Jonathan Chait has a much-derided piece up at New York that says Trump’s corruption, not the Russia scandal, is his real political liability. I tend to agree with Steve M that Trump’s evident corruption alone isn’t going to separate Trump from his base, and probably not from most right-leaning voters. To them, “drain the swamp” never meant a return to clean government, but kicking out leftists and Democrats.

That Trump is easily the most corrupt POTUS ever to sit in the White House is, to me, beyond dispute. Most of the big, splashy scandals touching previous presidential administrations, such as Teapot Dome, did not involve the presidents themselves. Watergate was an exception. And Trump makes Nixon look almost honest. Do read Joy Crane and Nick Tabor, “501 Days in Swampland,” on a comprehensive list of Trump’s self-dealing so far, that we know of.  And, seriously, Teapot Dome looks like just a regular day at the office for anyone in the Trump cabinet.

And, of course, Trump supporters will just say “What about Crooked Hillary?” And that atones for all sins.

No, the corruptions alone will not cause Trump’s approval ratings to go even lower. “Getting” what’s going on requires taking in explanations that are too complex to fit on a bumper  sticker, which pretty much guarantees that they won’t make the teevee news. And most Americans won’t hear about it.

However, that doesn’t mean Trump is exempt from ruin. For example, what if Trump’s corruption went on trial?

A federal judge Wednesday allowed Maryland and the District of Columbia to proceed with their lawsuit accusing President Donald Trump of accepting unconstitutional gifts from foreign interests, but limited the case to the president’s involvement with the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte’s ruling dismissed other sections of the lawsuit that raised concerns about the impact of foreign gifts to the president from Trump Organization properties outside of Washington.

Maryland and D.C. accuse the president of violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which bans the president and other federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign governments as well as U.S. states. Specifically, they allege nearby businesses have been subjected to increased competition as a result of the foreign traffic to the Trump Hotel.

Media coverage of this trial could cause media to cover a small portion of Trump’s corruption as evidence dripped out day by day. It’s the drip, drip, drip of scandal that wears down administrations. Jennifer Rubin writes,

If Maryland and the District are successful, Trump may be ordered to do something he has so far avoided and which spineless Republicans have refused to demand — namely, disclose what his businesses receive from foreign governments, and either permanently jettison his ties to those operations or reject payments and other things of value from foreign governments (e.g. trademarks in China). Congress could of course choose to approve Trump’s receipt of his emoluments, but House and Senate Republicans — who like the rest of us don’t actually know what Trump’s businesses receive from what sources — have been loath to do that.

Moreover, if a Democratic Congress is elected, it can choose explicitly to disallow Trump’s receipt of foreign emoluments, setting up a possible constitutional clash. If either Congress or a court holds that Trump must give up certain parts of his operations (or segregate any monies and other valuable offerings from foreign governments), he may finally need to decide whether the presidency is worth giving up parts of his financial empire. Moreover, before a final decision on his retention of foreign emoluments, either Congress or litigants (in one of three cases currently ongoing) could demand a raft of financial records exposing for the first time Trump’s finances, including his tax returns.

There are some ifs in there, but there is potential for real damage.

But Trump has other liabilities. The stock market is taking another tumble today on news that China is retaliating in Trump’s trade war and after Trump’s bizarre bad-mouthing of Amazon. A friend of mine who understands markets better than I do pointed out that from November 9th of 2016 to January 26 of 2018, the Dow Jones Industrial average climbed roughly 8,500 points, or about 47 percent, to an all-time high of about 26,616. But then, “with his revolving-door cabinet, protectionist stance, incipient trade war, and constant barrage of attacking tweets (Amazon his latest target), the Dow has been in free-fall, currently at about 23,600, giving up 3,000 points since the all-time high (that is, giving back 35% of its total gains since Election Day) and firmly in correction territory.”

My friend thinks the market will slide further, and if it does its going to piss off the investor class. (Update: See “The Stock Market Is Having its Worst Second Quarter Since the Great Depression” at Fortune.)

As far as the Mueller investigation is concerned, I don’t expect any real fireworks before Paul Manafort goes on trial in July. As it is, right now if you stopped the average American on the street and asked who Paul Manafort is, most probably couldn’t tell you. Mueller is still making connections between Manafort/the Trump campaign and Russia, but most Americans haven’t heard the details. Trial coverage could change that. And if the July trial doesn’t do the trick, Manafort is set for another trial in September. Just as mid-term campaigns are heating up.

The fact that Trump is too stupid to keep his ass covered is a factor here, too. We learned today that Trump floated an invitation for Putin to visit Washington, which was completely not brilliant for somebody who needs to prove he’s not in Putin’s pocket.

Right now, most Republicans in Congress are standing by Trump, but if Republicans lose the House as is currently being predicted in many quarters, that could change. Will they want him at the top of the ticket in 2020? Some of them might decide that playing Howard Baker and impeaching Trump’s ass would be the noble, selfless — and politically smart — next step.

So yeah, the blimp has some leaks. It’s not going to stay afloat forever.

Recently, you might recall, Republicans in Congress passed a tax cut that is causing the deficit to explode. The U.S. federal budget deficit was $587 billion in 2016 and in 2019 is expected to be around $1 trillion, give or take, it says here in a Forbes article.

But today George Will warns us sternly that Americans will rue the day if they get paid family leave.

Evidently it is now retrograde to expect family planning to involve families making plans that fit their resources. Which brings us to the approaching birth of a new entitlement: paid family leave after the birth or adoption of a child. This arrival will coincide with gargantuan deficits produced primarily by existing entitlements.

Will may not be responsible for this headline, but it’s what got my attention:

Right-wing media continue to howl that “entitlements,” not the tax cuts, are responsible for the budget deficit. Never mind that the nearly half-trillion increase in the budget deficit projected for 2019 is being caused entirely by the tax cuts. Evan Horowitz wrote at FiveThirtyEight:

There is no wide-reaching entitlement funding crisis, no deep-rooted connection between runaway debts and the broad suite of pension and social welfare programs that usually get called entitlements. The problem is linked to entitlements, but it’s much narrower: If the U.S. budget collapses after hemorrhaging too much red ink, the main culprit will be rising health care costs.

Aside from health care, entitlement spending actually looks relatively manageable. Social Security will get a little more expensive over the next 30 years; welfare and anti-poverty programs will get a little cheaper. But costs for programs like Medicare and Medicaid are expected to climb from the merely unaffordable to truly catastrophic.

What’s needed, then, is something far more focused than entitlement reform: an aggressive effort to slow the growth of per-person health care costs. Or — if that’s not possible — some way to ensure that the economy grows at least as fast as the cost of health care does.

Republicans have been incapable of addressing the root cause of our out-of-control health care costs, because the primary reason our health care costs are out of control has to do with the way we pay for health care. See “Why the U.S. Spends So Much More Than Other Nations on Health Care” at the New York Times. The biggest difference between the U.S. health care system and everybody else’s is that the prices we pay for everything are much, much higher. And that’s because everybody else has gone to some kind of national system that imposes price controls. We allow for whatever prices the market will bear, and it’s threatening to eat our economy.

But you know Republicans — they think the purpose of a health care system is to ensure profits for health care industry executives and stockholders. If anybody actually gets health care along the way that’s a plus, but it’s not the central concern.

All that said — George Will is really, really put off by all these irresponsible people who want to take some time off from their jobs after their babies are born but who can’t afford to do without two paychecks coming in. Who do they think they are? They should just wait until they are more financially secure, even if that’s past the age of menopause. If ever.

(I have known women who went back to work within a week of having babies. I have had babies, so I know that after only a week one is still passing afterbirth. And exhausted, I might add.)

Government-mandated paid family leave clearly is going too far for Will.

Although this will advance the left’s agenda of broadening and destigmatizing dependence on government, many conservatives support it in the name of “family values,” and because free stuff polls well. But it will not be free for someone, so the argument is about who should pay. The debate will concern ways to disguise the benefit’s costs while requiring others to pay for it.

I would argue that healthy babies and stable families (which require mothers who are not collapsing from exhaustion) are a positive good for the nation, so we all benefit from them, directly or indirectly. But like most righties, Will can’t see beyond a transference of wealth argument. If they aren’t his babies, why should he have to pay to care for them?

Of course, Will is also opposed to abortion, and recently wrote a column that said allowing couples to abort a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome amounts to “genocide.” He also opposes funding Planned Parenthood and is infamous for uncritically repeating whackjob conspiracy theories about it. See, for example, “Planned Parenthood and the barbarity of America.” He was outraged at PP for selling fetus body parts. I can’t find that he ever wrote a retraction after it was determined that Planned Parenthood was not, in fact, selling fetus body parts.

So, Will isn’t terribly interested in helping poor women with family planning, and he’s been against abortion even for medical reasons for years. But he is outraged over paid family leave as an “entitlement” that will somehow break the bank and erode the moral fiber of the nation, or something. I’m waiting for him to propose that anyone making less than median wage be sterilized so that they aren’t irresponsibly making babies that are going to cost him money.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an Italian composer whose work was banned by Mussolini’s government because he was a Jew. With help from Arturo Toscanini and Jascha Heifetz, he was able to immigrate to the United States in 1939, first living in New York and then in Los Angeles. He would go on to write the film scores for more than 200 MGM movies, and his film score work is said to have been a significant influence on Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, Herman Stein and André Previn. Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s extensive oeuvre also includes choral music for Jewish sacred services, operas, and concertos, some commissioned by artists such as Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky.

Today, Castelnuovo-Tedesco is especially remembered for his exquisite compositions for guitar, many written for his friend and supporter Andrés Segovia. And that brings me to the topic of this blog.

Renata Arlotti is a young classical guitarist from Italy who has performed with major music institutions (such as the Royal Academy in London) and in prestigious music festivals throughout Europe. Her first CD was dedicated to Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and she was invited to the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles (Istituto Di Cultura — Los Angeles) to perform a concert also dedicated to Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

Today she announced on Facebook that her U.S. debut is canceled because Trump’s State Department wouldn’t give her a visa. In her own words:

When I tried to get my visa to the USA, it was denied to me because last year I went to play in Tehran and took part to “Tehran Contemporary Music Festival”.

Being in the category of people that went to Iran after 2011, I am now not allowed to go to the USA unless I go through an interview at the American Embassy (which is to be held in my native country, Italy, although I live in London), unless I pay 12 times more the price of a regular Visa and wait quite a few time in order to get it, provided I am successful with the interview.

As there wasn’t time enough to go through all this process and I couldn’t take a flight to Rome or Milan, the journey I was really waiting for is now not possible anymore.

The Istituto Di Cultura — Los Angeles offered her another concert date to give her time to get the visa, so the concert may yet happen, but it’s not certain.

(Update) Here’s a YouTube video of Arlotti playing a rondo by Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

I learned about the cancellation from a Facebook friend who is a grandson of Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who wrote, “My grandfather was lucky to flee fascism in Italy, and now an artist from Italy can’t come here to pay tribute to him (almost 80 years later) because of our government.”

Yep, this is happening in America.

Renata Arlotti

Charles Pierce explains:

Republican majorities in the Wisconsin legislature gerrymandered the state so badly that even this Supreme Court gagged on the result. In addition, two seats in the state legislature came open and Walker was required by law to call special elections to fill them. Given the pasting Republicans have taken in similar elections around the country, this did not fill Walker and his pet legislature with either optimism or glee. So, he simply refused to call the elections.

Last week, however, a judge that Walker appointed told him to get the Koch Brothers’ mitts off his puppet strings and call the elections. This occasioned a week of huffing and blowing all throughout the capitol in Madison. The legislature has before it a bill that would eliminate the special elections on the grounds that the Republicans might lose them. (I’m paraphrasing here.) Meanwhile, Walker appealed the previous court’s decision and, on Wednesday, another court in Dane County slapped him down.

Walker has apparently decided to not push the matter further and to schedule the elections. But this morning he had a Trump-style twitter hissy fit. Allegra Kirkland writes at TPM:

In a Thursday morning tweetstorm, the Republican governor blamed “liberals from Washington, D.C.” and Holder, whose national redistricting group sued Walker to force him to schedule the races.

“Obama Attorney General Eric Holder and his Washington, D.C.-based special interest group are behind the legal push to force Wisconsin taxpayers to pay for special elections for seats that will be filled in a few months in the normal elections,” Walker wrote.

In subsequent tweets, Walker claimed Holder’s National Redistricting Foundation had only intervened to boost its profile and raise money ahead of the fall midterms.

However, Eric Holder didn’t hand down the court decisions.

John Paul Stevens argues for repealing the 2nd Amendment. I’ve been saying for years that if the gun people refuse to compromise, eventually there will be nothing left to do but repeal the 2nd Amendment. Well, folks, now I’m starting to see people talk about it. I don’t see it happening soon, but continued obstinance on the part of gun rights people will lead to the 2nd being amended or repealed eventually. And that will be on them.

The NRA admits if accepts foreign money. It does not admit to funneling that money into anyone’s election campaign.

“The impulse to live luxuriously on taxpayer dollars has become a pattern for this administration. ” See “A Cabinet of Conspicuous Corruption.”

Did Putin finally go too far?

David Frum writes,

Back when he was a private businessman, Trump learned how to use law as a weapon. The lesson he took from that is that if your pockets are deep enough—and your conscience dull enough—it doesn’t matter that you are wrong. The other party will go broke before you will lose.

USA Today tallied the heavy-handed Trump litigation strategy back in June 2016. Over three decades, Trump fought 3,500 lawsuits—and faced 200 mechanic’s liens—mostly arising from disputes over unpaid bills. His strategy was to contest everything, and never quit: “The Trump teams financially overpower and outlast much smaller opponents, draining their resources. Some just give up the fight, or settle for less; some have ended up in bankruptcy or out of business altogether.”

As president, however—and especially as a historically unpopular president—Trump has abruptly discovered that his old techniques no longer work. Worse: The old techniques now work against him.

The new bottom line: If you are famous enough—and disliked enough—it doesn’t matter whether you are right. The other party will become world-famous and super-wealthy before you can win.

I have looked and looked for an example of a sitting president suing anybody. It doesn’t seem ever to have happened.

I didn’t watch the Stormy Daniels interview, but from what I read she was very credible. Frum doesn’t address her allegation that she was threatened; he thinks she is entirely motivated by money. Whatever Daniels is about, however, Frum is right that Trump has lost part of his leverage. Further, any public official — especially a president — forfeits most rights to sue for defamation that a private citizen enjoys.

Trump is too thick to realize this, and his couple of third-string lawyers don’t seem all that sharp, either.

Greg Sargent wrote today,

President Trump has boundless faith in his ability to survive any financial, political, legal or public relations mess, by resorting to what philosopher Harry Frankfurt famously described as “bulls–––.” Time and again over the years, he has fallen back on his trademark tactics: bluffing with abandon; suing to overwhelm his antagonists with legal bills; fighting back as hard as possible, solely to dissuade future foes; flooding the media zone with confusion-sowing falsehoods; and, above all, never admitting to error, wrongdoing or deliberate lying.

But now, with Stormy Daniels speaking out about Trump — even as Trump’s legal team is falling apart, just as the Mueller probe is set to hit its climax — it’s hard to escape the sense that Trump’s titanic talent for bulls––––ing may be faltering in the face of the crush of events he now faces.

He doesn’t seem to have appreciated the fact that he’s lived his life as a cartoon character on the edges of popular culture, where he wasn’t under that much scrutiny. Now he’s the center of the world’s attention. And also the attention of Bob Mueller.

Trump continues to approach the Mueller probe as a P.R. problem — i.e., one that he and his allies can bluster their way out of in conventional Trumpian fashion — rather than as something potentially a lot worse. Remember, this comes just as Trump and what’s left of his legal team are trying to decide whether Trump should sit for an interview with Mueller. Trump has repeatedly said he relishes facing Mueller, and the lawyer advising caution — John Dowd — is now gone.  Trump’s instinct to bluff and bluster his way through the Mueller probe is more likely to go unchecked — even as he is less likely to fully prepare for the very real legal perils an interview will pose.

In the words of the formidable Fran Lebowitz, “Everyone says he is crazy – which maybe he is – but the scarier thing about him is that he is stupid. You do not know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump. You just don’t.” If he is ever interviewed by Mueller, there will be no contest. Trump won’t be prepared. Trump won’t be able to bluff or bluster. Mueller will own his ass.

See also Jennifer Rubin, “There’s No Plan.”

I’m traveling at the moment, so posting is difficult. But do talk among yourselves.

A young white guy has been identified as the Austin bomber. Mark Anthony Conditt, 24, blew himself up this morning as police closed in on him.

Yesterday the White House released the opinion that the Austin bombings had “no connection to terrorism,” in spite of the fact that the people of Austin were justified in feeling terrorized. I wonder if Austin police had already told them they had a suspect who was a white homeboy.

Here’s some good news — Breitbart’s readership plunges.

Trump can be sued in court. From New Republic:

Summer Zervos, a former Apprentice contestant, sued Trump in January 2017 for repeatedly describing her as a liar on the campaign trail. She told the court that she suffered emotional damage and financial losses as a result of his attacks on her reputation. Trump and his lawyers argued in December that allowing the case to proceed in New York’s courts would violate the Constitution’s supremacy clause. Placing a sitting president at the mercy of a state court would raise serious federalism concerns, they warned.

Judge Jennifer Schecter rejected that argument on Tuesday. “No one is above the law,” she wrote in an 18-page opinion. The U.S. Supreme Court previously held in the 1997 case Clinton v. Jones that a sitting president isn’t immune from civil lawsuits in federal courts pertaining to his non-official conduct; Schecter ruled that the high court’s logic applied to cases in state courts as well.

See also Cambridge Analytica and its many scandals, explained. This is a big deal.

Trump won’t shut up. These tweets are from yesterday:

As the House Intelligence Committee has concluded, there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign. As many are now finding out, however, there was tremendous leaking, lying and corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, Justice & State. #DrainTheSwamp

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2018

The Fake News is beside themselves that McCabe was caught, called out and fired. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars was given to wife’s campaign by Crooked H friend, Terry M, who was also under investigation? How many lies? How many leaks? Comey knew it all, and much more!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2018

The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018

And these are from this morning:

Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when asked “have you ever been an anonymous source…or known someone else to be an anonymous source…?” He said strongly “never, no.” He lied as shown clearly on @foxandfriends.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018

Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me. I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018

Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added…does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018

Does an innocent man say stuff like this? For that matter, does a guilty man who isn’t dumber than a pair of socks say stuff like this? As Andrew McCabe explained,

“This is part of an effort to discredit me as a witness,” he told the Times.

“Here is the reality: I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey,” McCabe said in a public statement.

Well, yeah; the blind could see it. So will any future grand juries. Or judges.

Trump  has not been so direct in attacking Mueller himself before now, probably on advice of counsel. Benjamin Hart writes,

The New York Times revealed one possible reason for Trump’s especially intense wrath of late: the special counsel’s office had sent over a list of questions to the White House to set up a possible interview with the president. Last week, Mueller subpoenaed documents relating to the Trump Foundation, crossing a “red line” the president had set dictating that Mueller not delve into Trump and his family’s personal finances.

The investigation, in other words, appears to be drawing ever closer to the president and he’s responding the only way he knows how: by preparing to take out his enemy, no matter the consequences.

Thankfully for Trump, the Republican response to this increasingly likely scenario has consisted mostly of silence.

At Vox, Emily Stewart writes that Jeff Sessions may have violated his recusal pledge when he fired Andrew McCabe.

That decision [for Sessions to fire McCabe] has prompted a number of questions, including whether McCabe’s firing was politically motivated — or performed at the urging of President Donald Trump — and why it was done so vindictively, taking place as it did just two days before McCabe would have been eligible to receive a full federal pension after more than 20 years of service. Another question has begun to percolate as well: Should Sessions, who recused himself from all matters related to the 2016 presidential campaign — which included anything involving the Clinton Foundation — have been able to fire McCabe at all? ,,,

… Writing at the New York University School of Law-based blog Just Security, Ryan Goodman, a professor of law at New York University, made the argument on Saturday that Sessions violated his promise recuse himself from matters involving the 2016 election — a decision Trump had been furious about for quite some time.

“Some might contend that Sessions’ recusal covered only the Clinton and Trump campaigns, and that McCabe’s firing involved the Clinton Foundation investigation as a separate matter,” he wrote. “But Sessions unequivocally assured senators of his intentions during his confirmation hearings in response to a clear and specific question from the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Sen. Grassley asked a follow-up question that went right to the point. In response, Sessions very clearly said his recusal would cover any matters involving the Clinton Foundation.”

The stated reason for McCabe’s firing is that in 2o16 McCabe allowed FBI officials speak to Wall Street Journal reporters about the investigation into Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. Of course, if that were the real reason, McCabe would be retiring today with his full pension.

Also too: See Sean Illing, Cambridge Analytica, the shady data firm that might be a key Trump-Russia link, explained. And the AP reports that the Kushners have been caught lying to New York City about rent-controlled apartments as part of a scam to toss tenants out of their homes.