Come in for some good news — truly, there is some! — before going back to worrying about our government (Bolton instead of McMaster — ugh) or your stock portfolio. Recharge your engines, and get ready to fight!
And note that this posts at what is currently my 4 am.
💙 ❤️ 💙 Russia, Russia, Russia and other nefarious deals...
Well, John Dowd, head of Trump’s legal team, has quit. Links to Dkos diary and New York Times story.
Under Mr. Dowd’s leadership, Mr. Trump’s lawyers had advised him to cooperate with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russia’s election interference and possible ties to Trump associates as well as whether the president obstructed the inquiry
The president has instead in recent days begun publicly assailing Mr. Mueller, a shift in tone that appears to be born of the president’s concern that the investigation is bearing down on him more directly. He has also privately insisted he should sit for an interview with the special counsel’s office, even though Mr. Dowd believed it was a bad idea.
Wonder what was the last straw? Trump’s sycophantic phone call to Putin, more evidence that Vlad is the only man that makes Don glad? Or Trump’s insistence on committing more obstruction of justice, as well as wanting to go and speak to Mueller. Please, Donnie, go! If you can speak to Vlad surely you can chat with Bob! And Lordy, Lordy, I hope there are tapes!
❤️ In this diary ursula points out that Mueller has lost no lawyers.
💙 Rosenstein & Schneiderman to make announcement about who broke into the DNC
Guccifer 2.0, the “lone hacker” who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. It’s an attribution that resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft.
That forensic determination has substantial implications for the criminal probe into potential collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia. The Daily Beast has learned that the special counsel in that investigation, Robert Mueller, has taken over the probe into Guccifer and brought the FBI agents who worked to track the persona onto his team.
I love the fact that Scheiderman is on it, because as the NY AG, Trump has no direct/indirect control over him. It should come out on Friday!
💜 Stormy Daniels’s attorneys have asked the Trump Org to preserve information:
Attorneys for Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who has said she was paid to remain silent about an affair with President Trump before he took office, wrote letters on Thursday to the Trump Organization and two banks asking them to preserve messages, documents and financial records they say relate to that payment.
There are bits I still don’t get about this whole affair. Daniels was paid, so why does she want to go public? And why is Trump so very terrified of her? We know he’s unfaithful and a predator so what is so new and different? Anyway, the 60 minutes interview is scheduled for this Sunday. Looking forward to it.
💙Democrats Are Great and Many Republicans Suck
💙 To be fair, senators can still sometimes work in a bipartisan manner, and the Senate Intelligence Committee wants to take steps to protect our votes. Senator Feinstein is threatening to tell everyone which states were attacked. I think it’s sort of fair to let them come forward first, but as these states were warned months ago that their systems were hacked, I think she should give them a deadline within the next few days.
💙 Scott Walker, one of the most appalling, awful Republican governors, has been ordered to hold special elections for vacant state legislature seats. The WI governor was simply going not to hold them and let people be unrepresented, because he was afraid of the big blue wave. I find this encouraging on two counts: (1) he’s afraid, which means that he’s not counting on fixing via vote tampering; (2) he’s not getting away with canceling the elections. 💙 The irony is that the ruling came from a judge appointed by Walker:
Dane County Circuit Judge Josann Reynolds, who Walker appointed in 2014, said the governor has a duty under state law to hold the special elections and failing to do so infringed on the voting rights of people in the two districts, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Walker is required to issue an order no later than next week Thursday for special elections within the next 11 weeks
💙 From Politico: Trump says he doesn’t know if his “success” will transfer to 2018 Republicans
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that although he knows he’s popular with voters, he doesn’t know whether his success will carry over to Republicans running for office in 2018.
Of course there are several things wrong with that paragraph: Trump is unpopular with voters, and his failure probably will carry over to Republicans running for office in 2018. Heh, heh. But if Trump realizes he can’t help the Rs, that means the Rs are a little freer to turn against him. Which is what we desperately need.
💙 Odds and Ends
The 💙 House actually passed a spending bill, I expect for various reasons (note still has to get through Senate). Perhaps the Rs realize that the “now-we’re-in-charge-we-can’t-govern” theme is not the best way to convince voters to re-elect them? Or maybe Trump’s reality show decided that people are sick of the shut-down-the-government before the commercial break and have decided to try something else? But they have also taken a couple of important steps against the NRA:
Those wins are more than symbolic. While the Fix NICS bill to expand background checks on gun sales is far from a solution, the fact that it wasn't paired with the bill that Republicans were insisting it on—a national concealed carry permit reciprocity—is pretty huge. Republican leadership totally blinked on that one, in the face of Freedom Caucus outrage.
Likewise, the bill finally, after two decades, will essentially lift the ban on CDC gun violence research, something that Democrats have been talking about for those two decades.
Don’t forget that March 24th (tomorrow) is the big March for our Lives march! In March!
💚 Some more nice stuff out of that omnibus bill: it increases money for clean energy research.
The $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill that needs to pass this week to avert a government shutdown increases spending on clean energy and keeps the Environmental Protection Agency funded at current levels.
That’s despite the White House suggestion that Congress cut EPA’s budget by one-third and make drastic reductions in clean energy research.
As long as we don’t spend the EPA budget on Pruitt…
💜 Also, very conservative Republicans hate that bill. Some more stuff in it:
- The bill also bars employers from taking their workers’ tips, holding back a push by Trump’s Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to allow restaurant owners to confiscate tips if they pay workers minimum wage or above.
- The bill doesn’t defund “sanctuary cities” that attempt to protect unauthorized immigrant residents from federal immigration officials, despite Trump’s last-minute push to defund the cities as part of the omnibus.
- Nor does the bill do anything to target Planned Parenthood, a common target of Republican ire.
Of course it has to get through the Senate, and Rand Paul is considering what he wants to do, but I think everyone is tired and misses the era of no drama Obama. But though there's stuff to dislike in the bill as well, it feels like a bipartisan compromise. Which is basically how our government is supposed to operate.
The bill does nothing on DACA. But here are a few little glimmers and twinkles:
💛 Hoosier (that’s Indiana) governor signs bill so that dreamers can get professional licenses: Not all Republicans are completely awful!
An Indiana Professional Licensing Agency application form change last year “effectively locked out” Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients from obtaining professional licenses in dozens of occupations ranging from nursing to cosmetology. Without an immediate fix, current licensees wouldn’t have been able to renew, and those still in training and set on applying soon would have been shut out all together. Earlier this week, Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed legislation allowing them to once again apply and renew:
Seems obvious to me you would want to do everything to keep a professional class of folks, who do, you know, specialized and really necessary work.
And a few nice stories: 💛 an immigrant mom arrested in front of her kids got to go back to them, and a 💚 dad finally got to go back to his kids.
💙 ❤️ 💙 ❤️ 💙
💙 Personal Story: About a dozen years ago, I was traveling out of LaGuardia. Several snafus with some planes meant that at least twice as many people were waiting at a gate. In consequence, seats were in short supply. So I stood near one of the posts, recognizing that others were more fatigued or not as healthy as I.
One young lady, however, was not just sitting down, but guarding two additional seats near her. This could be understood if she were saving them for a pair of elderly parents, but the minutes ticked by, and no other people came to take those seats. In the meantime she refused other elderly, infirm, and when she finally turned away a young mother with a toddler I had had it. I went over to her and told her — loud enough, it turns out, for many at the gate to hear — that she had no right to do what she was doing. I then turned to the young mother and told her to sit down (which she did).
I then went back to my post, slightly shocked by my own outburst, and hoping that I would not have to share a plane with the crazy lady (I did not). But that was not all. Several people came over and thanked me for what I had done. One man could barely choke out the words — “Thank you” — he whispered, unable to look at me. People, not just I, are so trained to avoid confrontations, to be nice no matter what, that we allow others to trample on us. And sometimes it’s hard, not just because we don’t like confrontations, but because the situation is new and familiar and we don’t know what to do. After all, it took at least fifteen minutes for me to go yell at that seat-hogger.
Several points (if they were not obvious). (1) You can, at least sometimes, shame the selfish into doing the right thing. (I am not thinking of Trump here, but some of those around him.) (2) Doing the right thing is hard for some people, but if you do it, you may inspire others. (3) You may be surprised to discover how many people agree with you.
So do what is right, and fight, fight, fight! Contact your reps. Put up signs. Yell with the indignation of the righteous. Participate. Let those in power know that we will not tolerate the traitors.
💙 ❤️ 💙 ❤️ 💙