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Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
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Washington PostVerified account @washingtonpost
Trump administration cancels plan to build new FBI headquarters to replace agency’s crumbling building downtown D.C.
meta @metaquest
Trump was going to hand the $2B contract for FBI building to Trump/Kushner partner, Steven Roth. So, what’s up?
…………………….
They were told that they couldn’t just give the contract to Kushner’s friend. So, here comes the spite. See Qatar for a reference to what happens when you don’t do things for Kushner.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/884534388326838273
What Do the Russians ‘Have’ on the Trump Family?
Fear.
Some thoughts on Junior’s changing story.
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
JUL 10, 2017
…
Let us pause for a moment and consider the Magnitsky Act. Sergei Magnitsky was an auditor from a Russian law firm who uncovered the biggest case of tax fraud in the history of Russian kleptocratic corruption, which is something. In response, Magnitsky was arrested and put on trial for tax evasion in front of a bunch of crooks in lovely kangaroo suits. He died in prison of untreated medical problems and (probably) from being beaten to death by the good people from the Interior Ministry. In 2012, the Congress passed a law that froze the assets and effectively rendered non-persons 18 Russian officials who were tied in some way to the persecution and murder of Sergei Magnitsky. This got up the nose of Vladimir Putin, who responded by suspending the adoption of Russian children by American families. He also launched a PR blitz headed by a well-connected hack lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya. Which is where Junior comes in.
Veselnitskaya was the person with whom Junior—along with Paul Manafort and the inevitable Jared Kushner—took the meeting. Let’s let Junior’s most recent explanation speak for itself, because it’s just the funniest thing ever.
In a statement on Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. said he had met with the Russian lawyer at the request of an acquaintance. “After pleasantries were exchanged,” he said, “the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.” He said she then turned the conversation to adoption of Russian children and the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers. The law so enraged President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that he retaliated by halting American adoptions of Russian children. “It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,” Mr. Trump said.
This, then, is Junior’s official explanation: I thought we were colluding to ratfck the Democratic candidate, and the presidential election in general, but then she started talking about getting the mobsters’ money back. Bitch set me up.
…
To get the full picture, the redoubtable Booman suggests that we examine the criminal complaint that Preet Bharara filed against one Denis Katsyv, another one of Veselnitskaya’s clients, and the alleged mastermind of the massive fraud that got Sergei Magnitsky killed. He’s right. The breadth and depth of the corruption is almost impossible to believe. There’s identity theft … of corporations. (I guess they really are people, too.) There’s the entire world as their laundromat, including “Manhattan real estate.” Russian security forces raided corporate offices and then used what they took to set up front companies to clean the cash. Essentially, they looted this hedge fund of about $230 million. Magnitsky looked into it. He got busted by the same people he was investigating, and it got him killed. Of course, Bharara got fired, and the case was quietly settled for $6 million and no admission of guilt by anybody.
What I believe I see here is an incredibly corrupt American family doing business with criminal gangs that are way, way out of their league, and that are in league with the institutions of government, and the formidable security apparatus, of an authoritarian state. Talk about punching out of your weight class. This isn’t cheating some poor subcontractor. These people throw you out windows. And the Trumps have being doing business in this financial abattoir for years. This doesn’t make them sharp. This makes them compliant minnows in a shark tank.
…
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a56218/trump-junior-russian-meeting/
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
https://twitter.com/TopherSpiro/status/884448235066097664
https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/884460266758569984
Use our toolkit to unleash a tidal wave of pressure on Trumpcare. Target list, phone #’s, facts, graphics. Please RT https://t.co/3XvofXuTE9
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) June 7, 2017
Trump’s lawyers push to make defamation lawsuit go away
07/10/17 11:30 AM
By Steve Benen
As much of the world no doubt recalls, Donald Trump was recorded in 2005 boasting about his romantic exploits, which eventually led him to brag about committing sexual assaults. The Republican said, among other things, that he kisses women he considers attractive – “I don’t even wait,” Trump claimed – which he said he can get away with because of his public profile.
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump said on the recording. “You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the p—y.”
After Trump denied having done what he bragged about doing, 11 women came forward to accuse the Republican of sexual misconduct – one of whom, Summer Zervos, is currently suing the president for defamation, stemming from the controversy.
The Washington Post reports that Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, who’s also helping defend the president in the Russia scandal, is pushing a few arguments in the hopes of making this case go away, including the curious idea that campaign rhetoric doesn’t count.
https://twitter.com/BlackJulieKnows/status/884270542135726080
https://youtu.be/o1dI6jZkYTI&rel=0
“They were naive…they had no way of knowing …the campaign was in disarray at the time…Don jr. and the rest of the kids had all the power at the time…and Corey Lewandowski and Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner were all jostling for favor with the kids, and going along with whatever they proposed …including showing up with meetings with unknown Russians…they had no idea who they were, and obviously never set out to collude…”
Katy Tur on MSNBC just now..
Never mind that Paul Manafort had all these dubious connections to the Russians…
Told you fam, your media ain’t shit…Everytime there’s a smoking gun, there’s always one who like clockwork, comes right in with ‘insider info’ from their ‘sources from within the buffoon’s camp’ muddying stuff up and stepping all over the smoking gun..
P.s: Hope everyone had a great weekend…Here’s hoping for a great week ahead..
The curve for inadequate, mediocre, unqualified White folk is REAL
I tweeted this too. Y’all gon get me beat up….
Since when is being naive or ignorance of the law an excuse?
Tweeted
I’m so damn tired of the excuses being made for these people. This is a family of world class GRIFTERS. Now they are occupying the WH. And every single day we lose more ground, take more steps backwards. And who pays? Who ends up paying for this?
So am I, Liza. This is socioeconomic privilege at its best. I recall a few months ago that PBO was attacked for receiving a multi-million dollar speaking fee. Why? Because the societally accepted rule is that no black person on the planet should be valuable enough to receive that kind of money for a speech. What pissed me off and compelled me to blast the likes of Van Jones and other alleged Dems on social media for attacking PBO about this is the fact that not one of these tools have said one word about GOPers and others accepting large speaking fees. They felt like the fools they are when PBO and his wife announced they’d invested $20,000,000 in job training for teens in Chicago this summer. I’m sick of the double standards based on race, religion, politics, etc. Enough! If one objects to one person or group doing a certain thing, one should object to any person or group doing the same thing, but nah, these b*tches turn a blind eye to Trump & Co. breaking laws and violating ethics rules. Don, Jr. has lawyered up because someone has informed him he’s in hot water. I don’t expect Trump supporters to see it this way because they’re incapable of classifying anything this group of corrupt crooks do as being wrong. If Trump & Co. does it, it’s A-OK, and those of us who object should keep our mouths shut. They don’t seem to understand that the only mind they can control is their own. My parents raised me to think for myself, and I plan to keep doing just that. I refuse to become an unthinking member of the Trump Cult, and one who has abandoned my Christian principles to follow a group of persons who have none.
Well said, majiir! My gut feeling right now is that by the time this is over, this so called Trump administration will be recognized as the most corrupt in our history, no other presidential administration will even be close. Getting to that point is slow and tortuous and many of the people who do not deserve to suffer are the ones who will.
As for PBO, he is so far ahead of his critics that they’ll never catch up. And I think it was very predictable that the Obamas would become major philanthropists. Their love for children is so genuine and it is a safe bet that is where their philanthropy will be focused. Too bad that some folks didn’t think about that before they spoke out.
https://twitter.com/splcenter/status/884444548595933184
At G-20 gathering, Ivanka Trump literally had a seat at the table
07/10/17 09:30 AM
By Steve Benen
There were several memorable moments from the G-20 meeting in Germany, but Bloomberg Politics flagged one of the more jarring
The president himself described this as “very standard.” Veteran diplomats drew the opposite conclusion: former NATO ambassador Nicholas Burns, who served as a diplomat under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, told the Washington Post the incident with Ivanka Trump was a breach of protocols for such summits.
Having the U.S. secretary of state take the president’s place at the table would be normal; having the president’s inexperienced daughter take his place was not.
But in the broader context, one of the striking aspects of the president’s daughter taking on such a role is how unsurprising it is.
Where the world sees failure, Team Trump sees success
07/10/17 09:00 AM—UPDATED 07/10/17 10:19 AM
By Steve Benen
By most measures, Donald Trump’s second trip as president was a disaster, though the White House chooses not to see it that way. The New York Times reported:
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer described the trip as an “historic” visit. The president himself said it was a “great success.”
That’s certainly one way to look at it. On the other hand, Andrea Mitchell, NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent, and a veteran reporter who’s covered a great many presidential trips abroad, concluded over the weekend, “I can’t think of a worse summit since Reykjavik.”
The comment referred to Reagan’s failed nuclear talks with the then-Soviet Union in 1986 – more than three decades ago.
…………………………….
The Washington Post reported that by the time Trump left Germany, officials abroad were left “fearing for the future.”
A New York Times report added that to much of the rest of the world, “the gathering underscored the administration’s growing distance with, and isolation from, the other G-20 members.”
As fight continues, GOP senator calls McConnell’s health bill ‘dead’
07/10/17 10:30 AM
By Steve Benen
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had a plan. He and his aides would write a bill in secret, rally GOP senators behind it, and then hold a vote before Congress broke for the 4th of July. That gambit failed spectacularly.
Which led McConnell to pursue Plan B. He’d make some changes to his bill, build a partisan consensus, shore up GOP support over the holiday recess, and then pass it this week. That, too, hasn’t worked out well.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) told Fox News yesterday that the legislation McConnell drafted “clearly … is dead” – a point bolstered by Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), who suggested on Friday night that the Senate Republicans’ proposal no longer exists.
As Politico put it, “It was a grim week for the Republican effort to repeal Obamacare.”
………………………………
The Washington Post reported that there’s still an “urgent blitz” on the way.
Of course, if GOP officials are re-writing the bill, quickly coming up with phony data to compete with the Congressional Budget Office’s figures might be tricky. For that matter, whether on-the-fence senators would take seriously “figures and analyses from conservative groups” is unclear.
Self-disenfranchisement is a very bad idea
07/10/17 11:00 AM
By Steve Benen
Donald Trump, with the help of some of the nation’s most aggressive voter-suppression pioneers, is moving forward with a ridiculous “voter-integrity” commission, seeking full voter rolls from every state in the nation. So far, the effort is off to an awful start, with many states nationwide – including officials from red and blue states – telling the White House’s panel to go away.
But there’s apparently a new problem: some voters, who don’t want Trump World to have their personal information, are withdrawing from the system. BuzzFeed reported:
Must-read deep dive by @janestreet: Fueled by Trump’s claims, GOP state legislatures push new requirements to vote https://t.co/zSNft4YdmE
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) July 10, 2017
At this stage, Trumpcare will get worse, not better.https://t.co/0UAAoJAd6x pic.twitter.com/LHcLAha8Bd
— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) July 10, 2017
The ACA boosted the economy, but the GOP’s #Trumpcare bill would destroy nearly 2M good-paying jobs. We must fight to #ProtectOurCare.
— Rep. Diana DeGette (@RepDianaDeGette) July 10, 2017
Attack, Attack, Attack
Why does Trump double-down every time it seems like he should retreat? Because Steve Bannon is back in his boss’s good graces.
By Joshua Green
………………………………………………
By the time he left for Saudi Arabia on May 19, Trump had awakened to the danger the Russia investigation poses to his presidency. So he brought Bannon out of the doghouse and gave him a familiar mission: to organize a defense, go after his enemies, and head off the latest threat to Trump’s political career. Bannon’s first task was to create an outside war room to “put a prophylactic around the Oval Office,” as a White House official put it, one that would shield Trump from the encroaching crisis.
That agenda took on even greater urgency when a Washington Post report on intelligence intercepts of Kislyak’s conversations revealed that Kushner had discussed setting up a secret communications channel with Moscow inside Russian diplomatic facilities. Soon after, the Post reported that Mueller was investigating Kushner’s financial dealings and scrutinizing the meetings he omitted from his security-clearance application.
(Kushner hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing and his lawyers say he is eager to cooperate with investigators.) According to advisers inside and outside the White House, Trump grew frustrated with his son-in-law, not just over the Russia stories but over reports that members of Kushner’s family, in an effort to entice Chinese investors seeking EB-5 visas to back a New Jersey real-estate project, hinted at their Trump connection. Both issues hastened Bannon’s resurrection.
……………………………………….
It’s not that Bannon can’t be a shrewd tactician — he often is — but his tactics are usually directed at tearing down his enemies, something he’s done on Trump’s behalf since the earliest days of the president’s political rise. Mueller looms as the greatest threat to Trump’s presidency, and is therefore the object of his chief strategist’s latest machinations. Bannon told an associate that one reason he set up the war room outside the White House, rather than inside, was so that his team would have more freedom to “throw some fucking haymakers.”
So this is what it feels like to watch the entire federal government come apart at the seams.
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) July 10, 2017
Here comes the cavalry: 7-figure TV ad buy targeting Heller, Murkowski, and Capito. Here’s the Heller ad:https://t.co/v8Ma51F7K3
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) July 9, 2017
WFCO invites you to our 30th anniversary celebration 7/25 feat convo w former #FLOTUS Michelle Obama. https://t.co/L2A9A3pvB7 #WFCOTogether pic.twitter.com/89vuF8eRYv
— WFCO (@WFColorado) July 8, 2017
There’s still time to take important steps to safeguard our election systems ahead of the 2018 and 2020 elections. https://t.co/DM421jkCFk
— Brennan Center (@BrennanCenter) July 9, 2017
House Freedom Caucus Approaches a Reckoning
by Martin Longman
July 8, 2017 11:45 AM
I don’t think there is any formal list of the members of the House Freedom Caucus, but it appears to have about 30 members. At the moment, there are 240 Republican members of Congress and 194 Democratic members, with one seat vacant due to the resignation of Jason Chaffetz of Utah. Assuming all members are voting, the Speaker needs 218 votes to pass a bill.
If the roughly 30 members of the House Freedom Caucus refuse to support a bill, that gives Speaker Ryan about 210 votes. On some issues, he might be able to find eight to ten Democrats who will support him, but that’s simply not the case on a bill to repeal or replace Obamacare.
Now, there are some bills that absolutely need to pass. Foremost among these are the appropriations bills that fund governmental operations. Without these bills, the government shuts down. This can be resolved for a while by passing temporary bills to keep the government funded at previous levels, but then the Freedom Caucus needs to support those continuing resolutions, too, or the Speaker still needs to go to the Democrats for votes. Another prime example of a must-pass bill is one that raises the borrowing or debt limit of the federal government. During the Obama administration, Speaker John Boehner had to go to the Democrats repeatedly to get the votes he needed to pass these kinds of bills. Eventually, this irritated the House Freedom Caucus enough that they forced Boehner into retirement and replaced him with Ryan.
We’re rapidly approaching a new situation in which the House Republicans will have a different kind of must-pass bill on their plate. This will be a bill that becomes necessary if the Senate cannot pass any version of their Better Care Reconciliation Act.
uh huh
uh huh
Hiding Out: Why Republicans Really Don’t Want an August Recess
by D.R. Tucker
July 10, 2017 5:00 AM
From a certain perspective, this June 30 report was the least surprising story of the year:
Why don’t Rahm Emannuel go back to hell from which he came?!
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/884405360337047553
Trump’s Con Won’t Work This Time
by David Atkins July 9, 2017 4:02 PM
Donald Trump has spent a lifetime conning people. From his earliest days wheedling banks out of their money to run failing casinos, to selling overpriced low-quality steaks and fraudulent real estate courses with his name on them, to projecting the image of a hard-nosed businessman for a fake reality show, Trump has always been about the con. His answer to any challenge is to bluster and bull his way through.
So it should come as no surprise that, rather than try to mitigate the damage of whatever may have happened between his campaign and the Russians in 2016 by being aggressive with Putin at the G20 summit, Trump’s strategy was to be chummy with the Russian dictator then try to declare that everyone should ignore the whole thing and move forward:
……………………….
Trying to bluff one’s way through a sticky situation is the hallmark of a veteran con artist. But that won’t work this time for Trump and his family. There comes a point at which too many people are paying attention, and the stakes are too high, for bluffing to work. The talented con artist changes tactics at this point. Among the possibilities are pretending to hold underlings accountable, false contrition, fake shows of aggressive bravado against the very criminal actors one colluded with, and the like.
Obama returns to political fray for a Democratic Party cause
.@lisamurkowski .@SenDanSullivan Doctors & Nurses know #BCRA is #wealthcare not #healthcare & NOT better than #ACA. We need #CareNotChaos pic.twitter.com/J5uLMx6prK
— Judith Fardig (@FardigJudith) July 9, 2017
From Mayhew at Balloon Juice:
Keep on Calling, just keep on calling
by David Andersonat8:21 am on July 10, 2017. It has 1 Comment.
The Senate is back in town.
You know what that means.
Time to keep on calling the DC offices and the local offices and tell the interns answering the phones your strong, polite and coherently worded opinions on the AHCA/BCRA tax cut bills.
Andy Slavitt lays out the contours of the next two week:
The fundamental assumption in that tweet is that no Republican wants to by the decisive vote. The two allowable “No’s” have been taken by Heller and Collins. If there is a single vote left on the floor and the count is 49 Yes-50 No, the pressure will be immense to not be the person blamed for killing the bill. The bill will probably go to the floor if McConnell can count on 47 or 48 solid Aye votes. He figures he can arm twist and allow a political pressure cooker to squeeze the last few people whose personal political preference is “Vote No, hope yes but is there if needed.”
So that means the hard No’s need to be locked down. So people from West Virginia, call Senator Moore Capito; people from Kansas call Sen. Moran. Keep on calling.
Good Morning, Everyone 😐 😐😐