THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 4/6/17

Little Nuggets Edition (i.e., I didn’t have the time or attention this week to do a lot of news gathering)

THIS CRAP AGAIN: “Ever since President Trump tweeted, in the early morning of March 4th, that ‘Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory,’ the White House and its defenders have labored to find a justification for the false allegation.” So this week, the Right is bringing back its favorite Obama boogeyman, Susan Rice, that advisor who committed the unspeakable crime of going on TV and using talking points given to her by the intelligence agencies to talk about the Benghazi attacks. DRAW AND QUARTER HER. Anyway. The White House and Nunes have been working together to try to make the Russian interference investigation into an indictment of “unmasking” procedures of Americans -- including Trump officials -- by intelligence agencies, and that effort reached its apex this week with a story published by a shockingly repulsive man best known for being a rape apologist (sample quote: “Have you guys ever tried ‘raping’ a girl without using force? Try it. It's basically impossible. Date rape does not exist.” Yes, he just told his twitter followers to “try” raping women)* alleging that She-Devil Susan Rice had personally demanded the unmasking of various Trumpers. And naturally, the entire right wing apparatus launched into gear taking this totally seriously. As Ryan Lizza reports, such unmasking of the identities of Americans incidentally caught on the surveillance of foreigners is routine: “‘Masking and unmasking happens every single day, dozens of times, or hundreds of times. I don’t even know the numbers,’ Jim Himes, a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told me. ‘There needs to be a process followed. It’s a fairly rigorous process, involving lots of review by counsels and that sort of thing.’”

*Here Cernovich is today claiming that Assad’s chemical weapons attack against his own people is “fake.” Truly a great guy.

FACT ABOUT DRONE STRIKES: “During President Obama’s two terms in office, he approved 542 such targeted strikes in 2,920 days—one every 5.4 days. From his inauguration through today, President Trump had approved at least 75 drone strikes or raids in 74 days—about one every day.”

UPDATE ON TRUMP FLEECING AMERICA: Remember how, before Trump, every single president has gone to extraordinary lengths to remove all possible appearances of conflict of interest (see, e.g., Carter selling his peanut farm). And remember how, in a radical departure, Trump decided instead to keep all his various money-making ventures but to put them in a “trust” controlled by his sons? And how he staged that ridiculous press conference featuring dozens of empty manilla folders to serve, somehow, as proof of all the legal ins and outs he was creating a “complete separation” between himself from his business? Even though it was obviously a sham at the time, new reporting by ProPublica revealed it this week to be a 100% sham, in that Trump has changed those trust documents to allow him to plunder any of his businesses, at any time, for any amount of money he wants: “The previously unreported changes to a trust document, signed on Feb. 10, stipulates that it ‘shall distribute net income or principal to Donald J. Trump at his request’ or whenever his son and longtime attorney ‘deem appropriate.’ That can include everything from profits to the underlying assets, such as the businesses themselves.” Jonathan Chait remembers who, ultimately, is to blame for the fleecing of America: “The Republican Congress has granted Trump unlimited license to use his office to enrich himself and his family, and to enmesh his family in the business of governing.” P.S. When Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, was asked about holding hearings into Trump’s efforts to enrich himself and his businesses through the presidency (recall that he has visited Trump-branded properties nearly one out of every three days of his presidency so far), Chaffetz shrugged, “‘He’s already rich,’ Chaffetz said. ‘He’s very rich. I don’t think that he ran for this office to line his pockets even more. I just don’t see it like that.’” Good to know rich people can’t be corrupt!

OTHER THINGS:

• First, Syria: as I write this, it looks like Trump has just launched a missile strike against Syrian infrastructure targets. This comes one day after Assad’s chemical weapons attack, and just hours after Trump so eloquently said, when asked whether Assad should leave power, that “something should happen.” Also one week after Secretary Tillerson suggested that the White House had no issue with Assad remaining in power. Also, it should be noted that Trump spent a lot of 2013 insisting that any attack on Syria needed congressional approval. (Remember all those pieces of shit who said that a Clinton presidency was far more likely to lead to war than Trump? Yeah, so do I.) OH, and let’s not forget that, even as Trump says that the chemical attack was “a disgrace to humanity,” citing in particular the deaths of children, recall that he is doing his damndest to bar all Syrian refugees -- the very people targeted by Assad -- out of this country (and out of safety) forever. It is outrageous and disgusting and awful and we should all feel deeply, deeply ashamed.
• Second, health care: Read this Chait piece about how the GOP is at each other’s throats over their failed Obamacare repeal.
• Third: Bannon: So apparently Trump didn’t like all those references to “President Bannon,” even though they were obvious plays at Trump’s hilariously fragile egos (and they worked!). And so Bannon was kicked off the National Security Council, where he had no place being to begin with. And the White House’s excuse is hilarious: It says that Bannon was there to keep an eye on Michael Flynn, whom they “all knew . . . had issues,” and now that Flynn’s out (over a month ago), Bannon doesn’t need to be there. Which makes you wonder why in the hell Flynn was appointed to begin with. Anyway, now reports are coming out that Bannon and Kushner are in an all-out battle, with Bannon calling Kushner a “globalist” (i.e., liberal Jewish cosmopolitan) and a “cuck.” (If you don’t get that last insult, click here.) THESE PEOPLE ARE THE WORST.
• Fourth: Today the Senate destroyed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. Gorsuch will be on the seat that should have been Garland’s. I still find myself so dispirited by this entire thing that it is difficult to read and write about it. Make no mistake, Gorsuch will be far worse than Scalia, as far right and and just as smug as Alito (at least Scalia believed in the Fourth Amendment). The end of the filibuster is in many ways terrifying (so much for all those Republicans who ran on a platform of being a check on Trump), but I think we had no choice here. And I have been persuaded by various pieces of writing, like this piece by Eric Levitz, that the elimination of the filibuster is ultimately a necessary progressive step. That’s all the reaction I can really muster right now.

Good Read of the Week: Josh Barro: “Republicans are now endorsing enough of Obamacare that we can say they are for Obamacare. Period.”

Best Thing on the Internet: A columnist tries to scrub his anti-Trump history, in an attempt to get an administration job. It doesn’t go well.