CFPB Acting Director Mick MulvaneyRon Sachs/Zumapress

What a piece of work these guys are:

Mick Mulvaney says he’s legally barred from shutting down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a regulator he once called a “sick” joke.
But the agency’s acting director could move dozens of employees to the basement of its Washington headquarters. And he might try to relocate other staff members to Dallas.

….The analysis put together by Mulvaney’s advisers lays out multiple ways to trim the budget over the next two years. Requiring CFPB staff “without a business need to work in an office” to stay home could save as much as $18.3 million, while shared desks might reduce expenditures by another $18.3 million. Adding 70 work spaces in the basement of the CFPB’s main Washington building may save $16.6 million, and relocating staff to Dallas would decrease spending by $2.4 million.

Remember when Republicans effectively shut down the National Labor Relations Board by refusing to confirm enough members for it to have a quorum? And when they refused to allow a vote on any nominees to fill vacancies on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals? And when they first tried to sabotage the CFPB by blocking any confirmation of a director?

There’s not much more they can do on the CFPB front, and they can’t literally shutter the agency, so instead they’ve decided to make life miserable for its staff while they effectively halt its operation:

This is what the supposed working-class warriors of the Trump administration think of an agency that was designed to protect consumers from Wall Street. So far they have:

• Sabotaged health care for the working class.
• Effectively prevented the CFPB from reining in big banks.
• Passed a big tax cut for the rich and big corporations.
• Sided with payday lenders.
• Implemented a tax increase on anything containing steel or aluminum.
• Dismantled net neutrality as a gift to big broadband carriers.
• Killed a plan to expand overtime pay.

There’s more, but I’m too lazy to keep going. Someone (*cough* Democrats *cough*) probably ought to drill all this into the heads of the working class folks who voted for Trump and his Republican enablers. So far the wealthy have done great under Trump, but the working class has gotten bupkis.

Today’s picture is a heavily Photoshopped image of the rolling hills near Tejon Pass as you cross over the Grapevine on Interstate 5. I took a bunch of these, thinking the play of light might be interesting, but when I got home none of them really appealed to me. Then I did some experimenting with the color, eventually turning the sky a bright blue and the hills a bright gold—and suddenly I liked it. As always, your mileage may vary.

From the Washington Post:

The Trump administration has chosen to ignore an executive order that requires the White House to issue an annual report on the number of civilians and enemy fighters killed by American counterterrorism strikes. The mandate for the report, which was due May 1, was established by former president Barack Obama in 2016 as part of a broader effort to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding drone operations in places such as Yemen, Somalia and Libya….The decision on the civilian casualty report is part of a broader shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy to withhold more information about U.S. drone strikes and the rules governing them, reversing Obama-era policies dating to 2013.

I think we can guess why the Trump administration is hesitant to release this report. Via Airwars, here’s an estimate of civilians killed in conventional airstrikes in Iraq and Syria:

If civilian deaths from drone strikes are anything similar, Trump’s team is killing five to ten times as many civilians as Obama did. I’m a little surprised that they aren’t proud of this and eager to share that data, but I guess even the Trumpies have their limits.

Ford has exited the sedan market almost entirely, and even the Japanese car industry is having trouble selling its flagship product:

As Americans’ taste shifts toward sport-utility vehicles, Nissan’s U.S. sedan sales fell almost 35% in April from a year earlier, driving an overall decline of 28%. Honda’s overall sales fell 9.2%, while Toyota’s dropped 4.7%….Honda maintains that its Accord, which was named North American Car of the Year in January, still can recover although sales fell by nearly a fifth in April.

Henio Arcangeli, the company’s U.S. sales chief, said “growth opportunities still exist within the passenger car side of our business” because “not all customers in the market want a truck or SUV.”

We’ve all seen this movie before:

When gas prices go down, suddenly everyone wants a gas guzzler. Then they’ll all start moaning when the price of gas goes up and they have to pay full sticker for a Camry because they’re in such high demand that Toyota can’t keep up. We Americans are such idiots.

Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via ZUMA

The New York Times reports that Ukraine has ended its cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller:

The cases are just too sensitive for a government deeply reliant on United States financial and military aid, and keenly aware of Mr. Trump’s distaste for the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into possible collusion between Russia and his campaign, some lawmakers say. The decision to halt the investigations by an anticorruption prosecutor was handed down at a delicate moment for Ukraine, as the Trump administration was finalizing plans to sell the country sophisticated anti-tank missiles, called Javelins.

I suppose there are two ways this could have gone down. It could have been Trump telling Ukraine stop the investigation if you want the missiles. Or it could have been Ukraine telling Trump give us the missiles or this investigation lasts forever. The truth is that both sides in this are probably corrupt enough to have been the one who brought it up.

In other words, they were meant for each other. Hell, it’s possible that they’re both so corrupt that no one had to bring it up at all. It was just understood.

Alexander Pohl/NurPhoto via ZUMA

Last night I noted in passing that Donald Trump had casually blabbed about intelligence from overseas allies on two occasions last year. The most important one was when he regaled the Russian ambassador about the intel that led to an alert concerning a potential laptop bomb being smuggled onto an airline. A reader writes to tell me that as bad as this episode was, it was actually far worse:

The US obtained this intelligence from Israel. What is now known to the general public is that Israel had succeeded in placing a listening device in an ISIS safe house deep in Syria, at great risk, and was listening in on everything ISIS was planning from that location. Trump revealed this intelligence to Kislyak and Lavarov during that infamous Oval Office meeting in which he also bragged about firing James Comey the day before. His revelation essentially blew the intelligence operation; the listening device the Israelis had placed went dead shortly after.

A few weeks ago I heard Ronen Bergman speak to a group of about 50 people, mostly Israelis. He is Israel’s leading national security journalist, and recently published an incredible book called Rise and Kill First, a history of the Israeli security services. He wouldn’t get into details about what Trump told the Russians during that Oval Office meeting, but he said it was “much worse” than what is “publicly” known, and that Trump essentially revealed the “crown jewels” of Israeli intelligence operational methods in Syria. He said the Israeli intelligence community is absolutely livid; has come to the conclusion that the administration is “chaotic” and absolutely cannot be trusted with any sensitive information; and will not reveal to the Americans any information unless it doesn’t care whether such information is publicly known. He said this is an absolute sea change from all past administrations both Republican and Democratic. Before this, Israel has always shared without hesitation intelligence information with the US that it doesn’t share with any other country.

When my right-wing Republican Jewish Coalition friends tell me how great Trump is for Israel, it absolutely makes my blood boil, because it’s so demonstrably untrue.

Just another day at the office for the fuckwit-in-chief.

I hate to spend all my time on the various and sundry foibles of the idiots who Donald Trump has chosen to lead our country, but today feels like it deserves at least a roundup. Let’s start with one of Trump’s former cabinet secretaries:

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said Tuesday the GOP’s decision to repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate without a broader overhaul of the heath care system will likely increase costs on consumers who remain in the program.

….“There are many, and I’m one of them, who believes that that actually will harm the pool in the exchange market, because you’ll likely have individuals who are younger and healthier not participating in that market, and consequently, that drives up the cost for other folks within that market.” Mr. Price’s comments were a turnabout from his time in the administration, when he said the mandate wasn’t working and that people were shirking coverage because they didn’t like what President Obama’s signature program had to offer.

So Price was just a loyal capo who was lying to protect his boss? I guess so. Now let’s turn to a current cabinet member:

Seriously? Do they all have mob nicknames? Is Pruitt known as Scott “Black Gold” Pruitt? Why not? Next up is Trump himself:

Trump’s New York doctor, Dr. Harold Bornstein, says that in February 2017, Trump’s personal bodyguard, a top lawyer at the Trump Org., and a third man showed up at his office without notice and took all of Trump’s medical records. https://t.co/F5ljFTSt3D

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 1, 2018

In fairness, if Bornstein were my doctor I’d probably want all my medical records back too. But did they have to do it in such a…um…moblike way? Maybe they did. Finally, here’s Pruitt again:

“A lobbyist.” “Ethics.” “Raises questions.” That’s DC-speak for “he’s a made man.”

I guess that’s it. I feel like maybe I’ve forgotten something that should be on this list today, but then again, I feel like that every day. I’m sure someone will let me know if I left off anything important.

Today is May Day, the international workers’ day. I don’t really have anything appropriate for that, so here’s the closest I can come: a picture of the new Gerald Desmond Bridge at the Port of Long Beach, currently under construction by hundreds of unionized workers. The old bridge is on the right: it’s a fairly ugly thing, and too low for large ships to pass under. The new bridge will look like this when it’s finished, and will be California’s only cable-stayed bridge.

In keeping with today’s labor theme, however, I recommend that they rename it. Gerald Desmond was apparently a fine man, but sitting on the Long Beach city council for a few years isn’t really that big a deal. Instead, I think they should rename Harry Bridges Blvd. after Desmond and then name the bridge after Bridges. This has an obvious appeal quite aside from the labor angle, and we shouldn’t be deterred by either the fact that Bridges is mostly associated with San Francisco or the fact that he was allegedly a communist. He beat that rap!

But really, this is all about having the Bridges Bridge. We’re missing out here if we don’t let bygones be bygones.

Jon Chol Jin and Evan Vucci/AP

I’ve gotten a little tired of hearing about how Donald Trump finally tightened the screws on North Korea and forced them to the bargaining table. North Korea is at the bargaining table because they finished their nuke and missile development and now figure they’re safe from regime change. And the odds that they plan to give that up in return for lifting sanctions are pretty close to zero.

Anyway, if you want to know what’s been done both before and after Trump took office—putting aside his moronic tweets—here it is. Trump’s contribution is at the very bottom.

From Chet Burrell, CEO of the largest insurer in the Mid-Atlantic region:

Continuing actions on the part of the administration to systematically undermine the market make it almost impossible to carry out the mission.

The “mission” here is to provide health care coverage for people, and Burrell is clear that things were looking better until Trump took over: “Did Obamacare work?” he said. “Did the people who needed the coverage get it? Hell, yes.” Unfortunately, that was an intolerable state of affairs for Trump and the Republican Party.