The Commentariat -- January 1, 2018

Washington Post readers choose their 2017 quote of the year. They also name several other reader favorites. AND the winner is: "

You're saying it's a falsehood, and they're giving -- our press secretary, Sean Spicer, gave alternative facts to that. -- Kellyanne Conway to Chuck Todd, January 22, 2017 ...

Daniella Diaz of CNN: "Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein said Sunday that ... Donald Trump's lawyers are telling him what he wants to hear about the probe ending soon to prevent Trump from firing [Robert] Mueller. 'There are many times he has expressed, I'm told by people in the White House, the desire to fire Mueller, the desire to pardon people under investigation including his family,' Bernstein, a CNN contributor, told CNN's Dana Bash on 'State of the Union.' 'His lawyers are telling him what he wants to hear -- that's what I'm told -- by lawyers in the White House..., to keep him from acting precipitously and to go off and fire Mueller in a rage, or fire (Deputy Attorney General) Rod Rosenstein in a rage. They have an out-of-control client.'" ...

... Amy Remeikis of the Guardian: "The Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has not denied a report that information from senior diplomat Alexander Downer helped spark the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election." ...

     ... Here's some background on Downer. ...

... Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Rep. Devin Nunes, once sidelined by an ethics inquiry from leading the House Intelligence Committee's Russia probe, is reasserting the full authority of his position as chairman just as the GOP appears poised to challenge special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation.... Nunes has stepped up his attacks on Mueller's team and the law enforcement agencies around it, including convening a group of Intelligence Committee Republicans to draft a likely report on 'corruption' among the investigators working for the special counsel. Although Nunes has not officially wrested his panel's Russia probe back from the Republicans he deputized to run it, the chairman's reemergence as a combative Trump loyalist has raised alarm among Democrats that the future of the investigation may be clipped short or otherwise undermined. Even some of Nunes's GOP allies [like Trey Gowdy (S.C.)] have expressed concern about his tactics, prompting rare public warnings that he should temper his attacks on federal law enforcement.... Last month..., Nunes began threatening contempt citations for FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.... Nunes's moves coincide with what Democrats say is a coordinated GOP effort to shutter the House Intelligence Committee's Russia probe, publicly absolve President Trump of the most serious allegations against him, and refocus the House's resources against the law enforcement officials ... who continue to investigate Trump."

Rachel Tillman of ABC News: "The United States faces a greater threat of nuclear conflict on the Korean peninsula than at any previous time, said a former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. 'We're actually closer in my view, to a nuclear war with North Korea and in that region than we have ever been,' Ret. Navy Adm. Michael Mullen told ABC News 'This Week' co-anchor Martha Raddatz in an interview Sunday. 'I don't see the opportunities to solve this diplomatically at this particular point.'... 'I think President Trump has made China move more than they have in the past. Whether they continue to do that to help resolve this is the open question,' he said. 'A real measure of how this all comes out is whether China is going to commit to a peaceful resolution here. If they don't, then I worry a great deal that it's much more likely there will be conflict.'" ...

... Simon Denyer of the Washington Post: "North Korean leader Kim Jong Un boasted in an annual New Year's Day speech Monday that he had a nuclear button on his desk and that the entire United States was within range of his weapons -- but he also vowed not to attack unless threatened. Kim promised to focus this year on producing nuclear warheads and missiles for operational deployment." ...

... Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, moved Monday to ease his country's isolation by offering to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics in South Korea next month, even as he claimed to have accomplished the ability to launch a nuclear missile at the mainland United States. Mixing the nuclear threat with an overture for easing tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula, Mr. Kim proposed immediate dialogue with South Korea to discuss the North's participation in the Olympics. If such talks were held, they would mark the first time the two Koreas have had an official dialogue since the South's new president, Moon Jae-in, took office in May. Mr. Moon has doggedly championed dialogue with the North, even as President Trump has threatened military action to stop the North's nuclear weapons program."

Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "For the first time in more than 40 years, the largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the US isn't electricity production but transport -- cars, trucks, planes, trains and shipping. Emissions data has placed transport as the new king of climate-warming pollution at a time when the Trump administration is reviewing or tearing up regulations that would set tougher emissions standards for car and truck companies. Republicans in Congress are also pushing new fuel economy rules they say will lower costs for American drivers but could also weaken emissions standards.... Americans are buying larger cars and taking more flights -- domestic aviation emissions grew 10% between 2012 and 2016 -- and face little opposition in doing so."

Quinta Jurecic in a Washington Post op-ed: "Under E. Scott Lloyd, the antiabortion activist appointed by President Trump to lead the [Office of Refugee Resettlement], ORR has prohibited pregnant undocumented minors from attending counseling at anywhere other than 'life-affirming' crisis pregnancy centers. In fact, Lloyd requires federally funded shelters to request his personal permission before 'facilitating' any access to abortion. What's most striking about Lloyd's memo refusing [to allow 'Jane Poe' to have an abortion] ... is the utter lack of legal analysis. As a person within the United States, Poe had a constitutional right to an abortion. But Lloyd focused instead on his own religious convictions. 'To decline to assist in an abortion here is to decline to participate in violence against an innocent life,' he wrote. 'Moral and criminal responsibility for the pregnancy lies with [Poe's] attacker, and no one else.'... Lloyd's memo displays this same confusion between ORR's responsibilities as a government agency and Lloyd's imagined role as a private guardian."

AP: "Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith [D] is vowing to 'hit the ground running' as she joins the U.S. Senate this week while preparing to run in November. Gov. Mark Dayton [D] appointed Smith, his second-in-command, to replace Democratic Sen. Al Franken, who announced his resignation after a string of sexual misconduct allegations. The resignation takes effect Tuesday; Smith will be sworn in by former Vice President Walter Mondale on Wednesday.... Smith plans to run for the remaining two years of Franken's term in a special election in November, just 10 months away." Mrs. McC: You can't call her Al.

Ben Casselman of the New York Times: "Democrats in high-cost, high-tax states are plotting ways to do what their states' representatives in Congress could not: blunt the impact of the newly passed Republican tax overhaul. Governors and legislative leaders in New York, California and other states are considering legal challenges to elements of the law that they say unfairly single out parts of the country. They are looking at ways of raising revenue that aren't penalized by the new law. And they are considering changing their state tax codes to allow residents to take advantage of other federal tax breaks -- in effect, restoring deductions that the tax law scaled back. One proposal would replace state income taxes, which are no longer fully deductible under the new law, with payroll taxes on employers, which are deductible. Another idea would be to allow residents to replace their state income tax payments with tax-deductible charitable contributions to their state governments."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Responding to the retirement of a prominent appeals court judge accused of sexual harassment, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the federal court system must do more to protect law clerks and other employees from abusive conduct. 'Events in recent months have illuminated the depth of the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace,' the chief justice wrote in his year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary, released Sunday, 'and events in the past few weeks have made clear that the judicial branch is not immune.' That was an unmistakable reference to the sudden retirement of Judge Alex Kozinski two weeks ago after The Washington Post reported that some 15 women had accused him of sexual harassment.... Chief Justice Roberts said he had assembled a task force to examine whether the court system's procedures for addressing inappropriate conduct were adequate."

Bigot-in-Chief Loses Court Fight. Amanda Arnold of New York: "After Donald Trump attempted to bar transgender people from joining the U.S. military this July, various civil-rights groups and five transgender soldiers sued his administration, with four federal courts blocking the ban. Starting tomorrow, transgender people will be able to openly enroll, the Week reports. Two days ago, the Department of Justice announced that it would not appeal two rulings in Washington and Virginia that blocked Trump's ban. Pentagon spokesperson Heather Babb confirmed to Reuters in a statement that on January 1, transgender recruits will be accepted."

Steve Lohr of the New York Times: "For the first time, helped by recent advances in artificial intelligence, researchers [at Stanford University] are able to analyze large quantities of images, pulling out data that can be sorted and mined to predict things like income, political leanings and buying habits. In the Stanford study, computers collected details about cars in the millions of images it processed, including makes and models.... By pulling the vehicles' makes, models and years from the images, and then linking that information with other data sources, the project was able to predict factors like pollution and voting patterns at the neighborhood level.By pulling the vehicles' makes, models and years from the images, and then linking that information with other data sources, the project was able to predict factors like pollution and voting patterns at the neighborhood level.... This kind of research, if it expands, will raise issues of data access and privacy. The Stanford project only made predictions about neighborhoods, not about individuals."

Beyond the Beltway

Tom McGhee of the Denver Post: "The gunman who killed a Douglas County[, Colorado,] deputy and wounded four law enforcement officers Sunday ambushed them after they responded to a domestic disturbance call at a Highlands Ranch apartment complex, Sheriff Tony Spurlock said. 'He knew we were coming,' Spurlock said. He said the gunman used a rifle and fired at least 100 rounds. The gunman, identified as a 37-year-old former soldier and lawyer, was killed in a shootout with officers.... After the officers entered the suspect's apartment, he barricaded himself inside a bedroom and then unleashed a volley of gunfire. All the officers were wearing bulletproof vests but were struck in unprotected parts of their bodies.... Spurlock said the gunman had no apparent criminal history, but he was well known to law enforcement. Spurlock declined to provide further details. The sheriff's office identified the gunman as Matthew Riehl, an Iraq war veteran who has posted a number of anti-law-enforcement videos on YouTube."

Adam Elmahrek of the Los Angeles Times: "An Imperial County high school football player must be allowed to kneel during the singing of the national anthem and can't be ordered by his school to stand for the performances, a federal court has ruled. The decision temporarily strikes down rules set by the San Pasqual Valley Unified School District that prohibited 'kneeling, sitting or similar forms of political protest' at athletic events and required students and coaches to 'stand and remove hats/helmets ... during the playing or singing of the National Anthem,' according to the Dec. 21 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. The school district set the rules after students from a rival high school in neighboring Arizona yelled racial slurs at San Pasqual Valley High School students and threatened to force the football player at the center of the controversy to stand, the ruling said." The player who knelt was Native American. Students at the school "are primarily Native American and Latino." Students at the Arizona school are primarily white.

Brian Melley of the AP: "Californians may awake on New Year's Day to a stronger-than-normal whiff of marijuana as America's cannabis king lights up to celebrate the state's first legal retail pot sales. The historic day comes more than two decades after California paved the way for legal weed by passing the nation's first medical marijuana law, though other states were quicker to allow the drug's recreational use." Mrs. McC: The headline is (probably unintentionally) funny: "Anticipation high as California rolls out retail pot sales."

Daniel Politi of Slate: "An elementary school in Cache Valley, Utah fired an art teacher after claiming that students became uncomfortable by postcards that depicted classical paintings, a few of which contained nudity. One parent even called the police, accusing the teacher of showing the students pornography.... [Teacher] Mateo Rueda had fifth and sixth grade students ... go to the library and look through art books and boxes of postcards so they could select which paintings best exemplified the color relationships they had been studying. That's when Rueda realized that some of the postcards, which he claims had been in the library long before he started teaching there, included some nude paintings.... He took some of the nude pictures back and then went through the pack to remove paintings he thought were inappropriate. Still, he explained to the students that nudity in art is normal.... One anonymous school official told the local Herald Journal that the firing had more to do with the way the teacher talked about the nudity than the nudity itself." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Looks to me like a clearcut case of wrongful termination. If those prudish yokels didn't want the kiddies to see portraits of nude or semi-nude bodies, maybe they shouldn't have made them available in the school library. Did they fire the librarian, too?

Way Beyond

Nasser Karimi & Jon Gambrell of the AP: "At least 12 people have been killed in the ongoing protests in Iran, and armed protesters have tried to take over police stations and military bases, state TV reported Monday.... The state TV report said 10 were killed during clashes Sunday night, without elaborating. Two demonstrators were killed during a protest in western Iran late Saturday." ...

... Martin Fackler & Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: "After four days of rare protests that shook Iran, President Hassan Rouhani tried to calm the nation on Sunday, saying that people had the right to protest and acknowledging public concerns over the economy and corruption.... But he also exhorted Iranians not to resort to violence, after reports of protesters attacking banks and municipal buildings across the nation, including a local government building in Tehran."

The Commentariat -- December 31, 2017

Sydney, Australia, Fireworks 2018:

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Under Mr. Trump, [the presidency] has become a blunt instrument to advance personal, policy and political goals. He has revolutionized the way presidents deal with the world beyond 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, dispensing with the carefully modulated messaging of past chief executives in favor of no-holds-barred, crystal-breaking, us-against-them, damn-the-consequences blasts borne out of gut and grievance. He has kept a business on the side; attacked the F.B.I., C.I.A. and other institutions he oversees; threatened to use his power against rivals; and waged war against members of his own party and even his own cabinet. He fired the man investigating his campaign and has not ruled out firing the one who took over. He has appealed to base instincts on race, religion and gender as no president has in generations. And he has rattled the nuclear saber more bombastically than it has been since the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

Russia, Russia, Russia

** Happy New Year, Donaldo. You Are So Screwed. Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times: "During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia's top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton. About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.... Two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials.... The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired.... While some of Mr. Trump's advisers have derided him as an insignificant campaign volunteer or a 'coffee boy,' interviews and new documents show that he stayed influential throughout the campaign." If you like cloak & dagger, read on. ...

WOW, @foxandfrlends 'Dossier is bogus. Clinton Campaign, DNC funded Dossier. FBI CANNOT (after all of this time) VERIFY CLAIMS IN DOSSIER OF RUSSIA/TRUMP COLLUSION. FBI TAINTED.' And they used this Crooked Hillary pile of garbage as the basis for going after the Trump Campaign! -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2017

Actually, no. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ...

... Kevin Drum: The tweet above "is Exhibit A in the conservative agit-prop campaign to discredit the Trump-Russia investigation: It was all kicked by the Steele dossier, which was just a Hillary-funded hit job that the Trump-haters in the FBI used as an excuse to go after him.... [The FBI was] shocked -- as anyone would be -- that apparently the Trump campaign had advance knowledge of Russian dirty tricks aimed at the Clinton campaign." ...

... Benjamin Hart of New York: "... the Times article makes it clear that it was Papadopoulos, not Steele, who drove the investigation, at least in the beginning. This blows up an important line of attack for Republicans looking to tar Mueller -- though undoubtedly they'll find other ways to do it." ...

Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. -- Donald Trump, July 27, 2016

Oh, they were listening. And Trump knew it. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ...

... digby: "The rest of the details in the [Times] piece are all fascinating but the one that stands out is the fact that Papadopoulos spilled the information about the Clinton emails to an Australian agent in a bar in May of 2016, long before it was public, but we are supposed to believe he never mentioned it to the Trump campaign. Does that sound right to you? Yeah, I didn't think so. They knew. They said nothing to any authorities. They went on to meet with Russians about dirt on Clinton in June and Donald Trump Jr even said he 'loved it' and would like them to release it later in the summer. Trump even publicly encouraged them to do more. Trump is right when he says this isn't collusion. It's conspiracy and that, my friends is a crime.... Devin Nunes and his crew are covering up something very, very big." ...

     ... digby also points out that Luke Harding of the Guardian reported in April 2017 that British intelligence learned "in late 2015 of suspicious 'interactions' between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents.... This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added." ...

... Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A growing campaign by President Trump's most ardent supporters to discredit the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and the law enforcement agencies assisting his investigation is opening new fissures in the Republican Party, with some lawmakers questioning the damage being done to federal law enforcement and to a political party that has long championed law and order. A small but vocal group of conservative lawmakers, much of the conservative media and, at times, the president himself have launched a series of attacks to paint not only Mr. Mueller but institutions once considered sacrosanct to Republicans like the F.B.I. and Justice Department as dangerously biased against Mr. Trump.... Now some Republican lawmakers are speaking out, worried that Trump loyalists, hoping for short-term gain, could wind up staining the party, dampening morale at the F.B.I. and Justice Department, and potentially recasting Democrats as the true friends of law enforcement for years to come. Straddling both camps is Mr. Trump, who in an interview on Thursday with The New York Times lavished praise on Republican congressmen who have defended him from a 'witch hunt' and expressed confidence that Mr. Mueller would 'treat me fairly.'"

Cashing In Again. Michelle Lee, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump is set to ring in the new year the same way he has for about two decades -- at the lavish party he hosts at his private club [in Palm Beach, Fla]. But this weekend's gala at Mar-a-Lago, his first since becoming president, will be a little different: The security will be tighter. The crowds will probably be bigger. And the tickets will run $750 a guest, a hike from last year...."

Justin Elliott of ProPublica: "The Justice Department is pushing for a question on citizenship to be added to the 2020 census, a move that observers say could depress participation by immigrants who fear that the government could use the information against them. That, in turn, could have potentially large ripple effects for everything the once-a-decade census determines -- from how congressional seats are distributed around the country to where hundreds of billions of federal dollars are spent. The DOJ made the request in a previously unreported letter, dated Dec. 12..., from DOJ official Arthur Gary to the top official at the Census Bureau, which is part of the Commerce Department. The letter argues that the DOJ needs better citizenship data to better enforce the Voting Rights Act 'and its important protections against racial discrimination in voting.'... People are not going to come out to be counted because they're going to be fearful the information would be used for negative purposes,' said Steve Jost, a former top bureau official during the 2010 census. 'This line about enforcing voting rights is a new and scary twist.' He noted that since the first census in 1790, the goal has been to count everyone in the country, not just citizens."

Josh Marshall (Dec. 28): "There is almost no limit to the bad policy included in the new GOP tax law.... I continue to believe that the (near total) end of deductions for SALT [state & local] taxes are likely to have the greatest political impact. They are also stimulating a new debate about the distribution of resources within the US federal system.... From a macro perspective, the SALT change means that the higher tax states (mainly but not exclusively blue states) will be sending a lot more money to the federal government. This is on top of the fact that blue/high tax states already send much more money in taxes to the federal government than they receive back in services, grants, general spending, etc. There are significant exceptions. But by and large federal taxing and spending policy draws money from the blue states and reallocates it into the red states.... This is all by design. This policy is intended to punish states that tend to vote Democratic." ...

... Rubio Opposes Bill He Voted for. Jacob Pramuk of CNBC (Dec. 29): "Sen. Marco Rubio says the GOP 'probably went too far' in slashing the tax burden on corporations. The Florida Republican told the News-Press of Fort Myers that corporations will largely use their major tax cut to buy back shares or increase dividends to shareholders -- which 'isn't going to create dramatic economic growth.'... 'By and large, you're going to see a lot of these multinationals buy back shares to drive up the price. Some of them will be forced, because they're sitting on historic levels of cash, to pay out dividends to shareholders.'" ...

... Josh Marshall: "... the most notable example [of Republicans opposing their own tax law] to me is not Marco Rubio and not specifically about the giveaways to the very wealthy but rather President Trump and his reference to the end of most deductions for SALT taxes.... What's he talking about [in his New York Times interview] with the SALT issue? As usual, in the same passage Trump can't seem to decide whether the change is awesome (Reagan tried and failed; I finally accomplished it.) or whether it's bad, too 'severe', etc. The upshot is that Trump seems to recognize that it's a problem and, because of that, tries to argue that it is Democrats' fault.... What stands out to me is that I think he recognizes that the SALT change is a political negative." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course Trump opposes the $10K limit on the SALT deduction. Trump & the kids own personal property in New York on which the pay property taxes. I don't know where they claim residency now, but it very well may be New York City, a very high-tax city in a very high-tax state. No matter how much tax avoidance they're able to accomplish through pass-throughs & corporations, etc., they still have to pay personal SALT taxes on some income, & the amount each pays certainly far exceeds $10K. I'd guess Trump -- who says he knows more about his draconian tax law than anyone -- missed that little provision. Probably Fox "News" didn't cover it until people started rushing to their local assessors' offices to prepay their taxes. But that's the Democrats' fault. It would be in Trump's personal, as well as political, interest to rescind this part of the tax heist. I'll be surprised if he doesn't propose it, though it's not a safe bet he could get it through Congress, even though Congressional Republicans love him. ...

... Jackie Wattles, et al., of CNN: "In a race against looming changes to the tax code, Goldman Sachs handed out millions of dollars worth of stock awards to hundreds employees. The move will save the firm an estimated $140 million on its tax bill next year, a source familiar with the matter told CNNMoney." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'll bet many of those overcompensated yahoos -- the majority of whom probably live in high-tax states -- are happy to be able to apply SALT deductions to their 2017 super-booty. And they must be so grateful to former boss Gary Cohn for pushing hard for a tax heist that is going to deprive them of the deduction in future years, even as he & his craven cronies have lowered their tax rate.

Severe Gerrymandering A-OK in Pa. Trip Gabriel & Alexander Burns of the New York Times (Dec. 29): "A Pennsylvania judge said Friday the state's Congressional districts were drawn to give Republicans an advantage, but they did not violate the state Constitution, ruling in a high-profile gerrymandering case with the potential to have major consequences on the 2018 midterm elections. Judge P. Kevin Brobson of Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg noted that Republicans hold 13 out of 18 Congressional seats in Pennsylvania, a perennial swing state that has one of the most extensively gerrymandered maps in the country. Nonetheless, the judge said that Democrats who brought suit had failed to articulate a legal 'standard' for creating nonpartisan maps. The case now goes to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which has agreed to fast-track it."

Glenn Greenwald: "Facebook has been on a censorship rampage against Palestinian activists who protest the decades-long, illegal Israeli occupation, all directed and determined by Israeli officials.... As the New York Times put it in December of last year, 'Israeli security agencies monitor Facebook and send the company posts they consider incitement. Facebook has responded by removing most of them.' What makes this censorship particularly consequential is that '96 percent of Palestinians said their primary use of Facebook was for following news.' That means that Israeli officials have virtually unfettered control over a key communications forum of Palestinians.... Facebook now seems to be explicitly admitting that it also intends to follow the censorship orders of the U.S. government.... What this means is ... that the U.S. government -- meaning, at the moment, the Trump administration -- has the unilateral and unchecked power to force the removal of anyone it wants from Facebook and Instagram by simply including them on a sanctions list." ...

     ... True to form, Greenwald is overwrought here, but I think his argument is an important one.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Thomas Erkbrink of the New York Times: "Iran's leaders were confronted by unauthorized protests in major cities for the third straight day on Saturday, with crowds aiming their anger at the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and some demanding that he step down. The demonstrators first took to the streets of Mashhad, one of the holiest places in Shiite Islam, on Thursday. By Saturday, dozens of people had been arrested and the police had fired tear gas to disperse crowds. On Saturday night, the protests turned violent, with at least two demonstrators shot in the western town of Dorud, according to a series of videos posted on social media. At least one of the videos was verified by BBC Persian. It could not be determined who was responsible for the gunfire. The protests, which erupted over declining economic conditions, corruption and a lack of personal freedoms, presented a serious challenge to the government of President Hassan Rouhani, who won re-election on promises to revitalize the economy."

The Commentariat -- December 30, 2017

Late Morning Update:

Michael Grunwald of Politico Magazine: "The most consequential aspect of President Trump -- like the most consequential aspect of Candidate Trump -- has been his relentless shattering of norms: norms of honesty, decency, diversity, strategy, diplomacy and democracy, norms of what presidents are supposed to say and do.... If the big story of the Trump era is Trump and his unconventional approach to the presidency, two related substories will determine how the big story ends. The first is the intense personal and institutional pushback to Trump.... The second substory is the sometimes grudging but consistent support -- the critics call it complicity -- that Trump has enjoyed from the Republicans who control Congress." Mrs. McC: A pretty good review of Trumperconsequences."

Jason Auslander of the Aspen (Colorado) Times: "For Vice President Mike Pence, the message was unmistakable and the banner that carried it unmissable. 'Make America Gay Again,' the rainbow banner reads. Neighbors of the home near Aspen where Pence and his wife, Karen Sue, are staying posted the message Wednesday or Thursday on a stone pillar that sits at the end of driveways to both homes, Pitkin County Sheriff's Deputy Michael Buglione said Friday. 'You couldn't miss it,' he said of the sign off Owl Creek Road, adding that the man and woman who live in the home brought chili and corn muffins to deputies and Secret Service agents posted at the foot of the driveway. The Secret Service agents were not at all perturbed about the banner, Buglione said.... Donald Trump has joked that Pence 'wants to hang' all gay people, according to an October article in the New Yorker."

*****

Worst People in the World. Eric Levitz: "Donald Trump just made Democrats an offer they can't accept. In a Friday-morning tweet, the president issued an ultimatum: Build me a border wall -- and make it harder for legal immigrants to bring their foreign family members into the United States (a.k.a. 'chain migration') -- or the Dreamers get it.... 'The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc. We must protect our Country at all cost!'... On Thursday, Breitbart reported that the GOP's congressional leadership presented a nearly identical deal to House conservatives[.]... Dreamers have allies in corporate America, churches, unions, colleges, and countless local and state governments. The backlash to their dispossession will be huge and unrelenting. Republicans are already poised for a historic rebuke next November. Letting DACA expire without a replacement could turn a wave election into a tsunami." ...

... Pepe Le Trump. Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "Trump's demands closely track those of white nationalist groups who oppose many forms of lawful immigration and wish to restrict methods often used by non-white immigrants.... 'Chain migration,' which Trump refers to in his tweet, is a derogatory term used to describe the way that family members of current U.S. residents are permitted to immigrate into the United States.... Restricting so-called 'chain migration' would disproportionately impact Latinos and people of Asian origin, who are likely to be recent immigrants and therefore more likely to have close relatives outside the United States. Meanwhile, the 'ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration' that Trump references in his tweet most likely refers to the Diversity Visa Immigrant Program, which allows up to 50,000 people a year to immigrate to the United States from nations that are currently underrepresented in the U.S. population -- a system that disproportionately benefits African immigrants."

** Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "President Trump gave an impromptu half-hour interview with the New York Times on Dec. 28. We combed through the transcript and here's a quick roundup of the false, misleading or dubious claims that he made, at a rate of one every 75 seconds. (Some of the interview was off the record, so it's possible the rate of false claims per minute is higher.)" In the 30-minute interview, Kessler counted 24 false or misleading statements Trump made. Kessler lists a number of Trump's lies & contrasts them with the facts. ...

... Caretakers Unaware Their Patient Was Acting out Again. Ashley Parker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "One White House official, when asked about the president's impromptu interview, was perplexed, wondering aloud, 'What interview? Today?' Another frustrated aide called it 'embarrassing.' Mar-a-Lago -- Trump's manicured, gilded oceanfront retreat here -- is the president’s 'Winter White House,' the villa to which he escapes for rounds of golf and family time. But, to the chagrin of many aides, Mar-a-Lago is also the place where Trump is often his most unrestrained and unfettered, making it harder for his West Wing staff to control his daily media diet and personal contacts as they now try to do in Washington.... Trump was enthusiastic about the [New York Times] interview and liked that the New York Times was at his golf course, people briefed on the interview said. The president, they added, enjoyed the coverage afterward and noted that it dominated TV most of Friday." ...

... Michael Schmidt of the New York Times describes his interview tactics & how he maneuvered to get the interview with Trump. ...

... John Harwood of CNBC: "Over and over during the 30-minute session, Trump cast his performance in terms so grandiose and extreme as to be self-evidently false. Taken together, his comments signaled an inability to grasp conditions in the country, the limitations of his own capacities and the nature of the office he holds." ...

... Charles Pierce: "In my view, the interview is a clinical study of a man in severe cognitive decline, if not the early stages of outright dementia.... In this interview, the president* is only intermittently coherent. He talks in semi-sentences and is always groping for something that sounds familiar, even if it makes no sense whatsoever and even if it blatantly contradicts something he said two minutes earlier. To my ears, anyway, this is more than the president*'s well-known allergy to the truth. This is a classic coping mechanism employed when language skills are coming apart.... The electric Twitter machine -- and most of the rest of the Intertoobz -- has been alive with criticism of [Michael] Schmidt for having not pushed back sufficiently against some of the more obvious barefaced non-facts presented by the president* in their chat.... I don't particularly care whether Michael Schmidt was tough enough, or asked enough follow-up questions.... We've got bigger problems." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I completely agree with Pierce on this, & for some of the same reasons -- like Pierce, I've seen similar decline in elderly friends & family. I've mentioned my view of Trump's waning mental acuity several times in the past. One sees it demonstrated often. (Yesterday's report by Margaret Hartmann on Trump's inability to grasp Angela Merkel's repeated explanations that Germany, as an E.U. member, cannot negotiate trade deals with non-member countries.) Surely Trump's staff is aware of his dementia, and they do a great disservice to the country by covering it up, just as Ronald Reagan's staff did, which Pierce notes. ...

... Kevin Drum: "This simply is not a man in full control of his mental faculties. He's always been narcissistic and blowhardish, but over the course of the interview he's completely unable to stay focused on a topic for even a few seconds.... I don't know what's going on with the guy, but even by Donald Trump standards he's not all there. This is not someone who should be occupying the Oval Office." ...

... Ezra Klein: "The president of the United States is not well. That is an uncomfortable thing to say, but it is an even worse thing to ignore.... In psychology, there's an idea known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. It refers to research by David Dunning and Justin Kruger that found the least competent people often believe they are the most competent because they 'lack the very expertise needed to recognize how badly they're doing.'... His comments are, by turns, incoherent, incorrect, conspiratorial, delusional, self-aggrandizing, and underinformed.... Whatever the cause, it is plainly obvious from Trump's words that this is not a man fit to be president, that he is not well or capable in some fundamental way." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Bear in mind that Trump thought the interview went great & was thrilled in dominated Friday's news cycle.

Ian Millhiser: "Shortly before moving into the White House, Donald Trump promised to turn over 'complete and total control' of his business to his adult sons Don Jr. and Eric. 'They are not going to discuss it with me,' the then-president-elect assured the nation he was about to govern -- though, a couple months later, Eric Trump admitted that he would still provide his father with 'profitability reports and stuff like that' at least every quarter. Now, a new report by The Daily Beast's Betsy Woodruff suggests that President Trump may have far more direct involvement with his businesses than he promised nearly a year ago. Woodruff quotes an email from Jeng Chi Hung, director of revenue management for the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC. 'DJT is supposed to be out of the business and passed on to his sons, but he's definitely still involved,' Hung wrote in that email. 'I had a brief meeting with him a few weeks ago, and he was asking about banquet revenues and demographics. And, he asked if his presidency hurt the businesses.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: AND as we pointed out here earlier in the week, Trump has spent one-third of his first year in office advertising some of his East Coast resorts."

Jon Meacham in a New York Times op-ed, compares Trump to Joe McCarthy & contrasts him with earlier presidents, who -- unlike Trump & McCarthy -- knew the limitations of media exposure. Mrs. McC: In general, I think Meacham is a bloviating, self-satisfied jerk, but in this essay, he might be right.

Adam Goldman, et al., of the New York Times: "... the Trump administration is strongly considering whether to withhold $255 million in aid that it had delayed sending to Islamabad, according to American officials, as a show of dissatisfaction with Pakistan's broader intransigence toward confronting the terrorist networks that operate there.... American officials said a final decision could be made in the coming weeks.American officials said a final decision could be made in the coming weeks."

Frances Robles & Jess Bidgood of the New York Times: "For the first time in the 100 days since Hurricane Maria slammed Puerto Rico, the government finally knows how many people still don't have power: about half. The figure released Friday by the island's governor and power utility company indicates that more than 1.5 million people on the island are still in the dark. Experts say some parts of the island are not expected to get power back until next spring." ...

... Joshua Hoyos of ABC News: "On the 100-day mark since Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, San Juan's Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz called federal response to the storm inadequate while slamming ... Donald Trump as the 'disaster-in-chief.' In an interview with ABC News from San Juan this week, Cruz said of the president, 'He was disrespectful to the Puerto Rican people, he was disrespectful to the American people who were leaving their homes to come help us here.... President Trump does not embody the values of the good-hearted American people that have [made] sure that we are not forgotten,' Cruz added."

Kathy Orton & Aaron Gregg of the Washington Post: "The steady increase in housing prices in many of the nation's priciest markets ... is expected to slow in coming years, analysts say, as the Republican tax law begins to reshape a major part of the U.S. economy. For generations, the tax code has subsidized homeownership, particularly for people in the upper middle class and beyond. The Republican tax legislation, however, pushed in the opposite direction, scaling back subsidies once thought untouchable. To pay for other tax cuts benefiting individuals and corporations, the GOP tax plan trims the mortgage interest deduction and property tax deduction, which combined allow some homeowners to take tens of thousands of dollars off their taxable income."

Attack of the Ghouls. Reid Wilson of the Hill: "Ambitious Republicans anxious for a shot at a U.S. Senate seat have begun quietly jockeying to be appointed as the successor to Sen. John McCain (R), even as he battles an aggressive form of brain cancer. The lobbying campaigns, described to The Hill by half a dozen GOP strategists and aides, have angered many Republicans, who see any public chatter as disrespectful to a senator who has helped shape modern Arizona. Chief among those upset is the man who would make an appointment, Gov. Doug Ducey (R), who issued a brushback pitch during a radio appearance last week."

Eric Armstrong of the New Republic: "Minnesotans don't want Al Franken to resign. Amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, the state's junior senator announced in early December that he would step down 'in the coming weeks.' But a Public Policy Polling survey released on Thursday reveals that his constituents don't want him to go: 50 percent say he shouldn't resign, compared to 42 percent who say he should. He remains popular not only with Democrats, but independents, who are split 52-41 percent in favor of not resigning. Franken also has the support of 57 percent of women."

Blue Collar World -- Where Sexual Harassment Can Kill. Susan Chira of the New York Times: "Sexual harassment has been endemic in blue-collar workplaces from the moment that women entered them and continues to this day, according to interviews with more than a dozen employment lawyers, academics and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission workers, as well as dozens of women who described such incidents. More than 80 women in these fields responded to a call for accounts of sexual harassment. They, along with several others interviewed, cited sustained, even dangerous, abuse in workplaces from factories to shipyards, mines to construction sites.... Physical danger is one issue that sets sexual harassment in blue-collar environments apart; unions, torn between representing the accuser and the accused, are another. Women in these jobs also often endure deliberate humiliations like not having bathrooms provided for them on construction sites. They can be blacklisted in construction or similar fields where tight networks and referrals are crucial to win the next job."

Beyond the Beltway

Eli Rosenberg & Herman Wong of the Washington Post: "A police officer in Wichita fatally shot a man while responding to an emergency call that authorities now say was a tragic and senseless prank. The 28-year-old man, whom officials did not immediately identify, was killed around 6:20 p.m. Thursday after police responded to a report that there had been a shooting and hostages taken at the house." A police spokesman called "it a case of 'swatting.' Swatting, which has a long history in the online gaming world, refers to the practice of making an emergency call about a fake situation often involving a killing or hostages, in the hopes of sending police to the address of an adversary or random person." ...

... Nichole Manna of the Wichita Eagle: "Online gamers have said in multiple Twitter posts that the shooting was the result of a 'swatting' call involving two gamers. [The victim] Andrew Finch was not involved in the online game, according to his mother and people in the gaming community." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: One would assume that even the mildest form of prank call to 911-- "Prince Albert in a can" -- is illegal in every state. ...

     ... UPDATE: Mark Osbourne of ABC News: "A 25-year-old man has been arrested over an alleged prank call that led to police killing a man in Kansas on Thursday, Los Angeles police said. Tyler Barriss from South Los Angeles was arrested Friday, according to ABC station KABC in Los Angeles."

Way Beyond

Guy Faulconbridge, et al., of Reuters: "Russian tankers have supplied fuel to North Korea on at least three occasions in recent months by transferring cargoes at sea, according to two senior Western European security sources, providing an economic lifeline to the secretive Communist state. The sales of oil or oil products from Russia, the world's second biggest oil exporter and a veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council, breach U.N. sanctions, the security sources said. The transfers in October and November indicate that smuggling from Russia to North Korea has evolved to loading cargoes at sea since Reuters reported in September that North Korean ships were sailing directly from Russia to their homeland."

Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times: "Protests over the Iranian government's handling of the economy spread to several cities on Friday, including Tehran.... President Hassan Rouhani began his second term in August after winning re-election on promises to revitalize an economy hurt by sanctions. Although foreign investment is rising, the country continues to survive mainly on oil sales. Youth unemployment stands at more than 40 percent, sluggish state-owned enterprises control significant sectors of the economy, and American sanctions prevent most international banks from providing financing or credit to Iran. Many of the international sanctions against Iran were lifted under the 2015 accord on Iran's nuclear program. But unilateral American sanctions on doing financial transactions with Iran remain in place, and the cumulative effect of sanctions has been severe. Mr. Rouhani, who heralded the agreement as a fresh start, has faced criticism for not doing enough to jump-start the economy."