The Russians came *updates

And did ... something.  Precisely what is a matter even the CIA and FBI cannot agree upon.

With fairly conclusive evidence that something electronic, computer-related, was done by some folks in Russia, it remains circumstantial that the Russian government was actually directing those efforts (the FBI's mandate being what can be proved in a court of law, as we saw with the original decision of theirs not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for sloppy handling of her electronic mail).  This despite the fact that the Russian government seems delighted with the appearance (the CIA's conclusion, which underscores how that agency weights inference) of their having played some role -- something to do with -- electing Donald Trump president.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the CIA, has not endorsed their conclusion either.

"ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can't prove intent," said one of the three U.S. officials. "Of course they can't, absent agents in on the decision-making in Moscow."

Two other parties could not agree, either: Jill Stein, et.al., associated with the presidential recount effort and the Pennsylvania federal judge who asserted, in stopping the recount in that state yesterday, that her claim of 'foreign interference' was something that "border(ed) on the irrational".  Not particularly unusual when you are aware that even the Green Party's steering committee did not want to go forward with the recounting (but for reasons unrelated to alleged hacking).  And beyond the rationality or lack thereof associated with the Russian business, US District Judge Paul S. Diamond strongly denounced the recount effort despite glaring evidence that Pennsylvania has probably the most fucked-up election machines -- not to mention election laws -- in a nation chock full of the same.  But before I digress to the ending of the recount that occurred yesterday (the subject of a future post) let's finish with the Russians.

This 'something' that some Russians did with their computers lends itself to a broad range of -- to use Judge Diamond's word -- irrational conclusions, as Trump himself and more recently Keith Olbermann have demonstrated.  FTR I believe both of these men are as crazy as shithouse rats.

There are additional minor questions, such as whether or not the Russians 'hacked' the election by staging a barrage of 'fake news' that, in more subtle and thus immeasurable detail, swayed the electorate to Trump.  And even whether it was a leak, and not a hack.

Personally I remain disinclined to believe that the Russians hacked anything but John Podesta's and some RNC official's email.  Julian Assange -- or the Russians -- did indeed post RNC emails online, in August and despite recent reports to the contrary, so the suggestion that someone was attempting to push the election one way or another doesn't hold water.  But the fact remains that it was the content of the DNC emails that were damaging, although I can buy the counter-argument that they revealed precisely what the DNC and Hillary Clinton were already known to be: corrupt.  Rigging a primary in her favor despite her obvious and politically fatal flaws as a candidate.

That failure is on the Clinton Democrats.  Alone.  If you want it said a little nicer, read this.

Update: Don't feel bad if you still don't understand; not even Obama gets it.

“What is it about our political ecosystem, what is it about the state of our democracy where the leaks of what were frankly not very interesting emails that didn’t have any explosive information in them [...] ended up being an obsession, and the fact that the Russians were doing this was not an obsession?”

Update II: Despite new and ominous revelations, there still appears to be some disconnect between 'the Russians did it' and 'why did you write that in an e-mail'.

Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and a key Clinton supporter, recalls walking into the busy Clinton transition offices, humiliated to see her face on television screens as pundits discussed a leaked email in which she had called Mrs. Clinton’s instincts “suboptimal.”

“It was just a sucker punch to the gut every day,” Ms. Tanden said. “It was the worst professional experience of my life.”

Update III: More 'the Russians came all over the RNC, too" from The Smoking Gun, and this from Ann Althouse about how John Podesta originally got phished is priceless.

The Weekly Wrangle

With this week's blog post roundup, the Texas Progressive Alliance can remember a time when Republicans thought Russian meddling in our affairs was a bad thing.

Off the Kuff notes that businesses have calculated the cost of Dan Patrick's bathroom bill, but wonders if they have calculated the cost of Dan Patrick.  And Libby Shaw at Daily Kos is grateful to a Houston Chronicle business reporter for exposing Patrick’s rationale for his bathroom obsession. Practicing bigotry to mask fiscal and ethical failures. How we can expose this malpractice?

Socratic Gadfly looks at Trump's so-called "generals' cabinet," and suggests some additional generals, and CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is also alarmed over Trump's military cabinet choices. This is how a junta starts. He did promise regime change.

The December 7th anniversary nobody in Southeast Texas wants to commemorate was shared by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Dos Centavos applauds Houston's mayor, Sylvester Turner, signing the letter supporting the DACA policy and hosting an event organized by TOP this morning declaring Houston a 'welcoming city'.

The Lewisville city council reviews its legislative priorities as the 86th session approaches, and local control is going to take a hit, according to Rep. Burt Solomons and the Texan-Journal.

Bonddad's -- also known as New Deal Democrat -- weekly economic forecast spotlights a developing negative trifecta of gasoline usage, rising interest rates and the US dollar's volatility.

Neil at All People Have Value said Oakland warehouse fire victims used alienation to create rather than to attack. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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And here's more news from around Texas.

The Great God Pan Is Dead contemplates fire codes and art spaces in the wake of the tragedy in Oakland.

Leah Binkovitz takes note of the potential common ground between incoming HUD Secretary Ben Carson and Houston mayor Turner.

After arrests made in the wake of anti-Trump protests, the Houston Press sees that the ACLU of Texas will be sending legal teams to monitor the cops at future Houston protests.

Grits for Breakfast observes that asset forfeiture to the government now takes more money from people than burglars, and the number of heroin deaths has surpassed gun homicides.  (Can't blame Donald Trump for either of those, can we?)

Lone Star Ma calls for action to help the women and children released from family detention centers.

Naveena Sadasivam talks to retiring environmental lobbyist Tom "Smitty" Smith.

Juanita Jean gets mad about the latest governmental intrusion into uteruses.

The Lunch Tray notes the likely demise of the pending Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR).

Better Texas Blog highlights how much Texas will lose if the Affordable Care Act is repealed.

And The Dallas News reports that the Killeen ISD has gotten themselves in hot water over a showing poster from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Lame Ass Funnies

Lots of excuses.  Similar musings to the toon below from bzemsky at Daily Kos (but no mention of blame there for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, thankfully).

Lots of 'still not getting it' ...

Some communication breakdowns ...

Populism indeed was defeated, switched out for fascism.  But help, in the form of high mounds of daily manure, is on the way.

Sunday Funnies

Labor Secretary-designate Putz-der signals grim future for unions

Washington Post header: "Trump era confronts organized labor with gravest crisis in decades".  That is not an understatement.

President-elect Donald Trump’s Twitter attack this week on a union official, followed by his choice of a labor secretary who has criticized new worker protections, has rattled leaders of the American labor movement, who fear unions may be facing their gravest crisis in decades.

On Thursday, Trump announced that he would nominate as his labor secretary Andrew Puzder, a fast-food executive who has opposed additional overtime pay for workers and expressed skepticism about increasing the minimum wage. That followed a pair of Twitter messages Wednesday evening in which Trump attacked an Indiana union leader who had criticized him, saying the official had done a “terrible job representing workers.”

The actions, coming just four weeks after Trump won the presidency in part by wooing union voters with promises of better trade deals and a manufacturing revival, fed fears among national labor leaders that Trump was now planning a broad assault on unions.

“The president-elect campaigned on reaching out to working people, and this is one of a string of nominations that run counter to that,” said Eric Hauser, the AFL-CIO’s strategic adviser and communications director.

Indeed, it was labor's rank-and file in the Upper Midwest states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania -- Hillary Clinton's so-called firewall -- who defied their bosses (and their union's PACs) and swallowed Trump's line about "bringing jobs back".  They appear to be the ones most severely duped.  But we're just to the holiday season's halfway point and there's a lot of duping yet to be revealed.

The crisis for unions is a combination of direct threats from Trump’s agenda and the knowledge that many rank-and-file workers are sympathetic to his populist message. Exit poll data from the Nov. 8 election shows that Hillary Clinton’s smaller margin of victory among union members, along with Trump’s unusually strong performance, helped him win the White House.

The last time unions faced such an environment was when President Ronald Reagan slashed regulations, named a con­­struction company exec­utive as labor secretary and took on the air traffic controllers union. But, even during that onslaught, unions were in a much stronger position than today — representing 20 percent of private-sector workers compared with 7 percent today.

The list of potential setbacks for the labor movement is daunting. Some union leaders are worried that a Trump administration would attempt to introduce a national right-to-work law — allowing any employee anywhere to exempt themselves from participating in a union — and block unions from deducting dues from paychecks.

Trump also will be able to fill two of the five spots on the National Labor Relations Board, which adjudicates disputes between unions and corporate management.

Some union leaders, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the unions, said that labor leaders also fear that a Republican Congress and Trump White House would launch investigations of union finances­ while failing to enforce labor laws when employers underpay workers or violate occupational safety rules.

“The assault on unions, as institutions, is indeed unprecedented in scale,” Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin said in an email. “Even in the 1920s, conservative Republicans did not argue against their very legitimacy.”

This comes on the heels of the Obama administration's setback in a Texas court last month regarding the expansion of overtime rules for non-salaried employees, many of whom happen to be single mothers.  A few businesses had already rolled out the changes, including raises for some and converting others to hourly, in anticipation of the law's implementation on December 1.  A number of employers cheered the ruling striking the order down.

Which brings us to the soon-to-be Labor Secretary, fast-food magnate Andrew Putz-der.

Puzder, who is chief executive of CKE Restaurants, which includes fast-food chains such as Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., has sharply criticized Obama’s efforts. The overtime rule would affect many low-paying transient jobs such as those in retailing or the fast-food business.

Putz-der has a lot less going for him as well.  As you might have guessed, he thinks raising the minimum wage is a bad idea.  As he does the previously-referenced overtime rule and also the Affordable Care Act.  But he's a big fan of women in bikinis selling his hamburgers.

Commercials for Carl’s Jr. feature scantily clad women, which has drawn criticism, the New York Times pointed out, from women’s groups and religious activists. The aim of these ads, according to Entrepreneur magazine, is to attract “hungry young guys.” And it’s an approach that Puzder enthusiastically endorses.

"If you don't complain, I go to the head of marketing and say, 'What's wrong with our ads?'" He told Entrepreneur in 2015. "Those complaints aren't necessarily bad for us. What you look at is, you look at sales. And, our sales go up."

In his career before fast food, he helped write a landmark anti-abortion bill that became law.

Puzder was an attorney in St. Louis in the '80s and '90s, when he helped draft a law that placed strict restrictions on abortion access in Missouri, according to the biography on his blog. The law banned the use of public employees and public facilities in performing abortions. The executive director of an abortion clinic in St. Louis sued to overturn the law, according to the New York Times. The suit ultimately went to the Supreme Court, which upheld the restrictions, marking it the first time the court allowed states to enact restrictions on abortion, the Times reported.

He does seem to want to work toward solutions, for what that's worth.

Puzder later teamed up with the very man who sued to overturn the law he wrote. Together, Puzder and B. J. Isaacson-Jones, then executive director of Reproductive Health Services, established the Common Ground Network. The organization, which is now nationwide, seeks to find ways for pro-choice and pro-life advocates to work together, including promoting adoption and limiting unwanted teen pregnancies, according to the Chicago Tribune.

But his reputation as a wife-beater, taken together with the reports above, IMO cements him firmly as a misogynist.  The local newspaper had the story ...

Andrew Puzder, the St. Louis attorney who rose to become CEO of Carl's Jr. and now stands as Donald Trump's pick to be Secretary of Labor, was accused of abuse by his first wife in the 1980s — with police twice summoned to the couple's home.

The allegations were first aired in the couple's 1989 divorce. The abuse allegations in the divorce filings then became the subject of a July 26, 1989, Riverfront Times cover story.

Again FWIW, he denied the allegations and his ex-wife has recently walked them back, claiming they have resolved their differences and have a convivial relationship today.

Of all of Trump's shitty Cabinet selections to date, this one might be the worst.  Working men and women are quite likely to suffer the most over the next four years.  I wonder if they will wake up and smell the coffee.