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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Thursday
Dec132018

The Commentariat -- December 14, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday named White House budget director Mick Mulvaney as his Acting chief of staff. Trump said in a pair of Twitter posts that Mulvaney would begin at the beginning of next year after outgoing chief of staff John Kelly leaves his post." Mrs. McC: This makes zero sense according to Trump's rationale: supposedly the reason he couldn't come to an agreement with Nick Ayers was that Ayers would commit only to a number of months. So now, after Trump claimed he had bunches of fabulous candidates, he settles on someone who will serve in an "acting" -- that is, short-term -- chief.

Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "The special counsel's office rejected on Friday a suggestion from Michael T. Flynn, President Trump's former national security adviser, that he had been tricked into lying to F.B.I. agents investigating Russia's election interference and ties to Trump associates. Prosecutors laid out a pattern of lies by Mr. Flynn to Vice President Mike Pence, senior White House aides, federal investigators and the media in the weeks before and after the presidential inauguration as he scrambled to obscure the truth about his communications during the presidential transition with Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time.... 'A sitting national security adviser, former head of an intelligence agency, retired lieutenant general and 33-year veteran of the armed forces knows he should not lie to federal agents,' prosecutors wrote in court papers. 'He does not need to be warned it is a crime to lie to federal agents to know the importance of telling them the truth.'"

Mitch Smith & Monica Davey of the New York Times: "Scott Walker, the outgoing Republican governor of Wisconsin, on Friday signed into law measures that diminish the power of his Democratic successor and expand the authority of Republican lawmakers who teamed up with him over the last eight years to move the state firmly to the right. Mr. Walker approved the measures over the vehement objections of the incoming governor and despite fierce protest in the State Capitol as Republican lawmakers rushed the bills through in a hastily-called session last week. Tony Evers, the Democrat who beat Mr. Walker in the November election, has suggested that he may file suit over the changes and said that Mr. Walker had chosen 'to ignore and override the will of the people of Wisconsin.'... Participating in what many Democrats consider a legally dubious power grab also cemented another widely held view: that Mr. Walker is a bruising partisan willing to break precedent and ignore protests for political gain."

Thanks But No Thanks. Nancy Cook & Matthew Choi of Politico: "Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on Friday that he doesn't want to be Donald Trump's next chief of staff, leaving the president with a dwindling list of candidates and underscoring the chaos of the search for the top West Wing aide. Christie, an early Trump supporter who led the White House transition effort before being ousted, made the announcement just a day after he met with the president to discuss possibly taking the role. Christie's firm statement also came shortly after reports emerged that he was the front-runner for the job, showing how quickly contenders' odds can rise and fall." Mrs. McC: As I wrote earlier today, Christie's "job interview" with Trump was a ruse to bolster Trump's claim that he was interviewing multiple willing candidates.

After two days of not showing up to work until noon, Trump got to work "early" today: 11: 43 am. Mrs. McC: If President Obama had kept the kind of "work" schedule Trump has been keeping for weeks, Republicans would have impeached him for dereliction of duty. (In fairness to Trump, Obama probably didn't spend two hours a day fixing his hair. Plus Obama's tan came naturally; he didn't have to lie around in a machine. So Trump has unusually time-consuming grooming needs. BTW, women who have to primp daily just get up early.)

George T. Conway III, Trevor Potter & Neal Katyal in a Washington Post op-ed: Having been caught in his attempts to lie his way out of the campaign finance felonies, "Now Trump and his acolytes have turned to two other excuses: They point to an earlier case involving former senator John Edwards to argue that what Trump did wasn't a crime; and they say, even if it was a crime, it wasn't a biggie -- there are lots of crimes, so what, who cares. The former is a very weak legal argument, and the latter a dangerous one.... The [Edwards] case is actually harmful for Trump.... Edwards repeatedly argued that the payments were not campaign contributions because they were not made exclusively to further his campaign. The judge rejected this argument as a matter of law, ruling that a payment to a candidate's extramarital sexual partner is a campaign contribution if 'one of' the reasons the payment is made is to influence the election.... [And] there's good reason to believe that the evidence in a criminal case against Trump would be much stronger.... The grievous minimization of serious campaign finance violations by members of Trump's political party further corrode our commitment to our age-old ideal of being a 'government of laws, and not of men.'" The authors run down the significant differences in evidence in Edwards' & Trump's cases. ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: However, Conway, et al., are not taking into account Rudy's latest defense of Trump:

Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed.... This was not a big crime. -- Rudy Giuliani, to the Daily Beast (linked below)

I think Sec. Clinton would disagree with that statement. As well as a few million American voters. -- Dan L., in today's commentary


... Here's the transcript of George Stephanopoulos' interview of Michael Cohen.

Mrs. McCrabbie: Safari has a longer & better summary of the following post than the brief one I posted in today's main page:

... Asawin Suebsaeng et al. of The Daily Beast: "Shortly after the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was handed a task considered critical to the president's operations. In addition to serving as a senior adviser in the White House, he would also be playing the role of the main conduit between Trump and his friend David Pecker, the National Enquirer publisher and chief executive of AMI. During the early months of the Trump era, Kushner performed the task admirably.... Starting in late 2016, AMI's priorities shifted from a potential business deal with Kushner to one focused on access to political power. Shortly after the Trump presidency began, Kushner and Pecker talked repeatedly, on subjects ranging from relations with the Saudi regime, to possible dirt that the Enquirer had on Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.... AMI, like Kushner, cozied up to the despotic Saudi government, which included the production of a glossy propaganda magazine boosting Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman." --s

Aris Folley of The Hill: "The Education Department on Thursday announced that it will be canceling $150 million in student loans, upholding an Obama-era policy that Secretary Betsy DeVos has long fought to overhaul.... [A] federal judge ruled in September that DeVos's efforts to nix the 2016 regulations from taking effect was illegal.... Out of the $150 million in student loans the department has announced will be automatically discharged, $80 million is attributable to loans taken out b borrowers who attended Corinthian Colleges -- which was a for-profit educational chain that closed its schools back in 2015." --s

Chavie Lieber of Vox: "CBD, the non-psychoactive cannabinoid of marijuana ... just got a big boost thanks to US lawmakers. On Wednesday, Congress voted to pass the US Farm Bill, legalizing hemp, a species of cannabis that CBD can be extracted from but that isn't psychoactive. Historically, hemp has been illegal to sell or grow in the US, although it's legal to buy from international sources.... With the growing and selling of hemp now legal, greater access to CBD could mean more substantial trials and more definitive research into its purported health benefits. And it will certainly be a boon to the CBD industry." --s

Yvonne Sanchez of the Arizona Republic: "U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl will resign from the U.S. Senate on Dec. 31, The Arizona Republic has confirmed, setting up a second appointment by Gov. Doug Ducey to the seat once occupied by the late John McCain. Ducey is required under law to name another Republican to the seat."

Mark Follman & Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "The intelligence committee is one of two Senate committees with ongoing investigations into the possibility that additional Russian money flowed through the NRA. Two probes into NRA-Russia matters are also ramping up in the House as Democrats prepare to take control of the chamber in January. The House Intelligence Committee, soon to be chaired by California Rep. Adam Schiff, plans to scrutinize 'two major threads' regarding the NRA, a committee aide said. Those include whether [Russians Alexander Torshin and [Maria] Butina were part of efforts to establish a backchannel to the Kremlin, and 'whether Russian money was flowing into the NRA for the purpose of supporting Trump's election.'" --s

Peter Granitz of NPR: "Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen warned party leaders that what she sees as the GOP's focus on conservative, white, male voters harms its electoral prospects. In an interview with Morning Edition host Rachel Martin, Ros-Lehtinen said Republicans would 'lose this whole generation' if it did not 'aggressively pursue' young voters.... Ros-Lehtinen has had a historic career, as the first Latina and first Cuban-American in Congress, as well as being the first woman to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee.... However, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in Ros-Lehtinen's district by nearly 20 points in 2016, and her House seat flipped to Democrats in 2018." --s

"I Speak for the Trees." Stephanie Ebbs of ABC News: "A federal judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals quoted Dr. Seuss' beloved environmental warrior [the Lorax] in a decision calling for the U.S. Forest Service to revisit its approval for a natural gas pipeline on the East Coast to go forward. 'We trust the United States Forest Service to "speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,'" Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote, quoting Dr. Seuss' 1971 book 'The Lorax.'"

"Annals of Journalism," Ctd. Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently promoting its recent environmental rollback using an op-ed published in a news outlet owned by a Republican megadonor. The column, published by The Las Vegas Review-Journal Editorial Board ... was sent around to journalists by the EPA press office on Thursday.... The Review-Journal is owned by American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson who, with his wife ... also had a close relationship with the agency during former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's tenure. As Politico reported in March, Pruitt met with Israeli company Water-Gen at the 'request of Adelson.' Shortly after, the agency signed a research agreement with the company." --s

R.I.P. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "The Weekly Standard, the magazine that espouses traditional conservatism and which has remained deeply critical of ... Donald Trump, will shutter after 23 years, Clarity Media Group, the owner of its publisher announced Friday morning. It will publish its final issue on December 17."

*****

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

** Trump Was in the Room. Tom Winter of NBC News: "Donald Trump was the third person in the room in August 2015 when his lawyer Michael Cohen and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker discussed ways Pecker could help counter negative stories about Trump's relationships with women, NBC News has confirmed. As part of a non-prosecution agreement disclosed Wednesday by federal prosecutors, American Media Inc., the Enquirer's parent company, admitted that 'Pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidate's relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.' The 'Statement of Admitted Facts' says that AMI admitted making a $150,000 payment 'in concert with the campaign,' and says that Pecker, Cohen, and 'at least one other member of the campaign' were in the meeting. According to a person familiar with the matter, the 'other member' was Trump.... Daniel Goldman, an NBC News analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney said..., "... if Trump is now in the room, as early as August of 2015 and in combination with the recording where Trump clearly knows what Cohen is talking about with regarding to David Pecker, you now squarely place Trump in the middle of a conspiracy to commit campaign finance fraud.'" Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Cohen Twists the Knife. George Stephanopoulos, et al., of ABC News: "Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to arrange hush-money payments with two women because then-candidate Trump 'was very concerned about how this would affect the election' if their allegations of affairs became public, the president's former personal attorney said in an exclusive interview with ABC News.... 'I knew what I was doing was wrong,' Cohen told ... George Stephanopoulos. 'I stood up before the world [Wednesday] and I accepted the responsibility for my actions.' When asked if the president also knew it was wrong to make the payments, Cohen replied, 'Of course,' adding that the purpose was to 'help [Trump] and his campaign.'... 'Why should we believe you now?' Stephanopoulos asked. 'Because the special counsel stated emphatically that the information that I gave to them is credible and helpful,' Cohen replied. 'There's a substantial amount of information that they possessed that corroborates the fact that I am telling the truth.'" ...

I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called 'advice of counsel,' and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid. Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly..... -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Thursday ...

... Thursday in Trump Tall Tales. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump denied Thursday that he had directed his former personal attorney Michael Cohen to break the law during the 2016 campaign by buying the silence of two women who claimed they once had affairs with the future president. In morning tweets, Trump, however, did not dispute that he had directed Cohen to make the payments, as Cohen and federal prosecutors have alleged -- actions that could imperil Trump. The president claimed that Cohen bore responsibility for any criminal violations of campaign finance law but also asserted that Cohen 'probably was not guilty' of even civil violations related to the payments to former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stormy Daniels -- a view at odds with that of many lawyers. 'Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did,' Trump alleged.... Trump largely echoed his tweets in a television interview broadcast Thursday afternoon. 'I never directed him to do anything wrong,' Trump told Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, speaking about Cohen. 'Whatever he did he did on his own. ... I never directed him to do anything incorrect or wrong.' Trump sought to minimize his relationship with Cohen, saying he did 'more public relations than law' and was generally responsible for 'low-level work.'&" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... The New York Times story, by Eileen Sullivan & Maggie Haberman, is here. ...

... Elura Nanos of Law & Crime: "... convenient as it may be for Trump to believe that it's perfectly legal to conspire with a lawyer to commit crimes..., in general, directing a person to commit a crime is ... a crime all by itself.... For most crimes, there is no requirement that the person giving or receiving instructions for criminal behavior actually know the law creating the criminal offense.... Criminal-level campaign finance violations (which are one of several categories of crimes for which Cohen was prosecuted) do require knowledge of wrongdoing.... But Cohen's knowledge isn't really what matters. If Trump knew his behavior was illegal, then Cohen could have been the leading expert on campaign finance and it wouldn't matter a fig.... It's not a great idea for Trump to bring up 'advice of counsel' here (although I'm very proud of him for spelling both words correctly for perhaps the first time ever). Using the 'my lawyer made me do it' defense is a terrible idea, because -- as my colleague Colin Kalmbacher discusses here -- it can indicate a waiver of attorney-client privilege." ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Thursday tacitly admitted, for the first time, that he directed Michael Cohen to facilitate hush-money payments to two women who had alleged affairs with Trump, Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels.... It's worth emphasizing just how horrendous of a coverup this whole episode has proved to be. Regardless of legal culpability, Trump and his team have spent the past 11 months engaging in a very public and irreconcilable effort to obscure all of this. And as the days pass, their statements look worse and worse." Blake then takes "a trip down memory lane" to remind us of Trump & his team's previous evolving lies about the payments. ...

... Philip Rucker & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "For months, President Trump's spokesmen, his lawyer and his lawyer's lawyer denied that Trump knew about payments during his 2016 campaign to buy the silence of women who alleged sexual encounters with him. The president himself claimed the same. But after mounting evidence and fresh courthouse revelations of wrongdoing this week exposed those denials as falsehoods, Trump is shifting his tune. The president no longer disputes that he instructed his then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to make the payments to former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels. Instead, Trump sought to evade that question Thursday by saying he never told Cohen to break the law -- making a narrow assertion that was itself an admission that his and his team's earlier denials were false.... The evolving strategy on the hush-money allegations is textbook Trump: Tell one version of events until it falls apart, then tell a new version, and so on -- until the danger passes."

Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: Since it has dawned on him that impeachment is a real possibility, "Trump now believes that he needs to hold on to the support of 'establishment' Republicans to survive.... That would be a difficult thing to achieve in the best of circumstances considering that Trump came to power by trashing them. They've basically gotten what they wanted from him already -- a big tax cut, two Supreme Court justices, and a bunch of relaxed or gutted regulation.... The president is giving the Republican Party ownership of a government shutdown they do not want on an issue they do not support. His White House operation is in shambles and the one person people trusted to keep it on track has been fired -- and there is no comparable replacement in sight. Presently, the Senate is voting to essentially rebuke the president for his position on Saudi Arabia, and that disconnect will grow more serious next year.... They've just seen two score of their colleagues cut down in the midterm elections, largely as a result of backlash against the president. There is no appetite for going into the 2020 presidential campaign with Trump as the Republican establishment's standard-bearer. Only two things can keep them in Trump's corner. One is fear of a primary challenge, and the other is a massive change of behavior by the president.... Trump's ability to inspire fear is waning and will soon be completely gone.... He burned his bridges and, at this point, the establishment is just waiting for Mueller, so they can clean out this mess." ...

... Susan Glasser of the New Yorker agrees with Longman: "During Watergate, the last time a sitting President was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal investigation, Hugh Scott, who was then the Minority Leader, and other Republican senators marched into the White House to tell Nixon to resign, but only once his fate was already clear. Nixon was not only a two-term President but a lifetime Republican who had devoted his career to the Party.... Trump faces a far different situation, with far fewer reserves of personal or partisan loyalty to call upon. A former Democrat, he was opposed by the vast majority of congressional Republicans in the party primaries for President. He has little personal connection to most of them now, did not spend decades raising money for their elections or campaigning for them, and has often publicly feuded with their leaders."

Josh Kovensky of TPM: "Trump’s inaugural committee is under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York over whether donors handed over cash in exchange for access to government officials and into whether funds were misallocated, the Wall Street Journal reported. Documents seized during raids of former Trump attorney and current felon Michael Cohen's home, office, and hotel room in April 2018 led to the investigation, the newspaper reported, which is focusing on whether the record $107 million the committee raised was given 'in exchange for access to the incoming Trump administration, policy concessions or to influence official administration positions.' Specifically, the report stated that federal agents seized the recording of a conversation that Cohen made between himself and former Melania Trump adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. In the recording, Wolkoff purportedly 'expressed concern about how the inaugural committee was spending money,' the Journal cited one person as saying." ...

... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "Rick Gates -- the former Trump aide who helped run the inaugural committee and struck a plea deal with Mueller in February -- has also been cooperating with SDNY prosecutors, the Journal reports.... A week after the election, Trump named a murderers' row of uberrich Republicans as 'finance vice chairs' for the event. They included casino billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn (the latter of whom was later accused of sexually abusing employees), defense contractor Elliott Broidy (later involved in hush money payments to a Playboy model), and Anthony Scaramucci (later White House communications director for 10 days before resigning over an obscene interview with the New Yorker). The man in charge of it all, as chair of the inaugural committee, was Tom Barrack. He's a billionaire real estate investor who's been a close friend of Trump's for decades, and his business interests have recently been concentrated in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar." ...

... Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times: "The inquiry focuses on whether people from Middle Eastern nations -- including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- used straw donors to disguise their donations to the two funds. Federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, political action committees and inaugural funds." The story includes some of the clues there was monkey business going on. And you know there was. ...

... digby: "By the way, The Inaugural Committee was chaired by Mike Pence."

So Donald Trump's private business, campaign, transition, inaugural committee, and White House are all under criminal investigation. Very legal and very cool. -- Matthew Miller, in a tweet

... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Looking at Miller's list, I see that mike pence chaired both the inauguration committee & the transition. In addition, for some reason he was talking to Mike Flynn about sanctions. He's either as dumb as the tree stump he played on teevee earlier this week, or he's implicated. We may be closer to having a woman president than we know. Her name will be Nancy.

Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "On Thursday, [Maria] Butina, 30, pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to act as a foreign agent in a deal with federal prosecutors. In doing so, she acknowledged that her activities were motivated by more than mere personal conviction. As part of the deal, Ms. Butina admitted to being involved an organized effort, backed by Russian officials, to open up unofficial lines of communication with influential Americans in the N.R.A. and in the Republican Party, and to win them over to the idea of Russia as a friend, not a foe. Ms. Butina's guilty plea now casts a spotlight on the Americans she worked with, including prominent members of the N.R.A. and her boyfriend, Paul Erickson, 56, a longtime Republican operative who ran Patrick J. Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign and who now faces accusations of fraud in three states. Officials have said federal investigators are examining what Mr. Erickson and others who helped Ms. Butina knew about her links to the Russian government." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... David Corn & Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "... much of the [news] coverage [of Michael Flynn] -- focused on Flynn's post-election contacts with [Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey] Kislyak, conversations that he lied about to the FBI and that led to his indictment.... Yet two Flynn associates tell Mother Jones that Flynn has informed friends and colleagues that prior to Election Day he spoke with Kislyak about how Trump could work productively with Russia if he won the presidency. One of these Flynn associates ... notes that Flynn said he discussed with Kislyak a grand bargain in which Moscow would cooperate with the Trump administration to resolve the Syrian conflict and Washington would end or ease up on the sanctions imposed on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and military intervention in Ukraine. The other Flynn associate says Flynn said he had been talking to Kislyak about Syria, Iran, and other foreign policy matters that Russia and the United States could tackle together were Trump to be elected.... [If true,] it would mean Trump's chief national security aide was secretly interacting with the representative of a foreign power as that government was mounting information and cyber warfare against the United States[, an effort of which they were then aware because intelligence agencies briefed them about in August 2016]." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: There's a connection between the Butina & Flynn stories, and the connection is sanctions. Butina, surreptitiously acting as a Russian agent, was the first person -- back in July 2015 -- to ask Trump publicly about his position on sanctions, and his answer was, "I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin ... I don't think you'd need the sanctions." This answer may be a big part of the reason Russia helped Trump, even as Flynn, again surreptitiously, conspired in mid-2016 with the Russian ambassador to lift sanctions. The pre-election discussions between Flynn & Kislyak might help explain why Flynn lied to FBI agents about his little chats with Kislyak during the transition. Had he been truthful about the transition discussions, he would have anticipated the FBI's next question would be, "So is the first time you discussed sanctions with a Russian government official?" At some point, he was going to have to lie or spill the beans, as apparently he eventually has done.

Chris Megerian & Eli Stokols of the Los Angeles Times: "For the second day in a row, the president had been in the White House residence all morning, fuming about federal investigations that have moved closer to him -- and are likely to get worse.... Trump has become increasingly isolated as he enters what may be the most difficult stretch of his presidency, one laden with political and legal dangers.... Tony Schwartz, the ghost writer of ... 'The Art of the Deal,' said ... Trump followed the tactics he learned from his late mentor, the hard-knuckled New York lawyer Roy Cohn -- 'Lie about everything, attack back twice as hard as you've been hit, keep at it relentlessly until people finally give up and [they] stop arguing with your fabricated reality. Trump is still living in that reality, but the world isn't going along with him anymore.'..."


Christine Stapleton of the Palm Beach Post: "... Donald Trump is expected to spend 16 days at Mar-a-Lago over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, according to an alert issued by the Federal Aviation Administration this morning."

Mrs. McCrabbie: So I was wrong when I guessed (facetiously) that Ivanka would become Daddy's Little Chief of Staff. Because, um, her husband is trying to muscle her out: ...

... S.V. Date of the Huffington Post: "Having run through his first choices for his chief of staff vacancy without any luck..., Donald Trump is considering his own son-in-law for the job. Jared Kushner, the husband of Trump's daughter Ivanka and already an official White House adviser, met with Trump Wednesday about the job, a top Republican close to the White House told HuffPost.... Kushner has been pushing his own candidacy with Trump, citing his work on a criminal justice reform package and a claimed ability to work with Democrats, one person said." ...

... Martin Longman of the Booman Tribune: "If it's true that Jared Kushner met with his father-in-law on Wednesday to discuss taking the job of White House chief of staff, then we're nearing the endgame for this administration. This would be an insult too big to ignore and signal a final hunkering down. For starters, Kushner is every bit as much of a target of federal and state investigators as the president. Then there's the whole security clearance issue, because presumably a president's chief of staff has the highest clearance you can get. And, finally, just today the Senate condemned Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who happens to be BFF's with Jared Kushner, by voting to end support for the war in Yemen." ...

... According to Asawin Suebsaeng & others at the Daily Beast, one of Kushner's many White House jobs was maintaining the relationship between Trump & National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. That seems not to have worked out too well. ...

... Jonathan Swan of Axios: "President Trump met with Chris Christie on Thursday evening and considers him a top contender to replace John Kelly as chief of staff, according to a source familiar with the president's thinking." Mrs. McC: If there is any truth to the stories that the new chief-of-staff would have to pass muster with Jared & Ivanka, then the Christie meeting is a ruse to make it appear Trump has this long list of willing candidates to fill the job. As Swan points out, "... he is not a friend of the Kushners. (As U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Christie sent Jared's father to prison.)"

Brendan Cole of Newsweek: "White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she hoped her legacy would be that people viewed her as 'transparent and honest.'" Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. See his commentary below, the most cogent portion of which is a long line of hahahahas. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Nick Miroff & Robert Moore of the Washington Post: "A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died of dehydration and shock after she was taken into Border Patrol custody last week for crossing from Mexico into the United States illegally with her father and a large group of migrants along a remote span of New Mexico desert, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday.... According to CBP records, the girl and her father were taken into custody about 10 p.m. Dec. 6 south of Lordsburg, N.M., as part of a group of 163 people who approached U.S. agents to turn themselves in. More than eight hours later, the child began having seizures at 6:25 a.m., CBP records show. Emergency responders, who arrived soon after, measured her body temperature at 105.7 degrees, and according to a statement from CBP, she 'reportedly had not eaten or consumed water for several days.'"

Julie Davis & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The Senate voted resoundingly on Thursday to withdraw American military assistance for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, issuing the latest in a series of stinging bipartisan rebukes of President Trump for his defense of the kingdom amid outrage in both parties over Riyadh's role in the killing of a dissident journalist. The 56-to-41 vote was a rare move by the Senate to limit presidential war powers and send a potent message of official disapproval for a nearly four-year conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and brought famine to Yemen. Its immediate effect was largely symbolic, after the House earlier this week moved to scuttle it, all but assuring that the measure will expire this year without making it to Mr. Trump's desk." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Senate Unanimously Rebukes Trump, Administration. Aaron Blake: "Just moments after the Senate passed a resolution calling for an end to U.S. involvement on the Saudi side of the war in Yemen, the GOP-run Senate voted unanimously for Republican Sen. Bob Corker's resolution officially blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for [Jamal] Khashoggi's death. The resolution by Corker (Tenn.) says, among other things: 'The Senate ... believes Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.' That's also what the CIA has concluded, but it's a conclusion that Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and even Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have taken great pains to undermine."

Ginger Gibson of Reuters: "Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that members of congress from her party will seek to obtain ... Donald Trump's tax returns when they take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January - a move the White House is likely to strongly resist.... The House Ways and Means Committee will 'take the first steps' toward obtaining the documents, said Pelosi.... The records would provide congressional investigators from various House committees with information crucial to efforts to determine if Trump's business generates conflicts of interest."

Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "In her quest to become speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California appears ready once again to sacrifice the higher ambitions of her No. 2, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, and Mr. Hoyer is not shy about expressing his objections. 'She's not negotiating for me,' he snapped the other day, referring to Ms. Pelosi's deal with a group of House Democratic rebels to impose term limits on the leadership -- and not just herself -- of four years.... His longstanding ambitions to be speaker would almost certainly be curtailed by the plan's emphasis on generational change, though under it, he could technically serve four years as majority leader, and then, at 83, run for speaker. But over his more than 50 years in public life, 37 of them in Congress, Mr. Hoyer has proved himself a quiet survivor. He is now the House's longest-serving Democrat. Last month, he skated to victory to reclaim the majority leader's post, even as some fellow Democrats pushed for Ms. Pelosi's ouster."

Election 2018. Maine. Marina Villeneuve & Patrick Whittle of the AP: "A federal judge rejected a lawsuit Thursday by a Republican incumbent from Maine who lost the nation's first congressional election held under a candidate-ranking system. Democrat Jared Golden defeated Bruce Poliquin in the November contest, which allowed voters to rank up to four candidates. Poliquin won the most votes but failed to get a majority. Votes cast for two trailing candidates were then reassigned to voters' second choices, which swung the election to Golden. Poliquin then filed a lawsuit alleging that the new balloting system, also called ranked choice, violated the U.S. Constitution.... The judge [Lance Walker] said he failed to see how Maine's candidate-ranking system undercut voters' First Amendment rights 'in any fashion.' He said the system was 'motivated by a desire to enable third-party and non-party candidates to participate in the political process, and to enable their supporters to express support, without producing the spoiler effect.' The new method of voting 'actually encourages First Amendment expression, without discriminating against any voter based on viewpoint, faction or other invalid criteria,' said Walker, a judge with U.S. District Court in Bangor." (Also linked yesterday.)

Kavanaugh Was the Last Straw. Dan Morain of CAL Matters: "California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye has quietly given up her Republican registration and re-registered as a no-party-preference voter, saying Thursday she had become increasingly uncomfortable with the GOP's direction nationally and in the state. In a phone interview with CALmatters, Cantil-Sakauye -- who was a prosecutor before becoming a judge 28 years ago and California Supreme Court chief justice in 2011 -- said she made the final decision to change her registration after watching the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 'You can draw your own conclusions,' she said."

Way Beyond the Beltway

France. Alissa Rubin, et al., of the New York Times: "The French police on Thursday night confronted and fatally shot the man believed to be responsible for killing three people and wounding many more in Strasbourg this week, bringing a tense, two-day manhunt to an end and providing a moment of relief to a nation shaken first by violent protests and then the rampage at a Christmas market. The attack traumatized Strasbourg and reminded the country of its continued vulnerability to terrorist attacks. French officials said Thursday that they were worried that the police were overstretched after four weekends of handling nationwide protests by the Yellow Vest movement."

Britain. A Christmas Riddle. As Santa Was Going to St. Ives ... How Many Cuss Words Did He Yell at the Kids? Rob Picheta of CNN: "Organizers of a Christmas event have apologized to outraged parents after a fire alarm reportedly prompted Santa Claus to burst out of his grotto, rip off his beard and scream at children to 'get the f**k out.' The incident occurred at an event in the English town of St. Ives, Cambridgeshire on Sunday, when an alarm at a nearby but unconnected event caused an evacuation of the building, organizers said. While parents and children were already evacuating, Santa Claus tore into the room and started causing havoc, a customer said on Facebook." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Lede

New York Times: "Nancy Wilson, whose skilled and flexible approach to singing provided a key bridge between the sophisticated jazz-pop vocalists of the 1950s and the powerhouse pop-soul singers of the 1960s and '70s, died Thursday at her home in Pioneertown, Calif. She was 81."

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Wednesday
Dec122018

The Commentariat -- December 13, 2018

Afternoon Update:

** Trump Was in the Room. Tom Winter of NBC News: "Donald Trump was the third person in the room in August 2015 when his lawyer Michael Cohen and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker discussed ways Pecker could help counter negative stories about Trump's relationships with women, NBC News has confirmed. As part of a non-prosecution agreement disclosed Wednesday by federal prosecutors, American Media Inc., the Enquirer's parent company, admitted that 'Pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidate's relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.' The 'Statement of Admitted Facts' says that AMI admitted making a $150,000 payment 'in concert with the campaign,' and says that Pecker, Cohen, and 'at least one other member of the campaign' were in the meeting. According to a person familiar with the matter, the 'other member' was Trump.... Daniel Goldman, an NBC News analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney said..., "... if Trump is now in the room, as early as August of 2015 and in combination with the recording where Trump clearly knows what Cohen is talking about with regarding to David Pecker, you now squarely place Trump in the middle of a conspiracy to commit campaign finance fraud.'" Emphasis added.

Julie Davis & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The Senate voted resoundingly on Thursday to withdraw American military assistance for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, issuing the latest in a series of stinging bipartisan rebukes of President Trump for his defense of the kingdom amid outrage in both parties over Riyadh's role in the killing of a dissident journalist. The 56-to-41 vote was a rare move by the Senate to limit presidential war powers and send a potent message of official disapproval for a nearly four-year conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and brought famine to Yemen. Its immediate effect was largely symbolic, after the House earlier this week moved to scuttle it, all but assuring that the measure will expire this year without making it to Mr. Trump's desk."

Today in Trump Tall Tales. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump denied Thursday that he had directed his former personal attorney Michael Cohen to break the law during the 2016 campaign by buying the silence of two women who claimed they once had affairs with the future president. In morning tweets, Trump, however, did not dispute that he had directed Cohen to make the payments, as Cohen and federal prosecutors have alleged -- actions that could imperil Trump. The president claimed that Cohen bore responsibility for any criminal violations of campaign finance law but also asserted that Cohen 'probably was not guilty' of even civil violations related to the payments to former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stormy Daniels -- a view at odds with that of many lawyers. 'Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did,' Trump alleged.... Trump largely echoed his tweets in a television interview broadcast Thursday afternoon. 'I never directed him to do anything wrong,' Trump told Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, speaking about Cohen. 'Whatever he did he did on his own. ... I never directed him to do anything incorrect or wrong.' Trump sought to minimize his relationship with Cohen, saying he did 'more public relations than law' and was generally responsible for 'low-level work.'"

Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "On Thursday, [Maria] Butina, 30, pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to act as a foreign agent in a deal with federal prosecutors. In doing so, she acknowledged that her activities were motivated by more than mere personal conviction. As part of the deal, Ms. Butina admitted to being involved an organized effort, backed by Russian officials, to open up unofficial lines of communication with influential Americans in the N.R.A. and in the Republican Party, and to win them over to the idea of Russia as a friend, not a foe. Ms. Butina's guilty plea now casts a spotlight on the Americans she worked with, including prominent members of the N.R.A. and her boyfriend, Paul Erickson, 56, a longtime Republican operative who ran Patrick J. Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign and who now faces accusations of fraud in three states. Officials have said federal investigators are examining what Mr. Erickson and others who helped Ms. Butina knew about her links to the Russian government."

Brendan Cole of Newsweek: "White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she hoped her legacy would be that people viewed her as 'transparent and honest.'" Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. See his commentary below, the most cogent portion of which is a long line of hahahahas.

Marina Villeneuve & Patrick Whittle of the AP: "A federal judge rejected a lawsuit Thursday by a Republican incumbent from Maine who lost the nation's first congressional election held under a candidate-ranking system. Democrat Jared Golden defeated Bruce Poliquin in the November contest, which allowed voters to rank up to four candidates. Poliquin won the most votes but failed to get a majority. Votes cast for two trailing candidates were then reassigned to voters' second choices, which swung the election to Golden. Poliquin then filed a lawsuit alleging that the new balloting system, also called ranked choice, violated the U.S. Constitution.... The judge [Lance Walker] said he failed to see how Maine's candidate-ranking system undercut voters' First Amendment rights 'in any fashion.' He said the system was 'motivated by a desire to enable third-party and non-party candidates to participate in the political process, and to enable their supporters to express support, without producing the spoiler effect.' The new method of voting 'actually encourages First Amendment expression, without discriminating against any voter based on viewpoint, faction or other invalid criteria,' said Walker, a judge with U.S. District Court in Bangor."

A Christmas Riddle. As Santa Was Going to St. Ives ... How Many Cuss Words Did He Yell at the Kids? Rob Picheta of CNN: "Organizers of a Christmas event have apologized to outraged parents after a fire alarm reportedly prompted Santa Claus to burst out of his grotto, rip off his beard and scream at children to 'get the f**k out.' The incident occurred at an event in the English town of St. Ives, Cambridgeshire on Sunday, when an alarm at a nearby but unconnected event caused an evacuation of the building, organizers said. While parents and children were already evacuating, Santa Claus tore into the room and started causing havoc, a customer said on Facebook."

*****

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd. -- A Very Bad Hair Day

Carol Lee, et al., of NBC News: "Despite ... Donald Trump's public declaration that he isn't concerned about impeachment, he has told people close to him in recent days that he is alarmed by the prospect, according to multiple sources.... His allies believe maintaining the support of establishment Republicans he bucked to win election is now critical to saving his presidency.... The president has yet to acquire a team to combat the expected influx of congressional investigations and continued fallout from multiple federal investigations of his associates. He's been calling around to his friends outside the White House and allies on Capitol Hill to vent and get the input. On Wednesday the president wasn't in the Oval Office until noon."

Kathryn Watson of CBS News: "The media company that owns the National Enquirer admitted to 'working in concert' with the Trump campaign to pay off a woman who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump in order to squash her story, prosecutors in New York said Wednesday. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said it had agreed not to prosecute American Media, Inc. (AMI), the Enquirer's parent company, for its involvement in the scheme in exchange for the company's cooperation in the investigation into the payment to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model. AMI 'admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election,' the office said. '"AMI further admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election,' the [SDNY] news release said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... The New York Times story, by Rebecca Ruiz & Ben Protess, is here. ...

... Badda Bing, Badda Boom. So Much for Trump's 'Smocking Gun' Defense. Dan Friedman ofMother Jones: "... sending the president's longtime lawyer to jail for helping Trump pay hush money to two women before the 2016 presidential election wasn't even the biggest legal blow landed by prosecutors from the Southern District of New York. In a release announcing Cohen's sentence, the prosecutors ... [said,] 'previously reached a non-prosecution agreement' with American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, under which the firm 'admitted that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate's presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that [a] woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election.'... '"AMI further admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election.'... 'One by one, the career DOJ prosecutors are removing possible Trump defenses,' former Solicitor General Neil Katyal tweeted Wednesday. 'Now it isn't just Cohen, but also AMI, saying these hush money payments were made to influence the 2016 Presidential election, and knock out the so-called "Edwards defense."'" ...

... Mike McIntire, et al., of the New York Times: "Establishing a nexus between Mr. Cohen's efforts to silence the women and Mr. Trump's campaign is central to making a criminal case of election law violations. That is why A.M.I.'s admission carries so much weight, said Richard L. Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Irvine. 'I's looking a lot like an illegal and unreported in-kind corporate contribution to help the campaign, exposing the Trump campaign and Trump himself to possible criminal liability,' Mr. Hasen said.... Until this week, it was largely Mr. Cohen's word against the president's denials." ...

... Natasha Bertrand & Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "AMI's cooperation with prosecutors, which is ongoing, could be particularly damaging to the president. After initially denying he had any knowledge of the payments, Trump now says the payments did not constitute a campaign contribution and that it's [Michael] Cohen's 'liability' if he made a mistake. But AMI's admission that they made the payment to prevent a scandal from derailing Trump's candidacy undercuts his recent claim that the payments were 'a simple private transaction.' Two other Trump associates who were involved in the payments -- the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, and the CEO of American Media, David Pecker -- were given immunity to testify about the scheme over the summer." ...

... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "... prosecutors have concluded that the payoffs were criminal, because they were effectively designed to help Trump's electoral chances but went far above campaign contribution limits.... Both reporters and prosecutors have suggested that Trump was informed about and involved in these payments at every step of the way.... In August 2015, AMI's CEO David Pecker had a meeting with Cohen, at which Pecker floated the idea of buying the silence of women who came forward with allegations about Trump. Prosecutors have said that 'one other member of the [Trump] campaign' was at this meeting. That seems to refer to Trump himself. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump attended this meeting and asked Pecker for help with his campaign. That ... shows Trump and Pecker had an understanding about hush money payments well before they actually happened.... Trump's company certainly appears to have been heavily involved in these illegal payoffs -- which raises the question of whether the company itself will be charged." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So can Trump pardon his company? Maybe so. Corporations are people, my friend. ...

... digby: "If [Trump's] accountant Weisselberg has offered corroborating evidence all they have left is Republican Senators acting like the potted plants they are and excusing this behavior as business as usual. Reminder: what Trump is accused of doing is paying off an adult film actress and a Playboy Playmate he slept with during the time his wife was caring for their newborn baby, and he did it to hide his deeds from the American people in the days before the presidential election. And keep in mind that as that was going on he was out there saying this:

... Bag Man to Go to the Big House. Benjamin Weiser & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "Michael D. Cohen, the former lawyer for President Trump, was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday morning for his role in a hush-money scandal that could threaten Mr. Trump's presidency by implicating him in a scheme to buy the silence of two women who said they had affairs with him." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... According to NBC News, the judge also ordered Cohen to pay a $50,000 fine. Update: Cohen will also have to pay almost $1.4MM in back taxes & another $500K in forfeiture. The NYT story has added some figures since its story first broke, but they don't quite line up with NBC News' report. ...

... Shannon Pettypiece & Kevin Cirilli of Bloomberg News: "Michael Cohen ... is willing to reveal publicly what he knows about his former client once Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation is complete and findings are released, Cohen's lawyer said Wednesday.... Cohen ... expects to testify about what he knows in front of Congress at some point, said [attorney Lanny] Davis, who was unwilling to detail what Cohen knows about Trump and Russian election meddling.... 'Mr. Trump and the White House knew that Michael Cohen would be testifying falsely to Congress and did not tell him not to,' Davis said." ...

... Bag Men Can't Sing. Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: All of the pundits are acting so surprised that Cohen didn't agree to fully cooperate with prosecutors, since it would have reduced his time to somewhere closer to zero. Maybe not. Cohen has repeatedly said his decision to cooperate was based on concerns for his family. Well, his family includes his father-in-law, "Fima Shusterman, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Ukraine who ... was in the garment business and owned a fleet of taxicabs with his partners, Shalva Botier and Edward Zubok -- all three men were convicted of a money-laundering related offense in 1993. 'Fima may have been a (possibly silent) business partner with Trump, perhaps even used as a conduit for Russian investors in Trump properties and other ventures,' a former federal investigator [said]...." Not only that, if you read the linked Rolling Stone story by Seth Hettena, you'll see that Cohen has so many ties to foreign-based shady characters that his fear for his own safety should be as great as Paul Manafort's may be. Cohen made a wise, self-defensive decision, & he must be grateful to SDNY prosecutors for complaining he didn't fully cooperate with them.

Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: The federal judge overseeing Michael Flynn's sentencing "on Wednesday ordered both ... Michael Flynn and the special counsel to turn over additional investigative records describing his January 2017 interview with FBI agents -- a conversation in which Flynn later admitted he lied. In an order filed Wednesday evening, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan demanded to see the formal FBI records and all other relevant documents detailing Flynn's interview with the agents in 2017 and agreed to review them under seal.... Sullivan sought more details about Flynn's FBI interview a day after Flynn's attorneys in a court filing made their own case for why their client deserved no prison time, stressing that he had been 'unguarded' when he spoke to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition. The judge is well known for his concern about defendants receiving fair treatment from the government." ...

... MEANWHILE. The notorious Wall Street Journal Editors have opined about the Flynn-FBI meeting in a piece titled "The Flynn Entrapment." And it's possible they're at least partly right: "We also know from then FBI Director James Comey that this was his idea [firewalled]. This is 'something I probably wouldn't have done or wouldn’t have gotten away with in a more organized administration,' Mr. Comey boasted on MSNBC this weekend. 'In the George W. Bush Administration or the Obama Administration, if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House counsel, there would be discussions and approvals and who would be there. And I thought, it's early enough let's just send a couple guys over.' If the goal was to set a legal trap, it worked.... The judge should question the entire plea deal." Mrs. McC: Through a circuitous route, I was able to open the editorial in a private window, but unless you're a subscriber, neither my link here nor Google's will get you there.

Eric Banco of The Daily Beast: "Over the past year, the indictments, convictions, and guilty pleas have largely been connected, in one way or another, to Russia. But now, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office is preparing to reveal to the public a different side of his investigation. In court filings that are set to drop in early 2019, prosecutors will begin to unveil Middle Eastern countries' attempts to influence American politics, three sources familiar with this side of the probe told The Daily Beast. In other words, the so-called 'Russia investigation' is set to go global." --s

Mrs. McCrabbie: Former Secretary of Defense & Senator William Cohen (R-Maine) -- not exactly a wild & crazy guy -- made the same point on MSNBC that I did yesterday: Trump appears to have warned that if any legal attempt is made to remove him from office, he will incite his followers to revolt. There are so many ways in which Trump is a threat to national security; this is one of them.

The Trumpiefenokee Swamp, Ctd.

The von Trump Family Grifters. Stephen Braun, et al., of the AP: "The Opportunity Zone program promoted by Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner ... could also benefit them financially, an Associated Press investigation found. Government watchdogs say the case underscores the ethical minefield they created two years ago when they became two of the closest advisers to the president without divesting from their extensive real estate investments. Kushner holds a big stake in a real estate investment firm, Cadre, that recently announced it is launching a series of Opportunity Zone funds that seek to build major projects under the program from Miami to Los Angeles. Separately, the couple has interests in at least 13 properties held by Kushner's family firm that could qualify for the tax breaks because they are in Opportunity Zones in New Jersey, New York and Maryland.... On Wednesday morning, Ivanka Trump continued her public promotion of Opportunity Zones in a series of tweets. She did not address the AP investigation.... The couple's financial disclosures ... require recusal from dealing with policy matters that touch on real estate and 'would have a direct and predictable effect on Cadre.'" See also Akhilleus's commentary below. (Also linked yesterday.) Dear Javanka: Greed is the deadliest sin, Bea.

I'm probably the most ethical person you ever met. -- Rudy Giuliani, to the New York Times ...

... Where's Rudy? Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "The special counsel's investigation was grinding relentlessly onward... But Mr. Trump's personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was in Manama, Bahrain, on Tuesday, meeting with the king and the interior minister of an important United States ally in the Middle East. The government-run Bahrain News Agency ... said the king discussed 'Bahraini-U.S. relations with Mr. Giuliani, who was described as leading a 'high-level U.S. delegation. But Mr. Giuliani was not in Bahrain, a country with a record of human rights abuses, on official business. He was there to seek a lucrative security consulting contract with the government. The trip was part of a concerted push Mr. Giuliani has undertaken in the last few weeks to win business from governments around the world -- including in Africa and South America -- for a firm he owns called Giuliani Security and Safety.... Mr. Giuliani is not a government employee, and is not subject to government ethics rules, including prohibitions on outside work." Mrs. McC: Wonder if Rudy warned the king of Bahrain that malicious liberal Twitter gnomes might invade his tweety text. Dear Rudy: Greed is the deadliest sin, Bea.

"Swamp Creatures," Ctd. David Corn of Mother Jones: "In late 2016, as Donald Trump was readying to move into the White House, Elliott Broidy, then one of the Republican Party's top fundraisers, was working on a deal to gain control of what a business partner called 'billions of dollars in oil & gas, and mining assets' in Angola ... as well as mounting another project to provide intelligence services to the Angolan government[.]... It was a swampy endeavor involving old-fashioned political influence, a Beverly Hills activist and realtor, and a Nigerian American businessman who had been a close friend of Michael Jackson.... Broidy's wheeling and dealing in Angola -- a full account of which has not yet been reported -- reveal how he mixed commerce and politics." --s ... Dear Elliott: Greed is the deadliest sin, Bea.


Trump Sets Bad Example for Other Dictators. Michael Tackett & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "When President Trump said in an interview this week that he was willing to intercede in the case of a Chinese telecom executive facing extradition to the United States if it helped achieve 'the largest trade deal ever made,' it was a clear signal that his White House saw no problem intervening in the justice system to achieve what it considered economic gain. A range of experts agreed on Wednesday that the president had the legal authority to order the government to rescind the extradition request for the executive, Meng Wanzhou, or even drop the charges against her. But they could not point to another instance of a president injecting himself into a criminal proceeding in a similar way.... John Demers, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's National Security Division, bristled at the notion that the motivation behind the charges might have anything to do with leverage in trade talks. 'We are not a tool of trade when we bring the cases,' Mr. Demers said.... BUT 'By interfering in a Justice Department decision and giving the impression he may release her in exchange for concessions on trade talks, Trump may inspire authoritarian leaders to do the same to Americans around the world,' [former Undersecretary of State Nicholas] Burns said. 'You have seen that China has detained a Canadian International Crisis Group leader. Reciprocity is a fundamental foundation stone of international politics. Others will do unto you what you have done unto them.'"...

... Steve Myers & Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "China intensified its punitive campaign against Canada over the arrest of a top Chinese technology executive by arresting a second Canadian working here and announcing on Thursday that both men faced charges of undermining China's national security.... Accusing the two men of national security crimes -- as yet unspecified -- signaled a serious escalation of the diplomatic crisis that began when Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, at the request of American prosecutors on charges of bank fraud related to violating sanctions against trade with Iran. The second case involves Michael Spavor, a writer and entrepreneur who operates a cultural organization that promotes trips into North Korea." ...

... New York Times: "For President Trump, the focus on tariffs has been decades in the making, transforming him from a businessman into ...


Frank Rich: "My profound hope is that Trump makes good on his threat and shuts down the government right before Christmas. He will set his party back even further than he already has, and do so at a time when congressional Republicans are going to be trapped with angry constituents back home during the holiday break." Rich also weighs in on Nick Ayers' last-minute no-thank-you. (Also linked yesterday.)

Charles Dunst & Krishnadev Calamur of the Atlantic: "The Trump administration is resuming its efforts to deport certain protected Vietnamese immigrants who have lived in the United States for decades -- many of them having fled the country during the Vietnam War. This is the latest move in the president's long record of prioritizing harsh immigration and asylum restrictions, and one that's sure to raise eyebrows -- the White House had hesitantly backed off the plan in August before reversing course. In essence, the administration has now decided that Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in the country before the establishment of diplomatic ties between the United States and Vietnam are subject to standard immigration law -- meaning they are all eligible for deportation.... But Washington and Hanoi have a unique 2008 agreement that specifically bars the deportation of Vietnamese people who arrived in the United States before July 12, 1995 -- the date the two former foes reestablished diplomatic relations following the Vietnam War." The White House has chosen to "reinterpret" the agreement to apply to all refugees who arrived before 1995. The story is a bit confusing, but it appears that most of those the Trumpies would deport have committed serious crimes. Maybe.

Vanessa Romo of NPR: "A scathing report by the Office of the Inspector General revealed that a consulting company hired by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to fill thousands of new jobs to satisfy President Trump's mandate to secure the southern border is 'nowhere near' completing its hiring goals and 'risks wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.' The audit found that as of Oct. 1, CBP had paid Accenture Federal Services approximately $13.6 million of a $297 million contract to recruit and hire 7,500 applicants.... But 10 months into the first year of a five-year contract, Accenture had processed only 'two accepted job offers,' according to the report. The inspector general called for immediate action." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Daily Beast: "Donald Trump has become the president who stole Christmas after canceling the annual festive party for the White House press..., Fox News reports.... The decades-old tradition would see reporters and the president put aside their differences for one night for a lavish party that would see spouses and family invited to drink and be merry.

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha.

Radio Free Trump. Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times: "The American government’s broadcast service to the world ... is becoming the news itself. TV Martí, which aims broadcasts at Cuba, aired a segment in May that called the financier and Democratic donor George Soros, a longtime opponent of authoritarianism, 'a nonbelieving Jew of flexible morals.' Voice of America, the flagship of American government efforts to promote its values abroad, was rocked in October when 15 of its journalists were fired or disciplined after an internal investigation found they accepted 'brown envelopes,' or bribes passed to them by a Nigerian official. And only weeks later, Voice of America fired the chief of its Mandarin-language section after a billionaire Chinese exile who is championed by some on the American right and is known for making unsubstantiated charges against Beijing was promised a three-hour live broadcast.... Under President Trump, the broadcasts are at risk of greater ideological tilt as more political appointees eventually join the organization.... Mr. Trump's nominee as chief executive of the global government media agency is Michael Pack, who runs a conservative filmmaking business out of his house in suburban Washington." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently James O'Keefe was unavailable. ...

... Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: "The federal agency that oversees Martí launched an internal investigation this fall after a May report about [George] Soros was publicized and widely denounced. The probe has now expanded to include examining how [Radio & Television] Martí came to publish an earlier story that included anti-Semitic language about Soros, a U.S. citizen, as well as the anti-Muslim piece, the agency confirmed. Four Martí employees have been placed on leave and two contract staffers have been fired, according to ... a spokeswoman for the U.S. Agency for Global Media. All are reporters and editors, according to biographies on Martí's website and on social media."


Julie Davis of the New York Times: "Representative Nancy Pelosi has reached a deal with dissident Democrats to limit herself to four years as speaker, she announced on Wednesday, her most consequential move to date to put down a rebellion in her ranks and clinch the votes she needs to be elected speaker in January. The agreement, which if adopted by Democrats would also bind the party's other three top leaders, would almost certainly clear the way for Ms. Pelosi, the Democratic leader from California, to reclaim the mantle of the first woman to serve in the post that is second in line to the presidency." ...

     Mrs. McCrabbie: It's an odd coincidence that two of the most powerful women in the world -- Pelosi & British PM Theresa May -- made exactly the same concession on the same day: to limit their leadership to four more years. See Ellen Barry's story linked under Way Beyond the Beltway.

Juliegrace Brufke of the Hill: "The House on Wednesday narrowly overcame a procedural hurdle allowing them to move forward with a vote on the must-pass farm bill. The bill only narrowly advanced in the House, 206-203, after language was tucked into the procedural rule preventing for the rest of the year a floor vote on any war powers resolution limiting the U.S. involvement in Yemen. The move sparked backlash from a number of lawmakers. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) blasted it, urging his colleagues to vote against the rule ahead of it coming to the floor." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "The most important news [this week from the judicial branch] ... was the [Surpeme] Court's announcement that it will hear Kisor v. Wilkie, a case asking the Court to transfer power from the executive branch to the judiciary. Kisor is likely to be the first of many such cases, and the Court's decision to hear this case so quickly after Kavanaugh's confirmation suggests that the Court plans to consolidate power quite rapidly.... It's not hard to guess why conservatives on the Supreme Court and in the Federalist Society are so eager to see judicial forbearance doctrines fall. Again, the question these doctrines resolve is not what should our nation's policies be. It is who should get to make that decision.... Overruling those doctrines shifts power to a Supreme Court that's likely to be controlled by Republicans for the foreseeable future.... [If this were to pass], Democratic administrations will have to seek permission from the Supreme Court's Republicans every time an agency wants to take regulatory action." --s

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Facebook's Fake Fix for Fake News. Sam Levin of the Guardian: "Journalists working as fact-checkers for Facebook have pushed to end a controversial media partnership with the social network, saying the company has ignored their concerns and failed to use their expertise to combat misinformation. Current and former Facebook fact-checkers told the Guardian that the tech platform's collaboration with outside reporters has produced minimal results and that they've lost trust in Facebook, which has repeatedly refused to release meaningful data about the impacts of their work. Some said Facebook's hiring of a PR firm that used an antisemitic narrative to discredit critics -- fueling the same kind of propaganda fact-checkers regularly debunk -- should be a deal-breaker. 'They've essentially used us for crisis PR,' said Brooke Binkowski, former managing editor of Snopes, a fact-checking site that has partnered with Facebook for two years. 'They.re not taking anything seriously. They are more interested in making themselves look good and passing the buck ... They clearly don't care.'"

Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times: "When the Trump administration laid out a plan this year that would eventually allow cars to emit more pollution, automakers. ... said ... the changes ... went too far even for them. But it turns out that there was a hidden beneficiary of the plan that was pushing for the changes all along: the nation’s oil industry. In Congress, on Facebook and in statehouses nationwide, Marathon Petroleum, the country's largest refiner, worked with powerful oil-industry groups and a conservative policy network financed by the billionaire industrialist Charles G. Koch to run a stealth campaign to roll back car emissions standards, a New York Times investigation has found." Dear Chuck: Greed is the deadliest sin, Bea.

Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "The annual Arctic Report Card from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is out, but it appears that humanity is flunking science badly.... And one stunning result of this is that 95 percent of the oldest and thickest Arctic sea ice has disintegrated in just three decades. The Report Card makes clear that our failure to slow global warming has led to an all-but irreversible Arctic death spiral.... There are no do-overs or make-up exams for humanity's failure in the Arctic (and everywhere else on the planet). Failure just means ever worsening climate impact for our children and grandchildren and countless generations to come." -- safari: No worries, according to Drumpf's very smart gut, it'll all switch back and be very clean.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Marc Caputo of Politico: "Federal authorities unveiled a 44-count, 66-page indictment Wednesday of a Tallahassee politician and a city official that involved six companies, five other players and a bank in a wide-ranging bribery, extortion, fraud and racketeering scheme. But ... indictment, one name is conspicuously absent: Andrew Gillum, who was Tallahassee's mayor at the time and who was accused repeatedly on the gubernatorial campaign trail this year by Republican opponent Ron DeSantis -- and even ... Donald Trump -- of being tied to the suspected wrongdoing the FBI was investigating. Republicans spent at least $7 million on TV ads -- 27 percent of the total $26 million dropped on air in the general election -- attacking Gillum in connection with the FBI probe. But the investigation, records indicate, ultimately had little to do with the former mayor."

Kansas. Jay Senter of the Shawnee Mission Post: Kansas state "Sen. Barbara Bollier this morning officially changed her party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. Citing 'frustrations that have been ongoing for nine years,' Bollier said Wednesday that the inclusion of anti-transgender language in the party platform had proved a breaking point for her. 'Morally, the party is not going where my compass resides,' Bollier said. 'I'm looking forward to being in a party that represents the ideals that I do, including Medicaid expansion and funding our K-12 schools.' (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Kentucky. Eli Rosenberg of the Washington Post: "On Wednesday, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican, laced into [the investigative news organization ProPublica] after it announced that it would be partnering with the Louisville Courier-Journal to fund a year-long investigative reporting project into a state government program. Bevin sought to discredit the partnership by smearing ProPublica's funding, about one to two percent of which comes from George Soros's Open Society Foundations.... Bevin ... released in a tweet and a three-minute video on his Facebook page. 'The Courier-Journal, which pretends that it’s an actual news organization, is so remarkably biased that they are now full in bed with this particular organization ProPublica,' Bevin said. He also took aim at Herb and Marion Sandler, a wealthy New York couple whose philanthropy helped found the organization, accusing the Courier-Journal of being a 'sock puppet' for ProPublica, George Soros, and others 'who hate America.'"

Michigan. Jason Linkins of ThinkProgress: "A Michigan public health official currently facing charges of involuntary manslaughter stemming from her role in an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease during the Flint water crisis has managed to secure a cushy new job with the state.... Dr. Eden Wells, who is currently serving as Michigan's chief medical executive, was recently hired by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services as an 'advisory physician.' As such ... Wells will be entitled to 'an annual salary of $179,672,' as well as 'job protections she doesn't currently have as chief medical executive.'... The timing of the appointment is curious in itself, as it came five days before Wells was ordered to 'stand trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter, obstruction of justice and lying to a peace [sic?] officer.'... [The water crisis] 'killed 12 people and sickened at least 87' people in Flint... The 'advisory physician' position that Wells obtained was posted ... for just one week in November, not long after the midterm election. Wells was the only applicant." --s

New York. Allan Smith of NBC News: "New York Attorney Gen.-elect Letitia James [D] says she plans to launch sweeping investigations into ... Donald Trump, his family and 'anyone' in his circle who may have violated the law once she settles into her new job next month.... James campaigned on passing a bill to change New York's double jeopardy laws with an eye on possible pardons coming out of the White House. James told NBC News she wants to be able to pursue state charges against anyone the president were to pardon over federal charges or convictions and whose alleged crimes took place in the state. Under current New York law, she might not be able to do that." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

North Carolina. Timothy Williams & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "The North Carolina Legislature on Wednesday approved a bill requiring new primary elections if the state elections board calls for a second vote of a congressional election. The measure opens the door for Republicans to consider replacing Mark Harris, their candidate in the disputed race in the Ninth Congressional District. The bill, backed by substantial majorities among both parties, could eventually place Republicans in the awkward position of choosing whether to stick with Mr. Harris, who appeared to have narrowly won a primary and general election -- both now buffeted by allegations of irregularities including tainted absentee ballots -- or replace him on the ballot.... The legislation approved Wednesday, first by the State House and soon after by the State Senate, creates the possibility that Robert M. Pittenger, the incumbent, could again face off against Mr. Harris in a rematch of the Republican primary that Mr. Harris won with the help of a significant number of absentee votes." ...

... Leigh Caldwell, et al., of NBC News: "McCrae Dowless, the man whose 'get-out-the-vote' activities are the center of the election fraud investigation in North Carolina, told a local political campaign volunteer that he was holding onto 800 absentee ballots, according to a new affidavit obtained by NBC News. The new affidavit is the latest development in an investigation into election fraud involving absentee ballots that has postponed the certification of the election of the ninth congressional district race and at least two local races in the Tar Heel State." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond

** BBC: "Prime Minister Theresa May has won a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party by 200 to 117. Mrs May is now immune from a leadership challenge for a year. Speaking in Downing Street, she vowed to deliver the Brexit 'that people voted for'. She said she had listened to the concerns of MPs who voted against her and would be fighting for changes to her Brexit deal at an EU summit on Thursday. Mrs May won the confidence vote with a majority of 83, with 63% of Conservative MPs backing her and 37% voting against her. The BBC's Laura Kuenssberg said the result was 'not at all comfortable' for the prime minister and a 'real blow' to her authority." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Ellen Barry of the New York Times: "To save her job, Mrs. May had two arguments to put forward. First, she argued, changing leaders so close to the March 29 deadline for withdrawal from the European Union could open the door to something worse -- a Labour government or a reversal of Brexit.... The more important case was made at 5 p.m., behind the closed doors of a wood-paneled committee room, where Mrs. May promised Conservative lawmakers that she would step down before the next general election, currently scheduled for 2022."

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Tuesday
Dec112018

The Commentariat -- December 12, 2018

Afternoon Update:

BBC: "Prime Minister Theresa May has won a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party by 200 to 117. Mrs May is now immune from a leadership challenge for a year. Speaking in Downing Street, she vowed to deliver the Brexit 'that people voted for'. She said she had listened to the concerns of MPs who voted against her and would be fighting for changes to her Brexit deal at an EU summit on Thursday. Mrs May won the confidence vote with a majority of 83, with 63% of Conservative MPs backing her and 37% voting against her. The BBC's Laura Kuenssberg said the result was 'not at all comfortable' for the prime minister and a 'real blow' to her authority."

Kathryn Watson of CBS News: "The media company that owns the National Enquirer admitted to 'working in concert' with the Trump campaign to pay off a woman who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump in order to squash her story, prosecutors in New York said Wednesday. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said it had agreed not to prosecute American Media, Inc. (AMI), the Enquirer's parent company, for its involvement in the scheme in exchange for the company's cooperation in the investigation into the payment to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model. AMI 'admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election,' the office said. '"AMI further admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election,' the [SDNY] news release said."

Juliegrace Brufke of the Hill: "The House on Wednesday narrowly overcame a procedural hurdle allowing them to move forward with a vote on the must-pass farm bill. The bill only narrowly advanced in the House, 206-203, after language was tucked into the procedural rule preventing for the rest of the year a floor vote on any war powers resolution limiting the U.S. involvement in Yemen. The move sparked backlash from a number of lawmakers. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) blasted it, urging his colleagues to vote against the rule ahead of it coming to the floor."

The von Trump Family Grifters. Stephen Braun, et al., of the AP: "The Opportunity Zone program promoted by Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner ... could also benefit them financially, an Associated Press investigation found. Government watchdogs say the case underscores the ethical minefield they created two years ago when they became two of the closest advisers to the president without divesting from their extensive real estate investments. Kushner holds a big stake in a real estate investment firm, Cadre, that recently announced it is launching a series of Opportunity Zone funds that seek to build major projects under the program from Miami to Los Angeles. Separately, the couple has interests in at least 13 properties held by Kushner's family firm that could qualify for the tax breaks because they are in Opportunity Zones in New Jersey, New York and Maryland.... On Wednesday morning, Ivanka Trump continued her public promotion of Opportunity Zones in a series of tweets. She did not address the AP investigation.... The couple's financial disclosures ... require recusal from dealing with policy matters that touch on real estate and 'would have a direct and predictable effect on Cadre.'" See also Akhilleus's commentary below.

Benjamin Weiser & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "Michael D. Cohen, the former lawyer for President Trump, was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday morning for his role in a hush-money scandal that could threaten Mr. Trump's presidency by implicating him in a scheme to buy the silence of two women who said they had affairs with him." ...

... According to NBC News, the judge also ordered Cohen to pay a $50,000 fine. Update: Cohen will also have to pay almost $1.4MM in back taxes & another $500K in forfeiture. The NYT story has added some figures since its story first broke, but they don't quite line up with NBC News' report.

Frank Rich: "My profound hope is that Trump makes good on his threat and shuts down the government right before Christmas. He will set his party back even further than he already has, and do so at a time when congressional Republicans are going to be trapped with angry constituents back home during the holiday break." Rich also weighs in on Nick Ayers' last-minute no-thank-you.

<>Mrs. McCrabbie: Former Sen. William Cohen (R-Maine) & Secretary of Defense made the same point on MSNBC that I did earlier today: Trump appears to have warned that if any legal attempt is made to remove him from office, he will incite his followers to revolt.

Vanessa Romo of NPR: "A scathing report by the Office of the Inspector General revealed that a consulting company hired by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to fill thousands of new jobs to satisfy President Trump's mandate to secure the southern border is 'nowhere near' completing its hiring goals and 'risks wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.' The audit found that as of Oct. 1, CBP had paid Accenture Federal Services approximately $13.6 million of a $297 million contract to recruit and hire 7,500 applicants.... But 10 months into the first year of a five-year contract, Accenture had processed only 'two accepted job offers,' according to the report. The inspector general called for immediate action."

Allan Smith of NBC News: "New York Attorney Gen.-elect Letitia James [D] says she plans to launch sweeping investigations into ... Donald Trump, his family and 'anyone' in his circle who may have violated the law once she settles into her new job next month.... James campaigned on passing a bill to change New York's double jeopardy laws with an eye on possible pardons coming out of the White House. James told NBC News she wants to be able to pursue state charges against anyone the president were to pardon over federal charges or convictions and whose alleged crimes took place in the state. Under current New York law, she might not be able to do that."

Leigh Caldwell, et al., of NBC News: "McCrae Dowless, the man whose 'get-out-the-vote' activities are the center of the election fraud investigation in North Carolina, told a local political campaign volunteer that he was holding onto 800 absentee ballots, according to a new affidavit obtained by NBC News. The new affidavit is the latest development in an investigation into election fraud involving absentee ballots that has postponed the certification of the election of the ninth congressional district race and at least two local races in the Tar Heel State."

Jay Senter of the Shawnee Mission [Kansas] Post: Kansas state "Sen. Barbara Bollier this morning officially changed her party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. Citing 'frustrations that have been ongoing for nine years,' Bollier said Wednesday that the inclusion of anti-transgender language in the party platform had proved a breaking point for her. 'Morally, the party is not going where my compass resides,' Bollier said. 'I'm looking forward to being in a party that represents the ideals that I do, including Medicaid expansion and funding our K-12 schools.'"

*****

"Trump Shutdown." Julie Davis & Michael Tackett of the New York Times: "President Trump on Tuesday vowed to block full funding for the government if Democrats refuse his demand for a border wall, saying he was 'proud to shut down the government for border security' -- an extraordinarily statement that came during a televised altercation with Democratic congressional leaders. 'If we don't have border security, we'll shut down the government -- this country needs border security,' Mr. Trump declared in the Oval Office, engaging in a testy back-and forth with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California.' I will take the mantle. I will be the one the shut it down. I'm not going to blame you for it,' Mr. Trump added, insisting on a public airing of hostilities even as the Democrats repeatedly asked him to keep their negotiating disputes private.... Ms. Pelosi ... appeared to trigger the president's temper when she raised the prospect of a 'Trump shutdown' over what she characterized as an ineffective and wasteful wall." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Donnie argues with Chuck & Nancy. You can skip the first 5-1/2 minutes, which Big Fat Pinnochio lies his way through. Thanks to Jeanne for the lead:

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post has the transcript, annotated. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

Annie Karni of the New York Times: The meeting "was a remarkable exchange between a veteran congressional leader and a president who is rarely challenged to his face in public, especially by a woman. 'Mr. President, please don't characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting as a leader of the House Democrats who just won a big victory,' Ms. Pelosi said, about halfway through the meeting, after Mr. Trump accused her of 'being in a situation where it's not easy for her to talk right now.'... The exchange between Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Trump -- the first that tested their new power dynamic as Democrats prepare to take control of the House -- seemed aimed at making clear to Ms. Pelosi's Democratic caucus that she can take on Mr. Trump and brush off mansplaining. And it was Ms. Pelosi who may have benefited from the negotiating-in-public style the president prefers. She put him off balance from the start by referring to the possibility of a 'Trump shutdown,' causing the president to visibly recoil. Without raising her voice, she stood her ground as Mr. Trump repeatedly interrupted her with finger wags and calling her 'Nancy.'... Speaking to reporters outside the White House after the meeting, Ms. Pelosi suggested that she actually had gone easy on the president. 'I did not want to, in front of those people, say that you don't know what you're talking about,' she said." ...

... Rachel Bade & Sarah Ferris of Politico: "Minutes after a very public showdown with Donald Trump on Tuesday over his border wall with Mexico, the House minority leader [Nancy Pelosi] returned to the Capitol and railed against the president in a private meeting with her colleagues. Trump 'must have said the word "wall" 30 times,' the California Democrat said, according to multiple sources in the room. 'I was trying to be the mom,' Pelosi added, but 'it goes to show you: You get into a tinkle contest with a skunk, you get tinkle all over you.' And then, she went for the most sensitive part of Trump's ego. 'It's like a manhood thing with him -- as if manhood can be associated with him,' Pelosi deadpanned. 'This wall thing.'... At one point, after reporters and TV cameras left the Oval Office, Trump told Pelosi and Schumer that the new trade agreement he recently struck with Canada and Mexico is going to pay for the wall, Pelosi told lawmakers.... The entire thing baffled Pelosi. It's a 'cultural phenomenon,' Pelos told her colleagues, that 'the fate of our country [is] in the hands of this person.'" ...

... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "Sparring with Trump in public, Pelosi more than held her own. She told him directly, 'You will not win,' and repeatedly shot down his cocksure pronouncements that a bill with wall funding could pass the House. Yet after a few minutes going back and forth with the president, she ... [said,] 'I don't think we should have a debate in front of the press on this,' Pelosi told Trump. 'Let us have our conversation, and we can meet with the press again.' Schumer, on the other hand, is a ... man about whom it is famously said, 'The most dangerous place in Washington is between Chuck Schumer and a TV camera.'... As Pelosi and Trump went at it, Schumer waited impatiently for his chance to speak. When his turn came, he promptly reminded the president that The Washington Post had given him 'a whole lot of Pinocchios' for constantly misstating the cost of the border wall. 'We do not want to shut down the government,' Schumer told Trump. 'You have called 20 times to shut down the government.'... As the president bestowed Democrats with a political gift [-- taking ownership of a government shutdown --] Schumer sat with his hands clasped and his head nodding. The cameras were running, and the smile never left his face." ...

... William Cummings of USA Today: "Pence sat stoically as his boss got into testy exchanges with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the likely next Speaker, House Minority Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Stoically may be an understatement. Stonily might be more accurate. And he didn't say a word. As one Twitter user phrased it with a holiday metaphor, Pence sat there 'exactly like our Elf on the Shelf.'... Radio host Dean Obeidallah wondered if Pence 'is actually still alive' or if it was a "'Weekend at Bernie's" type scenario where they just prop up Pence at meetings.'" And so forth."

... The report cited below refutes pretty much everything Trump asserted & that first five-and-a-half minutes of hoo-hah:

... Rebekah Entralago of ThinkProgress: "According to a scathing report released by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, the federal government doesn't have much to show for its costly effort to increase border security staffing at the U.S.-Mexico border.... Last January, Trump signed an executive order directing DHS to amp up the number of agents on staff.... Accenture Federal Services ... [was granted] a $297 million contract to hire 7,500 CBP [customs & border protection] officers, Border Patrol agents, and Air and Marine Interdiction Agents.... An audit conducted by the federal government shows it has already paid Accenture [a global 'consulting' company] $13.6 million, but as of October 1, had only processed two job offers -- largely by using CBP's own resources.... The Pentagon estimates that [the active soldiers sent to the border] costs about $72 million. In exchange, troops are being tasked with shoveling manure, changing tires, and carrying out various other chores that don't include border control. All the while, the Trump administration is demanding even more money to secure the border. " --s ...

... AND This. Erin Banco & Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump on Tuesday cited the recent apprehension of ten suspected terrorists to bolster his case for building a wall along the southern border, implying that a porous border with Mexico is leaving the country vulnerable to national security threats. But the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees security and law enforcement at U.S. borders and ports of entry, was unable to provide data to directly substantiate that claim." Emphasis added. ...

... Aaron Rupar of Vox: "... Donald Trump wants you to believe that the southern border is now secured because of his tough measures. But he also wants you to believe the same border is in crisis and requires the construction of an expensive border wall to secure it.... Trump sent a tweet Tuesday morning accusing Democrats (falsely) of pushing for 'Open Borders for anyone to come in. This brings large scale crime and disease.' In fact, Democrats don't support open borders, and experts say migrants do not pose a public health risk. Trump then boasted about his achievements at the border: '... Our Southern Border is now Secure and will remain that way.'... But less than an hour later, Trump seemed to realize that claiming the border is secure is not a good bargaining position ahead of a meeting about funding a border wall. In another tweet he said 'A Great Wall' at the southern border is needed so desperately that he'll order the military to build it if Congress won't allocate money for it. (There's just one problem: The president doesn't have the authority to do that without congressional approval.) Trump also falsely claimed that 'much of the Wall ... has already been built.' The $1.6 billion Congress allocated for border security measures last year actually expressly prohibited funds from being spent on new wall designs." --s

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

Adam Serwer of The Atlantic: "Donald Trump can't stop telling on himself.... Given every advantage conferred on the wealthy and connected, including being the president of the United States, Trump can't help but provide both the public and the authorities investigating him and his campaign with knowledge of his state of mind. Proving guilt in white-collar crime is an exceedingly difficult task for prosecutors. Trump is doing his best to make it easier." --s ...

... So After Serwer Wrote That... Jeff Mason & Steve Holland of Reuters: "... Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was not concerned that he could be impeached and that hush payments made ahead of the 2016 election by his former personal attorney Michael Cohen to two women did not violate campaign finance laws. 'It's hard to impeach somebody who hasn't done anything wrong and who's created the greatest economy in the history of our country,' Trump told Reuters in an Oval Office interview. 'I'm not concerned, no. I think that the people would revolt if that happened,' he said.... 'Michael Cohen is a lawyer. I assume he would know what he's doing,' Trump said when asked if he had discussed campaign finance laws with Cohen. 'Number one, it wasn't a campaign contribution. If it were, it's only civil, and even if it's only civil, there was no violation based on what we did. OK?' Asked about prosecutors' assertions that a number of people who had worked for him met or had business dealings with Russians before and during his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said: 'The stuff you're talking about is peanut stuff.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie P.S. In case you were wondering what could happen if Trump were impeached (and maybe he means also convicted, but who knows?), I think he just gave us a preview: he'll foment a revolution.

Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, President Trump's first national security adviser, asked a federal judge late Tuesday to spare him prison time for misleading investigators, and they suggested that the F.B.I. agents who interviewed him last year at the White House had tricked him into lying.... Mr. Flynn's lawyers singled out Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director, and Peter Strzok, a senior counterintelligence agent who interviewed Mr. Flynn. Both men were fired from the F.B.I. this year, and the president and his allies have attacked them as enemies bent on undermining Mr. Trump. They also have accused Mr. McCabe, Mr. Strzok and other former F.B.I. officials of unfairly targeting Mr. Flynn."

Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "Michael D. Cohen, the former lawyer for President Trump, is to be sentenced on Wednesday morning for his role in a hush-money scandal that could threaten Mr. Trump's presidency by implicating him in a scheme to buy the silence of two women who said they had affairs with him."

Lucien Burggeman & Soo Rin Kim of ABC News: "A federal judge presiding over special counsel Robert Mueller's case against Paul Manafort asked prosecutors for the 'underlying evidence' to support their claims that the former Trump campaign chairman lied after signing a cooperation agreement as part of their probe of Russian election meddling during the 2016 campaign. Defense attorneys for Manafort and prosecutors with the special counsel's office met Tuesday in a federal courthouse for the first time since Robert Mueller and his team described the subject of lies Manafort of perpetrating. The defense counsel said they did not have enough information from the government about their client's alleged lies to respond to their allegations Tuesday. A series of January deadlines were set for the defense to submit disputes with the government's accusations and for the prosecution to respond."

Rosalind Helderman & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: Russian national Maria Butina "called her strategy the 'Diplomacy Project,' an elaborate, multiyear scheme to infiltrate the conservative movement in the United States in hopes of cementing bonds to benefit the Kremlin.... Butina laid out the proposal in March 2015 and then pursued her plan over the next two years, traveling to conferences to schmooze Republican presidential candidates.... New details [of Butina's project] are included in documents obtained by The Washington Post that will be filed in court Thursday, when Butina is expected to admit for the first time that her activities were part of a concerted endeavor, coordinated with a top Russian official with the express intent of establishing unofficial lines of communication with Americans who could influence U.S. politics. The documents show Butina plans to admit she worked at the direction of a former senator who was deputy governor of the Russian central bank. That description matches Alexander Torshin, who was subjected to economic sanctions by the U.S. government earlier this year and resigned his bank position in November. Butina is being prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, not special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. But with a plea, she will become the first Russian national convicted of working to influence U.S. policy around the time of the 2016 election."

Khorri Atkinson of Axios: "A federal judge in California on Tuesday ordered adult film star Stormy Daniels to pay Donald Trump $293,052.33 in attorneys' fees for her defamation case against the president, which the judge dismissed in October, and another $1,000 in sanctions for filing a 'meritless' legal challenge."


Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "President Trump continues to reject the judgments of U.S. spy agencies on major foreign policy fronts, creating a dynamic in which intelligence analysts frequently see troubling gaps between the president's public statements and the facts laid out for him in daily briefings on world events, current and former U.S. officials said.... Presidential distrust that once seemed confined mainly to the intelligence community's assessments about Russia's interference in the 2016 election has spread across a range of global issues. Among them are North Korea's willingness to abandon its nuclear weapons program, Iran's nuclear and regional ambitions, the existence and implications of global climate change, and the role of the Saudi crown prince in the killing of a dissident journalist. 'There is extraordinary frustration,' a U.S. intelligence official said. The CIA and other agencies continue to devote enormous 'time, energy and resources' to ensuring that accurate intelligence is delivered to Trump, the official said, but his seeming imperviousness to such material often renders 'all of that a waste.'" ...

... So After Miller Wrote That... Steve Holland & Robert Rampton of Reuters: "... Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he stood by Saudi Arabia's crown prince despite a CIA assessment that he ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and pleas from U.S. senators for Trump to condemn the kingdom's de facto ruler....Trump again reiterated on Tuesday that the 'crown prince vehemently denies' involvement in a killing that has sparked outrage around the world.... Asked by Reuters if standing by the kingdom meant standing by the prince, known as MbS, Trump responded: 'Well, at this moment, it certainly does.' Some members of Saudi Arabia's ruling family are agitating to prevent MbS from becoming king, sources close to the royal court have told Reuters, and believe that the United States and Trump could play a determining role. 'I just haven't heard that,' Trump said. 'Honestly, I can't comment on it because I had not heard that at all. In fact, if anything, I've heard that he's very strongly in power.'" ...

... Shira Tarlo of Salon: "Jared Kushner ... told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday night that U.S. intelligence agencies 'are making their assessments' about the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. (The CIA has reportedly concluded that the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder. After receiving a briefing on the killing, Sen. Lindsey Graham declared, 'There's no smoking gun -- there's a smoking saw.') When Hannity asked Kushner whether the U.S. would 'get to the bottom' of who was responsible for Khashoggi's brutal murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the White House aide did not mention the crown prince. Instead, he said only that 'we're hoping to make sure that there's justice brought where that should be.'"

David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: "The cyberattack on the Marriott hotel chain that collected personal details of roughly 500 million guests was part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering effort that also hacked health insurers and the security clearance files of millions more Americans, according to two people briefed on the investigation. The hackers, they said, are suspected of working on behalf of the Ministry of State Security, the country's Communist-controlled civilian spy agency. The discovery comes as the Trump administration is planning actions targeting China's trade, cyber and economic policies, perhaps within days. Those moves include indictments against Chinese hackers working for the intelligence services and the military, according to four government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The Trump administration also plans to declassify intelligence reports to reveal Chinese efforts dating to at least 2014 to build a database containing names of executives and American government officials with security clearances." ...

... Roberta Rampton & Jeff Mason: "... Donald Trump said on Tuesday that China was buying a 'tremendous amount' of U.S. soybeans and that trade talks with Beijing were already under way by telephone, with more meetings likely among U.S. and Chinese officials.... But traders in Chicago said they have seen no evidence of a resumption of such purchases following China's imposition of a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans in July.... U.S. government data has not shown any soybean sales to China since July...." ...

... Jeff Mason & Steve Holland: "... Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would intervene in the Justice Department's case against a top executive at China's Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL] if it would serve national security interests or help close a trade deal with China. Huawei's Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada Dec. 1 and has been accused by the United States of misleading multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions, putting the banks at risk of violating U.S. sanctions.... 'If I think it's good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made -- which is a very important thing -- what's good for national security -- I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary,' Trump said." ...

... MEANWHILE. Josh Wingrove, et al., of Bloomberg News: "The detention of a former Canadian diplomat by China's spy agency signaled an escalation in the feud between the two nations, raising new questions about the safety of foreigners doing business in China. The former diplomat, Michael Kovrig, was detained by a branch of China's Ministry of State Security during a visit to Beijing on Monday, his employer, the International Crisis Group, said in a statement. The Brussels-based non-profit said Wednesday it has received no information from Kovrig since his detention and was working to secure consular access to verify his health and safety. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang declined to comment on the case, deferring questions to the Crisis Group, which he noted wasn't registered as a non-governmental organization.... Kovrig's detention marked a potentially explosive twist in the saga surrounding Canada's arrest of a top Huawei Technologies Co. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou earlier this month in Vancouver. Chinese officials expressed outrage over her arrest and threatened 'severe consequences' if Canada failed to handle the case to its liking."

Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed News: "The Trump administration went to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, seeking an order that would allow it to enforce its new policy barring asylum claims by those who cross into the country at the southern border without authorization.... On Dec. 7, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit denied the Justice Department's request to put on hold a district court judge's order that halted the policy's enforcement.... The ACLU sued on behalf of organizations that assist with asylum applications. US District Judge Jon Tigar halted enforcement of the policy change -- issuing a temporary restraining order in the days before Thanksgiving. 'Whatever the scope of the President's authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,' Tigar wrote."

IOKIYAR. Shawn Boburg & Anu Narayanswamy of the Washington Post: "President Trump has repeatedly derided prosecutors investigating potential coordination between his presidential campaign and Russia as 'angry Democrats,' pointing to their past political donations as proof of bias. But William P. Barr, Trump's nominee to lead the Justice Department and oversee the Russia investigation, would be by far the most prolific political donor to step into the country's top law enforcement post in at least a quarter-century, according to a Washington Post analysis. Barr has donated more than $567,000 in the past two decades, nearly all to GOP candidates and groups, federal records show. His wife, Christine Barr, gave more than $220,000 over that time, records show. Before he was nominated to be attorney general, Barr criticized past donations by prosecutors working for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.... A White House official ... drew a distinction between contributions from political appointees and those from career prosecutors.... Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonprofit group that works to limit money in politics, said in a statement that the nomination of Barr shows that Trump's attacks 'are hypocritical as well as bogus.'"

Juan Cole: "Trump is making Heather Nauert his ambassador to the United Nations, the most empty-headed such appointment since W. Bush tried to shoehorn the crazed John Bolton into that position.... Nauert is Trump' mini-me, aping his shell-shocked insouciance at atrocities and struggling to understand the simplest questions.... To plumb the depths of Nauert's ignorance about international affairs it would be necessary to deploy the Deepsea Challenger (DCV 1) that director James Cameron used to reach the deepest part of the Mariana Trench at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.... Nauert isn't capable of diplomacy, just of mouthing off in imitation of Trump's Twitterhea." --s


Adam Federman of Mother Jones: "In an internal memo circulated within the Interior Department earlier this year, government scientists issued a stark warning: The Trump administration's plans to allow oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) could further jeopardize the region's already fragile polar bear population.... That analysis contrasts sharply with the administration's public rhetoric suggesting that the project would be harmless and should therefore be quickly approved.... Despite the Fish and Wildlife Service document warning of serious environmental and legal obstacles to the project, the administration has continued to downplay the impact that seismic surveys could have on the refuge." --s

Confused GOP MOC's Still Sure the Googles Are Conspiring Against Them. Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "In an effort to understand how Google search algorithms work, a Democratic congresswoman [Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)] asked the tech company's chief executive a simple question: 'If you Google the word "idiot" under images, a picture of Donald Trump comes up. How would that happen? How does search work so that that would occur?'... Lofgren was reacting to Republicans' allegations that Google employees manipulate results for political reasons.... Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, who was testifying Tuesday morning before the House Judiciary Committee, tried to explain to the roomful of mostly tech novices how the algorithms take into account some 200 factors -- such as relevance, popularity, how others are using the search term -- to determine how to best match a query with results.... Republicans on the panel couldn't get past the myth that some person(s) inside Google couldn't arbitrarily change search algorithms for political gain." ...

... Ted Lieu Is So Mean: If you want positive search results, do positive things. If you don't want negative search results, don't do negative things. And to some of my colleagues across the aisle, if you're getting bad press articles and bad search results, don't blame Google or Facebook or Twitter, consider blaming yourself. -- Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), during Tuesday's hearing ...

Sorry, Mr. Lieu, you are trying to pierce the impenetrable Confederate Feedback Loop. Can't be done. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Reversing course, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on Tuesday that the Senate would vote on a substantial criminal justice bill before the end of the year, teeing up a bipartisan policy achievement that has eluded lawmakers for years. Advocates of the prison and sentencing law changes on Capitol Hill and in the White House have spent weeks lobbying Mr. McConnell, who controls the Senate calendar. They had the backing of President Trump, who endorsed the bill last month and urged Mr. McConnell in recent days to 'Go for it Mitch!' Mr. McConnell had repeatedly said that there was probably not enough time to consider the measure, and Republican leaders maintained as recently as a few days ago that the bill did not have the support of the majority of Republicans. Mr. McConnell made clear on Tuesday that the Senate was considering the legislation 'at the request of the president' and said that debate could begin later this week." (Also linked yesterday.)

Charles Pierce: Clarence Thomas, in his dissenting opinion in the Medicaid cases "went zooming off into the fever swamp to find a rationale...: ... these particular cases arose after several States alleged that Planned Parenthood affiliates had, among other things, engaged in 'the illegal sale of fetal organs' and 'fraudulent billing practices,' and thus removed Planned Parenthood as a state Medicaid provider.'... [Thus,] a veteran justice of the Supreme Court, as part of the reasoning for his dissent, has included a debunked smear emanating from the most notorious ratfcking operation in the professional conservative ratfcking apparatus." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Update. In yesterday's thread, Akhilleus asked rhetorically, "Doesn't this guy have clerks who can do, like, research? Doesn't he do research? I mean, something beyond the Breitbart archives." Later, RAS found the very likely answer to these questions: "It sounds as if Clarence Thomas' wife is now doing his legal research." Ginni Thomas, as Mark Stern of Slate lays out, is a key distributor of outlandish right-wing conspiracy theories. Even worse, she publicizes these nutty notions in service of her lobbying business. This presents, needless to say, a profound ethical challenge for the hubby. But, needless to say, his own ethics do not seem to be of concern to him.

Nathaniel Popper of the New York Times: "CBS News reached a legal settlement with three women who accused the network of not doing enough to stop one of its anchors, Charlie Rose, from sexually harassing them.... Three recent employees -- Katherine Harris, Sydney McNeal and Yuqing Wei -- sued the network and Mr. Rose this year after another article in The Post indicated that the network had ignored complaints from CBS employees who worked with him.... The women are continuing to pursue their claims against Mr. Rose, a lawyer for the women, Kenneth Goldberg, said."

Beyond the Beltway

Arkansas. Elham Khatami of ThinkProgress: "The Arkansas state legislature advanced a proposal Monday that would slash Medicaid payments to assisted living facilities that provide services to the elderly and individuals with disabilities -- a move that continues the state's assault on the public health insurance program designed for low-income people.... The Department of Human Services proposal would impact nearly 9,000 Arkansas residents who rely on the ARChoices Medicaid program.... According to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette, the proposal could lead to the shutdown of the nearly 100 assisted living facilities in the state that accept Medicaid patients." --s

California. Rosa Furneaux of Mother Jones: "Just a few months ago, climate activists in California were celebrating an impressive victory: New data showed that the state had brought greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels, four years earlier than planned.... The recent Camp and Woolsey fires, officials say, have produced emissions equivalent to roughly 5.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, more than three times the total decrease in emissions in 2015. Recently, the Department of the Interior announced that new data shows the 2018 California wildfire season is estimated to have released emissions equal to about one year of power use." --s

North Carolina. Zach Montellaro of Politico: "The North Carolina Republican Party said Tuesday that a new election should be held in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District if a new allegation regarding the leak of early-voting results before Election Day is proven. The results of the race between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready have already been held up over allegations of election fraud against a contractor for one of Harris' campaign consultants. But the state Democratic Party has highlighted another incident in the inquiry into the House race, releasing a signed affidavit from a Bladen County poll worker alleging that the results of early votes were shared improperly before the election.... Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the state Republican party, said it was likely early votes were leaked."

Texas. Jason Silverstein of CBS News: "A former Baylor University frat president who was indicted for allegedly sexually assaulting a fellow student will not serve jail time or register as a sex offender under a plea deal accepted by a Texas court on Monday, CBS affiliate KWTX-TV reports. A judge in Waco, Texas, accepted the deal and sentenced Jacob Walter Anderson, 24, to three years of deferred probation. Anderson must also pay a $400 fine and seek counseling. His criminal record will be expunged if and when he completes probation. In a tearful statement to the court, Anderson's accuser said she was devastated by the decision to 'let my rapist go free.'... In a statement to CBS News, Assistant District Attorney Hilary LaBorde defended Anderson's sentence and said the public didn't know all the facts that led to it. 'Conflicting evidence and statements exist in this case making the original allegation difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,' LaBorde said." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond

** Britain. Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Britain's beleaguered prime minister, Theresa May, will face a no-confidence vote on Wednesday within her own Conservative Party, as lawmakers upset with her handling of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union seek to topple her from power. Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbench 1922 committee of Conservative lawmakers, announced Wednesday morning that he had received letters of protest from more than 48 Conservative members of Parliament, the number needed under party rules to trigger a vote on her leadership. He said the contest would take place Wednesday evening." ...

... The Guardian is liveblogging developments here.

France. Foo Yun Chee & Gilbert Reilhac of Reuters: "A gunman on a security watchlist killed at least two people and wounded at least 11 others near the picturesque Christmas market in the historic French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday evening before fleeing.... Amid fast-moving, confusing scenes it was not clear if the suspect, identified by police as Strasbourg-born Chekatt Cherif, 29, had been cornered by commandos or had slipped the dragnet."

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