The Commentariat -- Nov. 28, 2018

Afternoon Update:

John Wagner & Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "House Democrats, poised to take control of the chamber next year, are meeting behind closed doors on Wednesday to nominate a speaker and choose other members of their leadership team. The gathering provides a key test of strength for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), who is unopposed in her bid to become speaker again but faces opposition from nearly two dozen Democrats who argue the party needs fresh leadership.... Pelosi is on the cusp of finalizing a deal with a group of holdout centrists pushing for House process reforms.... The full House, including Republican members, will choose a speaker on Jan. 3. If Democrats win two uncalled races where their candidates are leading, they will have won 235 seats, meaning Pelosi can weather as many as 17 defections. In their first action Wednesday, House Democrats picked Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) as their new caucus chair." This story is being updated. ...

     ... Update. Julie Davis of the New York Times: "Representative Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday handily won the Democratic nomination to be speaker when her party claims the House majority in the new Congress, but with 32 Democrats voting no, she was well short of the number she will need to reclaim the gavel in January. In a secret-ballot vote that dramatized rifts among Democrats only weeks after midterm election victories handed them House control, Ms. Pelosi, who is the first woman to be speaker, won support from 203 Democrats. Beyond the 32 no votes, three ballots were blank. To become speaker, she must win 218 votes in a House floor vote on Jan. 3, so the tally will touch off what promises to be an intensive period of arm-twisting and cajoling to reach her goal. It also gives some time for a serious challenger to emerge."

Mark Landler, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump is projecting a steely facade as he prepares for a critical meeting on trade this weekend with President Xi Jinping of China. But behind his tough talk and threats of higher tariffs is a creeping anxiety about the costs of a prolonged trade war on the financial markets and the broader economy. That could set the stage for a truce between the United States and China, several American officials said, in the form of an agreement that would delay new tariffs for several months while the world's two largest economies try to work out the issues dividing them.... Mr. Trump has signaled a new willingness to make a deal with Mr. Xi, a leader he has treated solicitously and will meet over dinner on Saturday in Buenos Aires, after a summit meeting of leaders of the Group of 20 industrialized nations."

Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "Emerging signs of weakness in major economic sectors, including auto manufacturing, agriculture and home building, are prompting some forecasters to warn that one of the longest periods of economic growth in American history may be approaching the end of its run. The economy has been a picture of health, expanding at a 3.5 percent annual pace during the third quarter and driving the unemployment rate to 3.7 percent, the lowest level in almost half a century. But General Motors' plan to cut 14,000 jobs and shutter five factories reinforces other recent indications that the better part of the expansion is now in the rearview mirror."

Jake Sherman & Anna Palmer of Politico: "Nine days ahead of a deadline that could trigger a partial government shutdown, with no solution in sight, the president told Politico in a Tuesday Oval Office interview that he is unflinchingly firm Congress must send him a bill approving $5 billion for his wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and said he would 'totally be willing' to shut down the government if he doesn't get it. Democratic leaders -- including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) -- have said they would approve $1.6 billion for the wall, placing the two sides billions of dollars apart as the lame-duck session begins."

Uh-oh. Dana Bash, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump told special counsel Robert Mueller in writing that Roger Stone did not tell him about WikiLeaks, nor was he told about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his son, campaign officials and a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, according to two sources familiar with the matter. One source described the President's answers without providing any direct quotes and said the President made clear he was answering to the best of his recollection.... These written answers could be subject to criminal charges if false." Mrs. McC: Neither of these assertions is believable. ...

... Asawin Suebsaeng & Scott Bixby of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump, who built his political rise on promoting far-right birther claims against President Barack Obama, does in fact have a joint defense agreement with leading birther conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, The Daily Beast has confirmed. Rudy Giuliani ... said in a brief phone interview Wednesday morning that the joint defense agreement that Corsi had earlier claimed existed does actually exist. Giuliani said he confirmed this with Jane Raskin, another member of the Trump legal team, adding that the agreement is a recent development. Giuliani also said he has talked about the agreement and Corsi with President Trump in recent days, and that Trump told him he 'vaguely knows' Corsi, but 'doesn't remember the last time they spoke.'" ...

... Aaron Blake of Washington Post: In the NYT story by Michael Schmidt & others, linked below, "Rudolph W. Giuliani practically brags about having pulled one over on Mueller by gleaning key information from the arrangement.... The Trump team is saying this highly unusual arrangement was used to gain a strategic advantage. It isn't even pretending these were harmless status updates. Giuliani is gloating about having gamed the legal system.... Mueller's team could decide that this arrangement has amounted to witness tampering or obstruction, or that it adds to a mountain of evidence on that latter count.... 'If the purpose was to gather information about what's going on in the investigation and share it back with others who are potential subjects of the investigation so that they can take steps to ensure that the investigation does not come to fruition,' former federal prosecutor Barbara McQaude said Tuesday night on MSNBC, 'I think that could amount to obstruction of justice.' Some former federal prosecutors offered similar takes.... Mueller may now have reason to probe the contacts between the two legal teams, and those contacts became no longer privileged after Manafort signed his cooperation deal." ...

... Ken Meyer of Mediaite: "ABC News chief legal analyst and Mediaite founder Dan Abrams says Paul Manafort might be trying to pull a double bluff with his plea deal with Robert Mueller and his apparent coordination with President Trump's legal team.... 'It's starting to feel like he was on a fact-finding mission for the Trump team to figure out exactly what do they want, what kind of questions are they asking, et cetera.' [Abrams said.]... Manafort might be banking on a presidential pardon. 'By saying "I'm with you, prosecutors," and then not just not cooperating, but -- according to prosecutors -- lying repeatedly ... You have to believe he thinks he's got another option here,' Abrams explained."

Way Too Much Executive Time:

... Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Wednesday hinted he may support new tariffs on auto imports as his latest response to General Motors' decision to shutter U.S. factories and lay off workers. In a series of tweets, Trump argued that a longstanding 25 percent tariff on light trucks has boosted U.S. auto manufacturers and that the same approach could work for cars. 'If we did that with cars coming in, many more cars would be built here and G.M. would not be closing their plants in Ohio, Michigan & Maryland. Get smart Congress,' Trump wrote. The president said major auto exporting countries 'have taken advantage of the U.S. for decades" and warned 'that the president has great power on this issue.' 'Because of the G.M. event, it is being studied now!' he wrote." ...

... Kyle Cheney of Politico: "... Donald Trump appeared to accuse his own deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, of treason on Wednesday, posting a meme to his Twitter feed that shows an image of Rosenstein and a slew of Trump critics behind bars. The image also included special counsel Robert Mueller, former FBI Director James Comey, former national intelligence director James Clapper and Bill and Hillary Clinton. Their picture was overlaid with the words, 'Now that Russia collusion is a proven lie, when do the trials for treason begin?'" ...

... Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Donald Trump suggested without evidence on Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller and his team are bullying witnesses into lying about collusion in order to be spared punishment, marking the president's latest attempt to discredit the Russia probe. The president on Wednesday complained in a tweet that 'While the disgusting Fake News is doing everything within their power not to report it that way, at least 3 major players are intimating that the Angry Mueller Gang of Dems is viciously telling witnesses to lie about facts & they will get relief.'" ...

... Rebecca Morin of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday shared a post from a parody account of Vice President Mike Pence giving thanks 'for every day Hillary Clinton is not president.' The post was originally shared by @MikePenceVP, a profile that uses the same photo as one of Pence's verified accounts but describes itself as a 'fan account. My Goal is to expose liberal hypocrisy and Fake News Bias.' The vice president's official Twitter accounts are @VP and @Mike_Pence."

Dana Milbank: "... after two long years, the truth is finally catching up with Trump and his winged whoppers. In recent days, Trump's bogus claims about the economy, the Russia inquiry, the judiciary, climate change, the midterms, race and national security have been crumbling, publicly, for all to see.... It is too late to undo much of the damage caused by Trump's deceptions. But recent days give hope that, though limping and bedraggled, the truth still is the truth."

Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "A key Senate committee on Wednesday postponed a vote on President Trump's pick to lead the main agency handling immigration enforcement, as a coalition of unions ... representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel ... raised 'serious concern' about Ronald D. Vitiello's ability to effectively oversee the agency. The delay comes at a time when the nation is facing a crisis on the borde and Trump is pressuring agencies and Congress on an immigration crackdown. The timing is also critical, because all nominations will expire at the end of the year if the Senate doesn't act on them." Mrs. McC: Ha Ha Ha. One of the unions' "serious concerns" was that in March 2016 Vitiello reportedly compared Trump to Dennis the Menace. Very unfair to Dennis, IMO.

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "The Senate advanced a controversial judicial pick for President Trump on Wednesday after Vice President Pence cast a tie-breaking vote for the nomination. Senators were deadlocked 50-50 to end debate on Thomas Farr's nomination to be a district judge for the eastern district of North Carolina. Pence, presiding over the chamber, then cast the tie-breaking vote.... Farr's nomination has drawn intense opposition from Democrats and their outside group allies, who warn that, if confirmed, he'll use his position as a federal judge to rule against minorities. Part of their opposition dates back to the 1990s, when Farr defended Jesse Helms' campaign after the Justice Department investigated it for mailing postcards to more than 120,000 North Carolinians, most of whom were black voters, suggesting they were ineligible to vote and could be prosecuted for voter fraud.... Farr was also part of a group of lawyers hired to defend congressional and legislative boundaries approved by the North Carolina legislature, some of which were later struck down in federal court."

Caitlin Oprysko: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said that in his view, there is no 'direct reporting' that would link Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month. Pompeo spoke to reporters after briefing senators on the incident along with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, telling the press gaggle that his assessment was well-informed.... CIA Director Gina Haspel, who traveled to the region to investigate Khashoggi's killing, and who has listened to an audio recording of the murder, was not present at Wednesday's briefing." ...

... Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The Trump administration has attempted to persuade the Senate not to cut off US military support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, arguing that it was in the US national interest and was helping to limit civilian casualties. The defence secretary, James Mattis, and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, presented a classified briefing to the full Senate, in a last-minute effort to block a bipartisan measure that invokes the War Powers Resolution to end US involvement in the Yemen war. However, several senators who had opposed the same measure in March declared themselves unconvinced, with several complaining about the absence of the CIA director, Gina Haspel, who they wanted to brief the Senate about the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The CIA has reportedly assessed that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, most likely ordered the killing of the dissident journalist in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, said Haspel's failure to appear was 'outrageous' and a 'cover-up'. Tells me volumes about what's really going on here,' Menendez told reporters after the briefing, indicating he would support the Yemen bill, which he had opposed in March."

EPA Head Pushes an Anti-Science Conspiracy Theory. Uh, Without Evidence, Natch. Alex Guillen of Politico: "Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Wednesday accused the Obama administration of tilting last week's federal climate change report to focus on the worst-case outcomes -- and indicated that the Trump administration could seek to shape the next big study of the issue.... The report, released on the day after Thanksgiving, was the first major climate assessment produced predominantly during Trump's presidency. But Wheeler still maintained that Trump's predecessor was the driving force behind it. 'The drafting of this report was drafted at the direction of the Obama administration,' Wheeler said. 'And I don't know this for a fact -- I wouldn't be surprised if the Obama administration told the report's authors to take a look at the worst case scenario for this report,' added Wheeler, who said he had not discussed the report with Trump.... The Obama White House official who initiated the assessment flatly denied Wheeler's contention. 'Mr. Wheeler's insinuation is absolutely false,' John Holdren, who served as Obama's science adviser, told Politico in an email. Holdren says he called on the U.S. Global Change Research Program to conduct a thorough study, and that he had no role in selecting the report's authors."

*****

The New York Times has live election results for the special election race for the U.S. Senate in Mississippi. ..

     ... Update: The AP & NBC News have called the race for the racist white lady. Mrs. McC: Congratulations, Mississippi! You have shown us your true colors -- and they're mighty pale.

Trump Is Smarter Than Anybody -- Just Ask Him. Philip Rucker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump placed responsibility for recent stock market declines and this week's General Motors plant closures and layoffs on the Federal Reserve during an interview Tuesday, shirking any personal responsibility for cracks in the economy and declaring that he is 'not even a little bit happy' with his hand-selected central bank chairman. In a wide-ranging and sometimes discordant 20-minute interview with The Washington Post, Trump complained at length about Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. 'Jay' Powell.... He argued that rising interest rates and other Fed policies were damaging the economy ... though he insisted that he is not worried about a recession. 'I'm doing deals and I'm not being accommodated by the Fed,' Trump said. 'They're making a mistake because I have a gut and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me.' Trump also dismissed the federal government's landmark report released last week that found damages from global warming are intensifying around the country.... 'One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we're not necessarily such believers,' Trump said. 'You look at our air and our water and it's right now at a record clean.' Trump also threatened to cancel his scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a global summit later this week because of Russia's maritime clash with Ukraine.... When pressed whether he would commit to letting the [Mueller] probe continue until its conclusion, Trump stopped short of making an explicit pledge." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump's argument is that since he's the smartest person around, he is right about everything. I think I'll try that; for one thing, it's charming: "I'm smarter than you are, so your opinion is meaningless. You're an expert on the subject? So what? As a person with a very high level of intelligence, my gut tells me more than you brain can ever tell me." Jeesh! ...

... Here's the full transcript of the interview, which Aaron Blake has annotated.

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Besides being a person with a very high level of intelligence, Trump is a person with a very high level of discernment. According to Rucker & Dawsey's report, "Trump considered reappointing [Fed Chair Janet] Yellen to the post, and she impressed him greatly during an interview.... But ... the president ... told aides on the National Economic Council on several occasions that the 5-foot-3-inch economist was not tall enough to lead the central bank, quizzing them on whether they agreed, current and former officials said."

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

** Obstruction in Plain Sight, Ctd. Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "A lawyer for Paul Manafort, the president's onetime campaign chairman, repeatedly briefed President Trump's lawyers on his client's discussions with federal investigators after Mr. Manafort agreed to cooperate with the special counsel, according to one of Mr. Trump's lawyers and two other people familiar with the conversations. The arrangement was highly unusual and inflamed tensions with Mr. Mueller's office when prosecutors discovered it after Mr. Manafort began cooperating two months ago, the people said. Some legal experts speculated that it was a bid by Mr. Manafort for a presidential pardon even as he worked with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, in hopes of a lighter sentence. Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of the president's personal lawyers, acknowledged the arrangement on Tuesday and defended it as a source of valuable insights into the special counsel's inquiry and where it was headed.... For example, Mr. Giuliani said, Mr. Manafort's lawyer Kevin M. Downing told him that prosecutors hammered away at whether the president knew about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting where Russians promised to deliver damaging information on Hillary Clinton to his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. The president has long denied knowing about the meeting in advance. 'He wants Manafort to incriminate Trump,' Mr. Giuliani declared of Mr. Mueller." ...

... Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump on Tuesday lobbed familiar insults and accusations at the special counsel investigation, a day after prosecutors said his former campaign chairman repeatedly lied to investigators in breach of a previous plea agreement. The continuing investigation is a 'Phony Witch Hunt,' carried out by a 'conflicted' prosecutor and a staff of 'Angry Democrats,' the president said in three morning Twitter posts." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Carl Bernstein & Devan Cole of CNN: "... Robert Mueller's team has been investigating a meeting between former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno in Quito in 2017 and has specifically asked if WikiLeaks or its founder, Julian Assange, were discussed in the meeting, a source with personal knowledge of the matter tells CNN. In November 2017, The Associated Press reported that Moreno publicly acknowledged meeting with Manafort and a group of Chinese businessmen who wanted to privatize the country's electric corporation. Moreno said the proposal was rejected." ...

... digby: "Josh Marshall notes that [Manafort] met with the Ecuadoran governments on the same day that Trump fired Comey which may be coincidence but is intriguing nonetheless." Marshall's post is subscriber-firewalled." ...

... Uh-oh. Luke Harding & Dan Collyns of the Guardian: "... Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump's campaign, the Guardian has been told. Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016 -- during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump's push for the White House. It is unclear why Manafort would have wanted to see Assange and what was discussed. But the last apparent meeting is likely to come under scrutiny and could interest Robert Mueller.... A well-placed source has told the Guardian that Manafort went to see Assange around March 2016. Months later WikiLeaks released a stash of Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence officers. Manafort, 69, denies involvement in the hack and says the claim is '100% false'." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Oops. safari linked this earlier Tuesday, but I hadn't seen it. ...

... Paul Waldman in the Washington Post: "... if it is true that Manafort met with Assange in the spring of 2016, it would be almost ludicrous to think they didn't discuss the Democratic emails stolen by Russia that WikiLeaks was soon to release in order to damage Hillary Clinton's candidacy. And if that were true, it would mean the Trump campaign -- or at least the Trump campaign chairman -- had advance knowledge of the centerpiece of the Russian effort to manipulate the 2016 election.... Today might turn out to be [a]... blockbuster [day], because we have not one but two new and potentially vital developments. Both of them involve ... Paul Manafort, and while it's always possible they'll turn out to be inconsequential, the fact that the president himself is highly distressed suggests otherwise[.]" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Jeet Heer: "There are genuine grounds to be cautious about the report. It is based on anonymous sources, some of whom are connected with Ecuadorian intelligence. The logs of the embassy show no such meetings. The information about the most newsworthy meeting (in the spring of 2016) is vaguely worded, suggesting a lack of certitude." Mrs. McC: But if it is true, there's a good chance Mueller already knows about it because Rick Gates. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Update. Matt Naham: Julian "Assange has 'instructed his lawyers to sue the Guardian for libel over [the] fabricated Manafort story.'" He's established a GoFundMe account to help cover his legal fees. The suit is not farfetched in the UK, where libel laws place the burden of proof on the accused libeler rather than the claimant victim. Anyhow, I guess Julian there is not so free-pressy when it comes to stories about him. ...

... Sara Murray & Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Draft court filings obtained by CNN outline significant insights into what special counsel Robert Mueller may know about Roger Stone's efforts to seek documents from WikiLeaks in 2016.... the documents made public Tuesday are the strongest signal yet that Stone could be charged with a crime.... If Stone were to be charged with a crime for seeking the stolen documents, others who discussed with him reaching WikiLeaks could also face legal risk in a criminal conspiracy case or if they attempted to shield information from Congress, the FBI, prosecutors or the grand jury.... Mueller's office was preparing to tell a federal court that Stone pushed an associate to get documents from WikiLeaks -- information that is now known to be stolen from the Democrats by Russian hackers -- that could help the Trump campaign, according to a draft of a court filing and other documents shared with CNN by Stone associate and conservative author Jerome Corsi. Corsi said he received the drafts, mostly dated this month, as part of his negotiations with Mueller's team regarding a plea of making a false statement to federal investigators. According to Corsi and the documents he provided, prosecutors offered him a plea deal, which Corsi says he plans to reject because he doesn't believe he knowingly lied.... In the draft court papers, prosecutors outline how Corsi allegedly lied three times to the FBI and special counsel's office." ...

... Anna Schecter of NBC News: "Two months before WikiLeaks released emails stolen from the Clinton campaign..., Jerome Corsi sent an email to former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone anticipating the document dump, according to draft court papers obtained by NBC News. 'Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps,' Corsi wrote on Aug. 2, 2016, referring to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to the draft court papers. 'One shortly after I'm back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.'... In ... interviews [with investigators], the draft court papers say, Corsi said that his claims to Stone, beginning in 2016, that he had a way of obtaining confidential information from WikiLeaks were false." ...

... Sharon LaFraniere & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: Jerome Corsi "released documents on Tuesday showing that as the presidential campaign heated up in the summer of 2016, [Roger] Stone tried to dispatch him to find out what information WikiLeaks had that could prove damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign.... Mr. Corsi's dealings with Mr. Mueller's prosecutors have caused alarm among the president's legal team, who were informed of developments by Mr. Corsi's lawyer. President Trump's lawyers were especially troubled by a draft statement of offense against Mr. Corsi that was passed on to them, according to people familiar with the situation. In it, prosecutors claimed that Mr. Corsi understood that Mr. Stone was 'in regular contact with senior members of the Trump campaign, including with then-candidate Donald J. Trump' when he asked Mr. Corsi in late July 2016 to 'get to' Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.... Only after Mr. Mueller's team reassured Mr. Trump's lawyers that they were not trying to lure the president into a trap did they forward his answers [to Mueller's written questions] on Nov. 20." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Jerome Corsi ... asserted yesterday that his knowledge of the timing and content of stolen Democratic emails in 2016 was simply the product of his own brilliant analysis.... Piecing together public information, he sifted through 1,000 pages of information about the Democratic party's computer systems and, via 'forensic analysis,' inferred that John Podesta's emails had been stolen and would soon be published. Corsi also explained that his misstatements to the special counsel about his actions were simply inadvertent mistakes due to 'terrible' memory.... Shockingly, this account appears not to be, uh, true.... Corsi was in contact with WikiLeaks and, more importantly, that he passed on what he knew to Roger Stone.... Stone repeatedly flaunted inside knowledge of WikiLeaks' stolen emails during the campaign, but, like Corsi, has denied having had any inside information about this. These denials also appear to be not, uh, true.... Stone, by his own account, communicated with Trump regularly throughout the campaign. The odds that the self-proclaimed 'dirty trickster' declined to share his delicious secret about the stolen emails during those conversations with Trump are very, very low." ...

... Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "The draft filing, first reported by NBC News and provided by [Jerome] Corsi to The Washington Post, provides a remarkable look at the case [Robert] Mueller is building related to WikiLeaks and the most detailed allegations yet that a key associate in Trump's orbit was provided advance knowledge of the group's plans.... Rudolph W. Giuliani ... said the president does not recall ever speaking to either [Roger] Stone or Corsi about WikiLeaks. He said the president's legal team obtained a copy of the Corsi document earlier this month and lodged a complaint with the Justice Department about the inclusion of Trump's name in the draft filing. The episode delayed the delivery of Trump's written responses to questions posed by the special counsel.... Making such documents public before a court filing would infuriate most prosecutors, because sharing such details could compromise ongoing investigative work and tip off other suspects about what the FBI knows." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's a coincidence: Manafort's and Corsi's pleas collapsed at the same time. You might think somebody was kinda muscling Corsi into tearing up his plea deal. As Yogi Berra might say, "That's too coincidental to be a coincidence." Speaking of such "coincidences," Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out on his MSNBC show that Corsi's gift of his draft plea agreement to Trump's lawyers coincidenced with Trump's tweet earlier this month wherein he claimed, "The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want." At the time, I figured friendly acting AG Matt Whitaker was Trump's source about the "inner workings" but I think O'Donnell is right: Corsi was the source. BUT ..

     ... Update: Matt Naham ties this & other Trump tweets to revelations he gleaned from Manafort's attorneys.

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This much is clear: all of the principals here (and maybe all the lawyers, too) are mobsters. Their lies and double dealing & backroom shenanigans -- much less their underlying criminal activities -- surely have infuriated Mueller & his team. BTW, why do you think Trump isn't upset MBS ordered a hit on Jamal Khashoggi? Because he'd do the same damned thing if he thought he could get away with it. The head of the U.S. government is Tony Soprano (who, you may recall, is a comic character), but less complex, dumber, less introspective & less empathetic. Bada bing, bada boom.

Nicole Guadiano of USA Today: "A blocked number in Donald Trump Jr.'s phone records may be among the first targets for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee in January as they investigate possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Rep. Adam Schiff, who is poised to lead the committee when Democrats take over the House majority, told USA Today that his committee will have to prioritize the most important witnesses and records that Republicans blocked them from pursuing. The 'clearest example' of that obstruction, he said, is phone records that would show whether the blocked phone number -- logged as Trump Jr. was arranging a meeting with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower -- belonged to then-candidate Donald Trump. Trump's son arranged the June 2016 meeting after being promised 'dirt' on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. At first, Trump Jr. said he never told his father of the meeting, but then later told Senate investigators that he couldn't recall who he spoke with that night." (Also linked yesterday.)

Jeremy Kahn & Nate Lanxon of Bloomberg: "Facebook Inc. knew that Russian-linked entities were using a feature on the social network that let advertisers harvest large amounts of data as early as October 2014, according to an internal email a U.K. lawmaker said he had reviewed. Previously, Facebook has said it was unaware of this sort of Russian activity on the social network untilafter the 2016 election.... Facebook said that the document ... was taken out of context. 'The engineers who had flagged these initial concerns subsequently looked into this further and found no evidence of specific Russian activity,' the company said in an email to Bloomberg Tuesday." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Josh Marshall of TPM: "With a highly dangerous situation unfolding between Russia and Ukraine over the weekend [and the Saudi Arabia debacle], it's important to return to a basic point about President Trump and the danger he represents to the United States.... The problem in both cases is that Trump appears to be pursuing some definition of his own personal interests over national interests. It's not always clear just what that personal interest is, whether it is a narrow financial interest or some kind of threat-influence or whether he's just been buttered up by the strongman in question. But it makes the conduct of US policy almost impossible to predict or trust.... As a country we remain in a state of shadow paralysis, not even able to adequately discuss or devise responses to critical foreign policy because the President's actions are opaque and almost certainly corrupt." --s (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... The Chickenshits in Charge. Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "John R. Bolton, President Trump's national security adviser, defended on Tuesday the fact that neither Mr. Trump nor top national security officials had listened to audio of the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying that they did not speak Arabic and would not be able to understand what was on the tape." Mrs. McC: In a "normal" White House, if the president & his aides were going to dismiss a brutal murder, they would at least have the guts to thoroughly review the evidence of the heinous crime. "I don't speak Arabic" is right up there with "the dog ate my homework" excuse. Lame. As Aunt Hattie suggested near the end of yesterday's thread, "Really? Maybe re-hire all of those (fired!) gay translators who were fluent in Arabic (and other languages), yet subject to your - and your 'brethren's' - hateful, ignorant bigotry." The reporters in the room with Bolton also suggested Bolton could find a translator. ...

... Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The White House [-- in this case, John Bolton --] has denied preventing the CIA director, Gina Haspel, from briefing the Senate on the murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi. The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the defence secretary, James Mattis, are due to give a briefing on US relations with Saudi Arabia to the entire Senate behind closed doors on Wednesday, ahead of a vote that could cut off US support for Riyadh's military campaign in Yemen. On a national security issue of such importance, it would be customary for a senior intelligence official to take part, Senate staffers said. On this occasion, the absence of the intelligence community is all the more glaring, as Haspel travelled to Istanbul to hear audio tapes of Khashoggi's murder provided by Turkish intelligence, and then briefed Donald Trump. Senior senators including the chairman of the foreign relations committee, Bob Corker, have called for Haspel to appear, but there was no sign on Tuesday evening that she will take part. Officials said that the decision for Haspel not to appear in front of the committee came from the White House...." ...

... Juan Cole: "To forestall ... total war and genocide [in Yemen], the UN Security Council has been attempting to achieve a ceasefire. CNN reported, however, that when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman saw the resolution, he was absolutely furious and threw a fit. The Saudis have some sort of hold over Trump. He has run interference for Bin Salman with regard to the murder of ... Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Now Riyadh appears to have pulled some sort of strings to get Trump to block the UNSC resolution.... CNN obtained a copy of the British-crafted resolution, which critics of the war had already seen as inadequate. It only calls for a ceasefire at Hodeida port and compliments the Saudi war effort, slamming the Houthis for defending themselves. But even this mild resolution has been deep-sixed." --s (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Andrew Sorkin of the New York Times: "... the president's strong support for the crown prince [of Saudi Arabia] ... may have the opposite effect to the one intended.... Congress is now making noises about doing what the president would not: a public investigation that could lead to real sanctions. (If this sounds familiar, it's because it is a replay of what happened a year ago after Mr. Trump refused to punish Russia for meddling in our elections.)... Not only has Mr. Trump increased the chances that Congress will enact restrictions on the Saudi royal family or make it harder to do business with the kingdom, he has prompted Democrats to question his financial ties to Saudi Arabia. [Rep. Adam] Schiff [D-Calif.], who is expected to take over as chairman of the Intelligence Committee when Democrats take control of the House in January, has promised to investigate those, too." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Uki Goñi & Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Argentine prosecutors are considering charging Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman with war crimes and torture if he flies to Buenos Aires for the G20 summit this week. The move comes after advocacy group Human Rights Watch wrote to a federal prosecutor arguing that the Argentinian courts should invoke a universal jurisdiction statute in Argentinian law...Judicial sources were quoted as saying that the likelihood that this will happen 'is very difficult', the newspaper Clarín reported, adding that Khashoggi's murder might not qualify as a 'crime against human rights.' However, the HRW submission is based on a wider pattern of torture as well as military operations in Yemen." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump Threatens GM. Neal Boudette of the New York Times: "When General Motors announced that it would idle five North American plants and eliminate thousands of jobs, it said the move would ease the burden of spending billions of dollars to develop the battery-powered vehicles of the future. But the White House put a question mark over those plans on Tuesday when President Trump -- irate over the G.M. cutbacks -- threatened an end to federal tax credits that have helped underwrite that automaker's electric-vehicle fleet.... Apparently referring to G.M.'s federal rescue from bankruptcy in 2009, the president [wrote ina tweet]: 'The U.S. saved General Motors, and this is the THANKS we get! We are now looking at cutting all @GM subsidies, including for electric cars.' And at a White House news briefing, Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, said..., 'We're going to be looking at certain subsidies regarding electric cars and others and whether they should apply or not,' Mr. Kudlow added. 'Can't say anything final about that, but we are looking into it.'"

Revelling in Misery. Erin Banco & Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast: "When border agents fired canisters of tear gas into a crowd of unarmed migrants in Tijuana over the weekend, officials in the Department of Homeland Security and White House quietly cheered. It was exactly the fodder they needed in the waning days of Republican-controlled Washington to pressure Congress for billions to fund the border wall. That sentiment, which was palpable at DHS in particular, startled some in the highest ranks of Customs and Border Patrol, an official in the agency told The Daily Beast. 'They are totally all in. They have gone batshit crazy,' one former senior official said of leaders inside DHS and the White House." --s (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... "Annals of Journalism", Ctd. Frank Dale of ThinkProgress: "Fox & Friends, President Donald Trump's favorite morning 'news' source, devoted the majority of its three hours of Monday programming to fear-mongering over the migrant caravan and undocumented immigrants.... After claiming the caravan was 'supported by outside sources,' had a 'sense of entitlement,' and shouldn't be considered 'true refugees,' former U.S. Border Patrol deputy chief Ron Colburn said it was pepper spray being used against unarmed migrants and it was actually part of a balanced diet. 'You could actually put it on your nachos and eat it.'" --s (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Ginger Thompson of ProPublica: "The Trump administration has quietly resumed separating immigrant families at the border, in some cases using vague or unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing or minor violations against the parents, including charges of illegally re-entering the country, as justification. Over the last three months, lawyers at Catholic Charities, which provides legal services to immigrant children in government custody in New York, have discovered at least 16 new separation cases. They say they have come across such instances by chance and via their own sleuthing after children were put into temporary foster care and shelters with little or no indication that they arrived at the border with their parents.... Lawyers at the ACLU and Catholic Charities said that the DOJ responded that it wasn't obligated to report the new separations to the ACLU because they hadn't been done as a part of the zero-tolerance policy. The DOJ said that in 14 of the 17 cases flagged in the ACLU's letter, the children were removed from their parents' custody because authorities suspected the parents had some kind of criminal background that made them unfit -- even dangerous. But the agency would not specify what crimes the parents were suspected of committing and what evidence authorities had to support these allegations." ...

... Garance Burke & Martha Mendoza of the AP: "The Trump administration has put the safety of thousands of teens at a migrant detention camp at risk by waiving FBI fingerprint checks for their caregivers and short-staffing mental health workers, according to an Associated Press investigation and a new federal watchdog report. None of the 2,100 staffers at a tent city holding more than 2,300 teens in the remote Texas desert are going through rigorous FBI fingerprint background checks, according to a Health and Human Services inspector general memo published Tuesday. 'Instead, Tornillo is using checks conducted by a private contractor that has access to less comprehensive data, thereby heightening the risk that an individual with a criminal history could have direct access to children,' the memo says. In addition, the federal government is allowing the nonprofit running the facility -- BCFS Health and Human Services -- to sidestep mental health care requirements. Under federal policy, migrant youth shelters generally must have one mental health clinician for every 12 kids, but the federal agency's contract with BCFS allows it to staff Tornillo with just one clinician for every 100 children." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: So what with Trump's no-asylum policy jamming up Mexico in the worst way, Trump's border patrol lobbing tear gas into Mexico (which would be against international law), Trump's separating immigrant children (no doubt some of them Mexican children) from their parents, & Trump's endangering teenagers in federal custody, this seems like a perfect time for Mexico to give a Big Prize to a member of Trump's family:

     ... AP: "The Mexican government said Tuesday that it will award ... Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner the highest honor the country gives to foreigners, the Order of the Aztec Eagle. The Foreign Relations Department said Kushner earned the award 'for his significant contributions in achieving the renegotiation of the new (trade) agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada.'" ...

     ... Update. David Agren of the Guardian: "Outgoing Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto has stunned the country by bestowing the nation’s highest honour for foreigners on Jared Kushner.... Mexicans on Tuesday voiced their outrage over Kushner receiving the Order of the Aztec Eagle, whose past recipients include Queen Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela and Walt Disney.... Peña Nieto leaves office as a loathed figure on 30 November after six years of corruption and conflict-of-interest scandals. His approval rating hovers at just 24%, according to pollster Consulta Mitofsky."

Why the Trade Deficit Is Growing. David Lynch of the Washington Post: "The merchandise trade deficit ... hit a monthly record in September.... Trump promised during the 2016 campaign that he would act against China for manipulating the yuan’s value, and he repeatedly has called the dollar 'too strong.'... In January, Trump abandoned his earlier worries about a rising greenback..., telling CNBC: 'The dollar is going to get stronger and stronger, and ultimately I want to see a strong dollar.'... He has taken no direct action on currencies, instead relying on tariffs to battle trade barriers that he says hurt American companies.... Some labor and business groups are calling on the president to take action to weaken the U.S. currency. Yet his economic policies are making it stronger. A stronger dollar acts as a price increase for U.S. goods sold abroad while making imported products less expensive for Americans."

Juliet Eilperin & Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General has cleared Secretary Ryan Zinke in a probe of whether he redrew boundaries of a national monument in Utah to aid the financial interests of a Republican state lawmaker and stalwart supporter of President Trump. In a Nov. 21 letter to Zinke's deputy, David Bernhardt, Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall wrote that her office 'found no evidence' that the secretary or his aides changed the boundaries of Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in an effort to help former Utah state representative Mike Noel.... Last December, Trump shrank the monument, established by Bill Clinton in 1996, by 46 percent based on Zinke's recommendation. Noel owns 40 acres that had been surrounded by the monument but now lies outside its boundaries.... The inspector general's office still has at least two ongoing probes of the secretary, including one focused on his real estate dealings in Whitefish, Mont., and another regarding his decision to deny a permit to two Connecticut tribes who were hoping to jointly run a casino after MGM Resorts International lobbied against it."

"Strategic Messaging." Alex Thompson & Eliana Johnson of Politico: "Mary Kissel often took a dim view of ... Donald Trump's foreign policy. As a Wall Street Journal editorial writer, she tweeted about his 'frightening ignorance,' criticized his approach on Syria and China, and said Putin 'scored a great propaganda victory' at the Helsinki summit in July. And Trump swatted back. After Kissel said in a March 2016 appearance on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' that Trump has 'no principles, he has no policies,' the president counter punched on Twitter. 'Major loser!' then-candidate Trump wrote, adding that Kissel had 'no clue!' Now, Kissel is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's new senior adviser for policy and strategic messaging."

Sarah Kliff of Vox: "Obamacare's marketplaces are having a surprisingly good year. Two years into the Trump administration, more health plans are signing up to sell coverage. Premiums for mid-level plans actually went down 1 percent. This is after years of double-digit increases, many under the Obama administration. This all really surprises me. These positive changes are happening the same year that Obamacare’s individual mandate — the penalties for not carrying health coverage -- is& going away.... I called up two of the experts I trust the most when it comes to understanding Obamacare marketplaces -- Chris Sloan at Avalere Health and Larry Levitt at the Kaiser Family Foundation -- to figure out what was going on. Both of them agree: The Obamacare marketplaces seem to be pretty resilient to policy headwinds." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "In April 2009, the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security released a report warning [about the dangers of rising right-wing extremism].... Conservatives went ballistic.... Most notably, then-Republican Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) attacked Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano for releasing the report at all.... As a result, the administration pulled back the report. Napolitano apologized for the portrayal of veterans and the report was removed from the DHS website.... In the time since, it has become clear that the warnings in the report were indeed warranted." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast: "The nation's leading gun-rights organization saw its income drop by $55 million last year, after a record-breaking 2016 in which the group and its political affiliates spent unprecedented sums to elect ... Donald Trump. The National Rifle Association of America reported $98 million in contributions in 2017, down from nearly $125 million in 2016, according to new tax records obtained by The Daily Beast. Nearly one-fifth of its contributions last year came from a single anonymous donor, who chipped in nearly $19 million to the group. More noteworthy than its drop in contributions, though, was its decline in membership dues. The NRA took in more than $128 million in dues last year -- a significant sum, but down considerably from the $163 million it took in the year prior. That decline, more than the drop in direct contributions, appears to indicate a dwindling, if still formidable, base of public support."

Nesar Azadzoi & Rod Nordland of the New York Times: "American forces experienced the worst loss of life so far this year in Afghanistan when three soldiers were killed in a Taliban bombing on Tuesday. Three more soldiers and an American contractor were wounded. The deaths took place when a roadside bomb went off near Ghazni City, in the southeastern province of the same name, killing Special Forces soldiers three months after they were sent to save that city from falling to the Taliban. The Pentagon declared an end to American combat operations in Afghanistan in 2014, but since that time, the Taliban have expanded their reach, and the Americans have rejoined the fray."

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Maxwell Tani of the Daily Beast: "Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt was clearly taken aback last year when occasional Fox & Friends fill-in host Ed Henry grilled him about a number of ethical scandals facing his administration. And Pruitt had a good reason to be surprised. In past interviews with President Trump's favorite cable-news show, the then-EPA chief's team chose the topics for interviews, and knew the questions in advance. In one instance..., Pruitt's team even approved part of the show's script.... 'Every American journalist knows that to provide scripts or articles to the government for review before publication or broadcast is a cardinal sin. It’s Journalism 101,' said David Hawkins, a CBS News and CNN veteran who teaches journalism at Fordham University. 'This is worse than that. It would and should get you fired from any news organization with integrity.'" --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Mike Elk of the Payday Report: In the wake of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre, "many in the Pittsburgh community [have] rallied behind the cause of immigrant rghts, [but] the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership is still allowing a prominent anti-immigrant group, the Colcom Foundation, to sponsor Pittsburgh's Downtown Holiday Market. The Colcom Foundation, founded by the family of right-wing banking and publishing heir Richard Mellon Scaife, is one of the largest funders of anti-immigration groups in the country.... The logo of Colcom Foundation appears prominently over the main stage in Pittsburgh's Market Square, a public park.

The Commentariat -- Nov. 27, 2018

Today is election day in Mississippi for a special election for the U.S. Senate.

Flat Earth Map:

Afternoon Update:

Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump on Tuesday lobbed familiar insults and accusations at the special counsel investigation, a day after prosecutors said his former campaign chairman repeatedly lied to investigators in breach of a previous plea agreement. The continuing investigation is a 'Phony Witch Hunt,' carried out by a 'conflicted' prosecutor and a staff of 'Angry Democrats,' the president said in three morning Twitter posts." ...

... Uh-oh. Luke Harding & Dan Collyns of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump's campaign, the Guardian has been told. Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016 -- during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump's push for the White House. It is unclear why Manafort would have wanted to see Assange and what was discussed. But the last apparent meeting is likely to come under scrutiny and could interest Robert Mueller.... A well-placed source has told the Guardian that Manafort went to see Assange around March 2016. Months later WikiLeaks released a stash of Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence officers. Manafort, 69, denies involvement in the hack and says the claim is '100% false'." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Oops. safari linked this earlier, but I hadn't seen it.

... Paul Waldman in the Washington Post: "... if it is true that Manafort met with Assange in the spring of 2016, it would be almost ludicrous to think they didn't discuss the Democratic emails stolen by Russia that WikiLeaks was soon to release in order to damage Hillary Clinton's candidacy. And if that were true, it would mean the Trump campaign -- or at least the Trump campaign chairman -- had advance knowledge of the centerpiece of the Russian effort to manipulate the 2016 election.... Today might turn out to be [a]... blockbuster [day], because we have not one but two new and potentially vital developments. Both of them involve ... Paul Manafort, and while it's always possible they'll turn out to be inconsequential, the fact that the president himself is highly distressed suggests otherwise[.]" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes, indeed. Today may be the day Trump figured out Mueller has him by his ... parts. I hope it hurts as much as tear gas. ...

... Jeet Heer: "There are genuine grounds to be cautious about the report. It is based on anonymous sources, some of whom are connected with Ecuadorian intelligence. The logs of the embassy show no such meetings. The information about the most newsworthy meeting (in the spring of 2016) is vaguely worded, suggesting a lack of certitude." Mrs. McC: But if it is true, there's a good chance Mueller already knows about it because Rick Gates. ...

... Nicole Guadiano of USA Today: "A blocked number in Donald Trump Jr.’s phone records may be among the first targets for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee in January as they investigate possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Rep. Adam Schiff, who is poised to lead the committee when Democrats take over the House majority, told USA Today that his committee will have to prioritize the most important witnesses and records that Republicans blocked them from pursuing. The 'clearest example' of that obstruction, he said, is phone records that would show whether the blocked phone number -- logged as Trump Jr. was arranging a meeting with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower -- belonged to then-candidate Donald Trump. Trump's son arranged the June 2016 meeting after being promised 'dirt' on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. At first, Trump Jr. said he never told his father of the meeting, but then later told Senate investigators that he couldn't recall who he spoke with that night."

Jeremy Kahn & Nate Lanxon of Bloomberg: "Facebook Inc. knew that Russian-linked entities were using a feature on the social network that let advertisers harvest large amounts of data as early as October 2014, according to an internal email a U.K. lawmaker said he had reviewed. Previously, Facebook has said it was unaware of this sort of Russian activity on the social network until after the 2016 election.... Facebook said that the document ... was taken out of context. 'The engineers who had flagged these initial concerns subsequently looked into this further and found no evidence of specific Russian activity,' the company said in an email to Bloomberg Tuesday." --s

Josh Marshall of TPM: "With a highly dangerous situation unfolding between Russia and Ukraine over the weekend [and the Saudi Arabia debacle], it's important to return to a basic point about President Trump and the danger he represents to the United States.... The problem in both cases is that Trump appears to be pursuing some definition of his own personal interests over national interests. It's not always clear just what that personal interest is, whether it is a narrow financial interest or some kind of threat-influence or whether he's just been buttered up by the strongman in question. But it makes the conduct of US policy almost impossible to predict or trust.... As a country we remain in a state of shadow paralysis, not even able to adequately discuss or devise responses to critical foreign policy because the President's actions are opaque and almost certainly corrupt." --s

Juan Cole: "To forestall ... total war and genocide [in Yemen], the UN Security Council has been attempting to achieve a ceasefire. CNN reported, however, that when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman saw the resolution, he was absolutely furious and threw a fit. The Saudis have some sort of hold over Trump. He has run interference for Bin Salman with regard to the murder of Washington Post columnist and dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Now Riyadh appears to have pulled some sort of strings to get Trump to block the UNSC resolution.... CNN obtained a copy of the British-crafted resolution, which critics of the war had already seen as inadequate. It only calls for a ceasefire at Hodeida port and compliments the Saudi war effort, slamming the Houthis for defending themselves. But even this mild resolution has been deep-sixed." --s ...

... Uki Goñi & Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Argentine prosecutors are considering charging Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman with war crimes and torture if he flies to Buenos Aires for the G20 summit this week. The move comes after advocacy group Human Rights Watch wrote to a federal prosecutor arguing that the Argentinian courts should invoke a universal jurisdiction statute in Argentinian law... Judicial sources were quoted as saying that the likelihood that this will happen 'is very difficult', the newspaper Clarín reported, adding that Khashoggi's murder might not qualify as a 'crime against human rights.' However, the HRW submission is based on a wider pattern of torture as well as military operations in Yemen." --s

Revelling in Misery. Erin Banco & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "When border agents fired canisters of tear gas into a crowd of unarmed migrants in Tijuana over the weekend, officials in the Department of Homeland Security and White House quietly cheered. It was exactly the fodder they needed in the waning days of Republican-controlled Washington to pressure Congress for billions to fund the border wall. That sentiment, which was palpable at DHS in particular, startled some in the highest ranks of Customs and Border Patrol, an official in the agency told The Daily Beast. 'They are totally all in. They have gone batshit crazy,' one former senior official said of leaders inside DHS and the White House." --s

Sarah Kliff of Vox: "Obamacare's marketplaces are having a surprisingly good year. Two years into the Trump administration, more health plans are signing up to sell coverage. Premiums for mid-level plans actually went down 1 percent. This is after years of double-digit increases, many under the Obama administration. This all really surprises me. These positive changes are happening the same year that Obamacare's individual mandate -- the penalties for not carrying health coverage -- is going away.... I called up two of the experts I trust the most when it comes to understanding Obamacare marketplaces -- Chris Sloan at Avalere Health and Larry Levitt at the Kaiser Family Foundation -- to figure out what was going on. Both of them agree: The Obamacare marketplaces seem to be pretty resilient to policy headwinds." --s

Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "In April 2009, the Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security released a report warning [about the dangers of rising right-wing extremism].... Conservatives went ballistic.... Most notably, then-Republican Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) attacked Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano for releasing the report at all.... As a result, the administration pulled back the report. Napolitano apologized for the portrayal of veterans and the report was removed from the DHS website.... In the time since, it has become clear that the warnings in the report were indeed warranted." --s

"Annals of Journalism", Ctd. Frank Dale of ThinkProgress: "Fox & Friends, President Donald Trump's favorite morning 'news' source, devoted the majority of its three hours of Monday programming to fear-mongering over the migrant caravan and undocumented immigrants.... After claiming the caravan was 'supported by outside sources,' had a 'sense of entitlement,' and shouldn't be considered 'true refugees,' former U.S. Border Patrol deputy chief Ron Colburn said it was pepper spray being used against unarmed migrants and it was actually part of a balanced diet. 'You could actually put it on your nachos and eat it.'" --s

Andrew Sorkin of the New York Times: "... the president's strong support for the crown prince [of Saudi Arabia] ... may have the opposite effect to the one intended.... Congress is now making noises about doing what the president would not: a public investigation that could lead to real sanctions. (If this sounds familiar, it's because it is a replay of what happened a year ago after Mr. Trump refused to punish Russia for meddling in our elections.)... Not only has Mr. Trump increased the chances that Congress will enact restrictions on the Saudi royal family or make it harder to do business with the kingdom, he has prompted Democrats to question his financial ties to Saudi Arabia. [Rep. Adam] Schiff [D-Calif.], who is expected to take over as chairman of the Intelligence Committee when Democrats take control of the House in January, has promised to investigate those, too."

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Maxwell Tani of the Daily Beast: "Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt was clearly taken aback last year when occasional Fox & Friends fill-in host Ed Henry grilled him about a number of ethical scandals facing his administration. And Pruitt had a good reason to be surprised. In past interviews with President Trump's favorite cable-news show, the then-EPA chief's team chose the topics for interviews, and knew the questions in advance. In one instance..., Pruitt's team even approved part of the show's script.... 'Every American journalist knows that to provide scripts or articles to the government for review before publication or broadcast is a cardinal sin. It's Journalism 101,' said David Hawkins, a CBS News and CNN veteran who teaches journalism at Fordham University. 'This is worse than that. It would and should get you fired from any news organization with integrity.'" --s

*****

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

Avi Selk of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Monday launched what some interpreted as a preemptive PR attack against special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's final report -- a day after [Alan Dershowitz,] one of Mueller's most prominent critics[,] said he expects the investigation's conclusion will be politically 'devastating to the president.'... 'When Mueller does his final report, will he be covering all of his conflicts of interest in a preamble?' the president wrote, citing no examples. 'Will he be putting in statements from hundreds of people closely involved with my campaign who never met, saw or spoke to a Russian during this period?'"

**Luke Harding & Dan Collyns of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafortheld secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump's campaign, the Guardian has been told. Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016 -- during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump's push for the White House.... A well-placed source has told the Guardian that Manafort went to see Assange around March 2016. Months later WikiLeaks released a stash of Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence officers...A separate internal document written by Ecuador's Senain intelligence agency and seen by the Guardian lists 'Paul Manaford [sic]' as one of several well-known guests. It also mentions 'Russians'... Visitors normally register with embassy security guards and show their passports. Sources in Ecuador, however, say Manafort was not logged." --s

Spencer Hsu & Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III said Monday that Paul Manafort breached his plea agreement by lying repeatedly as they questioned him in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Manafort denies doing so, and both sides agree that sentencing should be set immediately. The apparent collapse of Manafort's cooperation agreement is the latest stunning turnaround in his case, exposing the longtime Republican consultant to more than a decade behind bars after pleading guilty in September on charges of cheating the Internal Revenue Service, violating foreign lobbying laws and attempting to obstruct justice. The court filing indicated Mueller's team also had suffered a potential setback, after gaining access to a witness with potential knowledge of several key events relevant to the probe during his tenure with Trump's campaign from March to August 2016, including a Trump Tower meeting attended by a Russian lawyer and the Republican National Convention." ...

... Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "Prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, said Mr. Manafort's 'crimes and lies' about 'a variety of subject matters' relieve them of all promises they made to him in the plea agreement. But under the terms of the agreement, Mr. Manafort cannot withdraw his guilty plea.... After at least a dozen sessions wit him, federal prosecutors have not only decided Mr. Manafort does not deserve leniency, but also could seek to refile other charges that they had agreed to dismiss as part of the plea deal. The prosecutors did not describe what Mr. Manafort lied about, saying they would set forth 'the nature of the defendant's crimes and lies' in an upcoming sentencing memo." ...

... Marcy Wheeler suggests the Manafort plea deal was a Trump trap: "... Mueller's team appears to have no doubt that Manafort was lying to them. That means they didn't really need his testimony, at all. It also means they had no need to keep secrets -- they could keep giving Manafort the impression that he was pulling a fast one over the prosecutors, all while [Manafort was] reporting misleading information to Trump that he could use to fill out his open book test [i.e., answer Mueller's written questions]. Which increases the likelihood that Trump just submitted sworn answers to those questions full of lies." Mrs. McC: If Wheeler is right -- and she really is deep into Mueller's briar patch -- then there is a delicious irony here: for all of Rudy Giuliani's claims that Mueller's questions were a "perjury trap," indeed, Mueller -- knowing that Manafort's lawyers were communicating/coordinating/colluding with Trump's lawyers -- did set up Trump to lie in that "open book test." Of course, Mueller didn't force Trump to lie; it's just what Trump does. ...

... P.S. If, like Ken W. (commentary in today's thread), you're tuned back into the Russia Thing serial, Wheeler adds this: "And that 'detailed sentencing submission ... sett[ing] forth the nature of the defendant's crimes and lies' that Mueller mentions in the report? [and says he will file with the court]? There's your Mueller report, which will be provided in a form that Matt Whitaker won't be able to suppress."

Natasha Bertrand of the Atlantic: "A far-right conspiracy theorist who landed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's crosshairs over his friendship with the longtime Donald Trump confidant Roger Stone now says that Mueller has offered him a plea deal on one count of perjury related to his conversations with Stone in 2016 -- but he is not going to take the deal, he told me in an interview on Monday. 'I will not sign a statement that says I willfully and knowingly lied, because I did not,' Jerome Corsi said." There's more. Corsi claims he just "guessed" that WikiLeaks would publish John Podesta's e-mail correspondence but did not have advance knowledge. Also too, Corsi said he plans to file a criminal complaint against Mueller with acting AG Matt Whiteaker because Mueller's team "just advised me to commit a crime." The claim is bogus, of course. Mrs. McC: It seems unlikely Corsi didn't lie to Mueller's team. He's a conspiracy theorist; spinning lies is what he does.

"I Don't Believe It." Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday dismissed a grim report on climate change produced by his own government, saying he didn't believe the report's prognosis of dire economic fallout.... Trump said ... that it wouldn't mean much for the U.S. to address greenhouse gas emissions if 'all of these other countries,' like China, Japan, 'and all of Asia' did not cut back on pollution also, even though the United States is the only country that has rejected the Paris climate agreement. He claimed Monday that the U.S. is 'the cleanest' it's ever been. 'You know [the report] addresses our country,' he said. 'Right now, we're at the cleanest we've ever been, and it's very important to me. But if we're clean, but if every other place on Earth is dirty, that's not so good. So I want clean air and water. Very important.' Trump has long openly doubted climate science, and his administration has rolled back many of the regulations put in place by his predecessor aimed at mitigating some of the effects of climate change. He also has sought to prop up industries seen as major contributors to harmful emissions, such as coal." ...

... Paul Krugman: "While Donald Trump is a prime example of the depravity of climate denial, this is an issue on which his whole party went over to the dark side years ago. Republicans don't just have bad ideas; at this point, they are, necessarily, bad people." ...

     ... AND a Fun Fact, courtesy of Krugman: "As far as I can tell, every one of the handful of well-known scientists who have expressed climate skepticism has received large sums of money from these companies or from dark money conduits like DonorsTrust -- the same conduit, as it happens, that supported Matthew Whitaker ... before he joined the Trump administration."...

... ** A Tale of Two Crises (Well, One Crisis and One "Crisis"). Eric Levitz of New York contrasts the Trump administration's receipt of & reaction to its own dire climate change report with the horrifying, spectacular "crisis" of a few thousand Central American migrants trying to gain political asylum (and "provide the U.S. with (much-needed) agricultural labor.... Contrary to the president's rhetoric, the border clashes in Tijuana Sunday were not triggered by a violent, lawless caravan hell-bent on 'invading' the United States. Rather, they were triggered by the administration's decision to deliberately prevent asylum seekers from being able to present their claims legally, in a timely fashion.... If one assumes that the administration is indifferent to the fate of ordinary Americans -- and is concerned, above all, with advancing the pecuniary interests of its corporate donors (many of whom are heavily invested in fossil fuels), while retaining the enthusiasm of its xenophobic voters, then its actions are quite rational, indeed." More on the migrant "crisis" below.

When Trump TV (a/k/a Fox "News") Is Not Enough. Rebecca Morin of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday suggested the United States should create a 'worldwide network' to combat the 'unfair' way the country is treated by the media, saying CNN doesn't have enough competition overseas. 'Throughout the world, CNN has a powerful voice portraying the United States in an unfair....' the president tweeted. '....and false way. Something has to be done, including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT!'... The U.S. government currently funds Voice of America, an international radio broadcast source. Congress in 2017 eliminated the board of directors for the organization, with a new CEO position created, which is appointed by the president."

Adam Behsudi of Politico: "... Donald Trump said he expects to move forward with plans to escalate tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports as of Jan. 1, even as he readies to meet with the nation's leader at the end of the week. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said it was 'highly unlikely' that he would accept a request by China to stand down from his plans to ratchet up tariffs on the $200 billion list from 10 percent to 25 percent. The tariff increase is expected to go into effect on Jan. 1. The White House has already put a 25 percent tariff on a separate list of Chinese imports valued at more than $50 billion. Trump said that if his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the upcoming G-20 meeting in Buenos Aires later this week doesn't result in a deal, then he will slaps tariffs of 10 percent to 25 percent on all remaining imported goods from China."

You Have to Lie a Lot to Manufacture a "Crisis." Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump ... made a slew of dubious statements Monday about Central American migrants at the southern border. Speaking with reporters in Mississippi, where he held two rallies for Republican Sen. Cindy-Hyde Smith, the president claimed that three border patrol officers 'were very badly hurt, getting hit with rocks and stones' Sunday during a melee with migrants attempting to enter the United States at a border crossing in San Diego.... Trump's account contradicted U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, who said in a statement Monday that agents and officers 'effectively managed an extremely dangerous situation ... without any reported serious injuries on either side of the border.'... The president also promulgated a theory about 'grabbers' of children at the southern border, in reference to images of migrant children and parents seen fleeing clouds of tear gas dispersed this weekend by U.S. authorities. 'You really say, why is a parent running up into an area where they know the tear gas is forming and it's going to be formed and they're running up with a child?' Trump said. 'In some cases, you know, they're not the parents. These are people, they call them grabbers.'... Without providing supporting evidence, Trump asserted that 'over 500 people' within the migrant caravans are 'serious criminals and gang members,' remarking that 'the violence is very strong' and speculating that someone was 'organizing' the mass migrations through Mexico." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: To reiterate, among the hundreds of Central American criminals storming the U.S. border, some grabbed toddlers & carried them toward the tear gas so the kids could be used as props in a propaganda war against Trump's border policy, and someone (a super-rich, Jewish international leftist provocateur, perhaps?) devised this diabolical plan. That's a conspiracy theory on a conspiracy theory. ...

... Adolfo Flores of BuzzFeed News interviewed Maria Meza of Honduras whom Kim Kyung-Hoon of Reuters photographed running with her daughters away from the tear gas. Meza apparently was unaware she was just a dupe in an international conspiracy to undermine Donald Trump. ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Lest you think Trump is the only depraved liar making up excuses for teargassing toddlers, here's what Foxbots are learning:

     ... "You Could Put It on Your Nachos." Otillia Steadman of BuzzFeed News: "A former deputy chief for the US Border Patrol -- talking about the agency firing pepper spray at migrants trying to cross the southern border -- falsely claimed on Fox News on Monday that the gas was edible. 'It's natural. You could actually put it on your nachos and eat it,' said Ronald Colburn, the current president of the Border Patrol Foundation. Colburn said the substance used was OC pepper spray, and that its contents were 'literally water, pepper, with a small amount of alcohol for evaporation purposes.' He added that pepper spray was 'a good way of deterring people without long-term harm.'... Dr. Rohini Haar, a medical expert with Physicians for Human Rights..., told BuzzFeed News that consuming pepper spray 'would make you very very sick.'... [Customs & Border Protection] told BuzzFeed News that agents had fired tear gas and pepper balls toward the Mexican side of the border.... It's unclear whether pepper spray was actually involved in the incident. Tear gas is also dangerous to consume, Haar said. 'The few situations in which people have actually ingested it have caused a lot of gastro-intentestinal distress,' she said." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: My guess is that Colburn recommended pepper spray as a tasty condiment for nachos is so Foxbots would say to themselves, "What's the big deal? 'Those people' eat nachos all the time anyhow."

... International Diplomacy, Trump-Style. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday demanded that Mexico deport the caravans of asylum-seeking migrants pressing up against the U.S. border 'anyway you want,' threatening to close off the U.S. border 'permanently if need be.' 'Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A.,' Trump tweeted, offering no evidence to support his claim that the migrants are criminals." Mrs. McC: But offering evidence that he doesn't know that "anyway" in this construction is two words: "any" and "way." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "... tear gas, commonly known as CS gas [is] an aerosol compound considered a chemical weapon that has been outlawed on the battlefield by nearly every nation on Earth, including the United States. But as a riot-control agent, 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile is legal to use by both police and federal authorities in the United States and many other countries. On Sunday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents fired the chemical agent at mostly Honduran migrants attempting to cross into the United States from Tijuana, Mexico -- an unusual escalation of lobbing weapons over an international border at unarmed civilians seeking refuge, drawing condemnation from Democrats.... On the border Sunday, officials described aggressive men rushing fencing, necessitating a response that included tear gas. But women and children, some in diapers, also came into contact with tear gas, raising questions about whether the use of gas was an appropriate response.... 'I felt that my face was burning, and my baby fainted. I ran for my life and that of my children,' Cindy Milla, a Honduran migrant with two children, told the Wall Street Journal.... Chief Patrol Agent Rodney S. Scott, the senior Border Patrol agent for the San Diego area..., said 42 people, mostly men, were apprehended on the U.S. side of the border." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: "Chemical weapons such as CS gas are indiscriminate and “uniquely terrorizing in their application," which necessitated their ban in combat in 1993, said Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association." Horton reports. So "lobbing weapons over an international border" sounds to me like a violation of international law.

Tara Palmeri of ABC News: "... Donald Trump's reluctance to hold Saudi leadership accountable for the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi stemmed from a partly aspirational $110 billion arms deal between the U.S. and Saudia Arabia that was inflated at the direction of Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, according to two U.S. officials and three former White House officials. Kushner, in a bid to symbolically solidify the new alliance between the Trump administration and Saudi Arabia while claiming a victory on the president's first foreign trip to Riyadh, pushed State and Defense officials to inflate the figure with arms exchanges that were aspirational at best, the officials said. Secretary of Defense James Mattis supported Kushner's effort and ultimately endorsed the memorandum, according to a former NSC official familiar with the matter.... Another U.S. official said there was a back and forth between Kushner and Department of Defense and State officials on how to get to a larger number because the officials initially told Kushner that realistically they had about $15 billion worth of deals in works...."

Jennifer Rubin: "As striking as Trump's utter inability to grapple with basic problems, his staff's unwillingness to maintain any semblance of unity and loyalty suggests they no long think it's in their personal interest to be associated with a president who makes mincemeat of one policy issue after another. His childish inability to make hard decisions and engender possible complaints from his base makes him a hapless, inept figure. He's not so much leading as he is meandering -- with aides racing after him to prevent bigger disasters and embarrassments."

Being Ivanka Is "Awfully Tough." Quint Forgey: "The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), said on Monday that it was 'awfully tough' for government officials such as Ivanka Trump to comply with agency standards for secure communications when sending emails." Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is a hardened criminal. Goodlatte's committee "last week issued subpoenas to former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch to testify before a closed-door meeting of the panel, in part, on their handling of the federal investigation into Clinton's emails."

Lauren Fox & Zachary Cohen of CNN: "The Government Accountability Office will investigate whether individuals connected to ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida have had inappropriate influence over the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a letter sent to Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The GAO's investigation comes after a ProPublica story in August raised questions about three people with ties to Mar-a-Lago, Marvel Entertainment Chairman Ike Perlmutter, Palm Beach-area doctor Bruce Moskowitz and attorney Marc Sherman -- all private citizens with no official government roles -- and whether they were affecting decisions at the department. Several former Veterans Affairs officials and a current official told CNN in August that an informal council was exerting sweeping influence over the department from the President's Mar-a-Lago club, corroborating ProPublica's report, which said the three individuals 'prodded the VA to start new programs, and officials traveled to Mar-a-Lago at taxpayer expense to hear their views.'"

Frances Robles of the New York Times: "FEMA is spending more than $1 billion on emergency repairs to homes in Puerto Rico damaged by Hurricane Maria, but much of it is going to contractors charging steep markups and overhead.... Homeowners, who were approved for up to $20,000 each in aid, in nearly every case received less than half of what they were approved for, while layers of contractors and middlemen took the rest, a review of hundreds of invoices and contracts associated with the program shows.... Records show a large gap between the amounts FEMA contractors hired by the Department of Housing were paid and the actual cost of the work that was ultimately performed." (Also linked yesterday.)

... What's good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa. -- Charles Wilson, GM President, 1953, in Senate confirmation hearings to be President Eisenhower's secretary of defense ...

... Neal Boudette & Ian Austen of the New York Times: "General Motors said Monday that it planned to idle five factories in North America and cut more than 14,000 blue-collar and salaried jobs in a bid to trim costs. The action follows similar job-cutting moves by Ford Motor in the face of slowing sales and a shift in consumer tastes, driven in part by low gasoline prices. And it drew fire from President Trump, who vowed early in his term to increase automaking jobs and brought pressure on the industry not to shift work to Mexico and overseas. Referring to G.M.'s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, he told reporters, 'I spoke to her and I stressed the fact that I am not happy with what she did.' The five G.M. plants will halt production next year, resulting in the layoff of 3,300 production workers in the United States and about 3,000 in Canada. The company also aims to trim its salaried staff by 8,000.... The plants include three car factories: one in Lordstown, Ohio, that makes the Chevrolet Cruze compact; the Detroit-Hamtramck plant, where the Chevrolet Volt, Buick LaCrosse and Cadillac CT6 are produced; and a plant in Oshawa, Ontario, which primarily makes the Chevrolet Impala. In addition, the company will halt operations at transmission plants in the Baltimore area and in Warren, Mich." ...

... David Lynch & Taylor Telford of the Washington Post: "Coming just weeks after Republican candidates lost several congressional seats across the industrial Midwest, GM's action carries a stark political warning for the president. If voters conclude that Trump failed to deliver on his promise to return lost jobs and prosperity to the region, his reelection hopes could be dealt a blow.... Before leaving the White House Monday for a campaign rally in Mississippi, the president told reporters he had complained to GM chief executive Mary Barra about the shutdowns. 'I was very tough,' the president said. 'I spoke with her when I heard they were closing. And I said, "You know, this country has done a lot for General Motors. You better get back in there soon. That's Ohio, and you better get back in there soon."' Trump said that he was pressing the company to replace lost production in the factories it plans to shutter with other models, citing the Lordstown plant, which makes the Chevy Cruze. 'Their car is not selling well. So they'll put something else -- I have no doubt that, in a not-too-distant future, they'll put something else. They better put something else in,' he said.... During an October 2016 campaign rally in Warren, Mich., site of one of the targeted transmission plants, Trump promised: 'If I'm elected, you won't lose one plant, you'll have plants coming into this country, you're going to have jobs again, you won't lose one plant, I promise you that.' Ohio Sens. Rob Portman (R) and Sherrod Brown (D) slammed GM's decision to shut down the Lordstown plant, with Brown labeling it 'disgraceful' and blaming it on 'corporate greed.'" ...

... "The Real 'Gangster Government.'" Jonathan Chait: Trump "elaborated in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, 'They better damn well open a new plant there very quickly. I love Ohio. I told them, "You're playing around with the wrong person."' Apparently concerned he had made the point with too much subtlety, Trump continued, 'I said, "I heard you're closing your plant. It's not going to be closed for long, I hope, Mary, because if it is you have a problem."'... His overt bullying of GM is a special case that calls to mind a spate of especially virulent hysteria that was summed up by the phrase 'gangster government' [in 2009 during the financial crisis].... Michael Barone quickly coined the phrase 'gangster government' to capture the conservative belief that the Obama administration was threatening the private sector with the untrammeled power of government.... The backlash against the alleged strong-arming of the bailout was so intense it reached well beyond partisan right-wing outlets. The Washington Post denounced it in an editorial headlined, 'The Obama administration bullies GM's bondholders.' The Economist called it 'an offer you can't refuse.' (The latter eventually admitted Obama had been correct.)... The fact that the Republican president is now publicly threatening a private company, and making perfectly clear his concern is not the overall economy but his specific needs in a particular swing state, casts an especially clarifying light on the 'gangster government' attack."

Brian Faler of Politico: "House Republicans on Monday evening unexpectedly released a 297-page tax bill they hope to move during the lame-duck session of Congress. The legislation would revive a number of expired tax provisions known as 'extenders,' address glitches in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and make a range of changes to savings- and retirement-related tax provisions. Other parts of the bill would revamp the IRS, provide new tax breaks for start-up businesses and offer assistance to disaster victims. The measure amounts to House Republicans' opening bid in negotiations with the Senate. They'll need Democratic support there to move any changes, and it's unclear lawmakers will agree to any of the provisions before adjourning for the year."

Election 2018

An Historic Victory. Jane Timm of NBC News: "Democrats won the House with the largest margin of victory in history for either party, according to NBC News election data. While votes are still being tallied, Democratic House candidates currently hold an 8,805,130 vote lead over Republicans as of Monday morning. The Democrats' national margin of victory in House contests smashes the previous record of 8.7 million votes in 1974, won just months after President Richard Nixon resigned from office in disgrace amid the Watergate scandal. Of the more than 111 million votes cast in House races nationwide, Democrats took 53.1 percent -- retaking control of the House of Representatives by flipping nearly 40 seats -- while Republicans received 45.2 percent of the vote."

California. Rory Appleton of the Fresno Bee: "Fresno Democrat TJ Cox has overtaken incumbent David Valadao in their race for California's 21st Congressional District seat. Cox now holds a 438-vote over the Hanford Republican – 55,650 votes to 55,212. This is Cox's first lead in the race.... The lead is far from set in stone, as Valadao-favoring Kings County and Fresno County -- which has broken almost dead even -- have thousands of outstanding ballots to be counted in the next few days. But it appears Cox is on his way to delivering Democrats their 40th flipped seat -- one that analysts and news media called for Valadao on election night." ...

...Maya Lau of the Los Angeles Times: "Alex Villanueva will replace Jim McDonnell as Los Angeles County sheriff, marking a stunning upset for a seat that hasn't seen an incumbent lose in more than a hundred years. McDonnell conceded the race on Monday.... Villanueva leads by nearly 126,000 votes, with only 100,000 ballots still to be counted. Villanueva, who retired at the rank of lieutenant after serving in the Sheriff's Department for three decades, won despite having no experience at the upper levels of law enforcement. He made his status as a Democrat a centerpiece of his platform and promised to expel immigration agents from the county jails."

Mississippi. Cleve Wootsen of the Washington Post: "Authorities removed two nooses and six hate signs found on the grounds of the Mississippi State Capitol on the eve of a U.S. Senate runoff election featuring a black Democrat -- and a white incumbent criticized for pro-Confederacy stances and remarks about a 'public hanging.'... The signs appeared on the same day that President Trump was scheduled to campaign in the Magnolia State for Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Wootson doesn't write anything about the content of the signs, which suggested to me the signs were pro-lynching. But WLBT-TV, Jackson, has photos of the signs here. In fact, they warn against electing someone who has spoken in favor of "public hanging." One reads, "On Tuesday, November 27th thousands of Missippians will vote for a senator[.] We need someone who respects lives of lynch victims." It's not surprising then that Gov. Phil Bryant (R) & law enforcement officials have promised to investigate & prosecute.

New York State. Joseph Spector of the (Upstate New York) Journal News: "The [Democratic] party won eight [state senate] seats on Election Day, giving Democrats a secure majority of 39 members in the 63-seat chamber. The senators met privately at the Capitol, and then announced, as expected, that Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, would be the majority leader starting Jan. 1. The vote was historic: She will be the first woman and first black woman to lead a majority conference in the state Legislature."

Utah. Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "Days after losing her re-election bid in deep red Utah, Representative Mia Love, the only black Republican woman in Congress, condemned President Trump on Monday in a scathing concession speech, describing him as having 'no real relationships, just convenient transactions.' She used similar language to attack her own party, accusing Republicans of having a 'transactional' relationship with minority and black voters. Ms. Love, who was elected to Congress in 2014 and had been viewed as a rising Republican star, lost her election by less than a percentage point to Ben McAdams, the Democratic mayor of Salt Lake County.... She also railed against the media, Democrats and her opponent, whom she called 'a wolf in sheep's clothing.'"

Michelle Goldberg muses on the insincere political operatives. Mrs. McC: I did, too when a couple of days ago, I read the Times story about Bill White and his husband, Bryan Eure, who literally switched from supporting Hillary Clinton to backing Donald Trump on election night 2016. "Trump is hardly the first politician to attract self-serving followers -- White and Eure, after all, used to be Clintonites.... But Trump is unique as a magnet for grifters, climbers and self-promoters, in part because decent people won’t associate with him. With the exception of national security professionals sticking around to stop Trump from blowing up the world, there are two kinds of people in the president’s orbit -- the immoral and the amoral." Whether she means it or not, BTW, Goldberg likens Lindsey Graham to a woman who "perform[ed] oral sex on a future member of the George W. Bush administration during the 2000 primary" as a means of maintaining her political "relevance." That seems fair.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times: "Ukraine's Parliament voted Monday to declare martial law in areas bordering Russia, responding to an attack a day earlier by Russian forces who fired on and impounded three Ukrainian naval vessels, leaving several sailors wounded. The action by Parliament, which called it a 'partial mobilization,' takes effect Wednesday morning, will last for 30 days and represents a further escalation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine. President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine had requested the vote, which happened as criticism of Russia was rising at the United Nations Security Council and NATO over the Sunday attack. Russia's attempt to use the Security Council session to blame Ukraine for the violence backfired, as ambassadors from the United States, Britain, France and others accused Russia of recklessness and violating Ukraine's sovereignty. Nikki R. Haley, the ambassador from the United States, called the episode an 'arrogant act' by Russia that the Trump administration and the international community would not accept.... The Ukrainians also received a strong statement of solidarity from NATO's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, who said at a news conference in Brussels that all of the organization’s members 'expressed full support for Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty.' He called on Russia to ensure 'freedom of navigation' for Ukraine and demanded that Russia 'release immediately the Ukrainian sailors and ships it seized.'"

Way, Way Beyond

The InSight Has Landed. Kenneth Chang of the New York Times: "The InSight lander, NASA's latest foray to [Mars], has landed. Cheers erupted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which operates the spacecraft, when InSight sent back acknowledgment of its safe arrival on Mars. That was the end of a journey of more than six months and 300 million miles.... InSight landed at Elysium Planitia, near the Equator in the northern hemisphere. Mission scientists have described the region as resembling a parking lot or 'Kansas without the corn.' Within minutes, the first photograph from InSight appeared on the screen, eliciting another round of cheers.... In the months ahead, InSight will begin its study of the Martian underworld, with the aim of helping scientists understand how the planet formed, lessons that could help also shed light on Earth's origins. It will listen for tremors -- marsquakes -- and collect data that will be pieced together in a map of the interior of the red planet."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 26, 2018

Late Morning Update:

International Diplomacy, Trump-Style. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday demanded that Mexico deport the caravans of asylum-seeking migrants pressing up against the U.S. border 'anyway you want,' threatening to close off the U.S. border 'permanently if need be.' 'Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A.,' Trump tweeted, offering no evidence to support his claim that the migrants are criminals." Mrs. McC: But offering evidence that he doesn't know that "anyway" in this construction is two words: "any" and "way."

Frances Robles of the New York Times: "FEMA is spending more than $1 billion on emergency repairs to homes in Puerto Rico damaged by Hurricane Maria, but much of it is going to contractors charging steep markups and overhead.... Homeowners, who were approved for up to $20,000 each in aid, in nearly every case received less than half of what they were approved for, while layers of contractors and middlemen took the rest, a review of hundreds of invoices and contracts associated with the program shows.... Records show a large gap between the amounts FEMA contractors hired by the Department of Housing were paid and the actual cost of the work that was ultimately performed."

State TV edition of "Annals of Journalism", Ctd. --s

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The video is informative AND hilarious. Trump-Hannity 2020!

*****

Josh Dawsey & Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "President Trump is demanding top advisers craft a plan to reduce the country's ballooning budget deficits, but the president has flummoxed his own aides by repeatedly seeking new spending while ruling out measures needed to address the country's unbalanced budget. Trump's deficit-reduction directive came last month, after the White House reported a large increase in the deficit for the previous 12 months. The announcement unnerved Republicans and investors, helping fuel a big sell-off in the stock market. Two days after the deficit report, Trump floated a surprise demand to his Cabinet secretaries, asking them to identify steep cuts in their agencies.... When former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn's staffers prepared a presentation for Trump about deficits, Cohn told them no. It wouldn't be necessary, he said, because the president did not care about deficits, according to current and former officials. Trump also repeatedly told Cohn to print more money, according to three White House officials familiar with his comments.... Trump often uses 'debt' -- the total amount the government owes -- to refer to the deficit, the annual gap between what the government takes in and what it spends. Trump also is often not versed in the particulars of the federal budget." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: "Print more money" of course causes immediate & devastating inflation. Notice this is the same President* who suggested in a tweet this weekend (story linked below) that the Fed is causing inflation. I can just hear Steve Mnuchin trying to explain to Trump how federal income & spending work -- kinda like the way I explained to my then-five-year-old (or younger) how a checkbook works. Major difference: my little child understood the explanation. BTW, if you feel like shaking your head & muttering "What an idiot!" this is your opportunity. My favorite part: Trump guesses how much the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is paid. The exchange could help explain why Trump is no longer so enamored of "his generals."

"How About That Oil?" Jonathan Swan & Alayna Treene of Axios: "President Trump twice raised to the Iraqi prime minister the idea of repaying America for its wars with Iraqi oil, a highly controversial ask that runs afoul of international norms and logic, according to sources with direct knowledge. Trump appears to have finally given up on this idea.... Trump's desire to raid Iraq's oil is illegal and unworkable. But it reveals a great deal about his approach to the Middle East. Trump remains hellbent on extracting payments from Middle Eastern countries, in the form of natural resources, for the trillions of dollars America has spent since the early 2000s." ...

... MEANWHILE. Juan Cole: "India's imports of petroleum from Iran in October doubled in value terms to $1.42 billion in October, year over year.... Even in volume terms, imports are up 38%. These statistics raise the question of whether Trump's attempt to squeeze Iran is failing.... Iran's economic relationship with Europe became warmer in 2018, growing by 7.5%.... [S]ince the US has not in fact managed to take most Iranian oil off the market, the Saudi tactic of producing extra has just caused the price to collapse, and boy are the Saudis angry.... So the squeeze play against Iran is failing right at the beginning. In part this failure is owing to the inability of the US to bully India, China and some other countries into cutting off Iran.... Saudi over-production hurts Saudi Arabia as much as it hurts Iran[.]" --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Roey Hadar of ABC News: "Alan Dershowitz, a frequent defender of ... Donald Trump, said special counsel Robert Mueller's report will be 'devastating' for the president.... 'When I say devastating, I mean it's going to paint a picture that's going to be politically very devastating. I still don't think it's going to make a criminal case,' Dershowitz said." (Also linked yesterday.)

George Gets a Jumpsuit. Rosalind Helderman & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Sunday ruled George Papadopoulos must report to prison as scheduled on Monday, rejecting a bid from the former Trump campaign adviser to delay the start of his sentence while a constitutional challenge to the special counsel investigation into Russia's election interference remains unresolved." (Also linked yesterday.)

Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "The 1,000-page climate report released by the White House Friday quantifies the staggering cost of President Trump's climate science denial. The congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment (NCA) by hundreds of the country's top scientists warns that a do-nothing climate policy will end up costing Americans more than a half-trillion dollars per year in increased sickness and death, coastal property damages, loss of worker productivity, and other damages.... One final point: The report warns ominously, 'It is very likely that some physical and ecological impacts will be irreversible for thousands of years, while others will be permanent.' The choices we make today won't just determine the degree of harm we do to our children and grandchildren, but to the next 50 generations and beyond. The immorality of Trump's climate policies simply cannot be quantified." --s ...

... Rachel Gutman of The Atlantic: "Despite being released on a holiday..., the latest installment of the National Climate Assessment is, as told to my colleague Robinson Meyer, full of 'information that every human needs.'... Here are the report's three most chilling conclusions: 1. Extreme hot weather is getting more common, and cold weather more rare.... 2. Climate change has doubled the devastation from wildfires in the Southwest.... 3. Rising sea levels will necessitate mass migrations, and coastal cities aren't doing enough." --s ...

... Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Trump White House, which has defined itself by a willingness to dismiss scientific findings and propose its own facts, on Friday issued a scientific report that directly contradicts its own climate-change policies.... The administration is widely expected to discount or ignore the report's detailed findings of the economic strain caused by climate change, even as it continues to cut environmental regulations, while opponents use it to mount legal attacks against the very administration that issued the report.... 'This is a new frontier of disavowance of science, of disdain for facts,' said William K. Reilly, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency under the first President George Bush."

Maya Averbuch & Elisabeth Malkin of the New York Times: "A peaceful march by Central American migrants waiting at the southwestern United States border veered out of control on Sunday afternoon, as hundreds of people tried to evade a Mexican police blockade and run toward a giant border crossing that leads into San Diego. In response, the United States Customs and Border Protection agency shut down the border crossing in both directions and fired tear gas to push back migrants from the border fence. The border was reopened later Sunday evening." ...

... Emanuella Grinberg, et al., of CNN: "Tijuana police said they arrested 39 people in connection with the attempt to cross the border illegally. Those identified as trying to rush the US border illegally will be processed for deportation in their home countries, Mexico's Interior Ministry said.... Donald Trump threatened to close the border 'permanently if need be.' He also claimed many of the migrants are 'stone cold criminals, but gave zero evidence to support that claim." ...

... Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "Activists, Democratic politicians and others watching the news Sunday reacted with shock at scenes of mothers fleeing with children from tear gas fired by American officers at the Mexican border. Agents for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency fired several canisters of gas after groups of immigrants tried to squeeze through gaps or scale fences at the border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego. U.S. officials completely shut down the port of entry in both directions for several hours. Children screamed and coughed amid the gas, The Associated Press reported. The wind carried the aerosol chemicals toward people hundreds of feet away who were not attempting to enter the U.S., the wire service noted. One woman collapsed unconscious amid the chaos, and two babies sobbed with tears running down their faces from the gas, Reuters reported. A statement from the Customs and Border Patrol agency said that officers responded with tear gas as migrants threw 'projectiles,' which hit 'several agents.'"

Scott Pelley of "60 Minutes": "It's been a chaotic two years on the border as the administration imposed barriers with little consideration of their legality or consequences. The 2017 ban on travelers from Muslim countries was so abrupt it surprised the officers who had to enforce it. Before the midterm elections, President Trump ordered thousands of troops to Texas to stop what he called 'an assault' by a caravan of Central Americans. That caravan is now at the border of California. But the most tumultuous order of all, was this summer's separation of children from their parents, which Mr. Trump had to quickly withdraw. Our investigation has found that the separation of families began far earlier and detained many more children than the administration has admitted." Includes video of the "60 Minutes" segment.

Spencer Ackerman of The Daily Beast: "In 2009 and 2010, [President] Obama launched 186 drone strikes on Yemen, Somalia, and especially Pakistan. Donald Trump’s drone strikes during his own first two years on the three pivotal undeclared battlefields, however, eclipse Obama's -- but without a corresponding reputation for robot-delivered bloodshed, or even anyone taking much notice. In 2017 and 2018 to date, Trump has launched 238 drone strikes there, according to data provided to The Daily Beast.... Those numbers come with a slew of asterisks.... Additionally, the death toll from those strikes in shadow war zones, especially of civilians, is at best a rough estimate." --s

Nancy Cook & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "The White House counsel's office is down to a skeletal staff, potentially leaving them unprepared to deal with a flood of subpoenas for documents and witnesses when Democrats take control of the House. The office has been without a permanent leader since ex-White House senior attorney Don McGahn left the administration in mid-October. His replacement, Pat Cipollone, is caught up in an extended background check that's prevented him from starting. And in the coming weeks, deputy counsel Annie Donaldson, who served as McGahn's most trusted aide and as the office's chief of staff, is expected to leave the administration.... Amid the leadership tumult, the counsel's office has shrunk to about 25 lawyers.... That's ... well short of the 40 people that some expect it will need to deal with a reinvigorated Democratic party eager to investigate the president's tax returns and business dealings in foreign countries, reopen probes into Russian election meddling and explore the behavior of a bevy of Cabinet officials." ...

... Maggie Haberman & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "When two Republican members of Congress began formally questioning last week Ivanka Trump's use of private email for government business, it was seen by people close to the White House as a sign of things to come for the president's family. One of the Republicans was Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has conducted little oversight of the Trump White House until now. The other was Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, who previously led a two-year investigation into events surrounding the attack on American diplomatic outposts in Benghazi, Libya, focusing relentlessly on the role of Hillary Clinton. His most prominent investigation as chairman has scrutinized alleged anti-Trump political bias within the F.B.I. during its inquiries related to the 2016 presidential campaign.... Mr. Gowdy ... is retiring from Congress in January..., and his role in endorsing the inquiry was seen as pro forma. In his place as chairman of the committee will be Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland.... The Democrats are already laying out lines of inquiry that could quickly lead not just to Mr. Trump and his White House aides, but also to his immediate family. And Republicans returning to Capitol Hill next year may be forced by the changed political climate to take a harder line toward the Trump family."...

... Karma. Matt Shuham of TPM: "After Republican leadership on the House Oversight Committee spent two years blocking Democrats'subpoena requests related to the Trump administration and other matters, NBC News' Chuck Todd had what seemed like an unexpected question for incoming Democratic committee chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD): 'Do you plan on granting your ranking member, whoever it is on the Republican side, subpoena authority?' 'Uh, no,' Cummings replied." --s ...

... Eric Levitz of New York: "[W]hile a majority of American voters ... want the new House majority to zealously investigate the president's malfeasance, some moderate Democrats aren't so sure.... But the idea that aggressive investigations of the Trump administration would be politically risky for Democrats -- as opposed to that scandal-plagued administration -- is absolutely bonkers.... There is simply no basis for thinking that Democrats will pay a political price for prioritizing investigations of Trump over helping the president score bipartisan policy victories." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Maxwell Tani & Andrew Desiderio of The Daily Beast: "In recent months, many GOP lawmakers have repurposed their Twitter accounts into platforms for media criticism. Perhaps no one has been as dutiful about it as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who has dedicated a good deal of time nitpicking various aspects of media coverage in the Trump era.... Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) does, too. [Lindsey Graham too].... Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, got into a Twitter spat last month with CNBC reporter John Harwood.... Republican lawmakers ... have targeted the broader 'mainstream media' more aggressively and personally, adopting Trump's framework that the press is, fundamentally, an enemy of conservatism.... Democrats, perhaps sensing that Republicans were trying to work the refs, have also veered into the media criticism act more directly as of late, often to criticize the coverage decisions made by newsrooms." --s

Election 2018. Martin Longman of the Booman Tribune: "I did not know that there was such a thing as The Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball PAC. It's a horrible idea. Politicizing baseball is foolish, and it's especially dumb to donate to individual candidates. It looks like some baseball lobbyists were asked/invited to attend an event for Cindy Hyde-Smith and got shaken down for the maximum allowable $5,000 contribution. They're returning the money* because Hyde-Smith has been exposed as a neo-confederate proto-fascist and that's a bad look for an organization that prides itself on integration and has retired Jackie Robinson's number '42' league wide." (Also linked yesterday.)

     * Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, the MLB is asking Hyde-Smith to return the money.

David Leonardt of the New York Times: "Big companies are much more dominant than they were even 15 years ago.... The new corporate behemoths have been very good for their executives and largest shareholders -- and bad for almost everyone else. Sooner or later, the companies tend to raise prices. They hold down wages, because where else are workers going to go? They use their resources to sway government policy. Many of our economic ills -- like income stagnation and a decline in entrepreneurship -- stem partly from corporate gigantism.... Ultimately, monopolies aren't only an economic problem. They are also a political one. 'We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few,' Louis Brandeis, the Supreme Court justice and anti-monopoly crusader, said a century ago, 'but we can't have both.'"

Hillary Osborne of the Guardian: "One of the biggest medical companies in the world has admitted it is having to pay out to the NHS to cover the cost of monitoring and operating on patients who were given defective hip replacements.... DePuy, owned by Johnson & Johnson, would not say how much it had handed over, but it could run into millions. It recalled a metal-on-metal hip system in 2010 after it emerged that debris from wear and tear was causing damage and resulting in a large number of surgical revisions." --s

Raphael Binder, et al., of the New York Times: "Thousands of people took to the streets of countries around the globe on Sunday, a day set aside by the United Nations to raise awareness of violence against women, to protest gender violence. It was the beginning of 16-day campaign urging individuals and organizations to fight the kind violence that will affect more than a third of women globally during their lives, according to the United Nations. Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile and the United Nations' high commissioner for human rights..., urged women everywhere to keep telling their stories of violence and 'to demand and accountability reparation.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Wesley Lowery, et al., of the Washington Post: "Over the past decade, attackers motivated by right-wing political ideologies have committed dozens of shootings, bombings and other acts of violence, far more than any other category of domestic extremist, according to a Washington Post analysis of data on global terrorism. While the data show a decades-long drop-off in violence by left-wing groups, violence by white supremacists and other far-right attackers has been on the rise since Barack Obama's presidency -- and has surged since President Trump took office. This year has been especially deadly.... While Trump has blasted Democrats as 'an angry left-wing mob' and the 'party of crime,' researchers have identified just one fatal attack in 2018 that may have been motivated by left-wing ideologies.... Trump and his aides have continuously denied that he has contributed to the rise in violence. But experts say right-wing extremists perceive the president as offering them tacit support for their cause."

Michael Miller of the Washington Post: Vandals keep defacing a street free library on Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., dedicated to Michelle Obama. Earlier this month, vandals crossed off Obama's name & replaced it with Trump's." Mrs. McC: Why would even a Trumpbot "dedicate" a library to Trump -- who is semi-illiterate? (Also linked yesterday.)

Jamie Doward of the Guardian: "The Conservative party [in the UK] is under pressure to reveal details about its relationship with the London arm of a US lobbying firm accused of smear tactics against critics of Facebook. UK Policy Group [UKPG], a consultancy with close links to the Conservative party, is part of Definers Public Affairs, the controversial firm ditched by Facebook earlier this month following a New York Times exposé that has further dented the social media network's image.... UKPG's only known client is the Conservative party, for which it reportedly provides research on its opponents.... Definers set up UKPG just as concerns about Facebook's relationship with the discredited data firm Cambridge Analytica reached fever pitch.... In the US, Definers was close to Cambridge Analytica. Its sister company, America Rising [financed in part by the billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer], with which it shares offices and some staff, held a joint Christmas party with the data firm in 2015." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Alex Johnson of NBC News: "Ukraine convened an emergency meeting of what it called its war cabinet on Sunday after it accused Russia of having fired on three of its vessels in the Black Sea, injuring at least six sailors. Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, confirmed that it had seized what it called three Ukrainian 'warships,' saying they had trespassed into Russian territorial waters. It said that 'weapons were used to force the Ukrainian warships to stop' and that three Ukrainian service members were treated for minor injuries, TASS, the official Russian news agency, reported Sunday night.... The Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry said it had mobilized all naval personnel and had sent all of its ships to sea after what it described as two gunboats and a tugboat came under attack off the coast of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Oleksii Makeiev, political director of Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry, called the incident an act of 'warmongering' that 'undermines security of the whole region.'... The United Nations scheduled an emergency meeting of the Security Council for Monday morning, said Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N." ...

... Jon Henley & Matthew Bodner of the Guardian: "Russia's foreign ministry has accused Ukraine of coordinating with the US and the EU in a 'planned provocation' aimed at securing further sanctions against Moscow amid mounting tensions after a dangerous clash between the countries. As the United Nations security council prepared to meet later on Monday, Nato joined western calls for restraint after Russia fired on and seized three Ukrainian naval ships in the Kerch strait separating Crimea from the Russian mainland, wounding several seamen." --s

The Guardian: "A scientist in China claims to have created the world's first genetically edited babies, in a potentially ground-breaking and controversial medical first. If true, it would be a profound leap of science and ethics. This kind of gene editing is banned in most countries as the technology is still experimental and DNA changes can pass to future generations, potentially with unforeseen side-effects.... The researcher, He Jiankui of Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, said ... his goal was ... to try to bestow a trait that few people naturally have: an ability to resist possible future infection with HIV." --s