Last Call For Trump Cards, Con't

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post reminds us that if Trump is willing to treat "not getting 100% of his wall money" as "a national emergency", giving him plenary powers to do whatever he wants, then he will repeatedly declare such "emergencies" whenever it suits him in the near future, and Republicans in Congress won't lift a finger lest they suffer political annihilation from Trump's howling base.

The bigger problem is that the Supreme Court made it unconstitutional to block such an action by the President with anything short of a two-thirds veto.

The basic problem we face right now in this regard was created by Congress. The post-Watergate National Emergencies Act, or NEA, places various constraints on the powers the president has when he declares a national emergency. For instance, it requires the president to say which other statute he is relying on to exercise the particular authority he plans to employ under his declared emergency.

The NEA also creates a mechanism by which Congress can terminate the emergency by passing a resolution through both houses doing that. The House is likely to pass such a resolution, but it’s unclear whether the Senate will do so. Even if the Senate did pass it, Trump would veto it anyway, though the House still should try this to get GOP senators on the record.

But the NEA doesn’t define what an emergency is, giving the president tremendous discretion to do that himself. The core question we now face is whether that discretion is limitless.

There will be lawsuits against Trump’s national emergency declaration. Protect Democracy and the Niskanen Center just announced that they will represent local border communities in such a lawsuit.

There are several basic ways of challenging Trump’s national emergency in court. The first is to challenge the idea that the statute Trump is invoking to find the precise power he wants to exercise actually does give him that power.

According to multiple reports, Trump is relying on a law that allows the defense secretary to “undertake military construction projects” that are “not otherwise authorized by law” if they are “necessary” to support “use of the armed forces.” This would reportedly allow him to tap some $3.5 billion in funds.

Robert Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, tells me that this is vulnerable to challenge, because it requires that this “use of the armed forces” is actually being employed in the emergency in question.

“This doesn’t work for just any emergency — it has to be an emergency in which use of the military is required,” Chesney said. Trump, of course, will claim that the military is in fact being used to counter his border emergency, since he sent in troops. But in this case, those troops are not actually repelling arriving migrants, so there’s no way to credibly argue that a wall is “necessary” to support what the military is actually doing.

“There’s a better chance than normal that a judge could second guess this,” Chesney said.

But perhaps the bigger question concerns the second way to challenge Trump’s national emergency: By arguing that there isn’t any national emergency, and that at some point, this has to matter.

The answer to that question is "not yet it doesn't, and it may never matter."   Again, if Trump gets away with this, we're a healthy chunk of the way towards autocracy, and we're not coming back.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

Two developments on Mueller Friday this week, first, the White House confirms to CNN that WH press secretary Sarah Sanders has submitted to an extensive interview by the Mueller team.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has interviewed White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, she told CNN on Friday. 

"The President urged me, like he has everyone in the administration, to fully cooperate with the special counsel. I was happy to voluntarily sit down with them," Sanders said in response to a question from CNN. 

The interview is one of the final known interviews by Mueller's team. It came around the same time as the special counsel interviewed former White House chief of staff John Kelly, well after a number of other senior officials, including former White House communications director Hope Hicks and former press secretary Sean Spicer, were brought in for questioning. 

The White House did not immediately agree to grant the special counsel an interview with Sanders, according to one of the sources. Similarly, as CNN reported in December, White House lawyers initially objected to Mueller's request to interview Kelly, who ultimately responded to a narrow set of questions from special counsel investigators. 

While the substance of the interview with Sanders is unclear, one likely area of interest was how Sanders composed statements she made on the podium defending the President regarding the Russia investigation. 

As Mueller wraps up his Russia probe, one focus of investigators has been conflicting public statements by President Donald Trump and his team that could be seen as an effort to obstruct justice, according to people familiar with the investigation.  

CNN reported last month that prosecutors appear to be examining Trump's public statements to determine whether anyone sought to influence other witnesses and cause other administration and former campaign officials to make false public statements.

Once again, what did Trump know and when did his Mouth of Sauron know it?  And speaking of mouths, a federal judge has corralled Roger Stone in order to keep his mouth shut.

A federal judge on Friday ordered Roger Stone, his attorneys and the special counsel’s office to halt all public commentary about the case involving charges that the longtime Donald Trump associate lied to Congress and obstructed its Russia investigation.

In a four-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson sided with Mueller that Stone and his attorneys “must refrain from making statements to the media or in public settings that pose a substantial likelihood of material prejudice to this case.”

The judge also ordered Stone, his lawyers and potential witnesses from commenting to the press as they enter or exit the Washington, D.C., courthouse, where Stone is on track to go to trial later this summer or fall amid intense media scrutiny.

A gag order in Stone’s case was long expected. Jackson, an appointee of President Barack Obama, slapped similar restraints in the fall of 2017 on Paul Manafort, his longtime business partner Rick Gates and their attorneys just days after they were initially indicted in the Mueller probe.

For Stone, the gag order was more a matter of when, and not if. The longtime GOP campaign operative and frequent TV commentator who hosts his own daily webcast has been on a media blitz since his indictment last month. He called into the conspiracy theory website InfoWars to give his first interview following his arrest.

This is for more Stone's protection than America's.  The guy is likely to Manafort himself right into prison if he keeps talking.

Someone I bet he will anyway.  Guys like Stone can't help themselves.

Shutdown Meltdown, Con't

Donald Trump says he will sign the budget deal worked out by Congress to avoid a shutdown tonight but because he's not getting his wall money, he's now going the emergency declaration route after all with a Rose Garden announcement this morning.

The surprise announcement Thursday that President Donald Trump will use his emergency powers to try and build his border wall blindsided some Republicans, confused others and sent the Senate GOP into a general state of shock.

The news, delivered by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor, came after weeks of warnings from his own party not to declare a national emergency at the border.

Trump has decided to challenge Republicans’ resolve anyway — but he may not like the outcome. Aides privately predicted Trump will lose a vote on the Senate floor once the Democratic House passes a resolution of disapproval to block the move.

Meanwhile, the GOP Senate majority was casting about for answers.

“I wish he wouldn’t have done it,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who McConnell interrupted on the Senate floor to make his announcement. “If [Trump] figures that Congress didn’t do enough and he’s got to do it, then I imagine we’ll find out whether he’s got the authority to do it by the courts.”

“In general, I’m not for running the government by emergency, nor spending money. The Constitution's pretty clear: spending originates and is directed by Congress,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who like almost everyone else on Capitol Hill wants more information. “So I’m not really for it.”

Republicans that have previously panned the idea as setting a bad precedent for future presidents were careful in how they answered questions in the immediate aftermath of the president’s decision.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said it was a “bad idea” but needed to learn more. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said it was “unnecessary” because Trump has other ways of getting money but said he needed further guidance. And Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) fretted that it was a "dramatic expansion" of the emergency powers.

Others were blunter.

"It’s a mistake on the president’s part," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). "I also believe that it will be challenged in court. It undermines the role of Congress and the appropriations process.”

“I’m not enthusiastic about it, but I don’t know whether that’s actually going to happen, and if so, what follows from there. I don’t know what authority he may or may not invoke,” said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

If Trump goes down this road, it's going to be nothing but pain for the GOP, and they know it.  We're looking at a fight that even the Roberts Court might bail on.

The Justice Department has warned the White House a national emergency declaration is nearly certain to be blocked by the courts on, at least, a temporary basis, preventing the immediate implementation of the president's plan to circumvent Congress and build the wall using his executives powers, ABC News has learned.

However, a senior White House official tells ABC News that the administration is confident it could ultimately win the case on appeal.

Lawyers at the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and at the Pentagon have been working for weeks to iron out different options the president would have to obtain funds for his border wall.

By declaring a national emergency at the border, the president could potentially free up billions of dollars to begin work on construction of a southern border wall. Much of that money would be pulled from the Department of Defense.

It won't be just House Democrats heading to court, either.  California, New York, and a bevy of other blue states are expected to sue, and one of them will get an injunction.

Trump doesn't want to shut the government down again, he wants to be able to clearly blame the Democrats and the courts for not getting his wall built.  This is the method he's using to do it. How much that will dupe his base, we'll see.  They've put up with his failures for a while now, but this might be the straw that breaks the Trump regime's back.

Stay tuned.

StupidiNews!

• A California man has been sentenced to more than 12 years in state prison after admitting he started last year's deadly Cranston wildfire in the San Bernardino National Forest.
• House Democrats say they will sue to block any emergency declaration Donald Trump may use to do an end run around Congress for more funding for his border wall.
• UK Prime Minister Theresa May has suffered yet another Brexit legislative defeat in Parliament as lawmakers in her own party blocked her plan to renegotiate a Brexit deal with the EU.
• Indian PM Narendra Modi may order a military response to Pakistan after Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists killed 37 in a bombing attack in Kashmir on Thursday.
• FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says the government will consider "regulatory intervention" if major phone carriers fail to adopt new anti-robocall technology by 2020.

Last Call For Barr None

Despite serious misgivings about him interfering with the Mueller investigation directly on order of Donald Trump, William Barr has been confirmed by the Senate as Attorney General on a party line vote.

William P. Barr was confirmed Thursday as the U.S. attorney general, putting him in command of the Justice Department at one of the most politically charged moments in its history.

Senators voted 54 to 45, mostly along party lines, to confirm Barr, who will now supervise special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s inquiry into whether President Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

Among Barr’s first major decisions will be what to tell the public about the results of that investigation — a choice that will force the attorney general to balance the public’s insatiable appetite for information, Justice Department policies that favor secrecy and a president unlikely to be satisfied with anything but total exoneration.

People familiar with the matter said Barr also has all but settled on a new second-in-command , as Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who appointed Mueller, is expected to leave soon. Barr has not disclosed any names publicly.

While Republicans hailed Barr’s confirmation, Democrats and left-leaning advocacy groups said they remained wary of Trump’s appointee, who at his confirmation hearing notably declined to promise that he would release Mueller’s report. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement Thursday that she considered Barr’s lack of commitment to releasing Mueller’s report “disqualifying,” and she worried he would be unable to stand up to Trump.

“While I opposed Bill Barr’s nomination, it’s my hope that he’ll remember he is the people’s lawyer, not the president’s lawyer,” Feinstein said.

The vote’s outcome was unsurprising. Trump’s nominee had cleared a procedural hurdle earlier this week by a 55-to-44 vote— even winning a few Democratic votes in an era gripped by partisanship. On Thursday, three Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for Barr: Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), Doug Jones (Ala.) and Joe Manchin III (W.Va.).

My prediction remains: America will never see the Mueller report, only that it "clears Donald Trump of any wrongdoing".  The notion that Barr will be transparent in any way is laughable, and Trump will make it very clear that if the report is leaked, people will go to prison.  Barr will authorize an "executive summary" of the findings and they won't be the worth the toner they're printed with.

The Democrats will howl, and it may even become a major campaign issue, but the report will disappear.

Now, the New York state and Southern District of New York federal investigation into Trump, well, those were always going to be the far more dangerous ones for him.

Ball Picked Up And Shipped Home In Two Days

Amazon is bailing on its NYC "HQ2" project as a growing number of local officials were lining up to block, slow down, or even kill the expansion because of its $3 billion in subsidies cost to NYC taxpayers for a trillion-dollar corporation that could actually afford to build there if it wanted to.  The Atlantic's Derek Thompson:

Amazon said on Thursday that it will cancel its plans to add a second corporate headquarters in New York City. The company had pledged to build a campus in Queen’s Long Island City in exchange for $3 billion in subsidies.
In a statement, Amazon blamed local politicians for the reversal. “For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term,” the statement read. “A number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project.”

In a period of growing antipathy toward billionaires, Amazon’s corporate welfare haul struck many—including me—as a gratuitous gift to a trillion-dollar company that was probably going to keep adding thousands of jobs to the New York region, anyway. The company has more 5,000 employees in the five boroughs, including 2,500 at a Staten Island fulfillment center and at least one thousand more in the Manhattan West office building.

At first, Amazon seemed to withstand the backlash, comforted by polls showing that the deal enjoyed broad support. A recent poll from Siena College Research Institute found 56 percent of voters statewide support the Amazon deal, including a majority of union households and people between the age of 18 and 34.

But over time, Amazon’s patience wore thin. Executives were reportedly livid at the nomination of Queens state Senator Michael N. Gianaris, an outspoken opponent of the deal, to a Public Authorities Control Board that would give him power to “effectively kill the project.” Amazon leaders were grilled at a February City Council meeting about the company’s resistance toward unions and the working conditions of its fulfillment centers. (By contrast, Virginia—the other winner of the HQ2 sweepstakes—has embraced Amazon with open arms, and the state has already authorized $750 million in state subsidies for its Crystal City headquarters.) Last week, The Washington Post (which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos) reported that the retailer was having second thoughts about its New York campus, given the level of opposition from local politicians, advocacy groups, and the media.

Within a week, the company officially canceled the project.

The company said it does not plan to reopen the HQ2 search. “We will proceed as planned in Northern Virginia and Nashville,” the statement said.

The most obvious losers in Amazon’s reversal are real-estate speculators. In November, The Wall Street Journal reported that brokers embarked on a “condo gold rush” in anticipation of the Queens campus construction. “This is like a gift from the gods for the Long Island City condo market,” one realtor told the Journal. Alas, the gods, like the billionaires, giveth and taketh away.

But it is not clear that either New York City or Amazon will suffer with this announcement. In fact, it is more likely that neither the city’s nor the company’s economic trajectories will be materially altered. New York City doesn’t need an Amazon headquarters to be the global capital of advertising and retail, and Amazon doesn’t need New York subsidies to expand its footprint in the city.

It was always going to be a mess.  The real issue is affordable housing, which Amazon only would have made worse and did.  NYC was happy to screw over its taxpayers and citizens, and Amazon was happy enough to do the same if NYC didn't play ball.

Both are at fault here, and I sure hope other cities around the country pay attention.

Meat The Press Meets Russian To Judgment

Just a reminder that all major media outlets in America are not a "free press" but corporate-owned producers of news as a product, and there's no more vivid reminder of this than billionaire Trump buddy Tom Barrack defending Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Sultan's involvement in the death of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi by saying the US has done "equal or worse" acts of murder.

Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a billionaire real estate investor who is one of President Trump’s closest confidants, apologized Wednesday after defending Saudi Arabia in the wake of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing and saying the United States has committed “equal or worse” atrocities.

Barrack’s remarks on Khashoggi, made Tuesday at a summit in Abu Dhabi organized by the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute think tank, were first reported by Dubai’s Gulf News.

“Whatever happened in Saudi Arabia, the atrocities in America are equal or worse to the atrocities in Saudi Arabia,” Barrack told the crowd at the Milken Institute’s MENA Summit, according to audio provided by Gulf News reporter Ed Clowes.

“The atrocities in any autocratic country are dictated by the rule of law,” Barrack continued. “So, for us to dictate what we think is the moral code there — when we have a young man [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] and a regime that’s trying to push themselves into 2030 — I think is a mistake.”

In a statement Wednesday, Barrack called the murder of Khashoggi “atrocious” and “inexcusable” and apologized for “not making this clear in my comments earlier this week.”

But he appeared to suggest responsibility for the killing should not rest on Saudi leadership.

“I feel strongly that the bad acts of a few should not be interpreted as the failure of an entire sovereign kingdom,” Barrack said, maintaining that “rule of law and monarchies across the Middle East are confusing to the West.”

Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist and prominent critic of Mohammed’s policies, was killed and dismembered by a team of Saudi agents inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, Turkish and Saudi prosecutors say.

These are the words of a man who has enough money to feel comfortable enough to believe governments killing journalists not only are an acceptable part of international business realpolitik, but that they should continue to be. And yes, Barrack's real estate ties go back to a four-decade plus relationship with the House of Saud.

But let's not forget why Barrack might want to keep a low profile these days...

Barrack, the executive chairman of real estate firm Colony NorthStar, has been a friend of Trump’s for more than three decades.

He was also a top fundraiser during Trump’s 2016 campaign and raised more than $100 million as chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee, which is under investigation by federal prosecutors.

Oops.

Mr. Barrack is soon to get a visit from our friends at the Justice Department.

It's all connected, folks.

StupidiNews!

• Convicted rapist Bill Cosby says he considers himself a political prisoner and does not feel remorse for his actions.
• The Democratic-led US House passed a resolution to withdrawUS support from the Saudi coalition in Yemen, but the bill is not expected to pass the Senate or survive a promised Trump veto.
• Convicted Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort now faces a decade in prison or more after a federal judge ruled that he broke his plea bargain agreement with Robert Mueller and federal prosecutors.
• A new Bloomberg News survey of CEOs finds nearly three in five believe increased Trump tariffs on China will help corporate profits.
• Centers for Disease Control scientists say raw milk contaminated with Brucellosis could mean raw milk drinkers in 19 states are facing chronic infections and illness.

Last Call For Marking Mitch

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer would love nothing more than to see Mitch McConnell go down in flames next year, and he may have found just the fighter pilot for the job.

Chuck Schumer is actively recruiting a high-profile fighter pilot to take on Mitch McConnell in 2020 — a calculated act of aggression against a leading Republican foe.

Schumer met with Amy McGrath, a Marine veteran-turned 2018 congressional candidate, at Democratic Party headquarters last month to pitch her on running against McConnell. McGrath listened and didn’t rule it out. The Democratic leader first contacted McGrath in December.

McConnell, the longest-serving Senate GOP leader, is gearing up for a reelection fight and leaving little to chance. His political team has begun compiling opposition research on McGrath and delving into video tracking footage of her. On Wednesday, senior Republican Party officials involved with a pro-McConnell super PAC will meet in Washington to begin mapping out a potential campaign against McGrath.

The Republican leader has also tapped a 2020 campaign manager: Kevin Golden, a veteran party operative who worked on McConnell’s 2014 reelection bid and oversaw Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn’s successful 2018 Senate campaign.

Schumer’s offensive underscores the frayed relations between the two Senate leaders. In recent months, they have sparred bitterly on issues ranging from judicial nominees to the federal shutdown.

While it’s not unprecedented for one Senate leader to try to unseat a counterpart, the recruitment mission is an unmistakable act of hostility that’s sure to ratchet up tensions.

Joining Schumer for the meeting with McGrath were Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairwoman Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, as well as top DSCC officials Scott Fairchild and Devan Barber. McGrath aides Mark Nickolas and Lori LaFave also attended.

Nickolas confirmed the meeting but said that no decision was imminent.

“The military officer in her always approaches these things pretty methodically and thoughtfully,” he said.

Alison Grimes certainly has no chance, and McGrath actually came a lot closer in her Lexington house race than a lot of people thought she would  I'm all for it.  She can't do much worse than Grimes's 15-point loss in 2014, either.

I'm glad that Schumer is trying to recruit now, certainly.  The danger is that the gubernatorial race this year is going to suck all the oxygen out of the state until at least the end of the year, and Mitch can take advantage of that.  Anyone the Dems have committed to going after Matt Bevin's job will still be in a position to join the 2020 race, and that means the field could get crowded by this time next year.

We'll see.  McGrath hasn't said yes, and while it will definitely be one of the big races of 2020, I worry that McGrath isn't going to be "progressive enough" for national supporters who will simply write her off as another Claire McCaskill or Kay Hagan, and write Kentucky off with it.

Self-Enlightened Environmental Policy

Everybody gets something in the latest Senate conservation package, and with a 92-8 vote to pass it and Pelosi indicating the House will follow suit, not even Trump is going to be able to stop it.

The Senate on Tuesday passed the most sweeping conservation legislation in a decade, protecting millions of acres of land and hundreds of miles of wild rivers across the country and establishing four new national monuments honoring heroes from Civil War soldiers to a civil rights icon.

The 662-page measure, which passed 92 to 8, represented an old-fashioned approach to dealmaking that has largely disappeared on Capitol Hill. Senators from across the ideological spectrum celebrated home-state gains and congratulated each other for bridging the partisan divide.

“It touches every state, features the input of a wide coalition of our colleagues, and has earned the support of a broad, diverse coalition of many advocates for public lands, economic development, and conservation," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-Ky).

It’s a paradoxical win for conservation at a time when President Trump has promoted development on public lands and scaled back safeguards established by his predecessors.

The bill, which the Congressional Budget Office projects would save taxpayers $9 million, enjoys broad support in the House. The lower chamber is poised to take it up after the mid-February recess, and White House officials have indicated privately that the president will sign it.

The measure protects 1.3 million acres as wilderness, the nation’s most stringent protection that prohibits even roads and motorized vehicles. It permanently withdraws more than 370,000 acres of land from mining around two national parks, including Yellowstone, and permanently authorizes a program to spend offshore drilling revenue on conservation efforts.

The package is crammed full of provisions for nearly every senator who cast a vote Tuesday. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) lauded the fact that it will create 273,000 acres of wilderness in his state, most of it within the boundaries of two national monuments that Trump threatened to shrink. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who co-authored it, inserted a provision that allows native Alaskans who served in Vietnam to apply for a land allotment in their home state.

“We have also worked for months on a bipartisan, bicameral basis to truly negotiate every single word in this bill — literally down to one one-tenth of a mile for [a] certain designation," Murkowski said as she urged her colleagues to vote for the bill on Monday.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) hailed it as “an old-school green deal,” saying he and the top Republican on his panel, Rep. Rob Bishop (Utah) "are happy to work together to get this across the finish line.”

Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, a lead Democratic negotiator on the bill, said the fact that the legislation protects so much of the nation’s prized properties won a broad constituency. “There’s some corners that tried to demonize access to public lands as — ‘oh that’s just some environmentalists and that’s it,’” she said in an interview. “And that’s not it. It’s way bigger than that.”

The legislation establishes four new monuments, including the Mississippi home of civil rights activists Medgar and Myrlie Evers and the Mill Springs Battlefield in Kentucky, home to the decisive first Union victory in the Civil War.

Even Kentucky gets something.  I have to admit, it's a major bill that rolls back a lot of Trump assaults on national parks and monuments, and it's a veto-proof margin to boot.  Congress doing something useful?  Must be an unpopular president and even more unpopular Congress.

El Chapo Gets The Whole Enchilada

Notorious drug cartel kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been found guilty on all counts in his NYC jury trial on Tuesday and faces the better part of eternity behind bars.

The Mexican crime lord known as El Chapo was convicted on Tuesday after a three-month drug trial in New York that exposed the inner workings of his sprawling cartel, which over decades shipped tons of drugs into the United States and plagued Mexico with relentless bloodshed and corruption.

The guilty verdict against the kingpin, whose real name is Joaquín Guzmán Loera, ended the career of a legendary outlaw who also served as a dark folk hero in Mexico, notorious for his innovative smuggling tactics, his violence against competitors, his storied prison breaks and his nearly unstoppable ability to evade the Mexican authorities.

As Judge Brian M. Cogan read the jury’s charge sheet in open court — 10 straight guilty verdicts on all 10 counts of the indictment — Mr. Guzmán sat listening to a translator, looking stunned. When the reading of the verdict was complete, Mr. Guzmán leaned back to glance at his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, who flashed him a thumbs up with tears in her eyes.

The jury’s decision came more than a week after the panel started deliberations at the trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn where prosecutors presented a mountain of evidence against the cartel leader, including testimony from 56 witnesses, 14 of whom once worked with Mr. Guzmán. Mr. Guzman now faces life in prison at his sentencing hearing, scheduled for June 25.

“Today is a historic day for American justice,” said Ángel Meléndez, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations. “Today we say American justice has been served, ending his days of evading authorities, ending his violent acts all in support of his efforts to conduct drug trafficking in the United States.”

The Sinaloa cartel is still going thanks to Guzman's sons, or course.  It won't matter in the least to the War on Drugs.  But El Chapo is never going to be a free man again, and I guess that's something.

StupidiNews!

• Three Senate Democrats joined with 52 Republicans to proceed with the nomination of William Barr as Attorney General, Barr is expected to be confirmed later this week.
• Denver teachers are back at the negotiating table as a third day of teachers' strikes continue, the largest walkout in the Mile-High City since 1994.
• Russia says it is ready to step in to negotiate the fate of Venezuela, but is warning the US not to intervene with military force.
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to bring up Green New Deal legislation to force Democrats to go on record for "extreme" environmental measures.
• Video game giant Activision-Blizzard had a record year in 2018, and will lay off nearly ten percent of its workforce anyway.

Last Call For Shutdown Meltdown, Con't

Yesterday I pointed out that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is defying Trump and is pulling National Guard troops from dog-and-pony show border duty, in order to serve other, far more useful purposes.  The Trump regime's retaliation today was lightning-swift: California will now foot the bill for Trump's wall as we head towards another Friday shutdown deadline.

The White House is firming up plans to redirect unspent federal dollars as a way of funding President Donald Trump’s border wall without taking the dramatic step of invoking a national emergency.

Done by executive order, this plan would allow the White House to shift money from different budgetary accounts without congressional approval, circumventing Democrats who refuse to give Trump anything like the $5.7 billion he has demanded. Nor would it require a controversial emergency declaration.

The emerging consensus among acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and top budget officials is to shift money from two Army Corps of Engineers’ flood control projects in Northern California, as well as from disaster relief funds intended for California and Puerto Rico. The plan will also tap unspent Department of Defense funds for military construction, like family housing or infrastructure for military bases, according to three sources familiar with the negotiations.

“There are certain sums of money that are available to the president, to any president,” Mulvaney said on “Meet the Press” Sunday. “So you comb through the law at the president's request ... And there's pots of money where presidents, all presidents, have access to without a national emergency.”

But the strategy is far from a cure-all for a president with no good options, and it has already sparked debate within the White House. Moving funds by executive order is virtually certain to draw instant court challenges, with opponents, including some powerful members of Congress, arguing the president is encroaching on the legislative branch’s constitutional power to appropriate funds.

Some Trump officials, including those aligned with senior adviser Stephen Miller, have argued internally that the gambit might be even more vulnerable to court challenges than a national emergency declaration. And in a sign of the political fallout, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee has argued that tapping military construction money would hurt the armed forces’ potential readiness.

Until now, Trump officials had focused on the drawbacks of a possible national emergency declaration. But as the alternative option of moving money by executive order has come into clearer relief ahead of a Feb. 15 deadline for a spending deal with Congress that could avert a new government shutdown, so have the risks of that alternative option.

“It will create a firestorm, once you start taking money that congressmen think is in their districts,” said Jim Dyer, a former staff director for the House Appropriations Committee. “You will cause yourself a problem if that money was directed away from any type of project or activity because I guarantee it has some constituency on Capitol Hill.”

It's funny that Republicans in Congress are uneasy about Trump doing this.  He all but promised to make California and Puerto Rico lose federal disaster funding and in fact Trump has threatened California multiple times before when Jerry Brown brought up the subject of removing National Guard troops from the border late last year, and Brown folded his hand.  But Newsom giving Trump the finger this week apparently had made up Trump's mind for him.

Trump's empty threats may not be so empty after all, but the question is will the Roberts Court let him get away with it?

We may find out.

Meat The Press, Con't

Trump's hate rally series kicked off the 2019 edition in El Paso last night, as sure enough,  just minutes after Trump screamed yet again about the "fake news" being "enemies of the people" a BBC cameraman was assaulted by a Trump supporter.

A supporter of US President Donald Trump has attacked a BBC cameraman at a campaign rally in El Paso, Texas.

Sporting a Make America Great Again cap, the man shoved and swore at the BBC's Ron Skeans and other news crews before being pulled away.

Mr Skeans said the "very hard shove" came from his blindside. "I didn't know what was going on."

Mr Trump saw the attack and confirmed Mr Skeans was well with a thumbs up after it happened.

The president has had a fractious relationship with the media from the very start of his time in office.

He has claimed journalists are "the enemy of the people" and slammed the "fake news" for reports he deems unfavourable.

Mr Skeans said the man almost knocked him and his camera over twice before he was wrestled away by a blogger.

President Trump checked they were well with a thumbs up, and continued his speech after Mr Skeans returned the gesture.

BBC Washington producer Eleanor Montague and Washington correspondent Gary O'Donoghue were sitting in front of the camera.

Ms Montague said the protester had attacked other news crews but Mr Skeans "got the brunt of it".

A campaign official for Mr Trump afterwards suggested the attacker was drunk.

"Not our fault your cameraman got hurt, that guy was drunk.  How unfortunate."

Not the Trump regime's fault a newsroom in Maryland was shot up and several reporters killed last year.  And the Trump regime won't claim any responsibility the next time a Trump supporter assaults or kills a journalist either.

And since it's certainly not Donald Trump's fault, why would he change his rhetoric calling journalists enemies of the people?

Silly liberals.  Same rally of course has Trump falsely accuse Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam of supporting infanticide, so if I were one of the few abortion clinics left in America, I'd double security, because they are going to get shot up again and soon.

Trump of course will say it's very sad when it happens.

Nancy Drops The Hammer

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar got into serious trouble over the weekend for some poorly done tweets that got pegged as anti-Semitic, resulting in an apology after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stepped in.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) apologized Monday afternoon for what many saw as anti-Semitic comments perpetuating the tired stereotype that Jews control politics with money.

Omar’s mea culpa came shortly after House Democratic leaders called the first-term representative’s comments “deeply offensive” and urged her to apologize.

In a tweet, the Minnesota congresswoman said “anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on this painful history of anti-Semitic tropes.”

In a statement issued Monday, the Democratic leadership said that legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies and its treatment of Palestinians is protected by free speech, but Omar’s use of “anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel’s supporters is deeply offensive.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she and Omar have spoken and that they’ve agreed “to move forward as we reject anti-Semitism in all forms.” 

The statement comes after two Jewish House Democrats, alarmed by what they consider anti-Semitic comments from new Muslim colleagues, urged Pelosi and her top lieutenants to denounce the divisive rhetoric and take action to stop it. On Sunday, Omar, a freshman congresswoman, suggested on Twitter that American politicians are influenced by a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, setting off a firestorm of criticisms from both sides of the aisle.

Reps. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.) and Elaine Luria (Va.) are gathering signatures on a letter asking Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) and other senior Democrats to confront Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, also a freshman congresswoman from Michigan, by “reiterating our rejection of anti-Semitism and our continued support for the State of Israel.”

“As Jewish Members of Congress, we are deeply alarmed by recent rhetoric from certain members within our Caucus, including just last night, that has disparaged us and called into question our loyalty to our nation,” the letter reads, according to a draft viewed by The Washington Post. “We urge you to join us in calling on each member of our Caucus to unite against anti-Semitism and hateful tropes and stereotypes.”

This is the kind of garbage we can't have heading into 2020 at all, because it absolutely will be used by Trump and his continually anti-Semitic advisors and base to attack the Democrats.

But that brings us to the point I made earlier in the week that one of the major issues Democrats will have to deal with heading into 2020 is the party's position on Israel and Palestine.  There's enough odious anti-Semitism coming from Trump right now that adding to it will be a disaster for the Democrats, both morally and politically.  However, the two Muslim Congresswomen, Omar and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, have been rightfully pushing for better Democratic support of the Palestinians.

The problem is, Republicans have picked a side and it's definitely Israel.  The Democrats up until now have been sitting in the middle trying to appeal to both sides and have been doing that since Clinton.  That may not be enough anymore, and working that out needs to be a pretty big priority.

StupidiNews!

• Once again Congressional leaders say they have reached a deal in principle to avoid a Friday shutdown, but the White House is already saying that Donald Trump will not sign the bill.
• Five people are dead after a mass shooting in a small East Texas town, Sherriff's officials in Polk County, Texas are looking for the suspect.
• Virginia lawmakers are so far refraining from impeachment charges against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax after multiple allegations of sexual assault, but they are continuing to call for his resignation.
• The White House says it will veto any bill withdrawing authorization for US troops in Yemen, saying it would lead to a direct threat to US national security.
• California is looking to fight a tripling in the rate of medical exemptions for vaccinations as the state banned non-medical exemptions three years ago.

Last Call For Deportation Nation, Con't

While Trump is in El Paso tonight stoking up hatred and racism, it's important to note that we already live in a country where Trump's immigration gestapo forces are freely conducting massive workplace raids looking for "illegals" to round up and deport.

Immigrant communities in North Carolina were rattled this weekend after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested an estimated 200 undocumented immigrants last week.

The rural town of Sanford was “like a ghost town” after nearly 30 employees at a manufacturing plant were taken into custody Tuesday morning as part of an “ongoing criminal investigation.”

“My godmother was here,” an 18-year-old man told local station ABC11.
“He was like, ‘yeah they took her and what they were doing is taking people to the breakroom, and if you didn’t have valid ID, they were taking them out.'”

The raid was filmed by 27-year-old local musician Christian Enrique Canales and showed ICE agents checking the identification of anyone trying to leave the property. Lee County officers took Canales into custody for “communicating threats” to law enforcement. Canales and immigration activist groups believe he was arrested in retaliation for documenting the raid.

“I’m telling you to be careful out there, they are arresting everybody,” Canales said in Spanish on the Facebook Live stream. “Do you know how many families I know right now that are going to be split up?”

In east Charlotte, an area that prides itself on its diversity, at least a dozen undocumented immigrants were arrested. Many were pulled over randomly by ICE, told to show proper identification, and subsequently handcuffed, according to local immigrant outreach organization Comunidad Collectivo.

These are test runs, guys.  More of these are coming and they will only get bigger with more ICE jackboots and larger cities and town being terrorized, and we're being told to expect this as the new normal.

And if you think this won't happen in red states, well...

ICE officials argued during a press conference that these sweeping raids are what happens when local sheriffs offices don’t cooperate with the agency, as a result of sanctuary city policies, which bar such cooperation. However, there are no official sanctuary cities in North Carolina.

“This is the direct conclusion of dangerous policies of not cooperating with ICE,” said Sean Gallagher, who oversees the agency’s operation in the Carolinas and Georgia. “This forces my officers to go out onto the street to conduct more enforcement.”

This is a war being fought right now.  ICE is saying that they reserve the right to come in and raid any city in America, demand identification, and round people up for non-compliance or even documenting the atrocities.

This is Trump's America in 2019.

A Border Line Insurrection

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has finally (and correctly) decided that the state's National Guard troops would be better stationed fighting wildfires and going after narco-trafficking than hanging out for show at the border with Mexico to further Trump's agenda.

Newsom said he will rescind authorization Monday for the deployment of the Guard troops, which Trump requested and then-Gov. Jerry Brown approved in April. Brown extended the deployment in September, and the state’s 360 Guard troops were scheduled to stay on the border through March.

Brown declared last year that “California National Guard will not be enforcing federal immigration laws.” Newsom’s office, however, said the troops were operating cameras along the border, doing vehicle maintenance and performing other jobs that would normally fall to federal agencies, freeing up resources for U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Voice of San Diego, an online news outlet, reported in August that in at least two cases, Border Patrol agents apprehended immigrants crossing into the state illegally after being notified by California National Guard troops.

Newsom’s withdrawal order comes one day before he delivers his first State of the State address at 11 a.m. Tuesday. According to excerpts of the speech released by his office, the governor will say that “the border ‘emergency’ is a manufactured crisis. And California will not be part of this political theater.

“Which is why I have given the National Guard a new mission. They will refocus on the real threats facing our state.”

Under the new order Newsom intends to sign, 110 Guard troops now at the border will be redeployed to help the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection with fire prevention efforts, and 100 troops will conduct antidrug trafficking intelligence operations, including screening cargo at points of entry.

Newsom will also request funding from the U.S. Defense Department to expand the state Guard’s antidrug task force by at least 150 members.

“This is our answer to the White House: No more division, xenophobia or nativism,” Newsom plans to say in his State of the State speech.

Good for Newsom, especially telling the feds "give us the people we need to do the real work and address the real problems we have" instead of not making any use of the National Guard that has been called up.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham did the same thing last week.  I hope Arizona and Texas will follow, but with both being Republicans (Doug Ducey and Ken Paxton) there's zero chance of sanity breaking out there.

Meanwhile, Trump will be in El Paso tonight, at one of his Anti-Immigrant Hate Klan Rallies, unwanted by the people there, and we all soldier on like this is normal.

The Trump Tax Time Tango

Millions of Americans are finding out the hard way doing their taxes this month that Trump's "middle-class tax cut" was a screw job, and that average Americans are footing the bill for massive tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Millions of Americans filling out their 2018 taxes will probably be surprised to learn that their refunds will be less than expected or that they owe money to the Internal Revenue Service after years of receiving refunds.

People have already taken to social media, using the hashtag #GOPTaxScam, to vent their anger. Many blame President Trump and the Republicans for shrinking refunds. Some on Twitter even said they wouldn’t vote for Trump again after seeing their refunds slashed.

The uproar follows the passage of a major overhaul to the tax code in December 2017, which was enacted with only Republican votes and is considered the biggest legislative achievement of Trump’s first year. While the vast majority of Americans received a tax cut in 2018, refunds are a different matter. Some refunds have decreased because of changes in the law, such as a new limit on property and local income tax deductions, and some have decreased because of how the IRS has altered withholding in paychecks.

John Prugh of Ewing Township, N.J., was irate when he completed his 2018 tax return this month and discovered his refund would be $3,000 less than what he received last year. Prugh considers himself “solidly middle class.”

The 39-year-old is a manager at a Barnes & Noble bookstore, and his wife works for the state government. They have two children. Prugh said he had no reason to believe their tax situation would change this year because he and his wife have lived in the same house for years while their incomes have remained stable.

“It totally feels like a scam,” said Prugh, who did not vote for Trump. “I did still get a small refund, but compared to what I was expecting from previous years, it was shock.”

The average tax refund check is down 8 percent ($170) this year compared to last, the IRS reported Friday, and the number of people receiving a refund so far has dropped by almost a quarter.

And as the tax provisions in the 2017 GOP Tax Scam bill fade, the tax burden is only going to increase dramatically in the coming years on middle-class Americans, particularly homeowners who are used to deducting their state taxes from their federal taxes.

Of course, Democrats warned Americans that this was exactly what was going to happen back in 2017, and Republicans passed it anyway.  I sure hope voters remember directly who screwed them over when it comes to going to the polls in November 2020.

StupidiNews!

• North Carolina GOP Rep. Walter Jones died Sunday after his health declined due to a broken hip, Jones served in Congress for 25 years representing the Outer Banks.
• A new UC-Berkeley study on American wealth inequality finds that the nation's 400 wealthiest Americans now control more wealth than the bottom 150 million adults, or 60% of the country.
• The top US Army commander in the Middle East says plans to withdraw American troops from Syria could begin within "weeks", some equipment has already begun its trip back to the States.
• The British government will need tens of billions of pounds or several ministry departments face "years" of austerity budgets.
• A new Kaiser Health News analysis finds more than 40% of FDA-approved generic drugs aren't for sale in the US by drug companies in order to keep profits high and competition low.