The Commentariat -- February 9, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Trump is all sad about the fate of poor Rob Porter, could not care less about the women Porter physically attacked; in fact, implies they lied & Rob is the victim:

Get out There & Lie for Me. -- Kelly. Philip Rucker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly on Friday morning instructed senior staff to communicate a version of events about the departure of staff secretary Rob Porter that contradicts the Trump administration's previous accounts, according to two senior officials. During a staff meeting, Kelly told those in attendance to say he took action to remove Porter within 40 minutes of learning abuse allegations from two ex-wives were credible, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because discussions in such meetings are supposed to be confidential. 'He told the staff he took immediate and direct action,' one of the officials said, adding that people after the meeting expressed disbelief with one another and felt his latest account was not true. That version of events contradicts both the public record and accounts from numerous other White House officials in recent days as the Porter drama unfolded."

Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "For much of the past year, President Trump has declined to participate in a practice followed by the past seven of his predecessors: He rarely if ever reads the President's Daily Brief, a document that lays out the most pressing information collected by U.S. intelligence agencies from hot spots around the world. Trump has opted to rely on an oral briefing of select intelligence issues in the Oval Office rather than getting the full written document delivered to review separately each day, according to three people familiar with his briefings.... Several intelligence experts said that the president's aversion to diving deeper into written intelligence details -- the 'homework' that past presidents have done to familiarize themselves with foreign policy and national security -- makes both him and the country more vulnerable." ...

... OR, to put it a bit less diplomatically, Jonathan Chait: "When Donald Trump was elected president, it quickly became obvious that the traditional national-security briefing a person in his position receives daily would be well beyond his zone of proximal development. The briefings were slimmed down in length, chopped up into easy-to-digest bullet points, and decorated with lots of graphs and pictures. Alas, the Washington Post reports, even the kiddie version of the presidential brief has proven too challenging. Now, Trump gets his briefing verbally.... Perhaps not surprisingly, while the verbal method comports with Trump's preferred learning style, he does not show very strong listening skills." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, POTUS* gets his PDB not from the intelligence community, whom he doesn't trust, but from Fox "News." And he doesn't always understand their fractured fairy tales, either, which explains why Trump got enraged about getting his "wires tapped," about a terrorist attack in Sweden that never happened, & about a "bombshell" report that President Obama was monitoring the Clinton e-mail investigation (presumably in order to rig the 2016 presidential election). Also why he has no idea Russia actually tried to rig the election.

Another Fox "News" Half-Story to Rile Trump. Alayna Treene of Axios: "Sen. Mark Warner [D-Va.], vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, texted last year with Adam Waldman, a D.C. lobbyist connected to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, in an attempt to gain a meeting with Christopher Steele, the author of the controversial Trump-Russia dossier, according to text messages obtained by Fox News. Yes, but: While the Fox News report put an emphasis on the 'secrecy' of Warner's messages, Warner issued a statement to Fox News with Senate Intel Chair Richard Burr indicating that the report doesn't paint a full picture: 'From the beginning of our investigation we have taken each step in a bipartisan way, and we intend to continue to do so. Leaks of incomplete information out of context by anyone, inside or outside our committee, are unacceptable.... Republican Sen. Marco Rubio confirmed that disclosure in a tweet yesterday, defending Warner's actions: 'Sen.Warner fully disclosed this to the committee four months ago. Has had zero impact on our work....'... A key paragraph [of the Fox report]: 'An aide to Burr knew there was a "back channel" Warner was using to try and get to Steele and was not concerned that Warner was freelancing on the matter.'"

Mark Osborne & Adam Kelsey of ABC News: mike pence disparaged the military parade North Korea held Thursday, but "heartily supports" Trump's proposed military parade.

*****

So it's midnight as I write, & your government has officially turned off the lights. Thanks, Li'l Randy! -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

The Trump Slump, Ctd. Tiffany Tsu & Matt Phillips of the New York Times: "Major stock indexes suffered a steep drop in late trading on Thursday, the second straight day that stocks plunged shortly before the markets closed. The 3.75 percent decline pushed the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index down more than 10 percent from its peak in late January. That means the market is technically in correction territory -- a term used to indicate that a downward trend is more severe than simply a few days of bearish trading.... In addition to the S. & P. 500's drop on Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 4.15 percent. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index -- a measure of the choppiness of markets -- surged by 21 percent." ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than a thousand points on Thursday. It wasn't the largest single-day drop in history, but only because the drop on Monday was bigger. So, thanks to the big drop earlier in the week, Thursday's was the second-biggest drop in history.... The Dow Jones industrial average has now lost 40.6 percent of the value it had added since Trump's inauguration as of the peak it hit on January 26.... So far, the White House seems sanguine about the fluctuations in the market, pointing to the underlying economic metrics that show more stability than the week's fluctuations in the Dow. That approach is completely fair. But for a president who only last week touted the growth in the markets as an indicator of his policy successes, it's worth noting when that metric suddenly sinks by more than 40 percent."

Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "The House gave final approval early Friday to a far-reaching budget deal that will reopen the federal government and boost spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, hours after a one-man blockade by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky delayed the votes and forced the government to close. House Democrats, after threatening to bring the bill down because it did nothing to protect young undocumented immigrants, gave Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin the votes he did not have in his own party and ensured passage. In the end, 73 House Democrats voted yes to more than offset the 67 Republicans who voted no. Just before the vote, Mr. Ryan voiced support for bringing a debate on immigration to the House floor -- though he did not make a concrete promise, as Democratic leaders had wanted.... The Senate finally passed the measure, 71 to 28, shortly before 2 a.m. The House followed suit around 5:30 a.m., voting 240 to 186 for the bill." (This is an update of a report linked earlier.) ...

... Mike DeBonis & Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "President Trump tweeted that he signed the bill, officially ending the second shutdown of his presidency."

... Margaret Hartmann: "Shortly after 11 p.m., the Senate recessed until 12:01 a.m. without passing the spending bill, meaning the government will officially shutdown -- at least briefly -- for the second time in three weeks. Senator Ted Cruz, who knows a thing or two about shutdowns, happened to be presiding over the chamber at the time." ...

Rand Paul voted for a tax bill that blew a $1.5 trillion hole in the budget. Now he is shutting the government down for three hours because of the debt. The chance to demonstrate fiscal discipline was on the tax vote. -- Sen. -- Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), in a tweet yesterday

... Rand's Stand. Burgess Everett of Politico: Sen. "Rand Paul is on course to drive the government into a brief government shutdown over his demands for an amendment to slash government spending, annoying his colleagues with his latest one-man assault on federal spending. The Kentucky Republican is upending congressional leaders' plan to quickly pass a budget deal on Thursday after clinching the agreement on Wednesday. The Senate needs consent from all 100 senators to hold a vote before the midnight funding deadline, and Paul is refusing to grant it without a vote on his amendment.... Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried to set up a vote on the budget deal beginning at 6 p.m., and Paul objected on the floor. The result could be the second government shutdown in a period of three weeks, though it would likely be brief." ...

... Mike DeBonis & Erica Werner: "Hours to a midnight shutdown deadline, congressional leaders scrambled to rally support for a sweeping half-trillion-dollar spending deal Thursday amid last-minute objections from a conservative in the Senate, and attacks from left and right in the House. As opposition appeared to swell in the House and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) threw up last-minute roadblocks in the Senate, White House Office of Management and Budget spokesman John Czwartacki said that 'agencies are now being urged to review and prepare for lapse' in spending after midnight." ...

... Thursday in Paul Ryan Flim-Flam. Alayna Treene of Axios: "House Speaker Paul Ryan zeroed in on his commitment to solve the Dreamers problem and find a DACA fix Thursday, but said he only wants to bring a bill that the president supports to the floor: 'To anyone who doubts my intention to solve this problem and bring up a DACA and immigration reform bill, do not,' said Ryan. 'I want to make sure it gets done right the first time. I don't want to risk a veto.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McC: Why, that's right odd, because he didn't feel a bit constrained by the presidunce*'s wishlist when it came to the budget bill, & Trump jumped right on that bandwagon. ...

... Melanie Zanona of the Hill: "Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Thursday that he believes he has the votes needed to pass a massive budget deal and avoid a government shutdown, despite pushback from both the left and right over the bipartisan deal." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Paul Krugman: "If anything, we should be using this time of relatively full employment to pay down debt, or at least reduce it relative to G.D.P. 'The boom, not the slump, is the time for austerity at the Treasury,' wrote John Maynard Keynes. But Republicans have turned that sage advice on its head. They are providing more stimulus to an economy with 4 percent unemployment than they were willing to allow an economy with 8 percent unemployment [in 2011].... How do we know Republicans were never sincere about the deficit?... [Their] proposals always involved giant tax cuts for the wealthy -- funny how that worked -- offset by savage cuts in social benefits.... Even at the peak of their deficit-hawk posturing, all Republicans really had to offer was redistribution from the poor to the rich.... And I don't think it's unfair to suggest that there was an element of deliberate economic sabotage.... Basically, they were against anything that might help the economy on President Obama's watch." ...

... Jonathan Chait says, yeah, it's sabotage: "Republicans have used their control of government to virtually double the budget deficit, which had been hovering around half a trillion dollars per year, and will now likely run well over $1 trillion -- during the peak of an economic expansion. There is no economic rationale for this behavior. Their policy is simply to support fiscal contraction under Democratic presidents and fiscal expansion under Republican ones. Cynicism is the only basis to explain their behavior."

Finally, a Wall! Olivia Gazis of CBS News: "In a sign of increasing partisan hostilities, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee plan to construct a wall -- a physical partition -- separating Republican and Democratic staff members in the committee's secure spaces, according to multiple committee sources. It's expected to happen this spring. For now, some Republican committee members deny knowing anything about it, while strongly suggesting the division is the brainchild of the committee's chairman, Devin Nunes, R-California." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Manu Raju & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "Last month, an attorney expressed his outrage with leaders of the House Intelligence Committee: He demanded to know why a committee official shared his client's secret testimony with another lawyer, a blatant violation of the panel's rules. Days later, the committee instead sent a subpoena signed by Chairman Devin Nunes demanding that the witness -- an associate to Sen. John McCain who had met with ex-British agent Christopher Steele -- reappear before the committee on short notice. News of the subpoena was reported by a conservative media outlet just 10 minutes after the witness received it. The episode,... underscores the aggressive tactics Nunes and several of his senior staffers have employed to undercut Steele's dossier of allegations tying Donald Trump and his associates to Russia."

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The FBI was monitoring Carter Page when the former Trump campaign adviser says he spoke with Trump adviser Steve Bannon about Russia in January 2017, raising the strong possibility that the FBI intercepted a conversation between the two men.... Bannon hasn't been accused of any impropriety.... In November testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Page told lawmakers that Bannon called him sometime shortly before Trump's Jan. 21, 2017 inauguration, asking him to cancel a planned television appearance on that day. By then the former investment banker and energy consultant had long been exiled from the Trump orbit following reports that he was under investigation for ties to Moscow.... Page [said] that he and Bannon spoke not just about the television appearance but about the [Steele] dossier itself, though he did not offer details."

Alec Luhn of the (U.K.) Telegraph: "A Russian deputy prime minister secretly met with oligarch Oleg Deripaska to discuss US relations after Paul Manafort reportedly offered Mr Deripaska briefings on the Trump campaign, according to videos discovered by a Russian opposition activist. While a recorded snippet of Mr Deripaska's alleged conversation with Sergei Prikhodko, deputy prime minister and head of the government executive office, does not specifically mention Donald Trump, the fact of their meeting on a yacht raises further questions of collusion with Vladimir Putin's government. The rendezvous at sea with Mr Prikhodko suggests a cosy relationship between Mr Deripaska, the president and largest shareholder of the aluminium giant Rusal, and the Russian government."

Rachel Bade & John Bresnahan of Politico: "The criminal investigation into Rep. Duncan Hunter is intensifying as a grand jury in San Diego questions multiple former aides about whether the California Republican improperly diverted political funds for personal use. Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed Hunter's parents, as well as a female lobbyist with whom many people close to the congressman believe he had a romantic relationship, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation. The Justice Department is trying to determine whether hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hunter's campaign account were spent improperly on his family and friends. Hunter already sold his home to pay back what even he now acknowledges were improper charges, moving his wife and kids in with his parents while he mostly lives in his Capitol Hill office." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Sarah Bailey of the Washington Post: "President Trump delivered a God-and-country-infused speech Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast, appealing to Americans who believe in Christian nationalism -- the belief that God has a uniquely Christian purpose for the United States." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "White House officials conceded Thursday that they regretted the way they handled accusations against Rob Porter, the staff secretary who resigned Wednesday after two former wives publicly accused him of abusing them. But they refused to provide any information about when President Trump's most senior advisers first learned about the episodes. [Porter] He left behind questions about whether Mr. Kelly and other members of Mr. Trump's inner circle had been willing to ignore serious episodes of domestic violence to protect a trusted aide who had denied they ever happened and about how Mr. Porter could have continued in his job when it was known that his permanent high-level security clearance had been held up.... Jennifer Willoughby, one of Mr. Porter's former wives, said in an interview that in September, Mr. Porter had told her that White House officials had informed him his security clearance 'had not gone through.' Ms. Willoughby, who said Mr. Porter abused her during their marriage, said 'someone had told him that there was a violent allegation and that was what was holding it up.'" ...

... Nicole Lafond of TPM: "Jennifer Willoughby, an ex-wife of former White House aide Rob Porter who has come forward with allegations of domestic abuse, said Thursday that Porter asked her this week to 'downplay' her accusations." Mrs. McC: If you read the whole exchange, I think you'll conclude that Porter asked Willoughby to lie. Depending upon what she said in her FBI interviews, that could subject her to criminal prosecution. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm curious as to why the White House sent out a man -- Raj Shah -- to handle the press briefing instead of Mrs. Huckleberry. I can't recall that Shah, the deputy press secretary, has run the briefing from the White House before. Did Mrs. Huckleberry have the vapors, or what? As Trump would say, she knew what she signed up for. ...

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly first found his credibility being challenged in October, when he leveraged his standing as a retired four-star Marine Corps general who had lost a son on the battlefield to try to contain a political crisis over President Trump's calls to the families of fallen soldiers. His reputation took another hit when he later refused to apologize for falsely attacking a Democratic congresswoman. And another when he called Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee 'honorable' and blamed the Civil War on a lack of compromise. And yet another when early this week he said some immigrants known as 'dreamers' were 'too lazy to get off their asses.' Then came the Rob Porter saga.... This week, Kelly defended Porter on Tuesday after the Daily Mail published a detailed account of Porter's alleged abuse of his second wife. On Wednesday, after photographs of his first wife with a black eye surfaced, as well as more allegations from both women, Kelly stood by Porter, who has denied the allegations. Only after Porter announced he would resign, and with the matter blowing into a media firestorm, did Kelly issue a second statement." ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... it is remarkable just how wrong the White House got this one.... Assuming [reporting] is accurate, it's an indictment of how the White House handled Porter's entire employment and an even bigger indictment of the staff's initial reactions to the news Tuesday. It's tough to believe nobody was asking questions about why Porter hadn't received a full security clearance.... It's impossible to understand how Kelly was truly 'shocked' by any of this. It's also really, really hard to understand why the White House didn't check to make doubly sure that their initial statements about Porter wouldn't come back to bite them -- especially on an issue as sensitive as domestic abuse. President Trump has repeatedly assured that he only hires the best people. This episode suggests the White House staff is either incompetent or has way too much hubris." ...

... S.V. Date of the Huffington Post: "... a Republican close to the White House ... said Kelly received word last fall that Porter had failed his security clearance investigation because of the domestic abuse reports. Porter at that time told Kelly he would leave the White House in December but agreed to stay at Kelly's urging, the Republican said on condition of anonymity." Mrs. McC: If this is true, it stands to reason that at least by December, Kelly would have challenged the FBI to find out whatall was so bad in Porter's background that would cause him to be ineligible for security clearance. The FBI, BTW, according to teevee reports, received the black-eye photos in January 2017, so they certainly would have shared them with Kelly had he challenged their decision. ...

... BUT. Eliana Johnson of Politico: "White House chief of staff John Kelly was told several weeks ago that the FBI would deny full security clearances to multiple White House aides who had been working in the West Wing on interim security clearances. Those aides, according to a senior administration official, included former White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who left the White House on Thursday after reports that he physically and verbally abused his two ex-wives. The White House chief-of-staff told confidants in recent weeks that he had decided to fire anyone who had been denied a clearance -- but had yet to act on that plan before the Porter allegations were first reported this week." Mrs. McC: Does that mean Kelly was going to fire Kushner? Even before Jared negotiates the Middle East peace agreement? ...

... THEN AGAIN. Josh Dawsey & Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "White House Counsel Donald McGahn knew one year ago that staff secretary Rob Porter's ex-wives were prepared to make damaging accusations about him but allowed him to serve as an influential gatekeeper and aide to President Trump without investigating the accusations, according to people familiar with the matter. Chief of Staff John F. Kelly learned this fall about the allegations of spousal abuse and that they were delaying Porter's security clearance amid an ongoing FBI investigation. But Kelly handed Porter more responsibilities.... In January 2017, when McGahn learned of the allegations, he wanted Porter to stay put because he saw the Harvard Law-trained Capitol Hill veteran as a steadying, professional voice in the White House.... When McGahn informed Kelly this fall about the reason for the security clearance holdup, he agreed that Porter should remain and said he was surprised to learn that the 40-year-old had ex-wives. Talk about Porter's past started spreading throughout the White House after a former girlfriend told McGahn in November that he should investigate the abuse alleged by the ex-wives.... Law enforcement officials said the FBI does not make any security clearance determinations or recommendations, but rather provides a report at the end of an investigation to the hiring agency, which makes the decision." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If this is the case, then -- save for news reports -- the White House/"hiring agency" would have decided Porter was A-OK, given him his tippy-top-secrect clearance & that would have been the end of it. ...

... Aaron Blake: "It's really difficult not to call this a scandal now.... What really seems to have changed for the White House is that they realized the pictures made their position untenable, from a public relations standpoint. Even when they were confronted with information about Porter that they didn't care to seek out themselves -- as they were promoting him up the ranks '' they played it off as if it were a minor nuisance. They seemed to try their hardest not to find out whether someone they respected as a colleague might have done something truly awful, and when they did, they were prepared to defend him until they could no longer do so, because of either hubris or incompetence." ...

... Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The president has little tolerance for aides who attract negative media attention that spills onto him, and in recent days Mr. Kelly has drawn a string of unwelcome headlines.... White House officials said privately that the president was frustrated with both Mr. Kelly and the White House communications director, Hope Hicks, who in recent weeks has been dating Mr. Porter.... Mr. Kelly has previously played down accusations against someone he believed served a greater goal. He appeared as a character witness in a 2016 court-martial of a Marine colonel accused of sexually harassing two female subordinates. Mr. Kelly praised the colonel as a 'superb Marine officer.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's my favorite excuse for Kelly in Baker & Haberman's report: Friends and associates noted that with Mr. Kelly's lack of experience in Washington politics, he may not have been attuned at first to how the domestic abuse allegations against Mr. Porter would be perceived. So Kelly thought that most people (or most Washington politicos??) would "perceive" that it was okay for a man to repeatedly beat up on two wives & a girlfriend. That's perhaps an inconsequential optic? Who thinks that?? Oh, I know -- a guy who testifies that a serial sexual harasser is a "superb Marine officer." ...

... Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "On Wednesday night, Donald Trump vented to advisers that [John] Kelly had not fully briefed him on [Rob] Porter's issues with women until recently, two sources told me. Trump was also not aware of the severity of the alleged abuse until yesterday, when Ivanka walked into the Oval Office and showed her father a photo published in the Daily Mail of Porter's ex-wife with a black eye. 'He was fucking pissed,' said one Republican briefed on the conversation. According to a source, Ivanka and Jared Kushner have been discussing possible chief-of-staff replacements.... According to a source, Kelly at first pushed back when White House officials wanted him to issue a second statement walking back his initial strong defense of Kelly [Porter]. The crisis also raises questions about Hope Hicks's decision-making, and whether her romantic relationship with Porter clouded her judgment. According to a source, Hicks did not get a sign off from Trump for the White House's initial statement defending Porter, in which Kelly was quoted calling Porter a 'man of true integrity.' She drafted the statement with her close friend, Kushner's White House spokesman Josh Raffel.... This morning, Hicks continued to defend Porter in private, a source said, telling people she thinks the allegations aren't true. In recent weeks, Trump has been angry at Hicks for her role in approving interviews with Michael Wolff...." ...

... M.J. Lee of CNN: "The current husband of one of Rob Porter's ex-wives emailed the FBI last January expressing concern that a close friend of the former White House aide was 'actively working to quell' background check issues. Skiffington Holderness, the current husband of Porter's first ex-wife, Colbie Holderness, said in an email to the FBI obtained by CNN that he had several conversations with Porter's friend, Bryan Cunningham. The email details those conversations, including one in which Cunningham allegedly reacted positively when Holderness said his wife was not inclined to talk to the FBI regarding Porter's background check. Cunningham, according to the email, said 'that was good,' she was 'not obligated' to speak with the FBI, and that they should 'bury the past.'" Cunningham denied the story. ...

... Judd Legum of ThinkProgress argues that John Kelly's coverup of Rob Porter's (alleged) physical abuse of his ex-wives & a girlfriend -- and the resulting inability to obtain a security clear for Porter, who handled top-secret documents every day -- is a firing offense. Mrs. McC: The White House is apparently claiming Trump had no idea of the allegations against Porter till yesterday. If that's true (and I doubt it), that should be added to the list of "Reasons to Fire John Kelly." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Jonathan Swan of Axios: But odds are that Trump won't fire Kelly, partly because Kelly doesn't want the job anyway. ...

... Lachlan Markay & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "Late Tuesday night, senior White House officials reached out to Sen. Orrin Hatch's (R-UT) office [and asked them to] to put together a statement praising his former chief of staff and then-White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter. At issue was a story that was about to pop from the British tabloid, the Daily Mail, in which two of Porter's ex-wives detailed the emotional and physical abuse they endured by him. The White House officials told Hatch's office that the story was the product of a 'smear campaign' being orchestrated against Porter by his political enemies. Among those they pinpointed was ... Corey Lewandowski.... Multiple White House staffers told Hatch himself that Lewandowski 'was digging into Rob's previous marriages,' recalled one source, who said Porter himself was among the officials who fingered Lewandowski." Mrs. McC: Hatch obliged, & of course ended up with egg on his face -- & the need to retract his laudatory statement. He might be displeased at being duped by White House staff. ...

     ... Mrs. McC: Oops! No. I missed an important addendum to the sequence of the Hatch Theory of Punching out Women. Michelle Goldberg: "... after the black-eye photograph of [Rob Porter's former wife Colbie] Holderness was published, Hatch issued a statement saying that domestic violence is 'abhorrent.' But after that, he gave an interview in which he said he hoped Porter would 'keep a stiff upper lip' and not resign. 'If I could find more people like him, I would hire them,' said Hatch, describing Porter as 'basically a good person.' It's not really a surprise that Hatch, who once said that Trump's presidency could become the greatest ever, would treat serious allegations of abusing women as a personal foible unrelated to one's professional capabilities. You basically have to see things that way to support Trump in the first place. The reasons that Porter didn't belong in any White House are the reasons he fit in in this one." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It appears then that the GOP's approach to domestic violence is this: in general, it's not a good idea for men to beat up women because women are sacred, blah-blah, but if my buddies and I do it, we're still the best people. And talented, too. It's a twisted droit de seigneur. ...

... ** Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "Apparently 'I didn’t see it with my own eyes in the workplace,' is the new 'thoughts and prayers.' Note that the central moral issue was no longer the scurrilous women who must have lied to a slanderous press, but Hatch's own heartbreak. He didn't apologize to the women he had maligned hours earlier... All the grown-ups in the room protected, privileged, and covered for Rob Porter despite everything they knew about his pattern of abuse, because his career was important to them. Even well-educated, high-status, articulate white women who were lawfully married to Porter didn't matter enough to be taken seriously. Please stop asking why women don't come forward. These women did. They believed that once the police, the FBI, the White House, and John Kelly knew what they knew, Porter would stop ascending in their ranks. They were wrong." ...

... AND here's something I overlooked in a report by Andrew Restuccia & Eliana Johnson of Politico, also linked yesterday: "In recent weeks, an ex-girlfriend of Porter's -- who also works in the Trump administration -- contacted White House counsel Don McGahn and voiced her distress after discovering evidence of a romantic relationship between Porter and White House communications director Hope Hicks, according to two administration officials. She also alleged that he had abused his two ex-wives." (Lithwick says the woman reported to McGahn that Porter had physically abused her, too.) ...

... Josh Dawsey, et al., of the Washington Post: "Good-government advocates have long been critical of the security-clearance process. The U.S. Government Accountability Office last month added the system to its 'high risk' list of federal areas in need of reform.... Democrats on Capitol Hill have tried to press the issue regarding the Trump White House, though Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said in a letter Thursday that their efforts have been largely stymied. The White House, Cummings wrote, had not responded to his requests for information related to several officials' security clearances, and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the Republican chairman of the committee, had blocked any move toward a subpoena. Citing Porter's case, Cummings asked Gowdy to support a new bid for documents. 'Mr. Porter's case is only the latest example of requests made by Democratic Members to conduct oversight of the security clearance process,' Cummings wrote. 'You have also refused requests to obtain documents regarding the security clearances of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, his son Michael Flynn Jr..., Jared Kushner, and others.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: That's kinda curious, because Gowdy sure didn't have any trouble demanding every scrap of paper or electronic note on her yoga schedule Hillary Clinton ever wrote.

... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. David Uberti of Splinter: Fox "News" barely covered the Rob Porter fiasco yesterday. "The millions of people who watch these shows might come away from them not even knowing that Porter exists, let alone that White House officials may have been aware of his alleged abuse for months." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Dara Lind of Vox: "The Trump administration is working on new rules that would allow the government to keep immigrants from settling in the US, or even force them to leave, if their families had used a broad swath of local, state, or federal social services to which they're legally entitled -- even enrolling their US-born children in Head Start or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).... The rule wouldn't make it illegal for immigrants to use public services that are open to everyone regardless of immigration status, or that are available to their US-born children. But it would make it possible for the government to deny their applications for a new type of visa, or a green card, if they'd used those services." ...

... As Ed Kilgore points out, these "new rules that can make use of a broad variety of public benefit programs grounds for not granting citizenship or actually being deported, even for people who follow all of the rules of legal immigration.... And it gets worse. Sponsors for legal immigrants could soon get payment-overdue notices from the Feds for any benefits the people they sponsor receive[.]... The crucial sleight of hand in this draft order is to treat anyone receiving public benefits, however small or appropriate or justified on humanitarian grounds, as a deadbeat.... And there's your supposed nexus to 'securing the borders' and the fight against illegal immigration: If we let legal immigrants get benefits of any kind, it will be a 'magnet' for the undocumented.... It's indeed a slippery slope when you start treating poor or needy people as scum."

The Commentariat -- February 8, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Axios: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average is trading 609 points lower (as of 12:53 p.m.) as investor fears about inflation and higher interest rates continue to hammer the stock market. The big slide continues a string of volatile days for the Dow, which saw its largest daily point drop ever earlier this week."

Today in Paul Ryan Flim-Flam. Alayna Treene of Axios: "House Speaker Paul Ryan zeroed in on his commitment to solve the Dreamers problem and find a DACA fix Thursday, but said he only wants to bring a bill that the president supports to the floor: 'To anyone who doubts my intention to solve this problem and bring up a DACA and immigration reform bill, do not,' said Ryan. 'I want to make sure it gets done right the first time. I don't want to risk a veto.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McC: Why, that's right odd, because he didn't feel a bit constrained by the presidunce*'s wishlist when it came to the budget bill, & Trump jumped right on that bandwagon. ...

... Melanie Zanona of the Hill: "Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Thursday that he believes he has the votes needed to pass a massive budget deal and avoid a government shutdown, despite pushback from both the left and right over the bipartisan deal."

Sarah Bailey of the Washington Post: "President Trump delivered a God-and-country-infused speech Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast, appealing to Americans who believe in Christian nationalism --; the belief that God has a uniquely Christian purpose for the United States."

Finally, a Wall! Olivia Gazis of CBS News: "In a sign of increasing partisan hostilities, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee plan to construct a wall -- a physical partition -- separating Republican and Democratic staff members in the committee's secure spaces, according to multiple committee sources. It's expected to happen this spring. For now, some Republican committee members deny knowing anything about it, while strongly suggesting the division is the brainchild of the committee's chairman, Devin Nunes...."

Judd Legum of ThinkProgress argues that John Kelly's coverup of Rob Porter's (alleged) physical abuse of his ex-wives & a girlfriend -- and the resulting inability to obtain a security clear for Porter, who handled top-secret documents every day -- is a firing offense. Mrs. McC: The White House is apparently claiming Trump had no idea of the allegations against Porter till yesterday. If that's true (and I doubt it), that should be added to the list of "Reasons to Fire John Kelly."

Rachel Bade & John Bresnahan of Politico: "The criminal investigation into Rep. Duncan Hunter is intensifying as a grand jury in San Diego questions multiple former aides about whether the California Republican improperly diverted political funds for personal use. Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed Hunter's parents, as well as a female lobbyist with whom many people close to the congressman believe he had a romantic relationship, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation. The Justice Department is trying to determine whether hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hunter's campaign account were spent improperly on his family and friends. Hunter already sold his home to pay back what even he now acknowledges were improper charges, moving his wife and kids in with his parents while he mostly lives in his Capitol Hill office."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. David Uberti of Splinter: Fox "News" barely covered the Rob Porter fiasco yesterday. "The millions of people who watch these shows might come away from them not even knowing that Porter exists, let alone that White House officials may have been aware of his alleged abuse for months."

*****

Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Senate leaders struck a far-reaching bipartisan agreement on Wednesday that would add hundreds of billions of dollars to military and domestic programs over the next two years while raising the federal debt limit, moving to end the cycle of fiscal showdowns that have roiled the Capitol." (An earlier version of this story was linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Mike DeBonis & Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "The Republican-led Congress is set to vote Thursday on a two-year budget deal that would include massive increases in military and domestic spending programs, reflecting an ideological shift for a party whose leaders long preached fiscal conservatism but have now embraced big spending.... The accord would deliver the defense funding boost wanted by President Trump and Republican lawmakers alongside an increase in domestic programs sought by Democrats, as well as tens of billions of dollars for disaster victims.... The Senate is expected to vote first on the plan, clearing it Thursday afternoon or evening -- giving the House just hours to act before a midnight deadline for a government shutdown.... But it appeared unlikely the bill would be able to pass the House solely with Republican votes.... House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that she and 'a large number' of fellow Democrats would oppose the deal unless she is guaranteed a vote on immigration legislation. She delivered the ultimatum at the top of an eight-hour stretch of remarks that broke a modern record for the longest House floor speech." Yes, but Trumpy likes it. ...

... Cristiano Lima of Politico: "... Donald Trump praised the budget deal reached by lawmakers to lift caps on defense and domestic spending on Wednesday, casting it as critical to supporting the troops." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: This is exactly the same deal that Trump said Tuesday would cause him to shut down the government (which he would "love"!) since it doesn't "straighten out our border." (Story by Mark Landler linked below.) What a great negotiator! ...

... Ed O'Keefe, et al., of the Washington Post: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took the rare step Wednesday of giving a marathon speech supporting Democrats' attempts to legalize the status of young immigrant 'dreamers,' in a bid to pressure Republicans to act. Her more than eight-hour speech ranked as the longest given by a member of the House of Representatives in at least a century, possibly ever, focusing on an issue that has dominated the Democratic agenda in recent months." ...

... The Whacko in the White House, Ctd. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "A week ago, President Trump stood before Congress as an improbable unifier. 'Tonight,' he declared, 'I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people.' This week, Mr. Trump is back to being a disrupter. After accusing Democrats of being un-American and even treasonous for refusing to applaud during his State of the Union speech, he said on Tuesday that he would welcome a government shutdown if he cannot reach a spending deal with Congress that tightens immigration laws. A week ago, Mr. Trump called for a grand compromise with Democrats on the legal status of the undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers -- a deal, he said, 'where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs.'... On Tuesday, his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, said that many Dreamers failed to register for protected status with the government because they were 'were too afraid to sign up' or were 'too lazy to get off their asses.' He said he doubted Mr. Trump would extend the March 5 deadline that shields them from deportation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Hey, Mr. President: Instead of copying France's military parade, why not copy France's health care system? Health care for all, low-cost prescription drugs, much less expensive. https://t.co/zIrLjozEOI -- Bernie Sanders, in a tweet yesterday ...

... Ishaan Tharoor of the Washington Post: "In the same week we heard the president call his political opponents 'treasonous' for not clapping at the State of the Union address, we now contemplate his excitement for the sort of martial display these days more associated with single-party states and irredentist autocrats. Trump, who fondly refers to 'my generals' and espouses a decidedly militarist agenda, now thinks it's his turn." Tharoor provides a brief history of military parades. ...

... Ave Trvmpvs! Dana Milbank: "The obvious purpose of the parade is not to celebrate the troops, as the White House professes, but to celebrate Trump. Hence, his wish to have the parade before the November election (and the military's wish to have it after). Given the real goal, the model that would best suit Trump has much older roots than a May Day or even a Bastille Day parade. What Trump needs is a Roman triumph." ...

... Alas, as Tharoor points out, Trump might not get his parade. Turns out there is a reason more compelling than the high cost of bringing in tanks to tear up Pennsylvania Avenue. ...

... Andy Borowitz: "The Pentagon has turned down Donald J. Trump's request for a grand military parade in Washington, D.C., citing a sudden outbreak of bone spurs that would prevent men and women in uniform from participating." Thanks to MAG for the link. Also too, what if the parade were to be held on a windy day??? ...

... The Emperor Has No Hair. Jonathan Chait: "... it may seem cheap and low to mock Trump's absurd efforts to conceal his hair loss. But Trump is a man obsessed with image in ways that go beyond the normal human concern with looking presentable. Image is Trump's moral code. He dismisses his political rivals for being short. He sees his succession of wives as visual testament to his own status He selects his Cabinet on the basis of their looking the part. He conscripts the military as a prop to bathe himself in an aura of presidential grandeur." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Unlike Vladimir Putin, our president* is not immortal. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     (... Christina Zhao of Newsweek: "Japanese scientists may have discovered a cure for baldness -- and it lies within a chemical used to make McDonald's fries. A stem cell research team from Yokohama National University used a 'simple' method to regrow hair on mice by using dimethylpolysiloxane, the silicone added to McDonald's fries to stop cooking oil from frothing. Preliminary tests indicated that the groundbreaking method was likely to be just as successful when transferred to human skin cells." --safari: Trump's been eating their fries his whole life. ...)

All the Best People, Ctd.

Maggie Haberman & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary, said Wednesday that he would resign his position, a day after a news account that quoted his two ex-wives accusing him of physical abuse during the course of their marriages. 'These outrageous allegations are simply false,' Mr. Porter said in a statement. Mr. Porter's ex-wives, Colbie Holderness and Jennifer Willoughby, both went public in The Daily Mail with accounts of what they described as physically and emotionally abusive behavior." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Rob Porter is a man of true integrity and honor and I can't say enough good things about him.... He is a friend, a confidant and a trusted professional. I am proud to serve alongside him. -- Chief of Staff John Kelly on Rob Porter, Tuesday

A White House official said senior officials were trying to convince Porter 'to stay and fight.' Those officials included Chief of Staff John Kelly. -- Jonathan Swan of Axios

If you're a minority, you're lazy. If you're a woman, (white) men with "true integrity & honor" can beat you black-and-blue. If you're a minority woman, it's okay to to tell disparaging lies about you, & you don't get an apology for the lie. Really, people, only white men matter. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ...

Kelly is the same man who, during an emotional briefing in October, fumed that when he was young, 'Women were sacred and looked upon with great honor. That's obviously not the case anymore as we've seen from recent cases.' -- David Graham of the Atlantic

John Kelly thought beating up two wives was no big deal. -- Jeff Toobin, speaking on CNN Wednesday

... Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "Kelly's decision to back Porter has left many people inside the White House angry.... He was supposed to be the West Wing's resident grown-up, but staffers are increasingly questioning Kelly's judgment...." --safari: All these staffers willingly work for Pussy Grabber. Spare me your fake "outrage". ...

... CBS News: "A federal law enforcement source confirmed to CBS News' Jeff Pegues that the FBI conducted a background check on [Rob] Porter and knew of the allegations levied against him by his two-ex wives. That information was passed on to the White House. The White House staff secretary -- who has access to and reviews presidential correspondence -- never received full security clearance, and the allegations were the main reason why, two sources tell CBS News chief White House correspondent Major Garrett.... 'I don't know how you would do that job without a security clearance,' [a] former official said. 'You see every single piece of paper -- whether it's from the NSC or from specific Cabinet Secretaries. You have to have the highest clearance, across the board. You read every single thing, to make sure it's ready for the President, to make sure the necessary principles have weighed in.'" ...

... Kaitlan Collins, et al., of CNN: "Allegations of domestic abuse levied against top White House staffer Rob Porter by his ex-wives were known among senior aides to ... Donald Trump for months, even as his stock in the West Wing continued to rise, multiple sources told CNN on Wednesday.... By early fall, it was widely known among Trump's top aides -- including chief of staff John Kelly -- both that Porter was facing troubles in obtaining the clearance and that his ex-wives claimed he had abused them. No action was taken to remove him from the staff.... The appearance of a top aide accused of abusing two ex-wives led to an intensive defense campaign on Tuesday evening, when the reports first emerged in the Daily Mail.... Top officials remained staunch in their support of Porter on Wednesday. Kelly, who encouraged Porter to remain in his post despite the allegations, did not alter his effusive statement. Trump himself has 'full confidence in his abilities and his performance,' according to [Sarah] Sanders." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Kelly has known since last fall that the FBI would not give Porter security clearance because there was credible evidence he physically abused his wife. Bear in mind that this didn't keep Kelly from calling Porter "a man of true integrity and honor." Then bear in mind that the press widely-circulated a photo of Porter's ex-wife with a black eye & bruises. So now: Andrew Restuccia & Eliana Johonson of Politico: "'I was shocked by the new allegations released today against Rob Porter. There is no place for domestic violence in our society,' Kelly said in a statement issued after-hours by the White House." New allegations, my foot. The only "new allegations" are that "The second ex-wife of outgoing White House staff secretary Rob Porter says a woman reached out to her in February 2016 to say she was in an abusive relationship with Porter and wanted to know whether the ex-wife's experience had been similar." Girlfriends count but wives don't? Too late, General. Some shitstains just won't wash off. ...

... Longing for Reince. Gail Collins: "... there's a limit to how long you can live off your laurels for firing Omarosa and The Mooch. Kelly did nothing about the fact that the White House is loud and mean and generally unfathomable. Except make things even worse. This, after all, is the guy who's intervened whenever Donald Trump is in his expansive give-me-an-immigration-bill-to-sign phase, and pushed him over to Haiti-is-a-shithole territory." ...

... "What Goes Up Must Come Down." David Graham of the Atlantic: "When [John] Kelly was moved to the White House in July, at the time of the political murder-suicide of Reince Priebus and Anthony Scaramucci, he was hailed as the 'adult in the room.' With his military background and baseline competence, this was true -- but, as it turned out, this was more of a commentary on what came before. Adoring press coverage portrayed Kelly as a patriot who was taking on an impossible job with an impossible president out of love of country and out of desire to protect the nation from its own president. It quickly became clear, however..., that Kelly is a true Trumpist.... Kelly shares the same worldview as Trump. Both men have a reflexive social, rather than political, conservatism, grounded in nostalgia for a former era.... They are reflexively disdainful of immigrants and tend to pick fights with women, especially women of color. Each reveres the military (Kelly as a career veteran, and Trump despite, or perhaps because of, his draft-dodging), and each detests Congress." ...

... Jennifer Rubin: "... the FBI was informed of these allegations [against Rob Porter] while conducting a background check. As a result, Porter lacked a top security clearance. And, to top it off, Politico reports, 'a senior administration official said [John] Kelly was previously aware of the 2010 protective order, which prevented Porter from getting a full security clearance.' It is not clear whether Trump was informed. 'There are two overlapping scandals here. First, that he was allowed to stay in his job at all after two former spouses told the FBI that he abused them,' Matt Miller, a former Department of Justice spokesman, told me. 'Second, he was apparently allowed to continue in a job where you are required to constantly handle classified information despite his having been denied a full security clearance.' Miller added: 'We need to know who signed off on each, and, unless there is some explanation that has not yet been made public, those people are most likely going to need to resign as well.'" ...

... Erin Ryan of the Daily Beast: "'He denied it' is a pretty flimsy defense.... And yet, it's the first line of defense for a White House that can't seem to stop aligning itself with men credibly accused of sexual misconduct, predatory behavior, and misogynist bullying. When you're a man in Trump's orbit, a denial counts as exoneration.... If Porter were a one-off, his would be a sad footnote in a flailing administration. But the Trump political machine has been plagued with accusations of sexual misconduct, bullying, and misogyny since long before Trump was elected.... Looking at the big picture, it's hard to ignore the pattern that's emerged. [Rob] Porter, [Roy] Moore, [Steve] Bannon, [Steve] Wynn, Trump, [Corey] Lewandowski -- at every turn, the Trump campaign or White House has taken a man's denial over a woman's word, even if that woman's word is backed by reputable news reporting, video footage or contemporaneous pictures." ...

... Steve M.: "One of the organizations founded to combat sexual predation is called Time's Up -- but Republicans seem to be building a countermovement that could be called Time's Never Up. The Republican approach to these scandals is simple: Deny everything.... Many men have been forced to give up positions of power in the past few months because they've been exposed as sexual predators. This is happening because the organizations they work for feel responsive to the public. The Republican Party doesn't. It's responsive only to its base, and its base doesn't care about this. The rest of us have to hold Republicans to account, because Republican voters won't." ...

... Hope's Rotten Boyfriends. Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "CNN crime and justice correspondent Shimon Prokupecz reported, 'White House communications director Hope Hicks, who has been in a romantic relationship with Rob Porter, was involved in crafting the response to the allegations of domestic abuse leveled against Porter on Tuesday.' This is not the first time Hicks has allegedly been put in an awkward situation over a lover. When Hicks wanted to help former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Trump allegedly replied, 'Why? You've already done enough for him. You're the best piece of tail he'll ever have.'"

This Russia Thing

Frank Rich: "... the immediate goal in this anti-law enforcement jihad, led by the White House and abetted by congressional stooges like Devin Nunes and Paul Ryan, is to discredit the Mueller investigation before it nails Donald Trump. But to say this cultural shift is a sudden metamorphosis for the GOP, brought on by Trump's supposed hijacking of the party, is revisionist history. Trump pushed an open door. His assault on Justice and the FBI is merely heightening and exploiting the dangerous anti-government toxins that GOP leaders humored in the Republican base well before he arrived -- much as his administration's overt white supremacism and xenophobia is the apotheosis of a racist Republican strain dating back to Barry Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy.... The GOP retreated from tacit tolerance of the crazies in their ranks only after Timothy McVeigh's bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, leaving 168 dead. But only temporarily." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... David Corn of Mother Jones has a long read about how he became a target in the GOP's war on the FBI. --safari ...

... Hey, Let's Haul in the Chief Justice. Katie Williams of the Hill: "House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) has weighed whether it would be possible to bring Chief Justice John Roberts to 'testify' before Congress as part of his investigation into political malfeasance at the Department of Justice. In an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday, Nunes said GOP investigators had 'grappled' with how to approach the courts about their conclusion that the FBI misled a clandestine surveillance court. Roberts appoints the judges to that court. 'This is something that we have, like I said, we have thought a lot about this. And the answer is we don't know the correct way to proceed because of the separation of powers issue,' Nunes said when asked if he would welcome a committee appearance by Roberts. 'I'm not aware of any time where a judge has, for lack of a better term, testified before the Congress,' Nunes said." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Nice that Nunes has heard of separation of powers. Next time he conspires meets with Trump, Nunes should tell the President* about it. (BTW, up till a couple of years ago, one or two Supremes marched up to the Hill every year to testify before the House Appropriations Committee on the Court's annual budget.) However, Congressman Dimwit, re: your plan to maybe politely show Roberts to the hotseat, it kinda works the other way around. ...

... Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare: "You wouldn't know it from the endless public discussion of the Nunes Memo and the Democratic response to it, but the House of Representatives does not get to decide whether a FISA application is valid." Rather, it would be up to "the government" [-- the FBI, the DOJ, Nunes? --] to petition the FISA court to re-address its earlier decisions. Wittes & Susan Hennessey now have filed an amicus brief with the court asking it to publicly address whether or not it has problems with the surveillance warrants it issued on Carter Page. ...

... Preaching to the Choir. Brian Stelter of CNN: Devin "Nunes is telling people to stay tuned, promising more revelations to come -- but he's really only speaking to Trump's base. He has declined non-Fox interview requests and avoided opportunities to speak with the Capitol Hill press corps." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Jeff Asher & other former CIA analysts, in a CNN opinion piece: "Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who recused himself from the Russia investigation in April after investigators were asked to look into whether he revealed classified information -- has demonstrated over the past year he cannot be counted on to perform his critical duty within the committee. And now, by voting to release a politically motivated, recklessly drafted memo, House Republicans on the committee have demonstrated they are not reliable defenders of our nation's security.... No matter how many Republicans have denied it, including the President himself, the motivation behind the Nunes memo is clear -- it was a direct attempt to undermine the work of the FBI and, in particular, the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller." ...

... Greg Sargent: "No, Trump has not been 'contained.'... Trump's ongoing assaults on law enforcement, and his active encouraging of outside allied efforts such as the Nunes memo, are currently doing untold damage.... Republicans have either gone along with, or actively participated in, efforts by Trump and his allies to prepare a large swath of the country to dismiss the legitimacy of any outcome [of the Mueller investigation] in which serious wrongdoing is discovered and accountability is meted out in kind.... The only way to mitigate this is for Democrats to take back the House and demonstrate to the country what functional oversight, undertaken in good faith, really looks like." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

NEW FBI TEXTS ARE BOMBSHELLS! -- Donald Trump, tweet, Wednesday morning ...

... Rob Johnson (Stupidest Man in the Senate) Tells Another Whopper that Gets Wall-to-Wall Fox "News" Coverage. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "Members of the pro-Trump media acted like they hit the goldmine on Wednesday morning.... In the early hours of [Wednesday] morning, Fox News published an article on its website based on newly-released communications between senior FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The text messages were released Tuesday in a report produced by the office of Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. In one September 2, 2016, text message, Page wrote that there was a meeting at the bureau setup because Obama wanted 'to know everything we are doing.' Johnson, in his report, said the text message raised questions about Obama's involvement in the FBI's investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server.... [But, in fact,] the text message ... was actually referencing Obama's desire to be kept abreast on the FBI's investigation into Russian election meddling.... Indeed, the text message was sent on September 2, 2016, months after the bureau had closed its investigation into Clinton, and before it reopened that investigation. But September 2, 2016 was just days before Obama confronted ... Vladimir Putin over Russia's meddling in the presidential election." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Needless to say, there's no chance Fox will issue even a teensy correction or an Emily Litella "Never Mind." Foxbots now know for sure, for sure, that Obummer & the FBI rigged the e-mail!!! investigation to let Crooked Hillary off the hook. ...

... ** Cynthia McFadden, et al., of NBC News: "The U.S. official in charge of protecting American elections from hacking says the Russians successfully penetrated the voter registration rolls of several U.S. states prior to the 2016 presidential election. In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Jeanette Manfra, the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, said she couldn't talk about classified information publicly, but in 2016, 'We saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated.'"

Emily Atkin of the New Republic: "Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt appears willing to accept any conclusion about climate change, as long as it's not the one shared by most climate scientists around the world. He has long wrongly claimed that climate change is not a man-made problem, but on Tuesday he told a Nevada TV station that it might not be a problem at all. 'I think there's assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that necessarily is a bad thing,' he told KSNV, a station owned by the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group. 'Is it an existential threat, is it something that is unsustainable, or what kind of effect or harm is this going to have? We know that humans have most flourished during times of, what, warming trends?'... Pruitt's new position is also at odds with NASA, whose website cites stronger hurricanes, sea-level-rise, and increased droughts as effects of global warming. The site quotes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which asserts, 'Taken as a whole, the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time.'"

Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "Officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement are actively exploring joining the U.S. Intelligence Community.... The effort is helmed by a small cohort of career Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, and has been underway since the Obama administration, according to an ICE official familiar with the matter.... But civil liberties advocates and government watchdog groups -- as well as some current and former U.S. officials -- are concerned at the prospect of the nation's immigration enforcers joining the ranks of America's spies. 'The idea that ICE could potentially get access to warrantless surveillance is frankly terrifying,' Jake Laperruque, senior counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, told The Daily Beast."

Swamp. Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "Doug Domenech, a top official at the Department of the Interior, worked as a political appointee at the agency during the George W. Bush administration when it was rife with corruption. The official is now coming under scrutiny for his own questionable actions as a Trump administration appointee.... A month after winning confirmation to serve as assistant secretary for insular affairs at the Interior Department in September 2017, Domenech purchased between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of shares in Compass Minerals, a mining company that does business with the department." --safari

Swamp. Lee Fang & Nick Serguy of The Intercept: "While waiting for a nomination to the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, cozied up with the senators who would decide upon his appointment in the most direct way possible: giving them money.... Fundraising documents obtained by The Intercept and the watchdog group Documented show that Wheeler hosted campaign fundraisers for two members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works -- Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. -- last May.... Federal Election Committee records show both senators received donations of Wheeler's law firm PAC last year. Barrasso received $2,500 and Inhofe's leadership PAC received $1,000." --safari

Swamp. Lee Fang & Spencer Woodman of The Intercept: "On June 6, 2016, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell joined his wife, Elaine Chao, now the U.S. secretary of transportation, at a ceremony on the Harvard Business School campus to dedicate a new building emblazoned with the Chao family name. Funded by a $40 million gift from the Chao family and its foundation.... But the family's generosity appears to have come at the expense of taxpayers -- the money, it turns out, would already have been in the public treasury had it not been sheltered from the government in complex offshore tax havens.... Over a period of five years, millions of dollars were quietly funneled to a Chao family foundation via two offshore firms that list a New York address but are not incorporated anywhere in the United States. Two entities with the same names, however, are incorporated in the Marshall Islands, known as one of the world's most secretive offshore havens for firms seeking to avoid taxes." --safari...

John Haltiwanger of Newsweek: "A Pentagon agency has lost track of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to an internal audit, which is a troubling sign for the military's ability to oversee its massive $700 billion budget. The audit ... discovered the Defense Logistics Agency could not account for roughly $800 million in construction projects and had no documentation to show for it.... The U.S. has the highest defense budget in the world by far. The next biggest spender, China, doesn't even come close to the U.S.'s annual budget: it spends roughly $215 billion on its military per year." --safari: Would it also be treasonous to suggest not blindly shoveling more money to the military, and instead just optimizing the $700 billion they've got now?

The Daily Beast: "The Republican National Committee said that even though Steve Wynn resigned from his hotel company on Tuesday, they will not yet give back his donations. A spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that they will not return the funds until a Wynn Resorts board investigation finds him guilty of wrongdoing. Wynn, who was the former RNC Finance Chair, gave upwards of $350,000 to the committee late last year." --safari

Fiona Harvey of the Guardian: "Livestock raised for food in the US are dosed with five times as much antibiotic medicine as farm animals in the UK, new data has shown, raising questions about rules on meat imports under post-Brexit trade deals. The difference in rates of dosage rises to at least nine times as much in the case of cattle raised for beef, and may be as high as 16 times the rate of dosage per cow in the UK. There is currently a ban on imports of American beef throughout Europe, owing mainly to the free use of growth hormones in the US.... The contrast between rates of dosage in the US and the UK throws a new light on negotiations on Brexit, under which politicians are seeking to negotiate trade deals for the UK independently of the EU.... Nearly three quarters of the total use of antibiotics worldwide is thought to be on animals rather than humans, which raises serious questions over intensive farming and the potential effects on antibiotic resistance, which can easily be spread to people." --safari

Annals of Journalism? Adam Nagourney, et al., of the New York Times: "... Patrick Soon-Shiong, 65, a doctor who turned a cancer drug into a multibillion-dollar biotech empire, emerged on Wednesday as a major figure in Los Angeles life with his surprise $500 million purchase of The Los Angeles Times and its sister newspaper, The San Diego Union-Tribune.... He now faces the challenge of stabilizing a newspaper engulfed by turmoil and diminished in resources.... Dr. Soon-Shiong was already a major shareholder at the newspaper, joining the board of Tribune Publishing, which later became known as Tronc, in May 2016."

Beyond the Beltway

Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "... scandal has threatened to dim one of the Democratic Party’s brightest Southern stars[: Mayor Megan Barry of Nashville, Tenn]. And though many residents of Nashville, a bastion of social liberalism in a deeply conservative state, have been willing to dismiss with a kind of Gallic shrug her admission of a monthslong extramarital affair with the police officer leading her security detail, other aspects of the episode are mounting, leading some here to wonder how long she can hang on.... [Over & above trips the couple took together at taxpayer expense,] this week, The Tennessean also reported that Ms. Barry had recommended Mr. Forrest's adult daughter, Macy Amos, for an entry-level job that Ms. Amos later landed in the city law department."

The Commentariat -- February 7, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Maggie Haberman & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary, said Wednesday that he would resign his position, a day after a news account that quoted his two ex-wives accusing him of physical abuse during the course of their marriages. 'These outrageous allegations are simply false,' Mr. Porter said in a statement. Mr. Porter's ex-wives, Colbie Holderness and Jennifer Willoughby, both went public in The Daily Mail with accounts of what they described as physically and emotionally abusive behavior."

Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "... scandal has threatened to dim one of the Democratic Party's brightest Southern stars[: Mayor Megan Barry of Nashville, Tenn]. And though many residents of Nashville, a bastion of social liberalism in a deeply conservative state, have been willing to dismiss with a kind of Gallic shrug her admission of a monthslong extramarital affair with the police officer leading her security detail, other aspects of the episode are mounting, leading some here to wonder how long she can hang on.... [Over & above trips the couple took together at taxpayer expense,] this week, The Tennessean also reported that Ms. Barry had recommended Mr. Forrest's adult daughter, Macy Amos, for an entry-level job that Ms. Amos later landed in the city law department."

Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Senate leaders, disregarding President Trump's threats to shut down the government, neared a far-reaching agreement on Wednesday to set spending levels on military and domestic spending for the next two years, breaking the cycleof fiscal crises that have bedeviled the Capitol since last summer. The accord was expected to also include disaster relief for areas hit by last year's hurricanes and wildfires. Nevertheless, it sparked immediate opposition from the leader of House Democrats, Representative Nancy Pelosi, who said she could not agree to any budget deal that was not accompanied by a promised debate over legislation to protect the fate of young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, known as Dreamers.... 'Without a commitment from Speaker Ryan comparable to the commitment from Leader McConnell, this package does not have my support.' She was referring to a promise by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to begin debate on immigration soon, a commitment not matched by Speaker Paul D. Ryan." ...

     ... NEW LEDE: "Senate leaders, disregarding President Trump's threats to shut down the government, struck a far-reaching agreement on Wednesday that would add hundreds of billions of dollars to military and domestic programs over the next two years, breaking the cycle of fiscal crises that have bedeviled the Capitol since last summer." ...

... The Whacko in the White House, Ctd. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "A week ago, President Trump stood before Congress as an improbable unifier. 'Tonight,' he declared, 'I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people.' This week, Mr. Trump is back to being a disrupter. After accusing Democrats of being un-American and even treasonous for refusing to applaud during his State of the Union speech, he said on Tuesday that he would welcome a government shutdown if he cannot reach a spending deal with Congress that tightens immigration laws. A week ago, Mr. Trump called for a grnd compromise with Democrats on the legal status of the undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers -- a deal, he said, 'where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs.'... On Tuesday, his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, said that many Dreamers failed to register for protected status with the government because they were 'were too afraid to sign up' or were 'too lazy to get off their asses.' He said he doubted Mr. Trump would extend the March 5 deadline that shields them from deportation."

Greg Sargent: "No, Trump has not been 'contained.'... Trump's ongoing assaults on law enforcement, and his active encouraging of outside allied efforts such as the Nunes memo, are currently doing untold damage.... Republicans have either gone along with, or actively participated in, efforts by Trump and his allies to prepare a large swath of the country to dismiss the legitimacy of any outcome [of the Mueller investigation] in which serious wrongdoing is discovered and accountability is meted out in kind.... The only way to mitigate this is for Democrats to take back the House and demonstrate to the country what functional oversight, undertaken in good faith, really looks like."

Frank Rich: "... the immediate goal in this anti-law enforcement jihad, led by the White House and abetted by congressional stooges like Devin Nunes and Paul Ryan, is to discredit the Mueller investigation before it nails Donald Trump. But to say this cultural shift is a sudden metamorphosis for the GOP, brought on by Trump's supposed hijacking of the party, is revisionist history. Trump pushed an open door. His assault on Justice and the FBI is merely heightening and exploiting the dangerous anti-government toxins that GOP leaders humored in the Republican base well before he arrived -- much as his administration's overt white supremacism and xenophobia is the apotheosis of a racist Republican strain dating back to Barry Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy.... The GOP retreated from tacit tolerance of the crazies in their ranks only after Timothy McVeigh's bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, leaving 168 dead. But only temporarily."

The Emperor Has No Hair. Jonathan Chait: "... it may seem cheap and low to mock Trump's absurd efforts to conceal his hair loss. But Trump is a man obsessed with image in ways that go beyond the normal human concern with looking presentable. Image is Trump's moral code. He dismisses his political rivals for being short. He sees his succession of wives as visual testament to his own status. He selects his Cabinet on the basis of their looking the part. He conscripts the military as a prop to bathe himself in an aura of presidential grandeur." ...

... Unlike Vladimir Putin, our president* is not immortal.

Preaching to the Choir. Brian Stelter of CNN: Devin "Nunes is telling people to stay tuned, promising more revelations to come -- but he's really only speaking to Trump's base. He has declined non-Fox interview requests and avoided opportunities to speak with the Capitol Hill press corps."

Jeanne Sahadi of CNN: "Trillion-dollar-plus deficits were the hallmark of the financial and economic crisis a decade ago. Now they'll be making a comeback -- this time during a very healthy economy -- and years sooner than expected."

*****

The Useless Idiot. Thomas Kaplan & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump on Tuesday called for shutting down the government if Congress does not crack down on illegal immigration, even as congressional leaders were closing in on a major budget deal to help ensure the government remains funded into 2019. 'I'd love to see a shut down if we can't get this stuff taken care of,' Mr. Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers and law-enforcement officials to discuss gang-related violence. 'If we have to shut it down because the Democrats don't want safety,' he added, 'then shut it down.' Mr. Trump's comments, though combative, had little to do with the delicate negotiations on Capitol Hill to keep the government open past Thursday, a fact that appeared to elude Mr. Trump. Congressional leaders from both parties were nearing a deal to raise statutory spending caps on military and nonmilitary spending for the current fiscal year and the next one. That agreement could ease the way to passing a temporary spending measure before the government is set to shut down on Friday. A deal on the spending caps would also clear a path for Congress, in the weeks ahead, to fund the government until the fall -- sparing the country of the fiscal showdowns that continuously bedevil the government." Emphasis added. ...

... Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) criticized President Trump to his face on Tuesday for saying he would 'love to see a shutdown' during a meeting with lawmakers and administration officials. 'We don't need a government shutdown on this,' Comstock said during the White House meeting with Trump, according to a pool report. But Trump interrupted her and doubled down on his willingness to have another shutdown over the immigration battle. 'You can say what you want; we are not getting support of the Democrats,' Trump said." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: "But Trump interrupted her...." Well, of course he did. Comstock is a girl, & girls have no business disagreeing with real men. Not only that, she was suggesting compromise, which real men don't do. Plus which, Comstock is part of the committee trying to reform the way the House shoves sexual harassment complaints under the table. And worstest of all, she was one of three dozen high-profile Republicans who said they would no longer support candidate Trump after the WashPo released the "Access Hollywood" tape. ...

... Kelsey Snell & Tamara Keith of NPR: "The House passed a bill Tuesday evening to avert a government shutdown on Thursday, as Senate leaders still hope to clear the way for years of budget harmony this week with a long-term spending agreement. But as Congress worked on keeping things running, President Trump made a fresh call to shut down the government over immigration. Trump made the comments during a roundtable briefing at the White House on threats from the MS-13 criminal gang. He appeared to endorse shutting down the government if Democrats do not agree to increases in military spending and funding for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. 'I'd love to see a shutdown if we don't get this taken care of,' Trump said. 'We need to strengthen our borders, not by a little bit but by a lot.'" ...

... Erica Werner & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly said Tuesday that President Trump is not expected to extend a March 5 deadline for when legal protection and work permits begin to expire for young immigrants known as 'dreamers' -- raising the stakes for lawmakers struggling to reach a solution.... Kelly's comments come as lawmakers are trying to craft a plan to grant permanent legal protections to dreamers and resolve other aspects of the immigration system. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that a debate on immigration policy will begin once a new short-term spending agreement is passed this week.... Any immigration legislation will require the support of at least 60 senators to clear procedural hurdles and earn final passage -- putting a premium on bipartisan ideas that can prevail in the closely divided chamber." Mrs. McC: A number of Kelly's remarks were, um, nasty & untruthful. No surprise. ...

... Like This. There are 690,000 official DACA registrants, and the president sent over what amounts to be two and a half times that number, to 1.8 million. The difference between [690,000] and 1.8 million were the people that some would say were too afraid to sign up, others would say were too lazy to get off their asses.... -- John Kelly, in remarks to reporters yesterday (emphasis added) ...

... Charles Pierce: "There's a lot of the old ethnic Boston in this guy. That is not a compliment." ...

... Noah Lanard of Mother Jones: "Immigration experts cite a number of reasons why some Dreamers didn't apply for DACA before the Trump administration closed the application process last year. These include fear of telling the government they were undocumented, better options for obtaining legal status, and failure to meet the Obama administration's requirements.... Kelly's claim incorrectly implies that more than 1 million eligible Dreamers have not applied for DACA. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 1.3 million people are eligible for DACA. Capps says more than 900,000 have applied -- meaning that the application rate is about 68 percent. He adds that the 1.3 million estimate includes people who are not eligible for DACA because of criminal convictions, so the actual application rate among eligible Dreamers is likely higher.... Donald Trump has told DACA recipients who are now losing protections 'not to worry.' Kelly repeated on Tuesday that Dreamers 'are not a priority for deportation.' Despite those assurances, former DACA recipients have already been detained. Thomas Homan, the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said last week that his agency will detain any person who is in the country illegally." ...

... Also, Too. Gideon Resnick of the Daily Beast: "The fee to apply for and renew DACA is almost $500, a steep cost for an individual who might be already attending university." ...

... The Bad Sport. Amy Sorkin of the New Yorker: "Before the Super Bowl this year, Trump tweeted out demands for standing during the anthem; the players did stand, for reasons of their own, leaving him with no one, immediately, to berate.... It took him until Tuesday morning to find his true, bitter post-Super Bowl voice. The subject was ... the deaths, in the early-morning hours on Sunday, of Edwin Jackson, a linebacker for the Indianapolis Colts, and Jeffrey Monroe, a driver for a ride-hailing app.... They were struck and killed by a driver whose alcohol level ... was about three times the legal limit.... On Monday, the Indiana State Police announced that [the drunk driver's] real name was Manuel Orrego-Savala, that he was a Guatemalan who had been deported from the United States twice, and that he appeared to be in the country illegally.The President responded, 'So disgraceful that a person illegally in our country killed @Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson. This is just one of many such preventable tragedies. We must get the Dems to get tough on the Border, and with illegal immigration, FAST!'" He went on to morph this into an argument against "chain migration." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The odds are that numerous other innocent people were killed this past weekend by documented American alcohol-impaired drivers. According to a CDC report (updated June 2017), "Every day, 28 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. This is one death every 51 minutes." Statistically speaking, Trump should be expressing his hatred for all Americans. Yet Trump uses these two deaths to promote his racist, xenophobic political aims. ...

... Trump Has Great News for His White Supremacist Friends (Like Kelly)! Jeff Stein & Andrew Van Dam of the Washington Post: "President Trump's proposal to cut legal immigration rates would delay the date that white Americans become a minority of the population by as few as one or as many as five additional years, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The plan, released by the White House last month, would scale back a program that allows people residing in the United States to sponsor family members living abroad for green cards, and would eliminate the 'diversity visa program' that benefits immigrants in countries with historically low levels of migration to the United States. Together, the changes would disproportionately affect immigrants from Latin America and Africa.... But by reducing the country's overall population, the plan could eventually reduce the overall growth rate of the U.S. economy. Under Trump's plan, the U.S. economy could be more than $1 trillion smaller than it would have been two decades from now. That's largely because the economy would have fewer workers."

Your Gossip Break. Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "After the much-hyped Nunes memo failed to deliver the narrative reset that the White House hoped for, Donald Trump is discussing a shake-up to his West Wing, three sources familiar with the president's thinking told me. These people say the president is increasingly frustrated that members of his administration aren't going to war for him, and he's being encouraged by his daughter Ivanka to bring in new blood.... Trump has recently told advisers he wants a 'killer' to steer the White House's response to Robert Mueller's investigation and craft a midterm election message for him to stump on this fall.... The president's top choice for the strategist position is Jason Miller, who served as communications director for Trump's presidential campaign.... Trump had wanted Miller to join the administration during the transition, but Miller withdrew after it was revealed he had an extramarital affair during the campaign with former Trump aide A.J. Delgado.... Trump has publicly clashed with Chief of Staff John Kelly after Kelly took a more active role in White House policymaking and messaging."

Generalissimo Trumpo. Greg Jaffe & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Trump's vision of soldiers marching and tanks rolling down the boulevards of Washington is moving closer to reality in the Pentagon and White House, where officials say they have begun to plan a grand military parade later this year showcasing the might of America's armed forces. Trump has long mused publicly and privately about wanting such a parade, but a Jan. 18 meeting between Trump and top generals in the Pentagon's tank -- a room reserved for top secret discussions -- marked a tipping point, according to two officials briefed on the planning. Surrounded by the military's highest ranking officials, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford, Trump's seemingly abstract desire for a parade was suddenly heard as a presidential directive, the officials said. 'The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France,' said a military official.... 'This is being worked at the highest levels of the military.'" ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: All that pomp & circumstance should show Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) that Trumpo is no "Cadet Bone Spurs." Even Bob Mueller (who, incidentally, is an actual, much-decorated military hero) will know who's boss & drop this witch hunt thing. This is so-o-o-o-o ridiculous. ...

... Jaffe & Rucker claim last year's Bastille Day Parade was Trump's inspiration, but maybe not ...

... digby: "Remember this has nothing to do with his trip to France. He wanted it for the inauguration. ...

... Steve M. doesn't think the TrumParade is a big deal: "... he'll just spend hundreds of millions of dollars to ship weaponry to the streets of D.C. because he's an overgrown eleven-year-old boy still mentally living in the 1950s, and also because he's a crushingly insecure plutocrat who needs a steady succession of gaudy displays in order to feel that he's adequately demonstrating his own greatness to the world. This parade won't be part of a grand plan to crush democracy in America.... This will just be a pointless moment of excess, with Trump using weapons the way, in his hotels, he uses gilt." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Say, maybe the whole parade thing is a plot by "his generals" to keep Trump busy with something less alarming than fiddling with the buttons on the nuclear football. As Elliot Hannon of Slate points out, "Under normal circumstances, this doesn't seem like something that would rise to the level of the president, but Trump needs projects to keep him occupied." He could spend hours & hours picking out all the participants & tanks & bands & all. Like "House of Cards"' Frank Underwood with his toy soldiers. But BIGGER!

John McWhorter, in a New York Times op-ed, claims that the decline in quality of Trump's speech is not a sign of dementia but of settling into his comfort zone. He no longer feels a need to present himself in the trappings of "quietly composed phrasing," as he did as a young man. Or something like that. "Since he is someone who neither reads nor reflects, his linguistic comfort zone has always been the unadorned." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So I suppose Trump's current "comfort zone" makes it okay for him to accuse half the Congress, and frankly, half the country, of treason. Very presidential. Oh wait. Apparently I have no sense of humor:

... Dan Merica & Jim Acosta of CNN: Sarah Sanders said "Donald Trump was 'clearly joking' Monday when he accused stone-faced Democrats of treason for not standing and applauding during his State of the Union address, according to multiple White House spokespeople. 'He was making the point that even when good things are happening they are still sitting there angry,' she said." Hilarious.

This Russia Thing

... Tal Kopan of CNN: "Chief of staff John Kelly said the White House is reviewing a Democratic memo on the investigation into a Trump campaign associate and he has ordered authorities to give their recommendations on how to handle it by Thursday, after which the President will make his final decision on whether to release the memo and whether to redact it. Kelly said the memo came in late Monday night and on Tuesday, he and White House counsel Donald McGahn met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for a 'great conversation.' He said the White House was not leaning any way on the memo.... 'But at the end of it all, it'll be guys like Rod Rosenstein, Chris Wray from FBI, certainly the national security attorneys at the White House giving the President a recommendation on that,' [Kelly said.]" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Wow, that's funny -- because Trump ignored the recommendation by Rosenstein & Wray when it came to the Nunes memo. Rather, he released the memo, without redactions, over their objections. Whaddaya bet Rosenstein & Wray take the same position on the Democrats' memo, especially because it's probably accurate. ...

... Matt Ford of the New Republic: Whatever Trump decides, the Democrats have trapped him. Mrs. McC: Unless, of course, Trump releases the unredacted Democratic memo & it "totally vindicates 'Trump,'" as did, according to "Trump," the Nunes memo.

**Tom Hamburger & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post have quite a compelling report on Christopher Steele & how he sounded the alarm to U.S. intelligence officials (& to Sen. John McCain) about Donald Trump's dangerous interactions with the Kremlin & Russian financial interests. Here's how the report ends: "... in September..., Steele spent two days behind closed doors, talking to Mueller's investigators." ...

... The Collaborators. Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "Two leading Senate Republicans released a document late Tuesday that they said bolstered Republican allegations that the Justice Department relied heavily on a politically tainted dossier in seeking permission from a secret federal court to eavesdrop on a former Trump campaign aide. The document, a letter sent last month to the F.B.I. and Justice Department by Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, quoted from Justice Department requests to the court to spy in late 2016 and last year on the former aide, Carter Page.... The letter said the Justice Department's initial application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on Mr. Page, filed in October 2016 after he had left the Trump campaign, 'appears to contain no additional information corroborating the dossier allegations' posed by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent who had been working with a research firm paid by the Democrats." ...

     ... Here's Chuck & Lindsey's excellent memo (redacted pdf), which criminally refers Christopher Steele to the DOJ. It's practically 8 pages long (AND has small-font footnotes!), so you'll probably need the rest of the day to read it. Maybe Chuck & Lindsey can brief you with pictures of Christopher Steele in a trenchcoat, Michael Isikoff carrying a pencil & notepad & wearing a porkpie hat with a "PRESS" card tucked into the ribbon, & mean Hillary in a pantsuit. Or a sock puppet presentation could help. (Have Trump's briefers thought of sock puppets?) The memo alleges Steele lied to the FBI about talking to the press but later, in a British court case, admitted having done so. As Hamburger & Helderman report, Steele went into hiding after the dossier became public. No wonder. He had Chuck & Lindsey, among many others, on his case. ...

... In a podcast, Mike Isikoff discusses his September 2016 meeting with Steele & Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS.

Sessions Kisses up. Maegan Vazquez of CNN: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he believes the FBI needs a 'fresh start' following FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's decision to step down.'Well, I have believed it was important to have a fresh start at the FBI, and actually, it was in my letter to the President when I recommended (former FBI Director James) Comey's removal. I used the words, "fresh start," and the FBI director is Chris Wray, a very talented, smart, capable leader," Sessions told the Washington Examiner on the day McCabe left the bureau. The interview was published on Tuesday. Sessions also said there has been an 'erosion' of public trust in the DOJ, telling the Examiner that the department needs to earn that back 'because the heart and soul of the Department of Justice is very good.'"

Alex Jackson of NBC News: "Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday that Russia is already trying to influence the U.S. midterm election, warning that it will be difficult for the United States to 'preempt' it. In an interview with Fox News from Bogotá, Colombia..., Tillerson said Russia was gearing up to meddle with the 2018 U.S. elections following the playbook it used in 2016. 'I don't know that I would say we are better prepared, because the Russians will adapt, as well. The point is, if it's their intention to interfere, they are going to find ways to do that. We can take steps, but this is something that, once they decide they are going to do it, it's very difficult to preempt it.'... Tillerson's comments echoed an alarm sounded last month by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who told the BBC, 'I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that.'"

Don't Stay Sick or Get a Crummy Job, People. Or Else. Tony Pugh of McClatchy News: "After allowing states to impose work requirements for Medicaid enrollees, the Trump administration is now pondering lifetime limits on adults' access to coverage. Capping health care benefits -- like federal welfare benefits -- would be a first for Medicaid, the joint state-and-federal health plan for low-income and disabled Americans. If approved, the dramatic policy change would recast government-subsidized health coverage as temporary assistance by placing a limit on the number of months adults have access to Medicaid benefits.... At least five states -- Arizona, Kansas, Utah, Maine and Wisconsin -- are seeking waivers from the Trump administration to impose lifetime Medicaid coverage limits.... However, advocates say capping Medicaid benefits would amount to a massive breach of the nation's social safety net designed to protect children, the elderly and the impoverished.... Low-wage workers who may not get health coverage through their jobs could also reach their Medicaid coverage limit 'as if it's their fault that their job isn't offering insurance,' said Leonardo Cuello, director of health policy at the National Health Law Center.... Time-limiting health coverage runs the risk of pushing sick people into costly emergency rooms where they'll receive indigent care paid for by taxpayers."

Patricia Mazzei & Agustin Armendariz of the New York Times: "Four months after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, a picture is emerging of the contracts awarded in the earliest days of the crisis. And ... lawmakers [are raising] questions about FEMA's handling of the disaster and whether the agency was adequately prepared to respond.... Lawmakers fear the agency is not lining up potential contractors in advance of natural disasters, leading it to scramble to award multimillion-dollar agreements in the middle of a crisis.... FEMA insists no Puerto Ricans missed a meal as a result of the failed agreement with ... an Atlanta entrepreneur with no experience in large-scale disaster relief and at least five canceled government contracts in her past.... FEMA relied on other suppliers that provided 'ample' food and water for distribution, said William Booher, an agency spokesman. But there is little doubt that in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans struggled with access to food." ...

... Charles Pierce: "If this reminds you of that tiny Montana company that got the really big contract to restore power in Puerto Rico, that's only because it should. Seventy years ago, 70 airmen lost their lives in the effort that saved Berlin [-- the Berlin Airlift]. Today, we have substituted profiteering and ineptitude for sacrifice and creativity. Running the country like a business, as it were."

Matt Phillips, et al., of the New York Times: "After days of sometimes wild moves in stock markets, investors on Wall Street refocused on the ongoing strength in the American economy as shares of consumer companies helped lead broad indexes higher. A sometimes-panicky global market sell-off -- begun Monday when the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index lost more than 4 percent, its worst decline since August 2011 -- dissipated through the day, and the S.&P. 500 ended Tuesday's session up by about 1.7 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average gained about 2.3 percent." ...

... Matthew Nussbaum of Politico: "... Donald Trump has yet to address the swings in the stock market since Monday's plunge, the largest single-day point drop in the Dow.... Before [the Friday-Monday] drop, Trump boasted about the stock market once every 35 hours [this year]." Emphasis added.

Christian Davenport of the Washington Post: "SpaceX successfully launched what is now the world's most powerful rocket Tuesday, a towering behemoth known as the Falcon Heavy that tore through the sky with the thundering force of 18 Boeing 747 jetliners. Lifting off at 3:45 p.m. from the same launchpad that sent the crew of Apollo 11 to the moon, the rocket sent up a mountain-sized plume of smoke and a rattling roar across Florida's Space Coast, where thousands gathered to watch. The mission represented the first test of the massive rocket, powered by 27 engines in three first-stage boosters that are essentially strapped together. The maiden flight also marked the first time a privately financed venture ever attempted to launch a rocket so powerful that it was capable of hoisting a payload out of Earth's orbit. As a promotional stunt, SpaceX founder Elon Musk loaded the Falcon Heavy with his own cherry-red Tesla Roadster carrying a spacesuit-clad mannequin named 'Starman' in the driver's seat. Musk said he planned to send the convertible, built by another one of his companies, into an orbit around the sun that would take it near Mars."

Maggie Astor & Julie Creswell of the New York Times: "The casino mogul Stephen Wynn resigned Tuesday as chairman and chief executive of his company, Wynn Resorts, in response to sexual misconduct allegations spanning decades. In statement, Mr. Wynn said he was stepping down because 'an avalanche of negative publicity' had created an environment 'in which a rush to judgment takes precedence over everything else, including the facts.'" Mrs. McC: Because all the women are liars.