The Commentariat -- December 28, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Greg Robb of MarketWatch: "... Donald Trump's strategy to use import tariffs to protect and boost U.S. manufacturers backfired and led to job losses and higher prices, according to a Federal Reserve study released this week.... While the tariffs did reduce competition for some industries in the domestic U.S. market, this was more than offset by the effects of rising input costs and retaliatory tariffs, the study found."

Deborah Pearlstein in the Atlantic: "In his efforts to mask the seriousness of his actions around Russia and Ukraine..., Donald Trump has taken aim at one essential democratic institution after another -- questioning the legitimacy of the press, the intelligence community, the courts, and, most recently, the House of Representatives itself. But he has so far mostly held his fire against both 'his generals' and 'our boys' in America's military.... The military's generally steadying reactions to the president's worst moments of volatility have given members of Congress on both sides of the aisle reason to hope that the Pentagon at least will remain a check on presidential impulse that might really compromise national security, should other checking institutions fail. But hoping that a president will defer to the judgment of the professional military is a sign that something has gone very wrong in America's constitutional infrastructure." Read on.

Vanity Cameo. About That "Home Alone 2" Trump Cameo that the CBC Cut. Theresa Braine of the New York Daily News: In the clip, "Trump directs [Macauley] Culkin's character to a pay phone in the Plaza Hotel, which the not-yet-president owned at the time.... In truth, the scene was never meant to be part of [the film]. Trump routinely mandates that in return for filming at one of his properties, he has to be in a scene, according to many in the movie industry. 'The deal was that if you wanted to shoot in one of his buildings, you had to write him in a part,' Matt Damon told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017. '[Director] Martin Brest had to write something in "Scent of a Woman" -- and the whole crew was in on it. You have to waste an hour of your day with a bulls--t shot: Donald Trump walks in and Al Pacino's like, "Hello, Mr. Trump!" -- you had to call him by name -- and then he exits. You waste a little time so that you can get the permit, and then you can cut the scene out. But I guess in "Home Alone 2" they left it in.'"

David Frum of the Atlantic: "... in the early hours of Friday morning, December 27, Trump retweeted a supporter who named the presumed whistleblower in the text of the tweet. This is a step the president has been building toward for some time.... Lawyers debate whether the naming of the federal whistleblower is in itself illegal. Federal law forbids inspectors general to disclose the names of whistleblowers, but the law isn't explicit about disclosure by anybody else in government. What the law does forbid is retaliation against a whistleblower. And a coordinated campaign of vilification by the president's allies -- and the president himself -- surely amounts to' retaliation' by any reasonable understanding.... Trump is organizing from the White House a conspiracy to revenge himself on the person who first alerted the country that Trump was extorting Ukraine to help his re-election: more lawbreaking to punish the revelation of past law-breaking.... He is a president with the mind of a gangster, and as long as he is in office, he will head a gangster White House."

Senate Race 2020. Bruce Schreiner of the AP: "Calling her party's victory in the Kentucky governor's race a jolt of momentum for her own bid to unseat a Republican incumbent, Democrat Amy McGrath on Friday officially filed to challenge Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in what looms as a bruising, big-spending campaign next year.McGrath, a retired Marine combat pilot, touted many of the same issues -- health care and good-paying jobs -- that Andy Beshear highlighted in ousting Republican incumbent Matt Bevin in last month's election for governor.... McGrath became the latest in a crowded field of candidates from both parties to file for McConnell's seat. McGrath, who lost a hotly contested congressional race last year, has shown her mettle as a fundraiser, raking in nearly $11 million in her first few months as a Senate candidate, giving her a huge advantage over other Democratic candidates. McConnell has his own bulging campaign fund."

~~~~~~~~~~

Nick Coltrain of the Des Moines Register: "Former Vice President Joe Biden confirmed Friday he would not comply with a subpoena to testify in a Senate trial of ... Donald Trump.... Biden said in early December he wouldn't comply with a subpoena by the Senate, and confirmed that statement Friday in an interview with the Des Moines Register's editorial board. He has not been subpoenaed, but Trump's allies have floated the idea. Testifying before the Senate on the matter would take attention away from Trump and the allegations against him, Biden said. Not even 'that thug' Rudy Giuliani ... has accused Biden of doing anything but his job, the former vice president said. Biden also said any attempt to subpoena him would be on 'specious' grounds, and he predicted it wouldn't come to that."

Steve Benen of MSNBC (Dec. 26): "For nearly three years, Donald Trump has ignored his own country's intelligence community and believed that Ukraine intervened in the U.S. elections in 2016 in the hopes of undermining his candidacy.... A Washington Post report last week ... [claimed] Trump's embrace of the falsehood appears to have come directly from Russian President Vladimir Putin." But when a reporter asked Trump, "... what did President Putin say to you that convinced you that the Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election?" Trump evaded answering. His eventual response, Benen points out, had "Abbott-and-Costello-like qualities": "You're putting words in somebody's mouth. Who are you referring to? Me? I never said anything about it. I never said a thing about it. All right, any other questions?" Benen: "The connections between Trump's conversations with his Russian benefactor and his willingness to promote Ukraine conspiracy theories are well documented, and they reinforce concerns about the American president serving as Putin's puppet."

Melissa Lemieux of Newsweek: During a panel discussion [about the Senate impeachment trial] on CNN, Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer who worked under George W. Bush..., said, 'For Mitch McConnell to say he's working with the White House, coordinating with the defendant in this trial before the trial has even begun is atrocious. He may think he's a judge impaneling an all-white jury for a Klansman trial in Mississippi in 1965. That's not the kind of trial we have.'..."

Caitlin Oprysko of Politico (Dec. 26): "... Donald Trump on Thursday issued a warning to allies of the Syrian government waging a military offensive to regain rebel-held territory that relief groups say has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians since last month. 'Russia, Syria, and Iran are killing, or on their way to killing, thousands of innocent civilians in Idlib Province,' he tweeted. 'Don't do it! Turkey is working hard to stop this carnage.' According to The Associated Press, Syrian government forces allied with Russia and Iran have been shelling parts of Syria's Idlib province since late last month in an attempt to retake one of the last strongholds of the U.S.-allied rebels. The unrest has sent more than 216,000 civilians fleeing from their homes, relief group Syrian Response Coordination Group told the AP."

** Eric Levitz of New York: "Throughout the ... decades, [Donald Trump has] expressed an ecumenical respect for governments that privilege their own power above the rule of law.... By the same token, nothing offends the president's moral sensibilities (such as they are) than those who place adherence to the law above loyalty to their superiors. Trump has forgiven many of his appointees' trespasses. But Jeff Sessions's decision to recuse himself from the Justice Department's investigation of the Trump campaign -- and thus, privilege his profession's code of ethics above his president's legal interests -- was simply beyond the pale.... In pardoning [Edward] Gallagher, Trump did not put support for the troops above fidelity to the Geneva Convention, but rather, support for a war criminal above respect for the law-abiding service members he tormented.... The war criminal is Trumpism's perfect patriot; the whistle-blower, it's quintessential villain.... That the U.S. president venerates lawlessness in the pursuit (or maintenance) of power is alarming; that the party he leads increasingly shares that ideal is even more so." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Levitz, like others, argues that the one thing Trump "believes in" is power, and since he has this one "belief," Trump is not a nihilist. Levitz describes Trump's one "belief" as "power for a cause," but the "cause" Levitz uses as an example -- the Chinese putting down the Tiananmen Square revolt -- really is nothing but the maintenance of power itself. A "belief" in brute force, IMO, is no belief at all. It is an expression of nihilism.

Edward Wong & Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "In a rare show of bipartisan unity, Republicans and Democrats are planning to try to force President Trump to take a more active stand on human rights in China, preparing veto-proof legislation that would punish top Chinese officials for detaining more than one million Muslims in internment camps. effort comes amid growing congressional frustration with Mr. Trump's unwillingness to challenge China over human rights abuses, despite vivid news reports this year outlining atrocities, or to confront such issues globally. To press Mr. Trump into action on China, lawmakers plan to move ahead with legislation that would punish Beijing for its repression of ethnic Uighur Muslims, with enough supporters to compel the president to sign or risk being overruled by Congress ahead of the 2020 election. A version of the legislation, known as the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, passed both the House and Senate this year, but its path to the White House was stalled this month by a procedural process."

Adam Raymond of New York: "The world's richest people had a good year in 2019, increasing their wealth by a staggering 25 percent. A new analysis of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index found that the 500 richest people on the planet increased their vast wealth by $1.2 trillion in the past year, bringing their total wealth to $5.9 trillion."

Earth. The Apocalypse Is Now. Darryl Fears of the Washington Post: "On land, Australia's rising heat is 'apocalyptic.' In the ocean, it's worse.... Over recent decades, the rate of ocean warming off Tasmania, Australia's southernmost state and a gateway to the South Pole, has climbed to nearly four times the global average, oceanographers say. More than 95 percent of the giant kelp -- a living high-rise of 30-foot stalks that served as a habitat for some of the rarest marine creatures in the world -- died.... Nearly a tenth of the planet has already warmed 2 degrees Celsius since the late 19th century, and the abrupt rise in temperature related to human activity has transformed parts of the Earth in radical ways." ~~~

~~~ OR Apocalypse Soon. Michiko Kakutani, in a long New York Times op-ed: "Apocalypse is not yet upon our world as the 2010s draw to an end, but there are portents of disorder. The hopes nourished during the opening years of the decade -- hopes that America was on a progressive path toward growing equality and freedom, hopes that technology held answers to some of our most pressing problems -- have given way, with what feels like head-swiveling speed, to a dark and divisive new era. Fear and distrust are ascendant now. At home, hate-crime violence reached a 16-year high in 2018, the F.B.I. reported. Abroad, there were big geopolitical shifts. With the rise of nationalist movements and a backlash against globalization on both sides of the Atlantic, the liberal post-World War II order -- based on economic integration and international institutions -- began to unravel, and since 2017, the United States has not only abdicated its role as a stabilizing leader on the global stage, but is also sowing unpredictability and chaos abroad.... Many of these troubling developments didn't happen overnight. Even today's poisonous political partisanship has been brewing for decades -- dating back at least to Newt Gingrich's insurgency -- but President Trump has blown any idea of 'normal' to smithereens, brazenly trampling constitutional rules, America's founding ideals and virtually every norm of common decency and civil discourse."

Claudia Lauer & Meghan Hoyer of the AP: "Victims advocates had long criticized the Roman Catholic Church for not making public the names of [priests] credibly accused [of child sex abuse]. Now, despite the dioceses' release of nearly 5,300 names, most in the last two years, critics say the lists are far from complete. An AP analysis found more than 900 clergy members accused of child sexual abuse who were missing from lists released by the dioceses and religious orders where they served." Mrs. McC: It is not clear from the report, but in context it seems that the list refers only to clergy members in diocese within the U.S.

Beyond the Beltway

North Carolina. Travis Fain of WRAL Raleigh: "A federal judge said late Thursday that she will, at least temporarily, block North Carolina from requiring photo identification from voters at the polls next year. An order explaining the decision and its full breadth will come next week, but this week's announcement was timed to delay a planned statewide mailing explaining the state's new voter ID rules. Public notice came via a short note appended to an online case file Thursday in NAACP et al v. Cooper, one of at least two ongoing lawsuits challenging voter ID in the state."

Way Beyond

Mexico. Elisabeth Malkin of the New York Times: "The police chief of a small town near Mexico's border with the United States has been arrested on suspicion that he was involved in the massacre of nine women and children of a Mormon family last month, the Mexican authorities said Friday. The federal authorities arrested Fidel Alejandro Villegas, the police chief in the town of Janos in the state of Chihuahua, as part of their investigation into the Nov. 4 attack in a remote region in neighboring state of Sonora."

The Commentariat -- December 27, 2019

Asawin Suebsang of the Daily Beast: "On Thursday evening, Donald Trump pushed out on Twitter the name of the alleged whistleblower whose complaint led to the president's impeachment. Trump's personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, retweeted a post by the re-election campaign's official 'war room' account that was aimed at the whistleblower's attorney Mark Zaid.... As The Daily Beast reported last month, Trump had gossiped for weeks about this alleged whistleblower with various friends, media figures, and senior administration officials, and had asked some people if they thought it was a good idea for him to publicly announce or tweet the name."

Allan Smith of NBC News: "... Donald Trump fired off a stream of post-Christmas tweets Thursday blasting Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her San Francisco congressional district amid the impeachment impasse. 'The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats said they wanted to RUSH everything through to the Senate because "President Trump is a threat to National Security" (they are vicious, will say anything!), but now they don't want to go fast anymore, they want to go very slowly,' Trump tweeted. 'Liars!' The president attacked Pelosi's congressional district as 'filthy dirty' and 'one of the worst anywhere in the U.S.' Calling Pelosi 'crazy,' Trump also suggested she should face a 2020 primary challenge. The president then lamented how 'much more difficult' it is 'to deal with foreign leaders (and others) amid impeachment." ~~~

~~~ The problem you have with foreign leaders, @realDonaldTrump, is that they think you are a deranged idiot. -- George Conway, in a tweet ~~~

~~~ Apparently, ordinary people in other countries agree: ~~~

~~~ Worst POTUS* Ever. Ursual Perano of Axios: "41% of Germans believe President Trump is more of a threat to world peace than North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping or Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a YouGov survey reported by DW [Deutsche Welle].... The results show the degree to which trust in U.S. leadership has eroded under Trump, even among countries like Germany that are traditionally viewed as close allies." ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE, more Americans are thinking impeachment is a good idea: ~~~

~~~ Zoe Tidman of the [U.K.] Independent, via Yahoo! News: "Public support for Donald Trump's removal from office is the highest it has ever been, according to a new poll. Fifty-five per cent of those asked said they were in favour of the US president's conviction by the Senate, a figure which has shot up from 48 per cent the week before. Meanwhile, the number of people against Mr Trump's removal has dropped to an all-time low, according to the MSN poll." ~~~

~~~ AND somehow Trump's attacks don't go all that well with his Christmas message calling for unity and respect among Americans." (Also linked yesterday.)

Mehdi Hasan of The Intercept: "On Wednesday evening, Donald Trump became the third president of the United States to be impeached.... It was a major moment in this car crash of a presidency -- and a major achievement for House Democrats. Still, I couldn't help but be disappointed that there were only two articles of impeachment passed against the president.... The harsh reality, of course, is that Trump commits impeachable offenses on nearly a weekly basis. So here is an A to Z of such offenses -- by issue and/or by crime -- that were inexplicably overlooked or ignored by the House of Representatives." --s

Alex Pareene of the New Republic: "The one problem with the Founders' vision is that they never anticipated the type of hyperpartisanship we see today. Recent statements from leading Republican senators were therefore particularly ominous. 'I'm not an impartial juror,' said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. 'I have clearly made up my mind,' said Lindsey Graham. The notion that senators would abdicate their responsibility to check the presidency -- indeed, even directly coordinate their efforts with an impeached president -- would have shocked the Founding generation to its core. Who could have expected that a branch of government would willingly disempower itself? History will not judge these senators well." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Even though the Founders didn't anticipate the way political parties would dominate our government systems, surely they were familiar with some version of "He's a jerk, but he's our jerk."

Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "The prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Bill Barr to examine the origins of the Russia investigation is focusing much of his attention on the CIA, placing the agency's director, Gina Haspel, at the center of a politically toxic tug-of-war between the Justice Department and the intelligence community. The prosecutor, John Durham, has reportedly asked the CIA for former director John Brennan's communications.... [I]ntelligence community veterans say the Durham probe could force Haspel to choose between protecting her agency from Trump's wrath and bowing to Barr's wishes" --s

Trump Winds up on the Cutting Room Floor. Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "President Trump's cameo scene in the holiday classic 'Home Alone 2: Lost In New York' was reportedly cut from showings of the movie on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) this month.... CBC told ComicBook.com, which first reported the backlash to the edit, that the movie was edited not for political purposes but to allow for commercials.... CBC later confirmed on Twitter that the edit was made for time in 2014, before Trump was elected.... Trump mentioned his 'Home Alone 2 cameo on Christmas Eve while speaking to military service members in a teleconference." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Kevin Breuninger & Sarah Whitten of CNBC: "The Trump-free version of the 1992 film, which aired on the CBC this month, stoked outrage among conservative and pro-Trump media sources -- including the popular Fox News morning show 'Fox & Friends,' from which Trump regularly quotes guests.... Trump himself weighed in later Thursday, appearing to blame Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for his removal from the TV cut of the film. 'I guess Justin T doesn't much like my making him pay up on NATO or Trade!' [Trump tweeted.]"

Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "The list of challenges still facing Mr. Trump's 'big, beautiful' wall include an investigation into construction contracts, funding delays and a recent legal decision blocking emergency access to Defense Department funds to build it. The nationwide injunction has, for now, curtailed wall work on 175 miles in Laredo and El Paso, Texas; in Yuma, Ariz.; and in El Centro, Calif. But access to private land ... may be the tallest barrier standing between the president and his wall. The administration has thus far built only 93 miles of the new wall, nearly all of it on federal land where dilapidated barriers existed or vehicle barriers once stood, according to Customs and Border Protection. The border wall's final path is not yet set, but 162 miles of it will run through Southern Texas, and 144 miles of that is privately owned, according to the border agency. The Trump administration has acquired just three miles since 2017.... As the sense of urgency has grown, Mr. Trump -- no stranger to the powers of eminent domain -- has suggested during meetings to 'take the land' of private landowners."

Jonathan Landay, et al., of Reuters: "In the weeks before ... Donald Trump's declaration this month that he would forge ahead with designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, Cabinet members and top aides from across the government recommended against it.... The recommendations, which some of the sources described as unanimous, have not been reported previously. They were driven in part by concerns that such designations could harm U.S.-Mexico ties.... Another key concern was that the designations could make it easier for migrants to win asylum in the United States by claiming they were fleeing terrorism[.]" --s

Dave Philipps of the New York Times: "Video recordings of the interviews [of Navy SEALs who turned in Edward Gallagher] obtained by The New York Times, which have not been shown publicly before, were part of a trove of Navy investigative materials about the prosecution of Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher on war crimes charges including murder.... [The] dire descriptions of Chief Gallagher, who had eight combat deployments..., are in marked contrast to Mr. Trump's portrayal of him at a recent political rally in Florida as one of 'our great fighters.'" Mrs. McC: The story is really gruesome reading. The Guardian has a summary report here.

Patricio Zenklussen, et al. in TPM: "It's been clear for a while that political satire in the U.S. has a Trump problem. The jokes are getting redundant, but even worse, the president seems immune to them.... But perhaps American political satire is too focused on the president himself. As NYU Journalism graduate students from the U.S., Pakistan, Argentina, and Chile, we thought we could bring an interesting perspective to this question by examining how satire is handled in countries where a history of authoritarian(ish) leadership has forced comedians into alternative plans of 'attack.'... Rather than coming straight at the heads of state or impersonating them, we've observed that satirists in Pakistan, Argentina, and Chile critique elements of the government and the systems that enabled leaders' rise to power.... In the spirit of examining ways to satirize that 'other stuff,' we talked to Pakistani and South American comedians about the techniques they employ -- and how they fit within the American political comedy landscape." --s

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Last week we dropped our collective jaws upon learning that the Poynter Institute, which many regard as a serious journalistic organization, selected Chuck Todd as "Media Personality of the Year." We were not alone: ~~~

~~~ Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story (Dec. 21): "An announcement from the Poynter Institute naming NBC's Chuck Todd the 'media personality of the year' calling his Meet the Press the 'gold standard' was met with derision and laughter on the internet which has long hammered the NBC host for his failures to push back at guests making ridiculous assertions as well as his habit of not asking follow-up questions." ~~~

~~~ Jay Rosen of PressThink: "'Round midnight on Christmas eve, Rolling Stone posted a short interview with Chuck Todd.... Its contents were explosive, embarrassing, enraging, and just plain weird. Three years after Kellyanne Conway introduced the doctrine of 'alternative facts' on his own program, a light went on for Chuck Todd. Republican strategy, he now realized, was to make stuff up, spread it on social media, repeat it in your answers to journalists -- even when you know it's a lie with crumbs of truth mixed in -- and then convert whatever controversy arises into go-get-em points with the base, while pocketing for the party a juicy dividend: additional mistrust of the news media to help insulate President Trump.... Todd repeatedly called himself naive for not recognizing the pattern, itself an astounding statement.... It took him three years to understand a fact about American politics that was there on the surface.... Many, many interpreters had described it for him during those lost years when he could not bring himself to believe it. (I am one.) You cannot call that an oversight. It's a strategic blindness that he superintended. By 'strategic blindness' I mean what people mean when they quote Upton Sinclair: 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.'" The Rolling Stone interview is here.

** Elections 2020, ff. Kim Zetter of Politico: "On November 6, 2016, the Sunday before the presidential election that sent Donald Trump to the White House, a worker in the elections office in Durham County, North Carolina, encountered a problem.... [T]he county worker contacted VR Systems, the Florida company that made the software used on the county's computer and on the poll book laptops.... [O]ne of the company's employees accessed the county's computer remotely to troubleshoot.... Almost immediately ... a number of [laptops] exhibited problems.... To this day, no one knows definitively what happened with Durham's poll books.... VR Systems had been targeted by Russian hackers in a phishing campaign three months before the election.... No one has attempted to pull together, in public view, all the available information about what happened with VR Systems during the 2016 election cycle until now.... [T]he following represents as complete a narrative as currently possible about the events around VR Systems and the 2016 elections -- and raises many questions not only about America's ability to secure the national elections less than a year away but the country's ability to have trust in their integrity." --s

John Bowden of the Hill: "A federal database tracking pollution in the United States was retired earlier this month, drawing criticism from environmental advocates. TOXMAP, an interactive map hosted by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and accessible to the public, allowed users to track pollution-producing factories and other environmental concerns such as superfund cleanup sites. However, on Dec. 16, all links to the application on the NLM's website were deprecated[.]" --s

Damian Carrington of the Guardian: "Microplastic pollution is raining down on city dwellers, with research revealing that London has the highest levels yet recorded.... Recent research shows the whole planet appears to be contaminated with microplastic pollution.... About 335m tonnes of new plastic is produced each year and much leaks into the environment.... The serious health damage caused by the pollution particles emitted by traffic and industry are well known. A comprehensive global review earlier in 2019 concluded that air pollution may be damaging every organ and virtually every cell in the human body. But the potential health impacts of inhaling plastic particles from the air, or consuming them via food and water, are unknown. People eat at least 50,000 microplastic particles per year, according to one study." --s

Beyond the Beltway

Iowa. Hannah Knowles & Michael Brice-Saddler of the Washington Post: "A woman accused of driving into a teenager because she believed the girl was Mexican had struck another child with her car less than an hour earlier, authorities say. Police in Iowa say Nicole Marie Poole Franklin struck a 12-year-old black boy as he walked home from school earlier this month. The 42-year-old Des Moines woman has not discussed her motive in that incident...." The same day, Franklin allegedly also spewed racist remarks at the clerk in a Des Moines convenience store and at black customers in the store.

Missouri. Sarah Okeson of DC Report: "Missouri regulators are using fishy science to write water quality standards for its lakes. Missouri based its regulations -- approved by Trump's Environmental Protection Agency -- the health of sport fish like the bass favored by Trump donor Johnny Morris, not the health of the state's children who swim in or get their drinking water from lakes.... Missouri regulators adopted water standards based on what's best for fish after groups like Associated Industries of Missouri and Regulatory Environmental Group for Missouri, opposed adopting EPA standards that benefit human health." --s

Way Beyond

Israel. Isabel Kershner of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel easily brushed off a challenge for the leadership of the conservative Likud party early Friday, a crucial victory for Israel's longest-serving leader but one that may only harden the country's yearlong political standoff. For Mr. Netanyahu, the landslide in a party primary on Thursday reaffirmed his political prowess and staying power despite his indictment last month on corruption charges, and it gives a jolt of fresh energy to his campaign for Israel's next general election in March." The Guardian's story is here.

Russia. Andrew Osborn of Reuters: "Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny said on Wednesday that the forcible military conscription of one of his allies to a remote air base in the Arctic amounted to kidnapping and illegal imprisonment. Ruslan Shaveddinov, a project manager at Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, was detained at his Moscow flat on Monday after the door was broken down, the electricity cut, and the SIM card on his mobile phone remotely disabled. On Tuesday evening, Shaveddinov resurfaced at a remote military base on Novaya Zemlya, a freezing archipelago in the Arctic Ocean some 2,000 km (1240 miles) north of Moscow and the location of a missile air defense unit." --s

U.A.E. Joel Schectman & Christopher Bing of Reuters: "In the years after 9/11, former U.S. counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke warned Congress that the country needed more expansive spying powers to prevent another catastrophe.... In 2008, Clarke went to work as a consultant guiding the United Arab Emirates as it created a cyber surveillance capability that would utilize top American intelligence contractors to help monitor threats against the tiny nation.... In the years that followed, the UAE unit expanded its hunt far beyond suspected extremists to include a Saudi women's rights activist, diplomats at the United Nations and personnel at FIFA, the world soccer body.... American operatives ... were able to sidestep the few guardrails against foreign espionage work that existed, including restrictions on the hacking of U.S. computer systems.... Eventually, the expanding surveillance dragnet even swept up other American citizens[.]" --s

News Lede

Washington Post: "Don Imus, who spent more than half a century in radio and television skating along the edge of propriety and occasionally falling into the abyss of the unacceptable, died Dec. 27 at a hospital in College Station, Tex. He was 79." The Hollywood Reporter report is here.

The Commentariat -- December 26, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Trump Winds up on the Cutting Room Floor. Rebecca Klar of the Hill: President Trump's cameo scene in the holiday classic 'Home Alone 2: Lost In New York' was reportedly cut from showings of the movie on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) this month.... CBC told ComicBook.com, which first reported the backlash to the edit, that the movie was edited not for political purposes but to allow for commercials.... CBC later confirmed on Twitter that the edit was made for time in 2014, before Trump was elected.... Trump mentioned his 'Home Alone 2 cameo on Christmas Eve while speaking to military service members in a teleconference."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Impersonator Delivers the POTUS*'s Christmas Message. Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "President Trump called for unity and respect in his presidential Christmas message released Wednesday by the White House. 'While the challenges that face our country are great, the bonds that unite us as Americans are much stronger,' Trump said in the statement. 'Together, we must strive to foster a culture of deeper understanding and respect -- traits that exemplify the teachings of Christ.'" ~~~

~~~ Ah, Here's #RealDonaldTrump's Christmas Message. Rachel Frazin of the Hill: "President Trump on Wednesday lashed out at Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a pair of tweets Christmas night, decrying what he called a 'Scam Impeachment.' 'Why should Crazy Nancy Pelosi, just because she has a slight majority in the House, be allowed to Impeach the President of the United States?' wrote Trump.... He also called the impeachment process 'very unfair.'" Mrs. McC: The "deeper understand and respect" just ooze from those tweets, don't they? You're a mean one, Mr. Trump.

Eric Dolan of the Raw Story: "Seth Davin Norrholm, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine, said Monday that the president's recent rant about Christmas included at least three signs of mental problems." Includes video. Here's the rant Norrholm cited:

So if anybody wants to be a nice conservative, talk show host is not a bad living, I would say. But I have to say, he's a very unique guy and he's a great man and he's been a great friend. So thank you to Rush. Thank you. And let me begin by wishing you a beautif -- look, do you remember this? Do you remember this? Remember, they were trying to take Christmas out of Christmas. Do you remember? They didn't want to let you say Merry Christmas. You'd go around, you'd see department stores that have everything red, snow, beautiful, ribbons, bows. Everything was there. But they wouldn't say Merry Christmas. They're all saying Merry Christmas again. You remember?

AP: "U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, said she was disturbed to hear Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell say there would be 'total coordination' between the White House and the Senate over the upcoming presidential impeachment trial. 'And in fairness, when I heard that I was disturbed,' Murkowski told KTUU Tuesday before saying there should be distance between the White House and the Senate in how the trial is conducted."

Greg Miller & Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "The new Russia adviser at the White House -- the third in just six months -- has no meaningful background on the subject. The only expert on Ukraine has never spoken with President Trump, only been mocked by him publicly. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv will soon be without its highest-ranking diplomat for the second time in a year, as another ambassador departs after being undermined by the U.S. president and his personal attorney. The CIA analyst who triggered the impeachment inquiry continues to work on issues relating to Russia and Ukraine, but when threats against him spike -- often seemingly spurred by presidential tweets -- he is driven to and from work by armed security officers.... The jarring developments over the past three months have ... exposed the extent to which the national security establishment and the values that have traditionally guided American foreign policy are facing an extraordinary trial of their own under Trump's presidency.... Today, the idea that a cadre of nonpartisan civil servants can loyally serve presidents of either party in pursuit of shared national interests -- a bedrock principle of the country's approach to foreign policy since World War II -- is under attack."

Eric Lipton & Steve Eder of the New York Times: "With [Trump] hotel expansion plans thwarted, marquee hotels in New York, Panama and Toronto stripped of the Trump name, and revenues lagging or relatively flat at properties like Doral, rising rent collections at office and commercial properties have provided the Trump Organization a sorely needed boost.... The result: total company revenues have remained fairly steady over the past several years, even as some of the Trump hotels have seen declines in sales or at least lagged behind competitors in other cities such as Miami and Chicago. Because public filings about the Trump Organization's businesses generally only include revenue figures, it is not possible to determine the company's profits or losses."

Marina Pitofsky of the Hill: "The United States flew four surveillance planes over the Korean peninsula Wednesday, according to an aviation tracker, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. The move comes after North Korea threatened to give Washington a 'Christmas gift' unless the U.S. makes concessions in nuclear talks with the country. Negotiations between U.S. and North Korean officials stalled earlier this year after a summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ended abruptly."

Michael Conte & Kylie Atwood of CNN: "In an extraordinary move, the State Department is pulling the US ambassador to Zambia after the president there objected to his harsh criticism of the government's record on corruption and gay rights. Recalling an ambassador is rare, especially when an ambassador is arguing for American values abroad.US Ambassador Daniel Foote, in a scathing statement on December 2, slammed those in the conservative Christian country who compare homosexuality to bestiality and said he was shocked by the 'venom and hate' he received for criticizing the sentencing of two men to 15 years in jail for being in a gay relationship. Same-sex activity is illegal in Zambia. The harsh tone of Foote's remarks was unusual for a public statement coming from a US diplomat. Foote further blasted Zambian government officials for 'stealing millions of dollars in public funds, which the Zambian government has denied.... A career foreign service member, Foote was appointed US Ambassador to Zambia in November of 2017."

Noam Scheiber & Neal Boudette of the New York Times: Sixty-thousand dollars in "cigar purchases were ... just a small portion of the roughly $1 million in union money that court filings say U.A.W. officials spent on golf outings, four-figure dinners and monthslong villa rentals during regular retreats in Palm Springs, Calif., and elsewhere. cigar purchases were in turn just a small portion of the roughly $1 million in union money that court filings say U.A.W. officials spent on golf outings, four-figure dinners and monthslong villa rentals during regular retreats in Palm Springs, Calif., and elsewhere. The scandal comes on top of an investigation into company and union officials' improper use of millions of dollars from a joint Fiat Chrysler-U.A.W. training center."

Beyond the Beltway

Pennsylvania/New Jersey. AP: "Thousands turned out Wednesday to watch the annual reenactment of George Washington's daring Christmas Day crossing of the Delaware River in 1776 -- the first time the crossing was completed in three years. The event was scrapped because of bad weather the last two years, but historical interpreter Nancy O'Leary said at Washington Crossing Historical Park that the conditions this year 'couldn't be better.'... In the original crossing, boats ferried 2,400 soldiers, 200 horses and 18 cannons across the river. Washington's troops marched 8 miles (13 kilometers) downriver before battling Hessian mercenaries in the streets of Trenton. Thirty Hessians were killed, and two Continental soldiers froze to death on the march."

Way Beyond

Israel. AP: "Israel said a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into its southern territory Wednesday, forcing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be hustled from a stage during an election rally in the city of Ashkelon. The Israeli military said its air defense system, known as Iron Dome, intercepted the rocket. There were no reports of casualties. Israel's Haaretz daily published a video on its website showing Netanyahu being taken to a shelter as he was campaigning hours before the primaries of his Likud party." The Haaretz story is here.

Vatican. Nicola Ruotolo & Lauren Said-Moorhouse of CNN: "Pope Francis has urged the Catholic faithful to embrace the 'light of Christ' to help end conflict and injustice around the world, during his Christmas Day address. Speaking from the Vatican balcony under a clear blue sky on Wednesday, the Holy Father prayed for people struck by war, political instability, natural disasters and disease among other hardships in his annual 'Urbi et Orbi' (to the city and the world) message. The 83-year-old pope listed several places -- including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Venezuela and Ukraine -- while calling for peace."