The Open Thread for June 4, 2017

So last night, during the height of the confusion amid an ongoing (or so we thought at the time) terrorist attack on the city of London, our idiot fascist President decided it was a good time to politicize the attack.

First off, no court has taken away any right.  They have stopped you from taking away the rights of those who worship a different God than you.   Second, thank you and your dementia-addled brain for admitting that your policy is a ban.  The ACLU is adding this tweet to their Supreme Court brief as we speak.   Third, we are smart, vigilant and tough, and so are the Brits.  Their police and other first responders ended the attack by killing the terrorists eight fucking minutes after the whole incident began.  That is amazing.   That is smart, vigilant and tough.  Just because someone attacks you doesn’t make you dumb, negligent and weak.

Mike Allen: “Next week, Comey comes out of the shadows, with Senate Intelligence Committee testimony scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday that promises to be the most gripping television to come off of Capitol Hill since the Clinton impeachment hearings or Watergate.”

“Leaks about Comey’s conclusion that Trump was pressuring him, and his real-time documentation in potentially devastating memos, has the White House and its allies worried that this could be their worst week since taking office.”  “The Comey chaos is making staff changes extremely difficult, even though Trump continues to ruminate to friends about his lineup.”

President Trump “will seek to put a spotlight on his vows to privatize the nation’s air traffic control system and spur $1 trillion in new investment in roads, waterways and other infrastructure with a week-long series of events starting Monday in the Rose Garden,” the Washington Post reports.

“The events — billed as ‘infrastructure week’ — are part of a stepped-up effort since the president’s return a week ago from his first foreign trip to show that the White House remains focused on its agenda, despite cascading headlines about his administration’s ties to Russia.”

New York Times: “What the president will offer instead over the coming days, his advisers said, are the contours of a plan. The federal government would make only a fractional down payment on rebuilding the nation’s aging infrastructure. Mr. Trump would rely on a combination of private industry, state and city tax money, and borrowed cash to finance the rest. It would be a stark departure from ambitious infrastructure programs of the past, in which the government played a major role and devoted substantial resources to paying the cost of large-scale projects.”

“Hill Democrats are outraged by a new Trump administration policy to ignore information requests from members and senators unless they come from committee or subcommittee chairman. They argue it’s part of a broader pattern by the White House, designed to make the executive branch less responsive to Congress,” Politico reports.

“And they say it effectively locks them out of information necessary for government oversight.”

Playbook: “This is another example of why it is hard to see Democrats coming to the table with Trump and congressional Republicans on any major infrastructure or tax reform package. It could also cause further problems for Trump and GOP leadership when they need Democrats to pass the debt limit and other must-pass bills.”

McClatchy on the GOP’s 2018 Anti-Media strategy: “A party that traditionally has had a fraught relationship with the media has become outright hostile, led by a president who picks more fights with journalists than any GOP leader since Richard Nixon.”

“But interviews with Republican strategists and party leaders across the country reveal that what started as genuine anger at allegedly unfair coverage — or an effort to deflect criticism — is now an integral part of next year’s congressional campaigns.”

“The hope, say these officials, is to convince Trump die-hards that these mid-term races are as much a referendum on the media as they are on President Trump. That means embracing conflict with local and national journalists, taking them on to show Republicans voters that they, just like the president, are battling a biased press corps out to destroy them.”

“From undisclosed meetings with a Putin-allied banker to the suggestion of secret backchannels using Russian communication equipment, the past week’s headlines have gotten increasingly dire for Jared Kushner,” Axios reports.

“A normally chatty and combative White House has been largely radio silent on the Kushner drama with senior administration officials like National Economic Director Gary Cohn and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster refusing to comment when asked directly about the matter in press briefings.”

President Trump “does not plan to invoke executive privilege to try to prevent James Comey, the former FBI director, from providing potentially damaging testimony to Congress on statements the president made about an investigation into his former national security adviser,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Trump could still move to block the testimony next week, given his history of changing his mind at the last minute about major decisions. But legal experts have said that Mr. Trump has a weak case to invoke executive privilege because he has publicly addressed his conversations with Mr. Comey, and any such move could carry serious political risks.”

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg “is organizing an effort by governors, mayors, business leaders and other private citizens to make sure that Americans play an active role in the Paris Agreement — with or without the federal government,” Yahoo News reports.
Said Bloomberg: “Americans are not walking away from the Paris Climate Agreement. Just the opposite — we are forging ahead. Mayors, governors, and business leaders from both political parties are signing onto a statement of support that we will submit to the UN — and together, we will reach the emission reduction goals the U.S. made in Paris in 2015.”

“If successful, this will be the first time U.S. citizens, local and state officials circumvented the federal government to negotiate an agreement with the United Nations.”

Rick Wilson: “Outside of the GOP base, Trump is about as popular as kidney stones. However, the Democratic Party is ignoring a lesson the GOP learned to its detriment during the Clinton impeachment—an obliviously guilty serial liar half the country hates only gets them so far. Nationalizing an election is trickier than they think.”

“The Democrats can’t beat something with nothing, and almost any plan beats no plan every time. So far, Democratic Party Chair Tom Perez seems to have little to offer as a planner, and while Democratic recruiting looks strong, there are already a lot of jokers in the deck running the NY/LA/SF. Democrats will need more than ‘Trump sucks’ unless the indictments start coming down, and even then, they’d be wise to have a richer issue portfolio, more diverse (that’s code for ‘moderate’) candidates, and something beyond the Bernie-Warren economic message.”

Axios: “The most revealing moment of President Trump’s announcement that he is withdrawing from the Paris climate deal came in an off-hand response of a White House official after Trump’s speech. Asked whether Trump thinks climate change is real, the official said: ‘Can we stay on topic?’”

“To the Trump administration, the Paris climate deal has nothing to do with climate change. It’s an economic issue. To Trump, withdrawing from the accord represents a triumph of populist America over greedy globalism.”

“Unlike other policy goals (healthcare and tax reform) Trump isn’t even acknowledging climate change is a problem. That makes his overtures about being open to renegotiate and re-enter the Paris deal suspect.”