scrutiny.

Although the Chabad movement traces back more than two centuries, the cult's leader in the modern era was Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), a.k.a. "The Rebbe"). He may be considered the Joseph Smith or L. Ron Hubbard of Chabad. (Those who revere Schneerson will decry any comparison to Hubbard -- just as those who revere Hubbard will decry any comparison to Schneerson.) Many followers of the Rebbe considered him the Messiah. Some still do -- and they express this belief in ways that most people, including most secular Jews, would consider absurd.

(You'd think that Jews would have a more cautious attitude toward Messianic claimants, considering the kind of history made by such notable weirdos as David Reubeni, Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank. And, you know, that other fellow.)

Because I'm pressed for time -- and because this post will probably be buried by this afternoon's Trump-related bombshell news stories -- I can't write the piece I had originally envisioned. Instead, I'll offer a series of links, most of which go to Jewish sources. None of the cited writers can be fairly described as right-wing or anti-Semitic; I have avoided works by conspiracy theorists and other fringe-dwellers.

Our first stop is a Politico article titled "The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin".

Starting in 1999, Putin enlisted two of his closest confidants, the oligarchs Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich, who would go on to become Chabad’s biggest patrons worldwide, to create the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as “Putin’s rabbi.”

A few years later, Trump would seek out Russian projects and capital by joining forces with a partnership called Bayrock-Sapir, led by Soviet emigres Tevfik Arif, Felix Sater and Tamir Sapir—who maintain close ties to Chabad. The company’s ventures would lead to multiple lawsuits alleging fraud and a criminal investigation of a condo project in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, the links between Trump and Chabad kept piling up...

This article is supremely important, although I disagree with the characterization of Chabad as "happy-go-lucky." The following links provide a corrective.

Chabad-mafia.com is a Jewish website warning against the dangers of Chabad. Note this subpage in particular. Also this one. And this one.

The revulsion that non-Orthodox Jews in the Upper Midwest have for the [Chabad] Hasidim of Postville is visceral and undeniable. Over and over, while talking to non-Orthodox Jews in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area - arguably the Jewish community outside of Postville that has the most at stake in this story - I have heard one constant refrain. "How could this have happened?" they ask rhetorically. "I'll tell you...," and then their voices drop a register: "These [Chabad] Hasidim do not think their workers are human beings."

This discussion thread details one family's experience.

So does this well-written blog.

This site by Jews for Jews argues that Chabad is actually an anti-Jewish organization.

This Washington Post story, cited in these pages before, deserves to be re-read in light of Felix Sater's Chabad connection. Sater, in turn, links up with the ultra-powerful Russian mob boss Semyon Mogilevich.

In 2007, Chabad leaders in Israel were arrested for massive financial crimes.  (Also here.)

This piece in The Forward warns about Chabad's growing links to far-right Christian extremists. For example, in 2015 Chabad leaders showed up at a World Congress of Families in Salt Lake City.

Funded by right-wing extremists who make Mike Huckabee look like Rabbi Arthur Waskow, the WCF is an international network of far-right Christians who seek to enshrine their ultra-conservative views in secular law.

Indeed, some of them — Christian Reconstructionists, Dominionists and others — seek to do away with the secular law altogether, one day replacing the United States as we know it with an explicitly Christian nation.

Alexey Komov and Yelena Mizulina, two WCF leaders, are the primary authors of Russia’s anti-gay law, which makes the sharing of this column a criminal offense in that country.

The co-director of Chabad Lubavitch of Utah, Rabbi Avremi Zippel, will be providing the invocation for the event that Tuesday morning.

This is not the first time that Chabad has played the role of Jewish Uncle Tom for these specific Christian extremists. In Russia, leading Chabad rabbis are close associates of Vladimir Putin and were present at the signing of the so-called “anti-propaganda law” that has led to widespread increases in violence, as well as to the criminal prosecution of human rights organizations.

Chabad Rabbi Manis Friedman has offered some rather drole commentary on how to conduct war in a "moral" fashion. (Also here.)

I don’t believe in western morality, i.e. don’t kill civilians or children, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral.

The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).

This site reprints a 1996 Jewish Week expose of Chabad Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh.

“If you have two people drowning, a Jew and a non-Jew, the Torah says you save the Jewish life first,” Rabbi Ginsburgh told The Jewish Week. ”If every single cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, is a part of God, then every strand of DNA is a part of God. Therefore, something is special about Jewish DNA.”

Later, Rabbi Ginsburgh asked rhetorically, “If a Jew needs a liver, can you take the liver of an innocent non-Jew passing by to save him? The Torah would probably permit that.

“Jewish life has infinite value,” explained. “There is something infinitely more holy and unique about Jewish life than non-Jewish life.”

Alison Weir offers an extremely important expose of the racism espoused by "Rebbe" Schneerson.

Some of Schneerson’s rarely reported teachings:

“The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: “Let us differentiate.” Thus, we do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case of “let us differentiate” between totally different species.”

“This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world … The difference in the inner quality between Jews and non-Jews is “so great that the bodies should be considered as completely different species.”

“An even greater difference exists in regard to the soul. Two contrary types of soul exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness.”

“The important things are the Jews, because they do not exist for any [other] aim; they themselves are [the divine] aim.”

“The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews.”

I realize that these words sound like a fabrication concocted by a rabid neo-Nazi intent on slandering Jews. But no-one has ever disputed the accuracy of this quote, and no-one can honestly claim that "context" excuses these sentiments. (It should go without saying that most Jews would find those sentiments as repulsive as I do.)

The Chabad cult is founded on a mystrical book called the Tanya, written by the founder of the movement, Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who died in 1812. Although much of this work seems benign -- and perhaps profound, to those of a mystical turn of mind -- it contains a few very troubling sections. Example:

The souls of the nations of the world (all non-Jews), however, emanate from the other, unclean 'kelipot' which contain no good whatever" (page 5).

(In non-Jewish mystical works, "kelipot" is usually transliterated "qlippoth." Literally, the word means "husks;" figuratively, it means "demon.")

From a piece by Daniel Estrin in The Forward:

The marble-patterned, hardcover book embossed with gold Hebrew letters looks like any other religious commentary you’d find in an Orthodox Judaica bookstore — but reads like a rabbinic instruction manual outlining acceptable scenarios for killing non-Jewish babies, children and adults.

“The prohibition ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’” applies only “to a Jew who kills a Jew,” write Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. Non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and attacks on them “curb their evil inclination,” while babies and children of Israel’s enemies may be killed since “it is clear that they will grow to harm us.”

“The King’s Torah (Torat Hamelech), Part One: Laws of Life and Death between Israel and the Nations,” a 230-page compendium of Halacha, or Jewish religious law, published by the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in Yitzhar, garnered a front-page exposé in the Israeli tabloid Ma’ariv, which called it the stuff of “Jewish terror.”

The rabbis promoting this "King's Torah" (which arguably belongs on the bookshelf next to the Tanya) belong to Chabad.

Finally, we have a slew of pieces devoted to exposing sexual abuse within Chabad. This Newsweek piece provides an excellent start. It describes an extreme insularity quite familiar to students of non-Jewish cults, and quite unlike the norm in mainstream Judaism:

Set on a leafy stretch of Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Oholei Torah is one of the most important institutions in the Chabad movement’s global yeshiva network and one of the largest of the dozens of Chabad schools in Brooklyn, with nearly 2,000 students at any given time. But stop any middle-school-age kid in the school’s hallways, and he—there are no female students—will likely know nothing of world history, won’t be able to do long division and will speak only rudimentary English—even though he’s growing up in the biggest city in the United States.

Oholei Torah conducts its seven-plus daily hours of religious lessons mostly in Yiddish. According to more than a dozen former students across three decades, it provides almost no lessons in science, math, English grammar or history. (The school did not respond to queries about its curriculum.) Many of these students go home to an apartment with no television, no Internet, no newspapers and no books except religious texts. Many will not gain the basic knowledge of how to navigate the world until they are married off around age 18, like how to write a check, how to order General Tso’s chicken or even what sex is. When you’re a child in this environment, you don’t question the fact that you can’t identify your own state on a map. And when you are molested, you don’t ask questions about that either.

Many of the scandals which have rocked Catholicism have a strong echo within the Chabad movement. Another Jewish site discusses the sexual abuse within Chabad.

Since Waks first spoke publicly in 2011 about the abuse he suffered, he has helped to expose the centres, and the schools, synagogues and activities attached to them, as communities within which child sex abuse was covered-up, denied or ignored.

The rabbinic law of mesirah – the prohibition of a Jew informing on a fellow Jew to secular authorities – was used by leaders to keep victims silent, the commission heard.

See also  here and here. I was particularly struck by this section (which quotes a now-defunct article in The Jewish Week):

A prominent Orthodox rabbi and psychologist has been intimidated into quitting as head of a just-formed task force dealing with rabbinic sex abuse of minors, organized by Assemblyman Dov Hikind this week. Dr. Benzion Twerski told The Jewish Week Wednesday that he was quitting the task force because "I was prosecuted in the street for daring to join such a venture." "To protect myself, my family, and reputation, I decided to withdraw from this project," he wrote in an e-mail as the paper was going to press with a story announcing Hikind's formation of the task force. "From this point, I am avoiding participation in any forms of public service. Public life is not for me."

Hikind, a Brooklyn Democrat who represents Borough Park and Flatbush, deplored Twerski's abrupt departure from his new panel. "He was basically forced to resign," said Hikind. "He was literally put against the wall, and he felt he had no choice. We'll get somebody else who's very respected. But that's not the point. The point is they got to him, they threatened him."

Also see this piece in The Jerusalem Post.

In 2011, when he exposed his story in the Australian press, Manny Wax dropped a figurative bomb in the heart of Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne, where he and his family lived, where he was educated and where he was sexually abused over a period of three years.

His parents, who were still living in the Chabad community, were shunned, ostracized and made to feel that they had transgressed one of the sacrosanct rules of their community: keeping it all inhouse.

Indeed, the title of Waks’s book is a pull-quote from a sermon delivered by leader of Yeshivah Centre, Rabbi Zvi Telsner, shortly after the scandal broke out. During a Shabbat sermon, Telsner addressed Waks’s father, Zephania, thundering: “Who gave you permission to speak to anybody?” It was clearly a rhetorical question, because everyone in the close-knit Chabad fold knows that you don’t snitch on a member of the community to an outsider. To do so, as Waks explains, would render you a moser – a rabbinic term for a Jew who informs on another Jew to secular authorities.

Let me repeat: Most of the pieces cited above come from Jewish writers. Moreover, over the years I have been absolutely consistent in expressing disdain for all forms of religious fundamentalism, including the various strains of reactionary Catholic mania. (Example.) I have distinguished Judaism as a whole from Chabadism; in fact, I tend to be swayed by the opinion of those Jews who see Chabad as a separate religion.

I am also quite willing to concede that there are, no doubt, many wonderful people within the Chabad movement. That said, I've also met some Scientologists -- including one who was quite prominent -- who seemed very nice; their virtues did not blind me to the dangers of Hubbard's lunatic sect.

In short: Only a fool or a zealot would scry anti-Semitism in this post. If you attempt to do so, you will succeed only in amusing me. Strained rationalization is my favorite form of humor.

Fascinatingly, actual anti-Semites have embraced Trumpism and seem to have no problem with the prominent role played by the unelected Jared Kushner, whom historians may one day describe as the acting president, given Trump's basic incompetence. How did this unfathomable situation arise? Don't know. I've been trying to figure out that problem for quite a while now.

Added note: In an earlier piece, I wrote about an anti-Hillary slander which appeared late in the election cycle -- a classic example of "fake news" as originally defined. The Gateway Pundit and many (MANY) other sites published stories claiming "Racist Hillary Trashes African Americans – Calls Them Losers." The allegation was based on an alleged email supposedly found on Hillary's server and published by Wikileaks.

I did some research into the matter, and found that there was a racist email -- but it had nothing to do with either Hillary Clinton or her server. The message was sent by an as-yet unidentified party to various individuals connected to Politico and Media Matters. Of course, the recipients bore no responsibility for the contents of that message, just as I am not responsible for every random piece of crap that some wacko might want to shoot into my own mailbox.

The email contains a long rant which slanders most of the world's peoples and then goes on to praise the marvelous accomplishments of Jews. "One group of people has long outperformed all other Earthlings by such a bizarrely wide margin that it singlehandedly smashes this all-folks-are-equal myth into millions of smithereens." (Until now, I was unaware that smithereens could be counted.)

In my original post, I hinted at my suspicion that the author sprang from a Chabad background. I still suspect so, although I've been unable to trace the author of this diatribe. If you can identify the writer of this text, please share!