JustOneMinute

Now What?

I don't know what's happening but I bet it's big.

The Sun Shines On Boston

Congrats to Red Sox Nation, their team, and their very capable front office. Weather reports indicate there will be no rain on their parade today; that will come next year when the Astros and/or Yankees take their turn meeting or exceeding expectations.

And in that "Wait'll next year" vein, 2019 should be at least as exciting as 2018, since the three above-mentioned teams are young, very deep, and (by Vegas Series odds) the three best teams in baseball. And having finally gotten under the salary cap and lightened their luxury tax penalty, the Yankees should be able to open their vast vault and wrest from the Sox the coveted "Best Team Money Can Buy" title.

Enjoy the parade, Beantown - don't get used to it.

WHILE WE'RE AT IT: That 11-3 playoff run against very good teams was impressive! Now go 11-0 next year and you've tied the 1998-99 Yankees 22-3 playoff record.

We Pause For What I Think Is A 4Chan Moment

The old adage to never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity must be kept in mind as we look at this next story but... the behavior is so dumb and the sourcing so ethereal that a 4Chan type prank seems like a plausible alternative explanation to the Conventional Wisdom being offered by the usual suspects.

Let's start with NBC News:

Mueller refers sex misconduct scheme targeting him to FBI for investigation

"We immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation," said Peter Carr, spokesperson for the special counsel.

Say what?!?

Special counsel Robert Mueller last week asked the FBI to investigate a possible scam in which a woman would make false claims that he was guilty of sexual misconduct and harassment, after several political reporters were contacted about doing a story on the alleged misconduct.

Multiple reporters were contacted over the past few weeks by a woman who said she had been offered money to say she had been harassed by Mueller, the special counsel who is probing possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. After investigating, according to the political website Hill Reporter, the reporters each independently determined the allegations of misconduct and harassment were likely a hoax and that it was unclear if the woman had been offered money to make the claim. The reporters then contacted the special counsel's office to report that they had been approached about the scheme.

Do note the link to The Hill Reporter. We'll come back to that.

While investigating the possibility of a hoax, the Hill Reporter's Ed Krassenstein, who was one of the reporters contacted, said he received threats, including a text message reading, "You're in over your head…. Drop this" which included his and another editor's home addresses.

Around the same time reporters began to be contacted about the misconduct allegations, Jack Burkman, a Republican lobbyist and radio host, began promoting, via his Facebook page, that he is investigating sexual misconduct and alcohol-related allegations against Mueller. On Tuesday morning he tweeted that he would hold a press conference two days later to "reveal the first of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's sex assault victims."

Jack Burkman's infamous history of dramatic exposes that never materialized is reprised briefly in the Daily Beast:

Burkman has not any offered any evidence at all of his accusations and his previous “bombshell” press conferences on other stories have become notorious flops in Washington media circles. In July, he promised that he had a whistleblower who would prove the government killed Rich. But Burkman’s witness never showed in person, instead calling in anonymously via speakerphone — a stunt that enraged Burkman’s fellow conspiracy theorists.

This isn’t Burkman’s first attempt to get publicity for a sexual assault allegation either. In late 2017, with the MeToo movement kicking off, Burkman claimed that he represented a woman who would accuse a congressman of sexual assault. But with the press on hand for the revelations, Burkman had to concede that his client refused to appear. Instead, Burkman offered everyone a “big apology” for wasting their time.

Takeaway - the guy is not credible nor does he have much judgment. Back to NBC:

Krassenstein told NBC News he reached out to the special counsel's office on Tuesday telling them what he knew about the scheme.

He also gave NBC News the phone numbers used by the woman alleging she was offered money to make the allegations, which were both disconnected.

The woman allegedly worked at the law firm Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro at the same time as Mueller in 1974. Reporters say she said she was supposed to claim the misconduct took place during that period. NBC News gave the woman's name to a spokesperson for the law firm, which is now called Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. In a statement, the spokesperson said, "We have no record of this individual working for our firm."

Krassenstein and other journalists also pointed to Jacob Wohl, a disgraced hedge fund manager turned pro-Trump conspiracy theorist and Surefire Intelligence, a company connected to him, as being involved with Burkman's alleged plot. 

"I gave Burkman a call. I wanted to know who 'Surefire Intelligence' is. That's when he told me about Jacob Wohl," said Krassenstein. "To me, this was all a setup from somebody trying to discredit the media."

Let's pause for a moment. Notice that NBC is relying heavily on Krassenstein. The Daily Beast coverage of this story includes a link to background on the Krassenstein brothers. The gist: they are simultaneously Resistance "icons" and internet scammers. Hmm. But his notion that this is a plot targeting the media is a good one.

And who is Jacob Wohl? He is an internet presence frequently described as a 'troll'. NBC:

The allegations still took off as far-right news sites tied to Wohl and known for spreading fake news and disinformation published viral posts. Gateway Pundit, where Wohl is employed as a writer, touted their "exclusive documents" about a "very credible witness."

The Gateway Pundit put up and then took down some documents backing this story.

Surefire Intelligence had invoiced Burkman for some work they had done looking for abuse victims. Internet sleuthing done by Krassenstein links Wohl to Surefire by way of internet records found on Google, but... do note that 4Chan spoofers could make this work in the other direction: take public records associated with Wohl, build them into a new website, and let internet sleuths find the clues that lead to Wohl. NBC:

Wohl declined to comment on his involvement with Surefire Intelligence. However, his email is listed in the domain records for Surefire Intelligence's website and calls to a number listed on the Surefire Intelligence website went to a voicemail message which provided another phone number, listed in public records as belonging to Wohl's mother.

Wohl stopped responding to NBC News after being told Surefire's official phone number redirects to his mother's voicemail.

OK, embarassing. But wait!

The open-source intelligence group Bellingcat pulled apart the construction of the company's online presence. It found that someone with the email address jacob.wohl@nexmanagement.com was involved in the domain registration of the Surefire Intelligence website and that many of the LinkedIn profiles of people who reportedly worked there used stolen, edited photos of models as their profile images. One featured a photo of Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli. In another case, a fictitious profile of a Surefire financial investigator in Zurich had a black and white image of actor Christoph Waltz as its profile photo.

Christoph Waltz is Quentin Tarantino's favorite Nazi in "Inglourious Basterds".

That wraps up NBC.

At The Atlantic, we learn that a second woman, Jennifer Taub, also received a request to provide damaging testimony against Mueller:

But she’s not the only woman who’s come forward: Jennifer Taub, an associate professor at Vermont Law School, received an email from a man using a Surefire Intelligence email address around the same time, on October 22. “It’s my understanding that you may have had some past encounters with Robert Mueller,” he told Taub, according to the email she forwarded me on Tuesday afternoon. “I would like to discuss those encounters with you.” (Taub told me she has never had any encounters with Mueller, though she does appear on CNN at times as an expert commentator on the Mueller probe.)

So put on your 4Chan prankster cap - what are the chances that a respected law professor with several books out and regular CNN gigs is so hostile to Mueller and so cavalier about her career that she will perjure herself for, say, $50,000. (The other woman was offered $20k plus coverage of her credit card bills).

There is no chance she would have ever said yes. She might however, have gone to CNN with a story idea. And since CNN is Trump's favorite target for Fake News, the Krassenstein idea of a media-targeted spoof might gain traction.

Let's cut to the first woman. Her letter is printed at the Krassenstein site, The Hill Reporter. Key excerpts:

A little over a week ago (Oct 18) several journalists, including myself, received an email from an individual claiming to have been offered money in exchange for alleging sexual misconduct on the part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

“I was contacted via phone call by a man named Bill Christensen, who had a British accent, and said that he would like to ask me a couple of questions about Robert Mueller, whom I worked with when I was a paralegal for Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro in 1974 (now called Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman),” the individual claimed. “I asked him who he was working for, and he told me his boss was some sort of politics guy in Washington named Jack Burkman (or Berkman… Not sure how it’s spelled)…….

….He (Bill Christensen) then offered to pay off all of my credit card debt, plus bring me a check for $20,000 if I would do one thing. In more of an effort to get him to go away than anything else, I asked him what in the hell he wanted me to do. He said that we could not talk about it on the phone, and he asked me to download an app on my phone called Signal, which he said was more secure. Reluctantly, I downloaded the app and he called me on that app a few minutes later. He said (and I will never forget exactly what it was) ‘I want you to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller, and I want you to sign a sworn affidavit to that effect’.”

This individual said that they were a female living in Fort Myers, Florida, but she would not speak to any reporters over the phone.  Hill Reporter looked into this woman, as did many other journalists we have spoken with, and we all reached a conclusion that this was likely a hoax of some sort.  No one by the name provided lived in Fort Myers, Florida according to the numerous background checks which we ran.

Basically, at a minimum this contact gave a false name ("Lorraine Parsons") but did in fact work with Mueller at one time. More likely, her entire persona is false. In any case, no reporter was able to verify her name, Ft Myers residence, past employment at Mueller's firm, or any contact between her and either Surefire or Burkman. The reporters had an unverifiable email making unsubstantiated allegations. Media catnip!

OK, home stretch: Lorraine's email to the media was Oct 18. Taub was Oct 22. On Oct 19 Burkman posted at his Facebook site that he would be exposing Mueller as an abuser and a drunk.

So, what does it all add up to? The media is running variations on this Atlantic lead:

A company that appears to be run by a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist offered to pay women to make false claims against Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the days leading up to the midterm elections—and the special counsel’s office has asked the FBI to weigh in.

At their Twitter sites both Wohl and Burkman are chanting "Fake News". Well, what else can they say?

And the truth? We may see. If Burkman and/or Surefire is going around suborning perjury that is a Big Effing Deal. On the other hand, I question the editorial standards at The Atlantic - they are making this charge against Burkman and Wohl on the basis of an unverified letter from an unknown source making uncorraborated allegations? How?

It appears that someone ("Lorraine Parsons") has been sending letters to the media reporting this outrageous conduct by, well, Surefire at Burkman's behest if we believe a word of it. And did Lorraine report this to the police? Well, uhh, not that anyone knows. No risk of a false statement charge there.

Per The Atlantic, Prof. Taub promptly forwarded her email to the Special Prosecutor. OK, she is a savvy law professor and Lorraine is whatever she is, but really - how could the Krassenstein instinct that this was an attempt to make the media look silly be totally off base?

MAYBE Burkman and Wohl really are this dumb. Or maybe someone's goal (Burkman? 4Chan?) was to make as many people as possible look ridiculous with an elaborate spoof.

A bright red flag is this: The Krassensteins live in Ft. Myers FL, the same hometown the un-findable Lorraine provided. Eerie coincidence? Or deliberate shout-out to (or by!) the Krassensteins, who have led the way in reporting on this.

I don't know. Burkman ought to be pounding on the FBI doors demanding an investigation to clear his name and he ought to be hiring lawyers to advise him whether The Atlantic or others crossed a libel line. Libel would be tricky for a public figure with such a dubious past, but this allegation is less substantial than air. We will see.

A SECOND RED FLAG: This indicates either a real problem with this story or with my tired eyes but I can't find a whisper of this Burkman and Mueller story at CNN.com.

Mediate, on the other hand, is teed up for a libel claim unless their buckpassing to the Daily Beast lets them off:

Here Are the Idiots Behind the Dumb Scheme to Accuse Robert Mueller of Sexual Harassment 

by Caleb Ecarma | Oct 30th, 2018, 5:32 pm

 

GOP lobbyist and Seth Rich conspiracy theorist Jack Burkman is working with the notoriously unintelligent pro-Trump Twitter personality Jacob Wohl to smear special counsel Robert Mueller with sexual misconduct allegations, according to a report from The Daily Beast.

Born In The USA! And Subject To Its Jurisdiction.

Let me tack on to the previous post this 2015 National Review column by John Eastman. [nd for the opposite view, do see John Ho below].

Eastman's legal resume is impressive yet incomplete:

John C. Eastman is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former dean at the Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law. He also serves as the director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence.

Left unmentioned: Per Wikipedia he graduated from U of Chicago Law and eventually clerked for Justice Thomas. Not a feather in the wind.

His gist:

We Can Apply the 14th Amendment While Also Reforming Birthright Citizenship

...

The first clause of the 14th Amendment provides that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The Journal thinks the meaning is “straightforward”: “Subject to the jurisdiction” covers everyone born on U.S. soil (except the children of diplomats and invading armies), because “‘jurisdiction’ defines the territory where the force of law applies and to whom — and this principle is well settled to include almost everyone within U.S. borders, regardless of their home country or the circumstances of their birth.” It then states: “By the circular restrictionist logic, illegal immigrants could not be prosecuted for committing crimes because they are not U.S. citizens.”

Professor Yoo makes the same claim (absent the ad hominem word “restrictionist”): “Almost all aliens in the United States, even citizens of other nations, still fall within our jurisdiction while they are in our territory: Otherwise they could commit crimes of all sorts without fear of punishment.”

This claim plays off a widespread ignorance about the meaning of the word “jurisdiction.” It fails to recognize that the same word covers two distinctly different ideas: 1) complete, political jurisdiction; and 2) partial, territorial jurisdiction.

Think of it this way. When a British tourist visits the United States, he subjects himself to our laws as long as he remains within our borders. He must drive on the right side of the road, for example. He is subject to our partial, territorial jurisdiction, but he does not thereby subject himself to our complete, political jurisdiction. He does not get to vote, or serve on a jury; he cannot be drafted into our armed forces; and he cannot be prosecuted for treason if he takes up arms against us, because he owes us no allegiance. He is merely a “temporary sojourner,” to use the language employed by those who wrote the 14th Amendment, and not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States in the full and complete sense intended by that language in the 14th Amendment.

He revisits the history of the floor debate n the Senate to buttress that distinction. As a layman I can only add, we don't "amend" the Constitution anymore - we reinterpret it. Sure, its interesting when the court discovers a previously unheard of right in a penumbra somewhere and overlooks a blidnigly obvious seemingly in the plain text, but here we are.

His conclusion:

So, truth be told, the 14th Amendment does not need to be repealed in order to fix the problem of birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. It just needs to be understood and applied correctly.

Among my many questions: If I can rely on Eastman, Congress has passed many immigration laws since 1898 without explicitly endorsing or repudiating this court decision. Is there anything like a 'silence gives consent' doctrine? Or even 'consent-lite' - maybe a court would accept that  specific act of Congress could revise this ruling bit not a mere Executive Order.

I don't know. Assuming for a moment that this is a serious policy proposal and not electioneering, it seems to me that Trump will want a letter from the OLC of the DoJ prior to signing any Executive Orders.

DO LET ME ADD: This might easily be both a serious proposal and electioneering - there may be a faction that has been pushing this for months and they finally caught Trump's imagination by pitching it as a base-motivating ploy.

STOLEN FROM: Threadkiller provides a 2006 essay by John Eastman on same topic, this time at Heritage. His key is still the meaning of "subject to jurisdiction" but here is a different angle:

The "subject to the jurisdiction" provision must therefore require something in addition to mere birth on U.S. soil. The language of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, from which the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was derived, provides the key to its meaning. The 1866 Act provides: "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States."[3] As this formulation makes clear, any child born on U.S. soil to parents who were temporary visitors to this country and who, as a result of the foreign citizenship of the child's par­ents, remained a citizen or subject of the parents' home country was not entitled to claim the birth­right citizenship provided by the 1866 Act.

ON THE OTHER HAND: Former judge John Ho has an alternative history and the opposite conclusion. They can't both be right.

Born In The USA!

Who among us does not enjoy a bit of red meat the week before an election?

Exclusive: Trump targeting birthright citizenship with executive order

I should add, I am having a flashback to a Great Moment In Sports Broadcasting.

Yankee great Phil Rizzuto, ruminating on sports records that will never be broken, suggested Don Larsen's perfect World Series game. His ever-patient co-announcer Bill White noted that someone someday might pitch a perfect Series game. To which the Scooter replied, "That would TIE the record!" 

And why this happy stroll down memory lane? Trump, with the aid of an Axios parenthetical correction, provides the set-up here:

Trump told "Axios on HBO" that he has run the idea of ending birthright citizenship by his counsel and plans to proceed with the highly controversial move, which certainly will face legal challenges.

...

"We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States ... with all of those benefits," Trump continued. "It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end." (More than 30 countries, most in the Western Hemisphere, provide birthright citizenship.)

The Inner Pedant Never Sleeps

In the course of fulminating about something or other I was casting about for a phrase that would mean the opposite of "gilding the lily" - talking down even further something already bad. Maybe something country-ish like "Don't throw mud on a pig".

Nothing came to me, so I turned to my friend Bing. And behold, a lesson in the twilight struggle between the Inner Pedant and the Memory Sieve:

Wow. Six and a half years later and I'm still puzzled. But I'm a King of Frequently Unasked Questions!

Fun trip down memory lane to see how many of us were old-timers back then.

Still Not 1968

Pat Buchanan reprises 1968, still the modern high-water mark for a divided America.

Left unmentioned - 1968 was part of a global phenomenon, namely, the coming of age of the post-war baby-boom. France had memorable student protests as did other European countries. Mexico had brutally suppressed riots just before the Olympic Games, and China's Cultural Revolution (launched in 1966) continued apace.

Obviously, the current reaction to unfettered immigration is roiling Europe and the US.

Merkel Out

The rolling wave of resistance to unfettered immigration finally takes down Angela Merkel. One might think, after Brexit, Trump, Macron, Sweden, eastern Europe and Merkel that the folks in favor of open borders would dial up better arguments than "Stop hating, you hate-filled hater". But maybe not.

MORE: Andrew Sullivan swings to starboard on this one:

Democrats Can’t Keep Dodging Immigration As a Real Issue

It’s the optics that are fatal. The image of that caravan, crammed with thousands of desperate brown human beings, winding its way tortuously through Central America and Mexico, headed to a showdown at the U.S. border, is a white nationalist’s twisted fantasy. The question is not if George Soros funded it, but if Steve Bannon did (I’m kidding, I’m kidding). It reminds me of that infamous poster in the Brexit campaign which showed a long, packed line of migrants, in theory waiting to enter Britain, with the slogan: “Breaking Point.”

...

I get all that. I’m an immigrant myself. But it doesn’t answer a simple question. What do we do when the caravan gets here? And more saliently: What do we do if many more caravans show up behind it? This is not an abstract question. It’s a pressing, practical, and in some ways existential one. It cuts to the core of whether the United States has to choose between being inhumane to the point of betraying some core moral principles and remaining a sovereign nation in control of who joins its population.

He does slide past a key point when he writes this:

The United States has long been a miraculous machine for immigrant assimilation. Which is why it’s easy to dismiss the appeal of anti-immigrant sentiment as nativist racism, waxing as it periodically does in America. 

Well, yes. There was an anti-immigrant backlash in the 1910-1920s, when the non-native born population was around 15%. Today? Projected to reach 14% by 2020.

There is a manageable pace of integration and change but we are moving well into a zone that has in the past led to significant social tension. (I'm thinking Japanese internment as I write ). Lots of history of immigration and the changing laws in the LA Times. And every picture tells a story.

Roll Tide!

OK, props to this dad who may have stopped a mass killing at a McDonalds in Birmingham. Free happy meals for life.

And his life may not be long - he was leaving with his sons, turned to shoot it out with the gunman, and both he and a teenage son were wounded. His wife (OK, my wife anyway) might pin a medal on him and then choke him out in his sleep for endangering her baby boy.

I would have the devil's own time getting my sons to go out while I went back but jiminy - he made a bold choice which this time worked out. IMHO he ought to coach them that their "Help" assignment is to get out and get the police.

A brave dad armed with a pistol stopped what could have been a mass shooting Saturday inside an Alabama McDonald's when he took down a masked gunman who had stormed in and opened fire.

The unidentified father was leaving the establishment with his sons when a masked man walked into the Birmingham fast-food restaurant and started shooting, WBRC-TV reported. The father returned fire and, during the ensuing shootout, the gunman, the father and one of the man's teenage sons were struck, according to the station. 

The gunman, who was not identified, later died of his injuries. The other two injuries were not considered life-threatening.

...

Authorities are now working to determine if the gunman intended to rob the restaurant, was targeting an employee or planned something more nefarious.

“Things like this are difficult for both families. The gentleman who unfortunately lost his life, the teenage boy who is in the hospital recovering from his injuries and the father who is also recovering from his injuries,” Birmingham police spokesman Sgt. Bryan Shelton said, according to WVTM-13. “It's not easy being a father and watching your child get injured, get hurt like that. It's a really heartwrenching experience."

"Gentleman".

All that said, the dad's choices may have been limited. Other coverage places the dad and his kids at the door or inside the McDonalds (possibly at the door), near closing time. 

The shooting happened about 10:45 p.m. at the Lomb Avenue restaurant. Birmingham police spokesman Sgt. Bryan Shelton said one juvenile and two adults were injured. All three were transported to area hospitals where one of the adult victims was later pronounced dead.

Initial police scanner reports said the shooting may have happened during a robbery, but police have not confirmed that report. Shelton said the restaurant was closing for the night and the manager was unlocking the door to let out a father and his two teen sons.

As the door was opened, a masked man burst inside and opened fire. The exiting customer was able to return fire, striking the masked man who ultimately died at the hospital.

The father and one of his sons were injured but are expected to be OK.

STOLEN FROM: Henry, one of the many regular commenters here, is next in line with a plagiarism suit.

Place Your Bets!

As of Sunday evening, what do the betting markets say about the upcoming election?

At PredictIt, the Democrats have (roughly) a 65% chance of gaining control of the House. The Republicans have roughly a 35% chance. Do note: The PredicitIt probabilities shown below do not sum to 100% due to their fee structure: winners pay back ten percent of their net gain.

At the Iowa Electronic Market the wave is Bluer: Democrats have a 80% chance of claiming the House.

A USA Today article provides an outlier. For those who are not familiar with money-line betting, the favorite is always presented as the minus number; the underdog is the plus.

So if you see that tonight in the World Series the Dodgers at home with Kershaw starting are -125 against the Red Sox behind Price at +110, it means the Dodgers are favored to win. 

Per USA Today:

The odds on MyBookie favor Republicans maintaining hold of their majority, even as political forecaster Nate Silver says there is an 84.9 percent chance of a Democratic victory. 

As of Sunday, the odds of the GOP keeping the House are at -140. That means you would need to bet $140 on the Republicans to win $100 if they stay in the majority. The Democrats are at +110, meaning a $100 bet would win you $110 if the Democrats manage to wrest control of the House. 

If we split the difference at 125, then the Republicans have a (125/225) chance of holding the House, or 56%. The Democrats odds of taking the House are 100/225 or 44%.

Something is fishy there, I would say. Let's look overseas for help: at Ladbrokes in the UK, the Democrats are 8/15 favorites to take the House. That works out to a percentage of 15/(8+15), or 65%. 

Republicans are 6/4, which is a 40% chance (4/(4+6).

So Ladbrokes and PredictIt are pretty close; Iowa is in Nate Silver country,and the USA Today site just seems goofy.

A NOTE ON THE IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKET SENATE CONTROL MARKET: The IEM Senate rules lead to an awkward place - they count Democrats and Republicans based on the declared party affiliation, not the practical one. Bernie Sanders is an Independent who declined the Dem Party nomination in Vermont. So if the final tally is 49 Republicans, 50 Democrats, and Bernie the winning ticket for Senate control is "Other", not "Democrats". 50 Republicans plus Pence pays off for "Republicans".

The IEM odds do reflect that - on the Senate side "other" is more likely than an outright Dem win. And yes, I recall that a few years back there were two independents caucusing with the Dems; I welcome a memory jog if someone cares to look it up and remind me.

 

 

 

 

 

Are You Ready For Some Football?

I'm looking for a pulse from the NY teams here: Copters down by 7, Dwarves by 10 in the 4th quarter.

MORE: I'm not a NFL coaching savant but I'm pretty sure it's harder to win from behind if you give up late touchdowns. Copters lose by 14, Dwarves down by 14.

 

How About Them Sox?

I turned the game on when it was 1-0 in the 6th and I did a quick check to make sure I hadn't found a replay of last night's game. Puig's home run to make it 4-0 Dodgers gave me further assurance I was watching live action. After that - wow.

Another Mass Shooting

This time at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. If - IF - this early reporting is correct, the shooter is a rabid anti-semite who dislikes Trump for being a squish on the ongoing Jewish problem. So, too extreme even for MAGA but not a lefty either.

LOTS MORE at ZeroHedge.

The Don't-Get-Used-To-It How 'Bout Them Red Sox Open Thread. Or Bombers...

Big game tonight. As much as I dislike the Dodgers I would enjoy seeing the Red Sox win tonight to position themselves for some seventh game ignominy that has happened only once before in baseball playoff history. Misery loves company!

But there's lots of other stuff going on, I've been told.

JUST IN CASE: JM Hanes passes along a copy of the Sayoc charging document.

I was curious to see how they characterized the pipe bombs with their "energetic material". They are charging as explosives but the language of the statute is more open than one might expect. From the doc, my emphasis:

1. In or about October 2018, in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, CESAR ALTIERI SAYOC, the defendant, transported and received, and attempted to transport and receive, in interstate and foreign commerce, an explosive with the knowledge and intent that it would be used to kill, injure, and intimidate individuals, and unlawfully to damage and destroy buildings,vehicles, and other real and personal property...

(Title 18, United States Code, Sections 844(d) and 2.) [link]

2. In or about October 2018, in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, CESAR ALTIERI SAYOC, the defendant, knowingly deposited for mailing and delivery, and knowingly caused to be delivered by mail, according to the direction thereon, and at a place at which it was directed to be received by the person to whom it was addressed, a thing declared nonmailable as defined in Title 18, United States Code, Section 1716(a), to wit, the IEDs described in Count One, with intent to injure another and injure the mails and other property.
(Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1716(j)(2) and 2.) [link]

3. In or about October 2018, in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, CESAR ALTIERI SAYOC, the defendant, knowingly and willfully threatened to kill and inflict bodily harm upon a former President and a member of the immediate family of a former President, to wit, SAYOC mailed an IED to former First Lady Hillary Clinton, who resides with her husband, former President William Jefferson Clinton.

(Title 18, United States Code, Sections 879 and 2.) [link to statute]

Charge 3 is quoted as threatening to kill or harm, which means they must be willing to demonstrate these bombs are capable of exploding and doing damage. However, I have yet to check that statute.

Charge 2 mentions "intent to injure".

Charge 1 includes "intimidate", so mailing a scary bomb-like device is criminal whether it is dangerous or not.

My point is, charges 2 and 3, seem to call for both criminal intent and dangerous bombs, not inoperable duds. So are they prepared to prove that these bombs were dangerous? Or does criminal intent outweigh bomb-making incompetence? Can the defense argue the bomb-maker knew damn well they couldn't explode, so intent was absent? That would be interesting - the Feds could convict an incompetent dud-maker on the basis of evil intent but a skilled bomb-maker deliberately turning out scary duds could plausibly argue an absence of intent to injure. IANAL!

NBC News had this earlier:

The devices were poorly made, and some couldn't have exploded, but it's unclear whether that was intentional or whether they were just badly constructed, officials said. They said that some of the bombs had substantial flaws, that some had subtle flaws and that some had yet to be examined.

Even Vox joins in the fun:

The second possible reason is that the bombs couldn’t detonate because the wires didn’t connect to a trigger, meaning they wouldn’t have exploded even if they’d reached their intended target. Anthony May, a retired government explosives investigator, told Vox that based on X-rays of the pipe bombs leaked online, he believes the devices were “not capable of functioning.”

Well, then, Mr. May he is not being asked to testify to a grand jury when the DA seeks an indictment.

The We-Hope-Not-To-Become Traditional Pipe Bomb Presser Thread

[UPDATE: I wrote this about an hour ago and headed out to run some errands. It has clearly been overtaken by events, but I'm leaving it up anyway.]

MORE: 5 Fast Facts:

1. According to online records, Sayoc is a registered Republican, registering with the GOP in Florida in March 2016. Sayoc, who goes by Cesar Altieri Randazzo on Facebook, attended a Donald Trump rally in October 2016 [video now unavailable]

2. Sayoc tweeted regularly about his belief that Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum was funded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros. 

3. Sayoc has been arrested several times in Broward County, Florida, dating back to 1991, court records show. His most recent arrest in Broward was in 2014. In 2002, he was charged with making a bomb threat in Dade County, Florida. He was sentenced to one year of probation. Prosecutors agreed to withhold adjudication of the felony charge, meaning it was dismissed after he completed the probation in 2003.

In 1991, Sayoc was charged with third-degree grand theft, a felony. He pleaded guilty that same year and was sentenced to two years of probation. In 1994, his mother sought a domestic violence injunction against Sayoc, court records show....

Sayoc filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and was not married at the time. He was working as a store manager at a supermarket in Hollywood, Florida, at the time. He was also arrested on theft charges in Dade and Palm Beach counties in 1992 and 2015.

Points 4 and 5 are filler:

4. Coincidentally, Hillary Clinton Was Campaigning in Florida When a Device Was Mailed to Her New York Home

5. Soros Has Been Widely Criticized by Right-Wing Groups & Accused of ‘Owning’ Democratic Politicians

 Do let me add a query and a caveat - if he registered as a Republican in March 2016, what was he before that? Or was this some routine voter roll clean-up re-registration denounced as voter suppression?

And a caveat - if Sayoc was a disaffected Bernie Bro he jumped ship early-ish: at the end of March the race between Clinton and Sanders was virtually over but hope was still alive in Bernieland. Hillary clinched in June.

And on the third hand, the Bernie Bros thought Wasserman-Schultz rigged the nomination process for Hillary, so who knows?

BONUS BAFFLER: Felons can't vote in Florida, so why is Sayoc registered at all? Based on endless assurances from Dems we know its not voter fraud.

ORIGINAL:

Jeff Sessions is meant to boost afternoon ratings at 2:30 Eastern to announce something about the guy in custody and the status of the pipe bomb investigation.

This was my unhandicapped list from a few days back, now numbered to aid the betting commentariat. I've also added a few plural categories as well.

 A) a right-wing nutjob with clear political motivation but a terrible sense of political timing;

 A1) (A), but more than one.

 B) a lefty nutjub hoping to make righties look bad, as a crossover from today's campuses;

 B2) (B) but more than one.

 C) yet another Russian attempt to sow discord and disrupt American politics;

 D) some other foreign group sowing fear and discord;

 E) a deranged loner with off-the-wall motivations that make sense to only him (or her).

 E2) Deranged loners... OK, that makes no sense. A deranged group credibly disowned by both left and right. Examples? IDK - Save the Wookies? Put it this way - E2 is not my betting favorite.

Since you ask, I am gloomily considering (A) to be the favorite followed by (E) and (B). I don't like (D). Foreign terrorists would use real bombs; blowing up a mailroom clerk would be a win for them. OTOH, blowing up a clerk would be a PR disaster for Russian manipulators.

I don't think these bombs were a serious attempt to do damage so that pushes me towards a nutter making a statement of some sort, or Mad Russians, who are low-probability because they really, really can't let themselves be caught.

Which segues to Bonus Paranoia: In a John Sandford or Lee Child novel the authorities would make an early arrest but it would take Lucas Davenport or Jack Reacher a bit longer to pierce the official cover-up (or criminal mastermind's scheming) and uncover the real evil-doers. Still time for an arrest today and a dramatic plot twist next week!

And Then There Were Twelve

The hits keep coming!

Suspicious Packages Targeting James Clapper, Sen. Cory Booker Found In Midtown And In Florida

Spartacus scores! And we know NY Governor and would-be President Andrew Cuomo is calling reporters and telling them that he nearly got a package and he hates Trump as much as Booker does.

Right now I am pretty sure staffers for Kamala Harris and the many other 2020 hopefuls are buying up manila envelopes, Forever stamps and PVC pipe to bail out their own leader's 2020 vision. Don't forget the faux-ISIS flags!

Blue Wave Ebbing

You know the mid-term polling has turned grim for Democrats when you see that Vox has placed the nation on a suicide watch.

OK, lithium may have mental health benefits and yes, trace amounts are found in varying concentrations in drinking water. But its interesting to see the Vox Huge Government mindset in action - they want to add it to drinking water, as we do with flouride:

Why this hasn’t been tried

These recent studies have made me less confident in the link between lithium and lower suicide rates than I was when I first encountered Ghaemi’s research. But it’s such a cheap intervention, and the odds of serious side effects sound low enough, that it seems worth a try.

At the very least, I’d love for some governments to conduct real, bona fide experiments on lithium. Maybe a state could randomly add lithium to some of its reservoirs but not others, or, conversely, a high-lithium state could try removing it from the water. There are serious ethical questions about doing experiments like this that affect whole populations, but if lithium’s effect is real and we don’t pursue it because we lack compelling enough evidence, thereby endangering thousands of people — that’s an ethical problem too.

For heaven's sake - for reasons they identify this is DOA. Would it be too much to ask to have the FDA fund some science and produce a Daily Value, as they do with so many other vitamins and minerals? Then lithium could be promoted as one more food additive, like Vitamin C.

OH, YEAH: Everything I learned about lithium as of 2014. Worth mentioning: Guessing at a Recommended Dietary Allowance is not easy and food is an important source.

Flashback: Mass Murder Mailing of 2005

A lot of pipe bombs have been discovered in the last few days (Drudge is up to nine) mailed to prominent Democrats and Trump critics. What does it mean? Obvious possibilities are:

  - a right-wing nutjob with clear political motivation but a terrible sense of political timing;

 - a lefty nutjub hoping to make righties look bad, as a crossover from today's campuses;

 - yet another Russian attempt to sow discord and disrupt American politics;

 - some other foreign group sowing fear and discord;

 - a deranged loner with off-the-wall motivations that make sense to on.y him (or her).

Don't be afraid to bet on the deranged loner. This appalling incident from 2005 was kept quiet for a year but eventually Supreme Court Justice O'Connor told the tale, which was also available in court documents. This is CNN:

O'Connor details half-baked attempt to kill Supreme Court

POSTED: Kevin Bohn  8:05 p.m. EST, November 17, 2006

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Cookies mailed to the U.S. Supreme Court last year contained enough rat poison to kill all nine justices, retired member Sandra Day O'Connor said at a conference last week.

Barbara Joan March, a 60-year-old Connecticut woman, was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison. She sent 14 threatening letters in April 2005 -- each with a baked good or piece of candy laced with rat poison -- to a variety of federal officials: the nine Supreme Court justices; FBI Director Robert Mueller; his deputy; the chief of naval operations; the Air Force chief of staff and the chief of staff of the Army.

March pleaded guilty in March to 14 counts of mailing injurious articles.

OK, crazy right? But was it a serious mass assassination attempt? Well, CNN said "half-baked" for a reason:

The letters did not seem to pose much of a real danger since the threatening note told the recipients the food was poisoned. In court papers submitted with the plea agreement, prosecutors said each of the envelopes contained a one-page typewritten letter stating either "I am" or "We are" followed by "going to kill you. This is poisoned."

I think security-minded folks call notes saying "This is poisoned" a "clue". It certainly might leave one wondering what the sender's goal was.

Unsurprisingly, after the 2001 anthrax letters and probably before, there are security procedures in place for handling the mail:

Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said the poison packages never reached the chambers of the justices.

All mail sent to the court is screened, and there has been heightened security since anthrax-laced letters were sent to members of Congress and the media in 2001. The Supreme Court also received some suspicious packages at the time, forcing it to shut down for a short period of time. Those packages turned out to be harmless.

So what was going on? Per the government's sentencing memorandum, the key was in the return addresses; the sender was not making a political statement but instead was hoping to ensnare some enemies in her life:

Third, the defendant's conduct does not appear to have been motivated by any personal, political or professional animosity toward the intended recipients of the letters. Rather, interviews with the purported senders of the letters, as well as factors cited in the presentence investigation report, suggest that the defendant's conduct likely was motivated by a misplaced anger toward the purported senders of the letters, former friends and colleagues who in the defendant's mind somehow had abandoned or wronged her.

If there is anything to be learned from this today, it might be that waiting for a fact or two to emerge before leaping to conclusions about the attacker's motivation can be a good idea.

However, that is difficult advice to take. Back when this story broke in 2006 some lefty bloggers promptly blamed an Ann Coulter "joke" about poisoning Justice Stevens for this attack. OK, the timing was backwards since her joke followed the attack (but preceded the publicizing of it). And the sentencing memorandum explaining the motivation was available in the public record. But there were political points to be scored, so whatever.

To paraphrase Tommy Lee Jones from "No Country For Old Men", even in the contest between man and available information the outcome is uncertain.

As to current events, one might wonder whether these pipe bombs were a serious attempt to kill prominent Democrats. Surely no observer believes Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is sitting at home with a letter opener handling stray packages. (Sorry, no serious observer.) Obviously, if a mailman or security person had been maimed or killed that would be ghastly but per the Times reporting it is not yet established that these bombs were capable of exploding:

None of the devices harmed anyone, and it was not immediately clear whether any of them could have. One law enforcement official said investigators were examining the possibility that they were hoax devices that were constructed to look like bombs but would not have exploded.

...

The devices contained some of the components that would be required to build an operable bomb, but law enforcement officials would not say late on Wednesday whether they were viable.

...

On Wednesday afternoon, New York City’s police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, said that the CNN bomb was “a live explosive device” and that it would be rendered harmless and sent to the F.B.I. to be analyzed. The package that contained the device also included white powder that the police were testing to determine if it was toxic, he said.

Some bomb technicians who studied photos of the device that circulated on social media suggested that the bomb sent to CNN had hallmarks of fake explosives — the kind more typically depicted on television and in movies, rather than devices capable of detonating.

A digital clock was taped to the middle of the pipe, a feature that experts say is typically shown on fictional bombs in an attempt to ratchet up dramatic tension, but unnecessary in real life.

In fact, bombmakers generally avoid attaching visible clocks to their devices to keep from tipping off their targets about when the bombs are set to explode.

If these were in fact fail-safe hoax bombs, what was the point? Terror? Win a news cycle? But why assume logical motivation? Maybe the goal was to get a business partner in trouble or settle a nasty divorce the old-fashioned way. Time may tell.

Fortunately, no one was hurt. Whether that was luck or design we will learn soon enough. And it goes without saying (or ought to), the folks handling these bombs don't know until later just how much of a risk they are taking. We thank them for their service and admire their courage.

We Will Dial Back The Madness Tomorrow

Tomorrow the NY Times editors will surely implore Sarah Palin and the rest of the Evil Right to dial back the madness. But meanwhile, they're running Trump assassination porn as a treat for the Resistance.

The Oct 23 NY Times Book Review asks five novelists to write the final chapter of the Trump administration. Zoe Sharp offers "How It Ends". A fair use excerpt before the Times rethinks this:

HOW IT ENDS

By Zoë Sharp

The Russian landed at Dulles after 48 hours of traveling. Of necessity, he came from Moscow by a circuitous route. A long way with a very specific task. There would be no return flight.

...

When it was time, he went downstairs, took his place in the lobby before the entourage appeared. The hotel staff had been lined up to see their boss, the president, go by. A few of them applauded. Most did not.

The president didn’t seem to notice. He waved, in his desultory fashion. The Secret Service agents clustered around him, ushered him toward the armored limo idling outside at the curb.

The Russian waited until they were a few steps past before he drew the gun. He sighted on the center of the president’s back, and squeezed the trigger.

The Makarov misfired.

The Secret Service agent at the president’s shoulder heard the click, spun into a crouch. He registered the scene instantly, drawing his own weapon with razor-edge reflexes.

The Russian tasted failure. He closed his eyes and waited to pay the cost.

It did not come.

He opened his eyes. The Secret Service agent stood before him, presenting his Glock, butt first.

“Here,” the agent said politely. “Use mine. …”

Wow. 

OK, This Is Dreadful

Hillary and Obama got mail packages with bombs similar to the Soros device? Crazy behavior by an out-of-control nutjob. 

Worst Cover-Up EVER!

From Reuters:

Asked by a reporter in the White House Oval Office how the Khashoggi killing could have happened, Trump said: "They had a very bad original concept. It was carried out poorly, and the cover-up was one of the worst in the history of cover-ups."

Fortunately, Trump did NOT go on to say that he executes big, glorious cover-ups. Or - the gold standard - Clintonesque coverups. With any luck, we'll find out in the next few months whether he does or not.

Don't Bomb Anyone. Please.

Anyone who wants to blow up George Soros's schemes should do so on Nov. 6. METAPHORICALLY!

An explosive device was found on Monday in a mailbox at a home of George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who is a favorite target of right-wing groups, in a suburb north of New York City, the authorities said.

A law enforcement official confirmed that the device was found near Mr. Soros’s home. It did not explode on its own, and bomb squad technicians “proactively detonated” it, the official said.

This is actually scary, probably to the point of stupid [UPDATE has a more sensible version]:

Federal and state law enforcement officials responded to the scene in Katonah, N.Y., a hamlet in the upscale town of Bedford in northern Westchester County, after the Bedford Police Department received a call about a suspicious package at about 3:45 p.m.

“An employee of the residence opened the package, revealing what appeared to be an explosive device,” the police said in a statement. “The employee placed the package in a wooded area and called the Bedford police.”

Say what? OK, the package hadn't exploded yet but I strongly suspect that pressing your luck is the wrong play. If possible, evacuate the premises and lets the trained and equipped professionals do the carrying.

Or, if unwrapping the package activated something and the bomb might have exploded in a couple of minutes, let Soros pay for a new entrance foyer. Yike.

Anyway, yeah, yeah, no suspects have been found, no motivation is known, so it might be a false flag lefty operation, it might be a disgruntled kook with a grievance unrelated to politics or the political calendar, it might be a lot of things. But it might be a right-wing nutjob, and on the off chance this person is persuadable, let me add my voice to those saying, save that energy for organizing and voting. No bombs. Geez.

UPDATE: A new Times story has these details:

Officers from the police department in the town of Bedford, N.Y., initially responded to the Soros home in the hamlet of Katonah, at about 3:45 p.m. Monday in response to a call from the caretaker about a suspicious package, according to a police department statement. The Westchester County Police Department’s bomb squad was called, as were federal and state investigators.

“The caretaker went out to collect the mail and didn’t make it back to the residence,” a senior law enforcement official said. The device was packed in an envelope that was about 8 by 10 inches and “looked suspicious.” The caretaker “dropped it in the woods on the way back to the residence.”

In the age of Amazon Prime, what small package looks suspicious?

Traditional "Where Did The Morning Go?" Open Thread

Away we go, finally.

Don't Shoot!

The NY Times runs a guest op-ed with a perfectly sensible message - Let’s Agree Not to Kill One Another.

However, in classic "This is how you get more Trump" fashion, the author, a port-side Green, can only manage to criticize Trump and offer as a US example the case of Dr. Blasey Ford.

As an attempt to persuade the left not to shoot at righties, this might find some traction [Narrator: It won't find traction].

However, it fails as an attempt to change minds on the right by failing to notice that these social media death threats have moved to the real world on the left as well as the right. Could he have mentioned that Republican Congressman were exposed to actual gunfire by an aggrieved Bernie-bro, not just nasty comments on someone's blog? Could he have found any number of examples of righties getting death threats from the left, including Brett Kavanaugh's family?

Of course he could have. But when faced with a choice between criticizing his own tribe as well as the other, he backed down. Utterly predictable, yet disappointing.

Football Saturday!

The colleges and coaches get rich off the unpaid (or under-paid) players. But no one takes a knee, so there's that.

Run, Hillary Run!

I actually think it would be great for the Democrats if Hillarity runs in 2020. First, as she sucked up all the oxygen the other contenders and pretenders would turn blue, which might be a good look for messaging purposes.

More importantly, whoever knocked her off would establish a bit of credibility as a giant-killer, even though "excorcist" would be more appropriate.

Evergreen Headline

Torn from anytime in my life:

The Experts Were Wrong About the Middle East

I love the intro:

There is a rare and growing bipartisan consensus in Congress about the need to smack Saudi Arabia with human-rights sanctions, or perhaps even tougher penalties, for its role in the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul earlier this month but never walked out. Sanctions seem inevitable.

The only problem is that many of the same experts pushing for sanctions against Saudi Arabia have previously argued, in other contexts, that sanctions don’t work. That was the near-unanimous conclusion of top policy experts who supported the Obama administration’s decision to roll back sanctions on Iran, which had brought its economy to the brink of collapse, in exchange for a nuclear deal. It’s just one example of a broader trend: analysts suddenly discovering that the Middle East is more complex than they’d previously admitted.

The Washington Post, which now wants Saudi Arabia to pay a price for Khashoggi’s death, ran a piece just last year by Adam Taylor titled “Do Sanctions Work? The Evidence Isn’t Compelling.” Even the Post’s Jason Rezaian, who was held hostage by the Iranians and is now safely back in the United States, opposed more sanctions on Iran in a recent piece, arguing that they would only inflict more suffering on its population.

This logic is what prompted the Obama administration to engage the Iranian regime from a position of “mutual respect.” That was code for offering massive financial incentives in exchange for Iran dialing back its nuclear program. That effort began with cash payments to Iran for staying at the negotiating table. The administration then repealed sanctions in exchange for some tangible yet temporary nuclear concessions. For good measure, the Obama administration gave the Iranians more cash. That ultimately yielded a controversial nuclear deal, signed in 2015, that pressed pause on Iran’s mad dash for the bomb. Here’s the problem: By focusing exclusively on Iran’s nuclear problem, the deal effectively gave a green light to a range of other malign activity, like terrorism, missile proliferation, and support for other rogue states. In fact, that behavior only increased after the deal was signed.

That sort of policy—tying sanction relief to halting one problematic behavior, in a way that implicitly authorizes other misdeeds—is the last approach we want to apply to Saudi Arabia. And besides, it doesn’t really need the money.

We need to virtue-signal the hell out of them.

 

Finding The Fall Guy

The Saudis tee someone up.

Bringing Hope And Change To Missouri Democrats. Or Trying, Anyway.

The NY Times has an interesting story about a Missouri Democrat's attempt to bring her party's activist base home to the notion that the state is too conservative for the hard-line stance of the Democratic Party.

It went about as you might expect - being right is more important to the progressives than actually winning elections.

The pro-life Democrat:

She worried that the Democratic Party had moved too far left on abortion. Gone were the days when the party, under President Bill Clinton, called for abortion to be “safe, legal and rare.” She also noticed fellow Democrats showing contempt for her when they learned her stance on abortion.

...

On June 30, when dozens of Democratic State Committee members gathered in a university conference room in Jefferson City to vote on the new platform, Ms. Barry nervously introduced her plank. It said that the party recognized “the diversity of views” on abortion and “we welcome into our ranks all Missourians who may hold different positions on this issue.”

(Full text is here.)

The pro-choice pushback:

“My stomach dropped,” said Ms. Merritt, who had agreed to join the committee after the party’s steep losses of 2016, thinking she needed to do more than criticize from the sidelines.

In her view, Missouri Democrats needed more progressive politics, not less.

“I don’t understand Democrats who quote Truman and F.D.R. and then act like they are terrified to run as an actual Democrat,” said Ms. Merritt, 45, who lives in St. Louis. “You have to believe in something in order for somebody to believe in you. You can’t be such a watered-down thing.”

The fight over abortion in the party, she said, epitomized that. So she sprang into action, talking on Facebook and Twitter with hundreds of angry progressives, some of whom were threatening to stop their donations, calling her fellow committee members, and ultimately the party’s chairman.

“I felt horrified that someone would associate me with that bizarre, regressive anti-woman language,” she said.

The party was trying to placate people who opposed abortion at the very moment that abortion was most under threat, Ms. Merritt said. Days before the vote, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy had announced his retirement and the court had backed anti-abortion pregnancy centers. Missouri, one of the most restrictive states in the country, is now down to one abortion clinic.

“The last thing we needed was for that language to linger,” she said of the plank. “It was a foul stench that needed to be addressed sooner rather than later.”

"Foul stench". Let's pencil her in as "Maybe not open for a calm discussion".

Finally, words of wisdom from an older Democrat about the benefits of compromising:

That is simply savvy politics [referring to Sen. McCaskill ducking the issue during her campaign], said Christopher Kelly, a retired judge from Columbia who served nine terms in the Legislature, several with Ms. McCaskill. He said Ms. McCaskill has a near perfect Democratic voting record on abortion, and believes the struggle points to a larger problem among young progressives.

“They operate in this fantasy,” he said, “that we’re going to have a political renaissance or enlightenment, where everyone is going to decide that their ideas — the ideas of the lefties — are now their ideas.”

He added: “You will not win seats, because even though people might agree with you on some of the issues, you will scare them away. You will seem alien to them.”

He said history does not support the claim that more anti-abortion Democrats in the Legislature translates to less abortion rights. Many of the restrictions have come more recently, he said, since Republicans have gained the majority.

“When you become contemptuous of conservative Democrats, you promote the election of their opponents,” said Mr. Kelly, who believes it was a mistake to scrap Ms. Barry’s plank. “And their opponents are 100 percent worse for the environment, 100 percent worse for working people, 100 percent worse for L.G.B.T. people, for women, for black people, for immigrants.”

I mean, duh. But not for the progressive highlighted here, who gets the last word:

Ms. Merritt admits that some districts may be difficult for Democrats to win, but that is partly because the party has not really tried to persuade people. Candidates need to seize the chance this fall to teach people why Democratic ideas are better, she said.

“I believe 110 percent that if we run on full-throated, unapologetic progressive politics, we will win,” she said.

She added: “At a certain point, when you compromise your values, you are not winning. How far are we going to bend over before we tumble and fall?”

You keep on believing, sweetie. Trump will keep on winning.

The progressives would rather try to amend the Constitution and pack the courts rather than moderate their positions on abortion, guns and immigration. And they will continue to struggle in flyover country. But they'll raise lots of Hollywood money!

Don't Blame Me!

The AP headlines [transcript] the idea that Trump won't take responsibility for a Democratic takeover of the House. And should he? Trump raises the valid point that a midterm setback is quite normal, as Reagan, Clinton and Obama can attest (Bush 43 washed out in his second midterm but gained seats in the first, joining FDR as modern Presidents with first midterm gains.)

The AP also makes this hagiographic claim:

AP: Eight years ago, Barack Obama said he got shellacked, so you know, taking the outcome of the election as a referendum on himself.

Well, yeah, not really. Several early questions prodded him to accept the election as a repudiation of the health care bill or his overall agenda and he declined. This is fro his opening statement:

Now, I ran for this office to tackle these challenges and give voice to the concerns of everyday people.  Over the last two years, we’ve made progress.  But, clearly, too many Americans haven’t felt that progress yet, and they told us that yesterday. And as President, I take responsibility for that.

And the first question, from Bern Feller of the AP:

Q    Thank you, Mr. President.  Are you willing to concede at all that what happened last night was not just an expression of frustration about the economy, but a fundamental rejection of your agenda?  And given the results, who do you think speaks to the true voice of the American people right now:  you or John Boehner?

THE PRESIDENT:  I think that there is no doubt that people’s number-one concern is the economy.  And what they were expressing great frustration about is the fact that we haven’t made enough progress on the economy.  We’ve stabilized the economy. We’ve got job growth in the private sectors.  But people all across America aren’t feeling that progress.  They don't see it.  And they understand that I’m the President of the United States, and that my core responsibility is making sure that we’ve got an economy that's growing, a middle class that feels secure, that jobs are being created.  And so I think I've got to take direct responsibility for the fact that we have not made as much progress as we need to make.

The "shellacking" came later.

Q    Thank you, Mr. President.  How do you respond to those who say the election outcome, at least in part, was voters saying that they see you as out of touch with their personal economic pain?  And are you willing to make any changes in your leadership style?

THE PRESIDENT:  There is a inherent danger in being in the White House and being in the bubble.  I mean, folks didn’t have any complaints about my leadership style when I was running around Iowa for a year.  And they got a pretty good look at me up close and personal, and they were able to lift the hood and kick the tires, and I think they understood that my story was theirs. I might have a funny name, I might have lived in some different places, but the values of hard work and responsibility and honesty and looking out for one another that had been instilled in them by their parents, those were the same values that I took from my mom and my grandparents.

And so the track record has been that when I’m out of this place, that's not an issue.  When you’re in this place, it is hard not to seem removed.  And one of the challenges that we’ve got to think about is how do I meet my responsibilities here in the White House, which require a lot of hours and a lot of work, but still have that opportunity to engage with the American people on a day-to-day basis, and know -- give them confidence that I’m listening to them.

Those letters that I read every night, some of them just break my heart.  Some of them provide me encouragement and inspiration.  But nobody is filming me reading those letters.  And so it’s hard, I think, for people to get a sense of, well, how is he taking in all this information?

So I think there are more things that we can do to make sure that I’m getting out of here.  But, I mean, I think it’s important to point out as well that a couple of great communicators, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, were standing at this podium two years into their presidency getting very similar questions because the economy wasn’t working the way it needed to be and there were a whole range of factors that made people concerned that maybe the party in power wasn’t listening to them.  
This is something that I think every President needs to go through because the responsibilities of this office are so enormous and so many people are depending on what we do, and in the rush of activity, sometimes we lose track of the ways that we connected with folks that got us here in the first place.  

And that’s something that -- now, I’m not recommending for every future President that they take a shellacking like they -- like I did last night.  (Laughter.)  I’m sure there are easier ways to learn these lessons.  But I do think that this is a growth process and an evolution.  And the relationship that I’ve had with the American people is one that built slowly, peaked at this incredible high, and then during the course of the last two years, as we’ve, together, gone through some very difficult times, has gotten rockier and tougher.  And it’s going to, I’m sure, have some more ups and downs during the course of me being in this office.

But the one thing that I just want to end on is getting out of here is good for me, too, because when I travel around the country, even in the toughest of these debates -- in the midst of health care last year during the summer when there were protesters about, and when I’m meeting families who’ve lost loved ones in Afghanistan or Iraq -- I always come away from those interactions just feeling so much more optimistic about this country.  

I should add, Investors Business Daily went off like a rocket after Obama assessed his second midterm disaster in 2014.

MORE: A prediction market.

We Conquer Fear AGAIN!

Dow up over 400. Call it the Avenatti rally! Or the Fauxahontas Fake!

Oh, or boring earnings. 

Is Avenatti Getting Sick Of Winning Yet?

The stripper ordered to pay the politician - first time for everything.

Fauxahontas On The War Path Campaign Trail

Elizabeth Warren clears the path for her 2020 Presidential run by releasing results of a DNA test showing she definitely maybe has a glimpse of Native American ancestry. My favorite bit is this, my emphasis:

Warren said she was committed to releasing the report regardless of the results. However, Warren’s aides would not say whether she or any of her three siblings had previously done a commercial DNA test that would have provided them with some assurance about Bustamante’s analysis.

Well, when did she announce she was submitting a sample to be analyzed? Google News is not her friend here, since it comes up dry for 2018 on any sort of bold, 'roll dem bones' pre-announcement. I sort of think she was committed to releasing the results unless she found a reason not to.

It's also interesting to see how little of her own life story she remembers, especially since it was only a week ago that Democrats were memory experts who thought Brett Kavanaugh ought to remember every damn thing he did in high school. Yes, I'm still bitter. But hiding it!

Prof. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection hangs up the No Sale sign. And I will give the often partisan Chris Cilizza props for his analysis of the politics behind Warren's big PR push, particularly this answer to "Why now?":

The answer, of course, is because she is running for president in 2020. And she wants to do two things with this video:

 

1) Stamp out a whisper campaign (or more) from her likely Democratic opponents -- and Trump -- about whether she lied about her background

2) Send a message to Democratic activists and donors that she is 100% going to fight back -- and fight back hard

 

Wait, what - other Democrats might use this against her, not just hate-filled racist Republicans? The earth paused in its rotation. Later we'll learn that Willie Horton attacks originated with Al Gore in 1988 and the birther movement was promoted by Hillary dead-enders. Whatever. Darn, my bitterness is showing again!

 

SHOULD TRUMP PAY UP? Warren came nowhere near meeting the conditions Trump specified in his $1 million dollar bet on Warren's heritage and as a professor of contract law Warren surely know it. But fun's fun so the media's piling on.

 

At a July 5 rally in Montana, President Trump went on a lengthy rant about one of his favorite targets: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and her claim to Native American ancestry.

 

Even then, Warren was rumored to be a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. Trump, with glee, told the rally crowd he looked forward to making Warren “prove” her Native American heritage on the debate stage if the two were to square off.

 

“I’m going to get one of those little [DNA testing] kits and in the middle of the debate, when she proclaims she’s of Indian heritage...," Trump said. “And we will say, ‘I will give you a million dollars to your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian.' "

 

The crowd cheered.

 

“And let’s see what she does,” Trump continued. “I have a feeling she will say no, but we’ll hold that for the debates. Do me a favor. Keep it within this room?”

 

Obviously, they are not debating, she is not the Democratic nominee and Trump didn't pick the testing service.

 

Sen. Warren could sue on the basis of detrimental reliance but she'd never win.

 

Meanwhile, Back In Boston

Beantown is the capital of US sports tonight, with the Patriots hosting (and leading) the KC Chiefs and the stinkin' Red Sox hosting (and leading) the Houston Astros.

Keep the remote busy.

 

Red Storm Rising

Now polling suggests Dems will gain House seats, Reps will gain Senate seats. 

Stark political divide points to a split decision in midterm elections

By Paul Kane The Washington Post   Oct 13, 2018

WASHINGTON — The divide in American politics is so stark that analysts are beginning to predict something that seldom happens: One party could make big gains in the House while the other adds seats in the Senate.

Not since 1970 has a midterm election provided such a split verdict, and only two other presidential elections, in 1996 and 1972, have demonstrated such division in congressional elections.

Now, particularly after the contentious Senate confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Democratic energy is up in the suburban districts that will determine the House majority — just as Republicans claim conservative voters have been jolted awake in rural states that will determine the Senate majority.

 Democrats could gain more than the 23 seats needed to take the House majority, which would normally be considered a “wave election” for Democrats up and down the ballot.

But Senate Republicans have gone from clinging to the narrowest of margins, a 51-to-49 majority, to believing they will gain seats, possibly three, the sort of result that would normally mean the national GOP had a very good night.

 

If I can spin the dial on election night and see tears in the eyes of both Rachel AND the Foxies it's a good night.

 

We March To War

At a rally in Ohio Trump talked up U.S. Grant, son of Ohio. Chaos ensued!

The CNN transcription:

Here's what Trump told the crowd in Ohio:

"It also gave you a general who was incredible. He drank a little bit too much. You know who I’m talking about right? So Robert E. Lee was a great general. And Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia. He couldn’t beat Robert E. Lee.

He was going crazy. I don’t know if you know this story. But Robert E. Lee was winning battle after battle after battle. And Abraham Lincoln came home, he said, 'I can’t beat Robert E. Lee.' And he had all of his generals, they looked great, they were the top of their class at West Point. They were the greatest people. There’s only one problem — they didn’t know how the hell to win. They didn’t know how to fight. They didn’t know how.

And one day, it was looking really bad. And Lincoln just said, 'You,' hardly knew his name. And they said, 'Don’t take him, he’s got a drinking problem.' And Lincoln said, 'I don’t care what problem he has. You guys aren’t winning.'

And his name was Grant. General Grant. And he went in and he knocked the hell out of everyone. And you know the story. They said to Lincoln, 'You can’t use him anymore, he’s an alcoholic.' And Lincoln said, 'I don’t care if he’s an alcoholic, frankly, give me six or seven more just like him.' He started to win. Grant really did — he had a serious problem, a serious drinking problem, but man was he a good general. And he’s finally being recognized as a great general.

But Lincoln had almost developed a phobia, because he was having a hard time with a true great fighter, a great general Robert E. Lee. But Grant figured it out. And Grant is a great general, and Grant came from right here."

Now, don't call it Fake News but on Twitter NBC News managed to distill that down to this:

WATCH: President Trump says "Robert E. Lee was a great general" during Ohio rally, calling the Confederate leader "incredible."

Trump called Grant incredible, but he could have said the same about this reporting.

The SPLC swooned because Gen. Lee fought for the slave-holding South:

Robert E. Lee was not a great general, President Trump. He waged a war to hold onto the legal institution of white supremacy.

Uh huh. Rommel was not a great general either since he fought for Hitler. Historians need to search their thesauri carefully.

Lots of cross-currents here.

We Have Conquered Fear!

The stock market conquers fear, for a day anyway. It's Trump-Time, so like the old saying, tomorrow is another week, next week is another month, and so on.

Now that the bear market is over, the Giants season is over and the Yankees season is over I can switch my laser-like focus to... well, definitely NOT the Knicks.

Moving On

We've moved on from Kavanaugh to Khashoggi and Kanye. What the "L" will it be next? And why did Hurricane Michael jump the line?

Kick 'Em When They're Up, Kick 'Em When They're Down

The soon-to-be traditional "Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down" open thread.

Worth noting - a year ago they were shooting Republicans so kicking is an encouraging de-escalation.

Maybe by 2020 they can get back to keying cars in parking lots that have the wrong bumper stickers.

FUN'S FUN BUT: I smell a rat, or perhaps a mouse, with this pick-up truck story. The police have the surveillance footage, so perhaps we'll see if this is insurance fraud, or whatever. Per Fox News, he only put the stickers on the previous weekend. I get that there are crazies in Washington, but c'mon. Confirmation bias is strong on this one.

Hurricane Michael

Hurricane Michael is blowing the boat ashore, not to mention every other thing not tied down.

The Cotton Theory Of The Ford Leak Overlooks Feinstein Speculation About "Friends"

Sen. Tom Cotton picks up a right-wing theory and runs with it:

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Tuesday said he "strongly suspects" Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) was behind the leak of an explosive letter that almost derailed Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.

...

“We learned last week that a woman named Monica McClean was Ms. Ford’s roommate, and she was one of the so-called beach friends who encouraged Ms. Ford to go to Dianne Feinstein and the partisan Democrats on the Judiciary Committee,” Cotton said, referring to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary panel.

Cotton said the fact that McClean once worked for former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara indicates that Schumer’s political operation was involved in the leak because Bharara used to work for Schumer on Capitol Hill.

“So I strongly suspect that Chuck Schumer’s political operations knew about Ms. Ford’s allegations as far back as July and manipulated the process all along,” he said.

Overlooked in the excitement: During the Kavanaugh hearing, in the course of denying that her staff leaked the Ford information, Sen. Feinstein speculated that the Ford leak came from Ford's friend:

FEINSTEIN: May I — may I — may I respond? It’s my understanding that her story was leaked before the letter became public. And she testified that she had spoken to her friends about it and it’s most likely that that’s how the story leaked and that she had been asked by press. But it did not leak from us, I assure you of that.

That ties in to a bonus question - why was the name "Monica L. Mclean" unredacted in the letter leaked by the Senate Judiciary Committee? A late-game screw-up, or an attempt to flush out a non-cooperating potential witness? Or did Fox News get the letter directly from the ex-boyfriend? In any case, internet sleuths tracked down Ms. McLean within twelve hours, so I am confident that Senate staff knew who she was.

Moving on. The Peet Bharara connection is tenuous. The WaPo explains why, although those with eyes understood this days ago - Monica McLean was in the FBI press Information office. She did not "work for" Bharara, who was the AUSA in the NY Southern District. However, the press offices of the FBI, the SDNY and others did coordinate on some press releases, so for Ms. McLean to contact a former associate who knows Bharara would be easy. 

On the lighter side, Freudian detectives will love this aspect of Bharara's denial: "I couldn't pick [Ms. McLean] out of a line-up..." Whoa, who says she belongs in a line-up? WHAT is the hidden message here?

Those determined to tie this to Sen. Schumer might try Michael Bromwich, who was a late (and normally very expensive) addition to the Ford legal team. He has been a Washington player since the 80's and has testified before Schumer on committee hearings, so a connection is possible. Bromwich also oversaw Apple during their e-book price-fixing case; one presumes that NYC publishers followed the case and may have mentioned it to Senator Pothole, who is all about constituent service. That case was handled by the DoJ Anti-Trust division but filed in the SDNY, so Bharara should have had a passing familarity with the players. [Also worth highlighting Andrew McCabe connection noted by Slate. FBI-friendly.]

Well. I still think the most likely candidates for the outing Dr. Ford are the Eshoo staffers (who, as best I know, have no Senate Judiciary Committee investigatory laws obliging their silence) or the staffers of other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. All it it would take is a Feinstein or Eshoo staffer to grumble to a colleague about a bombshell letter Feinstein is sitting on and eventually rumors would reach the press.

Ford's lawyers seems like a longshot, although activist, agenda-oriented lawyers might be confident the press won't rat them out.

And Monica McLean? She had to have press contacts - that was her job. Would she betray her friend by urging a reporter to start asking about a letter to Feinstein (while keeping coy about the contents)? And would that "look over there" leak be a betrayal? Dr. Ford's early call was to the Washington Post tipline, which may not have been the ideal way to keep this story out of the news.

I strongly suspect that Time Will Not Tell.

Happy Colonialist Oppression Day

I know what you're thinking - EVERY day is Colonialist Oppression Day.

Kavanaugh Confirmed

HasKavanaughLandedYet? Yes he has. A lot of NeverTrumpers are begrudgingly acknowledging that Trump is the guy you want on your side in a mud fight. Jonah Goldberg has thoughts.

I heartily endorse this:

Again, I think the Senate should — must — confirm Kavanaugh, because the consequences of rejecting him are worse than the consequences of confirming him. But there will be bad consequences no matter what, because we now live in a world where sub-optimal outcomes are the only choices available. It’s crap sandwiches all the way down the cafeteria menu, everybody — you just get to choose your condiments.

I'm not interested in losing but I can't stomach many more victories like this one. 

Kavanaugh Cloture Passes

It's on to the final vote! Sen. Daines (a Yes vote) has to walk his daughter down the aisle and deliver the Father of the Bride speech on Saturday but that may not be an issue:

Republican Senator Steve Daines said he plans to attend his daughter's wedding in Montana on Saturday, the same day the Senate may vote to confirm nominee Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

In a statement to The Associated Press, Daines said he will walk his daughter down the aisle for her wedding. He also predicted there would be a new Supreme Court justice. (Daines has supported Kavanaugh throughout the process.)

In an interview with CNN, Daines said GOP leaders may hold open the confirmation vote overnight to allow him to return from Montana to Washington to vote.

"We're taking it a day at a time to see what happens," Daines told CNN. 

The 30 hour Cloture Clock expires at 4:52 Saturday afternoon, if I am hearing Fox News correctly.

Getting Ready For Some Voting.

Big cloture vote Friday.

Yankees Baseball!

One of the better teams money can buy takes on the impoverished A's, so I know who America is rooting for!