Thursday, January 31, 2019

He Has The Face Of A Rat - Updated

Image result for jason miller
photo credit: Page Six


Things have been quiet in the land of AJ v. Jason for the last few weeks, presumably because she's preparing for their child custody/support trial, which she has said is scheduled for late February. (Or maybe everyone's behaving themselves and acting like mature adults. Just kidding.) She did take a shot at him two days ago, however, pointing out that Jason "he-has-the-face-of-a-rat-and-is-obese" Miller was the one who hired Cliff Sims. Apparently she's still resentful that after working for the campaign, she didn't get her own "automatic WH gig."

Read the Talking Points Memo article here.

Update on Tuesday, February 5. Jason didn't like AJ's tweet:


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Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Anne Hathaway

Issue dated February 11, 2019: Anne Hathaway


It's a movie promotion this week, featuring Anne Hathaway, star of the new movie Serenity; Carrie Underwood's baby rates a Baby Joy sidebar headline. I have no idea who escaped a serial killer; if you read the small print, that headline is a promo for a TV show called Investigation Discovery, which I've never heard of.

Last year at this time: Issue dated February 12, 2018


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Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Eric Garcetti Won't Run, Howard Schultz Probably Will - Updated

Saying that he will continue to do the job he was elected to do, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti has announced that he will not be a candidate for president in 2020. As Shane Goldmacher points out, "not in 2020" doesn't mean "not ever":



I've moved Garcetti to the I'm Not Running list. 

And what about Howard Schultz? He hasn't made an official announcement, and as far as I can tell he hasn't set up an exploratory committee, but he's sure acting like a candidate, but with a twist. He's thinking about running as an Independent:


Because he's doing all the things a candidate does at this stage, and getting an enormous amount of media attention, I'm moving him to the I'm Running list.

Finally, Andrew Gillum has signed on as a commentator with CNN, which would presumably mean he won't be a candidate in 2020. (Read about that here.) I'm going to move him to the I'm Not Running list too. 

Potential Democratic Candidates, in alphabetical order:

Reminder: Not every name on this list is "viable" as a future nominee or president, or even seriously interested in running, necessarily. It's just a list of every name I've ever seen mentioned, anywhere, as someone who might run in 2020.
  1. Stacey Abrams (2018 candidate for Georgia governor) added 1/3/19
  2. Joe Biden (Former VP)
  3. Michael Bloomberg (Former mayor of New York City)
  4. Cory Booker (New Jersey senator)
  5. Sherrod Brown (Ohio senator)
  6. Jerry Brown (former Governor of California)
  7. Steve Bullock (Governor of Montana)
  8. Mark Cuban (Businessman, owner of the Dallas Mavericks)
  9. Bill de Blasio (Mayor of New York City)
  10. John Hickenlooper (Governor of Colorado) 
  11. Eric Holder (Former Attorney General)
  12. Jay Inslee (Governor of Washington)
  13. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (Actor) added Nov. 10
  14. Tim Kaine (Virginia senator, 2016 VP nominee)
  15. Joe Kennedy (Congressman from Massachusetts) added Nov. 10
  16. John Kerry (former Secretary of State, 2004 Democratic nominee) added Nov. 10 
  17. Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota senator)
  18. Mitch Landrieu (Mayor of New Orleans)
  19. Terry McAuliffe (Former governor of Virginia)
  20. Jeff Merkley (Oregon senator)
  21. Seth Moulton (Congressman from Massachusetts) 
  22. Chris Murphy (Connecticut senator)
  23. Beto O'Rourke (Texas Congressman, ran a close race for a U.S. senate seat from Texas) added Sept. 13
  24. Tim Ryan (Congressman from Ohio) added Sept. 8
  25. Bernie Sanders (Vermont senator, registered Independent, ran in 2016 primaries)
  26. Eric Swalwell (Congressman from California) added Nov. 8
  27. Mark Warner (Virginia senator) added Nov. 10
  28. Marianne Williamson (Author, teacher, spiritual leader) added Dec. 11
  29. Mark Zuckerberg (Businessman, founder of Facebook)
I'm Running: Declared Democratic Candidates, in order of their announcement
  1. John Delaney (7/28/17) 
  2. Andrew Yang (11/6/17) 
  3. Elizabeth Warren (12/31/18)
  4. Tulsi Gabbard (1/11/19)
  5. Julián Castro (1/12/19)
  6. Kirsten Gillibrand (1/16/19)  
  7. Kamala Harris (1/21/19)
  8. Pete Buttigieg (1/23/19)
  9. Howard Schultz (1/29/19) * Running as an Independent 
I'm Not Running
Oprah Winfrey
Andrew Cuomo
Sheryl Sandberg, added Sept. 8
Jason Kander, added Oct. 17
Robert Iger, added Oct. 22
Michael Avenatti, December 4, 2018
Deval Patrick, December 5, 2018
Martin O'Malley, January 3, 2019
Luis Gutierrez, added January 7, 2019
Tom Steyer, January 9, 2019
Bob Casey, January 19, 2019
Eric Garcetti, January 29, 2019
Andrew Gillum, January 29, 2019

I'm Not Running Anymore: Declared candidates who have dropped out

Richard Ojeda (1/25/19)


Days until Election Day: 643


Tuesday morning update. First Read, at NBCNews.com, says the Democratic field may be smaller than previously expected: (Note that their list of seven candidates doesn't include businessman Andrew Yang and potential Independent candidate Howard Schultz, who are both on my I'm Running list.)

Is the ultimate Democratic field going to be smaller than everyone anticipated? More like 12 to 15 candidates instead of the 20 to 30 folks have talked about?

Right now, we have seven candidates who have declared or who have filed paperwork, and it already feels a bit, well, crowded. Part of that is due to Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., announcing early, and staking claims to their lanes.

And part of it is due to the fact that Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke have the name ID, potential resources and ability to wait on a decision, thus freezing the rest of the field.

If you’re not in early, and if you’re not Biden, Sanders, O’Rourke or a billionaire like Mike Bloomberg, it becomes harder and harder to differentiate yourself and your candidacy.

To quote Yogi Berra, “It’s getting late early.” (Read the article here.)

Days until Election Day: 642 
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This Day In History, 1963: Poet Robert Frost Dies




I didn't know he won four Pulitzer Prizes. 
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How Cold Is Too Cold? - Updated




I'll add to this post as I see things that interest me. #DeepFreeze

The other side of the world: Australia's in the middle of a heat wave:

Update on Wednesday afternoon. A picture of Chicago and Lake Michigan, taken this morning:

Ice floats on Lake Michigan in Chicago on Wednesday morning.
photo credit: Bloomberg/Getty Images

This one's from yesterday:

Icicles form on the walkway at North Avenue Beach of Lake Michigan in Chicago on Tuesday.
photo credit: stringer/Reuters

I thought about trying the "throw water into the air" trick but I didn't want to go outside to do it.



 
The response made me laugh (and briefly wish I was in Florida): 

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Monday, January 28, 2019

"Without evidence"

From the Washington Post:

Often spending days ensconced in the presidential residence, Trump relishes giving tours to acquaintances and strangers by the hundreds, bragging all the while about improving it while he lives there, according to nearly a dozen visitors and current and former White House aides, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal details of the private events. With dangling new chandeliers and imported artwork added during his tenure, showing guests around the White House is among his favorite activities, they said.

... The president has also claimed to guests, without evidence, that his private dining room off the Oval Office was in “rough shape” and had a hole in the wall when he came into the West Wing and that President Barack Obama used it to watch sports, according to two White House officials and two other people who have heard him discuss the dining room. “He just sat in here and watched basketball all day,” Trump told a recent group, before saying he upgraded Obama’s smaller TV to a sprawling, flat-screen one, the four people said. (Read the article here.)

And from Pete Souza, who was Obama's official White House photographer for eight years:



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Sunday, January 27, 2019

The Guessing Game - Updated

What will be on the cover of People this week? My guesses:

Michael Jackson: A new documentary claims he abused two young boys
Chelsea Clinton: Expecting her 3rd child
Carrie Underwood: Gave birth to a son
Nathan Chen and/or Alysia Liu: National figure skating champions, he blew the roof off with an incredible program and score, she's the youngest winner ever at age 13
Matthew McConaughey and/or Anne Hathaway: Their new movie, Serenity, is totally weird
Chris Brown: Arrested
Kylie Jenner: Rumors that she got married
Theresa Guidice: Says if her husband is deported, they'll go their separate ways
Kevin Zegers: Talking about alcoholism and addiction
Katlyn Alix: Off-duty St. Louis police officer, killed accidentally by an on-duty officer during a really stupid game of Russian Roulette
Joni Ernst: The Iowa senator says she is the victim of sexual abuse
The Fyre Festival: There are now two competing documentaries about how the debacle came to be
Fatima Ali: A contestant on Top Chef dies of cancer at 29
Melania: Wins an apology and a settlement after British magazine The Telegraph runs a critical story. I wish I could link to it but apparently it's been taken down
Kate Beckinsale: Hospitalized
Prince Philip: Finally apologized for the car accident he caused. See the letter here

Stories that appear on the new cover will be highlighted in green.

Monday morning update: Rent Live. It wasn't "live." Lead actor Brennin Hunt broke his foot on Saturday and Fox opted to air most of the dress rehearsal during the Sunday evening broadcast. It would be easy to snark, but those live musicals on television are extremely complicated to pull off. Kudos to all for having a plan B and going on with the show. (Although, really Fox, maybe next time have a few understudies ready to go, just in case?)
Chris Harrison: The Bachelor host is apparently dating Lauren Zima
Chris Christie and/or Cliff Sims: The Trump advisor (Christie) and the former Trump White House staffer (Sims) both have "tell all" memoirs coming out tomorrow
Howard Schultz: The former Starbucks CEO is pondering running for president as an independant
Tom Brokaw: Let loose with some strange and offensive comments on Meet The Press, followed by an inadequate apology via Twitter:





This is just part of the thread, see Brokaw's Twitter feed here. 

Update #2 on Tuesday afternoon. Caelynn Miller-Keyes: The Miss USA runner-up is a front runner on the current season of The Bachelor, in last night's episode she said that she had been sexually assaulted while in college.

Update #3 on Wednesday morning. See the new cover, featuring Anne Hathaway, here. 
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The Big One




It was 319 years ago yesterday when the last Cascadia subduction earthquake hit; when will the next one strike? According to Kathryn Schulz's Pulitzer Prize-winning article in the New Yorker in July, 2015, the Pacific Northwest is overdue:

[W]e now know that the odds of the big Cascadia earthquake happening in the next fifty years are roughly one in three. The odds of the very big one are roughly one in ten. Even those numbers do not fully reflect the danger—or, more to the point, how unprepared the Pacific Northwest is to face it. The truly worrisome figures in this story are these: Thirty years ago, no one knew that the Cascadia subduction zone had ever produced a major earthquake. Forty-five years ago, no one even knew it existed.

...If you travel five thousand miles due west from the ghost forest, you reach the northeast coast of Japan. As the events of 2011 made clear, that coast is vulnerable to tsunamis, and the Japanese have kept track of them since at least 599 A.D. In that fourteen-hundred-year history, one incident has long stood out for its strangeness. On the eighth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of the Genroku era, a six-hundred-mile-long wave struck the coast, levelling homes, breaching a castle moat, and causing an accident at sea. The Japanese understood that tsunamis were the result of earthquakes, yet no one felt the ground shake before the Genroku event. The wave had no discernible origin. When scientists began studying it, they called it an orphan tsunami.

Finally, in a 1996 article in Nature, a seismologist named Kenji Satake and three colleagues, drawing on the work of Atwater and Yamaguchi, matched that orphan to its parent—and thereby filled in the blanks in the Cascadia story with uncanny specificity. At approximately nine o’ clock at night on January 26, 1700, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck the Pacific Northwest, causing sudden land subsidence, drowning coastal forests, and, out in the ocean, lifting up a wave half the length of a continent. It took roughly fifteen minutes for the Eastern half of that wave to strike the Northwest coast. It took ten hours for the other half to cross the ocean. It reached Japan on January 27, 1700: by the local calendar, the eighth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of Genroku.

...[W]e now know that the Pacific Northwest has experienced forty-one subduction-zone earthquakes in the past ten thousand years. If you divide ten thousand by forty-one, you get two hundred and forty-three, which is Cascadia’s recurrence interval: the average amount of time that elapses between earthquakes. That timespan is dangerous both because it is too long—long enough for us to unwittingly build an entire civilization on top of our continent’s worst fault line—and because it is not long enough. Counting from the earthquake of 1700, we are now three hundred and fifteen years into a two-hundred-and-forty-three-year cycle.

It is possible to quibble with that number. Recurrence intervals are averages, and averages are tricky: ten is the average of nine and eleven, but also of eighteen and two. It is not possible, however, to dispute the scale of the problem.

Read the entire article here.

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This Day In History, 1967: Apollo 1 Astronauts Die In A Fire












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Saturday, January 26, 2019

No Special Treatment - Updated


photo credit: Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle photo, taken 9/27/05

Former mayor of San Francisco and speaker of the California assembly Willie Brown published an interesting article in the San Francisco Chronicle, dated today and titled Sure I dated Kamala Harris. So What?. This is the article in its entirety:

I’ve been peppered with calls from the national media about my “relationship” with Kamala Harris, particularly since it became obvious that she was going to run for president. Most of them, I have not returned.

Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago. Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker.

And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco. I have also helped the careers of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a host of other politicians.

The difference is that Harris is the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that that I would be indicted if I “so much as jaywalked” while she was D.A.

 That’s politics for ya.

 Update: I posted this short little article, about Kamala Harris, written by Willie Brown, without thinking too much about it. Now the story's a thing on Twitter: 














And this is the tweet Olivia is responding to:
   
Update #2 on Tuesday, January 29: People are still talking about this. Here's how Vox.com explains things:

Brown’s relationship with Harris overlapped with his speakership in the mid-1990s, at which point Brown and his wife Blanche had been separated for more than a decade. While Fox News has sought to cast their pairing as an “extramarital relationship,” the San Francisco Chronicle notes that Brown had been “long-estranged” from his wife when he was with Harris. Harris was 29 when they met, while Brown was 60.

One of the key points of scrutiny related to their relationship has been the two jobs that Brown appointed Harris to around the time they were dating. One position was on the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the other was on the Medical Assistance Commission. Harris held both jobs in 1994, the same year she was linked with Brown, according to the Los Angeles Times. The two ultimately ended their relationship the following year.

When Harris ran for San Francisco district attorney in 2003, she knew that her relationship with Brown — and allegations of cronyism — would be raised as an issue despite the sexist nature of such critiques, Politico’s David Siders writes. “No woman likes to be judged by their relationships. We want to be judged by who we are, not who we are romantically involved with,” said Rebecca Prozan, Harris’s campaign chief.

As Siders notes, suggesting that Brown had any influence over Harris’s professional ascent obscures the fact that he broadly exerted the same influence over numerous politicians in the region, given his wide-ranging position of power.

“It is difficult to find any successful politician in San Francisco who does not have history with Brown,” writes Siders. “Before being elected mayor of San Francisco the same year Harris ran for district attorney, Newsom owed his start in San Francisco politics to an appointment by Brown to the city’s Parking and Traffic Commission, and later, to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.”

It also gives Brown outsized credit for successes that Harris worked to achieve herself.

“Whether you agree or disagree with the system, I did the work,” Harris told SF Weekly during her 2003 DA run. “I refuse ... to design my campaign around criticizing Willie Brown for the sake of appearing to be independent when I have no doubt that I am independent of him — and that he would probably right now express some fright about the fact that he cannot control me.”
 Read the article here. 
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The Twist

When Anthony Scaramucci turned up in Davos this week, eyebrows were raised. Wasn't he competing on Celebrity Big Brother? (Unlike my personal reality TV fave, The Bachelor, I've never watched Big Brother and until this week, I didn't realize it was filmed live in real time. I had assumed it was filmed in advance like The Bach.) I was enjoying the whole "he lasted longer in the Trump White House than he did on Big Brother" narrative but it turns out it was all a ruse.

The Mooch wasn't really a contestant or "houseguest," as explained by eonline.com:

When Friday's episode kicked off, host Julie Chen warned that not everything was what it seemed. Minutes later, the houseguests received a celebrity news update courtesy of ET's Kevin Frazier, who announced, "One celebrity is not a real houseguest." That houseguest was the Mooch!

"Hello guys, surprise. I'm actually not a Big Brother houseguest, but I'm part of a Big Brother twist... From this moment on, I'm out of the house. That means you're all one step closer to the quarter million dollar prize," Scaramucci said via video message. "In Washington, you get judged quickly before people really know who you are, and you never get a second chance... I'm giving the current nominees a second chance at safety."

He then revealed that for the first time ever, there will be two Veto competitions prior to the eviction. Ryan Lochte, as HOH, had to nominate a new person for the block, and the three houseguests would be forced to compete for "Mooch's Veto," which was all about the former White House staffer.

After exiting Celebrity Big Brother, Scaramucci resurfaced on Wednesday in Switzerland, where he opened up about his time on the show at a business conference. (Read more here.) 

Read my first "The Mooch is on Big Brother" post here. 
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Primary The President?

As I've said here before, with a Republican incumbent, most of the suspense around the 2020 presidential nominations is on the Democratic side, which is why I'm keeping my various lists. Still, there are rumblings that someone might "primary" Donald, or, I suppose if it comes to that, President Pence. One name to keep in mind? Maryland governor Larry Hogan:

Talking Points Memo also mentions Hogan as a possibility, along with a few other names:

According to a Saturday New York Times report, Trump’s recent failures and dismal polling is piquing the interest of some possible 2020 Republican challengers.

A name frequently tossed around is Larry Hogan, the popular governor of Maryland. Hogan is reportedly setting up meetings with prominent never-Trumpers, like William Kristol, and reaching out to Iowa-based strategists.

Per the Times, also in the mix is William Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts with a Libertarian bent.

Other less likely potential challengers are former Ohio governor John Kasich, former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE). (Read it here). 

One name not mentioned is newly-elected Senator Mitt Romney of Utah. I don't for one minute believe that Romney, at the age of 71, has any real interest in being the 97th-most senior member of the U.S. Senate, which is what he currently is. I've thought from the moment he announced his run that his real reason for getting himself elected to the senate is strategic, based on the belief that Donald may not last his full term: Mittens wants to be in position to raise his hand and humbly offer to serve. (To be clear, and obviously, if Donald leaves office for any reason, the VP automatically becomes president. I'm talking about Senator Romney offering to be the 2020 nominee.)  

 Update on Tuesday, January 29. In a column published yesterday, Jonathan Bernstein says Trump could very well get primaried, although possibly not successfully:

On one hand, no eligible president has been denied renomination since the system changed after the 1968 election. The closest was in 1976, when Ronald Reagan challenged Gerald Ford, but that comes with the asterisk that Ford had inherited the presidency when Richard Nixon resigned, and had only become vice president because Nixon needed someone who could be approved under the 25th Amendment by a Democratic Congress. Senator Ted Kennedy issued the other serious challenge when he tried and failed to unseat Jimmy Carter in 1980. Since then, the only significant contest was when Pat Buchanan ran against George H.W. Bush in 1992; Buchanan didn’t win a single state and really didn’t come close, peaking at 37 percent in New Hampshire.

On the other hand, Donald Trump has, over his first two years, been the least popular president during the polling era, and right now his approval rating is slightly under 40 percent. With numbers like that, party actors are surely concerned that he’s in huge reelection trouble – and must at least be thinking about how to move on without him.

To be sure: Trump is still very popular among Republican voters. And some of the names that have been floated as challengers are less than promising; even if voters are fed up with Trump, it’s extremely unlikely they would jump to former Ohio Governor John Kasich or Maryland Governor Larry Hogan or any of the other moderates who have been talking about running. If Trump slumps further, it’s possible that even one of those could wind up running a Buchanan-like campaign, competing in the primaries and getting a third of the votes or so in many of them.

But the candidates who could actually give Trump a serious fight are those with orthodox Republican positions. For them, the big question is whether trying and losing would be, as my colleague Ramesh Ponnuru recently argued, political suicide. The historical examples Ponnuru cites don’t help his case. It’s true that Kennedy’s run may have marginally hurt his reputation. But Reagan surely helped himself in 1976. Buchanan entered the 1992 campaign as a conservative pundit; he did well enough that he wound up a semi-serious contender for the 1996 nomination. In none of these cases, including Kennedy’s, did the party wind up blaming the challenger for its loss in November. Democrats didn’t blame Gene McCarthy or Robert Kennedy for their party’s defeat in 1968 either.

It could be different this time, of course. And it’s still early: If Trump’s approval ratings quickly recover from the government shutdown and he spends this year about as popular as he was in 2018, he’s not going to look like a hopeless loser and any serious challenge will likely evaporate. But it’s also possible that he won’t recover, leaving him solidly below that 40 percent mark. Events (a recession, for example) could push his popularity even lower.

History shows that unpopular incumbents usually wind up with nomination challenges, even if those challenges tend to fail. That’s the most likely scenario for Trump right now – and if he slumps badly enough, the nomination could well be closely contested.

Read the column here. 
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Friday, January 25, 2019

This Day In History, 1961: First Presidential Press Conference On TV




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Thursday, January 24, 2019

"This Is Her Prerogative"

It appears that someone on Donald's staff was finally able to explain the reality of how things work:





I wrote about this yesterday in an update to my "Donald Is Silent" post from last week, read it here.
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Wednesday, January 23, 2019

True Crime: Kerri Rawson

Issue dated February 4, 2019: Kerri Rawson


Last week I had all four cover stories on the guessing game list, this week I struck out completely. This dramatic True Crime cover is a promo for a book titled A Serial Killer's Daughter, written by the woman pictured on the cover. The girls who changed Oprah's life are the students at her Leadership Academy in South Africa, read about it here.

Last year at this time: Issue dated February 5, 2018
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Pete Buttigieg Is Running - Updated


photo credit: Joshua Lott/The Washington Post

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has signaled for months that he would try to leap from local to presidential politics, announced Wednesday that he will join the burgeoning cast of Democratic candidates in the 2020 race.

Buttigieg made his plans official in a video and email sent to supporters early Wednesday, before taking part in the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C.

He announced in December that he would not seek a third term as mayor of the Indiana city, a move widely seen as a precursor to a presidential run. He said Wednesday he was setting up an exploratory committee for president, the legal mechanism allowing him to raise and spend money on behalf of his campaign.

Buttigieg suffused his announcement with references to his youth and the generational exception he represents compared to most of the Democratic field. He turned 37 on Saturday, making him the youngest entrant so far in the presidential race.

From the Washington Post, read the article here. And here's the tweet from Pete:



Pete Buttigieg would appear to be the longest of longshots but from what I've read about him he's an impressive man. Can the mayor of the 301st largest city in America get elected president? Frankly, I'd say that it's not out of the question. Click here and here to read my previous posts about Buttigieg. 

I've moved Pete to the I'm Running list. 

 Potential Democratic Candidates, in alphabetical order:

Reminder: Not every name on this list is "viable" as a future nominee or president, or even seriously interested in running, necessarily. It's just a list of every name I've ever seen mentioned, anywhere, as someone who might run in 2020.
  1. Stacey Abrams (2018 candidate for Georgia governor) added 1/3/19
  2. Joe Biden (Former VP)
  3. Michael Bloomberg (Former mayor of New York City)
  4. Cory Booker (New Jersey senator)
  5. Sherrod Brown (Ohio senator)
  6. Jerry Brown (former Governor of California)
  7. Steve Bullock (Governor of Montana)
  8. Mark Cuban (Businessman, owner of the Dallas Mavericks)
  9. Bill de Blasio (Mayor of New York City)
  10. Eric Garcetti (Mayor of Los Angeles) 
  11. Andrew Gillum (Former mayor of Tallahassee, FL, 2018 candidate for governor) added Dec. 11
  12. John Hickenlooper (Governor of Colorado) 
  13. Eric Holder (Former Attorney General)
  14. Jay Inslee (Governor of Washington)
  15. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (Actor) added Nov. 10
  16. Tim Kaine (Virginia senator, 2016 VP nominee)
  17. Joe Kennedy (Congressman from Massachusetts) added Nov. 10
  18. John Kerry (former Secretary of State, 2004 Democratic nominee) added Nov. 10 
  19. Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota senator)
  20. Mitch Landrieu (Mayor of New Orleans)
  21. Terry McAuliffe (Former governor of Virginia)
  22. Jeff Merkley (Oregon senator)
  23. Seth Moulton (Congressman from Massachusetts) 
  24. Chris Murphy (Connecticut senator)
  25. Beto O'Rourke (Texas Congressman, ran a close race for a U.S. senate seat from Texas) added Sept. 13
  26. Tim Ryan (Congressman from Ohio) added Sept. 8
  27. Bernie Sanders (Vermont senator, registered Independent, ran in 2016 primaries)
  28. Howard Schultz (Businessman, former CEO of Starbucks)
  29. Eric Swalwell (Congressman from California) added Nov. 8
  30. Mark Warner (Virginia senator) added Nov. 10
  31. Marianne Williamson (Author, teacher, spiritual leader) added Dec. 11
  32. Mark Zuckerberg (Businessman, founder of Facebook)
I'm Running: Declared Democratic Candidates, in order of their announcement
  1. John Delaney (7/28/17) 
  2. Andrew Yang (11/6/17) 
  3. Elizabeth Warren (12/31/18)
  4. Tulsi Gabbard (1/11/19)
  5. Julián Castro (1/12/19)
  6. Kirsten Gillibrand (1/16/19)  
  7. Kamala Harris (1/21/19)
  8. Pete Buttigieg (1/23/19)
I'm Not Running
Oprah Winfrey
Andrew Cuomo
Sheryl Sandberg, added Sept. 8
Jason Kander, added Oct. 17
Robert Iger, added Oct. 22
Michael Avenatti, December 4, 2018
Deval Patrick, December 5, 2018
Martin O'Malley, January 3, 2019
Luis Gutierrez, added January 7, 2019
Tom Steyer, January 9, 2019
Bob Casey, January 19, 2019

Days until Election Day: 649

Update. Almost five years ago, on March 10, 2014, The Washington Post published an article titled The most interesting mayor you've never heard of:  

Mayor Pete Buttigieg had to balance a tricky set of themes in his State of the City speech on February 12. Not only did he have to lay out his agenda for the upcoming year, he also had to address the fact he wouldn’t be in South Bend for most of it. “With the minor exception of some home improvement projects waiting for me at my house," he said, "nothing underway in this City will stop or pause during the next seven months, and I know I will return home to an improved administration and an even stronger community.”

Two weeks later, he handed the city off to newly appointed Deputy Mayor Mark Neal, who would watch over the Indiana city of 101,000 while Buttigieg was serving in Afghanistan. Buttigieg is currently training in Chicago, readying to deploy as an "individual augmentee," or a unit of one, doing intelligence work with the Navy Reserves.

...He was valedictorian and class president of his graduating class at St. Joseph's High School in South Bend. That year, he also won the national John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Essay Contest, which he wrote about Bernie Sanders. At Harvard, where he graduated in 2004, Buttigieg was active with the College Democrats and president of the Institute of Politics Student Advisory Committee. In 2005, he headed to Oxford University to study politics, philosophy and economics as a Rhodes Scholar. He worked on congressional campaigns in Indiana, Arizona, and New Mexico, and John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. In 2009, he ran for Indiana state treasurer, losing to future failed Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, before handily winning a crowded Democratic mayoral primary in 2011. (Read the entire article here.) 

Buttigieg was subsequently reelected for a second term as mayor and is now running for president. If you can't tell, I'm intrigued; check out Buttigieg's website here.

 Update #2 on January 25. Former West Virginia state senator Richard Ojeda has dropped out of the race, making him the first name on my newly created "I'm Not Running Anymore" list. Read more here. 

 I'm Not Running Anymore: Declared candidates who have dropped out 

Richard Ojeda (1/25/19)

 Days until Election Day: 647
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Monday, January 21, 2019

This Day In History, 1976: The Concorde




I used to see the Concorde taking off and landing when I lived in New York City in the 1980s, but I never got to fly on it, a regret. 
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Kamala Harris Is Running

California senator Kamala Harris is running for president:




I'm moving her to the I'm Running list.

Potential Democratic Candidates, in alphabetical order:

Reminder: Not every name on this list is "viable" as a future nominee or president, or even seriously interested in running, necessarily. It's just a list of every name I've ever seen mentioned, anywhere, as someone who might run in 2020.
  1. Stacey Abrams (2018 candidate for Georgia governor) added 1/3/19
  2. Joe Biden (Former VP)
  3. Michael Bloomberg (Former mayor of New York City)
  4. Peter Buttigieg (Mayor of South Bend, Indiana) added Sept. 8
  5. Cory Booker (New Jersey senator)
  6. Sherrod Brown (Ohio senator)
  7. Jerry Brown (former Governor of California)
  8. Steve Bullock (Governor of Montana)
  9. Mark Cuban (Businessman, owner of the Dallas Mavericks)
  10. Bill de Blasio (Mayor of New York City)
  11. Eric Garcetti (Mayor of Los Angeles) 
  12. Andrew Gillum (Former mayor of Tallahassee, FL, 2018 candidate for governor) added Dec. 11
  13. John Hickenlooper (Governor of Colorado) 
  14. Eric Holder (Former Attorney General)
  15. Jay Inslee (Governor of Washington)
  16. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (Actor) added Nov. 10
  17. Tim Kaine (Virginia senator, 2016 VP nominee)
  18. Joe Kennedy (Congressman from Massachusetts) added Nov. 10
  19. John Kerry (former Secretary of State, 2004 Democratic nominee) added Nov. 10 
  20. Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota senator)
  21. Mitch Landrieu (Mayor of New Orleans)
  22. Terry McAuliffe (Former governor of Virginia)
  23. Jeff Merkley (Oregon senator)
  24. Seth Moulton (Congressman from Massachusetts) 
  25. Chris Murphy (Connecticut senator)
  26. Beto O'Rourke (Texas Congressman, ran a close race for a U.S. senate seat from Texas) added Sept. 13
  27. Tim Ryan (Congressman from Ohio) added Sept. 8
  28. Bernie Sanders (Vermont senator, registered Independent, ran in 2016 primaries)
  29. Howard Schultz (Businessman, former CEO of Starbucks)
  30. Eric Swalwell (Congressman from California) added Nov. 8
  31. Mark Warner (Virginia senator) added Nov. 10
  32. Marianne Williamson (Author, teacher, spiritual leader) added Dec. 11
  33. Mark Zuckerberg (Businessman, founder of Facebook)

I'm Running: Declared Democratic Candidates, in order of their announcement
  1. John Delaney (7/28/17) 
  2. Andrew Yang (11/6/17) 
  3. Richard Ojeda (11/11/18)
  4. Elizabeth Warren (12/31/18)
  5. Tulsi Gabbard (1/11/19)
  6. Julián Castro (1/12/19)
  7. Kirsten Gillibrand (1/16/19)  
  8. Kamala Harris (1/21/19)
I'm Not Running
Oprah Winfrey
Andrew Cuomo
Sheryl Sandberg, added Sept. 8
Jason Kander, added Oct. 17
Robert Iger, added Oct. 22
Michael Avenatti, December 4, 2018
Deval Patrick, December 5, 2018
Martin O'Malley, January 3, 2019
Luis Gutierrez, added January 7, 2019
Tom Steyer, January 9, 2019
Bob Casey, January 19, 2019

Days until Election Day: 651
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Sunday, January 20, 2019

It Was 38 Years Ago... - Updated

I had been thinking about the 1979-81 Iran hostage crisis, and specifically the rescue of six Americans as shown in the movie Argo, because CIA exfiltrator Tony Mendez died yesterday at the age of 78:



Read CNN's coverage here. 

Then I saw another tweet from the secretary, on a related topic, and in the spirit of his boss's incompetence he just can't get the math right:




For the record, the Americans were taken hostage on November 4, 1979, the 40th anniversary of which is nine and a half months in the future.

They were released on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, January 20, 1981, which was 38 years ago today.

Monday morning update: Secretary Pompeo, or the staffer who runs his Twitter account, deleted the tweet above and sent out a correct version:


The mistake got so much attention the Washington Post has a story about it, titled "Pompeo flubs math on anniversary U.S. diplomatic hostages were freed from Iran":

There is no country Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasts more than Iran, by speech or by tweet. But his point got lost Sunday in a shower of blowback after he incorrectly calculated the date that American diplomats held hostage in Iran were released from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

“40 years ago today, extremists in Iran released 52 American hostages they held hostage for 44 days,” he tweeted on his official account, @SecPompeo. “Iran still holds innocent Americans hostage.”

Pompeo, 55, was in high school when Iranian revolutionaries stormed the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, and the hostages were released 444 days later, on Jan 20, 1981 — 38 years ago. (Read the article here.)
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The Guessing Game - Updated

What will be on the cover of People this week? Not too many guesses:

Prince Philip: A car crash, he was uninjured but two women were hurt; two days later he was photographed driving himself again, not wearing a seatbelt. A controversy appears to be building in England
Paris Jackson: In treatment for mental health issues
R Kelly: Under investigation for sex crimes
John Coughlin: The former pairs skater apparently died by suicide, had been suspended from the skating world for charges that have not been specified yet
Carol Channing: Died at age 97
Chris Christie: His book comes out next week

Stories that appear on the cover will be highlighted in green.

Monday morning update. Chris Pine: Starring in a TV miniseries called I Am The Night
Nathan Phillips and/or Nick Sandmann: A tribal elder and veteran, and a high school student from a Catholic high school, in a confrontation that went viral and now appears to be more nuanced than it first appeared

Update #2: Brad Pitt and Charlize Theron: Are they dating? People.com says it's possible, read it here

Update #3 on Wednesday morning. No green this week, nothing on the list made the cover. The new cover features Kerri Rawson, daughter of the BTK killer. See it here.
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This Day In History, 2009: Obama Becomes President


More presidential history from Michael Beschloss's Twitter feed, not necessarily for January 20:
















And an interesting tidbit about Inauguration Day, which I was vaguely aware of. Prior to 1937, new presidents were inaugurated on March 4.

  
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The First Millennial President?

Remember this tweet, dated January 4?




Pete Buttigieg hasn't announced yet but a new article in the Washington Post Magazine, titled "Could Pete Buttigieg Become The First Millennial President?," sure makes it sound like he's running. Who's Pete Buttigieg, exactly? The article includes this: 

[T]he son of a Maltese immigrant father and an Army brat mom who grew up in decaying South Bend, got himself into Harvard, summer-interned for Ted Kennedy, worked for John Kerry’s presidential campaign, won a Rhodes Scholarship, learned Arabic in Tunisia, landed a jet-setting consultant’s job, left it to return to his beat-up hometown and become the youngest mayor of a midsize U.S. city, transformed that city into a national model of renewal, and then — deep breath — volunteered for active duty in Afghanistan while serving as mayor, came out as gay in the local newspaper, married a schoolteacher live on YouTube, turned heads in a dark-horse bid to lead the Democratic National Committee, and had the New York Times’s Frank Bruni gushing about him as potentially the “First Gay President”— all by age 36.

... this: 

He has clearly made a close study of how Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy took their nontraditional paths to the presidency at young ages. “When you run young, your face says you represent change,” he says. But he doesn’t want to stop at symbolism: His message for 2020 will be centered on a clean, sharp break with the Lite Republicanism that Democrats embraced in the 1990s. While older voters still tell pollsters they favor keeping taxes low and ambitions modest, millennials overwhelmingly support Medicare-for-all, free college, heavy spending to tackle poverty and climate change, and major infrastructure investments — social democracy, in a nutshell.

Though Buttigieg prefers to label himself — if he must label himself — a “progressive Democrat,” he can deliver a spontaneous dissertation on why young Americans say they prefer socialism to capitalism that would do Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proud. Nobody should mistake it for youthful idealism or recklessness, he says. “I think the new generation that emerges now will have a different kind of seriousness about the future,” he says.

... and this:

For all his aw-shucksiness, if Buttigieg has the least bit of doubt that he’s ready to make the leap to commander in chief, at an age that barely qualifies him constitutionally for the job, it’s impossible to detect. He has often been urged to run for Congress — the next logical steppingstone — but he sees it as a dead end. “I would find it demoralizing,” he says. David Axelrod, Obama’s political guru, is among the powerhouse Democrats who see no reason Buttigieg should wait. Axelrod’s first Pete sighting was in November 2015, when the young mayor was given the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award at Harvard. “He spoke without a note in front of him and gave one of the most stirring speeches I’ve heard,” Axelrod told the South Bend Tribune. “He has that gift.” Axelrod has given Buttigieg the same advice he gave Obama after his famous Democratic National Convention keynote speech in 2004: The biggest mistake politicians make is missing their moment by hesitating.

... then ends with this: 

While others might see his age and inexperience as fatal liabilities, Buttigieg recognizes that the path to the White House often evolves. It’s actually been a very long time since Democrats recaptured power without a candidate who didn’t represent a departure from political norms: the young, Catholic JFK; the up-from-nowhere Southerner Jimmy Carter; the “New Democrat” Bill Clinton; and Barack Obama, the African American just a few years removed from being an Illinois state senator.

Could it now be time for a millennial? When we catch up in early December, Buttigieg says he saw “glimmers” of it in 2018: “We saw indications that it’s okay to talk about our values as Democrats again. That the politics of conviction that appealed to young people, with Bernie in 2016, can also be articulated successfully by the next generation.”

I mention that the day before, Biden, on his own book tour, had proclaimed himself “the most qualified person in the country to be president.” Buttigieg laughs. “So was Hillary,” he says. Game on.

You can read the article here; I'm going to be keeping an eye on Pete Buttigieg. 

 And one more thing. The article also says this:

 Obama is also a Buttigieg fan. In his 2017 New Yorker exit interview, the former president named Buttigieg as one of four Democrats who would lead the party forward.

I was curious about who the other three might be, so I googled the New Yorker article: 

Obama insisted that there were gifted Democratic politicians out there, but that many were new to the scene. He mentioned Kamala Harris, the new senator from California; Pete Buttigieg, a gay Rhodes Scholar and Navy veteran who has twice been elected mayor of South Bend, Indiana; Tim Kaine; and Senator Michael Bennet, of Colorado. (Read it here.) 
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Friday, January 18, 2019

Jonathan Bernstein: "Trump Takes A Step Closer To Impeachment" - Updated

I’ve said for months that the evidence against President Donald Trump might demand impeachment at some point, but that we weren’t there yet – we were only at an intermediate stage, where there was sufficient evidence for impeachment and removal but where other political choices were still possible and reasonable.

Well, with the new blockbuster revelation that Trump allegedly directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his business plans in Russia, that might not be true for much longer. We’ll soon be at the point where incriminating evidence starts coming through the letter slot, down the chimney and everywhere else it can find a crack to slip through. Congressional Republicans will have to decide if running away to a secluded shack in hopes that the evidence doesn’t knock down the door anyway is really a viable strategy.

I wrote about why the question of impeachment won’t go away here and here. It’s not just that there’s plenty of evidence that Trump abused his power, obstructed justice and otherwise violated his oath of office. It’s that he continuously defies the rule of law, so that it’s impossible to move on. History has shown that Congress can tolerate a president’s specific crimes up to a point. But there was really only one president, Richard Nixon, who forced the issue by making lawlessness a continuing theme.

Trump has also alienated almost everyone who is legitimately part of the U.S. government. Whether it’s Congress, the FBI or even the military, Trump treats all of them as if they exist to serve him – and then attacks them publicly when they don’t. And just as with Nixon, every time Trump makes a claim of innocence, rallies Republicans to defend him, and then backtracks when it turns out the claim wasn’t true … well, you don’t need to be a political scientist to see that the game wears thin pretty quickly. Eventually, in 1974, even Nixon’s strongest supporters weren’t willing to defend him after yet another revelation and retreat. I don’t know how close we are to that happening for Trump, but Republicans in Congress are far less committed to Trump now than they were to Nixon then.

I still have no specific predictions. Maybe nothing new comes out. Maybe the Cohen story winds up being less firm than it appears. It’s even possible that some things that look very bad for Trump now will look better once we know more. But I’ll say it one more time: A very quick collapse, with Trump suddenly losing most or all of his support in Congress, is quite possible.

In the meantime, the current stalemate can’t last for long. As Senator Chris Murphy said on Thursday: “Listen, if Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then we need to know this ASAP. Mueller shouldn't end his inquiry, but it's about time for him to show Congress his cards before it's too late for us to act.” That’s quite right. Up until now, the correct call was for Congress to be patient with Robert Mueller’s probe. But at some point the stability of the government overrides the special counsel’s need to methodically build a case.

There’s also a political calendar to consider. It’s best for everyone for this to be resolved, one way or another, during the current calendar year, and preferably by early fall. That means the House should have the bulk of whatever evidence it will eventually get very, very soon.

This is Bernstein's January 18 column in its entirety; you can read his previous columns here. 

 Update: Dan Rather weighs in.

Update #2, on Monday morning: Bernstien's column, above, was published after Buzzfeed's explosive story came out Thursday, but before Robert Mueller's office issued the following statement late Friday:

“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.”

Now Bernstein has revised his column, deleting the second paragraph above and inserting this revision: 

Well, the reporting Thursday by BuzzFeed that Trump allegedly directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his business plans in Russia initially seemed likely to help bring an endgame closer. However, that story was more shaky late Friday, after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office said in a rare statement that the “description of specific statements to the special counsel’s office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony are not accurate.” BuzzFeed’s editor in chief, Ben Smith, said he stood by the reporting and the reporters’ sources.

But regardless of whether those particular allegations stick, we soon may reach the point where incriminating evidence starts coming through the letter slot, down the chimney and everywhere else it can find a crack to slip through. Congressional Republicans will have to decide if running away to a secluded shack in hopes that the evidence doesn’t knock down the door anyway is really a viable strategy.
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