;)
The Commentariat -- December 22, 2017
Afternoon Update:
Eileen Sullivan & Michael Tackett of the New York Times: "President Trump signed the most consequential tax legislation in three decades on Friday, even as he complained that he has not been given credit for his administration's accomplishments during a turbulent first year. Mr. Trump decided against doing a formal signing ceremony early next year because television news networks questioned whether he would keep his promise to sign the legislation before Christmas. Mr. Trump said he saw the coverage Friday morning and hastily called his staff to say that the legislation needed to be signed 'now,' prompting a last-minute Oval Office ceremony for the president's greatest achievement in his first year in office." ...
... Naomi Jagoda of the Hill: "Congress's tax scorekeeper said Friday that the tax-cut package President Trump signed earlier in the day won't fully pay for itself through economic growth. After accounting for macroeconomic effects, the bill would reduce federal revenue by $1.07 trillion over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). While that's less than the $1.46 trillion price tag the JCT put on the bill before accounting for economic growth, the committee says the bill still isn't close to being deficit-neutral. The JCT's report was released hours after Trump signed the tax package into law at the White House. The president said that the tax cuts will be 'fantastic for the economy.'" Mrs. McC: Yeah, & Ivanka Trump said the tax heist would pay for itself. So the JCT must be wrong. ...
... Jesse Drucker & Audrey Carlsen of the New York Times: "President Trump would save about $11 million on his taxes, if the new Republican tax overhaul were applied to his 2005 tax return, a New York Times analysis has found. The savings would be a roughly 30 percent cut. He would also save another $4.4 million on his eventual estate tax bill."
Mattathias Schwartz in New York: "Multiple news organizations have calculated that the death toll [in Puerto Rico] from Hurricane Maria exceeds 1,000; the New York Times, reviewing mortality data from previous years, identified an increase of 1,052 deaths during the first 42 days alone. This, too, is surely an incomplete reckoning. Even as the federal government winds down its response..., some homes are not expected to regain electricity for months. Experts are warning that, with the ballooning mosquito population and lack of clean drinking water, Puerto Rico is at risk of an epidemic. Though Donald Trump has mostly ignored it, he is presiding over a historic tragedy. By the time the island returns to normalcy, Maria could easily have surpassed Katrina to become the country's deadliest natural disaster in living memory."
Ana Swanson of the New York Times: A year ago, "Mr. Trump pledged to build roads and bridges, strengthen 'Buy America' provisions, protect factories from unfair imports and revive industry, especially steel. But after a year in office, Mr. Trump has not enacted these policies. And when it comes to steel, his failure to follow through on a promise has actually done more harm than good.... Foreign steel makers have rushed to get their product into the United States before tariffs start.... That surge of imports has hurt American steel makers, which were already struggling against a glut of cheap Chinese steel." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It's amazing how many Trump voters knew he was a non-stop liar but still thought whatever he said that profited them was the one true thing.
Andrew Restuccia & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "About 100 of ... Donald Trump's nominees have been kicked back to the White House, prolonging an unusually high number of vacancies across his administration and escalating the Senate's long-running nomination wars. While the Senate agreed to keep roughly 150 of Trump's picks for consideration next year, it refused to do so on roughly 100 others, according to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office. That means the White House will have to renominate them if Trump wants them installed.... Any one senator can object to allowing a nominee to be carried over. Though it's likely Democrats are responsible for most of the rejections, Republicans also could have triggered some, too.... Democrats said the caliber of Trump's nominees warranted [the holds]. In an interview earlier this week, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said he would look for obstacles to oppose nominees with 'egregious conflicts of interest,' an 'appalling lack of knowledge about the job,' or 'who are inclined to destroy the very agencies that they;re assigned to support the mission of.'"
Rick Gladstone & David Sanger of the New York Times: "The United Nations Security Council imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Friday that significantly choke off new fuel supplies and order North Koreans working overseas to return home within two years, in what may prove the last test of whether any amount of economic pressure can force it to reverse course on its nuclear program. The sanctions, adopted by a vote of 15 to 0, were the third imposed this year in an escalating effort to force the North into negotiations. China and Russia joined in the resolution, though American officials have charged that in recent months the Russians have secretly been opening new links to the North, including new internet connections that give the country an alternative to communicating primarily through China."
Wow! Haley Invites Some Lucky Diplomats to a Party! Julia Manchester of the Hill: "U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley issued thanks to the countries that did not vote for a U.N. resolution condemning the United States' decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Haley on Thursday sent invitations to a January reception to the eight countries that voted 'no' on the resolution, as well as the 35 countries that abstained from the vote and the 21 that did not cast a vote. Haley's invitation asks the nations who voted 'no,' abstained from voting or didn't cast a vote 'to a reception to thank you for your friendship to the United States.'" Mrs. McC: How stupid is this?
Raphael Satter, et al., of the AP: "... the hacking group known as Fancy Bear ... [targeted] at least 200 journalists, publishers and bloggers.... The AP identified journalists as the third-largest group on a hacking hit list obtained from cybersecurity firm Secureworks, after diplomatic personnel and U.S. Democrats. About 50 of the journalists worked at The New York Times. Another 50 were either foreign correspondents based in Moscow or Russian reporters like Lobkov who worked for independent news outlets. Others were prominent media figures in Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltics or Washington. The list of journalists provides new evidence for the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Fancy Bear acted on behalf of the Russian government when it intervened in the U.S. presidential election. Spy agencies say the hackers were working to help Republican Donald Trump."
Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have sought bank records about entities associated with the family company of Jared Kushner..., according to four people briefed on the matter. In recent weeks, prosecutors from the United States attorney's office in the Eastern District of New York subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank, the giant German financial institution that has lent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kushner family real estate business. Mr. Kushner, who was the Kushner Companies' chief executive until January, still owns part of the business after selling some of his stake."
Billy House of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon and his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski have been asked to testify to House lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Both men were sent letters this week by the House Intelligence Committee asking them to testify in early January.... The committee hasn't yet received a response from either Bannon or Lewandowski. The invitation, which didn't come in the form of a subpoena compelling them to testify, was for a 'voluntary interview' in the committee's offices, which means it would be held behind closed doors, the official said."
Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Just Kidding Edition. Judd Legum of Think Progress: "Some right-wing media outlets went to extreme lengths to discredit the women accusing Roy Moore of child sex abuse. Now, two men in charge of organizations involved in those smear campaigns claim they actually believed Moore's accusers all along.... In an interview with CNN, Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow said the claims of Leigh Corfman, who said she was sexually assaulted by Moore when she was 14, 'had a lot of credibility.'... James O'Keefe, the founder of the pseudo-journalism outlet Project Veritas, told Mediaite that he believed Moore's accusers. He didn't let that belief interfere with his work trying to discredit them, however, because 'it’s not my subject matter.' O'Keefe claims his effort was about 'bias in the media.' O'Keefe tasked an operative to pose as a fake Roy Moore rape victim and approach Washington Post reporters with a false story.... The operation failed after the Post did basic background research on the woman, but the clear purpose was to undermine the credibility of the real accusers in the Washington Post's initial report -- which O'Keefe now says he believes was accurate."
*****
The Cheese Stands Alone. Rick Gladstone & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "A lopsided majority of United Nations members rebuked the United States on Thursday, denouncing its decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and ignoring President Trump's threats to retaliate by cutting aid to countries voting against it. In a collective act of defiance toward Washington, the United Nations General Assembly voted 128 to 9, with 35 abstentions, for a resolution demanding that the United States rescind its Dec. 6 declaration on Jerusalem, the contested holy city. The resolution is nonbinding and therefore largely symbolic, but the vote indicated the extent to which the Trump administration's departure from a 50-year international consensus on Jerusalem's status has unsettled world politics and contributed to America's diplomatic isolation. Major allies like Britain, France, Germany and Japan voted for the resolution, though some allies, like Australia and Canada, abstained." E-I-E-I-O. ...
... "Trump Is Trying to Corrupt the U.N." Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "The basic premise of the United Nations, according to the Trump administration, is that the U.S. spends a lot of money on the organization and in return other members should vote the way we want them to vote. If they don't, we may punish the entire organization. We may punish individual countries in other ways by withholding or canceling economic or military or humanitarian aid. We also will react negatively to anything that can be perceived as disrespect, and if the United Nations as a whole questions our foreign policy decisions, that is definitely a sign of disrespect rather than substantive or moral disagreement.... This behavior is corrupt.... Threats we can't keep don't make us stronger or more respected, and they certainly don't increase the likelihood that we'll get the votes we want in the future. Overall, this has been a shameful and horrid day for the United States on the international stage." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: It's worth remembering that millions of Americans voted for Old MacDonald based on his overarching sales pitch that he was a great dealmaker who would use his incredible negotiating skills to MAGA. If continually issuing petty threats that alienate friend & foe alike are MAGA, then the Trumpbots were right. ...
... "Narcissistic, Vengeful Autocrat." David Ferguson of the Raw Story: "Former CIA Director John O. Brennan joined Twitter back in September but never used his account until Thursday and when he broke his silence, it was to slam ... Donald Trump. First, Brennan remembered the victims of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1998, but his next tweet was aimed squarely at the White House. 'Trump Admin threat to retaliate against nations that exercise sovereign right in UN to oppose US position on Jerusalem is beyond outrageous,' wrote Brennan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. 'Shows @realDonaldTrump expects blind loyalty and subservience from everyone -- qualities usually found in narcissistic, vengeful autocrats.'" ...
... New York Times Editors: "Many elements of President Trump's first National Security Strategy report could have been endorsed by his predecessors.... Where the exercise runs aground is in the disconnect between the strategy, as it appears on paper, and which in some respects reflects mainstream thinking, and Mr. Trump's tweets, statements and actions that present the unpredictable public face of his policies -- including his comments ... introducing the document.... Nowhere are the contradictions between Mr. Trump and the strategy document more obvious than on the subject of Russia.... [Trump's] boastfulness and belligerence and tendency to self-aggrandizement are not only costing America worldwide support, but also isolating it. Case in point: [the Jerusalem fiasco]." ...
... Declan Walsh of the New York Times: "Vice President Mike Pence's planned visit to the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity, ought to have had a particular poignancy in the days before Christmas. When he first floated the idea of a trip in October, Mr. Pence, an evangelical Christian, vowed to highlight the persecution of Christians at the hands of Islamic State extremists, and he scheduled meeting with several Christian leaders, which was sure to play well with his conservative American base.... But then on Dec. 6, President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, smashing seven decades of American policy and provoking violent protests. One by one, Christian leaders publicly canceled their meetings with Mr. Pence. President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority -- a critical figure in the Trump administration's ambitious plans for a sweeping Middle East peace deal -- also canceled. Then Mr. Pence himself canceled the whole trip, saying he needed to stay in Washington to oversee an important tax reform vote -- an assertion that drew a measure of skepticism." ...
Christianity now faces an exodus in the Middle East unrivaled since the days of Moses. -- mike pence, "in a speech sprinkled with biblical references" ...
Those must be the Christians for whom Jesus parted the Red Sea? -- Patrick, in yesterday's thread
Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "In a legal victory for the Trump administration, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit on Thursday that accused President Trump of violating the Constitution by continuing to own and profit from his business empire. The complaint, filed this year in the Southern District of New York, said that Mr. Trump had harmed plaintiffs in the restaurant and hotel business, including an organization representing more than 200 restaurants and thousands of employees. The lawsuit said that the plaintiffs competed directly with restaurants that Mr. Trump owns or in which he has a financial interest and that they had suffered as a result of his failure to fully distance himself from his businesses.... Judge George B. Daniels of United States District Court in Manhattan found that the plaintiffs had failed to show that they had lost revenue because of specific actions by Mr. Trump. Even before Mr. Trump took office, the judge said, 'he had amassed wealth and fame and was competing against' the plaintiffs." Mrs. McC: Daniels was appointed by Bill Clinton. ...
... MEANWHILE. Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: "All six defendants in a crucial trial involving demonstrators arrested during ... Donald Trump’s inauguration were found not guilty of all charges on Thursday. The trial of the six defendants ― Jennifer Armento, Oliver Harris, Brittne Lawson, Michelle Macchio, Christina Simmons and Alexei Wood ― began in mid-November. It raised major First Amendment issues and was seen as a bellwether that could determine whether the government will proceed with the prosecutions of many of the nearly 200 other defendants who have trials scheduled throughout the next year. Despite Thursday's verdict, Justice Department prosecutors appeared ready to take all of the remaining defendants to trial.... The first six to go on trial include a photographer who had solicited a news outlet for inauguration-related work and two women who acted as 'street medics' that day and were carrying medical supplies."
The Trump Russia Scandal
Caroline Orr of Shareblue: "In a move that went largely unnoticed last week, Donald Trump quietly handed Russian President Vladimir Putin ... an invitation to continue undermining American democracy, with no strings attached.... Hours after signing the annual defense spending bill called the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Trump released an accompanying presidential signing statement formalizing his opposition to a slew of measures aimed at enforcing a tougher U.S. policy towards Russia. The measures, which passed with large bipartisan majorities in both chambers of Congress, focus on combatting Russian aggression in the U.S. and around the world, with a specific focus on hybrid warfare operations. They were included in the NDAA as part of a broader response to Russian election interference and ongoing influence campaigns waged by the Kremlin.... In the statement, Trump explicitly objected to over 40 provisions included in the bill, most of which were aimed at bolstering our defenses against Russian aggression. Among other things, Trump ... specifically noted his objection to the subsection directing the military and other government agencies to strengthen our defenses against cyberattacks, as well as developing new strategies to counter the 'use of misinformation, disinformation..., active measures, propaganda, and deception and denial activities of the Russian Federation in the United States and Europe, through traditional and social media.'" ...
... Manu Raju & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe faced numerous questions this week about his interactions, conversations and correspondence with his one-time boss, former FBI Director James Comey, spanning both the FBI's Russia investigation and its probe into Hillary Clinton's private email server, according to multiple sources from both parties with knowledge of his testimony. In private testimony before the House Intelligence Committee this week, McCabe told lawmakers that Comey informed him of conversations he had with ... Donald Trump soon after they happened, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter. The testimony suggests McCabe could corroborate Comey's account, including Trump's ask that Comey show him loyalty, which the President has strongly disputed. Comey previously testified that he briefed some of his senior colleagues at the FBI about this conversation with Trump. McCabe appeared for more than 14 hours of testimony behind closed doors in two sessions this week before members of the House Intelligence, Oversight and Judiciary committees, amid growing calls for his firing from Republicans critical of the FBI's handling of both investigations." ...
... Where "Oversight" = Collaborating & Interference. Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider: "Republican lawmakers' sustained attacks on the FBI and the special counsel Robert Mueller in recent weeks have raised questions about whether the White House has coordinated or influenced the effort. Three House Republicans most opposed to Mueller's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election -- Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz & Ron DeSantis -- have indicated that they have spoken to the White House -- and ... Donald Trump directly -- about it.... It is unclear whether [Devin] Nunes has remained in contact with Trump.... Nunes ... has for weeks been meeting secretly with a group of House Intelligence Committee Republicans to build a case that senior leaders of the Justice Department and FBI mishandled the contents of the Trump-Russia dossier -- a raw intelligence document compiled by the former British spy Christopher Steele outlining allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow." ...
... Richard Painter & Norman Eisen in a New York Times op-ed on the ways Trump & his allies are working to undermine Robert Mueller & his investigators. ...
... Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "The selection of Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) as the ranking member on Judiciary was the clearest sign yet of how seriously House Democrats consider the possibility of a full-blown constitutional showdown with Trump. You wouldn't know it from how many of them talk. When it comes to the I-word, most Democrats have walked a tightrope -- with even Nadler hesitant to mention impeachment in interviews before votes were cast Wednesday.... Nadler won [the committee leadership post in] a secret ballot 118 to 72, demonstrating that this caucus wants to be ready to clash with Trump if it vaults into the majority after next year's midterm elections." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Greg Sargent: "This is exactly what Democrats should be doing -- right now. Not just because an impeachment battle might actually happen, but also for another reason: Democrats will need to find a more effective way to talk to the American people about the serial degradation of our democracy we are seeing in the Trump era, for the good of the party, yes, but also for the good of the country.... Trump's ongoing self-dealing and abuses of power, the facts being unearthed in the Russia probes, the obvious efforts earlier this year to hamstring the FBI investigation, the blithe lack of concern about future assaults on our democracy, the uncontrollable contempt for governing norms and the rule of law, and the profound inability to grasp the most basic obligations that come with his office -- both to the public and to the integrity of our system of government -- plainly add up to an aggregate level of degradation that commands a serious effort to determine whether he is fit to continue." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Stephanie Baker & Irina Reznik of Bloomberg: Robert Mueller's team is looking into a sham U.S. foundation "financed by $500,000 in donations, mostly from wealthy Russians with ties to Petr Katsyv, deputy director of Russian Railways and a longtime acquaintance of Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika. Rather than a nonprofit helping unite Americans with Russian adoptees, the foundation was a lobbying vehicle against sanctions.... Most of the Russians financing the foundation said in interviews that they knew nothing about U.S. adoptions of Russian children, contradicting the foundation's U.S. disclosure forms.... [Robert] Akhmetshin, a former Soviet intelligence officer [who is a lobbyist for & employee of the 'foundation']..., met with senior officials of the Donald Trump campaign in New York: the candidate's son, son-in-law and campaign manager." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Luke Nozicka of the Des Moines Register: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday commuted the prison sentence of former Iowa slaughterhouse executive Sholom Rubashkin, who was sentenced to 27 years for bank fraud and money laundering, the White House said. In a statement, the White House said the decision, which is not a presidential pardon, had bipartisan support from leaders across the political spectrum, such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). Trump's action does not vacate Rubashkin's conviction and leaves his term of supervised release and a restitution obligation, the White House said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: For one thing, Trump sees nothing wrong with bank fraud & money laundering.
Roger Cohen of the New York Times: "If this is America...." Cohen, with a little help from Rudyard Kipling, reminds us of what Trump & Trumpistas have wrought. "This is not America. It must be fought for and won back." ...
... Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "There's been a synthesis, in which Trump and establishment Republicans adopt one another's worst qualities. Trump, who campaigned as a putative economic populist -- even calling for higher taxes on the rich -- will soon sign into law the tax plan of the House speaker Paul Ryan's Ayn Randian dreams. The majority of elected Republicans, in turn, are assuming a posture of slavish submission to Trump, worshiping their dear leader and collaborating in the maintenance of his alternative reality.... The mounting authoritarianism of the Republican Party under Trump is particularly blatant when it comes to the Russia investigation." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: You may have noticed that when today's columnists try to figure out what has gone wrong with this country, they inevitably turn to philosophers & other observers who studied Nazism & other totalitarian phenomena. ...
... Masha Gessen of the New Yorker: "Donald Trump has scored a legislative victory with staggering costs. The price of the tax bill has to be measured not only in the loss American society will face in the increase in inequality, in the impact on public health, and the growth of the deficit, but also in the damage to political culture inflicted by the spectacle of one powerful man after another telling lies of various sorts.... There is the [political speech] genre of the thoroughly insincere pronouncement that is all empty ritual.... These kinds of speeches are usually given in dictatorships: their intended audience is not the public but the tyrant. This is what we observed in Washington on Wednesday, and it's the scariest part of Trump's big tax triumph."
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "An Oval Office meeting involving President Trump and his top advisers on Wednesday devolved into a heated exchange between his former campaign manager [Corey Lewandowski] and the White House political director [Bill Stepien], people briefed on the discussion said." Trump was mellow.
Republican Family Values. Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is considering measures to halt a surge of Central American families and unaccompanied minors coming across the Mexican border, including a proposal to separate parents from their children, according to Trump administration officials with knowledge of the plans. These measures ... would also crack down on& migrants living in the United States illegally who send for their children. That aspect of the effort would use data collected by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to target parents for deportation after they attempt to regain custody of their children from government shelters." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: As cruel as this proposal sounds, it's perfectly consistent with the Roy Moore school of philosophy. In this school of thought, the only "family values" are "white family values," so it is quite all right to tear apart non-white families. It is one thing, of course, to hear an old crank like Moore voice an opinion about superior family values in the good old, pre-Civil War days, and quite another to learn a high-level federal official is making the break-up of families part of a plan for the future. Feliz Navidad, people.
Lisa Friedman, et al., of the New York Times & ProPublica: "More than 700 people have left the Environmental Protection Agency since President Trump took office, a wave of departures that puts the administration nearly a quarter of the way toward its goal of shrinking the agency to levels last seen during the Reagan administration.... The departures reflect poor morale and a sense of grievance at the agency, which has been criticized by President Trump and top Republicans in Congress as bloated and guilty of regulatory overreach. That unease is likely to deepen following revelations that Republican campaign operatives were using the Freedom of Information Act to request copies of emails from E.P.A. officials suspected of opposing Mr. Trump and his agenda.... Within the agency, science in particular is taking a hard hit. More than 27 percent of those who left this year were scientists.... Scientists, for the most part, are also not being replaced.... Political appointees, however, are on the rise."
When You Think They Can't Get Worse.... Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions is rescinding an Obama-era Justice Department letter that asked local courts across the country to be wary of slapping poor defendants with fines and fees to fill their jurisdictions' coffers, part of a broad rollback of guidance that Sessions believes overreached. It's the latest move in Sessions's effort to dramatically reshape the Justice Department by undoing many of the reforms imposed by his predecessors and giving the institution a harder edge. Sessions is revoking 25 previous guidance documents dating back decades and covering topics as diverse as ATF procedures and the Americans With Disabilities Act." Mrs. McC: Do we still have to call it the "Justice" Department?
Cold Case Files. Tom Winter, et al., of NBC News: "On the orders of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Justice Department prosecutors have begun asking FBI agents to explain the evidence they found in a now dormant criminal investigation into a controversial uranium deal that critics have linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton, multiple law enforcement officials told NBC News. The interviews with FBI agents are part of the Justice Department's effort to fulfill a promise an assistant attorney general made to Congress last month to examine whether a special counsel was warranted to look into what has become known as the Uranium One deal, a senior Justice Department official said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Despite Trump's Best Efforts.... Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The Trump administration said Thursday that 8.8 million people had signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act's federal marketplace, a surprisingly large number only slightly lower than the total in the last open enrollment period, which was twice as long and heavily advertised."
** Mike DeBonis & Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "The House passed a short-term spending measure Thursday to avert a partial government shutdown at midnight Friday and advanced a separate $81 billion disaster relief bill to aid victims of recent hurricanes and wildfires. The Senate is expected to vote Thursday evening on the stopgap, which passed the House 231 to 188 and will push back delicate decisions on spending, immigration, health care and national security until Jan. 19.... The Senate is not expected to take up the disaster bill until January; it passed the House 251 to 169. Thursday's congressional votes are expected to be the last of 2017." ...
... Update: "Congress passed a stopgap spending bill Thursday, averting a partial government shutdown at midnight Friday but pushing into January showdowns on spending, immigration, health care and national security. Among the issues still to be resolved is federal aid for victims of recent hurricanes and wildfires. The House on Thursday passed a separate $81 billion disaster relief bill, but the Senate did not immediately take it up amid Democratic objections.... It passed the House 231 to 188 and cleared the Senate 66 to 32. Thursday's congressional votes are expected to be the last of 2017."
Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "Sen. Al Franken bade farewell to Capitol Hill on Thursday with a lengthy broadside against the policies of the Trump administration and a call for politicians to commit themselves to 'honesty in public discourse.' The speech put to rest questions about whether Franken (D-Minn.) would follow through on his promise to resign over more than a half-dozen allegations that he had touched women inappropriately. Until Wednesday, Franken had not announced the date he would leave the Senate, and at least two Democratic colleagues -- Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) -- recently said that he should reverse his decision. In his farewell address, Franken lamented what he described as the degradation of truth in the national political debate and the hyper-partisan environment this has produced. He will resign his seat on Jan. 2 and his successor, Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith (D), is scheduled to be sworn in on Jan. 3." ...
Jan Wolfe of Reuters: "Democratic-leaning states may take legal action to challenge the cap on deductions of state and local taxes under the sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax code, and even though such lawsuits would face long odds they could help galvanize Democrats for next year's mid-term election." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Paul Krugman points to some of the winners in the tax heist. Here's one group: "The centerpiece of the legislation is a huge tax cut for corporations. Republicans claim that this tax cut will be passed on to workers in the form of higher wages, but most independent studies conclude that even in the long run only between one-fifth and one-quarter of the tax cut will trickle down to workers. And the fraction will be much lower in the short run -- say, the next few years. So this is basically a tax cut for shareholders. And who are these shareholders? About a third of the total benefits will go to foreigners." ...
... AND Ivanka Trump vouches for Sen. Bob Corker's "real integrity." Mrs. McC: So never mind anything negative I wrote about the Corker Kickback. And never mind that Ivanka & family will make millions on that kickback, too. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Dumber than a Post(card). Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: Ivanka Trump is "a walking advertisement for the danger of nepotism, an exemplar of class privilege and a perfect representative for Republican know-nothingism. She was supposed to be the brains of the family and the moral ballast; instead, she's a self-righteous enabler.... She was out talking nonsense again on Thursday: 'I'm really looking forward to doing a lot of traveling in April when people realize the effect that this has ... The vast majority will be [doing their taxes] on a single postcard.' Thunk. There's no postcard. That was a prop. And the filing for the first year under the new tax code will be in 2019." She also claimed the tax heist would eliminate the national debt. "In fairness to Trump, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) also advanced this hooey, but you would think that she would at least have witnessed the pummeling Collins took for her phony assertion and learned from that. When one is not used to be being contradicted, one is perhaps less concerned with accuracy."
Jane Mayer of the New Yorker: "On Tuesday, in a convention center in West Palm Beach, Florida, amid chants of 'USA!' and 'The wall is going to be built!,' Donald Trump, Jr., kicked off a three-day annual summit for Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit. Based outside of Chicago, Turning Point's aim is to foment a political revolution on America's college campuses, in part by funnelling money into student government elections across the country to elect right-leaning candidates. But it is secretive about its funding and its donors, raising the prospect that 'dark money' may now be shaping not just state and federal races but ones on campus. Turning Point touts its close relationship with the President's family.... Internal documents that I obtained, as well as interviews with former employees, suggest that the group may have skirted campaign-finance laws that bar charitable organizations from participating in political activity.... Turning Point USA is also alleged to have fostered an atmosphere that is hostile to minorities."
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Reader Comments (10)
Numbers tell it all.
About 9 million sign up for that worthless Obamacare.
128 countries declare that America is no longer the world leader.
700 people leave the EPA (the Environmental Poison Agency).
Just another Trumpday.
The Shareblue story on the NDAA signing statement (above) is about DiJiT giving Putin a pass, but if you read the actual statement you can see that it is also about bureaucratic ineptitude.
Normally, the NDAA language would have been coordinated among affected agencies, under the editorial guidance of the White House Leg office and the NSC. Agencies would have highlighted problematic language, and the congress' bill managers would have accepted all those changes except where congress actually disagreed with the executive branch. The bill would have been cleaned up in draft.
The dog's breakfast of exceptions taken in the signing statement implies that that drafting process did not work this time around, so agencies' drafting changes of problemtic sections were put into the signing statement. This is "government by backwards process, late."
Someone in the WH Legislative office should be fired for such poor performance, failure to perform well-defined routine tasks.
Patrick,
It’s very possible that there IS no one running the legislative outreach in the WH. Trump is just saving taxpayers money. Either that or the guy who walks Melania’s dog was given the job. Remember, ineptitude, incompetence, and ignorance are not problems in TrumpWorld, they’re features. Trump himself could not tell you, on pain of never being allowed a Big Mac ever again, how the legislative process works. He watches Fox and they tell him whether or not the thing passed. He still thinks that if he says something, it’s other people’s responsibility to turn it into law.
These days we grasp at any good news like a drowning person given a life jacket. So here is one of those jackets to put on–– feel the warmth:
A second Federal judge blocks Trump's rollback on contraceptive coverage:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/judge-blocks-trump-contraceptive-rule_us_5a3c844ee4b0b0e5a7a11ae0?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Al Franken's farewell speech and Amy's lovely homage to him shows what we need in our legislators.The fact that a man like Al has to leave while so many ratfuckers remain, the greatest one acting as our president, is hard to digest.
On a lighter note: would love to see Al's doodles of Grassley.
Re: the Mueller probe: looks like it might come down to that old "What did the president know and WHEN did he know it" and if he knew and tried to obstruct justice then...
Bea's coinage of Old McDonald is perfect––-his farm replete with pigs and poo, along with rabid dogs and mangy cats and cows that moo boo hoo and refuse to give milk.
Marvin,
I have a more dire explanation of the Pretender's NDAA signing statement. Yes, he is an idiot, but a useful one. I have come to strongly suspect (suspicion tipping into belief) that Donnie is owned lock, stock, gnards and all by Russia.
Don't know how they did it. Is it money only or money and sex (there is that dossier the R's so desperately wish to discount) or a vastly scarred ego that left an emptiness that only a dictator like Putin can fill, but "The Manchurian Candidate" has been my paranoia of choice for some time now.
And each day the R's machinations to cast doubt on Mueller and the whole Russia thing only strengthen my suspicion's grip.
What are they afraid of?
I think they're afraid of finding out what the Pretender fears.
Nikki Haley's snide analysis of the UN vote is typical of the pomposity and egocentricity of the Trumpies. She ripped all the countries voting against Trump's ridiculous Jerusalem gambit by declaring that the US (ie, Trump) was being "attacked" for exercising its sovereign rights. Apparently no other nations have sovereign rights. They're just there as window dressing and bobble head dolls to support the dangerous dilettantish bullshit spouted by the little king.
Oh, boo-fucking-hoo, Nikki. Such victims you all are. Everyone out to get you. Poor you. Repine all you want, my dear, the Donald is listening to every whimper.
It seems Haley is trying to suck up to the little king for her extremely "disloyal" comments about how all the women sexually molested by the Glorious Leader should be allowed to speak.
She won't be making that mistake again any time soon. Not unless she wants to be heading back to South Carolina on a rail.
And let's consider, for a moment, the sagacity of creating foreign policy based on the whims of your base, in Trump's case, know-nothing knuckledraggers. Is it really the wisest way to do this? Some jamoke in Mississippi votes for you to stick it to the browns and the furriners and mooslims, and that becomes the basis for American foreign policy?
So much winning.
Sorry, I'm in a weird place today, some disassociative associations. Marie's evocation of Old MacDonald calls up a couple of odd memories.
Years ago, my brother and I decided to make a holiday party punch designed to pop the pennies off the eyelids of dead Irishmen. We searched high and low for the active ingredient, Bacardi 151. We finally found some in an out of the way liquor store. The guy at the counter, after crawling around in a back room, brought out a single dusty bottle for our punchy pleasure. He asked what we were planning on using it for. "Punch for a Christmas party" we said, stupidly. "Punch!" the guy exclaimed. "Man, in a couple of hours half the people will be on the floor singing "E I E I O"...He wasn't wrong.
The other thought is almost as silly, an old rhyme from, I think, eighth grade, here for a little giggle:
Mary had a little lamb. The doctors were surprised.
Old MacDonald had a farm. The doctors nearly died.
Ba-dum-bum.
Don't say I never gave you nothin'.
We are gearing up for another snow storm just in time for Christmas; the mister will have to rive up his machina (snow blower) and once again do our loooong driveway which is like a mini hill. But he does it well––he does it evenly. Juan Cole uses this snow blower exercise as an example of our new nifty tax bill:
"Think about tax policy as a snowblower aimed a a single point. Snow builds up at the point where the snowblower is facing. If you keep aiming at that point as you clean the snow, you’ll get an enormous hill of snow. There will be no snow to speak of on the driveway. There will just be an artificial mountain.
So that is what the Republican congress just did. They revved up the snowblower and they pointed it at a small mountain of already accumulated snow, so they will make the mountain larger."
Words fail me.
@ Ken
Rep. Mark Warner seems to be cryptically following your thoughts on Trump's Manchurian status.
And another Russian scandal is that so few major news outlets are carrying the news that Trump continues to fully shield ol' pal Vlad from any serious consequences of hacking America. To do so blatantly in the open further confirms that Donald is an active Russian state asset, knowingly or not.
https://www.axios.com/warner-sees-fire-in-russia-probe-wants-kushner-trump-jr-to-face-senators-2519316363.html?utm_medium=linkshare&utm_campaign=organic
Trump is upset because he didn't get enough credit for the tax bill.
Apparently he thinks he wrote it. But don't worry Donald, when the economy collapses, you will get lots of credit.
And a small NJ note. My wife went to town hall to pay a chunk of the 2018 property tax in 2017. There was a serious line.