Some thoughts

the guardian:
In the middle of the night and with dozens of Native Americans watching, San Francisco city workers tied safety ropes around a 124-year-old bronze statue and pulled. Carefully, they dislodged the piece from a granite platform and laid it on top of a flatbed truck. It was a moment stoked with meaning. After decades of effort, the Early Days statue, a symbol of colonization and oppression to many, was gone.
 
Those who gathered at the removal last week didn’t celebrate with fire torches. They only prayed, sang hymns, and looked on morosely at the empty platform. That’s what happens when civic institutions, in this case the city arts commissions, finally see a people as worthy of protection.
 
“I feel like it is a win. I feel good about it. [But] there is still a lot of work to be done,” Desirae Harp, a Mishewal Ona*tsáTis (Wappo) and Diné (Navajo) tribe member told me.
Erected in the aftermath of the California mission era, the Early Days statue depicts a Native American on his back, defeated, a Catholic priest above him pointing to the heavens, and an anglicized vaquero bestriding the scene in triumph. The statue is part of the Pioneer Monument celebrating the state’s origins. Native Americans saw it as dehumanizing art but no one had managed to convince politicians to take it down. It wasn’t until gender- and racially-diverse city boards, as well as backlash against Eurocentric depictions of dominance, that change came.

[…]
As the fight against white supremacist symbols grows in America under a president that supports them all but explicitly, citizens are ramping up more tear downs. San Jose removed a statue of Christopher Columbus and Arcata’s William McKinley statue’s days are numbered (he broke up tribal governments). More than 30 other cities are either in discussion to or recently removed statues including southern hubs such as Atlanta, Birmingham and Nashville.
 
In related news, ESPN found there’s an increase in US statue-building of sports figures, 80% of them white males, many in coaching, the most segregated position in all athletics.
 

 
Native people like Harp say part of the problem with statues is not just that they’re disrespectful and emotionally triggering but that they’re factually inaccurate. The Native American depicted in Early Days, for example, was from the Plains but native people of the Bay Area were Ohlone.
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axios:    Exclusive: Rod Rosenstein is resigning

also from above link:
In a 2016 op-ed, Francisco took aim at then-FBI Director James Comey, who he said had acted in political interests by watering down an investigation of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. In a case earlier this year with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Francisco reasserted Trump’s constitutional ability to hire and fire almost all federal authorities.
“The Constitution gives the president what the framers saw as the traditional means of ensuring accountability: the power to oversee executive officers through removal,” Francisco wrote. “The president is accordingly authorized under our constitutional system to remove all principal officers, as well as all ‘inferior officers’ he has appointed.”
[…]

Francisco’s potential commitment to Trump’s political causes became a central issue in his confirmation hearings last year, when the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein questioned his expressed support for Trump’s travel ban and urged him in a letter to “publicly commit to refuse any order or request — whether express or implied — to interfere in the Special Counsel’s investigation.”

[…]
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told Business Insider last month he thought Francisco made for an ideal candidate to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“I think the solicitor general has done a pretty extraordinary job and is someone who will clearly be in the mix, but that’s for the president to decide,” Bannon said.

dark humor days ahead and sarcasm running high

esquire:  The Watergate Reboot Is About to Be Broadcast in High Definition

Especially if the headlines read “President* Fires Rosenstein.”

by Charles Pierce
You knew that El Caudillo Del Mar-A-Lago, gutless wonder that he is, would arrange to be out of town when this happened. I just looked out a window of the Capitol and, glorioski, there was All Hell, running loose in the rain.
As of 11:30 Monday morning, it appeared that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had been summoned to the White House for the purposes of being told that he wasn’t the deputy attorney general any more, and by someone who is probably not the president*. Whether Rosenstein resigned or was fired makes a monumental difference in what happens going forward.
 
For example, if Rosenstein makes them fire him—which is what Pete Williams of NBC News said was going to happen—then the president* cannot use the Vacancy Act to replace him with someone that the Senate already has confirmed. (Deputy Attorney General Ben Carson?) That obviously changes all the calculations when you consider that Rosenstein had been tasked with overseeing the Mueller investigation, which now stands in more peril than it ever has before.
(Here’s a fine primer on the Vacancies Act from Steve Vladeck, which he wrote back in May when it looked like the president* was going to try and force everybody to resign.)
So, if Kelly does the president*’s bidding, they’re going to have to get the Senate to confirm whoever’s next, and won’t that be a bowl of buttercups, since that person clearly will be installed to shut down Mueller’s probe? In addition, as to the politics, if tomorrow’s headlines read, “President* Fires Rosenstein,” the Watergate flashbacks go into living color, Hi-Def, and Panavision.
(My love for chaos drives me to imagine another scenario: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III looks at Monday’s events and decides that This Outrage Against the Rule of Law cannot stand, and, since he’s got to be fed up with the president* anyway, then he quits On Principle, leaving the president* to put up another attorney general before, perhaps, a Democratic Senate.)
Most folks in the Congress were still in Kavanaugh hibernation when the story broke, but there certainly will be comments a’plenty when they finally emerge, blinking, into the downpours, both literal and metaphorical. We all picked a really bad week to stop doing crystal meth. More, you can guaran-damn-tee, to follow. Also, nice work, New York Times. Judy Miller would be proud.

a modern day Pandora’s box

people:
Stormy Daniels‘ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, claims he is aware of “significant evidence” that embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was involved in “gang rapes” during his high school years.
 
Avenatti tweeted a screenshot Sunday night of an email he wrote to Mike Davis — the chief counsel for nominations for the Senate Judiciary Committee — alleging that Kavanaugh, his friend Mark Judge, and others targeted women with drugs and alcohol “in order to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them” at house parties in the early 1980s. In the letter, he did not specifically allege that Kavanaugh himself assaulted anyone.
 
Avenatti did not present any evidence or further details about the allegations, but said he was aware of “multiple women” who “will corroborate these facts.”
[…]
Avenatti has clarified that his client is not Ramirez, and noted that the third accuser has previously worked within the State Department, the U.S. Mint and the Department of Justice and has been granted multiple high security clearances.
 
“The GOP and others better be very careful in trying to suggest that she is not credible,” he said.
 

*

here’s another story on avenatti by politico  tonight:
Avenatti stars in ‘avenging angel’ role
 
For the third time this year, the attorney and 2020 presidential prospect has rolled a grenade into the Trump White House.
 
He’s dismissed as a publicity hound, a carnival barker and even a “creepy porn lawyer.”
 
But for the third time this year, the combative Michael Avenatti — a sustained anti-Trump fixture on cable TV who is also exploring a 2020 presidential run — has found a way to claw his way into another major scandal, potentially making a bad situation even worse for the Trump White House.
Avenatti says his latest client is a victim of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh who is prepared to take her story public in the next 48 hours.
 
His claim has been met with more than a little skepticism — as has his prospective presidential bid. But Avenatti’s uncanny knack for drawing blood from the president and beating Trump at his own game has some top Democrats warning that the lawyer shouldn’t be dismissed outright as a factor in the Democratic presidential field.
[…]
Still, there’s a healthy dose of distrust of Avenatti among Capitol Hill Democrats who were hesitant on Monday to take the attorney too seriously on the latest allegations tied to Kavanaugh.
 
Avenatti scoffed at any suggestion that the claims weren’t credible or that he hadn’t properly vetted his client.
 
“We will publicly disclose her name and more information about her accusations within the next 48 hours,” Avenatti said. “We’re deciding how that would occur, making sure there is security in place. We’re getting our ducks in a row. This is a very strategic and methodical approach, which is what we did with Stormy Daniels.”
 
He’s also regularly posting his correspondence with the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a series of tweets, Avenatti alleges a broader scheme involving Kavanaugh and a friend, Mark Judge, that included targeting young women at parties.
 
Avenatti, who said he represents a victim and corroborating witnesses, told POLITICO Monday that the victim’s identity and details of the accusations would become public over the next 48 hours.
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