The Carpentariat

Much to worry about in Trump's latest statement

Below are the core elements of the most shameful, amoral and, astonishingly, victim-blaming statement to ever emerge from the once-exalted American presidency. Yesterday I speculated that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's "foul behavior may be more critical to Trump's attraction [to him] than the (fake) $110 billion." I have faintly revised my opinion. I still believe Trump is attracted to MBS's foul behavior, but specifically, the prince's having murdered a journalist — an "enemy of the people" — is what has fascinated and exhilarated our pathetically unmanly president. MBS has rather flagrantly done what Trump wishes he could do; in short, he is living vicariously through the murderous prince, and in that sense, defending the prince is tantamount to defending himself.

Trump's statement, titled "The world is a very dangerous place!":

"The Kingdom [has] agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States [it won't]. This is a record amount of money [because Trump made it up]. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs [no], tremendous economic development [no], and much additional wealth for the United States [no]. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors [even they don't agree with Trump's assessment]. If we foolishly cancel these contracts [at this time, there is virtually nothing to be cancelled], Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries….

"The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone … [but on the other hand] Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an 'enemy of the state' and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood [my emphasis]…. This is an unacceptable and horrible crime … [but, again, on the other hand] King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi…. It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t! [que sera sera]

"In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia…. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia [so shove it]….

"As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!"

[Addendum]

… which will make the world more dangerous by the year, as other nations pursue their own [------] First! policies.

What kept this planet from WW III for 70 years were U.S.-led alliances, diplomatic networks, and expanding global trade. America First! upsets precisely the international arrangements that promoted and maintained the peace, but I'm ending all that because my ignorant, testosterone-pumped base is psychologically damaged and thus positively adores my loud, equally ignorant mouth. We believe we can do to the world what I've always done closer to home: bully it. What we cannot comprehend — or just don't care about — is that China First! could easily dominate Asia and the Pacific Rim, and Russia First!, Eastern Europe. The world will become a tripolar or perhaps a multipolar farrago of pure, unadorned self-interest. And with that will come war.

Good night, and good luck.

 

Love it

 

Ivanka's emails - they must be "bigger than Watergate"!

This administration's indifference to integrity and outright stupidity are breathtaking.

"Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules," reports the Washington Post.

"The discovery alarmed some advisers [!!!] to President Trump, who feared that his daughter’s prac­ tices bore similarities to the personal email use of Hillary Clinton, an issue he made a focus of his 2016 campaign."

Said a spokesman for Ivanka's lawyer: "While transitioning into government, after she was given an official account but until the White House provided her the same guidance they had given others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her personal account"…. Said the Post: "Like Trump, Clinton also said she was unaware of or misunderstood the rules."

And said government-watchdog American Oversight: "There is no reasonable suggestion that she didn’t know better. Clearly everyone joining the Trump administration should have been on high alert about personal email use."

Clearly, they should have. But outright stupidity often outweighs the administration's other principal attribute, above. In fact they seem to be saddled with an unshakable stupidity that surpasses any of the stupidest things other administrations did; and here I include Watergate, which Trump once said was eclipsed in criminality by Clinton's personal email use.

Parenthetically, yesterday, former Clinton aide Neera Tanden shot off a couple stinging emails, which were also quite appropriate: 

The world will be watching the @nytimes coverage of Ivanka Trump’s emails.

— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) November 20, 2018

I’m truly surprised that the NYT reporters who breathlessly covered Hillary’s emails haven’t managed to tweet on Ivanka’s emails.

— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) November 20, 2018

Competition for 536 a.d. being "the worst year to be alive"

A reader sent this from Science magazine. I found it of remarkable interest.

"Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he's got an answer: '536.' Not 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. Not 1918, when the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people, mostly young adults. But 536. In Europe, 'It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year,' says McCormick....

"A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. 'For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year,' wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record "a failure of bread from the years 536–539." Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse, says McCormick, a historian and archaeologist who chairs the Harvard University Initiative for the Science of the Human Past."

(Has McCormick forgotten November 2016, when St. Thomas More wept, the sun darkened, locusts descended, livestock boiled, frogs teemed the Mississippi, fiery hail rained down, and children — and their parents — howled in fear? For a mere two months later, Donald J. Trump would be sworn in as America's — and the world's — greatest plague.)

 

Pelosi: success under fire

In response to Politico's "Pelosi’s bid for speaker imperiled as public opposition grows." there's Robert Draper's extensive profile, "Nancy Pelosi’s Last Battle":

What sets her apart from other legislators of her stature is her gender. Pelosi has been known to say: “No one gives you power. You have to take it from them.” The leitmotif of her three-decade ascent is that of a woman wresting power away from a male- dominated political machine, until one day the machine discovered she was its master.

Indeed, what sets her apart is that she's tough as titanium and, unlike Trump, she never gripes. She greets the world as it is, not as she wished it were.

As one of only 26 women in a body of 435 members [in 1987], Pelosi soon learned that, as her first chief of staff, Judy Lemons, told me: “Sexual harassment and sexual overreaching were absolutely institutionalized. It was part of the deal.”

Pelosi took the system as it was. It was never her way to complain about being called a “gutsy broad” by jowly old bulls like Dan Rostenkowski, a Democratic congressman from Chicago, and stared at like a filet mignon.

She has also handled squabbling Democrats nearly as well as FDR. Both took heat from just about everyone for mollifying the dreaded, internal opposition — Pelosi's conservative Democrats; in FDR's era, segregationist Southerners) — but none has been able to explain how a diverse party (the only kind that can win nationally) can do without diverse opinions.

During Nancy Pelosi’s four years as speaker, there was no confusion as to who was in control. Pelosi used the tools at her disposal — committee assignments, campaign donations — to establish a balance among her party’s coalitions…. "One of the things that’s really set Nancy Pelosi apart is her uncanny ability to unite all the different Democratic coalitions around a negotiating position," said former House member, Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

None of this is to say she's fault-free. Where I've always found her problematic is in her public-relations deficiencies, though it appears they couldn't be helped.

For all her mastery of Washington’s inside game, Pelosi has never been a deft public-facing politician. Early in her career, a close associate told me, Pelosi hired a speech coach and studied videos of herself, with no discernible improvement. An aide once gently informed her that a speech she had just given “meandered at times” — which Pelosi, who is notoriously tough on her staff, did not take well. “How was that — did I meander?” she said to the aide for weeks thereafter.

Then again, the quest for imitation is perhaps the highest compliment that could be paid.

Some of the Tea Party freshmen who came to power in 2010 railing against the “Pelosi liberals” would, when I interviewed them several years later, confide to me that they wished their Republican leaders possessed Pelosi’s spine.

Not one of Pelosi's House Democratic detractors match, or even come close, to her record as speaker.

 

By Christmas, the invading caravan's "ploy to destroy America" will be a done deal

Well, well ...

"The 5,800 troops who were rushed to the southwest border amid President Donald Trump’s pre-election warnings about a refugee caravan will start coming home as early as this week — just as some of those migrants are beginning to arrive.

"In contrast to the speed of the deployment in early November and the fanfare surrounding it, the withdrawal promises to be slower and quieter — but [the commanding officer] expects it to be done before Christmas," reports Politico.

Someone should alert Cadet Bone Spurs that the Army and Marines are retreating in the face of this massive southern "invasion"of "gang members," "very bad people," "Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners," which one of the president's astute supporters called "a ploy to destroy America, and to bring us to our knees." She added, "I’m not going to take it — not going to go down without a fight."

Sorry lady, but the ultraconservative radio host Michael Savage was right; the invading, virtually unmet caravan portends "the end of America as we know it."

The criminals and unknown Middle Easterners have won, for as the NY Times further reports, "A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to resume accepting asylum claims from migrants no matter where or how they entered the United States, dealing at least a temporary setback to the president."

But, what did the president expect? As Dana Milbank reminds us, "Trump is surrounded by fools" — everyone but him. "No one has suffered as many fools as Trump has. But this is to be expected when a 'very stable genius' leads a 'stupid country.'"

 

Should Mattis (and any others with a brain) resign?

Write a professor emeritus of international affairs and two retired Army colonels:

The president used America’s military forces [on the southern border] not against any real threat but as toy soldiers, with the intent of manipulating a domestic midterm election outcome, an unprecedented use of the military by a sitting president….

The president crossed a line — the military is supposed to stay out of domestic politics….

The deployment is a stunt, a dangerous one, and in our view, a misuse of the military that should have led Mr. Mattis to consider resigning, instead of acceding to this blatant politicization of America’s military.

Well, that's the question, isn't it: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind of Mattis to suffer this outrageous president, or to take arms against Trump's sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?

All we can know is that Mattis' resignation would not end this president's sea of troubles, for that phrase is his middle name: He is all trouble, at all times. He thrives on it, and his squalid base loves him for it. What we can speculate on is, merely, whether it's nobler for Mattis to resign.

The veteran military correspondent Thomas Ricks once confronted this question, although then it was about National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. Initially, Ricks believed it was advisable for experienced advisers to stick around. "My thinking was that the more mature, thoughtful people we had in the administration, the better," he wrote. "I have come to think I was wrong. I no longer believe in the 'adults in the room' theory of containing President Trump and the similarly erratic and ignorant people around him."

Ricks' reasoning was essentially self-evident. "I have watched and waited, and I don’t see McMaster improving Trump. Rather, what I have seen so far is Trump degrading McMaster. In fact, nothing seems to change Trump."

Ricks wrote that more than a year-and-a-half ago. I don't know if he has again changed his mind, but I find myself endlessly vacillating. One day it seems just as self-evident that thoughtful presidential advisers are only a waste of good personnel, and on another day I thank Providence for the likes of Mattis on duty. But in either case, Ricks remains correct. Trump mostly degrades any thoughtful adviser.

Today I'm inclined to believe the defense secretary should resign. Of what value was his almost certain protest of Trump's idiotic, characteristically demagogic decision to deploy troops on the border? None, of course. On the other hand, might Mattis be able, someday, to persuade this idiotic president to not do something far more idiotic? Perhaps. So maybe Mattis shouldn't resign.

Tomorrow, I might reverse. I confess to a doomed wistfulness. I'd like to see the three or four of Trump's thoughtful advisers out of hundreds walk mini-en masse right out of the White House in final disgust of his imbecility, incompetence, malfeasance, recklessness and mean-spiritedness. Would we be better off? Again, that is the question.

 

Your political tribe, in five minutes

It's political self-identification quiz time again, if you're curious. The nonprofit group More in Common has developed a questionnaire (it took me maybe five minutes to complete) that will magically reveal you to be a progressive activist, traditional liberal, passive liberal, politically disengaged slob, moderate, traditional conservative or devoted conservative.

I emerged as a progressive activist, which surprised me, since I consider myself more of a traditional liberal. But, the two camps are often conflated; much of their idealism overlaps. The quiz did rather confirm my earlier post, in that in my assigned camp we are "Almost three times more likely to be 'ashamed to be an American' (69 percent v. 24 percent)." What's untrue, in my case, anyway, is that we are "More likely to say [we're] proud of [our] political ideology (64 percent v. 43 percent)." That seems a particularly nonsensible satisfaction. One either believes certain things or not — I haven't a clue as to why one would be "proud" of those beliefs.

If you'd like to be told what you're proud of, the quiz is here.

***

I should add that anyone with even a smattering of historical knowledge, empirical experience and current-affairs familiarity will find many of the questions objectively answerable and subject to disagreement only by determined ideology. One might believe, for instance, that socioeconomic mobility through individual effort is still the promise of yesteryear, but the socioeconomic evidence is that it is not. And therein lies the danger of ideological thinking: It's not really thinking at all.

 

Ashamed to be an American

Politico:

Trump said in an interview released Sunday that he didn't know whether Saudi Arabia's crown prince lied about his involvement in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite evidence [and the CIA's conclusion] that he played a role.

Trump also suggested he may just live with it, even if Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman misled him, because "we do have an ally and I want to stick with an ally that in many ways has been very good."

The inhumanity and shamelessness of this thuggish president know no bounds. I deplored the administration of George W. Bush and resented that I was considered by foreigners part of the wild American pack that, along with the Supreme Court, put him in office. But I don't recall being ashamed to be an American.

Today, I am.

Certain pundits who are fond of clichés are also fond of calling Trump "transactional." This, it would seem, is a euphemism for cold-blooded, inhuman, sociopathic. In the crown prince's case, it is as well a much softer word for ignorant. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is endowed with no diplomatic experience or talent whatsoever, believes that Saudi Arabia is the key to Middle East peace, and so, because he is Trump's son-in-law, Trump believes him. And gives Prince Mohammed bin Salman a pass.

The president himself is fond of citing the $110 billion arms sales to Saudi Arabia as a fiscal reason for keeping the prince as a friend. But, as has been noted by fact-checkers, the dollar "number is fanciful and unlikely to come to fruition"; for another, the Brookings Institution's Bruce Riedel called Trump's dollar figure "fake news." In addition, the Saudis are famous for signing arms deals and then backing out.

Either way, is $110 billion the price of America's global reputation? We're already burdened with having the apartheid-loving Benjamin Netanyahu as a Middle East friend. Must we add a butcher like Mohammed bin Salman?

As a thug himself, Trump is, of course, naturally attracted to fellow thugs, even in defense of a friend's atrocity of "huge international import," as the Post's Aaron Blake observed. The president confuses bullying and personal belligerence for manliness and toughness. So just as naturally, this president would be attracted to the mafioso maneuverings of Saudi Arabia's crown prince. Indeed, the prince's foul behavior may be more critical to Trump's attraction than the (fake) $110 billion.

That, gentle reader, is arguable. What's unarguable is that, today, I and no doubt millions of others are ashamed to be an American.

 

But, but ...

I just read Kazan on Directing. My favorite line — actually, just a passage from the line — of its 289 pages?

"It is not essential that you should want to fuck the leading lady."

It's that kind of commonsense, give-it-to-us-straight advice that I admire in a semi-autobiographical work on professional judgment — Kazan himself, I gathered, often surpassed the "want" — although I'm not sure it would have worked with me directing Ann-Margret. Some things are eternal, immutable, and simply not up for debate.   

 

Nancy Pelosi and the incredibly stupid battle against her

We used to say, Only the Democrats could get themselves into such a mess. We can say that no longer, since Republicans have far overtaken the opposition in internal clusterfucking. Still, congressional Democrats are showing some of that old, fragmented leg, as the party engages in what should have been a mere tussle over House leadership. As the Washington Post puts it, it has instead "exploded into a national political campaign."

In the new Congress, the anti-Pelosi faction has more than the 15 votes needed (the Post reports 20) to block the minority leader's re-ascendence as speaker. "By week’s end," however, "a few opponents seemed to be wavering after one-on-one sessions with Pelosi." I can imagine. They probably wobbled out of her office with weak knees and imminent vomiting; the former speaker possesses little reluctance to exercise intimidation.

But those "few opponents" to Pelosi's speakership are also facing what the Post has so aptly called a "national political campaign." For instance, "Barbra Streisand retweeted a list of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s biggest legislative achievements"; "Rob Reiner called her 'the smartest, toughest strategic thinker in our party'"; and "tennis champ Martina Navratilova wondered aloud why Pelosi’s job was at risk but her Senate counterpart’s position was in no such trouble. 'Go figure,' Navratilova tweeted. 'A man loses and keeps his place, a woman wins and gets booted?!?'"

My pre-election position was that Pelosi should announce her retirement (while, perhaps, naming a protégé to mentor), but not because Republicans were saying bad things about her. Pelosi, though a brilliant strategist, lacks in the public-relations department. And the Dems need an appealing voice to represent them until a presidential candidate is chosen to be that singular voice.

Nevertheless, that ship has sailed; she's there and now she should stay there, especially since her opposition — and if this sounds insane, it is — has no candidate to run against her. What we're witnessing is a phantom resistance to the inevitable, and that's just dumb.

Because — "the contest," writes the Post, "seemed to deepen divisions within the party’s ranks that threatened to split Democrats after their resounding win." Internal — and very public — party strife is never a good face to present, but after a trickle that transformed into a wave is decidedly the worst possible time.

Let Republicans stumble around with their misnamed, always angry "Freedom Caucus." Democrats do not need an ill-natured counterpart. Give it up, Mr. and Ms. Congressional Democrat. Your only foe is Donald J. Trump.

 

To go left or right: social conservatives split

Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, is again selling religion like so much soap. "Social conservatives," said Reed to the NY Times, "need to maximize turnout from the base and expand the map by stressing the softer side of the faith agenda: education reform, immigration and criminal justice reform, and anti-poverty measures. This will help with suburban women, millennials and minorities."

Why the shift away from abortion in Reed's marketing strategy? Social conservatives have the Senate, which means they also have the Supreme Court — their ideological hold on which will only intensify as long as Trump is in the White House. Having no principles himself, the president is happy to exchange socially conservative votes for Justices and judges of their choosing. What does he care?

But, there is a problem. "Steep Republican losses in the House, particularly in suburban areas," reports the Times, "have some strategists reflecting on how to proceed as they pivot their efforts to re-electing Mr. Trump in 2020." A repeat of House Republican losses in purplish suburban regions would mean the loss of their unprincipled benefactor, Trump. Thus the panic in some urban megachurches and little Baptist outposts: They either adjust their marketing strategy or slip into the cursed netherworld of political impotence.

Others disagree, "instead emphasizing their success at the judicial level and seem[ing] only minimally interested in adjusting their focus," says the Times. Among the many is the president of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins. "Very few people anymore are in the middle," he said. Perkins then added the customary Perkinsesque laughable: "Barack Obama brought us to this point more quickly because of the extreme policies that he pushed. Trump, with the support of evangelicals, has worked to move the pendulum back."

So Obama was the extremist and Trump is the moderate? In his next breath, Perkins destroyed his own thesis. "Martha McSally lost her Senate race in Arizona," said Perkins, in the Times' words and my emphasis, "because she was not conservative enough."

It's extremism that sells to the right, and Perkins knows it.

If, then, I had to put my money on Ralph Reed and his expansionist marketing scheme or Tony Perkins' Stay the Course, I'd put it on Perkins' nose. Older social conservatives don't care to hear about education reform and anti-poverty measures; they prefer to hear how evil was Barack Obama and how miraculously splendid is Donald J. Trump. Perkins & Co. will give it to them in spades.

Meanwhile, younger social conservatives will continue morphing into young social liberals. So keep up the good work, Tony.

 

Trump and American authoritarianism

In a superb Atlantic magazine article, "A Warning from Europe: The Worst Is Yet to Come," Anne Applebaum takes note of a Hannah Arendt observation about the most effective one-party state: "[It] invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty."

One thinks of Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Trofim Lysenko (Stalin's Institute of Genetics director, who horribly influenced Russian agriculture and starved millions), Matthew Whitaker, Betsy DeVos, or Ryan Zinke.

The one-party state of "crackpots and fools" has been known by different labels, chiefly national socialism and Soviet communism. But the one-party state need not emerge from an unstable liberal democracy, such as the Weimar Republic which turned fascist, or a traditional aristocracy ruling a land of peasants, such as tzarist Russia which turned Bolshevist.

Even a liberal democracy with no tradition of landed nobles or widespread peasantry can go sour with just the right electorate, such as America's thrust into Trumpism. After all, its eponymous leader perceives a one-party state as ideal, and the contours of his reign — his disdain for the rule of law, his assault on America's valued institutions, his nepotistic administration — sharply reflect that of a one-party authoritarian.

"It Can Happen Here" is perhaps an overused phrase; still, the mostly unwanted reality is, it can. As Applebaum also notes in her disillusioned article, "Americans, with our powerful founding story, our unusual reverence for our Constitution, our relative geographic isolation, and our two centuries of economic success, have long been convinced that liberal democracy, once achieved, cannot be altered…. In truth, the argument about who gets to rule is never over." Trump and his party have ruled as a one-party state for two years, and, notwithstanding the rejectionist midterms, they seem determined to persevere.

David Brooks, in a flash of lucidity, believes he understands the conceptual roots of Trumpian pseudoconservatism — all its crackpots and fools. "In any meritocracy," writes Brooks, "there are going to be a lot of people who lose out and do not get the glittering career they think they are due. Sooner or later those people are going to rise up to challenge the competition itself and to question its idea of excellence." Brooks is correct; the history of authoritarianism is replete with such excellence-challenging crackpots — from the multi-careered Whitaker to that literature failure, Goebbels.

As I have, Brooks quotes Washington Post columnist Applebaum, whose intellectual life in Poland has been upended: "Resentment, envy, and above all the belief that the 'system' is unfair — these are important sentiments among the intellectuals of the Polish right," she laments. They're striking out at the thinking "elites" who have always bested them.

Applebaum also concentrates — for a domestic reason that's obvious — on the immense importance of loyalty to authoritarians everywhere and their one-party state. For instance,

"The Bolshevik one-party state was not merely undemocratic; it was also anticompetitive and antimeritocratic. Places in universities, civil-service jobs, and roles in government and industry did not go to the most industrious or the most capable. Instead, they went to the most loyal. People advanced because they were willing to conform to the rules of party membership. Those rules … usually excluded the former ruling elite and their children, as well as suspicious ethnic groups. They favored the children of the working class. Above all, they favored people who loudly professed belief in the creed, who attended party meetings, who participated in public displays of enthusiasm. Unlike an ordinary oligarchy, the one-party state allows for upward mobility: True believers can advance."

Again, I give you Matthew Whitaker — the absolute paradigm of toadyism and flunkyism as quite useful steps on the Trumpian ladder of success.

Precisely how would Trump and his aggressive congressional allies achieve an authoritarian, one-party state? That's a process we should all be contemplating and wargaming — which, I can almost guarantee you, Trump and his allies are doing.

I'm no alarmist; I would give them one-in-a-thousand odds of authoritarian triumph. But those are just about the odds we gave Trump in 2016. We can no longer afford the luxury of righteous, statistical knowingness — or any other certainty. Thus my Montaignean skepticism is alive, and thriving.

 

In court, CNN thumps Trump

Ruling that CNN's Jim Acosta's Fifth Amendment rights were violated and that, in summarily barring him, the White House denied him due process, federal judge Timothy Kelly has ordered that Acosta's WH pass be reinstated.

The ruling, however, is vulnerable to revocation: If the WH counterclaims it has indeed followed due process, then the judge will revisit Acosta's ban.

Nonetheless, this is a major win for freedom of the press, with the judge adding that "he believes that CNN and Acosta are likely to prevail in the case overall." CNN is seeking "permanent relief" as well, which would protect all WH pool reporters from the Trump administration's high-handed censorship.

Perfectly consistent with the administration's authoritarian attitude, "Justice Department lawyer James Burnham [had] argued that the Trump White House has the legal right to kick out any reporter at any time for any reason — a position that is a dramatic break from decades of tradition."

Queried by Judge Kelly, Burnham insisted that "as a matter of law" the WH could ban a reporter merely because of the reporter's disagreeable reporting. One could argue — correctly — that that was precisely what the WH did in Acosta's case; this was no theoretical instance.

The upside to the dreadful background story? Reports CNN: "Kelly was appointed to the bench by Trump last year."

 

Trump is really on top of this voter-fraud thing

In all the unrelenting madness of the Trump administration, I missed this now two-day-old bit of presidential insight:

"The Republicans don’t win and that’s because of potentially illegal votes. When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again."

I'm assuming this remark was made at one of Trump's infamous rallies, so I'll also assume the attending crowd cheered the president's fatuity. Here are American voters who actually believe that other voters — swarthy ones, all of 'em — can just don a different hat in the execution of voter fraud; that election judges ask not for a name or signature or, in many states, a photo ID — that a repeat voter can simply walk in, grab a ballot, and vote.

Doubtless many cheered only because Trump said it. But, doubtless many others cheered because they're just paranoid and gullible enough to believe a different hat could bamboozle legitimate election judges. This is Trump's base — a pathetically naïve, immensely ignorant collection of the very voters the founders feared most.

And that's why Trump will continue cranking up the madness. Notes ThinkProgress: "Trump has previously claimed, without evidence, that 'the same person votes many times,' but this appears to be the first time the president of the United States has invoked costumes to explain his theory on voter fraud."

Be assured, this won't be Trump's last innovation. Going into 2020, the ugliness will reach once-unimagined heights — because it already does, virtually every day.

 

Does modern Mississippi really want this harpy in the U.S. Senate?

Reports Mississippi Today — which, among Republicans, is much like Mississippi yesterday:

A video published Thursday evening by Louisiana political blogger Lamar White Jr. shows [U.S. Sen. Cindy] Hyde-Smith standing outside her campaign bus at a Nov. 3 event in Starkville, on the edge of the Mississippi State University campus.

"And then they remind me that there’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don’t want to vote," Hyde-Smith said to supporters. "Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. So I think that’s a great idea."

Here's the video, from ABC affiliate WATN-TV:

The senator's reputation and the weekend of Nov. 3 might seem familiar. That's the same weekend the governor-appointed senator, now in a runoff against President Obama's agriculture secretary, Mike Espy, "joked" that "If [rancher and Tupelo resident Colin Hutchinson] invited me to a public hanging, I’d be in the front row."

To say such a thing anywhere is a sign of exceptionally poor taste; to say it in the historically lynch-rife state of Mississippi is an overt admission of Republicanism - which is as low as political taste can get.

Hyde-Smith's reaction was that criticism of her comment was "ridiculous."

Some folks believe that Republicans are more bigoted and fundamentally antidemocratic than they were, say, in the 1990s. This belief is erroneous. Republicans are simply more open about both these days.

 

Brexit a "mess"? WHAT mess?

"What we agreed yesterday was not the final [Brexit] deal," said Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday. "It is a draft treaty that means that we will leave the E.U. in a smooth and orderly way."

Two cabinet members promptly resigned — the secretary of state for exiting the European Union, and the work and pensions secretary; the NY Times describes events as a "grave crisis"; the British pound "fell sharply on the news that [the Brexit negotiator] had resigned and dropped again when the pensions minister stepped down"; the rebellious House of Commons' questions aimed at the prime minister "rang[ed] from skeptical to outright hostile"; the prime minister is under threat of losing her job as calls for a vote of "no confidence" abounded; and the often unhinged leftist leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, sounded as levelheadedly solemn as a conservative patrician in calling Ms. May's agreement "a leap in the dark, an ill-defined deal by a never-defined date" — one that will cost Britain more businesses and investments, "already underway."

The British, of course, are known for understatement. But Prime Minister May forged a broad new path in the rhetorically ironic when she promised, amid howls of condemnation and eye-splitting yelps of crisis, that Brexit will indeed proceed in a jolly-good "smooth and orderly way."

 

"Staggering" is right

From Cook Political Report's House specialist:

Staggering: if every uncalled race breaks as I expect, House Dems' class of 61 freshmen would include *35* women & just 19 white men. By contrast, Republicans' class of 31 would include 29 white men & just *one* woman.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 10, 2018

And from Hullabaloo, a powerful, Wasserman-confirming visual:

An aside:

As if you can't tell from the sidebar, I'm for Joe Biden in 2020. And yet I freely if not grudgingly concede the flaw in my support: The Democratic Party has largely become the party of women, by women — and therefore, one could forcefully argue, the party deserves a woman presidential nominee in 2020.

Nevertheless, I'm staying with Biden for pragmatic reasons, the principle one of which is: Biden can beat Trump.

 

We can't say we didn't … know?

Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman offers more insider quotes that are suggestive — as many see it, including me — of Trump's coming crackup.

***

"This is a level of insanity I’ve never seen before," one former West Wing staffer told me.

"He’s under a tremendous amount of mental stress," one prominent Republican close to him told me.

"He was furious about the [election] narrative. He said, 'Look, I went to all these states and now people are saying Trump lost the election,'" the Republican who spoke with him recalled.

"This is a matter of the president now being on his own without any countervailing force whatsoever," a person close to Trump said. "It’s just 100 percent Donald Trump doing what Donald Trump wants."

"He was worried his hair was going to get messed up in the rain [if he attended the war memorial service in France]," the source said. "[John] Bolton and everyone was telling him this was a big mistake." A former administration official said Trump hates being outside in wet conditions. "What I honestly think? He woke up and said, 'It’s pouring rain. This is a joke and I’m not doing this.'"

"The president called [WH Counselor] Johnny DeStefano today and said, 'Get the bitch [Deputy National Security Adviser Mira Ricardel] out of here or you’re gone,'" a source briefed on the conversation recalled.

***

In a mental competence hearing, the defense would argue that the above observations are merely reflective of any high-ranking executive "under a tremendous amount" of stress. And in a court of law looking only at objective, admissible facts, such an argument would work.

But on a subjective level — valid in the arena of public opinion — we emphatically suspect that Trump is a frighteningly unstable cluster of racked nerves stretched to the breaking point; that he is a clear and present danger to the welfare of the U.S., as well as the world; that he's a catastrophic flameout waiting to happen.

Knowing that was the case, future generations will ask, "Why didn't they stop him?"

 

The good cop/bad cop team of Pence/Trump

Moments ago, on MSNBC, I caught the peerlessly unctuous Mike Pence being interviewed about the special counsel's investigation. Here's what Mike had to say: "This administration has fully cooperated with the Mueller probe," but "we'll continue to focus on what matters most to the American people."

Mike, here, also this morning, is what your boss — Trump, of the Trump administration — had to say, which appears a trifle dissimilar to what you had to say: 

The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2018

....care how many lives the ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2018

Universities will someday study what highly conflicted (and NOT Senate approved) Bob Mueller and his gang of Democrat thugs have done to destroy people. Why is he protecting Crooked Hillary, Comey, McCabe, Lisa Page & her lover, Peter S, and all of his friends on the other side?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2018

The only “Collusion” is that of the Democrats with Russia and many others. Why didn’t the FBI take the Server from the DNC? They still don’t have it. Check out how biased Facebook, Google and Twitter are in favor of the Democrats. That’s the real Collusion!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2018

Detesting Trump, Americans want to keep him

It has been two years. If this country was just scarcely aware of Trump's ghastly personality and mammoth incompetence in 2016, it sure isn't now. Trump is Trump. That horror of a little man in the White House is unchanging, immutable, impervious to good advice and an open vessel for atrocious suggestions. Trump is Trump, in all his grotesqueness. So, is there any conceivable prospect of an increased percentage in "Should be re-elected"?

"It’s interesting that the number of Americans who feel Trump deserves re-election is actually smaller than the number who give him a positive job rating [43%]," said the director of Monmouth's polling, which earns an A+ in Nate Silver's rankings. "It seems that some Americans are okay with Trump as president now but feel that four years might be enough," he added.

It also seems (to hear the Dems tell it) that the danger of an impetuous Democratic impeachment has passed. But to whatever pro-impeachment sentiment remains — Monmouth has it at 36% — let the above be instructive. The country is simply not in the mood for that agonizing political procedure; Trump as president, God knows, is agonizing enough.

The more imminent danger is that some Democratic pols — especially those running for the White House — will let themselves be pushed into favoring impeachment by the core of that 36%: the activist base. Much like the right's hard core, the activist left rarely seems to grasp the upshot of majority opinion — and the electoral implications thereof.

With presidential primaries bearing down, one can easily imagine Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren or certainly Bernie Sanders pitching in with the activist base and advocating immediate impeachment on general grounds — thus splitting the party.

On the other hand, perhaps they'll keep their heads come January, and the next year as well. After all, they're reasonable, levelheaded, circumspect Democrats — every one of them. Right? Right?