The Commentariat -- October 28, 2017

Trump Scandal Bonanza:

Pamela Brown, et al., of CNN: "A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter. The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are. A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment." ...

... Sharon LaFraniere & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "Natalia V. Veselnitskaya arrived at a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 hoping to interest top Trump campaign officials in the contents of a memo she believed contained information damaging to the Democratic Party and, by extension, Hillary Clinton. The material was the fruit of her research as a private lawyer, she has repeatedly said.... But interviews and records show that in the months before the meeting, Ms. Veselnitskaya had discussed the allegations with one of Russia's most powerful officials, the prosecutor general Yuri Y. Chaika. And the memo she brought with her closely followed a document that Mr. Chaika's office had given to an American congressman two months earlier, incorporating some paragraphs verbatim. The coordination between the Trump Tower visitor and the Russian prosecutor general undercuts Ms. Veselnitskaya's account that she was a purely independent actor when she sat down with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner ... and Paul J. Manafort, then the Trump campaign chairman. It also suggests that emails from an intermediary to the younger Mr. Trump promising that Ms. Veselnitskaya would arrive with information from Russian prosecutors were rooted at least partly in fact -- not mere 'puffery,' as the president's son later said." ...

... Brandon Carter of the Hill: "A top donor to President Trump's 2016 election effort asked the campaign's data firm if it could help organize hacked emails released by WikiLeaks on Hillary Clinton, according to a new report. A source familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that Rebekah Mercer, a billionaire supporter of Trump, exchanged emails with Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix about the hacked emails." Mrs. McC: I'd have such a sad if a right-wing billionaire babe would up in jail for consorting with the enemy in a criminal enterprise. ...

... Ken Vogel & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor [-- hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer --] was the first to hire the firm that conducted opposition research on Donald J. Trump -- including a salacious dossier describing ties between Mr. Trump and the Russian government -- website representatives told the House Intelligence Committee on Friday. According to people briefed on the conversation, the website hired the firm, Fusion GPS, in October 2015 to unearth damaging information about several Republican presidential candidates, including Mr. Trump. But The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination. In April 2016, Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee also retained Fusion GPS to research any possible connections between Mr. Trump, his businesses, his campaign team and Russia.... The Free Beacon has a history of employing so-called opposition research firms to assist in news articles critical of targets ranging from Mr. Trump to Mrs. Clinton." ...

     ... Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: "The Washington Free Beacon disclosed in congressional testimony on Friday that it is the mysterious client that initially paid for opposition research on Donald Trump performed by Fusion GPS, the firm that later worked with a former British spy to produce a dossier of claims about ties between Trump and Russia. Just three days earlier, the Free Beacon, a conservative news site founded in 2012, told its readers that before Democrats hired Fusion GPS in April 2016, the firm's work “was funded by an unknown GOP client while the primary was still going on.... President Trump and his allies have sought to cast Fusion GPS as a shadowy, illegitimate outfit that produced a 'fake' dossier. And the Free Beacon this week has published such characterizations unchallenged -- without noting that it considered Fusion GPS reliable enough to pay for its services." ...

... Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "When Marc Elias, general counsel for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, hired a private research firm in the spring of 2016 to investigate Donald Trump, he drew from funds he was authorized to spend without oversight by campaign officials, according to a spokesperson for his law firm. The firm hired by Elias, Fusion GPS, produced research that resulted a dossier detailing alleged connections between Trump and Russia. While the funding for the work came from the campaign and the Democratic National Committee, Elias kept the information about the investigation closely held.... It is unclear who else was familiar with the arrangement [between Elias & Fusion GPS], or who knew that Fusion GPS hired a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, who wrote the dossier. Clinton has not responded to requests for comment. A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), who was DNC chairwoman at the time Perkins Coie contracted with Fusion GPS, said the former chair was 'not aware' of the law firm's arrangement with Fusion.... Clinton campaign officials who said they were not aware of Elias's arrangement with the firm defended his decision to tap its resources.... Elias himself did not receive the dossier but was briefed on some of the information in it, according to his firm's spokesperson."

... Gloria Borger, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump has made it clear to the State Department that he wants to accelerate the release of any remaining Hillary Clinton emails in its possession as soon as possible, according to three sources familiar with the President's thinking. This latest move for disclosure from the State Department comes at the same time the President called upon the Justice Department to lift a gag order on a key FBI informant in an investigation into Russian efforts to gain influence in the US uranium industry during the Obama administration. The sources described the President's interest in the release of the emails -- and the testimony of the FBI informant -- as rooted in a commitment to 'transparency.'... Taken together, these two actions could accelerate recent efforts by congressional Republicans to investigate the previous administration -- new probes that they've opened as multiple Russia investigations into the Trump campaign continue on Capitol Hill." ...

... Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "... Donald Trump alleged Friday that Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia.... 'It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump,' the president wrote Friday morning. 'Was collusion with HC!' Republican lawmakers are nearing the end of their probes into Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election, though it remains unclear whether they're close to concluding whether Trump associates colluded with Russians. The congressional panels plan to complete their probes by February." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Callum Borchers: "President Trump says Russia's 2010 acquisition of American uranium, approved by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and eight other agency heads, is 'Watergate, modern-age.' 'This is equivalent to what the Rosenbergs did, and those people got the chair,' former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka said on Sean Hannity's Fox News show Thursday night. Hannity has dubbed the uranium deal 'the biggest scandal -- or, at least, one of them -- in American history.' Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said on CNN Friday morning that 'it's exactly what people hate about corruption and politicians and the swamp.'... The argument relies on spectacular oversimplification.... Critics are free to second-guess the [decision], but the fact that every other involved agency made the same determination as Clinton's State Department undercuts the notion that her vote was bought -- unless, of course, everybody was in Russia's pocket. That really would be one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Brian Beutler: "This week, House Republicans launched two joint investigations, spanning three congressional committees, aimed at sowing confusion about the nature of Russian influence over last year's election. This isn't liberal gloss on a series of news developments that muddy a clean scandal ensnaring ... Donald Trump. Rather, it describes a documentable, partisan effort to use the levers of government to confuse the public about a foreign conspiracy -- the subject of a federal criminal investigation -- to bolster ... Donald Trump's campaign and sabotage his rivals.... The purpose of the propaganda has changed from defaming Hillary Clinton to blurring the truth about Russia's subversion of the election, but the underlying content is the same. The facts of the matter are all out in the open, as are the ways and reasons the right manipulated those facts and has now returned to them a year later. But the press, once bitten, hasn't yet learned to be shy." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post (October 24) has the sordid details -- of the fake accusations against & phony "investigations" of Clinton. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Huh. Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney from Virginia who gained national prominence when he took a temporary leading role in President Trump's Justice Department, has submitted his resignation. He plans to serve until a successor is confirmed.... Boente, a 33-year veteran of the Justice Department, was tapped earlier this year to serve as acting attorney general after Sally Yates was fired. He went on to serve as acting deputy attorney general. He is serving as acting assistant attorney general of the National Security Division and will remain in that post until John C. Demers, an attorney for Boeing who worked at the Justice Department under President George W. Bush, is confirmed."

Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: President Trump "is conducting the most dramatic and drawn-out search for a Federal Reserve chairman in the long history of the stolid institution. Mr. Trump is very publicly deliberating between two candidates with strikingly different views about the practice and purpose of monetary policy: Jerome H. Powell, a Fed governor who has voted in favor of every Fed policy decision since 2012, and John B. Taylor, a Stanford economist who is among the Fed's most vocal critics. The president also continues to insist that he could decide to renominate the Fed's chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, whose four-year term ends in February." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Jonathan Blitzer of the New Yorker has more on the Trump administration's attempts to deprive women of their Constitutional right to have an abortion. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Was He Lying Then or Is He Lying Now? Ella Nilsen of Vox: Sarah Sanders "is sticking by the president's assertion that the multiple women who have accused him of sexual assault and harassment over the years are lying.... On a recording taped in 2005, Trump admitted to kissing and groping women without their consent: 'I just start kissing them -- it's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy.' But Sanders's flat denial echoed one Trump made during a press conference in the Rose Garden last week, when he called the allegations 'totally fake news' and 'made-up stuff.'" ...

... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "While the president dismisses this as 'fake news,' the problem for the White House is that some of these women have produced witnesses who say they heard about the incident at the time -- long before Trump made his political aspirations known."

Mark Halperin Is Seriously Creepy. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "Two days after CNN first reported that five women said 'Game Change' co-author and journalist Mark Halperin sexually harassed or assaulted them during his time at ABC News, the number of accusers has grown to at least a dozen women, including four who are now sharing their accounts for the first time. Another woman, who shared her account in CNN's initial article on the condition her name not be published, is now speaking out on the record. The new accusations from the four women include that Halperin masturbated in front of an ABC News employee in his office and that he violently threw another woman against a restaurant window before attempting to kiss her, and that after she rebuffed him he called her and told her she would never work in politics or media. The alleged incidents occurred while Halperin was in a position of significant authority at ABC News, while the women were young and had little power." ...

Andrew Kirell & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: " Halperin's apparently fake interest in young women's careers and very real interest in getting in their pants also extended to undergraduate students he was supposed to be enlightening.While the star pundit issued a contrite statement Friday evening claiming the misconduct ended after he left ABC News, one woman recounted to The Daily Beast a particularly uncomfortable run-in with Halperin at her alma mater in February 2011 -- years after Halperin left ABC. Katharine Glenn was then a student at Tulane University when she was a 20-year-old junior.... [Glenn allegests that a dinner party held in conjunction with his appearance at Tulane, Halperin put his hand on her upper thigh & invited her to his hotel room to 'discuss her career.'] According to two sources who were present at the time, Halperin made such inappropriate overtures to at least two female students during his swing through Tulane -- not just Glenn. In one instance, an adjunct professor .. 'intervened,' as one ex-student described, while Halperin was making unwanted advances towards a female student." ...

... ** Dana Milbank confesses his self-serving ignorance of the sexual harassment going on around him when he worked at the New Republic's boys' club. Marie: No point in coming down on Milbank. Millions of men & women -- including victims (#MeToo) -- have kept quiet, even when they were fully aware of a grossly hostile work environment. CBS News fired me when I objected, not to CBS management, but to the aggressor -- when he closed the door to his office & pulled out his penis. My harasser "told on me" to the network, & a woman from the network came to my office & fired me. When I told her what happened, she nodded & said she understood but, "You can't upset the talent." I learned my lesson, & when a male employee tried to rape me at my next job at ABC network, I escaped with help from another male employee. Neither of us told. Hostile work environment? They were all hostile when I was young. All of them.

Deficit Hawks Gone Extinct. Niv Elis of the Hill: "The GOP's tax plan would cause revenue to drop between $2.4 trillion and $2.5 trillion over the course of a decade, even after economic growth is taken into account, according to an analysis from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center." Update: See safari's comment below.

Senator Mitt? McKay Coppins of the Atlantic: "Senator Orrin Hatch has privately told allies in Utah that he is planning to retire at the end of his term next year, and if he does, Mitt Romney intends to run for his seat, according to five sources familiar with the situation."

Tim Egan: "We are retreating to our tribal, ethnic and primitively prejudicial quarters. Everything is about race and identity. We come from privilege, or oppression. We choose politicians based on whether they help our tribe or hurt People Like Us. This is President Trump's legacy. He has shattered the idea, eloquently expressed by President Barack Obama, that we are not 'irrevocably bound to a tragic past.' In the Trump era, we are neck-deep in that tragic past.... Trump opened the door to overt expressions of hatred."

Steve Schmadeke of the Chicago Tribune: "Former President Barack Obama has been called for Cook County jury duty -- and plans to serve next month, the county's chief judge said Friday. Chief Judge Tim Evans told county commissioners during a budget hearing that Obama, who owns homes in Washington, D.C., and Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood, will serve next month."

Beyond the Beltway

AND Justice for All. The South Is Still Officially the Confederacy: Radley Balko of the Washington Post reports on a horrifying story of the Mississippi "justice system": a judge took the infant child of a young mother of color from her & ordered that the mother have no visitation rights because she had "abandoned" her child when she was incarcerated for nonpayment of minor fines after a car in which she & the newborn were passengers (the baby was in a carseat) in a car stopped for a traffic violation. The MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi intervened on behalf of the mother. "The good news is that the judge has now resigned and the youth court in Pearl, Miss., has been closed. But this clearly goes beyond a single judge. A police officer detained someone, causing her to be separated from her newborn, over unpaid misdemeanors. The officer then claimed she had abandoned the baby, despite the fact that it was the officer's actions, not hers, that left the child without a parent." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond

Raphael Minder & Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "In a major escalation of Spain's territorial conflict, the Spanish Senate on Friday authorized the government to take direct control of the fractious region of Catalonia, just after Catalan lawmakers declared the region's independence. The dueling actions set up a potential showdown over the weekend, as Spain careened into its greatest constitutional crisis since it embraced democracy in 1978. The Senate voted 214 to 47 to invoke Article 155 of Spain's Constitution, granting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy a package of extraordinary powers to suppress Catalonia's independence drive. The measure will go into effect after it is published in the government register, which is expected to happen Friday night."

The Commentariat -- October 27, 2017

Afternoon Update:

Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: President Trump "is conducting the most dramatic and drawn-out search for a Federal Reserve chairman in the long history of the stolid institution.Mr. Trump is very publicly deliberating between two candidates with strikingly different views about the practice and purpose of monetary policy: Jerome H. Powell, a Fed governor who has voted in favor of every Fed policy decision since 2012, and John B. Taylor, a Stanford economist who is among the Fed's most vocal critics. The president also continues to insist that he could decide to renominate the Fed's chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, whose four-year term ends in February."

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "... Donald Trump alleged Friday that Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia.... 'It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump,' the president wrote Friday morning. 'Was collusion with HC!' Republican lawmakers are nearing the end of their probes into Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election, though it remains unclear whether they're close to concluding whether Trump associates colluded with Russians. The congressional panels plan to complete their probes by February." ...

... Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: "President Trump says Russia's 2010 acquisition of American uranium, approved by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and eight other agency heads, is 'Watergate, modern-age.' 'This is equivalent to what the Rosenbergs did, and those people got the chair,' former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka said on Sean Hannity's Fox News show Thursday night. Hannity has dubbed the uranium deal 'the biggest scandal -- or, at least, one of them -- in American history.' Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said on CNN Friday morning that 'it's exactly what people hate about corruption and politicians and the swamp.'... The argument relies on spectacular oversimplification.... Critics are free to second-guess the [decision], but the fact that every other involved agency made the same determination as Clinton's State Department undercuts the notion that her vote was bought -- unless, of course, everybody was in Russia's pocket. That really would be one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history." ...

... Brian Beutler: "This week, House Republicans launched two joint investigations, spanning three congressional committees, aimed at sowing confusion about the nature of Russian influence over last year's election. This isn't liberal gloss on a series of news developments that muddy a clean scandal ensnaring ... Donald Trump. Rather, it describes a documentable, partisan effort to use the levers of government to confuse the public about a foreign conspiracy -- the subject of a federal criminal investigation -- to bolster ... Donald Trump's campaign and sabotage his rivals.... The purpose of the propaganda has changed from defaming Hillary Clinton to blurring the truth about Russia's subversion of the election, but the underlying content is the same. The facts of the matter are all out in the open, as are the ways and reasons the right manipulated those facts and has now returned to them a year later. But the press, once bitten, hasn't yet learned to be shy." ...

     ... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post (October 24) has the sordid details -- of the fake accusations against & phony "investigations" of Clinton.

** Jonathan Blitzer of the New Yorker has more on the Trump administration's attempts to deprive women of their Constitutional right to have an abortion.

Raphael Minder & Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "In a major escalation of Spain's territorial conflict, the Spanish Senate on Friday authorized the government to take direct control of the fractious region of Catalonia, just after Catalan lawmakers declared the region's independence. The dueling actions set up a potential showdown over the weekend, as Spain careened into its greatest constitutional crisis since it embraced democracy in 1978. The Senate voted 214 to 47 to invoke Article 155 of Spain's Constitution, granting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy a package of extraordinary powers to suppress Catalonia's independence drive. The measure will go into effect after it is published in the government register, which is expected to happen Friday night."

AND Justice for All. The South Is Still Officially the Confederacy: Radley Balko of the Washington Post reports on a horrifying story of the Mississippi "justice system": a judge took the infant child of a young mother of color from her & ordered that the mother have no visitation rights because she had "abandoned" her child when she was incarcerated for nonpayment of minor fines after a car in which she & the newborn were passengers (the baby was in a carseat) in a car stopped for a traffic violation. The MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi intervened on behalf of the mother. "The good news is that the judge has now resigned and the youth court in Pearl, Miss., has been closed. But this clearly goes beyond a single judge. A police officer detained someone, causing her to be separated from her newborn, over unpaid misdemeanors. The officer then claimed she had abandoned the baby, despite the fact that it was the officer's actions, not hers, that left the child without a parent."

*****

Thomas Gibbons-Neff & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "In the chaotic moments after an Army Special Forces team and 30 Nigerien troops were ambushed by militants in a remote corner of West Africa three weeks ago, four of the Americans were separated from the larger group. Their squad mates immediately alerted commanders that they were under attack -- then called for help nearly an hour later, as a top Pentagon official said this week -- and ground forces from Niger's army and French Mirage jets were both dispatched. About two hours later, the firefight tapering off, French helicopters from nearby Mali swooped in to the rescue on the rolling wooded terrain. But they retrieved only seven of the 11 Americans. The four others were inexplicably left behind, no longer in radio contact and initially considered missing in action by the Pentagon, a status that officials say raises the possibility they were still alive when the helicopters took off without them."

Situation Normal, All Fucked Up

... the knuckleheads are running the show. -- Former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), in an interview...

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Two and a half months ago, President Trump said he was going to declare the opioid crisis a 'national emergency.' Then, for a long time, he didn't. Last week, he again said that he was about to declare it a 'national emergency,' and then he reiterated that was his plan this week. He's still not going to do it -- not really. Trump [has declared] the opioid crisis a 'public health emergency' Thursday, rather than a 'national emergency.'... As the New York Times notes, a 'national emergency' would have 'triggered the rapid allocation of federal funding to address the issue.' A public health emergency does not do that by itself. Several experts on the opioid crisis are bashing the move as a half-measure, NPR reports. In contrast, other public health officials, including some who served in the Obama administration, are arguing that the 'public health emergency' is indeed a better fit. Whatever the motivation for the scaled-back response, though, let's be clear: The president did repeatedly promise to make the crisis a 'national emergency,' using those specific words." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I suppose it's impossible to know whether Trump changed the designation to weasel out of another promise or he got rolled by some staffer & doesn't know the difference between the two designations -- the one he promised & the one he delivered. ...

... "Drugs Are Bad." Lila Thulin of Slate: "Unfortunately, Trump didn't seem to have many ideas for how to deal with the problem's complexity himself (the opioid commission he established months ago is set to present more details next week). The most specific his speech got was when he advocated for spending more money on educating youth to flat-out refuse drugs -- an approach that's been shown to be ineffective.... the most clearly articulated proposal bore a striking resemblance to Nancy Reagan's 'Just Say No' campaign -- Trump promised a 'massive advertising campaign to get people, especially children, not to take drugs in the first place.'... Trump echoed the sort of simplistic approach these programs apply to drug use in his speech, saying, 'There is nothing desirable about drugs; they're bad.'" ...

... Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "In early September..., former Fox News host Eric Bolling ... wrote that his only child, 19-year-old Eric Chase Bolling, had died, with 'details still unclear' but authorities saying there was 'no sign of self harm.' On Thursday, Bolling shared that he had 'just received some tragic news from Coroner in Colorado' -- that his son's death had been ruled an accidental overdose 'that included opioids.'... The official cause of death was mixed drug intoxication, including cocaine and fentanyl, according to the Boulder County Coroner. The death was ruled an accident, the coroner's office said. Bolling's news came on the same day that President Trump called the opioid epidemic the 'worst drug crisis in American history' and said his administration was declaring a public health emergency."

Ben Siegel & Conor Finnegan of ABC News: "The Trump administration broke its silence on new Russia sanctions Thursday, sending to Capitol Hill a list of Russian entities that it will sanction individuals for doing business with, following a four-week delay that infuriated senior members of Congress.... Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ben Cardin, D-Md. -- top Republican and Democratic senators on foreign policy who called out the administration for the delays in a letter earlier this month -- welcomed the move as [a] 'step in the right direction toward holding Russia accountable for its attack on our election.'" ...

... Bill Palmer of the Palmer Report: "Of all the various scandals that have now enveloped Donald Trump, his refusal to implement Russian sanctions has put him the most directly at odds with his own party in Congress. The sanctions bill passed almost unanimously, and Trump only reluctantly signed it because his veto would have been overridden anyway.... After the Russia sanctions bill passed, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson scrapped the office at the State Department that would have been responsible for implementing the sanctions, according to a new Foreign Policy report (link). The move preemptively made it all but impossible for the Trump administration to move forward with the sanctions against Russia -- which of course was the entire point. Based on the timing, it's clear this was purposely done to undermine the sanctions bill. Moreover, it's impossible to envision Tillerson having made this move unless Donald Trump signed off on it. This means Trump has once again gone to extraordinary lengths to try to protect Russia from sanctions." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Time for inquiries from Congress & the special counsel.

Ian Shapira, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump delayed on Thursday evening the release of thousands of pages of classified documents related to the John F. Kennedy assassination, bowing to pressure from the CIA, FBI and other federal agencies still seeking to keep some final secrets about the nearly 54-year-old investigation. The president allowed the immediate release of 2,800 records by the National Archives, following a last-minute scramble to meet a 25-year legal deadline. Following lobbying by national security officials, the remaining documents will be reviewed during a 180-day period.... The government was facing a Thursday deadline for disclosing the records, and Trump had tweeted twice that the documents would be made public.... David L. Boren, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee who co-sponsored the records release law, said in a statement Thursday to The Post: 'It was my intention that all documents be released in unredacted form except for in the most rare, exceptional circumstances involving current and continuing national security concerns.'" ...

... Michael Miller of the Washington Post: "More than a dozen reporters and editors for The Washington Post combed through the documents on Thursday night. Here are some of the wildest things they found, some of which have been reported about before and some new."

Taking from the U.S.'s Poor to Give to Rich Foreigners. Paul Krugman: "Why is Donald Trump planning to give away $700 billion -- that's billion, with a 'b' -- to foreigners, no strings attached? You probably didn't know that he's planning to do this. In fact, he himself almost surely has no idea that he's planning to do this. But it would be one clearly predictable consequence of the tax 'reform' he and his congressional allies are trying to pass.... The benefits from cutting corporate taxes would overwhelmingly flow into after-tax profits rather than wages, especially in the first few years and probably for a decade or more. And this in turn means that the main beneficiaries would be stockholders, not workers.... Around 35 percent of a tax cut from an administration that proudly uses the slogan 'America first' -- $700 billion over the next decade -- wouldn't even go to Americans. Instead, it would be a windfall to wealthy foreigners...."

Louis du Trump. Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News: "... Donald Trump's administration is spending $1.75 million on furniture for the White House and offices tied to it, according to government records.... The sum, since the inauguration, is slightly larger than the roughly $1.5 million spent by Barack Obama over a similar period of time in his administration. Obama made a point of paying for some White House furnishings out-of-pocket. It's unclear if Trump has done the same.... Still, some of the expenditures hint at possible use in the residential mansion."

Manu Raju & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta and former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz both privately denied to congressional Russia investigators that they had any knowledge about an arrangement to pay for opposition research on ... Donald Trump, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN.... Sitting next to Podesta during the interview: his attorney Marc Elias, who worked for the law firm that hired Fusion GPS to continue research on Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC, multiple sources said. Elias was only there in his capacity as Podesta's attorney and not as a witness.... On Tuesday, that law firm, Perkins Coie, wrote in a letter that ... suggested its clients -- the Clinton campaign and the DNC -- did not learn about the matter until recently.... The interviews happened before this week's disclosure that the Clinton campaign and DNC paid for the research. Senate investigators may seek to further question the two top Democrats and dig deeper on the origins of the so-called Trump dossier, one of the sources briefed on the matter said. Their remarks to congressional investigators raise the stakes in their assertion that they knew nothing about the funding because it's against the law to make false statements to Congress." ...

... Scott Wong of the Hill: "The FBI has pledged to hand over documents related to a controversial dossier linking President Trump to Russia, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Thursday. The House Intelligence Committee has been seeking the documents for months, hoping to learn more about the bureau's relationship to the dossier's author, a former British spy named Christopher Steele, and whether the document was used by federal investigators to bolster their probe into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in August had issued two subpoenas to compel the FBI and Justice Department to turn over the documents. He set a Friday deadline for them to comply. 'The FBI got in touch with us yesterday afternoon, and they have informed us that they will comply with our document requests, and that they will provide the documents Congress has been asking for by next week,' Ryan said at his weekly news conference." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Nunes won't get the answers he wants -- like, It's all Hillary's fault -- but that's okay, because he'll make up something.

... Robert Litt in LawFare on the "(Ir)relevance of the Trump 'Dossier'": "The dossier itself played absolutely no role in the coordinated intelligence assessment that Russia interfered in our election. That assessment, which was released in unclassified form in January but which contained much more detail in the classified version that has been briefed to Congress, was based entirely on other sources and analysis."

FEMA's Suddenly-Secret Disaster Plan for Puerto Rico. Justin Elliott & Decca Muldowney of ProPublica: "The Federal Emergency Management Agency, citing unspecified 'potentially sensitive information,' is declining to release a document it drafted several years ago that details how it would respond to a major hurricane in Puerto Rico. The plan, known as a hurricane annex, runs more than 100 pages and explains exactly what FEMA and other agencies would do in the event that a large storm struck the island. The document could help experts assess both how well the federal government had prepared for a storm the size of Hurricane Maria and whether FEMA's response matches what was planned. The agency began drafting such advance plans after it was excoriated for poor performance and lack of preparation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.... After FEMA declined to release the Puerto Rico hurricane plan, we found the agency's equivalent plan for Hawaii posted, unredacted, on the internet by the Department of Defense."

All the Best People. Trump Picks Texas Secessionist-y Gal for Top Post. Andrew Kaczynski & Nathan McDermott of CNN: "... Donald Trump's nominee to be White House senior adviser [Kathleen Hartnett White] for environmental policy wrote an essay in 1995 in which she argued that because of federal overreach, including environmental regulations, Texas would be better off as an independent republic.

All the Best People, Ctd. Eleanor Roy & Julian Borger of the Guardian: Scott Brown, the newly-minted U.S. ambassador to New Zealand & official U.S. representative to Samoa, flew with his wife, Gail Huff, in July to attend a party in Apia, Samoa, which was supposed to be a celebration of 50 years of the peace corps in the country. "But something went wrong that night. As one attendee describes it, something was 'off', and the party has been at the centre of a US state department investigation over the ambassador's conduct towards two women [who are Peace Corps volunteers].... the Guardian has, over the past two months, spoken to multiple witnesses who attended the party who claim the behaviour of the ambassador -- the first appointed by ... Donald Trump -- was worse than he has admitted.... In addition to these complaints are others that the ambassador's behaviour was 'shocking', 'culturally insensitive', 'rude' and 'undiplomatic'." According to attendees, Brown ogled the women & repeatedly shouted for everybody to shut up & listen to him. "following the publication of this story the US state department issued a statement, which can be read in full here. It said: 'Senior leadership at the state department has been in contact with Ambassador Brown and he has been counselled on standards of conduct for government employees, which also includes ambassadors.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Our Most Handsome Ambassador, who was Trump's first ambassadorial appointee as well as the inventor of Covfefe (which Scottie spells "Bqhatevwr," behaved in just the way we would expect Trump to act on a visit to Samoa. Scottie is a perfect ambassador for Trump. ...

... All the Best People, Ctd. Rachel Siegel: "Long before he became the head of a federal office for resettling refugees, E. Scott Lloyd built a career as a champion of religious values, holding strong antiabortion views that have now thrust him into the center of a national controversy.... [In his official capacity,] Lloyd has personally intervened to try to persuade unaccompanied minor girls not to have abortions, according to an HHS official. Recently, the Trump appointee played a prominent role in impeding a detained undocumented teenager from obtaining an abortion, prompting a lawsuit in federal court. Last week, HHS -- which is responsible for caring for detained unaccompanied minors -- said 'there is no constitutional right' for an immigrant minor to have an elective abortion while in federal custody.... Early Wednesday, the teenager identified as 'Jane Doe' terminated her pregnancy after an appeals court ruling in her favor. The abortion ended the girl's individual court challenge in a case that drew widespread attention and evoked the incendiary issues of abortion rights and illegal immigration. But the broader legal battle over whether the federal government may continue to dissuade, and even block, undocumented teens in its custody from having abortions is still pending in U.S. District Court in Washington."

** A Law unto Themselves. Michelle Lee & Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "Congress makes its own rules about the handling of sexual complaints against members and staff, passing laws exempting it from practices that apply to other employers. The result is a culture in which some lawmakers suspect harassment is rampant. Yet victims are unlikely to come forward, according to attorneys who represent them.... [A] complaint [from an intern] likely would [be] thrown out because interns have limited harassment protections under the unique employment law that Congress applies to itself. Under a law in place since 1995, accusers may file lawsuits only if they first agree to go through months of counseling and mediation. A special congressional office is charged with trying to resolve the cases out of court. When settlements do occur, members do not pay them from their own office funds, a requirement in other federal agencies. Instead, the confidential payments come out of a special U.S. Treasury fund. Congressional employees have received small settlements compared to the amounts some public figures pay out."

Andrew Kirell & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "The morning after five women accused veteran journalist Mark Halperin of sexual harassment while he was in a powerful position at ABC News, two more women came forward with their own allegations.... According to numerous sources at NBC, MSNBC, ABC, and Bloomberg -- who previously spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity ... -- the private allegations of Halperin's sexual misconduct were an open secret, particularly in New York City and D.C. political media, for many years.... The allegations have already taken a heavy toll on Halperin's career, as he was forced to leave his job as a senior political analyst at NBC News and MSNBC for the time being at least.... Furthermore, HBO decided on Thursday not to collaborate with Halperin on a planned miniseries based on his upcoming Game Change sequel about the 2016 presidential election."

It's in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present. -- Charles Dickens in David Copperfield ...

I hope all these stories that women are finally sharing about their experiences will begin to effect change. -- Christina Kline, on why she is sharing her story ...

... Ass-Grabber-in-Chief. Christina Kline, in Slate, is the third woman to accuse former President George H.W. Bush of a "hard" "butt-grab" during a photo op. He simultaneously told Kline, a writer, that his own favorite book was "David Cop-a-feel." "After the photo op..., a woman who introduced herself as a friend of the Bush family was waiting to drive [my husband and me] back to the hotel. Once we were on our way, I told David [the husband] what had happened. I was still so surprised that it didn't occur to me to keep it secret. His mouth fell open.... Our driver [said]..., 'I do trust you will be ... discreet.'..." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The press has showed little interest in ole Poppy's literary interpretations. Now imagine if the ex-Prez who was doing the Dickensian ass-grabbing were named Barack Obama.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. A Tale of Two Sex Abusers, One Largely Untold. David Bauder of the AP: "Fox has devoted more than 12½ hours of airtime to [liberal-causes donor Harvey] Weinstein since Oct. 5, when The New York Times broke the story about his misconduct, according to the liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America. By contrast, Fox has spent 20 minutes, 46 seconds, on the accusations against [former Fox star Bill] O'Reilly since the Times revealed many of them in April, the group said."

Beyond the Beltway

Christine Mai-Duc & Sarah Wire of the Los Angeles Times: "A vehicle drove into a group of protesters outside of GOP Rep. Ed Royce's office in Brea on Thursday afternoon, but no injuries have been reported to police so far. The alleged driver, 56-year-old Daniel Wenzek of Brea, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. He was booked and released pending further investigation, according to Lt. Kelly Carpenter of the Brea Police Department."

**Frank Bajak of the AP: "A computer server crucial to a lawsuit against Georgia election officials was quietly wiped clean by its custodians just after the suit was filed.... The server in question, which served as a statewide staging location for key election-related data, made national headlines in June after a security expert disclosed a gaping security hole that wasn't fixed six months after he reported it to election authorities.... The Kennesaw elections center answers to Georgia's secretary of state, Brian Kemp, a Republican running for governor in 2018 and the suit's main defendant.... The server data could have revealed whether Georgia's most recent elections were compromised by hackers. The plaintiffs contend results of both last November's election and a special June 20 congressional runoff -- won by Kemp's predecessor, Karen Handel -- cannot be trusted." Read on. --safari: The fact that these kind of actions will go overlooked and forgotten points to a serious rot at the core of our democracy.

News Lede

New York Times: "... the American economy grew at a solid pace in the latest quarter despite the impact of the hurricanes in Texas and Florida. The nation's gross domestic product, a key indicator of economic strength, expanded at an annual rate of 3 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported on Friday. Economists initially expected that Hurricanes Harvey and Irma would deal a blow to the country's steady growth, but became more optimistic in recent weeks."

The Commentariat -- October 26, 2017

Late Morning Update:

Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "House Republicans passed budget legislation Thursday morning, narrowly overcoming internal dissension and Democratic opposition to clear a major obstacle in the GOP;s quest to pass large-scale tax cuts. The budget legislation authorizes special procedures that will allow Republicans to reduce federal revenues over the coming decade by as much as $1.5 trillion without Democratic help. The bill passed by a vote count of 216 to 212. No Democrats voted for the budget Thursday, nor did 20 Republicans. A key holdout bloc consisted of Republican lawmakers from states with high local tax burdens...."

Trump cites as proof that he has good manners his attendance at "an Ivy League school" half a century ago. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: And I am prettier than anybody because I went to a Big Ten school half a century ago. Also too, all college boys are polite young gentlemen & all Wisconsin co-eds are knock-outs. Update: as Jeanne has pointed out, she is just as pretty as I am.

Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Trump on Thursday will announce he is directing his Department of Health and Human Services to declare the opioid crisis a public health emergency, senior administration officials said, taking long-anticipated action to address a rapidly escalating epidemic of drug use in the United States. The move falls short of Mr. Trump's sweeping promise to declare a national emergency on opioids, which would have triggered the rapid allocation of federal funding to address the issue, and does not on its own release any money to deal with the drug abuse that claimed more than 59,000 lives in 2016. But it would allow some grant money to be used for a broad array of efforts to combat opioid abuse, and would ease certain laws and regulations to address it."

Well, Of Course He Did. Kelsey Tamborrino of Politico: "... Donald Trump raised the removal of Confederate statues and memorials on Thursday while touting his support for Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie. 'Ed Gillespie will turn the really bad Virginia economy #'s around, and fast. Strong on crime, he might even save our great statues/heritage!' Trump tweeted on Thursday."

Samantha Schmidt of the Washington Post: "Five women have come forward with allegations that Mark Halperin, one of the country's most prominent political journalists, sexually harassed them during his time at ABC News, according to a CNN report. Halperin, who has been a high-profile analyst for NBC News, often appearing on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' program, is co-author of 'Game Change,' the best-selling book about the 2008 presidential campaign of John McCain. He formerly hosted a Bloomberg TV show called 'With All Due Respect.' Early Thursday, NBC News said in a statement: 'Mark Halperin is leaving his role as a contributor until the questions around his past conduct are fully understood,' the network reported. On 'Morning Joe,' Mika Brzezinski said: 'We are going to be following this story as it develops I'm sure we are going to be talking about it again when we know more about it.'' Mrs. McC: Don't worry; even without Halperin, the "Morning Joe" show will still be insufferable.

*****

** The Weak President. Elizabeth Drew in the New Republic: At his rallies, presidential candidate Donald Trump excited his most avid supporters through displays of toughness.... And then ,,, Trump not only didn't have an alternative to Obamacare ready on his first day in office, he never offered one. Moreover, when House Republicans presented to him their own ideas about what should be in the health care bill, they found him to be an easy mark.... He keeps telling us what a fine mind he has, but if so he seems loath to exercise it much.... And then, when it came to major substantive questions -- whether to stick with the Iran deal, how to resolve the status of undocumented immigrants who came into the country as children, and, most recently, how far to go in smashing Obamacare subsidies -- he turned these matters over to Congress to resolve. In addition, Trump has vacillated on several issues.... Trump has left a lot of the firing of people to others or used indirect methods.... Except for his use of executive orders (often to countermand ones by Obama) and his cyber-bullying, Trump is essentially a passive participant in his own government." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Drew is exactly right. My fear is that if her observation gains traction (as it should), Trump will decide to bomb someplace, as if that would be evidence of strength rather than stupidity.

Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Wednesday revived the controversy over his handling of a condolence call with an Army soldier's widow, disputing Myeshia Johnson's claim that he did not seem to remember her husband's name and calling into question the memories of others who heard the conversation. Speaking to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before departing for a fundraiser in Dallas, Trump said he called Army Sgt. La David Johnson -- who was killed after an Oct. 4 ambush in Niger that is still being investigated -- by his correct name 'right from the beginning.' 'One of the great memories of all time,' the president said, pointing at his head with his left hand. 'There's no hesitation.' Trump also said he had not specifically authorized the mission in Niger, which left four U.S. soldiers including Johnson dead and has prompted a slew of unanswered questions about how the mission went awry. 'No I didn't, not specifically, but I have generals that are great generals -- these are great fighters, these are warriors,' he said. 'I gave them authority to do what's right so that we win. That's the authority they have. I want to win and we're going to win.'" ...

... Gail Collins: "Early in this presidency, optimists believed that when Trump suddenly veered wildly from one position to another it was because of canny tactics. Now optimists believe that he's just ... really forgetful."

Safe Spaces for Morons. Jason Schwarz of Politico: "President Donald Trump is scheduled to sit down for an interview with Fox Business Network's Lou Dobbs at 7 p.m. Wednesday night, marking the 18th time that the president has been interviewed on a Fox television network, a preference unprecedented in the history of presidential TV interviews." --safari

Frank Rich of New York: "[T]he notion that Flake's words -- or Corker's or McCain's -- are going to change the mind of a single member of the Trump base ... is preposterous.... The Vichy leaders Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan will remain as supine as ever, hoping they land their beloved deep tax cuts in the bargain.... They still fail to concede that legislation is not Trump's aim, not even classic conservative GOP legislation like tax cuts.... With Bannon as his wingman, his aim is to blow up the Republican Party, purge it of a feckless and tired Establishment, and remake it with his own shock troops into a nativist and nationalist regime." --safari

** Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "Alexander Nix, who heads a controversial data-analytics firm that worked for ... Donald Trump's campaign, wrote in an email last year that he reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about Hillary Clinton's missing 33,000 emails. Nix, who heads Cambridge Analytica, told a third party that he reached out to Assange about his firm somehow helping the WikiLeaks editor release Clinton's missing emails, according to two sources familiar with a congressional investigation into interactions between Trump associates and the Kremlin. Those sources also relayed that, according to Nix's email, Assange told the Cambridge Analytica CEO that he didn't want his help, and preferred to do the work on his own. If the claims Nix made in that email are true, this would be the closest known connection between Trump's campaign and Assange.... Robert and Rebekah Mercer, a billionaire father-daughter duo that spent big to boost Trump's presidential candidacy, are major investors in Cambridge Analytica." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Who Dat? A "Mislabeling" Error. Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider: "Key members of ... Donald Trump's campaign team scrambled Wednesday to distance themselves from the data mining and analysis company Cambridge Analytica, whose CEO reportedly reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the presidential campaign to offer help in finding Hillary Clinton's 'missing' emails. The Trump campaign hired Cambridge Analytica in June 2016 to help target ads using voter data collected from approximately 230 million US adults. Multiple outlets, including NBC News and The Washington Post, reported that the campaign paid Cambridge Analytica more than $5 million in September alone, up from $250,000 in August. But Michael S. Glassner, the executive director of Trump's campaign, said in a statement on Wednesday -- hours after The Daily Beast reported on the data firm's outreach to Assange -- that the only source of voter data that played a key role in Trump's election victory was the Republican National Committee.... Brad Parscale, the digital director of the Trump campaign's entire data operation, similarly downplayed Cambridge's role in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. 'I have said from the beginning this' $5 million 'Cambridge invoice is mislabeled in the FEC reports,' Parscale said. Parscale hired Cambridge Analytica in June 2016, ;partly at the urging former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was the former vice president of Cambridge's board, according to The New York Times.

Adam Blake of the Washington Post: "The Post is reporting that the [Steele] dossier's author, [Christopher] Steele, wasn't brought into the mix until after Democrats retained Fusion GPS. So while both sides paid Fusion GPS, Steele was only funded by Democrats.... Despite there being no proof the FBI actually paid Steele, Trump suggested it might have in a tweet last week -- along with 'Russia ... or the Dems (or all).' Of those three groups, only Democrats have been reported to have actually paid Steele. And again, that was already kind-of known.... Given Democrats' argument that Russia's interference on Trump's behalf was beyond the pale, the Clinton camp and the DNC paying a Brit for information would seem somewhat problematic.... But ... the British after all are, unlike the Russians, America's allies. Also, Steele was not acting as an agent of a foreign government, which is what would likely be required to prove collusion in the case of the Trump campaign and Russia. Separately, the firm that the Clinton camp and the DNC paid also has alleged ties to the Kremlin.... The firm has worked with both Democrats and Republicans over the years." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Ken Vogel of the New York Times also provides background on the financing of the dossier. "In a complaint filed with the F.E.C. on Wednesday, the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit group that urges stricter enforcement of election laws, alleged that 'at least some of those payments [to the law firm for the Clinton campaign & the DNC] were earmarked for Fusion GPS, with the purpose of conducting opposition research on Donald Trump.' The complaint asserts that the failure to list the ultimate purpose of that money 'undermined the vital public information role that reporting is intended to serve.'" ...

... ** David Corn of Mother Jones: "The news that a law firm working for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee bankrolled the Trump opposition research project that produced the infamous Trump-Russia memos has touched off much howling in GOP and conservative quarters. The revelation that these Democratic outfits financed the digging of Christopher David Steele, the veteran British counterintelligence officer, was a scoop -- but it does not fundamentally change the landscape.... Republicans are asserting the Steele memos should be dismissed because they are a dastardly Democratic oppo concoction and saying this somehow undermines the whole Trump-Russia scandal. Yet at the same time, they are demanding an investigation of the fake Clinton-uranium scandal that was based on a debunked story subsidized and promoted by a big-money conservative donor and Trump backer." Read on. ...

... Paul Waldman explains why his new "Clinton scandal" is nonsense. Mrs. McC:: Of course, none of this affects the presidunce, who called the news "the real collusion. Believe me." or his consummately stupid, dingbat press secretary who wrote, in what I guess passes for an official "tweet," "Hard 2read this w/o concluding Clinton campaign colluded w Russia 2interfere in US election."

Steve Dennis of Bloomberg: "The Senate Judiciary Committee's bipartisan Russia probe has fractured, with Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein saying they're each going to set their own path on the investigation. The two senators spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday, where they agreed to pursue different issues without giving up on the original probe -- into the reasons ... Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and Russian attempts to interfere in the election. Feinstein ... said she doesn't understand a push by Republicans to once again investigate Hillary Clinton's emails or pursue a 2010 Obama-era deal by a Russian-backed company to purchase American uranium mines."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "This past summer, the Trump administration debated lowering the annual cap on refugees admitted to the United States. Should it stay at 110,000, be cut to 50,000 or fall somewhere in between? John F. Kelly offered his opinion. If it were up to him, he said, the number would be between zero and one. Mr. Kelly's comment made its way around the White House, according to an administration official, and reinforced what is only now becoming clear to many on the outside. While some officials had predicted Mr. Kelly would be a calming chief of staff for an impulsive president, recent days have made clear that he is more aligned with President Trump than anticipated. For all of the talk of Mr. Kelly as a moderating force and the so-called grown-up in the room, it turns out that he harbors strong feelings on patriotism, national security and immigration that mirror the hard-line views of his outspoken boss." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Nice to see even Peter Baker has Kelly's number.

Kevin Cirilli, et al. of Bloomberg: "President Donald Trump does not intend to appoint National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn to lead the Federal Reserve, three people familiar with the matter said.... Cohn is likely to leave the White House soon after Congress disposes with the tax plan, two people said." --safari

** Donors with Benefits. Russ Choma & Nick Schwellenbach of Mother Jones: "During his 20 years as a US senator, [Jeff] Sessions pocketed hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars from both Drummond Company, the corporation at the heart of [a political bribery scandal ... involving the state's largest coal company and [a] powerful, politically connected law firm]..., Birmingham-based ... Balch & Bingham. But his ties to Drummond and Balch extend beyond the usual political contributions. Last year, according to documents obtained by Mother Jones and the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, Sessions intervened to oppose the Environmental Protection Agency action at issue in the bribery case, and he did so just weeks after conferring with Balch lawyers.... Yet Sessions, who filled a key Justice Department position with a Balch lawyer and who was prepped for his confirmation hearing by an attorney at the firm, has so far taken no steps to recuse himself." --safari

Gov't = Business. Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "The U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, announced plans Tuesday to increase entrance fees at 17 parks during their busiest five-month periods as a way to raise new revenue for infrastructure improvements. Under the proposed fee change, beginning next year, entries for cars would jump from $25 to $70 between June 1 and October 31.... The Trump administration's proposed budget would increase funding for energy development on public lands while cutting virtually everything else, including the budget for the National Park Service." --safari: A great way to pay for tax cuts for the rich by raiding the pockets of nature-lovin' liburals.

Republican "Intellectualism". Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: "President Donald Trump adviser and Breitbart.com columnist Kris Kobach cut and pasted into his October 24 column anti-immigrant bullet points that have appeared in random message boards, Yahoo! Answers, and chain letters for more than 10 years.... Kobach's Breitbart column also cited a piece by a white nationalist [Peter B. Gemma] who has reportedly been 'part of the American Holocaust denial movement.'" --safari

EPA Infections. Sharon Lerner of The Intercept: "Powerless Democrats watched in anger as their Republican colleagues in the Senate voted along party lines to advance Michael Dourson's nomination to become an assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.... Dourson -- a massively conflicted scientist known within industry for his ability to come up with standards companies liked, create science to justify them, and then 'sell' the package to the EPA -- is one step closer to assuming his role overseeing chemical safety in the United States. His actual tenure at the EPA seems to have already begun, since he was quietly appointed as an adviser to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt despite not having approval -- a move that may have the law." --safari

Contributor PD Pepe came upon this video of Ben Carson's "testimony" before a House committee:

... Mrs. McCrabbie: There are any number of "correct" answers when you don't know the actual answer to a question posed during testimony. They all start with "I don't know," followed by a good-faith promise to provide the information and to otherwise accommodate the questioner. "Here's what I want to talk about" is not the answer to any question posed in a hearing, as Rep. Green suggests. P.S. Did I mention that the SUBJECT OF THE HEARING WAS PROPOSED HUD BUDGET CUTS? Well, Ole Doc was not even minimally prepared to talk about that, and he didn't want to talk about that and he said so to the Congressman, who was exercising his oversight duty.

GOP Dangerous Loons. Max Kutner of Newsweek, via RawStory: "A lawyer who President Donald Trump nominated to be a federal judge once likened the treatment of Christians during the Obama administration to that of people in Nazi Germany and under communist regimes. Jeff Mateer made the comments in radio interviews in 2013 and 2014, according to audio clips that CNN resurfaced." --safari

Power of Plutocracy. Jonathan Chait: "The human mind is an incredibly adept tool for generating reasons to turn one's own self-interest into a moral argument. The Republican Congress has turned this normal process of rationalization on its head. They have taken actions they truly consider to be morally correct, and convinced themselves that they are following their own self-interest.... [S]omehow Republicans have convinced themselves that their popularity depends upon passing this unpopular [tax] plan that would carry out unpopular goals.... A clever Republican Party would understand that this agenda is a way of spending its political capital. Instead they have somehow persuaded themselves that they are earning more of it." --safari

Sounds Good ... So Scrap It. Adam Cancryn of Politico: "A bipartisan bill to stabilize Obamacare would cut the federal deficit by $3.8 billion but wouldn't do much to change health insurance premiums for 2018, according to a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. It would not substantially change the number of people who are covered. The report is about the bipartisan bill negotiated by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) which has broad support in the Senate but is unlikely to get a swift vote given opposition from President Donald Trump as well as from House Republicans." --safari

Steven Mufson & Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: "Puerto Rico's financial oversight board is moving to install an emergency manager at the island's state-owned utility amid criticism of a $300 million contract it awarded to a small Montana energy firm for work on the territory's crippled electrical grid. The board said Wednesday that it intends to appoint Noel Zamot, a retired Air Force colonel and member of the oversight panel, to oversee daily operations of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. The decision comes as ... Democrats called for an investigation into the utility's agreement with Whitefish Energy.... The Washington Post reported on Monday that Whitefish had only two full-time employees on the day Hurricane Maria hit the island and had never taken on repairs on the scale of the destruction suffered in Puerto Rico.... Under the contract, Whitefish is charging $330 an hour for a site supervisor and $227.88 an hour for a 'journeyman lineman.' The cost for subcontractors, which make up the bulk of Whitefish's workforce, is $462 per hour for a supervisor and $319.04 for a lineman." Emphasis added. ...

... Molly Olmstead of Slate (October 24): "A tiny, 2-year-old energy company from a small town in Montana won a $300 million contract to fix Puerto Rico's hurricane-ravaged power grid, raising concerns about the decision-making behind the lucrative deal and the company's ties to people connected to the Trump administration, as well as the company's ability to fully meet Puerto Rico's recovery needs. Whitefish Energy ... now has by far the largest contract of any company involved in Puerto Rico's recovery, and, according to reporting from the Daily Beast, is primarily financed by a firm run by a major Trump donor who has connections to several members of his administration. The contract has also raised eyebrows because the company is based in Whitefish, Montana, the hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke (population: 7,436). Zinke's office told the Washington Post that Zinke knows the company's CEO ... but that Zinke had no role in the deal. A member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, Luis Vega Ramos, told the Daily Beast that connections to Zinke and Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló were Whitefish's 'most important expertise and assets.' Vega Ramos accused Whitefish of being a 'glorified middleman' that crafted a 'cozy sweetheart deal' to make money off subcontracting."

Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "A pregnant undocumented teenager in federal custody whose attempt to have an abortion set off a monthlong legal battle with the Trump administration terminated her pregnancy on Wednesday morning. She underwent the procedure a day after a court ruling forced federal officials to allow it. The teenager, who is 17 and is identified in court documents as Jane Doe, tried to illegally cross the border in Texas in early September and was apprehended. Her pregnancy was discovered during a physical exam, and since then she had been fighting in court to have an abortion." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

As a "Journalist," He's a Joke; Otherwise, Not o Funny. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "Veteran journalist Mark Halperin sexually harassed women while he was in a powerful position at ABC News, according to five women who shared their previously undisclosed accounts with CNN and others who did not experience the alleged harassment personally, but were aware of it. 'During this period, I did pursue relationships with women that I worked with, including some junior to me,' Halperin said in a statement to CNN Wednesday night. 'I now understand from these accounts that my behavior was inappropriate and caused others pain. For that, I am deeply sorry and I apologize. Under the circumstances, I'm going to take a step back from my day-to-day work while I properly deal with this situation.'" ...

... Jennifer Schuessler of the New York Times (October 24): "Leon Wieseltier, a prominent editor at The New Republic for three decades who was preparing to unveil a new magazine next week, apologized on Tuesday for 'offenses against some of my colleagues in the past' after several women accused him of sexual harassment and inappropriate advances. As those allegations came to light, Laurene Powell Jobs, a leading philanthropist whose for-profit organization, Emerson Collective, was backing Mr. Wieseltier's endeavor, decided to pull the plug on it.... Several women ... said they were humiliated when Mr. Wieseltier sloppily kissed them on the mouth, sometimes in front of other staff members. Others said he discussed his sex life, once describing the breasts of a former girlfriend in detail. Mr. Wieseltier made passes at female staffers, they said, and pressed them for details about their own sexual encounters." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The New Republic has long had the reputation of being a boys' club that was highly dismissive of women's intellects. In that light, Wieseltier's conduct is hardly surprising. ...

... Dave McKenna of Deadspin: "Earlier this week, actress Heather Lind said in a now-deleted Instagram post that former president George H.W. Bush had sexually assaulted her. 'He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side,' she wrote. 'He told me a dirty joke. And then, all the while being photographed, touched me again.'... Jordana Grolnick, a New York actress, has a story to tell that doesn't sound very different at all. 'I got sent the Heather Lind story by many people this morning,' Grolnick says. 'And I'm afraid that mine is entirely similar.' Rumors about Bush groping actresses in this manner have been circulating for a while. More than a year ago, a tipster passed word about the Heather Lind incident to Deadspin. We were told that Bush had, during a photo opp, groped her and told her that his favorite magician was 'David Cop-a-Feel' while fondling her."

Flying While Black. Lori Aratani of the Washington Post: "The nation's oldest civil rights organization, citing a 'troubling pattern of disturbing incidents,' urged travelers -- particularly those who are African American -- to rethink whether they should fly with American Airlines. In a statement released Tuesday night, officials with the NAACP said the travel advisory would remain in effect 'until further notice.'... In issuing the advisory, NAACP officials cited four recent incidents of 'troublesome conduct' by the airline and said they 'suggest a corporate culture of racial insensitivity and possible racial bias on the part of American Airlines.' The incidents involved black passengers being removed from flights for various reasons...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Legalize It. Adam Raymond of New York: "More Americans than ever think marijuana should be legal, according to a new Gallup poll that found a majority of Republicans supporting legalization for the first time ever. The 64 percent of Americans who told Gallup they support making marijuana legal is the most in the nearly 50 years Gallup has asked the question. It also represents a more-than-fivefold increase over the 12 percent of Americans who said they supported legalization the first time Gallup asked, in 1969." --safari

Beyond the Beltway

**The Purge. Kira Lerner of ThinkProgress: "Alabama's Republican secretary of state [John Merrill] wants potentially 674 Alabama citizens who voted both in this year’s Democratic primary and Republican runoff elections, in violation of a new law, to be charged with a felony and imprisoned for five years.... Merrill told ThinkProgress ... that he thinks the individuals who switched party affiliations should be sent to prison for five years and hit with a $15,000 fine, the maximum allowable punishment for the low-level felony." --safari: FYI, Merrill is best buds with Kris Kobach [R-piece of shit] ...

Way Beyond

Javier Hernandez of the New York Times: "Xi Jinping of China has so many titles -- more than a dozen and counting -- that he has been called 'chairman of everything.'... On Wednesday, he gained another five-year term as the party's general secretary and introduced a new leadership team with no clear successor, prompting speculation that he intends to rule beyond the customary second term." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Look for some jealousy-fueled tweets from our own Little King, knocking Xi & threatened another international crisis between two nuclear powers. The president of us* still doesn't get why he has not been anointed the "President of Everything."