Andrew Giuliani, all grown up now, got a job at the White House. After Donald Trump and Pappa Rudy had dinner, Trump promised Andrew a promotion to Special Assistant to the Pr*esident. And then, bang, Gen, John Kelly took it away.

According to Axios, Kelly and others believe that Andrew "subverts the chain of command." Kelly stripped Andrew of his West Wing access about two weeks ago, Axios reported, leaving him with a "green pass." That means he cannot enter the West Wing without an escort.

Donald Trump's nepotism and employment of children with no skills in government is remarkable.

Meanwhile, Secret Service spent Tuesday night parked outside Kimberly Gilfoyle's apartment because Don Jr. spent the night there. (One mistake in the article: Guifoyle was never the District Attorney for San Francisco, which is an elected position. She was a deputy DA).

According to Vanity Fair, Michael Cohen is expecting to be arrested within days. Neither Cohen nor Trump filed objections to the Special Masters' Report as to which documents it agreed were protected by the attorney client privilege and should not be turned over to prosecutors. (No link due to autoplay video ad):

Trump allies view the legal cloud hanging over Trump’s former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, as at least as ominous as the obstruction investigation. According to a source close to Cohen, Cohen has told friends that he expects to be arrested any day now. (Reached for comment, Cohen wrote in a text message, “Your alleged source is wrong!”) The specter of Cohen flipping has Trump advisers on edge. “Trump should be super worried about Michael Cohen,” a former White House official said. “If anyone can blow up Trump, it’s him.”

Cohen responded that VF's source was wrong.

CNBC has this summary with additional sources and a copy of the Special Master's Report.

Three suicides by hanging in one week: First Kate Spade, then the sister of the Queen of Holland and now Anthony Bourdain.

I wasn't a frequent watcher of Bourdain's show, although I've seen several of them. He's someone you had to be in the mood for. I liked his shows on Asia. A few weeks ago I saw the episode of him eating with President Obama in Vietnam. But the episode that has stuck with me the most was one filmed in Miami a few years ago with a segment featuring Iggy Pop. Bourdain has explained he was an absolute fanboy of everything Iggy. Bourdain wrote at the time the show was about to air (in 2015):[More...]

I'm off to the jail in the mountains and won't be back until after dinner. It's a beautiful day for the drive though.

In the news, Argentina has charged Pablo Escobar's widow and son with money laundering. I tried to read the 57 page order in Spanish, but all I got was the investigation was started due to information received from our holy global warriors, the DEA, in conjunction with Colombia, who passed it on to Argentina. At first there wasn't enough evidence to charge them, but the court now believes there is. They will both remain free pending the outcome.

The charges seem to be that they invested money with a drug trafficker in Colombia named José Bayron Piedrahita Ceballos, who worked with the "Office of Evigago" and Cali Cartel who also managed investments in Colombia and Argentina. He was arrested last year and is awaiting extradition to the U.S. on bribery and obstruction of justice charges in the Southern District of Florida. The Indictment is here. (He allegedly bribed an ICE agent.) [More...]

Donald Trump has commuted the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, who came to his attention through Kim Kardashian, who learned of Johnson on Twitter.

As Kevin Drum writes at Mother Jones, while Johnson should have her sentence commuted, Trump is not due any praise for this.

Just in case anyone is tempted to praise Trump for this, please don’t. Sure, Johnson deserved to have her sentence commuted in some way, and I’m happy for her personally. But Trump has turned the pardon power into a cynical PR tool and this is just more of the same. The pardon power isn’t meant to be a lottery played out at the whim of a man-child in the White House who’s discovered a shiny new toy.

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Mexico has carried through with its threat to impose tariffs on some items the U.S. exports to Mexico.

With its presidential election 26 days away, Mexico’s government imposed a 20 percent tariff on U.S. pork, apples and potatoes and 20 to 25 percent tariffs on cheese and bourbon. Mexico tailored the list of retaliatory duties to hit states governed by senior Republicans, such as the bourbon produced in the home state of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

Donald Trump: The art of the deal, he is not. Not only is Mexico not paying for his wall, now U.S. manufacturers of these goods will suffer. According to Quartz, Trump's steel tariffs will cost Americans 400,000 jobs.

Here is an NPR article from 2015, How NAFTA changed American (and Mexican) Food Forever, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's May 31, 2018 quarterly report, Outlook for U.S. Agricultural Trade.

Donald Trump today blamed Jeff Sessions (yet again) for the Russia "witch hunt, writing on his Twitter account:

The Russian Witch Hunt Hoax continues, all because Jeff Sessions didn’t tell me he was going to recuse himself...I would have quickly picked someone else. So much time and money wasted, so many lives ruined...and Sessions knew better than most that there was No Collusion!

Trump is becoming predictable in his attempts to steer the headlines away from the alleged ongoing malfeasance of so many people connected to him. Paul Manafort is now accused of witness tampering while on bail for which the government is seeking to modify or revoke his release order. A hearing will be held next week. [More...]

We haven't had an open thread in a while. Here's a new one, all topics welcome.

The Trump and Giuliani show continues. Donald Trump today said he absolutely has the right to pardon himself, but he has no reason to do so because he has done nothing wrong.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)responded on Twitter, disagreeing and citing an Office of Legal Counsel memo written four days before Nixon resigned. He quotes from the memo:

“Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself,”

His tweet continues:

I know you have attention span problems, but it’s the first sentence: [Memo link]

The memo further explains:[More...]

In a 7 to 2 ruling, the Supreme Court sided with the baker who refused to take an order for a gay wedding cake. From the opinion, available here.

....religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.

The Court's ruling seems to be a limited one, turning on the Court's finding the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was prejudiced against the baker. [More...]

Donald Trump pardoned Dinesh D’Souza. The New York Times editorial board asks, Really? (I asked, who? I've never heard of him.) The Times explains:

On Thursday, Mr. Trump pardoned Dinesh D’Souza, the right-wing troll known for, among other things, posting racist tweets about President Barack Obama, spreading the lie that George Soros was a Nazi collaborator and writing that “the American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well.”

Today Trump said Martha Stewart and Rod Blagojevich may be next. Yesterday, he took a celebrity photo at the White House with Kim Kardashian who was there to advise him on "prison reform". She learned of a single case of a 91 year old serving a long drug sentence via Twitter of all places, and now she's invited to the White House to opine? Does she really believe that Donald Trump, who is so anti-offender than he fired her sister Khloe Kardashian from the Apprentice because of a DUI (watch the video) gives a sh*t about any offender who isn't related to him? I certainly don't. [More...]

Subtropical storm Alberto made landfall this afternoon in Laguna Beach, Florida near Panama City. It's moving north, up through the Florida Panhandle. I hope everyone stays safe. Two TV news persons died when a tree fell on their car.

On Donald Trump and Memorial Day, from David Frum in the NY Times:

It’s not news that there is something missing from Trump where normal human feelings should go. His devouring need for admiration from others is joined to an extreme, even pathological, inability to return any care or concern for those others. But Trump’s version of this disconnect comes most especially to the fore at times of national ritual. Donald Trump cares enormously about national symbols—the flag, the anthem—when he can use them to belittle, humiliate, and exclude.

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