The Commentariat -- March 24, 2019

Afternoon Update:

** Mark Mazzetti & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "The investigation led by Robert S. Mueller III found that neither President Trump nor any of his aides conspired or coordinated with the Russian government's 2016 election interference, according to a summary of the special counsel's findings made public on Sunday by Attorney General William P. Barr. Mr. Barr also said that Mr. Mueller's team drew no conclusions about whether Mr. Trump illegally obstructed justice. Mr. Barr and the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, concluded that the special counsel's investigators lacked sufficient evidence to establish that Mr. Trump committed that offense, but added that Mr. Mueller's team stopped short of exonerating Mr. Trump." ...

... Barr's supposed summary is here, via the New York Times. ...

... Devlin Barrett & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Mueller 'ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment,' Barr wrote, leaving it up to the attorney general and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to decide whether the president had committed obstruction. Rosenstein and Barr 'concluded that the evidence developed during the special counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction of justice offense. Our determination was made without regard to, and is not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president,' Barr wrote." ...

... Neal Katyal said on MSNBC, "It looks like a whitewash here." He said, "We should be very concerned about 'even-handedness.'"

~~~~~~~~~~~

The Trump Scandals, Ctd. -- Waiting for Bill Barr

Eric Tucker, et al., of the AP: "Attorney General William Barr scoured special counsel Robert Mueller's confidential report on the Russia investigation with his advisers Saturday, deciding how much Congress and the American public will get to see about the two-year probe into ... Donald Trump and Moscow's efforts to elect him. Barr was on pace to release his first summary of Mueller's findings on Sunday, people familiar with the process said. The attorney general's decision on what to finally disclose seems almost certain to set off a fight with congressional Democrats, who want access to all of Mueller's findings -- and supporting evidence -- on whether Trump's 2016 campaign coordinated with Russia to sway the election and whether the president later sought to obstruct the investigation." ...

... Heather Caygle, et al., of Politico: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Democrats on Saturday she'll rebuff any efforts by the Justice Department to reveal details of ... Robert Mueller's findings in a highly classified setting -- a tactic she warned could be employed to shield the report's conclusions from the public. Three sources who participated in a conference call among House Democrats said Pelosi (D-Calif.) told lawmakers she worried the Justice Department would seek to disclose Mueller's conclusions to the so-called Gang of Eight -- the top Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate -- which handles the nation's most sensitive secrets. The substance of Gang of Eight briefings are heavily guarded." ...

... Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Trump allies claimed vindication while Democrats demanded transparency and vowed to intensify their own probes. Trump and his attorneys and aides were clouded by uncertainty because they did not yet know the contents of the Robert S. Mueller III's report.... Ensconced for the weekend in Palm Beach, Fla., Trump exuded optimism while playing golf, lunching at the clubhouse and chatting with friends. At the urging of his advisers, he also exhibited uncharacteristic caution, refraining from publicly crowing that the 'witch hunt' was over or declaring victory prematurely. Asked mid-Saturday to evaluate the president's mood, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said simply, 'He's good.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's hoping Mueller passed off his Donnie Junior & Jared dossiers to prosecutors in New York (or elsewhere) & we'll see a few perp walks yet. ...

... Neal Katyal in a Washington Post op-ed: "The public has every right to see Robert S. Mueller III's conclusions. Absolutely nothing in the law or the regulations prevents the report from becoming public.... [The] that text [of the special counsel regulations, which I helped write,] expressly included a key provision saying the 'Attorney General may determine that public release of these reports would be in the public interest,' even if the public release may deviate from ordinary Justice Department protocols. The regulations at their core are about a central problem that can be traced back to the Roman poet and satirist Juvenal many centuries ago: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes: Who will guard the guards? Whenever there are allegations of high level executive branch wrongdoing, there is a justifiable worry that the executive branch itself cannot adequately investigate it.... Fears of a government coverup are at their apogee when we are talking about a criminal investigation of the president." ...

... All Quiet on the Palm Beach Front. J.M. Rieger of the Washington Post: "On Friday night, just hours after ... Robert S. Mueller III delivered his report to Attorney General William P. Barr, President Trump got up to give a speech. Addressing guests at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, during a Republican fundraiser that was closed to the media..., Trump [made no] ... mention of Mueller or collusion." Mrs. McC: I checked Trump's Twitter account at 8:30 pm ET Saturday, & so far not a peep about the report. Surely someone confiscated Trump's phone. ...

... MEANWHILE. Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "Even as ... Robert S. Mueller III submitted his confidential report to the Justice Department on Friday, federal and state prosecutors are pursuing about a dozen other investigations that largely grew out of his work, all but ensuring that a legal threat will continue to loom over the Trump presidency. Most of the investigations focus on President Trump or his family business or a cadre of his advisers and associates, according to court records and interviews with people briefed on the investigations. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles to Brooklyn, with about half of them being run by the United States attorney's office in Manhattan. Unlike Mr. Mueller, whose mandate was largely focused on any links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government's interference in the 2016 presidential election, the federal prosecutors in Manhattan take an expansive view of their jurisdiction."

Manu Raju of CNN: "... Jared Kushner is providing records to the House Judiciary Committee for its probe into obstruction of justice, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Committee chairman Jerry Nadler had sent Kushner a letter requesting information about a wide range of topics spanning the 2016 campaign, transition, inauguration and Kushner's time in the White House. The New York Democrat asked Kushner to tell the panel about matters that include the firing of James Comey as FBI director, his role in a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Russians, his knowledge of the pursuit of a Trump Tower Moscow project and documents about Trump's hush-money payments to silence his alleged affairs."

Steve M.: "Watergate spoiled us. No scandal has worked the way Watergate worked in the years since, and for the foreseeable future nothing will. We certainly won't bring a Republican president down the way we did then -- whoever said that Nixon would have survived if Fox News had been around during Watergate was absolutely right.... We live in the apparently endless Reagan and post-Reagan era. Sacred cows aren't slain. Masters of the universe -- Jamie Dimon, Jeffrey Epstein, Robert Kraft, even Michael Jackson -- don't go to jail. They're better at defending themselves, and they're more ruthless -- plus, we don't like to jail the men at the top. Which is why I believe that no Trump or Kushner will ever spend a day in jail. Prosecutors and investigators won't save us.... We have to save ourselves.... We do have to elect the Democratic nominee in 2020, but after that we have to fight on issues as if we haven't accomplished anything by electing the Democrat, because on many issues the system just wants to revert to the mean, and the mean is plutocratic conservatism." ...

... digby: "Putting so much weight on the Mueller probe was risky. Unless this report is an extremely compelling narrative of Trump's unfitness, a lot of people may just agree that it's time to 'move on.'"

Rachel Frazin of the Hill: "Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) blasted former FBI Director James Comey for not doing enough to stop Russian election meddling in 2016 in an interview that aired Sunday. 'In the last Congress that I served in, I wrote a letter in August to the director of the FBI Comey and said "Russia is meddling with our elections and you need to do something about that" and by October he had done nothing,' Reid told radio host John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York.... 'The hindsight from his troops are "well he didn't do it because he thought Hillary would win the election. He therefore thought It'd be too political for him to get involved,"' Reid added." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: In fairness to Comey, he has spent the last two-and-a-half years making excuses for the many screw-ups he made in the run-up to the 2016 election "because he thought Hillary would win" & because he was skeert Republicans would criticize him.

Trump takes sale of Lincoln Bedroom to new extreme. Remember those Photoshopped pictures of "White House for Sale"? They were supposed to be parodic metaphors. Once again, Trump proves he cannot be parodied. ...... Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "... Donald Trump has emblazoned the 'Trump' brand name on images of the White House to sell in his Trump Store and at the Trump International Hotel in the capital. The products give the bizarre impression that the White House is a Trump hotel. Walter Shaub, who was director of the Office of Government Ethics..., sharply criticized the products as the latest move to 'monetize the presidency' for private gain.... The products among the new 'Cherry Blossom Collection' now online bearing the White House image include soap, mugs, a T-shirt and a long-sleeved shirt."

Lloyd Green of the Guardian: "Vicky Ward's book is subtitled: 'Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.' It is a damning depiction of the Kushner clan and 'Javanka'.... If nothing else, Kushner, Inc reinforces the well-founded conviction that we are governed by a kakistocracy, from the president on down." --s

Once a Con Man, Always a Con Man. Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Prosecutors suspect Paul Manafort might be trying to secretly claw back about a million dollars he agreed to hand over to the government for his financial crimes -- and he could be using the same type of shell company at the core of his legal problems to fake a loan. A mysterious shell company named Woodlawn LLC -- which formed in the middle of ... Robert Mueller's investigation into Manafort in August 2017 -- claimed in court that it deserves $1 million from Manafort's forfeiture proceeding. The company says Manafort ... still owes that amount to pay back a 2017 mortgage loan. In a court filing Saturday, the prosecutor said he could not tell if the Nevada-registered corporation's $1 million loan to Manafort was a real or sham transaction. The prosecutor says more evidence collection 'is necessary because the United States lacks information to be able to discern whether Woodlawn is a person other than the defendant,' the court filing said.

Trevor Aaronson of The Intercept: "An Intercept analysis of federal prosecutions since 9/11 found that the Justice Department has routinely declined to bring terrorism charges against right-wing extremists even when their alleged crimes meet the legal definition of domestic terrorism: ideologically motivated acts that are harmful to human life and intended to intimidate civilians, influence policy, or change government conduct.... According to The Intercept's review, 268 right-wing extremists prosecuted in federal court since 9/11 were allegedly involved in crimes that appear to meet the legal definition of domestic terrorism. Yet the Justice Department applied anti-terrorism laws against only 34 of them, compared to more than 500 alleged international terrorists." --s ...

... Alleen Brown of The Intercept: "[In the late 1990s, s]o-called eco-terrorism became the Justice Department's No. 1 domestic terror concern -- 'over the likes of white supremacists, militias, and anti-abortion groups,' as one senator pointed out at the time.... [T]here's a reason law enforcement took a less aggressive approach to right-wing white supremacists and anti-government attackers. In the case of the eco-extremists, the government had a powerful ally: industry.... Now, in the wake of the 2017 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the murder of counterprotester Heather Heyer..., Justice Department officials have argued that a new domestic terrorism statute is necessary to better respond to far-right violence.... But law enforcement and federal prosecutors already have powerful counterterrorism authorities at their disposal.... No new law was required to treat eco-saboteurs as terrorists in the wake of 9/11." --s

Bankrupting America. Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "According to a Bloomberg report on Friday, the monthly budget deficit for February was $234 billion -- the largest in American history. A year ago, February's gap was a mere $215.2 billion. A significant part of this gap came from declining revenue, especially from corporations. Corporate tax revenue so far in 2019 has been just $59.2 billion. Bloomberg noted that, in 2018 as the tax cuts were partially in effect, corporations paid $73.5 billion over a similar time period. In 2017, before the Trump tax cuts, corporate revenue was $87.4 billion at this point in the calendar. This $28.2 million dollar drop-off means that corporate revenue has dropped by almost a third since before the cuts." --s

Conservative economist Greg Mankiw: "... [Friday] the president nominates Stephen Moore to be a Fed governor. Steve ... does not have the intellectual gravitas for this important job. If you doubt it, read his latest book Trumponomics (or my review of it). It is time for Senators to do their job. Mr. Moore should not be confirmed."

Cashing the Check. Lauren Gardner of Politico: "If Ambassador Kelly Craft ends up before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the ritual grilling of presidential nominees, she'll be looking back at some of her favorite Republican senators.... President Donald Trump has said he'll nominate [Craft] to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.... At least half of the GOP members of the panel, which would have to vet the current U.S. ambassador to Canada again should Trump officially nominate her, have received donations from Kelly or Joe Craft since the 2012 cycle, according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by Politico." --s

Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "Just before the [December 2015] Paris [climate agreement], JPMorgan Chase signed a statement with Bank of America, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and other big financial companies embracing the need for strong action.... But since the Paris Agreement, those institutions have devoted $700 billion in financing to fossil fuel expansion, including coal mining, coal power, the tar sands, and oil drilling in remote locations like the Arctic.... In 2017, [JPMorgan CEO Jamie] Dimon also said he 'absolutely' disagrees with President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the historic climate deal. However, this week's report shows that JPMorgan Chase has since become the leading banker of fossil fuels and fossil fuel expansion.... Both Dimon and JPMorgan Chase have spent this week trashing the Green New Deal[.]" --s

People Power. Joanna Walters of the Guardian: "Earlier this year at the Guggenheim in New York, activists objecting to donations from the Sackler family draped protest banners from the museum's famous spiraling balconies, dropped flyers down through the atrium and pretended to die all over the floor. A gobsmacked public looked on. Tate Modern [in London] has just escaped a similar fate. On Thursday, the Tate group announced it would not take any more donations from the Sacklers, the family whose most prominent billionaire members own the company that makes OxyContin, a prescription painkiller implicated in America's opioids crisis.... The Tate decision came two days after the National Portrait Gallery in London said it was not going to take a £1m gift offered by the Sacklers.... The controversy has echoes of fights over cultural sponsorship by tobacco companies and the oil industry and comes at a time when many in the arts are strapped for cash." --s

Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "Devastating floods across the Midwest are expected to cost the country at least $3 billion in damages to homes and farms. This is likely only the beginning as unprecedented flooding is expected to continue into the spring across the United States, according to a new forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), putting millions of Americans at risk of serious inundation. According to NOAA, an extremely wet winter is driving the flood risk, as 'several portions of the country received accumulated precipitation exceeding 200 percent of average to date.'" --s

Gina Salamone of the New York Daily News: "Barbra Streisand is under fire for comments she made about two men accusing Michael Jackson of sexually assaulting them as children. The legendary singer and actress said that Wade Robson and James Safechuck -- whose allegations against the late King of Pop resurfaced in the recent documentary Leaving Neverland -- 'were thrilled to be there' and that what allegedly happened to them 'didn't kill them.' Streisand, 76, made the strange comments to British newspaper The Times in a piece out Friday, in which she also said that Jackson's 'sexual needs were his sexual needs.'" Mrs. McC: Nice of Barbra to make Steve M.'s point (post linked above). Probably you think she is a talented singer (I don't & never did), but it's impossible to be more tone-deaf. To say the least.

Beyond the Beltway

Idaho. GOP Disdains Democracy. Dylan Scott of Vox: "Idaho Republicans are working to roll back the Medicaid expansion approved by their voters in November, another case of GOP lawmakers refusing to accept a Democratic mandate to expand health care to their constituents under the Affordable Care Act.... The Idaho ballot referendum passed overwhelmingly in November, 61 percent to 39 percent.... If implemented, it would offer health insurance to an estimated 120,000 of the state's poorest residents.... The fight in Idaho is following the same arc as the previous debate in Utah, where voters approved a full Medicaid expansion and then Republican policymakers sought to undo it." --s

Virginia. Trump's Amerika. Luke Barnes of ThinkProgress: "More than 4,000 students in Charlottesville, Virginia, were forced to stay home for the second straight day after an anonymous poster threatened to launch an 'ethnic cleansing' at one of the city's high schools. Residents say it's further proof of the persistent danger of white supremacy in the United States. The threat targeting Charlottesville High School originated on Wednesday from the imageboard 4chan and was quickly endorsed by other users.... On Friday morning, police arrested a 17-year-old boy in connection with the comments, charging him with threats to commit serious bodily harm to persons on school property, a felony, and harassment by computer, a misdemeanor." --s

Way Beyond

U.K. BBC: "Hundreds of thousands of people have marched in central London calling for another EU referendum, as MPs search for a way out of the Brexit impasse. Organisers of the 'Put It To The People' campaign say more than a million people joined the march before rallying in front of Parliament. Protesters carrying EU flags and placards called for any Brexit deal be put to another public vote. On Thursday, European leaders agreed to delay the UK's departure from the EU." ...

... Toby Hill & Michael Savage of the Guardian: "In one of the biggest demonstrations in British history, a crowd estimated at over one million people yesterday marched peacefully through central London to demand that MPs grant them a fresh referendum on Brexit."

... Lizzie Dearden of the (UK) Independent: "Islamophobic incidents have rocketed by almost 600 per cent in Britain following the New Zealand terror attack, a monitor has reported. Tell Mama said that in the week after 50 Muslim worshippers were gunned down, offenders used 'language, symbols or actions' linked to the atrocity to target Muslims in the UK. 'Cases included people making impressions of pointing a pistol to Muslim women and comments about British Muslims, and an association with actions taken by the terrorist in New Zealand,' the monitor said."

News Lede

New Your Times: "Rafi Eitan, the canny Israeli spymaster who commanded the Nazi-hunting team that captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and many years later was unmasked as the handler of Jonathan Jay Pollard, the American Navy intelligence analyst who pleaded guilty to passing on more than 1,000 secret documents to the Israelis, died on Saturday in Tel Aviv. He was 92."

The Commentariat -- March 23, 2019

The Trump Scandals, Ctd. -- Friday Night Mueller Dump

Sharon LaFraniere & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has delivered a report on his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election to Attorney General William P. Barr, according to the Justice Department.... Mr. Barr told congressional leaders in a letter late Friday that he may brief them within days on the special counsel's findings. 'I may be in a position to advise you of the special counsel's principal conclusions as soon as this weekend,' he wrote in a letter to the leadership of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.... Only a handful of law enforcement officials have seen the report, a Justice Department spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, said. She said a few members of Mr. Mueller's team would remain to close down the office. Mr. Mueller will not recommend any new charges be filed, a senior Justice Department official said.... In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York..., warned Mr. Barr not to allow the White House a 'sneak preview' of the report before the public views it." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: What this means to me is that Donald Trump, Donnie Junior & Jared Kushner (and others, like K.T. McFarland & Julian Assange) escaped indictment for the Trump Tower meeting, Trump Tower Moscow negotiations, & their other attempts at getting help from Russia. This looks to me like a huge win for Trump. He can't be an unindicted co-conspirator in or the director of a criminal conspiracy with Russians to manipulate a U.S. election if there are no co-conspirators. And there are not. Trump's talent for skating consequences is truly awesome. ...

     ... Update. The Unindicted. Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "A senior Justice Department official said the special counsel has not recommended any further indictments.... [AG William] Barr said there were no instances in the course of the investigation in which any of Mueller's decisions were vetoed by his superiors at the Justice Department.... Around 4:35, White House lawyer Emmet Flood was notified that the Justice Department had received the report. About a half-hour after that notification, a senior department official delivered Barr's letter to the relevant House and Senate committees and senior congressional leaders, officials said. One official described the report as 'comprehensive,' but added that very few people have seen it.... Immediately after the news of Mueller's report broke, Democrats demanded that its contents be made public." ...

... Here's Barr's letter to Congress, via NPR. ...

     ... Josh Gerstein of Politico has a helpful annotation of Barr's letter. Gerstein appeared on Rachel Maddow's show Friday & said he had "just come" from the DOJ, where he was assured the report Barr received was "comprehensive."

... Ellen Nakashima & Rachael Bade of the Washington Post: "The Democratic chairs of the six House committees investigating potential abuse of power by President Trump and his campaign's business and alleged foreign ties will ask several executive branch agencies to preserve information they provided to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as he investigated Russia's interference in the 2016 election, according to congressional aides.... The six House leaders and their Senate Democratic counterparts have signed a letter that will be sent to the Department of Justice, FBI and White House Counsel's Office, among other agencies, shortly after Mueller submits his report to Attorney General William P. Barr, signaling the investigation's conclusion."

Natasha Bertrand of the Atlantic runs down some of the significant matters Mueller has left dangling. In addition, "former FBI agents have expressed surprise that Mueller ended his probe without ever personally interviewing its central target: Donald Trump." Mrs. McC: Unless Mueller's report satisfactorily addresses these issues, and Barr makes that part of the report public, I'd say Mueller did not earn his paycheck. It was fairly disconcerting to watch a bunch of former prosecutors & other G-men go on the teevee Friday night & praise Mueller for "upholding the rule of law." We'll see. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton must be mighty pissed off, after his having to discuss blow jobs with a grand jury, to know that Donald Trump never had to answer for matters profoundly affecting national security.

On what looks like a dark day for democracy, David Remnick of the New Yorker reminds us of the stakes: "The Trump Presidency has, from the first, represented a threat to truth, liberal democracy, and the rule of law. Donald Trump's contempt for basic norms of governance is accompanied by a lack of decency, empathy, and psychological stability. This was never more evident than this week, when Trump, seemingly rattled by the imminence of the Mueller report, set off a fusillade of unhinged tweets, called the spouse of one of his senior advisers a 'whack job,' raged about the late Senator John McCain in front of a military audience..., and pronounced the Democratic Party 'anti-Jewish,' deepening, at every turn, the impression that he is unfit for government work. The perils of such instability are incalculable.... Trump has the psyche of an emotionally damaged toddler.... Given Trump's skills in the dark arts of campaigning and the general public satisfaction with the economy, no matter its inequities or vulnerabilities, it would be foolhardy to discount his chance of winning reëlection." ...

... Andrew Sullivan of New York: "Trump is showing his foes and friends that he can say anything, abuse anyone, lie about anything, break every norm of decency, propriety and prudence -- and suffer no consequences at all. It's all a dominance ritual." Mrs. McC: I'm no fan of Sullivan's, but he's right in every particular here.

Friday is a day ending in "y', so Donald Trump said offensive, stupid things:

... Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "President Trump suggested the public would view special counsel Robert Mueller's expected report on possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Moscow as illegitimate. 'A deputy, that didn't get any votes, appoints a man, that didn't get any votes, he's going to write a report on me,' Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, referring to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.... 'For two years we've gone through this nonsense. There's no collusion with Russia ... and there's no obstruction. They'll say, "oh, well wait, there was no collusion, that was a hoax, but he obstructed in fighting against the hoax,"' he said." Mrs. McC: Huh. Maybe Trump already knows the gist of Mueller's findings. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday renewed his attacks on Democrats as anti-Jewish' in response to a number of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates deciding to skip the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual conference in Washington. 'I don't know what happened to them but they are totally anti-Israel,' Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. 'Frankly, I think they are anti-Jewish.' Trump's comments come one day after he said the U.S. should recognize Israeli control of the disputed Golan Heights territory." Mrs. McC: This is of course the same guy whose "closing argument" in 2020 was one long anti-Semitic screed., said the white supremacists in Charlottesville who chanted "Jews will not replace us" were "good people," and so forth. (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump Does Kim Another Favor. Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "President Trump undercut his own Treasury Department on Friday by announcing that he was rolling back North Korea sanctions that it imposed just a day ago. The move, announced on Twitter, was a remarkable display of dissension within the Trump administration and represented a striking case of a White House intervening to reverse a major national security decision made only hours earlier by the president's own officials.... Sarah Huckabee Sanders ... said the decision was a favor to ... Kim [Jong-un]. 'Trump likes Chairman Kim, and he doesn't think these sanctions will be necessary,' she said.... Treasury and State Department officials, including career staff members and political appointees, spend months carefully crafting sanctions based on intensive intelligence gathering and legal research. Current and former Treasury Department officials were stunned by Mr. Trump's decision on Friday.... The department did issue a new round of sanctions against Iran on Friday, targeting a research and development unit that it believes could be used to restart Tehran's nuclear weapons program. It also announced new sanctions on Bandes, Venezuela's national development bank, and its subsidiaries, as part of its effort to topple the government of President Nicolás Maduro." ...

... Caitlin Oprysko & Andrew Restuccia of Politico: "... "Donald Trump on Friday declared he would reverse new sanctions on North Korea that his administration rolled out just a day before, deepening concerns that the ostensible leader of the free world is at odds with his own team as he makes American foreign policy in spontaneous 280-character bursts. The sudden move left the White House groping for an explanation, telling reporters only that Trump 'likes' North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.... Trump's announcement surprised many of his senior aides, and even some Treasury Department officials were caught off guard, according to a person familiar with the matter." ...

... Margaret Talev & Saleha Mohsin of Bloomberg News: "'This is utterly shocking,' John Smith, a former director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at Treasury, which issues and polices sanctions, said in an email. 'The president of the United States actively undercut his own sanctions agency for the benefit of North Korea.' Smith left the agency in May. A second former OFAC official, Sean Kane, said in an email that Trump's announcement was 'unprecedented' and 'calls any OFAC action into question when no one can be sure whether they're speaking for the administration.'"

Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times: "A four-year military operation to flush the Islamic State from its territory in Iraq and Syria ended on Saturday, as the last village held by the terrorist group was retaken, erasing a militant theocracy that once spanned two countries. Cornered in Baghuz, Syria, the last 1.5-square-mile remnant of the group's original caliphate in the region, the remaining militants waged a surprisingly fierce defense and kept the American-backed forces at bay for months. They detonated car bombs and hurled explosives from drones. Suicide bombers ran across the front line under cover of darkness to attack the sleeping quarters of the American-backed coalition. In the last weeks, the militants' families fled for their lives, their black-clad wives streaming into the desert by the tens of thousands, some of them defiantly chanting Islamic State slogans and lobbing fistfuls of dirt at reporters." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: It probably didn't help U.S.-backed forces that Presidunce* Blabber T. Mouth pulled a Geraldo* & told reporters on Wednesday that ISIS "will be gone by tonight." *In case you've forgotten Geraldo Rivera. The Unindicted President* remains the nation's greatest security threat.

All the Best People, Ctd.

Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Friday that he had offered a position on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors to Stephen Moore, a conservative economic adviser who has become an outspoken critic of the Fed's interest rate policy. Mr. Moore has blamed the Fed's rate increases over the past year for slowing economic growth and recently began calling on the central bank to begin cutting rates. An economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Mr. Moore helped draft Mr. Trump's tax proposals in the 2016 campaign and has served as an informal adviser ever since. As a nominee, Mr. Moore, 59, would face intense criticism in the Senate from Democrats, with whom he has clashed on several economic issues in his career as a commentator and policy advocate." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Stephen Moore's career as an economic analyst has been a decades-long continuous procession of error and hackery. It is not despite but precisely because of these errors that Moore now finds himself in the astonishing position of having been offered a position on the Federal Reserve board by President Trump. Moore's primary area of pseudo-expertise -- he is not an economist -- is fiscal policy. He is a dedicated advocate of supply-side economics, relentlessly promoting his fanatical hatred of redistribution and belief that lower taxes for the rich can and will unleash wondrous prosperity. Like nearly all supply-siders, he has clung to this dogma in the face of repeated, spectacular failures."

León Krauze in Slate: "Trump is expected to nominate D.C. attorney Christopher Landau as the next ambassador to Mexico. While an accomplished lawyer, Landau's credentials for the Mexico assignment are virtually nonexistent. Other than being the son of former American ambassador to Paraguay, Chile, and Venezuela, George Landau, Trump's potential nominee has no practical foreign policy experience to speak of. He has never held any sort of diplomatic post, nor is he an expert on Mexico, its politics, its culture, or its current troubles.... If confirmed, Landau would be the least experienced American diplomat to occupy the Mexican ambassadorship in a generation, an indefensible decision at a crucial juncture for the two countries. On the other hand, perhaps Landau's appointment is merely symbolic. After all, when it comes to Mexico, the Trump administration seems to trust only one man: Jared Kushner."

A Hurricane Took Your Home; FEMA Took Your Personal Identity. Joel Achenbach, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Federal Emergency Management Agency shared personal addresses and banking information of more than 2 million U.S. disaster survivors in what the agency acknowledged Friday was a 'major privacy incident.' The data mishap, discovered recently and the subject of a report by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, occurred when the agency shared sensitive, personally identifiable information of disaster survivors who used FEMA'S Transitional Sheltering Assistance program, according to officials at FEMA. Those affected included the victims of California wildfires in 2017 and Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, the report said. In a statement, Lizzie Litzow, FEMA's press secretary, said, 'FEMA provided more information than was necessary' while transferring disaster survivor information to a contractor." Mrs. McC: Um, yeah.

Devin Nunes Cowed. Rory Appleton of the Fresno Bee: "The Fresno County Republican Party canceled plans for its Lincoln Reagan dinner next month featuring Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, as its keynote speaker after social media calls for people to crash the event. The local GOP is working to reschedule the event, organizers confirmed to The Bee on Friday.... The event was removed from the Republicans' website and Facebook on Thursday."

Brian Lyman, et al., of the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser: "Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen said in a statement Friday he has asked the board of the troubled organization ... 'to immediately launch a search for an interim president in order to give the organization the best chance to heal,' and took responsibility for problems that have swept out the senior leadership of the group in just a week." Cohen will step down. Mrs. McC: I hope you got a chance to read Bob Moser's takedown of the SPLC, linked yesterday. It was an eye-opener for me.

Beyond the Beltway

Pennsylvania. Adeel Hassan of the New York Times: "A [white] former police officer in Eas Pittsburgh, Pa., was acquitted Friday on all counts in connection with the shooting death of a black teenager who fled during a traffic stop last summer. The verdict in the death of Antwon Rose II came after a four-day trial in downtown Pittsburgh and less than four hours of jury deliberation.... Antwon, who was unarmed, ran after [Officer Michael] Rosfeld pulled over the car he was riding in with another teenager. The car ... matched the description of one involved in a nearby drive-by shooting about 10 minutes earlier.... Prosecutors say Mr. Rosfeld, 30, gave inconsistent statements about the shooting, including whether he thought Antwon had a gun.... Mr. Rosfeld had been on the East Pittsburgh police force for about three weeks and had been officially sworn in just hours before the shooting. Previously, he had been a member of the University of Pittsburgh police force, but he left the job after discrepancies were found between one of his sworn statements and evidence in an arrest, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has reported."

Texas. Thank You, San Antonio. Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "The San Antonio City Council, on a 6-4 vote, removed a planned Chick-fil-A location from an airport concession agreement on Thursday, after a councilman flagged the company's anti-LGBTQ activity. Local media reported that the move followed a ThinkProgress report on Wednesday which noted the company's foundation gave $1.8 million in 2017 to tax exempt groups with anti-LGBTQ records."

Way Beyond

Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "... despite its reforms, Interpol [is] still vulnerable to manipulation by strongmen, despots and human rights violators."

Finally, some good news from London:

The Commentariat -- March 22, 2019

It's a day ending in "y', so Donald Trump is saying offensive, stupid things:

Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday renewed his attacks on Democrats as anti-Jewish' in response to a number of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates deciding to skip the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual conference in Washington. 'I don't know what happened to them but they are totally anti-Israel,' Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. 'Frankly, I think they are anti-Jewish.' Trump's comments come one day after he said the U.S. should recognize Israeli control of the disputed Golan Heights territory." Mrs. McC: This is of course the same guy whose "closing argument" in 2020 was one long anti-Semitic screed., said the white supemacists in Charlottesville who chanted "Jews will not replace us" were "good people," and so forth. ...

... Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "President Trump suggested the public would view special counsel Robert Mueller's expected report on possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Moscow as illegitimate. 'A deputy, that didn't get any votes, appoints a man, that didn't get any votes, he's going to write a report on me,' Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, referring to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.... 'For two years we've gone through this nonsense. There.s no collusion with Russia ... and there's no obstruction. They'll say, "oh, well wait, there was no collusion, that was a hoax, but he obstructed in fighting against the hoax,"' he said." Mrs. McC: Huh. Maybe Trump already knows the gist of Mueller's findings.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Trump Scandals, Ctd. -- Report Watch Edition

Stonewall, Ctd. Jeremy Herb & Pamela Brown of CNN: "The White House is rejecting a request from congressional Democrats to obtain documents tied to ... Donald Trump's communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a letter to three Democratic committee chairmen, White House counsel Pat Cipollone said that the courts have long established that presidential communications with foreign leaders are protected and confidential."

Lock Him Up! Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Jared Kushner ... uses an unofficial online messaging service for official White House business, including with foreign contacts, his lawyer told the House Oversight Committee late last year. The lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said he was not aware if Mr. Kushner had communicated classified information on the service, WhatsApp, and said that because he took screenshots of the communications and sent them to his official White House account or the National Security Council, his client was not in violation of federal records laws. In a letter disclosing the information, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee [-- Elijah Cummings (D-Md.)] said that he was investigating possible violations of the Presidential Records Act by members of the Trump administration, including Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump. He accused the White House of stonewalling his committee on information it had requested for months." What's the problem? (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Barbara Ortutay of the AP: "Facebook said Thursday that it stored millions of its users' passwords in plain text for years. The acknowledgement from the social media giant came after a security researcher posted about the issue online.... Facebook said there is no evidence its employees abused access to this data. But thousands of employees could have searched them. The company said the passwords were stored on internal company servers, where no outsiders could access them. But the incident reveals a huge oversight for the company amid a slew of bruises and stumbles in the last couple of years." Mrs. McC: Did I mention Facebook owns WhatsApp? Jared's password is Hot*Grifter2. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Russia, If You're Listening, I Hope You're Able to Find the 30,000 Emails that Are Missing. Chad Day & Jill Colvin of the AP: "Ivanka Trump ... did not preserve all of her official emails as required by federal law, and her husband, Jared Kushner, used a messaging application to conduct U.S. business outside government channels, the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee said on Thursday. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said in a letter to the White House that the use of private email accounts and the messaging application WhatsApp by senior administration officials raises 'security and federal records concerns.'... In his letter, Cummings also singled out former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and former deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland, questioning whether they preserved documents related to a proposal to transfer nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia. That proposal is under investigation by Cummings' committee, which is looking into information from whistleblowers who have said they witnessed 'abnormal acts' within the Trump National Security Council involving senior White House officials who were pushing the plan."

... Abigail Tracy of Vanity Fair: "'There is no "children' immunity,' Congressman Eric Swalwell told me on Thursday afternoon. Swalwell, who sits on both the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees, was describing the sprawling web of investigations picking up steam within the Democratic-controlled Congress that appear likely to cover ... the president's ... business interests, his cronies, and yes, even his family members.... The children have traditionally been behind one of Trump's red lines, but Democrats are trying to flip the script. 'We are not going out of our way to hear from the president's children, but the president has gone out of his way to involve his children in the campaign, in the transition and in the governing of our country,' Swalwell continued. 'You can't violate norms with the nepotism that he operates under and then put up a shield when those children land themselves as potential witnesses.'"

Jim Comey, in the New York Times, writes a high-minded op-ed about how he hopes the Mueller report proves justice has prevailed & how awful impeachment would be. Pardon me for gagging.

Ben Mathis-Lilley of Slate has some advice for Bob Mueller on how to finish that big writing assignment.

Rebecca Morin of Politico: "... Donald Trump announced Thursday that the United States will formally recognize Israel's sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights. 'After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!' the president tweeted." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Mark Landler & Edward Wong of the New York Times: "President Trump declared on Thursday that the United States should recognize Israel's authority over the long disputed Golan Heights, delivering a valuable election-eve gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but jettisoning decades of American policy in the Middle East. Mr. Trump's announcement, in a midday Twitter post, came after persistent pressure from Mr. Netanyahu, a close political ally who is fighting for his survival in the election scheduled for April 9, and has invoked his friendship with the American president as a prime argument for staying in office. But Mr. Trump's move, while popular in Israel and among some lawmakers in Congress, is likely to be condemned almost everywhere else. The United Nations has rejected Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights since 1967, when Israeli troops seized the 400 square miles of rocky highlands from Syria during the Arab-Israeli war. It will also reverberate throughout the Middle East and could undermine Mr. Trump's long anticipated peace proposal for Israel and the Palestinians."

** Zack Beauchamp of Vox: "... Donald Trump gleefully pressed on another culture war hot button Thursday afternoon, issuing an executive order that's supposed to address allegedly serious threats to free speech on America's college campuses.... As my colleague Ella Nilsen explains, it basically amounts to reminding universities about existing law. But that doesn't mean the order is insignificant. It reflects, instead, the degree to which the conservative movement ... has created a panic about the limitation of free speech on college campuses.... That's because this isn't a battle about free speech. it's a fight over political power and cultural control." --s

Presiduntial* Boredom. Steve M.: "I agree with George Conway that Trump has narcissistic personality disorder. I don't agree with those who believe that Trump's attacks on Conway, renewed attacks on McCain, and incessant tweeting last weekend are a sign of mental deterioration or dementia. Trump is just bored.... He has no battles to fight -- the Mueller report hasn't landed, the shutdown is over, the midterms and the Brett Kavanaugh fight were months ago, the North Korea initiative crashed and burned, the 2020 presidential campaign is just beginning ... and there won't be any significant legislation from this divided Congress anytime soon.... Trump has to be asking himself: How do I sustain my brand? The obvious answer: Twitter beefs! Fight with someone! Then fight with someone else! The base loves it! The base thinks it's presidential!" --s

Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "Marines Corps Commandant General Robert Neller slammed ... Donald Trump's plan to dispatch troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in a series of recently-leaked internal memorandums. According to the Los Angeles Times, Neller warned the Pentagon that Trump's widely-ridiculed border deployments and proposed funding transfers under his national emergency declaration have caused 'unacceptable risk to Marine Corps combat readiness and solvency.' Specifically, Neller said the 'unplanned/unbudgeted' border theatrics and spur-of-the-moment funds-shifting had caused the Marines Corps to delay crucial repairs at U.S. military bases.... [Trump's] moves, Neller said, also caused the branch to cancel or reduce several military training exercises in at least five different countries."

Scott Bixby of The Daily Beast: "The Trump administration has sought to expand the government's role in fostering religious freedom both at home and abroad, but within its own immigrant detention centers migrants of faith have seen their own religious freedoms curtailed. Religious detainees have had their religious texts and items confiscated, been forced to eat forbidden foods, and have even watched as U.S. immigration agents threw their holy objects into the garbage in front of them, according to a letter of complaint sent to government watchdogs by the American Civil Liberties Union this week." --s

Sam Mintz of Politico: "A Federal Highway Administration spokesman made dozens of jokes over the past several years about mass shootings, abortion and the killing of Trayvon Martin, a review of his personal Twitter account shows. Doug Hecox ... a comedian, writer and adjunct professor in addition to his role at the highway agency[.]" --s

John Schwartz of the New York Times: "Vast areas of the United States are at risk of flooding this spring, even as Nebraska and other Midwestern states are already reeling from record-breaking late-winter floods, federal scientists said on Thursday. Nearly two-thirds of the lower 48 states will have an elevated risk of some flooding from now until May, and 25 states could experience 'major or moderate flooding,' according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration." Mrs. McC: Of course climate change is a hoax.

Presidential Race 2020

Mike Allen of Axios: "Close advisers to former Vice President Joe Biden are debating the idea of packaging his presidential campaign announcement with a pledge to choose Stacey Abrams as his vice president.... The popular Georgia Democrat, who at age 45 is 31 years younger than Biden, would bring diversity and excitement to the ticket -- showing voters, in the words of a close source, that Biden 'isn't just another old white guy.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Jonathan Chait lists nine reasons this is a good idea for both Biden & Abrams. (Also linked yesterday.)

Ben White & Steve Shepard of Politico: "... Donald Trump has a low approval rating. He is engaging in bitter Twitter wars and facing metastasizing investigations. But if the election were held today, he'd likely ride to a second term in a huge landslide, according to multiple economic models with strong track records of picking presidential winners and losses." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Because This. A Cancer on the Body Politic. Maxwell Tani of the Daily Beast: "Almost 8 in 10 Republicans who watch Fox News say Donald Trump is the most successful president in history. That was just one finding of a new poll showing the deep ideological divide between Fox News viewers and everyone else. The poll results were provided to The Daily Beast by Navigator, a project launched by Democratic groups Global Strategy Group and GBA strategies. They surveyed more than 1,000 registered voters online with the goal of examining the differences in views between Fox News viewers and non-Fox viewers.... The data show numerous ways in which Fox News-watching Republicans have radically different beliefs from non-Republicans and even Republicans who do not watch Fox News." (Also linked yesterday.)

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "Whatever its potential merits, [the Electoral College] is a plainly undemocratic institution.... Narrow margins throw it into chaos."

Ernie Suggs of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Jimmy "Carter becomes the oldest living former president in United States history" today. (Also linked yesterday.)

Alex Shephard of the New Republic: Democrats have become the party of perpetual timidity. "... they inevitably tack toward the center when out of power, ever fearful of being labeled tax-and-spend liberals or, god forbid, socialists.... Now here comes a crop of fearless left-wing politicians, from first-term congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar to septuagenarian Senator Bernie Sanders, whose fearless policies are generating much of the excitement among the rank-and-file. For the party to turn its back on them, out of certainty that history will repeat itself -- now that would be blowing it."

Never-Trumper Rick Wilson of the Daily Beast: "Damn near every elected member of the Republican Party failed another easy test this week as Donald Trump lost his grip on reality and spent days attacking the late Senator John McCain. They tripped over their own dicks in the face of Trump's egregious bullying, racing for political cover and sacrificing their few remaining shreds of dignity because they fear this mad president more than they love their own honor.... In the House, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, spoke clearly and strongly -- his voice resonating even more given the silence around it from most of his Republican colleagues there." --s ...

... So Let's See How That Went. Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "Crenshaw is a former Navy SEAL who earned two Bronze Stars and a purple heart for his service in Afghanistan, where he lost his right eye from an improvised explosive device explosion.... Supporters of ... Donald Trump quickly suffered an online meltdown." Brigham cites a number of Twitter responses, excoriating both Crenshaw & McCain. ...

... Robert Costa, et al., of the Washington Post: "By attacking McCain, Trump allies said Thursday, the president is stoking his supporters' rawest emotions and suspicions about the GOP's political elite."

Joan Biskupic, in a CNN piece about how John Roberts saved ObamaCare: "He was part of the majority of justices who initially voted in a private conference to strike down the individual insurance mandate -- the heart of the law -- but he also voted to uphold an expansion of Medicaid for people near the poverty line. Two months later, Roberts had shifted on both."

Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "Speaking in a halting, raspy voice, Cesar A. Sayoc Jr., sat in a Manhattan federal courtroom on Thursday and described how he painstakingly assembled homemade pipe bombs that he sent to prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama and other critics of President Trump last fall.... Mr. Sayoc, 57, paused his explanation and broke into sobs, finally collecting himself and speaking softly just before he pleaded guilty to the attack.... Mr. Sayoc pleaded guilty to 65 counts, which included using a weapon of mass destruction and interstate transportation of an explosive. He faces up to life in prison if convicted."

Capitalism Is Deadly. Hiroko Tabuchi & David Gelles of the New York Times: "As the pilots of the doomed Boeing jets in Ethiopia and Indonesia fought to control their planes, they lacked two notable safety features in their cockpits. One reason: Boeing charged extra for them. For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... AFP: "Indonesia's national carrier Garuda has cancelled a multibillion-dollar order for 49 Boeing 737 Max 8 jets after two fatal crashes involving the plane, the company said, blaming passengers' loss of trust in the aircraft." --s

Julia Wong of the Guardian: "Facebook employees were aware of concerns about 'improper data-gathering practices' by Cambridge Analytica [in September 2015] months before the Guardian first reported, in December 2015, that the political consultancy had obtained data on millions from an academic.... The new information 'could suggest that Facebook has consistently mislead [sic.]' British lawmakers 'about what it knew and when about Cambridge Analytica', tweeted Damian Collins the chair of the [British] House of Commons digital culture media and sport select committee (DCMS).... After [the issue became] an international scandal, Mark Zuckerberg stated that Facebook 'learned from journalists at The Guardian that [former Cambridge University academic Aleksandr] Kogan had shared data from his app with Cambridge Analytica' in 2015. The article detailing this data sharing was published on 11 December 2015." --s

** "Spies for Hire." Mark Mazzetti, et al., of the New York Times: "The Saudi government's reliance on a firm from Israel [to surveil Saudi dissidents like Jamal Khashoggi], an adversary for decades, offers a glimpse of a new age of digital warfare governed by few rules and of a growing economy, now valued at $12 billion, of spies for hire. Today even the smallest countries can buy digital espionage services, enabling them to conduct sophisticated operations like electronic eavesdropping or influence campaigns that were once the preserve of major powers like the United States and Russia. Corporations that want to scrutinize competitors' secrets, or wealthy individual with a beef against a rival, can also command intelligence operations for a price.... The firms have enabled governments not only to hack criminal elements like terrorist and drug cartels but also in some cases to act on darker impulses, targeting activists and journalists. Hackers trained by United States spy agencies caught American businesspeople and human rights workers in their net.... The Middle East is the epicenter of this new era of privatized spying."

** Bob Moser, in the New Yorker, writes a damning reminiscence of his work at the Southern Poverty Law Center, in the news this week because the Center fired its co-founder Morris Dees. "For those of us who've worked in the Poverty Palace, putting it all into perspective isn't easy, even to ourselves. We were working with a group of dedicated and talented people, fighting all kinds of good fights, making life miserable for the bad guys. And yet, all the time, dark shadows hung over everything: the racial and gender disparities, the whispers about sexual harassment, the abuses that stemmed from the top-down management, and the guilt you couldn't help feeling about the legions of donors who believed that their money was being used, faithfully and well, to do the Lord's work in the heart of Dixie. We were part of the con, and we knew it."

Finland! Gabriella Paiella of New York: "... Bernie Sanders tweeted that it costs an average of $12,000 to have a baby in the United States, compared to just $60 in Finland -- at which point former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley decided to weigh in. 'Alright @BernieSanders, you're not the woman having the baby so I wouldn't be out there talking about skimping on a woman when it comes to childbirth. Trust me! Nice try though,' she replied, adding, 'Health care costs are too high that is true but comparing us to Finland is ridiculous. Ask them how their health care is. You won't like their answer.' Plenty of Finns took this as an invitation to tell Haley that they did, in fact, enjoy their health care.... Finnish journalist Anu Partanen ... [said,] '... It's ... extremely ironic that she would make that comment in relation to childbirth because that is exactly the area where Finland and all of Nordic countries really excel.... Typically people are very happy with the care they get while giving birth and you just pay a minimal co-pay for the hospital stay. Also, the American maternal mortality rates and infant mortality rates are sort of shockingly high for the wealthiest country in the world, practically. On the other hand, Finland does, in those areas, particularly well -- Finnish rates are among the lowest in the world."

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Also too, "alright" is not a word, Nikki, you ignorant slut.

Beyond the Beltway

South Carolina. Will Sommer of The Daily Beast: "The wacko pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory has some friends in high places in South Carolina, where State Rep. Lin Bennett (R) has been posting on Facebook about her belief in QAnon.... Bennett, who represents a Charleston-area district, has been posting about QAnon on Facebook since at least last year, even helping to 'decode' the QAnon 'clues' for her Facebook friends." --s

Wisconsin. Todd Richmond of the AP: "A judge on Thursday temporarily blocked Wisconsin Republicans' contentious lame-duck laws limiting the Democratic governor and attorney general's powers, brushing aside GOP lawmakers' concerns that the move leaves thousands of pages of statutes passed in so-called extraordinary sessions susceptible to challenge. Republican legislative leaders immediately vowed to appeal Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess" order, saying it will create chaos and calling Niess biased. The order is part of a lawsuit filed by a coalition of liberal-leaning groups. They allege the Legislature met illegally when it passed the lame-duck bills in December." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond

Brazil. Brad Brooks & Rodrigo Gaier of Reuters: "Brazil's former President Michel Temer was arrested on Thursday in an investigation of alleged graft in the construction of nuclear plant Angra 3, prosecutors told Reuters, rattling the political class and threatening to delay a major pension reform. Temer was president from 2016 to 2018, taking office following the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, for whom he served as vice president for six years. His lawyer confirmed the arrest." (Also linked yesterday.)

Indonesia. Kate Lamb of the Guardian: "The spread of fake news and disinformation has spiked in Indonesia in recent months, weeks before millions are scheduled to vote in the country's elections.... In the world's third-largest democracy and a country that is among the top five users of Facebook and Twitter, fake news has been used to deepen existing social, ethnic and religious divisions -- a polarisation of identity politics for political gain." --s

Myanmar. Emma Graham-Harrison of the Guardian: "Burmese and Chinese authorities are turning a blind eye to a growing trade in women from Myanmar' Kachin minority, who are taken across the border, sold as wives to Chinese men and raped until they become pregnant, a report claims. Some of the women are allowed to return home after they have given birth, but are forced to leave their children, according to an investigation by Human Rights Watch, titled Give Us a Baby and We'll Let You Go." --s

U.K. Raf Casert & Jill Lawless of the AP: "Worn down by three years of indecision in London, European Union leaders on Thursday grudgingly offered the U.K. more time to ease itself out of the bloc, delaying by several weeks -- but not eliminating -- the threat of a chaotic British exit. After a meeting that stretched through the afternoon and over dinner, the bloc said Britain could postpone its March 29 departure to May 22 -- if the U.K. Parliament approves Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce deal with the bloc next week."