No jokes, just a new politics thread

December 13, 2017 8:31 AM

People in high profile government jobs share commonly held view of multiply bankrupt toupee model

Democrats spout common sense to protect Americans from tax scam

Misogynist reality show host disparages female senator.

A twitter thread about successful election strategy

posted by Emmy Rae (2037 comments total)

Minnesota lieutenant governor to replace Franken, run for seat in 2018 (The Hill)

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) on Wednesday named Lt. Gov. Tina Smith (D) to fill Sen. Al Franken’s (D-Minn.) soon-to-be vacated Senate seat.

Smith said she intends to run in November 2018 to complete the remaining two years of Franken’s term.

“It is up to Minnesotans to decide who they want to complete Senator Franken’s term. I will run in that election, and I will do my best to earn Minnesotans support. And I believe the way to do that is to be the best senator I can be,” Smith said.

posted by Barack Spinoza at 8:37 AM on December 13, 2017 [71 favorites]

excellent news re: Minnesota.

And thank you for the new thread, Emmy Rae!
posted by suelac at 8:38 AM on December 13, 2017 [11 favorites]

One thing we saw in 2016, in the VA/NJ elections, and last night in AL is an increasing education gap. Traditionally, education didn't have much correlation with party, if anything, there was a slight R lean. Now, we're seeing college-educated voters strongly breaking for the Democrats.

You know who doesn't turn out much for midterm elections? Less educated voters.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:41 AM on December 13, 2017 [17 favorites]

I'm not sure bringing up the Strzok-Page messages is a good strategy for Trumpies. Instead of proving the investigation is biased, it shows that Mueller dismissed people at the first sign of bias. It also means. It also means bringing up the content of the messages, which many people agree with. "Trump is a fucking idiot."
posted by kirkaracha at 8:41 AM on December 13, 2017 [34 favorites]

I'm not in a position to watch the Judiciary hearing right now -- is Rosenstein pointing out that it's impossible to find people who neither support nor oppose Donald Trump's presidency, while retaining the ability to outwit a piece of white toast?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:41 AM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

I will be very surprised if Congressional Republicans in the main continue to attack Mueller after last night's loss. It's bad form to strongly associate yourself with a loser.
posted by wierdo at 8:44 AM on December 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

People in high profile government jobs share commonly held view of multiply bankrupt toupee model

FTA:

Two FBI officials who would later be assigned to the special counsel’s investigation into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign described him as an “idiot” and “loathsome human” in a series of text messages last year, according to copies released on Tuesday.

And so we find ourselves in the precarious position of when one's political opinions aren't just opinions in the same way that people have favorite sports teams or ice cream flavors, but instead are basically empirical observations derived from evidence.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:46 AM on December 13, 2017 [45 favorites]

Another bright spot in your day: Omarosa Manigault is out at the White House.

Manigault's story is that she quit "to pursue other opportunities", however April Ryan of Buzzfeed reports Manigault was escorted off the grounds on Tuesday night.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:49 AM on December 13, 2017 [23 favorites]

From the previous megathread:

BTW y'all. Rod Rosenstein is currently in front of House Judiciary (CSPAN STREAM)
posted by fluttering hellfire

And also reminders on keeping the thread slim & trim courtesy of Meru:
[This is a US politics catch-all thread: please read these important rules about how they work. Also, enjoy refreshing MetaFilter chat for your hot takes and instant reactions.]
posted by yoga at 8:49 AM on December 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

Is there anywhere I can place a bet that Gillibrand runs in 2020 and wins?
posted by Talez at 8:49 AM on December 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

probably at any venue that is currently taking bets on Super Bowl LV
posted by murphy slaw at 8:56 AM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

And so we find ourselves in the precarious position of when one's political opinions aren't just opinions in the same way that people have favorite sports teams or ice cream flavors, but instead are basically empirical observations derived from evidence.

Wish I knew who to cite for this, but: the problem with speaking truth about the Republican party right now--and the Trump regime in particular--is that the truth sounds like an attack. The counter, therefore, is to say it's biased, that it's just another political attack, when it's really a recognition of reality.

It's an ultimate distillation of IOKIYAR.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:02 AM on December 13, 2017 [34 favorites]

Another bright spot in your day: Omarosa Manigault is out at the White House

I detest Omarosa as much as any of trump's other bootlickers, but it's telling that one of the first things he did after Jones's win in Alabama last night was to fire a black woman. [via Khal Draghoe on Twitter]
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:02 AM on December 13, 2017 [50 favorites]

Is there anywhere I can place a bet that Gillibrand runs in 2020 and wins?

Harris/Gillibrand, IMO.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:04 AM on December 13, 2017 [12 favorites]

Here's Natasha Bertrand's story on how the text messages between Strzok and Page were made public, "The Justice Department invited a group of reporters to its offices on Tuesday night to view private text messages sent during the 2016 campaign by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, former investigators on the special counsel Robert Mueller's team, Business Insider has learned."

She also discusses but cannot resolve why Fox News claims to have 10,000 texts but the DOJ released 375 to reporters.
posted by gladly at 9:05 AM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

Is there anywhere I can place a bet that Gillibrand runs in 2020 and wins?

PredictIt's betting market for 2020 is open.
posted by egregious theorem at 9:05 AM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I think Harris is too green for the top slot (and yes, I know what happened with Obama). I could see her for VP, although I still like Klobuchar.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:06 AM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

it's telling that one of the first things he did after Jones's win in Alabama last night was to fire a black woman

Ryan's story, from multiple sources and bit more trustworthy, is that Omarosa got into a huge fight with Kelly on Tuesday night and was kicked to the street by Kelly, not Trump. But if people want to follow this line and fire up the black female voting population even more....I'm cool with that.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:09 AM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

Warren: Doug Jones should be seated without delay
posted by Chrysostom at 9:11 AM on December 13, 2017 [35 favorites]

Half of voters find sexual misconduct accusations against President Donald Trump to be credible, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll conducted against the backdrop of a national discussion on sexual harassment.

Fifty percent of registered voters think the allegations against Trump are credible, more than the 29 percent who think they are not credible. The remaining 21 percent of voters don’t know if the allegations are credible.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 9:11 AM on December 13, 2017 [13 favorites]

But if people want to follow this line and fire up the black female voting population even more....I'm cool with that.

if twitter is any indication, the only person black women hate more than omarosa is donald trump
posted by murphy slaw at 9:11 AM on December 13, 2017 [8 favorites]

Here's Natasha Bertrand's story on how the text messages between Strzok and Page were made public, "The Justice Department invited a group of reporters to its offices on Tuesday night to view private text messages sent during the 2016 campaign by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, former investigators on the special counsel Robert Mueller's team, Business Insider has learned."

THAT was the emergency pajama meeting?!?
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 9:12 AM on December 13, 2017 [44 favorites]

I'll happily get behind Gillibrand, Harris or Klobuchar, but I'm still holding out for Duckworth.

(See? The Democrats do have a back bench!)
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:12 AM on December 13, 2017 [31 favorites]

How will the White House function without Omarosa
posted by benzenedream at 9:23 AM on December 13, 2017 [12 favorites]

murphy slaw: probably at any venue that is currently taking bets on Super Bowl LV

As it happens, not exactly. The Nevada Gaming Control Board is a bit of a stickler regarding what kinds of events you can bet on and political stuff is excluded (as are, interestingly, awards like the Oscars and American Idol-type contest shows). So, you won't be able to walk into the Caesar's Palace sports book and place that bet. UK bookmakers are, on the other hand, wide open on political stuff.
posted by mhum at 9:27 AM on December 13, 2017

Mod note: One deleted - please don't double-post stuff in previous thread and here, just pick one.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:31 AM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Responding to a comment in the previous thread:

THE RNC WENT ALL IN ON DONALD TRUMP AND ROY MOORE. This should be a millstone hung around their necks for generations.

I've seen commentary to the effect that Congressional Republicans -- who constantly play the guilt-by-association game by dropping names like Soros and Ayres and Pelosi -- are relieved not to have Moore be an issue in their re-election campaigns.

Democrats must not let them off the hook so easily. Moore and Trump and the Republican Party are one, and Democrats must be consistent with that message even if -- especially if -- Republicans object.
posted by Gelatin at 9:34 AM on December 13, 2017 [32 favorites]

I no longer trust my ability to interpret the news. So - can anyone help me contextualize the "DOJ texts" news above?

As I understand it - some people on Mueller's team sent some anti-Trump messages back and forth early in the year, and I'm assuming that this is a Thing because the GOP is going to claim "see, Mueller is biased". But I'm also reading that both the texters in question are out of the team now (one left of their own accord, one got forcibly relocated to HR).

Is this...bad? A nothingburger?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:35 AM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

Here's Natasha Bertrand's story on how the text messages between Strzok and Page were made public, "The Justice Department invited a group of reporters to its offices on Tuesday night to view private text messages sent during the 2016 campaign by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, former investigators on the special counsel Robert Mueller's team, Business Insider has learned."

THAT was the emergency pajama meeting?!?

Yep. It sure was. They seriously called my friend and others in late night to ensure that these texts were leaked in advance of the Rosenstein hearing. Disgusting.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:37 AM on December 13, 2017 [54 favorites]

The tax bill just landed. Let's see what unholy horror they've come up with when they release the text.
posted by Talez at 9:38 AM on December 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

Seniority has its benefits, which is why I think Franken should have actually resigned before this election so that his replacement could have more seniority than the newest Senator from Alabama. Wikipedia says "The seniority date for an appointed senator is the date of the appointment, not necessarily the date of taking the oath of office.[citation needed] In the case of Senators taking vacant seats in special elections, the term begins on Election Day.[citation needed] " If both are in fact true, Jones now has more Seniority than Smith, even if she were appointed today. However, Cory Booker and Ed Markey are both listed with seniority dates that are later than the days they won their special elections.
posted by soelo at 9:38 AM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

The Strzok/Page texts are a crack against the Mueller investigation that the loyal Trumpists are trying to exploit to end or at least disqualify the Mueller investigation. Dan Pfeiffer tweeted about the DOJ releasing the texts as, "This is the Justice Department conspiring with the White House to actively undermine an investigation into the President of the United States."

Depending who at the DOJ released the texts (DAG Rosenstein wouldn't confirm who at his hearing, even when asked directly), I really don't think it's a nothing burger.

Based on the hour that the meeting was called last night, I wonder if in addition to getting the texts reported first thing before Rosenstein's hearing, it also served to siphon away coverage from the AL Senate election.
posted by gladly at 9:42 AM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

I think Harris is too green for the top slot (and yes, I know what happened with Obama). I could see her for VP, although I still like Klobuchar.

Given the current officeholder, does "green" even have any meaning anymore? I have zero officeholding experience and yet am absolutely confident that I could do a better job than he could.

I'm not saying we accept low bars as a good thing, just saying, the next Democratic president has the lowest possible bar.
posted by emjaybee at 9:45 AM on December 13, 2017 [68 favorites]

it also served to siphon away coverage from the AL Senate election

judging from the front page of every newspaper in america today, i don't think their ploy worked.
posted by murphy slaw at 9:46 AM on December 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

I'm not sure bringing up the Strzok-Page messages is a good strategy for Trumpies. Instead of proving the investigation is biased, it shows that Mueller dismissed people at the first sign of bias. It also means. It also means bringing up the content of the messages, which many people agree with. "Trump is a fucking idiot."

That might be true if the Republicans and the Republican media operated in good faith, but like so many things that boil up from the fever swamps -- including Hillary Clinton's emails -- it'll be stripped of context and surrounded with vaguely sinister implications, which the so-called "liberal media" will absorb and allow Republicans to convey unchallenged.
posted by Gelatin at 9:50 AM on December 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

I'm not sure bringing up the Strzok-Page messages is a good strategy for Trumpies. Instead of proving the investigation is biased, it shows that Mueller dismissed people at the first sign of bias.

This is what I was thinking. Anything anyone can do to make sure this is the read?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:53 AM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Is this...bad? A nothingburger?

You're presupposing that Republican voters' interpretations of the situation are in any way contingent on the actual reality of the situation.

They can contort literally anything to fit their narrative.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 9:54 AM on December 13, 2017 [27 favorites]

I think Harris is too green for the top slot

I don't think anyone is too green for any elected or appointed job, anymore. I may be persuaded that someone is too inexperienced at campaigning to win a position, but I am now entirely convinced that what it takes to do a gov't job very well isn't nearly as important as having a willingness to learn and a dedication to good principles.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:55 AM on December 13, 2017 [20 favorites]

[Via Twitter]

Jennifer Brooks: MN GOP weighs in on the Tina Smith appointment: "It's an underhanded 'House of Cards' style move."

Matt Yglesias:
Imagine pitching this show:

"The incumbent Democratic senator resigns, so the Democratic governor appoints the Democratic lieutenant governor to fill the vacancy.”

“???”
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:58 AM on December 13, 2017 [96 favorites]

They can contort literally anything to fit their narrative.

In the previous thread, someone pointed out that some Republicans are claiming that the presence of any Democrats at all in Mueller's investigation makes it a partisan witch hunt.
posted by Gelatin at 10:00 AM on December 13, 2017 [12 favorites]

The House of Cards reference is because of this:

By naming Smith, Dayton creates uncertainty for the state Senate.

Minnesota's succession plan calls for the state Senate president to become lieutenant governor, so as Smith moves to the U.S. Senate, state Sen. Michelle Fischbach, R-Paynesville, will move into Smith's position.

Republicans currently control the state Senate by a single vote, and in theory, Fischbach's seat would need to be filled in a special election. But Republicans could try to go to court to delay her resignation or get a court ruling that she can do both jobs.
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:03 AM on December 13, 2017 [28 favorites]

Pretty sure the "House of Cards" reference was just wedged in there to raise the spectre of Spacey in the context of a Franken replacement, facts be damned.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:03 AM on December 13, 2017 [24 favorites]

Harris and Van Hollen also calling for no votes until Jones seated.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:03 AM on December 13, 2017 [19 favorites]

So what the MN GOP statement is referring to is that under Minnesota's succession procedures, in the absence of the lieutenant governor, the state Senate president becomes the new lieutenant governor. The state Senate president is currently a Republican. Republicans currently control the state Senate by a single vote.

That's the "move." Whether it's "underhanded" and/or "House of Cards-style" is open to interpretation.

On preview: beaten to the punch by Emmy Rae.
posted by AndrewInDC at 10:04 AM on December 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

If they didn't want their majority to be so precarious the MN GOP should have fielded better candidates and won more elections. Specifically they should have won the gubernatorial election.

Because if there's one thing I've learned from Republicans you can justify any political action by simply reminding your electorate that elections have consequences.
posted by Tevin at 10:07 AM on December 13, 2017 [38 favorites]

Minnesota fills legislature vacancies through special elections. Looks like state Senate president Michelle Fischbach is from SD-13, which is a pretty red district (Trump 64-30, Romney 57-41).

Anything is possible in the current environment, but I'm not sure that this would be a high-percentage move for skulduggery. Also not sure how the MN Senate handles even control - they have an odd number of seats, so probably doesn't come up much.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:10 AM on December 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

MN State Senate has 67 seats. Currently, Republicans have 34, Democrats have 33. One Senator, a Democrat, is resigning on the 15th due to a scandal. If Michelle Fischbach had to give up her seat, that would open the possibility of the DFL gaining control of that house.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:15 AM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

trump's approval hits record low in new monmouth university poll

West Long Branch, NJ - Donald Trump's current job approval rating is the lowest registered in the Monmouth University Poll since he took office, with the biggest drop coming from independent women. Most voters think that the president has not been successful at moving his agenda through Congress and feel his decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel will destabilize the Middle East. Monmouth's initial generic House ballot match-up for the 2018 election finds Democrats holding a 15 point advantage over Republicans.

Pres. Trump's current job rating stands at a net negative 32% approve and 56% disapprove. This marks his lowest rating in Monmouth's polling since taking office in January. Prior polls conducted over the course of the past year showed his approval rating ranging from 39% to 43% and his disapproval rating ranging from 46% to 53%.

posted by murphy slaw at 10:16 AM on December 13, 2017 [18 favorites]

Right, the DFL *could* pick up control of the MN Senate here, but Fischbach's district is not particularly promising soil.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:20 AM on December 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

Anything is possible in the current environment, but I'm not sure that this would be a high-percentage move for skulduggery

I think it says more that Republicans are worried about it, though.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:20 AM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I guess I've never thought about this before, but if you're in the line of succession for something can you just say "no thanks, give it to the next person down"?
posted by jason_steakums at 10:23 AM on December 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

A friend who grew up in Fishbach's district described it as "home of the Minnesota Christians Concerned For Life, and all the fetus signs you've maybe seen in St. Cloud"
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 10:32 AM on December 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

jason_steakums: "I guess I've never thought about this before, but if you're in the line of succession for something can you just say "no thanks, give it to the next person down"?"

Arguably one of the duties of office if you're *in* the line of succession is to fulfill the succession. So declining it is an admission you can't do your duty and (in a world where that meant anything anymore) would probably require a resignation. As a general rule.
posted by TypographicalError at 10:32 AM on December 13, 2017 [11 favorites]

I've lived in MN for years and have never even heard of Paynesville.

From their web site: "Nestled in the heart of central Minnesota, Paynesville attracts thousands of visitors each year."

Yeah, I don't think the GOP is going to have any trouble holding on to that seat.
posted by miyabo at 10:35 AM on December 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Just as an aside, I love the name of the MN Democratic party, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. I know a name is superficial, but I totally think Dems could sweep the Midwest if they all became the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. It just sounds so cool and Midwestern socialist and says what it needs to say. Minnesota Dems: you're doing it right.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:39 AM on December 13, 2017 [56 favorites]

SD-13 also covers part of Eden Valley, home to the police investigating the crimes of the third season of Fargo.
posted by Theiform at 10:40 AM on December 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

I don't think the GOP is going to have any trouble holding on to that seat.

Whether or not it's likely that they keep it, it's definitely worth challenging. If they run a competent, smart, principled Republican, Dems would have a very hard time taking it... but if Republicans were prone to running smart, competent, principled candidates, we wouldn't be where we are today.

No uncontested elections anymore. No unflippable seats; every vote matters.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:40 AM on December 13, 2017 [54 favorites]

From a good Iowa political blog: It's time for Iowa Republicans to start panicking.

I think that's putting it a little strongly, but I'm starting to feel something like optimism about 2018 in Iowa. Having said that, it's going to be a long time before we can undo the damage that the Republicans have done in the past year.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:46 AM on December 13, 2017 [18 favorites]

I think Harris is too green for the top slot

In this millenium the top slot has been green relative to the VP.

Trump - Pence
Obama - Biden
GW Bush - Cheney
posted by srboisvert at 10:50 AM on December 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

I would posit that the Trump and W presidencies are fairly compelling arguments for the value of experience.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:51 AM on December 13, 2017 [30 favorites]

Update on Brett Talley, controversial judicial nominee:

The White House Says Controversial Judicial Nominee Brett Talley's Nomination Is Over, Zoe Tillman, Buzzfeed
White House: Nomination of Alabama Lawyer Brett Talley 'Will Not Be Moving Forward', Carrie Johnson, NPR
WH withdrawing Trump judicial pick who has never tried a case, Avery Anapol, The Hill
posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 10:55 AM on December 13, 2017 [79 favorites]

The White House Says Controversial Judicial Nominee Brett Talley's Nomination Is Over.

On the second night, the oil still burned.
(Hanukkah sameach! What are we getting tomorrow?)
posted by Sophie1 at 11:01 AM on December 13, 2017 [77 favorites]

So the Senate tax kill had kept the top marginal rate (for the wealthiest) at 39.6%. The House had lowered the rate for the wealthy to 38.5%. They had to find a compromise for the reconciled bill so they compromised on 37%.

What? What?

It looks like they are only bringing the corporate rate to 21% ("only") in order to pay for it. I guess rich people need that money more than sick and/or hungry kids.
posted by Justinian at 11:01 AM on December 13, 2017 [11 favorites]

Monmouth: Democrats have 15 point edge in generic House vote

Enough to overwhelm the 'mander? Seems at least possible.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:03 AM on December 13, 2017 [8 favorites]

15 points would swamp the gerrymander. It's 7-10 points where it would be knife-edge.
posted by Justinian at 11:06 AM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

538 generic ballot average (includes the Monmouth) is at D+11 (48.2/37.2).
posted by Chrysostom at 11:09 AM on December 13, 2017 [8 favorites]

Yesterday, 18 people signed up to @runforsomething. Today, it’s not even 8am ET and 40 people have signed up to run. Wins help candidate recruitment which helps create more wins
posted by azpenguin at 11:16 AM on December 13, 2017 [74 favorites]

I don’t think there has been an especially intelligent Republican president since Nixon, and he was a sociopath. Since then, they had an actor, a failed businessman (and legacy C student), and a borderline illiterate actor/businessman who has mainly exploited inherited wealth thanks to his legal team.

Compare with Carter (nuclear engineering), Clinton (Rhodes Scholar), and Obama (Harvard Law).
posted by darkstar at 11:18 AM on December 13, 2017 [40 favorites]

Oh snap. Forgot about him. Yeah, I’ll give them that one, I guess.
posted by darkstar at 11:20 AM on December 13, 2017 [8 favorites]

you forgot gerald ford

everyone always forgets gerald ford
posted by pyramid termite at 11:21 AM on December 13, 2017 [46 favorites]

Oh snap. Forgot about him.

So has the Republican party, near as I can tell.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:22 AM on December 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

It looks like they are only bringing the corporate rate to 21% ("only") in order to pay for it. I guess rich people need that money more than sick and/or hungry kids.

the optics of this after refusing to do bump up the corporate rate by a couple of tenths of a percent to expand the child tax credit (per Rubio etc.) are … astounding
posted by murphy slaw at 11:22 AM on December 13, 2017 [22 favorites]

you forgot gerald ford

gerald ford was an affable fence post
posted by murphy slaw at 11:23 AM on December 13, 2017 [21 favorites]

He was a rep for 24 years, House Minority Leader for eight. Let's not act like Nixon just found him in a McDonald's.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:26 AM on December 13, 2017 [67 favorites]

everyone always forgets gerald ford

Are we sure that Kislyak isn't Undead Ford?
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:28 AM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

the optics of this after refusing to do bump up the corporate rate by a couple of tenths of a percent to expand the child tax credit (per Rubio etc.) are … astounding

Not to mention CHIP, which Republicans claim they can't fund because we don't have the money.
posted by Gelatin at 11:29 AM on December 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

The problem with gerrymandering is that it works great until it doesn't, and then it really screws you.

For example, a deeply blue-gerrymandered district (by packing or cracking) that rapidly undergoes gentrification, suddenly (as in, within a single cycle) pulls in a whole lot of votes from surrounding districts that were (carefully, carefully) packed and/or cracked to achieve the gerrymander, essentially both packing and/or cracking all your hard work away in the blink of an eye in multiple districts at once. Suddenly, the districts are composed of competing constituencies and therefore, are themselves competitive again. This is just one way in which gerrymanders are brittle. They have many weaknesses.
posted by eclectist at 11:30 AM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

Nixon, walking through McDonald's, bumps into Gerald Ford.
Nixon: Pardon me.
Ford: Sure! Anytime, anyplace! All I want is the chance.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:30 AM on December 13, 2017 [147 favorites]

VA HOD update - recount for HD-40 is currently underway. This is the one where the Dem is 106 votes shy, so overcoming that is unlikely. Recount proper hoping to get done today or tomorrow, then judges rule on any disputed ballots.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:35 AM on December 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

You guys. I am so goddamn excited about Postcards to Voters. I didn't participate this time around, and I hadn't really considered doing so, but I'm definitely going to host some postcard parties in 2018.

I live in NYC, and although I have been slowly getting more engaged in local politics recently because of the election stuff, it has been very frustrating as a native North Carolinian to see North Carolina turn into what it's turned into over the last eight years and sit up here and feel helpless.

And I also make postcard art.

I rarely get around to actually sending these postcards to my friends, so I've fallen off of making these in the past couple years, but this is making me want to run right home and make some more. I LOVE this idea.

A pro tip for people interested in doing Postcards to Voters next year: I scored a box of over 500 vintage postcards on ebay for absolute chump change, like under $20, and most of them were blank. (It appeared to be the postcard collection of someone who was downsizing their possessions or had died - you could tell what trips they had been on and when.) I haven't checked recently, but at the time there were a ton of similar listings.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:38 AM on December 13, 2017 [49 favorites]

Reports on Twitter are that the final version of the tax bill doesn't include the tax on tuition waivers. It's a terrible bill, and this is small consolation, but I know some people here were worried about that.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:38 AM on December 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

Gabriel Sherman, Vanity Fair: Roger Stone is already writing the story of Trump's Downfall

One Trump ally is making plans to commercialize Trump’s downfall. Longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone told me he is working on a book titled The Fall of Trump as part of a multi-book deal with Skyhorse Publishing. (Last fall, Skyhorse published Stone’s campaign account, The Making of the President 2016.) “I’ve been writing it as we go along,” he told me.

Ally indeed. Scorpion and frog, snake poem, leopard, etc.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:38 AM on December 13, 2017 [48 favorites]

Like Weinstein, Trump must have dozens of additional female victims. Is there somebody out there who is working to bring them all out?
And at one point, with enough support, one of them will surely break her forced, signed NDA, so we will all be able to understand how tight these agreements are, no?
posted by growabrain at 11:40 AM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

Judge throws out felony charges against protesters at the Inauguration, considering whether to throw out misdemeanor charges as well.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:40 AM on December 13, 2017 [143 favorites]

Is there a good list of the new national-scale grassroots orgs that sorta used this election as a testing ground - like Flippable, Postcards to Voters, etc?
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:41 AM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

Nixon, walking through McDonald's, bumps into Gerald Ford.
Nixon: Pardon me.
Ford: Sure! Anytime, anyplace! All I want is the chance.

Other than having it take place at McDonald's, that was from a scene of a comedy I wrote about Watergate back in the eighties.

Dr. Strangekisser: Would you like a drink?
Ford: No, thanks, I'm driving home.
Dr. Strangekisser: A piece of gum?
Ford: No, thanks, I'm walking to my car.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:47 AM on December 13, 2017 [48 favorites]

murphy slaw gerald ford was an affable fence post

Disagree.

Like a lot of Republicans, Gerald Ford was able to project an aura of affability while, in fact, being a really vile person.

Remember, when he was in the House he spent a great deal of time and effort trying to impeach Justice William O. Douglas basically on the grounds that he didn't like him and wanted to pack the courts with more Republicans. When asked what, if anything, Justice Douglas had done to deserve being impeached, Ford replied:

An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office.

posted by sotonohito at 11:48 AM on December 13, 2017 [33 favorites]

Possibly grounds for an FPP, but interesting and relevant here, conceding the demographics of the Alabama election. The Black Belt: Current elections are impacted by a 100 million year old coastline
posted by happyroach at 11:53 AM on December 13, 2017 [21 favorites]

"I guess we get to see how medicated and slurry he is after the Moore loss."

I'm sure they've bought a new tube of Fixodent by now.
posted by komara at 11:56 AM on December 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

He was prevented from being his authentic self on Twitter after Moore lost, so my expectations for this speech are [horrified emoji].
posted by prefpara at 12:01 PM on December 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

I am about to send this fax via ResistBot to my Republican senator, Todd Young, with whom I usually don't bother:

Republicans thought the Senate seat in Alabama was safe, too. Think carefully about how you vote.

ResistBot on mobile tells me it's really busy today, but it turns out there's a version for Facebook Messenger too.
posted by Gelatin at 12:07 PM on December 13, 2017 [19 favorites]

Democratic-Farmer-Labor reflects a significant and not always pleasant history spanning the mid-20th century. The party was created by a merger of the Democratic Party and the progressive Farmer-Labor Party in 1944, followed by an ugly factional fight in 1948. In the late 60's I knew left wing Minnesotans who were still very bitter about their treatment in 1948.
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 12:09 PM on December 13, 2017 [17 favorites]

With the tax bill taxing graduate student tuition, maybe some of them can come to Puerto Rico. I realize most are not saying, MIT or University of Puerto Rico, but for a few subjects and particular students this might make sense.

(Puerto Rico is not subject to U.S. income tax and the students are eligible for U.S. loans.)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:09 PM on December 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

I've lived in MN for years and have never even heard of Paynesville.
It is two towns away from Cold Spring, if that helps. It is a very Catholic area.
posted by soelo at 12:12 PM on December 13, 2017

jason_steakums: Just as an aside, I love the name of the MN Democratic party, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

Ohhh, they seem all cuddly, but back in the day one of my forebears was a hard-core Communist in Minnesota farm country.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:13 PM on December 13, 2017 [8 favorites]

Disinformation Watch—Newsweek has a sensational, sensationalistic story out : Putin Ordered Theft of Clinton's Emails From DNC, Russian Hacker Confesses

According to Russian news site The Bell, Konstantin Kozlovsky, a Russian citizen working for a hacker group called Lurk, confessed to hacking Clinton’s emails during a hearing about his arrest in August. An audio recording and minutes from the hearing were posted on Kozlovsky’s Facebook page, and their authenticity was reportedly confirmed by The Bell.[...]

[I]t is tempting to view Kozlovsky's confession as the smoking gun needed to link the Kremlin to the hacks. Nevertheless, experts say there are reasons to be skeptical of the confession.

Many of the individuals implicated in Kozlovsky's letter are currently on the bad side of the Russian government. For example, Kozlovsky identified his FSB handler as Dmitry Dokuchaev, a cybersecurity expert who worked as a hacker before joining the FSB. [...] The Kremlin has accused him of being a double agent working with U.S. intelligence services. [...]

To some, it appears that Kozlovsky’s confession conveniently targets enemies of the Kremlin and provides Putin with an opportunity to claim that the hack was ordered by rogue elements.

“[The confession] puts the blame on a narrow group of people who are already in prison, and it moves the blame to an outsourced hack. This would allow Putin to pretend to be shocked that there are hackers in Russia doing this,” Mark Galeotti, a researcher on Russian crime at the Institute of International Relations in Prague, told Newsweek.

Expect more of this kind of likely dezinformatsiya to come out from the Kremlin as Mueller's investigation proceeds.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:14 PM on December 13, 2017 [14 favorites]

THE RNC WENT ALL IN ON DONALD TRUMP AND ROY MOORE. This should be a millstone hung around their necks for generations.

I can see the TV spots already. Randy Rainbow, you're up:

(Show picture of whoever)

She was sixteen, going on seventeen,
Roy Moore was thirty two..

This didn't seem to bother the Donald.
Nor did it bother you...
posted by ocschwar at 12:17 PM on December 13, 2017 [28 favorites]

I haven't been paying enough attention lately--when did Newsweek suddenly become sensationalist crap? I mean, they've obviously been trying to find an identity for years, but I thought they were just benign press release repeaters, not tabloid assholes. Their email headline said "Can Roy Moore still win with the recount?" which I deleted without reading. Did I miss something?
posted by Melismata at 12:19 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Trump just claimed that the IRS has confirmed that if Congress sends him a tax bill before Christmas, people will see bigger paychecks and lower taxes by February. What is the German portmanteau for the feeling that everyone in the world is experiencing the same skepticism as you?
posted by prefpara at 12:20 PM on December 13, 2017 [13 favorites]

Trump just claimed that the IRS has confirmed that if Congress sends him a tax bill before Christmas, people will see higher wages and other benefits by February.

That'll be a great promise to hold him to regardless.

"Donald Trump promised you higher wages by February. Are you better off than you were four years months ago? Vote Democrat this November."
posted by Gelatin at 12:23 PM on December 13, 2017 [37 favorites]

I would dearly love it if Schumer delivering the "very sophisticated" forged complaint against him to the Capitol Police could bring down Cernovich and Johnson. It was so sophisticated a forgery that it plagiarized from the Conyers' complaint, forgetting that Schumer and Conyers are from different parts of the Congress.
posted by gladly at 12:23 PM on December 13, 2017 [15 favorites]

when did Newsweek suddenly become sensationalist crap?

From Wikipedia on Newsweek: On August 3, 2013, IBT Media announced it had acquired Newsweek from IAC on terms that were not disclosed; the acquisition included the Newsweek brand and its online publication

IBT Media is International Business Times' parent company.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 12:24 PM on December 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

Warren: Doug Jones should be seated without delay

At a minimum, Strange should refrain from all further votes, right? I mean, we can’t have elected officials impinging on the will of the electorate, through the execution of their office. We need to wait and see what Doug Jones would do. Surely Mitch McConnell wouldn’t disagree.
posted by Brak at 12:24 PM on December 13, 2017 [46 favorites]

Warren: Doug Jones should be seated without delay

On the one hand, yes. On the other, the provisional ballots need to be verified, and there are other bits of process involved, which we wouldn't be rushing to set aside if Moore had won. So I'm not seeing a delay of a couple of weeks as unreasonable.

(Also, geeze. The guy had his 25th anniversary yesterday AND won a contest that almost nobody believed was possible. Give him a few days to figure out the best way to leap into the corruption maelstrom.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:41 PM on December 13, 2017 [11 favorites]

Cernovich claims he is trying to find the hoaxer.

“This is the journalist process CNN doesn’t go through,” Cernovich said on Periscope on Tuesday. “CNN, they go ‘oh shit, Don Jr. got an email about Wikileaks before anybody else? Boom boom boom front page news.’ But me, I go oh, wait, hold on a minute, let’s chill.”

No, no you didn't. You ran with it right away. Now that you're facing potential criminal charges, you're chilling.

What an asshole Cernovich is. On the Media did an interview with him that he hung up on because the interviewer confronted him about his past statements about date rape and recommendations for avoiding charges after date raping. It was amazing how unhinged he became.
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:48 PM on December 13, 2017 [37 favorites]

It was amazing how unhinged he became.

dude was never hinged. cruelly thrust into this world without a hinge to his name
posted by murphy slaw at 12:51 PM on December 13, 2017 [80 favorites]

I would dearly love it if Schumer delivering the "very sophisticated" forged complaint against him to the Capitol Police could bring down Cernovich and Johnson. It was so sophisticated a forgery that it plagiarized from the Conyers' complaint, forgetting that Schumer and Conyers are from different parts of the Congress.

I would also love to see that. And I remember, in the wake of the Al Franken harassment revelations, all the braying about "This is a ratfuck!" and how the right wing was going to weaponize harassment accusations against Democrats etc. etc. etc. ad nauseam. Those who said that the Republicans were going to try to weaponize accusations were not wrong, but...if this is the best and most "sophisticated" they can do...I mean, it was so easy to prove that the accusation was forged - all the Daily Beast had to do was talk to Schumer's former staffer, who said it was all a lie. Cernovich managed, at the most, a mousefuck. Niiiiiice try.

I do hope he faces consequences, though, because forgery is a crime, and false accusations (and it was a man who made them, might I add) are a bad thing. And Cernovich is a crook and an asshat anyway.

Yes, we do have to watch for all kinds of dirty tricks from the RWNJ's but these are not bright guys who are formidable opponents.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:08 PM on December 13, 2017 [11 favorites]

That's fantastic news!
posted by Chrysostom at 1:29 PM on December 13, 2017 [8 favorites]

April Ryan's full report, Omarosa Out of the White House [audio, 2 minutes]. She reports that Kelly told Manigault, and her assistant, they were out last night. Manigault became upset and wanted to speak to the President. When Manigault walked to the Residence and tried to get in, she was stopped by the Secret Service and escorted out. As she was being fired, Manigault claimed she brought Trump the black vote.

With no disrespect to Ryan, I don't particularly believe all of that, but it is clear that Omarosa's former colleagues are salting the earth she walked on.

@jimsciutto:

In an on-the-record interview, outgoing NCTC [National Counterterrorism Center] Director Nick Rasmussen told reporters recent anti-Muslim rhetoric is making counter-terrorism “more difficult”. “I don’t think it’s arguable it’s more difficult when the environment is contaminated by mutual suspicion,” he said. “If you’re increasing the amount of suspicion and distress on these communities, it places more challenges in our way,” Rasmussen added. Rasmussen made clear he was not referring to any single tweet or statement by any single person. However, noting comments by the president and administration policies such as the travel ban, I asked: “Does the environment today make your job more difficult?” He said “Yes”.

If you're wondering why Anderson Cooper's Twitter account called the President a "tool" this morning, the story they're going with is that his assistant left his phone unlocked and unattended at the gym, and somebody grabbed it and tweeted from Cooper's account.

And Dahlia Lithwick on Judge Kozinski is really, really, really good: He Made Us All Victims and Accomplices:

For years, I excused myself because I believed that the casual degradation of women that emanated from Judge Kozinski’s orbit was the death rattle of an old America: a symbol of the sad, broken longing for the world of Mad Men, a world that ended as soon as women reached parity with men in law school. Donald Trump and his foot soldiers are proof that this old America is very much alive, and that it’s in fact a full-scale project to treat women as trivial and ornamental and to hold them back. It keeps brilliant women from accessing power and dismisses other brilliant women as hysterics—the “nutty and slutty” character assassination used to trash Anita Hill. It’s disturbing to realize that, even today, the main markers I relied on to confirm Kozinski’s bad behavior were the shocked reactions of normal, good men: my husband, my friend, my co-clerk. Sure, I felt dirty after each interaction, but my feelings didn’t feel like enough.

I always figured I would feel better when Judge Kozinski’s #MeToo came home to roost. I don’t. His reactions to the accusers—belittling their allegations, shaming Bond for writing sex scenes in romance novels—were the reactions I was trying to avoid bringing down on myself when I failed to insist that Article III judges not talk to and about women this way, not at work, and not as we struggled to find purchase in the profession of our choosing. Somewhere along the way I managed to create a career for myself. In part, I did it by keeping secrets. I’d like to be done with that now.

posted by zachlipton at 1:29 PM on December 13, 2017 [52 favorites]

With no disrespect to Ryan, I don't particularly believe all of that

I do. Easily.
posted by orange ball at 1:37 PM on December 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

It's not the best they can do. Technology is progressing at breakneck speed, and while this is a tangent, there are now reports of AI-assisted video editors that can paste faces into video and synthesize entire conversations. Affordable Photoshop for video and audio is going to be a reality.

It's like the iterative progression described by Reese in The Terminator: "The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy, but these are new. They look human - sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot."
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:38 PM on December 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

the story they're going with is that his assistant left his phone unlocked and unattended at the gym, and somebody grabbed it and tweeted from Cooper's account.

Which is a lame cover story. Almost certainly the assistant meant to tweet from his personal account and posted to Cooper's by mistake. Like the Twitter reactions I'm seeing where people are noting that they've never seen someone leave an unlocked phone unattended at that gym.
posted by dnash at 1:43 PM on December 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

Is there any precedent for Republicans openly blocking Trump appointments like this? I don't recall any before now but there have been so much insanity this year I can hardly keep them all straight.
posted by Tevin at 1:48 PM on December 13, 2017

Ashley Feinberg, who is extremely brave, This Is The Daily Stormer’s Playbook [cw: racial slurs, guide to creating hate speech], in which she obtains their style guide. It's a carefully calibrated mix of irony and hate, using "curiosity or the naughty humor" to draw people in and build new recruits, always following the "prime directive": "Always Blame the Jews for Everything." Be sure to read on to the section marked "lulz," which I'm not quoting in this thread, but suffice it to say that they know exactly what they're doing and have weaponized irony to get their views into popular media.

Which is a lame cover story. Almost certainly the assistant meant to tweet from his personal account and posted to Cooper's by mistake. Like the Twitter reactions I'm seeing where people are noting that they've never seen someone leave an unlocked phone unattended at that gym.

Almost certainly, but I'm personally ok with pretending so Cooper's longtime assistant doesn't have to be fired for pressing the wrong button and having the same opinion as the vast majority of New Yorkers.
posted by zachlipton at 1:58 PM on December 13, 2017 [47 favorites]

Chrysostom: "VA HOD update - recount for HD-40 is currently underway. This is the one where the Dem is 106 votes shy, so overcoming that is unlikely. Recount proper hoping to get done today or tomorrow, then judges rule on any disputed ballots."

Day 1 is wrapping up, they're going to go into tomorrow. Day 1 net is +5 for Dem Tanner.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:00 PM on December 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

Report: Democratic lawmaker suggested women are inviting harassment with “revealing” clothing

NOT HELPING, MARCY.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:00 PM on December 13, 2017 [24 favorites]

I think it was during a prolonged hospital stay that I consumed the one season of The Apprentice that I saw in which Omarosa was on, and thinking back on it, she has the very Trumpian quality of making whatever choice creates the most drama. I mean, I hadn't thought of her since until she turned up with the Trump campaign, and when she did it was like sheeeeit well of course that whirlwind of a person is there. His affection for her makes a certain psychological sense.
posted by angrycat at 2:01 PM on December 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Um. Here's a story about CAPS-LOCK-MAN Pastor Mark Burns hitting the President: Here’s a weird story about Trump, a pastor and a spider

In Burns’s account, he was standing behind Trump, who was seated at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, when he noticed a white spider the size of a half-dollar making its way up the president’s back.

“I just thought I was dreaming,” recounted Burns in a telephone interview. “Is that really a spider running up the back of the president of the United States?”

It was. Burns, for the record, hates spiders, but didn’t see any other choice but to step in. Before the spider got to the president’s neck, Burns whacked it — and Trump — with his bare hand.

“It made such a loud noise, and I think people were bewildered and were like, ‘What did you just do?’” said Burns, who then quickly tried to explain himself: “Security, please don’t shoot me! He had a spider on his back.”

At this rate, I give it a month or two before Trump picks up and is bitten by a snake from a path near a lake (which in his case, will surely be a water hazard).
posted by zachlipton at 2:07 PM on December 13, 2017 [19 favorites]

when did Newsweek suddenly become sensationalist crap?

From Wikipedia on Newsweek: On August 3, 2013, IBT Media announced it had acquired Newsweek from IAC on terms that were not disclosed; the acquisition included the Newsweek brand and its online publication


Also has anybody noticed that Newsweek completely owns the lead links in Google News lately?

I wish I could filter that crap out because it is both low quality and has irrelevant or only borderline relevant autoplaying video that is so unresponsive it is difficult to stop.
posted by srboisvert at 2:12 PM on December 13, 2017

a white spider the size of a half-dollar

Who are you trying to kid, pastor? We all know that was an escaped void crab.
posted by contraption at 2:21 PM on December 13, 2017 [24 favorites]

*furiously searching Revelation for anything relating to spiders and the antichrist*
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:32 PM on December 13, 2017 [15 favorites]

See also Alex Jones and flies on Obama and Hillary Clinton.
posted by contraption at 2:39 PM on December 13, 2017

Went in to call my senators, and have so far found that five out of six of John Cornyn's voicemail boxes are full up. I got a message in on the last one excoriating him for Net Neutrality but forgot (dammit!) to demand that Doug Jones' inauguration be processed in all reasonable speed, and that the mess of a tax bill shouldn't delay that. You scribble shit in the middle of a night and submit it before you've thought it out, you deal with that--not the people of Alabama. Republicans ought to be held accountable for their own choices, same as anyone else--after all, isn't that what every tough-on-crime Republican loves to yammer on about?

Time to call Mr. Cruz.

Today was a bit nippy, and consequently I broke out the hat I knit for angrycat last winter, the one I only managed to finish in the early hours of the March on Washington. It was odd, wearing it again--it just doesn't get cold enough here to wear it all that often--but it was a good feeling. I've been wrestling with the aftermath of that week for the last year, and I'm toying with the idea of writing up my impressions of the whole thing in detail for the anniversary. I took detailed notes at the time, but... well. Things were a bit too overwhelming for me to summarize them then. I wonder if I'll be able to do that now.
posted by sciatrix at 2:54 PM on December 13, 2017 [32 favorites]

'We Are in a Trump-Driven Worst-Case Situation Right Now' [says GOP strategist Mike Murphy]
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:07 PM on December 13, 2017 [21 favorites]

sciatrix! I think of you and our missed connection often. Rock on!
posted by angrycat at 3:12 PM on December 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

Donald Trump Jr has been giving testimony for 9 hours.
posted by PenDevil at 3:15 PM on December 13, 2017 [65 favorites]

@SecretService:

Reporting regarding Secret Service personnel physically removing Omarosa Manigault Newman from the @WhiteHouse complex is incorrect.
The Secret Service was not involved in the termination process of Ms Manigault Newman or the escort off of the complex. Our only involvement in this matter was to deactivate the individual's pass which grants access to the complex.

Somebody spread this story far and wide. That said, deactivating her pass last night is not particularly consistent with the White House's claim that she would stay on until January 20th. Somebody should probably check to make sure we stop paying her.
posted by zachlipton at 3:18 PM on December 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

> Donald Trump Jr has been giving testimony for 9 hours.

And here I thought this day couldn't get any better.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:19 PM on December 13, 2017 [27 favorites]

I was confused that Don Jr.'s interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee was still in progress while CNN had Sen. Warner on. It turns out he's been testifying to staffers for the past nine hours, not the members of the Committee themselves.

But Sen. Warner wants to have him back to testify to the members.
posted by scarylarry at 3:25 PM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

Also has anybody noticed that Newsweek completely owns the lead links in Google News lately?

I wish I could filter that crap out because it is both low quality and has irrelevant or only borderline relevant autoplaying video that is so unresponsive it is difficult to stop.

Easy peasy:

1. Go to news.google.com. You might be asked to sign in.
2. At the top right, click Settings (Gear icon) and then Sources.
3. Under "Blocked," list publications you don’t want to see any news from.
posted by zakur at 3:27 PM on December 13, 2017 [29 favorites]

Does the tax bill need only 51 votes in the Senate? Does the parliamentarian make another determination based on the conference bill? Is there a chance the conference committee fucked it up and accidentally made it filibuster-able?

Also, according to the NYT article, it looks like they've added back in up to $10k in state & local tax deductions. However, is that going to be enough for, say, rich CA or NY residents? Is there enough there to put pressure on Republican house members representing them?
posted by mhum at 3:33 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

srboisvert: "Also has anybody noticed that Newsweek completely owns the lead links in Google News lately? I wish I could filter that crap out ... "

May I introduce you to a Greasemonkey script called Google Hit Hider? It's really nifty for minimizing Google hits from whatever sites you choose.
posted by kristi at 3:39 PM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

> Is there anywhere I can place a bet that Gillibrand runs in 2020 and wins?

On that topic:

https://twitter.com/hailbotsghost/status/827162230974078979

Does she have a deadbeat older brother?
posted by bunbury at 3:44 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Joe in Australia's link has a pretty stunning number: a higher % of black voters in Alabama voted for Jones than voted for OBAMA in 2012.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:50 PM on December 13, 2017 [36 favorites]

Donald Trump Jr has been giving testimony for 9 hours.

That's 9 hours of material for Mueller to cross check for perjury charges. Uday better hope everything he's testifying to today is consistent with Flynn's account, and what are the chances of that?
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:54 PM on December 13, 2017 [11 favorites]

Easy peasy:

1. Go to news.google.com. You might be asked to sign in.
2. At the top right, click Settings (Gear icon) and then Sources.
3. Under "Blocked," list publications you don’t want to see any news from.

Note that your Google News blocklist doesn't do anything about the suggested news stories on the new tab page in Chrome for Android, though... that particular set of news articles seems to be completely out of the user's control and flooded with awful news and right wing propaganda.
posted by jason_steakums at 3:56 PM on December 13, 2017 [13 favorites]

German portmanteau- Weltemühdescheissverstehung.
posted by Oyéah at 4:02 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Reporting regarding Secret Service personnel physically removing Omarosa Manigault Newman from the @WhiteHouse complex is incorrect.
The Secret Service was not involved in the termination process of Ms Manigault Newman or the escort off of the complex.

Saying the secret service wasn't involved in "the escort off the complex" means that she was definitely escorted off the complex, it just wasn't by secret service.
posted by corb at 4:11 PM on December 13, 2017 [77 favorites]

Let's check in on Rep. Blake Farenthold, from CNN's Exclusive: Ex-Farenthold aide shares new details of vulgar and abusive behavior

One comment from the congressman was especially personal. Rekola was about to leave town to get married in July 2015, when, he said, Farenthold, standing within earshot of other staffers in his Capitol Hill office, said to the groom-to-be: "Better have your fiancée blow you before she walks down the aisle -- it will be the last time." He then proceeded to joke about whether Rekola's now-wife could wear white on her wedding day -- a clear reference, Rekola said, to whether she had had premarital sex.
...
In a response to questions from CNN, Farenthold denied in a statement ever making comments to Rekola about receiving oral sex from his then-fiancée or whether she could wear a white dress. He acknowledged that he regularly referred to aides as "f**ktards," but that it was "in jest, not in anger."

"In hindsight, I admit it wasn't appropriate," Farenthold said. He also denied that he engaged in regular verbal abuse of his staff.

To recap the day, if you're clinging to "someone other than the Secret Service walked me off the premises" and "I wasn't mad when I called my staff fucktards," you're losing.
posted by zachlipton at 4:14 PM on December 13, 2017 [50 favorites]

The Best People Watch—Democrats Accuse This Trump Nominee of Plagiarizing Her Answers to Congress About Climate Change, Environmental Justice, And More (Buzzfeed)

Kathleen Hartnett White, Trump's nominee to head the Council for Environmental Quality, has been caught copy-pasting the written answers of other nominees in at least 18 responses to questions from the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

“It was bad enough that this nominee parroted fossil fuel industry talking points and flubbed answers to questions about basic science during her confirmation hearing,” Whitehouse said in a statement emailed to BuzzFeed News. “She had a chance to rehabilitate her testimony with careful and deliberative answers to our written questions. Instead, she plagiarized the answers of previous nominees."

Her nomination was voted out of the committee on party lines at the end of last month, but the full Senate vote on it hasn't been scheduled yet.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:22 PM on December 13, 2017 [45 favorites]

More from The Best People Watch: Federal Judicial Nominee Flunks 'Motion in Limine' Definition at Senate Hearing:

A nominee for a District of Columbia judgeship took a beating at his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday when he could not define motion in limine.

U.S. district court nominee Matthew Petersen, a member of the Federal Election Commission, has never tried a case, has taken fewer than 10 depositions, and demurred when asked—twice—if he knew what a motion in limine is.

The question that stumped Petersen came from Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana.

You can watch the video at 1:54:00. Even Republicans are starting to balk at some of these nominations.

Kennedy went on to ask the panel of nominees if anyone has ever blogged in support of the KKK.
posted by zachlipton at 4:30 PM on December 13, 2017 [57 favorites]

Kathleen Hartnett White, Trump's nominee to head the Council for Environmental Quality, has been caught copy-pasting the written answers of other nominees in at least 18 responses to questions from the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Where do they find this endless supply of nincompoops and incompetents?
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:31 PM on December 13, 2017 [13 favorites]

Trump’s got a Binder Full of Nincompoops.
posted by notyou at 4:35 PM on December 13, 2017 [64 favorites]

Where do they find this endless supply of nincompoops and incompetents?
Insert Peter Principle reference here.

But the only competent lawyers Trump knows have been working personally for him, keeping him out of jail for 40 years, and he certainly doesn't want to lose access to them now.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:37 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I really like the title of this FPP. There’s nothing even remotely funny or cute about this shit.
posted by _Mona_ at 4:39 PM on December 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

Senator McCain admitted to Walter Reed

Apparently he's missed three days of votes. I hope he recovers, retires, and is replaced by someone better.
posted by orange ball at 4:46 PM on December 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

I hope he recovers, retires, and is replaced by someone better.

Blue wave, y'all. Blue wave.
posted by CommonSense at 4:48 PM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

He won't retire. A sensible man would have retired the day he got a diagnosis of glioblastoma. He'll stay in his seat until he's dead.
posted by elsietheeel at 4:49 PM on December 13, 2017 [14 favorites]

In the late 60's I knew left wing Minnesotans who were still very bitter about their treatment in 1948.

Oh jeez, let me tell you about some of my family reunions in the 80s, for pete's sake, they way they'd go on, you'd think it happened just the other day or something.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 5:07 PM on December 13, 2017 [11 favorites]

It certainly complicates things a hell of a lot for McConnell. He can't lose a single R vote the second Jones is seated.
posted by Talez at 5:09 PM on December 13, 2017 [12 favorites]

Not sure where to put this.. It's not Trump. It's not Moore. It's not Franken. But it's more of that common thread.

Kentucky State Rep. Dan Johnson commits suicide on bridge in Mt. Washington

Kentucky State Rep. Dan Johnson, who was under investigation for alleged sexual molestation, has committed suicide.

Bullitt County Sheriff Donnie Tinnell said Johnson killed himself on a bridge on Greenwell Ford Road in Mt. Washington, and the gun was recovered.

According to court documents obtained by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, the alleged molestation took place on New Year's Eve in 2012. The alleged victim, who was 17 at the time, told authorities that she was staying in a living area of the Heart of Fire City Church where Johnson was pastor, when Johnson, who had been drinking a lot, approached her, kissed her and fondled her under her clothes.

Johnson was never criminally charged. He vehemently denied the allegations at a press conference Tuesday.

posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 5:29 PM on December 13, 2017 [21 favorites]

It certainly complicates things a hell of a lot for McConnell. He can't lose a single R vote the second Jones is seated.

Murkowski and Collins have to be thinking, "what can I get out of this?"
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:32 PM on December 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

The late Rep. Johnson sounds like a thoroughly terrible human being. In addition to sexually assaulting a 17-year-old, who was friends with his daughter, he seems to have been a serial arsonist, and also a racist scumbag.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:35 PM on December 13, 2017 [25 favorites]

Dan Johnson was particularly...unhinged. The Pope's Long Con: A Kentucky preacher-turned-politician's web of lies.

(The "Pope" being what the late Mr. Johnson called himself.)
posted by elsietheeel at 5:37 PM on December 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

His poor daughter, and family. And all of the other young people who grew up learning that Christianity means "regular weekend church parties. KyCIR described them as “Bikers, booze and, occasionally, bare breasts ... a costume party featuring zombie nuns in short skirts".

Ugh.
posted by Dashy at 5:42 PM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

(and of course, sadness about the victim)
posted by Dashy at 5:44 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

The KyCIR podcast/article is fascinating though. Give it a read if you haven't.

Also...

The only person standing between Johnson and public office was 69-year-old Linda Belcher, a retired schoolteacher, principal and lifelong county resident.

Seriously though, writers.

ALL RIIIIGHT!! *jazz hands*
posted by elsietheeel at 5:45 PM on December 13, 2017 [33 favorites]

I remain incredibly angry with McCain in part because one of the last things my grandfather ever told me before he and my grandmother drove away was boasting about having been at school with McCain. In fact, McCain is the central politician my Pentagon-administrating grandmother and retired colonel grandfather viewed as the paragon of the Republican party. The first political activity I ever participated in was marching with my grandparents in the 2000 McCain primary. As of 2011, my grandparents had a weird little shrine to him with themed nutcrackers and masks in their basement. I have associations, and they might not directly derive from McCain himself but his actions have about killed any faith I might have in honorable Republicans.

So, personally, I don't hope he recovers. I hope he receives the best medical care available, the kind that prioritizes life above quality. I hope his cancer eats at him as badly as the rot in his soul, ravaging body and mind, and I hope it weighs on him. I wish him either unable to harm me or in ill health or both, and I cannot muster the shame I think I should intellectually feel about that.
posted by sciatrix at 5:46 PM on December 13, 2017 [37 favorites]

Hoping he recovers is the polite sentiment, but in all likelihood both Minnesota and Arizona will have two open seats in 2018. And that means the Democrats have an even better shot at retaking the Senate.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:51 PM on December 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

Dan Johnson was from Kentucky's 49th district, and won in 2016 with 50.42% to the incumbent Linda Belcher's 49.58%. Each got a bit less than 9500 votes; he won by 156 votes. This is a very flippable seat.

The 49th is part of Bullitt county - south of Louisville, which is in a different district. Largest city is Shepherdsville. Major business in Bullitt include a Zappos outlet and fulfillment center, which employs thousands, and connections to the Louisville airport.

Kentucky districts have just over 40k residents (Bullitt has 60k residents, so it gets split). It went 75+% to Trump, although what I can turn up of statistics says it's almost 50/50 split in registration.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 6:00 PM on December 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

the incumbent Linda Belcher

"Oh Bob the people need to hear my elect Linda Belcher song!"
posted by Talez at 6:03 PM on December 13, 2017 [34 favorites]

More from The Best People Watch: Federal Judicial Nominee Flunks 'Motion in Limine' Definition at Senate Hearing:

This is shit is infuriating on so many levels, the disrespect for the bench is just unimaginable. EVEN REPUBLICANS should want judicial nominees who are actually qualified and like, know what laws are? otherwise how do they expect someone who can't manage basic concepts of evidence to influence doctrine?

And on a personal level, it's staggering that I'm literally more qualified these people Republicans are nominating for Article III lifetime appointments. I can't get even a call back interview from the NLRB and have a folder full of rejected cover letters an inch thick. Not that I should be nominated either, far from it, but that's how bad these nominees are. They shouldn't be getting an interview with [insert agency] either. It breaks my brain to think of Obama nominating me, or people I was hired with, or people I went to school with even though some of them are legitimately incredible, for a lifetime appointment just because of a left wing blog post we wrote or who our rich dad gave to.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:08 PM on December 13, 2017 [65 favorites]

@CandaceSmith_: There will be ☕️☕️☕️ on @GMA and @Nightline tomorrow— @OMAROSA is appearing exclusively on ABC, her 1st intv post-WH departure.

@swin24: Ummm... it will be amazing if she says publicly what her allies today have been spinning anonymously, like about how allegedly mad she’s been about Trump and race issues
posted by zachlipton at 6:19 PM on December 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

This is shit is infuriating on so many levels, the disrespect for the bench is just unimaginable. EVEN REPUBLICANS should want judicial nominees who are actually qualified and like, know what laws are?

Absolutely infuriating, as are so many aspects of the Trump administration. On the other hand I think many conservatives are disgusted, too. I can't imagine that judicial nominees are typically asked if they know what a motion in limine is. Senator Kennedy, a Republican, was essentially trolling Petersen. (Before the part about federal civil procedure he asks if Petersen has ever appeared in any court, ever. "State? District? Bench trial?... " "No ... no ... no ...") Petersen isn't even the nuttiest of dingbat nominees, but he's unqualified and at least some Republicans are annoyed.
posted by stowaway at 6:37 PM on December 13, 2017 [11 favorites]

As of 2011, my grandparents had a weird little shrine to him with themed nutcrackers and masks in their basement.

I want to stress first and foremost in the “X delenda est” format that I think your grandparents have no family loyalty, which is the most damning thing I can say at a distance, but also sweet Jesus do I want to know more about this detail. Are the nutcrackers McCain? Is this a normal thing that happens?
posted by corb at 6:39 PM on December 13, 2017 [12 favorites]

Dunno if this was posted in an earlier thread, and I almost posted it in the Alabama special election thread, but it looks like the Republican gov. of my own home state of Michigan is going to functionally disenfranchise the (heavily black and heavily Democratic) district which Conyers represented for almost a year:

Michigan’s Republican governor announced Friday that Democrat John Conyers’ congressional seat will not be filled until the regularly scheduled November election, leaving it vacant for nearly a year.

Gov. Rick Snyder decided the post will be listed twice on the August primary and November general election ballots. While unlikely, it is possible voters could choose one candidate to fill the vacancy until January 2019 and elect another to a full two-year term after that.
posted by dhens at 6:39 PM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

I think the only governor I hate as much as I hate Bad Scott Walker is Rick Snyder. What an absolute piece of dogshit.
posted by elsietheeel at 6:41 PM on December 13, 2017 [16 favorites]

Republicans Rejoice in Breitbart Chief’s Alabama Humiliation

Particularly obnoxious detail:

One senior Trump aide stressed early Tuesday that Trump would take a Jones upset “very, very” hard—not least, the aide said, because it would rob the president of the ability to goad his predecessor, Barack Obama, over getting involved on Jones’ behalf.

I may drown in the schadenfreude, but at least I'll die happy.
posted by GrammarMoses at 6:41 PM on December 13, 2017 [55 favorites]

I think the only governor I hate as much as I hate Bad Scott Walker is Rick Snyder. What an absolute piece of dogshit.

What about Rick Scott and literally bilking Medicare out of billions WHILE being a piece of shit? That's gotta be right up there.
posted by Talez at 6:43 PM on December 13, 2017 [13 favorites]

Well, I've never wanted to live in Florida, so that kinda lowers Rick Scott on my own personal scale.

But derail aside, when I briefly google gubernatorial disapproval ratings, I see that Rick Scott is slightly below Snyder/Walker and only just above my own beloved Governor, Jerry Brown.

(The worst governor in the nation? Chris Christie. Because who else could it be?)
posted by elsietheeel at 6:50 PM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

Trump truly was tweeting like an idiot. Republicans were also publicly insulting him as badly or worse.

@davidfrum
Actual tweet by Donald Trump on March 4, 2016, the day an FBI investigator called him an "idiot."

@realDonaldTrump: "@AngieSteinberg: GET THAT POS WSJ LIAR FANTASY PUNDIT @marykissel OFF THE AIR. Blah blah. A real dummy!

@davidfrum
On that same day, Meg Whitman - past GOP nominee for governor of California - called Trump a "dishonest demagogue" "incredibly dangerous" "repugnant." http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/04/investing/donald-trump-meg-whitman/index.html


@davidfrum
On that same day, GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio called Trump a "con man" and candidate Ted Cruz called Trump "part of the corruption in Washington you're angry about." https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/04/us/politics/republican-debate.html
posted by chris24 at 6:51 PM on December 13, 2017 [28 favorites]

Someone is clearly writing a tv show with our politics. I’m just adding my own fan fiction to the mix.

We just learned that the writers have added a Linda Belcher this season, so
posted by Barack Spinoza at 6:54 PM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

Then the AZ Gov can reappoint Flake to McCain’s seat, which if I’m not mistaken, would allow Flake to then ”reretire” until 2022 when McCain’s current term is up.

No, that appointment would only last until either the next scheduled general election or a special election depending on AZ law.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:06 PM on December 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm really surprised at the "motion in limine" issue. Not that they'd hammer someone for not being able to define it, but for the fact that it came up. (Article is paywalled. Argh.)

I admit, I had to Google for it. But I'm not a lawyer; I got a paralegal degree several years ago and haven't done any work in law firms; I work with documents, not legal cases. But I knew how central it was; I'd just forgotten the exact purpose.

Motion in limine is what's used to ask a judge to exclude evidence - "don't let in that person's testimony" or "block everything obtained in that search" or "don't allow any evidence related to prior convictions." It's beyond common. A lawyer who can't define "motion in limine" should be disbarred for rank incompetence; it's like a driver not being able to define "windshield wipers." Sure, you don't always need them, but being unable to say what they are shows that your basic skills are extremely lacking.

I'm curious about how it came up at all. This is not even "first year law student" material; it's "I'm interested in prelaw and I read a listicle about legal terms" material. How badly did he flub the scheduled questioning that they even thought to ask him to define it?
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:11 PM on December 13, 2017 [34 favorites]

Re Illinois holding a seat open for almost a year, is there no voter with standing that can challenge that? I mean, I'm sure all the legal minds in Chicago are already on this, and my only claim to legal knowledge is that I watched Paper Chase in the 70s, so I really don't know, but it sure seems like that should be illegal.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 7:11 PM on December 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

A little while ago I got home from supper with friends and checked Facebook. It seems my moribund Indivisible group (I live in Tennessee, a state which was not considered flippable until yesterday) has renamed and refocused itself Flip Tennessee, and people are HET UP (in the excited, not angry sense). Volunteers from other Indivisible groups and Postcards to Voters and other grassroots groups are already popping in saying, "We're ready when you are."

Our early declared candidate for the senate seat held by Bob Corker (TN, Weasel*), James Mackler, was a gem but had a lot of strikes against him. This afternoon he bowed out, clearing the field for Phil Bredesen. I sincerely hope Mr. Mackler runs for something else; he's the real deal and I will bust hump for him as *dogcatcher* (though I'd prefer he aimed higher!) But Phil Bredesen is not a laughable candidate - he was popular and successful as Governor.

I wish anybody but an Old White Guy were our candidate. But here in the South, if we can win with a right-thinking, good-hearted Old White Guy Democrat, I'll take that over Bob Fucking Corker and Lamar Fucking Alexander any day of the week, with cherries on top.

On this day, 13 December 2017, I am declaring Tennessee to be in play. I didn't think it would happen in my lifetime, but I can say that about a lot of things these days.

*This is unfair to weasels. They can't help it, they're weasels. Corker could help it and didn't.
posted by workerant at 7:17 PM on December 13, 2017 [82 favorites]

Is anyone hearing anything early about what's in the tax reform conference bill regarding community development tax credit programs?

I mean New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC), Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), Historic Tax Credit (HTC), and Private Activity Bonds (PABs)?

A lot of community facilities and affordable housing projects are built using these funding sources, which were eliminated in the original House bill and retained in the original Senate bill.

Does anyone know already whether these programs are retained in the conference bill?

Absent these programs, new community facilities in low-income neighborhoods will not get built and new affordable housing projects will not move forward. This is all a little invisible, but these under-threat programs make it all happen.

Any early word from anyone on their fate?
posted by mississippi at 7:18 PM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

I'm curious about how it came up at all.

Watch the video starting at 1:51:00, it's really incredible. Sen. Kennedy, a Republican, but who was editor of the UVA law review and a civil trial lawyer before his political career, is just crushing all of the 5 nominees in the hearing. He clearly knows Peterson is unqualified and he's making a point of trolling him with basic questions waiting for him to fuck one up, which takes about 1 minute before he does.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:21 PM on December 13, 2017 [48 favorites]

A lawyer who can't define "motion in limine"

That wasn't the only phrase he couldn't define. He failed to answer to a list of some other terms during the hearing, including the "Daubert standard"--these aren't super-arcane or obscure legal thesis topics; they're stuff covered in Evidence 101!
posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 7:22 PM on December 13, 2017 [16 favorites]

Re Illinois holding a seat open for almost a year, is there no voter with standing that can challenge that?

Michigan, not Illinois
posted by dhens at 7:26 PM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

I want to stress first and foremost in the “X delenda est” format that I think your grandparents have no family loyalty, which is the most damning thing I can say at a distance, but also sweet Jesus do I want to know more about this detail. Are the nutcrackers McCain? Is this a normal thing that happens?

Yes, the nutcrackers are little models of McCain. You know all that Presidential memorabilia that gets made in every election year of both the major candidates, the stuff like Halloween masks of their faces and bobble heads and shit?

Well, there's a little window nook in their basement, and they'd filled it with McCain memorabilia which was probably purchased in 2007 and 2008. There were two nutcrackers shaped like, yes, McCain himself, as I recall, and at least one of the Halloween masks. (One of the better ones, I think.) And there was some other tat there as well--some patriotic decorations and some other McCain themed plates and things. I have no idea what their actual relationship with the man is or was--my grandfather also served with him, I believe--but either way, it was seriously weird.

No, Jesus, this is not a normal thing that happens--at least, I never met anyone else with one--and it's one of those little side things I tend to pull out when I want to really stress some of the weirder levels of devotion to the man among my extended family. I think they gave my dad a framed photo of him shaking hands with the man at some point, as well, but my dad sensibly stashed it in a closet.

It's--like, my dad was basically groomed from early adolescence for a Congressional career, and I think only decided in the middle of his military service that fuck this, he wanted to do something else with his life. I grew up being heavily encouraged and tempted to go into either civil service or law or the military to the point that literally every interest I expressed in my future career from elementary school up through undergraduate around my grandmother was met with encouraging discussion about how I could use that to work in a federal position or apply for Department of Justice grants or parlay that into lobbying credentials. I'm not in civil service in part because I did not want to be in the family business.

I have to wonder if that wasn't the same decision my dad made. I know he hated the military, but I haven't talked to him in a while now. But it's absolutely a track that I would bet produces a lot of these younger Congressmen, and my youngest aunt did follow my grandmother to the Hill as a lobbyist, and she remains very close to my grandparents. (She has no children, which I imagine is part of why I was early on singled out as one of the favorite grandchildren--not all my cousins got this kind of attention growing up.) She's... well, my aunt's a piece of work. She never mentioned anything unusual about the little display, but then I wouldn't go to her as an example of a healthy and well-adjusted non-asshole staffer under normal circumstances. The only other person I know currently working on the Hill is a friend of mine from college, and while I can't see him pulling anything that daft he's also a Dem.

As I recall, my aunt's response to the inauguration was to crow over having tickets to the official inauguration concert, obtained I think on basis of her friendship with General Mattis. That was one of the first signs I caught that the Republican party was not, in fact, going to turn to decency or national integrity over party loyalty.
posted by sciatrix at 7:34 PM on December 13, 2017 [23 favorites]

Kennedy has been pretty much the only Republican taking any of these judicial confirmation hearings seriously since Gorsuch, and good for him.

In other nominee news, Michael Dourson, the nominee to head EPA's toxic chemicals office who had a history of recommending ludicrously high "safe doses" in risk assessments, has bowed out. Dourson was the first environmental nominee that Democrats went after with both barrels since Scott Pruitt, so this is a pretty good win.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:36 PM on December 13, 2017 [35 favorites]

Re the tax bill, the email I just got from Lloyd Doggett--my representative, and one of the Dems on the Ways and Means committee--suggests:

Today, the House and Senate Conference Committee met even though the Republicans have not provided the Democratic members of the committee with a final copy of the bill. We had not a single committee hearing on the bill and no Administration witness had the courage to come forward and answer our questions on the bill.

I said that among the many harmful provisions, the greatest wrong occurring — what we are seeing today with the majority’s authoritarian rule — is a steady erosion of democracy in the People’s House and in this Congress.

Our country deserves better.

He also included a video of his remarks, which pleases me: this is exactly the kind of tack I wish more Democrats would take.
posted by sciatrix at 7:37 PM on December 13, 2017 [36 favorites]

The Jones win is particularly important with the news that McCain is ailing acutely. Had Moore won the Republicans would likely get another pass at completely repealing Obamacare before the midterms. And McCain's replacement would mean they could pass it. Jones + Collins + Murkowski can prevent that from happening.

No comment on Collins and Murkowski being willing to gut the mandate but not repeal Obamacare over all. It's a nonsensical position.
posted by Justinian at 7:39 PM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

I just faxed LA Sen. Kennedy a short thank you for actually vetting nominees:

I am appalled that unqualified candidates are being nominated for lifetime judicial appointments, and I greatly appreciate your inquiries into their knowledge of the law. I am grateful to you for the integrity and care you are exhibiting in your work on the Judiciary Committee.

I hear positive reinforcement can be pretty effective, so I'm happy to send a thank you when someone's doing their job in a room full of people who aren't.
posted by kristi at 7:46 PM on December 13, 2017 [55 favorites]

So...I just got a note from my son's human geography teacher. It's an AP sociology type class with a broad survey of information. Today they were talking about Net Neutrality, and the Senators who took campaign donations from telcoms, and the differences between bribes and campaign contributions, and amongst the activities the kids could do was call their Senator.

Apparently, my son listens when I talk to Cruz's office, because, according to his teacher, he said basically "Hey Ted, nice human suit you've got there. Listen, I've seen what you're willing to do for 14k. I mean, shutting down the internet is a pretty big thing. So, I'm wondering, if I give you ten bucks, will you vote against the Tax bill? If $10 isn't enough, maybe we could do a car wash or something, exactly how much does a Republican Senator's vote cost these days?"

I laughed, and said that if she got any blowback, to direct it to me, I welcome the opportunity to enlighten people to my message that Ted Cruz is an amorphous blob wearing a badly fitting human suit who seeks to do harm to all and any.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 7:48 PM on December 13, 2017 [177 favorites]

I hear positive reinforcement can be pretty effective, so I'm happy to send a thank you when someone's doing their job in a room full of people who aren't.

Notably, Kennedy's vote against Trumpkin Judge Gregory G. Katsas was just canceled out by Fucking Joe Manchin voting to confirm him.

Absent Manchin's vote a circuit judge would've been defeated.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:53 PM on December 13, 2017 [25 favorites]

T.D. Strange, thank you for the video link! "My background is not in litigation... I haven't had to do a deep dive..."

aaaagh. Dude. Your background is not in law. Howdafuk did this guy get through law school?

"Have any of you blogged in support of the Ku Klux Klan?"
"No."
"Let the record show they answered no."

Oooh. That looks like a setup for a perjury charge, if he knows something they're not admitting.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 8:00 PM on December 13, 2017 [25 favorites]

All I know is that when filling an empty US Senate seat, the last thing a governor should do is engineer their way into filling that seat. It never seems to work out.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:03 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I mean New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC), Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), Historic Tax Credit (HTC), and Private Activity Bonds (PABs)?


I haven't heard anything yet about the HTCs from my usual preservation contacts. However, here in Michigan we got good news today - Michigan SB 469, which would reinstate our state historic tax credits, overwhelmingly passed in the Senate. It still needs to pass the State House, but we're all celebrating a minor victory here.
posted by Preserver at 8:04 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Michigan, not Illinois

D'oh. Yes. Michigan.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:06 PM on December 13, 2017

Absent Manchin's vote a circuit judge would've been defeated.

Oh, look at this horseshit:

Joe Manchin: I told Doug Jones to be an 'Alabama Democrat,' not a 'Washington Democrat'

Given the way elections are going it might be time to revisit the notion that Manchin can't be gotten rid of without a Republican replacement. I'm certain there've been a few votes where he isn't as bad as a real Republican but he's always going to be a problem.
posted by Artw at 8:07 PM on December 13, 2017 [17 favorites]

Tell me again how we should support every turncoat with a D after his name.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:10 PM on December 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

Tell me again how we should support every turncoat with a D after his name.

Because the Senate map is already against Democrats and if we want a hope in hell of holding the chamber come 2018 it's a hell of a lot easier with his seat being blue. You're not going to get a progressive Democrat in Manchin's steed if you did primary him. There's not even a guarantee you could primary him. People in West Virginia turn out to vote for Manchin not Democrats. You would need to close 27 points on a 2014 result. It's an absurd amount of risk putting basically the chamber on the line for the occasional asshattery.

Pissing away a Senate seat out of sheer spite over a judicial appointment is right up there with the whole cut your nose off to spite your face.
posted by Talez at 8:20 PM on December 13, 2017 [28 favorites]

Forget it Talez, it's Chinatown.

(ie the reasons are actually obvious to anyone who looks for them. Some people don't find those reasons persuasive. But they are obvious.)
posted by Justinian at 8:22 PM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm not a mod, but maybe as a favor we could not have this discussion for the 537th time?
posted by Chrysostom at 8:22 PM on December 13, 2017 [27 favorites]

*sniffs* You could do worse than modeling yourself after Terri Sewell, I do suppose. Or does Mr. Manchin think there's another Alabaman federally elected Democrat currently ranking?

(She welcomes you, Mr. Jones!)
posted by sciatrix at 8:22 PM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

If we ARE the actual party of working people, why can't someone with a D after their name, primary this guy...? It is West Virginia...
posted by Windopaene at 8:24 PM on December 13, 2017

It's not just one judicial appointment, now he's evangelizing others to vote against the party too.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:25 PM on December 13, 2017

SecretAgentSockpuppet: "Re Illinois holding a seat open for almost a year, is there no voter with standing that can challenge that?"

As mentioned, this is actually Michigan.

So, there are two things here. The first is that Gov. Snyder scheduled this date after getting it approved by local Democratic organizations, so that it would align with the normal primary/general election dates. Is this a terrible idea? Yes. If I were a Democrat in that district, I'd be making my displeasure very known. But Snyder at least has a fig leaf of bipartisanship here.

Is illegal? Don't think so. Michigan law seems to provide for the date being scheduled as the governor wishes, as late as the next general election.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:27 PM on December 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

I'm certain there've been a few votes where he isn't as bad as a real Republican but he's always going to be a problem.

He’s not gonna be a problem if the Dems get enough of a majority.
posted by chrchr at 8:32 PM on December 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

The first is that Gov. Snyder scheduled this date after getting it approved by local Democratic organizations, so that it would align with the normal primary/general election dates.

I'd hazard a guess that it's because if you have a special election you need to fight an election. It requires money that could be used better elsewhere to defend a seat that won't make a difference for the rest of the short term.
posted by Talez at 8:33 PM on December 13, 2017

There's good reason to flip a R seat in a special election though, incumbency is usually worth a few points in an election making it easier to defend a seat than attack one. When there's a special election there's no incumbency advantage.
posted by Talez at 8:36 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

(It probably says something that I thought "Hm, what Alabama Democrats seem most excellent?", went looking for candidates, noted that the currently serving Alabama Democrat is the first black woman ever elected to the House in her state, and delightedly went "aha..." Wasn't disappointed by her policies, either--note she's the Vice-Chair of the Voting Rights Caucus, for example. Is Manchin even on the Senatorial equivalent? Is there a Senatorial equivalent?

And we as a party have got to encourage more black women to run for local and state and national offices and support them when they do run. Black women are the most important single bloc in America, and we ought to reflect that gratitude for, for example, Jones' win in coin of support for them. Women of color generally, really.)
posted by sciatrix at 8:38 PM on December 13, 2017 [12 favorites]

> Given the way elections are going it might be time to revisit the notion that Manchin can't be gotten rid of without a Republican replacement. I'm certain there've been a few votes where he isn't as bad as a real Republican but he's always going to be a problem.

I mean, your own 538 link put a number on this "few number of votes": at that time it was 33% (Manchin had voted with Trump 67% of the time) but 538's updated Trump Tracker has him down to 53.7%, or voting better than a WV Republican almost half of the time. Considering what some of those vote are for or could be for, that's an immense difference.

Competing for the general in Alabama was a low-risk, high-reward play. Primarying Joe Manchin risks giving up the 41st vote to sustain a filibuster, or the 51st vote to control the Senate, or the 60th vote to override a GOP filibuster, along with those half of votes on which Manchin has been better than whatever Republican would replace him. It's common sense to compete everywhere in general elections, but when you start picking off your own side in primaries, you'd better understand the risks. I'll take Joe Manchin being an asshole if it means Democrats can take the Senate in 2018.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:38 PM on December 13, 2017 [16 favorites]

No doubt the GOP is very happy they picked off Dick Lugar - he sometimes voted with Democrats!
posted by Chrysostom at 8:41 PM on December 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

Note that the average democrat scores like 30%, tonycpsu, so that 53.7% does't mean that's 53% of votes where he votes in a way a typical Democrat wouldn't vote since the average democrat would vote with Trump almost 33% of the time. One assumes those votes are generally the least controversial.
posted by Justinian at 8:43 PM on December 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

From a week or so back: Manchin, Heitkamp won't rule out voting for GOP tax bill

Joe Lieberman types absolutely cannot be counted on as part of any assumed majority, we've learned that.
posted by Artw at 8:44 PM on December 13, 2017 [12 favorites]

NYT: Alabama Loss Exposes Republican Fissures Amid a Democratic Surge

This story has several interesting tidbits:

* Charlie Dent [PA-15], who was already going to retire, is hinting at resigning early. This district is very winnable (52-44 Trump, 51-48 Romney).

* FL gov Rick Scott having second thoughts about challenging Sen Bill Nelson. Scott would be by far the strongest challenger against Nelson, this would be a big win.

* GOP is worried that McCain resigns/dies, gov appoints Martha McSally to the seat, leaving only raving nutbag Kelli Ward to run for the Flake seat.

* GOP also worried that Chris McDaniel could pick off Roger Wicker in the MS primary, resulting in an Alabama-style "massively racist GOP candidate energizes black vote, Dem wins shocker" scenario.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:46 PM on December 13, 2017 [34 favorites]

From a week or so back: Manchin, Heitkamp won't rule out voting for GOP tax bill
They're playing PR here, they're both up for election next year. "We are open to working with the President, he just wouldn't put together a good deal for the people of [WV/SD]."

They pulled the same thing early in Obamacare repeal. I will bake and eat a cake if either of them votes for the tax bill in a form at all like what it is now.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:47 PM on December 13, 2017 [17 favorites]

At this point, Chrysostom could form a cult and I'd be one of the first to sign up.
posted by perhapses at 8:50 PM on December 13, 2017 [18 favorites]

I would like to stress I am Just Some Guy With Opinions On The Internet, not a professional.

Well, I'm also Borough Tax Collector. But mostly Just Some Guy.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:51 PM on December 13, 2017 [80 favorites]

> Note that the average democrat scores like 30%, tonycpsu, so that 53.7% does't mean that's 53% of votes where he votes in a way a typical Democrat wouldn't vote

Is that what I said? I was comparing him to a GOP substitute, who would vote with Trump almost all the time (Moore-Caputo's "down" to 94%.) I'm not concerned with how much worse he is than a Democrat, but how much better he is than who he'd be replaced with.

> Joe Lieberman types absolutely cannot be counted on as part of any assumed majority, we've learned that.

I don't have to count on him -- I just have to know that the bear he's outrunning is a Republican who will vote with Democrats around 0% of the time. Lieberman was an asshole, but in the end he was the 60th vote for the ACA. No West Virginia Republican would be the 60th vote for anything good.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:54 PM on December 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

Lieberman also personally killed the public option, so. Accepting turncoats in the party also means giving them the power to sabotage policy, which they will do every single time. Is it worth it? Opinions differ.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:56 PM on December 13, 2017 [16 favorites]

Kevin Collier, BuzzFeed, Only Half The States Targeted By Russian Hackers In 2016 Have Asked For Follow-Up Briefings. 21 states were notified in September that they were the target of Russian probing during the 2016 election (testing for SQL injection vulnerabilities). Only half have bothered to follow-up and ask further questions. Management of elections in this country is an utter disgrace.

Bloomberg, Josh Eidelson, Trump's Stand-In Bureaucrats May Have Overstayed Limits, in which unconfirmed acting officials are being left in place past the terms of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

President Donald Trump’s slow pace of hiring for key government jobs has left stand-ins occupying positions for so long that it may violate time limits on acting appointments, potentially resulting in decisions being overturned in court.

Enforcement actions as well as policy decisions on a variety of topics, such as easing restrictions on methane emissions from oil wells or permitting schools to offer 1 percent milk, could be challenged on the grounds that they were enacted by officials who had been in acting roles too long or were improperly delegated authority.
...
“For almost all positions, if you’re serving in violation of the Vacancies Act, anything that you do is void as a matter of law,” said Anne Joseph O’Connell, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, WaPo op-ed, This is what Puerto Ricans need from the government. Right now.

I’m much more comfortable writing a song than a political opinion column. Calling members of Congress, knocking on their doors and asking you to do the same is strange territory for me. I can already imagine the online comments: “Stick to entertainment.” I wish I could. But the news is full of scandals and tragedies, and every day is a struggle to keep Puerto Rico in the national conversation.

Puerto Rico needs a lifeline that only Congress and the Trump administration can provide. The list of needed actions is short, straightforward and agreed upon by Puerto Ricans of all political stripes. First, drop the crippling 20 percent excise tax on Puerto Rican products. This is an easy one given that the tax doesn’t exist yet. It can simply be removed from the tax-reform bill right now being finalized in House-Senate conference negotiations.

Parker/Dawsey, WaPo, ‘I would have won Alabama’: Trump spreads blame for Moore’s loss. A lot in here, but let's highlight Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who says he received calls encouraging him to keep going after attacking Bannon:

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) said he had gotten lots of feedback from White House aides after saying Bannon “looks like some disheveled drunk who wandered on to the political stage.”

“They say, keep it up, let him have it,” King said.

Brittney McNamara, Teen Vogue, Joe Biden to Anita Hill: "I Owe Her an Apology"

Matt Fuller, HuffPo, When Will Paul Ryan Step Down?, in which talk of a new Speaker is reaching a new intensity:

When the House Freedom Caucus gathered Monday night, members spent part of their meeting discussing a theory circulating on Capitol Hill and among the downtown Christmas parties that Ryan may believe he’s harpooned his personal white whale of tax reform and decide he’s finished.

“Is it a Boehner-meeting-the-pope moment?” one Freedom Caucus member rhetorically asked HuffPost, referring to Ryan’s predecessor, John Boehner (R-Ohio), who hosted Pope Francis for a joint address to Congress in September 2015 and then announced his retirement the next morning.

Colum Lynch and Dan De Luce, Foreign Policy, North Korea Had Spurned Talks With U.S. Due to Trump’s Latest Sanctions, in which Tillerson called for new talks with North Korea, but is immediately undercut by Trump and the NSC, and the North Koreans have noticed that Tillerson does not seem to be speaking for anybody of importance.

Remember how NPS wants to more than double gate fees at the most popular national parks? That's still a thing, and you can submit comments on that plan in the next week or so. They're following that up by reducing the number of free days to just four next year, down from 16 last year and 10 this year.

David Roberts at Vox asks Are Democrats suckers for holding their own to high standards?. No, we're not, but "sensitive debates are difficult under a torrent of bad-faith gaslighting."

In many states, your last chance to enroll in health insurance for next year at healthcare.gov ends December 15th. Get yourself covered, then tell your friends and family!

Tonight is likely your last chance to call Ajit Pai's office and leave a message asking him to preserve the Open Internet Order and net neutrality: [phone]. It's a voicemail, if that helps your phone anxiety.

[exhales]
posted by zachlipton at 8:59 PM on December 13, 2017 [60 favorites]

Accepting turncoats who sometimes sabotage you and sometimes help you in Connecticut is one thing. Doing so in West Virginia is another. I'd gladly support any primary challenge to the modern-day equivalent of Lieberman -- a turncoat saboteur in a blue state -- but unless I'm missing an obvious one, the closest thing we have now is, who, MacCaskill?
posted by tonycpsu at 9:00 PM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

but unless I'm missing an obvious one, the closest thing we have now is, who, MacCaskill?

Feinstein was looking like it for a while, she seems to have shifted a little.
posted by Artw at 9:04 PM on December 13, 2017

I'd be happy to see Feinstein primaried, but it's more the blueness of her state than how bad her voting record is that makes her an appealing primary target. We only get 2 CA Senators -- they should be liberal stalwarts.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:13 PM on December 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

Uh, yeah, to be clear, I didn't mean to suggest she be primaried.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:24 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 House:

-- Dems at +15 in Monmouth generic ballot poll. 538 generic average stands at +11.

-- Linked earlier, but if you missed it, 538: Special Elections So Far Point To A Democratic Wave In 2018 [tl;dr: Dems outperforming, and doing so in all kinds of districts]

-- The Hill: Republicans fear deep losses in 2018 elections

-- If you are in TX, there is a metric ton of info about who has filed for election in this DKE thread (filing deadline just passed).

** Odds & ends:

-- Inside Elections: 10 Takeaways from AL Senate Election (Did you hear? Doug Jones won!)

-- As noted above, KY state Rep Dan Johnson committed suicide after credible sex abuse allegations. This will trigger a special election for the seat. I respectfully disagree with ErisLordFreedom's analysis above, I don't think this seat is very winnable. Johnson won very narrowly (less than a point), but I think that's attributable to him being a total nutjob. District went 72-23 Trump, 66-33 Romney, so it's pretty red. All things possible in current environment, but it's not an easy flip for sure.

-- Mentioned upstream, Monmouth poll has Trump at 32/56, his all time low. He's at 37/56 in a Marist. The 538 approval average is now 36.7/56.8.

-- Meanwhile, the Des Moines Register poll has Trump approval in Iowa at 35/60. This was a state he won 51-42. We note in passing that Iowa has a gubernatorial election in 2018 (she pulls a 51/30, which isn't great, but not awful).

-- Things are looking good for Michigan anti-gerrymandering forces getting an initiative on the ballot to change the redistricting process. Subject to legal challenges, of course.

-- Dems providing support and training for Secretary of State candidates, in concerted effort to take back these offices.

-- Part 2 of a "what happened in Virginia" deep dive from the VA Dems pollster.

posted by Chrysostom at 9:26 PM on December 13, 2017 [38 favorites]

> * GOP is worried that McCain resigns/dies, gov appoints Martha McSally to the seat, leaving only raving nutbag Kelli Ward to run for the Flake seat.

Don't forget raving shitbag Joe Arpaio.
posted by toxic at 9:33 PM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

> -- Part 2 of a "what happened in Virginia" deep dive from the VA Dems pollster.

Some interesting findings / advice in this post about how to best tie Republicans to Trump:

Trump, disdain for Trump, and disappointment in Trump and Republicans were key factors in higher Democratic turnout and suppressed Republican turnout. Feelings about him generated increased interest among Democrats, and there was no way he would not be featured in paid communication. The question was “how,” not “if.” [...]

[...] The challenge was in trying to push energy against Trump down the ballot so that voters would hold Republican Delegates accountable for him. It was tough. We learned it could not be about Trump the person. It was not enough that he was divisive or that he was dangerous; that wasn’t a reason to vote against a Delegate they had supported for many cycles. Instead, what the focus groups taught us, was that we needed to show how the Delegates shared the Trump agenda and how the Trump agenda was dangerous for Virginia. [...] Finally, if the Republican did or said something stupid in the past, like introducing Trump at the convention or saying Trumpcare “was a good start” or Trump “is my ideal candidate,” we would use specifics to tie Trump to that Republican.

That helped us to understand how to use Trump to negatively define our opponents, but we still needed help knowing how to use him to define our Democrats. This is where good survey work came into play. In almost every positive battery this cycle, we tested a positive message that said the Democrat would stand up to Trump and not allow Republicans to do in Richmond what Trump was doing in Washington. We decided to split-sample this question so that half of the sample heard this as the first message in the battery and half heard it as the last message in the battery. Among those voters who heard the message first, the Trump message universally tested as the weakest message in the survey. Voters did not want the first lines they heard from someone they did not know to be about Trump. Among those voters who heard the message last in the battery, it was almost always a top tier message. The lesson was clear: we could not just lean in strongly against Trump to undecided or persuadable voters; we would need to first define the positive agenda and then show how Republican candidates and Trump put that agenda at risk.

posted by tonycpsu at 9:36 PM on December 13, 2017 [74 favorites]

Don't forget raving shitbag Joe Arpaio.

Heh. Pre Alabama I'd say Arpaio would beat likely democratic candidate Milquetoast McCentrist in a heartbeat, then probably get into a fight about the inherent awfulness of Arizonans. But now I don't think any of us can make that kind of assumption.
posted by Artw at 9:38 PM on December 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

Arpaio lost his last election by 13 points. He's not winning anything statewide.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:40 PM on December 13, 2017 [16 favorites]

I would like to stress I am Just Some Guy With Opinions On The Internet, not a professional.

A Professional is just Some Guy who did a thing long enough and well enough that people started believing him when he called himself a Professional.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:50 PM on December 13, 2017 [23 favorites]

Or, in the case of the judicial nominees upthread, some Incompetent Bro Who God-Knows-How Passed Minimum Licensing Reqs (a.k.a. becoming a lawyer without knowing basic evidence rules). You too can be a Professional!
Not that we should be emulating this...
posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 10:09 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

@mississippi: Reportedly the Private Activity Bonds deduction is back in the new version of the bill (along with the deductions for student loan interest and medical expenses), and the grad student tax is gone. See this link.
posted by janewman at 10:13 PM on December 13, 2017

Never forget Omarosa's bizarre "Kneel before Zod!" moment before the election

“Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to president Trump,” Manigault said. “It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”

posted by kirkaracha at 10:14 PM on December 13, 2017 [32 favorites]

Concerning messaging in the Va elections, Ed Gillespie spoke a little about his side of it on David Axelrod's podcast; while complaining about a "poisonous atmosphere" he offers a shrug emoji for his ads going full Willie Horton trying to connect Northam to MS-13 and sex offenders:

Gillespie told Axelrod he ran those ads because message testing suggested it would help him win. But he said they were not the issues he wanted to focus on.

“Are those the issues I would have chosen to run on as opposed to the tax cuts and frankly even the criminal justice reform innovative proposals I put forward?” said Gillespie. “That’s where I rather the race have been about, but those weren’t what was indicating was going to move numbers and help me win.”
...
“The issue that looked like it was going to move voters in the suburbs of Northern Virginia was public safety,” he said. “Clearly, (the MS-13 ads) didn’t work. Did it create a backlash? I don’t think so. But I don’t know.”

posted by peeedro at 10:25 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Looks Like Trevor Noah's writers have been reading these threads. There is cake.
posted by tllaya at 10:33 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

The USA TODAY editorial board published an editorial today. It is a doozy.

They say Trump isn't even fit to clean Obama's toilet. This is the editorial page of a major newspaper. I guess I will have to stop referring to them as McPaper.

Has anyone ever seen something like that out of the editorial board of a real paper? Trump seems to have crossed a big line with his comments about Gillibrand.
posted by Justinian at 10:39 PM on December 13, 2017 [74 favorites]

Connecticut senator 'embarrassed' at political inaction since Sandy Hook
posted by Artw at 11:07 PM on December 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

From the USA today editorial:

A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.

Hot DAMN. Metaphorically putting trump in jobs often done by people of color is rhetorically delicious.
posted by medusa at 11:24 PM on December 13, 2017 [45 favorites]

Frankly I'm surprised the Gillibrand comments were the "big line" for USA Today - He's certainly said equally bad things about Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton and others -- but I did love that editorial and I can't wait to see what hotheaded tweets Trump comes up with in response.
posted by mmoncur at 11:28 PM on December 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

It must be the latent engineer in me but I don't see the unique awfulness of Trump.

His legislative and executive actions are mainstream Republican politics.

All that is different is that the faux veneer of the nice church going politician is no longer in place.

Maybe that is the difference. Our elites are being forced to look at what is beneath the surface and it has not been pretty for a long, long time. I'm willing to wager that as soon as the nastiness is papered over that we will return to the Nice Polite Republicans of yore.

(Little dig at our NPR friends at the end! I am so clever!) (And it is nice to see SOME elites rubbing their eyes.)
posted by pdoege at 11:37 PM on December 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

I don't see the unique awfulness of Trump.

His awfulness isn't unique, but the combination of his awfulness, his incompetence, and his viciousness is. Even when we've had professional bumblers in high office, they didn't react to any correction with "you are a liar and everything you are telling me is fake and also I'm going tell everyone that you suck."

We've had rude people - on both sides - who alienated the people who wanted to help them.
We've had bumblers who listened to experts, and then fucked things up anyway.
We've had vicious schemers who pushed their own agenda without regard to what the people want or need.
We've never had all of them in the same person.

Maybe that is the difference. Our elites are being forced to look at what is beneath the surface and it has not been pretty for a long, long time.

Trump is bringing the toxins to a head. On the one hand, we get the chance to lance it. On the other, there's gonna be toxic spew all over everything, and the whole process will be painful. (And by "painful" I mean, people are going to die. Incompetence + corruption in charge = dead marginalized people. The hope is that we can keep that minimized, and the backlash can set up procedures to keep this from happening again.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:45 PM on December 13, 2017 [45 favorites]

I think it is also that Trump is vengeful and incompetent and it's shrugged off by mainstream Republicans as being No Big Deal (So Long As He Gets Us Our Tax Cuts), in a way that takes the veneer of respectability off the whole lot of them. It's a real They Live moment, and the pollster talks about how they found that tying normal Republicans to Trump was extremely successful, because it pulls the disguise off and shows how Republicanism has been veiled greed and spite this whole time.
posted by Merus at 12:06 AM on December 14, 2017 [37 favorites]

So it turns out that Ajit Pai danced in a video with a Pizzagater at the Daily Caller to make his case against Net Neutrality.
posted by zachlipton at 12:28 AM on December 14, 2017 [25 favorites]

WaPo: Doubting the intelligence, Trump pursues Putin and leaves a Russian threat unchecked
U.S. officials declined to discuss whether the stream of recent intelligence on Russia has been shared with Trump. Current and former officials said that his daily intelligence update — known as the president’s daily brief, or PDB — is often structured to avoid upsetting him.
Russia-related intelligence that might draw Trump’s ire is in some cases included only in the written assessment and not raised orally, said a former senior intelligence official familiar with the matter. In other cases, Trump’s main briefer — a veteran CIA analyst — adjusts the order of his presentation and text, aiming to soften the impact.

Emphasis mine.
posted by PenDevil at 4:25 AM on December 14, 2017 [61 favorites]

In other cases, Trump’s main briefer — a veteran CIA analyst — adjusts the order of his presentation and text, aiming to soften the impact.
Again, the whole administration walking on glass like the family of an abusive parent. It's madness.
That said, it is probably wise to withhold some information from the Trumps, who are likely to share it with the Russian Embassy. This is so depressing.

It must be the latent engineer in me but I don't see the unique awfulness of Trump.
Really?
posted by mumimor at 4:39 AM on December 14, 2017 [28 favorites]

The USA Today editorial was actually covered by the BBC yesterday. I read the piece and had to chuckle when they commented: "USA Today is not known for publishing such blistering editorials."

No shit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:47 AM on December 14, 2017 [15 favorites]

Florida SERT‏ @FLSERT

Since Oct. 3rd, more than 239,000 individuals have arrived in Florida from Puerto Rico through @FlyTPA @MCO and @iflymia

Trump won Florida by 112,911 votes.
posted by Talez at 4:49 AM on December 14, 2017 [89 favorites]

mississippi asked above: Is anyone hearing anything early about what's in the tax reform conference bill regarding community development tax credit programs?

I mean New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC), Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), Historic Tax Credit (HTC), and Private Activity Bonds (PABs)?

Richard Rubin of the WSJ wrote yesterday that the house/senate agreement has not adopted the house repeal of private activity bonds (these fund about 50% of affordable housing in a year because they trigger LIHTC, which are essentially free money). I put this in the rumor category. This means I may be able to sleep between now and the end of the year.

That's all I've heard, including on an active listserve that loves to discuss NMTC, HTC or LIHTC and housing tax issues of any sort. If there was more out there, they'd've dug it upl.
posted by Measured Out my Life in Coffeespoons at 5:42 AM on December 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

Trump won Florida by 112,911 votes.

Any chance there for making the Senate majority blue also?
posted by Cocodrillo at 6:01 AM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Normally I wouldn't be very optimistic at the idea of adding 200k+ votes that typically (at least up to 5-10 years ago) break for Republicans. Given how poorly Trump treated PR after Maria, I somehow doubt they'll feel much like voting for him in 2020. Should he be gone by then, it's very much a tossup in terms of how newly relocated Puerto Ricans will break in terms of party affiliation.
posted by wierdo at 6:04 AM on December 14, 2017

Here's a long depressing tweet storm about Moore, Trump, and the questioning of the validity of elections by Jared Yates Sexton
posted by angrycat at 6:13 AM on December 14, 2017

Who gives a shit if Moore concedes or not? He's not the first crank to lose an election.
posted by ryanrs at 6:22 AM on December 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

I agree with Sexton up to a point, but the rest of the Republican machine (including Trump!) has accepted the election result. This will be a pattern to be concerned about when a candidate less universally loathed than Moore tries to pull it.

Without the backing of the party, he just looks like a sore-loser nutjob.
posted by murphy slaw at 6:22 AM on December 14, 2017 [9 favorites]

Surprisingly, at least since the inauguration (and possibly before, who can remember under the constant barrage of awfulness), USA Today has been not only running strong and plain-spoken anti-Trump Opinion pieces, but actual Real Journalism where they're willing to openly call bullshit on various Republican shenanigans. When a headline pops up in, say, Google News that says something like, "Tax Bill Will Add Trillions to National Debt", there's a better than average chance it's from USA Today.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:26 AM on December 14, 2017 [18 favorites]

(I was going to say Moore is not the first twice-impeached pedophile crank to lose an election, but actually maybe he is?)
posted by ryanrs at 6:27 AM on December 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

It must be the latent engineer in me but I don't see the unique awfulness of Trump.

I think that with Trump it's not just that the lid is off and no one is pretending anymore; it's also that positions that were largely pretense, like "drowning the government should include getting rid of veteran personnel at the state department", are now being enacted as much as the administration can.

My impression is that an awful lot of the "let's drown the government" rhetoric was always just rhetoric - if only because GOPers wanted, like, government support for their impoverished red states or to have a military base or a government center located in a low-jobs area. Ditto for the "let's slash social security". My sense was that for the GOP majority, they basically wanted sweet jobs and lots of money, and to keep things basically the same since they already had a lot of advantages.

Also they were American-firsters in the sense of wanting to preserve American hegemony rather than hegemony by the global oligarch class. Trump and Bannon and them are international corporate people, and they don't care what happens to Americans as long as the global oligarchy is doing well. That's why they like Putin. Old-school GOP liked dictators of client states, not oligarch leaders of competitor nations.

I think it's pretty important to be able to say both "old GOP was bad and there's a throughline to new GOP" and "new GOP is worse".
posted by Frowner at 6:29 AM on December 14, 2017 [48 favorites]

The bigger concern I got from the Sexton piece was around accusations of voter fraud, rather than Moore's refusal to (stretching a metaphor for the sake of Horse Twitter props) pony up his loss
posted by Myeral at 6:31 AM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

it also occurs to me that there is a dynamic in place that will prevent too much arguing with election results from the white house: trump never, ever wants to be associated with a loser. as soon as he smells public, obvious failure on someone, they're dead to him, he never liked them, he told his friends all along that they were a ticket to nowhere.

trump might contest his own election results, but he's very, very unlikely to stand up for another republican.
posted by murphy slaw at 6:33 AM on December 14, 2017 [12 favorites]

New York Times: Trump’s Lies vs. Obama’s
posted by slipthought at 6:39 AM on December 14, 2017 [45 favorites]

Normally I wouldn't be very optimistic at the idea of adding 200k+ votes that typically (at least up to 5-10 years ago) break for Republicans.

I can't easily pull up data but STR that puertoriquenos have voted heavily Democratic for a while now.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:48 AM on December 14, 2017

The WaPo story PenDevil posted above is impressive. It ties together a massive amount of reporting on Trump-Russia and is worth at least bookmarking for later.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 6:50 AM on December 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Awesome article, slipthought. It’s short, but I can’t help posting an excerpt:

If we had used a less strict standard, Trump would look even worse by comparison. He makes misleading statements and mild exaggerations – about economic statistics, his political opponents and many other subjects – far more often than Obama.

...We have used the word “lies” again here, as we did in our original piece. If anything, though, the word is unfair to Obama and Bush. When they became aware that they had been saying something untrue, they stopped doing it. Obama didn’t continue to claim that all Americans would be able to keep their existing health insurance under Obamacare, for example, and Bush changed the way he spoke about Iraq’s weapons capability.

Trump is different. When he is caught lying, he will often try to discredit people telling the truth, be they judges, scientists, F.B.I. or C.I.A. officials, journalists or members of Congress. Trump is trying to make truth irrelevant. It is extremely damaging to democracy, and it’s not an accident. It’s core to his political strategy.

...Over all, Obama rarely told demonstrable untruths as president. And he appears to have become more careful over time. We counted six straight-up falsehoods in his first year in office. Across his entire second four-year term, we counted the same number, six, only one of which came in his final year in office.

In all, we found 18 different bald untruths from Obama during his presidency. Trump told his 18th separate untruth in his third full week in office, and his list keeps growing.

posted by darkstar at 6:51 AM on December 14, 2017 [82 favorites]

the response to Maria seems like the sort of watershed that would make the republican party dead to puerto ricans for a generation.

(though as a majority catholic constituency you never can tell the influence of abortion as a single issue)
posted by murphy slaw at 6:52 AM on December 14, 2017

PPP - 53% think Trump should resign over assault allegations. 51% support impeachment so that’s the first time they’ve had a majority on that.
posted by azpenguin at 6:54 AM on December 14, 2017 [70 favorites]

Nobody has appointed a Russian asset to the state department with the aim of dismantling it before Trump, that seems pretty notable and bad. The open support for white supremacists and attempt to turn border and immigration forces into the SS also seem novel. Jess Sessions given actual power in non-racist states, the aggressive dismantling of schools, the destruction of the national parks, just to name a few things a "normal" GOP executive branch would go all in on. Most frightening of all the upping of the ante on voter supression. None of this is normal.
posted by Artw at 6:54 AM on December 14, 2017 [37 favorites]

My takeaway from that WP article is that in early January Clapper, Brennan, Rogers and Comey presented specific evidence to Trump, Pence, Priebus, Pompeo, and Flynn that Putin himself ordered the operation. That seems major.

Following a rehearsed plan, Clapper functioned as moderator, yielding to Brennan and others on key points in the briefing, which covered the most highly classified information U.S. spy agencies had assembled, including an extraordinary CIA stream of intelligence that had captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:55 AM on December 14, 2017 [52 favorites]

Who gives a shit if Moore concedes or not? He's not the first crank to lose an election.

Personally I could give a shit if anyone ever concedes any race* ever again. It's all part and parcel with a same-day-wrap one-day election obsession I wish we'd get over. Preliminary counts aren't even legally meaningful; elections have to be properly certified in a subsequent careful process. In most elections there's a fixed date months in the future before the winner gets seated. This OMG we have to wrap it all before midnight garbage is the flip side of the urgency coin that leads otherwise sensible people to insist we can't conduct an election over the course of weeks with early voting that makes sure everyone gets time to go to the polls (or mail in a ballot). It's a false urgency that played a part in letting the Supreme Court seem like they had any need to intervene in the 2000 Florida recount. Fuck concessions.

* In the general, anyway. There's obviously a motivation for some coming together in a primary to subsequently win a general all together, though I don't see some huge time pressure in that either.
posted by phearlez at 6:59 AM on December 14, 2017 [17 favorites]

It's all part and parcel with a same-day-wrap one-day election obsession I wish we'd get over. Preliminary counts aren't even legally meaningful; elections have to be properly certified in a subsequent careful process. In most elections there's a fixed date months in the future before the winner gets seated.

I think this is wrong. It's unclear whether by 'most elections' you're referring only to American elections (which are a bad example if you want to talk about good election policy) or to elections worldwide, where it runs the gamut from a few weeks to several years.

From that worldwide experience, it seems clear that it's better for all concerned if winners are seated quickly and get on with the job of governing. A smooth transition of power keeps the wheels of democratic countries greased, and it's genuinely disruptive when a winner's not known weeks after the election.

This OMG we have to wrap it all before midnight garbage is the flip side of the urgency coin that leads otherwise sensible people to insist we can't conduct an election over the course of weeks with early voting that makes sure everyone gets time to go to the polls (or mail in a ballot).

It's unclear that having a extended poll is really a good thing, either: it's mostly Americans who seem to rely on early voting as a fix for accessibility issues on the day, a problem that most other democracies have well in hand. A poll conducted over time isn't representative of the group at any particular moment in time, and in politics, where late-breaking stories can influence the opinion of the electorate, having one group of people unable to have as much time to decide their vote as others. (Sure, 90% of the time, a late story in the campaign is some attempt at last-minute ratfuckery, but it's still unfair.)

I think you've got legitimate grievances, but the problem is, ultimately, that American elections are Very Bad, and not that people are impatient to find out the result.
posted by Merus at 7:20 AM on December 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

I am 1000% here for people who are upset that too much attention is focused on elections than to what those elected officials are doing to govern the country, though. Doug Jones is the junior senator from Alabama. That's great! How will Alabama improve as a result?

Alabama doesn't just deserve a representative who isn't an international embarrassment, they deserve an effective representative they can be proud of. What does Doug Jones plan to do?
posted by Merus at 7:25 AM on December 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

That’s a fair question, and it’ll be soon answered. But for now, I think the first response is “caucus with the Democrats” which, these days, is more than I could ever have dreamed from a Senator from Alabama.

Not to downplay policy issues, but the key to stopping the train wreck of a completely GOP-controlled government is to whittle down their governing margins and eventually flip one or both chambers, plus the White House.

Imagine if the Dems had control of the Senate when Merrick Garland was nominated. Imagine if they don’t control it when Ginsburg or Kennedy retire.

That said, I would expect Jones to be more in line with the Manchin-esque wing of the Dems. (Perhaps not, though.) But for now, I think there are a lot of Alabamans that are pretty stoked.
posted by darkstar at 7:36 AM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

What does Doug Jones plan to do?

His record of prosecuting KKK members for a crime that most people had decided was ancient history says he's not going to accept "white power" provisions snuck into legislation.

He's been involved in environmental cleanup action against Monsato; he'll be watching for anti-environmental laws.

He's in favor of expanding Medicaid and increasing the minimum wage.

Of course he has no voting record yet; no first-time-elected politician does. But he has a solid career in law that relates well to several issues that are important to the people of Alabama.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:38 AM on December 14, 2017 [78 favorites]

Not to mention that in his victory speech, Jones pushed for CHIP reauthorization.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:41 AM on December 14, 2017 [70 favorites]

Report: U.S. Rep. Farenthold of Texas to retire amid sexual harassment scandal: Abby Livingston, Texas Tribune
posted by mcdoublewide at 7:42 AM on December 14, 2017 [56 favorites]

On the first day of Hanukkah the US gave to me
An Alabama victoryyyy
On the second day of Hanukkah the US gave to me
A block of Trump's judicial nomineeees
On the third day of Hanukkah the US gave to me
A disgraced Rep in a vulnerable seeeat
posted by saturday_morning at 7:54 AM on December 14, 2017 [81 favorites]

(The worst governor in the nation? Chris Christie. Because who else could it be?)

Paul LePage.
posted by Melismata at 7:59 AM on December 14, 2017 [55 favorites]

If every politician with sexual harassment skeletons in their closet resigned at once, the State of the Union Address would have an audience of 95% women.

Facing an empty podium.

We are going to knock out a lot of absolute bottom-feeders like Farenthold. We are going to knock out a lot of people we previously respected greatly, like Conyers and Franken. We are going to have to deal with noise and lies like what Floorshitter and Cernovich and O'Keefe are trying. We are going to have to convince many people, in the face of that, that "not enough hard evidence to convict in a court of law" is not equivalent to "the offense never happened" or "the accusation is hereby debunked." Steel yourselves for progress on this to be measured in stutter-steps.

But every bit of sunlight on these kinds of behavior is a good thing, even if we're not always happy about whose scalp gets taken.
posted by delfin at 7:59 AM on December 14, 2017 [53 favorites]

My morning NPR listening yielded better than usual results today! I listen to MN Public Radio.

First, Steve Inskeep, may he step on both equivalent sides of several legos, actually pushed back on a Republican spouting bullshit! And not in a "well democrats say" type of way. Some "Republican strategist" was explaining how the GOP is totally fine and voters are going to <3 them, especially once they enact more of their agenda like cutting taxes for everyone [sic]. Steve Inskeep said "But the tax bill is extremely unpopular. Do you really think passing unpopular legislation will help your approval rating?"

Second, I heard a clip of a Republican woman explaining why Mark Dayton is such a big meanie for picking Tina Smith to replace Al Franken. She claimed that "the people of Minnesota" are not served by Dayton simply picking someone "from his inner circle" and "she doesn't represent the whole of Minnesota". OMG people. Tina Smith was elected Lieutenant Governor twice by THE STATE OF MINNESOTA. One of the few politicians who was ACTUALLY chosen by the whole state. It is just such a stupid talking point I felt the need to share. Basically, Rs have nothing of substance to say against our girl Tina.
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:05 AM on December 14, 2017 [51 favorites]

The one concern I have about Tina Smith is her involvement in the awful Vikings stadium deal. Taxpayer-subsidized stadiums are a scam, and that deal was one of the worst. With that said, she's far from the first or only politician to lack the courage to say no when sports team owners threaten to take their ball and go home move to LA, so it's not a dealbreaker. Just disappointing.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:10 AM on December 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

The one concern I have about Tina Smith is her involvement in the awful Vikings stadium deal.

Definitely. Dayton-Smith lost my trust when they pushed so hard for that. I had mostly associated it with Dayton, not with Smith, but I admit I didn't follow it super closely except to tell everyone I know that stadiums are a scam and my tax money could be going to hundreds of better purposes. At the same time, Dayton's appointment record in the courts is stellar. We have a female majority supreme court, with a female chief justice! But ultimately, I won't miss him.
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:16 AM on December 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

The talks about a new stadium had been happening here since the mid-90's IIRC. It's been talked about for so long (despite building a new baseball stadium) that I felt like something was going to get built, it was going to be a shitty deal for the state, so we may as well build the damn thing while the state's economy is in decent shape and get it out of the way.

I would have preferred if they had framed it that way, like it was going to happen regardless so let's do it now before we have to rely on a GOP governor to negotiate that deal but I'm still kinda just glad to be done talking about the stupid stadiums for a while.
posted by VTX at 8:25 AM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

If every politician with sexual harassment skeletons in their closet resigned at once, the State of the Union Address would have an audience of 95% women.... Facing an empty podium.


*pause*

i'm ok with this
posted by entropicamericana at 8:37 AM on December 14, 2017 [67 favorites]

Ezra Klein, Vox: Republicans are paying a price for their extremism

The party is powerful and dominant, and it has a huge geographic advantage that has been fortified through aggressive gerrymandering and voter ID laws. It’s Democrats’ good luck that Republicans are squandering much of that advantage by repeatedly choosing such weak candidates.

posted by tonycpsu at 8:50 AM on December 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

Poll: Half of gun owners say mass shootings are something society must accept
posted by Artw at 8:53 AM on December 14, 2017 [9 favorites]

Only half? Well, great, maybe the other half can be convinced to vote accordingly.
posted by saturday_morning at 8:56 AM on December 14, 2017 [18 favorites]

Watch the video starting at 1:51:00, it's really incredible. Sen. Kennedy, a Republican, but who was editor of the UVA law review and a civil trial lawyer before his political career, is just crushing all of the 5 nominees in the hearing. He clearly knows Peterson is unqualified and he's making a point of trolling him with basic questions waiting for him to fuck one up, which takes about 1 minute before he does.

You know what? This video makes me so happy. I am in graduate school, and I get frustrated when clearly privileged people who work half as hard (and whine twice as much) to produce mediocre work, end up getting opportunities because their parents know someone, or because they "look the part".

I will treasure this video and bookmark it for whenever I get infuriated about how easy some people have it. These fuckboys got humiliated and completely called out on their BS and their lame manipulations to ingratiate themselves with the panel fell completely flat.

Yes I'm bitter. Not just on my behalf, but on behalf of the people who actually deserved to be nominated there.

Also look at the black guy in the background bite the inside of his cheeks to avoid laughing when Kennedy asks the nominees if they have ever blogged in favor of the KKK heh
posted by Tarumba at 8:56 AM on December 14, 2017 [32 favorites]

From Artw's link:

The CBS News/YouGov poll was conducted on December 5-11, among 2073 U.S. adults.

I was one of those U.S. adults! Ask me anything.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:57 AM on December 14, 2017 [11 favorites]

tonycpsu: "The one concern I have about Tina Smith is her involvement in the awful Vikings stadium deal."

I have two concerns (I don't live in MN, and confess to not being deep in on local politics). One is that Gov Dayton has a history of health issues. If for some reason he can no longer serve, Fischbach as Lt Gov means that the GOP now has unified control of the state government. That could be really bad.

Less tangibly, Smith was reported initially as only interested in keeping the seat warm, and not running in 2018. She's come around on that, but that's not a good look in a candidate. The 2018 environment, plus Klobuchar running, should be enough, but I'd really prefer someone who is enthused about the job.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:06 AM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

saturday_morning: "On the third day of Hanukkah the US gave to me

A disgraced Rep in a vulnerable seeeat"

I like this! But TX-27 is pretty red: Trump 60-37, Romney 61-38. All things are possible in this environment, but this is not going to be an easy pickup.

Of course, Farenthold is just terrible. Even a Replacement Level Awful GOP replacement would still be an improvement.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:16 AM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Paul Ryan says that for the economy's sake, the American birth rate must increase, and that he's done his part in having three children. If only there were some way of getting young people into our country. Perhaps from... some other country...
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:16 AM on December 14, 2017 [65 favorites]

A little morning joy: Robin Roberts Says 'Bye, Felicia' to Omarosa On GMA.
posted by TwoStride at 9:16 AM on December 14, 2017 [16 favorites]

"We don't have the room for more immigrants, also please form more babby, no whitesupremo"
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:17 AM on December 14, 2017 [41 favorites]

Rumor mill cranking about Paul Ryan possibly stepping down from speaker's office post-tax bill.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:19 AM on December 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

Who could Paul Ryan's replacement be? Gohmert? Nunes? The Speaker of the House doesn't have to be a sitting congressman, and I hear Roy Moore is available.

Rohrabacher?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:21 AM on December 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

WaPo: Doubting the intelligence, Trump pursues Putin and leaves a Russian threat unchecked

Among that length article's numerous troubling revelations, there's one about NSC Russia advisor Fiona Hill (previously 1, 2, 3) that encapsulates practically everything wrong with Trump as a person—his misogyny, his unstable temper, and even his apparent cognitive impairment—and as an evident Kremlin asset. It's well worth quoting at length:

McMaster gained an internal ally on Russia in March with the hiring of Fiona Hill as the top Russia adviser on the NSC. A frequent critic of the Kremlin, Hill was best known as the author of a respected biography of Putin and was seen as a reassuring selection among Russia hard-liners.

Her relationship with Trump, however, was strained from the start.

In one of her first encounters with the president, an Oval Office meeting in preparation for a call with Putin on Syria, Trump appeared to mistake Hill for a member of the clerical staff, handing her a memo he had marked up and instructing her to rewrite it.

When Hill responded with a perplexed look, Trump became irritated with what he interpreted as insubordination, according to officials who witnessed the exchange. As she walked away in confusion, Trump exploded and motioned for McMaster to intervene.

McMaster followed Hill out the door and scolded her, officials said. Later he and a few close staffers met to explore ways to repair Hill’s damaged relationship with the president.

Hill’s standing was further damaged when she was forced to defend members of her staff suspected of disloyalty after details about Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak — in which the president revealed highly classified information to his Russian guests — were leaked to The Post.

The White House subsequently tightened the circle of aides involved in meetings with Russian officials. Trump was accompanied only by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during a meeting with Putin at a July summit of Group of 20 nations in Hamburg. In prior administrations, the president’s top aide on Russia was typically present for such encounters, but Hill has frequently been excluded.

A senior administration official said that the NSC “was not sidelined as a result” of Hill’s difficult encounters with Trump, that Hill is regularly included in briefings with the president and that she and her staff “continue to play an important role on Russia policy.”

The only weakness in the Washington Post's otherwise thorough article is that it entirely omits mention of Trump's many business ventures in Russia, to say nothing of his links to mafiya money-laundering. With those in mind, his constant rebuffs of information on Putin's interference in the 2016 election and his attempts to reverse the Obama administration's sanctions on Russia over them look much more significant than merely an "insulting" affront to Trump's win, as his advisers are spinning it.

Incidentally, during Putin's annual press conference today, when questioned about the Trump-Russia investigations, he claimed, in a tour de force of trolling, "All of it was invented by people who oppose President Trump to undermine his legitimacy. I’m puzzled by that. People who do it are inflicting damage to the domestic political situation, incapacitating the president and showing a lack of respect for voters who cast their ballots for him."
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:25 AM on December 14, 2017 [36 favorites]

TX-27 is pretty red: Trump 60-37, Romney 61-38. All things are possible in this environment, but this is not going to be an easy pickup.

Ah, fair. I knew Farenthold's seat was previously held by a D, but now I see it was subsequently gerrymandered to hell. Oh well. Still worth contesting!
posted by saturday_morning at 9:25 AM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

i would assume that mccarthy's name is circulating for speaker but i don't know if he's stupid enough to want the job
posted by murphy slaw at 9:26 AM on December 14, 2017

Well, he did run for it in 2015.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:33 AM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

From that worldwide experience, it seems clear that it's better for all concerned if winners are seated quickly and get on with the job of governing. A smooth transition of power keeps the wheels of democratic countries greased, and it's genuinely disruptive when a winner's not known weeks after the election.

Look, you can write whatever American election fanfic you like I guess but reality is that we here have a lot of these dates and intervals constitutionally mandated. "Oh, it would be better if" like this can go next to wishing we could piss beer for all that it's possible. A standard presidential/congressional election happens at a set day in early November and the Presidential swearing in is Jan 20 and Congressional start a hint before that. Period, end of story, that's the reality we have to recon with.

So in light of that, most of the rest of your concerns add up to theoretical maybe-harms compared to harms we absolutely know are the case. I'd rather fix things we know are broken than worry about minor edge cases that those fixes might create. If you disagree you may take your arguments to the people who have stood for hours in freezing rain to vote rather than me; even they'll be more receptive to them than I will. I'll take someone getting to actually cast a vote over some FUD that they might cast one and a week later some scandal will break. That sort of what if applies to one-day elections as well, so someone getting the chance to regret a vote beats them not getting to cast one at all.
posted by phearlez at 9:33 AM on December 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

Paul Ryan says that for the economy's sake, the American birth rate must increase, and that he's done his part in having three children.

1. The planet is overpopulated already. This is so disgustingly irresponsible and selfish. Just like the GOP. What's next, handmaids?

2. I'm so glad that I decided to never have kids, especially now that I can say I did it to spite Paul Ryan.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:35 AM on December 14, 2017 [67 favorites]

Who could Paul Ryan's replacement be? Gohmert? Nunes? The Speaker of the House doesn't have to be a sitting congressman, and I hear Roy Moore is available.

The House Freedom Caucus won't accept anything less than an AR-15 wearing a MAGA hat. Bump stock optional but encouraged.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:40 AM on December 14, 2017 [12 favorites]

showing a lack of respect for voters who cast their ballots for him

What about showing respect for the 3,000,000 more voters who voted for Clinton?
posted by kirkaracha at 9:46 AM on December 14, 2017 [27 favorites]

The socialists vs. the Costas: Upstart hard-left candidates challenge iconic old-school Pittsburgh political family

tl;dr:
Summer Lee, a young, accomplished woman of color, is going to attempt to primary Paul Costa (D-PA34) this spring.

Sara Innamorato is running against Dom Costa (D-PA21) in a similar primary-from-the-left race.

Both candidates are DSA-endorsed. In both cases the primary is the election, so if someone should want to aid in these campaigns, that time would be now-ish. The primary is May 15.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:47 AM on December 14, 2017 [34 favorites]

The FCC vote was just evacuated for a "security break." Security is forcing all journalists out of the room. Presumably there was a bomb threat or similar.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:52 AM on December 14, 2017 [11 favorites]

Louie Gohmert in the Presidential line of succession would be both remarkably appropriate now and grounds for flattening the entire organization and starting over.
posted by delfin at 9:55 AM on December 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

Steve Inskeep, may he step on both equivalent sides of several legos, actually pushed back on a Republican spouting bullshit! And not in a "well democrats say" type of way. Some "Republican strategist" was explaining how the GOP is totally fine and voters are going to <3 them, especially once they enact more of their agenda like cutting taxes for everyone [sic]. Steve Inskeep said "But the tax bill is extremely unpopular. Do you really think passing unpopular legislation will help your approval rating?"

That was a good one! But he didn't take the next step, and point out that the Republican agenda of massive tax cuts for the rich is basically unpopular and always has been, and that Republicans have to pretend the cuts are something else. Nor was Kansas -- the idea that the tax cuts are bad policy, not just unpopular -- ever mentioned.

And worse, he let the Republican flak get by with the bigger whopper, which is to say "We Republicans are happy Moore lost because now voters won't associate him with us!"

Inskeep never mentioned that the RNC and Trump reversed themselves to endorse Moore in the late stages of the election. The Republican Party is on record as endorsing Moore, and Inskeep (and NPR more generally) are helping Repiublicans push their No True Republican spin.

Democrats need to push back on that lie, even if NPR won't.
posted by Gelatin at 9:55 AM on December 14, 2017 [15 favorites]

Live video of the room
posted by cmfletcher at 9:58 AM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

And worse, he let the Republican flak get by with the bigger whopper, which is to say "We Republicans are happy Moore lost because now voters won't associate him with us!"

Indeed, it's all true. Inskeep's moment of journalism was brief.
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:00 AM on December 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

A chicken with a head injury could beat Gohmert at checkers three-out-of-five.
posted by delfin at 10:06 AM on December 14, 2017 [18 favorites]

A poll by Suffolk shows Trump favorability among Fox viewers in steady decline.

Jun: 90%
Oct: 74%
Dec: 58%
posted by chris24 at 10:12 AM on December 14, 2017 [36 favorites]

Pai is also quoting blog posts (Stratechery--no idea) in defense of his positions. And he's making all sorts of specious leaps of logic about the type of content filtering that Google, Facebook, and Twitter do, basically saying they're a danger to an open internet (not necessarily wrong), and therefore we shouldn't trust them when they say that ending net neutrality is a danger to an open internet.
posted by Room 101 at 10:14 AM on December 14, 2017

@AshaRangappa_: Curious whether we can consider a possibility: That Strozk, a counterintelligence agent and Russia expert, saw a Trump presidency as "terrifying" not because he's a political zealot, but because he was privy to evidence/intel that suggested it would be a national security threat?

Speculation, of course, but at some point, the Republican effort to dig into the political affiliations of everyone involved with the investigation could backfire if it reveals they had professional reasons to reach their negative conclusions about Trump.
posted by zachlipton at 10:16 AM on December 14, 2017 [15 favorites]

Perhaps to keep the streams separate (and the threads of manageable sizes and activity levels), the net neutrality discussion could be shifted to the open net neutrality thread. It's still good for another few days.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:17 AM on December 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

And that's that. They voted to blow up Net Neutrality, most of the audience filed out, and now they're continuing with the day's business.

It was nice while it lasted.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:17 AM on December 14, 2017 [12 favorites]

It's over. Net Neutrality repealed on a 2-3 vote.

.
posted by zachlipton at 10:18 AM on December 14, 2017 [9 favorites]

Elections have goddamn consequences.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 10:19 AM on December 14, 2017 [27 favorites]

Well, at least it should take a while for the consequences to sho#`%${%&`+'${`%&
NO CARRIER
posted by delfin at 10:21 AM on December 14, 2017 [44 favorites]

May Commissioner Pai be forced to spend the rest of his days stuck in a cable company voice-response system while trying to dispute his monthly bill.
posted by strange chain at 10:21 AM on December 14, 2017 [73 favorites]

WaPo, GOP considers letting tax cuts for families expire sooner

Congressional Republicans are looking at shortening the duration of tax cuts that their plan would give to families and individuals, a leading lawmaker said Thursday.

That change would free up more revenue for additional changes to their tax overhaul, but it could also heighten complaints that the bill prioritizes cuts for corporations over households.

Under a tax overhaul bill passed by the Senate earlier this month, tax cuts for all American households would expire at the end of 2025. But Republicans are now considering having those tax cuts expire in 2024.

Nothing about this process can remotely be called tax "reform." It's entirely budget gimmicks. Or as Michael Linden put it, apropos to the current discussion here:

This is the Comcast cable contract of tax bills.

LOW PROMOTIONAL RATE!!!*

*Your rate increases by a billion next year and you are locked in and you get horrible customer service and everything's terrible

posted by zachlipton at 10:25 AM on December 14, 2017 [54 favorites]

Mark Berman [via Twitter]: Minutes after the FCC votes to repeal its net neutrality rules, New York @AGSchneiderman says he will sue to try and stop the rollback
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:27 AM on December 14, 2017 [108 favorites]

There's a locally owned wireless internet company here in town and I plan on contacting them to ask what they plan to do with a rollback of Net Neutrality. If their answers are satisfactory and they're willing to stand behind it, then I will drop Cox in a hot second if they raise rates or prioritize content. (This local company has been in business for a while and a lot of local businesses use them.)
posted by azpenguin at 10:29 AM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Right now would be a great time to call your Congressional representatives and ask them to support HR 4585 to undo what the FCC just did.
posted by zachlipton at 10:30 AM on December 14, 2017 [37 favorites]

Net neutrality. The Voting Right Act. The Paris Accord.

Say them like Arya Stark.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:38 AM on December 14, 2017 [73 favorites]

Mod note: Bunch of comments removed; understandable first blush of reactions notwithstanding, let's steer further substantive Net Neutrality news/commentary to the existing thread and maybe just ditch the free-form chattery stuff.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:39 AM on December 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

NYT Opinion: What Omarosa Did Best: Get Fired

Ms. Newman’s official title was director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison, but she was better known by a title that reflected the breadth and depth of her job responsibilities: director of nothing. Her firing puts the White House in a real jam. Who in the administration is going to do nothing now?

Traditionally the position of director of nothing in a presidential administration falls to the vice president, whose main responsibility is standing around waiting for the president to die, but Mike Pence left an N.F.L. football game a couple of months ago, so his resume’s too full. Given that Ms. Newman made the maximum White House staffer salary of $179,700 a year, it’s clear that director of nothing is too important a position to go unfilled.

Ms. Newman was theoretically supposed to do African-American outreach. Without her there, no one will do nothing to reach out to black people, which is a huge loss for everyone who was dedicated to Ms. Newman’s particular style of ignoring African-Americans.

posted by murphy slaw at 10:39 AM on December 14, 2017 [63 favorites]

Ryan rumors going into overdrive:

But the expectation of his impending departure has escaped the hushed confines of Ryan’s inner circle and permeated the upper-most echelons of the GOP. In recent interviews with three dozen people who know the speaker—fellow lawmakers, congressional and administration aides, conservative intellectuals and Republican lobbyists—not a single person believed Ryan will stay in Congress past 2018. [Politico]

posted by Chrysostom at 10:44 AM on December 14, 2017 [11 favorites]

WaPo, Rubio a ‘no’ on GOP tax bill unless tax credit for working poor is expanded

I mean, Rubio caves, and they'll surely try to buy him off (his "tax credit for the working poor" has issues that make it not as generous as it sounds), but between him and Corker, they've got issues.
posted by zachlipton at 10:45 AM on December 14, 2017 [19 favorites]

And they aren't giving Collins what they had promised her or Flake what they had promised him. Not a done deal just yet.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:46 AM on December 14, 2017 [12 favorites]

I mean, Rubio caves, and they'll surely try to buy him off

I can't imagine they would bother with buying him off when he would fold under a stern lecture from McConnell. Or any random four-year-old, for that matter.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:53 AM on December 14, 2017 [18 favorites]

It's really something, isn't it? This is almost certainly the single highest leverage situation Rubio will ever find himself in, where he basically holds all of the cards, and everyone is CERTAIN he'll fold.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:03 AM on December 14, 2017 [33 favorites]

"...not a single person believed Ryan will stay in Congress past 2018."

I mean, this is mostly down to Iron 'Stache, no?
posted by baltimoretim at 11:05 AM on December 14, 2017 [11 favorites]

This isn't about Rubio getting anything substantial, it's a dance to make him look like he cares about poor people so he can run for president in 2020.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:09 AM on December 14, 2017 [15 favorites]

Rubio has been kicked out of two offices because the property owners didn't want to have liability for all the righteously aggrieved people marching outside his offices. He is a garbage Senator whose greatest legislative accomplishment heretofore was that he often didn't show up for votes. The idea that he has suddenly grown a spine is laughable. Fuuuuuuck Rubio.
posted by Cookiebastard at 11:09 AM on December 14, 2017 [60 favorites]

this is mostly down to Iron 'Stache, no?

Ryan must be looking at some absolutely dismal polling on that particular matchup.

Without the Republicans fighting to keep the Speaker from being unseated, one hopes Ironstache wins it in a walk.
posted by Gelatin at 11:09 AM on December 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

Paul Ryan says that for the economy's sake, the American birth rate must increase

“The economy” = the white Christian birthrate, right?
posted by non canadian guy at 11:12 AM on December 14, 2017 [12 favorites]

God bless us, every one!
Ashley Feinberg [via Twitter]: Sean Spicer thinks that A Christmas Carol is a collection of Christmas carols (Click the picture to see his caption.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:13 AM on December 14, 2017 [29 favorites]

With Jones's victory, we now have a few years of every Republican senator thinking, "Well, I have not heard MY name in the news in awhile..." The Turtle has no teeth - what can he do to a grandstanding senator who throws off his timetables?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:13 AM on December 14, 2017

aren't tax credits mostly useless to the working poor, since they only reduce your liability if you actually owe money on your tax bill and can never increase the size of your refund?
posted by murphy slaw at 11:15 AM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

this is mostly down to Iron 'Stache, no?

Ryan must be looking at some absolutely dismal polling on that particular matchup.


I suspect it's less that Ryan is expecting to lose his own race, but that the House will be either flipped to the Dems or the GOP margin will be whittled down to single digits.

In the first case, he loses his Speakership and has to deal with being in the minority party, a major setback for his political aspirations. In the second case, the House loses the more moderate Republicans (in swing districts) that made governing even remotely feasible, leaving the more rabid Freedom Caucus with even greater influence. Both of which results lead to Mr. Ryan having a pretty unpleasant future in store.

If the rumors are true, I'd look for Ryan to start angling for a Senate seat, a Governor's race, or gearing up to run against a hugely unpopular Trump in 2020.
posted by darkstar at 11:18 AM on December 14, 2017 [11 favorites]

aren't tax credits mostly useless to the working poor, since they only reduce your liability if you actually owe money on your tax bill and can never increase the size of your refund?

If they're refundable, one gets a check for them anyway. If memory serves me correctly, the EITC works that way.
posted by Gelatin at 11:18 AM on December 14, 2017 [9 favorites]

The greatest thing about Paul Ryan is that he has successfully navigated to a place in which no one in America likes him or has the slightest sympathy for him.

The left hates him for being a heartless Randroid bent on turning Americans into serfs. The hard right thinks he's a horrible quisling Obama-lover because he won't let them destroy America fast enough. Congress has an approval rating among the mainstream somewhere below ticks and lice and he's the House's visible face. He has moderates and Freedom Caucus dingbats at an impasse on every given day, plays hot potato with major issues with McConnell because neither wants to be the one who writes them and takes the blame, and he knew all of this before he took this job. He would have fewer mourners at his funeral than Eleanor Rigby and he has only himself to blame.
posted by delfin at 11:21 AM on December 14, 2017 [49 favorites]

it's a dance to make him look like he cares about poor people so he can run for president in 2020.

These are not a bunch of bright guys...

and he knew all of this before he took this job.

Yeah, to be fair, this was a problem before he took the job. Boehner was very, very happy to leave that shit.
posted by Melismata at 11:23 AM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Boehner wasn't just happy to leave it, but still seriously pissed about some of the assholes he had to deal with, too.
posted by darkstar at 11:30 AM on December 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

The best thing you can say about the position of House Majority Leader GOP-Edition is that the position is always filled by people who deserve the abject misery that job entails.
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:31 AM on December 14, 2017 [21 favorites]

Ryan’s Office Pushes Back On Reports That He’s Considering Retiring

Following reports indicating that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) is seriously considering retiring from Congress, a spokeswoman for the speaker said that he is “not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Strong indicated that Brendan Buck, a counselor to Ryan, would have additional comment, but he had not yet weighed in early Thursday afternoon.

Ryan also addressed speculation that he is thinking about retiring on Thursday. Asked as he was leaving his weekly press briefing whether he was quitting any time soon, Ryan replied, “I’m not.”

apply as many layers of kremlinology to this revelation as you wish.
posted by murphy slaw at 11:31 AM on December 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

"Soon" meaning "in the foreseeable future" or "soon" meaning "before the end of his current term"?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:33 AM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Or maybe "soon," means that Ryan is willing to wait around to see if he ends up succeeding Trump/Pence before the House flips in 2018.
posted by gladly at 11:35 AM on December 14, 2017 [9 favorites]

I mean... what else is he gonna say, with the tax bill still on the operating table? This sounds like something we won't know the answer to for at least a few weeks.
posted by saturday_morning at 11:40 AM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

He could have said "I have no plans to quit Congress, and expect to represent WI-01 for as long as the voters will have me," but he conspicuously didn't.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:47 AM on December 14, 2017 [12 favorites]

How many trees had to die for this absurd photo op?
posted by zachlipton at 12:11 PM on December 14, 2017 [13 favorites]

How many trees had to die for this absurd photo op?

Maybe they recycled some from this absurd photo op.
posted by dis_integration at 12:22 PM on December 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

“We will get rid of the redundancy and duplication that wastes your time and your money..."

"... the redundancy and duplication..."

I fucking hate you, trump.
posted by Tarumba at 12:37 PM on December 14, 2017 [163 favorites]

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94: "Paul Ryan says that for the economy's sake, the American birth rate must increase, and that he's done his part in having three children. If only there were some way of getting young people into our country. Perhaps from... some other country..."

Assuming this is actually a goal worth pursuing, how about just funding CHIP for a start. Support affordable insurance for everyone really so that people don't have to save up to have a baby. Maybe spend some money on higher education reducing young family debt loads so they can afford to have kids. $Deity this isn't hard.
posted by Mitheral at 12:49 PM on December 14, 2017 [38 favorites]

Rubio a ‘no’ on GOP tax bill unless tax credit for working poor is expanded

In case you had any doubt as to the cruelty of Republicans, the Child Tax Credit is structured such that Jared and Ivanka will receive thousands of new dollars and the poorest families will receive little or nothing. Rubio wants to put a fig leaf on this but leave in place the basic unfairness of the credit.
posted by JackFlash at 12:54 PM on December 14, 2017 [20 favorites]

And they aren't giving Collins what they had promised her or Flake what they had promised him. Not a done deal just yet.

This article about Susan Collins put a quick end to my hopes on that front. She sounds pretty determined to keep kicking that football.

She defended her decision in the face of the group’s challenges that previous Republican promises for the tax bill had been broken, including a commitment to not add to the deficit and to not benefit the rich, and that written agreements are not law.

“I do not believe that I’ve given up leverage,” Ms. Collins said. “I’ve used my leverage to negotiate agreements that are promises to me.”

She added, “I’m sorry that you don’t believe in the agreements.”

...around the halls of the Capitol on Wednesday, Ms. Collins appeared to be increasingly comfortable with voting for the tax cuts.

Naive? Malicious? Who can tell anymore.
posted by saturday_morning at 1:08 PM on December 14, 2017 [14 favorites]

The economy needs more nimble little hands? How about you increase wages, provide health care, forgive student loans and in general act like workers under 50 aren’t disposable cash cows for the credit industry? Maybe then they’ll feel like doing their duty to Mammon.
posted by Captain l'escalier at 1:08 PM on December 14, 2017 [14 favorites]

Aren't tax credits mostly useless to the working poor, since they only reduce your liability if you actually owe money on your tax bill and can never increase the size of your refund?

It depends on if the tax credit is refundable or not. If it's a refundable credit, you qualify, and didn't have any reportable income, when you file your return you'll get the whole credit as your refund.
posted by VTX at 1:08 PM on December 14, 2017

Stopped Clock Jennifer Rubin, WaPo: How the 2018 midterms could end the nightmare of Trump

It is slowly dawning on Republicans and the right-wing media echo chamber that President Trump’s assault on democratic norms and the rule of law, his betrayal of his own populist campaign themes (with tax cuts for the rich and Medicaid spending cuts, for example), his misogynist and xenophobic rhetoric, his mean-spirited vendetta against hardworking immigrants and his dangerous, erratic behavior on the world stage have ignited a backlash that could deliver in 2018 House and Senate majorities to Democrats, who barely had a political pulse a year ago. Trump’s inability to distinguish his grandiose fantasies from reality will also give the midterms an urgency rarely seen in a non-presidential election.

Call them the “Stop the Madness!” elections. Voters will be asked whether they want to reverse a huge tax giveaway to the rich (presuming that the GOP rams through its tax bill by then) and stop rubber-stamping corrupt, extreme and incompetent executive branch and judicial appointments. Democrats will run on populist measures (e.g. an infrastructure bill) as well as the promise to end the scapegoating of immigrants and exercise real oversight over an executive branch rife with self-dealing, self-enrichment and nepotism. In other words, Democrats will ask voters: Do they want to bring the Trumpian nightmare to an end?

She goes on to outline how we could undo much of Trump’s damage fairly swiftly; I found it immensely cheering.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:12 PM on December 14, 2017 [42 favorites]

Foreign Policy, Jana Winter, Head of Congressional Ethics Office Sued for Abusing Position, Accused of Assaulting Women

A top congressional ethics official who oversees investigations into misconduct by lawmakers is accused in a federal lawsuit of verbally abusing and physically assaulting women and using his federal position to influence local law enforcement, according to a complaint filed in a federal court in Pennsylvania last month.

The ongoing lawsuit against Omar Ashmawy, staff director and chief counsel of the Office of Congressional Ethics, stems from his involvement in a late-night brawl in 2015 in Milford, Pennsylvania, and includes a range of allegations relating to his behavior that evening and in the following two-and-half years.

The lawsuit comes from a Valentines Day 2015 incident where a fancy dinner out ended with punches thrown in which three women at a bar, including the bartender, accuse him of harassing and assaulting them.
posted by zachlipton at 1:12 PM on December 14, 2017 [22 favorites]

That photo op should have been stacks of dollar bills to visually demonstrate how much more money the people at the top are going to save.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:13 PM on December 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Stopped Clock Jennifer Rubin

Voters will be asked whether they want to reverse a huge tax giveaway to the rich (presuming that the GOP rams through its tax bill by then)

Those tax cuts will never be reversed without a god damned revolution. We've seen it time and time again, if a Democrat dares even venture taxing the rich and company profits, Republicans will automatically spin it as a tax hike on everyone and Middle America falls for it every damn time.
posted by Talez at 1:15 PM on December 14, 2017 [16 favorites]

She added, “I’m sorry that you don’t believe in the agreements.”

If she is so sure about the agreements, she should state she will resign if they are not met.
posted by mikepop at 1:18 PM on December 14, 2017 [19 favorites]

It could just be a revolution at the ballot box primary election. There's nothing stopping the Dems from introducing a bill that creates a new tax bracket at the 2M mark, say, 50%. "The Republicans would like you to believe your taxes will go up. Here's how you can know: do you make more than 2 million dollars a year? No? Then they won't."

The only impediment to this is electing Dems who aren't 70% as beholden to the rich as the Republicans are, which would represent some change.
posted by phearlez at 1:20 PM on December 14, 2017 [58 favorites]

MeFites, would you like to send a holiday message to President Pants-On-Fire? I'll bet you would.

Not as fun as previous good times, but it gave me a little bit of holiday joy.
posted by theora55 at 1:29 PM on December 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

She goes on to outline how we could undo much of Trump’s damage fairly swiftly;

Democrats cannot undo anything as long a there is a Republican in the White House with a veto.
posted by JackFlash at 1:31 PM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

In today's episode of Democrats Behaving Badly....

Lebsock, who remains a candidate for state treasurer, claimed in a news release on Thursday that he “was exonerated this week when he voluntarily participated in and passed a polygraph test asking critical questions about allegations made against him by Faith Winter.”

…When the accusations surfaced a month ago, Lebsock offered an apology to Winter, saying that he had a “number of drinks” at the party and “I do not remember ever saying anything that was out of line.”

Based on the transcript of the polygraph posted to his campaign website Tuesday morning, Lebsock’s memory appears to have improved.

posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:33 PM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

This whole thing is getting out of hand - I've also been elected (with two votes, of course) as Inspector of Elections.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:36 PM on December 14, 2017 [147 favorites]

So the right-wing dickbags I hate-follow on Twitter are all robotically enacting the same response to the FCC's shitting on net neutrality, which is to tween some variation of "omg how am I still able to tweet/watch youtube/etc i thought the internet was over" (example). It's a variation on that old chestnut, "how can global warming be real if it's snowing in my city?"

I just hate their smug, disingenuous bullshit so much, you guys.
posted by prefpara at 1:38 PM on December 14, 2017 [30 favorites]

Thanks, theora55! I wished him to "Resign!" and signed it from "Every American," using the zip code for the Boston waterfront where the USS Constitution now resides, not far from were the Boston Tea Party took place.

Did I do that right?
posted by wenestvedt at 1:40 PM on December 14, 2017 [14 favorites]

VA HOD update: Recount for HD-40 is complete. Dem picked up 7 votes net, leaving him at -99.

Three more recounts to go, plus any court action for the people given the wrong HD to vote for.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:42 PM on December 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

Chrysostom I'm going to start writing you in for everything, everywhere. I will not stop until you run the show.
posted by Justinian at 1:44 PM on December 14, 2017 [38 favorites]

chrysostom, take the Inspector of Elections position! You'll have valuable insight and hopefully some influence over what you already spend so much effort doing here with your elections posts!
posted by yoga at 1:44 PM on December 14, 2017 [37 favorites]

Greg Sargent, This new report confirms that Trump’s megalomania threatens our democracy. The report is the Post's excellent Russia feature, linked upthread, but Sargent puts a button on it:

Though Trump has at times acknowledged that such sabotage did take place, he has mostly refused to do so. This has long appeared to reflect an inability to view discussion of Russian interference as about anything other than himself. To acknowledge Russian meddling can only be an acknowledgement that his victory may have reflected unsavory external factors along with his blinding greatness, and thus may have been in some sense tainted, and since in Trump’s mind that cannot be true, it also cannot be true that Russia meddled at all.
...
The Post reporting leaves little doubt that Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Russian sabotage undermines the government’s ability to mount a response commensurate with the destructiveness of those intentions. The Post quotes one official insisting that Trump’s views are “not a constraint” on the government’s ability to fend off Russia’s “destabilizing activity.” But this assertion undercuts itself: It acknowledges both that this is an urgent goal and that the president cannot bring himself to accept it as an imperative.

We've been talking a bunch in here about what makes Trump uniquely awful, as compared to the destructiveness of the normal GOP agenda, and this, right here, this is a huge piece of it. Our national security is threatened because the President cannot put the nation ahead of personal grudges or tolerate an intelligence report that tells him things he doesn't want to hear.

Also, if watching Richard Rubin and a talking bear explain some of the winners and losers of the tax bill in a weird tax-themed Santa's workshop is the kind of thing that appeals to you, that's an actual thing you can do now.
posted by zachlipton at 1:45 PM on December 14, 2017 [30 favorites]

Gelatin: "Ryan must be looking at some absolutely dismal polling on that particular matchup."

There have been a couple, showing Ryan ahead in the high single digits. Which isn't great, but not awful for him. As other have mentioned, I think leaving/resigning the speakership is more a factor of the job isn't fun, and it's only going to get less in the new Congress.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:45 PM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

yoga: "chrysostom, take the Inspector of Elections position! You'll have valuable insight and hopefully some influence over what you already spend so much effort doing here with your elections posts!"

Thanks! But I had already said okay to the tax collector gig; I think the county reorganization meeting to formally approve the vote was yesterday. I'm not sure how they fill the positions if people don't take them, but I know some other Dems here in the borough I'll try to get into them, if possible.

Justinian: "Chrysostom I'm going to start writing you in for everything, everywhere. I will not stop until you run the show."

I think this is getting needlessly messianic.

posted by Chrysostom at 1:52 PM on December 14, 2017 [14 favorites]

I think this is getting needlessly messianic.

If it helps, I'm more picturing you as playing a sort of local government version of Katamari Damacy. (I approve of this.)
posted by mordax at 1:55 PM on December 14, 2017 [47 favorites]

I'd feel much more like I was doing something really important working with elections rather than taxes, but you do you, Chrysostom.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:55 PM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

As other have mentioned, I think leaving/resigning the speakership is more a factor of the job isn't fun

That, plus the fact that he is poised to rake in literally millions as a lobbyist, which is a lot more fun and less stressful.
posted by JackFlash at 1:56 PM on December 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

" he voluntarily participated in and passed a polygraph test"

So he can lie well, hurrah!

Really, the only thing polygraph tests actually test is whether you get nervous when you lie.
posted by Tarumba at 1:59 PM on December 14, 2017 [12 favorites]

Who could Paul Ryan's replacement be? Gohmert? Nunes? The Speaker of the House doesn't have to be a sitting congressman

Someone both Dems and Republicans could accept as a successor before the impeachment of the top two positions?

...

A girl can dream.
posted by corb at 2:13 PM on December 14, 2017 [13 favorites]

I'm not sure McCain is going to make it back for a vote on the tax bill. That would only give them a margin of ONE Republican no vote instead of two. It would be a real shame if his health prevented him from voting to repeal the individual mandate.
posted by Justinian at 2:21 PM on December 14, 2017 [27 favorites]

James Alex Fields, Jr. - the nazi shitbag that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens more has been had his charges upgraded to 1st degree murder from second degree.

That must mean that the prosecution has evidence he planned his attack, right - since premeditation is the difference between murder 1 and 2 ?

That would certainly put any claim to self defense - facile as they were to start with - to rest.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 2:24 PM on December 14, 2017 [77 favorites]

CNN, UN official who visited Pyongyang sees 'high risk' of miscalculation

A UN official who just returned from several days speaking with North Korean officials in Pyongyang has told CNN that he is "really worried about an accidental move toward conflict."

Jeffrey Feltman, an American who is the United Nations undersecretary-general for political affairs, told Christiane Amanpour on Thursday that he is concerned about a "lack of communication" and the "high risk of some kind of miscalculation."

At least the Cold War had the damn hotline with Russia. Now we've got nothing.

Mother Jones, Roger Stone’s Go-Between With WikiLeaks Takes the Fifth. Randy Credico will not be appearing before HPSCI tomorrow after asserting his Fifth Amendment rights. Which is his right, but it's unclear from this letter on what basis he believes his testimony could incriminate himself in criminal activity.
posted by zachlipton at 2:25 PM on December 14, 2017 [13 favorites]

Someone both Dems and Republicans could accept as a successor before the impeachment of the top two positions?

I'm straining to imagine this, but I kinda feel like even if a person with positions both sides could accept actually existed, the Republicans in Congress wouldn't be interested in anyone so bipartisan.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:26 PM on December 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

On a related note, Heather Heyer’s Mom: I Have to Hide Her Grave From Neo-Nazis
posted by zachlipton at 2:29 PM on December 14, 2017 [38 favorites]

James Alex Fields, Jr. - the nazi shitbag that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens more has been had his charges upgraded to 1st degree murder from second degree.

Virginia Statute ( from findlaw )

First-Degree Murder

It is first degree murder to kill another by poison, lying in wait, imprisonment, starving, or by any willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing, or in the commission of, or attempt to commit, arson, rape, forcible sodomy, inanimate or animate object sexual penetration, robbery, burglary, or abduction.

posted by mikelieman at 2:37 PM on December 14, 2017 [9 favorites]

But I thought he only hated Trump... And this is just from the small 375 text sample. The full 10k texts might reveal even more - gasp - opinions.

WSJ: FBI Agent Removed From Russia Probe Held Dim Views of Holder, Sanders

Two FBI employees who used to work for Special Counsel Robert Mueller have already been criticized by Republicans for texts they shared insulting President Donald Trump.

A review of their correspondence shows Mr. Trump wasn’t their only target: They held dim views of other prominent figures, from Chelsea Clinton to Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder to their new boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions. ...

Although many of their texts targeted Mr. Trump, others also drew their ire. Over the course of 16 months of correspondence, starting in August 2015 and ending on Dec. 1, 2016, that was culled from their work phones, Mr. Strzok said he loathed Congress and called presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) an “idiot.” He suggested the death penalty was appropriate for Edward Snowden, a National Security Agency contractor who pilfered reams of sensitive information. He said Ms. Clinton, daughter of Bill and Mrs. Clinton, was “self-entitled.” And he described House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) as “a jerky.”

He said, “I’m worried about what happens if HRC is elected,” apparently referring to Mrs. Clinton. He didn’t elaborate on his concerns.

Ms. Page described Mr. Sanders’s supporters as “idiots,” and said a Republican presidential candidate has “long been suspected of being gay.” She said that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) looked like a “turtle.” They agreed a well-known reporter was “schlubby.”

posted by chris24 at 2:39 PM on December 14, 2017 [18 favorites]

> Yesterday, 18 people signed up to @runforsomething. Today, it’s not even 8am ET and 40 people have signed up to run. Wins help candidate recruitment which helps create more wins

How many of those were Chrysostom
posted by theora55 at 2:40 PM on December 14, 2017 [76 favorites]

"morals or character or WHATEVER IT IS"

i mean really...
posted by waitangi at 2:47 PM on December 14, 2017 [19 favorites]

Clearly anyone who has ever had opinions cannot be allowed to investigate Herr Trump.
posted by benzenedream at 2:48 PM on December 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

*giant red blinking arrow pointing at conspicuous omission* BI, Natasha Bertrand, Democrats want to know more about a strange omission from the Trump campaign's digital director about his foreign contacts:

Parscale's letter mirrored those written by the RNC data firms and used virtually the same language — with one notable exception. Whereas the firms' letters included a line denying that they had had contact with any "foreign government or foreign actor," Parscale's did not.

"Giles-Parscale and Cambridge Analytica did not deny that they had contacts or communications with foreign governments or foreign actors during the 2016 campaign," Cummings and Nadle wrote in a letter on Thursday to House Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy and House Judiciary Chair Bob Goodlatte.

I also just want to highlight Rust Moranis' comment upthread because it should have a billion favorites. That Post story has buried within it the first reporting I've seen that the CIA can personally tie Putin to the hacking.

Metaphor alert: Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY15) getting knocked off the stage by a falling Net Neutrality prop

(Bonus SF-Bay Area local announcement: Rep. Adam Schiff speaking at the Commonwealth Club 2/20)
posted by zachlipton at 2:50 PM on December 14, 2017 [29 favorites]

> Who could Paul Ryan's replacement be?

(Apologies if this has already been posted here.) Eli Sanders has a plan where Democrats get enough seats for them to elect Hillary Clinton the Speaker of the house, then Trump and Pence get impeached, and thus we get President Hillary Clinton. I endorse this message.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:51 PM on December 14, 2017 [10 favorites]

Trump to Release Infrastructure Plan in January, Official Says (Mark Niquette for Bloomberg, December 7, 2017, 12:04 PM MST Updated on December 8, 2017, 3:38 PM MST)

President Donald Trump plans to keep pushing his legislative agenda in 2018 by releasing his long-promised infrastructure proposal in early January, a senior administration official said.

Infrastructure advocates question whether a Republican-led Congress will be able to pass a spending plan with enough federal funding if it’s already approved a tax measure that official estimates say would bloat the budget deficit. Some say the administration missed its best opportunity to deliver a meaningful public works initiative by not incorporating it into the tax bill, which is nearing approval.

“If they’d taken up infrastructure, we’d have a bill today and have the money to fund it,” said Ray LaHood, a Republican and former transportation secretary under President Barack Obama. “Nothing happened this year, so the prospects of anything happening next year I think are pretty slim,” said LaHood, who is a co-chairman of Building America’s Future, a bipartisan coalition that promotes infrastructure.
...
The White House plan is essentially complete and Trump recently reviewed it, the official said. It calls for allocating at least $200 billion in federal funds over 10 years to spur at least $800 billion in spending by states, localities and the private sector.

Huh, that sounds familiar. Oh yeah, Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Isn’t Much of a Plan (Michael Granof and Martin Luby for Fortune, July 12, 2017; also on University of Texas at Austin)

In both cases [of public-private partnerships, aka P3, where private companies take the risks for project development and funding by collecting the rewards of tolls, and the traditional case of government agencies contracting with private companies and paying them for their work], a private company is contracted to do the work with financing from private sector capital, and all of us bear the cost burden either through tolls or taxes. There is no “new” source of funding.

We're still/back with "leveraging" private investments, which can cost more, and won't address projects outside of major cities, among the numerous problems with this old "plan" (American Progress's criticisms from Dec. 1, 2016).
posted by filthy light thief at 2:56 PM on December 14, 2017 [13 favorites]

That must mean that the prosecution has evidence he planned his attack, right - since premeditation is the difference between murder 1 and 2 ?

Unfortunately it could also mean that the prosecutor likes nazis and is trying to tank the case by charging a crime that's too difficult to prove.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:58 PM on December 14, 2017 [9 favorites]

I strongly suspect that there's evidence Fields was a participant in the Discord threads prior to Charlottesville that included extensive discussion of murder by car. If he was advocating it, that'd likely be enough for premeditation.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:02 PM on December 14, 2017 [18 favorites]

"morals or character or WHATEVER IT IS"

i mean really...

The founder and director of the Eric Trump Foundation "philanthropic" organization, ladies and gentlemen.
posted by XMLicious at 3:03 PM on December 14, 2017 [13 favorites]

Unfortunately it could also mean that the prosecutor likes nazis and is trying to tank the case by charging a crime that's too difficult to prove.

That's contrail level paranoia. Dudes gonna go to the pokey for a long, long time. Even if they fail at proving first degree murder, which I suspect won't be a problem, they can always find him guilty of lesser included offenses... like second degree murder.
posted by Justinian at 3:12 PM on December 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

Eli Sanders has a plan where Democrats get enough seats for them to elect Hillary Clinton the Speaker of the house, then Trump and Pence get impeached, and thus we get President Hillary Clinton.

I want to make this very, very clear. If you want a shooting war in this country, using procedural tricks to make Hillary Clinton the President of the United States is the best possible way to get one.

If Hillary had won fair and square last year, with an electoral majority to match her popular majority, the right would've screamed and whined but they would have at least accepted the legitimacy of it... for the most part. (And then turned around and obstructed everything she proposed and called for investigations and special counsels and impeachment ten times daily, but that's kind of their thing.) But installing Hillary as President would have half of America howling COUP! and they would have something of an argument. Using the legislature explicitly to change which party controls the Presidency would be a very, very, very dangerous precedent.

Besides, it literally cannot work. No Republican will vote to impeach Trump, much less Pence, without the mother of all smoking guns in his short-fingered hand. There are simply not enough seats to gain in the Senate in 2018 to reach a two-thirds majority on party lines. And if we reach a point of danger and criminality where Republican Senators would consider impeachment, I suspect that procedural sleight-of-hand will not be necessary because he will be gone in 2020.
posted by delfin at 3:17 PM on December 14, 2017 [28 favorites]

If you want a shooting war in this country, using procedural tricks to make Hillary Clinton the President of the United States is the best possible way to get one.

I don't think you're suggesting we moderate based on threats from the armed wingnut right. That would indeed be suicide.
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:20 PM on December 14, 2017 [11 favorites]

Guys I was just at the grocery store and the cover of the National Enquirer is all HILLARY’S RIGGED INVESTIGATION.

Just in case you were wondering what they’re pushing this week.
posted by Fleebnork at 3:21 PM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Roundtable at FiveThirtyEight.com: Can The GOP Stop Running Toxic Candidates? (Answer: probably not, at least right now, especially with Fox News running the show.)
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 3:22 PM on December 14, 2017 [11 favorites]

We’re up to 8 senators on the resignation train:

Van Hollen calls for Trump to resign

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Thursday said he’d “love to see” President Trump resign, joining a growing group of Democratic senators calling for Trump to step down.

"I believe the president is unfit for office, and I would love to see the president resign,” Van Hollen said on MSNBC’s “Meet The Press Daily."

“But again, I think the best way to address the harm that the Trump agenda is doing to the country and all the broken promises, is in 2018. That has to be our focus,” he continued.

posted by Barack Spinoza at 3:22 PM on December 14, 2017 [25 favorites]

Guys I was just at the grocery store and the cover of the National Enquirer is all HILLARY’S RIGGED INVESTIGATION.

Just in case you were wondering what they’re pushing this week.
posted by Fleebnork at 3:21 PM on December 14 [1 favorite +] [!]

That the National Enquirer has become one of its house organs is all you need to know to prove that the GOP has truly lost its mind.
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:24 PM on December 14, 2017 [40 favorites]

Unfortunately it could also mean that the prosecutor likes nazis and is trying to tank the case by charging a crime that's too difficult to prove.

From my IANAL ( but I do maintain legacy C code ) if that was the goal, the prosecutor could have linked in Terrorism, and gone for Capital Murder.
posted by mikelieman at 3:40 PM on December 14, 2017

According to this (video) report, VA state police recorded the entire attack from the helicopter - and they were then tracking him afterwards.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 3:45 PM on December 14, 2017 [12 favorites]

I don't think you're suggesting we moderate based on threats from the armed wingnut right. That would indeed be suicide.

I am suggesting that pursuing that particular tactic would be ridiculous.

No Republican will ever, ever, ever vote for impeachment of a Republican President if that would lead to a Democratic replacement, double especially if it would hand the Presidency to the woman that their base considers to be Al Capone mixed with the Antichrist. It is simply not going to happen. They'd be running from mobs with torches if they did.

No Republican would vote for impeachment leading to a REPUBLICAN replacement without absolutely undeniable and horrifying provocation, and frankly, I doubt they would ever have to if it reached that point because the President would be pressured and bargained with to resign Nixon-style. If we reach a point where a criminal President says fuck-you-I'm-not-leaving we have bigger problems than Congressional actions.

So, that means a Democratic House and 67 Democratic Senators, the latter of which is not mathematically possible in 2018. And if we are considering a 2020 wave election that would leave the Dems with 67 Senators, FDR-era-level dominance, their President will _not_ be Donald Trump.

The armed wingnut right is 99% talk and bluster, which is a very good thing. Very few are ever moved to act. But in an unfathomable situation in which Democrats in Congress would try to not just remove a Republican President but take it for themselves, I for one do not want to know what would follow.
posted by delfin at 3:52 PM on December 14, 2017 [10 favorites]

> I am suggesting that pursuing that particular tactic would be ridiculous

Unless I'm greatly misreading him, Eli Sanders doesn't think it's actually going to happen. It's an interesting thought, no more.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:00 PM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

So, that means a Democratic House and 67 Democratic Senators, the latter of which is not mathematically possible in 2018. And if we are considering a 2020 wave election that would leave the Dems with 67 Senators, FDR-era-level dominance, their President will _not_ be Donald Trump.

Aren't you skipping a step here? My understanding is that the House alone brings articles of impeachment, at which point proceedings in the Senate must be held and evidence presented. This would involve a huge media frenzy as salacious evidence against an extremely unpopular President is publicly presented, and if that evidence is sufficiently damning (and the Republican party is a year or more further along in an implosion that shows no sign of slowing) I don't think it's so far fetched to imagine that enough GOP senators might defect to make up the difference and vote to remove Trump/Pence even though it means forfeiting the Presidency before 2020.

If they all voted to keep him in they'd be looking at about one more year of a lame-duck administration with a split or hostile Congress and not much chance of meeting any legislative goals, followed by a 2020 massacre where they'd all be that much more inextricably tied to Trump and where they'd very likely lose the Presidency anyway. Is it totally outside the realm of possibility in that scenario that a dozen or more Republican senators might be desperate enough to break rank and vote him out, just to start disassociating their party from Trumpism? Or just to start rebranding themselves personally as Principled Conservatives? He's polling in the mid-30s and the Mueller Report isn't even out yet.
posted by contraption at 4:19 PM on December 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

WaPo, Music promoter dangled possible Putin meeting for Trump during campaign

The July 2015 offer by publicist Rob Goldstone came about a year before he set up a meeting for Trump’s eldest son with a Russian lawyer who he said had incriminating information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Goldstone’s overture came as he unsuccessfully urged Trump to travel to Moscow later that year to attend a birthday celebration for his client’s father.

“Maybe he would welcome a meeting with President Putin,” Goldstone wrote in a July 24, 2015, email to Trump’s longtime personal assistant, Rhona Graff. There is no indication Trump or his assistant followed up on Goldstone’s offer.

The significance here is at least two things. First, these efforts started early, well before Trump was remotely a front-runner or even considered a serious candidate. And second, it shows Goldstone had connections in high places, or at least wanted people to think he did, to make such an invitation. Some random music promoter doesn't run around offering meetings with Putin. Which casts the denials that Goldstone's pitch for the Trump Tower meeting had nothing to do with the Russian government in new light.
posted by zachlipton at 4:20 PM on December 14, 2017 [13 favorites]

I'm just gonna go on record here stating that the nastiest, shoutiest candidate will win the 2020 Presidential election.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 4:46 PM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Great, let’s make sure that’s our candidate. Lord knows we have plenty to be shouty about, lord knows the GOP has given us years of material, and why should only one party get to tap national rage? Let’s tap that sucker. It can be like the Women’s March on steroids.
posted by Autumnheart at 4:51 PM on December 14, 2017 [27 favorites]

At least the Cold War had the damn hotline with Russia. Now we've got nothing.

oh, i think we've still got the hotline, it just doesn't work the way you might hope:

White House confirms that President Trump spoke with Vladimir Putin today and promises a readout tonight. Kremlin has already released its readout.
-- Jennifer Epstein, Bloomberg

posted by murphy slaw at 5:07 PM on December 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

Yeah the White House readout is a piece of work (this is the whole thing):

President Donald J. Trump spoke with President Vladimir Putin of Russia today. President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging Americas strong economic performance in his annual press conference.

The two presidents also discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea.

Two damn sentences, neither of them involve election hacking, and one is devoted to praising Putin for praising Trump.
posted by zachlipton at 5:10 PM on December 14, 2017 [26 favorites]

What’s the deal with this? Trump super PAC quietly launches new ad campaign targeting Special Counsel Robert Mueller
posted by gucci mane at 5:27 PM on December 14, 2017 [26 favorites]

So, they can make Mitt Romney the speaker of the house? Or Snuffleupagus, or who would they want to be President if 1 and 2 go down?
posted by Oyéah at 5:38 PM on December 14, 2017

This is interesting. Suffolk University polling is showing that Fox News viewers are rather rapidly souring on Trump.

WaPo; Fans of Trump’s friendliest news network are turning on him

In March, Fox viewers were 40 points more likely to view Trump positively than were voters overall. By December, they were only 24 points more likely to do so — even though the numbers for Republicans — with which Fox viewership overlaps to some extent — remained fairly high.

The actual polling data is available here for those that like that sort of thing. (It's in a useless PDF format, though.)
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 6:11 PM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

@byHeatherLong: BREAKING: The Johnson Amendment repeal to allow churches and other religious groups to endorse political candidates will NOT be in the final GOP tax bill. (It was struck down because of Byrd Rule, source says) #taxbill
posted by zachlipton at 6:13 PM on December 14, 2017 [53 favorites]

At this rate, they may need to go all the way down the chain of succession to the county dogcatcher.
posted by acb at 6:13 PM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

If we're constructing elaborate scenarios in which the Pres and VEEP are both removed and there's an outside Speaker of the House, remember that it's entirely possible (I think probable!) that the Speaker of the House cannot Constitutionally succeed to the presidency.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:17 PM on December 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

Please no more elaborate scenarios, the current situation is elaborate enough.
posted by agregoli at 6:20 PM on December 14, 2017 [17 favorites]

Mod note: Enough with the speculation on unlikely scenarios for now, thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 6:30 PM on December 14, 2017 [14 favorites]

Ryan’s Office Pushes Back On Reports That He’s Considering Retiring

Yes, I don't see why anyone would believe that Ryan's going to quit the speakership if the tax scam passes -- because that's merely the necessary precondition to achieving his actual life's dream of destroying Medicare and Social Security.

Why would you get that close and just blow off the big score? If I were him, i.e., the Banality of Evil Incarnate, I would sure as shit try to run the table before (and because of) my imminent ignominious trouncing in 2018.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:00 PM on December 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

. . . unless. Mr. Upright Catholic Dad did the horrid sex harass thing. Like a bro gonna do.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:07 PM on December 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Paul Ryan says that for the economy's sake, the American birth rate must increase, and that he's done his part in having three children.

Republicans say that workers aren't getting raises because robots are taking their jobs. Simultaneously they say there aren't enough workers for all the jobs.

At least one of these two claims, maybe both, must be wrong.
posted by JackFlash at 7:08 PM on December 14, 2017 [39 favorites]

Slaves. They want slaves. The whole system is designed to provide them with slaves.
posted by valkane at 7:22 PM on December 14, 2017 [81 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 Senate:

-- Gravis poll of TN race has Dem Bredesen up 42-40 over likely GOP nom Blackburn.

-- Nate Cohn calls Senate control a toss-up.

** 2018 House:

-- Mentioned upstream, Blake Farenthold is not running for re-election, in the wake of sexual harassment charges in his office. TX-27 is pretty red: Trump 60-37, Romney 61-38.

-- Lots of generic ballot polls being published this week. PPP has Dems as +11 (51/40). 538 average is +10.9 (48.7/37.8).

-- Sabato has an article claiming that a 4 point lead in the generic ballot would be enough for the majority. Politics nerd reactions are skeptical - it's generally thought to be more like 8 points.

** Odds & ends:

-- Independent Mary Norwood is seeking a recount in the Atlanta mayoral race. Norwood lost by 832 votes, less than 1%.

-- VA HOD update #1: Mentioned earlier, recount concluded in HD-40, with GOP incumbent Hugo holding on. The remaining three recounts will be in the next few days.

-- VA HOD update #2: A judge has set a date of Jan 5 for a hearing on whether to hold a new election as a remedy for the voters in HD-28 who were given ballots with a different district HOD race. The state elections commissioner said the board has no way of providing relief, and supports the court providing an appropriate remedy. Jan 5 is only five days before the new HOD class is seated; I'm not sure what would happen if a decision was not yet reached (can't be the incumbent, he retired).

-- Part 3 of 538's gerrymandering podcast series, focusing on VRA/racial gerrymandering.

posted by Chrysostom at 7:26 PM on December 14, 2017 [30 favorites]

it's been pretty interesting to watch the republican platform pivot to "MATE. SPAWN. DIE."
posted by murphy slaw at 7:28 PM on December 14, 2017 [45 favorites]

Paul Ryan says that for the economy's sake, the American birth rate must increase, and that he's done his part in having three children.

Betcha an efficient copy editor could get his statement down to fourteen words.
posted by BS Artisan at 7:33 PM on December 14, 2017 [121 favorites]

So how is Senate control a toss-up if estimates of the generic ballot are 3 points beyond where they'd need to be for control to flip?
posted by Merus at 7:35 PM on December 14, 2017

The generic ballot is for the House. You can't really poll 435 races, but there's a historic relationship to the generic ballot we can infer outcomes from. Part of the debate is how much of a lead Dems need in order to take control, given gerrymandering in 2010.

Senate races are much fewer in number and get polled individually. And since they are only in certain states, they can vary more from the generic ballot numbers.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:41 PM on December 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

The Senate map is also heavily tilted against Democrats, they're defending now 26 seats to only 8 for Republicans, 10 of those are in Trump states including states like Montana and West Virginia where he won by 40+. Also, the seats Republicans are defending are not particularly vulnerable, only Nevada and Arizona look somewhat likely to flip, with possible competitive races in Tennessee and ::knocks on wood:: Texas.

Basically Democrats need to run the table, holding every seat in a Trump state AND win Nevada and Arizona. That's not particularly likely even in this environment, just regular variability would suggest dropping at least one and maybe a few of those vulnerable states like Missouri or Florida where Republicans are expected to have strong non-insane (for Republican baseline values of sanity) candidates, as the sitting Republican governors are likely to run. It's certainly possible in a wave environment, and calling the Senate a tossup given the map would've been unthinkable a year ago.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:03 PM on December 14, 2017 [10 favorites]

What’s the deal with this? Trump super PAC quietly launches new ad campaign targeting Special Counsel Robert Mueller

The deal is that in recent weeks the GOP and their media allies have gone all in on covering up whatever collusion happened.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:34 PM on December 14, 2017 [14 favorites]

As far as the messaging on the economy saying that wages are suppressed due to robotics yet there are so many jobs available, it's both and it's neither. It's true in that at some point when you pay people more it eventually becomes cheaper to buy a robot. Ironically, our shit show of a health care system makes this problem worse.

It's also true that there are many job openings...mostly at unsustainable pay rates, but not entirely, for there are jobs robots can't do and even when they can given help or maintenance is required. Not to mention all the other skilled and semi-skilled positions that exist in some fields where getting people interested has proven difficult thus far.

It's misleading messaging because while those are indeed factors in the economy, they are not in any way the primary issues as of yet. The first will be a huge issue in the next couple of decades, I'd expect. The second is fairly normal in a recovery that involves drastic shifts in employment patterns, but is exacerbated at the moment by companies being cheap ass on pay making it infeasible for workers to fund their own retraining and they're too cheap/short sighted to pay to train new hires. We desperately need an apprentice system for skilled blue collar work. That's essentially how big accounting and legal firms do it, so it's clearly possible. And those folks are way more likely to bail a couple of years in, wasting the mentoring expense. They do it anyway, though, because there isn't a school on the planet that teaches how those things work in the real world, only the fundamental concepts that allow new hires to learn relatively quickly.

Similarly, as automation eliminates more and more low skill jobs, companies will have to be willing to train workers if they expect to have any. Either that or they are going to have to pay enough that people can get loans for their training. (Obviously I'm in favor of companies and the state paying for it directly since they have more resources which makes it cheaper overall, but reasonable people can disagree on the exact methods)
posted by wierdo at 8:51 PM on December 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

But it's Democrats who blame* low wages and job shortages on robots. Republicans blame immigrants.

* (I think it's true that robots-are-taking-our-jobs is more of a future concern than a present concern in terms of the economy as a whole. But in rural areas? Where the economy used to be farm work, drilling/mining/logging, manufacturing, local retail? Yeah, the robots and computers took those jobs already. And nothing has replaced them.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:49 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

The rest is behind the WSJ paywall:

Mueller Sought Emails of Trump Campaign Data Firm (Rebecca Ballhaus, WSJ)
Special counsel asked Cambridge Analytica to hand over employees’ emails, in sign of investigators’ interest in campaign data operation

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has requested that Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s campaign, turn over documents as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Mueller asked the firm in the fall to turn over the emails of any Cambridge Analytica employees who worked on the Trump campaign, in a sign that the special counsel is probing the Trump campaign’s data operation

Trump to Visit FBI Academy After Saying Agency ‘In Tatters' (Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg)

Good times.

Oh, and some on Twitter are suggesting Jared will be having a very, very bad Muellerkah. It couldn't hurt to have a sponge cake on hand, just in case.
posted by Room 641-A at 4:55 AM on December 15, 2017 [31 favorites]

Cambridge Analytica being the third rail of the investigation that sets off the serious attempts to kill it would certainly be very telling - all signs so far point to them having played some kind of role as a clearing house for Russian hacked data.
posted by Artw at 5:48 AM on December 15, 2017 [12 favorites]

There are a lot of twitter eggs, Russian bots, and nobodies talking about a Jared indictment on twitter. I haven't seen anyone credible say anything yet.

But, it is getting time for a little Mueller Number 5.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 5:49 AM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]

Mikel Jollett is the only person so far I've seen in sane-ish politics Twitter talking about Jared having a very bad day.

Seems a fair amount of the rumor is coming from John Schindler and Seth Abramson tweets, both of whom are on the Louise Mensch spectrum. Though Rick Wilson who's generally fairly sane seems to agree.
posted by chris24 at 6:19 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

I decided to include the Twitter whispers based on the Daily Beast's Rick Wilson supporting Tea Pain's guess that the chatter he's been hearing is about an in-law. It may be all wrong, but just wanted to clarify that I wasn't trying to pass along totally random rumors, just almost totally randoms rumors. What I'm saying is, you don't need an excuse to get a nice sponge cake.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:21 AM on December 15, 2017 [6 favorites]

Carlos Ballesteros, Newsweek: "ICE Kept 92 Immigrants Shackled on Plane for Two Days in 'Slave Ship' Conditions, Adcoctes Say."

"We were treated like slaves,” Rahim Mohamed, 32, told Newsweek. A diabetic truck driver and father of two, he has lived in the U.S. since 2002.

“We were shackled for nearly two days,” he continued. “We weren't allowed to use the bathroom or get out of the plane. I was not given the medication I need. I peed into a bottle, and then I peed on myself. It was a horrible thing, man. I thought my life was pretty much over."

For Rebecca Sharpless, an immigration law professor at the University of Miami who has been following the situation, it was a gross violation of basic decency.

"If you shackle someone to a chair for almost 46 hours with very little food and very little water with no access to a bathroom, it's a violation of their human rights. It's reminiscent of a slave ship experience," she said.

posted by OnceUponATime at 6:25 AM on December 15, 2017 [87 favorites]

Just get a cake that keeps for a while, it sure looks like there will be more indictments before too long.

Fruitcake is seasonal and appropriate for these dingbats.
posted by lydhre at 6:31 AM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]

It would be a shame if Kushner went down before he could bring peace to the Middle East.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:34 AM on December 15, 2017 [29 favorites]

Trump is on his way to Quantico tomdedicate a new building, but not before trashing the FBI one last time before boarding the chopper. Reminder from Walter Shaub (I think) that attendence to these things is not mandatory, so any cheering you hear at the FBI today is either from true believers or the Entourage Trump brings to these things to do the cheering, just like at the CIA.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:47 AM on December 15, 2017 [14 favorites]

The EPA Hired a Major Republican Opposition Research Firm to Track Press Activity.

Using taxpayer dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency has hired a cutting-edge Republican PR firm that specializes in digging up opposition research to help Administrator Scott Pruitt’s office track and shape press coverage of the agency.

According to federal contracting records, earlier this month Pruitt’s office inked a no-bid $120,000 contract with Definers Corp., a Virginia-based public relations firm founded by Matt Rhoades, who managed Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. Following Romney’s defeat, Rhoades established America Rising, an ostensibly independent political action committee that works closely with the Republican National Committee and Republican candidates to mine damning information on opponents. Other higher-ups at Definers include former RNC research director Joe Pounder, who’s been described as “a master of opposition research,” and senior vice president Colin Reed, an oppo-research guru billed as “among the leaders of the war on [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren.”

posted by scalefree at 6:49 AM on December 15, 2017 [30 favorites]

but not before trashing the FBI one last time before boarding the chopper.

@kylegriffin1
Trump, just before he makes remarks at the FBI National Academy graduation, says this to reporters: "It's a shame what's happened with the FBI... The level of anger at what they've been witnessing with respect to the FBI is certainly very sad."

VIDEO
posted by chris24 at 6:52 AM on December 15, 2017 [9 favorites]

According to this (video) report, VA state police recorded the entire attack from the helicopter - and they were then tracking him afterwards.

Is this the same helicopter that crashed resulting in the deaths of two state troopers?
posted by jointhedance at 6:55 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Donny won't rule out pardoning Flynn.

@mviser (Boston Globe)
President Trump: "I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet. We’ll see what happens."
posted by chris24 at 6:56 AM on December 15, 2017 [13 favorites]

No, Trump is in Quantico for a "FBI National Academy graduation ceremony," not a dedication of a new building. The FBI National Academy is a 10-week program for law enforcement across the country... so, basically, a bunch of cops from a variety of locations. I would fully expect authentic & genuine cheering, though I wouldn't take it as representative of the FBI's attitude, specifically.
posted by creampuff at 7:00 AM on December 15, 2017 [15 favorites]

"I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet."

Is that _another_ count of witness tampering?
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:00 AM on December 15, 2017 [39 favorites]

Carlos Ballesteros, Newsweek: "ICE Kept 92 Immigrants Shackled on Plane for Two Days in 'Slave Ship' Conditions, Adcoctes Say."

Heads must roll for this. This is fucking outrageous to anyone anywhere. The Fuck.
posted by petebest at 7:20 AM on December 15, 2017 [63 favorites]

It's definitely a very enthusiastic audience of cops at the National Academy ceremony. A whooping standing ovation for Trump, who is looking happy as a pig in ordure. Seems likely that he'll enter maximally-disgusting rally-mode during his speech.

Carlos Ballesteros, Newsweek: "ICE Kept 92 Immigrants Shackled on Plane for Two Days in 'Slave Ship' Conditions, Adcoctes Say."

ICE is a criminal organization that must be destroyed and never reconstituted.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:22 AM on December 15, 2017 [62 favorites]

This isn't about Rubio getting anything substantial, it's a dance to make him look like he cares about poor people so he can run for president in 2020.

Oh, hey, it looks like his Brave and Principled holdout is over because they added $300 to the refundable portion of the child tax credit.
posted by Copronymus at 7:45 AM on December 15, 2017 [14 favorites]

He's hardly mentioned the FBI in this speech. He's railing against chain migration, MS-13 "savages," against Chicago ("you people would be able to stop the bloodshed, wouldn't you? You would."), about how the citizens they protect are the ones who "support the flag." This is absolutely a rally, with all sorts of digressions and clownish and terrifying behavior straight out of the campaign. He's getting his satisfaction.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:52 AM on December 15, 2017 [20 favorites]

chris24: President Trump: "I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet. We’ll see what happens."

Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick: Is that _another_ count of witness tampering?

Even if it isn't, it's a dumb move. 10 legal experts on why Trump can’t pardon his way out of the Russia investigation -- “It may prove to be one of the stupidest things he has yet done.” (Sean Illing for Vox, Dec. 1, 2017)

[Author’s note: These responses were given on August 27, just two days after President Trump pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio. With former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleading guilty Friday to lying to the FBI, the question in August was the same as it is today: If Trump attempts to use his pardon power to undercut Mueller’s investigation, does he have the authority to do it? I reached out to each of these experts to ensure that their assessments still hold, and they do.]

While it’s impossible to predict what Trump will do, nearly all the experts I spoke to agree on one thing: If Trump does use his pardoning powers to thwart the Russia investigation, it’s very likely to backfire.

If someone like Flynn or Kushner were preemptively pardoned, he wouldn’t be able to plead the Fifth Amendment if he were called to testify against Trump. The Fifth Amendment protects citizens against self-incrimination. But if someone has been pardoned, they no longer face the threat of prosecution, and so they can’t use a desire to avoid incriminating themselves as an excuse not to answer a question.

So in addition to potentially obstructing justice, Trump would only leave himself — and his colleagues — more vulnerable if he decided to pardon anyone currently under investigation. Of course, that doesn’t mean he won’t pull the trigger anyway. But he might want to think long and hard about the implications before he does.

I'm betting he thinks a pardon is like a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card in Monopoly, and because he doesn't think of repercussions or possible consequences, he imagines himself as the final authority.

There is, however, one scenario in which Trump could save himself and others from potential prosecution. It’s what Susan Bloch, a law professor at Georgetown, calls the Nixon scenario: “Trump pardons them [Flynn, Kushner, Manafort, and Donald Trump Jr.] as he is exiting the White House and Trump exits early, allowing Pence to become president, and Pence then pardons Trump. Trump will then have successfully shielded himself and his colleagues from criminal liability.”

Except that's not the end of the story. First, there's Arpaio: Federal Judge Will Not Void Guilty Ruling On Arpaio, Despite Trump's Pardon (NPR, Oct. 20, 2017)

U.S. District Judge Susan Ritchie Bolton says that President Trump's pardon of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio does not "revise the historical facts" of his case — and that she will not vacate her ruling that found Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt.

On Thursday, Bolton quoted Black's Law Dictionary to say that a pardon "releases the wrongdoer from punishment and restores the offender's civil rights without qualification." But she then added a further interpretation in her own words: "It does not erase a judgment of conviction, or its underlying legal and factual findings."

Citing legal precedents, Bolton said that while a pardon removes the threat of punishment, it does not "blot out guilt." Instead, she wrote in her decision, accepting a pardon implies a confession of guilt. Bolton also suggested that the timing of President Trump's pardon — when Arpaio had not appealed her verdict — played a role in her decision to preserve it.

And then there's the fact that Mueller teamed up with New York attorney general in Manafort probe (Josh Dawsey for Politico, Aug. 30, 2017)

The cooperation is the latest indication that the federal probe into President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman is intensifying. It also could potentially provide Mueller with additional leverage to get Manafort to cooperate in the larger investigation into Trump’s campaign, as Trump does not have pardon power over state crimes.

Emphasis mine. Pardons don't have the power that Trump wants them to convey.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:16 AM on December 15, 2017 [26 favorites]

Mod note: A few comments removed, let's really try to keep the tweet-collation threshold somewhere closer to "concrete reporting of a thing happening" and not so much "something that might or might not turn into concrete reporting eventually".
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:21 AM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

Congressman Who Implied Only Bad People Get Sick Announces Cancer Diagnosis

During a speech on the House floor on Wednesday, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) announced that he has prostate cancer.

While Republicans were trying to repeal Obamacare in May, Brooks — who introduced a one-sentence Obamacare repeal bill in March — went on CNN and defended Republicans’ plan to allow insurance companies to discriminate against people who have preexisting conditions, which he characterized as personal failings.

“My understanding is that (the new proposal) will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool,” Brooks said in comments that generated swift backlash. “That helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now, those are the people — who’ve done things the right way — that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”
posted by zakur at 8:42 AM on December 15, 2017 [93 favorites]

Here is a story about a company that helped the Trump campaign with phony messaging and its work creating phony messaging in the recent Kenyan election. Apparently their deal was producing intentionally inflammatory, divisive internet content while pretending to be Kenyan.

Another thing for our "get rid of Trump, install left-er Democrats" wishlist: no meddling in other people's elections. We don't like it here, we should not let American companies do it elsewhere and certainly our government should not. There should be international agreements about astroturfing, for that matter. Voters in other countries should not have to contend with fraudulent stories intended to advance American interests, no matter whether it is corporate or CIA, and even if the other country elects, like, an objectively awful person. Still not our election.
posted by Frowner at 8:47 AM on December 15, 2017 [24 favorites]

Congressman Who Implied Only Bad People Get Sick Announces Cancer Diagnosis

Thanks Zakur. Whilst I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone, it's hard not to feel a little frisson of schadenfreude on seeing this.
posted by faceplantingcheetah at 8:50 AM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

I wish Rep. Brooks a speedy recovery thanks to his taxpayer-subsidized insurance, and the wisdom to "do things the right way" next time.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:51 AM on December 15, 2017 [13 favorites]

Mike Pence's Holy Land visit in disarray after Jerusalem recognition
This article reminded me that probably a lot of "Christian" Americans think all Palestinians are Muslim, and don't know that excluding Palestinians from Jerusalem means excluding Christians from Jerusalem, even as they claim to support Christians in the Middle East.
posted by mumimor at 8:56 AM on December 15, 2017 [30 favorites]

I wish Rep. Brooks a speedy recovery thanks to his taxpayer-subsidized insurance, and the wisdom to "do things the right way" next time.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:51 AM on December 15 [+] [!]

Of course, he should resign his seat for the doing the bad things that gave him cancer.
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:04 AM on December 15, 2017 [43 favorites]

Here’s some updated info for SoCal protests in case Trump fires Mueller today. You can search for your own area, too. (I’ll be going to the one at the Federal Building, if anyone wants company.)
posted by Room 641-A at 9:17 AM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

America's gonna get a little more great.

AP: Trump reconsiders rules protecting miners from black lung
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:21 AM on December 15, 2017 [14 favorites]

Holy smoke. Is the rumor mill reporting that Mueller's firing is that imminent?
posted by marshmallow peep at 9:21 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Holy smoke. Is the rumor mill reporting that Mueller's firing is that imminent?

Nah, that website has been functional for a while now. It's just a resource-in-reserve, ready to be activated if (when?) necessary.
posted by halation at 9:25 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

Every time Mueller has made news, it's been in the absence of rumours that anything was imminent. I'd bet a lot of cake that Kushner doesn't go up today.

But I would be happy to lose said cake.
posted by saturday_morning at 9:26 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

Rumor mill says the white house is panicking; firing, however, requires Rosenstein's cooperation, and he seems disinclined to believe "having personal opinions" is the same as "corruption that ruins a case."

Rosenstein testified that if Trump asked him to fire Mueller, “I would follow the regulation. If there were good cause, I would act. If there were no good cause, I would not.” He said he had not thus far seen good cause to act and later added, “I won’t take any action unless he’s violated his duties.”

posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:27 AM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

The rumors for Mueller's firing come from 2 main things:

1) How Fox has ratcheted up the crazy on it. Hannity, Pirro, Carlson, etc are all basically calling for his firing and a purge of the FBI.

2) A lot of people see the House committee hearing the other day as a pretty explicit signal from House Rs to Trump that they'll let him fire Mueller.

Add in that about the only people left for Mueller to indict are most likely family members and we're probably much closer to a constitutional crisis than you think. Today? Maybe not but it's coming and probably soon.
posted by chris24 at 9:33 AM on December 15, 2017 [39 favorites]

How Fox has ratcheted up the crazy on it. Hannity, Pirro, Carlson, etc are all basically calling for his firing and a purge of the FBI.

If I had a time-turner, and could do one thing, I'd turn back time so I could prevent Fox News from existing. It's this one media organ (ahem) that has, more than anything, corrupted our democracy. Sure, if people didn't listen to it, Fox would go out of business - maybe, or maybe wealthy donors would keep propping it up - but Fox seems to have actually brainwashed and corrupted listeners.

The FiveThirtyEight roundtable I linked above assigns a good portion of blame to Fox for the Republicans' going full tilt rabid authoritarian over the past few years. Fox is why we can't have nice things. Sadly, I have no solutions, and I wish I did, because I hate not having solutions.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:41 AM on December 15, 2017 [33 favorites]

DOJ now says early release of FBI agents' private texts to reporters was 'not authorized' by the department

Uh...
posted by Barack Spinoza at 9:42 AM on December 15, 2017 [44 favorites]

(cue buster poindexter singing "hot hot hot")

AP Poll: Most Think Trump Has Illegally Or Unethically Colluded With Russia

Four in 10 Americans think the president has done something illegal when it comes to Russia, while an additional 3 in 10 say he’s at least done something unethical. And 68 percent disapprove of his response to the investigations.

posted by murphy slaw at 9:44 AM on December 15, 2017 [22 favorites]

Greg Sargent at WaPo has been banging away on the drum that what conservative media and many GOP elected officials are trying to do is goad Trump into a Saturday Night Massacre. Sargent has also been calling on the media to ask GOP Representatives and Senators to ask what they would do in this case, but very few outlets are bothering to do so.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:44 AM on December 15, 2017 [17 favorites]

DOJ now says early release of FBI agents' private texts to reporters was 'not authorized' by the department

Well I'm sure they'll be as upset about these leaks as they were about all the others.
posted by saturday_morning at 9:45 AM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

Not to defend the guy, but while I knew what a Daubert motion was while I was in law school, I probably couldn't give a comprehensible explanation of one off the top of my head. However, I am also not qualified to be a federal judge, because I am not an experienced litigator.
posted by skewed at 9:45 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

> Trump does not have pardon power over state crimes.

This may be a two-edged sword, if you will.

The argument against blanket pardons for everyone (Flynn! Papadopoulos! Jared! Junior!) is that someone who is pardoned is no longer at risk of self-incrimination on Federal charges, and so can't plead the 5th. So we'd have the spectacle of pardoned Jared and pardoned Flynn singing a duet to the FBI and Congress.

On the other hand, if they're at legitimate risk of prosecution for State-level crimes (shady real estate dealings in New York, say), then it seems like they have concrete grounds to plead the 5th?

In my more cynical moments, I can imagine this working out - I think it would be novel legal terrain, where a member of the administration was so corrupt that anything they said could open them up to both State and Federal charges, for different crimes?
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:52 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

(And that's why Scooter Libby had his sentence commuted, but was not pardoned by W.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:54 AM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

Even some conservative evangelicals are coming around.

Family Leader's Vander Plaats: Investigate Sexual Misconduct Claims Involving Trump

The president and CEO of the conservative advocacy group The Family Leader says Americans have a right to know if President Trump engaged in past sexual misconduct. Bob Vander Plaats says the allegations made by a number of women against the president should not be ignored simply because he says he’s innocent.

"A lot of these ladies came forth in the election, and for whatever reason, the American people said 'we're going to give the presidency to Donald Trump.' That doesn't mean their issue went away because he became president."

"I think if these ladies need to be heard on this—and I think they probably should be heard, then let's let the facts play out. I don't think it should be really dismissed," he says.

Vander Plaats says he supports a Congressional investigation of President Trump if the charges prove credible. He backed Texas Senator Ted Cruz during the Republican presidential primary race and was a national co-chair for the Ted Cruz campaign for president in 2016.

posted by chris24 at 9:56 AM on December 15, 2017 [11 favorites]

The argument against blanket pardons for everyone (Flynn! Papadopoulos! Jared! Junior!) is that someone who is pardoned is no longer at risk of self-incrimination on Federal charges, and so can't plead the 5th.

Here's what I don't get:
Even if, after a pardon, they can't plead the 5th, what's to prevent them from simply refusing to cooperate with the Feds and risking a contempt charge, knowing they'll just be pardoned again for that?
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:59 AM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

what's to prevent them from simply refusing to cooperate with the Feds and risking a contempt charge, knowing they'll just be pardoned again for that?

Well, nothing; as long as they're confident in their belief that the president is a loyal supporter and dedicated to their well-being, they don't need to cooperate with law enforcement.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:06 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

@Redistrict (Cook Political, 538)
Hearing of a poll in #OH15 showing Dem in a surprisingly close race against NRCC Chair Rep. Steve Stivers (R). Makes sense: @CookPolitical PVI is only R+7 & district includes Athens & Columbus burbs.

@Nate_Cohn (NYT)
Retweeted Dave Wasserman
Yikes. There are a lot of R+7-ish, gerrymandered districts with this kind of geographic breakdown, but without incumbents who won 66% last time....
- Given this year's turnout pattern, I'd be terrified if I were the GOP about these districts that try to crack liberal Democratic centers like Austin; westside of central Houston; Philly's Main Line; Lansing, Mich, etc.
posted by chris24 at 10:06 AM on December 15, 2017 [24 favorites]

> What's to prevent them?

According to the Founders, the only remedy is impeachment.
In the 2017-2018 case, election campaign on a "culture of corruption", maybe?
I got nothing.
posted by RedOrGreen at 10:06 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile, back in Foggy Bottom, Rex Tillerson has been having more problems with Trump administration in-fighting. The White House is clearly furious with him for having declared that the U.S. was open to North Korea talks 'without precondition' (NBC).

Last night, the Washington Post reported, Trump Allies Say Tillerson Has ‘Not Learned His Lesson’ And Cannot Continue In Job For Long.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seemed focused this week on rebooting his image as a beleaguered Cabinet member on the outs with his boss and his own employees — holding a rare town hall with employees, promising foreign trips into 2018 and saying he is “learning” to enjoy his job.

But then he went off script by offering another invitation for diplomatic talks with nuclear-armed North Korea, putting him at odds once again with President Trump and senior White House officials, who are increasingly exasperated with the secretary of state and say he cannot remain in his job for the long term. [...] Tillerson, one White House official said, “had not learned his lesson from the last time,” when Trump publicly rebuked his top diplomat on Twitter over the wisdom of talking to North Korea.[...]

Another White House aide said White House officials, diplomats and other Cabinet secretaries largely deem the former ExxonMobil chief executive “irrelevant.” [...] “I think our allies know at this point he’s not really speaking for the administration,” this Trump official said — a particularly sharp slap given that Tillerson has sought to be a buffer and interpreter for allies angry or bewildered by some of Trump’s actions.

So today, the chastened Tillerson walked back comments on preconditions for North Korea talks (ABC) and called on Russia and China to pressure North Korea (Politico). n.b. Putin had already spoken to Trump about North Korea yesterday (Reuters).

Fine. Tuned. Machine.
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:08 AM on December 15, 2017 [22 favorites]

During a speech on the House floor on Wednesday, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) announced that he has prostate cancer.

The stats are prostate cancer are pretty staggering. 1 in 6 or 7 men will be diagnosed. By 80 80% of men have cancer cells in their prostate. Third leading cause of death for men.

There are probably a whole lot of house reps with prostate cancer given the advanced and advancing age of American politicians.
posted by srboisvert at 10:09 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

The New York AG would, in theory, be able to use the state level charges as leverage to work out a deal with reduced charges or a sentencing recommendation in exchange for their testimony against Trump.
posted by VTX at 10:10 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Third leading cause of death for men.

Prostate cancer is inevitable in men. Most of it is fairly indolent and easily treated. It's the small nasty minority that kill men. It's the most common cancer diagnosed in men and the third leading cause of cancer death.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:21 AM on December 15, 2017 [7 favorites]

So both Thad Cochran and John McCain were too ill to vote this week. McCain is getting significantly more frail. Cochran is senile in addition to being quite frail.

That puts them at 49 votes when you take away Bob Corker. They could probably wheel Cochran in for a vote, if necessary, but now Marco Rubio is making noises about his child tax credit amendment with Mike Lee getting killed. We still don't know where Collins is.

McConnell also loses a vote at the end of the session when Jones replaces Strange.

They can probably still get it done, but it'll be a heck of a close run thing.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:21 AM on December 15, 2017 [12 favorites]

...what's to prevent them from simply refusing to cooperate with the Feds and risking a contempt charge, knowing they'll just be pardoned again for that?

In a previous discussion of this subject, someone suggested that contempt of court is a type of thing which the Presidential pardon power would not apply to. (I don't know how to verify or qualify that claim, though... the first page of Google results contains hits that seem to both confirm and contradict it.)
posted by XMLicious at 10:22 AM on December 15, 2017

Rubio has already knuckled in exchange for $300.
posted by phearlez at 10:27 AM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

Same as in town.
posted by delfin at 10:28 AM on December 15, 2017 [39 favorites]

Rubio has already knuckled in exchange for $300.

They've thrown $300 at him, we don't know yet that he's caved. (I mean, odds are, but still.)
posted by leotrotsky at 10:36 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

Cochran is senile in addition to being quite frail.

holy crap, that article. quoting for emphasis:

Cochran had to be guided by staffers around a security checkpoint inside the Capitol. He started to walk into a first-floor room — though the Senate chamber is on the second floor. He was then ushered by an aide up to the Senate.

When another reporter asked whether leadership had pressured Cochran to return for a vote on the budget resolution — a key moment in the tax reform debate — Cochran smiled and responded, “It’s a beautiful day outside.”

yes senator it is a beautiful day outside in our perfectly functioning republic

*sob*
posted by murphy slaw at 10:39 AM on December 15, 2017 [81 favorites]

All they have to do is get McCain and Cochran physically wheeled into the chamber and able to push the shiny button, unless one or both of them dies this week, illness is not going to stop the tax vote.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:47 AM on December 15, 2017

So what happens if elderly senators expire before this vote? It doesn't happen? I've been resisting for days, NO JONES, NO VOTE.
posted by yoga at 10:50 AM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

unless one or both of them dies this week

Even then, I'm confident they'd find a way to get a replacement seated more expeditiously than Sen.-elect Jones.
posted by saturday_morning at 10:51 AM on December 15, 2017 [19 favorites]

Rubio has already knuckled in exchange for $300.

Even with that $300 increase, poor people still get less than the rich for the Child Tax Credit. And they have expanded the level of rich that qualify for the tax credit. Previously the credit phased out for those with incomes above $110,000. Under the new law, people with incomes up to $500,000 can claim the full credit before phase out.

The rich can claim $2000 per child, up to $6000, using non-refundable credits.

The poor, under Rubio's "fix" can claim a maximum of $1400 per child. And even that is still difficult. You can only claim the credit if your income is above $3000 and only 15% of your income above that.

For example, if you have three kids, you must earn at least $31,000 to get the full credit (which is still $1800 less than the rich get). If you earn less than $31,000 you get only a partial credit. In other words, the poorer you are, the less child credit you get.
posted by JackFlash at 10:51 AM on December 15, 2017 [21 favorites]

Elderly people have to take an annual driving test to prove that they're not a danger to themselves and others when behind the wheel of several thousand pounds of steel.

Why are senile old men allowed to drive the country?
posted by elsietheeel at 10:52 AM on December 15, 2017 [73 favorites]

yes senator it is a beautiful day outside in our perfectly functioning republic

*sob*

This is not new. I remember visiting the Senate as a younger person some time before 9/11. For my troubles I saw exactly two Senators; Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond. Thurmond was about 5 feet tall, being led down the hallway by a buxom young woman with bleach blonde hair, and had absolutely no idea where he was or what was going on. He did have a big smile on his face, though, and was very nice.

And it's not just Republicans, btw. It's an open secret that Thurgood Marshall was considered by many to be in some stage of dementia in his last years on the court. Lifetime appointments (like Supreme Court justices or incumbent Republican Senators in southern states) are just a bad idea given what we know about aging today.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:52 AM on December 15, 2017 [37 favorites]

When another reporter asked whether leadership had pressured Cochran to return for a vote on the budget resolution — a key moment in the tax reform debate — Cochran smiled and responded, “It’s a beautiful day outside.”

yes senator it is a beautiful day outside in our perfectly functioning republic

No Star Wars spoilers in-thread plz!!1!
posted by Barack Spinoza at 10:57 AM on December 15, 2017 [14 favorites]

Adam Schiff:

I’m increasingly worried Republicans will shut down the House Intelligence Committee investigation at the end of the month.

Here’s why: Since March, our investigation has made important progress. We’ve interviewed numerous key witnesses behind closed doors, held public hearings, reviewed thousands of documents, identified new leads — all to understand and expose Russia's meddling and protect our democracy. Yet, Republicans have scheduled no witnesses after next Friday and none in 2017. We have dozens of outstanding witnesses on key aspects of our investigation that they refuse to contact and many document requests they continue to sit on. It appears Republicans want to conduct just enough interviews to give the impression of a serious investigation. Next week, they scheduled critical witness interviews out of state, when we are voting on the tax bill and vital government funding bills and no Members will be able to ask questions, in an effort to squeeze them in before end of year. These witnesses are willing to come to DC. Despite our repeated urging, Majority has declined to issue subpoenas in numerous avenues of the investigation, where there's simply no other way to get the information. Some refusals we’ve made public, like witnesses hiding behind nonexistent privileges, many others we haven’t. The responsibility to conduct a thorough investigation, or to prevent one, ultimately falls on @SpeakerRyan. I’m concerned he's heeding the calls of Bannon and @POTUS to “DO SOMETHING” by closing down the Russia investigation & opening up another investigation of Hilary Clinton. Beyond our investigation, here’s what has me really concerned: The attacks on Mueller, DOJ and FBI this week make it clear they plan to go after Mueller’s investigation. Aggressively and soon. By shutting down the congressional investigations when they continue to discover new and important evidence, the White House can exert tremendous pressure to end or curtail Mueller’s investigation or cast doubt on it. We cannot let that happen.

So. Yea. Review your "what to do when they fire Mueller" plans.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:03 AM on December 15, 2017 [70 favorites]

Trump environmental officials are keeping tight rein over stampede of FOIA requests (Dino Grandoni & Juliet Eilperin, WaPo)

The Trump administration’s top environmental policymakers are engaged in a new war with their adversaries — over how much information to release to the media and outside groups, who are often perceived as enemies, as part of a heavy stream of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

More fun with foias from American Oversight:

Texts Show SBA Staff Tried to “Crop the Opulence” from Trump Hotel Event (10/24/17)

Text messages obtained by American Oversight under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that SBA staff exchanged a series of messages as they attempted to take a photo of the administrator’s speech that didn’t include the large Trump logo on the front of the lectern.

After one staffer successfully took a photo without the Trump logo, another replied that she would try to “crop the opulence” out of the image when posting it on social media with excerpts of the speech.

State Department Emails Show How Embassy Websites Promoted Mar-a-Lago (4/17/18)

“Months after the State Department used taxpayer resources to promote a Trump property, we still have no clear answers about why this happened, and the State Department has established no guidelines to prevent employees from advertising the president’s businesses in the future

Unexcused Absence (10/27/17)

American Oversight obtained Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' calendars from her first six months in office. Our analysis found that she took at least 11 long weekends, and she only completed a full day of work about 2/3 of the time.

posted by Room 641-A at 11:06 AM on December 15, 2017 [33 favorites]

So. Yea. Review your "what to do when they fire Mueller" plans.

MoveOn is keeping a list of sites where people will be gathering to demonstrate in the event that Mueller gets fired. You can sign up to get a text reminder if and when the firing happens.

(To sign up, you have to agree not to violate any laws. I assume that's so MoveOn isn't liable for anything that happens, but it's a thing to keep in mind if you're considering engaging in civil disobedience.)
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:14 AM on December 15, 2017 [11 favorites]

That MoveOn site is good but people should be planning on going to DC. And staying there. MoveOn is treating this like a "regular" mass protest. It isn't, it's time to shut everything down if Mueller gets fired.
posted by Justinian at 11:23 AM on December 15, 2017 [38 favorites]

I've been following the Inauguration protest trials via @UnicornRiot on Twitter and the prosecution is using the fact that protesters pre-planned to gather at a particular place and march in a particular direction as evidence of conspiracy to riot, so be aware of that as you make plans.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:28 AM on December 15, 2017 [8 favorites]

... to peaceably assemble.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 11:30 AM on December 15, 2017 [31 favorites]

We should put something in the Constitution about that.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 11:30 AM on December 15, 2017 [63 favorites]

Seriously, the #J20 trial updates have me apoplectic half the time because the prosecution is so profoundly dishonest both about what happened and about the law. During closing arguments the prosecutor described expecting a dispersal order before being beaten for not dispersing as "entitled" and "privileged" and they're prosecuting dozens of people, none of whom are accused of actually doing any property damage, on the grounds that participating in a protest where violence has happened is conspiracy. They're arguing that if you're at a protest and you see a broken window you are obligated to leave or else you're complicit and that bringing supplies like first-aid kits, extra clothes, and attorneys' phone numbers is proof that they planned to do a riot.

It's evil and dishonest and I'm baffled that prosecutors making such statements in court isn't grounds for contempt of court charges and disbarment.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:36 AM on December 15, 2017 [37 favorites]

Rubio's office is confirming that he is a yes on the tax bill, he was bought off for $300(ish).
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:43 AM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

hmm. Sessions is sort of federalizing efforts against violent crime? Is he pulling these violent crime stats out his ass?
posted by angrycat at 11:45 AM on December 15, 2017

It's about crime and drugs. I had to nope out after Sessions' first dog whistle ("violent thugs").
posted by elsietheeel at 11:45 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

So Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is having a press conference in a few.

Thank the Great Whatever for these threads. If I had to watch that man myself, I'd stroke out.

Seriously, the #J20 trial updates have me apoplectic half the time because the prosecution is so profoundly dishonest both about what happened and about the law. During closing arguments the prosecutor described expecting a dispersal order before being beaten for not dispersing as "entitled" and "privileged" and they're prosecuting dozens of people, none of whom are accused of actually doing any property damage, on the grounds that participating in a protest where violence has happened is conspiracy.

If that line of argument stands, meaningful freedom of assembly is over. Provocateurs throw a rock and disappear, everyone else goes to jail.
posted by BS Artisan at 11:46 AM on December 15, 2017 [13 favorites]

Sounds like they're sending a few more violent crime prosecutors to various "hotbeds" of violent crime and places where there's gang activity.

However, one of the places they named by name was "Central Islip, New York", which is a small place in Long island. However it's mostly Hispanic...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:46 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

Watching Sessions now. He's talking about violent crime, emphasis on drug-related crimes. Now about how important the partnership is with state and local law enforcement, the task force model. Seems to be selling a "reinvigorated" program called Project Safe Neighborhoods which has task forces "hitting the streets." He's asking for more funding for the program, so that they can reduce crime. Announcing that a reallocation of resources allows 40 additional violent crime prosecutors to be deployed (I wonder where the money came from)? Name-checks MS-13, so his audience of one should be happy.

Hard to tell from the surface of his speech what is really at stake and whether this is on the normal end of the spectrum. Mainly interested to know what DOJ is doing less of so that it can do more of this. But it's not obviously sinister - violent crime is, in fact, bad, and adding AUSAs is a reasonable measure. He seems to want to expand a lot in this area (violent crime), both through increased staffing and by targeting areas with the highest crime rates.
posted by prefpara at 11:47 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Sessions said that 85% of law enforcement in the country is state, local, and tribal and that he wanted a task force to include the 15% of federal law enforcement to combat violent crime in the US...

Is he aware that most federal agencies have their own law enforcement, including the Department of Education, the USDA, and National Zoological Park Police? How are they going to help with your violent crime task force? Sting operations against the lions?

Also: Federal officers' duties included criminal investigation (38%), police response and patrol (21%), corrections and detention (16%), inspections (16%), court operations (5%), and security and protection (4%).
posted by elsietheeel at 11:51 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Extra prosecutors are a bureaucratic fig leaf to pull in ICE and harass people. He's not going to do anything that doesn't benefit his agenda; he's not a decent person.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 11:53 AM on December 15, 2017 [18 favorites]

one of the places they named by name was "Central Islip, New York", which is a small place in Long island. However it's mostly Hispanic...

Ugh, I'm sure ol' Jeffy got a call from noted racist shitbag and Trumpist Pete King.

Guess what, Pete? Your hispanic constituents don't want MS-13 around either, but if you keep threatening to deport them, they're not going to help you. Which I guess is what you want.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:53 AM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

However, one of the places they named by name was "Central Islip, New York", which is a small place in Long island.

It's on Trump's radar because of five MS-13 murders, he visited there in July.
posted by peeedro at 11:54 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

NEW POLL: Alabama Voters Oppose Republican Tax Plan

As Republicans prepare to vote on their tax plan without honoring the will of Alabama voters, new polling from Not One Penny and Public Policy Polling shows Alabama voter’s deep dislike of the Republican plan to give tax breaks to millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations. Just 38 percent of Alabama voters express support for the tax plan being considered by Congress while 44 percent oppose the plan. Opposition rises to 50 percent amongst voters who have heard, seen, or read “a lot” about the plan.

Alabama voters also see the wealthy and large corporations as the biggest beneficiaries of the plan — 53 percent think they will benefit more from the tax plan, while just 35 percent think that the middle class and small businesses will benefit.

posted by chris24 at 11:59 AM on December 15, 2017 [31 favorites]

MA Attorney General Maura Healey (AND MY GODDAMN HERO) just wrote:

A federal court just blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the president's unconstitutional rollback of ACA contraception coverage. #HandsOffMyBC

She has the link to the actual decision on her facebook page. I needed some good news today.
posted by lydhre at 12:00 PM on December 15, 2017 [58 favorites]

Federal judge blocks Trump rollback of ObamaCare birth control mandate (The Hill)

A federal judge in Pennsylvania temporarily blocked the Trump administration's recent rules allowing moral and religious exceptions for ObamaCare's birth control requirement.

The injunction comes after state Attorney General Josh Shapiro filed a lawsuit against the administration, arguing the changes to the mandate undermine women's health.

... on preview, lydrhe beat me to it. But here’s a non-FB link.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:04 PM on December 15, 2017 [42 favorites]

Gardner: “I hope Senator-elect Doug Jones will do the right thing and truly represent Alabama by choosing to vote with the Republican Party.”

Vs.

Just 38 percent of Alabama voters express support for the tax plan being considered by Congress while 44 percent oppose the plan. Opposition rises to 50 percent amongst voters who have heard, seen, or read “a lot” about the plan.

...one of these things is not like the other...

...one of these things just doesn't belong...

This makes their failure to seat Doug Jones immediately even more reprehensible, and I thought it was as bad as it could get.

The GOP: you thought you knew what rock bottom was...surprise!
posted by elsietheeel at 12:15 PM on December 15, 2017 [36 favorites]

How is the GOP like the limbo?
posted by elsietheeel at 12:16 PM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

Dem AGs have been doing good work. Critical to get more elected.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:16 PM on December 15, 2017 [22 favorites]

I am officially out of evens. It's not a metaphor, it's a cry for help. A water fountain at the EPA backed up and started spewing sewage into the hallway.
posted by scalefree at 12:21 PM on December 15, 2017 [70 favorites]

Corker, like Rubio, is now reported to be a Yes on the Tax Scam.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:27 PM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

Planning for something bad?

WaPo: Kushner’s legal team looks to hire crisis public relations firm

Senior White House official Jared Kushner and his legal team are searching for a crisis public relations firm, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has quietly called at least two firms, these people said. The inquiries have occurred in the past two weeks and officials at the firms were asked not to discuss the conversations with others.

In a statement, Lowell confirmed he was looking for a firm that would handle media for all high-profile clients that receive attention from the press. His other clients include Sen. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat whose months-long corruption trial ended last month when jurors deadlocked. The Justice Department has not announced whether it plans to retry him.

Lowell said “this inquiry” from The Washington Post is a prime example of why such a firm, which he has yet to hire, is needed.

posted by chris24 at 12:34 PM on December 15, 2017 [14 favorites]

Welp, that's it. The last Hero of the Resistance folded, it'll pass Monday.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:34 PM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

What annoys me almost as much as open looting of the treasury is that the American people will punish them but only briefly because there’s straw man de jure on the horizon ready to be the next social boogeyman for voters to “have to” vote Republican again.

People say that Republicans will lose things for a generation but they’ll be back in 8 years or less saying they’ve changed.
posted by Talez at 12:36 PM on December 15, 2017 [8 favorites]

Welp, that's it. The last Hero of the Resistance folded, it'll pass Monday.

Be prepared for lots of coverage of a "big win" for the Trump Administration, little to no discussion of how truly horrible -- and unpopular -- the plan is, and absolutely no mention of the deficit this Republican plan creates.
posted by Gelatin at 12:36 PM on December 15, 2017 [28 favorites]

Sessions with a hint of sanity.

@gelles (CNN)
AG Jeff Sessions asked about Trump calls for another special counsel:

"I would just say that we intend to monitor our people to maintain high standards. But I got to tell you, SOMETIMES things that appear to be bad in the press have more innocent explanations."
posted by chris24 at 12:36 PM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

it'll pass Monday

I think that's needlessly pessimistic. It may not pass until Tuesday.

Ugh. Yet another disaster in the making that the next Democratic administration will have to fight to recover from. Imagine what we could do as a nation if we didn't have to dig out of these ditches every 10 years or so?
posted by Justinian at 12:36 PM on December 15, 2017 [40 favorites]

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort will be released from house arrest while his criminal case is pending, a judge ruled on Friday, but he'll have to remain under GPS monitoring, be home daily by 11 p.m., and get the judge's permission to travel outside of southern Florida, where he'll be living.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:38 PM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

> Imagine what we could do as a nation if we didn't have to dig out of these ditches every 10 years or so

Semi-automatic premium queer sky socialism, at least.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:38 PM on December 15, 2017 [42 favorites]

> People say that Republicans will lose things for a generation but they’ll be back in 8 years or less saying they’ve changed.

It didn't even take that long for them to recover after the GWB years.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:38 PM on December 15, 2017 [11 favorites]

Imagine what we could do as a nation if we didn't have to dig out of these ditches every 10 years or so?

We haven’t even been digging out of the ditch. We’ve just put on better tires, raised the suspension and are planning to ride in the ditch the rest of the way.
posted by Talez at 12:40 PM on December 15, 2017 [17 favorites]

And here come the purges.

@HouseInSession (Bloomberg)
FBI Deputy Director McCabe sscheduled to testify Tuesday to House Intelligence -- but will he? "If McCabe is still there," says one panel Republican. And another, Gowdy, tells FoxNews he'd a"be a little bit surprised if he is still an employee of the FBI this time next week."
posted by chris24 at 12:42 PM on December 15, 2017 [12 favorites]

FoB's All-Purpose Solution for Republican Shenaniganery: Wait until vote is imminent. Sneak out into hallway and pull fire alarm. Repeat as necessary.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:42 PM on December 15, 2017 [7 favorites]

Dumb question: why are provisions not appearing in either version of the tax bill (like the 37% top tax brackets) not being challenged? My understanding was that a point of order coud be raised against a conference bill on those grounds. Or is that not until it's formally on the floor of the Senate, or what? Because it feels to me like there's a major parliamentary objection that hasn't been raised to this trainwreck yet.

(Yes, I keep going on about this, but that's because I think it's important that the objection be raised, and I'm dismayed not to see anything about it anywhere)
posted by jackbishop at 12:43 PM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Isn't the only person who can fire Andrew McCabe the FBI Director Christopher Wray?
posted by Justinian at 12:43 PM on December 15, 2017

I'm kind of expecting them to pull some drastic bullshit re: Mueller or investigations in general right before Christmas. Like on the Friday before, or even the Saturday before. They know there's gonna be massive public blowback, so I feel like they'd want to do that when people have commitments to be home with families & whatnot.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:46 PM on December 15, 2017 [7 favorites]

Wray is a Trumpist, he'll do what he's told when the time comes, that's why he was appointed. Just because Trump hasn't given the order yet, doesn't mean it's not still coming. That's why Democrats never should've confirmed any FBI director selected by Trump. When Wray gives the order, Republicans will accurately point out he was confirmed with the vote of nearly every Democrat.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:47 PM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]

They know there's gonna be massive public blowback, so I feel like they'd want to do that when people have commitments to be home with families & whatnot.

Also: to ruin Christmas.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:49 PM on December 15, 2017 [23 favorites]

This regime's first reflex is always one of cruelty, so yeah. They'll find a way to ruin Christmas, too.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:50 PM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

- Given this year's turnout pattern, I'd be terrified if I were the GOP about these districts that try to crack liberal Democratic centers like Austin; westside of central Houston; Philly's Main Line; Lansing, Mich, etc.

Yes indeedy. This is why Swing Left just added the Michigan 8th and several other new districts to their target list yesterday. Heh heh heh.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:51 PM on December 15, 2017 [7 favorites]

Wray is a Trumpist, he'll do what he's told when the time comes, that's why he was appointed. Just because Trump hasn't given the order yet, doesn't mean it's not still coming.

You said the same thing about Rosenstein. Specifically you said, "Rosenstein will not appoint a special prosecutor." and that "he's a Trump collaborator now."

And yet here we are.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:53 PM on December 15, 2017 [17 favorites]

I'm not so sure Wray is 100% daddy's good lil soldier, especially when it comes to the integrity and health of the FBI as an instititution. He was subtweeting Trump pretty hard during the most recent Congressional testimony I saw.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:56 PM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

And perfect timing with the tax bill news.

The United Nations monitor on poverty and human rights has issued a devastating report on the condition of America, accusing Donald Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress of attempting to turn the country into the “world champion of extreme inequality”.

Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, has completed a two-week official tour of the US by releasing an excoriating attack on the direction of the nation. Not only does he warn that the tax bill currently being rushed through Congress will hugely increase already large disparities between rich and poor, he accuses Trump and his party of consciously distorting the shape of American society in a “bid to become the most unequal society in the world”.

“American exceptionalism was a constant theme in my conversations,” he writes. “But instead of realizing its founders’ admirable commitments, today’s United States has proved itself to be exceptional in far more problematic ways that are shockingly at odds with its immense wealth and its founding commitment to human rights. As a result, contrasts between private wealth and public squalor abound.”

In his most stark message, Alston warns that the Republicans’ declared intent to slash crucial welfare programs next year in order to pay for some of the $1.5tn tax cuts could cost American lives. “The consequences for an already overstretched and inadequate system of social protection are likely to be fatal for many programs, and possibly also for those who rely upon them,” he writes.

Alston’s piercing findings present the Trump administration with a challenge. The charge that the US president is actively seeking to harm millions of Americans may be difficult to ignore, given that the report carries the imprimatur of the UN human rights council in Geneva.

Trump has frequently been dismissive of the world body, complaining during the 2016 presidential campaign that “we get nothing out of the United Nations other than good real-estate prices”. But he has also shown himself to have a thin skin when it comes to criticism of him or his administration. At a press conference launching his preliminary report in Washington, Alston quipped about possible Trump reaction: “I’m hoping for a tweet”.

posted by chris24 at 12:59 PM on December 15, 2017 [62 favorites]

They'll find a way to ruin Christmas, too.

I'll never be able to think of the Cubs' World Series win without thinking of the 2016 election. And I will never forgive Trump for ruining THAT.
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:03 PM on December 15, 2017 [18 favorites]

You said the same thing about Rosenstein

I was thinking the same thing. If you call everyone a Trumpist eventually you'll be right!
posted by Justinian at 1:04 PM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

But, it is getting time for a little Mueller Number 5.

Look, aren't these threads depressing enough without Lou Bega jokes
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:10 PM on December 15, 2017 [31 favorites]

We should be in the streets over this tax bill. I hope that the firing of a special counsel would make all thinking Americans have glowing scary eyes and we'll assemble in a righteous fury, but man I'm scared I'm wrong about that. I mean, [INSERT NIGHTMARE EMERGENCY HERE] and suddenly Mueller's dismissal might seem more tolerable than it is right now.
posted by angrycat at 1:12 PM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

I was thinking the same thing. If you call everyone a Trumpist eventually you'll be right!

That sounds just like what a Trumpist would say.
*squints warily at Justinian*
posted by leotrotsky at 1:12 PM on December 15, 2017 [20 favorites]

Mod note: Y'all we've probably covered idle What-Ifs about Mueller dismissals and then some; I know it's Friday afternoon in a dark timeline and there's not much to do, but let's maybe just not do much in here if that's the case and go find something fun elsewhere on the site.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:17 PM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]

I'll never be able to think of the Cubs' World Series win without thinking of the 2016 election. And I will never forgive Trump for ruining THAT.

Shit, I feel personally responsible for unleashing Trump -- like my/our collective Cubjoy was so complete and immersive and outsized that it created an equal and opposite reaction in the cosmos.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:27 PM on December 15, 2017 [8 favorites]

I don’t think assembling in the streets would actually accomplish anything. Republican representatives already ignore and avoid their constituents, to the point of blocking their phone calls and refusing to answer direct questions and remaining absent from their offices. They’re going to vote the way they please no matter how angry people get. They’re not going to respond to mass demonstrations by changing their minds, that much is obvious. They’re going to respond by painting citizens as dangerous and cracking down on Constitutional rights.

Organizing and forcing these people out of office is a much better solution.
posted by Autumnheart at 1:38 PM on December 15, 2017 [11 favorites]

Both.
posted by Artw at 1:41 PM on December 15, 2017 [34 favorites]

I don’t think assembling in the streets would actually accomplish anything.

Concur. We need a general strike. If enough people just quit doing their jobs and bring everything to a halt, the Republicans will have no choice but to respond. They are ignoring the rule of law and we can't pretend that things are operating normally.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:44 PM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

I think assembling in the streets may even be a necessary precursor for organizing for n+1 elections, even if the assembly doesn't achieve meaningful change in that instant.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:45 PM on December 15, 2017 [8 favorites]

Organizing and forcing these people out of office is a much better solution.

11 months later isn't gonna work. Yes, we need to vote them out. We also need to stand up immediately to preserve the rule of law and prevent autocracy.
posted by chris24 at 1:45 PM on December 15, 2017 [33 favorites]

The impracticality of a general strike when at-will employment exists and people desperately need to keep their jobs in order to survive has been broadly discussed.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 1:47 PM on December 15, 2017 [55 favorites]

I don’t think assembling in the streets would actually accomplish anything.

It might. Wasn't there some GOPer who refused to hold a town meeting because he was literally afraid of getting mobbed? They're cowards; maybe showing a little more force would help get the point across. It's like the Cadillac owner who's terrified of getting his paint chipped; as soon as someone tries to cut him off, he meekly yields.
posted by Melismata at 1:52 PM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

But I'm not sure that the union folks who were often beaten and killed by Pinkertons and the like tended to be all that concerned with the practicalities or convenience of striking. Those days may make a reappearance.
posted by Justinian at 1:53 PM on December 15, 2017 [12 favorites]

We need a general strike. If enough people just quit doing their jobs and bring everything to a halt, the Republicans will have no choice but to respond.

A general strike isn't going to happen.

People living from paycheck to paycheck, who will lose their jobs if they miss a day of work without a doctor's note, are not going to strike on the thin hope that (1) it will make change and (2) there will be enough of a safety net to keep them from being evicted until that change happens.

Company strikes work because the workers can support each other. General strikes need a lot more community solidarity than we have in the US - which is probably part of the Republican plan; reduced civic participation and sense of community prevents individual dissatisfaction from turning into mass unrest.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:54 PM on December 15, 2017 [36 favorites]

We need UN election monitors. Maybe Jimmy Carter can help.

The impracticality of a general strike when at-will employment exists and people desperately need to keep their jobs in order to survive has been broadly discussed.

As has the impact of various action items. People can take multiple actions. And some people won’t be able to take any. But the idea that a march won’t do anything is wrong. Look at what and who the women’s march has inspired this year.
posted by Room 641-A at 1:55 PM on December 15, 2017 [11 favorites]

I could strike. I could walk away from my job, draw on limited savings, restrict foods to rice and beans for a while, sell off some things to pay rent, and if needed, drive off into the sunset and become a family living out of a van.

I don't have young children to care for. I don't have an abusive ex who's going to demand custody if I don't have a job. I don't live six miles from the nearest grocery store; I am not dependent on work's carpool to get me access to shopping on my lunch hour. I'm not going to be evicted into the snow if my rent is 48 hours late. (I'm not going to be evicted into the snow, period; if there's ever snow in my city, everyone will be stopping to stare at it; even eviction proceedings would wait several hours until it passed.)

And if a general strike could happen, even for one day - how many people would be screaming if their kids can't go to school because teachers are on strike? Plenty of people would be outraged if they can't get gas because the stations are closed; can't buy groceries or fast-food because the min-wage workers are waving picket signs; can't take a bus instead of driving; can't go out to see a movie. And that's before we get to "does this general strike include doctors and nurses? Does it include firefighters? Gas company personnel - y'know, the ones who check for leaks?"

But the idea that a march won’t do anything is wrong. Look at what and who the women’s march has inspired this year.

Marching works well to bring awareness and create solidarity. A strike is something different.

... I think we'd get more leverage with the Lysistrata approach.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:05 PM on December 15, 2017 [14 favorites]

The thing with a general strike is that you need to have enough organizing done that people are ready to strike, and that there's some popularly accepted idea about "ER doctors and gas-leak-checkers are exempt" or whatever. This is why it's easier to have one in a small city and/or in a place with a strong union or socialist movement than across a large country.

That said, as I've learned from my union there are many para-strike activities - work to rule, or "everyone in a certain area/profession has a one-day strike" or "at noon on Thursday everyone downs tools for thirty minutes" etc. All those things still require organizing, but the point is to demonstrate that there is at least the start of the potential for more.

I do not think that the infrastructure exists for a general strike or any nation-wide strike-like activity on such short notice, but I think there's probably potential for something fairly large and persistent in the vein of Occupy.

What if people aimed for occupations, not strikes? Try to have, like, two hundred people or more in [important places] 24/7, and staff those on a rolling basis, so people can do a four hour shift after work or whatever?
posted by Frowner at 2:12 PM on December 15, 2017 [27 favorites]

Maybe we need a general boycott instead of a general strike. If the only value we offer our corporate neoliberal government is in our role as consumers, maybe we should leverage that.

Stop buying things. Stop paying your bills if you are in a place that a credit hit wouldn't hurt you much. Noncompliance through extreme frugality. Cancel every service you can. Cancel credit cards. Directly buy your food in cash from local farmers if possible.

If all we are is a wallet, then at least we have the power to slap their hand away from it until things change.
posted by FakeFreyja at 2:13 PM on December 15, 2017 [18 favorites]

What if people aimed for occupations, not strikes? Try to have, like, two hundred people or more in [important places] 24/7, and staff those on a rolling basis, so people can do a four hour shift after work or whatever?

Right after the inauguration I had thought of just showing up in downtown Minneapolis every Tuesday holding various signs and trying to get a thing going. But I can barely get my friends and family to call their legislators and it's hard to maintain momentum alone. So I haven't done it.

I'm still up for it though!
posted by Emmy Rae at 2:22 PM on December 15, 2017

To make a general strike work, we should be organizing with our co-workers instead of in here.

If enough people strike, the company won't be able to fire everyone. If I was confident that most of my co-workers were willing to strike, I'd be up for it.
posted by VTX at 2:29 PM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

Right after the inauguration I had thought of just showing up in downtown Minneapolis every Tuesday holding various signs and trying to get a thing going. But I can barely get my friends and family to call their legislators and it's hard to maintain momentum alone. So I haven't done it.

Tuesdays with Toomey has been doing this for over a year now. It started at Toomey's Philly office but now it's at his offices across the state. Every Tuesday at noon (or 12:20* in Philly), groups of constituents gather. We have speakers from a variety of organizations.

It can be done. And there's no reason YOU can't be the one to start it. (DM me if you want to talk about it.)

* Why 12:20? Because the person who initially started it couldn't get there from work until then. So that's when we start.
posted by mcduff at 2:29 PM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]

Has anyone with any credibility hinted that something huge will drop today (the Kush, etc) or is it all Menschian rumormongering? I can't find anything in any reputable sources but there's lots of chatter that something is coming.
posted by Justinian at 2:35 PM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Listen. If Trump fires Mueller and we don't see to it that there's holy, righteous, raging hell to pay, then they can just go ahead and stick a fork in us, because we're done.

If that's your choice, then be prepared to be a cannibal fart.
posted by perspicio at 2:35 PM on December 15, 2017 [16 favorites]

Or what about something symbolic that could grow and be copied nationwide? Like, everyone who objects does [X] relatively easy thing every morning/Saturday/week? Or a song that everyone sings? Or a symbolic color? Something that is easy and sort of low risk, but visible? The idea would be something that people could see each other doing, so that everyone would start to get a sense of themselves as a group of People Who Object.

It should be something sort of ridiculous, like....I dunno, tying a spoon to your bag to symbolize how we need a chicken in every pot, or something. Get some left media people to put it over on various shows.
posted by Frowner at 2:35 PM on December 15, 2017 [11 favorites]

Maybe there could be some kind of last-ditch effort to express our displeasure with this tax bill before we plot general strikes to respond to a rumor? Or both?

About which, there's going to be drama when the text finally drops. @jimtankersley: There are a long list of new revenue raisers, not yet disclosed, looming in the about-to-be-released tax bill. GOP aides won't say what they are, just wait for text.

(Which just happened (1097-page PDF))
posted by zachlipton at 2:41 PM on December 15, 2017 [7 favorites]

It should be something sort of ridiculous, like....I dunno, tying a spoon to your bag to symbolize how we need a chicken in every pot, or something.

How about we popularize the retro hobby of guillotine-building? Little novelty ones, full-size functional ones, "steampunk" ones, faithful period reproductions, just fun historical re-enactments to celebrate history, you know?
posted by contraption at 2:53 PM on December 15, 2017 [21 favorites]

House is voting on the tax bill on Tuesday.
posted by chris24 at 2:55 PM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Public demonstrations will be a necessary reaction to a Mueller firing (or equivalent fuckery), regardless of all other concerns. Yes, Republicans will try to ignore them. Doesn't matter. Do not forget how the Muslim Ban played out. Those first protests? That first outcry? That was critical. Yes, it still winds up in the courts and yes, two revisions later the thing is more alive than dead, but that reaction saved lives and gummed up the works hard. It scared Republicans. More importantly, it tied reasonable Americans together. It showed people how many of their fellow citizens still give a shit.

No, protests won't be enough. Republicans in Congress aren't gonna care about liberals in New York or San Francisco holding signs in the street. But it tells other people this is still a fight. It pushes the dial. It fucking matters.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:58 PM on December 15, 2017 [57 favorites]

House is voting on the tax bill on Tuesday.

A whole weekend to call or write your reps and say either, "stay strong; refuse to accept this atrocity of noxious theft" or "yo hey, were you watching the Alabama results? Because your seat is up next year and we, and by we I mean liberal activists, have a growing record of serious results."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:01 PM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

If you flip to the end of that PDF, you'll see the summary of what Rubio held out for:

Modification of child tax credit: $2,000 not indexed;
refundable up to $1,400 indexed down to nearest $100
base year 2018; $2,500 refundability threshold not
indexed; $500 other dependents not indexed; phase outs
$200K/$400K not indexed (sunset 12/31/25)

And unless the child has a valid social security number, their credit is only $500 non-refundable.

I'd also remind you that the whole premise of this plan was that your taxes would be so simple you can do them on a postcard. That was always a sick joke, but an entire side of the postcard would just be dedicated to computing the child tax credit.
posted by zachlipton at 3:04 PM on December 15, 2017 [24 favorites]

I can't find anything in any reputable sources but there's lots of chatter that something is coming.

Team Trump is leaking to CNN: Trump Lawyers Set For Key Meeting With Special Counsel Next Week

President Donald Trump's private lawyers are slated to meet with special counsel Robert Mueller and members of his team as soon as next week for what the President's team considers an opportunity to gain a clearer understanding of the next steps in Mueller's probe, according to sources familiar with the matter.

While the lawyers have met with Mueller's team before and might again, the sources believe the upcoming meeting has greater significance because it comes after the completion of interviews of White House personnel requested by the special counsel and after all requested documents have been turned over. Mueller could still request more documents and additional interviews. No request to interview the President or the vice president has been made, sources tell CNN.

But Trump's team, led by John Dowd and Jay Sekulow, is hoping for signs that Mueller's investigation is nearing its end, or at least the part having to do with the President.[...] The sources acknowledge that Mueller is under no obligation to provide any information and concede they may walk away with no greater clarity.

The sources did not specify who requested the meeting.

This on top of the news that Kushner’s legal team is casting about for a crisis PR team suggests that something big may indeed be going down...
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:10 PM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]

It seems absurd to think of this in an American context, but everything is absurd these days: does anyone remember the Monday demonstrations? They were after work, they were not formally organized and they were non-violent. They changed the world with the rally cry: Wir sind das Volk — We are the people.

This is where Merkel comes from. The reason she is conservative and religious is that in their context back then, the socialists were the anti-democratic oppressors. But the times have changed, again.
posted by mumimor at 3:16 PM on December 15, 2017 [11 favorites]

So, Senator Corker voted against the Senate tax bill because it increases the deficit. The bill went to conference and didn't address any of Senator Corker's concerns. Senator Corker will now vote YES on the conference bill, ostensibly because he has changed his mind, but perhaps because there are two sick senators and his vote might be required for it to pass.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:18 PM on December 15, 2017 [35 favorites]

WSJ: Deutsche Bank Was Asked for Information on Transactions Potentially Linked to Michael Flynn

Deutsche Bank AG has been asked by U.S. government authorities to hand over information about transactions that could be linked to former national security adviser Michael Flynn or entities connected to him, according to people familiar with the matter.

The information was requested as part of U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the people said. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Deutsche Bank has received several subpoenas in the investigation, and the German lender is continuing to provide information to authorities, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty this month to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about Russian contacts and is cooperating with Mr. Mueller’s probe. A lawyer for Mr. Flynn declined to comment.

WSJ: Deutsche Bank Had Flagged Manafort-Related Transactions

Deutsche Bank AG earlier this year flagged around $30 million in potentially suspicious transactions as part of an internal investigation into its role as a conduit for money involving Paul Manafort or people and entities connected to him, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The findings, which were discussed inside Deutsche Bank in late spring and early summer, primarily concerned cash flows tied to Mr. Manafort, who for about five months was President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, and Mr. Manafort’s former business partner Richard Gates III, the person said. [...]

As scrutiny around several of Mr. Trump’s former advisers was heating up, Deutsche Bank executives were assessing the bank’s role in handling hundreds of transactions that might have involved people in Mr. Trump’s orbit, have originated in Russia, or both, said some of the people familiar with the matter.

In recent months, the German lender has received several subpoenas in Mr. Mueller’s investigation, according to some of the people. A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman declined to comment on any flagged transactions and referred to a previous statement that the bank “takes its legal obligations seriously and remains committed to cooperating with authorized investigations into this matter.”

Deutsche Bank previously reported some of the transactions to U.S. anti-financial-crime authorities and shared at least some of its internal findings with officials in the U.S., said the person briefed on the matter.

posted by chris24 at 3:19 PM on December 15, 2017 [22 favorites]

Any chance of delaying the vote until Jones gets in? Object, get refused, call for a vote, wait for votes to be counted, objection ignored; next person objects, gets refused, etc.

Can it be bogged down in procedural drama for a few weeks?
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:21 PM on December 15, 2017

It's a reconciliation bill, so debate is limited by law. If the Republicans want a vote next week, they will get a vote.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:23 PM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh god. The new child tax credit is available to "each qualifying child under the age of 17." Have a 17-year-old? Maybe a little extra cash would make going to college ever so slightly, just a teeny tiny bit, easier? Too bad, no credit for you.

They also ended the $20/month bicycle commuter credit, despite it costing essentially nothing and are preventing employers from deducting commuter benefits they provide to their employees. A number of employers used that to provide parking and transit passes.

It's also astonishing how many provisions here start January 1. Nobody will have written regulations or even understood these things, and there are billions of dollars at stake.
posted by zachlipton at 3:35 PM on December 15, 2017 [43 favorites]

The rush to implement is part and parcel of the grift. Their business is to break, not fix, and business is good.
posted by mosk at 3:39 PM on December 15, 2017 [20 favorites]

Yeah, but a whole chorus of 'Wait, what the fuck? - ' isn't going to do them well in 2018, and this will happen in just enough time for it to be really fresh on the mind when campaign season really gets going.

It's mind-boggling how much this is tilted to a tiny constituency, and how badly it's going to screw them at the ballot. I really don't understand how their electoral math is working.
posted by eclectist at 3:48 PM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

Does anyone know if the tax bill still has those provisions for "unborn children" (might not be the actual term but I can't remember what it was now)? I.e., that wedge people were talking about as being a step towards eventually banning abortions completely?
posted by StrawberryPie at 3:52 PM on December 15, 2017

Pg 63, discussing the House bill:

Finally, the provision specifies that nothing in this section shall prevent an unborn child from qualifying as a designated beneficiary. For these purposes, an unborn child means a child in utero, and the term child in utero means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.

Only reference to "unborn" in the bill. And yes, looks like it's trying to work around the need for "personhood" amendments.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:56 PM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

It's mind-boggling how much this is tilted to a tiny constituency, and how badly it's going to screw them at the ballot. I really don't understand how their electoral math is working.

It's simple - without their donors, they don't stand a chance, so they need to placate them.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:57 PM on December 15, 2017 [6 favorites]

It's mind-boggling how much this is tilted to a tiny constituency, and how badly it's going to screw them at the ballot. I really don't understand how their electoral math is working.

They pass it, we hang them with it.

@chrislhayes
I think an underappreciated attack line in 2018 will be the *personal* benefit many GOP members are going to get from this tax bill. "Voted to cut his own taxes by $75,000 while hiking taxes on middle class families" etc
posted by chris24 at 3:59 PM on December 15, 2017 [50 favorites]

wait, does that imply that you can get a child tax credit for a fucking blastocyst
posted by murphy slaw at 3:59 PM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]

Thanks ErisLordFreedom.

So once this tax bill becomes law, is the next step to argue that because the law states it is possible for an unborn child to be a beneficiary, it must be a person in the eyes of the law, and therefore, abortion must be considered murder?
posted by StrawberryPie at 4:01 PM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

It's mind-boggling how much this is tilted to a tiny constituency, and how badly it's going to screw them at the ballot. I really don't understand how their electoral math is working.

Everyone involved in crafting this piece of shit has been guaranteed lifelong employment by the Koch's and Mercer's of the world. It is naive to assume reelection is a concern.
posted by benzenedream at 4:04 PM on December 15, 2017 [6 favorites]

Fun as it is to come up with tax dodges around it, they struck the "529 plans for your unborn child" stuff out. It wasn't in the Senate bill and the conference committee dropped it. I believe it had Byrd Rule problems.
posted by zachlipton at 4:05 PM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

A dead child still qualifies you for a tax exemption. If an embryo is sufficient to get the exemption, the GOP will be literally incentivizing getting pregnant once a year and aborting it. The letter of the law will be that women who get an abortion get a tax reward for doing so.
posted by 0xFCAF at 4:06 PM on December 15, 2017 [48 favorites]

I was thinking something along the lines of "Every sexually active woman in America claims one extra child, because given the number of unrecognized miscarriages they were probably pregnant at some point during the year"
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:07 PM on December 15, 2017 [25 favorites]

Today's episode of What Your Racist Grandma Will Put On Your Facebook Wall: It's been PROVEN!* that lawyer Lisa Bloom (Gloria Allred's daughter) PAID women $750,000 to accuse Donald Trump of sexual assault on the campaign trail!

* where PROVEN! _actually_ equates to "worked pro bono, denies ever telling them to say anything but the truth of what happened, set up a GoFundMe for an accuser that netted $2300, asked for donations to help accusers relocate and stay afloat in the face of conservative media blowback, had a clause in her contracts where her office would get 1/3 of fees paid by media outlets, and had one accuser who was offered substantial compensation decide not to come forward," all brought to our attention by a Washington Times flack.

This has been What Your Racist Grandma Will Put On Your Facebook Wall for 12/15, on the principle that it's easier to shut bullshit down if you know what they'll say before they say it.
posted by delfin at 4:10 PM on December 15, 2017 [16 favorites]

Mod note: ErisLordFreedom, you've been pretty noisy the last couple of hours; you don't need to respond to every post in a conversation. Everyone, try to avoid visiting the same conversational cul-de-sacs we've been in many times before just because it's a slow Friday evening.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 4:12 PM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

One of the hidden things about this bill is the way it will increase taxes on individuals over time by using a slower measure of inflation. Lilly Batchelder explains:

Some have asked how tax plan can permanently cut taxes on corporations on net if Senate rules require no increase in deficits after 10 years. It does so through two permanent stealth tax increases on individuals: slower inflation indexing and repealing individual mandate. JCT has said that slower inflation indexing in tax plan raises at least 3 times as much in second decade as first. So about $400B in 2nd decade. This is largely how bill pays for permanent net corporate tax cut. Slower inflation indexing largely exempts the wealthy b/c most of their income is already in the top tax bracket. Really hurts middle class and poor b/c more of their income taxed at higher brackets over time, and reduces value of tax benefits like EITC.

Individual mandate repeal results in 13 million Americans no longer having health insurance, and 10% higher premiums in individual market.

You can see how the tax plan pays for permanent net tax cuts for businesses by raising taxes on individuals if you look at JCT revenue estimates in 2027. Big tax cut for businesses paid for by even bigger tax hike on individuals. [GRAPH]

This bill is robbery by budget trickery, and it's going to be years before people even realize it.
posted by zachlipton at 4:15 PM on December 15, 2017 [25 favorites]

Your IVF will pay for itself if you keep dozens of the other blastocytes on ixe for the tax credit.
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:16 PM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]

This is interesting. DOJ's spokesperson told Jennifer Rubin that DOJ released the Strzok/Page text messages after the after the Inspector General approved, saying his investigation was already closed:

The Justice Department’s spokeswoman was adamant in a series of email exchanges with Right Turn on Thursday evening that Rosenstein had no choice but to publicly release the information. “The IG personally cleared the release of these text messages saying that his investigation was nearly closed and he didn’t see any legitimate reason to keep them from Congress,” insisted Sarah Isgur Flores, director of public affairs. “Then career ethics officials cleared the release of these texts for privacy, legal and ethics concerns. So at that point, we had a number of requests from Congress and no legitimate reason we could decline to turn them over.” She defended the decision, reiterating: “We are all doing the best we can over here to ensure a fair and consistent process for all parties.”

However, in a letter to House Judiciary, the Inspector General isn't singing the same tune:

The Deparmtment did not consult with the OIG in order to determine whether releasing the text messages met applicable ethical and legal standards before providing them to Congress...The Department did not consult with the OIG before sharing the text messages with the press.

Sure looks like Flores is blaming the late night pajama party on the Inspector General, and he's not having it.
posted by zachlipton at 4:22 PM on December 15, 2017 [15 favorites]

Lena Sun, WaPo: "CDC gets a list of forbidden words that include fetus, transgender, diversity. Analysts were told they can't be used in preparing documents for next year's budget."

(article)
posted by bluecore at 4:37 PM on December 15, 2017 [32 favorites]

WaPo, Lena H. Sun and Juliet Eilperin, CDC gets list of forbidden words: fetus, transgender, diversity

Trump administration officials are forbidding officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or “evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered.

WaPo, Matt Zapotosky, Nine more women say judge subjected them to inappropriate behavior, including four who say he touched or kissed them [contains descriptions of said behavior]:

Nine more women say that Alex Kozinski — a high-profile judge who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit — subjected them to sexual comments or other conduct, including four who say he touched them inappropriately.

Kozinski, known for his libertarian views and colorful written opinions, already had been accused of subjecting several women to a range of inappropriate sexual conduct or comments, and the circuit’s chief judge on Thursday took the first step in launching an investigation into his behavior. The matter was assigned Friday to the 2nd Circuit judicial council.

The new allegations — which span decades and include not just those who worked for Kozinski but those who encountered him at events — bring the total number of women accusing the judge of inappropriate behavior to at least 15.

Dahlia Lithwick's column grappling with what she knew about Kozinski, which I've linked before, is highly recommended: He Made Us All Victims and Accomplices
posted by zachlipton at 4:38 PM on December 15, 2017 [26 favorites]

GOP: You can’t tell me not to shout Nazi slogans at Starbucks because free speech

Also GOP: The word “diversity” is the real oppression.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:49 PM on December 15, 2017 [45 favorites]

How Putin's proxies helped funnel millions into GOP campaigns (Ruth Mays, Dallas Morning News)

Buried in the campaign finance reports available to the public are some troubling connections between a group of wealthy donors with ties to Russia and their political contributions to President Donald Trump and a number of top Republican leaders. [...]

In 2015-16, everything changed. Blavatnik's political contributions soared and made a hard right turn as he pumped $6.35 million into GOP political action committees, with millions of dollars going to top Republican leaders including Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham.

In 2017, donations continued, with $41,000 going to both Republican and Democrat candidates, along with $1 million to McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund. [...]

And consider Steve Mnuchin, Trump's campaign finance chairman. Could he have known that the Trump Victory Fund, jointly managed by the Republican National Committe and Trump's campaign, took contributions from Intrater and Kukes? Mnuchin owned Hollywood financing company RatPac-Dune with Blavatnik until he sold his stake to accept Trump's appointment as the Treasury secretary. [...]

Even if the donations by the four men associated with Russia ultimately pass muster with Mueller, one still has to wonder: Why did GOP PACs and other Trump-controlled funds take their money? Why didn't the PACs say, "Thanks, but no thanks," like the Republicans said to Shustorovich in 2000? Yes, it was legal to accept their donations, but it was incredibly poor judgment.

posted by Room 641-A at 4:50 PM on December 15, 2017 [30 favorites]

The tax bill keeps tax-exempt bonds for sports stadiums, and a GOP aide says Trump requested that. I'm guessing he didn't get the idea all by himself.

The CBO score is out: cost is $1.455 trillion over 10 years. This is what Sen. Corker is jumping on board for?
posted by zachlipton at 4:51 PM on December 15, 2017 [12 favorites]

Good news, bad news. The 20% federal historic rehabilitation tax credit (HTC) is retained in the conference bill, but the credit can't be taken in its entirety at the end of the project, instead being spread out over five years. It's better than the complete elimination threatened under the House bill, but spreading it over five years reduces the value of the credit and therefore the financial advantages of using it. This will hit the historic rehab construction community, where jobs tend to be more skilled (thus higher paid) than the new construction market, and efforts to revitalize urban centers.
posted by Preserver at 4:58 PM on December 15, 2017 [9 favorites]

“vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

I am going to scream/cry myself to sleep now.
posted by Sophie1 at 4:59 PM on December 15, 2017 [17 favorites]

The Hill, Timothy Cama, Zinke reprimanded park head after climate tweets, in which Zinke drags the Superintendent of Joshua Tree out to Washington to yell at him for his park mentioning climate change, soething that didn't violate any policies:

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke brought the leader of a California park to his office last month to reprimand him for climate change-related tweets the park had sent via Twitter, two sources close to the situation said.

Zinke did not take any formal disciplinary action against David Smith, superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park. And the tweets at issue weren’t deleted, because they didn’t violate National Park Service or Interior Department policies.

But Zinke made it clear to Smith that the Trump administration doesn’t want national parks to put out official communications on climate change.

posted by zachlipton at 5:06 PM on December 15, 2017 [29 favorites]

“vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

Fine. “Threatened,” “owed,” “heterogeneity,” “lgb-emphasis-on-the-T-q,” “reality-based,” and “fucking true”.

Also, this administration can go straight to hell.
posted by lydhre at 5:12 PM on December 15, 2017 [61 favorites]

This is a new one. FBI officials’ text message about Hillary Clinton said to be a cover story for romantic affair

“So look,” the text from Page to Strzok reads, “you say we text on that phone when we talk about Hillary because it can’t be traced, you were just venting [because] you feel bad that you’re gone so much but it can’t be helped right now.”

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein demanding a fuller explanation for Page’s message, saying, “The mention of ‘Hillary’ may refer to Secretary Clinton and therefore could indicate that Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page engaged in other communications about an ongoing investigation on a different phone in an effort to prevent it from being traced.’’

People familiar with the matter said that, although Page’s message may appear to suggest that she and Strzok used a separate communications channel for discussing the Clinton case, the point of her text was to advise Strzok how to explain to his wife why the two of them had been texting each other.

Page and Strzok used their work on the Clinton case as a cover story for the affair, these people said, adding that there was not a separate set of phones for untraceable discussions of the Clinton case. The text had nothing to do with the Clinton investigation, these people said.

People are now calling for the FBI to be shut down because these two nincompoops were telling each other to say they had to text a lot about a case to cover up their affair.
posted by zachlipton at 5:13 PM on December 15, 2017 [32 favorites]

@HouseInSession (Bloomberg)
FBI Deputy Director McCabe sscheduled to testify Tuesday to House Intelligence -- but will he? "If McCabe is still there," says one panel Republican. And another, Gowdy, tells FoxNews he'd a"be a little bit surprised if he is still an employee of the FBI this time next week."

Bloomberg's Billy House follows up:

On FBI deputy director McCabe and his scheduled House Intelligence interview Tuesday, panel Republicans have wanted to talk to him for a long time about how the FBI used the 'Steele dossier.' Now they also want to ask about Strzok text messages and Bruce/Nellie Ohr, as well.—5:45 PM

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley wrote a June 28 letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, questioning whether McCabe handled the Michael Flynn investigation “fairly and objectively.”—5:48 PM

Grassley has raised other issues about McCabe, including why he did not recuse himself from investigations involving Michael Flynn. Grassley points in part to a gender-discrimination complaint vs. FBI in which Flynn provided “a letter of support for the complainant in that case.—5:52 PM

The Lawfare blog analyzes the problems Wray would run into if Trump pressured him to fire McCabe. Besides the risks of looking like Trump's newly installed stooge at the Bureau, Wray would encounter institutional obstacles:

Removing McCabe would face certain legal complications. McCabe is a career FBI special agent, not a political appointee, and he's a member of the Senior Executive Service. Civil service rules prevent a simple firing, and while McCabe can be reassigned or encouraged to retire, he cannot be reassigned for four months after installation of a new agency head without his consent. More broadly, to reassign a 21-year veteran of the FBI for political reasons would send a strong message that the FBI is no longer an apolitical organization, an identity of which FBI employees are fiercely proud, even if it doesn't run afoul of civil service protections—at least if it were done without McCabe’s cooperation.

The problem for Wray is that Trump might not care about any of these niceties: not about whether he’s making his FBI director look like a political toady, not about how the workforce understands the director and certainly not about compliance with civil service protections.

So when Trump told reporters this morning en route to his FBI rally, "Well, it’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI. But we’re going to rebuild the FBI. It will be bigger and better than ever", that could be a very big tell about what he's plotting.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:17 PM on December 15, 2017 [14 favorites]

This bill is robbery by budget trickery, and it's going to be years before people even realize it.

I doubt that most people will ever realize it. Most people of average income are not attuned to taxes because in most cases it is just buried in their paycheck.

Be honest. How many people remember that they got a 2% payroll tax cut in 2011 and 2013 thanks to the Democrats? Did you notice the increase in your paycheck? Did you notice the decrease in your paycheck when Republicans forced the rate back up 2% two years later.

Did Democrats get credit for the pay raise or Republicans blame for the pay cut two years later? Does anyone even remember?

Did Republicans pay any price for the similar tax cuts for the rich in 2001 and 2003 and the resulting deficits?

I doubt Republicans will pay much of a price for this tax bill, no matter how unfair it is. More likely people will start to take notice next month when Paul Ryan tries to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits.
posted by JackFlash at 5:26 PM on December 15, 2017 [12 favorites]

So when Trump told reporters this morning en route to his FBI rally, "Well, it’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI. But we’re going to rebuild the FBI. It will be bigger and better than ever", that could be a very big tell about what he's plotting.

What’s Trump gonna do? So let’s say Wray says no (which, based on that article, why would he say yes?) Trump can either stew, or fire his just-confirmed FBI Director. His second one in less than a year. Looking even more like a Nixonian Massacre to hide from the truth.

Then he either needs to get ANOTHER FBI Director confirmed (which will be a total clusterfuck) or he gets McCabe as Director again. And everybody at FBI hates Trump and knows he’s dirty. And Mueller as Special Prosecutor isn’t under FBI anyway.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:27 PM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

What’s Trump gonna do?

"He doesn’t give a crap who he fires, if he can stop the investigation or slow it down," a longtime associate of his told Politico when Trump fired Comey. "This is who he is. No morals, no nothing. He does what he does."
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:38 PM on December 15, 2017 [6 favorites]

It seems clear to me that those texts are going to be the pretext for firing Mueller sometime in the next week or two. I don't think the Trumpists at the DOJ go through the risky exercise of releasing the texts to the press (without approval) for just a minor gotcha and points against Mueller. I think they are going to be used as the primary evidence of "bias" in the investigation. Sure, it's weak sauce, but it's all they got. You go to war with the pretext you've got, not the pretext you wish you had.
posted by diogenes at 5:48 PM on December 15, 2017 [6 favorites]

People are now calling for the FBI to be shut down because these two nincompoops were telling each other to say they had to text a lot about a case to cover up their affair.

On the bright side for them, they might get to be in history books as the trigger for a constitutional crisis.
posted by diogenes at 5:54 PM on December 15, 2017 [7 favorites]

NYT, Eric Lipton and Lisa Friedman, Executive at Consultancy Hired by E.P.A. Scrutinized Agency Employees Critical of Trump

One of the top executives of a consulting firm that the Environmental Protection Agency has recently hired to help it with media affairs has spent the past year investigating agency employees who have been critical of the Trump administration, federal records show.

The firm, Definers Public Affairs, based in Virginia, specializes in conducting opposition research to aid Republican Party causes, meaning that it seeks to find damaging information on Democratic political candidates in an effort to undermine their election bids.

A vice president for the firm, Allan Blutstein, federal records show, has submitted at least 40 Freedom of Information Act requests to the E.P.A. since President Trump was sworn in. Many of those requests target employees known to be questioning management at the E.P.A. since Scott Pruitt, the agency’s administrator, was confirmed.

Mr. Blutstein, in an interview, said he was taking aim at “resistance” figures in the federal government, adding that he hoped to discover whether they had done anything that might embarrass them or hurt their cause.

“I wondered if they were emailing critical things about the agency on government time and how frequently they were corresponding about this,” he said. “And did they do anything that would be useful for Republicans.”

posted by zachlipton at 5:54 PM on December 15, 2017 [25 favorites]

An EPA contractor is explicitly and proudly trying to help “Republicans”. It is now the Republican Protection Agency.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 6:05 PM on December 15, 2017 [21 favorites]

and while McCabe can be reassigned or encouraged to retire, he cannot be reassigned for four months after installation of a new agency head without his consent

Note however that FBI Director Wray was installed on August 2nd. So four months was up around two weeks ago.
posted by Justinian at 6:05 PM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

Let’s just hope no-one was getting political using agency resources at the agency which is spending agency resources on helping “Republicans”
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 6:06 PM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]

The firing of Mueller seems an inevitability that, like a periodic natural disaster or nuclear war, becomes more likely the longer it hasn't happened. Every few weeks there's this surge of u must fire mueller now please mister trump on Fox News/right-wing news media, with slightly different garbage-pretext variations in each iteration. The last few days have been a particularly strong Mueller Extinction Burst period, and I'm inclined to think that this one might actually do the job.

I don't think it's worth trying to work out the kremlinology of how they're trying to do it or who's helping it along, because no specific planning is necessary. Eventually Trump's going to try and fire Mueller on impulse, for whatever reasons his malformed brain gives him, and the more times he finds himself in a conducive environment, the more chances he gets, the more certain it is that he's gonna do it. And I feel like we've flipped that coin and hit heads way too many times by now.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:09 PM on December 15, 2017 [7 favorites]

If he fires Mueller we beat the drum about that in 2018 and 2020, and it just makes him look guiltier. There's a substantial prospect that even if Mueller finds a smoking gun, the GOP will just shrug, anyway. We are going to have to do this the old-fashioned way, by organizing, protest and votes. Not that I'm opposed to protesting if Mueller is fired, but the function is more part of building toward 2018 and 2020.
posted by Frowner at 6:14 PM on December 15, 2017 [8 favorites]

2018 and 2020 are crucial, but I think there's a good case to be made that the response to a Mueller firing would be better approached as "throw our bodies into the gears of the terrible machine to grind it to a halt" than "get pumped for 2020"
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:17 PM on December 15, 2017 [42 favorites]

People are now calling for the FBI to be shut down because these two nincompoops were telling each other to say they had to text a lot about a case to cover up their affair.

Trump's president because Anthony Weiner couldn't not sext a teenager. So this is par for the course.
posted by chris24 at 6:19 PM on December 15, 2017 [38 favorites]

2018 and 2020 are crucial, but I think there's a good case to be made that the response to a Mueller firing would be better approached as "throw our bodies into the gears of the terrible machine to grind it to a halt" than "get pumped for 2020"

There does seem to be a disconnect between two camps on this issue. Some people see firing Mueller as sorta par for the course Trump bullshit. Terrible, yes, but along the lines of what we're constantly seeing. Others see it as an absolute red line and not along the lines of what we've already seen.

The first camp sees the remedy as 2018 and 2020. The second camp sees this as the first step in an absolute corruption that could render 2018 and 2020 moot. In which case the remedy isn't voting in 2018 but rather refreshing the tree of liberty.
posted by Justinian at 6:23 PM on December 15, 2017 [13 favorites]

The first camp sees the remedy as 2018 and 2020. The second camp sees this as the first step in an absolute corruption that could render 2018 and 2020 moot. In which case the remedy isn't voting in 2018 but rather refreshing the tree of liberty.

Don’t forget the fact that Trump and co are doing nothing to prevent the 2018 elections from being hacked, and are working double time on the voter suppression. Already.

So. I mean. It does sort of seem like the writing is on the wall. We know they will try to ratfuck the 2018 elections. The question is whether it will work.

That’s a huge gamble.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:29 PM on December 15, 2017 [23 favorites]

Some people see firing Mueller as sorta par for the course Trump bullshit. Terrible, yes, but along the lines of what we're constantly seeing.

If the Republican Party goes along with covering up overt collusion with a hostile foreign power and clear obstruction of justice in regards to that, what won't they go along with? They're basically saying the president is above the law. At what point do they stand up to him then? Because you know that Trump will take that lesson and run with it. And we know Trump will never not do the worst, most selfish, destructive thing possible. There is no bottom with him.

So it's not an issue of Trump. Of course he's going to do the awful thing and try to fire Mueller. The issue is if the Republican Party allows it, or we allow them to allow it. Each step along the path to autocracy becomes easier and easier and stopping it becomes harder and harder. I honestly don't understand those who think it's no big deal and we'll just vote them out. They've proven time and time again they're at heart authoritarians with no real interest in democracy. Why the fuck would we trust them to ever do the right thing.
posted by chris24 at 6:33 PM on December 15, 2017 [46 favorites]

So. I mean. It does sort of seem like the writing is on the wall. We know they will try to ratfuck the 2018 elections. The question is whether it will work.

They had better fucking hope it doesn't.

I think I'm in a third camp in that I think it's important to exhaust all of our legal options and that means righting the ship from the voting booth in 2018 and, depending on what happens, maybe 2020 too. If that doesn't work all bets are off.
posted by VTX at 6:48 PM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

I'd like to see actual indictments for The Gang. fed, and ny state charges. not just a report to congress. something from voters that unequivocally states, "yes. there's enough here for a trial." then, hand it off to the house.

i really hope y'all are wrong about mueller.
posted by j_curiouser at 6:51 PM on December 15, 2017

There are a LOT of options in between "vote in a few years" and "violent revolution." We just saw that in South Korea. We can take lessons from Gandhi. Nonviolent resistance works better than violent revolution.

But yes, we need to act now. Because if we don't, in a few years our elections might be as meaningful as Russia's.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:01 PM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]

If the Republican Party goes along with covering up overt collusion with a hostile foreign power and clear obstruction of justice in regards to that, what won't they go along with? They're basically saying the president is above the law. At what point do they stand up to him then? Because you know that Trump will take that lesson and run with it. And we know Trump will never not do the worst, most selfish, destructive thing possible. There is no bottom with him.

I could 100% see Trump at one of his pep rallies saying, "A lot of people have been saying we should eliminate term limits so I can serve a third term!" and the crowd cheering, and pundits going "He didn't really mean it"... and then him really meaning it.
posted by bluecore at 7:09 PM on December 15, 2017 [9 favorites]

yeah, i think the answer to a mueller firing is more "general strike" and "tax resistance on a massive scale" than "armed revolt" and "guillotines on the national mall"
posted by murphy slaw at 7:16 PM on December 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

ICE detention facilities had insufficient protection of detainee basic rights, says IG report

Multiple Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities were found to have problems with basic detainee rights, humane treatment and health and safety, according to a report released this week by the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security.

The violations varied from facility to facility, but included underutilized language services, lack of respect and professionalism, potentially unsafe and unhealthy detention conditions and, at one facility, all detainees were strip-searched when they entered.

. . . One of the facilities was reviewed earlier this year in a "management alert," which is used to inform senior DHS leadership when the IG believes there is an "immediate and serious" threat of waste, fraud and abuse.

This isn't a HuffPo sting or random Tweeter. Fuck.
posted by petebest at 7:20 PM on December 15, 2017 [19 favorites]

Why are people talking about Mueller getting fired like it already freaking happened? Reading this thread in Recent Activity just now made me think it literally had.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:30 PM on December 15, 2017 [22 favorites]

Because catastrophizing can almost feel like planning, if you do it right.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 7:34 PM on December 15, 2017 [49 favorites]

Mitch McConnell Prince of Dust

I think we have earned a little levity.

Linking to jwz vs. twitter because it negates reading the story in 280 character segments. And jwz is also kind of important in the creation of web browsers, making things readable over 140 or 280 chars for decades.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:56 PM on December 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

Washington Examiner: 'Germaphobe' Trump once insisted Anthony Scaramucci receive a penicillin shot on Air Force One

"He’s a little bit of a germaphobe. He doesn’t like people that don’t feel well sitting around him. So he called the medic in," [...] Scaramucci said staff then took him to the airplane's hospital bay, pulled down his pants, and gave him a dose of antibiotics.

1) That's not how antibiotics work, Trump has a 1950s-era concept of penicillin as a cure-all, and Air Force One is apparently a vector for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

2) The Theater of Cruelty. Trump's indulgence in (quasi-sexual, in this case) humiliations of his underlings, either as punishment, amusement, or a demonstration of control, is one of his most predictable behavior patterns.

3) Why are you telling us this story, Anthony? What do you get out of this? Are you OK?
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:27 PM on December 15, 2017 [52 favorites]

How the Alabama Senate Election Sanctified Black Women Voters

The selective rhetorical elevation of black women acts as a sort of overcorrection. For better and for worse, the gospel of individualism remains the bedrock of American identity. And yet the creed does not apply to black women, who are regarded not as varied, self-interested political actors, or as people to be served or scrutinized in meaningful ways, if they are regarded at all. Instead, the black female voter is thought to make decisions, with infinite patience and piety, in response to the strident acts of self-determination around her. Hers is a reactionary, not a visionary, politics, a righting of the ship of state. (The veteran congresswoman Maxine Waters, in her charismatic crusade against Trump, has made clever use of this presumption, subversively embracing the colloquial title of Auntie.) As opposed to Trump, the black female voter is especially invoked as a check on the moral void that would, in the case of Alabama’s special election, allow the election of a candidate who had pursued underage girls and spoken fondly of family life under slavery. Just search for the phrase “Black women warned us” on social media to see the degree to which she is sanctified. Her lack of power and ego makes her the right arbiter of justice. Materially, though, she is ignored, and her efforts to safeguard her own welfare are instead regarded as efforts toward a national salvation. She is of America only because she works for it.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:27 PM on December 15, 2017 [20 favorites]

A reminder that during the second general debate, Trump not only said he'd get rid of the carried interest loophole for hedge fund managers, he attacked Clinton for not doing so while she was in the Senate:

Clinton: Well, here we go again. I have been in favor of getting rid of carried interest for years starting when I was a Senator from New York. But that's not the point here.

Trump: Why didn't you do it? Why didn't you do it?

Clinton: Because I was a senator with a Republican President.

Trump: You could have done it. If you were an effective senator, you could have done it. But you were not an effective senator

Hmm, I guess Trump isn't very "effective," since the loophole is now bigger than ever.
posted by zachlipton at 9:22 PM on December 15, 2017 [36 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** MN Senate seat:

-- Franken plans to resign in early January.

-- Legal intrigue is brewing, as Republican Senate President Fischbach claims she can keep her seat while serving as the new lt gov, in an effort to avoid the possibility of the Dems taking control of the Senate. Dems say that's contrary to state law.

** PA-18 special:

-- Cook Political moved race from Likely R to Lean R.

-- Daily Beast: Dems starting to feel optimistic about this one

-- Payday Report has a deep dive into the history of the region and how labor is treating this as a big election.

** 2018 House:

-- A Paul Ryan retirement would make a pickup in WI-01 much more likely, as he seems to have greater than normal incumbent advantage.

-- Mentioned earlier, a PPP poll has a Dem challenger down only a few points to NRCC chair Steve Stivers in OH-15. That's the kind of thing that should make a lot of Republicans nervous - it's an R +7 district, Stivers has been around awhile, and hasn't done anything unexpectedly egregious, etc. Cook Political just moved the district from Solid R to Likely R.

posted by Chrysostom at 9:48 PM on December 15, 2017 [28 favorites]

Rep. Speier: ‘Rumor on the Hill’ is Trump to Fire Mueller Before Christmas.

Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-San Mateo) told KQED Newsroom on Friday that she believes Republicans are trying to shut down the House Intelligence Committee’s probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

Speier also said, “The rumor on the Hill when I left yesterday was that the president was going to make a significant speech at the end of next week. And on Dec. 22nd, when we are out of D.C., he was going to fire Robert Mueller.”

If this were to happen, Speier said, it would cause a constitutional crisis. “That is Saturday massacre 2.0,” she said. “Without a doubt there would be an impeachment effort.”

posted by Justinian at 10:24 PM on December 15, 2017 [33 favorites]

If he fires Mueller that's it, if it is possible for their to be a final straw (because there's one almost weekly, certainly monthly) this is it.

Does anyone have a letter that can be re-purposes to send to all members of congress to warn them against letting this kind of aggression against the constitution.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:50 AM on December 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

There's a sample phone script here: https://www.indivisible.org/resource/protecting-democracy-cant-fire-mueller/

SAMPLE CALL SCRIPT

Caller: Hi! I’m a constituent from [part of state] I’m calling to urge [MoC] to use every tool in the toolbox to prevent Trump from firing Special Counsel Mueller. I’m concerned he may do that, launching a constitutional crisis. Will [MoC] speak out and tell the President that firing Mueller would be a red line he must not cross?

Staffer: Thank you for your call. [MoC] is monitoring the various investigations closely and is letting them run their course.

Caller: That’s good, but it’s really important for Congress to assert its power now to prevent Trump from firing Mueller. I’d like to see [MoC] issue a clear statement on this, and co-sponsor [H.R. 3771/S. 1735 or S. 1741] to show [his/her] support for protecting Mueller and the investigation.

Staffer: We’ll take a look at that legislation.

Caller: Great, I’ll be following to see if [MoC] co-sponsors and speaks out on this.

posted by sebastienbailard at 1:15 AM on December 16, 2017 [37 favorites]

I realize this isn't a genius insight, but it struck me that a firing of Mueller would ideally be done as far out from the 2018 elections as possible, with the hope that the outrage fades before it can significantly impact the elections. I mean, that's a stupid hope, but as many have observed, these aren't very bright guys.
posted by angrycat at 4:54 AM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Trump's stance towards Mueller is a product of his narcissism - he believes that the investigation is the deep state trying to make his election win look bad out of malice. so he'll probably lash out in a fit of pique rather than as something McConnell might engineer.
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:05 AM on December 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

Americans Pessimistic About Trump (via Political Wire)

A new AP-NORC poll finds President Trump’s job approval rating at just 32%, making him the least popular first-year president on record.

“As 2017 comes to a close, the majority of Americans painted a broadly pessimistic view of Trump’s presidency, the nation’s politics and the overall direction of the country. Just three in 10 Americans said the United States is heading in the right direction, and 52 percent said the country is worse off since Trump became president — worrisome signs both for the White House and Republicans heading into a midterm election year where control of Congress will be at stake.”

I tend to forget we're often aligned with the vast majority of Americans. Just not the media or the controlling political establishment.
posted by petebest at 5:34 AM on December 16, 2017 [19 favorites]

A new AP-NORC poll finds President Trump’s job approval rating at just 32%, making him the least popular first-year president on record.

I'm certain that Trump will never know this. Seriously.
posted by klarck at 5:44 AM on December 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm certain that Trump will never know this. Seriously.

Maybe they will mention it on Fox and Friends.
posted by chaoticgood at 5:49 AM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

Besides the obvious stuff like Mueller is a Republican, appointed FBI Director by a Republican president, and selected special counsel by a Republican DAG under a Republican president, here's some other ammo in the probable coming battle.

@VoteVets
Read up on Robert Mueller, and share. In Vietnam, he led his platoon to rescue men who were pinned down, took an AK-47 round through the thigh, but held his position until the men safely retreated. He was back in the jungle a month later.
Robert Mueller Has A Decorated Combat Record As A Marine Who Fought In Vietnam

@KoriSchake (Hoover Institute fellow)
Retweeted Pete Norris (@officership: I found Ranger Mueller in the Ranger Hall of Fame. Inducted in 2004. PIC)
Muller's bronze star citation: "with complete disregard for his own safety personally led a fire team across the fire-swept terrain to recover a mortally wounded marine who had fallen forward of the friendly lines.”

@JoeNBC
Robert Mueller:
- Guided America through 9/11
- Awarded the Bronze Star with Combat "V" for valor in battle
- The Purple Heart
- Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal w/ Combat "V" for valor
- The Vietnam Gallantry Cross
He is an American hero. His attackers are a disgrace.

---

And despite the Republican drumbeat to fire him, they all loved him 6 months ago. A thread that compiles 31 senior Republicans saying great things about him when he was appointed. In handy graphic form for social media posting.

@RepRubenGallego (AZ D rep)
Republicans are discrediting Mueller to give @realDonaldTrump cover to fire him. They've certainly changed their tune... [THREAD]
posted by chris24 at 6:31 AM on December 16, 2017 [73 favorites]

It's mind-boggling how much this is tilted to a tiny constituency, and how badly it's going to screw them at the ballot. I really don't understand how their electoral math is working.
posted by eclectist at 3:48 PM on December 15 [3 favorites +] [!]

It's important to remember they're not looking to get the MetaFilter vote. They packed a modest tax cut into the first year, so that a majority of their base and independents with see a decrease in their withholding in January. They'll remember that in November because they'll be reminded at every paycheck. These aren't people who follow the details of the tax bill or have seen the graphs showing the slow erosion of that rebate as the benefit all shifts to the wealthy. And even if they realize that the immediately most of the benefit goes to the wealthy, they don't resent it because the wealthy are deserving, not like those inner-city folks, if you know what I mean.
posted by Mental Wimp at 6:50 AM on December 16, 2017 [6 favorites]

There are a lot of barriers preventing Trump from firing Mueller but ultimately the only real checks on his power come from the other branches of government. They are institutions and institutions will not save us.

Trump shouldn't be able to fire Mueller, my hope is that if he tries things start moving very fast, Mueller's case will get made to public and we'll be able to shine some light on this whole terrible mess and maybe start the long hard work that will be undoing all the damage already done.

That's what I hope for but what I plan on is a GOP that does nothing as we slide further and further towards fascism.

Plan for the worst and hope for the best, that's what we're saying when we talk about Trump firing Mueller. If we're ready to go with plans for massive protests and strikes and things of that nature but Trump and half the GOP are in prison by March, we'll just have wasted time laying plans we never ultimately needed. But if we're not ready because we've put all our faith in our institutions and Trump DOES manage to fire Mueller, we may as well give up.
posted by VTX at 6:52 AM on December 16, 2017 [13 favorites]

Wait—have we not gone over, extensively, the practical and legal barriers that prevent Trump from firing Mueller?

Rosenstein has to fire him under most scenarios. But, like Nixon and the Saturday Night Massacre, Trump can fire Rosenstein to find someone willing to fire Mueller if he won't.

There's also a school of thought that Trump can fire Mueller directly or without cause, though it would probably be challenged in court or possibly even ignored by Mueller.

But there is another path Trump could take to remove Mueller, according to Yale Law Professor Akhil Amar. The regulations that govern the special counsel were issued by the Department of Justice and could be rescinded by the Department of Justice. If the regulations were rescinded, Trump would no longer be required to cite any cause in removing Mueller. Still, however, he would likely have to go through Rosenstein to rescind the regulation, a move Rosenstein would likely resist.

If Trump moves to fire Mueller, then, it is likely Mueller won’t be the only official heading for the exits. And a slew of resignations or firings at DOJ in order to get rid of Mueller would only deepen the sense of crisis.

It’s possible that Trump could circumvent DOJ entirely and fire Mueller on his own. It’s not clear that Trump has any constitutional duty to adhere by a Justice Department regulation, said Saikrishna Prakash, a professor at University of Virginia Law School and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

“I don’t know how a rule of the Department of Justice can limit the president’s constitutional authority,” Prakash said, pointing to the president’s authority to remove officers of the executive branch, which could be interpreted to include a special counsel. “My view is the president can fire the special prosecutor without regard to what the rule says.”

posted by chris24 at 6:53 AM on December 16, 2017 [7 favorites]

And sorry if this planning sounds like catastrophizing. But it's not just people here. Josh at TPM, Evan McMullin, Heet Jeer, Dan Drezner, Kevin Kruse, Brian Beutler, Sopan Deb and host of other left and NeverTrumpers on political Twitter are also sounding the warning. From Josh:

TPM: The Plot Is Afoot

I think we’re seeing signs that the ground is being laid to fire Bob Mueller and end all investigations into President Trump and Russia. I’m not saying it will happen or that the effort will be successful. But the effort is clearly afoot.

I don’t want to be hyperbolic. I not only believe generally but think we have seen evidence of the resilience of our system and core institutions over recent months. But we can see a number of developments, building over recent weeks and accelerating in recent days, aimed at ending the Russia investigations.
---
But it is the evening of December 15th. At some point, no matter how much you want to believe something, the evidence contradicting your belief can grow so great that your edifice of confidence crumbles. It can happen rapidly. Even in the Trumpian world of fictive realities, the nonsensical nature of Cobb’s assurances must be becoming clear. That dam of realization seems to have given way or is in the process of breaking. That’s perilous.

For clarity, I don’t think Mueller will be fired. But I believe the groundwork is being laid to do so. I believe there’s an effort afoot to try. It is also entirely possible Trump will fire Mueller, especially if he can get a clean bill of health from one of the House committees which he can brandish as a justification. That will trigger a grave crisis. Keep an eye on the escalating attacks on Mueller, the increasing drive to close down the congressional investigations.

posted by chris24 at 7:04 AM on December 16, 2017 [29 favorites]

The firing of Mueller seems an inevitability that, like a periodic natural disaster or nuclear war, becomes more likely the longer it hasn't happened.

Ah, the old "due-factor," as one friend called it. You know, like when a high-average batter hasn't had a hit in a long time, so the chances of a hit go up. Or like when you've flipped heads twenty times in a row, the chances of a tails goes up. (If you believe this, I want to gamble with you.)
posted by Mental Wimp at 7:05 AM on December 16, 2017 [8 favorites]

I look at Trump firing Mueller as less a coin flip - where yes, past history mean nothing - and more like a leopard. When he's recently eaten a face or is feeling safe, he's less likely to eat another. When it's been a while and he's hungry or is threatened, it's more likely.
posted by chris24 at 7:16 AM on December 16, 2017 [15 favorites]

Republicans are probably just trying to distract us with all the Mueller puppet theater stuff.
posted by lumnar at 7:18 AM on December 16, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm listening to this week's Reply All right now (tl;dl: Mexican edgelords being paid by the PRI to poison the internet in the PRI's favor, with the help of unpaid troll armies who are just doing it for the lulz). When I first woke up this morning I (against all of my better judgement) read this Daily Beast article about the New Mexico school shooter from last week (which I didn't even notice because its' 2017 America and shooting up schools is just how we roll now) and his loooong history as an alt-right edgelord.

I don't know what to think. I know what I feel, but I don't know what to think about how I feel. I'm very extremely not prone to conspiracy theories, but I find myself wondering now if perhaps the trollfarm call isn't coming as much from St. Petersburg as Peoria and Plattsburg, and they're not being paid in Rubles nearly as much as Kochbucks. And all the cries of "DISTRACTION!!!!" that I've been scoffing at because I can pay attention to more than one thing at a time are not as hyperbolic as I'd thought. Or maybe the "DISTRACTION!!!" cries are actually the real disinfo and the things being called distraction are exactly where I should be looking.

I don't like any of this. And I'm beginning to think that the only rational response is to turn everything off, never believe anything anyone says ever again, and start fashioning some tinfoil headgear.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:23 AM on December 16, 2017 [13 favorites]

lol oh man lumnar. That is some intense posting synchronicity right there.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:24 AM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

The deleted words list is Very Very Doubleplusungood for the trans community. Also in the article:

The National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention is working on ways to prevent HIV among transgender people and reduce health disparities.

HHS has also removed information about LGBT Americans from its website. The department’s Administration for Children and Families, for example, archived a page that outlined federal services that are available for LGBT people and their families, including how they can adopt and receive help if they are the victims of sex trafficking.

Several key departments — including Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, as well as Justice, Education, and Housing and Urban Development — have changed some federal policies and how they collect government information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

I'll get on my GET YOUR PASSPORT RIGHT FUCKING NOW soapbox again because surely it's a just a matter of time before they change the rules. Currently you don't need to have surgery to get the correct gender on your passport. Either they'll roll that back, or they'll ban people from changing their gender altogether. If you don't see why this is a problem, imagine a person who presents female (e.g. Laverne Cox) but has "male" on their passport. Now imagine the TSA detaining them and arresting them for "fraud" or who knows what.
posted by AFABulous at 7:47 AM on December 16, 2017 [61 favorites]

Also, Hillary Clinton (as Secretary of State) was the one who changed the rule to permit gender changes, and you know how much Trump loves her.
posted by AFABulous at 7:48 AM on December 16, 2017 [16 favorites]

Some interesting stats from a new Pew poll: 67% of Americans say the government should have a major role in addressing poverty, up from 55% in 2015.

Large majorities say the government should play a major role in keeping the country safe from terrorism (94%), responding to natural disasters (89%) and ensuring that food and medicine are safe (87%). Somewhat smaller majorities – about six-in-ten or more – say the government is doing at least a somewhat good job in each of these areas.

In other areas, there are much wider differences between views of the government’s role and performance. For example, while 80% of the public says the government should play a major role in managing the country’s immigration system, just 32% say it’s doing a good job in this area. Similarly, two-thirds think the government should be involved in helping people get out of poverty; just 26% rate the government positively in dealing with poverty – the lowest rating for any issue in the survey.

And while wide majorities say the government should be involved in ensuring a basic income for those 65 and older (71%), access to health care (69%), access to high equality education (68%) and helping people get out of poverty (67%), fewer than half say the government is doing a good job in these areas.

High numbers wanting government to handle/solve social issues with lower numbers satisfied with what's currently being done seems like an opportunity for Democrats.
posted by chris24 at 7:56 AM on December 16, 2017 [47 favorites]

You know one thing I'd like to see when this shitshow is finally over and Democrats have unified control of government again?

A "Presidents and Former Presidents Taxation Act" such that former presidents get their pension and some set of legitimate income streams (income from assets that had been placed into a no-shit blind trust before they took office, income from normal pension funds, maybe book sales) taxed at normal rates and taxes all other income at 90-something percent. Combined with former presidents' estates being taxed at 90-whatever percent of everything over one million dollars with exceptions for real property that had been passed through at least three generations.

Mostly because just Fuck Trump, but also to limit the incentive or ability to pull this kind of horseshit again.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:58 AM on December 16, 2017 [8 favorites]

But of course. It also explains Corker. At least this plays into the 2018 campaign theme of they raised your taxes while cutting theirs.

IBT (David Sirota): Donald Trump And GOP Leaders Could Be Enriched By Last Minute Tax Break Inserted Into Final Bill

Republican congressional leaders and real estate moguls could be personally enriched by a real-estate-related provision GOP lawmakers slipped into the final tax bill released Friday evening, according to experts interviewed by International Business Times. The legislative language was not part of previous versions of the bill and was added despite ongoing conflict-of-interest questions about the intertwining real estate interests and governmental responsibilities of President Donald Trump — the bill’s chief proponent.

The Trump organization and the Kushners (the family of Ivanka's husband, Jared) have overseen vast real estate empires, and top GOP lawmakers writing the tax bill collectively have tens of millions of dollars of ownership stakes in real-estate-related LLCs. The new tax provision would specifically allow owners of large real estate holdings through LLCs to deduct a percentage of their “pass through” income from their taxes, according to experts. Although Trump, who became famous for his real estate holdings, has transitioned into branding in recent years, federal records show Trump has ownership stakes in myriad LLCs.

The new provision was not in the bill passed by the House or the Senate. Instead, it was inserted into the final bill during reconciliation negotiations between Republicans from both chambers. The provision, said experts, would offer a special tax cut to LLCs with few employees and large amounts of depreciable property assets, namely buildings: rent generating apartment and office buildings. [...]

IBT previously reported that 13 GOP lawmakers directly sculpting the bill —including U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan — have between $36 million and $163 million worth of ownership stakes in real estate-related LLCs. Those entities generated between $2.6 million and $16 million in “pass through” income and could benefit from the new provision.

Sen. Bob Corker, who was considered a potential “no” vote on the bill, abruptly switched his position upon the release of the final legislation. Federal records reviewed by IBT show that Corker has millions of dollars of ownership stakes in real-estate related LLCs that could also benefit.

posted by chris24 at 8:04 AM on December 16, 2017 [62 favorites]

“Without a doubt there would be an impeachment effort.”

I have doubts.
posted by schmod at 8:10 AM on December 16, 2017 [25 favorites]

67% of Americans say the government should have a major role in addressing poverty, up from 55% in 2015.

Keep in mind that Marco Rubio sold his soul, changed his no to a yes, based on increasing benefits to the poor by 82 cents a day. Expect him to be crowing about his wonderful accomplishment.
posted by JackFlash at 8:14 AM on December 16, 2017 [8 favorites]

@EricHolder
Speaking on behalf of the vast majority of the American people, Republicans in Congress be forewarned:any attempt to remove Bob Mueller will not be tolerated.These are BS attacks on him/his staff that are blatantly political-designed to hide the real wrongdoing. Country not party

@JohnCornyn
Retweeted Eric Holder
You don’t

@ThePlumLineGS (Greg Sargent, WaPo)
Retweeted Senator JohnCornyn
This is important and highly newsworthy. The Number 2 in the GOP Senate leadership has now suggested that the American people would tolerate an effort by Trump to remove Mueller.

@BrendanNyhan (NYT)
Retweeted Greg Sargent
We're in dangerous waters
posted by chris24 at 8:18 AM on December 16, 2017 [45 favorites]

So when Trump told reporters this morning en route to his FBI rally, "Well, it’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI. But we’re going to rebuild the FBI. It will be bigger and better than ever", that could be a very big tell about what he's plotting.

I guess 24/7 news gonna news, but man I am ever tired of people reading tea leaves to find future actions based on Trump bluster. I of course believe he's a horrible person who will do horrible things and abuse every inch of his authority whenever it suits him. But to say "this might indicate something he's planning" based on stuff like this? Trump Says Shit, and he says it constantly. He blusters about whatever the subject of the moment is and makes grand proclamations about how he alone can do something great and it's gonna be coming Real Soon Now.

A far more sensible thing to do regarding Trump's Plans is to assume he has few and the ones he has are half-assed and sloppy. That's not a reason not to be prepared for them, but assuming they're at all methodical is contrary to everything we've ever seen out of him.
posted by phearlez at 8:33 AM on December 16, 2017 [15 favorites]

Cornyn, responding to a tweet suggesting that Cornyn's "beef is with Holder, not Mueller":

@JohnCornyn
But Mueller needs to clean house of partisans

So no, his beef is in fact with Mueller and his "partisans." Cornyn's clambered onto the "only loyal Trump supporters should be permitted to investigate Trump" wagon. It'd be nice if Cornyn would give such pronouncements their due gravitas and use punctuation and complete sentences, but I guess it's foolish to ask for luxuries in times like these.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:35 AM on December 16, 2017 [8 favorites]

So I read on reddit that firing Mueller won't really change anything because Mueller is smart and prepared for this possibility--the investigation will go on without him. There's a bunch of brilliant attorneys working on this case and firing Mueller will add another obsruction charge. Seems reasonable to me.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:37 AM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

@JohnCornyn
But Mueller needs to clean house of partisans

Man, this is such a catch-22. You can only investigate Trump if you don't think he's an idiot (or corrupt). But you'd have to be an idiot (or corrupt) to believe that.
posted by diogenes at 8:47 AM on December 16, 2017 [46 favorites]

It's really unsurprising that the people who have fought a twenty-plus year war on competency would have zero faith in the ability of people to be professional and do their job regardless of a personal opinion. It's also consistent with their attitudes about media.
posted by phearlez at 8:58 AM on December 16, 2017 [14 favorites]

MisantropicPainforest, isn’t firing Mueller a means of shutting down the special counsel’s investigation? Mueller can line up all the attorneys in the world, but they can’t run the investigation without the resources and access to, say, broad subpoena power afforded the special counsel.

It’s been my assumption that firing Mueller ends the investigation. Are you saying they might try to fire him and appoint a new special counsel? Even if they were to do that, it would surely be someone Trump-friendly, who’d clean house of all the “partisan” attorneys on the team and install a legion of thumb-twiddlers, right?
posted by scarylarry at 9:04 AM on December 16, 2017

"Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst" is always a good philosophy. That said, I agree with MisanthropicPainForest that Mueller and his people are smart enough to have contingency plans. If anyone is capable of n-dimensional chess, it's them.

Trump and his crew of sycophants and parasites, however - as Phearlez points out, they have waged a long-standing war on competency and experts. That...makes them more at the tic-tac-toe level. Certainly they can do a lot of damage, but they're not a formidable, Machiavellian enemy. They're more the thugs who shove you into a locker and demand your lunch money, like Moe from Calvin and Hobbes. Ramsay Bolton and Joffrey Baratheon, not Tywin Lannister. (Trump WISHES he was Tywin.)

The truly smart people, who value education and learning and skill and expertise, are increasingly in the Democratic party and the various resistances. The fact that the Dems/resistances are welcoming, at least in theory, to other than white cis men, means that we have more brains and talent, because we aren't squandering women/POC/LGBT people's abilities and longing for a mythical 1950's.

As Rebecca Solnit points out in the Guardian, resistance is working. It's not shouting into the wind. It's not going to be easy, smooth or soon, but we are far from powerless.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:08 AM on December 16, 2017 [48 favorites]

It’s been my assumption that firing Mueller ends the investigation.

at which point there's going to be a flood of leaks and documents, some of which will be damning, some of which will be speculative, and much of which may involve others

with mueller in the picture, the investigation remains within provable and contestable grounds, and is controllable for the overall powers that be (not just trump)

they end it now, all hell breaks loose - it may anyway - but someone may have already told trump to shut up and take his lumps if he has to

there's a lot of rumors going on and i don't even really look for them
posted by pyramid termite at 9:16 AM on December 16, 2017 [6 favorites]

any attempt to remove Bob Mueller will not be tolerated.

by who? I don't believe in "surely this" anymore because we've had over 300 days of "surely this" moments.

We'll have some protests in front of the WH and stern statements by Democrats (and a few Republicans like Flake). But no general strikes, no revolutions. No one has ever been able to explain how a general strike would work. "More than half of Americans (57 percent) have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts." (CNBC) The median wealth of Black and Latinx people is under $2000. (Forbes) What, they're all going to risk homelessness and starvation over an FBI investigation most people don't understand? "Nearly 80 percent of Trump voters said they think the president should stay in office even if collusion is proven between his campaign and Russia." (The Hill) That's millions of people who don't even care if Mueller is fired.
posted by AFABulous at 9:28 AM on December 16, 2017 [12 favorites]

I have to assume that a Mueller firing is the signal for New York AG Schneiderman to go absolutely ham on this administration.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:33 AM on December 16, 2017 [26 favorites]

Also therer are four more sealed indictments, which won't go away if Mueller is fired. (Assuming they weren't filed for some other investigation.)

Eagle-eyed court watchers on Twitter noticed, late Monday, that there are four sealed cases listed on the U.S. District Court's docket in Washington, D.C., located on the docket between George Papadopoulos's sealed plea bargain (#182) and Paul Manafort's sealed indictment (#201).

posted by sebastienbailard at 9:39 AM on December 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

Assuming they weren't filed for some other investigation.

But that's the rub. There is no reason to think they aren't for a different case or cases. Or rather there's no reason to think they are for Mueller's.
posted by Justinian at 9:43 AM on December 16, 2017

High numbers wanting government to handle/solve social issues with lower numbers satisfied with what's currently being done seems like an opportunity for Democrats.

For a while now I've been asking, where's the Democratic "Contract with America"? 1994 is probably the closest analogy to where we are right now (with 2010 a close second). It would be great if we had a sweeping legislative agenda and some prominent (not white male) leaders like Gingrich with a proper manifesto. I doubt whether the Contract with America actually had any significant role in the electoral wins for Republicans in 1994 -- that was mainly just due to standard midterm backlash -- but it sure as heck had an influence on the legislative agenda from 1994-1998, and would have been even more significant if Republicans hadn't essentially shot themselves in the foot by impeaching Clinton before he could propose even more "reforms" in the late 90s. Anyway, details aside, it would be great if we had a proper 10-point Democratic manifesto, especially during the midterm respite from the obsessive hero-focus that presidential years inevitably bring.
posted by chortly at 9:53 AM on December 16, 2017 [13 favorites]

It would be great if we had a proper 10-point Democratic manifesto

They are really trying to promote this one. But it's hard for them to make themselves heard over all the noise.
posted by OnceUponATime at 10:09 AM on December 16, 2017 [6 favorites]

they end it now, all hell breaks loose

I am very concerned by these allegations
posted by benzenedream at 10:12 AM on December 16, 2017

OK, so Harry Reid funded a shadowy UFO investigation bureau.
posted by Cookiebastard at 10:41 AM on December 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

Relevant to recent FCC ruling and the ability of people to get information over the Internet: The Koch Brothers are actively working to prevent cities from getting fast broadband (Susan Crawford writing in Wired, 2017-12-16.)
posted by StrawberryPie at 10:46 AM on December 16, 2017 [16 favorites]

OK, so Harry Reid funded a shadowy UFO investigation bureau.

Pfft. $22 piss-ant million to find out what UFO's are? "Shadowy" Harry Reid? Bollocks. Where's the missing 6.5 Trillion with a T money in the Pentagon, NYT?! Where's the front page bold type for that, you fuckers?

Per the article, UFO's totally don't exist (or maybe they do! Ha ha!), Harry Reid has a wacky billionaire friend and Ted "$400 Million dollar bridge to nowhere" Stevens was a goddamned war hero when not being indicted for lying on financial disclosure forms.
posted by petebest at 11:05 AM on December 16, 2017 [7 favorites]

But those are pretty freaky videos...
posted by Windopaene at 11:09 AM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

But no general strikes, no revolutions. No one has ever been able to explain how a general strike would work.

As odd as it seems, labour wasn't always supremely powerful in history, but it finds ways, whether it be chucking shoes into machines, or the mobbed up swingers removing food from export ships to feed to the locals (and paying the merchant market price: snark isn't new).


Also with you 1045% regarding getting passports. Better to be a live, free, force for change from the outside than incarcerated, disenfranchised, or worse at 'home'.
posted by Buntix at 11:21 AM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Trump Has Ambitious Plans to Campaign in 2018 Midterms (WaPo)

"The president has told advisers he wants to travel extensively and hold rallies and that he is looking forward to spending much of 2018 campaigning. He has also told aides that the election would largely determine what he can get done — and that he expects he would be blamed for losses, such as last week’s humiliating defeat that handed an Alabama Senate seat to a Democrat for the first time in 25 years.

“For the president, this isn’t about adulation and cheering crowds,” White House political director Bill Stepien said in an interview. “This is about electing and reelecting Republicans.”"
posted by box at 11:29 AM on December 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

Not to be super crass, but those Koch fucks are 77 and 82. How much longer are we going to have to put up with their shit before nature takes its course?
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:37 AM on December 16, 2017 [35 favorites]

With modern medical technology, plausibly 30 to 40 years.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:43 AM on December 16, 2017 [6 favorites]

“For the president, this isn’t about adulation and cheering crowds,”

Bull. Shit.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:45 AM on December 16, 2017 [77 favorites]

he wants to travel extensively and hold rallies and that he is looking forward to spending much of 2018 campaigning. He has also told aides that the election would largely determine what he can get done — and that he expects he would be blamed for losses

You go right ahead, shitbird.

The less time you spend actually working and the more time you spend tarring any and all Republican candidates with your Trumpist stench the better.
posted by lydhre at 12:08 PM on December 16, 2017 [42 favorites]

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words. I want to tell you something about words that I think is important. They're my work, they're my play, they're my passion. Words are all we have, really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid, y'know like, woo woo woo woo, POP! Then we assign a word to a thought and we're stuck with that word for that thought, so be careful with words.

I like to think that yeah, the same words that hurt can heal, it's a matter of how you pick them. There are some people that aren't into all the words. There are some that would have you not use certain words. Yeah, there are 400,000 words in the English language and there are 7 of them that you can't say at the CDC. What a ratio that is!

399,993 to 7. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous to be separated from a group that large. All of you over here, you 7, baaad words! That's what they told us they were, remember? "That's a bad word!" No bad words, bad thoughts, bad intentions, and words!

You know the 7, don't you, that you can't say at the CDC? "Diversity, fetus, transgender, vulnerable, entitlement, science-based and evidence-based."

Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war. "Diversity, fetus, transgender, vulnerable, entitlement, science-based and evidence-based," wow!
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 12:13 PM on December 16, 2017 [36 favorites]

At 36.4%, Trump has his lowest approval rating ever in today's 538 Poll Tracker.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:18 PM on December 16, 2017 [22 favorites]

To be fair, Harry Reid is from southern Nevada and he thinks he's going to be the god of his own planet when he dies. I guess UFOs aren't that far out there.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:30 PM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

: "@JohnCornyn But Mueller needs to clean house of partisans"

In country where Judges, Prosecutors, DAs, Sheriffs, and even Dogcatcher are elected this sudden concern for partisans in law enforcement seems ... biased.
posted by Mitheral at 12:33 PM on December 16, 2017 [20 favorites]

How is banning words at the CDC not a violation of the First Amendment?
posted by maggiemaggie at 1:08 PM on December 16, 2017 [13 favorites]

Axios, Scoop: Mueller obtains "tens of thousands” of Trump transition emails

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has obtained “many tens of thousands” of Trump transition emails, including sensitive emails of Jared Kushner, transition team sources tell Axios.

Trump officials discovered Mueller had the emails when his prosecutors used them as the basis for questions to witnesses, the sources said.
The emails include 12 accounts, one of which contains about 7,000 emails, the sources said.
The accounts include the team's political leadership and the foreign-policy team, the sources said.

Why it matters: The transition emails are said to include sensitive exchanges on matters that include potential appointments, gossip about the views of particular senators involved in the confirmation process, speculation about vulnerabilities of Trump nominees, strategizing about press statements, and policy planning on everything from war to taxes.
...
The sources say that transition officials assumed that Mueller would come calling, and had sifted through the emails and separated the ones they considered privileged. But the sources said that was for naught, since Mueller has the complete cache from the dozen accounts.

I can only imagine the kind of stuff these buffoons put in email and how alarmed they must be about discovering Mueller already had them. But nice job using the press to warn everyone who might be in those email archives that Mueller knows.
posted by zachlipton at 1:09 PM on December 16, 2017 [74 favorites]

At this point, if trump & co. are successful and unimpeded in purging the investigation and the FBI, then I really hope that people have dead-man switches that automatically leak important files to a number of sources. At that point passing on the leaks would be extremely risky, but I feel like there are a number of nations and venues that would take the risk.
posted by codacorolla at 1:15 PM on December 16, 2017 [13 favorites]

Apologies if this has been discussed previously, but is there anything Mueller and his team can do to fight back in the event of his firing? I assume the current investigation gets mothballed and all the classified evidence sealed away or destroyed, but might he have delivered a preliminary report to somebody to be published in the event of his dismissal? Could he have strategically declassified enough evidence that he could speak openly about a publicly-verifiable chain of evidence showing collusion? I would think that he's anticipating the possibility of his own firing and taking any precautionary measures available, but I don't know what those might be.
posted by contraption at 1:16 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Just to help me keep track of this mess, here’s my growing list of the key Trump Administration officials that have been fired or have resigned so far:

Steve Bannon, Chief Strategist
Preset Bharara, US District Attorney for Southern NY
James Comey, Director of the FBI
Mark Corallo, Spokesman for legal team defending Trump from Russian allegations
Michael Dubke, White House Communications Director
Michael Flynn, National Security Advisor
Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to the President
Derek Harvey, National Security Council’s top Middle East Advisor
Omarosa Manigault, Director - White House Office for Public Liaison
Tom Price, Secretary - Health and Human Services
Reince Priebus, Chief of Staff
Anthony Scaramucci, Communications Director
Walter Shaub, Director - Office of Government Ethics
Michael Short, Press Aide
Sean Spicer, Press Secretary
Katie Walsh, Deputy White House Chief of Staff
Sally Yates, Acting Attorney General

...as well as...

Many CEO members of the Strategy & Policy Forum and the Manufacturing Council, and

Likely hundreds of career civil servants in various roles in the State Department and other government agencies, either laid off or who resigned due to the newly incompetent and disruptive leadership.

Flynn and Papadopoulos have already confessed to crimes. Manafort and Gates have been indicted.

And we haven’t even hit his first anniversary...
posted by darkstar at 1:33 PM on December 16, 2017 [23 favorites]

I was a kid when we watched the Watergate hearings on telly. This was in Nigeria. My dad has - had - a lifelong habit of always watching the news, he was a well-informed global citizen and it's a tradition me and my sisters grew up with. So Watergate: incisive, technical, an impressive demonstration of judiciary power and effectiveness. A good advert for USAian legal process and professionalism. I felt that again watching the Committee on the Judiciary hearings that have attracted so much ridicule, outrage and hilarity.

Though I have to say, the more competent the nominees, the more they were more worrying than the demonstrably useless fellow. The prejudice, vindictiveness and complacency on display was alarming, as was the grandstanding in support of alt-right talking points - one got the impression a couple of candidates were used to applause following a deceptively anodyne articulation of gross homophobic ideology.

But i wanted to say the process and the panel were impressive. What resources does the US have? It does have people like these, norms like these that are aspired to. In the current chaos this has to be hopeful.
posted by glasseyes at 1:38 PM on December 16, 2017 [15 favorites]

Seems like a good list to have. I'd suggest the list of administration appointees fired by Trump should probably be separated out between people he himself chose versus people he vindictively and/or defensively fired (Yates, Bharara, Comey, etc). The details kinda matter there.

A supplementary list worth keeping is "nominees who pulled out of the nomination process before or during hearings," which would include a bunch of cabinet and sub-cabinet appointees and more than a couple of judges.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:39 PM on December 16, 2017 [4 favorites]

darkstar, I feel like the trump administration job descriptions ought to be in quotes.
posted by glasseyes at 1:43 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

The emails include 12 accounts, one of which contains about 7,000 emails, the sources said.
The accounts include the team's political leadership and the foreign-policy team, the sources said.

Why it matters: The transition emails are said to include sensitive exchanges on matters that include potential appointments, gossip about the views of particular senators involved in the confirmation process, speculation about vulnerabilities of Trump nominees, strategizing about press statements, and policy planning on everything from war to taxes.

A thought: even though the Trumpists aren't very smart at very much that is relevant for running a country, they are probably smart at racketeering. Maybe they spent a lot of time after the primary roping in as many R politicians as at all possible, and maybe this can be seen in those mails.
I've seen on a small and local scale (but also construction and real-estate industry) how the corrupt honchos are incredibly ignorant and incurious on most issues but are highly accomplished when it comes to luring people to get in on the scam. As they say, almost everyone has a price, and since they are handing out other people's money (and titles, not least), the price doesn't matter to political crooks.

If this is the case, obviously a lot of Republican congressmen will push hard for closing the investigation which is scary. On the other hand, if Mueller can hang on till past November, there could be a big purge of all the corrupt politicians. Before, I thought Mueller might be in a hurry to finish his work early in 2018, so as not to be blamed for meddling in the election. But maybe it would be safer and better for democracy if he waits till after?
I guess the Dems need to reach out to non-corrupt Repubs (if there are any) to form a strong "constitutional coalition" that can protect the investigation and the law of the land.

In my personal experience, which is obviously on a very different scale, honest people are very confusing to crooks, not least because they justify their actions with the understanding that "everyone does it". As in "all politicians lie", so the Trumpists have just cranked up the gears, nothing to see there. Or as Trump himself has often said: all politicians are corrupt. During the campaign, people thought that when he said that, and pointed to his personal wealth, it meant he wouldn't be corrupt. But what he really meant was that he would be more corrupt. I digress: my point was that if one can stand fast through the storm, one can win over lies and corruption. But that standing can be incredibly rough.
posted by mumimor at 1:45 PM on December 16, 2017 [15 favorites]

mumimor: what he really meant was that he would be more corrupt.

"That makes me smart."
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:51 PM on December 16, 2017 [17 favorites]

We saw pretty much all of Clinton and Podesta’s emails and there was basically nothing incriminating. We’ve seen just a few from Trump & Co. and they’ve all been hugely incriminating. I mean shit with subject lines literally like “Backdoor Russian Meeting and Dinner Invite” and contents with basically “woohoo, excited to collude.”

Just imagine what all of them show.
posted by chris24 at 2:05 PM on December 16, 2017 [65 favorites]

How is banning words at the CDC not a violation of the First Amendment? -- posted by maggiemaggie

The CDC is a federal agency, part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

"...government employees are only protected by the First Amendment when they are speaking as private citizens. If their speech is part of their official job duties, then they can be fired or disciplined for it. This rule comes from a 2006 Supreme Court case, Garcetti v. Ceballos. Obviously, it isn’t always easy to differentiate when a government employee is speaking as a private citizen, and when they are speaking as a government employee."
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:13 PM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

I have to say it was satisfying to send a message to Cornyn about how bad his tweets make him look and how he should think before tying himself too closely to a clearly criminal element in the GOP.
posted by threeturtles at 2:16 PM on December 16, 2017 [7 favorites]

Axios, Scoop: Mueller obtains "tens of thousands” of Trump transition emails

And barely ten minutes after Axios broke, Fox News runs this story: Trump Lawyer: Mueller Improperly Obtained Transition Documents In Russia Probe

A lawyer for the Trump presidential transition team is accusing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office of inappropriately obtaining transition documents as part of its Russia probe, including confidential attorney-client communications and privileged communications.

In a letter obtained by Fox News and sent to House and Senate committees on Saturday, the transition team’s attorney alleges “unlawful conduct” by the career staff at the General Services Administration in handing over transition documents to the special counsel’s office.

Officials familiar with the case argue Mueller could have a problem relating to the 4th Amendment – which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Kory Langhofer, the counsel to Trump for America, wrote in the letter that the the GSA “did not own or control the records in question.” But, Langhofer says, Mueller’s team has “extensively used the materials in question, including portions that are susceptible to claims of privilege.”

Trump for America is the nonprofit organization that facilitated the transition between former President Barack Obama to President Trump. The GSA, an agency of the United States government, provided the transition team with office space and hosted its email servers.

Team Trump is really ramping things up ahead of next week's meeting between Mueller and Trump's lawyers.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:20 PM on December 16, 2017 [13 favorites]

For those who want to dig deep into the Republican tax bill, this is an actually readable summary put out by the House. Caution, it is a 570 page PDF.

Unlike the bill itself which can be hard to decipher with its convoluted strike this/add that and obscure references to dozens of previous laws, this document clearly describes current law, House and Senate proposals to change current law, and finally the conference agreement for each provision. Unfortunately it lacks an index so it can be difficult to search for specific provisions. But there it is in all its glory.
posted by JackFlash at 2:22 PM on December 16, 2017 [17 favorites]

Remember when there were recounts in a number of states requested by (I believe) the Green party after the election, and they were all summarily shut down almost immediately by trump's lawyers? I think that we're starting to see the one thing that trump's team is good at: legal fuckery.
posted by codacorolla at 2:22 PM on December 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

Officials familiar with the case argue Mueller could have a problem relating to the 4th Amendment – which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Man, "officials familiar with the case" is weaselly. It's pretty much "some people are saying."

I'm gonna guess that Mueller's team is familiar with the law as it relates to searches and seizures.

Anyway, it isn't a real argument. It's just further setting the stage for what's coming.
posted by diogenes at 2:28 PM on December 16, 2017 [24 favorites]

No problemo, I got this.

*clears throat, stretches neck*

Diversity = Manyversity
fetus = protogeny
transgender = ultragender
vulnerable = vowelnerable
entitlement = claimsworths
science-based = booklearned
evidence-based = fuckingreality-based
posted by petebest at 2:28 PM on December 16, 2017 [33 favorites]

So the administration is eager to show how much they're cooperating with Muller, but now they're furious that Mueller, who is part of the government, obtained evidence from a government computer system used by government employees? I'm going to go out on a limb and suspect there's a lot of idiocy in those emails and there's a reason this is where they're drawing the line.

Trump and Cobb keep running around saying the investigation will be over by the end of the year or soon thereafter. It's increasingly clear that the only way that can possibly happen is if Trump makes it happen. Trump ignores his own deadlines all the time (see, for instance, the time in July he promised us all he'd have an answer on Hezbollah in 24 hours), but he also makes up a lot of nonsense and then expects to be able to bend reality to meet whatever is in his mind.
posted by zachlipton at 2:29 PM on December 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

I can't wait to hear all the privacy and privilege claims from the same people who insisted every last Clinton and Podesta email had to be published on the internet or democracy was over.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:46 PM on December 16, 2017 [59 favorites]

Any lawyers in the house? If a communication is privileged that means it cannot be compelled. But can it be used to impeach a witness if the prosecution has acquired it by other means?

ie if some of the Trumpers have lied to Mueller's guys could the privileged communications the GSA turned over be allowed as proof in a 18 USC § 1001 prosecution or would it be tossed as privileged work product?
posted by Justinian at 3:15 PM on December 16, 2017

From our favorite former federal prosecutor.

@renato_mariotti
Of course Mueller obtained emails from a third party. Prosecutors in most white collar criminal investigations do that. It’s not “inappropriate” or even unusual. Anyone who claims otherwise has no idea what they’re talking about.
posted by chris24 at 3:19 PM on December 16, 2017 [56 favorites]

At first glance, the banning of seven words looks bad. But it actually evens out because of the 14 words CDC employees are supposed to use instead.
posted by emelenjr at 3:20 PM on December 16, 2017 [22 favorites]

Of course Mueller obtained emails from a third party. Prosecutors in most white collar criminal investigations do that. It’s not “inappropriate” or even unusual. Anyone who claims otherwise has no idea what they’re talking about.

The Trumpists making that claim aren't saying it because they believe it. It's just fodder for Fox News viewers.
posted by diogenes at 3:29 PM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

For when the "liberal" media talks about what a win it is for Trump & Rs when/if they pass the tax bill. From Quinnipiac:

If your Rep or Senator voted for the tax plan, would you be...

- More likely to re-elect: 18%
- Less likely to re-elect: 43%
- Won't matter: 35%
posted by chris24 at 3:34 PM on December 16, 2017 [25 favorites]

Watching the Bears - Lions game and reading this article about the NFL owners and Trump as Pimps I suddenly realized that while the GOP went after graduate student tuition waivers they never mentioned athletic scholarships in their tax plans. Things that make you go hmmmm.
posted by srboisvert at 3:49 PM on December 16, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm not sure what the take-away is from that Quinnipiac poll. Maybe it's good. Maybe bad. I mean, the overall numbers look nice. But the Republican base is split 42/45 either saying "more likely to re-elect" or "won't matter." The Democratic base is strongly against. The real question is what the "Independents" say and how to interpret it. At first, this looks good. Independents say:

If they vote for the Republican tax plan, would you be ...

More likely to re-elect: 16%
Less likely to re-elect: 47%
Won't matter: 36%

And ...

If they vote against the Republican tax plan, would you be ...

More likely to re-elect: 38%
Less likely to re-elect: 17%
Won't matter: 43%

But the question is where these Independents are starting off. If they're already Conservative leaners, then 47% < 36 + 16 = 52% and 38% < 43 + 17 = 60%.

I guess I'd like to see something more clearly encouraging than this ... Somebody talk me down off the ledge.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 3:53 PM on December 16, 2017

I'm not sure what the take-away is from that Quinnipiac poll. Maybe it's good. Maybe bad. I mean, the overall numbers look nice. But the Republican base is split 42/45 either saying "more likely to re-elect" or "won't matter." The Democratic base is strongly against. The real question is what the "Independents" say and how to interpret it.

No. This is incorrect. The real question is almost never what independents think. Elections are determined by turnout, not by swing voters. Democrats typically don't turn out in midterm elections. The reason that things look good for 2018 is that Democrats are pissed off and fired up, and they're likely to vote in midterms this time. The fact that Democrats are strongly against, and Republicans are not strongly for, the tax bill bodes well for the Dems in the next election.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:02 PM on December 16, 2017 [17 favorites]

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 4:04 PM on December 16, 2017

A heavy-handed metaphor for your Saturday night.

Drew Schwartz, Vice: Literal Shit Exploded Out of a Water Fountain at the EPA

The poopsplosion pictured apparently detonated outside the EPA's Office of Policy, in a hallway nearby EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's office, Mashable reports. According to E&E News, a few other water fountains overflowed on the same floor, and the odor from the black sludge wafted into nearby offices.
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:08 PM on December 16, 2017 [18 favorites]

Watching the Bears - Lions game and reading this article about the NFL owners and Trump as Pimps

This could probably use a content warning for violent abuse of women, among other things (treated as incidental! It’s not even the point of the article! Just, you know, an interesting way to illustrate a thing about football, as opposed to something that should be horrifying in its own right).
posted by schadenfrau at 4:11 PM on December 16, 2017

When Democrats show up, they win. (Daniel Donner, Daily Kos)

Doug Jones won in Alabama because Democrats showed up to vote. In 2014's midterms, Democrats took a drubbing, because they did not show up.

Democratic policies are more popular among a wider swath of people than the right-wing talking point policies. If we keep showing up the way we have so far in Alabama and Virginia, we can win many more elections than we have. Butts in booths!
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 4:18 PM on December 16, 2017 [17 favorites]

Doug Jones won in Alabama because Democrats showed up to vote.

Well, yes, but Republicans also stayed home in equal numbers. That was the tipping point. When you have Jones picking up 90-something% of Hillary's vote in Alabama and Moore picking up 50% of Trump's then you know that there was a massive staying home of Republicans.
posted by Talez at 4:49 PM on December 16, 2017 [7 favorites]

More details.

@renato_mariotti
THREAD: Why are Trump’s lawyers upset that Mueller obtained transition emails from a government agency? (Hint: They’re just playing politics, but this is a bad sign for them.)
1/ Today @axios reported that Mueller obtained tens of thousands of emails from the General Services Administration, which possessed them.
2/ @axios reported that the emails included very frank discussions as well as emails from Jared Kushner. Trump’s team was unaware that Mueller possessed the emails and were surprised when Mueller’s team asked questions based on the emails.
3/ Now Trump’s team has written a letter to Congress, complaining that some of the materials were “susceptible to privilege claims.” So what does this mean?
4/ First of all, it’s not unusual at all for prosecutors to obtain emails from other parties. That’s extremely common in white collar criminal investigations and is not improper.
5/ What *is* unusual here is that Mueller obtained emails from GSA even though he could have obtained (many of) the same emails from lawyers for the Trump Transition.
6/ Typically, in a white collar case, prosecutors obtain as many emails and documents as possible from defense attorneys instead of from another source.
7/ That’s because the defense team would review the emails, take out the ones that are not relevant, sort the emails, and put them in a format could be useable by Mueller.
8/ When a prosecutor obtains emails from a third party, usually irrelevant emails aren’t sorted out. So why would Mueller get the emails from GSA instead?
9/ One reason comes to mind. Mueller was concerned that he wouldn’t receive all of the emails if he obtained them from the Trump team. That’s surprising and suggests that he has reason to distrust Trump’s team.
10/ It appears that obtaining the documents from GSA also allowed Mueller to surprise witnesses who were not prepared to talk about emails that they didn’t think he had.
11/ I doubt that’s why Mueller obtained emails from GSA because any good lawyer would have reviewed the emails with their client anyway prior to an interview. Either the defense lawyers were incompetent or they weren’t surprised as they’re letting on.
12/ One important issue I should note is that typically prosecutors cannot obtain emails from a third party without using a search warrant, not a subpoena.
13/ If that happened here, it would mean a federal judge found that there was good reason to believe that a crime was committed and the emails contained evidence of a crime.
14/ In any event, when a prosecutor obtains emails from a third party, privileged documents are not removed. Typically prosecutors use “taint teams” to remove privileged documents before the prosecution team reviews them.
15/ If Mueller obtained a privileged email, the defense would be able to exclude it as evidence at trial. Typically all that happens is that the defense raises the issue with the prosecutor, and if the prosecutor agrees it is privileged, they return the privileged document.
16/ Disputes over privilege are common when prosecutors obtain emails and documents from third parties. That’s very common. What’s uncommon is what the Trump lawyers did here.
17/ Instead of sending a letter to Mueller, the attorneys sent a letter to Congress. Why? Probably to try to feed the growing effort to fire Mueller and/or try to discredit him to Congressional Republicans.
18/ Note also that the lawyers *don’t* say that the emails are privileged. They merely claim that some of the emails are “susceptible to privilege claims.” That’s weak language that suggests they’re not confident they have a strong claim that some of the emails are privileged.
19/ The biggest conclusion I’d draw from their letter is that they’re concerned about Mueller’s investigation and are doing whatever they can to discredit it. Their claims themselves are weak and are meant to persuade people who know nothing about criminal investigations. /end
posted by chris24 at 4:49 PM on December 16, 2017 [87 favorites]

Like if we want to apply the lessons learned in Alabama to ultra red states in 2018 it's literally "have the Republicans run a pedophile and they'll stay home".
posted by Talez at 4:51 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

That’s surprising and suggests that he has reason to distrust Trump’s team.

Bwahahahaa . . Understatement of the year. I can't imagine anyone with a shred of common sense, and who outside the terrordome of Fox News trusting that pile of creeps.

"Don't worry, they said the check is in the mail!"
posted by petebest at 5:00 PM on December 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

Trump is pissed he didn't think to acid wash them first like Hillary.
posted by Talez at 5:02 PM on December 16, 2017 [12 favorites]

When you have Jones picking up 90-something% of Hillary's vote in Alabama and Moore picking up 50% of Trump's then you know that there was a massive staying home of Republicans.

50% of a presidential election for an off year special election during the holidays would be more typical. It's the 90% which is stunning. Jones got more black vote than Obama did in 2012. So Dem turnout was the primary mover here I think. Did some Rs stay home or write in? Obviously. But some no doubt turned out to stick it to libs and some turned out because of the huge press the race got, press that won't be possible when 471 congressional seats are up in November 2018.

I think Alabama is a great model for red states and elsewhere. Motivate and turn out the fired up base, especially POC, run good candidates everywhere, and tie Rs to Trump, the establishment, the tax bill, loss of healthcare, etc. to depress their motivation/turnout. Sure, we won't get many pedophiles, but we also won't be fighting in the reddest state.
posted by chris24 at 5:03 PM on December 16, 2017 [23 favorites]

Like if we want to apply the lessons learned in Alabama to ultra red states in 2018 it's literally "have the Republicans run a pedophile and they'll stay home".

Right, but most states aren't Alabama. I live in Iowa, which is looking pretty red right now. Our governor, both houses of the state legislature, both senators, and three out of four congressional reps are Republicans. But this week a poll came out that said that 40% of Iowans said they would back a generic Democrat in the 2018 congressional election, compared to 34% who said they would support a generic Republican. In the 1st Congressional district, which is currently represented by a far-right, Freedom Caucus Republican, 47% said that they'd support a generic Democrat and 29% said they'd support a generic Republican. The only district in which more people would support a generic Republican was Steve fucking King's district, and there it was only by 3% points: 39% Republican, 36% Democrat, 14% unsure. With numbers like that, we don't need an act of God for Democrats to win. We need halfway decent candidates and really good GOTV. I think we've got a real shot at the 1st, a decent shot at the 3rd, and maybe it would take an act of God to oust Steve King. But acts of God occassionally happen, and I think we should assume we can win any of them and act accordingly.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:04 PM on December 16, 2017 [35 favorites]

can trump assert executive privelege over transition documents when he wasn’t the executive at the time they were written?
posted by murphy slaw at 5:08 PM on December 16, 2017 [6 favorites]

can trump assert executive privelege over transition documents when he wasn’t the executive at the time they were written?

Absolutely not. The only potential privilege which could be claimed is attorney-client privilege for documents which represent correspondence between a transition official and his or her attorney. With all the caveats and limitations that implies (third parties can't be included on the email etc). I suspect this would be a hard road to hoe for any claims of privilege.
posted by Justinian at 5:24 PM on December 16, 2017 [8 favorites]

The banned words list isn't just the CDC. Words banned at multiple HHS agencies include ‘diversity’ and ‘vulnerable’

A second HHS agency received similar guidance to avoid using “entitlement,” “diversity” and “vulnerable,” according to an official who took part in a briefing earlier in the week. Participants at that agency were also told to use “Obamacare” instead of ACA, or the Affordable Care Act, and to use “exchanges” instead of “marketplaces” to describe the venues where people can purchase health insurance.

At the State Department, meanwhile, certain documents now refer to sex education as “sexual risk avoidance.”

Important here that the rules at this second agency aren't just agency officials trying to come up with ways to protect themselves. They're coming from OMB (run by Nick Mulvaney), which is the Administration.
posted by zachlipton at 5:27 PM on December 16, 2017 [33 favorites]

Some updates on the transition email situation, from Chris Geidner, The Trump Campaign Claims A Federal Office Illegally Turned Over Transition Emails To The Special Counsel. He's got a copy of the transition's lawyer's letter to Congress (notably, Congress is not who you write if you think a prosecutor has obtained evidence they shouldn't have, but it is exactly who you write if you want to rile up a partisan effort to shut down the investigation), along with a GSA official disputing the lawyer's claims:

In a phone interview with BuzzFeed News on Saturday night, Loewentritt [GSA Deputy Counsel] disputed the claims made in the letter sent by the Trump campaign.

"Beckler [former GSA General Counsel, who has since died] never made that commitment," he said of the claim that any requests for transition records would be routed to the Trump campaign's counsel.

Specifically, Loewentritt said, "in using our devices," transition team members were informed that materials "would not be held back in any law enforcement" actions.

Loewentritt read to BuzzFeed News a series of agreements that anyone had to agree to when using GSA materials during the transition, including that there could be monitoring and auditing of devices and that, "Therefore, no expectation of privacy can be assumed."

Loewentritt told BuzzFeed News that the GSA initially "suggested a warrant or subpoena" for the materials, but that the Special Counsel's Office determined the letter route was sufficient.

As to whether the Trump campaign should have been informed of the request, Loewentritt said, "That's between the Special Counsel and the transition team."

posted by zachlipton at 6:15 PM on December 16, 2017 [17 favorites]

Fox is now accusing the FBI of leading a coup against Trump and America.

@FoxNews
.@KellyannePolls: "The fix was in against @realDonaldTrump from the beginning, and they were pro-Hillary... They can't possibly be seen as objective or transparent or even-handed or fair." @WattersWorld
SCREENSHOT WITH “A COUP IN AMERICA” CHYRON


@FoxNews
.@jessebwatters: "It's like the @FBI had Michael Moore investigating the President of the United States." @WattersWorld
VIDEO


@jonfavs (Pod Save America)
This pathetic piece of shit just accused the men and women of the FBI of staging a coup against the President.
posted by chris24 at 6:16 PM on December 16, 2017 [62 favorites]

Participants at that agency were also told to use “Obamacare” instead of ACA, or the Affordable Care Act

So, make it more clear where people's benefits are coming from... probably not their intended effect.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:20 PM on December 16, 2017 [10 favorites]

Is falsely accusing the FBI of treasonous acts on television a crime of some sort? It seems like it might be. Does that fit some legal definition of slander?
posted by IAmUnaware at 6:21 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

The lawyer's letter is a mess. Point #1 claims "unlawful conduct," while point #2 says that "Congress act immediately to protect future presidential transitions." Which...if what Mueller did was unlawful, why are you asking for new laws to make it illegal in the future?
posted by zachlipton at 6:30 PM on December 16, 2017 [11 favorites]

Does that fit some legal definition of slander?

No, though if you name specific people that could be. The odds of an FBI agent or official going after Fox for slander are essentially nil.
posted by Justinian at 6:30 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Unfortunately there is a subset of Trump's Rumps who literally believe there will - like, any day now, look at all these clues! - be a literal military coup against (or for, same thing, really) Trump.

Fox has, as ever, been huffing the paint on various chans and are incapable of reasonable action. My "favorite" part of these tales are the inevitable recent "Hollywood" movies that slyly explain exactly how-or-why everything's going to happen. Oh, and Donnie Two Scoops has been anonymously posting enigmatic clues about this on the chans - himself! - for weeks. Really, that's a thing.

Wow.
posted by petebest at 6:32 PM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

Like if we want to apply the lessons learned in Alabama to ultra red states in 2018 it's literally "have the Republicans run a pedophile and they'll stay home".

We (most of us) didn't know this about Moore until after he was selected and on the ballot paper. It's almost certain that some Republican candidates will have similar skeletons in their closets, but there won't be any way for the Democrats to seize advantage of the situation unless they're already prepared with good candidates and funds. It's going to take a leap of faith to win the winnable races that experience says must be out there.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:33 PM on December 16, 2017 [7 favorites]

Does that fit some legal definition of slander?
Well, it may contribute to a charge of Treason.

But considering how much of the claims against Hillary were propped up by the actions of Pro-Trump FBI personnel, this is either a classic case of "biting the hand that fed you" or somebody's promising the Pro-Trump FBIers future control of the agency. Either way, it's gonna get ugly...er.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:45 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

The transition team's emails on government devices should be private even in the face of a national security investigation, but two FBI agents who called Trump an idiot on government devices should be named to the media and fired.

Consistency is really not their strong suit.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:11 PM on December 16, 2017 [29 favorites]

“I had like a two-page summary I went through with leadership. I never saw the actual text.”

— Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), in an interview with the International Business Times, denying knowing about a controversial last-minute provision slipped into the Republican tax bill that could personally enrich him.

Now ain't that a corker.
posted by petebest at 7:12 PM on December 16, 2017 [21 favorites]

Also what we learned from the Alabama race is that there's a lot more unpersuadable people out there than we thought - many Republicans would rather vote for Satan himself than a Democrat - and thus spending effort on persuading those people is wasted money. Meanwhile, Democrats already have a coalition - minorities, millennials, liberal and leftists - that is enough to win anywhere in the country, so long as they vote. Funding is much better spent getting those coalitions on board than on trying to bring on board votes that just aren't coming.

We also learned that Clinton's loss last year was affected a lot more by misogyny in the media and by voter suppression than we thought, and they need to be Democrat priorities for 2020.
posted by Merus at 7:18 PM on December 16, 2017 [78 favorites]

To add on to the tweetstream that chris24 posted above, another nice tweetstream from @HoarseWisperer [edited for formatting]

Settle in, politikids, You're going to enjoy this...

I've read the full letter Trump transition team attorneys sent to legislators re: Mueller obtaining their emails. It has a delicious reveal.

As we now know:

1) Mueller obtained ALL of the emails sent to/from Trump transition team accounts
2) The Trump gang only realized this after Mueller's team seemed to know all about their emails
3) This made them quite... upset
4) Their lawyers then wrote the letter in the link to congressmen complaining about just how upsetting all of this is.

Here's the classically amusing reveal in the letter... Earlier this year, Trump appointed the top attorney at the office responsible for providing all the electronics and email accounts the Trump transition team used. That attorney's name was Richard Backler.

Now, as background, Backler was a white collar criminal defense attorney before his appointment. He helped rich criminals beat government convictions for a firm with a name you'll find familiar: Bracewell & Giuliani.

So, Trump appointed Backler and then Backler went and ensured Trump transition team attorneys that he would not allow his org (the GSA) to provide any of their emails to investigators. One problem: Backler fell ill and ultimately passed away.

So, until Mueller's crew started asking Trump aides about those emails, they had absolutely no idea Mueller had them because they thought Trump's guy on the inside was running interference for them.

Let that one sink in.

Trump and his flunkies thought their friend at the GSA had locked their emails away *literally* in a vault no one could get to... They thought their bodies were all buried. As a result, Trump's people walked into their interviews with Mueller and team with a completely false sense of confidence that he didn't know what he already knew in spades. They thought he was fishing. He was just reeling fish in.

Can you imagine the freakout that must have occurred in Trumpland when they realized their cleanup guy hadn't actually done the cleanup after all? Alllllllll of the things they thought they had buried were not only not buried; Mueller had them in writing!

While this is just conjecture, I suspect the entire Trump orbit just realized that Mueller has a trove that entirely hangs them out to dry AND brings them down for obstruction and lying to Mueller to boot.

Trump appointed a Giuliani guy to protect him from Mueller...

...and then the guy went and died just as Mueller was coming a'calling.

Trump must be losing his freaking mind...

...even more panicked: Jared Kushner.

Mueller is gonna roast them all.

posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:30 PM on December 16, 2017 [146 favorites]

Just imagine how stupid you have to be to commit actual treason over email...after running a campaign based almost solely on your opponent's lack of email security. You'd think they would've picked up some opsec just by osmosis, or asked their friends the FSB to teach them, but apparently not even at all.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:39 PM on December 16, 2017 [57 favorites]

It's bottomless stupidity. You think you're peeling back the deepest layer of stupidity, but underneath is more stupidity.
posted by medusa at 7:46 PM on December 16, 2017 [34 favorites]

All I want for Christmas is for Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick's comment to be true.

And cash. I need five root canals.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:48 PM on December 16, 2017 [29 favorites]

BUT HIS EMAILS
posted by CommonSense at 7:58 PM on December 16, 2017 [42 favorites]

When you get a guy on the inside to cover up your crimes for you, you should probably pay attention to whether or not that guy dies
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:57 PM on December 16, 2017 [55 favorites]

All I want for Christmas is for Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick's comment to be true.

I said all I wanted for Hanukkah was for Roy Moore not to get elected. And now we have Senator-elect Doug Jones. For five more minutes in my time zone, it's my wedding anniversary, and it's a cool one, because it's 16 years on the 16th. So all I want for my anniversary is for that comment to be true, too.

And a remote starter for my car because my window keeps freezing shut and I legit didn't get that for Hanukkah like I was supposed to because of Doug Jones, for real.
posted by Ruki at 9:00 PM on December 16, 2017 [18 favorites]

Hey, Ruki, Friday was my anniversary and Sunday is my birthday. If we can just keep the anti-Trump mojo flowing I'll be happy, regardless of the specifics.
posted by mollweide at 9:13 PM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

CNN: How Fox News and President Trump create an anti-Mueller 'feedback loop'
posted by glonous keming at 9:36 PM on December 16, 2017 [4 favorites]

I was just wondering...Mueller must have some deadman switches, mustn't he? Schneiderman, maybe.
posted by rhizome at 9:37 PM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

Now that it's officially the 17th (at least on the East coast of the USA), it's mollweide's and my* birthday. I demand a Mueller-flavored birthday present. Since it's Sunday, I'll give the universe one week to produce results. Now, make it so.

(* I hope that's grammatically correct. Given that I have a Journalism degree--albeit one I've never used professionally--it would be quite embarrassing if it isn't.)
posted by CommonSense at 9:58 PM on December 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

Sarah Huckabee Sanders appears to be defending Trump's right to be an autocrat: Trump Judicial Pick Just Needs To Know His Place, White House Says
posted by StrawberryPie at 10:23 PM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

So, until Mueller's crew started asking Trump aides about those emails, they had absolutely no idea Mueller had them because they thought Trump's guy on the inside was running interference for them.

probably relevant comment from /r/politics:

As a lawyer, there this NOTHING more fun than talking to a someone and listening to them lie about shit when you already have the proof in your hands and they don't know it. It's better than sex.

posted by sebastienbailard at 10:32 PM on December 16, 2017 [72 favorites]

mumimor: "even though the Trumpists aren't very smart at very much that is relevant for running a country, they are probably smart at racketeering."

I doubt that is is the case, at least for Trump himself. Here's a guy who can't make money with a casino. Trump seems to have "succeeded" only by having the chutzpah to thoroughly rip people off at every opportunity.
posted by Mitheral at 10:38 PM on December 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

Just imagine how stupid you have to be to commit actual treason over email...

As hilarious and delicious as the whole GSA device thing is, I kinda doubt it's going to reveal any real evidence of treason or Russia stuff in general. Remember, this is the transition, not the campaign.

That said: this whole crew is compulsively corrupt. They do shady shit when being legit would be perfectly effective just because they're so used to being shady. So I don't expect we're gonna see much if any Russia stuff in those emails. But it's probably just filthy with inappropriate and/or illegal deal-making about appointments, favors exchanged, probably some outright illegal discrimination, and God knows what else.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:50 PM on December 16, 2017 [10 favorites]

And, as several have noted already, it's probably just an endless loop of lies to the FBI about the transition.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:51 PM on December 16, 2017

Totally uninformed about this, but I've been wondering about this possibility.

Scenario: Mueller is fired, and as a result the case is passed to the state of New York as many seem to believe is pre-arrainged. New York, maybe the AG or someone, declares Trump Tower to be a crime scene, and confiscates the whole damn thing.

The fact that the president "owns" property around the country/world seems to make him uniquely vulnerable to local jurisdictions, so what happens when New York puts him on trial for treason?
posted by weed donkey at 11:20 PM on December 16, 2017

Treason is a federal crime. NY can't prosecute it.
posted by mosk at 11:22 PM on December 16, 2017

I used the wrong crime example, but the question of Trump's assets being confiscated is what I'm actually wondering about. Seizures in the case of suspected criminals happens all the time.
posted by weed donkey at 11:27 PM on December 16, 2017

Seizures in the case of suspected criminals happens all the time.
But I've never heard of a case where it happened to a Billionaire. This IS the United States of TrumpistanAmerica, after all.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:43 PM on December 16, 2017

There have been billionaires sentenced to prison time. It's rare, but so are billionaires. But thinking it would happen to the President of the United States is fantasy. Schneiderman isn't going to save us if Trump gets rid of Mueller. He can help Mueller by providing leverage which Trump can't pardon but he can't carry the investigation alone. It's Mueller or nothing.
posted by Justinian at 12:10 AM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Mod note: One deleted. I think we're getting off on several tangents with thought experiments about civil forfeiture of Trump properties, and now ... condemning properties? At any rate, since none of these actions seem on the table as steps anyone is actually pursuing, it's a bit of a derail here.
posted by taz (staff) at 1:37 AM on December 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

I wouldn't put too much stock in Mueller being a war hero to protect him from the Fox/Republican machine. One John Kerry was a decorated combat veteran with a purple heart from Vietnam going up against a guy that spent most of his time defending the skies of Texas and all that got him was a bunch of cackling Republicans wearing Purple Heart band-aids.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:37 AM on December 17, 2017 [31 favorites]

[One deleted. I think we're getting off on several tangents with thought experiments about civil forfeiture of Trump properties, and now ... condemning properties? At any rate, since none of these actions seem on the table as steps anyone is actually pursuing, it's a bit of a derail here.]
posted by taz at 5:37 PM on December 17 [+] [!]

I don't even know if this is the place for this, but I appreciate the effort everyone, not just the mods, is making to keep these threads on track. These threads ARE my source for the breakdown of the American government (is that hyperbolic? I think it might not be), and it's nice to get my news from people I like, respect, and want to buy beers for because of the effort they put in to keep us all up to date and properly perspective-ized.

Seriously, thank you. You guys are what makes this bearable. I'm still looking for ways to contribute beyond the usual calls and emails to politicians and donations, but please let's all put in our piece. THIS, what we're doing right here, is how we save the world. We organize and fight back and make a difference.

Thank you. Seriously. Metafilter f**king matters. That's all.
posted by saysthis at 1:56 AM on December 17, 2017 [94 favorites]

Thanks for keeping things on track, taz.

In the primary /r/politics thread on this breaking news about Mueller's access of the transition team's email, someone points out that:

So... guess who else was part of the Trump transition team? Numerous GOP Congresspeople, including some on powerful House Committees:

Rep. Devin Nunes
House Intelligence (Chair)
Rep. Trey Gowdy
House Oversight (Chair)
House Intelligence
House Judiciary
Rep Cynthia Lummis
House Oversight
Rep. Tom Marino
House Judiciary
Rep. Dennis Ross
Sen. Tim Scott
Rep Marsha Blackburn
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Rep. Tom Reed
Rep. Lou Barletta
Rep. Chris Collins
Rep. Sean Duffy

You know how GOP Congresspeople have been very active recently in attacking Mueller? I'm guessing that they've realized that Mueller's investigation has followed the trail to the point where he can credibly start questioning them about their own communications...

While this is purely speculative, maybe there's hard evidence of Nunes et. al.'s emails abusing the position by taking bribes in exchange for political appointments or conspiring to obstruct justice.
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:52 AM on December 17, 2017 [46 favorites]

I kinda doubt it's going to reveal any real evidence of treason or Russia stuff in general. Remember, this is the transition, not the campaign.

Exactly when they'd be talking about paying off the collusion debt. Like lifting sanctions. Like maybe Flynn and Kushner secretly meeting with Kislyak. Oh wait, no maybe there. It happened.

Well, then maybe like Kushner asking Kislyak to set up a secret and secure communication to the Kremlin from the Russian embassy. Oh wait, that happened too, at that secret December meeting.
posted by chris24 at 5:15 AM on December 17, 2017 [29 favorites]

Treason is a federal crime. NY can't prosecute it.

Trivia: you can commit treason against a US state too, usually with similar definitions and restrictions to federal treason. Like, you have to make war against the state.

On google, NY doesn't seem to have a treason statute. And if you're a member of a Native American nation, you might be able to commit treason against that as well.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:27 AM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Remember, this is the transition, not the campaign.

Another example that they might be useful.

It's unclear which officials the emails belong to and what they contain. But it's likely they will provide a number of new leads for the special counsel to follow.

In one instance, KT McFarland, a senior member of Trump's transition team, said in an email to a colleague on December 29, 2016 that the transition team should try to reassure Russia, which had just "thrown" the election to Trump.

McFarland wrote the email right after then President Barack Obama announced new sanctions against Russia in response to its interference in the election.

posted by chris24 at 5:35 AM on December 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

Mueller spokesman Peter Carr statement defending the special counsel's work:

"When we have obtained emails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation, we have secured either the account owner’s consent or appropriate criminal process.”
posted by chris24 at 5:39 AM on December 17, 2017 [33 favorites]

Well Trump surely wouldn't have given his assent, so that just leaves . . . oooohhhhh.

Subpoena or warrant.

*theme from good, bad, and the ugly*
posted by petebest at 5:44 AM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's possible that "the account owner’s consent" refers to GSA in this instance. Though I hope it's a warrant.
posted by chris24 at 5:46 AM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Just a reminder that no matter how overtly Trump coluded with Russia he did not commit treason.

18 U.S.C. § 2381: Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

We are not at war with Russia, they're an adversary but not an "enemy" in a legal sense. I'd like to wrong and maybe I am but I just don't think there is any way that what Trump and his gang have done meets the legal definition of treason. Now more than ever I think it's important that we get these things right, that we don't try to spin the truth but that we're as close to 100% accuracy as possible even if it's just a rhetorical device to illustrate a point. The GOP is trying to warp reality with their lies and I think the way to counter that is by rigidly adhering to objective truth as much as humanly possible.
posted by VTX at 6:20 AM on December 17, 2017 [10 favorites]

@thegarance (Yahoo News)
The big freak-out over Mueller having the transition emails is that it means any interviewees who lied to the FBI about matters contained therein is already caught bc the FBI has the record of what happened.


@NormEisen (Brookings Sr. Fellow)
I was the Deputy GC of a Transition (Obama-Biden 08). I warned everyone: there is NO expectation of privacy in your transition emails. The clue: emails are "[e-mail]." The whining letter from the Trump Transition tacitly admits this: it ends by asking for a legislative fix
- Executive privilege does not apply until you are the executive; these documents are from the transition, before Trump became the executive; QED no executive privilege. Grasping at straws here.
posted by chris24 at 6:23 AM on December 17, 2017 [71 favorites]

Holy cow. I can’t decide which is stupider: this transition email thing, or the Nixon White House letting slip that the tapes existed.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:35 AM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

I don't think this has been mentioned on the threads, but NPR's podcast Embedded (which was cross-posted to Planet Money, which is how I heard it), did a story on the Trump Organization cutting ties to the SoHo Hotel: General NPR story link because there isn't a transcript of the podcast.

They started by saying there are two days a year that are best for releasing problematic news: the day before Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve. This news was released the day before Thanksgiving.

Listening to the podcast, the link to organized crime / Russian mafia was pretty strong. Also, you get to hear clips of Trump being deposed (although that sounds just like you think it would). It is astonishing that man did not go to jail years ago.
posted by obliquity of the ecliptic at 6:37 AM on December 17, 2017 [11 favorites]

Well, this is good news: "Fifty percent of registered voters say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, versus 39 percent who want Republicans in charge....The last time Democrats both held a double-digit lead and hit 50 percent on this question in the NBC/WSJ poll was September 2008, right before the party won the White House and picked up a substantial number of House and Senate seats." [NBC News]
posted by slipthought at 6:51 AM on December 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

I did a historical google search for "ptt.gov" and was surprised to discover that the GSA's presidential transition services kick in after the nominating convention, as illuminated by this article on the $9m cost of Romney's 2012 presidential transition.

So it could be that Mueller has emails going back to August 2016.
posted by pjenks at 6:55 AM on December 17, 2017 [17 favorites]

Okay, so: I think most of us know about the If-Trump-fires-Mueller contingency plan.

The nationwide protests are already being organized, and the basic plan is -- if Trump fires Mueller before 2 pm the protests start at 5 pm, if he fires him after 2 pm the protests start at noon the following day.

The Trump administration may think the most logical way to undermine this is to drop the news on December 24, which could really steal the thunder from any evening or next-day protests, since many people will be with their families. On the other hand, a lot of people will be off work with not much to do, so that could bring even more people to the protests. It's tough to predict how this would play out.

And of course, even if dropping the news on Dec. 24 were the most logical plan, Trump has extremely poor impulse control and isn't really big on logic or planning, so he might just lose his shit and do it randomly with no strategy at all.

But just in case, if you are an American who celebrates Christmas, it might be good to have a think now about how you will respond should the constitutional crisis occur around the time that Santa is sliding down the chimney.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 7:14 AM on December 17, 2017 [31 favorites]

Just a reminder that no matter how overtly Trump coluded with Russia he did not commit treason.

I don't think this is true. To my mind, the act of interfering with our elections would make Russia an enemy, even if they were not previously an enemy. (And it's not at all clear to me that they were not previously an enemy.) It's important here, I think, that the word in the text is "enemies" as opposed to "nations or groups with whom we have a declared war" or some such. The "enemies" of the U.S. ought to include nations or groups of foreign nationals who "foster harmful designs against" or engage in "antagonistic activities against" them (according to entry #1 for "enemy" at dictionary.com). The crux, I think, is whether Russia's interference in our elections constitutes hostility towards the U.S. Was Russia's election interference an antagonistic activity meant to harm the U.S? If so, then establishing collusion with Russia to undermine U.S. elections just is to establish treason.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 7:22 AM on December 17, 2017 [11 favorites]

A Democratic winner in Virginia says it’s time for bipartisanship
Similarly, Northam said he has no plans to try to force Republicans to accept a broad expansion of Medicaid. Instead, he has begun talks with lawmakers in both parties about overhauling the state’s Medicaid system to expand access to health care while better defining eligibility to control costs.

Outgoing Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) tried every year to push the legislature to accept millions in federal money to expand the health program to hundreds of thousands of low-income Virginians. Northam campaigned heavily on the promise of getting more Virginians access to health care.

He said Friday that he remains committed to that pledge, but that he must be careful about obligating the state to escalating costs. Under the program, the federal government pays the lion’s share in the early years but the state contribution gradually increases. “Medicaid is growing in Virginia by 5 to 7 percent, in that ballpark, every year,” he said.

“So I look forward to . . . seeing how we can provide better service and at the same time cut costs” through “managed-care Medicaid,” he said. A managed system would involve rewarding “healthy choices,” he said. “I want people to have skin in the game. I want to incentivize people to really have good health.”

Well, at least we didn't get the Nazi.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:22 AM on December 17, 2017 [15 favorites]

So... guess who else was part of the Trump transition team? Numerous GOP Congresspeople, including some on powerful House Committees:

When I see these people I see a big, red, flashing 'Warning:Extinction Burst In Progress' sign.

That’s strange, Seattle’s Rapid Response event should Mueller be fired has disappeared from MoveOn’s index. Maybe a good time to check that all is prepared for your local protest just in case.

I found this linked to the list of states on the right side of the page, so maybe it’s back. When I volunteered for Bernie my job was keeping the events db current and correct. It wasn’t uncommon for us to pull and event to fix or change something, and it sometimes took a few days or more to get it back up.

A Democratic winner in Virginia says it’s time for bipartisanship

Does anyone know if the DNC still wants to support anti-choice candidates?

Rep. Sean Duffy
This is the true story of strangers picked to live in a House of Representatives and have their lives taped. Find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. This is The Real World..
posted by Room 641-A at 7:29 AM on December 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

“So I look forward to . . . seeing how we can provide better service and at the same time cut costs” through “managed-care Medicaid,” he said. A managed system would involve rewarding “healthy choices,” he said. “I want people to have skin in the game. I want to incentivize people to really have good health.”

Well, at least we didn't get the Nazi.

Medicaid expansion was literally his only redeeming quality. If he had been honest about this before the election, I wouldn't have even bothered casting a vote in the governor race. Just absolutely disgusting — read that quote again! He thinks people need more "skin in the game" when their literal skin is already at stake! He's exactly the person I thought he was.
posted by indubitable at 7:46 AM on December 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

Mike Allen, Axios: New: Trump officials demand Mueller return thousands of emails

Unfortunately there's nothing Mueller can do, as they have a constitutional right to a do-over in the Treason Takie-Backies Clause.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:52 AM on December 17, 2017 [18 favorites]

Medicaid expansion was literally his only redeeming quality. If he had been honest about this before the election, I wouldn't have even bothered casting a vote in the governor race.

Well, he did say that, he told us who he was explicitly:

I believe it’s a privilege.

And let me clarify that.

If people can get up in the morning and go to work like I can, then it needs to be a privilege. They need to work for their health insurance, for their benefits.

If they’re disabled, I will take the shirt off my back to help them.

But that's not his only redeeming quality, just vetoing Republican anti-abortion measures should be enough to get a vote. The next step is to make Northam repudiate this bullshit by building on 2017 and winning the state senate, and eventually supporting a primary challenger if he doesn't. Vote for the most progressive candidate available, and make life hell for milquetoast corporate Democrats when they win over a real progressive. Run primary challengers in every race, even hopeless ones. That's how Republicans have moved the debate to the right for 50 years, they've given us the blueprint to move it back.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:08 AM on December 17, 2017 [14 favorites]

Um. Emails are digital, right? How can you return them? Don’t they have the originals?
posted by harriet vane at 8:10 AM on December 17, 2017 [18 favorites]

My extremely liberal, protest-attending UU church is having a Christmas Eve afternoon service (since it falls on Sunday) it would actually be pretty convenient to go to a protest afterwards all together!
posted by emjaybee at 8:14 AM on December 17, 2017 [10 favorites]

Well, he did say that, he told us who he was explicitly

Yeah, he also voted for George W. Bush twice. But everyone I came in contact with who was campaigning for him did some kind of softshoe around these unfortunate facts by coming up with some explanation about how he's changed and his views are different *this year*.

The next step is to make Northam repudiate this bullshit by building on 2017 and winning the state senate, and eventually supporting a primary challenger if he doesn't.

The governor is term-limited to one term in Virginia.
posted by indubitable at 8:14 AM on December 17, 2017

You don't live here, do you? The governor is term-limited to one term.

No, I do now, but I've lived all around the DC area the last 10 years, not native to Virginia. I always forget that because it's stupid to have single term limits. Basic idea still applies, pressure Northam and vote for the someone better next time.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:18 AM on December 17, 2017

Is it the one from June 2016 where he complains he doesn't have his glasses?
posted by Burhanistan at 7:23 AM on December 17 [1 favorite +] [!]

No, this is more like "oh, I don't think he is connected to the Mafia. I don't know about that. Sorry, I need to go now..."
posted by obliquity of the ecliptic at 8:20 AM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Just a reminder that no matter how overtly Trump coluded with Russia he did not commit treason.

He called for a Russian cyberattack against the United States on stage, in public, on national television. I'm sure he might not be prosecuted or even held accountable at all for cooperating with a foreign country in attacks on the U.S., but I am entirely comfortable with unambiguously saying he did so.

"Stuff that happens online is a grey area" pretty much hasn't been a valid excuse since before the turn of the century, even though had he called for a physical attack against U.S. government targets he might well be able to weasel out of that too.
posted by XMLicious at 8:20 AM on December 17, 2017 [30 favorites]

A Christmas day protest would be something to see. I'm floating the idea by my family, better than sitting around watching Elf or Home Alone for the 8th time
posted by localhuman at 8:21 AM on December 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

Mike Allen, Axios: New: Trump officials demand Mueller return thousands of emails

Uhhh yeah well I demand Trump... returns our country

[100,000 retweets, 2 million likes]
posted by mintcake! at 8:23 AM on December 17, 2017 [14 favorites]

Okay okay, lest y'all think I don't have anything on offer except cynicism, I give you this on this fine December morning. Hope springs eternal here in the dirty Jerz.
posted by mintcake! at 8:27 AM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

The next step is to make Northam repudiate this bullshit by building on 2017 and winning the state senate, and eventually supporting a primary challenger if he doesn't.

The governor is term-limited to one term in Virginia.

I feel sick. How are the recounts going in the last two maybe-flippable seats in the Virginia House of Delegates?
posted by jointhedance at 8:43 AM on December 17, 2017

Hm, I suspect the talk of coup means we should be preparing for President Paul Ryan (at least). Hannity and friends would not be screaming so loudly if the end result was going to be President Pence. He's fully on board with all the crazy shit. Ryan's a granny starver, I know, but doesn't seem to be quite so into whatever the fuck it is Trump is trying to do.

If he was, I can't see any reason why they'd have a problem replacing Trump since it would give them a much easier time getting the teahadist agenda through Congress.
posted by wierdo at 8:45 AM on December 17, 2017

He said Friday that he remains committed to that pledge, but that he must be careful about obligating the state to escalating costs. Under the program, the federal government pays the lion’s share in the early years but the state contribution gradually increases. “Medicaid is growing in Virginia by 5 to 7 percent, in that ballpark, every year,” he said.

In fairness, that is a huge problem with the Medicaid expansion in the ACA. It's just as bad when the Democrats punt financial problems five to ten years down the line and say that money will magically come from somewhere as when the Republicans do it.
posted by Candleman at 8:59 AM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

They would be screaming just as loudly because that is what they do. They attack, attack, scream, accuse, attack, cheat, lie, attack, slander, distort, impugn, project, attack, feign ignorance, attack, attack and attack because that is what they have conditioned their base to expect and want and support. Even the appearance of a setback is unallowable.
posted by delfin at 9:04 AM on December 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

Fifty percent of registered voters say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, versus 39 percent who want Republicans in charge

@ppppolls
Matches 51-40 lead we found this week.

And among voters who had heard 'a lot' about the tax plan that lead spiked to 63-33

---

And they still got nothing real to argue against Mueller.

@brianstelter (CNN)
Steve Mnuchin to @JakeTapper re: Mueller probe: "We've gotta get past this investigation. It's a giant distraction. Nobody has said that, in any way, this impacted the outcome of the election."

@HeerJeet (New Republic)
Retweeted Brian Stelter
"Impacted the outcome of the election" is nonsensical goal-post shifting. Watergate break-in didn't impact 1972 election, was still a crime.
posted by chris24 at 9:07 AM on December 17, 2017 [49 favorites]

Maybe, instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop, people should assemble at the protest sites on Christmas Eve anyway to sing festive Muellermas carols.
posted by Soliloquy at 9:10 AM on December 17, 2017 [18 favorites]

Buzzfeed: "Doug Jones, the Democrat who last week beat alleged child molester Roy Moore to become senator of Alabama, said that he doesn't believe President Trump should resign over numerous sexual harassment allegations because those accusations were made 'before the election' and that the country needed to 'get on with the real issues.'"
posted by bluecore at 9:14 AM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

We regret to inform you milkshake dem is centrist.
posted by Artw at 9:16 AM on December 17, 2017 [56 favorites]

The crux, I think, is whether Russia's interference in our elections constitutes hostility towards the U.S.

Congress has not yet declared war against Russia. Until then, my understanding is they're considered an adversary for legal purposes.

From any non-legal perspective, treason is exactly the right term.

But from a legal standpoint I think the crux is the specific legal definition of "enemy" which seems to be a much more restrictive but my google-fu is failing me there.
posted by VTX at 9:18 AM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

@emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler)
Dear everyone: Mueller is conducting an investigation into possible espionage targeting people who had access to a SCIF. What the fuck kind of legal process do you THINK he needs to get govt docs? Have you ever once followed a single leak investigation?
- If you don't like the FBI being able to access the govt files of people (whether Peter Strzok or Jared Kushner) being investigated as insider threats so easily, push back against Insider Threat programs.
- And note: the very same people SQUEALING abt Mueller obtaining (but not leaking) the govt emails of espionage subjects, HAD LEAKED the texts of Peter Strzok.
- Here's the funniest thing abt Langhofer's letter: in his proposed legislative protection for transition emails, he admits that NatSec would trump notice. How is an espionage investigation not a NatSec purpose? So even w/his proposed law, Mueller could still get the emails.

---

She also has a writeup on her site about how Trump's attorney's letter and Mueller's actions makes it pretty clear that Trump & Co. withheld the KT McFarland's email about Russia throwing the election to Trump - and probably other emails - despite a subpoena. Which is one of the reasons they're freaked out and defensive.

TRUMP APPEARS TO HAVE WITHHELD THE KT MCFARLAND EMAIL ABOUT THE “THROWN ELECTION”
posted by chris24 at 9:21 AM on December 17, 2017 [57 favorites]

Final paragraph of the Buzzfeed article:

"After Tapper pressed him on why Franken should have to resign when the allegations against Trump were more "horrific," Jones replied, "I go back to the fact that those allegations were made, and he was elected president of the United States, and I think the American people spoke on that at this time. There's other things out there, but I think at this point we need to move on and try to work with some real issues that are facing the country and not worry about getting at odds with the president any more than we have to."

I don't love how he's saying it, but he's not wrong about the futility of trying to get Trump to resign.
posted by palomar at 9:22 AM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's possible that "the account owner’s consent" refers to GSA in this instance. Though I hope it's a warrant.

FBI just had to write the GSA a letter. It was an administrative request to a government agency.

More than that, Cramer added, the special counsel's team may not even have needed a subpoena to obtain the emails. An administrative request - a legally authorized and judicially enforceable demand for records issued by a government authority - may have sufficed, he said.

The transition team lawyer's letter to Congress appeared to confirm that Mueller's office obtained the emails via an administrative request.

"Specifically, on August 23, 2017, the FBI sent a letter (i.e., not a subpoena) to career GSA staff requesting copies of the emails, laptops, cell phones, and other materials associated with nine [transition team] members responsible for national security and policy matters," the letter said.

The best part: the transition team had been warned these were government computers and they had no expectation of privacy.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:26 AM on December 17, 2017 [23 favorites]

Congress has not yet declared war against Russia. Until then, my understanding is they're considered an adversary for legal purposes.

By this standard a candidate who aided and abetted Japan in planning or executing Pearl Harbor wouldn't be guilty of treason since we didn't declare war until December 8th. I'm not so sure that helping in an act of war on the US, prior to our declaration, wouldn't be considered by the courts or at least a grand jury as worth an indictment regardless of the later verdict.

Not saying I think it's likely Trump's charged with treason. I do think focusing on technical legalities of what is clearly a betrayal of the USA to a hostile foreign power does nothing but play into Republican hands. They're going to try to rules-lawyer and goalpost move this endlessly. But impeachment is as much a political process as legal and we all know if Clinton had done a tenth of what Trump has she'd already be gone.
posted by chris24 at 9:28 AM on December 17, 2017 [11 favorites]

He said Friday that he remains committed to that pledge, but that he must be careful about obligating the state to escalating costs. Under the program, the federal government pays the lion’s share in the early years but the state contribution gradually increases. “Medicaid is growing in Virginia by 5 to 7 percent, in that ballpark, every year,” he said.

This is why the GOP and their Blue Dog fellow travelers strike me as ignorant fools. The federal subsidy is a huge stimulus to the economy. Their dim base doesn't recognize that the money doesn't go to the poors, it goes to doctors, nurses, PAs, clinic staff, hospital staff, medical supply company employees, taxi drivers, ambulance drivers, security guards, construction workers, etc., etc., etc. It creates jobs. Dumb fuckers.
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:32 AM on December 17, 2017 [21 favorites]

The best part: the transition team had been warned these were government computers and they had no expectation of privacy.

Chris Geidner - BuzzFeed News Reporter: Key Officials Push Back Against Trump Campaign’s Claim That A Federal Office Illegally Turned Over Emails To Special Counsel

In a phone interview with BuzzFeed News on Saturday night, Loewentritt — whose LinkedIn represents that he has worked at the agency since 1972 — disputed the claims made in the letter sent by the Trump campaign.

"Beckler never made that commitment," he said of the claim that any requests for transition records would be routed to the Trump campaign's counsel.

Specifically, Loewentritt said, "in using our devices," transition team members were informed that materials "would not be held back in any law enforcement" actions.

Loewentritt read to BuzzFeed News a series of agreements that anyone had to agree to when using GSA materials during the transition, including that there could be monitoring and auditing of devices and that, "Therefore, no expectation of privacy can be assumed."

Loewentritt told BuzzFeed News that the GSA initially "suggested a warrant or subpoena" for the materials, but that the Special Counsel's Office determined the letter route was sufficient.

As to whether the Trump campaign should have been informed of the request, Loewentritt said, "That's between the Special Counsel and the transition team."

posted by sebastienbailard at 9:41 AM on December 17, 2017 [14 favorites]

Josh Marshall at TPM on the latest faux-scandal over emails:

Behind the new faux controversy over Mueller getting Trump transition emails is a key and probably too little discussed aspect of the Russia story: Mueller’s team has some of the most accomplished and aggressive prosecutors and legal minds of their generation. They’re facing off against a team of has-beens, 3rd or 4th rate lawyers and in some cases simple incompetents. Why? Because Trump values sycophancy above competence and because none of the top lawyers were willing to work for him.

I can’t say that I would have known on my own what the status of these emails in question was. But given what we know about Trump’s lawyers, it’s all but impossible to think they’re in the right on this. Why? Simply because they’ve shown again and again that they don’t know key elements of the law or investigative procedure. If the Trump team had a solid legal team defending them, I have little doubt they would have understood the legal status of these emails in advance. If they had some case, they would have marshaled their arguments in advance. If nothing else, I suspect there are ways, either formal or informal, that they could have known Mueller had gotten these emails, whether they thought he had a right to them or not.

The simple fact is that they were caught off guard, something that has happened numerous times through this saga. Criminal investigation is in a way like a war. Within the law, it is part of the process that you want to keep the other side guessing as much as possible. But if you’ve watched the investigation closely, there have been numerous occasions when the Trump team appears to have been caught totally off guard by developments they likely should have had at least some inkling of. They’re upset because they didn’t do their homework on the legal status of those emails. As my friend Garance Franke-Ruta archly puts it, always read the terms of service!

One might speculate that Trump’s lawyers know they have no legal case here but are playing this up as part of a “Mueller’s out of control/breaking the law” narrative. It’s certainly being played that way on Fox. Certainly there’s some of that. But my guess is that they’re genuinely surprised. And since they’re surprised they assume Mueller cheated. (Is it possible Mueller did something wrong? Sure. Who knows? If so, I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. But I doubt it. And none of the legal commentary I’ve seen suggests he did.) Beyond that, however, I suspect they now fear (no doubt rightly) that Trump officials lied during their interviews with the Special Counsel’s office and the investigators already had the emails that proved they were lying. That’s a real sinking feeling for everyone involved.

posted by Barack Spinoza at 9:42 AM on December 17, 2017 [58 favorites]

Buzzfeed: "Doug Jones, the Democrat who last week beat alleged child molester Roy Moore to become senator of Alabama, said that he doesn't believe President Trump should resign over numerous sexual harassment allegations because those accusations were made 'before the election' and that the country needed to 'get on with the real issues.'"

I mean, he's technically right. This isn't exactly new information and the Republican voters who put him there ran with it. Republicans aren't going to care and Democrats aren't going to vote for Trump. The result is the shittiest issues interacting with the unmovable Congress. Putting continual pressure on Trump to resign might feel productive but ultimately getting decent people to turn out and vote sexual predators out of office is the real solution.
posted by Talez at 9:53 AM on December 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

One of the first things you learn as a civil servant is that your emails are absolutely not private, even if they are sent only within your organization, and can be made a part of the public record when necessary. Like as part of an investigation. Because you work for the government and the government works for the people. And the people have a right to know what the fuck you're up to.

This is not news. And it's infuriating that these chucklefucks are making it news. If they had even the slightest clue about how the government works, it wouldn't be happening.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:59 AM on December 17, 2017 [60 favorites]

I must have missed it — sorry, finals week — but in all the wrangling over the latest text of the tax bill, are they still killing the individual mandate for the ACA?
posted by darkstar at 9:59 AM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

Their dim base doesn't recognize that the money doesn't go to the poors, it goes to doctors, nurses, PAs, clinic staff, hospital staff, medical supply company employees, taxi drivers, ambulance drivers, security guards, construction workers, etc., etc., etc. It creates jobs.

Also, that all those health care workers are obliged to provide services even for people with no money, so failure to give preventive and maintenance care to the poor does not mean you don't pay for health care for the poor. It means that instead of paying for someone to go to the dentist twice a year for a cheap cleaning, you pay for them to go to the ER with a catastrophic infection. Instead of paying for diabetes medications, you pay for their amputations. There is no universe in which the latter is the reasonable alternative.

The reason that the Medicaid expansion didn't have an immediate impact on health care costs is that many of the people signing up with it have already been without health coverage for decades. You can't neglect an entire country's health care for this long and not at some point get to a day when you have to pay for it. Long-term, as a state, if you don't like your Medicaid expenditures, then you should be doing more to keep people healthy and gainfully employed.
posted by Sequence at 9:59 AM on December 17, 2017 [29 favorites]

In fairness, that is a huge problem with the Medicaid expansion in the ACA. It's just as bad when the Democrats punt financial problems five to ten years down the line and say that money will magically come from somewhere as when the Republicans do it.

This is a bogus argument. For decades the Feds paid less than half of Medicaid costs in each state. With the Medicaid expansion, the government paid 100% of the expansion cost. From 2020 on forever, the Feds pick up 90% of the cost of expansion. The extra cost to the states for Medicaid expansion is minor compared to what they have been paying for traditional Medicaid.

In fact, numbers so far show that Medicaid expansion actually saves states money for several reasons. Most states have been able to shift some people who were reimbursed by the Feds at a 50% rate to the the expansion program reimbursed at the 90% rate. In particular, many people not covered by the Feds for mental health care are now covered under the expansion. Also, Medicaid expansion reduces the amount of unreimbursed care at hospitals, which states have to pick up.
posted by JackFlash at 10:08 AM on December 17, 2017 [33 favorites]

This made me really happy to read this morning:

Hollywood execs name Anita Hill to lead anti-harassment effort

As sexual harassment scandals continue to roil the media and entertainment industries, Hollywood executives are banding together to address the underlying issues.

On Friday, top players came together to form the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace. Anita Hill will chair the commission.

"Following widespread revelations of pervasive sexual harassment and assault in the media and entertainment industries, executives, independent experts and advisors have come together in a unanimous effort to tackle the broad culture of abuse and power disparity," the group said in a statement.

Hill is a pioneer on the subject. In the early 1990s she came forward to accuse then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. She said in a statement about the commission that she is "proud" to be leading the "long overdue" effort.

posted by darkstar at 10:18 AM on December 17, 2017 [54 favorites]

I'm 0% lawyer but the necessity of a declaration of war for a charge of treason seems as though it might not be correct, since Aaron Burr was charged with treason in 1807 but the first time the U.S. declared war was in 1812. He was acquitted but cursory googlings turn up "insufficient evidence" as the reason rather than "he didn't aid any nation the U.S. had declared war upon."

(Maybe Hamilton fans can help out here...? Also, for the record, I'm not actually arguing that charging the President with treason should actually be a goal of any importance, I'm just disagreeing that it's inappropriate at first glance to refer to the things he has done as treason.)
posted by XMLicious at 10:31 AM on December 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

But from a legal standpoint I think the crux is the specific legal definition of "enemy" which seems to be a much more restrictive but my google-fu is failing me there.

In some statutory contexts, the term "enemy" might be more or less well-defined. For example, in 50 USC 2204, "enemy" is defined as:

... any country, government, group, or person that has been engaged in hostilities, whether or not lawfully authorized, with the United States;

If we take this as our definition, then the question is, again, whether interfering with our elections constitutes hostility. I think it does. But as long as it's open for debate, the question of whether collusion is treason is also open for legitimate debate.

But in the case of treason, specifically, we're trying to understand the Constitution, which does not give any definition for "enemy" -- any more than it does for "person" and many other important terms that become the subjects of serious debate. We seem, then, to be left with the "plain meaning" and/or with precedent. There are some interesting papers on how to understand what the Constitution says about treason. For example, What is Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy? by Charles Warren. But I haven't found one that clearly settles the question of what an enemy is in the context of the Constitution.

The only thing I've seen that looks damaging to my position is the following snippet from Marshall, quoted by Warren on page 333 of his paper:

The term 'enemies,' as used in the second clause, according to its settled meaning, at the time the Constitution was adopted, applies only to the subjects of a foreign power in a state of open hostility with us. It does not embrace rebels in insurrection against their own government.

Marshall here adds "open" to the hostility requirement. But for the same reasons as given by chris24, I don't think the hostilities being "open" can really be a serious requirement here. If someone knew about a covert plan by Russia to detonate a nuclear weapon in Times Square and then offered to assist in the plan, she would surely be guilty of treason regardless of the fact that the hostility was not (yet) open. But in any event, I take the Marshall passage to be aimed at carving out a space for "rebels" to not count as "enemies" but to have some other status.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 10:36 AM on December 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

They're going to try to rules-lawyer and goalpost move this endlessly.

Right, and that's why I think it's important that we're as accurate as we can be. We need to plant that goal post. We know that they're going to be dishonest and try to move it. As long as it's just lies and spin, we can resort to facts. I don't want to let them be right about a damn thing.

I know my treason definition of congress having officially declared war is too conservative, I think the definition of the term in the common usage is too aggressive especially since it's not just about Trump but those in his orbit who aren't as subject to the political forces involved with impeachment.

50 U.S. Code § 2204: (2) the term “enemy” means any country, government, group, or person that has been engaged in hostilities, whether or not lawfully authorized, with the United State

That's about the closest thing I can find to a legal definition of "enemy". I think that would cover the "colluded to coordinate the attack on Pearl Harbor" scenario but I don't think it would extend to cover Trump's or Russia's actions. But, I'm not lawyer and I don't know if there is a more appropriate law to cite, if there are precedents that refine that definition. Nor am I confident my ability to research the law to determine what crime would be a better fit. I'm confident that Mueller's team will have researched this and every other aspect of the investigation to within an inch of it's life. Until we can be more confident in these legal terms I think we should avoid screaming about treason. It was obviously ridiculous when idiots were screaming about HRC's e-mails calling that treason and I don't want to be anything like those morons.
posted by VTX at 10:46 AM on December 17, 2017

To clarify the latest, regarding the Mueller investigation:

1. Trump’s transition team sent a lot of emails through government servers.

2. In addition to having no reasonable expectation of privacy on those servers, there was an explicit statement to that effect.

3. As part of the Mueller investigation, the Special Prosecutor specifically requested that the GSA retain those email records.

4. Trump appointed a Director of the GSA whom, it has been suggested (rumored?), was expected to help shield Trump from allowing some of the emails to get out. However, this appointee died.

5. Then Mueller legally requested copies of all of the emails, from both the Trump team and from the GSA.

6. The GSA sent presumably all of the emails to Mueller, but the Trump team sent a redacted subset of the emails, while still representing the email set was complete.

7. The Trump team (it has been suggested) did not realize that the GSA had sent the whole set of emails to Mueller.

8. Mueller then interviewed a number of Trump administration members asking them about events, emails, etc. They were interviewed without, presumably, being aware that the Mueller team had possession of some emails they had withheld.

9. One of the emails that had been withheld specifically discusses how Russia helped throw the election to Trump.

10. After (or during) the interviews/depositions, the Trump team becomes aware that Mueller has the redacted emails.

11. The Trump team then sends a letter to Congress (which has no jurisdiction over any of this) and expresses frustration that Mueller got these emails improperly, suggesting that they may contain material subject to privilege.

12. Right wing media goes into overdrive and accuses the Mueller team of acquiring the emails illegally, but pretty much every legal expert is saying that’s B.S. and that it appears to be a perfectly legal and expected procedure in this kind of investigation.

13. To quell some of the uproar, Mueller’s team releases an official statement noting that any emails were acquired by asking the account owner for permission or through other “appropriate criminal process” (i.e., a warrant).

Anything wrong/missing?
posted by darkstar at 10:56 AM on December 17, 2017 [108 favorites]

heh, mueller's pretty good at this stuff
posted by ryanrs at 11:04 AM on December 17, 2017 [26 favorites]

Until we can be more confident in these legal terms I think we should avoid screaming about treason.

But we're in the process of constructing the meaning of these very terms. The Republicans aren't going to worry about any lack of confidence in arguing for a very strict, exclusionary reading of "treason" and related terms. It would, I think, be political malpractice to wait and let the Republicans define the terms. Especially when there is a plausible, good faith argument to be made that colluding with a foreign government to subvert a U.S. election is to offer aid and comfort to an enemy of the U.S., which is treason.

Personally, I think that given the facts as they are now, we should be screaming "Treason!" all day and everywhere until it is definitively established that it is not treason. Even better that, as far as I can tell, collusion fits nicely with the ordinary, everyday, non-legal sense of the word "treason," so this is going to be a winner in political debate and in the public mind. Put a bit differently: We should say that collusion is treason -- which is easy to understand and matches with the ordinary sense of "treason" -- and let the Republicans try to carefully explain why it's not, technically, treason, if they dare. We should have been saying this from the very beginning. (Note that this is different from "guilty until proven innocent," since I am not saying that the courts should pre-judge whether Trump did collude with Russia to subvert a U.S. election. What I am saying is that we should maintain that collusion is treason until shown definitively that it is not.)
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 11:06 AM on December 17, 2017 [17 favorites]

Haven't various administration people, including, iirc, the Attorney General, claimed that they can't testify on anything that might conceivably one day be claimed to be privileged? I wonder if that's what the WH lawyers actually mean by "subject to privilege".
posted by thelonius at 11:13 AM on December 17, 2017

Serious question (unfortunately): is there a consensus response for if — when — Trump fires Mueller by proxy on Friday, Dec 22?

Has anyone asked their Dem Senators?

I understand there will Be mass protests and marches, but I tend to think that won’t be sufficient.

Good Lord I’m scared.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:15 AM on December 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

VTX, when you ask a conservative what they're saying was supposedly in the emails which Clinton's legal team designated as personal, you basically get as many answers as people you ask. They're convinced she's evil and treasonous, but not for any specific thing she's actually done—and the circumstantial things she has demonstrably done, for any given conspiracy theory or spectrum of conspiracy theories, they don't care at all if a Republican politician does the same things.

On the other hand, we're all proposing in a much more coherent and empirically-supported way that the totality of evidence will show that Trump conspired with the former-KGB-agent-led successor state to our chief enemy from the Cold War to subordinate the executive of the United States government to said foreign power, then both lied about and concealed those actions by himself and orchestrated the lying about and concealment of the acts by his confederates. Whether he did all that out of malice towards the country or because he's a cretinous self-centered idiot, it's a hell of alot less crazy-sounding to call that treason versus "she did something, we're not really sure what, but it definitely involved violating policies on email records retention."

I think we should scream most specifically about stuff Trump &co. have demonstrably done, especially stuff they've done on tape—I've encountered people who still don't know about "Russia if you're listening" and other unbelievably prominent things—but I think it's probably best to mix in "and by the way we're saying this all adds up to TREASON! In case it wasn't obvious!"
posted by XMLicious at 11:21 AM on December 17, 2017 [14 favorites]

WaPo, Putin phoned Trump to thank him for CIA intel that foiled a planned terrorist attack in Russia, the Kremlin says

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday phoned President Trump to thank him for a tip from the CIA that thwarted a terrorist attack being planned in St. Petersburg, the Kremlin said.

The unusual call — countries share intelligence all the time, but presidents rarely publicly thank one another about it — was confirmed by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Putin told Trump that the information provided by the CIA allowed Russian law enforcement agencies to track down and detain a group of suspects who were planning to bomb the centrally located Kazan Cathedral and other crowded parts of Russia’s second-largest city.

Second time they've talked this week. Putin is a hell of a troll.
posted by zachlipton at 11:57 AM on December 17, 2017 [17 favorites]

That's not trolling. That's buttering up Trump so to share more intel, including stuff he shouldn't.
posted by ryanrs at 12:02 PM on December 17, 2017 [45 favorites]

So this has been interesting to watch:

@HamillHimself: Cute video Ajit "Aren't I Precious?" Pai 🤮-but you are profoundly unworthy 2 wield a lightsaber-A Jedi acts selflessly for the common man-NOT lie 2 enrich giant corporations. Btw-did you pay John Williams his royalty? @AjitPaiFCCorpShill #AJediYouAreNOT

@tedcruz: .@HammillHimself Luke, I know Hollywood can be confusing, but it was Vader who supported govt power over everything said & done on the Internet. That's why giant corps (Google, Facebook, Netflix) supported the FCC power grab of net neutrality. Reject the dark side: Free the net!

@HamillHimself: Thanks for smarm-spaining it to me @tedcruz I know politics can be confusing, but you'd have more credibility if you spelled my name correctly. I mean IT'S RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU! Maybe you're just distracted from watching porn at the office again❤️-mh

I've been informed that being savagely and publicly dragged by Luke Skywalker is every Gen Xer's worst nightmare.
posted by zachlipton at 12:02 PM on December 17, 2017 [154 favorites]

Haven't various administration people, including, iirc, the Attorney General, claimed that they can't testify on anything that might conceivably one day be claimed to be privileged?

Yes. But as usual, that's not how any of this should work, except the Republicans in Congress are abetting the cover up by allowing them to repeatedly assert "privilege".
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:07 PM on December 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

CBS News, Sen. John McCain returns to Arizona, will miss vote on GOP tax bill

Clearly, they don't think they desperately need his vote. Call your reps.
posted by zachlipton at 12:09 PM on December 17, 2017 [36 favorites]

Cornyn sells out Bob "I had no idea the new tax bill benefitted me" Corker.

IBT (David Sirota): Tax Bill: John Cornyn Says Tax Cut Potentially Benefiting Bob Corker Was Part Of Effort To Secure Votes For Passage

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the majority whip, on Sunday said a tax provision, which could personally enrich key Republican lawmakers, was added to the final tax bill as part of an effort to “cobble together the votes we needed to get this bill passed.” Cornyn was pressed about the provision on ABC’s "This Week," after an International Business Times investigation showed that Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee suddenly switched his vote to “yes” after GOP leaders added the provision, which could boost Corker’s real estate income. A top Democratic senator, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, responded to Cornyn’s explanation by saying the language put into the bill also “would be a windfall to Donald Trump.”

posted by chris24 at 12:19 PM on December 17, 2017 [36 favorites]

And Corker of course denied he knew anything about the new provision that Cornyn has just admitted was explicitly placed in the bill to get the holdouts’ support.

How can Corker deny he knew about it? Why, because he says he hasn’t read the bill. You know, the one he says he supports.

Culture of corruption, folks.
posted by darkstar at 12:31 PM on December 17, 2017 [22 favorites]

So these emails are going to be made public at some point, right?
If only there existed a not-evil version of Wikileaks to make them all public...

And Ted Cruz considers Google, Facebook and Netflix to be the giant evil corps? Well, if any of them are larger than AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, they're going to be put in their place now...
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:39 PM on December 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

cornyn is one of those where i can’t decide if he’s dumb as a rock or just so convinced that the fix is in that he thinks public relations don’t matter anymore
posted by murphy slaw at 12:40 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's Ayn Rand's America Now, Thanks to the GOP
Conservatism has turned itself into a civic religion and columnist Neal Gabler fears the damages wrought in the Trump era will be permanent and lasting.
posted by adamvasco at 12:42 PM on December 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

Is Thad Cochran coming back for the vote? If he doesn't, it's dead, right?

No, if both McCain and Cochran miss the vote it passes 50-48.
posted by Justinian at 12:49 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

From the article zachlipton posted above:

A spokesman for Cochran told CBS News last week that the senator went through an outpatient procedure and "is doing well and is available for votes as needed."

posted by darkstar at 12:53 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

…provided that he manages to find the senate chamber and remembers how the majority leader told him to vote
posted by murphy slaw at 12:58 PM on December 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

Um. Emails are digital, right? How can you return them? Don’t they have the originals?

You just wash the e-mails in acid
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:49 PM on December 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

Trump just made a statement outside the White House when returning from the weekend that he’s not considering firing Mueller. Given he’s such a stable, trustworthy guy, no need to worry now.
posted by chris24 at 2:02 PM on December 17, 2017 [15 favorites]

To answer my own question posed above, it appears that the individual mandate repeal is still in the tax bill:

Repeal of individual mandate requiring health insurance. According to CBO, repealing Obamacare’s individual mandate insurance could lead to 13 million more Americans without health insurance, while saving the government $338 billion in federal health insurance subsidy payments over the next decade.

Since it’s the individual mandate that is basically shoring up the whole ACA model, killing it is essentially killing the ACA. So, while the Republicans weren’t able to repeal it outright in their earlier TrumpCare legislation attempts, it appears their new tax bill will probably achieve the same end.
posted by darkstar at 2:26 PM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

RUSSIA COMMITTED ACT OF WAR WITH ELECTION INTERFERENCE, NIKKI HALEY SAYS (John Haltiwanger, Newsweek, October 19, 2017)

She added: "When a country can come interfere in another country’s elections, that is warfare. It really is, because you're making sure that the democracy shifts from what the people want. This is [Russia's] weapon of choice and we have to make sure we get in front of it."

Just a scant 7 scaramccis ago, too. LOCK HIM UP LOCK HIM UP
posted by petebest at 2:29 PM on December 17, 2017 [35 favorites]

CNN: Trump says he is not considering firing Mueller

Upon returning to the White House on Sunday night, President Donald Trump said he is not considering firing special counsel Robert Mueller.
"No, I'm not," Trump said when asked if he was considering it.
On the news that Mueller obtained tens of thousands of transition officials' emails, Trump said he was very upset about it and called it "very sad."
"I can't imagine there's anything on them," he said. "A lot of lawyers thought that was pretty sad."

posted by glonous keming at 2:40 PM on December 17, 2017

it appears that the individual mandate repeal is still in the tax bill:

True, but technically, due to the Byrd rule, repeal of the mandate is prohibited in a reconciliation bill. Instead they are simply adjusting the penalty amount to a new number and that number is zero. The mandate is still there and the amount could be raised by a future Congress but unlikely as long as a Republican is in the White House with a veto pen.
posted by JackFlash at 2:44 PM on December 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

"No, I'm not," Trump said when asked if he was considering it.

I wonder if this is like his proclamations that he has "Full Confidence" in one of his staff members?
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 3:02 PM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

That's not trolling. That's buttering up Trump so to share more intel, including stuff he shouldn't.

Yes, and Putin's laying ground for justifying the release of other intelligence, including the stuff we don't know about yet.

The line the Russians seem to be advancing over collusion is that it's normal and desirable. If the Trumpettes were smarter they would have followed this line from the start because it's a surprisingly hard argument to refute:

Yes, we were talking with them – of course we were! Every incoming administration does, it's totally necessary. Russia raised the issue of sanctions, which as you know were imposed in response to their actions in Crimea. And when the Russian advocates said they had information showing that Clinton's campaign had behaved illegally we said we weren't the right people to handle it, they should give it to the authorities or the press.

We're actually really lucky the Trump administration is so stupid that they didn't even imagine that they were now in a position where their criminality could have a veneer of legitimacy. I guess that's the difference between old money and new money, or petty crooks and the Russian mob.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:05 PM on December 17, 2017 [18 favorites]

Honestly, I'm not sure adjusting the penalty to zero will make much difference. There are already a great number of loopholes, not to mention that it was explicitly made unenforceable in an attempt to win over Collins and other supposedly moderate Republicans.

The IRS is perfectly free to levy the penalty and you are perfectly free to refuse to pay it with no consequences whatsoever under current law. Well, I guess you could consider a letter asking you to please pay a consequence, but it isn't much.
posted by wierdo at 3:14 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

America still hasn't reckoned with the election of a reckless con man as president

We must vigorously protest the president’s craven actions, but above all we need to acknowledge that what ultimately matters is not what a foreign power did to America, but what America did to itself. The crucial question of what is wrong with our country, what could have driven us to this edge of catastrophe, cannot be resolved by a special counsel or a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives or spectacular revelations about Russia’s interference.

posted by J.K. Seazer at 3:23 PM on December 17, 2017 [39 favorites]

Cornyn sells out Bob "I had no idea the new tax bill benefitted me" Corker.

IBT (David Sirota): Tax Bill: John Cornyn Says Tax Cut Potentially Benefiting Bob Corker Was Part Of Effort To Secure Votes For Passage

How can this not meet the legal definition of bribery? It's one thing to place into the bill something that benefits his constituency. But to put in something that gives direct economic benefit to him in exchange for an official act on his part...
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:25 PM on December 17, 2017 [15 favorites]

The IRS is perfectly free to levy the penalty and you are perfectly free to refuse to pay it with no consequences whatsoever under current law.

The IRS takes the penalty out of any refund you might be due. If you never have a refund, you might be able to avoid the penalty, but the penalties accumulate for up to 10 years.

Honestly, I'm not sure adjusting the penalty to zero will make much difference.

Certainly there are some miscreants who will do anything to avoid paying a penalty they owe, but that turns out to a small number. As proven by behavioral economics, most people try to comply with the mandate and the results of the last four years show that to be true. It is similar to the behavioral economics of opt-in vs opt-out 401(k) plans. And in fact millions of the people who will be losing insurance are those who would otherwise get free Medicaid and not be subject to the penalty anyway. The mandate works to nudge people in the desired direction and Robert Thacker was just awarded a Nobel Prize for proving this.
posted by JackFlash at 3:32 PM on December 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

So when Trump says, “I’m not considering firing Mueller,” does that mean “I’m firing Mueller as soon as I get off the phone” or “Multiple people have told me I will get in huge trouble if I fire him, so I guess I’ll hold off”?
posted by Autumnheart at 3:36 PM on December 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

Robert Thacker was just awarded a Nobel Prize for proving this.

Robert Richard THALER, is the one you're thinking of, he's Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Not one of the Robert Thackers who specialize in other things.
posted by mikelieman at 3:38 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

FYI: A quick overview of Behavioural Economics
posted by mikelieman at 3:41 PM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

Richard THALER, is the one you're thinking of

Doh! Thanks for the well-deserved dope slap.
posted by JackFlash at 3:45 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

It is trivial to ensure that you both never are owed a refund and that you remain within the 90% underpayment safe harbor. I don't doubt that there is some psychological impact, I just doubt it is that high.

I would like to know more about the apparent impact on Medicaid, though? (Obviously, I'll read the provided references on the mandate issue in a bit)
posted by wierdo at 3:57 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Fizzle from Gin and Tacos - on the recent election
posted by wittgenstein at 3:59 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

NeverTrumper Tom Nichols responding to fellow Republicans on Mueller/Trump/Russia.

@RadioFreeTom
So, to respond to @MZHemingway and everyone else about all this. First, I don't recall publicly defending that he'd never make it to inauguration; if I speculated on that privately, well, okay, bad prediction and I'll own it. But my guesstimate isn't the point. /1
- The larger problem is that, in classic Twitter fight fashion, the goal post of "evidence" keeps moving every time more evidence shows up. So, what do I mean by evidence? I said it here:

@RadioFreeTom: You’d have set up a gallows for less only a few years ago. The weaponization of Wikileaks, the financial intertwining of Trump and the Russians, the meetings with Trump’s people, the RNC platform changes, Manafort - if this isn’t enough, nothing is.

- I could go through each of these, but as an example, Mollie asked me about "the weaponization" of Wikileaks. There is no doubt that WL reached out to Trump. No evidence (yet, I grant) that Trump himself responded. /3
- But I think there's enough circumstantial evidence - including the inability of people like Stone and POTUS himself to stop talking about it - that someone on the campaign helped advise someone what to do with those stolen materials. /4
- We can argue all day over whether this fits "colluding," and which cut-out from which camp talked to whom. My point stands: if this were Clinton or anyone else, the hearings and fury would be 24/7. And THAT is only the tip of a giant iceberg. /5
- The role of Manafort, the possible quid pro quo in the RNC platform, the fact that Flynn is now a felon - this should have been more than enough. But no. Instead, some texts from a pissed off FBI guy are dispositive that Mueller is on a witch hunt. /6
- Meanwhile, we're treated to nightly freakouts about Fusion GPS, from people acting as if they've never heard of oppo. Like this is the first dirty campaign they've ever seen, and thus it negates ALL the other evidence that actually *exists*. /7
- I have never harped the dossier. I have never said the Russians stole the election. I have never said Trump personally coordinated with the Russians. But these straw zombies keep coming back. So here's what I *will* say. /8

1. There is clear evidence of contact with the Trump campaign and a hostile foreign power and its active arm in WL.
2. There is a level of contact historically between the Trump Org and Putin that should worry anyone who knows anything about how Russia works. /9
3. There is, imo, a high probability that the Trump Org and its minions have been naughty things with Russian money for ages.
4. POTUS, for whatever reason, is clearly scared of Putin and the Kremlin.
5. A lot of people in this WH have been, erm, untruthful about ALL of this. /10

- And most important, conservatives defending this WH with "but Hillary" and "uranium" and "Fusion GPS" are being astonishingly hypocritical and should just admit that if this were not their tribe, they'd have burned the WH by now. /11
- Finally, there is now a case for obstruction of justice that is so obvious that I can't believe anyone would deny it. From Flynn to Comey to the pattern of lying, this would be enough to cook any Dem in the eyes of any GOPer - before now. /12x
posted by chris24 at 3:59 PM on December 17, 2017 [86 favorites]

It is trivial to ensure that you both never are owed a refund and that you remain within the 90% underpayment safe harbor. I don't doubt that there is some psychological impact, I just doubt it is that high.

Don't take my word for it. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation say that elimination of the mandate will result in 13 million people fewer people with health insurance. That is a large impact.
posted by JackFlash at 4:16 PM on December 17, 2017 [20 favorites]

You’d have set up a gallows for less only a few years ago.

This is one of my defences against normalisation. There hasn't been a day in the past year when I haven't thought - often multiple times - that if Obama had done what just got revealed even once in eight years, the GOP would have gone full Tsar Bomba.

Apart from everything else, there is a cosmic level of hypocrisy on permanent display. It's good to refuel from that realisation. It never goes stale.
posted by Devonian at 4:21 PM on December 17, 2017 [53 favorites]

Nobody has benefited more from "IOKIYAR" than D.J.Trump.

But long before that, he took full advantage of "IOKIYourNameIsOnBuildings".

Frankly, I tend toward a belief that turning against Trump would be very good for the Republican Party and therefore oppose it in the hope that they all go down in flames together. And also believe that a competent member of today's Republican Party as President would have done quite a bit more damage by now and more subtly.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:33 PM on December 17, 2017 [7 favorites]

Yes, I didn't necessarily think the acolytes of Saint Ronnie were right about Russia, but I had never reason to think they weren't sincere. And now I know that whether they were right or wrong they were never sincere, and the best of them were merely pawns whose fears were being weaponised against domestic enemies.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:34 PM on December 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

Nobody has benefited more from "IOKIYAR" than D.J.Trump.

The general case of IOKIYAR is "It's okay if you are a white man with some money."

(And "some" doesn't even have to be "lots" to get the "justice" dispensing machine to hand out a soft outcome.)
posted by puddledork at 5:24 PM on December 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

I'm 0% lawyer but the necessity of a declaration of war for a charge of treason seems as though it might not be correct, since Aaron Burr was charged with treason in 1807 but the first time the U.S. declared war was in 1812. He was acquitted but cursory googlings turn up "insufficient evidence" as the reason rather than "he didn't aid any nation the U.S. had declared war upon."

Treason also consists of fighting your own country, and he was telling Spain that he was going to take over the capitol. He was acquitted on the idea that it was totes okay to plot against your own country as long as you didn't actually engage in the warfare. I don't think the trial would have gone the same way were it held today, to say the least.
posted by corb at 5:59 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

A Frustrated Donald Trump Plots Counterpunches and Talks Lawsuits (Daily Beast)
posted by Barack Spinoza at 6:11 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Trump labor adviser’s plan for cutting federal compensation, potentially even paid holidays
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:30 PM on December 17, 2017 [11 favorites]

“Hey, we’re gonna cut your pay and benefits but hey, don’t leak anything to the press that might get us in trouble, ok?”
posted by azpenguin at 7:07 PM on December 17, 2017 [15 favorites]

If this is even remotely true[*], then it's one heck of a Hanukkah present.

Trump Supporters Are Worried About Falling Victim to a 'Twitter Purge' Within Days

The part that is really spooking people, apparently, is an announcement from Twitter linked within the post suggesting that the company will be monitoring the behavior of users "on and off the platform"—leaving open the possibility that someone’s political affiliations could play a role in how they will be treated by the site going forward.

[*] Narrator voice....
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:16 PM on December 17, 2017

Are you kidding me? In addition to a tax "cut" that penalizes most Americans but provides those in the highest levels of elected (or appointed) government a hefty payout, they're going to gut the compensation of the underappreciated people who work the hardest to make this country function?

They really are intent on destroying the USA. There's no other explanation.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:24 PM on December 17, 2017 [45 favorites]

FWIW, it seems like Northam is falling back a bit on the Medicaid issue:

I have and will continue to advocate for Medicaid expansion because it is a no-brainer for Virginia families, our budget, and our economy. We can also come together on smart policy choices that will allow us to deliver better care at lower cost.

I think public pressure could help evolve his stance in the right direction.

==

jointhedance: "I feel sick. How are the recounts going in the last two maybe-flippable seats in the Virginia House of Delegates?"

HD-94 recount starts on Dec 19. This one the Dem trails by 10 votes

HD-28 recount starts on Dec 21. This one the Dem trails by 82 votes.

For comparison, the Dem picked up 7 votes in the just completed recount in HD-40, so strictly on the recount side, HD-94 looks like a decent shot, HD-28 is almost certainly not happening.

Separately, there is the legal action on HD-28 concerning the folks who were given ballots for a different HOD race. There's a court hearing on that Jan 5. A re-run of the election is possible, I don't have any sense for how likely it is for the judge to order that.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:28 PM on December 17, 2017 [11 favorites]

What about the votes they cast for the wrong district? Were they nullified?
posted by Weeping_angel at 7:29 PM on December 17, 2017

I am not 100% sure if they counted in the total for the other district (HD-88), but it doesn't impact anything because we are talking about something like 300 votes, and the HD-88 race was decided by over 4,000 votes.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:32 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

you can't post the link to needtoimpeach.com or load any old tweets with that link in it.

Well, what did you think happened when you reported tweets for spam? What happens when malicious entities start doing that with their bot army?
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:42 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

WaPo, Trump says he won’t fire Mueller, as campaign to discredit Russia probe heats up, which we knew, but read on, because other people have issues:

Rather, Trump appeared to be contemplating changes in the Justice Department’s leadership. In recent discussions, two advisers said, Trump has called the attorney general “weak,” and complained that Rosenstein has shown insufficient accountability on the special counsel’s work. A senior official said Trump mocked Rosenstein’s recent testimony on Capitol Hill, saying he looked weak and unable to answer questions. Trump has ranted about Rosenstein as “a Democrat,” one of these advisers said, and characterized him as a threat to his presidency.

In fact, Rosenstein is a Republican. In 2005, President George W. Bush nominated him to be U.S. attorney in Maryland.

Trump has watched Fox News Channel segments attacking Mueller’s investigation, advisers said, including those by Jeanine Pirro, a former judge and prosecutor whose show is a Trump favorite and who has visited with the president in the White House.

On her Saturday night broadcast, Pirro railed against Strzok and Page, as well as Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. “The only thing that remains is whether we have the fortitude to not just fire these people immediately, but to take them out in cuffs,” Pirro said.

Firing Rosenstein is also a precursor to firing Mueller, or appointing someone else who will crack down on the investigation.

Hilariously, the complaints about Mueller obtaining transition emails are too much even for Trey Gowdy, who said those issues should be handled in court instead of by Congress. Which, yes, the fact that they wrote Congress to whine instead of making a legal argument to a judge is a pretty clear sign they knew they didn't have a legal argument and tried to use politics to do what the law won't.
posted by zachlipton at 7:43 PM on December 17, 2017 [26 favorites]

@benthere536: Replying to @CharlesMBlow and @williamlegate

And Twitter is now engaging in censorship. It's not allowing us to post www.needtoimpeach. com as a link. Seriously. Try posting that in your TL. You'll get censored

I tried and was told

This request looks like it might be automated. To protect our users from spam and other malicious activity, we can't complete this action right now. Please try again later.

Nice work supporting fascism, @jack.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:44 PM on December 17, 2017 [21 favorites]

@sarahkendzior: Twitter won't let me click an old tweeted link to Need To Impeach (L) without getting this warning (R)

Twitter TOS are changing soon. Are they starting to censor websites calling for Trump's impeachment?

Has pictures of old link and Twitter's response.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:49 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

GQ - The Least Influential People of 2017
Seth Abramson/Eric Garland/Louise Mensch
These are the serial tweetstormers who show up any time something Russia-related happens to Trump, and then they act as if they have all the top-secret info to BLOW THIS WHOLE THING WIDE OPEN. They are…not reliable.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:55 PM on December 17, 2017 [29 favorites]

Firing Rosenstein is also a precursor to firing Mueller, or appointing someone else who will crack down on the investigation.

@AshaRangappa_ (fmr FBI CounterIntel agent, CNN analyst)
MUELLER THREAD. We should all (obviously) be concerned if Trump fires Mueller. But, in my opinion, we should be even MORE concerned if he fires DAG Rod Rosenstein. Here's why:
2. The investigation into Russia's election interference began well before Mueller came on the scene, in June 2016. It is an investigation that existed independent of him. He didn't "start" it.
3. Likewise, if he leaves, it won't "end" it. Mueller was appointed mainly to insulate an ongoing investigation from conflicts of interest that arose from Comey's firing. If he leaves, some of that insulation is gone. BUT:
4. The FBI has a statutory mandate to investigate potential violations of federal law and threats to national security. Just because Mueller leaves doesn't mean that those cases just get dumped in the trash. They are obligated to continue investigation them to their resolution.
5. It's also useful to think of FBI investigations as fractals. Each case can spawn a new case, depending on what's uncovered. In other words, if during an investigation of one violation, you uncover another, that's a new case.
6. So while we talk about the "Russia investigation," that is really an umbrella for what is likely *many* cases involving both criminal and counterintelligence threads. Those don't just disappear.
7. Further, some of these -- like the indictments and plea deals we've seen -- are already in the judicial system. And no doubt there are outstanding subpoenas and other investigative leads that are already out. In other words, this train has left the station, big time.
8. The key, however, is that there needs to be a prosecutor at DOJ who is willing to facilitate and approve many parts of the investigation. Right now that's Mueller. In his absence, who is it? DAG Rod Rosenstein (because AG Sessions would still be recused).
9. Under the Special Counsel regulations, Mueller has been reporting to Rosenstein every 90 days about the status of his investigation. He's also had to seek approval for an expansion of his mandate, or for any charges he's brought so far.
10. We can conclude that so far Rosenstein has approved of the progress and requests that have been made -- if he hadn't, he would have had to report this to Congress and explain why. That hasn't happened. He's also explicitly stated that he believes Mueller is doing his job.
11. Rosenstein, therefore, has basically seen everything that Mueller has. And he's on board. Presumably, if he is put "back in charge," he'd continue to move the investigation forward (if he didn't, it would raise the question why he had been approving Mueller until now).
12. If Trump fires Rosenstein, however, he can appoint someone new to be the DAG. Which means he can preemptively choose someone who is going to stonewall the investigation from moving forward. Even a new DAG overseeing Mueller could do this.
13. So, IMO, that's the bigger threat. Rosenstein, not Mueller, is really the buffer right now between POTUS (and Congress) and a full investigation of all aspects of "the Russia investigation," incl the counterintelligence part, the various criminal threads, and DoJ. /END
14. P.S. And ppl are right that in general, Trump has to fire Rosenstein to fire Mueller. But part of my point is that he could replace DAG, *not* fire Mueller and still achieve same effect if that DAG is willing to block Mueller's efforts and "spin" the reasons why to Congress.
posted by chris24 at 8:01 PM on December 17, 2017 [36 favorites]

Seth Abramson/Eric Garland/Louise Mensch

"Following Abramson is like subscribing to the worst podcast in world history. “Okay, so you already know about Sergei Cutyurkokov from my August 13th tweetstorm, now here is how he ties into the GORGOV MEETING 1/670"

I laughed. Loudly.
posted by Justinian at 8:31 PM on December 17, 2017 [24 favorites]

Looks like they got caught fixed it.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:54 PM on December 17, 2017 [11 favorites]

I have entirely too many questions about Don Jr.'s Instagram post (my life was so much better before sentences like that made any sense), such as "that Obama cookie seems really racist looking, right?" and "why is it even possible for a person's mouth to look like that?" and "why is the guy who is supposed to be running the business and not in politics on a first-name basis with a Senator?"
posted by zachlipton at 9:00 PM on December 17, 2017 [10 favorites]

That Obama image looks like is a not so great icing take on Obama's now iconic, graphic Hope poster. So no not racist. Just bad or purposely bad icing technique.
posted by Jalliah at 9:05 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

I've constructed a Storify (it's not dead yet) of useful and interesting material on the Mueller investigation, composed of tweet threads from Seth Abramson, Renato Mariotti and Asha Rangappa.
posted by JHarris at 1:26 AM on December 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

(Some have been linked, even quoted in full, above it seems. Anyway, I intend to keep it updated with new threads as they appear.)
posted by JHarris at 1:30 AM on December 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

At first I was annoyed by the poorly rendered Obama cookie, but then more than a few of the twitter replies made it worthwhile.

For example, the first two that appeared when I clicked on the link are below:

- Tell me [Donny Jr.], can you even eat a cookie with those horrendously fake teeth of yours?

- I think this photo really does sum up what a dreadful, ignorant, stupid and hateful person you [Donny Jr.] are.

GOD(ESS) BLESS AMERICA!
posted by elsietheeel at 2:12 AM on December 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

guys i get the feeling folks on Instagram don't like those guys very much
posted by salix at 2:56 AM on December 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

“The president was briefed on the document all the way along but when it was near completion and when it was shown to him what it looked like, he was very excited and he personally said he wanted to introduce it to the American people and to the world.”

So we’ve all got this speech to look forward to.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:17 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

At first I was annoyed by the poorly rendered Obama cookie, but then more than a few of the twitter replies made it worthwhile.

I don't know what you're talking about, that's a great young Henry Kissinger
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:30 AM on December 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

The speech Card Cheat refers to is described in this Guardian article:

Trump will drop climate change from US National Security Strategy
posted by stonepharisee at 3:36 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

So we’ve all got this speech to look forward to.

When the Guamanian, Puerto Rican, Virgin Islander, and American Samoan climate refugees arrive I'm sure they'll remember who voted to destroy their economies and homes.

It's not just rising sea levels. Changing temperatures, saltwater infiltration into freshwater resources, the subsequent destruction of crops, loss of tourism and income from the large scale deaths of marine life. There are knock on effects from climate change that are going to linger for generations.
posted by Talez at 3:36 AM on December 18, 2017 [18 favorites]

Coal is good for humanity. So Trump Bob Sponge Brain is going full Budgie Smuggler? A country of ~25 million have almost figured out that it's total bullshit.

Growth and security is going to come out of businesses and governments industrialising renewable technologies. Especially in developing countries. Has no-one learned from the deployment of mobile tech in Africa compared to fixed?

Just to finish. China's agnostic approach is going to kick ass in Africa. China is a renewables tour-de-force. Coal and oil aren't going to win. Turning the USA into an carbon export powerhouse will fail, not even beginning to consider there's no way to nationalise any benefit for the long-term good of the country.

Idiots.
posted by michswiss at 3:48 AM on December 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

Trump will drop climate change from US National Security Strategy

There is no greater security threat to the US than climate change. Kim Jong Un flying an Iranian smallpox nuke laced with Fentanyl would not be a billionth as deadly as anticipated climate change. At best it's going to happen slowly, but within fifty uears we're going to be facing a global apocalypse that'll be like WW2, if WW2 were truly global and had not been conducted by such sensitive individuals.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:10 AM on December 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

Sen. Bob Corker Failed to Properly Disclose Millions of Dollars in Income (Brody Mullins, WSJ-paywall )
Tennessee Republican files amendments to reports going back to 2007; ‘I am extremely disappointed in the filing errors’

The new forms show that Mr. Corker had failed to properly disclose at least $2 million in income from investments in three small hedge funds based in his home state. He also didn’t properly report millions of dollars in income from commercial real-estate investments due to an accounting error. And he didn’t disclose millions of dollars in other assets and income from other financial transactions.

A letter sent to the secretary of the Senate along with the new financial reports acknowledged that the senator’s previous reports didn’t comply with Senate rules.

“I am extremely disappointed in the filing errors that were made in earlier financial disclosure reports,” Mr. Corker said in a statement to the Journal.

posted by Room 641-A at 4:53 AM on December 18, 2017 [23 favorites]

Sen. Bob Corker Failed to Properly Disclose Millions of Dollars in Income

From the WSJ article: "As a result of the accounting error, Mr. Corker’s new forms show additional income of at least $3.8 million between 2007 and 2014 from his commercial real-estate holdings."

So just the amount of the accounting error here is $500k a year. The Corker Kickback added to the tax bill shields 20% of this type of income. So $100K shielded that would've been taxed at the new highest rate of 37% = $37K per year Corker is benefitting from the tax bill just from the amount of the reporting error. And the original real estate income he reported is no doubt many times bigger than the accounting mistake, which means he's most likely benefitting hundreds of thousands dollars annually from the Corker Kickback in the tax bill.

Draining. The. Swamp.
posted by chris24 at 5:08 AM on December 18, 2017 [40 favorites]

“I am extremely disappointed in the filing errors that were made in earlier financial disclosure reports,” Mr. Corker said in a statement to the Journal.

"I am shocked, SHOCKED, to find that gambling tax fraud is going on in here!"
posted by hangashore at 5:56 AM on December 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

I still am honestly shocked, SHOCKED, that there were millions of rubes gullible enough to buy that Drain The Swamp shit from Donald Fucking Trump.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:09 AM on December 18, 2017 [20 favorites]

“I am extremely disappointed in the filing errors that were made in earlier financial disclosure reports,” Mr. Corker said in a statement to the Journal.

I am now imagining a rewrite of Atlas Shrugged where everything the captains of industry do is described with passive voice and obscured agency.
posted by srboisvert at 6:11 AM on December 18, 2017 [57 favorites]

Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner sued over financial disclosures (Josh Gerstein, Politico)

Washington lawyer Jeffrey Lovitky contends that Trump and Kushner failed to identify the assets owned by 30 investment funds the couple had stakes in. The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Washington also claims the couple should have declared the value of and income they derived from two investment vehicles, but did not.

The suit notes that in a half dozen instances Kushner's report indicates that more detailed information is not being provided because a "pre-existing confidentiality agreement" precludes disclosure.

"The [Ethics in Government Act] does not allow a reporting individual to refuse to disclose the underlying assets of an investment vehicle, on the basis that such disclosure would violate a pre-existing confidentiality agreement.

posted by Room 641-A at 6:30 AM on December 18, 2017 [19 favorites]

Trump predicts exoneration in Russia investigation as allies fear a 'meltdown'
"

... Trump is boasting to friends and advisers that he expects Mueller to clear him of wrongdoing in the coming weeks, according to sources familiar with the conversations. The President seems so convinced of his impending exoneration that he is telling associates Mueller will soon write a letter clearing him that Trump can brandish to Washington and the world in a bid to finally emerge from the cloud of suspicion that has loomed over the first chapter of his presidency, the sources said."

posted by octothorpe at 6:30 AM on December 18, 2017 [19 favorites]

...if he really expected Mueller to clear him, wouldn't he be building up the legitimacy of the investigation, not trying to undermine it at every turn?
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:34 AM on December 18, 2017 [28 favorites]

Okay, so that is a great outcome, right? He is so sure that he will be exonerated that he won't fire Mueller? Could it possibly be that stupidity and hubris will do what principle cannot?
posted by Frowner at 6:34 AM on December 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Trying to apply logic to this guy pretty much always fails.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:36 AM on December 18, 2017 [36 favorites]

I’ve seen people on Twitter who do not appear to be bots say they think Mueller is meeting with Trump’s lawyers to tell them the investigation is over. They must believe trump.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:38 AM on December 18, 2017

WP: Kozinski retiring from the 9th Circuit after multiple reports of sexual harassment.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:39 AM on December 18, 2017 [25 favorites]

1. Conference tax bill will lead to massive tax planning and game-playing undermining income tax, benefiting well-advised, and likely leading [legislation] to cost considerably more than estimates suggest. Updated report from tax experts across country: SSRN
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:41 AM on December 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

Eh, I've known plenty of deluded narcissist toxically-masculine guys who insist to everybody—themselves included—that there's no way the ship is sinking under their watch, that the foot of water on the floor must've splashed out of a mop bucket or something, stupid janitors. As they're buckling their life jacket. For these types, there's really nothing else to tell people. Or themselves.
posted by Rykey at 6:44 AM on December 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

Mod note: A few deleted. We've kind of been over and over and over the proposition that people who voted for Trump didn't really care about "draining the swamp" or [insert other campaign promise], and it's really just racism that drove those votes, so it's not really necessary to repeat all that again (quick reminder about catch-all discussions). Thanks, everyone.
posted by taz (staff) at 7:04 AM on December 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Conference tax bill will lead to massive tax planning and game-playing undermining income tax, benefiting well-advised...

And that's exactly part of the plan. One of the reasons the current tax code is so complex is the lots of attempts to close loopholes that the wealthy have found. This bill may simplify the tax code, but it also simplifies the loopholes. You've seen all the people harping on the "fair tax" claiming it would be more fair and simplify the system? If that ever passed then any competent tax planner would have as much work as they could handle for years from people gaming the "fair" system. Working people get scraps, if that, and the wealthy will always find their ways to game the tax system.
posted by azpenguin at 7:07 AM on December 18, 2017

1. Conference tax bill will lead to massive tax planning and game-playing undermining income tax, benefiting well-advised, and likely leading [legislation] to cost considerably more than estimates suggest. Updated report from tax experts across country: SSRN

No shit. The second they suggested lower rates for passthroughs, it was obvious that every person with a clue making over $100K was going to incorporate. 20% reduction in income taxes for a few hundred in fees? What in the everloving hell were they thinking aside from "how do I make a giant loophole for high end income taxes?"
posted by Talez at 7:07 AM on December 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

Feels like the White House is trying to spin things fast enough to make time go backwards so that everything is forgotten.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:12 AM on December 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

It's not like the wealthy haven't gamed the system already. Dividends and capital gains rates and funny business basically screamed out "LOOPHOLE! LOOPHOLE!" to the CEOs. Just incorporate yourself as a brand and claim a management fee as a capital gain! Woo! Tax dodge!
posted by Talez at 7:18 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump Remember, Republicans are 5-0 in Congressional Races this year. The media refuses to mention this. I said Gillespie and Moore would lose (for very different reasons), and they did. I also predicted “I” would win. Republicans will do well in 2018, very well! @foxandfriends

How's the AL senate race no a congressional race? What is he on about? (And I guess he still hasn't taken the "Quotation Marks 101" class I signed him up for on Udemy...)
posted by AwkwardPause at 7:28 AM on December 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

"Congressional" is often short for House of Representatives rather than referring to the entire body.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:31 AM on December 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Then he's still wrong, there was also a House race in California the Dems won.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:32 AM on December 18, 2017 [31 favorites]

Rs are 5-2, and barely won in the 5 despite all being very red districts where Trump won by 20+ points. The cabinet selections were chosen in part because they were from very safe districts. Republicans will not do well in 2018.
posted by chris24 at 7:44 AM on December 18, 2017 [28 favorites]

Eh, I've known plenty of deluded narcissist toxically-masculine guys who insist to everybody—themselves included—that there's no way the ship is sinking under their watch, that the foot of water on the floor must've splashed out of a mop bucket or something, stupid janitors. As they're buckling their life jacket. For these types, there's really nothing else to tell people. Or themselves.

Problem for Trump is this time there's no bankruptcy court to bail on your creditors. I would not be surprised if he doesn't understand the difference in courts, criminal and civil. "I'll just write a settlement check..." isn't what Criminal Courts want to hear AT ALL.
posted by mikelieman at 7:49 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

I dunno. We have a bad track record of holding ex-presidents to account for their crimes. Even now, Trump would definitely get away with everything if he just resigned and fucked off back to to Mar a Lago or wherever. But he'll probably dig in, which makes it a little more likely he'll end up in prison (I wouldn't bet money on it, though).
posted by ryanrs at 7:59 AM on December 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

If getting away with everything were a superpower, Trump would be Superman. It remains to be seen if he has a Kryptonite.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:00 AM on December 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

(jared's prob fucked though)
posted by ryanrs at 8:02 AM on December 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

The theory that the GOP will dump 45 when he becomes electoral poison must be considered disproved, because they're all Trumpists now and obviously can't kick the habit. 2018 is going to be rough indeed for everyone, but it's going to be particularly dark at the bottom of the pit they're studiously continuing to dig. Even Ann Coulter is shrieking in despair on Twitter.
posted by Devonian at 8:02 AM on December 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

Trump’s lawyers to tell them him the investigation is over.

Now that I would believe. Watch for one of his legal eagles to get booted right before a serious paddlin'. i.e. "He told me I'd get away with it! Hope, go fire that guy."
posted by petebest at 8:04 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Michael Linden, economist with the Roosevelt Institute (edited for readability from this Twitter thread):

By now, most Americans know this tax bill is terrible. We know it's unfair, it's a giveaway to the rich, it cuts health care & puts other services at risk. What hasn’t sunk in yet is how it could also harm the economy, costing jobs and prosperity. I count at least 5 ways.

First and most directly, by cutting taxes on the super-rich and asking everyone else to pick up the tab, this bill will exacerbate our already sky-high levels of income inequality, as David Leonhardt correctly points out. Beyond being morally repugnant, increasing our income inequality will also cause the economy to grow more slowly and will result in more fragile growth, bringing recessions on more rapidly.

Second, by cutting both top personal income taxes and corporate taxes, this bill dramatically increases the incentives for corporate CEOs and major shareholders to hoard profits rather than invest them. We know that when taxes for the rich go down, CEO pay goes up. That’s because corporate executives have a huge incentive to bargain for an even bigger slice of the pie when the taxes on their slice just shrank (PDF). Once the corporate execs take their cut, then the major shareholders take theirs. We’ve known for some time now that when corporations get more $$ they use it to buy back stocks and increase dividend payouts (PDF). Think about what that means: it’s not just that CEOs & shareholders are enriched directly by the tax cuts. It’s also that they respond to the new incentives by TAKING EVEN MORE, which leaves even less for workers, down-stream suppliers, and investments in the future. The cruel irony of “trickle down” is that the lie at its heart is not only that nothing actually trickles down, but that, in fact, income and wealth gets vacuumed up.

Third, to the extent that we have still not fully recovered from the Great Recession, the underlying weakness is one of DEMAND not supply (PDF). There aren’t enough customers with enough $ in their pockets to spur faster growth. Giving tax cuts to the “supply side” won’t solve that problem & the tax cuts that do go to low & moderate-income families are small, temporary, and are likely to be offset by service and benefit cuts. In fact, after accounting for all the implicit spending cuts in the tax bill, the vast majority of moderate and low-income families lose out, even in the first year. That’s no way to boost aggregate demand.

Fourth, the tax bill encourages more offshoring of both profits AND operations, as Gene Sperling explains. The bill sets up 2 corporate tax rates: a higher one for home and a lower one – full of loopholes – for abroad.

Finally, this tax bill is incredibly distortionary. Conservatives used to be the ones to complain about the tax code picking “winners and losers,” but that’s exactly what happens here. Different kinds of income are treated differently. Overseas corporate income does better than domestic corporate income. Corporate income does better than small business income. Owner income does better than worker income. Inherited income does better than basically everything.

And we haven’t even begun to find all of the loopholes, mistakes, and other weird quirks that will result in strange tax avoidance strategies. David Kamin and Lily Batchelder and co-authors have found a bunch already. What will definitely happen is that people & businesses will make decisions based on tax planning (even more than now), not based on underlying economic imperatives or incentives and that will act like sand in the gears of the economy.

There you go. 5 ways the tax bill is terrible for the economy, beyond its unfairness & cruelty:

1.↑ inequality = ↓ growth
2.↑ incentive for CEO & Shareholder hoarding
3.Aggregate demand ↓
4.Offshoring ↑
5.Economic distortions ↑

Just like the tax cuts in Kansas failed to produce the promised economic boost, this tax bill is going to further skew the economy in favor of those who already have the most, while leaving everyone else behind. As if you needed another reason to hate this bill.

posted by zombieflanders at 8:16 AM on December 18, 2017 [80 favorites]

it would be truly delicious if the thing that ultimately brought trump down was the inability to retain competent legal counsel due to years of stiffing the good firms
posted by murphy slaw at 8:18 AM on December 18, 2017 [28 favorites]

Ivanka today: "Small businesses will have the lowest taxes since 1931"

Are you sure that's where you want to go? These Trump kids aren't very smart, are they.
posted by JackFlash at 8:22 AM on December 18, 2017 [78 favorites]

New Monmouth poll of the tax bill

26% approve (with strong approval of only 13%)
47% disapprove (with strong disapproval of 35%)

And 50% think it'll raise their taxes.

Republicans favor the proposed tax reform plan by a 55% approve to 16% disapprove margin. Democrats (7% approve to 72% disapprove) and independents (20% approve to 53% disapprove) are decidedly negative about the proposed changes. The package doesn't play well in areas of the country that the GOP needs to win in 2018. Opinion of the tax reform plan is divided in "red" counties that Trump won by at least ten percentage points in 2016 - 34% approve and 37% disapprove. In "swing" counties where the margin of victory for either candidate was less than ten points, 30% approve of the plan compared with 38% who disapprove. In "blue" counties that Hillary Clinton won by ten points or more, only 15% approve while 60% disapprove.

posted by chris24 at 8:26 AM on December 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Huh, it's almost as if the law was written to be deliberately polarizing, in addition to looting what little is left.
posted by wierdo at 8:39 AM on December 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

The thing that made me resigned to grief over the tax bill was some CNN (I think) segment of interviews with Trump voters who were basically unhappy with Trump and what they had heard of the tax bill but said, paraphrasing, "but, I'm willing to give it a shot." As if rewriting the tax code was like a trick play in football that, by golly, might just be crazy enough to work. Sigh.
posted by AndrewInDC at 8:41 AM on December 18, 2017 [30 favorites]

Paper used at Trump's red tape demonstration was blank, will be reused
posted by kirkaracha at 8:49 AM on December 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

26% approve (with strong approval of only 13%)
47% disapprove (with strong disapproval of 35%)

Republicans don't care about disapproval numbers. They know they are probably screwed in the next election and that makes this once in a generation chance to ensure they and their heirs will be filthy rich all the more important. They are determined to go out in a blaze of opulent glory.

Remember that it took more than 10 years to roll back even a small portion of the Bush tax cuts. Ten years is plenty of time to secure their plutocratic legacy for the next generation.
posted by JackFlash at 8:51 AM on December 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

Third, to the extent that we have still not fully recovered from the Great Recession, the underlying weakness is one of DEMAND not supply (PDF). There aren’t enough customers with enough $ in their pockets to spur faster growth.

Great Recession hell, this situation has pertained literally my entire adult life. It's deliberate.


Republicans don't care about disapproval numbers. They know they are probably screwed in the next election and that makes this once in a generation chance to ensure they and their heirs will be filthy rich all the more important. They are determined to go out in a blaze of opulent glory.

I disagree- this is why they're so obsessed with voter ID and getting rid of voting rights.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:00 AM on December 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

Paper used at Trump's red tape demonstration was blank, will be reused

Presumably for the next big dumb stunt photo op.

I realize that the White House has always involved a certain amount of show biz, but I feel like this is the first regime that has actually needed a dedicated prop warehouse.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:02 AM on December 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

There aren’t enough customers with enough $ in their pockets to spur faster growth. Giving tax cuts to the “supply side” won’t solve that problem

I honestly think Brewster's Millions (whichever version) should be required viewing in schools to hammer home the point that it takes appreciable time and effort for one person to spend a million dollars (and generate the corresponding economic activity), whereas it takes no time at all for a million people to cycle through a million dollars. When you give away money to rich people, you're giving it to the people least likely to make use of it; it's an incredibly inefficient way to stimulate the real economy.
posted by Iridic at 9:06 AM on December 18, 2017 [48 favorites]

The Republican Party Faces a Roy Moore-Style Humiliation in Virginia

This past week, E.W. Jackson, a conservative pastor with a history of controversial remarks announced that he would be challenging Corey Stewart, former gubernatorial candidate and Trump acolyte, for the Republican primary which is roughly six months away. Jackson, previously the GOP’s 2013 nominee for lieutenant governor, has said in the past that people who want to be referred to by gender-neutral pronouns indicate that they are possessed by “multiple demons” and that gay and lesbian citizens are “frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally,” a comment for which he has recently expressed regret. He has also said that former President Barack Obama “clearly has Muslim sensibilities”—implying, of course, that that was a bad thing—and that Planned Parenthood “has been far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was.”

Stewart, meanwhile, is closely aligned with Donald Trump’s former top strategist, Steve Bannon, and helped shape a campaign on the preservation of Confederate monuments in Virginia, despite hailing from Minnesota. In 2017, he launched an insurgent gubernatorial bid and almost won the nomination during which he referred to his opponent as a “cuckservative.” Stewart was fired from the Trump campaign for, as he put it, standing up against “establishment pukes” at the Republican National Committee when the Access Hollywood tape came out. Most recently, during his brief stint supporting Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, Stewart revived unfounded claims made by Trump that Obama’s birth certificate is fraudulent.

The two are vying for the right to square off (in all likelihood) against Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who will be running for re-election with high approval ratings and in a state where Democrats won sweeping victories just a month ago. Political observers say they wouldn’t be surprised if the national Republican Party avoided the contest altogether.

posted by Barack Spinoza at 9:12 AM on December 18, 2017 [20 favorites]

Republicans don't care about disapproval numbers. They know they are probably screwed in the next election and that makes this once in a generation chance to ensure they and their heirs will be filthy rich all the more important. They are determined to go out in a blaze of opulent glory.


This has been my thinking lately too, at least for Republican congresspeople. The whole point of their being in politics in the first place is to promote the interests of their own (i.e., wealthy) class; once their major objectives are accomplished—cut taxes big time, gut regulation of their businesses and finances, enshrine massive inequality that ensures cheap labor in the service of their own security and comfort—it's not so important to be part of politics. Mission accomplished.

Add to that the ever-promising chances of taking on a sweet gig after leaving office in consulting, lobbying, public speaking, or right-wing media, and who'd want to be beholden to something so demanding and pointless as the public trust or the Constitution, let alone their donors?
posted by Rykey at 9:14 AM on December 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

...Trump voters who were basically unhappy with Trump and what they had heard of the tax bill but said, paraphrasing, "but, I'm willing to give it a shot." As if rewriting the tax code was like a trick play in football that, by golly, might just be crazy enough to work. Sigh.

The traditional next step: "Maybe we should try getting into two simultaneous land wars in Asia again! This time, it just might make us safe!"
posted by XMLicious at 9:15 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

I honestly think Brewster's Millions (whichever version) should be required viewing in schools

Also for the "None of the Above" election scenes. Heller and Salvino are both just a couple of overgrown wharf rats, and you can quote me on that!
posted by Servo5678 at 9:16 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

The Hill: Nazareth Mayor Cancels Christmas Celebration over Trump's Jerusalem Decision

Daniel Kibblesmith @kibblesmith, author of Santa's Husband and Colbert Late Show staff writer, assessed the news:

TRUMP IS SO TERRIBLE THAT THEY CANCELED CHRISTMAS IN JESUS’ OWN TOWN

SCROOGE THE GRINCH AND MR. POTTER COULDN’T PULL THAT OFF IF THEY TEAMED UP

For an outsider candidate who pledged "We're going to be saying 'Merry Christmas' again.", Trump is reneging on campaign promises in worse ways than any career politician could imagine.
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:23 AM on December 18, 2017 [70 favorites]

> I realize that the White House has always involved a certain amount of show biz, but I feel like this is the first regime that has actually needed a dedicated prop warehouse.

Props to Donald Trump, The “Carrot Top” of Presidents
posted by tonycpsu at 9:25 AM on December 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

The Plot Against Bob Mueller (TPM)

Rosenstein is the key figure since for the purposes of the Russia investigation, he is the Attorney General. If Trump replaced Jeff Sessions with someone else, Rosenstein’s status would end because the new Attorney General would not be under a recusal as Sessions is. That should make confirming a new Attorney General quite difficult. But if he fired Rosenstein as well, he could find someone else to take over on an acting basis. And the President has been quite creative in deciding who to pick in those cases.

President Trump clearly wants to fire Mueller. More specifically, he’s obsessed with ending the Russia probe, all of them, not just Mueller’s. Firing Mueller is the most obvious way to do that. But even Trump’s closest advisors and I suspect Trump himself realize that the firing of James Comey was an almost mind-bogglingly self-destructive act. There’s a good argument that whatever President Trump’s substantive wrongdoing in the larger Russia story, his legal exposure is overwhelmingly (at least based on what we currently know) based on the decision to fire Comey. But you can see the gears turning, looking for some way to can Mueller through a backdoor or cow him into going easy on the President.

Rosenstein is both Mueller’s singular protector and also the man who has been complicit in most of President Trump’s bad acts – from the firing of Comey itself to the decision last week to release a trove of private text messages between two FBI employees into the public domain.

I continue to think that there is a concerted effort to fire Mueller. You can see the plans being laid on numerous fronts, a growing number of Trump supporters being groomed into But the key decision remains in the hands of a man who acts on anger and impulse. So what will happen is impossible to predict.

posted by Barack Spinoza at 9:28 AM on December 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

Remember that it took more than 10 years to roll back even a small portion of the Bush tax cuts. Ten years is plenty of time to secure their plutocratic legacy for the next generation.

And Republicans know Democrats can always be counted on to never return to the status quo ante. Obama started from the proposition that most of the Bush tax cuts, which dwarf the Trump cut bill, should be made permanent. There was no serious attempt to let them expire entirely and restore the budget.

Returning the tax code to its 1998 version, or better yet the rates in the 1960s, would instantly result in trillions of revenue that could be used to pay for the entire progressive agenda. But the idea that a future Democratic congress would actually do something like that is laughable on its face when we have half the party begging the Republicans to offer them the tiniest fig leaf so they can vote for a "bipartisan" tax cut bill.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:31 AM on December 18, 2017 [18 favorites]

> And Republicans know Democrats can always be counted on to never return to the status quo ante. Obama started from the proposition that most of the Bush tax cuts, which dwarf the Trump cut bill, should be made permanent. There was no serious attempt to let them expire entirely.

He wasn't wrong, though. The economy was in the shitter, and the one thing you don't want to do is raise taxes across the board during a recession (which is what a repeal / sunset / failure to renew the JGTRRA would have amounted to.) The ideal policy during that time would have been a massive deficit-financed spending program, but absent that, maintaining a portion of the Bush tax cuts made sense from a Keynesian perspective.

I wish he'd fought harder to raise them on high earners instead of just for obscenely-high earners, and I wish he hadn't hiked payroll taxes on the middle class around 2012 or whenever that was, but I don't fault him for not wanting to eliminate the entirety of the Bush tax cuts at that time. The time to do that is when the economy is doing better than it was.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:36 AM on December 18, 2017 [12 favorites]

MSNBC reporting something about FBI warning Trump in August 2016 about Russians wanting to infiltrate the campaign? I can't tell how big a deal this is, they're going all in with the BREAKING NEWS banner and doing this instead of the Amtrak crash, where the focus was the rest of the morning...anyone got any info on this? I can't find anything online yet.
posted by andruwjones26 at 9:40 AM on December 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

There was an article (that I can't fing) that called the emails Mueller obtained as his ace in the hole.

He questioned the transition team and asked them to disclose all relevant emails as though he did not already have them, which means he can show if any of them lied to him about the content of the emails, and so he can nail them for 18 U.S.C. § 1001 violations. That's potentially a lot of folks in the cross-hairs. Including:

Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Michael Flynn, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Jeff Sessions, K. T. McFarland, Gov. Mary Fallin, Sen. Tim Scott, Rep. Marsha Blackburn , Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Rep. Tom Reed, Rep. Cynthia Lummis, Steve Bannon, Rep. Lou Barletta, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Rep. Chris Collins, Rep. Tom Marino, Rebekah Mercer , Steven Mnuchin, Rep. Devin Nunes, Reince Priebus, Anthony Scaramucci, Peter Thiel, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner , Rep. Sean Duffy, Rep. Trey Gowdy, Rep. Dennis Ross, Pastor Darrell C. Scott, Kiron Skinner

That might encourage them to keep Trump from firing Mueller.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:41 AM on December 18, 2017 [40 favorites]

Obama started from the proposition that most of the Bush tax cuts, which dwarf the Trump cut bill, should be made permanent.

I would say Obama let "most" of the Bush tax cuts expire. He wanted to keep them in place for people making less than $250k per year (to avoid economic constriction during a recession) and let Republicans negotiate <$ 400k instead. But as with the current tax bill, I believe the vast majority of the benefits, measured in absolute dollars, went to people making far more than that. And those were allowed to expire.
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:46 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

And Republicans know Democrats can always be counted on to never return to the status quo ante. Obama started from the proposition that most of the Bush tax cuts, which dwarf the Trump cut bill, should be made permanent. There was no serious attempt to let them expire entirely and restore the budget.

And this is why everyone even slightly left of center should do whatever they can to support the DSA and other socialist projects at least in the short term and strategically. The DSA isn't dumb - they're not going to split important races that they can't possibly win. Smart Democrats should know that what is needed to move the Democratic party is a project to the left of the Democratic party which gains serious traction. Everyone left of center should be boosting the left-most realistic projects available right now, even if all you're looking for is 1998 over again. You can reevaluate when there's enough traction to make the Democratic party act differently.
posted by Frowner at 9:46 AM on December 18, 2017 [39 favorites]

> "That might encourage them to keep Trump from firing Mueller."

Wouldn't the exact opposite be true?
posted by kyrademon at 9:54 AM on December 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

More from NeverTrumper Tom Nichols.

@RadioFreeTom
Let's play Alternate Universe.
It's 2017, and President Hillary Clinton is facing charges that Chelsea met with Russians who offered oppo on Trump. Chelsea didn't call the FBI; and Clinton nat sec adviser Jake Sullivan lied to the FBI about talking to the Russians. /1
- Sullivan is perp-walked into Federal court and pleads to a felony. Chelsea spends hours with congressional investigators and then mugs for the cameras with a cake that looks like Trump. /2
- Meanwhile, Hillary, who has shady ties through various organizations to tons of Russian money and mobsters, refuses to release her tax records and refers to "existential" threats to her presidency from the crooked FBI. /3
- In fact, in her first year in office, Hillary asks the FBI director to "let it go" on Jake Sullivan, and when he doesn't, she fires him. Deputy AG Sally Yates appoints an SC, a lifelong Dem. Hillary mulls firing him. /4
- Then, at least three other Clinton campaign officials end up indicted. All of them are tied in some way to a hostile foreign power. Robby Mook is confined to his home with an ankle monitor. /5
- As the 2018 midterms approach, Hillary publicly mentions how the FCC should crack down on broadcasters who lie, and maybe yank FOX's license. She also notes her warm relations with Nicholas Maduro and calls him to say hi. /6
- I'm sure... totally sure... that stalwarts of the GOP would say: Look, this is a nothingburger, you can't define "collusion," it's just "the coffee boy," and on and on. /7
- Let's cut the nonsense. The GOP would be in full impeachment mode, even without the completion of the special counsel investigation. This is not a partisan point; it's a common-sense point. I don't mind having arguments, but I'd prefer to keep them here on Planet Earth. /8x
posted by chris24 at 10:05 AM on December 18, 2017 [104 favorites]

Wouldn't the exact opposite be true?

IANAL, but is the thinking that the members of the transition team could cut deals with Mueller on whatever else the emails reveal in exchange for testimony on the Russian connections, whereas if Mueller gets fired those materials get handed off/moved onto whatever other prosecutions might spin off from this? I mean, Mueller getting fired doesn't mean everything ends - he's gathered a bunch of information and evidence that is going to wind up somewhere.
posted by nubs at 10:10 AM on December 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

‘Twitter purge’ suspends account of far-right leader who was retweeted by Trump

Hugely surprised by what appears to be an indication Twitter actually doing something. Wondering how the Russian bo accounts are fairing.
posted by Artw at 10:16 AM on December 18, 2017 [12 favorites]

After firestorm, CDC director says terms like “science-based” are not banned -- Friday night report set off an uproar, but officials say it was “mischaracterization.” (Beth Mole for Ars Technica, Dec. 18, 2017)

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fired off a series of tweets Sunday to try to quell fierce backlash from a Friday night report that the Trump administration had banned the agency from using certain terms in budget documents, including “science-based” and “diversity.”

“I want to assure you there are no banned words at CDC,” Director Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald‏ tweeted at the top of a thread Sunday morning, which is currently pinned.

Instead, several sources have tried to clarify that the language changes were merely suggestions to help make the agency’s budget more palatable to some Republicans and ease its passage.
...
In a media statement, the HHS said: "The assertion that HHS has 'banned words' is a complete mischaracterization of discussions regarding the budget formulation process. HHS will continue to use the best scientific evidence available to improve the health of all Americans."

Unnamed officials told the Times that the language changes were not bans but recommendations to basically “ease the path toward budget approval by Republicans.”

"They're not banned, but if you use them, you won't get funding, so we just strongly suggest no one says them." [FAKE, but a realistic summary]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:23 AM on December 18, 2017 [54 favorites]

Interesting point.

@tribelaw
NBC/WSJ poll: 69% of people under 35 now favor Democrats over Republicans for Congress💥

@marceelias (Dem campaign/voting rights lawyer)
Retweeted Laurence Tribe
This is why Republicans are systematically making it harder for young voters to vote. And it is why we need to recognize the importance of the 26th Amendment as a vital voting rights tool to fight suppression.
- The 26th Amendment is a largely untapped tool to fight voter suppression: "The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age."
posted by chris24 at 10:44 AM on December 18, 2017 [53 favorites]

HuffPo is reporting that Matthew Petersen, the judicial nominee without litigation experience who was stumped by Sen. Kennedy's quiz, is withdrawing.
posted by zachlipton at 10:55 AM on December 18, 2017 [45 favorites]

Peter Beinart, The Atlantic: The Growing Partisan Divide over Feminism

It’s not gender that increasingly divides the two parties. It is feminism.

...

[Between] 2004 and 2016, support for feminism—belief in the existence of “societal discrimination against women, and the need for greater female political power”—grew increasingly correlated with support for the Democratic Party. The correlation rose earlier among feminist women, but by 2016, it had also risen among feminist men.

...

Earlier this month, the research firm PerryUndem found that Democratic men were 25 points more likely than Republican women to say sexism remains a “big” or “somewhat” big problem. According to October polling data sorted for me by the Pew Research Center, Democratic men were 31 points more likely than Republican women to say the “country has not gone far enough on women’s rights.”

posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:59 AM on December 18, 2017 [29 favorites]

Welp, here comes our large, dim failson to talk about the Amtrak disaster:

@realDonaldTrump

The train accident that just occurred in DuPont, WA shows more than ever why our soon to be submitted infrastructure plan must be approved quickly. Seven trillion dollars spent in the Middle East while our roads, bridges, tunnels, railways (and more) crumble! Not for long!

Of course he's completely unaware that this was a brand-new bypass, not some crumbling bridge, and I'm sure his handlers will work on using this to privatize even more of our needed public infrastructure.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:00 AM on December 18, 2017 [44 favorites]

NBC/WSJ poll: 69% of people under 35 now favor Democrats over Republicans for Congress💥

"Studies beginning in the 1950s show that partisan identification is a very stable attribute over the course of a voter’s life. More recently, academic studies from the 1990s confirm this, and an analysis of exit polls from 1972 to 2006 show how the partisanship of each generation’s youth vote make a significant political impact over time. The most extensive longitudinal study of electoral habits, the National Election Studies in the 1950s and 1970s, found that “Party identification was the most stable attitude measured…indeed almost perfectly stable.” In 1964, the seminal work on this issue, The American Voter, echoes this point: the authors note that “…persons who identify with one of the parties typically have held the same partisan tie for all or almost all of their adult lives.”

Heckuva job, guys.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:03 AM on December 18, 2017 [15 favorites]

“It’s true, they haven’t started World War III yet. That’s a pretty low bar.” Susan Glasser at Politico discusses Trump Year One with "two charter leaders of the #NeverTrump movement," Republicans Eliot Cohen and Max Boot.

Boot: “In many ways, the damage he’s doing at home is even worse, where he’s undermining the rule of law. He’s obstructing justice. He’s lending the support of the presidency to monsters like Roy Moore. He is exacerbating race relations. He is engaging in the most blatant xenophobia, racism and general bigotry that we have seen from the White House. All these things are very corrosive to the future of American democracy.”
posted by LeLiLo at 11:06 AM on December 18, 2017 [11 favorites]

Peter Beinart, The Atlantic: The Growing Partisan Divide over Feminism

1. I'm shocked that it wasn't bigger before. I'd always thought feminism was used as apolitical proxy for Republicans. Look at Phyllis *spits* Schlafly and the ERA.

2. This will not help them with the suburbs, or with young voters, or with women voters, and especially not with young women voters. When Roy Moore and Donald Trump are the face of your party, and defended by your party, you are sowing the ground with salt for at least a generation when it comes to these voters.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:10 AM on December 18, 2017 [11 favorites]

our soon to be submitted infrastructure plan

Ah yes, the Privatize All The Things Plan, which worked so very well in Pence's state of Indiana:

Audits obtained by Newsweek also flagged deteriorating conditions after the road was privatized. While the toll road consortium reports noted an improvement in the highway’s pavement, a 2010 report said, “All bridge element conditions have worsened.” A 2014 audit showed that 21 percent of the concrete bridges over the highway had become structurally deficient. That represented a near doubling of the road’s bridge deficiency rate in the eight years since it had been privatized—and it was well above the 5 percent deficiency rate that state officials set as a maximum limit for roads in Indiana.

posted by halation at 11:10 AM on December 18, 2017 [22 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: The train accident that just occurred in DuPont, WA shows more than ever why our soon to be submitted infrastructure plan must be approved quickly. Seven trillion dollars spent in the Middle East while our roads, bridges, tunnels, railways (and more) crumble! Not for long!
---
Of course he's completely unaware that this was a brand-new bypass, not some crumbling bridge, and I'm sure his handlers will work on using this to privatize even more of our needed public infrastructure.

And of course he immediately used a tragedy for his own political purposes. 10 minutes later he finally got around to expressing sympathies for those injured.
posted by chris24 at 11:10 AM on December 18, 2017 [34 favorites]

NBC/WSJ poll: 69% of people under 35 now favor Democrats over Republicans for Congress

...nice
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:15 AM on December 18, 2017 [40 favorites]

Ah yes, the Privatize All The Things Plan, which worked so very well in Pence's state of Indiana:

That's not even the worst one. The worst is when they privatized Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration (they handle food stamps, Medicaid, etc), it was a complete clusterfuck of cronyism (the company that got the contract was the FSSA chief's former employer) that cost millions of dollars, dramatically increased the error rate, and resulting in Indiana getting a judgement against IBM for breach of contract to the tune of $128 million dollars.

They got rid of dedicated caseworkers and moved you to a call-center based system so that you get a new person every time. This is terrible when you've got a complicated Medicaid nursing home eligibility application, for example. And >50% of the folks on the other end of the phone have no clue what they're doing. The amount of erroneous denials to this day is insane.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:17 AM on December 18, 2017 [41 favorites]

My understanding is that the train that derailed was the first train to use a new faster route between Tacoma and Olympia that just opened after a $181 million infrastructure project. Obviously something went very wrong, but this isn't why we need infrastructure investment.

But the bigger issue is that he's literally saying "this tragedy where people died, it shows why we urgently need this thing I promised on day 1 and haven't gotten around to delivering in 11 months." He's whining about delays on a plan he hasn't even submitted.
posted by zachlipton at 11:24 AM on December 18, 2017 [45 favorites]

On the FSSA privatization:

"As I’ve mentioned before, this bureaucracy seems like a design flaw if your goal is to deliver services to Hoosiers in need. On the other hand, the system seems less flawed if your goal is to transfer taxpayer money to preferred associates and to discourage poor people from applying for and receiving benefits. If that’s the goal, then those lost documents and increased wait times seem less like bugs and more like features."
posted by leotrotsky at 11:24 AM on December 18, 2017 [21 favorites]

[Between] 2004 and 2016, support for feminism—belief in the existence of “societal discrimination against women, and the need for greater female political power”—grew increasingly correlated with support for the Democratic Party.

Which is why the calls for Franken to unresign, like the support for pro forced-birth candidates, are so incredibly tone-deaf. I mean seriously, go and take the vigorous core of the party, and throw them under the bus, just to support one sexual harasser. And then wonder where the enthusiasm went.

The utterly bizarre argument is that because the Republicans have Trump and Moore, the Democrats should ignore Franken and other Democratic harassers. Evidently since the Republicans support sexual predators, the Democrats should follow in their footsteps.

I confess I can make no sense out of their reasoning. But it really seems like a self-inflicted backstab.
posted by happyroach at 11:25 AM on December 18, 2017 [37 favorites]

From the NBC "House Russia Investigation says OK all done bye bye" story:

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., confirmed to The New York Times that he told California Democrat Jackie Speier, who is also on the committee, that the end of the year offered a "natural boundary" for the panel's work.

1) It's such a dead giveaway that they House investigation never cared about results, and doesn't even care about appearing to care. Like a child given a chore it's uninterested in completing, "I tried and then I had tried for a while and then I stopped."

2) The New Year isn't a natural boundary, dumbass. If you want a natural boundary, why don't you end the investigation on the Winter Solstice, when you can wear deer antlers and dance naked as you burn a Wicker Mueller to ensure a bountiful crop of tax cuts in the new year?
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:28 AM on December 18, 2017 [72 favorites]

Politico, HHS holds back critical comments on faith-based rule. This is not really what the Administrative Procedures Act has in mind for notice-and-comment rulemaking.

HHS is refusing to make public more than 10,000 comments on a Trump administration proposal to reduce federal regulations for religious and faith-based groups that could affect access to abortion and care for transgender patients, according to sources with knowledge of the decision.

The agency has instead posted 80 comments — less than 1 percent of all submissions — that overwhemingly back the administration’s anti-abortion policies or attack regulations advanced by the Obama administration, such as a rule forcing health care providers that accept federal funding to provide services to transgender patients.
...
According to regulations.gov, HHS received 10,729 public comments, of which 10,649 have yet to be posted. HHS did post 71 comments that strongly support its proposal or raise related religious concerns. Those positive comments were heavily front-loaded at the start of the comment period; for the first two weeks, all 36 comments that the agency made public supported its position.

Meanwhile, HHS made public just nine critical comments, six of which were included in its final batch of posting. A person with knowledge of HHS' decision said that administrators, facing questions from outside the agency, posted a flurry of last-minute criticism in hopes of making a curated selection of comments appear more balanced.

On a related note, the ACLU is suing on behalf of two more undocumented teens in ICE custody who say the government is preventing them from getting abortions.
posted by zachlipton at 11:35 AM on December 18, 2017 [33 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: The train accident that just occurred in DuPont, WA shows more than ever why our soon to be submitted infrastructure plan must be approved quickly.

@Philip_Elliott (TIME)
Retweeted Donald J. Trump
The President's budget request on trains was described thusly: "a nearly 13 percent reduction in transportation spending over fiscal 2017 ... and a $630 million reduction in subsidies for long-distance Amtrak routes."

WaPo (May '17): Trump budget slashes federal aid for rail, long-distance Amtrak routes
posted by chris24 at 11:39 AM on December 18, 2017 [67 favorites]

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., confirmed to The New York Times that he told California Democrat Jackie Speier, who is also on the committee, that the end of the year offered a "natural boundary" for the panel's work.

At least Republican Senators seem to want to have a political future after 2018.

Trey Gowdy needs to get back to wrestling his underworld empire away from Sofia Falcone.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:45 AM on December 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

When Roy Moore and Donald Trump are the face of your party, and defended by your party...

And on that note about the partisan divide over feminism: when I talked about Roy Moore on my social circles online, the immediate Republican clapback I got was--I shit you not--basically #NotAllRepublicans. Because some Republicans, you see, didn't completely support him.

I'm positive this is going to be the talking point of 2018. I am 100% sure this will become a major media narrative, too, replacing the nauseating effort to rehabilitate the image of Trump voters with a nonsensical effort to tell us that people who vote for bigots and child molesters aren't all bad. And the thing is, Republicans are so completely tribalistic and disingenuous they will fully defend this while still voting for literally all Republicans.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:45 AM on December 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

The President's budget request on trains was described thusly: "a nearly 13 percent reduction in transportation spending over fiscal 2017 ... and a $630 million reduction in subsidies for long-distance Amtrak routes."

Exactly. If the train wasn't there in the first place it wouldn't have crashed...
posted by Talez at 11:50 AM on December 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

So Hatch, who was all full of high dudgeon earlier about the smears on Corker - like he was when challenged by Sherrod Brown in the committee hearing - admits he wrote the Corker Kickback, but tried to claim it was in the House bill. It was not.

IBT: Senator Orrin Hatch Says He Wrote Tax Provision That Could Benefit Corker, Other Top Republicans

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, on Monday admitted he crafted a controversial tax provision, which could personally enrich Sen. Bob Corker, House Speaker Paul Ryan, President Donald Trump, and top Republican lawmakers directly overseeing the bill. The provision could additionally benefit the real estate industry — which has been one Hatch’s largest sources of campaign donations.

In his letter explaining the situation, Hatch did not dispute that Corker and other Republicans who have large ownership stakes in real-estate-related LLCs stand to reap a personal windfall from the legislative language he added to the final bill. Instead, Hatch insisted the controversial provision wasn’t new, but was in fact included in the version of the bill passed by the House earlier this month. He wrote that the claim “that a new pass-through proposal was created out of whole cloth and inserted into the conference report is an irresponsible and partisan assertion that is belied by the facts.”

Hatch’s characterization of the provision was disputed by tax experts Monday, who said the Republican senator’s process argument was factually false.

“Chairman Hatch’s letter is an exploration of an alternative tax universe not previously known to science,” Edward Kleinbard, former chief of staff of Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, told IBT.

“[The provision’s] only connection with the House bill is that it rewards owners of capital intensive businesses, like wealthy real estate investors, but the measure of those rewards and the new provision’s design have no relationship to the House bill,” said Kleinbard, currently a law professor at the University of Southern California.

posted by chris24 at 11:52 AM on December 18, 2017 [21 favorites]

Earlier this month, the research firm PerryUndem found that Democratic men were 25 points more likely than Republican women to say sexism remains a “big” or “somewhat” big problem. According to October polling data sorted for me by the Pew Research Center, Democratic men were 31 points more likely than Republican women to say the “country has not gone far enough on women’s rights.”

Hardly surprising. Rush Limbaugh has been decrying feminism the entire time he's been a national figure, and other elements of the conservative media follow his lead.
posted by Gelatin at 11:53 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

who'd want to be beholden to something so demanding and pointless as the public trust or the Constitution, let alone their donors?

Pretty sure they'll go to work for their donors, so they'll still be beholden to them for their wing-nut welfare.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:54 AM on December 18, 2017

> The amount of erroneous denials to this day is insane.

So it worked the way it was supposed to, is what you're saying?
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:54 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Hardly surprising.

I dunno... I'd expect Democratic men to be significantly more likely than Republican men to say that sexism is a big problem. I'm a little surprised that Democratic men are ~30% more likely than Republican women to say these things.

Like, can't Republican women tell when they are being discriminated against? Or... are they ok with it? Or what?
posted by Justinian at 11:56 AM on December 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

Um. NBC News, Ken Dilanian, Julia Ainsley and Carol E. Lee, FBI warned Trump in 2016 Russians would try to infiltrate his campaign

In the weeks after he became the Republican nominee on July 19, 2016, Donald Trump was warned that foreign adversaries, including Russia, would probably try to spy on and infiltrate his campaign, according to multiple government officials familiar with the matter.

The warning came in the form of a high-level counterintelligence briefing by senior FBI officials, the officials said. A similar briefing was given to Hillary Clinton, they added. They said the briefings, which are commonly provided to presidential nominees, were designed to educate the candidates and their top aides about potential threats from foreign spies.

The candidates were urged to alert the FBI about any suspicious overtures to their campaigns, the officials said.
...
By the time of the warning in late July or August, at least seven Trump campaign officials had been in contact with Russians or people linked to Russia, according to public reports. There is no public evidence that the campaign reported any of that to the FBI.

posted by zachlipton at 12:01 PM on December 18, 2017 [61 favorites]

WSJ: In FBI Agent’s Account, ‘Insurance Policy’ Text Referred to Russia Probe: Agent’s text was meant to convey the FBI needed to aggressively investigate allegations of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia

An FBI agent’s reference to “an insurance policy” in a much-debated text message was meant to convey that the bureau needed to aggressively investigate allegations of collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, according to people familiar with his account.

The agent didn’t intend to suggest a secret plan to harm the candidate but rather address a colleague who believed the Federal Bureau of Investigation could take its time because Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was certain to win the election, the people said.

posted by chris24 at 12:02 PM on December 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

After firestorm, CDC director says terms like “science-based” are not banned -- Friday night report set off an uproar, but officials say it was “mischaracterization.” (Beth Mole for Ars Technica, Dec. 18, 2017)

Oh, writers! I'm growing to love you...
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:02 PM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

During Trump's national security speech today he again had to stop for a drink of water. And again had to use two hands.
posted by chris24 at 12:08 PM on December 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

Like, can't Republican women tell when they are being discriminated against? Or... are they ok with it? Or what?

Republican women are much more likely to buy into traditional gender roles and ideas about where a woman's place is and how a "lady" should behave. Especially if they're evangelical Christians.
posted by Fleebnork at 12:09 PM on December 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

Like, can't Republican women tell when they are being discriminated against? Or... are they ok with it? Or what?

Imagine you have grown up and have had 50 years of fire and brimstone drilled into you. Sex is evil. Immodestly dressed girls are asking for it. Once you've had sex you're "used up". Marriage is the ultimate goal and "used up" girls don't get there. If you get pregnant out of wedlock you will lose your entire social circle in one feel swoop because YOU'RE BAD.

Now other women don't only disobey these norms you've had drilled into you, they flaunt it.

So yeah, decades of social indoctrination coupled with the resentment that comes from breaking what you thought were unbreakable rules will do that to people. It's like asking a cult member why they don't realize they're being taken advantage of. IMHO, it's a miracle that we've gotten this far that enough women have broken the once iron clad grip of patriarchal set standards of society and advanced us as a society as far as it has.
posted by Talez at 12:10 PM on December 18, 2017 [37 favorites]

WSJ: In FBI Agent’s Account, ‘Insurance Policy’ Text Referred to Russia Probe: Agent’s text was meant to convey the FBI needed to aggressively investigate allegations of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia

This is why folks need to stop throwing WSJ journalists under the bus. Their opinion pages are clearly complicit (instead of just simply nuts, as is usual), but their news people continue to do good work, sometimes in spite of their editor in chief.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:10 PM on December 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

After firestorm, CDC director says terms like “science-based” are not banned -- Friday night report set off an uproar, but officials say it was “mischaracterization.” (Beth Mole for Ars Technica, Dec. 18, 2017)

Yes, the above quote is from a letter from CDC Director, Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald who has quite the fuzzy past:

While in private practice, Fitzgerald promoted "anti-aging medicines" to her patients, medicines which have been criticized as being unsupported by scientific evidence and potentially dangerous. She has received board certification from the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, though that organization has not been recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties.

In 2011, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal appointed Fitzgerald as Director of the state's Division of Public Health (later Commissioner of the Department of Public Health), which office oversees the state's eighteen health districts and the health departments of the 159 counties. During her tenure as Georgia’s commissioner of public health, the state improved on some measures, such as immunization coverage for teenagers; but in a combined-outcomes assessment, calculated annually for each state, Georgia’s ranking dropped from 37th place in 2011 to 41st 2016. In 2013, Fitzgerald started a $1.2 million statewide school exercise program, "Power Up for 30", with a $1 million donation by The Coca-Cola Company. The Atlanta soft-drink company's donation was part of a broader $3.8 million pledge to the state in Coke's campaign to combat the obesity epidemic with changes to exercise rather than diet.

Mischaracterization, my ass.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:17 PM on December 18, 2017 [20 favorites]

To clarifiy about that train, because I live 5 miles away from there. And I am furious that Trump has used this to further his own shitty agenda of privatization.

Where the derailment happened is not a new track, true. The new track is further north. And it isn't that new. Most, if not all of it, has been in use for years. This was just the first Amtrak Cascades run. The tracks further north are used by Sound Transit's Sounder train, which is a commuter line.

This has shut down the single freeway that directly connects the northern and southern parts of Western WA. There isn't even really a way to get around it on surface roads right there because of the base and general topology. Though it looks like they've opened a way this time (WA state patrol twitter).

I'm sorry if this is inappropriate to post here, but I can't even. He was advocating cutting funding for Amtrak and now he's going to use this to make it all worse.
posted by monopas at 12:17 PM on December 18, 2017 [36 favorites]

Brian Beutler at Crooked Media has a copy of the memo of understanding the Trump transaction team signed with GSA. And guess what...

TRUMP TRANSITION OFFICIALS WAIVED PRIVACY RIGHTS, PER GOVERNMENT MEMO

Counsel representing the remnants of President Donald Trump’s transition team has claimed, in a lengthy, headline-grabbing letter to Congress, that Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller improperly obtained transition emails from the General Services Administration, which the transition contends was not within its rights to hand over thousands of documents preserved on government-owned IT infrastructure.

That claim appears to conflict with the agreement the Trump transition entered with GSA before the election, which contains no obvious prohibition on GSA providing law enforcement officials with transition documents, no provision denoting the documents as being the property of the transition team, and even suggests Trump transition officials waived their privacy rights when they accepted government-furnished laptops and smartphones.

The memorandum of understanding between the GSA and Trump—which I obtained over a year ago, pursuant to an unrelated FOIA request for “[a]ll memoranda of understanding and correspondence between the GSA and the Trump PTT produced after May 6, 2016”—specifically, and with added emphasis, advises the Trump transition that “Office of the President-elect staff members will be required to individually sign and accept [government furnished] laptop and Smartphone while accepting IT Rules of Behavior to safeguard the assets and the integrity of the network infrastructure.”

Those rules of behavior include a privacy waiver, which notes that, “Users have no expectation of privacy on GSA IT resources since all activities are subject to monitoring.”

posted by chris24 at 12:18 PM on December 18, 2017 [74 favorites]

Article from Vox by Emily Crockett, written in the aftermath of the 2016 election. It talks a great deal about hostile and benevolent sexism:

Benevolent sexism is the carrot, Glick explained, and hostile sexism is the stick. If you’re a “good” woman who meets expected gender norms — who has warm feminine charms, who maintains strict beauty standards, whose ambitions are focused on home and hearth — you will be rewarded with affection, protection, and praise. But step outside those norms, and you risk being labeled as one of the “bad” girls who are abused and scorned only because they deserve it.

Republican women tend to hold benevolent sexist attitudes about both women and men. Women are "wonderful" - kind, loving - but "weak" - needing male protection. Men are "bad" - aggressive, bad-tempered, promiscuous - but also "bold" - competent, intelligent, and daring. Those who step out of these roles - icky Democrats and liberals - are deserving of contempt. Naturally, right-wingers lap up ev-psych theories like bears eat honey.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 12:22 PM on December 18, 2017 [37 favorites]

More creeping denialism. Beatrice Dupuy, Newsweek: Holocaust left off South Carolina schools' teaching curriculum

School officials attempting to calm the public said the genocide—during which more than 6 million Jewish people were killed—will be referenced in the final version of the standards. They said it was omitted from the original draft because department officials wanted to “broaden education standards,” according to The State.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:32 PM on December 18, 2017 [25 favorites]

During Trump's national security speech today he again had to stop for a drink of water. And again had to use two hands.

This is not a sign of good health. Not looking too good these days.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:39 PM on December 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

IBT: Senator Orrin Hatch Says He Wrote Tax Provision That Could Benefit Corker, Other Top Republicans

This still doesn't add up. Corker alleges he had no knowledge of the Corker Kickback...but has offered no other explanation for changing his vote. The bill did nothing to address his stated concern of not increasing the deficit in conference, but "magically" Hatch knew to insert exactly the right language that would result in millions of tax savings to Corker, without Corker's knowledge...yet Corker changed his vote without knowing he would gain millions?

What?
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:42 PM on December 18, 2017 [51 favorites]

I’ve seen enough of that to know that often Republican women’s affinity for the GOP isn’t only due to its embrace of traditional gender roles. Whatever else their sexual acculturation may be, some Republican women — and I’ve had occasion to get to know and work closely with many — are also simply racist, homophobic and xenophobic.
posted by darkstar at 12:45 PM on December 18, 2017 [55 favorites]

WP: Charlottesville police chief resigns after criticism of department’s handling of white-supremacist rally
posted by Chrysostom at 12:56 PM on December 18, 2017 [52 favorites]

While the administration collapses under the weight of its own cartoonish stupidity and corruption, the drumbeat for war with Iran continues apace:

Business Insider: US to present 'irrefutable evidence' that Iran violated the nuclear deal

Politico: The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook

al-Monitor: Trump national security strategy doubles down on Iran

It's very cool to be sold the same bill of goods, but with a single letter changed, twice in my lifetime.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:02 PM on December 18, 2017 [40 favorites]

Business Insider: US to present 'irrefutable evidence' that Iran violated the nuclear deal

Nikki Haley presented this "evidence" last Thursday. The Times, home of Judith Miller beating the drum to the Iraq war, was unimpressed.

NYT: U.S. Accuses Iran of U.N. Violation, but Evidence Falls Short

The Trump administration tried to mount a case on Thursday that Iran violated an international agreement to limit its arms dealing, but American officials failed to show how an array of weaponry presented as evidence proved the charges.

Nikki R. Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, accused Iran of providing weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen who toppled the government in Sana, throwing the country into chaos and setting off a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. [...]

But the evidence she showcased at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling — four weapons provided to the American government by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — fell short of proving her claims.

Defense officials said they could not say exactly when the weapons — the Qiam missiles and an anti-tank missile and a drone that were both recovered in Yemen — were given to the Houthis, which means that they could have been transferred before the Security Council resolution was enacted. And in some cases, the officials said that they could not say when the weapons were used.

Defense officials were also unable to say exactly where or when the drone, a broken Qasef-1, was found. It was evidently turned over without its warhead or guidance system.

Additionally, none of the weapons displayed were capable of delivering nuclear warheads, said Jeffrey Lewis, an analyst at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif.

posted by chris24 at 1:15 PM on December 18, 2017 [21 favorites]

While the administration collapses under the weight of its own cartoonish stupidity and corruption, the drumbeat for war with Iran continues apace:

Iraq population 37.2 million (2016)
Iran population 80.28 million (2016)

How the hell do you think this is gonna play out, supposed reasonable members of the administration?
Also what happens if you lose Congress in 2018 and they vote against an authorization of military force? You really want to be standing there with your dick in your hand?
And Iran is a Russian ally, you really want to get into a ground war with the Russians on the other side?

It's very cool to be sold the same bill of goods, but with a single letter changed, twice in my lifetime.

I see them selling, but I don't see anybody buying.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:26 PM on December 18, 2017 [12 favorites]

As with the tax bill, it doesn't matter if their ideas poll at 0.0000006% support as long as that support comes from the Republican members of Congress.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:35 PM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

I see them selling, but I don't see anybody buying.

Remember when the administration launched missiles at an empty Syrian airfield and a grown man on MSNBC quoted "First We Take Manhattan" to express his marvel at the beauty of the scene? Maybe no one's buying today because the salesman is so inept, but if so, it's only because of that ineptitude. The Iran Deal and rapprochement with Iran more generally enjoy a high degree of internal opposition, and it isn't as though Americans love the explicitly anti-American theocracy any more than they love the one that starves Yemen to death.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:36 PM on December 18, 2017 [15 favorites]

"Imagine you have grown up and have had 50 years of fire and brimstone drilled into you. Sex is evil. Immodestly dressed girls are asking for it. Once you've had sex you're "used up". Marriage is the ultimate goal and "used up" girls don't get there. If you get pregnant out of wedlock you will lose your entire social circle in one feel swoop because YOU'RE BAD. ... So yeah, decades of social indoctrination coupled with the resentment that comes from breaking what you thought were unbreakable rules will do that to people. "

One quibble -- extramarital sex, premarital sex, teen pregnancy, divorce, are all much higher in conservative evangelical communities than in liberal communities (of any faith). It doesn't lead to losing your social circle or any social ostracism because HALF THE WOMEN YOU KNOW got pregnant as teenagers, and you've got all these thrice-divorced pastors preaching the sanctity of marriage. And, conveniently, the sin-and-repent-to-be-truly-saved narrative lets them off the hook.

If anything, it pisses them off more that kids in the liberal hellscape of Taxachusetts get comprehensive sex ed and learn ALL ABOUT PENISES AND VAGINAS and even that PREMARITAL SEX IS OKAY AND EVEN FEELS GOOD IF YOU ARE EMOTIONALLY READY and then ... put off having sex much longer than their own sheltered Christian darlings.

There's a reason evangelicals are so obsessed with the morality of sex, and that reason is their communities have enormous problems with it, but they are unable to admit that their infallible moral teaching has failed at its top goal.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:58 PM on December 18, 2017 [121 favorites]

In today's episode of Let's Let A Republican Normalize GOP Actions on NPR: Steve Inskeep talks to Jonah Goldberg, conservative columnist and National Review online editor, who breaks down the latest implications of the GOP tax legislation and the Russia investigation, in which

* the Russia investigation is likened to Bill Clinton's investigation under Ken Starr, and Goldberg manages to criticize Mueller with some of the GOP talking points:

The Clinton team perfected the art of slandering, of demeaning, demoralizing and attacking a special prosecutor on the principle of, if you don't have the facts, shoot the messenger kind of thing. And it seems to be the exact same strategy here.
...
I do think that there is legitimate reason to criticize Mueller for some of his hirings. He's done the right thing after finding out about some of these stories. But it seems a little politically naive, the way he set this thing up.

* Inskeep praises Trump's likely pending "big win" with the tax bill, and Goldberg shrugs at to what it's all about:

I think there's been some bad reporting about how the middle class is going to have their taxes raised. I don't think that's true. I think the corporate side is a good idea and will actually have some serious pro-growth consequences.

But ultimately, I think this is a lot like Obamacare. The Republicans are making a ideologically grounded bet on the results of a piece of legislation they don't fully understand and that they passed in an ugly way, very much...
...
And is very hard to explain to the public - very much like Obamacare. You know, they did it on a on a partisan basis. And the results of that bet didn't pay off great for Democrats with Obamacare. The results of this may or may not pay off well for Republicans. But anyone who can guarantee they know what the results of all of this is going to be - I think - is fooling themselves or somebody else.

Except the Affordable Care Act gained majority approval in April 2017, up from 42% in Nov. 16, compared to 64 percent of respondents oppose the nebulous tax bill -- While 72 percent of Republicans support the GOP’s tax reform efforts, 89 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of independents oppose it. And I doubt it's going to get better as we learn it was tweaked to benefit Republican congressmen.

* And then Goldberg talks about inequality (he's not bothered by it, but it is a problem), then kind of implies it's up to businesses to fix that inequality, not the government:

I've never been all that plagued by inequality. What bothers me is a lack of social mobility. It doesn't bother me when some people get much richer than other people. And part of the assumption of the question assumes that that money that is going to people in terms of tax breaks starts out as the government's money. I don't see that - you hear all the time this is a giveaway to rich people. It was the - the money originated from the people. It doesn't originate from the government.

I do think inequality is a problem. I'm not sure it is in the government's realm of expertise to do as much about it as a lot of people think.

INSKEEP: Although something like the estate tax, at least, makes sure that the same family doesn't stay so wealthy for generation after generation after generation.

GOLDBERG: Yeah. But, I mean, if you look at the way in which rich families become poorer families over time, it happens organically through capitalism already.

INSKEEP: OK.

No, this is NOT OK. None of that was!

Shouting at NPR, round two: Rep. Harris: Tax Plan Is A Good Compromise Of House, Senate Measures, in which:

* Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland is asked not "what was the hardest part of reconciling two versions of a bill that seemed so different so quickly" but instead "Anything in this last final version surprise you?" His reply:

No, you know, it was a compromise between the House and Senate versions. Both versions were good for the economy. The compromise, it's a good compromise, it'll deliver the votes we need to deliver tax reform.

Which sounds like a kid who didn't get beyond reading the introduction to a book, like A Tale of Two Cities, and says "there were two kinds of times. People were smart, but others weren't. Yeah."

* And then he counters the numerous evaluations that claim "the bulk of the direct relief will be for the wealthy and corporations" as said by Inskeep by defining a business:

I mean, the facts are simple. When you make it easier for American companies and small and family-run businesses to be competitive in a global economy, we will prevail. Our economy will improve. So I don't think it's a riverboat gamble. I think that all the projections - and with regards to the bulk of this going to corporations and wealthy individuals, you know, small and family-owned businesses gain because of the cuts to what are called the pass-through corporations. So, yeah, if you lump them in with, you know, the large corporations, then a lot of this benefit goes to people who hire other people because in the end, that's what business is.

It's an entity that hires other people, provides jobs for Americans. And I think this is the way you revive a stagnant economy.

Huh, people work for businesses? Ya don't say. Anyway, the promises for major investments with tax breaks and cuts is bullshit.

And a fun fact, from Jonah Goldberg: back in 2005, Putin thought that GWB fired Dan Rathers, but in that article I weep for our country, in that George W. Bush reminded Putin that democracies require a free press, which is where we get this:

the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. 'Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather,' says a senior Administration official. 'It was like something out of 1984.'

Trump might or might not have a better comprehension of the power of his position than Putin did, I'm not sure.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:59 PM on December 18, 2017 [31 favorites]

If you haven't taken a look at the crosstabs on that NBC/WSJ poll, you should.

Dems up 10 points on intensity. Dems winning women by 20 points. Dems winning under 35 by *48* points.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:09 PM on December 18, 2017 [44 favorites]

Susan Collins announced on the floor she'll vote for the tax bill (in exchange for absolutely nothing, just before she announced her support, Conyers wouldn't even promise adding any of her proposed health care measures to a funding bill).

They're talking about having both the House and Senate vote on it tomorrow so they can party with Trump on Wednesday.
posted by zachlipton at 2:14 PM on December 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. [emphasis mine]

The economy and inequality are certainly not the only measures of "the general welfare" but they are sure as hell included in that group. It's expressly the federal government's job to take actions that will inhibit income inequality and social mobility (I think these are both basically the same problem). It's so important, in fact, that the founders put it right the beginning!
posted by VTX at 2:14 PM on December 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

Collins is a yes as of today? did someone already post that?

CNN

Sen. Susan Collins: She formally announced she would vote for the plan Monday afternoon. She also released a statement touting her own "major wins" shortly after the bill was released Friday. All of the deals she made with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made it into the final bill. The big outstanding questions are the deals she made with McConnell outside of the tax bill -- those related to health care provisions in a year-end spending deal. As of this moment, according to several sources, that deal still stands.

posted by cybertaur1 at 2:15 PM on December 18, 2017

These goddamn immoral greedy assholes are going to pass this fucking thing tomorrow. I'm seething.
posted by yoga at 2:17 PM on December 18, 2017 [16 favorites]

Every bit of goodwill Collins earned for her repeal vote should be thrown back in her face.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:30 PM on December 18, 2017 [37 favorites]

In today's episode of Let's Let A Republican Normalize GOP Actions on NPR: Steve Inskeep talks to Jonah Goldberg,

inskeep really is the worst. can we replace him with a woman of color or something?

the *only* reason i listen to npr is because i need a nice, routine, familiar soundtrack to ease into my day in the mornings. something that is interesting, yet not too challenging (because who needs that before their third cup of coffee?), not too strident, and something that doesn't insult my intelligence

unfortunately, morning edition has been failing big time on that last metric for a long time now
posted by entropicamericana at 2:32 PM on December 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

promote the general Welfare

The Republican Reality Distortion Field generates the canned response, "They didn't mean people's welfare, they "generally"", but rather the 18 enumerated powers of Article I, Section 8 + the 10th Amendment means everything not explicitly delegated is reserved. Note, that sending "Well-regulated militia" returns an opposing viewpoint.
posted by mikelieman at 2:32 PM on December 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Susan Collins announced on the floor she'll vote for the tax bill (in exchange for absolutely nothing...)

I might hate the "moderate" Republicans most of all. At least the other Republicans spare us the moral preening and own their vileness from the start.
posted by diogenes at 2:32 PM on December 18, 2017 [30 favorites]

Iraq population 37.2 million (2016)
Iran population 80.28 million (2016)

For more fun, how about:

Iraq area: 168,754 mi²
Iran area: 636,400 mi²

And those square miles tend to be mountainous, very hard to navigate, traverse, and monitor. It would be like invading seven Utahs, if those Utahs maintained half a million under arms, kept another 300,000 in reserve, and had annual military expenditures in excess of $10 billion. And if those Utahs had paid close attention to two recent clinics on how to conduct asymmetric warfare against the US military. And if the Utahs were bounded by several extremely volatile nations.

It would be a horrific campaign even if you had a decent casus belli and clear war aims, so of course we're cheerfully gearing up to break a treaty and galumph our way into hell because Trump resents his predecessor and wants to impress Saudi Arabia and Brian Williams.
posted by Iridic at 2:33 PM on December 18, 2017 [31 favorites]

I've never been all that plagued by inequality. What bothers me is a lack of social mobility. It doesn't bother me when some people get much richer than other people.

This illustrates my oft-repeated caution that using the phrases "income inequality" or "wealth inequality" muddies the water unnecessarily. Most Americans accept that there will be inequality in these two things regardless of our economic system, but especially if there is a large capitalist component to it. What most of us object to is inequity: when the rewards of labor are not equitably distributed according the value of that labor. That ordinary workers' compensation has deteriorated while the upper 0.1% have seen their incomes and wealth soar in direct proportion the national economic output is what we need to focus on. The good-faith confusion that may arise from the sloppy application of the word inequality and the bad-faith use of the confusion by those who want to avoid an honest discussion, as illustrated here, can be blunted by substituting inequity for inequality.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:41 PM on December 18, 2017 [11 favorites]

Rumor has it that Flake has not committed to the bill yet, so if you’re from AZ it might still be worthwhile to overload his voicemail system.
posted by murphy slaw at 2:42 PM on December 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

I can only wonder, at what point the "elephant in the room" here is going to be addressed as the issue it is by the general population.

Simply put, Donald J. Trump is mentally incompetent to hold office due to his advancing senility, either Alzheimer's, Lewis Body Dementia, or a combination -- and he needs an immediate evaluation to assess (1) Is he competent to hold office (2) the extent of his impairment and (3) what treatment he needs to maintain a decent quality of life.
posted by mikelieman at 2:44 PM on December 18, 2017 [28 favorites]

"They didn't mean people's welfare, they "generally"", but rather the 18 enumerated powers of Article I, Section 8 + the 10th Amendment means everything not explicitly delegated is reserved.

It's not just the preamble that covers the general welfare. Article I, Section 8 also specifically provides for the general welfare. And since it's listed with common Defense, the argument that "of the United States" doesn't mean the welfare of the American people would require them to argue that common defense is only for defending land or things, not protecting the American people.

Section 8
1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.
posted by chris24 at 2:46 PM on December 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

FBI warned Trump in 2016 Russians would try to infiltrate his campaign

Wasn't that the meeting where Flynn went apeshit and Christie had to get him back in his crate with a broom?

By George, I think it was!

Again, 2016 rolling by again, slowly, with citations this time.
posted by petebest at 2:47 PM on December 18, 2017 [43 favorites]

It's not just the preamble that covers the general welfare. Article I, Section 8 also specifically provides for the general welfare. And since it's listed with common Defense, the argument that they don't mean the welfare of the American people requires them to argue that common defense is for only for defending land or things, not the American people.

That's another one of those "rational" arguments. One thing I've learned, these guys are "Faith-based" about everything and that they're going to understand logic the way a dog can be taught differential calculus. "Cognitive Framing" is what I recall the scientists calling it. In their "Cognitive Frame", life begins at conception, and planned parenthood kills babies. Trying to discuss things like "The traditional Jewish belief in Ensoulment" and "Blastocyst Twinning" will get 90% of them to just go, "You're crazy..." and disengage, and maybe one of 10 will be able to stick with the discussion, but being logical people, not be able to refute the points you made. ( Why should Christian belief in Ensoulment be made law, even if it denies Jewish belief, and some see it as anti-Semitic )

tl;dr: Don't expect logic from faith-based positions. Also, faith is a dumb place to make policy from.
posted by mikelieman at 2:51 PM on December 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Any "doctor" Trump gets to perform an evaluation will report that Trump is the healthiest politician in the history of politics and will claim at the press conference that he dunked a basketball just for fun before going for a friendly jog with Usain Bolt.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:53 PM on December 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

/me ponders if there's a mechanism for one (or many, many more) citizens to directly sue the Executive Branch demanding a test of fitness for office and/or some kind of general "no confidence" lawsuit. Not asking for impeachment directly, mind, but just directly addressing the fitness for office issue.

Since this is the US you can presumably file suit in the appropriate court for nearly anything if you have enough money and lawyers to throw at it, and the court and judge doesn't reject the case out of hand for being ridiculous.

I know the Federal Government itself has been the defendant in thousands of cases, but is it possible to directly file suit against just the Executive Branch, or just POTUS?

And, well, if I wasn't on a list before I am now. Note to makers of lists: I have no money, and I'm far too much of a pain in the ass to keep in Guantanamo.
posted by loquacious at 2:54 PM on December 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 House:

-- NYT: Dems threatening to take suburbs from the GOP.

-- Ballotpedia released their initial list of 23 battleground districts (fyi, Dems need to flip at least 24 seats to take control). They note separately that they are working on predictions of anywhere between half of the GOP 2010 gains (i.e., 31 seats) to double that wave (i.e., 126 seats).

-- Stepping back a bit - most, but not all, signs are pointing to major Dem gains. On the negative side, districts are massively gerrymandered. And traditionally, Dem turnout has been down in midterms.

On the positive side:

-- Trump approval is terrible - 37.2/56.8 in the 538 average - and drifting worse. Among Republicans he is at 77% (sub 80% is considered to be very dangerous).

-- Dems are very high on the generic ballot - up 48.7/37.6 in the 538 generic average. There is disagreement over what the generic lead needs to be to flip control in light of gerrymandering, but the consensus seems to be about +8.

-- Dems have significantly overperformed expected results in Congressional special elections, as well as in state legislative specials.

-- GOP retirements have outpaced Dem retirements, and more are considered likely in the new year.

-- Dems have raised four times more than GOP candidates. They're also doing much better on small dollar donations, considered to be a gauge of base enthusiasm.

-- There's a lot of litigation going on about redistricting, at both the state and federal level. There's reason to be optimistic that at least the worst excesses might be curbed.

-- Reuben Kihuen will not be running for re-election in NV-04 in the wake of sexual harassment charges. The district is narrowly Dem (Clinton 50-45, Obama 54-44).

** 2018 Senate:

-- GOP still struggling to land a big name for the ND Senate race, despite Trump having won big there.

-- Hatch still hasn't decided to whether to run for UT seat again, will decide early next year.

-- Not to be ghoulish, but we have to consider that there's a decent chance that the McCain seat will be opening up in 2018. And the AZ election statute doesn't say at what point in the year the next election for the appointee would switch from 2018 to 2020. This might end up in the courts if the seat was filled in, say, June, and they tried to have the appointee serve for more than two years.

** Odds & ends:

-- State-level trial in PA about gerrymandering wrapped up testimony last week. The plaintiffs (anti-gerrymander) seemed to have done well, here is an insanely long write-up. Should have a judgment by end of month.

-- NJ state Sen plans to introduce legislation to extend voting rights former felons, as well as to currently incarcerated criminals. Only two states currently allow prisoners to vote.

-- Effort to put an initiative on the 2018 ballot to restore voting rights to felons in Florida is still shy of required numbers, although supporters think they are on track once they work through the backlog. Florida disenfranchises an enormous number of citizens, please sign the petition if you are a resident.

-- MI drive for a non-partisan redistricting ballot initiative looks like it is well over the required number of signatures.

===

Three special elections tomorrow: FL HD-58, TN SD-17, MS SD-49.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:56 PM on December 18, 2017 [52 favorites]

I can only wonder, at what point the "elephant in the room" here is going to be addressed as the issue it is by the general population.

I don't know what the tipping point is but we're clearly not there. To me, it seems like everywhere I look on the internet people are observing his cognitive problems, his inability to do basic physical things, the growing gap between himself and reality, but everyone is acting like everything is normal in Home Depot.

I don't know what I imagined this would look like, but 'stomach churning terror while buying a bathroom light fixture' was not it.

At this point, it seems like national politeness. Like when a house guest is drunk but hasn't clearly yet passed the point where someone has to intervene--you suspect they're really drunk, but it's just the shiny, active eyes. There is nothing to point to that can't be explained away. They stand up and pee themselves or fall into a table, and that's where it becomes undeniable.

I genuinely think he needs to pee himself before it's acknowledged as a shared public truth.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:02 PM on December 18, 2017 [40 favorites]

Simply put, Donald J. Trump is mentally incompetent to hold office due to his advancing senility, either Alzheimer's, Lewis Body Dementia, or a combination -- and he needs an immediate evaluation to assess (1) Is he competent to hold office (2) the extent of his impairment and (3) what treatment he needs to maintain a decent quality of life.

CNN Trump Will Undergo a Physical and Release Details Early Next Year: "Trump will be examined by a doctor at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in 'the first part of next year,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday [December 7]. 'Those records will be released following that taking place,' she added."

i.e. the Trumpists and Rump Republicans are going to kick this can down the road for as long as possible before they have to 25th Amendment Donald.
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:02 PM on December 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

loquacious: "/me ponders if there's a mechanism for one (or many, many more) citizens to directly sue the Executive Branch demanding a test of fitness for office and/or some kind of general "no confidence" lawsuit. Not asking for impeachment directly, mind, but just directly addressing the fitness for office issue. "

The founders wrote a whole thing about it.
posted by TypographicalError at 3:05 PM on December 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

-- There's a lot of litigation going on about redistricting, at both the state and federal level. There's reason to be optimistic that at least the worst excesses might be curbed.

Not on the linked list, but from earlier today:

Michigan Gerrymandering Reform Hits A Major Milestone

A Michigan grassroots group says it has gathered enough petition signatures to put a measure on the 2018 ballot that would allow voters to choose whether to amend the state constitution to create an independent redistricting commission.

The group, called Voters Not Politicians, plans to turn in more than 425,000 signatures to the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office on Monday to begin the verification process. The group needs at least 315,654 valid signatures to get the measure on the ballot. The campaign and petition collection effort was run completely by volunteers, though the group has recently brought on paid public relations, fundraising and legal assistance.

An independent redistricting commission could have significant consequences in Michigan, which the Brennan Center for Justice describes as one of the most severely gerrymandered states in the country. Following the 2010 census, Michigan Republicans controlled the redistricting process and drew the lines in such a way that gave Republicans an advantage of two to three additional seats in Congress, according to the Brennan Center’s analysis.

The ballot initiative aims to make the redistricting process more fair by amending the Michigan Constitution to create a 13-member redistricting commission with four Democrats, four Republicans and five independents. The commission would be required to hold at least 10 public hearings as part of the redistricting process.

posted by chris24 at 3:09 PM on December 18, 2017 [22 favorites]

@CNN
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: Vladimir Putin "knows how to handle an asset and that's what he's doing with the President"
VIDEO

@RVAwonk
Retweeted CNN
The former Director of National Intelligence is now on the record calling Trump an asset of Russian intelligence. Unprecedented.

---

And speaking of Trump and Russia...

@jimsciutto
Retweeted The Lead CNN
These key words from the written NatSec strategy - "Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies." - did not make it into Trump's speech.

@TheLeadCNN: WH document calls out Russian meddling, Trump does not http://cnn.it/2B9YVkP @jeffzeleny reports #TheLead @jimsciutto

posted by chris24 at 3:13 PM on December 18, 2017 [72 favorites]

"Trump will be examined by a doctor at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in 'the first part of next year,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday [December 7]. 'Those records will be released following that taking place,' she added."

"Mr. Trump is [...] health[y]. He has [...] peripheral arteries. We detected...no...septum damage...elevated lead levels...or...significant prion protein accumulation. [...] We urge in the strongest possible terms that he [...] eliminate any and all...cardiovascular exercise."
posted by Iridic at 3:19 PM on December 18, 2017 [99 favorites]

I can only wonder, at what point the "elephant in the room" here is going to be addressed as the issue it is by the general population.

This timeline is so bad that the "elephant in the room" isn't (only) that the president is a Russian asset.
posted by diogenes at 3:23 PM on December 18, 2017 [18 favorites]

Not on the linked list, but from earlier today:

Yeah, I listed the MI and FL ballot initiatives separately, since they aren't litigation proper. Could also be a big help beyond 2018, though not next year.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:24 PM on December 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Ah sorry. Was looking in wrong section.
posted by chris24 at 3:29 PM on December 18, 2017

AP: White House temporarily removes petition tool

The White House is temporarily removing a petition tool from its website after 11 months of silence, promising to respond to public concerns next year. The Trump administration said the platform, used extensively by critics and less frequently by allies, will be removed at midnight Tuesday and return in late January as a new site.

Temporarily, sure. "In late January" is the new "in two weeks."
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:44 PM on December 18, 2017 [45 favorites]

Lydia Wheeler, The Hill: USDA withdrawing regulations for organic certification that would require poultry to be "housed in spaces that are big enough for the birds to move freely, stretch their wings, stand normally and engage in natural behaviors" and for livestock to be "provided access to an outdoor space year-round and be kept in indoor pens that are sufficiently large, solidly built and comfortable so that the animals are kept clean, dry and free of lesions."

Speaking as an organic producer: buy your meat, eggs and dairy from a local farm with known good practices, if you care about animal welfare. An "Organic" label on animal products does not and will not mean that the hens can stretch their wings or that the cows are humanely treated and lesionless.
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:11 PM on December 18, 2017 [68 favorites]

Not to be ghoulish, but we have to consider that there's a decent chance that the McCain seat will be opening up in 2018.

Glioblastoma does not fuck around, it's not ghoulish to say so, it's pretty much certain he doesn't have much time left. Making plans for that contingency is not the same as wanting him to die.

Meanwhile, I need an app that tweets Ted Cruz every time I make a donation to Beto O'Rourke, and that tweets Cruz, Cornyn and my useless Rep. Kay Granger every time I make a donation to the Democrats in general.

This illustrates my oft-repeated caution that using the phrases "income inequality" or "wealth inequality" muddies the water unnecessarily. Most Americans accept that there will be inequality in these two things regardless of our economic system, but especially if there is a large capitalist component to it. What most of us object to is inequity: when the rewards of labor are not equitably distributed according the value of that labor.

We need something grabby like "wage theft"; maybe "chronic underpayment" or something else that gets across the fact that workers are not getting the higher wages they've earned because the c-suite is soaking up all the profits.
posted by emjaybee at 4:20 PM on December 18, 2017 [23 favorites]

Cornyn suggests it’s Dems’ fault the GOP tax plan isn’t ‘better’

But it’s even more bizarre that Cornyn is blaming Democrats for the bill’s shortcomings. Indeed, when George Stephanopoulos asked why it was necessary to add this controversial provision in the final package, the Texas Republican again said, “Well, we were working very hard. It was a very intense process. As I said, the Democrats refused to participate.”

Moments later, in the same interview, Cornyn once again insisted, “As I said, our Democratic colleagues had every chance to participate and simply refused.”

It’s almost as if the Senate Majority Whip appeared on the show because he wanted to push a single talking point, even if that meant ignoring important questions.

Cornyn’s evasiveness was its own problem, but making matters worse was the fact that his talking point was demonstrably silly.

The Republican tax plan was written in secret by Republicans. Democrats weren’t invited to participate in negotiations, though they were desperate to have some input.

posted by zakur at 4:30 PM on December 18, 2017 [40 favorites]

I am not sure that it's in their best interest to point out that Democrats are in no way to blame for a terrible piece of legislation that is wildly unpopular?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:32 PM on December 18, 2017 [36 favorites]

Suggesting that your signature tax bill would have been better if the other party had written it is one strategy, I suppose.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:33 PM on December 18, 2017 [72 favorites]

This is making me do a happy Snoopy dance: The Senate’s Russia Investigation Is Now Looking Into Jill Stein

I'm also pleased that the authorities are investigating a totally marginal left-wing candidate whose collusion with Russia, if real, must be laughable on either side of the deal: on one end, an opportunist who divorced her party from the working class of color and from sub-presidential races, to little appreciable benefit to that party; and on the other, a fiendish FSB officer in a snowbound, onion-domed bunker who thinks the candidate of crystal healers and nudist organic farmers is their ticket to a less hostile American foreign policy. And I'm doing the Oppa Gangnam Style dance.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:03 PM on December 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Public Opinion Strategies - a GOP polling outfit - finds:

* Tax bill support underwater 40-49
* Tax bill support in GOP-held districts 47-42
* Dems up +12 in the generic ballot 49-37

Keep in mind that +5 in GOP districts means that in many of those districts, support is probably negative.

FWIW, check out this projected distribution of Dem wins from (very much Republican) RealClearPolitics.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:06 PM on December 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

FWIW, check out this projected distribution of Dem wins from (very much Republican) RealClearPolitics.

What does this mean? #notastatistician
posted by rhizome at 5:14 PM on December 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

it means a democratic majority in the house under nearly every one of their simulations
posted by murphy slaw at 5:26 PM on December 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Right. The point being - RCP guy's expected ranges of outcomes is at minimum for Dems to barely take the house. Most of their outcomes are more like 20 seats over that.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:26 PM on December 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

So surprised that the tax cuts will go into investor pockets and not new jobs.

CNN: Why Wells Fargo could be one of tax reform's big winners

What will financial institutions do with all that new found cash?

Many banks have signaled their intention to return more money to shareholders.

At an investor presentation earlier this month, when asked about how regulatory rollbacks might impact those plans, Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said higher returns for investors were in the cards.

"Is it our goal to increase return to our shareholders and do we have an excess amount of capital? The answer to both is, yes," Sloan said. "So our expectation should be that we will continue to increase our dividend and our share buybacks next year and the year after that and the year after that."

The bank has cut employees this year at its Charlotte, North Carolina, headquarters and at a Pennsylvania call center.

posted by chris24 at 6:01 PM on December 18, 2017 [20 favorites]

I thought this evening was feeling too quiet. WaPo, Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey and Robert Barnes, Trump talked about rescinding Gorsuch’s nomination

But earlier this year, Trump talked about rescinding Gorsuch’s nomination, venting angrily to advisers after his Supreme Court pick was critical of the president’s escalating attacks on the federal judiciary in private meetings with legislators.

Trump, according to several people with knowledge of the discussions, was upset that Gorsuch had pointedly distanced himself from the president in a private February meeting with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), telling the senator he found Trump’s repeated attacks on the federal judiciary “disheartening” and “demoralizing.”

The president worried that Gorsuch would not be “loyal,” one of the people said, and told aides that he was tempted to pull Gorsuch’s nomination — and that he knew plenty of other judges who would want the job.
...
In a meeting with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Trump attacked the judge in sharp terms, surprising his fellow Republicans.

“He’s probably going to end up being a liberal like the rest of them,” Trump told the Republican leaders, according to a person with knowledge of the comments. “You never know with these guys.”

Gorsuch sent Trump a rather effusive thank you note to soften him up after this.
posted by zachlipton at 6:03 PM on December 18, 2017 [25 favorites]

Gorsuch sent Trump a rather effusive thank you note to soften him up after this.

It's dignity wraiths all the way down.
posted by chaoticgood at 6:17 PM on December 18, 2017 [37 favorites]

If only you knew someone who could do something about this, you fucking ghoul.

@SenateMajLdr
Congress must renew funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program so the parents of the nine million children who are covered by CHIP can know their children’s health care is secure.
posted by chris24 at 6:18 PM on December 18, 2017 [48 favorites]

Washington Post: Trump Team’s Meeting With Mueller’s Office Poised To Ratchet Up Tensions

Team Trump is signalling through leaks to the press what they're hoping to get out of the meeting, even if other D.C. insiders are skeptical:

White House lawyers are expected to meet with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s office late this week seeking good news: that his sprawling investigation’s focus on President Trump will soon end and their client will be cleared.

But people familiar with the probe say that such assurances are unlikely and that the meeting could trigger a new, more contentious phase between the special counsel and a frustrated president, according to administration officials and advisers close to Trump.

People with knowledge of the investigation said it could last at least another year — pointing to ongoing cooperation from witnesses such as former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, as well as a possible trial of two former Trump campaign officials.[...]

In the meeting this week, [Trump's lawyers] plan to ask Mueller’s investigators if they need more information before reaching a conclusion that the probe as related to Trump is complete, according to a person familiar with the Trump team’s plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

The question that White House lawyers will pose to the special counsel’s office, according to the person: “You’ve had all these witnesses, all these records. Is there anything else you need from the White House?”

While Trump's lawyers continue to blow shineshine, Trump himself sounds like he's either feeling very brave or detached from reality:

When pressed by two advisers to take the matter more seriously and asked why he is so confident in his lawyers, Trump brushed off the concerns. “He is living in his own world,” the person said, predicting that Trump would erupt at some point in 2018 if the probe continued to drag on.

Another associate said that even in private, Trump is “confident, even arrogant” that he has done nothing wrong.[....]

A White House adviser said the president has enjoyed the attacks [on Mueller's team]. In recent weeks, he has spoken to a number of Fox News hosts, Republican lawmakers and others who have castigated Mueller’s team, the adviser said.

If Team Trump called for this meeting, then they're attempting to set up Mueller to be fired, directly or indirectly. If Mueller did, then they're whistling past the graveyard.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:23 PM on December 18, 2017 [19 favorites]

Meanwhile, I need an app that tweets Ted Cruz every time I make a donation to Beto O'Rourke, and that tweets Cruz, Cornyn and my useless Rep. Kay Granger every time I make a donation to the Democrats in general.

Guys I’m drunk and by a beautiful beach and I don’t even get to vote in US elections but since my contributions to these threads is “shit I would do if I could make websites”, let me point out that this needs to happen. An online tool that you point at a tweet and donate to whatever leftwing / democratic cause and after a certain threshold, like every $100, tweets “Congratulations! This tweet caused $X in donations against you”.

There’s already a bot that congratulates you for being liked or something from my vague memory of being on twitter long ago, and this would surely be more useful in causing republican politicians to think about the consequences of their lies, or at least to simply STFU. Let’s do this!
posted by chappell, ambrose at 6:26 PM on December 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

Glioblastoma does not fuck around, it's not ghoulish to say so, it's pretty much certain he doesn't have much time left. Making plans for that contingency is not the same as wanting him to die.

I agree completely, but there is a deeply entrenched cultural practice where people think, perish the thought, we can't think of, or God forbid speak of, the reality of a terminal illness that isn't going to be "beat" by "fighting".
posted by thelonius at 6:30 PM on December 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

Meanwhile, Bloomberg's Billy House reports, House Trump-Russia Probe Shouldn’t ‘Drag’ Out, Says Republican

The Republican leading the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation said Monday there’s no reason to “drag" the inquiry out much longer and that Americans need some answers.

But Representative Michael Conaway of Texas wouldn’t comment on Democrats’ contention that the GOP is trying to wrap up the probe by the end of the year.[...] Conaway acknowledged that committee staffers have begun drafting parts of the final report. Republicans and Democrats are expected to offer competing conclusions when the probe is shuttered.[...]

Conaway also said Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s own investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. election "could run on for years. [...] That’s up to Mueller and those guys to find out. I’ve got an investigation of my own to run and I am more concerned about that than what Mr. Mueller might be doing," he said.

Move along, nothing to see.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:33 PM on December 18, 2017

With regard to Trump expecting a letter exonerating him around the end of this year... in that WaPo story they are reporting that the Mueller team has told Trump's lawyers that they expect to be pursuing the investigation through at least much of 2018.

lol
posted by Justinian at 6:33 PM on December 18, 2017 [18 favorites]

Gorsuch sent Trump a rather effusive thank you note to soften him up after this.

It's dignity wraiths all the way down.

From the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Reek in only one hundred and fifty years!

The upside is that it seems there are precious few people who would stick with Trump out of personal loyalty. So if he really starts going down - via Mueller, or ill health, or god knows what - the rats are gonna flee that particular sinking ship.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:38 PM on December 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

With regard to Trump expecting a letter exonerating him

that’s not a thing that happens! that’s not how it works! that’s not how any of this works!
posted by murphy slaw at 6:58 PM on December 18, 2017 [85 favorites]

The "letter of exoneration" would be laughable if it weren't so dangerously delusional and likely to trigger a authoritarian rage fit when he doesn't get it. Even if the Mueller investigation did find Trump did nothing wrong at all, which seems unlikely, the investigation has cause to continue at least through the Manafort trial, currently scheduled I believe for March? Prosecutors don't write letters of exoneration in the middle of an investigation, like what? Legally exoneration usually refers to a wrongful conviction...which necessarily first requires...a conviction. If a prosecutor decides someone didn't commit a crime after investigating them...they just don't bring any charges. You don't get a letter in the mail saying, "congrats, you didn't commit any crimes!" In a high profile investigation like this, there may be a report of findings like in Watergate and Whitewater, but that would be at the very, very end after all the threads are exhausted. Mueller clearly isn't anywhere close to the end with pending trials and actively cooperating witnesses.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:00 PM on December 18, 2017 [17 favorites]

Cornyn suggests it’s Dems’ fault the GOP tax plan isn’t ‘better’

OK, put us in office and we'll write a better one.
Note to Dems: actually write a better plan and publish it before the midterms.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:22 PM on December 18, 2017 [23 favorites]

Note to Dems: actually write a better plan and publish it before the midterms.

We wrote one. Low, middle, and upper middle class who weren't going to be touched took it as a personal offense to tax the rich to invest in government economic output.
posted by Talez at 7:32 PM on December 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

The Republican leading the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation said Monday there’s no reason to 'drag' the inquiry out much longer and that Americans need some answers.

Whitewater: "Six years and more than $50 million"
Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi: "more than $7.8 million over two and a half years" just for the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:43 PM on December 18, 2017 [43 favorites]

Fun fact: Nixon used "America first" in his televised resignation address, so Trump can really deliver on that campaign promise.

To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as president, I must put the interest of America first.

posted by kirkaracha at 7:49 PM on December 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

from the washingtonpost article -

Trump himself has expressed frustration with the probe but has shown optimism that it will not touch him. He told associates recently that he harbors no deep concern over the investigation and noted that his lawyers talk with Mueller’s team regularly, according to a person who spoke with Trump last week and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

When pressed by two advisers to take the matter more seriously and asked why he is so confident in his lawyers, Trump brushed off the concerns. “He is living in his own world,” the person said, predicting that Trump would erupt at some point in 2018 if the probe continued to drag on.

Another associate said that even in private, Trump is “confident, even arrogant” that he has done nothing wrong.

“There is no collusion,” the president said at the White House on Sunday, after saying he was not planning to fire Mueller.

2017. The only thing saving us from Trump's narcissism is Trump's narcississm.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:10 PM on December 18, 2017 [20 favorites]

Yeah, I mean it's not like he can turn it off when the cameras aren't around.
posted by rhizome at 8:17 PM on December 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

just for the House Select Committee on Benghazi

That's on top of seven previous Congressional investigations into Benghazi, almost all by Republican-led committees.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:29 PM on December 18, 2017 [20 favorites]

This is making me do a happy Snoopy dance: The Senate’s Russia Investigation Is Now Looking Into Jill Stein

The most damning part of this article is the embedded tweet from Stein, with the ranting about neo-McCarthyists (nice echoes of “witch hunt” there from a fellow traveller).

How did she possibly think that the photo was exculpatory? I’ve been in the room with heads of state a couple of times and some time ago worked coordinating events at a minister / ambassador level. In the absence of a personal connection, there’s really quite a lot of protocol involved, and the principals’ time is valuable (Xi for example apparently often lacks time to eat or drink during official engagements). When I read that she had dined at the same table as Putin, I had imagined a banqueting table of 20+ people with Stein relegated to the other end. Not eight people, total, on a round table. Holy shit.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 9:49 PM on December 18, 2017 [29 favorites]

I'm also pleased that the authorities are investigating a totally marginal left-wing candidate whose collusion with Russia, if real, must be laughable on either side of the deal:

As an actual viable candidate, sure she's laughable. As a tool to reduce Clinton's expected victory margin? As a vector of attack from the Left as part of a double-team maneuver? That could be valuable.

Last year there were a lot of very vehement self-described Leftists on social media attacking Clinton as being corrupt, then saying they were voting for Stein. Oddly enough, nearly all of them seem to have disappeared. Maybe they're too embarrassed to show themselves right now, but I think it's worth doing some research to find out how many of the loudest Stein supporters really existed.
posted by happyroach at 10:06 PM on December 18, 2017 [75 favorites]

Oh, no, I assure you, actual real life people who would've otherwise been Democratic voters were persuaded by the combination of Hilary derangement and the existence of Jill Stein and the environment of "they're both the same" that she helped cultivate, and refuse to admit to this day that there was any difference. I can introduce you to some people. But that was the whole point of having Flynn and Stein at the same table as Putin. Putin's goal was to undermine American democracy, much more than elect Trump. That's exactly why Flynn and Stein were there together, the KGB playbook in Georgia, Ukraine, Finland, and the Balkins is the same, sponsor division from both sides of the spectrum and advance Russian interests in the chaos that ensues. And Stein was as eager as Trump was to play into the Russian attack on American democracy.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:19 PM on December 18, 2017 [87 favorites]

Bernie also benefited from divisive leftist trolling, especially on Facebook/twitter/reddit, but in his case I consider him a sincere politician who did little to encourage any of the worst garbage. Jill Stein has always been a nonsense candidate and actively encouraged the sort of rhetoric that the Trumpists/Russian troll farms were pushing. (I was once very interested in the Green Party but came to the realization that they weren't a serious party because their only mission seemed to be running vanity candidates to split the left during Presidential election years and effectively ignore anything that doesn't serve that end.)
posted by xyzzy at 10:31 PM on December 18, 2017 [44 favorites]

I knew some "anyone but Hillary" left voters. Honestly, I think Jill Stein's campaign is just a typical left-wing own goal - she is a marginal figure who either holds wacky views or temporizes with followers with wacky views and she doesn't really have a coherent set of political ideas or the policy chops to start creating some*. Jill Stein would have been absolutely unremarkable as a minor candidate in, eg, 2000; it was only distaste for Hillary Clinton combined with people not understanding that we were playing for the Supreme Court and this was Not The Year To Pull That Shit that got her as far as she went. And she didn't go far, right? She didn't get as many votes as the libertarian-right candidate.

There's a part of the left - I think a small and declining part - that is fundamentally about power-worship and side-taking, people who are really bought into the whole "Washington or Moscow (or Beijing or Caracas)" mentality, where if you don't like the US government, you need to find another state somewhere to idealize. Especially because Snowden (who had very few choices) went to Russia, I think some media-focused lefties have/had a wrongly positive view of the Russian government.

IMO, it's important to remember that these are not people with policy chops or even people with real political connections - they are people who may have some cultural power within certain parts of the left but not people who have a lot of power at the national scale. It might well be that the Russian government doesn't realize this and thinks they have more pull than they do, or thinks that because they are supporters of Snowden that they are worth cultivating.

I'd say that the far more concerning attitude I've encountered on the left is "well, the US intervenes in other countries' elections all the time, but no one else is as wicked as the American empire, so obviously these are just phony allegations, or anyway the American government is so awful that it doesn't matter". I'm always a bit confused by this because these folks would never, ever say "well, the government of [other country with demonstrably awful government] is so awful that American intervention doesn't matter and we should ignore their objections" or "well, it was only a little bit of American intervention, [other country] should look at their own political system rather than pointing at the US".

In any case, I think it's a mistake to imagine that there are significant numbers of people on the left who have sinister (as opposed to foolish) entanglements with Russia. If Jill Stein was at a table with Putin right before an election where there was Russian interference, it's not unnatural for people to want to know why - imagine if this situation involved, eg, Henry Kissinger and a left-wing figure from another country - but my bet is that the answer will be foolery and naivete. Since it's been a long time since there were many left wing people in power in the US, a lot of the American left doesn't think even remotely in terms of "how would we achieve policy goals" - at best the focus is on critique and historicization, and this means that people can be fools in ways they would not be if they had power and responsibility.

*My impression of, eg, DSA or Socialist Alternative, by contrast, is that they are super interested in policy. They may vary in skill-level, but no one is like "wouldn't it be nice if society were...." as a political platform.
posted by Frowner at 10:54 PM on December 18, 2017 [41 favorites]

Behold the 13th dimensional chess of the Corker Kickback:

Bob Corker and Mark Warner are the principal sponsors of legislation to fully privatize Frannie Mae and Freddy Mac

Financial Times: Citi, AIG and BofA among US groups facing $50bn tax plan hit
Republican plans to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent would reduce the expected financial benefits sharply, and force the institutions to rewrite down the value of their “deferred tax assets”.
...
the charges would likely force Fannie and Freddie to ask for public funding for the first time since 2012 — threatening to reignite a heated debate over the future of the giant mortgage agencies.

So, the longshot is Corker not only enriches himself directly, the GOP tax bill will force Frannie/Freddie into a new financial crisis requiring additional public investment, thus setting the table for a Wall Street sell-off that real estate mogul Bob Corker has been trying to deliver for years.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:11 PM on December 18, 2017 [30 favorites]

So there's at least one entitlement Corker likes.
posted by rhizome at 11:28 PM on December 18, 2017

Every bit as horrifying and hilarious as you would imagine. Note the shot focusing on the empty seats, heh.

@goldengateblond: Disney finally put Trump in the Hall of Presidents and the others are all “can you believe this schmuck” (photos)

@goldengateblond: If you can stand it, here's video. His dumb thumbs-up move is even more embarrassing in context with who's around him. (twitter video)

@InsideTheMagic: NEW VIDEO - Donald Trump animatronic debuts in Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World (youtube video)

It gets worse (TW probably, although I'm not certain which trigger(s) this would be):

@spotastic: Here me out on this. Clearly Disney had Hilary's robot ready to go and then they had to try and make it look like Trump. Don't hate me. This is just a necessary and painful fact we all need to deal with. (photo enlarged)
posted by christopherious at 1:22 AM on December 19, 2017 [54 favorites]

TW for the horrible horrible truth.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 1:27 AM on December 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

I'm mildly disappointed with my Senator, Ron Johnson, (R-WI), who for brief seconds made waves about not voting for the tax bill because of his concerns about the deficit. I'm not hugely surprised.

Urban Milwaukee: Laura Thompson - Does Tax Plan Enrich Ron Johnson?

...

Johnson’s opposition, however, had an impact: The final version of the Senate tax bill increased the allowable deduction on pass-through income to 23 percent, and Johnson’s office confirmed that this change secured his vote for the bill. He issued a press release saying, “I appreciate the Senate leadership’s willingness to work to close the gap between pass-through businesses and C corporations.”

But the conference committee to reconcile the differing house and senate versions of the tax bill has reduced the deduction on pass-through income to 20 percent, still higher than the original senate plan. Johnson hasn’t expressly signaled whether he will support the revised plan, but the media has been counting him as a supporter.

Johnson also has been silent on the issue of how he might personally benefit from the increased deduction on pass-through income. According to his financial disclosure documents, Johnson and his wife Jane own a 100 percent interest in a commercial real estate property in Oshkosh, Wisconsin valued at $5 to $25 million. They lease the property to a company called Pacur LLC, which produces polyester sheets and plastics used in food and medical storage. The Johnsons also hold a 5 percent stake in Pacur, valued at between $1-$5 million. “Mr. Johnson earned between $215,000 and just over $2 million in pass-through income in 2016, through several limited liability companies,” the Times story estimated.

Based on that estimate, the 17.4 percent tax deduction in the original plan would have given Johnson a tax deduction of anywhere from $37,410 to $348,000 in 2016; at the 25 percent level he preferred, his tax deduction would have ranged from $53,750 to $500,000 – a half million dollars.

...

posted by sebastienbailard at 2:50 AM on December 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

Based on that estimate, the 17.4 percent tax deduction in the original plan would have given Johnson a tax deduction of anywhere from $37,410 to $348,000 in 2016; at the 25 percent level he preferred, his tax deduction would have ranged from $53,750 to $500,000 – a half million dollars....

Stupidly obvious question: Is it really down to amendments for a mate's personal enrichment?

I could link to a ton of this stuff in Australia (LNP for the vast majority of it, and resources related), but not codified in legislation. It's usually shadier things around real estate deals, weddings, rubber chicken tours, golden parachute stuff. Encoding laws to your personal benefit is beyond the pale. Deserves a special prosecutor, eh?
posted by michswiss at 5:39 AM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Urban Milwaukee: Laura Thompson - Does Tax Plan Enrich Ron Johnson?

Here's who makes bank on the tax bill.

IBT (David Sirota): Republican Senators Will Save Millions With Special Real-Estate Tax Break

Lots of details, but here's the list.

Bob Corker—TN
Steve Daines—MT
Lamar Alexander—TN
Ron Johnson—WI
Rob Portman—OH
James Risch—ID
Jim Inhofe—OK
John Kennedy—LA
Johnny Isakson—GA
John Barrasso—WY
Luther Strange—AL
Rand Paul—KY
Orrin Hatch—UT
John Hoeven—ND

And lest you think others aren't jumping on the gravy train...

@davidsirota
BREAKING: Documents obtained by @IBTimes & @MapLight show @SenBobCorker's chief-of-staff has been making major investments in a real estate LLC, meaning he too could be personally enriched by Corker's vote for the tax bill

IBT: Tax Bill: Bob Corker's Top Aide Could Reap Windfall From Controversial Real Estate Provision
posted by chris24 at 5:41 AM on December 19, 2017 [27 favorites]

It's just like AskMe!
posted by michswiss at 5:47 AM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

NPR tweets headline that makes it seem like there is legitimacy to the "GOP allegations": FBI's No. 2 official, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, in for a difficult afternoon, He's testifying before the House Intelligence Committee amid mounting GOP allegations of political bias at FBI and on special counsel Robert Mueller's team.

I'm not agreeing, just reporting.
posted by StrawberryPie at 5:51 AM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Because now, if you disagree with the GOP on any level, however well-supported by facts, existing legal precedent, or, for that matter, common decency, you’re “politically biased”. That’s just great.
posted by Autumnheart at 5:57 AM on December 19, 2017 [38 favorites]

New CNN poll out with increased and majority disapproval for the tax bill and historically low approval for Trump. Also, it shows all-time high support to allow Dreamers to stay in the US: 83% support, only 13% oppose.

With the House of Representatives set to vote on the Republican tax reform bill Tuesday before sending it to the Senate and then the President's desk for signing on Wednesday, the plan faces growing opposition and a widespread perception that it will benefit the wealthy more than the middle class, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

Opposition to the bill has grown 10 points since early November, and 55% now oppose it. Just 33% say they favor the GOP's proposals to reform the nation's tax code.

Two-thirds see the bill as doing more to benefit the wealthy than the middle class (66%, vs. 27% who say it'll do more to benefit the middle class) and almost four in 10 (37%) say that if the bill becomes law, their own family will be worse off. That's grown five points since early November. Just 21% say they'll be better off if the bill becomes law.

President Donald Trump, the bill's salesperson-in-chief, lands at an overall 35% approval rating in this poll, his worst mark yet in CNN polling by one point. Trump's approval ratings continue to be the lowest for any modern president at this point in his presidency. As of December of their first year in office, all first-time elected presidents back to Eisenhower have approval ratings of 49% or higher except for Trump.

More than six in 10 (63%) see the tax bill as leaving the President and his family better off. Just 5% think it harms the Trump clan. And disapproval of the President's handling of taxes has risen six points in the last month, to 57%.

posted by chris24 at 5:58 AM on December 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

"Just 5% think it harms the Trump clan" – that's such a low number that I bet those people are actually paid trolls. Which means even most Trump supporters don't believe it will harm him.
posted by StrawberryPie at 6:03 AM on December 19, 2017

Of course they were lying.

Motherboard: Internal FCC Report Shows Republican Net Neutrality Narrative Is False - The story of net neutrality as an Obama-led takeover of the internet was refuted by an Inspector General investigation whose findings were not made public prior to Thursday’s vote

A core Republican talking point during the net neutrality battle was that, in 2015, President Obama led a government takeover of the internet, and Obama illegally bullied the independent Federal Communications Commission into adopting the rules. In this version of the story, Ajit Pai’s rollback of those rules Thursday is a return to the good old days, before the FCC was forced to adopt rules it never wanted in the first place.

“On express orders from the previous White House, the FCC scrapped the tried-and-true, light touch regulation of the Internet and replaced it with heavy-handed micromanagement,” Pai said Thursday prior to voting to repeal the regulations.

But internal FCC documents obtained by Motherboard using a Freedom of Information Act request show that the independent, nonpartisan FCC Office of Inspector General—acting on orders from Congressional Republicans—investigated the claim that Obama interfered with the FCC’s net neutrality process and found it was nonsense. This Republican narrative of net neutrality as an Obama-led takeover of the internet, then, was wholly refuted by an independent investigation and its findings were not made public prior to Thursday’s vote.

posted by chris24 at 6:04 AM on December 19, 2017 [66 favorites]

the plan faces growing opposition and a widespread perception that it will benefit the wealthy more than the middle class, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

This is great news about the narrative, but in 2017, I can't help but wonder how the truth won out here. Seriously, how did this happen?
posted by klarck at 6:18 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

ProPublica reports hidden ways that the administration is destroying the government: Trump’s Dark Deregulation
posted by StrawberryPie at 6:18 AM on December 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

NPR tweets headline that makes it seem like there is legitimacy to the "GOP allegations": FBI's No. 2 official, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, in for a difficult afternoon, He's testifying before the House Intelligence Committee amid mounting GOP allegations of political bias at FBI and on special counsel Robert Mueller's team.

Not just tweeting; this morning, NPR's correspondent seemed almost palpably relieved to have a "she said" to "balance" the "he said." He did note that the Republican allegations are thin gruel, but that didn't stop him from giving them plenty of air time, and repeating the words "texts, texts, texts" just like they used to do "email, email, email."

Scant mention, of course, of the contexts that the available information shows serious wrongdoing in the Trump Administration and beyond, and the Republicans could just be desperate to discredit a legitimate investigation.

Y'all know I am no fan of NPR, but they've been horrible lately. And I listened to their coverage of the runup to the Iraq War.
posted by Gelatin at 6:34 AM on December 19, 2017 [31 favorites]

I turned on NPR for the first time in literally months last week (and I used to be a twice daily commute listener) and immediately after I turned it on the host said "And joining us in the studio now we have Joe Schmoe of the Eagle America Heritage Forum Society Association to tell us why he thinks this tax bill is actually super great!" And I said, "Not today, Satan" and turned the radio right back off again.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:41 AM on December 19, 2017 [67 favorites]

Are folks complaining to NPR? Also, is NPR in the pocket of the Trump administration in some way? They're national public radio - are they afraid of funding cuts? It seems like we should all be telling them what a disgrace their reporting is when they do this stuff.
posted by Frowner at 6:45 AM on December 19, 2017 [19 favorites]

A few weeks ago I was listening on my morning commute and they did one of their periodic sponsor announcements. This time, it was Koch Industries - "Koch meets the challenges of America" or some such nonsense tagline.

Not 10 minutes later Steve Inskeep (of course) was interviewing some flack from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

No way is this a coincidence. I'll bet a paycheck that Koch has given NPR editors a list of spokesmen to serves as sources for "diversifying their voices" or something like that. (In my newspaper days I had a managing editor who did that all the time, to try to get his cronies into the paper.)

Thank God I also have a public radio station in range that carries Amy Goodman's Democracy Now.
posted by martin q blank at 6:48 AM on December 19, 2017 [25 favorites]

Are folks complaining to NPR?

I halted my membership at my local station.

I think even more than the funding, NPR lives in fear of being accused of having a liberal bias. Republicans have been out to cut public radio and TV off for basically ever, and they're always looking for an excuse to go whole hog on that. Instead of being courageous and relying on the support of their listeners to pressure Republicans to back the hell off, they've instead just rolled over and exposed their belly in the hopes of appeasement. (Protip: It will not work.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:53 AM on December 19, 2017 [37 favorites]

A core Republican talking point during the net neutrality battle was that, in 2015, President Obama led a government takeover of the internet, and Obama illegally bullied the independent Federal Communications Commission into adopting the rules.

I actually wish this were true. I'd love to see Obama wait for the screams about a for-fee internet to hit a fever pitch, then come out and say, "Yeah, sorry about my bullying on your behalf. Thank God your new president straightened that one out. I know he'll continue to be a bully for the right causes, always in your best interests."
posted by Rykey at 6:55 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

> Are folks complaining to NPR?

I halted my membership at my local station.

Me too, and I told them exactly why when I did so.

And recently when an NPR host was whining on his Twitter feed about listeners thinking that memberships meant we paid for the coverage we wanted, I responded that "no, I was a member because I valued the quality your journalism. And recently the quality of your journalism has declined. Your pledge drives repeat that if we value the calibre of your journalism we should pay for it - well, I don't value it any more, so now I'm not paying for it."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:00 AM on December 19, 2017 [102 favorites]

Are folks complaining to NPR?

Like soren_lorenson, I stopped pledging to my local station, and told them specifically (because they always mention how much NPR's flagship news programs cost during their pledge drives) that I was doing so to deprive NPR itself of funding to air Republican propaganda.

Complaints to NPR tend to get greeted with "we get flak from both sides, so we must be doing something right!" Which is even more boneheaded sophistry and willful ignorance than is required to air Republican talking points unchallenged, as seems to be their mission.

I will note that NPR had no shortage of Republicans on to complain about the Obamacare legislation -- on one memorable occasion balancing a Republican's opinion with that of another Republican -- but they seem to be making up for it by having Republicans on to discuss the tax bill, which is obviously grotesque from the very text of the legislation itself.
posted by Gelatin at 7:01 AM on December 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

Are folks complaining to NPR?

I mean, I tweet @npr and at whatever host has been particularly shameful when they really piss me off. I haven't cut my funding yet (not a huge sum of money) because MPR does some really impressive investigative reporting. Maybe I should threaten to take away my membership? I don't know.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:07 AM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

They're national public radio - are they afraid of funding cuts?

Pretty sure they got the crap scared out of them back in 2011, when the Republican-dominated House was seriously discussing eliminating the budget of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and have been pandering ever since.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:15 AM on December 19, 2017 [19 favorites]

I don’t expect NPR to go full on #Resist. But almost every mainstream news outlet has realized in the past year that Republicans constantly lie to their faces and argue in bad faith, and have adjusted their reporting accordingly, but Morning Edition/All Things Considered seem determined to pretend everything is still ok.

There’s still a lot of good programming produced by local affiliates.
posted by theodolite at 7:20 AM on December 19, 2017 [16 favorites]

Pretty sure they got the crap scared out of them back in 2011, when the Republican-dominated House was seriously discussing eliminating the budget of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and have been pandering ever since.

On top of that, as indicated above, the funding cuts that already occurred at the Federal level -- NPR pledge drives are also quick to remind listeners that less than 10% of their budget comes from the Federal government -- has forced them to turn to corporations for funding, and they have to kowtow to those who write their checks.

I also agree that they have an irrational fear of conservatives yelling at them for alleged "liberal media bias" -- not because it doesn't happen, but because when it happens it's because NPR reports facts inconvenient to conservative ideology -- i.e., any facts -- and they can't seem to understand that such criticism is not made in good faith at all. Of course, given their own reporting and on-air interviews, they at least give a very good impression of people who can't recognize an argument made in bad faith. But if they're that incompetent, what use are they?
posted by Gelatin at 7:22 AM on December 19, 2017 [12 favorites]

And Twitter gets a wee bit less hateful, for now: Twitter begins enforcing new anti-hate speech rules -- Twitter won't allow threats against people based on "group characteristics." (Cyrus Farivar for Ars Technica, Dec. 18, 2017)

On Monday, Twitter said (via a tweet, natch) it would begin enforcing new rules that were announced a month ago as a way to "reduce hateful and abusive content."

In particular, the new rules ban violent threats or even "wishing for serious physical harm." For now, the most prominent accounts that have been removed for running afoul of these rules were three affiliated with a far-right United Kingdom group known as "Britain First." (For an example of the group's content: last month, President Donald Trump retweeted violent videos from the group that claimed to show violence perpetrated by Muslim immigrants to Europe, when in fact it did not.)

Twitter declined to share additional details, because they're really vampires and sunlight burns. [half true]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:26 AM on December 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

Is this the first nominee to not make it out of committee?

@frankthorp
JUST IN: Senate Banking Cmte REJECTS Pres Trump's nominee to Chair the Ex-Im Bank, former Rep Scott Garrett, voting 10-13. Nomination not advanced to the full Senate.
posted by chris24 at 7:32 AM on December 19, 2017 [36 favorites]

And the numbers still don't lie: CHARTS: See How Much Of GOP Tax Cuts Will Go To The Middle Class (NPR, Dec. 19, 2017)

In 2018, the Republican tax overhaul would give all of these income groups a tax cut, on average. But both by percentages and total dollars, the benefits would be far greater for higher-income households. Households making $1 million or more per year would get an average tax cut of $69,660, a 3.3 percent boost in after-tax income.

The article has two graphs, Average benefit from tax bill and Percent change in after-tax income, both which highlight just how much of a benefit goes to the truly rich.

The article goes on to note:

The numbers look bleaker a decade out for most American households. To help ensure their bill met the budget limits Republicans had set for themselves, lawmakers set many individual income tax changes to sunset after 2025 (they made cuts to corporate tax rates permanent, meanwhile).

And those same graphs for 2027 look fucking bleak, which are summarized as

In 2027, the Republican tax overhaul would raise taxes on 53 percent of households. Still, as in 2018, both by percentages and total dollars, the benefits would be far greater for higher-income households. Households making $1 million or more per year would get an average tax cut of $23,190, a 0.9 percent boost in after-tax income.

Yes, taxes go up until you hit $75K-$200K, where it's zero percent change, then above that folks start saving on taxes again, with the biggest savings for people earning over a million dollars. Trickle down bullshit never gets old.

[All emphasis is mine]

The best part of the article is header image, featuring the smug smile and the "get a load of those suckers" sideways thumb from House Speaker Paul Ryan.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:34 AM on December 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

I was listening to Marketplace last night (which is APM not NPR, I know) and the host was saying that the new tax bill was being handled by the Republicans the same way that the Democrats handled Obamacare and I wanted to punch my radio.
posted by octothorpe at 7:42 AM on December 19, 2017 [36 favorites]

And Twitter gets a wee bit less hateful, for now: Twitter begins enforcing new anti-hate speech rules -- Twitter won't allow threats against people based on "group characteristics." (Cyrus Farivar for Ars Technica, Dec. 18, 2017)

I mean, good luck with that. I spent some time yesterday and today searching Twitter for the word "shoahed," which is the (gross, gross, gross) way that the alt-right assholes describe getting banned from Twitter, and then reporting accounts that worry about being banned because they totally should be banned. And the thing is, they almost never say "Jews." They say "you're next for the gas, Shlomo" or "you're probably crying into your Maneschwitz that you people can't control the country anymore" or "(((your people)))) are parasites," but they don't utter the word "Jews." And I would be really surprised if the Twitter vetting team in India is going to recognize any of those things as antisemitic, because you need a tiny bit of context or background information to see it.

They have similar code for other groups, but they really do seem to be obsessed with Jews.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:45 AM on December 19, 2017 [34 favorites]

In particular, the new rules ban violent threats or even "wishing for serious physical harm."

"Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!"

"Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!"

New rules, my ass.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:47 AM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Twitter won't allow threats against people based on "group characteristics."

Can't wait to get banned for tweeting "white people suck lol"
posted by dis_integration at 7:53 AM on December 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

I would be really surprised if the Twitter vetting team in India is going to recognize any of those things

I was watching this happen yesterday, and it was shockingly slow to affect anyone. It makes me think that they have some automated processes running, but that the actual decision needed to be made by a human committee.

That said, if that's how it is, it's fine with me. The "TwitterPurge" only needs to prune off an upper layer of bots and other influencer accounts, and the large mass of the remainder will fuck right off to Gab on their own dime.

I also wonder how much of this comes from unwelcome perception from investors as "Twitter is full of Nazi's", as much as algorithmic concerns? I personally have around 400,000 accounts blocked (you're welcome to use my blocklist, Twitter, it's full of Nazis, bots, *and* spammers), and if even 1% of active users have a similarly sized list (either self-curated or distributed via BlockTogether), then it surely causes some kind of performance hit on the server side. If there's been a sudden uptick in users curating large block lists, Twitter might be cleaning house for resource constraint issues.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:57 AM on December 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

I was listening to Marketplace last night (which is APM not NPR, I know) and the host was saying that the new tax bill was being handled by the Republicans the same way that the Democrats handled Obamacare and I wanted to punch my radio.

*sigh*

"Obamacare took 9 months to negotiate, had 160 GOP markups, had the support of the American Medical Association, AARP, and American Hospital Federation, and twice President Obama addressed the nation directly in a prime time speech to lay out the benefits while he had a 63% approval rating...

Republican intellectualism is a lie, these people have no idea what they're doing because for the last 8 years they've been lying to themselves that Obama was a Muslim Kenyan hell bent on destroying America and now they forgot what reality actually was."

NPR is the absolute worst with their milquetoast "both sides"ism. They're the Alan Colmes of journalism. I think part of it is that their journalists seem to stay there so goddamn long, and are consequently so goddamn old, that they drifted into irrelevance and senility about 10 years ago. Why the hell is Cokie Roberts still talking to me? I don't want to hear about how this compares to when you were a reporter in Washington during the fucking Reagan administration, Cokie. And Steve Inskeep. Fuck that guy. Try asking a question and then following it the fuck up, you pissant lightweight.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:57 AM on December 19, 2017 [72 favorites]

Can I add one more item to the semi-derail on NPR?

I was done donating to them after I looked up their IRS Form 990 and saw the salaries some of these people get. From the most recent one on file (2015) at the Foundation Center:

Form 990, Part VII, Compensation of Officers, Directors, Trustees, Key Employees, Highest Paid Contractors and Independent Contractors
(just a selection, ordered by salary)
...
Scott Simon, Sr. Host, Weekend Edition -- $398,879
Renee Montane, Sr. Host, Morning Edition CA -- $394,110
Robert Siegel, Sr. Host, All Things Considered -- $392,249
Steven A. Inskeep, Sr. Host, Morning Edition -- $381,448

That's almost $1.2 million a year, right there -- on just four people.

I know there's value to experience, and to name recognition, but you could hire a ton of talented investigative reporters and competent interviewers and news readers for that kind of money. Lord knows there's enough out-of-work journalists out there who would work for a fraction of those amounts.
posted by martin q blank at 8:03 AM on December 19, 2017 [47 favorites]

@JYSexton
Republicans back dangerous legislation like this tax bill because they genuinely believe that poor people deserve their poverty and all its accompanying suffering. Trickle-Down economics, which has never worked, is based on principle that those who are wealthy obviously know best what to do with money, which is absurd. Wealthy people know best how to game the system in their favor. That's it. They've dammed up the American economy, and this bill just throws more dam at the problem.

Republicans refuse to believe it's a corrupt system, that it's been corrupted, and so they think people who are poor must have done something to deserve their plight. This perspective has tainted literally everything the party has done. They fail to see that poor people are victims of a tilted system instead of lazy, awful people who don't deserve their help. Because poor people are lazy and deserved of their poverty, Republicans think it's dangerous to trust them with money or tax cuts. Thus, the system becomes even more tilted, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The general message is "look how poor people STILL don't get ahead" while the deck is stacked further and further against them.

These tax cuts the GOP are going to pass won't help anyone but the bottom lines of corporate shareholders and executives who might as well cash the checks for their bonuses. The problem now isn't that corporations need more money, it's that they have plenty and won't pass the money down like the system is supposed to encourage. This happens because corporations have to always increase their profits every single year. A single quarter of loss starts the alarm bells, so you can't possibly share the wealth, you have to continue squeezing employees and adding to the coffers.

Poor people continue to get shafted while Republicans look at them from the top of the tilted system and ask why they never climb up, therefore, it's time to tilt the board a little more. The result is an ever-widening wealth gap that institutes austerity on workers while their bosses and money-changers get perpetually richer. That's what's being voted in today. And this is the defining vision of the Republican Party. Beatings will continue until morale improves. The game will be tilted until you can climb up and join us and help to further the tilting.
posted by chris24 at 8:07 AM on December 19, 2017 [50 favorites]

I was watching this happen yesterday, and it was shockingly slow to affect anyone.

I've been getting notifications of people being blocked I reported weeks back, they seem to have slowed down in general as previously it would only take a couple of days at most (I didn't report anyone I wasn't fairly confident would be, and waded through their timeline filth to find the most clear-cut breach exemplars).


They have similar code for other groups, but they really do seem to be obsessed with Jews.


They are also getting more canny about being circumspect, I had been thinking about building up a little collaborative and semi-automated script to increase the precision and power of the filth-wading; because they do slip up, especially in replies to others, but ran out of will.

I notice Godfrey Bloom still has his account, even after being booted by the Von Mises institute for his anti-semitic tweets. That's a pretty low bar Twitter is still failing to clear.
posted by Buntix at 8:09 AM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Benjamin Wittes highlights a very disturbing paragraph buried in this story:

Image of Cooperation Between White House and Mueller Starts to Fracture (Michael S. Schmidt, NYT)

But two people who have spoken to the president recently said that he was far more frustrated with the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, than Mr. Mueller. Mr. Trump has said that Mr. Wray has not moved quickly enough to rid the bureau of senior officials who were biased against Mr. Trump and had worked for James B. Comey, the director whom Mr. Trump fired in

The Daily 202: Why a Louisiana GOP senator keeps bringing down Trump judicial nominees (James Hohman, WaPo)

John Neely Kennedy, a freshman Republican senator from Louisiana, complained three weeks ago that the White House was ignoring his concerns about the subpar quality of President Trump’s judicial nominees. “It’s like talking to the wind,” he told reporters.

Now that he has helped torpedo three of those would-be judges in just the past week, they’re paying attention.

And I would be really surprised if the Twitter vetting team in India is going to recognize any of those things as antisemitic, because you need a tiny bit of context or background information to see it.

I recently rejoined twitter after 10 years, mainly to tweet at my local city and PD, but I've discovered it's really fun to report and block trumpian assholes (and that asshole, Trump) and tweet Judge Judy gifs at people. The report form asks a few questions about the complaint so hopefully someone or something is tracking these things, even without initial context or understanding.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:11 AM on December 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

We wouldn't cite Fox & Friends as an example of why CNN was bad, and yet that's the level of conflation that's been happening in these threads when it comes to NPR/APM/Public broadcasters in general.

Maybe it's because you never find Fox and Friends on the same channel as CNN, just at a different time of day, unless you're one city over, and then the times are all different and they might not have that show at all

...but you do have that confusing shit with public radio and they basically use the same letters (APM, NPR, MPR, PRI) it's really tough to keep them all straight?
posted by leotrotsky at 8:20 AM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

The Daily 202: Why a Louisiana GOP senator keeps bringing down Trump judicial nominees (James Hohman, WaPo)

In case you don't read the article, here are some pullquotes:

What’s Kennedy play here? His spokeswoman told me that he was not available for an interview on Monday, so I asked several plugged-in observers in Louisiana and Washington why he’s doing this. Beyond genuine unease with less-than-stellar nominees, three theories emerged:

1) He’s exacting revenge against White House counsel Don McGahn.

Trump declined to nominate Kennedy’s first choice for U.S. attorney in New Orleans, defense lawyer Kyle Schonekas. That’s a process McGahn oversees.

Kennedy has also complained that he was not consulted before Trump picked Kyle Duncan for the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit. He said he found out about it only when McGahn called to tell him. This prompted a long delay in returning Duncan’s blue slip.

2) Kennedy, as a former Democrat, still has lots of trial lawyer friends.

The 66-year-old came to the Senate in January after 17 years as the state treasurer. He matriculated from Vanderbilt and got his law degree at the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the law review. Then he studied civil law at Oxford.

Kennedy was legal counsel in the 1980s to then-Democratic Gov. Buddy Roemer. After an unsuccessful bid for Louisiana attorney general in 1991, he went back into private practice. He became a partner in 1993 at Chaffe McCall, New Orleans’s oldest law firm, where he was a corporate and civil trial attorney.

In 2004, Kennedy ran as a pro-John Kerry Democrat against Republican David Vitter for the Senate seat he now holds. It was open because of John Breaux’s retirement. (For a fun walk down memory lane, here is the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s opposition research file on him from that time.)

After getting whipped, Kennedy decided to become a Republican. The national GOP rallied behind him when he challenged then-Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in 2008, but she beat him by six points. He stayed on as treasurer through all of this and became increasingly vocal in his criticisms of Bobby Jindal as the then-governor’s approval rating slipped. After Vitter ran for governor in 2015 and said he wouldn’t seek another term in the Senate, Kennedy jumped into the race.

But he’s still got a lot of his old friends, and they don’t like the ideological edge of Trump’s picks.

3) Kennedy wants to run for governor in 2019, and he thinks this may help him.

“One very important thing to know about Kennedy is that everyone thinks he’s running for governor,” said Robert Mann, who teaches political communication at Louisiana State University and writes a column for the Times-Picayune. “It’s assumed, and he’s not done anything to tamp down the speculation that he’s coming back. Everything he does in Washington has got to be viewed through that lens. … It’s an office that he’s wanted for a long time, and running for governor would be a free shot for him. If he loses, he’s still got the Senate seat.”

Whatever your reason, keep up the good work of getting woefully unqualified individuals from becoming judges for life. While we can probably find ways to purge the worst of federal judges appointed by Trump (Wikipedia list, for present and future reference), it's better to keep them out than to have to dig through their garbage pasts to find ways to get them to retire early.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:28 AM on December 19, 2017 [44 favorites]

They're the Alan Colmes of journalism.

They’re turning into the Vidkun Quisling of journalism.
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:45 AM on December 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Well, no wonder Morning Edition is so pro tax plan, at $350k per year, all of those people benefit. And check out how much local NPR executives get paid. Here in dfw, Maureen o haddick, the CEO, makes over $600k a year. The days of scrappy little local stations are long gone. The executives at npr are paid as well as clear channel executives. Reporters, not so much. But name talent and executives are where most of your npr donation goes.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 9:09 AM on December 19, 2017 [16 favorites]

Can we put the NPR criticism (however much it is deserved) on the list of very well covered topics that we can stop rehashing until something new comes up?
posted by paper chromatographologist at 9:14 AM on December 19, 2017 [24 favorites]

Here you can read "moderate" Susan Collins floor speech in which she announces her support for the Republican tax bill yesterday.

Literally every paragraph contains factual lies or misleading statements right out of the Republican playbook.

Susan Collins. Lying sack of shit or profoundly stupid Republican tool? Why not both.
posted by JackFlash at 9:14 AM on December 19, 2017 [54 favorites]

Trump's National Security Strategy Angers China (NPR, Dec. 19)

Although candidate Donald Trump had little good to say about China, by the time President Trump visited Beijing as part of his Asian tour last month, he was touting the "great chemistry" enjoyed with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

However, the administration's first national security strategy, unveiled on Monday, takes a hawkish stance on China — a departure from the days of President Barack Obama.

The report accuses China of seeking to "displace the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reach of its state-driven economic model and reorder the region in its favor."

As NPR's Rob Schmitz reports from Shanghai, China is not taking the news well, calling the Trump administration's national security report "self-serving."

(NPR isn't 100% rubbish GOP cheerleaders)

The only thing you can trust with Trump is to be the anti-Obama. I kind of envision him asking for a list of everything that Obama did and said, and then he scribbled the opposite next to that list and said "there, that's my plan!"
posted by filthy light thief at 9:15 AM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Senate debate on the Tax bill

Note that debate on the 1100-page bill is limited to 10 hours today. In 2010 when Democrats passed the ACA they had 25 days of debate on the final bill.
posted by JackFlash at 9:21 AM on December 19, 2017 [47 favorites]

I was done donating to them after I looked up their IRS Form 990 and saw the salaries some of these people get.

Oh good grief. Speaking as someone who works in nonprofits .... why do you expect to pay people a sub-market wage just because they choose to work for a nonprofit? Is my labor somehow worth less because I'm working for a nonprofit vs. for a for profit company? Am I less valuable as an employee? Does it somehow cost me less to live my life?

$400K a year for a very senior editorial position that is also on-air talent seems to me to be right in line with what I would expect them to pay, particularly in a high cost of living area like NY or CA. It is right in line with what top tier for-profit morning radio show hosts make, and it is not, frankly, a egregious wage for the work they do.

This kind of "I'm not giving my money just so you can pay them market rate" mentality comes from the same place that leads people to want to underpay public school teachers and all sorts of nonprofit workers. Its ugly, and it pushes directly against the idea of fair pay for everyone. Fair pay doesn't just mean a $15/hour minimum wage. It means that all people should be compensated fairly for their labor, their skills, and their experience. Glenn Beck making $10M a year is egregious. Scott Simon making $400K is not.
posted by anastasiav at 9:28 AM on December 19, 2017 [111 favorites]

Sure, this is a perfect example of the average American. Who doesn't have $25k in passthrough income and $15k from their incorporated business.

@JohnCornyn
Under #TaxCutsandJobsAct a married couple earning $100,000 per year ($60,000 from wages, $25,000 from their non-corporate business, and $15,000 in business income) will receive a tax cut of $2,603.50, a reduction of nearly 24 percent.
posted by chris24 at 9:28 AM on December 19, 2017 [20 favorites]

recently when an NPR host was whining on his Twitter feed about listeners thinking that memberships meant we paid for the coverage we wanted

For anyone who is wondering who this refers to, it's Steve Inskeep, who is the number one reason I don't donate to NPR anymore.
posted by longdaysjourney at 9:29 AM on December 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

The really weird thing is I think (using some of the sliders I’ve been playing with) a married couple making over 100k in wages will still have at least around a 2400$ tax cut, which means the small business aspect of that tax cut must be like 200$.
posted by corb at 9:30 AM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

The report accuses China of seeking to "displace the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reach of its state-driven economic model and reorder the region in its favor."

Well, he's not wrong. You're just not supposed to say it out loud.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:30 AM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Hey folks, maybe put the NPR sidebar on ice for now.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:32 AM on December 19, 2017 [12 favorites]

Under #TaxCutsandJobsAct a married couple earning $100,000 per year ($60,000 from wages, $25,000 from their non-corporate business, and $15,000 in business income) will receive a tax cut of $2,603.50, a reduction of nearly 24 percent.

Holy crap what cherry-picked nonsense. Some actual facts: real median household income was $59,039 in 2016. Only 17% of households make over $100k per year. Only 4.9% of the employed people in the US are multiple jobholders.
posted by jedicus at 9:40 AM on December 19, 2017 [46 favorites]

This truly sounds like it's preparing white-collar workers to be converted to 1099s (what? it will be better for your taxes!)
posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 9:46 AM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

The really weird thing is I think (using some of the sliders I’ve been playing with) a married couple making over 100k in wages will still have at least around a 2400$ tax cut, which means the small business aspect of that tax cut must be like 200$.

What you are seeing is a married couple with no children, no mortgage, few medical bills and low property taxes. This couple does does not itemize their deductions on Schedule A. So under the Republican tax bill, their standard deduction goes up by $12,000. That's where the $2400 tax cut comes from.

Note that the doubling of the standard deduction only works to the advantage of families with no children because the bill also eliminates the personal exemption of $4050 per child. People with three kids will actually see their taxes go up. So you have cited a special case that is not representative of all or even most families.
posted by JackFlash at 9:46 AM on December 19, 2017 [19 favorites]

More swampiness. On the plus side, it's an attack ad on Cruz just waiting for Beto to run.

@davidsirota (IBT)
BREAKING: Docs show @JohnCornyn slipped line into the bill that enriches GOP fossil fuel donors & personally enriches 16 GOP lawmakers including @TedCruz. Line was inserted as Cornyn's fmr chief of staff lobbied on the issue for a natural gas corporation

Cornyn Pipeline Amendment Enriches GOP Lawmakers; Language Inserted As Cornyn’s Former Aide Lobbied On The Issue
posted by chris24 at 9:50 AM on December 19, 2017 [30 favorites]

So you have cited a special case that is not representative of all or even most families.

Comments point out that Cornyn's figure is "the result of an optimization trying to find the biggest percentage tax cut you can get on a family you can claim is middle class." They can't argue with the charts displaying the aggregate effects of the bill, so they're propping up bizarre hypothetical outliers and hoping we're dumb enough to think they're typical.
posted by Iridic at 9:54 AM on December 19, 2017 [23 favorites]

Note that the doubling of the standard deduction only works to the advantage of families with no children because the bill also eliminates the personal exemption of $4050 per child.

As a family with no children this doesn't work out for us, either, because we live in NY where the value of our state and local taxes is a significant enough loss that the increase to the standard deduction doesn't cover it.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:56 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

This truly sounds like it's preparing white-collar workers to be converted to 1099s (what? it will be better for your taxes!)

This is exactly what it is. And in many states, once you're 1099/independent contractor, you're no longer eligible for unemployment insurance, workers' comp, and other state- or local-level employment benefits (paid sick leave, wage and hour laws, etc).
posted by melissasaurus at 10:02 AM on December 19, 2017 [75 favorites]

How much will an average undocumented taxpayer who has spent over half their life in the US save, while forcibly separated from the family that depends on them, shackled under slave ship conditions, detained indefinitely, and ultimately shipped off to a foreign country where, as Westernized expatriates, they risk targeted slaying by militants?

Asking for humanity.
posted by perspicio at 10:03 AM on December 19, 2017 [31 favorites]

Politico: The real reason Trump allies are attacking Mueller

President Donald Trump insists he’s not going to fire Robert Mueller, but that’s not stopping Republicans and others close to the president from orchestrating a relentless stream of attacks on the credibility and integrity of the special counsel and his team of Russia investigators.

In the past week, investigators on Mueller’s team have been publicly accused of bias against Trump and of violating criminal procedure to get documents related to his transition. The purpose of the onslaught, according to people close to the White House, isn’t to encourage the president to oust the special counsel, a move that could precipitate a crisis in the Justice Department and potentially a move to impeach Trump.

Rather, these people said, the goal is to sow public doubt about Mueller and his prosecutors in advance of upcoming criminal trials — and to give the president political cover if he wants to start issuing pardons to any current or former aides swept up in the Russia scandal.

posted by chris24 at 10:07 AM on December 19, 2017 [28 favorites]

thelonius: "I agree completely, but there is a deeply entrenched cultural practice where people think, perish the thought, we can't think of, or God forbid speak of, the reality of a terminal illness that isn't going to be "beat" by "fighting"."

He's going to die. It might be in three months, it might be in a year. I am just making clear in my comment that I am not rooting for a man to die. Because I'm not going to do that, not even John McCain.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:09 AM on December 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

a married couple earning $100,000 per year ($60,000 from wages, $25,000 from their non-corporate business, and $15,000 in business income)

That's quite the parenthetical. It's entirely possible that nobody in the country has that particular configuration of income.
posted by diogenes at 10:15 AM on December 19, 2017 [42 favorites]

the goal is to sow public doubt about Mueller and his prosecutors in advance of upcoming criminal trials

Where, one assumes, Mueller's role will be to provide evidence that can be tested in court. Short of fabricating evidence, there's not much his team can do with any anti-45 animosity: if you're biassed towards your target, you can ignore or not look for evidence pre-trial to weaken your own case or promote a decision not to prosecute - but working on the assumption that your target is a bad guy is, as far as I'm aware, pretty much the idea.

So it's not as if any perceived bias can invalidate the trial, short of actual malpractice in fixing evidence.

(I know, I know, this is the GOP. But it's weak sauce.)
posted by Devonian at 10:16 AM on December 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

This truly sounds like it's preparing white-collar workers to be converted to 1099s (what? it will be better for your taxes!)

This is exactly what it is. And in many states, once you're 1099/independent contractor, you're no longer eligible for unemployment insurance, workers' comp, and other state- or local-level employment benefits (paid sick leave, wage and hour laws, etc).

These companies are going to be very surprised when find out they can no longer enforce their restrictive covenants (non competes, non solicits, etc.) against their brand new independent contractors.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:30 AM on December 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Funnily enough, my family does have a household income of about exactly $100,000. Unsurprisingly, all $100k is from wages, because we are normal white collar working people with jobs that we go to in offices with cubicles. $25k from an apparent side-hustle and $15k in... what even is that distinction? I have no idea. I go to work, I work my 37.5 hours, I collect my pay check. (Also I do pay a mortgage and I do have a kid so I'm unsure how fucked we will be.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:31 AM on December 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

chris24: give the president political cover if he wants to start issuing pardons to any current or former aides swept up in the Russia scandal

Two major reminders: pardons only work for Federal crimes (not state), and being pardoned means you can't plead the fifth.

(And by "aides" they mean "family members," right?)
posted by filthy light thief at 10:34 AM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

The Year in Journalists' Facial Expressions
posted by slipthought at 10:37 AM on December 19, 2017 [16 favorites]

Not many (relative to the total population) will be immediately and significantly worse off. The worst problems come down the way a while when further wealth concentration slows the economy even more and the stuff that helps lower income tax payers (but never the poor!) expires. Also, they will be using the projected deficits to support their attempts to cut social programs further, which will slow the economy even more.

Problem is there is enough money going to enough people who aren't ultra-rich (I'm getting a pretty big temporary benefit and I'm broke) that it will likely goose the economy in the short term, but come 2019-2020 that will start to fade and things will get bad if the law remains the same.
posted by wierdo at 10:37 AM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

These companies are going to be very surprised when find out they can no longer enforce their restrictive covenants (non competes, non solicits, etc.) against their brand new independent contractors.

On the contrary, those restrictions seem likely to further proliferate and become even more bulletproof as they get written into the contracts governing those "independent contractor" arrangements.

But not to worry. Those contractors will be able to use their power as free agents in a rich, competitive marketplace to negotiate more favorable provisions or adequate compensation for the restrictions.
posted by multics at 10:41 AM on December 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

(Also I do pay a mortgage and I do have a kid so I'm unsure how fucked we will be.)

This is me also. We don't make $100K, but I have a full time job and my spouse has a full time job, and then I work an extra part-time job and I also run an Etsy shop that makes about $3K a year after expenses. (plus mortgage and kid.) I'm waiting to see if I'll need to close the Etsy shop because if the rules around business deductions for sole proprietorship change I'll be operating at a loss after taxes.
posted by anastasiav at 10:41 AM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

David Frum: Conservatism is what conservatives think, say and do

Just as many anti-Trump conservatives find themselves pulled in new directions by their revulsion against Trump’s corruption and abuse of power, so too is the conservative mainstream being altered by its determination to remain on terms with Trump and his supporters.

The most revealing thought in Cooke’s essay is his explanation for why he feels it is safe to go with the Trumpian flow: “Conservatism in this country long predated Trump; for now, it is tied up with Trump; soon, it will have survived Trump.”

This is something many conservatives tell themselves, but it’s not even slightly true. Trump is changing conservatism into something different. We can all observe that. Will it snap back afterward?

You can believe this only if you imagine that ideologies exist independently of the human beings who espouse them—and that they can continue unchanged and unchanging despite fluctuations in their adherents

Joy Reid, a while back: "One of the most amazing outcomes of the Trump administration is the number of neo-conservatives that are now my friends and I am aligned with. I found myself agreeing on a panel with Bill Kristol. I agree more with Jennifer Rubin, David Frum, and Max Boot than I do with some people on the far left. I am shocked at the way that Donald Trump has brought people together. "

emptywheel: Axis of Evil guy says Trump has changed our norms.

You're like fifteen years too late, Dave.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:47 AM on December 19, 2017 [18 favorites]

“The new DNC is competing in every ZIP code, every year, in every election.” - memo from DNC CEO Jess O’Connell
posted by Chrysostom at 10:53 AM on December 19, 2017 [72 favorites]

On the contrary, those restrictions seem likely to further proliferate and become even more bulletproof as they get written into the contracts governing those "independent contractor" arrangements.

But not to worry. Those contractors will be able to use their power as free agents in a rich, competitive marketplace to negotiate more favorable provisions or adequate compensation for the restrictions.

You can write whatever the hell you want; that doesn't make it enforceable. The whole premise behind the independent contractor/ employee distinction is INDEPENDENCE. Sure, it's used as a figleaf to erroneously label employees as ICs, but that comes back to bite you when you try to enforce a restrictive covenant like a non-compete.

Enforcing a non-compete (i.e. you can't work for anyone but me) in court against a person you've intentionally categorized as independent (i.e. able to work for others) means you either can't enforce the non-compete or you've obviously lied about the categorization of the "contractor". If you treat your employees like temporary hired hands you can't also expect to be able to bind their actions like you do an employee when convenient. You don't get both.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:56 AM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

“The new DNC is competing in every ZIP code, every year, in every election.” - memo from DNC CEO Jess O’Connell

HELL YEAH 50-state strategy! It worked in 2006, and I think it will work as well now, as people are even more sick of Trump than they were of Bush. After all, even before 9/11, Bush had a 50% approval rate, and Trump has never, not once, managed to hit 50% approval - in fact, it's been circling the below-40% drain for most of his presidency.

I'm very very glad that the DNC is turning itself around and, finally, being all-in with every race from local on up. They've emphasized the Presidency for too long.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:01 AM on December 19, 2017 [36 favorites]

I smell something rotten:

The secretive office that processes workplace misconduct complaints on Capitol Hill has declined Sen. Tim Kaine's request for data on sexual harassment claims filed in the upper chamber — data that Kaine had said he would make public.[Politico]

posted by Chrysostom at 11:02 AM on December 19, 2017 [39 favorites]

“The new DNC is competing in every ZIP code, every year, in every election.” - memo from DNC CEO Jess O’Connell

"YAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" -Howard Dean
posted by leotrotsky at 11:03 AM on December 19, 2017 [48 favorites]

“The new DNC is competing in every ZIP code, every year, in every election.” - memo from DNC CEO Jess O’Connell

I'm seeing a message that the piece was deleted. Anyone else?

Say what you want about Howard Dean, he read the room. He's keeping up with the kids in his priorities and message on twitter, IMO.
posted by Emmy Rae at 11:07 AM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

“The new DNC is competing in every ZIP code, every year, in every election.” - memo from DNC CEO Jess O’Connell

"YAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" -Howard Dean

Yes, remember those halcyon days where yelling too loudly after a winning the Iowa caucus was actually enough to derail a Presidential bid?
posted by holborne at 11:10 AM on December 19, 2017 [57 favorites]

They can't argue with the charts displaying the aggregate effects of the bill, so they're propping up bizarre hypothetical outliers and hoping we're dumb enough to think they're typical.

Why not? That's what Republicans do when they complain about estate taxes.
posted by Gelatin at 11:12 AM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

You can write whatever the hell you want; that doesn't make it enforceable. The whole premise behind the independent contractor/ employee distinction is INDEPENDENCE. Sure, it's used as a figleaf to erroneously label employees as ICs, but that comes back to bite you when you try to enforce a restrictive covenant like a non-compete.

Yeah, there are some extremely specific rules that need to be followed to make sure your contractors don't get counted as employees by the IRS. Anything that restricts with whom a contractor works with after the contract is over is definitely bullshit.

In fact, because companies will no longer be able to lock-in workers with retention bonuses (can't give RSUs or options to non-employees), companies in Silicon Valley would be fuuuuuuuucked. Can't get the techbros on the hook with a 4 year vesting plan if there isn't anything to vest.

Also, since no one is getting paid in stock/benefits, salaries would double/ triple overnight. You think housing is in the Bay Area is expensive now? Wait until the starting contract at Facebook/Google/whatever is the hourly/daily/weekly equivalent of $500k per year.

So, the whole "companies are going to just convert all their employees to 1099" thing is extremely overblown. In fact, in a lot of places it's their worse nightmare scenario.
posted by sideshow at 11:13 AM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

This truly sounds like it's preparing white-collar workers to be converted to 1099s (what? it will be better for your taxes!)

This is exactly what it is. And in many states, once you're 1099/independent contractor, you're no longer eligible for unemployment insurance, workers' comp, and other state- or local-level employment benefits (paid sick leave, wage and hour laws, etc).

And if a lot of people are incentivzed to restructure their income as an S-corp or "pass-through", they won't be paying into Social Security Disability or Retirement. Not only depriving those people of SS coverage they should be entitled to as employees, but exacerbating the decline in the SS trust fund actuarial balance.

The closer you look at this bill the more insidious attacks on American workers come to light.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:20 AM on December 19, 2017 [25 favorites]

And if a lot of people are incentivzed to restructure their income as an S-corp or "pass-through", they won't be paying into Social Security Disability or Retirement

They'll be paying less, potentially ,but definitely not zero. You can't zero out your S-corp income to avoid payroll tax unless you want the IRS coming after you. You still need to pay a "reasonable salary" Also, SS is already capped at $128,400.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:26 AM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Eh, 1099 contractors pay 12.5ish% self employment tax specifically for Social Security and Medicare. You only have to pay income tax on half, though.

That's assuming you are actually doing work, of course. If the income is passive, no SE tax is paid and no SS/Medicare credits accrue.
posted by wierdo at 11:26 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

“The new DNC is competing in every ZIP code, every year, in every election.” - memo from DNC CEO Jess O’Connell

I'm seeing a message that the piece was deleted. Anyone else?

Yes, that link is coming back with the message "The author deleted this Medium story," and @TheDemocrats latest story was from Dec. 13: Congresswoman Terri Sewell on Victory in Alabama and the Power of the Black Women’s Vote

It looks like the story went up at least 8 hours ago, per the Axios article on the post:

Big difference from a year ago ... DNC CEO Jess O'Connell boasts in her year-end memo of a "Growing Blue Wave":

• "The new mission of the Democratic National Committee is to elect Democrats from the school board to the Oval Office. Accordingly, the DNC focused on winning elections in 2017 and will continue to focus on winning elections in 2018, 2019 and beyond because there are no more off years."
• "The new DNC is competing in every ZIP code, every year, in every election."
• The blue view.

And two links to the now-deleted Medium post.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:29 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Eh, 1099 contractors pay 12.5ish% self employment tax specifically for Social Security and Medicare.

TD Strange is suggesting they'll duck some of the self-employment taxes by taking what's really income (and so subject to tax) as a distribution instead. That'll still be income to the owner (S-corp is a pass through), but as it isn't earned income it avoids payroll tax (big for business owners ~15.3% because you're paying both sides of the tax).
posted by leotrotsky at 11:30 AM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

These 50-state strategies are always so short lived!
posted by ryanrs at 11:30 AM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Accordingly, the DNC focused on winning elections in 2017 and will continue to focus on winning elections in 2018, 2019 and beyond

What the shit else would they focus on doing? Isn't winning elections the reason for the DNC's existence?
posted by box at 11:35 AM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Paul Ryan's lifetime dream was just achieved by a vote of 227-203 on the House floor.

Not without protests, including, apparently, a woman who took her shirt off and yelled "youre lying" at Ryan from the gallery. @benjacobs reporting that at least two different R lawmakers responded by shouting "throw her ass out" as the protestor was removed.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:35 AM on December 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

Most recent related-sounding article: DNC CEO: How Democrats Are Building for State Wins (By Jess O’Connell and Jessica Post, on Time.com, September 21, 2017) -- O'Connell is the CEO of the Democratic National Committee; Post is Executive Director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

While federal elections can sometimes eclipse local campaigns, winning back state legislative seats is essential. They’re necessary to make change for Americans at a local level, and they’re necessary in the coming years to ensure that our elected leaders represent the diversity that makes our country so great. With crucial 2020 redistricting on the horizon, the time to act is now.

It doesn't specifically say "we're pushing a 50 state strategy," it identifies that there were notable wins in what would have previously been doubtful races or maybe even uncontested GOP candidates (they don't say it, but they note flipping "two ruby red seats in in Oklahoma’s state legislature, both in districts that went for Trump last November."

What the shit else would they focus on doing? Isn't winning elections the reason for the DNC's existence?

Yes, but both parties have focused on "winnable" seats and elections, instead of spending on every election.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:36 AM on December 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

"YOU LIE" is the accepted form in that chamber, doesn't she know?
posted by phearlez at 11:38 AM on December 19, 2017 [12 favorites]

A Groundbreaking Case May Force Controversial Data Firm Cambridge Analytica to Reveal Trump Secrets – Mother Jones

Turns out that the British nature of CA may bite them in the ass:

“If a [British] company has information about you, you have the right to access it, and if you ask for it, they have to give it to you,” Carroll tells Mother Jones. “We don’t have that right in the United States.” In the US, companies don’t need consent to collect its citizens’ data and aren’t legally obligated to share it with them. In fact, Carroll wouldn’t even have a case if the company processed its data in the United States (and won’t, if that turns out to be true). As Naik told the Guardian earlier this year, “It’s this fascinating situation because when it became apparent that Cambridge Analytica had processed Americans’ data in Britain, it suddenly opened up this window of opportunity. In the US, Americans have almost no rights over their data whatsoever, but the data protection framework is set up in such a way that it doesn’t matter where people are: it matters where the data is processed.”

posted by xyzzy at 11:38 AM on December 19, 2017 [47 favorites]

Yes, but both parties have focused on "winnable" seats and elections, instead of spending on every election.

I'll totally get it if there needs to be a comparatively low limit on spending in super long-shot seats, but I hope that the D powers that be are getting the picture that there's value even in a run that loses. For so many voters the elections are the only time they pay the tiniest bit of attention. Showing up and running a candidate sends a message to the D voters in that district that can pay off for the party in larger elections. Being out there and saying "this is the message, these are our goals, and we care enough about them to try to achieve them in every single space" shows you really do give a shit about more than just getting a D in a seat.
posted by phearlez at 11:41 AM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Here are the 12 GOP no votes on the tax bill (largely from high-tax states concerned about the state and local tax deduction and mostly from fairly marginal seats):

1.Donovan
2.Faso
3.Frelinghuysen
4.Issa
5.Jones
6.King (NY)
7.Lance
8.LoBiondo
9.Rohrabacher
10.Smith (NJ)
11.Stefanik
12.Zeldin

Here's Paul Ryan with the biggest shit-eating grin as he closes the vote. One correspondent thought he was about to break the gavel.

Senate vote expected sometime tonight, so this is your last chance to call.
posted by zachlipton at 11:44 AM on December 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

Another associate said that even in private, Trump is “confident, even arrogant” that he has done nothing wrong.

I'm enjoying the fantasy playing out in my head: The first time Trump sits down to be questioned by Mueller. I would like a transcript, a video, a documentary, and a mini-series dedicated to that moment when Trump realizes he is screwed for reals.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:45 AM on December 19, 2017 [22 favorites]

Huh. Rohrabacher and Issa did vote "No" just like they said they would. Not going to save their seats though.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:46 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

They wouldn't have voted "No" if their votes were needed, that's for sure.
posted by localhuman at 11:51 AM on December 19, 2017 [18 favorites]

I have no idea why Katko (my dumb shit R rep) didn't vote no. He was on local talk radio saying he wouldn't support a bill that punished states with high taxes. Like NY.
posted by xyzzy at 11:51 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

The majority party always has defections when they don't actually matter, precisely for the purpose of having a (pointless) opposition vote on record.
posted by wierdo at 11:52 AM on December 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

I would like a transcript, a video, a documentary, and a mini-series dedicated to that moment when Trump realizes he is screwed for reals.

You can actually pinpoint the second when his brain rips in half. Aaand...now! #obligatorySimpsonsreference

I'd love to see that too. I also think there's an excellent chance that the 45th President is so dim-witted that if Mueller or whoever questions him limits their "Aha, gotcha, you asshole!" moment of triumph to no more than a gleam in their eyes, and instead nods calmly and then says, "Thank you for your time, Mr. President. That went well," then Trump will walk out and tell everybody "That went well, they thanked me for my time and exonerated me."
posted by lord_wolf at 11:54 AM on December 19, 2017 [18 favorites]

That's exactly my point. The bill would pass with his no vote, and his whole thing is "an independent vote for Central NY" or whatever. During the last election the word "Republican" was in tiny letters at the bottom of his ads and INDEPENDENT was in giant letters with a swelling emotional score as the backdrop. He's just wrecking his dumb brand. I hate him, obviously.
posted by xyzzy at 11:55 AM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm not about to say anything that I haven't linked to Gin and Tacos or Kevin Drum saying better, but --

The Republicans have just made it clear they are completely uninterested in the well being of their actual constituents. And yet, approximately 50% of the country will keep voting for them.

I wish I had a plan for fixing that.
posted by wittgenstein at 11:55 AM on December 19, 2017 [24 favorites]

Well, in the long term, the problem will fix itself, considering that that 50% is squarely on ground zero for economic devastation caused by Republican policies. They won’t have health care, they won’t have jobs, they won’t have the education required to be skilled workers, they won’t have the money they’d need to move.
posted by Autumnheart at 12:01 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

The majority party always has defections when they don't actually matter, precisely for the purpose of having a (pointless) opposition vote on record.

Susan Collins has made a career out of this kind of posturing, to the point that I was almost cakeably surprised by her vote against ACA repeal.
posted by Gelatin at 12:02 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

It’s almost like Collins thinks voting no on Obamacare repeal frees her to vote yes on the tax bill, which actually does the same thing skinny repeal would have: eliminate the individual mandate. It’s 13th dimensional posturing.
posted by Glibpaxman at 12:09 PM on December 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

I have no idea why Katko (my dumb shit R rep) didn't vote no.

Katko is my dumb shit rep, too. I have to believe he knows his seat is in jeopardy and is greasing the wheels for a move to a high paying, private sector job.
posted by maurice at 12:10 PM on December 19, 2017

The report accuses China of seeking to "displace the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reach of its state-driven economic model and reorder the region in its favor."

Never mind that Vietnam is aligning itself with China in no small part because it's concluded that under Trump it can't trust the US.

Without checking, I have no idea if we've even dispatched an Ambassador to Vietnam. ffs.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:15 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

I always hate stepping on Chrysostom's toes, and they're still recounting ballots and redoing their math so this could change, but Democrats just took the lead by a single vote for Simonds in the VA House of Delegates. That's enough to tip the balance of power to a 50/50 Dem/Rep split!
posted by zachlipton at 12:18 PM on December 19, 2017 [57 favorites]

The report accuses China of seeking to "displace the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reach of its state-driven economic model and reorder the region in its favor."

If only there had been some sort of agreement amongst Pacific nations that was designed to strengthen co-operation amongst each other while freezing China out, some sort of Trans Pacific Partnership...
posted by PenDevil at 12:18 PM on December 19, 2017 [21 favorites]

, but Democrats just took the lead by a single vote for Simonds in the VA House of Delegates.

If this holds it will be the best refutation of MY VOTE DOESN'T MATTER we could ever hope for. I will staple it to those people's foreheads for the rest of eternity.

I expect lawsuits or something. Can you request a recount of the recount?
posted by Justinian at 12:20 PM on December 19, 2017 [30 favorites]

Without checking, I have no idea if we've even dispatched an Ambassador to Vietnam. ffs.

Just FYI we do have one (Dan Kritenbank), and he's even a career diplomat.
posted by jedicus at 12:20 PM on December 19, 2017

The report accuses China of seeking to "displace the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reach of its state-driven economic model and reorder the region in its favor."

Never mind that Vietnam is aligning itself with China in no small part because it's concluded that under Trump it can't trust the US.

They're not wrong. One serious problem the United States (more so even than parliamentary democracies) has with its foreign policy is instability. The shift is usually pretty bad when control of the Presidency shifts between parties, but this latest is a source of tremendous whiplash with other countries vis-à-vis their relationship with the US.

China has significant problems on many many fronts. ...but its governing party is pretty darn stable.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:20 PM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Goddammit, zachlipton, I was literally writing up that comment!

Please note they still need to review absentees and any contested ballots.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:21 PM on December 19, 2017 [12 favorites]

Justinian: "I expect lawsuits or something. Can you request a recount of the recount?"

There's not a legal path. I *think* you can appeal to the General Assembly, which theoretically could refuse to seat the Dem.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:25 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

50/50 would mean some kind of power sharing arrangement in the VA HOD, but it's pretty uncharted territory - this has only happened once before, in a somewhat more genial era.

The bad thing is that - unlike the Senate, where the LG breaks ties - there is no tiebreaker, so if the GOP caucus can maintain 100% discipline, they can still blockade a lot of stuff. A re-election decision in HD-28 would really help.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:29 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

So much of the discussion re the tax bill is on how individuals or families taxes will or won't go up or down. This is the conversation the GOP wants to have. "What's in it for me?!".

There is much less focus on the downside to the federal budget when the fantasy trickle down revenues fail to materialize. Everybody's taxes will be adjusted a bit, but the federal government takes a huge hit. This is by design, and is exactly what they want ignored, while we debate how much our take-home pay is affected.
posted by jetsetsc at 12:29 PM on December 19, 2017 [53 favorites]

Both candidates picked up one vote from the absentees, apparently no contested ballots.

If judges certify today's totals, Dems have flipped the seat, VA HOD is 50-50.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:35 PM on December 19, 2017 [34 favorites]

So much of the discussion re the tax bill is on how individuals or families taxes will or won't go up or down. This is the conversation the GOP wants to have. "What's in it for me?!"

I disagree -- at least to an extent. Based on the coverage I've been seeing as this bill has proceeded toward passage -- including on an ostensibly liberal public radio network whose name I won't mention -- Republicans seem to be encouraging the media to portray passage of this unpopular dog's breakfast as a "win" for their party.
posted by Gelatin at 12:35 PM on December 19, 2017

If judges certify today's totals, Dems have flipped the seat, VA HOD is 50-50.

That's the best result we could have hoped for. It should have flipped to 51-49 for the Dems but we got fucked by that one district where they gave people the wrong ballots. I don't expect a judicial remedy. It did sound like an honest mistake and not sabotage but that doesn't change the outcome.
posted by Justinian at 12:37 PM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

It took Trump six months in office before he nominated anyone, though.

Just in time for that asia trip right?

Also, Kritenbrink apparently speaks both Chinese and Japanese. Which makes me wonder if this administration can even find anyone that speaks Vietnamese to fill that roll. Then again, China has such a large influence on Vietnam that speaking Chinese probably gets you into more doors there.
posted by numaner at 12:38 PM on December 19, 2017

So much of the discussion re the tax bill is on how individuals or families taxes will or won't go up or down. This is the conversation the GOP wants to have. "What's in it for me?!".

Everyone is also focused on "what's in it for me" right now, and a lot of people will see a tax cut. The problem is that the tax cuts for corporations are permanent, while the ones we get expire in a few years (that should be the campaign slogan for every single Democrat in 2018, that's it right there). They expire, and the rate of inflation used to find eligibility for many tax preferences slows down.

What they're setting up is a situation where by 2025, lots of people's taxes will go up, including for the middle class. And gosh, they'll be so concerned about the deficit then, that they just have to cut billions in government spending to pay to make the tax cuts last a few more years.
posted by zachlipton at 12:43 PM on December 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

I don't expect a judicial remedy.

I honestly don't know, I haven't seen any good legal analysis on this. I know that re-running the election is rare, but possible.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:43 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

There is much less focus on the downside to the federal budget when the fantasy trickle down revenues fail to materialize.

Yep. The hole this blows in the budget is $1.5 trillion with bullshit dynamic scoring. It's $2.7 trillion without the voodoo economics. And based on Kansas, it'll probably be worse than that.
posted by chris24 at 12:44 PM on December 19, 2017 [46 favorites]

We've breached a barrier in the latest poll from Quinnipiac - even white people favor Dems over GOP on the generic ballot, 46/44.

Headline numbers:

Generic ballot: D+15, 52/37
Trump approval: -22, 37/59
posted by Chrysostom at 12:51 PM on December 19, 2017 [35 favorites]

@pdmcleod: Quite a moment just now. We asked Susan Collins about House Republicans vowing not to pass the provisions McConnell promised her to win her tax vote. She stared for several seconds and said she thought the press's coverage of the tax bill has been extremely sexist...Just checked the tape. Collins said the press coverage was "so sexist it's unbelievable."

I would like some examples please.
posted by zachlipton at 12:55 PM on December 19, 2017 [52 favorites]

yay, collins’s mind has broken under the strain
posted by murphy slaw at 12:59 PM on December 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

"I'll have you remember that I can be JUST as much of a corporate lapdog as any MAN."
posted by delfin at 1:02 PM on December 19, 2017 [32 favorites]

Justinian: "If this holds it will be the best refutation of MY VOTE DOESN'T MATTER we could ever hope for. I will staple it to those people's foreheads for the rest of eternity."

On 18 January 1961, in Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania), the Afro-Shirazi Party won the general elections by a single seat, after the seat of Chake-Chake on Pemba Island was won by a single vote.

Wikipedia has a far from comprehensive list of close (Margin less than .1%) elections including actual ties if you want more samples. It's kind of interesting reading as a wide assortment of tie breakers are presented. And there are stories like this about the 1977 Ann Arbor Mayoral race which had a margin of victory of 0.00469% (1 in 21,319 votes cast):

Democrat incumbent Albert Wheeler defeated Republican Louis D. Belcher by one vote: 10,660-10,659. Belcher contested the result, asserting that 20 of the voters did not live within city boundaries. The Court of Appeals then subpoenaed all 20 of these non-residents, making them reveal their vote. But one pre-law student refused and was arrested for contempt of court. After three days, she still refused to reveal her vote. The Michigan Supreme Court upheld her constitutional right to a secret ballot. The judge and the two candidates then agreed to simply call a new election.This was held a year later in 1978 — Belcher won and unseated Wheeler.

posted by Mitheral at 1:03 PM on December 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

We've breached a barrier in the latest poll from Quinnipiac - even white people favor Dems over GOP on the generic ballot, 46/44.

Among all voters.

62 - 37 say that he does not care about average Americans
62 - 34 say that he's not honest
62 - 35 say that he does not have good leadership skills
70 - 28 say that he is not level headed
65 - 32 that he does not share their values.

And more detail on a couple questions among non-college whites:

49 - 47 that he does not share their values.
49 - 50 say that he does not care about average Americans

He's not only losing whites, he's starting to lose non-college whites.
posted by chris24 at 1:04 PM on December 19, 2017 [29 favorites]

@jdawsey1: Senior GOP aide said Trump loved round numbers -- ending in 0 or 5 -- which influenced some tax rate discussions. "20 is a pretty number," Trump said at one point about the rate.
posted by zachlipton at 1:09 PM on December 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

At least we've got an Ambassador there. Do you know one of the countries we don't have an ambassador to? South Korea.

This is not a real issue and I wish people would stop bringing it up as such. South Korea is a party seat. They give it away to a donor or political ally for good performance during the election and said person goes to fancy parties, makes nice with other rich and powerful people, and makes speeches at said parties about how they and the United States have such a special relationship. The Chargé d’Affaires ad interim, Marc Knapper is a career diplomat, doing all the real work, will continue to do all the real work, and probably better than any Trumpian ambassador could ever be.
posted by Talez at 1:12 PM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Collins said the press coverage was "so sexist it's unbelievable."

Is she implying that it was sexist to assume that she would get rolled by McConnell?

Narrator: She got rolled by McConnell.
posted by diogenes at 1:12 PM on December 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

@frankthorp:

Per historian's office, prior to Scott Garret's failed nomination vote in the Sen Banking Cmte today, the last time a nom was voted down by a cmte where the majority was the same party as the President was June, 5 1986.

Q: That nom?

A: Jeff Sessions to be a US District Judge

posted by zombieflanders at 1:15 PM on December 19, 2017 [76 favorites]

Senator Collins, we are not suggesting that you are selling out your constituency because you are a woman and women are easily and inherently duped. We are suggesting that you are selling out your constituency because we are watching you selling out your constituency.
posted by delfin at 1:15 PM on December 19, 2017 [98 favorites]

Collins' position seems to be that it's sexist to believe she is dumb enough to fall for McConnell's lies about their deal and that it should be obvious to us that she is instead duplicitous, hypocritical scum. I mean... ok. I'm willing to be non-sexist and assume she's a lying, scummy hypocrite.
posted by Justinian at 1:16 PM on December 19, 2017 [24 favorites]

Paul Ryan might have to hit his big hammer again, via @BresPolitico:

It is possible - just a possibility, not clear yet - that the House may have to vote again on tax bill. There are Byrd problems with several "small" provisions. Unclear if House will have to re-vote the bill. Checking.

One provision that caused Byrd problems allows 529 plans to be used for homeschooling provision. Other provision exempts colleges from endowment tax if they have less than 500 members. May only benefit one small college in KY.

"Possible" has been upgraded to "likely." The Senate would pass its version, then send it back to the House.

The mix of evil and rank incompetence has been one of the hardest things to grapple with in 2017.
posted by zachlipton at 1:19 PM on December 19, 2017 [45 favorites]

I'm waiting to see if I'll need to close the Etsy shop because if the rules around business deductions for sole proprietorship change I'll be operating at a loss after taxes.

But the GOP loves small businesses!

Of course, access to affordable health care is the major thing to that stops people from starting their own business, but....eh.

The problem is that a Republican who owns a company that makes several hundred million dollars a year still thinks its a small business. They don't give a fuck about people with Etsy shops or local cafes or HVAC installers or vacuum cleaner repairmen.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:19 PM on December 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

Collins has made her bed and I shed no tears for how she must lie in it, but I do have sympathy for somebody who seems to be caught up in the GOPs extinction burst. Watching the GOP at work right now is like watching a drunk person at work before you know for sure the person is drunk. It's like, wow, something is fucking that person up, what could it be? And then because most adults have been drunk, sooner or later we're like oooohhhh right okay that's what's wrong.

I don't have the experience of what it would be like to be at least by reputation a sensible person in an environment that has become dominated by insanity. To me it is incredible that say Corker is doing what he's doing. Doesn't he think about his legacy? If I was a Congressperson, I would care deeply about what history said about me, I think. These people don't. They don't seem to care what voters think.

I guess what I feel about Collins, McCain, Flake, Corker, Murkowski is that they have been overcome by their circumstances. I know that sounds like I'm apologizing for them, but that's not what I mean. What I mean is there have been signs in the past that these people have had a relationship with decency, and this bill is indecent in a number of ways. Maybe they went bad because they're stupid, Koch pawns, they see their demise in the future. But for whatever reason, these people chose wrong over right.

And just speaking as like, an American, that's deeply sad and troubling beyond this travesty of a bill. Because if the small group of "moderate" GOP is what stands between us and the collapse of the legislative branch as any kind of check of Trump, well, I am just hoping we make it another year, I guess.
posted by angrycat at 1:23 PM on December 19, 2017 [23 favorites]

WaPo: A single vote just created a rare tie in Virginia’s legislature.

NEWPORT NEWS — A Republican seat flipped Democratic in a wild recount Tuesday - with the Democrat winning by a single vote - creating a rare 50-50 tie between the parties in the House of Delegates and refashioning the political landscape in Richmond.

Democrat Shelly Simonds emerged from the recount as the apparent winner in the 94th District of the House of Delegates, seizing the seat from Republican incumbent David Yancey. A three-judge panel still must certify the results, an event scheduled for Wednesday.

posted by Justinian at 1:25 PM on December 19, 2017 [35 favorites]

"Possible" has been upgraded to "likely." The Senate would pass its version, then send it back to the House.

The mix of evil and rank incompetence has been one of the hardest things to grapple with in 2017.

They're going to be voting this thing back and forth until next year. Keeps it nice and visible for a while, gives them all sorts of ownership on it. Can't really claim you were tricked when you voted on the damn thing three separate times; though I bet you $20 that's exactly what Collins will claim after the fact.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:32 PM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

The Chargé d’Affaires ad interim, Marc Knapper is a career diplomat, doing all the real work, will continue to do all the real work, and probably better than any Trumpian ambassador could ever be.

I mean yes, probably, but it's still an important distinction. I was at a talk with a couple former US Ambassadors recently (Michael McFaul and Wendy Sherman; as a sidenote, Wendy Sherman should run for Congress somewhere) who were talking about what it means to not have appointed diplomats around the world. It's not a matter of who can do the job and who does the real work, but one of sending a message that the ambassador speaks for the President. Ambassadors are directly appointed by the President. They show up in the country with a letter from the President saying "this is my representative in your country." And if you want someone who can sit down with foreign officials and claim to be speaking on behalf of the United States, it helps if that person can say "the President sent me." It matters even more at a time when the entire world knows that Tillerson and the State Department don't speak for the President.
posted by zachlipton at 1:33 PM on December 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

@sahilkapur: NEW: @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy's office confirms that the House plans to re-vote on the tax bill tomorrow.

Oops.
posted by cybertaur1 at 1:54 PM on December 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

I thought I understood the Byrd Rule pretty well. Now I'm being told that the short title of the bill, the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act," violates the Byrd Rule and has to come out. That's an actual thing that can happen? Why?
posted by zachlipton at 1:57 PM on December 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

GOP defectors block Trump nominee to head Ex-Im Bank (By Zachary Warmbrodt for Politico, Dec. 19, 2017)

Two Senate Republicans joined with Democrats on Tuesday to block the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Export-Import Bank, a rare rejection of a Trump appointee by members of his own party and prominent business groups.

The outcome had been building for months after the White House and the nominee, former Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.), failed to win over lawmakers who were suspicious of why Garrett would want to lead an agency that he tried to shut down when he served in Congress.

Garrett went down in a 13-10 vote by the Senate Banking Committee. Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) voted against him.

“We need to both reform the Export-Import Bank and ensure it continues to function as an important tool for American businesses," Scott said. "Given Mr. Garrett’s long history opposing the Ex-Im Bank, I believe it would be hard for him to accomplish both of those goals.”

From earlier today: Scott Garrett poses real threat to EXIM Bank, small businesses (By William E. Bucknam, opinion contributor to The Hill)

To sell our systems across the globe, MWI relies on the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank. Between 1983 and 2002, MWI obtained EXIM financing commitments to support export sales to Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

These sales totaled nearly $221 million, money that went into hiring workers and paying employees back at home in the U.S.

Without EXIM, our sales to Zimbabwe and other developing countries would not have happened. That's why our business relies on EXIM, and it's why I oppose former Rep. Scott Garrett's (R-N.J.) nomination to lead this critical agency.

Since President Trump nominated Garrett, I've felt anxious and concerned. President Trump has been a strong supporter of American manufacturing since he first began campaigning for the presidency.

Yet, Scott Garrett does not share these priorities. While in Congress, Garrett made it his goal to shut down EXIM, repeatedly voting against reauthorizing the bank and arguing its mission is "doling out taxpayer funded welfare for mega corporations."

Aw, shoot - an anti-agency asshole isn't allowed to tank said agency. And it wasn't just one "defector," but TWO! On this count (and possibly this count alone), good job, Rounds and Scott!
posted by filthy light thief at 2:02 PM on December 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

So my mom's childhood best friend lives in the 94th, and my mom said they got into a big argument because the friend said she wasn't planning to vote for the Democrat for state rep, and my mom thought her reasons were dumb. (My mom's friend is a former moderate Republican who seems to be creeping towards admitting she's a Democrat, and she definitely voted for Northam.) I'm going to have to ask my mom what the friend finally did. I'm going to be pretty amused if she ultimately voted for the Democrat or didn't vote in that race, and that's what swung the entire Virginia House.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:03 PM on December 19, 2017 [34 favorites]

Apparently it has to have "Reconciliation" in the title.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:08 PM on December 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

If this piece of shit has to go up for a revote and fails because they fucked up the title I will be laughing all the way to the cake shop
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:13 PM on December 19, 2017 [45 favorites]

Not that I'm upset at any norm being upheld, but really, why this one? The title? I'd trade that in a hot minute for a norm that involved an actual debate on the bill.
posted by nat at 2:16 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Again, 2017 outpaces the actual writers. From Parks and Rec writer Michael Schur, aka Ken Tremendous:

"When we were writing the S4 finale of Parks and Rec, we briefly wanted Leslie to win her city council seat by one vote. Ultimately we thought it just wasn't believable."
posted by kelborel at 2:17 PM on December 19, 2017 [35 favorites]

These people would fuck up a Home Depot job application but sure, let's let them manage the largest economy on Earth
posted by theodolite at 2:18 PM on December 19, 2017 [28 favorites]

Time to make them pay.

@aabramson (TIME)
DSCC already released ads targeting potential/current Senate candidates for tax vote:
AZ – Martha McSally
IN – Luke Messer
IN – Todd Rokita
ND – Kevin Cramer
PA – Lou Barletta
TN – Marsha Blackburn
WV – Evan Jenkins
posted by chris24 at 2:18 PM on December 19, 2017 [45 favorites]

Want to know how excited Murkowski is for this?

@KilloughCNN: Sen. Murkowski is wearing Hulk earrings today in honor of the late Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who wore a Hulk tie when he would try to get ANWR passed. She's never worn them until today, when the Senate will likely get it passed through tax reform. [PHOTO]
posted by zachlipton at 2:19 PM on December 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

Trump administration blames North Korea for WannaCry (Reuters) ... by way of Wall Street Journal Op Ed (paywalled). The Reuters article notes:

The White House was expected to follow up on Tuesday with a more formal statement blaming Pyongyang, according to a senior administration official.

It's after 5 PM Eastern time, and the only news coverage I see is of this WaPo OpEd. Stellar work, everyone.

And according to the piece, the Trump administration "will continue to use our maximum pressure strategy to curb Pyongyang's ability to mount attacks, cyber or otherwise," which Tillerson had tried to back-pedal and re-brand as a "peaceful pressure campaign back in July.

TILLERSON: No, we have not given up hope. When you're in an approach like we're using — and I call it the peaceful pressure campaign. A lot of people like to characterize it otherwise, but this is a campaign to lead us to a peaceful resolution. Because if this fails, we don't have very many good options left. And so it is a peaceful pressure campaign, and it's one that requires calculated increases in pressure, allow the regime to respond to that pressure. And it takes a little time to let these things happen. You enact the pressure; it takes a little while for that to work its way through.

So it is going to require some level of patience as we move this along, but when we talk about our strategic patience ending, what we mean is we're not going to just sit idly by, and we're going to follow this all the way to its conclusion.

Trump is calling this a maximum-pressure campaign. Tillerson sort of noted this with a smirk, but he said they're on the same page back in November 2017.

Well. Oiled. Machine.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:20 PM on December 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

If this piece of shit has to go up for a revote and fails because they fucked up the title I will be laughing all the way to the cake shop

I used to believe I could predict politics. 2017 reminds me I can predict nothing at all.
posted by corb at 2:25 PM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

It's after 5 PM Eastern time, and the only news coverage I see is of this WaPo OpEd. Stellar work, everyone.

I actually saw this on the local noon news, of all places.
posted by dirigibleman at 2:27 PM on December 19, 2017

The AP went with the real story, not with horse race journalism giving Trump & Co a win just for passing a piece of shit. Rightwing Twitter was not happy.

@AP
BREAKING: House passes first rewrite of nation's tax laws in three decades, providing steep tax cuts for businesses, the wealthy.
posted by chris24 at 2:29 PM on December 19, 2017 [75 favorites]

It's on NYT but not in the breaking news section, it shows up as an update to the existing story.

RIGHT NOW The Senate parliamentarian has rejected three provisions from the tax bill saying they violate budget rules. The move will force the House to hold another vote on the revised legislation on Wednesday. The Senate is still expected to vote on the bill on Tuesday. Check out our live vote counter to see how the House vote played out.

also

The parliamentary stumble does not imperil the overall tax rewrite, but the House will now need to vote again on the tax bill after the Senate gives its approval.

posted by cybertaur1 at 2:31 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Here are Collins' remarks in full, in the interest of fairness, Collins decries coverage of her tax bill support as 'unbelievably sexist'

“I believe that the coverage has been unbelievably sexist, and I cannot believe that the press would have treated another senator with 20 years of experience as they have treated me,” she told reporters in the Capitol. “They’ve ignored everything that I’ve gotten and written story after story about how I’m duped. How am I duped when all your amendments get accepted?”
...
“The list goes on and on,” Collins said. “[Ohio Sen.] Rob Portman would tell you that I’ve had more impact than anybody who was not a conferee.”

Collins also singled out a report that she said included a line about how she “didn’t cry” during a recent meeting with protesters, many of whom suffer from grave medical conditions. That line was later removed after Collins complained, but not before the story posted online.

“I can’t imagine a reporter writing that about a male senator meeting with the same group, and in fact I have proof because they met with [Arizona Sen.] Jeff Flake,” she said. “So it’s been extremely discouraging to see the press coverage on this given the significant impact that I’ve had on this bill.”

Collins said the reaction to her support for the tax overhaul has been mixed.

“We’ve had a lot of protesters, including those that have staked out my home on Sunday mornings,” Collins said. “But we’ve also had a great deal of support, from small businesspeople, for example.”

Which, yes, the Times including the line "After her meeting at her office, it did not appear that Ms. Collins was ready to change her vote, or that she had been brought to tears" was crappy, even as Ady Barkan's passionate advocacy makes my eyes water. That's a fair criticism, though it's orthogonal to the matter of her support of the bill.

But if Collins wants to make it clear she's not getting duped, that she is knowingly conditioning her support for the tax bill on a promise of future health care measures that the House has vowed not to consider, that's fine with me. Because that's the actual question that proceeded this non-answer: why have you conditioned your support of the bill on things that the House says won't happen? The things she said needed to happen to vote for this bill are decidedly not happening, and the House, who she didn't make any kind of deal with, keeps loudly saying that out loud. And just as Corker has gotten raked over the coals for flipping on his pledge not to vote for this tax bill if it adds "one penny to the deficit," Collins is getting grilled on the glaring inconsistencies in her statements.
posted by zachlipton at 2:32 PM on December 19, 2017 [22 favorites]

I guess she wants to go with "I'm being evil as fuck on purpose" as the explanation. Which, ok, but a lot of articles pointed out that it was either stupidity/gullibility or being evil as fuck. And folks like Corker were getting as much if not more flak, so apart from the shitty NYT quote, the sexism angle is bullshit.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:36 PM on December 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

FWIW - I know a guy who used to be on Collins's staff, and he couldn't wait to get off, said she was awful.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:49 PM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

And based on Kansas, it'll probably be worse than that.

That's probably an exaggeration for the moment. If the Democratic Party takes over at least half the legislative branch in 2018, that will likely forestall any difficulty continuing to finance the federal government with budget deficits for at least another decade, assuming there is any progress whatsoever towards readjusting the tax system.

Kansas, unlike the feds and every other state, do not have nearly unlimited borrowing power. Trump won't likely torpedo that in the short term, but if he keeps letting the Republicans keep getting away with dumb shit like this tax bill that won't remain the case.

That's also why the impact won't be as bad overall as worst case estimates unless Republicans really do succeed in going beyond the automatic triggers. For the country as a whole, one or even two years of the tax plan will be survivable for most given that much of the worst bullshit that would likely do instant damage were removed.

That in no way is intended to imply we shouldn't investigate the direct corruption that is the Corker payoff or just let this pile of poo pass, only that there will be a window of opportunity to reverse the thing before it creates total disaster.
posted by wierdo at 2:50 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Democrats are folding on DACA, again: Democrats unlikely to force DACA vote this week, probably averting shutdown.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:52 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Ah, good. They can get behind Sen. Collins in the "folding for nothing" line.
posted by zachlipton at 2:55 PM on December 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

Sen. Murkowski is wearing Hulk earrings today in honor of the late Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who wore a Hulk tie when he would try to get ANWR passed. She's never worn them until today, when the Senate will likely get it passed through tax reform.

Wait until Mark Ruffalo finds out.
posted by suelac at 2:58 PM on December 19, 2017 [22 favorites]

Christie goes rogue.

@KenDilanianNBC
Trump ally Chris Christie: Mike Flynn has been cooperating for a while.

@MrRobotCodeBrkr
Replying to @KenDilanianNBC
'He was indicted on a Friday. I'll tell you this...he didn't start cooperating on Wednesday. It's been for a while.' - Chris Christie.

@KenDilanianNBC
Christie: Jared Kushner deserves law enforcement scrutiny "because he was involved in meetings that call into question his role."
posted by chris24 at 3:03 PM on December 19, 2017 [31 favorites]

Speaking of our well oiled diplomacy machine, Haley: "The U.S. Will Be 'Taking Names'" When UN Votes on Jerusalem Resolution

United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley warned the international body on Tuesday that the U.S. "will be taking names" when the U.N. General Assembly votes this week on a resolution urging the Trump administration to withdraw its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

"At the UN we're always asked to do more & give more," Haley wrote on Twitter. "So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American ppl, abt where to locate OUR embassy, we don't expect those we've helped to target us. On Thurs there'll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names."

I don't know who or what to flip off first. International diplomacy shouldn't be this grotesque. At the very least, please don't tweet.
posted by petebest at 3:06 PM on December 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

Meatloaf of shame must have worn off.
posted by Existential Dread at 3:06 PM on December 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

Is Christie still sore about never getting invited to the collusion meetings?
posted by contraption at 3:09 PM on December 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

More that he's returning Jared's shiv.

In his back.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:14 PM on December 19, 2017 [14 favorites]

United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley warned the international body on Tuesday that the U.S. "will be taking names" when the U.N. General Assembly votes this week on a resolution urging the Trump administration to withdraw its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

I feel like it would be easier to take the names of the countries that vote with you on this, probably a much smaller list to remember.
posted by jason_steakums at 3:17 PM on December 19, 2017 [27 favorites]

Apparently, former CoS and obvious anagram Reince Priebus had lunch with current CoS John Kelly and Donald Trump today.

Wonder what they discussed. My feeling is that either Reince walked away with a long iPhone voice memo or the three amigos are coordinating their testimonies.
posted by scarylarry at 3:19 PM on December 19, 2017 [18 favorites]

Both Christie and Giuliani were by most accounts pretty good District Attorneys. Giuliani was DA for SDNY, the premiere DA position in the country. It's the one from which Bharara was fired.

I sometimes wonder if they were always terrible and corrupt people and those positions somehow mostly constrained them? Or did they rise to the level of their corruption in some sort of evil Peter Principle? Same thing happened to Flynn who was supposedly one of the finest counterintelligence officers of his generation.

Do these guys start off this way or do they go through some kind of supervillain origin story?
posted by Justinian at 3:26 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Do these guys start off this way or do they go through some kind of supervillain origin story?

Money and power is a helluva drug
posted by Existential Dread at 3:28 PM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

I feel like it would be easier to take the names of the countries that vote with you on this, probably a much smaller list to remember.

The UN Security Council already voted 14-1 to condemn it. The US voted against/vetoed it. So I guess our oldest best allies France and the UK are on the shit list now.
posted by chris24 at 3:33 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Justinian: "WaPo: A single vote just created a rare tie in Virginia’s legislature."

It occurs to me this calls for an official:

ELECTION RESULT

Dem GAIN in Virginia House 94, 50.002 - 49.998. Control of the House is now tied 50-50.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:34 PM on December 19, 2017 [89 favorites]

The UN Security Council already voted 14-1 to condemn it. The US voted against/vetoed it. So I guess our oldest best allies France and the UK are on the shit list now.

The last Israel vote was 167-7-6. The only no vote from the developed world was Canada and that was because Harper is one of those Israel must reform so it can be destroyed nutjobs. The rest were South Pacific micronations, the US, and Israel itself. Someone needs to remind Haley and Trump that technically we can only take on the next seven more powerful nations combined, not all of them.
posted by Talez at 3:38 PM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Dem GAIN in Virginia House 94, 50.002 - 49.998. Control of the House is now tied 50-50.

This is where a smart governor would offer a posh administration job to a republican state senator in a vulnerable district to try to swing the state senate in a special election. But no, Northam already promised he wouldn't do that in his stupid interview:

That’s echoed in his promise not to try to engineer a Democratic advantage in the legislature. Other governors with a closely divided House or Senate have dangled well-paying Cabinet jobs to lure a lawmaker from the opposite party to leave the Assembly and tilt the balance of power.

It has been widely assumed that Northam is considering such a move, with Republicans holding a 21-19 edge in the state Senate and incoming Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a Democrat, in a position to break tie votes. But Northam ruled that out.

“I have let our people know that I will work with the legislature that was elected by the people,” he said. “I’m not approaching anybody . . . in the Senate or the House.”

posted by peeedro at 3:41 PM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

TBF, I've heard that he felt out a couple of GOP reps on taking an administration job, and nobody was biting.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:44 PM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Not that I'm upset at any norm being upheld, but really, why this one? The title? I'd trade that in a hot minute for a norm that involved an actual debate on the bill.

I don't believe they're skipping any options for actual changes or even debate. But challenging the title means that Republicans can't hide behind "we passed a thing for Tax Cuts And Jobs!" (Or at least, the official records won't show them voting for that. And it means the dems can introduce their own Tax Cuts And Jobs act later.)

The full title is “An Act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018.” There's a lovely twitter thread.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:05 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Bloomberg, Steven T. Dennis, Cornyn Says Tax Bill Mandate Repeal Makes Obamacare ‘Unworkable'

The No. 2 Senate Republican said Tuesday that the GOP’s tax bill will make Obamacare “unworkable,” which he hopes will force Democrats into negotiations to replace the law.

Asked about the failure of the GOP’s efforts to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, Senator John Cornyn of Texas noted the tax measure will repeal the penalty for not buying health insurance, a central element of the Affordable Care Act.

"Arguably, doing away with the individual mandate makes the Affordable Care Act unworkable -- not that it was particularly great beforehand,” Cornyn said. “Hopefully this will precipitate the bipartisan negotiation on what we need to do as an alternative."

So GOP leadership just openly says that their goal here is to make the nation's health insurance system "unworkable," and his constituents don't seem to think that's a problem.
posted by zachlipton at 5:02 PM on December 19, 2017 [76 favorites]

“Hopefully this will precipitate the bipartisan negotiation on what we need to do as an alternative."

You have full control of the House and Senate - why don't you just come up with a plan to fix it, and implement that?
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:12 PM on December 19, 2017 [60 favorites]

I find that when I want someone to come to the negotiating table, active sabotage is the best way to start a productive dialogue.
posted by 0xFCAF at 5:24 PM on December 19, 2017 [36 favorites]

Why would Republicans desire bipartisanship? Why wouldn't they want full credit?
posted by rhizome at 5:33 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Christie's been at it a long time: What a Dick: The Chris Christie Story
posted by armacy at 5:38 PM on December 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

Apparently, former CoS and obvious anagram Reince Priebus had lunch with current CoS John Kelly and Donald Trump today.

Wonder what they discussed. My feeling is that either Reince walked away with a long iPhone voice memo or the three amigos are coordinating their testimonies.

[whynotboth.gif]
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:07 PM on December 19, 2017

Politico, Senators, White House lay groundwork for Dreamers deal, in which Flake says McConnell promised him a vote in mid-January and the White House says it will offer a list of demands in exchange for a DACA deal.
posted by zachlipton at 6:08 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

White House says it will offer a list of demands in exchange for a DACA deal

So why does it always feel like a hostage situation? We can't all agree not to deport innocent kids, culturally American, to random foreign lands?
posted by Meatbomb at 6:19 PM on December 19, 2017 [35 favorites]

ELECTION RESULT

GOP HOLD in Florida House 58, 55-34. This is a right-leaning district (Trump 53-43), plus the D is a perennial candidate.

Just goes to show that even in a D-friendly environment, you still need good candidates to flip tough seats.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:35 PM on December 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

So why does it always feel like a hostage situation?

Because it essentially is - Republicans have full control of the US government and actively support their racist, demented, misogynistic, sex-abuser, money-laundering, preening, narcissistic, serial-lying leader.

This is the part in the movie where Batman swings in and beats up all the bad guys. But movies aren't real.
posted by petebest at 6:38 PM on December 19, 2017 [15 favorites]

Speaking of our well oiled diplomacy machine, Haley: "The U.S. Will Be 'Taking Names'" When UN Votes on Jerusalem Resolution


Nikki Haley is astonishingly good for a Trump appointee. Maybe she was excessively heavy-handed over this UN resolution, but the resolution is a direct criticism of the USA's foreign policy and, as its ambassador, it is absolutely her job to defend it.

I'd rather judge Haley by her previous noteworthy actions, which include, as the first female governor of South Carolina, riding the groundswell after the Dylan Roof massacre to have the Confederate flag taken down. Most recently she came as near as darnit to endorsing sexual assault charges against Trump. I don't know whether there's enough in the Republican Party to be worth saving, but if there is, Haley must be near the top.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:43 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Both Christie and Giuliani were by most accounts pretty good District Attorneys.

You're joking, right? Rudy's big "achievement" as a US Attorney was fucking up the case agaist John Gotti - twice. Not to mention his going down and supporting the NYPD riot during the Dinkins administration. And Christie's corruption and politicking as a US Attorney has been documented.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:43 PM on December 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Someone is projecting the 7 CDC banned words onto the Trump DC Hotel.

PIC
posted by chris24 at 6:46 PM on December 19, 2017 [63 favorites]

@chadderr (Chad Bolt, Indivisible)
You’ve heard of “repeal and replace”? Well here’s our plan: *replace and repeal.*

1. Replace Republicans in Congress.
2. Repeal the #GOPTaxScam

2018 is coming.
posted by chris24 at 7:10 PM on December 19, 2017 [87 favorites]

Democrats are folding on DACA, again: Democrats unlikely to force DACA vote this week, probably averting shutdown.

If you can’t stand up and show a spine we’ll primary you and elect someone who can.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:12 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Who are we as a country? Time to decide. Sally Yates in USA Today.

Most notable because holy fuck she definitely thinks Trump is about to fire Mueller. She’s sounding the alarm as hard as she can.

And I would vote for her.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:15 PM on December 19, 2017 [70 favorites]

If you can’t stand up and show a spine we’ll primary you and elect someone who can.

Why do we always want Democrats to do the same shitty fucking things that Republicans do because of some fetish of looking tough?

If you want someone who will throw poor people under a bus to accomplish their goals they're in control of the fucking government right now. You don't need to vote anyone out.
posted by Talez at 7:17 PM on December 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

In front of Twitter's headquarters, there's a guy with tape over his mouth holding a sign saying "it's not ok to be white @Twitter" and another guy with a sign reading "fuck this white supremacist," with an arrow pointed to the first guy. They both appear to be together (as in, matching signs, they're standing right next to each other, laughing together, coordinating which way they turn together, etc...) rather than anything antagonistic.

I don't know what their deal is, and I assume provoking people is part of the point so I didn't, but it's not good.
posted by zachlipton at 7:19 PM on December 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

Like a government shutdown or federal default doesn't become a good thing just because Democrats do them. Both will still cause untold amounts of pain to poor people who don't deserve it. Especially since what we're demanding is effectively throwing Brer Republican into the proverbial briar patch.
posted by Talez at 7:21 PM on December 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

Oh they are going HARD on this whole "Discredit the FBI" gambit.

Fox guest floats possibility of FBI assassination plot against Trump

A guest co-host on Fox News Channel's "Outnumbered" program on Tuesday appeared to suggest that FBI agents might have planned to assassinate President Trump.

In a clip from Tuesday's episode first reported by Media Matters, guest co-host Kevin Jackson floated the possibility that FBI agents revealed to have sent anti-Trump text messages may have planned to kill Trump after the president defeated Hillary Clinton last November.

posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:23 PM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

I don't want to step on Chrysotom's turf, but holy shit...

@gelliottmorris (Decision Desk)
Democrats just shifted a deep red district in Tennessee by 46(!) points. Trump won it by 49, GOP candidate only won by 3% today. Comes just a week after Democrats shifted #ALSen by 30%.
- Tonight’s near-win for Democrats in TN’s #SD17 is just another data point pointing to a Dem wave. Not only is the 46% shift the biggest we’ve seen so far (by a lot!), but it’s evidence that Ds are competitive all over the country. And when wave’s come, they hit the entire beach.
- This puts the average D shift for all 2017 legislative and congressional specials, as well as VA & NJ Gov, very close to the 20% marker. If this same shift happens in the House in 2018 (probably won’t, to be sure), it would be enough for Democrats to get >240
- All of this is happening as Democrats hold a 9-10% lead in the House generic ballot (which has shifted 2% toward them in the past 2-3 weeks).
- All in all, I think people are seeing in red seats the data we’ve been seeing for a while in the generic ballot and aggregate special shifts. I would hate to be a Republican candidate in this environment.
posted by chris24 at 7:24 PM on December 19, 2017 [54 favorites]

Nikki Haley is astonishingly good for a Trump appointee.

You can just come out and say you happen to agree with the Trump administration’s foreign policy, Joe, without couching it in a defense of Nikki Haley.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 7:27 PM on December 19, 2017 [16 favorites]

Who are we as a country? Time to decide. Sally Yates in USA Today.

Most notable because holy fuck she definitely thinks Trump is about to fire Mueller. She’s sounding the alarm as hard as she can.

And I would vote for her.

The firing rumors were flying around Capitol Hill last week, and according to Vanity Fair, Mueller's team is meeting with Trump's lawyers sometime this week. Their sources suggest that Donnie's going to get a reality check, and we all know how well that usually goes. Seems like a real danger zone, especially with people distracted with the holidays.

Personally I don't know what to think. I often feel like I'm trying to read between the lines of Russia-related stories, looking for the thing that the reporters (or whoever they're talking to) are pretty sure about, but can't come out and say. Like are most people on the Hill waiting for this particular shoe to drop?
posted by cudzoo at 7:30 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Can someone get a memo to the Democratic leadership in Congress. Linda Sanchez maybe?

TODAY, we need to hear about actual legislation planned to be introduced the moment it flips to Democrats. What the GOP promised, we can deliver.

Here's the bill to fix healthcare.

Here's the bill to really fix taxes.

Here's the bill for CHIP.

Here's the bill for Climate Change

Here's the bill for OSHA Standards for HR departments handling sexual misconduct complants.

Here's the bill for ....

Here's the bill for....

Here's the bill for...

And we need drafts of them online, ASAP, too. We've got a year, we know what we want. There's no reason not to put them out there.

Elect US and THIS is what we're going to do. No handwaving. No empty promises. Here's our prepared legislation ready to go, open, transparent, and there's the center of the election campaign.

PLEASE!!!!
posted by mikelieman at 7:33 PM on December 19, 2017 [113 favorites]

And we need drafts of them online, ASAP, too. We've got a year, we know what we want. There's no reason not to put them out there.

So democrats can fight with each other and drain headlines from the actual train wreck?

Nah, I’m fine with letting the spot light stay on the GOP while they’re doing all their criming. Most people only pay attention for like a month or two. Make the argument then, after the GOP has fucked up as much as possible in public.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:39 PM on December 19, 2017 [18 favorites]

Yeah. The elections haven't started yet in earnest. Once they have put it online. Otherwise just keep the powder dry.
posted by Talez at 7:41 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

The No. 2 Senate Republican said Tuesday that the GOP’s tax bill will make Obamacare “unworkable,” which he hopes will force Democrats into negotiations to replace the law.

The disingenuity of the Republicans pretending there is an alternative to the Republican plan implemented by Obama that they will accept is really tiresome. They've got nothing, so they're trying to pin the lack of an alternative on the failure of the Democrats to come up with one. Assholes all the way down.
posted by Mental Wimp at 7:49 PM on December 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

chris24: "I don't want to step on Chrysotom's turf, but holy shit..."

That's twice today I've been scooped! Pistols at dawn!

No need to apologize for a good news scoop, guys
posted by Chrysostom at 7:52 PM on December 19, 2017 [28 favorites]

Their sources suggest that Donnie's going to get a reality check, and we all know how well that usually goes

What I don’t get, why doesn’t Mueller’s team just blow smoke up their asses and stall them? “Oh we’ll be done real soon, any week now...” Is there some sort of obligation to tell the unvarnished truth to these criminals?
posted by leotrotsky at 7:54 PM on December 19, 2017

fluttering hellfire: "If this wave is real, ffs someone challenge Ann Wagner in MO-2."

There are five Dem candidates so far.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:57 PM on December 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Oh, and one final tidbit from Elliott at Decision Desk:

It is getting more & more important to look at the right tail of the distribution of possible # of Dem House seats next year. There is a very real 15% chance of a Dem tidal wave (>250 seats) in 2018.

posted by Chrysostom at 8:12 PM on December 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Like a government shutdown or federal default doesn't become a good thing just because Democrats do them. Both will still cause untold amounts of pain to poor people who don't deserve it.

Democrats wouldn't be "doing" anything, to anyone. Republicans have the votes to fund their own government, Democrats have no power whatsoever, unless the Republicans can't actually do the most basic function of their jobs. If not, and Republicans have to beg Democrats to do it for them, again, why exactly should the price for that help be nothing?

Especially since what we're demanding is effectively throwing Brer Republican into the proverbial briar patch.

DACA polls at 80% with Republicans, and Trump is on record promising it.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:22 PM on December 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

A tax bill vote is expected within the hour. I've been listening in on C-SPAN Radio. CW: Cruz is speaking now.
posted by salix at 8:39 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Sen. Murkowski has a Hulk scarf now to go with the earrings.
posted by zachlipton at 8:41 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Because if there’s one thing Dr. Bruce Banner would approve of, it’s drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

the fact that it’s coupled with tax cuts for corporations and billionaires is more of a stark industries concern

This timeline is ridiculous.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 8:47 PM on December 19, 2017 [43 favorites]

Republicans have the votes to fund their own government.

No, they don't. Appropriations bills require 60 votes in the Senate. If at least some Democrats do not find common ground, the government shuts down, even if all 52 Republicans vote alike.

Democrats cannot withhold their votes without threatening a shutdown which harms millions of their own constituents. You can argue how hard they should bargain, but ultimately they have to come to some sort of compromise.
posted by JackFlash at 8:49 PM on December 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Sen. Murkowski has a Hulk scarf now to go with the earrings.

She's really excited about making sure her grandchildren can't grow food.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:50 PM on December 19, 2017 [63 favorites]

Democrats cannot withhold their votes without threatening a shutdown which harms millions of their own constituents. You can argue how hard they should bargain, but ultimately they have to come to some sort of compromise.

Could the Democrats demand, in return for their cooperation, a change to the funding mechanisms that would prevent the recurring risk of this type of shutdown? That actually seems like a legit and maybe even non-partisan reason to push the risk of one shutdown: if it's for the sake of an end to all shutdowns.
posted by XMLicious at 8:57 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

"This is serious stuff. We believe you're messing up America. You could pay attention for a couple minutes." --Schumer, calling for order
posted by salix at 9:02 PM on December 19, 2017 [65 favorites]

That actually seems like a legit and maybe even non-partisan reason to push the risk of one shutdown

I mean, that would make for some excellent soundbites. “This tax bill of yours makes it clear you don’t care about the deficit anymore, so let’s all agree to just get rid of the debt ceiling.”
posted by C'est la D.C. at 9:02 PM on December 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

Cruz is speaking now.
It's just gut-wrenching. He's hammering on the "look at your paycheck!" angle, when all the middle-class tax increases are designed to be long-term. Preview of the 2018 campaign I think.
It might be a huge payout to Wall Street, but it's all priced in plus some. "Buy on the rumor, sell on the news" is the mantra. Hopefully the bubbles just deflate instead of popping.
posted by netowl at 9:03 PM on December 19, 2017

We're beginning the first of two votes to pass the tax bill in the Senate. The bill itself will be the second vote of the series.
posted by zachlipton at 9:10 PM on December 19, 2017

Wait, so the Senate is voting on the House bill that was passed today, that still has to be REVOTED on in the House tomorrow because they fucked up the name, and then the Senate will vote on the renamed bill tomorrow?
posted by elsietheeel at 9:13 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

The Senate is about to vote on the corrected bill (excluding the non-Byrdable provisions) now. The House will vote on the same corrected bill tomorrow. It will not need to go back to the Senate after that; it will go to the President.
posted by zachlipton at 9:17 PM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Gowdy's backpedaling on McCabe. Benghazi Trey's hypocrisy in donning the fairness mantle as he plans to end the House Russia investigation in a week is gobsmacking.

McCabe on Tuesday convinced Gowdy that the scheduling snafu was nothing more than “a good faith error,” he said. The deputy director was always planning on appearing today, he said, and “I take him at his word.”

Asked by The Hill if he was hinting that McCabe would be dismissed or resign from the bureau by Tuesday, Gowdy said, “I probably was, but I was probably wrong.”

“Fairness is not always rewarded in my line of work, but I probably should have waited to hear his side of it,” he said.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:17 PM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

The Senate is about to vote on the corrected bill (excluding the non-Byrdable provisions) now. The House will vote on the same corrected bill tomorrow. It will not need to go back to the Senate after that; it will go to the President.

And pardon my hopeful ignorance, what happens if the vote is different tomorrow?
posted by loquacious at 9:21 PM on December 19, 2017

Why on earth would the vote be different tomorrow? Isn’t it only the title that’s changed?
posted by greermahoney at 9:23 PM on December 19, 2017

It's not just the title that changed. The provision allowing 529 accounts to be used for homeschooling had to come out, as did a tweak that would have exempted Brea College from the new excise tax on certain endowments. That's a small tuition-free Christian college in Kentucky; they were going to make the tax apply only to institutions that charge tuition.

The vote in the House tomorrow can be anything as long as there's a majority and both chambers pass the same text. If that happens, it goes to the President for signature. If not, the bill is on hold until both chambers manage to pass the same thing. I can't imagine the vote it will be appreciably different tomorrow.

But if you count procedural votes, Democrats can now campaign on "he/she voted for this horrible tax bill five times," so that's a plus.
posted by zachlipton at 9:29 PM on December 19, 2017 [12 favorites]

Chuck Schumer:

Vote no. Otherwise I believe the entire republican party and each of you will come to rue this day.

Schumer is more optimistic than me. The American voter holds no grudges against Republicans.
posted by Talez at 9:33 PM on December 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

You can just come out and say you happen to agree with the Trump administration’s foreign policy, Joe

But I don't. Trump doesn't have a foreign policy as such, but even the policies that I presume you think I agree with, I don't. (Changing the address of the US' Jerusalem embassy isn't a meaningful foreign policy, and shouldn't be dignified by treating it as such.)

The foreign policy bits relevant to Australasia (specifically trade, migration, and the TPP) are indescribably shortsighted and meanspirited. As for the other bit I generally take an interest in, the Middle East, he's destroyed the USA's deterrent role and allowed Iran to accept Russian protection as it goes about creating an Islamic revolutionary union across the Middle East.

Nikki Haley, on the other hand, has done some genuinely good things in her earlier role and may go on to do good things in the future.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:35 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Protests come out in the Senate gallery.

"KILL THE BILL! DON'T KILL US!"
posted by Talez at 9:37 PM on December 19, 2017 [20 favorites]

What (if Anything) Does Carter Page Know?

He has been wiretapped by the F.B.I. and grilled by congressional investigators over his suspected Russia connections. But the Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser can’t seem to stop talking.

posted by kirkaracha at 9:41 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

The tax bill passes the Senate on a party-line vote, 51-48 (McCain absent).
posted by zachlipton at 9:46 PM on December 19, 2017 [10 favorites]

51 votes. It's done. The American people have been sold out. They may as well start calling our currency the Soylent Greenback.
posted by Talez at 9:47 PM on December 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

It was kind of an odd soundscape during the final Senate vote: senators were making a chuckling murmur as they milled about during the vote. Desperate and genuine sounds of protest, muffled by someone in charge of the microphone.
posted by netowl at 9:48 PM on December 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

I have a very strong suspicion, and I say this with sincerity and respect for his humanity, that something is wrong with Carter Page. At first I thought he was one of those bootlickers, the guy who likes to be in the middle of everything and pretend he has more importance than he does. But now that I've read some of his communiques regarding his belief that he is continually persecuted by Hillary Rodham Clinton, I now believe that he has a mental disorder. That doesn't mean he isn't a criminal implicated in conspiracies, but if anyone on this earth cares about this guy, they should be urging him to seek psychiatric evaluation and legal representation. That this article points out his utter lack of any sense of self-preservation bears out my suspicions.
posted by xyzzy at 9:51 PM on December 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

One of the most horrifying things about the bill they just passed is what they did to Puerto Rico: The GOP’s Tax Bill Kicks Puerto Rico When It’s Down

As the U.S. island struggles to climb out of a $70 billion debt crisis and recover from the devastation of Hurricane Maria, House Republicans voted Tuesday to impose a 12.5 percent tax on intellectual property income made by U.S. companies operating on the island and a minimum 10 percent tax on their profits in Puerto Rico.

That means that with the Senate’s agreement, businesses with operations in Puerto Rico will pay higher taxes than their counterparts on the U.S. mainland, which puts industries and jobs on the island at risk.

The provision, tucked into the GOP’s massive tax bill, was intended to stop American companies from dodging federal taxes by shifting their profits overseas. But because the U.S. tax code treats Puerto Rico as a foreign territory, business operations on the island will get hit.

posted by zachlipton at 9:54 PM on December 19, 2017 [64 favorites]

the U.S. tax code treats Puerto Rico as a foreign territory

What the actual fuck.
posted by biogeo at 9:57 PM on December 19, 2017 [27 favorites]

Animatronic Trump Is the Scariest Best Thing at Disney World

What's amazing about this is that it absolutely looks like someone whose face is just about to be melted by the opening of the Ark of the Covenant and also, it is incredibly accurate. That is impressive.
...
They even managed to capture the president's weird restlessness. George Washington is pontificating from beyond the grave and the Trump animatronic keeps stealing glances at the audience and shifting around. This read is epic. This is The Odyssey of reads.

posted by kirkaracha at 9:59 PM on December 19, 2017 [17 favorites]

The US will be taking names.

This is actually a pretty encouraging development. A good first step in diplomacy is to know the names of countries. Next I suggest getting their phone numbers.
posted by srboisvert at 9:59 PM on December 19, 2017 [28 favorites]

the U.S. tax code treats Puerto Rico as a foreign territory

What the actual fuck.

Sometimes I wonder if these people really have our best interests at heart.
posted by uosuaq at 10:00 PM on December 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

Republicans have the votes to fund their own government.

No, they don't. Appropriations bills require 60 votes in the Senate. If at least some Democrats do not find common ground, the government shuts down, even if all 52 Republicans vote alike.

Democrats cannot withhold their votes without threatening a shutdown which harms millions of their own constituents. You can argue how hard they should bargain, but ultimately they have to come to some sort of compromise.

The way this is supposed to work, both in terms of political theory and in terms of century-long practice, is that in order to gain those centrist votes -- Senators 51-60 -- the ruling party adjusts their bill -- by moderating it, adding sweeteners and bribes, logrolling, future promises, etc -- until those centrist Senators prefer the bill to the status quo. What has not generally been the practice, and by all accounts should not be the practice, is that instead of changing the bill/policy to win the needed votes, the ruling party instead promises to never change the bill and instead to shut the government down if the minority centrist voters do not completely capitulate and vote for the unchanged bill. Apart from utterly flying in the face of all established democratic theory and the practices of almost all functional democracies including at least a century of US history, this government-by-hostagetaking also constitutes a uniquely dire threat for the liberal wing, since they are far more sensitive to the hostages than the right, and thus cannot reciprocate the strategy when they themselves are in power, leading to a fast-acting rightward ratchet. Legislation by hostage is deadly for democracy, and yes, we should accept short-term pain to fight it.
posted by chortly at 10:05 PM on December 19, 2017 [47 favorites]

The tax bill passes the Senate on a party-line vote, 51-48 (McCain absent).

Every moderate, reasonable Republican voted against the bill.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:16 PM on December 19, 2017 [55 favorites]

Every moderate, reasonable Republican voted against the bill.

So, 0.

We shouldn't be fooled again. There are no moderates. Even the "moderate" Republicans will vote to kill thousands of Americans to enrich even one billionaire donor, every time. There's no bargaining or reasoning with them, on defeating them.

Yes, that very much includes Susan Collins, traitor to the resistance.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:21 PM on December 19, 2017 [19 favorites]

Any numbers (fact or guess) on the net worth of the poorest Republican Senator? I'm just wondering whether any of these people actually need the Senator job or if all of them could never work another day and still live out their lives quite comfortably.
posted by Mitheral at 10:25 PM on December 19, 2017

Lately I've been debating with a friend and we've finally come to the conclusion that we live in a dystopia controlled by oligarchs. Now, the question is, will there be a revolt or just quiet acquiescence?
posted by xyzzy at 10:25 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Ted Cruz before the vote: "The only people whose taxes are going up are the really rich, in Manhattan and San Francisco. The facts are, the taxes for the working class are going down."

If a Democrat talked about, say, Kentucky that way on the floor of the Senate, Republicans would consider it 10,000 times worse than "deplorables."
posted by zachlipton at 10:31 PM on December 19, 2017 [46 favorites]

the really rich, in Manhattan and San Francisco.

Ted Cruz is on his antisemitic dogwhistle A-game tonight.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:38 PM on December 19, 2017 [23 favorites]

The two cities alone that Cruz just mocked contain nearly 1 out of every 100 of all Americans.

2018 is coming, Ted.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 10:40 PM on December 19, 2017 [45 favorites]

If there were no such thing as the electoral college Ted Cruz would NEVER have had the balls to even THINK that.
posted by elsietheeel at 10:44 PM on December 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

All good points, but isn't it also a complete fabrication? Every bit of analysis I've found suggests that the "really rich" will all be getting a substantial break while the working class gets a pittance at best. The people getting a tax increase are the middle class in states like the ones Ted mentioned.
posted by contraption at 10:59 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

The more accurate description would be "high-income WORKERS" while those who make a lot of money without doing any work will get a big tax break they can pass on to their PACs...
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:09 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Through decades of propaganda, regulatory and judicial capture, gerrymandering, and electoral college shenanigans, the rich have won this round in the battle of class warfare. We must now accept this reality, fight this reality, and never again accept anything espoused by the rich as benevolent. Time and again throughout history the wealthy want more, and then when they get it, even more. The only reason we have an oligarchy is because not one of these oligarchs has yet figured out how to demolish the rest--just as they've destroyed the 99.99, their ultimate goal is to destroy one another in a pathetic retrograde march back to monarchy.

Perhaps/hopefully the 2018 and 2020 ballots are still available to remediate this class warfare, but only if we not just undo what has been done, but if we aggressively enact new civic institutions and laws that strip wealth and power from those who have far too much of it (erring on stripping away too much if necessary, as we've erred on stripping away too little in past reforms) and instituting ongoing education as to why the rich are bad for society, what canards they'll employ to convince us otherwise, especially when progressive agendas have been in effect for 30, 40 years and people begin to feel any sort of comfort and forget.

We need to embrace that this is full-on class warfare being waged against us, and when we win the next major battle we need to institute constitutional amendments to permanently fuck the rich, and thereafter be ever-vigilant to privilege the many over the few. Rich people are a cancer on a society, not a positive force.

Money isn't even real--it doesn't grow on trees sunshine, we quantum ease billions of dollars worth into digital existence at the push of a button, and it's backed by, get this! full faith and credit--why are we letting these people continue to imprison us with Babylonian slavery Sith mind tricks?
posted by riverlife at 11:34 PM on December 19, 2017 [68 favorites]

The people getting a tax increase are the middle class in states like the ones Ted mentioned.

yes because all of the middle class are in those STATES

won't someone think of the middle-class states
posted by salix at 11:37 PM on December 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Watch out for the first quarter tax receipts. You'd think they'd go down but we're probably going to see a massive injection of tax revenue as all the countries bring back their stashed billions at the new lower tax rate while they have the chance. Expect the first half to be yelled from the rooftops by Republicans and the latter to be in the very fine print.
posted by Talez at 12:43 AM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

my Republican pal won't help me name my e-guillotine startup

BHedr?
posted by salix at 12:47 AM on December 20, 2017 [27 favorites]

Men's Wearhouse Founder: You're Gonna Hate the Way This Tax Bill Looks
posted by elsietheeel at 12:52 AM on December 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

Paul Ryan, his mission on Earth complete, can now lay his eggs, have the ghost of Ayn Rand fertilize them, and die at peace.
posted by benzenedream at 3:21 AM on December 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

I'd rather judge Haley by her previous noteworthy actions, which include, as the first female governor of South Carolina, riding the groundswell after the Dylan Roof massacre to have the Confederate flag taken down.

Nikki Haley Makes the Case for Old-School Racism

Roof was a white supremacist who declared war on African Americans, and Haley, along with the majority of the Republican candidates, attempted to characterize his attack as “anti-Christian,” with no racial element whatsoever. It wasn’t until public sentiment became too overwhelming to ignore that she admitted that Roof’s actions were racial and political.

More important, there had been vigils to take down the Confederate flag for years, and Haley not only ignored them but even defended the Confederate flag during her campaign for governor. It wasn’t until nationwide protests and the actions of activists like Bree Newsome that Haley actually did anything symbolic about the Charleston shooting, and that was because her position was politically untenable if she wanted to stay in the running as a potential running mate. And if rewriting recent history wasn’t good enough, she had to ensure that she did some effective pandering to bigots, too.

Earlier in her speech, Haley spoke of “unrest in our cities” as part of Obama’s failures. This was a racial dog whistle so loud, all of Team Jacob would have had to cover their ears. The narrative believed by some in the GOP base is that Obama encouraged riots in Ferguson and Baltimore as part of some twisted supervillain scheme to 1) take guns, 2) declare martial law or 3) get revenge on white America. Take your pick.

So Haley’s snake oil that South Carolina had “hugs, not thugs” is a Republican subtweet that they know how to “handle” black protest and anger and can quell the kind of massive protests that make some white Americans uncomfortable. In one fell swoop, Haley attacked Black Lives Matter and Obama and rewrote her own behavior during Charleston. In a nutshell, what she was offering was a throwback kind of Republican racism—when candidates would say “urban voters,” “inner city” or “gangster rap culture” instead of “black” and the press would give them a pass—as opposed to the openly hostile bigotry of Trump, which might have serious political consequences. Haley’s words may not have been as blunt as Trump’s, but they were every bit as disgusting, shameful, racist and ultimately politically dangerous.

posted by zombieflanders at 3:31 AM on December 20, 2017 [75 favorites]

The two cities alone that Cruz just mocked contain nearly 1 out of every 100 of all Americans.

2018 is coming, Ted.

Sooner than he thinks.

Next House GOTV

US House Pennsylvania 18 special election March 13 2018 Democratic candidate Conor Lamb

US House Arizona 8 special election primary February 27 2018 general April 24 2018 Democratic candidate Brianna Westbrook

Focus. Break out your door knocking shoes, your postcards, your GOTV texts and phone calls, make that campaign donation.
posted by jointhedance at 4:52 AM on December 20, 2017 [35 favorites]

Elect US and THIS is what we're going to do. No handwaving. No empty promises. Here's our prepared legislation ready to go, open, transparent, and there's the center of the election campaign.

You realise that literally 0% of the mainstream media is interested in, or equipped to, cover policy, right? Clinton had shitloads of policies, and it gave her absolutely no credibility.
posted by Merus at 4:59 AM on December 20, 2017 [47 favorites]

You realise that literally 0% of the mainstream media is interested in, or equipped to, cover policy, right? Clinton had shitloads of policies, and it gave her absolutely no credibility.

Consider the popular vote was for her. That all aside, right now we have an ongoing trainwreck, and everyone is aware of it. The next Congress MUST hit the ground running, with a real 100 day plan to undo as much of the ongoing horror that's been inflicted, and will be inflicted.

As a nation we need to discuss how to move forward. That discussion needs to happen NOW. Rather than just mourning, we COULD be organizing. So, the Democratic Party can lead that discussion, take notes, and draft legislation. Give everyone who wants a voice in the discussion a voice. Shit, we could use that "Twitter" thing even.
posted by mikelieman at 5:45 AM on December 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

> Sen. Murkowski has a Hulk scarf now to go with the earrings.

“HULK SMASH!!!” is basically the GOP governing philosophy at this point. My sympathies, America. Trump supporters, this is what you voted for, a bunch of smug millionaires crying tears of joy as they fuck over the middle and lower classes to give billionaires a tax break they don’t need.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:51 AM on December 20, 2017 [11 favorites]

Chad Pegram (FOX Congressional beat reporter): Colleague John Roberts rpts event at WH won’t be signing of tax bill. Just victory lap. Trump could sign bill next week. Hse/Senate must ok PAYGO waivers which could be an issue. If waivers aren’t ok’d, Trump may delay signing bill until ‘18 so cuts don’t start until ‘19

They have to delay signing the taxscam so the full effect of mandatory spending cuts can be delay till after the midterm.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:59 AM on December 20, 2017 [30 favorites]

We'd all love for the Dems to have solid policy but, like everyone said, literally NO ONE ELSE gives a shit about solid policy. Clinton had so much awesome policy and even people on this site complained that she didn't have any and I'd say we are some of the best informed on the net. The Republicans had ZERO solid policy beyond the soundbite of "repeal obamacare!" for 8 years and it won them congress and the senate.

Policy is great but good policy is, by necessity, complicated. Free College! sounds great but Affordable College And Here's How We Pay For It! doesn't turn anyone on in the same way. Work on solving the barriers to voting. Work on getting good candidates in the position to run for all elections, everywhere.

You know what wins elections? Getting Out The Vote. So Get Out The Fucking Vote.
posted by lydhre at 6:12 AM on December 20, 2017 [51 favorites]

How do you GOTV if people don't know (or care) what they're voting for? In the absence of policy it's just "Goooooo TEAM!!!!"
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:24 AM on December 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

Clinton had so much awesome policy...

I don't think it's wise to say that everything Clinton did in the last election cycle doesn't work and should be avoided going forward. Trump's election was a bit of an anomaly. I'm cautiously optimistic that the next Republican candidate won't have the backing of the Russian intelligence service.
posted by diogenes at 6:27 AM on December 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

I was reading the rehashing of the "the left should get some legislation/policy" argument, and I have nothing to add beyond this article I found on Vox just now: What Democrats can learn from the Democratic Socialists about rebuilding the left. It's a snapshot piece about how DSA is organizing tenants' rights advocacy, and I think it's a huge counterpoint to the fact that the left has "no policy". A 50-state strategy that combines activism like this with policy proposals designed to resolve the policy problems identified by activists is the kind of Democratic campaign I'd like to see. There's nothing that proves a politician's and political party's ability to solve problems quite like...solving problems.
posted by saysthis at 6:30 AM on December 20, 2017 [31 favorites]

To be honest, I'm surprised it took them this long. But then, I was surprised they failed on the first ACA repeal.

They've got a majority, they can do this sort of thing if they get their shit together.

What we have to do is make this a minor speedbump in the history of America by electing Democrats in 2018 to stop their reckless destruction, and then get Democrats in Congress and a Democratic President in 2020 to reverse this.

If we get our act together and get out the vote we can make their immediate damage last only a few years, and hopefully muffle their long term damage so it isn't so awful.

What we really need to focus on, and I'm writing letters to every Democrat I can think of urging this, is getting our on legislation working, in public, right this second. Getting all the votes lined up, getting all the details ironed out, so that come 2020 we've got our legislation perfect, shiny, and with plenty of time for everyone to know exactly what it contains. That way we can pass it before February 2021 rolls around.

We cannot afford to let ourselves be too slowed down by the short term Republican destruction. We've got to be ready to reverse it ASAP so we can fix what they broke in short order and then get back on the job of improving things.

Where we've failed far too often in the past is being unprepared to reverse the Republican damage so that we squander the first years of every new Democratic Presidency just putting band aids on the gaping wounds the Republicans inflict on the nation. We've got to have the first aid ready and applied within the first month of President Harris (or whoever's) term in office so that the rest of her term can be used making gains, not just trying to make up lost ground.

They want to play hardball rewriting the tax code? Fine. Let's fucking rewrite the tax code the right way, get it passed the very hour the new Democratic President is sworn in on Jan 20, 2021, and move on from there. This BS where things drag out for months with an Executive Order here and there, with Congress debating our proposed legislation as if we hadn't had years to prepared it, and so on has to end.

We need to have the Executive Orders all ready for the new President on her first day of office, not one or two of them, but **ALL** of them. Signed, out the door, and done.

We need to have the legislation we want passed perfectly worked out and ready to pass the instant we've got a President to sign it.

We've seen what happens when a Party tries to do a last minute legislative agenda, we need to learn from the Republican bad example.

We've got 3 years to get ready for this. The Democrats have plenty of lawyers, and plenty of time to work as a Shadow Congress and do all the dealmaking and so on they can ahead of time so that when they do finally have both a majority and a Democratic President they can just ram the legislation through and shove the Republicans right out of the way. We've got to get on this now though, or else we'll be in the same position the Republicans are now: caught with their pants down, trying to do 14 things at once, and failing at all of it.
posted by sotonohito at 6:31 AM on December 20, 2017 [54 favorites]

Okay, so if people need programs, what if GOTV organizations created some? They don't need to be super complex, but they could be spread around social media and people could use them as talking points. "Our goal is to get out the vote so that we can pressure Senator Whomever to implement our ten-point Schools, Jobs and Healthcare program" or whatever?

Or what about someone who has a large media presence? One of those talk show people could get, like, five left-liberal public intellectuals on the show over several sessions leading up to the election, and talk through a Program To Fix America.

I think if we wait for the Democratic Party itself, we will probably wait for a long time. If there are two or three big ten-point programs getting lots of media traction, we can press for those as part of electing Democrats.
posted by Frowner at 6:31 AM on December 20, 2017 [15 favorites]

Jamelle Bouie @jbouie
thank you, paul ryan, for giving true opportunity to innovative job creators like this koch heir (h/t @nycsouthpaw) (Instagram link)
posted by The Loch Ness Monster at 6:36 AM on December 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

Joe in Australia, you really couldn't be more wrong about Nikki Haley. I'll be charitable in thinking that perhaps you just haven't looked into the claims you are making about her very deeply, rather than the uncharitable reading that you are repeating right wing propaganda. Your characterization of her as as "riding the groundswell after the Dylan Roof massacre to have the Confederate flag taken down" is downright offensive to folks like me who actually, you know, lived in SC and watched what happened, not to mention the woman POC who physically climbed the flagpole and ripped it down. And she didn't come "come near as darnit" to endorsing sexual assault charges against Trump unless you squint reeeeeeeal hard and want to believe that. Corrupt as fuck Nikki "Women Don't Care About Contraception" ain't some feminist POC loving diamond in the rough of the Republican party. She's the same staggeringly unqualified awful racist shitbag as the rest of them.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:40 AM on December 20, 2017 [77 favorites]

It might be worth kicking a few bucks to the People's Policy Project, a relatively new small-donor funded leftist think tank. They noticed that almost all think tanks are right wing or centrist, and as a consequence politicians find it easier to implement right wing and centrist policy than leftist policy. People's Policy Project is aiming to help fix this state of affairs and provide workable policy proposals that Democrats can use if they ever decide to make themselves useful for once.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 6:41 AM on December 20, 2017 [35 favorites]

Trump's election was a bit of an anomaly

This whole thread is veering dangerously toward re-litigating the primaries territory, but I think it's very dangerous to assume this, and also very dangerous to assume Trump is the problem, rather than the hideous visible growth that should send your democracy to the doctor.

Republicans largely haven't had coherent policy positions since the first Gulf War. This congress would have passed a similar "tax reform" with any Republican president; we've never actually gotten out of Ryan's austerity budget in any meaningful sense. They've been going off about bans and walls and thugs for years. Foreign policy has been broken for decades.

"Our goal is to get out the vote so that we can pressure Senator Whomever to implement our ten-point Schools, Jobs and Healthcare program" sounds great, but I think the hard part is getting media traction for anything greater than a single issue. Ten point programs, which to me often sound sketched out and incomplete, apparently just sound like "blah blah blah NERD" to some people, including apparently Wolf Blitzer and Co.

Not sure what to do with that, other than have both ten point plans along with easy to summarize big picture points. Obama was pretty good at that, in retrospect.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:51 AM on December 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

We all read the FML article, right? None of that is Trump. Trump will make it worse, but all of that is America with very centrist Obama-era dem policies. That's the problem the democrats have.
posted by Artw at 6:59 AM on December 20, 2017 [15 favorites]

How do you GOTV if people don't know (or care) what they're voting for? In the absence of policy it's just "Goooooo TEAM!!!!"

That's still better than republicans winning elections. Go Team.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:00 AM on December 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

How do you GOTV if people don't know (or care) what they're voting for? In the absence of policy it's just "Goooooo TEAM!!!!"

That is exactly what it is, for better or for worse (it's worse). Most people, even voters, do not actually have nuanced policy positions or the time to research them. When many Americans are fucked regardless of who gets elected, to get anyone to pay attention really does come down to having a cool logo and a slogan. That's why people still make cool logos and come up with slogans.

Now I think this sucks, but it is pretty inarguable.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:01 AM on December 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

On the subject of GOTV... I was inspired to sign up for Postcards to Voters after the recent victory in Alabama, where they worked very hard to contact Democratic voters.

I'm impressed so far. The sign-up process was pretty streamlined. The've introduced a text bot (Abby the Address Bot) to help expedite the process. You can work at your own pace and get more addresses when you're ready.

I set a goal to do 3-5 postcards a day. It's a wonderful antidote to all the feelings of helplessness and rage.

Right now we're writing postcards for special elections in Georgia and Florida. I'd really encourage anyone who has a few spare minutes to sign up and help out.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 7:10 AM on December 20, 2017 [43 favorites]

Ten point programs, which to me often sound sketched out and incomplete, apparently just sound like "blah blah blah NERD" to some people, including apparently Wolf Blitzer and Co.

Not sure what to do with that, other than have both ten point plans along with easy to summarize big picture points.

Yup. The basic paradox is that the skills you need to govern are different from, and in some ways opposed to, the skills you need to campaign. Voters respond to really simple policy proposals: almost slogans, rather than anything you could actually enact. The second you get into nuance, people's eyes glaze over. But actual legislation tends to be complex, and good legislation tends to be really complex. And then you have to go out and defend the complexity to people who think that you should be able to fit your healthcare policy on a bumper sticker, which can be a challenge.

So I sure as hell hope that the Democrats are working on a policy agenda and are bringing together all sorts of key players to try to hammer out something that we can all broadly agree on. But that's not what's going to get Democrats elected. They also have to have a message that is simple and resonant and clear and easy to get across the voter in a soundbite or a 30-second spiel that you'll give on someone's door stoop. And while I think those things should be in harmony with each other, they're not exactly the same.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:11 AM on December 20, 2017 [14 favorites]

> That is exactly what it is, for better or for worse (it's worse). Most people, even voters, do not actually have nuanced policy positions or the time to research them.

The average adult American watches five hours of television a day, but doesn't have time to do even cursory research on what and who they're voting for? FML, indeed.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:13 AM on December 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

The average adult American watches five hours of television a day, but doesn't have time to do even cursory research on what and who they're voting for? FML, indeed.

Yup, because television is a way to check out of reality and rest, and the average American works their ass off just to get by (if they’re even getting by), and they don’t have the spoons for active civil engagement, because that is work. Some people have the spoons, some people don’t. I’d rather not shame the ones who don’t for being lazy or disinterested or whatever the implication was, because this sort of seems like part of the evil design.

Remove the social safety net so people have to work themselves to the bone so they then don’t have the energy to defend themselves. Then blame them for it. It’s the “stop hitting yourself” of political criticism.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:23 AM on December 20, 2017 [94 favorites]

The average adult American watches five hours of television a day, but doesn't have time to do even cursory research on what and who they're voting for? FML, indeed.

I don't know if you read that article, but the average is not evenly distributed across demographic groups. People aged 50 and older are watching on average more than five hours a day of television, and younger people are watching less. Many of those 50+ people think that they're very informed about issues, although keep in mind that this is Fox News's core demographic, and they may not be informed in the way that any of us would want. A lot of younger people are stretched pretty thin. They watch much less TV, and when they do watch TV, it's because they're too tired to do things that would require more focus, like researching candidates and policies.

Another factor that I see a lot is that people lack confidence that they can evaluate complex policy proposals. I've had people tell me that they don't understand all the arguments for and against, and so they feel like they shouldn't vote or shouldn't take that issue into account when they vote. On the other hand, they're a lot more confident about their appraisals of people: do you trust this candidate, or do you trust that one? And that leads to a shitty situation where they vote for someone who comes across like a trustworthy person, even if they don't support the candidate's policy agenda.

I honestly think that everyone should do some political door-knocking. It gives you fascinating insight into voter behavior, plus it's a really good way to get to know the place where you live in a way that most of us don't in our day-to-day lives.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:25 AM on December 20, 2017 [32 favorites]

Part of my job is doing technical training and outreach to a highly intelligent but also highly (generally) non-technical user base. People--even very smart people--do not care why something is the way it is, or the steps needed to evaluate and improve it, they just want it to work and they don't want to have to think about it.

I think the relationship of the general populous to the government is the same. They don't want to have to think about it, they don't care why it functions the way it does or what anyone's plans are to evaluate or improve its functioning. They just want it to work, invisibly. The down side to this is that when something works so well it's invisible, no one notices. People in systems administration positions can tell you, no one thanks them for 99.9% uptime, but they will come screaming your door down about that 5 minutes of unexpected downtime.

In order to get elected under these circumstances, voters have to trust that politicians will do the *vague handwave* thing that will make shit work. They don't care how it will be fixed or why it's not working currently. And politicians (on all sides) currently have a major problem with their brand. No one trusts them. Those who may be perfectly trustworthy are tarred with the same brush as their colleagues. Without trust, it doesn't matter what 10-point policy you're introducing or what 30-page whitepaper you've got to back up your assertions.

The crisis is not policy, it's trust. I don't have a solution to that. I'm not sure there is a solution in a world of hyperreality, where the false looks so true that the human mind just gives up trying to figure out the difference.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:28 AM on December 20, 2017 [51 favorites]

I am sending Ted Cruz a text today letting him know that i just gave Beto O'Rourke a campaign contribution, and will be volunteering for him also. I also found my local Women's March on FB and signed up. I was flagging a bit, due to other life demands, my political volunteering, but now I need to keep doing it so I just don't sit around consumed by rage and hatred.

I wish I was better at political/GOTV stuff, it's really alien and difficult for me to talk to strangers :( and I feel intimidated by the time and fiddly bits of knowledge it requires.

But Ted Cruz is a sentient slime-pile with a baffling dedication to destroying my state and my country, so I'll just have to go out there and flail around and hope I do some of it right.
posted by emjaybee at 7:34 AM on December 20, 2017 [50 favorites]

I think the relationship of the general populous to the government is the same. They don't want to have to think about it, they don't care why it functions the way it does or what anyone's plans are to evaluate or improve its functioning. They just want it to work, invisibly [...] the crisis is not policy, it's trust.

That's not trust, that's apathy, and we can't afford it anymore. If the people don't keep tabs on their government, then they'll keep getting rolled by the principal-agent problem.

The question is how to foster lasting, broad-based political engagement. I think the local organizing we're seeing is a good start. The properties of steel begin with its atoms.
posted by Iridic at 8:13 AM on December 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

I just donated to Beto too, emjaybee. God but I am tired of Ted Cruz.
posted by marshmallow peep at 8:16 AM on December 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

We all read the FML article, right? None of that is Trump. Trump will make it worse, but all of that is America with very centrist Obama-era dem policies. That's the problem the democrats have.

True, but it is better than fascism, and we're expected to be grateful for that, even as those conditions led to Trump and fascism. Meanwhile, we keep getting e-mails from all those centrists dems begging us for money so they can do...whatever it is they do.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:16 AM on December 20, 2017

Elect US and THIS is what we're going to do. No handwaving. No empty promises. Here's our prepared legislation ready to go, open, transparent, and there's the center of the election campaign.

You realise that literally 0% of the mainstream media is interested in, or equipped to, cover policy, right? Clinton had shitloads of policies, and it gave her absolutely no credibility.

The media isn't liberal, and Democrats must come to grips with that fact.

That said, the media has been covering Republican policy proposals; they just let Republicans lie about them. I like the idea of putting forward popular proposals to show how Democrats are the party of the working and middle classes.

And they should deliver them with the message "Unlike Republicans, we don't have to lie about what we want to do. Here it is."
posted by Gelatin at 8:18 AM on December 20, 2017 [32 favorites]

I like the idea of putting forward popular proposals to show how Democrats are the party of the working and middle classes.

And when the media goes "but what do Democrats STAAAAAAAAND for?" Dems can go: All of this stuff in the legislation we wrote!
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:25 AM on December 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

That VA HOD election might not be quite over yet, GOP now claiming that a ballot that was invalidated should not have been thrown out. Not clear if you can try to contest that after signing off on the results. Judges considering right now.

If this ballot is admitted, they'd literally draw lots for the winner.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:26 AM on December 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

It's dark, but if you're in the mood for GRAR Josh Marshall has a piece comparing the republican tax bill to organized looting, The Big Heist:

The absolute need to pass something and to pass it fast led to a legislative process which was akin to driving the truck up to the loading bay and just taking everything. Looting. Or perhaps a mob bust-out. You may remember there was one episode of The Sopranos that was based on the “bust out” idea. A guy got into debt to Tony. So Tony and his crew took over his business, started ordering goods that they’d then fence for cash. They ran up every debt they could. When they couldn’t squeeze anything more out of it they burned it down to collect the insurance money. News late last week (accompanied by low-energy non-denial denials) that Paul Ryan will likely retire at the end of this Congress completes the tale. Take the money and run.

posted by peeedro at 8:35 AM on December 20, 2017 [45 favorites]

Where we've failed far too often in the past is being unprepared to reverse the Republican damage so that we squander the first years of every new Democratic Presidency just putting band aids on the gaping wounds the Republicans inflict on the nation. We've got to have the first aid ready

And Democrats need to make absolutely clear that they're fixing what Republicans broke. That Trump reversed a lot of Obama policies because of his massive inferiority complex, and in doing so hurt a lot of loyal Americans. That every Republican Senator promised prosperity to the middle class that never came, so they could enrich their wealthy buddies -- and selves -- which sure as hell did happen.

Republicans love to make messes and then let Democrats take the blame for making America eat its vegetables. No more. Democrats need to place the blame squarely where it belongs, on the Republicans. The unpopularity of the tax bill and Obamacare repeal suggests that Americans are in a receptive frame of mind for that message, and this time around Democrats should in no way be in a forgiving mood.

And by the way, Democrats also need to stop letting Republicans pretend we have no money to spend on CHIP when the military sucks up half the budget.
posted by Gelatin at 8:35 AM on December 20, 2017 [46 favorites]

And when the media goes "but what do Democrats STAAAAAAAAND for?" Dems can go: All of this stuff in the legislation we wrote!

...and then add: "while the only thing Republicans stand for is more money for the rich."
posted by Gelatin at 8:42 AM on December 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

News late last week (accompanied by low-energy non-denial denials) that Paul Ryan will likely retire at the end of this Congress completes the tale. Take the money and run.

Democrats should run ads portaying Republicans as the take-the-money-and-run party, complete with graphs showing the steadily increasing share of the nation's wealth that the rich control. Then:

$DEM_CANDIDATE: "My Republican opponent thinks [he/she] can take our money and run. I'm here to show the Republicans that they can't run, they can't hide, and they can't steal the prosperity the American people deserve."

And when Republicans whine "claaaaaaaas warfare!" just put up that graph again and say "the rich have been waging class warfare against us since Reagan FDR. Now the working people of America have someone who will fight back.
posted by Gelatin at 8:48 AM on December 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

If Democrats have a problem it is that their own constituents sit around waiting for Democratic leadership to do something rather than take charge and do it themselves at a local level.

The chair of my small, rural, county Dems keeps saying that he doesn't want to canvass until he "knows what the Democrats message is."

It doesn't matter what the national Dems say it is! We know what OUR message should be! Opioids are destroying our families, charters are destroying our schools, and tax bills like the one that is just passed are shipping our jobs overseas! Elect us and we will advocate to solve these problems every goddamn day to the best of our ability. We will use every contact, spend every dollar, and work every loophole to help rebuild our communities.

The message is there, we just have be bold enough to go out a speak it.
posted by Tevin at 8:48 AM on December 20, 2017 [51 favorites]

Mod note: A few deleted; it's been a little chattery the last day or so, but let's aim back in the direction of less general chitchat about how fucked everything is etc. If you've said the same thing many times in these threads, consider that that point has been made, and hold off until there's something new to discuss; if the thread's quiet for a little while that's ok.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:03 AM on December 20, 2017 [16 favorites]

Moochiavelli held forth on WH court intrigue at a Hanukkah party.

Bess Levin, Vanity Fair: "I'm gonna stab your eyeball out": Scaramucci goes off-script in Hanukkah party speech

Of the general vibe in the West Wing, he said, “The first pill you take is the ‘anti-friendship’ pill. You can be my friend for 30 years, but I’m gonna stab your eyeball out with an ice pick if it gets me more power. The second pill you take is the ‘power is aphrodisiac’ pill. Students of history know that power corrupts and it corrupts absolutely.”
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:33 AM on December 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

The second pill you take is the ‘power is aphrodisiac’ pill. Students of history know that power corrupts and it corrupts absolutely.”

Scaramucci is a lousy student. Baron Acton's quote is that power tends to corrupt.
posted by Gelatin at 9:40 AM on December 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Is it the holiday season? Or just that the massive evilness of this bill hasn't fully sunk in yet?

The so-called "liberal media" is not portraying this bill as massively evil. They're running the fact that most of the benefits go to the ultra-rich as a he-said, she-said, and playing up Republican claims that it'll boost the economy, pay for itself, and put money in the middle class' pockets.

Note that the selfsame media is also reporting that Republicans want to cut Social Security (which does not at all contribute to the deficit) and Medicare to "fix the deficit."
posted by Gelatin at 9:43 AM on December 20, 2017 [17 favorites]

Scaramucci is a lousy student human.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:45 AM on December 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

A very interesting pair of headlines.

Murray Waas, Foreign Policy: White House Counsel Knew in January Flynn Probably Violated the Law

The White House turned over records this fall to special counsel Robert Mueller revealing that in the very first days of the Trump presidency, Don McGahn researched federal law dealing both with lying to federal investigators and with violations of the Logan Act [...] The records reflected concerns that McGahn, the White House counsel, had that Michael Flynn, then the president’s national security advisor, had possibly violated either one or both laws at the time, according to two of the sources. The disclosure that these records exist and that they are in the possession of the special counsel could bolster any potential obstruction of justice case against President Donald Trump. The records that McGahn turned over to the special counsel, portions of which were read to this reporter, indicate he researched both statutes and warned Trump about Flynn’s possible violations.

Jeff Roberts, Fortune: Trump Team Wanted Michael Flynn to Use This Secret Messaging App

As Gizmodo reports, internal documents show the transition team sought to arrange for Michael Flynn, an important figure during the early part of the Trump Administration who is now under indictment, to use Signal, which offers untraceable self-destructing messaging features.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:48 AM on December 20, 2017 [27 favorites]

In school I got tired of hearing "KISS"—"keep it simple, stupid" (do they still say this?)—but gosh golly, I believe democrats could win just by

1) advertising "THE REPUBLICANS ARE COMING FOR YOUR CHECKS" and playing clips of Ryan saying he wants to destroy entitlements (I'm sorry, I don't remember the more appropriate word for this, which recognizes that some entitlements are paid into in the first place)

1a) repeat the phrase for each specific entitlement in the US, which as a Canadian I am not familiar with: e.g. "THE REPUBLICANS WANT TO DESTROY YOUR MEDICARE"->Ryan->"THE REPUBLICANS ARE COMING FOR YOUR UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT"->Ryan->etc. "Why do the republicans want to wreck our lives?" End with a clip featuring the new Democrat leader riling up a crowd with a similar but positive statement.

2) You're going to need a leader with some populist bluster (like, Joe Biden is a no; he is Another Smooth-Talking Politician in a Suit (ASTPS) exemplified). I'm a bit concerned for the Democratic Party by its unwillingness to adopt a leader who can rile up a crowd. You will win by riling up crowds and saying simple things like 1).

I know that Democrats have a multi-faceted agenda, but they don't need to talk about it to win, and talking about nuance in advertisements and at rallies may be destructive to winning. MAGA will not save the US, but KISS still can. There is no reason that Democrats can't have their own, positive, dog whistles; when I say more economic equality, I mean support for marginalized groups; etc.

Here in conservative Alberta, the provincial leadership went from the most right party to the most left party because the populace believed that conservatives were coming for their checks. (E.g. the possibility of paying an annual healthcare premium to the government, which Alberta once had. While most Americans would gladly pay $100/year for free healthcare... well it all depends on the starting point doesn't it?) There was no more enlightened explanation for that unbelievable election swing than the electorate's belief that conservatives were coming for their checks. (I mean, it's not even internally consistent because what really is the left party going to do for those voters?—that government has since implemented a complicated refundable carbon tax; by my logic the electorate therefore will not keep them.)

My mefi credentials in US politics include successfully predicting Franken's resignation on the first day of that news cycle and otherwise hiding my "submit" button
posted by sylvanshine at 9:57 AM on December 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

Well, I think it's also been made abundantly clear to us down here that we could empty every home and office in the land into the streets at noon today and it would not make a difference. This bill polls as MASSIVELY unpopular already. The people behind it know 1000% that their constituents hate it and have only hated it more deeply as time has gone on. They. don't. care. They don't care. They are looting the place now because they already know their time is limited.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:59 AM on December 20, 2017 [67 favorites]

Paul Ryan on the tax plan: “Results are going to make this popular”
posted by aspersioncast at 10:03 AM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm a bit concerned for the Democratic Party by its unwillingness to adopt a leader who can rile up a crowd.

Last time we tried that they were literally hauled before the House Unamerican Activities Committee and was accused of being a communist KGB agent. Funny that the first US President who is in fact a foreign nation's intelligence asset is a Republican, but facts don't matter much in the US.
posted by wierdo at 10:05 AM on December 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

CNN poll: 18 point generic D congressional advantage.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:10 AM on December 20, 2017 [14 favorites]

NBC/WSJ Trump re-elect numbers:

Definite re-elect: 18
Probable re-elect: 18
Probable Dem: 14
Definite Dem: 38
posted by Chrysostom at 10:14 AM on December 20, 2017 [15 favorites]

Jeff Roberts, Fortune: Trump Team Wanted Michael Flynn to Use This Secret Messaging App

The only reason for members of the NSC to use encrypted messaging apps is to hide communications from the US intelligence services they are supposed to be leading.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:14 AM on December 20, 2017 [43 favorites]

That VA HOD election might not be quite over yet, GOP now claiming that a ballot that was invalidated should not have been thrown out. Not clear if you can try to contest that after signing off on the results. Judges considering right now.

Seems like Bush v Gore would be the relevant precedent here. I wonder if they'll bring it up.
posted by Justinian at 10:22 AM on December 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Bush v Gore was about different counting standards in different counties. There's no Equal Protection play here.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:25 AM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Apparently, VA law also says the loser of a selection by lot can pursue another recount. So, IF Yancey (GOP) prevails on this issue, either he or Simonds could then ask for another recount, if they wanted.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:28 AM on December 20, 2017

Apparently, VA law also says the loser of a selection by lot can pursue another recount. So, IF Yancey (GOP) prevails on this issue, either he or Simonds could then ask for another recount, if they wanted.

If that recount ends in a tie, do they draw lots again? Is there a circuit breaker or could this go on in an endless cycle of recounts and lot drawing?
posted by jedicus at 10:32 AM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

REPLY HAZY TRY AGAIN
posted by Chrysostom at 10:33 AM on December 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

CNN poll: 18 point generic D congressional advantage.

I can't even begin to guess the number of seats that would swing at D+18. I think this is probably an outlier (though only by a few points!) but at D+18 we're talking about like 70+ seats.
posted by Justinian at 10:34 AM on December 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

538 average is D+13.3 (50.2/36.9).
posted by Chrysostom at 10:36 AM on December 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

--I'm a bit concerned for the Democratic Party by its unwillingness to adopt a leader who can rile up a crowd.

--Last time we tried that they were literally hauled before the House Unamerican Activities Committee and was accused of being a communist KGB agent.

Last time we tried that, Howard Dean's career was destroyed by a sound clip.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:36 AM on December 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

Are these polls about mid-term congressional elections reflecting the breakdowns of various districts and such? I can't help but wonder if they have the same problem of polling nationally vs state-by-state. Can somebody spell out for me how accurate this is?
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:38 AM on December 20, 2017

Are these polls about mid-term congressional elections reflecting the breakdowns of various districts and such?

No, purely national.

Can somebody spell out for me how accurate this is?

For any individual district not particularly. Overall? It's usually considered the best single predictor of party performance for the midterms. The correlation is quite high.
posted by Justinian at 10:43 AM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

If you're interested in reading about generic ballot stuff here is Harry Enten at 538 talking about it.

As I’ve written previously, the generic ballot, even this early in a midterm cycle, can be quite predictive of the outcome of the following year’s House elections. Once you control for which party is in the White House, the generic ballot about 18 months before a midterm election is strongly correlated (+.78) with the eventual House result

Note that we're now less than a year out rather than 18 months. The generic ballot polling close to the election is extremely predictive rather than highly predictive, it's essentially a slightly noisy line plot at that point.
posted by Justinian at 10:46 AM on December 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

And when Republicans whine "claaaaaaaas warfare!" just

...say, "Yes, it absolutely is class warfare. There's a class of people who would rob their mother to get ahead, at the expense of the entire nation—and another class of people who want every American to have a fair shot at stability and prosperity. We're that latter class of people."

I realize this is twisting the definition of "class" as it's used in terms like "class warfare," to mean "class" as a generic category—but it works as a rhetorical device, which is what campaign messaging is.
posted by Rykey at 10:46 AM on December 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

scaryblackdeath: "Are these polls about mid-term congressional elections reflecting the breakdowns of various districts and such? I can't help but wonder if they have the same problem of polling nationally vs state-by-state. Can somebody spell out for me how accurate this is?"

There's a historical relationship, that's proved fairly robust. Forecasters like The Crosstab try to adjust for gerrymandering to come up with a range. There's an argument over how much lead the Dems need to get at least 24 seats. Some have said as low as 4 points, it's probably more like 8.

As Justinian just said, if you want to know the outcome of a given race, it's not helpful - UT-03 is very different from VA-10. And who knows what scandals are going on, how good a candidate the challenger is, etc. But on the aggregate of 435 races, it's useful.

I'm seeing that a 14 point lead on Election Day probably translates into around 260 seats (which would be an 85 vote margin).
posted by Chrysostom at 10:48 AM on December 20, 2017

Guys I want to highlight sylvanshine's comment above as a playbook tip for Democrats going forward.

Especially the KISS rule, and this: Here in conservative Alberta, the provincial leadership went from the most right party to the most left party because the populace believed that conservatives were coming for their checks.
posted by yoga at 10:48 AM on December 20, 2017 [29 favorites]

I'm seeing that a 14 point lead on Election Day probably translates into around 260 seats (which would be an 85 vote margin).

Which would be the biggest seat swing since at least the start of the 20th century. So 120ish years. The next closest is loser Harding losing 77 seats in *1922*. Harding was... not a good president.

I hope it's that high but it's almost unthinkable. Of course if you'd told me a year ago a Democrat would win the Alabama Senate seat that would likewise be unthinkable.
posted by Justinian at 10:55 AM on December 20, 2017 [22 favorites]

+18 on the House generic would almost certainly mean Democratic control of the Senate too, even with the bad map. I don’t even want to hope yet, but it’s hard not to be a bit giddy at the thought of holding all the seats in Trump country and unseating Ted Cruz.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:03 AM on December 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

Harding was like Trump in some ways - corrupt businessman who was way over his head. Harding's good point was that he *realized* he was way over his head, and wished to hell he wasn't president. Trump thinks he's a genius.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:08 AM on December 20, 2017 [24 favorites]

Paul Ryan on the tax plan: “Results are going to make this popular”
The moment that millions of Americans look at their pay stubs and see a little bit more money coming to them, the Republicans are going to gain 8 - 10 points, but not any more because a lot of them are going to say 'is that all'? Then it'll be time for the Democrats to loudly declare "but it won't last" (and maybe get a little misleading about how soon the cuts will expire because, hey, it's politics, you should never be totally honest).
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:08 AM on December 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

The moment that millions of Americans look at their pay stubs and see a little bit more money coming to them, the Republicans are going to gain 8 - 10 points, but not any more because a lot of them are going to say 'is that all'? Then it'll be time for the Democrats to loudly declare "but it won't last" (and maybe get a little misleading about how soon the cuts will expire because, hey, it's politics, you should never be totally honest).

That is quite possible, but Ryan's going gung-ho on his attack on Social Security and Medicare early in the next year. He's floated his tepid "time to retire" plan, and I strongly doubt he will do so without attacking the big social programs, which are his ultimate goal. That should prove sufficiently unpopular as to undermine any goodwill they might get from a minor amount of tax breaks.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:14 AM on December 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

The House passed the tax bill again, same vote count as yesterday.

GOP leaders eye another shutdown-averting stopgap, punting big decisions into January. The government shuts down at midnight Friday unless they pass another spending bill, and they're looking at another short punt into January. It won't do anything to extend DACA or fund CHIP, though it's possible a very short-term CHIP fix could happen by allowing them to redistribute funds between states. But they want to pack it with a reauthorization of FISA 702, with further expansion of warrantless spying on Americans. That now appears to be dead, with opposition from Sens. Wyden and Paul, and it's unclear what happens next.

Trump opens the cabinet meeting by inviting Pence to praise him, and he does at great length, but watch the look on Trump's face. Does that look like a man who is enjoying any part of this?

Also, this sounds kind of ominous, though it might be nothing: "Warner to speak on the Senate floor regarding the Special Counsel's investigation, approximately 4:30"
posted by zachlipton at 11:19 AM on December 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

Last time we tried that, Howard Dean's career was destroyed by a sound clip.

You're right, that should count. I was thinking more of actual leftists rather than what passes for leftist these days. Specifically, I was thinking of Henry Wallace, who was FDR's VP before the DNC ratfucked him and installed the dullard that was Truman. Unlike in 1940, FDR was too ill by that point to put up a fight.
posted by wierdo at 11:21 AM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

"Paul Ryan: Results are going to make this popular" – am I correct in assuming that making the tax cuts go into effect immediately next year, as they have, was a purposeful ploy to make them popular in 2018, the year of mid-term elections?
posted by StrawberryPie at 11:22 AM on December 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Holy shit, they counted the ballot, HD-94 is now a tie.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:25 AM on December 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

Holy shit, they counted the ballot, HD-94 is now a tie.

@Taniel: Judges rule voters intent was to vote Yancey (R), per @JWPascale. Dems have no longer won #HD94. Now tied 11,608 to 11,608. Appears that winner, and control of VA Assembly, to be decided by lot.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:33 AM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I found the written explanations a little confusing on the HD-94 ballot. Here's a picture of what it generally looks like - note the X over the bubble for Gillespie, and the / over the bubble for Simonds.

@reemadamin:

Dem lawyer says the marking of Gillespie and a mark for Simonds either means the voter wanted both those candidates, or that this ballot should just be thrown out as it originally was. R’s lawyer says nah, it shows they did NOT want Simonds.

posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:33 AM on December 20, 2017

Wow, that's very different from how I originally pictured the ballot in my head based on written descriptions. I was hoping they'd throw it out on procedural grounds, but now I'm not thrilled about the actual interpretation at work either.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:38 AM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Okay, I've been holding back on commenting because what's there to say? This was an organized heist, a "burn it all down" looting of the public treasury by Republicans who know that they're headed for a stint in the minority and want cushy wingnut welfare jobs lined up as fallbacks.

But. There's a silver lining, should Democrats be inclined to seize it.

Recall that the Bush tax cuts had a pre-set expiration date in order to come in within the budget window, and although Republicans huffed and puffed about it being a tax increase, Obama did successfully get some of the higher end breaks to lapse. And that led (eventually) to the turnaround of the rate of growth of our debt - that graph shows both Clinton and Obama heroically turning around the debt growth (i.e., the annual budget deficit) after Reagan and W ran up the national charge card to hand out tax cuts. (And yet the media will not let go of "tax and spend Democrats".)

This time, it's different. Most of the individual taxpayer cuts have expiration dates built in, but it's trickier than that - the legislation makes small changes to the indexing of various entitlements that start out slow but have bigger and bigger impacts as time goes on. That's how they get to permanent corporate tax cuts - they've made long term changes in a mostly invisible way.

This is the big advantage they're handing to the Democrats (or really, to everyone interested in fiscal discipline, which once upon a time used to include conservatives, too). Building in expiration dates for tax breaks is like setting a ticking time bomb, but the changes in rates of growth that are now enacted are more like orbital dynamics. A small change in orbit now and six months later you're at Mars, just following the laws of gravitation.

My point is, the Republicans have already done what is going to be the hugely unpopular task of raising revenue from the middle class. They've used that money to hand out goodies to the rich and to corporations, but campaigning to take those goodies back is easy, populist, and fiscally conservative. In fact, Democrats could campaign on raising corporate taxes (from 35%->21% now->25%, say) and plugging corporate tax loopholes and handing out lower income tax breaks, while still being massively revenue-positive. And that needs only 218 votes + 50 votes + VP and the Presidency.

And then: LOTS of money to enact a Democratic agenda. Medicare for all? Universal college? Child-care tax credits? Massive expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit? The difficult part is already done, if the Democrats have the nerve to seize the advantage here.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:39 AM on December 20, 2017 [41 favorites]

You're supposed to request a new ballot if you changed your mind, not be drawing lines and Xes and arrows.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:40 AM on December 20, 2017 [28 favorites]

Via TPM:

President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed the Republican tax overhaul has “essentially repealed Obamacare” but said officials “didn’t want to bring it up” until the legislation had already passed.

“The individual mandate is being repealed. When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed because they get their money from the individual mandate,” Trump said at the start of a cabinet meeting.

...We didn’t want to bring it up. I told people specifically, ‘Be quiet with the fake news media because I don’t want them talking too much about it,'” Trump said.

Did we all catch that? He wanted his team to not talk about a key provision of the bill because the “fake news media” would then report the actual truth that he was hoping to conceal, which he knew would be unpopular.
posted by darkstar at 11:41 AM on December 20, 2017 [101 favorites]

lol that ballot is ridiculous, how are you supposed to read that in any way other than "marked for both candidates, ballot invalid"?
posted by indubitable at 11:42 AM on December 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

So we’re going to go look at all the other invalidated ballots for magical Xs and unicorns too, right?
posted by Glibpaxman at 11:45 AM on December 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

Is an appeal of the ballot ruling allowed only on procedural grounds or can they appeal on the grounds of "what the fuck, there's no way this can be read with certainty as a valid vote for Yancey and its bullshit the judges said it could"? Because come on.
posted by Justinian at 11:45 AM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

That is a goddamned spoiled ballot if I've ever seen one.

Sheesh, I always worried about filling in the circles perfectly, and not making ANY stray marks... scared I'd do something to get my ballot invalidated. And this idiot just goes making marks all over the place.
posted by litlnemo at 11:49 AM on December 20, 2017 [21 favorites]

So we’re going to go look at all the other invalidated ballots for magical Xs and unicorns too, right?

If the parties agreed, it doesn't go to the judges. It's only disputed ones that they review.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:50 AM on December 20, 2017

“The individual mandate is being repealed. When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed because they get their money from the individual mandate,” Trump said at the start of a cabinet meeting.

Well, it's not like the exchange mechanism got money from premiums, and the mandate isn't what gives money to the subsidies. Doesn't this actually only mean that insurers will raise rates? </preaching-to-the-choir>
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:50 AM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

It means that the government will end up paying a lot more money because, yes, they will eat the cost of the insurers raising rates. And that people like me will end up screwed because I make just enough to not get subsidies but not so much that I can actually afford 12k a year in premiums.
posted by Justinian at 11:52 AM on December 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

Is an appeal of the ballot ruling allowed only on procedural grounds or can they appeal on the grounds of "what the fuck, there's no way this can be read with certainty as a valid vote for Yancey and its bullshit the judges said it could"? Because come on.

I'm reading conflicting things, not clear at this moment what other legal avenues exist, or if they have to go to drawing lots.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:53 AM on December 20, 2017

Surely the Democrats know that letting judges decide elections for the good of the electorate, and not contesting hanging chads leads to good long-term outcomes.
posted by benzenedream at 11:58 AM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Wow, that ballot ruling is ridiculous.

If it's true that this now results in a tie, let me guess how the tie is going to be resolved.

A Republican official will tell the two candidates he's thinking of a number between 1 and 100.

He will reveal this number to no one else. The Democrat will be asked to guess first. Then the Republican.

The official will then announce that the Republican guessed it exactly! Wow! No way! The Democrat will then be asked by everyone following this race to remain graciously silent and not contest the results or the process in any way in service to the cause of looking forward not backward.
posted by lord_wolf at 11:59 AM on December 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

Mod note: A few deleted; I know "is Trump stupid" is irresistible, but we don't need ten answers to this question, private howling at the sky is the approved method of replying to a question like that.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:15 PM on December 20, 2017 [27 favorites]

I was promised we could file our taxes on a postcard. Why is that postcard not at this celebration? What about the tax code has changed that would make such a postcard look any different from the 1040EZ today? Just how large will this postcard have to be to explain things like the rules for computing the child tax credit? Why would anybody put their social security number on a postcard? Why, in 2018, would anybody think a process involving writing really teeny numbers and buying a stamp was part of a modern and efficient form of government?

I guess what I'm saying is, I hope Paul Ryan gets stuck in a swimming pool full of postcards and gets a lot of paper cuts.

CBPP has a nice wrap-up of the tax bill's broken promises if you want 7 in one place, with pretty charts.
posted by zachlipton at 12:22 PM on December 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

Sen. Franken's office says he will resign January 2nd
posted by zachlipton at 12:26 PM on December 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

Yeah, this is fucking bullshit.

Remember, 59% of Virginians voted for a Democrat to represent them in the HoD, so gerrymandering was 100% responsible for even the faintest chance of Republican control. So not only do the Republicans have even a chance of a majority purely due to cheating, now they've decided to just magically make up shit about ballots and have that count?

It's long past time we Democrats stopped tolerating this sort of blatant cheating. It's time to shut Virginia down, picket on every major road and highway and bring literally every bit of traffic in the state to a screeching halt until the Republicans quit this.
posted by sotonohito at 12:27 PM on December 20, 2017 [33 favorites]

lord_wolf: "If it's true that this now results in a tie, let me guess how the tie is going to be resolved. "

Apparently, they draw names from a bowl. This is the same way the state determines ballot order.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:37 PM on December 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

As a head's up, Senator Mark Warner, Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted earlier today:

This afternoon, I will speak on the Senate floor about the future of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Tune in at 4:30 pm: https://youtu.be/cM_dr4942X8

Incidentally, in a CNBC interview yesterday, Warner said, "I think it's frankly cheap shots when some of these Republican colleagues would question Mueller's integrity.[...] I mean, if this president allows this investigation to come to its conclusion and either bring charges or not, then I think the system will have worked as our founders intended. If they pull on one of these threads as a reason to fire Mueller, I think it will be a political disaster for the president, and I believe it will be a constitutional crisis."
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:39 PM on December 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

AT&T has decided to be this season's Carrier, and announced it will pay its employees $1,000 bonuses to celebrate the tax bill passing. Can't wait for the other shoe to drop there.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:47 PM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Warner has been my bellwether from the start. The investigation in the House Intelligence Committee was doomed, but the Senate Intelligence Committee had a chance of functioning properly as a bipartisan check on the President. So far, Warner has been reassuring us that the process was working, and I don't have any reason to doubt him. If he sounds the alarm that their investigation is broken too, then we're in real trouble. That would mean that Mueller's investigation is totally without backup or support anywhere in the government.
posted by diogenes at 12:50 PM on December 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

The disputed Virginia House seat will be awarded, of course, to Chrysostom.
posted by delfin at 12:50 PM on December 20, 2017 [77 favorites]

Remember, 59% of Virginians voted for a Democrat to represent them in the HoD

It was 53-43. Still a 9-10 point margin.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:51 PM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

AT&T has decided to be this season's Carrier, and announced it will pay its employees $1,000 bonuses to celebrate the tax bill passing. Can't wait for the other shoe to drop there.

They're trying to provide Trump with something to feel good about in hopes of getting their merger approved.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:52 PM on December 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

I'm sure it's totally a coincidence that AT&T handed Trump a win while they're fighting the Justice Department to have their Time Warner merger approved. (And bonuses aren't raises. If one-time bonuses were so great, they would have given a one-time bonus to the corporate tax rate instead of a permanent cut.)
posted by zachlipton at 12:54 PM on December 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

If he sounds the alarm that their investigation is broken too, then we're in real trouble. That would mean that Mueller's investigation is totally without backup or support anywhere in the government.

Warner might indeed be preparing to sound the alarm. Andrea Mitchell‏ @mitchellreports quotes him saying earlier today:

.@MarkWarner: Im extraordinarily concerned bc there does appear to be effort to undermine not only investigation, but law enforcement&FBI in general—there we get into uncharted territory where never seen this from either political party in past where you undermine validity of FBI

With the meeting between Mueller and Trump's lawyers scheduled for later this week, he could be attempting to head off whatever leaks out from that by Team Trump.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:55 PM on December 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

sotonohito: "So not only do the Republicans have even a chance of a majority purely due to cheating, now they've decided to just magically make up shit about ballots and have that count? It's long past time we Democrats stopped tolerating this sort of blatant cheating. "

Do you have citation to Virginia statutes showing that the judicial panel made an incorrect finding about this ballot? Because, if not, I don't see how this is cheating or "just made up shit." The court spent something like two hours deliberating over it, I don't think they just cashed their GOP check and made the ruling on the spot. And while I'm not sure who the other two judges on the panel were, the presiding judge is an African-American from Newport News; I would tend to think he is a Democrat in private life.

There are always gray areas when you start closely examining unvervote/overvote ballots. There were other seeming overvotes here that didn't get disputed - I know there was one with both candidates colored in, but Simonds's circle was darker, and she got the vote. So, there were other borderline ballots that both parties agreed on.

There's plenty of real electoral evildoing by the GOP without making stuff up.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:02 PM on December 20, 2017 [16 favorites]

AT&T has decided to be this season's Carrier, and announced it will pay its employees $1,000 bonuses to celebrate the tax bill passing.

AT&T Reports (2016) Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Results

Consolidated revenues of $163.8 billion
Operating income of $24.3 billion
Net income attributable to AT&T of $13.0 billion
Cash from operations of $39.3 billion
Free cash flow of $16.9 billion, up 6.8%

AT&T’s Randall Stephenson Made $28.4M In 2016, Up 13.1%

Stephenson’s 2016 package included $1.8 million salary, $16.1 million in stock awards, $5.7 million in non-equity incentives, $3.5 million change in pension value, and $1.4 million in other compensation, The “other” category included $1.2 million from the company’s matching contribution to his 401(k) plan.

posted by melissasaurus at 1:04 PM on December 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

The “other” category included $1.2 million from the company’s matching contribution to his 401(k) plan.
Company match is 4.5 percent of your income as long as you have put at least 6 percent in. That means nearly 3 million dollars went into his 401k this year.
posted by soelo at 1:11 PM on December 20, 2017

Wait, what? Isn’t there a $18,000 limit?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:13 PM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

The limit for employee and employer combined contributions was just raised from 54k to 55k.
posted by amarynth at 1:18 PM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Here's the actual ballot in question. Looks pretty much like the sketches seen earlier.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:20 PM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Strange of the voter to have written “FUCK, SELINA MEYER” on the ballot when she wasn’t even in the race.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:22 PM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Still a long sight from 3 million. Maybe there’s a pension fund and they misspoke when they used “401K”.
posted by Autumnheart at 1:22 PM on December 20, 2017

About AT&T:

AT&T Releases Details of Tentative Agreement in Mobility Orange Contract Negotiations
December 15, 2017 --

AT&T today provided details of a tentative agreement reached with the Communications Workers of America in Mobility Orange contract negotiations.The four-year agreement was announced on Dec. 13. It covers about 20,000 employees in 36 states and the District of Columbia – AT&T’s Mobility Orange unit, which encompasses CWA Districts 1, 2-13, 4, 7 and 9.

The offer includes wage and pension increases, as well as comprehensive healthcare benefits. Virtually all employees covered by the offer would see a positive financial impact.

Among provisions of the offer:

Retroactive wage increases back to Feb. 12, 2017, and a $1,000 lump sum, if the agreement is ratified by Jan. 12, 2018.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:24 PM on December 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

The four-year agreement was announced on Dec. 13. [snip] Among provisions of the offer:

Retroactive wage increases back to Feb. 12, 2017, and a $1,000 lump sum, if the agreement is ratified by Jan. 12, 2018.

Wait a minute, so AT&T's "celebration of the tax bill passing" is part of a contract agreement announced a week ago?!
posted by Gelatin at 1:27 PM on December 20, 2017 [33 favorites]

NYT, Glenn Thrush, Suspended Times Reporter, to Resume Work but Won’t Cover White House. After an investigation, he'll be unsuspended in late January, but will be moved to a different beat. Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, especially since the whole point was supposedly his sources at the White House, but here we are.
posted by zachlipton at 1:29 PM on December 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Justinian: "I hope it's that high but it's almost unthinkable. Of course if you'd told me a year ago a Democrat would win the Alabama Senate seat that would likewise be unthinkable."

FWIW from 538's Harry Enten:

I have studied the generic ballot more than perhaps any other ballot measure. While there are competing forces (a reversion to the mean vs. White House party losing ground), chances are the avg. will look similar next Nov. to now. Very, very, very bad news for GOP.

I am not an expert, but three very's seems bad.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:30 PM on December 20, 2017 [37 favorites]

Wait a minute, so AT&T's "celebration of the tax bill passing" is part of a contract agreement announced a week ago?!
No, all employes get this bonus, not just those covered by the Orange contract. The contract bonus is separate.
posted by soelo at 1:33 PM on December 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Warner's speaking and using very strong words. I just hope he's got something more than that. I also hope he'd use a little more fire.

There should be a Democrat making a speech on the floor of both chambers every day about this, and then they should and on every morning show.

Repetition Repetition Repetition.

Every Republican on every morning show should also get pushed on this again and again and again. "Why are you attacking Robert Mueller? Why are you questioning the integrity of this unimpeachable American patriot? What have you changed your tune? What are you afraid of?"
posted by leotrotsky at 1:37 PM on December 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

Here's a stream of Sen. Warner on Mueller. He's speaking generally on the attempts to shut down the investigation, going back to Comey's firing.

I think this is simply a forceful speech on the need to protect Mueller and a call for Congress to draw a red line that any attempt to shut down the investigation would be "a gross abuse of power and a flagrant violation" rather than anything particularly new, but we'll see.
posted by zachlipton at 1:39 PM on December 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

Thank you, soelo! I thought the recent announcement meant every other employee's getting a flat $1k (to match the 20K employees getting this less-than-a-week-old contract bonus). That those signing the contract will get $2k total is swell.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:42 PM on December 20, 2017

In his speech, Warner used the phrase "constitutional crisis."

That's a first from the senate, isn't it? (This senate, I mean. Civil War excepted, etc.)
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:46 PM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

A reporter finally got ahold of that ??? ballot from the contested VA race!
posted by creampuff at 1:49 PM on December 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Is there some hidden feature of getting Warner's words into the Congressional Record, over and above the uttering of them, which could be done just as well in a press conference?
posted by rhizome at 1:50 PM on December 20, 2017

As much as I dread the "losing by lot" that may be coming, that's a pretty unambiguous ballot. It's a straight-R ticket. I'd be very surprised if the voter decided to run D for the HOD, when they ran R on Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General.
posted by Imperfect at 1:55 PM on December 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Yeah, as much as I'm unhappy with the result, I think the court made the right call on this ballot. I don't want anyone to be disenfranchised, not even people whose votes I disagree with.
posted by Uncle Ira at 1:57 PM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm no constitutional scholar but I'm pretty sure this means the governor of Virginia makes like he's going to cut the state in half and whichever party goes "noo!" gets the house.
posted by theodolite at 1:59 PM on December 20, 2017 [33 favorites]

The two-party system is bad enough before we compound it by assuming it's a fundamental constant of the universe when trying to discern voter intent.
posted by tonycpsu at 1:59 PM on December 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

A reporter finally got ahold of that ??? ballot from the contested VA race!

The scantrons we use in Albany County, NY would have kicked that out as an 'overvote', since there's more than one candidate filled in. They'd be issued a new, clean ballot, and their old one goes in the "Voids" envelope.

This is all pretty basic, and I'm unable to comprehend how any State's "standards" wouldn't use the scanners to prevent this?
posted by mikelieman at 1:59 PM on December 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

I'm no constitutional scholar but I'm pretty sure this means the governor of Virginia makes like he's going to cut the state in half and whichever party goes "noo!" gets the house.

Wrong biblical figure. Drawing of Lots means they both face away from the capitol building, and then whichever candidate turns to look at the contested seat first turns to salt while the other one is declared the winner.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:00 PM on December 20, 2017 [32 favorites]

Both candidates place their hands on the statehouse and the last one to remove theirs wins the seat.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 2:03 PM on December 20, 2017 [23 favorites]

Following up after checking out the Virginia Equipment spreadsheet from their voting systems page, looks like Newport News City is using ES&S DS200's. Which SHOULD be kicking out an overvote like this.

Now things really smell fishy...
posted by mikelieman at 2:06 PM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is all pretty basic, and I'm unable to comprehend how any State's "standards" wouldn't use the scanners to prevent this?

Because the PTB wanted to the ability to put their thumb on the scale if the situation called for it?
posted by mosk at 2:07 PM on December 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

Frankly, it doesn't matter what the ballot looks like; the vote observers agreed to throw it out. A decision was made that would be held as binding in any other situation. This "take backsies" shit would be laughed out of the room if the result was positive for a Democratic candidate. Also, aren't the observer guidelines quite clear on the fact that they're not to use the voter's other decisions to try to deduce intent?

Also, given that all indications are that the voting machine would have immediately spit this back out and the voter would have been given another ballot (mentioned at the end of this article at least, but not the only place I've seen it), I don't think it's at all safe to assume there isn't already another properly filled-in ballot from this voter that got counted.
posted by IAmUnaware at 2:08 PM on December 20, 2017 [36 favorites]

If anyone wants to see some district-level breakdowns of the "vs Generic Democrat" question, Public Policy Polling has a tweetstorm going on (starting here) matching them against actual GOP incumbents/candidates.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:11 PM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Definitely not in favor of presuming the voters intent based on their other votes in other races, plus Gillespie, who the voter chose, was the only other candidate marked with anything besides a filled oval. If the logic of the examiners was that the voter had crossed out their vote for the Dem in the house of delegates I don't see how their (irrelevant) vote in the governors race could also still be counted.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 2:13 PM on December 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

I'm not super knowledgeable obviously, but could this be an absentee vote submitted via mail, therefore not going through the machine approval process? This seems to suggest it's possible. If this was a mail-in vote, it would also explain why the person didn't just get a replacement ballot when they fucked it up, too.
posted by creampuff at 2:13 PM on December 20, 2017

Hse/Senate must ok PAYGO waivers which could be an issue. If waivers aren’t ok’d, Trump may delay signing bill until ‘18 so cuts don’t start until ‘19

So Trump may think he's being clever by delaying the signing until January, but this is really a great opportunity for Democrats.

The way PAYGO works is that if a bill increases the deficit, then automatic cuts must occur to certain non-discretionary programs such as Medicare and farm subsidies to offset the deficit. The cuts can be avoided by passing a waiver to PAYGO rules, but the waiver requires 60 votes in the Senate, which means Democrats have to cooperate.

If Trump signs the bill before the end of this year, the cuts go into effect immediately in 2018. But if Trump waits until January to sign the bill, the cuts don't go into effect until 2019. Trump may think that this is is a clever way to delay the cuts until after the next mid-term election.

But this really hands the Democrats a big stick to beat up Republicans all next year leading up the elections. Normally Democrats would be forced into immediate capitulation to avoid shooting the hostages in 2018. But if the cuts don't happen until 2019, Democrats have no reason to cooperate right now. They can spend all year banging on the drum that Medicare and farm subsidies are going to be cut because of the Republican tax cuts for the rich. Benefit cuts are coming! Benefits cuts are coming! Because of Republicans!

I hope that Schumer is smart enough not to go along with a Republican request for a PAYGO waiver, at least until after the 2018 elections. Let everyone know the cost of the tax cuts for the rich.
posted by JackFlash at 2:13 PM on December 20, 2017 [35 favorites]

It's a straight-R ticket.

It was not, the voter chose democratic candidates for city's commonwealth's attorney, sheriff, and treasurer, and the independent candidate for commissioner of revenue. If they wanted a straight-R ticket they could have written in a name or declined to vote for these candidates.
posted by peeedro at 2:15 PM on December 20, 2017 [14 favorites]

Public Policy Polling has a tweetstorm going on (starting here) matching them against actual GOP incumbents/candidates.

@ppppolls
Last year in CA-48 Dana Rohrabacher won 58-42. He trails a generic Democrat 51-41 on a poll we did for Patriot Majority November 8-10

Hoo boy!
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:17 PM on December 20, 2017 [22 favorites]

They want more tax cuts already. [Senate tax extenders bill PDF]

@econwonk: let me be clear-- the tax bill (formerly known as TCJA) took credit for ending these tax breaks as part of its justification for being so costly//remember the whole $1.5T is because we get $500B from current policy and $1T in dynamic revenue thing? ya a notable chunk of the $500B is being pushed as further tax cuts right now
posted by melissasaurus at 2:20 PM on December 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! . . . and Wall Street Journal editorial page writers are leaving for not being pro-Trump enough.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:25 PM on December 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

What? Trump just commuted the prison sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, the kosher slaughterhouse executive sentenced to 27 years in 2010.
posted by zachlipton at 2:28 PM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Well, that should really sit well with all his white supremacist supporters. Guy can’t even pander consistently.
posted by Autumnheart at 2:31 PM on December 20, 2017

At least Clinton had the grace and decency to wait until the end of his presidency to pardon his crony donors.
posted by Talez at 2:36 PM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Looks like Sholom Rubashkin's rap-sheet reads a whole lot like the leaders of the Trump Crime Family that Mueller's rolling up. This is an aspect of "Trump's Mirror", right?
posted by mikelieman at 2:38 PM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed the Republican tax overhaul has “essentially repealed Obamacare” but said officials “didn’t want to bring it up” until the legislation had already passed.

Given how unpopular ACA repeal was, it seems like Trump just provided the Dems with some great talking points. "You wanted to keep your health insurance, but Trump is stealing via a backdoor and didn't want you to know about it."
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 2:39 PM on December 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

As much as I dread the "losing by lot" that may be coming, that's a pretty unambiguous ballot. It's a straight-R ticket. I'd be very surprised if the voter decided to run D for the HOD, when they ran R on Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General.

It is not straight R. They crossed out their vote for governor and did not select a replacement.

That said I think the intent is pretty clear.
posted by srboisvert at 2:45 PM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

At least Clinton had the grace and decency to wait until the end of his presidency to pardon his crony donors.

I try to stay optimistic. Maybe Trump's nearing the end of his presidency, too.
posted by uosuaq at 2:47 PM on December 20, 2017 [47 favorites]

It is not straight R. They crossed out their vote for governor and did not select a replacement.

That said I think the intent is pretty clear.

Right, but how many other 'ambiguous' ballots are out there? You shouldn't get to play guessing games after the fact because you didn't like the election result.
posted by leotrotsky at 3:01 PM on December 20, 2017 [11 favorites]

This is all pretty basic, and I'm unable to comprehend how any State's "standards" wouldn't use the scanners to prevent this?

We do use scanners. I've never incorrectly marked a ballot, though, so I don't know if they check your ballot for errors before counting it.
posted by indubitable at 3:16 PM on December 20, 2017

My husband started an "H-town for Beto" facebook group and within the week we had 300 people join it here in Houston. He called it H-town because there already is a Houston 'page' with 400 something people following it and he wants ours to be more active. I had kind of quit facebook because facebook. But now I'm answering a lot of personal messages from strangers wanting to know how they can get involved. Another person wants to have a show of local musicians do a fundraiser. They already got a very cool local bar agree to host it. I'm talking with the Austin for Beto people and local groups like Texas Organizing Project that have been into activism for years about what they are doing to GOTV and mobilize volunteers. How can we help them? There are some Houston people that want to set up voter registration booths at local places. Someone is hosting a "Block Walking Summit" at their house on how to block walk. People are way in to his campaign and our local races. Every corner of my life now people are asking me what can I do? It's WONDERFUL and exciting. When I start to get down I find Beto's facebook live streams to be amazingly encouraging. If you haven't watched any WATCH SOME. He really is trying to talk to each and every one of us here in Texas. And when you do talk to him, he is honest, and excited, and so completely sure that he can help us make things better here. It completely infectious. It makes me want to do more. I look forward to my days off so that I can work on this stuff. Metafilter is a wonderful help too. Y'all have the best resources and you word things so clearly. I borrow from it a lot in talking to others. So thanks for that! Keep on doing what your doing. Eyes forward. Work to do.
posted by dog food sugar at 3:17 PM on December 20, 2017 [61 favorites]

Boeing's got next on the "thank you, Donald Claus!" tire swing.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:21 PM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Trump opens the cabinet meeting by inviting Pence to praise him, and he does at great length, but watch the look on Trump's face. Does that look like a man who is enjoying any part of this?

No, no it does not. On top of the sour grimace on his face, check out Trump's body language—arms folded in tightly, like he's trying to protect himself. To indulge in a little pop psychology, this is a classic sign of masking insecurity, frustration, or anxiety.

This is despite Pence praising Trump once every 12 seconds for three minutes straight, as though training to compete against North Korea in the sycophancy olympics.

And because Trump's Mirror is always relevant, Trump pointed to pool reporters and told them, "You need the prayer more than I do. You may be the only ones. Maybe with a good solid prayer, you'll be honest."
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:26 PM on December 20, 2017 [23 favorites]

Both candidates place their hands on the statehouse and the last one to remove theirs wins the seat.

Both candidates place their hands inside the holy tree stump, and whichever one the wood-beast doesn’t sting wins while the loser dies slowly in madness and agony.
posted by um at 3:29 PM on December 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

Both candidates place their hands inside the holy tree stump, and whichever one the wood-beast doesn’t sting wins while the loser dies slowly in madness and agony.

We need to bring back the traditional American Gom Jabbar. This country was founded on Zensunni Values.
posted by leotrotsky at 3:38 PM on December 20, 2017 [11 favorites]

-- At least Clinton had the grace and decency to wait until the end of his presidency to pardon his crony donors.

-- I try to stay optimistic. Maybe Trump's nearing the end of his presidency, too.

Wasn't it just last week Maddow was floating the theory that he plans to step down after the already-announced actual medical exam in early 2018? That now that the tax bill's done and legal repercussions are looming, there will be an announcement of some condition which prevents performance of his official duties?
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:39 PM on December 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Nate Cohn at NYT on the generic ballot polling, where it stands now, and how that corresponds to an election a bit under a year out.

upshot: lol republicans
posted by Justinian at 3:49 PM on December 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

That now that the tax bill's done and legal repercussions are looming, there will be an announcement of some condition which prevents performance of his official duties?

Tax cuts are only half of what the congressional GOP wants and there's no way they cut him loose until after the second act of the Grand Guignol: the gutting of Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:49 PM on December 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

Reporting live from Newport Beach, CA, where a plane just flew by flying a banner that said, "Thank you for the tax cut President Trump!"

Says the guy rich enough to hire a plane.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 3:49 PM on December 20, 2017 [40 favorites]

The company I work for just announced that once the bill is signed into law all employees making less than $100k/year will receive an automatic 5% pay increase (on top of whatever year end raise we’ve already received). I am SHOOK.
posted by skycrashesdown at 3:56 PM on December 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

The time has come to make rich scared
posted by The Whelk at 3:59 PM on December 20, 2017 [33 favorites]

My man Tester.

@bterris
"We just passed one of the shittiest bills that’s ever come in front of the Senate last night… so you know the country’s seen better days." -Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from a red state up for reelection.
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:00 PM on December 20, 2017 [52 favorites]

I figured we'd see a little song and dance from companies after the tax bill and in the run up to the midterms. Play nice for a year to scratch Donnie's back after he scratched yours, try to make it seem like the tax bill is what's putting money in employee pockets - it's chump change they should have been paying out year after year since wages started stagnating decades ago, it's a bargain to help prop up their bought and paid for government accomplices.
posted by jason_steakums at 4:04 PM on December 20, 2017 [24 favorites]

Politico, New paycheck rules for millions leave employers scrambling

Republicans’ tax overhaul will completely change the way employers figure out how to withhold income taxes from millions of Americans’ paychecks, potentially disrupting payroll departments as they figure out how to switch to the new system with little guidance and just days to spare.

As of Jan. 1, the Republican plan dumps the entire concept of personal exemptions that workers now use to calculate how much should be taken from their pay on the tax forms known as W-4s. That means forms could need to be rewritten, and millions of workers will need to submit new ones. At the same time, the GOP plan doesn’t specify exactly what should happen, leaving it to the IRS to figure out.
...
Employers are especially confused because the bill says Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service could decide not to change the payroll withholding system until 2019, a move that could mean some workers have a lot less than they actually owe withheld from their checks under the new law. Some could end up facing tax penalties.

The same people who spend their days ranting about the impossibly costly burdens of regulations that say you can't dump toxic waste in rivers have created a regulatory mess and might force the entire country to file new W-4s thanks to their haste and failure to consider the most obvious of details when writing this bill.

Says the guy rich enough to hire a plane.

This is a lot cheaper than you'd think, usually a couple hundred bucks all told. Surprised more people don't do this, really.
posted by zachlipton at 4:07 PM on December 20, 2017 [32 favorites]

Politico, Kyle Cheney and John Bresnahan, House Republicans quietly investigate perceived corruption at DOJ, FBI

A group of House Republicans has gathered secretly for weeks in the Capitol in an effort to build a case that senior leaders of the Justice Department and FBI improperly — and perhaps criminally — mishandled the contents of a dossier that describes alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia, according to four people familiar with their plans.

A subset of the Republican members of the House intelligence committee, led by Chairman Devin Nunes of California, has been quietly working parallel to the committee's high-profile inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. They haven't informed Democrats about their plans, but they have consulted with the House's general counsel.

The people familiar with Nunes' plans said the goal is to highlight what some committee Republicans see as corruption and conspiracy in the upper ranks of federal law enforcement. The group hopes to release a report early next year detailing their concerns about the DOJ and FBI, and they might seek congressional votes to declassify elements of their evidence.

That final product could ultimately be used by Republicans to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether any Trump aides colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign — or possibly even to justify his dismissal, as some rank-and-file Republicans and Trump allies have demanded. (The president has said he is not currently considering firing Mueller.)

posted by zachlipton at 4:14 PM on December 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

This is a lot cheaper than you'd think, usually a couple hundred bucks all told. Surprised more people don't do this, really.

I'm in for $5 a week.
posted by pjenks at 4:15 PM on December 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

The obvious coordination between businesses and politicians here has me incredibly worried. Many of these companies have been receiving record breaking profits for years and now are passing along token raises to support this shit and it’s going to work. Think about the kind of pressure Walmart could enact by tying token raises to political support?
posted by cyphill at 4:23 PM on December 20, 2017 [20 favorites]

Today in relatable content: USA Today posted a study of how the tax bill would impact 5 households. Notably, they picked a single filer with $50k income, two families (1, 2) making ~$100k per year, a renter with $1M in income, and an elderly couple with $30M in assets.

Notable in that they picked only one situation just barely under the median US household income, and that person a single filer with no dependents. All situations showed a tax savings.
posted by Existential Dread at 4:34 PM on December 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

So...does the new tax bill repeal the individual healthcare mandate? I'm seeing articles that Trump claims it does, but well, you know...
posted by too bad you're not me at 4:37 PM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Hill: Trump gives green light to selling lethal arms to Ukraine

The Trump administration on Wednesday approved the sale of lethal arms to Ukraine's government as the country battles pro-Russian separatists in its eastern provinces.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the administration approved the sale of Model M107A1 Sniper Systems and associated equipment to the country at a value of $41.5 million. The administration has not yet moved to approve heavier arms requested by Ukraine's government, including Javelin anti-tank missiles.

The move from the White House is a departure from the Obama administration, which frequently condemned Russian aggression in the Ukraine but refused to approve the sale of arms to the country's western-aligned government.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) applauded the Trump administration's decision in a statement to the Post.

“I’m pleased the administration approved the sale of defensive lethal arms to Ukraine,” Corker said. “This decision was supported by Congress in legislation that became law three years ago and reflects our country’s longstanding commitment to Ukraine in the face of ongoing Russian aggression.”

This is, of course, just a sly bait-and-switch on Putin's part, as anyone who keeps a close eye on Azerbaijani grain sales would know.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:49 PM on December 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

two families (1, 2) making ~$100k per year

oh god, was that the one I saw on Twitter where a family's income was like, half wages and half business income? as if most households in America are small business owners?
posted by indubitable at 4:50 PM on December 20, 2017 [14 favorites]

This is, of course, just a sly bait-and-switch on Putin's part, as anyone who keeps a close eye on Azerbaijani grain sales would know.

I'm not sure I follow.
posted by Room 101 at 4:59 PM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Hrm.

Jonathan Chait, NYMag; Wall Street Journal Killed Editorial on Trump’s Mob Ties
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 5:04 PM on December 20, 2017 [19 favorites]

I actually think that would be a fascinating test to give to politicians and media folks. "We are discussing how a policy change is going to affect Americans. Please come up with four representative households for us to use for demonstration purposes."
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:14 PM on December 20, 2017 [23 favorites]

The Telegraph - Exclusive: US making plans for 'bloody nose’ military attack on North Korea

The White House has “dramatically” stepped up preparation for a military solution in recent months amid fears diplomacy is not working, well-placed sources said.

One option is destroying a launch site before it is used by the regime for a new missile test. Stockpiles of weapons could also be targeted.

The hope is that military force would show Kim Jong-un that America is “serious” about stopping further nuclear development and trigger negotiations.

...

Experts also say there is a split in the US administration with Mr Trump and Mr McMaster more willing to consider military action than Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, and Jim Mattis, the defence secretary.

This is utter insanity.
posted by bluecore at 5:14 PM on December 20, 2017 [62 favorites]

That's some Dr. Strangelove level "I'm not saying we won't get our hair mussed but I am saying no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops" level shit right there.

Why wouldn't North Korea launch a full scale assault on South Korea the instant the USA attacks them? China has already signaled it will not stand for American offensive action, only defensive action. And they have a billion people and a lot of nuclear weapons. They can't project power like we can... but North Korea is literally on their border. They don't have to project it.
posted by Justinian at 5:19 PM on December 20, 2017 [13 favorites]

Here's what it looked like in a previous Virginia election tie broken by drawing of lots.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:23 PM on December 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm only able to see the first and second paragraph outside of the paywall on that Independent article—does it provide more than anonymous sources who "confirmed military options were being worked up"? Because of course there are military plans like that, but is there any reason to think such plans are more likely to be selected and executed than we thought yesterday?
posted by XMLicious at 5:28 PM on December 20, 2017

Relevant standards from the Virginia SBE on how to adjudicate situations like the one today:

Any ballot that has any mark, as above [example pictures are given below here - C], in the target area or candidate area for one candidate, and on which other marks in the target areas or candidate areas for any other candidates have been partially erased, scratched out, or otherwise obliterated, shall be counted as a vote for the candidate for which the mark was not erased, scratched out, or otherwise obliterated, provided no other candidate is similarly marked.

Also, in the HD-40 recount the other day:

In last week’s HD40 recount, we had five challenged ballots exactly like this one. By agreement of counsel, following review of the SBE standards, all five were counted as votes for the candidate whose bubble did NOT contain an “obliterating mark.”

These guidelines may be bad, but it seems like Virginia is being consistent as to how they're counting these.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:30 PM on December 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

DAVID klion sums up my feelings pretty well:

“Voting them out is not enough. Reversing what they've done is not enough. New entitlements are not enough.

I want all of them investigated. I want aggressive new taxes to wipe out the oligarch class, including the oligarchs who donate to Dems. Make them suffer. Break their power

And I want voting laws that make it impossible for them to ever win again. I want regulatory laws that make business as they know it illegal, and then I want former legislators in jail. I want everyone who donated to Trump treated as a potential white collar criminal.”
posted by The Whelk at 5:44 PM on December 20, 2017 [116 favorites]

I'm only able to see the first and second paragraph outside of the paywall on that Independent article—does it provide more than anonymous sources who "confirmed military options were being worked up"? Because of course there are military plans like that, but is there any reason to think such plans are more likely to be selected and executed than we thought yesterday?

It says:

Three sources - two former US officials familiar with current thinking and a third figure in the administration - confirmed military options were being worked up.

And:

It can be revealed that senior British diplomats fear America has already begun a “step by step” military build-up in the region that could escalate.

And:

One British source who recently attended a briefing with H.R. McMaster, Mr Trump’s national security adviser, and other officials left feeling alarmed.
posted by bluecore at 5:45 PM on December 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

Remember when McMaster was supposed to be the adult in the room? And now he's the one pushing for a first strike on North Korea.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:14 PM on December 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

Children's Health Insurance Funding Nears End in Colorado

Miller says pregnant women with due dates in February have been told unless CHIP funding is restored, their health coverage will expire before they give birth.

Pro-life, my ass.
posted by zachlipton at 6:16 PM on December 20, 2017 [82 favorites]

Why wouldn't North Korea launch a full scale assault on South Korea the instant the USA attacks them? China has already signaled it will not stand for American offensive action, only defensive action. And they have a billion people and a lot of nuclear weapons. They can't project power like we can... but North Korea is literally on their border. They don't have to project it.

Nobody is going to follow us into that clusterfuck either. The Brits seem to be terrified, the EU will just want the slaughter to stop and even perennial lapdog and wannabe Pacific sheriff, Australia would be hard pressed to fall in behind the fucking mad man Trump. I know if Donnie Two Scoops decides to blow something up in NK before I leave to go back to the states I’ll sure as fuck be on the streets of St George’s Tce with the rest of the population telling Turnbull not to go anywhere near a war with NK/China.
posted by Talez at 6:27 PM on December 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

This Administration Is a Plague, and It Might Just Release One

I mean, honestly, how could anyone watch that cult gathering at the White House to celebrate the passage of the godawful tax bill on Wednesday and feel secure handing any of these people a water pistol, let alone deadly pathogens? It was one of the most truly bizarre spectacles in the history of democratic government, which I use in only the loosest sense of the term. The president* blithers and blathers and congratulates himself, all the while lying and being really ignorant. (He still doesn’t understand the Affordable Care Act even as he and his crowd are shredding it.)
...
This is where we are at the end of 2017: a terrible, generational disaster of a tax bill being celebrated by a terrible president*, followed by a prayer”—to God or to the president*, it’s hard to say—from a crackpot neurosurgeon profoundly unqualified for the job he currently holds, and that followed by a vice president who gives soulless ass-kissers a bad name. One kind of plague clearly already is out of the lab.

posted by kirkaracha at 6:32 PM on December 20, 2017 [30 favorites]

I want all of them investigated. I want aggressive new taxes to wipe out the oligarch class, including the oligarchs who donate to Dems. Make them suffer. Break their power.

Save room against the wall for Fox and their ilk.
posted by BS Artisan at 6:59 PM on December 20, 2017 [14 favorites]

The individual mandate remains in place in Massachusetts (thanks, Romney!), but officials are worried people may drop insurance, anyway, not knowing they'll still face a (state) tax penalty, the Boston Globe reports.
posted by adamg at 7:21 PM on December 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Wannacry? Yes. Yes I do.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:24 PM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Good News Dept: Memphis is taking down its Confederate statues right now.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:54 PM on December 20, 2017 [58 favorites]

Separate VA HOD news - the weird GOP-initiated recount in HD-68 looks like it netted him nine votes, possibly two more contested ones. He started out down 336 votes, so this was never going to do anything; I assume some kind of gamesmanship was the thinking here, but I'm darned if I know what it was.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:59 PM on December 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

Leftist update: What we can learn from the Democratic Socialists about building support - knocking on doors, sending out flyers, and showing up at court.
posted by The Whelk at 9:45 PM on December 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 House:

-- There was a lot of talk earlier about the generic ballot. Historically, the generic ballot is a strong predictor of House results, even at the 18 month mark, considerably more so this far out. A CNN poll this week was Dems +18, which is totally crazy-pants; the highest they'd found at this point in midterms in two decades. That could be an outlier, but all of the major polls in December have been in the double digits. 538 average is D+12.4; RCP average is D+13.

Now, a week is a long time in politics. But we've got pretty historically high numbers here - the Watergate election, Dems finished +17 (and picked up 49 seats). We've seen Dems outperform expectations by double digits in a large sample size of special elections. And Trump is at 37% approval, and doesn't have it in him to do any kind of course correction. Finally, these polls are mostly registered voters; Republicans normally do better in likely voters, but we've seen very high Dem enthusiasm, meaning they might actually outperform RV numbers. Long story short: we have a long way to go, but the signs look good at this point.

-- Of course, we'd also like to see polling for actual races. PPP put out poll results for 36 races in GOP-held seats; Dems are leading in 25, close in 11 more. Now, almost all of those were for "generic Dem" rather than a named candidate, and historically that margin falls when you put a real person in there. Still, given these are mostly seats with incumbents, those are encouraging numbers.

-- Part 5 of Vice series on target districts.

** 2018 Senate:

-- TN: DSCC poll has Bredesen up 46-41. Coming from the party, you have to take it with a grain of salt, but possible.

-- AZ Republic: Is Martha McSally running for Jeff Flake's seat...or John McCain's? | Related - Gov Ducey says anyone lobbying for the McCain seat is disqualifying themself.

** PA-18 special -- The Hill: Democrats hunt for an upset in Pennsylvania [PA politics nerds note - this story features the inevitable appearance of Terry Madonna!]

** Odds & ends:

-- As extensively discussed earlier, in the VA HD-94 race a contested excluded ballot was ruled to have counted for the GOP candidate, making the election a dead tie. It *appears* there is no legal recourse at this point, and that the election will be determined by lot (apparently, they put the candidates' names into those old plastic film canisters, put them in a bowl, and pull one out). Some mixed messaging from the state, but this might happen as early as Friday.

-- Surveymonkey: Lessons learned from polling in VA, NJ, and AL.

-- Powerful Florida state senator Jack Latvala, who had looked like a strong gubernatorial candidate, will resign in January after a major sexual harassment scandal. Latvala has even been referred for criminal corruption charges, after apparently trading votes for sex. This should set up a special election for SD-16, which might be flippable, but a stretch (Trump 54-42).

-- Al Franken's resignation is effective Jan 2.

-- A second state senator is going to be subject to a recall election in Nevada, assuming Dem legal action fails. These recalls are being financed by out of state GOP PACs, and even GOP gov Sandoval has condemned them.

-- Puerto Rico's governor is vowing to mobilize PR residents now living in Florida against the GOP. Estimates are somewhere around 200k people have moved from PR to FL; Trump's margin in FL was about 113K.

-- Interesting poll in LA has Dem governor Bel Edwards really popular at 65% favorable. That's a good bit higher than Sen Cassidy (45%), who as it happens, is up for re-election in 2020.

posted by Chrysostom at 9:49 PM on December 20, 2017 [28 favorites]

-- AZ Republic: Is Martha McSally running for Jeff Flake's seat...or John McCain's? | Related - Gov Ducey says anyone lobbying for the McCain seat is disqualifying themself.

There's a bunch of really awful candidates bandying about an AZ senate run. Arpaio, Ward, Montgomery, Craig Brittain (revenge porn entrepreneur and all round terrible person). The list of shitty Republican candidates goes on and on. McSally is literally the lesser of the Republican evils right now and that's saying something.
posted by Talez at 9:57 PM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Sortition! We’re gonna party like it’s the 6th century BC!
posted by um at 10:02 PM on December 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Craig Brittain (revenge porn entrepreneur and all round terrible person)

How does that even make... oh. rapey party, rape culture.
posted by Artw at 10:05 PM on December 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I want all of them investigated. I want aggressive new taxes to wipe out the oligarch class, including the oligarchs who donate to Dems. Make them suffer. Break their power.


The Whelk, I have two words for you that will change your life. "Proscription Lists". If there is a budget shortfall, rather than slashing Medicare, just take the top ~20 people from the Forbes Top 400 list. Seize their assets and exile them from the country. Repeat as needed until the budget is balanced.

Ahh, the benefits of a Classical Education.
posted by Balna Watya at 10:29 PM on December 20, 2017 [59 favorites]

Seize their assets and exile them from the country.

Don't be ridiculous - we don't kick out US citizens. Seize their assets and let them sign up for welfare like any other broke homeless person.

Oh, and while we're at it, give them a thorough tax audit and criminal investigation covering their last 5 years, because I bet that's often going to turn up some interesting "I'm sure that law doesn't apply to me" situations.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:36 PM on December 20, 2017 [24 favorites]

I know we're having fun with dictatorial fantasies, but you cannot revoke citizenship from natural born citizens, and I don't think you can exile them either.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:45 PM on December 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

odinsdream: “I'm honestly thinking this is a race between Mueller bringing the administration to a halt with indictments and thousands of war deaths from some insane offensive action by the US.”

SakuraK: “As a US citizen without meaningful representation in the executive nor legislative branches of the federal government, I’m not overwhelmed by optimism.”

I've got a friend who posted a link to some joker who thinks the only rational strategy is to nuke North Korea. They said they are really frightened, but that we should listen the guy. My response to them both was that it's madness since China has said they will not allow the political situation on the Korean peninsula to be altered by American military action was ignored, of course. So we have to hope that the brass at the Pentagon are smarter than some guy with a blog.
posted by ob1quixote at 10:47 PM on December 20, 2017

BuzzFeed, Molly Hensley-Clancy, Betsy DeVos Is Slashing Student Loan Relief For Defrauded Students. Defrauded students will now only have a portion of their debt forgiven in proportion to the extent to which their average earnings lag behind their peers at other comparable colleges.

NYT, Officials Weigh Sending American Detainee to Saudi Arabia

Senior national security officials in the Trump administration are embracing a proposal to transfer to Saudi Arabia an American citizen being held in Iraq as a wartime detainee, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations.

A meeting last week of the National Security Council’s “deputies committee” — the No. 2 leaders of national security departments and agencies — found its members united around a goal of pursuing such a transfer for the detainee, suspected of being a low-level Islamic State fighter, who has been held in military custody as an “enemy combatant” for the past three months, the officials said.
...
The government initially wanted to prosecute the man in a civilian court for providing material assistance to terrorism, but the F.B.I. was unable to assemble sufficient courtroom-admissible evidence against him.

Meanwhile, he's been held three months without a lawyer.

WaPo op-ed, Dean L. Winslow, I spoke my mind on guns. Then my Senate confirmation was put on hold, in which the nominee for assistant secretary of defense for health affairs withdrew his name after the Senate put his nomination on hold speaking up about guns after Las Vegas:

Then, I blurted out what was in my heart: “I’d also like to . . . just say how insane it is that in the United States of America a civilian can go out and buy a semiautomatic weapon like an AR-15.” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) interrupted, warning this was not in my “area of responsibility or expertise.” Soon after, my confirmation was put on hold.

I am a marksman, rated expert in both the M-9 pistol and the M-16 rifle (the fully automatic military version of the AR-15). During one of my tours in Iraq, I spent hours with my Special Operations forces colleagues who were training Iraqi teams on our base, firing an array of military weapons. Using a powerful gun at a firing range is a real blast, and I support civilians experiencing that thrill at licensed ranges.

However, as commander of an Air Force hospital in Baghdad during the surge, I have seen what these weapons do to human beings.

In which Nicole Wallace is done with all this:

“Are Republicans dead inside? What is wrong with––why don’t Republicans care that a Republican-led Justice Department, a Republican-led FBI, led by men appointed by Donald Trump, is being smeared and the character of the men leading those agencies assassinated by people associated with the Republican party, not the Democratic party?”

Vox, an interview with Bruce Gibney, How the baby boomers — not millennials — screwed America

Josh Marshall puts his small business owner hat on for a moment:

It's amazing the stuff that is in this tax bill. And hard to believe any real small businesses can be happy with it. Just heard from our accountant. TPM spends a not huge but not trivial amount of money each year on food for staff. So for instance, on Thursday's we order in food for the whole staff for lunch. We do semi-regular staff dinners. Nothing too surprising. Just part of trying to make the work experience a positive thing. That used to be considered a business expense and thus deductible the same way server costs are and all the other expenses the business has. That ends on December 31st. That's a non-trivial tax hike for a small business but basically meaningless for a corp with shareholders who are looking for that massive rate cut.

And to be clear, obviously there are worse things that can happen. And we'll be fine. But it's tangible example of how even normal businesses, let alone people really struggling, are an after thought in this bill. 100% for the super wealthy.

Making it more expensive for businesses to buy their employees food is presumably not what people thought they were voting for.

Vanity Fair, Corby Kummer, “Welch’s Grape Jelly with Alcohol”: How Trump’s Horrific Wine Became the Ultimate Metaphor for His Presidency. The magazine takes a wine expert to the Trump DC Hotel to taste Trump Wines, and even the restaurant's waitstaff isn't having it:

‘I thought you needed something good to drink,” the server said, slipping two glasses of deep-ruby-red wine in front of me and my guest. My guest was a nationally known wine expert. The server wanted to apologize for the wines I had made my guest taste for the previous 90 minutes, which the server had brought to the table with mystified, foot-dragging reluctance.
...
But the server did everything possible in the course of a long meal to steer us away from Trump wines. The idea had been to impress a famous guest, and serving him products from Trump Winery was not the way to do it. “We sell these,” the server said with a theatrical eye-roll, taking in the collection of glasses that by then were crowding our table, “because we have to.”

posted by zachlipton at 11:18 PM on December 20, 2017 [58 favorites]

Australia would be hard pressed to fall in behind the fucking mad man Trump

Australia will do it in a heartbeat, because Australia goes into any war that America is involved in. It's still bipartisan orthodoxy that America will bail us out if we're ever invaded, even though a) the only people that believe America would actually intervene are Australian politicians, and b) the last time American troops were defending Australia from invasion, there were riots. God, imagine if the Yanks actually did save us, we wouldn't hear the fucking end of it.
posted by Merus at 1:19 AM on December 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

Australia will do it in a heartbeat, because Australia goes into any war that America is involved in.

Normally I would agree but the calculus changes with China doing twice the trade of the United States. It’s not 1945 and we don’t require ANZUS because the Sino-Russian alliance thinks we’re worth taking over and it was obvious Britannia’s navy wouldn’t reach us if it was busy already. Iraq is easy because we’re not risking billions in trade.
posted by Talez at 2:09 AM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Wow, I had missed that Dr. Dean Winslow/McCain confrontation. It's remarkable.

A doctor speaking about gun control is outside of his "area of responsibility or expertise"? Guns are on the list of questions my doctor asks at a physical!

***goes searching for full video of testimony***

C-SPAN: Video not available at this time.

Y'know, if I was conspiratorial-minded....
posted by pjenks at 4:09 AM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Republicans trying to get PAYGO waiver for tax scam inserted into the next CR

(b) PAYGO SCORECARD.—The budgetary effects of
4 the reconciliation Act shall not be entered on either
5 PAYGO scorecard maintained pursuant to section 4(d) of
6 the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 (2 U.S.C.
7 933(d)).

They sure as hell don't want Trump to wait for a 2019 implementation. Maybe someone has some foresight because Q2 and maybe Q3 2018 are going to be a hell of a revenue shot in the arm. Q4 receipts are going to sink like a fucking rock and would trip PAYGO. They sure don't want the optics of Medicare et al getting slaughtered coming into mid terms.

You want something to refuse cloture on? This would be it. The Rs have the fucking audacity to ask for a get out of fucking jail free card for their tax scam. The brass fucking balls on these people.
posted by Talez at 4:19 AM on December 21, 2017 [33 favorites]

I listened to Slate's The Good Fight podcast's rerun of an interview with Francis Fukuyama, which, in light of the tax bill, was pretty fucking depressing. Fukuyama was addressing an essay I haven't read in which he made some optimistic or semi-optimistic claims about the U.S.'s ability to withstand a Trump presidency, published around the end of Trump's 100 days. The podcast was a bummer because one piece of evidence he used of Trump's inability to be a Putin or Erdogan or more effective fascist was the fact that the health care repeal bill failed.

There was a lot of good to take away from that interview that is cause for optimism (one was Trump's inability to throttle the press, although this interview was made many Scarmuccis ago) and Trump's failure to deliver on his campaign promises (but again, this was before the tax bill which Trump will lie and say it benefits his constituency).

But one thing that shocked me yesterday was Orrin Hatch's fellating of Trump in Hatch's statement praising the president for his leadership on his tax bill. I know Hatch is a motherfucker, but I had not yet thought that he was destitute of all dignity and perhaps morality; hell, I thought he took his religion seriously, at least. Another thing that bummed me out was that in this thread I think or maybe twitter somebody put out Bush II's approval numbers at the end of 2001, and they were in the low eighties. It doesn't take an unprecedented event to make a bad president a popular one.

Fukuyama is much smarter person than I can ever hope to be, so maybe if he were interviewed again he he'd point to Trump's unpopularity as evidence that's he's an ineffective tyrant, but by God, DJT is an effective something, even if all he is an agent of chaos.
posted by angrycat at 4:21 AM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Another thing that bummed me out was that in this thread I think or maybe twitter somebody put out Bush II's approval numbers at the end of 2001, and they were in the low eighties. It doesn't take an unprecedented event to make a bad president a popular one.

Bush was starting from a 50% popularity rate - Trump is below 40% and has been below 40% for most of his presidency. 9/11, which skyrocketed Bush's popularity, happened before his presidency was a year old (so it had less time to go stale).

I wouldn't put it past Trump to try to be a War Prexy OMG! in an attempt to boost his popularity - but he's starting pretty far underwater, and he's unpopular enough among a wide range of people that I can see this not working.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 4:33 AM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

House Republicans quietly investigate perceived corruption at DOJ, FBI

You realize, right, that they literally believe this? That anyone who puts country above party must inherently be a corrupt traitor?
posted by 1970s Antihero at 4:33 AM on December 21, 2017

The Koch Brothers Have a Plan to Make the Tax Bill Popular

Hours after Congress sent a sweeping package of tax cuts to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature, the powerful network of advocacy groups backed by billionaires Charles and David Koch went into high gear to turn around the bill’s dour poll numbers. Planned to last at least six months—heading right into the months when voters will turn their attention to the 2018 midterm elections—the multi-platform Koch-backed campaign will seek to explain the benefits of the tax package.

“Given that the tax reform bill was just finalized, there’s a lot of work to be done educating Americans about its benefits,” said James Davis, an executive vice president at Freedom Partners, the hub that coordinates Koch-backed political activities. “We will make a massive push to show how pro-growth policies can revitalize the economy and open the floodgates to new opportunity, innovation and prosperity.”

Here comes the covering fire. Which is about an issue and not partisan so funding for this propaganda will probably be funneled through their 501(c)(4) and be tax deductible! Congratulations, America! We're paying for these fuckers to lie to us!
posted by Talez at 4:52 AM on December 21, 2017 [41 favorites]

N.B. 501(c)(4) being tax deductible was in an early draft, I'm not sure if it made it into the final.
posted by Talez at 4:59 AM on December 21, 2017

But one thing that shocked me yesterday was Orrin Hatch's fellating of Trump in Hatch's statement praising the president for his leadership on his tax bill. I know Hatch is a motherfucker, but I had not yet thought that he was destitute of all dignity and perhaps morality; hell, I thought he took his religion seriously, at least.

He does! Your mistake was in believing that his religion is anything a non-member would recognize as Christianity.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:29 AM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

I haven't been able to decipher the implementation timelines of stuff - there's a lot of confusing and seemingly contradictory (if like me you are not super literate in tax law) information around. Specific questions I would love the hive insight on:

1. Is the tax bill going into effect immediately? Or in 2019? That's confusing.
2. The generic dem ballot is crazypants right now in the 2018 midterms. Are we expecting a short term boost to the economy as a result of the tax bill going into effect immediately that improves Republican numbers and erases the Dem momentum?
3. If 2 is true....what do we do?
posted by lazaruslong at 5:52 AM on December 21, 2017

Virginia House of Delegates went 53-43 to the Democrats and the Dems are struggling to achieve a tie so maybe "generic Dem" polling isn't as exciting as we'd like.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:05 AM on December 21, 2017 [16 favorites]

“Given that the tax reform bill was just finalized, there’s a lot of work to be done educating Americans about its benefits,” said James Davis, an executive vice president at Freedom Partners, the hub that coordinates Koch-backed political activities.

One might think that if the tax bill really benefited ordinary Americans, they wouldn't need any education about its benefits.

“We will make a massive push to show how pro-growth policies can revitalize the economy and open the floodgates to new opportunity, innovation and prosperity.”

Oh, I see. They're going to double down on trickle-down claims and promise that this time, really, the rich won't pull the football away hog all the benefits for themselves. Pull the other one.

The good thing is, this dog's breakfast of a bill has even Republicans running scared from its consequences. It gives Democrats a golden opportunity to claim the loyalty of the middle and working classes by advocating for programs that really do benefit them. Which, not coincidentally, the Democrats have been doing since FDR.
posted by Gelatin at 6:08 AM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Well that's another thing though - supposedly if the wave is big enough then gerrymandering works in our favor, right? It's the close / medium ones that we get screwed, but big waves break the dam. I dunno. The tax bill implementation and its implications for momentum into 2018 are freaking me out.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:09 AM on December 21, 2017

Republicans trying to get PAYGO waiver for tax scam inserted into the next CR

And of course there's CHIP funding in there, too, to be used as a cudgel if Dems won't vote for it.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:09 AM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

the powerful network of advocacy groups backed by billionaires Charles and David Koch

What the past two years of paying close attention to politics has really made me wonder is who the hell are these people and why do they think they get to decide what the American people should like*? We hear about the Kochs, we hear about Steve Bannon wanting to plant his candidates in key seats, we hear about people like Paul Ryan who read Ayn Rand in their formative years and have made it a life goal to deny people aid, and I just wonder why we are stuck with these self-annointed assholes. Some of them aren't even in positions we can vote them out of. They just keep dumping money and toxic influence into our communities from the sidelines. The ones that can be voted out eventually end up on FOX News still spewing bile. It amazes me how we continue to have to endure their poisonous agenda.

* yes, I know, money, it was rhetorical
posted by Servo5678 at 6:43 AM on December 21, 2017 [12 favorites]

Australia will do it in a heartbeat, because Australia goes into any war that America is involved in. It's still bipartisan orthodoxy that America will bail us out if we're ever invaded, even though a) the only people that believe America would actually intervene are Australian politicians, and b) the last time American troops were defending Australia from invasion, there were riots. God, imagine if the Yanks actually did save us, we wouldn't hear the fucking end of it.

The last time American soldiers defended Australia, it was because Britain undervalued Australian soil and Australians, and so shipped enough Diggers to Egypt to fight Rommel that Oz itself was indefensible.

America, meanwhile, was more concerned about losing Oz than Britain was, and the rest is history. Are we really anticipating a repeat of that ?

Or is Oz anticipating a need for American war materiel or naval support?
posted by ocschwar at 6:47 AM on December 21, 2017

But one thing that shocked me yesterday was Orrin Hatch's fellating of Trump in Hatch's statement praising the president for his leadership on his tax bill. I know Hatch is a motherfucker, but I had not yet thought that he was destitute of all dignity and perhaps morality; hell, I thought he took his religion seriously, at least.

Heard a news piece this morning discussing the evangelical Christian reaction to the Jerusalem-is-the-capital thing. It was implied that a lot of evangelicals were willing to look the other way on everything else if Trump did that, because they thought it would be one step closer to setting off the final Armageddon That Will Bring Christ Back.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:49 AM on December 21, 2017 [9 favorites]

The Minnesota Twins: A Complete History Of Double-Barrel Senate Elections
The main takeaway from Table 1 is the fact that the same party tends to win both seats in a double-barrel Senate election. In 54 cases, just eight have featured split-ticket outcomes. More importantly for Minnesota in 2018, the last time a split-ticket outcome occurred was in 1966. That year, Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) won reelection for South Carolina’s Class II seat while former Gov. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings (D) defeated the Democratic appointee in the special primary for the Class III seat and then won the general election. But Thurmond had switched parties in 1964, leaving the Democratic Party because of civil rights legislation. In the 10 double-barrel contests after 1966, the same party has won both seats every time.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:50 AM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

People with no morality aren't constrained from preying on people who do by anything but the strict and swift enforcement of laws (not "norms" not "standards"--they have no reason to care about those things if they aren't backed up by prison time). Absent that, we're all at the mercy of these vile fuckers. They accumulate power and wealth because a lack of morals is like a superpower in late-stage capitalism.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:52 AM on December 21, 2017 [18 favorites]

BuddhaInABucket: Reporting live from Newport Beach, CA, where a plane just flew by flying a banner that said, "Thank you for the tax cut President Trump!"

This summer, someone paid for an airplane banner to fly around Huntington Beach, CA with a pro-Trump message. Seems like a popular thing to spend money on in that part of California.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:53 AM on December 21, 2017

I am genuinely worried that the Republicans are going to gin up a war with Iran to try to throw the midterms. I think that a first strike on North Korea is probably not going to happen because the regional consequences in re China would be so bad, although I expect a lot of saber-rattling.

Leaving everything else aside, like the immense loss of life, bombing of Iran, civilian deaths, atrocities committed by US soldiers against civilians, etc, I think it's really important to say, every time the GOP starts talking about war, "Oh, this is just to throw the midterms, right?" We need to get that message out, that any war started now would be entirely cynical and arbitrary, even more so than usual.

Do I believe that the GOP would cynically start an enormous, expensive and bloody conflict in the hope of throwing the 2018 elections and for no other proximate reason? Sure I do, because that's the world now.
posted by Frowner at 6:54 AM on December 21, 2017 [19 favorites]

The Whelk: Leftist update: What we can learn from the Democratic Socialists about building support - knocking on doors, sending out flyers, and showing up at court.

Landlords count on tenants not showing up for their eviction court dates; for them it means an automatic victory. Landlords also count on tenants’ ignorance about other options open to them, like reasonable repayment programs, free legal counsel, or potential legal counterattacks. (If the properties are neglected, as is often the case, tables can be turned on landlords.) The main purpose of SOS is to raise the cost of eviction by persuading tenants to show up and fight back.
...
A more systemic ambition is to do enough of this to flood the courts with people seeking to exercise their rights. SOS views the courts as a choke point in a system heavily tilted against tenants; like landlords, the courts assume most people won’t show. When they do show, the courts get overloaded and evictions slow. (The tactic Is partly inspired by Poor People’s Movements by Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward.) The ultimate goal is to motivate tenants themselves to become activists — to create “cadres” devoted to the anti-eviction cause.

Fuck yeah, DSA!
posted by filthy light thief at 7:00 AM on December 21, 2017 [63 favorites]

Do I believe that the GOP would cynically start an enormous, expensive and bloody conflict in the hope of throwing the 2018 elections and for no other proximate reason? Sure I do, because that's the world now.

Jingoism worked in Iraq because we were all still in PTSD from 9/11 and wanted somebody to pay. Both parties were effectively "all in" supporting the President.

To put it mildly, that's not the situation we're in now. There's no way Democrats get on the side of the Trump administration for another fucking war right now, and zero chance anyone in the administration is competent to drum up support. That means it wouldn't be an war by the United States, it would be a war by the Republican Party. Whose inevitable clusterfuck they would completely own.

Trying to start a war at 35% approval, with zero backing from anybody but your own party (certainly no international support), I suspect is pretty much a nonstarter.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:03 AM on December 21, 2017 [15 favorites]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, BUT HER URANIUM

On the orders of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Justice Department prosecutors have begun asking FBI agents to explain the evidence they found in a now dormant criminal investigation into a controversial uranium deal that critics have linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton, multiple law enforcement officials told NBC News.

*screeching intensifies*
posted by delfin at 7:07 AM on December 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

In which Nicole Wallace is done with all this

Actually, the really beautiful bit of that video is Wallace's reaction (at about 5:58), after the panel guy says Repubs won't question Trump because he'll be mean to them on Twitter: "Oh JESUS CHRIST, there's men in the Republican party terrified of [Trump's tweets]. . . . That's the most. pathetic. thing [pounding table] I've heard all year."
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:07 AM on December 21, 2017 [28 favorites]

Trying to start a war at 35% approval, with zero backing from anybody but your own party (certainly no international support), I suspect is pretty much a nonstarter.

Which is why they're desperately trying to provoke an attack.
posted by schmod at 7:13 AM on December 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

I wonder if the Koch brothers can blow up enough balloons to hide the fact that the IRS won't be able to manage these sudden changes to the tax code, thanks in part to JKF-era technology that supports part of their work (CNN article from 2015, but the reference to "Kennedy-era computer programs" popped up again in a recent NPR piece).

The other major impact to the IRS is that the current administration is proposing more cuts to their budget:

The last time a major tax overhaul was approved in 1986, Congress actually appropriated more money for the IRS to hire additional personnel. This time the president and House and Senate leaders have all proposed deeper cuts in the agency's budget. Tony Reardon heads up the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS employees.

TONY REARDON: Congress is adding massive, massive new responsibilities to the IRS and expecting them to handle it with less money and even fewer employees.

NAYLOR: He says that makes for a very difficult situation for the agency and for its employees and of course for taxpayers. One place where the lack of IRS personnel might be most apparent is the agency's taxpayer help line.

JENNIFER MACMILLAN: Yes (laughter). Yeah, it's going to be a nightmare.

NAYLOR: Jennifer MacMillan is with the National Association of Enrolled Agents, which represents tax preparers. She says the IRS couldn't keep up with all the calls from taxpayers seeking help with their returns last year. Many were kept waiting on hold for over an hour. Next year, MacMillan expects lots of confusion with the new law.

MACMILLAN: People are going to be calling them. Lots and lots of people are going to be calling not only to find out what the implications to them might be. I think a lot of people are going to be under the - you know, have a misunderstanding and think that it's going to affect their filing of 2017 tax returns.

Oh, and the I.R.S. Commissioner, John A. Koskinen, retired in November. This is going to be a messy, noisy year, with so much of the blame game.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:14 AM on December 21, 2017 [26 favorites]

Actually, the really beautiful bit of that video is Wallace's reaction (at about 5:58), after the panel guy says Repubs won't question Trump because he'll be mean to them on Twitter

I hope the Democrats have finally, finally learned the lesson they apparently failed to learn in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s: That bullies are cowards at heart, and standing up to them, not backing down, is the way to handle them.

Another way Trump is so emblematic of the modern Republican Party is the way his bloviating and bluster is such obvious and hollow compensating, and it seems to be emboldening a generation of Democrats.
posted by Gelatin at 7:15 AM on December 21, 2017 [35 favorites]

The Whelk, I have two words for you that will change your life. "Proscription Lists". If there is a budget shortfall, rather than slashing Medicare, just take the top ~20 people from the Forbes Top 400 list. Seize their assets and exile them from the country. Repeat as needed until the budget is balanced.

Ahh, the benefits of a Classical Education.

Uh, I'm not sure the reign of Sulla should be held up as any kind of benchmark.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:16 AM on December 21, 2017 [10 favorites]

Bloomberg (Stephanie Baker and Irina Reznik): Mueller Is Looking Into a U.S. Foundation Backed by Russian Money

Sara Peterson flew to Moscow in 2012 to take home two Russian orphans just as the Kremlin, angry about sanctions on Russian officials, banned U.S. adoptions. For the next four years she knocked on doors in Washington to no avail. So when she read about a foundation “to help restart American adoption of Russian children,” she set up a meeting.

It was August 2016 when Peterson, of Maryland, traveled to Washington and waited at a train station sandwich shop for a Russian-American man named Rinat Akhmetshin. He wanted to know which members of Congress he should approach, she said. At that meeting and later ones, he said “things would change” after the upcoming elections.

Peterson didn’t know it but Akhmetshin, a former Soviet intelligence officer, had recently met with senior officials of the Donald Trump campaign in New York: the candidate’s son, son-in-law and campaign manager. It didn’t take long for her to realize that the foundation wasn’t all it seemed. As she put it, “I don’t think adoptions were their primary agenda.”

Now Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking into the foundation.

posted by pjenks at 7:22 AM on December 21, 2017 [46 favorites]

This is going to be a messy, noisy year, with so much of the blame game.

Not criticizing you, flt, but I know the political press loves to use this phrase because it rhymes. And I expect we'll hear it a lot from Republicans in the next few years as the results of their terrible policies become clear. We shouldn't let them deflect responsibility by complaining about actually being held accountable.

Every time a journalist of Republican uses the phrase "blame game," Democrats should shoot back, "it's called being held accountable, and as Truman said, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

(As a bonus, it's another opportunity to portray Republicans as weak crybabies. They have gotten so much mileage out of their phony machismo; I'm all for anything that punctures that bogus image. Every time we ring that bell, another Republican voter stays home on Election Day.)
posted by Gelatin at 7:22 AM on December 21, 2017 [43 favorites]

Ken Vogel (NYTimes) highlights the key point in the Bloomberg article:

The Russian lawyer who met with @DonaldJTrumpJr, Kushner & Manafort at Trump Tower used a nonprofit that purported to advocate for US adoptions of Russian kids.

BUT most of the Russian businessmen who funded nonprofit knew nothing about adoption issue.

posted by pjenks at 7:25 AM on December 21, 2017 [18 favorites]

I resist-botted Chuck Grassley about his stupid "we need to repeal the estate tax because the poors spend all their money on hookers and booze" statement, and he sent me back an email that literally said that he was not making "a class warfare argument." It's definitely a form email that he sent to everyone who contacted him about that statement, and I didn't use the phrase "class warfare" in my original email. So anyway, if you feel that you need to inform your constituents that you are not committing class warfare, I think it's safe to say you're in trouble.

(I'm thinking about trying to make #ClassWarChuckie trend on Twitter. It's got a ring to it.)

But yeah, we're going to have to plan a counterattack to the Koch onslaught. Right now, we're clearly winning this one, but they're going to do everything in their power to sell these stupid, class-war tax cuts.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:32 AM on December 21, 2017 [13 favorites]

Pelosi to GOP: You're on your own with continuing CR

I've been calling my people every day to tell them to shut down the government if there's no clean DREAM act and no reauthorization of CHIP. Hopefully I'm not alone!
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:33 AM on December 21, 2017 [25 favorites]

People with no morality aren't constrained from preying on people who do by anything but the strict and swift enforcement of laws (not "norms" not "standards"--they have no reason to care about those things if they aren't backed up by prison time). Absent that, we're all at the mercy of these vile fuckers.

The enforcement of laws is unlikely to have much effect considering that the people we're talking about are the ones who decide what will be illegal and who laws can be enforced against. They control the law enforcement apparatus, and they've put a lot of effort into making sure that it is more useful as a weapon against the innocent but vulnerable than against the guilty but powerful.
There are things we can do. We do not have to let people like Ryan and Trump and the Kochs and the Mercers plunge our society and planet into oblivion. Enforcement of the laws that they have written to protect and empower themselves is not going to help us.
posted by IAmUnaware at 7:36 AM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Making it more expensive for businesses to buy their employees food is presumably not what people thought they were voting for.

This is a loophole that should be closed. If companies what to provide benefits to their employees they should just give them money and they can buy their own damn food. This idea of giving workers food instead of wages for working long hours is one way of being cheap.

Here is why is shouldn't be deductible. It is a way of paying wages without paying taxes. You can't give a worker a car or groceries or an apartment or anything else of value and deduct it unless you add that dollar amount to their W-2 for taxes. Giving food should be the same. Other than trivial amounts, the money should be taxed either to the business or to the employee, but not neither.
posted by JackFlash at 7:38 AM on December 21, 2017 [12 favorites]

Pelosi to GOP: You're on your own with continuing CR

I've been calling my people every day to tell them to shut down the government if there's no clean DREAM act and no reauthorization of CHIP. Hopefully I'm not alone!

Ladies and Gentlemen, come 2018, our first female President.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:39 AM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

By "laws" I meant "laws against this type of behavior" not the laws we currently have on the books (some of which do apply to this behavior, some of which definitely do not). They have absolutely rigged the system in their favor. That's what they do. They're wolves and jackals and you can't guilt or plead them into do the right thing. The only thing to do is wrest power, make laws, enforce laws, and punish their asses in ways they actually care about (i.e. not piddling fines that represent .000001% of their wealth).
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:40 AM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

The Russian lawyer who met with @DonaldJTrumpJr, Kushner & Manafort at Trump Tower used a nonprofit that purported to advocate for US adoptions of Russian kids.

BUT most of the Russian businessmen who funded nonprofit knew nothing about adoption issue.

“Sanctions” and “adoptions” are hella closely linked in the Russia scandal, because Putin blocked U.S. adoptions in retaliation for the sanctions. Anytime an administration official says they talked to a Russian about adoptions, we know they were actually talking about sanctions.
posted by chrchr at 7:43 AM on December 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

Ladies and Gentlemen, come 2018, our first female President.

Do you mean me or Pelosi? I'm happy either way.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:47 AM on December 21, 2017 [34 favorites]

Anytime an administration official says they talked to a Russian about adoptions, we know they were actually talking about sanctions.

And when we say they talked about sanctions, we know they were really talking about easing restrictions on Russian oligarchs ability to launder money out of Russia in exchange for help with the campaign.
posted by diogenes at 7:59 AM on December 21, 2017 [22 favorites]

This might be useful as data in an argument: A spreadsheet tracking Trump's anti-press tweets.
posted by StrawberryPie at 8:12 AM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm not sure I follow.

It's a joke at the expense of the excessively conspiratorial. If the Russian government did interfere in the American election in order to secure an American foreign policy less aggressive toward Russia, as it appears it has done, then the recent American arms sales to Ukraine, which country the Russian government considers an aggressive American proxy, may show that the ploy didn't work. Nevertheless, certain cable news shows will still consider Trump a Russian puppet pure and simple.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:17 AM on December 21, 2017

From the "so you don't have to" department - if "blame game" rings in your head like a clangy WWII ordinance, you might have first heard it (or heard it used as a bullshit Republican gaslighting) from Gee Dubz' Katrina album

"What I intend to do is lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong.... I think one of the things that people want us to do here is to play a blame game. We've got to solve problems. We're problem-solvers. There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong. What I'm interested in is helping save lives. That's what I want to do."

Answering a question regarding Katrina aftermath and what went wrong with government response — September 6, 2005. [74]

Ahhh. Classy evil Republican bullshit. Good times.
posted by petebest at 8:22 AM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Like most GOP talking points, they take an ounce of truth and add a pound of lies. I'm not interested in playing the "blame game" either. I only really care who is at fault insomuch as it informs the solutions. In a lot of situations, part of the solution is holding those responsible accountable to create disincentives for next time.
posted by VTX at 8:33 AM on December 21, 2017 [11 favorites]

It's a joke at the expense of the excessively conspiratorial. If the Russian government did interfere in the American election in order to secure an American foreign policy less aggressive toward Russia, as it appears it has done, then the recent American arms sales to Ukraine, which country the Russian government considers an aggressive American proxy, may show that the ploy didn't work. Nevertheless, certain cable news shows will still consider Trump a Russian puppet pure and simple.

One might get the impression that the government is made up of many different people with many different interests of one is too conspiracy minded.

Regarding company provided meals being taxable, that isn't great policy. For one, there are already limitations that make it improper to feed employees regular meals without counting it as compensation. Occasional meals are allowed as deductible business expenses for things like team building exercises or meals provided when traveling or working through normal meal times. My SO already pays tax on the pizza she buys for her team every month (it's deductible as an unreimbursed business expense when one itemizes, but not otherwise obviously). Why should her team members also pay tax on said pizza. It would be an accounting nightmare. Joe ate 3 slices, so he got $2.20 worth, but Lisa only had two, so she needs to be taxed on $1.47.
posted by wierdo at 8:38 AM on December 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

Making it more expensive for businesses to buy their employees food is presumably not what people thought they were voting for.

This is a loophole that should be closed. If companies what to provide benefits to their employees they should just give them money and they can buy their own damn food. This idea of giving workers food instead of wages for working long hours is one way of being cheap.

I don't understand this viewpoint, honestly. Why are holiday parties and snack days and dinners in honor of employees considered loopholes that must be closed.
posted by winna at 8:39 AM on December 21, 2017 [14 favorites]

Come to think of it, things weren't nearly as so unbalanced back when companies and individuals had higher rates but could deduct T&E and a bunch of other stuff with very little limitation. I suspect it being cheaper to spend money on employees helped convince companies to do just that. That said, the rise of the LLC and S Corp has probably made that regime untenable. Too easy to turn living expenses into business expenses when incorporation is itself super easy.
posted by wierdo at 8:45 AM on December 21, 2017

For anybody who needed a morning dose of GRAR RAR FUCK YOU PAT TOOMEY IN YOUR HATEFUL FUCKING FACE:

White House officials initially thought they could not achieve a very big tax cut — maybe $1 trillion — but for months, Toomey had been pressing his colleagues for at least double that. Toomey persuaded White House officials to request a larger package from his colleagues on the Senate Budget Committee, while he would continue advocating for the even bigger number he wanted, making the administration’s request seem modest.

During a meeting in McConnell’s office with the Republicans on the Budget Committee, the plan played out perfectly, Mnuchin said the White House wanted a $1.5 trillion tax package, according to a person involved in the discussions who requested anonymity to describe the private deliberations. Toomey said he wanted a package that was more than $2 trillion, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) chimed in that he wanted a tax-cut package that was even bigger than that.

WaPo, Mike DeBonis and Erica Werner
posted by joyceanmachine at 8:51 AM on December 21, 2017 [11 favorites]

Well well well:

To fill their top spot on the House Judiciary Committee, Democrats had a choice between experts in two critical policy arenas: a constitutional law ace with firsthand experience battling President Trump, and an architect of sweeping immigration legislation.

By a wide margin, they chose the constitutional law expert. Why? To ready themselves for a battle with Trump that could end with impeachment proceedings.

(WaPo)
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:52 AM on December 21, 2017 [41 favorites]

Corker's a sociopath first and a Trump opponent a distant second, or maybe not at all.

Politico: “I told him that I’d had a healthy respect for the media. I deal with them all the time and, you know, to attack the media has not been something I've done. But I had a newfound empathy for him in watching how a totally debunked story” spread across the political media, Corker (R-Tenn.) told Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” as he recalled a recent conversation with the president. [...] “A social media phenomenon generates from this and I've never ever used in my life the word ‘fake news’ until today. I actually understand what it is the president has been dealing with.”
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:56 AM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Nadler is not only a conlaw expert, he is a loooooong time enemy of Trump.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:03 AM on December 21, 2017 [14 favorites]

VA HOD stuff:

* Recount in HD-28 is today. That is not expected to swing anything by itself - the D shortfall is 82 votes. The separate legal action about the ballots with the wrong HD on them has a hearing Jan 5.

* In HD-94, the Board of Elections will meet Dec 27 to draw lots for the winner. That's barring any legal action - there seem to be contradictory portions of the statute, so it's not clear what is possible on that front.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:10 AM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

People at the courthouse are reporting on Twitter that the first batch of defendants are NOT GUILTY ON ALL 42 CHARGES
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:16 AM on December 21, 2017 [58 favorites]

If anyone would like to spend their lunchtime witnessing a grownass man getting politely but firmly owned on Twitter, @jonfavs is currently throwing down in a very Pistols at Dawn sort of way with @BrendanBuck (Paul Ryan staffer) over funding CHIP. Buck keeps thinking he's got zingers and they're just... not zingers.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:18 AM on December 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

^^^ That's in the #J20 inauguration day protest case, btw.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:18 AM on December 21, 2017 [17 favorites]

People at the courthouse are reporting on Twitter that the first batch of defendants are NOT GUILTY ON ALL 42 CHARGES

Well thank fuck for that. Are they likely to be able to claim any kind of compensation?
posted by Artw at 9:19 AM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Are they likely to be able to claim any kind of compensation?

They should start with "the still-beating heart of the prosecutor who told a jury that possession of bandages at a protest is a violent felony" and bargain from there.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:24 AM on December 21, 2017 [41 favorites]

They should start with "the still-beating heart of the prosecutor who told a jury that possession of bandages at a protest is a violent felony" and bargain from there.

As well as that of Assistant US Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff, who actually tried to argue that the judge's instructions to the jury about reasonable doubt were "written by a bunch of lawyers" and "didn't mean a whole lot." The judge actually had to interrupt her closing statement over it. This was after she said it was entitlement and privilege to expect the police to follow rules they are required to by law.

There's a special place in hell waiting for Quereshi and Kerkhoff for the way they behaved in this case.
posted by zarq at 9:29 AM on December 21, 2017 [55 favorites]

Why should her team members also pay tax on said pizza. It would be an accounting nightmare. Joe ate 3 slices, so he got $2.20 worth, but Lisa only had two, so she needs to be taxed on $1.47.

This is the reason for eliminating the tax loophole. You don't tax each employee for the value of the fringe benefit. You tax the business providing the fringe benefit by disallowing them an expense deduction. This makes food like any other fringe benefit. If it is not taxable to the employee, then it is taxable to the employer. That is the fair way to treat it.

The way it was, businesses used the loophole to avoid taxation of employee compensation. As you say, in some cases it is too complicated to directly tax the employee for the fringe benefit. In that case the simple solution is to eliminate the expense deduction for the employer, which is effectively similar to taxing the employee. The employer pays the tax in lieu of taxing the employee.
posted by JackFlash at 9:30 AM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Interesting situation may be developing in Mississippi - Senate sources telling Politico that Thad Cochran, who has been seriously ailing mentally and physically for a while, is likely to resign early in the new year.

MS doesn't appoint replacements, it's a special election, except in years with general elections. So, the seat will be vacant, and both Senate seats will be up in 2018. Crypto-Confederate Chris McDaniel has been mulling a primary bid against incumbent Roger Wicker - perhaps he'll just run for the vacant seat?

That might be a best chance shot for the Dems - McDaniel is basically the Roy Moore of Mississippi (less the molestation), and his being a nominee might energize African-American turnout (AL is about 27% black, MS is about 37%). And the Dems actually have an interesting possible candidate in Brandon Presley, who is that rarity, a popular elected Dem in MS. And Elvis's great-nephew
posted by Chrysostom at 9:30 AM on December 21, 2017 [59 favorites]

McDaniel is basically the Roy Moore of Mississippi (less the molestation)

What have we said about making assumptions?
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:35 AM on December 21, 2017 [29 favorites]

This administration has official broken my emotional calibration. I have never teared up reading about a potentially vacant Senate seat in Mississippi. For gods sake. My new inner monologue is just "Please, please, please, please, please, please, please..."

Signed, potentially your first female president who is still way more emotionally stable than the orange blowfish currently occupying the oval office
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:35 AM on December 21, 2017 [43 favorites]

Rustic Etruscan: It's a joke at the expense of the excessively conspiratorial. If the Russian government did interfere in the American election in order to secure an American foreign policy less aggressive toward Russia, as it appears it has done, then the recent American arms sales to Ukraine, which country the Russian government considers an aggressive American proxy, may show that the ploy didn't work.

Except the article you posted shows the administration only approved the sniper rifles and not the Javelin anti-tank missiles like they've been requesting. It's estimated Russia has rolled ~600-700 tanks across the border. Do you think sniper rifles constitute a serious threat to them? Or is it just the bare minimum to provide the patina of supporting them, in the same way that Congress passed Russia sanctions, Trump signed the sanctions bill into law... and hasn't enacted any of the sanctions?
posted by bluecore at 9:39 AM on December 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

You know, I considered saying, "so far as we know," but I was being charitable.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:39 AM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Oh, yeah - sanctions. Add that to DACA and CHIP on the pony-list, for when the Rs come with hat in hand because they can't herd their own cats to get a CR.

It used to be 'Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line', but I have never seen the Dems more firm in solidarity than this year, nor the Republicans so fractured, scattered, and disunited.
posted by eclectist at 9:43 AM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Not a single Democrat voted for the tax bill.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:46 AM on December 21, 2017 [13 favorites]

Assistant US Attorney Jerkhoff? Too easy. C'mon writers, try a little.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:49 AM on December 21, 2017 [16 favorites]

The Nation, cover story: a year later, why have an army of young people joined the democratic socialists?
posted by The Whelk at 9:53 AM on December 21, 2017 [18 favorites]

Wait. With Doug Jones taking office, the Republicans were going to be down to a 51-49 majority in the Senate.

If Cochran is out and no replacement is appointed, then will it be 50-49 until after the 2018 elections?

Meaning ONE Republican defection is enough to derail any bill, unless some Democrats sign on?
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:55 AM on December 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

I think that if there's a tie, Pence breaks it. So they'll still need two defections.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:57 AM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

defection would equal 49(R) - 50(D). no tie
posted by birdheist at 9:58 AM on December 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

There wont be any ties with 99 senators?
posted by localhuman at 9:58 AM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

If they all vote. And if McCain is in a wheelable-in state.
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:02 AM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Re. Nikki Haley and Trump's clumsy threats to cut off aid to countries that wouldn't support America's unilateral Jerusalem shitstirring: every country in the UN General Assembly either abstained or voted in favor of the fuck-Trump resolution except Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Togo.
posted by theodolite at 10:11 AM on December 21, 2017 [30 favorites]

I am pretty pissed off at my government (Canada) for abstaining.
posted by saturday_morning at 10:14 AM on December 21, 2017 [10 favorites]

MS doesn't appoint replacements, it's a special election, except in years with general elections. So, the seat will be vacant, and both Senate seats will be up in 2018. Crypto-Confederate Chris McDaniel has been mulling a primary bid against incumbent Roger Wicker - perhaps he'll just run for the vacant seat?

That vacant MS seat sounds great, but according to the Polito article there would be a governor-appointed replacement to fill the seat before the special:

If Cochran steps down in 2018, Gov. Phil Bryant (R) would appoint a replacement for him, with a special election to fill the rest Cochran’s term taking place in November, the same day as the regularly scheduled election for the seat held by Wicker. If Cochran leaves office before the end of this year, the special election would take place within 100 days, according to Mississippi law.
posted by contraption at 10:15 AM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

@jonfavs is currently throwing down in a very Pistols at Dawn sort of way with @BrendanBuck (Paul Ryan staffer) over funding CHIP.

The whole crew is, as they say, starting beef.

(That's Ryan's press secretary.)
posted by joyceanmachine at 10:16 AM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

According to this handy NCSL page the MS rules do in fact call for an interim appointment by the governor to keep the seat filled. Shit.
posted by contraption at 10:20 AM on December 21, 2017

@jonfavs is currently throwing down in a very Pistols at Dawn sort of way with @BrendanBuck (Paul Ryan staffer) over funding CHIP

When people make lists of who they hate most in the Trump administration, I always get a little sad that Brendan Buck and AshLee Strong work for the wrong branch of government and aren't eligible to be included. Remember that story earlier this year about how Kevin McCarthy announced he thinks Putin paid Trump and Paul Ryan swore everyone present to secrecy?

When initially asked to comment on the exchange, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said: “That never happened,” and Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The idea that McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”

After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the exchange, Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership, said: “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor.

I know a lot of people tell blatant lies in this government, but that he has faced absolutely zero consequences for trying to pull that one off infuriates me more often than I'd care to admit.
posted by zachlipton at 10:20 AM on December 21, 2017 [30 favorites]

...nor the Republicans so fractured, scattered, and disunited.

This is an illusion facilitated by the dignity wraiths. When push comes to shove, the GOP unites to screw the average American while lining the pockets of the wealthy. They know no other.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:20 AM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

I’m a Mississippian. McDaniels is a horror. I am SO READY for this fight!!
posted by thebrokedown at 10:23 AM on December 21, 2017 [14 favorites]

contraption: "According to this handy NCSL page the MS rules do in fact call for an interim appointment by the governor to keep the seat filled. Shit."

Okay, I think the NCSL page is misleading, since it does not mention anything about an interim appointment for Mississippi. Looking up the actual statute indicates that there is one, until the general election. So, we're back in more of a Luther Strange situation here.

Lesson: Trust nothing you read on the internet.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:29 AM on December 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

Fukuyama is much smarter person than I can ever hope to be, so maybe if he were interviewed again he he'd point to Trump's unpopularity as evidence that's he's an ineffective tyrant, but by God, DJT is an effective something, even if all he is an agent of chaos.
posted by angrycat at 4:21 AM on December 21 [2 favorites +] [!]

No, he's not. Unless you count signing legislation the GOP sends him as "effective." Besides those bills he can't be arsed to even read, he's really an incompetent leader.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:39 AM on December 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

So, help me here, did we just give 1.5 trillion to the richest Americans? And then we also stripped away public lands to give rights to foreign corporations for profit taking? I call that treason of a highly destructive sort.
posted by Oyéah at 10:44 AM on December 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Togo.

I wonder if they've done the math.

We collectively send out approximately $50 billion in foreign aid each year, if we add up all the agencies.

Using the handy tool:
Guatamala gets $297 million.
Honduras receives $198 million
Israel gets $3.1 billion
The Marshall Islands get $95 million
The Federated States of Micronesia receive $141 million
Nauru has received nothing from us since 2015, when we gave them $108,000.
Togo? $6.1 million
And Palau receives $15.5 million

Totaling about 3.8 billion. With almost all of it going to Israel. Leaving us with 46 billion dollars to work with.

That could buy a lot of gold leaf.
posted by zarq at 10:55 AM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Did trump steal Rand Paul's phone?

Rand Paul [via Twitter]: Time to investigate high ranking Obama government officials who might have colluded to prevent the election of @realDonaldTrump! This could be WORSE than Watergate!
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:02 AM on December 21, 2017 [13 favorites]

I think the NCSL page is misleading, since it does not mention anything about an interim appointment for Mississippi.

Chrysostom, I am a huge fan, but there is a column of that table called "Interim Gub Appt.?" and the Mississippi field says "Yes."
posted by contraption at 11:04 AM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Does he mean Hillary, or the Democratic Party in general? Is the GOP trying to sell the idea that campaigning against them is collusion now?
posted by Autumnheart at 11:16 AM on December 21, 2017 [10 favorites]

Re: Rand's tweet:

Paul didn't specify the reason for his tweet, but he wrote it soon after two senior FBI officials involved in the Russian probe were outed for sending text messages that contained anti-Trump sentiments. Republicans have said those texts cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that special counsel Robert Mueller and his team are beyond reproach as they investigate Russia and its possible collusion with then-candidate Donald Trump to help him win the White House.

posted by zarq at 11:23 AM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Fuck it, let's investigate everyone in congress, the WH, dnc, and rnc.

While that's going on can we pretty please with sugar on top make sure kids are insured, though?

Rand may also want to look at the historical numbers of Rs vs. Ds on indictments, arrests, etc.,
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 11:26 AM on December 21, 2017 [10 favorites]

Also, Ohio GOP Rep Jim Jordan was on Fox News on Tuesday saying that the FBI tried to get Hillary Clinton elected instead of Trump. So this would appear to be their latest (idiotic) tactic.
posted by zarq at 11:28 AM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

And CNN.
posted by zarq at 11:30 AM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Also, Ohio GOP Rep Jim Jordan was on Fox News on Tuesday saying that the FBI tried to get Hillary Clinton elected instead of Trump. So this would appear to be their latest (idiotic) tactic.

[Thinking emoji]

I mean, are we setting aside the Comey letter and subsequent NYT coverage that 538 has argued was instrumental to her loss? It's an impressively ballsy, if completely brainless, tactic I guess.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:32 AM on December 21, 2017 [17 favorites]

I mean, are we setting aside the Comey letter and subsequent NYT coverage that 538 has argued was instrumental to her loss?

The only Comey letter that matters is the one that says Trump wasn't under investigation. No, of course it exists. Trump thanked him for it. The NYT is fake news -- you can't trust them. 538 is run by that Jewish Silver guy who used to work for the fake news New York Times.

It's easy to manipulate a narrative.
posted by zarq at 11:37 AM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

That means forms could need to be rewritten, and millions of workers will need to submit new ones. At the same time, the GOP plan doesn’t specify exactly what should happen, leaving it to the IRS to figure out.

While this is not wrong, and the short turnaround is unacceptable, this shouldn't be written as if it's different from any other change to the tax code or just law in general. Congress passes the laws and agencies write the regulations to comply. In a functional system this happens with a plodding care, where the agencies write regulations and publish for a comment period. There may be pushback within the comment period saying "that's outside your remit, bub," and possibly even lawsuits.

You can look at the about page on the GPO site for the Combined Federal Regulations and there's even this bit about an accompanying document which matches the regulation with where the authority to make the regulation comes from:

The Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules lists rulemaking authority (except 5 U.S.C. 301) for regulations codified in the Code of Federal Regulations. Also included are statutory citations which are noted as being interpreted or applied by those regulations. The table is divided into four segments: United States Code citations, United States Statutes at Large citations, public law citations, and Presidential document citations.

For an example you can look back to how the IRS coped with revenue changes in the law in 1971. Title 26 (all the IRS stuff is under here), vol 16, § 12.3. Right up there at the top it points to where the authority to make this rule comes from: 26 U.S.C. 167, 263, and 7805.

Nobody pays their taxes based on what Congress wrote into the US Code. It's what it's interpreted into by the IRS. Under sane circumstances you get plenty of time to suss that out, per 26 U.S. Code § 7805

(b) Retroactivity of regulations
(1) In general Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, no temporary, proposed, or final regulation relating to the internal revenue laws shall apply to any taxable period ending before the earliest of the following dates:
(A) The date on which such regulation is filed with the Federal Register.
(B) In the case of any final regulation, the date on which any proposed or temporary regulation to which such final regulation relates was filed with the Federal Register.
(C) The date on which any notice substantially describing the expected contents of any temporary, proposed, or final regulation is issued to the public.

Unfortunately, there's section 6. "The limitation of paragraph (1) may be superseded by a legislative grant from Congress authorizing the Secretary to prescribe the effective date with respect to any regulation."
posted by phearlez at 11:38 AM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Leaving us with about 46 billion dollars to work with.

Minus the 13.6 billion that they will pull out of that to fund CHIP immediately, right?

Right?

Is this thing on?
posted by delfin at 11:38 AM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Did trump steal Rand Paul's phone?

Sounds like Ryan is salting the earth for McCabe's Capitol Hill testimony today, in coordination with his fellow GOPers in the House:

NBC News's Michelle Dubert‏ @michelledubert reported this morning:

One source tells me the closed House Judiciary/Oversight meeting with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has yet to begin as Republicans are “strategizing” about the interview. McCabe is in the room with 13 Dems and 0 Republicans.

Meanwhile, the House Democrats made another stand against the attacks on Mueller, with 171 singing a letter of support for Special Counsel Robert Mueller. "What does [Trump] have to be afraid of? And why is he going through such lengths to try to discredit the Special Counsel?" asks Rep. Maxine Waters, who spearheaded this. Like everyone in D.C. doesn't know the answer but can't come out and say it.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:40 AM on December 21, 2017 [35 favorites]

Also, Ohio GOP Rep Jim Jordan was on Fox News on Tuesday saying that the FBI tried to get Hillary Clinton elected instead of Trump.

October 31, 2016: Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia
posted by kirkaracha at 11:40 AM on December 21, 2017 [9 favorites]

Does anyone else suspect that the real reason trump has delayed signing the tax bill is because he's planning to fire Mueller in the next two weeks and will then use it as a bargaining chip to cow Republicans into falling in line when the inevitable Constitutional crisis erupts?
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:40 AM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Is this thing on?

Earlier this month conservative media and the GOP lost their friggin' minds because Puerto Rico paid government employees $90 million+ in Christmas bonuses after asking for $94 billion in federal disaster relief. The bonuses are required by law and the money had already been allocated. Average individual bonus was between $400 and $600.

Expecting Republicans to care about helping their fellow American citizens is a fool's errand.
posted by zarq at 11:43 AM on December 21, 2017 [39 favorites]

> ... trump has delayed signing the tax bill ...

So this is a real thing? It's still up in the air whether Trump will sign the bill in 2017 or 2018, because they're trying to figure out if they can waive PAYGO cuts for 2018 in time or not?

Because that sounds like a ... Well. Oiled. Machine.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:45 AM on December 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

I am pretty pissed off at my government (Canada) for abstaining.

Ironically, the Trump administration's threats wound up downgrading Canada's position on Jerusalem to abstention.

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid‏ @BarakRavid reports:

BREAKING: Canada considered voting against the UNGA resolution on Trump's Jerusalem announcement but changed vote to abstention after hearing Trump's threats in order not to be perceived as US puppet, Western diplomats tell me

Did Trudeau forget Trump's campaign boast "I'm a very good dealmaker, believe me"?
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:50 AM on December 21, 2017 [13 favorites]

Does anyone else suspect that the real reason trump has delayed signing the tax bill is because he's planning to fire Mueller in the next two weeks and will then use it as a bargaining chip to cow Republicans into falling in line when the inevitable Constitutional crisis erupts?

While a Mueller firing/Saturday Night Massacre Constitutional crisis is deeply alarming, I would at least enjoy all these corporations that are sucking up to Dear Leader with their paltry bonuses and spending proposals and other Carrier-esque bullshit in thanks for the tax giveaway getting egg all over their faces when the tax bill once again falters.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:52 AM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

"What does [Trump] have to be afraid of? And why is he going through such lengths to try to discredit the Special Counsel?" asks Rep. Maxine Waters

and, as it should be, every other Democrat who speaks to the media. "What is Trump afraid Mueller has found out?"

The existing public record is highly incriminating of Trump as it is. So maybe Democrats could follow up with, "The real question is 'what did the President know and when did he know it?'"

Connect the dots. Trump wouldn't release his tax returns. Mueller probably has them. Trump keeps acting like someone who has something to hide.
posted by Gelatin at 11:52 AM on December 21, 2017 [22 favorites]

On the subject of Republicans trying to discredit Mueller, FiveThirtyEight actually ran a really good piece yesterday:

The Goals Of The GOP’s Anti-Mueller Campaign And Their Likelihood For Success

Short version...

-Setting up the firing of Mueller (unlikely to be a good political move)

-Making Mueller more leery of controversial indictments (unlikely to succeed)

-Trying to turn the general public against the investigation (not terribly likely to succeed)

-Trying to turn Republicans against the investigation (very likely to succeed)

Trump and his allies could have all of these goals in mind at once: moving the public but particularly Republicans against Mueller; trying to force him to limit or end his probe; and leaving the door open to getting rid of him. But simply creating a trust gap between Republicans and Mueller helps Trump. And that gap is likely to grow, with Fox News personalities, Republicans on Capitol Hill and the president himself regularly attacking Mueller and his team.

posted by OnceUponATime at 11:55 AM on December 21, 2017 [13 favorites]

contraption: "Chrysostom, I am a huge fan, but there is a column of that table called "Interim Gub Appt.?" and the Mississippi field says "Yes.""

I gotta start getting more sleep.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:56 AM on December 21, 2017 [23 favorites]

Ironically, the Trump administration's threats wound up downgrading Canada's position on Jerusalem to abstention.

On the one hand, I'm glad that the administration's actions bit them in the ass, because fuck those guys.

On the other hand... what the everloving
fuck, Trudeau? How could you even think about voting against the resolution? Have you not noticed how much your country hates that man? Do you really think NAFTA is worth any of this?
posted by saturday_morning at 12:00 PM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

VA HOD HD-28 recount is complete, Dem has lost by 75 votes (there's still one disputed ballot, which should be adjudicated today yet).

Dem Joshua Cole clearly loses on the recount portion. Any legal remedy for the ballot issues will be known early January.

Only other stuff pending is on the tie in HD-94.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:01 PM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

One source tells me the closed House Judiciary/Oversight meeting with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has yet to begin as Republicans are “strategizing” about the interview. McCabe is in the room with 13 Dems and 0 Republicans.

I wonder what it is specifically that has them freaked out about this closed session with McCabe, versus any of the others where the Republicans just go "what about leaks tho" and spin their wheels with no substantial questions.
posted by jason_steakums at 12:03 PM on December 21, 2017 [9 favorites]

The Goals Of The GOP’s Anti-Mueller Campaign And Their Likelihood For Success

That FiveThirtyEight piece... man, I don't know. It might be accurate, but horse race coverage of political campaigns has already ruined everything, and now we're moving into horse race coverage of constitutional crises?
posted by saturday_morning at 12:03 PM on December 21, 2017 [24 favorites]

with 171 singing a letter of support for Special Counsel Robert Mueller

I don't know if I like all these new changes to Hamilton
posted by theodolite at 12:08 PM on December 21, 2017 [40 favorites]

I guess I don't see it as horse race coverage if I feel like I am participating in the "race." I mean, I'm signed up to host a protest if Mueller is fired, so I feel like I'm personally invested in trying to protect his investigation, and I want to understand the threats to it.

I don't think a horse race is the right metaphor, actually. I feel like one of those people in old war movies, moving pins around on the map as I listen to the radio describe cities captured or abandoned, trying to figure out which way the front is advancing.

It's not a race, it's a war, a propaganda war. And I want to know which battles we're winning and which ones we're losing.
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:09 PM on December 21, 2017 [25 favorites]

I think 538 does great on poll analytics. I don't think too much of their general political punditry.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:10 PM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Politico: "We have no intentions of firing Bob Mueller. We are continuing to work closely and cooperate with him," Sanders said on Fox News. "We look forward to seeing this hoax wrap up very soon."

"We have no problem with working closely with this vile lying hoaxster trying to bring down the savior of our people." Adopting newly extreme language while simultaneously giving lip-service official support is a fresh level of cognitive dissonance. One would think that the plates can't be spun forever but who knows, probably there's still further unplumbed depths of doublethink.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:27 PM on December 21, 2017 [28 favorites]

I wonder what it is specifically that has them freaked out about this closed session with McCabe, versus any of the others where the Republicans just go "what about leaks tho" and spin their wheels with no substantial questions.

Jill McCabe (Andrew McCabe's wife) received money from the Democrats for a VA state Senate run. This is a big deal for Republicans, as they believe it is evidence that Andrew McCabe is biased.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:41 PM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

On the other hand... what the everloving
fuck, Trudeau? How could you even think about voting against the resolution? Have you not noticed how much your country hates that man? Do you really think NAFTA is worth any of this?

Abstention gives Canada the chance to play broker in this situation. Given the proximity to the U.S. and the historical position of Canada as peacemaker this could be a very astute political move. Canada can provide a conduit between sides that can no longer publicly communicate with each other.
posted by srboisvert at 12:45 PM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

https://twitter.com/AdamLevitin/status/943924045933838338

Check out the @CFPB's new description of itself:

"a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work _by regularly identifying and addressing outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome regulations_"

It wasn't good enough to just say "by making rules more effective" as the previous description read. And it's good to know that this is what Mulvaney (whose twitter handle I shan't use) thinks is the agency's primary mission, important enough to list first. Heckuva job Mick.

posted by crazy with stars at 12:46 PM on December 21, 2017 [20 favorites]

there is a column of that table called 'Interim Gub Appt.?'

It's short for "gubmint."
posted by kirkaracha at 12:51 PM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Jill McCabe (Andrew McCabe's wife) received money from the Democrats for a VA state Senate run. This is a big deal for Republicans, as they believe it is evidence that Andrew McCabe is biased.

I believe the correct response to this is to point out how much money Virginia Thomas has raised lobbying for conservative causes and suggest that McCabe be removed from the case as soon as Clarence Thomas steps down from the Supreme Court.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:51 PM on December 21, 2017 [74 favorites]

freaked out about this closed session with McCabe

They also hold McCabe responsible for whatever they think Peter Strzok was doing. He's the highest ranking holdover at the FBI from last year.

Here's Strzok's full text, which was released along with many others last week:

"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I'm afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."

This text is from August 2016, and “Andy” may refer to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. The argument among some on the right is that “insurance policy” refers to some kind of deep-state conspiracy to take down Trump, and that it possibly even implicates McCabe, the No. 2 official at the FBI whose wife, Jill, happened to be a Democratic candidate for the Virginia state Senate last year.

Of course here in the real world the explanation that makes a lot more sense is that "The agent didn’t intend to suggest a secret plan to harm the candidate but rather address a colleague who believed the Federal Bureau of Investigation could take its time because Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was certain to win the election."
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:01 PM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Way upthread, but Fukuyama is much smarter person than I can ever hope to be

Frank Fukuyama is not an idiot, and came around a little after Bush II: electric boogaloo. But he also A. provided intellectual cover for being in Iraq the first time around; B. is best buds with Scooter Libby; C. has constantly made predictions about various aspects of international affairs which were pretty astoundingly off.

So as far as I know you're not any less smart than him, and I would not expect him to have any sort of firm grasp on Trump's effectiveness or lack thereof.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:11 PM on December 21, 2017 [13 favorites]

zachlipton: Politico, Senators, White House lay groundwork for Dreamers deal, in which Flake says McConnell promised him a vote in mid-January and the White House says it will offer a list of demands in exchange for a DACA deal.

McConnell comes a spinnin' -- McConnell Wants Bipartisanship In 2018 On Entitlements, Immigration And More (NPR, Dec. 21, 2017)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants 2018 to be a year of bipartisanship, even if that means moving on from GOP dreams of cutting welfare and fully rolling back the Affordable Care Act.

The Kentucky Republican on Thursday broke with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on the approach to paring back spending on programs like Medicaid and food stamps. In an interview with NPR, McConnell said he is "not interested" in using Senate budget rules to allow Republicans to cut entitlements without consultation with Democrats.

"I think entitlement changes, to be sustained, almost always have to be bipartisan," McConnell said. "The House may have a different agenda. If our Democratic friends in the Senate want to join us to tackle any kind of entitlement reform. I'd be happy to take a look at it."

McConnell said he wants to spend much of next year focused on issues on which Republicans can work with at least some Democrats in the Senate.

"This has not been a very bipartisan year," McConnell said. "I hope in the new year, we're going to pivot here and become more cooperative."

Republicans spent most of the year struggling, and failing to follow through on promises to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Democrats refused to work with Republicans while they were trying to dismantle President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement and McConnell hopes that next year will be different.

So, a couple things ...

1) HOW THE FUCK do you dare ask for bipartisan support now that you've spent the first year of this Trumpocalypse LITERALLY SHUTTING DEMS OUT? Remember when We learned more details about the final GOP tax bill — thanks to a lobbyist who sent it to a top Democratic senator? Yeah, That was on DECEMBER FIRST.

2) You'd go a long way towards looking in like you want to make positive changes to social support systems by NO LONGER CALLING THEM ENTITLEMENTS.

3) Also, DIDN'T WE JUST TALK ABOUT HOW THE TAX SCAM BILL KILLED ACA? Oh right, IT'S RIGHT THERE IN THIS ARTICLE

Republican demands to gut the ACA also declined after Congress effectively eliminated the individual mandate by zeroing out the tax penalty in Obamacare as part of the tax bill approved this week. McConnell hopes to focus instead on stabilizing the insurance marketplaces to keep premiums from skyrocketing in the early months of 2018, a promise he made to moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine to get her support for the tax bill.

"I think the repeal of the individual mandate takes the heart out of Obamacare," McConnell said. "We want to steady the insurance markets if we can ... and I think we'll probably be addressing that part of healthcare sometime next year."

But if we don't *shrug* no harm to me and my donors (assuming McConnel had the same calls from his donors, but was smarter than Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) and didn't SAY IT OUT LOUD, TO REPORTERS.)

And good on him on getting a final "firing Mueller isn't our idea" goal-post nudge:

He also rejected the notion that President Trump is preparing to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. "The only people that talk about that are the Democrats," McConnell said. "But I don't hear anybody at the White House or any Republicans, and certainly not in the Senate, calling for Mueller to be fired."

You don't have to fire him, you just have to discredit him and his work

Even if Trump choses not to pursue Mueller’s termination, the work of Hannity, Pirro, and others is helping discredit the probe, including future indictments that reach even deeper into Trump’s inner circle.

What ho, Fox News? Anthony Scaramucci: Trump Is Too Smart to Fire Robert Mueller (Dec. 18, 2017 -- Fox News Insider)

Anthony Scaramucci thinks President Donald Trump is too smart to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

In recent days, there has been speculation that Trump will attempt to shut down Mueller's investigation into Russia's involvement in the 2016 U.S. election following revelations about members of Mueller's team who were apparently biased against Trump.

Doug Schoen: Why Trump is smart to not fire Mueller (Dec. 19, 2017 -- Fox News)

It is clear that President Trump is gathering ammunition to prepare a counter narrative, and wants the ability to attack the integrity of the Mueller investigation. This breakdown in the confidence of the investigation is shaping up to be a profound moment, as there is a clear complicity with Hillary Clinton in the FBI.

'They Have Him Where They Want Him': Dershowitz on Why Trump Should Not Fire Mueller (Dec. 20, 2017 -- Fox News Insider)

Dershowitz said Mueller has been "sloppy" in his Russia probe, and it has raised many questions about the investigation being biased against Trump.

He pointed out that Mueller may have a conflict of interest due to his friendship with former FBI Director James Comey, erred by not obtaining a warrant for the Trump transition team's emails and some of his investigators have an anti-Trump bias.

He said Mueller is concerned about his reputation and not appearing partisan, which could play right into Trump's hands.

All emphasis mine. Also note that's two days with BIG BOLD HEADLINES saying TRUMP IS TOO SMART TO FIRE MUELLER.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:49 PM on December 21, 2017 [36 favorites]

To ask a serious question here, I get my insurance through the ACA exchange. Thanks to generous state subsidies, I was able to secure acceptable, more-or-less affordable coverage through the end of 2018. Is there any fuckery the Republicans could pull that would cause me to lose my coverage or cause the premiums to skyrocket at any point in the next year, or are my rates safely locked in? I'd really like one fewer thing to worry about.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:56 PM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Check out the @CFPB's new description of itself:

"a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work _by regularly identifying and addressing outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome regulations_"

Reminder - that's the CONSUMER Finance PROTECTION Bureau. It was formed to regulate mortgages, credit cards and other financial goods and services, not remove regulations.

Congress created the bureau in response to widespread deception and abuse of borrowers during the credit bubble that burst two years ago, triggering a global financial crisis. Here is a profile of the new watchdog unit, called for under Wall Street reforms that were written into law in July.

WIDE POWERS

The bureau will write and enforce rules for banks and other firms, aiming to protect consumers from deceptive and abusive loans and other financial products and services.

It will be able to conduct examinations of banks and seek information from other firms about consumer-related business.

It will monitor and report on markets for consumer financial goods and services, ranging from payday loans to check cashing shops, and how consumers interact with them.

It will collect and track consumer complaints about these markets through a toll-free telephone number and a website.

In doing its work, the bureau will consolidate existing consumer protection programs now scattered across several agencies widely criticized for doing a poor job in the past.

INDEPENDENT UNIT

The bureau will be an independent unit located inside and funded by the Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank. The financial reform law allows the agency to be formed on an interim basis within the U.S. Treasury.

The director must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term.

The bureau will have offices that are in charge of fair lending, financial education, armed services affairs, and financial protection for older Americans, among others.

And it goes on to cover CHECKS AND BALANCES, BUSINESSES COVERED and AUTO DEALER, OTHER EXEMPTIONS.

RIP CFPB. Maybe you can be reborn in 2019 or 2021.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:02 PM on December 21, 2017 [35 favorites]

The House of Representatives has approved an interim spending bill to avoid a government shutdown and fund the government through January 19. 231-188. Spending bill also includes a few extras for the military, children’s health insurance, a reauthroization of domestic spying programs through January 19 and a PAYGO waiver. The latter would likely mean the President signs the tax bill into law tomorrow.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:07 PM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Is there any fuckery the Republicans could pull that would cause me to lose my coverage or cause the premiums to skyrocket at any point in the next year, or are my rates safely locked in?

I mean, 2018 -- who knows? but as an insurance enrollment professional, I think you're safe. (IAN, however, AL..)

Something of that magnitude would be a huge bombshell to drop on millions of Americans in an election year and I don't think the insurers would have any incentive to do so. Insurance is mainly regulated by the states so there's not much the Administration could do directly.
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:08 PM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Thanks, tivalasvegas. I appreciate the reassurance.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:09 PM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Trump is not smart. If it was easy to fire Mueller he would already have done it. He would have got up one morning, angry and tweeted out how he was fired.

I have no doubt that there have been numerous occasions that he has expressed his desire to do it. His people have probably had conferences about how it could happen. But it's hard and complicated. He can't follow through on hard and complicated things by himself so it hasn't happened yet.
posted by Jalliah at 2:17 PM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Former CIA Director tweets for the second time.

@JohnBrennan
Trump Admin threat to retaliate against nations that exercise sovereign right in UN to oppose US position on Jerusalem is beyond outrageous. Shows @realDonaldTrump expects blind loyalty and subservience from everyone—qualities usually found in narcissistic, vengeful autocrats.
posted by chris24 at 2:21 PM on December 21, 2017 [76 favorites]

I dunno if this is just outrage filter but I'm fucking outraged:

Republican Candidate Goes Full Nazi: Jews "Pretend" to be White to Undermine the White Race

In which a Republican congressional candidate (Paul Nehlen, who has tried to primary Paul Ryan in Wisconsin) accuses a Jewish man (Ari Cohn of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) of "showing bigoted hatred of whites" and the Cohn responds that he IS white, upon which Nehlen responds "It's okay to be white. It's not okay to pretend to be for purposes of undermining whites. But you knew that."

The article doesn't cover the part where Nehlen tells him to "Jump (or walk) right past the Messianic Judaism and into the water. You can be a new man. Jesus died for your sins too."
posted by OnceUponATime at 2:31 PM on December 21, 2017 [51 favorites]

I feel like I picked the wrong week to finally start watching The Handmaid's Tale.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:33 PM on December 21, 2017 [24 favorites]

Holy shit, OnceUponATime. Not many things give me pause at the moment, but fuck.
posted by gaspode at 2:34 PM on December 21, 2017 [12 favorites]

with 171 singing a letter of support for Special Counsel Robert Mueller

I don't know if I like all these new changes to Hamilton

I think we switched over to the Great Comet universe on inauguration day: "In twenty-first centruy Russia 'Merica, we write letters...Dear Robert / A love letter / A love letter / A love letter"
posted by zachlipton at 2:34 PM on December 21, 2017

Barry Manilow, on Twitter:

I know. I’ll run for president. I’ll make some romantic music. Everybody will get laid. And everybody will be happy again. 😀

Manilow, to sweetly serenade us as the house collapses. I'll take what I can get these days.
posted by hexaflexagon at 2:46 PM on December 21, 2017 [19 favorites]

I'm not giving that "b-b-b-but the FBI's biased" horseshit one more nanosecond of time than it takes to fnish this sentence. We know what the fuck Is Up - our president is a demented, sociopathic, money-laundering fraud, and a traitor who's SO busted with his d**k in the cookie jar by a competent, well-run law enforcement team.

Team Trump and the mainstream horse races can splash and fart all they want but it'd be REALLY GREAT if they grew the fuck up and acted out of honesty or good faith just once. Yet here we are. They have painted themselves into a major nuclear bunker with an unstable sociopath and that's not going to end quietly for anyone.

We do not have time for this. We never did! Do The Right Thing, corporate news, and quit fucking around.
posted by petebest at 2:49 PM on December 21, 2017 [36 favorites]

CBO just dropped a new distributional analysis on the tax bill they just passed. In addition to income taxes, it includes the impacts of eliminating the individual mandate on health insurance costs and premium tax credits, but not the higher costs for health insurance for people who make too much to qualify for subsidies. It also excludes the effects of doubling the estate tax exemption.

The chart on the second page is a hell of chart (you can see it over here if you prefer twitter to PDFs). Bobby Kogan at CAP crunched the numbers to turn it into per-person figures which are even more striking. Those making under $20K/year start losing out immediately, while by 2027, anyone making under $75K/year are worse off.

The last paragraph says it all:

Overall, the combined effect of the change in net federal revenues and spending is to decrease deficits (primarily stemming from reductions in spending) allocated to lower-income tax filing units and to increase deficits (primarily stemming from reductions in taxes) allocated to higher-income tax filing units. Those effects do not incorporate any estimates of the budgetary effects of any macroeconomic changes that would stem from the agreement

In short, less money will be spent on poor people's health care, while rich people will pay less in taxes.
posted by zachlipton at 2:50 PM on December 21, 2017 [48 favorites]

New CNN poll on Mueller and Russia.

CNN: Most Americans doubt Trump on Russia probe, while Mueller approval tilts positive

Only 32% approve of Trump's handling of Russia investigation.

That's compared to approval of Mueller's handling of 47-34.

61% say Russian meddling is a serious matter and should be fully investigated.

Only 34% say it's about discrediting Trump or a hoax.
posted by chris24 at 3:18 PM on December 21, 2017 [21 favorites]

WaPo, Nick Miroff, To curb illegal border crossings, Trump administration weighs new measures targeting families

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is considering a series of measures to halt a new surge of Central American families and unaccompanied minors coming across the Mexican border, including a proposal to separate parents from their children, according to Trump administration officials with knowledge of the plans.

These measures, described on condition of anonymity because they have not been publicly disclosed, would also crack down on migrants already living in the United States illegally who send for their children. That aspect of the effort would use data collected by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to target parents for deportation after they attempt to regain custody of their kids from government shelters.

My god. We're going to arrest people if they try to pick up their kid from an HHS shelter?

New Yorker, Jane Mayer, A Conservative Nonprofit That Seeks to Transform College Campuses Faces Allegations of Racial Bias and Illegal Campaign Activity. In which Turning Point USA isn't just beclowning themselves by posing in diapers:

As Turning Point’s profile has risen, so has scrutiny of its funding and tactics. Internal documents that I obtained, as well as interviews with former employees, suggest that the group may have skirted campaign-finance laws that bar charitable organizations from participating in political activity. Former employees say that they were directed to work with prominent conservatives, including the wife of the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in aid of Republican Presidential candidates in 2016. Perhaps most troubling for an organization that holds up conservatives as the real victims of discrimination in America, Turning Point USA is also alleged to have fostered an atmosphere that is hostile to minorities. Screenshots provided to me by a source show that Crystal Clanton, who served until last summer as the group’s national field director, sent a text message to another Turning Point employee saying, “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.”

Moreover, TP USA is a 501(c)3 charity, but the article alleges they were directly involved in political activity, such as working with Ginni Thomas to support the Cruz campaign and handling lists of student members to the Rubio campaign.
posted by zachlipton at 3:19 PM on December 21, 2017 [22 favorites]

OnceUponATime: Republican Candidate Goes Full Nazi: Jews "Pretend" to be White to Undermine the White Race

Not surprising. Other recent coverage of Paul Nehlen: Republican Candidate for Congress Openly Embraces White Supremacist Memes on Social Media (Michael Edison Hayden for Newsweek, Dec. 20, 2017)

Paul Nehlen is a Republican who apparently wants to be a member of Congress, He is, after all, running to replace House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fellow Republican from Wisconsin. Thus, it might seem odd to a casual observer that on Monday Nehlen went “flat-out alt-right” on social media, as one observer put it, publicly embracing white supremacist and anti-Semitic memes.

And he's not going unnoticed.

The social media backlash to Nehlen’s posts came quickly. Jonathan Weisman, an editor for The New York Times, wrote on Twitter that “the guy challenging [Paul Ryan] in the Republican primary goes flat-out Alt-Right.” John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary, a conservative publication, wrote on Twitter, “Oh look. Nehlen literally comes out of the Nazi closet.” Christopher Mathias, the Huffington Post writer who interviewed Nehlen and asked whether he was a white nationalist, wrote that the politician wasn’t “even trying to hide it anymore.”

posted by filthy light thief at 3:20 PM on December 21, 2017 [12 favorites]

Oh, and the Times fucked up a headline again: "Breaking News: President Trump is not in violation of the Emoluments Clause, a judge ruled, dismissing a suit accusing him of profiting through his office"

That's not what a judge ruled. The case was dismissed for lack of standing without making a decision on the merits.
posted by zachlipton at 3:23 PM on December 21, 2017 [46 favorites]

Ugh. Is there a chance to appeal that ruling?
posted by saturday_morning at 3:26 PM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Or a chance to appeal that headline?
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:28 PM on December 21, 2017 [33 favorites]

That guy isn't even giving a Laura Ingram level of presence of not being a Nazi. That's some full on wearing a Pepe badge and waving a Kekistan badge shit right there.
posted by Artw at 3:28 PM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Yes, standing issues can be appealed.
posted by kerf at 3:29 PM on December 21, 2017

That's not what a judge ruled. The case was dismissed for lack of standing without making a decision on the merits.

I would not have guessed that you could be smart enough to be an editor for the New York Times, but not smart enough to understand that difference.
posted by diogenes at 3:29 PM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Ugh. Is there a chance to appeal that ruling?

There is a chance and CREW seems likely to do so. From its press release:

While today’s ruling is a setback, we will not walk away from this serious and ongoing constitutional violation. The Constitution is explicit on these issues, and the president is clearly in violation. Our legal team is weighing its options and will soon lay out our decisions on how to proceed.

posted by jedicus at 3:30 PM on December 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

I would not have guessed that you could be smart enough to be an editor for the New York Times, but not smart enough to understand that difference.

The NYT knows very well what it's doing here. Looking like Judith Miller. Again.
posted by petebest at 3:33 PM on December 21, 2017 [13 favorites]

It was clear that standing would be an issue for CREW from the beginning. When pressed on the issue, they recruited several business owners who allege that they have been harmed by Trump’s unfair activities, but even then it's hard to prove that their businesses have been harmed by Trump's being president and his businesses taking their business. Sheelah Kolhatkar's write-up in The New Yorker from Oct. 19, 2017 has a summary of recent issues with the case.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:41 PM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Turning Point USA is also alleged to have fostered an atmosphere that is hostile to minorities

You're telling me the organisation that put on a conference with these speakers is only 'alleged' to be hostile to minorities?
posted by PenDevil at 3:42 PM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

The NY Times sent out an actual correction that is was about standing and not the merits of the case — I was pushed a notification and everything.
posted by Andrhia at 3:45 PM on December 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

The Senate just passed the CR to fund the government through January 19th and waive PAYGO and is currently in the process of fleeing the District for the year as quickly as humanly possible (ok, the vote is still open for some reason, but it's a done deal).

Sadly, they cut the ACA's public health and prevention fund $750M on their way out the door.

In more fun news, the view counter at the top of C-SPAN.com is close to hitting 200,000,000.
posted by zachlipton at 4:11 PM on December 21, 2017 [10 favorites]

Here's hoping they all manage to grab some time with constituents.
posted by Artw at 4:14 PM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

*starts humming Do Your Hear The People Sing*
posted by Talez at 4:17 PM on December 21, 2017 [15 favorites]

91-8. The entire Democratic Senate Caucus just folded like a cheap suit. They should have told them to fuck off and send a clean CR.
posted by Talez at 4:23 PM on December 21, 2017 [10 favorites]

WaPo is reporting the final senate vote as 66-32.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 4:33 PM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

The CR itself was 66-32 (two GOP against, Paul and Lee). 91-8 was the vote to override Paul's point of order to kill the bill unless spending was cut.

That said, yes, the Democrats folded. There's a reason Pelosi put out an ineffective letter urging her caucus to vote no while Schumer said nothing. Should they have shut the government down if there was no DACA deal? Perhaps. Would a Christmas shutdown that could unequivocally be blamed on Democrats achieve anything? I'm highly skeptical. What other play would have realistically made a difference here?
posted by zachlipton at 4:34 PM on December 21, 2017 [12 favorites]

So am I understanding correctly that the PAYGO waiver didn’t go through?
posted by C'est la D.C. at 4:37 PM on December 21, 2017

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under Clinton, on The Big Picture: How We Got Into This Mess, and How We Get Out of It

(Robert Reich: author, educator, historian, and cartoonist.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:39 PM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

The statutory PAYGO waiver did go through. Last I heard, Trump is expected to sign the CR and the tax bill tomorrow.
posted by zachlipton at 4:39 PM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Should they have shut the government down if there was no DACA deal?

Uh, YES? They need to stop being such goddamn cowards and STAND UP to these slimy fuckers.

If they're not going to stand up for us, we'll put someone in who will.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:52 PM on December 21, 2017 [13 favorites]

Uh, YES? They need to stop being such goddamn cowards and STAND UP to these slimy fuckers.

Once again showing that the horseshoe theory is bullshit.
posted by Talez at 4:55 PM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

now, see...fuck. this is the kinda senate dem bullshit that's gonna turn me into a dsa. and I'm smart, and fully understand what happens with third parties. are big-money/'centrist' dems going to fuck around and keep letting/helping my millennial children get screwed?

i dunno why i try, sometimes. Chuckie has lost my faith in his leadership. it wasn't that hard. i need the dems to quit their predominant strategy: if it seems inevitable, we gotta relax and enjoy it. fight like it matters, you upper crust motherfuckers.
posted by j_curiouser at 5:00 PM on December 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

We need to move the Overton window. Super blue state? We need to primary the hell out of the milquetoast middle folks. The Senators should be so left-wing that Elizabeth Warren's like, "Take it easy there." California? Ted Lieu, not Dianne Feinstein. Same with New York, Maryland, Washington State, etc.

Pinkos for Blue States!
posted by leotrotsky at 5:02 PM on December 21, 2017 [30 favorites]

I'm bad at googling: does anyone have a link to the actual vote? Need to know if calls to my senator(s) are in order
posted by birdheist at 5:03 PM on December 21, 2017

Roll call vote.

Democratic yes votes:
Carper (D-DE)
Coons (D-DE)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Hassan (D-NH)
Heinrich (D-NM)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Tim "I speak Spanish" Kaine (D-VA)
King (I-ME)
Leahy (D-VT)
Manchin (D-WV)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Nelson (D-FL)
Peters (D-MI)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-NM)
Warner (D-VA)
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:11 PM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

What happened to the I'm not signing it until January shit?

We have nothing else to lose by fighting these fuckers full force. They have robbed everything. Every last thing. I can't wait until the women's march. There are going to be a LOT of people out there.
posted by yoga at 5:22 PM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

What happened to the I'm not signing it until January shit?

Democrats agreed to waive the PAYGO requirements that would've forced automatic cuts in 2018, agreeing to extend those cuts at least until January.

So, exactly what you would think happened, happened, Democrats folded their leverage.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:23 PM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

any pithy sayings about going anarcho-syndicalist later in life?
posted by j_curiouser at 5:27 PM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

@ppppolls: We know people get sick of hearing what Trump voters think about things, so here's a thread on what supporters of the popular vote winner think about things...

92% of Clinton voters disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing.

88% believe the women who have accused him of sexual harassment.

And 86% think he should resign because of those accusations

86% of Clinton voters think that Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to help him win.

Only 7% think the Russia story is 'fake news'

And 90% think Trump should resign if collusion is proven.

Only 4% of Clinton voters support the GOP tax plan, 82% are opposed.

90% think it will mostly benefit the wealthy and large corporations, just 5% think it will mostly benefit the middle class and small businesses.

Paul Ryan has an 8/79 approval with Clinton voters.

Mitch McConnell's is 6/77.

Democrats lead 90-5 on the generic House ballot with them

Only 7% of Clinton voters want a wall with Mexico, 91% are opposed.

What 86% of Clinton voters do want is the Dream Act, just 8% are against it

91% of Clinton voters trust the New York Times, Washington Post, and NBC more than Donald Trump.

90% trust ABC and CBS more than Trump.

88% trust CNN more than Trump

Only 4% of Clinton voters think Trump is honest, 95% don't think he is.

92% outright characterize him as a liar

91% of Clinton voters would still like to see Trump's tax returns.

87% think Trump is mentally unbalanced.

By a 93-4 margin they wish Barack Obama was still President

Only 6% of Clinton voters think Trump has 'Made America Great Again,' 93% don't think he has.

75% think Trump is more corrupt than Richard Nixon was.

And 85% think he should be impeached to only 10% who are opposed.

Just thought we'd let you hear about the opinions of the supporters of the leading vote getter for once

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:32 PM on December 21, 2017 [96 favorites]

> Should they have shut the government down if there was no DACA deal? Perhaps. Would a Christmas shutdown that could unequivocally be blamed on Democrats achieve anything? I'm highly skeptical. What other play would have realistically made a difference here?

The GOP shut down the government in 2013. It was reckless and highly unpopular, and many Republicans were concerned that there would be political repercussions, as there had been during the Clinton/Gingrich years. Nonetheless, they held firm for ~2 weeks, ultimately losing more policy-wise than if they'd avoided shutdown with a clean continuing resolution. L-O-S-E-R-S, amirite?

Well, not quite.

The problem is that voters have *really* short memories -- especially the independents who are responsible for most of the variability in approval ratings. John Judis had this to say in wake of the GOP's wins in 2014:

Could Obama and the Democrats have avoided the voters’ wrath? I think there was an opportunity to do so in the fall of 2013 when many Americans blamed the Republicans for the shutdown of the government. In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll from October 7-9, 2013, Obama’s approval rate was 47 percent and his disapproval rate 48 percent, and registered voters said by 47 to 39 percent that they would prefer that Democrats control the next Congress. By the next poll on December 13, Obama’s approval was at 43 percent and his disapproval at 54 percent and voters now preferred a Republican congress by 44 to 42 percent.

Now, he goes on to mention that what caused the big swing was likely the disastrous ACA rollout, but there's always some narrative that voters will latch onto in order to pin their blame on an unpopular president. And we have one who's more unpopular than Obama ever was, and who provides ready-made narratives of failure on a daily basis.

So, really, there are no good political reasons to not shutdown the government. Of course, doing it has a very real and significant negative impact on the economy, and on the well-being of federal workers. As someone who does federally-funded work and interacts with government employees on a regular basis, I am against shutdowns in almost all cases. Under normal circumstances, I would like shutdowns to be in the "only winning move is not to play" category.

But we're way past normal circumstances here, aren't we?
posted by tonycpsu at 5:35 PM on December 21, 2017 [12 favorites]

So, really, there are no good political reasons to not shutdown the government.

If there's one thing that Republicans are good at it's dying on the hill of an intellectually dishonest talking point while missing the nuance. Look at Trump's administration being crucified by Mueller and all of a sudden fucking URANIUM ONE is gaining traction because the entire Republican caucus won't shut up about it.

Democrats have shame. It's a disadvantage when the voters won't punish anything. The solution isn't for both sides to abandon shame.
posted by Talez at 5:46 PM on December 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

What are the implications of Paul Nehlen running in the Republican primary? Does it necessarily mean he has any backing at all? How more than usually terrified and/or outraged should I be?
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:50 PM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's entirely disconcerting how many people here are calling for Democrats to use R tactics no matter how stupid or hurtful they are to other people who are also in trouble. If Ted Cruz threatened to jump off the 14th St bridge unless the rich got tax cuts I swear people here wouldn't be happy until the Democratic Congressional Caucus were at the bottom of the Potomac just to prove a fucking point about how serious they are.
posted by Talez at 5:51 PM on December 21, 2017 [19 favorites]

> It's entirely disconcerting how many people here are calling for Democrats to use R tactics no matter how stupid or hurtful they are to other people who are also in trouble.

This is a straw man. The fact that some other members favor a particular action in these circumstances does not mean they favor that same action in all circumstances. Brinksmanship has been normalized. I'd be the first to support a Constitutional Amendment or whatever it takes to remove this weapon from the legislative armory, but as long as both sides have it at their disposal, I'm not inclined to say we should never use it.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:59 PM on December 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

Frank Fukuyama is not an idiot, and came around a little after Bush II: electric boogaloo. But he also A. provided intellectual cover for being in Iraq the first time around; B. is best buds with Scooter Libby; C. has constantly made predictions about various aspects of international affairs which were pretty astoundingly off.

Fukuyama is proof that there is a big difference between being clever and being smart.
posted by srboisvert at 6:08 PM on December 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

Alright, what is the point in waiving the paygo rules for this? Somehow make it bad for Trump when he goes ahead and signs it now?!

My guess it was the bargaining chip Republicans wanted in order to put CHIP into the CR. I have no proof only that McConnell and Ryan are terrible human beings.
posted by Talez at 6:11 PM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Looks like whitehouse.gov just switched to Wordpress.
posted by Devonian at 6:24 PM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Just to make one last go at rephrasing my view above, since we have returned to this issue and will again and again until it is resolved: A fundamental requirement for a functional legislature is that if the ruling party proposes a bill that lacks sufficient votes to pass, either the bill fails, or the majority party modifies it until enough legislators support the bill. A legislature is not functional if the ruling party refuses to change a bill, threatens to shut the government down if the minority does not capitulate, assigns full responsibility to the minority party for not capitulating to this threat, and the minority party accepts this assigned responsibility and blames themselves if the government is shut down. That is an utterly dysfunctional way to run a democracy, and should be fought at all turns, especially since the greater sympathy for the hostages by the left means that this is a tool that, as long as continues to exist, systematically favors the right forever.
posted by chortly at 6:27 PM on December 21, 2017 [60 favorites]

Brinksmanship has been normalized. I'd be the first to support a Constitutional Amendment or whatever it takes to remove this weapon from the legislative armory, but as long as both sides have it at their disposal, I'm not inclined to say we should never use it.

I'm typically against the idea of using the shutdown threat, but I really do like the idea from either this thread or the last that if the Democrats use it for leverage, they include removing the weapon from the congressional arsenal entirely afterwards as part of their demands, by including a law change to automatically increase the debt ceiling. CTRL+F is failing me so I can't find the original comment about this to credit the author, but the idea is really interesting.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:30 PM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

> That is an utterly dysfunctional way to run a democracy, and should be fought at all turns, especially since the greater sympathy for the hostages by the left means that this is a tool that, as long as continues to exist, systematically favors the right forever.

Yeah, so let's get rid of the tool. Until then, if that tool can help people, the people will demand that it be used. Ask a Dreamer or a family who relies on CHIP funding if they care about the high-minded principles that kept Democrats from using that tool.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:32 PM on December 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

I really do like the idea from either this thread or the last that if the Democrats use it for leverage, they include removing the weapon from the congressional arsenal entirely afterwards as part of their demands, by including a law change to automatically increase the debt ceiling.

Not just the debt ceiling, include a statutory requirement that in the absence of appropriations signed into law, funding continues automatically at current levels. EVERY other developed country does this. Government by hostage only exists here, and it only exists due to Republican's refusal to engage in good faith compromise.

Democrats should offer to disarm the threat, for forever. Just like they should propose terms for SCOTUS judges. But until such day as Republicans agree to govern fairly, no unilateral disarmament. Let's be Bronn for once, and stop always insisting on fighting like Ser Vargis Egan while Republicans throw us out the Moon Door.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:46 PM on December 21, 2017 [19 favorites]

I'm typically against the idea of using the shutdown threat...

Yeah, so let's get rid of the tool. Until then, if that tool can help people, the people will demand that it be used.

This is what is so maddening about this debate. Democrats are not using a tool. Democrats are not making a shutdown threat. The minority party does not have that power. The majority party writes the bills. If they want to pass a bill, write it so that it gains 51 or 60 votes. If they refuse to write a bill that will pass, that is not something Democrats are doing. It's not a threat, it's not a tool -- it's democracy to vote against a bill you dislike. The fact that Democrats have accepted this insane framing where they are the ones threatening to shut down the government is utterly nuts. Democrats are just doing what legislators are supposed to do: vote for what they like, and against what they dislike. The threat of shutdown, and the act of shutdown, is entirely an act of the majority. Heck, the American people even understand this, inasmuch as the majority party is always blamed for a shutdown. Only the Democrats themselves seem to not understand this and accept wholeheartedly the Orwellian framing that the Republican threat of shutdown is something the Democrats are choosing to do or not.
posted by chortly at 6:50 PM on December 21, 2017 [53 favorites]

> it's democracy to vote against a bill you dislike.

It's quite obviously not "democracy" to require a 60-vote supermajority, which is where the idea of the Democrats causing the shutdown comes in. We can argue over how similar a shutdown caused by a majority party's failed cloture vote to stop a minority filibuster is to a shutdown caused by a party in the majority simply exercising that majority, but in the end it's a distinction without a meaningful difference.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:54 PM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

I will say, it's not wrong for the Democrats to worry that the "liberal" media will get in lockstep behind the narrative that the Democrats are just so horrible for playing politics with the shutdown, just like what would happen if the Democrats used anything from McConnell's bag of tricks... the flip side of IOKIYAR is INOKIYAD. That would absolutely happen and a lot of people would eat it up. But it's not an insurmountable problem, just something to be taken into account when weighing the pros and cons, and it doesn't mean roll over and accept that media framing. I think that's a huge part of why Dem leadership doesn't do brinksmanship, they're terrified of the godawful way the media frames Dem actions and they haven't figured out how to deal with it (like pushing a narrative of a building groundswell of support for their actions months in advance, Republicans are very good at that trick and for some reason Dems don't do it).
posted by jason_steakums at 7:05 PM on December 21, 2017 [10 favorites]

It's quite obviously not "democracy" to require a 60-vote supermajority, which is where the idea of the Democrats causing the shutdown comes in. We can argue over how similar a shutdown caused by a majority party's failed cloture vote to stop a minority filibuster is to a shutdown caused by a party in the majority simply exercising that majority, but in the end it's a distinction without a meaningful difference.

Terminology like "filibuster" and "cloture" aside, de facto threshold for passing (most) legislation in the Senate is 60 votes. The majority party writes the bills, and indeed chooses whether to maintain the existence of the filibuster or not. They can choose to write a bill that gets 60 votes or not (or choose to change the threshold to 51) but that is a choice the majority party is making. If they choose to maintain the 60 vote threshold, that means that they need to either write a bill that gets 60 affirmative votes, or take responsibility for the bill failing. The idea that this 60-vote threshold means that X minority party members must out of some obscure duty vote for bills they dislike is nonsense. The responsibility lies with the majority. They set the rules, they write the bills, they shut the government down or not. The job of individual legislators is to vote for bills they like and against bills they dislike. Shutting down the government is entirely within the purview of the leadership, and the idea that minority members voting against a bill they dislike is somehow the responsible cause of a shutdown by the ruling party is deeply anti-democratic.
posted by chortly at 7:09 PM on December 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

There's nothing undemocratic about requiring 60 votes in the Senate to pass legislation, which, except for reconciliation, is effectively our system. Plenty of democracies require supermajorities for various acts. That's a different question than whether it's good policy or what effect it has on our democracy, and certainly a different question than whether the stupid way the filibuster exists and the threat that it could go away with just 50 votes is a good system (no, no it is not).
posted by zachlipton at 7:11 PM on December 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

EVERY other developed country does this. Government by hostage only exists here, and it only exists due to Republican's refusal to engage in good faith compromise.

A citation, via Wikipedia's Government shutdown in the United States article, which links to a 2013 BBC article entitled "US shutdown has other nations confused and concerned":

Elsewhere in the world, such shutdowns are practically impossible. The parliamentary system used by most European democracies ensures that the executive and legislature are controlled by the same party or coalition. Conceivably, a parliament could refuse to pass a budget proposed by the prime minister, but such an action would likely trigger a failure of the government and a new election - witness the current situation in the Netherlands, where Prime Minister Mark Rutte's government faced a no-confidence vote at the start of debate over his 2014 budget proposal. And even when there is a gap prior to a new government taking office, national services continue to operate.

In non-parliamentary democracies, such as Brazil, a strong executive branch has the ability to keep the lights on during a budget impasse. Such was the case in the United States as well, until a 1980 Carter administration interpretation of the 1884 Anti-Deficiency Act strictly limited the powers of federal agencies in the absence of congressional funding authorisations.

So yeah... it seems like the Democrats should play the brinkmanship game once, and lay other demands on top of a requirement for language in the appropriations bill that overturns that 1980 DoJ interpretation of the Antideficiency Act and eliminates the debt ceiling too for good measure.

And hell, throw elimination of the AUMF on there too. The executive should have the power to keep the fucking lights turned on, not the power to initiate a military conflict anywhere on the globe without Congress.
posted by XMLicious at 7:13 PM on December 21, 2017 [19 favorites]

“We will make a massive push to show how pro-growth policies can revitalize the economy and open the floodgates to new opportunity, innovation and prosperity.”

Opening floodgates is only a positive thing when you live upstream.
posted by srboisvert at 7:20 PM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

> If they choose to maintain the 60 vote threshold, that means that they need to either write a bill that gets 60 affirmative votes, or take responsibility for the bill failing.

In an ideal world, sure. In the world we live in, Democrats will be blamed. That's annoying, but I'm far less concerned with who gets blamed than with getting the best policy outcome.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:32 PM on December 21, 2017

MSNBC Special Report: Mueller eyes Flynn’s Turkey Links

I think the writer of that headline skipped breakfast.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:33 PM on December 21, 2017 [99 favorites]

The Senate itself is already an undemocratic abomination, with CA and NY receiving 4% of the representation when they should have 25% just by themselves

I've been seeing this kind of thing a lot over the past couple of weeks and...I don't get it. Isn't all that what the House of Representatives is for?
posted by rhizome at 7:39 PM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

WaPo, Matt Zapotosky, Sessions rescinds Justice Dept. letter asking courts to be wary of stiff fines and fees for poor defendants. Not just that one, he's rescinded 25 guidance documents, including one sent to chief judges and court administrators encouraging them to review their policies around fines and ensure they are not jailing people who are unable to pay. He's also rescinded a number of guidance documents that provide information and interpretations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

WaPo, Devlin Barrett, Ellen Nakashima and Carol Leonnig, FBI’s top lawyer said to be reassigned. The lawyer, James Baker, was close to Comey.

Vice, Kaleigh Rogers, The FCC's Next Stunt: Reclassifying Cell Phone Data Service as 'Broadband Internet'. This will allow the FCC to say, "look, people have so many wonderful choices for internet service" when they really don't.

This idea to reclassify smartphone data as broadband was first proposed in August, but with the net neutrality repeal out of the way, the FCC is expected to vote on the proposal by February 3. Currently, the FCC defines broadband connection as 25Mbps download speeds and 3Mbps upload speeds minimum. The new proposal would keep these minimums in place for fixed wireline broadband but also expand the definition to include cell phone data coverage.

This would not only camouflage many of the communities in the US with no access to the internet, but could prevent them from getting necessary funding to build that access. Cell service is often slower, more expensive, and comes with data caps, and even tethering a computer to a phone for internet isn’t a long-term solution, especially for families with multiple people trying to log on at once to do homework, or work, or watch Netflix.

Politico, Alex Isenstadt, Republicans warn Trump of 2018 bloodbath

A few weeks before Alabama's special Senate election, President Donald Trump’s handpicked Republican National Committee leader, Ronna Romney McDaniel, delivered a two-page memo to White House chief of staff John Kelly outlining the party’s collapse with female voters.

The warning, several people close to the chairwoman said, reflected deepening anxiety that a full-throated Trump endorsement of accused child molester Roy Moore in the special election — which the president was edging closer to at the time — would further damage the party’s standing with women. McDaniel’s memo, which detailed the president's poor approval numbers among women nationally and in several states, would go unheeded, as Trump eventually went all-in for the ultimately unsuccessful Republican candidate.

The backstage talks provide a window into how those closest to Trump are bracing for a possible bloodbath in the 2018 midterms, which could obliterate the Republican congressional majorities and paralyze the president’s legislative agenda. The potential for a Democratic wave has grown after Republican losses this fall in Virginia, New Jersey and Alabama, and as the president’s approval ratings have plummeted to the 30s.

In recent weeks, some of the president’s advisers have taken it upon themselves to warn him directly about the fast-deteriorating political environment. White House officials have convened to discuss ways to improve his standing with suburban voters. And on Wednesday, the president met with Kelly, political director Bill Stepien, communications director Hope Hicks, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and Brad Parscale, Trump’s digital director in the 2016 campaign, to discuss the political landscape. Lewandowski forcefully raised concerns about the party’s efforts, according to one attendee and another person briefed on the meeting.

posted by zachlipton at 7:45 PM on December 21, 2017 [30 favorites]

Cellphones as broadband devices? Maybe up to whatever qualifies as the network adapter, but not into storage or anything behind the chip.

Regardless, if the kinds of changes talked about today comes to pass, I'm not sure it's going to matter who's President.
posted by rhizome at 7:50 PM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

I've been seeing this kind of thing a lot over the past couple of weeks and...I don't get it. Isn't all that what the House of Representatives is for?

Theoretically, but the House is becoming more and more undemocratic as well since the number of Reps was locked at 435 in 1929. Secondly the difference in size between the small and large states was massively less when the Constitution was written. I doubt the Founders expected the largest state to have something like 70x the population of the smallest state.

But that ship has sailed and the Senate is here to stay. So at the very least we need to expand the House and deal with gerrymandering somehow.
posted by Justinian at 7:53 PM on December 21, 2017 [19 favorites]

MSNBC Special Report: Mueller eyes Flynn’s Turkey Links

Ok, how do you do an eight minute report on Flynn and Turkey without mentioning that basically his first act on the job as National Security Advisor was to scuttle a program to arm the Kurds to fight ISIS, a step that was strongly opposed by Turkey? The program was important enough that Obama reportedly discussed it with Trump shortly before the inauguration.

Flynn was working as an unregistered foreign agent for Turkey, then promptly steered US military policy in a pro-Turkish direction like two months later. Once Flynn was thrown out, Trump approved a plan to arm the Kurds. The conflict of interest here is obvious.

I have been beating this drum since March. Yes, I'll email Ari Melber's producer because I am That Guy, but how is this part of the story not common knowledge?

---

In other news, Rick Dearborn, Deputy Chief of Staff, is quitting early next year.
posted by zachlipton at 8:04 PM on December 21, 2017 [31 favorites]

Site news: Tehhund is working their way through the Moore thread, is about when the election was called for Jones.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:07 PM on December 21, 2017 [79 favorites]

> If they choose to maintain the 60 vote threshold, that means that they need to either write a bill that gets 60 affirmative votes, or take responsibility for the bill failing.

In an ideal world, sure. In the world we live in, Democrats will be blamed. That's annoying, but I'm far less concerned with who gets blamed than with getting the best policy outcome.

I'm sure I've belabored this too much already, but the historical tendency is for the majority party to be blamed. The only reason this would not be the case this time around is because Democrats seem to have accepted the logic that when a Republican majority, rather than change a bill to win the needed votes, instead threatens the entire country if Democrats do not capitulate to their demands, this situation is somehow the choice of the Democrats and their fault if they do not capitulate. We all care about policy rather than blame per se, but a system that allows Republicans to force Democrats to vote for rightwing omnibus bills almost yearly but in which Democrats cannot reciprocate is great way to get increasing rightwing policy.

There's nothing undemocratic about requiring 60 votes in the Senate to pass legislation, which, except for reconciliation, is effectively our system. Plenty of democracies require supermajorities for various acts. That's a different question than whether it's good policy or what effect it has on our democracy, and certainly a different question than whether the stupid way the filibuster exists and the threat that it could go away with just 50 votes is a good system (no, no it is not).

This is not an argument against the filibuster. This is saying that, conditional on the de facto system being a 60% supermajority in the Senate, it should be treated like any other threshold: you vote for the bill you want, and if the ruling party wants to pass a bill it needs to secure the threshold number of votes, in this case, 60. The insanity is having an established threshold and then deciding that a subthreshold ruling party can threaten the entire country in order to coerce the minority to vote for their bill rather than just changing the damn bill to win the votes. As I've said before (and will stop repeating now, I promise) such a system -- especially when the liberal minority accepts it and even blames themselves for it -- is effectively a rightwing ratchet that produces ever more rightward policy.
posted by chortly at 8:43 PM on December 21, 2017 [12 favorites]

SCOTUS tea leaves: Justice Kennedy has just hired four new law clerks for the next October Term. This would certainly suggest that Kennedy is planning to be working that term (Oct 18 - Jun or Jul 19).
posted by Chrysostom at 8:43 PM on December 21, 2017 [39 favorites]

BTRTN does some worst-case-scenario predicting via Dickens and Mr. Magoo... "The Ghost of Trump Yet to Come"
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:07 PM on December 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Palm Beach Post: EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Tax Deal Veiled from IRS Review

Donald Trump’s deal with the town of Palm Beach to turn Mar-a-Lago into a private club hinged on an act of charity crafted to skirt IRS scrutiny and deliver for Trump a seven-figure tax break, a Palm Beach Post investigation has found.

To make sure Trump could get the $5.7 million deduction, America’s future president and his lawyers intentionally left out those details from the written agreement with town officials.[...]

He donated control of certain “critical features” at Mar-a-Lago such as art objects and even vegetation to a nonprofit to assure the town that neither he nor a future owner could change them. But he got something in return.

Since then, Trump has applied the tax break to his golf courses and estates to potentially deduct more than $100 million from his taxes, even though the IRS once listed such deductions among their “Dirty Dozen Tax Scams.” One tax expert said that if Trump is under audit, as he says he is, his frequent and vigorous use of the deductions “absolutely” could be why.[...]

Public records don’t reveal how much Trump deducted for each easement or whether the IRS has challenged them. That can’t be known without reviewing Trump’s personal tax returns, which he has refused to make public.

Although tax breaks for easements for golf courses have long been considered a loophole that both former President Barack Obama and some Republicans wanted to close, Congress’ recent tax bill does not touch conservation and preservation easements.

It was, of course, all the idea of Trump's Palm Beach lawyer, Paul Rampell, a local "fix-it person", to convert Mar-a-Lago into a private club with open membership in the first place. He was also the one to convince the town council that Trump’s charitable pledges couldn't be put in writing because of tax issues...
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:11 PM on December 21, 2017 [24 favorites]

Site news: Tehhund is working their way through the Moore thread, is about when the election was called for Jones.

The hound is a myth, created by the mods to scare children out of old threads
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:13 PM on December 21, 2017 [73 favorites]

'Truly remarkable': Trump's meddling barely slowed down Obamacare sign-ups at all (Bob Bryan for Business Insider, Dec. 21, 2017)

• About 8.8 million people enrolled in Obamacare plans for 2018 through the federal Healthcare.gov marketplace.
• That was only slightly less than the 9.2 million people that enrolled last year, despite attempts to undermine the law by the Trump administration.
• The number does not include the 12 state-run exchanges, many of which have longer sign-up periods.
• And not included in that article: some consumers who miss the cutoff could be surprised to learn they have the opportunity to enroll later, including those who losing other health insurance, getting married or having a child, or when they have a change in income that affects their eligibility for premium tax credits or cost-sharing reduction subsidies, consumers whose 2017 marketplace policies are being discontinued in 2018 and people affected by the hurricanes that ravaged Texas, parts of the Southeastern United States and Puerto Rico

More from Business Insider:

Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare, said Thursday that 8.8 million people enrolled in insurance plans for 2018 through the federal Healthcare.gov exchange.

That falls just 400,000 short of the 9.2 million that enrolled in 2017 plans, meaning the current sign-up period drew just under 96% of last year's enrollment.

The number was particularly surprising given the Trump administration's attempts to meddle in the sign-up period. It dramatically slashed the budget for outreach and advertising and cut the enrollment window to just six weeks rather than three months.

There was a significant surge in the last few days of enrollment. As of December 9, just a few days before the December 15 deadline, 4.6 million were people enrolled. CMS said more than 4.1 million people, including those who automatically enrolled, signed up in the final week.

Beyond slashing the advertising budget by 90%, cutting funds for nonprofit groups that employ “navigators,” those who help people in the individual market understand their options and sign up, by roughly 40%, and making it harder to find Healthcare.gov, there were shut-downs of the federal health insurance exchange for half of the day on all but one Sunday, when the enrollment window was already reduced by more than half.

I just have three words: Fuck. You. Trump.

And a few more: HUGE thanks to everyone and anyone who helped guide people to enroll, which included insurers, who advertised more because Trump did less. And with increased media coverage of GOP anti-ACA tactics, there was a ton of free coverage, which all seems like it could be spun by Republicans to show "hey, we saved the country money! Less funding for advertising and support, and less time to maintain the sign-up website = taxpayers saved money!"

Regardless, fuck the GOP for their shitty anti-health tactics.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:25 PM on December 21, 2017 [91 favorites]

CNN reports Senate paid out 1.45 million in settlements since 1997
posted by AlexiaSky at 11:44 PM on December 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

2017 Was the Year We Fought for Democracy — Now What?
posted by Artw at 11:51 PM on December 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

This is not the Onion. This is NOT the Onion. THIS IS NOT THE ONION.
Trump Can't Believe No One's Thrown A Parade In His Honor.
posted by scalefree at 12:30 AM on December 22, 2017 [58 favorites]

What are the implications of Paul Nehlen running in the Republican primary? Does it necessarily mean he has any backing at all? How more than usually terrified and/or outraged should I be?

Nehlen got 15% in 2016's primary -- basically a Trumpist protest vote. (Ryan spent most of the campaign at least pretending he couldn't bring himself to say Trump's name, e.g. "our nominee", and at the one event Trump held here in Janesville (during the primaries) he did not attend -- and was booed when Trump mentioned his name.) This time around the Speaker has a war chest over 100 times larger than Nehlen. Ryan may be a dyed-in-the-wool movement conservative who blanched at his own party's reactionary uprising, but has played the game and is not getting "Cantored" by Koch-Bannon-Adelson money as of now.

For the most part, Nehlen's open anti-Semitism is unlikely to win him any independent-minded Republican votes in Wisconsin. I'm expecting that there will be condemnations from WI-01 media in the next few days. We're not Alabama.

Site news: Tehhund is working their way through the Moore thread, is about when the election was called for Jones.

An’ here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again

a requirement for language in the appropriations bill that overturns that 1980 DoJ interpretation of the Antideficiency Act

Hell, the DOJ just threw out legal interpretations going back to 1975 the fuck didn't they include this
posted by dhartung at 12:48 AM on December 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

Yes, Trump clearly has peninsula envy. [nsfw]
posted by mosk at 2:36 AM on December 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

Yes, Trump clearly has peninsula envy. [nsfw]

Florida is a grower not a shower!
posted by Talez at 2:47 AM on December 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think his approval ratings and the tax bill's approval ratings are pushing his buttons insofar as it demonstrates that he is a shit person. A normal person would be like, 'am I a shit person? let's consult the experts' but with Trump it means he needs to go a rally where 'lock her up' is chanted so that the consuming darkness given to him by his father is satisfied by the adulation of a group of others.
posted by angrycat at 4:40 AM on December 22, 2017 [35 favorites]

92% of Clinton voters disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing.

Paul Ryan has an 8/79 approval with Clinton voters.

Mitch McConnell's is 6/77.

Only 4% of Clinton voters think Trump is honest, 95% don't think he is.

92% outright characterize him as a liar

Only 6% of Clinton voters think Trump has 'Made America Great Again,' 93% don't think he has.

See, these are big numbers, and that in and of itself isn't terribly surprising, but they make me despair a little. Who are the 8% of Clinton voters who are happy right now? Who are the ones who think Ryan and McConnell are okey-dokey? That Trump is honest? That he's MADE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN? I know the answer is mostly white men, but Clinton voters?

One of the hardest things about defending democracy is defending the actual idea of it. That's it's probably a good thing that literally everyone, regardless of how uninformed or irrational or hateful their choices are, should be allowed to pick leaders who will set policy for an entire nation. You look at the flip side of the numbers I quoted above and it seems like an insane idea on its face. We're only a "rational" species in any meaningful sense if you're grading on a curve. My best counterargument is basically paraphrasing Churchill about the other options being worse. Which is hardly a ringing endorsement.
posted by middleclasstool at 5:21 AM on December 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

'Truly remarkable': Trump's meddling barely slowed down Obamacare sign-ups at all

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

posted by hydropsyche at 5:23 AM on December 22, 2017 [30 favorites]

No apologies for quoting most of this piece from the Graun, which beautifully demonstrates the quality and integrity of those fine people slowly trickling into positions of international importance as 45 fits in a few bits of governance between rounds of golf and apoplexy.


The US ambassador to the Netherlands faced an excrutiating moment on television when he denied ever saying that there were no-go zones in the Netherlands, calling the suggestion “fake news”.

Trump’s new choice for ambassador, Pete Hoekstra, who was only sworn in by the vice president, Mike Pence, on 11 December, was being interviewed for current affairs programme Nieuwsuur by reporter Wouter Zwart.

Zwart says: “You mentioned in a debate that there are no-go zones in the Netherlands, and that cars and politicians are being set on fire in the Netherlands.”

Hoekstra replies: “I didn’t say that. This is actually an incorrect statement. We would call it fake news.”

Hoekstra is then shown clips of him saying: “The Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands, there are cars being burnt, there are politicians that are being burnt ... and yes there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.”

Challenged about having called this “fake news”, Hoekstra then went on to deny to Zwart that he had in fact used the phrase “fake news”.

“I didn’t call that fake news. I didn’t use the words today. I don’t think I did.”

posted by Devonian at 6:06 AM on December 22, 2017 [90 favorites]

middleclasstool: "Who are the 8% of Clinton voters who are happy right now?"

People who voted for the woman but are otherwise hardline republicans.

Also such low numbers could just be noise from people trolling/answering randomly.
posted by Mitheral at 6:11 AM on December 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

The. Best. People.

@sunny_hundal
Just perfect.
Dutch journalist to new US Ambassador: you said there were 'no go zones' in Netherlands, where are they?
Ambassador: That's fake news, I didn't say that
Journalist: We can show you that clip now.
Ambassador: Err 😳🤥
VIDEO

@dandrezner
What’s truly impressive is that @petehoekstra has not taken up his duties yet as Ambassador to the Netherlands and he’s already pissed away his credibility.

The new US ambassador to the Netherlands has denied saying that there are no go areas in the Netherlands and that cars and politicians are being set on fire because of radical Islam. In an interview with current affairs programme Nieuwsuur, Pete Hoekstra told NOS correspondent Wouter Zwart he had never said such things.

‘I didn’t say that. That is actually an incorrect statement. We would call it fake news,’ Hoekstra said. However, the new ambassador can be seen clearly making the statements in a video recording from 2015. ‘And yes, there are no go areas in the Netherlands,’ Hoekstra states.

Hoekstra will take up his position in January. He is known to be a supporter of Trump’s policy on the migration of Muslims to the United States and Europe. Hoekstra is also said to oppose gay marriage and abortion, both of which are legal in the Netherlands.

@poniewozik (NYT)
Retweeted Sunny Hundal
“Fake news” has never really meant “This is a lie.” It’s tribal signaling. It means, “I give you permission to ignore this fact that’s not good for our team.”
posted by chris24 at 6:12 AM on December 22, 2017 [104 favorites]

Writer and expert on authoritarian regimes Sarah Kendzior appeared on MSNBC Thursday and suggested Trump May Be Blackmailing Lindsey Graham and Other Republicans with Hacked Emails.
posted by adamvasco at 6:33 AM on December 22, 2017 [18 favorites]

As for showing politicians their own words immediately after they lie about them, I don't understand why the American news media doesn't do more of this, other than cowardice and incompetence. At this point, you know that Republicans are going to deny saying things you have them on tape as having said, because they do it all the time. If you're interviewing them on CNN or whatever, having clips of their exact words that you know they're likely to deny having said ready to cue up and play immediately in response to the denial seems like the most basic requirement of responsible interviewing in the modern era. The fact that major news network anchors continue to appear nonplussed when the Republicans they're interviewing lie to their faces about their own words which are on record makes no sense. This happens to you just about every day now, shouldn't you be expecting it?

If Zwart actually showed Hoekstra that clip while he was interviewing him, that's a good start, and I wish American media would learn from it.
posted by biogeo at 6:52 AM on December 22, 2017 [88 favorites]

Ya, I'm trying to imagine what the contents of the emails could be that would enable blackmail of this level.
posted by Mitheral at 6:54 AM on December 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

If you'd like a less NPR-ified take on Trump's new National Security Strategy, I recommend the latest episode of Trumpcast.

Their big takeaway: there's what's actually in the written strategy (signed by Trump himself, of course), and then there's what Trump says about the strategy in the speech he gives about it. The two actually—surprise, surprise—send very different messages, leaving other countries in the world unsure about what to believe.
posted by Rykey at 6:54 AM on December 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

@sunny_hundal
Just perfect.
Dutch journalist to new US Ambassador: you said there were 'no go zones' in Netherlands, where are they?
Ambassador: That's fake news, I didn't say that
Journalist: We can show you that clip now.
Ambassador: Err 😳🤥
VIDEO

It's even worse, after the clip he says, "I didn't call that fake news, i didn't use those words today." mere seconds after he said "We'd call it fake news."

The Dutch journalist literally does a double take.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:06 AM on December 22, 2017 [53 favorites]

If Zwart actually showed Hoekstra that clip while he was interviewing him, that's a good start, and I wish American media would learn from it.

What they'd learn is that their corporate advertisers would threaten to pull support, and that they wouldn't get any right-wing guests on their shows any more, and that their access to right-wing sources and leaks would be cut off. It's bullshit, and it's part of the same problem that causes the inadequate newsmaking in the first place, but it's happened in the past, and it's happening now.

Which is also why Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, and Trevor Noah are often better places to look for news than journalism—they're not handcuffed by journalistic standards that can get in the way of newsmaking, and their corporate advertisers understand them primarily as comedians, valuable as channels to audiences the sponsors want.
posted by Rykey at 7:09 AM on December 22, 2017 [20 favorites]

And somewhere inside the Dutch Foreign Office, a meeting is being held to discuss whether to refuse the incoming ambassador's credentials, or to just put up with the idioot for the next few years.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:10 AM on December 22, 2017 [14 favorites]

If you'd like a less NPR-ified take on Trump's new National Security Strategy, I recommend the latest episode of Trumpcast.

The Trumpcast URL says it all: http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/trumpcast/2017/12/trump_contradicts_his_own_national_security_strategy.html

We have plenty of Trump Promise Trackers, but are there any Trump Contradicts Himself Trackers? Maintaining that also seems like a full-time job, just like trying to fact-check him.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:11 AM on December 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

I notice when I listen to BBC World Service that their interviewers don't take crap. They ask a question, the politician dissembles, the journalist interrupts: that is not what I asked! I've only seen American journalists do that in about the 3 days following the discovery of abandoned Katrina survivors in the NO Superdome; then they reverted to normal.
posted by thelonius at 7:32 AM on December 22, 2017 [29 favorites]

Ya, I'm trying to imagine what the contents of the emails could be that would enable blackmail of this level.
posted by Mitheral at 9:54 AM on December 22 [+] [!]

It's pee-tapes all the way down.
posted by Cookiebastard at 7:34 AM on December 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm not sure what "journalism" is in the United States, but it isn't about seeking the truth, that much seems certain. All of it, certainly all of it that the average person is exposed to, is owned by capital and reports on things in a way which services capital, sometimes slightly less blatantly, but ultimately always.

They currently do this under a banner of "fairness" and "balance", as if those are virtues and not a mewling normalization of fascism.
posted by maxwelton at 7:49 AM on December 22, 2017 [21 favorites]

Which is also why Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, and Trevor Noah are often better places to look for news than journalism

This is both true and about 100 different knds of fucked up - as it was under Gee Dubz. Before that it was much more obscure. MAD magazine under Reagan, for example.

The thing is, it's emminently fixable - today, with no organizational or concrete process changes needed. Imagine! Actual not-bullshit-all-the-time news. And, it's inevitable - it may take another 3-10 generations worth of unserved Americans, it may take a foundational shift in the platform itself (hey music industry, whassup! How's, uh, whatever it is you're doing these days?), but actual journalism for the sake of informing people about the world around us exists, its just not dominant, and not by a loooooong shot, as we know.

C'mon Chuck Fucking Todd, Do The Right Thing you multimillionaire bastard! Sic 'em!
posted by petebest at 7:56 AM on December 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Writer and expert on authoritarian regimes Sarah Kendzior appeared on MSNBC Thursday and suggested Trump May Be Blackmailing Lindsey Graham and Other Republicans with Hacked Emails.

Back in March, former FBI Special Agent Clinton Watts warned the Senate Intelligence Committee: "What no one’s talking about is the information nukes that Russia sits on right now because they hacked 3,000 to 4,000 people. I think this afternoon you’re going to hear on the cyber more technical side, this hacking was pervasive. We’ve focused on the DNC. I’ve been targeted. Some other people have been targeted that I know. They have our information, so any time anyone rises up that they choose against, whether it’s Republican or a Democrat, Congress or Executive Branch or a State official, they’ve got the ability to do the same thing they just did over the past year."

That said, Occam's Razor suggests that Graham is simply playing politics, the same way he's been playing golf with Trump. Back in October, he explained to the New York Times, "He’s very popular in my state. When I help him, it helps me back home. And I think it probably helps him to be able to do business with an old rival who’s seen as a deal maker." And it's true that Trump is generally more popular in South Carolina than he is in the rest of the country, especially among staunch Republican voters—unlike in most states, his approval ratings are still (barely) above water there. In general, Trump is more popular among likely voters—and Graham, though he's won't be for re-election until 2020, knows they're the ones that count the most.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:57 AM on December 22, 2017 [10 favorites]

What they'd learn is that their corporate advertisers would threaten to pull support, and that they wouldn't get any right-wing guests on their shows any more, and that their access to right-wing sources and leaks would be cut off.

I don't buy this, though. Adversarial media makes for great TV, and any news network that can offer that kind of entertainment on a regular basis is going to attract ratings, which advertisers love. Advertisers' only loyalty is to profit, not party. As far as the question of "access," we've already seen that's a false idol. The Trumpists are pursuing a scorched-earth policy towards even milquetoast outlets like CNN, so there's nothing for them to lose by doing actual journalism. And despite it all, even the more liberal news outlets enjoy a constant stream of leaks from the Trump White House and Congress, so the idea that access to leaks would be cut off just doesn't hold water (pun intended). Trumpists need the media at least as much as the media needs access to Trumpists, and despite time and again threatening to cut off access, they never do, because they need that attention.

Remember, Trump is a reality TV star. Bloviating conflict is all he knows, and I honestly don't think he or his allies can tell the difference between being asked a hard question and being called out explicitly on their bullshit, because in their universe, ideas don't have content. If you're forced to interview this kind of empty shell of a person, why not go for broke and do some real journalism while you're at it, then?
posted by biogeo at 8:03 AM on December 22, 2017 [13 favorites]

Just for fun and per Adweek, the week of December 11 in basic cable all-day viewership, Fox News was the top ranked, followed by the Hallmark channel.

Total Day (Total Viewers)

Fox News (1,508,000)
Hallmark (1,270,000)
MSNBC (1,098,000)
Nickelodeon (974,000)
ESPN (932,000)

So, about 1.5 million sets tuned in all day. Seems . . . small.
posted by petebest at 8:04 AM on December 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh come on you guys, have you learned nothing? Read carefully:

Hoekstra replies: “I didn’t say that. This is actually an incorrect statement. We would call it fake news.”

Hoekstra is then shown clips of him saying: “... yes there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.”

Challenged about having called this “fake news”, Hoekstra then went on to deny to Zwart that he had in fact used the phrase “fake news”. “I didn’t call that fake news. I didn’t use the words today. I don’t think I did.”

See? He "would" call it fake news, but he didn't actually call it fake news, and in any case, he's not thinking about it right this moment. This is higher level 13-dimensional Alice in Wonderland shit here, where he is making his own reality, and you amateurs can piss right off.

"The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!"
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is, 'The Aged Aged Man'."
"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways and Means': but that's only what it is called you know!"
"Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is 'A-sitting on a Gate': and the tune's my own invention."

posted by RedOrGreen at 8:05 AM on December 22, 2017 [33 favorites]

Would South Carolina really turn on Lindsey Graham if he came out?

I don't think it's SC itself per se, just the work his campaign would need to do to readjust everything. Remember his Presidential campaign announcement speech 20,000 years ago?* It was all graar let's attack Iran and rrrr we're gonna stomp everybody and woah golly the world is so scary. Not that it wasn't kind of bizarre for his brand already, but that would need some work to maintain or modify with any change in his base.

*speech
posted by petebest at 8:09 AM on December 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Would South Carolina really turn on Lindsey Graham if he came out?

Yes. He'd also lose a lot of his cred with the GOP establishment as a hard-nosed hawk.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:10 AM on December 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Luke Harding and Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Guardian: Ex-Trump adviser Carter Page accused academics who twice failed his PhD of bias

“Page seemed to think that if he talked enough, people would think he was well-informed. In fact it was the reverse,” Andrusz said. He added that Page was “dumbfounded” when the examiners told him he had failed.

Their subsequent report was withering. It said Page’s thesis was “characterised by considerable repetition, verbosity and vagueness of expression”

As in his PhD viva, so in his congressional testimony.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:12 AM on December 22, 2017 [22 favorites]

And somewhere inside the Dutch Foreign Office, a meeting is being held to discuss whether to refuse the incoming ambassador's credentials, or to just put up with the idioot for the next few years.

Honestly I'm scared to death about the generations of damage this administration is going to cause, but if the silver lining is that the rest of the industrialized world stops allowing us to dictate terms the way it has for far too long, then that's the silver lining.

That said, Occam's Razor suggests that Graham is simply playing politics, the same way he's been playing golf with Trump.

I'm not going to get pedantic on what William of Occam really said, particularly not in a megathread, but suffice it to say that it doesn't preclude both possibilities from being true. Graham has a reputation (undeserved, IMO) as a moderate, "principled" Republican (c.f. McCain), but he always struck me as party and personal ambition over principle and country. That said, he also sees the writing on the wall next year. Blackmail'd be a pretty strong motivation to ignore that and roll the dice on sticking with the president.

Would South Carolina really turn on Lindsey Graham if he came out?

It depends. White voters in AL were willing to back a pedophile because he's Part of the Team, and hardline culture warriors in SC might do the same for a gay man. But it's far from clear that they would.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:13 AM on December 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

petebest The thing is, it's emminently fixable - today, with no organizational or concrete process changes needed. Imagine! Actual not-bullshit-all-the-time news.

If I had the power to compel the liberal billionaires to fund just one thing, it'd be real news. A few tens of billions could establish an endowment that'd keep a real news outfit going forever without the need for any ad money. A nice charter mandating that it practice actual journalism rather than access based BS, spend X% of the funds on investigative journalism annually, stuff like that. And once the endowment is fully funded and the non-profit real news organization is started the billionaires get no say, no influence, no power, no **NOTHING** so it's free to report on them too.

Bill Gates could do it solo, though it'd cost him a pretty penny. The top five Democratic billionaires could do it without even costing themselves much.
posted by sotonohito at 8:14 AM on December 22, 2017 [31 favorites]

It depends. White voters in AL were willing to back a pedophile because he's Part of the Team, and hardline culture warriors in SC might do the same for a gay man. But it's far from clear that they would.

Ask yourself if Roy Moore would have been able to stay in the race if it were revealed he'd had same-sex relationship in the past.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:18 AM on December 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

Trump’s comments prior to signing the tax bill are ... something. Let me find a link. But he’s rambling. Singles out NBC news by name for attack, says that he’s signing it today (and not at an official ceremony in January) because “all of the networks” when he watched the news this morning were implying he wouldn’t sign it. So he immediately demanded that the signing be done today. He doesn’t realize it, but he’s bragging about how easily he can be manipulated.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 8:22 AM on December 22, 2017 [34 favorites]

Bill Gates could do it solo, though it'd cost him a pretty penny.

Bill "Monsanto" Gates? Not bloody likely, besides he already did MS-NBC. Any "actual news" organization would very much have an uphill fight against the combined weight of corporate media.

One of the other fun "benefits" of torpedoing Net Neutrality. Want real news channel? Ooooh that's only available on our Complete Bastard Tier . . .
posted by petebest at 8:23 AM on December 22, 2017

Whining throughout about the media and the fact he doesn’t “get credit” for his “many accomplishments.” Something about having more legislative approvals than Truman. He’s so thin-skinned you can see his Diet Coke-addled organs. It’s embarrassing.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 8:27 AM on December 22, 2017 [10 favorites]

Would South Carolina really turn on Lindsey Graham if he came out?

It depends. White voters in AL were willing to back a pedophile because he's Part of the Team, and hardline culture warriors in SC might do the same for a gay man. But it's far from clear that they would.

I think Lindsey Graham falls neatly within the "Best Little Boy in the World"

"...the “Best Little Boy in the World” hypothesis, first put forward in 1973 in a book by Andrew Tobias, then writing under a pseudonym. It’s the idea that young, closeted men deflect attention from their sexuality by investing in recognized markers of success: good grades, athletic achievement, elite employment and so on. Overcompensating in competitive arenas affords these men a sense of self-worth that their concealment diminishes."

I bet he'd be readily accepted by the vast majority of folks in S.C., given he's white, male, local, clubs well, etc. Lindsey's seen as part of the club, and once you're inside you can be a little different. It'd even burnish their image of themselves as accepting and not prejudiced. Lindsey may be gay, but he's not threatening to them.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:29 AM on December 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

Why the sudden speculation on Graham's gayness? (I have thought for years that he was closeted.) WHat'd I miss?
posted by yoga at 8:32 AM on December 22, 2017

...because folks are speculating that his gayness is the dirt the Russians have on Graham to blackmail him into falling in line with Trump.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:33 AM on December 22, 2017

Putin has his emails.

Some of his awfulness may or may not be related to being blackmailed.

He probably doesn't need blackmailing that much.
posted by Artw at 8:34 AM on December 22, 2017

Would South Carolina really turn on Lindsey Graham if he came out?

I don't know if South Carolina would turn on him, but I think it's a mistake to think of it just as a career issue. It would affect his reputation, his standing in his community, and all his relationships. It would force him to confront things that he would have worked very, very hard to avoid confronting. It would negate all of the sacrifices that he would have made to stay in the closet.

Note: I have no reason to believe that Graham is gay other than that he's never been married, and I know there have been rumors.

Why the sudden speculation on Graham's gayness? (I have thought for years that he was closeted.) WHat'd I miss?

Public speculation that he's being blackmailed. I don't know if there's any reason for the public speculation. As other people have said, it's more likely that he's just an asshole.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:35 AM on December 22, 2017

Rust Moranis: “Page seemed to think that if he talked enough, people would think he was well-informed. In fact it was the reverse,” Andrusz said. He added that Page was “dumbfounded” when the examiners told him he had failed.

Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot than open it and prove 'em right.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:36 AM on December 22, 2017 [9 favorites]

Ask yourself if Roy Moore would have been able to stay in the race if it were revealed he'd had same-sex relationship in the past.

I am, which is why I'm saying "it depends" but honestly at this point I think white supremacy trumps everything.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:37 AM on December 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Who are the 8% of Clinton voters who are happy right now?

Largley inattention, most likely. The rate of people who, faced with a survey, fill them out apparently randomly, with no real pattern or consistency to their answers, is somewhere between 3% and 12%.
posted by jackbishop at 8:38 AM on December 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

I'm not sure what "journalism" is in the United States, but it isn't about seeking the truth, that much seems certain.

My instinctive response to you, as someone who has been a journalish in the past and who counts many people working in journalism as friends, is both anatomically impossible and would get my comment deleted. My more measured response is to say that this statement is offensive horsehockey and when you spread this nonsense you do harm to the industry that, it would seem, you'd like to see succeed.

There's a lot wrong with the industry both in the ownership of many conglomerates and flowing out of some of the things that have come to be guiding principles in modern journalism which can't effectively resist the judo bad actors aim at it. But if you can look at some of the absolutely amazing work that journalists and outlets have been doing this last year even in the face of this all-out attack on professionalism and truth, and say that American journalists aren't focused on seeking the truth then there is something wrong with you,
not American journalists on average.

You want to criticize the problems in journalism on a whole and many of the people working as journalists, go for it. You'll actually be in great company alongside many people actually plying the trade. But they're actually looking at the work being done and are interested in making it better because they think it's important and good work. What you're doing with this nonsense is just the flip side of the same coin as the Trumpists who call everything into doubt until nothing reported can be trusted. They do it because an absence of truth and understanding works to their advantage and you seem to be doing it out of frustration, but don't mistake for a second that you are both accomplishing the same exact thing.

Go lay down with those dogs if you like, but expect the rest of us to wrinkle our noses at your fleas.
posted by phearlez at 8:38 AM on December 22, 2017 [41 favorites]

Pearlez - Gonna have to mark you down for using too active a voice I'm afraid. Remeeber, news from no where, give both sides of the argument equal weight. The 2016 NYT coverage of the Presidential election should be your model here.
posted by Artw at 8:44 AM on December 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

Something about having more legislative approvals than Truman.

Nobody say "but have you nuked more countries than Truman?" or we're all screwed.
posted by delfin at 8:45 AM on December 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

Something about having more legislative approvals than Truman.

"More days in office than William Henry Harrison AND James A. Garfield! MAGA!"
posted by leotrotsky at 8:50 AM on December 22, 2017 [13 favorites]

Another possibility is Graham really really wants to be Secretary of State once Tillerson is finally fired/leaves.
posted by chris24 at 8:55 AM on December 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

These fuckers are the worst.

@steven_pifer (Brookings Institute)
#UN Rep @nikkihaley plans reception & will not invite reps of countries that voted for Jerusalem resolution. She will invite those who abstained or were absent; otherwise would be very small party for 9 who voted against. This is American diplomacy at its most petty.
posted by chris24 at 9:04 AM on December 22, 2017 [53 favorites]

I just hope the countries who abstained do the right thing and decline to accept the invite.
posted by Rykey at 9:13 AM on December 22, 2017 [33 favorites]

phearlez: "But if you can look at some of the absolutely amazing work that journalists and outlets have been doing this last year even in the face of this all-out attack on professionalism and truth, and say that American journalists aren't focused on seeking the truth then there is something wrong with you,
not American journalists on average."

Don't let me interrupt your righteousness here, but the comment you're replying to was a short one on the state of journalism, with no reference to the moral character of journalists. Looked at in full it's obviously a lamentation on the fact that capital has entirely captured the journalistic industry. It's a systemic problem, not a problem with journalists. Your comment is really aggressive.
posted by TypographicalError at 9:18 AM on December 22, 2017 [27 favorites]

Why the sudden speculation on Graham's gayness? (I have thought for years that he was closeted.) WHat'd I miss?

In the last few days Graham's been making some excessively obsequious statements directed to Trump. The speculation is he's being blackmailed into it. Personally I think he's just playing for one of the slots rumored to be opening up in Trump's Cabinet, probably State. If Trump was really blackmailing anyone he'd be telegraphing it in his tweets & elsewhere; the shortest path between two points is Donald Trump's strategy.
posted by scalefree at 9:18 AM on December 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

If Trump was really blackmailing anyone he'd be telegraphing it in his tweets & elsewhere; the shortest path between two points is Donald Trump's strategy.

If I were the handler of the alleged material, I certainly wouldn't trust Trump to deliver the message to Graham.
posted by Slothrup at 9:24 AM on December 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

I just hope the countries who abstained do the right thing and decline to accept the invite.

Back during the election, there were some Mefites asking what, if anything, they could do as non-Americans. This is your time. As Americans, we need you now to pressure your governments not to play the kind of petty games the Trump administration wants you to play. Tell your MPs or relevant government representatives to isolate the Trump administration as much as is practical, particularly when they engage in egregious actions like this. Don't let our shitty government hold the rest of the world hostage. We Americans need your help in this now, and you can help us best by opposing our government, and preserving international arena until such time as we are able to throw out these children and get some actual diplomats and leaders back in place who will treat you as equals again (or for the first time).
posted by biogeo at 9:25 AM on December 22, 2017 [42 favorites]

As for showing politicians their own words immediately after they lie about them, I don't understand why the American news media doesn't do more of this, other than cowardice and incompetence.

That's basically it, and as we've seen, the result is that certain politicians have no qualms about telling verifiable lies, even about things that they literally just said.

Stewart and Colbert and the rest were showing that the real joke is that so-called "professional journalists" didn't care at all that politicians lied, and that therefore there was no incentive for politicians not to do so. But the news media didn't rise to the challenge, the way they changed their behavior as a result of the conservative movement's decades-long marketing effort to establish the myth of the "liberal media." And here we are.
posted by Gelatin at 9:29 AM on December 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

In general, Trump is more popular among likely voters

While I'm no statistician, how that particular poll counts "likely voters" seems a little off, and thus the conclusion may not be quite as stated.

Reuters/Ipsos is selecting "likely" voters by continuing to ask follow-up questions of people who already participated in one of their exit polls after the '16 elections. Then comparing the results with their national tracking poll to reach the conclusion that Trump is more popular than we might expect. But while it's true that people who have already voted are more likely to continue to vote, AFAIK most polls consider "likely" voters as those who have voted in at least one of the last several elections (and/or various polling groups have more complex methods for determining "likely voters"), rather than only those who voted in the most recent election. Which is to say, by only following voters who voted in the election where Trump won, Reuters/Ipsos may be stacking the deck in favor of Trump supporters - who we all know still mostly support him - because they're missing people who are still "likely" to vote who may have missed the last election through disgruntlement/boredom/accident/who knows.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:33 AM on December 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Oh look, another male media figure who stoked the anti-Clinton fires turns out to have issues with women.

‘Young Turks’ Founder Cenk Uygur Apologizes for ‘Ugly,’ ‘Insensitive’ Old Blog Posts (Exclusive)
posted by chris24 at 9:43 AM on December 22, 2017 [33 favorites]

If I were the handler of the alleged material, I certainly wouldn't trust Trump to deliver the message to Graham.

Could you stop him from doing it anyway? As long as he's in the loop on just about anything he's a risk for exposure of it. Graham's statements are directed to Trump, not some hypothetical handler (who?).
posted by scalefree at 9:45 AM on December 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

There's a lot wrong with the industry both in the ownership of many conglomerates and flowing out of some of the things that have come to be guiding principles in modern journalism which can't effectively resist the judo bad actors aim at it.

I disagree with that last part. When I was in high school journalism class, my teacher told his students that if a source lies to you, that's your story. And you never, ever trust them again (which doesn't mean don't use them, but you don't trust them).

Journalists let politicians get away with obvious, verifiable lies all the time. Not judgment calls or matters of opinion, but black-is-white nonsense. That NPR interview with McConnell cited upthread is one example, in which he pretends only Democrats are talking about Mueller getting fired. At the very least, reporters are under no obligation to let politicians use their platforms as a means to lie to their audience -- the reporter could have snipped that comment out of the interview, and should have.

Journalists should know how to deal with a source that lies to them, and do know. For whatever reason, they just choose not to do it.
posted by Gelatin at 9:49 AM on December 22, 2017 [45 favorites]

‘Young Turks’ Founder Cenk Uygur Apologizes for ‘Ugly,’ ‘Insensitive’ Old Blog Posts (Exclusive)

Apparently those old posts were rants about how women are "genetically inferior" because they don't want to have sex with him, presumably often enough. Blech. This "incel" crap just writes itself, doesn't it?
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:59 AM on December 22, 2017 [14 favorites]

This lovely piece is one of the top stories on Fox News: NBC News, MSNBC hosts could receive cash windfalls when Trump signs tax reform they love to hate. The news is that Comcast is [placating Trump by] citing tax reform as a reason to give some staff $1k bonuses, and that might include Rachel Maddow etc, and that it's unclear whether Rachel Maddow etc will donate their $1k bonus to charity, which is an important question because [reasons]. You might think that opposing a national policy regardless of whether it benefits you personally shows a sense of empathy and patriotism, but you'd be wrong; it is hypocrisy, and this is a news story that goes directly from the eyes to the primordial brain stem without touching anything in between. Happy New Year!
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:01 AM on December 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

Which is to say, by only following voters who voted in the election where Trump won, Reuters/Ipsos may be stacking the deck in favor of Trump supporters - who we all know still mostly support him - because they're missing people who are still "likely" to vote who may have missed the last election through disgruntlement/boredom/accident/who knows.

Exactly. And politicians, being small-c conservative by nature, tend to look only at the data from the previous elections, much like generals planning for the next war by re-fighting at their last one. They know the likely voters are the safer bet than those who dropped out, so they tailor their messages for the former, reinforcing the cycle of electoral apathy/atrophy.

Graham, for instance, appears to be doubling down for next year, most recently giving an exclusive interview to Breitbart in which he pledged, "My goal for 2018 is to block grant the money for Obamacare back to the states and putting money in the hands of elected officials and not Washington bureaucrats. [...] We got two no votes in the Senate based on process. Now we can go through the regular order similar to what we did with taxes. I think we will take up two votes. Obamacare doesn’t get better over time, it gets worse. By repealing the mandate, we for sure own health care now. I think we can get 50 votes."

And he's made the political calculation that the Trump administration will help him with this: "There’s a working group, Vice President Pence is integrally involved in this. We had a meeting two days ago; the White House is working with us on a new [block grant] formula."
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:09 AM on December 22, 2017

the1k Trump bonus seems to be pretty standard across companies giving it, I'm wondering if there;s some degree of co-ordination. Amazing that they didn't blow the cover on it if they did.

Also: Gross.
posted by Artw at 10:15 AM on December 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

I hope everyone who can afford it* donates their bonuses and any personal tax savings to organizations like Planned Parenthood, the NAACP, left political causes, and the US Treasury. Especially anyone who's in a position to make a public show of it.
posted by jedicus at 10:22 AM on December 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

Go lay down with those dogs if you like, but expect the rest of us to wrinkle our noses at your fleas.

phearlez, first, thank you for the callout. Really. I tend to react in a way which uses a very broad brush to paint things which almost certainly require more nuance.

That said, I feel my point is still justified if we want to call "mainstream" news "journalism". For many, many people out there, if CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC or Fox isn't reporting something, it doesn't exist. The more adventurous might listen to NPR. They might take their local paper, or look at Google or their phone's news feed. Any other reporting may as well not exist.

That is not to take away from the importance of that reporting. But said reporting has very little chance to have much effect as long as the gatekeepers keep a "he said/she said" narrative alive instead of simply reporting facts and challenging lies.

Anyway, I apologize for the broad brush. I will endeavor to think about the width of my brush before displaying a work, to torture this analogy to its (much deserved) death. (Updates as events warrant.)
posted by maxwelton at 10:28 AM on December 22, 2017 [10 favorites]

The more adventurous might listen to NPR.

Bad example there. NPR leans hyper-credulous to a degree that's embarassing.
posted by Artw at 10:35 AM on December 22, 2017 [16 favorites]

telling people actively that Trump is lying

Cite, please. Note that the journalist(s) in question must use the word lying as directly relates to Trump, for example, "Trump is lying".
posted by petebest at 10:37 AM on December 22, 2017 [12 favorites]

Oh look, another male media figure who stoked the anti-Clinton fires turns out to have issues with women.

Also, uh, a (Armenian) genocide denier. He's a winner all around.

I think the speculation about Graham is baseless. Right now there's no particular reason to think this is the result of anything but spineless partisanship.
posted by Justinian at 10:39 AM on December 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

Liz Plank: Donald Trump probably won’t apologize to women. So I did it for him.

As a woman and a Canadian, I consider myself a foremost expert on apologizing and felt it was my duty to help out.

This is my holiday present to you.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:01 AM on December 22, 2017 [9 favorites]

I mean, take the tax bill. Here's a story, which appeared approximately a million times in the mainstream media:

"Republicans Say Tax Bill [insert some obvious lie]", wherein said article simply repeats the lies and, at best, there is a sort of wink and shrug. Worse, it's a non-story. It's literally taking public-relations spin and publishing it verbatim. That's a disservice to (casual, ie most) readers, who will take the fact that it was published as equivalent to saying it's true.

"Republicans Lie About Tax Bill: '[insert same obvious lie]'" is both the truth and a way more interesting story. Even republicans will read it, if only to fight about it...but it's still getting as many eyeballs; from a business standpoint, it's a no-brainer. And yet...

Part of being a journalist is using your training to spot lies and obvious whack jobs, and dismissing those as credible. If, for example, the Repubs find some time-cube-like guy to support their side, the correct way to report that isn't "Dr. Pants-On-Head, Senior Fellow at Koch Think Tank, rebuts..." but "the Republicans were unable to find anyone credible to back their position." And that is an interesting story, too.

No one in the mainstream seems to do this, instead accepting their roll as "debate moderator", and even then, the moderator knows challenging the right only leads to more lies, so why bother?

And all of that ignores the headline writers, which takes this false equivalence and hands it a bullhorn. Many people will look at a headline, take that as fact, and move on. Headlines are notoriously tilted to favor the right's talking points, to the extent that the headline often relays "information" refuted by the article it is posted over.

If you asked your average citizen about journalists and journalism, their entire exposure to them and it is via the mechanisms above. (I contend my fighty comment is accurate in that context, FWIW.)
posted by maxwelton at 11:05 AM on December 22, 2017 [44 favorites]

I just realized an interesting coincidence. The tax bill is estimated to cost at least $1 Trillion over 10 years (including the BS dynamic scoring; 1.4 more realistically). If 15% of the US is black or black in combination with another race and there are around 125 million households, that means around 20 million black households. If the median wealth in the US is around $45,000 and the median wealth of black households is close to 0 net a few basic assets, that means it would cost about $0.9 Trillion to pay purely economic reparations to fix the wealth gap.

In short, including a bit of overhead for sending out all those checks, it would cost about exactly as much to enact basic economic reparations for blacks in the US as this tax plan costs. Of course, to get black wealth to the level of whites (around $115K) would cost twice as much, plus the costs of the many other things that need reparation. But let's be moderate and realistic here. Now that Republicans have shown us that we can afford $1 Trillion, why not spend the next $1 Trillion on the first round of reparations?
posted by chortly at 11:09 AM on December 22, 2017 [33 favorites]

Still plugging away for her pal Putin.

@CNNPolitics
Jill Stein casts doubt on the intelligence community's findings about Russian interference in the 2016 election and says they should share their evidence with the American public
VIDEO


@CharlesPPierce (Esquire)
Jill Stein is on TV saying that RT is the same as the BBC and the CBC. I, for one, do not feel threatened by Canadian propaganda. I already like hockey and poutine. Please go home now, crazy lady.
posted by chris24 at 11:10 AM on December 22, 2017 [41 favorites]

To brighten your slow pre-holiday Friday afternoon.

NYT: Prosecutors Said to Seek Kushner Records From Deutsche Bank

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have sought bank records about entities associated with the family company of Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, according to four people briefed on the matter.

In recent weeks, prosecutors from the United States attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank, the giant German financial institution that has lent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kushner family real estate business.

Mr. Kushner, who was the Kushner Companies’ chief executive until January, still owns part of the business after selling some of his stake. The family businesses include many legal entities. It is not clear which records were sought by prosecutors, what they are seeking to learn from them or to what degree, if any, they directly involve Mr. Kushner.

There is no indication that the subpoena is related to the investigation being conducted by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, into Russian meddling in the 2016 United States presidential election. Three prosecutors on Mr. Mueller’s team previously worked at the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn, one as recently as this year. Federal prosecutors around the country typically check with Justice Department headquarters when their investigations may overlap.

The Brooklyn United States attorney has been investigating the Kushner businesses’ use of a program known as EB-5. It offers visas to overseas investors in exchange for $500,000 investments in real estate projects.

But Deutsche Bank does not appear to have been involved in Kushner real estate projects financed through the EB-5 program. That suggests the prosecutors’ subpoena may be unrelated to the visa program.

posted by chris24 at 11:19 AM on December 22, 2017 [20 favorites]

Really? After an entire year of extremely critical coverage (but fair) of the Trump administration from the top on down; after an entire year of exhaustively researched and damning investigative piece after investigative piece dropping; after an entire year of the journalists, writ large, telling people actively that Trump is lying

Whoa, now. NPR, for one, has said that they will not say Trump is lying, because to do so would be to presume to know what's going on in his mind -- whether he knows something is false and intends to deceive.

And they, and other news outlets, use milquetoast phrasing like "critics say" most of the Republican tax plan's benefits go to the rich, when it's objectively true by a reading of the bill itself. But by using he-said, she-said construction to report objective reality in contrast to Republican falsehoods, they imply there's room for debate when it's simply a matter of more conservative bad faith.

And again, these practices encourage bad faith. If Republicans won't be called out in the media for falsely claiming most of the benefits of the tax plan, overwhelmingly, go to the rich, they have no incentive at all not to lie to their own constituents -- especially since they have to, as their actual agenda is unpopular.
posted by Gelatin at 11:25 AM on December 22, 2017 [44 favorites]

A heads up: today is the last day to comment at NPS.gov to let them know how you feel about the proposed National Parks fee hikes, which could increase park admission to as much as $70 per visit. You can do so here.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:27 AM on December 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

Dear Obama, please call Sean Spicer every day and request menial tasks. Heck, have him mow the snow all winter. Have him live under a hedge like a Victorian ornamental hermit in rumpled 3-piece. Be creative.

"If President Obama called me right now today and said 'hey, come mow my lawn,' I'd do it because I think that there is something that we all should come together as Americans and want to support our leaders, our elected officials, Republican, Democrat," the former Trump White House press secretary said on the Fox Business Network on Thursday.

posted by Rust Moranis at 11:29 AM on December 22, 2017 [23 favorites]

If journalists are so bad at their jobs, then why does the tax bill poll as one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation in history? How did people learn that it was so bad if not through the media? Osmosis?
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 11:32 AM on December 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

Economist Dean Baker points out a few of the good things that sneaked into the otherwise horrible Republican tax bill -- little something to cheer up progressives. Some of these might be controversial to some folks here, but in general they follow progressive principles.

1. Doubling the standard deduction. This moves the tax code in a direction that eliminates all of the distortions of itemized deductions. Itemized deductions provide distortionary incentives to increase spending in certain deductible categories. It also causes tax returns to be unnecessarily complicated and people to spend time and money on complicated tax returns. You could argue that the standard deduction could be raised even further, but this is a step in the right direction.

2. Limiting the mortgage interest deduction. This deduction primarily favors high income households. It is of little use to lower income people who buy lower cost homes. It also raises the purchase price of homes because the deduction is baked into the price people are willing to pay. It is an unnecessary subsidy that few other countries. For example Canada does not allow the deduction and has a higher percentage of home ownership than the U.S. Phasing this deduction out is a progressive goal.

3. Limiting the business deduction on interest on debt. The new law limited deductibility of interest on borrowed money to 30% of profits for businesses. This will cut into the nefarious activities of private equity firms that buy companies, load them up with debt and then strip out the assets, leaving a worthless carcass. Unfortunately it leaves a loophole for people in the real estate business like Trump, but it is a step in the right direction.

4. Capping the deduction of CEO pay at $1 million. There was a previous cap, but it had a loophole for "performance based compensation". Companies used this loophole to simply redefine pay as bonuses with trivial performance goals. This loophole is eliminated so that all CEO pay is included in the cap. Companies will now have to pay a 21% tax on pay exceeding the cap. Hopefully this will discourage directors from awarding excessive executive pay, but they may just end up screwing shareholders. The cap includes not just the CEO but the four highest paid employees in the company.

5. Taxing CEO pay for non-profits that is above $1 million. There is not reason that taxpayers should subsidize excessive pay for non-profits. Non-profits don't pay income taxes, so the cap would create a new excise tax of 21% on excessive CEO pay for charities and other non-profits. At the top of the list -- Wayne LaPierre of the NRA who is paid $4.5 million per year. Also Jim DeMint of the right wing Heritage Institute who is paid $1.2 million a year. But it also includes some other charities with excessive pay such as Sloan Kettering, Cystic Fibrosis, American Cancer Society, Boy Scouts and Wildlife Conservation Society.

6. 1.4 Percent Tax on College Endowments In Excess of $500,000 per Student. This goes after elite private universities like Harvard, Yale and Stanford that are currently a tax free. There is no reason for taxpayers to subsidize private universities that cater to wealthy legacy students and wealthy elites that contribute to wealth and income inequality. They can afford to pay at least of little of their way (1.5%). Public state universities have a much better record for contributing to social mobility than rich, elite private universities.

Somehow a few good progressive goals slipped into the Republican tax bill. In their haste to push it through they may have tripped up the swarm of lobbyists.
posted by JackFlash at 11:34 AM on December 22, 2017 [33 favorites]

If journalists are so bad at their jobs, then why does the tax bill poll as one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation in history? How did people learn that it was so bad if not through the media? Osmosis?

Just because journalists did their job part of the time doesn’t mean the overall trend is good. We know journalists aren’t doing their jobs well because they’re publishing known propaganda and presenting it as fact, and they’re not challenging false statements or investigating the truth behind those statements. It’s their job to do those things, so that the public gets as complete a picture of the truth as can be ascertained. The fact that this is not only not happening a majority of the time, but that entire arms of the media serve expressly as propaganda channels, demonstrates that the press is bad at their jobs.
posted by Autumnheart at 11:39 AM on December 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

@CNNPolitics
Jill Stein casts doubt on the intelligence community's findings about Russian interference in the 2016 election and says they should share their evidence with the American public

That's a bad faith statement, too, because I'm sure there's no way the intelligence community can share how they know Putin himself ordered the op, and much more.

The intelligence satisfied Obama to the point that he warned Trump's campaign and the leaders of Congress, which briefing would have included whatever information they were cleared for. So let's not let McConnell and Ryan off the hook for pretending Trump isn't a Russian asset.

If journalists are so bad at their jobs, then why does the tax bill poll as one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation in history? How did people learn that it was so bad if not through the media? Osmosis?

Basically? Enough of a narrative got built around it, and Democrats were consistent with their messaging. And the Republicans themselves were at times sloppy, one again, in saying the quiet parts loud -- if memory serves me correctly, Lindsay Graham said that if they didn't pass it, the donor money was shut off, within earshot of someone on Twitter.

That, and the American people who are paying attention probably are learning that Republicans lie every time they open their mouths. But that doesn't excuse substituting "he-said, she-said" stenography, however "balanced" it is, for objective journalism. There's no reason at all to have to tag a statement like "the tax bill is tilted toward the rich" wit "Democrats say," because it's actually in the bill. It's malpractice to let Republicans -- or Democrats too, for that matter -- get away with lying about matters of verifiable fact.

(Another pet peeve" "Senator Soapsuds said he believes the tax cut will prompt economic growth that will offset the deficits and bring jobs and higher wages to working families." Big deal. That's a self-serving belief -- if it's sincere at all -- and there's plenty of objective historical evidence to the contrary, most recently in Kansas. Plus, you know, the Reagan Administration.)
posted by Gelatin at 11:43 AM on December 22, 2017 [10 favorites]

The difference between RT and CBC is that Canadian journalists don't lie awake at night because Justin Trudeau might order their assassination
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:46 AM on December 22, 2017 [50 favorites]

That American news media has failed to normalise Trump and Republican looting is probably more a factor of how blatant and awful those things are than an indication that they haven't been trying o do so. Depicting what is going on as business as usual is an impossible task, and one they've received no assistance on from Trump, but it's pretty apparent how hard they've been trying. Comparisons to centrist Dems trying to play nice very much appropriate.

TBH I don't know that we should be hanging on this on "journalists", per se... most of them probably know full well the editorial direction handed down to them is garbage .
posted by Artw at 11:47 AM on December 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

TBH I don't know that we should be hanging on this on "journalists", per se... most of them probably know full well the editorial direction handed down to them is garbage

I agree we could drop the journalism tangent, but I doubt Steve Inskeep, for one, is as awful an interviewer as he is because of editorial direction.

(Going back to the previous discussion upthread, if I may, NPR reporters will interrupt a speaker to note that, say, Koch or Kaspersky Labs is an NPR sponsor, but somehow they never disclose that they make $300K a year when they're interviewing a Republican poised to give them a huge tax cut. Hmph.)

Part of the problem is that defending truth and objective reality is an inherently political task when one side is so hellbent on distorting it, and the media is desperate to be seen as neutral arbiters, despite the fact that conservatives have given themselves permission to disbelieve any inconvenient facts they report thanks to the decades-long "liberal media" messaging project.
posted by Gelatin at 11:55 AM on December 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

> Jill Stein casts doubt on the intelligence community's findings about Russian interference in the 2016 election and says they should share their evidence with the American public

Wow. Until now, I'd been thinking of Jill Stein as someone who had been taken advantage of - an useful idiot. Now it looks like she's an actively malicious troll. Or a Russian agent, but maybe I repeat myself.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:55 AM on December 22, 2017 [28 favorites]

(And, so as not to abuse the edit window, the bit my journalism teacher said about the fact that one's source is lying is the story, even when they do note something isn't true or is disputed, the rarely follow up and connect the dots -- they're lying because they themselves seem to think that they can't achieve their agenda by telling the truth, so what are they hiding? )
posted by Gelatin at 11:58 AM on December 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Everything about Stein during the election screamed of bad faith and/or worse. I don't know how much to say of that without relitigating, but her Russian connection was out there all along. Whether or not that explained her behavior, I never really knew, but it certainly was one effective explanation.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:00 PM on December 22, 2017 [21 favorites]

With Tax Cuts Passed, Maybe There's Nothing Left of Conservatism Except the Trump Cult

The little girl who thanks President Trump "for letting us say 'Merry Christmas' again" in this extremely early campaign ad is getting a lot of attention: [...]

Charlie Pierce writes, "There's more than a little North Korea in this one." He's right, except for one thing: North Koreans are compelled to pay homage to the Dear Leader, and there are very serious consequences if they fall short in this effort. Members of the intended audience for this ad joined the personality cult voluntarily. [...]

Going into 2018, Democrats will be told by many Very Serious Pundits that they need a plan of action in order to win over voters. But Republicans won't have a plan of action -- all they'll have is "Trump is awesome and liberals suck!" Conservatism shrank itself down to a single idea -- tax cuts -- and now that the cuts are on the books, there's just Trump worship. I don't think voluntary North Korea-ism is going to hold the House (maybe the Senate), but we'll see.

posted by tonycpsu at 12:08 PM on December 22, 2017 [10 favorites]

The whole “they should share their evidence with the American public” angle is something repeated by Republicans all the time. A friend of mine actually told me “there’s no evidence that Russia interfered with the election” and I pointed him toward the public link of the DNI’s report titled “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections.” It begins with a couple of pages of background information explaining that this is the declassified version of a highly classified document, and that typically the intelligence can’t be fully relayed to the public because it would imperil the people who gathered the intelligence. This is a losing argument for those of us who believe the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian engagement in our election, because even if you show them the overwhelming evidence, they are able to blow it off because we don’t have every. single. quantum. of data. that went into attaining this evidence. Oh also “these are the same people who told us Iraq had WMDs!!!!!”

(If you want to read this document yourself, you can find it here!!!!!!!!)

ALL of this completely ignores the ludicrous amounts of media coverage and multiple investigations AS WELL AS REPEATED TESTIMONIES BY HIGH UP OFFICIALS (Comey literally testified that Russia meddled in the election ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) AND the fact that multiple European intelligence agencies were the ones that said “there is significant contact between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence sources”, entirely independent of our intelligence services.

And to be broadly cynical (because I really believe the Republicans and people like Jill Stein are totally bought off by Russian intelligence), I’m sure they would all just looooove it if every single bit of information were put out there because it wouldn’t change their minds whatsoever and it’d give up crucial intelligence officials who gained that information for us, something that the Republicans consistently and flagrantly do and enable. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
posted by gucci mane at 12:11 PM on December 22, 2017 [28 favorites]

A heads up: today is the last day to comment at NPS.gov to let them know how you feel about the proposed National Parks fee hikes, which could increase park admission to as much as $70 per visit. -- posted by atom eyes

They propose raising park admission fees for individual carloads of people (which I am against). But they also propose raising the annual fees for commercial tour vehicles ("The NPS has not updated the commercial tour entrance fee schedule since implementation in 1998"), and you can comment on that here.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:16 PM on December 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

> In 11 months, this president has changed the entire complexion of our entire country and our place in the world.

He sure has!
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:19 PM on December 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

I think Stein has been seeking destruction of the Democratic party ever since Democrats in the Massachusetts state government shot down a campaign finance reform referendum that she worked on. Or something. Her end game is to effect change at the helm of a fattened Green party built from the pieces of the Democratic party, after it fractures, because Lincoln somethingsomething and so on.

Also Putin asked her softball questions about American politics so she thinks he's nice.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:20 PM on December 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

“there’s no evidence that Russia interfered with the election” and I pointed him toward the public link of the DNI’s report titled “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections.”

Feel free to also point him here...

There is plenty of evidence that HAS been shared.
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:21 PM on December 22, 2017 [16 favorites]

I send people to that link all the time, but I can tell that none of them read it.
posted by gucci mane at 12:23 PM on December 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think Stein has been seeking destruction of the Democratic party ever since Democrats in the Massachusetts state government shot down a campaign finance reform referendum that she worked on. Or something. Her end game is to effect change at the helm of a fattened Green party built from the pieces of the Democratic party, after it fractures, because Lincoln somethingsomething and so on.

I can understand wanting to join a party to the left of the Democrats - maybe not so much now, but in the 90's when the Dems pivoted hard to the center and there was a political vacuum on the left, the Greens could have rushed in to fill it - by doing what the DSA are now, entering local races and helping people out on a local level by fixing taillights and paying landlord fines and so on. But noooooo, all they do is mount a quixotic Presidential bid every four years and disappear completely the rest of the time. To hell with the Greens. I think the DSA is where it's at now if you want a left-of-the-Democrats party.

And don't get me started on the "burn it all down" types. "You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs" is the rationale that Fred the Commander gave in The Handmaid's Tale (said to one of the "eggs" that got broken.) If you start sounding like one of the Commanders, you might want to rethink your strategy.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 12:53 PM on December 22, 2017 [39 favorites]

NYT: Trump Promised to Protect Steel. Layoffs Are Coming Instead.

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. — At this sprawling steel mill on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the workers have one number in mind. Not how many tons of steel roll off the line, or how many hours they work, but where they fall on the plant’s seniority list.

In September, ArcelorMittal, which owns the mill, announced that it would lay off 150 of the plant’s 207 workers next year. While the cuts will start with the most junior employees, they will go so deep that even workers with decades of experience will be cast out.

[...]

The layoffs have stunned these steelworkers who, just a year ago, greeted President Trump’s election as a new dawn for their industry. Mr. Trump pledged to build roads and bridges, strengthen “Buy America” provisions, protect factories from unfair imports and revive industry, especially steel.

But after a year in office, Mr. Trump has not enacted these policies. And when it comes to steel, his failure to follow through on a promise has had unintended consequences.

Foreign steel makers have rushed to get their product into the United States before tariffs start. According to the American Iron and Steel Institute, which tracks shipments, steel imports were 19.4 percent higher in the first 10 months of 2017 than in the same period last year.

Happy Holidays from history's greatest deal maker ever.
posted by notyou at 1:00 PM on December 22, 2017 [53 favorites]

WaPo, David Nakamura and Lisa Rein, It’s ‘very gold’: The presidential coin undergoes a Trumpian makeover. You have to see this monstrosity and scroll down to compare it to past versions.

For two decades, the commander in chief has doled out distinguished-looking coins as personal mementos. Now, the presidential “challenge coin” has undergone a Trumpian transformation.

The presidential seal has been replaced by an eagle bearing President Trump’s signature. The eagle’s head faces right, not left, as on the seal. The 13 arrows representing the original states have disappeared. And the national motto, “E pluribus unum” — a Latin phrase that means “Out of many, one” — is gone.

Instead, both sides of the coin feature Trump’s official campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

The changes don’t stop there. In addition to his signature, Trump’s name appears three times on the coin, which is thicker than those made for past presidents. And forget the traditional subdued silver and copper: Trump’s coin, a White House aide marveled, is “very gold.”

posted by zachlipton at 1:02 PM on December 22, 2017 [27 favorites]

Jill Stein casts doubt on the intelligence community's findings about Russian interference in the 2016 election and says they should share their evidence with the American public

I mean, there is a real problem here, in that it's not possible for the state to share all their information, and it's not really possible for private citizens to evaluate it accurately in any case. So we really are in a position where we're taking something fairly serious on faith, and faith in a government that is pretty sketchy, and faith in bureaus that have, historically, not been especially democratic. The US government has made up plenty of bullshit propaganda for consumption at home and abroad, plenty of it about the USSR-that-was, so I think it's reasonable to apply a fairly high standard to this whole Trump/Russia connection.

And yet there seems to be quite a lot of disparate evidence from global sources that Trump et al have some shady connections with Putin, and there definitely were various attempts to skew the election by Russian entities; this doesn't seem made up out of whole cloth. I think that a reasonable person can, at this point, put at least some faith in the story, and I think that Stein-like total skepticism is misplaced, despite the fact that the US government does lie a lot. I mean, the US government is also assumed to produce a bunch of relatively reliable information about the economy and so on - it's not as though (prior to Trump, anyway) we were in the habit of assuming that just because the US government says it, it's a big old lie.

My perception is that we're dealing with a situation that is such an outlier that some perfectly sincere and informed people on the left are having trouble dealing with it. Based on the past, you expect the US to be using its official media and a lot of behind-the-scenes money and effort to tamper with other countries' elections. You expect other countries' elites to be in the pocket of the US. From Chile to Greece to Indonesia, you expect that we are the Big Bad, and it's because we've been. I think that for a lot of people the current situation seems so unlikely that it can't be true.

I also think that many people are plausibly worried about the right wing of the Democratic party creating a "New Cold War" nationalist mentality as a way of quieting critics within and without the party. I feel like I'm seeing this a little bit in mainstream liberal media. It seems worth remembering that during the old Cold War, it could simultaneously be true that the US was a paranoid right-wing country fostering red scares in the interest of the right wing and that the USSR did suppress dissent, crush Prague Spring, etc. My sense is that it was very easy for people's moral compasses to become confused in that situation, and I think that it isn't totally out of line to worry about that same thing now.

As to Jill Stein, I still tend to think that she is an honest actor, because she's not saying anything really different from some other people I know on the left who I'm pretty sure are not in the pocket of Russia. I mean, consider for instance that there were plenty of American communists who were apologists for Stalin in the 30s. They weren't being paid off by Moscow, they weren't monsters, in their private lives they were probably actually somewhat better than average in terms of organizing for labor and racial justice. They were just wrong, entirely off their own bats.
posted by Frowner at 1:10 PM on December 22, 2017 [13 favorites]

From that coin article:

Spicer estimated he ordered several hundred of his own coins, paying for them personally. He said he recently gave one to a pilot on a commercial flight who had served in the Air Force.

“If you get it, you understand the importance of it,” Spicer said.

If you look at the pictures, trump's coin is gold, twice as thick, has a political campaign slogan, and has his stupid name plastered on a banner on the bottom. He obviously does neither "gets it", nor does he have any understanding of the importance it carries to people.

It's not even coin shaped. It's disgraceful. He can't even keep from ruining the tradition of challenge coins.
posted by mrgoat at 1:18 PM on December 22, 2017 [29 favorites]

> The presidential coin undergoes a Trumpian makeover.

The article doesn't say anything about it, but I'm honestly amazed Trump's face isn't on the coin. Maybe they told him that was more of an Obama idea.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:18 PM on December 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

Do you think the writers stopped for even a second to ask whether replacing E pluribus unum with MAGA was entirely too on the nose? (I mean the writers of our reality; I know the clowns who designed this thing didn't.)
posted by zachlipton at 1:21 PM on December 22, 2017 [13 favorites]

Good lord that coin.

Hey! I just discovered this highly relevant Atlantic article from 2007 talking about the 2016 election (via MeFi's "random" feature). It makes a number of super-interesting predictions. Have a trip down memory lane!
posted by aspersioncast at 1:23 PM on December 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

Oh, and the Metafilter commentary on the article (actually from 2005) is also quite interesting.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:24 PM on December 22, 2017

To give an idea of how badly the US threat to the UN over the Jerusalem vote has gone, here's the government of Botswana (one of the more Western hemisphere aligned countries on the continent) giving an absolute blistering reply.
posted by PenDevil at 1:25 PM on December 22, 2017 [29 favorites]

The layoffs have stunned these steelworkers who, just a year ago, greeted President Trump’s election as a new dawn for their industry. Mr. Trump pledged to build roads and bridges, strengthen “Buy America” provisions, protect factories from unfair imports and revive industry, especially steel.

But after a year in office, Mr. Trump has not enacted these policies. And when it comes to steel, his failure to follow through on a promise has had unintended consequences.

If memory serves me correctly, there was a theme running thru the constant "Trump Voters Still Love Him" profiles to the effect of "Well, some of the things he has done are troubling, but I'm willing to give him a chance to make good on his promises!"

This is what some of them got.
posted by Gelatin at 1:33 PM on December 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

Josh Dawsey‏ (@jdawsey1)
In line with coin changes, Hill aide sent me the Trump Christmas card. Person said it was about the size of a take-out menu.
PHOTO

posted by jazon at 1:40 PM on December 22, 2017 [10 favorites]

Spicer estimated he ordered several hundred of his own coins, paying for them personally. He said he recently gave one to a pilot on a commercial flight who had served in the Air Force.

“If you get it, you understand the importance of it,” Spicer said.

Yep, if someone pulled one of those out of their pocket (or more probably, had their manservant produce it at the snap of a finger) I would absolutely take the meaning of them being the kind of person who would have that on them.

I got $20 says Sheriff Clark has that thing pinned to his chest by Sunday.
posted by phearlez at 1:44 PM on December 22, 2017 [32 favorites]

(because I really believe the Republicans and people like Jill Stein are totally bought off by Russian intelligence)

I don't think Republicans would need Russian money to try to run cover for the leader of their party, however loathsome they may privately find him, and I don't think Jill Stein would need Russian money to demand concrete evidence for the charge that her presidential run was a foreign psyop. When it all shakes out, I'm sure we'll find that some high-ups really have taken Russian money, but Republicans have been evil for a long time, and America's third parties are too well obstructed by America's laws to constitute more than a marginal threat to the two big ones.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:44 PM on December 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

“For the commander in chief to give a political token with a campaign slogan on it to military officers would violate the important principle of separating the military from politics, as well as diminishing the tradition of the coin,” said Trevor Potter, a Republican former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

Challenge coins are primarily a military tradition, a way of transmitting pride in your unit or placement by giving them away. So of course Trump ignores all that & turns it into another reflection of the glory of his name. He'd make all coins, bills too for that matter, bear his name if he could get away with it.
posted by scalefree at 1:50 PM on December 22, 2017 [21 favorites]

Exactly. He made his coin, specifically, represent being a sycophant who disrespects military tradition. I hope anyone presenting that coin in a challenge is met with a penny and told to buy the next round.
posted by mrgoat at 1:56 PM on December 22, 2017 [25 favorites]

The eagle’s head faces right, not left, as on the seal.

if I have my eagle coin facts right, that means that on Trump's coin the eagle is looking at the arrows as opposed to the peace boughs or hemp or whatever the fuck, right?

that's actually effective assholery. I might respect it except the entirety is a monstrosity. I guess Obama has tainted for Trump the shape of a circle so Trump's coin has to look like some weird holiday pendent.
posted by angrycat at 2:00 PM on December 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

> As to Jill Stein, I still tend to think that she is an honest actor, because she's not saying anything really different from some other people I know on the left who I'm pretty sure are not in the pocket of Russia.

Acknowledging the US's history of meddling in other countries is one thing, but I would expect someone who approaches the situation honestly to take that to mean that both Washington and Moscow are likely doing these things. Jill Stein, on the other hand, calls the idea of Russian meddling a "ludicrous Russia conspiracy theory." Do these other people you know on the left use this sort of language? If so, are they only using it to cast doubts on claims against Russia, but express no such mockery and disdain toward those who make unverified (and in many cases unverifiable) claims about US meddling?

A true honest actor who has an appreciation of the history of both countries would not cast doubts in either direction. Stein, as far as I can tell, reserves her contempt for those who believe Putin had a hand in the US election. Her vested interest in undermining the political system here is self-evident -- no Russian payments or promises need to be made for her to feel compelled to advance Russian interests in a way that's far from honest.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:08 PM on December 22, 2017 [24 favorites]

I also think that many people are plausibly worried about the right wing of the Democratic party creating a "New Cold War" nationalist mentality as a way of quieting critics within and without the party.

We are absolutely already in a "New Cold War," unless one argues the old one never really ended. This isn't a matter of Democrats or Republicans declaring it. Putin decided it was Cold War time again, and he did it years ago.

I agree that trying to use a Cold War footing as a way to silence criticism in and outside the Democratic party is bad. (I'm also not trying to criticize Frowner's original comment.) But that's a matter of behavioral ethics, IMHO. We're still at a point where too many people need a hard slap of reality, both Republicans and Democrats, because there's no "threat" of a new Cold War. It's already here. We need to start treating this like the reality it is -- hopefully not with the shitty behavior of the past, but denying the reality of it isn't doing us any favors.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:27 PM on December 22, 2017 [14 favorites]

Her vested interest in undermining the political system here is self-evident -- no Russian payments or promises need to be made for her to feel compelled to advance Russian interests in a way that's far from honest.

So Stein, by running for the presidency and criticizing the other parties in the race, as you do in an election, not only undermined the political system, but also, without necessarily exchanging money for service, advanced Russian foreign policy when she later demanded clear evidence of wrongdoing on her part from agencies which have repeatedly proven themselves not to be trustworthy, particularly regarding left-wing figures and their ties to other countries.

Her total denial of Trump's association with the Russian government, at this point, is untenable and silly, and in fairness to you, kind of suspicious, but "suspicious" doesn't mean "guilty."
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:28 PM on December 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

NT Alexandra Petri, WaPo: Please, Disney, remove 2017 from canon

Dear Walt Disney Co. (I assume the Walt Disney Co. owns this creative property, as it owns every other),

I am a lifelong lover of America. I grew up in this fandom. I read the more than 260 associated books, listened to the John Philip Sousa score and eagerly awaited each year’s new installment of this thrilling saga.

To me, and millions of other fans, America has long been a story about two things: a grand experiment in self-government and the conviction that, over time, we were becoming less racist.

In 2016, after almost 250 years where we followed that great and heroic adventure, you decided to strike big chunks from that narrative. You took everyone we actually liked — Carrie Fisher, Prince — and introduced the character of President Trump. This was a bold and dramatic move, and we were worried but assumed you had a plan.

2017 was a travesty. It completely destroyed the legacy of so many characters we’ve come to know and love. Please, Disney, strike it from the canon so we can start over.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:30 PM on December 22, 2017 [50 favorites]

To be fair, Trump's approval polling is currently 8 points higher than Jar Jar Binks*.
posted by peeedro at 2:35 PM on December 22, 2017 [14 favorites]

"If President Obama called me right now today and said 'hey, come mow my lawn,' I'd do it because I think that there is something that we all should come together as Americans and want to support our leaders, our elected officials, Republican, Democrat," the former Trump White House press secretary said on the Fox Business Network on Thursday.

Oh my god Sean Spicer you are the ultimate sycophant. Like your idea of a reasonable request from a leader is "come mow my lawn" and it fills your head with stirring montages of eagles and flags. I can't wait to someday read about the ways Trump shamed and debased this guy, it would not surprise me if he had to eat the meatloaf while wearing the bunny costume and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:36 PM on December 22, 2017 [23 favorites]

> So Stein, by running for the presidency and criticizing the other parties in the race, as you do in an election, not only undermined the political system, but also, without necessarily exchanging money for service, advanced Russian foreign policy when she later demanded clear evidence of wrongdoing on her part from agencies which have repeatedly proven themselves not to be trustworthy, particularly regarding left-wing figures and their ties to other countries.

I didn't say anything about her campaign activities. The comment I'm talking about was made in July of 2017 -- long after credible evidence of ties between senior Trump officials and Putin had been established.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:38 PM on December 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

If anyone's interested, Rolling Stone did a piece on how Bob Corker entered the Senate owing a few million in debt to being the fourth richest man in the Senate.

Ten years before reporters would swarm over Trump for (among other things) raising fees at his Mar-a-Lago resorts before making a series of taxpayer-funded visits, Corker tested the limits of the profiteering possibilities in the legislative branch, essentially becoming a full-time day-trader who did a little Senator-ing in his spare time.

In the first nine months of 2007, Corker made an incredible 1,200 trades, over four per day, including 332 over a two-day period.

posted by xyzzy at 2:38 PM on December 22, 2017 [50 favorites]

6. 1.4 Percent Tax on College Endowments In Excess of $500,000 per Student. This goes after elite private universities like Harvard, Yale and Stanford that are currently a tax free. There is no reason for taxpayers to subsidize private universities that cater to wealthy legacy students and wealthy elites that contribute to wealth and income inequality. They can afford to pay at least of little of their way (1.5%). Public state universities have a much better record for contributing to social mobility than rich, elite private universities.

Top research universities do have other purposes than to contribute to social mobility. I usually love Dean Baker but this sounds like race-to-the-bottom thinking.
posted by Ralston McTodd at 3:06 PM on December 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

They're handling him like a child-king. This era makes me wish I'd studied late Medieval-early Modern royal courts more; I bet historians specializing in courtier culture are pretty fascinated these days.

Jeff Zeleny, CNN: Trump wanted to have a news conference but aides convinced him otherwise

As reporters kept pressing Trump, aides moved closer and closer to the Resolute Desk, gently prodding reporters and photographers to leave the Oval Office. With the President still talking, chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and other officials stood in front of the desk, all but blocking Trump's view.

Finally, White House chief of staff John Kelly also joined in and asked the press to leave, saying: "Helicopter is running out of gas," referring to Marine One that was waiting to take the President to Air Force One.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:18 PM on December 22, 2017 [29 favorites]

Top research universities do have other purposes than to contribute to social mobility. I usually love Dean Baker but this sounds like race-to-the-bottom thinking.

70% of Harvard's graduating seniors submit resumes to Wall Street and 50% end up taking jobs there. Less than 9% go into any kind of government or public service. That's who taxpayers should be subsidizing through charity deductions and non-profit endowments?

The median family income of Harvard students is $170,000. 67% of Harvard students come from the top 20% of household incomes. Less than 5% come from the bottom 20%. That is the people taxpayers should be subsidizing?

Most research occurs in public universities at places such as UC Berkeley, UCLA, U Wisconsin, U Washington, U Texas, U Michigan and many other outstanding public research institutions. No need to treat as charities elite private schools used primarily by the wealthy elite to propagate more generations of wealthy elite. Public research institutions could do fine without them.

And here you can read Matthew Yglesias, a Harvard graduate explain Seriously, Don't Give Money to Fancy Colleges.
posted by JackFlash at 3:59 PM on December 22, 2017 [29 favorites]

NYT: Prosecutors Said to Seek Kushner Records From Deutsche Bank

Incidentally, Newsweek has published a deep-dive by British journalist Luke Harding into Deutsche Bank's longstanding associations with Trump and Kushner and with the Russian oligarchy and their preferred financial institution, VTB, a.k.a. "the Bank of Spies", Is Donald Trump’s Dark Russian Secret Hiding in Deutsche Bank’s Vaults? (The article is adapted from Harding's recent Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win.)

Although it doesn't produce a smoking gun, it does lay out in detail how Deutsche Bank, following the 2008 financial crash, was illicitly moving massive amounts of oligarchs' money out of Russia at the very same time that it generously loaned hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump—who was shunned by every bank on Wall Street by that point but whose real estate organization was laundering Moscow money.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:02 PM on December 22, 2017 [12 favorites]

The 9th Circuit has found Trump's 3rd travel ban (the current active one) violates federal law, but has stayed its ruling pending review by the Supreme Court. Here's the per curiam decision.
posted by zachlipton at 4:18 PM on December 22, 2017 [23 favorites]

Of course, Gorsuch will recuse himself from ruling on the travel ban, on the grounds that trump put him there with the express expectation of loyalty.

No, wait, the other thing.
posted by mrgoat at 4:23 PM on December 22, 2017 [18 favorites]

Some cold comfort from Daniel Dale, Toronto Star: Donald Trump has spent a year lying shamelessly. It hasn’t worked

The polls are consistent: there are nearly twice as many Americans who think Trump is dishonest (just under two thirds of the public) than think he is honest (just over one third of the public). And the gap might be growing a bit: Trump’s performance in a November CNN poll — 34 per cent called him honest and trustworthy, 64 per cent said he was not — was the worst he had done in a CNN honesty poll since 2015.

Critically, the numbers are even worse for Trump on policy. When it comes to legislation, even many of his own voters are not buying his lies. Other voters, meanwhile, are believing almost nothing he says.

Trump touted his health-care bills as a miracle cure for Obamacare, a “wonderful” marvel that would provide better care at a lower cost. The bills, in fact loathed by experts, had the support of less than 20 per cent of the public. Trump has called his tax legislation a “big, beautiful Christmas present” for everyday Americans. That bill, in fact aimed primarily at the wealthy, has been mired in the mid-30s and lower.

“Really, the story is he says things and they’re just generally disbelieved by a majority of the country,” Tanden said. “I think people have kind of confused Trump’s base with the majority of Americans. These are not one and the same. (The lying) doesn’t seem to matter to his voters, but it matters to the country.”

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:41 PM on December 22, 2017 [29 favorites]

Catherine Rampell, WaPo: You own this tax bill, Republicans. Good luck.

Let’s say, though, that Republicans are right, and people do notice their taxes falling in 2018. Even then it’s not clear they’ll sweeten on the Trump plan.

In fact, they may sour on it further.

Despite what Republican legislative priorities suggest, most Americans . . . don’t care all that much if their taxes go down. As Brookings Institution scholar Vanessa Williamson has shown, Americans don’t exactly love paying taxes, but they regard doing so as their civic duty. To the extent they care about the system, they’re primarily mad that others are shirking this duty.

The thing that bothers Americans most about the tax system is “the feeling that some corporations don’t pay their fair share,” according to a recent Pew Research Center poll. This was followed by the feeling that “some wealthy people are not paying their fair share.” Next, tax-code complexity.

Then, in fourth place, was the amount they personally pay in taxes.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:47 PM on December 22, 2017 [44 favorites]

"Helicopter is running out of gas" is the new "KSSSHHHHHHHCRACKLECRACKLE sorry you're breaking up <click>"
posted by contraption at 4:49 PM on December 22, 2017 [21 favorites]

JackFlash, I certainly won't go out of my way to defend Harvard, but I tend to think of it as a massive research institution with a college for (mostly) rich kids attached to it rather than the other way around. It usually seems like the media (and apparently Matt Yglesias, and definitely the undergrads) think it's all about the college kids. There are many good criticisms to be made of Harvard and similar institutions, but that's better done from a somewhat wider perspective.
posted by uosuaq at 5:19 PM on December 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

I certainly won't go out of my way to defend Harvard, but I tend to think of it as a massive research institution with a college for (mostly) rich kids attached to it rather than the other way around.

Fine, then make a sharp financial separation between the undergraduate and research institutions. As it is, you could make the progressive argument that sending 50% of your undergraduates to Wall Street is actively making the world a worse place. Taxpayers should not be subsidizing their own looting by bankers.
posted by JackFlash at 5:42 PM on December 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

There are far better fights to have than pretending a Republican plot to use the tax code to punish around the 30 wealthiest private universities in the country for perceived liberalism has anything to do with progressive goals of improving social mobility. You want to discuss policy that would pressure colleges to use more of their endowments to help students, that's wonderful, but don't kid yourself that this was about anything other than sneering at the elites at fancy schools by skimming their endowments to help finance a corporate tax cut.

(Ending the tax-deductible donation for athletic tickets loophole though, that I can wholeheartedly support.)
posted by zachlipton at 5:59 PM on December 22, 2017 [21 favorites]

Politico, Annie Karni, Trump-supporting singer claims Lewandowski slapped her butt at recent party

President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, has been accused of unwanted touching by a singer and longtime Trump supporter whose potential “MAGA”-inspired congressional bid in Florida has been endorsed by the president himself.

Joy Villa – who drew headlines for wearing a “Make America Great Again” dress to the Grammys earlier this year – was celebrating the president’s first year in office at a holiday party at the Trump International Hotel in Washington in late November when he slapped her behind. After she objected, he dismissed her concerns and slapped her behind again, Villa said in an interview Friday.
...
In the moment, Villa said, she confronted him. “I said, ‘Watch it.’ Half-joking, I said, ‘I can report you for sexual harassment.’”

Lewandowski’s response, she said, was almost as shocking as the original slap.

“He said, ‘Go ahead, I work in the private sector,’” Villa recalled. “Then he smacks my ass again.” Villa’s recollection of the incident was corroborated by a friend who witnessed the exchange. The friend said he wished to remain anonymous, in part because of Lewandowski’s continued influence in Trump circles.

Lewandowski was at the White House this week, getting into a fight with Bill Stepien about their midterms strategy, and has been rumored for a job in the administration. He was also charged with battery (the charges were dismissed) for grabbing Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields at a campaign event, then claimed it never happened despite being caught on tape. Villa is considering a run for Congress and is being advised by Roger Stone.
posted by zachlipton at 6:03 PM on December 22, 2017 [19 favorites]

don't kid yourself that this was about anything other than sneering at the elites at fancy schools

I'm not kidding myself at all about Republican evil motives. The point of the original post was to point out that Republicans in this hasty horrible mess may have accidentally advanced progressive policies in a few small areas as listed above.
posted by JackFlash at 6:08 PM on December 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

For what it's worth, Michigan doesn't do a lot better than Harvard when it comes to educational inequality: The median family income of a student at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is $154,000, and 66% come from the top 20 percent. 3.6% come from the bottom 20%. The average income percentile at Michigan is actually 1% higher than at Harvard.

We've got a huge problem with equality of opportunity in elite education, and it's not just at private universities, unfortunately.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:15 PM on December 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

How does taxing Harvard's endowment improve social mobility? Will the money go to expand access to higher education someplace else? State college systems? Scholarships and grants? Early childhood and K-12 education so more students are prepared for college? Literally anything to do with education or social mobility at all?

I'm not in any way a fan of the fact that some of our most prestigious private universities are effectively hedge funds with some education and research as a side gig, but there has to be more to progressive policies than simply identifying people with money, putting some of their money in the general fund, and walking away. Republicans did a bad thing for bad reasons here, which shouldn't be confused with a hypothetical good thing they could have done instead.
posted by zachlipton at 6:24 PM on December 22, 2017 [12 favorites]

For two decades, the commander in chief has doled out distinguished-looking coins as personal mementos.

I renew my longstanding objection to using "commander in chief" as a synonym for "president." I'm not in the military; I do not have a commander in chief.

According to the Constitution, "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."
posted by kirkaracha at 6:37 PM on December 22, 2017 [35 favorites]

> there has to be more to progressive policies than simply identifying people with money, putting some of their money in the general fund, and walking away.

There's more to building a house than buying the materials, but good luck building one without them. Wasteful tax expenditures are wasteful tax expenditures.

The motives matter less to me than the outcome, and even if there are far more harmful subsidies and carve-outs on the books, this was one of them, and it's gone. Where those funds go is irrelevant to whether taxing them is a good idea, as money is fungible. Under Republican control, federal funds tend to get redirected to bad things, and under Democratic control, to somewhat better things. But this is some money that Democratic congresses of the future (hey, I'm an optimist) won't have to go searching for in order to spend on those somewhat better things. That's a small but notable victory.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:42 PM on December 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

there has to be more to progressive policies than simply identifying people with money, putting some of their money in the general fund, and walking away.

It's a start.

Heck, in many perfectly reasonable economic models, simply taking money from the rich and burning it will increase overall social welfare.
posted by chortly at 6:46 PM on December 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

It's hilarious how un coin like the Cheeto's "coin" is. I'm not a numismatist but I don't recall any coins that don't have radial symmetry (leaving aside things like the 11 subtle flats on the edges of a Loony). Even those massive stone coins were round.
posted by Mitheral at 6:49 PM on December 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

That coin is so gaudy, I fully expect it to be for sale on the Trump campaign website.

Which, honestly, is just fine with me. Challenge coins are a way of signaling. Anyone with one of these is definitely broadcasting an important piece of information.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 6:59 PM on December 22, 2017 [9 favorites]

(also, his dumb coin has the eagle facing the wrong way. The way he's got it is the same way the Nazi eagle was facing.)
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:01 PM on December 22, 2017 [22 favorites]

> (also, his dumb coin has the eagle facing the wrong way. The way he's got it is the same way the Nazi eagle was facing.)

Well, if the Marschstiefel fits...
posted by tonycpsu at 7:05 PM on December 22, 2017 [22 favorites]

Which, honestly, is just fine with me. Challenge coins are a way of signaling. Anyone with one of these is definitely broadcasting an important piece of information.

True that. Just remembered I've seen & held a George W Bush Presidential challenge coin, given by W to an Army sniper who's a sometimes drinking buddy of mine when he's in country. It was an impressive companion piece to the medal he was awarded that day. Trump's gaudy bauble just doesn't measure up.
posted by scalefree at 7:23 PM on December 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

his dumb coin has the eagle facing the wrong way.

It's not a mistake.
posted by mrgoat at 7:27 PM on December 22, 2017 [36 favorites]

Trump's is twice as thick as Obama's.
His challenge coin, of course. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:29 PM on December 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Sorry, I just can't resist this one. Here's a little useful commentary on challenge coins.
posted by Slinga at 8:19 PM on December 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

The same people have been going after public universities for not doing their jobs properly and “only” doing research.

Dividing high powered research universities into “good” and “bad” classes is a way to divide and conquer. It’s a terrible idea, and we shouldn’t be buying into it.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 8:28 PM on December 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

soundguy99: "While I'm no statistician, how that particular poll counts "likely voters" seems a little off, and thus the conclusion may not be quite as stated."

Typically, Rs do better in likely voter than in registered voter, and even more so in midterms (rich, older, white people tend to turn out). However, the evidence we've seen from actual elections in 2017 is that the standard likely voter screens are off, and a lot of voters who are either totally new or were presidential-only voters are turning out, and they're voting D. See this HuffPost article, and also a brief thread from @ElectProject.

Also, I note that Trump is bleeding support even in states that voted for him.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:13 PM on December 22, 2017 [9 favorites]

Paul Ryan Confident American People Will Warm Up To Tax Plan Once They Realize Life A Cruel And Meaningless Farce

The Onion struggling to stay one step ahead of reality.
posted by Talez at 12:21 AM on December 23, 2017 [47 favorites]

Mod note: A few deleted. The private vs public university tax discussion (and some confusion about grad student stipends) was sort of taking over the thread. Maybe a separate post on this topic if there's a lot more to dig into?
posted by taz (staff) at 4:49 AM on December 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

While I'm no statistician, how that particular poll counts "likely voters" seems a little off, and thus the conclusion may not be quite as stated.

It is -- voting recently is typically just one component of a likely voter screen. One can reasonably expect that some of the low-probability voters that crawled out from under rocks to vote for overt white supremacy are going to crawl back underneath it. And right now we'd expect a fair number of people we'd usually consider low-probability Democratic voters are going to turn the fuck out in 2018/2020.

Still, the only difference is that they should say "2016 voter" instead of "likely voter."
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:49 AM on December 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Russian submarines are prowling around vital undersea cables. It’s making NATO nervous.
Washington Post, Michael Birnbaum

Folks, I'm scared.
posted by jointhedance at 6:00 AM on December 23, 2017 [11 favorites]

AT&T has decided to be this season's Carrier, and announced it will pay its employees $1,000 bonuses to celebrate the tax bill passing. Can't wait for the other shoe to drop there.

That didn't take long. AT&T Boss Touts Big Employee Bonuses Amid Job Cuts (NY Post)

"Merry Christmas, soon-to-be-unemployed proles!"
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:37 AM on December 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

> “It just seems funny that if they are going to create 7,000 jobs, why it is necessary to lay off 215 Southeast workers?” one of the skilled technicians griped to The Post.

SPOILER: They are not going to create 7,000 jobs.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:42 AM on December 23, 2017 [17 favorites]

Folks, I'm scared.

It's concerning, but not terrifying - something else to keep an eye on. Any actual concerted attack on international Internet infrastructure would be a very serious act of aggression, and would rapidly lead to enormous escalation, so it's very unlikely, except in the context of having plenty of other things to worry about at the same time. It's conceivable that a line might get cut surreptitiously - breakages happen, and it's not always obvious why - but that would be a very risky thing to do for not much gain.

As for tapping and monitoring, well, that's part of a huge spectrum of covert activities that may or may not be going on. You deal with it as part of a broad range of security measures.

It's notable that things are ratcheting up. The UK is reactivating Cold War NATO marine surveillance systems which have been mothballed for years, and being obtuse as to exactly why, but I'm more worried about 45's intermittent attempts to destabilise NATO than anything else. If he isn't a Russian asset, he's sure acting like one...
posted by Devonian at 6:50 AM on December 23, 2017 [22 favorites]

It's conceivable that a line might get cut surreptitiously - breakages happen, and it's not always obvious why - but that would be a very risky thing to do for not much gain.

The same would have been said of meddling with the 2016 US presidential election.
posted by jointhedance at 7:36 AM on December 23, 2017 [17 favorites]

Trumpers in disarray: Trump advisers vent frustrations about 2018 strategy as president listens
posted by GrammarMoses at 8:49 AM on December 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

The same would have been said of meddling with the 2016 US presidential election.

The potential gain there was quite large, though.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:23 AM on December 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Michael D. Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis (NYTimes): Stoking Fears, Trump Defied Bureaucracy to Advance Immigration Agenda

... Mr. Trump then began reading aloud from the document, which his domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller, had given him just before the meeting. The document listed how many immigrants had received visas to enter the United States in 2017.

More than 2,500 were from Afghanistan, a terrorist haven, the president complained.

Haiti had sent 15,000 people. They “all have AIDS,” he grumbled, according to one person who attended the meeting and another person who was briefed about it by a different person who was there.

Forty thousand had come from Nigeria, Mr. Trump added. Once they had seen the United States, they would never “go back to their huts” in Africa, recalled the two officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss a sensitive conversation in the Oval Office.

Merry Christmas, Land of Immigrants!
posted by pjenks at 9:42 AM on December 23, 2017 [52 favorites]

Long after Trump is gone, we'll still be fighting him, Corey Robin

One week later, after the victory of the Republican tax cut, the media has changed its tune. “The Republicans demonstrated their control of Washington on Wednesday,” the New York Times gushed. Trump, a Times headline read: “Flexes Republican Muscle”. Axios’s Mike Allen swooned over “Trump’s triple dip”: the tax cuts, opening up the Arctic national wildlife refuge to oil drilling, and getting rid of Obamacare’s individual mandate.

Last week, it was all over for Trump. This week, he’s the emperor of the future. Unless the Republicans suffer another reversal in the next few days, expect the year to end with claims – exultant from the right, fearful from the left—of the coming rightwing-a-palooza.

1. Even an idiot can cut taxes

posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:44 AM on December 23, 2017 [11 favorites]

55 Ways Donald Trump Structurally Changed America in 2017

In the background, Donald Trump’s Cabinet members and their collaborators have been working hard to deliver on Steve Bannon’s vision of dismantling the “regulatory state.” With Trump’s blessing, they have made drastic, structural changes on education, immigration, environmental protections, broadcasting and internet laws, and rules of military engagement, among other issues. Most often the changes have taken direct aim at Obama’s legacy, but some apply to regulations and programs that date back decades.

What follows is a list of those changes. Excluded here is anything abstract: say, about how Trump has trampled on political norms, degraded national discourse, or permanently shattered the “dignity of the Oval Office.” Also excluded are the promises on which he has yet to deliver — for instance, moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem or building the border wall. Finally, it doesn’t include his selection of judges — he’s nominated 58 circuit- and district-court judges, 18 of whom have already been confirmed — since judicial appointments are an expected part of any president’s work.

posted by kirkaracha at 9:52 AM on December 23, 2017 [20 favorites]

Haiti had sent 15,000 people. They “all have AIDS,” he grumbled, according to one person who attended the meeting and another person who was briefed about it by a different person who was there.

Forty thousand had come from Nigeria, Mr. Trump added. Once they had seen the United States, they would never “go back to their huts” in Africa, recalled the two officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss a sensitive conversation in the Oval Office.

Nigeria currently has a higher HIV infection rate than Haiti. Haiti was, however, notable as a the site of many very early AIDS cases.

In 1982, the year that Haiti first equaled AIDS in the American psyche, Trump was 36 years old. It was the year he appeared on the first Forbes 400 list. Trump Tower was completed in 1983. His warped, mottled little brain is frozen at the time he felt at his peak of ascendant power and virility. That's why Haitians all have AIDS. Even his racism is stuck in 1982.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:07 AM on December 23, 2017 [68 favorites]

The Department of the Interior has reversed an Obama administration mining ban within the Superior National Forest adjacent to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This opens the way for the Twin Metals mine, a joint venture by Chilean mining company Antofagasta and Canadian company Duluth Metals. These types of mines are called sulfide mines, where valuable metals are found in small quantities in sulfide rich ores, the metals are extracted with sulfuric acid which then inevitably leaches into the aquatic environment. Antofagasta is owned by Chilean billionaire Andrónico Luksic, who coincidentally owns the house Jared and Ivanka rent in DC. Of course there's no concern for wrongdoing because innuendo and guilt by association about a tenuous financial relationship with a foreign mining concern with business before the US government only matters when Clinton rules are in effect.
posted by peeedro at 10:39 AM on December 23, 2017 [73 favorites]

As someone who visits the boundary waters every year and loves it as one of the few places accessible to humans and yet unsoiled, I'm so fucking pissed about this. There are so many places on this goddamned earth where you can get your stupid fucking minerals, why do you need to ruin the boundary waters. I mean how fucking craven do you have to be. Hi NSA, or whatever other corporate private spynet who is tracking this! I would like to sign up for your eco terrorist internet watch list, because count me in if that includes people who will fucking stand up for not ruining the fucking boundary waters
posted by localhuman at 10:52 AM on December 23, 2017 [32 favorites]

Haiti had sent 15,000 people. They “all have AIDS,” he grumbled, according to one person who attended the meeting and another person who was briefed about it by a different person who was there.

Sarah Sanders vehemently denied this. I mean who would believe the president is racist and freaky about immigrants and communicable diseases.

@realDonaldTrump (8/5/14)
Our government now imports illegal immigrants and deadly diseases. Our leaders are inept.

@realDonaldTrump (10/27/14)
"@suelordbiz: Great job on Fox & Friends this a.m.; have a great week! Thanks for shedding more light on the diseases fr. porous border!"

@realDonaldTrump (7/6/15)
"@thegre8_1: @SenTedCruz In addition to the criminals among the illegal aliens what about all the infectious diseases they brought to US"
posted by chris24 at 10:54 AM on December 23, 2017 [19 favorites]

The fact that the Republicans are making Luther Strange hang around and do pro-forma sessions in the Senate to keep Trump from making recess appointments (something you normally do when the other party has the Presidency), as they've done during previous breaks this year, is amazing. And gives me slight hope that there's still some kind of bottom and we haven't entirely hit it just yet.
posted by zachlipton at 11:02 AM on December 23, 2017 [29 favorites]

WaPo, Facing Republican attacks, FBI’s deputy director plans to retire early next year. That's Andrew McCabe, who will retire when his pension eligibility is reached in a few months.
posted by zachlipton at 11:05 AM on December 23, 2017 [13 favorites]

So general counsel Baker was reassigned yesterday over apparently baseless GOP accusations, and now McCabe. They're cleaning house. Or, more appropriately, dirtying it beyond repair. If Wray knuckles under, the FBI will be one more institution that will not save us.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:12 AM on December 23, 2017 [11 favorites]

I grew up visiting the Boundary Waters every summer with my father or camp groups. I’ve been back as an adult organizing my own trips, making the drive from Mississippi. My HONEYMOON was to the Boundary Waters. I’m absolutely sick.
posted by thebrokedown at 11:22 AM on December 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

Politico: “The House Ethics Committee announced late Thursday that it was expanding its investigation into GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold to include allegations he improperly used official resources for campaign activities, as well as lying to the panel. Farenthold is already under investigation over claims that he sexually harassed at least one former staffer. Thursday’s announcement, however, means the stakes have gone up dramatically for the Texas Republican, as misuse of official resources is a potential violation of both House rules and federal law.”
posted by Chrysostom at 11:43 AM on December 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

Also, the county finally got off of their butt and sent me this.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:01 PM on December 23, 2017 [52 favorites]

They're cleaning house. Or, more appropriately, dirtying it beyond repair.

And each time they do this, they make the rest of the FBI even angrier at them and more determined to see this through, I bet. Everyone must be Livid at this interference and intrusion to protect obvious criminals.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:08 PM on December 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

They're cleaning house.

Specifically, they're clearing out witnesses who Comey contemporaneously spoke to about Trump's request for "loyalty" and other inappropriate acts.
posted by zachlipton at 12:13 PM on December 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

But it's not like they are being memory wiped. They can still testify as to what Comey told them.
posted by Justinian at 12:24 PM on December 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

A little while ago, Benjamin Wittes was all it's not really a big deal if McCable retires when his pension is due, that's kind of expected, but the problem is if he's forced out even earlier.

Now Trump is tweeting to attack McCabe, specifically saying "FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!" That sounds a hell of a lot like a threat, if not witness intimidation.
posted by zachlipton at 12:44 PM on December 23, 2017 [27 favorites]

They're being smeared as partisan hacks so they can convince Rs in congress and in the public that their testimony is BS.

Speaking of, look at Trump the last few minutes...

@realDonaldTrump
How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, 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?

@realDonaldTrump
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!

@realDonaldTrump
Wow, “FBI lawyer James Baker reassigned,” according to @FoxNews.
posted by chris24 at 12:46 PM on December 23, 2017 [18 favorites]

How is this not witness intimidation?!
posted by Barack Spinoza at 12:54 PM on December 23, 2017 [31 favorites]

Dave Chappelle has a message for ‘poor white’ Trump supporters

“I know that rich white people call poor white people trash. And the only reason I know that is because I made so much money last year, the rich whites told me they say it at a cocktail party.

“And I stood with them in line, like all of us Americans are required to do in a democracy — nobody skips the line to vote — and I listened to them. I listened to them say naive poor white people things: ‘Man, Donald Trump’s gonna go to Warshington, and he’s gonna fight for us.’

I’m standing there thinking in my mind: ‘You are poor. He’s fighting for me.’ ”

posted by Joe in Australia at 12:54 PM on December 23, 2017 [36 favorites]

Metafilter’s favorite Republican (besides corb), Evan ‘Egg McMuffin’ McMullin: The President, along with his pundit and Congressional loyalists, is trying to politicize the FBI in order to diminish its ability to hold him, his family, and his team accountable for potential criminal activities.
posted by scarylarry at 2:40 PM on December 23, 2017 [47 favorites]

My favorite Republican is Lincoln. The rest are Star Wars prequels.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 3:06 PM on December 23, 2017 [30 favorites]

Rand Paul went batshit insane today with his Twitter feed saying the quiet parts VERY LOUDLY.

There are how many million Americans who’ve wanted to force-choke Ted [Cruz], and he picked on the one who could do It. Brave, he is

And @realDonaldTrump thinks there is a chance in hell someone else is going to pay for that border wall.

(?!?) JFC
posted by Talez at 3:13 PM on December 23, 2017 [13 favorites]

Rand does an annual Festivus Airing of Grievances on Twitter where he tries to be Don Rickles at an old Dean Martin roast. Except he's not funny. Or smart.
posted by chris24 at 3:26 PM on December 23, 2017 [16 favorites]

To save some time for anybody who was wondering WTF re: the Rand Paul tweets, Paul, he of the uncooked dough face, is referring to Cruz's twitter feud with Luke Skywalker, although what exactly 'force-choke' is as opposed to regular choking, I kind of don't want to know. Also, this may or may not be part of Paul's airing of grievances regarding Festivus, which were all about how we're spending some money in other countries and jealousy at Hatch's weed jokes and then maybe Cruz for humiliating himself on twitter.
posted by angrycat at 3:27 PM on December 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

When I saw the links for Trump's coin I thought "Large, brassy, unbalanced, and awkward. So, I bet he's going to choose base metal with a thin skin." But even I didn't expect it would come sitting on its own little rocking-horse.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:48 PM on December 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

Force-choking is what one does in a staff meeting when one finds a colleague's lack of faith disturbing.
posted by Celsius1414 at 4:07 PM on December 23, 2017 [21 favorites]

although what exactly 'force-choke' is as opposed to regular choking, I kind of don't want to know.

Are you trying to start a 100 comment derail, because this is how you start a 100 comment derail ;)
posted by diogenes at 4:24 PM on December 23, 2017 [58 favorites]

And tonight, in Making You Own It news:

BREAKING: Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has announced that he will force a vote in the Senate on a bill that would overturn the FCC repeal of net neutrality.

(from a random tweet, so won't link)
posted by Devonian at 5:06 PM on December 23, 2017 [15 favorites]

although what exactly 'force-choke' is as opposed to regular choking, I kind of don't want to know.

If you're really curious about why Paul took too many painkillers for his rib injuries and is dunking on Cruz, see here
posted by dis_integration at 5:10 PM on December 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Ted Cruz responded to Rand Paul:

.@RandPaul appreciate the kind Festivus sentiments. Call me, next time you need somebody to mow your lawn....

posted by zachlipton at 5:20 PM on December 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

Why are all these Republicans offering to mow people's lawns?
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:22 PM on December 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

Cruz really doesn't understand human communication, does he?
posted by contraption at 5:24 PM on December 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

Cruz is six bigoted gremlins stuffed into a badly tailored skin suit. We cannot expect him to understand our hoo-monn ways.
posted by middleclasstool at 5:33 PM on December 23, 2017 [18 favorites]

Federal judge partially lifts Trump ban on refugees (The Hill)

From WaPo:

A federal judge in Seattle on Saturday partially lifted a Trump administration ban on certain refugees after two groups argued that the policy prevented people from some mostly Muslim countries from reuniting with family living legally in the United States.

U.S. District Judge James Robart heard arguments Thursday in lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and Jewish Family Service, which say the ban causes irreparable harm and puts some people at risk. Government lawyers argued that the ban is needed to protect national security.

Robart ordered the federal government to process certain refugee applications but said his directive did not apply to people without a “bona fide relationship” to a person or entity in the United States.

posted by Barack Spinoza at 5:41 PM on December 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

Mod note: Okay enough of Rand Paul's Festivus.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 5:59 PM on December 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

So I just finished Outside Magazine's profile of Ryan Zinke (shorter NPR interview with the author), published a few days before the Bears Ears/Grand Staircase-Escalante Monuments reversal. Some interesting bits are that he had some actual conversation cred to his name in Montana state government and as a congressman. He sold himself as a Teddy Roosevelt Republican and garnered support from the conservation and outdoor recreation lobby as a greenish republican. At first I thought it was going to be a puff piece (he drove a Prius, wowzers!), but by the end it's pretty clear Zinke has dropped the pretense and gone full Trump, he is facilitating a smash and grab policy for the nation's mineral resources:

It could be said that the Zinke doctrine is not multiple use but maximum use. In pursuit of President Trump’s energy agenda, he’s pledged to throw open the gates to development on public lands on a scale that has not been seen for decades, if ever.

Basically, under Zinke, Interior is creating a glut of mineral leases to drive prices low so they can be locked in by industry for next to nothing. Between opening 77 million acres of offshore Gulf of Mexico leases that have been off limits since the Deepwater Horizon spill, then resizing Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante to allow for mining in previously protected areas, and now mining next to Boundary Waters. On top of those, ANWR will soon be open for oil leases; this post from Sen Heinrich touches on how soft demand currently is for Alaska oil leases and how republican income projections are wildly optimistic (also covered in more detail in Mother Jones, Republicans Are Counting on a Ton of Demand to Drill in an Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. They’re Deluding Themselves and Bloomberg, Low Oil Prices Dim GOP Bid for Budget Bonanza in Arctic).

Another interesting bit that I don't think has been covered here, the Outside piece speculates that Zinke's career in the Navy was derailed by a formal reprimand he received for defrauding the US govt for travel expenses (I'm sensing a pattern). He traveled to Montana to oversee renovations of his home and and lied on his travel vouchers to be reimbursed, from The Intercept:

Two SEAL officers investigated Zinke’s records and discovered a yearslong “pattern of travel fraud,” according to two of the sources. When confronted about the trips, Zinke acknowledged that he spent the time repairing and restoring a home in Whitefish, Montana, and visiting his mother...

While he received no formal punishment, he was told he would not be allowed to return to the elite unit for future assignments, according to the sources. Zinke continued his career, and he was eventually promoted to Navy commander, the rank he retired at in 2008....

According to a former SEAL Team 6 leader, the officer who submitted evidence documenting Zinke’s misconduct was “incensed” that he wasn’t punished. Three of the sources said the lack of formal punishment was part of a tradition at SEAL Team 6 of avoiding scandal and failing to adequately hold its officers accountable for criminal behavior and other misconduct.

There's also some shade from Ted Roosevelt IV (great-grandson of Teddy) calling Zinke a fraud, but I think the best part of the Outside article is that it fly fishing shames Zinke for being a poser, not only does he not know the name of the fly he's using (a Chubby Chernobyl) he doesn't even seem to know how to cast:

As Zinke and I casted over the ice-cold water, I noticed something funny about his setup. He kept struggling to strip line out of the bottom of the reel. For a while, I thought he was simply having trouble concentrating on our conversation while casting. No, there was something wrong, and when I asked him to stand for a portrait, I finally saw what the problem was. He had rigged his reel backward, so that the line was coming out of the top of the reel. Every so often when he went to strip line out, he would grasp air where the line should’ve been.

Seems like an inconsequential thing, but in Montana, it’s everything.

posted by peeedro at 6:55 PM on December 23, 2017 [62 favorites]

Oops, "conservation cred". There is no reporting on Zinke's conversational skills.
posted by peeedro at 7:03 PM on December 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Regarding Zinke: here's an anecdote I was privy to. A person who accompanied him as a scientific expert on a tour of a protected national wilderness said that, when surrounded by natural beauty, he made completely inappropriate and ambiguously-jokey jokes about intending to drill for oil there. According to the witness, this came across as straight-up trolling. There didn't seem any way to interpret it other than that he was enjoying the small cruelty of bothering eggheads.

Fuck that guy.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:13 PM on December 23, 2017 [71 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, 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?

@realDonaldTrump
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!


This is witness tampering and intimidation. This is a direct threat to fire McCabe before he qualifies for his pension.

Fuck this guy so hard.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:53 PM on December 23, 2017 [56 favorites]

Basically, under Zinke, Interior is creating a glut of mineral leases to drive prices low so they can be locked in by industry for next to nothing.

This is probably just convergent evolution, but this process of stripping state assets and selling them to "entrepreneurs" is precisely how Russia's current regime seized control of the country.

Incidentally, the word "entrepreneur" is French, but if you trace it back to its Latin roots it means "someone who comes in and grabs things".
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:00 PM on December 23, 2017 [50 favorites]

RE: entrepreneur, we all remember when Romney said “companies are people, my friend”.

There’s also video of him giving a pitch for his old firm Bain Capital where he discusses “harvesting weak companies”.

So yeah, when I think of the Republican style of entrepreneurial, Wall Street capitalism, I often think of just how Romney expressed their fundamental dynamic: (1) companies are people, and (2) people are to be commodified and harvested (3) to enrich the already wealthy.
posted by darkstar at 9:31 PM on December 23, 2017 [20 favorites]

Good News Dept: Court blocks attempt by HUD to suspend Small Area Fair Market Rent Final Rule, which helps people using housing vouchers live in non-poverty areas. Backgrounder.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:48 PM on December 23, 2017 [32 favorites]

If there has been one hopeful constant this year, it’s that the courts have consistently said “if you want to change or void an existing rule, it requires a separate and formal round of rulemaking.” And that requires time and facts to support those new rules, which the administration doesn’t have.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 6:03 AM on December 24, 2017 [13 favorites]

A merry Yuletide song to warm the cockles as the eggnog slips down - Mueller Baby.
posted by Devonian at 6:08 AM on December 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

CBS: 'President Trump kicked off his holiday weekend at Mar-a-Lago Friday night at a dinner where he told friends, "You all just got a lot richer," referencing the sweeping tax overhaul he signed into law hours earlier.'
posted by chris24 at 6:42 AM on December 24, 2017 [27 favorites]

Away from D.C. for the holidays, Trump is feeling safe and relaxed among his peers again.

CNN: Trump Reunites with his Kitchen Cabinet in Mar-a-Lago

In Florida, there's little expectation that Kelly or any other adviser can fully limit the President's conversations with the friends and paying Mar-a-Lago members he's developed relationships with over decades. Kelly, who is expected to travel with Trump for some portion of his vacation, has told associates he's more interested in knowing who the President is speaking with than preventing the conversations from happening.[...]

Included in Trump's Florida set: Robert Kraft, the New England Patriots owner, who the President spoke with Thursday evening before flying to Palm Beach; Ike Perlmutter, the Marvel Comics chief, who has advised Trump on veterans issues; Ron Lauder, the cosmetics heir who lobbied for his son-in-law to become Federal Reserve chairman; and Chris Ruddy, the Newsmax CEO, who acts as a TV surrogate.[...]

"We'll be working in Florida -- I'll be working very hard during that Christmas because we have many things we're talking about, including North Korea, including a lot of things happening in the Middle East, as you know," Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday."

Also on Trump's to-do list are his first State of the Union speech, Social Security/Medicare reform, infrastructure stimulation, and a potential replacement for Rex Tillerson at the State Department.

And attacking the FBI's Andrew McCabe and James Baker on Twitter, of course. In what's evidently going to be his holiday theme, this morning he repeated a Fox News smear about McCabe, and then he complained about Fake News and bragged about "how Big and how Strong our BASE is." Merry Christmas!
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:49 AM on December 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Merry Christmas! Gift-Wrapped Horse Manure Delivered To Steve Mnunchin's LA Mansion.
posted by TwoStride at 7:03 AM on December 24, 2017 [40 favorites]

One of Mnuchin's neighbors, describing the police response to the package of manure:

“We have $50 million homes and we can’t move, we can’t get out,” Prince Frederick von Anhalt, who was trapped for two hours, said. “That’s bad, they have to find another way.”

In other words, because we're rich enough to afford $50 million homes, we shouldn't have to deal with annoying inconveniences like being stuck inside our opulent mansions for 2 hours. Getting stuck briefly inside your home while the police investigate a crime is a problem only poor people should have.

Or maybe von Anhalt is just jealous that he didn't get a package of manure, too.
posted by biogeo at 7:20 AM on December 24, 2017 [55 favorites]

“We have $50 million homes and we can’t move, we can’t get out,” Prince Frederick von Anhalt, who was trapped for two hours, said. “That’s bad, they have to find another way.”

And just in case you were wondering what sort of person lives around Steve Mnuchin:

Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt (born Hans Georg Robert Lichtenberg; June 18, 1943) is a German-American entrepreneur best known as the last husband, since December 2016 widower of late film actress Zsa Zsa Gabor. He changed his name after paying titular Princess Marie-Auguste of Anhalt to adopt him as an adult.

How do these people even exist? Why haven't their servants eaten them?
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:28 AM on December 24, 2017 [88 favorites]

Seriously, Trump spending extended time at Mar-a-Lago is always a recipe for trouble. "Trump’s aides and allies hope he’ll lay low during his holiday break, but it's the type of situation in which he seems to generate his biggest self-inflicted crises," writes Politico.

"He’ll be watching the news and he’ll probably react according to that," said Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King, a longtime Trump supporter and prominent Mueller critic. "You never really know what’s going to trigger the president."[...]

And while Trump has posted multiple tweets signaling an obsession with being seen as working, he’s also sent some of his most provocative messages when away from the White House. There have been attacks on NFL players and even fellow Republicans, including Sens. John McCain, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham. Early on a Saturday morning in March, Trump sent a series of posts suggesting President Barack Obama had tapped his phones during the 2016 campaign. He was at Mar-a-Lago at the time.

“It wasn’t incidental,” Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign strategist, said of all the presidential tweets that have been sent when Trump wasn’t spending the night at the White House.

Stone, a friend of Trump’s dating back to the 1980s, said the president relishes his chance to reconnect with friends and family at Mar-a-Lago, many of whom are eager to share their frank advice. “I think he gets, pardon me, the stone-cold truth from people,” Stone said.[...]

Former Trump campaign adviser Sam Nunberg said one key for the president maintaining calm over the holidays was to stay away from the likes of Fox News, especially “if he’s watching segment after segment, three hours straight saying, ‘This is a coup.’”

Fox News recently introduced the "coup" theme into the right-wing noise industry's feedback loop, and they're keeping it on the front burners.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:16 AM on December 24, 2017 [15 favorites]

We all know that Steve Mnuchin is pretty much literally the worst. For those who don't know, Prince Frederick von Anhalt is just as bad. This sounds like a neighborhood of the most insufferable asshats known to man. They deserve each other as neighbors.
posted by triggerfinger at 8:47 AM on December 24, 2017 [15 favorites]

Anyway, merry Christmas!
posted by triggerfinger at 8:50 AM on December 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

We all know that Steve Mnuchin is pretty much literally the worst. For those who don't know, Prince Frederick von Anhalt is just as bad. This sounds like a neighborhood of the most insufferable asshats known to man. They deserve each other as neighbors.

Also, these gems that I remembered from the slurry of "who supports him?" think-pieces during the campaign: The Real Trumpettes of Bel Air, in case you need an emetic for your holiday meal.
posted by bluecore at 9:11 AM on December 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, these gems that I remembered from the slurry of "who supports him?" think-pieces during the campaign: The Real Trumpettes of Bel Air, in case you need an emetic for your holiday meal.

Whoa - Gennifer Flowers (of Bill Clinton fame) is among them? That's a blast from the past!
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:20 AM on December 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Guardian: FBI Investigates Russian-linked Cyprus Bank Accused of Money Laundering—Request for financial information may be connected to inquiries into possible conspiracy between Trump and Kremlin:

The FBI has asked officials in Cyprus for financial information about a defunct bank that was used by wealthy Russians with political connections and has been accused by the US government of money laundering, two sources have told the Guardian.

The request for information about FBME Bank comes as Cyprus has emerged as a key area of interest for Robert Mueller, the US special counsel who is investigating a possible conspiracy between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Kremlin.

People familiar with the FBI request told the Guardian that federal investigators and the US Treasury approached the Central Bank of Cyprus in November seeking detailed information about FBME, which was shut down this year.

One person familiar with the FBI request said it appeared to be connected to Mueller’s ongoing examination of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign manager who was indicted in October, and money that flowed between former Soviet states and the US through Cypriot banks.

The Central Bank of Cyprus, which in 2014 placed FBME under administration in a direct response to US action and obtained full access to the bank’s data, declined to comment. The US special counsel’s office also declined to comment.

In case anyone's wondering if Trump needs another reason to be worried lately about the FBI...
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:30 AM on December 24, 2017 [12 favorites]

How do these people even exist? Why haven't their servants eaten them?

Probably because it isn't worth the time for an amazon affiliate click chasing blogger to post an instant pot recipe for a one off.
posted by srboisvert at 9:49 AM on December 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

well, Trump retweeted an image of himself in a car with a big WINNING superimposed and on his shoe was blood labeled CNN, so the fascism levels are high on this Christmas Eve and also POTUS's endorsement of really stupid memes
posted by angrycat at 9:51 AM on December 24, 2017 [28 favorites]

Sophia A McClennen, Salon: The bitter irony of Donald Trump - Donald Trump has redefined what it means to be an ironic president, and it’s not funny

If irony was essential in the post-9/11 era, it’s even more so now. This is why late-night comedians like Colbert, Meyers, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, Trevor Noah and Jordan Klepper, who use satire to mock Trump, are more and more important.

The rising role of irony to fight Trumpism is also why we are seeing more and more straight news figures like Jake Tapper, Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper turn to irony and sarcastic sass in covering Trump.
...
Rather than see this as a dangerous turn away from serious discourse, the growing use of ironic snark to cover Trump is a necessary foil for his mocking, abusive use of language. It’s no longer red versus blue; the battles now are between those using irony to encourage critical thinking and those using a mocking language to bully and repress others.

posted by ZeusHumms at 10:27 AM on December 24, 2017 [13 favorites]

> well, Trump retweeted an image of himself in a car with a big WINNING superimposed and on his shoe was blood labeled CNN, so the fascism levels are high on this Christmas Eve and also POTUS's endorsement of really stupid memes

Daniel Nexon, LGM: Yes, Virginia, there is a Crisis of Democracy

First, the President fed conspiracy theories designed to discredit an investigation into wrongdoing by his campaign. Trump already explicitly obstructed this investigation when he fired James Comey.

Trump then retweeted an image implying that he squashed the lügenpresse like the untermensch cockroaches that presumably work in it.

Finally, he continued his efforts to brand any, and all, negative information as “fake” attacks on him and his supporters. As Jacob Levy has argued, the President’s documented dishonestly, and broad embrace of post-truth politics, both reflects his personal despotism and corrodes the body politic’s ability to resist authoritarianism.

These well-rehearsed themes of 2017 come on the day of Christmas Eve. Trump has fashioned himself as a warrior in the Sitzkrieg on Christmas; the latest entry in his permanent-campaign propaganda closes with a little girl thanking Trump for “letting us say ‘merry Christmas’ again.”

Of course, Trump is a rare animal: an American confidence artist who cannot convincingly fake religiosity. But the fact that his personal morality most closely resembles that of Al Pacino’s portrayal of Satan in Devil’s Advocate matters not to the religious right, which remains content so long as they can discriminate against sexual deviants and as Federalist Society members receive lifetime to the bench. Rather than, as some predicted, break fusionism, Trump has confirmed the enduring strength of the plutocracy-theocracy-resentment synthesis. Along the way, he’s proven that the modern GOP stands, at heart, for little else.

posted by tonycpsu at 10:35 AM on December 24, 2017 [27 favorites]

How do these people even exist? Why haven't their servants eaten them?
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:28 AM on December 24 [33 favorites +] [!]

I have a good friend/high school classmate who is chair of the board of trustees of the school and has done major-donor grooming for fund-raising. He confirms that a lot of these 0.01%ers are, in fact, certifiably loony. Whether they are this way from birth or they acquired the loony app as a result of their enormous economic advantage and isolation is not possible to determine absolutely because of the counterfactual conundrum, but the uncanny consistency of the finding seems to weigh in for the hypothesis that enormous wealth makes you insane.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:41 AM on December 24, 2017 [23 favorites]

Gift-Wrapped Horse Manure Delivered To Steve Mnunchin's LA Mansion.

Surely they meant to say Mnure Delivered to Mnunchin's Mnsion.
posted by dannyboybell at 10:48 AM on December 24, 2017 [81 favorites]

enormous wealth makes you insane.

Mefi's Own Adam Savage has a story about how he learned that money maketh arseholes - an expensive carpet of his got a curry stain (story involves teenagers and dogs) which is something that apparently no carpet stain removing company will contemplate tackling. He eventually found one who would, and they did their best.

Which was pretty good; you could see that something had been there in the right light, but basically all was good again. But the thing that struck him was that the carpet cleaning person was absolutely terrified when they revealed the cleaned carpet, expecting a barrage of abuse about how they hadn't done a good enough job. Because that's how rich people who can afford expensive carpets behave when things aren't EXACTLY right.
posted by Devonian at 10:55 AM on December 24, 2017 [45 favorites]

enormous wealth makes you insane.

It also seems to enable and amplify insanity, and buffer one from consequences.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:14 AM on December 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

Mod note: A few things removed; we don't actually have to obsessively riff on Trump's vileness and toxic bad taste just because it's there.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:34 AM on December 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

well, Trump retweeted an image of himself in a car with a big WINNING superimposed and on his shoe was blood labeled CNN

What struck me about this meme was not the bloody CNN splat on the bottom of his shoe, nor that it was posted Christmas Eve (Ho ho ho) but that this Trump, the younger, slimmer, more vigorous Trump is the leader that his fascist followers wish he was. Instead their leader is the older, fatter version with the loose dentures, that bad comb over, the ill fitting suits. The one with the tremble so bad he needs two hands to drink his water. Not the kind of commanding presence that would lead people to blindly follow.

It makes me think of David Clarke with his ridiculous made-up medals and Roy Moore with his tiny gun and an inability to ride a horse. These men are jokes. They are neither charismatic nor especially smart, they are mere showmen. And shabby showmen at best.

Of course we are lucky that we don't have an electrifying, charismatic authoritarian leader. It would be terrifying if a majority of Americans fell for Adolph Hitler v. 2.0.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 12:01 PM on December 24, 2017 [55 favorites]

Of course we are lucky that we don't have an electrifying, charismatic authoritarian leader.

It's a sign of how far reality is now diverging from acceptable-fictional-reality that Quantico (the series: essentially a more woke 24 with technically diverse pretty people who for plot reasons frequently need to wear tight clothing) that even though the last series was pretty much all about throwing shade at Trump and his support network [including Peter Theo creator of the FundFriend app], none of the evil cabal were even close the the levels of cartoonish villainy and incompetence as their real counterparts.

The (small w) writers actually had to stick to 2015 levels of satire/commentary in order to keep the plot convincing and not just go the full Idiocracy [quite possibly a documentary sent back in time].

2017 is consistently illustrating that not only are the "Checks and Balances" mostly illusory and reliant on not being Emperor's unclothed by shameless chancers, but so is a lot of other sanity-check stuff we were rather relying on being supported by self-evidence.

This is probably one of those times when we do have either everything before us, or nothing.
posted by Buntix at 12:35 PM on December 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

Yes, and that's a vision of Power from the early 80s, as noted above, the moment in which our President apparently lives. Where wealth is wielded by... making phone calls! from your automobile!

He's corrupt, stupid and stuck at least three decades in the past. And because he's stuck in the past he attracts the respect, if not the entire support, of people* who want to go back to that time, or who are bewildered by this strange new world where white guys don't automatically get their way.

*mainly white cis-male
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:02 PM on December 24, 2017 [17 favorites]

Trump has fashioned himself as a warrior in the Sitzkrieg on Christmas; the latest entry in his permanent-campaign propaganda closes with a little girl thanking Trump for “letting us say ‘merry Christmas’ again.”

The amount of cartoonish villainy expended to create a hot-button wedge issue out of a holiday ostensibly dedicated to peace on earth and good will towards everyone would be awe-inspiring if it weren't such a petty expression of an obviously miserable, broken character.

Please note that this has been the only mention of Xmas on Trump's Twitter stream going into the holiday weekend: "Our big and very popular Tax Cut and Reform Bill has taken on an unexpected new source of 'love' - that is big companies and corporations showering their workers with bonuses. This is a phenomenon that nobody even thought of, and now it is the rage. Merry Christmas!" It's like receiving season's greetings from the heart of the void, right down to putting the word love in quotation marks.

Even Paul Ryan summoned sufficient hypocrisy for a Christmas tweet about "that sense of wonder the shepherds felt when the angels appeared in the night sky to herald the birth of a Savior." While you all can imagine the replies he got to that choice piece of religiosity, at least he made the effort, like a sane politician.

In the meantime, Trump is tweeting again, as usual about Fake News and "Massive Alaska Drilling", even after toadying right wing bloviator @'ed him to put down his phone and spend Xmas eve with his family. Something, or someone, is seriously bugging him.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:08 PM on December 24, 2017 [28 favorites]

A Christmas themed Trump for the holidays.
As per usual, please feel free to share, download, what have you. His tweeting about the FBI, my god he's a mess.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 1:28 PM on December 24, 2017 [15 favorites]

I'm just waiting to see what he tweets for the Massacre of the Innocents.
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:50 PM on December 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

In the meantime, Trump is tweeting again

I think (given that Trump is basically stuck in a second act recursion and there is no third):

what we have to fear is not Roko's Basilisk but Roko's Cancellation due to Roko's Jumping the Shark.


At least we can hope for a few musical episodes and Ralph Little going all Che Guevara before the inevitable made for tv movie.
posted by Buntix at 1:52 PM on December 24, 2017

It's been discussed here already that Paul Ryan's primarily challenger Paul Nehlen has become very open about his antisemitism. This has taken an interesting turn on his twitter feed in recent hours.

Last night he posted a white nationalist meme replacing INRI on a crucifix, with the comment that the image had appeared to him in a dream. After being challenged on this, he first stated openly that Jews (not Romans) killed Jesus. When an anti-nazi Republican informed him that Jesus wasn't an aryan and would have disliked nazis, Nehlen disagreed and implied that the anti-nazi was Jewish ("authorized to use the echoes") and therefore not to be trusted.

Since then he's been attacking Ben Shapiro as a "complaining media personality" who is "showing no interest in the millions of americans" for reporting Rosie O'Donnell's anti-Trump tweets. No, it doesn't make any sense for Nehlen to take this position. Not unless he just needed to let off a little steam after his Jesus posts by cyber-punching a Jew.

Nehlen's antisemitism is very old but is new to the current political environment. Typical evangelical antisemitism entails seeing Jews as useful but disposable objects intended to help bring about the end of the world. Alt-Right antisemitism has to this point been by and large irreligious: Jews are seen as an ethnocultural, economic and geopolitical threat but not a demonic one. Instead, the antisemitism Nehlen is playing with is more akin to that of the Christian Identity movement or sects like the one that Mel Gibson was raised in: Jews as an embodiment of supernatural evil (the literal Synagogue of Satan) and Jesus as equivalent to whiteness.

It's a particularly dangerous development, in that this syncretic antisemitism has real potential to attract evangelical support into the racist core of the greater neoreactionary movement. Particularly if promoted by a good clean-cut all-American midwestern motorcycle manufacturer like Nehlen.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:59 PM on December 24, 2017 [41 favorites]

But at the end of the year let us all take a moment to have a musical flander and swann back to how it all started:

TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP by THE TRUMPETY TRUMPS
posted by Buntix at 2:14 PM on December 24, 2017

The Year In Apocalypses - Anthony Oliveira for Hazlitt

"I do not know if I am religious, or what it might mean to be “religious.” I think that when I die I am dead, and to wish otherwise is a strange and distasteful selfishness. The matter I am made of has other work to do; I had my turn. I doubt most people who call themselves “Christian” would call me a “Christian,” and Christ himself said that if an eye or hand causes you to stumble, throw it away; I do not think he would have been wedded to labels. But if I am “religious,” I am so insofar as I believe a moment comes when the crushing weight of my responsibility, or guilt, or even sin, is exceeded. There comes a moment, and perhaps it has come in 2017, when I need to believe something better is coming."

posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:14 PM on December 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

Oh look, Paul has noticed that people have noticed him:

Paul Nehlen @pnehlen
5 minutes ago
"A candidate has amazing ideas? YES!"

"Oh, he has pro-White views? That ruins everything!"

WHAT THE ACTUAL F--K

#ShallNotCensor

posted by Talez at 3:48 PM on December 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

It's entirely proper to be alarmed at Nehlen, and angry at the Republicans, but the intrinsic problem seems to be the fact that apparently anyone can run in a primary. This might be a good time for the Democratic Party to think about its own gatekeepers: what's to stop some wealthy racist from running in the Democratic primary and promoting the Democrats as the home of Southern segregation or whatever. They'd probably lose, but as a spoliling and promotional tactic it might be worthwhile.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:15 PM on December 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

In places like where I live where the Democratic Party has been the party in power since forever and most general election races are unopposed, all kinds of assholes call themselves Democrats because being anything else is just insta-failure. The brass tacks happen during local party committee endorsements, but there's a lot of dumbfuckery that goes on there, too. There is a woman on city council (paging Octothorpe!) who is just a straight up loon, a Trump voter, aaand...a Democrat!
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:25 PM on December 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

That’s quite the concern troll, Joe. Well played.

It's not a concern troll, just a logical conclusion from the application of his local rules. In Australia the party is the gatekeeper. The people who run in the seats aren't selected by primary but are "preselected" by the party by paid up registered members of the party. The theory being that the dues paying party members have some skin in the game.
posted by Talez at 4:27 PM on December 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

There's reasonable arguments for political parties to consider gatekeeping to some extent, not the least of which is that a failure to gatekeep allows disingenuous opponents to claim, for example, that Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church were Democrats because they had registered with the party and Phelps had run for something once upon a time. Political parties exist, in part, to keep up the standards of a collective philosophical attitude towards governance; Rob Ford would not have been elected Mayor of Toronto if the city had had political parties, and Donald Trump would not have become the Republican candidate if the GOP's gatekeeping system was not irredeemably broken and misdirected.

Gatekeeping doesn't solve many problems and it can definitely cause an elitist backswing. But political parties should gatekeep at least a little.
posted by mightygodking at 4:30 PM on December 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

This does have a practical effect. When Pauline Hanson decided to come out as an avowed racist right before the 1996 election, the Liberal (conservative) party immediately voted to disendorse her. Given the timetable it meant losing the seat but she was not officially running as a conservative in that election. If it happened early enough the party would have had a replacement candidate.
posted by Talez at 4:32 PM on December 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

WHAT THE ACTUAL F--K

#ShallNotCensor

Okay, two things.

One, you definitely just censored yourself.

Two, it's not just me, "what the actual fuck" is a weird phrase for a racist congressional candidate to be using, right? You're not a Buzzfeed intern in 2014, you're a malicious anti-Semitic loonball, act the part.
posted by saturday_morning at 4:33 PM on December 24, 2017 [17 favorites]

Ahem. Let's set the wayback machine to 1986, shall we: "Two followers of the far-right conservative Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., both political unknowns, won election upsets in the Illinois Democratic primary Tuesday. Their victories created chaos in the campaign of the party's gubernatorial nominee, former Senator Adlai E. Stevenson 3d." (Lyndon LaRouche, for the kids, was a horseshoe-theory so-left-he's-right crank who espoused conspiracy theories of a grand historical struggle that involved drug-running by Queen Elizabeth II.) The mainline Democrats were forced to reorganize as the Illinois Solidarity Party and educate voters on avoiding straight-ticket voting, a longstanding Illinois privilege.

Again, as a resident of WI-01 I don't see Nehlen really gaining local traction with this tactic, as much as it obviously appeals to the overall /pol/ cadre. (The average voter here would be hard-pressed to understand a fraction of the whole GamerGate-MRA-Bannon-Pepe dynamic, even though Nehlen is clearly taking to it like a milkshake duck to water.) I can see him improving on his 2016 1-in-6 showing but any downside for Ryan is offset by his ongoing "Wisconsin nice" image massaging and the popularity of the tax plan among his usual demo in the farm country of Walworth and the red-dyed white-flighters in Waukesha. The Janesville Gazette yesterday published an editorial begging Ryan to stay in Congress. As long as he chooses to run again, the nomination, at least, is Ryan's.

As to open primaries (and in particular crossover voting, which makes such fuckery possible), Wisconsin has long had this tradition, with some of the most liberal (in non-party terms) rulesets in the country (we were actually the first state to switch to a primary), and I don't see it changing soon. The national party made us revert to a caucus in 1984 for similar gatekeeping rationales and the general takeaway was that the rank and file hated it (the process itself, as well as the strongarming per se). That may change if tactics in use change, but only reactively.
I might mention here that like Chrysostom, I stepped up and ran for an open seat as a Trustee on the Executive Board of the county Democratic Party. With the obvious exception for confidentiality I'll have an inside seat for the coming contest to topple Speaker Ryan.
posted by dhartung at 4:52 PM on December 24, 2017 [30 favorites]

You don't need to go back to 1986. David Duke regularly contests State and Federal primaries that he has very little chance of winning. He ran for the Republican nomination as Senator from Louisiana in 2016 and, consequently, got to air his views on national TV. The debate was held at an historically Black college, too, and a lot of people saw this as a further insult. Do you think he wouldn't care to run as a Democrat? I bet he would, as long as he could get the magic 5% in polls that gives him a platform.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:58 PM on December 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

soren_lorensen: "There is a woman on city council (paging Octothorpe!) who is just a straight up loon, a Trump voter, aaand...a Democrat!"

Her name is Darlene Harris, if you're curious to learn more. Recent antics have included driving on the sidewalk and accusing the city of stealing part of her office manger scene.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:34 PM on December 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

The best form of "gatekeeping" is not some party cabal that can kill candidates -- and would inevitably be used for corrupt or cronyist reasons -- but simply to make sure that a strong candidate runs for every seat, no matter how strong the incumbent.

Losing is not the worst thing in the world, especially if you are not especially concerned about winning a race some day. Articulate people who can advocate for their position publicly should all consider running for these kinds of seats. If I didn't live in Oregon, which is about the bluest state in the union, I would.
posted by msalt at 6:43 PM on December 24, 2017

There is a woman on city council (paging Octothorpe!) who is just a straight up loon, a Trump voter, aaand...a Democrat!

Aaand... I voted for her. She has her quirks but if you talk to her in person she's very sharp and when she debated her two challengers in the last election , she frankly blew them away. She's not my ideal politician but was way better than the two duffuses who ran against her last time. And city council races always revolve around district services, not ideology.
posted by octothorpe at 6:49 PM on December 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Lyndon LaRouche, for the kids, was a horseshoe-theory so-left-he's-right crank

Ol' Lyndon is still around. The now very pro-Trump LaRouchejugend make regular appearances on Boston Common, although no longer with the Hitler-mustache-wearing Obama stand-in.
posted by adamg at 6:49 PM on December 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Just for the record, he just tweeted that people are saying "Merry Christmas" to each other because of him.

I'd really like to be able to jump forward a few years and find out how it turned out without the horror of actually having to live through it.
posted by Grangousier at 7:23 PM on December 24, 2017 [21 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 House:

-- Only 20 GOP-held seats without a Dem challenger yet. GOP has no challenger in 80 Dem-held seats.

-- Crosstab forecast at 59.1% chance of Dems taking House. Dems have 5-1 advantage in number of vulnerable seats.

-- 538 on generic ballot and vulnerable seats.

-- The Hill: Retiring GOP rep: Republicans should 'be prepared for the worst' in 2018 midterms

-- PA-18 special -- Politico roundup on the race. Still an uphill battle for the Dems, but their candidate is well-liked, and local Republicans seem underwhelmed by their guy.

-- 2018 Senate:

-- Texas Monthly longread on Beto O'Rourke's quest to unseat Ted Cruz.

-- *Still* unclear if Orrin Hatch is going to run or not.

** Odds & ends:

-- Bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate to help states prevent cyberattacks on election infrastructure.

-- Federal court has ruled that the Kobach voter fraud commission must provide documents to a Dem commission member that it has been withholding. Tweet thread explainer.

-- MD Dems to introduce legislation for same-day and automatic voter registration in the new year. Similar efforts failed in 2016, so we'll see.

-- NJ gov-elect Murphy was seen as being moderate, coming from a Goldman Sachs background, but he's off to a good start - 6 out of 7 of his cabinet nominees so far are women, 4 WOC (the seventh is a Sikh man). And he's tasked his secretary of state with expanding voting rights, and basically being the anti-Kris Kobach (whom he specifically called, "that lunatic from Kansas").

-- Yet another Kirsten Gillibrand profile - she's a canny one.

-- Part 4 of 538's gerrymandering podcast series, about Arizona's attempt at non-partisan redistricting.

-- Nerd alert: DecisionDesk is going to rate *every* state-level race for 2018, legislatures included!

===

And to all, a good night.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:23 PM on December 24, 2017 [85 favorites]

Happy Holidays Chrysostom. Thanks for all you have been doing.
posted by Windopaene at 7:30 PM on December 24, 2017 [45 favorites]

I'd really like to be able to jump forward a few years and find out how it turned out without the horror of actually having to live through it.

There’s got to be a word in German for this.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 7:58 PM on December 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

Over the last day or two, I've been going down a huge rabbit hole on Russia and Deutsche Bank. And I just realized that tonight is the ten year anniversary of the $230 million Russian tax refund at the heart of the Hermitage Capital scam, which lead to Sergei Magnitsy's torture and death and the eventual Magnitsky Act.

In reverse order, here's my rabbit hole path: Magnitsky Act > Alexander Perepilichnyy (who I remember from this excellent Buzzfeed investigation on Russian assassinations) > Moldovan Scheme > Deutsche Bank mirror trades > this New Yorker article, which asks:

So, the first new line of inquiry prompted by these insights might be: Was Deutsche Bank’s mirror-trades scheme connected to a much larger money-laundering operation—one that seems to have been instigated by people close to the Russian security services? The O.C.C.R.P. suggests that the money that flowed through the Moldovan Scheme “may have been diverted from the Russian treasury through fraud, rigging of state contracts, or customs and tax evasion.” In my report for the magazine, I noted that some mirror-trades money originated in Chechnya. Just how dirty was the rest of it?

The second, and related, question is: Did Deutsche Bank launder Magnitsky money?

This whole thing is both fascinating and horrifying. I'm far from an expert on the whole Russia thing, but I suspect that when we find out everything (and I think we will find out at least a good chunk of it), it will be far and away the biggest scandal of my lifetime. I think that the ties go far beyond just Trump and family, I believe that a fair number of heavyweight politicians (and maybe even famous non-politicians) in both the US and the UK (at the very least) are also involved. I'm putting a lot of faith in Mueller being smart and competent, because I think this thing stretches far and wide and when we start to really learn the truth of it, I think it's going to be staggering.

Anyway, if anyone else has any other good investigative pieces on Russia, DB, Wilbur Ross, Cyprus, Trump & associates, etc. please send them my way. I have the next week off and I'm going to read the shit out of everything I can get my hands on.)
posted by triggerfinger at 7:59 PM on December 24, 2017 [32 favorites]

Huh.

@th3j35t3r: #FLASHLOL @JulianAssange << has deleted, repeat, it has not been suspended, he has deleted his Twitter account. Merry Christmas!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:21 PM on December 24, 2017 [12 favorites]

I'm not on Twitter, but even so, the thought of this crepuscular maggot having a reduced presence on social media makes me very happy. Merry Christmas, indeed.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 9:39 PM on December 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

This seems a bit pointed, from the pool report:

The president was seated in the third row in the spot closest to the aisle, on the right side of the church (if youre in the back looking toward the altar). The First Lady was the only member of the presidents family to attend mass with him.

Reverend James Harlan, the churchs rector, gave the homily. It centered around the themes of the power of words and Gods light. He began by quoting Nelson Mandela, whom he noted rebelled against his government for its systemic oppression.

The Mandela quote: It is never my custom to use words lightly. If 27 years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die."

Harlan connected the power of words especially as it pertains to Gods word to their ability to educate, enlighten and draw out the best in people, while he also cautioned words can be used to cause harm.

Your words can have as much destructive potential as they do healing, Harlan said. Gods word is pure light.

posted by zachlipton at 9:44 PM on December 24, 2017 [28 favorites]

Donald Trump, Christmas warrior.
posted by scalefree at 10:22 PM on December 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Sophia A McClennen, Salon: The bitter irony of Donald Trump - Donald Trump has redefined what it means to be an ironic president, and it’s not funny

This is a fascinating topic [and is the topic of my whole comment because I am interested in, and worry about, the grip of ironic communication] but I don't buy the central claim of the article. After quoting a fundamental point—"As Michael Hirschorn puts it, 'When facts are made stupid things and there is no coherent center to mediate truth, most irony starts falling on deaf ears because there is no lingua franca'"—the article proceeds to say "use irony anyway". Specifically, the author claims that "irony is our best defense against him", which I took to be the thesis in a fairly disorganized set of paragraphs.

Irony is a form of communication, but I don't see any implication of who are the intended recipients in this "defense". Using irony can certainly be an emotional release, but the suggestion that irony is a political tool to me implies that someone, somewhere, can be swayed by that communication. In a world where everyone understood irony the same way, this might be true.

But because this political situation is exceptional, the divide is necessarily bigger. People who are inclined toward the largely empirical observation that Trump Is Fucking Bad didn't get to that conclusion with help from irony. The question then becomes—if this essay has anything to say—are there any converts to be gained?—with irony? I think not. What fascinates and worries me is that it's really just the opposite.

I think a lot of people of a certain mental status don't realize that a lot of other people fundamentally do not perceive or understand irony. I have never seen anyone observe that conservatives tend to use and understand irony very little, which maybe makes me sound unread, but it seems obvious to me. Moreover, Trumpists of the Reddit ilk (who have little to do with "conservatism" per se) have developed their own strange form of irony, or so it seems: how else to read "HIGH ENERGY" and "Merry Pepemas" tags in r/TheDonald? Their irony has a sense of malevolence. So you have two brands of irony, of semiotically overladen meme stuff, and both basically perform the function of membership identification within the respective groups, emotional release, and of digging trenches by attacking (however indirectly) the other side.

For people who are not malevolent, but have somehow been propagandized into thinking that Trump is good for the country, there is no chance of reaching them with words that mean other than what they say. They are not equipped to perform the mental exercise required of irony to provide an insight into truth, as some are not equipped to mentally rotate a 3D object in their head. I honestly believe this, and it is not a "people are dumb" argument, it's about neuro-diversity and life experience. In this area of communication, it appears there are really big differences in how people construct meaning from language. Anecdotally, the email forwards I see among my 70-yo parents never contain irony, but rather intense direct appeal to emotion.

So if irony is not a tool for coming together or even marginally swaying, on what basis does the article say "irony is our best defense against him"? Imagine a low-information Trump voter who thinks maybe the tax bill smells fishy: would one make more progress with a short discussion and an appeal to their well-being, or some memes? Again, I don't propose that anyone need care about "conversion" (because I do read these threads), but I propose that if one is talking about irony as a political tool, as this essay is, one is implying that they care about swaying minds.
posted by sylvanshine at 10:54 PM on December 24, 2017 [14 favorites]

are there any converts to be gained?—with irony?

Well there is something up be said for mocking bullies, whether you do it is a sophisticated way or not. It robs them of some of their power, because it makes them less appealing to their followers... if the whole point of aligning yourself with a "strongman" is to force people to take you seriously... if Trump is basically a silverback gorilla engaging in chest- thumping dominance displays... then laughing at him might cost him followers for reasons that having nothing to do with sophisticated linguistic parsing or rational arguments... just on a primal, primate level, signaling "nope, not intimidated by you" can change his place in the social hierarchy.
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:09 AM on December 25, 2017 [21 favorites]

Well there is something up be said for mocking bullies, whether you do it is a sophisticated way or not. It robs them of some of their power, because it makes them less appealing to their followers...

Less appealing period. It takes the wind out of their sails. See Also: Mel Brooks, especially The Producers.
posted by mikelieman at 12:24 AM on December 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

I think a lot of people of a certain mental status don't realize that a lot of other people fundamentally do not perceive or understand irony. I have never seen anyone observe that conservatives tend to use and understand irony very little, which maybe makes me sound unread, but it seems obvious to me.

Project: exploit Poe's Law.
posted by scalefree at 1:18 AM on December 25, 2017

I don’t think humor has any real power, not really, except when you’re facing someone as mindlessly vain and narcissistic as this. George W. Bush was the butt of every joke and ended up with 8 years in power. Dick Cheney could give two shits if you make fun of him, he’s too busy having more money then you and I will ever see.

Irony is ingroup language and it hijacks ingroup language - for every ironic posture meant as a joke there’s one thinking it seriously. It requires codes and norms and symbols to work. I wouldn’t use irony in an outreach campaign.
posted by The Whelk at 1:50 AM on December 25, 2017 [36 favorites]

I'd really like to be able to jump forward a few years and find out how it turned out without the horror of actually having to live through it.

There’s got to be a word in German for this.

Weltschmerzorakelsicht.
posted by progosk at 2:06 AM on December 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

Grangousier: Just for the record, he just tweeted that people are saying "Merry Christmas" to each other because of him.

Sounds like he's this close *presses index finger and thumb together* to declaring himself to be the reason for the season. Who needs Christ anyway? Merry Trumpmas!
*spits*
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:42 AM on December 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

re: Julian Assange deleting his Twitter account, Twittersphere is going predictably nuts, claiming, without evidence of any kind, that it was suspended, that it's a signal there's a big info drop coming, that his lawyers' offices were also burgled. (n.b. @RT_com thinks it important enough to report; @BBCWorld does not.) What's interesting to see is how hard the Russian bots are immediately pushing this, courtesy of Kremlin propaganda–monitoring site Hamilton68: As of this morning, Assange is at the head of their trending topics and among their top ten trending hashtags.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:33 AM on December 25, 2017 [9 favorites]

President Trump Spent Nearly One-Third of First Year in Office at Trump-Owned Properties (WSJ)

Unlike his predecessors, president traveled frequently to places he owns but where others pay to stay

Non-WSJ Link, including this shade:

Early on in his presidential campaign, Trump said that if elected, he would “rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done.”

“I would not be a president who took vacations,” he said. “I would not be a president that takes time off.”

posted by Barack Spinoza at 7:22 AM on December 25, 2017 [19 favorites]

I find the Christmas picture that Melania tweeted out of herself to be problematic. She is unnecessarily sexing up the message of Merry Christmas to the nation; she looks like a second rate actress trolling for work. I know her one job in life is to be arm candy but that life experience doesn’t transfer very well to her new position as FLOTUS. I hate a lot of things about the Trump family but their devaluation of women to sex kittens is high on my list.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:46 AM on December 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

Chuck Grassley posted this on Facebook:

Senator Grassley delivered a Christmas message in a video address to Iowans.

“Christmas is a time to come together with family and friends and to celebrate the great blessings of life and the birth of our Lord and Savior. From my family to yours: Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a happy New Year,” Senator Grassley said.

Sometimes I wonder whether I'm welcome in Iowa, which is a stupid question, because the answer is clearly no. It's pretty clear who Senator Grassley thinks that Iowans are, and if Jesus isn't your Lord and Savior, that's not you.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:56 AM on December 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

Just for the record, he just tweeted that people are saying "Merry Christmas" to each other because of him.

Hmm, did he now?
posted by walrus at 7:59 AM on December 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

Secret Life of Gravy: I find the Christmas picture that Melania tweeted out of herself to be problematic.

Do you mean this one?
posted by Too-Ticky at 8:23 AM on December 25, 2017

I don’t think humor has any real power, not really

I'm usually reminded of Peter Cook's comment that he opened the Establishment Club (the birthplace of 60s English satire), that he modelled it on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the second world war". But that didn't stop him.

I wonder whether the most important work isn't being done by those who are encouraging people to stand for any elected office, no matter how small - that's where democracy can be regrown. But at the same time the likes of Colbert and Oliver are definitely doing the work of the deity of your choice.
posted by Grangousier at 8:50 AM on December 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

I think of the satirists today as being the "USO-type" entertainers for the troops doing the hard work. Although if "celebrity candidates" are the real future of politics, I can think of many many who would not be as good as (The Real) Stephen Colbert.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:57 AM on December 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Speaking of Melania, the WaPo's fashion editor Robin Givhan has a year-end review of her wardrobe:

Trump’s favored European brands are not new or up-and-coming. They are brands deeply rooted in their country’s traditions, history and psyche. Dior and Chanel are embedded in the French national identity. Dolce & Gabbana celebrates the cultural traditions of southern Italy. Delpozo, another Trump favorite, is a decades-old Spanish label. They are their country’s fancy iterations of Ford pickups, Yankees baseball caps and Levi’s. These brands vehemently and ostentatiously contradict the administration’s rallying cry to buy American-made products, support American manufacturing and celebrate America.

But the clothes look good in the pictures, mostly. Ultimately, the picture is the point.

Basically, she likes the silhouette of big sleeves. She likes to wear coats and sweaters draped over her shoulders rendering her arms useless. She doesn't showcase American designers or engage in any greater symbolic storytelling. Like her limited public speaking, her wardrobe choices do not "expound upon the meaning of the event".

Yeah, so what? It's a reminder of how much smaller every bit of this administration is compared to its predecessor when you look at what Michelle Obama wore and why it mattered.
posted by peeedro at 9:16 AM on December 25, 2017 [17 favorites]

Here's my favorite image of the Trumps celebrating Christmas. Feel the love!
posted by scalefree at 9:17 AM on December 25, 2017 [10 favorites]

So if irony is not a tool for coming together or even marginally swaying, on what basis does the article say "irony is our best defense against him"?

I have nothing definitive to say about the efficacy of irony with regard to bringing down bullies, monsters, marauding hordes of dangerous fools, or whatever. But I do remember, immediately after 9/11, that certain voices from the right were very quick to leap into the noise of the moment and declare that irony was now officially dead, because for some reason it was perilously important to them that it should be so.

They were wrong.

And Merry Fucking Christmas to All.
posted by philip-random at 9:19 AM on December 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

In some ways, having a celebrity candidate would be fine if they were just one part of a team being elected that you judge overall for competence. There is something to be said for having a charismatic spokesperson to sell your party's ideas and for the general public to identify with...as long as said candidate was actually serious about the government, smart, and had great advisors they had shown they'd listen to.

I mean, we should require candidates to tell us ahead of time who their top appointees are going to be and consider the team as a whole. The concept should be "office of the president" rather than "autocrat".

So a celebrity who had a history of listening to their staff, not being an arse, showing smarts, etc? Sure. Someone like trump or reagan? Jesus.
posted by maxwelton at 9:24 AM on December 25, 2017

I can't believe I'm the first to some news!

MERRY CATSMAS EVRAHBAHDEH!
posted by thebotanyofsouls at 9:30 AM on December 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

The manure story was posted in-thread twice yesterday that I saw. Sorry!
posted by palomar at 9:40 AM on December 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

From Chrystosom:

-- Texas Monthly longread on Beto O'Rourke's quest to unseat Ted Cruz.

and from Gotanda:

Thank you, Chrysostom for the links and especially the long read about Beto O'Rourke. Finally got out my credit card and signed up $10 monthly to his campaign. That is along with $10 monthly each to Battleground Texas and to (I know. Controversial but a D is a D in this fight.) Claire McCaskill. I dearly wish someone younger and with better principles would primary Feinstein but doesn't look like she has any serious opposition. So, my vote in the CA-14 district won't accomplish much but that means my time and money are going mostly to Texas this time around. And besides, Cruz is reason enough.

As always, thanks to Chrystosom for the yeoman's work you do. I look forward to reading the TX Monthly article, as they always have great journalism.

2017 has been... unique.

It is almost insane to think that Beto has a chance, but... I think he has a chance.

I have not set up my monthly contribution yet because of spending money on the holidays, etc. but I have seen so many MeFi (such as Gotanda) already involved and the whole wave that seems to be happening makes me optimistic.

Hillary actually primed the pump on that:

I asked her whether the time she was spending in Kentucky, a red state, reflected more than her desire to win the primary there the following week (which she did, by a hair). Her eyes lit up; it’s as if she’d been waiting for someone to ask her about the surprising possibilities of the electoral map this year. So which states do you think Trump puts in play? I asked, mentioning the possibility of Georgia, which some think could go Democratic for the first time since her husband won it in 1992.

“Texas!” she exclaimed, eyes wide, as if daring me to question this, which I did. “You are not going to win Texas,” I said. She smiled, undaunted. “If black and Latino voters come out and vote, we could win Texas,” she told me firmly, practically licking her lips.

Beto seems to be firing on all cylinders and I think his campaign is doing an excellent job of energizing the base and more than just the base.

A few examples:

1. I made a donation and the first e-mail I received from the campaing was, "Thank you. If you can give more, please do so. But, we know you may not be able to do so. Would you like to volunteer?"

That was pretty awesome.

2. Pretty much all of the other communications from Beto have been about his ideas and literally does not ask for money. There is a link at the bottom to contribute, but is nothing of the sort from other campaigns I have donated to where it's brimstone and hellfire if we don't contribute more.

I'm about to do some data entry on Christmas day, just because Beto has inspired me.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 9:41 AM on December 25, 2017 [26 favorites]

The manure story was posted in-thread twice yesterday

This is an interview with the perpetrator hero.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:47 AM on December 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

Just for the record, he just tweeted that people are saying "Merry Christmas" to each other because of him.

I wish there was a supercut of all the times Obama said Merry Christmas while he was president that could be tweeted back at him.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:47 AM on December 25, 2017

I wish there was a supercut of all the times Obama said Merry Christmas while he was president that could be tweeted back at him.

Here you go. Merry Christmas.
posted by peeedro at 9:54 AM on December 25, 2017 [13 favorites]

Just for the record, he just tweeted that people are saying "Merry Christmas" to each other because of him.

Maybe he means himself?
posted by scalefree at 10:14 AM on December 25, 2017

If you ask me, we should meet make the Mnuchin manure guy's birthday a national holiday.
posted by holborne at 10:31 AM on December 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

a non mouse, a cow herd, thank you. Good data entry volunteers are worth their weight in gold. You are doing the Lord's work.
posted by dogheart at 11:07 AM on December 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

That photo of the Trumps on the phones ignoring each other is making me laugh and laugh. This is what they choose to present to the world at Christmas?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:27 AM on December 25, 2017 [26 favorites]

Here's my favorite image of the Trumps celebrating Christmas. Feel the love!

It looks like they're having fun!
posted by kirkaracha at 11:34 AM on December 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

“We did twenty takes, and that was the best one.”
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:36 AM on December 25, 2017 [9 favorites]

Incidentally, Julian Assange's Twitter is back online, without explanation. Whether this was a publicity stunt or merely a technical glitch, Donald Jr. is following him again.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:12 PM on December 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

A pretty lengthy look at the US response to Russian trolls from the WaPo's Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Jaffe, Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options.
posted by peeedro at 1:06 PM on December 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

WaPo goes deep on Trump and Christmas.
posted by box at 1:40 PM on December 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

I mean it almost goes without saying, but: the right-wing freak-out over "the war on Christmas" should be taught in schools as a textbook example of what happens when the historically privileged are asked to give even a fraction of an inch of ground up. Going from "100% Christmas / 0% anything else" to even "99% Christmas / 1% anything else" is literally seen by them as a deadly earnest war being fought against their very culture.
posted by tocts at 1:51 PM on December 25, 2017 [58 favorites]

It's so disheartening how they've turned the phrase "Merry Christmas" into a damn weapon. I don't celebrate Christmas, but I've always been perfectly happy to use it as a greeting on actual Christmas Day. Now, you're choosing sides in the War no matter what you say. The ability to just not think about it, to say anything and not have it be infused with some ridiculous political context, that's gone now.

So anyway, um, Merry Christmas, Metafilter.
posted by zachlipton at 2:15 PM on December 25, 2017 [25 favorites]

That photo is supposedly them telling kids where santa is, based on norad.

Mommy, why is the Grinch on the phone?
posted by kirkaracha at 2:20 PM on December 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

It's really not a stretch for anyone who's not a christian to refer to today as "Christmas" any more than it's a problem for anyone who doesn't worship the Norse gods to refer to the day in the middle of the working week as "Wednesday". It's just the day's name.
posted by Grangousier at 2:27 PM on December 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

It is far less of a stretch for people who prefer to use the term Christmas to not make it a federal issue when other people don't prefer to use the term Christmas.
posted by bootlegpop at 2:30 PM on December 25, 2017 [9 favorites]

That too.
posted by Grangousier at 2:33 PM on December 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

It's so disheartening how they've turned the phrase "Merry Christmas" into a damn weapon.

Yep. Some fantasy of "triggering liberals" is certainly what Jesus espoused when he was alive. /s

The whole "War on Christmas" is only because corporations find it profitable to not discriminate. Nobody but the most batshit insane moonbats were complaining about Merry Christmas being espoused in public.
posted by Talez at 2:42 PM on December 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

(What I meant was that most normal people do whatever, because they generally want to be nice to each other. I have honestly never encountered anyone who responded other than positively to any genuine wish of goodwill whatever the exact terminology used. Christmas the holiday is mostly about having a serious blow-out at the point where it seems winter will never end, and at that point people appreciate a little kindness. Until they've had a few beers, anyway.)
posted by Grangousier at 2:45 PM on December 25, 2017

Yeah, here in Brooklyn no liberals are triggered on hearing "Merry Christmas." I heard it all day yesterday, and from the Asian man at the cash register this morning when I had to run out for milk and eggs.
posted by maggiemaggie at 3:01 PM on December 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

triggerfinger: Anyway, if anyone else has any other good investigative pieces on Russia, DB, Wilbur Ross, Cyprus, Trump & associates, etc. please send them my way. I have the next week off and I'm going to read the shit out of everything I can get my hands on.

I feel bad only posting this now, after the day-bore of Christmas is almost over, but if you haven't read the ICIJ's reporting on the Panama Papers that will definitely fill in some gaps and make some connections for you. But really the whole mess boils down to "follow the money."
posted by carsonb at 3:03 PM on December 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

While Trump is dealing with the fake war against Christmas, let's have a look at how Jared's new BFF is dealing with peace in the Middle East: Why Saad Hariri Had That Strange Sojourn in Saudi Arabia (NYTimes)
So much to quote, but I'll leave it at this: Then again, on Tuesday, Yemen’s Houthis fired another missile at Riyadh.
posted by mumimor at 3:15 PM on December 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

Christmas the holiday is mostly about having a serious blow-out at the point where it seems winter will never end

Winter just started four days ago.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:18 PM on December 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

Oh, you know what mean. It's been cold since October. It'll be cold until March. It's particularly cold now. Let's get pissed and eat too much. That's the true meaning of Christmas.
posted by Grangousier at 3:20 PM on December 25, 2017 [17 favorites]

More about the sunshine than any religious observance, really...
posted by bird internet at 3:26 PM on December 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

American ISIS Suspect Held in Iraq Has Right to Lawyer, Judge Rules

Calling the Trump administration’s position “disingenuous” and “troubling,” a federal judge on Saturday ordered the Pentagon to permit a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union to meet with a United States citizen who has been imprisoned in military custody for three months after being deemed an enemy combatant.

posted by Joe in Australia at 3:59 PM on December 25, 2017 [14 favorites]

More about the sunshine than any religious observance, really...

The one led to the other. Yule, Saturnalia, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti all fall at the same time for a reason.
posted by scalefree at 4:01 PM on December 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

It's Christmas, there are 2100 comments, I got you this: new thread (thanks, mods!)
posted by box at 5:26 PM on December 25, 2017 [19 favorites]

Anecdata: A grocer wished me Happy Holidays the other day and I wished them Merry Christmas back... and no one died. #CeasefireOnChristmas
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:00 PM on December 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

If memory serves me correctly, there was a theme running thru the constant "Trump Voters Still Love Him" profiles to the effect of "Well, some of the things he has done are troubling, but I'm willing to give him a chance to make good on his promises!"

This is what some of them got.

It is what some of them got. What makes that article such a good troll of Daily Kos types is that its subjects, the fired working-class people who have gotten what was coming to them for thinking Trump's supposed protectionism might be good for their industry, A) didn't vote for him, and B) are black. Only one guy who actually supports and likes Trump is in there, and only then at the end, so you could easily skim the piece and not realize that it's not another puff piece about sad white men looking out of their living-room windows.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:57 PM on December 26, 2017

This is the first time I get to do this, so here goes:

NEW THREAD
posted by mmascolino at 1:09 PM on December 26, 2017

Gotanda: "I dearly wish someone younger and with better principles would primary Feinstein but doesn't look like she has any serious opposition. "

Kevin de León is not UN-serious, at least. State Senate president pro tem is definitely one of the bigger names you are going to get, at least from someone who is already a politician (Newsom and Villaraigosa are running for governor, Garcetti seems to be planning to run for president). I think he's got a pretty good shot at being one of the top two finishers. Actually beating DiFi will be harder, of course.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:47 PM on December 26, 2017

That photo of the Trumps on the phones ignoring each other is making me laugh and laugh. This is what they choose to present to the world at Christmas?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:27 AM on December 25 [26 favorites +] [!]

For people who are essentially just brands, they sure don't seem to understand branding that well.
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:54 AM on December 27, 2017 [3 favorites]