The Commentariat -- January 24, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "The Senate voted Wednesday to confirm Alex Azar, a former drug industry executive with pristine conservative credentials, as the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The 55 to 43 vote for Azar ushers in his return to the government's largest domestic agency, where he held senior roles during the tenure of the last Republican president. He will become the Trump administration's second HHS leader in 11 months; his predecessor, Tom Price, resigned in the fall amid an investigation of his use of expensive private planes for official business."

Trump Shows His Support for Dreamers. Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump reiterated late Tuesday night that funding for his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border remains a requirement for any deal to shield undocumented immigrants brought here as children from deportation, a declaration that came hours after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he would take wall funding off the table in upcoming negotiations. 'Cryin' Chuck Schumer fully understands, especially after his humiliating defeat, that if there is no Wall, there is no DACA,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'We must have safety and security, together with a strong Military, for our great people!'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So the Rule remains. Innocent young people must pay for Trump's fake campaign promise. The lowest of the low.

Richard Wolf of USA Today: "The Supreme Court is racing Congress to decide the future of the Dreamers. The justices agreed Tuesday to decide quicklywhether to hear the Trump administration's appeal of a federal district court's order to restart the DACA program without waiting for an appeals court ruling. By setting up a fast track for both sides to submit court papers, the high court likely will consider the Justice Department's request at its Feb. 16 conference. If it decides to take the case, it could hear arguments in the spring."

Tracy Connor of NBC News: "After a remarkable hearing that featured gut-wrenching statements from 156 of his accusers and an apology that the judge said rang hollow, former Olympic gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison for molesting young girls under the guise of treatment.... Nassar, 54, agreed to a minimum 40-year sentence when he pleaded guilty last year to seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual misconduct in Ingham County. He still faces sentencing in Eaton County for three more counts, and he's already been sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography. The judge could have given Nassar a stiffer sentence than the one he agreed to, but that would have given him the option of withdrawing his plea and asking for a trial."

*****

Carol Leonnig & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is seeking to question President Trump in the coming weeks about his decisions to oust national security adviser Michael Flynn and FBI Director James B. Comey, according to two people familiar with his plans. Mueller's interest in the events that led Trump to push out Flynn and Comey indicates that his investigation is intensifying its focus on possible efforts by the president or others to obstruct or blunt the special counsel's probe. Trump's attorneys have crafted some negotiating terms for the president's interview with Mueller's team, one that could be presented to the special counsel as soon as next week, according to the two people." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: It would appear that Trumpie's legal team doesn't think the Biggest Liar can pull the wool over Mueller's eyes. ...

... Way back on January 10, Trump said "it seems unlikely that you'd even have an interview" because "no collusion, no collusion, everybody says no collusion, Hillary Clinton":

... Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions was questioned for several hours last week as part of the special counsel investigation, and the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, was interviewed by the office last year, according to two people briefed on the meeting. The interview with Mr. Sessions marked the first time that investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, are known to have questioned a member of President Trump's cabinet.... For Mr. Mueller, Mr. Sessions is a key witness to two of the major issues he is investigating: the campaign's possible ties to the Russians and whether the president tried to obstruct the Russia investigation." This story also was linked yesterday afternoon, & has been updated.) ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... there are increasing signs that Sessions has indeed done plenty of Trump's bidding behind closed doors. And he's done it on some dicey and very politically tinged issues -- so much so that he made Trump's second FBI director deeply uncomfortable with the whole thing.... It's only the latest evidence that Sessions and his Justice Department are taking specific actions that Trump has publicly urged, even as they, in some cases, risk looking like they are in service to Trump's political goals." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Devlin Barrett & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "... several people familiar with the dynamic [between Christopher Wray & Sessions, et al.,] told The Post that they were not aware of Wray making such an explicit threat [to resign]. Firing [Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe could be problematic because he has limited civil service protections as a government employee. Such a move, in the aftermath of public criticism from the president and others, could prompt litigation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Margaret Hartmann of New York on FBI Director Christopher Wray's (disputed) threat to resign if TrumpSessions interfered with FBI operations: "While the White House is abandoning all pretense of avoiding interference in FBI operations, there's some good news here. First, Wray appears to be making good on his promise to stand up for the bureau's independence. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Wray said he wouldn't be 'pulling punches' as FBI director. 'I will never allow the FBI's work to be driven by anything other than the facts, the law, and the impartial pursuit of justice. Period,' he said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... OR Maybe Wray Has Caved to TrumpSessions. Sari Horwitz & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, who has been under political pressure to remove top officials at the bureau, is filling two senior positions previously held by people who served under former director James B. Comey. Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia who is acting head of the Justice Department's national security division, has been selected to be the FBI's next general counsel, according to three people familiar with the matter. He replaces James Baker, who was reassigned late last year.... Wray also will replace his chief of staff, Jim Rybicki, with Zachary J. Harmon, a colleague from the law firm where Wray was a partner before joining the bureau. Harmon is a former federal prosecutor...." ...

... Ellen Nakashima, et al., of the Washington Post: "Shortly after President Trump fired his FBI director in May, he summoned to the Oval Office the bureau's acting director.... The two men exchanged pleasantries, but before long, Trump, according to several current and former U.S. officials, asked Andrew McCabe a pointed question: Whom did he vote for in the 2016 election? McCabe said he didn't vote, according to ... officials.... Trump, the officials said, also vented his anger at McCabe over the several hundred thousand dollars in donations that his wife, a Democrat, received for her failed 2015 Virginia state Senate bid from a political action committee controlled by a close friend of Hillary Clinton.... McCabe, who has spent more than two decades at the bureau, found the conversation with Trump 'disturbing,' said one former U.S. official.... One person said the Trump-McCabe conversation is of interest to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III...." ...

Impeach JeffBo! Brian Beutler of Crooked: "On a substantive level, Sessions' tenure as attorney general has been extraordinarily damaging. At the very least, it has set back civil rights enforcement and criminal justice reforms by years. And in supplicating to Trump, Sessions has compromised both himself and the rule of law alike.... In testifying before Congress, Sessions has claimed not to recall a tremendous amount of information about his conduct as a Trump surrogate.... Sessions is also actively and passively helping Trump corrupt federal law enforcement.... Sessions deserves to be impeached." Beutler argues that a Democratic threat to impeach JeffBo would provide some cover for Mueller's investigation to continue.

One Year Ago Today. Carol Lee of NBC News: "A year ago today, Donald Trump's newly sworn -- in national security adviser, Michael Flynn, met privately in his West Wing office with FBI investigators interested in his communications with Russia's ambassador, without a lawyer or the knowledge of the president and other top White House officials, according to people familiar with the matter. Flynn's FBI interview on Jan. 24, 2017, set in motion an extraordinary sequence of events unparalleled for the first year of a U.S. presidency." ...

... As Rebecca Savransky of the Hill notes, Lee's report reveals parts of the Mueller investigation not previously reported: "CIA Director Mike Pompeo has been interviewed as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference, NBC News reported. Former acting attorney general Sally Yates has also cooperated with the special counsel, the network reported.... Pompeo and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, who has also spoken with Mueller's team, are 'peripheral witnesses' to the firing of former FBI director James Comey, one person familiar with the matter told NBC News."

Katie Williams of the Hill: "Conservative lawmakers from four separate committees are raising alarm bells about a tranche of missing text messages between two FBI agents assigned to the investigation into Russia and President Trump's campaign, saying it calls into 'further question the credibility and objectivity of certain officials at the FBI.'... Five months of missing messages between senior counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page ... begin again on May 17, the day that [Robert] Mueller was appointed.... Trump, who has repeatedly characterized the Mueller probe as a 'witch hunt,' tweeted Tuesday that the news of the lost text messages was 'one of the biggest stories in a long time.'... Meanwhile, House Intelligence Committee lawmakers are refusing to allow the FBI to view a classified four-page memo that GOP members say shows abuse by the bureau of government surveillance powers.... Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, called the allegations in the memo 'a conspiracy theory concocted by Chairman [Devin] Nunes' after reviewing the underlying materials...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Congratulations to loony conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. His wacky worldview has taken over the highest levels of government.

... Greg Sargent: "Republicans may be on the verge of publicly releasing a secret memo compiled by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), one of President Trump's most devoted bodyguards against accountability on Capitol Hill, that purports to show serious misconduct by the FBI and Justice Department toward the Trump campaign. The memo is the latest effort to build an alt-narrative that casts the FBI's Russia probe -- which became special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's probe -- as a Deep State Coup to remove Trump from power.... In an interview with me this morning, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) -- who is Nunes's Democratic counterpart on the House Intelligence Committee -- pushed back hard, alleging that the memo presents a profoundly doctored picture of what the classified information actually shows.... Schiff also ... said that in allowing the memo to be accessed in a classified setting by House Republicans, Nunes has violated an agreement with the FBI and the Justice Department." (Also linked yesterday.)

Ben Collins & Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast: "The online groundswell urging the release of House Republicans' attacks on the Federal Bureau of Investigation appears thus far to be organically American -- not Russian propaganda, a source familiar with Twitter's internal analysis told The Daily Beast.... On Tuesday, two Democratic leaders urged Facebook and Twitter to conduct an 'in-depth forensic examination' of #ReleaseTheMemo to determine the extent of Russian propaganda promoting the hashtag. They relied on a report from the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy claiming that #ReleaseTheMemo was had become the favorite hashtag of Russian-sponsored Twitter accounts.... But a knowledgeable source says that Twitter's internal analysis has thus far found that authentic American accounts, and not Russian imposters or automated bots, are driving #ReleaseTheMemo.... The source pointed to influential American users on the right, including Donald Trump Jr., with his 2.49 million followers, pushing the hashtag forward." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Uh, I thought Junior was a Russian asset. ...

... BUT. Christina Zhao of Newsweek: "As government closure reaches day three, it emerged that ... Donald Trump's supporters on Twitter got a boost from the Russians in blaming Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer for the federal shutdown.... The Alliance for Securing Democracy found that #SchumerShutdown had exploded among Russian influence networks. The security group tracked approximately 600 Twitter accounts believed to be operated by Russian-tied groups and found the shutdown hashtag had surpassed popular Russian bot hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo, reported The Hill.... #ReleaseTheMemo, which was pushed to second on the list of most peddled hashtags by Russia propaganda trolls, has been used by GOP supporters to call for the release of a memo that allegedly shows political bias by the FBI in investigating allegations of collusion between Russia and Trump's campaign. Last Friday, Hamilton 68, a website that monitors propaganda from Russia, found that the Kremlin bots were using the hashtag to push the House Intelligence Committee into releasing the classified report." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Alliance for Securing Democracy & Twitter can't both be right on #ReleaseTheMemo. It's reasonable to suspect, tho it's not necessarily so in every case, that a corporation is not as good at self-analysis as an outside organization is at conducting an analysis of that corporation's product.

Sarah Jones of the New Republic: "Evangelicals don't care about Stormy Daniels. Evangelicalism once referred to a specific set of doctrinal beliefs. But as a new Politico interview with the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins makes clear, America evangelicalism is no longer about doctrine, at least not as much as it's about politics. Perkins knows all about ... Donald Trump's moral failings -- including the alleged Stormy Daniels affair -- and his response is to shrug. 'We kind of gave him -- "All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here,"' Perkins told reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere[.]... By aligning himself with Trump, and convincing most of his movement to follow along, Perkins has altered the course of American Evangelicalism itself." (Also linked yesterday.)

Jonathan Chait: "It's true that Trump has proven even less competent in office than his most dismissive critics anticipated.... But the argument for complacency misunderstands how authoritarian leaders attack democratic governments, and how Trump might yet do so.... Trump's ignorance and authoritarianism are not mutually exclusive. Trump is not an ideologically committed authoritarian. He is an instinctive one, who understands relations between people and countries in terms of zero-sum dominance. He certainly has no coherent plan to dismantle the republic. But his authoritarianism springs primarily from his ignorance.... One of the most surprising conclusions in How Democracies Die, a new study of case histories in democratic backsliding by Harvard government professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, is that some authoritarian leaders have waited a year or more to attack institutional constraints.... Anti-democratic rhetoric can be a telling indicator of what lies ahead.... From the standpoint of democratic backsliding, the most alarming development over the last year has been the Republican Party's almost total abdication of independent responsibility."

Burgess Everett & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Chuck Schumer is taking his big spending boost for Donald Trump's border wall off the table. The Senate minority leader, through an aide, informed the White House on Monday that he was retracting the offer he made last week to give Trump well north of the $1.6 billion in wall funding Trump had asked for this year, according to two Democrats. And now they say Trump will simply not get a better deal than that on his signature campaign promise." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... "Fear of Chucky," the White House Horror Movie. Asawin Suebsaeng & Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "With three weeks to go for lawmakers to hit a self-imposed deadline for a sweeping immigration deal, West Wing officials have become consumed with a singular objective: keeping ... Donald Trump away from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The objective is drawn from a recurring fear, shared among Trump allies and anti-immigration hardliners both within and without the administration, that the president's proclivity to change his tune based on what the last person advised could be exploited by Schumer and Democratic leaders."

Victoria Guida of Politico: "The Senate on Tuesday ushered in the Donald Trump era at the Federal Reserve, confirming Jerome Powell, the president's pick to chair the world's most important central bank, in a bipartisan 84-13 vote. Trump chose Powell over outgoing Chair Janet Yellen, breaking with the precedent for presidents to renominate Fed chairs they inherit and continuing his drive to ditch policies and personnel put in place by former President Barack Obama."

Ruth Eglash of the Washington Post: "If there's one thing female journalists covering the trip of Vice President Pence to Israel will remember it is the 'special treatment' they received, first by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security detail and second, in their 'unique' vantage point while covering Pence's visit to the Western Wall on Tuesday. At Netanyahu's office on Monday morning, a visiting female journalist from Finland's state television was asked to remove her bra during an overly zealous and demeaning security check. When she refused, she was prevented from covering Pence's news conference with Netanyahu. Then, on Tuesday, female journalists were particularly perturbed to discover that they had been relegated to covering Pence's spiritual stop at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites, from the other side of a fence.... The Western Wall ... is currently under the authority of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Western Wall Heritage Foundation. According to custom, the plaza is divided by gender, with men praying on one side of a barrier and women on the other." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This would never happen in the USA. Trump keeps all journalists, regardless of gender, in cages. Way more fair. ...

... Karen Pence Also Had to Observe the Taboo. Photos show mike pence standing alone at the Wall. Herb Keinon of the Jerusalem Post: "Pence's wife, Karen, received a separate explanation on the women' section of the wall, after which she, too, approached it and stood with her hand on the stones for a few moments." ...

... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. No Girls Allowed, Ctd. New York Magazine Does Find a Special Cage for Women. Marcy Wheeler in the New Republic: "A lot of people have opinions about Glenn Greenwald, who has emerged as one of the most controversial voices in the debate over Russia's interference in the 2016 election. But according to New York magazine, none of them are women. In a 4,800-word profile -- audaciously titled, 'Does Glenn Greenwald know more than Robert Mueller?' -- author Simon van Zuylen-Wood fails to quote even one woman to test Greenwald's insistence that the Russia investigation is much ado about nothing, despite the fact that women journalists and lawyers have made huge contributions to the debate and nurtured Greenwald's career."

You Can Buy Mick Mulvaney for $4,500. Josh Keefe of International Business Times: "Mick Mulvaney’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) quietly closed an investigation into a payday lender headquartered in Mulvaney's home state Monday. The company previously donated to the former congressman's political campaigns. Payday lender World Acceptance Corporation announced in a press release Monday that it received a letter from the CFPB stating that the financial watchdog had closed its nearly four-year investigation into the company's marketing and lending practices. The company, which is headquartered in South Carolina, has given at least $4,500 in campaign donations to Mulvaney, who represented South Carolina in the House for six years before becoming ... Donald Trump's budget director last year. The CFPB declined comment on World Acceptance Corporation's press release. The investigation followed a 2013 report by ProPublica and Marketplace that found World Acceptance Corporation issued loans that were 'deceptively expensive' and packaged with 'nearly useless insurance products' while trapping borrowers in a 'debt cycle.'"

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions is embracing newly-released FBI statistics as evidence that America has turned the tide in its battle against violent crime -- a shift he credits in large part to the policies of ... Donald Trump.... A statement posted on the FBI's website referred to the reduction in crime as 'slight.' However, Sessions said in an op-ed piece published Tuesday in USA Today that the report is evidence that Trum is delivering on the vow he made in his jarring inaugural speech last year to put an end to what he termed 'American carnage.'... Sessions and other top Justice Department officials routinely use their public appearances and statements to pay tribute to the president's leadership. The op-ed on the crime numbers was no exception.... Critics disputed that any of the administration's policy changes are having an impact on crime rates. 'They're correct that crime in 2017 is down ... but there's no evidence whatsoever that this is due to the administration's policies,' said Inimai Chettiar of the Brennan Center for Justice. Chettiar said the administration exaggerated indications of a crime wave and now is exaggerating the impact of officials' efforts."

Scott Cacciola of the New York Times: "Judge Rosemarie Aquilina listened on Monday morning as yet another gymnast, one of scores coming forward in her courtroom, took her turn excoriating Lawrence G. Nassar, a prominent doctor for U.S.A. Gymnastics who has pleaded guilty to multiple sex crimes.... Judge Aquilina ... has now allowed nearly 140 girls and women, including several prominent Olympic gymnasts, to give statements against Dr. Nassar.... Belying the stone-faced image of dispassionate jurists, Judge Aquilina has emerged as an unusually fierce victims' advocate in a sentencing hearing that has drawn national attention for the scope of Dr. Nassar's abuse and for the role that institutions like U.S.A. Gymnastics and Michigan State University played in employing him for decades.... Judge Aquilina's unconventional approach has not elicited any discernible criticism, but she has generated attention. Not only has she opened the floodgates to emotional testimony in a very pronounced way, but she seems determined to lend her voice, shedding any pretense of judicial distance." ...

... CBS News (Jan. 22): "The chairman, vice-chairman and treasurer of USA Gymnastics resigned under pressure from the U.S. Olympic committee on Monday in the latest fallout from the Larry Nassar scandal. Nassar is the former women's team doctor for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University (MSU) who has pleaded guilty to abusing young patients." One 15-year old victim who spoke during the sentencing hearing said, "My mom is still getting billed [by MSU] for appointments where I was sexually assaulted." ...

... Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "The N.C.A.A. sent a letter of inquiry to Michigan State University, formally opening an investigation into how the university handled the case of Lawrence G. Nassar, the doctor who sexually assaulted scores of female athletes.... N.C.A.A. bylaws require colleges to protect the health, safety and well-being of athletes." ...

... Julie Mack and Emily Lawler in an undated (2017??) MLive (Michigan Live) report: "Over [two decades], some of Nassar's alleged victims say they were telling parents, coaches, counselors, MSU athletic trainers - even police -- that, without consent or explanation, Nassar was digitally penetrating them in the vagina and anus during medical treatments for back, hip and other injuries. Yet again and again, the women's accounts were viewed with skepticism, the women claim." The report cites specifics alleged in numerous lawsuits.

Laura Yuen, et al., of MPR News: "When Minnesota Public Radio abruptly severed ties with Garrison Keillor in November, the sole explanation offered by the company was 'inappropriate behavior' with a female colleague. For his part, the creator and longtime host of A Prairie Home Companion described his offense as nothing more than having placed his hand on a woman's back to console her. An investigation by MPR News, however, has learned of a years-long pattern of behavior that left several women who worked for Keillor feeling mistreated, sexualized or belittled.... The revelations ... suggest a star who seemed heedless of the power imbalance that gave him an advantage in his relationships with younger women.... Jon McTaggart, president and CEO of MPR and American Public Media Group... said the company's separation of business interests from Keillor came after it received allegations of 'dozens' of sexually inappropriate incidents involving Keillor and a woman who worked for him on A Prairie Home Companion. He said the allegations included requests for sexual contact and descriptions of unwanted sexual touching."

Jonathan Tamari of Philly.com: "U.S. Rep Pat Meehan acknowledged Tuesday that he had developed a deep 'affection' for a younger aide and told her that he saw her as 'a soul mate' last year, but said he never pursued a romantic relationship with the woman and, despite paying her a secret settlement, denied her claims of sexual harassment.... He released a heartfelt, hand-written letter he wrote to her in May in which he wished her well, thanked God 'for putting you into my life' and signed it 'with all my heart, Patrick'[.] In an interview with the Inquirer and Daily News, Meehan also said he intends to continue running for reelection in Pennsylvania's Seventh District. The comments were his first extensive response to a New York Times report Saturday that revealed that he had used thousands of taxpayer dollars to quietly settle a sexual harassment claim brought by the former aide, who was decades younger than the married, 62-year-old Congressman."

Finally a Story to Make You Smile. Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times: Sen. Tami "Duckworth [D-Ill.] told me she is expecting her second child, another girl, in late April, a few weeks after she turns 50. The birth will make Duckworth the nation's first senator to have a baby while serving in the chamber."

Josh Lederman of the AP: "Multiple American citizens were killed and injured in the Taliban's 13-hour siege of an upscale hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, the State Department said Tuesday. No exact figures were immediately available for either the U.S. fatalities or injuries." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie BTW: Duckworth is six months pregnant & that hasn't kept her from her appointed rounds. Brandon Carter of the Hill (Jan. 20): "Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) tore into President Trump on the Senate floor Saturday, calling him a 'five-deferment draft dodger' and slamming him for his comments toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. 'Does he even know that there are service members who are in harm's way right now, watching him, looking for their commander in chief to show leadership, rather than [trying] to deflect blame?' Duckworth said. 'Or that his own Pentagon says that the short-term funding plans he seems intent on pushing is actually harmful to not just the military, but to our national security?'"

Senate Races

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia told colleagues on Tuesday that he intended to run for re-election this year after all, ending an anxiety-making flirtation with retirement and easing Democratic fears that the most conservative Democrat in the Senate was about to effectively hand his seat to a Republican. In an interview, Mr. Manchin said he repeatedly expressed his frustration to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, and other colleagues, telling them that 'this place sucks,' before finally signaling Tuesday morning to Mr. Schumer's aides that he would file his re-election paperwork before West Virginia's deadline on Saturday. 'I was very vocal,' Mr. Manchin said, adding, 'they read between the lines.'... 'I've said this point blank: If people like me can't win from red states, you'll be in the minority the rest of your life,' Mr. Manchin said about his conversations with other Democrats about the need to tolerate more moderate lawmakers."

What to Do When a Democrat Wins a Senate Special Election. Brian Lyman of the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser: "The Alabama House of Representatives Tuesday evening approved a bill that would end special elections for the state's two U.S. Senate seats when vacancies occur. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Steve Clouse, R-Ozark and coming after last year's special election for U.S. Senate, would allow a governor's appointee for a Senate vacancy to serve until the next general election in the state, rather than have the governor call a special election. The appointee would go through regularly scheduled primaries for that contest. It passed 67 to 31 on a largely party-line vote after a two-hour filibuster from Democrats who said it would diminish voters' voices in the process."

** Barbara Ehrenreich & Alissa Quart in the Guardian: "Let's call the pro-lifers what they are: pro-death. There is mounting evidence that it is not abortion, but the lack of access to abortion that is a deadly threat to women. This conclusion comes from careful state-by-state monitoring of maternal mortality, including deaths occurring at birth and around the time of birth. The less access to abortion, the greater the chance that women will die in childbirth or pregnancy.... Texas, for example, saw its maternal mortality rate more than double between 2010 and 2014, as the state closed more than half of its abortion clinics and severely cut funding for Planned Parenthood. Thanks to Texas and a few other states with strong 'pro-life' lobbies, mostly in the south, the US now bears the ghastly distinction of having the highest maternal mortality rate of all the world's wealthy democracies."

Beyond the Beltway

Kevin Dayton of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser: "Gov. David Ige [D] told reporters today that part of the delay in notifying the public that the Jan. 13 ballistic missile alert was a false alarm was that he did not know his Twitter account password. The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency issued the false alarm at 8:07 a.m., and Ige was told the missile alert was a false alarm two minutes after the alert was sent to cell phones across the state. However, Ige's office did not get out a cancellation message until 17 minutes after the alert." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Mike Stunson & Morgan Eads of the Lexington Herald-Leader: "A shooting at Marshall County High School in Western Kentucky killed a 15-year old boy and a 15-year-old girl and wounded 12 others, according to Kentucky State Police. Five more students were treated for injuries, but they weren't shot, Gov. Matt Bevin and police said. All of the victims are thought to be students. The suspect is a 15-year-old boy who was arrested at the school by a deputy. The boy will be charged with murder and attempted murder, police said. The shooting occurred just before 8 a.m. [Tuesday] at the school in Benton, in southwestern Kentucky, according to State Police Commissioner Rick Sanders."

The Commentariat -- January 23, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Josh Lederman of the AP: "Multiple American citizens were killed and injured in the Taliban's 13-hour siege of an upscale hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, the State Department said Tuesday. No exact figures were immediately available for either the U.S. fatalities or injuries."

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions was questioned for several hours last week by the special counsel's office as part of the investigation into Russia's meddling in the election and whether the president obstructed justice since taking office, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman. The meeting marked the first time that investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, are known to have interviewed a member of Mr. Trump's cabinet.... Mr. Mueller's interest in Mr. Sessions shows how the president's own actions helped prompt a broader inquiry. What began as a Justice Department counterintelligence investigation into Russia's election interference is now also an examination of whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct the inquiry, and the nation’s top law enforcement officer is a witness in the case." ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... there are increasing signs that Sessions has indeed done plenty of Trump's bidding behind closed doors. And he's done it on some dicey and very politically tinged issues -- so much so that he made Trump's second FBI director deeply uncomfortable with the whole thing.... It's only the latest evidence that Sessions and his Justice Department are taking specific actions that Trump has publicly urged, even as they, in some cases, risk looking like they are in service to Trump's political goals." ...

... Devlin Barrett & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "... several people familiar with the dynamic [between Christopher Wray & Sessions, et al.,] told The Post that they were not aware of Wray making such an explicit threat [to resign]. Firing [Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe could be problematic because he has limited civil service protections as a government employee. Such a move, in the aftermath of public criticism from the president and others, could prompt litigation." ...

... Margaret Hartmann of New York on FBI Director Christopher Wray's (disputed) threat to resign if TrumpSessions interfered with FBI operations: "While the White House is abandoning all pretense of avoiding interference in FBI operations, there's some good news here. First, Wray appears to be making good on his promise to stand up for the bureau's independence. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Wray said he wouldn't be 'pulling punches' as FBI director. 'I will never allow the FBI's work to be driven by anything other than the facts, the law, and the impartial pursuit of justice. Period,' he said."

Greg Sargent: "Republicans may be on the verge of publicly releasing a secret memo compiled by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), one of President Trump's most devoted bodyguards against accountability on Capitol Hill, that purports to show serious misconduct by the FBI and Justice Department toward the Trump campaign. The memo is the latest effort to build an alt-narrative that casts the FBI's Russia probe -- which became special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's probe -- as a Deep State Coup to remove Trump from power.... In an interview with me this morning, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) -- who is Nunes's Democratic counterpart on the House Intelligence Committee -- pushed back hard, alleging that the memo presents a profoundly doctored picture of what the classified information actually shows.... Schiff also ... said that in allowing the memo to be accessed in a classified setting by House Republicans, Nunes has violated an agreement with the FBI and the Justice Department."

Burgess Everett & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Chuck Schumer is taking his big spending boost for Donald Trump's border wall off the table. The Senate minority leader, through an aide, informed the White House on Monday that he was retracting the offer he made last week to give Trump well north of the $1.6 billion in wall funding Trump had asked for this year, according to two Democrats. And now they say Trump will simply not get a better deal than that on his signature campaign promise."

Sarah Jones of the New Republic: "Evangelicals don't care about Stormy Daniels. Evangelicalism once referred to a specific set of doctrinal beliefs. But as a new Politico interview with the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins makes clear, American evangelicalism is no longer about doctrine, at least not as much as it's about politics. Perkins knows all about ... Donald Trump's moral failings -- including the alleged Stormy Daniels affair -- and his response is to shrug. 'We kind of gave him -- "All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here,"' Perkins told reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere[.]... By aligning himself with Trump, and convincing most of his movement to follow along, Perkins has altered the course of American Evangelicalism itself."

Kevin Dayton of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser: "Gov. David Ige [D] told reporters today that part of the delay in notifying the public that the Jan. 13 ballistic missile alert was a false alarm was that he did not know his Twitter account password. The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency issued the false alarm at 8:07 a.m., and Ige was told the missile alert was a false alarm two minutes after the alert was sent to cell phones across the state. However, Ige's office did not get out a cancellation message until 17 minutes after the alert."

*****

Shutdown, the Series

Season 1 Ended with Cliffhanger: Star Villain Disappeared
Season 2 Begins Today

Sheryl Stolberg & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Congress brought an end to a three-day government shutdown on Monday as Senate Democrats buckled under pressure to adopt a short-term spending bill to fund government operations without first addressing the fate of young undocumented immigrants. The House quickly approved the measure -- which will fund the government through Feb. 8 and extend funding for the popular Children's Health Insurance Program for six years -- and President Trump signed it on Monday night. The passage of the measure ended an ugly, if short-lived, impasse that threatened to give a black eye to both major political parties. The deal, reached after a bipartisan group of senators pushed their leaders to come to terms, enables hundreds of thousands of federal employees who had been facing furloughs to go back to work." ...

... Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "The deal that ended the government shutdown on Monday paved the way for Senate consideration of immigration legislation, but it did nothing to ensure that the House would act on such a bill -- or that President Trump would sign it.... Still, Democratic senators said they believe that a Senate immigration bill passing with a significant bipartisan majority would ultimately force Republicans to capitulate."

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... Democrats just caved when it comes to ending the government shutdown; even some of their leading senators are admitting it.... Most Senate Democrats wound up voting to reopen the government. They did so after a deal was struck in which Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) was assured that the Senate would vote on some kind of immigration deal by Feb. 8 -- and if they didn't have a deal, there would be an up-or-down vote on DACA, the program protecting the children of illegal immigrants from deportation. Just 16 of the 49 members of the Senate Democratic caucus voted no, and it's a group that is full of potential 2020 contenders like [Kamala] Harris [D-Calif.] who have a clear interest in appealing to the base. But that's also the point. Those members have made appealing to the Democratic base their raison d'etre, and they've quickly wagered that this thing isn't going to fly with that same base." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: As some contributors suggested yesterday, I think the Senate Democratic leadership handled this as well as possible. If Republicans in both Houses don't pass some form of DACA that at least allows these educated, productive young people to stay in the U.S., Republicans will pay at the polls this year. I certainly want the Dreamers to receive a clear path to citizenship -- which they've earned -- but as Donna S. wrote in Sunday's thread, "the optics will be ... horrific ... if the Dreamers begin to be deported." We're already beginning to see feature stories about DHS's deporting successful people who are too old to qualify as Dreamers. ...

... Matt Fuller of the Huffington Post makes the case for the "cave": "Democrats staved off the worst effects of a government shutdown. They prevented a turn in public opinion against their party for this shutdown, as well as Dreamers. They got CHIP. They got a commitment from McConnell to bring up immigration legislation. And they gave up none of their leverage." ...

... Joy-Ann Reid, in the Daily Beast: "... the deal is actually more than it appears to be.... It freed 9 million kids the GOP was holding hostage.... Without CHIP in the mix, as Eric Boehlert pointed out on Twitter, the next round of negotiations will be 'clean' from a messaging point of view in that it will be all about the DREAMers.... It puts McConnell on the spot... It's now Trump and the crazy right vs. everyone else[.]" ...

... David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "... it's just not the case that a minority party can force the majority party to do what it wants if only it summons enough righteous anger. It never has been. It's another version of the Green Lantern Theory of politics -- that if you care enough and try hard enough, you can do anything." ...

... ** Lawrence O'Donnell points out a very significant moment on the Senate floor last Friday night, when Claire McCaskill made Mitch McConnell personally own the witholding of military pay. Pretty damn sneaky but NO ONE fucking knew about it. Try messaging sometime... --safari

... Which makes this bullshit speech by mike pence even more egregious. Harriet Sinclair of Newsweek: "Mike Pence has lashed out at Senate Democrats over the government shutdown during a visit to U.S. troops overseas, telling them they and their families did not deserve to 'worry for one minute' about pay... 'Despite bipartisan support for a budget resolution, a minority in the Senate has decided to play politics with military pay, but you deserve better,' Pence [said]." -- safari: Yeah, sure, if that minority is Mitch McConnell you lying sack of shit. ...

... Eric Levitz of New York: "The GOP isn't eager to pass a DREAM Act. It is about as afraid of angering its nativist base as it is of deporting Dreamers. The best option for Republicans is to do nothing; keep zombie-DACA in place past March 5; and direct the public's attention to some other topic -- like, for example, the negative effects of a government shutdown.... The efficacy of a prolonged shutdown, as a tactic for forcing action on DACA is, at the very least, unclear. And the substantive harms of the tactic are considerable.... Given the seriousness of these harms, and the uncertainty of success, it's not clear [to] me that a launching a prolonged government shutdown next month is a good idea. But sticking with one now, and thus, adding the slow-motion collapse of CHIP to the list of downsides -- when you can fund CHIP and still preserve the option to force a shutdown in three weeks -- seems borderline indefensible." --safari: For those thinking the Dem's made the right call, Levitz lays out the argument...

... The Little Man Who Wasn't There. Ashley Parker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Republicans pursued a clear strategy to keep Trump contained during the three-day standoff that ended Monday.... A photo released by the White House over the weekend showed Trump seated in the Oval Office behind a desk barren of papers, wearing a white 'Make America Great Again' hat while appearing to talk on the phone. The staging epitomized Trump's role during the roughly 72-hour crisis: A president to be seen but not publicly heard outside the confines of his team's highly controlled communications operation. The approach was particularly striking given the storms that led to the shutdown in the first place, which were exacerbated by the president's mixed signals and controversial statements on immigrants.... Over the weekend, aides like [Mick] Mulvaney, [John] Kelly and [Marc] Short warned Trump to stay out of the fight and let it play out on Capitol Hill." ...

... One Night I Saw upon the Throne, a Little Man Who Soon Was Gone. David Graham of the Atlantic: "With leaders in Congress at an impasse, the most logical person to step in and broker an arrangement was the president.... That's usually the case, but it's especially true now, with a president whose name, thanks to his first book, is practically synonymous with deals. And yet, Donald Trump remained strangely absent.... The deal [to end the shutdown] was struck between Schumer and ... McConnell. 'The great dealmaking president sat on the sidelines,' Schumer said on Monday, as he announced the arrangement, accusing Trump of being unwilling to 'take yes for an answer.'... Often fixated on appearing active and virile, Trump has come off as passive and distant in the current crisis. Even worse, this is exactly the approach he accused Barack Obama of using in 2013...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie (yesterday): Let's see how Trump -- who has had nothing to do with the most recent negotiations. Other than muddying them & insulting Democrats -- takes credit for ending the government shutdown. ...

     ... UPDATE. Ha Ha Ha. New York Times: "Sarah Huckabee Sanders ... insisted that the deal that the Senate voted on was not 'drastically different' than what was discussed on Friday between the president and Mr. Schumer. Despite what was characterized by both parties as Mr. Trump's invisibility this weekend, Ms. Sanders still insisted that he was responsible for making a eal happen. 'What the president did clearly worked,' she said, calling the numbers more in Mr. Trump's favor 'than in Senator Schumer's favor.' 'The president stayed firm, Republicans stayed firm and Democrats I think realized that they had to move past that piece of legislation' in order to discuss immigration going forward, Ms. Sanders said." This part of the report is down the page. Mrs. McC: OR, as Victoria more credibly speculates in today's thread, staff has probably locked Trump in the basement. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... ** "L'état, C'est Moi." Paul Krugman: "... Donald Trump [is] a man who has evident contempt for the rule of law and who, like Louis [XIV], sees no distinction between loyalty to the nation and loyalty to himself. The main difference is that Louis seems to have at least tried to understand the issues. On Friday night, something unprecedented happened: The U.S. government shut down temporarily even though the same party controls both Congress and the White House. Why? Because when it comes to Trump, a deal isn't a deal -- it's just words he feels free to ignore a few days later.... Trump's whole business career has been a series of betrayals -- failed business ventures from which he personally profited while others ... ended up holding the bag.... His ability to keep betraying those who trust him depends entirely on the willingness of Republicans in Congress to go along.... The result is that promises from the U.S. government are now as worthless as those from a tinpot dictator." ...

... Jeet Heer of the New Republic argues that the past few weeks have showed that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is "the real president." Heer lays out the evidence. Mrs. McC: This is a conclusion I reached last week as I watched Kelly bat back all of President* Dimwit's forays into negotiating with Democrats. Turns out quite a few closer & wiser observers came to the same conclusion. For instance: Dick Durbin: "As soon as the guest leaves the office, Gen. Kelly calls in the right wingers and they bat it down and say you can't do it. We'll never reach an agreement unless there's a more open approach at the White House and the president is more constructive." Heer adds this: "Trump has a proven history of pushing aside staffers who get too powerful, or who are perceived as such.... The open question is whether Trump will continue just grousing privately [at Kelly], or if he has the will to take back the reins of his presidency." So it would be helpful if more mainstream media outlets wrote articles marveling at Kelly's power. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Update. Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "Donald Trump's relationship with John Kelly, his chief of staff, fraught from the beginning, may finally have gone past the point of no return. Two prominent Republicans in frequent contact with the White House told me that Trump has discussed choosing Kelly's successor in recent days.... Trump has increasingly been chafing at the media narrative that he need Kelly to instill discipline on his freewheeling management style. 'The more Kelly plays up that he's being the adult in the room -- that it's basically combat duty and he's serving the country -- that kind of thing drives Trump nuts,' a Republican close to the White House said. In recent days, Trump has fumed to friends that Kelly acts like he's running the government while Trump tweets and watches television. 'I've got another nut job here who thinks he's running things,' Trump told one friend, according to a Republican briefed on the call. A second source confirmed that Trump has vented about Kelly, mentioning one call in which Trump said, 'This guy thinks he's running the show.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Medlar & I have been debating whether the White House is more opera buffa or soap opera. But we've decided, conditionally, that it's more like those situation comedy series where the buffoonish star of the show does something stupid every week (in Trump's case, every day), and hilarity ensues. ...

... Steve M. has some useful observations about Trump's ambivalence about DACA. And Maggie Haberman's, too! (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... ** The Sins of the Father, Visited upon the Sons. Digby, in Salon, also has a great piece on how Trump's right-wing advisors have repeatedly repressed any gossamer angels of his better nature: "His racist id and his desire to get a 'win' are being pulled in opposite directions, depending on whom he listens to at any given time. His lack of understanding of the issue or how laws are actually made makes him a hindrance to deal making. But we know what Trump wants." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "Over a million Puerto Ricans still lack electrical power a stunning four months after Hurricane Maria made landfall.... This jaw-dropping chart from Reuters compares power relief efforts following Hurricanes Wilma and Irma to the Trump administration's botched effort to rebuild Puerto Rico's grid -- on which they have made no progress whatsoever in the past seven weeks.... The degree of incompetence on display is staggering." --safari

Jonathan Chait: "[E]ven as conservatives have grown more satisfied with Trump's accomplishments, they have retreated from their giddy belief that he could and would dismantle his predecessor's. Indeed, in a curious way, Trump has inadvertently affirmed the value and durability of the 44th presidency. One year after his departure, Obama's legacy is actually stronger than ever." --safari

Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "Vice President Mike Pence said on Monday that a new United States Embassy to Israel would open in Jerusalem before the end of 2019." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Emma Green of The Atlantic: "The vice president['s visit to Israel] underscores just how far Trump has moved the administration away from facilitating [a peaceful solution].... After Trump's announcement [on Jerusalem], the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, publicly declared his refusal to meet with Pence. The vice president will skip his planned visit to Bethlehem and the West Bank.... And during Pence's Monday speech at the Knesset, Arab members were roughly ushered out after raising signs in protest.... The administration may have also undermined its own goals in the region. Originally, Pence's trip was supposed to focus on Christian persecution.... But influential religious leaders in Egypt -- including Tawadros II, the Coptic patriarch, and Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of Al-Azhar mosque -- refused to meet with him.... [H]is limited trip is a reminder that America's role as a broker in the Middle East has become more complicated under Trump, including on issues that are critical to the president's base." --safari ...

... In Other News from Jerusalem... CBS News/AP: "Vice President Mike Pence says reports that an adult film star had an alleged affair with President Trump are 'baseless allegations.' Pence spoke to The Associated Press during a visit to Jerusalem on Monday. He said he was 'not going to comment on the latest baseless allegations against the president.'" Mrs. McC: And you know that how, mikey? The prudish pence has as much trouble grappling with facts as does his libidinous boss. ...

... The Week: "On Monday, the nonprofit government watchdog group Common Cause filed two federal complaints, alleging that President Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen paid $130,000 in October 2016 to an adult film star who had an affair with Trump, and this may have been a violation of campaign finance laws. In a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Common Cause's campaign finance expert Paul S. Ryan wrote that 'because the funds were paid for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential general election,' this payment should have been considered a campaign expense, but was never reported." ...

** Wray Stood up to Trump. Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions -- at the public urging of ... Donald Trump -- has been pressuring FBI Director Christopher Wray to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, but Wray threatened to resign if McCabe was removed, according to three sources with direct knowledge. Wray's resignation under those circumstances would have created a media firestorm. The White House -- understandably gun-shy after the Comey debacle -- didn't want that scene, so McCabe remains.... [He is expected to resign shortly when he becomes eligible for a full pension.] Trump and other Republicans have been hammering McCabe -- who was selected by the White House as acting director after the Comey firing -- for months on Twitter. On July 26, Trump tweeted: 'Why didn't A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got...big dollars ($700,000) for his wife's political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives. Drain the Swamp!'... Trump has also tweeted negatively about other senior FBI officials who are allies of Comey, including the former top FBI lawyer James A. Baker who was recently 'reassigned' after pressure from Sessions."

"There's a Lot to Come." Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "... the fiancee of George Papadopoulos, the former Trump campaign adviser who pleaded guilty in October to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts and is cooperating with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, says he is being miscast. 'I believe history will remember him like John Dean,' said Italian-born Simona Mangiante, referring to the former White House counsel who pleaded guilty to his role in the Watergate coverup and then became a key witness against other aides to President Richard Nixon.... Without offering specifics [on the advice of Papadopoulos's attorneys], Mangiante said there is much more that has not yet been told publicly about Papadopoulos' 10 months as an informal national security adviser to Trump...."

Melanie Schmitz of ThinkProgress: "An Associated Press report on Monday showed that despite President Trump's pledge to donate all profits his hotels received from foreign governments, his business has not yet made a single payment to the U.S. Treasury.... The initial deadline to make a donation of those profits was set for the end of last year, but the deadline came and went with no payout.... Overall, the Trump Organization has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits from various foreign governments in the past year, according to a report released earlier in January by Public Citizen." --safari: Trump has confirmed for future presidents that the Emoluments Clause is merely voluntary window-dressing for democratic governance.

Alternative Facts. Spencer Ackerman of The Daily Beast: "The document didn't mince words. It claimed three-quarters of 'international terrorism' convicts were immigrants, an assertion meant to bolster Donald Trump's cherished Muslim-focused ban on entering the country. And the report put the claim in the mouths of an agency assembled to keep Americans safe after 9/11: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).... But the Department of Homeland Security did not perform that analysis.... The document released last week did not include the contributions of those career DHS officials tasked with providing professional and objective analysis. They were not asked to participate.... To some within DHS ... the perception is that the Trump administration used the Department to conflate immigrants with terrorists in support of the president's signature immigration crackdown." --safari

War on Truth. Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "President Donald Trump and his administration have censored or stifled science -- particularly climate science -- almost 100 times since the election.... The tracker is a new initiative from the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund and Columbia Law School's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.... Since the tracker is entirely based on what has been reported by the media, this suggests the actual degree to which the administration is directly undermining science may be much higher.... To date, the tracker has 96 entries, including 41 examples of outright government censorship." --safari ...

... Ana Swanson & Brad Plumer of the New York Times: "President Trump slapped steep tariffs on imports of washing machines and solar energy cells and panels on Monday, the first major step by the administration to erect the kind of trade barriers Mr. Trump has frequently said are necessary to protect manufacturers in the United States.... White House advisers warned that additional trade measures related to steel, aluminum and other products from China could be coming, a signal that Mr. Trump is ratcheting up the protectionist policies he has long espoused as part of his 'America First' approach. The imposition of tariffs will most likely exacerbate trade tensions with other nations, including China, and could result in an escalation of retaliatory trade measures against imports from the United States. Both China and South Korea harshly criticized the move, with both suggesting they could take their complaints to the World Trade Organization, which settles trade disputes between countries." ...

... Brian Eckhouse, et al., of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump just dealt his biggest blow to the renewable energy industry yet. On Monday, Trump approved duties of as much as 30 percent on solar equipment made abroad, a move that threatens to handicap a $28 billion industry that relies on parts made abroad for 80 percent of its supply. Just the mere threat of tariffs has shaken solar developers in recent months, with some hoarding panels and others stalling projects in anticipation of higher costs. The Solar Energy Industries Association has projected 23,000 job losses this year in a sector that employed 260,000.... The tariffs are just the latest action Trump has taken that undermine the economics of renewable energy.... 'We are inclined to view it as posing greater trade risk for all types of energy, particularly if other nations establish new trade barriers against U.S. products,' Washington-based research firm ClearView Energy Partners LLC said in a report Monday.... For Trump, the tariffs represent a step toward making good on a campaign promise to get tough on the country that produces the most panels -- China." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: In an earlier story on this, Lacey Johnson of Greentech Media (Jan. 12) wrote, "On Wednesday, the bipartisan group Coalition for a Prosperous America sent a letter urging the president to impose a 'global tariff' on [solar] imports." As I scanned the story I read the name of the group as, "Coalition for a Preposterous America." Unfortunately, we already have such a coalition. Its more common name is "the Republican party." Johnson recounted some expert opinions on both sides of the tariff debate. Here's one: "'To be honest, I don't know who has the president's ear on this case,' said Clark Packard, [of] ... the R Street Institute, a free-market think tank. 'Obviously, there's only one person who knows the answer to this, and trying to get inside his head is bananas.'" ...

... Nathanael Johnson of Grist: "Ironically, this is exactly the sort of thing that might have saved Solyndra, the failed solar company that in 2011 became a whipping boy for Republicans critical of [President] Obama's efforts on renewables. Solyndra was working on a \more efficient form of solar cell, but it was swamped by a flood of cheap imported silicon cells. Now, we have a Republican president interfering with free trade to shelter today's Solyndras. We're through the looking glass." ...

... Oh, AND This. Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "The Trump administration is waiving dozens of environmental regulations to speed up construction of President Trump's proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Homeland Security Secretary Kirsten Nielsen said in a notice published in the Federal Register Monday that she was waiving the rules to accelerate construction on part of the wall in New Mexico. The waiver excludes rules from major laws including the National Environment Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Antiquities Act, among others."

Spencer Hsu & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump's voting commission asked every state and the District for detailed voter registration data, but in Texas's case it took an additional step: It asked to see Texas records that identify all voters with Hispanic surnames, newly released documents show.... Texas since 1983 has identified voters with a Hispanic name to mail bilingual election notices in Spanish and English as required by state and federal laws.... One voting commission member, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap (D), who has sued the voting panel to disclose records that he says were not provided to him, said the selection of Hispanic names appeared improper and could explain why the voting panel has sought to act in secret.... Voting commission vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris W. Kobach (R) [claimed he was shocked there was ethnic profiling going on here].... The voting commission was disbanded Jan. 3 after Trump cited a host of ongoing state and federal lawsuits and resistance from state officials over the sweeping pursuit, in the name of investigating alleged voter fraud, of information about more than 150 million voters across the country." ...

... Kira Lerner of ThinkProgress: "During testimony before the Kansas legislature earlier this month, Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) claimed he was unaware of any security breaches with the Interstate Crosscheck Program, a project Kansas administers to compare voter registration databases across states for duplicate voters.... Less than 10 days later, Florida announced it would be providing free credit checks to 945 individuals whose social security numbers Kansas inadvertently sent through unsecured email and that Florida then provided to an individual who filed a public records request seeking information about the state's participation in the program." --safari

AP: "Hours after a humanitarian group released videos showing border patrol agents kicking over water bottles left for migrants in the Arizona desert, a volunteer for the organization was arrested and charged and with harboring undocumented immigrants. Scott Daniel Warren, 35, a volunteer with the group No More Deaths, faces a federal charge of harboring two people in the country illegally. Caitlin Deighan, [an] activist with No More Deaths, stopped short of calling the arrest retaliation but said it looked suspicious that Warren had been charged so soon after the release of the videos. 'We see it as an escalation and criminalization of aid workers,' Deighan said...." --safari

Trumpism. Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "A Michigan man has been arrested for threatening to kill CNN employees after telephoning the network and saying: 'Fake news. I'm coming to gun you all down.' Brandon Griesemer appeared in federal court in Detroit on Friday charged with using interstate communications to threaten injury. Griesemer, 19, could face up to five years in prison if convicted. He was released on a $10,000 bond.... The FBI alleged that Griesemer called CNN's headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, approximately 22 times between 9 January and 10 January, threatening violence against the network's staff and making racist remarks." --safari

Kelly Cohen of the Washington Examiner: "House Speaker Paul Ryan collected nearly $500,000 in campaign contributions from Charles Koch and his wife after helping usher through a massive tax reform law. According to a recent campaign finance report filed Thursday, Koch and his wife Elizabeth each donated $247,7000 to Ryan's joint fundraising committee.... The Republican tax overhaul plan passed in December benefited Koch Industries, as it cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, among other cuts. The legislation then got a boost from the Kochs' multimillion-dollar public relations campaign to highlight its benefits. And 13 days after it passed, Charles and Elizabeth Koch made the near $500,000 donation to Team Ryan, which raises money for the congressman, the National Republican Congressional Committee and a political action committee run by Ryan. On the same day, Charles and Elizabeth Koch also each donated $237,000 to the NRCC." ...

... Charles Pierce: "One thing you have to give the members of the Koch family: They're excellent tippers.... We don';t even have to argue about the price any more with him. It's 500-large. And, as always, it's time to revisit the wisdom of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Anthony Kennedy, from his opinion in Citizens United v. FEC. 'Independent expenditures do not lead to, or create the appearance of, quid pro quo corruption.' Deathless brilliance."

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Rebekah Entralgo of ThinkProgress: "Bank of America has eliminated its free checking account program, a service that was popular with many low-income customers looking to avoid extra fees for having a low balance. Beginning this month, all eBanking customers will face a $12 monthly fee unless the customer has a direct deposit of $250 or more or a minimum balance of $1,500.... A monthly fee of $12 could cause some customers to overdraft on their accounts, resulting in even more fees. Overdraft fees collectively cost consumers over $15 billion annually, and around 18 percent of account holders pay three or more overdraft fees a year.... Meanwhile, Bank of America, along with the rest of the country's top banks, will get a significant tax windfall from the recently passed Republican tax bill -- a $3.5 billion tax windfall..., according to a Goldman Sachs report...."

Beyond the Beltway

Joseph Ax of Reuters: "Pennsylvania's top court on Monday threw out the state's congressional map, ruling that Republican legislators unlawfully sought partisan advantage, and gave them three weeks to rework it in a decision that could boost Democratic chances of retaking the U.S. House of Representatives. In a 5-2 decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the electoral map violated the state Constitution by manipulating the district boundaries to minimize the voting power of Democratic voters, a practice called partisan gerrymandering." Thanks to Jeanne for the lead. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Or Maybe It Was a 4-3 Decision. Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "In a 4-to-3 decision, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court ordered the Republican-controlled state legislature to redraw the lines by Feb. 9, an extraordinarily quick timeline that will reset the districts in time for the state's May congressional primaries. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf will have veto power over the maps." The opinion itself has not yet been released (at 4:00 pm ET Monday). (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Nope, Make that 5-2. Michael Wines & Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "In Monday's decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court split along party lines in striking down the state's House map, with the court's five Democrats in the majority and its two Republican judges in dissent.... An appeal to the federal courts would very likely fail, election experts said, because decisions based solely on interpretations of state law -- as this one appears to be -- are generally beyond the reach of federal judges.... Unless the [U.S.] Supreme Court intervenes in the Pennsylvania case as well, the state may be the only one where a new court-ordered map will take effect in time for the midterm elections."

Reefer Madness. German Lopez of Vox: "Vermont is now the ninth state to legalize marijuana. Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, on Monday signed a legalization bill, making the state the first to legalize cannabis through its legislature instead of a ballot initiative. The bill legalizes possession of up to an ounce of marijuana and up to two mature and four immature cannabis plants for adults 21 and older. It doesn't legalize recreational pot sales, as has been done in the eight states (excluding Washington, DC) to legalize marijuana so far. The law takes effect in July." --safari

Harper Neidig of The Hill: "Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) signed an executive order on Monday requiring internet service providers with state contracts to abide by net neutrality principles. The order makes his state the first to push back on the Federal Communications Commission's decision to repeal the open internet rules last month." --safari

Way Beyond

Michael Safi of the Guardian: "India's minister for higher education [Satyapal Singh] has been condemned by scientists for demanding the theory of evolution be removed from school curricula because no one 'ever saw an ape turning into a human being'." --safari

News Lede

New York Times: "Ursula K. Le Guin, the immensely popular author who brought literary depth and a tough-minded feminist sensibility to science fiction and fantasy with books like 'The Left Hand of Darkness' and the Earthsea series, died on Monday at her home in Portland, Ore. She was 88."

The Commentariat -- January 22, 2018

Afternoon Update:

New York Times: "The Senate voted 81-18 on Monday to end the three-day old government shutdown, with Democrats joining Republicans to clear the way for the passage of a short-term spending package that would fund the government through February 8 in exchange for a promise from Republican leaders to address the fate of young, undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers." At 4:10 pm ET Monday, the Senate is holding its final vote on the bill; assuming it passes, the bill then goes to the House for a vote; then to the President*. ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "You don't need me to tell you that Democrats just caved when it comes to ending the government shutdown; even some of their leading senators are admitting it.... Most Senate Democrats wound up voting to reopen the government. They did so after a deal was struck in which Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) was assured that the Senate would vote on some kind of immigration deal by Feb. 8 -- and if they didn't have a deal, there would be an up-or-down vote on DACA, the program protecting the children of illegal immigrants from deportation. Just 16 of the 49 members of the Senate Democratic caucus voted no, and it's a group that is full of potential 2020 contenders like [Kamala] Harris [D-Calif.] who have a clear interest in appealing to the base. But that's also the point. Those members have made appealing to the Democratic base their raison d'etre, and they've quickly wagered that this thing isn't going to fly with that same base." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: As some contributors suggested today, I think the Senate Democratic leadership handled this as well as possible. If Republicans in both Houses don't pass some form of DACA that at least allows these educated, productive young people to stay in the U.S., Republicans will pay at the polls this year. I certainly want the Dreamers to receive a clear path to citizenship -- which they've earned -- but as Donna S. wrote in Sunday's thread, "the optics will be ... horrific ... if the Dreamers begin to be deported." We're already beginning to see feature stories about DHS's deporting successful people who are too old to qualify as Dreamers.

... Robert Costa, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Senate appeared poised to break its budget impasse on Monday as Democrats planned to join Republicans in voting for a short-term spending bill that would reopen the government and provide funding through Feb. 8. The upper chamber was expected to quickly approve the bill, and House members were told to await a possible vote Monday afternoon, raising the possibility that the shutdown would end after just three days. 'We will vote today to reopen the government,' Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a speech on the Senate floor." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's see how Trump -- who has had nothing to do with the most recent negotiations. other than muddying them & insulting Democrats -- takes credit for ending the government shutdown. ...

     ... UPDATE. Ha Ha Ha. New York Times: "Sarah Huckabee Sanders ... insisted that the deal that the Senate voted on was not 'drastically different' than what was discussed on Friday between the president and Mr. Schumer. Despite what was characterized by both parties as Mr. Trump's invisibility this weekend, Ms. Sanders still insisted that he was responsible for making a deal happen. 'What the president did clearly worked,' she said, calling the numbers more in Mr. Trumps favor 'than in Senator Schumer's favor.' 'The president stayed firm, Republicans stayed firm and Democrats I think realized that they had to move past that piece of legislation' in order to discuss immigration going forward, Ms. Sanders said." This part of the report is down the page. Mrs. McC: OR, as Victoria more credibly speculates in today's thread, staff has probably locked Trump in the basement.

... One Night I Saw upon the Throne, a Little Man Who Soon Was Gone. David Graham of the Atlantic: "With leaders in Congress at an impasse, the most logical person to step in and broker an arrangement was the president.... That's usually the case, but it's especially true now, with a president whose name, thanks to his first book, is practically synonymous with deals. And yet, Donald Trump remained strangely absent.... The deal [to end the shutdown] was struck between Schumer and ... McConnell. 'The great dealmaking president sat on the sidelines,' Schumer said on Monday, as he announced the arrangement, accusing Trump of being unwilling to 'take yes for an answer.'... Often fixated on appearing active and virile, Trump has come off as passive and distant in the current crisis. Even worse, this is exactly the approach he accused Barack Obama of using in 2013...." ...

... Jeet Heer of the New Republic argues that the past few weeks have showed that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is "the real president." Heer lays out the evidence. Mrs. McC: This is a conclusion I reached last week as I watched Kelly bat back all of President* Dimwit's forays into negotiating with Democrats. Turns out quite a few closer & wiser observers came to the same conclusion. For instance: Dick Durbin: "As soon as the guest leaves the office, Gen. Kelly calls in the right wingers and they bat it down and say you can't do it. We'll never reach an agreement unless there's a more open approach at the White House and the president is more constructive." Heer adds this, tho: "Trump has a proven history of pushing aside staffers who get too powerful, or who are perceived as such.... The open question is whether Trump will continue just grousing privately [at Kelly], or if he has the will to take back the reins of his presidency." So it would be helpful if more mainstream media outlets wrote articles marvelling at Kelly's power. ...

... Along these lines, Steve M. has some useful observations about Trump's ambivalence about DACA. And Maggie Haberman's, too! ...

... ** The Sins of the Father, Visited upon the Sons. Digby, in Salon, also has a great piece on how Trump's right-wing advisors have repeatedly repressed any gossamer angels of his better nature: "His racist id and his desire to get a 'win' are being pulled in opposite directions, depending on whom he listens to at any given time. His lack of understanding of the issue or how laws are actually made makes him a hindrance to deal making. But we know what Trump wants."

Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "Vice President Mike Pence said on Monday that a new United States Embassy to Israel would open in Jerusalem before the end of 2019."

Joseph Ax of Reuters: "Pennsylvania's top court on Monday threw out the state's congressional map, ruling that Republican legislators unlawfully sought partisan advantage, and gave them three weeks to rework it in a decision that could boost Democratic chances of retaking the U.S. House of Representatives. In a 5-2 decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the electoral map violated the state Constitution by manipulating the district boundaries to minimize the voting power of Democratic voters, a practice called partisan gerrymandering." Thanks to Jeanne for the lead. ...

... Or Maybe It Was a 4-3 Decision. Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "In a 4-to-3 decision, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court ordered the Republican-controlled state legislature to redraw the lines by Feb. 9, an extraordinarily quick timeline that will reset the districts in time for the state's May congressional primaries. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf will have veto power over the maps." The opinion itself has not yet been released (at 4:00 pm ET Monday).

*****

Nicholas Fandos & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Senators failed on Sunday to reach an agreement to end the government shutdown, ensuring that hundreds of thousands of federal employees would be furloughed Monday morning even as the outlines of a potential compromise came into focus. For much of the day, feverish work by a bipartisan group of senators offered a reason for cautious optimism that a deal could be reached soon. By Sunday night, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, moved to delay until noon Monday a procedural vote on a temporary spending bill -- a signal that talks were progressing. In a gesture to lawmakers seeking assurances that the Senate will address the fate of hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants, Mr. McConnell said he intended to move ahead with immigration legislation next month if the issue had not been resolved by then." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: This was the state of the story at 6 am ET. It's been updated several times. ...

... Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "At the heart of the confrontation that led to a government shutdown lie two weeks of mixed messaging by the president -- and two decades of deep-seated acrimony and suspicion between Democrats and Republicans on immigration. 'The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked,' President Trump tweeted Sunday. Senator Mitch McConnell ... said his Democratic counterpart, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, was 'playing with all of those lives over the issue of illegal immigration.' A Trump campaign official, Michael Glassner, lauded the president for keeping Americans safe from 'evil, illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes against lawful U.S. citizens.' After several fruitless efforts at overhauling the nation's immigration laws, Democrats simply do not trust Republicans ... to follow through on pledges to protect hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants from deportation unless forced to do so." ...

... Sean Sullivan, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump and Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) pressed the Senate Sunday to end a government shutdown that reached its second day, with Trump lashing out at Democrats and urging Republicans to change the rules if the standoff there isn't resolved.... Trump wrote on Twitter, 'If stalemate continues,' then Republicans should use the 'Nuclear Option' to rewrite Senate rules and try to pass a long-term spending bill with a simple majority." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Jacqueline Klimas of Politico: "The Senate's second-ranking Democrat [Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)] said Sunday that ... Donald Trump's suggestion to change Senate rules to reopen the government 'would be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised.' The president tweeted Sunday morning that if the 'stalemate' that closed the government continues, Republicans should invoke the 'nuclear option,' which would allow the Senate to move forward with 51 votes instead of the 60 normally required to break a filibuster. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) slammed the suggestion, saying part of being in the Senate is respecting the party that's in the minority." ...

... Elana Schor of Politico: "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday renewed his criticism of White House aides' handling of immigration, portraying them as having undercut ... Donald Trump's ability to cut a deal as the government shutdown entered its second day. Graham singled out White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, a pugnacious conservative who has a keen focus on restrictive immigration policy. 'As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration, we are going nowhere. He's been an outlier for years,' Graham told reporters...."

... I'm Rubber, You're Glue.... White House Can't Think up Original Insults. Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "The White House hit back at Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-S.C.) comments calling White House aide Stephen Miller an 'outlier' on immigration, using the same phrase to describe Graham's stance on the topic. 'As long as Sen. Graham chooses to support legislation that sides with people in this country illegally and unlawfully instead of our own American citizens, we're going nowhere. He's been an outlier for years,' White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement Sunday night, according to several reports. Graham had used nearly identical terms to describe Miller on immigration earlier in the day." ...

... Another White House Dimwit Can't Even Get Past Chuck Todd. Ryan Koronowski of ThinkProgress: "On Saturday, Donald Trump's re-election campaign aired an incendiary, unhinged new ad claiming that Democrats who oppose his demand for a border wall 'will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants.' It was particularly strange timing given the fact that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offered to fund the wall in exchange for a real solution for ... DREAMers.... NBC's Chuck Todd asked Marc Short, the Trump White House's director of Legislative Affairs, if airing an ad like that was helpful in the effort to reach the compromise needed to reopen the government. 'Well, you know that ad was produced by an outside group...' Short started to respond, before Todd interjected, '"Donald J. Trump for President" is an outside group?' repeating it again in incredulity. The ad concludes with Trump saying 'I'm Donald Trump and I approve this message' and a photo of Trump with two thumbs up."

Defending the Indefensible. Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "... American diplomats across Africa have been made to explain President Trump's vulgar description of their nations. These are disorienting -- and some say depressing -- times for the country's diplomatic corps, which was already wilting after a year of Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson's leadership style and a lackluster department reorganization. Then Mr. Trump derided 'shithole' African countries during an immigration debate last week and questioned whether Haitians should be allowed to move to the United States. The blowback was fierce. On Wednesday, more than 80 former ambassadors to African nations over the last several decades sent a letter of protest to Mr. Trump. They said his description undermined American interests across the continent that has the world's fastest growing population and five of the 10 fastest growing economies.... Nearly a third of the ambassadors in 168 American embassies worldwide are political appointees -- many of whom were big political donors before they were given plush assignments to wealthy countries where they are rarely expected to conduct high-stakes diplomacy. No longer."

It seems to me that Republicans might pause to consider what the optics will be if the Dreamers begin to be deported. If no solution is found it will be horrific. They will fully own it. What am I missing? -- Donna S., in yesterday's Comments thread

Well, three things. Some of our Republican representatives are too stupid to think ahead. Others assume it will please their voter "base" to see innocent young people, many (but not all) of whom aren't quite as white as said representatives, being herded into buses & deported to places they can't remember & won't fit in. And a whole swath of said officials, oddly enough, think anyone whose genes are not 99.44 percent pure white Christian European cannot be Americans, never mind that many a Central American has a much longer American heritage than any of us of mostly European background, including of course Donald Trump, whose mother & grandfather were immigrants. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ...

... As Benjamin Wallace-Wells of the New Yorker writes, Trump insists "that America is less an idea than a specific heritage, that a judge of 'Mexican' heritage is less than equal, that Haitian-Americans and African-Americans came from 'shithole nations,' and that more Norwegian-Americans would be preferable."

They Danced with Trump. Craig Timburg, et al., of the Washington Post: At Trump's inaugural events a year ago, "... prominent business leaders and activists from [Russia] attended inaugural festivities, mingling at balls and receptions -- at times in proximity to key U.S. political officials.... FBI officials were concerned at the time because some of the figures had surfaced in the agency's investigation of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, the officials said.... Some Russian guests at Trump's inauguration said they got tickets through U.S. political contacts. One venue for credentials was the Presidential Inaugural Committee, which provided a slew of perks ... to donors who gave at least $25,000. Only U.S. citizens and permanent residents are legally permitted to contribute to an inaugural committee. Several U.S. business executives with ties to Russia together donated $2.4 million to the inaugural committee, campaign finance records show." Mrs. McC: Meant to link this earlier. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

AND in more important news, Amanda Arnold of New York reveals that at Mar-a-Lago's restaurant, you get caviar -- "served ... with plastic spoons." Classy. A guest was "traumatized."

The Best Presidency Ever. Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "... on the anniversary of the inauguration; with a government shutdown consuming the capital; with cities across the country, including this one, hosting women's rallies condemning President Trump as an emblem of misogyny" -- former Trump squeeze Stormy Daniels debuted her "Make America Horny Again" striptease tour at an airport strip club in Greenville, South Carolina. Mrs. McC: I wonder why Donald didn't ask Stormy to stand in for him when he couldn't attend his Mar-a-Lago party.

Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "The White House -- and the politerati diaspora -- has just barely stopped reeling from author Michael Wolff's account of life in Trump’s West Wing..., and now another life-in-the-White-House book is about to drop, this one from [Howard] Kurtz [of Fox 'News']. Like the books that came before it, and almost certainly like the ones still to come, Kurtz's book, 'Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press, And The War Over The Truth,' offers a portrait of a White House riven by chaos, with aides scrambling to respond to the president's impulses and writing policy to fit his tweets, according to excerpts obtained by The Washington Post. Kurtz ...> writes that Trump's aides even privately coined a term for Trump's behavior -- 'Defiance Disorder.' The phrase refers to Trump's seeming compulsion to do whatever it is his advisers are most strongly urging against, leaving his team to handle the fallout."

It's Other World Economies, Stupid. Larry Summers, in a Washington Post op-ed, explains why Trump doesn't deserve credit for an improving U.S. economy.

Rana Sweis of the New York Times: "Vice President Mike Pence met with King Abdullah II of Jordan on Sunday, telling reporters afterward that they had 'agreed to disagree' on the American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The meeting in Amman, on the second day of Mr. Pence's visit to the Middle East, came as tension has increased between the two allies over President Trump's decision on Jerusalem last month and his decision last week to withhold aid to the United Nations agency that serves Palestinian refugees.... Mr. Pence had delayed his trip to the region amid the furor over Mr. Trump's decisions, which were seen here as pro-Israel and a slap in the face to Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, canceled a meeting with Mr. Pence planned for this trip. The Trump administration said the delay was unrelated to the rising anti-American sentiment in the Middle East."

All the Best People, Ctd.

Jonathan Swan of Axios: "... Donald Trump has put Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross out to pasture.... Ross's efforts to wheel and deal with the Chinese have left the president unimpressed. Another problem: He keeps falling asleep in meetings. Early in Trump's presidency, Ross was his go-to negotiator, helming the administration's trade talks with the Chinese. After a few months, though, Trump concluded he was doing a terrible job. In a series of Oval Office meetings about six months into his presidency, Trump eviscerated Ross, telling him he'd screwed up, and badly.... The recent Forbes article -- revealing that Ross vastly exaggerated his net worth -- did not help his internal standing."

Adam Entous & Evan Osnos of the New Yorker have a long report on Jared Kushner's dealings with China. Mrs. McC: I've been trying to read it since Friday. For an abridged version, Benjamin Hart of New York obliges.

Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "A former Trump campaign worker appointed at age 23 to a top position in the White House's drug policy office had been let go from a job at a law firm because he repeatedly missed work, a partner at the firm said. While in college, late in 2014 or early in 2015, Taylor Weyeneth began working as a legal assistant at the New York firm O'Dwyer & Bernstien. He was 'discharged' in August 2015, partner Brian O'Dwyer said in an interview. 'We were very disappointed in what happened,' O'Dwyer said. He said that he hired Weyeneth in part because both men were involved in the same fraternity, and that the firm invested time training him for what was expected to be a longer relationship. Instead, he said, Weyeneth 'just didn't show.' In a résumé initially submitted to the government, Weyeneth said he worked at the firm until April 2016." Mrs. McC: What's the big deal? Trump "just doesn't show" for the better part of every day. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Carlotta Gall of the New York Times: "Turkish troops crossed the Syrian border into the Kurdish enclave of Afrin on Sunday morning, beginning a ground assault against American-allied militias there, as the first accounts of casualties emerged amid rising international criticism of Turkey's military action.Turkish fighter jets were again in the skies Sunday bombing Kurdish militia targets in the border region."

Mujib Mashal & Fatima Faizi of the New York Times: "The Taliban's bloody, 14-hour siege on a major hotel in Kabul finally ended on Sunday, after six assailants terrorized much of the city with explosions and gunfire. The exact number of casualties remained unclear, and the authorities said it might take days to determine the extent of the material damage. Najib Danish, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said that 14 foreigners and four Afghans had been killed in the attack, and that 10 others including six members of the security forces, had been wounded. Local news outlets put the number of dead at 43. The siege capped a violent 24 hours across Afghanistan, where about 50 people were killed in four provinces as the 16-year war continues to spiral more violently, with no tangible signs of a resolution. The attack was the second in eight years at the 200-room Intercontinental Hotel, located on top of a hill. The Afghan carrier Kam Air said that six of its employees from Ukraine were killed, along with two from Venezuela."

News Lede

New York Times: "Unsung for seven decades, the real Rosie the Riveter was a California waitress named Naomi Parker Fraley. Over the years, a welter of American women have been identified as the model for Rosie, the war worker of 1940s popular culture who became a feminist touchstone in the late 20th century. Mrs. Fraley, who died on Saturday, at 96, in Longview, Wash., staked the most legitimate claim of all. But because her claim was eclipsed by another woman's, she went unrecognized for more than 70 years."