I HOPE THIS MEANS THEY’LL BE BUILDING AFFORDABLE, SAFE, ZERO-CARBON THORIUM NUCLEAR REACTORS*: California Goes All In – 100 Percent Renewable Energy By 2045.
*But I doubt it.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
August 2, 2017
THANKS, OBAMA: Trump says Al-Qaeda received US weapons intended for Syrian rebels.
The CIA program was begun by intelligence officials during the Barack Obama administration in an effort to push Bashar al-Assad to the negotiating table. The Washington Post first reported its termination last month.
But Trump disputed the accounts of US officials quoted by The Washington Post who said he decided to cancel the program ahead of a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in July. Rather, Trump said the decision was made by “people, not me.”
“That was not something that I was involved in, other than they did come and they suggested,” Trump told Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker in a July 25 interview whose transcript was released by Politico today. “It turns out it’s … a lot of Al-Qaeda we’re giving these weapons to.”
This seems to have been widely known at the time, except at CIA and the Obama White House.
ELITES? YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD. CNN’s Zakaria Admits Trump Won Because People Were Tired of Cultural Elites.
DEAR DEMOCRATS: What if this is as good as it gets?
FOLLOW THE MONEY? Tillerson spurns $80 million to counter ISIS, Russian propaganda.
It is highly unusual for a Cabinet secretary to turn down money for his department. But more than five months into his tenure, Tillerson has not issued a simple request for the money earmarked for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, $60 million of which is now parked at the Pentagon. Another $19.8 million sits untouched at the State Department as Tillerson’s aides reject calls from career diplomats and members of Congress to put the money to work against America’s adversaries.
The $60 million will expire on Sept. 30 if not transferred to State by then, current and former State Department officials told POLITICO.
The struggle over the money is a case study in Tillerson’s approach to managing the State Department and the frustration it is engendering among American diplomats. Current and former U.S. officials call it the latest example of a severe slowdown in department decision-making; of Tillerson’s reliance on a coterie of political aides who distrust State’s career staffers; and a casualty of President Donald Trump’s intention to slash State’s budget, which has Tillerson looking for ways to reshape the department and spend less money, not more.
Tillerson’s distrust of his own department is well-founded, although he isn’t helping matters with his own staffing problems. But surely America’s freedom-loving press will rise to the challenge of countering Russian propaganda.
MARY KATHARINE HAM: This Vanity Fair Lionization Of The Press Is Why Everyone Hates The Press.
The press thinks it’s just observing, but it’s also a character in this drama. It has a picture of itself, honed by none other than Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, speaking truth to power and bringing down a presidency for the good of the American people. During Democratic administrations, the kind that don’t beg for bringing down, the Redfords and Hoffmans of the press are content to take a few years quietly indulging in some small, indy projects, playing an important but smaller role in our democracy. When a Republican president is elected, however, they’re back to big-budget summer blockbusters all day every day.
What is this “Vanity Fair” feature, after all, if not a standard “Vanity Fair” feature usually reserved for an A-list box-office star? The press is happy to be that invigorated, energetic star again, now that America has elected the kind of power to whom it loves to speak truth. There they are, auditioning for “All the President’s Men” in their tasteful Anne Klein dresses and schlumpy suits. At least we are spared the wide ties and plaid pants.
I used to say during Obama’s presidency, one good reason to elect a Republican is because the press might care about abuse of federal power again and actually report on it. Trump gives them plenty to work with and Americans to be wary of. But I’d prefer they go about it with the recognition that not everything’s an 11 or necessarily a conspiracy, and with self-reflection instead of self-congratulation.
But the press must congratulate itself, after having so thoroughly broken faith with the public who will no longer do that for them.
BUT OF COURSE: Google Manipulates Search Results To Conceal Criticism of Islam and Jihad.
What was Glenn just saying about Google’s abuse of monopoly power?
MEMORY LANE: Remember all those left-wing pundits who drooled over Venezuela?
The list of Western leftists who once sang the Venezuelan government’s praises is long, and Naomi Klein figures near the top.
In 2004, she signed a petition headlined, “We would vote for Hugo Chavez.” Three years later, she lauded Venezuela as a place where “citizens had renewed their faith in the power of democracy to improve their lives.” In her 2007 book, “The Shock Doctrine,” she portrayed capitalism as a sort of global conspiracy that instigates financial crises and exploits poor countries in the wake of natural disasters. But Klein declared that Venezuela had been rendered immune to the “shocks” administered by free market fundamentalists thanks to Chavez’s “21st Century Socialism,” which had created “a zone of relative economic calm and predictability.”
Chavez’s untimely death from cancer in 2013 saw an outpouring of grief from the global left. The caudillo “demonstrated that it is possible to resist the neo-liberal dogma that holds sway over much of humanity,” wrote British journalist Owen Jones. “I mourn a great hero to the majority of his people,” said Oliver Stone, who would go on to replace Chavez with Vladimir Putin as the object of his twisted affection.
On the Venezuelan regime’s international propaganda channel, Telesur, American host Abby Martin — who used to ply her duplicitous trade at Russia Today — takes credulous viewers on Potemkin tours of supermarkets fully stocked with goods. It would be inaccurate to label the thoroughly unconvincing Martin, who combines the journalistic ethics of Walter Duranty with the charm of Ulrike Meinhof, a useful idiot. She’s just an idiot.
Ouch.
Read the whole thing.
It’s almost as though it’s difficult to find strong support for Hillary Clinton outside of a few coastal and urban enclaves.
DAVID BYLER: Five Theories on Trump’s Stable Approval Rating.
Here’s the first theory:
Trump’s 40 percent approval rating might represent something close to his floor. On Election Day 2016, 37.5 percent of voters viewed candidate Trump favorably, yet he won 46 percent of the vote. Since then, Trump may have lost some of those general election voters by pushing an unpopular health-care bill (or through some other actions they disapproved of), but this 40 percent approval rating represents party stalwarts sticking with him.
The polarization theory comes with a few predictions about the future. As long as there aren’t any truly out-of-the-ordinary events (e.g. a terrorist attack, a recession, a historic economic boom, impeachment, etc.) Trump’s approval rating will stick within a relatively narrow band. He won’t lose his loyalists but he also won’t convert many outside that group. This theory doesn’t rule out a Democratic midterm wave or a second Trump term, but it does suggest that there are some guardrails that keep either party from scoring the sort of landslide wins we saw in the last century.
Barack Obama enjoyed this very same phenomenon (albeit with a slightly higher floor) during his two terms, although he had the advantage of a much friendlier press — to say the very least.
NO. WAY. It looks like the official vote total in Venezuela’s controversial election was off by millions.
Only 3.7 million people had voted by 5.30 p.m. in Venezuela’s controversial Constitutional Assembly election on Sunday, according to internal electoral council data reviewed by Reuters, casting doubt on the 8.1 million people authorities said had voted that day.
The election of the legislative super-body has been decried by critics as illegitimate and designed to give the unpopular government of President Nicolas Maduro powers to rewrite the constitution and sideline the opposition-led congress.
In response to the vote, the U.S. government slapped sanctions on Maduro on Monday, calling him a dictator for “seizing absolute power.”
The low turnout would be a major indictment of Maduro, especially after the opposition last month held its own unofficial vote in which it said more than 7.5 million voted against the government’s controversial assembly.
Jospeh Stalin is supposed to have said, “Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”
Socialists never change.
STEPHEN KRUISER: Jeff Flake Is Filling In for John McCain as a Liberal Media Darling.
FLASHBACK: Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in ‘most severe ever’ rationing in the NHS.
Single payer, single decider.
THANKS, OBAMA: Iran Condemns Sanctions, Says It Will Pursue Missile Program ‘With Full Power.’
I’m so old I can remember when Iran was under a full sanctions regime and hadn’t received pallets of cash for financing this kind of thing.
“WE DON’T WORK FOR THE PRESIDENT”: Senate Republicans are turning their backs on Trump.
They defeated an Obamacare repeal bill despite Trump’s pleas. They’re ignoring his Twitter demands that they get back to work on the repeal measure. They dissed the White House budget director, defended the attorney general against the president’s attacks and passed veto-proof sanctions on Russia over his administration’s objections.
They’re reasserting their independence, which looked sorely diminished in the aftermath of Trump’s surprise election win.
“We work for the American people,” Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said Tuesday. “We don’t work for the president.”
Those are surprisingly tough words from a Republican whose state Trump won easily less than a year ago. But after six months of controversies and historically low approval ratings, it’s clear Trump isn’t commanding the fear or respect he once did.
The old joke says, “Every Senator looks in the mirror and sees a President.” It’s a joke because it’s funny, but it’s still around because there’s truth to it. With this much unrest, will Trump get a primary challenger from the Senate?
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): On my short-list for potential constitutional amendments is a ban on Senators becoming President. It would probably improve the presidency, and it would definitely improve the Senate.
FINALLY, EVIDENCE OF TRUMP-RUSSIA COLLUSION: And it’s from the Center for American Progress, so you know it’s the unbiased, unvarnished truth.
That and more in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.
WHAT HATH MERKEL WROUGHT? Terror Hits Germany Ahead of Merkel’s Re-Election Bid.
With almost 50 days to go until the German parliamentary election, the country has been hit by another wave of terror and migrant crime. On Friday, a ‘Palestinian’ asylum seeker went on a stabbing spree at a Hamburg supermarket before he was overpowered by passers-by. Despite the eyewitness account of assailant screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ at the scene of attack, German media and politicians went into their ritualised speculations over the psychological state of the attacker. German news reports repeatedly described the 26-year-old Arab attacker as ‘mentally unstable’.
Nervous German media wants to avoid such Islamist attacks from jeopardising their beloved Chancellor’s re-election bid. “Investigating the deadly knife attack in Hamburg is best kept out of the general election campaign,” pleaded the public broadcaster Deutsche Welle. “In the case of the Hamburg attacker, there are indications that it was more of a crazed act by someone under considerable psychological pressure, where Islamism was only used as a pretext.”
A senior German parliamentarian called for more psychological counselling to prevent the radical Muslims from turning violent.
That’s the ticket.
THIS TIME IT’S REALLY HER TURN: Kamala Harris Is Being Aggressively Manufactured For 2020 By Wealthy Clinton Donors.
The California senator is being fêted in Bridgehampton on Saturday at the home of MWWPR guru Michael Kempner, a staunch Clinton supporter who was one of her national-finance co-chairs and a led fund-raiser for her 2008 bid for the presidency. He was also listed as one of the top “bundlers” for Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, having raised $3 million.
Guests there to greet Harris are expected to include Margo Alexander, a member of Clinton’s inner circle; Dennis Mehiel, a Democratic donor who is the chairman of the Battery Park City Authority, even though he lives between a sprawling Westchester estate and an Upper East Side pad; designer Steven Gambrel and Democratic National Committee member Robert Zimmerman.
Washington lobbyist Liz Robbins is also hosting a separate Hamptons lunch for Harris.
Despite being less than seven months into her new job as senator, Harris is already said to be the Democrats’ top fund-raiser and is being talked about as a 2020 presidential hopeful.
That’s your honest-to-God Democratic grassroots right there.
They’re hoping for a retread of Obama ’08 on a platform that was old when they first ran it in ’68.
Because party of youth and new ideas.
RACE TO THE BOTTOM: ‘Competitive Victimhood’ Among Racial Minorities Backfires, Study Finds.
August 1, 2017
SO GOOD TO BE BAD: 13 Best Recurring TV Villains of All Time.
Sadly, Dr. Zachary Smith is missing from the list.
HMM: Tesla’s Longtime Battery Technology Director Kelty Departs.
Kelty joined Tesla in 2006, according to his LinkedIn profile, making him one of the longest-serving executives at the automaker led by Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk. He previously worked for more than 14 years with Panasonic Corp., Tesla’s partner in the gigafactory for battery production near Reno, Nevada. At Tesla, Kelty served as lead negotiator with Panasonic for that facility, according to LinkedIn.
Kelty couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
News of Kelty’s exit comes at a critical juncture for Tesla, which turned over the first batch of Model 3 vehicles to employees Friday night. Tesla began producing the more affordable electric car last month and aims to make 20,000 a month by December, a ramp-up rate Musk told employees would put the company through “production hell.”
Not exactly an auspicious time to exit.