The Commentariat -- January 22, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Trump/Sanders Afraid of Daily Press Briefings. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Tuesday that he directed White House press secretary Sarah Sanders 'not to bother' with press briefings because he believes that reporters are rude to her and that most members of the media will not cover the administration fairly. Press briefings, which used to be a near-daily occurrence, have become a rarity in the Trump White House. Sanders has not provided an on-camera briefing for more than a month, including the duration of the partial government shutdown. 'The reason Sarah Sanders does not go to the "podium" much anymore is that the press covers her so rudely & inaccurately, in particular certain members of the press,' Trump said on Twitter. 'I told her not to bother, the word gets out anyway! Most will never cover us fairly & hence, the term, Fake News!'"

Greg Sargent: "President Trump and his allies have spent days talking up the idea that his new proposal to reopen the government constitutes a 'compromise.'... But on Monday night, Senate Republicans released the bill text.... Surprise: It has been so loaded up with poison pills that it looks as if it was deliberately constructed to make it impossible for Democrats to support. If so, that would be perfectly in keeping with the M.O. that we've already seen from top adviser Stephen Miller, who appears devoted to scuttling any and all policies that could actually prompt compromises.... The proposal on the dreamers was whittled down to the point where it only undoes the disaster Trump himself is orchestrating.... The new proposal is much worse on asylum seekers than advertised.... There is no way this offer represents a compromise, if we conventionally understand a 'compromise' to be an agreement in which both sides secure meaningful concessions."

Katherine Faulders, et al., of ABC News: "... Donald Trump is preparing for two different State of the Union speeches -- one a more traditional address delivered to Congress in the House chamber or some other location in D.C., the other prepared for a political rally at a location outside of Washington, D.C. that has yet to be determined, according to multiple sources familiar with the planning.... As part of the ongoing political tit-for-tat between Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Republicans are encouraging Trump to force Pelosi to officially disinvite him, by suggesting the president announce he still intends to deliver the State of the Union from the House chamber, according to Republican sources involved in the discussions."

Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "A. Wess Mitchell, the top diplomat in charge of European affairs, will resign from the State Department next month, creating a key vacancy at a time when European leaders are questioning President Trump's commitment to historic alliances.... In an interview, Mitchell said his resignation is not a protest of the administration's policies or the direction of foreign policy, and he praised Pompeo's leadership and vision."

Translation: “I just made s**t up.” https://t.co/wpAeC4vRBJ

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) January 21, 2019

     ... Thanks to unwashed for the link.

Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "The Iowa senator Joni Ernst has stated she turned down the opportunity to be Donald Trump's vice-president because she believed her husband Gail 'hated any successes I have'. In an affidavit filed as part of divorce proceedings with her husband of 26 years, Ernst states: 'in the summer of 2016, I was interviewed by Candidate Trump to be vice president of the United States. I turned Candidate Trump down, knowing it wasn't the right thing for me or my family. 'I continued to make sacrifices and not soar higher out of concern for Gail and our family,' she added."

Stupid Supreme Court Ruling. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday revived the Trump administration's policy of barring most transgender people from serving in the military. In a brief, unsigned order, the justices temporarily allowed the ban to go into effect while cases challenging i move forward. The vote was 5 to 4, with the court's five conservative members in the majority and its four liberal members in dissent. The administration had also asked the justices to hear immediate appeals from trial court rulings blocking the policy. The court turned down those requests without comment. The policy, announced on Twitter by President Trump and refined by the defense secretary at the time, Jim Mattis, generally prohibits people identifying with a gender different from their biological sex from military service. It makes exceptions for several hundred transgender people already serving openly and for those willing to serve 'in their biological sex.'"

Adam Liptak: "The Supreme Court took no action on Tuesday on the Trump administration's plans to shut down a program that shields some 700,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation. The court's inaction almost certainly means it will not hear the administration's challenge in its current term, which ends in June. The justices' next private conference to consider petitions seeking review is scheduled for Feb. 15. Even were they to agree to hear the case then, it would not be argued until after the next term starts in October. The move left the program in place and denied negotiating leverage to Mr. Trump, who has said he wanted to use a Supreme Court victory in the case in negotiations with Democrats over immigration issues."

Donie O'Sullivan of CNN: "Twitter suspended an account on Monday afternoon that helped spread a controversial encounter between a Native American elder and a group of high school students wearing Make America Great Again hats. The account claimed to belong to a California schoolteacher. Its profile photo was not of a schoolteacher, but of a blogger based in Brazil, CNN Business found. Twitter suspended the account soon after CNN Business asked about it.The account, with the username @2020fight, was set up in December 2016 and appeared to be the tweets of a woman named Talia living in California. 'Teacher & Advocate. Fighting for 2020,' its Twitter bio read. Since the beginning of this year, the account had tweeted on average 130 times a day and had more than 40,000 followers.... Rob McDonagh, an assistant editor at Storyful..., said he found the account suspicious due to its 'high follower count, highly polarized and yet inconsistent political messaging, the unusually high rate of tweets, and the use of someone else's image in the profile photo.'"

*****

Trump Knocked Himself out to Honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump made a brief appearance Monday at Washington's Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, honoring the civil rights icon with a wreath on the federal holiday bearing his name. The president, accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence and acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, spent roughly two minutes at the memorial." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: So I'm thinking this is what Trump's daily schedule said for this excursion: "Honor Dr. King at memorial -- 30 minutes; brief remarks, etc." Trump assumed "Dr. King" was Steve King & left the moment he figured out otherwise. It took him two minutes for him to discover his error. ...

... Steve King Knocked Himself out to Honor ... Anonymous. David Moye of the Huffington Post: "... unapologetically racist Iowa Congressman Steve King chose to tweet a tribute to the slain civil rights legend Martin Luther King Jr. on the day commemorating his birth. To make things more ludicrous, King's tweet of praise included this quote attributed to King: 'Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.' Problem is, King never actually said that, according to Snopes.com.... 'Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his all for all. I have long agreed with his speeches and writings. Today I think of this MLK quote, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." May we renew ourselves in his teachings so that he can RIP.' The tweet came less than two weeks after the Republican congressman wondered aloud to The New York Times why being a white supremacist is such a bad thing." Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead.

Sam Fulwood of ThinkProgress: "In a largely overlooked August 18, 2016 speech, then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump extemporaneously cited a litany of problems plaguing black Americans. Speaking broadly, as if to encompass nearly every black person in the nation, Trump rattled off a list of shopworn stereotypes on black pathology.... And turning to squarely face reporters' cameras, Trump declared for the first time in his campaign that only he could make life better for African Americans. He then asked for their votes with a haunting and memorable question. 'What the hell do you have to lose?'... Now, two years into his disastrous presidency, black Americans have the same answer as when Trump initially asked the question: Plenty." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Luke Barnes of ThinkProgress: "Two years ago, President Donald Trump stood before an inauguration crowd in Washington, D.C. and warned of 'American carnage,' claiming he alone could stop it.... Now, midway through his presidency, it has become increasingly clear that the real danger is one Trump himself has both fomented and chosen to ignore: far-right extremism.... Meanwhile, both the president and the Republican Party have emboldened violent far-right extremists through their inaction; over the last two years, Trump has barely acknowledged the explosion of far-right activity, much less done anything to combat it." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

The Giuliani Two-Step, Step Two. (Step Forward, Step Back.) Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump's personal lawyer on Monday walked back the timeline he had offered a day earlier on when negotiations ended with Russian officials about a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow, calling his comments 'hypothetical' and not intended to convey facts. The latest statement from the lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was described as a clarification of remarks he made to The New York Times in an interview on Sunday, as well as other remarks he made in interviews on Sunday television news shows. Mr. Giuliani originally quoted Mr. Trump as telling him the negotiations over a Moscow skyscraper continued through 'the day I won.' He also said that the president recalled 'fleeting conversations' about the deal after the Trump Organization signed a letter of intent to pursue it.... 'My recent statements about discussions during the 2016 campaign between Michael Cohen and then-candidate Donald Trump about a potential Trump Moscow 'project' were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the president,' Mr. Giuliani said [in a statement].... It was not the first time Mr. Giuliani has reversed himself...." ...

... Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker interviews Rudy Giuliani, who claims the New York Times got the story all wrong: "I don't know if they made it up. What I was talking about was, if he had those conversations, they would not be criminal." Rudy is, not surprisingly, fairly hilarious to anyone he doesn't happen to be impugning in this instance. Mrs. McC: The ewww! factor is that the interview took place before he took his shower. I'm guessing the NYT taped their interview of Rudy.

... Pamela Brown & Laura Jarrett of CNN: "... Donald Trump's legal team reached out to special counsel Robert Mueller's office Friday morning after BuzzFeed published an explosive report suggesting Trump directed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a Trump Tower project in Moscow, Rudy Giuliani told CNN.... The statement was drafted internally within the special counsel's office, which made the decision to release it, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation. The deputy attorney general's office, which oversees the special counsel, was only given a heads up it was coming Friday evening." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As Marcy Wheeler pointed out (also linked Saturday), according to the Washington Post, "... lawyers at the special counsel's office discussed the statement internally, rather than conferring with Justice Department leaders, for much of the day. In the advanced stages of those talks, the deputy attorney general's office called to inquire if the special counsel planned any kind of response, and was informed a statement was being prepared...." That's a lot of meddling.

** Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "When the Trump administration announced last month that it was lifting sanctions against a trio of companies controlled by an influential Russian oligarch, it cast the move as tough on Russia and on the oligarch, arguing that he had to make painful concessions to get the sanctions lifted. But a binding confidential document signed by both sides suggests that the agreement the administration negotiated with the companies controlled by the oligarch, Oleg V. Deripaska, may have been less punitive than advertised. The deal contains provisions that free him from hundreds of millions of dollars in debt while leaving him and his allies with majority ownership of his most important company, the document shows.... House Democrats won widespread Republican support last week for their efforts to block the sanctions relief deal. Democratic hopes of blocking the administration's decision have been stifled by the Republican-controlled Senate." Emphasis added. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Steve Mnuchin, Mitch McConnell & the majority of Senate Republicans clearly are what used to be called "fellow travelers" during the Red Scare era. (Nixon would have called them "pinkos," and as he said of his against his Senate opponent Helen Gahagan Douglas, "pink right down to her underwear." What about that, Joni Ernst? ...

... ** Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "The Grand Old Party has quietly become the pro-Russia party -- and not only because the party's standard-bearer seems peculiarly enamored of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Under Republican leadership, the United States is starting to look an awful lot like the failed Soviet system the party once stood unified against." Rampell counts the ways.

Kara Scannell of CNN: "Emin Agalarov, the Russian pop star who initiated the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with members of Donald Trump's campaign, canceled his upcoming US tour after failing to reach a deal with the special counsel's office and Congress over the contours of his testimony. Agalarov was set to launch a four-city US tour Saturday in New York. Looming over the impending engagement was the prospect of his being on US soil and subject to US law enforcement. Agalarov attorney Scott Balber said talks broke down at the end of last week and the decision to cancel the tour was made Monday."

Update on Another Trump Campaign Scam. Aidan McLaughlin of Mediaite: "Michael Cohen called CNBC to threaten legal action after his attempt to rig an online poll in Donald Trump's favor failed, according to a new report. The Wall Street Journal reported that Cohen called CNBC in 2014 and threatened that Trump would sue if the network didn't place the then-businessman higher on its list of the top business leaders, arguing it was 'ignoring the will of the people.' Per the Journal, CNBC never responded and Cohen never sued. It was reported last week that Cohen paid tens of thousands to a tech firm to rig online polls in Trump's favor, including the 2014 CNBC poll and a 2015 Drudge Report poll on presidential candidates. Both efforts failed.... Trump made public efforts to drive his supporters to the CNBC poll too. 'Honored to be named as one of business's "Top Leaders, Icons and Rebels" by @CNBC,' he tweeted after making the shortlist. 'Vote Trump!' And then, when he didn't make the official list: 'Stupid poll should be canceled -- no credibility.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Corruption in Plain Sight. Josh Marshall puts one of Rudy's latest admissions into perspective: "During the time Trump was singing Putin's praises on the campaign trail and getting Putin's help with hacking and information campaigns, Putin was dangling a few hundred million dollars in front of Trump." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... John Marshall: "[The Trump Moscow Tower] deal was with sanctioned individuals and sanctioned banks. Whether it was even legal to be entering into the negotiations is not clear to me. But certainly the post-2014 sanctions against Russia had to be lifted before the deal could be finalized. That is the central issue. It's not simply that Trump had 'business' with Russia and deceived the public about it during the campaign and after. It's more specific and direct. Why was Trump so solicitous of Russia and Vladimir Putin during the campaign? Well, a lot of possible reasons. But a major and likely the major reason was because Putin was dangling a multi-hundreds of millions of dollars payday in front of him. That's a big incentive, especially for Donald Trump." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

The Trump Shutdown, Ctd.

Matt Laslo of The Daily Beast: "With true negotiations stalled, some moderate Democrats are now joining the chorus of Republicans calling on Trump to just declare a national emergency, or for their party leaders to capitulate a tad and set up an outside commission to overcome this childish impasse.... Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told The Daily Beast. 'Please do it Mr. President, because we are in a political meltdown.'... Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told The Daily Beast. 'We don't want to build the wall, the wall is stupid and inefficient, but there is some way that he can save face.'" --s

Lemmings of the Senate Unite! Seung Min Kim & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "One month into a historic government shutdown, Republican senators are standing staunchly behind President Trump's demand for money to build a border wall, even as the GOP bears the brunt of the blame for a standoff few in the party agitated for, according to interviews this past week with more than 40 Republican senators and aides. Under pressure from conservatives to help Trump deliver on a signature campaign promise and unable to persuade him to avert the partial government shutdown, these lawmakers have all but surrendered to the president's will. Their comments show how the cracks in the 53-member Republican majority that emerged at the outset of the shutdown have not spread beyond a handful of lawmakers." (Also linked yesterday.)

He's So Vain. Daniel Politi of Slate: "... Donald Trump purports to hate 'fake news' but he seems to have no problem with fake photos. At least that's what Gizmodo discovered when it started carefully looking at the images on Trump's official Facebook and Instagram accounts and discovered photos of the president that make him look thinner and more built. And, yes, the president's infamous obsession with the size of his hands strikes again as the photos also make a point of lengthening the president's fingers. Gizmodo found at least three instances of altered photos published since October 2018, dismissing any possible suggestion that it was a one-off event. Whether the photos were edited using Facetune or Photoshop or any other tool isn't clear, but it does seem obvious they were at least slightly altered." ...

     ... The original story by Matt Novak of Gizmodo is here. Mrs. McC: I didn't run it yesterday because I thought it was sort of a non-story. But since other media are picking it up, here ya go. I had a professional photo taken when I was 19 & my appearance was fairly, but not entirely, flawless. In the finished photo, it was flawless. That teensy bump on my chin was gone; my eyelashes were way longer & darker. I once read that when Michelle Pfeiffer was a regular cover model, one magazine did 19 "improvements" to her already-beautiful face. So in the scheme of things, faking the corrupt, lying, fat President*'s physique is nothing. (Faking his physical, as White House doctor Ronnie Jackson did, was far more serious. BTW, that was a year ago. Where are the results of Trump's physical this year?)

Team of Vipers. Maggie Haberman: "John F. Kelly, as White House chief of staff, presented himself as the man leading a charge of 'country first, president second.' The attorney general suggested administering lie-detector tests to the small group of people with access to transcripts of the president's calls with foreign leaders. And President Trump sought a list of 'enemies' working in the White House communications shop. Those are some of the portraits of the Trump White House sprinkled throughout 'Team of Vipers,' an inside account of working there written by Cliff Sims, a former communications staff member and Trump loyalist who worked on the campaign.... The book, which will be published at the end of January, describes a nest of back-stabbing and duplicity within the West Wing, a narrative by now familiar from other books and news media reports. But Mr. Sims, who left last year after clashing with Mr. Kelly, is one of the few people to attach his name to descriptions of goings-on at the White House that are not always flattering to Mr. Trump, and many of the scenes are not particularly flattering to anyone, including himself." (Also linked yesterday.)

Neri Zilber of The Daily Beast: "For over a decade the strongest pillar of stability in the volatile Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the close cooperation between the Israeli military and the Palestinian Authority's security forces.... Now these Palestinian forces -- primarily American-trained, -equipped and -funded -- look like they may be the latest casualties of the Trump government shutdown.... U.S. legislation passed by Congress last year and set to go into effect at the end of the month will effectively end all remaining aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), including to the security forces.... Potential amendments to the law that would allow this aid to continue are on hold due to the shutdown.... To make matters worse, a separate Israeli law withholding a major portion of the Palestinian budget will also take effect at the end of the month, further straining the cash-strapped PA government and possibly tipping the Gaza Strip into war. On its own each step would be bad enough; taken together they are a likely recipe for future violence." --s

Pamela Constable of the Washington Post: "Scores of Afghan security forces were killed Monday when a suicide bomber in a Humvee rammed a training compound of the national intelligence agency in Wardak Province, officials there said. Taliban insurgents immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Security officials in Kabul, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told news agencies that the death toll could reach higher than 120, with a large number wounded. The massive bombing destroyed most of the building in the provincial capital where about 150 counterinsurgency troops are based, officials there said. The bombing was followed by gunmen who entered the compound in a truck and began shooting." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Mujib Mashal, et al., of the New York Times: "The attack, early Monday morning, came hours before the Taliban announced they had resumed peace talks with American officials. It was a sign, analysts said, of how violence is likely to grow deadlier even as the sides of the long war have indicated a willingness to seek a negotiated settlement."

Adam Satariano of the New York Times: "After European policymakers adopted a sweeping new data privacy law last year, the big question has been how regulators would use their new powers against the world’s most powerful technology companies. The first major example came on Monday, when the French data protection authority announced that it had fined Google 50 million euros, or about $57 million, for not properly disclosing to users how data is collected across its services, including its search engine, Google Maps and YouTube, in order to present personalized advertisements. The penalty is the largest to date under the European Union privacy law, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, that went into effect last May, and it shows that regulators are following through on a pledge to use the new rules to push back against internet companies whose businesses depend on collecting data. Facebook is also the subject of a number of investigations by the data protection authorities in Europe." (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race 2020. Astead Herndon of the New York Times: "Senator Kamala Harris, the California Democrat and barrier-breaking prosecutor who became the second black woman to serve in the United States Senate, declared her candidacy for president on Monday, joining an increasingly crowded and diverse field in what promises to be a wide-open nomination process.... Ms. Harris chose to enter the race on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, an overt nod to the historic nature of her candidacy, and her timing was also meant to evoke Shirley Chisholm, the New York congresswoman who became the first woman to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for president 47 years ago this week. In addition, Ms. Harris will hold her first campaign event on Friday in South Carolina, where black voters are the dominant force in the Democratic primary, rather than start off by visiting Iowa and New Hampshire, the two predominantly white states that hold their nomination contests first. She will hold a kickoff rally Sunday in Oakland, Calif., her hometown." (Also linked yesterday.)

Mrs. McCrabbie: So everybody is feeling all chastised because there was a little more to the story about the Covington High boys who taunted Native Americans during rallies in Washington, D.C. Saturday. As the New York Times reported (linked yesterday), there was more to the story. Yes, there is: ...

... New York Daily News: "This won't help Kentucky student Nick Sandmann's case. A photo said to be featuring Covington Catholic High School students clad in blackface during a 2015 basketball game made the rounds on Twitter Monday morning amid last week's Indigenous Peoples March controversy. The photo depicts several white students, some in blackface, shouting at an opposing black player. While the photo's origins couldn't be verified, the official Covington Catholic High School YouTube account published a video last January boasting its basketball school spirit, and several clips, including one from 2012, showcase attendees chanting in black face, a mockery of the opposing players. The school took down the video later on Monday." Mrs. McC: I'm sorry, but Covington High is a terrible school. Is it the only one that encourages this type of hate/"school spirit"? I'd say no. ...

... CBS News/AP: "Mr. Trump tweeted his support Monday night for the students from Covington Catholic High in Park Hills, Kentucky, as some news reports questioned whether early criticism of them was warranted: 'Looking like Nick Sandman & Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly with early judgements proving out to be false - smeared by media. Not good, but making big comeback! New footage shows that media was wrong about teen's encounter with Native American' The president added to that on Tuesday morning: 'Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be. They have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good - maybe even to bring people together. It started off unpleasant, but can end in a dream!'" Thanks to Ken W. for the link. As Ken says, "... if he's on their side, it's a sure sign there must be somthing wrong with them." Isn't it odd Trump didn't have a word of support for the Native Americans the boys surrounded & mocked with tomahawk chops? ...

... Ruth Graham of Slate: "There's no mistaking the core dynamics of the encounter: [Nick] Sandmann smugly grins in [Nathan] Phillips's face and declines to step backward, and he's backed by dozens of boisterous teens who are jeering and mocking the much smaller group of Native marchers.... The new facts about this small encounter this weekend in Washington are important, and worth clarifying. But they don't change the larger story, the one that caused so many people to react so viscerally to the narrative's first, and simpler draft."

Andrew Roth of the Guardian: "A Russian lawyer for Paul Whelan, the US citizen accused of spying on Russia, has said his client was carrying state secrets when he was arrested in Moscow but may not have realised it. Whelan, an ex-marine, has been accused of an unspecified 'act of espionage', which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.... Since December, anonymously sourced reports in Russian media have said that Whelan received a USB drive with secret information about Russian government employees. But the content of the charges against him have not been made public by officials."

Anand Giridharadas of the Guardian: "[T]he average pretax income of the top 10th of Americans has doubled since 1980, that of the top 1% has more than tripled, and that of the top 0.001% has risen more than sevenfold -- even as the average pretax income of the bottom half of Americans has stayed almost precisely the same. These familiar figures amount to three-and-a-half decades' worth of wondrous, head-spinning change with zero impact on the average pay of 117 million Americans.... There is no denying that today's American elite may be among the more socially concerned elites in history. But it is also, by the cold logic of numbers, among the more predatory.... It is vital that we try to understand the connection between these elites' social concern and predation, between the extraordinary helping and the extraordinar hoarding[.]" A long read. --s

Justine Calma of Mother Jones: "Climate change could take a greater toll on global health than previously estimated. That's according to a new report published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article, along with an editorial published in the same issue, calls on health professionals to lead actions to allay the threat. The World Health Organization previously predicted that the effects of climate change could lead to an additional 250,000 deaths each year by 2030. Authors of the New England Journal article now say that number is a conservative estimate[.]" --s

Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "Greenland is melting faster than scientists previously thought, with the pace of ice loss increasing four-fold since 2003, new research has found." --s

Way Beyond the Beltway

"Annals of Journalism", Brazil Edition. Piero Locatelli & Andrew Fishman of The Intercept: "Last Monday, CNN announced that it will launch a Portuguese-language channel in Brazil.... Principal funding for the venture will come from the new channel's chair of the board, Rubens Menin, a construction magnate who is a vocal cheerleader for far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and whose company has been caught multiple times using modern slave labor.... CNN...will bring on Douglas Tavolaro as its CEO. Tavolaro previously served as vice president for news of Rede Record, a channel that in 2018 earned the nickname 'Fox News Brasil'.... Brazil's corporate media landscape is extremely consolidated and uniformly pro-business." --s

The Commentariat -- January 21, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Trump Knocks Himself out to Honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump made a brief appearance Monday at Washington's Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, honoring the civil rights icon with a wreath on the federal holiday bearing his name. The president, accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence and acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, spent roughly two minutes at the memorial."

Astead Herndon of the New York Times: "Senator Kamala Harris, the California Democrat and barrier-breaking prosecutor who became the second black woman to serve in the United States Senate, declared her candidacy for president on Monday, joining an increasingly crowded and diverse field in what promises to be a wide-open nomination process.... Ms. Harris chose to enter the race on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, an overt nod to the historic nature of her candidacy, and her timing was also meant to evoke Shirley Chisholm, the New York congresswoman who became the first woman to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for president 47 years ago this week. In addition, Ms. Harris will hold her first campaign event on Friday in South Carolina, where black voters are the dominant force in the Democratic primary, rather than start off by visiting Iowa and New Hampshire, the two predominantly white states that hold their nomination contests first. She will hold a kickoff rally Sunday in Oakland, Calif., her hometown."

Luke Barnes of ThinkProgress: "Two years ago, President Donald Trump stood before an inauguration crowd in Washington, D.C. and warned of 'American carnage,' claiming he alone could stop it.... Now, midway through his presidency, it has become increasingly clear that the real danger is one Trump himself has both fomented and chosen to ignore: far-right extremism.... Meanwhile, both the president and the Republican Party have emboldened violent far-right extremists through their inaction; over the last two years, Trump has barely acknowledged the explosion of far-right activity, much less done anything to combat it." --s

Team of Vipers. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "John F. Kelly, as White House chief of staff, presented himself as the man leading a charge of 'country first, president second.' The attorney general suggested administering lie-detector tests to the small group of people with access to transcripts of the president'calls with foreign leaders. And President Trump sought a list of 'enemies' working in the White House communications shop. Those are some of the portraits of the Trump White House sprinkled throughout 'Team of Vipers,' an inside account of working there written by Cliff Sims, a former communications staff member and Trump loyalist who worked on the campaign.... The book ... describes a nest of back-stabbing and duplicity within the West Wing, a narrative by now familiar from other books and news media reports. But Mr. Sims, who left last year after clashing with Mr. Kelly, is one of the few people to attach his name to descriptions of goings-on at the White House that are not always flattering to Mr. Trump, and many of the scenes are not particularly flattering to anyone, including himself."

Sam Fulwood of ThinkProgress: "In a largely overlooked August 18, 2016 speech, then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump extemporaneously cited a litany of problems plaguing black Americans. Speaking broadly, as if to encompass nearly every black person in the nation, Trump rattled off a list of shopworn stereotypes on black pathology.... And turning to squarely face reporters' cameras, Trump declared for the first time in his campaign that only he could make life better for African Americans. He then asked for their votes with a haunting and memorable question. 'What the hell do you have to lose?'... Now, two years into his disastrous presidency, black Americans have the same answer as when Trump initially asked the question: Plenty." --s

Lemmings of the Senate Unite! Seung Min Kim & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "One month into a historic government shutdown, Republican senators are standing staunchly behind President Trump's demand for money to build a border wall, even as the GOP bears the brunt of the blame for a standoff few in the party agitated for, according to interviews this past week with more than 40 Republican senators and aides. Under pressure from conservatives to help Trump deliver on a signature campaign promise and unable to persuade him to avert the partial government shutdown, these lawmakers have all but surrendered to the president's will. Their comments show how the cracks in the 53-member Republican majority that emerged at the outset of the shutdown have not spread beyond a handful of lawmakers."

Update on Another Trump Campaign Scam. Aidan McLaughlin of Mediaite: "Michael Cohen called CNBC to threaten legal action after his attempt to rig an online poll in Donald Trump's favor failed, according to a new report. The Wall Street Journal reported that Cohen called CNBC in 2014 and threatened that Trump would sue if the network didn't place the then-businessman higher on its list of the top business leaders, arguing it was 'ignoring the will of the people.' Per the Journal, CNBC never responded and Cohen never sued. It was reported last week that Cohen paid tens of thousands to a tech firm to rig online polls in Trump's favor, including the 2014 CNBC poll and a 2015 Drudge Report poll on presidential candidates. Both efforts failed.... Trump made public efforts to drive his supporters to the CNBC poll too. 'Honored to be named as one of business's "Top Leaders, Icons and Rebels" by @CNBC,' he tweeted after making the shortlist. 'Vote Trump!' And then, when he didn't make the official list: 'Stupid poll should be canceled -- no credibility.'" ...

... Corruption in Plain Sight. Josh Marshall puts one of Rudy's latest admissions into perspective: "During the time Trump was singing Putin's praises on the campaign trail and getting Putin's help with hacking and information campaigns, Putin was dangling a few hundred million dollars in front of Trump." ...

... John Marshall: "[The Trump Moscow Tower] deal was with sanctioned individuals and sanctioned banks. Whether it was even legal to be entering into the negotiations is not clear to me. But certainly the post-2014 sanctions against Russia had to be lifted before the deal could be finalized. That is the central issue. It's not simply that Trump had 'business' with Russia and deceived the public about it during the campaign and after. It's more specific and direct. Why was Trump so solicitous of Russia and Vladimir Putin during the campaign? Well, a lot of possible reasons. But a major and likely the major reason was because Putin was dangling a multi-hundreds of millions of dollars payday in front of him. That's a big incentive, especially for Donald Trump." --s

Pamela Constable of the Washington Post: "Scores of Afghan security forces were killed Monday when a suicide bomber in a Humvee rammed a training compound of the national intelligence agency in Wardak Province, officials there said. Taliban insurgents immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Security officials in Kabul, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told news agencies that the death toll could reach higher than 120, with a large number wounded. The massive bombing destroyed most of the building in the provincial capital where about 150 counterinsurgency troops are based, officials there said. The bombing was followed by gunmen who entered the compound in a truck and began shooting."

Adam Satariano of the New York Times: "After European policymakers adopted a sweeping new data privacy law last year, the big question has been how regulators would use their new powers against the world's most powerful technology companies. The first major example came on Monday, when the French data protection authority announced that it had fined Google 50 million euros, or about $57 million, for not properly disclosing to users how data is collected across its services, including its search engine, Google Maps and YouTube, in order to present personalized advertisements. The penalty is the largest to date under the European Union privacy law, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, that went into effect last May, and it shows that regulators are following through on a pledge to use the new rules to push back against internet companies whose businesses depend on collecting data. Facebook is also the subject of a number of investigations by the data protection authorities in Europe."

*****

How Not to Remember Martin Luther King, Jr. ... the hearts and minds of the American people are thinking a lot today about [this] being the weekend we remember the life and work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. One of my favorite quotes from Dr. King was, 'Now is the time to make real the promises of Democracy,' You think of how he changed America, he inspired us to change through the legislative process, to become a more perfect union. That's exactly what President Trump is calling on the Congress to do, come to the table in a spirit of good faith. -- mike pence

The comments made by Pence -- who works at the top of an administration that promotes policies that directly contradict King's message -- fly directly in the face of Martin Luther King's legacy.... In a stark contrast to what King stood for, the Trump administration has repeatedly sent encouraging signals to the forces of white nationalism.... Martin Luther King Jr. spent every day of his life trying to tear down the walls that separated us.... There is no justification for Vice President Pence to use King's memory to support the administration's policies. Doing so is a perversion of the work of one of the greatest social activists of modern times. -- Julian Zelizer, in a CNN opinion piece

The Trump Shutdown, Ctd.

People saw him as some sort of business wizard. That's all disintegrating. It's like McDonald's not being able to make a hamburger. -- Mike Murphy, GOP strategist

Old McDonald can' even make a hamberder. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ...

... Philip Rucker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump was elected president partly by assuring the American people that 'I alone can fix it.' But precisely two years into his presidency, the government is not simply broken -- it is in crisis.... Trump's management of the partial government shutdown -- his first foray in divided government -- has exposed as never before his shortcomings as a dealmaker. The shutdown also has accentuated several fundamental traits of Trump's presidency: his apparent shortage of empathy, in this case for furloughed workers; his difficulty accepting responsibility, this time for a crisis he had said he would be proud to instigate; his tendency for revenge when it comes to one-upping political foes; and his seeming misunderstanding of Democrats' motivations.... Trump has approached the shutdown primarily as a public relations challenge.... But ... one month into the shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, a preponderance of public polls show Trump is losing the political fight.... Trump's management of the impasse has also drawn criticism about his competence as an executive. The administration this past month has been playing a game of whack-a-mole, with West Wing aides saying they did no contingency planning for a shutdown this long and have been learning of problems from agencies and press reports in real time." ...

... Alex Shephard of the New Republic: "'We are getting crushed!' So exclaimed President Trump to his chief of staff in response to media coverage of the government shutdown.... But if Trump thinks he's getting crushed now, he ought to peek around the corner. The outlook for the remainder of his term is grim -- not just for his political prospects, but the country itself. Economists, Wall Street analysts, and even the White House's own experts are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the economy, which Trump is doing his best to hobble. And the now-divided Congress can't even manage to fund the government, boding ill for its ability to accomplish much else. Trump has brought this on himself. He had ample evidence that immigration was not the winning issue that he continues to think it is.... Trump is consoling himself by suggesting that he will only take a short-term hit because of the shutdown.... The shutdown is also having an impact on one of the few bright spots of this administration: the economy.... Trump himself is dragging down the economy.... Two years is a long time in politics, and it's an even longer time in the Trump era. Truly anything can happen. Right now, though, it looks more likely that nothing will happen. That could crush not just Trump, but us all."

Home Alone. Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump rung in Day 30 of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, as well as the two-year anniversary of his tenure in the Oval Office, with a mammoth 40 posts to his Twitter feed over the course of Sunday."

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Trump lashed out Sunday at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over stalled negotiations to end the partial government shutdown while rejecting conservative claims that his offer of temporary deportation protections for young immigrants amounts to amnesty. In a morning tweet, Trump claimed that Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democrats 'turned down my offer yesterday before I even got up to speak.'... 'Nancy Pelosi has behaved so irrationally & has gone so far to the left that she has now officially become a Radical Democrat,' Trump said. 'She is so petrified of the "lefties" in her party that she has lost control ... And by the way, clean up the streets in San Francisco, they are disgusting!'... 'They don't see crime & drugs, they only see 2020 -- which they are not going to win. Best economy! They should do the right thing for the Country & allow people to go back to work,' he said.... Pelosi fired back on Twitter with a reminder to Trump that '800,000 Americans are going without pay.' 'Re-open the government, let workers get their paychecks and then we can discuss how we can come together to protect the border,' she said.... The president sought to rebut that [confederate] critique[s] on Sunday, maintaining in a tweet that 'No, Amnesty is not a part of my offer.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Quint Forgey: "... Donald Trump teased Sunday he is 'still thinking about the State of the Union speech,' tweeting that 'there are so many options' to deliver his remarks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked him to postpone the address as long as the federal government remains closed. 'Nancy, I am still thinking about the State of the Union speech, there are so many options - including doing it as per your written offer (made during the Shutdown, security is no problem), and my written acceptance,' the president wrote online. 'While a contract is a contract, I'll get back to you soon!'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump's Wall B.S. Calvin Woodward of the AP: "... Donald Trump made an untenable case Saturday that a Mexican border wall would be a magic bullet for America's drug problem. Drugs from Mexico are primarily smuggled into the U.S. at official border crossings, not remote lands that can be walled off. His proposal to end the government shutdown implicitly recognizes that reality by proposing money to improve drug-detection technology specifically at land ports of entry.... The Drug Enforcement Administration says 'only a small percentage' of heroin seized by U.S. authorities comes across on territory between ports of entry. It says the same is true of drugs overall.... Even if a wall could stop all drugs from Mexico, America's drug problem would be far from over. The U.S. Centers on Disease Control and Prevention says about 40 percent of opioid deaths in 2016 involved prescription painkillers. Those drugs are made by pharmaceutical companies.... Moreover, illicit versions of powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have come to the U.S. from China.... As well, many researchers have found that people in the U.S. illegally are less likely to commit crime than U.S. citizens and legal immigrants -- except, that is, for the crime of being illegally in the country."

David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "The grass-roots progressive movement known as the resistance has had a very good two years.... But the government shutdown has shown the limits of this new progressive movement. The resistance has had virtually no effect on the politics of the shutdown -- and a stronger movement could have a big effect.... If this were happening in Europe, as Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago told me, people would be pouring into the streets. And yet in the United States, there has been nothing but a few small, scattered rallies. Instead of lining up to protest, hundreds of federal workers in Washington lined up last week to eat at makeshift soup kitchens. The photos of them doing so were a study in powerlessness.... The celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr. will include a lot of pap about peace and equality. But King didn't think that peace and equality just happened. He thought people had to struggle for them."

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: Donald Trump "regularly tries to dispel suspicions [about his ties to Russia] by declaring that he has done more to counter Russian aggression than other recent presidents have. 'I have been FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton,' he wrote on Twitter a week ago. Yet in at least some ... cases, according to current and former administration officials, Mr. Trump has gone along with [retaliatory] actions only reluctantly or under pressure from advisers or Congress. He has left it to subordinates to publicly criticize Russian actions while personally expressing admiration for Mr. Putin and eagerness to be friends. His recent decision to pull out of Syria was seen as a victory for Russia. And as in the latest Ukraine confrontation, he has for now at least given Moscow a pass.... Critics argue that Mr. Trump undercuts his administration's actions by seeming to accept Mr. Putin's denials of election interference over the reports of his own intelligence agencies. They say he effectively parrots Kremlin talking points by denigrating NATO and endorsing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.... Analysts said American policy remains bifurcated by the disparity of Mr. Trump's statements and his administration's actions."

Rudy Still Suffering from Foot-in-Mouth Disease. No Known Cure. Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, said on Sunday that discussions about building a Trump Tower in Moscow lasted through the November 2016 election, months longer than previously confirmed. Mr. Giuliani said in an interview with The New York Times that Mr. Trump 'recalls a series of conversations' with his former lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, about the project during the campaign. 'He can't tell you the date' that it ended, Mr. Giuliani said. 'There are no entries or phone logs' that indicated specifics, he added. 'The best he could do is, "We talked about it, I knew he was running with it, I honestly didn't pay much attention to it,"' Mr. Giuliani said, characterizing Mr. Trump's memory. He added that Mr. Trump recalled, '"It was all going from the day I announced to the day I won."' The comments further extended an already growing timeline for the discussions. Mr. Cohen had told Congress that the negotiations ended in January 2016, before the first presidential primaries, but later in a plea agreement, he said they continued as late as June 2016.... Mr. Giuliani had then indicated in an interview with ABC News last month that the talks had lasted possibly until Election Day, although he was less specific than he was on Sunday." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Gee, that doesn't quite jibe with this NYT Report from November 2018: "On at least 23 occasions since the summer of 2016, Mr. Trump has said either that he had 'nothing' to do with Russia, or that he has 'no deals,' no investments and no 'business' in Russia." You might think Trump was flagrantly lying to voters in order to win the election. ...

... "So What?" Paige Cunningham of the Washington Post: "Rudolph W. Giuliani vehemently denied Sunday that President Trump asked his former attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, speaking during a fiery CNN interview in which he also said BuzzFeed News should be sued for reporting such allegations this past week. Giuliani acknowledged that Trump might have spoken to Cohen about his testimony, but he shrugged it off, saying that would have been 'perfectly normal.' 'So what?' Giuliani, who serves as Trump's personal attorney, said to CNN's Jake Tapper on 'State of the Union' on Sunday morning. 'As far as I know, President Trump did not have discussions with him. Certainly no discussions with him in which he told him or counseled him to lie.'... Giuliani told NBC's [Chuck] Todd he was '100 percent certain' the president never asked Cohen to do anything but tell the truth to Congress.... Cohen signed a plea deal with the special counsel in November, after pleading guilty to lying to Congress about plans to build the tower. Although he'd previously said the conversations about the tower ended in January 2016, he later acknowledged they were still occurring in June 2016.... Giuliani said Sunday that the conversations about the tower could have extended even further -- up to the November 2016 election." Giuliani said that signing a non-binding letter of intent to build a Moscow tower "isn't the same as doing business." ...

... "Give Me a Break." Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Rudy Giuliani ... said in an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union' that the accidental revelation by [Paul] Manafort's attorneys that he shared polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked with Manafort as a political consultant in the Ukraine, was being overblown by people eager to accuse the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia to swing the 2016 election in the president's favor. The former Trump campaign chairman likely shared the data with Kilimnik because 'he wanted to get paid,' Giuliani said, adding that Manafort had 'a personal relationship with them, independent of the campaign.... Should he have done it? Absolutely not. Bad judgment? Yes. A crime? Sharing polling data? Give me a break. No way,' Giuliani said. 'People give out that internal polling data to impress people. They give it out for fundraising, just to have people on your side. They give it out to affect you guys in the press.'" ...

... Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Top Washington criminal defense lawyers, both Democrats and Republicans, told me they couldn't understand what Giuliani was trying to achieve with his TV appearance. 'Any defense lawyer would advise their client in an investigation not to discuss testimony with other people involved in the investigation in order to avoid the risk of obstruction or suborning perjury charges,' said a Republican attorney who ... works with the Trump administration.... Giuliani texted back: 'If there is a joint defense agreement it is safe to do it through your lawyers. I can't believe your [sic] still pursuing this after the malicious BuzzFeed blowup. President has not advised anyone to do anything but tell the truth as that [sic] recall it[.]'" ...

... Chas Danner of New York has a very good summation of "Rudy's Busy Day," including not only Rudy's revelations & admissions but also Rudy's inconsistent assertions.

Biggest Liar Ever. Glenn Kessler, et al., of the Washington Post: "Two years after taking the oath of office, President Trump has made 8,158 false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker's database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president. That includes an astonishing 6,000-plus such claims in the president's second year. Put another way: The president averaged nearly 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in his first year in office. But he hit nearly 16.5 a day in his second year, almost triple the pace."

Biggest Failure Ever. Jonathan Chait: "The first two years of the Trump administration have mostly combined ethical calamities large (the separation of migrant children from their parents) and small (petty graft ranging from lavish office expenses to making staff procure high-end hand cream) with a succession of pratfalls. Trump has proved unable to do the large things (like repeal and replace, or even just repeal, Obamacare) or the small things (staff his administration, produce correctly spelled official documents). But against this shambolic backdrop, there stands in bright shining succession the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.... Yet it has not sunk in how completely this project is failing.... Tax revenue in general, and corporate tax revenue in particular, have dropped -- an unusual event for an economy running at full capacity.... And as for that spike in corporate investment last year? Alexander Arnon suggests the entire thing was caused by higher oil prices.... The Trump tax cuts are of a piece with the endemic corruption that has tied the party's political class to its buffoonish president.... By the public-facing standards set out for it, as opposed to the private venal reasons, the Trump tax cuts have failed as miserably as everything else."

Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "Based on the [confirmation] hearing [of William Barr], one might think that supervision of the special counsel is the Attorney General's main responsibility. But that's far from true, and it's regarding the other work of the Justice Department, particularly its central mission of protecting the civil rights of all Americans, that the prospect of Barr's service appears dismaying. By and large, he seemed prepared to sustain the work of his predecessors in the Administration: the belligerently right-wing Jeff Sessions and the comically unqualified Matthew Whitaker, the acting Attorney General.... Barr is sure to continue the defense of the citizenship question [on the 2020 Census questionnaire] (in the hearing, he punted on the matter of birthright citizenship), and his views on immigration appear substantively similar to the Administration's.... When it comes to criminal justice, the department has mirrored Trump's reflexive solicitude for law enforcement.... Like virtually every Republican in Congress, he seems willing to uphold the policies of the Administration while choosing not to see -- or, at least, not to confront -- its ignorance and its recklessness."

Adam Forrest of the Independent: "The mother of a boy filmed harassing a Native American man along with his friends at a rally in Washington DC has blamed 'black Muslims' for the confrontation, without providing any evidence for the claim. The teenager was among a group of students wearing Make America Great Again (Maga hats who were criticised for taunting the musician Nathan Phillips, surrounding him and jeering and chanting 'build the wall, build the wall'. But his mother claimed 'black Muslims' had been harassing the group of Donald Trump supporters from the private, all-male Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's just assume Mom there is right & some "black Muslims" picked on her darling boy. So exactly why would said darling boy bully another person, of another race, for something the supposed "black Muslims" did? Mom's claims are not only likely untrue, they're racist on racism. What a lovely family unit. ...

... UPDATE. Sarah Mervosh & Emily Rueb of the New York Times: "Early video excerpts from the encounter obscured the larger context, inflaming outrage. Leading up to the encounter on Friday, a rally for Native Americans and other Indigenous people was wrapping up. Dozens of students from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, who had been in Washington for the anti-abortion March for Life rally, were standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, many of them white and wearing apparel bearing the slogan of President Trump. There were also black men who identified themselves as Hebrew Israelites, preaching their beliefs and shouting racially combative comments at the Native Americans and the students, according to witnesses and video on social media."

The Commentariat -- January 20, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Trump lashed out Sunday at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over stalled negotiations to end the partial government shutdown while rejecting conservative claims that his offer of temporary deportation protections for young immigrants amounts to amnesty. In a morning tweet, Trump claimed that Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democrats 'turned down my offer yesterday before I even got up to speak.'... 'Nancy Pelosi has behaved so irrationally & has gone so far to the left that she has now officially become a Radical Democrat,' Trump said. 'She is so petrified of the "lefties" in her party that she has lost control ... And by the way, clean up the streets in San Francisco, they are disgusting!'... 'They don't see crime & drugs, they only see 2020 -- which they are not going to win. Best economy! They should do the right thing for the Country & allow people to go back to work,' he said.... Pelosi fired back on Twitter with a reminder to Trump that '800,000 Americans are going without pay.' 'Re-open the government, let workers get their paychecks and then we can discuss how we can come together to protect the border,' she said.... The president sought to rebut [a confederate] critique[s] on Sunday, maintaining in a tweet that 'No, Amnesty is not a part of my offer.'"

Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump teased Sunday he is 'still thinking about the State of the Union speech,' tweeting that 'there are so many options' to deliver his remarks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked him to postpone the address as long as the federal government remains closed. 'Nancy, I am still thinking about the State of the Union speech, there are so many options - including doing it as per your written offer (made during the Shutdown, security is no problem), and my written acceptance,' the president wrote online. 'While a contract is a contract, I’ll get back to you soon!'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm not sure an invitation is a contract. If I invite you to dinner, then my kitchen gets "shut down" by a coffeemaker fire, I don't think you could successfully sue me for a free meal. Even if if rescind the invitation for no apparent reason, especially if I do so weeks in advance of the dinner, I don't think you'd win that one either. P.S. Sure took Trump a long time to respond.

Rudy Still Suffering from Foot-in-Mouth Disease. No Known Cure. Alicia Cohn of the Hill: "President Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, on Sunday said that it's 'possible' the president spoke to his former attorney, Michael Cohen, ahead of his congressional testimony. 'Which would be perfectly normal,' Giuliani told CNN's 'State of the Union.' 'So what?' 'As far as I know, President Trump did not have discussions with him,' he added. 'Certainly, no discussions with him in which he told him or counseled him to lie.'... 'If he had any discussions with him, they'd be about the version of the events that Michael Cohen gave them which they all believe was true,' Giuliani said.... Giuliani said during a separate appearance on NBC's 'Meet the Press' that he is '100 percent certain' that Trump never once asked Cohen to do anything but tell the truth to Congress. 'I can tell you his counsel to Michael Cohen throughout that entire period was, "Tell the truth." We thought he was telling the truth. I still believe he may have been telling the truth when he testified before Congress,' he told host Chuck Todd." ...

... Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, said on Sunday that discussions about building a Trump Tower in Moscow lasted through the November 2016 election, months longer than previously confirmed. Mr. Giuliani said in an interview with The New York Times that Mr. Trump 'recalls a series of conversations' with his former lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, about the project during the campaign. 'He can't tell you the date' that it ended, Mr. Giuliani said. 'There are no entries or phone logs' that indicated specifics, he added. 'The best he could do is, "We talked about it, I knew he was running with it, I honestly didn't pay much attention to it,"' Mr. Giuliani said, characterizing Mr. Trump's memory. He added that Mr. Trump recalled, '"It was all going from the day I announced to the day I won."' The comments further extended an already growing timeline for the discussions. Mr. Cohen had told Congress that the negotiations ended in January 2016, before the first presidential primaries, but later in a plea agreement, he said they continued as late as June 2016.... Mr. Giuliani had then indicated in an interview with ABC News last month that the talks had lasted possibly until Election Day, although he was less specific than he was on Sunday." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Gee, that doesn't quite jibe with this NYT Report from November 2018: "On at least 23 occasions since the summer of 2016, Mr. Trump has said either that he had 'nothing' to do with Russia, or that he has 'no deals,' no investments and no 'business' in Russia." You might think Trump was flagrantly lying to voters in order to win the election.

Adam Forrest of the Independent: "The mother of a boy filmed harassing a Native American man along with his friends at a rally in Washington DC has blamed 'black Muslims' for the confrontation, without providing any evidence for the claim. The teenager was among a group of students wearing Make America Great Again (Maga) hats who were criticised for taunting the musician Nathan Phillips, surrounding him and jeering and chanting 'build the wall, build the wall'. But his mother claimed 'black Muslims' had been harassing the group of Donald Trump supporters from the private, all-male Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's just assume Mom there is right & some "black Muslims" picked on her darling boy. So exactly why would said darling boy bully another person, of another race, for something the supposed "black Muslims" did? Mom's claims are not only likely untrue, they're racist on racism. What a lovely family unit.

*****

The Trump Shutdown, Ctd.

Diabolical Donald's "Deal" DOA. Annie Karni of the New York Times: "President Trump announced on Saturday that he would extend deportation protections for some undocumented immigrants in exchange for $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the border with Mexico.... The president, delivering a 13-minute address from the White House, said he would extend the legal status of those facing deportation and support bipartisan legislation that would allow some immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children, known as Dreamers, to keep their work permits and be protected from deportation for three more years if they are revoked.... But he reiterated his demand for $5.7 billion in funding for a border barrier, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said ahead of his remarks that she considered his proposal a 'nonstarter,' in part because it offered no permanent pathway to citizenship for Dreamers." ...

... Here's Pelosi's full statement on Trump's proposal, via her office. ...

... Katie Zezima, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Saturday offered Democrats three years of deportation protections for some immigrants in exchange for $5.7 billion in border wall funding, a proposal immediately rejected by Democrats and derided by conservatives as amnesty." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Nice try, Trump. Yours is the kind of "deal" that gets "negotiated" when you only "negotiate" with actors on your side of the aisle. Really stupid. OR, as New York's Daily Intelligencer put it, "Trump's big announcement: repeat his prime time address and add a D.O.A. proposal extending the limbo of DACA/TPS recipients." (No link.) ...

     ... Also from the WashPo report: "On Friday Pelosi accused Trump of putting herself and fellow lawmakers in danger by publicizing their plans to travel to Afghanistan, forcing them to abandon the trip.... The White House has forcefully denied Pelosi's claims. A person close to the White House called The Washington Post on Friday morning to alert a reporter to Pelosi's travel plans, speaking on the condition of anonymity[.]" ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Some commentators have noted that in his 13-minute address, Trump did not once mention the hardships his shutdown imposed on unpaid federal employees. (The transcript is here.) I would say this isn't because Trump lacks empathy -- which of course he does -- but because he's actually enjoying the needless pain & suffering he has brought upon these workers, workers whom he believes are mostly Democrats. Trump is not entirely self-centered; he's also sadistic, IMO.

... Julie Davis of the New York Times: "What President Trump billed on Saturday as a compromise to end the country's longest government shutdown pleased neither the Democratic congressional leaders whose buy-in he needs to strike a deal nor the core supporters whose backing has always been at the heart of his insistence on a border wall.... In seeking to inch toward the center, Mr. Trump alienated portions of his hard-right base, the core supporters he most depends on and the group he and his closest aides have most feared losing. That raised the possibility that, in his zeal to get out of an intractable situation, he may have landed himself in the worst of all worlds.... 'Trump proposes amnesty,' the conservative commentator Ann Coulter said on Twitter. 'We voted for Trump and got Jeb!'... On Saturday night, Breitbart panned Mr. Trump's latest idea with the headline 'Three-Year Amnesty, Most of Border Remains Open.'... The tensions and anger over the policy have been quietly playing out in the West Wing as well, as Jared Kushner ... fended off Stephen Miller, the architect of much of Mr. Trump's immigration agenda. In recent days, as White House officials had been working out the details of the compromise, Mr. Miller intervened to narrow the universe of immigrants who would receive protection...."

McConnell, who has said repeatedly only bills with support of Trump and Dems can end shutdown, says he will hold vote on Trump proposal - even though Dems are rejecting it. 'Everyone has made their point -- now it's time to make a law. I intend to move to this legislation this week' -- Manu Raju of CNN, in a tweet

In case you never wanted to strangle Mitch before. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Trump's 'asylum reforms' riff is code for denying due process for unaccompanied minors and eviscerating Flores Settlement. Means that kids who now get protection will get sent back to face death and kids will be detained for as long as Trump wants. -- Frank Sharry, immigration reform activist, in a tweet

In case you never wanted to strangle Trump before. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Isn't this a kind of hostage-taking squared? First end the programs. Then shut the government. Then promise to temporarily restore the programs you've ended & reopen the govt you have closed, in return for the ransom of $ for a wall that 55-60% of country consistent opposes? -- Ron Brownstein of the Atlantic, in a tweet

Tweets via New York mag 

Here's another reason Trump's deal is no deal: ...

... Pete Williams of NBC News (Jan. 18): "The U.S. Supreme Court took no action on Friday on the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It now appears likely that the court will not take up the issue during its current term, which would require the government to keep the program going for at least ten more months. The Trump administration urged the justices to hear appeals of lower court rulings that prevent the government from shutting DACA down, but Friday was the last day for adding cases to the current term's docket, barring unusual circumstances. Any cases accepted in subsequent weeks won't be heard until the next term, which begins October 1, and it would take a few months more for the court to issue a decision."

David Rohde of the New Yorker: "As the longest-ever U.S. government shutdown enters its fifth week, [Tom] O'Connor[, the head of the F.B.I. Agents Association,] says that the majority of the Bureau's thirteen thousand agents are working, all without pay, and morale is plummeting.... The long-term fear is that, given that the private sector pays more than the Bureau, the F.B.I. and other federal law-enforcement organizations will both lose experienced agents and be unable to recruit new ones.... The shutdown comes as the Bureau struggles to defend itself from unprecedented allegations of political bias from a sitting President.... As news reports have continued to focus on the Mueller investigation, the President has continued to make false or misleading claims about the Bureau and its former director, James Comey.... Trump's attacks, meanwhile, are eroding public faith in the F.B.I., particularly among Republicans."

It's All About Trump. Sam Berger in a Washington Post op-ed: "Tens of thousands of previously furloughed federal employees returned to work this week -- without pay -- so the government could process tax refunds, oversee airplane safety, and inspect food and drugs. It was the Trump administration's latest set of major changes to how agencies without funding operate, moves that it claims are simply an effort to make things 'as painless as possible.'... But that's not really Trump's goal. If it were, he would not be threatening to continue this one for months or years. Instead, he is changing precedents in a one-off manner to paper over problems and help favored constituencies, all to create political space to prolong the standoff. Trump is not concerned about making the shutdown painless for the American people — he's concerned with making it painless for himself.... The law limits what activities can continue during a shutdown: those necessary to protect life or property, to carry out the president's core constitutional responsibilities, and to operate programs that Congress has said should continue in the absence of funding. But Trump has shunted aside legal and programmatic considerations in favor of two imperatives: keeping bad press to a minimum and keeping influential supporters happy."

Conservative David Frum of The Atlantic: "President Donald Trump ... shut the government to impose his will on the incoming Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. That plan has miserably failed. Instead, Trump has found himself caught in the trap he supposed he had set for his opponents.... In the 10 days since the [Oval Office] speech, Trump's approval ratings have dipped to about the lowest point in his presidency. The supposedly solid Trump base has measurably softened.... Trump is now trying Exit Two. This idea is even more harebrained than the last.... Why on earth would any appreciable number of Democrats break away from their leadership to do business as individuals with a president none of them trusts about an issue none of them thinks should be negotiable, reopening the government?... The shutdown was a demand for unconditional surrender. Unfortunately for him, the president lacks the political realism to recognize that he doesn't have the clout to impose that surrender." --s

Our Lord & Master Vindictive Little Turd Decrees. Jennifer Scholtes of Politico: "The White House put top department officials on notice today that they are not allowed to spend money or use planes to help lawmakers travel on congressional delegation trips.... Federal officials can still provide logistical and security support for those delegations, acting OMB Director Russell Vought wrote. The guidance comes after Trump made a public show Thursday of stopping House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats from using military aircraft to fly to Afghanistan." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Congress should pass a law disallowing administration officials to travel on government transports without specific authorization from the Congressional Office of Beg Us for a Ticket, MoFo.gov

Laura Bradley of Vanity Fair: "As the government shutdown drags on, Stephen Colbert has joined the effort to help furloughed workers.... On The Late Show, the comedian announced that he would be selling mugs with a cheesy catchphrase on them -- 'Don't Even Talk to Me Until I've Had My Paycheck' -- to benefit celebrity chef José Andrés's World Central Kitchen. World Central Kitchen is a disaster-relief group founded by Andrés, who last year was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the organization in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. On Monday, the group announced it would begin feeding furloughed federal workers free of charge from a kitchen-cafe located on Washington, D.C.'s Pennsylvania Avenue." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

We won’t stop until everyone has a hot meal. #ChefsForFeds pic.twitter.com/VRciB8kPRK

— WorldCentralKitchen (@WCKitchen) January 17, 2019

Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "American businesses are losing hundreds of millions of dollars every day President Donald Trump's partial government shutdown -- now the longest on record -- rages on. But few industry leaders say they are pressuring Republican members of Congress they bankrolled to end the shutdown.... Business organizations have vigorously objected to shutdowns before, particularly when they occurred under Democratic presidents." --s

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

When "No Comment" Looks Like Confirmation. Matt Zapotosky & Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "When a BuzzFeed reporter first sought comment on the news outlet's explosive report that President Trump had directed his lawyer to lie to Congress, the spokesman for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III treated the request as he would almost any other story.... Peter Carr [declined to comment].... When BuzzFeed published the story hours later, it far exceeded Carr's initial impression, people familiar with the matter said.... And with Democrats raising the specter of investigation and impeachment, Mueller's team started discussing a step they had never before taken: publicly disputing reporting on evidence in their ongoing investigation.... People familiar with the matter said Carr told others in the government that he would have more vigorously discouraged the reporters from proceeding with the story had he known it would allege [Michael] Cohen had told the special counsel Trump directed him to lie -- or that the special counsel was said to have learned this through interviews with Trump Organization witnesses, as well as internal company emails and text messages.... People familiar with the matter said after BuzzFeed published its story -- which was attributed to 'two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter' -- the special counsel's office reviewed evidence to determine if there were any documents or witness interviews like those described.... They found none, these people said. That, the people said, is in part why it took Mueller's office nearly a day to dispute the story publicly." Emphasis added. ...

... BuzzFeed News is still sticking by its story that Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress. Its spokesman says the outlet has "re-confirmed" its reporting. ...

... Marcy Wheeler: "... the [WashPo] story reveals that [Rod] Rosenstein's office did call to check whether [Robert] Mueller was going to release a statement debunking the BuzzFeed story. '... , the deputy attorney general's office called to inquire if the special counsel planned any kind of response, and was informed a statement was being prepared, the people said.' That seems to be a violation of Special Counsel regulations, which say that Mueller's office shall not be subject to day-to-day supervision of any official, whether DAG or Acting Attorney General.... It should set off all sorts of alarm bells that as soon as a media report states what has long been clear -- that Trump suborned perjury -- Mueller's office is getting calls about how to respond to the press.... Whichever side is correct (again, I believe WaPo has just one part of this story), that Rosenstein (or Whitaker) got involved seems to be far more important."

John Cook & Mike Spies of Mother Jones: "Two Senate committees investigating Russian efforts to influence US politics through the National Rifle Association are led by GOP senators [Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina] who have long received campaign support and donations from the gun group and its leaders. While that might raise questions about the integrity of the investigations, Democrats close to the probes tell the Trace and Mother Jones that they are proceeding without impediment -- indicating that the NRA's influence in Congress may not help it avoid scrutiny amid the wider Trump-Russia investigation.... Senate rules do not explicitly bar senators from overseeing or participating in investigations into donors, and experts we consulted with said Burr is under no obligation to recuse himself." --s

Bruce Henderson of McClatchy DC: "Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, is facing accusations over his role in a failed real estate deal near Charlotte[, North Carolina,] that could cost an investor $2.5 million. A civil case raises questions about whether a company tied to Mulvaney, who's also director of the Office of Management and Budget, used a legal maneuver to put his interests ahead of a lender." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: What? Mulvaney stiffed a lender in a failed real estate deal? Now let me think -- that reminds of -- whom?

AP: "The US military said it carried out an airstrike in Somalia that killed 52 al-Shabaab extremists, in response to an attack on Somali forces.... The group claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on a luxury hotel complex in Nairobi, Kenya on Tuesday. A US Africa Command statement said the airstrike occurred on Saturday near Jilib in Middle Juba region. The US said Somali forces had come under attack by a 'large group' of the al-Qaida-linked extremists.... The US has dramatically stepped up airstrikes against al-Shabaab in Somalia since Donald Trump took office, carrying out at least 47 such strikes last year." --s

Sarah Okeson of DCReport (Jan 15): "Trump's Environmental Protection Agency has proposed cuts in water pollution regulation that would increase the 5,772-square-mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, the area where fish and other living things must swim away or die. Andrew Wheeler, Trump's nominee to lead the EPA, wants to remove thousands of streams, swamps and other bodies of water from regulations approved under former President Barack Obama to curb water pollution. Scientists think a 45% reduction in nitrate and phosphorus, much of it from fertilizer, running into the Mississippi River is needed to shrink the dead zone, which was the size of Delaware last summer." --s

Stuart Leavenworth of McClatchy DC: "A federal judge in South Carolina [Richard Gergel] on Friday blocked the Trump administration from processing seismic testing permits for offshore oil drilling, a setback for the administration's efforts to assist energy companies during the partial government shutdown.... Gergel's injunction came after South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson learned that the Interior Department had ordered employees of its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to come back to work and process permits for five companies that want to use airgun blasts to search for oil." --s

Kate Aronoff of The Intercept: "Examining projections developed by Rystad Energy, an independent oil and gas consultancy, [a] new report [from Oil Change International] looks at projected oil and gas development in the United States over the next several decades, and what consequences it holds for the planet. The authors find that, if allowed to continue with projected new fossil fuel projects, U.S. oil and gas production could account for 60 percent of all new oil and gas production through 2030, making the U.S. the world's largest new source of oil and gas and outpacing expected growth in the next largest producer, Canada, 4 to 1.... The report's main takeaway isn't complicated: The United States can either stop digging up new troves of fossil fuels, or take a sledgehammer to the world's chances at a livable future." --s

Luke Barnes of ThinkProgress: "In the past week, it appeared the long overdue backlash to Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and his white nationalism had finally arrived.... But now, that backlash has prompted its own backlash. Members of the Religious Right, white supremacists, and others on the far-right have joined forces to rally around the racist congressman. Rather than stepping down, as some of his colleagues suggested, King seems emboldened by the support and is trying to use the fallout to raise money for his re-election campaign." --s

Antonio Olivo, et al., of the Washington Post: "The images in a series of videos that went viral on social media Saturday showed a tense scene near the Lincoln Memorial. In them, a Native American man steadily beats his drum at the tail end of Friday's Indigenous Peoples March while singing a song of unity for indigenous people to 'be strong' in the face of the ravages of colonialism that now include police brutality, poor access to health care and the ill effects of climate change on reservations. Surrounding him are a throng of young, mostly white teenage boys, several wearing Make America Great Again caps, with one standing about a foot from the drummer's face also wearing a relentless smirk.... Nathan Phillips, a veteran in the indigenous rights movement ..., [said] tensions [began] to escalate when the teens and other apparent participants from the nearby March for Life rally began taunting the dispersing indigenous crowd. A few people in the March for Life crowd began to chant 'Build that wall, build that wall,' he said.... Some of the teens in the video wore sweatshirts from Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Ky...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: IOW, Trumpbots are so stupid they want to wall out people who got here first. ...

... ** Juan Cole: "Nathan Phillips gave a chilling interview about the incident to CNN, in which he expressed fear about where the United States is going. Remember, Phillips risked his life for a country that had treated his people like crap, stealing their land, putting them on reservations, forbidding them to practice their religion, and occasionally massacring them. The teen's smug look no doubt was worn by those thugs who ordered the Trail of Tears, when Native Americans were expelled from the Southeast.... How stupid do you have to be to chant 'build the wall' at a Native American whose people were here at least 13,000 years ago before the European undocumented migrants showed up in their lands? How stupid do you have to be to chant 'build the wall' at African-Americans whom white slavers kidnapped from their homes in Senegal and Nigeria and Angola and transported here against their will?... How stupid do you have to be to think that 'Make America Great Again' could possibly mean anything when chanted by chickenhawk young men at a Vet who risked his life for this country? How stupid do you have to be not to realize that the people Trump wants to keep out of the United States by building his idiotic, cruel and ineffective wall are for the most part Catholics?" --s ...

... Max Londberg & Sarah Brookbank of the Cincinnati Enquirer: "About 4 p.m., the Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High issued a joint statement that read, in part: 'We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students towards Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general.... We extend our deepest apologies to Mr. Phillips. This behavior is opposed to the Church's teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person. The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes, and it would be nice if the diocese & the school issued a joint apology to young women everywhere for sending those nasty little brats from their no-girls-allowed school to Washington, D.C., to protest the rights of women to control their own bodies. Fucking misogynists.

Frank Dale of ThinkProgress: "Right-wing provocateur Ben Shapiro thought a speech at the March for Life was the right time to address a philosophical question about Hitler. Hours later, multiple advertisers announced they had dropped Shapiro's podcast after his bizarre comments were viewed millions of times. Shapiro explained during his speech before the pro-life crowd on Friday why anti-abortion advocates wouldn't have killed the genocidal German leader when he was a baby.... Shapiro -- 'the cool kid's philosopher,' according to the New York Times -- faced criticism in November for claiming 'left-wing anti-Semitism' is a more dangerous threat than violent white supremacists." --s

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. AP: "A federal judge has found four women guilty of entering a national wildlife refuge without a permit as they sought to place food and water in the Arizona desert for migrants. US magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco's ruling on Friday marked the first conviction against humanitarian aid volunteers in a decade. The four found guilty of misdemeanours in the recent case were volunteers for No More Deaths, which said in a statement the group had been providing life-saving aid to migrants. The volunteers include Natalie Hoffman, Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse and Zaachila Orozco-McCormick." Mrs. McC: Thank you, each and every one of you.

Presidential Election 2020. Jared McDonald, et al., in a Politico Magazine opinion piece, make a compelling case, based on statistical analysis, that most American voters think Trump is a self-made billionaire, & when some -- especially Republicans -- find out otherwise, their favorable impression of him drops. Ergo, it would be a damned good idea for Democrats to hammer home what a massive failure he was as a businessman. The writers also point, BTW, to the news media's failure to report on his real business career: "A LexisNexis search of leading newspapers from January 1, 2016, until Election Day 2016 found more than six times as many articles referring to Trump's divorces than those mentioning his father."

Beyond the Beltway

Illinois. AP: "The white Chicago police officer who gunned down a black teenager in 2014 was sentenced Friday to nearly seven years in prison, bringing an end to a historic case that centered on a shocking dashcam video and fueled the national debate over race and law enforcement. Jason Van Dyke was convicted last year of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery -- one for each bullet he fired." (Also linked yesterday.)

Michigan. Fed Up with ICE. Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News: "The Michigan county sheriff who held and transferred a US-born Marine to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody late last year will no longer detain individuals for the agency without a judicial warrant, authorities announced Friday. The policy, effective immediately, fundamentally changes the way the Kent County Sheriff’s Office interacts with ICE and copies a model taken up by many 'sanctuary' jurisdictions across the country."

News Ledes

Hill: "A fire Sunday morning in Northeast Washington, D.C., damaged studios for Fox News, C-SPAN and MSNBC, and forced 'Fox News Sunday' to relocate its broadcast to a local affiliate's studio. Washington, D.C., Fire and EMS tweeted that an electrical fire broke out in the 8th floor television studio, but that nobody was injured. Steve Scully, the political editor for C-SPAN, tweeted shortly after 7 a.m. that the Fox News and C-SPAN studios sustained 'extensive damage,' and MSNBC's studio took on 'extensive smoke and water damage.'"

New York Times: "Heavy snowfall, high winds and a dangerous mix of rain and sleet were expected to hit swaths of the Northeast on Sunday, prompting officials to warn of icy roadways and power outages from a vast winter storm that had been pummeling the Great Plains and the Great Lakes. The storm, which complicated travel on Saturday and busted plans for the three-day weekend across much of the country, had already caused problems from Kansas, where the governor declared an emergency, to Chicago, where a United Airlines plane slid off a concrete surface. Flights have been canceled by the thousands, and rapidly dropping temperatures on Sunday in parts of the Northeast would freeze anything wet, creating 'extremely dangerous' conditions on the roadways."

USA Today: "John Coughlin, a two-time U.S. pairs champion who was suspended Thursday evening by the U.S. Center for SafeSport and U.S. Figure Skating, died Friday, according to ... his sister.... Kansas City police confirmed Coughlin's suicide.... Coughlin, 33, was a fixture at skating competitions and rinks around the country as a coach, TV commentator and a rising star within both USFS and the International Skating Union, the sport's worldwide federation."