The Commentariat -- December 15, 2017
AP: "... Donald Trump thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for remarks he made Thursday 'acknowledging America's strong economic performance,' the White House said. The two presidents spoke by phone following Putin's annual press conference in Moscow." Mrs. McC: According to Rachel Maddow, U.S. media first learned of the conversation from a Kremlin readout.
Rosalind Helderman & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "About a month after Donald Trump launched his presidential bid, a British music promoter suggested his Russian pop-star client could arrange for the new candidate to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post. The July 2015 offer by publicist Rob Goldstone came about a year before he set up a meeting for Trump's eldest son with a Russian lawyer who he said had incriminating information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton." ...
... ** Greg Miller, et al., of the Washington Post write an extraordinary front-page piece on Donald Trump's refusal to accept Russia's successful attempts to swing the 2016 election to him. Among the intelligence James Clapper & Jim Comey shared with Trump during the transition: "Putin' specific instructions on the operation' to hack the election. "Rather than search for ways to deter Kremlin attacks or safeguard U.S. elections, Trump has waged his own campaign to discredit the case that Russia poses any threat and he has resisted or attempted to roll back efforts to hold Moscow to account.... Overall, U.S. officials said, the Kremlin believes it got a staggering return on an operation that by some estimates cost less than $500,000 to execute and was organized around two main objectives -- destabilizing U.S. democracy and preventing Hillary Clinton, who is despised by Putin, from reaching the White House." The WashPo report is based on "is based on interviews with more than 50 current and former U.S. officials, many of whom had senior roles in the Trump campaign and transition team or have been in high-level positions at the White House or at national security agencies." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Both the Post and the Times reported last month on Trump's habit of insisting even in private on defending obvious lies: that Barack Obama is not American, that Trump won the popular vote, that the voice on the Access Hollywood tape is not Trump's. Surely Trump knows what he said to Billy Bush. He was there. Trump either lies to absolutely everybody in his inner circle, or has the absolute power of self-delusion, sufficiently strong that his most apparently sincere protestations of his innocence mean nothing at all.... But it's quite possible his hair-trigger anger over the subject of Russia is a tactic designed to close off a subject on which his guilt runs very deep."
Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider: "Fourteen former national security, intelligence, and foreign policy officials who have served at senior levels in Republican and Democratic administrations recently wrote an amicus brief as part of a lawsuit brought against ... Donald Trump's campaign and Roger Stone, his longtime confidant. The lawsuit was filed in July by three private citizens -- Roy Cockrum, Scott Comer, and Eric Schoenberg -- whose personal information was stolen in hacks of the Democratic National Committee and published by WikiLeaks. The plaintiffs have argued that the Trump campaign, Stone, 'and those they conspired with arranged for the hacked information to be provided to WikiLeaks.' Among the former officials who filed the amicus brief on December 8 are John Brennan, a CIA director; James Clapper, a director of national intelligence; and Michael Hayden, a director of the National Security Agency; Avril Haines, a deputy national security adviser; Michael McFaul, a US ambassador to Russia; and Michael Morell, an acting CIA director.... Their message was clear: The Kremlin uses local actors to help amplify the scope and impact of its influence operations, including the one targeting the US election in 2016."
The Plot Thickens. Jonathan Chait: "The Republican party has spent the last two days in a frenzy of indignation over the disclosure that an FBI agent who worked on the Clinton and Trump investigations (and has since been removed) sent texts to another agent, who he was reportedly dating, criticizing Trump. The story was driven by the curious decision by Trump's Department of Justice to leak partial excerpts of the texts.... [It turns out] the main agent in question also wrote text messages criticizing Democrats.... His messages included calling Chelsea Clinton 'self-entitled,' and mocking Eric Holder. He wrote, 'I'm worried about what happens if HRC is elected.'... The scandal is that the Department of Justice selectively leaked private texts from its agents in order to placate the White House's desire to discredit the special counsel. And the news media let itself get suckered." ...
... Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Democrats pressed the Justice Department on Thursday to explain why it released salacious, anti-Donald Trump text messages exchanged between two FBI employees who are still under investigation for their work on the Russia special counsel investigation. Judiciary Committee ranking member Jerrold Nadler of New York and two other panel Democrats asked for a full review of DOJ's decision making that led to Tuesday night's release of about 375 texts that the FBI officials -- Peter Strzok and Lisa Page -- sent over a 15-month period during the 2016 presidential campaign." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Samuelsohn does not address the fact that the DOJ -- at Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein's behest -- released selective text messages, as Chait indicates, so Samuelsohn may have written this post before the WSJ reported that Strzok & Page were equal-opportunity critics. ...
... Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare: Rod Rosenstein's "behavior in this episode, in particular, has hardly done him credit. The release of private correspondence between two Justice Department employees whose correspondence is the subject of an active inspector general investigation is not just wrong. It is cruel.... Rosenstein here has, at a minimum, contributed to [the GOP] circus -- at the expense of his own employees." Wittes has a lot to say about the GOP's attempts to discredit the Mueller investigation, & it's worth reading. ...
... Josh Marshall: "... before [Wednesday's] hearing, the DOJ invited reporters to review all the texts between the two FBI employees -- seemingly far more access than Congress had even had. These were government documents -- texts on government devices. So the formal privacy claim is limited. But ... it's still a massive breach of privacy. Political and personal chit chat and sounding off between two lovers? The key point is there's no evidence either did anything wrong. The only conceivable purpose of doing this was to humiliate the two, damage Mueller's investigation and put wind in the sails of those pushing this pseudo-controversy.... This is a transparently political move on the part of the Justice Department. And since all tied to the Mueller probe falls under Rosenstein's purview, that's on Rosenstein....
... This whole episode is simply a disgrace. It is an example of how much the gravitational pull of Trump's corruption has already affected Washington, the federal government and the entire country. The corrupt and the desperate flock to him, the unprincipled defend him and even those who are I think mainly ethical people under normal circumstances -- I'm thinking of Rosenstein in this case -- are bent and deformed by the pull.
... Mrs. McCrabbie: If you're confused by all this, no wonder. The various accounts of what got leaked to whom & when are contradictory. We need a special investigator!
Trump's Data Teams Are Stonewalling Congress. Natasha Bertrand: "The ranking members of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees want to subpoena two of the data firms hired by ... Donald Trump's campaign team for documents related to their potential engagement with foreign actors like Russia and WikiLeaks during the election. Reps. Elijah Cummings and Jerry Nadler sent a letter to Cambridge Analytica's CEO Alexander Nix and Giles-Parscale cofounder Brad Parscale -- who also served as the Trump campaign's digital director -- in October.... The letter was also sent to the heads of Deep Root Analytics, TargetPoint Consulting, and The Data Trust, which were among the outfits hired by the Republican National Committee to bolster the Trump campaign's data operation. Whereas Deep Root, TargetPoint, and The Data Trust responded to the documents request, Cambridge Analytica did not. Parscale's response, moreover, was insufficient, the Democrats said." ....
... Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Special counsel Robert Mueller has asked data firm Cambridge Analytica to turn over documents related to campaign work for ... Donald Trump. The special counsel requested emails from any employees who worked on the Trump campaign as part of the ongoing investigation into election interference by Russia, reported the Wall Street Journal. The firm voluntarily complied with Mueller's request and turned over emails which had previously been provided to the House Intelligence Committee, the newspaper reported." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This, too, is confusing. According to Nadler & Cummings, the Mercer-Bannon firm Cambridge Analytica did not comply; according to the WSJ story, the company did comply, & what they complied with was turning over documents the House committees already had. Huh?
Brian Fung of the Washington Post: "Federal regulators voted Thursday to allow Internet providers to speed up service for websites they favor -- and block or slow down others -- in a decision repealing landmark Obama-era regulations overseeing broadband companies such as AT&T and Verizon.... The 3-2 vote, which was along party lines, enabled the FCC's Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, to follow through on his promise to repeal the government's 2015 net neutrality rules, which required Internet providers to treat all websites, large and small, equally. The agency also rejected some of its own authority over the broadband industry in a bid to stymie future FCC officials who might seek to reverse the Republican-led ruling." ...
... Erica Pandey of Axios: "New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Thursday that he'll lead an effort by multiple states to sue the Federal Communications Commission over its decision to roll back net neutrality rules." ...
... Tom McKay of Gizmodo: "In a video with the conservative site Daily Caller's Benny Johnson -- the dude who got fired from BuzzFeed for plagiarizing Yahoo Answers -- Pai urged the country to understand that ... they'll let us continue to take selfies and other stupid bullshit. Pai then pantomimed things users will supposedly still be able to do, like being able to 'gram your food,' 'post photos of cute animals, like puppies,' 'shop for all your Christmas presents online,' 'binge watch your favorite shows,' and 'stay part of your favorite fan community.' All of these claims on what users 'will still be able to do' are actually questionable, seeing as under Pai's plan, ISPs could easily hit up their customers with crushing fees to let them access any of these services at reasonable speeds - particularly those binge-watching streaming services he claims to love so much.... One of the Daily Caller employees that danced alongside Pai in the video seems to be a proponent of Pizzagate...."
Abha Bhattarai of the Washington Post: "Ivanka Trump's fashion company on Thursday opened a new store in the lobby of Trump Tower, where it plans to sell handbags, jewelry and candles as part of broader push to bypass retailers and sell directly to consumers. The store in Midtown Manhattan -- currently the company's only bricks-and-mortar location -- comes after a number of high-profile retailers, including Nordstrom, stopped carrying the presidential daughter's line earlier this year. The company also recently began selling its wares ... directly on its website." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The lobby of Trump Tower is by law a designated public space, as required in the permitting process to construct the building. So I'm not sure the shop is legal inasmuch as it appears to be planted in a space that's just as public as a city park. Donald Trump has long taken liberties with the public space -- he sells MAGA caps & other Trumpycrap there now. The City's parks commission should shut down any shops, kiosks, signage, etc. that intrude upon the area designated for public use.
Flimflam Man to Fold His Cards. Rachel Bade of Politico: "Despite several landmark legislative wins this year, and a better-than-expected relationship with ... Donald Trump, [Paul] Ryan has made it known to some of his closest confidants that this will be his final term as speaker.... In recent interviews with three dozen people who know the speaker -- fellow lawmakers, congressional and administration aides, conservative intellectuals and Republican lobbyists -- not a single person believed Ryan will stay in Congress past 2018." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Maybe he thinks he'll be president by then. And he might be right. ...
... Jonathan Chait: "A major part of Ryan's motivation is that ... he has achieved his life's ambition by passing a gigantic tax cut for the affluent. But Politico also explains that Ryan hopes to end his tenure in a blaze of Randian glory." Ryan is planning to pursue "entitlement reform," & "may focus on ... vulnerable programs targeted to the very poor, like nutrition and housing assistance. It would be a final, fittingly Ryan-esque blow against the takers after having returned to the makers a large chunk of their hard-earned, or hard-inherited, wealth." ...
... Update: Looks like Ken W. has Ryan pegged in today's Comments.
Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "During a news conference on Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan urged American women to have more babies, saying their lack of procreation was stunting economic growth.... Alluding to the fact that he's a father of three, Ryan added, 'I did my part, but we need to have higher birth rates in this country. Meaning, baby boomers are retiring, and we have fewer people following them in the work force.'... There's an obvious solution to the problem that Ryan completely ignores -- allowing more immigrants into the country to fill the jobs being vacated by retiring baby boomers. But instead of using his position as House Speaker to pursue immigration reform, Ryan has instead indicated he's on board with Trump's hardline anti-immigration positions, including the president's insistence on spending billions of dollars on a border wall." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Traditional family values still include keeping 'em barefoot & pregnant.
** Alan Rappeport & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "House and Senate Republicans faced a new round of uncertainty on Thursday about the fate of their $1.5 trillion tax bill with the possible defection of a Republican senator, Marco Rubio of Florida, amid continuing questions about how the bill will be paid for and how much of the benefits will flow to low- and middle-income people versus corporations. Republicans, who reached agreement Wednesday on a merged version of the House and Senate tax plans, expect to unveil the final bill on Friday and vote on the legislation early next week so that it can be sent to President Trump before Christmas." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Increasing the child tax credit, as Rubio is insisting upon, is the policy side of Ryan's urging women to have more children. It's the brainchild of some "moderate conservative thinkers." As I recall, Douthat was a big advocate. Many Republican domestic policy objectives are part of a giant plot to restore & cement patriarchical norms. What frightened these guys about Roy Moore was not that he was an extremist kook but that, as a walking, talking exemplar of their own dark hearts, he would reveal the party's true aims. ...
... ** Paul Krugman: "As usual, Republicans seek to afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable, but they don't treat all Americans with a given income the same. Instead, their bill ... but whose shape is clear -- hugely privileges owners, whether of businesses or of financial assets, over those who simply work for a living.... The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center ... finds that the bill would reduce taxes on business owners, on average, about three times as much as it would reduce taxes on those whose primary source of income is wages or salaries. For highly paid workers, the gap would be even wider, as much as 10 to one.... (Yes, a lot of the bill looks as if it were specifically designed to benefit the Trump family.) If this sounds like bad policy, that's because it is.... Their disdain for ordinary working Americans as opposed to investors, heirs, and business owners runs so deep that they can't contain it." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: One reason Republicans get away with this is that business owners & investors are far more attuned to how legislation & other government actions will affect their bottom lines than are wage-earners. I don't know that Paul Ryan actually likes "makers" better than working people; he just knows the "makers" are watching him & working people don't have the time or inclination to analyze his flimflams.