Last Call For Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Nobody should be surprised to learn that in the Trump Era, we have active camps of neo-Nazi white supremacist terrorists preparing attacks on American citizens allowed to freely operate because our government is too busy screaming at scary brown and black people.

The California man accused of killing a 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student earlier this month is an avowed neo-Nazi and a member of one of the most notorious extremist groups in the country, according to three people with knowledge of the man’s recent activities.

The man, Samuel Woodward, has been charged in Orange County, California, with murdering Blaze Bernstein, who went missing in early January while visiting his family over winter break. Prosecutors allege that Woodward stabbed Bernstein more than 20 times before burying his body in an Orange County park where it was eventually discovered. The two men had attended high school together.

Woodward, 20, is set to be arraigned on Feb. 2 and has not yet entered a plea. Orange County prosecutors say they are examining the possibility that the killing was a hate crime — Bernstein was Jewish and openly gay — and some recent news reports have suggested that the alleged killer might hold far-right or even white supremacist political beliefs.

Now, three people with detailed knowledge of Woodward’s recent past have been able to shed more light on the young man’s extremist activities. They said Woodward was a member of the Atomwaffen Division, an armed Fascist group with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the U.S. government through the use of terrorism and guerrilla warfare.

The organization, which celebrates Hitler and Charles Manson, has been tied to four other murders and an elaborate bomb plot over the past eight months. Experts who study right-wing extremist movements believe Atomwaffen’s commitment to violence has made it one of the more dangerous groups to emerge from the new wave of white supremacists.

Two of the three people who described Woodward’s affiliations are friends of his; the other is a former member of Atomwaffen Division.

ProPublica’s revelations about Woodward’s background add a new element to a murder case that has attracted considerable local and national news coverage. But they also raise fresh concerns about groups like Atomwaffen Division, shadowy outfits of uncertain size that appear capable of genuine harm.

Woodward joined the organization in early 2016 and later traveled to Texas to attend Atomwaffen meetings and a three-day training camp, which involved instruction in firearms, hand-to-hand combat, camping and survival skills, the former member said. ProPublica has obtained photographs of Woodward at an outdoor Atomwaffen meeting in the scrubby Texas countryside. One of the photos depicts Woodward and other members making straight-armed Nazi salutes while wearing skull masks. In other pictures, Woodward is unmasked and easily identifiable.

The young man is proficient with both handguns and assault rifles, according to one person who participated in the Texas training and watched him shoot. That person also said that Woodward helped organize a number of Atomwaffen members in California.

Social media posts and chat logs shared by Woodward’s friends show that he openly described himself as a “National Socialist” or Nazi. He “was as anti-Semitic as you can get,” according to one acquaintance.

ProPublica contacted Orange County prosecutors regarding Woodward’s alleged neo-Nazi activities. Michelle Van Der Linden, a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office, said she couldn’t comment directly on the case, but said the investigation is ongoing, with detectives exploring all possible leads.

If there was a radical Muslim training camp in Texas sending terrorists to kill and bomb people in the US, we already would have dropped bunker busters on everything within a mile of the damn place.

But they're neo-Nazis who just want to kill Jews and gay people and anyone darker than a paper bag, so apparently that's not worth the government worrying about.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

The open secret that Trump tried to fire special counsel Robert Mueller last June now a lot less secret, the actions taken following by the White House make a lot more sense.  Trump wanted the people who could damage him out of the picture, and it meant that if he couldn't fire Mueller, he'd use his power to destroy the witnesses he could go after, vital to Mueller's case against him.

President Donald Trump pressed senior aides last June to devise and carry out a campaign to discredit senior FBI officials after learning that those specific employees were likely to be witnesses against him as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, according to two people directly familiar with the matter.

In testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, recently fired FBI Director James Comey disclosed that he spoke contemporaneously with other senior bureau officials about potentially improper efforts by the president to curtail the FBI’s investigation of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Mueller is investigating whether Trump’s efforts constituted obstruction of justice.

Not long after Comey’s Senate testimony, Trump hired John Dowd, a veteran criminal defense attorney, to represent him in matters related to Mueller’s investigation. Dowd warned Trump that the potential corroborative testimony of the senior FBI officials in Comey’s account would likely play a central role in the special counsel’s final conclusion, according to people familiar with the matter.

In discussions with at least two senior White House officials, Trump repeated what Dowd had told him to emphasize why he and his supporters had to “fight back harder,” in the words of one of these officials.

In fact this campaign has now turned into a massive Republican pogrom to "purge the FBI of Deep State Obama elements" or something horrific like that.

The FBI officials Trump has targeted are Andrew McCabe, the current deputy FBI director and who was briefly acting FBI director after Comey’s firing; Jim Rybicki, Comey’s chief of staff and senior counselor; and James Baker, formerly the FBI’s general counsel. Those same three officials were first identified as possible corroborating witnesses for Comey in a June 7 article in Vox. Comey confirmed in congressional testimony the following day that he confided in the three men.

In the past, presidents have attacked special counsels and prosecutors who have investigated them, calling them partisan and unfair. But no previous president has attacked a long-standing American institution such as the FBI — or specific FBI agents and law enforcement officials.

Mueller has asked senior members of the administration questions in recent months indicating that prosecutors might consider Trump’s actions also to be an effort to intimidate government officials — in this case FBI officials — from testifying against him.

So yeah, the cover-up, or in this case the obstruction of justice, is worse than the crime.  And Mueller's on the case.

The House Doesn't Always Win

When Brad Pitt asked George Clooney why he just has to pull the heist job on casino kingpin Andy Garcia in Ocean's Eleven, he replied:

Because the house always wins. Play long enough, you never change the stakes, the house takes you. Unless, when that perfect hand comes along, you bet big, and then you take the house.

Good advice for the Democrats in "taking the House" in November.  Also, turns out Andy Garcia's character in that series of films, Terry Benedict, is modeled after real-life casino magnate Steve Wynn.  Steve is a close friend of Donald Trump (himself the inspiration for evil casino boss Biff Tannen in Back to the Future II) as well as a major Republican donor and in fact the RNC's current finance chairman thanks to his buddy Donny.

It also turns out that Steve is, like his friend Donny, a lifetime serial abuser of women.

Doug Heye, a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee (RNC), is calling for Casino mogul Steve Wynn to be ousted as the RNC's finance chairman after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced against him Friday.

In a tweet, Heye said the allegations against Wynn, the CEO of Wynn Resorts, appeared to be "a lot worse" than past scandals that roiled the RNC and led to a number of ousters.

Heye's comments came on the heels of a Wall Street Journal report detailing allegations against Wynn that span decades. Wynn has denied the allegations, which he said were instigated by his ex-wife.

The fallout for Wynn mounted throughout the day Friday, with stock prices for Wynn Resorts plummeting.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) sharply condemned Wynn in an emailed statement.

“In the exact words of RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, ‘If you stand for treating women well and you stand for the respect of women, you shouldn't take money from somebody who treated women with the absolute highest level of disrespect,’ ” DNC deputy communications director Sabrina Singh said. “Instead, the RNC and Ronna McDaniel have helped fund the campaign of an alleged child molester, blindly supported the GOP’s attacks on women’s health, supported a President who has been accused of sexual misconduct by over a dozen women — and now they remain silent amid sexual assault allegations involving Steve Wynn, one of their party’s most senior officials.”

And Fox News said that it would no longer book Wynn on any potential future installments of its special, "The Wise Guys," according to a statement obtained by The Daily Beast.

Wynn is a complete slimeball, surprise!

For the women who worked for casino mogul Steve Wynn, it was a roll of the dice whether they would be sexually harassed when they were summoned to his private office, according to a new report Friday.

For decades, the legendary Las Vegas businessman used his power over their livelihoods to pressure the manicurists and massage therapists for sex, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“Former employees said their awareness of Mr. Wynn’s power in Las Vegas, combined with the knowledge that the jobs they held were among the best-paying available there, added up to a feeling of dependence and intimidation when Mr. Wynn made requests of them,” the newspaper reported. “Some said that feeling was heightened at times by the presence in a confined office space of one or more of his German shepherds, trained to respond to commands in German.” 

The dog thing is one of Putin's old tricks, by the way.  He liked to use it on German chancellor Angela Merkel, who is apparently afraid of large dogs.

We'll see if Wynn stays on.  Stock in his casino holding company has already fallen 10% and even he has a board to report to. As far as the RNC job, well, we know they're perfectly fine with serial abusers, so.

Last Call For Tradin' The Line

One of Trump's first moves when he took office was to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (not that it would ever have been ratified by the GOP Senate even if Clinton had been elected) and lo and behold a year later, the rest of the TPP countries have reached an agreement without the US.

The 11 remaining members of a Pacific trade pact abandoned by U.S. President Donald Trump have reached a deal on a revised agreement, with the nations to work toward signing the deal by early March, according to Singapore’s government.

Senior officials resolved outstanding issues, finalized the list of suspended provisions and completed the legal verification of the agreement, concluding negotiations on what has been renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, Singapore’s trade ministry said Tuesday in a statement.

The deal was reached after two days of talks in Tokyo, and came just hours after Trump imposed tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines -- his first major move to level what he says is a global playing field tilted against U.S. companies. The whole agreement looked like it might collapse after contentious negotiations in November, when Canada’s participation was thrown into doubt.

Japan’s Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said Canada has agreed to work toward approving the deal, and he believed they would follow through on that.

“Today, Canada and the 10 other remaining members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership concluded discussions in Tokyo, Japan, on a new Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership,” Joe Pickerill, director of communications for Canadian Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, said Tuesday in an email.

So hey, we got rid of that "bad" trade deal or whatever, but as the US economy starts to flounder here soon and goes belly-up in a scenario that will make 2008 look like a fun picnic, remember that we did this to ourselves, with people who stuck it to us.  America picks up its ball and goes home, the rest of the world finds out just how much it doesn't need us -- or American companies, workers, or trade dollars -- anymore.

It Almost Wasn't Mueller Time, Con't

The crew at Lawfare discuss the revelations of Donald Trump's attempt to fire Robert Mueller last June and what it means to the investigation and the White House going forward.

This new reporting fills in a disturbing picture of what was going on behind the scenes at the White House during this time. The Times doesn’t peg Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller to a specific date in June, so it’s impossible to know whether Ruddy spoke to Woodruff before, after or just as Trump gave McGahn the order. But in any case, Ruddy’s worries about a presidential attempt to dismiss the special counsel appear to have been firmly grounded in reality.

Second, Trump’s apparent willingness to fire the special counsel in a fit of rage—even after experiencing the blowback that followed his dismissal of Comey—drives home the fact that his hints about firing other senior members of federal law enforcement are far from idle. Indeed, the Times broke this story only days after Axios reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had pressured FBI Director Christopher Wray to dismiss Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. As with McGahn, Wray reportedly threatened resignation and the attorney general ultimately backed off. So when Trump hints about firing Sessions or Rosenstein, it should be clear that they may be in real danger. On the other hand, as Jack Goldsmith argued on an upcoming special edition of the Lawfare Podcast, the fact that Trump could not get his own White House counsel to execute his will on this point shows that the president really is constrained in his apparent desire to shut down the Russia investigation. Particularly in combination with the Axios story about Wray, the incident paints a picture of a president who desperately wants to corrupt the justice system but just can’t get it done: malevolence tempered by incompetence, one might call it.

Third, in contrast to the many valid reasons to criticize McGahn’s White House tenure, this episode illustrates—at least in this instance—the White House counsel’s deft performance of his duties under difficult circumstances, perhaps even skillful management of a particularly ornery client. McGahn has not always behaved so admirably; he reportedly was willing to carry out Trump’s earlier instruction to pressure Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from this investigation. But in this instance, he allegedly managed to ride out a presidential temper tantrum, both offering the president reasonable advice and declining to carry out a presidential order clearly not made in good faith.

Fourth, the story also shows rather vividly how successful Ty Cobb has been in calming the president in the months since and persuading him to take a less adversarial posture—at least publicly—toward Mueller and the Russia investigation generally. Consider the difference between Trump in June, who actually gave an order to fire Mueller, and today’s Trump, who has turned over material the special counsel wants and allowed interviews with White House witnesses and has said he is even willing to be interviewed himself. Cobb seems to have convinced Trump that the path to making the Russia investigation go away lies in cooperation. If Cobb is correct that the Mueller investigation will end well for a cooperative Trump, this is all a laudable example of excellent client management. Cobb’s strategy, however, seems to rely on convincing Trump that the investigation is going to conclude in the near future if he just plays along. If Cobb is wrong on this point, and the investigation isn’t, in fact, close to wrapping up, then he may have simply deferred the June explosion to the date when Trump realizes that the end is not in sight. Thursday night’s story shows that this explosion, whenever it happens, can be pretty big.

Finally, congressional response thus far has tended to bolster the special counsel. Republican Senators Orrin Hatch and Jim Lankford tweeted vague support for non-interference by the White House, while Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Mark Warner were quick to declare that Mueller’s firing would cross a red line and endorsed bills designed to protect the special counsel investigation. In the end, the key constraint on the president’s ability to fire Mueller is the willingness of other actors to use their power to push back. As McGahn’s handling of the June episode shows, signaling a willingness to do so, particularly when done by Republicans, is a key deterrent.

Tim O'Brien at Bloomberg argues that the Mueller firing attempt story was leaked on purpose while Trump was out of town in Davos this weekend and the obvious source is McGahn himself.

Let's not pretend, however, that the president will remain subdued for very long. All of this transpired last June. Since then, Mueller has indicted or secured guilty pleas from four former Trump insiders for a variety of crimes. He's conducting interviews with senior White House officials and a meeting with the president apparently is on the horizon. As the temperature of his investigation rises, expect the president to act out in increasingly volatile ways, and to stretch the boundaries of the law to counter Mueller's probe.

What might that look like?

Trump has the power to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the official overseeing Mueller's probe, if Rosenstein doesn't obey a request to fire Mueller. Trump could then tear through the Justice Department's senior ranks, firing people until he finds one who would comply with his demands.

Although there's some debate among legal scholars about how much latitude the president would have for such a purge, Trump's previous maneuvering in this investigation suggests he believes he can do almost whatever he wants. That might explain why the Times report is surfacing now: Perhaps White House officials, perhaps even McGahn himself, are worried that the president is set again on toppling Mueller and they want to stop it (having the president safely tucked away in Switzerland and unable to counter-program probably helps).

McGahn also has much on the line himself. Last January, he met with Sally Yates, the acting attorney general at the time, after she told him that Trump's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had lied to the White House about his contacts with a Russian official. McGahn invited Yates back the next day and asked her why the Justice Department cared if White House officials were lying to one another. Yates said that it would possibly give the Russians leverage to blackmail Flynn. As it turned out, the White House knew for weeks that Flynn hadn't been truthful about his communications with Russia -- and neither McGahn nor Trump apparently felt concerned enough to force him out.

If McGahn is now in Mueller's crosshairs, he might have decided that the simplest solution is to cooperate with the probe and turn over information in exchange for gentler treatment. In that scenario, McGahn becomes the source, directly or indirectly, of all kinds of interesting stuff for investigators and the media to ponder.

If you're still shocked that the key to the putative President of the United States is "tiptoe around him like he's a volcanic toddler" then you clearly haven't been paying attention. The orange l'enfant terrible is just that and eventually he's going to blow his stack again and come for Mueller, especially as the investigation closes in on his guilty family. 

It's possible McGahn did try to leak this to stop Trump.  But given the complete non-response from Republican in Congress, it's probably going to have the opposite effect: it just proved that Trump can and probably will get away with firing Mueller.  And hey, maybe that was the actual point of the leak too.

Trump Has Fired or Pressured:
1. Attorney General Jeff Sessions
2. Acting AG Sally Yates
3. Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein
4. US Attorney Preet Bharara
5. FBI Director James Comey
6. FBI Director Christopher Wray
7. Deputy FBI Dir. Andrew McCabe
8. Special Counsel Robert Mueller

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) January 26, 2018

So far the GOP hasn't lifted a finger over any of these.  Why would they do so now?

One more note: reporter April Ryan had this story nailed back in June 2017.  It went nowhere then.  It should have, if only America would have listened to a black woman who knew damn well what she was talking about.

Stay tuned.

Immigration Nation, Con't

Trump is supposedly making a "major" compromise on immigration, but don't be fooled by it.  He's offering the House GOP's terrible Securing America's Future Act, and Democrats need to say "no deal".

President Trump’s immigration proposal to Congress will include a path to citizenship for an estimated 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants, White House officials said Thursday, more than twice the number of “dreamers” who were enrolled in a deferred action program Trump terminated last fall.

The figure represents a significant concession to Democrats but is likely to produce sharp blowback among conservative Republicans, even as the White House cast the move as one piece of an immigration framework that would significantly tighten border control laws.

Trump’s plan, which will be formally sent to the Senate on Monday, also includes a $25 billion “trust fund” for a border wall and additional security upgrades on both the southwest and northern U.S. borders. And the president will propose significant curbs to legal immigration channels, restricting the ability of U.S. citizens to petition for visas only for spouses and minor children and ending categories for parents and siblings. Both of those provisions are likely to engender fierce objections among liberal Democrats.

Pay attention to this part, because this is where everyone else but the Dreamers become federal criminals overnight if SAFA passes, and legal immigration will all but end.

Senior White House officials, who briefed reporters on the details, described the plan as a compromise intended to break an immigration impasse as Congress deliberates over the future of 690,000 enrolled in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) whose temporary work permits will begin to expire March 5.

The officials said that the plan will be delivered to the Senate with hopes that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would bring a bill to the floor the week of Feb. 6, just days before a Feb. 8 deadline for a must-pass spending bill to keep the government open. Many Democrats and some Republicans said they will not support a long-term spending bill without an immigration deal.

“This is kind of a bottom line,” said one senior administration official, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a proposal that had not been made public. “This is the president’s position. Then it goes to the Hill and they digest it and develop a bill they think can pass. ... If it’s realistic, he’ll sign it. If not, he won’t.” 

Trump's trying to sell this as a novel, new compromise.  It's not.  The House GOP already has "saving" DACA baked in, including making all federal benefits like welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security permanently off-limits for Dreamers even after they become citizens.  It would also add harsh new regulations for Dreamers and immigrants in general, including making states and cities offering protections to immigrants illegal, meaning that at any point if the Dreamers receive assistance from the government, they're in violation of the law...and gone.

Luckily it does seem that the Democrats see this trap coming and want no part of it.

"Dreamers should not be held hostage to President Trump's crusade to tear families apart and waste billions of American tax dollars on an ineffective wall," Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who has fought for protection for participants in the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, said in a statement. 

"The White House claims to be compromising because the President now agrees with the overwhelming majority of Americans that Dreamers should have a pathway to citizenship. But his plan would put the administration's entire hardline immigration agenda -- including massive cuts to legal immigration -- on the backs of these young people," Durbin said. 

Democratic immigration advocate Eddie Vale, who's been closely involved in the recent immigration talks, called the White House proposal "a legislative burning cross." 

"What the White House is filling you in on now is in no way an attempt to get to a real deal," Vale told CNN, adding that rather it is a way to "get every item on (White House senior adviser) Stephen Miller's white supremacist wish list."

Vale is 100% correct here.  This isn't a deal at all, it's a mass sacrifice. Let's remember that the White House has straight up said that it will begin mass deportations of Dreamers after March 5 if there's no legislation on the table.  The GOP is really offering "We deport 11 million, or we deport 9.2 million. Either way your base will blame you. Choose."

The answer is to not play the game.

StupidiNews!

• Wal-mart is joining forces with Japan's largest online retailer Rakuten to sell e-books and audiobooks online in the US and groceries in Japan.
• San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo has quit the FCC's broadband advisory council because he believes the FCC serves the telecom industry, not the consumer.
• North Korea shipped coal to South Korea through Japan and Russia last year, in apparent violation of UN sanctions on Pyongyang.
• The Trumps wanted to borrow a Van Gogh from the Guggenheim for the White House, the museum responded by offering Trump a slightly used 18-karat gold toilet entitled "America".
• New fossil evidence found in Israel suggests modern humans expanded out of Africa into Asia 40 to 50 thousand years earlier than current fossils suggest.

Last Call For Almost Wasn't Mueller Time

The NY Times reporting tonight that Donald Trump actually did order Robert Mueller be fired way back last June, but White House counsel Don McGahn said flat out that he would resign rather than deliver Trump's message.

President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.

The West Wing confrontation marks the first time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel. Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.

Amid the first wave of news media reports that Mr. Mueller was examining a possible obstruction case, the president began to argue that Mr. Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified him from overseeing the investigation, two of the people said.

First, he claimed that a dispute years ago over fees at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., had prompted Mr. Mueller, the F.B.I. director at the time, to resign his membership. The president also said Mr. Mueller could not be impartial because he had most recently worked for the law firm that previously represented the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Finally, the president said, Mr. Mueller had been interviewed to return as the F.B.I. director the day before he was appointed special counsel in May.

After receiving the president’s order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel, saying he would quit instead, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation.

Mr. McGahn disagreed with the president’s case. He also told senior White House officials that firing Mr. Mueller would have a catastrophic effect on Mr. Trump’s presidency and would incite more questions about whether the White House was trying to obstruct the Russia investigation. Mr. McGahn also told White House officials that Mr. Trump would not follow through on the dismissal on his own. The president then backed off.

“We decline to comment out of respect for the Office of the Special Counsel and its process,” Ty Cobb, the president’s lawyer who manages the White House’s relationship with Mr. Mueller’s office, said in a statement.

This is pretty much the realm of "holy crap" territory.   Pretty much everything Trump has said about awaiting Mueller's swift conclusion of the investigation since July has been a lie.  Trump's reasoning for firing Mueller were all nonsense, and his lawyer agreed to the point where he would not carry out the President's direct order.

Don McGahn may have at least saved the Mueller investigation.  It would have been over in six weeks otherwise.  But the leak of this story is a major, major problem for Trump.  June was when the investigation turned to Trump's obstruction of justice involving the Comey firing.  In July Trump gave his interview to the NY Times without his lawyers present and said that he would consider firing Mueller.

He had already tried to fire Mueller when he gave that interview, guys. And lets remember, he did fire James Comey, and he wanted to fire FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, too.

There's also a 100% chance that Mueller knew Trump tried to fire him, a knew some time ago.

Trump is guilty as sin, guys.

Because it gets worse.

Another option that Mr. Trump considered in discussions with his advisers was dismissing the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, and elevating the department’s No. 3 official, Rachel Brand, to oversee Mr. Mueller. Mr. Rosenstein has overseen the investigation since March, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself.

Mr. Trump has significantly ratcheted back his criticisms of Mr. Mueller since he hired Mr. Cobb in July. A veteran of several high-profile Washington controversies, Mr. Cobb has known Mr. Mueller for decades, dating to their early careers in the Justice Department.

He advised Mr. Trump that he had nothing to gain from combat with Mr. Mueller, a highly respected former prosecutor and F.B.I. director who has subpoena power as special counsel. Since Mr. Cobb’s arrival, the White House has operated on the premise that the quickest way to clear the cloud of suspicion was to cooperate with Mr. Mueller, not to fight him.

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump has wavered for months about whether he wants to fire Mr. Mueller, whose job security is an omnipresent concern among the president’s legal team and close aides. The president’s lawyers, including Mr. Cobb, have tried to keep Mr. Trump calm by assuring him for months, amid new revelations about the inquiry, that it is close to ending.

It's not close to ending.  And he's still thinking about firing Mueller because his legal team keeps having to talk him down, something that the notoriously thin-skinned Trump has to be screaming about in Davos this weekend.

Stay tuned.

Make America Irrelevant Again

Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin are at the Wolrd Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week pitching "America First", and the rest of the planet apparently could not care less.

President Trump is arriving at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to explain his “America First” approach at a moment when the world is moving ahead with a trade agenda that no longer revolves around the United States. 

The world marked a turning point in global trade on Tuesday, when 11 countries agreed to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, announcing they had finalized the pact and expected to sign a deal on March 8 in Chile. It was a remarkable moment for a beleaguered agreement that was conceived and constructed by the United States, then abandoned by Washington when Mr. Trump took office last year. 

As the world’s largest economy and architect of many international organizations and treaties, the United States remains an indispensable partner. But as the global economy gains strength, Europe and countries including Japan and China are forging ahead with deals that do not include the United States. 

Thirty-five new bilateral and regional trade pacts are under consideration around the world, according to the World Trade Organization. The United States is party to just one of them, with the European Union, and that negotiation has gone dormant. The United States is also threatening to withdraw from one of its existing multilateral agreements — the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada — if it cannot be renegotiated in the United States’ favor.

“Maybe there was some sort of presumption on the part of the president and his team that if the U.S. said stop, this process would come to a halt,” said Phil Levy, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and an economist in the George W. Bush administration. “What this shows is that’s not true. The world just moves on without us.”

In July, Japan signed a wide-ranging new trade deal with the European Union — a step the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, referred to as hoisting “the flag of free trade high amidst protectionist trends.” The European Union pushed ahead with a major update to its agreement with Mexico, while China pursued a pan-Asian agreement, among other deals. 

Business interests in the United States are watching with alarm as other countries strike agreements that exclude American exporters. For example, ranchers in Canada and Australia will be able to sell beef at lower prices in Japan than their American competitors, who will be subject to higher tariffs because the United States is not party to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. 

Kent Bacus, the director of international trade and market access for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, said Tuesday that the United States’ withdrawal was “a missed opportunity for the United States to gain greater access to some of the world’s most vibrant and growing markets.

When the full effect of this kicks in -- particular should Trump withdraw from NAFTA -- it's going to get very ugly, very fast.  The only question is how much worse than the Great Recession of 2008 will it be, and how many millions more jobs will be lost.

And this time, we won't have a stimulus package or, you know, a competent administration, to get us out of the deep hole we're going to be in for the next decade.  The damage will be catastrophic. And the rest of the world?

They'll pick up the pieces without us and just move on.

Trump Will Get Journalists Killed And Soon

When you are the titular leader of the United States and you call the free press "Fake News" and an "Enemy of the People", raging at them as the source of all the problems in the country, don't be surprised when your cult followers take that to heart and plot terrorist attacks against news outlets.

On Jan. 9, an operator in Atlanta manning the public contact number for CNN received a phone call. According to a federal arrest affidavit unsealed Monday, the male caller launched into a threat. 

“Fake news. I’m coming to gun you all down. F‑‑‑ you, f‑‑‑ing n‑‑‑‑‑s.” The caller then clicked off. 

Three minutes later, the same caller, dialing from the same number, again rang the CNN line. “I am on my way right now to gun the f‑‑‑in’ CNN cast down. F‑‑‑ you,” the caller said. The operator asked the caller his name. “F‑‑‑ you,” he responded. “I am coming to kill you.” 

Thirty minutes later, the caller again reached the CNN public switchboard. He whispered his threats. “I’m coming for you CNN. I’m smarter than you. More powerful than you. I have more guns than you. More manpower. Your cast is about to get gunned down in a matter of hours.” 

According to federal law enforcement, the man on the other end was Brandon Griesemer of Novi, Mich. 

In an arrest affidavit released Monday, FBI agent Sean Callaghan wrote that Griesemer “made approximately 22 total calls to CNN” between Jan. 9 and Jan. 10. Four of the calls resulted in threats. In the last message, the caller made disparaging remarks about Jewish individuals, before stating: “You are going down. I have a gun and I am coming to Georgia right now to go to the CNN headquarters to f‑‑‑ing gun every single last one of you. I have a team of people. It’s going to be great, man . . . You gotta get prepared for this one, buddy.” 

Court records indicate Griesemer was arrested on a charge of interstate communications with intent to extort, threaten or injure. He made an initial appearance in court on Jan. 19. 

Griesemer is currently free on a $10,000 unsecured bond. 

On Monday night, a man who identified himself as Griesemer’s father told The Washington Post that “this whole thing has been a mistake. He really didn’t mean any of it.” Griesemer’s father added: “He didn’t know what he was saying, the seriousness of it. We’re not even gun owners or anything like that. We don’t have any, neither does he.” 

The father declined to comment further. “More will come out later. Hopefully, this can be settled.”

The threats were made public less than a week after President Trump unveiled his “Fake News Awards.” The term, trumpeted by the president in his frequent clashes with the press, has become a popular rallying cry among Trump’s base. CNN has been a regular target of the president’s “fake news” attacks; the president has also shared violent images featuring the cable news giant, including pictures of the CNN logo crushed under a shoe and a GIF of the president personally attacking the CNN logo.

The next time, it won't be a angry young guy from Michigan calling in threats because the President condoned this violence.  It'll be a blown-up or shot-up newsroom, or an ambushed news team, or something worse.

And they'll laugh and cheer when it happens.

StupidiNews!

• Donald Trump says he's open to a DACA deal that includes a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers who came to the US as children as an "incentive".
• Former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing dozens of women over close to two decades.
• Senate Commerce Committee chair John Thune wants hearings on the false missile alert sent out by Hawaii emergency preparedness officials during a drill two weeks ago. 
• Italian officials say three are dead and ten injured after a commuter train derailed near Milan, several cars went off the switch track as the train was headed into Milan's main train station.
• Samsung will debut its newest flagship phone, the Galaxy S9, at the Mobile World Congress tech show on February 25.

Last Call For Immigration Nation

Yesterday I said that if I were in the House GOP, I'd push for a vote on the draconian Securing America's Future Act, aka the end of immigration.

So now, if I'm Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, I use those three weeks I just got to put in the screws and finish the job. My plan would be to put the House GOP's utterly repugnant Securing America's Future Act to a vote and pass it. I put that legislation in the Senate and when the Dems say no, I say "Well, we put a DACA bill on the table and the Dems rejected it. All bets are off." Then I tinker around the edges of the SAF bill and include it in the CR and see how long the Dems last before they pass it. As a reminder of what SAF entails:

Republicans are essentially asking Democrats to trade the legalization of 700,000 unauthorized immigrants for the criminalization of all others, banning 2.6 million legal immigrants over the next decade, the elimination of almost all family sponsorship preference categories and the diversity visa lottery, deporting tens of thousands of asylum seekers, huge increases in border security spending, a massive new regulatory program that applies to every employee and employer in the country (“E-Verify”), and so much else. This bill has no chance of becoming law, but it is a remarkable illustration of how far apart the parties are on this issue.

That's where I see this fight going. I hope I'm wrong and the Dems smell this trap coming from a mile off and demand a clean DREAM Act bill up front...and the restoration of community health center funding.

Sure enough, the hardliners in the House are jumping on their "DACA deal" legislation right out of the gate.

As Senate moderates pushed their leader to make a commitment to have a bipartisan immigration vote, House conservatives on Tuesday were pushing their leadership to tack to the right on the issue. 

The Republican Study Committee, an influential group of more than 150 Republicans, on Tuesday will announce it has voted to support an immigration bill from conservative hardliners and will push for a vote on the legislation, setting up a potential showdown between the House and Senate on the issue. 

The nearly two-dozen-strong steering committee of the RSC voted to make the decision to back the bill, which also would extend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, from committee and subcommittee chairmen Bob Goodlatte, Mike McCaul, Raul Labrador and Martha McSally, and warned against cutting a deal with Democrats behind conservatives' backs. 

"The Securing America's Future Act is the framework to strengthen border security, increase interior enforcement and resolve the DACA situation," the steering committee said in a statement. "We believe an eventual stand alone floor vote is essential. We oppose any process for a DACA solution that favors a backroom deal with Democrats over regular order in the House."

 The SFA bill is a massive disaster, but here's the biggest part:

The worst enforcement provision is criminalizing simply being in the United States without status or violating any aspect of civil immigration law (p. 170). This would turn millions of unauthorized immigrants into criminals overnight. It would also criminalize legal immigrants who fail to update their addresses, carry their green card with them at all times, or otherwise abide by the million inane regulations that Congress imposes on them. Take, for example, the status provided to Dreamers in this bill. It requires them to maintain an annual income of at least 125 percent of the poverty line (p. 396). If they fall below that level for 90 days—not only are they subject to deportation again—they would be criminals. This bill literally criminalizes poverty among Dreamers. This legislation would immediately undo much of the progress that the Feds have made on criminal justice reform and reducing its prison population.

This legislation is the preamble to mass deportations of millions, period.  This is the GOP plan for a "deal" on Dreamers.  They would get to stay, but by criminalizing millions of other undocumented in the country, it would become the rallying point for massive ICE roundups, detentions, and deportations. Again, I'm hoping the Dems see the trap, because they didn't on CHIP community health center funding.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is escalating the war on sanctuary cities with a new round of legal action designed to intimidate elected officials with the threat of losing billions in federal dollars.

The Justice Department ramped up pressure Wednesday on so-called sanctuary cities seeking public safety grant money, warning state and local officials they could be legally forced to prove they are cooperating with federal immigration authorities. 

Officials sent letters to roughly two dozen jurisdictions threatening to issue subpoenas if they don’t willingly relinquish documents showing they aren’t withholding information about the immigration status of people in custody. The department has repeatedly threatened to deny millions of dollars in important grant money from communities that refuse to share such information with federal authorities, as part of the Trump administration’s promised crackdown on cities and states that refuse to help enforce U.S. immigration laws. 

Many cities have been openly defiant in the face of the threats, with lawsuits pending in Chicago, Philadelphia and California over whether the administration has overstepped its authority by seeking to withhold grant money. 

The 23 jurisdictions that received letters Wednesday include Chicago, New York, Denver, Los Angeles and the states of Illinois, Oregon and California. Officials said the places have been previously warned that they need to provide information about their policies to be eligible to receive grants that pay for everything from bulletproof vests to officer overtime.

It's an ugly tactic and one designed to divide the country, if not outright provide justification for arresting local lawmakers ahead of ICE roundups.  That groundwork is being laid, and we're getting closer and closer to a national mass police action.

Stay tuned.

Meanwhile In Bevinstan...

Republicans in Kentucky have been wanting to scrap liquor license limits in the state for years now, and it looks like they'll take another shot at it during this year's General Assembly session.

Retired Southern Baptist minister Donald R. Cole of Webster County fears “a bar or liquor store on every other corner and a package store in every drug store” if new alcohol regulations proposed by Kentucky take effect. 

“The more alcohol sales you have, the more social problems you have,” said Cole, executive director of the Louisville-based Kentucky League on Alcohol and Gambling Problems, formerly known as the Temperance League. “We don’t need these new regulations that are one more step toward the deregulation of the alcohol industry in Kentucky.” 

The Kentucky Alcoholic Beverage Control Board last month filed proposed administrative regulations that would repeal rules that limit the number of licenses available for retail package liquor stores and by-the-drink sales of liquor. 

The number of licenses is limited based on the population of a given community — one license per 2,300 people for package stores and one license per 2,500 people for drink sales. 

Perry Colliver, owner of Route 11 Liquors in Mt. Sterling, opposes the changes. 

“I’ve been in this business 40 years, not a millionaire, but have made a decent living,” Colliver said. “Now the state wants to come along and end the quota system, saying they want to expand the market. The pie for this business is so big. If you have more stores, the pie will get smaller for people like me.” 

State Rep. C. Wesley Morgan, a Republican from Richmond who operates four Liquor World stores in Central and Eastern Kentucky, said he thinks the proposed change “will get a ton of opposition.” 

“You either regulate the alcohol industry or not,” Morgan said. “This goes towards deregulation and hurts existing businesses.” 

The board, in an impact and analysis statement, said “eliminating quotas may encourage entrepreneurship, foster creativity for new business models and create jobs.” 

“The board believes that market forces rather than arbitrary quota limits should determine the number of businesses competing in a community,” the analysis stated. 

The board also said elimination of the quota system provides “equitable treatment of all alcoholic beverage licenses.”

What Republicans want to do is have more big chain stores sell alcohol and put package stores out of business, then turn around and say "Look, we actually reduced the number of retailers that sell liquor in Kentucky, isn't that what you wanted?"

It's a pretty good deal for big retailers who want to break into Kentucky as a market, not so good for existing local stores, but that's always been the case with big retailers.  I don't trust this plan any farther than Bevin can throw me.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

While the shutdown drama was playing out last week, there have been several developments in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's continuing probe into the Trump regime, money laundering, Russian influence, and obstruction of justice this week.  First, current FBI Director Chris Wray threatened to resign last year over intense pressure from both the White House and the Justice Department to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions — at the public urging of President Donald Trump — has been pressuring FBI Director Christopher Wray to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, but Wray threatened to resign if McCabe was removed, according to three sources with direct knowledge. 

Wray's resignation under those circumstances would have created a media firestorm. The White House — understandably gun-shy after the Comey debacle — didn’t want that scene, so McCabe remains. 

Sessions told White House Counsel Don McGahn about how upset Wray was about the pressure on him to fire McCabe, and McGahn told Sessions this issue wasn’t worth losing the FBI Director over, according to a source familiar with the situation. 

Why it matters: Trump started his presidency by pressuring one FBI Director (before canning him), and then began pressuring another (this time wanting his deputy canned). This much meddling with the FBI for this long is not normal.

McCabe is still expected to resign later this year apparently, but that's not a guarantee.  Both Trump and Jeff Sessions (not to mention a bucketful of slavering Republicans in Congress and on TV) wanted McCabe's head because he's "too close to the Clintons".  They contend McCabe is the one standing between them and locking up Hillary Clinton.  They may be right.

But Wray, to his credit, stood up to Sessions and Trump and their attempt to purge the FBI.  It should disturb but not surprise anyone to find out that the White House and Justice Department wanted to fire anyone in the FBI who could have done the Trump regime harm.

Meanwhile, speaking of Attorney General Sessions, it seems his time under Robert Mueller's harsh spotlight has come.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions was questioned for several hours last week by the special counsel’s office as part of the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the election and whether the president obstructed justice since taking office, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman. 

The meeting marked the first time that investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, are known to have interviewed a member of Mr. Trump’s cabinet. 

The spokeswoman, Sarah Isgur Flores, confirmed that the interview occurred in response to questions from The New York Times. 

Mr. Sessions announced in March that he had recused himself from all matters related to the 2016 election, including the Russia inquiry. The disclosure came after it was revealed that Mr. Sessions had not told Congress that he met twice with the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time, Sergey I. Kislyak, during the campaign. Mr. Sessions was an early supporter of Mr. Trump’s presidential run.

2018 has already seen Mueller zero in on Steve Bannon for a few words, now we know he has interviewed Jeff Sessions as well.   Mueller is zeroing in on Trump by hitting Trump's inner circle with gusto.  We know Mueller has talked with Trump's personal assistant Hope Hicks late last year too, and we know he's setting up for an interview with Trump himself soon.  The other big key player in this is Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and I suspect we'll find out pretty soon about his fate.

Clock's ticking, and Trump knows it.  Because now we know what Mueller was up to at the end of last year: holding several key interviews with intelligence directors and Trump staffers about James Comey's firing, and it all stated with Michael Flynn's big mouth a year ago.

Flynn's FBI interview on Jan. 24, 2017, set in motion an extraordinary sequence of events unparalleled for the first year of a U.S. presidency. A national security adviser was fired after 24 days on the job, an acting attorney general was fired ten days after the president took office, an FBI director was allegedly pressured by the president to let go an investigation into the ousted national security adviser, and then eventually fired. 

An attorney general recused himself from a federal investigation into Russia's meddling in a U.S. election and possible collusion with the sitting president's campaign, and a special counsel was appointed.

The developments ensnared the president in an obstruction of justice inquiry, which resulted in his top intelligence and law enforcement chiefs cooperating in some form with that probe.

By the end of 2017, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team had spoken with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, former FBI Director James Comey, and numerous members of Trump’s campaign and White House inner circle. Flynn pleaded guilty last month to lying to the FBI during his January 24 interview and is cooperating with the Russia investigation.

NBC News also has learned that former acting attorney general Sally Yates, who informed the White House about Flynn’s interview two days after it took place, has cooperated with the special counsel. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who was allegedly asked by Trump to lean on Comey to drop his investigation, has also been interviewed, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

One person familiar with the matter described Pompeo, Coats and Rogers as "peripheral witnesses" to the Comey firing. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who played a key role in Comey's departure and was a top adviser on the Trump campaign, was interviewed by Mueller last week as the investigation inches closer to Mueller's team possibly questioning the president himself.

You catch that last part? The walls are closing in and Trump knows it.  Expect him to become considerably more erratic and dangerous in the coming months, especially since Mueller is now expected to interview Trump himself over James Comey's firing...and Michael Flynn's involvement in Russia.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is seeking to question President Trump in the coming weeks about his decisions to oust national security adviser Michael Flynn and FBI Director James B. Comey, according to two people familiar with his plans. 

Mueller’s interest in the events that led Trump to push out Flynn and Comey indicates that his investigation is intensifying its focus on possible efforts by the president or others to obstruct or blunt the special counsel’s probe. 

Trump’s attorneys have crafted some negotiating terms for the president’s interview with Mueller’s team, one that could be presented to the special counsel as soon as next week, according to the two people.

The president’s legal team hopes to provide Trump’s testimony in a hybrid form — answering some questions in a face-to-face interview and others in a written statement.

There may not have been any new indictments for a while, but I'm betting that changes very quickly.   Those previous indictments are now producing bountiful fruit.

Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates has quietly added a prominent white-collar attorney, Tom Green, to his defense team, signaling that Gates' approach to his not-guilty plea could be changing behind the scenes. 

Green, a well-known Washington defense lawyer, was seen at special counsel Robert Mueller's office twice last week. CNN is told by a source familiar with the matter that Green has joined Gates' team. 

Green isn't listed in the court record as a lawyer in the case and works for a large law firm separate from Gates' primary lawyers. 

Green's involvement suggests that there is an ongoing negotiation between the defendant's team and the prosecutors. At this stage, with Gates' charges filed and bail set, talks could concern the charges and Gates' plea. The defense and prosecution are currently working together on discovery of evidence.

No wonder Republicans are literally inventing conspiracy theories to attack Mueller and the FBI.

StupidiNews!

• Legendary sci-fi and fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin has died at the age of 88, she was best known for the award-winning novel The Left Hand of Darkness and her Earthsea series.
• Donald Trump will leave tonight for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, Trump is expected to pitch his "America First" policy to a global crowd.
• Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer says the offer to fund Donald Trump's border wall is off the table, Schumer blames Trump's lack of follow-through.
• Toys R Us will close 180 US toy stores and Babies R Us stores as part of bankruptcy reorganization next month in order to emerge from Chapter 11.
• Colorado researchers have found that most American neighborhoods don't have the power infrastructure necessary to support a high concentration of electric vehicles.