1. Deceit, fraud
2. Anything calculated to deceive by false show; anything externally splendid but of little intrinsic value; worthless finery.
3. Things worn out and of no value; useless matter; trifles; rubbish; nonsense.
That’s the definition in the 1983 Webster’s Dictionary.
H/T: Andrea Gabor on Twitter.
Tomorrow, the House of Representatives intelligence committee will hold hearings to investigate allegations of links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Members will also ask questions about Trump’s claim that Obama ordered the wire tapping of Trump Tower during the presidential campaign and that this alleged surveillance was carried out by the British spy service.
It should be an interesting day unless everyone takes the Fifth Amendment or asks to go into executive session.
Louise Mensch, a former member of the British parliament and now a New York-based journalist, suggested that specific individuals should be asked to testify, and she explains who and why in this article, which appeared yesterday in the New York Times:
It should be relatively easy to get at the truth of whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia over the hacking. I have some relevant experience. When I was a member of Parliament in Britain, I took part in a select committee investigating allegations of phone hacking by the News Corporation. Today, as a New York-based journalist (who, in fact, now works at News Corp.), I have followed the Russian hacking story closely. In November, I broke the story that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court had issued a warrant that enabled the F.B.I. to examine communications between “U.S. persons” in the Trump campaign relating to Russia-linked banks.
So, I have some ideas for how the House committee members should proceed. If I were Adam Schiff, the leading Democrat on the committee, I would demand to see the following witnesses: Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Richard Burt, Erik Prince, Dan Scavino, Brad Parscale, Roger Stone, Corey Lewandowski, Boris Epshteyn, Rudolph Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Michael Flynn Jr., Felix Sater, Dmitry Rybolovlev, Michael Cohen, Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, Stephen Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, Michael Anton, Julia Hahn and Stephen Miller, along with executives from Cambridge Analytica, Alfa Bank, Silicon Valley Bank and Spectrum Health.
There are many more who need to be called, but these would be a first step. As to lines of questioning, here are some suggestions.
To the White House director of social media, Dan Scavino: “You tweeted an anti-Semitic meme about Hillary Clinton from Donald Trump’s account during the election. That meme appeared to have come from an automated account on a Russian-controlled network of malware-infected computers, or botnet. What knowledge did you have of the existence of a network of fake Twitter profiles that supported your campaign and were partisans of Russia?”
To the Trump campaign adviser and businessman Carter Page: “You have said that the Trump campaign approved your July visit to give a speech in Moscow. Provide the committee with a full list of everyone you spoke to during that trip and describe precisely what was discussed. Were sanctions ever a topic?
“When you met the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, what was the conversation?
“When you returned to Moscow after the election, you presented slides comparing Rex Tillerson and Hillary Clinton as secretaries of state before Mr. Tillerson was announced as Mr. Trump’s choice. Who told you Mr. Tillerson would be the pick?
“Stephen Miller, then a campaign spokesman, stated that Jeff Sessions was putting together the foreign policy team. How were you recruited to that team? What contact did you have with its head, Mr. Sessions?
“Did you at any time discuss leaking, hacking, WikiLeaks, the release of emails phished from the Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta, or any other information not publicly available on Mrs. Clinton, or any person related to her campaign, with any Russian national, in the United States or elsewhere?
“Describe any and all financial discussions you had with any person during the campaign about the sale of a 19.5 percent stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft.”
To the former Alabama senator, now attorney general, Mr. Sessions: “Describe any communications, not merely meetings, you had with Russian citizens during the campaign. Did you ever discuss a shift in policy on Ukraine to be exchanged for the lifting of sanctions?
“Describe in full the content of your conversations with Mr. Kislyak. Were you aware that the Russian ambassador was also alleged to be a recruiter of spies?
“Did you select Mr. Page as a foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign? If not, who did? Why did you consider him suitable to serve on your team?
“To your knowledge, did you break the law during the campaign? If so, how? To your knowledge, did anyone else related to the Trump campaign break the law during the campaign?
“Did you have any knowledge during the campaign of serving F.B.I. agents and police officers whom Rudy Giuliani, Erik Prince and Mr. Flynn claimed were leaking information to them? Did you advise anybody involved that this was against the law? If not, why not?
“Did you know Mr. Flynn was lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his calls to Russia? Did you know Mr. Flynn misled Vice President Pence on the matter of his son’s security clearance?
“Do you have any knowledge, direct or indirect, whether Mr. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, or any member of his family, traveled out of the country to meet with Russians during the campaign? Do you have knowledge of whether Mr. Cohen, or any Trump associate, directly or through shell companies, made payments either to hackers or to internet companies that ran a botnet of fake accounts and websites on behalf of Russia?”
On Nov. 7, I reported that sources had told me of the existence of a FISA warrant targeting two Russia-linked banks. That warrant gave permission for the communications of American citizens that were incidentally collected as part of that investigation to be examined. (I did not report the existence of a wiretap, nor do I have any knowledge of such.)
This is an issue of the utmost consequence. If Mr. Trump’s tweet alleging that Trump Tower was wiretapped on the orders of President Barack Obama was untrue, Mr. Trump is guilty of a slur. If, however, the president tweeted real news, he revealed the existence of intercepts that cover members of his team in a continuing investigation. That would be obstruction of justice, potentially an impeachable offense.
The framing of the committee’s questions matters immensely. Legally, witnesses cannot confirm or deny even the existence of a current national security investigation. The very mention of a “FISA warrant” would allow Mr. Sessions to avoid the substance by excusing himself from commenting. Committee members must therefore word their questions without reference to any case. I would simply ask Mr. Sessions this:
“Was the president’s tweet about a wiretap at Trump Tower, to your knowledge, illegal? If so, to whom have you reported this offense?
“To your knowledge, did any person illegally inform the president that there was a wiretap at Trump Tower?”
The president’s unwillingness to answer questions about contacts between his campaign team and Russian officials, and the pattern of contradictory and misleading statements on those contacts, are toxic. Never in American history has a president been suspected of collaborating with a hostile foreign power to win an election. The founders provided three equal branches of government to protect the republic. The American people now depend on the House committee to do its job and uncover the truth.
Gail Collins used to be editorial page editor of the New York Times. Now she writes a column. What I never knew about her is that she has a wonderful sense of humor. Today she has a hilariouscolumn about the madness of King Donald (she didn’t call it that, but that’s what it is).
Whatever Donald Trump has, it’s spreading.
We’ve got a president who makes things up, and won’t retract when he’s cornered. This week press secretary Sean Spicer followed the leader. He picked up Trump’s wiretap story and added a new exciting detail: Not only had Barack Obama bugged Trump Tower, he might have used British intelligence spies to do the dirty work.
The British, of course, went nuts, and national security adviser H. R. McMaster tried to smooth things over. McMaster is new to the job, having succeeded Mike Flynn, who had to resign for lying about his phone conversations. Flynn was not even around long enough for us to find out that he was also a lobbyist for Turkish interests and took $68,000 from various Russian connections.
This is how insane the Trump administration is: On his first day, the new secretary of the interior rode to work on a horse named Tonto, and nobody really even noticed.
The part of the gang that isn’t involved in active fiction-writing is still saying things that are … peculiar. When budget director Mick Mulvaney rolled out the new Trump budget plan, the nation discovered he’s Sean Spicer with a calculator.
Mulvaney’s most memorable comment was an apparent dis of Meals on Wheels. (“We can’t spend money on programs just because they sound good.”) He also explained that tons of federal employees had to lose their jobs because “you can’t drain the swamp and leave all the people in it.”
Aid to public broadcasting had to go because Mulvaney couldn’t bear to tell “the coal mining family in West Virginia” that their taxes were going to the people who gave us “Sesame Street.”
Meanwhile, Tom Price, the health and human services secretary, was making the rounds attempting to explain the Republican health care bill. Including the part that lifts a $500,000 cap on health insurance company tax deductions for executive pay. (“That doesn’t sound like America to me.”)
Try to imagine, people, that you are the coal mining family in West Virginia. Which would you find more bothersome? Taxes going to help pay for West Virginia Public Broadcasting, or tax breaks for insurance companies that pay their C.E.O.s eight-figure salaries?
But budget and health care considerations faded in the glare of Donald Trump still insisting that Barack Obama had him wiretapped. The man is never going to admit he’s wrong about anything, is he?
All this began with twittering. You’d think at least he’d give that up, but no. “I think that maybe I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Twitter, because I get such a fake press, such a dishonest press,” Trump told Tucker Carlson in a Fox interview. He then launched into an attack on NBC’s ingratitude. (“I made a fortune for NBC with ‘The Apprentice.’ I had a top show where they were doing horribly, and I had one of the most successful reality shows of all time.”)
Have we had a day of the Trump presidency without a mention of “The Apprentice”?
“I made — and I was on for 14 seasons. And you see what happened when I’m not on. You saw what happened to the show. It was a disaster,” said the head of the most powerful nation in the world, who appears to think about Arnold Schwarzenegger more than he thinks about North Korea.
Pity his poor press secretary. This week, clearly at the president’s urging, Spicer read aloud an endless series of news stories that would have supported Trump’s claim to be a wiretap victim except for the part in which none of them did. Then he quoted a Fox commentator posing the theory about British spies.
The ensuing uproar pretty much ate up a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who Trump seemed to relate to only as a potential fellow victim of Obama bugs. (“At least we have something in common perhaps.”) At first, when Merkel suggested they shake hands, Trump stared blankly ahead. But he did express a little sense of connection when the discussion turned to Germany’s programs for apprenticeships. (“That’s a name I like.”)
At a press conference, the president refused to even acknowledge that it was a bad idea for Spicer to bring up that British spy theory. “We said nothing,” he insisted, passing the buck. “You shouldn’t be talking to me. You should be talking to Fox.”
Meanwhile, over in Congress, powerful Republicans were beginning to move toward flat-out admissions that their chief executive was … untruthing.
“We see no evidence of that,” said Speaker Paul Ryan, when asked about the wiretap story. Living with President Trump has made Ryan so pathetic you almost have to feel sorry for him, although not quite.
Imagine what would have happened if, at some point over the last two weeks, the president had just casually conceded that he had been misinformed about the wiretap thing. His health care plan wouldn’t look any better. His budget wouldn’t have been more defensible. But we’d feel slightly less terrified that the nation’s security is in the hands of a nut job.
Listening to CNN. Sean Spicer said that British intelligence wiretapped Trump Tower on behalf of the Obama administration. British intelligence said the claim was nonsense, and the British Prime Minister demanded an apology.
When asked the source of this claim, Dpicer said he heard it from a commentator on Fox News. The right wing ideologue Judge Napolitano.
Christiane Amanpour said the Brits are scratching their heads and wondering why the president of the world’s most powerful nation is relying on Fox News for information, not the NSA, the CIA, or the FBI.
Two possibilities:
1. He is mentally unfit
2. He is distracting attention from something else. Budget cuts? The Russian investigation?
Hat tip to Bill Moyers’ website for this article in The Intercept:
Zaid Jilani reports in The Intercepr that Trump’s budget is copied from the Swamp-dwelling, Establishment, Beltway right wing Heritage Foundation.
Trump the Outsider Outsources His Budget to Insider Think Tank
Nothing in the budget protects the blue-collar and rural people who voted for him. Instead, they are likely to be hit hard by cuts to federal programs they rely on.
The only complaint of the Heritage Foundation is that Trump didn’t add enough billions to defense.
Unless they join the military, Trump voters are shafted along with the rest of us.
The Heritage Foundation has always spoken for corporations and the uber-rich.
Jilani writes:
“PRESIDENT TRUMP’S BUDGET proposal, released on Thursday, echoes none of the populist, anti-establishment themes of candidate Trump’s campaign for higher office. Instead, it calls for a large increase in defense spending while reducing spending for a variety of popular domestic programs.
“That’s not surprising considering where those ideas came from. Rather than bringing in new ideas from outside of the Beltway, many of its proposals are lifted straight from the recommendations of an elite ultra-conservative D.C. think tank: the Heritage Foundation.
“Founded in 1973, Heritage has served as a sort of a watering hole for the Republican establishment, providing policy papers and staffers for GOP members of Congress and presidential administrations. Its 2015 annual report listed almost $100 million in revenues — drawn from conservative mega-donors and corporations — which it uses to facilitate the spread of its ideas across Washington, D.C.
“And those ideas have found a home in the Trump administration, which leaned heavily on Heritage advice during the transition period. Many of the White House proposal’s ideas are identical to a budget blueprint Heritage drew up last year.”
Count on Mercedes Schneider to review Trump’s budget proposal.
It is as bad as you heard.
She says, “At least he doesn’t call himself an ‘education president.'”
True, he is the anti-education president.
He is the first who wants to tear down public education, not improve it.
He does not want to invest in our children or our future.
He is an enemy of the people.
The Network for Public Education is launching a campaign to fight back against the Trump-DeVos budget cuts to public schools and budget gains for privatization.
Open this link, join our action, and send it to your friends!
Media experts warned that the elimination of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will bring an end to public media in small and rural communities. The giants in large markets like New York City will survive, but not the smaller markets.
“Public radio and television broadcasters are girding for battle after the Trump administration proposed a drastic cutback that they have long dreaded: the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
“The potential elimination of about $445 million in annual funding, which helps local TV and radio stations subscribe to NPR and Public Broadcasting Service programming, could be devastating for affiliates in smaller markets that already operate on a shoestring budget.
“Patricia Harrison, the corporation’s president, warned in a statement on Thursday that the Trump budget proposal, if enacted, could cause “the collapse of the public media system itself.”
“But the power players in public broadcasting — big-city staples like WNYC in New York City — would be well-equipped to weather any cuts. Major stations typically receive only a sliver of their annual budget from the federal government, thanks to listener contributions and corporate underwriters. Podcasts and other digital offshoots have also become significant sources of revenue.
“Rural affiliates, however, rely more heavily on congressional largess, which can make up as much as 35 percent of their budgets. Mark Vogelzang, president of Maine Public, called the Trump proposal “the most serious threat to our federal funding” since he started in public broadcasting 37 years ago.
“We’re always living on the edge in this ecosystem of public broadcasting,” Mr. Vogelzang said in an interview.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting supports about 1,500 stations that carry a range of educational, journalistic and arts-related programming. The corporation dates to the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. Its funding, while a minuscule part of the federal budget, has been under regular peril since the 1970s from conservative lawmakers, who often denounce what they view as the liberal bent of public media.”
Thanks for Jim Harvey of the National Superintendents Roundtable for this breakout of Trump’s budget cuts:
On Thursday, March 16, the Trump administration released a preliminary budget plan for Fiscal 2018 that proposed huge increases in defense-related spending and corresponding cuts in domestic programs, including education. According to stories in The Washington Post, the budgetary impact across government agencies and the U.S. Department of Education includes the following:
Agency
Change from Fiscal 2017
THE LOSERS:
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
– 100%
National Endowment for the Arts
– 100%
National Endowment for the Humanities
– 100%
Environmental Protection Agency
– 31%
State Dept. and USAID
– 29%
National Institutes of Health
– 20%
Department of Education
– 13%
Transportation
– 13%
National Science Foundation
– 10%
THE WINNERS:
Department of Defense
+ 10%
Homeland Security
+ 7%
Veterans’ Affairs
+ 6%
With regard to the U.S. Department of Education, proposed cuts amount to $9.2 billion, according to the Post. Significant programs are on the chopping block, while funds are added to promote the administration’s school choice agenda:
Program Change from 2017
Grants to states for teacher training
– $2.4 billion
Grants to colleges for teacher preparation
– $43 million
Impact Aid
– $66 million
Special Education
No Change
College Work-Study
Reduce “significantly”
Upward Bound & Related TRIO Programs
– $200 million
SEOG program for low-income college students
– $732 million
Pell Grants
No Change
Pell Reserves
– $3.9 billion
School Choice, made up of:
+ $1.4 billion
Title I Portability
+ $1 billion
Charter Schools
+ $168 million
Private school choice
+ $250 million
Are you feeling depressed? Anxious? Worried about the future?
This is a drug that promises immediate relief.
