Today's Must-Read: Boom!

Here's Michael Cohen's opening statement to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. The core:

I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is.

He is a racist.

He is a conman.

He is a cheat.

He was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails.

I will explain each in a few moments.

And he does.

It's Not Just Elections Any More

When they go after Star Wars, they've gone too far:

Just like the 2016 presidential election, 2017's release of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" was marred by a massive campaign designed to further undermine American society – a campaign that included Russian trolls, according to new research from the University of Southern California. The study shows that the majority of negative tweets sent to the film's director were "politically motivated," or "not even human" – in other words, Russian bots.

A research paper by Morten Bay, "Weaponizing the haters: The Last Jedi and the strategic politicization of pop culture through social media manipulation," reveals the goal: "further propagating a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society," as The Hill reported.

Included in that goal was the support of "extreme right-wing causes and the discrimination of gender, race or sexuality."

I'd call this the shape of things to come, but it's already here. And as usual, the press didn't dig quite deep enough. In fact, I'd say the press is on board, if unwittingly: this is the sort of things that generates headlines and very serious discussions among TV pundits.

"The study finds evidence of deliberate, organized political influence measures disguised as fan arguments. The likely objective of these measures is increasing media coverage of the fandom conflict, thereby adding to and further propagating a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society. Persuading voters of this narrative remains a strategic goal for the U.S. alt-right movement, as well as the Russian Federation."

(Emphasis added.)

I wonder how the Russians have contributed to the Kavanaugh hearings.

Today in Cognitive Dissonance

Tony Perkins, again, who -- well, you can click through and read the whole thing if your stomach is up to it, but there's a couple of items that deserve special mention:

Family Research Council (FRC) is dedicated to ensuring our nation becomes a place where public school children are not exposed to pro-LGBT curriculum that encourages kids to ignore biology, use gender inclusive language, and even attend events with same-sex dates.

Apparently, it's of overwhelming importance to the religious freedom of "Christians" who someone else's kid takes to the prom. There is some speculation that Perkins is riled because of this story:

Prom 2018 pic.twitter.com/jK5be0WFLn

— Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) April 23, 2018

And this:

. . . our ongoing vision of a culture where all human life is valued, families flourish, and religious liberty thrives.

Translation: all human life is valued until birth, some families flourish, if they're the right kind of families, and my religious liberty to tell everyone else how to live thrives.

You already know what I think of Tony Perkins, so I don't have to repeat it. Let's just add "overweening arrogance" to his "Christian" virtues.

Today's Must-Read: Krugman on Ryan

Now that Paul Ryan has accomplished what his billionaire donors put him in the House to do -- transfer even more of our national wealth into their pockets, which he calls "tax reform" -- he's retiring to "spend more time with his family." And in case you're unfamiliar with Ryan's background, this, from Bobby Cramer at Bark Bark Woof Woof, should give you some perspective:

Paul Ryan’s personal history — that he came from a low-income background in rural Wisconsin, that he lost his father at a young age, and that he went on to achieve some Capra-esque vision of the American dream — is tarnished by the fact that he’s never held a job in the private sector and he’s spent his entire political career trying to undercut and eventually tear down the support system that got him to where he became Speaker of the House. And now he’s retiring before he’s hit 50 and will, more than likely, never have to work a day in his life thanks to his generous pension from the government. How very Republican.

I should add that his achievement of the "Capra-esque vision" was made possible by Social Security survivor's benefits, which he wants to take away from everyone else. That's a point that Paul Krugman makes in his column:

Look, the single animating principle of everything Ryan did and proposed was to comfort the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted. Can anyone name a single instance in which his supposed concern about the deficit made him willing to impose any burden on the wealthy, in which his supposed compassion made him willing to improve the lives of the poor? Remember, he voted against the Simpson-Bowles debt commission proposal not because of its real flaws, but because it would raise taxes and fail to repeal Obamacare.

"Zombie-eyed granny-starver" is much too nice an epithet.

Krugman also lets the press have it for its role in elevating Ryan to a position he certainly never deserved:

Even now, in this age of Trump, there are a substantial number of opinion leaders — especially, but not only, in the news media — whose careers, whose professional brands, rest on the notion that they stand above the political fray. For such people, asserting that both sides have a point, that there are serious, honest people on both left and right, practically defines their identity.

Yet the reality of 21st-century U.S. politics is one of asymmetric polarization in many dimensions. One of these dimensions is intellectual: While there are some serious, honest conservative thinkers, they have no influence on the modern Republican Party. What’s a centrist to do?

The answer, all too often, has involved what we might call motivated gullibility. Centrists who couldn’t find real examples of serious, honest conservatives lavished praise on politicians who played that role on TV. Paul Ryan wasn’t actually very good at faking it; true fiscal experts ridiculed his “mystery meat” budgets. But never mind: The narrative required that the character Ryan played exist, so everyone pretended that he was the genuine article.

Krugman goes on from there. Read the whole thing.

Via Digby, who calls Ryan a "flim flam fascist".