;)
The Commentariat -- December 21, 2018
... Katia Hetter, et al., of CNN: "The solstice this year will be extra special because it will be followed the next day by a full moon known as the Cold Moon, and you might be able to see a meteor shower to boot."
On the Darkest Day of the Year, the U.S. Government Is in Chaos
President Trump is plunging the country into chaos. -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Thursday (no link)
Afternoon Update:
Dan Berman of CNN: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had two cancerous nodules removed from her left lung Friday at a New York hospital, the Supreme Court announced. There is no evidence of any remaining disease, says a court spokesperson, nor is there evidence of disease elsewhere in the body."
Mrs. McCrabbie: Mitch McConnell at about 12:30 pm ET set up a Senate vote on the House continuing resolution that include $5BB for Great Wall of Trump (that would be "the Great Wall of Trump" but for the observations of Josh Marshall (linked below) & Monoloco in today's Comments.
Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "President Trump warned early Friday that a partial government shutdown 'will last for a very long time,' seeking to blame Democrats for a potential government funding lapse that he said last week he would proudly own.... The president also urged Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to endorse the 'Nuclear Option' and abolish the ability of the minority party to filibuster and delay votes over spending measures." Mrs. McC: Senate rules preclude the use of the so-called nuclear option on budgetary legislation.
** Matthew Lee & Susannah George of the AP: "... Donald Trump's decision to withdraw American troops from Syria was made hastily, without consulting his national security team or allies, and over strong objections from virtually everyone involved in the fight against the Islamic State group, according to U.S. and Turkish officials. Trump stunned his Cabinet, lawmakers and much of the world with the move by rejecting the advice of his top aides and agreeing to a withdrawal in a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week, two U.S. officials and a Turkish official ... told The Associated Press."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: “'Fox and Friends' host Brian Kilmeade on Friday morning tore into Trump's ... controversial decision ... to pull U.S. troops out of Syria -- and he did it right to the face of Trump's own press secretary, Sarah Sanders. Kilmeade even went so far as to say that the president was paving the way for a revitalized Islamic State, also known as ISIS. 'He also is doing exactly what he criticized President Obama for doing,' Kilmeade told Sanders. 'He said President Obama is the founder of ISIS; he just re-founded ISIS, because they have 30,000 men there and they are already striking back with our would-be evacuation. The president is really on the griddle with this. 'Leaving is helping,' Kilmeade added, repeating: 'Leaving is helping.'"
*****
Will the last adult leaving this White House turn off the lights. ...
Will the last person to leave the Trump administration please remember to leave food and water behind for Mick Mulvaney, who will be left doing all the jobs? -- J.T. Levy in a tweet
** Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump began Thursday under siege, listening to howls of indignation from conservatives over his border wall and thrusting the government toward a shutdown. He ended it by announcing the exit of the man U.S. allies see as the last guardrail against the president's erratic behavior: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, whose resignation letter was a scathing rebuke of Trump's worldview. At perhaps the most fragile moment of his presidency -- and vulnerable to convulsions on the political right -- Trump single-handedly propelled the U.S. government into crisis and sent markets tumbling with his gambits this week to salvage signature campaign promises. The president's decisions and conduct have led to a fracturing of Trump's coalition. Hawks condemned his sudden decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. Conservatives called him a 'gutless president' and questioned whether he would ever build a wall. Political friends began privately questioning whether Trump needed to be reined in." ...
... Susan Glasser of the New Yorker: "... all the chaos at year's end is a powerful reminder that the manner in which the President operates is so outside of any normal parameters for governing, so disdainful of process, and so heedless of consequences that his decisions don't resolve crises so much as create them.... ... This [latest] debacle has all the elements we have come to associate with Trump's Presidency: the imperious Twitter decree; the reckless and untrue claims; the snubbing of advice from experts, allies, and his own staff; the transparent effort to distract from one set of scandals by creating another.... When we look back on 2018, it may not be to recall all the crazy things that happened when Donald Trump was President. A year from now, it may appear as the quiet before the storm."
Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "Jim Mattis, the four-star Marine general turned defense secretary, resigned on Thursday in protest of President Trump's decision to withdraw 2,000 American troops from Syria, where they have been fighting the Islamic State. Mr. Trump announced the resignation in two tweets Thursday evening, and said Mr. Mattis will leave at the end of February. Officials said Mr. Mattis went to the White House on Thursday afternoon in a last attempt to convince Mr. Trump to keep American troops in Syria. He was rebuffed, and told the president that he was resigning as a result. Hours later, the Pentagon released Mr. Mattis's resignation letter, in which he implicitly criticized his commander in chief.... His departure leaves the Trump administration without one of the few officials viewed as standing between a mercurial president and global tumult. The president said he would name Mr. Mattis's replacement shortly." ...
... Julie Pace & Zeke Miller of the AP: "The shrinking circle around Trump is now increasingly dominated by a small cadre of longtime Trump loyalists and family members, ex-Fox News talent and former GOP lawmakers who were backbenchers on Capitol Hill before being elevated by the president. Attracting top flight talent will only get more difficult as more investigations envelope the White House once Democrats take over the House in January.... Mattis and outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Joseph Dunford became almost weekly dinner guests of the president early in his administration.... The seemingly informal briefings for the president were in fact carefully orchestrated persuasion sessions designed to ease the president into abandoning some of his disruptive campaign rhetoric and accepting the advice of his senior national security advisers. But Mattis' departure highlights how those early efforts delayed Trump's disruption, rather than averting it.... Trump's split with Mattis followed a pattern of public breakdowns with advisers who served as guardrails in the administration." ...
... David Rothkopf of the Daily Beast: Thursday "Trump's most highly regarded aide sent a message to the world and in particular to those responsible for presidential oversight on Capitol Hill. The president is not only outside the mainstream in his thinking, he is out of control. The man who controls the world's most powerful military and the resources of the world's richest government, is beyond assistance, beyond redemption, beyond influence other than by our enemies and his greed and narcissism. That was more than a letter of resignation provided today by Mattis, it was a bright red line in American history. We will be judged by how we respond to his clear and courageous message." ...
... "The Last Grown-up Is Gone." Fred Kaplan of Slate: "Secretary of Defense James Mattis didn’t just resign on Thursday; he resigned in protest over the president's policies -- the first time a Cabinet secretary has done that since Cyrus Vance quit his job as secretary of state, 40 years ago, over Jimmy Carter's failed rescue attempt of the U.S. hostages in Iran. President Trump tried to disguise this fact, tweeting late on Thursday that Mattis 'will be retiring, with distinction, at the end of February.' But administration officials don't 'retire.' They 'resign,' and Mattis -- who already did retire as a four-star general from the Marine Corps in 2013 -- is resigning with bitterness and fatigue." Mrs. McC: The White House did not release Mattis's resignation letter; Mattis did, according to TV news reports. ...
... Vera Bergengruen of BuzzFeed News: "... a letter from Mattis made clear the decision was not that harmonious.... The decision comes a day after Trump announced he'd withdraw troops from Syria, which Mattis opposes, and reports that he may also withdraw troops from Afghanistan.... Mattis personally hand-delivered his resignation letter to the White House on Thursday, a defense official confirmed to BuzzFeed News. When he returned to the Pentagon, he told his staff.... Mattis's restraint reportedly frustrated the president. As their relationship grew more strained in the second year of his presidency, Trump privately downgraded the defense secretary [from 'Mad Dog'] to 'Moderate Dog' and started to signal that he could soon make a change at the Pentagon. In an interview in October, Trump seemed to dismiss Mattis by calling him 'sort of a Democrat,' and saying he 'may leave.' It was no secret that Mattis opposed many of Trump's decisions in the White House, including decertifying the Iran deal, withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum, and moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv." ...
... The report includes a copy of Mattis's resignation letter. ...
... Nick Wadhams of Bloomberg: "Mattis's abrupt resignation as defense secretary and Trump's rapid-fire moves to reshape the U.S. military footprint abroad are provoking fears that there's no one left to restrain the president's most combative and isolationist impulses.... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- usually loathe to criticize the president -- said he was 'distressed' over the departure of Mattis, who he said had a 'clear-eyed understanding of our friends and foes.' 'It is regrettable that the president must now choose a new Secretary of Defense,' McConnell said. 'But I urge him to select a leader who shares Secretary Mattis's understanding of these vital principles.'... [Sen. Marco] Rubio [R-Fla.] said Mattis's resignation letter 'makes it abundantly clear that we are headed towards a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances & empower our adversaries.'... Mattis's exit may augur a fundamental change in the way adversaries and allies approach the administration, a trend that's already visible with North Korea. Kim Jong Un's regime has all but shut out [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo and his chief envoy, Steve Biegun, instead looking to deal with the president himself, knowing he is the ultimate authority.'"
... Juan Cole: "[I]t certainly is the case that Mattis has often restrained Trump's worse instincts.... But if you were going to judge Mattis's performance as Secretary of Defense, you'd have to look at his performance with regard to military challenges.... In 2017, US airstrikes in the [Mideast] region killed 215% as many civilians as had died in them the year before. Trump may have ordered it, but Mattis could have pushed back the way he did on other issues. There is no evidence he did.... Mattis was losing Afghanistan, as even the right wing Weekly Standard admitted, and can't be accounted as a success story on that front.... Mattis tried to whitewash the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in testimony on the hill, saying there is no 'smoking gun.' Mattis isn't a knight in shining armor but another right wing general of the Westmoreland sort, who will always win your war for you if you just let him play dirty enough and give him enough men and money and decades." --s ...
... Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "President Trump's surprise decision to rapidly withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria is meeting with intense criticism by foreign policy experts, who denounce it as strategically stupid, reckless for national security and a blow to America's global credibility. But inside Syria, the consequences are even more serious. For one example, 50,000 Syrian civilian refugees living under the direct protection of the U.S. military are suddenly fearing for their lives.... They are near starvation, effectively under siege and living in squalor. But despite their situation, they will tell anyone who will listen that they are grateful to be free from the grasp of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and that they are depending on the United States to keep them safe and alive. On Wednesday, Trump put their lives at grave risk with a single tweet."
Breaking This Morning. Washington Post: "Turkish president announces delay of planned offensive in Syria, welcomes Trump decision to pull out troops. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkish forces are still planning to invade northeast Syria in the coming months and 'cleanse' the region of both Kurdish militias and Islamic State forces. Turkey has long opposed the U.S. partnership with Kurdish forces in the battle against the Islamic State. This is a developing story. It will be updated."
... Courtney Kube, et al., of NBC News: "The White House has ordered the Pentagon to draw up plans for a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, two defense officials and a person briefed on the matter told NBC News. The plans are due shortly after the new year, according to the officials. They cautioned that no decision has been made, but President Trump wants to see options. The White House has asked the Pentagon to look into multiple options, including a complete withdrawal, the officials said." ...
... Update. Uh, Looks Like Chief Seat-of-the-Pants Decided Not to Wait for, You Know, Plans. Thomas Gibbon-Neff of the New York Times: "The Trump administration is withdrawing roughly 7,000 troops from Afghanistan in the coming months, two defense officials said Thursday, around half of what the American military has there now. Mr. Trump made the decision at the same time he decided he was pulling American forces out of Syria, one official said. The move is likely one of the first steps to end the United States' involvement in the 17-year-old war. The 14,000 American troops currently in Afghanistan are divided between training and advising Afghan forces and a counterterror mission against groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. The reduction, one official said, is in an effort to make Afghan forces more reliant on their own troops and not Western support."
Haley Britzky of Axios: "President Trump tweeted Friday that it would be a 'Democrat Shutdown' if Senate Democrats vote down the short-term spending bill that the House passed last night, which includes $5.7 billion for Trump's border wall. 'Senator Mitch McConnell should fight for the Wall and Border Security as hard as he fought for anything. He will need Democrat votes, but as shown in the House, good things happen. If enough Dems don't vote, it will be a Democrat Shutdown! House Republicans were great yesterday!'... Trump said last week that he'd be 'proud to shut down the government,' and said he would take full responsibility for a shutdown over border security." ...
... Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump threatened Thursday to veto a stopgap spending bill unless it includes billions of dollars to build a wall along the Mexico border, sending large parts of the federal government lurching toward a shutdown starting Saturday.... House Republican leaders hurried to appease the president, pulling together a bill that would keep the government funded through Feb. 8 while also allocating $5.7 billion for the border wall. The bill included an additional nearly $8 billion for disaster relief for hurricanes and wildfires. The measure passed the House on a near-party-line vote of 217-185 Thursday night, over strident objections from Democrats.... But the House vote only hardened Washington's budget impasse barely 24 hours away from the shutdown deadline. Democrats have the Senate votes to block any bill that includes funding for Trump's wall, and Trump says he'll veto any bill that doesn't." ...
... Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday that President Trump will not sign a stopgap spending bill over concerns about border security, a decision that increases the risk of a government shutdown.... In a minute-long statement on the driveway outside the West Wing, the Speaker said lawmakers would work on adding border security measures to the funding bill but did not specifically mention border-wall funding." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jordain Carney of the Hill: "GOP senators emerged from [a] closed-door meeting in visible disbelief that President Trump is refusing to sign a seven-week stopgap measure to fund the government that cleared the chamber by a voice vote less than 24 hours ago. Senate GOP leadership appeared confident on Wednesday that Trump would sign the stopgap, which will fund approximately 25 percent of the government, as long as they kept poison pill policy riders out of it. But Trump, under fire from conservative pundits and lawmakers, reversed course Thursday. 'Are you ruining my life?' GOP Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) joked to The Hill when told about the decision.... Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who is retiring in early January, started laughing when he was told of Trump's decision. 'Well, why not?"' he quipped, asked why he was laughing, adding that he was 'not really' surprised by Trump's decision.... Scores of senators have already left town after the Senate cleared the stopgap bill Wednesday night." ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Government shutdowns are rare, and almost always ineffective, expressions of conflict between opposing parties in control of Congress and the White House. President Trump's plan to shut down the government is something different: an expression of conflict between his campaign promises and reality. Trump famously campaigned on a promise of building a wall on the southern border, and forcing Mexico to pay for it. He has two problems fulfilling this promise. First, Mexico is not going to pay for the wall under any circumstances. And second, Congress might pay for it, but only under circumstances Trump's base won't accept.... [Faced with these realities,] you could see the outline of a plan. Trump would wheedle some money out of Democrats, rebrand the tweaked NAFTA as Mexico 'paying' for it, rebrand the fence [which Democrats would approve] as a wall, and say he won.... But then right-wing media threw a fit.... For whatever reason, they're not going along with the plan of pretending the wall is getting built, and instead they're demanding Trump shut down the government to get the wall. And when right-wing infotainers demanded this, Trump 'alternately seethed and panicked about the stream of invective he's hearing from allies on television,' as Politico reports." ...
... Graham Goads Chump. Nicole Lafond of TPM: "Just as White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that President Trump didn't want to go any further without border wall funding, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) encouraged Trump to 'dig in' and 'force' lawmakers to give him wall funding instead of signing the continuing resolution." --s ...
... Sarah Ferris & John Bresnahan of Politico: "The House Republican caucus was thrown into chaos Thursday as conservatives revolted against a funding bill that includes no new money for ... Donald Trump's border wall. On the brink of a Christmastime shutdown, House Speaker Paul Ryan is confronting resistance from rank-and-file Republicans, who have begun personally egging on Trump to force a shutdown over the wall. The odds of a shutdown rose dramatically Thursday as Freedom Caucus leaders Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan headed to the White House for a sit-down with Trump himself. Ryan and his deputies began making plans to put a funding bill on the floor that would deliver $5 billion to the border wall, in an attempt to make good on Trump's promise in the final days of a GOP-controlled Congress.... The issue erupted Thursday during a raucous closed-door meeting." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Moving the Goalposts. Josh Marshall of TPM: "For reasons that are not entirely clear to me the word has apparently come down from the White House that the wall, as in the wall to be built along the southern border, must now be called 'wall'. In other words, no definite article, no 'the'." Marshall cites examples. --s ...
... Catie Edmondson & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Here's what to expect if government funding expires on Saturday." ...
... But, you know, who cares? Trump is still planning to go to Mar-a-Lago this weekend, per White House aide. -- Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post, in a tweet
... AND in related news...,
... Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "In two hours on Thursday, President Trump publicly unveiled an expansive farm bill, railed against the dangers of illegal immigration, fought with Congress over funding for a border wall and announced the departure of Jim Mattis, his defense secretary, who is resigning over what he regards as the president's ill-planned decision to pull back American troops from Syria. Why not throw in a video of himself singing the theme song from the 1960s sitcom 'Green Acres'?... It was most likely meant to boost the president as he celebrated the passage of a sweeping, $867 billion farm bill -- a result of rare bipartisan compromise that critics say his administration is already seeking to undermine by using regulatory power to restrict access to food stamps." ...
Farm Bill signing in 15 minutes! #Emmys #TBT pic.twitter.com/KtSS17xvIn
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2018
... Madison Kircher of New York: "For context, Trump and [Megan] Mullally's performance was part of a gimmick at that year's Emmy's called 'Emmy Idol,' where different celebrities performed theme songs throughout the night. Trump and Mullally were eventually declared the winners and Trump called her the next day to thank her and let her know they 'really needed to win that.' Apropos of, well, everything, Trump has never won a real Emmy and definitely isn't bitter about that fact at all." Mrs. McC: Tell Trump your job, and he'll stereotype you, too. ...
... "Trump Will Always Find a Way to Punish the Poor." Sarah Jones of New York: "On Thursday, the USDA announced a proposed rule that would, if it goes into effect, attach strict work requirements to [SNAP] the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps.... The rule would accomplish something congressional Republicans failed to do in the farm bill: expand work-for-welfare and ultimately shrink entitlement programs like SNAP.... SNAP already has work requirements in place, but states have some flexibility in how they decide to structure the programs[.]... Trump backed work requirements, but without Congress in his corner, he had to find another way to get the job done. Thus, the USDA. Trump, it turns out, can be consistent when he pleases.... Low unemployment is a convenient justification for policies to which Trump was already committed: tax cuts for the wealthy, welfare cuts for everyone else."
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
Pete Williams & Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "Special counsel Robert Mueller is nearing the end of his historic investigation into Russian election interference and is expected to submit a confidential report to the attorney general as early as mid-February, government officials and others familiar with the situation tell NBC News.... The sources who spoke to NBC News warn that a few major outstanding matters could complicate Mueller's endgame. One is Mueller's desire to interview the president about all aspects of his investigation, including obstruction of justice matters about which the president has refused to answer questions. If Mueller moved to subpoena the president, that could spark months of litigation that could delay his report. A source ... says Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker would have to approve any such subpoena."
... Charlie Savage & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Matthew G. Whitaker, who was installed last month as acting attorney general by President Trump, has cleared himself to supervise the special counsel's investigation, rejecting the recommendation of career Justice Department ethics specialists that he recuse himself, a senior department official said on Thursday. The development came soon after the disclosure that the president's nominee for attorney general, William P. Barr, had written a memo this spring in which he strongly criticized one of the main lines of inquiry by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III -- whether Mr. Trump had committed obstruction of justice. Disclosure of the memo raised questions about whether Mr. Barr would order Mr. Mueller to shut down that component of the inquiry if the Senate confirmed him. Together, the developments underscored the potential threats to Mr. Mueller's ability to complete his work without interference at a time when his inquiry appears to be drawing closer to the White House and the president's most trusted associates." ...
... ** Devlin Barrett & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "A senior Justice Department ethics official concluded acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker should recuse from overseeing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's probe examining President Trump, but advisers to Whitaker recommended the opposite and he has no plans to step aside, people familiar with the matter said. Earlier Thursday, a different official, who spoke on the condition they not be named, said ethics officials had advised Whitaker need not step aside, only to retract that description hours later. The advice to stay away from the Mueller probe underscores the high stakes and deep distrust -- within Congress and in some corners of the Justice Department -- surrounding Whitaker's appointment as the nation's top law enforcement official until the Senate votes on the nomination of William P. Barr to take the job.... Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) said Whitaker's disregarding the opinion of a senior ethics official was 'deeply alarming' and 'only reinforces the probability that his antagonism toward the Mueller probe was the sole reason for his selection as Acting Attorney General in the first place.'" ...
... Here's the New York Times story, by Charlie Savage, on AG nominee William Barr's memo bitching about the Mueller investigation. "Separately, a Justice Department official said on Thursday that Matthew G. Whitaker, the acting attorney general, had met with ethics experts at the Justice Department and would not be recusing himself from the Mueller investigation." (Related stories also linked yesterday.) ...
... Jonathan Chait: "It-s entirely possible -- indeed, it seems quite likely -- Trump was aware of the memo. The assertion by the Journal source that the memo 'played no role' in Trump's selection of Barr is therefore extremely hard to accept at face value. We know Trump is obsessed with finding an attorney general who will suppress the Mueller investigation. His candidate wrote a memo attacking Mueller, and submitted it to Trump's lawyer, who may or may not have informed others of the memo's existence. The worst-case scenario for Barr is that he opened a covert back channel to the administration and campaigned for the role of being Trump's Roy Cohn. The best-case scenario is that he merely created the appearance of impropriety. Barr, in this scenario, merely happens to be a fanatical proponent of executive power who expresses his passion for the issue by writing long memos in his spare time." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Wish you had a high-ranking job in the Justice Department? Attorney General, maybe? Here's how to apply: (1) Go on the teevee a lot & bash the special counsel probe (Whitaker). (2) OR send an unsolicited 20-page memo to the Justice Department (be sure to send copy to White House) bashing the special counsel probe (Barr). Of course it could be just a remarkable coincidence that "bash special counsel" shows up in both application processes.
Bob Mueller, Take Note. Anna Massoglia of Open Secrets: "The Trump campaign funneled money to ad buyers alleged to have facilitated illegal coordination between the campaign and the NRA by routing funds through a secretive LLC that appears to be little more than a shell company, an investigation by the Center for Responsive Politics has found. While the Trump campaign stopped reporting payments to ad buyers alleged to have facilitated illegal coordination between the campaign and the NRA after the 2016 election cycle, Trump's 2020 campaign has continued to deploy the same individuals working for the firms at the center of the controversy through payments to Harris Sikes Media LLC -- a low-profile limited-liability company operating with no website or public-facing facade whatsoever. Facing the illegal coordination allegations are National Media, Red Eagle Media Group and American Media & Advocacy Group (AMAG), closely tied consultancies that share staff, resources and adjacent storefronts in Alexandria, Va." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump does seem awfully fond of employing those secretive shell LLCs to get around campaign finance laws. (See Daniels, Stormy.)
** Anthony Cormier & Jason Leopold of BuzzFeed News: "US Treasury Department officials used [an unsecured] Gmail back channel with the Russian government as the Kremlin sought sensitive financialinformation on its enemies in America and across the globe, according to documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News. The extraordinary unofficial line of communication arose in the final year of the Obama administration -- in the midst of what multiple US intelligence agencies have said was a secret campaign by the Kremlin to interfere in the US election. Russian agents ostensibly trying to track ISIS instead pressed their American counterparts for private financial documents on at least two dozen dissidents, academics, private investigators, and American citizens. Most startlingly, Russia requested sensitive documents on Dirk, Edward, and Daniel Ziff, billionaire investors who had run afoul of the Kremlin. That request was made weeks before a Russian lawyer showed up at Trump Tower offering top campaign aides 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton -- including her supposed connection to the Ziff brothers. Russia's financial crimes agency, whose second-in-command is a former KGB officer and schoolmate of President Vladimir Putin, also asked the Americans for documents on executives from two prominent Jewish groups, the Anti-Defamation League and the National Council of Jewish Women, as well as Kremlin opponents living abroad in London and Kiev.... Russia's attempts to extract information about Western targets triggered alarms inside the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN...."
Ken Dilanian: "Soon after the Democrats take control of the House next year, Rep. Richard Neal, who will be the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, expects to send a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin requesting copies of Donald Trump's [tax] returns.... A 1924 federal law -- 26 U.S. Code § 6103 -- mandates that the Treasury secretary 'shall furnish' the tax returns of any individual for private review by the chairmen of the House and Senate tax committees. Committee sources could find no evidence that it had ever been used to obtain somebody's tax return. But they say the law, which was passed to monitor conflicts of interest in the executive branch, is clear.... But Neal has said he also expects that the Treasury Department -- and perhaps Trump himself -- will put up a ferocious legal fight.... If and when he does get them, Neal and the Democrats plan to make the returns public, Congressional sources told NBC News.... Legal experts say ... it's a near certainty that special counsel Robert Mueller's team, and perhaps federal prosecutors in Manhattan, long ago obtained Trump's tax returns, meaning not just his personal returns, but those associated with every company he controls."
"Gohmert Wisdom", Ctd. Frank Dale of ThinkProgress: "Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) attempted to defend President Donald Trump's family separation policy on Thursday by implying it is no different than special counsel Robert Mueller pursuing the prosecution of Paul Manafort, thereby separating him from his own adult children." --s
Katelyn Marmon of ThinkProgress: "Only Congress can amend U.S. immigration policy. But to bypass it, the Trump administration has focused on asylum, over which the executive branch can exercise more control. The Trump administration has spent the last two years reshaping the asylum policies in unprecedented ways, resulting in confusion across the board for immigrants and advocates alike. Here are three big ways the Trump administration has changed asylum over the last two years. This list is not exhaustive, but it highlights the multi-pronged approach the administration is employing to restrict asylum." --s
Alex Emmons of The Intercept: "ON JANUARY 30, 2017, then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer announced that the Pentagon had conducted a 'very successful' special operations raid against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. The raid resulted in the deaths of 'an estimated 14 AQAP members' and one U.S. service member, later identified as Navy Seal William 'Ryan' Owens, Spicer said..... But ... the Pentagon privately assessed that the raid had killed more than twice as many people as it had initially said.... Those numbers contradict on-the-ground reporting, which found that most of the dead were villagers who mistook the SEALs for members of a Yemeni rebel group known as the Houthis, their local adversaries. Those killed included at least six women and 10 children under the age of 13, residents said." --s
Mick Moved to the Shit List. Mike Allen, et al. of Axios: "[O]fficials at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue tell us that Trump is complaining about his& incoming chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, in conversations inside the West Wing and with Capitol Hill. Trump asked one trusted adviser: 'Did you know [Mulvaney] called me "a terrible human being" back during the campaign?' We're told that Trump was furious when the slight surfaced[.]" --s
A Very Special White House Retirement Plan. Maggie Haberman & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "After weeks of discussions about his future, Zachary D. Fuentes, the 36-year-old deputy White House chief of staff..., told colleagues that after his mentor, John F. Kelly, left his job as chief of staff at the end of the year, he would 'hide out' at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House, for six months, remaining on the payroll in a nebulous role. Then, in July, when he had completed 19 years of service in the Coast Guard, Mr. Fuentes -- an active-duty officer -- would take advantage of an early retirement program. The program ... had lapsed for Coast Guard officials at the end of the 2018 fiscal year, and, according to people briefed on the discussions, Department of Homeland Security officials began pressing Congress in November to reinstate it. Administration officials said they had been told that Mr. Fuentes discussed the program with officials at the Department of Homeland Security, and after reporters raised questions with lawmakers of both parties, a provision to reinstate it was abruptly pulled from a House bill on Wednesday. The White House declined to answer questions about whether Mr. Fuentes had pressed to have the program restarted...."
Mrs. McCrabbie: So I suppose you won't be surprised to find out that the guy who is running a GoFundMe page to build the Great Wall of Trump is a right-wing nut. Ben Collins & Brandy Zadrozny of NBC News: "... Brian Kolfage spent a large portion of the fundraising campaign's description outlining his past.... The fundraising page doesn't mention Kolfage's most recent business venture, a Facebook page titled Right Wing News and a ring of affiliate sites that frequently trafficked in conspiracy theories. In October, Right Wing News was pulled down by Facebook in a sweep of more than 559 pages that the company said were 'using fake accounts ... to drive traffic to their websites' or 'were ad farms using Facebook to mislead people into thinking that they were forums for legitimate political debate.' Days after the pulldown, Kolfage created a group called Fight4FreeSpeech, which accepts donations, and is also not referenced in the GoFundMe.... [Kolfage's] sites often trafficked in false, inflammatory and racist content.... Kolfage told NBC News he didn't want to mention Right Wing News or Fight4FreeSpeech because he 'didn't want it to be a distraction.'"
Judy Kurtz of the Hill: "Former President Obama did his best Santa Claus impression while making a surprise hospital visit at Children's National Health System in Washington." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
I only read the Constitution for the articles. -- Ilya Shapiro, conservative lawyer
Funny, But. That should be "I read the Constitution only for the Articles." -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie, liberal pedant
Scott Shane & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "As Russia’s online election machinations came to light last year, a group of Democratic tech experts decided to try out similarly deceptive tactics in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate race, according to people familiar with the effort and a report on its results. The secret project, carried out on Facebook and Twitter, was likely too small to have a significant effect on the race, in which the Democratic candidate it was designed to help, Doug Jones, edged out the Republican, Roy S. Moore. But it was a sign that American political operatives of both parties have paid close attention to the Russian methods, which some fear may come to taint elections in the United States." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Matt Phillips of the New York Times: "Stocks tumbled yet again on Thursday, a day after the Federal Reserve pushed forward with another interest-rate increase and offered few signs that it would sharply slow the pace of monetary tightening as many had hoped. The S&P 500-stock index declined 1.6 percent, and the Dow Jones industrial index fell 2 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 1.6 percent, pushing it 19.5 percent below its late-August peak. A decline of 20 percent marks the official start of a bear market. On its own, the broader S&P 500 is down more than 15 percent from its peak, within spitting distance of entering a bear market and ending the long bull rally that began in early 2009."
Laura Davison & Shobhana Chandra of Bloomberg News, via Yahoo! News: "The amount of offshore cash corporations are bringing back to the U.S. dropped sharply for a second straight quarter, falling short of the trillions of dollars ... Donald Trump had promised would result from his tax overhaul.... Trump has said, without specifying his source, that he expects more than $4 trillion to return to the U.S., which will help to create jobs and more investment." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link....
... Mrs. McCrabbie BTW: Trump's $4 trillion estimate, not surprisingly, does not make any sense. According to an expert the reporters cite, "The amount of cash accumulated offshore is probably closer to $2.5 trillion than $4 trillion." Even if the amount were $4 trillion, for various reasons, companies would not repatriate 100% of it. As it is, assuming the expert is right, there's not more than about $2.5 trillion out there to repatriate, and again, corporations will not bring 100% of that back into the U.S. (Also linked yesterday.)
Natalie Kitroeff & Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "Discrimination against pregnant women and new mothers remains widespread in the American workplace. It is so pervasive that even organizations that define themselves as champions of women are struggling with the problem. That includes Planned Parenthood, which has been accused of sidelining, ousting or otherwise handicapping pregnant employees, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees. In interviews and legal documents, women at Planned Parenthood and other organizations with a feminist bent described discrimination that violated federal or state laws -- managers considering pregnancy in hiring decisions, for example, or denying rest breaks recommended by a doctor.... Some of those employers saw accommodating expecting mothers as expensive and inconvenient. Others were unsympathetic to workers seeking special treatment."
Daniel Burke of CNN: "In yet another blow to the Catholic Church in the United States, Illinois' attorney general says the state's six dioceses have failed to disclose accusations of sexual abuse against at least 500 priests and clergy members. Illinois' dioceses have released lists publicly identifying 185 clergy members who had been credibly accused of child sex abuse. But state Attorney General Lisa Madigan said preliminary findings in her investigation reveal that the church failed to disclose sexual abuse allegations against at least 500 additional priests and clergy members. In many cases, the accusations have 'not been adequately investigated by the dioceses or not investigated at all,' Madigan's office said in a statement Wednesday. What's more, the statement added, the church often failed to notify law enforcement authorities or the state's Department of Children and Family Services about the allegations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond the Beltway
Barak Ravid in Axios: "More than three months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin's national security adviser Nikolai Patrushev gave his Israeli counterpart ... an unofficial proposal for a deal between the U.S. and Russia on Syria and Iran.... The Russian proposal would have tied a U.S. withdrawal from Syria to an Iranian exit from the country, and provided the U.S. and Israel more influence over a future political settlement in Syria. However, it also called for a freeze on U.S. sanctions on Iran -- something Netanyahu found unacceptable." --s
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I know Agent Orange is taking fire from all sides right now, but I have to imagine the true source of his latest rage-gasm is Mr. Barack Hussein Obama and his being a cheerful human being and all. The seething anger accumulating under the presidunce*'s skin watching Obama smiling on teevee "going high" while Drvmpvs lives low might be one of the greatest threats to our nation.
Wow! The most efficient Christmas gift ever. Our POTUS rewards Russia, Turkey and Syria at no cost to us. 50K Syrians may die but they can't vote for Trump so it doesn't matter.
This morning I heard a clip of Fatty responding, back in October, to a quote from Mattis who had indicated the necessity of NATO for world peace. Trump blew him off "I know more about it than he does" he sniffed.
I wonder, does he really believe his own line of shit about how much smarter he is than people who have been intimately involved in their line of work for their entire professional life, or is it just part of his shtick? Because if he really does believe it, I want him, after being rushed to the emergency room because of complications from obesity, lack of exercise, Big Mac poisoning, and general dissolution, to instruct the ER doctors in how to treat him, sure that he knows more about emergency medicine than they do. Can that happen, please?
No wonder Mattis wanted out. It's one thing to be publicly humiliated by your boss and kicked around as if you're a know-nothing schmoe, it's another to have, as your primary responsibility, the strategy, readiness, capability, and deployment of the full power of American military might, and to be overruled by a draft dodging dumb ass who couldn't tell an MRE from an RPG, but who thinks he can pull thousands of military personnel out of an ongoing mission--against all the best advice--and get "a win".
It's worse than taking orders from a moron. It's taking orders from a moron who believes he's the smartest guy in the room. As I once put it, it's like having your starting pitcher know nothing at all about baseball but thinking he's the best player on the field.
Mattis, channeling a player from the hockey gem "Slap Shot", was probably thinking "Trade me right fucking now!"
Once again we screw the Kurds.
Back in the First Gulf War, Poppy Bush enticed the Kurds (and Shiites) to rise up against Saddam Hussein, telling them he'd have their backs. When they did, he left them in the lurch, knowing full well that Hussein, who had murdered thousands of Kurds in poison gas attacks, would take it out on them. He did. Bush patted himself on the back, said "What a good boy am I" and went home, leaving the Kurds to their fate.
Fast forward to the Syria civil war. America goes in to support the forces fighting ISIS, many of which included Kurds. And now, just as progress has been made, Fatty sez "Sorry, boys. I have a win so I'm just gonna fuck off home now. Good luck." And to top it off, he lets the Turks know they can do what they want with the Kurds.
Trump is showing the entire world, both our allies and our enemies, that America cannot be trusted and will desert its friends at the drop of a Super Sized milkshake if Fatty thinks he personally can get something out of it.
It's one thing to shut down the government. That's bad. But to run out on allies, like the Kurds, who have done most of real fighting and dying, to leave them to almost certain death, is quite another. And all to create a little head fake to push the Wall to the back of the newscast for a couple of nights.
Despicable doesn't even come close.
As predictable as kicking the poor...
Once again R's are getting ready to shut down the hated guv'mint to get what they want and who's to blame?
Why, Democrats! Of course.
It's always the same. You knew this would be the clarion call of all shutdown supporters on the right. It can't possibly be their fault. Noooo. Horrors. Must be those horrible Demycraps.
Again.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........
I can't even...
EXCEPT to say that the lovefest for Mattis reminds me of Bush I's funeral. Because both men are "better" than the fraud in the White House, people are talking about "adults in the room," which is ridiculous. Mattis is no liberal. He is only marginally better than the CIC, and he is pissed over a number of things, and only this one pushes him over the edge... Imagine. All the things (including the killing of a journalist in Turkey)previously were apparently okay with him. Yemen? Not a squeak... These are collectively the worst people we have ever had the misfortune to be ruled by. The "wall" was invented by the Idiot-In-Chief and now the taxpayers have to pay for it or have shutdown? All the morons parading to the White House are fully to blame-- Idiot heard too much blather from his foxies and toadies and now has dug in his disgusting toes. Gahhhh-- Not surprised at any of this-- our lives are systematically being ruined or taken by a spoiled dipshit.
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testifying in Congress: "I would ask for wall. We need wall.”
The drive to eliminate that pesky definite article has Melania's fingerprints all over it. Clearly the fruit of her campaign to "Be Best."
Monoloco,
I'm guessing none of these people read the Constitution for the articles.
"We, people of United States..."
The big mouth giveth and the small print taketh away.
Just a few days ago Fatty declared that he’d be proud to shut down the government. In fact, he said (practically shouted) that he would personally take “full responsibility” for the shutdown.
Today, in a tweetie-tweet, it’s very different. “It will be a Democrat shutdown!!! I have nothing to do with it!!
Happy Hollandaise, or something equally saucy.
APROPOS OF THAT THING CALLED A WALL:
In one of Amos Oz's novels his Israeli characters asks:
"Don't you believe that in 1948 we fought because we had no alternative? That we had our backs to the wall?"
"No"––his Jewish counterpart, replies, "you didn't have your backs to the wall. You WERE the wall.
A few years ago Adam Shiff accompanied McCain to a couple of international conferences. Once, in Munich, they had dinner with Bono and Bill Gates. Bono tells a joke about being Irish and then gets serious:
"You know, I love Ireland, I'm a proud Irishman. Ireland is a great country, but it's not an idea."
Shiff said he realized when Bono said that, that what's really at risk right now is the whole idea of America. People around the world are questioning what we stand for. Maybe we're not the country that they thought we were. And, as long as long as they don't recognize what they see in the oval office, there's a big responsibility on the members of congress to speak those values."
We wait on that responsibility.
Reference the item about Russia making a proposal to Israel for future discussions about Syria (including the role of Iran) and Netanyahu turning it down. After the Khashoggi murder and dismemberment, apparently because of Erdogan's relentless release of evidence more and more embarrassing to the Saudi crown prince, there was a meeting in Ankara between France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis promised to finally stop providing money, arms, and ammunition to the ISIS remnants in Syria, and to enter into truce talks with the Houthi in Yemen. The U.S. is not participating. I do not know if they were invited or not, but these moves are contrary to Pompeo's announced policies, so I guess not. The truce talks in Yemen have already produced a (temporary) cease fire in the port city of Hodeida. A UN Peacekeeping Force is moving into the city. I wonder if this had any effect on Mattis's decision to retire, since he is a solid neoconservative and opposed to all these moves.