The truth is not kind to Trump, and ever more desperate attacks on it are not helping

Doesn’t it seem that right-wing “outrage” over some perceived “injustice” done against them always seem just a little overcooked? To the right, any law or policy proposal that addresses societal, economic or healthcare dysfunction is an “outrage” if the “fix” isn’t just to throw people in jail or deport them. Of course, you can’t just “jail” or “deport” 80,000+ dead from the COVID-19, or a 15 percent unemployment rate. You would think that reasonable people would be tiring of Donald Trump, a Republican-controlled Senate, and this whole act generally, and the 2020 election will be an opportunity for the electorate to prove that it has come to its senses and send him packing to the dog house of history where he belongs. 

Of course nothing in the Trump “era” makes much sense, and for the past few weeks Trump, his Congressional sycophants and the right-wing media have been attempting to puff smoke into people’s eyes with the “outrages” committed against Trump and his familiars by Barack Obama in permitting the FBI to run amuck against him before the 2016 election,  by the unfair “sting” operation to catch Trump associates like Michael Flynn thinking that giving false testimony isn’t actually a crime, and  “shifty” House Intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff’s refusal to release what was at the time the Republican-led intelligence committee’s “secret” interviews with interested parties in the Russian probe. 

The reality, of course, is somewhat different. As some of us may recall, it was not Trump but Hillary Clinton who seemed to have been the one most damaged by FBI interest during the election, not Trump.  Some of us may also recall that not a month ago the U.S. Senate intelligence committee released a report that reached the exact opposite conclusion of the House report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.  It isn’t difficult to ascertain why Schiff would be reluctant to release the transcripts that would only reveal that Devin Nunes and company were not interested in discovering the truth. The irony of the attacks on Schiff is that he knows that the Nunes-issued report is essentially worthless and will be used by the right as “proof” that there was nothing “there.” 

But if there is no “there,” than why is Trump “asking” the U.S. Supreme Court to block a ruling requiring the Justice Department to release secret grand jury material to Congress pertaining to the Mueller investigation by this week? This has been an on-going issue for a year, and why Trump and William Barr do not want this material released is obvious enough: because the material provides more detailed information than the Mueller report itself. This has been an on-going issue with this administration—if there is nothing “there,” than why is there such a strenuous effort to obstruct and evade?

We should also not be allowed to simply wave off the fact that giving false testimony to federal investigators as Flynn did, regardless of the circumstances, is still a crime. No one should feel “sorry” for Flynn, whose only “defense” is that he shouldn’t have been given the opportunity to lie in the first place. The only question that should be asked is if Flynn lied and if he failed to register as a paid foreign agent lobbying for a foreign government, which he did fail to do—and if he lied about lying as he is claiming now, then he still lied. Flynn also admitted that he had been pressured by Trump officials to obstruct the Mueller investigation, and Republican congressmen may have also tried to “persuade” him not to cooperate. That Barr dropped the case against Flynn only proves Barr’s continuing campaign to shield Trump and his associates from political damage—unlawful behavior is simply not a “problem” worth investigating—unless it is committed by the other party. The cynicism and hypocrisy of Trump and his familiars is simply astonishing in its audacious contempt for moral, ethical and lawful values.

And Trump and the right-wing media hypocrisy continues further, as he is seeking the Supreme Court to stop an order that his tax and financial records be handed over to a New York district attorney and to Congress, which has also been a very on-going issue. Trump has a new stratagem now: to claim that all these investigations into his activities are causing him to do an even “worse job” than he is doing now. Nobody should be surprised by the level of stupidity of Trump and his “advisors,” but this claim at least has the advantage of an inadvertent admission that we all can agree with, or at least those not as insipid as Trump is.

Trump and his familiars keep trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes with conspiracies and ever more nonsensical “whataboutisms.” But we (or most of us) are not as stupid as he thinks. Barr has already told us many times that his principle mission in life is a partisan political one; the administering of justice as most people understand the concept has absolutely nothing to do with his actions—and as for Trump, the accounting for his life of crime and all his crazy talk is catching up to him. The most irresponsible thing the voters of this country can do is allow this man a “get out of jail free” pass this November.

Meghan Markle learning that the British media's irresponsible behavior is its "normal" behavior

The non-stop shenanigans between the British press and the American-born Duchess of Sussex continues unabated, as Meghan Markle’s refusal to play by the strictures imposed on her after it wasn’t enough to stop the unfair and probably racially-motivated bad press. Currently in the Duchess’ lawsuit against the publisher of The Daily Mail, the judge dismissed claims that the Mail’s “unlawful” use of a private letter to her father—which she claims was cherry-picked for publication to put her in the worst possible light—was part of an ongoing effort by the Mail to defame her, although the judge implied that such a claim could be reapplied if put in a “proper” legal context. Currently living in Los Angeles, we have heard all kinds of stories now that Harry and Meghan are somewhat “mismatched,” with Harry missing hanging around with his Army buddies and dressing-up in nice uniforms, while Meghan didn’t like not being able to lead the “normal” life of a supposed celebrity (I have never seen a single episode of Suits—although admittedly I don’t watch much television at all anymore). 

Meghan’s lawsuit also charges that the Mail (among other tabloids) was engaged in an ongoing campaign to write embarrassing stories about her and her father, Thomas Markle, and causing a rift between them. Markle had been expected to walk his daughter down the aisle for her wedding, but he repeatedly made excuses not to do so, claiming he didn’t feel “welcome,” despite repeated attempts by both Prince Harry and Meghan to get him to show up. The last text to him from Harry before the wedding was "Speaking to the press WILL backfire, trust me Tom. Only we can help you, as we have been trying from day one." 

Unfortunately, Thomas Markle didn’t listen. Mikhaila Friel wrote recently in the Insider that Meghan was having a “good” relationship with her father until the British tabloid media began giving him unwanted attention, taking paparazzi shots of him in Mexico, and asking him leading questions to feed negative gossip. He was then embarrassed with staged fake photos of him “preparing” for a wedding he never attended, claiming heart trouble.  Naturally, Markle—shamed and feeling sorry for himself—allowed himself to be played by British tabloids like the Mail in order to put his daughter in the worst possible light, which has been an on-going issue since, with the Mail (and other such publications) hypocritically criticizing Meghan for the very same things that it spins positive for Princess Kate (for example, complaining about why “Meghan can’t keep her hands off her baby bump” while Kate “tenderly cradles” her baby bump). While the Mail may deny playing on the racism of certain of its low-brow readership in its coverage of Meghan, what is true is the implied racism of its reporting on immigration and the presence of non-whites in Britain, such as the number of non-white students in public schools in a way that inspires anti-immigrant paranoia, and was also the kind of fearmongering that lit the Brexit fire.

Whether or not the Mail can be accused of libeling Markle is another thing. Bradford Plumer in The New Republic suggested that publications in Britain (mostly) take care only to libel people who cannot afford to spend years in court, and threatening frivolous lawsuits against smaller entities or persons who call out false and misleading stories. Even after the infamous News of the World scandal that brought down what was at the time Britain’s most popular print “news” publication,  Plumer noted that its demise and tough libel and defamation laws did not stop the press’ behavior: “But even setting aside potential lawbreaking, many of Britain’s papers were famous for their reckless pursuit of stories at any cost, their thin regard for accuracy, their adventures in outright libel.”

And lawbreaking they did in such pursuits. To quote from the Wiki page on the NOTW scandal, “By 2002, an organized trade in confidential personal information had developed in Britain and was widely used by the British newspaper industry. Illegal means of gaining information used included hacking the private voicemail accounts on mobile phones, hacking into computers, making false statements to officials, entrapment, blackmail, burglaries, theft of mobile phones and making payments to public officials.” The police and media watchdogs undertook several sting operations which uncovered the activities of private investigators, current and former police officers who were selling information to various newspapers and tabloids. During one investigation, a “raid” on unregistered computers found receipts for payments made by 305 reporters for private information. One private investigator was found to have 13,000 requests from various newspapers and magazines for “confidential information.” 

But it wasn’t until Prince William’s phone was hacked was there a concerted effort to stop the law-breaking, or any journalists arrested or even questioned for illegally obtaining confidential information. News of the World reporter Clive Goodman’s office was searched, where 11,000 pages of notes revealed the evidence of thousands of persons whose phones had been hacked.  But this evidence would be largely hidden from prosecutors and the public. Only Goodman and one of his “investigators” eventual pleaded guilty and served a few months in prison, and the case was deemed closed until The Guardian began publishing articles questioning why investigators were not looking into evidence of a much wider scandal. A parliamentary commission was critical of police investigators limiting the information they provided to prosecutors and the public. Then new reports disclosed the extent of the NOTW “quietly” settling lawsuits with hacking victims, and then the dam broke. It was revealed that among the hacking targets were families of murder victims; knowing that the paper would be soon deluged by lawsuits that would put it out of business, Rupert Murdoch—whose media empire included ownership of the NOTW—decided to do the “right” thing and closed it after 168 years. 

All of this was blamed on “intense competition” in the British press. “As a result, the race for stories can be cutthroat,” writes Plumer. “The Columbia Journalism Review recently offered up some lurid examples of the lengths to which British tabloid reporters will go: ‘There was the tabloid freelancer who hid in a church organ for several days, defecating in a plastic bag, to get pictures of Madonna’s baby’s christening.” Tabloid newspapers far outstrip “normal” newspapers in sales in Britain. The Mail, which supposedly has the largest readership of any English “news” publication (at least online), is particularly egregious in making “the evidence fit the story rather than vice versa.”

It can be supposed that the American press is much more “cautious” in its reporting of the news even with all the claims of “fake news” going about, although Meghan Markle can't even catch a break here in the States with envious detractors such as "chick-lit" author Emily Giffin criticizing the way she hold's her son in his birthday video. It is unlikely she will win her court case, given that the average Brit prefers “news” that “entertains” rather than that which illuminates.

With Reade's credibility issues, we may have to be "satisfied" with "we just don't know"

I saw this graffiti along the “canal” that connects  Lake Union with Lake Washington:

Four months into the year and there is certainly “plenty” of “danger”: the COVID-19, in just a matter of weeks the unemployment rate souring into double-digits, China taking its cues from Trump’s history of lies and concealment, Trump nominating another unqualified far-right radical Federalist to a federal bench, and even William Barr failing to convince Trump officials that it is a bad idea to support killing Obamacare during a pandemic and an election year.  Given all of that you would think that after three+ years of Trump that the Democrats would have their act together and coalesce around a candidate who inspires the popular imagination, like Barack Obama. With all that is going on now, you’d think it would be a wipe-out, yet despite the iffy Joe Biden being ahead of Trump in most polls, a majority of voters still somehow think that Trump is going to win anyways. So here we are, stuck with who a plurality of Democratic primary voters decided was the “safe” candidate. 

Oh, yes, the “safe’ candidate—meaning he isn’t named Bernie Sanders, and black voters think Biden “appreciates” them more. But Biden isn’t the completely “safe” candidate anymore if you listen to the New York Times or the Washington Post—or if you listen to Liz Peek of Fox News, who claims that Hillary Clinton is waiting in the wings to be a three-peat loser. The editors of the Times—who irresponsibly endorsed not one, but two failed female candidates, who supposedly had entirely opposite ideologies and policy programs, for the Democratic presidential nomination—is now calling for the DNC to investigate Tara Reade’s allegations against Biden. Well, fine, but don’t be afraid to get the “whole” story, instead of being forced to resign like New Hampshire state representative Richard Komi, who was merely repeating an accusation by a friend of Reade, who said she was an active “attention-seeker.” 

The “whole story” includes the concerns of former prosecutor Michael Stern, who in USA Today wondered about the self-serving nature of Reade’s excuses about why even up to year ago she couldn’t find one reporter “eager” to break her “bombshell” story, until a year after accusing Biden of “inappropriate” touching along with some others. All of the former Biden staffers at the time she claimed to have spoken to about the alleged assault strenuously deny this. “And they did not offer the standard, noncommittal ‘I don’t remember any such complaint.’ The denials were firm. ‘She did not come to me. If she had, I would have remembered her,’ Ted Kaufman said. Dennis Toner made a similar statement. And from Marianne Baker: ‘I never once witnessed, or heard of, or received, any reports of inappropriate conduct (by Biden), period.’ Baker said such a complaint, had Reade made it, ‘would have left a searing impression on me as a woman professional, and as a manager.’” 

Stern noted that Reade’s “amnesia” about details such as day, time and location would make it difficult for Biden to defend himself as being at or doing something else, allowing the accusation “to be perceived as bulletproofing a false allegation.”  Reade had her employment records at the time handy, but not a copy of the written complaint that she claimed to have made; perhaps she couldn’t “find” it because it didn’t support her current accusation. Reade also gave multiple reasons for having left Biden’s employ, either feeling “sidelined” for refusing to serve drinks at a party and subsequently quitting, to being “fired” for filing a complaint about her alleged treatment. Despite all of this, as others also noted, Reade (under multiple name changes) praised Biden on social media for his support of certain pet causes. But her stance changed when she decided to support Bernie Sanders and then take a pro-Russia and Vladimir Putin stance while denouncing the U.S. and its policies toward Russia. Her anti-Biden stance and subsequent accusations could be construed as her unhappiness that Biden has de facto beaten Sanders for the Democratic nomination (contrary to what I thought previously). Reade—after gushing that Putin was “intoxicating” to women—has since strenuously denied her own words in support of Russia’s dictatorship, further eroding her credibility.

Stern also questioned the call to the Larry King show that was allegedly from Reade’s mother: “Reade’s mother also said her daughter did not go to the press with her problem ‘out of respect’ for the senator. I’ve never met a woman who stayed silent out of ‘respect’ for the man who sexually assaulted her. And it is inconceivable that a mother would learn of her daughter’s sexual assault and suggest that respect for the assailant is what stands between a life of painful silence and justice. The ‘out of respect’ explanation sounds more like an office squabble with staff that resulted in leaving the job. Indeed, in last year's interview with The Washington Post, Reade laid the blame on Biden’s staff for ‘bullying’ her. She also said, ‘I want to emphasize: It’s not him. It’s the people around him.’” 

The questions go on and on. Reade’s brother days later suddenly “remembers” that his sister did tell him something about Biden putting his hands under her clothes, probably after a pow-wow with his sister to correct his original “recollection”?  Stern also pointed out that “The problem with statements from friends is that the information they recount is only as good as the information given to them. Let’s say Reade left her job because she was angry about being asked to serve drinks or because she was fired for a legitimate reason. If she tried to save face by telling friends that she left because she was sexually assaulted, that’s all her friends would know and all they could repeat. Prior statements made by a sexual assault victim can carry some weight, but only if the accuser is credible. In Reade’s case, the statements coming from her friends are only of value if people believe Reade can be relied on to tell the truth, regardless of the light in which it paints her.” To date, no “third-party” has corroborated Reade’s claims.

Over a month ago, Bernie and Eddie Krassenstein in The Medium also noted Reade’s apparent “liking” of Biden well after the alleged assault until in the past year. They also note some bizarre story changes, such as one where she arrived in Washington DC to work for Biden driving cross-country 3,000 miles with her cat; but more recently she claimed instead to have made that very same first trip by plane with her cat.  There is also a quote from one of her pro-Russia posts: “President Putin is beloved by Russia and he not going anywhere. Instead of being ensnared in the recent political intrigues (and America is trying hard to set that trap). President Putin is keeping a calm focus on his own country’s development and future, without America. To President Putin, I say keep your eyes to the beautiful future and maybe, just maybe America will come to see Russia as I do, with eyes of love. To all my Russian friends, happy holiday and Happy New Year.”

The Krassensteins end their piece by noting that “We were able to contact a longtime friend of Reade’s who wished to remain anonymous, but they said they ‘do not believe her allegations,’ claiming she has always been one to seek attention (see above). We have (also) been in contact with a former boss of Reade’s who claims Reade stole from her non-profit animal rescue while she was a volunteer at the organization.”  

Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly also noted Reade’s seeming “talent” for storytelling, while observing that the Associated Press found that all 21 Biden staffers at the time that they contacted could not recollect a single complaint made by Reade. And none of the other women who claimed to be “inappropriately” touched by Biden said that he had “crossed the line” into sexual assault. 

LeTourneau admits that this all sounds like “blaming the victim,” but with Reade’s credibility and motivations in question, the best that can be said “is we just don’t know” and “we’ll have to live with that.”

Right-wing "outrage" at methods aside, let’s not forget one thing—Trump campaign officials DID commit serious crimes

More than 30 million unemployed—but probably more, since this number only reflects those who have applied for jobless benefits—and the unemployment rate expected to be double that of the worst month 0f the “Great” Recession by June. Infections and deaths by the COVID-19 now exceeding previous forecasts. What to do now, besides advising people to drink poisonous chemicals to “kill” the virus and engaging in mindless tweet storms encouraging a tiny minority of mostly Tea Party-types to carry rifles into state houses demanding they be “freed” of stay-at-home orders by governors? Why, engage your Justice Department in finding new “enemies.” 

Well, not really “new” enemies, but those who have committed “crimes”—such as FBI investigators who allegedly submitted questionable FISA requests and those who had “partisan” motivations, as if Trump and his familiars have not taken political partisanship to a level not seen since the run-up to the Civil War. We are told of the “outrage” over the fact that the FBI decided to continue to pursue Michael Flynn even though an initial inquiry failed to uncover any major-league wrong-doing, and that agents were looking to “trap” him into lying to them. But as the investigation of Flynn’s activities continued, the FBI did find that Flynn had committed more than one crime, including failing to register as an agent working on behalf of a foreign government, Turkey, if not Russia as was suspected but could be proven for certain. 

Furthermore, Flynn did deliberately lie to investigators, whether he was “trapped” into or not. As Fox News’ Chris Wallace pointed out, "Did the FBI play hardball? Yeah. Guess what? The FBI plays hardball. And guess what? If you are talking to the FBI — and a lot of lawyers would say don’t talk to them unless you have to — don’t lie.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s hyper-partisan pit bull William Barr and his sidekick John Durham continue to claim that “crimes” far worse than what the Mueller investigation uncovered were committed by the FBI and others. But like in the case of Flynn, crimes were committed by Trump campaign officials looking to gain every edge—including “help” from dirt-dealing Russians, who the Senate Intelligence Committee did in its recent report find were engaged in activities designed to help Trump get elected—and would unlikely to have been uncovered had the non-Barr DOJ refused to do its job. Let’s recap those crimes committed by Trump associates:

The Russian troll factory, Internet Research Agency, was charged with conning Americans with fake pro-Trump and anti-Clinton social media accounts. Two Russian shell companies and 13 Russian nationals were also indicted in these schemes. Twelve additional Russians were charged with the hacking of the DNC server and apparently handing over their trove of stolen emails to WikiLeaks. Trump operative Roger Stone, convicted of perjury, was apparently in contact with Julian Assange, promising him that the Trump administration would drop U.S. charges against him if he helped out (Assange still remains un-extradited). 

Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was discovered to have hidden tens of millions dollars for work as an agent for pro-Russia parties in the Ukraine, as well as tax evasion and other financial crimes. What is interesting about this is that Trump and Putin’s unproven claim that it was the Ukraine that was “really” behind the election interference is the bizarre notion that it was the Ukrainians who hacked DNC servers to supposedly “help” the Democrats—that is to say that was what pro-Russia Ukrainians wanted to accomplish. In reality, Manafort was working with a suspected Russian intelligence agent, Konstantin Kilimnik, feeding him “secret” internal polling information that was likely used to tailor social media propaganda to targeted audiences in the U.S.

And then there was that string of Trump associates who deliberately gave false testimony to shield Trump and his associates: Flynn, Michael Cohen, George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Alex van der Zwaan and a few others. This does not count the many who refused to talk or claimed “amnesia.” A crime was likely committed just in the “set-up” of the infamous Trump Tower meeting; just because no useful “dirt” was provided doesn’t make it any less so. And Trump’s attempt to blackmail the Ukrainian president for a political “favor” was also a crime against the Constitution, regardless of how Trump’s Republican stooges voted in the impeachment case. 

As in the Trump administration’s belated response to the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming that the “cure” is “worse” than the disease ignores the fact that the disease would likely have not required the level of “cure” if Trump had not claimed it was “no big deal” for over a month. In order to get voters’ minds off the virus and the economic disaster that Trump is largely to blame for, the  same case is now being made that the initial FBI and subsequent Mueller and impeachment inquiries, with Trump and Barr  now claiming that the crimes found in those investigations were not as “bad” as the means taken to find them. We should not be conned by this; Trump and Barr are corrupt to the core, and their motives follow them like toilet paper stuck to their shoe.