The Commentariat -- November 27, 2017

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Dollars to Doughtnuts. Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "On Monday,Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, brought in doughnuts. Around the same time, Leandra English, the agency’s other acting director, sent an all-staff email thanking employees for their service. Awkward. And so it goes in a capital city defined by its dysfunction, at an agency where two public servants are messily and publicly vying to lead a controversial agency under constant political assault by Republicans.... As confusion reigned, Ms. English headed to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers about her plans. Among those lawmakers: Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat of Massachusetts who proposed the bureau and helped set it up.... The two dueling directors embody widely differing visions regarding the future of the agency.... Mr. Mulvaney sent a memo to employees, asking them to 'please disregard any instructions you receive from Ms. English in her presumed capacity as Acting Director.'" ...

... David Dayen in the Intercept: "The lawyer who wrote the Office of Legal Counsel memo supporting the Trump administration's viewpoint that the president can appoint Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau represented a payday lender in front of the CFPB last year. Steven A. Engel wrote the memo for OLC, which has been criticized by academics for seeking a conclusion and working backward to justify it. 'Let's be honest, this is an argument where you get the answer, and then you go to the other side of the equation,' said former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., a lead author of the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB. Engel was confirmed as an assistant attorney general earlier this month by a voice vote in the Senate." ...

... Margaret Hartmann cites some tweeted commentary on the legal arguments. ...

... Greg Sargent: "In her first interview on this standoff since it erupted, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) -- the agency's creator -- predicted that if Trump installs his own director, its mission could be hollowed out, emboldening further financial elite defrauding of consumers. Warren suggested that this is part of a pattern in which Trump has embraced conventional GOP plutocracy in betrayal of his campaign posture as a kind of working-class avenger delivering tough justice to predatory financial elites.... Warren noted, if Mulvaney takes over -- or if Trump ultimately installs permanent replacement with similar views -- it could cause a backslide into more financial fraud and scams.... 'Dodd-Frank is quite specific: It provides its own succession planning,' she told me. 'There is no vacancy for President Trump to fill.'"

Eric Levitz of New York: "The Senate GOP's plan to overhaul the American tax system has been around for less than two weeks. The party has not held a single hearing on the bill's macroeconomic effects (even as experts warn that these could include a health-care crisis and housing market crash). Large majorities of the public disapprove of the legislation. Even small-business owners -- ostensibly, one of the tax package's chief beneficiaries -- appear to oppose it. And Mitch McConnell plans to pass the bill out of the Senate by week's end. As of this writing, at least nine Republican senators aren't sure that that's a good idea.... Here's how [Republicans plan to win them over:] Make the bill even better for rich business owners, to win over [Ron] Johnson and [Steve] Daines.... Put in a $10,000 property tax deduction ... to win over Susan Collins.... Give Lisa Murkowski some oil.... Let the deficit hawks eat wildly optimistic growth projections...." ...

... E.J. Dionne: "Republicans are lying coming and going. They hold down the sticker price of the bill and minimize its impact on the deficit by having the middle-class tax cuts (but not the corporate reductions) expire. But they insist that future Congresses would keep the middle-class tax cuts in place.... [Paul] Ryan has already burnished his standing as a deficit hypocrite by pushing a comparable tax cut through the House. But don't you worry. As soon as Republicans shovel every dollar they can to the people who pay their party's bills, he'll dust off those old the-sky-is-falling quotes and warn about the deficits he helped to bloat. He'll tell us how urgent it is to slash Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and programs for the needy (although he'll try to bamboozle us again by claiming to be only 'reforming' them)." Also see Akhilleus's commentary on this in today's thread.

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a Maryland law banning the sale of semiautomatic guns with certain military-style features. The justices in the past have passed up the chance to hear challenges to similar laws in a handful of other states. But attorneys generals in 21 states had asked the court to step in. Maryland's ban on so-called assault weapons was passed after the 2012 mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. A district judge had cast doubt on the constitutionality of the law. But the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond upheld the ban in a 10-4 vote. The ruling went further than other appellate courts that have reviewed similar laws in stating that 'assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are not protected by the Second Amendment.'... The Supreme Court made no comment in declining to review the 4th Circuit ruling." ...

... AP: "The justices also declined an appeal asserting a constitutional right to carry firearms openly in public."

John Hilliard of the Boston Globe: "Tufts University postponed a Monday event featuring Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump White House spokesman, after he threatened to sue a student and the school newspaper for defamation following the publication of an op-ed column criticizing him. Scaramucci, a Tufts graduate, has served on an advisory board at Tufts' Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy since 2016."

Mallory Shelbourne of the Hill: "The Democratic majority whip of the California State Assembly on Monday announced that he will immediately resign following allegations of sexual harassment. In a statement obtained by a reporter with The Los Angeles Times, Raul Bocanegra said he has decided to resign right away, as opposed to waiting until September of 2018, as he had originally announced."

The Gray Lady Regrets. Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "'We regret the degree to which the piece offended so many readers,' New York Times national editor Marc Lacey wrote in a carefully drafted response to the social-media backlash against [its profile of an Ohio Nazi].... 'Our reporter and his editors agonized over the tone and content of the article,' he writes. Such agony wasn't reflected in the piece." More on this story below under Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times: "... it appears that Mr. Trump and the Saudis have helped the [Iranian] government achieve what years of repression could never accomplish: widespread public support for the hard-line view that the United States and Riyadh cannot be trusted and that Iran is now a strong and capable state capable of staring down its enemies." Mrs. McC: Both Patrick & Ken W. discuss this story in today's Comments. As Patrick sums it up, our new, aggressive, thoughtless foreign policy is "Simpler. Stupider. Worser. Dangerouser. Trumpier." ...

... Lucia Graves of the Guardian on the Koch brothers' financial backing of the Time, Inc. buyout. The boys are effecting a pretense now that they'll have nothing to do with editorial content, but several observers note that the Koch boys play the long game, so it might not be long before the "Person of the Year" becomes nothing more than the Kochs' favorite guy. Thanks to CaptRuss for the link. Mrs. McC: Graves' observers are looking at mike pence; I'm seeing Scott Pruitt!

*****

Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: "The leadership standoff between President Trump and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent government agency, is headed to court. Leandra English, the bureau's deputy director, filed a lawsuit on Sunday night to block Mr. Trump's choice of a temporary chief from taking control of the agency on Monday morning. Ms. English, an agency veteran, was appointed to the deputy director position on Friday by the consumer bureau's outgoing director, Richard Cordray, who abruptly resigned that day. Under the terms of the law that created the agency, Ms. English should succeed him as its temporary leader, Mr. Cordray told the staff." ...

     ... Update. Lorraine Woellert of Politico: "The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's top lawyer sided with the Justice Department over ... Donald Trump's appointment of Mick Mulvaney to lead the CFPB as a leadership battle over the controversial watchdog agency escalated. In a memorandum obtained by Politico, CFPB general counsel Mary McLeod said Trump had the legal authority to name an acting director to the bureau under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. 'It is my legal opinion that the president possesses the authority to designate an acting director for the bureau,' McLeod wrote in the Nov. 25 memo to the CFPB leadership team. 'I advise all bureau personnel to act consistently with the understanding that Director Mulvaney is the acting director of the CFPB.'"

Russia, Russia, Russia. Harriet Sinclair of Newsweek: "Donald Trump took to Twitter on Sunday to make his feelings about what he dubbed the 'phony' Russia probe perfectly clear.... The president has previously suggested he isn't convinced there is any reason for a probe into Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. election; and doubled down on his view ... amid reports Mike Flynn is cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe. 'Since the first day I took office, all you hear is the phony Democrat excuse for losing the election, Russia, Russia, Russia,' Trump wrote. 'Despite this I have the economy booming and have possibly done more than any 10 month President. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!' he added, in a demonstration of why the site previously opted to allow fewer characters." ...

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! The President of the United States is Jan Brady. -- Preet Bharara, former U.S. attorney, whom Trump-Sessions fired after Trump promised him he would keep him in his job

... Susan Glasser of Politico Magazine interviewed Ambassador Kurt Volker, "the Trump administration's special envoy charged with ending the war in Ukraine." After speaking with him & other administration officials, Glasser concluded that "There are two approaches to the Kremlin inside this administration: the president's and everyone else's.... To spend time with Volker is to confront the essential schizophrenia of the Trump administration's Russia policy. His version is what just about any U.S. administration's view of Russia and the Ukraine conflict would have been. And it's pretty much consistent with that of others inside the Trump administration with whom I've spoken recently: deeply critical of Putin and certainly not swayed by him; concerned that little or no progress can be made on key issues and that the bottom in U.S.-Russia relations has not yet been reached after this past year’s election hacking, tit-for-tat spying accusations, diplomatic expulsions and consulate closure.... But of course, this Russia policy is still not exactly Donald Trump's Russia policy." ...

... Peter Stone & Greg Gordon of McClatchy: "[Paul] Manafort's flight records in and out of Ukraine, which McClatchy obtained from a government source in Kiev, and interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with his activities ... suggest the links between Trump's former campaign manager and Russia sympathizers run deeper than previously thought.... What's now known leads some Russia experts to suspect that the Kremlin's emissaries at times turned Manafort into an asset acting on Russia's behalf.... Several of the trips in Manafort's flight records could draw investigators' interest." --safari

December Is the Cruelest Month? Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "Trump's first year has been different [from that of previous U.S. presidents]. He has a record low approval rating. He is mired in scandal. And he, so far, has no major legislative accomplishments.... All of this makes December crucial for the White House. From now until the New Year, Congress will be jammed with legislative activity that may make or break Trump's first year in office. Most of the attention has focussed on Trump's tax-cut legislation, which is deeply unpopular according to public-opinion polls but which Republicans believe is essential to pass in order for them to have something to show for the year. But there are many other politically consequential bills that must be passed in the weeks ahead. On December 8th, the money to fund the federal government runs out.... There are three major pieces of legislation that Democrats want: a bipartisan fix for Obamacare, a legislative fix for the Obama-era DACA program that Trump recently ended, and the extension of a popular health-care program for children -- SCHIP -- that recently expired."

Kristine Phillips of the Washington Post: "Former FBI director James B. Comey's latest tweet was a defense of the press -- a quote from Thomas Jefferson's Jan. 28, 1786, letter from Paris to physician James Currie. 'Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost,' Comey tweeted Saturday evening along with a picture of the Capitol.... Comey's tweet was sent at 6:08 p.m. Saturday, about a half-hour after President Trump's attack on CNN International, the latest in his war against the mainstream news media.... Comey, who previously tweeted under a pseudonym, has been somewhat active on the social media platform within the past month.... To those who follow Comey's semiregular Twitter activity, his tweets are subtle jabs at political leaders, particularly at the one who fired him."

Matthew Nussbaum of Politico: "Trump took to Twitter on Sunday morning to slam [Roy] Moore's opponent, Democrat Doug Jones, as Moore seeks to overcome accusations that he pursued inappropriate relationships with teenagers when he was in his 30s, which have dominated coverage of Alabama's Dec. 12 special election. 'The last thing we need in Alabama and the U.S. Senate is a Schumer/Pelosi puppet who is WEAK on Crime, WEAK on the Border, Bad for our Military and our great Vets, Bad for our 2nd Amendment, AND WANTS TO RAISES TAXES TO THE SKY. Jones would be a disaster!' Trump wrote. He added later: 'I endorsed Luther Strange in the Alabama Primary. He shot way up in the polls but it wasm't enough. Can't let Schumer/Pelosi win this race. Liberal Jones would be BAD!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Anthony Cuthbertson of Newsweek: "Donald Trump's motorcade was disrupted on Saturday, Nov. 25, by a driver in a red van who reportedly cut in and made 'obscene gestures and screamed several expletives' at the U.S. president. The incident happened as Trump made his way back to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after spending his morning playing golf at Trump International in West Palm Beach.... The Florida trip also marks the hundredth day he's spent at a property he owns since his inauguration earlier this year.... [A]t his current rate, Trump is on track to triple his predecessor's time spent on the golf course. The president is expected to return to the White House on Sunday." --safari

** Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "In expending all his energy shoring up his base, Trump offers a particular racial vision. Unlike some white nationalists, Trump doesn't want an all-white America. He's willing to tolerate non-whites on a provisional basis, so long as they know their place.... Trump's political role in this racial vision is to be a kind of national sheriff, the authority figure who has the right to stop and frisk non-whites to make sure they are worthy of staying.... The president's repeated calls for expressions of black gratitude echo some of the most disturbing themes of American history.... Trump's eagerness to impugn the loyalty of African-Americans is matched by the wide latitude he gives to whites." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I would add that a similar provisional status applies to women. Especially when we're young, attractive & fairly easily manipulated, we belong on pedestals. This is why Hillary Clinton enjoyed her greatest popularity when she accepted her husband's philandering or when, as a senator, she put her hose to the grindstone & did the hard work a junior senator was supposed to do. It also, of course, explains why she was, at various times, the most reviled woman in the U.S.; when she stepped out of her "place" by taking on policy roles as First Lady & when she had the audacity to think she might be POTUS.

Uri Friedman of the Atlantic: "When critics argue that Donald Trump is an exceptionally reckless commander in chief, they tend to highlight how the American president deviates from the norm.... But if danger is crudely measured by how many people die in military conflicts as the result of a president's policies, the dangers posed by Trump's atypical behavior remain hypothetical at the moment. Leaving aside his genuinely unprecedented moves in trade and diplomacy, the wars that Trump is currently commanding were initiated by his predecessors.... [For instance,] in more aggressively prosecuting the Obama administration's battle against jihadist groups, the Trump administration has helped uproot ISIS from its last strongholds in Syria and Iraq.... As a consequence, however, civilians and U.S. troops in the region are dying in greater numbers. The political scientist Micah Zenko noted this summer that ''in Iraq and Syria, at least 55 percent of all civilians killed by airstrikes since the air war began in August 2014 have died under Mr. Trump's watch.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "James Schultz resigned last week [from his position as White House ethics lawyer] and is returning to private practice.... Asked if he plans to join the public, often-televised debate on alleged conflicts of interest involving Trump administration figures, Schultz said he expects to, but doesn't plan to make it a full-time job." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I had no idea there was a "Trump ethics lawyer." Definitely an oxymoron, it sounds like the punchline to a joke.

Trump Family Values:

A Hypocrite Abroad. Drew Harwell, et al., of the Washington Post: "When Ivanka Trump leads a U.S. delegation to southern India this week... [she] will use her official role as a White House adviser to promote female entrepreneurship and economic power. But looming over her visit will be an uncomfortable question that Trump' company has refused to answer: What are the work conditions for laborers in India who have pieced together clothes for her fashion line?... She has remained silent about the largely female garment workforce in India and other Asian countries that makes her clothing. Her brand -- which Trump no longer runs day to day but continues to own -- has declined to identify the factories that produce her goods or detail how the workers are treated or paid.... Trump will be greeted in the Indian tech capital of Hyderabad with trappings befitting a royal dignitary, including a gala dinner with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a restored palace. It will be a world away from India's garment industry, in which laborers earn about $100 a month, some amid punishing workloads, verbal abuse and sexual harassment...."

... it's bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives, that's all. Also, I don’t know a damned thing about politics. -- Jane Wyman, when asked why she never talked about ex-husband Ronald Reagan's politics, 1968 ...

... Back When an Ex-Wife Was a Class Act. Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post: "Jane Wyman could have had a bestseller. But the Oscar-winning actress wouldn't dish about her ex-husband. Not when Ronald Reagan was governor of California and not when he made history as the nation's first divorced president. Before Reagan, men with failed marriages were considered too tainted for the White House.... But today, rather than a former film actor, we have an ex-reality-TV star in the White House. And his leading ladies are going at it, reality-show style." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)...

...Another Sad! Melania Story. Sarah Ellison of Vanity Fair: "[Donald] Trump declared his candidacy, and the decision ultimately thrust Melania Trump into a role she had never sought.... Taking stock of her role as First Lady is an exercise in subtraction. What she does not do is almost as telling as what she does. Her East Wing remains sparsely inhabited. There may never have been a First Lady less prepared for or suited to the role." --safari

Oliver Milman of Mother Jones: "The Trump administration's dismantling of environmental regulations has intensified a growing civil rights battle over the deadly burden of pollution on minorities and low-income people. Black, Latino, and disadvantaged people have long been disproportionately afflicted by toxins from industrial plants, cars, hazardous housing conditions and other sources. But political leaders, academics and activists spoke of a growing urgency around the struggle for environmental justice as the Trump administration peels away rules designed to protect clean air and water. 'What we are seeing is the institutionalization of discrimination again, the thing we've fought for 40 years,' said Robert Bullard, an academic widely considered the father of the environmental justice movement." --safari

More Racist Morons. Carlos Bellestros of Newsweek, via RawStory: "Rex Tillerson is ousting many of the State Department's high-ranking women diplomats and diplomats of color. On Friday, the New York Times revealed how Tillerson's State Department is pushing out scores of career diplomats from the agency, offering them buyouts and early retirement in the hopes of getting them out the door.... Senior non-male and non-white diplomats have been among those targeted by Tillerson. The State Department's level of diversity has historically been low: In 2016, 5.4 percent of career diplomats were black, 6.9 percent were Asian, and 5.6 percent Hispanic, according to Foreign Policy. The Obama administration made an effort to increase the number of diplomats of color in order to create a Foreign Service that 'looked more like America.' But Tillerson's plans are much different." --safari

Raphael Satter, et al., of the AP: "The FBI failed to notify scores of U.S. officials that Russian hackers were trying to break into their personal Gmail accounts despite having evidence for at least a year that the targets were in the Kremlin's crosshairs, The Associated Press has found. Nearly 80 interviews with Americans targeted by Fancy Bear, a Russian government-aligned cyberespionage group, turned up only two cases in which the FBI had provided a heads-up. Even senior policymakers discovered they were targets only when the AP told them, a situation some described as bizarre and dispiriting.... Previous AP investigations based on the list have shown how Fancy Bear worked in close alignment with the Kremlin's interests to steal tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic Party." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Yamiche Alcindor & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Representative John Conyers Jr., the House's longest-serving lawmaker, is stepping aside as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee amid an investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed former aides.... The announcement came five days after the revelation that Mr. Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, had settled a complaint in 2015 by a former employee who had said she was fired because she rejected his sexual advances. The House Ethics Committee has opened an investigation into the matter." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Travis Andrews of the Washington Post: "Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) spoke to a handful of Minnesota media outlets on Sunday in response to the four allegations of sexual misconduct against him, saying he is 'embarrassed and ashamed' and that he doesn't know if more accusations are forthcoming. While saying he 'respected' the feelings of the women who have accused him of groping their buttocks, he also said he had no memory of doing so. 'I take photographs at the State Fair with thousands of people,' he told Minnesota Public Radio, among other outlets, and 'I would never intentionally' grope anyone. But 'we have to listen to women and respect what they say.' They were Franken's first extended comments in interviews since his original statement in response to the accusations. ...

... Jennifer Brooks of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Sen. Al Franken is embarrassed, ashamed ... and ready to get back to work. For days, Franken has been out of sight -- reflecting, he said, on his behavior and the accounts of women who say he groped and demeaned them. 'I've let a lot of people down and I'm hoping I can make it up to them and gradually regain their trust,' said Franken, who broke an eight-day silence Sunday to talk by phone about what he's done and what he'll be doing next. For starters, he said [Sunday], 'I'm looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow.'"

Sheryl Stolberg & Yamiche Alcindor: "Lawmakers are facing mounting pressure to end Capitol Hill's culture of secrecy over sexual harassment as they return from a holiday break, with members of both parties calling for Congress to overhaul its handling of misconduct claims and to unmask lawmakers who have paid settlements using taxpayer money.... Under a 1995 law, complaints are handled confidentially. Lawyers for the House and the Senate have required that settlements be kept confidential as well.... The House is expected this week to adopt a bipartisan resolution mandating that all members and their staffs participate in anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training; the Senate has already adopted such a resolution. The more difficult task will be passing legislation that overhauls the way sexual harassment claims are handled. In the House, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Representative Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, and Representative Barbara Comstock, Republican of Virginia, is pushing for legislation that would require claims to be handled in public. In the Senate, Senator Kirstin Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, has put forth similar legislation."

Katie J.M. Baker of Buzzfeed: "Massage Envy, the first and by far the largest chain of massage franchises in the country, is a billion-dollar business that promises trustworthy services at an affordable price. But BuzzFeed News found that more than 180 people have filed sexual assault lawsuits, police reports, and state board complaints against Massage Envy spas, their employees, and the national company...But a review by BuzzFeed News found the company's policies on reporting improper conduct do more to protect the company brand than to ensure customer complaints are handled appropriately. Customers have been violated in shocking ways, then seen their reports brushed aside, while offending therapists have been allowed to keep their professional standing with no consequences." --safari

Heather Long of the Washington Post: "The Senate Republican tax plan gives substantial tax cuts and benefits to Americans earning more than $100,000 a year, while the nation's poorest would be worse off, according to a report released Sunday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Republicans are aiming to have the full Senate vote on the tax plan as early as this week, but the new CBO analysis showing large, harmful effects on the poor may complicate those plans. The CBO also said the bill would add $1.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, a potential problem for Republican lawmakers worried about America's growing debt. Democrats have repeatedly slammed the bill as a giveaway to the rich..... In addition to lowering taxes for businesses and many individuals, the Senate bill also makes a major change to health insurance that the CBO projects would have a harsh impact on lower-income families." ...

... Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "Senate Republicans are seriously considering several last-minute changes to their tax legislation in an effort to mollify wavering members, four people familiar with the discussions said, as GOP leaders seek to keep their members from defecting ahead of crucial votes this week. The lawmakers attracting the most concern from leadership and the White House are Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who say the current version of the bill favors corporations over other businesses. There are numerous members demanding changes, and their desires don't all overlap. Together, the requests put Republican leaders in a difficult position, as they attempt to accommodate individual holdouts on a one-off basis without losing other members or creating a situation in which the bill collapses under the weight of disparate demands.... President Trump late Sunday hinted that significant changes to the tax bill were in the works, saying the legislation was 'getting bigger and better.' But he stopped short of offering specifics." Mrs. McC: Because he has no idea of WTF is going on. ...

...Dynamic Frauds. Matthew Yglesias of Vox: "Kent Smetters was in the trenches in the Newt Gingrich-era Congressional Budget Office, and he's a veteran of George W. Bush's Treasury Department. A new analysis using his well-regarded budget model has concluded the Republican tax plan won't raise nearly as much revenue as its proponents say, or provide a meaningful boost to economic growth.... To comply with the terms of the Byrd Rule that allows Senate Republicans to bypass a Democratic filibuster, the tax plan must ... comply with the budget resolution's mandate to raise the deficit by no more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years [and] it needs to not increase the long-term deficit in the years following. And here's where Penn-Wharton says that there's a problem: 'We estimate that the Senate TCJA continues to reduce revenue in years beyond the 10-year budget window.'... Critically, this conclusion does not change when they attempt a 'dynamic' score that considers the potential growth-boosting effects of tax cuts." --safari (Also linked Saturday.) ...

... Ray Madoff, in a New York Times op-ed, outlines the ways in which the Republican tax 'reform' bills discourage charitable giving. One way is by raising the standard deduction; taxpayers who itemize their deductions of course have a financial incentive to give. A recent report by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy estimates that charities could lose as much as $13 billion in donations if the standard deduction is increased." ...

... God & Mammon. Ken Vogel & Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "For years, a coalition of well-funded groups on the religious right have waged an uphill battle to repeal a 1954 law that bans churches and other nonprofit groups from engaging in political activity.... Among the changes in the tax bill that passed the House this month is a provision to roll back the 1954 ban.... The change could turn churches into a well-funded political force, with donors diverting as much as $1.7 billion each year from traditional political committees to churches and other nonprofit groups that could legally engage in partisan politics for the first time, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. The Senate ... leaves the ban untouched, and differs in other key ways from the House version." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: GOP lawmakers might want to think twice about this maneuver, because liberals tend to be on the side of Christian theology, & we're pretty good at giving to nonprofits. Of course the financial incentive applies only to those who itemize deductions -- usually more wealthy people. But the most important thing to understand about this possible change to the tax code: it will diver billions of taxpayer dollars from (1) federal programs (that in theory work for the common good) & (2) actual charitable organizations (that also in theory work for the common good as well as for people with specific needs) -- to politicians, political operatives, and media outlets & other advertisers. That is, it will inevitably take money away from, say, the NIH & SCHIP & give it to Sinclair Broadcasting (a/k/a Trump TV) & Cambridge Analytica.

Buying Supreme Court Seats. Robert Maguire of McClatchy: "When a small nonprofit called the Judicial Crisis Network poured millions into a campaign to stop the Senate from confirming Barack Obama's Supreme Court pick last year, and then spent millions more supporting President Donald Trump's choice for the same seat, political observers assumed conservatives from around the country were showering the group with donations. Not so. Newly obtained tax documents show that JCN’s money came almost entirely from yet another secretive nonprofit, the Wellspring Committee, which flooded JCN with nearly $23.5 million in 2016.Most of Wellspring's funds, in turn, came from a single mysterious donor who gave the organization almost $28.5 million -- nearly 90 percent of its $32.2 million in revenues. Like JCN, Wellspring...is a nonprofit that is supposed to be dedicated to social welfare functions and doesn't have to disclose the names of its benefactors." --safari

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Sydney Ember & Andrew Sorkin of the New York Times: "A long chapter in media history came to an unlikely close on Sunday night with a sale agreement for Time Inc., the publisher of once-prestigious magazine titles including Time, Sports Illustrated and People. The Meredith Corporation — the owner of Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens and AllRecipes -- agreed to purchase Time Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at nearly $3 billion. The deal was made possible, in part, by an infusion of $650 million from the private equity arm of Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire brothers known for using their wealth and political connections to advance conservative causes. The deal could represent the beginning of the end for one of the country’s most celebrated magazine publishers...." Meridith said that Koch Equity Development "would not have a seat on Meredith’s board of directors and would 'have no influence on Meredith's editorial or managerial operations.'" A spokesman for Koch Industries called it 'a passive financial investment.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, get over it. Time has always been right-wingy. The most influential of its founders, Henry Luce, was a staunch, old-guard Republican, who slanted the "news" in that direction, & it didn't change much after he left the job in 1964, as far as I could see.

Mrs. McCrabbie: I haven't been following the hoohah over a New York Times story that profiles a nice, Midwestern Nazi. The Times & other major media, caught off guard by No. 1 Neo-Nazi Donald Trump's 2016 victory, have been doing this kind of navel-gazing/"outreach" to the Forgotten White Man ever since they got over their initial shock at the outcome of the election. I'll leave it to Steve: ...

... Steve M: "The New York Times is being criticized and mocked for a profile of Tony Hovater, an Ohio welder who makes pasta, likes Seinfeld -- and is a Nazi. The Times and the author of the profile, Richard Fausset, are being accused of normalizing Nazism, and of publishing this profile while the mainstream media continues to ignore liberals, Democrats, and non-whites when deciding which ordinary Americans illuminate the way we live now. I agree wholeheartedly with the latter critique.... Maybe ... the reason Fausset couldn't find a Rosebud ... [is that] within-the-pale conservative political thought is so close to Nazi thinking that moving from one to the other doesn't require a drastic change of perspective. Ron Paul's libertarianism was a cesspool of bigotry and paranoia ... The real mystery is why conservative avowals of full-fledged Nazism are relatively rare. The line has been blurred for years..., as when Louisiana congressman Steve Scalise was promoted to a leadership position in the House of Representatives and it was revealed that he'd once spoken before an organization connected to David Duke.... If you're like Hovater, you can easily blend in if you're reasonably well behaved most of the time and you're a quiet neighbor. And if you're lucky, a New York Times anthropologist-wannabe will come looking for you, to find out what makes you tick." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here again, you'll want to read Adam Serwer of the Atlantic on white nationalism, linked here a week or so ago. AND I see that the Atlantic has jumped on the American Nazi bandwagon, leading with a piece by Luke O'Brien on someone named Andrew Anglin, who, according to the blurb went "from being an antiracist vegan to the alt-right’s most vicious troll and propagandist -- and how might he be stopped?" I won't be reading that, either. If you do read the story, it may not be lost on you that Anglin lives in Whitefish, Montana, the same small town as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke & the owners of that electrical contractor who have been gouging Puerto Rico. Must be a nice place.

Beyond the Beltway

Kelly Weill of The Daily Beast: A U.S. district court judge "has ordered the [Golden State Warriors] to trial over its smartphone app, which allegedly recorded fans' conversations.... [F]ans were watching the game, the app was watching them,fan LaTisha Satchell claims in a lawsuit. One of the app’s promotional tools allegedly turns a user's phone microphone on and keeps it on, recording everything within earshot and relaying data back to the Warriors and a tech company, possibly in violation of wiretap laws.... But the app allegedly didn't stop when fans left the arena. Instead, it constantly listened in and recorded conversations, even when fans weren't directly using the app." --safari

The Commentariat -- November 26, 2017

Afternoon Update:

Matthew Nussbaum of Politico: "Trump took to Twitter on Sunday morning to slam [Roy] Moore's opponent, Democrat Doug Jones, as Moore seeks to overcome accusations that he pursued inappropriate relationships with teenagers when he was in his 30s.... 'The last thing we need in Alabama and the U.S. Senate is a Schumer/Pelosi puppet who is WEAK on Crime, WEAK on the Border, Bad for our Military and our great Vets, Bad for our 2nd Amendment, AND WANTS TO RAISES TAXES TO THE SKY. Jones would be a disaster!' Trump wrote. He added later: 'I endorsed Luther Strange in the Alabama Primary. He shot way up in the polls but it wasn't enough. Can't let Schumer/Pelosi win this race. Liberal Jones would be BAD!'"

Yamiche Alcindor & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Representative John Conyers Jr., the House's longest-serving lawmaker, is stepping aside as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee amid an investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed former aides.... The announcement came five days after the revelation that Mr. Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, had settled a complaint in 2015 by a former employee who had said she was fired because she rejected his sexual advances. The House Ethics Committee has opened an investigation into the matter."

Raphael Satter, et al., of the AP: "The FBI failed to notify scores of U.S. officials that Russian hackers were trying to break into their personal Gmail accounts despite having evidence for at least a year that the targets were in the Kremlin's crosshairs, The Associated Press has found. Nearly 80 interviews with Americans targeted by Fancy Bear, a Russian government-aligned cyberespionage group, turned up only two cases in which the FBI had provided a heads-up. Even senior policymakers discovered they were targets only when the AP told them, a situation some described as bizarre and dispiriting.... Previous AP investigations based on the list have shown how Fancy Bear worked in close alignment with the Kremlin's interests to steal tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic Party."

Uri Friedman of the Atlantic: "When critics argue that Donald Trump is an exceptionally reckless commander in chief, they tend to highlight how the American president deviates from the norm.... But if danger is crudely measured by how many people die in military conflicts as the result of a president's policies, the dangers posed by Trump's atypical behavior remain hypothetical at the moment. Leaving aside his genuinely unprecedented moves in trade and diplomacy, the wars that Trump is currently commanding were initiated by his predecessors.... [For instance,] in more aggressively prosecuting the Obama administration's battle against jihadist groups, the Trump administration has helped uproot ISIS from its last strongholds in Syria and Iraq.... As a consequence, however, civilians and U.S. troops in the region are dying in greater numbers. The political scientist Micah Zenko noted this summer that 'in Iraq and Syria, at least 55 percent of all civilians killed by airstrikes since the air war began in August 2014 have died under Mr. Trump's watch.'"

... it's bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives, that's all. Also, I don't know a damned thing about politics. -- Jane Wyman, when asked why she never talked about ex-husband Ronald Reagan's politics, 1968 ...

... Back When an Ex-Wife Was a Class Act. Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post: "Jane Wyman could have had a bestseller. But the Oscar-winning actress wouldn't dish about her ex-husband. Not when Ronald Reagan was governor of California and not when he made history as the nation's first divorced president. Before Reagan, men with failed marriages were considered too tainted for the White House.... But today, rather than a former film actor, we have an ex-reality-TV star in the White House. And his leading ladies are going at it, reality-show style."

*****

     ... Thanks to contributor Julie for the link.

Both the New York Times & the Washington Post feature front-page stories on the Incredible Shrinking Kushner. ...

     ... Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times: Ten "months after being given free rein to tackle everything from the federal government's outdated technology to peace in the Middle East, the do-whatever-you-want stage of [Jared] Kushner's tenure is over.... He is no longer seen as the primary presidential consigliere with the limitless portfolio. [Newish Chief-of-Staff John] Kelly has made clear that Mr. Kushner must fit within a chain of command. 'Jared works for me,' he has told associates.... According to three advisers to the president, Mr. Kelly has even discussed the possibility of Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, departing the West Wing by the end of the year. Mr. Kelly disputed that in an interview on Friday." ...

     ... Also, too, the Incredibly Pompous Kelly. ...

     ... Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: Jared Kushner's "once-sprawling White House portfolio, which came with walk-in privileges to the Oval Office, has been diminished to its original scope under Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, and he has notably receded from public view.... His still-evolving role in the investigations of Russian election interference and possible obstruction of justice also make him a potential risk to President Trump.... So far, [Robert] Mueller has filed no court documents to suggest Kushner is in legal jeopardy, but people close to the case say investigators have been looking at his meetings with Russians before and after the election, as well as his role in discussions that led to the firing of FBI Director James B. Comey.... A Republican close to the White House said Kushner 'has no judgment -- never has and never will.'"

Renae Merle of the Washington Post: "The White House appeared headed to a showdown Monday on who will be the next leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a dispute that is likely to land in court.... On Saturday, senior administration officials said the White House's position was supported by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The office is preparing to publish a written opinion supporting the appointment soon, but has already confirmed verbally and through email that it complies with the law, the officials said.... But the OLC letter is not likely to end the tug-of-war over the leadership of [the] agency.... Democrats and consumer advocates say [Mick] Mulvaney's appointment is illegal and are calling on the Trump administration to allow English to serve until a permanent replacement is confirmed by the Senate." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Josh Delk of the Hill: "President Trump on Saturday defended his decision to appoint an acting director for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) despite the outgoing head naming a temporary successor, calling the agency a 'total disaster' under officials from the Obama administration. 'The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, has been a total disaster as run by the previous Administrations pick,' Trump tweeted. 'Financial Institutions have been devastated and unable to properly serve the public. We will bring it back to life!'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Among the ways the CFPB stopped banks from "properly serving the public": helping to end Well Fargo's practice of opening and charging its customers for fake bank accounts. The "disaster"?: "In the five years of its existence, the agency returned to 29 million Americans about $12 billion in savings or direct payments from dubious financial institutions." (April 2017) Could CFPB be more aggressive? Yes. Is that Trump & Mulveney's intention? Obviously not.

Jonathan Martin, et al., of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's decision to reject every long-shot plan to save the [Alabama] Senate seat reflects the imperative that an unpopular president faces to retain his political base, a determination that he should follow his own instincts after having felt steered into a disastrous earlier endorsement in the Alabama race, and even his insistence that he himself has been the victim of false accusations of sexual misconduct. But in tying himself to [Roy] Moore even as congressional leaders have abandoned the candidate en masse, the president has reignited hostilities with his own party just as Senate Republicans are rushing to pass a politically crucial tax overhaul. [Mitch] McConnell and his allies have been particularly infuriated as Mr. Trump has reacted with indifference to a series of ideas they have floated to try to block Mr. Moore." ...

     ... Now for the 25th Amendment part: "[Trump] suggested to a senator earlier this year that [the 'Access Hollywood' tape] was not authentic, and repeated that claim to an adviser more recently. (In the hours after it was revealed in October 2016, Mr. Trump acknowledged that the voice was his, and he apologized.)" Emphasis added. ...

... Benjamin Hart of New York: "So Trump is now not only insisting that the lies he spouts all day are true; he has created a new set of facts that contradict the ones he has already acknowledged. But hey, who are you going to believe, President Trump or your lying ears? The fact that for about 38% of the country the answer is 'President Trump' is almost as disturbing as the possibility that the president may be more mentally unfit for office than most people acknowledge."

Today in Journalism & "Journalism" News:

Emily Goldberg of Politico: "Less than one week after the Department of Justice announced it would seek to block a merger between AT&T and Time Warner, and after ... Donald Trump pledged he wouldn't 'get involved,' the president tweeted out a familiar criticism of CNN, a subsidiary of Time Warner. '. @FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!' the president tweeted Saturday evening.... CNN responded to the president on Twitter Saturday evening: /@realDonaldTrump It's not CNN's job to represent the U.S to the world. That's yours. Our job is to report the news. #FactsFirst.'" ...

Dear Dodo-in-Chief: u realize that this tweet is going 2be an exhibit against u in the DOJ -TimeWarner antitrust case right? It also smacks of collusion since u did it on day when Vlad cracked down on US networks. For that reason, it may open u to other civil liability. -- Norm Eisen, Obama ethics lawyer, tweet ...

Avery Anapol of the Hill: "A former speechwriter for President George W. Bush said that President Trump's attacks on CNN's international bureau put journalists in danger. David Frum, Bush speechwriter and senior editor at the Atlantic, tweeted Saturday that U.S.-affiliated journalists operating internationally depend on the U.S. government to protect them and their reporting, and that Trump jeopardizes that when he criticizes the network. 'Inside the US, CNN's reporting is protected by the First Amendment and the courts,' Frum tweeted. 'Outside the US, US-affiliated journalists do ultimately depend on the protection of the US government. Trump's words are a direct attack on those international journalists' freedom & even safety.'"

... Wait, Wait. It Gets Worse. ...

... Trump Recommends White Nationalist/Conspiracy Theory Site. Judd Legum of Think Progress: "In a Saturday night tweet, Trump attacked CNN, saying the network's international division 'represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly.' A few minutes later, Trump tweeted an alternative: MagaPill.com. 'Wow, even I didn't realize we did so much. Wish the Fake News would report! Thank you....' The name MagaPill is a riff on 'red pill,' a term popular with white nationalists and others on the far right. A metaphor based on a plot line from The Matrix, it refers to the process of normalizing extreme views. MagaPill is also active on Gab, a social network favored by white nationalist and banned from the Google app store [for] violating its hate speech policy.... The site regularly traffics in unhinged conspiracy theories. Just a few hours before being endorsed by Trump, MagaPill posted a video from Liz Cronkin, a fringe figure best known for pushing the Pizzagate conspiracy. In the video, Cronkin claims there is a sex tape of Hillary Clinton with an underage girl on Anthony Weiner's laptop." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is the kind of stuff your crazy uncle was reading right before Auntie Maude had him institutionalized. Did I mention the 25th Amendment?

Ryan's Revenge. David Ferguson of the Raw Story: On Friday, Sarah "Sanders tweeted a photo of a perfect-looking pecan pie against a perfectly white background, writing, 'I dont cook much these days, but managed this Chocolate Pecan Pie for Thanksgiving at the family farm!' 'Show it to us on a table,' [American Urban Radio Network's bureau chief April] Ryan tweeted.... She accused Sanders of having 'Lie-abetes.'... 'I am thankful for this laugh on Black Friday!'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As you may recall, last week Mrs. Huckleberry made the White House press corps say what they were thankful for before they could ask a question. When no one volunteered to share their private thoughts, Huckleberry picked on Ryan & bid her to go first. There's a pic of Chef Sarah's tweet here. There is one ding in the otherwise perfectly-crimped pie crust -- probably from where she nicked it when she cut into the cellophane wrapper. ...

     ... Update: Sanders tweeted back, "Don't worry @AprilDRyan because I'm nice I'll bake one for you next week #RealPie #FakeNews." Mrs. McC: April, I suspect this is another fake "I'll get back to you on that" responses. I don't think you're going to be needing a food-taster.

Reuters: "Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law on Saturday new measures allowing authorities to list foreign media outlets as 'foreign agents' in response to what Moscow says is unacceptable U.S. pressure on Russian media.... Russias move against U.S. media is part of the fallout from allegations that Russia interfered in last year's U.S. presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. U.S. intelligence officials have accused the Kremlin of using Russian media organizations it finances to influence U.S. voters, and Washington has since required Russian state broadcaster RT to register a U.S.-based affiliate company as a 'foreign agent'."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Trump Was Right; MSNBC Is Fake News. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "The hosts of MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' did the usual day-after Thanksgiving kibitzing on the air on Friday morning, telling viewers about their turkey dinners and mentioning the big football game the night before. One problem: ... The program that aired Friday morning was taped Wednesday, but made to look and sound as if it was airing live. 'Morning Joe' airs live on MSNBC five days a week. It features discussions of breaking or very recent news events.... MSNBC offered no announcement or statement to viewers that it was a taped program. The only indirect clue was at the bottom of the screen: The 'Live' graphic that normally appears was removed. The rest was cooked up to appear as if it was happening in real time." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Next those boneheads will be standing in front of green-screen backdrops of exotic locales from which they're supposedly reporting, a la Jon Stewart's & Stephen Colbert's "reporters." Yo, Mika, better not wear that green scarf again.

David Willman of the Los Angeles Times outlines some of the missteps & screw-ups Robert Mueller has made during his career.

Sheelah Kolhatkar of the New Yorker: "... while many analyses of the Republican [tax] plan have looked ahead to its effects five or ten years from now, dropping the personal exemption will have repercussions from the outset.... While this increased standard deduction sounds good, it is not enough to make up for all of the other kinds of deductions that are being lost (or capped), including those for mortgage interest, local taxes, medical expenses, and personal exemptions. Until now, the Republican strategy has been to offer headline-grabbing lip service to middle-class tax reductions, but taking most or all of them away through small maneuvers that are difficult to assess, in order to preserve the cuts that will benefit corporations and the wealthy."

In the Spirit of the Season. Kevin Johnson of USA Today: "The FBI was flooded Friday with more than 200,000 background check requests for gun purchases, setting a new single day record, the bureau reported Saturday. In all, the FBI fielded 203,086 requests on Black Friday, up from the previous single-day highs of 185,713 last year and 185,345 in 2015. The two previous records also were recorded on Black Friday. Gun checks, required for purchases at federally licensed firearm dealers, are not a measure of actual gun sales. The number of firearms sold Friday is likely higher because multiple firearms can be included in one transaction by a single buyer." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So right after Christmas, expect more stories like this one from Saturday's WashPo. P.S. Be careful out there.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Louisa Loveluck & Heba Mahfouz of the Washington Post: "Egypt's security forces were on high alert Saturday after striking back at militants whose massacre of more than 300 people at a Sinai mosque raised fears of a new and bloodier phase in the country's struggle against Islamist insurgents. Egypt's state-run Information Service tried to portray Friday's carnage -- at least 305 dead, or about quarter of the male population of the village of Rawda -- as a sign of 'weakness, despair and collapse' among militants opting for easy civilian targets rather than hitting heavily armed security forces as in the past. But the level of coordination and precision by the attackers gave no obvious suggestions of a struggling force in an area where Islamic State-inspired groups have gained a key foothold."

Jason Burke of the Guardian: "Robert Mugabe and his wife will receive a 'golden handshake' worth many millions of dollars as part of a deal negotiated before the resignation of the ageing autocrat last week. The exact sums to be paid to the former president and his wife Grace are still unclear, though one senior ruling party official with direct knowledge of the agreement said the total would not be less than $10m. The official said that Mugabe ... has been granted immunity from prosecution and a guarantee that no action will be taken against his family's extensive business interests.... The 93-year-old's $150,000 salary will also be paid until his death. The 52-year-old first lady, reviled for her extravagance and greed, will then receive half that amount for the rest of her life.... The first couple will be able to remain in their sprawling mansion known as the Blue Roof, in Harare. The state will pay for their medical care, domestic staff, security and foreign travel.... Mugabe's 37-year rule left Zimbabwe with a worthless currency, massive debts, an impoverished population and an estimated unemployment rate of more than 80%. Roads are rutted, many rural communities have no electricity, education is basic and healthcare almost non-existent. A life expectancy of 60 is one of the lowest in the world." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is outrageous. And Trump probably is taking notes.

The Commentariat -- November 25, 2017

Afternoon Update:

Renae Merle of the Washington Post: "The White House appeared headed to a showdown Monday on who will be the next leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a dispute that is likely to land in court.... On Saturday, senior administration officials said the White House's position was supported by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The office is preparing to publish a written opinion supporting the appointment soon, but has already confirmed verbally and through email that it complies with the law, the officials said.... But the OLC letter is not likely to end the tug-of-war over the leadership of [the] agency.... Democrats and consumer advocates say [Mick] Mulvaney's appointment is illegal and are calling on the Trump administration to allow English to serve until a permanent replacement is confirmed by the Senate."

*****

Turkey to Turkey -- Trump Gives Surprise Gift to Erdogan. Carol Morello & Erin Cunningham of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is preparing to stop supplying weapons to ethnic Kurdish fighters in Syria, the White House acknowledged Friday, a move reflecting renewed focus on furthering a political settlement to the civil war there and countering Iranian influence now that the Islamic State caliphate is largely vanquished. Word of the policy change long sought by neighboring Turkey came Friday, not from Washington but from Ankara. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters at a news conference that President Trump had pledged to stop arming the fighters, known as the YPG, during a phone call between Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.... Initially, the administration's national security team appeared surprised by the Turks' announcement and uncertain what to say about it. The State Department referred questions to the White House, and hours passed with no confirmation from the National Security Council. In late afternoon, the White House confirmed the weapons cutoff would happen, though it provided no details on timing." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: And what did Trump get out of this Thanksgiving Turkey? Now that's something Trump really does not want anyone to know, but you can bet "U.S. interests" don't figure in. Under normal circumstances, the NSC & State Department would not be "surprised" by a major shift in U.S. Middle East policy.

Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named 'Man (Person) of the Year,' like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway! -- Donald Trump, Friday afternoon tweet

The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year. TIME does not comment on our choice until publication, which is December 6. -- Time, less than 3 hours later, tweet

My Time cover is just as real as the one Trump had on display for years in several of his golf resorts. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Ryan Koronoski of ThinkProgress: "On Friday morning, following a terrifying attack at a mosque in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula that left an estimated 235 people dead..., Donald Trump reacted to the news by condemning the attackers and 'terrorism' in general on Twitter.... It was a straightforward response with no obvious policy under- or overreactions. However, about four hours later -- after golfing at his resort in Florida with Tiger Woods -- Trump returned to form.... 'Will be calling the President of Egypt in a short while to discuss the tragic terrorist attack, with so much loss of life,' he wrote. 'We have to get TOUGHER AND SMARTER than ever before, and we will. Need the WALL, need the BAN! God bless the people of Egypt.'... Experts say that implementing the so-called 'Muslim ban' is exactly what ISIS wants -- a recruitment tool and a reason to argue for the escalation of hostilities before their target audiences."

Victoria Guida of Politico: "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray on Friday appointed the agency's chief of staff, Leandra English, as the CFPB's deputy director, establishing her as his successor when he steps down at the end of the day. The move appears designed to thwart any move by ... Donald Trump to name another temporary official to head the controversial agency. Trump has been reported to be considering White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney for the role.... The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB, explicitly says the consumer bureau's deputy director shall "serve as acting Director in the absence or unavailability of the Director." ...

     ... Update. Gillian White of the Atlantic: "... after the Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin pointed out that the version of Dodd-Frank passed by the House had explicitly applied the Vacancies Act to the CFPB, and that the conference committee had stripped out that language, many legal scholars told The Intercept's David Dayen that they believed that control of the agency would pass to the deputy director.... By formally naming a deputy director on Friday, [Richard Cordray] strengthened the CFPB's hand in any ensuing legal battle for control of the agency. The Trump administration must now decide whether to simply allow [Leandra] English to become acting director, running the agency while it attempts to get a new nominee for director confirmed by the Senate, or whether it wishes to name its own acting director, a move that offer immediate control but would almost certainly wind up being challenged in court." ...

... ** UPDATE. Tara Bernard of the New York Times: "President Trump on Friday named his budget director as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, moving to take control of the agency hours after its departing leader had taken steps to install his own choice for acting chief. By the end of the night, an agency born of the financial meltdown -- and one Republicans have tried to kill from the start -- had dueling directors, and there was little sense of who actually would be in charge Monday morning. The bureaucratic standoff began Friday afternoon when Richard Cordray, the Obama-appointed leader of the bureau, abruptly announced he would leave the job at the close of business, a week earlier than anticipated. He followed up with a letter naming his chief of staff, Leandra English, as the agency's deputy director.... Under the law, he said, that appointment would make the new deputy director the agency's acting director. The move was seen as an effort to delay Mr. Trump from appointing his own director, whose confirmation could take months. The White House retaliated, saying that the budget director, Mick Mulvaney, who once characterized the consumer protection bureau as a 'sad, sick joke,' would be running the agency. He would also keep his current job as head of the Office of Management and Budget.... And what happens next is not entirely clear."

A Fine-Tuned Machine. Michelle Kosinski of CNN: "Days ahead of what should be a major moment for Ivanka Trump on the world stage, CNN has learned Secretary of State Rex Tillerson isn't sending a high-level delegation [to India] to support her [at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit] amid reports of tensions between Tillerson and the White House.... 'They (Tillerson and his staff) won't send someone senior because they don't want to bolster Ivanka. It's now another rift between the White House and State at a time when Rex Tillerson doesn't need any more problems with the President,' [a senior State Department] official [said].... 'Rex doesn't like the fact that he's supposed to be our nation's top diplomat, and Jared and now Ivanka have stepped all over Rex Tillerson for a long time," [a source closed to the White house ...] said.... The State Department puts on the large yearly event, which Secretary of State John Kerry and even President Obama attended multiple times." ...

... "A Disaster Waiting to Happen." Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "By last spring..., the guarded optimism that greeted [Rex Tillerson's] arrival [at the State Department] had given way to concern among diplomats about his aloofness and lack of communication. By the summer, the secretary's focus on efficiency and reorganization over policy provoked off-the-record anger. Now the estrangement is in the open, as diplomats going out the door make their feelings known and members of Congress raise questions about the impact of their leaving.... Mr. Tillerson has frozen most hiring and recently offered a $25,000 buyout in hopes of pushing nearly 2,000 career diplomats and civil servants to leave by October 2018. His small cadre of aides have fired some diplomats and gotten others to resign by refusing them the assignments they wanted or taking away their duties altogether. Among those fired or sidelined were most of the top African-American and Latino diplomats...."

Matt Zapotosky & Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "From his crackdown on illegal immigration to his reversal of Obama administration policies on criminal justice and policing, [AG Jeff] Sessions is methodically reshaping the Justice Department to reflect his nationalist ideology and hard-line views -- moves drawing comparatively less public scrutiny than the ongoing investigations into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin. Sessions has implemented a new charging and sentencing policy that calls for prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible, even if that might mean minority defendants face stiff, mandatory minimum penalties. He has defended the president's travel ban and tried to strip funding from cities with policies he considers too friendly toward undocumented immigrants. Sessions has even adjusted the department's legal stances in cases involving voting rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in a way that advocates warn might disenfranchise poor minorities and give certain religious people a license to discriminate."

Conway & Trump Greenlight Sex Abusers. Dana Milbank: "Washington could do something to give ... low-skill, low-wage women more power and workplace protections [from sexual harassers]. Instead, the White House, and in particular presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway, are sending the opposite message about women and those who prey on them.... President Trump excuses his support for the accused child molester by saying [Roy] Moore 'totally denies it,' a standard under which the late Charles Manson was also innocent. This is not a he-said/she-said case. It's a he-said/she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-and-others-corroboratecase. As a practical matter, there's little doubt Moore sexually exploited girls, yet the message from the White House is that such a man belongs in high office. That's a green light to millions of men who harass and abuse women -- and a caution to millions of women that they shouldn't complain about it."

Barbara McQuade in the Daily Beast: "If, in fact, [Michael] Flynn is cooperating with the special counsel], this development could be very significant for [Robert] Mueller's investigation. As a member of the foreign policy team on Trump's presidential campaign, he likely has information about any contacts with the Russian government by members of the campaign. Flynn may be able to provide the crucial links between all of the disparate pieces of evidence that have come to light to date -- the June 2016 meeting with Russians to obtain disparaging information about Hillary Clinton, the overtures for meetings with George Papadopoulos, the travels of Carter Page." ...

... Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "Michael Flynn has so much criminal exposure it's almost ridiculous, including things as potentially serious as conspiracy to kidnap, perjury, and obstruction of justice. He has to worry about those charges, plus a long list of problems with disclosure forms involving his lobbying work, background checks, and compliance with military rules and regulations. And he's reportedly worried that his son will wind up with a lengthy jail term, as well. To significantly reduce all that exposure, he's going to have to tell a pretty compelling story to Robert Mueller's prosecutors. It's true that plea negotiations could still break down, but they've almost certainly begun. The chances are now very high that Flynn will be testifying against the president of the United States and that his testimony will be the basis for a criminal referral of some sort to Congress from the office of the special counsel. This also has to be of concern to Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, because they're missing the chance to be the first cooperating witnesses, and are therefore losing the opportunity to reduce the amount of time they'll be spending in prison." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Paul Waldman: "... if Flynn is cooperating, it can only be because he has information to offer Mueller on someone more important than himself.... And who is more important than Flynn?... Among those implicated in this whole affair, that group may consist of Jared Kushner and Trump, and that's about it. Which means we may be getting closer to answering a question I've been asking for a long time: Why was President Trump so intensely focused on protecting Michael Flynn?... Flynn was supposedly fired because he lied to Vice President Pence about his contacts with Russian officials during the campaign and the transition.... This was always an odd explanation for the firing. Even more odd was the fact that immediately, President Trump began telling anyone who would listen what a great guy Michael Flynn is and how unfair the whole mess was to him." Emphasis added. ...

... digby: "I will speculate wildly here that I would be wondering if Trump didn't approve that 15 million dollar kidnapping plot.... This plot would easily be one that Trump and his crazy pal Flynn would think was very, very clever. Flynn had a vendetta against the Intelligence Community and Trump is a fucking moron. That's exactly the kind of thing they'd believe was a very excellent way to conduct foreign policy." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I thought the same thing when I read that Trump was calling Erdogan yesterday to "fix the mess in the Middle East" left to him by his predecessors. What he more likely was interested in fixing was the Turkish kidnapping caper, which would have been initiated by some of Erdogan's henchmen. ...

     ... AND since we're speculating, I'll speculate that the entire Trump presidency is an elaborate Putin plot. That is, Putin might have backed Trump from the git-go, even to the point of -- perhaps indirectly -- getting him to run in the first place. For one thing, I'll speculate that the Kremlin really does have the goods on Trump in some form or other; & for a second, Russia could scarcely find anyone who met the Constitutional requirements for U.S. president & who would more destabilize the country.

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. If you missed the Vox video on Sean Hannity, which safari posted yesterday, go back & take a look at it. It's both funny & appalling or, you know ... Sad!

Adam Gabbatt of the Guardian: "Activists will launch a last-ditch effort to prevent Donald Trump's tax bill from passing in the Senate on Monday, with scores of groups planning to lay siege to politicians' offices. Indivisible, the progressive group that aims to use Tea Party tactics to thwart the Republicans, has called for a day of action to stop the tax legislation, which the Senate is expected to vote on in the week after Thanksgiving. According to some estimates, the GOP bill would actually raise taxes on middle-class workers over the next decade, and leave 13 million more people without insurance. A different tax bill passed the House on 16 November.... Indivisible, which is made up of more than 6,000 groups nationwide, has called for people to target seven senators in particular who it believes could vote against the bill: John McCain, Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowsi, Susan Collins, Rob Portman, Shelley Moore Capito and Bob Corker." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: You can check this Indivisible page to see where some of the sponsored protests are. There's more info here. ...

... Matt Yglesias of Vox: "... according to a pair of new analyses by the Penn-Wharton Budget Project..., the Senate Republicans' tax bill would increase federal debt by more than advertised, and increased debt accumulation would counteract much -- or potentially all -- of the positive growth impact of tax cuts. The result will likely be lower incomes for the bottom half of the income distribution even before considering the negative impact of inevitable spending cuts to offset the surprisingly low federal tax intake." The lead analyst is veteran Republican budget & tax analyst Ken Smetters. "... the Senate GOP leadership wrote a bill that's designed to game the system with phase-ins and phase-outs, and Penn-Wharton thinks taxpayers will respond in kind -- gaming the gamed system, reducing federal revenue, and increasing the long-term deficit."

Jacques Billeaud of the AP: "A federal lawsuit set to go to trial next month marks the latest legal action brought against former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio over allegations that he pursued a trumped-up criminal case to get publicity and embarrass ... U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake. One of Flake's sons filed a malicious-prosecution lawsuit, saying Arpaio pursued felony animal cruelty charges against him and his then-wife in a bid to do political damage to the senator and gain publicity.... The lawsuit, which is scheduled for trial on Dec. 5, alleges that Arpaio was intent on linking the Flakes to the deaths [of 21 dogs], going so far as to conduct surveillance on the senator's home.... Lawyers for [the Senator's son] Austin Flake and his then-wife have said the senator disagreed with Arpaio over immigration and was critical of the movement questioning the authenticity of then-President Barack Obama's birth certificate. In a deposition, Arpaio didn't accept responsibility for bringing the charges against the couple and was unable to cite any evidence to support the allegations. But he still expressed confidence in his investigators."

Beyond the Beltway

In the Spirit of the Season. Carol Robinson of Al.com: "Shoppers getting an early start on Black Friday deals had their Thanksgiving trek to the Riverchase Galleria [in Hoover, a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama.] cut short when fights broke out in the mall." Mrs. McC: But no reported sightings of Roy Moore cruising for teenaged girls.

Denise Hollinshed of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The St. Louis Galleria closed for about a half hour Friday afternoon after seven people were arrested during a Black Friday protest. Among those arrested was state Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. The protesters arrived shortly after 2 p.m. at the shopping mall. They walked through chanting, 'Shut it down.' Some stores closed their doors and pulled down their security gates, in some cases trapping customers inside. A large police presence could be seen around the area. When police moved in to arrest one person, Franks questioned the officers and he was thrown to the floor and his hands tied behind back.... The protest was part of an economic boycott effort announced in early November by African-American clergy and activists over issues from police treatment of blacks to bank loan practices to infrastructure neglect in the northern part of St. Louis."

Way Beyond

Declan Walsh of the New York Times: "Islamist militants detonated explosives and sprayed gunfire at a crowded Sufi mosque near Egypt's Sinai coast on Friday, killing at least 235 people and wounding 109 more, in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in the country's modern history." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)