The Commentariat -- January 18, 2018
Afternoon/Evening Update:
Mike DeBonis, et al., of the Washington Post: "The House approved a short-term spending bill Thursday to avoid a government shutdown, sending the measure to the Senate where Democrats said they have enough votes to block its passage. House Republican leaders prevailed in lobbying the conservative House Freedom Caucus and defense hawks who demanded more money for the military in exchange for their votes. The bill passed 230-197. But a government shutdown on the anniversary of President Trump's inauguration appeared likely as Democrats signaled they had rallied enough opposition to stop the measure from passing in the upper chamber."
... Mike Lillis & Melanie Zanona of the Hill: "The House Freedom Caucus has endorsed a deal with GOP leadership to support a short-term government funding bill, putting the House on track to pass the stopgap on Thursday night and send it to the Senate. The caucus endorsed the deal on Thursday night, after warning they had the votes to defeat it earlier in the day." ...
... Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Democrats say they have secured the votes to block a House plan to fund the government through mid-February. A Democratic aide confirmed that the caucus will be able to block Republicans from getting the 60 votes needed to overcome an initial procedural hurdle."
Chris Mooney of the Washington Post: "2017 was among the hottest years ever recorded, government scientists reported Thursday.... The 2017 results make the past four years the hottest period in their 138-year archive.... The renewed evidence of climate change, driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases, comes as the Trump administration moves to open new areas for oil drilling and rolls back regulations that sought to reduce global warming, most prominently by moving to repeal the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan. The administration said it would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement last year." Mrs. McC: Yes, but science at best is a series of evolving theories, but in fact is a total hoax, promulgated by a bunch of pointy-headed hucksters hustling for cushy research grants.
The Dimwit at 1600 Pa. Ave, Ctd. Five Minutes Ago. Scott Wong & Melanie Zanona of the Hill: "President Trump undermined his own party's plan to avert a looming government shutdown on Thursday after tweeting that a key Democratic bargaining chip shouldn't be attached to the funding package. The 17-word tweet threw Capitol Hill into a state of confusion ahead of what is already expected to be a tight vote in the House Thursday night. Republicans on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were trying to decipher what exactly the president meant by declaring a popular children's health-care program should be part of a 'long term solution' as opposed to a '30 Day, or short term, extension.'" ...
... Four Minutes Ago. Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "The White House on Thursday reiterated that President Trump supports stopgap spending legislation backed by House GOP leaders, an effort to clear up confusion caused by Trump's early-morning tweet about the effort to prevent a government shutdown." ...
... Sarah Kliff & Tara Golshan of Vox: "... some [Congressional Republicans] have already written ... off [Trump's tweet] as inconsequential, likely the result of a news segment the president may have seen." Mrs. McC Translation: They know he's an ignorant moron, but he's their ignorant moron. ...
... Brian Beutler of Crooked: "... if Democrats and Republicans team up to avoid [a government shutdown with a DACA bill], it is nearly certain that Republicans will quietly return to their longstanding but unstated opposition to protecting Dreamers, the Trump administration will begin deporting them, and Democrats will have no good answers for those caught up in the sweeps."
Surprise! Linley Sanders of Newsweek: "Almost one year after President Donald Trump took the oath of office, millions of dollars from his leftover inauguration funds have still not been donated to the charities they were promised to. Trump's inauguration committee raised a record-breaking $107 million as his administration prepared to assume the White House last year, but very little has been disclosed about where the remaining money was allocated. Nearing the one-year anniversary of Trump's inauguration, a government watchdog group is questioning why the funds disappeared." --safari
"This One Is Big." Josh Marshall: "Going back more than a year there have been a number of as yet uncorroborated claims that Russia funneled a vast sum of money into the NRA to support get out the vote activities to elect Donald Trump.... It's pretty clear that the NRA played a very important part in securing Trump's razor-thin victory.... There's little question that this effort (Russia courting the NRA and vice versa) is at some level an influence operation, an effort to cozy up to and develop relationships with a major right-wing organization in the US. Whether it goes beyond that into clearly illegal efforts on behalf of Russians or Americans is as yet a fact not in evidence." See also McClatchy's report, linked below & Jonathan Chait's commentary. Mrs. McC: As Marshall warns, these are claims at this point. But it matters that Mueller's team is taking these claims seriously.
Michael Grunwald of Politico: "Every quarter, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau formally requests its operating funds from the Federal Reserve. Last quarter, former director Richard Cordray asked for $217.1 million. Cordray, an appointee of President Barack Obama, needed just $86.6 million the quarter before that. And yesterday..., Donald Trump's acting CFPB director, Mick Mulvaney, sent his first request to the Fed. He requested zero."
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"The video [is] by the Gondwana Collection Namibia - which runs several game reserves in the southern African nation...."
John Bresnahan, et al., of Politico: "House Republicans are short of the votes they need to avoid a government shutdown, but Speaker Paul Ryan and GOP leaders remain confident they will pass a stopgap funding measure when it comes to the floor on Thursday.... President Donald Trump is personally leaning on GOP lawmakers to fall into line, especially hard-line conservatives who are opposed to virtually anything Ryan and his leadership team propose." ...
... Mike DeBonis, et al., of the Washington Post: "Bitter divisions in both parties threatened Wednesday to derail Congress's effort to keep the federal government fully operating past the end of the week. The shutdown threat emerged on two fronts: Republican defense hawks in the House said a short-term spending plan the party introduced late Tuesday did not devote enough money to the military. Meanwhile, Democrats, whose support would be critical for passage in the Senate, began lining up in opposition amid pressure from immigration activists to use the budget talks as leverage to legalize ... 'dreamers.' By Wednesday evening, the short-term bill was on the cusp of failure." ...
... Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "Republicans on Wednesday expressed cautious optimism about averting a government shutdown at midnight Friday, with rank-and-file members grudgingly accepting a short-term spending bill.... If Republican leaders can quell dissent among deficit and defense hawks and pass the measure with only GOP votes, House Democrats will lose the leverage they planned to exercise on behalf of dreamers during the current round of negotiations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ryan Grim of The Intercept: "The House spending bill released Wednesday would allow President Trump, or people under him, to secretly shift money to fund intelligence programs, a break with 70 years of governing tradition.... Since 1947, section 504 of the National Security Act has mandated that the administration inform Congress if it intends to shift money from one intelligence project to another, if the new project has not been authorized by Congress. That notification can be -- and almost always is -- done in secret, but it is at least a minimal check on executive power. The spending bill currently under consideration, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, breaks with that tradition." --safari...
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "While talking about languishing discussions to attach a DACA compromise and border security to the government-funding bill that is due Friday, [Mitch] McConnell suggested that the White House had failed to even make its demands known. 'I'm looking for something that President Trump supports, and he has not yet indicated what measure he is willing to sign,' McConnell said. 'As soon as we figure out what he is for, then I would be convinced that we were not just spinning our wheels.'... Lawmakers proceeded with the bill anyway, but Senate GOP leaders indicated Wednesday they won't devote floor time to something Trump won't sign. In other words, it seems we're headed for another short-term extension that avoids a government shutdown but doesn't address the soon-to-expire Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protections...." ...
... Ayesha Rascoe & Roberta Rampton of Reuters: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday aligned himself solidly with conservative Republicans on immigration, criticizing a proposed bipartisan deal as 'horrible' on U.S. border security and 'very, very weak' on reforms for the legal immigration system." ...
... The Wayback (to January 9, that is) Machine. I'll sign whatever immigration bill [Congress sends] me.... You guys are going to have to come up with a solution [for Dreamers] and I'm going to sign that solution.... I think my positions are going to be what the people in this room come up with. If they come to me with things I'm not in love with, I'm going to do it. Because I respect them. -- Donald Trump, January 9, at a televised meeting with Members of Congress ...
... Charles Blow: John Kelly's "hostility toward immigration has been evident from the beginning of his time in the administration. When Kelly was brought on as chief of staff in July, The Nation warned, 'John Kelly's promotion is a disaster for immigrants,' pointing out that in just six months as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, he turned it into 'a deportation machine.'... While at the D.H.S., Kelly even considered separating immigrant parents from their accompanying children if they enter the country illegally.... One of Kelly's primary targets has been the Temporary Protected Status program.... On this issue of Trump's racist immigration and deportation policy, he is not only complicit, he is a co-conspirator."
... Heather Caygle & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "House Democrats left a meeting with top White House officials Wednesday seemingly no closer to reaching a deal on immigration or government funding before a critical Friday deadline. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said their hour-long meeting with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was 'positive' -- a dramatic change in tone from their contentious encounters with him in the past -- but mostly a rehashing of talking points that doesn't bring the two sides closer to an agreement." Mrs. McC: Maybe that's because Kelly is even more a racist than Trump. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly told Democratic lawmakers Wednesday that some of the hard-line immigration policies President Trump advocated during the campaign were 'uninformed,' that the United States will never construct a wall along its entire southern border and that Mexico will never pay for it, according to people familiar with the meeting. The comments were out of sync with remarks by Trump, who in recent days has reiterated his desire to build a border wall that would be funded by Mexico 'indirectly through NAFTA.'"...
... David Ferguson of RawStory: "[In the meeting, John Kelly] ... praise[d] the business acumen of Mexica’s drug cartels, saying that a physical border wall as Trump promised during his 2016 campaign is impractical because drug lords will get their wares into the country regardless. 'Drug cartels will always find a way to get their drugs in so long as there's demand in the U.S.,' Kelly said. He added that this is to be expected from people who 'are very smart and good businessmen.' The comment reportedly set of a murmur of disquiet in the room. Lawmakers later told the Post they 'found it odd that Kelly would credit cartel leaders who often authorize murders as smart or good businessmen.'" --safari ...
... SO THEN. Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump directly contradicted his own chief of staff on Thursday and said his position on building a wall between the United States and Mexico had not 'evolved. Mr. Trump's chief of staff, John F. Kelly, told some Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had 'evolved' on the issue of the wall, and that the president was not 'fully informed' when he promised to build such a barrier last year. In an early-morning Twitter post, Mr. Trump took the unusual step of publicly pushing back against his own White House, signaling a disconnect between the president and his staff at a critical time of negotiations with Congress to avoid a government shutdown. 'The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it. Parts will be, of necessity, see through and it was never intended to be built in areas where there is natural protection such as mountains, wastelands or tough rivers or water..... ....The Wall will be paid for, directly or indirectly, or through longer term reimbursement, by Mexico, which has a ridiculous $71 billion dollar trade surplus with the U.S. The $20 billion dollar Wall is "peanuts" compared to what Mexico makes from the U.S. NAFTA is a bad joke!]'" ...
... Jonathan Blitzer of the New Yorker has a pretty good rundown of the "evolution" of DACA legislation -- up to Trump's latest pronouncement. Blitzer includes some insider wrangling & concentrates also on Sen. Lindsey Graham's up-and-down relationship with the Nutty President*. ...
... AND Jelani Cobb of the New Yorker traces the root of Trump's nativism to the Borough of Queens, "the most ethnically diverse urban area in the United States. (Some experts estimate that as many as eight hundred languages are spoken there.)" ...
... So that was insightful, but let's find out what Eric thinks. Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "During an interview on his father's favorite TV show on Wednesday, Eric Trump dismissed racist comments his dad recently made about African countries, and claimed the only color President Trump cares about is 'green.' 'My father sees one color -- green,' Trump said on Fox & Friends. 'That is all he cares about. He cares about the economy. He does not see race. He is the least racist person I ever met in my entire life.'"
Michael Shear & Gina Kolata of the New York Times: "Cardiologists not associated with the White House said Wednesday that President Trump's physical exam revealed serious heart concerns, including very high levels of so-called bad cholesterol, which raises the risk that Mr. Trump could have a heart attack while in office.... Dr. David Maron, the director of preventive cardiology at Stanford University's medical school, said Wednesday that it was alarming that the president's LDL levels remain above 140 even though he is taking 10 milligrams of Crestor, a powerful drug that is used to lower cholesterol levels to well below 100. Dr. Maron said he would 'definitely' be worried about Mr. Trump's risk for having a heart attack if the president were one of his patients. Asked if Mr. Trump is in perfect health, Dr. Maron ...[said]: 'God, no.'" ...
... What's the Matter with Doc Jackson? Dana Milbank: "Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson was so effusive in extolling the totally amazing, surpassingly marvelous, superbly stupendous and extremely awesome health of the president that the doctor sounded almost Trumpian. 'The president's overall health is excellent,' he said, repeating 'excellent' eight times: 'Hands down, there's no question that he is in the excellent range. ... I put out in the statement that the president's health is excellent, because his overall health is excellent.... Overall, he has very, very good health. Excellent health.' And just how excellent is His Excellency's excellent health, doctor? 'Incredible cardiac fitness,' was Dr. Jackson's professional opinion. 'He has incredible genes.... He has incredibly good genes, and i's just the way God made him.'" Dr. Bandy Lee, a psychiatrist suggests Jackson is suffering from what I, Mrs. Bea McCrabbie, would call Stockholm Syndrome & what she calls "powerful sycophancy." ...
... Gail Collins: "Donald Trump has passed his mental test. This may come as either a relief or a shock.... Skeptics pointed out that the report's enthusiastic descriptions of the president's tiptop condition seemed inconsistent with some of the statistics on his weight, cholesterol and plaque buildup in the arteries. If the doctor had simply said 'good for an overweight 71-year-old guy,' everybody probably could have nodded and moved forward. But the big news was the mental test.... [the test] didn't measure judgment, and there was no score to indicate whether the test-taker would, if faced with a question of what to do about immigration policy, change his position 12 times in 24 hours. Whether he would confide to several million Twitter followers that the country 'needs a good shutdown'? Whether he thinks of himself as a 'very stable genius.'" ...
... "Trump Doesn't Have Dementia. He's Just a Moron." Jonathan Chait: "Trump's supporters have taken the news of his successful physical examination with a reputable doctor as vindication. Never has a president won such frenzied praise for being declared dementia-free.... But while Trump's behavior may not be medical symptoms of a debilitating mental disease, it is clear evidence of a mind that's totally unfit for the presidency. What excuse does he have for his behavior?"
Jessica Taylor of NPR: "A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds that by a 53-to-40-percent margin, Americans deemed Trump's first year a failure. And by an almost 2-to-1 margin (61 to 32 percent), Americans said they believe Trump has divided the country since his election. Americans give Trump relatively positive marks on his handling of ISIS and the state of the economy -- no small things. But on just about every other issue, they disapprove of his handling of them or they think things have gotten worse -- from their views of the tax plan to the state of race relations and women's rights to immigration, health care, the deficit and foreign policy, including his approach to North Korea. Seven-in-10 Americans are now concerned about the possibility of war breaking out with the rogue nuclear nation." ...
... "America Third" Has a Nice Ring to It. Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Global confidence in US leadership has fallen to a new low, and the country now ranks below China in worldwide approval ratings, according to a new Gallup poll. The survey of opinion in 134 countries showed a record collapse in approval for the US role in the world, from 48% under Obama to 30% after one year of Donald Trump -- the lowest level Gallup has recorded since beginning its global leadership poll over a decade ago.... Germany is now seen as a global leader by many more people (41% of the sample), with China in second place on 31%. Russia has 27% approval for its global role according to the poll. In just under half of the world's countries -- 65 out of 134 -- US standing collapsed, by 10 percentage points or more. Some of the biggest losses were among Washington's closest allies in western Europe, Australia, and Latin America." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: On the upside, the leader of the free world is a woman, after all.
Jen Kirby & Libby Nelson of Vox: "There was no red carpet, but ... Donald Trump tweeted a link to his 'highly anticipated' fake news award winners Wednesday night, as promised. The link itself -- to the official Republican National Committee website -- turned out to be a bit of a fake out. 'The site is temporarily offline, we are working to bring it back up. Please try back later,' the link read for many for at least an hour after the announcement.... But eventually, the website rebounded, revealing the 'winners' (or 'losers').... Trump's list is a collection of some of the biggest journalistic errors of the past year (and a lesson in the perils of aggregating viral videos or sending hasty tweets). The aftermath of the stories listed also shows news organizations' commitment to setting the record straight. In almost every case, media outlets issued corrections. When reporters made mistakes, they acknowledged them repeatedly. In one instance, the reporters and editors involved resigned. Below is an annotated list, to give some context to these 'awards.' The full list is (probably) available here.” Mrs. McC: BTW, Krugman -- who took top honors -- has several times admitted his prediction (not report) was a mistake. ...
... Jordain Carney of the Hill: "GOP Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) rebuked President Trump's attacks on the press from the Senate floor on Wednesday, urging his colleagues to publicly push back against the rhetoric. 'The enemy of the people was how the president of the United States called the free press in 2017. ... It is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president used words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies," Flake said.... Flake's speech marks one of the strongest Republican rebukes of Trump from the Senate floor." Mrs. McC: See also Flake's Arizona colleague John McCain's essay, linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Brian Stelter of CNN: "More than once a day, on average, [Trump] has publicly assailed 'fake news,' 'fake polls,' 'fake media,' and 'fake stories.' Over and over again, he has told the United States not to trust what reporters say. His allies have done the same thing. This repetition -- constantly labeling real news as 'fake' -- is what has made the slur so powerful. In the run-up to the 2016 election, 'fake news' was a term used by researchers and journalists to describe hoaxes that were designed to deceive people. These made-up stories are typically promoted via social media, either to make money or spread propaganda. But after Trump won the election, he almost single-handedly turned the definition on its head. Among his supporters, 'fake news' is now a catch-all criticism for any news that Trump doesn't like." ...
... Biggest Irony in Today's News ...
... Journalistic Standards & Hush Money Saved Trump. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: Porn star "Stormy Daniels ... was on the radar of a number of mainstream news outlets in the waning days of the presidential campaign. Reporters from ABC, Fox News, the Daily Beast and Slate.com were pursuing a potentially explosive story: that Daniels had allegedly had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, only months after Trump's wife, Melania, had given birth to their son, Barron. Yet no one went with the story.... (The Smoking Gun website had already published details of the alleged affair in mid-October, to little public notice or reaction.)... Journalists say they held back because they couldn't independently corroborate key elements of Daniels's account.... The story, in other words, failed to rise to journalistic standards, never mind that it involved a man who regularly attacks the news media for lacking standards.... The Daily Beast's executive editor, Noah Shachtman, said his publication decided not to go with a story despite having three sources confirming the affair, including one on the record, Daniels's friend Alana Evans.... Daniels herself was ready to confirm it as well, he said, but she backed out of an interview on Nov. 3, apparently after signing [a] nondisclosure agreement [in exchange for a payoff]. That defection was critical; Shachtman said the Daily Beast would have published if Daniels had confirmed what other sources were already claiming." ...
... Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "In a newly published interview with Stephanie Clifford from 2011, the pornographic actor acknowledges an affair with Donald Trump -- contradicting a denial produced by the president's legal team last week. Clifford, who performs under the name Stormy Daniels, described her 2006 rendezvous with Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite in detail to InTouch magazine. Her account was reportedly corroborated by her friend and supported by a polygraph test and her ex-husband." The interview is here. ...
... AND In Touch plans to release the whole 5,500-word interview.
... Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "... the Stormy Daniels Trump story matters -- beyond allegations of an affair. Here's why.... Trump's lawyer is distributing a statement denying any sexual relationship between Daniels and Trump. But there is a mountain of evidence that suggests this statement is a lie.... The story has parallels to other women's claims of sexual assault by Trump.... The story suggests Trump is vulnerable to blackmail and extortion.... In the unverified Steele dossier, there is an allegation that Russian officials have information about Trump's interactions with sex workers in Moscow that Russian agents are using as leverage.... [The Daniels hush-money story indicates] Trump ... has things to hide and is willing to go to substantial lengths to hide them." ...
... digby: "Daniels says [Trump] didn't use protection.... I don't care what Trump does with porn stars and I really don't want to know the details. But it is important that he was worried enough about it that he paid them off. And it is important that his excuse that he couldn't have done anything untoward in Russia because he's a germophobe." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: There may be some poetic justice (not to mention more irony) here. Just as the Whitewatergate investigation (of trump rival Hillary Clinton et vir) eventually morphed from a real estate probe into a sex scandal, so may the Trump-Russia scandal prove out the famously "unverified" "golden rain" incident. That is, Mueller's team may be compelled, partly because of the Daniels payoff, to seek verification of Trump's romps with Russian sex workers. The team may never be able to verify whether or not Russian spies threatened Trump or made a pact with Trump, but it is fair to assume that the Russians retained evidence to embarrass -- and perhaps blackmail -- a high-profile American having sex in a hotel located in Moscow. We may yet be in for an updated version of breathless reporters cold-reading live on-air excerpts of the Starr report as it was still being to news organizations. One of the LOL moments of the whole debacle was the fastidious Bob Schieffer of CBS News reporting on "semen stains." ...
... Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Stephen K. Bannon ... will be interviewed by investigators working for the special counsel in the Russia investigation instead of testifying before a grand jury, according to a person familiar with the matter, a sign that Mr. Bannon is cooperating with the inquiry. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, had subpoenaed Mr. Bannon to appear before a grand jury this week. But Mr. Bannon has agreed to cooperate with Mr. Mueller's investigation and will be interviewed in the less formal setting of the special counsel's offices in downtown Washington." ...
... Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Steve Bannon made one conspicuous slip up in his closed-door hearing on Tuesday with the House Intelligence Committee, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the confidential proceedings. Bannon admitted that he'd had conversations with Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer and legal spokesman Mark Corallo about Don Junior's infamous meeting with the Russians in Trump Tower in June 2016." ...
... Eamon Javers of CNBC: "The White House believed it had an agreement with the House Intelligence Committee to limit questions for Steve Bannon only to events on the presidential campaign, and not during the ousted former chief strategist's time in the Trump administration, an official told CNBC. According to the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, staffers for the committee and the White House on Friday discussed the parameters of Bannon's testimony.... Then, hours into Bannon's closed-door testimony on Tuesday, Bannon's lawyers informed the White House from Capitol Hill that the questions would extend beyond the scope of what the White House understood the agreement to be. At that point, the White House told Bannon not to answer any further." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Sonan Sheth of Business Insider: "Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, but refused to answer questions about events that took place during the campaign and his conversations with ... Donald Trump since then. Lewandowski is the latest official to stonewall the committee as it probes Russia's election interference and whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow. Lewandowski was present during a number of critical events that investigators are keenly focused on.... Ranking member Adam Schiff said Lewandowski's apparent refusal to answer questions about events that took place during the Trump campaign, as well as his conversations with Trump since then, was 'completely unacceptable.' He added, 'Yesterday, [Lewandowski] said on Fox that he would answer every question that we had. Today, however, he refused.'... Lewandowski's reluctance, NBC News reported, was not based on the possibility that Trump may claim executive privilege to prevent him from disclosing details about key events. Rather, Lewandowski said he was not prepared to answer certain questions and suggested returning at a later date." The cited NBC News report follows. ...
... Mike Memoli of NBC News: "A top Trump administration official answered a full range of questions from House investigators Wednesday, just one day after former White House strategist Steve Bannon told them he was under instructions from the West Wing to remain silent, sparking new negotiations between Congress and the White House that could lead President Trump to formally invoke executive privilege for the first time in the Russia probe. Though lawmakers described White House deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn as fully cooperative with the House Intelligence Committee during more than four hours of questioning, the same could not be said of the day's second witness, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.... Lewandowski said he was simply not prepared to provide those answers Wednesday, offering to return at a later date." ...
...** Rachel Maddow posits some credible theories as to why Bannon clammed up during Congressional testimony. She links it to Mueller's investigation trying to preserve any evidence from falling into the hands of Trump Confederates like David Nunes & Trey Gowdy. You can speed the video up to around 16:30 to catch the gist of her argument. --safari
** Peter Stone & Greg Gordon of McClatchy News: "The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy. FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia's central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said.." ...
... Jonathan Chait has more on the NRA-Russia connection. Here's the kicker: "There is no more untouchable faction of the Republican Party than the NRA. Already, Trump's allies have coalesced behind him and used their investigative power to support his wild claims that the FBI is part of a sinister deep-state conspiracy against him. If the NRA is swept up in Robert Mueller's probe, the pressure on Republicans to fire or hamstring his investigation would ramp up to overwhelming levels."
** Summer Meza of Newsweek: "It's been one year since Jared Kushner ... assumed office, but he's yet to receive full security clearance for his role in the White House. The unprecedented delay in clearance represents a violation of security norms and suggests that Kushner continues to receive special treatment due to his relationship to President Donald Trump, according to legal experts familiar with the process." --safari
Julian Borger, et al. of the Guardian: "The US intends to maintain an open-ended military presence in Syria, not only to fight Isis and al-Qaida but also to provide a bulwark against Iranian influence, ensure the departure of the Assad regime and create conditions for the return of refugees, the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said on Wednesday." --safari ...
...Pentagon Puzzle Time. Elizabeth Preza of RawStory: "... Rex Tillerson on Wednesday provided stunning insight into how Donald Trump's executive branch functions, telling an audience at Stanford University he receives print-outs of the president's tweets and has to figure out how to 'use' them to craft the administration's foreign policy. Describing it as 'actually ... not a bad system,' Tillerson said he never gets a heads up about the latest topic on Trump's Twitter feed. 'There's not a whole lot I';m gonna do until it's out there,' the Secretary of State said." --safari: This is so embarrassing for everyone involved.
Propaganda Wars. Noor Al-Sibai of RawStory: "On Tuesday evening, reporter Yashar Ali pointed out that the Twitter accounts of former Fox News hosts Greta Van Susteren and Eric Bolling appear to have been hacked by pro-Turkish trolls. The connection, both Ali and The Hill pointed out, appears to be that both Van Susteren and Bolling are on the 45-person list of people President Donald Trump follows on Twitter. The hackers also released direct messages sent to Trump from Bolling's compromised account." --safari...
... Propaganda Wars. Sean Illing of Vox: "Last month, AP reported that Russian intelligence agencies were pursuing journalists around the world in the same way they typically target politicians and government employees from hostile states. Much of this activity, according to the report, was aimed at dissident journalists and bloggers who are perceived as threats to the Russian regime. But Aki Peritz, a former CIA analyst and current adjunct professor at American University, believes that certain foreign spy agencies are very likely targeting one specific private institution: Fox News.... I reached out to Peritz and asked him to lay out his case. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows." --safari
Choe Sang-Hun & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "North and South Korea reached an agreement Wednesday for their athletes to march together under one flag at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics next month, a powerful gesture of reconciliation that further complicates President Trump's strategy for dealing with the nuclear-armed regime of Kim Jong-un. The budding détente scrambles its strategy of pressuring the North, with sanctions and threats of military action, to give up its nuclear arsenal. This latest gesture of unity, the most dramatic in a decade, could add to fears in Washington that Pyongyang is making progress on a more far-reaching agenda.... The prospect of crowds from North and South Korea cheering together would be a striking contrast to the threats of war from Mr. Trump.... The Olympic agreement could bolster President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, who has been pushing for dialogue with the North.... 'I'd sit down, but I'm not sure that sitting down will solve the problem,' Mr. Trump said in an interview with Reuters.... In the interview, Mr. Trump was uncharacteristically critical of Russia, saying it had weakened the global sanctions against North Korea, even as China was doing more."
Purifying the Race. Yeganeh Torbati of Reuters, via RawStory: "Haitians will no longer be eligible for U.S. visas given to low-skilled workers, the Trump administration said on Wednesday, bringing an end to a small-scale effort to employ Haitians in the United States after a catastrophic 2010 earthquake. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the change less than a week after President Donald Trump reportedly ... referring to [Haiti] as [a] 'shithole' countr[y]. Trump has denied using that word.... Belize and Samoa were also removed from the lists, for risks stemming from human trafficking and not taking back nationals ordered removed from the United States, respectively. Just a few dozen Haitians entered the United States on the visas each year since they were given permission to do so in 2012 by the Obama administration, according to DHS data." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: One reason this is a little odd: "Mar-a-Lago... reportedly hires more of its seasonal foreign workers from Haiti than it does from nearly any other country."
Ben Protess of the New York Times: "As a photographer for the Department of Energy, Simon Edelman regularly attended meetings with Secretary Rick Perry and snapped pictures for official purposes. Now he is out of a job and seeking whistle-blower protections after leaking photographs of Mr. Perry meeting with a major energy industry donor to President Trump. Late last year, Mr. Edelman said, he shared with journalists photos he shot at the private meeting between Mr. Perry and the campaign contributor, Robert E. Murray, the head of one of the country's largest coal mining companies, Murray Energy. One photo showed the two men embracing; another captured the cover sheet of a confidential 'action plan' that Mr. Murray brought to the meeting last March calling for policy and regulatory changes friendly to the coal industry.... Based on the 'action plan' and conversations he overheard, Mr. Edelman said, Mr. Perry had tilted the administration's energy policy to favor Murray Energy and other coal companies.... Mr. Murray [also] has been a financial backer of Mr. Perry...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... For more on that nice Bob Murray, let's ask John Oliver (at about 4:40 mins. in & at about 12:30 in):
... AND, yeah, Murray did sue Oliver .
"Alternative Facts". Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "During a White House news briefing on Wednesday, Ed O'Callaghan, principal deputy assistant attorney general, struggled to defend a misleading Department of Justice report that claims three out of four individuals convicted in recent years of international terrorism or terrorism-related offenses were 'immigrants.'... On Wednesday, O'Callaghan was pressed about that issue -- and had no good answers." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: O'Callaghan needs to take lying lessons from Trump & Mrs. Huckleberry.
... Amanda Gomez of ThinkProgress: "Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) omitted key facts at a hearing Wednesday in his attempt to highlight Medicaid's role in fueling the opioid crisis. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he chairs, released a report the same day, drawing connections between the public insurance program and opioid epidemic." --safari
Congressional Race
Jonathan Martin & Julie Bosman of the New York Times: "Republicans are scrambling to save a heavily conservative House seat in western Pennsylvania, dispatching President Trump to the district on Thursday while preparing a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to stave off another embarrassing special election defeat in a district that was gerrymandered to stay Republican. When Representative Tim Murphy was pushed out of the House last year after the revelation that he encouraged a mistress to have an abortion, Republican leaders gave scant thought to his successor. The odd-shaped district in the southwestern corner of the state was drawn to skirt Democratic Pittsburgh and concentrate conservative-leaning, steel and coal country voters. Mr. Trump will appear at an industrial equipment sales and repair company to trumpet both Mr. Saccone and the recently passed tax overhaul. Vice President Mike Pence will follow on Feb. 2...."
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