Observations on some news of the week, including new indictments from Mueller

1.  The Atlantic's David Graham challenges the media's calling it "chaos" that has embroiled the White House over its handling of the Rob Porter scandal:

"This is peculiar . . . because it is difficult to imagine what would rise to the level of notable chaos relative to the standards of this White House. . . .  Insofar as the administration is engulfed in chaos, it is a result of its inability to tell the truth. The Trump team doesn’t have a chaos problem so much as it has a dishonesty problem."

2. Mike Lofgreen, New York Times:   A former Republican speaks about what has become of the party he left in 2011:

"What has become of the Republican Party, which I once served on Capitol Hill and which I now consider a dangerous extremist movement on a par with the ruling Fidesz party in neo-fascist Hungary? Where did its principles go? What became of Ronald Reagan’s 'party of ideas'? . . . One by one, those ideas were tossed aside for expediency and power — except the tax cut. . . .

"The tax cut, the sole important legislation from the Republican Congress, shows that catering to its rich contributors is the party’s only policy. The rest of its agenda is simply tactics and trickery.  As the party has become unmoored from positive belief, it has grown manipulative, demagogic and contemptuous of truth.

"Today’s Republican Party is incapable of honest and coherent governance, with 'right' or 'wrong' reduced to a question of whether it helps the party. Its agenda is little more than institutional vandalism and a thumb in the eye. . 

". .  In 2011, when House Republicans threatened to drive the government into default to extort political concessions, I left the party. Seven years later, it has become so extreme that I fear it is endangering the stability of the republic."

3.  Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist, comments via drawing his take on Donald Trump's unshakably positive attitude toward Vladimir Putin:
   In the cartoon there are three talking head depictions of three former presidents and their altered names, suggesting what might have been.
   Franklin D. Trump (aka FDR) says:  "Pearl Harbor, Shmerl Shmarbor.   Emperor Hirohito likes me!"
   John F. Trump (aka JFK) says:  "Russian nukes in Cuba?   Fake News!"
   George W. Trump (aka GWB) says:  "I can work with Bin Laden."

4.  The U.S. House Oversight Committee has opened an investigation into the White House's vetting and security clearance process.  This was prompted by the Rob Porter, wife-abuse scandal that did not bar him from working with the most highly classified documents, with an office just adjacent to the Oval Office.   Gowdy, the Republican Chair of the Committee asks:   "How was he still working there?"

Note that this is the same Trey Gowdy who so brutally and doggedly pursued Hillary Clinton for using her own email system that occasionally included classified material -- as well as conducting the famous 11 hour testimony by Clinton about Benghasi.   Let's hope Gowdy, who has announced he will not run for re-election, will pursue the White House security problem with even half the vigor he did Clinton's largely exonerated emails.

5.  Just breaking Friday afternoon -- after this was already set for posting -- was the big news of the week.   Robert Mueller has obtained a grand jury indictment of 13 Russian nationals for conspiring to interfere in our electoral process.   This included  many of them coming to this country, establishing false internet identifies to place negative ads or blogs, organizing rallies, and pushing memes to claim election fraud.   They contacted more than 100 Americans to assist them, although the Americans were generally not aware they were assisting Russians.   The indictment also states that there was contact with three unnamed members of the Trump campaign.

   The indictment unequivocally states that the Russians' primary intent was to support candidate Trump's election.   However, they also had the more general aim to promote discord in the United Stater and to undermine public confidence in democracy.

   Those indicted are specifically charged with conspiracy to:  defraud the United States;  to communicate with the Trump campaign in violation of our election laws;  to use fraud and propaganda to support candidate Trump;  and to secretly take down the chief rivals to Trump's election:   Clinton, Cruz, and Rubio.

   Presumably the Russians are back in Russia and may never come to trial in the U.S.   However, that it not the importance of this.   This indictment is absolutely stunning in its detail and thoroughness -- and it sends a signal to anyone else that Mueller is a formidable investigator, that he is coming after you, and that he has surveillance information far beyond what anyone suspected.   So beware -- all ye who may be under suspicion.

   The other major importance is that there can no longer be any credible claim that this is all a hoax and a witch hunt.    I'd say it just about guarantees that even Republicans could not now support Trump getting away with firing Mueller.  Even he, after being briefed on it by Deputy AG Rosenstein, sent out a tweet that acknowledged that the Russian interference in our election was real.

Of course, he also falsely claimed that it shows there was no collusion and that the Russians did not "impact" the outcome of the election.   Neither of which is a question that the indictment attempted to answer -- so he cannot claim that it answers them negatively.   But in referring to the Russian efforts to affect out election, Trump is tacitly acknowledging that the Russian did actually try to do so.

Ralph