The Commentariat -- December 16, 2017

Late Morning Update:

Marvin S. has released the abstract of his research proposal to the CDC:

Considering that transgender people are vulnerable to many aspects of life, we believe they have an entitlement for science-based research. We are using tissue from a fetus to provide evidence-based results that will help to determine the scientific basis for this type of life. After all, transgender is just an example of human diversity.

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: You'll have to read today's "Word Nazis" story, linked below, to assess Marvin's chances of getting a grant.

*****

Jim Tankersley & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Republican lawmakers appeared to secure enough votes on Friday to pass the most sweeping tax overhaul in decades, putting them on the cusp of their first significant legislative victory as leaders geared up to pass a $1.5 trillion tax cut along party lines and send it to President Trump by Christmas. A day after the bill’s prospects wavered somewhat, Republican leaders notched two victories on Friday, when Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said he would vote yes after gaining a more generous child tax credit in the final bill and Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, who voted against the initial Senate bill over deficit concerns, said he would support the legislation. The bill also won praise from Senator Susan Collins of Maine, leaving it likely to pass with all 52 Senate Republicans in support." ...

There are no Republican heroes. They're all craven phonies, but Today's Biggest Phony is Corker. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie   

If it looks to me like we're adding one penny to the deficit, I am not going to be for it. -- Bob Corker, October 1, 2017

Bob Corker has made a career out of protesting very loudly, and then falling in line with his party's leadership when it counts. -- Brian Fallon, former spokesman for Chuck Schumer, ca. November 19, 2017

The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation analysis showed the Senate plan would add $1 trillion to the federal budget deficit. -- New York Times, December 15

After many conversations over the past several days with individuals from both sides of the aisle across Tennessee and around the country -- including business owners, farmers, chambers of commerce and economic development leaders -- I have decided to support the tax reform package we will vote on next week. -- Bob Corker, December 15, 2017

... Heather Long of the Washington Post: "Last-minute changes to the GOP's big plan give a larger tax break to the wealthy and preserves certain tax savings for the middle class, including the student-loan interest deduction, the deduction for excessive medical expenses and the tax break for graduate students. A change made Friday morning to win over [Marco] Rubio would expand the benefits of a child tax credit to give more money to working-class families. Here's a rundown of what's in the final bill. (If you want to read all 505 pages, click here.)" ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Though the final bill has not been scored (since Republicans released it only as a late Friday afternoon dump), it appears that the (rather conservative) Joint Tax Committee analysis of how much the Senate bill would add to the deficit will increase by a significant amount. So thanks again, Bob. You're a real Corker. ...

... GOP Tax Bill Makes Puerto Rico a Foreign Country. Rebecca Spalding of Bloomberg: "The final version of the Republican tax plan would end some of the tax advantages companies with operations in Puerto Rico have long enjoyed, potentially delivering an economic blow to the territory still reeling from Hurricane Maria and a record setting bankruptcy, according to an expert who reviewed the plan Friday. Gabriel Hernandez, the head of the tax division at BDO Puerto Rico, said that under the new rules subsidiaries of U.S. companies based on the island would be treated as foreign, subject to a tax from income derived from intangible assets held offshore. Although the final plan did not include the House's proposed 20 percent excise tax, as many local officials feared, it still likely signaled sweeping changes for the commonwealth's economy, he said." ...

Mike Lucovich, AJC.     ... Mrs. McC: In the Spirit of the Season, the Party of Trump is giving tax breaks to the super-wealthy at the expense of people who would be lucky to find a stable to house themselves. Donnie, Mitch & Paulie the Three Kings of Orient Aren't.

We three kinds of 'Merica are

Bearing gifts for our donor stars,

Corporate tax cuts, pass-throughs & more,

Loaded in our clown car.

Eric Boehlert of Shareblue: "In a craven display of collective indifference [to victims of the Sandy Hook gun mass murder], [Donald] Trump hosted Wayne LaPierre, the controversial head of the NRA, at the White House on Thursday night, as families and friends of the elementary school gun massacre were remembering the victims of the horrific killing spree." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm familiar with Hanlon's razor. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Still, I'm going with malice here.

Padraig Collins of the Guardian: "The senior Democrat in a congressional Trump-Russia investigation has said he fears Republicans are manoeuvring to kill off inquiries into Moscow's interference in the 2016 US presidential election. 'I'm increasingly worried Republicans will shut down the House intelligence committee investigation at the end of the month,' said Adam Schiff, who is the leading Democrat on the House intelligence committee. Schiff suggested Republicans also had their sights on the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller. The president's personal lawyers are reportedly set to meet Mueller and his team within days to ask about the next steps in his investigation. 'Beyond our investigation, here's what has me really concerned: the attacks on [Robert] Mueller, the DoJ [the Department of Justice] and FBI this week make it clear they plan to go after Mueller's investigation,' Schiff said." ...

... Pamela Brown, et al., of CNN: The Trump legal team's "goal is to help Trump begin to emerge from the cloud of the ongoing investigation, several of the sources explained. The sources acknowledge that Mueller is under no obligation to provide any information and concede they may walk away with no greater clarity.... The Trump team's hopes for an investigation nearing its end contrast with a widely held view by other lawyers representing clients who have been interviewed."

Adam Raymond of New York: "A judge on Friday said former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort will soon be released from house arrest in Virginia and allowed to relocate to his home in Florida. But Manafort, who was indicted in October on several charges including 'conspiracy against the United States,' will not be allowed to leave the Sunshine State without permission and be required to abide by a 11 p.m. curfew." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: There are hundreds of places in Broward & Palm Beach Counties (the area to which the court restricted Manafort) where Manafort could hop a yacht & escape the country. The land is crisscrossed with canals that lead to the Atlantic (and to the Gulf, for that matter).

AND. Mrs. McCrabbie: Looks as if Carter Page would rather have Dianne Feinstein grab his ass or give him a big sloppy kiss than keep up with her mean investigating harassment stuff.

Word Nazis. Lena Sun & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases ... in any official documents being prepared for next year's budget. Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are 'vulnerable,' 'entitlement,' 'diversity,' 'transgender,' 'fetus,' 'evidence-based' and 'science-based.'"

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is an extraordinary effort to both politicize the CDC & retard its mission. Language control is a tool totalitarian governments use to repress & redirect society. Trump can't order you not to use the word "diversity," but he can ban federal agencies from using it; as "diversity" becomes a dirty word, the goal is to remove the ideal of diversity from public discourse. This of course was exactly how the government's introduction of Newspeak (as opposed to English, a/k/a Oldspeak) worked in 1984. As Gloria wrote in yesterday's thread, "This is really serious, and unless we want to live in 1984, the fictional one that the Regressives live in, we had better fight this." Meanwhile, how the fuck is the CDC to control disease if it can't target "vulnerable" populations or use "science-based" methods? Are the scientists (already a dirty word in Right Wing World) supposed to do this in secret or just not do it? Will CDC staff be allowed to work on the opioid crisis because Trump voters are more vulnerable than Democratic voters to opioid addiction, but not on antidotes for sickle-cell diseases because more Democrats suffer from these diseases than do Republican voters? WTF is the CDC's Division of Reproductive Health supposed to do if it can't concern itself with the health of the fetus? ...

... Thought Nazis. Eric Lipton & Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "One of the top executives of a consulting firm that the Environmental Protection Agency has recently hired to help it with media affairs has spent the past year investigating agency employees who have been critical of the Trump administration, federal records show.... A vice president for the firm [Definers Public Affairs], Allan Blutstein, federal records show, has submitted at least 40 Freedom of Information Act requests to the E.P.A. since President Trump was sworn in. Many of those requests target employees known to be questioning management at the E.P.A. since Scott Pruitt, the agency's administrator, was confirmed. Mr. Blutstein, in an interview, said he was taking aim at 'resistance' figures in the federal government.... The founders of Definers, Joe Pounder and Matt Rhoades, are longtime Republican political operatives.... Mr. Blutstein..., [who works for a Pounder & Rhoades GOP-oriented PAC] said that he filed the [FOIA] requests on his own, in an effort to try to undermine people who have been critical of policy changes taking place at the agency.... Legal experts also raised questions on Friday about the nature of the agency's contract with Definers. Charles Tiefer, a professor of contract law at the University of Baltimore, said he could see no legal justification for finding that only one company had the qualifications to gather news articles." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm quite good at gathering news articles. I'm surprised Pruitt didn't offer me the no-bid contract. BTW, the Environmental Pollution Agency is paying Definers only $120K per year whereas it previously contracted with another firm in an open-bid process for $207K/year. You might conclude, "Wow, Scott got us taxpayers a good deal!" But whaddaya bet Definers only clips positive reports about the EPA whereas the previous firm provided a range of clippings? In other words, Definers has to do little more than have a clerk check in with Breitbart & Coal Industry Weekly.

Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "The National Labor Relations Board on Thursday overturned a key Obama-era precedent that had given workers significant leverage in challenging companies like fast-food and hotel chains over labor practices. The ruling changes the standard for holding a company responsible for labor law violations that occur at another company, like a contractor or franchisee, with which it has a relationship. The doctrine also governs whether such a corporation would have to bargain with workers at a franchise if they unionized, or whether only the owners of the franchise would have to do so." ...

     ... Workers' Party. Eric Levitz of New York: "'Five, ten years from now — different party,' Donald Trump told Bloomberg Businessweek in 2016, explaining how he would change the GOP. 'You're going to have a worker's party.' One year from then, the Republicans remain a party for bosses."

The Best People, Ctd. John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump's aggressive push to fill scores of federal court vacancies with conservative judges hit severe turbulence this week, as he was forced to withdraw two nominees and an embarrassing video went viral showing a third struggling to answer rudimentary questions about the law. The White House said Friday that it is standing by the nomination of Matthew Petersen, a nominee for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, despite a clip from his confirmation hearing posted on Twitter in which Petersen was unable to answer questions about legal and courtroom terms posed by a Republican senator. The episode offered more ammunition to Democrats, who have accused Trump of tapping inexperienced nominees in a rush to reshape the federal judiciary. Even some Republicans have suggested they've felt pressured by the White House to move forward with his picks." (See also Akhilleus' commentary on this in yesterday's thread.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I really don't know what everybody's complaining about. Neither Petersen nor any of the other nominees in this mass consent hearing has ever blogged in support of the KKK (or so they claim). Um, which is unlike Trump's nominee (& ghostbuster) Brett Talley, who "was reported to have posted a defense of 'the first KKK' in an online comment in 2011.... Talley also did not tell the committee that he is married to the chief of staff for White House counsel Donald McGahn." Talley was one of two nominees Grassley asked Trump to "reconsider." The ABA rated him "not qualified."

Katie Rogers & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Omarosa Manigault Newman ... is urging viewers to stay tuned to find out why she really left [the White House].... On Thursday, Ms. Newman pushed back against reports that she had caused a scene over credentials at a White House Christmas party, and that she had tried to gain access to the president's residence.... 'As the only African-American woman in this White House,' Ms. Newman said in the 'Good Morning America' interview, 'I have seen things that have made me uncomfortable, that have upset me, that have affected me deeply and emotionally, that has affected my community and my people. It is a profound story that I know the world will want to hear.'... Other than the hints she has left on national television, it is still unclear what, exactly, led to Ms. Newman's abrupt departure after a nearly yearlong tenure punctuated by conflicts with other White House aides, a lavish wedding at Trump International Hotel in Washington and a public meltdown at a conference for black journalists. Whatever the catalyst, her departure was handled by [John] Kelly; the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II; and Joseph Hagin, a deputy chief of staff.... Ms. Newman said that [she & Kelly] 'had a very candid conversation,' and that Mr. Trump learned that she had departed while watching television news."

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "A federal court on Friday blocked Trump administration rules that made it easier for employers to deny insurance coverage of contraceptives for women. Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the Federal District Court in Philadelphia issued a preliminary injunction, saying the rules contradicted the text of the Affordable Care Act by allowing many employers to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage if they had religious or moral objections. In the lawsuit, filed by the State of Pennsylvania, the judge said the rules would cause irreparable harm because tens of thousands of women would lose contraceptive coverage. The Affordable Care Act contains no statutory language allowing federal agencies to create such 'sweeping exemptions' to the law's requirements to cover preventive services, Judge Beetlestone declared." Mrs. McC: Beetlestone is an Obama appointee.

The Commentariat -- December 15, 2017

AP: "... Donald Trump thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for remarks he made Thursday 'acknowledging America's strong economic performance,' the White House said. The two presidents spoke by phone following Putin's annual press conference in Moscow." Mrs. McC: According to Rachel Maddow, U.S. media first learned of the conversation from a Kremlin readout.

Rosalind Helderman & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "About a month after Donald Trump launched his presidential bid, a British music promoter suggested his Russian pop-star client could arrange for the new candidate to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post. The July 2015 offer by publicist Rob Goldstone came about a year before he set up a meeting for Trump's eldest son with a Russian lawyer who he said had incriminating information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton." ...

... ** Greg Miller, et al., of the Washington Post write an extraordinary front-page piece on Donald Trump's refusal to accept Russia's successful attempts to swing the 2016 election to him. Among the intelligence James Clapper & Jim Comey shared with Trump during the transition: "Putin' specific instructions on the operation' to hack the election. "Rather than search for ways to deter Kremlin attacks or safeguard U.S. elections, Trump has waged his own campaign to discredit the case that Russia poses any threat and he has resisted or attempted to roll back efforts to hold Moscow to account.... Overall, U.S. officials said, the Kremlin believes it got a staggering return on an operation that by some estimates cost less than $500,000 to execute and was organized around two main objectives -- destabilizing U.S. democracy and preventing Hillary Clinton, who is despised by Putin, from reaching the White House." The WashPo report is based on "is based on interviews with more than 50 current and former U.S. officials, many of whom had senior roles in the Trump campaign and transition team or have been in high-level positions at the White House or at national security agencies." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Both the Post and the Times reported last month on Trump's habit of insisting even in private on defending obvious lies: that Barack Obama is not American, that Trump won the popular vote, that the voice on the Access Hollywood tape is not Trump's. Surely Trump knows what he said to Billy Bush. He was there. Trump either lies to absolutely everybody in his inner circle, or has the absolute power of self-delusion, sufficiently strong that his most apparently sincere protestations of his innocence mean nothing at all.... But it's quite possible his hair-trigger anger over the subject of Russia is a tactic designed to close off a subject on which his guilt runs very deep."

Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider: "Fourteen former national security, intelligence, and foreign policy officials who have served at senior levels in Republican and Democratic administrations recently wrote an amicus brief as part of a lawsuit brought against ... Donald Trump's campaign and Roger Stone, his longtime confidant. The lawsuit was filed in July by three private citizens -- Roy Cockrum, Scott Comer, and Eric Schoenberg -- whose personal information was stolen in hacks of the Democratic National Committee and published by WikiLeaks. The plaintiffs have argued that the Trump campaign, Stone, 'and those they conspired with arranged for the hacked information to be provided to WikiLeaks.' Among the former officials who filed the amicus brief on December 8 are John Brennan, a CIA director; James Clapper, a director of national intelligence; and Michael Hayden, a director of the National Security Agency; Avril Haines, a deputy national security adviser; Michael McFaul, a US ambassador to Russia; and Michael Morell, an acting CIA director.... Their message was clear: The Kremlin uses local actors to help amplify the scope and impact of its influence operations, including the one targeting the US election in 2016."

The Plot Thickens. Jonathan Chait: "The Republican party has spent the last two days in a frenzy of indignation over the disclosure that an FBI agent who worked on the Clinton and Trump investigations (and has since been removed) sent texts to another agent, who he was reportedly dating, criticizing Trump. The story was driven by the curious decision by Trump's Department of Justice to leak partial excerpts of the texts.... [It turns out] the main agent in question also wrote text messages criticizing Democrats.... His messages included calling Chelsea Clinton 'self-entitled,' and mocking Eric Holder. He wrote, 'I'm worried about what happens if HRC is elected.'... The scandal is that the Department of Justice selectively leaked private texts from its agents in order to placate the White House's desire to discredit the special counsel. And the news media let itself get suckered." ...

... Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Democrats pressed the Justice Department on Thursday to explain why it released salacious, anti-Donald Trump text messages exchanged between two FBI employees who are still under investigation for their work on the Russia special counsel investigation. Judiciary Committee ranking member Jerrold Nadler of New York and two other panel Democrats asked for a full review of DOJ's decision making that led to Tuesday night's release of about 375 texts that the FBI officials -- Peter Strzok and Lisa Page -- sent over a 15-month period during the 2016 presidential campaign." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Samuelsohn does not address the fact that the DOJ -- at Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein's behest -- released selective text messages, as Chait indicates, so Samuelsohn may have written this post before the WSJ reported that Strzok & Page were equal-opportunity critics. ...

... Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare: Rod Rosenstein's "behavior in this episode, in particular, has hardly done him credit. The release of private correspondence between two Justice Department employees whose correspondence is the subject of an active inspector general investigation is not just wrong. It is cruel.... Rosenstein here has, at a minimum, contributed to [the GOP] circus -- at the expense of his own employees." Wittes has a lot to say about the GOP's attempts to discredit the Mueller investigation, & it's worth reading. ...

... Josh Marshall: "... before [Wednesday's] hearing, the DOJ invited reporters to review all the texts between the two FBI employees -- seemingly far more access than Congress had even had. These were government documents -- texts on government devices. So the formal privacy claim is limited. But ... it's still a massive breach of privacy. Political and personal chit chat and sounding off between two lovers? The key point is there's no evidence either did anything wrong. The only conceivable purpose of doing this was to humiliate the two, damage Mueller's investigation and put wind in the sails of those pushing this pseudo-controversy.... This is a transparently political move on the part of the Justice Department. And since all tied to the Mueller probe falls under Rosenstein's purview, that's on Rosenstein....

... This whole episode is simply a disgrace. It is an example of how much the gravitational pull of Trump's corruption has already affected Washington, the federal government and the entire country. The corrupt and the desperate flock to him, the unprincipled defend him and even those who are I think mainly ethical people under normal circumstances -- I'm thinking of Rosenstein in this case -- are bent and deformed by the pull.

... Mrs. McCrabbie: If you're confused by all this, no wonder. The various accounts of what got leaked to whom & when are contradictory. We need a special investigator!

Trump's Data Teams Are Stonewalling Congress. Natasha Bertrand: "The ranking members of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees want to subpoena two of the data firms hired by ... Donald Trump's campaign team for documents related to their potential engagement with foreign actors like Russia and WikiLeaks during the election. Reps. Elijah Cummings and Jerry Nadler sent a letter to Cambridge Analytica's CEO Alexander Nix and Giles-Parscale cofounder Brad Parscale -- who also served as the Trump campaign's digital director -- in October.... The letter was also sent to the heads of Deep Root Analytics, TargetPoint Consulting, and The Data Trust, which were among the outfits hired by the Republican National Committee to bolster the Trump campaign's data operation. Whereas Deep Root, TargetPoint, and The Data Trust responded to the documents request, Cambridge Analytica did not. Parscale's response, moreover, was insufficient, the Democrats said." ....

... Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Special counsel Robert Mueller has asked data firm Cambridge Analytica to turn over documents related to campaign work for ... Donald Trump. The special counsel requested emails from any employees who worked on the Trump campaign as part of the ongoing investigation into election interference by Russia, reported the Wall Street Journal. The firm voluntarily complied with Mueller's request and turned over emails which had previously been provided to the House Intelligence Committee, the newspaper reported." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This, too, is confusing. According to Nadler & Cummings, the Mercer-Bannon firm Cambridge Analytica did not comply; according to the WSJ story, the company did comply, & what they complied with was turning over documents the House committees already had. Huh?

Brian Fung of the Washington Post: "Federal regulators voted Thursday to allow Internet providers to speed up service for websites they favor -- and block or slow down others -- in a decision repealing landmark Obama-era regulations overseeing broadband companies such as AT&T and Verizon.... The 3-2 vote, which was along party lines, enabled the FCC's Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, to follow through on his promise to repeal the government's 2015 net neutrality rules, which required Internet providers to treat all websites, large and small, equally. The agency also rejected some of its own authority over the broadband industry in a bid to stymie future FCC officials who might seek to reverse the Republican-led ruling." ...

... Erica Pandey of Axios: "New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Thursday that he'll lead an effort by multiple states to sue the Federal Communications Commission over its decision to roll back net neutrality rules." ...

... Tom McKay of Gizmodo: "In a video with the conservative site Daily Caller's Benny Johnson -- the dude who got fired from BuzzFeed for plagiarizing Yahoo Answers -- Pai urged the country to understand that ... they'll let us continue to take selfies and other stupid bullshit. Pai then pantomimed things users will supposedly still be able to do, like being able to 'gram your food,' 'post photos of cute animals, like puppies,' 'shop for all your Christmas presents online,' 'binge watch your favorite shows,' and 'stay part of your favorite fan community.' All of these claims on what users 'will still be able to do' are actually questionable, seeing as under Pai's plan, ISPs could easily hit up their customers with crushing fees to let them access any of these services at reasonable speeds - particularly those binge-watching streaming services he claims to love so much.... One of the Daily Caller employees that danced alongside Pai in the video seems to be a proponent of Pizzagate...."

Abha Bhattarai of the Washington Post: "Ivanka Trump's fashion company on Thursday opened a new store in the lobby of Trump Tower, where it plans to sell handbags, jewelry and candles as part of broader push to bypass retailers and sell directly to consumers. The store in Midtown Manhattan -- currently the company's only bricks-and-mortar location -- comes after a number of high-profile retailers, including Nordstrom, stopped carrying the presidential daughter's line earlier this year. The company also recently began selling its wares ... directly on its website." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The lobby of Trump Tower is by law a designated public space, as required in the permitting process to construct the building. So I'm not sure the shop is legal inasmuch as it appears to be planted in a space that's just as public as a city park. Donald Trump has long taken liberties with the public space -- he sells MAGA caps & other Trumpycrap there now. The City's parks commission should shut down any shops, kiosks, signage, etc. that intrude upon the area designated for public use.

Flimflam Man to Fold His Cards. Rachel Bade of Politico: "Despite several landmark legislative wins this year, and a better-than-expected relationship with ... Donald Trump, [Paul] Ryan has made it known to some of his closest confidants that this will be his final term as speaker.... In recent interviews with three dozen people who know the speaker -- fellow lawmakers, congressional and administration aides, conservative intellectuals and Republican lobbyists -- not a single person believed Ryan will stay in Congress past 2018." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Maybe he thinks he'll be president by then. And he might be right. ...

... Jonathan Chait: "A major part of Ryan's motivation is that ... he has achieved his life's ambition by passing a gigantic tax cut for the affluent. But Politico also explains that Ryan hopes to end his tenure in a blaze of Randian glory." Ryan is planning to pursue "entitlement reform," & "may focus on ... vulnerable programs targeted to the very poor, like nutrition and housing assistance. It would be a final, fittingly Ryan-esque blow against the takers after having returned to the makers a large chunk of their hard-earned, or hard-inherited, wealth." ...

     ... Update: Looks like Ken W. has Ryan pegged in today's Comments.

Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "During a news conference on Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan urged American women to have more babies, saying their lack of procreation was stunting economic growth.... Alluding to the fact that he's a father of three, Ryan added, 'I did my part, but we need to have higher birth rates in this country. Meaning, baby boomers are retiring, and we have fewer people following them in the work force.'... There's an obvious solution to the problem that Ryan completely ignores -- allowing more immigrants into the country to fill the jobs being vacated by retiring baby boomers. But instead of using his position as House Speaker to pursue immigration reform, Ryan has instead indicated he's on board with Trump's hardline anti-immigration positions, including the president's insistence on spending billions of dollars on a border wall." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Traditional family values still include keeping 'em barefoot & pregnant.

** Alan Rappeport & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "House and Senate Republicans faced a new round of uncertainty on Thursday about the fate of their $1.5 trillion tax bill with the possible defection of a Republican senator, Marco Rubio of Florida, amid continuing questions about how the bill will be paid for and how much of the benefits will flow to low- and middle-income people versus corporations. Republicans, who reached agreement Wednesday on a merged version of the House and Senate tax plans, expect to unveil the final bill on Friday and vote on the legislation early next week so that it can be sent to President Trump before Christmas." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Increasing the child tax credit, as Rubio is insisting upon, is the policy side of Ryan's urging women to have more children. It's the brainchild of some "moderate conservative thinkers." As I recall, Douthat was a big advocate. Many Republican domestic policy objectives are part of a giant plot to restore & cement patriarchical norms. What frightened these guys about Roy Moore was not that he was an extremist kook but that, as a walking, talking exemplar of their own dark hearts, he would reveal the party's true aims. ...

... ** Paul Krugman: "As usual, Republicans seek to afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable, but they don't treat all Americans with a given income the same. Instead, their bill ... but whose shape is clear -- hugely privileges owners, whether of businesses or of financial assets, over those who simply work for a living.... The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center ... finds that the bill would reduce taxes on business owners, on average, about three times as much as it would reduce taxes on those whose primary source of income is wages or salaries. For highly paid workers, the gap would be even wider, as much as 10 to one.... (Yes, a lot of the bill looks as if it were specifically designed to benefit the Trump family.) If this sounds like bad policy, that's because it is.... Their disdain for ordinary working Americans as opposed to investors, heirs, and business owners runs so deep that they can't contain it." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: One reason Republicans get away with this is that business owners & investors are far more attuned to how legislation & other government actions will affect their bottom lines than are wage-earners. I don't know that Paul Ryan actually likes "makers" better than working people; he just knows the "makers" are watching him & working people don't have the time or inclination to analyze his flimflams.

The Commentariat -- December 14, 2017

** Greg Miller, et al., of the Washington Post write an extraordinary front-page piece on Donald Trump's refusal to accept Russia's successful attempts to swing the 2016 election to him. Among the intelligence James Clapper & Jim Comey shared with Trump during the transition: 'Putin's specific instructions on the operation' to hack the election. "Rather than search for ways to deter Kremlin attacks or safeguard U.S. elections, Trump has waged his own campaign to discredit the case that Russia poses any threat and he has resisted or attempted to roll back efforts to hold Moscow to account.... Overall, U.S. officials said, the Kremlin believes it got a staggering return on an operation that by some estimates cost less than $500,000 to execute and was organized around two main objectives -- destabilizing U.S. democracy and preventing Hillary Clinton, who is despised by Putin, from reaching the White House." The WashPo report is based on "is based on interviews with more than 50 current and former U.S. officials, many of whom had senior roles in the Trump campaign and transition team or have been in high-level positions at the White House or at national security agencies."

Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "House and Senate Republicans have reached an agreement, in principle, on a consensus tax bill on Wednesday, keeping the party on track for final votes next week with the aim of delivering a bill to President Trump's desk by Christmas, according to people briefed on the deal. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the majority whip, told reporters that Republicans will be briefed on the deal today, and that he is confident it will be approved next week. Details on the deal were not immediately available." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The story has been updated. ...

... Paul Krugman: "So, it seems that Republicans are responding to the devastating defeat in Alabama ... by ... doubling down on a massively unpopular tax plan, whose main focus is on cutting corporate taxes. In fact, they're rushing to jam the thing through before Doug Jones can be certified, in a stunning act of hypocrisy from the same people who demanded that Obamacare wait until Scott Brown was seated and held up a Supreme Court seat for a year. It's outrageous. But it also looks like really bad politics, especially given what we know is coming: calls next year for cuts in popular social programs, because of a deficit Republicans just voted to explode." Krugman attempts to explain Republicans' magical thinking & provides examples of just how "magical" it is. ...

... Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "The Federal Reserve, buoyed by a steadily strengthening economy, raised interest rates on Wednesday for a fifth time since the financial crisis and predicted that a proposed tax cut moving through Congress would modestly increase economic growth for the next few years without stoking inflation.... The Fed's highly anticipated economic assessment, delivered after a two-day meeting of its policymaking committee, amounted to a lukewarm endorsement of the Trump administration's top economic priority. Mr. Trump has suggested that the $1.5 trillion tax cut could nearly double economic growth to as much as 6 percent, a level far greater than most economists think likely. 'My colleagues and I are in line with the general expectation among most economists,' said Janet L. Yellen, the Fed's chairwoman. She said they expected the bill to provide 'a modest lift.'" Mrs. McC: Sounds as if the Fed is being generous to avoid appearing "political."

Can't make it up: Obama now wants credit for the booming Trump economy. At least we can all agree the economy is better under President Trump. -- Sarah Huckabee Sanders, in a tweet, Dec. 10, 2017

Sanders suggests that its outlandish to give Obama credit for the current economy, claiming that "we can all agree the economy is better under Trump." The problem is, Trump's economy owes largely to trends started in the Obama era. By almost every economic measure, the upward trends Sanders and Trump cite began while Obama was still in office. -- Nicole Lewis of the Washington Post

Ashley Parker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Shortly after Democrat Doug Jones wrested back one of ­Alabama's solidly Republican U.S. Senate seats for the first time in more than two decades, President Trump offered an optimistic and forward-looking assessment on Twitter, congratulating Jones on his 'hard fought victory.' But by Wednesday morning, as Trump watched the unflattering portrait of the loss unfold on television, the president grew piqued at the notion that he, somehow, was responsible. 'I won Alabama, and I would have won Alabama again,' Trump said, according to a senior administration official. He told advisers that he didn't want the results to be seen as a referendum on him and asked if he still had a solid base of support in the state. He also questioned Wednesday if he had made the right decision and if Sen. Luther Strange -- the Republican he grudgingly endorsed who went on to lose the party's primary -- could have beaten Jones in the general election.... The president himself spread the blame. He faulted ...his former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, for selling him what one outside adviser described as 'a bill of goods' in urging him to support Roy Moore, and he faulted Moore himself for being an abysmal candidate. In the lead-up to Tuesday night, he had also groused about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), saying he had been too aggressive in trying to push out Moore." ...

... Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Eli Rosenberg of the Washington Post: "Democrat Doug Jones's victory in Alabama's U.S. Senate special election shocked political observers, setting off a cascade of commentary about its political significance as the country heads toward midterm elections in 2018.... But how did it play in conservative media?" Well, first, it was "not Bannon's fault." Second, just ignore the story & go with FBI EMAILS!!! AND FBI TEXTS!!! Third, chalk Moore's loss up to voter fraud. (Mrs. McC: Never mind that Alabama has a very effective voter suppression law.) Looks like most of Jones' voters were "dead people" or Nee-gros bussed in from Mississippi. (Mrs. McC: Never mind that allowing dead people & out-of-staters would require large-scale cooperation with Alabama election officials.) ...

... MEANWHILE. Elliot Hannon of Slate: "... on Wednesday Moore released a video to tell you why he's not giving up on the race he lost by 20,000 votes or roughly a point-and-a-half. 'In this race, we have not received the final count to include military and provisional ballots,' Moore said in his video statement. 'This has been a very close race and we are awaiting certification by the Secretary of State.' OK, yeah, sure, but that's kind of, like, a technicality at this point, Roy." Hannon points to some of Roy's other reasons not to concede. Among them: "Today, we no longer recognize the universal truth that God is the author of our life and liberty. Abortion, sodomy, and materialism have taken the place of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.... We have allowed Judges and justices to rule over our Constitution, and we have become slaves to their tyranny." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: That is, Roy doesn't understand that it's the job of "Judges and justices to rule over our Constitution," which is extra-odd since Roy hisself was once the chief justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court where it was his job to uphold the U.S. & Alabama constitutions. He didn't do that, of course, forcing the other state justices to remove him. Twice. Well, maybe he just thinks Marbury v. Madison was a bad call. ...

... Kyle Swenson of the Washington Post: "It was a four-minute fire-and-brimstone video about abortion, same-sex marriage, school prayer, sodomy and 'the right of a man to claim to be a woman and vice versa.'... Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has called it 'highly unlikely' that Jones would not be certified as the winner."

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "The release Tuesday night of F.B.I. officials' text messages describing the possibility of a victory by Donald J. Trump as 'terrifying' and saying that Hillary Clinton 'just has to win' is fueling a Republican campaign to attack the impartiality of the Justice Department and its special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III -- and possibly hamper him with an investigation of the special counsel's office. Accusations of bias, primed by the newly released texts from an F.B.I. agent, Peter Strzok, and an F.B.I. lawyer, Lisa Page, took center stage on Wednesday when Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who appointed Mr. Mueller as special counsel, began testifying before the House Judiciary Committee. Republicans pressed Mr. Rosenstein to appoint a second special counsel to investigate political partisanship in the department and to scrutinize Mr. Trump's former presidential rival, Mrs. Clinton." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is fairly nutty. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) in questioning Rosenstein, went over a list of contributions Rosenstein & other top DOJ officials had given to Republicans (and zero to Democrats). In other words, Republican partisanship is A-okay, but even lower-level officials cannot support Democrats. Could someone please explain "hypocrisy" & "double standards" to these dopes?

Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "Roger Stone Is Already Writing the Story of Trump's Downfall." He has a book deal! Stone thinks Bob Mueller will bring "process-related" charges (like obstruction of justice) against Trump, & disloyal cabinet members -- like Nikki Haley -- will bring him down. Stone doesn't favor this outcome; he's just ready to cash in on it." Mrs. McC: Akhilleus had some justifiably derisive comments about Roger's literary career in yesterday's thread.

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump and Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson are once again at odds over how to deal with nuclear-armed North Korea after Mr. Tillerson declared on Tuesday that the United States was ready to open talks with the North 'without precondition.' The secretary's comments were remarkably conciliatory for an administration that has repeatedly threatened North Korea with military action, and ruled out any negotiations, if it did not curb its missile and nuclear programs. But a few hours later, the White House distanced itself from his overture. In an unusual statement released to reporters on Tuesday evening..., Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said Mr. Trump's position on North Korea had not changed -- namely, that talks were pointless if the North's leader, Kim Jong-un, continued to menace his neighbors."

Omarosa Has Left the Building. Julia Glum of Newsweek: "The White House confirmed Wednesday morning that Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former Apprenticecontestant often known by just her first name, is leaving her job in the Trump administration. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Omarosa resigned Tuesday 'to pursue other opportunities' and will leave her position as director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison on January 20.... Journalist April Ryan tweeted that she'd heard there was 'drama' surrounding the departure. Ryan described the alleged resignation as a 'firing' and said Omarosa had been escorted off White House property. 'Sources say General Kelly did the firing and Omarosa is alleged to have acted very vulgar and cursed a lot and said she helped elect President Trump,' Ryan, the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, added." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The scuttlebutt on CNN is that Omarosa tried to break into the residence, & the Secret Service had to stop her. Everything is going very smoothly. ...

     ... Update: Here's April Ryan's story (audio). (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

... AND the Last Word Goes to Maggie Haberman & Yamiche Alcindor of the Paper of Record: "Ms. Newman was escorted off the premises on Tuesday night, one of the officials said. The Secret Service, in an unusual Twitter message, denied being a part of that. But the tweet added, 'Our only involvement in this matter was to deactivate the individual's pass which grants access to the complex. While she will be paid through Jan. 20, Ms. Newman is not expected to return to work, the officials said.'... Three administration officials described reports of Ms. Newman being hauled off the White House grounds as overstated. Still, all three said that there was a precipitating event that finally got Mr. Trump on board with an effort by John F. Kelly, the current chief of staff, to remove her." ...

     ... As Haberman & others reported late last week, Trump thinks of every day at the White House as a an episode of a reality show in which he must avenge his enemies (or something like that). Looks like that's one thing he's right about. It's an extremely stupid reality show, but it sure gets high ratings. One of my favorite parts of this episode: as this loud, physical slapstick routine is going on behind her, Mrs. Huckleberry slams the door on the ruckus & voices her straightlaced, straightfaced claim that everything is indeed going smoothly & Omarosa voluntarily walked off her $180K/year White House gig to "pursue other opportunities." Nothing to see here, folks.

Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has been admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for recovery from the side effects of another round of treatment for brain cancer, according to his office. McCain, who missed a third straight day of Senate votes Wednesday, has been undergoing rounds of chemotherapy and radiation to treat glioblastoma, the terminal form of brain cancer he was diagnosed with in July. McCain has been undergoing treatments since early September at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.... He suffered an Achilles' tendon tear in early November that put him in a walking boot, and in recent weeks he has used a wheelchair to get to and from his office and the Senate floor for votes.... Two friends close to McCain ... said there were no plans for the senator to resign."

... I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. -- Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776.

As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh.... Depend upon it, We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems.... [This] would compleatly subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat, I hope General Washington, and all our brave Heroes would fight. -- John Adams, to Abigail Adams, April 14, 1776

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.... -- Thomas Jefferson, et al., July 4, 1776 ...

... Gail Collins: "... when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton it triggered a visceral response in masses of American women, and that trauma may be turning into a political uprising more powerful than the Tea Party.... We truly could be seeing a new wave of feminist reform." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Don't kid yourself, Gail. Women's empowerment affects almost every aspect of society in a more comprehensive way than does any other civil rights movement. It's easier for a white "Christian" man to work alongside a black or gay man than it is for him to go home & find his wife is working late & hasn't put his dinner on the table, which is his due. The black, gay co-worker may implicitly challenge the white guy's power & sexuality but not in the direct way a powerful female partner can. The backlash against minority rights has riled out country since before it was a country, & more recently resistance to gay rights has elevated the stupid. The Despotism of the Peticoat, I'm afraid, still is a bridge too far.

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "House oversight committee chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has referred allegations that ... Donald Trump sexually assaulted women to the Justice Department, rebuffing a request from House Democrats that his committee investigate the claims. 'This Committee, nor any other Committee of Congress, does not, and cannot, prosecute crimes...,' he wrote in a reply to Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), who gathered signatures from Democratic colleagues calling for the investigation.... Gowdy copied Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the letter." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Pretty sure JeffBo will get on this right away.

M.J. Lee of CNN: "A former senior aide to Rep. Blake Farenthold has approached the House Ethics Committee to share a damning account of working for the Texas Republican, with the intent of describing the congressman as verbally abusive and sexually demeaning -- and his congressional office as an intensely hostile environment that drove the aide to physical and emotional distress. Michael Rekola, who was Farenthold's communications director in 2015, described in an interview with CNN new details of the congressman's abusive behavior. It ranged from making sexually graphic jokes to berating aides -- bullying that Rekola says led him to seek medical treatment and psychological counseling, and at one point, caused him to vomit daily." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Want an example? "Rekola was about to leave town to get married in July 2015, when, he said, Farenthold, standing within earshot of other staffers in his Capitol Hill office, said to the groom-to-be: 'Better have your fiancée blow you before she walks down the aisle -- it will be the last time.' He then proceeded to joke about whether Rekola's now-wife could wear white on her wedding day -- a clear reference, Rekola said, to whether she had had premarital sex."

Megan Messerly of the Nevada Independent: "Once-rising Democratic star Rep. Ruben Kihuen [Nev.] made repeated and unwanted sexual advances toward a female lobbyist while he was a state senator, the woman told The Nevada Independent. The woman, who requested anonymity..., says that Kihuen touched her thighs or buttocks on three separate occasions without her consent. She also showed the Independent hundreds of suggestive text messages she received from Kihuen -- including invitations to come sit on his lap in the middle of a committee hearing and repeated requests to spend the night at her place -- over the course of the 2015 legislative session.... The woman told the Independent that she never dated Kihuen.... The woman said she decided to tell her story after reading a BuzzFeed article in which Kihuen's former campaign finance director alleged the freshman congressman propositioned her for dates and sex despite repeatedly rejecting him and touched her thighs without consent on two occasions during his 2016 congressional campaign. Kihuen, in a statement after the BuzzFeed piece published, said he didn't recall any of the described circumstances. He has rebuffed requests from Democratic leaders to step down."

Heather Caygle of Politico: "A female Democratic House member shocked fellow lawmakers Wednesday when she said that the revealing clothing that some members and staffers wear is an 'invitation' to sexual harassment. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) made the comments during a private Democratic Caucus meeting Wednesday to discuss sexual harassment issues, according to two Democratic sources in the room.... Kaptur said women on Capitol Hill should have to abide by a stricter dress code, like those adopted by the military or corporations."

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. If you're looking for the difference between real news & fake news, look no further than Kelly Weill's report in the Daily Beast on how winger "journalists" Charles Johnson & Mike Cernovich hyped a fake story about Chuck Schumer's supposedly harassing a former aide. Johnson & Cernovich did zero research on a document that they alleged was a copy of a lawsuit against Schumer. But the signatures on the complaint were forged & the body of the document was lifted from a suit against Rep. John Conyers -- a copy of which Cernovich also had been shopping around. In other words, all Cernovich had to do was look on his own desk to see that the document he said would bring down Schumer was a fake. "Reached by The Daily Beast on Wednesday, Cernovich said he was the victim of a 'sophisticated forgery' and provided the supposed 'number of the hoaxer,' which was disconnected. Johnson, for his part, wouldn't directly answer questions about the forgery." Needless to say, actual journalists would not have run with this hoax -- they would have checked numerous sources to determine the veracity of any document they received. But right-wing media blast out this kind of crap every day.

Daniel Holloway of Variety: PBS has indefinitely suspended distribution of the Tavis Smiley show in the wake of an investigation of allegations of Smiley's "misconduct."

Joe Coscarelli & Melena Ryzik of the New York Times: "In recent interviews, four women spoke on the record about a pattern of violent sexual behavior by [music mogul Russell] Simmons, disclosing incidents from 1988 to 2014. Three of the women say that he raped them. In each case, numerous friends and associates said they were told of the incidents at the time."

** Brooks Barnes of the New York Times: "The Walt Disney Company said on Thursday that it had reached a deal to buy most of the assets of 21st Century Fox, the conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, in an all-stock transaction valued at roughly $52.4 billion. While the agreement is subject to the approval of antitrust regulators -- and the Justice Department recently moved to block a big media company from becoming even bigger -- the once unthinkable acquisition promises to reshape Hollywood and Silicon Valley. It is the biggest counterattack from a traditional media company against the tech giants that have aggressively moved into the entertainment business.... Not included in the acquisition: Fox News, the Fox broadcast network and the FS1 sports cable channel. Mr. Murdoch said he would spin those businesses and a handful of other cable networks into a newly listed company."

Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post: "Wednesday morning two independent research teams, one based in the Netherlands and the other in California, reported that the deluge from Hurricane Harvey was significantly heavier than it would have been before the era of human-caused global warming. One paper put the best estimate of the increase in precipitation at 15 percent. The other said climate change increased rainfall by 19 percent at least -- with a best estimate of 38 percent. Meanwhile another team of scientists released a blockbuster report on extreme weather in 2016, saying that for the first time they could declare that three separate weather events -- the weirdly warm 'blob' of water off the Alaska coast, a heat wave in Asia and the record global warmth -- would have been impossible without human-caused climate change." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Count this as one of the many fact-based reports that White House staff will not be putting on Donald's desk when they deliver their twice-daily "propaganda reports" today.

Beyond the Beltway

Thomas Novelly of the Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky State "Rep. Dan Johnson died by 'a probable suicide' Wednesday night, just two days after allegations surfaced that he had sexually abused a teenage girl at the church where he was a pastor. Bullitt County Coroner David Billings said Johnson was found with a single gun shot wound to the head at Greenwell Ford Road in Mount Washington.... Johnson was accused by a woman of molesting her when she was 17 after a New Year's party in 2012, according to a wide-ranging report published Monday by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. That was followed by calls for Johnson's resignation from both Republican and Democratic leaders. But at a press conference Tuesday morning, Johnson said that he wouldn't step down.... Around 6 p.m. Wednesday, Johnson wrote on Facebook that the allegations were false and sent a farewell to his church followers and family. 'The accusations from NPR are false GOD and only GOD knows the truth. Nothing is the way they make it out to be ... GOD LOVES ALL PEOPLE NO MATTER WHAT,' Johnson wrote. Johnson's Facebook post was taken down later Wednesday evening."