The Commentariat -- January 7, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Jeremy Peters, et al., of the New York Times: "Isolated from his political allies and cut off from his financial patrons, Stephen K. Bannon ... issued a striking mea culpa on Sunday for comments he had made that were critical of the president's eldest son. Mr. Bannon, who is quoted in a new book calling Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with Russians in 2016 'treasonous,' tried to reverse his statements completely, saying that the younger Mr. Trump was 'both a patriot and a good man.' Mr. Bannon spoke out after five days of silence, a delay that he said he regretted. He said his reference to 'treason' had not been aimed at the president's son, but at another campaign official who attended the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, Paul Manafort." Also, Stephen Miller got in a fight with Jake Tapper. ...

... A video of the interview is here. Mrs. McC: I haven't watched the Sunday showz in years. I might have to start watching "State of the Union" now.

*****

I thought Jeanne taught us a new word yesterday: "clunkweasel." But, even better, it turns out she coined a new word. In the vast universe of the Googles, this is the only place a "clunkweasel" has been spotted. It applies it to fellows like Lindsey Graham & Chuck Grassley. But oh so many others. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Old Man Goes Camping with Bought-and-Paid-for "Friends." Michael Tackett of the New York Times: "President Trump again insisted on Saturday that he was not under investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russian influence on the 2016 election, adding that 'there's been no collusion, there's been no crime.' 'Everything I've done is 100 percent proper,' Mr. Trump said during a news conference at Camp David, where he was asked about a New York Times report that he had pressed Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Russia inquiry. 'That is what I do, is I do things proper.'" Mrs. McC: Among the things you don't do "proper" is modifying verbs. In other news, Mitch wore jeans. ...

... Chas Danner of New York has a good rundown of the newsy items in Trump's impromptu presser. Mrs. McC: Also, Mitch wore jeans. ...

... "Trump Is Shocked ... Reporters Check Facts." Caroline Orr of Shareblue: "... many journalists have cautioned readers that [Michael] Wolff's credibility is not exactly rock solid. That's what journalists do -- at least most of them. At Fox News, however..., facts tend to be treated as optional. According to Politifact, 60 percent of the claims they fact-checked from Fox and Fox News have been rated 'Mostly False,' 'False,' or 'Pants on Fire.'... At Camp David, Trump [said,] 'What I really was heartened by ... was the fact that so many of the people that I talk about in terms of fake news actually came to the defense of this great administration, and even myself, because they know the author and they know he's a fraud,' Trump said. In Trump's eyes, journalists who stuck to the facts were coming to his defense. In reality, they were just doing their jobs. But when Fox News is your standard, sticking to the facts is anything but ordinary. Really, though, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Trump thinks everything is 'fake news' -- because on Fox, most of it is."

Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "In a White House marked by a string of high-level comings and goings, an extraordinary level of palace intrigue and a general sense of unpredictability, there remains but one constant. That is the disorder at the center.... The first week of the year was breathtaking for its shock value: a presidential tweetstorm of personal animus and policy provocation that overshadowed positive news about the economy.... Meanwhile, almost every news organization has reported about the private rages, the lack of focus, the indiscipline and the isolation that also define the style of the 45th president.... Trump continues to make himself the issue. The past week proved it once again, and Saturday's tweets added a startling exclamation point." ...

... Josh Marshall: "The most important thing to know about this debate [over Trump's mental health] is that it simply doesn't matter.... For public purposes, clinical diagnoses are only relevant as predictors of behavior. If the President has a cognitive deficiency or mental illness that might cause him to act in unpredictable or dangerous ways or simply be unable to do the job, we need to know. But My God, we do know!... All the diagnosis of a mental illness could tell us is that Trump might be prone to act in ways that we literally see him acting in every day: impulsive, erratic, driven by petty aggressions and paranoia, showing poor impulsive control, an inability to moderate self-destructive behavior. He is frequently either frighteningly out of touch with reality or sufficiently pathological in his lying that it is impossible to tell." ...

... David Atkins in the Washington Monthly: "The President of the United States got up [Saturday] morning, watched Fox And Friends do a segment on his mental health, and used his Twitter thumbs to give the world a textbook example of the Dunning Kruger effect[.] (Jim Fallows explains the Dunning Kruger effect in an article linked below.) (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... David Frum of the Atlantic: "There's a key difference between film and reality, though: The Corleone family had the awareness and vigilance to exclude Fredo from power. The American political system did not do so well." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Another difference between the Fredo character & Trump is that Fredo made his assertion privately to his brother while Trump made his in writing for the world to see. ...

... AND Here Is How Actual, Like, Smart People Act. Jim Fallows of the Atlantic: "Here are three traits I would report from a long trail of meeting and interviewing people who by any reckoning are very intelligent. They all know it.... Virtually none of them (need to) say it.... They know what they don't know. This to me is the most consistent marker of real intelligence. The more acute someone's ability to perceive and assess, the more likely that person is to recognize his or her limits.... On the other hand, we have something known as the Dunning-Kruger effect: the more limited someone is in reality, the more talented the person imagines himself to be. Or, as David Dunning and Justin Kruger put it in the title of their original scientific-journal article, 'Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.'" ...

... Steve M. finds quite a few tweeters who were driven to writing Gilbert & Sullivan ditties in response to the Twit-in-Chief's defense of his gen-i-us. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: It's essential to remember that Trump is not only mentally unstable; he is also destabilizing the federal government & international relations:

Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "Two things stand out about the foreign policy messages Mr. Trump has posted on Twitter since taking office: How far they veer from the traditional ways American presidents express themselves, let alone handle diplomacy. And how rarely Mr. Trump has followed through on his words. Indeed, nearly a year after he entered the White House, the rest of the world is trying to figure out whether Mr. Trump is more mouth than fist, more paper tiger than actual one.... There is an increasing sense that the credibility of the administration, and the presidency itself, is being eroded." ...

... AND Here at Home, Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker takes a look at many ways Trump has subverted -- or attempted to subvert -- the rule of law. One way is by not bothering to appoint officials to key posts but instead putting "acting" officials in place, thus skirting the confirmation process & relying on officials who report only to Trump's Cabinet members & Trump himself. "Trump's Presidency may look like a series of chaotic lurches. But there is, alas, madness to his method." Mrs. McC: And Toobin doesn't even mention the pardoning Joe Arpaio, when is a screaming emblem of Trump's disdain for the rule of law. As Mueller closes in on the Von Trump Family Stinkers & sundry members of the Von Trump Choir, we are likely to see that pardon pen run out of ink.

Jim Acosta of CNN: "More White House officials were involved in the effort to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions to not recuse himself in the Russia investigation beyond counsel Don McGahn, a senior administration official said Friday. Among those who participated in calls between the White House and Justice Department were former chief of staff Reince Priebus and ex-press secretary Sean Spicer, the senior administration official said.... Earlier Friday, Spicer said on Good Morning America that he wasn't aware of the President's reported request that [White Housel counsel Don] McGahn urge Sessions to decide against recusal.... In one of the calls, Spicer said 'he (Sessions) doesn't need to recuse himself,' according to the official.... This official asked on one of the calls how Spicer, who is not an attorney, could reach such a conclusion.... 'It was just chaos,' the official said about the conversations with Sessions' team." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It is impossible to believe three top White House officials -- counsel, chief-of-staff & press secretary -- just happened to call up Sessions of their own volition to urge him not to recuse. Trump did it with a hammer in the Oval Office. ...

... Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider interviewed Simona Mangiante, George Papadopoulos' fiancee. Shortly after the FBI arrested Papadopoulos, "Mangiante flew to Chicago to see Papadopoulos and was promptly served with a subpoena by a federal agent working for special counsel Robert Mueller. 'The interview [with agents working for Mueller] lasted about two hours, and they asked a lot of questions about Joseph Mifsud, Mangiante said, referring to the London-based professor who told Papadopoulos in April 2016 that the Russians had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton in the form of 'thousands of emails.'... Mangiante ... work[ed] for Mifsud -- from September through November of 2016 -- at the London Centre of International Law Practice." Bertrand goes on to describe what's publicly known about Mifsud. ...

... More Trump Family Troubles. David Cloud of the Los Angeles Times: "Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has recalled for questioning at least one participant in a controversial meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in June 2016, and is looking into President Trump's misleading claim that the discussion focused on adoption, rather than an offer to provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Some defense lawyers involved in the case view Mueller's latest push as a sign that investigators are focusing on possible obstruction of justice by Trump and several of his closest advisors for their statements about the politically sensitive meeting, rather than for collusion with the Russians. Investigators also are exploring the involvement of the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, who did not attend the half-hour sit-down on June 9, 2016, but briefly spoke with two of the participants, a Russian lawyer and a Russian-born Washington lobbyist. Details of the encounter were not previously known." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Okay, that's three Trump kiddies (Junior, Eric & Ivanka) & one son-in-law who are now under investigation. Couldn't be more pleased. And who better to design the orange jumpsuits than Ivanka? Maybe a family crest? ...

... Brennan Weiss of Business Insider: "The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched a probe into Kushner Companies, the New York real-estate firm owned by the family of ... Jared Kushner, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. The investigation reportedly focuses on the company's use of the EB-5 visa program, which allows 10,000 immigrant visas each year in an effort to promote investment from foreign countries into less-developed regions or create jobs in the US." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Julia Manchester of the Hill: "A Breitbart editor blasted a tweet from President Trump attacking his former chief strategist and current Breitbart chairman Stephen Bannon.... 'This is outrageous even by POTUS standards,' Breitbart London editor-in-chief Raheem Kassam tweeted late Friday, responding to a tweet from Trump that went after 'Sloppy Steve Bannon.' In a tweet blasting a new tell-all book, Trump claimed that Bannon 'cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad!'" ...

Cold as ICE. Mark Curnutte of the Cincinnati Enquirer: "Federal immigration officials said Friday they will proceed with the deportation of an Ohio man who is the sole provider and trained medical caregiver of a 6-year-old paraplegic boy. The Detroit office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a statement via email to The Cincinnati Enquirer, which profiled the boy, Ricky Solis, and had requested an update on the case on Wednesday. Yancarlos Mendez, 27, of Springdale has lived with the boy's mother, Sandra Mendoza, since 2014 and has become the only father Ricky has known. His birth father is no longer in Ricky's life after he had beaten and emotionally abused Mendoza." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

All the Best People, Ctd. Darryl Fears of the Washington Post: "A former National Park Service official who improperly helped Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder cut down more than 130 trees to improve a river view at his Potomac, Md., estate has been chosen by the Trump administration to be one of the agency's highest-ranking leaders. According to an internal email circulated at the Department of the Interior, P. Daniel Smith will assume the agency's deputy director position on Monday.... [To help Snyder remove the trees,] Smith pressured lower-level officials to approve a deal that disregarded federal environmental laws, harmed the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park and left the agency vulnerable to charges of favoritism, according to an Inspector General report." ...

     ... Mrs. McC: We know from the early days of the transition that Trump was promising to be a horrible president, based solely on his first picks for high-level positions. It seems to me that his picks are purposely making a mockery of the government he is supposedly running. Of course, this particular in-your-face appointment is probably what Trump considers an apt response to all of the environmental roadblocks here & abroad (Scotland) that Trump has faced in building his golf resorts. Wealthy people, after all, should be free to do what they want, & if what they want leads to local environmental degradation, well, so what?

No, Irony Isn't Dead. Adam Raymond of New York: "National Security Agency head Admiral Mike Rogers is retiring in the spring, he reportedly told staffers in a 'classified memo' Friday. The memo has since leaked to NPR and Politico, among others. It's a fitting end to Rogers's four-year tenure at the NSA, which was marked by high-profile intelligence leaks and his efforts to prevent them. Brought on in the aftermath of Edward Snowden's bombshell NSA leaks, Rogers was tasked with making sure nothing of the sort ever happened again. But he wasn't successful." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump may have killed his panel probing allegations of widespread voter fraud, but the controversy surrounding its mission appears destined to continue. Upon issuing an executive order last week terminating the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity -- which met only twice and faced a flood of lawsuits -- Trump said he had asked the Department of Homeland Security to take a look at the panels work and 'determine next courses of action.' Boosters of the commission, including its vice chairman and driving force, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), are pushing for the DHS to focus on using data that the department collects on citizenship to ferret out illegal voters on state voting rolls."

Max Greenwood of the Hill: "New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu is coming out against President Trump's plan to expand offshore drilling in federal waters off the U.S. coast. 'Of course I oppose drilling off of New Hampshire's coastline,' Sununu, a Republican, said Saturday, according to The Associated Press. The Trump administration announced a plan on Thursday to drastically expand the federal waters in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans available for offshore oil and natural gas drilling." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is pretty great because, by one official measure, New Hampshire has only 13 miles of coastline.

Tim Arango of the New York Times: "... the growing divide between California and the Trump administration erupted this past week over a dizzying range of flash points.... What had been a rhetorical battle between a liberal state and a conservative administration is now a full-fledged fight. Just as Californians were enjoying their first days of legal pot smoking, the Trump administration moved to enforce federal laws against the drug. On the same day, the federal government said it would expand offshore oil drilling, which California's Senate leader called an assault on 'our pristine coastline.' When President Trump signed a law that would raise the tax bills of many Californians by restricting deductions, lawmakers in this state proposed a creative end-around -- essentially making state taxes charitable contributions, and fully deductible.... New laws that went into effect on Jan. 1 in California raised the minimum wage, allowed parents to withhold gender on birth certificates and strengthened what were already some of the toughest gun laws in the country by restricting ammunition sales and assault weapons, and barring school officials from carrying concealed weapons at work. Taken together, the measures are the surest signs yet of how California is setting itself apart from Washington -- and many parts of America, too."

Ruby Cramer of BuzzFeed: "One of the Democratic Party's biggest donors says she is reconsidering her support for the women in the U.S. Senate who called for Al Franken's resignation following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate touching. The San Francisco-based donor, Susie Tompkins Buell, 75, has given millions of dollars to Democratic causes since the 1990s. She is best known as a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton, but has also contributed for decades to Democratic women senators, hosting a regular spring fundraiser for the lawmakers in California called 'Women on the Road to the Senate.'... In two interviews this week, Buell described the push for Franken's departure as 'unfair,' 'cavalier,' and somewhat politically motivated -- 'a stampede,' 'like a rampage,' she said, speaking in stark terms about senators she has backed for years, naming [Kirsten] Gillibrand [D-N.Y.] in particular." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Katherine Stewart in a New York Times op-ed: "The Museum of the Bible, which sits a few blocks southwest of the United States Capitol..., is a safe space for Christian nationalists, and that is the key to understanding its political mission.... Ralph Drollinger, the founder and president of Capitol Ministries and one of the most politically influential pastors in America..., held a training conference for some 80 international associates at the museum on the topic of 'creating and sustaining discipleship ministries to political leaders.' Mr. Drollinger believes that social welfare programs 'have no basis in Scripture,' that Christians in government have an obligation to hire only Christians and that women should not be allowed to teach grown men.... Mr. Drollinger was an early, passionate supporter of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy.... The participants in his groups, however, aren't just anybody. They include Mike Pompeo...; Jeff Sessions...; Mike Pence; Betsy DeVos ...; and other senior officials in the Trump administration." The museum's founder is Steve Green of Hobby Lobby infamy. "Given the theologico-political goals of its founders and patrons, it isn't hard to see that the location of this museum was an act of symbolic and practical genius. If you're going to build a Christian nation, this is where you start."

News Lede

New York Times: "John W. Young, who walked on the moon, commanded the first space shuttle mission and became the first person to fly in space six times, died on Friday at his home in Houston. He was 87.... Mr. Young joined NASA in the early years of manned spaceflight and was still flying, at age 53, in the era of space shuttles. He was the only astronaut to fly in the Gemini, Apollo and shuttle programs. He was also chief of NASA's astronauts office for 13 years and a leading executive at the Johnson Space Center in Houston."

The Commentariat -- January 6, 2018

Afternoon Update:

David Atkins in the Washington Monthly: "The President of the United States got up this morning, watched Fox And Friends do a segment on his mental health, and used his Twitter thumbs to give the world a textbook example of the Dunning Kruger effect[.] ...

     ... David Frum of the Atlantic: "There's a key difference between film and reality, though: The Corleone family had the awareness and vigilance to exclude Fredo from power. The American political system did not do so well." ...

... Steve M. finds quite a few tweeters who were driven to writing Gilbert & Sullivan ditties in response to the Twit-in-Chief's defense of his gen-i-us.

Naturally, no one told Eric the family had scheduled a group portrait. More Trump Family Troubles. David Cloud of the Los Angeles Times: "Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has recalled for questioning at least one participant in a controversial meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in June 2016, and is looking into President Trump's misleading claim that the discussion focused on adoption, rather than an offer to provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Some defense lawyers involved in the case view Mueller's latest push as a sign that investigators are focusing on possible obstruction of justice by Trump and several of his closest advisors..., rather than for collusion with the Russians. Investigators also are exploring the involvement of the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, who did not attend the half-hour sit-down on June 9, 2016, but briefly spoke with two of the participants, a Russian lawyer and a Russian-born Washington lobbyist. Details of the encounter were not previously known." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Okay then, that's three Trump kiddies (Junior, Eric & Ivanka) & one son-in-law who are now under investigation. Couldn't be more pleased. And who better to design the orange jumpsuits than Ivanka? Maybe a family crest?

Brennan Weiss of Business Insider: "The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched a probe into Kushner Companies, the New York real-estate firm owned by the family of ... Jared Kushner, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. The investigation reportedly focuses on the company's use of the EB-5 visa program, which allows 10,000 immigrant visas each year in an effort to promote investment from foreign countries into less-developed regions or create jobs in the US."

Cold as ICE. Mark Curnutte of the Cincinnati Enquirer: "Federal immigration officials said Friday they will proceed with the deportation of an Ohio man who is the sole provider and trained medical caregiver of a 6-year-old paraplegic boy. The Detroit office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a statement via email to The Cincinnati Enquirer, which profiled the boy, Ricky Solis, and had requested an update on the case on Wednesday. Yancarlos Mendez, 27, of Springdale has lived with the boy's mother, Sandra Mendoza, since 2014 and has become the only father Ricky has known. His birth father is no longer in Ricky's life after he had beaten and emotionally abused Mendoza."

Oh, Good News. Irony Has Been Resuscitated Already. Adam Raymond of New York: "National Security Agency head Admiral Mike Rogers is retiring in the spring, he reportedly told staffers in a 'classified memo' Friday. The memo has since leaked to NPR and Politico, among others. It's a fitting end to Rogers's four-year tenure at the NSA, which was marked by high-profile intelligence leaks and his efforts to prevent them. Brought on in the aftermath of Edward Snowden's bombshell NSA leaks.... But he wasn't successful."

Ruby Cramer of BuzzFeed: "One of the Democratic Party's biggest donors says she is reconsidering her support for the women in the U.S. Senate who called for Al Franken's resignation following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate touching. The San Francisco-based donor, Susie Tompkins Buell, 75, has given millions of dollars to Democratic causes since the 1990s. She is best known as a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton, but has also contributed for decades to Democratic women senators, hosting a regular spring fundraiser for the lawmakers in California called 'Women on the Road to the Senate.'... In two interviews this week, Buell described the push for Franken's departure as 'unfair,' 'cavalier,' and somewhat politically motivated -- 'a stampede,' 'like a rampage,' she said, speaking in stark terms about senators she has backed for years, naming [Kirsten] Gillibrand [D-N.Y.] in particular."

*****

David Remnick of the New Yorker: "Future scholars will sift through Trump's digital proclamations the way we now read the chroniclers of Nero's Rome -- to understand how an unhinged emperor can make a mockery of republican institutions, undo the collective nervous system of a country, and degrade the whole of public life.... There is little doubt about who Donald Trump is, the harm he has done already, and the greater harm he threatens. He is unfit to hold any public office, much less the highest in the land. This is not merely an orthodoxy of the opposition; his panicked courtiers have been leaking word of it from his first weeks in office. The President of the United States has become a leading security threat to the United States." ...

... Jordan Fabian & Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "President Trump on Saturday launched a remarkable defense of his mental fitness for office.... Trump made the defense in a series of tweets that appeared to push back on questions raised by a new book that painted a chaotic and dysfunctional picture of his campaign and early months of his presidency. 'Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,' Trump tweeted. The president said doubts about his mental capacity have been frequently raised by his critics, but he proved them wrong with his stunning victory in the 2016 election and his career in television and business. 'I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!' he said." Thanks to Marvin S. for the lead. ...

... Michael Tackett of the New York Times: "By taking on the issue so directly, the president ensures that the discussion of his capacity will only intensify. He is set to undergo a physical examination this coming week, but those tests for presidents do not generally involve mental acuity.... Democrats in Congress have introduced legislation to force the president to submit to psychological evaluation. Mental health professionals have signed a petition calling for his removal from office." Includes screenshots of this morning's Twitterstorm.

The president believes in making sure that information is accurate before pushing it out as fact, when [the Wolff book] certainly and clearly is not. -- Sarah Sanders, Jan. 4

For the second straight day Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders fought back against Michael Wolff's Trump tell-all. And in doing so, she may have finally killed off what's left of irony in the White House briefing room. -- Aaron Blake of the Washington Post, Jan. 5

... The Trumpies. Dana Milbank: "It's no small irony that book excerpts [from Michael Wolff's Fire & Fury] showing Trump's perfidy appeared the day after Trump announced that he would host 'THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS,' featuring 'Bad Reporting in various categories.' Call it the Trumpies? For once in his life, Trump is being modest. In the field of dishonesty, it is he who deserves the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement: Obama wiretapped him. He had the largest inauguration audience ever. The Russia story is fake news. Muslims celebrated in New Jersey on 9/11. He only got a small loan from dad. Hillary Clinton started the 'birther' movement. The tax cut will cost him a fortune." Milbank goes on to suggest "various categories" Trump would win, like "Best Actor in a Misleading Role." ...

Look, I think it's absolutely insane to think all of these individuals, reporters and others, who suddenly have a medical degree and think that they can diagnose somebody, many times who they've never even had a conversation with.... What I think is really mentally unstable is people that don't see the positive impact that this president is having on the country. -- Sarah Sanders, on Fox "News"

So it's "insane" for nonprofessionals to "diagnose" Trump's psychological disabilities from afar, but it's A-OK for Sanders to mass-diagnose tens of millions of unnamed Americans as "mentally unstable" based on their disliking Trump. That's pretty much the view of dictators who lock opponents & suspected dissidents in mental institutions. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxi.... Oh, Never Mind. Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast: "On Wednesday morning, Steve Bannon and his closest advisers were preparing a statement to atone for scorched-earth comments he'd made about ... Donald Trump and his eldest son Donald Trump Jr., that had been printed in Michael Wolff's new book on the Trump White House. But before Team Bannon was able to make its statement public, the president dropped atomic tonnage on his former White House chief strategist. 'Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency,' read Trump's statement, which as The Daily Beast reported, he personally dictated key parts of.... After Trump made his statement, Bannon quickly spiked his own, according to The Hill and Axios. The Daily Beast has obtained portions of the final draft of Bannon's unreleased statement.... The text of Bannon's written statement that was obtained by The Daily Beast does not mention Kushner...."

Trump Takes Young Hostages. Sheryl Stolberg & Michael Tackett of the New York Times: "The White House on Friday presented Congress with an expansive list of hard-line immigration measures, including an $18 billion request to build a wall at the Mexican border, that President Trump is demanding in exchange for protecting young undocumented immigrants. The request, which totals $33 billion over a period of 10 years for border security measures including the wall, could jeopardize bipartisan talks aimed at getting an immigration deal. Among the items on Mr. Trump's immigration wish-list: money to hire 10,000 additional immigration officers, tougher laws for those seeking asylum, and denial of federal grants to so-called 'sanctuary cities.' The list, delivered to Senator Richard J. Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who has been leading the talks related to young immigrants without documentation, is identical to one Democrats declared a non-starter when the White House issued it in October." Durbin & other Democrats were not amused.

Trump Weaponizes the DOJ. Adam Goldman & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "F.B.I. agents have renewed asking questions about the dealings of the Clinton Foundation amid calls from President Trump and top Republicans for the Justice Department to take a fresh look at politically charged accusations of corruption. People familiar with the F.B.I.'s steps said on Friday that agents have interviewed people connected to the foundation about whether any donations were made in exchange for political favors while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Career prosecutors shut down that investigation in 2016 for lack of evidence.... [Trump] briefly struck a ... magnanimous tone after the election.... That has changed as Mr. Trump's legal problems have mounted.... He has openly called for Mrs. Clinton to be investigated and one of her top aides to be imprisoned.... Since the Watergate scandal, the Justice Department has conducted criminal investigations largely free of White House political influence. Mr. Trump, by contrast, has declared he has 'absolute authority' over the Justice Department." ...

... Matt Zapotosky & Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "The FBI has been investigating the Clinton Foundation for months, reviving a probe that was dialed back during the 2016 campaign amid tensions between Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents about the politically charged case, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry resumed about a year ago. Agents are now trying to determine if any donations made to the foundation were linked to official acts when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, these people said. The people did not identify what specific donations or interactions agents were scrutinizing." ...

... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: The last time the U.S. had a federal "justice" system nearly this corrupt, J. Edgar Hoover was head of the FBI & John Mitchell was attorney general. ...

... Trump Enablers Pounce. Nicholas Fandos & Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "More than a year after Republican leaders promised to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election, two influential Republicans on Friday made the first known congressional criminal referral in connection with the meddling -- against one of the people who sought to expose it. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a senior committee member, told the Justice Department that they had reason to believe that a former British spy, Christopher Steele, lied to federal authorities about his contacts with reporters regarding information in a dossier, and they urged the department to investigate.... The decision by Mr. Grassley and Mr. Graham to single out the former intelligence officer behind the dossier -- and not anyone who may have taken part in the Russian interference -- infuriated Democrats and raised the stakes in the growing partisan battle over the investigations into Mr. Trump, his campaign team and Russia." ...

... Let's add to this the DOJ's newest investigation of Hillary Clinton's e-mail server, which Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast reported earlier this week. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Kevin Johnson of USA Today: "FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whom President Trump has blamed for influencing the decision not to criminally charge Hillary Clinton for her use of private email server, did not oversee that inquiry while his wife was running for state office in Virginia as a Democrat, according to bureau records released Friday. The internal documents, published on the FBI's website, support what the bureau has asserted previously: that McCabe had no conflicts when he assumed oversight of the Clinton investigation. His role began in February 2016, following his appointment as deputy director and three months after his wife, Jill McCabe, lost her bid for a state Senate seat. McCabe has been repeatedly targeted by Trump and some Republican lawmakers.... As recently as last month, Trump seized on McCabe's role in the Clinton inquiry and his wife's political bid, noting that Jill McCabe received nearly $470,000 from a political action committee associated with Clinton ally and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe."

... ** Conservative Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "This is an outrageous political stunt, one with no legal ramifications and obviously designed to take the heat off the White House as damning reports bolstering an obstruction-of-justice claim and questioning the president's mental fitness have sent the White House spinning. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Judiciary Committee and a former prosecutor, tells me, 'I cannot understand why it would be necessary for members of Congress to make a criminal referral to the FBI concerning information we know the FBI already has.' The referral itself is devoid of any particulars, simply accusing [Christopher] Steele of making false comments relating to the dossier. Were these under oath? How do they have knowledge of such comments?... [Committee] Democrats were never consulted on this.... Moreover, the statute that Grassley and Graham cite -- 18. U.S.C. 1001 -- requires that a misstatement be intentionally wrong and material. It is ironic that the Justice Committee chairman who witnessed now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions repeatedly make false statements under oath would ignore these misstatements of fact and choose instead to vaguely point to ones apparently made to other people." Read on. Rubin cites several other experts who make clear this is what a real "witch hunt" looks like. Emphasis original. ...

... David Corn of Mother Jones: "... the public now knows that the United States was attacked by Putin, that Trump associates were interacting with Russians during this period, and that Trump and his crew, intentionally or not, provided cover for Moscow by insisting no such operation was occurring. Yet what now draws the ire of congressional Republicans the most is [Christopher] Steele and his reports.... And it's not the first distraction they have tried to create. Remember the so-called 'unmasking' scandal of last spring?... The Republican Party, which for decades claimed it was the party that championed patriotism and national security, has jettisoned these priorities for Trump protectionism." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Republicans Are Weaponizing Law Enforcement Against Trump;s Enemies.... Two Republican senators, one of whom chairs the Judiciary Committee, have taken up Trump;s demands to treat the dossier's author, a well-respected British intelligence agent, like a criminal.... The [Clinton] foundation's arrangements may have been unwise, or even unethical, for a presidential candidate, but it has survived intense scrutiny without a hint of any criminal behavior.... It is impossible to imagine any new lead or legitimate reason to reopen an investigation [of Hillary Clinton's e-mails] that was completed last year, other than to satisfy Trump's lust to criminalize his opponents. At minimum, the effect will be to feed the right-wing news media's message that Trump's opponents are the real criminals, in order to supply a distraction for his base. At maximum, the 'charges' will allow Trump to have something to trade away -- he could fire Mueller while 'magnanimously' pardoning his enemies in the alleged spirit of letting old feuds die. In either case, the threat of investigation can be used to make any potential Trump critic think twice." ...

... Steve M.: "The GOP is a party of limitless bad faith -- we see that in the way they legislate, the way they investigate, the way they bottle up Democratic appointees. We use the word 'normalization' to attack efforts to minimize the baroque villainy of Trump -- but what about the media's normalization of the Benghazi inquisitions or the refusal to consider Merrick Garland's appointment? The press has made some serious efforts not to normalize Trump, and bravo for that. But McConnell and Ryan, Graham and Grassley, Nunes and Gowdy have all been normalized for years. The press hasn't been willing to portray them as the scoundrels they are. After we're rid of Trump, that will continue to be the case with regard to his enablers." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... we now have the Republican party as a whole fully complicit in Trump's crimes -- because that's what they are, whether or not he and those around him are ever brought to justice. What this means, among other things, is that expecting the GOP to exercise any oversight or constrain Trump in any way is just foolish at this point. Massive electoral defeat -- massive enough to overwhelm gerrymandering and other structural advantages of the right -- is the only way out." It's worth noting that Krugman wrote this before Grassley & Graham decided to initiate this latest hoax. ...

... Kevin Drum: "The American legal system is really getting a workout these days, now that we have a president who sees courts and the Justice Department primarily as tools to take revenge on his enemies. I hope it's up to the task."

Trump Family Scandal. Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider: "The digital director of the Trump campaign said Friday that the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and son Eric Trump 'were joint deputy campaign managers' whose 'approval' was required for every decision before the 2016 election. 'Nobody else. Not one person made a decision without their approval,' the digital director, Brad Parscale, tweeted.... Kushner was Parscale's 'patron.'... Kushner got Parscale hired, the person said, 'despite the fact that a number of people in the campaign wondered whether he had any idea what he was doing.'... Federal and congressional investigators are reportedly scrutinizing the data operation Kushner supervised and Parscale directed, looking into whether it colluded with Russian bots and trolls that targeted voters with disinformation and propaganda before the US election. Congressional committees are also investigating whether voter information stolen by Russian hackers from election databases in several US states made its way to the Trump campaign." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I, for one, am way thrilled that Eric von Trump has finally made his way into the Trump Family Scandal. The family that preys together stays together. Sweet! ...

... Alex Zielinski of the San Antonio Current: "Senator Dianne Feinstein has summoned Brad Parscale -- web director of San Antonio's Giles-Parscale design firm -- to testify and submit documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee on any interaction he's had with Russian nationals. This, of course, has to do with Parscale's integral role in Donald Trump's presidential campaign in which he led the team's digital media efforts. As the main guy pouring campaign money into the Facebook advertisements and marketing strategies that ushered Trump into the White House, Parscale has inevitably been linked to those in Trump's camp suspected of letting Russia interfere with the 2016 election. Parscale, who's called the Trumps 'family,' has previously denied any corroboration with Russia in regards to his campaign work." ...

... Russia Scandal Began with Sex, After All. David Wroe of the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald: "It was a chance romantic encounter by George Papadopoulos that set in train the events that led to the Australian government tipping off Washington about what it knew of Russian hacking efforts to swing the US presidential election. Fairfax Media can reveal a woman in London with whom Papadopoulos became involved happened to know Alexander Downer [-- Australia's ambassador to the U.K. --] and told ... [him] about Papadopoulos, a newly signed staffer for Donald Trump. Downer ... followed it up and arranged a meeting with the young American, who was mostly living in London at the time. What followed was the now infamous May 2016 conversation over many glasses of wine at the swanky Kensington Wine Rooms, during which the 28-year-old Papadopoulos spilled to Downer that he knew of a Russian dirt file on the rival Clinton campaign consisting of thousands of hacked emails. That night was a key moment that helped spark the FBI probe...." ...

... Conservative Jack Goldsmith in Lawfare: Deputy Attorney General Rod "Rosenstein ... appears to be smack in the middle of [Robert] Mueller's ostensible obstruction investigation. Indeed, he appears to have contributed to the firing and provided a seemingly neutral basis for it, with the knowledge that the president was motivated at least in part by the Russia investigation. If the president abused his power in firing [James] Comey due to the Russia investigation, Rosenstein appears to have knowingly contributed to it. I cannot fathom how, in this light, he remains the supervisor in charge of that investigation, since a reasonable person would question his impartiality in the matter.... Rosenstein's non-recusal might, despite the many stories to the contrary, be evidence that Mueller is not in fact investigating whether Trump obstructed justice or otherwise violated the law in firing Comey.... A second possibility is that Mueller is investigating obstruction by the president and that, with respect to that issue, Rosenstein has in fact recused himself but not publicly announced it.... A third possibility is that Rosenstein is bending the rules a bit.... Something here doesn't make sense."

Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump has begun telling advisers that it will likely be impossible to advance legislation this year to reduce welfare spending and enrollment -- a priority he previously embraced with the backing of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and a number of conservative activists.... Some Republicans want to reduce health-care, housing and food-stamp spending by making it tougher for beneficiaries to receive the dollars -- such as through new work requirements.... A number of White House officials and advisers have begun tamping down expectations..., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has told Trump it's a nonstarter in his chamber because he would need the support of Democrats who oppose the idea...." ...

... Elizabeth Bruenig of the Washington Post: "If the poor must work to earn every dollar, shouldn't the rich?... Before deciding whether it's morally right for [needy Americans] to receive income without working, consider a far larger group that takes in far more money without toil: the idle rich. They soak up plenty of unearned money from the economy, in the form of rent, dividends and capital income. Salaries and wages -- that is, money paid for work -- only make up about 15 percent of the income of Americans making $10 million per year or more; the rest is capital income from simply owning assets.... [Yet] the government shells out huge sums of money to the rich every year through tax breaks and subsidies."

Tim Egan: "We know Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a small, backward-looking man with even smaller, more backward-looking ideas, but what was the thinking behind his new federal crackdown on legal marijuana? Punish the blue states? Create cannabis chaos in the large swath of the American West and the other states where voters have said they want the police to spend their time on real crime? Or is it just another betrayal of the fools who voted for a man aptly described from inside the White House in Michael Wolff's new book, as 'less a person than a collection of terrible traits'?... And yet, after the government spent more than $1 trillion over the last four decades on the failed drug war, Trump now wants to double down on the most failed aspect of modern prohibition.... More people are arrested for pot possession than all the crimes that the F.B.I. classifies as violent -- one arrest every minute. This at a time when only 14 percent of the people think marijuana should be illegal."

Nothing to Worry About, Folks. Rebecca Shabad of CBS News: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has scheduled a briefing for later this month to outline how the public can prepare for nuclear war. 'While a nuclear detonation is unlikely, it would have devastating results and there would be limited time to take critical protection steps. Despite the fear surrounding such an event, planning and preparation can lessen deaths and illness,' the notice about the Jan. 16 briefing says on the CDC's website, which features a photo of a mushroom cloud. The notice went on to say that most people don't know that sheltering in place for at least 24 hours is 'crucial to saving lives and reducing exposure to radiation.'... This comes amid rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. President Trump tweeted Tuesday night, boasting about the size of his 'nuclear button' and how it's 'much bigger & more powerful' than North Korea's."

Trump Has "Absolute Right" to Do What He Wants with DOJ AND Twitter. Brian Feldman of New York: "Having twisted itself in knots over the last few years trying to defend its free-speech absolutism as its platform grew increasingly toxic, Twitter has recently earned a lot of flack for continuing to offer Donald Trump a place to drop his bad ideas.... In a short blog post, the company writes, 'Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets, would hide important information people should be able to see and debate. It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.'... This is probably as straightforward an articulation of Twitter's messy internal thinking as we're going to get. 'He's the president, duh' makes more sense than most of the reasons Twitter has tried to supply."

Beyond the Beltway

Marwa Eltagouri of the Washington Post: "The home of Tina Johnson, who accused former U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of groping her, was destroyed Wednesday in a fire that is being investigated as an arson, though officials say they do not believe it is related to the Moore allegations." ...

... The AL.com story, by Anna Vollers, is here.

The Commentariat -- January 5, 2018

** Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "President Trump gave firm instructions in March to the White House's top lawyer [Donald McGahn]: stop the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, from recusing himself in the Justice Department's investigation into whether Mr. Trump's associates had helped a Russian campaign to disrupt the 2016 election.... McGahn ... carried out the president's orders and lobbied Mr. Sessions to remain in charge of the inquiry.... Mr. McGahn was unsuccessful, and the president erupted in anger in front of numerous White House officials, saying he needed his attorney general to protect him. Mr. Trump said he had expected his top law enforcement official to safeguard him the way he believed Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general, had done for his brother John F. Kennedy and Eric H. Holder Jr. had for Barack Obama. Mr. Trump then asked, 'Where's my Roy Cohn?'... The lobbying of Mr. Sessions is one of several previously unreported episodes that the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has learned.... Mr. Mueller has also substantiated claims that [James] Comey made in a series of memos describing troubling interactions with the president before he was fired in May." There's lots more. Read on. ...

... Barbara McQuade in The Daily Beast: "To be effective, the Department of Justice must be independent from partisan politics. And, just as important, it must be perceived as independent.... The Department of Justice is not the president's personal legal team, designed to lock up his rivals.... Bowing to the wishes of the president to investigate his political enemies would undermine public confidence in the objectivity of DOJ's charging decisions in this case and all others.... Reopening this case could set a dangerous precedent for future administrations to reconsider all charging decisions with which they disagree.... Even that sort of charade would be an abuse of the awesome powers of the Department of Justice and a waste of resources that could be better spent on new cases." --safari

Michael Wolff publishes the second excerpt of his upcoming book in The Hollywood Reporter. Some highlights: "[A]fter the abrupt Scaramucci meltdown, hardly any effort inside the West Wing to disguise the sense of ludicrousness and anger felt by every member of the senior staff toward Trump's family and Trump himself. It became almost a kind of competition to demystify Trump. For Rex Tillerson, he was a moron. For Gary Cohn, he was dumb as shit. For H.R. McMaster, he was a hopeless idiot. For Steve Bannon, he had lost his mind. Most succinctly, no one expected him to survive Mueller.... There was more: Everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions. It used to be inside of 30 minutes he'd repeat, word-for-word and expression-for-expression, the same three stories -- now it was within 10 minutes.... At Mar-a-Lago, just before the new year, a heavily made-up Trump failed to recognize a succession of old friends." --safari ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Another good read. Less sensational than the parts excerpted yesterday -- unless you consider numerous proofs of a sitting U.S. president's unfitness for office to be a matter of some interest. ...

... Michael Wolff's third installment of his new book, in British GQ. Some highlights: "Trump, goaded by Bannon, would continue to do the things that would delight ­conservative media and incur the wrath of liberal media. That was the programme.... But Trump himself was desperately wounded by his treatment in the mainstream media.... Slights were singled out and replayed again and again, his mood worsening with each replay (he was always rerunning the DVR).... Women, according to Trump, were simply more loyal and trustworthy than men. Men might be more forceful and competent, but they were also more likely to have their own agendas. Women, by their nature -- or Trump's version of their nature -- were more likely to focus their purpose on a man. A man like Trump ... felt women understood him.... [Kellyanne] Conway seemed to have a convenient 'on-off' toggle.... She channelled Trump: she said exactly the kind of Trump stuff that would otherwise make her put a finger-gun to her head." And so on. --safari ...

As a former prosecutor, it is clear to me that the repeated attempts by @POTUS to influence the criminal investigation against him, such as this attempt to order AG Jeff Sessions to not recuse, screams CONSCIOUSNESS OF GUILT -- Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), in a tweet

... Andy Borowitz: "Donald J. Trump, legendary among U.S. Presidents for his aversion to reading, demanded on Thursday that members of his White House circle act out Michael Wolff's new book, 'Fire and Fury,' in a command performance in the Oval Office. According to those who witnessed the dramatic presentation, Jared Kushner played the role of Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump played the role of Ivanka Trump, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders played Steve Bannon." ...

... Eric Levitz looks over some of the evidence, including that which Wolff provides, that Trump is suffering from some degree of dementia. But that's not all: "By all accounts, most GOP Congress members recognize that Donald Trump is a pathological narcissist with early stage dementia and only peripheral contact with reality -- and they have, nonetheless, decided to let him retain unilateral command of the largest nuclear arsenal on planet Earth because it would be politically and personally inconvenient to remove his finger from the button. You don't need a degree in psychiatry to call that crazy." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Quite a while back -- I (or my also-imaginary predecessor) mentioned that I thought Trump suffered from dementia -- based heavily on the contrast between his speech pattern from years ago & the childish way he speaks now (and also on my experience with older people). I don't believe anyone commented on my assessment, which suggested to me that people kinda thought mine was a far-out opinion -- or perhaps too kindly. It is, after all, more satisfying to feel someone like Trump is an evil wanker than it is to feel a little sorry for him because he's suffering from a neurological disease. But I would hope that by now some would agree with my unprofessional diagnosis. ...

... Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "... most of all, the book confirms what is already widely understood -- not just that Trump is entirely unfit for the presidency, but that everyone around him knows it.... And yet these people continue to either prop up or defend this sick travesty of a presidency.... Some of the military men trying to steady American foreign policy amid Trump's whims and tantrums might be doing something quietly decent, sacrificing their reputations for the greater good. But most members of Trump's campaign and administration are simply traitors. They are willing, out of some complex mix of ambition, resentment, cynicism and rationalization, to endanger all of our lives -- all of our children's lives -- by refusing to tell the country what they know about the senescent fool who boasts of the size of his 'nuclear button' on Twitter.... Trump, Wolff's reporting shows, has no executive function, no ability to process information or weigh consequences. Expecting him to act in the country's interest is like demanding that your cat do the dishes. His enablers have no such excuse." ...

... Jack Shafer of Politico speculates on how Trump "got Wolffed." Mrs. McC: Helpful to read in conjunction with the Hollywood Reporter excerpt. ...

... TMZ: In Fire & Fury, Woolf "claims [Hope] Hicks and the married [Corey] Lewandowski had an affair during the campaign, and she became upset when the media started going after him. Wolff claims Trump responded to her, 'Why? You've already done enough for him. You're the best piece of tail he'll ever have.' Wolff claims Hicks ran from the room." ...

... Chris Sommerfeldt of the New York Daily News: "An enraged President Trump called acting attorney general Sally Yates 'a c[un]t' after she refused to uphold his contentious travel ban targeting Muslims, according to a new book about the Trump administration."

... Timothy O'Brien of Bloomberg: "... one of the more substantive issues Bannon has surfaced shouldn't get lost in the cacophony. Bannon, in his interviews with Wolff, has invited us to consider the families of Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner as possible targets of a significant federal money-laundering investigation.... 'This is all about money laundering,' Wolff quotes Bannon saying. 'Their path to [expletive] Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr. and Jared Kushner.'... 'It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner stuff,' Bannon adds. 'The Kushner stuff is greasy. They're going to go right through that.'" ...

     ... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Bannon's argument is that Mueller's team is focused not on Russian meddling but on unearthing money laundering by [Paul] Manafort, Donald Trump Jr. and [Jared] Kushner that can then be used as leverage against [Donald] Trump.... We contacted Chris Quick, a retired FBI special agent who specialized in financial crimes.... He walked us through how money laundering works in the real-estate industry and how others may be implicated in that criminal activity." ...

... Steve M.: "[T]here are enough doubts about [the] veracity [of Michael Wolff's book] that The Washington Post has already published two columns warning us to read the book skeptically.... Well, Trumpers, if you're being lied about in a high-profile media account, that sucks -- but welcome to our world.... Being slandered and libeled in the media just comes with the territory for Democratic presidents and aspirants. John Kerry allegedly fabricated his military record. Bill and Hillary Clinton allegedly had a lot of people killed. Chelsea Clinton was allegedly the result of a marital rape. Barack Obama is allegedly a Kenyan by birth who allegedly gay-married his Pakistani roommate and then used the same wedding ring (with Arabic inscription!) to marry Michelle.... The GOP has built itself on lies about Democrats. If there's dishonesty in the Wolff book, it's Republicans getting a taste of their own medicine." --safari ...

... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "When candidate Donald Trump first spoke of a plan to 'open up' libel laws..., he seemed serious. And he also seemed ill-informed: As president, Trump would lack the requisite power over the courts to make it easier for people to secure damages for defaming other people. Now installed in the White House, Trump has occasionally returned to his authoritarian fantasy of shutting down independent media outlets.... The Thursday letter from Trump attorney Charles Harder ... directed ... Michael Wolff and his publisher, Henry Holt & Co. ... [to] 'immediately cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination of the Book, the Article, or any excerpts or summaries of either of them, to any person or entity, and that you issue a full and complete retraction and apology [blah blah]....' ... Laughable, all of it.... Don't say that the media didn't prepare us for this enduring national embarrassment. A USA Today investigation during the campaign found that Trump had been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions over the previous three decades." ...

... Ashley Parker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "... legal experts and historians said the decision by a sitting president to threaten 'imminent' legal action against a publishing house, a journalist and a former aide represented a remarkable break with recent precedent and could have a chilling effect on free-speech rights.... 'Trump is stealing a page out of Richard Nixon's playbook once again,' [presidential historian Douglas] Brinkley said. 'When you get criticized by the press or a book that attacks you, you attack back with ferocity.... It's a misuse of presidential powers.'... For nearly half a century, Trump has used lawsuits -- and often just the threat of them -- as a primary weapon in his arsenal against critics and competitors, deploying libel and slander allegations to push back against those who might embarrass or contradict him. He has had his lawyers threaten book authors, business rivals, attorneys, and critics of his real estate developments and political views." ...

... Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "In a new statement Thursday, billionaire conservative donor Rebekah Mercer said..., 'I support President Trump and the platform upon which he was elected,' Mercer said. 'My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements.' Mercer almost never speaks publicly, and her statement about her longtime ally represented an extraordinary rebuke. It comes in the wake of new book by journalist Michael Wolff...," which includes incendiary comments by Bannon about the president he helped elect and about Trump's family.... She said she remains committed in her support for Breitbart News, where she holds a minority stake and where Bannon serves as chairman. People familiar with the conservative news website said discussions have begun at the organization about potentially removing him [as chairman]." ...

     ... Lachlan Markay & Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast: "Republican mega-donor [KKK] Rebekah Mercer publicly rebuked Steve Bannon on Thursday in a rare, and brutal, public statement. But before she did, Mercer spoke to President Donald Trump.... Mercer and Trump addressed Bannon's scorched-earth comments that appear in Michael Wolff's new book on the Trump White House, and the donor reaffirmed her support for Trump's presidency and his agenda. White House spokesman Raj Shah declined to confirm the call or its details, but did not deny that it took place." --safari...

     ... Adam Raymond of New York: "If Bannon is fired by Breitbart News, the move would have the support of the White House. When she was asked Friday if Bannon should be ousted..., Sarah Sanders said, 'I certainly think that it's something they should look at and consider.'" Mrs. McC: Needless to say, remarking on private companies' employment decisions is not something a real presidential press secretary would do, even in more extreme cases of wrongdoing. But it does stand to reason that a president* also would have a press secretary.*

... Pax Trvmpvs Never Lasts Long. Ron Klain in a Washington Post op-ed: "On Nov. 22, 2016 ... Donald Trump ... said that he opposed further investigation of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, as it would be 'very, very divisive' for the country and Clinton had already 'suffered greatly in many different ways.'... A year later, Trump ... has all but ordered his Justice Department to reopen the investigation into Clinton's emails, and to explore the fantabulous theory that the Clinton Foundation somehow got nine federal agencies to tamper with the review of a commercial uranium transaction. This week, he called for jailing a former Clinton aide and prosecuting former FBI director James B. Comey. If that weren't enough, Trump's allies are calling for an investigation of 'high ranking Obama government officials who might have colluded to prevent' Trump's election.... Trump and his allies are proposing a bargain, with a not-so-subtle message to Democrats: '... If my people are going to be investigated, then so will yours.'... The actions of Trump and his allies tell us a lot about what they fear could be found." ...

... Josh Marshall: "The idea that a sitting President can seek to silence critics and silence dissent using the civil courts is as monstrous as it is comical and is entirely in keeping with the practice of broken democracies that slip into autocracy.... Have you ever see a coiled hose that suddenly has hugely pressurized water run through it?... It swings and jerks violently this way and that. It gets everyone wet.... That's our President. But it's not water, it's fire.... That's what's happening today and will continue for every day of his Presidency, albeit with lulls of lethargy and torpor here and there. He is likely the most reviled and mocked man in the entire world today. He is also the most powerful.... The whole situation is comical, mind-boggling and deeply dangerous." --safari

Today in Il Duce's New Rules

Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "The Trump administration will allow new offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all United States waters, it announced Thursday. The plan would give the energy industry broad access to drilling rights in most parts of the outer continental shelf, including Pacific waters near California, Atlantic waters near Maine and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The proposal lifts a ban on drilling, imposed by President Barack Obama in his final days in office, that protected more than 100 million offshore acres along the Arctic and Eastern Seaboard. Such a reversal deals a serious blow to Mr. Obama's environmental legacy and signals that the Trump administration is nowhere near done unraveling the environmental restrictions of its predecessor in an effort to promote domestic energy production." ...

... Darryl Fears of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration unveiled a controversial proposal Thursday to permit drilling in most U.S. continental-shelf waters, including protected areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic, where oil and gas exploration is opposed by governors from New Jersey to Florida, nearly a dozen attorneys general, more than 100 U.S. lawmakers and the Defense Department. Under the proposal, only one of 26 planning areas in the Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean would be off limits to oil and gas exploration, according to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke." Even Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R-Trumpy) is pissed off. ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: When Trump is having a bad day, he lashes out at some perceived enemy. There need not be cause-and-effect. Neither President Obama nor the coastline had anything whatsoever to do with Michael Wolff or Steve Bannon or other White House leakers. But hey, whatever -- good time to roll out a program for creating coastal waters catastrophes. AND there's more. Much more. ...

Emily Badger & John Eligon of the New York Times: "Undermining another Obama-era initiative, the Trump administration plans to delay enforcement of a federal housing rule that requires communities to address patterns of racial residential segregation. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, in a notice to be published Friday in the Federal Register, says it will suspend until 2020 the requirement that communities analyze their housing segregation and submit plans to reverse it, as a condition of receiving billions of federal dollars in block grants and housing aid.... Since joining the agency, [Secretary Ben] Carson [-- who has opposed the rule --] has said that he wants to 'reinterpret' the rule."

Mark Landler & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "The United States will suspend nearly all security aid to Pakistan, the Trump administration announced on Thursday in a sign of its frustration with the country's refusal to confront terrorist networks operating there. Administration officials said as much as $1.3 billion could be frozen, although Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, did not provide an estimate of the total aid funds affected. Ms. Nauert said the suspension could be lifted if Pakistan changed its behavior by doing more to fight terror groups.... The United States has provided Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid since 2002. Additionally, the State Department announced earlier on Thursday that it had placed Pakistan on a special watch list for what it described as the country's severe violations of religious freedoms."

** Sessions Is a Cowardly Sack of Shit. Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "Justice Department officials are taking a fresh look at Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she served as secretary of State, The Daily Beast has learned.... A former senior DOJ official familiar with department leadership's thinking said officials there are acutely aware of demands from ... Donald Trump that they look into Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of State -- and that they lock up her top aide, Huma Abedin.... It's an open question as to whether Justice Department officials would have the same level of interest in Clinton's server without a political directive from the White House, the former official said.... Conservatives said the revelation that Justice Department officials are looking at Clinton's email server comes as a relief." --safari ...

... Gone Fishin'. John Solomon of The Hill: "The Justice Department has launched a new inquiry into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged in any pay-to-play politics or other illegal activities while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State, law enforcement officials and a witness tells The Hill.... Several GOP members of Congress have recently urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a special counsel to look at the myriad of issues surrounding the Clintons. Justice officials sent a letter to Congress in November suggesting some of those issues were being re-examined, but Sessions later testified the appointment of a special prosecutor required a high legal bar that had not yet been met." --safari...

... No, No, Sessions Is Tough on Trivial "Crime." Charlie Savage & Jack Healy of the New York Times: "The Trump administration freed federal prosecutors on Thursday to more aggressively enforce marijuana laws, effectively threatening to undermine the legalization movement that has spread to six states, most recently California. In a move that raised doubts about the viability and growth of the burgeoning commercial marijuana industry, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded an Obama-era policy that had discouraged federal prosecutors from bringing charges of marijuana-related crimes in states that have legalized sales of the drug. In a statement, Mr. Sessions said the Obama-era guidance undermined 'the rule of law. and the Justice Department's mission to enforce federal statutes.... The move seemed certain to increase the confusion surrounding whether it is legal to sell, buy or possess marijuana in the United States.... Mr. Sessions was a vocal opponent of marijuana legalization as a United States senator from Alabama. At his confirmation hearing in January, he ... [Mrs. McC: ... lied his elfin ass off.] ...

     ... "Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, accused Mr. Sessions of violating promises had made and threatened retaliation. 'This reported action directly contradicts what Attorney General Sessions told me prior to his confirmation. With no prior notice to Congress, the Justice Department has trampled on the will of the voters in CO and other states,' Mr. Gardner wrote on Twitter, adding: 'I am prepared to take all steps necessary, including holding DOJ nominees, until the Attorney General lives up to the commitment he made to me prior to his confirmation.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yo, Jeff, what happened to prosecutorial discretion? What happened to your preference for states' rights? What happened to common sense? ...

     ... Thomas Fuller of the New York Times: "The sale of recreational cannabis became legal in California on New Year's Day. Four days later, the Trump administration acted in effect to undermine that state law by allowing federal prosecutors to be more aggressive in prosecuting marijuana cases. A memo by Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday was widely interpreted in the nation's most populous state as the latest example of Trump vs. California, a multifront battle of issues ranging from immigration to taxes to the environment. And on marijuana, once again California reacted with defiance. 'There is no question California will ultimately prevail,' Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor of California, said."

Kira Larner of Think Progress: "Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap (D) had strong words for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) on Thursday after Kobach tried to lay blame for the failure of President Trump's Election Integrity Commission at the feet of Dunlap and three other Democratic commissioners. '[It's a] bunch of balderdash,' Dunlap told ThinkProgress in an interview.... Kobach, the commission's vice-chair, claimed that Democrats on the panel jeopardized their opportunity to be involved in setting federal voting policy.... Kobach [was] likely referring to over a dozen lawsuits against the group by Democrats and voting advocates, including one by a Democratic commissioner against his own commission.... Dunlap said he suspected that Kobach would choose to terminate the commission rather than involve the four Democrats." --safari

Chip, Chip, Chipping Away. Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The Trump administration on Thursday proposed sweeping new rules that could make it easier for small businesses to band together and create health insurance plans that would be exempt from many of the consumer protections mandated by the Affordable Care Act.... The proposal would allow small business owners, their employees, sole proprietors and other self-employed individuals to join together as a single group to buy insurance in the large-group market. The new health plans could be exempt from some requirements of the Affordable Care Act. They would, for example, not have to provide certain 'essential health benefits' like mental health care, emergency services, maternity and newborn care and prescription drugs.... Consumer groups, state officials and Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans have strenuously opposed similar ideas for years. Association health plans, they say, will tend to attract employers with younger, healthier workers, leaving behind sicker people in more comprehensive, more expensive plans that fully comply with the Affordable Care Act." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: When you look at all the "new rules" that came out yesterday, it seems like a safe bet that Trump or some White House staffer called every Cabinet head & told them that if they had any draconian measures in the works -- especially draconian measures that would appease Trump's hatred for President Obama -- to roll them out today to help temper President Tantrum. Those who answered the call included Zinke, Tillerson, Sessions, Carson & whoever is running HHS now. Why hasn't Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao ordered the trains to run on time?

Thomas Homan Embraces His Inner Trump. Jonathan Blitzer of the New Yorker: "Even though he leads [Immigration & Customs Enforcement,] the federal agency that's arguably been the most receptive to Trump's agenda, [Thomas] Homan wasn't seen as an extremist by those who worked with him. A career immigration-enforcement official who has served under six Presidents, he didn't have the profile of a Trump supporter, either -- in fact, he was expected to retire at the start of last year, and had a job lined up at PricewaterhouseCoopers, the international consulting firm. ICE colleagues even held a goodbye party for him one Friday last January, only to be surprised the following Monday when he returned to work. (He became ICE's acting director that very night, when Trump unexpectedly demoted Homan's former boss.) 'He was thoughtful and nuanced,' a former Obama Administration official who worked closely with Homan in 2014, while implementing new enforcement priorities at ICE, said. 'None of us recognize this guy.'... In November, Trump nominated him to be the official head of ICE."

Lachlan Markay of The Daily Beast: "Veteran Republican operative and self-described 'ratfucker' Roger Stone is advocating for military operations, including drone strikes, in Somalia on behalf of his first lobbying client in 17 years. Stone recently disclosed that he had done lobbying work for a Buffalo-area company that acts as a middleman for the sale of African livestock to clients around the world.... Stone's work for Capstone began in May 2017, as the Trump administration stepped up U.S military operations in Somalia, including a href="https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/a3jjaz/u-s-airstrikes-on-somalia-have-soared-under-trump">major escalation in drone strikes against insurgent groups in the country. The number of U.S. troops in Somalia has more than doubled to over 500 since Trump took office." --safari...

     ... safari: Roger Stone, Somali expert,Trump whisperer, drone strikes. Another normal day in TrumpWorld.

Complicit. Laura Jarrett, et al. of CNN: "House Speaker Paul Ryan backed his fellow congressional Republican, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, during a meeting over the Russia investigation Wednesday, capping off a months-long dispute between the committee and the Justice Department.... At Wednesday's meeting -- initiated at [Deputy AG Rod] Rosenstein's request -- Rosenstein and Wray tried to gauge where they stood with the House speaker in light of the looming potential contempt of Congress showdown and Nunes' outstanding subpoena demands.... During the meeting ... it became clear that Ryan wasn't moved and the officials wouldn't have his support if they proceeded to resist Nunes' remaining highly classified requests.... Sources also ... had learned recently that the White House wasn't going to assert executive privilege or otherwise intervene to try to stop Nunes.... A compromise was reached later Wednesday that allows House Intelligence Committee members to go to a Justice Department facility to view the documents, sources said.... The Justice Department has also approved a slew of Justice and FBI officials to be interviewed by the committee in January." --safari...

Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "In a lawsuit that echoes a civil case against President Trump, an Alabama woman on Thursday sued failed U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore and his campaign for defamation, citing harsh personal attacks she faced after coming forward with allegations he touched her sexually when she was 14 years old. Leigh Corfman is not seeking financial compensation beyond legal costs. She is asking for a declaratory judgment of defamation, a public apology from Moore, and a court-enforced ban on him or his campaign publicly attacking her again. She said in a statement that the suit seeks 'to do what I could not do as a 14-year-old -- hold Mr. Moore and those who enable him accountable.'... Under a landmark Supreme Court ruling, the legal standard for defamation of a public figure is that the statements were known to be false or showed a 'reckless disregard for the truth,' experts say." Mrs. McC: Good for Corfman: I hope she wins, even though we know Brother Roy will swear an oath on the Bible & promptly bear false witness again & again, so help him, God.

Richard Morgan in a Washington Post "Perspective" essay: "... I've seen [Woody Allen's] whole career up close -- going through all of his drafts and scribblings ... that exists in the 56-box, 57-year personal archives he has been curating since 1980 at Princeton University (which he did not attend).... From cover to cover, and from the very beginning to the very end, Allen, quite simply, drips with repetitious misogyny. Allen ... never needed ideas besides the lecherous man and his beautiful conquest.... Allen's work is flatly boorish. Running through all of the boxes is an insistent, vivid obsession with young women and girls." Mrs. McC: In real life, Woody Allen is as creepy as you imagined.

Reality Check. Sydney Pereira of Newsweek: "The ocean is running out of oxygen at a rapid speed -- and the depletion could choke to death much of the marine life these waters support. A sweeping review published Thursday in Science documented the causes, consequences and solutions to what is technically called 'deoxygenation.' They discovered a four-to-tenfold increase in areas of the ocean with little to no oxygen, which researchers say is alarming because half of Earth's oxygen originates from the ocean.... Without oxygen in the oceans, marine life will die off or relocate.... [T]he amount of water in the open ocean without oxygen has quadrupled in 50 years. It is more than twice as bad for coastal waters, such as estuaries and seas.... Oxygen is typically replenished when surface water mixes with the deeper water, but when the oceans are hotter, there is less vertical mixing." --safari