The Commentariat -- January 12, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

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." ...

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

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.

*****

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

** Adam Goldman, et al., of the New York Times: "In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president'behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation. The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence. The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.... The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, took over the inquiry into Mr. Trump when he was appointed, days after F.B.I. officials opened it." Read the whole report. It's a blockbuster. ...

... Ben Wittes of Lawfare: "Observers of the Russia investigation have generally understood Special Counsel Robert Mueller's work as focusing on at least two separate tracks: collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, on the one hand, and potential obstruction of justice by the president, on the other. But what if the obstruction was the collusion...?" Testimony from both Jim Comey & FBI general counsel James Baker "is that the investigation was something of a criminal-counterintelligence hybrid from early on.... To the extent that firing Comey was the result of a decision to shut down the investigation, [Baker] said, that would frustrate the FBI's ability to ascertain what the Russians and their confederates had done." ...

     ... Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "... Wittes seems to be realizing for the first time that Trump's efforts to obstruct the investigation may be little more than an element of the underlying problem, which is that Trump has been working on the behalf of Russian interests all along. For this reason, his obstruction is just as much about protecting Russia as it is about protecting himself.... When Trump made himself an enemy of the investigation into Russia, he turned himself into a national security threat.... The firing of Comey ... wasn't just an effort to obstruct an investigation of himself. It was an effort to prevent the FBI from investigating Russia.... Ever since [Comey's firing], the investigation has operated on the assumption that Trump and Russia are coconspirators both before and after the fact.... While Trump has acquiesced in some tough measures against Russia, the overall picture is indistinguishable from what a Manchurian president would do if they wanted to press Russia's interests as far as possible while still retaining enough deniability to maintain their hold on power. That is certainly how the intelligence community sees things...."

Niall Stanage of the Hill: "Rudy Giuliani says President Trump's legal team should be allowed to 'correct' special counsel Robert Mueller's final report before Congress or the American people get the chance to read it. The claim, made in a telephone interview with The Hill on Thursday evening, goes further than the president's legal advisers have ever gone before in arguing they have a right to review the conclusions of Mueller's probe.... 'As a matter of fairness, they should show it to you -- so we can correct it if they're wrong,' said the former New York City mayor.... 'They're not God, after all. They could be wrong.'"

Katy Tur of NBC News: "Senate intelligence committee investigators are interviewing former members of ... Donald Trump's campaign as they hunt for evidence of possible collusion with Russia, asking one witness Friday fresh questions about the president's business dealings and how he formulated his policies toward Moscow. Sam Nunberg, who worked for Trump and his campaign in 2015, said he was questioned in a closed-door session on Capitol Hill about Trump's trip to Moscow in 2013, his company's interest in building a tower there and specific relationships between past members of the campaign and foreign actors who may have worked with Russia." ...

... Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "All the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter on Friday to the Justice Department's inspector general calling for him to scrutinize and potentially investigate the department's ethics practices. In the letter, the lawmakers expressed concern about Attorney General Matt Whitaker's decision to oversee Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, despite having previously criticized the investigation and claimed it would find no evidence of coordination between Trump World and the Kremlin. The letter will not necessarily result in any action from the DOJ's government watchdog.... Michael Bromwich, formerly the inspector general for the Justice Department, told The Daily Beast a request like this one wouldn't necessarily result in any action. 'Letters like this come in all the time,' he told The Daily Beast."

Christian Caryl of the Washington Post: "... MIT scholars have developed a robust methodology for assessing how social media campaigns influence the behavior of their targets -- and now they want to bring it to bear on the Russian meddling in 2016.... To conduct such a study properly, we'd probably need far more information from the social media platforms than they've been willing to release so far.... Given access to adequate data, the researchers claim they can estimate the impact of the Russian influence campaign in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida 'with 95% to 99% confidence.'... And it certainly wouldn't hurt to know more about how the Russians did their targeting and any of the help they received on that front from outsiders. (Manafort?)"

Dan Alexander of Forbes: "Donald Trump sold an estimated $35 million worth of real estate while serving in the White House last year, according to a Forbes analysis of local property records and federal filings. Although the president delegated day-to-day management of his assets to his sons Eric and Don Jr. upon taking office, he maintained ownership of his business, which continued to liquidate properties. More than half of that $35 million came from a single deal, in which Trump and business partners offloaded a federally subsidized housing complex in Brooklyn for about $900 million. The president held a 4% stake in the property...."

The Trump Shutdown ...
... Is Now the Longest Shutdown in U.S. History

Trump Dawdles on Declaring Fake Emergency. John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Friday threw cold water on the idea of immediately declaring a national emergency to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, reversing days of signals that he might soon declare the emergency amid a protracted standoff with Democrats over a partial shutdown of the federal government. 'What we're not looking to do right now is national emergency,' he said Friday afternoon, surrounded by law enforcement officials at a White House roundtable. 'I'm not going to do it so fast.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently words or phrases associated with Trump's "policies" do not require (an) article; ergo, "wall" instead of "a wall" or "the wall" & "national emergency" instead of "a national emergency." Anyway, if it were real national emergency, a real president would not dawdle.  ...

     ... Here's Why Trump Is Dawdling. Melanie Zanona & Sarah Ferris of Politico: "A core group of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus is urging ... Donald Trump against the explosive step of declaring a national emergency to build his wall. Multiple Republicans in the conservative group have privately raised their concerns with the Trump administration, fearing it would lead to a years-long legal standoff that Democrats could win while setting a dangerous precedent for the presidency, according to more than a dozen lawmakers and GOP aides. They want Trump to hold out for a deal with Democrats, regardless of how long the partial government shutdown drags on. Trump's possible pursuit of an emergency declaration on the border divided the caucus during an animated meeting Wednesday night, according to lawmakers who attended the meeting." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Ole Trump has got hisself caught between Nancy Pelosi & Mark Meadows. Sadly, he ain't half as smart as Br'er Rabbit. Meaning we is all stuck in tar. ...

     ... AND This. Shannon Vavra of Axios: "Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said Friday he opposes redirecting Hurricane Harvey disaster relief funds to build President Trump's border wall." ...

     ... AND This. Matt Belvedere of CNBC: "... Donald Trump should not declare a national emergency over illegal immigration in order to bypass Congress to get his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Sen. Chuck Grassley, a veteran Republican from Iowa, told CNBC on Friday.... 'I believe you're going to find it in the courts almost immediately. And the courts are going to make a decision' if Trump declares an emergency.... 'The president is threatening emergency action, a national emergency declaration. I don't think he should do that. I think it's a bad precedent. And it contravenes the power of the purse that comes from the elected representatives of the people,' said Grassley, who was elected to Congress in 1974 and the Senate in 1980." ...

     ... AND This. Emily Maloney of the Tampa Bay Times: "Ron DeSantis hasn't even finished his first week as Florida governor and he already appears to be on a collision course with the man who helped him get the job: ... Donald Trump. On Friday, DeSantis said that it would not be acceptable for Trump to take funds from hurricane relief to be used toward the border wall.... DeSantis' comments came after news broke Thursday night that Trump ... was considering using disaster funding intended for storm-damaged Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico and for wildfire recovery in California to pay for the wall at the border." ...

Julie Davis & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Officially, Republicans blame Democrats for what is now the longest government shutdown in the nation's history. Privately, many concede, the stalemate over President Trump's demand for a border wall has been made exponentially worse by White House ineptitude on Capitol Hill, where two years of contradictory statements and actions have built up a profound lack of trust. Republican lawmakers and aides worry that Mr. Trump has misunderstood Democrats' incentives to stand firm and that he has deputized the wrong aides to press his case. And they question who -- if anyone other than the president -- has the authority to resolve the impasse. They describe a dysfunctional dynamic where even senior leaders in Mr. Trump's own party never know quite what to expect from the president.... The president has now repeatedly undercut Vice President Mike Pence, to whom he has delegated the task of negotiating an end to a seemingly intractable stalemate.... Mr. Trump's assumptions about what Democrats will give in on, and what is motivating them, have also been almost comically wrong."

... Melanie Should Give Hubby That "I Really Don't Care" Jacket. Gabby Orr of Politico: "White House officials are warning congressional Republicans not to expect an immediate end to the government shutdown even if ... Donald Trump declares a national emergency at the southern border. The warning came during Trump's Thursday visit to the southern U.S. border.... Many Democrats and some Republicans have grown hopeful that a national emergency declaration ... might end a political standoff that has partially shut down the government.... Their thinking is that such an effort by Trump would allow him to declare victory and strike a deal with Congress to reopen the federal government, even though his extreme legal move would then face severe court challenges. But Trump's allies say the president is reluctant to hand Democrats a 'win' by reopening the government after he's invoked emergency powers."

Joe Ward & Anjali Singhvi of the New York Times: President Trump has frequently called the situation at the southern border with Mexico a crisis and insists that building his long-promised border wall will fix it. Here are some of Mr. Trump's most common assertions of a crisis, and the reality of what we know about immigrants and the border." ...

     ... Mrs McCrabbie: I guessed right the other day when I said one of Trump's incomprehensibe tweets might be about supposed drug smuggling. Somebody changed the tweet to, "Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border." As to the utility of that claim vis-a-vis wall, Ward & Singhvi write, "most heroin is brought into the country in vehicles entering through legal border crossings, not through the areas where walls are proposed or already exist." In a chart based on CBP stats, 90 percent of the heroin coming into the U.S. via all borders is brought in at legal ports of entry. So assuming (and this is not accurate) that all heroin came in thru the U.S.-Mexico border & that Trump's 300 heroin deaths/week figure is accurate, each week 30 Americans, not 300, die because of heroin smuggled across border areas that wall might make more difficult.

Gail Collins: "It’s as if we’ve fallen down a rabbit hole and landed in a Wonderland totally devoid of wonder. Even if you really, really want Donald Trump to be a total failure hurtling his way back toward civilian life, it's not comforting to have a president who's so out to lunch. Just think about that trip to Texas. McAllen, the city Trump chose to demonstrate the terror of wall-free borders, was recently listed by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best places to retire in the nation. But the president, who was making only his second trip to the border since he took office, assured the public he knew how terrible things are because 'I have been there numerous times.' And that was just one tiny piece of his week!"

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "In his political fight for a border wall, President Trump has enlisted a new group of surrogates to join conservative talk show hosts and Republican allies in making a public case — Border Patrol agents. On a tour of a patrol station in McAllen, Tex., this week, Trump gathered 15 agents, dressed in uniforms and tactical gear, to stand next to him as he filmed a minute-long video. 'They have done an incredible job,' said Trump, sporting a 'Make America Great Again' hat. 'But we all want to see a wall or a barrier because that will make your job even easier ... Everybody knows we need a barrier; we need a wall.' The agents remained silent, but the visual message was clear: Trump wanted viewers to believe Customs and Border Protection, an agency of 59,000 employees, is firmly behind him in a political skirmish that has resulted in a partial government shutdown. For Trump, the episode offered the latest example of his willingness to stretch the boundaries of using law enforcement agencies for political messaging. Last week, he brought leaders of unions for Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the White House briefing room to tout the wall." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Just his wearing that campaign cap at a supposedly official visit is way out of line. Taxpayers should not be paying for this crap -- but we are. ...

...

... They Were Against It Before They Were For It. Ted Hesson of CNN: "A union that represents Border Patrol agents recently deleted a webpage that said building walls and fences along the border to stop illegal immigration would be 'wasting taxpayer money.' The deleted webpage, posted in 2012, argued that border barriers don't tackle the root causes of migration -- and could potentially encourage more migrants to enter the U.S. fraudulently or overstay visas. The webpage was taken down after the union's president endorsed the wall at a White House news briefing earlier this month."

How to Prove You're Totally Out of Touch with Real People. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Federal workers furloughed because of the government shutdown might be 'better off' after they return to work because they essentially are getting a free vacation, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said this week.... Donald Trump's chief economic adviser made the suggestion in an interview on 'PBS NewsHour.' He said many of the 800,000 federal employees affected by the three-week partial government shutdown had been planning to take vacation days around the Christmas and New Year holidays, and thus wouldn't have worked during parts of the shutdown anyway -- but now they get to keep their vacation days.... He did, however, allow that the shutdown would have cost the economy around $20 billion in output through Friday and an additional $10 billion per week after that."

Lisa Rein & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "After an intense lobbying campaign by the mortgage industry, the Treasury Department this week restarted a program that had been sidelined by the partial government shutdown, allowing hundreds of Internal Revenue Service clerks to collect paychecks as they process forms vital to the lending industry. The hasty intervention to restore the IRS's income verification service by drawing on revenue from fees -- even as 800,000 federal employees across the country are going without their salaries -- has intensified questions about the Trump administration's unorthodox efforts to bring certain government functions back online to contain the shutdown's impacts. Critics, including many former IRS officials, described the move as an act of favoritism to ease the burden on a powerful industry. 'It seems crazy to me that a powerful bank or lobby gets to bring their people back to do their work,' said Marvin Friedlander, who served as a senior IRS official in the mid-2000s.... Because of the shutdown, the IRS was unable to process a key form that lenders use to confirm borrowers' incomes before they can grant home loans -- a roadblock that threatened to bring the mortgage industry to a halt."

Remember the Turtle! Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "President Trump is not the only person in Washington who could end this government shutdown now. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could bring a 'clean' funding bill to the floor, free up his GOP caucus to support it and could quite possibly secure enough votes to override a presidential veto. McConnell already did it once, when he believed he had Trump's blessing. Before the holidays he allowed a vote to keep the government running until Feb. 8, to avoid a shutdown and buy more time to negotiate Trump's demand for border wall funding. It passed easily [Mrs. McC: by voice vote. But when Trump balked, McConnell] ... left the shutdown public relations to other Republicans, skipping news conferences and keeping a low profile."

The Great Wall of Stupid. Lachlan Markay & Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "A decorated veteran who raised more than $20 million to finance construction of a wall along the southern U.S. border has announced that he will instead use the money to finance a new nonprofit group that will build the wall itself -- or at least a couple miles of it. Brian Kolfage's crowdfunding campaign on the website GoFundMe went viral in December, before news outlets uncovered previous instances in which the triple-amputee veteran appeared to have pocketed funds raised through similar, if far smaller, campaigns billed as efforts to assist wounded warriors. Now Kolfage, a prolific operator of conspiracy theory Facebook pages, has recruited a team of prominent figures in ... Donald Trump's orbit to run a new 501(c)(4) nonprofit, named We Fund The Wall, to do some wall construction of its own. The new group's board, Kolfage announced on Friday, includes Erik Prince, the founder of infamous military contract Blackwater; David Clarke, the former scandal-plagued sheriff of Milwaukee County; Fox News contributor Sara Carter; Tom Tancredo, an immigration hardliner and former Colorado congressman; and former Kansas Secretary of State and voter fraud crusader Kris Kobach[.]"...

... What? An Unethical Trumpbot? Unpossible! Brandy Zadrozny & Ben Collins of NBC News: "The GoFundMe fundraiser that promised to help privately fund ... Donald Trump's plan for a wall spanning the length of the U.S.-Mexico border surpassed $20 million dollars in donations this week. But the man behind it -- Brian Kolfage, a rising conservative media star -- may have had another goal. Through his border-wall campaign, he claims to have gathered 3.5 million email addresses, which are essential to his broader operation -- a wide-ranging and multipronged effort to collect a list of Trump supporters who have proven to be sources of donations for conservative efforts, former employees told NBC News. According to former employees and public records including website archives, Nevada business registrations and property records, Kolfage has repeatedly created GoFundMe campaigns and published inflammatory fake news articles, pushing them both from websites that he sought to hide behind shell companies and false identities, in part to harvest email addresses. Those addresses were then used to push people back to Kolfage's websites, to sell a brand of coffee he owns, or to be stockpiled for future use by conservative campaigns.... The [wall] campaign ... is only the most high-profile part of Kolfage's email harvesting operation, which former employees told NBC News extends back to his creation of far-right news websites -- an effort that resulted in a Facebook ban."

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump has long claimed that he puts 'America first' overseas. But in two remarkable statements on Thursday, Mr. Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, explicitly favored foreign autocrats over elected American leaders. Mr. Pompeo chose Cairo, the site of President Barack Obama's 2009 address to the Islamic world, to deliver a caustic, point-by-point repudiation of Mr. Obama's message. He paid tribute to Egypt's repressive president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, for his courage in supporting Mr. Trump's alternative approach. About an hour later, on the South Lawn of the White House, Mr. Trump said that China's Communist Party bosses negotiated in better faith than the Democratic leaders in Congress.... 'I find China, frankly, in many ways to be far more honorable than Cryin' Chuck and Nancy. I really do,' Mr. Trump said, referring to the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 'China is actually much easier to deal with than the opposition party.' This is the same China that Mr. Trump's national security strategy designated as one of the greatest threats to American interests...."

Eric Schmitt, et al., of the New York Times: "The American military has started withdrawing some equipment, but not yet troops, from Syria as part of President Trump's order to wind down that battleground against the Islamic State, two Defense Department officials said on Friday amid continuing confusion over plans to disengage from one of the Middle East's most complex conflicts. The officials said the number of American troops might actually increase slightly in Syria, to help protect the final process of pulling out -- an operation that is still expected to take at least four to six months to complete. There are currently about 2,000 troops -- mostly Army soldiers and Marines -- in northeast Syria or in the Middle Euphrates River Valley to oust the remaining pockets of Islamic State fighters and secure newly-liberated areas from their return. A vaguely worded statement from the American military headquarters in Baghdad ... said the withdrawal process from Syria had begun."

Grace Panetta of Business Insider: "... Ivanka Trump ... is one of the names being considered as a replacement for The World Bank's outgoing president, Jim Yong Kim, the Financial Times reported Friday. The DC-based World Bank, founded after World War II to finance economic-development projects in emerging economies, has traditionally been led by an American. Kim's sudden departure from the bank came as a surprise to employees and leaves the bank's future uncertain. The Trump administration, which has been wary of and even hostile toward Western-led international institutions like the World Bank, will now be tasked with submitting a recommendation to the bank's board." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It seems superfluous to mention (but I'm doing it anyway) that an institution like the World Bank is highly-susceptible to Trump-style corruption. Ivanka would have a field day. As Reuters reported a few days ago, Kim resigned three years early because he "was at odds with the Trump administration's policies on climate change.... Kim, 59, a physician and public health advocate, was nominated by ... Barack Obama for a first and second term. Kim had pushed financing for green energy projects and largely dropped support for coal power investments, but had avoided public clashes with the Trump administration. Two people familiar with Kim's announcement to the World Bank executive board said he was leaving of his own accord and was 'not pushed out' by the Trump administration."

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), in a Washington Post op-ed: "... Republicans ... are often still struggling when it comes to civility and fairness. This was driven home once again Thursday as Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) wondered aloud: 'White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization -- how did that language become offensive?'... When people with opinions similar to King's open their mouths, they damage not only the Republican Party and the conservative brand but also our nation as a whole.... Some in our party wonder why Republicans are constantly accused of racism -- it is because of our silence when things like this are said.... King's comments are not conservative views but separate views that should be ridiculed at every turn possible." ...

... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Lis Power, et al., of Media Matters: "When it comes to a congresswoman cursing versus a congressman embracing white supremacy, cable news apparently believes the cursing deserves more coverage -- five times more coverage, to be exact. On January 4, the day after Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) referred to ... Donald Trump by saying 'Impeach the motherfucker' during a reception with supporters, cable news outlets (CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC) spent over two and a half hours discussing the topic. In comparison, in the roughly 24 hours following the publication of Rep. Steve King's (R-IA) comments in The New York Times that showed him embracing white supremacy, cable news devoted just under 30 minutes of coverage to the congressman's racism."

Aaron Katersky of ABC News: "Six families of victims killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School won a legal victory Friday in their fight against controversial radio and internet personality Alex Jones. A judge in Connecticut has granted the families' discovery requests, allowing them access to, among other things, Infowars' internal marketing and financial documents. The judge has scheduled a hearing next week to decide whether to allow the plaintiffs' attorneys to depose Jones."

Presidential Race 2020. Mrs. McCrabbie: Okay, here's a Democratic presidential contender who makes Michael Avenatti look pretty good.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Samantha Gross of the Miami Herald: "After nearly 70 years, all members of the Groveland Four -- four young black men falsely accused of raping a white woman in Lake County -- were pardoned by a unanimous vote Friday. The Florida Cabinet met for the first time as the state Clemency Board Friday, where it heard from family members of the men who were either imprisoned, tortured or murdered by mobs and a racist sheriff. The Groveland Four matter was only supposed to be up for discussion, and families were not expecting to hear a vote Friday. But at the very end of the meeting, Gov. Ron DeSantis called for a vote. 'I believe in the principles of the Constitution. I believe in getting a fair shake,' he said. 'I don't think there's any way that you can look at this case and see justice was carried out.' Some call the treatment of the four men one of the worst episodes of racism in American history."

News Lede

Guardian: "Two firefighters have died in a massive explosion caused by a 'pocket of gas' in a six-storey building in Paris. Another 47 people were injured, 10 of them critically, including a third fire officer, in the blast in the 9th arrondissement of the capital on Saturday morning."

The Commentariat -- January 11, 2019

Late Morning Update:

Niall Stanage of the Hill: "Rudy Giuliani says President Trump's legal team should be allowed to 'correct' special counsel Robert Mueller's final report before Congress or the American people get the chance to read it. The claim, made in a telephone interview with The Hill on Thursday evening, goes further than the president's legal advisers have ever gone before in arguing they have a right to review the conclusions of Mueller's probe.... 'As a matter of fairness, they should show it to you -- so we can correct it if they're wrong,' said the former New York City mayor.... 'They're not God, after all. They could be wrong.'" Akhilleus explains, in commentary below, why this is only fair.

*****

What It Would Be Like if Cliff Clavin Were President*:

... Lee Moran of the Huffington Post: The new-fangled Twitter machine is not buying Trump's history of the prehistoric invention of walls & wheels (which Trump asserts were both developed in medieval times, so you know, no Roman walls, no chariot races).

*****

We lose 300 Americans a week, 90% of which comes through the Southern Border. These numbers will be DRASTICALLY REDUCED if we have a Wall! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet yesterday evening

Huh? (I think he might be writing about death-by-imported-drugs, but there's no way to know.) -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ...

... Michael Tackett & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Trump traveled to the border on Thursday to escalate his demands for a wall with warnings of crime and chaos on the frontier, as the partial government shutdown neared a milestone Day 21 and Senate Republican efforts to break the impasse collapsed in Washington. On Friday, the shutdown will tie the longest in the nation's history. But the White House only dug in harder. 'No wall, no deal,' Vice President Mike Pence declared in a briefing with reporters on Capitol Hill. 'We're going to keep standing strong, keep standing firm.' In a sign of growing unease, some Senate Republicans came off the sidelines to try to hash out a deal that would reopen the government as Congress worked toward a broader agreement tying wall funds to protection for some undocumented immigrants and other migrants. But before those negotiations could gain momentum, they collapsed; Mr. Trump let it be known privately that he would not back such a deal and Republicans failed to come to consensus among themselves, much less with the Democrats. 'It kind of fell apart,' Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said, wearing a dejected expression. 'I have never been more depressed about moving forward than I am right now. I just don't see a pathway.'" ...

Today is Thursday. That means @realDonaldTrump is lying, again. Hard for Democrats to negotiate with @POTUS when he makes stuff up, changes his mind on a whim and lies repeatedly. -- Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), in a tweet, referring to Trump's claim he never said Mexico would directly pay for the wall ...

... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "It was a foundational promise of Donald Trump's historic presidential campaign: Mexico would pay for his 2,000-mile border wall. But as he desperately fights for $5.7 billion in taxpayer money for the project, Trump now claims he never said Mexico would directly foot the bill. 'Obviously, I never said this, and I never meant they're going to write out a check,' the president told reporters Thursday.... He did say it -- at least 212 times during his campaign and dozens more since he took office. And he put it in writing -- in a March 2016 memo to news outlets that was then posted on his campaign website. Specifically, Trump threatened to cut off billions of dollars in remittance payments from Mexican nationals in the United States to families in their home country. That, he proclaimed, would pressure the Mexican government to cough up 'a one-time payment of $5-10 billion' for the wall.... But 2½ years later, with the parts of the federal government shut down for three weeks in a budget impasse over Trump's wall, the episode illustrates how his routine application of falsehoods, exaggerations and lies in service of political combat has come back to burn him.... The Republicans who controlled Congress over the past two years never made funding the wall with taxpayer money a priority." ...

WH pool report from the border: 'Sean Hannity has special access here. He huddled with Bill Shine and Secretary Nielsen and is following along on Trump's tour, only standing with the staff and federal officials as opposed to the press corps.' -- Jon Passantino, in a tweet

This is going to kill Hannity's sterling journalistic reputation. -- Anonymous Wag who writes the headlines for New York's "Daily Intelligencer" writes (no link)

... Michael Tackett: "President Trump left Washington on Thursday on a trip to McAllen, Texas, that he did not want to take to discuss a crisis on the border that Democrats say does not exist. Their disagreement has led to a protracted shutdown affecting vast swaths of the federal government that have nothing to do with the construction of a wall between the United States and Mexico.... The president left Washington with no additional negotiations scheduled with congressional leaders. In remarks to reporters on Thursday, Mr. Trump left open the possibility of declaring a state of emergency, which could allow him to bypass Congress to fund the wall. Asked if he would make such a declaration, an action that would likely face legal challenges, Mr. Trump said: 'If this doesn't work out, probably I will do it. I would almost say definitely.'" Mrs. McC: McAllen? How about McAlamo? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

I'm a professional at technology. -- Donald Trump, on the South Lawn yesterday

sometimes Trump reads things on a iPad that he calls 'the flat one' -- Tara Palmeri, August 28, 2018 ... Via New York (no link)

... Erica Werner & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "The White House has begun laying the groundwork for a declaration of national emergency to build President Trump' border wall, including searching for unused money in the Army Corps of Engineers budget, two people with knowledge of the preparations said Thursday. Such a declaration would be certain to set off a firestorm of opposition and would undoubtedly be challenged in court. But it could also be a way out of the current impasse, allowing Trump to cite action on his long-promised wall even without Congress granting his funding demands, and potentially paving the way for the government to reopen.... The administration is specifically eyeing a disaster spending bill passed by Congress last year that includes $13.9 billion in funding that has been allocated but not actually spent for a variety of projects...." ...

     ... Shifting $$ from Real Emergencies to Trump's Fake Emergency. Courtney Kube & Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "The money was set aside to fund projects all over the country including storm-damaged areas of Puerto Rico through fiscal year 2020, but the checks have not been written yet and, under an emergency declaration, the president could take the money from these civil works projects and use it to build the border wall, said officials familiar with the briefing and two congressional sources.... Under the proposal, the officials said, Trump could dip into the $2.4 billion allocated to projects in California, including flood prevention and protection projects along the Yuba River Basin and the Folsom Dam, as well as the $2.5 billion set aside for reconstruction projects in Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from Hurricane Maria.... Democrats in Congress are likely to submit legislation to block the money from being reallocated." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Can't you just see Trump's beady little piggy eyes light up when his factotums tell him he could divert money from Puerto Rico (brown people) & California (brown people & Democrats) to build a racist monument against more brown people?

... Matt Ford of the New Republic: "Two provisions in federal law could give Trump the off-ramp he seeks. One allows him to order the Army Corps of Engineers to work on construction projects deemed 'essential to the national defense' during a declared emergency, while another allows the president to spend defense-related funds on those projects without a specific appropriation from Congress. In essence, Trump would be robbing the Pentagon to pay for the wall.... The phrase 'state of emergency,' especially when invoked by a president who shows little interest in preserving democracy, rightly sends a chill down spines. It's virtually synonymous with dictatorship and illiberal putsches.... 'Of the 58 times presidents have declared emergencies since Congress reformed emergency-powers laws in 1976,' The New York Times notes, 'none involved funding a policy goal after failing to win congressional approval.'... Lawfare's Quinta Jurecic noted earlier this week that, dismal optics aside, Trump may be on relatively safe constitutional grounds when his actions reach the courts.... The lawmakers of an earlier age thus made an egregious oversight: They assumed that future presidents would use these extraordinary powers in good faith, to address genuine national emergencies. The Trump administration is a monument to their lack of foresight." ...

... digby: "I don't think even Trump's unqualified judges would buy this nonsense.... A fake emergency that allows Trump to expressly ignore the most important congressional prerogative -- the power of the purse -- in pursuit of a policy that is only supported by a minority of the country for what is clearly political purposes is a very, very serious abuse of presidential power. It's possible they will let him get away with it in the end, of course. We are in the Twilight Zone. And after all, congress has abdicated their duty many times before, setting up the inevitable moment when a president would blatantly abuse the power he was given. But if the courts can't bring themselves to check that power in this instance, we are probably permanently on the road to a new, more autocratic, America. God help us when there's a real crisis." ...

... Marco Thinks Ahead. Ed Kilgore: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) isn't worried that Trump will abuse his power by declaring a fake national emergency to fulfill a ridiculous campaign promise; Marco is worried that Trump's fake emergency could set a precedent for a future real Democratic president to declare a real national emergency for a real critical situation. For instance, Marco muses, "If today, the national emergency is border security ... tomorrow the national emergency might be climate change." ...

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 (R-Iowa), in an interview with the New York Times ...

... First, There Was Steve King. Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "... Mr. Trump's preoccupation with the wall and anti-immigrant politics reflects how he has embraced the once-fringe views of [virulent anti-immigrant Rep. Steve] King [R-Iowa], who has used racist language in the past, promotes neo-Nazis on Twitter and was recently denounced by one Republican leader as a white supremacist.... Early in Mr. Trump's term, the president invited Mr. King -- who was long snubbed by establishment Republicans like the former House speaker John A. Boehner -- to the Oval Office. There, the president boasted of having raised more money for the congressman's campaigns than anyone else, including during a 2014 Iowa visit, Mr. King recalled in an interview with The Times. 'Yes, Mr. President,' Mr. King replied. 'But I market-tested your immigration policy for 14 years, and that ought to be worth something.'" ...

... Robin Opsahl of the Des Moines Register: "Rep. Steve King denied allegations that he supports white nationalism and white supremacy Thursday after a recent New York Times article tied the controversial Iowa Republican to further white nationalist rhetoric.... 'I want to make one thing abundantly clear; I reject those labels and the evil ideology that they define,' King said. 'Further, I condemn anyone that supports this evil and bigoted ideology which saw in its ultimate expression the systematic murder of 6 million innocent Jewish lives.' King also said he still identifies as 'an advocate for Western civilization's value' and a 'Nationalist.' Mrs. McC: Uh, King did not deny he made the pro-white-supremacist remark, cited above, to the NYT.

Rachel Bade & Heather Caygle of Politico: "House Democrats are weighing a lawsuit if ... Donald Trump pulls the trigger on a national emergency declaration to build his border wall, with party leaders eager to stop the president from doing an end run around Congress.... Democrats would likely have standing to challenge the administration for usurping their authority for what they view as a phony emergency.... Even if they sue, House Democrats are also likely to hold hearings on the president's decision.... Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas told Politico Thursday, 'I'm from the border, there's no crisis there.' If Trump felt there was a real crisis, he continued, 'why is he not paying the border patrol, CBP officers, ICE agents, everybody on the border, to handle the crisis?'" ...

... Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) plans to object to the Senate adjourning for the week Thursday afternoon amidst a 20-day government shutdown, according to Senate sources. Kaine and his fellow Senate Democrats want to ratchet up pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who earlier in the day blocked a Senate vote on House-passed legislation to reopen government agencies not connected with the partisan standoff over the border wall[, a move that angered Democrats]. 'Why would the Senate leave town this weekend before voting to reopen the government?!' Kaine tweeted on Thursday afternoon." ...

... Mitch: Funding the Government Is a "Political Stunt." Clare Foran & Ted Barrett of CNN: "In a testy back-and-forth exchange on the Senate floor, Senate Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, called for the Senate to take up legislation advanced by House Democrats to reopen shuttered parts of the federal government and argued that parts of the federal government not related to the border wall should be reopened immediately as negotiations continue over the border wall. [Mitch] McConnell objected to the move, saying that 'political stunts are not going to get us anywhere.'... The move by Senate Democrats to attempt to force a vote on spending bills amounted to an effort to put pressure on Senate Republicans amid the ongoing government shutdown and highlight the legislation passed by the new House Democratic majority to reopen government." ...

... Everything Is Going Very Smoothly:

Tonya Riley of Mother Jones: "On Thursday afternoon, approximately 2,000 federal workers and contractors from across the country braved icy winds and freezing temperatures to gather outside of the DC headquarters of the AFL-CIO to protest the ongoing effects of the government shutdown on their lives and work. 'This lockout is yet another manufactured crisis looking to score political points,' AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka told the crowd. 'Workers are fed up. We are tired of being the ones who are always being hurt. And we are not going to take it.' Tomorrow, as the shutdown approaches 21 days, 800,000 full-time workers and millions of federal contractors will go without another paycheck if the government does not reopen. If the shutdown continues into Saturday, it will be the longest in US history." ...

... Marissa Lang of the Washington Post: "Hundreds of furloughed federal workers, contractors, union representatives and supporters gathered [near the White House] in the brisk wind and bitter cold Thursday to demand government leaders 'end this shutdown.' Leaders of the National Federation of Federal Employees said they hoped that bringing federal workers to the president's doorstep would show him whom the shutdown has hurt most. President Trump, though, wasn't there to see them, having left earlier in the day to visit the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Great Wall of Trump. Via NBC News.

... Jacob Soboroff & Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "... Donald Trump has repeatedly advocated for a steel slat design for his border wall, which he described as 'absolutely critical to border security' in his Oval Office address to the nation Tuesday. But Department of Homeland Security testing of a steel slat prototype proved it could be cut through with a saw, according to a report by DHS. A photo exclusively obtained by NBC News shows the results of the test after military and Border Patrol personnel were instructed to attempt to destroy the barriers with common tools. The Trump administration directed the construction of eight steel and concrete prototype walls that were built in Otay Mesa, California, just across the border from Tijuana, Mexico.... Testing by DHS in late 2017 showed all eight prototypes, including the steel slats, were vulnerable to breaching, according to an internal February 2018 U.S. Customs and Border Protection report." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Todd Frankel of the Washington Post: "It would take an estimated 10,000 construction workers more than 10 years to build the kind of 1,000-mile wall President Trump has said he wants. Even the more modest $5.7 billion in wall funding Trump directly requested during a prime time Oval Office address Tuesday to address what he called 'a growing humanitarian and security crisis' would take an army of 10,000 workers more than two years to build and yield only 230 miles of barrier, according to estimates. And even at 1,000 miles long, the steel-slatted border wall would still be too small to be a boon for U.S. steelmakers. The full version of Trump's envisioned border wall -- featuring rarely tested heights cast over almost unimaginable distances -- would cost at least $25 billion.... [Trump's] steel tariffs add about $1 billion to the estimated $25 billion border-wall project price tag...." Frankel notes that not only the material, but also the length, of the Great Wall of Trump keeps changing: from 2,000 miles to 700 to 1,000. Mrs. McC: And that doesn't count the time it would take to condemn any lands along the route not already owned by the federal government. I don't think the figure cited includes the costs of property & litigation. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Speaking of Which.... Nomaan Merchant of the AP: "Congress in March funded 33 miles ... of walls and fencing in Texas. The government has laid out plans that would cut across private land in the Rio Grande Valley. Those in the way include landowners who have lived in the valley for generations, environmental groups and a 19th century chapel. Many have hired lawyers who are preparing to fight the government if, as expected, it moves to seize their land through eminent domain. The opposition will intensify if Democrats accede to the Trump administration's demand to build more than 215 new miles of wall, including 104 miles in the Rio Grande Valley and 55 miles near Laredo. Even a compromise solution to build 'steel slats,' as Trump has suggested, or more fencing of the kind that Democrats have previously supported would likely trigger more court cases and pushback in Texas. Legal experts say Trump likely cannot waive eminent domain -- which requires the government to demonstrate a public use for the land and provide landowners with compensation -- by declaring a national emergency." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

Maggie Haberman & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Michael D. Cohen, President Trump's former personal lawyer who implicated him in a scheme to pay hush money to two women claiming to have had affairs with him, has agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee next month and give 'a full and credible account' of his work for Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen's decision to appear before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Feb. 7 sets the stage for a blockbuster public hearing that threatens to further damage the president's image and could clarify the depth of his legal woes." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Evan Perez, et al., of CNN: "As special counsel Robert Mueller wraps up his Russia probe, investigators have focused on conflicting public statements by ... Donald Trump and his team that could be seen as an effort to influence witnesses and obstruct justice, according to people familiar with the investigation. The line of questioning adds to indications that Mueller views false or misleading statements to the press or to the public as obstruction of justice.... Mueller hasn't addressed the issue publicly, but prosecutors have dropped hints that they view public statements as possibly key in influencing witnesses. Court filings from the plea of Michael Cohen ... included allegations related to false public statements -- not usually considered illegal since they aren't made directly to investigators. A December sentencing memo filed by Mueller's office notes that Cohen's lies were amplified in public statements, 'including to other potential witnesses.' The memo said this was done partly 'in the hopes of limiting the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election....'" ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: While Mueller's team is hunting around for evidence of obstruction, they might peel their eyes on Trump's firing of Jeff Sessions (for failing to "protect" him), his appointment of Matt Whitaker & his nomination of Bill Barr. More on Barr below. (Don't miss Noah Feldman's column on Trump/Barr/Bush I.)

Matthew Choi of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Thursday denied any knowledge of his former campaign chairman's sharing of polling data with a Moscow-linked associate, distancing himself from a possible tie to the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election." Mrs. McC: Kinda reminds me of when Trump denied any knowledge of" the payment to Stormy Daniels. ...

... Sara Murray & Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Special counsel Robert Mueller sought information directly last year from one of Donald Trump's campaign pollsters who is also a former business associate of Paul Manafort's. Mueller's team met with pollster Tony Fabrizio in February 2018, an interview that has not been previously reported and takes on new significance after Manafort's attorneys revealed Tuesday that Mueller's team is still interested in how Manafort shared polling data with his Russian intelligence-linked colleague.... In a filing Tuesday, Manafort's attorneys [failed] to redact the fact that prosecutors knew Manafort shared polling data related to the 2016 presidential election with his Russian intelligence-linked associate Konstantin Kilimnik while Manafort was running Trump's presidential campaign.... Fabrizio's involvement with Mueller is intriguing because he's one of the few people in Manafort's orbit with knowledge of the inner-workings of the Trump campaign as well as Manafort's Eastern European connections.... Fabrizio worked on Ukrainian elections with Manafort and went on to serve as the Trump campaign's chief pollster beginning in the spring of 2016."

Ken Vogel, et al., of the New York Times: "... at least a dozen Ukrainian political and business figures ... made their way to ... [Donald Trump's] inauguration.... Most ... [also] attended meetings and orchestrated encounters at Trump International Hotel with influential Republican members of Congress and close allies of President Trump. Representing a range of views, including a contingent seen as sympathetic to Moscow, they positioned themselves as brokers who could help solve one of the thorniest foreign policy problems facing the new administration -- the ugly military stalemate between Russia and Ukraine and the tough sanctions imposed on Moscow following its seizure of Crimea.... Federal prosecutors have asked witnesses about how some of the Ukrainians gained access to inauguration events, whom they met with while they were in the United States, and what they discussed -- including questions about various peace plan proposals [some of which were clearly pro-Russia].... As recently as last month, prosecutors were asking witnesses about illegal foreign lobbying related to Ukraine. Another subject of questions has been whether foreigners from Ukraine and other countries used straw donors to disguise donations to the inaugural committee."

Benjamin Siegel & Allison Pecorin of ABC News: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin appeared on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon to defend the Treasury Department's plans to lift sanctions on companies tied to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, pushing back on Democrats' suggestions that the administration is going easy on Russia.... 'This was -- stiff competition, mind you -- one of the worst classified briefings we've received from the Trump administration,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters. 'The secretary barely testified, he answered some questions but he didn't give testimony. They had an intelligence briefing which I wont go into, and then they read a document which was unclassified, wasting the time of members of Congress.' Mnuchin pushed back on that characterization, saying he answered more than half of the questions and deferred to the department's technical efforts who accompanied him to the briefing. He also said he would give Congress an 'appropriate amount of time to review' the potential easing of sanctions, leaving the door open to delaying the move."

Bill Barr Drops His Shutdown Excuse. Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Attorney general nominee William P. Barr tried Thursday to assuage Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats' concerns that he might be too biased to oversee the special counsel's Russia probe, but the lawmakers said they would need to see public proof to back up his closed-door assurances before they could consider backing his nomination. 'The Mueller probe is the big issue for me ... he reassured to some extent. The hard questions have to get asked in the public and get on the record,' Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the panel's ranking Democrat, said of her Thursday morning meeting with Barr. 'These meetings are different; they really are just people to people ... what matters is what happens in the committee and what's said on the record.' Feinstein is one of five panel Democrats who were expected to meet with Barr on Thursday, after several complained that they were being iced out of his schedule and being told it was because of the partial government shutdown. Barr begins his public confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... ** Noah Feldman of Bloomberg: "The most significant single act of Barr's career in the Department of Justice was to advise President George H.W. Bush to pardon six officials from Ronald Reagan's administration, including Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, for crimes associated with the Iran-Contra affair. At the time, Barr was -- you guessed it -- attorney general. His recommendation gave Bush the cover he needed to issue the pardons. And Bush needed the cover. The investigation led by independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh was closing in on the president himself.... Issuing the pardons killed Walsh's investigation -- and saved Bush. When the targets of the investigation were off the hook, Walsh had no leverage to continue.... When the pardons came, Walsh went on ABC's 'Nightline' and said that Bush had 'succeeded in a sort of Saturday Night Massacre.'... The architect of this pardon strategy was Barr.... All this background about Barr and pardons is so important because it's a lesson for Trump on how he can address the Mueller investigation.... Barr could give Trump the same cover that he gave Bush." Thanks to safari for the lead.

Update: Josh Marshall of TPM: "The New York Times issued a major correction early [Wednesday] afternoon. They now say that Paul Manafort had his Ukraine-based fixer Konstantin Kilimnik send polling data not to Oleg Deripaska but to Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov, two Ukrainian oligarchs who were major financial backers of deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Manafort's longtime client. This is a pretty big difference and a major error by the Times. But I'm not sure it really changes the big picture.... Why do these two need campaign data from the Trump campaign? Why is that a thing of value that will get them to pay up their alleged debts [to Manafort]? Akhmetov is a metals and mining magnate in Ukraine. The answer seems obvious." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "The United States began withdrawing its troops from Syria on Friday, an American military spokesman said, a first step in President Trump's plan to remove American forces from one of the Middle East's most complex battlefields.... Mr. Trump said last month that he wanted the troops out in 30 days. But after discussions with others in his administration, the timeline was lengthened, while diplomats sought to find a way to protect the United States' Kurdish allies from a Turkish attack and to get Turkey to take over the fight against the jihadists. As recently as Sunday, Mr. Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, said that the pullout was conditional on circumstances that could leave American forces there for months or even years."

Declan Walsh & David Sanger of the New York Times: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out his vision for America's role in the Middle East on Thursday, telling a university audience in Cairo that 'the age of self-inflicted American shame is over' and that the United States would pursue a more activist policy, despite President Trump's decision to pull troops out of Syria. Mr. Pompeo's prescription was short on specifics, beyond bolstering alliances with Arab autocrats loyal to Washington. Instead he painted a picture of a Middle East cast into chaos by President Barack Obama, and that can only be rescued by crushing Iran. He advocated a policy of containment of Iran's power, pressing for allies in the region to isolate the country. He vowed to 'expel every last Iranian boot' from Syria, but offered no plan to achieve that goal at a moment when the American force of 2,000 troops is scheduled to withdraw. And in an unusually explicit and personal attack on a former president's foreign policy, a decade after Mr. Obama delivered a landmark speech at another Cairo university, Mr. Pompeo excoriated Mr. Obama for 'fundamental misunderstandings' about the region that 'underestimated the tenacity and viciousness of radical Islamism.'" ...

... Linda Qiu of the New York Times fact-checks Pompeo's speech (because it definitely needs fact-checking): "... Pompeo&'s criticism of the Obama administration's response to Iran's 'Green Movement' was exaggerated, and his claim that the Trump administration has been 'clear' about withdrawing troops from Syria ignored clearly contradictory statements."

Heather Long of the Washington Post: "Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell ... predicted the economy is not going to plunge into a deep downturn this year. 'I don't see a recession' in 2019, Powell said Thursday in an interview at The Economic Club of Washington D.C. 'The U.S. economy is solid and there's good momentum going into this year.' Several prominent economists and investors have said there's a heightened chance of a recession by 2020. Larry Summers, a Harvard professor and former Treasury Secretary under former President Bill Clinton, said earlier this week that he thinks there's 'better than a 50/50 chance' of a recession in 2020. Powell stressed the Fed is 'watching' the situation closely and monitoring potential cracks in the economy. His biggest concern is weakening growth in China and Europe, although he warned a prolonged U.S. government shutdown could become a drag on the economy."

Eliana Johnson & Gabby Orr of Politico: "The White House is reaching out to political allies and conservative activist groups to prepare for an ailing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's possible death or departure from the Supreme Court -- an event that would trigger the second bitter confirmation battle of ... Donald Trump's tenure. The outreach began after Ginsburg, 85, on Monday missed oral arguments at the court for the first time in her 25 years on the bench. The justice ... announced in late December that she underwent a surgical procedure to remove two cancerous growths from her lungs." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If any other administration did this, you might say they were being prudent. But actually you wouldn't say anything, because you wouldn't know about it. In real administrations, plans to find a replacement for an ailing justice would not leak to the press, just as newspapers do not leak the names of living persons for whom they have prepared obituaries (although it does happen). ...

... Paul Campos in LG&$: "Ginsburg made a horrible decision by not retiring in 2014, as did Breyer, so this has nothing to do with holding women to different standards than men, despite the evidence-free claims people make in that regard. Ginsburg is obviously under more scrutiny in this regard because of the increasingly obvious precariousness of her health. She has a moral obligation to stay on the Court through the end of next year, even if that means outsourcing most or even all of her work to her clerks." ...

... Tucker Higgins of CNBC: "Top doctors with experience performing pulmonary lobectomies expect Ginsburg to be back on the bench in less than six weeks, with more than enough time to return for the court's February sitting."

**Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "In 2016, then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a law whose main purpose appears to be trolling the libs. Just over two years later, this law could provide the Republican-controlled Supreme Court with the vehicle it needs to kill Roe v. Wade -- and the Court could decide to hear a challenge to this law as soon as Friday. The case is Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky.... It's an obviously unconstitutional law. It's the kind of law you get if you hand the legislative power over to the editors of Breitbart News. But then something unexpected happened.... Both of the men the serial-sexual-predator-turned-president placed on the Supreme Court took gratuitous swipes at abortion rights while they were lower court judges. There are almost certainly five men on the Supreme Court right now who believe that the Indiana law is constitutional." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Adeel Hassan of the New York Times: "Republicans in the third-most-populous county in Texas [-- Tarrant County --] voted overwhelmingly against the removal of one of their party leaders from his post on Thursday. The vote ... was over whether Dr. [Shahid] Shafi's Muslim faith disqualified him from the job. The vote -- and the bitter clashes leading up to it -- came as Democrats have been heralding the arrival of the first two Muslim women in Congress last week." The vote was 139 to 49....

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: One of the arguments expressed against Shafi was that, as a Muslim, he can't represent ALL of Tarrant County because, presumably, a majority of Tarrant County residents are Christians or nominal Christians & they are skeert of Muslims. Isn't it funny how Christians can "represent" people of all other faiths or no faith, but non-Christians cannot represent Christians? Is there some teeny flaw in that "logic"?

The Commentariat -- January 10, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Maggie Haberman & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Michael D. Cohen, President Trump's former personal lawyer who implicated him in a scheme to pay hush money to two women claiming to have had affairs with him, has agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee next month and give 'a full and credible account' of his work for Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen's decision to appear before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Feb. 7 sets the stage for a blockbuster public hearing that threatens to further damage the president's image and could clarify the depth of his legal woes."

Bill Barr Drops His Shutdown Excuse. Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Attorney general nominee William P. Barr tried Thursday to assuage Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats' concerns that he might be too biased to oversee the special counsel's Russia probe, but the lawmakers said they would need to see public proof to back up his closed-door assurances before they could consider backing his nomination. 'The Mueller probe is the big issue for me ... he reassured to some extent. The hard questions have to get asked in the public and get on the record,' Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the panel's ranking Democrat, said of her Thursday morning meeting with Barr. 'These meetings are different; they really are just people to people ... what matters is what happens in the committee and what's said on the record.' Feinstein is one of five panel Democrats who were expected to meet with Barr on Thursday, after several complained that they were being iced out of his schedule and being told it was because of the partial government shutdown. Barr begins his public confirmation hearings ... on Tuesday."

Heather Long of the Washington Post: "Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell ... predicted the economy is not going to plunge into a deep downturn this year. 'I don't see a recession' in 2019, Powell said Thursday in an interview at The Economic Club of Washington D.C. 'The U.S. economy is solid and there's good momentum going into this year.' Several prominent economists and investors have said there's a heightened chance of a recession by 2020. Larry Summers, a Harvard professor and former Treasury Secretary under former President Bill Clinton, said earlier this week that he thinks there's 'better than a 50/50 chance' of a recession in 2020. Powell stressed the Fed is 'watching' the situation closely and monitoring potential cracks in the economy. His biggest concern is weakening growth in China and Europe, although he warned a prolonged U.S. government shutdown could become a drag on the economy.";

Marissa Lang of the Washington Post: "Hundreds of furloughed federal workers, contractors, union representatives and supporters gathered [near the White House] in the brisk wind and bitter cold Thursday to demand government leaders 'end this shutdown.' Leaders of the National Federation of Federal Employees said they hoped that bringing federal workers to the president's doorstep would show him whom the shutdown has hurt most. President Trump, though, wasn't there to see them, having left earlier in the day to visit the U.S.-Mexico border...."

Michael Tackett of the New York Times: "President Trump left Washington on Thursday on a trip to McAllen, Texas, that he did not want to take to discuss a crisis on the border that Democrats say does not exist. Their disagreement has led to a protracted shutdown affecting vast swaths of the federal government that have nothing to do with the construction of a wall between the United States and Mexico.... The president left Washington with no additional negotiations scheduled with congressional leaders. In remarks to reporters on Thursday, Mr. Trump left open the possibility of declaring a state of emergency, which could allow him to bypass Congress to fund the wall. Asked if he would make such a declaration, an action that would likely face legal challenges, Mr. Trump said: 'If this doesn't work out, probably I will do it. I would almost say definitely.'" Mrs. McC: McAllen? How about McAlamo? ...

Everything Is Going Very Smoothly:

Great Wall of Trump. Via NBC News.

... Jacob Soboroff & Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "... Donald Trump has repeatedly advocated for a steel slat design for his border wall, which he described as 'absolutely critical to border security' in his Oval Office address to the nation Tuesday. But Department of Homeland Security testing of a steel slat prototype proved it could be cut through with a saw, according to a report by DHS. A photo exclusively obtained by NBC News shows the results of the test after military and Border Patrol personnel were instructed to attempt to destroy the barriers with common tools. The Trump administration directed the construction of eight steel and concrete prototype walls that were built in Otay Mesa, California, just across the border from Tijuana, Mexico.... Testing by DHS in late 2017 showed all eight prototypes, including the steel slats, were vulnerable to breaching, according to an internal February 2018 U.S. Customs and Border Protection report." ...

... Todd Frankel of the Washington Post: "It would take an estimated 10,000 construction workers more than 10 years to build the kind of 1,000-mile wall President Trump has said he wants. Even the more modest $5.7 billion in wall funding Trump directly requested during a prime time Oval Office address Tuesday to address what he called 'a growing humanitarian and security crisis' would take an army of 10,000 workers more than two years to build and yield only 230 miles of barrier, according to estimates. And even at 1,000 miles long, the steel-slatted border wall would still be too small to be a boon for U.S. steelmakers. The full version of Trump's envisioned border wall featuring rarely tested heights cast over almost unimaginable distances -- would cost at least $25 billion.... [Trump's] steel tariffs add about $1 billion to the estimated $25 billion border-wall project price tag...." Frankel notes that not only the material, but also the length, of the Great Wall of Trump keeps changing: from 2,000 miles to 700 to 1,000. Mrs. McC: And that doesn't count the time it would take to condemn any lands along the route not already owned by the federal government. I don't think the figure cited includes the costs of property & litigation. ...

... Speaking of Which.... Nomaan Merchant of the AP: "Congress in March funded 33 miles ... of walls and fencing in Texas. The government has laid out plans that would cut across private land in the Rio Grande Valley. Those in the way include landowners who have lived in the valley for generations, environmental groups and a 19th century chapel. Many have hired lawyers who are preparing to fight the government if, as expected, it moves to seize their land through eminent domain. The opposition will intensify if Democrats accede to the Trump administration's demand to build more than 215 new miles of wall, including 104 miles in the Rio Grande Valley and 55 miles near Laredo. Even a compromise solution to build 'steel slats,' as Trump has suggested, or more fencing of the kind that Democrats have previously supported would likely trigger more court cases and pushback in Texas. Legal experts say Trump likely cannot waive eminent domain -- which requires the government to demonstrate a public use for the land and provide landowners with compensation -- by declaring a national emergency."

**Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "In 2016, then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a law whose main purpose appears to be trolling the libs. Just over two years later, this law could provide the Republican-controlled Supreme Court with the vehicle it needs to kill Roe v. Wade -- and the Court could decide to hear a challenge to this law as soon as Friday. The case is Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky.... It's an obviously unconstitutional law. It's the kind of law you get if you hand the legislative power over to the editors of Breitbart News. But then something unexpected happened.... Both of the men the serial-sexual-predator-turned-president placed on the Supreme Court took gratuitous swipes at abortion rights while they were lower court judges. There are almost certainly five men on the Supreme Court right now who believe that the Indiana law is constitutional." --s

UPDATE: Josh Marshall : "The New York Times issued a major correction early [Wednesday] afternoon. They now say that Paul Manafort had his Ukraine-based fixer Konstantin Kilimnik send polling data not to Oleg Deripaska but to Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov, two Ukrainian oligarchs who were major financial backers of deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Manafort's longtime client. This is a pretty big difference and a major error by the Times. But I'm not sure it really changes the big picture.... Why do these two need campaign data from the Trump campaign? Why is that a thing of value that will get them to pay up their alleged debts [to Manafort]? Akhmetov is a metals and mining magnate in Ukraine. The answer seems obvious." --s

*****

Time for Some Shutdown Entertainment. This is un-fucking-believable:

What the fresh hell. This is REAL. Filmed in 1958- about a conman who grifts a small town of suckers into building a wall. History not subtle enough for you? GUESS THE GRIFTER'S NAME
(And watch until the end) pic.twitter.com/6FA3p6KC00

— Alex Hirsch (@_AlexHirsch) January 9, 2019

... In case you think this is a hoax -- a recently-produced "old TV Western" designed to make fun of Trump -- Snopes says it's a real episode of a '50s Western series called "Trackdown."

Another Trumpertantrum Follows the March of the Lemmings. Nicholas Fandos & Michael Tackett of the New York Times: "President Trump slammed his hand on a table and stormed out of a White House meeting with congressional leaders on Wednesday after Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said she would not fund a wall along the southern border, dramatically escalating the confrontation over the government shutdown. Stunned Democrats emerged from the White House meeting declaring that Mr. Trump had thrown a 'temper tantrum.' The president's allies accused of refusing to negotiate. Then he tweeted that the meeting was 'a total waste of time.'... The afternoon altercation came after President Trump appeared to rally nervous Senate Republicans around his strategy to keep parts of the government closed until Democrats accede to his demand for $5.7 billion for a border wall.... Moderate Republicans who entered the room confident that senators were coalescing around the idea that the government should be reopened while the border security debate continues left disappointed, convinced that for now, the party would follow Mr. Trump perilously further into a shutdown with an uncertain end." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Some semi-talented composer really should write these fools a Sousa-like march, maybe ending in a splashing or a splatting crescendo, & interrupted throughout by intermittent "meep-meep"s. ...

... Trump Says He Has the "Absolute Right to Do National Emergency if I Want." So There. Michael Tackett: "President Trump warned on Wednesday that he reserved the option of declaring a national emergency to build his border wall without congressional approval. The president, speaking ... [as he] headed to a luncheon meeting on Capitol Hill [with Senate Republicans]. Asked whether he was still considering declaring a national emergency, an extraordinary measure rarely used by presidents absent an urgent security threat, Mr. Trump said: 'I think we might work a deal, and if we don't, I may go that route. I have the absolute right to do national emergency if I want.'" ...

... Ed Kilgore: "The surrounding dynamics were pretty bad. Pelosi mocked Trump for failing to show any sympathy for the federal workers and contractors being hurt by the shutdown: 'He thinks maybe they could just ask their father for more money. But they can't,' said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), an implicit dig at Trump's wealthy upbringing.'... As Politico reports, Trump maintained his my-way-or-the-highway posture in a meeting with his own congressional allies[.]... [SO] Having signally failed in his big speech to convince anyone other than his 'base' that there's any sort of real emergency on the southern border, the president will now simply declare one. It's quite a good fit for Trump's temperament." ...

... Steve M: "So why doesn't Trump just do the declaration? Because, in his gut, he's still the salesman trying to emotionally manipulate his counterparties into doing everything his way. He's also the lout at the end of the bar who'd rather pound his fist (or, in this case, slam his hand on the desk) than push the norms and limits of democratic government. But the deplorables relate to an angry, besieged Trump, possibly more than they'd relate to a dictatorial Trump. This was, in a way, a good day for Trump and his fans. He got to act like [a] bully in an exchange with ABC's Jonathan Karl, to the delight of the deplorables. And he got to have a temper tantrum in his meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.... That's not how a tyrant behaves. That's the behavior of an infantile asshole.... Instead of trying to end this crisis with raw power, he's trying to end it with emotional abuse." --s ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: You won't be surprised to learn Trump has always been an infantile asshole prone to employing just this same type of emotional abuse:

... Shannon Pettypiece & Margaret Talev of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump's decision to abruptly storm out of a meeting with congressional leaders on Wednesday shocked some on Capitol Hill. But those who have done business with him recognized it as one of his trademark negotiating tactics. Long before he entered the White House -- where the latest turn on his heel occurred -- Trump was known to have done the same thing when a deal wasn't going his way. He even walked out of a judge's chambers during divorce proceedings." The Democrats he abandoned just made fun of him when he stomped off, but the crude technique seems to have worked for him in the past. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump is so out of his league. Besides, a "negotiation" depends upon the assumption that both sides want something out of the deal. Trump wants Congress to give him a $5.6BB campaign contribution, and in theory, Pelosi, et al., want Trump's signature on a series of funding bills. But in fact, the longer Trump fiddles while the nation burns, the better chance so many Republicans will come on board the bills many of them have already voted for that the Congress can override Trump's veto.

... Steve M.: Trump "won't rest until he sees this situation as a win. I don't know why he's been hesitant to declare a national emergency -- yes, it's a terrible idea and there's a very good chance he'll be blocked by the courts, but it could be the only face-saving out available to him. The shutdown is likely to continue until he's convinced that he looks like the alpha male again, either with regard to the wall or as a result of some distraction. He'll never just admit defeat and accept the loss."

... "A Wet Fart". Never-Trumper Rick Wilson in The Daily Beast: "From his spurious (see what I did there?) evasion of the Vietnam draft to his serial bankruptcies and business failures, his wrecked marriages, and his current reign of misrule, Donald Trump's ability to detonate a media IED to distract from his troubles has always served him well.... On Tuesday night, Trump's flaming dumpster train of distractions, lies, cons, and empty political promises flew off the rails and plunged into a mountain of burning tires in one of his worst public speeches.... It went over like a wet fart.... The speech can most accurately be seen as the death twitch of The Wall cult.... [T]he idea of a glorious concrete wall from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico is deader than that lemur he glues on his head every morning." --s ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Why, Wilson seems almost disrespectful of the Presidunce*. ...

... Gail Collins: "For every viewer [of Trump's Oval Office fundraiser] whose response to the talk was 'Wow, we should do something about immigration!' there must have been a hundred whose first reaction was 'Why does this man keep sniffing?'... If you watched the address..., you saw a 72-year-old guy squinting at the teleprompter and making rather alarming breathing sounds while reading a speech about how we need a wall to protect women who are 'sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico.' This is not a man who should wrap his arguments around the idea of protecting women from sexual assault." ...

... Julie Davis of the New York Times: "... Democrats are working to focus public attention on the painful costs of the partial government shutdown -- vulnerable families going without food assistance, farmers forgoing crop payments, national parks trashed -- and Mr. Trump's recklessness in courting it, rather than delving into the specific details of erecting a barrier on the southwestern border." ...

... Felicia Sonmez & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "House Democrats passed a bill [Wednesday] that would reopen the Treasury Department and ensure that the Internal Revenue Service would remain funded as tax season kicks off and millions of taxpayers begin to file their returns. Eight House Republicans voted in favor of the bill, defying the president's pleas for unity. But the measure has no path to passage, as Trump has said he opposes any legislation that does not include funding for the border wall. The vote comes on the eve of a visit by Trump to the U.S.-Mexico border." ...

... Laurie McGinley & Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post: "The furloughing of hundreds of Food and Drug Administration inspectors has sharply reduced inspections of the nation's food supply -- one of the many repercussions of the partial government shutdown that are making Americans potentially less safe. The agency, which oversees 80 percent of the food supply, has suspended all routine inspections of domestic food-processing facilities, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in an interview. He is working on a plan to bring inspectors back as early as next week to inspect facilities considered high-risk because they handle sensitive items such as seafood, soft cheese and vegetables, or have a history of problems." ...

... Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "The US government shutdown has stymied environmental testing and inspections, prompting warnings that Americans' health is being put at increasing risk as the shutdown drags on. More than 13,000 employees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are not at work, with just 794 people deemed essential staff currently undertaking the agency's duties. The remaining skeleton staff are able to 'respond to emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property', according to an EPA planning document. But many routine activities such as checks on regulated businesses, clean-ups of toxic superfund sites and the pursuit of criminal polluters have been paused since 28 December. 'State programs aren't being funded, enforcement actions have stopped -- it's a nightmare,' said Gary Morton, president of AFGE Council 238, which represents about 9,000 EPA workers." ...

... Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Employees of the U.S. Coast Guard who are facing a long U.S. government shutdown just received a suggestion: To get by without pay, consider holding a garage sale, babysitting, dog-walking or serving as a 'mystery shopper.'... 'Bankruptcy is a last option,' the document said.... The suggestions were part of a five-page tip sheet published by the Coast Guard Support Program, an employee-assistance arm of the service often known as CG SUPRT.... The Coast Guard receives funding from the Department of Homeland Security and is subjected to the shuttering of parts of the government along with DHS's other agencies. That stands in contrast to other military services, which are part of the Defense Department and have funding.... The Coast Guard removed the tip sheet from the support program's website late Wednesday morning after The Washington Post inquired about it.... Late last month, the Coast Guard announced it had found enough money to pay its service members one last time through the end of the year. The Trump administration took credit afterward, releasing a statement that said the president and some of his staff members had worked 'round the clock' to address the issue.... A bipartisan effort to get the Coast Guard paid through the shutdown was launched in Congress last week, but it isn't clear if or how quickly lawmakers might vote on the proposed 'Pay Our Coast Guard Act.'" Emphasis added for anyone who momentarily forgot those bastids lie about everything. ...

... Shutting Down the Government Is No Excuse for DOJ Delays. Erik Larson of Bloomberg News (Jan. 8): "A U.S. judge overseeing a veteran's multimillion-dollar negligence lawsuit in Puerto Rico rebuked the Justice Department for attempting to use the partial government shutdown to put the case on hold, calling the request 'laughable.' In a ruling denying the government's bid for more time, U.S. District Judge William G. Young said lapses in federal appropriations, like the current one triggered by ... Donald Trump's demand for funding for a border wall with Mexico, aren't a government 'policy' that could theoretically justify staying such a lawsuit. 'Let us talk plain -- they are simply an abdication by the president and the Congress (which could override a presidential veto) of the duty to govern responsibly to the end that all the laws may be faithfully executed,' Young said in the Jan. 2 ruling in San Juan. 'Nor does such a lapse in any way excuse this court from exercising its own constitutional functions.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Wouldn't it be nice if Mitch McConnell heeded Judge Young's admonition. Alas, the Turtle remains in his shell. ...

... Shutting Down the Government Is AG Nominee Bill Barr's Excuse for Delays. Marianne Levine of Politico: "Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) said Wednesday that she was unable to get a meeting with Attorney General nominee William Barr before his confirmation hearing next week because of the government shutdown. 'I tried (as did Blumenthal) to get meeting w/AG nominee Barr and was told he couldn't meet until AFTER the hearing,' Klobuchar, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, tweeted, referencing Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal. 'The reason given? The shutdown.' Klobuchar added that the shutdown didn't prevent Barr from meeting with other senators. Among the senators Barr met with Wednesday were Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and former Committee Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.) 'This is a 1st for me w/ any nominee as a member of judiciary,' Klobuchar tweeted." More on Barr's courtesy call to Graham linked below.

Junior Likens Migrants to Zoo Animals. Holly Rosenkrantz of CBS News: "Donald Trump Jr. used Instagram Tuesday night to endorse his father's border wall policy, saying the evidence that a wall works is because they protect people from zoo animals. 'You know why you can enjoy a day at the zoo? Because walls work,' Trump Jr., 41, wrote in his Instagram story." Virulent racism is a Trump family trait. ...

... Claudia Koerner of BuzzFeed News: "A gambling site is paying out thousands of dollars to people who correctly bet that ... Donald Trump would tell more than 3.5 lies in his Oval Office address on Tuesday. Bookmaker.eu asked people to wager on the president's truthfulness, offering odds of -145 for more than 3.5 lies and +115 for less than 3.5 lies. That means if a person bet $145 dollars that Trump would lie at least four times, they would win $100. And some people won big. Odds consultant John Lester told BuzzFeed News the site will lose $276,424, with 92% of its bettors correctly wagering that Trump would lie a lot. 'It's a bad day for Truthiness and Bookmaker,' he said. 'We knew we were in trouble early with this one.' The site used the Washington Post's Fact Checker as the arbiter of Trump's truth and lies. The Post's live blog has corrected six statements that Trump made during the televised address seeking a border wall."

... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "After Tuesday night's debacle in the Oval Office, television network executives should be spending the day in their spacious offices practicing a simple word: No. No, Mr. President, you may not break into prime-time programming to fundraise and mislead. They'll need to practice because you can be sure that the request will come again.... There was no -- zero -- news in President Trump's address to the nation last night. There were high-drama quotes: 'crisis of the soul.' There was fearmongering: 'I've met with dozens of families whose loved ones were stolen by illegal immigration.'... And all the fact-checking in the world -- worthy as it is -- can't make a dent in the spread of misinformation that such an opportunity gives the president.... As the linguist and author George Lakoff puts it, the news media 'has become complicit with Trump by allowing itself to be used as an amplifier for his falsehoods and frames.'" ...

... "Faux" Reality World. Joe Concha of The Hill: "Fox News host Mark Levin called Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer(D-N.Y.) 'pathological liars' and 'scam artists' late Tuesday night following their response to President Trump's Oval Office address on the border wall...[speaking with] Sean Hannity during an interview." --s

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

"Collusion Case Closed." Josh Marshall of TPM: "[T]he seemingly accidental redaction error in the Manafort legal filing combined with the news published mid-evening by The New York Times is one of the biggest revelations in more than two years of the Trump/Russia scandal.... [T]hese new revelations combined with earlier reports effectively end the debate about whether there was 'collusion' between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. There was. It wasn't marginal. It was happening at the very top of the campaign.... We're not talking about vague conversations in which quid pro quos or campaign cooperation could have happened. It did happen.... How much collusion there was, how deeply Donald Trump was knowingly a part of it, remains to be seen. The fact of collusion is established. Not through some marginal member of the operation but by the man Trump chose to run his campaign." --s ...

... Paul Campos in LG&$: "After the election, Manafort was debriefed by Russian intelligence, as any spy would be in such circumstances. Note that this revelation comes from one failure, intentional or otherwise, to fully redact one document in Mueller's sprawling investigation. How long will the Republican party choose to continue to tolerate the Trump administration's combination of profound corruption and utter incompetence?" ...

... John Schindler of the (New York) Observer: "This looks unmistakably like a clandestine intelligence operation to anyone even marginally acquainted with spycraft. Russian intelligence routinely uses 'former' agents like Kilimnik to gain access to foreigners and their secrets; Kilimnik, when pressed, hardly denied his GRU affiliation.... President Trump's consistent 'no collusion' claims, ailing for months as Mueller's cards are revealed, one by one, are now officially moribund. Manafort has admitted that he was in touch with Kilimnik during and after Trump's presidential run, regarding campaign matters, in what appears to be a clandestine back-channel between Team Trump and the Kremlin. The big open question is how much Donald Trump knew about Manafort's secret dealings with Kilimnik in 2016 and after. Given the president's well-documented micro-managerial ways, plus the fact that he's known Manafort for decades, it's impossible to imagine he was wholly unaware of his own campaign's hush-hush back-channel to Moscow."

... Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare is far more cautious than are Marshall, Campos & Schindler in his analysis of the "tantalizing tidbits": "We will not know what these tidbits mean, if anything, until we see both how Mueller characterizes them and, more particularly, how Mueller situates them against that broader pattern of interactions." ...

... Christal Hayes of USA Today: "Members of President Donald Trump's campaign and transition team had more than 100 contacts with Russian-linked officials, according to a new report. The milestone illustrates the deep ties between members of Trump's circle and the Kremlin.... The organizations counted each meeting and message as a separate contact." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: You could cook up a plausibly "innocent" explanation for almost every one of these contacts, and lord knows the participants have tried. But there is no innocent explanation for 100 contacts.

Nico Hines of The Daily Beast: "Cambridge Analytica has been found guilty of breaking data laws after refusing to disclose how much information it holds on an American professor, where it got the data, and -- perhaps most importantly -- how it used it and who it gave it to." --s

Katelyn Polantz & Laura Robinson of CNN: "One law firm involved in a foreign government-owned company's challenge of a mysterious grand jury subpoena related to the Robert Mueller investigation is Alston & Bird..., a firm that has previously represented Russian interests, including working for a Russian oligarch and a contractor of the Russian government. CNN's reporting of the law firm's identity is among the first details revealed about a case that's progressed to the Supreme Court under extreme secrecy. The identity of the foreign government and the company has been a closely held secret, and after several setbacks in court, the company may be forced to give the special counsel's office information or face a steep financial penalty."

Senator Russkie Turncoat. Martin Cizmar of RawStory: "On Wednesday morning on CNN, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) defended Manafort's meeting with the Russian spy by arguing that Manafort, who had worked on behalf of a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine, had known the spy for many years and that there was nothing odd about a presidential campaign sharing confidential campaign polling data with a foreign adversary." With video --s

Pete Williams & Allan Smith of NBC News: "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had been overseeing the special counsel investigation, plans to step down after Robert Mueller finishes his work, according to administration officials familiar with his thinking. A source close to Rosenstein said he intends to stay on until Mueller's investigative and prosecutorial work is done. The source said that would mean Rosenstein would remain until early March. Several legal sources have said they expect the Mueller team to conclude its work by mid-to-late February, although they said that timeline could change based on unforeseen investigative developments. The source said once Mueller's work is done, the special counsel's report to the Justice Department would follow a few weeks later, and Rosenstein would likely be gone by then. But others familiar with his thinking said there's no firm timeline and that Rosenstein would work out a departure plan once the new attorney general is confirmed and on board." ...

     ... Mrs McCrabbie: If this version of the Rosenstein Early Retirement Plan is accurate, it's a BFD. Not only will Mueller be somewhat protected, but also he will finish at least some significant parts of his investigation within a month or two. ...

... Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "Theoretically, the report that Rosenstein will step down in the coming weeks and the report that he will only step down once Mueller submits a report do not necessarily contradict one another. Remember: both Bloomberg News and NBC News have predicted that Mueller will submit a Russia report in February." ...

... Andrew Prokop of Vox: William "Barr's nomination [to the AG spot] appeared to raise serious questions about the Mueller investigation's future. Back in May (months before Trump nominated him), Barr wrote a 19-page memo harshly criticizing Mueller's investigation, particularly with regards to the special counsel's reported focus on obstruction of justice and efforts to subpoena or question the president.... Hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee kick off on Tuesday, and he'll surely be grilled about the memo he wrote last year criticizing Mueller and questioned about whether he'd let the investigation continue." Prokop's report provides a handy summary of Rod Rosenstein's tenure, vis-a-vis the Trump corruption investigations. ...

... Mary Jalonick of the AP: "The new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said attorney general nominee William Barr has confidence in special counsel Robert Mueller and will let him complete his Russia investigation. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said after meeting with Barr, who led the Justice Department under President George H.W. Bush, that Barr has a 'high opinion' of Mueller. Barr was spending most of Wednesday on Capitol Hill, meeting senators on the committee before his confirmation hearing next week. 'He had absolutely no indication he was going to tell Bob Mueller what to do or how to do it,' Graham said Wednesday.... Graham said that the two men were 'best friends,' that their wives attended Bible study together and that Mueller had attended the weddings of Barr's children.... Graham listed a number of questions that he had put to Barr: 'I asked Mr. Barr directly, "Do you think Mr. Mueller is on a witch hunt?" He said no. "Do you think he would be fair to the president and the country as a whole?" He said yes. "And do you see any reason for Mr. Mueller's investigation to be stopped?" He said no. "Do you see any reason for a termination based on cause?" He said no. "Are you committed to making sure Mr. Mueller can finish his job?" "Yes."'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I find Graham's assurances as reassuring as Donald Trump's claim that he could be "very presidential."

Benjamin Siegel of ABC News: "The new Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, is readying a subpoena to compel acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to testify later this month, a move that could become one of the first investigative actions of the new House majority that's promised closer oversight of the Trump administration. 'We're preparing the subpoena,' Nadler told ABC News. The order could be issued within days if Whitaker and committee Democrats can't reach an agreement on a hearing date before January 29, when ... Donald Trump is scheduled to travel to Capitol Hill for his State of the Union address."

Dan Spinelli of Mother Jones: "President Donald Trump's tenuous relationship with the military he commands took another awkward turn last week when he ordered the Pentagon to block the publication of independent reports that have been harshly critical of reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. Over the past 11 years, SIGAR has probed the management of the more than $130 billion spent in Afghanistan.... By its own estimation, the office has recovered more than $951 million from fines and settlements. Its most recent report, released in October, contained the startling conclusion that Afghan government forces now control the least amount of territory of any point in the past three years." --s

Nasser Karimi & Jon Gambrell of the AP: "Iran confirmed it is holding U.S. Navy veteran Michael R. White at a prison in the country, making him the first American known to be detained under ... Donald Trump's administration. White's detention adds new pressure to the rising tension between Iran and the U.S., which under Trump has pursued a maximalist campaign against Tehran that includes pulling out of its nuclear deal with world powers. Although the circumstances of White's detention remain unclear, Iran in the past has used its detention of Westerners and dual nationals as leverage in negotiations." ...

... Reuters: "U.S. sanctions are putting unprecedented pressure on Iranians while 'first class idiots' are running Washington's policy, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday." --s

** David Jackson of USA Today: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday again threatened to cut off federal [FEMA] funds to fight California wildfires, saying the money is being wasted. 'Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen,' Trump tweeted. 'Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded that Trump's threat 'insults the memory of scores of Americans who perished in wildfires last year & thousands more who lost their homes.' Pelosi's tweet said House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, another Californian, 'must join me to condemn & call on POTUS to reassure millions in CA that our govt will be there for them in their time of need.'" Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. See his commentary below. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This really is astounding: punishing Americans for political reasons & for the reason of his own ignorance. In fact, I suspect that Trump is wilfully ignorant: continuing to push disproved/hilariously-mocked forest "management" theories gives him a fake excuse to exact political retribution: Somebody over there in the House add this to your long list of proposed articles of impeachment.

Justice For Sale. Sam Stein & Lachlan Markey of The Daily Beast: "In the summer of 2017, the Trump White House asked for a meeting with a top official at the Department of Justice to discuss a sensitive legal and administrative matter involving a top Republican donor. The donor, then-Republican National Committee finance chairman and casino magnate Steve Wynn, was embroiled in litigation involving Obama-era rules governing how companies could distribute tips gathered by their employees. Months after the meeting request, the Trump administration revised those rules to make them far friendlier to employers. It is unclear why the White House made the request for the meeting with acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall, which was uncovered in a Freedom of Information Act ... and has not been previously reported." --s

Max Rivlin-Nadler of The Intercept: "[M]ore than 1,000 pages of previously unseen Customs and Border Protection training documents ... were obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union after a four-year legal battle and shared exclusively with The Intercept.... What’s included in the documents ... is a portrait of an agency that acknowledges that citizens and noncitizens alike are covered by the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, while also instructing officers on expansive ways to circumvent it." Includes documents. --s

"Swamp Creatures," Ctd. David Dayen of The Intercept: "Republican Jon Kyl, whose second Senate tenure concluded on December 31 [after serving as John McCain's replacement], is keeping secret nine clients he advised while working at a powerful corporate lobbying and law firm [Covington & Burling] in 2017 and 2018. Kyl was supposed to reveal the clients in his mandatory Senate financial disclosure, but he cited a D.C. bar rule to keep them confidential.... On Monday, Covington & Burling announced that Kyl would return to his lobbying job, swinging through the revolving door only one week after leaving the Senate.... Kyl's annual disclosure was due September 28, a few weeks after he was sworn in. But he got a 90-day extension, and he waited until the last possible day, January 3, to file the form. By this time, he had left the Senate and was replaced by Martha McSally. It's unclear whether anyone in government will now demand that Kyl release the names of the clients. However, some experts believe the public has a right to know...." --s

"Swamp Creatures," Ctd. Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "Two lobbyists [Nick Muzin..., a former top aide to Sen. Ted Cruz..., and Joey Allaham,] known for helping Qatar curry favor among allies of President Donald Trump, received nearly $4 million from a mysterious PR firm that appears to be tied to the Qatari government -- another indication that a shadow war in the Middle East has taken root in the DC swamp with little oversight.... The filings were submitted more than a year after they say the work had started. Justice Department rules require foreign lobbying to be reported within 10 days of signing a contract or performing work." --s

Election 2018. North Carolina. Frank Dale of ThinkProgress: "Despite making numerous baseless claims about voter fraud over the years, President Donald Trump has remained silent on the contested congressional race in North Carolina's 9th district, where allegations of election fraud centering around a Republican operative have prevented the state from certifying results. But Mark Harris --— the Republican candidate who was thought to have won a narrow victory over Democrat Dan McCready before his campaign's connections to [felonious fraudster] Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. came to light -- revealed on Tuesday [in an interview] that Trump has encouraged him to 'stand and fight.'... Harris' interview occurred less than 24 hours after he reportedly set off a fire alarm and ran away from reporters, which he apologized for Tuesday." Emphasis mine --s

Presidential Election 2020. Jessica Taylor of NPR: "California billionaire Tom Steyer confirms to NPR that he will not seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, instead putting even more muscle behind his efforts to impeach President Trump. 'This is the biggest issue in American politics today,' Steyer said of impeachment efforts. 'We have a lawless president in the White House who is eroding our democracy and it is only going to get worse.'"

Presidential Election 2016. Alex Thompson of Politico: "On the final night of the Democratic National Convention in July of 2016, Bernie Sanders' staffers went out to a Mediterranean restaurant ... to celebrate and mourn the end of the campaign.... Sometime after midnight, convention floor leader Robert Becker ... told [a] 20-something woman [staffer who had reported to him] that he had always wanted to have sex with her and made a reference to riding his 'pole,' according to the woman and three other people who witnessed what happened or were told about it shortly afterward by people who did. Later in the night, Becker ... forcibly kissed her, putting his tongue in her mouth as he held her, the woman and other sources said. The woman did not formally report the incident at the time because the campaign was over."

Terry Gross of NPR: "There are countless presidential scandals in U.S. history, but very few of them have resulted in resignation or impeachment -- which is precisely why MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was drawn to the story of Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon's first vice president, who resigned in 1973.... Maddow and her former producer Mike Yarvitz created the podcast Bag Man to revisit Agnew's story. Though his resignation was officially linked to tax evasion, they say that Agnew had engaged in bribery that dated to the early 1960s, when, as Baltimore County executive, he demanded kickbacks in exchange for local engineering or architecture contracts. He continued the practice even after being elected governor of Maryland in 1967 and then vice president in 1969." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I happened to catch a good portion of Gross's program yesterday, and it was fascinating, particularly in light of the Trump clusterfuck. Really. I intend to listen to Maddow's podcast, which you can (probably) access via the link above (I got there via Google Play). I do hope Bush I fanboy Jon Meacham happened to have the radio on yesterday afternoon. The part about Poppy will burst "historian" Jon-boy's bubble.

Beyond the Beltway

Texas. Alex Samuels of the Texas Tribune: "Shahid Shafi identifies as a Republican because of his firm belief in small government, lower taxes and secure borders. But his commitment to core GOP values hasn't shielded him from ire within his own party. A group of Tarrant County Republicans will vote Thursday evening on whether to remove Shafi as vice-chairman of the county party after a small faction of members put forth a formal motion to oust him because he's Muslim. Those in favor of the motion to recall Shafi, a trauma surgeon and member of the Southlake City Council, have said he doesn't represent all Tarrant County Republicans. They've also said Islamic ideologies run counter to the U.S. Constitution -- an assertion many Texas GOP officials have called bigoted and Shafi himself has vehemently denied." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sorry, Doc; you get to be a decent person or a Republican. It's an either/or choice. You can't be both. And you should have been smart enough to figure that out before you threw in your lot with the Party of Ignorant Bigots.

Way Beyond

Congo. Jason Burke of the Guardian: "Felix Tshisekedi, the leader of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's main opposition party, has been declared the surprise winner of the 30 December presidential election in the vast central African country. The result, announced early on Thursday, means the first electoral transfer of power in 59 years of independence in the DRC. It will come as a shock to many observers who believed authorities would ensure that the government candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, would be the victor in the polls ... hand-picked by outgoing president Joseph Kabila to succeed him.... [P]re-election ... polls had put [opposition frontrunner and respected former business executive Martin] Fayulu on 47%, at least 20 points ahead of Tshisekedi. Vote tallies compiled by the DRC's Catholic church found Fayulu clearly won the election, two diplomats told Reuters, raising the spectre of protests that many fear could lead to violence. Fayulu's supporters feared Kabila would rig the vote in favour of his hand-picked candidate, or do a power-sharing deal with Tshisekedi[.]" --s