;)
The Commentariat -- December 14, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday named White House budget director Mick Mulvaney as his Acting chief of staff. Trump said in a pair of Twitter posts that Mulvaney would begin at the beginning of next year after outgoing chief of staff John Kelly leaves his post." Mrs. McC: This makes zero sense according to Trump's rationale: supposedly the reason he couldn't come to an agreement with Nick Ayers was that Ayers would commit only to a number of months. So now, after Trump claimed he had bunches of fabulous candidates, he settles on someone who will serve in an "acting" -- that is, short-term -- chief.
Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "The special counsel's office rejected on Friday a suggestion from Michael T. Flynn, President Trump's former national security adviser, that he had been tricked into lying to F.B.I. agents investigating Russia's election interference and ties to Trump associates. Prosecutors laid out a pattern of lies by Mr. Flynn to Vice President Mike Pence, senior White House aides, federal investigators and the media in the weeks before and after the presidential inauguration as he scrambled to obscure the truth about his communications during the presidential transition with Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time.... 'A sitting national security adviser, former head of an intelligence agency, retired lieutenant general and 33-year veteran of the armed forces knows he should not lie to federal agents,' prosecutors wrote in court papers. 'He does not need to be warned it is a crime to lie to federal agents to know the importance of telling them the truth.'"
Mitch Smith & Monica Davey of the New York Times: "Scott Walker, the outgoing Republican governor of Wisconsin, on Friday signed into law measures that diminish the power of his Democratic successor and expand the authority of Republican lawmakers who teamed up with him over the last eight years to move the state firmly to the right. Mr. Walker approved the measures over the vehement objections of the incoming governor and despite fierce protest in the State Capitol as Republican lawmakers rushed the bills through in a hastily-called session last week. Tony Evers, the Democrat who beat Mr. Walker in the November election, has suggested that he may file suit over the changes and said that Mr. Walker had chosen 'to ignore and override the will of the people of Wisconsin.'... Participating in what many Democrats consider a legally dubious power grab also cemented another widely held view: that Mr. Walker is a bruising partisan willing to break precedent and ignore protests for political gain."
Thanks But No Thanks. Nancy Cook & Matthew Choi of Politico: "Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on Friday that he doesn't want to be Donald Trump's next chief of staff, leaving the president with a dwindling list of candidates and underscoring the chaos of the search for the top West Wing aide. Christie, an early Trump supporter who led the White House transition effort before being ousted, made the announcement just a day after he met with the president to discuss possibly taking the role. Christie's firm statement also came shortly after reports emerged that he was the front-runner for the job, showing how quickly contenders' odds can rise and fall." Mrs. McC: As I wrote earlier today, Christie's "job interview" with Trump was a ruse to bolster Trump's claim that he was interviewing multiple willing candidates.
After two days of not showing up to work until noon, Trump got to work "early" today: 11: 43 am. Mrs. McC: If President Obama had kept the kind of "work" schedule Trump has been keeping for weeks, Republicans would have impeached him for dereliction of duty. (In fairness to Trump, Obama probably didn't spend two hours a day fixing his hair. Plus Obama's tan came naturally; he didn't have to lie around in a machine. So Trump has unusually time-consuming grooming needs. BTW, women who have to primp daily just get up early.)
George T. Conway III, Trevor Potter & Neal Katyal in a Washington Post op-ed: Having been caught in his attempts to lie his way out of the campaign finance felonies, "Now Trump and his acolytes have turned to two other excuses: They point to an earlier case involving former senator John Edwards to argue that what Trump did wasn't a crime; and they say, even if it was a crime, it wasn't a biggie -- there are lots of crimes, so what, who cares. The former is a very weak legal argument, and the latter a dangerous one.... The [Edwards] case is actually harmful for Trump.... Edwards repeatedly argued that the payments were not campaign contributions because they were not made exclusively to further his campaign. The judge rejected this argument as a matter of law, ruling that a payment to a candidate's extramarital sexual partner is a campaign contribution if 'one of' the reasons the payment is made is to influence the election.... [And] there's good reason to believe that the evidence in a criminal case against Trump would be much stronger.... The grievous minimization of serious campaign finance violations by members of Trump's political party further corrode our commitment to our age-old ideal of being a 'government of laws, and not of men.'" The authors run down the significant differences in evidence in Edwards' & Trump's cases. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: However, Conway, et al., are not taking into account Rudy's latest defense of Trump:
Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed.... This was not a big crime. -- Rudy Giuliani, to the Daily Beast (linked below)
I think Sec. Clinton would disagree with that statement. As well as a few million American voters. -- Dan L., in today's commentary
... Here's the transcript of George Stephanopoulos' interview of Michael Cohen.
Mrs. McCrabbie: Safari has a longer & better summary of the following post than the brief one I posted in today's main page:
... Asawin Suebsaeng et al. of The Daily Beast: "Shortly after the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was handed a task considered critical to the president's operations. In addition to serving as a senior adviser in the White House, he would also be playing the role of the main conduit between Trump and his friend David Pecker, the National Enquirer publisher and chief executive of AMI. During the early months of the Trump era, Kushner performed the task admirably.... Starting in late 2016, AMI's priorities shifted from a potential business deal with Kushner to one focused on access to political power. Shortly after the Trump presidency began, Kushner and Pecker talked repeatedly, on subjects ranging from relations with the Saudi regime, to possible dirt that the Enquirer had on Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.... AMI, like Kushner, cozied up to the despotic Saudi government, which included the production of a glossy propaganda magazine boosting Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman." --s
Aris Folley of The Hill: "The Education Department on Thursday announced that it will be canceling $150 million in student loans, upholding an Obama-era policy that Secretary Betsy DeVos has long fought to overhaul.... [A] federal judge ruled in September that DeVos's efforts to nix the 2016 regulations from taking effect was illegal.... Out of the $150 million in student loans the department has announced will be automatically discharged, $80 million is attributable to loans taken out b borrowers who attended Corinthian Colleges -- which was a for-profit educational chain that closed its schools back in 2015." --s
Chavie Lieber of Vox: "CBD, the non-psychoactive cannabinoid of marijuana ... just got a big boost thanks to US lawmakers. On Wednesday, Congress voted to pass the US Farm Bill, legalizing hemp, a species of cannabis that CBD can be extracted from but that isn't psychoactive. Historically, hemp has been illegal to sell or grow in the US, although it's legal to buy from international sources.... With the growing and selling of hemp now legal, greater access to CBD could mean more substantial trials and more definitive research into its purported health benefits. And it will certainly be a boon to the CBD industry." --s
U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl will resign from the U.S. Senate on Dec. 31, The Arizona Republic has confirmed, setting up a second appointment by Gov. Doug Ducey to the seat once occupied by the late John McCain. Ducey is required under law to name another Republican to the seat."
Mark Follman & Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "The intelligence committee is one of two Senate committees with ongoing investigations into the possibility that additional Russian money flowed through the NRA. Two probes into NRA-Russia matters are also ramping up in the House as Democrats prepare to take control of the chamber in January. The House Intelligence Committee, soon to be chaired by California Rep. Adam Schiff, plans to scrutinize 'two major threads' regarding the NRA, a committee aide said. Those include whether [Russians Alexander Torshin and [Maria] Butina were part of efforts to establish a backchannel to the Kremlin, and 'whether Russian money was flowing into the NRA for the purpose of supporting Trump's election.'" --s
Peter Granitz of NPR: "Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen warned party leaders that what she sees as the GOP's focus on conservative, white, male voters harms its electoral prospects. In an interview with Morning Edition host Rachel Martin, Ros-Lehtinen said Republicans would 'lose this whole generation' if it did not 'aggressively pursue' young voters.... Ros-Lehtinen has had a historic career, as the first Latina and first Cuban-American in Congress, as well as being the first woman to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee.... However, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in Ros-Lehtinen's district by nearly 20 points in 2016, and her House seat flipped to Democrats in 2018." --s
"I Speak for the Trees." Stephanie Ebbs of ABC News: "A federal judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals quoted Dr. Seuss' beloved environmental warrior [the Lorax] in a decision calling for the U.S. Forest Service to revisit its approval for a natural gas pipeline on the East Coast to go forward. 'We trust the United States Forest Service to "speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,'" Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote, quoting Dr. Seuss' 1971 book 'The Lorax.'"
"Annals of Journalism," Ctd. Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently promoting its recent environmental rollback using an op-ed published in a news outlet owned by a Republican megadonor. The column, published by The Las Vegas Review-Journal Editorial Board ... was sent around to journalists by the EPA press office on Thursday.... The Review-Journal is owned by American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson who, with his wife ... also had a close relationship with the agency during former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's tenure. As Politico reported in March, Pruitt met with Israeli company Water-Gen at the 'request of Adelson.' Shortly after, the agency signed a research agreement with the company." --s
R.I.P. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "The Weekly Standard, the magazine that espouses traditional conservatism and which has remained deeply critical of ... Donald Trump, will shutter after 23 years, Clarity Media Group, the owner of its publisher announced Friday morning. It will publish its final issue on December 17."
*****
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
** Trump Was in the Room. Tom Winter of NBC News: "Donald Trump was the third person in the room in August 2015 when his lawyer Michael Cohen and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker discussed ways Pecker could help counter negative stories about Trump's relationships with women, NBC News has confirmed. As part of a non-prosecution agreement disclosed Wednesday by federal prosecutors, American Media Inc., the Enquirer's parent company, admitted that 'Pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidate's relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.' The 'Statement of Admitted Facts' says that AMI admitted making a $150,000 payment 'in concert with the campaign,' and says that Pecker, Cohen, and 'at least one other member of the campaign' were in the meeting. According to a person familiar with the matter, the 'other member' was Trump.... Daniel Goldman, an NBC News analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney said..., "... if Trump is now in the room, as early as August of 2015 and in combination with the recording where Trump clearly knows what Cohen is talking about with regarding to David Pecker, you now squarely place Trump in the middle of a conspiracy to commit campaign finance fraud.'" Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Cohen Twists the Knife. George Stephanopoulos, et al., of ABC News: "Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to arrange hush-money payments with two women because then-candidate Trump 'was very concerned about how this would affect the election' if their allegations of affairs became public, the president's former personal attorney said in an exclusive interview with ABC News.... 'I knew what I was doing was wrong,' Cohen told ... George Stephanopoulos. 'I stood up before the world [Wednesday] and I accepted the responsibility for my actions.' When asked if the president also knew it was wrong to make the payments, Cohen replied, 'Of course,' adding that the purpose was to 'help [Trump] and his campaign.'... 'Why should we believe you now?' Stephanopoulos asked. 'Because the special counsel stated emphatically that the information that I gave to them is credible and helpful,' Cohen replied. 'There's a substantial amount of information that they possessed that corroborates the fact that I am telling the truth.'" ...
I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called 'advice of counsel,' and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid. Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly..... -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Thursday ...
... Thursday in Trump Tall Tales. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump denied Thursday that he had directed his former personal attorney Michael Cohen to break the law during the 2016 campaign by buying the silence of two women who claimed they once had affairs with the future president. In morning tweets, Trump, however, did not dispute that he had directed Cohen to make the payments, as Cohen and federal prosecutors have alleged -- actions that could imperil Trump. The president claimed that Cohen bore responsibility for any criminal violations of campaign finance law but also asserted that Cohen 'probably was not guilty' of even civil violations related to the payments to former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stormy Daniels -- a view at odds with that of many lawyers. 'Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did,' Trump alleged.... Trump largely echoed his tweets in a television interview broadcast Thursday afternoon. 'I never directed him to do anything wrong,' Trump told Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, speaking about Cohen. 'Whatever he did he did on his own. ... I never directed him to do anything incorrect or wrong.' Trump sought to minimize his relationship with Cohen, saying he did 'more public relations than law' and was generally responsible for 'low-level work.'&" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The New York Times story, by Eileen Sullivan & Maggie Haberman, is here. ...
... Elura Nanos of Law & Crime: "... convenient as it may be for Trump to believe that it's perfectly legal to conspire with a lawyer to commit crimes..., in general, directing a person to commit a crime is ... a crime all by itself.... For most crimes, there is no requirement that the person giving or receiving instructions for criminal behavior actually know the law creating the criminal offense.... Criminal-level campaign finance violations (which are one of several categories of crimes for which Cohen was prosecuted) do require knowledge of wrongdoing.... But Cohen's knowledge isn't really what matters. If Trump knew his behavior was illegal, then Cohen could have been the leading expert on campaign finance and it wouldn't matter a fig.... It's not a great idea for Trump to bring up 'advice of counsel' here (although I'm very proud of him for spelling both words correctly for perhaps the first time ever). Using the 'my lawyer made me do it' defense is a terrible idea, because -- as my colleague Colin Kalmbacher discusses here -- it can indicate a waiver of attorney-client privilege." ...
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Thursday tacitly admitted, for the first time, that he directed Michael Cohen to facilitate hush-money payments to two women who had alleged affairs with Trump, Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels.... It's worth emphasizing just how horrendous of a coverup this whole episode has proved to be. Regardless of legal culpability, Trump and his team have spent the past 11 months engaging in a very public and irreconcilable effort to obscure all of this. And as the days pass, their statements look worse and worse." Blake then takes "a trip down memory lane" to remind us of Trump & his team's previous evolving lies about the payments. ...
... Philip Rucker & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "For months, President Trump's spokesmen, his lawyer and his lawyer's lawyer denied that Trump knew about payments during his 2016 campaign to buy the silence of women who alleged sexual encounters with him. The president himself claimed the same. But after mounting evidence and fresh courthouse revelations of wrongdoing this week exposed those denials as falsehoods, Trump is shifting his tune. The president no longer disputes that he instructed his then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to make the payments to former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels. Instead, Trump sought to evade that question Thursday by saying he never told Cohen to break the law -- making a narrow assertion that was itself an admission that his and his team's earlier denials were false.... The evolving strategy on the hush-money allegations is textbook Trump: Tell one version of events until it falls apart, then tell a new version, and so on -- until the danger passes."
Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: Since it has dawned on him that impeachment is a real possibility, "Trump now believes that he needs to hold on to the support of 'establishment' Republicans to survive.... That would be a difficult thing to achieve in the best of circumstances considering that Trump came to power by trashing them. They've basically gotten what they wanted from him already -- a big tax cut, two Supreme Court justices, and a bunch of relaxed or gutted regulation.... The president is giving the Republican Party ownership of a government shutdown they do not want on an issue they do not support. His White House operation is in shambles and the one person people trusted to keep it on track has been fired -- and there is no comparable replacement in sight. Presently, the Senate is voting to essentially rebuke the president for his position on Saudi Arabia, and that disconnect will grow more serious next year.... They've just seen two score of their colleagues cut down in the midterm elections, largely as a result of backlash against the president. There is no appetite for going into the 2020 presidential campaign with Trump as the Republican establishment's standard-bearer. Only two things can keep them in Trump's corner. One is fear of a primary challenge, and the other is a massive change of behavior by the president.... Trump's ability to inspire fear is waning and will soon be completely gone.... He burned his bridges and, at this point, the establishment is just waiting for Mueller, so they can clean out this mess." ...
... Susan Glasser of the New Yorker agrees with Longman: "During Watergate, the last time a sitting President was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal investigation, Hugh Scott, who was then the Minority Leader, and other Republican senators marched into the White House to tell Nixon to resign, but only once his fate was already clear. Nixon was not only a two-term President but a lifetime Republican who had devoted his career to the Party.... Trump faces a far different situation, with far fewer reserves of personal or partisan loyalty to call upon. A former Democrat, he was opposed by the vast majority of congressional Republicans in the party primaries for President. He has little personal connection to most of them now, did not spend decades raising money for their elections or campaigning for them, and has often publicly feuded with their leaders."
Josh Kovensky of TPM: "Trump’s inaugural committee is under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York over whether donors handed over cash in exchange for access to government officials and into whether funds were misallocated, the Wall Street Journal reported. Documents seized during raids of former Trump attorney and current felon Michael Cohen's home, office, and hotel room in April 2018 led to the investigation, the newspaper reported, which is focusing on whether the record $107 million the committee raised was given 'in exchange for access to the incoming Trump administration, policy concessions or to influence official administration positions.' Specifically, the report stated that federal agents seized the recording of a conversation that Cohen made between himself and former Melania Trump adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. In the recording, Wolkoff purportedly 'expressed concern about how the inaugural committee was spending money,' the Journal cited one person as saying." ...
... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "Rick Gates -- the former Trump aide who helped run the inaugural committee and struck a plea deal with Mueller in February -- has also been cooperating with SDNY prosecutors, the Journal reports.... A week after the election, Trump named a murderers' row of uberrich Republicans as 'finance vice chairs' for the event. They included casino billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn (the latter of whom was later accused of sexually abusing employees), defense contractor Elliott Broidy (later involved in hush money payments to a Playboy model), and Anthony Scaramucci (later White House communications director for 10 days before resigning over an obscene interview with the New Yorker). The man in charge of it all, as chair of the inaugural committee, was Tom Barrack. He's a billionaire real estate investor who's been a close friend of Trump's for decades, and his business interests have recently been concentrated in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar." ...
... Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times: "The inquiry focuses on whether people from Middle Eastern nations -- including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- used straw donors to disguise their donations to the two funds. Federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, political action committees and inaugural funds." The story includes some of the clues there was monkey business going on. And you know there was. ...
... digby: "By the way, The Inaugural Committee was chaired by Mike Pence."
So Donald Trump's private business, campaign, transition, inaugural committee, and White House are all under criminal investigation. Very legal and very cool. -- Matthew Miller, in a tweet
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Looking at Miller's list, I see that mike pence chaired both the inauguration committee & the transition. In addition, for some reason he was talking to Mike Flynn about sanctions. He's either as dumb as the tree stump he played on teevee earlier this week, or he's implicated. We may be closer to having a woman president than we know. Her name will be Nancy.
Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "On Thursday, [Maria] Butina, 30, pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to act as a foreign agent in a deal with federal prosecutors. In doing so, she acknowledged that her activities were motivated by more than mere personal conviction. As part of the deal, Ms. Butina admitted to being involved an organized effort, backed by Russian officials, to open up unofficial lines of communication with influential Americans in the N.R.A. and in the Republican Party, and to win them over to the idea of Russia as a friend, not a foe. Ms. Butina's guilty plea now casts a spotlight on the Americans she worked with, including prominent members of the N.R.A. and her boyfriend, Paul Erickson, 56, a longtime Republican operative who ran Patrick J. Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign and who now faces accusations of fraud in three states. Officials have said federal investigators are examining what Mr. Erickson and others who helped Ms. Butina knew about her links to the Russian government." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... David Corn & Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "... much of the [news] coverage [of Michael Flynn] -- focused on Flynn's post-election contacts with [Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey] Kislyak, conversations that he lied about to the FBI and that led to his indictment.... Yet two Flynn associates tell Mother Jones that Flynn has informed friends and colleagues that prior to Election Day he spoke with Kislyak about how Trump could work productively with Russia if he won the presidency. One of these Flynn associates ... notes that Flynn said he discussed with Kislyak a grand bargain in which Moscow would cooperate with the Trump administration to resolve the Syrian conflict and Washington would end or ease up on the sanctions imposed on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and military intervention in Ukraine. The other Flynn associate says Flynn said he had been talking to Kislyak about Syria, Iran, and other foreign policy matters that Russia and the United States could tackle together were Trump to be elected.... [If true,] it would mean Trump's chief national security aide was secretly interacting with the representative of a foreign power as that government was mounting information and cyber warfare against the United States[, an effort of which they were then aware because intelligence agencies briefed them about in August 2016]." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: There's a connection between the Butina & Flynn stories, and the connection is sanctions. Butina, surreptitiously acting as a Russian agent, was the first person -- back in July 2015 -- to ask Trump publicly about his position on sanctions, and his answer was, "I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin ... I don't think you'd need the sanctions." This answer may be a big part of the reason Russia helped Trump, even as Flynn, again surreptitiously, conspired in mid-2016 with the Russian ambassador to lift sanctions. The pre-election discussions between Flynn & Kislyak might help explain why Flynn lied to FBI agents about his little chats with Kislyak during the transition. Had he been truthful about the transition discussions, he would have anticipated the FBI's next question would be, "So is the first time you discussed sanctions with a Russian government official?" At some point, he was going to have to lie or spill the beans, as apparently he eventually has done.
Chris Megerian & Eli Stokols of the Los Angeles Times: "For the second day in a row, the president had been in the White House residence all morning, fuming about federal investigations that have moved closer to him -- and are likely to get worse.... Trump has become increasingly isolated as he enters what may be the most difficult stretch of his presidency, one laden with political and legal dangers.... Tony Schwartz, the ghost writer of ... 'The Art of the Deal,' said ... Trump followed the tactics he learned from his late mentor, the hard-knuckled New York lawyer Roy Cohn -- 'Lie about everything, attack back twice as hard as you've been hit, keep at it relentlessly until people finally give up and [they] stop arguing with your fabricated reality. Trump is still living in that reality, but the world isn't going along with him anymore.'..."
Christine Stapleton of the Palm Beach Post: "... Donald Trump is expected to spend 16 days at Mar-a-Lago over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, according to an alert issued by the Federal Aviation Administration this morning."
Mrs. McCrabbie: So I was wrong when I guessed (facetiously) that Ivanka would become Daddy's Little Chief of Staff. Because, um, her husband is trying to muscle her out: ...
... S.V. Date of the Huffington Post: "Having run through his first choices for his chief of staff vacancy without any luck..., Donald Trump is considering his own son-in-law for the job. Jared Kushner, the husband of Trump's daughter Ivanka and already an official White House adviser, met with Trump Wednesday about the job, a top Republican close to the White House told HuffPost.... Kushner has been pushing his own candidacy with Trump, citing his work on a criminal justice reform package and a claimed ability to work with Democrats, one person said." ...
... Martin Longman of the Booman Tribune: "If it's true that Jared Kushner met with his father-in-law on Wednesday to discuss taking the job of White House chief of staff, then we're nearing the endgame for this administration. This would be an insult too big to ignore and signal a final hunkering down. For starters, Kushner is every bit as much of a target of federal and state investigators as the president. Then there's the whole security clearance issue, because presumably a president's chief of staff has the highest clearance you can get. And, finally, just today the Senate condemned Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who happens to be BFF's with Jared Kushner, by voting to end support for the war in Yemen." ...
... According to Asawin Suebsaeng & others at the Daily Beast, one of Kushner's many White House jobs was maintaining the relationship between Trump & National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. That seems not to have worked out too well. ...
... Jonathan Swan of Axios: "President Trump met with Chris Christie on Thursday evening and considers him a top contender to replace John Kelly as chief of staff, according to a source familiar with the president's thinking." Mrs. McC: If there is any truth to the stories that the new chief-of-staff would have to pass muster with Jared & Ivanka, then the Christie meeting is a ruse to make it appear Trump has this long list of willing candidates to fill the job. As Swan points out, "... he is not a friend of the Kushners. (As U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Christie sent Jared's father to prison.)"
Brendan Cole of Newsweek: "White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she hoped her legacy would be that people viewed her as 'transparent and honest.'" Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. See his commentary below, the most cogent portion of which is a long line of hahahahas. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Nick Miroff & Robert Moore of the Washington Post: "A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died of dehydration and shock after she was taken into Border Patrol custody last week for crossing from Mexico into the United States illegally with her father and a large group of migrants along a remote span of New Mexico desert, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday.... According to CBP records, the girl and her father were taken into custody about 10 p.m. Dec. 6 south of Lordsburg, N.M., as part of a group of 163 people who approached U.S. agents to turn themselves in. More than eight hours later, the child began having seizures at 6:25 a.m., CBP records show. Emergency responders, who arrived soon after, measured her body temperature at 105.7 degrees, and according to a statement from CBP, she 'reportedly had not eaten or consumed water for several days.'"
Julie Davis & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The Senate voted resoundingly on Thursday to withdraw American military assistance for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, issuing the latest in a series of stinging bipartisan rebukes of President Trump for his defense of the kingdom amid outrage in both parties over Riyadh's role in the killing of a dissident journalist. The 56-to-41 vote was a rare move by the Senate to limit presidential war powers and send a potent message of official disapproval for a nearly four-year conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and brought famine to Yemen. Its immediate effect was largely symbolic, after the House earlier this week moved to scuttle it, all but assuring that the measure will expire this year without making it to Mr. Trump's desk." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Senate Unanimously Rebukes Trump, Administration. Aaron Blake: "Just moments after the Senate passed a resolution calling for an end to U.S. involvement on the Saudi side of the war in Yemen, the GOP-run Senate voted unanimously for Republican Sen. Bob Corker's resolution officially blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for [Jamal] Khashoggi's death. The resolution by Corker (Tenn.) says, among other things: 'The Senate ... believes Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.' That's also what the CIA has concluded, but it's a conclusion that Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and even Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have taken great pains to undermine."
Ginger Gibson of Reuters: "Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that members of congress from her party will seek to obtain ... Donald Trump's tax returns when they take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January - a move the White House is likely to strongly resist.... The House Ways and Means Committee will 'take the first steps' toward obtaining the documents, said Pelosi.... The records would provide congressional investigators from various House committees with information crucial to efforts to determine if Trump's business generates conflicts of interest."
Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "In her quest to become speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California appears ready once again to sacrifice the higher ambitions of her No. 2, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, and Mr. Hoyer is not shy about expressing his objections. 'She's not negotiating for me,' he snapped the other day, referring to Ms. Pelosi's deal with a group of House Democratic rebels to impose term limits on the leadership -- and not just herself -- of four years.... His longstanding ambitions to be speaker would almost certainly be curtailed by the plan's emphasis on generational change, though under it, he could technically serve four years as majority leader, and then, at 83, run for speaker. But over his more than 50 years in public life, 37 of them in Congress, Mr. Hoyer has proved himself a quiet survivor. He is now the House's longest-serving Democrat. Last month, he skated to victory to reclaim the majority leader's post, even as some fellow Democrats pushed for Ms. Pelosi's ouster."
Election 2018. Maine. Marina Villeneuve & Patrick Whittle of the AP: "A federal judge rejected a lawsuit Thursday by a Republican incumbent from Maine who lost the nation's first congressional election held under a candidate-ranking system. Democrat Jared Golden defeated Bruce Poliquin in the November contest, which allowed voters to rank up to four candidates. Poliquin won the most votes but failed to get a majority. Votes cast for two trailing candidates were then reassigned to voters' second choices, which swung the election to Golden. Poliquin then filed a lawsuit alleging that the new balloting system, also called ranked choice, violated the U.S. Constitution.... The judge [Lance Walker] said he failed to see how Maine's candidate-ranking system undercut voters' First Amendment rights 'in any fashion.' He said the system was 'motivated by a desire to enable third-party and non-party candidates to participate in the political process, and to enable their supporters to express support, without producing the spoiler effect.' The new method of voting 'actually encourages First Amendment expression, without discriminating against any voter based on viewpoint, faction or other invalid criteria,' said Walker, a judge with U.S. District Court in Bangor." (Also linked yesterday.)
Kavanaugh Was the Last Straw. Dan Morain of CAL Matters: "California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye has quietly given up her Republican registration and re-registered as a no-party-preference voter, saying Thursday she had become increasingly uncomfortable with the GOP's direction nationally and in the state. In a phone interview with CALmatters, Cantil-Sakauye -- who was a prosecutor before becoming a judge 28 years ago and California Supreme Court chief justice in 2011 -- said she made the final decision to change her registration after watching the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 'You can draw your own conclusions,' she said."
Way Beyond the Beltway
France. Alissa Rubin, et al., of the New York Times: "The French police on Thursday night confronted and fatally shot the man believed to be responsible for killing three people and wounding many more in Strasbourg this week, bringing a tense, two-day manhunt to an end and providing a moment of relief to a nation shaken first by violent protests and then the rampage at a Christmas market. The attack traumatized Strasbourg and reminded the country of its continued vulnerability to terrorist attacks. French officials said Thursday that they were worried that the police were overstretched after four weekends of handling nationwide protests by the Yellow Vest movement."
Britain. A Christmas Riddle. As Santa Was Going to St. Ives ... How Many Cuss Words Did He Yell at the Kids? Rob Picheta of CNN: "Organizers of a Christmas event have apologized to outraged parents after a fire alarm reportedly prompted Santa Claus to burst out of his grotto, rip off his beard and scream at children to 'get the f**k out.' The incident occurred at an event in the English town of St. Ives, Cambridgeshire on Sunday, when an alarm at a nearby but unconnected event caused an evacuation of the building, organizers said. While parents and children were already evacuating, Santa Claus tore into the room and started causing havoc, a customer said on Facebook." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
News Lede
New York Times: "Nancy Wilson, whose skilled and flexible approach to singing provided a key bridge between the sophisticated jazz-pop vocalists of the 1950s and the powerhouse pop-soul singers of the 1960s and '70s, died Thursday at her home in Pioneertown, Calif. She was 81."
Share Article
Reader Comments (19)
Word that Fatty has a long list of applicants for the job of chief of staff may, in fact, be correct.
A leaked memo indicates that among the top applicants for the position are Dancer, Prancer, Comet, Cupid, Sneezy, Sleepy, Grumpy, Moe, Larry, and Curly. Other sources indicate that the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, earlier favorites, have dropped out of the race. No word yet from Bert and Ernie, but Cookie Moster is a definite no, after being informed that Fatty gets first crack at all cookies.
When informed that Trump spells the word with a K, Cookie Monster tweeted “Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C”.
A tweetstorm is expected by early morning. Experts say CM is definitely on the shit list now.
CM seen hiding in hallways holding on to the batch of cookies he knows will be snatched away from him by that crazed man in the oval office. "Me no like peoples who steal cookies! And me no like peoples who can't spell "cookie" correctly. Off with their heads, I say." And so say all of us!
Here are Sens. Heitkamp and McCaskill on Democratic mistakes and a culture of failure. (with video)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/sens-heitkamp-and-mccaskill-on-democratic-mistakes-and-a-culture-of-failure
Julián Castro is throwing his hat into the ring. I find him most impressive. He has a thoughtfulness that I find appealing–-Obama had it too. First thing on his agenda would be Medicare for all. (good luck with that). When asked about Trump he said, "He has completely debased the office."
Maria Butina, gal around town, carrying a gun and cozy with the NRA. She changed her persona as quickly as she changed her hair color. And I'm wondering: If she gets sent back to Russia will she get roses and rallies or will she get whacked in a dark ally on a rainy night.
No Christie as COS?
Ah, but these are truly devious people.
What better way to utterly destroy the last shreds of Christie's credibility and political career than by installing him as the Pretender's handler and occasional public face?
More seriously, I cannot imagine the Pretender allowing an ego large enough to rival his in that position. And Christie has even shown occasional signs of being smart. Like the Pretender, Christie likes to throw his weight around, but unlike him he can actually talk.
Second thought:
But maybe Christie has proven himself corrupt enough to fit right in...
"Trump’s ability to inspire fear is waning and will soon be completely gone.... He burned his bridges and, at this point, the establishment is just waiting for Mueller,"
I'm verrry doubtful about this. First of all, it will NEVER be completely gone. Never. There will always be those who wax nostalgic even after all his crimes come to light, even "establishment" figures (whatever "establishment" means these days). I think the Saudi rebuke vote is getting way overanalyzed and essentially gives us ONE example of the Senate doing the right, sensible thing, for once (Wowza!). Everyone is so amazed that Republicans actually did the right thing for once in the face of damning evidence to act, that now it's the beginning of the "establishment rebellion". Fat fucking chance. This vaunted "establishment" no longer exists, besides its ghastly embodiment by transparent whores like Mitch McConnell. Remember he declared 2017 to be the "best year for conservatives" and still, nearly one year later, has hardly lifted a finger to put any semblance of guardrails on the bubonic plague poisoning our country's foundations.
The GOP is anti-democratic, and only interested in raw power. They need votes, and all the rabid mouth breathers that form their most loyal useful idiots are all 100% glued to the Trump Train. And as Steve M. pointed out in a blog post the other day: Everything is falling apart for Trump except his popular support.
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2018/12/everything-is-falling-apart-for-trump.html
Supposedly Trump claims he needs to keep the support of "establishment" Republicans (I can't actually see him saying this, but it's probably an insider putting somewhat sensible words into his mouth), but he's not going to do that through appeasement to the GOP. He's already got a strategy that works just fine: Spit fire on anyone wavering from the line, gin up his support network of hate-filled keyboard warriors and have them rain death threats on them 'til they get back in line. Trump won't change, and the GOP won't budge, unless they break the impasse of the death threat machine the presidunce* has put in place.
@Safari,
Very much on point. The Pretender is not in fact some kind of alternative Republican. Embarrassing to the "Establishment" as he may be, he is the current party's essence, which is why his base has shown little signs of crumbling.
Wrote this to a fellow RC'er this morning.
"I’m increasingly convinced that morality and the law, often confused but never the same, have nothing whatsoever to do with the way the Pretender and those like him view the world or their actions in it. If it’s all about me, about what I can get away with to benefit myself, and since an entire political party is now given over to the dictates of unalloyed self-interest, I cannot imagine that party, which controls the Senate, doing anything to stop the Pretender—that is impeach the sob—unless and until it becomes in their own self-interest to do so, and the only way that will happen is if their constituents send them a clear message that their political careers are over if they don’t act.
What that view leads to is the conclusion that law and Mueller aside, which is exactly where they are, it’s the citizenry that will have to summon and display the character that the Republican politicians have demonstrated they can’t and won't. It’s a hell of a situation when the hoi polloi, not their purported leaders, must rise, scale the walls of voter suppression and gerrymandering, to lead the nation, but that’s exactly where we are. The November election was a good sign and does have some Republican senators looking over their shoulders, but insulated as most of them are from political reality, I’m afraid it will take far more and far louder expressions of outrage than we currently hear to get their full attention.
We’ll see when the Mueller reports comes out if there’s any capacity for moral outrage left in our battered nation."
And I would add that the two recent Senate votes that seem to defy the Pretender, yesterday's Yemen vote and the one the other day on which Susan Collins pretended to have a spine, were only show votes. They have no teeth because the House will not act on them.
A similar Yemen vote may have a much harder time getting through the next Senate, when the new Democratic House would rush to concur.
The Butina affair should remind us a of couple of things. First, after this story broke, about her connections to Moscow and her plan to cozy up to the NRA and big wig wingers, it was all pooh-poohed as small potatoes by the Foxbots and Confederate press, a big nothing.
But it is very much something.
Leave us not forget that Vladimir Putin, before he was a gazillion dollar dictator and friend to oligarchs, murderers, and Trump, was a KGB field officer. Anyone who has read any John le Carré (who himself worked as a spy) understands that operations often take place on many fronts and are usually no good if they are easily detectable as Big Potatoes.
They are also not very useful if operational control can be traced back to the source without much trouble. This isn't to say that Butina was/is a Putin asset, but if you're trying to fuck with another country, you need a way in, and Russians have found that Confederates are easy marks. Very easy. I pause to point out here that Putin went out of his way over the last few days to state that he had no idea who Butina was, had never met her, and had no idea what she was up to. You were expecting something different, maybe?
So, how to get into bed with powerful and influential wingers? Two ways, religion and guns (Obama wasn't wrong). And the operation involving Butina made use of both. Putin hates gays. Evangelicals hate gays. Love at first hate. So the Russians show up at the National Prayer Breakfast to show their anti-gay solidarity. Then they invite the NRA to Moscow. Show them some BIG guns, wielded by a cute redhead.
Bingo! Instant access.
Butina's American "boyfriend", longtime Republican operative, Paul Erickson, was even offered a chance to work--undercover, natch--for the FSB, the successor to the KGB. Rather than instantly reject the offer, as all the best patriotic 'mericans would, he considered it. The FBI has proof of this.
And once on the inside, the Russians get the NRA to start working for Trump, spending a pile of money.
"But the NRA didn’t just spend a lot of money to help Trump win. Watchdog groups filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing the NRA and the Trump campaign of illegally coordinating ads to influence the 2016 election. According to The Trace, both the NRA and Trump campaign illegally coordinated to the point where their ad buys were authorized by the same person at the National Media Research firm.
'This is very strong evidence, if not proof, of illegal coordination,' Larry Noble, [said] a former FEC general counsel..."
So the takeaway?
Wingers, especially those who consider themselves the Best 'Mericans, the only Real 'Mericans, are easily gamed by Russian operatives looking to feed America a poison pill in the form of their puppet Trump, and hoping for a chance to really stick it to the greatest democracy on the face of the earth.
Not so great anymore. And a big thanks goes to the NRA and evangelical groups.
Not such small potatoes anymore, is it?
And to add a P.S. to safari's and Ken's posts: the biggest threat to us is again the latest dire warnings of atmospheric warming that will be "faster and more furious" than predicted. The days of "if" are over. The GOP's foot dragging on this, including the Dunce who doesn't give a shit, gives out a signal to the rest of the world's foot draggers that, hey, no problem. These countries, including ours, think they have migration problems now, wait until the middle east is burning up and water is just a dream. But, hey, we've never been too good at foreseeing, now, have we?
Well, well. Young Jared as the new COS? Why not? A POS for COS. Fitting. Both Bert and Ernie must have given the job the thumbs down. They'd rather deal with good puppets than bad puppets. Hope Fatty didn't take it too hard.
I guess this means Young Jared has completed his other tasks, peace in the Middle East, revamping the entire government, and what was that other little thing? Oh yeah. Lining his pockets. That last one, for sure, is going smoothly.
But isn't this the guy who always seems to be on holiday skiing in Aspen or beachcombing on some private island with Princess Ivanka and the kids whenever things get sticky at the Blight House? He won't like having to hang around answering questions like "So what have you been doing for the last 23 months, Mr. Nepotism? Besides grabbing for free money from the taxpayers?"
Kushner, a well known backstabber and incompetent, should fit right in as COS. Even better, since COS seems to be the last stop before being stuffed into the a trebuchet and flung over the walls, maybe we'll be shut of this little creep sooner than expected.
I vote we give 'im the job. And to replace Liarbee Sanders? I vote for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. At least he'd be good for a few laughs. And he wouldn't lie. Constantly.
What a carnival show. Oh, the wheel goes round and round, and where it stops, nobody, hey....hey....someone just picked my pocket. Look! There goes Rudy Giuliani. With my wallet! Stop, thief! Crooks everywhere!
Like Safari, I think that I am NOT seeing the beginning of the end of the reign of Circus Peanut, because it used to be that 30-35% of the people in this country were certifiably nuts (else how do they support a monster like this??)but lately the talking heads have been flinging about 40% or more. I don't see that changing no matter what elections bring. They all have their heads where the sun don't shine, and oh, by the way, they blame the poors, the browns, the women, the gays, etc. for their deplorable hardscrabble existences... And they don't seem to care (talking to YOU, Orrin--)if the besuited trolls in the ungrand old party and their overlords are total criminals. I wish them all a speedy fiery death. Truly.
And where the hell are we as a country when a 7-year old dies in our custody without water and food? Border Security my hindquarters. Those people are committing illegal acts in our names.
I do think establishment Republicans would dump Trump in a New York minute if it became expedient for them to do so. They have no morals, no loyalty to anyone except themselves (as individuals), & the Trump-Mueller collaboration will provide them with any number of excuses. If popular support goes soft -- and I think it could get as low as 25-33 percent (tho it would be much higher in Republican states) -- as new felonious revelations emerge, Republican senators in purplish states -- Florida, Ohio, Arizona, etc. -- could suddenly find they are shocked & outraged to learn ... (fill in the felony). Remember, they fear the guy; they don't like or respect him.
The flaw in my theory, alas, is mike pence. There are any number of reasons GOP senators might not want to install mikey in the Oval. And the senators might figure mikey into the equation in different ways, depending upon each Republican senator's personal interest. The non-speaking robot could be, as some have noted before, Trump's best insurance.
Fatty got to work today at 11:43? Just in time for lunch. Let's see...
Arrive to work: 11:43
Pretend to work until 12:00.
Lunch: 12:00 to 2:30
Back to the office at 2:45.
Pretend to work: 2:45 to 3:00
Upstairs for a nap: 3:15 to 5:00
Back to the office at 5:15 with a golf magazine.
Pretend to work: 5:15 to 5:17
Home by 5:30
On the crapper by 5:35 for more tweeting.
In bed with Fox on the TV: 6:00 to 10:00
Make out call from Sean Hannity: 10:30 to 11:30
Tweet out whatever Hannity sez: 11:30 to 12:30
In bed: 12:35
Total time pretending to work? 34 minutes. Don't ever call donnie "low energy". Most days it's only 30 minutes.
Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed…. This was not a big crime. -- Rudy Giuliani, to the Daily Beast
I think Sec. Clinton would disagree with that statement. As well as a few million American voters.
Dan,
But...here we have Fatty’s personal lawyer admitting that it WAS a crime, committed by the top legal power in the country. I thought relativism wasn’t something practiced by the Law and Order party. The Constitution says that the president must take care that the laws be faithfully executed, not that the president can decide to which laws that might apply.
Christie is certainly corrupt enough, but apparently much too smart to grab the aluminum foil ring.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-ramps-interviews-chief-staff-search/story?id=59820321
Love how the rundits (R pundits) are all now screaming that Cohen is a terrible person and can't be believed because he's been a liar for years, therefore everything he says is a lie and Fatty Trump is pure as the driven snow.
The obvious question, then, is why did your Glorious Leader hire him in the first place, and keep him on for decades? If he was such an unscrupulous, untrustworthy piece of shit, why did he fit so well into the Trump continuum? If Cohen was such a low-life, why did Fatty keep him on the payroll for so long?
Crooks hire other crooks. This is why Nixon got rid of Archie Cox. He simply could not abide a decent, law-abiding, by the book jurist as special counselor and, subsequently, why he brought in ideological hit man Robert Bork to get rid of the hated good guy.
Are you going to let Hitler off the hook because Himmler was a lying asshole?
Casuistry, thy name is rundit.
I don't really have enough time to go into how amazingly unqualified Mick Mulvaney is for the job of Chief of Staff, no less than how unqualified he is for his present winger sinecure, but I'd prefer, in the short term, to respond to Marie, who wrote that the Mulvaney selection "makes zero sense according to Trump's rationale", the idea being that Fatty blew off Ayers who said he'd only do it for a few months so he could hire Mulvaney who sez he'll only do it for a few months.
First, there is no rationale when it comes to Fatty. There is only fearful expediency and haphazard contrivance, thus, this IS the Trump rationale.
Naturally, the Fat Orange Monster will explain this as the greatest appointment in American legend, and tout Mulvaney as a statesman, politician, and administrator on a par with Winston Churchill, and define himself as the greatest leader in world history.
That is, until four weeks from now when Mulvaney quits and goes to work for Fox.
Okay, maybe three weeks.
Though he cannot equal the wrecking ball effectiveness of the Pretender, Mulvaney has done well for himself, if poorly for the country. He's already destroyed the CFPB, made the budget the laughingstock of anyone who can do third grade arithmetic (remember his report about the certain positive effects of the Great Tax Scam?), and now he can get to work of further diminishing the reputation of the COS, in a low enough state as it is, already sufficiently stained by the rude and racist Kelly.
That said, Mulvaney, a man of many talents, will work well with the Pretender, champion lickspittle that he is.
Mulvaney: perfect example of hiring skills of the Trumpies—. He is a dishonest Confederate who is well-suited for cozying up to payday lenders and other scoundrels, so he will be great with a guy who works so hard at hardly working. He and circus peanut can be against education and skill together. Shits together—