Vanity Thy Name is Trump

Trump in His Element:  Yesterday in an impromptu Mar a Lago interview with the New York Times, with no aides present to filter his remarks, Trump called out the Russia investigation as an international embarrassment, asserted several times that “everyone” knows that there was no collusion but covered his bets by adding that even if there was it was no biggie, because collusion isn’t a crime. He stuck with his theme of blaming the whole investigation into his campaign’s Russian activities on the Democrats, who know their accusations are a hoax but are just trying to justify Hillary’s loss. He also suggested that the real Russia collusion problem was the one between the Russians and the Democrats, a snide reference to the Uranium One conspiracy theory, and he wondered why the story about Hillary’s campaign manager John Podesta’s brother Tony, and his problematic foreign lobbying activities hadn’t been given more attention by the partisan press.  Tony Podesta, who has been forced to disband his once lucrative consulting firm and is facing legal difficulties probably sees that differently.  As to that troublesome Paul Manafort, Trump pointed out that Manafort served as his campaign manager for a very short time and that he had worked with other prominent Republicans such as Reagan, Dole and McCain for far longer periods.  He tried to further distance himself from Manafort by saying that he didn’t really know him very well, having just met him last year, a Trumpian prevarication since they go back much further and have several close mutual friends, including Roger Stone and Tom Barrack. He made it clear that he has an absolute right to do what he wants with “his” Justice Department and for now, but maybe only for now, he’s chosen to let Mueller do his job because he feels that Mueller is treating him fairly. He did manage to get a dig in at his not so good buddy Attorney General Jeff Sessions, comparing him to Eric Holder, Obama’s first Attorney General who he said he respected very much for totally protecting Obama at all costs, a misunderstanding of both Holder and the role of the attorney general.  Before sending the NY Times writers home with their scoop, Trump added that he knows that deep in their hearts the liberal press secretly hopes that he sticks around for another term, because of how much he contributes to their ratings and profit, pointing out that without him the NY Times really would be “failing.”  Though covering Trump has been profitable, he may be misreading those hearts and minds just a wee bit.

Trump’s World View:  Trump’s approach to international affairs is unsettling to say the least.  According to the NY Times, it even leaves his National Security Advisor HR McMaster outside of his comfort zone.  McMaster charitably calls Trump’s American First philosophy “pragmatic realism” in order to avoid referring to the Trump vision by the more derisive term of isolationism.  Whatever you call it, the reality is that Trump is overturning the post-World War II world order, an order that his predecessors carefully crafted and then nurtured in the hopes of avoiding another international catastrophe, one with bigger and deadlier weapons.  The Times cites his approach to dealing with Iran, the Middle East, North Korea, NATO and his preference for autocrats over democratically elected long term allies. They also point out his frightening naivete and lack of historical perspective and the problem that his ignorance presents our allies when he fails to understand issues.  Angela Merkel’s efforts to explain Ukraine’s history of abuse at the hands of Russia left Trump feeling like she had treated him disdainfully and when she later tried to gently  sidestep his request for a bilateral trade agreement he grew further annoyed with her, possibly because she’s a woman, one far more intelligent, knowledgeable and respected than him.  Some world leaders have figured out that pandering to his vanity is a better approach to dealing with him which is why he’s been greeted with such huge banquets and military exercises by leaders as diverse as France’s Macron and China’s Xi, while others are just seeking to keep their distance to avoid confrontation. Britain’s Theresa May still hasn’t figured out how to deal with Trump and now faces the added indignity of having to deal with Prince Harry and Megan Markle’s wedding invite list, the lovey, dovey couple would like to invite the Obamas, leaving the Trumps off their list.  May has to figure out how to avoid offending Trump, who won’t be all that happy if the president who just beat him out on the most admired man in America list also gets invited to the event of the year while he has to stay home. Overall, our former best friends have been left trying to manage a future with minimum US participation at least until the pendulum swings back.  As to China despite his bromance with President Xi, things aren’t working out as well as Trump hoped.  Yesterday, after learning that China had transferred oil to North Korea despite the current ramped up sanctions Trump resorted to some China critical tweet diplomacy:  “Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!”  Trump who had put his promised trade fight with China on the back burner is now expected to go after China’s trade practices when he returns to Washington DC.

Culture Wars:  Trump is so efficient at upturning the world order that he still has plenty of time on his hands to play countless rounds of golf and participate in the culture wars.  When Vanity Fair magazine apologized for a satirical and particularly cutting take down of Hillary Clinton, Trump had plenty of time to tweet attack the magazine:  “Vanity Fair, which looks like it is on its last legs, is bending over backwards in apologizing for the minor hit they took at Crooked H. Anna Wintour, who was all set to be Amb to Court of St James’s & a big fundraiser for CH, is beside herself in grief & begging for forgiveness!” Just another one of those tweets that proves that Chief of Staff Kelly has no interest in getting in the way of Trump’s twitter finger.  Trump also took on climate change, from his perch in balmy Palm Beach, by tweeting:  "In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against, Bundle up!"  Apparently Trump doesn’t know or care to know that climate change is all about extremes in weather not just heat waves.  Trump’s good friend Judge Roy Moore is also likely to have a lot of time on his hands going forward.  Yesterday, despite his efforts, Alabama’s Secretary of State certified the Alabama special election results.  Doug Jones is now officially the Senator-elect and will be sworn in by Mike Pence on January 2.  Though its not clear that it made much of a difference it is notable that Moore, the former head judge of Alabama, filed his voter fraud lawsuit in the wrong court.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Flynn Strategery:  So former national security adviser Michael Flynn is a liar and, unlike most other members of the Trump cabal, he’s been forced to admit that he’s a liar because he lied to the FBI, got caught, and then was forced to fess up to his lying ways. Despite Trump’s repeated statements that Flynn is a really good guy, his legal team plans to protect him from anything that Flynn knows, and may have already revealed to  Special Counsel Mueller, by pulling the liar card.  We’ve all seen this defense played out enough times on countless episodes of Law and Order to have suspected that it was coming, still it does seem patently absurd for Trump, the liar in chief, the man who lies daily about everything from crowd size, to the comparative ranking of his accomplishments, the man whose son-in-law lied on every form he ever filled out, whose favorite daughter falsely claimed academic awards on her website, and whose wife represented herself as a multi-degreed scholar go after Flynn for his lying.  At least for now the Trump legal team is “confident” that there is no paper trail to back-up any of what they believe Flynn is likely to say about Trump’s alleged misdeeds and, as his many harassment accusers have found out, Trump is comfortable with the “he said, she said” defense because up till now it has worked well for him.  Then again, Trump has never before come up against someone as persistent, thorough, capable and impervious to verbal attacks as Mueller.  Reports are that Mueller continues to expand his investigation.  In addition to focusing on the Trump, Kushner, Manafort, Russia money trail, Yahoo News reports that he is diving deeper into the intersection of the Republican National Committee and Trump’s 2016 campaign digital operations, focusing not only on the presidential election  but also looking at whether the targeting of voters in swing Congressional districts affected the outcome of those elections.  The focus on the digital strategy raises additional concerns for Jared Kushner and may be one of the many reasons that his lawyers have been looking to add a crisis management firm to his defense team.  As to Flynn, despite Trump’s lawyers efforts to brand him as an untrustworthy liar, Flynn’s brother Joseph Flynn is still hoping for a presidential pardon.  On Tuesday, in a tweet that has since been deleted he said its “About time you pardoned General Flynn who has taken the biggest fall for all of you given the illegitimacy of this confessed crime in the wake of all this corruption” and who knows, Trump could be listening, as recently as last week he hinted that he might pardon Flynn, some day.  

Tillerson Coda: This morning, in a NY Times Op Ed, Secretary of State Tillerson defended the current state of US Diplomacy.  Putting aside his questionable approach to reorganizing, really downsizing, the State Department, his statement was surprisingly cogent which may explain why his days at State are likely numbered.  While talking about the importance of working with the Russians in areas and hotspots where cooperation is needed, he acknowledged that they meddled in the US election and called them out for the invasion of Ukraine.  He talked about the Iran nuclear deal, calling it flawed, but did not suggest that the US should walk away from it.  He addressed the situation in North Korea, applauding Trump’s efforts to take a more forceful stance, the imposition of the new harsh and hopefully effective sanctions, adding that the point of the “peaceful pressure” was to push North Korea to the negotiating table.  With the possible exception of his assertion that all is well at the State Department and his failure to mention the need for more seasoned diplomats in the key positions that remain unfilled, Tillerson’s piece came off well. However, given his recognition of Russian election interference and his call for negotiations with North Korea, a call that consistently provokes a tweet attack from Trump, his op-ed seems more like a coda to his career at State than anything else.  The cabinet shuffle may begin soon.  The beleaguered Attorney General Sessions, who Trump blames for everything Russian as well as the election loss in Alabama, may want to duck too.     

It Ain’t Over Yet:  As to that election loss, accused child molester and Senatorial wannabee Roy Moore is still at it.  He’s now filed a complaint contesting the outcome of the Alabama election that he lost to Doug Jones, urging the Alabama Secretary of State to delay certifying the election results.  Taking a page from the Trump election fraud handbook, and citing the expert analysis of a known JFK conspiracy theorist, he claims that thousands of illegal voters were bussed in from parts unknown to vote for Jones.  He is also questioning the “anomalous” voter turnout in largely black Jefferson County, saying that there is no way all those African American voters would really have shown up to vote.  It’s unlikely that his strategy will work but as Yogi Berra used to say it ain’t over till the fat lady sings, or in this case until the court throws out his case and John Merrill, the Alabama Secretary of State, certifies the results.  In other Senator news, Orrin Hatch, was so pleased that the Salt Lake Tribunal called him the Utahan of the Year that he tweeted out their editorial without taking the time to read it first.   If he had, he would have caught the part where they denounced his "utter lack of integrity" and called for him to end his 42-year career in the Senate. Hatch who has been considering retiring hasn’t yet announced whether or not he plans to run again in 2018, when his current term is up.  Former Massasschusetts Governor and one time presidential nominee Mitt Romney is anxious to throw his hat in the ring and would be the likely Republican nominee for Hatch’s seat.  Trump, on the other hand, really wants Hatch to stick around because he isn’t anxious to see Romney, one of his frequent and more articulate critics sitting in the Senate any time soon. 

Other News:  The Justice Department is now having it’s “me too” moment.  An Inspector General report citing ongoing sexual harassment at Justice was completed in May but is just now coming to light.  Never one to miss a moment to blame Obama, Fox news pointed out that most of these allegations predate Trump.  Fox isn’t wrong, but then again the point isn’t the party affiliation of the offenders, some were Republicans and no doubt some were Democrats, the point is that the time has come to do something about it, to figure out how to deal with harassers when their jobs are protected by civil service rules,  and with the “me too” movement in the forefront, that responsibility falls into Trump’s and his Justice Department’s courts, so to speak.  And we know how much Trump likes speaking out against sexual harassment.   New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco filed  a lawsuit yesterday against the Defense Department and Defense Secretary Mattis for failing to report criminal convictions of people in the military to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its national gun background check database.  The lawsuit came about in response to the murder of 25 people in Sutherland, Texas by the veteran who should have been on that list. The cities are seeking to force the Defense Department to fully participate in the reporting system, which is already required by law.  No comment, yet, from the NRA, no doubt they are busy on the shooting ranges with all those gun owners trying out their holiday presents.   

Not That Alice

Alice Still Lives Here:  Next time you read an article criticizing US involvement in Syria, the actions of the FBI, racial discord in the US or attacks on Trump, check the name of the author.  If the article’s author is Alice Donovan, stop reading, you’ve been trolled.  Yesterday, in a comprehensive article chronicling Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaign, the Washington Post revealed that Alice Donovan, the author of countless articles about subjects ranging from US politics to defense of Russia’s actions in Crimea, is really one of Russia’s many bots, and a convincing, well-spoken one at that.  The article details Russia’s long term and depressingly successful efforts at fostering discord in the US and Europe, a cheap and effective way to hinder democracies at a time when the Kremlin’s financial resources were growing more limited.  Although the Europeans took the Russian disinformation campaign seriously, initially our inherent sense of superiority and naive confidence that truth would win out, limited the US response.  The Obama administration was first skeptical of the breadth of the attacks and then concerned about reacting too aggressively especially fearing that taking action during the end of the 2016 election cycle would raise more problems than it solved.  The Obama administration did leave Trump with a plan of action, however, given Trump’s attitudes towards Russia and his BFF Putin, his thin skinned response to any suggestion that the Russians meddled in the election that he won, and the somewhat unsurprising battles over who in the Trump White House should take on the lead responsibility to combat future Russian interference, Russia’s disinformation campaign continues, Alice Donovan is still getting her articles published and our elections remain vulnerable to interference in ways that we might not discover until after the fact.  And that little dispute between Trump and the FBI, it, like the racial discord after Charlottesville and the “taking of the knee” movement are being further amplified by Alice and her friends.  For his part, Trump just wants to improve his relationship with the Kremlin so he celebrates the sharing of US intelligence, brags about preventing a terrorist attack in St Petersburg but leaves the US systems vulnerable to interference by Putin and his Russians, who never stopped their cyberattacks, and other nefarious state players like North Korea who may seek to follow the Russian path.  

Obamacare Still Lives Too:  Before heading out to “work” on the golf course Trump once again tweet smacked Obamacare:  “Based on the fact that the very unfair and unpopular Individual Mandate has been terminated as part of our Tax Cut Bill, which essentially Repeals (over time) ObamaCare, the Democrats and Republicans will eventually come together and develop a great new HealthCare plan.” In just one tweet he revealed how much he doesn’t know and how much he doesn’t care about health care in America.  Though injured, Obamacare isn’t dead, if anything it’s more popular than ever. Focusing on and concerned about Republican prospects in the 2018 midterm elections, Senate Majority Mitch McConnell has announced that he wants the Senate to move past repealing and replacing Obamacare, prefering instead to stabilize the insurance markets by passing some form of the Alexander-Murray plan, the approach that he promised to Senator Collins. Trump’s tweet also baffled his own White House staff, their plan is to sidestep contentious issues like repealing health insurance by pivoting back to Infrastructure, in the hope that a more popular subject will win some  bipartisan support positioning the Republican party to peform better in what is increasingly looking like a tough midterm election. The unprogrammable Trump must have missed that memo.  As to the 2018 elections, McConnell wants to throw support behind more mainstream candidates in order to avoid another Moore debacle, however, Trump doesn’t appear to be on board with that plan either.  With Steve Bannon whispering in one ear and the other one tuned in to Fox News, Trump endorsed right wing Congressman Ron DeSantis for Governor of Florida.  DeSantis’ chief  qualification for the job is that he is a frequent and vocal critic of Special Counsel Mueller’s Russia investigation who early on called for a limitation on the investigation’s funding. He also supported the ill-fated Moore candidacy. DeSantis was one of the representatives who flew with Trump to his all in for Moore Pensacola rally. Trump isn’t the only one who isn’t on board with the infrastructure plan, having achieved his goal of cutting taxes, House Speaker Ryan wants to move on to an overhaul of welfare programs and Medicaid, and would even like to tackle the partial privatization of Medicare, a particularly strange brew to take up in an election year but having just blown a $1.5 trillion hole in the budget, Ryan is hypermotivated to continue with the second leg of his long term plan.  Ryan, McConnell, and Trump are scheduled to have a sit down at the White House to discuss legislative strategy very soon, it should be a very animated discussion.             

Mueller Lives Too:  Efforts to muddy Mueller and the FBI continue.  Yesterday, former Congressman Chaffetz, now a Fox commentator, spoke about the infamous Steele Dossier on Fox and Friends calling it “bogus” and questioning its financing.  Trump, who likes to say that he never watches TV, was watching very carefully.  He almost immediately tweeted “WOW, @foxandfrlends ‘Dossier is bogus. Clinton Campaign, DNC funded Dossier. FBI CANNOT (after all of this time) VERIFY CLAIMS IN DOSSIER OF RUSSIA/TRUMP COLLUSION. FBI TAINTED.’ And they used this Crooked Hillary pile of garbage as the basis for going after the Trump Campaign!”  Apparently, this was the Trump approved theme of the day.  Shortly after Trump’s tweet, Florida Congressman Rooney stuck to the plan, telling a stunned Katy Tur of MSNBC that he was very concerned that the Department of Justice and the FBI, “whether you want to call it ‘deep state' or what, are kind of off the rails."  He then called for them to be “purged,” by purged he likely means that any and all FBI agents or Justice attorneys who are Democrats, are related to Democrats or who think Obama was born in the US should be fired immediately and replaced with die hard Republicans.  Rooney seems not to know that Mueller is one of those die hard Republicans, as is the current head of the FBI Christopher Wray, a frequent and large contributor to Republican candidates.  As to Mueller, he probably wasn’t reading Alice Donovan’s latest article, or at Alice’s Restaurant, the garbage dump or even on line at Target returning any Christmas presents while all the tweet smacking and calls for an FBI purge were taking place. He was busy on other stuff.  The Daily Beast reports that he is working on a “superceding” indictment of Paul Manafort and his sidekick Rick Gates, one that more closely follows their money trail. Mueller’s increasing focus on money laundering may be one of those things that’s keeping Trump up at night, fueling that twitchy twitter finger.       

Coals to Newcastle

Dissing Eliot Ness:  As far as Trump goes the concept of good will to all only goes so far and certainly doesn’t apply to the FBI, the intelligence agency that he continues to disparage as part of his effort to discount the Mueller Russia investigation.  He began his holiday weekend by throwing shade at two of his FBI foes, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and the recently reassigned Chief Counsel James Baker.  He reacted disingenuously to Baker’s reassignment, tweeting “Wow, ‘FBI lawyer James Baker reassigned,“ saving his harshest tweets for McCabe.  First he insinuated that McCabe’s investigatory actions were tainted, tweeting that he was “the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?” By Clinton puppet he was referring to Virginia’s outgoing governor Terry McAuliffe whose political organization legally contributed around $500,000 to McCabe’s wife when she ran for a seat in the Virginia state senate during the 2015 election cycle.  McCabe wasn’t assigned to work on the Clinton email case until well after that election and only after an ethics review concluded that he had no conflict of interest.  Later, after learning that McCabe plans to retire in March once he qualifies for his FBI pension, a plan that he made months ago, Trump giddily tweeted that McCabe is “racing the clock to retire with full benefits, 90 days to go?!!!” If Trump had any sense he’d realize that another former senior government official on the outside, is not necessarily a good thing for him. He may have missed former Acting Attorney General Sally Yate’s not so subtle tweet, a reaction to his inappropriate Christmas attacks on McCabe and Baker, where she said that the Secret Service should be “on the lookout for three ghosts visiting Mar a Lago.” FBI Director Wray continues to voice support for both Baker and McCabe but now is in the difficult position of looking like he is kowtowing to Trump’s wishes to shorten the Russia investigation and only time will tell whether Wray is on team Trump or aligned with the interests of the country. For now his assertions that the management changes at the FBI have nothing to do with Trump’s wishes aren’t being helped by Jay Sekulow, Trump’s legal spokesman.  Sekulow told the Wall Street Journal that the investigation into Trump’s actions will be ending soon adding “I know we, collectively, the lawyers, are looking forward to an expeditious wrapping up of this matter.” Special Counsel Mueller’s team was too busy expanding their investigation to respond but a number of former Justice officials have jumped to his and the FBI’s defense.  Twenty-two former U.S. attorneys, who served under presidents from Nixon through Obama, say it is “critical” to the “interests of justice and public trust to ensure that those charged with conducting complex investigations are allowed to do their jobs free from interference or fear of reprisal.”

Bigots R Us: On Saturday, the NY Times reported that last Spring, infuriated that his attempts to cut off “undesirable” immigrants and visitors weren’t going according to plan,  Trump launched into a verbal tirade, asserting that all  Haitians entering the US had AIDS, that all visiting Nigerians wouldn’t leave because they’d never want to go back to their “huts,” and that any and all Afghans, even the ones who’d risked their lives to help our soldiers, were terrorists.  Together with little Stevie Miller, his fellow xenophobe, he blasted Secretary of State Tillerson for letting the State Department give any of these people of color or Muslims visas, even for temporary visits.  Others present at the meeting included Chief of Staff Kelly, who was then head of Homeland Security, Security Adviser McMaster and the current head of Homeland, Kirstjen Nielsen.  The NY Times reported that Trump’s response reflected his “visceral response” to immigration, in other words it provides further evidence that Trump, the man who equates Nazis and KKK members with civil rights protesters, is a bigot who wants to rid the country of Muslims and would really like to limit immigration, to the extent that he allows any immigration, to white Europeans.  None of this is wildly surprising to anyone who has followed his career or who has been listening to Trump over the past year, nevertheless his mouthpiece, Huckabee Sanders, the wind up doll programmed to lie on a moment’s notice, denied the conversation had ever taken place saying that all those present had no recollection of those words.  Of course her statement didn’t apply to any of the former White House staff members, many of them recovering Trump cult members, who seem to have no problem revealing all to the press.  Three of them were the NY Times’ “unnamed sources.”  In any case, Trump’s Muslim Travel ban remains largely in effect pending a review by the Supreme Court, although still another court ruling, again from the 9th circuit court said that Trump has gone “beyond the immigration powers that he has, and has ignored the law in issuing this discriminatory order."  For his part, Senator Jeff Flake, all but acknowledged Trump’s racist tendencies this weekend calling out the Republican party for its lack of diversity saying  "When you look at some of the audiences cheering for Republicans, sometimes, you look out there and you say, those are the spasms of a dying party. When you look at the lack of diversity, sometimes, and it depends on where you are, obviously, but by and large, we're appealing to older white men and there are just a limited number of them, and anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy. Sooner or later the voters will figure out, and I think they are and have, that we've got to have something else.”  A great observation from Flake, but sadly his views may not be all that widespread among Republicans. He isn’t seeking reelection in 2018 because he has no chance of winning the Republican nomination in his home state of Arizona.

International Update:  Despite the UN’s vote against the US over Jerusalem, the UN and the US are increasingly in the same place when it comes to North Korea as evidenced by the latest round of very harsh sanctions that were approved last week. In addition to imposing tighter trade restrictions, the newest round of sanctions calls for North Korean foreign workers to be sent home over the next 24 months, depriving Pyongyang of much needed hard currency.  Recent reports indicate that even before last week’s UN actions, China had gotten with the program, they exported no oil to North Korea and imported no iron ore, coal or lead during November. North Korea again called the sanctions an act of war, a statement that our military takes seriously.  General Robert Neller, the commander of the Marines, told his troops to get ready to fight because there is a war coming and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told soldiers at Fort Bragg that there is a “storm cloud gathering over the Korean peninsula.” Yesterday Russia’s Sergey Lavrov called for the US and North Korea to start talking and has offered to intermediate, for whatever that’s worth. In other news, one country has now joined the US in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.  Guatemala plans to move their embassy and, the very industrious Nikki Haley announced that as a result of her input, the UN operating budget will decrease by $218 million next year.  

Like Sending Coals to Newcastle:  Michael Bloomberg, the real billionaire who isn’t president, criticized the newly passed tax legislation saying that “we’re not going to have money to do for infrastructure. We’re not going to have any money to improve our school systems, which are falling apart. We’re not going to do any of these things. And it exacerbates the income inequality problem at the same time. It’s really hard to see how you could call this bill reform. It has no reforms in it whatsoever. So, if you had tax breaks before, basically, you still have them. You’re just going to have a lower tax rate for some people, mainly for the very wealthy, and those people are just going to have a bigger percentage of the pie.”  One less eloquent California resident expressed his dismay over the tax bill by sending a Christmas present consisting of a horse manure to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s Beverly Hills house, something a little like sending coal to Newcastle or snow to Eskimos.  Shortly afterwards, the initially anonymous gift giver came forward, he is a psychologist who works for the LA Department of Mental Health.  It’s not clear what his action does for his employment prospects but it did add needed levity to a lot of other people’s holidays.

Naughty or Nice

Geese a Laying:  Trump kept his promise, he signed his tax bill before Christmas. He really wanted to hold  the traditional end of the year news conference but dispensed with it upon the forceful advice of his handlers who were convinced that he would pull another “Lester Holt” and accidentally implicate himself in some more obstruction of justice or collusion so reluctantly, following the signing, he hopped a flight to Mar a Lago instead.  Despite assertions that little of his tax cut would trickle down to the less advantaged, a few corporations are bucking expectations, delivering Trump appreciation checks to their employees.  Coincidentally some of those generous corporations, like ATT, Comcast, Sinclair Media and Wells Fargo are recent beneficiaries of the changed net neutrality policy or are trying to get the Trump administration to ignore their past transgressions or ease antitrust approval for planned mergers.  ATT wants so much to keep CNN and Wells Fargo wants regulators to forget how they keep cheating their customers. 

Pipers Piping:  The exodus from the Administration is starting to resemble a stampede.  Deputy White House Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn is leaving early next year as is Jeremy Katz, Gary Cohn’s respected Deputy Economic Advisor. Though he hasn’t announced his plans, Gary Cohn could be next out the door.  Larry Kudlow, the former Bear Stearns economist and CNBC commentator’s name has been floated as a possible replacement, but his name seems to float a lot so nothing may come of it. Bucking tradition, Senate Democrats refused to sign off on rolling the nominations of about one hundred of Trump’s nominees into next year.  To the extent that the White House wants to stick with the mostly unqualified group they will have to nominate them again, the candidates will then have to update their disclosure forms, a timely and expensive process which may cause some of them to just throw in the towel. Health Secretary nominee Alex Azar and Singapore Ambassador nominee KT McFarland are among the crowd who will have to redo their forms.  Azar will probably go the distance, but given her involvement in the Flynn affair, the White House could use this as an opportunity to quietly throw McFarland’s nomination into the waste bin.  To the extent that openings remain, human resources can just find some pipers, they are just as qualified and will be available in early January, that is to the extent they aren’t preparing to run as a Democrat for a seat in the House or Senate. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell is growing increasingly concerned that it won’t take much to pick off many of his Republican colleagues during the upcoming 2018 midterms.  The White House is concerned as well, reports are that Trump has been getting an earful from Corey Lewandowski his one-time campaign manager about just how much his political handlers are messing up their election strategy.  It looks like Lewandowski is angling for one of those White House openings and given that Trump is the decisionmaker- in- chief, a recent accusation that he engaged in some sexual harassment probably won’t hurt his chances.   

Drummers Drumming:  With Mueller’s drums beating louder than ever, the battle to delegitimize the FBI wages on.  Yesterday, James Baker, the FBI’s chief legal counsel was “reassigned.”  Unnamed Republican “sources” are claiming that Baker had inappropriate contact with David Korn, the Mother Jones reporter who first broke the story about the infamous Steele dossier and its contents.  Korn responded by saying “I’m not going to discuss my sources but in order to prevent the dissemination of inaccurate information, I will say that James Baker was not my source for this story."  Baker’s reassignment was pretty sudden, as recently as Thursday he represented fellow FBI Agent,  Deputy Director Andrew McCabe while he was being grilled by Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee.  It’s not clear if Baker was reassigned for a bona fide reason or if he was moved out of his position to placate Trump, who has been unusually critical of Christopher Wray, the new FBI Director that he handpicked.  Trump, with the assist of some of his Congressional co-conspirators has been pushing Wray to rid himself of many of the senior FBI agents promoted during the Comey years, a move that probably won’t go over well among the FBI rank and file, a group already dispirited by Trump’s suggestions that their agency is in tatters.  Despite all the distractions and fears about his longevity, Mueller toils on.  Reports are that he met with Trump’s legal team at the end of the week and though we don’t know for sure, he likely told them that the end of his investigation is not in sight. However, the House Intelligence Committee is trying to wrap up their work and they are doing that by speeding through interviews, scheduling them an inconvenient times, and keeping their Democratic colleagues in the dark whenever possible.  Yesterday the committee’s staff members met with Trump’s long time personal assistant Rhona Graff at an undisclosed location in NYC even though she had expressed a willingness to meet with the whole committee in Washington.  Graff who served as Trump’s gatekeeper and his “human email account” was mentioned by Rob Goldstone in his correspondence with Don Jr during the run up to the meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.  Earlier in the week, the staff members met with Felix Sater, the questionable Russian American real estate guy with a sketchy past as an FBI informant, who Trump sometimes denies knowing even though they worked together on a number of projects including the Trump Soho Hotel, the one that just changed its name and cut it ties with the Trumps because the Trump association was hurting its business.  The meeting with Sater was purposely scheduled at the same time as the House tax bill vote to make sure that no members of the Committee, especially those difficult Democrats, could participate.  Reports are that the Committee has plans to interview Steve Bannon and Corey Lewandowski next.  Their list is impressive but since none of these “invited” guests are being subpoenaed, none of them are swearing to tell the truth.    

Lords a Leaping:  Lady and Lord Kushner have been having a tough week.  Despite her best efforts to appear ever so composed and lady like, Vanity Fair reports that Ivanka got so angry with Steve Bannon that she told him to go F-ck himself during one of those White House bonding sessions.  As to Lord Kushner, his finances are coming under more scrutiny.  Prosecutors in the US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of NY are reported to have subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for records related to the Kushner Companies.  This request may have nothing to do with Mueller’s Russia probe, but it’s still a bigly problem for Jared.

Checking That List:  Note to Santa, don’t waste much time checking that White House list, and certainly don’t bother checking it twice.  It’s fair to say that most of the Trumpkins, especially the seriously orange one with the chipmunk on his head fall in to the naughty category.  The crowd that coined the term alternative facts, gave new meaning to lying and care nothing at all about the unfortunate or the North Pole icecap are hardly worthy of much. It’s coal for them, lots of it.  And don’t bother delivering it yourself, have a few idled miners help, despite Trump’s claims and their delusional hopes, they could use the income.  In the off chance that you need a break, check out UN Ambassador Nikki Halley’s party, she’s only inviting “nice” people, representatives of the countries that voted alongside us, abstained or just didn’t show up for the recent referendum on Jerusalem.  If Nikki says they are nice, they must be, so feel free to bring a long a few gifts.  No need to even bother flying over North Korea, Kim Jung Un’s been a very bad fellow and has no need for coal especially while he’s basking in the glow of his growing nuclear arsenal.  Besides, given the newest set of harsh sanctions applied this week by the UN, the little rocket man could be testier than usual and might mistake you and the red nosed boy for an incoming missile.

Merry Christmas to All!!

Good Bye Al, Good Bye Truth

McCabe and Mrs. Clinton:  When the going gets tough, Republicans go after Hillary because almost one year into the Trump autocracy she is still their designated scapegoat, so with news mounting about Trump team problems, Hillary is once again getting special attention.  Some of that “alarming news” was revealed yesterday in Foreign Policy Magazine where it was disclosed that documents turned over by the White House to Special Counsel Mueller show that White House Counsel Don McGahn knew that former national security director Michael Flynn had violated the law even before the intrepid former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates made her fateful pilgrimage to his office to tell him, the meeting where he pretended that he had no idea that Flynn was a bigly problem.  Apparently, even before the Yates meeting McGahn had researched federal law dealing both with lying to federal investigators and with violations of the Logan Act, the federal law that prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments.  This is a problem for Trump because it sheds new light on what McGahn likely told him about Flynn’s transgressions and make his outreach and subsequent firing of former FBI Director Comey look more and more like obstruction of justice.  McGahn was interviewed by Mueller a few weeks ago and it’s fair to assume that he stuck to the truth so Mueller probably knows what and when he told Trump about Flynn.  Anyone up on their Watergate History may remember that it was John Dean, Nixon’s White House Counsel who started that ball rolling.  So getting back to Hillary, what are Republicans doing in response to increasing concerns about Trump?  They are going after Hillary era “crimes” of course.  The Jeff Sessions led Justice Department is interviewing FBI agents about the much disparaged Uranium One transaction trying to find “dirt” proving that Hillary and the Clinton Foundation influenced the sale of the company to Russian related interests for their own nefarious purposes and that her actions were covered up by all her “friends” at the FBI, the same FBI friends that helped tank her candidacy.  As to Uranium One, it’s been reviewed so many times that even Fox News’ very own Shep Shepard has debunked claims about it being an illegal transaction and the assertions about Hillary involvement. The purported reason for the Sessions investigation is to determine whether or not a special counsel should be appointed to conduct a further investigation of the deal, an idea being advocated by Trump. It’s not clear that Sessions really would appoint another special counsel or whether he is just going through the motions in order to earn points with his boss.  While Sessions focuses on Uranium One, the House Intelligence and Judicial Committees have been separately grilling FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.  All together he’s spent sixteen hours on their collective hot seats.  His testimony took place behind closed doors so all we know as of now is that he confirmed Comey’s assertions that after leaving his meetings with Trump, he went back to the FBI and brought certain of his colleagues, including McCabe, up to speed on the questionable subjects covered in those “inappropriate” meetings.  We also know that several of the Republicans in on the committee meetings were woefully dissatisfied with McCabe’s testimony and want him fired, more of an indication that they didn’t like what he had to say than anything else.  It’s worth noting that McCabe, unlike most FBI agents is a registered Democrat, making him that much more untrustworthy.  Senator Rand Paul  who has been somewhat quiet since his neighbor attacked him has jumped on the “go after everyone but Trump” bandwagon.  Yesterday he tweeted “time to investigate high ranking Obama government officials who might have colluded to prevent the election of @realDonaldTrump! This could be WORSE than Watergate!”  Maybe it wasn’t just the smelly mulch that cause his neighbor to beat the crap out of him?  And he is right about one thing, this Trump mess is worse than Watergate.

Oh Oh Obamacare:  Trump may actually believe that his tax bill killed Obamacare but it hasn’t, at least in the eyes of the almost 9 million people who enrolled through the federal exchange.  That number was down only modestly from last year’s 9.2 million despite a shortened enrollment period and a 90% reduction in advertising for the program, not to mention Trump’s repeated assertions that Obamacare was dead, a message that confused a lot of people but not enough to stop them from signing up.  The 9 million number does not include the people who signed up on individual state exchanges, a number that is still growing since some of those exchanges remain open.  Despite Senator Susan Collins' efforts to get Obamacare insurance subsidy payments reinstated in exchange for her yes vote on the trillions for billionaires tax law, the legislation has been pushed off until next year and even then is expected to face an uphill battle. Though she hates hearing it, and calls any criticism of her negotiating skills sexist, Collins got played. Maybe she should have read Trump’s book on deal making.  Somewhere in there it must say that you need to make the other side deliver before giving up the goods. For his part Senate Majority Leader McConnell says that he has no plans to make another push to repeal Obamacare care next year.  Having killed the individual mandate, he is ready to move on and doesn’t want to inspire anymore health care protests in the run up to the 2018 midterms.

Open for Business:  The House and Senate passed another one of their kick the ball down the road continuing budget resolutions yesterday allowing the government to stay open at least until January 19 when the money will run out again.  Trump was all in on getting the resolution passed claiming that it was important to spoil the hopes of the Democrats who he tweeted  "want a SHUTDOWN" to "distract from the very popular, just passed" tax bill. "Don't let this happen."  It didn’t happen because those Democrats stepped up and helped pass the funding, a bill that included enough funds to keep the Children’s Health Insurance Program running for a few more months, some money for a Veterans Health program, and a temporary extension of the FISA warrant-less surveillance program.  The House also passed an $81 billion disaster relief funding bill but their Senate colleagues punted their vote until after the new year, leaving Puerto Rico and the other storm ravaged areas without the additional needed funds.  To the dismay of the Dreamers, a DACA fix was not included in the stopgap legislation.  However, all is not lost on that front as it appears that serious negotiations are ongoing with the intention of passing legislation early next year. Or at least that’s the line being delivered to the increasingly frustrated Dreamers and their congressional supporters.   As to that tax bill, Ivanka the favorite daughter, went on Fox News and asserted that Americans will be so happy when they file their taxes on a postcard and see on April 15 how much they’ve saved.  Apparently dilettante Ivanka doesn’t know that taxes paid this April reflect 2017 earnings and old tax laws, nor does she know that even after the tax bill goes into effect that “postcard” promise won’t apply because it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.  For his part Trump is expected to sign the bill into law before Christmas because a separate vote waived  the mandated “paygo” budget cuts that would have forced $25 billion in annual cuts in Medicare expenditures to be immediately implemented, one of those things that wouldn’t go over well ever but especially in an election year.   

Oh Jerusalem:  As expected the UN went forward with its vote condemning the US decision to recognize Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, as Israel’s capital. Israel is used to being routinely condemned by the UN but the experience was new to Trump.  To the surprise of few, 128 nations voted for the non-binding resolutions, 9 including the US, Israel and a few small Pacific nations who feared getting their US support cut voted no, and 35 abstained.  Britain, France, Germany and Japan voted for the resolution, while Canada and Australia abstained.  It’s been reported that Canada was seriously considering voting with the US but that Trudeau changed his mind in response to Trump’s heavy handed threats to cut funding for any “allies” who didn’t vote his way.  Trump’s message was vote against us and “we’ll save a lot, we don’t care.”  Apparently, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, some of the biggest recipients of US aid didn’t care, or more likely, believe that they are too strategically important to face cuts.  With his Israel, Egypt trip postponed and a few extra days open on his schedule, Mike Pence made a surprise trip to Afghanistan to rally the troops.  Apparently it’s a lot easier to protect a short, stout white haired guy from errant missiles than it would be to protect a tall, very stout guy with neon orange hair.

Giant of the Senate:  Al Franken made his final speech to his Senate colleagues yesterday and by colleagues think Democrats, as only one Republican, Lamar Alexander was in attendance to hear his farewell words. Those words speak for themselves:  “As I leave the Senate, I have to admit that it feels like we’re losing the war for truth.  Maybe it’s already lost. If that’s what happens, then we have lost the ability to have the kinds of arguments that help build consensus.”  He went on to denounce the tax bill calling it a means of “showering corporations and wealthy donors with tax breaks and special favors.”  I miss him already.

Trillions for Billionaires

Taxing Celebration:  Though they had to take a mulligan to make it official, to no one’s surprise the House passed the tax bill yesterday.  Once signed by Trump, the tax bill will be the law of the land, at least until some future date when the Democrats take over and do their best to start unwinding the whole thing.  Instead of calling it the  “To provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018,” the new unwieldly name mandated by the Senate’s parliamentarian, Bernie Sanders suggested calling it what it really is :  Trillions for Billionaires.  In celebration, House and Senate Republicans were bussed over to the White House for one of those wonderful moments where they all got to tell Trump how very awesome he is and how they couldn’t have done it without him, although its been reported that they kept him as far away from their negotiation process as they could to prevent him from mucking up the outcome.  Trump had quite a day, earlier in the morning at the last Cabinet meeting of the year, speaking on behalf of the attendees, the obsequious Mike Pence told him how great he was and how lucky they all were to bask in his glow. With those accolades still ringing in his ears, Trump took the mic at the tax celebration to brag about his huge accomplishment, once again throwing in a few of his usual lies. He said that the tax cuts were the biggest ever, they are not, in fact they trail far behind the bipartisan Reagan era tax cuts and even behind some implemented by LBJ.  He was particularly excited to claim that, by eliminating the individual health insurance mandate, the bill had just killed Obamacare; it certainly hasn’t helped, but given its new found popularity Obamacare still lives.  Lastly, he stuck with his assertion that he will not benefit from the tax cuts, a bold faced lie, especially in light of the last minute addition benefiting real estate investors.  Trump isn’t in a hurry to actually sign the tax bill into law. He is likely to wait until after the ball drops on New Year’s to avoid triggering $120 billion in automatic cuts to a raft of programs including Medicare.  The program cuts will be required by law because of the impact that the tax law will have on the deficit.  By waiting until 2018, the program cuts won’t be triggered until 2019, giving Republicans a chance to either come up with a way to prevent them, or at the very least, delay them long enough to avoid having their implementation further impact the outcome of the 2018 midterms.  Personally, I think it would be appropriate for Trump to sign the bill amidst the gilded halls of Mar a Lago, surrounded by the bill’s beneficiaries, especially the New Year’s eves revelers who’ve paid close to $1000 a piece to celebrate with him, all while the unfunded Children’s Health Insurance Plan goes belly up.

Government Funding:  The legislators have one more thing to do before they rush to the airport for their trips home to the hinterland, they have to pass a continuing funding resolution to keep the government lights on. House Speaker Ryan is finding his Republican colleagues as difficult to manage as ever.  The current plan is to pass another one of those short term resolutions, one that does little more than fund the government through January 19.  Democrats won’t be on board since none of their priorities will be included in the bill.   At the same time legislators will be asked to vote on a separate disaster relief bill, one that was amended last night to include more funding for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands because Democratic votes will be necessary for disaster relief.  Even with Democratic support, its not clear that the disaster relief plan will make it through the Senate until after the New Year because the same group of Senators who just voted for a deficit busting tax bill are concerned about the costs associated with turning the lights on in Puerto Rico.  Despite the promise given to Senator Collins, no one plans to stick around to work out a deal to fund the Obamacare insurance subsidy payments, an outcome that she actually agreed to yesterday. Though nothing will be done for the dreamers by year end, Chief of Staff Kelly has been meeting with a group of senators, negotiating a compromise solution that will include some border security funding and possible policy changes.  The intent is to present a DACA bill early in January.

Nefarious Moves:  A splinter group of Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, has been quietly engaging in a rear guard action intended to derail the Mueller investigation.  Led by Trump stooge Devon Nunes, the titular head of the committee who is supposed to be keeping his distance from the Russia investigation, they have been surreptitiously trying to build a case claiming that there has been “corruption and conspiracy” at the upper levels of federal law enforcement ranks.  Their focus is the Steele dossier, the document that helped guide some aspects of the Mueller investigation.  The parallel investigation has been kept so secret that Democrat and Ranking Member Adam Schiff knew nothing about it.  Concern about this combined with fears that despite his claims to the contrary, Trump is seriously considering ways to fire Mueller before he hands down any more indictments may explain why the FBI Agents Association, FBIAA, released an unusual statement yesterday saying that “Attacks on our character and demeaning comments will not deter Agents from continuing to do what we have always done—dedicate our lives to protecting the American people.”  It may also explain why the co-Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,  Virginia Senator Mark Warner, hardly a firebrand, took to the Senate floor yesterday to issue a blistering statement criticizing “irresponsible and reckless attacks on Special Counsel Mueller.”  He warned Trump that firing Mueller would lead to a constitutional crisis.  Somehow I think that crisis is right around the corner.

Oh Jerusalem:  Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem, Israel’s de facto capital, as Israel’s official capital is going about as well as could be expected. The US has already vetoed a security council resolution condemning the move.  Now Trump has threated to withhold “billions” of dollars of aid from countries which vote in favor of a planned UN General Assembly resolution rejecting the recognition.  For her part UN Ambassador Nikki Haley wrote to a large number of those members warning that she will be “taking names” of countries that vote in favor of the resolution.  The title of Trump’s next book will probably not be the Art of Diplomacy, although on the other hand maybe it will, since Trump probably thinks he is showing the world what real diplomacy looks like.  Vice President Pence’s planned trip to Israel and Egypt which was supposed to take place this week but was postponed so that he could be around for the tax bill vote and victory lap has now been rescheduled to January 14. So far Palestinian leader Abbas still plans to boycott their previously planned meeting though the delay will give Kushner’s peace squad some additional time to persuade him to change his mind.  The Palestinian Day of Rage planned to coincide with Pence’s originally planned Tuesday arrival went on without him.

One More Thing:  It looks like that Democrat who won the key delegate seat in Virginia didn’t win after all. In a really screwy scenario, Republicans have convinced a Judicial panel that one additional questionable ballot should be included even though that ballot doesn’t include a vote for the Republican candidate.  The judges have bought off on their argument that since the voter in question voted for Republicans everywhere else on the ballot, he or she must have intended to vote for the Republican candidate for state delegate too.  Absent an additional full vote count, the outcome of the election will be decided by a coin flip.  Every vote counts, sometimes.     

The Bucks Stop Here

Tax Bill:  The gang that can’t shoot straight finally passed, or almost passed, their tax legislation yesterday. After the House voted, but before the plan went to the floor of the Senate, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that a few provisions in the bill violated Senate budget rules so the bill had to be amended and will now have to go back up for an additional House vote this morning.  Specifically, she nixed the Senator Ted Cruz provision that would have allowed 529 college plans to be used for home schooling and the Majority Leader McConnell  provision that would have exempted a small Christian college in of all places his home state of Kentucky from a new tax on college endowments. For some reason that escapes me she also ruled that the name of the bill had to be changed. Even without any Democratic votes the bill passed easily.  Only twelve House Republicans voted against the bill, all but one of them from either New York or California. Even though they voted no, protesting the elimination of the state and local tax deduction, many of their seats are probably now in jeopardy. All Republican senators including the one-time “savior of Obamacare” Susan Collins and the “only when it’s convenient” Trump critic Jeff Flake voted yes except for the ailing John McCain, who was absent, recuperating in Arizona. For her part, Senator Collins pushed back at the huge amount of criticism that she received as a result of her decision to support the tax bill, calling her critics out as “unbelievably sexist” because somehow she missed that they were focused on her flawed, illogical decision process rather than her charming smile or feminine wiles. Trump, who has already tweeted out congratulations to his Republican coconspirators, is positively gleeful at having achieved the key objective that drove his aspiration to become president in the first place.  While Ivanka, Don Jr, and Eric, his chief heirs, calculate the impact of the newly passed tax scam on their inheritance, later today he plans to hold a victory press conference where he will probably continue lying about the impact of the legislation on his personal tax liability.   Republicans are basking in their success, but their celebration may be short lived.  The plan is widely disliked by the public who for some reason find its preferred treatment of corporations and the wealthy a bit perplexing and by perplexing I mean infuriating.  Democrats plan to spend the run up to the 2018 mid-terms feeding that discontent and reminding the electorate that their Medicare, Medicaid and social security payments are next on the chopping block.  Their success with that approach is already bearing fruit in Virginia.  Yesterday a recount in the remaining disputed district from the recent Virginia election was completed, one more seat has been awarded to a Democratic candidate who won by one vote.  As a result, the Virginia House of delegates is no longer controlled by Republicans, making newly elected Democratic Governor Northam’s plans just a little bit easier to implement.  

Keeping the Lights On:  With all the focus on the tax bill it’s been easy to forget that come Friday night the government faces a shutdown if the assorted clowns running Congress can’t get their act together to pass a funding resolution.  House Speaker Paul Ryan was trying to go with a plan that would fund the military through September 30, the end of the fiscal year, while only funding the rest of the government until January 19.  However, that strategy fell apart when he couldn’t garner enough support from his own coalition so now he is seeking to fund both the military and the rest of the government again only through January 19.  An $81 billion bill for hurricane relief is facing pushback from fiscally conservative Republicans, chiefly those from states that were unaffected by the storms, so it will now be separated out and voted on as a standalone bill.  It remains unclear whether funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Plan will be voted on before year end even though some states have already run out of money and are now turning away needy kids.  Despite Majority Leader McConnell’s promise to the delusional Senator Susan Collins, passage of the Alexander-Murray Obamacare “fix” bill that would provide funding for insurance subsidy payments is also in jeopardy because some of Ryan’s unruly Republicans object to anything that fixes Obamacare and others are trying to tack on more restrictive provisions on plans that provide abortion services. Passing DACA legislation seems to be off the table until after the new year leaving the dreamer kids with little to celebrate when the ball drops. It remains unclear whether Democrats will deliver the votes needed to pass a funding resolution that doesn’t include all the things they want.  To the extent there is a shutdown, expect lots of finger pointing.  Even though the Republicans control the House, Senate and Presidency they will blame the Democrats.  Democrats will counter by pointing out that those who control everything should be able to keep the government running.    

Human Resources:  Yesterday the Republican led Senate Banking Committee rejected former Congressman Scott Garett, Trump’s nominee to serve as head of the Export Import Bank.  Garett, a good friend of VP Pence, was also one of the Ex-Im Bank’s biggest critics and had repeatedly called for the bank to be disbanded while he was in Congress which by Trumpian standards made him perfect for the job.  Unconvinced that Garett would seek to fulfill the Ex-Im mission of helping US corporations compete internationally, two Republican Senators, Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Tim Scott of South Carolina, torpedoed his career prospects by joining their Democratic colleagues and voting against sending his nomination to the Senate floor.  EPA Commissioner Scott Pruitt continues to face criticism and not just for his failure to protect the environment.  The Inspector General is going after him for spending $25,000 to build a “cone of silence” in his office.  Now he is coming under criticism for hiring Definers Public Affairs, a firm linked to a Republican opposition research company, to root out dissenters within the EPA ranks, by dissenters think professionals who actually think that the EPA should protect the environment.  That $120,000 no-bid contract was just cancelled as a result of a media backlash because apparently getting caught spying on your employees thoughts is still a bad thing.  

The Battle for Choice:  The legal fight over whether two pregnant, undocumented teens in US custody can get abortions is over, though a broader challenge to the Trump administration's efforts to block abortions for teenage detainees will continue. Facing the more immediate deadline, the teen who was over twenty weeks pregnant was given permission to proceed with her plans, whatever they may be, on Tuesday. The other teen was transferred to ICE and released on her own recognizance when it was determined that she was not a minor. Ironically, she still insists that she is only seventeen but since Immigration now believes that she is nineteen she too can proceed with her own plans. The fight for choice continues but at least for now, these young women get to make their own decisions.

Russians, What Russians?

Russia, Russia, Russia:  According to NBC News, once it was clear that Trump and Clinton were the presidential nominees, high level counter intelligence officials from the FBI met with each of them to warn them to be wary of approaches by Russians, people with Russian names, people who looked and acted Russian and anyone purporting to know Putin. They urged both campaigns to alert the FBI immediately if they were contacted by any of those Russians.  By all accounts, Clinton took the warning seriously, Trump not so much.  The meeting with Trump must have been just a wee bit awkward for the FBI agents because by the time they sat down with him the agents were already aware that members of team Trump had been having meetings with suspicious Russian characters, and in fact the FBI had already opened an investigation into those activities. Trump either wasn’t paying attention or didn’t take the meeting with the FBI very seriously, because he didn’t come clean about any of the meetings that had already taken place.  Also, he either failed to convey the message to his team or did and they all laughed about it because the Trumpsters continued hobnobbing with Russians.  Kushner went on to meet with the Putin crony from the sanctioned Russian VEB bank, Sessions with Russian Ambassador and spymaster Kislyak and Don Jr communicated with WikiLeaks in the hope of getting the Hilary emails.  The Trump team’s decision to willfully ignore the FBI’s admonition goes a long way towards explaining their collective failure to disclose their Russian meetings in their relevant security filings and makes their collective memory loss that much more problematic. It also puts those texts that came to light last week into a new light.  No wonder FBI Agent Strzok was so freaked out about the possibility that Trump could become president, as the assistant director of counter intelligence he knew about all of those Russian meetings. In other Russia news, Trump’s lawyers are scheduled to meet with Special Counsel Mueller later this week, they are hoping to receive assurances that the investigation is winding down and that Trump will be cleared.  Indications are that they will be disappointed, Mueller’s staff has been told that they should expect to be around through the end of 2018.  With work still in process and the investigation ongoing, Mueller wouldn’t be prepared to tell Trump that he was in the clear even if he was.  Since Trump’s lawyers have been managing his anger about the investigation by telling him that it will be over soon, he will not be all that pleased with their update and could start looking for a fall guy, one less high profile than Mueller. Reportedly that fall guy could be Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, the man who controls the fate of Special Counsel Mueller. He didn’t like his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee and has been referring to him as “that Democrat” even though Rosenstein is a Republican and a Bush era appointee. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are also trying to rush the Russia investigation off their docket.  They’ve been ignoring Democratic members’ requests for additional witnesses, have been limiting their ability to question witnesses, are scheduling interviews at times that interfere with important votes and are aiming to end the investigation by year end.  The Senate Intelligence Committee is taking their role more seriously, so much so that Republican Chairman Burr wants to call in Green party candidate Jill Stein for an interview.  Stein attended the RT dinner in Russia, the one also attended by former security advisor Flynn and Trump BFF Putin.  Stein’s vote count was greater than Trump’s margin of victory in Michigan and Pennsylvania so her role in the outcome of the 2016 election shouldn’t be discounted.        

National Security Trump Style:   Trump delivered his national security speech on Monday.  Naturally, he called his predecessors out for their failed policies.  His speech was brooding, dark and confusing.  He warned about the rising threats from Russia and China and certain rogue states like Iran and North Korea while advocating an America First strategy focused on building border walls, dismantling multi-lateral trade agreements and building up the military, especially the nuclear arsenal.  He couldn’t resist including a plug for his tax bill and the robust state of the stock market.  On one hand he highlighted the Russian threat, but on the other he made no mention of Putin’s election meddling and the need to insure the security of future elections.  He downgraded the threat of climate change, failing to acknowledge the impact that drought, rising sea levels, and intensifying storms have on refugee flows even though the Pentagon continues to see climate change as a major concern and Puerto Rico, where the storm related death count has been restated to over 1000, is still suffering.  He also downplayed the importance of advocating democratic principles, not much of a surprise given his preference for autocrats. The more lengthy full report was prepared by security advisor H R McMaster and his team, who did their best to balance Trump’s campaign promises and philosophy with reality, as a result the document that served as a basis for the speech wasn’t dramatically different from assessments presented by prior administrations. One thing not addressed in the McMaster document was the risk of an increasingly petulant and paranoid Trump throwing the world into a crisis with a morning tweet storm.    

Remorse:  At least four of Senator Franken’s Democratic colleagues are remorseful about the decision to railroad him out of the Senate before he had a chance to go before the ethics committee.  West Virginia Senator Manchin has been the most vocal about his views, going on the record to Politico about his feelings that Franken wasn’t treated fairly, notable because he and Franken are on opposite ends of the Democratic ideological spectrum.  Vermont Senator Leahy, who had been one of the Senators quick to urge Franken to resign, is now on record saying that he regrets his decision. Despite the belated support, all accounts are that Franken believes that his ship has sailed and has no intention of renegging on his decision to resign.  Trump’s been experiencing some remorse about his judicial nominees.  He lost another one yesterday when Matthew Petersen withdrew his name from consideration after a video of his evisceration by Louisiana Republican Senator Kennedy, who had asked him a series of questions concerning judicial procedures that he couldn’t answer, went viral.  Kennedy said that “just because you’ve seen My Cousing Vinny doesn’t qualify you to be a judge” and asserted that Trump thanked him for uncovering Petersen’s inadequacies but in reality Trump was furious about the freshman senator’s brutal treatment of his nominee.  He was also upset with White House counsel Don McGahn for picking Petersen, one of his former colleagues, in the first place. Trump also holds McGahn responsible for recommending the KKK blogger and the ghost hunter, the two other judicial nominees whose nominations were pulled last week.   Although he trumpets Neil Gorsuch’s seating on the Supreme Court as one of his major accomplishments, the thin skinned Trump almost rescinded that nomination too after Gorsuch criticized Trump’s attacks on the judiciary in private meetings with senators during the run up to the vote on his nomination. Gorsuch’s comments caused Trump to question his loyalty, and as former FBI Director Comey can attest, blind loyalty is very important to Trump.        

Attacking Choice: Once again the Trump administration is trying to take away the right to choose, this time by preventing two pregnant immigrant teens from obtaining abortion services.  Both girls are seventeen years old, one is ten weeks pregnant the other is twenty-two weeks pregnant and running out of time.  Yesterday, a judge ruled in favor of the teens citing the need to “preserve the teens constitutional right to decide whether to carry their pregnancies to term,” but she gave the government 24 hours to appeal.  No surprise they have already appealed.  The clock is ticking.    

The Tax Scam:  The really awful reverse Robin Hood tax bill that also throws a dagger into the heart of Obamacare is likely to be law by the end of the week. To the dismay of many, especially those who had put her on a pedestal after she voted against repealing Obamacare, Senator Collins announced that she will be voting for the bill and Utah’s Mike Lee, one of the other remaining hold outs is also on board. As of this morning, Arizona Senator Flake remains the only undecided senator and expecations are that he soon be on board.  The bill still includes the “Corker Kickback,” a provison that provides advantageous tax treatment for real estate partnerships.  Trump must be really enjoying that “Liddle” Senator Corker, the guy who once called the Trump White House an adult day care center, is taking the heat for a provision that provides him with millions, maybe even hundreds of millions in savings, an amount we really can’t accurately compute since we still haven’t seen Trump’s tax returns.  With the bill blowing a huge hole in the budget, it was hugely ironic to hear Trump cite yesterday’s deadly train derailment in Tacoma, Washington as evidence of the country’s infrastructure needs.  Really, Trump, really, with money flying out the door to corporations and rich donors, just how do you plan to pay for all those needs?        

Only His Hairdresser Knows for Sure

Will He or Won’t He:  A lot of hullabaloo all weekend about whether or not Trump is planning to fire Special Counsel Mueller.  California Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told a local radio station that “the rumor on the Hill” was that Trump was going to “make a significant speech at the end of next week and that on December 22 after everyone’s gone home for the holidays, he “was going to fire Mueller.”  While out pushing the tax reform bill Steve Mnuchin did little to clarify what Trump was thinking when he told CNN’s Jake Tapper that though he and his “let them eat cake” trophy wife Louise had recently dined with Trump and Melania, he hadn’t heard anything about any firing plans and doesn’t have any reason to believe Trump is going to do that, adding “it’s obviously up to him,” hardly the reassuring words that anyone wanted to hear.  Surprisingly, it was Trump who put the issue to rest, at least for the moment, when upon returning to the White House on Sunday he told the press that he's not considering firing special counsel Robert Mueller.  He did add that “his people" are "very upset" about Mueller’s decision to obtain tens of thousands of emails from the Trump transition team.  The emails that he was referring to belonged to the Trump transition team. They were legally obtained by Mueller, however the transition team was caught by surprise, not knowing that the emails had been obtained, until a number of transition team members were asked questions at their Mueller interviews about subjects covered  only in the emails in question.  Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for the transition team sent letters to two Congressional Committees accusing Mueller of overreach and claiming that the emails were illegally obtained.  Mueller’s action wasn’t overreach but the claim by the Trump lawyer was, nevertheless it was picked up by the malevolent clowns at Fox News who ran with the story suggesting it was another one of those crimes that should lead to Mueller’s immediate dismissal. Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy, Chairman of the Oversight Committee, who general jumps on the accusation bandwagon, said that the legality of the release wasn’t an issue for his committee, that if there was a problem it should be taken up in the courts, a quiet way of admitting that he knows there is no problem.  Trump also said "I can't imagine there's anything on (the emails), frankly, because as we said, there's no collusion. No collusion whatsoever, but a lot of lawyers thought that was pretty sad."  Since Trump isn’t all that familiar with truth telling, it’s not clear that he isn’t giving serious consideration to firing Mueller, or setting the ball in motion by demanding that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein do the dirty deed, a request that would lead to Rosenstein’s departure and ultimately Mueller’s dismissal.  It wouldn’t be pretty, but it also wouldn’t mean that the investigation would go away since Manafort has already been indicted and Flynn has already plead guilty and, more significantly, as Trump probably knows, New York Attorney General Schneiderman is running a shadow investigation and would immediately step into Mueller’s shoes with state charges, the kind that Trump can’t pardon.  Besides, Trump has probably decided that at least for now maligning Mueller and questioning his legitimacy and fairness is just as effective.  Aided by Fox host Jeanine Pirro, that strategy is working.  She is calling for the FBI to be “cleansed” with offending agents taken out “in cuffs.” In response, the House Intelligence Committee now plans to call for testimony from two of her targets, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Agent Peter Strzok, the guy who confused politician bashing texts with foreplay.

Grand Old Tax Bill:  Get ready to watch the deficit grow by at least another $1.4 trillion, and if you live in a high state and local tax state, get ready to see your hard earned cash fly to Trump country where it might be used to pay for religious school tuition for the next generation of right wing religious fundamentalists.  Leadership plans to put their tax bill up for a final vote this week, first in the House and then in the Senate.  Absent any surprises, passage is likely.  John McCain won’t be there to give his thumbs up, he’s flown back to Arizona for the holidays and, though Trump claims he’d come back to Washington if his vote was needed and his family insists that he’s just suffering some chemo side effects, there’s a chance he won’t be coming back.  Senator Corker remains in the yes column for the plan that he calls “imperfect,” however he is facing withering criticism from voters who want to know if his unexpected support was bought by the inclusion of a last minute provision favoring real estate limited partnerships.  Corker a wealthy real estate investor will benefit handsomely from what is now being called the “Corker Kickback.”  He has some serious ‘splaining to do.           

Alternative Vocabulary:  The Center for Disease Control isn’t the only entity that’s received direction to avoid using words like fetus and entitlement, apparently several other Health and Human Service departments have gotten the same directive from “higher up,” and by higher up think holy roller Mike Pence and his acolytes.  HHS employees have also been told to always call the Affordable Care Act “Obamacare” because it’s a lot easier to rally the troops against Obama than to kill their health insurance. Though there is no evidence that Pence’s finger prints are on the language memo, the directive’s tone seems very much in line with his way of thinking particularly when you consider the version that was delivered to the State Department. Their Orwellian language handbook bans the term sex education, replacing it with “sexual risk avoidance,” a clunky term for no sex before marriage, which may explain why the term “evidence based” is also banned.

Attack Averted:  The CIA helped their Russian colleagues thwart an imminent terrorist attack in St. Petersburg by sharing some intelligence about the terrorists’ plans.  Putin called his good buddy Trump to praise the CIA and thank him for their help. We learned about the call and the shared intelligence after the Kremlin released details of Putin’s conversation with Trump. The sharing of intelligence to prevent terrorist attacks isn’t unusual, however it is unusual for the heads of state to get involved in the process, typically communication is done quietly among intelligence chiefs.  However, the wily Putin knows how much Trump enjoys having his ego stroked and how much the press likes to focus on their bromance, so calling him and then talking about the call falls into his old KGB handbook.  Later in the day the White House finally released their account of the call saying “ President Putin extended his thanks and congratulations to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Mike Pompeo and the CIA. President Trump then called Director Pompeo to congratulate him, his very talented people, and the entire intelligence community on a job well done!”  No doubt that the not so presidential exclamation point was Trump’s addition, special appreciation for his good buddy Pompeo, the soon to be Secretary of State, who edits those annoying Russian election interference assertions out of Trump’s daily security briefings and shares his dismissive attitude towards Mueller’s investigation.  In case you are keeping score, the CIA is very, very good, the FBI, not so much.

The Manic Depressive State

Washington Roller Coaster:  The week that began on a promising high note with the election of Doug Jones in Alabama ended with some depressing reminders that not much has changed. Trump is still president and is making progress in his war against Special Counsel Mueller and the Russia investigation.  Yesterday, as he left for a speech at FBI headquarters, he called the Russia investigation a “hoax, perpetrated by the Democrats that “everybody knows” hasn’t come up with any evidence of collusion, he slammed the “sad,” “really, really disgraceful” FBI and then when asked whether or not he would pardon former security advisor Michael Flynn, he responded “I don’t want to talk about pardons…yet.”   His efforts to discredit Mueller are getting an assist from some complicit Republican members of Congress, several of whom sit on the House Judiciary or House Intelligence Committee, and his very, very good friends at Fox News, the organization that increasingly appears to be Trump America’s official state TV.  Both groups have spun and twisted the “facts” surrounding the two FBI officials who texted Trump maligning comments to each other into a story about FBI incompetency and pro-Clinton bias, an irony that Hillary Clinton who is not president must find particular horrifying.  As to those texts, the story about their release has grown more and more suspicious as have the misinformation about the number of texts and their content.  Someone at Justice leaked the texts to the Trump friendly press before they were more formally released to any members of Congress.  After the leak, the Justice Department then provided the texts to Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee before providing them to any Democrats. Though he didn’t come out and say it, it sounds like Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein may have had his hand forced by someone more senior at Justice, someone like Attorney General Sessions perhaps.  Once the texts were released to the press, Rosenstein had no choice but to release them more broadly.   Fox reported that there were more than 10,000 texts, in reality there were a few hundred.  Fox only reported on the texts that slammed Trump, failing to mention that many criticized Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, former Attorney General Eric Holder and Senator Bernie Sanders who was described in one text as “an idiot like Trump. Figure they cancel each other out.” Mostly the texts reveal that like many FBI agents, the two romantic texters held all politicians in low regard.  Trump now seems to be employing a two pronged strategy:  continue trying to fire Mueller and failing that, discredit the investigation so much so that the Trump base disregards Mueller’s  conclusions even if they reveal he and his team committed a litany of crimes, including collusion, obstruction and money laundering.  As to the investigation, Jared Kushner seem very, very nervous, his lawyers are seeking to add a crisis management firm to his team, an indication that they are expecting some bad news in the not too distant future. An indictment perhaps?  Despite all of the noise, the indefatigable Mueller keeps plodding along, it’s been reported that he has obtained a trove of emails from Cambridge Analytica, the data mining firm that reportedly reached out to WikiLeaks about the “missing” Hillary Clinton emails on behalf of the Trump campaign.   

Tax Legislation:  In another piece of truly depressing news, late Friday Republican leadership announced that they’ve finalized their tax legislation and that both Senator Rubio and Senator Corker have moved into the “yes” column, giving the Senate enough votes for passage.  Rubio’s move wasn’t all that surprising, he had been holding out for an increase in the child care tax credit from $1100 to $2000, the tax writers fell short of his ask, but did increase the credit to $1400, enough for Rubio to claim success.  He will now position himself as the champion for families everywhere, no doubt a claim that will grow in magnitude when included in all of his future campaign ads.  Corker’s move was more surprising and totally inexcusable.  He had previously stated that he would vote against any tax plan that increased the deficit by one penny.  Apparently the hypocritical Corker has concluded that the difference between one penny and $1.5 trillion dollars is just a rounding error.  Corker may not be running for reelection to the Senate but he is clearly running for something and he wants to make sure that those Republican billionaire donors continue filling his coffers.  Though she hasn’t confirmed that she’s on board, Maine Senator Susan Collins’ website brags about all of the middle class friendly amendments that she got included in the tax legislation while ignoring the negative impact that the elimination of the individual health insurance mandate will have on premiums and the number of people covered going forward. Arizona Senator Flake,  the other possible holdout who said that he wants a promise on DACA legislation in exchange for his vote hasn’t said much lately either.  Odds are that both are fully on board. The plan is to bring the tax legislation to a vote first in the House and then in the Senate with the hope that the conditions of the ailing Senators Thad Cochran and John McCain will improve enough for them to show up and vote.  In one minor win for Democrats, the Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that a provision repealing the Johnson Amendment, a change that would have allowed religious institutions to endorse political candidate, can not be included in the bill.  Religious groups also got hit with another setback when a federal judge in Pennsylvania temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s recent ruling allowing any company with a moral or religious objection to exclude birth control coverage from their insurance policies.  Though that ruling may have left them distressed, they are probably finding some solace from the new rules at the Center for Disease Control where officials are now prohibited from using a list of seven words and phrases, including fetus, transgender, vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, evidence-based and science-based.  It’s long past time for the rest of us to start shouting George Carlin’s seven dirty words, loudly!

Human Resources:  Though he denies it, Politico reports that Paul Ryan is seriously considering retiring from Congress at the end of his term, cashing in his chits and taking a high paying job with one of his appreciative donors.  Assuming the tax legislation is passed next week, he will have achieved one of his life time goals and sadly will also have set in motion the achievement of his other goal, the dismantling of the social safety net, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.  The increase in the deficit attributable to the new tax legislation is expected to trigger the budget “paygo” rule that requires that tax cuts be covered by cuts in mandatory spending. Ryan doesn’t have to stick around, paygo will accomplish his master plan with or without his presence.  Besides in the off chance that the Democrats manage to retake the House in 2018 he’d get demoted to Minority Leader and what’s the fun in that?   Republican Congressman Blake Farenthold is still in Congress despite the payments that were made by the House slush fund on his behalf to women he harassed and despite his acknowledgement that his office is a hostile work environment. He will not be seeking reelection.  Alabama child molester and failed Senatorial candidate Roy Moore still hasn’t conceded, instead he is trying to raise funds for a recount, citing the will of the Lord as his inspiration.   

And so it goes…..