Friday Talking Points (486) -- Hurricane-Force Lies

[ChrisWeigant]

It was another rollicking week in the world of politics, which is admittedly not saying much in the era of Trump. It was revealed this week that the death toll on Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria was not just higher than had been officially reported, but at least seventy times higher, and in fact was more than twice as high as the death toll from Hurricane Katrina. You'd think this would be a gigantic media story, but (sadly) you would be wrong. Just like everything else about the devastation, most certainly including the media's treatment of it, this bombshell report was largely ignored this week. No wonder Puerto Ricans feel like second-class citizens, when they keep getting second-class treatment like this.

There was even a handy "story hook" the media could have used: this year's hurricane season just began. But instead, all anyone wanted to talk about on the news was Roseanne and (later in the week) Samantha Bee. More on all of these stories later, down in the awards section of the column.

Roseanne Barr, of course, sent her career revival down in flames this week, when she tweeted out conspiracy theories, racism, and anti-Semitism. That's a pretty damning trifecta, especially those last two. She later tried to blame her tweetstorm on Ambien, which prompted the maker of Ambien to tweet: "People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world. While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication."

In fact, what with all the false equivalents being casually tossed around (by Barr's defenders), it bears pointing out that the only possible comparison that can be made is between Roseanne and anyone else guilty of making racist or anti-Semitic statements. So it's valid to compare her to Michael "Cosmo Kramer" Richards (for his racist remarks), or perhaps Al Sharpton (for his previous anti-Semitism). Either would indeed be an apples-to-apples comparison. But comparing Roseanne to some vile insult hurled in the political arena with no racist or anti-Semitic component is not. Both are to be condemned, as both cross the lines of propriety, but they simply are not directly comparable. That's because both racism and anti-Semitism are so ugly and vicious that they are in a category of condemnation all by themselves. But again, more on this in a moment.

One parallel worth drawing (that few have yet bothered to) is between Roseanne and a man President Donald Trump just pardoned. Because Dinesh D'Souza's Twitter feed is like Roseanne on steroids. D'Souza has not only pushed every rightwing nutjob conspiracy theory under the sun, he has also openly defended Hitler and argued that slaves were treated "well," because they were valuable property. Here's the only D'Souza tweet we were able to stomach quoting, just to give you a tiny flavor of what this guy's about: "OVERRATED DEMOCRATS DEPT: So Rosa Parks wouldn't sit in the back of the bus -- that's all she did, so what's the big fuss?"

Here is a good rundown of the crimes Trump just pardoned D'Souza for:

There are some campaign-finance violations that are trivial, or that might be explained away as oversights. This was not one of them. D'Souza knew very well he was breaking the law, and took steps to conceal his actions. He devised and carried out a scheme to violate election laws. Specifically, once he and his wife had given the legal limit in contributions to a friend running for Senate, he wanted to give more money but was prohibited by law from doing so. He then instructed his assistant and his mistress (yes, his mistress) to also give the legal limit, and reimbursed them for their contributions, concealing the true source of the money. That is not an oversight; it was willful fraud.

According to Trump, though, even though D'Souza pled guilty rather than fight the charges in court, the justice system "was unfair" to him, so he deserves a pardon. The man who prosecuted D'Souza, Preet Bharara, tweeted in reaction: "The President has the right to pardon but the facts are these: D'Souza intentionally broke the law, voluntarily pled guilty, apologized for his conduct & the judge found no unfairness. The career prosecutors and agents did their job. Period." Then, just as icing on the cake, Trump lied that he'd never previously spoken to D'Souza (Trump helped D'Souza promote one of his films, back in 2012). Trump's also considering pardons for two of his celebrity buddies: Martha Stewart and Rod Blagojevich (who appeared on The Apprentice before he had to go to jail for corruption). All just par for the Trump course, these days.

But back to that equivalence. D'Souza has publicly expressed worse racism than Roseanne and publicly defended Adolf Hitler, but that's OK with Donald Trump. Please keep this in mind when drawing comparisons, please.

Other hurricane-force lies blew from the Trump White House this week, as well. Trump inexplicably is trying to blame his own detention policy for immigrants on the Democrats. Nobody has the faintest idea what Trump is talking about, because all it would take to end the policy separating children from their parents would be one phone call from Trump -- to overturn his own policy. Even though Republicans control both houses of Congress, Trump is insanely trying to blame Democrats for the situation, somehow.

Trump is also doubling down on his "spygate" lie, even though some of his own staunchest supporters are now admitting that Trump is lying. Representative Trey Gowdy -- who attended the confidential briefing with the Justice Department last week -- notably went on Fox News to debunk Trump's conspiracy theory. Gowdy also shot down Trump's inaccurate use of the term "spy." But what really had to hurt Trump was seeing one of his biggest Fox News cheerleaders -- Judge Napolitano -- call the claim that the F.B.I. had placed an informant within the Trump campaign nothing short of "baseless." He went on to unequivocally state: "There is no evidence for that whatsoever," and called the use of a confidential informant who spoke with "people on the periphery of the campaign... standard operating procedure in intelligence-gathering and in criminal investigations." Fox News anchor Shep Smith also chimed in, calling the allegations "unfounded, not based in fact or reason, with no evidence to support them." Ouch.

In other Trump investigation news, the vetting team responsible for identifying documents from the raid on Trump lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen which are truly covered by attorney-client privilege just released over one million documents to the prosecuting team, while only holding back a relative handful. The vetting process will be fully completed in a few weeks, and there are millions more documents to sift through. That doesn't sound very good for Cohen's legal situation, does it?

It's no wonder Trump decided to leave town for a while. He flew to Texas to meet with the parents of the recent school shooting there. Before he left he told reporters: "We're going to Dallas. We're going to Houston. And we're going to have a little fun today. Thank you very much." After the meeting, one incredulous parent said of her meeting with the president: "It was like talking to a toddler."

OK, that's enough Trump news for this week, let's instead look forward to next week, when another big round of primaries will happen. The biggest of these is taking place in California, which will use its bizarre and unfair "top two primary" system next Tuesday. Every candidate from every party appears on the primary ballot, but only the top two -- no matter what party they are each from -- appear on the general election ballot in November. This was designed by meddlesome political theorists who thought it would allow for moderates to be elected over extreme candidates. Why the state government should stick its thumb on the scale in such an ideological fashion has never been adequately explained. But now it seems that what some of us have been worried about for a long time might just come to pass, because there are three House districts in Southern California where Democrats might just be shut out.

The theoretical has become real in these districts. Consider, if there are four or five Democrats in the race and only two Republicans, and the total votes for all the Democrats equals 60 percent, the two Republicans could still wind up as the only ones on the general election ballot. The unfairness of this outcome should be obvious for all to see, especially if these three districts wind up being the difference between the Democrats regaining control of the House or not this November.

However, it's not quite as dire as this article makes it sound:

Candidates are scrambling to set themselves apart, Democratic groups are urging unity to gain control of the House -- and many voters are wondering how to contend with the despair they would feel if Democrats were locked out in this liberal state.

"I would do a Thelma and Louise -- just drive over the cliff," said Danna Lewis, 66, a doctor who lives in the 48th Congressional District and went door to door over the weekend for her candidate, Harley Rouda.

Let's be clear, and put this in some needed perspective. Democrats, even if they lose the chance to appear on the ballot in all three of these House districts, will not be "locked out in this liberal state." Please remember, California has a total of fifty-three House districts. In most of them, Democrats will be either elected or re-elected. In fact, in the big statewide races (governor, U.S. senator) the voters may wind up with the choice between two Democrats in November -- which is exactly what the designers of the new system wanted. The problem here is not for just Democrats or Republicans -- the problem is the stupid "top-two" primary system. Let's keep that in focus, if it's ever going to be changed.

And finally, we end this week by going far afield once again. Last week we pointed out the referendum in the Republic of Ireland to repeal their Eighth Amendment, which outlawed all abortion. When the votes were counted, "Yes on Repeal" had won big -- by a 2-to-1 margin, in fact. Ireland is quickly moving in a very progressive direction, after long being a virtual Catholic theocracy, and should be applauded for doing so. Just three years ago, Ireland became the first nation in the world to approve gay marriage by popular vote, and now Irish voters have overturned one of the strictest abortion bans in the Western world.

And we had to go even further afield here at the end, because this one amused us so much. Vladimir Putin, after annexing Crimea, rushed to build a bridge between the Crimea Peninsula and Russian soil, to provide a land-link to his new territory. The bridge is an impressive one, and it is impressive how fast it got built. But when Putin went to the ribbon-cutting ceremony, he had to deal with the fact that he would not be the first to cross the bridge, because he was beat by a cat. Mostik the cat had become somewhat of a mascot for the construction team, so it was only fitting that the cat was actually the first to cross the bridge. The photos of Mostik with a tiny safety vest and a cat-sized hardhat are much more adorable than anything Putin could ever manage, that's for sure.





There was an interesting breakdown of the media coverage of two events this week, which showed that the Roseanne Barr story got significantly more coverage than a new report showing that over 4,600 people's deaths could be attributed to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. This is a sad commentary on the priorities of television news media in general, but it's not all that surprising, really.

This should be bigger news, mostly because of Trump's bragging about his response to the crisis (he gave himself a 10 out of 10, unsurprisingly). When he visited the island, Trump said:

We've saved a lot of lives. If you look at the -- every death is a horror. But if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous -- hundred and hundred and hundreds of people that died. And you look at what happened here with really a storm that was totally overpowering. Nobody's ever seen anything like this.

Trump then asked the governor what the official death toll was, and again bragged about how different it all was from Hurricane Katrina:

Sixteen people, certified -- 16 people versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people.

From the Harvard University report, the death toll now stands at:

• Hurricane Maria -- 4,645


• Hurricane Katrina -- 1,883

That's more than twice as many deaths, and that's using the conservative estimate from the study (the high end of their estimate was almost 8,500). Hillary Clinton tweeted her response:

More than 4,600 lives lost in Puerto Rico. 70x the official number. The US gov't has failed its own citizens. The response itself is an American tragedy. Hurricane season is about to begin in Puerto Rico. The administration must step up & protect its people.

But the most forceful condemnation came from this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week, the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, who ripped into Trump's politicization of the tragedy:

It was about creating a narrative that made him and his administration look good. And many in the political class in Puerto Rico looked the other way, disregarded the truth and played into his narrative, that he gets "a 10 out of a 10" for the federal response to the storm.

No, Mr. President -- you get 4,645 souls that were lost on your watch because the federal government that you are supposed to be in charge of was incapable of doing its job.

Later, Cruz tweeted:

It took too long to understand the need for an appropriate response was NOT about politics but about saving lives.

In a different interview, Cruz demanded accountability for "negligence that allowed those lives to be lost," stating:

These people were killed by the neglect of two governments. One: the Trump administration that was very dismissive of the value of our lives. And two: those in Puerto Rico that favored political positioning rather than telling the truth.

Throughout the tragedy, Mayor Cruz was the only one who strongly stood up and demanded that the rest of America be told the reality of the situation rather than just some convenient political spin which tried to sweep a whole lot of ineptitude under the rug. Now that more of that truth is being revealed, she has once again stepped up to express her righteous outrage.

Think about what a scandal Hurricane Katrina was. Now multiply that times two. Is that how much attention the American news media paid to Hurricane Maria? Far from it. Even when it becomes impossible to ignore the true scope of the disaster, Roseanne Barr is far more entertaining to pay attention to, it seems.

So we wanted to thank Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz for her tireless efforts to remind us all that Puerto Ricans are our fellow Americans and deserve every bit as much sympathy as other hurricane victims. That's an important and timely message, as this year's hurricane season begins. Which is why we're awarding her this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. Keep telling truth to power, Mayor Cruz, since nobody else seems to be doing so.

{Congratulate San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz on her Facebook page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.}





We're not even sure that she's technically a Democrat, but we decided she's close enough. This week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award goes to none other than Samantha Bee.

(Full disclosure: We have never actually met Samantha Bee or exchanged any words with her, but we were in her close proximity several times at the last Netroots Nation, as she and her film crew were all over the place in the hallways, sometimes filming and sometimes just standing around.)

This week, Samantha Bee called Ivanka Trump a "feckless cunt" on her cable television show. Now, the standards for cable are quite different than the standards for broadcast television, and the standards for what is said on the air are necessarily different than what someone does late at night on Twitter, but none of that really is the point here.

The real point was the spectacularly bad timing. The Roseanne blowup had been roiling for a few days, with both sides of the American political divide lining up in predictable fashion. False equivalencies were offered up, from the president on down. They were pretty weak, stacked up against blatant racism and anti-Semitism.

Then, right in the middle of this storm of outrage (both faux and real), Samantha Bee lobbed her C-bomb. At the president's daughter, for posting an image of her and her baby.

There was a lot of liberal outrage at this photo, because of the plight of thousands of children being removed from their families by the immigration service and over a thousand others who just got "lost in the system" somehow. So Ivanka's photo was called insensitive, and on the order of Marie Antoinette's mythical "Let them eat cake" cluelessness. That's all fine and good -- people can protest respectfully anything anyone in public life does, after all.

But Samantha Bee went further, and crossed a definite line of propriety. The show wasn't even live, meaning that the producers and the network must also be held accountable for airing what she said. And let's please remember that what Ivanka did to set all this firestorm of criticism off what nothing more than post a happy-mom-and-baby photo online. She didn't post it with text that said: "Look how happy we are, and screw all those immigrant children being detained," or anything even remotely close to that.

For doing so and for not using her influence over her father on the subject of immigrant children, Samantha Bee called her a "feckless cunt." That's not just a little bit beyond the pale, it's miles beyond it. For her overreaction, and for her timing -- which, in the midst of the Roseanne frenzy, could not have been worse -- Samantha Bee is the winner of this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week, hands down.

{Contact Samantha Bee via her show's webpage, to let her know what you think of her actions.}




Volume 486 (6/1/18)

OK, we've got rather a grab bag this week, so let's just get right to it. We begin with some good news, for a change.



The 37th state

There were two bits of good news from state legislatures this week.

"Illinois just became the 37th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. When originally proposed, the amendment was ratified in 35 states, only three short of the constitutional requirement of three-fourths of all states. Recently, Nevada ratified the proposed amendment, and now Illinois has followed their lead. This puts it only one state from the goal, although it will also require Congress to act to become the Twenty-Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Can Democrats -- especially women candidates for office in November -- build on this success to make the E.R.A. a reality? This remains to be seen, but if I were running for office in one of the remaining 13 states, I would certainly be campaigning on the issue."



The 33rd state

Meanwhile, in the Old Dominion, Democratic victories in last year's election are beginning to bear fruit as well.

"Also this week, Virginia just passed Medicaid expansion, which Democrats had heavily campaigned on in last year's election. The blue wave in Virginia last year was driven by Medicaid expansion more than any other single issue. The potency of the issue caused even some Republicans in the state legislature to change their minds. By expanding Medicaid, Virginia becomes the 33rd state to add coverage for millions of vulnerable Americans who could not afford health insurance or even healthcare. In several states there may be ballot initiatives this year to expand Medicaid as well, since the Republican legislatures in those states refuse to do so. This is going to be the year that healthcare becomes a winning issue for Democrats. After many elections where Republicans ran against Obamacare, this time around Democrats are boasting of their plans to expand it. Over half of all Democratic candidates' campaign ads run in this election season so far mention healthcare -- that's how important an issue it is going to be in November."



The Ministry of Truth working overtime

When you live in Orwellian times, sometimes you have to use Orwellian terms to describe them.

"The hallmark of Donald Trump and his administration is none other than incoherence. Nothing stays the same week-to-week, or even day-to-day. We're going to launch a trade war against Europe, Canada, and Mexico. We're going to launch a trade war against China. Oh, wait, no we're not. No trade wars anywhere. Whoops! Trade wars are back on again. Except that now they're on hold. Trump is negotiating to save Chinese jobs at a company labelled a threat to American national security. No, no -- the new line is that we're going to slap tariffs on European cars because of 'national security' -- yeah, that's it! Today's news: trade war is back on with Europe, Canada, and Mexico. It all makes your head spin, doesn't it? Not to mention the on-again-off-again-on-again summit meeting with North Korea. I can just picture all the hardworking folks at Trump's Ministry of Truth working overtime, around the clock, to erase what Trump and his advisors said yesterday that is no longer official policy today. Oh, wait, we've got a new official position -- down the memory hole everything else goes!"



Conspiracy theory debunked, once again

Time and time again, the evidence proves what a gigantic lie this is, seemingly to no avail.

"Republicans either pass abusive laws to suppress voter turnout among people of color and the elderly, or they honestly believe the conspiracy theory that voter fraud is rampant across the nation. They really can't have it both ways. The problem for them is that voter fraud barely exists in real life, as investigation after investigation proves, over and over again. This week, New Hampshire was the latest to conclusively debunk the conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton only won the state because of rampant voter fraud, mostly from people brought in from other states via bus. None of this turned out to be remotely true. Yes, some buses were used -- to bring New Hampshire residents to the polls. Hillary Clinton won the state by 2,732 votes, and the investigation only turned up 66 cases of ineligible voters in the 2016 election. Kris Kobach can scream conspiracy theories until he's blue in the face, but the reality is that whenever anyone has examined the actual data and the actual facts, only a tiny, tiny fraction of ineligible votes cast is ever found. But that doesn't stop Republicans from endlessly repeating the falsehood -- because, as I began with, it's obviously the only cover story they have for their real goal of suppressing the vote."



Hoo, boy

This one really takes the cake this week.

"Republican Representative Diane Black, who is running for governor in Tennessee, just blamed, quote, pornography, unquote, for driving the spike in school shootings. She further explained this jaw-dropping assertion: 'It's available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there's pornography there. All of this is available without parental guidance. I think that is a big part of the root cause {of school shootings}.' The only thing this statement does is prove her massive ignorance on two subjects -- the root causes of school shootings, and pornography today. She seems stuck in the past on that last one. I bet if you surveyed 10,000 school students today, zero of them would have ever bought a pornographic magazine. A goodly number of them would likely have to have the concept explained to them: 'It's like all the free porn online, except the pictures don't move, it's on paper not on your phone, and you have to pay money for it.' Does Tennessee really want a governor that is so many decades out of touch with reality? Someone who blames school shootings on magazines that barely exist anymore, much less 'in grocery stores'?"



A nap or a dirt nap?

Every so often, John Boehner pops up to say something amusing, then goes back to taking naps himself.

"Former speaker of the House John Boehner said something revealing this week: 'There is no Republican Party. There's a Trump Party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.' While I would tend to agree with him about the 'Trump Party,' I also wonder whether the GOP is actually taking a nap, or has actually slipped into a coma. I mean, at this point it's hard to even see any vital signs at all, so even a coma might be being generous. What Boehner and all the others horrified at the Trump Party takeover of the GOP should really be worried about is whether the GOP as they knew it is ever going to wake up, or revive, or come out of its comatose state. Could it be that the Republican Party is taking its final 'dirt nap' instead? Time will tell...."



A big raspberry for Rudy

Too, too funny.

"Rudy Giuliani decided it'd be a good idea to spend his birthday at the ballpark. Furthermore, he or someone he knows also decided it'd be a good idea to pay to have his name displayed (as a birthday boy) at Yankee Stadium. The result, from a New York crowd, was pretty predictable. Representative Maxine Waters tweeted about it later: 'Giuliani, I join with the crowd of 46,583 fans in Yankee Stadium from earlier this week: BOO!' But the best response, hands down, came from an unexpected source. Dictionary.com posted an amusing word of the day to rub salt in Rudy's wound: 'Bronx cheer. A loud, abrasive, spluttering noise made with the lips and tongue to express contempt.' That about sums it up, in a New York minute."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com
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[DURHAM D]

1. Total crap re: Samanth Bee.

Perhaps you should watch the final segment on Chris Hayes tonight.

Git ya som edumakation.