Happy Black Friday
Because yesterday was Thanksgiving and reporters and Republicans and even some of the resistance were watching the games, eating turkey, or relaxing in some other way, there’s a little less news, at least news being reported. But let’s start with the biggie:
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, notified the president’s legal team in recent days that they could no longer discuss the special counsel’s investigation, according to four people involved in the case, an indication that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with prosecutors or negotiating a deal.
Mr. Flynn’s lawyers had been sharing information with Mr. Trump’s lawyers about the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining whether anyone around Mr. Trump was involved in Russian efforts to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
That agreement has been terminated, the four people said. Defense lawyers frequently share information during investigations, but they must stop when doing so would pose a conflict of interest. It is unethical for lawyers to work together when one client is cooperating with prosecutors and another is still under investigation.
The NYT article here.
This is really promising, isn’t it? More signs that it is happening: evidently Trump has stopped paying Flynn’s legal bills.
And remember, Flynn was the one that Trump wanted Comey not to investigate. As Trump only cares about himself, that probably means Flynn is in a position to do real damage to the popular-vote loser president.
VIVE LA RéSISTANCE!
Tom Steyer and his team sent out an email to the millions of petition signees thus far, explaining more about what, where, how and why they opted to Billboard ad.
If you happened to be walking around Times Square today, like countless Americans do every day, you may have noticed something:
A brand new Need To Impeach digital billboard, featuring a map and a running count of the 2.5 million Americans (and growing by the second!) who have already signed our petition to impeach Donald Trump.
Get the idea out there. When I write to my representative and senators, I often include a bit about how much I would like Trump to be gone, somehow.
A friend of mine and I made a sign saying “LOCK UP PUTIN’S PUP” and put it up. Thousands have seen it because after two months it’s still there. I’m out of the country, but she is going to show it to her kids and maybe make another.
The redneck Sheriff who harassed a woman over a controversial political sticker on her truck would have done better to have left this woman alone. Karen Fonseca, the woman who had the colorful and eye catching “Fuck Trump And Fuck You Too For Voting For Him,” decal is now selling her design as a bumper sticker and raising money for the local Democratic party.
I’d recommend leaving off the word “redneck” which some consider offensive, but I am terribly offended by Trump. Anyway, this is someone hitting back ten times harder.
A federal judge on Wednesday overturned Texas’ ban of a common second trimester abortion procedure, setting back the state's latest effort to limit abortion.
U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel said that the ban on “dilation and evacuation” abortions, approved by the Texas Legislature in May, would force women seeking second trimester abortions to resort to riskier, invasive alternatives.
This is not the first court to overturn a similar statute in another law.
This article from 538 shows that Jones is a little ahead — and that Moore may fall even further.
But the deterioration in Moore’s standing may be even greater than that.
Let’s take a look at the three pollsters — Change Research, Gravis Marketing and Strategy Research — that conducted at least two surveys after the allegations. Change Research’s first post-allegations poll, conducted Nov. 9-11, had Moore at +4 points. As we noted above, its Nov. 15-16 survey had Jones at +3. Gravis Marketing showed an identical 7-point shift toward Jones, going from Moore +2 on Nov. 10 to Jones +5 in its Nov. 14-15 poll. Strategy Research, meanwhile, went from Moore +6 in its poll ending on Nov. 13 to Moore +2 in its poll ending on Nov. 21.
In other words, it doesn’t seem like the allegations against Moore took a one-time bite out of his support. Instead, he seems to have experienced a steady decline in the polls.
Of course, it is not a done deal, because some of those folks in Alabama sure hate Democrats, and Democrats are supposedly just as bad (this is one reason why Franken has been in the news for what seems to me to be a far lesser offense). But the thought that we could convert Sessions’ old seat into a Democrat’s — and an especially a good and hardworking man like Jones — wow, that would be some gift.
In the meantime Moore is still causing really big qualms for at least some Republicans:
A Republican congressman has said he would have beaten up Roy Moore, the GOP nominee for a US Senate seat in Alabama, if any of the women who have made sexual misconduct allegations against the judge had been his daughter.
“The 14-year-old girl that was there, I can tell you right now if it was my daughter, I’d break his face, I’d break his fingers, and I’d probably do a lot worse,” Virginia representative Scott Taylor told CNN on Wednesday.
Hmm, if Moore gets to Congress maybe he’ll get jumped by some of the members!
Turkey (the country, not yesterday’s bird) is not so happy with Trump
Amid all this, it seems that every week someone declares that U.S.-Turkey relations have reached an unprecedented nadir. There has been trouble as long as the relationship has existed, at times even reaching what some might call a “crisis.” Still, it is hard to remember a time when there was so much distrust and outright animosity between Washington and Ankara. In October, after the arrest of a U.S. consulate employee in Istanbul, the United States went so far as to stop processing nonimmigrant visas for Turks, which prompted the Turkish government to do the same to Americans seeking to visit Turkey. Officials in Ankara had high hopes for Trump because he promised to undo whatever Barack Obama had done, and the Turks figured that included Turkey policy. But from their perspective, Trump has proved no better than his predecessor, whom Erdogan came to loathe.
Of course, it’s not good news that we’re annoying allies, especially as Turkey is a fascinating country with an amazing history, and that is an area of the world where we really need friends. But what is good is that Trump may be losing support among some of his strong-man dictators or dictator wannabes. And if Trump is disappointing them, maybe he’ll disappoint some others. As Trump’s strongest support has been among those people, that’s a good sign.
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Resistance is hard. It’s easy to become discouraged. The point of this diary is to remind everyone that we do have allies, that we are winning some of the battles, and that many people care deeply about saving our democracy.
It is not easy, and in many ways it has been a shock to encounter this struggle. Most of us have grown up in conditions so privileged compared to other generations that we do not even comprehend our luck. But now we have a fight on many fronts, as people, rights, truth, facts, and pretty much all we hold dear are being attacked. We should remember that our ancestors have also had to struggle and to fight. This is our fight, the fight of our generation. I can’t guarantee that we will win, but fight we must. And there may be defeats, losses, even lost lives. But fight we must, because if we do not fight, we will lose even more.
Choose your battles. Engage. Tell us what you have done, and we’ll share tactics.