;)
The Commentariat -- January 4, 2018
David Smith of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon has described the Trump Tower meeting between the president's son and a group of Russians during the 2016 election campaign as 'treasonous' and 'unpatriotic', [and 'bad shit'], according to an explosive new book seen by the Guardian. Bannon, speaking to author Michael Wolff, warned that the investigation into alleged collusion with the Kremlin will focus on money laundering and predicted: 'They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.'" Read on for the fun of it. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... John Wagner & Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: Michael "Wolff says that his book is based on 200 conversations over the past 18 months with Trump, most members of his senior staff, some of whom he talked to dozens of times, and many people with whom they had spoken. Some conversations were on the record, while others were off the record or on 'deep background.'... Here are 12 [details of the book] that stand out[.]" Mrs. McC: Many fun facts or "facts." ...
... Here's an excerpt (or adaptation) of Wolff's book, published in New York magazine. Qualifies for the Mrs. McCrabbie Seal of Approval. ...
... Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "In his comments to Wolff, Bannon isn't expressing horror at [Junior, Manafort & Kushner's] treason, but suggesting that Kushner and company were too stupid to do it properly. Bannon even suggests that campaign collusion with Russia could have worked if there were proper cut-outs: 'Bannon went on, Wolff writes, to say that if any such meeting had to take place, it should have been set up 'in a Holiday Inn in Manchester, New Hampshire, with your lawyers who meet with these people'. Any information, he said, could then be 'dump[ed] ... down to Breitbart or something like that, or maybe some other more legitimate publication....' Bannon is speaking as a disgruntled former employee, making the case that he would not have screwed up as much as the guys who still work in the White House have." ...
... Kevin Drum: "... the most interesting part, I thought, was the editor's note at the end: 'Shortly after Trump's inauguration, Wolff says, he was able to take up 'something like a semi-permanent seat on a couch in the West Wing' -- an idea encouraged by the president himself. Because no one was in a position to either officially approve or formally deny such access, Wolff became 'more a constant interloper than an invited guest.' There were no ground rules placed on his access, and he was required to make no promises about how he would report on what he witnessed.' This sort of arrangement is fairly common in presidential campaigns. But it's not common in presidential administrations.... But apparently Trump is such an insane narcissist that he couldn't see any downside to this. He simply couldn't conceive that unrestricted access would produce anything other than a glowing tribute to the most sensational first 100 days of any presidency ever."...
...Bob Brigham of RawStory: "Donald Trump had an intricate plan of deception to bed the wives of his friends, according to yet another bombshell revelation from Michael Wolff's new book Fire and Fury. MSNBC obtained a copy of the book and NBC News' former embedded reporter with the Trump campaign, Katy Tur, tweeted a highlighted section. 'Trump liked to say that one of the things that made life worth living was getting your friends' wives into bed,' the starred paragraph begins...." --safari...
...Tim Teeman of The Daily Beast: "The mystery of Donald Trump's hair ('style' would be an over-reach), so long contested, may have finally been solved by his daughter Ivanka Trump -- at the same as she reportedly mocks her father's hair affair to friends. As reported by Michael Wolff in his new book about President Trump's first year in office...we learn that it is Trump's beloved daughter that leads the chorus of those who mock the Trump 'do' (or 'don't').... Every morning, Trump is his own '60s housewife, wrestling his bouffant to prettified submission. The only method of control for these wanton tendrils: spray, and more spray." --safari: Turns out it was Ivanka, in the Parlor room, with a cellphone. ...
... David Graham of the Atlantic: "Donald Trump shows little affinity for reading, but he is familiar with the conceit of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: An ambitious figure creates a monster in the hopes of glorifying himself, only to have the spurned monster wreak havoc on its creator. The president is living that plot, too, with Steve Bannon.... In describing the Trump Tower meeting as 'treasonous' and 'unpatriotic,' Bannon becomes the first major Trump insider to say what is at this point clear to anyone willing to look at the facts: Whether or not there were any crimes committed, Trump aides colluded with Russia. The pattern runs from George Papadopoulos's conversations with Russian agents, through the Trump Tower meeting, and up to Michael Flynn's conversations with then-Ambassador Sergey Kislyak...." ...
... Brian Stelter of CNN: "The national news coverage of the book's revelations -- including shocking quotes from Steve Bannon -- sent the book soaring on Amazon.com. By 3 p.m. ET, it was ranked #1 on the site's best-selling books list. Twenty-four hours earlier, it had been ranked #48,449." ...
... Eileen Sullivan, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump essentially excommunicated his onetime chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, from his political circle on Wednesday, excoriating him as a self-promoting exaggerator who had 'very little to do with our historic victory' and has now 'lost his mind.' In a written statement brimming with anger and resentment, Mr. Trump fired back at Mr. Bannon, who had made caustic comments about the president and his family to the author of a new book about the Trump White House. While Mr. Bannon had remained in touch with Mr. Trump even after being pushed out of the White House last summer, the two now appear to have reached a breaking point." Mrs. McC: Boo-fucking-hoo." ...
... Here's Trump's statement in full, via the New York Times. ...
... David Graham: "While the tone of Trump's statement is jarring, the maneuver of distancing himself is old hat. Each time a former staffer causes a problem for Trump, he pretends they played no role, that he barely even knew them." Besides Bannon, think Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, & George Papadopoulos." ...
... Josh Dawsey & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "Late Wednesday, lawyers for Trump sent a cease-and-desist letter to Bannon, arguing he violated the employment agreement he signed with the Trump Organization in numerous ways and also likely defamed the president. They ordered that he stop communicating either confidential and or disparaging information, and preserve all records in preparation for 'imminent' legal action.... Bannon has in recent weeks also alienated his main financial backer, Rebekah Mercer, after he told several other major conservative donors that he would be able to count on the Mercers' financial support should he run for president, a person familiar with the conversations said. The person said Mercer now does not plan to financially support Bannon's future projects -- and that she was frustrated by his moves in Alabama and some of his comments in the news media that seemed to stoke unnecessary fights." ...
... Kevin Drum: "I really hope Trump goes through with [his threat to sue Bannon]. Presidents routinely get upset about leaks and tell-all books, and often do ill-advised things to try stop it. But this! This would be the stupidest thing ever. And it would include discovery! And depositions under oath! And two titanic assholes vying for the title of who's the bigger asshole. That's all too good to be true, so it probably won't happen. But wouldn't it be great if it did?" ...
... Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "President Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, sued the special counsel on Wednesday and asked a federal court to narrow his authority, escalating Republican efforts to discredit an investigation that has stretched longer than the White House expected.... He sued both [Robert] Mueller and Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who appointed Mr. Mueller.... The unusual move comes as Mr. Trump tries to portray the investigation as a politically motivated witch hunt that has cast a dark cloud over his administration and, in his view, the country.... As part of that investigation, prosecutors indicted Mr. Manafort on money laundering charges related to years of foreign lobbying -- but not related to Russian election interference or the Trump campaign.... The case faces an uphill climb because Mr. Rosenstein has said publicly that he has specifically approved every significant step that Mr. Mueller has taken in the investigation." ...
... Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "On Wednesday, [Paul] Manafort's lawyers responded to [Manafort's] indictment with a highly unusual lawsuit challenging Mueller's authority to prosecute the case.... The lawsuit is procedurally irregular. It relies on regulations that explicitly deny Manafort a right to sue. It makes dubious factual claims. And it is far from clear that Manafort is entitled to any meaningful remedy even if all of his claims are accurate.... The bottom line, in other words, is that Manafort's tactic is unlikely to succeed. He's claiming a right he doesn't have, in a courtroom he shouldn't be in, based on facts that probably don't exist." --safari ...
... Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray made an unannounced visit to Speaker Paul Ryan's office Wednesday as the Justice Department grapples with an increasingly hostile faction of House Republicans demanding documents related to the bureau's Russia probe. Rosenstein was spotted entering Ryan's office, and a spokesman for the speaker confirmed that Rosenstein and Wray had requested the meeting. A second person familiar with the meeting said it was related to a document request issued over the summer by House intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes. Nunes (R-Calif) has mounted an aggressive push -- with the threat of contempt citations for members of the FBI and Justice Department -- to glean more information about how the FBI handled a disputed dossier alleging illicit ties between ... Donald Trump and the Kremlin.... It was not immediately clear what Rosenstein and Wray sought from Ryan." ...
... Update: Karoun Demirjian & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post have a newer, more detailed story on the meeting: Devin "Nunes said in a statement Wednesday night, 'After speaking to Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein this evening, I believe the House Intelligence Committee has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice that will provide the committee with access to all the documents and witnesses we have requested.'" ...
... Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "... Donald Trump's social-media manager, Dan Scavino, 'may have corresponded with Russian nationals regarding Trump campaign social media efforts,' Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) wrote Wednesday in a letter asking Scavino to agree to an interview this month with the Senate Judiciary Committee. Feinstein's letter says the committee, where she is the ranking Democrat, has 'received information' regarding Scavino's potential communications with Russians. [She] did not elaborate." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: So from golf caddie to Russian agent. What a career!
The Madman of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Kevin Liptak & Dana Bash of CNN: "... Donald Trump started 2018 in a fury partly fueled by anger at his legal team for offering shifting timelines about when the Russia investigation would end, according to two sources familiar with the President's mindset. The anger continued until midday Wednesday as Trump helped draft his blistering break-up letter to former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who offered a scathing attack on Trump and his family's handling of the Russia investigation. That followed his taunting tweet Tuesday evening directed at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which caught many top administration officials off guard and prompted renewed worry among staff and allies about whether the President fully comprehends the risks he's taking in provoking adversaries. After Trump's North Korea broadside, aides inside the White House reached out to some of Trump's allies seen as having influence over the President to talk to him about his tweets and the risks they carry.... Trump's venting began Tuesday with a 16-tweet onslaught that White House officials largely saw as an attempt by a media-obsessed President to whip up new storylines that center on him." ...
** Eric Levitz: "A senile Fox News addict -- with delusions of grandeur and poor impulse control -- has the unilateral authority to instigate a nuclear holocaust whenever he wants.... So now, the United States is inching toward a shooting war with North Korea; the president is bragging about the size and potency of his 'Nuclear Button' over Twitter; and White House officials are venting fears of an imminent, 'accidental' catastrophe to their confidantes in the fake news media.... The 'adults' on Trump's foreign policy team (James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, and, to a lesser extent, Rex Tillerson) haven't set the terms of the administration's national security strategy by winning arguments with the president, but by holding their ground long enough for him to lose interest.... [But] At this point, the most influential voices in the president's ear appear to be Fox News producers -- Trump's latest threat of nuclear war was ostensibly inspired by a cable news segment. This state of affairs has made it virtually impossible for the United States to conduct credible diplomacy." ...
... E.J. Dionne: "Trump is, without question, doing enormous damage to the United States' standing in the world, and his strategy for political survival is rooted in a willingness to destroy our institutions.... The United States does have extraordinary gifts for self-correction. But we must face the fact that Trump is accelerating us toward the breaking point.... Not even Mueller has a button on his desk he can press to get us out of this without scars." ...
... Annie Karni of Politico: "Lawmakers concerned about ... Donald Trump's mental state summoned Yale University psychiatry professor Dr. Bandy X. Lee to Capitol Hill last month for two days of briefings about his recent behavior. In private meetings with more than a dozen members of Congress held on Dec. 5 and 6, Lee briefed lawmakers -- all Democrats except for one Republican senator, who Lee declined to identify. Her professional warning to Capitol Hill: 'He's going to unravel, and we are seeing the signs.' In an interview, she pointed to Trump 'going back to conspiracy theories, denying things he has admitted before, his being drawn to violent videos.' Lee also warned, 'We feel that the rush of tweeting is an indication of his falling apart under stress. Trump is going to get worse and will become uncontainable with the pressures of the presidency.'... The ['Nuclear Button'] tweet resuscitated the conversation about his mental state and the 25th Amendment, which allows for the removal of the president from office if the vice president and a majority of the cabinet deem him physically or mentally 'unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.'"...
... ** Susan Glasser of Politico: "Ever since Trump took the oath of office on January 20, the world has been taking his measure, trying to make sense of his 'America First' foreign policy and what it means for them.... The jarring reality of [world leaders'] encounters with Trump has at times been even more disturbing to America's friends and allies than the initial news accounts have suggested.... And if interactions with Trump were troubled, his emerging team offered little reassurance.... [Jared] Kushner was 'very dismissive' about the role of international institutions and alliances and uninterested in the European's recounting of how closely the United States had stood together with Western Europe since World War II. 'He told [an official], "I'm a businessman, and I don't care about the past. Old allies can be enemies, or enemies can be friends." So, the past doesn't count,' the official recalled." --safari
More Fun News. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Wednesday announced that he is disbanding a controversial voter commission launched last year in the wake of his baseless claim that he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 because of millions of illegally cast ballots. The commission met only twice amid a series of lawsuits seeking to curb its authority and claims by Democrats that it was stacked to recommend voting restrictions favorable to the president's party. In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said there is 'substantial evidence of voter fraud' and blamed the ending of the commission on the refusal of many states to provide voter data sought by the commission and the cost of ongoing federal lawsuits. The bipartisan panel, known the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, had been nominally chaired by Vice President Pence and led by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican who has aggressively sought to prosecute voter fraud in his state." Mrs. McC: Mrs. Huckleberry lies about everything, doesn't she?
Mark Landler of the New York Times: Trump, "so accustomed to being the center of attention, must now watch from the sidelines as these longstanding enemies [North & South Korea] open a dialogue. The talks at first are likely to focus on North Korea's potential participation in the Winter Olympics, which are being held next month in the South Korean city of Pyeongchang.... Above all, [White House] officials said, the Trump administration will resist efforts by the North to drive a wedge between the United States and its ally.... The White House also reiterated that Mr. Trump would continue to defy Mr. Kim, regardless of any diplomacy underway." ...
... Matt Yglesias of Vox: "Kim's nuclear button boast had, of course, come more than 24 hours before Trump's tweet [threatening nuclear war]. But rather than learning of it through intelligence or diplomatic channels and considering a response, Trump appears to have found out about it a day late via his TV and decided to fire off some tweets.... Everything from Trump's alarming suggestion that the Justice Department prosecute former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin to his absurd contention that he deserves credit for an aviation safety streak that dates back to 2009 had its origins in a Fox News segment." Yglesias provides a Trump-Fox "News" tweetie time line, courtesy of Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Indeed, it seems clear that hours after Kim's speech, Trump had no knowledge of it whatsoever. As Joon Ian Wong of Quartz noted, "Trump was at the New Year's Eve celebration at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when reporters asked for his reaction to Kim's speech. 'We'll see, we'll see,' he said, according to the BBC." Other news outlets referred to the "we'll see" remark as a "muted" or "moderate" response. No, it was a bluff. "We'll see" means "I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm not going to admit that." ...
... Cristiano Lima of Politico: "Former Vice President Joe Biden called ... Donald Trump's war of words with North Korea 'not presidential' on Wednesday, cautioning him against engaging the U.S. in a competition over the size of the countries' nuclear arsenals. 'This is not a game. This is not about can I puff my chest out bigger than yours. It's just not -- it's not presidential,' Biden told NBC News.... 'The only war that's worse than one that's intended is one that's unintended,' [Biden told reporters Wednesday]." ...
... Evan Osnos of the New Yorker: "For seventy years, North Korea has baited America with threats of mayhem, and, for seventy years, American Presidents, with rare exceptions, understood that squabbling with a pariah state whose economy is smaller than that of Rhode Island would diminish their own stature and America's standing. Trump, by contrast, summoned the world's attention and then sawed himself off at the knees. After a year of the President's casual threats of mayhem, of his belittling of American alliances, of claims so bizarre that a man shouting them on a public bus would get a wide berth, the response from Americans generally ranges from disbelief to despair to numbness. They are moments that defy the usual analysis, other than psychoanalysis.... In the short term, Trump's taunts will almost certainly compel North Korea to respond in words or actions." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It's fair to assume that Kim is thrilled with the attention Trump has showered on him. ...
... Zack Beauchamp of Vox: "This is an extremely tense military standoff where the two sides have no formal lines of communication and haven't held any formal negotiations in years. A single misperception -- a single moment of believing that the US might be about to attack -- could cause North Korea to launch a preemptive strike. Millions of lives hang in the balance.... Trump seems to think -- at least in part -- that the dispute is part of a personal contest between him and Kim Jong Un. It isn't just the implied dick joke in the most recent tweet. It's calling him 'short and fat,' and saying that he's a 'sick puppy.' It's the constant, unending references to the North Korean dictator as 'Little Rocket Man.' This reflects Trump's longstanding approach to people he sees as enemies. His feud with Rosie O'Donnell -- in which Trump called her 'fat' and 'dumb,' among other things -- goes all the way back to 2006, per a CNN timeline. Between June 2015 and today, the New York Times reports, Trump has insulted 410 people, places, and things on Twitter alone." ...
... GOP Senators Still Dangerously Irresponsible Trump Toadies. Jenna Lifhits & Haley Byrd of the (right-wing) Weekly Standard: "Republican senators on Wednesday night brushed off ... Donald Trump's tweet threatening North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with the size and power of his 'nuclear button,' the latest in a series of heated exchanges between the two leaders. 'It's Trump being Trump,' South Dakota Senator John Thune told The Weekly Standard. 'Trump being Trump,' echoed North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis on his way to votes."
Adam Raymond of New York: "Acting ICE director Thomas Homan, who will become the permanent head of the agency if President Trump has his way, thinks it's time to start arresting politicians in sanctuary cities and charging them with crimes. In an interview Tuesday with Fox News Channel's Neil Cavuto, Homan said political leaders in sanctuary cities, which don't cooperate with ICE officials looking to make immigration arrests, are breaking the law when they 'knowingly shield and harbor an illegal alien.' 'That is a violation of 8 USC 1324. That's an alien-smuggling statute. I've asked the Department of Justice to look at this,' he said.... Homan, who has called sanctuary cities 'un-American,' appears to want California governor Jerry Brown locked up first. In October, Brown signed a bill making California the nation's first 'sanctuary state.'"
Joe Difazio of International Business Times, via RawStory: "The administration of President Donald Trump is closer to watering down Obama era rules that protected college students defrauded by universities from having to pay back their student loan debts, according to a Department of Education draft proposal acquired by Politico....The document showed that the Department plans to limit the number of defrauded students eligible for loan forgiveness and raise the bar for what is considered fraud.... Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has indicated in the past that she would ease protections for defrauded borrowers, to the benefit of lenders, but the document shows how they propose to do so." --safari
David Perry of Pacific Standard: "On the Thursday afternoon before the Christmas holidays, Attorney General Jeff Sessions' Department of Justice rescinded 25 guidance documents that the department found 'unnecessary, inconsistent with existing law, or otherwise improper.' The list included 10 texts on disability rights, including one as recent as 2016 (i.e. hardly out of date). This recent document codified the labor rights of disabled people as they move from sheltered workshops paying sub-minimum wage into the integrated economy. Its deletion represents the latest effort of the Trump administration to roll back disability protections in the 21st century.... Segregated workshops are legally allowed to pay disabled workers pennies per hour. They are incredibly lucrative, and often their owners use their wealth to buy political access.... There's strong evidence to support the conjecture that the sheltered-workshop lobbyists are behind the latest DOJ move.... It's hard to keep track of all the threats, especially when they are dumped en masse right before a major holiday weekend. Trump and his team claim they are cutting through red tape. What they are really doing is merrily slicing through the network of carefully crafted guidelines and regulations once meant to ensure equal access to civil rights for all." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: What will a Republican do for political contributions? Kick a disabled person, for one thing. The essential cruelty of the party ethos makes me cry. Campaign finance reform would not change these GOP officials' characters, but it would give them less incentive to legislatively & administratively activate their bullying.
Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Two new senators -- Doug Jones, Democrat of Alabama, and Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota -- were sworn in on Wednesday, in a history-laden ceremony attended by three current and former vice presidents. Vice President Mike Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, presided over the swearing in. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. escorted Mr. Jones down the central aisle of the Senate chamber, while former Vice President Walter Mondale escorted Ms. Smith." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
Pajama Boy, Ctd. Sunlen Serfaty, et al., of CNN: "Disgraced Rep. Blake Farenthold has not yet repaid $84,000 in taxpayer money for a settlement reached with a former aide who accused him of sexual harassment and other improper conduct, despite the Texas Republican's statement late last year saying he would do so. Nearly one month after the initial statement, Farenthold's communications director, Stacey Daniels, tells CNN that he has not yet written a check, and on the advice of counsel is waiting to see what changes the House will make to the Congressional Accountability Act before repaying those funds."
Cade Metz & Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "Computer security experts have discovered two major security flaws in the microprocessors inside nearly all of the world's computers. The two problems, called Meltdown and Spectre, could allow hackers to steal the entire memory contents of computers, including mobile devices, personal computers and servers running in so-called cloud computer networks."
Beyond the Beltway
Corrupt Republican Judges Rule for Republican. Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "The winner of a pivotal Virginia legislative race will be decided by lottery Thursday, one day after a recount court rejected a request to toss out a disputed ballot that brought the contest to a tie. In a race full of unexpected twists, the State Board of Elections is set to break the tie by randomly selecting the name of either Republican incumbent David E. Yancey or Democrat Shelly Simonds.... The spectacle ... could break the GOP's 18-year hold on the House of Delegates. But even if Simonds wins the drawing -- splitting the 100-member chamber right down the middle -- odds are the GOP will retain control on day one of the 2018 General Assembly session.... That's because the candidate who loses the drawing can request another recount, a process not likely to be completed before the legislature convenes on Jan. 10. And based on history, neither candidate would probably be seated if there is a pending recount, giving the GOP a 50-49 majority when delegates pick a speaker for the next two years." ...
... The Richmond Times-Dispatch story, by Graham Moomaw, is here.
Kelly Weill of The Daily Beast: "The sovereign citizen movement is a fringe conspiracy whose adherents claim to be immune from U.S. law.... [A] New Hampshire lawmaker, Republican state Rep. Richard Marple, is scheduled to introduce a bill that treats sovereign citizens as a recognized legal class, and proposes a $10,000 fine for state agencies that don't buy into sovereigns' legal make believe.... House Bill 1653 isn't Marple's first attempt to introduce sovereign-friendly laws in New Hampshire, although the bill has more co-sponsors than many of his previous attempts." --safari
Fund or Die. Stephen Marche of Mother Jones: "By now, almost everybody has seen pleas for help covering urgent medical bills in their Facebook feeds. With health care costs and high-deductible plans on the rise for more than a decade, medical expenses are the largest single cause of bankruptcies nationwide.... In 2011, sites like GoFundMe and YouCaring were generating a total of $837 million. Three years later, that number had climbed to $9.5 billion.... Crowdfunding companies say they're using technology to help people helping people, the miracle of interconnectedness leading to globalized compassion. But an emerging consensus is starting to suggest a darker, more fraught reality -- sites like YouCaring and GoFundMe may in fact be fueling the inequities of the American health care system, not fighting them." --safari
Cristiano Lima of Politico: "Authorities put out a fire at the New York property of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, a Clinton spokesman confirmed.... A Clinton spokesman, Nick Merrill, said the fire occurred in a Secret Service facility not connected to the couple's home in Chappaqua. Merrill added on Twitter that the 'small fire' occurred while the Clintons were not at the residence."
Way Beyond
Ruth Maclean of the Guardian: "Ethiopia's prime minister has announced that political prisoners will be released and a prison camp notorious for torture closed, acknowledging for the first time that the country holds such prisoners. Rights groups and activists welcomed the surprise promise by Hailemariam Desalegn to 'widen the democratic space for all', saying it could herald the end of a repressive, violent era for the country." --safari
News Ledes
Washington Post: "The unusual winter storm that pasted parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina with ice and snow Wednesday explosively intensified Wednesday night becoming one of the strongest East Coast winter storms in modern history.... Blizzard warnings extend from the Virginia Tidewater region up the coast to eastern Maine.... Between Wednesday and Thursday morning, the storm strengthened at an astonishing rate.... On Thursday afternoon, several wind gusts of at least 70 mph were clocked in coastal Massachusetts, including around Nantucket[.]" ...
... Weather Channel: "Winter Storm Grayson is undergoing bombogenesis off the Eastern Seaboard, spreading its mess of heavy snow, high winds and blizzard conditions that will likely trigger widespread power outages in New England as fresh bitter cold Arctic air settles in through the weekend.... A large shield of snow blankets the East from eastern North Carolina into New England. Embedded in that are bands of heavier snow, with snowfall rates of 1 to 3 inches per hour. Several locations from northeast North Carolina and the Virginia Tidewater to Delaware and the Jersey shore have already picked up 6 inches of snow, including Wildwood, New Jersey, Stockley, Delaware, and Hampton, Virginia. Newville, Virginia, between Norfolk and Richmond, tallied 8.5 inches of snow."
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Reader Comments (13)
I'm going to take a wild guess that the one Republican willing to learn about the 25th amendment and Trump's mental decline was Bob Corker. He's on his way out but just wanted to confirm his intuitions about the big baby occupying the White House.
Bannon's devastating revelations are especially interesting if you look at the power dynamics of who holds his leash. He's wholly owned and managed by KKK Robert and Rebekah Mercer, and surely would have had to get an okay through them to give up so much rabid info.
Robert Mercer recently announced he was stepping down as CEO from his hedge fund and selling his stake in Breitbart...to his white-supremacist daughters. Apparently he didn't like the press reporting that he's an asshole racist degenerate. I guess that's bad for business. Does this mean the Mercers, or at least Grand Wizard Robert, have seen enough of Donny's blatant incompetence and are releashing the hounds?
Trump's Believers seem to be getting smaller by the day...
Big Bad Bannon comes barreling through Wolff's book like a nasty winter wind taking with him the king himself and his dynastic family ( the sense that Jared and Ivanka were speculating a continuous run for the presidency––Trumpies running the nation forever––I find so preposterous!) with a few strays a long the way. This is an incredible lookie-see book and it appears that Michael had full access to everything and everyone. One wonders, as we always did with Woodward, how he was privy to certain conversations (in quotes)––-was he recording? Does he have the kind of memory that can recreate conversations correctly? I'm sure we'll get the skinny on that soon but in the meantime the book's contents will be vomited out with great gusto and fanfare by the left but the right will be fraught with indigestion.
Question: Does Melania read? Does she know that her husband's favorite game was/is bedding down his friend's wives? I wonder about Melania.
And speaking of reading: We learn once again that the president* doesn't read. Think about that you lame–brained sycophants––we have a president* that doesn't READ!!!!!
Just read that one of Kim's testing missiles have accidentally hit one of N.Korea's towns.
@PD Pepe: Oh, PD, Washington's official gossip has the answer for you in a self-described "scoop." "Michael Wolff has tapes to back up quotes in his incendiary book — dozens of hours of them. Among the sources he taped, I'm told, are Steve Bannon and former White House deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh. So that's going to make it harder for officials to deny embarrassing or revealing quotes attributed to them in 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,' out Tuesday. In some cases, the officials thought they were talking off the record. But what are they going to do now?"
After reading the RC posts today I had an idea. I could rate the chaos level each day 1-10. Today is a 9.5. But then I realized a slow day might make it to 9. So no, playing with 9.2 vs. 9.3 is not fun.
And note there was no surprise about the new Bannon/Trump war.
It's impossible for two egomaniacs to be friends.
And I hope that the 'The Madman of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue' section can become a daily post. The good news is the Trumpbrain is getting serious evaluation. The bad news is, he might have to push the button before Republicans stand up for America.
So the Pretender is an even bigger boob than I thought. Seems that all these years, I, who always thought of him when I thought of him at all as a crass lowlife not worthy of even fleeting thought, was giving him too much credit.
But yesterday and today's further revelations of his essential boobishness, while interesting as a study in human pathology, divert attention from the sheer nastiness of the Right's agenda, which the useful idiot Pretender is complicit in rapidly imposing on the country.
Today's NYTimes highlights (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/us/native-american-voting-rights.html) another front on the war for democracy. The Boob may have disbanded his election "integrity" commission but he and his handlers are still getting federal judges appointed at a record-setting pace, judges that will be interpreting and creating voting eligibility and districting standards for years to come.
I'm guessing that this new crop of judges is not being selected for their devotion to democracy or their loud support of minority rights.
Lurking in the back of my mind this morning is the hazy outline of what might be a word I once heard.
Is there such a thing as Russification? Or did I generate it in my sleep?
I checked. Guess I didn't make it up. "Russification" it is.
So now we have all those Right Wing cold warrior turncoats deliberately leading the country down the road to autocracy. Would be a surprise, but since the Right's primary allegiance has always been to money and since that devotion has long since pushed all considerations of morality aside, in 2017-18 circumstances this turn seems not just predictable but almost necessary.
So in the current Repugnant administration have Russia, but without the comrade...
Jesus, where to start?
So much to choose from in a 24 hour period of massive schadenfreude. I understand that the little king has fired KKK Steve (again) and is now threatening a lawsuit. For what? Talking? Saying what's on his feverish mind?
So much to consider. But likely the biggest revelation (more like confirmation) is what an undisciplined clown show the Trumpy White House is. There will always be a few blabbermouth hangers-on in any administration, but this bunch of jabronis takes the cake. And so much for Ivanka being the smart one. Dishing about dad's Gordian coiffure seems a bit of a backstab, even for a Trump. Although now that I think about it, growing up in a household where backstabbing was (is) an everyday occurrence, perhaps it's to be expected.
Which leads to this hilarious description (linked above) of the Trump toilette: "Every morning, Trump is his own ’60s housewife, wrestling his bouffant to prettified submission. The only method of control for these wanton tendrils: spray, and more spray..." Shouldn't that be "petrified" submission?
This morning on NPR, I heard a lede that made me laugh out loud. In the intro to a story about the Wolff book it was reported that "Trump did not react well.." Ha! Ya think? I suppose you could say that about his reaction to any story that wasn't a hagiography.
But on a more sober note, it's clear that this entire administration is a world class cluster fuck, replete with idiots, backstabbers, self-promoters, sycophants, incompetents, and narcissists. One of the scarier revelations involved Young Jared, supposedly some kind of administration major-domo, being asked to name the three top priorities of the Trump White House. He couldn't name one. "That would be a good question to ask", he replied, or something similarly stunning.
Any decent business has a list of priorities, a mission statement, if you will. Any employee of that business, if they're any good, can tell you what the company stands for and what its priorities are, its mission. Without a doubt, senior management can do this without prompting.
But not the Trumpy White House.
More than likely, the mission statement for Trump, Inc. has been money and fame for the boss. This probably doesn't sound so good as a mission statement for a presidency, but that, in fact, is what it is. Money and fame for the boss.
Oh, and two new ones: keep from being impeached and stay out of prison.
It's good to have goals.
Ken has a good point about the unqualified hacks now being confirmed as "judges" ie, right-wing lackeys who will interpret the law to the benefit of their side in all cases.
The Wolff book may be a revelation to some and a confirmation to others, but I'm sure very little is news to the "leaders" of the Party of Treason. I'm sure McConnell and Ryan and their caporegimes know all too well the dilettantish incompetency of the ignorant bunglers and fools in the White House. But it's not like they're standing off to the side pretending not to notice. The Party of Treason is actively helping the Bungler in Chief by attempting to curtail investigations into possible criminality and obstructing justice in a vigorous effort to keep federal investigators from doing their jobs. The idea is to keep the conveyor belt of goodies, like federal judgeships and hyper-partisan policy bills, coming their way.
This isn't just a shirking of responsibility, it's a full on abnegation of the oaths of office they all took to protect the United States from enemies both foreign and domestic, and if Donald Trump and his crew of criminals and con artists don't constitute domestic enemies, we've never had any. Seriously. Come up with a list of known traitors, murderers, domestic terrorists, organized crime families, and assorted crooks and frauds in high places. The entire list wouldn't come close to being able to create the kind of chaos and cause the sort of damage that the Trumpies are now actively engaged in, on both the foreign and domestic playing fields.
And the Republican Party, instead of standing up for the United States, is working overtime to help Trump do his worst and protect him (and themselves) from investigation, exposure, and prosecution. This is a situation unknown in the history of this country. An unqualified bigot with diminishing cognitive skills running amok and one of the two political parties, rather than engaging in halting the damage, assisting in it and cheering him on.
Outrage doesn't come close.
Akhilleus: you forgot vengeance. DiJiT likes vengeance.
NYT: Top News
Justice Dept. Takes Step That Threatens Legal Pot in States
This issue tells me everything about the human mind.
CDC: Alcohol - 88,000 deaths a year
Cigarettes - 480,000 deaths per year
Marijuana - ? or just say tiny.
I always regarded the manufacture of tobacco products the most serious criminal act in America. But hay, they make lots of money!
Sessions:Just trying to look tough when it's easy.
At first I thought Session's decision to enforce federal pot laws was an attempt to deflect attention from Michael Wolff's book. Nope, Donnie wants to keep the spotlight on Donnie, apparently believing there's no such thing as bad press.
"A lawyer representing President Trump sought Thursday to stop the publication of a new behind-the-scenes book about the White House...Hell, courts wouldn’t block publication of the Pentagon Papers, let alone a tittle-tattle account of a presidential administration. Trump has just insured that Wolff’s book will be the biggest bestseller of the year."
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/01/the-president-of-the-united-states-threatens-lawsuit-to-stop-publication-of-a-book/
Deja vu: Virginia. Just like 2000. A Republican gets beaten by a Democrat, after a recall, by one vote. Panel of Repug judges says-- yikes, and whatdyaknow, here's a vote that didn't get counted. Dems say it's a corrupt ballot and shouldn't have gotten counted. Panel of Repug judges says uh, it seems to "lean" toward the incumbent. Dems say it's a corrupt ballot. Repug judges say it counts as Repug. Dem sues to stop drawing from film cannisters (film cannisters!) Repug judges say it goes on. Drawing happens. Repug wins. Big surprise to everyone. It's 2000 and "hanging chad"-esque. They always win, OR they cheat to win. And with all the judge appointments happening, it will happen over and over again. Deja vu.
The good news (yes, there is some, now and then) is that the voter fraud commissioning thingie, whatever the hell it was, is done for. A thing happened and their dream of unfettered ability to screw with democracy is temporarily halted.
The bad news (and yes, in the Age of Trump bad news follows good like flood waters follow a good downpour) is that the little king is getting ready to hand the fake voter fraud "investigation" to Homeland Security. This takes what was a routine political con job and gives it the feel of a police state operation. It will give them additional excuses to put the screws to immigrants, even those here legally, and activate the brownshirt mentality already incumbent in right-wing thought processes.
Just another phony Confederate idea from hell, right alongside supply side, trickle down, the unitary executive, and the balanced budget (an idea whose essential fraudulence has been proven by the recent tax scam, the result of which is to ensure that federal budgets will bleed red until rapture).