The Commentariat -- January 21, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Sean Sullivan, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump and Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) pressed the Senate Sunday to end a government shutdown that reached its second day, with Trump lashing out at Democrats and urging Republicans to change the rules if the standoff there isn't resolved.... Trump wrote on Twitter, 'If stalemate continues,' then Republicans should use the 'Nuclear Option' to rewrite Senate rules and try to pass a long-term spending bill with a simple majority."

They Danced with Trump. Craig Timburg, et al., of the Washington Post: At Trump's inaugural events a year ago, "... prominent business leaders and activists from [Russia] attended inaugural festivities, mingling at balls and receptions -- at times in proximity to key U.S. political officials.... FBI officials were concerned at the time because some of the figures had surfaced in the agency's investigation of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, the officials said.... Some Russian guests at Trump's inauguration said they got tickets through U.S. political contacts. One venue for credentials was the Presidential Inaugural Committee, which provided a slew of perks ... to donors who gave at least $25,000. Only U.S. citizens and permanent residents are legally permitted to contribute to an inaugural committee. Several U.S. business executives with ties to Russia together donated $2.4 million to the inaugural committee, campaign finance records show."

All the Best People, Ctd. Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "A former Trump campaign worker appointed at age 23 to a top position in the White Houses drug policy office had been let go from a job at a law firm because he repeatedly missed work, a partner at the firm said. While in college, late in 2014 or early in 2015, Taylor Weyeneth began working as a legal assistant at the New York firm O'Dwyer & Bernstien. He was 'discharged' in August 2015, partner Brian O'Dwyer said in an interview. 'We were very disappointed in what happened,' O'Dwyer said. He said that he hired Weyeneth in part because both men were involved in the same fraternity, and that the firm invested time training him for what was expected to be a longer relationship. Instead, he said, Weyeneth 'just didn't show.' In a résumé initially submitted to the government, Weyeneth said he worked at the firm until April 2016." Mrs. McC: What's the big deal? Trump "just doesn't show" for the better part of every day.

*****

The Comments function appears to be working. Those who signed up may continue to use their exalted "membership" status, or not, as they prefer. I don't intend to sign up anyone else as it's no longer necessary. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

*****

Vera Haller, et al., of the Washington Post: "From Beijing to Buenos Aires, from Denver to Dallas, from California to the Carolinas, hundreds of thousands of activists once again took to the streets to protest the policies and presidency of Donald Trump. The number of participants might not have eclipsed the millions who marched in cities a year ago, but the 'resistance' still brought out swarms of people from Los Angeles to Philadelphia. Saturday's march made clear how a movement that began as a protest has evolved. A year of the Trump presidency, coupled with the galvanizing experience of the #MeToo moment, has made activists eager to leave a mark on the country's political system. As a result, a key component of Saturday's demonstrations was an effort to harness the enthusiasm behind the Women's March and translate that into political sway at the polls this fall." ...

... Sarah Larson of the New Yorker describes the scene in Washington, D.C. ...

... New York Times: "A year after millions of people turned out for the Women's March and took to the streets en masse to protest President Trump's inauguration, demonstrators gathered o Saturday in cities across the United States, galvanized by their disdain for Mr. Trump and his administration's policies. deluge of revelations about powerful men abusing women, leading to the #MeToo moment, has pushed activists to demand deeper social and political change. Progressive women are eager to build on the movement and translate their enthusiasm into electoral victories in this year's midterm elections." ...

... Amanda Maile & Morgan Winsor of ABC News: "As Women's March participants filled the streets in dozens of cities, many carrying anti-Trump signs, the president took to Twitter to comment on the protests Saturday. With apparent sarcasm, Trump tweeted, 'Beautiful weather all over our great country, a perfect day for all women to march. Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months. Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!'... From New York City to Los Angeles and many cities in between, thousands of women and their allies took to the streets Saturday, vowing to show up at the polls this year for midterm elections amid outrage over President Donald Trump's agenda. The president's tweet came after thousands of women and their allies poured out for the Women's March, marking one year since Trump took ffice. The main event for the 2018 Women's March, entitled 'Power to the Polls,' will take place Sunday in Las Vegas, where organizers will launch a national voter registration and mobilization initiative. Hundreds of other anniversary marches and events will be held elsewhere in the nation -- and around the world -- on both Saturday and Sunday." ...

... Diane Pathieu & Evelyn Holmes of ABC-7-Chicago: "Women's March Chicago organizers said more than 300,000 people packed Grant Park and surrounding streets Saturday, marching for change and women's rights.... Saturday's second annual march was titled 'March to the Polls' and aimed to mobilize women to not only vote, but also run for office and support female candidates. It was one of dozens of marches held around the country Saturday.... Nearly 400 similar marches were held in solidarity in D.C. and across the country.... Last year, about 250,000 women -- and men -- attended the Chicago event, which was held a day after ... Donald Trump was inaugurated." ...

... Andrea Castillo & Michael Livingston of the Los Angeles Times: "Calling for equal rights for women and waving 'Dump Trump' signs, tens of thousands of demonstrators converged on downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to take part in the second Women's March in L.A., one of dozens of similar protests held around the country.... Delivering the most impassioned speech of the day, [actor Viola] Davis reminded the women in the crowd that they must fight for their liberties and their rights, saying that 'it is through human dedication and effort that we move forward.'"

Once more, SNL reports all the news that's unfit to contemplate:

Thomas Kaplan & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "With the federal government one day into a shutdown, the House and Senate reconvened on Saturday for a new round of bitter partisan bickering and public posturing that seemed to cloud the path to a resolution despite initial talk of a compromise.... The Senate met for a rare weekend session at noon -- less than 11 hours after it went into recess..., [and Mitch McConnell & Chuck Schumer sniped at each other on the Senate floor].... The White House is taking a firm stance against entertaining immigration demands while the government is closed.... A bipartisan group of about 18 lawmakers, calling themselves the Common Sense Coalition, met Saturday afternoon in the office of Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, in an effort to find a way forward. Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, said the group hoped to present a proposal to Senate leaders either later Saturday or Sunday." ...

... Wait, Maybe This Will Help. Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "The Trump campaign on Saturday released a new campaign ad calling congressional Democrats 'complicit' in all murders committed by undocumented immigrants. The spot seems unlikely to ease tensions on Capitol Hill as the Senate tries to negotiate a compromise on the fate of the 700,000 immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally as children in order to reopen the shuttered federal government. 'Democrats who stand in our way will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants,' a narrator says, as images of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) appear on the screen. The 30-second ad blames Democrats for endorsing these acts of 'pure evil' by refusing to allow ... Donald Trump to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border." Mrs. McC: Which, um, won't stop illegal immigration from Central America & which, um, Schumer seemed to agree to Friday. But great ad! ...

... Robert Costa, et al., of the Washington Post: "So far, Trump, McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) have struck a defiant tone, refusing to consider any of the Democratic demands on immigration or other issues until there is a bipartisan agreement to reopen the federal government." ...

... Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Republicans are unified behind the belief that, until the government opens, there will be no more negotiations over the fate of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought here as children." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Obviously, what this tells you is that Republicans, as a whole, have every intention to send Dreamers back to the country from which they came as infants or children. If not, then "conceding" to Democrats on DACA would be a Big Whup Nothing Burger that would demonstrate how Republicans cared about the kids, after all. They don't. And let's remember that the GOP policy is not just cruel, racist & xenophobic, it's stupid. Who could be better for an economy with an aging population than a large group of young, well-educated, English-speaking, non-criminals? Oooh, ooh, Mr. Kotter, I know. Norwegian ones. ...

** Annals of "Journalism", Ctd. Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "As the nation inched closer to the first government shutdown since 2013, the New York Times figured out who to blame: Democrats.... Under Senate rules [the funding bill] would require 60 votes for passage. Theoretically, a majority of Republicans could have gotten behind the plan and Democrats could have 'blocked' it. But that's not what happened. Only 45 Republican Senators supported the Republican plan.... Unmentioned is that more than 60 Senators supported a bipartisan deal that would have provided permanent protection for DREAMers, enhanced border security and kept the government running." --safari ...

... MEANWHILE, Trump is having "his party" at Mar-a-Lago, where lucky partygoers can spend as much as $250K/couple, & Trump can cash in personally for use of the space. ...

     ... Update. As MAG writes in today's Comments, it looks as if Donnie had created to so much havoc in Washington, his babysitters wouldn't let him go to his own party. A small price to pay for a lifetime of douchebaggery. BUT don't worry. The party went on without him, & he sent a short video message telling how great he was & how horrible Democrats were. ...

... David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post on Trump's Celebration of Me event tonight: "By holding the event at his own club, Trump will be able to collect tens of thousands of dollars in fees for food, ballroom rental and other costs. In effect, he will have transformed his supporters' political donations into revenue for his business. Again." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Next Trip: Davos! where Trump can schmooze with the world's high & mighty. What a populist! ...

... ** Ashley Parker & others at the Washington Post have a great report on Trump's ignorance of "his own" supposed policies, his constant vacillation & his opposing signals on DACA & other matters related to the shutdown.... 'Negotiating with President Trump is like negotiating with Jell-O,' Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained on the Senate floor Saturday, some 12 hours into the shutdown. 'It's next to impossible.'" ...

... Julie Davis & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "One year to the day after taking office with vows to bring the dysfunction of Washington to heel, President Trump on Saturday found himself thrust into the most perennial of political crises, bitterly casting blame on Democrats for a government shutdown he said they had orchestrated to mar the anniversary.... Inside the White House, Mr. Trump, the neophyte president who has styled himself the ultimate dealmaker, remained remarkably disengaged from the complex process of hammering out a politically palatable deal that could provide a way out of the morass.... On Saturday, the president was left alternately defiant and angry, self-pitying and frustrated. He argued to aides that he did not deserve the blame he was taking, but without a credible deal on the table, there was little for him to do. Irritated to have missed his big event in Florida, Mr. Trump spent much of his day watching old TV clips of him berating President Barack Obama for a lack of leadership during the 2013 government shutdown, a White House aide said, seeming content to sit back and watch the show." ...

... Matthew Yglesias of Vox: "Trump's intervening behavior [for the funding bill] wound up salting the earth by leaving everyone feeling that he might screw them over at any moment. Consequently, nobody is quite sure exactly who is shutting down the government or what it is the White House is trying to achieve by rejecting a bipartisan proposal that would avert a shutdown.... [C]ongressional Republicans are less unified on immigration than on most issues, and Trump is more invested in immigration than on most issues. Consequently, his actual personal leadership as president of the United States is critical to moving the system forward. But the mere fact that the circumstances require Trump to act like a real president doesn't change the fact that he's a lazy, ill-informed conspiracy theorist prone to tweeting cryptic pronouncements about delicate policy issues based on Fox & Friends segments. Welcome to 2018." --safari ...

... Tarini Parti of BuzzFeed: "Trump, who was supposed to be celebrating this weekend at a high-dollar fundraiser at his exclusive Florida resort, is now stuck in Washington. But while the White House says Trump is working the phones, other than an ultimately unsuccessful meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday, the president has been largely sidelined from deal-making, with congressional leadership and a few of his top aides taking the lead. And some senators from both parties say negotiating with Trump himself to find a way out of the shutdown is essentially impossible." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This whole shutdown fiasco can largely be attributed to Trump's suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect, that is, "people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is." In Trump, this effect extends to all aspects of his life. Not only did someone else -- Tony Schwartz -- write "Trump"'s best-selling book The Art of the Deal, I expect that his subordinates & lawyers were the actual people responsible for any major deals "he" made. They made good money for engineering those deals & no doubt flattered him for his essential input or whatever, and now the whole country is suffering under their ruses. I'd guess Dr. Jackson didn't test for Dunning-Kruger. ...

... AND MEANWHILE, mike pence is in the Middle East, managing to keep himself far from the madding crowd once again. Matthew Nussbaum of Politico reports. ...

... Wherein a thoughtful Eric Trump -- the smart one -- explains why the shutdown "is good for us." Julia Manchester of the Hill reports.

Nunes Keystone Kops, Ctd. Charlie Savage & Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "Republican aides on the House Intelligence Committee have prepared a memorandum that is said to accuse law enforcement officials of improperly obtaining a ... warrant ... targeting a former Trump campaign adviser [Carter Page].... House Republicans are calling for the declassification and release of the report, while Democrats say that it is full of misinformation and is a political stunt. People familiar with the report said that its main allegation was that law enforcement officials failed to adequately explain to the intelligence court judge that they were relying in part on research by an investigator, Christopher Steele, that had been financed by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. That, the report is said to claim, suggests that the judge was misled." Mrs. McC BTW: You can probably discredit what "expert" Stephen Vladeck tells the Times about Steele; according to Guardian reporter Luke Harding, Steele didn't know who Fusion GPS's clients were. Vladeck assumes Steele did know. ...

... Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "House Republicans are moving in the direction of releasing a controversial memo produced by Rep. Devin Nunes and the majority staff of the House intelligence committee.... [T]he memo's release is far from guaranteed. But a House Republican leadership aide told The Daily Beast that its release is very likely...Nunes' staff wrote the memo based on top secret intelligence that the FBI showed to a tiny number representatives and staff ... Democrats ... said that because members cannot see the underlying intelligence, they cannot fairly assess whether or not the memo characterizes it correctly. Any efforts for [Adam] Schiff [D-Calif. ] and his staff to release a counter-memo would almost certainly be stymied; such a release would require a vote of by House intelligence committee, which is deeply divided along partisan lines." --safari

Sean Wilentz in a New York Times op-ed: "Donald Trump ... [in his first year in office] has been a colossal failure. The truest measure of his performance comes from comparing his first year not with those of the best ... -- but with those of the worst.... Yet the first years of these failed presidencies were not always so bad, and in nearly every case not as bad as Mr. Trump's.... Mr. Trump's first year has been an unremitting parade of disgraces that have demeaned him as well as the dignity of his office, and he has shown that this is exactly how he believes he should govern. Most important, he is the first president to fail to defend the nation from an attack on our democracy by a hostile foreign power -- and to resist the investigation of that attack. He is the first to enrich his private interests, and those of his family, directly and openly. He is the first president to denounce the press not simply as unfair but as 'the enemy of the American people.' He is the first to threaten his defeated political opponent with imprisonment. He is the first to have denigrated friendly countries and allies as well as a whole continent with racist vulgarities.... Mr. Trump's first year portends a very unhappy ending."

Gail Collins argues that the future is Hillary's -- and Hillarys.

"This Land Is His Land." Kathleen McLaughlin of the Guardian: "It's become the new class war of the West ... a creeping, pervasive and underreported threat to public lands in the West: a widening class battle between private landowners -- oftentimes newcomers with little knowledge of the region's history or law -- and the general public expecting to use public lands.... While public lands advocates battle the Trump administration over its plans to scale back national monuments, some private landowners -- whether by tying up land access cases in courts or by putting up physical gates -- present a rising threat to the millions of acres set aside for public use.... According to a study from the Center for Western Priorities, 4 million acres of public lands in the Rocky Mountain West ... are considered 'landlocked,' blocked off by private landowners who control adjacent properties or roadways. Two million of those landlocked acres are in Montana." --safari

Christina Caron of the New York Times: "Carl Higbie, who resigned on Thursday from the federal agency that funds AmeriCorps and SeniorCorps, said on Saturday that he regretted making disparaging remarks in the past about black people, Muslims, gays and lesbians. 'There are certain comments that I made that are inexcusable,' Mr. Higbie said in a phone interview on Saturday, adding that many of them stemmed from 'my own ignorance.' Mr. Higbie, who also apologized on Twitter on Friday, was appointed by President Trump in August as chief of external affairs for the Corporation for National and Community Service, which encourages Americans to support their communities through volunteer service."

Time Warp: June 25, 2013: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote...'Our country has changed,' Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority."

Katie Rogers & Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "Representative Patrick Meehan, a Pennsylvania Republican who has taken a leading role in fighting sexual harassment in Congress, used thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to settle his own misconduct complaint after a former aide accused him last year of making unwanted romantic overtures to her, according to several people familiar with the settlement. A married father of three, Mr. Meehan, 62, had long expressed interest in the personal life of the aide, who was decades younger and had regarded the congressman as a father figure, according to three people who worked with the office and four others with whom she discussed her tenure there. But after the woman became involved in a serious relationship with someone outside the office last year, Mr. Meehan professed his romantic desires for her ... and he grew hostile when she did not reciprocate.... She initiated the complaint process started working from home and ultimately left the job. She later reached a confidential agreement with Mr. Meehan's office that included a settlement for an undisclosed amount to be paid from Mr. Meehan's congressional office fund." ...

... Ha Ha. Good Move, Pauly. Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "A Republican congressman was removed from the House Ethics Committee on Saturday after it was reported that he used thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to settle a misconduct complaint by a former staffer. Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.), who denies wrongdoing, reached a settlement with the aide after she claimed last year that he made unwanted romantic overtures toward her, according to a report published in the New York Times. The fourth-term lawmaker now faces an investigation by the ethics panel, according to a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.)."

Zoya Tierstein of Mother Jones: "Conservation Hawks, is part of a coalition of grassroots organizations trying to pull conservatives into the conversation about rising temperatures.... There's a small but growing alliance of concerned conservatives who want to reclaim climate change as a nonpartisan issue. This motley crew of lobbyists, Evangelical Christians, and far-right radicals call themselves the 'eco-right.'" --safari

Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Jay Weaver, et al. of McClatchy DC: "Gold has become the secret ingredient in the criminal alchemy of Latin American narco-traffickers who make billions turning cocaine into clean cash by exporting the metal to Miami.... NTR Metals, a South Florida precious-metals trading company, had bought nearly $1 billion worth of Peruvian gold supplied by narcos.... The United States depends on Latin American gold to feed ravenous demand from its jewelry, bullion and electronics industries.... But much of that gold comes from outlaw mines deep in the jungle where dangerous chemicals are poisoning rainforests and laborers who toil for scraps of metal, according to human rights watchdogs and industry executives. The environmental damage and human misery mirror the scale of Africa's 'blood diamonds,' experts say." --safari

Beyond the Beltway

American "Justice," Ctd.

Like Really Way, Way Beyond. Ryan Autullo of the Austin-American Statesman: "A state district judge in Comal County[, Texas,] said God told him to intervene in jury deliberations to sway jurors to return a not guilty verdict in the trial of a Buda woman accused of trafficking a teen girl for sex. Judge Jack Robison apologized to jurors for the interruption, but defended his actions by telling them 'when God tells me I gotta do something, I gotta do it,' according to the Herald-Zeitung in New Braunfels. The jury went against the judge's wishes, finding Gloria Romero-Perez guilty of continuous trafficking of a person and later sentenced her to 25 years in prison. They found her not guilty of a separate charge of sale or purchase of a child. ... The Herald-Zeitung reported that Robison recused himself before the trial's sentencing phase and was replaced by Judge Gary Steele. The defendant's attorney asked for a mistrial, but was denied." ...

... Addy Baird of ThinkProgress: "A former assistant police chief [Todd Shaw] in Kentucky told a recruit who asked what he should do if he catches teenagers smoking marijuana, 'If black shoot them,' according to new documents released Friday.... Shaw continued, saying, '[C]all their rents … if mom is hot then fuck her ... if dad is hot then handcuff him and make him suck my dick. Unless daddy is black.... Then shoot him.'... Shaw resigned from the Prospect Police Department in suburban Louisville late last year.... Since then, Shaw has reportedly fought to keep his messages from being released to the media after local outlets requested them under public records laws, but they were released Friday." -- safari

Way Beyond

Juan Cole: "[O]n Friday, Turkey began cross-border shelling of the Kurdish-majority Afrin canton in northern Syria. There are also reports of busloads of Sunni Arab guerrillas of the rebel Free Syrian Army, who had been sheltered in Turkey, being sent into Afrin.... The Turkish attack comes after an announcement early this week by the Trump administration that it would arm and train a 30,000-man strong Kurdish force to police Syria's borders and make sure ISIL did not reemerge.... Ankara sees the Syrian Kurds as allies of the PKK, but its members and the US government both deny that allegation.... It is not clear whether the erratic Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan is grandstanding with these artillery strikes into Afrin or whether this is the beginning of an attempt by Turkey to occupy and/or ethnically cleanse the Afrin Kurdish enclave." --safari

Finally a Bit of (Temporary) Good News. Amy Held of NPR: "Thai police toppled an accused kingpin in the global multi-million-dollar wildlife black market, with the arrest on Friday of Boonchai Bach in Nakhon Phanom, near the Laos border along the Mekong river. For more than a decade, Boonchai is believed to have overseen a syndicate responsible for the illegal trade of wildlife poached in Asia and Africa, according to the anti-trafficking group Freeland, which describes him as a 'kingpin' who has evaded capture for years." --safari

The Commentariat -- January 20, 2018

The Comments function appears to be working again. Those who signed up may continue to use their exalted "membership" status, or not, as they prefer. I don't intend to sign up anyone else as it's no longer necessary. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

*****

Afternoon Update:

David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post on Trump's Celebration of Me event tonight: "By holding the event at his own club, Trump will be able to collect tens of thousands of dollars in fees for food, ballroom rental and other costs. In effect, he will have transformed his supporters' political donations into revenue for his business. Again."

*****

Sheryl Stolberg & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Much of the federal government officially shut down early Saturday morning after Senate Democrats, showing remarkable solidarity in the face of a clear political danger, blocked consideration of a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating. The shutdown, coming one year to the day after President Trump took office, set off a new round of partisan recriminations and posed risks for both parties. It came after a fruitless last-minute negotiating session at the White House between Mr. Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. With just 50 senators voting in favor, Senate Republican leaders fell well short of the 60 votes necessary to proceed on the spending measure, which had passed the House on Thursday. Five conservative state Democrats voted for the spending measure. Five Republicans voted against it, although one of those, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, did so for procedural reasons." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday.) ...

... Here's how every senator voted, via the New York Times. ...

... Trump & the Football, Déjà vu. Michael Shear & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer f New York ... came close to an agreement to avert a government shutdown over lunch on Friday. But their consensus broke down later in the day when the president and his chief of staff demanded more concessions on immigration.... A the meal progressed, an outline of an agreement was struck...: Mr. Schumer said yes to higher levels for military spending and discussed the possibility of fully funding the president's wall on the southern border with Mexico. In exchange, the president agreed to support legalizing young immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Mr. Schumer left the White House believing he had persuaded the president to support a short, three to four-day spending extension to finalize an agreement, which would also include disaster funding and health care measures.... As the evening wore on, Mr. Schumer got a call from Mr. Kelly that dashed all hopes for a Trump-Schumer deal before the shutdown deadline.... Mr. Kelly, a hard-liner on immigration..., outlined a long list of White House objections to the deal." You'll have to read all of the first half of the report to see how the "agreement" "evolved," or rather, devolved. ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Let's hope we read a lot of stories headlined "Kelly Is New Unelected President," with a subhead that conveys the self-evident truth that a racist general engineered a coup over an unpopular, doddering president, bringing down the federal government. ...

... "Trump Whines: Shutdown Fight Could Make Me Miss 'My Party.'" Lacklan Markay & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "On the eve of a ... government shutdown..., Donald Trump privately vented frustrations that the political impasse could possibly keep him from attending a glitzy inauguration anniversary bash and fundraiser set for Saturday at his Florida getaway Mar-a-Lago. Two sources close to the president ... told The Daily Beast how excited he was for the event and relayed his growing concern that the potential failure to strike a deal to keep the federal government open could keep him from 'my party,' as the president has said." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: For Reality Chex readers who had forked over $100K or more & bought new outfits to wear to "his party," I read someplace that President* Whiney Face is off to Mar-a-Lago today to celebrate himself at a fête à Donaldo. I could find a link to verify this, but I don't care enough. ...

     ... Also, never mind what your outdated calendar says. It's really 01/01/01, Anno Trvmpvs. The Trumpian calendar is a little different from the old-fashioned Gregorian one. The Trumpian calendar has 13 months of 28 days each, & each month has four 7-day weeks. This adds up to 364 days a year, which is a little short. But hey, like all science, astronomy is fake, so this should work. The names of the days of the week have changed: SunKingDay, MoneyDay,  AmericaFirstDay, BusinessDay, DonaldsDay, WhiteMansDay & TrumpsDay. ...

... Politico: "Some six hours after the federal government shut down..., Donald Trump tweeted, 'This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present. #DemocratShutdown.'..." ...

... Dana Milbank: "What on Earth does President Trump want? On Wednesday, the White House issued an official statement saying it supported a 30-day spending bill to avert a shutdown that included a six-year extension of the popular Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. But Thursday dawned to see Trump declaring the opposite.... Exactly a week earlier, Trump ... rejected, in colorful fashion, a bipartisan immigration compromise he had said just two days earlier he would embrace. And this last week..., Trump was contradicting ... John F. Kelly, who said Trump had 'changed his attitude' and 'evolved' on the nature of a border wall. Trump replied that the wall 'has never changed or evolved.'... The president's mixed messages, more than anything, are what brought the government to the brink of a shutdown."

... Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "... President Trump ... shares a sizable chunk of the blame [for the shutdown].... My colleagues reported in November he told confidants a shutdown could be good for him politically; a chance to flex his hard-line muscles on immigration. He's also tweeted stuff like this: 'either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good "shutdown" in September to fix mess!' ... May 2, 2017.... This week, Trump cast doubt on whether he would sign a short-term spending bill ... hours after his spokeswoman said he would. Hours before a precarious vote in the House of Representatives to avoid such a scenario, Trump pulled the rug out from under GOP leaders by seeming to take away their only leverage to get Democrats on board: funding the Children's Health Insurance Program.... Trump also pushed back on his chief of staff's statements by suggesting he had not backed off the notion of a border wall.... Trump has also been extraordinarily inconsistent on what he wants on an issue that is impossible to separate from this shutdown: preventing the deportation of immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children.... With two words ['shithole countries,'] Trump caused an international stir and made it much mor difficult for Democrats to negotiate with the president...." ...

... The Party of Xenophobes & Racists. Sean Sullivan & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Amid the chaos and confusion of Capitol Hill this week, one prevailing trend emerged: Republican leaders are embracing the party's hard-line position on illegal immigration. While the battle over spending continues, GOP lawmakers have chosen to align with the conservative posture that took root in the party with President Trump, a development that is causing consternation among some Republican dissenters. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and other GOP lawmakers repeatedly cast the spending fight as Democrats displaying more loyalty to undocumented immigrants than Americans -- a wager that the nativist leanings that propelled Trump to power will energize their political base in this year's midterm elections.... In McConnell's orbit, there is a sense that much of the Senate Republican Conference is closer to [Sen. Tom] Cotton [whom Sen. Lindsey Graham called 'the Steve King of the Senate'] and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) on immigration than it is to Graham, even if they are not as vocal about it."

Glenn Kessler & Meg Kelly of the Washington Post: "One year after taking the oath of office, President Trump has made 2,140 false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker's database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president. That's an average of nearly 5.9 claims a day.... While the president is known to make outrageous claims on Twitter -- and that was certainly a major source of his falsehoods -- he made most of his false statements in unscripted remarks before reporters. Prepared speeches and interviews were other key sources of false claims. That's because the president relies on talking points or assertions that he had made in the past -- and continued to make, even though they had been fact-checked as wrong.... There were only 56 days -- or about 15 percent of the time -- on which we recorded no claims. These were often days when the president golfed. But there were also 12 days in which Trump made more than 30 claims. These were often days when he held campaign-style rallies, riffing without much of a script." Mrs. McC: Look for Trump to break 6.0/day during this election year.

Tamara Keith of NPR: "Turnover among top-level staff in the Trump White House was off the charts, according to a new Brookings Institution report. Turnover in Trump's first year was more than triple that in former President Barack Obama's first year, and double the rate in President Ronald Reagan's White House. A full 34 percent of high-level White House aides either resigned, were fired or moved into different positions in this first year of the Trump presidency. 'While some turnover is expected and possibly beneficial, excessive turnover portends problems,' writes Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a nonresident senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. '[President Trump] has valued loyalty over qualifications and suffered from a White House that has functioned in a chaotic manner. Both features have made it difficult to retain staff and have contributed to the governance difficulties he has encountered.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Cap'n. Nunes Keystone Kops to the Rescue. Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: "House Republicans spent the end of the workweek telling everyone who would listen that the American people must be allowed to see a top-secret four-page document that could bring an end to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.... The document, which alleges abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act during the FBI's quiet counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in the final months of the 2016 election, was actually compiled by Republican staffers on the House Intelligence Committee. That committee voted along partisan lines this week to allow any member of Congress to take a peek at the document themselves. Republican members soon flocked to a secure room to read the memo written by their allies -- and then ran to tell the press about it.... Overnight, #ReleaseTheMemo ― a hashtag reportedly given an additional boost by Russian-connected bots ― started trending on Twitter. In less than 24 hours, Donald Trump Jr. ... sent off more than 30 tweets and retweets about the memo t his nearly 2.5 million followers.... Democrats say the Republican-drafted classified memo is full of omissions and distortions intended to fuel efforts to run cover for President Trump." Emphasis added. ...

... Nunes & the RussiaBots. Natasha Bertrand in Business Insider: "Republican lawmakers are pushing for the House Intelligence Committee to release a memo written by the panel's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, that outlines purported surveillance during the transition period against ... Donald Trump by former President Barack Obama's administration. And Russia-linked Twitter bots have jumped on the bandwagon.... The frequency with which the [Russia-linked] accounts have been promoting the hashtag [#ReleaseTheMemo] has spiked by 233,000% over the past 48 hours.... The accounts' references to the "memo," meanwhile, have increased by 68,000%. The most-shared domain among the accounts has been WikiLeaks, and the most-shared URL has been a link to WikiLeaks' 'submit' page.... Several Republican congressmen -- many of whom have been highly critical of the special counsel Robert Mueller, the FBI, and the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia -- have released statements calling on the House Intelligence Committee to declassify and release Nunes' four-page memo.... A source with knowledge of the memo told Business Insider that it was 'a level of irresponsible stupidity that I cannot fathom,' adding that it 'purposefully misconstrues facts and leaves out important details.' [Rep. Adam] Schiff [D-Calif.] said the document 'may help carry White House water, but it is a deep disservice to our law enforcement professionals.'" ...

... One Reason Nunes & the RussiaBots Are Collaborating to Shut Down Mueller & the FBI. David Graham of the Atlantic: "Perhaps the most interesting thread [in Glenn Simpson's testimony before Congress] is Simpson's suggestion that the Trump Organization could have been used by Russians to launder money -- an arrangement that would have both allowed Kremlin-linked figures to scrub cash and would have created possible blackmail material over the now-president, since the Russian government would be aware that a crime had been committed.... But while Simpson saw disturbing patterns, he was unable to nail anything down, because he couldn't get the relevant records from banks and other financial institutions.... [Rep. Adam] Schiff told me Friday that the committee had been unable to follow [the] roadmap [to nail down the facts which Simpson suggested], because Republican members are not interested." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course Mueller does have the subpoena power -- and apparently he's using it -- to investigate Simpson's supposition. Holding evidence that Trump was money-laundering -- which is a crime -- is a far more potent form of blackmail than their outting anything like the supposed "golden shower" episode. Trump's consensual sexcapades are amusing & ew!-cringeworthy but they're not illegal. ...

... Here's the full In Touch interview of Stormy Daniels on her affair with Trump. We keep it classy here at Reality Chex. Just reporting on the President. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Jake Pearson of the AP: "A tabloid magazine held back from publishing an adult film star's 2011 account of an alleged affair with Donald Trump after the future president's personal lawyer threatened to sue, four former employees of the tabloid's publisher told The Associated Press. In Touch magazine published its 5,000-word interview with the pornographic actor Stormy Daniels on Friday -- more than six years after Trump's long-time attorney, Michael Cohen, sent an email to In Touch's general counsel saying Trump would aggressively pursue legal action if the story was printed, according to emails described to the AP by the former employees. At the time, Trump was a reality TV star on the NBC show 'The Apprentice.'" Mrs. McC: I toldja Cohen had practice bleaching Trump's dirty laundry. ...

... First Mistress? Matt Wilstein of the Daily Beast: In an interview with Bill Maher on last night's "Real Time," Fire & Fury author Michael "Wolff slyly teased a White House anecdote that he apparently didn't feel comfortable including. There was one story about Trump that he kept hearing, but couldn't confirm, even by his questionable standards. 'I didn't have the blue dress,' Wolff said.... 'It's about somebody's he's fucking right now?' Maher asked, excitedly. 'Yes,' Wolff replied, but he refused to elaborate. 'You just have to read between the lines,' he said, adding, 'Now that I've told you, when you hit that paragraph, you'll say bingo.'"

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Guess finding the name of the First Mistress will require some detective-reading. Assuming Wolff was referring to a woman (which Maher does not) & unable to scour his book, I'll go blindly with Omarosa. But since Kelly unceremoniously kicked her out of the White House, maybe Trump has moved on to Mrs. Huckleberry. She & Trump really are perfect for each other.

Russ Choma of Mother Jones: "A German business magazine is reporting that Deutsche Bank, the German financial giant which is a major lender to both Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, identified 'suspicious transactions' related to Kushner family accounts, and has reported them to German banking regulators. The bank is reportedly willing to provide the information to special prosecutor Robert Mueller's team of investigators. Manager Magazin, a respected German business magazine, reported in its latest print edition, which hit German newsstands on Friday, that Paul Achleitner, chairman of Deutsche Bank's board, had the bank conduct an internal investigation and the results were troubling. Those results have been turned over to the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority -- Germany's bank regulatory agency...." ...

Madison Kircher of New York: During the 2016 election cycle, "... some 677,775 American people retweeted content from [Twitter] 'accounts that were potentially connected to a propaganda effort by a Russian government-linked organization known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA).; Twitter has since emailed that group to say hi, just FYI that tweet you retweeted was from Russia and engineered to thwart our democracy. It has also suspended the accounts behind the tweets." ...

... Madison Kircher: "Facebook recently announced that it would be tweaking its News Feed algorithm -- now, you should be seeing more posts from friends, rather than from publishers.... [Friday], Mark Zuckerberg announced that this means your feed should now be just 4 percent news, rather than the previous 5 percent. Oh ... and he also announced that Facebook is going to let its users decide which news sources they trust the most. 'This update will not change the amount of news you see on Facebook. It will only shift the balance of news you see towards sources that are determined to be trusted by the community.' Zuckerberg calls this being 'objective.' You might call it 'asking for it.'... But, hey, now if you see some fake news floating around your News Feeds, the onus is off [Facebook]. Blame 'the community.'"

Time to Go, Bob. Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "The Justice Department announced on Friday that it intended to retry Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, two months after a jury deadlocked on federal corruption charges against him. The move means Mr. Menendez will have to defend himself again in a year when he is up for re-election. A new trial for Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, who has been in the Senate for 12 years, adds a wrinkle to the political map in this year's 2018 midterm elections. While the senator has not officially announced that he is running, he has given no indication he intends to retire.... So far, however, no strong Republican challenger has emerged."

Christopher Mele of the New York Times: "A neighbor of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky intends to plead guilty to a federal felony charge after he tackled the senator in November in an assault set off by the placement of a pile of brush, the man's lawyer said on Friday. The neighbor, Rene A. Boucher, 58, of Bowling Green, Ky., was charged on Friday with assaulting a member of Congress resulting in personal injury, the United States attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, Josh J. Minkler, said in a news release.... Mr. Boucher saw Mr. Paul stack brush in a pile near their property line, and Mr. Boucher 'had enough,' according to the release. He ran onto Mr. Paul's property and tackled him.... Federal prosecutors will seek a prison sentence of up to 21 months, [Matthew Baker, Boucher's attorney] said, adding that he would seek probation for his client.... The attack against Mr. Paul, a Republican, was not politically motivated, Mr. Baker said...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Good. Li'l Randy is an asshole & among other assholery, is apparently a sloppy neighbor, but that's no excuse for beating him to a pulp & likely causing permanent physical damage.

Evan Perez, et al., of CNN: "The FBI recently opened an inquiry into Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens [R]..., as he fights an allegation of blackmail and faces calls to resign just a year into his job. While the FBI has not commented on the existence of any inquiry or formal investigation into Greitens, the St. Louis circuit attorney's office announced last week that it is investigating Greitens' conduct following an explosive story that forced the Republican governor to acknowledge having had an extramarital affair and confront an allegation of blackmail.... Greitens has acknowledged having had an extramarital affair before he became governor, but has vehemently denied blackmail."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would consider a challenge to President Trump's latest effort to limit travel from countries said to pose a threat to the nation's security, adding a major test of presidential power to a docket already crowded with blockbusters. The case concerns Mr. Trump;s third and most considered bid to make good on a campaign promise to secure the nation's borders. But challengers to the latest ban, issued as a presidential proclamation in September, said it was tainted by religious animus and not adequately justified by national security concerns." (Also linked yesterday.)

Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "Journalists at The Los Angeles Times voted overwhelmingly to form a union despite aggressive opposition from the paper's management team, reversing more than a century of anti-union sentiment at one of the biggest newspapers in the country. Shortly after the final vote count was announced on Friday, The Times's parent company said that the newspaper's publisher, Ross Levinsohn, was taking an unpaid leave of absence while a law firm investigated allegations of coarse workplace behavior while he was employed by other companies.... Out of the 292 employees who cast ballots, 248 voted in favor of joining the NewsGuild...."

Joe Coscarelli of the New York Times: "Tom Petty, the chart-topping singer and songwriter, died in October from an accidental drug overdose as a result of mixing medications that included opioids, the medical examiner-coroner for the county of Los Angeles announced on Friday, ending the mystery surrounding his sudden death last year. The coroner, Jonathan Lucas, said that Mr. Petty's system showed traces of the drugs fentanyl, oxycodone, temazepam, alprazolam, citalopram, acetyl fentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl."

The Commentariat -- January 19, 2018

Late Morning -- Early Evening Update:

Sheryl Stolberg & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "President Trump and Senate leaders scrambled on Friday to avert a midnight shutdown of much of the government, with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, declaring that progress had been made in a private meeting with the president at the White House. But with the clock ticking, no votes were even scheduled before federal funds are to run out at midnight. 'We had a long and detailed meeting,' Mr. Schumer told reporters at the Capitol after leaving the White House. 'We discussed all of the major outstanding issues. We made some progress, but we still have a good number of disagreements. The discussions will continue.'"

Here are Trump's "thoughts" on the shutdown, as expressed in his Twitter novel: "Government Funding Bill past last night in the House of Representatives. Now Democrats are needed if it is to pass in the Senate - but they want illegal immigration and weak borders. Shutdown coming? We need more Republican victories in 2018!" Trumptweets, the Book will need a quasi-literate copy editor to get past "past." The New York Times is kinda updating developments here. Sadly, we learn. "Mr. Trump canceled plans to travel to his Florida resort on Friday and will stay in Washington until a spending bill is passed, a White House official said Friday morning." ...

     ... Update: "Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, went to the White House to reopen budget and immigration negotiations after President Trump reached out to him."

Gene Robinson has a pretty good column today on how Trump treats his allies & friends. Robinson doesn't feel sorry for the allies & friends.

Tamara Keith of NPR: "Turnover among top-level staff in the Trump White House was off the charts, according to a new Brookings Institution report. Turnover in Trump's first year was more than triple that in former President Barack Obama's first year, and double the rate in President Ronald Reagan's White House. A full 34 percent of high-level White House aides either resigned, were fired or moved into different positions in this first year of the Trump presidency. 'While some turnover is expected and possibly beneficial, excessive turnover portends problems,' writes Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a nonresident senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. '[President Trump] has valued loyalty over qualifications and suffered from a White House that has functioned in a chaotic manner. Both features have made it difficult to retain staff and have contributed to the governance difficulties he has encountered.'"

Here's the full In Touch interview of Stormy Daniels on her affair with Trump. We keep it classy here at Reality Chex. Just reporting on the President.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would consider a challenge to President Trump's latest effort to limit travel from countries said t pose a threat to the nation's security, adding a major test of presidential power to a docket already crowded with blockbusters. The case concerns Mr. Trump's third and most considered bid to make good on a campaign promise to secure the nation's borders. But challengers to the latest ban, issued as a presidential proclamation in September, said it was tainted by religious animus and not adequately justified by national security concerns."

*****

The Comments function appears to be working again. Those who signed up may continue to use their exalted "membership" status, or not, as they prefer. I don't intend to sign up anyone else as it's no longer necessary. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie 

Thomas Kaplan & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "The House approved a stopgap spending bill on Thursday night to keep the government open past Friday, but Senate Democrats -- angered by President Trump's vulgar aspersions and a lack of progress on a broader budget and immigration deal -- appeared ready to block the measure. The House approved the measure 230 to 197, despite conflicting signals by President Trump sent throughout the day and a threatened rebellion from conservatives that ended up fizzling. But the bill, which would keep the government open through Feb. 16, provided only a faint glimmer of hope that a crisis could be averted before funding expires at midnight on Friday." ...

... Mike DeBonis, et al., of the Washington Post: "The House approved a short-term spending bill Thursday to avoid a government shutdown, sending the measure to the Senate where Democrats said they have enough votes to block its passage. House Republican leaders prevailed in lobbying the conservative House Freedom Caucus and defense hawks who demanded more money for the military in exchange for their votes. The bill passed 230-197. But a government shutdown on the anniversary of President Trump's inauguration appeared likely as Democrats signaled they had rallied enough opposition to stop the measure from passing in the upper chamber." (Also linked yesterday evening.) ...

... Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Democrats say they have secured the votes to block a House plan to fund the government through mid-February. A Democratic aide confirmed that the caucus will be able to block Republicans from getting the 60 votes needed to overcome an initial procedural hurdle." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

Caring for children in need goes beyond party lines -- it's unfortunate House Democrats didn't see it this way today.... I look forward to the Senate ... getting this done. The most vulnerable depend on it. -- Paul Ryan, in a cynical statement, yesterday ...

... "The GOP's Doomsday-Machine Politics." Paul Krugman: "... a form of doomsday-machine politics -- in which you threaten to blow up things that you care about, because you think your rivals care about them more -- is playing out in Washington right now, courtesy of the Republican Party. Doomsday-machine politics made its first U.S. appearance in the 1990s, when Republicans shut down the federal government in an attempt to extract concessions from Bill Clinton.... Republicans tried again, with more success, in 2011, using the threat of refusing to raise the debt ceiling -- forcing the U.S. government into default, with possibly catastrophic effects on the world economy -- to win policy concessions from Barack Obama. And even though they now control the White House as well as Congress, Republicans are still in the doomsday-machine business -- and what they're currently threatening to blow up is health care for nearly nine million children.... This has to stop. And now is the time to draw the line." ...

... Brian Beutler of Crooked: "... if Democrats and Republicans team up to avoid [a government shutdown with a DACA bill], it is nearly certain that Republicans will quietly return to their longstanding but unstated opposition to protecting Dreamers, the Trump administration will begin deporting them, and Democrats will have no good answers for those caught up in the sweeps." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... The Dimwit at 1600 Pa. Ave, Ctd. Scott Wong & Melanie Zanona of the Hill: "President Trump undermined his own party's plan to avert a looming government shutdown on Thursday after tweeting that a key Democratic bargaining chip shouldn't be attached to the funding package. The 17-word tweet threw Capitol Hill into a state of confusion ahead of what is already expected to be a tight vote in the House Thursday night. Republicans on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were trying to decipher what exactly the president meant by declaring a popular children's health-care program should be part of a 'long term solution' as opposed to a '30 Day, or short term, extension.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... A Minute Later. Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "The White House on Thursday reiterated that President Trump supports stopgap spending legislation backed by House GOP leaders, an effort to clear up confusion caused by Trump's early-morning tweet about the effort to prevent a government shutdown." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Sarah Kliff & Tara Golshan of Vox: "... some [Congressional Republicans] have already written ... off [Trump's tweet] as inconsequential, likely the result of a news segment the president may have seen." Mrs. McC Translation: They know he's an ignorant moron, but he's their ignorant moron. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Eliana Johnson & Burgess Everett of Politico: "Democrats, whom Republicans were trying to pressure into supporting a stopgap measure to fund the government, were incredulous over the president's apparent ignorance about legislative details. 'He didn't realize that it's a six-year reauthorization? I mean, think about the exchange we're having now!' Sen. Chris Coons (D-Conn.) said. 'How are we supposed to negotiate responsibly?'... Republicans expressed deep frustration with the situation.... 'Certainty is always better than chaos and uncertainty' Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said of Trump's comments. Asked if Trump is being chaotic and uncertain, Shelby replied with a grin: 'I didn't say that.'... It is the second time in a week that a tweet from the president has threatened to undermine Republican-backed legislation on Capitol Hill and send GOP leaders and congressional aides into a frenzy." The writers try unsuccessfully to pinpoint just which Fox "News" "advisor" triggered Trump's tweet. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is just part of ("oh yes, he has no dementia") Trump's pattern of remembering only the last thing he heard. No doubt someone in the White House had previously briefed him on Ryan's excellent plan to make pawns of sick children, but once Doocy or Kilmeade or some other Fox "Friend" misstated the terms of the plan, that's all Trump "knew." You see the same pattern in Haberman & Davis's NYT story, linked below. ...

... Lachlan Markay, et al., of the Daily Beast: "Trump's Shutdown Plan Is Pretty Much: Jesus, Take the Wheel. As the federal government gets dangerously close to the first shutdown of the Trump era, the president has remained relatively calm behind the scenes and, according to those around him, seemingly ambivalent in a time of political disarray.... His level of preparation for an increasingly possible government shutdown seems to be focused mainly on shoveling the blame onto Democrats on Capitol Hill.... Agencies that would take the lead in dealing with the significant logistical challenges posed by a shutdown are suffering from significant staffing challenges at the highest levels. The White House Office of Management and Budget coordinates administration-wide shutdown procedures, and each federal agency must submit its shutdown plans to OMB.... But the office is currently operating without a full-time chief executive.... Of the nearly 130 agencies and offices that submit contingency plans, 66 of them had not publicly updated their proposals since 2015.... The Office of Personnel Management, which oversees a federal workforce that would be hit with large furloughs, currently has no permanent director." ...

... For Example ... Lisa Rein & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "With government funding set to expire at midnight Friday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was still working out details of a plan to permit the parks to function without rangers or other staff on site. With many parks in peak season, drawing thousands of visitors, the lack of finality was causing wide confusion across the park system. Officials from three sites said Thursday they were unsure how to proceed. 'We don't have a plan yet,' said Abby Wines, spokeswoman for Death Valley National Park in California, which is seeing 80,000 visitors a month. 'We just got a memo about this yesterday. Today's the first day we're seriously thinking about this.'... The shuttering of iconic parks proved to be a political flash point during government shutdowns in 1995 and 2013. On both occasions, Republicans controlled Congress and a Democratic president sat in the White House; both times, Republicans shouldered much of the blame for ruining people's vacations." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Say, here's some good news from the WashPo report: Although about 800,000 federal employees are expected to be furloughed, "... Robert S. Mueller III would continue his probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election uninterrupted, since it is funded with a permanent, indefinite, appropriation."

Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "President Trump reportedly ordered that ... Stephen Bannon limit his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Trump's decision came after receiving advice from Uttam Dhillon, a deputy White House counsel, Foreign Policy reports. Dhillon reportedly thought the administration could have legitimate executive privilege claims in the situation, sources told Foreign Policy. But Dhillon also found the administration doesn't have legitimate executive privilege claims to limit the testimony of Bannon and other officials from giving information to special counsel Robert Mueller. Foreign Policy's findings come after it was reported earlier this week that an attorney for Bannon relayed questions to the White House in real time while his client was testifying before the House Intelligence Committee.... White House chief of staff John Kelly said Wednesday the White House didn't tell Bannon to invoke executive privilege and refuse to answer questions in Congress's investigation into Russia's election meddling." Mrs. McC: ... which is okay because we already know Kelly is a lying sacko'.

How to Hush up Hush Money. Bryan Logan of Business Insider: "Michael Cohen, one of ... Donald Trump's top lawyers reportedly organized a Delaware-based limited-liability company to transfer a $130,000 payment to the adult-film star 'Stormy Daniels,' who claimed that she had a sexual encounter with Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.... To get that payment to a lawyer representing the porn actor, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, Cohen created the company, Essential Consultants LLC, on October 17, 2016 and used a bank account attached to the company to transfer the money. Delaware is a favored venue for limited-liability company transactions because it does not require that people connected to the entities be publicly identified. The Journal reported that Cohen also attached pseudonyms to Clifford in reference to the transaction. Cohen denies this, according to the newspaper." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: You might think this ruse makes Cohen look pretty smart, but he's been working for Trump for a long time, so you can bet he's honed his hush-money methods over years of practice. ...

... Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "In early 2009, [Stormy] Daniels announced that she was considering challenging Sen. David Vitter, the Louisiana Republican who two years earlier had been snared in a sex scandal.... Vitter ... opposed abortion and gay marriage. Daniels, who grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told reporters she wanted to highlight his hypocrisy.... Daniels ... held discussions with local political consultants. According to a May 8, 2009, email written by an operative advising Daniels..., Daniels at one point scrolled through her cellphone contacts to provide her consultants with a list of [possible campaign contributors].... On the list: Donald Trump. This email was sent to Andrea Dubé, a Democratic political consultant based in New Orleans.... Dubé expressed surprise [to the other consultant] that Daniels was friendly with Trump. 'Yep,' the other consultant replied. 'She says one time he made her sit with him for three hours watching 'shark week.' Another time he had her spank him with a Forbes magazine.'... The campaign consultant who wrote the email to Dubé tells Mother Jones that Daniels said the spanking came during a series of sexual and romantic encounters with Trump and that it involved a copy of Forbes with Trump on the cover. A fall 2006 cover of Forbes does feature Trump and two of his children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka.... [Michael] Cohen told the Wall Street Journal there had been no affair between Trump and Daniels: 'These rumors have circulated time and again since 2011. President Trump once again vehemently denies any such occurrence as has Ms. Daniels.'" ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Daniels' claim -- substantiated by the contemporaneous Forbes cover -- takes the "golden shower" story from humorous to highly likely. As Jason Le Miere of Newsweek reminded us last October, "the [Steele] dossier claims that the Russian FSB spy agency possesses a video of Trump successfully requesting prostitutes to urinate on a bed while staying in a Moscow hotel room once occupied by the former president and first lady, Barack and Michelle Obama." Trump has repeatedly "vehemently denied" all of the contents of Christopher Steele's memos. But the Daniels & Moscow stories display the same type of symbolic sex play -- once using a magazine that touted him as one of the country's richest men & once using prostitutes to defile the Obamas. And yeah, it's likely Moscow has the videotape. ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, I see Slate's Jacob Weisberg & MSNBC's Ari Melber agree with me. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade carries it a step further:

... ** Russia, Russia, Russia. Mob, Mob. Mob. Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider: "The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released the transcript of the panel's November interview with Glenn Simpson, the cofounder of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS.... Rather than home in on the nature of Simpson's relationship with Christopher Steele -- the former British intelligence officer hired by Fusion to research Trump's Russia ties -- [Ranking Member Adam] Schiff and his Democratic colleagues asked Simpson pointed questions about Russian money laundering, Russian organized crime, and whether Trump could be susceptible to Russian blackmail." Bertrand's report highlights many of the details & includes a full ScribD copy of the transcript. (An embedded link to the House's transcript leads to a "Page Not Found.") ...

     ... Update: The House links here to more-easily readable pdfs work. ...

... "This One Is Big." Josh Marshall: "Going back more than a year there have been a number of as yet uncorroborated claims that Russia funneled a vast sum of money into the NRA to support get out the vote activities to elect Donald Trump.... It's pretty clear that the NRA played a very important part in securing Trump's razor-thin victory.... There's little question that this effort (Russia courting the NRA and vice versa) is at some level an influence operation, an effort to cozy up to and develop relationships with a major right-wing organization in the US. Whether it goes beyond that into clearly illegal efforts on behalf of Russians or Americans is as yet a fact not in evidence." See also McClatchy's report, linked below & Jonathan Chait's commentary. Mrs. McC: As Marshall warns, these are claims at this point. But it matters that Mueller's team is taking these claims seriously. (Also linked yesterday.)

Jennifer Jacobs & Bill Allison of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump will mark the government shutdown first anniversary of his inauguration on Saturday with a celebration at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, with tickets starting at $100,000 a pair. That amount, according to the invitation, will pay for dinner and a photograph with the president. For $250,000, a couple can also take part in a roundtable.... The event, hosted by Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, and the casino mogul Steve Wynn, will benefit the Trump presidential campaign and the RNC. McDaniel's maiden name, Romney, is not written on the invitation. Trump has had testy relations with her uncle Mitt Romney. Wynn is the RNC's finance chairman." ...

... Surprise! Linley Sanders of Newsweek: "Almost one year after President Donald Trump took the oath of office, millions of dollars from his leftover inauguration funds have still not been donated to the charities they were promised to. Trump's inauguration committee raised a record-breaking $107 million as his administration prepared to assume the White House last year, but very little has been disclosed about where the remaining money was allocated. Nearing the one-year anniversary of Trump's inauguration, a government watchdog group is questioning why the funds disappeared." --safari (Also linked yesterday.)

When Tyrants Collide. Maggie Haberman & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "... early Wednesday evening, after learning from a White House aide that his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, had described his views about his signature, base-pleasing campaign pledge to build a wall on the Mexico border as 'not informed,' and his thinking as 'evolving,' the president was initially calm. It did not last. By Wednesday night, Mr. Trump had become convinced by a string of allies and friends he had talked to on the phone that Mr. Kelly had undermined him.... And by Thursday morning, after digesting accounts of Mr. Kelly's comments on cable news, the president was riled up. As the television blared, he typed out a series of tweets that rebutted Mr. Kelly without actually naming him. 'The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it,' Mr. Trump wrote at 6:15 a.m. Later in the morning, the president spoke to his chief of staff, and made his displeasure clear.... That kind of conflict has played out infrequently since Mr. Kelly replaced Reince Priebus as chief of staff in July. For different reasons, both Mr. Kelly and Mr. Trump have an interest in preserving their relationship, according to people close to both men.... Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Kelly are used to being in charge, and both are prone to dramatic outbursts of temper.... Both have a tendency to say different things to different audiences, and Mr. Kelly is ... strident about the need to restrict immigration .... They depart over management philosophy: Mr. Trump favors chaos, and Mr. Kelly believes in strict command and control." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Yesterday in the Comments section, we discussed the nature of "The Wall is the Wall," but perhaps we might have discussed other parts of Trump's claims, like his boast, "from the first day I conceived of it." Throughout the Obama administration, a number right-wing nut jobs like Michelle Bachmann proposed a Great Wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. Perhaps the best known is the design by former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain who said, "Now, my fence might be part Great Wall and part electrical technology.... It will be a twenty foot wall, barbed wire, electrified on the top, and on this side of the fence, I'll have that moat that President Obama talked about. And I would put those alligators in that moat!" Obama's "moat" was a sarcastic jest, but Cain got the alligator idea from another nut, one-term Congressman Joe Walsh. But still. It looks like Trump's "conception" of a wall not only was nothing new, its best-known designer was a black guy. (Cain's presidential bid went down in flames when reports of his extra-marital dalliances surfaced; four years later, even worse stories about Trump didn't preclude his win. Even the right wing has "evolved.") ...

... As for Trump's claim that his conception of the wall "has never changed or evolved," Ron Nixon & Linda Qiu of the New York Times write that "a review of Mr. Trump's public statements on Twitter, in campaign speeches and during interviews shows that the president's views on the border wall have shifted repeatedly since he raised the idea nearly four years ago, on Aug. 5, 2014." They present the evidence to prove it, & some of that evidence is pretty comical.

Annie Gowan of the Washington Post: "Prospective buyers of luxury apartments in the new Trump Towers project outside India's capital are being lured with an unusual promise: If you buy a flat, we will fly you to the United States to meet Donald Trump Jr. The developers of the 600-foot high-rises unveiled a sleek sales office in the New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon last week, claiming they racked up $23 million in sales -- more than 20 units -- i the first day.... One of the developers, Pankaj Bansal, told the Press Trust of India that 'Donald Trump Jr. will host' the first 100 buyers in the United States.... he launch of the new towers comes amid rising concerns that President Trump's children -- including Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who are running their father's business while he serves as president -- are using their names to profit from their father's presidency, and that foreign officials and others may stay in Trump hotels or buy Trump properties in attempts to curry favor or gain special access to the first family."

The Best People, Ctd. Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Trump administration appointee Carl Higbie resigned Thursday as chief of external affairs for the federal government's volunteer service organization after a CNN KFile review of racist, sexist, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT comments he made on the radio.... Higbie, a former Navy SEAL and conservative media personality, was a surrogate for Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, appearing on cable news and serving as the spokesman for the Trump-aligned Great America PAC." Kaczynski reports on many comments Higbie made. ...

     ... Mrs. McC: Higbie's views are all sickening & stupid, & a number of them suggest a vague grasp of the English language. For instance, it turns out that "the black race" has "a lax of morality." And his claim that he was "molested by a gay guy" when he was young "set the precedence for me," the "precedence" being extreme homophobia. In fairness to Higbie, his prejudices are wide-ranging. For instance, if you receive government assistance in any form, you shouldn't be allowed to vote. Since most of receive some kind of federal assistance -- that would include Higbie who had a gummit job up till yesterday -- that has to be the most extreme form of voter suppression on record.

Michael Grunwald of Politico: "Every quarter, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau formally requests its operating funds from the Federal Reserve. Last quarter, former director Richard Cordray asked for $217.1 million. Cordray, an appointee of President Barack Obama, needed just $86.6 million the quarter before that. And yesterday..., Donald Trump's acting CFPB director, Mick Mulvaney, sent his first request to the Fed. He requested zero." (Also linked yesterday.)

Another Negative Effect of the Tax Heist. Conor Dougherty of the New York Times: "The last time that Congress approved a sweeping overhaul of the federal tax code, in 1986, it created a tax credit meant to encourage the private sector to invest in affordable housing. It has grown into a $9 billion-a-year social program that has funded the construction of some three million apartments for low-income residents. But the Republican tax plan approved last month amounts to a vast cutback, making it much less likely that such construction will continue apace. Because the tax rate for corporations has been lowered, the value of the credits -- which corporations get in return for their investments -- is also lower.... According to an analysis by [an accounting] firm, the new tax law will reduce the growth of subsidized affordable housing by 235,000 units over the next decade, compounding an existing shortage."

Adam Liptak & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a trial court's order requiring North Carolina lawmakers to produce a revised congressional voting map, making it likely that the midterm elections this year will be conducted using districts favorable to Republican candidates. The trial court had found that Republican legislators in the state had violated the Constitution by drawing congressional voting districts to hurt the electoral chances of Democratic candidates. The Supreme Court;s move was expected and not particularly telling. The court, which is considering two other major tests of partisan gerrymandering, has granted stays in similar settings. Its decisions in the pending cases, from Wisconsin and Maryland, are likely to effectively decide the North Carolina case, too. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor noted dissents from Thursday's order, which was brief and unsigned."

Trump & JeffBo Really Want Those Dreamers OUT. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration on Thursday night took the unusual step of asking the Supreme Court to immediately review and overturn a judge's ruling that said the administration may not dismantle a program that provides work permits to undocumented immigrants raised in the United States. Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco asked the court to add the case to its docket this term. That would be unusual because the justices usually wait for an appeals court to act before accepting a case, and because it is late in the game for the court to add cases to its oral argument calendar, which ends in April."

Chris Mooney of the Washington Post: "2017 was among the hottest years ever recorded, government scientists reported Thursday.... The 2017 results make the past four years the hottest period in their 138-year archive.... The renewed evidence of climate change, driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases, comes as the Trump administration moves to open new areas for oil drilling and rolls back regulations that sought to reduce global warming, most prominently by moving to repeal the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan. The administration said it would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement last year." Mrs. McC: Yes, but science at best is a series of evolving theories, but in fact is a total hoax, promulgated by a bunch of pointy-headed hucksters hustling for cushy research grants. (Also linked yesterday.)

David Folkenflik of NPR: "The Los Angeles Times has given prominent coverage to recent revelations of sexual harassment of women by prominent men, particularly in entertainment and media. Yet a review by NPR finds that the newspaper's own CEO and publisher, Ross Levinsohn, has been a defendant in two sexual harassment lawsuits and that his conduct in work settings over the past two decades has been called into question repeatedly by female colleagues.... The portrait that repeatedly emerges is one of a frat-boy executive, catapulting ever higher, even as he creates corporate climates that alienated some of the people who worked for and with him."

Beyond the Beltway

Elise Young of Bloomberg: "Meet Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor and current nobody at Newark Liberty International Airport. The two-term Republican, who left office on Jan. 16, was blocked from a VIP entrance he had used for eight years, and directed to stand in Transportation Security Administration screening lines at Terminal B like anyone else, according to a person familiar with the incident. The order came from police for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport." Mrs. McC: As you may recall, this is not the first time Christie has had a little trouble with the Port Authority, which as governor he controlled jointly with New York's governor.