The Commentariat -- January 15, 2018

Afternoon Update:

"Are You Effing Kidding Me?" ...

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The Comments section of Reality Chex still is not working. Don't be fooled! If you try to post a comment, you'll get a reassuring message that your comment has been submitted. But it hasn't! Instead, your comment goes into the ether, lost forevah. For a couple of work-arounds, see my suggestions in yesterday's Commentariat. I'm trying to pressure my host to get on this. You can see the influence I have. --  Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ...

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Freedom Marchers arrive in Montgomery, Alabama, a few weeks after Alabama state troopers attacked marchers on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma at the start of a previously-planned march. This time, President Johnson ordered the Alabama National Guard & U.S. Army troops to protect the marchers.THIS Is How We Celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in Trump's USA:

Noah Weiland of the New York Times: "A Republican senator who attended a Thursday immigration meeting at the White House forcefully denied on Sunday that President Trump had used the phrase 'shithole countries' in describing Haiti and African nations, saying a Democratic senator’s account of the session was 'a gross misrepresentation.' Senator David Perdue, Republican of Georgia, said on ABC’s 'This Week' that Mr. Trump 'did not use that word,' and accused Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, of distorting what the president had said at the meeting, which included more than a half-dozen lawmakers. Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, joined Mr. Perdue later in the morning in questioning Mr. Durbin. 'I didn’t hear that word either,' he said on CBS’s 'Face the Nation.' 'And I was sitting no further away from Donald Trump than Dick Durbin was.'... Ben Marter, a spokesman for Mr. Durbin, immediately attacked their assertions.... The remarks by Mr. Perdue and Mr. Cotton were an escalation from a statement they released on Friday, when they said they did 'not recall the president saying these comments specifically.' They also appear to conflict with the account of Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who was at the Thursday meeting. Mr. Graham told a fellow South Carolina Republican, Senator Tim Scott, that reports in the news media of Mr. Trump’s language were 'basically accurate.'” ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: During the CBS interview, Cotton pushed his new product line "Tom's Excellent Cotton Ball Sound Mufflers." Mr. Perdue reminded "This Week" listeners that "Perdue's Chicken Wax Silencer" was available on the Home Shopping Network. Cotton said he used his own product "all the time for events where anybody from the Democrat party shows up." Perdue said his "Chick Wax Silencer" has been saving marriages for decades. "If you can't hear what she's sayin', you're not gonna get mad at 'er." ...

     ... The NYT story has been updated, with Thomas Kaplan as the lead reporter. The new lede & detail:

"After three days of denunciations from around the world, President Trump declared that he is 'not a racist' on Sunday, even as the uproar over his vulgar remarks on immigration overshadowed critical issues facing the capital, including efforts to protect young undocumented immigrants and avert a government shutdown. Mr. Trump also insisted that he had not made the inflammatory comments in a White House meeting on Thursday, part of a newly aggressive defense and a counterattack on Democrats by the president and his allies. But his remarks on Sunday were a departure from the White House’s initial statement last week, which did not deny the comments.... 'I’m not a racist,' Mr. Trump said on Sunday night as he arrived at Trump International Golf Club in Florida for dinner with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, who attended the meeting last week and has not spoken publicly about it. 'I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed, that I can tell you.' His comments, while extraordinary coming from a president of the United States, echoed reassurances Mr. Trump has made several times before.” ...

... Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "With the fate of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants in the balance, relations between key GOP and Democratic lawmakers turned poisonous Sunday over disagreement about President Trump’s use of a vulgarity to describe poor countries last week during an Oval Office meeting.... The accusations prompted Democrats to blast the GOP senators for impugning a colleague’s integrity, while also slamming Trump and his remarks as unabashedly racist.... The White House did not dispute the remarks when The Washington Post first reported them Thursday. Trump offered a vague denial in a Friday tweet.... 'To impugn [Durbin’s] integrity is disgraceful,' [Sen. Chuck] Schumer [D-N.Y.] said on Twitter.... Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said Sunday on 'This Week' that he had spoken to meeting participants immediately afterward — before The Post reported Trump’s use of the vulgar term. 'They said those words were used before those words went public,' Flake said." ...

     ... DeBonis's story also has been updated, with Anne Gearan sharing the byline. Both the NYT & WashPo accounts are worth reading.

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie. Trump's latest denial on Shitholegate is typical Trump, & it's appalling. First, he says something horrible and/or false. Then he can't quite remember what he said and/or issues a weasely half-denial. Then he flat-out denies it. In this case, his enablers changed their story, giving Trump a lifeline. A very similar pattern exhibits itself in the contemporaneous Kim Jong-un claim. First, Trump makes a false claim. Then the interviewer publishes a tape-recording, proving Trump & his enablers are wrong. Then some wingers claim he said something different from what the tape proves he did say. Then he echoes the wingers' claim, sharply denying he said what he said. ...

... ** "Shithouse" or "Shithole"? The Great Washington Debate:

     ... First, there's this from Benjamin Hart of New York: "National Review’s Rich Lowry got more specific on This Week, telling [George] Stephanopoulos that his sources told him Trump used the word 'shithouse,' not 'shithole' — which does not seem like a world of semantic difference." ...

     ... Also this tweet from Josh Dawsey Sunday at 8:54 pm ET of the Washington Post (i.e., hours before Trump issued his denial: "White House official told me tonight there is debate internally on whether Trump said 'shithole' or 'shithouse.' Perdue and Cotton seem to have heard latter, this person said, and are using to deny." Mrs. McC: So that's the "gross misrepresentation" Durbin made? -- Not "shithole" but "shithouse"? Yeah, shame on you, Dick Durbin. Time for reporters to interview Perdue & Cotton. ...

      ... Mrs. McC: On Thursday, so before Dick Durbin spoke on the record Friday, I heard a confederate CNN guest (I don't know who he was, but I don't think it was Lowry) make the same "distinction": "I have it on good authority," this guy said, "that the President said 'shithouse,' not 'shithole.'" Certainly Lowry's "sources" & the CNN guest's "authority" were Republicans. ...

... Annals of Journalism & "Journalism," Ctd. Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "... the profanity used by the president to describe poor countries  — 'shithole,' to be precise  —  still managed to [shock]. And news organizations had to grapple with whether and how prominently to use his words. But the real issue wasn’t the language at all, disgusting as it was. What mattered much more was what Trump’s words really meant, and what the responsibilities of journalists were in conveying that meaning in some sensible way. In the first hours of coverage, some rose to the challenge well.... Predictably, though, Trump’s regular media defenders were responding in two appalling ways. First, they did it by noting that countries like Haiti are indeed poor and troubled, implying that the president was therefore right to disparage them.... And second, they did it by positing that Trump’s racism will play well with his base, which somehow makes it acceptable." ...

... ** Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "On the day before Martin Luther King’s Birthday, African-American churchgoers gathered as they always do, to pray, give thanks and reflect on the state of race in America. But after a disheartening week and an even more disheartening year, black Americans interviewed on Sunday said they were struggling to comprehend what was happening in a country that so recently had an African-American president.... They said they saw America slipping into an earlier, uglier version of itself. And when Mr. Trump used crude words to describe Haiti and African countries in an immigration discussion, they said, he was voicing what many Americans were thinking, even if it was something they no longer felt comfortable saying: America prefers white people."...

...Margaret Hartmann of New York: "While forcing a shutdown over the fate of the Dreamers had once seemed like a risky strategy for Democrats, the uproar over Trump’s remark makes it easier for them to blame the situation on the unreasonable demands of a demonstrably racist president. But over the weekend,Republicans came up with a plan: 1) Insist that despite what you might have heard, Trump wouldn’t say something so racist. 2) Complain that they are at the mercy of the Democratic minority, whose members are hell-bent on shutting down the government...Despite efforts by Cotton and other Republicans to spin the situation, there’s one person who decided to end DACA, sabotaged efforts to fix it, was rebuked by the courts, and probably can’t go another week without saying something offensive – and he’s not a Democrat." --safari...

...The U.S., via KKK Donald, is playing diplomatic fire with the entire African continent. --safari

...Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "The African Union called Trump’s comments “outrageous, racist and xenophobic” and demanded a “retraction and apology.” The group also said it was 'concerned at the continuing and growing trend from the US administration towards Africa and people of African descent to denigrate the continent and people of color.' The entire communiqué was published online by Samantha Power, the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, who said it was completely unprecedented...Experts believe Trump has permanently damaged the United States standing in the world. 'I don’t think this will just blow over. I think it fundamentally poisons the relationship with numerous countries,' Peter Lewis, director of African Studies at Johns Hopkins University" --safari

Mrs. McCrabbie: I got to wondering how Fox "News" was celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day & this is the first thing that popped up on the Googles -- an essay about how liberals were "politicizing" the day. "Reporters at the White House on Thursday didn’t care to treat MLK Day with reverence, either. I found it telling that even after Dr. King’s nephew gave a powerful speech about his uncle’s legacy, not a single reporter made much of what he said. Instead, the entire event centered around President Trump’s controversial remarks about immigration." Hunt is a 24-year-old Army officer who thinks White House reporters, instead of asking questions about Trump's "shithole" remark should be having a round table about the speech by King's nephew or maybe asking Mrs. Huckleberry how Trump is like King. And that, folks, is how we celebrate Dr. King on Fox "News."

Wall Street Journal Joins "Fake News" Club. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Trump on Sunday morning ratcheted up a dispute with The Wall Street Journal, accusing the newspaper of purposely misquoting him as saying in an interview that he has a good relationship with the leader of North Korea. In two tweets from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., the president applied a familiar denigrating term — 'fake news' — to a Journal report on Thursday that said Mr. Trump had boasted during an interview: 'I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un. I have relationships with people. I think you people are surprised. Mr. Trump insisted that he had actually started his sentence with the contraction 'I’d,' not 'I,' which would change the meaning from a surprising boast of an existing relationship into a prediction that he could have a good relationship with the dictator if he wanted it. 'The Wall Street Journal stated falsely that I said to them 'I have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un” (of N. Korea). Obviously I didn’t say that. I said “I’d have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” a big difference. Fortunately we now record conversations with reporters...' '...and they knew exactly what I said and meant. They just wanted a story. FAKE NEWS!'... [Sarah] Sanders wrote on Twitter that the White House had first requested a correction from The Journal on Friday morning, the day after the interview.” Includes recording. See also links to related stories in yesterday's Commentariat. ...

... Say, this might be a good place to find out what-all else Jeff Flake is doing these days:

... Kasie Hunt & Kendall Breitman of NBC News: "Sen. Jeff Flake is planning to slam ... Donald Trump's attacks on the press on the Senate floor this week in a speech that will compare the president's use of the term 'enemy of the people' to describe the media to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. 'When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn't suit him "fake news," it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press,' Flake, R-Ariz., will say, according to excerpts of the speech provided to NBC News.... '... so fraught with malice was the phrase "enemy of the people," that even (later Soviet leader) Nikita Khrushchev forbad its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin to for the purpose of "annihilating such individuals" who disagreed with the supreme leader,' Flake will say.... The speech from one of Trump's fiercest Republican critics comes as the president has promoted his 'Fake News Awards' on Twitter, saying that the awards, expected to be on Wednesday, will go to 'the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media.'"

Mike DeBonis: "Corey Lewandowski, President Trump’s former campaign manager, said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he will give testimony this week to a House committee probing Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Lewandowski said on WABC-AM radio in New York that he expects to appear before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Wednesday or Thursday to discuss the campaign. He told host Rita Crosby that he has not been contacted by Justice Department investigators — led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — who are conducting a parallel investigation."

Amy Wang of the Washington Post on how Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency sent out a false alarm of an incoming missile. "Around 8:05 a.m., the Hawaii emergency employee initiated the internal test, according to a timeline released by the state. From a drop-down menu on a computer program, he saw two options: 'Test missile alert' and 'Missile alert.' He was supposed to choose the former; as much of the world now knows, he chose the latter, an initiation of a real-life missile alert.... On Sunday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai ... seemed to cast blame on state-level officials for the error." But it's not that simple. Although an employee of Hawaii's agency made the mistake, state agencies "are a partnership of the FCC, FEMA and the wireless industry...' the state agency had standing permission through FEMA to use civil warning systems to send out the missile alert — but not to send out a subsequent false alarm alert..., [according to a spokesman for Hawaii's agency.... 'We had to double back and work with FEMA [to craft and approve the false alarm alert] and that’s what took time,' [he] said.... Trump ... issued no statements about the incident.... Past presidents have often weighed in to reassure the public at times of stress or threat." ...  

     ... Mrs. McC: Sure, but the POTUS* was busy playing a top-secret golf game. Besides, Hawaii's voters gave Clinton more than twice as many votes in the 2016 election as they did Trump, so screw Hawaii. Trump can't remember much, but the 2016 results are encrypted in his small brain. He's not going to let a slight go unpunished. ...

... Max Fisher of the New York Times: "Nuclear experts are warning, using some of their most urgent language since President Trump took office, that Hawaii’s false alarm, in which state agencies alerted locals to a nonexistent missile attack, underscores a growing risk of unintended nuclear war with North Korea." Fisher cites Russia's 1983 downing of Korean Airlines Flight 007 to show how mistakes & bad relations between nuclear-armed foes -- in this case the Soviet Union & the U.S. -- could lead to nuclear war. "If similar misunderstandings seem implausible today, consider that an initial White House statement called Hawaii’s alert an exercise — though state officials say it was operator error. Consider that 38 minutes elapsed before emergency systems sent a second message announcing the mistake. If even Washington was misreading events, the confusion in Pyongyang must have been far greater." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I continue to think that a cruel, ignorant bully with dementia & the nuclear football is the greatest threat to national security since the Cold War. Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans are bent on risking the lives of every American so they can squeeze more money out of the poor & middle class. Talk about depraved indifference...

...Juan Cole: "A false alert was sent out by the state of Hawaii on Saturday to residents’ cell phones warning of an incoming North Korean nuclear strike, as Mary Papunfuss of Huffpost explains...But here’s the thing. The US military knew all along that there was no such threat. Nobody from the Pentagon tried to reassure the public. And, President Trump was on his West Palm Beach golf course and got the notice that it was a false alarm. He just went on playing golf. Then he wrapped up the game. He never tweeted any reassurance to the people of Hawaii. He let them twist in the wind...But he is president of all the state residents, too, and he had knowledge that could have benefited his co-citizens and did nothing." --safari

Matthew Lee & Julie Pace of the AP: "The Trump administration is preparing to withhold tens of millions of dollars from the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, cutting the year’s first contribution by more than half or perhaps entirely, and making additional donations contingent on major changes to the organization, according to U.S. officials.... Donald Trump hasn’t made a final decision.... The plan to withhold some of the money is backed by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis, who offered it as a compromise to demands for more drastic measures by U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.... Haley wants a complete cutoff in U.S. money until the Palestinians resume peace talks with Israel that have been frozen for years.... Some officials, including Israelis, warn that it might push people closer to the militant Hamas movement, which controls Gaza." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If you don't come to the table, kids, & eat your crow potpie, Daddy is going to cut off your allowance.

Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times (Jan. 13): "Iranian officials, responding to President Trump’s call to revise the nuclear agreement, said they would reject any changes to the 2015 deal, saying it was 'not renegotiable.' Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, wrote on Saturday in a message on Twitter that the nuclear agreement between Iran, the United States and other world powers was 'a solid multilateral agreement' that President Trump was 'maliciously violating.'”

Kate Hodal of the Guardian: "Women are more likely than men to survive in times of famine and epidemics, research has found. While it has long been known that women have a higher life expectancy than men in general, analysis of historical records stretching back 250 years shows that women have, for example, outlived men on slave plantations in Trinidad, during famines in Sweden and through various measles outbreaks in Iceland. Even when mortality was very high for both sexes, women still outlived men, on average, by six months to four years, according to the report (pdf) by Duke University in North Carolina." --safari

** Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker: "Usually, there’s a tension between the [Interior] department’s mandates — to protect the nation’s natural resources and to manage them for commercial use. Under [Secretary Ryan] Zinke, the only question, from the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters, is how fast these resources can be auctioned off.... Zinke is, in many ways, a typical Trump appointee. A lack of interest in the public interest is, these days, pretty much a precondition for running a federal agency.... In the decades to come, one can hope that many of the Trump Administration’s mistakes — on tax policy, say, or trade — will be rectified. But the destruction of the country’s last unspoiled places is a loss that can never be reversed."

Awww. A Sweet News Story, for Once. Avi Selk of the Washington Post: On his first day of tweeting, a young man who goes by the Twitter name @whoisgarylee got more likes than any of Trump's tweets Sunday. Oh, and he used to have a low-level job in the Obama White House.

The Commentariat -- January 14, 2018

The Comments section of Reality Chex still is not working. It just sends your comments into the ether. I discovered a semi-solution that contributor MAG tested, and it works. Like MAG, you too can become a Reality Chex member! If you've commented here before & want to submit a comment before the Comments submissions function gets fixed -- e-mail me at constantweader@gmail.com. Send me a login ID & password (I think they have to be at least 6 characters long), & I'll tell you how you can exercise the (I hope temporary) exclusive privilege of being a Reality Chex member. If you choose to do so, PLEASE don't give me a log-in or password you currently use anywhere else. I don't want to be the No. 1 suspect when some crook uses your Macy's card. When you're logged in, your comments should take -- at least for now. (But of course save them somewhere in case it doesn't work, as you always should before they appear.)

If you'd rather just e-mail your comments to me, that's okay, too. The downside is that I will be IDed as the writer (tho of course I'll credit you). BTW, two contributors who already have log-ins also can comment while they're logged in. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ...

     ... UPDATE: The Bad News: The host won't be able to fix this right away. The Good News: It's a system-wide problem, so they're likely working on it.

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Adam Nagouney, et al., of the New York Times: "An early-morning emergency alert mistakenly warning of an incoming ballistic missile attack was dispatched to cellphones across Hawaii on Saturday, setting off widespread panic in a state that was already on edge because of escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea. The alert, sent by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, was revoked nearly 40 minutes after it was issued, prompting confusion over why it was released -- and why it took so long to rescind. State officials and residents of a normally tranquil part of the Pacific, as well as tourists swept up in the panic, immediately expressed outrage. 'The public must have confidence in our emergency alert system,' the governor, David Y. Ige, said." An earlier version of this story was linked yesterday. ...

... Mrs. McC BTW: At least six hours after the false alarm, not a word from Trump. He has been golfing in Florida. He did take time out to tweet this, tho: "So much Fake News is being reported. They don't even try to get it right, or correct it when they are wrong. They promote the Fake Book of a mentally deranged author, who knowingly writes false information. The Mainstream Media is crazed that WE won the election!" Thanks, Donald, for reassuring the nation about the Hawaii media scare. ...

... New York Times Editors: "The authorities quickly announced that the alert was a mistake. But it made tangible the growing fears that after decades of leaders tryin to more safely control the world's nuclear arsenals, President Trump has increased the possibility of those weapons being used. At a time when many are questioning whether Mr. Trump ought to be allowed anywhere near the nuclear 'button,' he is moving ahead with plans to develop new nuclear weapons and expanding the circumstances in which they'd be used. Such actions break with years of American nuclear policy. They also make it harder to persuade other nations to curb their nuclear ambitions or forgo them entirely." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If we had a responsible Congress, the scare in Hawaii would shake members into action working to reduce the dangers Trump presents. Instead quite a number of Republicans are knocking themselves out to exacerbate those dangers.

Mrs. McCrabbie: This might be all the news you need to know this week:

John Bowden of the Hill: "President Trump is responding to the widespread condemnation of his remarks about immigrants from 'shithole countries' with a two-word tweet: 'America First!' Trump offered the tweet at 8:14 a.m. with little other comment. And while the tweet didn't cite the criticism of his reported comments at a meeting with lawmakers in the White House, it was hard to see the words as anything but a response to that controversy." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Vivian Yee of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's remarks [about 'shithole countries'] were 'sadly reminiscent of the language used by nativists and racists in the early 20th century against Eastern and Southern Europeans and Asians,' said Mae Ngai, an immigration historian at Columbia University. 'Obviously he likes Norwegians because they are white,' she added. 'But he knows nothing about Norway, a country with single-payer universal health care and free college education. Why would anyone want to leave Norway for the U.S.?... [In 1924,] Congress passed an immigration overhaul that set strict quotas designed to encourage immigrants from Western Europe, block all but a few from Southern and Eastern Europe and bar altogether those from Asia. Overall immigration levels were slashed. The racial theories at play in the legislation, wrote the immigration historian Roger Daniels, would later become the first draft of 'the official ideology of Nazi Germany.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: There is a short, direct line from the proto-Nazi 1924 act to Donald Trump's "shithole" remark. In 1927, police detained Donald's father Fred for refusing to leave a Klan parade in Queens, according to Philip Bump of the Washington Post. Mike Pearl of Vice found evidence that Fred was wearing a KKK outfit when arrested. The sentiments of the father are visited on the son. However, the 1927 incident is one part of the Trump family legacy that Donald denies: "He was never there! It never happened. Never took place," Donald Trump said of his father's detention. Bump links Donald's fake pretense that he had no idea who David Duke was to Fred's racism. (Both linked reports are good reads.) ...

... Josh Marshall: "Trumpism is ethnic-nationalism, rightist ethnic nationalism, specifically white ethnic nationalism.... The heart of Trumpism has always been fueled by panic over the decline of white privilege and a rapidly changing demography in which whites are no longer the overwhelming majority of Americans and in a few decades likely won't be a majority at all.... Trump administration policy means to and is in the process of, implementing the 'shithole' mindset which is to say get rid of as many 'outsiders' as we can and keep new ones from coming in." --safari ...

... Jacqueline Thomsen of The Hill: "The word 'shithole' was projected onto President Trump's D.C. hotel Saturday. Video shows the word, along with the 'poop' emoji, being projected onto the property. 'Pay Trump bribes here' 'emoluments welcome,' and 'we are all responsible to stand up and end white supremacy' were also projected onto the building." --safari ...

... German Lopez of Vox: "President Donald Trump reportedly couldn't avoid stereotyping black people during a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. He had asked members of the Congressional Black Caucus in a March meeting, Vivian Salama reported for NBC News on Friday, if they personally knew Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who is black. He was surprised when none of the attendees did, two meeting attendees told Salama.... In the same meeting, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus told Trump that welfare cuts would hurt her constituents, 'not all of whom are black.' Trump then reportedly responded, 'Really? Then what are they?'...The NBC News report comes a day after reports of Trump's racist remarks about Haiti and African countries.... And this is only some of the news from the past few days." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is similar to Trump's press conference where he asked reporter April Ryan to arrange a meeting for him with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. He assumes there's a clique of powerful Washington black people who hang out & do black stuff together. He also assumes that black people would be glad to handle menial tasks for him (for free!), so getting a White House reporter to do his secretary's secretary's secretary (paid) work seems reasonable.

... Robert Mackey of The Intercept: "After bizarrely offering his 'congratulations' to the late Martin Luther King Jr. at the White House on Friday, President Donald Trump was asked for the first time by reporters to explain why he referred to Haiti and some African nations as 'shithole countries,'...[ April] Ryan then cut to the point, asking Trump the question that should be repeated every day from now until the end of his term: 'Mr. President, are you a racist?'... as reporters in the Netherlands demonstrated this week [linked below], asking politicians who make offensive statements to account for their remarks can be a public service, by at least attaching some sort of social embarrassment to making such comments." --safari

Trump Silenced Another Porn Star. Marlow Stern & Aurora Snow of the Daily Beast: "The Daily Beast was informed late Friday that porn star Jessica Drake is not allowed to discuss ... Donald J. Trump on account of a non-disclosure agreement she signed barring her from any such talk. NDAs are often deployed as part of settlements to silence accusers. 'Jessica's NDA blankets any and every mention of Trump, so she's legally unable to comment,' her publicist informed The Daily Beast. 'Jessica signed a non-disclosure agreement after her allegations of misconduct, and she can't do as much as peep his name publicly.'... n late October 2016, Drake became the 14th woman to accuse then-candidate Trump of sexual misconduct. At a public press conference, Drake, flanked by her attorney Gloria Allred, claimed that after she met Trump in July 2006 at Nevada's American Century Celebrity Golf Championship..., he made a pass at her. Trump's wife, Melania, had recently given birth to their son Barron at the time." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Maybe you were doubting the "unverified" "golden rain" memo in Christopher Steele's dossier. Maybe you find it pretty plausible now.

Michael Savage & Toby Helm of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's deteriorating relationship with Britain is likely to kill off any lingering cabinet hopes of a swift post-Brexit trade deal with the United States, a former British ambassador to Washington has warned. Sir Nigel Sheinwald said that a series of controversial interventions by the US president in British issues meant that the remote prospect of a quick transatlantic deal, heralded by pro-Brexit cabinet members, should now be 'put out of our minds' for good. His intervention comes as a new poll highlights the British public's opposition to Trump in the wake of his decision to cancel a trip to the UK, with fewer than a fifth of voters (18%) believing he is a friend of Britain." --safari

Jacqueline Thomsen of The Hill: "President Donald Trump retweeted a far-right figure& on Saturday night. Trump retweeted Jack Posobiec, who is well-known for promoting debunked 'alt-right' conspiracy theories. 'Dick Durbin called Trump racist for wanting to end chain migration. Here's a video of Dick Durbin calling for an end to chain migration,' the tweet read. The brief clip is a cut from a 30-minute September 14, 2010 Senate floor speech by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) arguing in favor of approving the Dream Act, not calling for an end to chain migration." --safari

Robert Litt, in Lawfare, explains how ignorant & irresponsible it was of Donald Trump to accuse an FBI agent of treason. (If you're unsure of what constitutes "treason," Litt gives an excellent -- and fairly short -- explanation.

Kevin Drum: "In his recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, President Trump said 'I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un of North Korea.' It was certainly a peculiar thing to say. Today, instead of explaining it, the ever shameless Sarah Huckabee Sanders simply insisted [in a tweet embedding a picture of a denial by somebody] that the Journal was lying.... Unsurprisingly, it turns out it's Sanders who is lying." Drum embeds a WSJ audio of Trump saying exactly what the WSJ reported. "Any normal White House would have simply explained that Trump misspoke slightly and meant to say 'I'd.' Case closed. But this White House is the first in history to routinely deny the documentary evidence of audio and video.... It helps them keep up their faux war with the media, and I guess that's all that matters."

Matt Stevens of the New York Times: "The federal government said on Saturday that it would resume accepting renewal requests for a program that shields from deportation young immigrants who were brought illegally to the United States as children. In a statement, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services said that 'until further notice,' the Obama-era program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA, 'will be operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded' in September, when President Trump moved to end it. The decision came after a federal judge in California issued a nationwide injunction on Tuesday ordering the Trump administration to resume the DACA program.... But officials also said they were not accepting requests from individuals who have never been granted deferred action under DACA.... On Sunday morning, Mr. Trump blamed Democrats for preventing progress on a legislative deal that would permanently legalize the young immigrants and give them an eventual path to citizenship...."

Luke Barnes of ThinkProgress: "The newly-appointed U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, has finally admitted that he was wrong to say that there were 'no-go' zones in the country where Muslim youths were burning politicians and cars.... When interviewed last month at the U.S. Capitol by the Dutch news program Nieuwsuur, Hoekstra completely denied making the remarks, calling it 'fake news' -- despite his entire speech being captured on video.... On Friday, however, Hoekstra finally admitted defeat, telling the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that he had made the remarks, that he was 'shocked' by them and that they were factually incorrect." --safari: If only MSM could be so brave.

The Best People, Ctd. Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: Twenty-four-year-old Trump appointee Taylor Weyeneth is deputy chief of staff "at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the White House office responsible for coordinating the federal government's multibillion dollar anti-drug initiatives...." Since there is no chief of staff, Weyeneth has assumed many of the chief of staff's duties. "Weyeneth's only professional experience after college and before becoming an appointee was working on Trump's presidential campaign.... Current and former ONDCP officials who have served under Democratic and Republican presidents said in interviews that the turmoil, including the elevation of Weyeneth, hinders efforts to rally the government at a time when the nation is going through the worst opioid crisis in its history." Weyeneth has lied on his résumés, thrice claiming an MA from Fordham, although he has not completed his degree requirements. On the résumés, he also claimed various hours of volunteer work at a monastery that cannot confirm his work there. "When he was in high school, Weyeneth was 'Director of Production' for Nature's Chemistry, a family firm in Skaneateles, N.Y., that specialized in processing chia seeds and other health products. [While Weyeneth] held that job,] the firm was secretly processing illegal steroids from China as part of a conspiracy..., federal court records show. Weyeneth's stepfather, Matthew Greacen, pleaded guilty to a felony conspiracy charge last year.... Weyeneth was not charged." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So the kid who is unofficially running the administration's anti-drug campaign has no professional experience except in high school he was really close to an illegal drug-manufacturing operation. He claims he knows nothing about the steroid stuff even though he was directing the production. Oh, and this from O'Harrow's report: "In October, Trump's nominee to lead the office, Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.), withdrew from consideration after a joint investigation by The Post and 60 Minutes found he had sponsored legislation favoring opioid makers and curbing the ability of the Drug Enforcement Administration to investigate abuses." The only attention Trump is giving to illegal drug containment is to reducing competition from south of the border (see "beautiful wall" & "they bring drugs.") And you thought Trump didn't have a strategy.

** Jamie Doward of the Guardian: "The introduction of medical marijuana laws has led to a sharp reduction in violent crime in US states that border Mexico, according to new research. According to the study ... when a state on the Mexican border legalised medical use of the drug, violent crime fell by 13% on average. Most of the marijuana consumed in the US originates in Mexico, where seven major cartels control the illicit drug trade.... The authors claim their study provides new insights into methods to reduce violent crime related to drug trafficking. But its publication comes as the US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is rescinding the Obama-era policy that ushered in the medical marijuana laws." --safari

David Rogers of Politico: "For the first time in their lives, millions of middle-class donors will be effectively shut out from claiming any charitable deduction under the GOP's new tax law. At the same time, the wealthy will get a still larger share of the tax benefit, even when sacrificing a smaller share of their income. Indeed, the few concessions by tax writers to promote charitable giving are aimed at the very high end of the income scale. The end result is a law that does more to promote gifts to pay for a grandchild's private schooling than it does to encourage the same grandparents to go outside their family and give to the local Boys & Girls Club."

"Capitalism is Awesome", Ctd. David Dayen of The Intercept: "The insurance firm Aflac has exploited workers, manipulated its accounting, and deceived shareholders and customers, according to nine former employees. This article is based on interviews with multiple current and former employees, as well as three previously unreported lawsuits. The allegations contained in the lawsuits involve nearly every aspect of Aflac's business and have already led to a series of investigations by state and federal regulators." --safari

Neo-Nazi Trolls. Ben Collins of The Daily Beast: "In the week before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, MartinLutherKing.org, a website run by the Neo-Nazi website Stormfront that calls King a 'sexual deviant' with an 'uncontrollable lust and propensity for violence,' was a top result for searches of 'Martin Luther King' on Google. The site's placement on the first page of results for King's name forces results with truthful content or historical documents off the first page in favor of racist propaganda." --safari ...

     ... safari: The other day I tried to find a clip on Youtube of Jim Acosta on CNN calling out Trump as a racist. The first few pages were all Confederate propaganda praising their Dear Leader or talking shit on Mr. Acosta. The Right's war on information has gamed all the search engines with their disinformation. Putin would be proud.

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: According to President Obama in his interview with David Letterman, it's even worse than that. Google knows what sites you call up, so & when you search for a particular political topic, its algorithm chooses the "news" you are likely to prefer. So if a confederate & I Google "Trump tax reform analysis," the top results a conservative will get might be the idiot Gateway Pundit, while I might get Paul Krugman. Obama suggests that one of the reasons the country is becoming increasingly partisan is this kind of search engine filtering. ...

... Julia Manchester of the Hill has more on President Obama's remarks re: partisan news media. ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Watched David Letterman's interview of President Obama. If you have access to Netflix, and unless you don't especially like Obama, you'll be doing yourself a favor to watch it. Nobody is perfect, but the U.S. has not had a better president in my lifetime (which is long!) than Obama. Obvious why Trumpelthinskin hates him. Trump is suffering from acute Obama Derangement Syndrome; Trump is tied in knots of jealousy. Obama is everything, everything Trump is not. That interview is one more jarring reminder of how far down we have come.

A few Sunday Laughs. --safari

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Senate Race

Sorry, But This Is Stupid. Justin Jouvenal & Jenna Portnoy of the Washington Post: "Chelsea E. Manning, the transgender former Army private who was convicted of passing sensitive government documents to WikiLeaks, is seeking to run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, according to federal election filings. Manning would be challenging Democrat Benjamin L. Cardin, who is in his second term in the Senate and is up for reelection in November. Cardin is Maryland's senior senator and is considered an overwhelming favorite to win a third term." Mrs. McC: I suppose you could argue that Manning has plenty of government experience.

Beyond the Beltway

Expensive Poor-shaming for Fun. Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "In 2015, West Virginia passed legislation requiring some applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to submit to drug testing. The state estimated that over the first year, the program would identify 390 people as drug users at a cost of $50,000. The program has now been in place for three months and just four people, less than one-half of a percent of all applicants, tested positive. In the general population, the rate of drug use is 9.4%.... West Virginia's experience mirrors those of other states who have implemented similar programs." --safari

News Lede

Washington Post: "Unforgiving cold has punished the eastern third of the United States for the past 10 days. But the most severe winter weather yet will assault the area late this week. First, a monster storm will hammer coastal locations from Georgia to Maine with ice and snow. By Thursday, the exploding storm will, in many ways, resemble a winter hurricane, battering easternmost New England with potentially damaging winds in addition to blinding snow."

The Commentariat -- January 13, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Johanna Barr of the New York Times: "The authorities confirmed on Saturday that there was no ballistic missile headed toward Hawaii minutes after an emergency alert was sent to cellphones there urging people to seek immediate shelter, leading to chaos and confusion. 'BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII,' the alert said. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.' A corrected alert was sent out 38 minutes later. 'There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii,' it read. 'Repeat. False Alarm. The episode came at a time of heightened tensions with North Korea, which has said that it has successfully tested ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.'" ...

... Mrs. McC BTW: Many hours after the false alarm, not a word from Trump. He has been golfing in Florida. ...

... New York Times Editors: "The authorities quickly announced that the alert was a mistake. But it made tangible the growing fears that after decades of leaders trying to more safely control the world's nuclear arsenals, President Trump has increased the possibility of those weapons being used. At a time when many are questioning whether Mr. Trump ought to be allowed anywhere near the nuclear 'button,' he is moving ahead with plans to develop new nuclear weapons and expanding the circumstances in which they'd be used. Such actions break with years of American nuclear policy. They also make it harder to persuade other nations to curb their nuclear ambitions or forgo them entirely." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If we had a responsible Congress, the scare in Hawaii would shake every member into working to reduce the dangers Trump presents. Instead quite a number of Republicans are knocking themselves out to exacerbate those dangers.

John Bowden of the Hill: "President Trump is responding to the widespread condemnation of his remarks about immigrants from shithole countries' with a two-word tweet: 'America First!' Trump offered the tweet at 8:14 a.m. with little other comment. And while the tweet didn't cite the criticism of his reported comments at a meeting with lawmakers in the White House, it was hard to see the words as anything but a response to that controversy."

Mrs. McCrabbie: Just watched David Letterman's interview of President Obama. If you have access to Netflix, and unless you don't especially like Obama, you'll be doing yourself a favor to watch it. Nobody is perfect, but the U.S. has not had a better president in my lifetime. I see why Trumpelthinskin hates Obama. Trump is suffering from acute Obama Derangement Syndrome; Trump is tied in knots of jealousy. Obama is everything, everything Trump is not. That interview is one more jarring reminder of how far down we have come.

*****

The Comments section of Reality Chex is not working. It just sends your comments into the ether. My host Squarespace is nowhere near solving the problem. I did discover a semi-solution that contributor MAG tested, and it works. Like MAG, you too can become a Reality Chex member! Yeah, yeah, I know you wouldn't become a member of any club that would have you. If you've commented here before & want to submit a comment before the Comments submissions function gets fixed -- e-mail me at constantweader@gmail.com. Send me a login ID & password (I think they have to be at least 6 characters long), & I'll tell you how you can exercise the (I hope quite temporary) exclusive privilege of being a Reality Chex member. PLEASE don't give me a log-in or password you currently use anywhere else. I don't want to be the No. 1 suspect when some crook uses your Macy's card. When you're logged in, your comments should take -- at least for now. (But of course save them somewhere in case it doesn't work, as you always should before they appear.)

If you'd rather just e-mail your comments to me, that's okay, too. The downside is that I will be IDed as the writer (tho of course I'll credit you). BTW, two contributors who already have log-ins also can comment while they're logged in. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ...

     ... UPDATE: The Bad News: The host won't be able to fix this right away. The Good News: It's a system-wide problem, so they'll likely get right on it.

*****

Donald & the Porn Star. Christopher Mele of the New York Times: "A former star of pornographic movies received a $130,000 payment a month before the 2016 election that was part of an agreement to keep her from publicly discussing a sexual encounter she claimed to have had with onald J. Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday afternoon. The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Michael D. Cohen, who was a top lawyer at the Trump Organization, arranged the payment to the woman, Stephanie Clifford, after her lawyer negotiated a nondisclosure agreement. Ms. Clifford, who was billed as Stormy Daniels in her videos, said the encounter with Mr. Trump took place in July 2006 after a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, The Journal reported. Mr. Trump married Melania Trump in 2005. In a statement to The Journal, Mr. Cohen said of the alleged sexual encounter that 'President Trump once again vehemently denies any such occurrence as has Ms. Daniels.'... The payment appears to have been made in the final stretch of the campaign, around the same time that a recording of Mr. Trump making vulgar comments about women while filming a segment for 'Access Hollywood' surfaced...." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Just not your usual Friday afternoon news dump....

... Anthony Cormier of BuzzFeed: "In statements to BuzzFeed News, the lawyer, Michael Cohen, and [Stephanie] Clifford denied Trump and Clifford had a sexual encounter. The alleged encounter after the golf event was publicly discussed by adult film star Jessica Drake in October 2016, when she accused the president of kissing her without her consent. Drake said Trump also repeatedly propositioned her, offering $10,000 and the use of his private jet for her to come to his suite." ...

... Marlow Stern & Aurora Snow of the Daily Beast: "According to fellow porn star Alana Evans -- who was not only [Stormy] Daniels' neighbor and close friend at the time, but also happened to be staying in the area -- Daniels confided in her that she and Trump were more than just friends.... 'Stormy said she met Donald Trump and then tells me about the golf tournament and how she's supposed to hang out with him later that night, and she invited me. Stormy said Donald knew exactly who she was and wanted to meet her.' Later that evening..., Evans said Daniels kept calling, asking her to come join the party. But Evans wasn't interested and made up reasons not to go. 'Stormy calls me four or five times, by the last two phone calls she's with Donald [Trump] and I can hear him, and he's talking through the phone to me saying, "Oh come on Alana, let's have some fun! Let's have some fun! Come to the party, we're waiting for you....' I bailed on them and turned my phone off.'"

...safari: Awaiting Melania's vehement denunciation of "fake news" against her faithful pig in 3, 2, 1...

Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump on Friday offered a vague denial about the language he chose to use about immigrants during a private meeting with lawmakers at the White House on Thursday, when he reportedly referred to African nations as 'shithole countries.' But Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said on Friday that the president did use the term 'shithole' during the course of the meeting on immigration -- which Mr. Durbin attended. The senator described Mr. Trump as saying 'things which were hate-filled, vile and racist.' In a Twitter post on Friday, just hours before the president signed a proclamation to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is Monday, Mr. Trump appeared to parse the language he used when he spoke about immigrants from different regions of the world.... 'It's not true,' Mr. Durbin said of Mr. Trump's denial. 'He said these hate-filled things and he said them repeatedly.'... After Mr. Trump signed the proclamation for Martin Luther King Jr. Day later on Friday morning, the president ignored a question from a reporter about whether he is a racist." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Who ya gonna believe? Dick Durbin or this crackpot? ...

... Glenn Kessler & Meg Kelly of the Washington Post: "President Trump has broken 2,000. With just 10 days before he finishes his first year as president, Trump has made 2,001 false or misleading claims in 355 days, according to our database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president. That's an average of more than 5.6 claims a day." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... ** "The 'Shithole Countries' -- and the Rest of the World -- Respond to President Trump." Robin Wright of the New Yorker: "President Trump's credibility as a world leader has been, to borrow his vulgarity, shot to shit. With one word -- just the latest in a string of slurs about other nations and peoples -- he has demolished his ability to be taken seriously on the global stage. 'There is no other word one can use but "racist,&"' the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said at a briefing in Geneva. 'You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as 'shitholes,' whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome.'... Trump's world view is tragic for so many reasons. First, he's just wrong on the basics.... Trump's bigoted world view also ignores history.... Having strong alliances with African nations is also crucial to Trump's national-security challenges.... Perhaps the ultimate irony is that Trump's own ancestors came from Africa, as did all mankind." Thanks to David R. for the link. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Patrick Wintour et al., of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has been branded a shocking and shameful racist.... US diplomats around the world were summoned for formal reproach, amid global shock that such crude remarks could ever be made in a semi-public meeting by the president of America." --safari...

... Jina Moore & Catherine Porter of the New York Times: "Governments and citizens across the world recoiled on Friday with disgust, outrage and sadness at reports that President Trump had described Haiti and unspecified African nations as 'shithole countries' during a meeting with members of Congress on Thursday about immigration, asking why the American government would want to admit their citizens as immigrants. The Haitian government called the remarks racist. The president of Senegal tweeted that he was shocked. South Africa's governing party said the comments were 'extremely offensive.' The African Union said it was 'frankly alarmed.' In Haiti, particularly, the words were greeted with pain, as the country marked the eighth anniversary of the deadly 2010 earthquake -- known as the worst natural disaster of modern history, killing between 230,000 and 316,000 people and leaving 1.5 million homeless.... El Salvador's government sent a formal letter of protest. Earlier in the week, the United States announced it was rescinding Temporary Protected Status for about 200,000 Salvadorans living in the United States.... Vicente Fox, a former president of Mexico who has frequently clashed with Mr. Trump..., suggested that Mr. Trump's vulgar word was better used to describe his own mouth." ...

... ** Josh Lederman & Jonathan Lemire of the AP: "American diplomats scrambled Friday to salvage their nation's bonds with Africa, Haiti and even the celebrated 'special relationship' with Britain after President Donald Trump, in the span of a few hours, deeply offended much of the world with the most undiplomatic of remarks.... In Washington and far-flung foreign capitals, U.S. officials launched into urgent cleanup mode.... The long-term damage to America's global relationships was difficult to predict. But foreign policy experts agreed it could only further alienate the United States at a time when many nations already see the U.S. as a less reliable partner than in the past." --safari: Giant "win" for Putin and China here...

...Reuters: "U.S. Ambassador to Panama John Feeley, a career diplomat and former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, has resigned, saying he no longer felt able to serve President Donald Trump.... Feeley, one of the department's Latin America specialists and among its senior most officers, made clear that he had come to a place where he no longer felt able to serve under Trump." --safari: Feeley had resigned BEFORE the whole 'shithole' debacle. ...

... Avery Anapol of The Hill: "President Trump reportedly defended his 'shithole countries' remark in private.... Citing a person who spoke with the president, the AP reported [linked above] that Trump doubled down on his reported comments from this week, defending the remark as not racist but a 'straightforward assessment' of the living conditions in the countries discussed. The person who spoke to Trump told the AP that the president was not apologetic, but blamed the media for distorting his meaning. Trump also reportedly believes that he was saying what many people think." --safari: So he defends the remark he didn't say ... Trumpian logic. ...

... New York Times Editors: "The president of the United States is a racist.... The current turmoil over immigration conflates several separate issues. One is DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has provided temporary work permits and reprieves from deportation for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Another issue is the Temporary Protected Status program under which undocumented foreigners who were in the United States when disaster or conflict struck their homeland are allowed to remain in the United States. In November, the Trump administration ended the protection for about 60,000 Haitians, and on Monday the administration lifted it for almost 200,000 Salvadorans, most of whom have been in the United States for two decades. A third issue is the future of the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants who have come to the United States over decades and have effectively integrated into American life. The Trump administration has ordered a broad immigration crackdown against them. And finally there's President Trump's imagined wall. What is concerning is not the wall, or the word 'shithole' or the vacillation on the Dreamers or the Salvadorans. It's what ties all of these things together: the bigoted worldview of the man behind them." ...

... ** Eric Levitz: "At the heart of Trumpian nativism is the conviction that the West's great prosperity reflects the virtues of its people; the poverty of the nonwhite world reflects the moral vices of its people; and, thus, the former owes no debts to the latter. Allowing the residents of nations whose wealth our elites expropriated through imperial conquest -- and/or predatory economic policies -- is an act of selfless generosity, not of modest recompense. The broader conservative movement uses analogous fictions to rationalize inequalities within America's borders.... Acknowledging the actual foundations of our world's racial, national, and socioeconomic hierarchies would threaten the feelings of those who sit atop them.... Racism is, at bottom, right-wing political correctness run amok." Mrs. McC: Read Jonathan Katz's tweets, which Levitz embeds. I must admit I didn't know 95 percent of the brief history of Haiti conveyed in those tweets. Shame on me. "Western exceptionalism" & "American exceptionalism" are Calvinistic crocks spread to try to justify abominable acts of exploitation. ...

...Ben Zimmer of The Atlantic on the history of the word 'shithole': "More important than the word itself, of course, is the hateful sentiment behind it". --safari

The GOP: A Bankrupt Party of Moral Cowards

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "It has been nearly 24 hours since The Washington Post first reported that President Trump had referred to 'shithole countries' during a meeting with lawmakers. There were at least six Republicans in that meeting. Precisely zero of them have directly confirmed or denied the comment." Mrs. McC: Read on for an immersion course in speaking Weasel. Unfortunately, no matter how fluent these clunkweasels are in their native tongue, they don't manage to hide the truth of Durbin's statements. ...

...The Incredible Shrinking Paul Ryan. Dylan Matthews of Vox: "On June 2, 2016, Donald Trump, then the presumptive Republican nominee for president, told the Wall Street Journal that he didn't think Judge Gonzalo Curiel could oversee two lawsuits targeting Trump University.... House Speaker Paul Ryan was outraged...[After the 'shithole' comment,] Paul Ryan ... declared that saying black and brown people come from 'shitholes' is 'very unfortunate, unhelpful.' Today, apparently, textbook racist remarks are merely inconvenient, counterproductive.... It's not an original observation to note that Paul Ryan has degraded himself in service of Donald Trump. Even then he was very clearly willing to tolerate a presidential nominee who he knew was a racist, who he said publicly was a racist, in order to enable the enactment of his preferred economic policies. But Ryan's response to the 'shithole' remarks is as clear a sign as any that the terms of his deal with Trump have changed." --safari: A new Twitter hashtag is trending @ShitholeSpeakerRyan...

...Andrew Prokop of Vox: " Two [shithole] Republican senators who attended yesterday's meeting in which President Trump reportedly disparaged immigrants from 'shithole countries' seem to have come down with a case of amnesia. In a joint statement this afternoon, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA) wrote that they 'do not recall the President saying those comments specifically' -- but conspicuously didn't outright deny that he said them." Emphasis added --safari ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Who knew amnesia was contagious? Somebody alert the CDC. ...

... Profiles in "Courage". Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the lawmakers in attendance at the Thursday meeting during which President Donald Trump referred to African countries as 'shithole countries,' said Friday afternoon that he said his 'piece' to the President.... Graham's statement did not confirm that Trump used the phrase 'shithole countries,' but it did not deny that either, and Sen.Tim Scott (R-SC) already said that Graham confirmed the comments to him privately." --safari

... Matthew Nussbaum of Politico: "Vice President Mike Pence has nothing to say. Pence's office has ignored repeated requests for comment in the wake of President Donald Trump's explosive comments on Thursday.... Instead, on Friday afternoon, Pence was tweeting pictures of himself and Trump with Martin Luther King Jr.'s nephew at a White House ceremony and hailing King's 'efforts to peacefully advocate for justice & equality for African-Americans.'... Certain other staunch Trump defenders shared Pence's reticence on Friday. Reached by phone, former House Speaker and close Trump ally Newt Gingrich said, 'I have nothing to say.' But other Republicans have not shared Pence's silence.... Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) called them 'abhorrent and repulsive,' and Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah), whose family immigrated to the U.S from Haiti, called on Trump to apologize." --safari ...

... Julia Manchester of The Hill: "Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) repeatedly dodged questions from his constituents on President Trump's behavior at a town hall in his home state of Iowa on Friday following reports that Trump referred to Haiti and other African nations as 'shithole countries.'" --safari...

... Dems to the Rescue. The Daily Beast: "Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-LA) and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) announced on Friday afternoon they will introduce a resolution to censure President Trump over his reported comments about immigrants coming from 'shithole' countries.... They plan to introduce the resolution after the Martin Luther King Day holiday." --safari

Related. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The federal judge who earlier this week ordered the reversal of ... Donald Trump's decision to end the program protecting so-called Dreamers said in a new ruling Friday that it is 'plausible' that Trump shut down the program for racial reasons. 'These allegations raise a plausible inference that racial animus towards Mexicans and Latinos was a motivating factor in the decision to end DACA,' U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup wrote.

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump again stopped short of reimposing punitive sanctions on Iran that could break up its nuclear deal with world powers, the White House said on Friday. But Mr. Trump gave European allies only 120 days to agree to an overhaul of the deal or administration officials said he would pull the United States out of it. He also approved sanctions against the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadeq Larijani, a powerful figure whom the administration holds culpable for the violent crackdown on recent antigovernment protests. Mr. Trump's action, which was widely expected, is the third time he has given a reprieve to the agreement brokered by President Barack Obama, despite having labeled it 'the worst deal ever' and threatening repeatedly to rip it up." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Adam Mount of The Atlantic: "As Americans question whether President Donald Trump has the judgment necessary to command the most capable nuclear arsenal on earth, the Pentagon is moving to order new, more usable nuclear options. Trump's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), a Pentagon document that sets the nation's nuclear policy, demonstrates an aggressive shift that will add to the spiraling cost of the nuclear arsenal, raise the risk of a nuclear exchange, and plunge the country into a new arms race.... Trump's NPR marks an abrupt shift from the last eight years, when the nation's nuclear-weapons policy enjoyed a surprising bipartisan consensus.... The compromise reflected principles of responsible nuclear policy in place since the late Cold War. According to these principles, national security is better served by maintaining a rough balance of forces between the United States and Russia.... The Trump administration is preparing to shatter this consensus. The leaked draft moves to expand U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons, develop new nuclear capabilities, and embrace competition in strategic weapons." --safari

Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: "In a tweet sent late Thursday evening, President Trump said he had canceled his trip to Britain next month because he was unhappy with the new U.S. Embassy in London -- and accused the Obama administration of making a 'bad deal' for an 'off location.' Many Britons disagreed, suggesting instead the president was simply worried his arrival in London would be greeted by mass protests. Those involved in the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in London also say Trump, a former real estate mogul in New York City, has a bad understanding of the deal. 'As usual, he's dead wrong,' said former ambassador Louis Susman, who served under the Obama administration between 2009 and 2013. 'He's 100 percent wrong.'" Taylor goes on to relay the explanations -- from people involved in the move, some from the Bush II administration -- of how Trump is wrong in every particular." Mrs. McC: I don't think Trump would tell the truth about the time of day. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

YOU: What time is it, Mr. President?

TRUMP: 3:30.

PENCE: Uh, begging your pardon, your royal highness; it's 4:30, not 3:30. Maybe your watch is set to Daylight Savings Time.

TRUMP: I never said it was 3:30.

Danielle Douglas-Gabriel of the Washington Post: "A company that once had financial ties to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was one of two firms selected Thursday by the Education Department to help the agency collect overdue student loans. The deal could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The decision to award contracts to Windham Professionals and Performant Financial Corp. -- a company DeVos invested in before becoming secretary -- arrives a month after a federal judge ordered the department to complete its selection of a loan collector to put an end to a messy court battle. Windham and Performant beat out nearly 40 other bidders for contracts valued at up to $400 million, but their win may be short-lived if the losing companies fight the decision.... Historically, the department has used as many as 17 companies to recoup past-due student loans. Earlier attempts to whittle down the number of firms have been met with resistance."

Tierney Sneed of TPM: "Comments by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, which may have been an attempt to save face as his voter fraud commission was dissolved, have created a number of headaches for the Justice Department attorneys defending the defunct commission in the various lawsuits against it. 'The investigations will continue now, but they won't be able to stall it through litigation,' Kobach told Breitbart News after the commission was dissolved.... Kobach's claims -- as well as similar claims made by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and by President Trump himself -- about the next steps for the commission's so-called investigation ... have given those who were suing the commission ammo to continue their litigation." --safari

Adam Beam of the AP: "Kentucky has become the first state to require many of its Medicaid recipients to work to receive coverage, part of an unprecedented change to the nation's largest health insurance program under the Trump administration. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the approval on Friday. The change will require adults between the ages of 19 and 64 to complete 80 hours per month of 'community engagement' to keep their coverage. That includes getting a job, going to school, taking a job training course or community service. It's a big change for Kentucky, a state that just four years ago embraced former President Barack Obama's health care law under a previous Democratic governor who won praise for posting some of the largest insurance coverage gains in the country.... The changes also require people to pay up to $15 a month for their insurance. Basic dental and vision coverage is eliminated, but people can earn those benefits back through a rewards program."

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Though pretending to examine a crime against America, [Republicans in Congress] are instead working to cover one up.... Because Republicans don't have to prove their alternative theory, you rarely see it fully elaborated. But it goes something like this: Hillary Clinton's campaign hired Fusion GPS to gather anti-Trump misinformation from Russia. Fusion GPS, working with the retired British spy Christopher Steele, then delivered the Russian smears to the F.B.I., which was determined to thwart Trump. So if anyone was guilty of collusion with Russia in the 2016 election, it was Clinton and her allies.... This tapestry of disinformation is the background to one of Trump's tweets on Thursday morning, which said in part, 'Disproven and paid for by Democrats "Dossier used to spy on Trump Campaign. Did FBI use Intel tool to influence the Election?" @foxandfriends Did Dems or Clinton also pay Russians?'... [Sen. Sheldon] Whitehouse [D-R.I.] told me Thursday, '...You can't solve a crime when you're more interested in protecting the suspects.'"

** Raphael Satter of the AP: "The same Russian government-aligned hackers who penetrated the Democratic Party have spent the past few months laying the groundwork for an espionage campaign against the U.S. Senate, a cybersecurity firm said Friday....' They're still very active -- in making preparations at least -- to influence public opinion again,' said Feike Hacquebord, a security researcher at Trend Micro Inc., which published the report.... Hacquebord said he based his report on the discovery of a clutch of suspicious-looking websites dressed up to look like the U.S. Senate's internal email system.... Attribution is extremely tricky in the world of cybersecurity, where hackers routinely use misdirection and red herrings to fool their adversaries. But Tend Micro, which has followed Fancy Bear for years, said there could be no doubt.... Fancy Bear's interests aren't limited to U.S. politics...." --safari (Also linked yesterday.)

The Zombie Senate Race. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Alabama GOP Sen. Richard Shelby is confronting a fierce backlash from conservatives over his refusal to support Roy Moore in last month's special election -- with Moore backers pushing a censure resolution and robocall campaign targeting the powerful lawmaker. Moore's supporters are furious with Shelby over his remark days before the Dec. 12 election that he 'couldn't vote for Roy Moore,' a controversial former state judge who was facing allegations of child molestation. Instead, Shelby said he would write-in the name of another unnamed Republican.... This week, three Moore supporters submitted a resolution to the Alabama Republican Party executive committee calling for Shelby to be censured."

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Hayley Peterson of Business Insider on WalMart's closing 63 Sam's Clubs yesterday: "In some cases, employees were not told their store had closed before showing up to work on Thursday. Those employees learned their store would be closing when they found the store's doors locked and a notice announcing the closing, Sam's Club workers told Business Insider. At some stores, employees were turned away by police officers." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: How nice that a multi-trillion-dollar company (I guess) decided to screw these hourly-wage employees one last time. Obviously, there are expense of both time & $$ to get from home to work & back. Many of these workers had to take public transportation, for instance. And some probably had incurred extra expenses like daycare for children or disabled dependents. But WalMart doesn't care.

... Ian Crouch of the New Yorker reviews the interview. Thanks to David R. for the link.

News Ledes

ESPN: "Keith Jackson, who was widely regarded as the voice of college football by several generations, died late Friday night, his family said. He was 89. Jackson, who retired in 2006, spent some 50 years calling the action in a folksy, down-to-earth manner that made him one of the most popular play-by-play personalities in the business."

Los Angeles Times: "Former U.S. Sen. John V. Tunney, who as a young lawyer and rising California political star toppled an entrenched Republican incumbent before facing his own defeat just six years later, has died. He was 83."