The Commentariat -- January 15, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Heather Stewart of the Guardian: "Theresa May has sustained the heaviest parliamentary defeat of any British prime minister in the democratic era after MPs rejected her Brexit deal by a resounding majority of 230. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, immediately moved to sieze the initiative, tabling a vote of no confidence in the government.... Brexit-supporting Conservatives joined with opposition parties and the Democratic Unionist party to trounce the government in the 'meaningful vote', which the prime minister delayed before Christmas in the vain hope of winning over waverers. Following the defeat, May immediately invited a formal vote of no confidence in her own government, which she said would be voted on as soon as Wednesday." ...

     ... Brian Williams of MSNBC (surprisingly) introduced the Brexit vote news by noting that the Brexit campaign was Putin's first big foray into destabilizing Europe. What he didn't mention was Trump's vociferous support for Brexit & his collaboration/collusion with its advocates like Nigel Farage.

New York Times reporters are live-updating William Barr's Senate confirmation hearing. ...

... The Washington Post's live updates are here. ...

... Marianne Levine & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Attorney General nominee William Barr ... told Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that he did not think Mueller 'would be involved in a witch hunt,' a term Trump has used repeatedly to deride the investigation. Barr also told the Judiciary Committee that he agreed with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation -- the primary reason Trump soured on Sessions."

Nice Try, Senators. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Republicans blocked a House-passed package to reopen the federal government for a second time in as many weeks on Tuesday. Democratic Sens. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Ben Cardin (Md.) asked for consent to take up a package of bills that would reopen the federal government. One bill would fund the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 8, while the other would fund the rest of the impacted departments and agencies through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. Under Senate rules, any senator can ask for consent to vote on or pass a bill, but any senator can object. [Mitch] McConnell blocked the two bills, saying the Senate wouldn't 'participate in something that doesn't lead to an outcome.'" ...

... Nice Try, Trump. Jordan Fabian & Scott Wong of the Hill: "No Democrats will attend a lunch on Tuesday with President Trump designed to reach an agreement to end the government shutdown and fund a border wall, the White House said. Trump had invited several moderate House Democrats to the White House in an effort to undermine Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has refused to grant Trump his demand for $5.7 billion in wall funding. But the group turned down the invitation.... In a private meeting Monday night, Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told fellow leaders they were fine with rank-and-file members meeting with Trump, according to a source in the meeting. Pelosi joked to Hoyer: 'They can see what we've been dealing with. And they'll want to make a citizen's arrest.'" ...

... Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "The Federal Aviation Administration is bringing thousands of furloughed inspectors and engineers back to work as the partial government shutdown drags on, the agency said on Tuesday. The agency's announcement came after unions representing aviation safety inspectors and air traffic controllers raised concerns that the lengthy shutdown was eroding the safety of the nation's air travel system. It is one of the largest changes made by a government agency since the shutdown last month to address the need to maintain an essential service."

Great being with the National Champion Clemson Tigers last night at the White House. Because of the Shutdown I served them massive amounts of Fast Food (I paid), over 1000 hamberders etc. Within one hour, it was all gone. Great guys and big eaters! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Tuesday ...

... How Many Hamberders Would a Hamberdler Buy if a Hamberdler Would Be Trump? Aaron Rupar of Vox: "... an amusing tweet ... Donald Trump posted Tuesday morning illustrates just how easily he exaggerates and contradicts himself.... Speaking to reporters just before players showed up, Trump proudly displayed the spread of 'great American food,' and said, 'we have 300 hamburgers, many, many french fries -- all of our favorite foods.' Three hundred hamburgers is a lot of burgers, even for a football team. But it apparently wasn't enough for Trump. Within a matter of minutes, the number grew exponentially. Addressing the players, Trump claimed to have purchased 1,000 hamburgers.... On Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted that the number of burgers he purchased had grown again to 'over 1000 hamberders [sic] etc.' (He later reposted the tweet without the typo.)" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Rupar writes, "Photos of the event suggest something along the lines of the lower number is accurate." Yeah but the pix don't show the 700 Big Macs Trump ordered be sent directly to the residence.

Michael Wines of the New York Times: "A federal judge blocked the Commerce Department on Tuesday from adding a question on American citizenship to the 2020 census, handing a legal victory to critics who accused the Trump administration of trying to turn the census into a tool to advance Republican political fortunes. The ruling marks the opening round in a legal battle with potentially profound ramifications for federal policy and for politics at all levels, one that seems certain to reach the Supreme Court before the printing of census forms begins this summer. In a lengthy and stinging ruling, Judge Jesse M. Furman of the United States District Court in Manhattan said that Wilbur L. Ross Jr., the commerce secretary, committed 'a veritable smorgasbord' of violations of federal procedural law when he ordered the citizenship question added."

*****

A reminder that if you pay quarterly federal taxes, today is the deadline for the fourth quarter. I e-paid last night; I wasn't sure the site would work, what with the IRS being furloughed & all, but it turns out the gummit is still happy to take your money any way it can get it. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Monday that he has rejected a proposal by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to temporarily reopen the government in an effort to jump-start talks with Democratic lawmakers on funding a border wall. 'I did reject it,' Mr. Trump said of the proposal, speaking to reporters as he boarded Marine One outside of the White House, en route to delivering a speech to a farm convention in New Orleans." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Still Not Ready for His Close-up. Michelle Goldberg: "Trump has turned out to be the Norma Desmond of authoritarians, a senescent has-been whose delusions are propped up by obsequious retainers. From his fantasy world in the White House, he barks dictatorial and often illegal orders, floats conspiracy theories, tweets insults and lies unceasingly. But much of the time he's not fully in charge. He has the instincts of a fascist but lacks both the discipline and the loyal lieutenants he'd need to create true autocracy. That doesn't mean, however, that the country isn't coming undone.... As of this writing, the president has rejected every way out of the government shutdown save full capitulation by House Democrats.... The shutdown throws our crisis into high relief. For the first two years, Trump destroyed American norms, standards and conventions. Now he's cavalierly destroying American lives." ...

... "M.I.A. MITCH." Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "The man who declared in 2014 that he's 'the guy that's gotten us out of shutdowns' is facing mounting pressure, 25 days into this year's longest-running government closure, to lend that expert touch to this stubborn impasse. The pressure is coming not just from Democrats but from unpaid federal workers, including from his home state of Kentucky. Some workers are lining the streets of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's Lexington office, holding posters that read: 'Mitch give us a vote on the floor' and '5 federal prisons in KY = thousands without pay." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Once again, Mitch threw in his lot with the Wrong Guy, and now the Wrong Guy has left Mitch in an untenable position, too. And don't think the Wrong Guy gives a flying fuck.

Dangerous Times -- This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

Julian Barnes & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years. Last year, President Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO: the withdrawal of the United States. Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Mr. Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set. In the days around a tumultuous NATO summit meeting last summer, they said, Mr. Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance.... Now, the president's repeatedly stated desire to withdraw from NATO is raising new worries among national security officials amid growing concern about Mr. Trump's efforts to keep his meetings with Mr. Putin secret from even his own aides, and an F.B.I. investigation into the administration's Russia ties."

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post points out that Mike Pompeo also offered up only a non-denial denial when asked about the NYT report that the FBI had been investigating Trump as a possible national security threat. His non-answer, which he essentially repeated in response to a follow-up question about whether or not he knew about the FBI investigation: "I'm not going to comment on New York Times stories, but I'll certainly say this: The -- the notion that President Trump is a threat to American national security is absolutely ludicrous." Blake writes, "... given Pompeo's proximity to all this -- as both secretary of state and then-CIA director -- he's in a unique position to offer the most ironclad denial of basically anybody not named Trump or Mueller.... The fact that Pompeo wouldn't quite go there might be more significant even than Trump's non-denial-turned-actual-denial." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Pamela Brown, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump's legal team rebuffed special counsel Robert Mueller's request in recent weeks for an in-person session with Trump to ask follow-up questions. The request was made after Trump's team submitted written answers to a limited number of questions from Mueller's team focusing on before Trump was in office.... The Trump team appears to have hardened its position." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If it's true that Trump has been a target of Mueller's investigation, I don't see why Trump would agree to an interview. Even the president* has a Fifth-Amendment right, and he's almost guaranteed to incriminate himself.

Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "The day after Comey was fired, [FBI attorney Lisa Page & her lover FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzok] exchanged a message that has drawn the interest of Republicans. It said, 'And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting.' In her [closed-door] testimony [before a House committee], Lisa Page confirmed that 'Andy' was a reference to ... Andrew McCabe. In her testimony Page ... confirms that 'the case we've been waiting on' means that even prior to Comey's firing, the FBI had been considering opening an investigation into the president specifically. This is confirmation of what I've said all along, which was that the intelligence community has long considered Donald Trump as a possible Russian agent. But ... the inquisitors didn't understand what the investigation was about and Page was not allowed to tell them." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: It's worth noting that Comey, McCabe & Strzok have all been fired, as was Jeff Sessions. Page left the FBI, as did James Baker, whom Congressional Republicans charged, apparently without evidence, of leaking the Steele dossier. Trump planned to fire Robert Mueller. He has repeatedly disparaged Mueller's investigators, the FBI in general & Rod Rosenstein in particular. It's pretty hard not to suspect that most or all of these firings were predicated not on these officials' misdeeds but on their efforts to investigate Donald Trump.

At the Kleptocracy's Ball. Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "Private donors put up $107 million to usher Donald J. Trump into office in style two years ago, and it is now clear just how enthusiastically his inaugural committee went to town with it. There was $10,000 for makeup for 20 aides at an evening inaugural event. There was another $30,000 in per diem payments to dozens of contract staff members, in addition to their fully covered hotel rooms, room service orders, plane tickets and taxi rides, including some to drop off laundry. The bill from the Trump International Hotel was more than $1.5 million.... Over all, the Trump team's spending appears 'astronomical,' said Emmett S. Beliveau, who was chief executive of Mr. Obama's first inaugural committee.... Disclosure of the spending details comes at a time when the inaugural committee is facing legal scrutiny over the donations that funded it. Inaugural committees are required to document every donation with the Federal Election Commission, and the Trump team's reports are now under investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Investigators are also looking into whether any foreign donations, which are illegal in the United States, were passed through Americans, and whether any donations went unrecorded

Katie Benner of the New York Times: "William P. Barr, President Trump's nominee for attorney general, promised on Monday that he would allow the special counsel to continue his investigation, seeking to allay Democrats' fears that he might shut down the inquiry. 'It is in the best interest of everyone -- the president, Congress, and, most importantly, the American people -- that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work,' Mr. Barr said in written testimony that he plans to deliver on Tuesday at the start of his two-day confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.... But Mr. Barr also included a subtle caveat, limiting his assurances about the Mueller investigation to the issues under his control:... That qualification could be important because Mr. Barr has long advanced a philosophy of strong executive powers under which any administration decision is ultimately the president's to make. His views also include the notion that the president is the nation's top law-enforcement official, not the attorney general." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie Translation: "If President* Trump tells me to knee-cap my old pal Bob Mueller, I have a sledge hammer at the ready." ...

I read your memorandum with great surprise. [In all my years reviewing nominations, I have never seen a nominee write] such an in depth legal memorandum for no reason. -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, in a letter to Bill Barr (section is brackets is paraphrased) ...

... Ariane de Vogue of CNN: "Attorney General nominee William Barr shared a controversial memo last year with nearly all of ... Donald Trump's lawyers concluding that an aspect of special counsel Robert Mueller's case could be 'fatally misconceived,' Barr acknowledged Monday. Barr's 19-page memo -- which concluded that Trump's publicly reported interactions with ex-FBI Director James Comey could not constitute obstruction of justice -- was addressed to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Assistant Attorney General Steve Engel and released as a part of Barr's Senate questionnaire last month. But it was previously unclear who else had seen it. In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham Monday night, Barr said that he had sent it to White House special counsel Emmet Flood, Solicitor General Noel Francisco and his former Justice Department colleague Pat Cipollone who is now White House counsel. He also discussed the issues raised in the memo with Trump lawyers Marty and Jane Raskin and Jay Sekulow. In addition he sent a copy, or had a conversation about the contents of the memo with Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Jared Kushner. In Tuesday's testimony, Barr will say he distributed the memo 'broadly' so that other lawyers 'would have the benefit of my views.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The memo, of course, was Barr's job application essay, and he wanted as many Trump whisperers as possible to see it. He didn't send a 19-page memo to Trump, of course, because Trump can't read anything longer than half a page with a lot of white space, large print & bullet points, but de Vogue reports "Barr discussed the memo with Trump prior to his nomination...."

... Mrs. McCrabbie: One reason the Senate will definitely confirm Bill Barr: every one of them knows he's the best Trump can get. Still, there's something essential I don't get & I think senators should ask him: why would you even take this lousy job? Maybe you want to be "relevant" again, but relevance is relative. Every single person in this administration or who has left -- sometimes by being escorted out the door on the arms of armed guards -- comes out with a ruined reputation. You won't be a week in the job before your own boss publicly humiliates you. And that's only the beginning. You can count on repeated invitations from our House neighbors to a grilling in the hot seat. You'll probably have to hire your own personal attorney. "Attorney General in Trump Administration" is not something anyone would put on hisrésumé. ...

... Josh Lederman of NBC News: "William Barr ... once warned of a lack of 'political supervision' at the Justice Department that he said gave too much leeway to career prosecutors and made it 'very easy for prosecutors to go hunting for scalps.' Barr, who will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, told an interviewer during compilation of an oral history of the George H.W. Bush administration in 2001 that 'the idea that the Department of Justice has to be independent' had gained ground following the Watergate scandal and risked going too far.... In the oral history..., Barr also spoke fervently about his opposition to the independent counsel law.... Although the law that Barr was criticizing is no longer in effect, it was replaced by a system that continues to face some of the same criticisms leveled by Barr and others." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: "Political supervision," huh? Another questions senators should ask Barr is, "Don't you think it's Trump who needs supervision?" It would be hilarious if Barr waffled on this a bit to try to please both Trump & the Senate, and Trump responded in a huff of indignation by withdrawing Barr's nomination. ...

... Okay, here are some real questions members of the Judiciary Committee should ask Barr, questions that have been asked of nominees before: ...

... Mikhaila Fogel, et al., of Lawfare: "The controversy over Barr boils down to a simple anxiety: Given his public statements about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference, his actions with respect to it and his known views on matters of executive power, is he the proper person to oversee the Mueller probe?... Twice in 1973, the committee confronted nominees to head the Justice Department as the Watergate investigation was unfolding -- first when President Nixon nominated Elliot Richardson and second when, following the Saturday Night Massacre, he appointed William Saxbe.... In both cases, the hearings were dominated by senators seeking confidence that the new attorney general would allow an independent and impartial investigation of Watergate to go forward to completion." The writers propose "15 questions drawn from those hearings which senators may wish to pose to Barr[.]"

... "Donald Trump & His Team of Morons." Paul Krugman: "To be a modern conservative is to spend your life inside what amounts to a cult, barely exposed to outside ideas or even ways of speaking. Inside that cult, contempt for ordinary working Americans is widespread.... So is worship of wealth. And it can be hard for cult members to remember that you don't talk that way to outsiders. Then there's the Trump effect. Normally working for the president of the United States is a career booster.... Trump' presidency, however, is so chaotic, corrupt and potentially compromised by his foreign entanglements that anyone associated with him gets tainted -- which is why after only two years he has already left a trail of broken men and wrecked reputations in his wake."

... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court, without comment, turned away a challenge Monday to Matthew G. Whitaker's appointment as acting attorney general. Washington lawyer and Supreme Court practitioner Thomas C. Goldstein has intervened in cases in Nevada and Maryland to say that President Trump did not have the legal authority to appoint Whitaker, who had been chief of staff to Jeff Sessions when Trump forced out his attorney general in November. The justices denied the Nevada case and its attempt to substitute Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein for Whitaker. The Maryland case is still before a federal judge there.... Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh, in coordination with Goldstein, has also challenged the validity of Whitaker's appointment as part of a pending case in federal court in Baltimore seeking to uphold a key section of the Affordable Care Act. U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander has not yet ruled on the state's motion to replace Whitaker with Rosenstein."

Erin Banco, et al., of the Daily Beast: "The Special Counsel's Office and federal prosecutors in Manhattan are scrutinizing a meeting involving former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, one-time National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and dozens of foreign officials, according to three sources familiar with the investigations. The breakfast event ... took place ... at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 18, 2017.... About 60 people were invited, including diplomats from governments around the world.... The breakfast has come under scrutiny by federal prosecutors in Manhattan as part of their probe into whether the Trump inaugural committee misspent funds and if donors tried to buy influence in the White House.... The Special Counsel's Office is also looking at the breakfast as part of its investigation into whether foreigners contributed money to the Trump inaugural fund and PAC by possibly using American intermediaries.... Robert Mueller's team has asked Flynn about the event.... Nunes ... has not been accused of any wrongdoing...."

More International Policy by Tweet. Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the New York Times: "President Trump threatened Turkey on Sunday with harsh economic sanctions if it attacks Kurdish forces in Syria after American troops withdraw from the country in the coming months. 'Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds,' Mr. Trump said on Twitter, suggesting that there would be a 20-mile safe zone around the group after American forces leave. He added, 'Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey.' Mr. Trump's tweets marked the first public threat toward Turkey, a NATO ally, over the Kurds and seemed to offer a blanket of protection for the group, a band of American-backed militias that the Turkish government sees as terrorists." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... AND Screwing Things Up in the Process. John Hudson & Kareem Fahim of the Washington Post: "As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo crisscrossed the Middle East this week to explain the U.S. military withdrawal from Syria, he repeated that he was 'confident' and 'optimistic' that he was nearing a deal with Turkey on a mutually agreeable exit plan. But a pugnacious tweet from President Trump on Sunday night vowing to 'devastate' the Turkish economy if Ankara attacks U.S.-backed Kurds revealed a much wider chasm between the two sides and prompted a new round of recriminations from Turkey. Hours later, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu blasted Trump's 'threatening language...,' adding: 'You will not get anywhere by threatening Turkey's economy.' The row marked the second time in a week that the White House has intervened in negotiations led by the State Department in a way that infuriated Turkey and caught U.S. diplomats flat-footed. In trying to explain Trump's tweets on Monday, Pompeo told reporters in Riyadh that he assumed Trump meant the United States would levy sanctions on Turkey if it attacked the Kurds but that he did not know for certain.... [Pompeo said] that he had not talked to Trump about the tweet." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Frida Ghitis in Politico Magazine: "The world has become hostage to the president's 280-character digital bursts. But the real-world consequences are all too real. Just ask a Syrian.... The Trump administration has staged quite a foreign policy spectacle in recent weeks, with top officials, including the president, publicly battling out differences over Syria -- over the future of the Middle East, in fact -- churning out a befuddling series of statements, counterstatements, affirmations and contradictions about what the U.S. intends to do, is already doing, or would never do.... The Syria policy show has become ... a case study on why the United States needs a functioning process for designing and implementing foreign policy. Without it, as the entire world can see, what results is an incoherent mess with the potential to further destabilize unstable regions, signaling that the United States is an undisciplined, unreliable and untrustworthy ally." Read on ...

... Juan Cole: "National Security Adviser John Bolton lied his face off when he told Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on his recent Mideast junket that he was sure Iran's leaders are dedicated to acquiring deliverable nuclear weapons. Nuclear security expert Joe Cirincione shredded Bolton over his false assertion, which is contradicted by UN inspectors and US intelligence. Bolton made sure to tell Netanyahu this so that Netanyahu could quote Bolton in his own fantasy-filled and inflammatory speeches urging an attack on Iran.... Ironically, when [Jim] Mattis first met Bolton, he joked that he had heard that he was 'the Devil.'... So then toward the end of his tenure Mattis found out that we weren’t wrong about Bolton, and he had been foolish to be so insouciant.... I'm not sure exactly what the Democratic House can do to forestall Bolton's peculiar Iranomania from plunging us into another generation of war and instability and bankruptcy. But they should do what they can to get the madman out of office." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization? -- Rep. Steve King, to the New York Times last week ...

... Watch the first minute (as marked on the video) wherein the Racist-in-Chief pretends he doesn't know who White Supremacist Rep. Steve King is & knows nothing about King's defense of white nationalism & white supremacy:

... Trip Gabriel, et al., of the New York Times: "House Republican leaders removed Representative Steve King of Iowa from the Judiciary and Agriculture Committees on Monday night as party officials scrambled to appear tough on racism and contain damage from comments Mr. King made to The New York Times questioning why white supremacy is considered offensive. The punishment came on a day when Mr. King was denounced by an array of Republican leaders, though not President Trump. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, suggested Mr. King find 'another line of work' and Senator Mitt Romney said he should quit. And the House Republicans, in an attempt to be proactive, stripped him of the committee seats in the face of multiple Democratic resolutions to censure Mr. King that are being introduced this week." ...

... ** Adam Serwer of the Atlantic: "While it is heartening to see that King's antics have finally drawn a unified response of condemnation from the right, the reactions seem to miss the obvious point that there is little daylight between Steve King and ... Donald Trump.... Unlike King however, the president has the authority, by himself, to make his views into policy. From his travel ban to his child-separation policy to his revocation of protections for immigrants brought here as children, he has pursued discriminatory policies with a commitment he has shown for few other campaign promises. Even now, the federal government remains shut down, its workforce denied payment for their labor, all in pursuit of the construction of a taxpayer funded symbolic monument of disapproval towards immigrants of Latin American descent.... On Sunday night, Trump tweeted a column from Pat Buchanan arguing that the president should seize executive power and build the wall without approval from Congress.... Such a barrier is made necessary, Buchanan argues, because of the increasing diversity of the United States.... 'The more multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual America becomes -- the less it looks like Ronald Reagan's America -- the more dependably Democratic it will become,' he argues in the same column." ...

... As Chris Hayes of MSNBC pointed out, Mitch McConnell & his Congressional confreres are still pursuing King & Buchanan's ethno-nationalist policy to build that wall. At the expense of a working government, I would add.

Tom Vanden Brook of USA Today: "The Pentagon will send a fresh deployment of active-duty troops to the southern border at the request of officials from the Department of Homeland Security. Late Monday, the Pentagon also announced that deployments of active-duty troops would extend through September. The new contingent of troops will include combat engineers to fortify border crossings and aviation units to help ferry Border Patrol agents, according to a Defense Department official who was not authorized to speak publicly. The troops will also help with surveillance at the border, according to the Pentagon statement." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So take some pictures of engineers "fortifying border crossings," label them, "Army troops build Great Wall of Trump to Keep Murderers & Rapists out of USA," send the pix to Trump so he thinks he "won" along with the bill to re-open the government.

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Ivanka Trump ... will play a role in helping to select the next head of the World Bank, the White House said Monday. Ms. Trump, who had been rumored to be a contender for the position herself, will not be a candidate, a Trump administration official said. But she will assist the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, in choosing a successor to Jim Yong Kim, the current president of the World Bank who announced last week he would be stepping down. Mr. Mnuchin called Ms. Trump last week and asked her if she would be involved, an administration official said. Jessica Ditto, a White House spokeswoman, said Ms. Trump was asked because 'she's worked closely with the World Bank's leadership for the past two years.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: What Jessica Ditto says isn't very important, but I am obligated to cut & paste the phrase, "Ditto, a White House spokeswoman."

Richard Hasen in Slate: "The Democrats' first order of business as they took control of the 116^th Congress was introducing H.R. 1, the colossal 'For the People Act.' This 571-page behemoth of a bill covering voting rights, campaign finance reform, ethics improvements, and more was a perfect reminder of just how much power the Constitution gives Congress to make elections better in this country and, sadly, of how partisan the question of election reform has become.... The bill now has 221 co-sponsors, all Democrats, including almost every Democrat in the House. It's disheartening that bipartisan movement on election reform is no longer possible and that few of the significant improvements in the bill stand a chance of becoming law until Democrats have control of the Senate and the presidency. Even then some of its provisions could be blocked by a conservative-leaning Supreme Court. But if and when Democrats ever do return to full power in Washington, H.R. 1 should remain the top priority. Though there is room for some improvements, the 'For the People Act' would go an enormous way toward repairing our badly broken democracy." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is why you vote for Democrats even when they're jerks.

Thomas Novelly of the Louisville Courier Journal: "Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, one of the fiercest political critics of socialized medicine, will travel to Canada later this month to get hernia surgery. Paul ... said the operation is related to an injury in 2017 when his neighbor, Rene Boucher, attacked him while Paul was mowing his lawn. He is scheduled to have the outpatient operation at the privately adminstered Shouldice Hernia Hospital in Thornhill, Ontario during the week of Jan. 21, according to documents from Paul's civil lawsuit against Boucher filed in Warren Circuit Court.... While Shouldice Hernia Hospital is privately owned -- like many Canadian hospitals -- it receives a majority of its funding from the Ontario government and accepts the Ontario's Hospital Insurance Plan."

Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "Joseph Lieberman, the former Connecticut senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate, is working for a company he once called a national security threat. In November, Lieberman registered as a lobbyist for ZTE, a Chinese telecom giant with close links to the country's government." Mrs. McC: Al Gore is one of the few Democratic presidential candidates I did nothing to help except to vote for him. Joe is why.

Alice Ollstein of Politico: "A federal judge in Pennsylvania put a nationwide block on Trump administration rules that would have allowed virtually any employer to deny workers' birth control coverage, one day after a federal judge halted the rules in a group of states. In her ruling Monday afternoon, Judge Wendy Beetlestone sided with a group of Democratic attorneys general challenging the administration's policy as unconstitutional and in violation of the Affordable Care Act. The Trump rules, which would allow employers broad leeway to claim a religious or moral objection to covering birth control, were set to take effect Monday. Beetlestone's ruling is more sweeping than a similar decision Sunday night in a different court. U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Northern California issued a partial injunction blocking the policy from taking effect in 13 states and Washington, D.C., that were behind a separate lawsuit."

Beyond the Beltway

Jesse McKinley & Vivian Wang of the New York Times: "After years of lagging behind other states, New York radically overhauled its system of voting and elections on Monday, passing several bills that would allow early voting, preregistration of minors, voting by mail and sharp limits on the influence of money. The bills, which were passed by the State Legislature on Monday evening, bring New York in line with policies in other liberal bastions like California and Washington, and they would quiet, at least for a day, complaints about the state's antiquated approach to suffrage. Their swift passage marked a new era in the State Capitol. Democrats, who assumed full control this month after decades in which the Legislature was split, say they will soon push through more of their priorities, from strengthening abortion rights to approving the Child Victims Act, which would make it easier for victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue their assailants.... Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat elected to a third term in November, is expected to sign the package of voting bills, which would also merge state and primary elections into the same day; New York was the only state that held separate state and federal primary elections last year, potentially depressing voter turnout."

Way Beyond

Heather Stewart of the Guardian: British PM "Theresa May appears to be on course for a crushing defeat in the House of Commons as Britain's bitterly divided MPs prepare to give their verdict on her Brexit deal in the 'meaningful vote' on Tuesday. With Downing Street all but resigned to losing by a significant margin, Guardian analysis pointed to a majority of more than 200 MPs against the prime minister. Labour sources said that unless May made major unexpected concessions, any substantial margin against her would lead Jeremy Corbyn to call for a vote of no confidence in the government -- perhaps as soon as Tuesday night. But since Conservative MPs are unlikely to offer Corbyn the backing he would need to win a no-confidence vote, he would then come under intense pressure to swing Labour's weight behind a second referendum. Cabinet ministers have not yet been told how May plans to keep the Brexit process on track if her deal is defeated – and they remain split on how she should proceed."

News Lede

New York Times: "Carol Channing, whose incandescent performances as the gold-digging Lorelei Lee in 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' and the matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi in 'Hello, Dolly!' made her a Broadway legend, died early Tuesday at her home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. She was 97."

The Commentariat -- January 14, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Monday that he has rejected a proposal by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to temporarily reopen the government in an effort to jump-start talks with Democratic lawmakers on funding a border wall. 'I did reject it,' Mr. Trump said of the proposal, speaking to reporters as he boarded Marine One outside of the White House, en route to delivering a speech to a farm convention in New Orleans."

More International Policy by Tweet. Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the New York Times: "President Trump threatened Turkey on Sunday with harsh economic sanctions if it attacks Kurdish forces in Syria after American troops withdraw from the country in the coming months. 'Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds,' Mr. Trump said on Twitter, suggesting that there would be a 20-mile safe zone around the group after American forces leave. He added, 'Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey.' Mr. Trump's tweets marked the first public threat toward Turkey, a NATO ally, over the Kurds and seemed to offer a blanket of protection for the group, a band of American-backed militias that the Turkish government sees as terrorists." ...

... John Hudson & Kareem Fahim of the Washington Post: "As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo crisscrossed the Middle East this week to explain the U.S. military withdrawal from Syria, he repeated that he was 'confident' and 'optimistic' that he was nearing a deal with Turkey on a mutually agreeable exit plan. But a pugnacious tweet from President Trump on Sunday night vowing to 'devastate' the Turkish economy if Ankara attacks U.S.-backed Kurds revealed a much wider chasm between the two sides and prompted a new round of recriminations from Turkey. Hours later, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu blasted Trump's 'threatening language...,' adding: 'You will not get anywhere by threatening Turkey's economy.' The row marked the second time in a week that the White House has intervened in negotiations led by the State Department in a way that infuriated Turkey and caught U.S. diplomats flat-footed. In trying to explain Trump's tweets on Monday, Pompeo told reporters in Riyadh that he assumed Trump meant the United States would levy sanctions on Turkey if it attacked the Kurds but that he did not know for certain.... [Pompeo said] that he had not talked to Trump about the tweet."

Juan Cole: "National Security Adviser John Bolton lied his face off when he told Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on his recent Mideast junket that he was sure Iran's leaders are dedicated to acquiring deliverable nuclear weapons. Nuclear security expert Joe Cirincione shredded Bolton over his false assertion, which is contradicted by UN inspectors and US intelligence. Bolton made sure to tell Netanyahu this so that Netanyahu could quote Bolton in his own fantasy-filled and inflammatory speeches urging an attack on Iran.... Ironically, when [Jim] Mattis first met Bolton, he joked that he had heard that he was 'the Devil.'... So then toward the end of his tenure Mattis found out that we weren't wrong about Bolton, and he had been foolish to be so insouciant.... I'm not sure exactly what the Democratic House can do to forestall Bolton's peculiar Iranomania from plunging us into another generation of war and instability and bankruptcy. But they should do what they can to get the madman out of office." --s

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post points out that Mike Pompeo also offered up only a non-denial denial when asked about the NYT report that the FBI had been investigating Trump as a possible national security threat. His non-answer, which he essentially repeated in response to a follow-up question about whether or not he knew about the FBI investigation: "I'm not going to comment on New York Times stories, but I'll certainly say this: The -- the notion that President Trump is a threat to American national security is absolutely ludicrous." Blake writes, "... given Pompeo's proximity to all this -- as both secretary of state and then-CIA director -- he's in a unique position to offer the most ironclad denial of basically anybody not named Trump or Mueller.... The fact that Pompeo wouldn't quite go there might be more significant even than Trump's non-denial-turned-actual-denial."

Katie Benner of the New York Times: "William P. Barr, President Trump's nominee for attorney general, promised on Monday that he would allow the special counsel to continue his investigation, seeking to allay Democrats' fears that he might shut down the inquiry. 'It is in the best interest of everyone -- the president, Congress, and, most importantly, the American people -- that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work,' Mr. Barr said in written testimony that he plans to deliver on Tuesday at the start of his two-day confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.... But Mr. Barr also included a subtle caveat, limiting his assurances about the Mueller investigation to the issues under his control:... That qualification could be important because Mr. Barr has long advanced a philosophy of strong executive powers under which any administration decision is ultimately the president's to make. His views also include the notion that the president is the nation's top law-enforcement official, not the attorney general." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie Translation: "If President* Trump tells me to knee-cap my old pal Bob Mueller, I've got a sledge hammer at the ready."

*****

Nancy Pelosi Is Not Amused. Catherine Lucey of the AP: "Military salutes. Heaps of contraband. Oval Office optics.... Donald Trump, who has long put a premium on stagecraft, is discovering he cannot resolve the partial government shutdown simply by putting on a show.... The president's Oval Office address and visit to the Texas border this past week failed to break the logjam. Aides and allies are fearful that he has misjudged Democratic resolve and is running out of negotiating options.... Many associates fear his hand is weakening as his efforts to define the stakes must compete with the testimonials of hardship from federal workers and people in need of shuttered government services. That may leave a national emergency declaration as Trump's only escape path -- one more showy strategy that could backfire."

Jonathan Swan of Axios: "President Trump chastised his new chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, over his handling of shutdown talks, creating an awkward scene in front of congressional leaders of both parties, according to two sources who were present.... The encounter came near the end of a meeting in the White House Situation Room on Jan. 4.... Trump had spent the meeting restating his demand for $5.7 billion for his wall. (Vice President Pence, at Trump's behest, had previously asked the Democrats for just $2.5 billion.) Mulvaney inserted himself into the conversation and tried to negotiate a compromise sum of money, according to the sources in the room. Mulvaney ... was trying to say we should find a middle ground," one of the sources said.... 'Trump cut him off ... "You just fucked it all up, Mick,'" the source recalled Trump saying.... Another source who was in the room confirmed the account. That source said their impression was that Trump was irritated at Mulvaney's negotiating style.... A fourth source, who was not in the room ... told me Trump has long been irritated that Mulvaney's initial 2019 budget only requested $1.6 billion for the wall. Democrats relish pointing this out...."

Trump understands that conservative media personalities like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh hold the keys to his base -- and so it's unlikely he's going to stray from them on the gov't shutdown / border issue. Democrats are effectively negotiating with the right-wing media. pic.twitter.com/1HWP9dk5lx

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 13, 2019

... Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Sen. (R-S.C.) said Sunday that he's urged President Trump to open up the government for a short period of time so lawmakers can attempt to broker an end to the ongoing government shutdown, but was adamant that the president is 'not going to give in' on his demands to fund a border wall. Graham said on 'Fox News Sunday' that he spoke with Trump on Sunday morning, when the president indicated an emergency declaration to construct his desired wall along the southern border is a last resort. 'I would urge him to open up the government for a short period of time, like three weeks, before he pulls the plug' on a legislative solution, Graham said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is pretty much the Democrats' ask, but a few weeks shorter than they originally suggested in December. It seems Lindsey is trying to talk Trump down off the wall using the preferred cat-on-the-roof methodology.

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

NEW. Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump >on Monday denied he 'worked for Russia,' his most direct response yet to a bombshell report that the FBI began investigating whether the president was working on behalf Moscow. 'I never worked for Russia,' Trump said.... 'If you read the [NYT] article you'll see that they found absolutely nothing,' he said." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It isn't true that the New York Times article said the FBI "found absolutely nothing." The story was silent on that. Trump's denial mirrors his campaign-era repudiation of David Duke; at first, he wouldn't do so; then, under pressure, he repudiated Duke.

** NEW. Jeremy Herb, et al., of CNN: "In the chaotic aftermath at the FBI following Director James Comey's firing, a half-dozen senior FBI officials huddled to set in motion the momentous move to open an investigation into ... Donald Trump that included trying to understand why he was acting in ways that seemed to benefit Russia. They debated a range of possibilities, according to portions of transcripts of two FBI officials' closed-door congressional interviews obtained by CNN. On one end was the idea that Trump fired Comey at the behest of Russia. On the other was the possibility that Trump didn't have an improper relationship with the Kremlin and was acting within the bounds of his executive authority, the transcripts show.... While the FBI launched its investigation in the days after Comey's abrupt dismissal, the bureau had previously contemplated such a step, according to testimony from former FBI lawyer Lisa Page."

Jason Lemon of Newsweek: "Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein has said that he's been told that special counsel Robert Mueller's report will show how ... Donald Trump helped Russia 'destabilize the United States.'... 'This is about the most serious counterintelligence people we have in the U.S. government saying, "Oh, my God, the president's words and actions lead us to conclude that somehow he has become a witting, unwitting, or half-witting pawn, certainly in some regards, to Vladimir Putin,"' Bernstein explained during his appearance on [CNN's] Reliable Sources." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Here's Bernstein's full discussion with Brian Stelter:

     ... Pundits are giving Ben Wittes of Lawfare a lot of credit for coming up with the theory last Friday that "the obstruction is part of the collusion." Bernstein said the same thing two days earlier. For more than a month, various reporters have told us the Mueller report, or a portion of it, would be completed soon. Bernstein is the first (as far as I know) to give a hint about the content of the report.

Julian Barnes & Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "President Trump's efforts to hide his conversations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and new details about the F.B.I. inquiry into his ties to Moscow have intensified debate over his relationship with Russia, adding fuel to Democrats' budding investigations of his presidency and potentially setting up a clash between the White House and Congress. Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, who now leads the Intelligence Committee..., implored his Republican colleagues Sunday to support his effort to obtain notes or testimony from the interpreter in one of the private meetings between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin. 'Will they join us now?' Mr. Schiff wrote on Twitter. 'Shouldn't we find out whether our president is really putting "America first?"'... 'Why is he so chummy with Vladimir Putin, this man who is a former K.G.B. agent, never been a friend to the United States, invaded our allies, threatens us around the world and tries his damnedest to undermine our elections?' Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said on ABC's 'This Week.'... The administration appears unlikely to acquiesce to such a demand without a fight."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "So it has come to this: The president of the United States was asked over the weekend whether he is a Russian agent. And he refused to directly answer. The question, which came from a friendly interviewer, not one of the 'fake media' journalists he disparages, was 'the most insulting thing I've ever been asked,' he declared. But it is a question that has hung over his presidency now for two years. If the now 23-day government shutdown standoff between Mr. Trump and Congress has seemed ugly, it may eventually seem tame by comparison with what is to come. The border wall fight is just the preliminary skirmish in this new era of divided government. The real battle has yet to begin. With Democrats now in charge of the House, the special counsel believed to be wrapping up his investigation, news media outlets competing for scoops and the first articles of impeachment already filed, Mr. Trump faces the prospect of an all-out political war for survival that may make the still-unresolved partial government shutdown pale by comparison.... The White House has begun recruiting soldiers. The new White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, has hired 17 new lawyers, according to The Post, as he prepares for a barrage of subpoenas from House Democratic committee chairmen." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Steve M.: "I understand the temptation to read a lot into [Trump's failure to deny he was a Russian asset], but I don't think it means much.... Trump isn't shrewdly avoiding a 'no' answer -- he's simply caught up in a story that he rehearses in his own mind on a daily basis and publishes on Twitter nearly as often. He doesn't sidestep the question -- he just forgets to answer it directly, so enraged (and caught up in his own narrative) is he.... It's not significant -- Trump just got carried away and was enthralled by his own recitation of his grievances." --s

... Not-So-Secret Agent. Max Boot in the Washington Post lists 18 reasons we already know about that Trump could be a Russian asset. Then he adds, "I can't think of anything that would exonerate Trump aside from the difficulty of grasping what once would have seemed unimaginable: that a president of the United States could actually have been compromised by a hostile foreign power.... If Trump isn't actually a Russian agent, he is doing a pretty good imitation of one." ...

... "It's Already Collusion." Strobe Talbott in a Politico Magazine opinion piece: "Whether he knows it or not, Trump is integral to Putin's strategy to strengthen authoritarian regimes and undermine democracies around the world. This unprecedented aberration defiles what America stands for at home and abroad; it alienates and dispirits our allies; and -- if it is allowed to persist -- it will jeopardize our security.... Trumpism is a godsend to Putin and a nightmare for governments in his sights -- including Trump's. The U.S. commander-in-chief is out of sync with his own administration, not to mention the government as a whole.... Trump has an affinity for dictators -- as he himself reportedly acknowledged only this week during a lunch with senators.... He envies their unchecked power, use of intimidation and penchant for operating in secret, apparently because he doesn't trust the advisers and agencies who work for him.... Trump has been colluding with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: We discussed the underlying story yesterday, but this AP headline is still astonishing: "Trump dodges question on whether he has worked for Russia." ...

... Tom Nichols in USA Today: "The president clearly has something to hide.... It is highly unlikely that there is any innocent explanation for the remarkable frequency and depth of the Trump coterie's interactions with Russia for some 30 years, and especially during the campaign.... It seems at this point beyond argument that the president personally fears Russian President Vladimir Putin for reasons that can only suggest the existence of compromising information.... For the president's supporters to double down in the face of mounting evidence that the president himself is, in some way, compromised by our most dedicated enemy, while making excuses for his secretive behavior by attacking the men and women of the FBI, is a road so dark that perhaps even Joseph McCarthy would not have dared walk it." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh yeah? Lindsey Graham is strutting down that dark road: ...

... Lindsey Knocks NYT, FBI. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Sunday said that he does not believe a New York Times report that ... Donald Trump was investigated for being a suspected Russian agent. 'That story came from somebody who leaked it with an agenda,' Graham complained to Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday. 'I'd like to know who leaked it because they have an agenda not very friendly to President Trump. And I, for one, don't trust what I read in The New York Times.' Graham said that he planned to grill FBI Director Christopher Wray on whether a counter-intelligence investigation into Trump was ever open.... 'And, to me, it tells me a lot about the people running the FBI. I don't trust them as far as I can throw them. How could the FBI do that?' Graham concluded. 'What kind of checks and balances are there?'" ...

Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "Before Donald Trump's lawyer was pitching the Kremlin on building a Trump Tower in Moscow, the future president was negotiating to put his name on a building in a separate glitzy real estate development outside the Russian capital.... Trump's partner in this earlier project was Aras Agalarov, an oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the same man whose promise of dirt on Hillary Clinton set in motion the infamous June 2016 meeting at the original Trump Tower in New York. Two Congressional aides told NBC News the Agalarov project is now drawing new scrutiny from House and Senate investigators in the wake of the revelation in court documents that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen lied to Congress about his dealings on a separate, competing Russia real estate project. Cohen was also negotiating to build a Trump Tower in a separate part of the city." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Rosalind S. Helderman & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "New revelations about Paul Manafort's interactions with a Russian associate while he was leading President Trump's campaign provide a window into how extensively the special counsel has mapped interactions between Trump associates and Russians in his 20-month-long investigation. When Manafort pleaded guilty in September to federal crimes related to his work advising Ukrainian politicians, Trump said the admissions by his former campaign chairman had 'nothing to do' with the special counsel's main mission, which Trump described as 'looking for Russians involved in our campaign.' But new details inadvertently revealed in a court filing last week -- including the fact that Manafort shared polling data about the 2016 race with an associate who allegedly has ties to Russian intelligence -- indicate that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has also been scrutinizing interactions between Russians and Manafort while he led Trump's presidential bid. Manafort is among at least 14 Trump associates who interacted with Russians during the campaign and transition, according to public records and interviews.... And it serves as a stark reminder that as Trump was offering Russia-friendly rhetoric on the campaign trail, his White House bid was led for a time by a man with long-standing ties to powerful Russian figures."

Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "The Kremlin has long denied that it had anything to do with the infiltration of the NRA and the broader American conservative movement. A U.S. intelligence report reviewed by The Daily Beast tells a different story. Alexander Torshin, the Russian central bank official who spent years aggressively courting NRA leaders, briefed the Kremlin on his efforts and recommended they participate, according to the report.... While there has been speculation that Torshin and his protegée, Maria Butina, had the Kremlin's blessing to woo the NRA -- and federal prosecutors have vaguely asserted that she acted 'on behalf of the Russian federation' -- no one in the White House or the U.S. intelligence community has publicly stated as much.... The report, on the other hand, notes that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was fine with Torshin's courtship of the NRA because the relationships would be valuable if a Republican won the White House in 2016.... The report, published last year, is based on conversations that happened in 2015, before NRA leaders visited Moscow on a trip arranged by Torshin and Butina."

Time for Some Racist Tweets

Emily Birnbaum of the Hill: "President Trump on Sunday night mocked a video of Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) by saying the video would have been a 'smash' if she filmed it in 'Bighorn or Wounded Knee,' a reference to her Native American heritage. Trump suggested that Warren's husband, who appears in the video, should have worn 'full Indian garb.' The president also renewed his use of his racially charged nickname for Warren: Pocahontas. 'If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash!' Trump tweeted.... Trump's tweet refers to the massacre of more than 100 Native American men, women and children by U.S. Calvary troops in the late 19th Century. The massacre has become a symbol of the brutality experienced by Native Americans under European-Americans."

Michael Burke of the Hill: "President Trump late Sunday night quoted a column by Pat Buchanan ... to back his proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. In a pair of tweets, Trump pointed to Buchanan's argument that the president's proposal is 'dead on' and saying that something needs done or the U.S., 'as we know it, will cease to exist.'... In 1999, Trump called Buchanan a 'Hitler lover' and said it was 'incredible that anybody could embrace this guy.' Buchanan, who has often been accused of expressing racist and anti-Semitic views, at the time was seeking the Reform Party's nomination for president.... 'I guess he's an anti-Semite. He doesn't like the blacks. He doesn't like the gays...,' Trump said on 'Meet the Press' in 1999.]" Mrs. McC: But Buchanan is all good now because he also "doesn't like the Hispanics."

MEANWHILE, Everything Is Going Very Smoothly on the International Desk. Anne Gearan, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump dispatched national security adviser John Bolton on a cleanup mission a week ago, with a three-day itinerary in Israel that was intended to reassure a close ally that Trump's impulsive decision to immediately withdraw troops from Syria would be carried out more slowly and with important caveats. The plan seemed to work at first. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was all smiles, thanking Bolton profusely for the show of U.S. support. But by the end of the week, attempts to dissuade Trump or place conditions on the withdrawal faded as the U.S. military announced it had 'begun the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria.' A multipronged effort by alarmed U.S. national security officials, foreign allies and Republican hawks in Congress to significantly alter or reverse Trump's decision was effectively a bust. Since Trump's abrupt Syria announcement last month, a tug-of-war with allies and his advisers has roiled the national security apparatus over how, and whether, to execute a pullout.... The episode illustrates the far-reaching consequences of Trump's proclivity to make rash decisions with uneven follow-through, according to accounts of the discussions from more than a dozen current and former U.S. officials and international diplomats." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: You mean just because the President* is an impulsive, ignorant, out-of-control buffoon, things get messed up? Like, say, our international policy is nearly nonexistent & half the government is shuttered? Now, let's ask ourselves if Vladimir is happy. ...

... Eric Schmitt & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Senior Pentagon officials are voicing deepening fears that President Trump's hawkish national security adviser, John R. Bolton, could precipitate a conflict with Iran at a time when Mr. Trump is losing leverage in the Middle East by pulling out American troops. At Mr. Bolton's direction, the National Security Council asked the Pentagon last year to provide the White House with military options to strike Iran, Defense Department and senior American officials said on Sunday. The request, which alarmed then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other Pentagon officials, came after Iranian-backed militants fired three mortars or rockets into an empty lot on the grounds of the United States Embassy in Baghdad in September.... Mr. Mattis and other military leaders adamantly opposed retaliating, arguing that the attack was insignificant -- a position that ultimately won out.... Since Mr. Bolton took over from H.R. McMaster in April, he has intensified the administration's policy of isolating and pressuring Iran — reflecting an animus against Iran's leaders that dates back to his days as an official in the George W. Bush administration. As a private citizen, he later called for military strikes on Iran, as well as regime change." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Back in the day, if you walked into a roomful of people & found Mr. Mustache, you probably would have pegged him for the craziest guy there. Now there's Trump.

** Charlie Savage of the New York Times examines William Barr's long career as a presidential-powers maximalist. "Mr. Trump revels in pushing limits -- a temperament that, when combined with Mr. Barr's unusually permissive understanding of presidential power, could play out very differently for the rule of law than it did last time" [when Barr advised President Bush I he could] start a major land war on his own -- not only without congressional permission, but even if Congress voted against it." Barr's confirmation hearings begin Tuesday. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's see. Trump. Barr. Bolton. Now what are the chances Trump will start a gratuitous war before the 2020 election? This is Bush II all over again, though the target country might be Iraq's neighbor, not Iraq.

Rebeca Leber of Mother Jones: "Scott Pruitt left a long trail of investigations behind when he exited the Environmental Protection Agency last July to lead a private life as a coal consultant. On Thursday, four Democratic senators added yet another concern to the pile, requesting more information from the EPA revolving around Pruitt's legal defense fund. And Democrats can hammer the issue when Andrew Wheeler appears before the Senate on Wednesday for a confirmation hearing to become Pruitt's successor. Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Tom Carper (Del.), Tom Udall (N.M.), and Chris Van Hollen (Md.) addressed Wheeler in a letter that raises questions about a financial filing in December that revealed a $50,000 donation to Pruitt's legal defense fund from a ... businesswoman.... That is a problem, the senators argue, because the Office of Government Ethics forbids officials from accepting gifts from 'prohibited sources' -- or entities with business before the agency." --s

Pity the Confederates. Theodoric Meyer of Politico: "[M]ore than 60 Republicans exited the House this month, and so many of them are considering heading to K Street that not all of them are likely to find work, according to interviews with lobbyists and headhunters. 'Former Republican congressmen are a dime a dozen right now,' said former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who left Congress a decade ago and is now a lobbyist for Holland & Knight." --s

Another Reason Not to Live in a Red State. Sudhin Thanawala of the AP: "A U.S. judge in California on Sunday blocked Trump administration rules, which would allow more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control, from taking effect in 13 states and Washington, D.C. Judge Haywood Gilliam granted a request for a preliminary injunction by California, 12 other states and Washington, D.C. The plaintiffs sought to prevent the rules from taking effect as scheduled on Monday while a lawsuit against them moved forward. But Gilliam limited the scope of the ruling to the plaintiffs, rejecting their request that he block the rules nationwide.... The ruling affects California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia."

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Washington Post Editors: "In November, nearly two-thirds of Florida voters backed a state constitutional amendment that would restore voting rights to roughly 1.4 million former felons -- a measure that undid a feature of state law, enacted after the Civil War by racist white lawmakers, designed to disenfranchise African Americans. Now some Florida Republicans who opposed the ballot measure, written unambiguously to be self-executing, insist 'clarifying' legislation is needed. That sounds like mischief intended to thwart the voters' will and maintain a system under which at least 1 in 5 black Floridians faced a lifetime ban on voting.... No other Western democracy has erected similar [voting] barriers.... Voting rights advocates are alert for land mines that may be laid by [Gov.] Ron DeSantis or other Republicans, who, in a state with a notorious history of electoral squeakers, may fear the consequences should even a small fraction of those 1.4 million eligible former felons exercise their franchise."

** Oregon. Shane Kavanaugh of the Oregonian: "The Oregonian/OregonLive has found criminal cases involving at least five Saudi nationals who vanished before they faced trial or completed their jail sentence in Oregon. They include two accused rapists, a pair of suspected hit-and-run drivers and one man with child porn on his computer. The five cases share many similarities: All were young men studying at a public college or university in Oregon with assistance from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the time of their arrest. In four of the cases, the Saudi government stepped in to help, posting large sums of money for bail and possibly underwriting legal fees. Three surrendered their passports. All disappeared while facing charges or jail time. The same Oregon defense attorney, Ginger Mooney, was hired to represent the four most recent suspects. Little is known of the whereabouts of the five, though some have been traced back to Saudi Arabia. The new details add to mounting scrutiny of Saudi Arabia's conduct abroad after the kingdom's role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey last fall." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm thinking this isn't happening only in Oregon.

Way Beyond

Thomson Reuters: "A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a Canadian man to death for drug smuggling after prosecutors said an original 15-year sentence, announced in November, was too lenient.Dalian Intermediate People's Court in the northeast province of Liaoning retried Robert Lloyd Schellenberg and handed down the death penalty, the court said in a brief statement on its website."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The man accused of kidnapping Jayme Closs and killing her parents told investigators that he had spotted 13-year-old Jayme getting onto a school bus last fall and decided then that 'that was the girl he was going to take,' according to court documents released Monday. The man, Jake Patterson, 21, was charged on Monday with kidnapping, burglary and two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, and was scheduled to appear in a Wisconsin courtroom later in the day. He was arrested on Thursday, shortly after Jayme escaped from under a twin-size bed where she was being held and sought help from a woman walking a dog." Includes a facsimile of the criminal complaint." ...

... Mrs. McC: As far as I can tell, Patterson is a white guy & presumably a U.S. citizen. I expect Trump to tweet about how dangerous white Americans are -- "they're rapists & murderers," etc. -- just as he does about criminals who are immigrants.

The Commentariat -- January 13, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "So it has come to this: The president of the United States was asked over the weekend whether he is a Russian agent. And he refused to directly answer. The question, which came from a friendly interviewer, not one of the 'fake media' journalists he disparages, was 'the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked,' he declared. But it is a question that has hung over his presidency now for two years. If the now 23-day government shutdown standoff between Mr. Trump and Congress has seemed ugly, it may eventually seem tame by comparison with what is to come. The border wall fight is just the preliminary skirmish in this new era of divided government. The real battle has yet to begin. With Democrats now in charge of the House, the special counsel believed to be wrapping up his investigation, news media outlets competing for scoops and the first articles of impeachment already filed, Mr. Trump faces the prospect of an all-out political war for survival that may make the still-unresolved partial government shutdown pale by comparison.... The White House has begun recruiting soldiers. The new White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, has hired 17 new lawyers, according to The Post, as he prepares for a barrage of subpoenas from House Democratic committee chairmen."

Trump understands that conservative media personalities like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh hold the keys to his base -- and so it's unlikely he's going to stray from them on the gov't shutdown / border issue. Democrats are effectively negotiating with the right-wing media. pic.twitter.com/1HWP9dk5lx

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 13, 2019

... Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday that he's urged President Trump to open up the government for a short period of time so lawmakers can attempt to broker an end to the ongoing government shutdown, but was adamant that the president is 'not going to give in' on his demands to fund a border wall. Graham said on 'Fox News Sunday' that he spoke with Trump on Sunday morning, when the president indicated an emergency declaration to construct his desired wall along the southern border is a last resort. 'I would urge him to open up the government for a short period of time, like three weeks, before he pulls the plug' on a legislative solution, Graham said." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is pretty much the Democrats' ask, but a few weeks shorter than they originally suggested in December. It seems Lindsey is trying to talk Trump down off the wall using the preferred cat-on-the-roof methodology.

Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "According to a report from the Wall Street Journal..., Donald Trump’s White House — led by national security adviser John Bolton — requested options from the Pentagon to launch an attack on Iran in September of last year. According to the report, the request — which reportedly 'rattled' Pentagon and State Department officials — followed a mortar attack on into Baghdad’s diplomatic district, home to the U.S. Embassy." The WSJ report, which is firewalled, is here.

Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "Before Donald Trump's lawyer was pitching the Kremlin on building a Trump Tower in Moscow, the future president was negotiating to put his name on a building in a separate glitzy real estate development outside the Russian capital.... Trump's partner in this earlier project was Aras Agalarov, an oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the same man whose promise of dirt on Hillary Clinton set in motion the infamous June 2016 meeting at the original Trump Tower in New York. Two Congressional aides told NBC News the Agalarov project is now drawing new scrutiny from House and Senate investigators in the wake of the revelation in court documents that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen lied to Congress about his dealings on a separate, competing Russia real estate project. Cohen was also negotiating to build a Trump Tower in a separate part of the city."

*****

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

** This Is NOT Normal. Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said. Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. U.S. officials learned of Trump’s actions when a White House adviser and a senior State Department official sought information from the interpreter beyond a readout shared by Tillerson. The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries. As a result, U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference." ...

... David Smith of the Guardian/Observer: "In [a] 20-minute live phone interview with Fox News on Saturday night, [Trump] described as an 'insult' the New York Times story that alleged the FBI launched an investigation into whether the he was acting as a Russian asset, against his own country’s interests. Trump said the story, which claimed the investigation opened after Trump fired the FBI director James Comey in May 2017, was 'the most insulting article ever written'.... On Saturday, the Washington Post reported that Trump took the notes from of a 2017 meeting with Putin in Hamburg from his own interpreter. Citing current and former US officials, the paper also said Trump instructed the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials. Asked why he would not release the conversations, Trump said: 'I would. I don’t care ... I’m not keeping anything under wraps. I couldn’t care less.'... Holed up at the White House, Trump turned to the other subject dominating US politics.... 'I have the absolute right to call a national emergency,' he said. '... I’d rather see the Democrats come back from their vacation and act. It would take me 15 minutes to get a deal done and everyone could go back to work.'” ...

     ... Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday said he would be willing to release the details of his private conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last summer.... 'I mean, it’s so ridiculous, these people making up,' Trump said of the Post report, calling the paper 'basically the lobbyist' for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ e-commerce giant. Bezos is also the owner of the Post. 'The Washington Post is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times,' Trump said.... House Republicans in July quashed an attempt by Democratic lawmakers to subpoena Trump's interpreter in Helsinki." --s ...

     ... The Daily Beast: "In a on air phone call with Judge Jeanine on Fox News Saturday night...Trump would not give a straightforward answer when host Jeanine Pirro pressed him on whether or not he’s working as a Russian asset." --s ...

    ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I noticed this, too. Trump's "comeback" here, as if often the case, is to kill the messenger rather than to answer the question. The technique has become kind of a tell.

... Nicholas Fandos & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "President Trump on Saturday unleashed an extended assault on the F.B.I. and the special counsel’s investigation, knitting together a comprehensive alternative story in which he had been framed by disgraced 'losers' at the bureau’s highest levels. In a two-hour span starting at 7 a.m., the president made a series of false claims on Twitter about his adversaries and the events surrounding the inquiry. He was responding to a report in The New York Times that, after he fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director in 2017, the bureau began investigating whether the president had acted on behalf of Russia." ...

... David Boddiger of Splinter: "Trump responded to the [New York Times] report [about the FBI's investigation targeting him] on Saturday with a fury of tweets accusing the FBI of corruption. 'Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze!' Trump tweeted.... He continued ranting in several more tweets with a word salad of allegations against 'Crooked Hillary Clinton,' 'Bob Mueller, & the 13 Angry Democrats,' and 'Crooked Cop' Comey, among others." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Andrew Prokop of Vox: The NYT report "is the first outright confirmation that at a certain moment, the FBI explicitly began investigating Donald Trump’s Russia ties — including whether, as president, he was acting on Russia’s behalf.... n his interview with the New Yorker [linked next], the Times' Adam Goldman suggested another implication — that the counterintelligence probe into the president was central to Mueller’s appointment in the first place, and will likely be central to whatever findings the special counsel puts together at the conclusion of this investigation." ...

... Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker interviews Adam Goldman, the lead reporter on the New York Times story, about his reporting on the story. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Charles Pierce parses a sentence in the Times report: "Deep in The New York Times's latest bombshell is one singularly deadly word, a lethal bit of shrapnel aimed directly at the vitals of a criminal — and possibly treasonous — presidency. The word is tucked into a sentence that, at first glance, seems to be a perfectly anodyne statement of the current facts.... That word is 'publicly,' as in: 'No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.'... By dropping that fatal 'publicly' in there, the Times and its sources likely are giving us a preview of coming attractions. (Judging by his manic episode on the electric Twitter machine on Saturday morning, the president* knows this, too.) And the one thing about which we can all be sure is that is whole megillah is nowhere near as weird as it's going to get." ...

... Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo: "Lisa Page, former assistant general counsel at the F.B.I., answered questions in closed-door meetings of a joint House Judiciary and Oversight Committee last July. Transcripts passed to The Epoch Times and published Friday afternoon may have prompted the New York Times to release its counterintelligence story Friday night. Page, in her testimony to Representatives focused on Hillary Clinton emails, confirmed that her agency saw Clinton's emails as 'an entirely historical investigation' of lesser priority. 'In the assessment of the Counterintelligence Division,' Page stated, 'they still don’t even come close to the threat posed if Russia had co-opted a member of a political campaign.' '[W]ith respect to Western ideals and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans,' Page continued, 'Russia poses the most dangerous threat to that way of life.'” ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... it’s a shocking story: The nation’s leading law enforcement agency was looking into whether a sitting U.S. president was working for a hostile foreign nation. The decision was something the FBI reportedly struggled with for months.... It’s one thing to deliberately hamper the investigation; it’s another to suspect Trump might have done so on behalf of Russia.... What hasn’t been outlined ... are the proposed back channels between the Trump team and Russia. A month before Comey was fired, The Washington Post reported that Trump ally and Blackwater founder Erik Prince had proposed such a secret channel of communication between Trump and Moscow at a January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles with a Putin representative. The FBI was also presumably aware at the time (because it monitors the calls of Russian officials on U.S. soil) that then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak had told his superiors in Moscow that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had proposed a back channel during the transition period.... If Trump was working for Russia, it would be logical to assume he’d need some way of actually learning what Russia desired.... Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki last year has also raised eyebrows. He met privately with Putin for two hours, with nobody but interpreters present, and apparently nobody in the American government really knows what they discussed."

... Adam Silverman of Balloon Juice: "... the President’s positions during the campaign and the actions he’s taken, in regards to domestic, foreign, national security, and economic affairs, have given Putin almost everything he wanted. The only thing he hasn’t gotten yet is the lifting of sanctions, but there have been efforts within the administration to chip away at and/or redefine them in the favor of Putin and the oligarchs he protects. And this brings us ... to the question: what, if anything, would the President be doing differently if we knew for certain that he was a Russian asset or agent? And the answer I keep coming back to ... is nothing. There is nothing the President would be doing differently. And that conclusion is one of the most disturbing I’ve ever come to in my professional career." Emphasis original. ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Trump has met with Russian officials since 1987. It was after his first trip to Moscow that he first contemplated running for president. It is well within the realm of possibility that Russians used blackmail, bribes, or perhaps just simple flattery to help shape his thinking on world affairs. It is hard to understand how else some of the idiosyncratic and bizarrely Russpohillic ideas he routinely spouts have found their way into Trump’s brain. His warning that tiny Montenegro is a threat to attack Russia, or his claim that the Soviet Union was right to invade Afghanistan in 1979, are not notions Trump would pick up from his normal routine of binge-watching Fox News.... The relationship between Trump and Putin did not merely rest on their mutual interest in the Trump campaign defeating Clinton, but indicates some deeper connection.... Now we already know Mueller is not merely looking into crimes, but trying to ascertain the foundational loyalties of the President of the United States." ...

... Josh Marshall reviews the chain of events leading up to & immediately following the FBI's decision to open the counterintelligence investigation into Trump's relationship with Russia.

I’m not trying to be a jerk but the Times still owes its readers an explanation about what the f*** was going on with this vector of its reporting in 2016. pic.twitter.com/YKGzEvyK8g

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 12, 2019

The Great Trump Shutdown, Ctd.

Robert Costa, et al., of the Washington Post: "When President Trump made a rare journey to the Capitol last week, he was expected to strategize about how to end the government shutdown he instigated. Instead, he spent the first 20-odd minutes delivering a monologue about 'winning.'... The problem was that Trump offered no path to victory — other than brinkmanship.... The president who pitched himself to voters as a world-class dealmaker has proven to be an unreliable negotiator. Grappling for the first time with a divided government, Trump has contradicted himself, sent miscues and spread falsehoods. He has zigzagged between proudly claiming ownership of the shutdown and blaming it on Democrats, and between nearly declaring a national emergency to construct the wall without congressional approval and backing off such a legally and politically perilous action.... Trump’s advisers are scrambling to build an exit ramp while also bracing for the shutdown to last weeks longer. Current and former aides said there is little strategy in the White House; people are frustrated and, in the words of one, 'freaking out.'... As the shutdown dragged on, aides said, Trump has bragged that he looked 'tough' and that his supporters had his back.” ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm so confused. Trump says he could "do a deal in 15 minutes" to re-open the federal government. Why didn't he do so weeks ago? Why not last week? And the week before? Why not now? ...

... Wait, Wait! Trump Has a Secret Plan! Nancy Cook of Politico: "... Donald Trump said Saturday he was alone in the White House with a plan at the ready to reopen the federal government, but close White House advisers and staff said they remained in the dark about how he would end the three-week partial shutdown." ...

... Wag the Dog. Mrs. McCrabbie: One thing to keep in mind is something John Cassidy of the New Yorker mentioned in a post published Friday, before the NYT & WashPo stories appeared: "The political battle over the border wall is essentially a diversion, and from Trump’s perspective, it has already served its purpose." That is, Trump has shut down the government, inconveniencing millions of Americans & devastating some, potentially endangering everyone who flies or eats uninspected food or or or, in hopes no one will notice what's going on in the Mueller probe. No doubt he knows a lot more about what to expect on that front than we do, & very likely he's known for a couple of weeks about the impending NYT report, which reporters have worked on for "a while," as lead reorter Adam Goldman told Isaac Chotiner (linked above), & therefore might have clued in the White House when calling for comment. Trump also would have known about the WashPo story prior to yesterday, for the same reason. ...

     ... Yesterday Cassidy wrote, in response to publication of the Times story, "... the past forty-eight hours have demonstrated that, whatever happens in the next week or two regarding the government shutdown and the fight over the border wall, the White House cannot escape the Trump-Russia investigation. Until it is finally resolved one way or another, everything else is a sideshow."

Greg Grandin of The Intercept: "Since its founding in the early 20th century, the U.S. Border Patrol has operated with near-complete impunity, arguably serving as the most politicized and abusive branch of federal law enforcement — even more so than the FBI during J. Edgar Hoover’s directorship." Read on for a refresher course on the Border Patrol & the history of racism in immigration policy.

The Acorn Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree. Maureen Dowd contrasts the lessons Nancy Pelosi & Donnie Trump learned on their fathers' knees -- and how that all worked out. One of MoDo's better efforts, IMO. The accompanying photo of Nancy is super. ...

... Roger Cohen of the New York Times: "When Trump was in business, his shtick was stiffing contractors. If confronted, he would try some bombast and storm out of meetings, as he did the other day with congressional leaders, ending talks on the partial government shutdown caused by a crisis he has manufactured. His shtick now is stiffing all Americans. The technique is the same: Keep reality at a distance through hyperactive fakery. I have been fascinated by Trump’s compulsion.... Like the scorpion that stings the frog ferrying it across the torrent, he cannot help it. It’s his nature, you see.... In Trump the element of sadistic cruelty in his personality (mocking the disabled, for example), and the sheer gall of his fakery, make of him a malignant, rather than a benign, bullshit artist." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link. Well worth the read. (Also linked yesterday.) 

Jennifer Steinhauer & Dave Philipps of the New York Times: "The Department of Veterans Affairs is preparing to shift billions of dollars from government-run veterans’ hospitals to private health care providers, setting the stage for the biggest transformation of the veterans’ medical system in a generation. Under proposed guidelines, it would be easier for veterans to receive care in privately run hospitals and have the government pay for it. Veterans would also be allowed access to a system of proposed walk-in clinics, which would serve as a bridge between V.A. emergency rooms and private providers, and would require co-pays for treatment.... If put into effect, the proposed rules — many of whose details remain unclear as they are negotiated within the Trump administration — would be a win for the once-obscure Concerned Veterans for America, an advocacy group funded by the network founded by the billionaire industrialists Charles G. and David H. Koch, which has long championed increasing the use of private sector health care for veterans.... Some health care experts and veterans’ groups say the change, which has no separate source of funding, would redirect money that the current veterans’ health care system — the largest in the nation — uses to provide specialty care. Critics have also warned that switching vast numbers of veterans to private hospitals would strain care in the private sector and that costs for taxpayers could skyrocket. In addition, they say it could threaten the future of traditional veterans’ hospitals, some of which are already under review for consolidation or closing.... Critics, which include nearly all of the major veterans’ organizations, say that paying for care in the private sector would starve the 153-year-old veterans’ health care system, causing many hospitals to close." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't know what the scams are here, but you can bet the devil is in the (undisclosed) details.

Nick Turse in Salon: "Within hours of President Trump’s announcement of a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, equipment at that base was already being inventoried for removal. And just like that, arguably the most important American garrison in Syria was (maybe) being struck from the Pentagon’s books — except, as it happens, al-Tanf [military base] was never actually on the Pentagon’s books.... Officially, the Department of Defense (DoD) maintains 4,775 'sites,' spread across all 50 states, eight U.S. territories, and 45 foreign countries. A total of 514 of these outposts are located overseas, according to the Pentagon’s worldwide property portfolio.... But the most recent version of that portfolio, issued in early 2018 and known as the Base Structure Report (BSR), doesn’t include any mention of al-Tanf. Or, for that matter, any other base in Syria. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Niger. Or Tunisia. Or Cameroon. Or Somalia. Or any number of locales where such military outposts are known to exist and even, unlike in Syria, to be expanding.... Such off-the-books bases are off the books for a reason. The Pentagon doesn’t want to talk about them." --s

Election 2018

Igor Derysch of Salon: "The National Rifle Association appears to have illegally coordinated campaign ads with Republican candidates in key Senate races, according to Federal Communication Records (FCC) records obtained by The Trace. According to the report, the NRA’s ads on behalf of Missouri Senate candidate Josh Hawley and Montana Senate candidate Matt Rosendale in 2018, as well as North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr in 2016, were all authorized by the same media consulting firm that they candidates used for their ads. (Hawley and Burr won their races, but Rosendale lost to Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.) The scheme appears to be in violation of laws barring independent groups from working in concert with political campaigns. According to the FCC records, at least 10 purchases by both the NRA and three Senate campaigns were made by the same person, National Media CFO Jon Ferell. The Trace reported that the company used the 'assumed or fictitious name' Red Eagle Media to buy ads for the NRA while using the name American Media & Advocacy Group to buy ads for the Senate candidates." --s

North Carolina. Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "Nine months before allegations of absentee ballot fraud tainted a congressional race in North Carolina, the state elections board gave officials from the Justice Department’s main office evidence that the political operative at the center of the scandal had used similar tactics in 2016. On Jan. 31, 2018, the chief of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which oversees prosecutions of election crimes, met in Raleigh with state officials and U.S. attorney Robert Higdon, according to an elections board spokesman. The following day, the state officials sent a public integrity lawyer an eight-page memo describing interviews with two campaign workers who said they were paid during the 2016 election to hand-deliver mail-in ballots to political operative Leslie McCrae Dowless.... Josh Lawson, general counsel for the state elections board, said he saw little indication that federal prosecutors pursued the Dowless matter." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Far be it from me to criticize Jeff Sessions, but one might suspect that JeffBo wasn't really all that interested in ensuring the integrity of the vote. Dowless, BTW, was working for a Republican candidate in 2016 (as he did in the contested 2018 election).

Presidential Race 2020. Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "Julián Castro, the former housing secretary and former mayor of San Antonio, announced on Saturday that he would run for president, one of the most high-profile Latino Democrats ever to seek the party’s nomination. His first campaign stop will be in Puerto Rico, where he will speak on Monday at the Latino Victory Fund’s annual summit and meet with residents still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria. Later in the week, his campaign said, he will go to New Hampshire.... Mr. Castro, 44, was raised in San Antonio in a politically active family. His mother, Rosie Castro, was an activist with the Mexican-American political party La Raza Unida and frequently took Julián and his twin brother, Joaquin — now a congressman — to rallies and meetings. Joaquin Castro will be the chairman of Julián’s campaign."

Adam Bernstein of the Washington Post: "Judge [Patricia] Wald, whom Barack Obama called 'one of the most respected appellate judges of her generation' when he awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013, died Jan. 12 at her home in Washington. She was 90."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Emma Graham-Harrison, et al. of the Guardian: "New evidence has emerged linking an RAF [Royal Air Force] veteran to the death in 1961 of the UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld in a mysterious plane crash in southern Africa. Jan van Risseghem has been named as a possible attacker before, but has always been described simply as a Belgian pilot. The Observer can now reveal that he had extensive ties to Britain, including a British mother and wife, trained with the RAF and was decorated by Britain for his service in the second world war. Film-makers investigating the 1961 crash for a documentary, Cold Case Hammarskjöld, have found a friend of Van Risseghem who claimed the pilot confessed to shooting down the UN plane. They also gathered testimony from another pilot that undermines one of his alibis for that night...Van Risseghem died in 2007." --s