It May Be Now Or Never For Mueller

Today may be now or never for Mueller. With the Labor Day weekend beginning the traditional "blackout period" for the DOJ to act in politically-related investigations, today may be Mueller's last chance to at least publicly pursue any additional indictments in the Russia probe until after the midterms. And whether it's because of actual sourcing or this approaching deadline or Trump's unhinged, even for him, rhetoric over the last week, there are indications that some in the media believe that more indictments will be handed down today.

If not, then Mueller's chance may have ended. Trump has made it plain that he intends to fire Sessions after the election and his replacement will almost assuredly have to promise Trump that he will shut the Mueller investigation down. The firing of Don McGahn and the gutting of the White House Counsel's office ensures that there is no internal bureaucratic impediment to that plan and his hand-picked replacement will ensure that the office is loyal to Trump and not the Office of the Presidency.

I've always been suspect about those reports that McGahn was constantly standing in the way of Trump's impulsive decisions about firing Sessions, Rosenstein, or Mueller. They often sounded like a good PR spin for a guy who was more intent on filling the judicial system with Federalist Society cronies. Moreover, McGahn oversaw a White House and administration that was improperly vetted and tolerated corruption on a scale we haven't seen since the Hoover administration.

And the idea that the Republican Congress was restraining Trump is laughable. Trump knows them for what they are, namely cowards. He was only persuaded by the argument that ending the Russia investigation would create an electoral calamity for Republicans in the midterms.

After the upcoming elections, the Congressional GOP will be even more the party of Trump, whatever the results. If the GOP manages to hold the House, Trump will be safe from impeachment. And if the Democrats win the House, he certainly believes that the Senate Republicans will never vote to convict him of impeachment, at least based on what we know now. So he will have nothing to lose by ending the Mueller investigation after the midterms.

I know Mueller is running a proper investigation and shouldn't take into consideration any political considerations. It is primarily the role of Congress to keep Americans informed of the progress of these investigations through open hearings that don't jeopardize the legal path that Mueller needs to take. But, under Republican leadership, Congress had abdicated that responsibility, leaving it entirely up to Mueller. Mueller's team has been pretty expansive in detailing the evidence it has collected in the indictments it has handed down, which provides the bulk of the information we actually know about the investigation.

But the fact that Mueller has been politically "blind" has put him and his work at risk. Because he has not completed his work by the admittedly artificial deadline of the midterm elections, his whole investigation is now under serious threat of being terminated. In addition, that delay has deprived the American people of knowing the full extent of how our electoral system was perverted in 2016, meaning that Americans will go to the polls for two elections in a row without that knowledge. And Americans may never know that if Republicans hold the House and Trump can complete his coverup.

Up Chuck!

Chuck Schumer just agreed to a deal with Mitch McConnell that will fast-track 15 judicial nominations through the Senate, including one rated "unqualified" by the ABA, and, in return, he got...virtually nothing.

Schumer's supposed take from this deal was that a couple of the 15 judges were Obama appointees, but they were likely to be confirmed anyway. In addition, he got to re-nominate a Democratic seat on the NLRB, but this does not guarantee confirmation. Schumer also got McConnell to release 85,000 documents regarding Brett Kavanaugh, documents that were already under a FOIA request and legally belong to the citizens of the United States.

Worse, Schumer agreed to the confirmation of a Republican seat on the SEC but somehow managed to screw up the nomination of a Democrat for that body. Usually, votes for SEC positions are paired together so that both parties have an incentive to get them confirmed. Because of Schumer's foul-up, the Republican seat has now been confirmed, giving GOP Senators absolutely no incentive to vote for the Democratic nominee. This means the SEC, which is bad enough as it is, could have a 3-1 Republican split for the next few years.

Most importantly, Schumer's agreement actually provides even more Senate floor time for McConnell to do as he wishes. In fact, it seems probable that there wouldn't have been enough floor time available until the end of the session to confirm all of these 15 judges and McConnell would have had to sacrifice more of them if he wants to act on Kavanaugh or other pieces of legislation. That is especially important if the Democrats win the House because, cynic that I am, I have no doubt that the GOP will make another run at repealing the ACA during the lame duck session, especially now that McCain is gone. It would be Paul Ryan's cruel denouement to his fraudulent career.

Schumer's defense seems to be that these judicial nominees would be confirmed anyway and that his members wanted to get back to their states for the campaign season. As Harry Reid's deputy chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, notes, however, both these assertions are false. The reality is that Democrats would only have to keep one Senator in Washington to extend debate on each of these judicial nominees, while Republicans would have to have 51 Senators present to actually move forward. The asymmetry in favor of the Democrats is enormous and Schumer has basically thrown that away. And those red-state Democratic Senators would still be able to be back home defending their seats. Jentleson adds that Democrats might actually have had a chance to block some of the nominees but would, in any case, have the opportunity to harp on " the ability of a [president] implicated in federal crimes to make lifetime appointments." That seems an especially important point to drive home in order to lay some groundwork for voting against Kavanaugh.

One has to wonder what Schumer is thinking. Surely, McConnell would not have agreed to this deal if the shoe were on the other foot. And this is just the kind of capitulation that turns off the most activated Democratic voters. Jentleson concludes, "Senate rules give the leaders virtually zero power. The power comes from norms, obedience and persuasion. If you can get senators behind you, you can wield a lot of power. If you can't, you're... not a real leader". It's hard to argue with that assessment after Schumer's latest capitulation.

It's Too Darn Hot!!

It's way too hot to think or even post today. So here's some nice photos of the water in Zurich and Prague. Wish I could dive right in...

Astronomy Adventure - Messier 11

Messier 11, also known as the Wild Duck cluster, is an open cluster in the constellation Scutum. While visually resembling many globular clusters in may ways, Messier 11 is actually one of the most compact open clusters as opposed to the more disperse IC 4665 in the previous post, containing nearly 3000 stars in all.

Scope: Starblast 4.5; tracking on

Magnification: ~30x

Camera: iPhone6 using NightCap Pro; ISO 8000;

America's Prisoners Have Had Enough

Ever since Ronald Reagan broke the PATCO union, strikes in the US have had very limited success. Recently, however, strikes have regained some of their effectiveness, as illustrated by the victorious strike against Verizon by the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the recent walkouts by teachers in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Arizona, and the fight for $15 led by fast food workers around the country. Often, these strikes are done out of pure desperation and also with considerable risk.

One group of people whose desperation is clear are the prisoners in the jails and detention centers around the US and, thanks to the coordination of jailhouse lawyers across the country, those prisoners are currently on strike. You would think that the focus of the strike might be on the brutal, violent, and overcrowded conditions as exemplified by the recently closed Walnut Grove Correctional Facility in Mississippi.

Or you might think that the prisoners would be striking against the fact that it appears many of the nation's prisons and detention facilities have been built on toxic sites, creating extensive and serious health problems for inmates, especially those that have to serve longer sentences. A recent study found that nearly one third of federal and state prisons lie within 3 miles of a Superfund site. Nearly 200 lie within one mile of one and the Victorville prison in California is built directly on top of a radioactive Superfund site. Some prisons in this country suffer from air and water quality that does not meet federal safety guidelines. As one inmate who fought against this injustice described it, "This is something that’s going on throughout the country. [Contractors] extract all the good stuff from the land, then they sell it to waste companies that contaminate the land, and then they sell it to prisons. Then they start shipping inmates there, and people start getting sick."

And, yes, the abuse, the conditions, and the lack of any real rehabilitation are part of the reason for these protests. But the real driving force behind what the prisoners around the country are actually striking against is the determination to stop being used as slave labor. Every day, over three-quarters of a million inmates are put to work, in many states compulsorily, for what amount to slave wages. Louisiana, infamous for its historical brutality of prisoners, pays these working inmates 4 cents an hour. Last year, California used prison labor to fight the state's wildfires, paying those inmates just $2 per day plus $1 per hour. Those were actually plum jobs as the state usually only pays inmates a maximum of $4 per day. In Oklahoma, a supposed alternative for prison was actually a slave labor camp for a large private company that supplied poultry products to some of the largest companies in the US such as KFC and Walmart. In fact, private prisons receive most of the benefits of using prisoners as slave labor purely for maintenance of the facilities.

Now it appears that ICE detainees have also joined this nationwide action and some are going on a hunger strike. Beyond the already horrific conditions that have been uncovered during the ongoing family separation scandal, ICE has been one of the worst offenders in having its detainees forced into slave labor. There is an ongoing class action involving tens of thousands of ICE detainees that were forced to work for $1 per day or even nothing at all in violation of federal and state anti-slavery laws. In addition, these ICE detention facilities, run by private companies, were also violating state minimum wage laws.

One of the few areas of at least some bipartisan agreement is the need for sentencing and prison reform. Needless to say, it always seems to get derailed by the GOP's fear of its base looking at that as a betrayal of their law and order mantra of the last 50 years. Hopes for getting something done this year were postponed until after the midterms because of that fear. But, if that reform ever does happen, it must include the elimination of this barbaric practice of forced labor and include the requirement to at least pay the minimum wage for the work actually done.

Astronomy Adventure - IC 4665, A Disperse Open Cluster

IC 4665 is a pretty widely dispersed open cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus. It is a naked-eye object from a dark site.

Scope: Starblast 4.5; tracking on

Magnification: ~30x

Camera: iPhone6 using NightCap Pro; ISO 6400; 

US Open Preview And Predictions

The 50th US Open begins tomorrow at Flushing Meadow and, like all the majors this year, the favorites on the men's side are pretty clear and the women's draw is wide open.

As far as the men are concerned, the seemingly hottest player coming into the tournament is the rejuvenated Novak Djokovic. Unfortunately, he is in the same quarter as Roger Federer. Rafa Nadal is the top seed, and those three are the odds-on favorites to once again dominate and win this major. Andy Murray is still struggling to come back from injury and is in a brutal quarter with Juan Martin del Potro and Gregor Dmitrov. Del Potro has had a disappointing run-up to the Open and Dmitrov will face a healthy Stan Wawrinka, back from injury, in the very first round. Alex Zverev is the #4 seed and should come through his quarter unscathed, even though he has underperformed in the majors. His biggest threat in that quarter will be the always enigmatic Marin Cilic.

As noted, the women's draw is once again wide open. Simona Halep is the top seed and has had a great hardcourt run-up to the Open, reaching the finals in both Canada and Cincinnati. Caroline Wozniacki, Sloane Stephens, and Angie Kerber round out the top four seeds. Of those, I really think only Kerber is a real threat to win it all. Serena Williams has struggled on the hardcourts in her return from maternity leave and then injury and is seeded 17th. But she has pointed to this tournament and I expect her to be a threat once again. Petra Kvitová, Karolina Pliskova, and Julia Goerges have all had successful summers and could all go deep in this tournament. Caroline Garcia, assuming she gets by Joanna Konta in the first round, Aryna Sebelinka, and Kiki Bertens could also do some damage but probably don't have the consistency to get far into the second week.

The first three days this week are supposed to be typical New York August weather - hazy, hot, and humid with the heat index probably well over 100 degrees. That means that early round upsets are more possible than usual. And, although all these athletes are incredibly fit, even a favorite who gets fully extended in that kind of weather may find it difficult to keep their energy at its highest level in the second week. That is probably especially true for defenders like Halep and Wozniacki and those returning from injury like Serena, Wawrinka, or Murray.

Predictions:

Men's Final: Djokovic beats Nadal in 4 sets

Women's Final: Halep beats Kvitová in 3rd set tiebreak

Astronomy Adventure - Saturn

It has been an horrendous month for astronomy - incredibly humid, lots of rain, and cloudy almost every night. Mars reached opposition at the end of July and is closer than it will be for another 17 years while Saturn rides high in the southern sky. But the brutal weather has limited an really good observations.

In my last post, I wrote about the difficulties of really capturing the planets with my present setup for afocal astrophotography with an iPhone. Bad seeing and the difficulty of achieving truly good focus are the two biggest issues.

There are two different methods for photographing the planets. The first is to take a video and then use PIPP to convert the .mov file that the iPhone creates and convert it to an .avi file. Then you can use Registax to stack a percentage of the best frames from the video into a single image.  Here is a photo of Saturn produced using this method:

A different, but in many ways similar method, is to us NightCapPro to take multiple consecutive images and then find the one that actually provides the best image. Here is an example using that method:

To be honest, neither are particularly satisfying. Both of them were taken with 250x magnification ( and slightly different cropping which accounts for the size difference) which is probably pushing the limits of my telescope and the seeing conditions in my area. But without that degree of magnification, achieving proper focus is almost impossible.


Technical details for both images:

Scope: Starblast 4.5; tracking on

Magnification: ~250x

Camera: iPhone6 using NightCap Pro;

Natural Weekends - Critters

Today we have an odd combination of a praying mantis and a night heron...

GOP Centrists Ask Democrats To Clean Up Their Mess Again

There was a revealing conversation on All In with Chris Hayes last night between former Republican congressman and never Trumper David Jolly and former Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. The segment was ostensibly about how Republicans are actually talking about impeachment more than Democrats in an attempt to fire up the GOP base. I recently saw a study (which I can't locate right now - update: h/t to CwV at DKos for providing the link) which found that, of the over 800 major Democratic primary candidates running this year, only one specifically ran with a message of impeaching Trump. And he was thoroughly trounced in the primary.

Barbara Boxer made the point that all politics is local and that Democrats can not and should not just run on impeaching the President. The electorate understands that Trump is always there in the background but Democrats will win by talking about issues like health care, inequality, wages, etc. that are specific to their districts. In addition, a message about the culture of corruption includes the possibility of impeachment without overtly stating it.

It was Jolly's point of view, however, that was most revealing. If I can paraphrase, it went something like this: "Trump has now admitted to participating in a felonious crime while in office. My Republican colleagues are spineless and won't do anything to restrain him. Trump is clearly unfit and needs to be removed. Democrats need to start explicitly talking about impeachment and preparing and explaining to the American public why it needs to happen".

Essentially, Jolly's argument is that the Republican party is totally irresponsible but Democrats must use their political capital to clean up the mess that Republicans have made. For the last forty years, at least, I have heard one version or another of this argument from supposed "centrists" and moderates.

Jimmy Carter was a good and decent man but perhaps a poor politician. Despite, or because of, the fact that Ford had already pardoned Nixon, Carter was elected to show the country and the world that America had moved beyond Watergate. His focus on human rights has much more to do with the fall of the Soviet Union than the myth of Reagan will currently allow. And what did this get Carter and Democrats? Just attacks from Reagan that they didn't understand realpolitik and were soft on communism.

Bill Clinton was elected to pull America out the G.H.W. Bush recession and deal with the debt crisis created by Reagan. Again, Democratic political capital, such as raising taxes, was used not so much to advance Democratic interests but to deal with the mess Republicans left behind.

Similarly, after G.W. Bush turned Clinton's surpluses into the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression, along with two failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a legacy of war crimes including torture, it was up to Obama to "leave the past behind and move the country forward". That meant not pursuing prosecutions of the war criminals and the bankers. Again, despite clear majorities, a large chunk of political capital had to be used just to create an inadequate stimulus package and what capital was left went toward a kluge to expand healthcare, probably Obama's greatest legacy. The result? Obama was pilloried by the GOP for the exploding debt and "socializing" medicine.

We will rinse and repeat this story when Trump leaves office. It will be "time to move on for the sake of the country" and, again, the exploding debt will have to be dealt with, despite the fact that Republicans, for the third time in forty years, promised that their massive tax cuts would pay for themselves when they won't.

It is no wonder that many Democrats don't really care about how Medicare for All or other single-payer plans will be paid for. Republicans have gotten away with not paying for their tax cuts for two generations now, yet Democrats are always required to be fiscally responsible. And it is a testament to the power of these elite centrist and moderates who refuse to ever hold the GOP accountable for their actions that Republicans are still considered the most fiscally responsible party.

If Jolly or other supposed centrists like the insufferable David Brooks really cared about these issues, they would not only leave the Republican party but actively work to defeat Republican candidates. But they never will. They'll just keep demanding that Democrats clean up the mess their party created.

Natural Weekends - Clouds

The End Is Nigh

Yes, like a recurring bout of nausea, it feels like we've been here before. But this time circumstances make it slightly different than before. With increasing frequency ever since Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel, Trump has seemingly become more and more enraged and more determined to derail the investigation either by taking control of it by firing Sessions and/or Rosenstein or firing Mueller directly. At the same time, his attempts to illegally influence and obstruct the investigation have also intensified.

With the double-whammy convictions and admission of guilt from Manafort and Cohen, the law is closing in on Trump on all sides. Having been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a felonious attempt to subvert the election by paying hush many to at least two of his mistresses, Trump has now opened himself and the Trump Organization to tax and fraud investigations by the state of New York and potentially other state jurisdictions as well. What other criminal activity those investigations may reveal is unknown but you'd have to rate the chances of that occurring are pretty high based on way Trump ran his company. That became more likely today with the news that the longtime Trump Organization CFO, Allen Weisselberg, has also been granted some kind of immunity in the Cohen probe.

Remarkably, Trump seems less concerned about the danger from Cohen than he does from Paul Manafort, who has moved from someone who worked for Trump for "just a short period of time" to a "brave man" who has "refused to break". As Maddow pointed out last night, Mueller has farmed out a lot of potential prosecutions he has uncovered to other jurisdictions, such as the Cohen matter, but has maintained control of the two cases against Manafort. This seems to indicate that Manafort knows all when it comes to the Russian collusion. Certainly, Mueller has already produced plenty of evidence of that collusion, from the Trump Tower meeting to Flynn's talks with the Russians regarding the lifting of sanctions. And now Cohen is indicating that he has knowledge that Trump had foreknowledge of at least some aspects of the Russian attack on our election, although his lawyer, Lanny Davis, is walking that back somewhat today.

Why Trump seems more concerned about Manafort rather than the exposure of financial crimes by Trump, his family, and his business seems to clearly revolve around the absolute proof of collusion that Manafort probably could provide. And I'm guessing Trump believes his base can hold with just the exposure of campaign finance violations and tax evasion and that Cohen does not have the full picture of the Russian collusion. A Trumpster caller on WNYC dismissed both the Cohen and Manafort prosecutions as part of a soft coup by the deep state, saying those cases never would have been brought unless they had wanted to squeeze those two in order to get Trump. Apparently, this caller believes that massive tax evasion is not worthy of really being prosecuted. And I'm sure there are plenty of Trump supporters who feel the same way, having been brainwashed by Republican propaganda outfits into believing that everyone does it and everyone is equally corrupt.

Whatever the case, Trump's focus is on Manafort. He is already seriously considering pardoning Manafort but apparently has so far been persuaded by Giuliani not to do that before the election. While pardoning Manafort will eliminate his right of self-incrimination, it seems probable that he will take the Susan McDougal route and risk a contempt of court sentence rather than give up not only Trump but the Russian oligarchs he's in hock to.

Trump is similarly targeting Jeff Sessions so he can shut down the Mueller investigation entirely and rid himself of the Russian investigation entirely. On that score, he seems to have support from important Republican leaders in the Senate, specifically Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley. Graham stated that Trump deserves an Attorney General he can trust and Grassley indicated he would be willing to hold hearing for whomever Trump chooses to nominate. Again, however, the firing of Sessions would wait until after the election.

So the path for Trump is clear now. After the election, he can fire Sessions and probably Rosenstein as well, clearing the way for him to neuter the Mueller investigation. At the same time, he will pardon Manafort and, for all we know, Cohen as well, considering he doesn't consider what Cohen did as crimes. Meanwhile, Mueller's investigation will have to go dark in another week or two in order to avoid "influencing" the election. Yes, the second Manafort trial will go forward. But unless there are some startling revelations from that trial, which certainly is entirely possible, there will be nothing coming from Mueller until after the election. That will allow Trump to state that Mueller has uncovered "no collusion" when he takes the ultimate steps to protect his presidency.

Every election is the "most important election of our lifetime". This time, it seems like it could actually be true. If the Republicans hold the House and the Senate, there will be no restraint on Trump. The Mueller probe will be cut short, unresolved. Trump will be a multiply unindicted felony co-conspirator in both state and federal cases, but only because he can't be indicted, a point of law that will be backed up by his two appointments to the Supreme Court. And, as Krugman points out today, Social Security, Medicare, and the ACA, which I'm convinced the GOP will take a run at whether they win the election or not, will all be under threat. And that's not even mentioning the damage to our environment, the continued self-dealing and corruption, and attacks on other institutions that might restrain Trump.

Perhaps this will pass like other Trump-inspired attacks of nausea. But it really does feel like we are closing in on the endgame.

Trump Will Always Play The Race Card

Trump's tweet this morning about South Africa is just a pathetic, blatant shout-out to his white nationalist racist base in order to deflect attention from his ever-increasing legal jeopardy. Trump wrote, "I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. 'South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.'" Of course, Trump didn't learn anything about this issue from informed government sources. He heard it from Tucker Carlson on Fox News.

Yes, the government of South Africa is engaging in a land reform project where land seized from black owners during apartheid is being returned. But there is no epidemic of white farmers being massacred. In fact, murders of white farmers is at a 20 year low.

Of course, Trump doesn't give a damn about anything that's happening in South Africa. This is a guy who is so ignorant about Africa in general that he thinks there is a country called Nambia and who has described African countries as "shitholes". His tweet has nothing to do with actual conditions in Africa and everything to do with keeping his white nationalist base in line by raising the threat of white genocide. The barely unstated message is that it is happening in South Africa and only I can prevent it from happening here.

Omarosa Manigault Newman is a charlatan and a huckster, just like Donald Trump. That's one of the reasons they got along so well with each other, because each recognized themselves in the other and both knew they could use each other to advance their own interests. Last week, Omarosa declared that she believes Trump wants to start a race war. That sounds like typical huckster hyperbole. But, based on his continual racist invective and actions over the course of his life, and during his campaign and presidency, it wouldn't be any surprise if that is exactly what he tried to do in order to stay in power when pushed to the brink by Mueller or Congress.

Trump Breaks Out The Autocrat's Defense

I mean, really, why do we have to take these people seriously anymore. Trump's defense against Cohen's accusation that he orchestrated a criminal conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws is beyond laughable, beyond nonsensical, and basically ends up with the autocrat's defense - by definition, if I do it, it's not illegal.

At every step in this story, as in the Russia investigation, Trump and his team have outright lied about it all. Their story has morphed from there was no payments, to they had no knowledge of payments, to Cohen made the payments on his own but Trump didn't know about it, to Trump knew generalities about the agreements and repaid Cohen, to Trump agreed to the payments to protect his family, and now we're back to Cohen made the payments on his own and Trump only found out about them later and paid Cohen back, but not with campaign funds. This despite an actual tape recording of Trump instructing Cohen to pay with cash rather than by check.

Right now, the President's defense is refuted not only by that tape but also by Giuliani's prior statements that Trump approved these payments to protect his family. Trump also claims that he committed no campaign violations because he repaid Cohen back with his own money. Apparently Dershowitz has leapt on this to bolster Trump's claim because a candidate can spend as much of his own money as he wants on a campaign it's not really a campaign finance violation. While not reporting these payments would still be a campaign violation, it would not be criminal which, to Trump, means it's not really a crime.

But this is yet another Trump lie. The repayment came from the trust now running the Trump Organization which is currently overseen by Don Jr. and Eric and which Trump supposedly has no control over. It did not come from Trump directly. In addition, the payment was made via a series of bogus and inflated invoices with the express purpose of hiding the real reason for the repayments and perhaps rewarding Cohen for his silence on the matter.

Remarkably, I heard NPR repeat Trump's lie about not knowing about the payments until afterward without even mentioning that Cohen has already produced a tape that proves the statement false. Similarly, Chris Matthews went down the Dershowitz rabbit-hole about Trump using his own money to repay Cohen when that is factually false. Of course, there will always be Trumpsters like Sam Nunberg who told MSNBC he didn't believe the tape, but why do these people even have platform at this point.

In addition, Sarah Sanders offered another ridiculous but dangerous defense yesterday, saying that the President hasn't been indicted so therefore he hasn't done anything wrong. Of course, current DOJ policy says that a sitting President can't be indicted so Sanders' statement has no real meaning. In fact, it is perilously close to the defense of "if the President does it, it's not illegal", which seems to be a standard trope for recent Republican presidents.

Most of the news stories revolved around the fact that Trump basically admitted to violating campaign finance law, whether wittingly or not, in his Fox friendly interview. But that admission was merely an attempt to mitigate his guilt. More importantly, that admission itself was a lie.

At this point, shouldn't the lede of every story about Trump start with the fact that he is lying and then describe the particular lie or lies of the day. And shouldn't that be complemented with reporting that shows that virtually every day Trump does or says something to tear down the rule of law in this country. And down that path does lie autocracy.

Wells Fargo Is At It Again

I don't want this little story about my favorite corporate serial criminal, Wells Fargo, to get lost in all the hoopla of the proof that the Trump campaign and presidency is basically a racketeering operation. Wells is at it again, this time refusing to maintain an account for a candidate in Florida who supports an expansion of medical marijuana, which is legal in that state.

Nikki Fried is a Democrat running for agricultural commissioner in Florida. One of her priorities is an expansion of the current medical marijuana program in that state. Her campaign opened an account at Wells Fargo but her position on medical marijuana apparently created a red flag at the bank. The bank inquired if Fried would be receiving campaign donations from supporters in the medical marijuana industry into that account and when Fried responded positively, the bank informed her that the account would be closed.

According to Wells, "It is Wells Fargo’s policy not to knowingly bank or provide services to marijuana businesses or for activities related to those businesses, based on federal laws under which the sale and use of marijuana is illegal even if state laws differ". This position is somewhat understandable given the conflict between federal and state laws on marijuana and Attorney Jeff Sessions penchant for going after the marijuana industry.

But even taking Wells position at face value, it seems that Fried is being specifically targeted by Wells. While we don't know how many candidates across the country have Wells accounts and support medical marijuana or even marijuana legalization whose accounts have not been closed, but there are surely plenty. That is a question Wells should have to answer.

Beyond that, the idea that advocating in a political campaign for an expansion of medical marijuana in a state where it is already legal constitutes a "service" or "activity related" to that industry seems like a bit if stretch. However, if there is one thing we know about Wells Fargo, the rules are always elastic enough to get stretched, often into illegality. It never ends.

Thoughts On A Crazy Day

More important than the basic fact that the President is an unindicted co-conspirator in a felony conviction, it involves a felony which Trump directed that was designed to effect the outcome of an election that he won by less than 100,000 votes.

If Trump was willing to commit multiple campaign finance felonies to effect the outcome of the election, then why wouldn't he collude with the Russians, or anyone else for that matter, to do the same.

Where's the collusion? In plain sight; in the Trump Tower meeting; in the request for Russia to hack the emails; and now Lanny Davis is indicating that Cohen may have knowledge/information indicating that Trump had foreknowledge of Russian attempts to aid his campaign. Prague, perhaps?

It seems clear that Cohen has documentary evidence that Trump directed Cohen to make those campaign finance violations because of the damage the women in question could do to Trump's campaign as opposed to protecting his reputation with his wife and family.

It's important to note that it appears Manafort never really left the campaign after his "resignation" in August, 2019. At the end of November, 2016, Manafort emailed Jared Kushner with three recommendations for jobs in the Trump campaign. Rather than a polite "thanks for the input and we'll let you know" if Manafort was really persona non grata with the campaign, Jared almost immediately responded with an "On it!" as though he had received an order.

This is yet another case of powerful men trying to silence women.

Based on the pathetic response of Republicans like Graham, Cornyn, and Corker (!) which focus solely on the fact that these convictions have nothing to do with Russia, it appears that the GOP would still support Trump if he really did shoot someone on 5th Avenue as long as the victim wasn't Russian. They are not going to touch impeachment in this Congress.

The Trump base will stick with him until the very end and beyond. Incredible to see chants of "lock her up" and "drain the swamp" last night after yesterday's news. Do these people know irony?

Everyone keeps focusing on the possibility of pardons but the more likely possibility is that Trump signals to Cohen and Manafort that they will only have to spend two years in jail because he will commute their sentences, a la Scooter Libby, in his lame duck period in late 2020. Pardons or commutations won't help Manafort and Cohen on state charges which I assume are being prepared.

It seems pretty clear that a massive amount of white collar crime, and especially tax evasion, currently goes undetected or unprosecuted.

If you haven't heard the WNYC report on the NYPD rounding up over 100 men of color in the Bronx in 2016 and charging them under the RICO statute as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise, namely gang affiliation, make sure you do.

Considering the Trump campaign chair, deputy campaign chair, national security adviser, a senior foreign policy adviser, chair of the inaugural committee, and Trump's personal lawyer have all now pleaded guilty to felonies; considering that the RNC finance chair, Steve Wynn, was forced to resign over charges of sexual harassment and assault and two deputy finance chairs, Michael Cohen and Elliot Broidy, have resigned with charges of selling influence hanging over them; considering Donald Trump used the campaign to fill the coffers of his own businesses, wasn't the entire Trump campaign just a racketeering enterprise that has continued in modified form under his presidency. Are they that different from the Bronx gangs?

The Trump campaign was always a vanity project to expand Brand Trump. The goal was not to win, which would require the actual work of governing and expose Brand Trump to scrutiny it couldn't bear. But Trump got greedy and his narcissism drove him to win. Unfortunately for the country, the proper scrutiny never happened until after his election.

In the same vein, a question for the media - how did you miss all this stuff during the campaign? Answer, ratings and the assumption Trump would lose.

With the Supreme Court seat still waiting to be filled, the religious right will still not abandon Trump. Hate the sin, but love the sinner, especially when he is giving them what they've wanted for decades.

None of these convictions will effect Mitch McConnell. Brett Kavanaugh will be confirmed. These convictions may, however, allow some red-state Democratic Senators to withhold their vote.

The reason everyone tapes Trump is because he purposely leaves no paper trail in order to cover his crimes but the people who work for him know he will throw them under the bus in a heartbeat. Their only protection is to tape him.

We've really been in an incredibly slow-moving constitutional crisis since Trump fired Comey.

We're also in a crisis of democracy as 18% of the population controls a majority in the US Senate.

Trump will still be President for quite a while and the damage he will inflict will only get worse.

When we look back, will yesterday be considered the day that Trump finally became ex-President.

Who Is Really Talking About Impeachment And Court-Packing

Way back in the beginning of this year, you might remember that House Republicans were going to rally their base for the midterms by claiming that the first thing the Democrats would do if they regain power would be to impeach Donald Trump. This was seen as a way to perhaps peel off moderate voters who would supposedly be appalled by such a possibility.

That strategy has been totally abandoned and, just to illustrate how bad the prospects are for Republicans in the House, GOP strategists are starting to talk about how Democrats winning the House and then impeaching Trump will fire up the base for the 2020 presidential campaign.

Despite all the GOP talk about Democrats impeaching Trump, the only ones doing impeachment these days are the Republicans themselves. And they are on a serious impeachment bender. In Pennsylvania, in the wake of a State Supreme Court decision that ruled the GOP gerrymandering violated the state constitution, eleven members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives put forward a resolution to impeach every member of the Court who voted to invalidate the election districts. Every one of those members happened to be Democrats. Republican leaders in the Pennsylvania House realized that this move would not play well and did not bring the resolution to a vote.

But that didn't stop Republicans from trying to save their illegal gerrymanders. The Court had ordered the new districts be drawn and a bipartisan bill actually already existed that would create an independent redistricting commission. According to the Brennan Center, the commission provided "independence, transparency and compromise, the three key ingredients to fair redistricting. Eleven citizen commissioners – four registered Republicans, four registered Democrats, and three independents – would be randomly selected from pools of screened candidates to draw Pennsylvania's maps. Prospective commissioners with any direct connections to elected officials or political ambitions would be excluded. The commission’s work would be guided by clear, legitimate criteria and the process would include numerous opportunities for public input. Ultimately, a map would only be enacted once a proposal received the support of seven commissioners, including at least one from each caucus." The bill had wide support among both Democrats and Republicans in both legislative house.

After letting the bill languish for a year, a Republican-controlled committee held an unannounced hearing and voted to gut the bipartisan without any debate or hearing. Instead, a new bill was passed out of committee that "would give responsibility for drawing maps to six handpicked politicians. And rather than requiring partisan balance, this drastic change allows for a 4-2 skew if, as is currently the case, one party controls both the state house and senate. The amendment would also cut the governor, currently a Democrat, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court out of the process entirely."

In West Virginia, the Republican-controlled House of Delegates has voted to impeach the entire West Virginia Supreme Court. The Court, which usually consists of five elected members was already down to four when one justice resigned just as the impeachment process was beginning. A second justice, who has not yet resigned, was indicted in June on federal charges of fraud, witness tampering, and lying to investigators. All four justices are charged in the impeachment documents with overspending to remodel their offices and overpaying retired senior status judges. Now I'm no expert on West Virginia politics but I think it would be an understatement to say that it has never been a strong state for good governance. And overspending on remodeling and overpaying senior judges sound like things that were long considered perks of the job.

But even if the charges against the judges have real substance, it is the timing of this impeachment action by the Republicans that is most concerning. Republicans waited until August 14th to impeach these judges. That date also happens to be the last date for scheduling a special election in November. Without a special election, it falls to Democrat-turned-Republican Governor Jim Justice to appoint any new judges, assuming any or all of the current justices are convicted of impeachment in the State Senate. Those judges would serve for two years until the normal election in 2020. Although the state voted to have non-partisan judicial elections in 2015, the current makeup of the Supreme Court before the resignation and impeachment favored Democrats 3-2. Assuming all of the remaining justices are convicted, the Republican governor would have the ability to pack the entire Court with his cronies for at least the next two years.

In North Carolina, the Republican-controlled legislature has been fighting to strip any elected Democrat of power ever since the party lost total control of the three branches of government in 2016, despite their illegal gerrymandering. The legislature has place a number of constitutional amendments on the ballot for November. Two of them particularly target the powers of the current Democratic governor. One would take away his power to appoint members to state boards and commissions and the other would limit his ability to fill judicial vacancies. Both of those powers would now be given to the GOP-controlled legislature. The governor is suing to remove those two proposals from the ballot claiming the language is misleading and the state Supreme Court now will end up hearing that case and objections to two other ballots from the NAACP and an environmental group.

The executive director of the state Republican party openly threatened the Court with impeachment if they blocked any of the ballot proposals. The director stated, "Today I suggested that should the democrats on the NC Supreme Court block citizens from voting on constitutional amendments, a Constitutional crisis would be upon us. I suggested that there would be an equal and opposite reaction that occur with voters and their elected representatives, that could include many things: censure, further attempts to clarify the role of the courts through constitutional amendments, changes in what courts can hear what cases, and yes impeachment." Although he claimed that there had been no discussion with members of the legislature about impeachment, it is hard to believe that the director of the Republican party would make such an egregious attack on the independence of the judiciary unless there was broad support within the party to do so. Notice, too, that he takes direct aim at the Democrats on the Court, turning a judicial decision into a partisan process.

Finally, we can't ignore Trump's sycophants in the US House of Representatives. There, Republican leaders, scandal-tainted Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, have introduced a resolution to impeach Rod Rosenstein for high crimes and misdemeanors, primarily centered on Rosenstein's refusal to turn over confidential documents related to the Russia investigation. Rosenstein's reluctance is based not only on maintaining the independence of the Justice Department and its investigations but also the knowledge that any relevant material he turns over to the House Republicans will immediately be shared with members of the Trump team who may be targets of the investigation to aid in their defense.

Paul Ryan and the other members of the House leadership have made it clear this resolution is going nowhere before the election but it will be used as a campaign prop to fire up portions of Trump's base. And if the Republicans manage to maintain control of the House in November, this resolution could very well be acted upon.

All of the is part and parcel of the Republican attempt to subvert any judicial oversight that may impinge on its power while packing the courts with partisan hacks in order to provide the judicial cover for its unconstitutional and undemocratic acts to maintain power. Because of Mitch McConnell's across-the-board obstruction of Democratic judicial nominees, including Merrick Garland, Donald Trump has been able to pack a remarkable 15% of all the US Court of Appeals judges with his appointments. And with the current vacancies, it is possible that Trump will have appointed 20% by the end of his first (and, hopefully, last) term. If Brett Kavanaugh gets rammed through by the GOP and confirmed, that would mean that nearly half of the Supreme Court, 80% of its conservative majority, and nearly half the entire US Court of Appeals will have been appointed by two Presidents, Trump and G. W. Bush, who lost the popular vote.

If and when Trump is impeached, the GOP will scream bloody murder. But it is Republicans that have actually used the impeachment process for purely political gain, from Bill Clinton to these various aforementioned attacks on state supreme courts. Similarly, when Democrats regain power and attempt to rebalance the courts, the GOP will decry court-packing. But they were the ones that packed the courts to begin with.

Media Can't Accept Trump's Guilt

Jonathan Chait has a piece up in New York Magazine where he accurately describes the media as always taking at face value the most benign reasons for Trump's actions as regards to Russia and Putin. Chait writes that "news accounts have leaned so heavily toward the most innocent explanations for Trump’s behavior, even though those explanations are frequently bizarre. It is certainly possible those innocent accounts will turn out to be true — sometimes strange and unlikely accounts of human behavior turn out to be correct. My premise was that unlikely-but-possible innocent explanations for Trump’s behavior were gaining wide traction, while equally plausible damning explanations were being ignored."

These benign explanations of Trump's behavior follow two clear paths. One is that Trump is too stupid to understand the difference between Russia interfering in our election and collusion between his campaign and the Russians. The other is that Trump's ego makes him think that highlighting Russian interference in the election simply diminishes his actual victory. Of course, these theories are in conflict. In one, Trump is simply too dumb while in the other he has full understanding but his ego won't let him admit it.

A more recent corollary of the first theory is that, whatever Trump may actually have done, he simply doesn't believe any of it was illegal, or has convinced himself so. This has become necessary to explain Trump's increasing attacks on the Mueller investigation and the constant tweets, statements, and actions that amount to a continual obstruction of justice.

The third option that explains so much of his behavior and everyone else who worked on the campaign and lied about their activities is that Trump is simply guilty of collusion and/or conspiracy with the Russians. But that option rarely gets broached at all in stories about Trump and Russia.

Chait cites Washington Post reporter Philip Bump as an example of searching for the most benign interpretation of Trump's behavior when he writes, "a significant part of Trump’s approach is simply how he sees dealmaking. NATO is a contract that was thrust upon him. Putin is a deal waiting to be made between two strong-minded individuals. That others insist such a deal is unwise or can’t be done is all the more reason for Trump to run toward it." This statement manages to ignore the unseemly fact that most of the "deals" that Trump has made have always involved some interesting corollary where Trump or the Trump Organization receive some benefit. The two most recent examples of that are the flip-flop on ZTE sanctions after a Chinese investment into a Trump development project in Singapore and offering Kim Jung-un the "opportunity" to have Trump develop the North Korean coastline in return for giving up his nukes.

Of course, there is a perfectly logical and reasonable geopolitical theory that Trump could use to explain his continued actions that benefit Russia and ties in beautifully with his attacks on China. China is set to become the 21st century superpower. In order to counteract China's global ambitions, it will be necessary to become allies with Russia in order to provide a pincer movement of containment. All of Trump's contacts with Russians during the campaign and all his actions since then that seem to benefit Putin have to be seen in this light. In addition, the rise of China also means that NATO as presently configured is far less important than it used to be and shouldn't tie up as much US resources as it does.

Whether or not you believe that strategy or theory is legitimate, it would provide a more rational basis for what Trump has done than almost anything else other than collusion. And there would be plenty of Republicans and hawkish foreign policy professionals who would support this point of view. But neither Trump nor anyone in the Trump administration has even proposed this theory to the best of my knowledge.

The reporting bias on benign explanations that Chait highlights is especially apparent in the coverage of Rudy Giuliani's increasingly ridiculous defenses of the President. Giuliani keeps on saying that he is continuing to negotiate with the Mueller about an interview with the President. And Trump continually says that he wants to speak with Mueller but his lawyers won't let him. This is pure hogwash at this point. These "negotiations" have been going on for nearly a year with no result. Trump and his team concluded early on this year that they would not submit to an interview and would try to force Mueller to subpoena Trump, creating a constitutional crisis that would be taken to the Supreme Court. Either way, Trump was never going to talk to Mueller before the midterms. But the media continually reports Giuliani's statements about negotiating with Mueller as fact, despite no confirmation from the Mueller side.

Giuliani also states that any campaign would take a meeting with someone offering dirt on their opponents. This statement continually goes unchallenged although it seems to finally be getting some pushback, such as on Morning Joe earlier today. The most often cited example of how false Giuliani's statement is was how the Gore campaign dealt with receiving the Bush debate prep material. Gore's people returned called the FBI immediately and those who saw the material recused themselves from any further debate help for Gore. Of course, there was a degree of self-preservation in their patriotism as they suspected that the material was actually a dirty trick designed by Karl Rove.

Of course, the Trumpsters never considered the fact that receiving dirt from the Russians would actually compromise their campaign because they lived in that gutter their entire lives. More importantly, there has never been a campaign in modern American history that had as many contacts with a foreign enemy as the Trump campaign with Russian and that includes the Nixon campaign negotiating with North Vietnam and the Reagan campaign negotiating with the Iranians in order to win their elections. This virtually never gets mentioned in media coverage of Rudy's claims.

Josh Marshall makes the extremely cogent point that all the evidence shows that Trump is guilty of conspiring with a foreign power to win an election. Whether that can be proved in a legal sense remains to be seen. But the media and a large segment of the American public is having a hard time accepting the fact of his essential guilt. Marshall writes, "We know Trump is guilty, as civic and public matter if not a narrowly legal one. We’re just having a hard time coming to grips with the fact." And it's not going to get any easier if the media keeps ignoring the most obvious explanation for Trump's behavior just because it's too uncomfortable to contemplate. Of course, that may be because much of the media realizes, but won't admit, they were complicit in Trump's ascension as well.