Trump Picks Right Winger for SCOTUS

Trump just nominated the judge who will have to likely rule on Trump's claims to be above the law.

Der Trumpenfurher has nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court - the sole individual on the list of possible nominees who has a written record of arguing that a sitting president is immune from criminal indictment or investigation.  Two things that Trump well may face in the near term.  Some are already arguing that Trump "judge shopped" looking forward to his own possible legal problems that could come before the Court.  Others argue that Kavanaugh was chosen because of his extreme views on executive power and because he is a top choice of right-wing activists groups - the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society - who have spent decades working to take over the Supreme Court to push their own extreme anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-minority voting rights agenda. Some are very concerned that Kavanaugh will further erode the concept of the separation of church and state.   An editorial in the Washington Post cautions Republican Senators to do their job and carefully scrutinize Kavanaugh - not that they will heed such common sense advice.  Here are editorial highlights:

Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to replace retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court comes at a tense moment. It could drastically shift the court’s tenuous ideological balance, and it comes not long after Senate Republicans disgracefully blocked President Barack Obama from making a court pick in his final year.  More than ever, the court is in danger of becoming viewed as an instrument of politics rather than an independent, nonpartisan branch of government.

That is why senators must be even more exacting than usual when they evaluate Mr. Kavanaugh. They should insist on a justice who would rule with modesty and genuine independence of mind — and a willingness to resist abuses of power by this and future presidents. Mr. Kavanaugh meets the basic qualifications for high court service. A Yale Law School graduate who clerked for Mr. Kennedy, he has served for 12 years on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The country certainly could have expected worse from President Trump. Yet Mr. Kavanaugh came from a list of potential nominees preapproved by conservative activist groups. Their goal is to tilt the court as far right as possible as quickly as possible. Mr. Trump’s first nominee, Neil M. Gorsuch, was, in his confirmation hearings, the least forthcoming Supreme Court nominee in recent memory. Mr. Kavanaugh must do better. Fortunately, he comes with a huge record.

On hot-button questions, Mr. Kavanaugh has trended conservative on issues such as abortion, indicating a narrow view of what constitutes an undue burden on a woman’s right to end her pregnancy, and the Obamacare contraception mandate, though his take on the mandate was somewhat more conciliatory than right-wing activists would prefer. A nemesis of the administrative state, he has frequently voted against the Environmental Protection Agency, arguing that programs to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions and cross-border air pollution went further than the law allowed; in each case he took an overly narrow view of the statute.  They should also press Mr. Kavanaugh on when, if ever, the court should overturn precedents. Because Federalist Society officials pre-vetted potential nominees, senators should inquire about concepts the society espouses, such as originalism and textualism. What happens when the original meaning of a law is not clear, or when there was dispute about its meaning at the time it was written? Most importantly, senators must extract an ironclad commitment that Mr. Kavanaugh will act as a check on the president. That’s a role he has not seemed comfortable playing in cases involving enemy combatants, or in a law review article suggesting that the president should not be subject to civil or criminal court proceedings while in office. There is always a danger that justices will be seen as loyal to the presidents and parties that installed them; that danger is particularly pronounced now, as Mr. Trump ignores traditional boundaries on presidential action and the Republican Party mostly enables his autocratic instincts. Just as Democrats should not have ruled out Mr. Trump’s pick before it was announced, Republicans should not duck their responsibility to bring a critical eye to the coming confirmation process.

Again, Senate Republicans should do their constitutional duty and be mindful of issues on which the majority of Americans have firm opinions - e.g., abortion, gay rights, minority rights, voting rights, and racial discrimination. Sadly, I doubt that they will do their duty.  Indeed, I predict that they will not.  

Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

More Monday Male Beauty

Putin Summit: Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler?

A very lengthy piece in New York Magazine reviews a scenario that I personally suspect is true: a Russian intelligence asset currently occupies the White House and the Republican Party, more concerned about their Party's successes, have willingly turned a blind eye to the nightmare befalling the country. Trump has long operated outside the law and engaged in behavior that would make him a perfect candidate for blackmail.  Moreover, given his arrogance and narcissism, he always believes he is smarter than everyone else.  He likely has met his match in Vladimir Putin, a former KBG spymaster, who may well have maneuvered Trump to exactly where Putin wants him so that Trump can single-handedly destroy the 70 year old western alliance.  It is a long piece, but take the time to read the entire piece.  It will leave you very afraid.  Here are excerpts:

The unfolding of the Russia scandal has been like walking into a dark cavern. Every step reveals that the cave runs deeper than we thought, and after each one, as we wonder how far it goes, our imaginations are circumscribed by the steps we have already taken. The cavern might go just a little farther, we presume, but probably not much farther. And since trying to discern the size and shape of the scandal is an exercise in uncertainty, we focus our attention on the most likely outcome, which is that the story goes a little deeper than what we have already discovered. Say, that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort told their candidate about the meeting they held at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer after they were promised dirt on Hillary Clinton; and that Trump and Kushner have some shady Russian investments; and that some of Trump’s advisers made some promises about lifting sanctions.

But what if that’s wrong? What if we’re still standing closer to the mouth of the cave than the end?

What is missing from our imagination is the unlikely but possible outcome on the other end: that this is all much worse than we suspect. After all, treating a small probability as if it were nonexistent is the very error much of the news media made in covering the presidential horse race. And while the body of publicly available information about the Russia scandal is already extensive, the way it has been delivered — scoop after scoop of discrete nuggets of information — has been disorienting and difficult to follow. What would it look like if it were reassembled into a single narrative, one that distinguished between fact and speculation but didn’t myopically focus on the most certain conclusions?

One of the oddities of the Russia scandal is that many of the most exotic and sinister theories have come from people within government and especially within the intelligence field.

The first intimations that Trump might harbor a dark secret originated among America’s European allies, which, being situated closer to Russia, have had more experience fending off its nefarious encroachments. In 2015, Western European intelligence agencies began picking up evidence of communications between the Russian government and people in Donald Trump’s orbit. In April 2016, one of the Baltic states shared with then–CIA director John Brennan an audio recording of Russians discussing funneling money to the Trump campaign. In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, head of the U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ, flew to Washington to brief Brennan on intercepted communications between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The contents of these communications have not been disclosed, but what Brennan learned obviously unsettled him profoundly. In congressional testimony on Russian election interference last year, Brennan hinted that some Americans might have betrayed their country. “Individuals who go along a treasonous path,” he warned, “do not even realize they’re along that path until it gets to be a bit too late.” In an interview this year, he put it more bluntly: “I think [Trump] is afraid of the president of Russia. The Russians may have something on him personally that they could always roll out and make his life more difficult.”

Suppose we are currently making the same mistake we made at the outset of this drama — suppose the dark crevices of the Russia scandal run not just a little deeper but a lot deeper. If that’s true, we are in the midst of a scandal unprecedented in American history, a subversion of the integrity of the presidency. It would mean the Cold War that Americans had long considered won has dissolved into the bizarre spectacle of Reagan’s party’s abetting the hijacking of American government by a former KGB agent. It would mean that when Special Counsel Robert Mueller closes in on the president and his inner circle, possibly beginning this summer, Trump may not merely rail on Twitter but provoke a constitutional crisis.

And it would mean the Russia scandal began far earlier than conventionally understood and ended later — indeed, is still happening. As Trump arranges to meet face-to-face and privately with Vladimir Putin later this month, the collusion between the two men metastasizing from a dark accusation into an open alliance, it would be dangerous not to consider the possibility that the summit is less a negotiation between two heads of state than a meeting between a Russian-intelligence asset and his handler.

It is often said that Donald Trump has had the same nationalistic, zero-sum worldview forever. But that isn’t exactly true. Yes, his racism and mendacity have been evident since his youth, but those who have traced the evolution of his hypernationalism all settle on one year in particular: 1987. . . . .[Trump] has believed for 30 years that these alliance commitments are a drain on our finite national treasure,” a White House official told the Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin. Tom Wright, another scholar who has delved into Trump’s history, reached the same conclusion. “1987 is Trump’s breakout year.

The other important event from that year is that Trump visited Moscow.

During the Soviet era, Russian intelligence cast a wide net to gain leverage over influential figures abroad. (The practice continues to this day.) The Russians would lure or entrap not only prominent politicians and cultural leaders, but also people whom they saw as having the potential for gaining prominence in the future. In 1986, Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin met Trump in New York, flattered him with praise for his building exploits, and invited him to discuss a building in Moscow. Trump visited Moscow in July 1987. He stayed at the National Hotel, in the Lenin Suite, which certainly would have been bugged.

Trump returned from Moscow fired up with political ambition. He began the first of a long series of presidential flirtations, which included a flashy trip to New Hampshire. Two months after his Moscow visit, Trump spent almost $100,000 on a series of full-page newspaper ads that published a political manifesto.

Trump’s letter avoided the question of whom the U.S. was protecting those countries from. The primary answer, of course, was the Soviet Union. After World War II, the U.S. had created a liberal international order and underwritten its safety by maintaining the world’s strongest military. A central goal of Soviet, and later Russian, foreign policy was to split the U.S. from its allies.

[I]t seems slightly insane to contemplate the possibility that a secret relationship between Trump and Russia dates back this far. But it can’t be dismissed completely. How do you even think about the small but real chance — 10 percent? 20 percent? — that the president of the United States has been covertly influenced or personally compromised by a hostile foreign power for decades?

Russian intelligence gains influence in foreign countries by operating subtly and patiently. It exerts different gradations of leverage over different kinds of people, and uses a basic tool kit of blackmail that involves the exploitation of greed, stupidity, ego, and sexual appetite. All of which are traits Trump has in abundance.

Throughout his career, Trump has always felt comfortable operating at or beyond the ethical boundaries that constrain typical businesses. . . . The combination of a penchant for compromising behavior, a willingness to work closely with criminals, and a desire to protect aspects of his privacy makes him the ideal blackmail target.

It is not difficult to imagine that Russia quickly had something on Trump, from either exploits during his 1987 visit or any subsequent embarrassing behavior KGB assets might have uncovered. But the other leverage Russia enjoyed over Trump for at least 15 years is indisputable — in fact, his family has admitted to it multiple times. After a series of financial reversals and his brazen abuse of bankruptcy laws, Trump found it impossible to borrow from American banks and grew heavily reliant on unconventional sources of capital. Russian cash proved his salvation.

In July 2013, Trump visited Moscow again. If the Russians did not have a back-channel relationship or compromising file on Trump 30 years ago, they very likely obtained one then. Former FBI director James Comey recounts in his book that Trump was obsessed with reports that he had been recorded in a hotel room watching prostitutes urinate on a bed that Barack Obama had once slept in. Trump, Comey wrote, “argued that it could not be true because he had not stayed overnight in Moscow but had only used the hotel room to change his clothes.” The journalists Michael Isikoff and David Corn have reconstructed Trump’s trip to Moscow and established that he did in fact stay overnight.

There has never been much doubt about Russia’s motive to engineer a caper like this. Russian intelligence has a documented and long-standing practice of gathering compromising intelligence on visiting dignitaries. The use of prostitutes and the bugging of hotel rooms are standard. The skepticism has instead focused on both the source of the allegations, former British-intelligence official turned private investigator Christopher Steele, and Trump himself.

While the president’s character has never been exactly deemed above reproach, some doubts have lingered about whether he would really hire prostitutes to defile a bed merely because Obama had slept there and whether a tape of such a thing would truly shame him.

These questions have been answered in the affirmative. Trump’s payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels and other women proves that he holds his sexual privacy dear. And the obsessive hatred of Obama that grew out of Trump’s humiliation at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner has blossomed into a perverse and often self-destructive mania. People both inside and outside the administration report that Trump will ultimately pick whatever option he believes is the negation of Obama’s legacy. “He will ask: ‘Did Obama approve this?’ And if the answer is affirmative, he will say: ‘We don’t,’ ” a European diplomat told BuzzFeed News.

It’s not necessary to believe that Putin always knew he might install Trump in the Oval Office to find the following situation highly plausible: Sometime in 2015, the Russian president recognized that he had, in one of his unknown number of intelligence files, an inroad into American presidential politics. The Republican nominees from 2008 and 2012 had both run on a hawkish position against Russia (Mitt Romney had called the country America’s “No. 1 geopolitical foe”). Now, on the fringes of the GOP primaries, there was a candidate opening up what was, from Putin’s standpoint, a much-needed flank against not just Obama but his former secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aggressive position against Russia. . . . Then Trump captured the nomination and his value increased exponentially.  At that point, it would have been strange if Russia didn’t help Trump.

This much was clear in March 2016: The person who managed the campaign of a pro-Russian candidate in Ukraine was now also managing the campaign of a pro-Russian candidate in the United States. And Trump’s campaign certainly looked like the same play Putin had run many times before: Trump inflamed internal ethnic division, assailed the corruption of the elite, attacked Western allies while calling for cooperation with Russia, and sowed distrust in the fairness of the vote count. And in addition to deploying social-media bots and trolls, Russia apparently spent directly to help elect Trump. The FBI is investigating Alexander Torshin, a Russian banker who built ties to Republicans and allegedly funneled campaign funds to the National Rifle Association, which spent three times as much to help Trump as it had on behalf of Romney four years earlier.

And if you’re Putin, embarking upon a coveted summit with the most Russophilic president since World War II, who is taking a crowbar to the alliance of your enemies, why wouldn’t you help him in 2018 and 2020? Ever since the fall of 2016, when Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell privately turned down an Obama-administration proposal for a bipartisan warning to Russia not to interfere in the election, the underlying dynamic has been set: Most Republicans would rather win an election with Putin’s help than lose one without it.

Again, read the entire piece.  It is VERY disturbing because what it lays out is all to plausible.

7th Wrestler: Jordan “Definitely Knew”

Deliciously, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan's problems and accusations that he was well aware of sexual abuse taking place with members of the Ohio State wrestling team by the team physician. Now, seven of the former wrestlers have stated that Jordan had to know what was happening and merely looked away rather than protect the team's members. All of this is coming out as Jordan, a reactionary, anti-gay, anti-woman Republican had been maneuvering to succeed the toxic Paul Ryan as speaker of the House of Representatives.  With luck, the growing scandal will derail Jordan's efforts and, with more luck, force him from office.  Jordan embodies so much of what is wrong with today's Republican Party.  Here are excerpts from the Washington Post:

A seventh former Ohio State University wrestler said Saturday that he believes Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) knew about inappropriate behavior that allegedly took place in the school’s athletic department three decades ago, as two more former team members came to Jordan’s defense.

David Range, who wrestled for Ohio State in the late 1980s, said Jordan had to have known about alleged sexual misconduct by Richard Strauss, an athletic doctor whose behavior is under investigation by the school, because it happened regularly to team members and people talked about it.

“Jordan definitely knew that these things were happening — yes, most definitely,” Range told The Washington Post. “It was there. He knew about it because it was an everyday occurrence.”

Range said he never discussed the issue directly with Jordan one on one and did not know whether anyone made a formal report, but he said Jordan was present during group conversations in the locker room about Strauss’s behavior.

“We talked about it all the time in the locker room” while Jordan was there, he said.

Range said Strauss, who has been accused of abusing athletes in more than a dozen sports during his time as an athletic doctor, touched wrestlers inappropriately during examinations and ogled them in the locker room showers.

Jordan has been under scrutiny since July 3, when NBC News quoted three former wrestlers saying he knew or must have known about inappropriate behavior in the athletic department. Three others have said the same in news accounts since then.

The reports come at a delicate time for Jordan, who has been under pressure from conservative political organizations to mount a bid to replace Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who will not run for reelection.

Asked for comment for this story, a spokesman for Jordan referred The Post to his interview with Fox News on Friday night.

Michael Alf, who joined the team in the late 1980s, said the environment in the Ohio State locker room was “definitely disturbing,” with non-team members using the showers to ogle the wrestlers.

“There was definitely inappropriate things that in my opinion were pretty disgusting going on all around us. You just took your shower and got out,” he said.

Nothing more fun that exposing the hypocrisy of a "family values" Republican.  I truly hoe this takes Jordan down before it is all over.

Monday Morning Male Beauty

More Sunday Male Beauty

New Study: Only Two Thirds of Gen Z Is Straight

The findings of a new study ought to have Christofascists and their Republican political whores terrified.  Even as these extremists press their anti-LGBT agenda, the study finds that younger generations are increasingly saying that they are not exclusively heterosexual.  In the case of Generation Z - those born after 1995, a full one-third say that they are not exclusively heterosexual. It goes without saying that as this generation ages and votes more consistently, the news will not be good for the GOP which will also be facing growing numbers of non-white voters. Thanks to the Trump/Pence regime, the GOP is becoming irrevocable linked with racism and homophobia.  A piece in The Advocate.  Here are excerpts:

The youngest generation is proving to be the most tolerant and the most fluid, as same-sex couples and numerous sexual identities are given a platform in newer media and information is becoming increasingly accessible. 

Only 66 percent of young people today identify as exclusively heterosexual - which is the lowest of any generation up until this point,  according to a study from Ipsos Mori.

Baby boomers prove to have the highest percentage, with 88 percent identifying as solely heterosexual, whereas that number drops to 85 percent with Gen X, and 71 percent among millennials, the study says.

"In particular, this generation of young has grown up at a time when gender as a simple binary and fixed identity has been questioned much more widely – this is new, and will affect wider views of gender, sexuality and much broader aspects of identity," Hannah Shrimpton, one of the authors of the report, told the Daily Telegraph.

Shrimpton also said that there is "greater exposure to communications on the variety of lifestyles available to young people today through social technology.”

The study has labeled Gen Z “the liberal generation” and finds that 10 percent of the generation regards prejudice toward the LGBT community as one of the most pressing issues in the world today, as compared to only 2 percent of Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers who believe the same.

Other studies published by Ipsos Mori suggest that over 70 percent of Gen Z is comfortable with homosexual relationships, as compared to the 43 percent of Baby Boomers.

Figures from other organizations confirm Ipsos Mori’s suggestion that younger generations are more likely to either identify as LGBT or be accepting of the LGBT community, and that the percentage of the younger generation is more likely to do either continues to rise over time. 

The Ipsos Mori study also reports that young people are more likely to have a “less binary view of sexuality,” which suggests that younger generations do not feel as strong a pressure to use the label “gay” or “straight” but are comfortable with viewing sexuality as a sliding scale that they can fall somewhere in the middle of.

With popular figures such as Tessa Thompson, who came out as bi at the end of June, and Janelle Monae, who came out as pansexual earlier this year, young people have more popular figures in the media to look up who fall somewhere in between binaries when it comes to sexuality.

The GOP despite the Trump/Pence regime continues its slow moving suicide by alienating the growing and up and coming generations.  Its death cannot come soon enough.

EPA Is Hiding Proof That a Widely Used Chemical Causes Leukemia

Under the Trump/Pence regime, the EPA has ceased worrying about protecting the environment and the health of American citizens.  Instead, its focus has become one of protecting industries and allowing the destruction of the environment.  Now, endangering the lives of citizens can be added to the EPA's agenda.  While Scott Pruitt has resigned as head of the agency, do not expect things to improve as long as Trump/Pence remain in power. As a number of news outlets are reporting, the EPA is suppressing the release of its finalized its conclusion that formaldehyde causes leukemia and other cancers.  Better to protect industry and chemical companies than the lives of both American children and adults.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at this disturbing malice towards the safety of citizens.   Here are article highlights:

During a Senate hearing in late January, Ed Markey asked then-EPA director Scott Pruitt about a little rumor that he’d overheard. “It’s my understanding,” the Massachusetts senator said, “that the EPA has finalized its conclusion that formaldehyde causes leukemia and other cancers and that [the] completed new assessment is ready to be released for public review, but is being held up.”

Formaldehyde is one of the most ubiquitous industrial chemicals in the United States. It’s in much of the wooden furniture that Americans sit in, the body wash they clean themselves with — and, for those who live in the vicinity of a major refinery, the air that they breathe. And here, the director of the agency responsible for protecting the American people from toxic chemicals was saying, under oath, that he was vaguely aware of a report linking formaldehyde to a variety of terminal illnesses.

If that report were released — and its findings independently verified by the National Academies of Sciences — then the EPA would strengthen restrictions on the chemical’s use, while cancer patients could draw on the findings in class-action lawsuits. The effect of all this would be to force industry to reduce its reliance on formaldehyde — and thus, to reduce the number of Americans who suffer from the ravages of Leukemia, nose and throat cancer, and a variety of less severe respiratory ailments.

[O]n Friday, a blockbuster report from Politico offered some insight into the cause of the EPA’s silence.

On January 24, the EPA’s top officials took a meeting with the American Chemistry Council’s Formaldehyde Panel — an industry group representing a variety of firms, including Exxon Mobil and a Koch Industries’ subsidiary. Two days later, the panel’s leader Kimberly Wise White wrote the EPA a letter, saying, “As stated in our meeting, a premature release of a draft assessment … will cause irreparable harm to the companies represented by the Panel and to the many companies and jobs that depend on the broad use of the chemical.”

In November 2017, Pruitt had removed multiple academic scientists from the EPA’s influential Science Advisory Board. He replaced with industry advocates — among them, Kimberly Wise White.

EPA officials who spoke with Politico say that the “scientific advice” of White and her ilk has led the agency to suppress the draft report on formaldehyde, as part of a broader “campaign to undermine the agency’s independent research into the health risks of toxic chemicals.”

That campaign has included a proposal to limit the EPA’s use of certain kinds of data on human health — while maintaining a special exemption for confidential, industry-funded studies that contain such data. Pruitt and his aides have also sought to postpone the release of a Health department study that suggests nonstick chemicals pose health risks, even at levels that the EPA had previously deemed safe — and, last May, the passionately “pro-life” EPA director overruled his agency’s scientists, and declined to ban a pesticide that’s been linked to fetal brain damage.

Trump’s appointees aren’t trying to subject the EPA’s report to independent scrutiny — they’re trying to prevent such scrutiny. As Politico explains: By blocking the report at the first step of the IRIS review process, political appointees are keeping it from being reviewed by the National Academies of Sciences, an independent panel of the country’s top scientists that must weigh in on all such risk assessments.

Pruitt is, of course, gone; his personal corruption having become too much of a distraction from his agency’s vital mission of helping the Republican Party’s donors evade financial responsibility for poisoning Americans.

But that mission is safe in the hands of the EPA’s new acting director, Andrew Wheeler. As staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2004, Wheeler worked to delay an earlier version of the EPA’s formaldehyde analysis – and went on to profitable career as chemical industry lobbyist.

[A] recent Gallup poll found a supermajority of voters saying that the government is doing “too little” to protect the environment, while 57 percent of respondents said the government should prioritize environmental protection over economic growth.

[T]he public is already inclined to believe that Republicans are too deferential to polluters. Thus, Democrats would be wise to campaign against the GOP’s policy of “giving more Americans cancer and fetal defects for the sake of keeping chemical manufacturers’ regulatory compliance costs low” this fall.

Sunday Morning Male Beauty