Trump Tantrum Open Thread

Posted: January 8, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: open thread, U.S. Politics | Tags: | 47 Comments

 

Here’s a fresh thread in case anyone wants to discuss the televised Trump tantrum tonight. One good thing, Rachel Maddow is going to be on at 8PM with Chris Hayes and will follow the Trump tantrum with other guests on her show.

A few reads:

George Packer at The Atlantic: The Suicide of a Great Democracy.

Also at The Atlantic: Why Mike Pence Couldn’t End the Shutdown.

Reuters: A growing number of Americans blame Trump for shutdown: Reuters-Ipsos poll.

CBS News: Every congressperson along southern border opposes border wall funding.

 

This is a wide open thread.

 

 

Tuesday Reads: Trump Tantrum Live From The Oval Office Tonight

Posted: January 8, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 40 Comments

Good Morning!!

The TV networks are giving Trump free time tonight to spout lies about a non-existent “crisis” at the Southern border. Fortunately, they are also giving equal time to Democrats to respond. But they should have just said no. After all, they refused to carry an Oval Office speech by Obama in 2014. Matthew Yglesias at Vox:

In 2014, Obama was ready to announce a series of executive actions on immigration in the wake of the collapse in negotiations over a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill. The plan had a lot of moving parts, but the centerpiece was to give work permits and formal protection from deportation to millions of unauthorized immigrants while focusing the nation’s immigration enforcement resources on immigrants who’d committed violent crimes.

This was, naturally, very controversial. And Obama, naturally, wanted to try to make it less controversial by convincing people that it was a good idea.

Conservative pundits were, at the time, pushing the notion that Obama was essentially seizing power like a Latin American dictator, so essentially anything that refocused the conversation on banal policy details would have played to his advantage. TV networks, however, didn’t give him what he wanted, in part because it was November sweeps time, but officially because he was playing partisan politics rather than addressing a true national emergency.

So why are they running Trump’s obviously political speech? Because they’re scared. This is what what one anonymous network executive told CNN’s Brian Stelter.

This “exec” didn’t even have the guts to let Stelter use his name!

Here’s what the U.S. Secretary of State thinks of what Trump plans to say tonight.

These people are pathetic. Meanwhile, in Turkey, more pathetic incompetence from National Security Adviser John Bolton.

Bloomberg: Erdogan Snubs Trump Adviser Bolton for Blocking Syria Roadmap.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, frustrated by evolving U.S. conditions for quitting Syria, refused to meet with visiting National Security Adviser John Bolton and ripped into U.S. proposals to give Kurds a key role in Syria after the withdrawal.

Turkey is angered that Bolton, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and top American military officials are slowing what President Donald Trump suggested only weeks ago would be a quick exit. The delay would restrict Turkey’s ability to launch an offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters it considers enemies but who allied with a U.S. coalition to oust the Islamic State terrorist group from Syria.

“Although we made a clear agreement with U.S. President Trump, different voices are emerging from different parts of the administration,” Erdogan said as Bolton prepared to leave Ankara, where he met with other Turkish officials. “Trump’s remarks continue to be the main point of reference for us.”

It looks like attempts to walk back Trump’s insane policy decisions are no longer working.

Will Trump try to declare a national emergency tonight? I have no idea, but if he does it’s going to cause more problems than any of us can predict. Here are some opinions about what could happen, beginning with the worst case scenarios

Elizabeth Goitein at The Atlantic: What the President Could Do If He Declares a State of Emergency. A brief excerpt:

It would be nice to think that America is protected from the worst excesses of Trump’s impulses by its democratic laws and institutions. After all, Trump can do only so much without bumping up against the limits set by the Constitution and Congress and enforced by the courts. Those who see Trump as a threat to democracy comfort themselves with the belief that these limits will hold him in check.

But will they? Unknown to most Americans, a parallel legal regime allows the president to sidestep many of the constraints that normally apply. The moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—more than 100 special provisions become available to him. While many of these tee up reasonable responses to genuine emergencies, some appear dangerously suited to a leader bent on amassing or retaining power. For instance, the president can, with the flick of his pen, activate laws allowing him to shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the United States or freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available even without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to deploy troops inside the country to subdue domestic unrest.

This edifice of extraordinary powers has historically rested on the assumption that the president will act in the country’s best interest when using them. With a handful of noteworthy exceptions, this assumption has held up. But what if a president, backed into a corner and facing electoral defeat or impeachment, were to declare an emergency for the sake of holding on to power? In that scenario, our laws and institutions might not save us from a presidential power grab. They might be what takes us down.

Read the whole thing at The Atlantic.

At Bloomberg, Noah Feldman disagrees, because only Congress can authorize spending: No ‘Emergency’ Will Allow Trump to Build His Wall.

President Donald Trump has said that he can declare a national emergency and order his border wall to be built. He’s wrong. The U.S. Constitution doesn’t contain any national emergency provision that would allow the president to spend money for purposes not allocated by Congress. And it’s clearer than clear that Congress not only hasn’t authorized money for a wall along the border with Mexico but also doesn’t intend to do so.

The upshot is that any attempt by Trump to get around Congress by using invented emergency powers would violate the Constitution. It almost certainly would be blocked by the courts. And it would constitute a high crime and misdemeanor qualifying him for impeachment.

Of course, Trump may not care. He’s established a pattern of taking clearly unconstitutional action, waiting for the courts to block it, and winning (at least in his estimation) political points with his Republican base regardless. It would be perfectly within that pattern for Trump to announce that he can do whatever he wants in a national emergency. He is expected to lay the groundwork for such a declaration in a prime-time address Tuesday. But we should recognize any such action for what it is: a usurpation of clear constitutional commands for the purposes of political grandstanding.

A bit more detail:

The Constitution does contain an emergency powers clause. Article I, Section 9 allows for the suspension of habeas corpus in cases of rebellion or invasion.

Those emergency powers are unsurprisingly varied and broad. But none of them can displace the Constitution itself. And it is the Constitution that says the Congress appropriates money and the executive spends it.

If there were some statutory provision saying that in an emergency the president could do things Congress otherwise has told him he can’t do, that would pose an intriguing constitutional question: Which law would prevail in a conflict between one saying the president could do something and another saying he couldn’t?

But I know of no law that says the president can spend money on purposes that Congress doesn’t want him to spend it on.

From the fact that the suspension clause exists, you can deduce something very basic to the U.S. constitutional system: There are no other inherent constitutional emergency powers. Yes, the president is commander in chief, with the power to defend the United States — but he can only do that with an army authorized and paid for by Congress.

That means any emergency power the president might have must come directly from Congress. The National Emergencies Act of 1976 is Congress’s last word on what emergency powers it gives the president. That law was enacted after Senate staffers’ research revealed some 470 emergency provisions across the whole of the U.S. Code.

As Trump often says, “we’ll see what happens.”

Trump thinks he knows better than anyone about anything, and yet we can all see that he knows almost nothing about what his job entails. This video has been floating around lately.

How to explain Trump’s illusion of competency? Seemingly in answer to this question, The Washington Post has posted an article on the Dunning-Kruger effect: What’s behind the confidence of the incompetent? This suddenly popular psychological phenomenon.

You may have witnessed this scene at work, while socializing with friends or over a holiday dinner with extended family: Someone who has very little knowledge in a subject claims to know a lot. That person might even boast about being an expert.

This phenomenon has a name: the Dunning-Kruger effect. It’s not a disease, syndrome or mental illness; it is present in everybody to some extent, and it’s been around as long as human cognition, though only recently has it been studied and documented in social psychology.

In their 1999 paper, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, David Dunning and Justin Kruger put data to what has been known by philosophers since Socrates, who supposedly said something along the lines of “the only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing.” Charles Darwin followed that up in 1871 with “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”

Put simply, incompetent people think they know more than they really do, and they tend to be more boastful about it.

To test Darwin’s theory, the researchers quizzed people on several topics, such as grammar, logical reasoning and humor. After each test, they asked the participants how they thought they did. Specifically, participants were asked how many of the other quiz-takers they beat.

Dunning was shocked by the results, even though it confirmed his hypothesis. Time after time, no matter the subject, the people who did poorly on the tests ranked their competence much higher. On average, test takers who scored as low as the 10th percentile ranked themselves near the 70th percentile. Those least likely to know what they were talking about believed they knew as much as the experts.

That’s it for me today. I’m trying to decide whether to leave the TV off tonight or just mute it until the Democratic response begins. What are you going to do?

Lazy Saturday Reads: “Impeach the Motherf***er!”

Posted: January 5, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

Cartoon by Mike Thompson

Good Afternoon!!

Republicans and some journalists have taken to their fainting couches over a profanity used by a newly sworn-in Congresswoman, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). In case you missed it somehow, Tlaib said in a speech that she was going to Congress to “impeach the motherfucker.”

Although she only used one swear word, the NYT headline writer characterized her speech as “profanity laden.” Even Trump weighed in during his rambling word salad in the rose garden yesterday, claiming that Tlaib “dishonored” herself, her family, and disrespected the U.S. by using the same word that Trump allowed Kanye West to use in the oval office.

Here’s The New York Times’ Nicholas Fandos’ take:

Impeachment was always going to hang heavily over a divided Washington. But it took little more than 24 hours this week for a freshman House Democrat’s exuberant, expletive-laden impeachment promise to upend the bonhomie of a new Congress and prompt President Trump, by his own telling, to ask the newly elected speaker if Democrats planned to impeach him.

The episode began Thursday night, just hours after the 116th Congress was sworn in, when a camera captured Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan promising profanely to impeach Mr. Trump as she drew cheers from liberal activists at a celebration at a bar near the Capitol. By the time Mr. Trump discussed the matter directly in a news conference in the Rose Garden on Friday afternoon, weeks of speculation about his potential peril had burst into the open.

Republicans, eager to portray Democrats as out to destroy Mr. Trump’s presidency, piled on criticism of Ms. Tlaib — some of it racially tinged. (Ms. Tlaib, who is Palestinian-American, is one of the first Muslims in Congress. The Christian Broadcasting Network referred to her as a “foul-mouthed Islamic congresswoman.”) Democratic leaders, who view discussion of impeachment as politically dangerous and premature, offered worried words meant to tamp down speculation about their intentions.

Fandos’ concern is duly noted. Now he can fuck off.

Rep. Tlaib responded to the uproar in an op-ed at The Detroit Free Press: Now is the time to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

President Donald Trump is a direct and serious threat to our country. On an almost daily basis, he attacks our Constitution, our democracy, the rule of law and the people who are in this country. His conduct has created a constitutional crisis that we must confront now.

Rashida tlaib

The Framers of the Constitution designed a remedy to address such a constitutional crisis: impeachment. Through the impeachment clause, they sought to ensure that we would have the power, through our elected representatives in Congress, to protect the country by removing a lawless president from the Oval Office.

We already have overwhelming evidence that the president has committed impeachable offenses, including, just to name a few: obstructing justice; violating the emoluments clause; abusing the pardon power; directing or seeking to direct law enforcement to prosecute political adversaries for improper purposes; advocating illegal violence and undermining equal protection of the laws; ordering the cruel and unconstitutional imprisonment of children and their families at the southern border; and conspiring to illegally influence the 2016 election through a series of hush money payments.

Whether the president was directly involved in a conspiracy with the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 election remains the subject of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. But we do not need to wait on the outcome of that criminal investigation before moving forward now with an inquiry in the U.S. House of Representatives on whether the president has committed impeachable “high crimes and misdemeanors” against the state: abuse of power and abuse of the public trust.

Click on the link the read the rest.

Meanwhile, Trump used the F-word liberally during his meeting with Democratic leaders yesterday. The Daily Beast: Trump Referred to Shutdown as ‘Strike’ in Profanity-Laced Meeting With Democratic Leaders.

During Friday’s meeting at the White House over the ongoing shutdown standoff, President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made little substantive progress as Pelosi and Schumer urged Trump to reopen the government by Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the meeting.

One of these knowledgeable sources told The Daily Beast President Trump kicked off the meeting with a rant lasting roughly 15 minutes that included his $5.6 billion demand for a border wall, and threatened that he was willing to keep the government closed for “years” if that’s what it took to get his wall. He also, unprompted, brought up the Democrats who want him impeached, and even blamed Pelosi for new Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib saying at a party earlier this week that Democrats would impeach the “motherfucker” Trump. (It is unclear why Trump would think Pelosi was responsible for this.)

Trump proceeded to tell the room he was too popular to impeach.

Along with saying the word “fuck” at least three times throughout the meeting, the president bizarrely stated that he did not want to call the partial government shutdown a “shutdown,” according to the source. Instead, he referred to it as a “strike.” (Many of the federal employees affected by the weeks-long shutdown have been working without pay. That is essentially the opposite of a strike.)

During the course of this meeting, the Democrats in the room were visibly shaking their heads in exasperation.

Back in the real world, Americans are suffering from Trump’s latest temper tantrum.

The Washington Post: Millions face delayed tax refunds, cuts to food stamps as White House scrambles to deal with shutdown’s consequences.

Food stamps for 38 million low-income Americans would face severe reductions and more than $140 billion in tax refunds are at risk of being frozen or delayed if the government shutdown stretches into February, widespread disruptions that threaten to hurt the economy.

The Trump administration, which had not anticipated a long-term shutdown, recognized only this week the breadth of the potential impact, several senior administration officials said. The officials said they were focused now on understanding the scope of the consequences and determining whether there is anything they can do to intervene.

trash piles up in dc as the trump shutdown continues.

Thousands of federal programs are affected by the shutdown, but few intersect with the public as much as the tax system and the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the current version of food stamps.

The partial shutdown has cut off new funding to the Treasury Department and the USDA, leaving them largely unstaffed and crippling both departments’ ability to fulfill core functions.

The potential cuts to food stamps and suspension of tax refunds illustrate the compounding consequences of leaving large parts of the federal govern­ment unfunded indefinitely — a ­scenario that became more likely Friday when President Trump said he would leave the government shut down for months or even years unless Democrats gave him money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Read more at the WaPo.

The Washington Post: Three dead in national parks as shutdown wears on.

Three days after most of the federal workforce was furloughed on Dec. 21, a 14-year-old girl fell 700 feet to her death at the Horseshoe Bend Overlook, part of the Glen Canyon Recreation Area in Arizona. The following day, Christmas, a man died at Yosemite National Park in California after suffering a head injury in a fall. On Dec. 27, a woman was killed by a falling tree at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which straddles the borders of North Carolina and Tennessee.

The deaths follow a decision by Trump administration officials to leave the scenic — but sometimes deadly — parks open even as the Interior Department has halted most of its operations. During previous extended shutdowns, the National Park Service barred public access to many of its sites across the nation to substantially decrease the risk of park damage and visitor injury.

The National Parks have a poop crisis on their hands.

National Park Service spokesman Jeremy Barnum said in an email that an average of six people die each week in the park system, a figure that includes “accidents like drownings, falls, and motor vehicle crashes and medical related incidents such as heart attacks.” Drowning, automobile accidents and falls are among the top causes of death at national parks….

In 1995 and 2013, respectively, the Clinton and Obama administrations made the decision to close the parks altogether. Officials concluded that keeping the parks open would jeopardize public safety and the parks’ integrity, but the closures also became a political cudgel for Democrats because they exemplified one of the most popular aspects of federal operations that had ground to a halt.

CNN: Hundreds of TSA screeners, working without pay, calling out sick at major airports.

Hundreds of Transportation Security Administration officers, who are required to work without paychecks through the partial government shutdown, have called out from work this week from at least four major airports, according to two senior agency officials and three TSA employee union officials.

The mass call outs could inevitably mean air travel is less secure, especially as the shutdown enters its second week with no clear end to the political stalemate in sight.
“This will definitely affect the flying public who we (are) sworn to protect,” Hydrick Thomas, president of the national TSA employee union, told CNN.

TSA spokesman Michael Bilello said the agency is “closely monitoring the situation” and that “screening wait times remain well within TSA standards,” although that could change if the number of call outs increases.

At New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, as many as 170 TSA employees have called out each day this week, Thomas tells CNN. Officers from a morning shift were required to work extra hours to cover the gaps.

Call outs have increased by 200%-300% at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, where typically 25 to 30 TSA employees call out from an average shift according to a local TSA official familiar with the situation.

Union officials stress that the absences are not part of an organized action, but believe the number of people calling out will likely increase.

One more from The New York Times: Shutdown Leaves Food, Medicine and Pay in Doubt in Indian Country.

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. — For one tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the government shutdown comes with a price tag: about $100,000, every day, of federal money that does not arrive to keep health clinics staffed, food pantry shelves full and employees paid.

Chippawa Indian food bank in Michigan

The tribe is using its own funds to cover the shortfalls for now. But if the standoff in Washington continues much longer, that stopgap money will be depleted. Later this month, workers could be furloughed and health services could be pared back. “Everything,” said Aaron Payment, the chairman of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe, “is on the table.”

For many Americans who are not federal workers or contractors, a shutdown is a minor inconvenience. A trip to a national park may be canceled. A call to a government office may go unanswered. But for Native American tribes, which rely heavily on federal money to operate, a shutdown can cripple their most basic functions.

All across Indian Country, the federal shutdown slices deep. Generations ago, tribes negotiated treaties with the United States government guaranteeing funds for services like health care and education in exchange for huge swaths of territory.

Read the rest at the NYT.

So . . . what else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread below.

Thursday Reads: Checks and Balances Are Coming!

Posted: January 3, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | 59 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Here she comes again! Today Nancy Pelosi will take the Speaker’s gavel from Paul Ryan, and Trump will begin to realize that he can no longer treat Congress as his doormat. Pelosi isn’t going to cringe in fear of Trump’s tantrums like Ryan did. She knows exactly what she’s doing and Trump’s tweets and rants will roll off her back as she works toward the restoration of our democracy. Trump won’t know what hit him.

I remember very clearly the day when Pelosi announced that “impeachment is off the table” back in 2006 when George W. Bush was president. I was furious. But she’s not saying that today.

The Today Show: Nancy Pelosi says she won’t rule out indictment, impeachment for Trump.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she wouldn’t rule out President Trump being indicted while in office, describing the topic as “an open discussion.”

During an exclusive interview with TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie, the House Democratic leader said it’s possible that special counsel Robert Mueller could seek an indictment against the sitting president, despite Justice Department guidelines against such action….

Nancy Pelosi with JFK

“I think that that is an open discussion. I think that is an open discussion in terms of the law,” she said, on the eve of reclaiming her former title as speaker of the House. Pelosi will become the first lawmaker in recent history to hold that office twice when the 116th Congress convenes Thursday….

Although Democrats have discussed the idea of impeaching the president, Pelosi said it would not benefit the country to pursue one. But she wouldn’t rule the idea out either.

“We have to wait and see what happens with the Mueller report. We shouldn’t be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn’t avoid impeachment for a political reason. So we’ll just have to see how it comes,” she said.

She said Trump isn’t getting his ridiculous border wall either.

“No, no. Nothing for the wall. We’re talking about border security,” she said. “There is no amount of persuasion he can do to say to us, ‘We want you to do something that is not effective, that costs billions of dollars.’ That sends the wrong message about who we are as a country.”

“This is the Trump shutdown, through and through. That’s why he has proudly taken, in his view, proudly taken ownership of it. There’s no escaping that for him,” Pelosi said. “That doesn’t mean we take any joy in the fact that there is a Trump shutdown. We want government to open.”

Pelosi remains the first woman ever to be Speaker of the House. From Politico’s somewhat patronizing piece on Pelosi: The survivor: Nancy Pelosi makes history — again.

The past seven speakers of the House have lost their majority, been forced out by their own colleagues, or stepped down amid personal scandal. One of them — Nancy Pelosi — now has a second chance to rewrite her legacy.

The past seven speakers of the House have lost their majority, been forced out by their own colleagues, or stepped down amid personal scandal. One of them — Nancy Pelosi — now has a second chance to rewrite her legacy.

On Thursday, the 78-year-old Pelosi will be the first person in more than six decades, since the legendary Texas Democrat Sam Rayburn, to return to the speaker’s chair after losing it. She will be surrounded by children as she does so, a replay of an iconic moment from her January 2007 swearing-in ceremony as the first female speaker in history.

Pelosi with George W. Bush

But Pelosi will also tie Rayburn on another front by becoming the oldest person ever elected speaker and the oldest to hold the post, a testament to both her staying power and the fact that her return engagement to the speakership will be limited.

Unlike her original go-round as speaker from 2007 to 2011, when the California Democrat was at her most powerful, Pelosi will face a whole new set of challenges during the 116th Congress — a fractious caucus full of upstart progressives who want to move an ambitious agenda; the unpredictable President Donald Trump, who has greeted Pelosi’s return to power with an ongoing government shutdown; a determined, experienced foe in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who runs his own chamber with a tight grip; and self-imposed term limits on her speakership of four years.

All that, however, shouldn’t diminish the scale of what Pelosi has done. She survived a challenge to her leadership after a 63-seat wipeout in the 2010 tea party wave. She faced more Democratic complaints in 2014 and 2016 — the latter heightened by the Democratic despair over Trump’s victory. Throughout this latest election cycle, moderate Democratic incumbents and candidates warned they wouldn’t vote for Pelosi for speaker and a band of rebels sought to derail her return to the speaker’s chair.

In the end, Pelosi overcame it all.

“I’m telling you what I know and what I have seen. … Nancy Pelosi is in charge of the Democratic Caucus, and to believe otherwise is perilous for an opponent,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, who has occasionally differed with Pelosi.

“She understands legislation down to the minute details and can flip you back and forth in a negotiation session based on her knowledge, skill and experience,” Cleaver noted. “And I’m kind of an independent person, so I’m not necessarily in her camp.”

Elle also gave an interview to Elle yesterday: Nancy Pelosi on Her New Role, Trump’s Manhood, and That Red Max Mara Coat.

Born in Baltimore with five older brothers and a father who served as mayor, Pelosi became the first woman to ever lead a political party when she was elected Democratic Leader of the House in 2002. In 2007, she made history again as the first female Speaker of the House. Famous for being a fundraising juggernaut—she pulled in over a hundred million dollars for the Democratic party last year—Pelosi has also proven herself to be a formidable politician, having been on the national stage longer than some of the incoming Congress members have been alive.

When Pelosi is sworn in, 106 women of all races, sexual orientations, and walks of life will join her in Congress. Many of them have voiced their concerns that a 78-year-old, wealthy white woman who currently lives in San Francisco may not be the best representative for all Americans. Just days before her holiday break with family (she has five grown children) and the partial government shutdown, Pelosi spoke with ELLE about the shifting face of the party, the prospect of impeaching President Trump, and the fiery coat that spawned a thousand memes.

Nancy Pelosi during her first run for the House in Maryland

ELLE: Diving right in here, you’ve been cast as a villain. There are Democrats who won their elections by saying they wouldn’t vote for you. Republicans have spent enormous sums to vilify you. What does it feel like to be hated in that way?

Nancy Pelosi: I don’t necessarily feel hated. I feel respected. They wouldn’t come after me if I were not effective. I consider myself a master legislator. Republicans fear me for that, but also because I am a successful fundraiser, enabling our candidates to have the resources they need to win. So from a political standpoint they have to take me down, and from an official standpoint they have to take me down. But I’m spending more time talking about it right now than I ever have thinking about it.

ELLE: Before her passing, California congresswoman Sala Burton anointed you as her successor. Because of Burton’s support, one of your biographers wrote that you are “Exhibit A for the case that the only way for women to reach the top echelon in politics is through the committed assistance of other women.” Do you agree with that?

NP: Absolutely. I say to women all the time, “This is not a zero-sum game. One woman’s success is not subtracting from anybody else’s opportunity. It’s the reverse. Every woman’s success helps other women.” Imagine, Sala Burton, a member of Congress, deciding she was going to encourage me to run? That was remarkable. Usually it’s men to men. Because of her encouragement, I ran, and I won. Women helping women—people are now seeing the magnified impact of that, and it’s a beautiful thing to behold.

Read the rest at Elle.

Alexandra Pelosi with her mother Nancy Pelosi

Pelosi’s daughter spoke about her mother on CNN this morning. The Washington Post: Nancy Pelosi will ‘cut your head off and you won’t even know you’re bleeding,’ daughter Alexandra Pelosi says.

“How does she approach meetings with President Trump, A, and B, just what are your feelings about this person who you know quite well becoming speaker of the House for a second time?” host John Berman asked during an interview Wednesday on CNN’s “New Day.”

The younger Pelosi responded: “She’ll cut your head off and you won’t even know you’re bleeding.” [….]

“No one ever won betting against Nancy Pelosi,” she continued. “She’s persevered. You’ve got to give her credit.” [….]

Alexandra Pelosi…hailed her mother as someone who “knows what she’s doing — and that should make you sleep at night, knowing that at least somebody in this town knows what they’re doing.”

Pelosi has been busy hiring staff to help her deal with Trump. Vanity Fair: “A Formidable Opponent for Anyone: Pelosi Hires Her Legal Talent to Take on Trump.

As stained coffee cups and empty takeout containers pile up on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and Donald Trump points fingers at the Democrats, Nancy Pelosi has been quietly preparing to assume her role as the president’s chief antagonist. During the reprieve between Christmas and the New Year, the California lawmaker announced the appointment of Justice Department veteran Doug Letter as the new general counsel for the House of Representatives. Though Pelosi’s decision was met with little fanfare, Letter will be the linchpin in the oversight nightmare that House Democrats are preparing for Trump and his administration, circa tomorrow. “It is fanciful to think that there won’t be a substantial oversight function served by the new House. There are just so many issues that have gone without scrutiny,” Robert Loeb, a D.C. appellate lawyer, told me. It will be Letter’s job to inform Pelosi and other lawmakers “what their options are and what the risks and costs are” when it comes to leveraging Congress’s oversight authority.

Democrats have not been coy about their plans to exhume the scandals their Republican colleagues buried during the first two years of Trump’s presidency. As I previously reported, House Democrats have been treating January 3—the day Pelosi takes the gavel from Paul Ryan—like D-Day, with teams of staffers already lined up to open investigations into the president’s deputies, associates, and businesses. The anticipated lines of inquiry run the gamut—child separation at the border; Trump-Russia collusion; the F.B.I. investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh; White House security clearances; emoluments; the list goes on. And regardless of the specific rabbit holes that House Democrats choose to go down, protracted federal court battles seem assured. As general counsel, Letter would be the point person in any litigation brought on behalf of Pelosi and the House.

To former colleagues, Letter seems poised for the challenge. “For the last dozen years, I’ve litigated against Doug and with him at my side in some of the most consequential appeals in our lifetimes. Every time, he has been brilliant, professional, nonpartisan, and balanced,” Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general at the Justice Department under Barack Obama, told me. “There is no one more experienced, and no one better suited to this job.” Letter has signaled as much, himself. “I am eager to apply my litigation experience as I take on the challenges and opportunities that come with the important position,” he said in a statement about his appointment.

Click on the Vanity Fair link to read the rest.

What else is happening? What stories have you been following?

Tuesday Reads: Happy New Year!!

Posted: January 1, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | 35 Comments

People waiting in the rain to see the fireworks on First Night in Boston.

Welcome to 2019!!

The madman in the White House is up and tweeting nonsense in all caps, and the U.S. Strategic Command tweeted and then deleted a “joke” about dropping bombs. Welcome to 2019 everyone!

NBC News: U.S. Strategic Command deletes New Year’s Eve joke about dropping something ‘bigger.’

U.S. Strategic Command made an unexpected joke in a now-deleted Twitter post about American military might on Monday in its New Year’s Eve message.

Noting the “big” Times Square ball drop celebration at midnight, the unified command’s account tweeted, “if ever needed, we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger.”

The joke was followed by a slickly produced video of stealth jets with the words “stealth, ready, and lethal” flashing across the screen. The tweet encouraged followers to “watch to the end!” If you do, you’ll see two bombs released from a plane, followed by several massive explosions.

The tweet was later deleted, and a subsequent tweet from the unified command’s account said the first was “in poor taste & does not reflect our values. We apologize.”

Not funny. Who are these people?? Read more excuses at the link.

Thank goodness, we only have two more days to wait until the Democrats take over the House. The Washington Post: House Democrats ready strategy to reopen government, deny Trump wall money.

Democrats will take control of the House on Thursday with a stark challenge to President Trump, voting on legislation that would fund the federal government while denying Trump the money he has demanded to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

GOP leaders in the Senate said they would support only a proposal that has the president’s backing. And without additional wall money, the Democrats’ offer is unlikely to break the stalemate that has shuttered large parts of the federal government since Dec. 22.

But the strategy Democrats announced Monday would usher in a new era of divided government in Washington with a dare to Trump, aimed at forcing him and Senate Republicans to take their deal or prolong a partial government shutdown.

House Democrats plan to use their new majority to vote through measures that would reopen nearly all of the shuttered federal agencies through the end of September, at funding levels Senate Republicans have previously agreed to. Those spending bills contain scores of priorities and pet projects for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The Democratic proposal holds out one exception: The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border security, would keep its current level of funding, with no new money for a border wall. The plan would also extend the department’s budget only through Feb. 8, allowing Democrats to revisit funding for key parts of Trump’s immigration policy in a month.

Trump has already rejected the plan. We’ll see if Republicans in the Senate want to anger their constituents by going along with him.

Meanwhile, a federal employee union is suing Trump over his government shutdown. Politico reports:

The nation’s largest union representing federal employees filed a lawsuit Monday afternoon against the government, seeking damages for the roughly 400,000 federal employees forced to work without pay during the partial government shutdown.

The two plaintiffs — Justin Tarovisky and Grayson Sharp — work for high-security prisons the Justice Department runs. The American Federation of Government Employees argues that both plaintiffs have dangerous jobs and have been forced to work overtime without pay.

AFGE represents roughly 700,000 federal employees and has challenged the Trump administration over a number of issues, including major restructuring at the Education Department.

J. David Cox, AFGE’s national president, said forcing federal employees to work without pay “is nothing short of inhumane.”

“Positions that are considered ‘essential’ during a government shutdown are some of the most dangerous jobs in the federal government,” he said in a statement. “They are front-line public safety positions, including many in law enforcement, among other critical roles. Our intent is to force the government and the administration to make all federal employees whole.”

AFGE said the federal government is still calculating pay it owes to federal workers for the 16-day shutdown in October 2013.

A GOP representative suggested that if Trump wants his wall so badly, he should pay for it himself. Roll Call: GOP Rep. Walter Jones Suggests Trump Pay for Part of His Wall.

Rep. Walter Jones

Rep. Walter Jones is worried that President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall will add to the federal debt — so worried, in fact, that he’s proposing the president pony up some of his own money for the wall.

“If Mexico isn’t going to be made to pay for a wall, that means funds must be found internally,” the North Carolina Republican said in a statement Friday.

“As a wealthy man, the president might consider pledging some of his own funds as well [to help build the wall],” Jones said. “Whatever it takes, just so long as we don’t add to the debt that is bankrupting our great country.”

Trump may have his crazy base of around 30% of the electorate, but Americans appear to be dumping Fox News for MSNBC these days. The Washington Post’s media maven Eric Wemple: MSNBC is surging.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow can speak at length on many topics. The whims and demographics of her cable-news audience, however, are not among them. “I think I may just be lucky that we’re at a time in the news cycle where there is an appetite for that kind of explanatory work,” Maddow told the Erik Wemple Blog back in the early months of the Trump administration, when her eponymous nightly program was posing a ratings threat to the top dogs over at Fox News.

That threat has turned into a full-time menace. Whereas “The Rachel Maddow Show” several years ago finished in the double digits in annual rankings of cable-news programs, it’s now in the tastemaking vanguard. Over the first three quarters of 2018, Maddow sat in between No. 1 Sean Hannity and No. 3 Tucker Carlson in the cable-news elite. Her show finished fourth for all of 2017.

MSNBC bragged that they were number 1 for the week of December 17.

And indeed: Fox News pointed out that MSNBC’s historic win for the “week of Dec. 17” included only Monday-through-Friday numbers — and excluded the weekend, which put Fox News in its normal place: No. 1. Another consideration: Hannity was on vacation that week.

Caveats noted. Still, MSNBC has something to crow about. Its news programming is sharp, energetic and relentless. Its anchors are prepared. Its correspondents are on the scene.

Read more Wemple caveats at the WaPo, but still Rachel is pulling viewers with her intelligent analysis of the news and her focus on the Russia investigation.

Speaking of that investigation, Robert Mueller hasn’t been slowed down by the government shutdown or the holiday season. Yesterday federal prosecutors filed a sealed status update on cooperating witness Sam Patten, an associate of Konstantin Kilimnik and Paul Manafort: Lobbyist who got Trump Inaugural tickets for Ukrainian still having secret dealings with prosecutors.

Washington lobbyist W. Samuel Patten, who has been one of the most low-profile but potentially significant cooperators in the special counsel’s office investigation, appears to still be involved with sensitive aspects of Robert Mueller and the Justice Department’s work.

In a court filing Monday meant to update a judge on his case and whether he should proceed to sentencing, prosecutors revealed nothing. Instead, they filed the entire status update under seal, giving no public reason for keeping details of his case private.

The secret court filing Monday comes in contrast to several disclosures prosecutors previously made about Patten’s admitted crimes — especially related to him procuring Trump inauguration tickets for a Ukrainian client — and the related lobbying work for Ukrainians done by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Patten previously admitted to procuring Trump inauguration tickets illegally for a Ukrainian oligarch and a Russian closely associated with Paul Manafort. Patten was a corporate lobbyist in business with the former Trump campaign chairman’s longtime Russian associate Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the Mueller team has asked about in recent months and accused of having ties to the Russian intelligence group that allegedly hacked the Democrats in 2016.

Patten agreed to cooperate with the Mueller investigation and other Justice Department actions before Manafort pleaded guilty to criminal charges in September.

Here’s a little background on Patten from CNN in August:

Patten, 47, reached a plea deal with the Justice Department. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the felony charge and has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

Patten’s personal website describes him as a “strategic advisor” who has worked in politics on four continents. He has taken on numerous roles for campaigns and organizations over the last two decades, including as Eurasia director for the pro-democracy organization Freedom House in Washington, as well as a consultant for politicians in Ukraine, Georgia, Iraq and Nigeria, among other countries.

Sam PattenIn the early to mid-2000s, Patten worked in Moscow for another pro-democracy organization, the International Republican Institute, along with Konstantin Kilimnik, who has been charged by Mueller’s office with obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Business records list Patten as an executive of the company Begemot Ventures International with Kilimnik in 2015, which is touted as “a strategic and political advisory firm that helps its clients win elections, strengthen political parties … and achieve better results” on its website, which does not list any clients.

Prosecutors have said in separate court filings that Kilimnik has ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik is also a close business associate of President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who also did political work in Ukraine and has been found guilty on eight counts of financial crimes.

Patten performed various services for Cambridge Analytica, the company that became embroiled in controversy earlier this year due to its sweeping collection of Facebook data, as well as its parent company SCL Group.

Brittany Kaiser, a former director at Cambridge Analytica, described Patten in testimony before the British Parliament as a “trusted senior consultant” to SCL Group. She said Patten did work for SCL in Nigeria and that he helped to organize an event on Capitol Hill in Washington.

That’s all I have for you today; believe it or not, it has been kind of a slow news day so far. What stories are you following?

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